Graduation Talk 2011

Oh! The Places You’ll Go!
Congratulations! Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places! You’re off and away!
You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go.
Unless … you believe what God says is true, that life truly lived, well, it’s not about you!
You’ll look up and down streets. Look 'em over with care. About some you will say, “I don’t choose to go there.”
With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet… you will still go down some not-so-good streets.
Cause you’re selfish and sinful, all the real humans are, yeah, we’re all in there with you, like clowns in a car. (sing)
You may not find any street to go down. In that case you may just head straight out of town. If you follow your wants and chase after your dreams, you surely will catch them…til one day it seems, you’ve gone the wrong way, the way of the crowd, your wants and your dreams, they were yelling too loud.
They drowned out the still small voice of the One, the One who made you, who loves you a ton. So listen, and listen, and listen some more, to the voice of the One, the only, the door.
Through that door, that door, that door alone, you will find truer truth and a homier home.
A home where you grow to be all you can be, because He’s in charge, and the charge to you’s… free!
Yes, it’s free! But it’ll cost you, cost you a lot. Come to think, it’ll cost everything that you’ve got!
But Oh! The Places You’ll Go! Hoo hoo!
You’ll be on your way up!
You’ll be seeing great sights!
You’ll join the high fliers who soar to high heights.
You won’t lag behind, because you’ll have the speed. You’ll pass the whole gang and you’ll soon take the lead. Wherever you fly, you’ll be best of the best. Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.
Unlesst… you follow Him, and the hill he went up. Yeah, following Him has to mean that you’re drinking His cup…
If you'd really rather not, if that’s not your best plan, then join the crowd, believe me, we’d all understand!
Just... go move some mountains! Starting today, you’re off to Great Places!
Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting.
So…get on your way!

Ok, I love Dr. Suess, don’t get me wrong. But I have to call him on some things..
On Leading, Moving mountains and Changing the world… I have a smaller goal for you with bigger implications: Follow Jesus up a lonely hill, and allow the events on that hill to change you as you learn to love the world with his love.
Here is some poetry from Romans 12 and Philippians 2- It’s just your standard graduation type talk, you know, an invitation to embrace suffering: 1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. 3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought.
Phil 1:29 For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him
Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!
Paul tells Timothy- “do not be ashamed… join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God. 9 He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus… That is why I am suffering as I am.”
When you are soaked in the grace of Christ, you can take disgrace from people, in fact, you can rejoice in it.
The only way to soak in grace, is to see your own weakness, to know that your dreams can be nightmares compared to what God has for you. God makes it clear that the glory of His grace is epitomized in the suffering of His son on the cross. The supremely satisfying life that we all chase is only found in joining Jesus in His suffering.
So, what to do, what to study, where to go? Maybe you have it all figured out. Just one little question from me: To whom have you listened? It’s a loud world, and it tends to clamor for individual achievement and success.
Here’s another idea- “Go and make disciples of all nations.” Jesus said that, to us. All nations means all corners of the globe, all cultures, all schools and homes, all disciplines and areas of study. Even Natomas, and Gardenland/Northgate, and…. But there is plenty of suffering available elsewhere too.
Of the 6.7 billion people on earth, 2.7 billion of them live in unreached people groups with little or no access to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Many of those are called unengaged unreached people groups. 300,000,000 people! Meaning nobody has gone there.. These are very dangerous areas. Who is going to go? If young people today hear this message- “Being a Christian means that Jesus will help you achieve your plans and your dreams, and so you will have a wonderful comfortable life,” then I know who’s not going there.. those young people!
So, if you want to make disciples of all nations, you have to connect people to the cross of Christ by suffering yourself, so they can see it. That’s how the gospel is spread. Through the sufferings of His body! That’s his physical body on the cross, and then by the suffering of his body, the church, you and me. So wherever you go, near or far, bring with you the thought that you can demonstrate Christ’s sufferings here on this campus, here in this family, here in this relationship, here in this far flung corner of the world. But please don’t go and say, “Jesus can help you with your plan to succeed! 98 and three-quarter percent guaranteed!” That’s not the gospel.
That’s Disneyland, the Happiest Place on Earth, the American Dream, but it’s not the gospel of Jesus Christ- the normal life of a Jesus-follower is pain- where you are sorrowful but always rejoicing and hopeful. Why? Because we are allowed to share in the suffering of Jesus, to demonstrate it to the world, and it only lasts a minute! 80 or 90 years! It’s nothing, nothing in comparison to what God has in store for us!
If we can feel the way the Gospel is at work in us- helping us see the truth about ourselves- we are more sinful than we care to admit (clowns in a car), but more loved than we could possibly imagine, then we can let go of our need to control our destiny, let go of our tightly held stuff and tightly held dreams of being the best of the best, and open ourselves to the far greater dreams that God has for us, to be a part of his restoration of all creation!
Oh, the Places He’ll go! Dare we follow?

Calling all Sheep

The first line of Psalm 23- “The LORD is my shepherd” hints at this ancient truth for all Jesus-followers: “We are not our own, but belong body and soul to our Lord and savior Jesus Christ…”
We tend to approach life, and the question of God’s call, with another pre-supposition: “I am my own, and I will voluntarily give a part of my life to serving God….isn’t that good of me?”
“So, God, I am all yours: Mondays and/or Wednesdays, (after soccer season), (most) Sunday mornings until 12, three hours of prayer and Bible reading a week, (give or take three hours) and three light relationships of your choice (pending my final approval) with a combination of: tiresome family members and/or needy people who don’t have my cell number.”
I think we make many decisions weighed down by prerequisites we don’t know we have. God calls us on a radical journey of self-emptying, and I see us tentatively starting out on it, but dragging with us a large duffel bag full of these good things which our desire turns into heavy idols:
* Others' expectations, affirmation, recognition. (Do what I “should do”, attain a certain level of career advancement and success)
* “Common” sense- go for recognized results, have “balance” for myself (Don’t be too radical, serve on my own terms, out of my excess time, energy, and resources)
* Need for concrete details (Just how are you going to care for me, God? Show me the money!)
* A home with good resale value in a "safe" neighborhood (Good stewardship, right?)
* An income level that I deserve, have worked hard for, need for my mortgage, or that I am used to, with enough diversion (toys, vacations, entertainment)
* Solid future assured (401, property value, kids' college and inheritance, my legacy and reputation) Obsession with these good gifts can become the idols of fear and lack of trust.
* Comfort. (My best life, now!) Control. (Help me with my life, God)
These can all be good gifts from God, but only if we “seek first God’s kingdom and His righteousness! THEN all these other things will be given to us as well.” Mt. 6:33
Bridge of Life is a uniquely diverse ministry where nothing less than community transformation is God’s mission and our calling. It’s big. How to start? John Perkins says that we must respond to the brokenness around us with compassionate action, the way Jesus did, and we can best do that with our neighbors. Just being in the neighborhood or doing it “for them” will never cut it. He notes in Beyond Charity, “… it is only when we really come shoulder to shoulder with the people at a specific spot … that we can begin to discern ways that the gospel will become meaningful in that context”
At Bridge of Life, we are learning more and more to live the gospel with each other on a daily basis. We are asking questions and praying, sharing lives and drawing closer to God and each other in some amazing ways. Some questions we are exploring together, with brief answers: Who are you? Broken, needing a savior; forgiven and Loved Child of God. Whose are you? All His. Then what is He calling you to be and do?
We have followed God’s call in fits and starts, dragging our bag of idols with us, leaving it at times and running headlong after Jesus, our Shepherd, who provides for us so well….then we fearfully run back to our bag of idols, gaze at them and often set up camp there among them. Will you pray for us in this struggle and continue with us on the journey? Then we can recognize the voice of our graceful Shepherd, and say together, “Surely goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our lives, and we will dwell in the house of the LORD forever!”