Points from the Pulpit

This Sunday, May 20, we will be honoring the graduates.  In light of the occasion, I have decided to use Psalm 1 as the sermon text.  I was listening to the news this past week and it was mentioned that very few if any of the graduates remember the commencement address.  In this light, I have decided that maybe this "short sermon" would be better directed at the graduate's parents.  I particularly like the translation by Eugene Peterson's Bible, the Message.  The very first verse says: How well God must like you--you don't hang out at Sin Saloon, you don't slink along Dead-End Road, you don't go to Smart-Mouth College.

Well, we most likely know stories of college parties that can be termed Sin Saloon, and for some it does seem like after graduation they are on Dead-End Road; can't seem to find their direction in life.  Oh and yes, Smart-Mouth College; I think that started in Smart-Mouth High School.

Even though we raise our children to one day go out into the world on their own, it is not easy to turn them loose.  My son enlisted in the Navy directly out of high school and I thought, gee, I would like to hear from him more often.  Then, once I found out what he was up to I thought; Well, maybe not.  I didn't need to know that.

You wonder if you had any impact on their lives at all.  Did anything that you taught them stick?  It was my experience that later these one time graduates do turn out okay.  God's word does come back to speak to them in their own time and way.  How exactly this happens I am not quite sure.  Maybe it is because the parents are the ones who thrill to God's word and chew on Scripture day and night.  They are the tree planted by in Eden bearing fruit.  God charts the road we take even though there are those that take Sin Road.