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Presented by Mark Beuligmann,
Director of CLASS,
Elder of the Church of Christian Liberty
In Memory of Dr. Paul Lindstrom
On high school and college campuses across the nation during the last few
weeks, there have been many graduation exercises such as this one. Students
and their parents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, grandparents,
and friends, along with school officials and teachers, have assembled to
celebrate the academic achievements of the graduates. It is a time of joy,
celebration, remembrance, and probably just general relief that it’s
all over—and that you passed.
At most of these graduation exercises, there has been some sort of commencement
address. More often than not, I suspect, the address consisted of a predictable
and dreary recitation of humanistic and politically correct platitudes.
For example, at a recent commencement exercise, noted Hollywood scholar
and theologian, Goldie Hawn, encouraged the graduates to “attend
the college of you.” Other commencement speakers, no doubt, told
the graduates to be themselves, to listen to their hearts, or to discover
the successful or beautiful person within.
Similar messages spew forth from Hollywood, television, popular magazines,
and, I regret to say, from more than a few pulpits in our land. God is
out, and man is in.
Now, from Goldie’s perspective, she was asking her hearers to do
a good thing. Her assumption is the typical humanistic assumption, and
that is that people are by nature good. Of course, if they were good, it
would make sense for them to pay attention to themselves. If we were indeed
essentially good, there would be little harm in this, and perhaps great
benefit.
As it is, however, human beings are not essentially good, but sinners,
and Goldie Hawn was basically encouraging her listeners to take to the
college level what too many of today’s graduates already are: self-absorbed,
spoiled brats.
Today, at this commencement exercise, we will not engage in any such foolishness.
Today, in order that there may be true joy, celebration, remembrance—and
yes, even relief—my challenge to the graduates will come from the
Word of God, as I have heard it from a great man of God.
On Wednesday May 22, 2002, Dr. Paul Lindstrom, the founder and Superintendent
of Schools of the Christian Liberty Academy School System, went home to
be with the Lord. Christian education was very near to his heart, and he
labored in that field for over thirty-five years. God has greatly blessed
his labors. Indeed, few men’s labors have been so greatly blessed
and multiplied. Many thousands of students, both in this country and worldwide,
have been nurtured in the fear and admonition of the Lord as a result of
his ministry.
In preparing this commencement address, I thought it most fitting to consider
what commission Dr. Lindstrom might have given our CLASS graduates if he
were here today.
First of all, I believe he would tell you to love God because the Scriptures
tell us to love God. In Mark 12:30 we read:
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And you shall love the Lord your God with
all your heart, with all your soul, with
all your mind, and with all your strength. |
Certainly we have reason to love God. God, who is sufficient in himself,
had no need of us, and yet, because of his great love toward us, he created
us, gave us life and breath and all things necessary to our existence.
When we were lost in our sin, he made a way for us to be saved, and spared
not his only begotten son, Jesus Christ, who died that we might live in
restored fellowship with the Father.
Now by loving God, Dr. Lindstrom would not have meant that you should think
of God as a gray-bearded old man up in the sky who only thinks kindly thoughts
and can’t wait to answer all your prayers in the affirmative. Neither
would he have meant that you should try to maintain a continual warm and
fuzzy feeling when you think of God. Though we should keep a tender heart
toward God, love to God is made of sterner stuff than mere feelings.
God himself has told us how we are to love him. He said, in John 14:15, “If
you love me, keep my commandments.” Those who say that we are now
under grace, and no longer under law, should consider the force of these
words from Christ himself in the New Testament. We are under grace, and
the law is no longer a sentence of death to us, but we are still bound
by the law of God as a standard of behavior and the only measure of sanctification.
The Law is still the measure of our love to God. It is still sin to steal,
murder, or commit adultery. We do not show love to God by assuming that,
because we are under grace, doing whatever comes to mind is acceptable.
We show love to God by doing what he says, by keeping his commandments.
It is interesting that only the first few of the commandments pertain to
God directly. The majority of the commandments speak to our behavior toward
our fellow man. In our fellow man, God has given us a visible, audible,
touchable object for our love. In showing love to our neighbor, we show
love to God. Put another way, when we keep God’s commandments concerning
our neighbor, we demonstrate our love to God. Has not God said in Matthew
25:40, “Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of
the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.”
It should be obvious that we cannot keep the commandments of God unless
we know what they are. Thus we come to the second point I believe Dr. Lindstrom
might have brought to your attention. Study the Word. Paul the apostle,
in writing to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:14-17 said:
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But you must continue in the things which
you have learned and been assured of, knowing
from whom you have learned them, and that
from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures,
which are able to make you wise for salvation
through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All
scripture is given by inspiration of God,
and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof,
for correction, for instruction in righteousness,
that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly
equipped for every good work. |
It is in the Scriptures that we learn what are the Commandments of God.
It is in the Scriptures that we learn how to love God and our neighbor.
The verse we just read says, “thoroughly equipped for every good
work.” I could say just as well, “thoroughly equipped to keep
the commandments,” for every good work is a concrete example of keeping
the law of God.
Studying the Word is not always easy. In Matthew 13:44, the kingdom of
heaven is likened to a treasure hidden in a field. To find and possess
the treasure, one must first dig. One must get his hands dirty, and break
a sweat. We are sinners, and as such we are very prone to miss the meaning
of the Scriptures, particularly those passages which are more obscure in
their meaning. To know the Word requires work. There is no substitute or
shortcut for diligent study and meditation in the Word of God.
Dr. Lindstrom would admonish us not just to study the Word. He would, I
am sure, charge you to do the Word, i.e., as we have already said, keep
the commandments. James 1:23-25 is very much to the point.
For if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like a man
observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away,
and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into
the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful
hearer but a doer of the Word, this one will be blessed in what he does.
When we do the Word, we are keeping the Commandments of God. Not only that,
but in doing the Word, we are further instructed and strengthened in our
walk with the Lord.
We cannot love God or keep his commandments without help. Dr. Lindstrom
would say that our help comes when we pray. In John 15:4, we read:
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Abide in me and I in you. As the branch
cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides
in the vine, neither can you, unless you
abide in me. |
Abide in me and I in you. Through prayer, we abide in Christ. Through study
of the Word, Christ abides in us. Prayer and study, then, are the elements
of a two-way communication between God and us. That communication, that
abiding, produces fruit. As branches of Christ, who is the vine, it is
our duty to produce fruit in keeping with the nature of the vine.
While we are producing fruit, we also need protection. Prayer provides
that very protection, as we can see in Philippians 4:6, 7:
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Be anxious for nothing, but in everything
by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving,
let your requests be made known to God; and
the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,
will guard your hearts and minds through
Christ Jesus. |
Do not forsake the study of the Word and prayer. To do so is to break your
connection with the vine, in which you have life and blessing.
Graduates, as you move forward from this day, many pleasant things will
happen in your life. You may get a job; you may get married; you may make
a friend, or any of a host of other things. Additionally, many things will
happen to you that will not seem so pleasant. You may lose your job; you
may lose a beloved spouse; you may lose a friend; you may lose your health,
or suffer loss in many other ways. In all these things, trust God. The
good things that happen, as well as the bad things, are both the servants
of God. As we see in Romans 8:28, which, by the way, was Dr. Lindstrom’s
favorite verse:
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...we know that all things work together
for good to those who love God, to those
who are the called according to his purpose. |
Do not resent the disappointing and hurtful things that will happen to
you. Trust God. If you are a child of God, nothing that happens to you
can remove you from the loving care and protection of your Father in heaven.
In Romans 8:31-39, we read:
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If God is for us, who can be against us?
He who did not spare his own Son, but delivered
him up for us all, how shall he not with
him also freely give us all things? Who shall
bring a charge against God’s elect?
It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns?
It is Christ who died, and furthermore is
also risen, who is even at the right hand
of God, who also makes intercession for us.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution,
or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
As it is written; For your sake we are killed
all day long; We are accounted as sheep for
the slaughter. Yet in all these things we
are more than conquerors through him who
loved us. For I am persuaded that neither
death nor life, nor Angels nor principalities
nor powers, nor things present nor things
to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other
created thing, shall be able to separate
us from the love of God which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord. |
In view of this marvelous promise of protection, I think Dr. Lindstrom
would tell you to keep yourself from sin. Because this protection is so
near and available to you, it would be folly to remove yourselves from
it through sin. Keeping yourself from sin is also an aspect of loving God.
We show our love to him by keeping his commandments. In keeping the commandments,
we keep ourselves from sin. Dr. Lindstrom would tell his children that, “The
Bible will keep you from sin, and sin will keep you from the Bible.” The
Word of God is your protection. Do not abandon it.
(I used a computer program to prepare this address. The program converted
my speech to text on the screen. Interestingly, no matter how I pronounced
it, the program would not put the word sin in my text. I would see the
word sentence, or the phrase send to, but not sin. Even after I added that
word to the vocabulary list, and trained the program to recognize it, it
refused to recognize sin. It was at that point that I began to believe
that computer programs may indeed be able to imitate human behavior.)
It was sin that originally created the gulf between God and us. Jesus Christ,
by his work on the cross, has bridged the gulf. Graduates, be careful that
you do not separate yourselves from God again, by falling into sin.
Finally, I think Dr. Lindstrom would tell you to persevere. In his last
sermon, he said it like this, “Keep on keeping on.”
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And let us not grow weary while doing good,
for in due season we shall reap if we do
not lose heart (Galatians 6:9). |
To those who keep on keeping on, there is a promise. We find it in Revelations
3:10. The Lord says:
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Because you have kept my command to persevere,
I also will keep you from the hour of trial
which shall come upon the whole world, to
test those who dwell on the earth. |
Graduates, as you advance from here to obtain further education, or to
begin your life’s work, do not be deceived by the false teachers
of this world. Heed the Word of God, for in it you have life.
Love God.
Study the Word.
Do the Word.
Pray.
Trust God.
Keep yourself from sin.
Keep on keeping on.
May God bless each and every one of you! Amen. |
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