1. HS Grads:
• You have been in school now for 2160 days.
• You have spent 12,960 hours in classes.
• That translates into 777,600 minutes.
• So far you’ve lived approximately 18 years.
• You’ve been around 216 months.
• You have been breathing 936 weeks.
• You’ve slept 52,500 hours.
• You’ve watched T.V. 12,173 hours.
• You’ve spent 7,488 hours eating. (Mostly pizza!)
If You live the average life span of 70 years, or as the
Bible says 3 score and 10, You’ll...
• SLEEP ................24 YEARS
• WORK ................14 YEARS
• PLAY ...................8 YEARS
• EAT .....................6 YEARS
• DRIVE .................5 YEARS
• TALK ........................4 YEARS
• GO TO SCHOOL.......3 YEARS
• SICK ..........................3 YEARS
• STUDY & READ.......3 YEARS
• YOU WERE BORN WRINKLED, BALD, TOOTHLESS, COULDN’T HARDLY SEE, CRYING, COMPLAINING, AND HAD NO CLOTHES ON.
Well, you’ve come a long way! You’ve reached a milestone. But this is not the end…it’s really just the beginning! You’ve come to the end of a big episode, but just before the credits roll, across the screen flashes the words: “To be continued!”
2. Your life journey will be an adventure if you walk with God.
3. 2 Timothy 3.14-17
14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it 15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
I. A God
In his book on Albert Einstein, author Walter Isaacson told of a dinner party in Berlin where everybody assumed Einstein was an atheist and he said, “No, I have a deep feeling of faith, a deep religiosity that comes from my appreciation of the way the Lord made the universe;” and everybody was stunned.
He said he was like a child walking into a library, and you see the books and you know somebody must have written them, and you see them ordered and you know somebody must have ordered them, and there’s a sense of awe that’s manifest in that, where you kind of understand that there’s an order underlying everything and the more you appreciate it, the more humble you become in the fact of it…
Isaacson continued: “In some ways, (Einstein’s) belief in God, that God had created an orderly universe, informed his science. He believed that underlying everything, there are laws.”
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Psalm 19.1
Christ’s relationship to the Universe – As God
For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Colossians 1:16-17
Think about what it means to be Creator of the Universe. John McArthur writes: The moon is a mere 211,463 miles away. You could actually walk there in 27 years if you covered 24 miles every day. Now, a ray of light travels at 186,000 miles per second (a little faster than walking) It could reach the moon in just 1.5 seconds. At the speed of light, we could reach Mercury in 4 ½ minutes. At light speed it would take 35 minutes and 11 seconds to travel the 367 million miles to Jupiter. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto would be around 3 billion miles more. And at that point we haven’t even left the front porch of our corner of the universe.
On the screen you can see a picture of the constellation Orion. A gigantic star called Betelgeuse is in the upper left corner. This star is 880 quad-drillion miles away. Betelgeuse is classed as a super-giant. That one star has a diameter that is many times greater than the earth’s ORBIT around the sun. You can see on the screen, it is even greater than Jupiter’s orbit around the sun. That is one BIG star. And who made all this? JESUS!
II. THE God
Value of History – In Readers Digest, Alexander Saul writes: "I have spent well-nigh fifty years working on the history of the Russian Revolution. In the process I’ve collected hundreds of personal testimonies, read hundreds of books, and contributed eight volumes of my own. But if I were asked today to formulate as precisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some sixty million Russians, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat the phrase, `Men have forgotten God.’ What is more if I were called upon to identify the principle trait of the entire Twentieth Century I would be unable to reflect anything more precise than this statement, `Men have forgotten God.’"
Will Rogers said, "You can summarize American History into two great movements: the passing of the Buffalo and The passing of the buck."
Things written aforetime were for our learning
• The God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, etc. – Exodus 3; 4; 1 Kings 18.36; Acts 3.13;
• The God of Israel – 1 Kings 8.22-26
22 Then Solomon stood before the altar of the LORD in the presence of all the assembly of Israel and spread out his hands toward heaven, 23 and said, “O LORD, God of Israel, there is no God like you, in heaven above or on earth beneath, keeping covenant and showing steadfast love to your servants who walk before you with all their heart; 24 you have kept with your servant David my father what you declared to him. You spoke with your mouth, and with your hand have fulfilled it this day. 25 Now therefore, O LORD, God of Israel, keep for your servant David my father what you have promised him, saying, ‘You shall not lack a man to sit before me on the throne of Israel, if only your sons pay close attention to their way, to walk before me as you have walked before me.’ 26 Now therefore, O God of Israel, let your word be confirmed, which you have spoken to your servant David my father.
III. MY God
A. Christ’s relationship to You
Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. Colossians 1:21-23
God came to earth in order to reconcile all of us to himself by means of the cross.
Jesus paid the full price. He offers you a gift of salvation.
B. Ruth (1.16) -- But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.
C. David – 2 Samuel 22.1-3
And David spoke to the LORD the words of this song on the day when the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul. 2 He said,
“The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,
3 my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,
my shield, and the horn of my salvation,
my stronghold and my refuge,
my savior; you save me from violence.
4 I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised,
and I am saved from my enemies.
D. Thomas – John 20.27-29
27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” 28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
E. Yeshua (Jesus) – Psalm 22
Bill Irwin, who is the only blind person to hike the Appalachian Trail, has a talking computer he uses to study the Bible. He’s had a few chuckles over some of the pronunciations. "For a long time," Bill says, "the computer pronounced Holy Bible as ’holly bibble’ until I figured out how to modify it." But there was one thing Bill couldn’t change. The computer uses the Spanish pronunciation for Jesus Christ--HEYsus Krist. "The programmer is Hispanic," Bill told me with a smile, "and he made sure that HEYsus Krist cannot be altered."
I like that. It reminds me that among the things in life that can be changed to suit my taste, one remains tamper-resistant--I can’t change Jesus.
When life is unsettled, I gain great comfort from the Bible’s affirmation that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever" (Heb. 13:8). But the statement is also a stern rebuke to my tendency to try to modify the words and character of Christ when I don’t like what He says. How easy it is to forget that I came to Christ longing for Him to transform me, not the other way around! Praise God that His Word and His love are perfect and unchanging. And praise Him too that in His love He is working to change me
IV. OUR God
This story was related by Donald Grey Barnhouse. Several years ago, two students graduated from the Chicago-Kent College of Law. The highest ranking student in the class was a blind man named Overton and, when he received his honor, he insisted that half the credit should go to his friend, Kaspryzak.
They had met one another in school when the armless Mr. Kaspryzak had guided the blind Mr. Overton down a flight of stairs. This acquaintance ripened into friendship and a beautiful example of interdependence. The blind man carried the books which the armless man read aloud in their common study, and thus the individual deficiency of each was compensated for by the other. After their graduation, they planned to practice law together.
No believer is complete by himself, we are to minister to one another, as a family. (Source unknown).
A. There are no loners as disciples of Yeshua (Jesus)
B. We are a community of believers – Matthew 16.18; Acts 2.42-47
C. We don’t go it alone – F-S-HS + community of faith
John Adams said, “There are two types of education: One should teach us how to make a living, and the other how to live.”
Are you a 1 mile worker or a 2 mile worker? Do you do only the bare minimum or do you go the 2nd mile and leave the mark of excellence on your work? People always remember second-mile-worker.
Around 1920 a pharmacist bought a drug store in south Chicago. Soon he became bored with his job and began to dream of ways to make it more exciting. It was during a time when people were just beginning to call in their orders by phone, so the man decided to challenge himself by seeing how quickly he could deliver orders. When someone called, he repeated the order aloud, including the name and address. As he spoke with the caller, his assistant filled the order and a driver left to deliver it. The druggist kept the customer on the phone chatting until the order arrived. Most of the customers lived nearby, but this kind of prompt service was revolutionary. As word spread, it became the busiest pharmacy in Chicago and within a few years, Charles Walgreen revolutionized the pharmacy industry because he decided to go the second mile.
Our God is the God of the Second Mile!
