Living Authentically: Oranges, Apples, and the Faith We Need

(audience cheering)
Dr. David Fraze: Well, I love you too, that's fun.
All right, we're gonna talk about oranges.
We're gonna talk about three-legged horses and sidewalks.
Now, one of my favorite things to do is eat an orange.
Oranges, they have bright colors, they're juicy.
And sometimes you take a bite of an orange,
and it drips down your face, it's awesome.
You can talk with your mouth open, no one cares,
'cause it kinda freshens your breath
with that orangey, fresh feeling.
It's awesome.
Oranges are also great for vitamin C, and that's good.
Because at fall break, if somebody got the sniffles,
if you're new, this is West Texas,
if the wind blows in California, we get a virus here,
so it just kinda blows around.
So it's important to eat all of your oranges
so you can be healthy.
Now, oranges, (audience laughing)
oranges can be very dangerous, 'cause they have seeds.
If you have a lot of money, you can go to United
and get one of those seedless oranges, Josh.
Those are good.
Not near as much fun, 'cause if you're dating, gentlemen,
give that girl a seed orange, so if she chokes,
you can give her the Heimlich.
(audience laughing)
Pro tip, anyway.
(audience laughing)
There's something about oranges that can change your life.
Now, I am Dr. Fraze for some of y'all who are here.
I've been doing research a long time
with uncaged adolescents.
I'm not scared of you.
I've been around Axe Body Spray in confined areas
with middle school kids and survived, why?
Eatin' my oranges.
Now, here's a disturbing fact in why I do what I do,
alright, from right here to this side.
Split this section in half, I want all of you to stand up.
Not y'all, right here.
Stand up!
Take a bite of my orange, 'cause you're too close to me,
I could get a virus, hold on.
Y'all are breathing kinda heavy and gross, all you visitors.
Okay, here's what happens, stand up back there!
Here's what I know, and it already starts to happen
even at a Christian university.
The best stats I can give you is this.
Half the people who grew up knowing about Christ,
when they're your age, will start to fade
and will eventually walk away from faith.
They won't go to a different denomination, they'll quit.
That bothers me, now go ahead and be seated.
I mean, you're set in great chapels like this,
wonderful Bible classes by some of the greatest professors
known to man at Lubbock Christian.
Some of the greatest, don't clap for that,
that was really self-promoting, that was weird.
We've already done our evaluation, so it doesn't matter.
Anyway, right here, you had some of the greatest
summer camp experiences you've had,
and some of you, at least a large percentage,
come to this school because of the academics,
very top quality mom and dad, ROI is huge here,
or to play sports, and you come across this Christ guy,
and you still don't want any of it.
We feed you our best orange, and you don't want it.
Okay, and all this research, I spent all last week
with a group, kind of the most exciting discipleship
emphasis ever in my lifetime.
Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox.
40 of us, sounds like a joke, 40 of us gathered
in California five years ago, looked across the table
and said, out of all of the things we're doing for students,
they're still leaving.
Started with two people, 40 people showed up.
This guy paid a bunch of money.
Now the Lilly Foundation is paying more money
for this one initiative in the United States
than anything they're paying, it's called 10 by 10.
In the spirit of 10:10, I've come to give you life,
John 10:10, I've come to give you life and life abundant,
the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy.
How do we give life?
How do we make Jesus matter more?
'Cause here's what the deal is.
A million young people, a million people of your age
will walk away from Christianity this year.
And we're bold enough to say, maybe we can change it.
Now, the number one thing in all of that research
is authentic relationship.
What is this?
Nelson is about to graduate.
We think, 'cause I said, what is this?
He goes, an orange, Provost.
It's an apple.
Why am I saying that?
'Cause we live in a world that says,
I am an orange, but they live like apple.
One of the greatest things that we know
impacts the next generation in their faith
is when they come across an authentic apple.
When they come across someone who doesn't say I'm an orange,
and act like an orange, they're apples.
They are what they say they are,
not perfect, but authentic.
Now, I want you to hear me
if you've never been a person of faith.
This faculty is pretty special, we're not perfect,
but we really do walk with you.
And you're gonna see us lose it sometimes,
and you're gonna see us do some things
that probably you're like, oh my word, that's so orangish.
But speaking for my colleagues,
we will come back to apple every single time,
'cause we believe in it.
For the staff here, they're not perfect.
And sometimes they're gonna have orange moments,
but they really are apples, and they wanna be authentic.
And everyone that works around, it's kind of crazy,
you can walk across campus and someone will say hello.
That's a unique place.
So we're trying to be those individuals.
But you as a student body,
I'm gonna ask you if you're a leader on campus,
if you're a leader on your sports team,
I'm not saying walking around with a big Jesus Won shirt,
those are cool, but you know what?
The world really didn't care about that.
I don't care if you have a WWJD on every limb and appendage
and you walk around like that, who cares?
You see a lot of Christian words around here.
That doesn't move somebody into the presence of Jesus.
What does is when they come across an authentic believer
who actually believes and tries to live out
the way of the master.
So that's number one.
That's the idea about oranges.
We need more apples.
We need more authentic followers of Jesus.
And I know some of y'all feel like,
well, man, it's like second high school.
If you're a junior or a senior, you probably are over this,
but if you're a freshman, a sophomore,
you're still kind of involved in that high school deal of,
oh my word, these people are so weird
and where's my people and yada yada.
Guess what?
Everybody's weird, you are too.
But you can be authentic with that weirdness
and push in and be involved and put your phones down.
Oh, that brings number two.
Okay, three legged horses.
You know the things that we miss sometimes
that seem to be so obvious.
We just miss it.
Few years ago, I was in Mexico with the mission team.
And one of the individuals that was leading that group
was sharing a room with me and he came back excited.
We have a little bit of free time and he went to a mall
and he said, I bought 10 polos for $40.
Here's a fashion conscious dude, white teeth,
brilliant smile, wonderful hair.
And he found his polos and they were wonderful.
40 of them, 40 of them, 10 of them for 40 bucks,
$4 a piece and he thought he got a great deal.
And he was showing us every single color.
He's like, look at this one, look at this one.
And I started looking closer and I was like,
that horse has three legs.
He bought three legged horse polos for 40 bucks, never worn.
How does that happen?
Same reason that we buy so many ideas
that really ruin our authentic witness.
It's called a cell phone.
I'm not even gonna see a show of hands
'cause it's happened to me.
Sometimes I'll walk across this campus
and hit a tree limb with my head.
Don't laugh because you're guilting yourself, all right?
There's times that we are so involved in this thing.
Some of you right now, you can't do it.
I'm watching you.
I know some of you and you're like, I can't put it down.
It has my soul wrapped up in that little
blinking thing right there.
And it just wiggled in my pocket.
And if it wiggles in my pocket, I have to get it.
If I don't get it, my leg will fall off.
Some of you are tired all the time.
And you come to class, you're like, oh my word,
I didn't do my homework.
I'm so tired because you can't turn your phone off.
I'm not gonna go through all the science of it
and what it does to your brain and all that dopamine stuff.
Let me just say, you realize this generation,
we're pretty good at it
'cause we're the ones that are marketing you.
We are not marketing products to your generation.
Zero products.
Marketers get paid by the amount of time
they can keep your eyes on this.
That's it.
And you know it's true.
I mean, you know it's true.
That's why you have so many ads in games.
That's why when you're watching a movie on YouTube,
it'll just click off and the volume will go up
and the next thing you know,
you're like, whoa, buy this.
They just want your eyes to the screen
because they can keep your eyes to the screen.
They could do whatever you want and you call it independence
but you're bound to slavery to these things.
And that does not mean just young people.
It's all of us as well.
Because right now we even have distractions in this place
when I'm sitting here trying to talk
and I see it and it's so funny.
It's like going, no, I'm just gonna talk
'cause if I don't have to face it, then it's not real.
Guys, that is a three-legged horse.
You're buying three-legged horses.
Horses should have four legs.
If they have three, they become like glue and stuff, right?
Sorry, PETA.
If you have any problems, Josh, Dot, Taylor, anyway.
Okay, so here's the deal.
We need authenticity and we need attention.
Just give it attention.
When you look at the spirituality and the slow drift
and we see it in our stuff, nobody wants to say,
hey, I'm Christian, so you just kind of put down,
I'm spiritual, that's going up.
It's just called a nun.
It's not the Catholic kind.
It's just people are like, I know I'm spiritual,
I just don't know what I am.
It's because you don't concentrate.
You don't even pay attention.
So let me just say this boldly.
If you wanna say bye to Christianity
because you think you know it,
at least have the courage to find out about it
and then say no.
Because if you're getting your cues from this,
this is wackadoodle.
Bunch of three-legged horse Christians on this thing.
Find those who are authentic and say,
you explain to me and then walk with them.
The last thing is about sidewalks.
We live such fast lives.
We live such fast lives.
And sometimes, and we've heard this your whole life,
but it's true, if Satan can't make you bad,
he'll just make you fast.
He'll make you busy.
So I gotta get this done, I gotta get this done,
I gotta do all these service hours,
I gotta do all this stuff.
Sometimes we're the corporates of giving you too much.
I get it.
But you gotta slow down and think,
you gotta organize your life
because you don't wanna miss it.
My senior year, I'm walking back and forth across campus.
I was involved in everything.
And I always had something to do and a place to go
and a guy named Gary Cox,
whose daughter played against the Chaps
more than once, we went to school with him.
Gary was the most laid back guy you've ever seen.
Sometimes you had to poke him, didn't you, coach,
just to say, Gary, are you sleeping or are you paying
attention, are you sleeping with your eyes open?
But he had a great rhythm of life.
And I'm running helter skelter to the other side of campus
and he's sitting in the grass and he goes, Dave.
I'm like, did you smoke something?
I mean, Gary, what's, he goes, Dave.
I'm like, yeah, he goes, come sit down.
Why are you so busy?
Come sit down.
So I sat down next to him and I mean,
you just gotta know this guy's like, it's cool, isn't it?
Right?
I think so.
Sit here a little bit longer.
And then he said this, he said,
do you know we have scriptures on our concrete?
How many of y'all know that?
How many of y'all have no clue that we have scriptures
all over our concrete?
Raise your hand and be honest.
Raise your hand if you don't know that.
Some of you didn't raise your hands
'cause you think I'm gonna make you feel bad.
I'm not.
Scriptures written by some of the very first students
at Lubbock Christian University.
And I didn't notice it till I was here for four years.
Not proud of that.
A lot of good things to do.
So here's what I want you to do.
First of all, find somebody authentic
that talks the life of the apple
and lives the life of the apple
and doesn't just get on stage and do fancy things.
But they actually try to live this out.
Follow them, talk to them.
Then I want you to get your head out of these things
and stop buying three-legged horses.
Actually put it down, walk across campus and say,
how are you doing today?
I'm doing fine.
How are you doing?
Great, okay.
You wanna walk together and talk a little bit?
Fine, and you're just gonna wanna do this the whole time.
Don't.
I don't care what you talk about.
Be awkward.
All the way to class here in just a moment.
Just be awkward.
How are you?
I don't know.
We're supposed to have a conversation.
Fine, I mean, whatever it is.
And the last thing, slow up.
Instead of having your head down here,
just look around on this campus.
Put your head down and look at the concrete.
'Cause there's a lot of authentic people
that have come before you.
It's pretty cool to follow Jesus.
It's pretty cool to be part of that 50% who made it.
I know it's hard, but guys, we'd love 100% of you
to not only become religious and big church people,
we're not talking about that,
but actually fall in love with Jesus
and understand what he's all about.
And just hold on for the greatest ride of your life,
'cause it's awesome.
You're dismissed.
: (congregation applauding)