05/16/2026
It's graduation season. For me as a high school principal it means preparing high school seniors for the ceremonies we'll be going through in the next couple weeks; things like Baccalaureate, Graduation, and whatnot. Every year, I have a few students coming into my office asking about the speeches they have to give an addresses they're supposed to deliver. Here's the deal: you can judge me for this and say, "well that's rude" or whatever. One of the biggest pieces of advice I give them is to maybe not considering giving speeches where you give advice that comes from a position of pride. Here's what I mean by that: you're 18 . . . what advice do you have to give? I don't mean that as an insult, I mean it as a reality. The only experience you have so far is getting through school. I always tell them, to come at it from the perspective of: here's what I'm trying to figure out, here's what I'm nervous about, but here's some people that have taught me some things so far.
What does that have to do with tomorrow's sermon? Well, I'm a different person than I was when I was an 18-25 year old. I remember being about 25 and me and my little brother were at Larry Radford, my high school basketball coach's house. Micah and Coach Rad were going behind the house to do something and Coach Rad handed me a grease gun and asked me to grease the U-joint on a tractor that was sitting there. They then walked off as I assured him I'd get it done. Then I stood there in an era before smartphones asking myself, "what's a U-joint?" I found some places that looked U-ish and rubbed grease all over them and got in my truck and went back home. When they came back, Coach Rad looked at Micah and said, what in the world did your brother do?
Fast forward to now: I have plenty of humility and plenty of humiliating stories. I don't posture anymore. I don't pretend like I have it all together. Put me in the same situation again, I'd ask questions about how to do that or I'd at least have YouTube to look it up. As a matter of fact, my oldest son was at Coach Rad's house the other day and he asked Justus if I wanted to come down and grease the U-joint again . . . Yeah. I deserve that.
As believers, we have to understand that we are all in progress. We are all trying to figure out how to walk with Christ, how to walk in the gifts He has placed in us, and how to figure out His will for our lives. We'll look at this and also see how this all started in Genesis tomorrow morning to figure out why we live in a world that tries to hide our inadequacy instead of putting ourselves around those who help build us up.
Join us at 10:45 for worship or 9:45 for Sunday School.
