A Call to Teenagers to Be Free
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“Don’t be part of the blind, teenage masses who do not know what is going on.”
I am writing for the liberation of teenagers. I write to challenge teenagers to “live as people who are free” (
1 Peter 2:16).
Be wise and strong and free from the slavery of culture-conformity. To
put it another way, I am calling teenagers to a radical, wartime
lifestyle.
The Creation of “Teenagers”
As teenagers, you should know that the idea of “teenagers” was
created only 70 years ago. The word “teenager” did not exist before
World War II. Between children and adults, there was no such category of
human being. You were a child. Then you were a young adult.
Just 100 years ago, you would bear crucial responsibility at age
13 on the farm or in dad’s business—or mom’s kitchen and weaving room.
You would be trained for gainful employment, or domestic enterprise, by
age 17, and would marry before you were 20, and be a responsible husband
and father—or wife and mother—by your early 20s.
This scenario is perhaps hard for you to imagine. And I am not saying
we can go back to that era, or should want to. My aim is that you be
liberated by the truth. The truth will set you free. The truth that you
do not have to fit into the contemporary lockstep expectations put on
you by your culture or your peers.
Very few teenagers have an awareness of history. That ignorance leads
to a kind of slavery. Most teenagers are slaves of the expectations of
their peers and of the big industries that market their fashion and
music and technology and entertainment.
This slavery is so pleasant—and so consistently rewarded—that the
possibility of being free from conformity to teen-culture rarely enters
your mind. Being aware from history that other possibilities exist can
set you free for radical “wartime living” in the name of Jesus.
What “Teenager” Meant 70 Years Ago
In 1944, when “teen-age” was still hyphenated,
Life magazine covered the new teen phenomenon.
The article said,
There is a time in the life of every American girl when
the most important thing in the world is to be one of a crowd of other
girls and to act and speak and dress exactly as they do. This is the
teen age.
This was not a very enviable beginning for the meaning of “teenager.”
Things have not changed much in 60 years. A teenager wrote to my
hometown newspaper:
Most of my friends often are not comfortable with what is
popular, but we wear it anyway. Standing out is just not always worth
the struggle. Society tells us to be different, yet mainstream.
How do you dress to please yourself, your parents and your peers? You
can’t. Teens end up compromising their values to fit in. If we intend
to make it through high school, or even junior high, without being
tormented, then we must dress to please our peers.
We are the up-and-coming leaders of this nation, and we must see what we have become and change. (Minneapolis StarTribune, November 16, 2002: A23)
It is not easy to be a Christian teenager. You desperately want to be
liked. To be rejected by friends can feel devastating. But just like
this young woman, you know deep down that living to be liked is slavery.
And if you belong to Jesus, that slavery may be a torment worse than
rejection.
What Does It Mean to Be Cool?
For many, being cool is everything. But what is cool? Is it really
which phone you have? Or what movies you’ve seen? Or how strong or fast
or handsome you are? Or the way your hair falls and your figure is
shaped? You are not stupid. You know that living for such things is
superficial and meaningless.
What is cool for a 14-year-old young man? I think what follows is a
hundred times more cool than phones and clothes and movies and games.
The year is 1945. World War II was still raging. Thousands of teenagers
wanted to fight. The Battle of Iwo Jima was one of the deadliest—6,800
American soldiers are buried on that tiny island, many of them
teenagers.
Jack Lucas had fast-talked his way into the Marines at
14 [in 1942], fooling the recruits with his muscled physique. … He
stowed away on a transport out of Honolulu, surviving on food passed
along to him by sympathetic leathernecks on board.
[At 17] he landed on D-Day [at Iwo Jima] without a rifle. He grabbed
one lying on the beach and fought his way inland. Now, on D+1, Jack and
three comrades were crawling through a trench when eight Japanese sprang
in front of them. Jack shot one of them through the head.
Then his rifle jammed. As he struggled with it, a grenade landed at
his feet. He yelled a warning to the others and rammed the grenade into
the soft ash. Immediately, another rolled in. Jack Lucas, 17, fell on
both grenades. “Luke, you’re gonna die,” he remembered thinking. …
Aboard the hospital ship Samaritan, the doctors could
scarcely believe it. “Maybe he was too damned young and too damned tough
to die,” one said. He endured 21 reconstructive operations and became
the nation’s youngest Medal of Honor winner—and the only high school
freshman to receive it. (James Bradley, Flags of Our Fathers, 174–175)
You Are Teenage Soldiers in a War
Knowing you are in a war changes what is cool. If your family is
under attack, fretting about your clothes and your hair stops. There are
more important things at stake. And we
are at war. The enemy
is stronger than the Axis of Germany, Japan and Italy. Indeed, stronger
than all human powers put together. The battle is daily. It is fought in
every locality. And its victories and defeats lead to heaven or to
hell.
Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. (Ephesians 6:11)
Fight the good fight of the faith. (1 Timothy 6:12)
Wage the good warfare. (1 Timothy 1:18)
The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh. (2 Corinthians 10:4)
Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. (2 Timothy 2:3)
Abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. (1 Peter 2:11)
What Is Really Going On?
Don’t be part of the blind, teenage masses who do not know what is
going on. They think that to know the latest movie or iPhone app or hit
song is to know what is going on. Those things are like cut flowers.
Bright today, tossed out tomorrow. They are utterly insignificant
compared to events that are shaping the course of eternity.
What is really going on is that people and nations are being enslaved
by Satan or liberated by Christ. And Christ fights his liberating
warfare through Christians, including teenage Christians.
But not through teenagers who are amusing themselves to death. The
average teenager is so wrapped up in himself, and how he looks, and
whether anyone likes him, that he makes a poor soldier. One of the great
marks of the soldier in wartime is that personal comforts give way to
the strategic mission. Soldiers may play cards the night before the
battle, but when the trumpet sounds they lay down their lives.
The Battlefield of Money
Take the battlefield of money, for example. The trumpet has sounded.
You are the soldier. The battle has begun. You may not feel rich, but
you have lots of stuff. Your stuff threatens to strangle your soul by
lying to you about how important and how satisfying it is (
Mark 4:19). And the money you don’t have threatens to pierce you by creating a passion to be rich.
The Great General has sent you a personal message on the battlefield. It reads,
Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a
snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into
ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of
evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the
faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. (1 Timothy 6:9–10)
Does this call wake you up? Does it make you vigilant like a soldier on alert?
Then, along with the alert, he sends a great promise that he will not leave you stranded and alone in this battle:
Keep your life free from love of money, and be content
with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake
you.” So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not
fear; what can man do to me?” (Hebrews 13:5–6)
You are set free from fear and greed by this confidence: The
Commander-in-Chief will not abandon me to perish on the field of battle.
So look your enemies in the eye. Stare down covetousness and craving,
and slay them with the Sword of the Spirit and with the superior
pleasures of Christ: “I count everything as loss because of the
surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (
Philippians 3:8).
The Battlefield of Comfort
Or take the battlefield of comfort and ease. Almost all the forces in
your life put you under pressure to maximize your comfort with the ease
and softness of our age. But the Great General has sent you a message,
as the enemy surrounds you. Remember the great warrior Moses! Fight like
he did!
By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be
called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated
with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He
considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of
Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. (Hebrews 11:24–26)
O, there is reward for victories in this warfare! Yes, there
is—beyond imagination! But the enemy wants you to think all the rewards
are in this life. He has dropped propaganda leaflets behind the lines
that read, “Heaven is a fairy tale. You are a fool to live for the
reward of heaven and not the reward of comfort and ease in this life!”
But the Commander-in-Chief counters his propaganda at every turn with
spectacular promises. No matter how hard the fighting is—no matter even
if you die in his service—he will raise you up and give you the best
pleasures forever.
“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you
and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice
and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.” (Matthew 5:11–12)
This light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. (2 Corinthians 4:17)
In fact, the Great General has sent us word on the battlefield that he will not just reward us, but he will
be our reward. “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (
Psalm 16:11).
With this sword in our hand, we drive back the lying hordes of safety
and ease and comfort and offer ourselves for Christ’s service in the
most risky assignments.
The Battlefield of Ego
Or take the battlefield of ego and peer-approval. O, how powerful
this enemy is! He has swallowed up more teenagers perhaps than any other
adversary, even lust. He comes with horrible stories of how painful
your shame will be if you do not conform to this world. He will lie to
you, and say that the only alternative to the mood and fashion and music
and movies and sexual pleasures of this world is utter humiliation and
embarrassment.
The Great General sees it all. His walkie-talkie lights up with
messages for his embattled teens. Do not be deceived. They say you will
experience shame. No. No. It is they who play the futile game of trying
to turn their shame into their glory. But you see reality for what it
is. They do not. They “walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end
is destruction, their god is their belly and they glory in their shame,
with minds set on earthly things” (
Philippians 3:18–19).
They think all the fun lies with them. It is a fool’s fun—like a
roller coaster that, at the most breathtaking moment, flies off the
rails.
With respect to this they are surprised when you do not
join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you; but they
will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.
(1 Peter 4:4–5)
You are the ones who know reality. You know what lasts—what really satisfies. For them, all is grass and the flower of grass.
“All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the
flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word
of the Lord remains forever.” (1 Peter 1:24–25)
Let the messages of the Commander sink in. Your identity is deeper
and stronger and more durable and more glorious than any plastic veneer
that your peers try to pressure you into. “You are not your own, for you
were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (
1 Corinthians 6:19–20). You are a treasured possession (
1 Peter 2:9). You are a son or daughter of the Creator of the universe (
Romans 8:16).
With these truth-daggers in your hand, slay the ghoulish lies of peer
pressure that try to deceive you into thinking conformity is freedom.
Let None Despise Your Teenage Youth
We could go on with all the
different kinds of battlefields
you must fight on. But you get the idea. The enemy lies, and the
Commander-in-Chief counters with truth. And the truth sets you free (
John 8:32).
When the Great General says, “Let no one despise you for your youth” (
1 Timothy 4:12),
he means: Don’t fit into the stereotype of the aimless, careless,
superficial youth. Break the mold. You belong to Christ. Show the world
that there is another kind of teenager on the earth.
This teenager is not a leaf blown along with the wind of cultural
trends. He is not a jellyfish floating with the current of the times. He
is a tree that stands firm in the strongest storms. He is a dolphin who
slices the waves against the tide. He is going somewhere.
Dream of being a kind of teenager that the world cannot explain.
Maybe someday, if there are enough of you, they will invent a new name.
And “teenager” will be a footnote in the history books.
John Piper is the Pastor
for Preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He
grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, and studied at Wheaton College,
where he first sensed God's call to enter the ministry. For 6 years he
taught Biblical Studies at Bethel College in St. Paul, Minnesota, and in
1980 accepted the call to serve as pastor at Bethlehem. John is the
author of more than 30 books and more than 25 years of his preaching and
teaching is available free at desiringGod.org. John and his wife, Noel,
have four sons, one daughter, and an increasing number of
grandchildren.
(By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: DesiringGod.org)
More from John Piper or visit John at
http://www.desiringgod.org
Have
you ever closely examined your hands or the hands of another? While
that might seem like a strange question, a recent devotional made me
contemplate my own hands. In a little more than three months, I will
celebrate my 62nd birthday. When I compare my hands to the smooth
unblemished hands of my grandchildren, I try to recall what mine looked
like before they became permanently marked with the telltale signs of
aging.
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John MacArthur is the
pastor-teacher of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, as
well as an author, conference speaker, president of The Master’s College
and Seminary, and president and featured teacher with the Grace to You
media ministry. He has written nearly 400 books and study guides,
including The MacArthur Study Bible.
FREETOWN, SIERRA LEONE (ANS – August 4, 2105)
– The Rev. Themi Adams, a former rock star, who found Christ and is now
a Greek Orthodox missionary in Ebola-hit Sierra Leone, is now facing a
new challenge.
The
Rev Themi's has been featuring their sad situation on his Facebook
page, which has received many comments. They have included:
It
was announced recently that Ebola vaccine tests conducted by the World
Health Organization (WHO) in West Africa (Guinea) have proven to be 100%
effective against the deadly virus.
About
the writer: John Tsambazis is an award winning editor/producer with
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Ron Edmondson is a pastor
and church leader passionate about planting churches, helping
established churches thrive, and assisting pastors and those in ministry
think through leadership, strategy and life. Ron has over 20 years
business experience, mostly as a self-employed business owner, and he's
been helping churches grow vocationally for over 10 years.
