Well as Mr. Myers mentioned today is a Baccalaureate sermon for the Ambassador Bible Center.  It's really a sermon to gather the experience of the year and what has been said and done in the classes  through all the experiences and in the context of a sermon on the Sabbath with spiritual intent in the biblical theme and message to sum it all up and send the young people on their way as they leave and get on with their life.  As I have always understood a Baccalaureate sermon is what it's supposed to be.  I remember having one at Ambassador College when I graduated and also even when I graduated from high school back, way back in the day we've had these Baccalaureate sermons. 

You know, we call this institution Ambassador Bible Center and that name was very carefully chosen at the time that it was chosen. It does represent in its name something very, very important for us to consider and to ponder because obviously, we all know the word ambassador carries with it a very, very long legacy within the church of God.  Ambassador College.  We were able to carry that over into this institution, not every part of it.  It's a one year program, not four as it was in the past, it's not an accredited institution, but we hope and pray that what is done and accomplished here is accredited by God in the lives of everyone who attends.  The name Ambassador carries with it the standard of excellence that are very strong.  Through the years and this will be the fifteenth graduating class of Ambassador Bible Center, certain traditions have been maintained.  I graduated from Ambassador College to Pomp and Circumstance. You will walk down the aisle to Pomp and circumstance.

Other things have been brought forward to at least bring in the tradition physically and certainly spiritually as well of what the Ambassador experience was for many through the sixty plus years ago that it was fashioned.  Bible in the name is very important as well because what is taught is centered on the revealed truths of the word of God and those truths are passed on in the instruction teaching at its core.  So the Ambassador Bible Center experience is quite strong for us all.  I wanted to say that at the beginning of my message this afternoon.  You know, every year when the students come in, we have an orientation process for them, an orientation day that begins the entire year and it's a fascinating thing to watch.  This year we had I think forty-two students sitting in their seats out here and I've noticed in the last three years that I've been here as a resident member of the faculty that the orientation day is quite unique.  Unique in this way: Every student is there usually five minutes before class starts, in their seats, ready to begin, eager, wanting to learn.  That's probably the last time you'll see that because as the days and the weeks go on, then life happens and doesn't stop just because you're at Ambassador Bible Center.  Life continues to happen.  Jobs are had, money runs low, a second job has to be added or what they thought perhaps Mom and Dad were going to foot the money a little bit more strongly doesn't happen and they have to go out and find work and they work long hours and they sit in class long hours too, from 8:30 in the morning until 4:20 in the afternoon.  It becomes a long day and I don't know how they do it.  I couldn't do it today at least in the traditional college curriculum of Ambassador.  In a normal university, it's broken up, you go just a few hours a day, you don't go like we do here, but we have to because of the nature of the program.  I don't know how it's done, but it's done.  But it does take its toll, that's my point, because as well-intentioned as everyone is, sickness happens, classes are missed,  people come in late and things happen.  As the year goes along, really Ambassador Bible Center is a microcosm of life and that is, it comes at us fast.  If we're not careful as a student participating, even all of us in our life if we're not careful, it begins to threaten to grind us up into what can be called the big average.  Just the routine of life coming to class, working, keeping up with things which is what life is all about.  We have to go to work, we have to meet the challenges that come at us and there's always the threat that it will grind us down and will wear us down and bring us to the point where we may miss one of the most important questions that the Bible holds out to us through a conversation that God  Himself had with one of His prophets.

I'd like for you to turn over to Jeremiah chapter 12.  This sermon is in a sense aimed at the graduating class, but all the rest of you can listen in because there is a lot for all of us to learn here today.  Jeremiah 12 is a verse that I have thought long and hard about through the years.  It has always resonated with me.  It comes at a point in the life of the prophet Jeremiah when he has been threatened by those from his own hometown to stop doing the work of preaching the word of God and the message of God and they are threatening his life and the work of a prophet is getting to Jeremiah and he's beginning to question himself.  He's beginning to question God, why did he take this job?  God why don't you take care of those who are evil and working against me your prophet, and this begins to be a theme, and he talks about it here in chapter 12.

Jeremiah 12:4 How long will the land mourn and the herbs of every field wither?  The beasts and birds are consumed, for the wickedness of those who dwell there, because they said, "He will not see our final end." ....That's one of the threats that was made to him.  He says that to God and then God answers Jeremiah in a question as God so often does.  That still is a question for everyone of us today.  He says to Jeremiah: Verse 5:  If you have run with the footmen and they have wearied you, then how can you contend with horses?....If you run with people, if you let these people from your hometown of Ana thought grind you down.  If you let the everyday struggles of life get to you and discourage you, if you let the stuff that happens in life cause you to lose your focus, and your balance, and your approach, and your passion, and your love toward Me God is saying.  If that does it to you, how are you going to run with the horses?  I used the image of a horse which is a mighty and a noble part of a creature.  Horses represent a certain majesty and awe when you really get to look at them and watch them work and understand how they are, they truly are.  To run with a horse would be quite a feat of stamina and pacing that we would have to do.  He says if the footmen wear you out, what are you going to do when the really tough stuff comes? And then He goes on......And if in the land of peace, in which you trusted....When times are smooth, when times are going well, you've got your health, paychecks coming in, you're got your youth, the whole future rosy ahead of you.....they wearied you,....These peoples, these things.....Then how will you do in the flood plain of the Jordan.....By using the idea of the floodplain of the Jordan, he's talking about the Jordan river which in Jeremiah's time was really quite a river.  Today the lower portion of the Jordan in Israel today is nothing more than a ditch with a little trickle of water going through it.  You can almost jump over it at various points.  But in Jeremiah's day it was quite a river.  Along the banks of the river was the underbrush and the growth in which was a lion, and other animals, and if any human would enter the plains of the Jordan, they had to be constantly vigilant and aware because it was a dangerous place to be.  And again he asked Him the question:  If the time of peace is wearing you down, what are you going to do when you're in the foot plain of the Jordan?....If the footmen that you contended with has wearied you, how will  you contend with the horses?

I've chosen for the title of my sermon today, another translation of this but I think it puts it even better.  If you're tired from running a foot race, how will you race against the horses?  How will you race against the horses?  That's the question that God put to Jeremiah.  Now what was the answer that Jeremiah gave?  What is the answer that you would give?  I will tell you that it is more than just a simple yes.  It's more than a simple I will.  It's more than a simple I'll be there.  The answer that Jeremiah gave and the answer that you and I must give is far more than just one word, one sentence, an emotional reaction in the moment.  I want you the think about that because what I'm going to do in the remainder of the time is give you four examples, we're going to look at four examples from the bible with individuals who raced with the horses and look at their lives and what it was that they had to do to race with the horses and to not to be overcome by people, by events, by the passage of life or by the times of danger that might have been there and what that means to us.

Let's look at the first one and let's just stay here with the prophet Jeremiah.  Let's go back to chapter one as Jeremiah was called by God. 

Jeremiah 1:5  "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you; and I ordained you a prophet to the nations." Then Jeremiah's s response when this conversation had was this:  Verse 6:  "Ah, Lord God!  Behold, I cannot speak, for I am a youth."  Verse 7:  But the Lord said to me:  "Do not say, 'I am a youth,' For you shall go to all to whom I send you, and whatever I command you, you shall speak."  Don't say you are a youth.  Now what did He mean?  I think it was far more than his age that was really at stake here.  He could say that, just as you and I could say that.  For as a graduate of Ambassador Bible Center you could say the same thing, we're young and you are.  You have your life ahead of you.  Those of you who are alumni in the room today or listening in, you're young as well and you have had the experience and you think it through and all the rest of us look at this and what is it to learn?  I think that Jeremiah likely saw what his calling and his office meant.  It wasn't just that he was a young person and he felt inadequate.  I'm not a young person anymore and I feel inadequate.  After forty plus years of being in the ministry I recognize my inadequacies and want to dig deeper to overcome those and get a second chance and get a second wind and do them better.  No, it's more than that, I think that Jeremiah saw, what he saw was his calling and what it meant and this he is trying to shy away from and taking up the responsibility of a calling is something that happens to all of us at various ages as life comes at us.  As the years go along in Ambassador Bible Center, as October and December come and the new calendar year turns to January and the fatigue sets in and what am I going to do with all of this understanding and how am I going to get thru it all, what does it all mean in life and we tend to begin to think we're not up to the job.  As a young adult you may see that what is required and hesitate.  Sometimes I think that that is a matter of our youth today, that there's a hesitation to commit to being a disciple, to being a disciple and follower of Jesus Christ.  To the young people of Ambassador Bible Center, to the alumni who sit out here today I want to say this:  We need you, we do, we need you to take up what you have heard and listened and been exposed to.  We need you men and women, all of us do.  Many of us have been at this for decades and we're still going to continue to work at it, but we now need you more than ever.  It is not just the fact that you're 19 or 22 or 28 or 32 or 37, it's not the years, it's the miles and the experience and it's really the heart that is what is needed.  The Church of God needs you.  It needs you to commit to becoming a disciple, a servant and wherever that will lead you because God said to Jeremiah, don't let your youth, don't let the calling, don't let what you may see down the road cause you to put it down.  "I will send you where I want, I will take you and I will send you where I you want you to go."  That is a matter of faith.  God will send you where He wants you to go, if you don't shy away from the responsibility and the opportunity of becoming a disciple and wherever that will lead you.  You don't know until you take that step.  You don't know until you decide, I will go and I will respond to that call and I will not let my youth or any inexperience stop me from serving where I can and becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ.  Don't let the culture of modern popular culture scare you or capture you.  I put that down as a challenge.  

Our modern western culture is the most alluring and the most enticing and it is the most glamorous that Satan has conceived in all of the thousand years of human experience.  It's capable of alluring Christians, Jews and Moslems. I was reading an article yesterday how many Moslems who come into America and after a few years they're just like western youth and their Moslem values and ideals are gone and it's a chronic problem within that community.  It doesn't matter if you're Asian, European, or American, whatever it is, this modern popular culture that we are a part of is very, very alluring and it can grab and sort anyone of us if we allow it.  Don't give in, don't give in.  Let yourself become a servant of God and begin that path of being a disciple and don't let your youth, don't let any part of your experiences keep you from doing that.  As a young person, decide to reach beyond the attractive popular culture that we have today and live a life of integrity devoted to God.  Dedicate yourself to God and let God send you where He will.  Let God do that.  Don't shirk back from any opportunity.  He will take one with a heart to go and do the job and He will send you where He wants you to go if you submit yourself to Him.  Trust in God.  Proverbs 3.5 says: Commit your ways to Him and acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths. That He did with Jeremiah.

Let's go to a second example.  Let's turn back to the book of I Samuel.  A woman named Hannah, without a son, without a child.  Every year she went up with her husband to worship God.  She was without a child and I Samuel, chapter 1, verse 10 tells us that she had a bitterness of soul about her as she went up and asked God to look upon her affliction, to remember her, to give her a child and she made a vow that if that happened she would devote him to the Lord.  In verse 28 when she finally had that child, she brought him back, she followed through with her word.  Samuel became a prophet of God and she left him there with Eli and she said in Verse 28: "Therefore I also have lent him to the Lord; as long as he lives he shall be lent to the Lord."  Now what Hannah did was an act of supreme sacrifice, a complete sacrifice.  It's hard for us to understand it, it's totality was more than just being barren, God answered that as He often does, providing people with children a year perhaps after they had given up on having a child.  I've seen that happen many, many times through the years.  God can do that.  But here's Hannah and she could have been tempted and maybe she was, we don't know, to say that God understands, I need a son because in the world that Hannah lived in, a child and a son was for her social security, her pension, her Medicare. her disability, her future all wrapped up into one person.  There was no other social safety net for a woman and a widow if that happened in that world and that was why children were so important and why bareness was looked upon as it was as we see several times in the scriptures.  So Hannah had Samuel and she could have reasoned any number of different ways to have gone back on her commitment to honor her vow to God, but she didn't in the story and she left him and said I will lend him to God as long as he lives.  Now as you read on in the story you know that Hannah had 5 other children, but she didn't know that she was going to have 5 other children the day she walked away from Shiloh without her little boy in her arms.  That was sacrifice.  Hannah decided to race with the horses when she made that decision.  She decided not to get ground down by the big average, the hum drum of life.  She gave a life to God expecting nothing in return.  A mother and her child and she gave it up not knowing what was going to happen.  As we read that story, it's full of a lot of teaching to us, but it is there that she gave up her son, fulfilling her vow to God.  To run with the horses, to race with the horses, means to live a sacrificial life, a sacrificial life.  That's what she did.  She was willing to sacrifice her son, not to death or not in the same way God asked Abraham to take Isaac and do what he did.  Not even what the Father did with Jesus Christ.  But to leave him in the care of a system that she didn't know what was going to happen and not be able to be involved in his life every day.  Only a mother can understand what kind of a feeling that would have been, but the sacrifice that it took to give up a life and at that point, her part in that life.  So that's what it means to race with the horses, to sacrifice.  To sacrifice your life to a greater cause.  To a cause that's bigger than you, devoting your all.   Paul writes in Romans 12 that we are to be a living sacrifice in verse 1.  Living sacrifices, that's the life that we are called to.  That's why some are the disciples.  That's the life that we teach when we teach the revealed truths of God to every class that comes to Ambassador Bible Center.  Those are the truths that we learn every week in services and as we study the word of God.  We study about what it means to live a life of sacrifice.  I've had the opportunity to talk about this concept with some over the last year or so and we talked about it with some of the other young adults to recognize what it will take to move the church of God, to move the United Church of God forward, to move it off center, to move it into a progressive stance to make a difference in this world.  To not just to perpetuate itself as part of the big average, but to see it grow and to see it develop and to see it make a difference with people who respond to the message.  To see it make a difference with the continuing generations of young people who are being born into the families of the United Church of God on a regular basis, because the United Church of God continues to live and breathe and grow and develop a need. People who will give a sacrificial effort to be a disciple and to even in those cases where God is calling and makes it a prayer that that's where He's leading an individual to be a minister.  That's what it takes and to do that, is to set out on a life of sacrifice.  Our members and those of you who are here visiting and members listening in and all of us here, we know what it takes for decade after decade after decade to show up, to obey God, to worship God, to go to the Feast, to do what is right, to serve God, to support the work and all of this institution, all of its activities like camp, the good works project, an institution like Ambassador Bible Center and to keep a dream, to keep a hope, to keep a truth alive.  We all know what that means because that is what it means to race with the horses and we have been doing that day after day, year after year, decade after decade.  Then sometimes it takes a little extra special sacrifice in our lives that resonate with us and we know it's a little special and I'm not talking about money.  I'm talking about a life, I'm talking about a commitment that it will take to see something grow and to see something develop and we have a lot of that.  That's what it means to race with the horses and to step out, just as Hannah did, just as she knew that she needed to accomplish that. 

Let's look at a third example in Acts 17.  This is another individual who decided to race with the horses.  The apostle Paul.  I get the joy filled opportunity every year to take students through the book of Acts.  I always tell them it's like going over and putting your finger into an electrical socket to read the book of Acts every year, it gives you a jolt, you always learn something new.  I hope that all of us periodically tip into the book of Acts to get a kind of a jolt, an awakening of how people who acted when they were motivated and moved by the spirit of God.  The apostle Paul was one, of one part of his life.  This year it struck me as I passed over this section where the apostle Paul was in the city of Athens in chapter 17.  Having run out of Thessalonica, passing through Berea and having to keep on going and finding himself all alone because he left Timothy and Silas and his companion along the way in the previous cities and he had been beaten up, kind of roughed around a bit.  He perhaps was thinking about that time and maybe he could go back and pick up a tent making job someplace along the  line.  He finds himself in verse 16 waiting for them, his fiends in Athens, this great city of the ancient world with all of its temples, with all of its glory, with all of its culture and he was by himself.  His spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols.  Now Paul could have taken a well deserved break.  He could have booked himself into a weekend in Cancun.  But he didn't do it.  He could have just sat under cafes of Athens and drank strong coffee and eaten pastry and whatever else and just could have marveled at the temples which is just what you do today if you go to Athens, that's about all there is to do except see the temples that are in ruins.  They haven't done much in all these thousands of years in Greece, but he didn't do it.  In Paul's day when he was in Athens, they say there were more idols and temples than there were men which is why when he saw that the city was given over to idols, they were on every corner and they were in their heyday.  The temple of Athena, the Acropolis what we call the Parthenon dedicated to the chief Phidias and all the others that were there.  He looked at them and he walked around the streets for how many days.  Seeing this, observing this and it says that he was provoked within himself.  In a sense in the Greek word, he did what we would call today a slow burn.  The anger, the passion, the intensity, the indignation began to rise within Paul.  Step by step, corner by corner, plaza by plaza, day by day until he couldn't resist it and he said he couldn't take any more of this, this is awful.  He had such a passion for God.  He had such a love for God.  He walked with God and was such a friend with God that he took that as an indignation, what he saw, a faith wholly given over to idols.  He loved God so passionately with all of is heart because he took that command from Deuteronomy literally; "You will love your God with all  your heart." That bears our thoughts, that bears our consideration.  Paul, instead of becoming a tourist decided to race with the horses.  He went into the marketplace and went into the synagogue and he engaged because that's what you did in those days.  Now we don't go into Kroger and Myer today and engage in the same way, but we take the tools that are available to us and we engage a world in front of us.  Justice is given over to idolatry.  Do we do it with a passion?  I think that we do.  Paul smashed the idols that were around him with his words.  He eventually got called up into a debate with the philosophers on Mars Hill and sort of a graduate seminar with the members of the Oxford, Yale and Harvard faculty of the day and he gave one of the most fascinating sermons in all the bible, certainly in the book of Acts.  To the unknown God and he made known that God to them because he knew that God and he loved that God.  What he saw was an affront to him.  He smashed the idols of his day with his words and today Paul's words live on and the idols are gone.  They've been replaced with different idols that we have today and we have as I said, a culture that is full of  insidiously conceived idols today that in a sense outmatch what Paul had to do and we have to contend with as well.  But instead of a life of ease in Athens, he decided to race with the horses.  To race with the horses as Paul shows us is to love God, to love God with a passion that moves us to engage the world which we live and to seek to change it.  We know that we're not going to necessarily change the world, we know that.  We look at the problems in the Middle East, the political problems, the ethnic, the religious divisions of our world.  We see the economic problems, we see people, well meaning good people who take up the call to arms and even in our own country, in the United States, and seek to change the system, to change Washington, to join a Tea Party movement, to support a particular ideology and movement and seek to change and we see that just get caught up in the big average and come to nothing.  If we're not careful we can let that diminish our passion.  We're not going to change the world, but we can show people who are caught up in the chaos of this life and of their own personal lives, we can show them how to fix their life with the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God.  We're not going to change Washington, we're not going to change Europe, we're not going to change the Middle East.  We can discern it, we can explain it, we can talk about it, and we can even warn about it, but we also can teach people how to fix their life with the message that works and engage them if we have the passion and if we truly love God.  That's what Paul did in the marketplace, in the synagogue of Athens in his day.  That's what it means to race with the horses. 

Now let's look at a fourth example.  It's in Matthew chapter 14.  The apostle Peter.  Well known story from the gospels. In verse 13 begins the story where Christ feeds five thousand people with all the loaves and fishes in a miracle in the midst of engaging and teaching many, many people.  They were there long enough.  There was a great multitude upon them.  He had compassion, He healed them and it became evening and they could not be sent away to the nearest fast food market to get hamburgers or fried chicken.  So they took what they had and Christ performed a miracle after teaching all day and He fed five thousand people.  They were all filled with what was before them, twelve baskets of food was taken up later, but the women and children and men were filled.  Then in verse 22 tells us that immediately after Jesus sent his disciples into a boat to go beyond the other side while He sent the multitude away.  He then went up a mountain to pray, He needed a little rest because He had been teaching all day and it was hard work.  You teach all day, you sit all day in class, you can sit for two hours in services, it's hard work.  Christ needed a little bit of a break.  He sent the disciples off in a boat and it got out in the middle of the sea of Galilee.  As often happens there a wind came up and tossed them around.  The disciples fell asleep in the boat and in the middle of the night they saw Christ walking toward them.  They saw Him walking on the sea and they were troubled.  They thought it was a ghost.

Verse 27: But immediately Jesus spoke to them saying, "Be of good cheer!  It is I; do not be afraid.".......28: And Peter answered Him and said, "Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water." ......29:  So He said, "Come."  Now Peter made a decision at that moment.  As he looked over the bow of the side of the boat he saw Jesus out there, he talked with Him and said:.......28:  "Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water." ...... 29:  So He said, "Come"  So Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water to go to Jesus.  Now if that's not racing with the horses, I don't know.  We read this and try to imagine it and think about it.  He decided to race with the horses.  He could have stayed in the boat where it was somewhat safe out in that stormy sea, but he had just been moved by what had taken place hours earlier.  He had seen a miracle feeding five thousand people.  He had heard the teaching, he had seen the people healed.  What Jesus had done that day was give a lot of knowledge and teaching of the gospel and God's way of life.  They have had a full day at ABC, topped off with a potluck meal, that said feed 5,000.  When you think about it, that's really what's been going on, they were getting a lot of head knowledge and Peter was inspired by that.  But this event that takes place now with the walking on the water and the stormy sea is not some little trick that Christ conjured up and caused to be recorded to impress us with that Jesus walked on water.  You already know that Peter walked on water for a short time and then he got his eyes off Christ, he saw that, wait a minute, I'm not supposed to be doing this and he started to sink under his own weight until he was rescued by Christ because it says.......30:  But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid and beginning to sink he cried out saying, "Lord save me!"......31:  And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him and said to him, "Oh you of little faith, why did you doubt?"  Peter decided to race with the horses but then he got his eyes off of Christ and Peter was that type of person who we know from the gospels, he was always wanting to be right up  next to Christ,  always the first one to give the answer, always raising his hand in class, always giving an answer, always asking a question.  He wanted to be right next to Christ and that's not a bad thing and he wanted to learn.  But Peter's like you and I, we want to follow Christ and we want to be there too, but then we get bogged down by the big average.  We get bogged down by the wind and the waves.  We suddenly look around and say wait a minute, I'm not supposed to be doing this.  I'd rather be in a peaceful land and contending with these footmen's is kind of hard and we begin to think under our own weight of doubts and fear and its at that moment that we all have to do a double check and realize that yes we want to be near Christ too, we're going to fail, I'm going to fail too, but we still want to be next to Christ, we want to be as close to Him as we possibly can and for that we need His help.  Peter decided to race with the horse.  As long as he kept his eyes on Christ, he could and as long as we keep our eyes on Christ we can, but when we take our eyes off of Christ, we will sink under the weight of our own life.  We have to keep focused on Christ, we have to.  Our own strength is not enough.  Our desire is always there.  Our desire to be next to Christ and to be pleasing to God is always there, but sometimes as we said, life comes at us fast and it wears us down and we begin to doubt and we have to then recalibrate to keep our eyes there.  As much as we desire to be like Peter, we have to keep trying. 

You look at this day, this story here in the gospel, they had a day of teaching.  You've had a year of teaching at Ambassador Bible Center.  You've filled you bibles, you've filled your notebooks, you have taken notes, you've received reams of handouts.  The copy machines have been busy through the year by the instructors who have given you all kinds of information that you have stuck wherever you have stuffed that stuff and whatever you do with that stuff and you'll look at it sometimes somewhere, so you say, but you're going to move on with your life.  You've had a day of teaching, you've had a year of teaching, just like they had.  Now you're going out on the waters.  The storms can come up quick and what you have learned is going to put to the test.  That is what this story is really telling us.  You're going to contend with the footman, don't let him weary you, besides you're going to continue to race with the horses.

Take the knowledge that you've been given at Ambassador  Bible Center.  All of this head knowledge, in the Epistles of Paul, in the General Epistles of the Prophets, in Christian Living.  Take all of that head knowledge, put it right here, put it in your heart, let it be written upon your heart for all of us because that's how we will continue to race with the horses.  We can't keep you on the pages of our bible, we can't keep it stuffed in our notebooks and in printed, electronic form, we have to write it on our hearts because one day there's going to be a storm that comes up in your life and you're going to want to walk on water, but you may run into some doubt.  Children are going to come, marriage will come, sickness might be there, a job might be lost, an untimely death might come in.  Something might happen that will test you and will test me as it does all of us in our race, in our life and in our journey and it is then that we will need to call forth that instruction that we had from our hearts and if we do it's been put there as we've lived it, then we'll be a little bit better able and prepared to keep our eyes on Christ and walk on the water with His help and not be burdened down and worn down.  Take the head knowledge that you've been given and turn it into heart knowledge.

We look at Jeremiah.  Seize your youth.  Let God send you where He will.  Seize the opportunity that is in front of you.  From Hannah, we learned that we must live a sacrificial life and we must be willing to be living sacrifices and to give our all.  From Paul, we saw that we must have a deep passion that engages this world where we find it and seeks to help it and seeks to impart what you have been given, what we have and what we hold in the Church of God before Him.  From Peter, we learn that we must keep our eyes focused on Jesus Christ.

So that brings us back to Jeremiah 12.  Let's go back to that again because the question God put to Jeremiah, you'll notice it was not an answer.  It was a question, the question that we all must settle for us as well.  Verse 5: If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you, then how can you contend, how can you race with the horses? And if in the land of peace, in which you trusted, they wearied you, then how will you do in the flooding of the Jordan?  That's a question that He put to Jeremiah.  You know the answer that Jeremiah gave?  He gave his life.  He didn't just say yes, he didn't just say send me, he didn't say o.k., he answered it with his life and that's the only answer you and I can give too.  We can only give our life as a sacrifice, as a commitment.  So the question that I leave with you Ambassador Bible Center graduates, the question that I leave for all of us to think about this afternoon:  Will you race with the horses?