"Truth for Launching"

Congratulations to you, Class of 2022. Tonight, you are in the midst writing the final paragraph to a chapter in your life. As I look out upon each of your bright and shining faces, I sense the hope you have for your futures. Whether you are preparing to enter the workforce, the military, or continued education, you have come to the time in your life where those who have cared for you through today share in your hope for your future.

Many of them changed your diapers and saw your first steps. They celebrated the days in your lives when you went to the potty on your own and could feed yourself. Whomever has raised you has done so with the hope that you would continue to grow to learn to be a contributing member of society who can provide for his or her own needs. So as much as your graduation is a symbol for all that is possible in a life, there may be at least a few folks who are hopeful that your graduation also marks not only the close of a chapter in your life, but also means you will be coming off the family payroll, if you know what I mean.

Now, it’s not my desire to squash dreams for anyone here tonight. It’s not my intention to give anyone a heart attack, either. But I have to inform you that if things continue as they have, even though most of the class of 2022 may launch out from home for work or school, in four years a majority of the class will land right back at home. Parents and guardians, don’t rush to convert that bedroom. You can read more about this phenomena if you Google “boomerang children” where you’ll find that for the last three years, 52% of young adults who launched into life are forced to return home, like a boomerang.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/09/04/a-majority-of-young-adults-in-the-u-s-live-with-their-parents-for-the-first-time-since-the-great-depression/

Tension

So one of you in the class says, “Whatever. That won’t be me. You’re probably talking about my classmates who didn’t stay for the baccalaureate.” And I wish this boomerang thing were something so easy to dismiss. But what I want to do is two things. The first is to acknowledge that this is a grace moment, a time given to us by God to be in this place together, each sharing in all the optimism about your futures, with the Bible open to hear from the Lord tonight.

The second thing I want to do, is to ask us each to think about how you as the Class of 2022 can take a grace moment like baccalaureate to consider how you can start the next chapter of your life with the hope of growing up to live successful lives. It’s a blessing to know that you have a place to fall back to, but when you launch, everyone here wants you to launch successfully. But do you know how?

Truth

Well, I want to offer some wisdom for living that comes from God himself. This isn’t advice that’s coming from just any other person, this is wisdom from the Creator of all things, the God and Lord who knew you in your mother’s tummy and knows the number of hairs on your head. God says,

Proverbs 12:9–11 ESV

9 Better to be lowly and have a servant than to play the great man and lack bread. 10 Whoever is righteous has regard for the life of his beast, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel. 11 Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits lacks sense.

Live Humbly

To start, as you launch out into life from here, do so with humble expectations. For twelve or more years, you’ve been in competition with one another in some way. When you were younger, there was the competition for AR points. Then you competed for starting spots on teams and rankings within your class. Top 10%, salutatorian, valedictorian and so on. And competition can be a good thing, but when you leave Devine, the reality is that there’s going to be someone smarter or faster or stronger or whatever than you.

So this idea of it being better to be lowly that God tells us in the Bible carries the sense that as you set out on your future, you will enjoy a better life if you set set your aim to be average. That’s right. Oh, I think you’re capable of so much, but your life will be far more enjoyable if your goals were humble instead of pursuing a life that has status or influence.

Think about people today who we would say have status or influence. So many might think of Elon Musk, the man who’s buying Twitter and wants to have humans living on Mars. He’s the richest man in the world but also knows the deep pain that comes with three divorces. Others of us might think of the Kardashian family. Popular TV shows. Beautiful people. Social media fame. And each of them has a constant stream of drama that ends with a relationship that vanishes.

God’s wisdom would encourage you to reject the lie that we must be influential to live successfully. Living successfully then would mean to be content with a humble life where you enjoy the blessing of family and friends and long-lasting relationships.

Give Thanks

And while we’re on on the subject of relationships, another point of wisdom for you tonight is that a wise person gives thanks and gives back. Reminding you that Proverbs 12:10 “Whoever is righteous has regard for the life of his beast,” God is writing first to a people who would have been mostly farmers and ranchers who supported themselves on what the land could produce. So God is telling these farmers that a person is in the right when they care for the life of the animals on the farm - like the oxen or cattle or horses that they would have put to use to work the land. But people who are not in the right are people who God calls cruel and cruel people don’t care for the lives of the animals that help them work their farms.

So with this, in thinking about a night where we celebrate so many achievements and are just eleven days away from your graduation, I know that getting an ox to pull a plow seems odd, but the idea is that a wise person cares for those who provide for them. The farmers back when this was originally given by God couldn’t have accomplished what they needed to without the help of their livestock and Class of 2022, you are not eleven days from graduating because of your efforts alone.

Think for a moment. Who do you need to say thank you to tonight? Who has helped you, or maybe even at times carried you, through times in your life that you couldn’t have gotten through without them? I’m going to guess that if you’re honest with yourself and you gave it some real thought, you’d have a list of people you owe a word of gratitude to. Maybe one of your parents or grandparents, aunts or uncles, brothers or sisters, teachers, coaches, people from your church or some combination of any of those who have supported you.

As you sit there, eleven days from your graduation, I have to tell you that not a one of you are self-made people. No, you’re not self-made any more than anyone of us who are here in support of you tonight are. We each owe a debt of gratitude to at least one person who helped us become the people we are tonight and the reality is, we could never repay that person or those people for the way that they helped us. God’s wisdom would have us show our gratitude for what others have done for us by thanking them for their graciousness and paying it forward by investing in the lives of others.

Work Hard

And you will earn the right to invest in others as you show yourself wise in how you manage your life from here. I hope you can see how that connects together. You will earn the trust that allows you to invest in the lives of others depending on whether you’re someone others would want to model themselves after.

God told the farmers that if you work your land, you’re going to have plenty to eat. That seems straight forward, doesn’t it? You farm, you eat. The more you farm, the more you produce, the more mouths you can feed, the more you can invest into or the more you can influence. Simple enough, at least to me.

The problem for us is we don’t have an appreciation for the lives to whom God first spoke this to. How many of you know the life of real farming? And I mean farming like your life depended on it. Farming like you had to do the hard and grueling work of walking behind an ox day after day. Farming like where you had to put all your weight for hours on the plow to break open the ground. That kind of back-breaking work, otherwise you and your family would starve.

If you wanted to eat, you had to be willing to do the work. And beyond that, there’s a thought that starts to creep in to the mind that if all you’re doing is barely getting by, you’re living an insignificant life. And instead of doing what it takes and doing it right, the temptation is always there to try to cut corners, to find an easy button, to chase a way that gets you what you want without any effort.

Now, don’t raise your hand with what I’m about to ask. Have you ever cheated on homework or a test? “It was just a time or two, Pastor. I was in a tough spot and if I didn’t keep my grades up, I wouldn’t have stayed on the team. And I helped us beat Hondo and make the playoffs.”

Maybe you’ve never cheated to get by in a class, but I’ll bet you know the desire to cut a corner here or there to just move on to bigger and better things. You cannot change what you’ve done but I want you to know this… You’re about to launch into a world that in many different ways will suggest to you that you can get an education easier now than ever, get rich quick, that you can have right now all the things your parents have now that took them a lifetime of building and saving and labor to gather. Don’t buy into those gimmicks. A blessing in life is the reward from going through the difficult challenges, from doing the hard work required.

Application

You may not know this yet, but this sense of going through the difficult to achieve great reward is an expression of what the gospel has accomplished from God’s perspective. You and I are born in a helpless state of sin and that makes us separated from God. We can do nothing to bring ourselves to him because of our sin. We can’t do enough good things for God or for people nor can we pray enough. We are helpless and worthy of death for our sin.

Knowing this, God in the Person of Jesus Christ, left Heaven and lived a sinless life so that he could die for you and for me, standing in our place and taking upon himself our judgement. Jesus went through the cross and was raised in victory from the dead by the Holy Spirit. God’s reward from going through the difficult path of taking upon himself our sin and our death is the reward of seeing lost sinners come to him in faith and repentance, committing their lives to serve him.

I’ve offered to you tonight teaching from the Bible that would be wise for you to seek to understand and apply as you launch into your futures, but if I could, I would tell you that the wisest thing you can do is to put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. He lived out these three verses of wisdom perfectly.

So in the times of great change in your life, set your focus on Jesus who is always constant.

Inspiration

I want you to consider what a life that takes this wisdom to practice looks like.

If you live humbly, you are more likely to enjoy the richness of a life filled with family and friends around you.

If you live a life of gratitude, you will know what it means to love and be loved by others.

If you work hard, you will know the reward that comes from your efforts.

If you put your faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior, you will have a friend for life and know the peace that comes after.

Action

Class of 2022, much about your life is soon to change, stay your focus on Jesus who is always constant. Surrender your life to him, study his book, seek to model your life after his. The world doesn’t need more Elon Musks or Kim Kardashians, it needs more disciples of Christ who are led of the Spirit.