Commencement 2020

Graduation.

Good afternoon,

It is an honor to be asked to be here, speaking to you all as we commemorate the Clinton Christian class of 2020. This day came later than many of you may have wanted and much sooner than some of you expected.

It doesn't seem that long ago that I had a rowdy bunch of 7th grade hooligans who couldn't sit still for 5 minutes in a row in a pre-algebra class. A class of brand new junior-highers with a brand new teacher was an interesting mix. But we got through it. And I hope you learned something.

What I want to do here this afternoon is teach you one final lesson. I want to give you a look at the options you have as you leave from here and go on to do whatever it is you are planning.

You will face these same options whether you go to college or you go to work. You will face them if you get married or remain single. Your will face them if you live at home or you move out on your own. The options are stark and the options are these. Righteousness or wickedness.

I want read Psalm 1 for us and then quickly explain the significance of what we find in the Word of God that is without error and sufficient for all of life and godliness.

Hear the word of the Lord.

Psalm 1

1 Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; 2 but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. 3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. 4 The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. 5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; 6 for the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

Let's pray together.

Our Father, we trust that your Word is good. That your Word is able by your Spirit to break stubborn hearts. To sooth troubled souls. To bring to life that which is dead and give growth to that which you have made alive by your great grace. We pray that you would do just this here this afternoon.

In Jesus's name,

Amen.

Follow your heart.

Trust your instincts.

Make your own rules.

Live your truth.

Do you want to puke yet? I do.

These are the kinds of things that the world will tell you as you leave this place and enter the real world. Whether that is college or work. You will hear it, I promise.

Let me save you some time. That is a pot of lies. It is a stew of disappointment. You cannot fulfill yourself. No mere human can.

The world's salvation message is one of self-salvation. Be true to yourself, try hard to be good, or don't. You do you, because you are the center of your own universe.

This is bogus, and sorry to burst your bubble. You are not the center of anyone's universe, at least you shouldn't be.

This Psalm marks out a different way. A way defined not by doing as you please but doing what pleases God. It shows the difference between those who live according to the way of the world and those who live according the way of the Word. And the results of walking each road to the end.

This difference is simply this, whether or not we submit to God and his revealed Word or we rebel against his Word and His person.

In the end, these are the only two classes, two types, two categories of people. The Righteous and the wicked.

Let's quickly look at the contrasts between the two groups here in Psalm 1.

It breaks nicely into three sections of 2 verses each, in verses 1 and 2 we see a "Contrast in their values."

Verses 3 and 4 of "Contrasts in their security."

And finally in verses 5 and 6 of "Contrasts in their Final end."

Yes, this is a sermon. You asked me to speak, what did you expect?

In verse 1 we see a blessing. What does this mean? First, a blessing is status granted to us from outside ourselves. It is freely given by God to his people. You don't earn a blessing, just like you don't earn grace. If we earned either grace or blessing, it would be called a pay check. Not a gift.

What does this blessing mean? What does it consist of?

It is a blessing of not doing. Of not following the way of the world.

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.

The way of the world is to look for fulfillment and joy and blessing from inside yourself.

But the truth is, the only truth there is comes from God, especially as he has revealed it in his Word.

To ground your life in anything but the objective truth of God's word is epitome of foolishness. This is what it means to be a scoffer.

Prov 21:24 says,

Scoffer is the name of the arrogant, haughty man who acts with arrogant pride.

There is nothing more arrogantly proud than to live without reference to God and his word.

Yet this is the natural state of all humanity. We must be rescued from this stupidity by the very God we scoff at. But God is way more gracious than I ever was grading your papers, and that's saying something.

It is his delight to pick up sinful humans and save them. Not because they earned it, but because he decided to love them. He decided to love them, and as it says in Ezekiel,

Eze 36:25–27

25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

God grabs sinners by grace, and makes them new. He doesn't just do this willy nilly, that would make him unjust. He does this, he makes sinners new, he covers over their sin, not because he ignores sin, but because he already dealt with their sin in Jesus Christ on the cross.

So, God does a work in us. And then when that happens, we change. I mean, we change from the inside out. Our affections change, we no longer love the things we once loved, we now love the things of God.

Most specifically we see the results in verse 2.

Psalm 1:2

2 but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.

For the righteous, for those given new hearts by God. For those united by grace alone, through faith alone to Christ alone, because of Christ's finished work on the cross. Their values change. They no longer want the things the world can give them. They no longer buy into the lie of boot-strap pulling self fulfillment.

They delight, they value, above all else, the law, the word, of God.

As the people of God, our values must be entirely different than the world's. We must value more highly than anything else, God, as he has revealed himself to us in his Law, in his word.

And we can’t do that if we do not delight ourselves in his word. We can’t enjoy something or someone we know nothing about.

To delight in the word of God means that you stick your nose into the text and you wrestle with it. Calling on the help of the Holy Spirit, you labor, to wring every word of the Scripture it's meaning in it's context to the glory of God, and then, to apply that text, that meaning, that command, that truth, that promise to your life.

Because Jesus Christ lived, and died, and rose again to apply all the promises of God to and for his people, and even now he stands at the right hand of the Father interceding for you.

To meditate on the word of God must a lifestyle. A life marked by the love and study of God's word. Christian, this is our duty as blood bought children of God.

And when we do, look at this, Here we see the security of the righteous.

Verse 3.

3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.

When God changes hearts, and we respond in faith by delighting in his word, look what happens.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.

This is amazing. God blesses those he blesses. There is fruitfulness in obedience to God. There is permanence in obedience to God. There is true prosperity in obedience to God.

Be careful not to confuse obedience to God with gaining salvation. You don't obey your way to salvation. You are saved and then you obey. And when you obey, there is prosperity.

This prosperity, this blessing, does not mean that the lives of God's people will be filled with earthly success and earthly prosperity. To teach that is wickedness and lies.

Not least because we can look at the life of Jesus himself and see that though he obeyed the Father perfectly, he had no place to lay his head. And then we can look to lives of his disciples and see that their lives had no addresses on easy street.

Jesus promised us that in this world, we will have trouble. I promise you class of 2020, as if you haven't had enough examples so far this year, that things will not always go well.

You will have trouble, you will be disappointed. But take heart, Christ has overcome the world. The true kind of prosperity you're looking for is not found in any kind of earthly success. It is found only in Christ.

Obey him and you will learn the lesson Paul did in Philippians 4:11–13

11 Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Or again Paul says in

Romans 8:32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

What more prosperity can we possibly want than all things in Christ? What greater blessing could we dream of that concrete security in Christ.

Christian as surely as you are connected to Christ by faith, just as surely will he keep you until the end. Nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nothing. You are secure in him who holds you.

No matter how your life looks in the moment. I mean, no matter what. Trust in the Lord, delight in his Word. You are secure.

But this security is not for everyone. The wicked will be driven away in the end. They will be judged.

Verse 4.

4 The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

In the scope of eternity, no matter how it looks to us, the wicked and their works will not last. Whatever good thing that was said of the righteous, is not so for the wicked. They may build up power and wealth and worldly reputation by unrighteous means. They may cheat and steal and exploit and demean. But in the end they will not last. Their end is destruction. It is sure. It is certain. Because God is righteous, and God is just, and God is good.

To deal with the wicked isn't even a little hard for God. We struggle with sin. We struggle with it in ourselves and in other sinners. But just the breath of God is enough to drive the wicked away from him. In the same way as I blow the dust off my keyboard, God deals with the wicked.

The righteous are secure, the wicked are anything but.

Finally we see the contrast in the ends of the righteous and the wicked.

Verse 5

5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;

The wicked will not stand in the judgement, they will be flattened by the just wrath of God. This is the final end of the wicked. Judgement. They might say during their lives that no one can judge them but God. And God will judge them, and they will not be able to stand up under it. They will not be counted among in the righteous. They will not be numbered among God's people.

Why? They did not keep God's covenant. They sinned unrepentantly, they shook their fist at God and refused to submit to him. And so their judgement is to be permanently separated from God and his people. Their end is judgment and eternal exclusion, an infinite unending righteous wrath from the Holy God they scorned.

Their end is destruction.

Verse 6.

6 for the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

The Lord knows the way of the righteous. This is more than just an intellectual knowledge. As in, the Lord knows about the righteous. This is an intimate, loving, involved knowledge of the righteous and their way. This is a continuation, or an outgrowth, better yet a foundation of the blessing we looked at in verses 1 and 2. The knowledge of the righteous and their way by the Lord is active.

His people can be certain of both their security in the Lord and the judgement of the wicked because the judgement of the Lord lies in God's intimate, involved, knowledge of the affairs of men. But the way of the wicked will perish.

Take heart class of 2020, and all Christians, when it looks as though there is no advantage from being upright. From being righteous in a world of unrighteousness. When you are made fun of for doing things out of step with the spirit of the age. Or are called a backward bigot for saying controversial things like there are only two genders or marriage is a gift of God for one man and one woman for life.

Or when you are passed over from a promotion for not fudging numbers in the office. Or when you are cut out of the loop when you refuse to join in on the latest gossip. Or a hundred other things that make you different from those who scoff at God.

Take heart, your end is sure. You are know, secure, and blessed by the Father in Christ, through the Spirit.

But the end of the wicked is destruction.

This is a stark contrast. A great division. The righteous and the wicked. There is no third option. No middle way of tight-roping between righteousness and wickedness.

You are in one camp or the other.

That is not to say that we cannot be forgiven when we repent. And if we are in Christ, all our sin has already been forgiven, past, present, and future. Take care as you leave home, if your life becomes marked by sin. By a knowing, walking, deliberate sin. You might be walking in the counsel of the wicked.

Sin is hardening, before you know it, you will be standing in the way of sinners. And as sin continues to harden you will be sitting in the seat of scoffers. And listen, for those in that seat, judgement is coming. A sure as the Lord is Holy, judgement is coming. Judgement that will make the petty pleasures of sin look like vapor. Like nothing.

If this is you. If you are walking according to anything but the will of God. That is a life of faith and repentance.

You must repent. You must turn to Christ throw yourself on his mercy. He will save you. He will take you, sin and all and make you clean. He died on a bloody cross for just this purpose to take sinners and make them clean, to make wicked men righteous. He will plant you by streams of water. You will bear him fruit and he will be pleased with you.

Let’s pray.

Father,

I pray a blessing over these young people. I pray that you would fire their hearts for you. I pray that you would use them mightily for your glory. That you would cause them to be faithful, that you would give them hearts that long for you. That you would give them hearts that love your word and minds to understand. I pray that as they leave here and go on in their lives that you would grant them a life of faith and repentance. That they might be secure and very fruitful for your glory.

In Jesus Name

Amen.