Confirmation Sermon

Pastor Burcham’s Sermon

Confirmation Sunday, May 4, 2008

Confirmation Sunday. It’s finally here. You know what that means, don’t you? Freedom! That’s right. Freedom! Nine months ago, you all gathered on a Wednesday evening, all the requirements for your last year were laid out before you. The list was long. The tasks were daunting. But now all done. You’ve checked off each and every one of them so it is freedom, sweet freedom. You have completed all of the requirements and now the culmination comes here today. So after today, sermon summaries? I don’t think so. Daily devotionals? We’ll talk. Servant events? I’ll have to check my schedule to see if I have time. Youth events or going to Castaway? Let’s see how the spirit moves me on that particular Sunday because, you see, you’re done. You finished all of that.

Parents, you’re done. Back at the baptism, you made a promise that you were going to bring them up in a Christian home, then you were going to bring them to God’s house so that faith could continue to grow and mature. So now here it is. Confirmation Sunday. Mission accomplished. No more having to run them up here on Wednesday nights or Saturday afternoons or drive over to Omaha for some servant event. All done. No more checking on their memory work. No more making sure and kind of getting on them night after night to make sure they have that paper done. It has been completed. Your work here is done.

But there’s one question then? If it’s all done, what now? Have you thought about that? What about tomorrow? What now? I mean, after all, if you’ve completed all the requirements, to me that sounds like when you graduate from high school, you’ve completed all the requirements and everybody always asks you, “So now what are your plans for the future? What’s next for you?” So it seems to me if we’re going to say that everything is done, everything is completed, the question is, “What are your plans for your spiritual life now? What’s next? What now?”

Interestingly enough, what I might dub as the very first confirmation class asked that same question. Very first confirmation class started out with 12. They got whittled down to 11. They were Jesus’ disciples and they spent three years with Him of instruction, of being trained by Jesus. And then one day, Jesus said, “Listen, I’m not going to be with you much longer. Your training is done. It’s completed. Mission accomplished.” And the disciples said, “What now? If Jesus is leaving, if the training is done, what now?”

Well, the answer Jesus gave to His disciples is the same answer that He gives to you. And what Jesus said and what we read just a few moments ago, what’s next for the disciples and what’s next for you, He says, “Remain my friends.” Jesus had called each one of those disciples into a faith relationship, called them out of their careers to follow Him for three years worth of instruction so they could be in a relationship with Him and now, as He leaves them, He says, “Remain my friends.”

You have been in confirmation instruction for three years, maybe longer and now you ask the question, “What’s next?” And Jesus says, “I want you to remain my friends.” He called you into this relationship through your baptism. Most of you don’t even remember the day that His Holy Spirit entered into your heart and He created faith and He called you into this friendship with Him. And this friendship, this relationship, it’s been growing, it’s been maturing throughout the years and now it culminates here in one sense on Confirmation Sunday but Jesus’ words to you are, “This isn’t the end of our friendship, is it? Let’s continue in our friendship. In fact, let’s make sure that our friendship grows even stronger, that our relationship grows even deeper than what it is today.” So Jesus’ words, so what’s next, “Let’s remain friends,” He says.

If you think about friendship, there are several things that really contribute to friendships growing and maturing. The first one is friendships really grow when friends know that they care about each other, when they express the fact that they care for one another. Did you notice Jesus’ words to His disciples, “My command is this. Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends and you are my friends.”

Have you ever had somebody stick up for you, kind of come to your defense? Maybe it happened several years ago in school. You said something embarrassing, you did something embarrassing or Mom put something ridiculous on you and pushed you out the door? And all the other kids were making fun of you and they were all teasing you and, all of a sudden, there was this lone voice, a friend of yours stood up for you. And even though he or she knew that she was going to be teased or ridiculed or made fun of right along with you, no, they stood shoulder to shoulder with you and then they took it with you. That really showed the friendship, didn’t it? That really solidified the bond between the two of you.

Jesus goes one step further. Jesus says, “No greater love as someone who lays down his life for his friends.” And you all know that Jesus laid down His life for you. He came and He stood along side of you even though He knew that your sin was going to be transferred to Him. He knew that your guilt was going to be transferred to Him. Even though He knew that your punishment was going to be put upon Him upon the cross, yet as a true friend, He came and He stood next to you. And He took the weight of that sin on the cross and He laid down His life for you to show just how much He cared about you.

Jesus has shown how much He cares for you, how much He loves you, how much importance He places on you. Do you think there’s anything then that He won’t do for you? If He’s willing to lay down His life for you? That means He’s concerned about every aspect of your life, every moment of your life. He wants to know about that math test that you really did bad on and you’re scared to tell your parents about it. He wants to know about that boy you’ve been looking at in 5 th period. He wants to know about that girl that you’re nervous about talking to. He wants to know about the argument that you had with your parents. He wants to know about every aspect of your life because, as your friend, He cares for you and He’s demonstrated that.

And now He invites you. He says, “If you also are my friend, then you can care about me.” Jesus says, “If you’re really my friend, you’ll obey my commandments.” Now Jesus isn’t saying that He’s going to just sort of pull the strings and He’s going to watch you dance, He’s going to have a bunch of hoops that He wants you to jump through. You already know how much He cares about you. You already know that He wants the best for you. And so if there’s anyone in a position to know exactly how your life should be led, it’s Him, isn’t it? And so as a true friend, He says, “Obey my commandments.” That means every time we stand up for Jesus, every time we stand up for what we believe, every time we walk along the path that He set in front of us, our relationship with Him grows. And our friendship becomes stronger because we knew that He has stood up for us and we’re standing up for Him. And He’s cared for us and now we respond by showing how much we care for Him. Because that’s what friends do. Friends care about each other.

Another thing that makes friendship grow, friendship grows when we work along side one another. When you do a task together, that really bonds friends together. Well, Jesus said this, “You did not choose me but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.” Jesus has chosen you to be on His team. He’s chosen you to walk beside Him and to work along side of Him. You all have completed a project with somebody else, right? Maybe getting ready for Confirmation Sunday. Maybe you had to clean up the yard or maybe you had to help clean up the house and you sort of all pitched in together. Maybe not a good example, okay. Maybe you’ve done a project together, though, right? Parents, have you done projects together with your son or your daughter? Maybe you finished off the basement. Maybe you built something. Maybe you put in the garden. You guys have done projects together with fellow classmates. Maybe it was for science. Maybe it was for social studies. You work together and, although the job was big, when you got done, you had a great feeling of accomplishment, right? And not only feeling of accomplishment, but didn’t you have a special bond with that other person? You shared the load, you did the work together and now you both share in the fact that it’s done. That really builds up a friendship.

Jesus says I have chosen you to be on my team. He says you didn’t chose me because we couldn’t. But God came down and chose us. So God called us into a faith relationship with Him. God put us on the team. And He says now we’re to go and bear fruit, that is, we’re to work the work that God has for us. It’s His salvation, it’s His love but we can become His hands, His feet and His voice to the world. We can work along side of Jesus. Jesus said, “Every time you feed the hungry or you clothe the poor or you visit the lonely, it’s just like you did it for me.” Jesus says, “I need you to go out into the world and to share with them the salvation that can only be found in my name.” If any of you have reached out in Jesus’ name, maybe you’ve fed the poor on an occasion or maybe you’ve given a donation so you could clothe someone who didn’t have any clothing or maybe you’ve taught the word of God to a little one in VBS or you’ve gone off on a mission trip or you’ve done anything where you’ve reached out in the name and in the love of Jesus, you know what that does for your relationship with Him. Because, all of a sudden, there’s this bond between you and your God. Because He’s called you into service and He walks beside you and He empowers you with His spirit so you can be His hands and His feet and His voice because friends work together. They work side by side.

The other thing I noticed that makes friendship grow, friendships grow when we enlarge our circle of friends, when all of a sudden we become the friend of a friend of a friend or maybe even the friend of a friend of a friend of a friend. All of a sudden, we start enlarging our circle of friends. Jesus said, “This is my command. Love each other.” Now did you note that He didn’t say “like each other?” He said, “Love each other.” You see, there’s an important distinction there because the fact of the matter is, this side of heaven, we’re not all going to like each other. We have different personalities. We have different interests. We come from different backgrounds. We may not necessarily enjoy each other’s company but Jesus says we are to love each other.

Haven’t you found that true with your friends? Maybe you have a friend and he or she has a friend that you really don’t like that person. You don’t like it when they’re over to their house and you have to arrive, right? But you have something in common. You have your friend. Jesus says that all of us, as the family of believers, are His friends. That doesn’t necessarily mean we’re all going to like each other because we have different personalities. We have different likes and dislikes. But it does mean we’re going to love each other. It means we’re going to care about each other. We’re going to show respect for one another. And we’re going to draw strength from one another.

Maybe the most important message for you young people today is that you need to take note of the people who are sitting around you because they may very well be the most important people in your life the next few years. You see, you may not like each other, okay. You come from different schools. You come from different backgrounds. You have different personalities. But Jesus says, “Love each other” because you all have something in common. You have a common faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. You have a common set of morals. You have a common set of beliefs. You have a common idea of what’s right and what’s wrong. Not everyone you know shares those beliefs. And certainly, when you go off to high school next year, not everyone in that school is going to share your beliefs and your moral convictions. But you all do. And you all do. And that means we come together as the friends of Jesus. And we can draw strength from one another. You see, you 31 are going to face challenges and pressures and already have that, frankly, I nor your parents have a clue about. We don’t know. We can’t understand. People next to you can because they’re going through it with you. Face those challenges together as friends of Jesus. Draw strength from one another as friends of Jesus. If there’s one set of people that you should be able to be open about your faith, it’s right here. Because you’re all saying you believe the same thing. If there’s one space that should feel safe to you, it should be here within these walls, within this youth group. Because you all share a common faith and a common belief. This needs to be the place where you come back and you get re-energized and you get reconnected to God. You get encouragement so you can go back out into the world to a world that doesn’t necessarily believe as you believe. But you can remain strong as long as you have one another. You see, your friendship and relationship with Jesus can grow stronger because of the friendship and relationship you have with one another because that’s what friends do. They enlarge their circle of friends.

You know, I just thought of something. If friendships grow when we show that we care about each other, which means that we want to listen to what our friends have for us or if we want to grow in our friendship with Jesus, we want to listen to what He has to say to us, let’s see, that could be done maybe through sermons and daily devotions, I think. If friendships grow when we work along side of someone, so our friendship with Jesus grows when we are on His team and we’re His hands and His feet and His voice, I suppose that could happen at maybe service events or mission trips possibly. And if friendships grow when we enlarge our circle of friends, I suppose that could happen at Castaway or Youth Group.

You mean there was a point to all of that? Who knew? So one answer to the question then this morning is what’s next? I could say, “More of the same.” But with one very important difference. Now it’s up to you. There are no more sermon summaries to hand in. Nobody is going to be checking your memory work. More than likely, nobody’s going to check up on you whether you’re doing your daily devotionals. It’s going to be up to you whether you sign up for the mission trip or you head downtown to serve others. It’s going to be up to you of whether you come to the youth groups and to the high school group and you bond with the other people and you have this relationship of strength because, you see, after today, you take responsibility for your spiritual life. Your parents are going to be here to support you. I’m going to be here to support you. Pastor Meyer is going to be here to support you. Tim’s going to be here to support you but the bottom line is now it’s up to you.

So if you’re going to remain friends with Jesus, if you’re going to grow in your relationship with Him, the responsibility is yours. Personally, I think you will. Amen.

Copyright 2008 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church