Graduation Service - Til Tomorrow

praise the lord how's everybody doing this morning you can be seated i am very thankful to be here and before i begin i just want to give honor to brother brad delong for inviting myself and my wife it is so good to be here and i can say the same you were a couple of classes ahead of me but always remember watching you as an example as a role model in worship and i know that this church can affirm that statement i remember him being in chapel services and he was a worshiper that all of us freshmen peter and i we could we could follow as his example and

i also want to give honor to pastor williford and his family it is so wonderful to be here you are blessed with incredible leadership i am very thankful for you i want to make sure that i give efficient honor here today i know that you are not just a good man and a good leader here for this church but even in my life over ocean but also being a student now working at the school and then also in conversations you will be happy to know that you can go almost anywhere in pentecost and talk about brother williford and everybody knows him as a man of integrity as an honorable man and

i'm very thankful to be here today with you and lastly i just want to tell my wife lindsay i love you with all of my heart well now all the the good things are out of the way we'll get to business everybody's quiet if i could spend a little bit more time it'll get kind of edgy and y'all will wonder what's going on that kind of stuff to be honest i don't exactly know what i should say to graduates and this is such a fun occasion exciting moment in time because you're going to step out and do big things the reason i say i don't really know what i'm supposed to do here uh is because i have not yet graduated i hope that you get to enjoy life outside

of school i am currently trying to heap on as much suffering in my life as possible and i am in the 10th year of my education after high school don't do that right that's advice number one don't do that it's not worth it i tell people i'm a glutton for punishment but i have a call on my life i am currently in a phd program and my studies when i get a degree one day it's going to say that i have a doctorate in biblical interpretation now the reason i like that is because hopefully i can demonstrate this today with a call to all of our graduates i want a phd in biblical interpretation so

that i can say with authority that you do not need a degree in biblical interpretation to understand the word of god anybody in here thankful that you can pick up the bible and read it it talks back to you it's part of your life now sure it's fun to to dig down deep but do you know that here today no matter what level you're at no matter how long you've been in church no matter if this is your first time here today or if you've been here for years or maybe you were born into it the word of god is alive it's easy you just look

at it and say okay god what you got for me today and so i'm just going to be honest with you i don't know how to tell graduates what life is like beyond graduation but i do know and i want to share with you today the word of the lord and i also should warn you this is not going to be one of those speeches that gives you like a list of 10 practical tips and things like that for advice i'm not practical and so the most the most practical advice i can give you right now is make sure you live your life with lots of cereal in the pantry that's pretty much all you need it's fast easy cheap and

it'll sustain you for life that's it beyond that i don't have anything for you but what i do want to talk to you about today is time time is one of the most frustrating but also can be one of the most expensive rare and cherished commodities in life but also if we're not careful you can be bound by time and i would even argue that time is the ultimate enemy of all of us you read in scripture a lot that paul he talks about this war that we're in this battle that we have of being spiritual versus being temporal he uses this language of the spirit and

the flesh and what is so difficult about the flesh what is so difficult about skin what is the problem here it said i'm limited there will be a day all of us have it's going to come we can't avoid it it will be an end to this life now for those who have graduated you're young and i i love saying that because i'm older than you i still consider myself young but i get to tell you that you're young this is this is my opportunity but you're young and you may not have experienced it yet but time is going to influence you to do dumb things have a witness in the house time the limitation of life the fact that we are working towards an end date sometimes warps priorities

it messes with the things we should be working towards because we're worried we're we're stressed about if we will be taken care of the hypotheticals the what if maybe i've got to decide what to agree what degree i'm going to go in what area i'm going to study after i graduate from high school maybe i've graduated from college what do i do now what career do i go into that decision is going to be governed by time how much time do i have to make money or how much time do i have to gain security how much time do i have to build a career all of these things motivated by time motivated by a limitation what would happen today if we could all settle our hearts and

think timeless thoughts how would that shift our priorities in life what would that do to our walk with god our our walk in our our comfort our peace with god living and being with him if we were timeless beings would it change our priorities i would say yes now i have a great privilege here today to not just speak to graduates but i want to say personally i'm very thankful for all of those who served this country i am blessed to be in a place where i can worship and i can praise the name of the lord and i am very thankful that those of you here and

those that are not in this building fought for those freedoms i honor you now i want to take this picture this weekend we are honoring certain individuals that are a very good snapshot of what life can be like if you live with purpose not a selfish purpose but a purpose that is beyond yourself now i just think i'm using myself as an example here you're going to be stuck in class with me one day use my self as an example here i just gave a thank you to men and women that did something for me i am benefiting from it but

i have never actually fought myself i am benefiting i am enjoying all of us here in this room right now are enjoying the benefits of the sacrifice of others that is incredible a a sense of purpose to do something beyond yourself now we live in a world today everything is self-centered now i'm just gonna get you ready dust off your shoes we might step on some toes but just buckle in and get ready here today we live in a very self-centered world a selfish society have you read the news lately have you been on social media lately do you know what to trust here lately your guess is as good as mine what's going on in the world i can tell you what is happening all across the world right

now is selfishness that's it we can explain it in different ways we can we can highlight different areas but it all comes down to a root of self-preservation and do you know where that self-preservation comes from time you can look on it at a global scale how much time does a government have to build an empire to build a security net how much time does an individual have to conquer whatever their individual tax tasks are and if you're governed by time you're always going to be working towards self-preservation which means you cannot by definition live for someone else if i am always governed by time i will never be able to live for something beyond me if i am always operating based off of my limitations in this world i

am always going to be driven to preserve me to preserve mine to take care of what is in my home my house my comforts my rights my fill in the blank but if we could think timeless thoughts and this is what i want to highlight today we live in a world that says put off the purpose till tomorrow let's be adolescent for years and years and years let's be children as long as possible let's live it up and have fun let's spend the money let's travel let's go on trips let's have a good time right now while we've got it let's not settle into a career now

this is very different from maybe what you've heard a lot in your high schools but this is going to set you up living for yourself is going to set you up for a dead end because there is no purpose behind living for yourself you can spend and spend and live and have a good time and work towards great things and put off hard work till tomorrow but that means that you will never be fulfilled until tomorrow that means that you are never going to satisfy your soul until tomorrow i want to break down a certain myth where people say that being an adult is so

hard so awful let's demonstrate that that is indeed a myth right here right now how many of how many of you in here right now by show of hands would like to go back to being a teenager we've got a few you would like to go back to being a teenager you remember what being a teenager was like pimples it wasn't just pimples that was the number one stress of your life what if so and so sees that when i go to school today what if they talk about my appearance when you become my age and you move out of those weird stages now

i'm married i was teasing with some college students yesterday my wife and i were at a wedding and one of them started messing with me and i i turned to him and i just said i have a wife that i get to kiss every single day you can't talk any trash to a married man brother wilford i've got nothing to lose i didn't have that security when i was a teenager so if you ever said anything about how i looked about how i presented something about how i acted or behaved i'm constantly looking over my shoulder constantly living in insecurity and

anxiety and wondering what people are thinking all boxed in and then you throw in the hormones forget about it brad i don't want to go back yes now i have bills yes now i have to work a job and i have to do things but guess what i'm working for something i don't have anxiety pressuring in on all sides because i'm constantly worried about what somebody's thinking how something's interpreted how this one social group is going to define who i am i don't have that stress anymore because i'm living for something so today to our graduates but also to everyone in this room we could say that our graduates are in a unique phase of life that they get to wake up tomorrow and

this is a new day they get to reinvent themselves they get to be a new man or a new woman they get to step out of teenage life and become something but that could still be said for all of us that are in this room today because of the gospel of jesus christ there is no lifestyle there is no life habit there is nothing that is in this room right now that cannot be changed by jesus christ we can all adopt this right now and think about what if we lived a timeless life and i'm not pressured by decisions of my end i'm not living towards my end date but

i'm living for the kingdom of god now you can live for you can serve in the kingdom of god in many ways maybe you'll never have a microphone up here at the pulpit preaching a sermon but that doesn't mean that you don't have a call of god to serve in the kingdom now we sometimes miss that call from god to serve because we are distracted by time i can do it tomorrow i don't feel qualified right now i don't feel worthy right now i'll put it off till tomorrow maybe it's not just excitement and an appeal maybe it's shame that's keeping you from tomorrow whatever the case god

has a plan for you a lot of times and i'm getting to my text i'm sure our media man in the back has been wondering when it was gonna happen i gave him a warning i said i'm unconventional so you're just gonna have to roll with it but ministers today i told you all we're all called to serve in the kingdom of god and sometimes we don't think that we're called to be ministers and i would say the reason for that is because we've adopted the world's view of what a minister is now we're all good church people so i've said a few things here that you might could just brush off your shoulder and

say well that was for the worldly people i'm here in church i am not i am not self-centered i am not governed by myself i am not that person he is not talking to me today i will let you know right now my wife can be a witness i am quite self-centered confession is good for the soul you can be in the church but that doesn't mean the effects of the world are not something we fight against daily there are things we always have to adjust refocus and today is such a significant day today is such an important day because the world needs ministers i think it's kind of sad that if i were to preach a message on heaven and

the coming of jesus in the end time that in a lot of places today you would say that that's cliche and i think probably the fact that it's become cliche should be the warning sign to us that something needs to change we need to readjust and focus on what's actually important and get our minds off of time and put it on eternity heaven what if we were living for heaven and if you're looking at the world today you should be aware jesus is coming soon i i say that with sorrow and hopeful anticipation of of good things but also things i know are going to take place i am i am so

excited to see as we sang earlier i'm so excited to see every knee bow because i know what jesus christ has done for me in my life and i can't wait to actually give him the closest thing that we could to the worship he deserves for the whole world to bow down and worship him i want to see that i'm excited for that but a view of eternity also puts pressure on this life in a different way not a self-centered way but one that pushes us to live a purposeful life this is james chapter 4 and i'm going to read from verse 13. come now

you who say today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city spend a year there buy and sell and make a profit whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow for what is your life it is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away instead you ought to say if the lord wills we shall live and do this or that but now you boast in your arrogance all such boasting is evil therefore to him who knows to do good and does not do it to him it is sin now i want to capture that statement in context i grew up in church and

i heard that verse quoted that last verse i've heard it quoted so many times and it's usually by like a parent or a grandparent trying to make their child behave if you know to do good and you don't do it it's a sin that's how they tell church kids they're sinners okay like i've never done anything morally wrong in my life ah but there's some good you didn't do and that's sin that's how you keep church kids in line i've heard that i've heard that verse talked about but do you realize the context that it's in if you know to do something good within time and

you don't do it it's sin you're not promised tomorrow and to think that you'll have tomorrow to live a purposeful life to live a life for the gospel to live a life for jesus if you think that you can have tomorrow james says you're arrogant and you're boasting because you don't know when the day will be you don't know when your day will be if you know to do good if the lord has prompted you in any way to move towards something has given you a call and you say till tomorrow we'll put it off till tomorrow it's a sin i said we have to refocus our idea of a minister minister you may have heard a few times but

minister means servant to serve to be a servant but our world today has a very warped view of what that actually is is focused on and it's all about direction and motive anybody ever heard of a a good self-help book you can go into any kind of bookstore and actually the best self-help tool ever created was youtube that's where i learned how to fix everything if i ever had a roadblock in my life youtube is the first place you go i don't have to call a mechanic and sometimes if i know that i need a mechanic i'll still go to youtube first so

that i can sound intelligent when i call the mechanic but we live in this world that is so consumed with self-help self-care make sure that you preserve and take care of yourself and that influence can be seen in the church and how we view a call to ministry that our ministers here you have good ones here our ministers are servants which mean that they serve us they serve my needs they are here to help me and the church has become a good location for self-help because we have servants there we have those who serve all of our needs now yes we do believe that ministers are servants but

i have a question for you are they your servants or are they the lords are they here to serve humans or are they here to serve the kingdom now yes the kingdom don't misunderstand me the kingdom involves humans and my number one motivation in life is that i want other people to be with me in eternity but my job as a minister and your job as ministers is not to take care of the needs that are just here on the surface that are bound by time but are called to be ministers sometimes we have to do things we don't like sometimes we have to be involved in speaking a hard truth and

telling somebody that they're wrong and their actions will take them to the wrong destination in eternity but that's because we serve the king not humans we serve eternity not time now the reason i say this and i'm gonna i'm gonna pull it all together right here if you could stand have you ever been in a service where you feel the supernatural power of god that he is there he is among you and a lot of times if we are careful we will begin to just please forgive me i'm not wanting to be i'm not i'm not wanting to be rude but

if we aren't careful we take those moments in the presence of god and we soak them up so selfishly assuming that the presence of god is meant for us i've heard prayers being prayed for angels to come and and minister for angels to do this or that but i wonder what if we all saw ourselves as teammates of that host of angels what if we saw ourselves beyond time we like to think of angels and the power of god as something that is so beneficial and so wonderful when we call on it we say jesus help us and he does help but

do you realize why we like those things is because we recognize that they are beyond us they are beyond and outside of these limitations we feel but have you ever thought have you ever settled your spirit in those moments when the spirit of god is present and realized that you are just as one of those angels that you have been adopted into christ that you are not actually bound by this world but you have an inheritance that is beyond this place that you are a son or daughter of jesus christ you have been adopted and you have that inheritance so

why are you bothered by time why do you feel the pressure to wait till tomorrow to serve something beyond yourself why do we feel that we need to pray for our own self-preservation what if all of those in here and especially our graduates what if we purposed every moment of our life to be about somebody else to be living and growing and stirring within ourselves for other people that i don't come to the altar to pray for my needs but i come to the altar so that the lord can tell me who to pray for what if i go to the store not simply with enough money to pay for my groceries but

i know that the lord is going to provide for me to minister to anybody that he may bring about that i would be an angel that i would be somebody that serves what if your mouth is supposed to be used to be a minister what if your career choice is supposed to be beyond just your bank account beyond just your security beyond this world that we're all called to serve we all have different roles but we're all called to serve the kingdom of god that we live not by just a degree not by just a few studies here and there not just some more classes not just the next step in in whatever trends are going on this day or that day but

we live every morning waking up and saying lord what good do i need to do for your kingdom today and when we hear from the lord that the good we're supposed to do we actually take it to heart realizing we don't have tomorrow i don't have tomorrow now i have certain quirky rules about altar calls and so i just preached it and now i am just a bossy individual and i am going to demand that we all live it so what i asked today is that everybody would come to the front but i have certain rules when you come up here i want you to find somebody now

you don't know me so i've got to be nice usually i tell people spouses are cheating you can't pray for your spouse that's cheating but i want you to find somebody maybe go across the altar everybody is a minister today everybody is a minister today which means here's rule number one you are not allowed today in this altar you are not allowed to pray for yourself i want your mind to be completely on anyone else in the room but you anyone else you pray for anybody else in the room now let me reassure you i know it's it's it's new stuff i gotta comfort you other people will pray for you that's the beauty of the body of christ but

if we would all decide to be ministers today and just serve the kingdom and ask the lord what do i need to speak into somebody's life what do i need to pray for in somebody else's life that's what we're going to do today when we pray nobody is going to be alone and nobody is going to be worrying and stressing the lord's got it you can trust i can say to you with confidence no matter what you came in here with today the lord has it in his hand you do not have to stress when you come to this altar someone is going to be speaking for your needs someone here today is going to be praying for your life which frees us all up to pray for one another

to actually speak there's going to be people who maybe you've never been used by god before in your life but don't wait until tomorrow to become a minister don't wait until tomorrow to be used by god realize now in this moment that he can actually use you so everybody please make your way up to the altar you can get comfy get crowded a little bit move around you can pair up with somebody at the beginning if you want but just know that you should free yourself up to be mobile today we're going to start praying and the spirit of the lord

is going to move into this place and once the spirit of god starts moving we're just going to start moving from person to person okay you start praying for somebody and you pray and if you want a good rule of thumb maybe you've never prayed for somebody before what i like to do is i look them in the eye and say i'm going to pray for you until you feel delivered you let me know when you feel delivered i will pray for you until whatever has bound you today is released off of you i will i will make that commitment to you but

as soon as you pray for somebody and their need is met go find somebody else don't don't slow down don't let time trick you into praying for yourself but be a minister today okay are we ready to pray you can start by asking if they have a need if they want to share the need they can but we're all just going to pray for one another jesus we thank you for every good thing you've ever done in our life lord in fact we know that every good thing any any object item anything in our life that we would call good has come from you jesus

lord there is nothing here that we could not give you praise for and so jesus right now we look to you as our king we look to you as what is good and we bring all of our needs to you humbly jesus that you would take away any kind of fear in our life that we would live beyond anything that would bind us to this time in this place but jesus that we would live outside of this world not pressured by it jesus that's what we want to do we want to be your ministers outside of this world serving inside it jesus

right now i call down your blessings on your people jesus that you would see us lord that everything that is here right now would be taken care of by you lord we call your name down on every form of depression in this room right now jesus anybody that is battling anxiety anybody that is battling suicide we call your name down right now jesus we don't have to wait for a prescription jesus we do not have to wait for a meeting or a session jesus we do not have to wait for another dose jesus we call your name down on every addiction in this room right

now jesus we call your name down on every financial issue or scare jesus anything that has pushed us back anything that the enemy has given us to make us realize our temporality we rebuke it in your name jesus that we would live with eternity and mind realizing that if we die here all it is is a reward jesus that if we are done here right now all that is to us is a reward to be with you jesus god i speak right now that you would give ministries to all those that are here not simply the graduates but god everybody here i ask that you speak god

give them dreams callings lord don't let them just sit on it till tomorrow don't let them wait until the time is right in their minds but god give a supernatural empowerment god that they would feel the passion and the call burning inside of them like jeremiah lord that it would burn in their bones that they would not be able to be silent but god that your gospel would go out from every single one of us jesus we thank you lord for healing jesus we thank you for freedom and deliverance jesus we thank you if you've prayed for somebody go find somebody else to pray for go find somebody to lay a hand on you can speak into their life where you can simply pray for the will of god

to be done in their life don't let anybody be helpless today but find somebody to pray for you can pray for one another but you can go just move without the sanctuary let the lord move among us and he can lead you for what that other individual needs lord we submit ourselves to you right now god maybe we've never been used before but jesus we submit ourselves to you right now to use us god any of us that need to be used in your gifts we give ourselves to you right now jesus anybody that needs a word of wisdom or prophecy in their life god

a word of knowledge we give ourselves to you right now jesus maybe it is something we are not familiar with but lord i want you to comfort every heart and give boldness jesus that we would move forward with faith that you're going to do something in this room don't let us be boastful in our insecurity that we do not need to be used but jesus let us be comfortable in your presence god whatever you need to be done in this room right now jesus we submit ourselves to you and your will that everybody would receive your word this morning