Jesse Phillips Blog

Here is the speech I gave at the Regent Academy graduation earlier today.

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COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS
TRA GRADUATION, JUNE 5TH, 2010

For our commencement, I am going to read a portion of scripture, taken from Leviticus 10:1-3, a short story about Aaron’s sons, the fate of Nadab and Abihu.

10:1 Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized [1] fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. 2 And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. 3 Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord has said, ‘Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.’” And Aaron held his peace.

Ladies and gentlemen, parents, extended families and graduates, I am honored to give this commencement address, and to do something that I don’t believe has ever been done in a graduation speech. Although I have no way of proving this, I am wagering that in the long history of thousands of addresses that are given to graduates each year, that nobody has ever read the story of Nadab and Abihu. I would even go so far as to say that nobody giving a commencement address has even considered reading the story about God killing Aaron’s sons.

That’s not typically what commencement speeches are about. This is an occasion to celebrate the accomplishment of graduation, and to look toward the bright futures that are represented in the graduates sitting before us. And so typically a commencement address is filled with uplifting phrases about the graduates’ unlimited potential, extolling the human ability to accomplish anything we set our minds to, encouragements to do our best and God will do the rest, and reminders that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

If I were to craft this along the lines of a typical commencement speech you may come away with nebulous nuggets of wisdom such as the best way to predict your future is the create it, that if your ship doesn’t come in, you should swim out to it, that if you simply did what you were capable of you would astonish yourself. Who knows? You might even hear some wisdom from Master Yoda, who said, “Do or do not, there is no try.”

God’s motive: Exalting himself

In light of all these wonderful things that could be said, why on earth would I read a story about God killing Aaron’s rebellious sons? Here’s the reason why: in the years since my graduation, I’ve learned that God has a different way of motivating us. If God were to stand up and give an inspirational speech it would sound quite different than what most human speakers might offer. If God were here giving a commencement address, talking to you graduates about what the rest of your life entails, motivating you to accomplish everything he has set for you to do, I don’t think he would start his speech by talking about you. I think he would start his speech by talking about himself.

I’d venture that to guess if God were here speaking to you at the commencement of your post-graduation life, as you embark on the journey of discovery toward college, career, marriage and family, he might even give you the same message he gave Aaron when he killed his sons: “Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.”

The words spoken today over these graduates are the same words spoken over the lifeless bodies of Aaron’s sons, the message that God’s primary concern as it pertains to each of our lives is that his name be glorified. This goal of the exaltation of God in all things describes not only our purpose for being here today, but it also describes the way that God motivates people. God does not motivate people by telling them to look inside themselves for that extra strength needed to get to the top. God motivates us by telling us why we were made, reminding us that we were made for one purpose: to glorify the name of Jesus Christ. And that reality gives meaning to our lives and becomes a source of grace that compels us to offer up our lives to him in service to his name, rather than extolling our own names.

Our potential to glorify God

There are some similarities between these graduates and Nadab and Abihu. Aaron’s sons were young men who seemed to have potential and bright futures ahead of them serving the Lord. They were highly esteemed and came from a good family. They seemed to have everything going for them. Like our graduates, they looked forward to long lives fruitfulness in pursuing the works of service God had seemingly prepared for them. I really hope that’s where the similarities between you graduates and Aaron’s sons end. I’m certainly not suggesting than any of you are going to suffer the same fate they experienced. I certainly hope that’s not the case. I’d hate to see any of you drop dead today. That would put a real damper on your family’s celebration of this moment.

Aaron’s sons had potential, and these students have potential. They were privileged, as our graduates are to have the opportunities to serve the Lord. Here’s the mistake that Aaron’s sons made—a mistake that is included in the Bible for us to learn from—they presumed upon that opportunity, they took it for granted, and did not remain faithful to the instruction of the Lord. They invented their own way instead of doing things God’s way. They chose an alternative, unauthorized way of serving God other than the way God said he was to be served.  Like these two young men, each of you graduates are going to be tempted and lured by the world to be unfaithful and disobedient to the Lord. Nadab and Abihu offered unauthorized fire and young men and women ever since have been similarly tempted to turn from the Lord, to pursue worldly passions, to overstep the boundaries meant for our protection, and to play with fire. The lesson of history is that if you choose to go down those paths and play with fire, you will experience the consequences.

The sobering reality that we live with in light of these verses is that God is willing to go to extraordinary lengths and to do surprising things in order to ensure that his name is glorified. Having his own name praised meant more to God than even the lives of Aaron’s sons, which he dealt with to glorify himself. On a day in which we are celebrating our graduates accomplishments and potential, this brief story instructs us in the reason why we celebrate these things. God hasn’t changed, and if he was here giving a commencement address, I think his message might have three simple points:

1. That I care more about my glory than any of your accomplishments or future plans
2. That I created you for my glory, which gives new meaning to your accomplishments and future plans
3. Today I am commandeered your lives in such a way that your accomplishments are really mine, and your future plans are mine, to be used as I pleased, to sanctify you and to honor my name before all people.

That’s what God is doing. At this commencement he is charging you to choose today who you and your house will serve, to be strong a courageous in your service of him, and to trust him that his way of doing things, his gospel which seems foolish to the world and will seem foolish to you at times, is the wisdom that will preserve you as you move forward, and will guide you as you remain loyal to it.

Closing Charge: how will you choose to glorify God?

Graduates, here is the choice you have: you can worship God by living according to his Word, or you can invent your own way of doing things. You can allow the fire of passion for his glory to smolder in your heart, or you can play with the fire of the forbidden. You can study, or you can plagiarize. You can follow God’s plan for marriage or you can go along with the world’s plan for sex. You can contend for the faith and boldly preach the gospel to your co-workers, classmates and teachers or you can succumb to the ideologies of this world that deny the truth of the Gospel for all its worth. Like the disciples in Acts, you can be counted among those who by their courage turn the world upside down, or in cowardice you can allow the world to turn you upside down. You can honor the Lord by being obedient to him or by being disciplined by him.

As I read your biographies and your future ambitions, the places in the world you plan on going, the topics you plan on studying, the families you plan on raising, the friendships you plan on cultivating, the professions and skills you plan on developing, the country you plan on serving, the people you plan on reaching, and most importantly the local churches you plan on building, I was amazed at the potential of this group. As Mr. Fitzgerald read the words of Dr. Seuss last night: oh the places you’ll go.

But as I was reading the program, my amazement at your potential wasn’t based on anything inherent to you, but on the grace of God that is so evidently at work in and through you. In his grace, God has truly blessed your parents by giving you to them as a gift. He’s blessed you by allowing you to grow up experiencing his faithfulness in so many ways. He’s put you in a church that he’s kept strong through the faithful preaching of the gospel. And now he has given you a vision of how he wants you to take your place in that church, humbly pursuing the ambitions he has given you to partner together in this great cause of advancing the very gospel that has shaped your life. Whether you end up going to West Point, working for a way cool magazine, or doing the way cool thing of becoming a wife, mother, husband or father, the high callings that each of you are pursuing are nothing less than the divine call of God on your life giving you an opportunity to make your lives count for his glory.

And so in closing, my prayer is that you would pursue these plans in a way that he authorizes, according to His Word, protecting your testimony and the witness of the church, to bring blessing and not reproach on the name of God who has promised that he will be regarded as holy among those who are near him and glorified before all people. May your life be one in which God chooses to glorify himself not by correcting you, but by commending you.

Thank you.