Keeping the Goal in View

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special day.
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I want to take just a moment to introduce our commencement speaker today.
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His name is Dr.
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Medford Keith Foskey.
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He is the pastor of Sovereign Grace Family Church in Jacksonville, Florida.
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He's a graduate of Jacksonville Baptist Theological Seminary.
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He's a homeschool parent who is passionate about teaching.
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He and his wife Jennifer have five children ranging in age from 20 years to six months.
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His primary goal in life is to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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And so at this time, here he is, Pastor.
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Good afternoon.
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Welcome graduates, parents, family members, and friends.
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I want to begin by saying this, I've been seated where you are several times.
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I've gone through a few graduations myself and I remember those days well.
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I remember how much my family came around me and loved me.
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I remember the feeling of the gown and the tightness of the hat.
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I remember my friends, but I don't remember any of the people who spoke.
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So I'm not going to be too offended if you don't remember what I have to say today, but hopefully I'll give a little something for you to take home with you.
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I would like to thank Dr.
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Hereford for his leadership and hurry, for Mrs.
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Jennifer Foskey for her coordinating this event, and for all of the volunteers who have come and who have given hours and some days in preparation for this graduation.
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As was said, my name is Keith Foskey and I'm the pastor of Sovereign Grace Family Church.
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I have served that church for 12 years as the pastor.
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Prior to that, I was the associate minister.
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Prior to that, I was the youth minister.
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And before that, I was a member of the church.
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Every week I have the opportunity to preach to our congregation and share the truth of the word of God with them.
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But this is the first time that I've ever had the opportunity to speak at a commencement address.
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I've spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to say.
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I've prayed a lot about what I wanted to give you, and I was thinking about different types of things that I could say.
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I was thinking, well, maybe I could give you some life advice, like don't go out and get a credit card.
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Don't do that.
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Wait until you have some money before you go investing in your own credit debt.
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Don't spend all your time worried about style, because no matter how you look today and 10 years from now, you're going to laugh at yourself anyway.
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There was a time when bell bottoms were cool.
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So just know that nothing lasts forever.
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But as I began to think about my audience, as I began to think about you as graduates, I was thinking about the fact that all of these life lessons that I could give to you, all of the things that I could say are probably things that you have heard before.
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In fact, as homeschool students, I am going to bet that your parents have poured into you knowledge and understanding and wisdom from their own lives.
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And I imagine there's not a lot I could say that would be able to add much to what they've given to you.
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So instead, what I want to do today is I want to share a little bit of my life with you, something that happened to me and something that I hope might be an encouragement to you.
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I want to share with you about the first time I ever experienced tragedy.
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I grew up with a mom and dad who loved me very much.
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In fact, I was common in my home to hear the words, I love you.
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And to hear the words, I love you, too.
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And to this day, my father, 72 years old, and every time he gets on the phone, he'll say, I love you.
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And I got to say, that's one of the joys of my life that I'm grateful for is that my parents and I have a great love for one another.
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My mother and father were my whole world when I was a young boy.
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I was an only child.
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So it was just the three of us.
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We took trips, we held hands, we shared meals, and I thought the world was perfect.
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I thought our lives were great.
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But then when I was seven years old, my mother and father got a divorce.
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And for me, it was very sudden.
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They had hidden the struggles from me.
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I didn't know about the things that they were dealing with.
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I didn't know about the battles that were happening behind the scenes.
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And to be honest with you, as a seven year old boy, I was in absolute shock.
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I ended up staying with my father who would go on to meet and marry a woman who became my stepmother.
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And she had a son who was similar in age to me.
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And truth be told, I didn't like her very much.
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I felt like she was too strict.
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I felt like she was too demanding.
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And the worst thing of all, she wasn't my mom.
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Likewise, I went from being an only child to now having a sibling who I had to share everything with.
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And he was a little older.
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He was a little smarter.
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He was a little funnier and he was a lot cooler than I was.
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And one of the things that happened out of the situation is that my stepmom began to take me to church.
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Before this, my family didn't go to church and I really resisted it at the time.
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I remember being very difficult to deal with.
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I didn't want to go, but she persevered.
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And with my father's blessings, she continued to make me go.
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And I grew up in church because of her.
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Now, remember earlier when I said I pastor the church now and before that I was a youth pastor.
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Before that, I was the associate pastor.
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Before that, I was a church member.
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The church that I'm the pastor of now is the church that my stepmother made me go to as a child.
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I've never been a member in another church.
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I've never been a part of any other church.
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That church that my stepmother drug me to as a child, God would use later and make me the pastor and the teacher of the church.
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And I tell you this story because at the time of my parents' divorce, there was nothing in the world that I wouldn't have given to change the situation.
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There was nothing in the world that I wouldn't have given to have my parents back together.
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There was nothing in the world that I wouldn't have done just to have it back the way that it was just me and my mom and my dad.
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But now, more than 30 years later, I can look back on that moment of tragedy with a perspective that I could not have then.
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And I can see that God had a plan for my life, even in the most difficult moments of my life, where I would have changed things.
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God was arranging things because he could see what I couldn't.
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He knew what I didn't.
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And he had a plan for my future.
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In the Bible, we read a story about a man named Joseph.
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Joseph was his father's favorite son, and because of that, his brothers hated him.
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And so they beat him and they sold him into slavery.
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And when they sold him into slavery, he was taken to Egypt, where through a series of circumstances, he ended up being one of the most powerful men in the land, second only to Pharaoh.
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Later, his brothers would be brought before him.
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And here he is, this regal person of majesty, and his brothers are brought before him.
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And they are afraid because they know it's him.
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And they know that they have a recompense coming.
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They know they deserve to be punished for what they've done.
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And they're set before their brother Joseph and Joseph looks at them.
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And in Genesis chapter 50, verse 20, he looks at them and he says, what you meant for evil, God meant for good.
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God had a purpose in this thing that you have done.
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So my encouragement to you today, graduates, as you now begin to move into adulthood is simple.
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You need to trust in God as you go that knowing no matter what you face, God will always have a purpose in it.
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Even when you face inevitable tragedies, even when you face the pitfalls of life, even when you face the things that you wish you could change, even when you struggle with doubt and uncertainty.
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God will still be on his throne.
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And I said earlier, I'm a pastor and I know that makes people nervous because they think they're going to get a sermon.
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And I don't want to preach a sermon to you today, but I do want to tell you this.
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I don't know what your backgrounds are.
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I know very little about each one of you.
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We joked around a little bit earlier.
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We talked a little bit and we saw your pictures up on the screen as we practiced for tonight.
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But I don't know you, especially in the sense of knowing your hearts.
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So for a minute, I just want to take the time to share something very important with you, because as I said, when my stepmother took me to church, I didn't want to go.
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I didn't want to be a part of that.
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I didn't want anything to do with it because I didn't understand the value of God and the value of the Bible.
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And I imagine in a group this big, there's probably a lot of people here today that came with different perspectives and different ideas and different views on what the Bible says and who God is.
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But I want to say this.
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I grew up in church, but I didn't get saved until I was 19 years old.
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I didn't get saved until after I left home.
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I left home at 18.
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I got married at 19.
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And it wasn't until I became I came face to face with an atheist and he confronted me about my faith that I even realized that what I grew up with, even though it was the faith of my stepmother, even though it was the faith of many of the people that I spent time with, it wasn't my own faith.
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It was just a faith that was in the background.
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It wasn't the bedrock of my life.
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It wasn't the foundation of who I was.
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And I had a friend who was a Christian and that Christian spoke truth into my life.
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And by God's grace, I was saved.
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And so for a minute, I want to speak truth into your life.
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As I said, I imagine many of you grew up in Christian homes.
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Many of you have probably heard the truth before and many of you probably heard the gospel before.
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But I'll tell you this.
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I've done a lot of interviews with people.
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I've talked to a lot of young people that grew up in Christian homes.
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And I found out one thing.
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A lot of people can grow up in Christian homes and not know what the gospel is.
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If I asked you right now, do you know what the gospel is, would you know the answer? Praise God for an honest answer.
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So as I begin to close, I just want to share the gospel with you.
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If you've heard it before and you believe it, then praise God.
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Let this be an encouragement to you.
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If you don't know it or you don't believe it, may God use this to stir your heart.
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The Bible says that every person has broken God's law.
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And because we've broken God's law, we're responsible to him because he is a righteous judge.
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And if we face God having broken his law, we will receive his punishment.
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But God and his love sent his son to live a perfect life and then die on a cross.
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The perfect life was to demonstrate that he himself did not deserve to die so that his death could be a substitute.
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When he died, he died not deserving it.
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He died because I deserve it.
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And when he died, the death that I deserve was given to him and all my sins were placed upon Jesus and he took my sin on the cross.
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And the Bible says when he died, he said it is finished.
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That means paid in full.
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The debt that I owed because of sin was paid by my savior.
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And the Bible also says this.
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It says, because not only am I a sinner, but I'm also devoid of righteousness, that Christ's righteousness becomes mine as a gift where my sin is given to him and he pays for that punishment.
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I receive his righteousness as a reward.
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And now when I stand before God, I stand before God not only as forgiven, but I stand as fully righteous, not by anything that I've done, but because of what Christ did on the cross.
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The Bible says God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we could become the righteousness of God and him.
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That's the gospel.
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That transaction is the good news.
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What do we do with that? The Bible says, repent of your sins and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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So that is my encouragement to you today.
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On this day of your commencement, I tell you this.
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I cannot promise you a life without struggle.
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In fact, all I can promise you is the opposite.
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Some of you earlier, I and we're going to hear this.
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The group will hear this.
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Some of you said you want to be missionaries.
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That's wonderful.
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Praise God.
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May you go and may you plant the flag of Christ in a place where it's never been planted.
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But know this.
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It's not an easy life.
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But God has not called you to an easy life.
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God has called you to a life of perspective where when you get to the end of your life, you can look back and you can, as I look back at a seven year old boy who cried out for his mama and wanted it to be different, but it wasn't.
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But now I can look back and I say, God, you had a purpose in this.
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And I pray that you understand that same purpose for you.
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And I tell you, if you make the goal of your life following Jesus Christ, when this life is over, you will not be disappointed.
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When this life is over, you will know that God has caused all things good and bad to work together for your good because you love him and he loves you.
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The title of my talk today is keeping the goal in mind and my encouragement to you.
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Make following Jesus your goal.
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Make that your goal, no matter what you do.
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You can follow Jesus as a welder.
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You can follow Jesus as a diver.
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You can follow Jesus as that's the only two things I can remember from your statements.
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But you can follow Jesus through whatever a missionary, you can follow Jesus or whatever you do.
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And often we think of graduation as the end of something.
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It's not.
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Graduation means you're going up, you're taking the next step.
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And the actual word for today is commencement.
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You're going forward.
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You're commencing.
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You're starting out.
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This is over.
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This is done.
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Now you commence forward.
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And my prayer for you is that whatever you endeavor toward in life, you will commence by following Jesus Christ.
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And may God be with you as you commence.