I Cry Language Revolution!

In 3 hours, I’ll be delivering a commencement address to a class of High School graduates in Upstate New York. This is what I will be sharing with them.

Congratulations. It is a great thing that you have accomplished. I am honored that you would ask me to be a part of celebrating with you.

You’ve spent 113,880 hours of your life working to earn that piece of paper. No question, you have achieved something substantial, but it wasn’t supposed to be like this. We were never intended to be achievers. When God made the heavens and the earth and placed mankind in the Garden of Eden, independence was not part of our original coding. In fact, man was intentionally engineered to be dependant. It was not God’s intent for us ever to be separated from Him.

Think about it. The Garden of Eden as we all imagine it—full of lush vegetation, and exotic animals was the nothing more than the setting that framed a perfect relationship between God and man.  It was a relationship so real and tangible that Genesis says that Adam, Eve took a customary walk with God in the cool of the day.  For a brief period of time, perfect people walked through a perfect world in perfect union with God. Every physical and spiritual need was fully met. There was no achievement, no ambition, no struggle. There were no empty stomachs or hollow spirits. Adam did not know loneliness. Eve had never endured depression. There was no identity struggle. Mankind knew only the fulfillment of his purpose– fellowship with the creator.

God never intended for us to be separated from one-another, either. Adam and Eve lived in perfect union. There were no secret plots, hurtful words, fear, shame, guilt or rebellion. There was no competition, mixed feelings, or complicated personal history. When things were like God intended them to be, there was only understanding, communication and love. Life in the garden was better than anything we can visualize in our sin-scared imaginations.

In a moment it all came crashing down. All of the beauty in that world was instantly and permanently scared because of a single act. When sin came on the scene, it affected every human activity. Everything was different. Sin reshaped the world into a place of paradox, double-mindedness, and self-worship. Now, we desire to be served, but we hate serving. We crave to be in control, and we nurture alien ideas like self-sufficiency, independence, and pride. We have forgotten about our creator and turned to worshipping the creation. We cannot help but worship something, its how we were designed after all, but self-worship became the culturally accepted religion.

In the words of Paul David Tripp, “Rather than loving people and using things to express it, we love things and use people to get them.” It only took us one generation to move from perfect harmony to homicide, and from there it has only gotten worse.

The world that God had called ‘good’ and the people that God had called ‘very good’ were ruined by sin. But God, who is rich in mercy, with his great love wherewith he loved us, was not willing to let sin ruin his creation, so he set a plan in motion. It would take thousands of years, and would mean re-directing the entire course of human history. But more than that, God’s plan to reconcile with his creation would require a deep and personal sacrifice. God orchestrated events in every generation from the fall until the time was right, and El-Shaddai, the God who Provides, sent his Son into the world to make a way for us to be redeemed. It was through his Son that he would (Colossians 1:20) reconcile all things to Himself. He would make all things new.

Jesus entered the world as a man just like you and I. He called out to the people that he loved, the people who had all like sheep gone astray. He spoke, “The time has come. The Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe in the good news.” The time has come. He was saying, “This is it! God has not forgotten you or lost interest in you. This is what God has been working on…” Jesus preached with his lips and his actions the love of God. He acted out his message of hope—a living demonstration of divine love for mankind.

Today, 2000 years later, His actions and message are refreshing to those of us who know our situation is hopeless, but offensive to anyone who is trying to orchestrate their own redemption.

The message that Jesus preached provides the only valid reason for hope to all of us who have endured the harsh reality of a sinful world. In a way that offends our deeply-rooted, prideful sense of independence, Jesus took on himself the sins of mankind. He did for us, what so few of us are willing to admit we cannot do for ourselves.

He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows;

Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions;

He was crushed for our iniquities;

Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

And with his stripes we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray;

We have turned everyone to his own way and the LORD has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

Two very important things happened at the cross. First of all, our sins were paid for, past, present and future. God extended mercy in the blood of His son to cover every single one of our sinful actions, words, thoughts and desires.  Paul put it this way, “Even when we were dead in our trespasses, He made us alive together with Christ.” The punishment that we deserved because of our inherent sinfulness was placed on Jesus Christ, and the record against us was wiped away. We will never be held responsible for the sins we have committed, are committing or will commit because our debt has already been paid. There is no record of our wrongs, the slate is clean.

But something else happened for us at the cross, and it’s something that we don’t talk about nearly enough. You see, not only did Jesus pay our sin-debt with his blood, but we received the pure righteousness of Jesus Christ. We were all made sinners by Adam, and the infinite righteousness of God is available to all of us through Jesus. “… As one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.” (Romans 5:18-19) Not just forgiven, but righteous.

Infinite righteousness became available on demand to anyone who asks for it. I trust you do not have to imagine it because such a wonder is a part of your everyday life. If not, I would love to show you how it could be. I would love to introduce you to the God who gave his life for yours and mine, and makes righteousness available to us. I would love nothing more.

And so, in a way, the Spirit of Eden is rekindled in each person who chooses accept God’s free gift of grace. Fellowship with a righteous God is possible for mankind once more. We talk to Him, grow to understand our relationship with Him, and the day is coming soon when we will see him face to face just like Adam did on those walks in the garden every evening. And that is how things were meant to be.

I am happy to be here, celebrating your achievement today but the piece of paper that you have earned does not represent your greatest asset, or the greatest cause that we have for rejoicing. The knowledge and skills represented by those diplomas are valuable, and I do not want to diminish the magnitude of your accomplishment; but I would challenge you to count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord. Be found in Him, not having a righteousness of your own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness that God offers which depends on faith.

The greatest question that all of us must answer, is not, “What did you do with your education?” its, “What did you do with Jesus?” Your greatest gift is not your education, upbringing, talents, skills or anything like that; because nothing like that could possibly make sinful men righteous. But, what we have is “power, power, wonder working power in the Blood of the Lamb.”

Today, we stand here on the doorstep of heaven and the only thing that keeps us from entering into perfect fellowship once again is our own pride. It’s the great paradox that sin creates in each one of us—we are filled with self-love, but despise our own nature as God’s dependants. We are not satisfied with divine orchestration on our behalf; we, like every two-year-old learning to tie his shoes, must do it ourselves. We do not want to accept the righteousness of God freely bestowed to any humble enough to ask for it. We want to be good enough on our own.

Even those of us who have thrown ourselves on the mercy of God for the forgiveness of sins, now want to stand on our own merits in our relationship with Christ. We want to prove our worthiness of the gift we have been given. We think that if God went to all that trouble it must have been to save someone truly valuable, like myself.

The human pre-occupation with ‘earning our keep’ means that no longer is it just sin that stands between us and fellowship with God; it’s our home-made brand of righteousness as well. As Christians, we are heirs to the kingdom with access to every spiritual blessing, the peace that passes all understanding, freedom from sin and the immeasurable greatness of his power; but we politely decline. No, those resources should surely be put to use in the life of someone with a greater need. We would rather generate good works of our own design. That is why Paul spoke of self-made-righteousness as “filthy rags”.

And so Graduates, on this day of celebration, it is my charge to you not to go out and accomplish great things. I do not dare you to take risks. I challenge you to act like the Kingdom Heirs that you are. Don’t spend your life trying to impress God, or earn your own way. It will never be enough for to work hard and accomplish something great in Jesus’ name. There are few things in life as fruitless as working to earn that which you already have, and Graduates, you already have it. You have access to every spiritual blessing. I know that if you humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, he will lift you up.

In the last year or so, I’ve come to believe that humility and faith are mostly synonyms, and faith is the assurance of all the things that we hope for; the conviction of all the things that we cannot see. And without faith it is impossible to please Him.