This is from our pastor, Bob Vincent. It is my privilege to introduce to you our guest speaker, Richie Cable. The only problem is that I have to ask our principal, Ms. Kay, to read this introduction for me, because I listened to my own sermon and decided to practice what I preach. In my sermon this past Sunday, I said that charity begins at home, and whether it is our finances or our time, family comes first, even ahead of the church. Of course, the Lord Jesus comes ahead of everything, but volunteering in the church to the point it hurts your family is not the same thing as putting Christ first. The class of 2012 is the 18th graduating class of Grace Christian School. I have always attended these graduations with hearty enthusiasm, but my wife and I are attending the graduation of another Grace graduate. one from the class of 2002, Andrew Vincent. Andrew is receiving his master's in biblical studies, and our son-in-law is receiving his doctorate, both in Jackson, Mississippi. So putting family first, I am not here, but I have come to respect and love each member of this year's senior class, as I had the privilege of teaching them this past semester. Please forgive this slight. Richie Cable moved to Alexandria in the spring of 2005, over seven years ago. We called him to serve as our assistant pastor. In the course of time, our congregation called him to be our associate pastor, and I had hoped that one day he would replace me. But the Lord had other plans, and Richie has accepted the call of a needy congregation in Kansas, Missouri. Ritchie is a graduate of Baylor University and Covenant Theological Seminary. One of Ritchie's hobbies is filmmaking, and he is nurtured in the Christian home of Janet and Sam Cable, both of whom were public school teachers. But in addition to teaching school, Ritchie's dad was also a Methodist minister and a film producer. and the apple didn't doesn't fall far from the tree. Richie's filmmaking skills have been put to great use here at Grace both in teaching as a the faculty sponsor of our film club and in producing the presentation of our senior class that you will watch shortly. Last year, the Rapids Foundation awarded Grace $10,000 for a very creative video promoting a healthy lifestyle. It was the work of our students, but it would never have happened without Richie. Richie is married to the former Melissa Parker, and they have three children, Parker, Cooper, and Sophie. Not long after Richie arrived, he became involved in helping transport Hurricane Katrina evacuees to Lafayette. and that was only the first of many adventures he had while here. He also chaired our church revitalization committee and did a fantastic job. But the thing that most stands out to me about Richie is his loyalty. Graduating seniors, I wish for you true and lasting friendships, the greatest of which is found in the Lord Jesus Christ. But we need people in this life too, and Richie has been such a friend to me. Please welcome him and hear what he has to say. Richie Cable, a true and loyal friend. Bob Vincent. Thank you, Bob. V-I-K. I appreciate it. Well, good evening, everyone. senior class, I told you that it's the first class of this year I told you that this would go by in a flash and that before long you'd be sitting where you were sitting tonight and that all of this would happen quickly and as always I am right. No, I'm very proud of you. I'm very proud of all of you. I am excited and just honored to be able to deliver this final message to you. It is called a commencement. And Evan, I believe your dad actually shared with us that commence means it's not the ending. It actually means the beginning or to begin or to make a beginning. And that actually is kind of what we are trying to do here tonight. we're trying to start you on a new beginning. And so that is our goal, that we would begin that journey with you and send you off, and we pray that that journey is marked with joy. It's marked with full of life. And at that journey that you were going on, I would be honoring to the God that you have heard about and learned about during this first journey that you have completed. And so with that, let me read the scripture we will be thinking about tonight. It is 2 Timothy chapter three, verses 14 through 17. But as for you, Continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for this passage. Lord, we pray that for the next several minutes that you would bless this time. Lord, that you would give us wisdom and discernment through your word, that your Holy Spirit would open our eyes and ears. And Lord, we pray especially for this class, Lord, for these seniors. You would open their eyes and their ears to what you have for them in this message that starts them out on a new journey. Lord, we praise you and we ask this in Jesus name. Amen. I'm going to leave senior class for just a little bit and I've got to talk to you all for a little bit because I have to bring them up to speed on something that you all already know about. This past year I had the opportunity to teach this class and we taught worldviews or Bob and I taught worldviews to them and we looked at all different things and one of the things that we looked at, we studied the goal was to help them see that all different things impact and affect you and that when you look at the world, you view it a certain way and that you look through a certain lens when you view the world and so thus world views. And one of those lenses that we look through is that of generations. that sociologists have shown and seen that there are different distinct generations and that there are traits that each generation has. And so we looked at several different generations. We looked at the GI generation. We looked at the silent generation. You guys remember this or not? All right, very good. See? We looked at the silent generation. We looked at the baby boomers. We looked at my generation, generation X, and then we looked at their generation, the millennial generation. And as a desire and as a means to try to understand each generation, we took a look at the different media produced by that generation, either produced by them or about them. And when we got to the baby boomers, we had the opportunity to watch a show, and that show is called The Wonder Years. Now, does anyone remember The Wonder Years out there? Hey, there they are. So there they are. That is the Arnold family. We watched several episodes of The Wonder Years, a desire to try to get to know both the silent generation, which is the father in the episode, as well as a means to try to understand a little bit about the baby boomers. And I grew up with this show. I love this show. I have a nostalgic just, I mean, it's one of the best shows in my mind that I've ever seen. And it is something that from my childhood just resonates with me. I love it. I watch it. And so I was just so pleased to be able to share that with the senior class. And they seemed to also like it, or maybe they were just kind of, you know, being nice and kind. But it was a wonderful show, and the show basically happens in 1968, and the main star there is Fred Savage. He plays Kevin Arnold, and Kevin is a boy, and the show follows him from adolescence until he's a teenager, until he graduates. And so that is the basic concept of the show. However, one thing that you have to know is that as you watch the show, there's a narrator, and the narrator is a 35-year-old Kevin looking back and narrating about his life as a little kid. And, you know, I always walked around thinking, you know, it would be great to have my own narrator, you know, to hear what's going on, you know. And there I was on the stage, you know, looking out at all these faces. This little, that was my narrator. To have this narrator. Because as we go through life, we have all different ideas, all different thoughts that go through our mind and all different things that are thrown at us. And as I was pondering tonight about what I would talk about, I thought, you know, that if all of a sudden we had the opportunity to hear your 35-year-old narrator, it would be very interesting for us to hear some of those things that they would say. And that's when it dawned on me. This was going to be the last time we saw Mr. Cable. Gosh, we were going to miss him. Well, guys, what I said is it would be nice to hear it. I didn't really want you to say that. But it's very sweet of you to say that you're going to miss me. That's very kind of you. I don't know who said it. I don't know whose narrator that was. I wish you wouldn't do it again. Calvin, was that you? and with the wonder years of high school ending, the big questions of life started facing us. What are we going to do? Where are we going to go? Who's going to pay for all this? All right, guys, seriously. You need to turn off your narrator. Get it off. We're done with narrating, all right? I'll let you in on a little secret. That's not really their narrators. We are going to come back to that voice that we just heard a little bit at the end, okay? Have a little story about the voice that we just heard. But I want to say this, that the thing about the show is that as you go through life, as you grow up, and we saw Kevin hit all different obstacles, all different things that he's going through, and the same is true of you, that as you go through life, you hit all different obstacles, you hear all different voices coming against you, or voices encouraging you in certain ways. Tonight, I'm sure that you're sitting there and you might be thinking about future plans, you might be thinking about college, you might be thinking about all the different things with your new journey that's going to happen, Could be that you have thoughts right now that, you know, when you say goodbye tonight to some of the people that you might not see them again. Could be sad thoughts, could be happy thoughts, excited for that freedom that you've always wanted. But tonight you have, you're bombarded with thoughts, you're bombarded with ideas. And then as you go on to either work or college, you're going to have people say things who have other different ideas. Maybe a college professor who challenges something that you've seen. And as you move on from there, you have all different challenges and thoughts regarding morality and our culture that are going to be thrust against you. All different ideas. And your narrator is going to be in overtime. You're going to have all different things going on, all different things being said. Some of you will encounter trial or tragedy in life, and then suddenly everything that you learned, everything that you thought you knew about God, everything that you learned at grace or at church or whatever, all of a sudden now it's going to be challenged. You learned about forgiveness, but now it actually means something else when you actually have someone to forgive. You learned about God being in control, but then you see a tragedy and then it becomes difficult. And then as you go through all these different voices, all these different things pushing against you, and what's going to happen is over time, these different thoughts and these different philosophies and the culture and all these things are going to have an effect on you. And I'd like to show you a picture of something here. All right, this is in the Ninth Ward. This is after Hurricane Katrina. And you see here now that the structure of that house now is tilted. All the wind, all the different external forces have tilted the house. And in many ways, you have this same external force against you. And it will begin to push on you and push on you. And pretty soon, you get to a point, and it's clear to us, this house has some serious issues. You wouldn't want to go in there and take a nap. But if you tilt your head about 30 degrees, it's okay. Well, not fully. But it's all perspective. So we tilt our head and we say, oh, actually it might be okay. It might be okay. And you might have this deal where the culture is saying you so many things that the media and all the different things of this world, the enemy has said so many things that after a while you lose your basis of what is truth. Here, you're losing your basis of what is truly vertical. What is true vertical? And so you get caught up in all of these things and then all of a sudden you go, what is true? What is true anymore? And what I want for tonight to be is a reminder that you have been given something, all right? And you have been given what is called a plumb line, okay? We have a picture of a plumb line as well. Now, if we have any folks here who do any building or anything, you know what a plumb line is for. If you're like me, you don't know much about building, and you didn't know what it was for, and you had to ask a good buddy of yours, who does a lot of stuff, to make sure that when you get up to stand in front of people, that you actually say it correctly. But here's what it is, you ready? This is what I learned. Plumb line, that you hold it, okay? It's got a string on it, and you hold it, and it points, and where's it gonna point once it finally comes to rest? It's going to point at the center of the earth. And it is called true vertical. And so when you have a house that's tilted and you take a plumb line and you put a plumb line right next to it, it becomes very clear that it is out of sorts, it is slanted. But a true vertical, a plumb line is needed that brings you back and then you're able to say, okay, there's correction here. As you go through life and as you have all these different voices and all these different things pushing against you, My hope and prayer for you is that you will remember that you have been given a plumb line from us, from your parents. You've been given a plumb line from those at your church, Sunday school teachers, VBS teachers, all the people who've done things for you. They have given you a plumb line that they did not create. It did not come from them, but it came from God. And so looking once again at 2 Timothy, it says this, but as for you, Continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of because you know those from which, from whom you learned it. And how from infancy you have known the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Here's the deal. You're going out into a world that has all different sorts of ideas. And you need to remember that there is such thing as true vertical. There is such thing as a plumb line. And then what Paul says here to Timothy, and Timothy is one who is young in the faith to him, he is to Paul. Paul looks to him and oftentimes calls him child. And he reminds him that he has learned something from his parents, from his mom and from his grandmother, that he has learned from them the Holy Scriptures. And he goes on to say this plumb line that you have been given. Verse 16, all scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. Scripture has lots of stuff, okay? All of this, though, is a plumb line. And you've been handed different truths your whole life. You've been given different truths. I want to remind you tonight of two of them. The first one is this, and I've done this for you before, but I want you to see it again, because for me, I want, as you leave here, to be reminded of this. You all remember we studied a book called Genesis? Remember that? Not as many head shakes. All right. Well, here we go. There are lots of things here. Here's what I want to show you. This is Genesis. This is Genesis chapter one and two. I'm gonna show you what this plumb line teaches, okay? We're gonna do it in about 30 seconds. Genesis one and two. I'll show you all as well. This is the story of what? Creation. Hey, that was an easy one. Softball. Creation. Genesis one and two. This right here is one third of your Bible. It's a story of creation. Then you have Genesis chapter 3, which is right here. And Genesis chapter 3 is what? Do you all remember? Thank you, Jared. The fall. This is now two-thirds of your Bible that we've been through. The fall. And now this right here, all right, this final part of your Bible, the final part of the plumb line, is that of redemption. creation, fall, and then redemption. And what we learn about God's character, what we learn through this plumb line, is several things. One is that you are in your sin in that fall, what happens is that this huge thing happens. Ones who were image bearers of God, who were made in God's image, who loved God, who had fellowship with God, now they're marked out. They've got this scar. They are no longer in fellowship with God. And then from there, we have this beginning of redemption, the Proto-Evangelion. Do you remember these words? The first gospel. And there was a promise that one would come and crush the serpent's head. And from that point on, that is the story of the Bible. It's one of redemption. It is one that maybe, if you are here, and having talked to you all, I believe that you all are at this point, but only God knows, Part of the redemptive story is that of coming to Christ. All right? And many of you have seen that in your own life and in your own heart. But then the other part of redemption is also participating now in the redemption of the world around you. The sharing of the gospel and the application of the gospel, both in word but also in deed. And you have the opportunity to participate with God in that kingdom. The second truth, and there's lots of plumb lines that we could look at, but the second one is I told you I would tell you a story at the end about that voice. Please don't laugh at me. All right. I told the seniors whenever I learned that I was going to be moving to Kansas City, I told them that I wanted to go all out and that I wanted to, in this year's video, I wanted to get, I was going to make it the best one ever, I was going to get Morgan Freeman to narrate the video. And they laughed and they said, no, no, no, you should get the guy off Wonder Years. And I laughed and said, no, no, no, you know, not going to happen. Well, I finished the video and as I came to the end of the video, I thought, you know, I wonder what the guy who's the actor is up to these days. And so I went online, and I found that he's still doing a little bit of acting, but now he's into sculpting, and he has his own little art studio, and he's got his own website. So I thought, well, I'll send him an email. And I sent him the email. I told him about Morgan Freeman, how you guys said, no, you should get the guy off Wonder Years. I told him all these things about teaching a worldview class, and how we had been watching the show, and all of this. And I didn't hear anything back. And I finally finished up everything and it's just a couple of days ago I went ahead and I found his website on Facebook and I liked him. Now I haven't liked anything ever on Facebook. I'm like the worst Facebook friend you could have. But I liked him on Facebook and three hours later I get an email from him. And in that email, he said that he was touched by the email that I had sent him and that he would be more than happy to come up with a couple of things to say for the evening. So the voice you heard earlier was the guy off of Wonder Years who graciously, his name is Daniel Stern, and he graciously did that for us. Now, I was, I'll tell you when that happened, I was on cloud nine. Remember, this was like my, outside of Michael J. Fox, there's not anyone else I could have met that I would have been more happy with. This was like one of my nostalgic heroes, all right? And I was supposed to mow the lawn that day, and I mowed it like in half the time I was whistling. And I was so excited, because I knew that you all would find it very interesting and hopefully excited about it as well. And I was so excited. And as I was mowing the lawn, the lawnmower went out of gas. And I had time to think as I was going and refilling. And I did something that I encourage you all to do, and I still encourage you to do it. It's asking the why questions. Why does your heart respond a certain way? Why are you in pain? Why are you happy about this? What is it about us? And I thought for a second, I said, why am I so happy? Why was I so excited that I'd gotten this email and this tape? And all of a sudden I thought, well, I'll tell you why I'm excited, because I feel like pretty much a nobody. Well, I mean, here, I just, I feel like, all right, I'm just a guy in Louisiana and, you know, I have little impact here and there, but this is like Daniel Stern. This is the guy who was in Home Alone. This is the guy who was in, he was one of the bad guys in Home Alone. This is all, this is the guy who's a voice on the Wonder Years. And what my heart was resounding about was that I felt insignificant. What I felt was that someone of significance cared enough to take care of my need. And all of a sudden it clicked in my heart that it was a gospel attraction. That's why I was so excited because what I really long for is something much more than Daniel Stern. What I long for, knowing that I am insignificant, is one of ultimate significant. One who is ultimately significant to come and to meet my need. And then as I ponder that, that yearning of my heart for a God who would not just love me, but also a God who would pursue after me. Remember the redemption part, it's God pursuing after us. And that's what my heart really yearns for. not recordings from Daniel Stern, though I was very thankful and gracious for it. And as I think of that truth, I want to remind you of this. It's a certain plumb line. And it's this, that no matter where you go, no matter what happens to you, no matter how far off track you get, that that same God who pursued after me, who has pursued after you, who you have learned about here, will always be with you. For those who are in Christ, God is always with you. He will not leave you. He will not forsake you. It doesn't matter how great college is going. It doesn't matter how sad and lonely you are at college. God is with you. It doesn't matter if you lose a job. It doesn't matter if you have all the money from the job. God is with you. It's a plumb line. That when all these things, when you're at your lowest, you have got to have truth and come back to that and say, this is what I believe. God is with me, God loves me, God has sought after me, and he has saved me through Christ. In the Old Testament, oftentimes God gives people a sign of something that is a symbol of something that has happened that allows them to remember that thing. And one of those things is in Joshua, when they cross over the Jordan, God has them pile up some rocks. Do you remember this? Pile up the rocks. And the reason is, is that from that point on, Joshua 4.21, it says, when your children ask their fathers in times to come, what do these stones mean? Then you shall let your children know Israel passed over this Jordan on dry ground. It was a remembrance. When they saw the stones, it would remind them of how God had provided. There's also the Passover meal, a remembrance of the Passover. It doesn't stop in the New Testament. In the New Testament, you also have the Lord's Supper. It is a reminder of ultimately the death and sacrifice of Jesus. What I'd like to give you tonight is a little thing that I had an idea of. And I'll be honest, I don't know how I'm going to actually get these to you when you're up here, but I'm going to try. because we have to shake hands and I give you a picture. This right here is something I made. I don't make much stuff. And you're saying, what is that thing? This is a mini plum line, okay? It's a key chain. And I am taking one with me to Kansas City because I need this as well. This is where I get emotional. My desire for you, my desire for myself, my desire for everyone, is as struggles and trials come, as the good and the bad come, that you have that symbol, that reminder of a God who loves you, a plumb line that brings you back to that true vertical. And what I'd like for you to do is to take this and as you go through life, that it is a reminder that there is all the voices, all the different things that you are feeling. You know, if you're lonely like me in Kansas City, if you're excited like our kids because they have a basement there, whatever it is that you're excited about, whatever it is that you're sad about, a reminder that God loves you, that he has sought after you, that there is a plumb line for you as you try to navigate this world. All right, I love you all. Let me say that as my final year here, you all have been a fantastic senior class. All right? I'm very proud of you. I've been talking to the juniors all week as well, I have them too. And my encouragement to you all as well, you all have been a wonderful junior class to have. I'm sad I won't have you senior year, I really am. But I love you all as well. And as we go to Lord in prayer, I'm gonna figure out how to actually get these to you on stage, okay? All right, let's pray. Father in heaven, you are so good to us. You love us and you care for us. You have sought after us. Lord, you have given us your word even though you didn't have to. And Lord, that word is a plumb line. It is a true vertical. I pray for anyone in here who has been tossed by the winds and the waves of this world. Lord, whose house is about to fall. Would you show them that there is true vertical? Would you show them that there is truth, that there is a God who loves them, a God who spent the majority of his Bible talking about redemption? Lord, that there is one who has died for their sins. Lord, I praise you and thank you for this class, this senior class. They hold a special place in my heart. Lord, I pray that you would bless them and keep them. Lord, that they would always be reminded, once again, of true vertical. Lord, we praise you and we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.