(1 Timothy) a Word for the Young — Brian Brodersen

God’s Work Among Young People

First, Timothy chapter four, and we just seem to be stuck here in chapter four, but it's OK. It's a great chapter, lots of good things here. And I want to look once again tonight at the 12th verse, but really just at the very beginning of the verse where Paul says to Timothy, who, as I pointed out to you previously, who was a young man, probably in his early to mid 20s, Paul says to him.

Let no one despise your youth, and what I want to talk about specifically tonight is directed really toward younger people, a word for the young. You've probably heard the same. Youth is wasted on the young.

Well, there's a lot of truth to that, you know, I look back at my life and I would imagine many of you could do the same. And I think of those those years as a young man where I had all of that energy and, you know, the creativity I had, all of those things.

But I look back and I think how wasted it was because I didn't have any brains. I didn't have any common sense. I didn't have any wisdom. I didn't know what to do with all of that stuff. And so, you know, it just sort of squandered and we see that happen, of course, far too often.

How many times have we heard the tragic story of some young man or woman who has squandered their gifts and talents through perhaps drug abuse or alcohol abuse or some other destructive lifestyle? But there are also less extreme cases, of course.

Not that a person's necessarily destroy their lives, but yet many young people simply neglect to cultivate the gifts that God has given them. They seem to fail to realize that God's glorious plan for their life is something that he wants to implement at the earliest stages possible.

You know, God doesn't want to wait till you get old and then do his work in your life. He wants to get things rolling as soon as possible, as early as possible. And so it doesn't really matter how young you are.

You're not too young to make a commitment to the Lord. You're not too young to hear the voice of God. You're not too young to even begin to experience the work of God in your life and even begin to sense the plan and the purpose ultimately that God would have for you.

And we have examples. All the way. Back as far as you can go in history of God doing his work among young people going back through the Bible and then, of Back down to where we are today, you can find just example after example of God working among young people.

I think of Samuel, a good example there. It says regarding Samuel, it says that he ministered before the Lord, even as a child wearing a linen ephod. And then it says this. It's kind of humorous, actually.

Moreover, his mother used to make him a little robe and bring it to him year by year. When she went or when she would come up to offer the yearly sacrifice. So here here's a kid serving in the ministry and his mother has to make him an outfit every year to bring it up to him.

He was obviously a very young boy. It was when Samuel was weaned that his mother, Hannah, took him to the priest Eli and said, this is the child that you prayed for. And I made a promise to God that if he would give me a child, if he would give me a son, I would dedicate him to the Lord.

And so she said, here you go. Here he is. He belongs to the Lord. And Samuel, of course, became a great prophet in Israel, served the Lord his entire life. A great man of God. Samuel, of course, would be succeeded later, not so much as a prophet, but as far as the leadership in the nation when he was succeeded, in a sense, by Saul.

But then you remember the story, Saul. He just. He turned away from the Lord, he rebelled against God, and you remember that God had chosen another person and Samuel was the one who was called upon to anoint that other person.

And so we read that Jesse made his seven sons pass before Samuel. And Samuel said to Jesse, the Lord has not chosen these are all the young men here. Then Jesse said there remains yet the youngest. Samuel said, send and bring him.

So David was brought in. And it says regarding David that he was ruddy or rosy cheeked. He was rosy cheeked with bright eyes and good looking. And the Lord said, arise, anoint him, for this is the one David.

Was probably around 12 or 13 years old at the time. God says this is the one arise and anoint him. As we move further on in history, we come to Jeremiah and listen to what Jeremiah records about his own experience.

He says the word of the Lord came to me saying before I formed you in the womb, I knew you before you were born. I sanctified you. I ordained you a prophet to the nations. Then said I, Lord God, behold, I cannot speak for I am a youth.

But he said to me, do not say that I am a youth for you shall go to all to whom I send you and whatever I command you, you shall speak. A contemporary of Jeremiah was the king of Judah, Josiah. Josiah was eight years old when he became king in the eighth year of his reign.

Of course, he would have been 16 at the time in the eighth year of his reign. While he was still young, he began to seek the God of his father, David. And in the twelfth year of his reign, he would have been 20 years old.

It was then that he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the idolatry. So we look here in the scriptures and these are just a few examples. We could go on and on just in the scriptural account itself and find numerous people that God was working in, even from the youngest stages of their life.

Young People in Church History and Ministry

But as we move out of biblical history into church history, there are just tons and tons of examples. We could we could literally spend the entire night going from one person to another. But I just want to mention a few to you.

We've mentioned many times here in the study, Hudson Taylor, that great pioneer missionary to China. When Hudson Taylor was five years old, he had a premonition at five years old that he would be a missionary to China.

When he was 21 years old, he stepped foot. On China's soil, and he spent basically the remainder of his life ministering in that land. But five years old. There was that sense from the spirit of God that there was this call upon him, C .H. Spurgeon, the great Victorian preacher who had had such a phenomenal impact on the people of London back in his day when he was a young boy, a man came to visit their home.

And this man was a very famous preacher, and he sensed in this young boy, he sensed something extraordinary. And he said to him as a young lad, he said, he said, I believe God's hand is upon your life and you're going to do great things for God and you're going to bring his word to thousands upon thousands of people.

Spurgeon made a real commitment of his life to Christ at about the age of 15. When he was 17 years old, he began to minister in a village called Water Beach in Cambridgeshire. And in that village, he led the entire village to Christ.

A revival broke out in that village. And this 17 year old young man led the entire village to Christ. People in London heard about his dynamic ministry and they invited him to come to London. By the time he was 20 years old, he was preaching in London and large crowds were coming to hear him.

When he was 21 years old, he preached in a place known as the Crystal Palace. At 21 years old, he preached to an audience of twenty two thousand people. Later on in life, when he was asked about that incident, when the man came to his home and suggested that he would someday serve the Lord in a significant way.

He said that he believed what the man said and he began to prepare himself for the work that God had for him. From that young age. And so there again are a couple of examples, but let's bring it even closer to home.

You know, the Calvary Chapel movement. Really. Was in many ways and still is and hopefully will be in a greater way in the future, a youth movement. You know what happened here back in the 60s and the 70s, it was just thousands of young people came to Christ.

And of course, there was a core, there was a foundation here already as a church and a ministry of older, more mature people that were here to disciple those that came in. But it really was this this, you know, mass harvest of young people that would become really what we know today as the Calvary movement.

And I think of just a couple of guys. I think of Ray Bentley down in San Diego. Ray was 17 years old and he was pastoring a church in El Cajon. I think of Greg Laurie, who left here, got converted at 17, and by the time he was 19, he was out in Riverside pastoring the church that is known today as Harvest Christian Fellowship.

Or you think of somebody like John Corson, who in his early 20s went up to Oregon and there, of course, now today you have that great ministry up there, the Applegate Christian Fellowship. And John, as you, of course, knows, moved on and he's here with us now and he's turned the ministry over to his son.

And so we see just this continual. Work of God among the young people, I think of the mission field and I think of when we began to go into places like Russia, when we began to go into the various countries in Eastern Europe and so forth.

And I remember back in those days we were leading all of these 12, 13, 15, 17 year olds to Christ. Those were the ones that were open. Those they were the ones that were receiving the Lord. And I remember even back in those days thinking, but Lord, what about the older people?

We're just we're just reaching a bunch of kids. And in some senses, it was almost like we were babysitting. But you know what? Fifteen years later, those are the leaders of the churches today, those ones that we led to the Lord back then.

And I remember some of them were so, so young, they were so tiny and it just looked like little kids. And you go back now and you look and you see, oh, he's the pastor of the church now. And it's just wonderful how God has done this great work among young people.

I think of some of the young ladies, you know, I didn't want this to be an exclusively men's deal here. So today I was thinking about some of the some of the young girls that went out. But I think of three girls that came to mind that went out from our ministry.

I think of Gina Aronson and Rosemary Kovacs and Amanda Stearns and and all of them at about the age of 18, just fresh out of high school. They packed up and they moved to another part of the world and they ministered there and they they learned the language.

They learned the culture. They led people to Christ. They went into orphanages and refugee camps. And and actually two of them, Rosemary and and Gina, are still on the mission field. They're still serving the Lord.

They're married. They have their families. Their husbands are they planted churches in these countries. And I just think, wow, how exciting. And as I think about that, it just you know, it thrills me to think about the potential for the future with young people.

Of course, God is no respecter of persons and he doesn't say, no, no, I only use young people. God uses anybody, but what I think is important to reemphasize is that God wants to do a work in a young person's life while they're young.

Don't wait, don't be saying, oh, well, you know, a little bit further down the road, that's when I'm going to get serious. That's what I'm going to start seeking the Lord. No, you want to do that now.

You see, now is the time. And so with all these examples, can there be any doubt that God has a plan for young people? I don't think so. And like I said, this is just we're just scratching the surface here.

But here's the question. What should a young person do? Based on the fact that God wants to use a young life, what what is a young person to do? Well, there are three things that I want to bring to you tonight.

Remember Your Creator in Your Youth

The first thing that a young person needs to do is what Solomon said. Solomon said this in Ecclesiastes, the last chapter, he said, remember your creator in the days of your youth. Remember your creator in the days of your youth.

You know, what has tragically happened to young people all over the world and in this country as well, what's tragically happened is they have been taught that they don't even have a creator. They've been taught that they don't have a creator.

They've been taught that their life is theirs to do whatever they want with or it's, you know, can belong to somebody else to do whatever they want to do with it. That's what they've actually been taught.

They've been taught that there is no creator. There is no rhyme or reason to your existence, even there's no purpose for your life. And so we have a generation in despair, we have people killing themselves, all of this kind of thing.

Why are they doing that? Well, they've forgotten that they have a creator. And every one of us, of course, need to remember this, but especially the young people, you need to remember your creator. And Solomon says specifically, remember your creator while you're young, don't wait till you get old and then you have to look back with all of these regrets.

And how many people are there that that that do that? And I would imagine even in this room tonight, there are people that if you could stand up and give a testimony, you might share even a little bit like Dan did, you know, that you had this upbringing and there you knew the Lord in a sense when you were young and there was all the potential and everything.

But something happened and then you went off the rails for a period of time and you just all kinds of things that you're ashamed of now. And you look back and you think, oh, what a waste. But we don't have to do that.

If you remember your creator in the days of your youth and here's the things that you need to remember, number one, you need to remember that your body is not yours. Your body is not your body, it belongs to God, he made it.

Your body is not yours, so don't abuse your body. Remember that the body is something that God has given you as a gift through which you can glorify him. Your body is not yours, it belongs to God. Secondly, your mind is not yours.

Your mind is not yours, so don't corrupt it, your mind belongs to God and God wants to fill your mind with good things, he wants to fill your mind with truth, he wants to fill your mind with the things that will glorify him and bless you.

Oh, but there's a huge temptation. The devil is active and he wants to corrupt the minds of people and he wants to start as young as possible, and I'll tell you, you know, you know, it's some of the stuff we see going on in our world, it's unbelievable the stuff that they're trying to teach children today and actually teaching children.

They're trying to corrupt their minds as young as possible and who's behind it, the devil's behind it. That's what he wants to do, he wants to corrupt the mind and we have got to guard our minds against that attempt by the enemy to corrupt our minds.

God has given you this great gift, the human mind is the greatest, it's the greatest thing in the world, it's the human mind, it's the apex of creation, this is what distinguishes us from the rest of creation, it's our mind.

And the mind was given by God with all of these just absolutely incredible abilities, the mind was given to us to glorify God. You know, they say. They being the experts, they say that we use just a very small, small portion of our minds, and sometimes as Christians, even we talk about Adam and wonder what he might have been like prior to the fall before sin came and corrupted him, you know what, what his mental capacities would have been like.

And you remember, we're told in Genesis that that man that that Adam gave names to all of the animals and, you know, you think, oh, that that would be a pretty challenging task. I just had to name a few kids and that wasn't easy, but he had to name all of the animals, but he had but he had a mind that wasn't corrupted by sin.

I was reading an article the other day about a guy they're calling the I think they're calling him something like the real rain man or the modern rain man. I think it was the real rain man talking about this man who is what they call a savant and he has these incredible mental capacities in certain areas.

And then in other areas, his mental capacities are far below the average person. But in certain areas, he has these unbelievable capacities and this particular person has committed to memory. He has total recall of nine thousand books, total recall of nine thousand books.

And when I read that, I thought, you know, this gives us a glimpse into what the mind of Adam must have been like and what the fallen mind must have been like. The mind is a phenomenal thing. It's something that, you know, I mean, of course, the computer and all of its magnificence is modeled after the human mind and it's a it doesn't compare.

But you see, this is the gift of God. And it's not ours to corrupt, we must guard our minds against them being corrupted. Thirdly, your talents are not your own. You know, we often use this term, oh, man, that guy has got so much natural ability.

You know what? That's not really an accurate statement. It would be accurate if naturalism was true, but it's not. It's false. Things did not come about through natural processes that came about because God brought them into existence.

And when you have talents, when you have gifts, when you have abilities, those are not yours. They have been instilled in you by God. He has made that investment in you. Boy, I think of all of the people in the world that have been invested in this area.

You know, God has made a big investment in them with giving them just incredible gifts and talents. And yet, unfortunately, so many misuse them rather than using them to glorify the God who made them.

They use them to elevate themselves. They use them to promote their own fame or whatever the case or in in the worst case scenario, they actually use these things against the God who actually made them.

But you see, if you're gifted and talented, if you have extraordinary, extraordinary abilities in certain areas, you need to realize that those are there because God put them there and God put them there with a purpose.

He intended that you use those things to glorify him. You see, we are called to do all that we do to the glory of God. Now, let me just say this, that is a great thing. It's not a negative thing. You know, a lot of times people think, oh, you know, I've got to take this and use it for God when I could have so much more fun if I could just use it for myself.

No, that's wrong. Now, you might think you'd have fun using it for yourself and you would perhaps have fun for a brief period. But, you know, that wears off really quick. It wears off so quick, but when you're using those gifts or those talents.

When you're using your mind, when you're you're dedicating your body to the service of God, you know what, it just gets better and better and better all the time. It gets better all the time. You don't have all of those hang ups.

You know, I was reading a story the other day of a guy who was he is he's a great basketball player. He's the captain of the one of the universities in Kansas City. I don't remember Kansas City State or whatever.

And, you know, I'm reading this, I picked up, I think it was a Sports Illustrated, and I'm reading this story about this guy who's just this phenomenally gifted ballplayer. And, you know, just talking about what, you know, just what a what a phenomenal guy he was on the court and, you know, the great contribution he was making to the team.

But then it started to talk about how he would go into these deep depressions. He would go, you know, just go into this funk to where he couldn't even play. And then because of his depression, he started drinking and doing drugs and things.

You know, it all came back to his ego when he didn't play up to the standard that he thought he should play up to. He started getting depressed and then he would get in these depressions that he couldn't get himself out of.

And the great the story has a great ending, because in the course of all of this, he finally becomes a Christian. This is all right. In Sports Illustrated magazine is a great article because it was just talking about how he's completely turned around.

He's a totally different guy. He's a better ball player than he's ever been. He's captain of the team and the team's doing great. And the guy basically says, you know what? It's all because of Jesus Christ.

He said, because, you know, I used to think I was the most important person in the world and the whole game revolved around me. It was all about me. And if I didn't play up to a certain standard, then his whole world would crash in around him.

He said, but I walked into a church and nobody knew me and people weren't, you know, coming up to me and praising me and looking for my autograph. Nobody knew me. I was just another person there. And I heard about my need for Christ and the fact that everything's really all about him.

And he said, you know, it's just revolutionized my life. You know, there are people who never do drugs or people who never go out and get drunk, there are people who never get involved in a destructive lifestyle in that sense.

But because they're living for themselves and they're driven by their own ambition and their ego needs to constantly be stroked when they don't get that, that sends them into. Being a basket case. But you see, that's because people are taking the things that God gave them to glorify him with and they're using them for the wrong reason, they're misusing them.

So. We need to remember our creator, and if you're young in here tonight, you need to remember your creator in the days of your youth, do what you do to the glory of God. And I will tell you this, it's it's the best way to live.

It's the best way to do all of this stuff. It's great. And, you know, if you if you want to look at sports figures like the one I was just talking about, or if you want to look at entertainers or, you know, artists or whatever, you know.

One of the hardest things in the world for a person is to attain fame and then. Lose it. Even worse than never having it. It's when you've had it and you've lost it, when you sort of fall from glory or, you know, when when the whole thing has passed for you and you see this over and over again.

So often people, they just try to keep on going, keep on going because they can't stand the thought of being out of the limelight. They can't stand the thought of not receiving the accolades or whatever.

So they push themselves and they oftentimes they they embarrass themselves in the long run. They go too far. They should have stopped at a certain point. You know, they were they were at their peak at a certain place and it would have been a good time to just say, OK, this is the time to get out.

And we've seen people try to do that. But there's always that comeback and then there's a second comeback and a third comeback sometimes and sometimes a fourth comeback. And then pretty soon people are saying, oh, won't somebody put that poor guy out of his misery?

I mean, come on, it's killing us. It's over. You see, that's what happens when you're doing things for yourself, but a person who has a relationship with God, they can they can rise, they can live in the glory and they can handle it when it passes because they just say, you know, hey, it was all the Lord anyway, it was all for him if he wanted me at that point at that time.

Great. And now it's fine to be here, too. It's the way to live. Secondly, as a young person, you need to study to show yourself approved to God. You see, here's the thing that a young person needs to realize.

Study to Show Yourself Approved to God

You won't be young forever. As a matter of fact, you'll get older really quickly. And youth. Is a time of preparation. It's a time to prepare for what's coming. Oh, how I wish I would have known that when I was in my youth, I didn't know that I didn't even think in those terms in my state, I was seriously doubting whether there was a future.

And so I wasn't even thinking about it, I wasn't planning for it. Oh, I wish I would have known back then. That God had a plan and that he wanted to do this in my life and that he would send me, you know, the places he sent me and oh, I think, oh, if I only would have known that I would have prepared myself better.

I probably would have tried to learn a couple of foreign languages or something like that. I would have studied up a lot more and wanted to know a lot more about things that are relevant and important to what I'm doing.

But I was clueless. You see, God has a plan for your life and in your youth, it's a glorious opportunity for preparation. Study to show yourself approved to God. That's what Paul would say to Timothy a bit later.

Study to show yourself approved, study what? Well, at the top of the list, of course, is the word of God. Study the word of God. Get to know the Lord through his word. Because the word of God is the foundation for everything, every important thing in life has a connection back to the word of God.

I was watching a little presentation by Kinham the other night. Kinham is the creationist Australian guy, president of Answers in Genesis, has a great ministry. But he was talking about something that I think is is a good thing to remind ourselves of about the Bible, that the Bible is the foundation for all true knowledge.

And he was saying something that was interesting, the way he put it, he said. He said, you know, the Bible deals with astronomy, it deals with geology, it deals with biology, it deals with ecology, zoology, it deals with anthropology.

You know, it deals with psychology, sociology. Ultimately, of course, it deals with theology, but it deals with all those things. In the beginning, God created the heavens, astronomy and the earth geology.

And then we know about the whole biological thing, God created life, he breathed into man's nostrils, the breath of life, he gave life to the animals and so forth. And of course, we know about the the the creation, the vegetation and everything, there's the ecology there.

We know about the animals and so forth, you have the zoology and then anthropology, man began because he was created by God. And if you want to know what man should be thinking and feeling and doing psychology, you go back to the word of God.

And if you want to know how people are supposed to conduct themselves collectively and live together, well, that's sociology. Here it is. It's right here in the Bible, the foundation for it. And then, of course, the most important question is, what about God?

Who is he? What does he require? Well, that's theology, but it's all wrapped up in this one book. And so as a young person, this is the time to get that strong foundation laid. Now, I don't want to, you know, probably ought to just retract that a little bit, because, you know, most young people, when they think of biology and, you know, sociology and all that stuff, man, that sounds like schoolwork.

Forget it. We don't want to do that. OK, well, just forget everything I just said, I was talking to I was talking to the older people here about that. But of course, the wonderful thing about it, you know, all of those things are contained in at least, you know, foundationally in the scriptures.

But the great thing about the Bible is it's not like your biology textbook. Don't worry. It's not like your sociology textbook. Don't worry. God is has put it together in a much, much more friendly way.

But as you read through the scriptures and as you study the works of God and as you study the lives of the saints and all that, this is what you're getting. You're getting the truth about how things work and how life is to be lived and all those things.

So as young people, this is a time to study the word of God, to get to know the word of God. But you have to take the time to do it. Secondly, it's a time to in studying to look at the works of God in nature.

Creation, Nature, and the Works of God

You know, there's so many people today that just buy this nonsensical idea of evolution. You know, if you just if you just really looked at nature for what it is and understood it even a little bit. It would in and of itself, I think, go a long ways to immunize people against.

Evolution. Because when you look at the when you look at nature, when you look at all of its complexity and all of its beauty and all of its glory, you just think, you know, there there is no way that this happened randomly.

There's just it's ridiculous to think that this. You know, was an accident. So as we study the works of God, as we just look at his creation, as we as we just contemplate nature and you can do that in a variety of ways, you can do that through art.

Do that through music, you can do all kinds of different ways, then. Studying the works of God in history. God has been working all through history and there's great histories that are available, there's, of course, the history of the church, that's a great there's great stuff there, there's there's history of missions, there's a history of, you know, biographies of different people that God's used in great ways, and you find that there's so much richness in that to see how God has worked in the lives of other people.

And sometimes just reading history itself, it doesn't even have to be written necessarily from a Christian perspective, but you can just you can see history, you can see God at work in the midst of it.

You know, it's amazing. I was talking to my oldest son, Charles, the other night, and he was reading an excerpt to me from C .S. Lewis and he's he's a big C .S. Lewis fan and C .S. Lewis was was quoting Plato.

And Plato was talking about. Well, Socrates was his instructor and Socrates, if you remember the story, he was pressured, he was accused and condemned and he ended up, you know, basically they killed him, but he kind of did it himself.

But but Plato, of course, he was devastated by that, and so he was he wrote this amazing thing and he was talking about he was talking about what the world would do to to a truly righteous person. And he was talking about the irony, how you would think that the world would embrace a truly righteous person, that the world would welcome a truly righteous person and love a truly righteous person.

And, you know, that's what you would think, he said. But no, when a truly righteous person comes into the midst of men, they hate him and they attack him. And he goes to this description and then he says this, he says, and ultimately they would take and impale him.

And C .S. Lewis, of course, who was, you know, the professor of medieval and Renaissance literature and very familiar with philosophy and and mythology and all of those things, he commented on it and he was talking about how, in a sense, Plato, although he, of course, he wasn't referring to Jesus Christ, he described he described vividly to the point of impalement, which is another which is another term for crucifixion.

Hundreds of years before Jesus was born, he described what happened to Jesus Christ, the truly righteous man who came into the world, the one totally righteous man, the one who knew no sin. And rather than being loved and welcomed and embraced, men hated him.

And attacked him and condemned him and destroyed him. But, you know, in reading that, seeing that even in something like that, you see, there's there's something to be learned about the works of God among men in the world.

Now, for a young person, I know, because my kids tell me this all the time, learning seems to be one of those things that you really wonder why you have to do it. And my kids have told me this numerous times, oh, come on, Dad, when am I ever going to use this?

This is ridiculous. You know, I don't need to know this stuff. And, you know, I think that there's probably a lot of truth to that. I've gotten by in life with I have very, very vague recollections of anything I ever learned in school.

If any recollection at all, I've done OK, but of course, that's by the grace of God. But it's, you know, the point is this, it's not necessarily that you will ever use those things, but but learning itself is the important thing.

The important thing is that you learn how to learn. The important thing is that you study so you can learn, because God has made it this way that we would get to know him through this process of observation, this process of study.

He's given us his word. And so now is a time and, of course, mainly with the word of God to get to know God through his word. And then the third and the final thing. Oh, my, I thought this message was going to be short, that's why I had everybody else come up tonight.

Present Your Body as a Living Sacrifice

Well, the third and final thing is real brief. The third and final thing is real straightforward to the point. Romans 12, one Paul says it there, he says, present your body a living sacrifice. Holy and acceptable to God, you remember God created you.