Acts 7:55

Graduation time is quickly approaching. Final Exams are looming, Proms are being planned, college

applications are in and invitations are sent out. What an exciting time graduating from High School is.

Congratulations to those of our East Side family who are completing their high school education and moving on to greater and better things!

The most dramatic graduation exercise I know of is in the book of Acts – the context of the above Scripture text. Stephen, a Deacon in First Baptist Church of Jerusalem, had the opportunity to preach to some of the very people who called for Jesus’ crucifixion – and he “laid it on ‘em!” The crowd, which included Saul of

Tarsus, became so incensed they dragged Stephen out of the city and stoned him to death. In the midst of his graduation from this earth to glory, Stephen saw something magnificent: “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” Not only that, but he gave perhaps the shortest and best graduation speech ever: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit … Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”

Some of you have never graduated from High School, but there is one graduation you will not miss – your graduation from this life to the next. Whether it be by death or by transformation when Christ returns, all of us will graduate from this life. A High School graduate these days has multiple opportunities: college, job, military service, etc. When you graduate from this life you have only two opportunities – and the choice is made before graduation! You will either graduate and enter heaven (with Stephen) or you will enter hell.