Your Beauty Fills Our Eyes

I mentioned in a post a couple days ago that God has been teaching me to “behold” His glory.  Recently, I came across a new hymn that is based on some of the same Scriptures on which I’ve been meditating.  Your Beauty Fills Our Eyes is an excellent new hymn written by Chris Anderson and Greg Habegger.  (I say “excellent” as if I’m in any way qualified to offer critique.)

Anderson and Habegger have worked together to produce several new hymns that can be found on their website: Church Works Media.  Their website includes the sheet music and doctrinal explanations for each of their hymns.  The hymns are doctrinally rich and very enjoyable to sing.  I’ve introduced a few of these hymns to our youth group, and we have been greatly blessed by them.  

I’m confident that you would benefit from visiting their website and meditating on some of these great hymns.

Age of Opportunity

I recently recommended a book to the parents of the teens in our youth group.  Age of Opportunity by Paul David Tripp is an excellent resource for any parent with teens or soon-to-be teens. 

Description:  Teenage hassles that disrupt parents’ lives? Or prime opportunity to connect with, listen to, and nurture our kids? From the argument over the last donut, to the cry of “nothing to wear,” Paul Tripp uncovers the heart issues affecting parents and their teenagers during the often chaotic adolescent years. With wit, wisdom, humility, and compassion, he shows parents how to seize the countless opportunities to deepen communication, learn, and grow with their teenagers. The teenage years are often viewed by parents as a period to be survived. This book departs from that mentality and describes these tumultuous years as years of boundless possibilities and promise.

If all you’re doing is controlling and managing the behavior of a teenager, what’s going to happen when that control is gone?  Because the deepest area of difficulty of your teenager is not behavior.  It’s the heart.

Beholding the Glory of the Lord

God is always so very gracious to us.  He is loving and merciful to me even though I am evil, selfish, and wicked.  I’ve been a youth pastor for one year now.  I have been married for almost 4 years, and I have two sons.  With my responsibilities growing, my own desire to progress in sanctification is also growing.  It is probably more accurate to say that with my increased responsibilities, I am becoming more aware of my own sinfulness.  For the past few months, I have been meditating on 2 Corinthians 3:18. 

But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

I am becoming more and more convinced that my greatest need is to fill my gaze and vision with the glory, honor, majesty, greatness, splendor, and God-ness of God.   The very process of “beholding” him is what changes me.  Furthermore, I cannot change myself.  Rather, as I behold the Lord, the Spirit changes me.  It is so humiliating to realize that even when I am trying to become more like Christ, I usually am thinking about ME!  I always want to think about me, but God always wants me to think about Him. 

I recently had the privilege of preaching a message on 2 Corinthians 3:18 at my church.  You can listen to it  here.

Excellent Testimony from a Woman Who is Dying

Tonight, Holly and I watched this video testimony  of Rachel Barkey.  She is 37 years old, a wife, and a mother of two young children.  Rachel was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given 6-18 weeks to live. 

She says,

“That sounds like a long time when you’re waiting for Christmas or something that is on back-order, but when it is the time that you have left to cuddle with your kids or spend time with your husband, it is terribly, terribly short.”

Her testimony includes four main points:  1) Know God 2) Know yourself  3) Know the gospel 4) Know your purpose.  Her testimony is God-exalting, humble, biblically saturated, gospel-centered, sad, funny, convicting, and well worth the 55 minutes.  I strongly commend it to you and your families.

“Cancer does not define me. Neither does being a wife or a mother. All these things are part of who I am, but they do not define me. What defines me is my relationship with Jesus.”

Parent-Teen Conversations: Pt 2

In the last post, I argued that it is important for parents to have God-centered conversations with their children and teens.  In this post, I want to consider some ideas to help these conversations be more productive.  One of the reasons that parents have so few spiritual conversations with their children is because every time they try, it ends in an argument.  The frustration levels rise and someone inevitably starts yelling or clamming up.  This happens when the “spiritual conversations” only happen during times of “crisis.” (see previous post)   But it can also happen if we approach the conversation the wrong way. 

I benefited much from this article on having good conversations with teens.  In the article, Carolyn Mahaney lists seven helpful suggestions for glorifying God through “spiritual conversations.” 

Communicate humbly with your teen.

Postpone talking if you are angry.

Postpone talking if your teen is angry.

Don’t talk too long.

Correct only what you must; overlook what you can.

Acknowledge your own sin.

Don’t let the conversation end until you have encouraged your teen.

She is writing primarily to mothers, but I think fathers can learn from it as well.  She is not trying to cover the topic exhaustively, but she does a good job in the article explaining each of these seven helps.  It would be worth a read.   We need to work very hard not to provoke our children to wrath.  (Eph 6:4)

Parent-Teen Conversations: pt1

If it’s not broke . . . . .don’t fix it!

This is pretty good advice if you are talking about a car.  Well . . . actually, this is very bad advice if you are talking about a car.  If you don’t make any effort to “fix” your car until your tires blow or your engine seizes, you are an idiot.  (I can say this from far too much personal experience with flat tires.)

But much worse than applying this philosophy to our cars is applying this philosophy to people.  Too often, we only have spiritual conversations with our children and teens during times of crisis.  When there are no big, external, “rebellion” problems, we can lazily fall into the trap of thinking that “it’s not broke.”   But when a teen is caught smoking, swearing, or holding hands, it is crisis time.  It’s time to start having some spiritual conversations (at least until the kid stops smoking.  Then, we can go back to just talking about sports.)

If we want the next generation to see and embrace our faith in God and our love for God, we need to be passionately pursuing our own relationship with God and passionately pursuing every opportunity to communicate that passion to the next generation.  D.A. Carson has been teaching in seminary classes for many years.  He acknowledges that his students do not retain everything that he teaches them.  He said that his students will most likely remember the things in which he communicated the most enthusiasm and passion.  He said that if one generation “assumes” gospel truth but does not communicate an enthusiasm and passion for gospel truth, the next generation will question or “marginalize” gospel truth.  And the next generation will deny the gospel completely.

  Assuming that there is a parallel between what students remember and what children remember, what are you teaching your children through your enthusiasm?  I challenge you to think about the conversations that you have (or don’t have) with your child or teen. I’m not asking what you believe.  But in what areas of your life and conversations do your teens see enthusiasm and passion?  If we only have “spiritual conversations” with teens when they break some rule or show some external sin, they will think that we are only concerned about rules and external things.  If our conversations with teens are usually about sports, recreation, school events, vacation plans, etc, they can only assume that we care most about those things. 

How long has it been since you have had a gospel-centered, God-centered conversation with your child / teen that was not prompted by their “misbehavior” or “bad attitude”?  I guess the “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it” philosophy really is OK.  But we must realize that all of us are broken, and we need “fixing” all the time.  Make opportunities every day for intentional conversations that point teens to the glory of the Lord. (2 Cor 3:18)

Highlights from “The Hope of the Gospel in Youth Discipleship”

This is the last “Highlight” post from Matt Hoskinson’s four articles on youth discipleship.  The following quotes come from his article entitled “The Hope of the Gospel in Youth Discipleship.”  In this article, he argues for a gospel-centered approach to youth discipleship.

But gospel preaching is not only for the lost. And here is where our problem arises. We are happy to proclaim the gospel clearly, authoritatively, and passionately to unbelievers—and well we should. But our preaching to the people of God is often woefully devoid of the hope of the gospel: the person and work of Christ.

 Far too many proclaim the gospel to unbelievers, but when it comes to urging our people to holiness, we cease preaching the person and work of Christ and rely wholly on imperatives. “You must love God. You must trust God. You must fear God. You must show mercy. You must forgive. You must not commit adultery.” And on and on it goes. And at those times when Christ is mentioned, He is identified only as our Chief Example, the One whose pattern we must follow. “You must love God like Christ did. You must forgive as Christ did.” True, Christ is our Example (1 Pet. 2:21). But that’s not all He is.

 The gospel is as relevant for believers as it is for unbelievers. It is “the power of God for salvation” (Rom. 1:16), not merely for conversion. The apostle used an umbrella term that encompasses every part of God’s redemptive work: past (regeneration and conversion), present (perseverance and preservation), and future (final redemption and glorification). Consequently, preachers must demonstrate the practicality of the gospel in every part of God’s salvific activity, including our ongoing sanctification.

 

Teenagers do not need to hear one more gospel-less message about how they should live. They need to hear of a Savior who lived and died in their place. Christian young people already know what they are supposed to do. What they are ignorant of is “the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe” to transform us into the image of Christ. May our gracious God “strengthen . . . [His church] according to the gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ” so He might receive “glory forevermore through Jesus Christ” (Rom. 16:25, 27).

In this article, Hoskinson uses a chart to show the number of indicative or descriptive verbs compared to the number of imperative verbs in the epistles.  Read the full article; it is very helpful.

Highlights from “The Role of the Church in Youth Discipleship”

I’ve been slowly posting highlights from Matt Hoskinson’s 4 articles on youth discipleship.  The following highlights come from “The Role of the Church in Youth Discipleship.”

Two questions immediately surface when one considers the parents’ responsibility. On one hand, if parents are thus responsible, is the church absolved? Perhaps it would be satisfactory for pastors merely to exhort parents to disciple the next generation. And if the youth turn out bad, then the parents are to blame. On the other hand, if parents are thus responsible, is the church expendable? Perhaps parents would best be served not by having their children participate in the discipleship avenues of the church but by keeping all proactive discipleship in the family and letting family time trump church time.

The answer to both questions is no. The church is neither absolved nor expendable. Instead, God’s design is for the church to have an active role in instructing the coming generations. While parents are primarily responsible for the discipleship of their children, the church has a secondary—but no less necessary—role in that task.

Hoskinson explains from Ephesians 4:7-16 that God gave certain men as gifts to the church to help equip the saints to do the work of the ministry.  That certainly means that pastors should equip parents to disciple their teens, but pastors also have a responsibility to equip the “youth saints” as well. 

But the responsibility does not stop with parents and pastors.  The entire church should take up the responsibility to disciple “one another.”

The dozens of “one another” passages testify to our obligation (e.g., John 13:34; Rom. 12:16; 15:7; etc.). God expects believers to live out their union with Christ in the context of other people (their “neighbors,” Luke 10:29-37). And this opportunity to disciple one another transcends generational lines. Not only are parents to disciple their children (Eph. 6:1-4); the older are to mentor the younger (Tit. 2:1-8). All adults in the congregation, then, ought to sense some measure of responsibility toward the coming generations.

God plans for the church to have a significant role in the lives of its young people. While the church is not primarily responsible, one cannot deny that each assembly bears a corporate responsibility to the next generation—secondary, to be sure, but no less necessary.

In the remainder of the article, Hoskinson explains the implications of this teaching.  Some of these won’t make sense if you don’t read his explanations.  Take the extra time to go read his full article.

Implications for the Church Leadership: The Church is Not Absolved

1. Church leaders must put philosophy ahead of practice.
2. Pastors should work to connect all aspects of youth discipleship to one another, grounding it in the church’s philosophy.
3. Pastors ought to address parenting early and often.
4. Pastors must give parents the tools they need to disciple their children.
5. Youth pastors ought to seek to turn the hearts of teenagers to their parents.

Implications for Parents: The Church is Not Expendable

1. Submit to your leaders
2. Seek accountability
3. Practice your Ecclesiology

Malachi Leeper

God graciously gave Holly and I another son, Malachi.  He was born Sunday, March 22, at 3:30.  It was perfect timing.  We woke up Sunday morning, dropped Carson off with some friends at church, checked in to the hospital, and enjoyed some college basketball while waiting.  Holly and Malachi are home, and they are doing great.  Carson is enjoying a day in the office with daddy today. We appreciate your past and future prayers for us.

Highlights from “The Centrality of God in Youth Discipleship”

Here are some highlights from Matt Hoskinson’s article: “The Centrality of God in Youth Discipleship”

For the first 18 years of their lives, we tailor an unending succession of programs and events to cater to them. We entice them to come to church activities by telling them what they will get out of it. We create competitions based on spiritual things—Bible memory, sword drills, even personal devotional time—hoping that somehow God’s Word might lodge in their hearts. None of these things is inherently sinful, but taken together they give young people the impression that the church revolves around them.

The drop-off between high school and young adulthood is symptomatic of a much bigger issue: a failure to teach the centrality of God in all things and to demonstrate the centrality of God in our youth discipleship. Nothing exists for them—or for us, for that matter. All of life is all about God.

Therefore, the greatest need our teenagers have is not a new program, a new enticement, or a new competition. Neither they nor we need a better activity than the last one or another list of dos and don’ts to govern our lives. Their greatest need—and ours—is to see God in all His glory. If our children and teenagers would see, know, and love this great God, everything else would fall into place.

Renewing our commitment to seeing and speaking of the glory of God in all of life may not alter the direction of teenagers who insist on going their own way after high school. Discipleship is not a mathematical formula that requires only the right input in order to churn out a lifelong follower of Jesus. And no church will have a perfect track record of success. So recovering the centrality of God in our lives and in our churches is not a new strategy that we should try for a little while to see if it works. The glory of God is not a means to the end of discipleship success. The glory of God is not a means to any end; it is the end. All of life is out of Him, all of life now exists through Him, and all of life will return to Him as the object of eternal glory. And every teenager who sits in our churches will glorify God forever—either in their salvation or in their condemnation. Therefore, we must confront our young people with the reality, centrality, and glory of God early and often so that they might find Him to be the sole object of their hearts’ affections. May God be pleased to use us in His gracious work of saving young people for His eternal glory.