Wake Up, Look Up

Hello, everyone. Thanks for listening to Wake Up Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Zach Weirock. And in today's episode, we're talking about graduation speeches, and we're asking the question, does anyone have answers? This is prompted by an interesting article I read in the New York Times where they looked at, a variety of speeches coming from different universities, over this graduation season.

Speeches that were filled with all kinds of topics given by all kinds of speakers, including president Trump, vice president Vance, even Kermit the Frog gave a graduation speech this year. And the New York Times did a deep dive into what are the common themes that come up in different speeches across the political aisle and across the country at universities. And here's what they found. The major themes of these speeches were things like the attack on truth. Most people pointing out that we are rapidly living in a post truth culture.

You don't know who's telling the truth. You don't know what you can believe. The Internet, the media weakening our confidence in the information we receive. Also worried about threats to democracy from both angles of the political spectrum is our government losing its integrity, societal division, racial injustice, and even the changing global role that America is playing. Should we be the global cop?

Should we be the global bully? Should we be the global ambassador? Or should we just stay home? While some of these messages called to action, the people in the audience, most of them were simply diagnosis. They were saying this is a problem with really very little offered in the way of solutions, and that's interesting to me.

And I I guess here's why. I mean, these are some of our best thinkers. Well, maybe setting aside Kermit the frog for a The whole reason you're being invited to speak at a university is because you are a culture setter. You're an intellectual person. You're someone whose life is making an impact.

And so when we ask you to speak, the expectation would be, you're not just telling us what the problem is, but you've got tangible, real answers to those problems. But it seems increasingly like our diagnosing muscle is strong in our culture. We're getting better and better at telling the world why it's wrong, but our ability to solve problems, that muscle is atrophying. Well, I wanna call you as a Christian listener to Wake Up Look Up to step into that void, if not societally, at least in your own life, that we have to realize that our so called leaders, I'm doing air quotes if you're listening, are poor substitutes for the one true king of the universe, Jesus, who told us in John seventeen seventeen that the gospel is the only lasting truth. He Jesus came not just to tell us what was wrong with us, what was wrong with the world, but to actually offer a solution, his life, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, his kingship, his work of making all things new.

He told us that our problem is sin. After all, John says in John one that if we confess our sins, if we agree with Jesus, if we'll acknowledge our diagnosis, then hear this, he is faithful and just to forgive. Jesus is the one leader who not only tells you what's wrong with you, but who offers to solve it, to heal it, to restore it. Jesus never comes with problems without solutions. He never comes with accusations without mercy in his other hand.

If you're seeking hope this graduation season, you're not gonna find it from Kermit the frog, but you will find it in Jesus, what the apostle Paul writes Corinthians 15 all about because the resurrection is a sign that the answers that god has brought in Jesus are swallowing up the problems we have brought to the world. Even this graduation season, if you're longing for unity, for us to put down our weapons and to stop yelling at each other all the time, It's the gospel that does that too. Galatians three twenty eight. There that there we can all finally and wholly be one in Jesus Christ. If you're longing for purpose, then remember that it's Jesus who said in John fourteen six, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

He brings meaning and purpose. Look, this is a long winded way of me saying simply this, the purpose and meaning, the healing and reconciliation, the forgiveness and restoration you're looking for can't be found in any leaders of our culture. And if you doubt that, listen to their speeches. They're full of criticism and no real answers. Pick up your bible.

What you're gonna find is that it is the complete opposite. One, hard to hear criticism. Our relationship with God is broken and it's our fault. But thousands of pages of hope just for you. So maybe turn off a speech and instead pick up a bible and find hope in the one true leader, Jesus Christ.

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