SNU COMMENCEMENT SERMON May 9, 2015

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Ethel Roberts
5 years ago
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1 SNU COMMENCEMENT SERMON May 9, 2015 Members of the class of 2015, parents, President Gresham, honored guests, faculty, administration, and trustees of Southern Nazarene University, thank you for the privilege of inviting me to speak on this very special day. I heard somewhere not long ago that there are 300,000 different kinds of beetles in the world. Not 300,000 beetles. 300,000 different KINDS of beetles! Talk about creative overkill! Wouldn t 3,000 species be plenty? Why would God make 300,000 kinds of beetles? Not only that, one day when I was paying attention in science class, I learned that in one cubit foot of snow there is an average of 18 million snowflakes... and they re all different! Every one of them is different! I think about that and wonder: First, who actually figured that out? And second, why in

2 the world WOULD it be true? Nobody is ever going to see all of those snowflakes except God. Most of you are too young to know this, but your parents will remember the little green terrapin turtles we used to buy for our fishbowls. The ones the FDA won t let us have any more because they cause salmonella disease... I used to have one. I did a little research on those little green turtles. The underneath shells of those little tiny turtles are magnificent in design. Did you know that of all the millions of those turtles that exist, not ONE of them has the same pattern on their shell? Like a fingerprint, every single turtle has a slightly different color and design than any other turtle in existence. There are a lot of those little turtles that human beings are never going to see. So who gets to enjoy the creative design of all 2

3 those slightly different turtles? GOD does! GOD LOVES VARIETY! God HAS to love variety. Why else would there be 300,000 species of beetles, 18 million unique snowflakes in one cubit foot of snow, and oodles of little green turtles with different shell designs? And how else can you explain so many different kinds of people in the world? Just look around this auditorium! There are no two people completely alike. Every person is uniquely distinct and different. Psalm 139 is one of the great chapters in the Bible. It is a psalm of creation. It basically says three things about us. 1. We are unique. The psalmist says: You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my 3

4 mother s womb. There s never been anyone else quite like you in human history. (I ve been told Jimmy Fallon is my younger Doppelganger, but I d venture to say we don t have a lot in common!) God does not make copies God only creates originals. When God created you he broke the mold. Then the psalmist says: I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. 2. We are wonderfully complex. Sometimes we are so complex that we re a mystery to ourselves. Have you ever had that happen? If you re married you might agree that your SPOUSE is wonderfully complex. Christi is a wonderfully complex woman that after 32 4

5 years of marriage I still haven t figured out (and I love it!). All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. 3. We were created for a purpose. Nobody is here by accident. Nobody is a mistake. You are designed just the way you are for a special purpose. And your uniqueness, and your complexity, and your design are what God wants you to offer to the world. I remember when Christi and I were expecting our babies. We would go to the OB doctor to view a sonogram. He would squirt hair gel on Christi s tummy (they re always tummies when there is a baby inside). 5

6 Then they would turn on a screen and place the ultrasound wand on her tummy, and there would suddenly appear this strange alien creature. There were hearts-beating and eyes-blinking and thumbs-sucking. And I would be amazed at the beautiful creation that I was seeing for the first time. But even though it was my first time to see them, I knew that it wasn t God s first time. God had seen them a long time before that. And I found myself wondering what this unique and special person was going to be like. But do you know what s even more amazing than that? All of my children lived in the same house, and rode in the same mini-van, and ate the same Froot Loops for breakfast. They came from the same gene pool and 6

7 were raised by the same parents. But Megan, Ben, and Madison are not even close to being the same. Each one is unique and totally different, because there are no cookie cutter kids. They re like snowflakes with their own patterns and shapes. And man named Job once said it this way: Your hands, O God, shaped me and made me (Job 10:8). I love that word shaped. I see the picture of a Master Designer carefully crafting us in exactly the way he wants us to be and can use us best. Graduates, please listen... you are all shaped for significance! God has shaped you the way you are because He has something for you to accomplish that no one else can do in quite the same way. You are shaped for meaning and purpose. 7

8 And when you discover your God-given shape you will be very close to the calling of your life. Now that might be hard for some of you to believe. Most people assume that God calls pastors and missionaries and teachers. But does God really have something special and significant for EVERY person to do? Does he call truck drivers and department store clerks? Does he call short-order cooks and meteorologists? Or do some people have a calling, while other people just have to work? Are some people destined to live their lives with the joy of a God-given purpose... while the rest of us have to settle for a mundane existence? You can leave religion completely out of the 8

9 equation and the questions are still the same. They re just couched in different ways. Every person is searching for meaning and purpose in their lives. Because deep inside the heart of all of us is a soulful question: Is there a reason I m here? I grew up right here in Bethany in a little house near the corner of 42 nd and Peniel. Just up the street on the SNU campus there are four tennis courts. My father helped pour the concrete for those courts. And the reason I know that is because almost every time we drove by them he would say: Son, you see those tennis courts there over there? I helped make those. Darla, do you see how smooth those courts look? I was in charge of that. If I heard it once I heard it a hundred times. And before we moved back to Bethany, whenever we would come home for a visit, we would drive by those tennis courts and I 9

10 would say: Kids, do you see those tennis courts? Papa Busic made those. Little did he know that his first granddaughter would play competitive tennis for SNU on the courts he helped make! What s that all about? Every person wants to be able to point to something and say: I was here on this planet. And the things I did made a difference. A writer named Studs Terkel wrote a book several years ago entitled Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do. Terkel spent several months crisscrossing the country and interviewing people about their occupations. The book is a chronicle of how those people felt about their work. They told what they thought was right about their jobs and what 10

11 they thought was wrong. One of the most interesting parts of the book was when Terkel revealed the conclusions he had reached from those interviews. He had expected that the most talked about subjects would be things like hours, wages, promotions, raises, and fringe benefits. But to his surprise the recurring theme of the interviews was not HOW MUCH? but WHY? Listen to his words: I was constantly amazed by the extraordinary dreams of ordinary people. This life is about a search for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cause; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying. I think most of us are looking for a calling, not a job. Most of us have jobs that are too small for our spirits. Jobs are not big enough for people. To be remembered was the 11

12 wish, spoken or unspoken, of the heroes and heroines of this book. Do you know what that tells to me? Deep down, every person knows that they are shaped for significance. Farmers, receptionists, bank tellers, piano tuners, and candle stick makers they all know that there has to be some plan and reason for why they re here. It s a quest for meaning a reaching process. An awareness of a higher purpose. A feeling that there s more to us than we have been able to find. That God has a calling for us that only WE can accomplish. And that if we don t get it done there s a chance that it won t. This leads to a very important idea about a calling. I imagine something can be a calling 12

13 only if someone else calls you to do it... and if you do it for their sake rather than your own. So it stands to reason that our daily work can be a calling only if it is conceived as God s assignment to serve others. As Tim Keller says: The question regarding our choice of work is no longer What will make me the most money and give me the most status? The question must now be How, with my existing abilities and opportunities, can I be of greatest service to other people, knowing what I do of God s will and of human need? The 1981 Academy Award winner for Best Picture was Chariots of Fire. It was the story of British Olympic Gold Medalist Eric Liddle. It was Liddle was a deeply religious man getting pressure from two sides: From those on the Olympic Committee who couldn t understand his conviction about not 13

14 running on Sunday s to honor the Sabbath day and keep it holy and from church people who kept saying to him: You need to stop doing this running and start doing something spiritual with your life. In one scene Liddle is talking with his sister, trying to help her understand why is he going to run in the Olympics instead of immediately working in the China mission. I love what he said: I believe God made me for a purpose... for China. But he also made me FAST! And when I run, I feel His pleasure. To give it up would be to hold Him in contempt. What has God uniquely designed for you to do? What are the things you do when you most feel God s pleasure? I can t tell you what God has called you to do. 14

15 But I like what my friend, and fellow SNU alum, Gary Morsch says: Whenever your desires and the world s pain intersect, you are very close to your personal calling. There is much to be done in our world. There is deep pain, great need, paralyzing fear, and massive divides. Where do your desires and the world s pain intersect? Some of you don t know that yet, but you re on the way. That s what SNU has been about for you. This was not simply about getting an education it was helping you figure out who you are and what God has made you to be. I recognize commencement speeches are notorious for giving advice, so as not to disappoint, let me offer you some: Don t just seek a CAREER seek GOD. Because when you know God, He will direct your path. And: Don t settle for something less than what brings you great joy and fulfillment. Stay 15

16 in hot pursuit of where your God-given passion and the needs of the world intersect. Most people settle for security and comfort over joy and fulfillment. It s not a sin to settle but life begins at the end of your comfort zone. I don t know your specific calling, but I do know this: It is a call to love and serve others in Jesus name. And so, as a Christian you don t just happen to be a third grade teacher. You are a follower of Jesus who happens to be a third grade teacher. As a Christian you don t just happen to sell cars. You are a follower of Jesus who happens to be a car salesman. You may not even particularly like where you work, but you can feel God s pleasure and purpose just about anywhere you are. 16

17 Don t ever say: I m an accident. I m worthless to the world. You are incredibly important simply because you are here! You are here against miraculous odds. You were placed here for a holy purpose. There was a Syrian rabbi whose name was Zuscha. On his deathbed someone asked him what he thought heaven was going to be like. The old rabbi thought for quite a while and then he gave his answer. I really don t know. But one thing I do know: When I get there, I am not going to be asked, Why weren't you Moses? or Why weren't you David? I am going to be asked, Why weren't you Zuscha? May God bless your work in the world. Thank you, and congratulations, Class of

1. IT REVEALS GOD S PURPOSE FOR ME

1. IT REVEALS GOD S PURPOSE FOR ME WHY AM I LIKE THIS? God loves variety. Everything in this world God made is original and nothing is a copy. Every tree is different. Every plant is different. Every animal is different. Certainly every