Graduation Celebration

Introduction

Attention:

Here we are; graduation! I am excited to be here. Are you?

There are a lot of different things you can think about when you get to graduation time

This is a time of celebration.

This is a time of reflecting on your youth and how God has been developing you.

This is a time to look forward towards what’s next.

What is next, by the way? That is one of the biggest that you’re going to face (people will ask you this all of the time)

If there is one thing that all of you graduates have in common, I would say that it is the unknown.

There are a lot of unknowns for each of you.

Even if you have an idea of what you want to major in and/or what you want to do for a living, there is are still some unknowns.

Where do I go to college? What should I major in?

Where do I want to live? Should I marry? If so, who should I marry?

You are about to experience a process where the Lord will begin to slowly unearth this unknowns one piece a time

Your job in the middle of all of this isn’t to “figure” everything out; your job is to seek God’s kingdom more than you’re seeking anything else.

This idea comes form Matthew 6:33, which is what we are going to be taking a look at this evening.

Need:

Body

The Big Idea: Be a Kingdom Seeker

The Question: How do I become a Kingdom Seeker?

Make the Kingdom a priority

Live a righteous life

Trust his sufficiency

Matthew 6:33 (NLT)

Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.

Explanation:

There are a lot of things to be excited about at graduation

You’re about to get to really establish your adult life, and that is a really cool thing.

You’re gonna get to really build something. That’s great!

But it is important that, as you are building this that you’re not just building YOUR Kingdom.

This doesn’t mean that it is wrong to get excited about your life and the different decisions and paths that you get to take, but what it does mean is that you aren’t in it for your kingdom; you’re in it for God’s Kingdom

Which by the way, God has a Kingdom, and we get to be a part of its expansion! How awesome is that?

To seek first the Kingdom of God is to acknowledge that Jesus has the keys to your future.

So when people look at your accomplishments in life, our hope isn’t that people see how successful we are in our own efforts, but rather that they see the King that we serve.

Here’s the bottom line: Make your future about something that’s bigger than yourself.

The Big Idea: Be a Kingdom Seeker

The Question: How do I become a Kingdom Seeker?

Make the Kingdom a priority

Live a righteous life

Trust his sufficiency

Matthew 6:33 (NLT)

Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.

Explanation:

This part is a natural outflow of seeking God first

It is important that we get the order right; we don’t live righteously as a means of earning our way to God’s Kingdom, we seek the Kingdom of God and consequently live righteously.

What does this mean for you as graduates?

Well, you are entering into a new context. In some ways, living righteously is going to be harder than it ever was before.

This is especially true for high school graduates going into college. You can’t just rely on mom and dad’s faith anymore; you have to make your faith your own, and if you don’t, there’s going to be a shipwreck at some point.

So you want to get prepared now; over the summer!

You are about to represent Jesus in a brand new way. That is exciting!

You get to make the choice to make being kind to others a priority.

You get to make the choice to show the world what it looks like to obey God as a young adult; that’s a privilege!

And again, as you do these things, it is important to make sure you are doing them for the right reason.

You aren’t living a righteous life as a young adult so that you can brag on yourself

You are living a righteous live as a young adult because you are seeking after the Kingdom of God rather than your own Kingdom.

So live for something bigger than yourself! Show people what the Kingdom of God is like by the way that you live your life.

The Big Idea: Be a Kingdom Seeker

The Question: How do I become a Kingdom Seeker?

Make the Kingdom a priority

Live a righteous life

Trust his sufficiency

Matthew 6:33 (NLT)

Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.

Explanation:

We know on account of the context of this passage that the needs here are physical (what you eat, what you wear, etc).

Listen, here’s the bottom line: as you take your next steps, there are going to be some moments of anxiety and uncertainty.

How am I going to pay for college? How am I going to make time to study and to work?

How am I going to make enough to pay the bills?

How in the world does health insurance work?

You are about to start adulting, and adulting is weird!

I am still trying to figure it out myself.

This is an exciting process, but there will be moments that it will be a stressful process

There might even be moments where you wish that you could go back to the way that things were before

But even during the difficult moments, God is turning you into the young men and women of God that He wants you to be

Allow Him to mold you, and to direct your steps.

Trust that Jesus is enough; because he is

Jesus is sufficient for you.

That’s important, because it tells us that, when things don’t go our way (and trust me; sometimes they won’t), that’s okay, because Jesus is all that you need

So be a Kingdom seeker at all times; not just during the exciting times (like right now), but also during the mundane times, and even during the difficult times.

Illustration:

After graduating high school, I thought for sure that I knew what I wanted to do with my life

I wanted to be an electrical engineer like my dad. I was planning on transferring from community college to somewhere that I could work on that

But then, when I worked as a camp counselor at Centrikid, God changed my plans and made it clear that I was supposed to do ministry.

Suddenly, my future became about something that is bigger than me.

Does this mean that the way that you graduates need to apply this to your life is by going into full time vocational ministry? Of course not!

But I do think that you’ll have a moment where you realize that your future is about something bigger than yourself, and I hope that that moment is tonight

I also have a story of what happened to me after I graduated from with my undergraduate degree from Liberty

I knew that God was calling me towards ministry, but I didn’t really know what type of ministry. I thought that He maybe wanted me to be a small groups pastor or something like that.

But then I found myself in a season of serving students at a volunteer level, and that eventually blossomed into a part time job.

Through that experience, the Lord has made it incredibly clear to me that student ministry is my calling. I have the best job on earth; I genuinely believe that

So see? There are various stages to this.

God is going to reveal things to you one piece at a time; it isn’t all going to come at once

So the important thing for you isn’t to figure out everything that’s next; the goal for you is to simply seek His kingdom, and the rest will follow.

Application:

Alright; let’s wrap things up

You are all taking your next steps of life.

You are all within the process of transition

My prayer for you is that you make the transition well, and that as you seek all of the exciting opportunities that are going to be at your disposal, that you seek God’s Kingdom above your own.

We get to live for something bigger than ourselves. Really buy into that, and find ways to make a difference for the Kingdom

If you are a high school graduate and you are moving away for college, one thing that I can’t encourage you to do enough is to get plugged into a church immediately.

It is pretty hard to seek the Kingdom first when we allow going to church regularly to become a thing of the past. So make an effort to do that

Also, make a genuine effort to dive into the Bible every single day.

The temptation will be to say “I don’t have time.” Your goal is to make time; it is important

And it is impossible to seek the Kingdom of God first if you aren’t seeking to be in His Word on a regular basis.

See? There are all sorts of ways for us to apply this to our lives. And it is important that you embrace all of it

Thank God for how far He has brought you, and allow Him to continue to transform and shape your heart as you move on into your next steps of life.

PRAY