Sharon
Baccalaureate Service
Rev.
Dr. Adam T. Trambley
June 6, 2018,
St. John’s Sharon
Don’t Give It Up, Give It Over
Good evening graduating
seniors and families, Mr. Calla, Mr. Fitzgerald, teachers, staff, and my fellow
pastors. I intend tonight to preach to
you on the theme, “Don’t Give It Up, Give It Over.”
Graduates, if you want,
I’d invite you take out your cell phones.
I know that your parents and teachers have probably threatened you to
within an inch of your life not to pull them out during this service, but I’ll
give you permission, and part of the gift of being the preacher is that for the
next half-hour or so, I win.
Why do I want you to take
out your phones? Because these little
social media devices are great examples of what it means to move from giving it
up to giving it over. You’ve had a lot
of situations, I’m sure, where people have told you to give up your cell
phones, and in many cases that was probably good advice. We don’t need to be
watching the Office reruns at dinner with our family. But there is another option between giving up
a cell phone and using it to take you away from whatever important thing is
going on around you. Instead of giving
it up, you can give it over. Give the
cell phone over to further what you are supposed to be doing, to some greater
purpose In the case of baccalaureate
tonight, you can give over your phone to deepen the reach of the prayer and the
blessing and the celebration that is happening here. Check-in that you are at Christ Lutheran
Church for your baccalaureate. Tweet
something from the sermon or part of a prayer that touches you. Share photos of the church or of what is
going on and tag your friends. Keep your
streaks going by letting people know you are here in church tonight.
Giving it up, whether the
“it” is cell phones or something else, is what children need to do because they
can’t be trusted to do the right thing.
Giving it over is what adults do to use the gifts they have been given
to make a difference, and by the way, cell phones are a gift from God. A gift that can be misused, of course, but these
babies are gifts from above, from the Father of lights from whom comes every
good and perfect gift. You are all about
to graduate. You’re adults now, and in
many ways have been for a while. You no
longer have to give up things so you don’t mess up. You can give over things to make a difference
in the world.
I want to say three things
to you tonight. If you had persuasive
speaking in your English class, you’ll recognize this technique. Start with an
attention-grabbing intro, make three points that support your argument, then
finish with a conclusion that ties everything up with a neat bow. You’ve just heard the intro, now we’ll move
to the three points, and we’ll see how the conclusion goes in a little bit.
My first point is this: God
loves you. If you take nothing else away
from tonight, or from this week, or from the past 18 years, remember this: God
loves you. He loves you unconditionally.
He loves you more than you can imagine in your wildest dreams. And he loves you
just the way you are. God created you
out of love you solely because he loved you so much he wanted you to exist in
his universe. There is nothing you can
do to make God love you any more, and nothing you can do, not even sin, to make
God love you any less.
I believe that God loves
us so much that he sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to come into the world, that
Jesus lived his life showing us how to love.
Then, when he died and went down into hell, Jesus overcame the devil,
broke open the gates of hell and death, and made it so that nothing, not even
death or sin or sickness or any evil done to us or anything in the entire
universe could ever separate us from the love of God again. Then Jesus went back to his Father in heaven
and sent the Holy Spirit to come upon us so that we would know that we are
adopted sons and daughters of God. God
loves us, Jesus made sure that nothing can separate us from God’s love, and the
Holy Spirit makes sure that we can know and experience that love. That’s what I believe, and it’s powerful.
Now, God may want some things
changed in our lives because he doesn’t want to see us or others in the pain we
are often are in. He loves us all too
much to want us to wallow in our own craziness.
But no matter where you are, no matter what you do, no matter who you
become, God loves you and God is with you in the midst of all the ups and downs
of life.
Second, God has a purpose
for you. We all know that when we are
loved, we need to share it. Maybe some
of you have fallen in love during your high school years, and maybe you’ve been
blessed enough that the person you love has loved you back. When you feel that love, people know it. You glow a little bit. You’re happy, and giggly, and sometimes sort
of clumsy. It is a beautiful thing. You
change your status on social media and have lots of selfies and let the world
know about the love of your life. When
we feel God’s love for us, we get all that and more.
God loves us so much that
put us in a community of people who could love us and that we could love in
return. We are surrounded by family, and
friends, and co-workers, and a church community, and the Sharon community, and
any number of teams, clubs, social media networks, and other extended
families. These people are all people
who are part of our purpose. They are
the people who God has given us to love in some way as a response to the
incredible love he has for us. When we
let ourselves feel loved by God in that glowing, giddy, clumsy, beautiful way,
we can’t wait to share that love with others.
The ways we share that love will depend on how God has made us as
individuals. Some people cook great
meals for others, some teach– a special thank you this week to those with that
gift --, some are good listeners and great friends, some fix things, some go
off to school and invent things that make life better for everyone, some know
how to encourage people when they are feeling down. Your purpose is sharing God’s love with the
people around you in the ways that bring you joy.
Your purpose is not only
important to you, but to all of us. You
are the future of this community, and beyond this community. When you live out your lives in God’s love,
you are going to change the world in all the ways this world desperately needs
to be changed. When you give over your lives, you are going to help change this
world from the nightmare it often is to the dream that God has for it.
Achieving God’s purpose
for your life, brings me to my third point: give your life over to God’s love
and purpose. Many people make a mistake here.
They think that to serve God, to live into their purpose, to make a
difference in the world, they have to give up their life. For some reason we assume that doing good
requires us to go off to some far away land with lots of poor, sick folks and
really bad wifi. But God doesn’t want
you to give up your life. He loves you
and he gave you the life you have and wants you to live a joyful, exciting,
loving, amazing life that makes you happy at the deepest and most fulfilling
levels. Your choice is whether to live
that life in a way that is “all about me”, or to give it over to God. I’ll let you in on a secret. The people who go off to poor countries and
we know as saints – they can be quite fulfilled healing sick people and they
hate twitter. So what can giving it over to God look like for us?
Well, if you love parties,
go to great parties. Jesus loved
parties. Meet lots of new people, sing
karaoke until your throat hurts, and dance until you are a puddle of sweat on
the floor. But give your time at that
party over so you also stay sober enough to keep an eye on friends so they
don’t get into compromising situations where they might hurt themselves or
others. To give another example, find
the best job you can get, but give that job over to God’s purpose. Be a good employee that is honest and
dependable and does great work and brings value to their company and honor to
themselves. If you are going to college,
give your studies over to God. Hit the
books as if what you are learning will prepare you to better love and serve
others, because it will. If and when you
have a family, give that family over to God and his love. Treat your spouse and children, and your
parents and extended family, as if they are truly God’s gifts to you. Cherish them, care for them, make the
sacrifices necessary for their well-being, and set good loving boundaries that
help them grow. Whatever you have and whatever you are, give it over to God, so
that you can fully receive God’s love and share that love in living out your
purpose.
As we close, I’d invite
you to grab your cell phones. Turn around and take a selfie if you want. You can put me or one of the other more
photogenic preachers in the background.
Then caption it with “Give it over to God’s love and purpose.” I’d also
invite you as you leave here tonight not only to give over your phones to God’s
love and purpose, but also your lives.
You are an incredible class of graduates, and God is opening up a future
for each and every one of you where you can love others and make a difference
in the world. God loves you. The world actually needs you. And we are all proud of you. Make God bless you during this special week
and throughout the rest of your lives.
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