Today we are going to talk about something that we don’t talk about a lot. We certainly don’t talk about it enough and that is eternity. Forever. We use these words often in our daily living but we have reduced this amazing truth down to mean things it really doesn’t. We may think chapel feels like an eternity. A school weeks lasts forever. Trust me. Those things aren’t even close to forever.
Meet Joree Jackson. Joree has been at ACA since preschool and is poised to graduate from ACA in the spring of 2018. For the past fourteen years, Joree has worked hard to distinguish herself as one of ACA’s best and brightest young leaders, embodying the highest ideals of Annapolis’ mission and vision to graduate students who are:
We are extremely proud of Joree’s many achievements as a student of Annapolis, but we are most proud of the person that she has become. We think you’ll agree.
One of the most important parts of any plant is its roots. The roots are where a plant finds its stability. As the roots grow deeper and wider, the plant is able to grow taller and be able to withstand the wind because it has such a solid base. A plants roots also draw in the nutrients and energy that the plant needs to grow. The better and more nutritious the soil, the better the nutrients that the roots can draw up to the plant itself.
I know not everybody grew up on a farm so I will give you a quick lesson on farming. When you eat an apple, that apple was not born at the local grocery store. It was grown on a tree. That tree didn’t just show up either. That tree grew from a seed. An apple seed to be more precise. It took years and years for it to go from a seed to a sapling, to a full grown tree. If I gave an apple to you and you ate it down to its core and you gave me the seeds and I planted them and something started growing from that seed, you would not come up to me and say, your grapefruit tree is growing. Right? Why not? Because there is a law of nature. You don’t plant a peach pit and get strawberries. There is a consistency between what is planted, what is grown and what is harvested. An apple seed will grow an apple tree from which you will be able to harvest apples from.
The Bible is a Truth to be obeyed or given adherence to. So, what happens when we don’t obey? It usually doesn’t end well! Obeying creates safety for us that God provides because of his great love for us.
I grew up on a farm and one of the things I hated the most was during the summer was when my mom would make a list of chores for me to finish before I could do anything else. The thing that I wanted to do more than anything else was to go fishing but I knew I had to do chores first. Of all the chores that my mom could write down, the worst ones were cleaning. This wasn’t vacuuming or dusting, no it was cleaning up after animals. You see we had a fair number of chickens and horses and they would spend their nights in the coop or stall and they would make their mess inside. Someone, usually me, had to keep these buildings clean. It was a hot, dirty, smelly job. In the 1500’s, people would look at someone who did those kinds of jobs and think, only people who work in the church are really doing the work of God. Today I am going to talk briefly about an idea that Martin Luther brought forward during the reformation that was completely revolutionary for its time. It was the idea of calling. He insisted that the farmer shoveling manure and the maid milking her cow could please God as much as the minister preaching or praying.
Who do you think talks to you the most? Your teacher? Your parents? Your annoying brother or sister who won’t be quiet? I think the answer may surprise you. The person who talks to you the most is you. No one talks to yourself more than you do. It is helpful if you keep the conversation in your head and not talk to yourself out loud because people may think you’re a bit weird. God created you and me to try to make sense out of life. We are constantly trying to figure out what in the world is going on and we do that by talking to ourselves.
Last week we talked about how every thought, every word, and every deed is moving us in a direction. We are going somewhere. In Psalm 1, David says you will be blessed if you don’t go the way of the ungodly, the sinner, and the scornful. It starts with going for a walk, standing, and eventually sitting. It never happens all at once.
As “there are no small things”[1] we are told to “work heartily, as for the Lord” (Col. 3:23), something as simple as making your bed[2] can do wonders for your happiness and health, and carefulness is a virtue, according to Aristotle, then paying attention to details and concentrating on bettering seemingly unimportant small skills is important for the overall well-being, success, and fulfillment of a student. Thus, the insistence when a teacher makes you put your heading in the correct corner with each piece of information, or makes you use graph paper for math, or makes you re-do an answer that she cannot read—are all examples of an effort to help a student realize the importance of being careful with details.
The sermon uses the metaphor of games for resource allocation and human cooperation to help understand the story of the creation of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in Genesis 2. Students were challenged to ask themselves about the goals of the various games they play in life (family, school, religious, etc) and whether or not the strategies they employ will lead them to desirable outcomes. The standard is God’s claim that the world is a better place with humanity than without it (Genesis 1:26-31). Are you handling your life in a way that allows you to assess it the way God originally assessed man’s presence in his creation?