Charge from the President to the 2024 Boyce College Graduates

Well, this is one of those days you see on the horizon for a long time, and just as we are reminded on the horizon, it appears as a speck. The closer you get to it, the more it becomes visible, and now all is visible. Let’s look out here at the array of graduates. All is visible! Look at those family members who are gathered here and look at the fact that this is a lawn that has been turned into an amphitheater. This is an outdoor space that is now filled with academic formality. This is a school that has outgrown the ability to have the commencement inside, and thus, we go outside—which means that every year we play a certain game of chicken with the weather. But the Lord has given us this day; the Lord has given us this opportunity. Here we are. It is a spectacular day. The sun is shining, the skies are clear.

These graduates are about to graduate. That speck on the horizon is now this vision before us, and yet even as we say that we recognize it just points to another horizon, and that’s the horizon of how the Lord will use these graduates for his glory in his church and in the world. And that’s what really makes us happy because there’s a sense in which we’d be happy looking backwards, and an awful lot of people are happy this day, and they’re saying, “This is the day we were working for. This is the day we were praying for. This is all the investment that has been made!” And students are thinking, “This is all the study that I’ve done, all the courses that I’ve taken, all the papers that I’ve written, all the assignments that I’ve completed. This is it!”

This is the terminus. Of course, it’s not. It’s not even the terminus of the day. At some point you’re going to start thinking about lunch, and it’s not just lunch, that’s just the way God made us. We have this to do right now and we’re going to get everything out of it that is possible. It’s big, it’s magnificent, it’s historic for families, for individuals, for this institution, for the church of the Lord Jesus Christ! But what really matters is what happens after this. What happens in the lives of these graduates poured out into the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the service of God and to the glory of God.

We celebrate life milestones because that’s just the way we are, and it’s right and proper. And this is the way it should be done. We need to dress differently for an occasion like this. The graduates are dressed differently. There are only a few hours of one’s life most people wear that kind of regalia. Some of us are sentenced to wear it… more often. It’s actually a glorious thing because it hearkens back to the seriousness of this call and even in its design just points to the majesty of learning and the stewardship of teaching and the assignment of God that we become Christian scholars and serve the church. It is a big milestone. This as big as you think it is.

The secular context… I don’t know exactly what a commencement speaker would say, which is one of the reasons why there’s even been controversy in the last several weeks, of course, about canceled commencements and so many other things, but what was the commencement speaker going to say anyway? “Good luck. Go home. Send in the clowns. Go you, be you.” Now, I’m not saying that there’s nothing to that; I’m just saying I don’t want to do that. I’m very thankful to be here in a Christian institution, recognizing this milestone for what it means, yes, in the lives of these graduates, yes, in the lives of these families, but what it means for the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ for the glory of Christ, in the church, and in the world. So, our commencement is different. It’s not less celebrative, it’s more we understand far more is at stake.

We also understand far more is expected. These graduates are invested not only the hopes for successful careers and all that, say, in the secular frame, friends may wish for friends, families may wish for families, parents will wish for their offspring far more as expected. The hopes are far higher. And we’re talking about the hopes not only of those who are living but the hopes of those who are dead—prophets, apostles, and a succession of faithful Christians who have worked hard and given much and invested in order that we would be here–this generation this day.

I want us to turn to a text: 1 Corinthians 15. A very familiar, the great passage in 1 Corinthians 15 in which the apostle Paul was speaking of the truth, the power, and the centrality of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. But I want to read just nine verses, indeed, today, just eight, beginning in verse 50.

Paul writes “I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your sting? O death, where is your victory?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”

It’s an incredible passage, is familiar to us all. It begins, of course, as the conclusion of Paul’s great argument about the truth of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, his bodily, physical resurrection. Christ is raised, and thus our sins are forgiven! Christ is raised, and thus the perishable will now put on the imperishable! Christ is raised, therefore, we are saved! Christ is raised, therefore, we have a gospel to preach!

Coming to the conclusion of this great passage, Paul speaks of the centrality of the resurrection and speaks of this promise, “Behold, I tell you a mystery,” he says, “we shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed.” We go through several changes in life and each one of those is something of a milestone. We pass from infancy to childhood, childhood to adolescence, adolescence to adulthood, and adulthood to different ages of adulthood—different milestones. But every single one of them is marked by the fact that it becomes important because we’re temporal creatures, we’re human creatures. We have these milestones because this earthly life is finite. But the perishable will put on the imperishable those who are in Christ. His resurrection is the promise of our own resurrection. Paul makes clear the central fact of the resurrection of the Lord. Jesus Christ means that our world, our lives, are translated from death to life, from defeat to victory. so much so that Paul will say in this beautiful language, “Death is swallowed up in victory.” It’s an amazing statement: death is not only defeated, it’s swallowed up in victory.

How comprehensive is the victory of the Lord Jesus Christ? “Death is swallowed up in victory.” How triumphant is the victory of the Lord Jesus Christ? “Death is swallowed up.” But at the same time, our Christian faith requires that we look to this life while we are still in this perishable frame, where we as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ are left in this world for this time in order to accomplish a purpose for Christ glory. And so, it’s fascinating to me—and I direct your attention to the fact—that the apostle Paul turns from the promise of the resurrection in the gospel, in the future, and points us to the present in that phenomenal last verse of 1 Corinthians 15, “Therefore, my beloved brothers be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”

And so, all of a sudden, here at the end, there’s a swerve back to the present. All of a sudden, at the end, there is a change of reference from that frame of eternity with Christ to the responsibility of Christians in this age, in this world. And all of a sudden, there is this swerve that, in the light of the resurrection, we are to fulfill all that Christ has assigned us and obey Christ and serve Christ and do the things that Christians are called to do. But in the light of the resurrection, we do so “steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”

So, I speak to the graduates this morning because we’re going to be fascinated and thrilled to see how the Lord uses you in so many different callings in life. We’re going to be looking forward to hearing how some of you preach the gospel. We’re going to look forward to hearing how some of you take the gospel to the ends of the earth. We’re going to learn how some of you show the glory of God teaching in an elementary school classroom, how some of you show the glory of God in your investment in business, how some of you show the glory of God and your involvement in other cultural activities and everything from politics to the nonprofit sector, you go down the list. Part of the joy looking out at this graduating class is that, to be honest, if you ask them what’s next, they may, and probably do have, a pretty clear idea of what’s next, but what’s next after next that’s securing God’s providence and that is the promise of God’s glory, and that’s the excitement of this faculty, and it is the promise of God to these graduates and to his church through these graduates.

It is not my purpose today to offer any kind of career advice—no kind of vocational counseling in a secular sense. I just want to speak from the heart to these graduates to say, number one this institution loves you and is thankful for you and is incredibly proud of you. You just have to understand what you look like to us. Okay? Here’s what you look like to us: we serve for years in an institution like this, in a school like this, in order that it will be strong for students who will come in years, even in decades, to come; and so, someone had to be working hard and praying hard in order that things will be ready for you to arrive when we didn’t know who you were; and then we came to know who you were, and you came, and then you became a part of us, and you will always in some sense be a part of us; and we are very thankful for that, and we’re very proud of that. And today, you as a part of us, are being sent out into the world because you have run the course that was assigned to you in your academic program of study. You have completed the undergraduate course of education. The Lord has a purpose for you, and that purpose is going to take you from here, there.

I just want you to know what you look like to us: you look like the answer to prayer. I also want you to know you look like the promise to the church. You look like God’s promise that he has not finished with his church, and he is going to supply his church with a generation of those who will be faithful believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, fulfilling all that Christ has commanded to his church. We hope you’ll come back often. We hope you will let us know exactly how the Lord is using you. We hope you will maintain the friendships that have developed among yourselves. We hope that you will always, in your heart, carry a part of Boyce College and Southern Seminary, and we hope you will bring your offspring back. Roll them onto the campus in a stroller, we’ll celebrate that. And then bring them for a preview day, so that they can continue the tradition that you represent today. That’s just the way Christ Church works.

But as I speak to you, and as this entire crowd of very proud and thankful people overhear what I say to you, I want to go back to verse 58, “Therefore, my beloved brothers be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” Brothers and sisters, be steadfast. Pretty easy to understand, “Be steadfast.” Stand! It’s a biblical imperative. We are to stand and not fall. We are to stand in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are to stand when the world would demand that we fall. At the end of the day, we’re to be found standing. Be steadfast. Know your convictions. Know who you are. Know your passion for the Lord Jesus Christ. And in that passion and in those commitments, “Be steadfast, immovable.”

All kinds of forces in this world would move you, and would move you away from faithfulness to Christ would, move you away from love for the Lord, would move you away from fidelity to the calling the Lord has given you, and would move you away from all of the things bring God greatest glory. Be steadfast and be immovable. And then, the third statement, “Always abounding in the work of the Lord.” I just love that—”always abounding.” And there’s a sense in which when you look at that word, you think, well, that’s the Lord’s blessing, the abounding part. Our part is the work part, his part is the abounding part. But you know what? That’s not exactly the way Paul says it. He says, straightforwardly “always abounding in the work of the Lord.” Now, number one, that is the Lord’s gift, but number two, it is to be our aspiration and our commitment to be “abounding,” abundantly abounding, “always in the work of the Lord.” And then that last part, “Knowing that in the Lord, your labor is not in vain.”

The way this works is that your working life, in terms of your calling, looks long from where you sit. It’s shorter than you think. And furthermore, that’s in the hands of the Lord. But the imperatives the apostle Paul gives here, he goes on to say, as he concludes, “Always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord, your labor is not in vain.”

So, here’s my closing promise to you: your labor is not in vain, not because of who you are; your labor is not in vain, not because of what Boyce College is. Your labor is not in vain because of the family that has brought you here; your labor is not in vain because we got to dress up on an occasion like this and celebrate such a milestone; your labor is not in vain because Jesus Christ is Lord, because Jesus Christ is raised from the dead. And my exhortation to you is to remember that as we are always abounding in the work of the Lord, the work is never in labor because Jesus Christ is Lord, and the grave is empty. And we are here in His name, and what a glorious day this is.

So, go forward with the prayers of all Christ’s people, and go forward determined to serve the Lord Jesus Christ, always abounding.

Be steadfast and immovable, and we will celebrate the glory of God in you.

Amen.