This past Sunday was a special day here at the church
where I serve, as we celebrated the accomplishments of students who are
graduating High School and beginning the next chapter of their lives. Actually,
these students are not simply receiving a piece of paper that that tells them
that they have completed their High School education. You see, the issue that
these students face is not simply one of graduation; for these students, the
issue that they face is one of transition.
A transition from living at home to living away from
home. A transition from attending High School to attending college, trade
school, or no school. A transition from working on homework for a grade to
working on a job for a paycheck. A transition from being dependent to being
independent.
And Graduation is a time to celebrate and look forward to
the future. A future that filled with options and opportunity. At graduation,
there is a sense that life is just beginning. At graduation, there is a sense
that now is the time to begin to enjoy the many years that lie ahead. Whether
you are here this morning and are graduating this year; or whether you are here
this morning and graduated fifty years ago, graduation is and always has been
that is far more focused on moving forward and leaving the past behind. That is
why the most common question that is asked of those who are graduating is “What
are you going to do after you graduate? What are your plans for the future?”
But I would like for us to take a moment to ask the
graduates and ourselves a far different question. Instead of asking “What are
you going to do after you graduate? What are your plans for the future?” I
would like for us to spend our time together asking a far different question.
And that question is this: When it is all said and done, when you come to the
end of your life, what would you like people to remember about you? When you are
no longer around, what do you want to be remembered for?
You see, so often we live our lives in the present with
the sense that our future is just that, in the future. We live in the here and
now as though the future will never come. However, the future does come,
doesn’t it? And intellectually we know that this is the case, don’t we? We know
that is the case because, graduates, only three years ago, you were freshman.
We know that this is the case, because freshmen, you are looking forward to the
day three years from now you will graduate. We know that this is the case
because for many of us in the room we have arrived at the destination called
the future that we had been looking forward to in the past.
The future destination called career. The future
destination called parent or grandparent. The future destination called
retirement. And in most cases, if we were to have a conversation at the
courtyard coffeehouse, you would say that the destination future arrived sooner
than expected. While there are exceptions, the consensus is that while we live
our life in the present and act as though the future is just that, in the
future, the future does come. And the future comes sooner than we expected.
So, how should we respond to this reality? Graduates, how
should you live today in light of the reality that the future is coming and is
coming sooner than expected? And regardless of your age and stage of life, what
do you want to be remembered for at the end of your life? To answer these
questions, I would like for us to spend this week looking at a section of a
letter that is recorded for us in the bible called the book of Psalms.
The book of Psalms is the largest letter in our Bible and
is a letter that is centered on worship. The book of Psalms contains the
responses of worship by the Jewish people to who God is, what God has done, and
what God has promised to do. The vast majority of the Psalms that are recorded
in the book of Psalms were written by the Jewish nation’s most famous king, a
man named King David.
However, in the midst of the book of Psalms, there is a
psalm written by another famous person from Jewish history. And it is in the
perspective of this famous and familiar person that we see revealed for us a
timeless truth when it comes to how we approach living life here on earth. And
regardless of your age and stage of life, this timeless truth has the potential
to challenge and change how you approach life.
Tomorrow, we will begin to meet the author and this
timeless truth…
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