LIVING THE CHRIST LIFE

Thanks for your comment and support, and i am humbled that you have read our youth ministry’s blog. anyway, i wish i could post more often, but i have a job as a teacher and it can get really really busy sometimes. anyway do continue to support our blog and watch out for our future post! God bless!

Thank you for your prayers, i was recently invited to speak at a local high school and my topic was using wisdom in the teen years, and i would like to share with you my talk at that high school. But first i would like to cite my resources, i got some of my points from the following authors Alex and Brett Harris “Do Hard Things”, Kevin de Young in his preaching “Just do something”.
USING WISDOM IN THE TEEN YEARS

 I’d like to call this message “Using wisdom to make a difference”, you see, as you are seated there this morning there are many many things running through your mind. Important things like, I wonder who visited my facebook account?, will I see or talk to my crush later?, what will I wear to the mall?, what video game will I play?, will I tryout for the basketball team/ volleyball team?, when will kuya tabs finish?, and other life altering and earth shaking concerns. Its funny when you think about it in those terms, but that is exactly what is happening with your generation today.

 Many young people of today are so caught up with trivial and shallow things that because we’re swimming in the mundane and mediocre that we think we’re actually doing something important. Let me explain what I mean, when you look around you do you see people your age actually doing something significant and relevant not only for themselves but for the society as a whole? What has been the contribution of this generation to what is happening in this world, this country, this city, this school, the church and your home? In fact I believe that it has gotten so bad that when young people today clean their rooms its considered an act of heroism, when young people today go to school and ACTUALLY study its considered a contribution to world peace, when we wash the dishes it is a global contribution to the end of hunger in Africa?! Ridiculous? You bet it is.

 There has been a decline and an immaturing (opposite of maturing) of the mindset and perspectives of today’s generation, and the reason for this decline is a FUNDAMENTAL AND BASIC LACK, SCARCITY AND GENERAL ABSENCE OF WISDOM with regard to our view of this stage in our lives called the “teen years”, and the over arching question that we need to ask and answer this morning is this “IS THERE A BETTER WAY TO LIVE THE TEEN YEARS?” AND I WOULD LIKE TO ANSWER THIS QUESTION WITH A RESOUNDING YES!

 Yes there is a better and more enriching way to live our teen years, but it will include a three word phrase, which I will borrow from Alex and Brett Harris, “DO HARD THINGS”. I hope to be able to explain this phrase in the course of our discussion this morning.

> In his book ‘THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN” J.C. Ryle wrote, “Youth is the seed time of full age, the molding season in the little space of human life, the turning point in the history of man’s mind.”
> This means that what each of us will become later in life largely depends on what we become now. Question is do you take this seriously? Do you realize the importance of this? Do you even care about this?
> You see, many of you here today only care about one thing, yourself, I’m sorry if that seems harsh, but that is the reality that faces you and your generation today.
> Your generation, swims in a narcissistic culture that promotes love of self, expression of self, the “do your own thing” mentality is so prevalent and predominant today that it has affected and twisted our perspectives with regard to basic values.
> Values like respect, submission to authority, honor, integrity, and especially the recognition and the fear of the Lord.
> If you don’t believe me, just look at how you interact with your parents, look at how you interact with your teachers, look at your attitude when someone older counsels you on what you need to do, look at how you respond when it comes to the Word of God and to God and the Truth That God exists.
> And when you really look at it, the truth of the matter is this, when we go against authority, when we go against what God says in His Word, When we reject godly counsel, and most especially when we don’t recognize God and Fear God…my dear young people we are not exhibiting wisdom, we are proving and evidencing the fact that we are basking in our foolishness.
> The book of proverbs tells us that there are only two categories of people in this world, there are those who are wise and there are those who are foolish.
> Question is which one are you?
> And this is where wisdom comes in. Charles Spurgeon once described wisdom as “Wisdom is the right use of knowledge” another author describes wisdom as “the art of living skillfully in whatever circumstances we find ourselves in life.”
> My dear young people, do you see it? CAN YOU SEE IT? The point of the whole matter is this, this stage of your life called the “teen years” is the launching pad for who you will become in the future. I’m not talking about education, I’m not talking about going to the top universities and getting that high paying job or what your status in life will be in the future.
> What we’re talking about is who you will be as a person, as an individual created by God.
> This time of your life is not a vacation from responsibility, it is the once in a lifetime opportunity that God is giving you to embrace and take hold of the responsibilities that will mold you and shape you.
> Proverbs 20:29 says, “the glory of young men is their strength.” And when is that time when you have the most energy, the most free time, the most physical strength, and the most opportunities? IT IS TODAY! THIS TIME, THIS MOMENT. WHILE YOU ARE STILL YOUNG.
> Believe me. You will never have the same strength, free time, and energy in the coming years.

> And while you are still young, choose to use your teen years with wisdom, this is the seed time of your life (the time of planting), the molding season. It will not happen when your 25, 30, or 40, it happens today.
> Exercise wisdom during this time by choosing to use your teen years to set direction, develop character, and build momentum for an amazing future.
> BUT WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE DON’T USE OUR TEEN YEARS WISELY?

III. WHAT A WASTE!:

> I’d like to describe what happens when we don’t use our teen years wisely, by pointing out that one of the reasons why many young people waste their teen years on foolishness is because of a theory call “adolescence”
> Now this is a wide ranging theory, but to explain it briefly, the word adolescence literally means “to grow up”. This is true biologically, but the problem is in the modern understanding of adolescence, that gives a reason or even encourages and even trains young people to remain childish for much longer than necessary. It is a social category of age and behavior that leaves your generation in a state of limbo.
> And as a result there has been a boom in the development of what is called the “kidult”, full grown men and women who still live with their parents who dress and talk and party as they did in their teens, hopping from job to job and date to date, having fun but seemingly going nowhere.
> “Kidults”, generally have neither clear direction nor a sense of urgency, much like when they were teens, and like many of you here today. “Legally their adults, but they’re on the threshold, the doorway to adulthood, and they’re not going through it” (Time Magazine, 2005). And these kidults are the logical result of the Myth of Adolescence, which basically encourages teens to view adulthood as spoiling the fun of the teen years, rather than viewing it as the fulfillment of the teen years.
> And being taught to avoid growing up doesn’t help us launch into adulthood. Like many of you here today, I’m sure that that’s how you view adulthood, and adults in general, as people who don’t know how to have fun and that the stage in life called adulthood spoils everything. And at its best leaves us in childishness and irresponsibility, and at its worst it leaves us unprepared for the exciting challenges of life.
> I like what Kevin de Young said in one of his preachings, he said, “it doesn’t matter what you want to be when you grow up, JUST GROW UP”. And the teen years is exactly designed for that, to launch us into adulthood and to teach us to grow up now so that we land on our feet in the future.
> And you can’t say in your mind “that’s not going to happen to me, I’m mature, I don’t play video games and watch cartoons anymore, I’m all grown up.” Really? When was the last time you cleaned your room without being asked? What did you spend your allowance on? How many hours did you watch tv? How many times did you NOT do what your parents or teachers told you to do?
> You see the wise habits that we develop today will carry themselves in our adulthood, the choices that we make whether wise or foolish will have an influence in our future. For example, if you’re a quitter in the important things, then chances are you’re going to quit in the important things in life as well.
> The teen years, this stage in your life is not a vacation from responsibility, it is the training ground for you to EMBRACE responsibility. Let me use swimming as an example, what’s the first thing you learn when you swim? To float, right? The instructor tells you to relax and not to move around so much and you float, after that you learn how to kick and then to swim on your belly and then how to hold your breath and then the different strokes and then how to streamline and refine those strokes. Believe me even Michael Phelps learned how to float. But what would happen if you didn’t know how to swim and suddenly somebody throws you in 20 feet of water? Duh! You’d drown! Of course you’d try to swim, but I bet in your panic you would have drank half the water in the pool already!
> Now, that’s a picture of life, God is the instructor and in this stage of your life He’s teaching you how to float, kick, use your arms, breathe and He’s refining your strokes so that when you finally dive into life, your better than Michael Phelps. Because you submit to the Lord and you fear the Lord, your not the one without direction in life, your not the one without character and your not the one living an empty and meaningless life. Your living an amazing life because you are Living for Christ.
> Basically what we’re challenging you guys to do, is not just grow up physically, but to follow what the apostle said, “…when I became a man, I let go of childish things”.
> So how do we go about in maturing in this season of our lives?
IV. HARDSHIPS BUILD MUSCLES:

> if you look at history, many of the greatest and most prominent figures have one thing in common, there was a turning point in their lives and then they invested themselves in a way that shaped them into the history makers they later became.
> And we can learn from the examples that they left behind. One example is George, he was born in northern Virginia in 1732 to a middle class family. When he was eleven years old, he lost his father. Even though his peers never considered him very bright, he applied himself to his studies and mastered geometry, trigonometry and surveying (think algebra and calculus) by the time he was sixteen.
> When he was seventeen he got his first job, and what a job, he became the Official surveyor of Culpeper County, Virginia. This wasn’t a boy’s job, and it certainly wasn’t office work. For the next three years George endured hardships of frontier life as he measured and recorded previously unmapped territories. His measuring tools were heavy logs and chains. George was a man at seventeen.
> At age 20, the governor of Virginia appointed George as a major in the militia (army). Then he was sent on an important mission to scout out the French who were entering Ohio—which he successfully did. And by age 22 he was promoted to lieutenant colonel, and by age 23 he was commander in chief of the entire Virginia militia. You might know him too because later in life he became the first president of the United States. George Washington.
> I know that we won’t be the next president, but you never know, but what I would like for us to see is that he did not avoid doing hard things. He did not avoid responsibility and that is the genius of doing hard things. You might be saying, buti na lang I do hard things, like go to school, do my assignments, go to the mall, and ummmmmmmmmm play video games, and ummmmmmmmmmmmm…obey my parents, and breathe…
> When I say do hard things, it means reaching higher, dreaming bigger, growing stronger, and most important of all loving and honoring God. It means we make the choice of not wasting our lives. It means doing the things that really matter.