Jefferson City High School's baccalaureate speaker challenged graduating seniors with a single question Sunday: Will you live for yourself or someone else?
L.P. Cook III, associate pastor of Union Hill Baptist Church in Holts Summit, said that's the choice Jesus laid out for his disciples, which is the same thing he asks us.
More than 100 of about 600 prospective graduates attended the voluntary Christian service, held at the Miller Performing Arts Center. With their families and friends, the Miller Center was mostly packed. The baccalaureate service is one week before Sunday's graduation ceremonies.
"What are you going to do with the gifts, with the education, with the experience you have? Living for yourself is easy. It's a piece of cake," Cook said.
Like others, he said, he's very good at knowing his own wants and needs.
Many people who embark on the path of filling their own desires, even people in the Bible, have found it empty and meaningless, he said.
"But living for another is a constant battle. It's not a one-time choice and then you're done," he said in his 10-minute sermon.
"No matter how much you love that other person, putting their deal ahead of your deal is difficult every single time. But this, I would suggest to you, is the definition of love. This is what Jesus means when he says we should love. This is the real meaning."
Many people in the audience, asked what they would do with their lives, would stare blankly, while others would have their entire lives mapped out and have plans for "life and world-changing" accomplishments. "The sort of thing that would make everyone 'know my name,'" he said.
What Jesus is talking about includes those things, but does not primarily consist of those things, he said.
"It's not just big things, it's small decisions every day. Most of our lives are small decisions every day. They lead to larger decisions. They lead to habits and modes of character and all of those things, but mostly they're little decisions to put someone else's deal ahead of my deal every day."
Doing this, he said, "will require more energy than you can possibly imagine."
The people you live to serve sometimes will let you down, he warned, and sometimes even assume you are trying to manipulate them.
"You will most likely burn out. You will most likely run out of energy and eventually throw in the towel," he said.
But God, he said, will provide the energy we need to do the two most important things in life: love God and love others.
"If you choose to love God first, and love others, as Jesus calls us to, you may in fact turn the world upside down. He's done it before. He can do it again."