Now ladies and gentlemen would you get on your feet and welcome to this Podium Dr Rick [Applause] Warden those of you who are seated uh in the stadium seating I wish I wish you could have seen what I just saw in that moment of worship as I watched the faces of this year's graduating class the class of 2024 sing from their hearts to the Lord all my life you have been faithful all my life you have been so so good with every breath that I am able I will sing of the goodness of God and
I was watching their face they meant it they meant it it's an honor to be here to the Board of Trustees the board of directors President Wilson the Deans The Faculty administrators donors those of you graduating today your family your friends and those of you uh who are paying for their education congratulations now to you you guys the class of 2024 graduates I say Well done well done everybody everybody in this room is so proud of you because in spite of many impediments uh sometimes that other classes didn't have to deal with like a covid
pandemic and threats of you know tornadoes and a lot of other things you made it you finished the task you came to the Finish Line so congratulations now since this is May the 4th I am Duty bound to say May the fourth be with you may the fourth be with you you know as I was sitting here I I was thinking of a experience that I had with Oral Roberts personally I've never shared this publicly I've shared it with your president but I've never ever told this publicly to anybody else but when oral and Evelyn
retired they moved to Newport Beach California which is my area and uh oral would often sneak out and come over to worship at Saddleback and he would sit on the front row over to my right I know exactly the chair he would sit in one of the times we were Kay and I my wife and I were having a dinner at oral and Evelyn's home oral was facing some major health issues at that point and he asked Kay and me to lay hands on him and and pray for his healing and I said well I'll
do that if you'll pray for me right after that and so he said okay deal and so Kay and I laid hands on oral and we prayed for a healing of his health and then he laid hands on me and an and prayed a blessing on our ministry after that was over um I had a chance to ask oral a question that I had asked another dear friend of mine John Wimber I once asked John when you pray for people being healed what is the most important thing going through your mind as you're praying for
the healing of someone's body I asked that question of oral and interestingly enough he said the exact same four words that John wiber had told me probably five years earlier he said this that people feel [Music] loved that people feel loved I had another message planned for you today and there's no such thing as a short bad commencement speech but I just decided sitting up here that I'd kind of toss my notes out and talk to you for just a second about why love is the most important thing life is all about love Galatians 56
says this the only thing that counts listen to this Galatians 5:6 the only thing that counts is Faith expressing itself through love now if you get that graduates you'll make it the only thing that counts is Faith expressing itself through love as a pastor this is my 54th year in Ministry 43 years at Saddleback Church I have stood at the bedside of maybe thousands of people as they took their last breath what people say in their final moments um is pretty important they don't mess around when people are dying in their last words nobody has
ever said uh Pastor Rick bring me my trophies I want to look at them one more time or even bring me my college graduation certificate I want to look at it one more time when people are dying and they know their time is short what they want in the room is not things or trophies or achievement what they want are the people they love eventually we all eventually figure out that it's all about love it's all about relationships I just pray you'll figure it out a whole lot sooner that it's not about achievement that it's
not about Fame that it's not about fortune that it's not about all the things that you dream of accomplishing in life those are great goals but Paul says without love I am nothing I am sounding brass and tinkling symbol if I have not love I'm nothing one day Jesus is walking down the street and a guy walks up to me and said uh Lord can you tell me what is the most important commandment Jesus says oh that's really easy I can summarize the whole Bible in two sentences all the law and all the prophets I
can summarize it all in two sentences I'm going to give you Cliff Notes on The Bible here it is love God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength oh and by the way love your neighbor as yourself that's it that's it a great commitment to the great commandment and the Great Commission will grow a great Christian we'll grow a great church we'll grow a great company if you get the five verbs of the great commandment and the Great Commission you got it made you see you were
made by God and you were made for God and until you figure that out life's never going to make sense now the Bible says God is love doesn't say he has love it says he is love love is the essence of God it is the nature of God it's who God is God is love the only reason there's any love in the universe is because our creator is a loving God if God was not a god of love there would be no love in the universe the only reason you have the ability to give love
and to receive love is because you are made in God's image unlike animals birds don't love worms don't love fish don't love horses don't love you were made in the image of God God is love and he gave you the ability to love him and to be loved back he gave you the ability to love others now your first purpose in life is not to love God listen to me it is to let God love you to let God love you the Bible says we love because he first loved us we respond to the love
of God I can't tell you in my lifetime how many people have come up to me and said something like you know Rick I think my problem is I just don't love God enough and I say that's not your problem that's not your problem your problem is you don't understand how much he loves you because if you understood how much God loves you you can't help but love him when you understand and you feel now you've heard God loves you all your life but when you finally feel loved by God unconditionally loved by God it
changes you now God loves you on your good days as much as he loves you on your bad days God loves you when you feel it God loves you when you don't feel it God loves you when you do the right thing God loves you when you don't do the right thing because his love is not based on who you are it's based on who he is it's not based on what you do it's based on what Christ did for you on the cross with arms outstretched and nail pierced hands and blood flowing down Jesus
is saying to the people I love you this much I love you so much it hurts I'd rather die than live without you that's how much Christ loves you you can't make God stop loving you you can try but you will fail because your love is not based on any condition it's based on God's character when you get that it will set you free so I'm throwing out the other message and I just want to say this it's all about love it's all about love nothing can transform your life if you marry your marriage can
be transformed by it your company your business your ministry the more you dwell in the love of God the more God's anointing and power will be on your life now if you want God's blessing on your life and you want his power in your life and you want his anointing on your life then you have to care about what God cares about most he wants his lost children found so no matter what you do you're going to be a witness you're going to be a witness in life the question is a good one or a
bad one but it's all about love I'll tell you a story and I'll close many years ago I sent a couple from our church Denny and Betsy Cohen uh to speak and teach in ping University ping University is um the only thing in Beijing still called ping it's the Harvard of China it's 50,000 students and uh every communist leader in China if you're going to be a leader you go to Ping University so Denny and Betsy were there and I said while you're there make contact with the highest levels of government because I want to
have Ministry in China they happen to meet Mr Deng who is the director of religious Affairs code word that's the guy in charge of persecution and they asked him one day he said would you like to go visit Saddleback Church he goes yeah sure so we sent an invitation 18 members of the Communist pit Bureau came to California I served them a barbecue in my backyard I cooked them ribs we didn't tell the government we didn't I didn't tell our church I didn't certainly didn't tell the media but 18 members came and sat through a
Saddleback service and after it was over I wasn't even preaching that week uh my youth pastor uh Doug Fields was at the time was preaching he was doing a message on Christian parenting and after it over I asked uh Mr Deng uh what' you think of the sermon he goes wow I actually got something out of this he said I'm a dad I've got two kids he said' I actually learned something he said if this is your brand of Christianity he said you'll be welcome in China about two months later uh I got a letter
and uh it said we're going to give you what we've only given to one other person to Billy Graham who was my mentor for 42 years I met him when I was 18 He mentored me for 42 years he said uh we're giving you cart blanch in China you can come in you can bring your books in they can be sold above ground whatever so that started a long relationship uh in China One of I had two State dinners in my honor in people's Hall in tenman square debating the Communist leaders on one of those
trips uh they actually have a they have a study for the center center for the study of Christianity in uh ping University now none of the professors are Christians but they study us like Lab Rats you know why are there so many Christians in the world and they said hey Warren's in town would you come over and dialogue with us I said sure So I take my team over and we met with four professors from paking University and we had a nice conversation for two three hours sitting over here in the corner was an older
gentleman a professor Joe who is the Provost of of uh ping University at the end of that mess message uh our time together I said look you guys I love Chinese food and you probably know the best place in ping a Beijing so uh you take us there and I'm buying so we did so we all go out to dinner very nice restaurant sitting next to me at the table is the Provost of the Harvard of China and as we're talking I discover that he's dying of a brain tumor I'm thinking this is an opport
Unity to show love and so I just start pouring on the love of God I told him you know uh Professor Joe I'm not uh my father is actually dying right now of cancer but he's not afraid to die he's known the Lord all of his life he's been a friend of Jesus Christ he's been in Ministry for over 50 years he's not afraid to die he's made his peace with his maker and I just start talking about Professor Joe about how much God loved him before he even knew who God was that God had
never there had never been a moment in his life when God didn't love him and I began to tell him a story about a friend of mine Pastor in Texas who took his son to the carnival and he bought a roll of tickets so that he could ride the free rides and he let his son bring his three best friends so at every ride he'd give his son a ticket he'd give his three best friends a ticket he'd go to the next ride give his son a ticket give three best friends a ticket next Ride
three to his best friends and one to the son on the fourth ride he looks down and there's a fourth little hand sticking out for a ticket and my friend said who are you and the little boy said I'm your son's new friend and your son told me that if I was his friend his father would give me a ticket he said you think I gave that kid of course I did he was with us the rest of the day he got to ride everything for free in the carnival I said Professor Joe your heavenly
father has a ticket for you because he loves you and he sent his son to die for you and Christ's love on the cross shows how much he loves you and it's a ticket to heaven now you can't buy this ticket you can't earn this ticket you can't be good enough to get this ticket the only only way you get this ticket to Heaven Is by being a friend of his son and I looked over and tears are coming down both of his cheeks the Provost of the Harvard of China and he says to me
in broken English I would I would like one of those tickets now the Chinese people as a culture are incredibly polite I didn't want to push him at this moment but I wasn't let off the break either put on the break either so I said let's do this why don't we just finish our meal together and if at the end of this meal you still want a ticket that your heavenly father has for you I would be happy to introduce you to Jesus Christ I've walked with him almost all my life I know him as
my best friend I would be happy to introduce you to Christ so we finished the meal and as we fin we talked about all kinds of other things during the meal and as we finish the meal he looks at me and again says I I would like one of those tickets so right there in front of his four atheist faculty members we all joined hands together and I led him in a simple Sinners salvation prayer and when we finished I looked up he was sobbing and I go yeah he got it he got it now
the next morning I was speaking in the most famous Church in China it's called the changin men church it's a big church about 6,000 people attend every week and uh the pastor was actually here in America attending Seminary the associate pastor was a young woman Slender Woman hair down to about her waist associate pastor maybe was in her early 20s the front row were all these Elders who were literally Elders they were all looked like they were 80 and they're cheering on this young woman pastoring the church while the other pastor's gone so she introduces
me and as I get up to speak the back doors of the church open and in walks Professor Joe and he walks to the front of the church and he turns around and says and of course everybody knew he was the Provost of the Harvard ofagina and he turns around and said today I am publicly proclaiming my faith in Jesus Christ and the place went crazy they're shouting they're cheering they're dancing they're weeping they're doing flips and all kinds of stuff friends that is the power of love and so the only thing I want you
to remember as you leave this graduation CU you won't remember anything else is this the only thing that matters is Faith expressing itself through love so go into the world and love the least loved people God bless you [Applause]
