And the story of his wife Mandy, after Zac went to be with Jesus in May 2010

O death, where is your victory? 1 Corinthians 15:55

Substance and Depth: Issues of the Heart, Issues of Appeal
There is enormous pressure on students ministries to bring in the numbers. This raises the question: what attracts teens? Entertainment does. This is a fact. Maybe you will have a select few who want “serious” Bible studies and such, but if you cater to their tastes (which tend to involve serious discussions, long, slow “worship” songs, low lighting and general solemnity) then your numbers will plummet. I’ve seen this happen. So, youth ministers are faced with awful dilemmas: keep the maximum number of kids in a church setting and hope for a general good outcome, or spend your time pouring into the smaller group who say they want more depth. This is the conversation I found myself having both as a student in a youth group, and later as an employee for a church student ministry. I think the dilemma is wrong.

Go Ahead and Play

First, and for the record, it is fine to have fun with your peers. All of you very devout high school students out there, hear this: you are free and alive and not nearly as sophisticated as you think. I wish I had stopped to consider that my “serious” faith was actually arrogance leading to divisiveness. Leadership: let the play become the assumed part of the evening, and the substance become what takes up your preparation. I now know the games aren’t wastes of time, but in my experience they were disproportionately attended to.

Substance

Most student ministries are about appearances. The goal is a mass of kids in one place at one time, behaving well. We constantly try to change behavior in the church, without addressing the fact that our students need a change in desires. For example: I can’t convince a teenage girl that abstinence is a good behavior without her desiring a biblical marriage. She won’t have any desire for a biblical marriage until she realizes it is God’s picture of the gospel: a little portrait to see everywhere in every corner of society.  That portrait will not be precious to her until Christ has saved her from utter peril and wrath. Every behavior that we try and convince students to emulate or forego is directly linked to a desire that needs to be made new.

Or, we confront a desire and just feed its twisted side. If students want praise, even in the church we tell them they are misunderstood, beautiful no matter what, significant and important, special and talented… they already hear all this all day everyday at school, on t.v., on facebook, on blogs. If they really believed it, teenagers wouldn’t be so darn moody. What they need to hear is that their only significance is in being built in the image of a divine creator (and there is no end to that significance.) They have done nothing but spoil and destroy and misuse that image since they were born… they already have a haunting suspicion something is wrong (thus the moods,) but in the church, we have this weird way of just joining the chorus of those trying to tell them not to be so upset, they’re really not so bad. We probably ought to tell them that, yes, most of what they fixate on is stupid. Indeed, most of what goes on in high school is worthless. They really are as messed up as everybody else. Then, we need tell them the glorious, absurd and shocking nature of the hope.

Does this make sense? What I am saying is: the goal of most student ministry teaching that I see is “act this way” and “feel this way.”  The real teaching should be a thousand different ways to see and say the gospel. If actions and feelings do not change, that is merely evidence that they haven’t heard in the first place.  The gospel is everything and everywhere, and the only hope of any kind. Until you have it, you might have a very clean outside of the cup… but it will just be a bunch of students having fun, and some students feeling pious and under appreciated. Both groups could still be very well behaved. Both groups could be going to hell.

(What’s scarier for many church parents: if the gospel really gets a hold of their teens, the bad kids will suddenly and naturally be drawn near.  Because hope attracts the ailing.)

Depth and Breadth

I’m fine with everyone having fun together. We’re really alive, for crying out loud! Enjoy it! Also, I don’t think youth groups should be solely responsible for the discipleship of their students. I’ll come back to this.

However, the teaching of student ministries that I’ve seen don’t devote a lot of time to addressing the ideas that barrage students. Philosophy, arts, ethics, economics… they don’t come up much. That takes a lot of energy and study… and kids will tell you they think it’s boring. Parents will tell you their kids don’t understand things that are so difficult. I don’t blame the kids. They’ve been fed an idea that entertainment consumption is all they are made for. However, I don’t understand the parents. I don’t know why they complain about rigorous thought being needed for studies within the church. What, exactly, do they think their kids are up against? Ideas have consequences. The ideas that permeate our education system from kindergarten through graduate school… where to even start? They are out to destroy. Maybe your child will make it through high school with “faith” reasonably intact. Maybe you live in the Bible belt, and most people in your child’s school seem Christian-ish anyway. However, if you, as a parent, are relying on the youth group to equip them with a deep faith… they won’t make it through Philosophy 100 at the local community college. (This doesn’t diverge from my earlier point that it needs to be the gospel and only the gospel that forms the substance… the gospel is the only answer for any and every issue of life and society.)

If there is any place where there should be intensive study, it is in issues of faith and God. If parents aren’t up for that, they shouldn’t stomp their feet when their child isn’t allowed to pray in class… or when they become an agnostic shortly after leaving home… or if faith simply doesn’t come up in conversation once they are adults… an entire battle of ideas and ridicule and culture went on, and the parents partook of, excused and even modeled a lack of effort. Most likely, their child’s heart was gone long before their behavior followed suit.

Personally…

Do you want to know how God graciously brought me through college, travels, and more and more college? It had little to do with what I learned in youth group. It had everything to do with frequent and long conversations with my parents… who were themselves grounded in the gospel and the Word.  They were parents who would hear what ideas, and dilemmas confronted me, and then point me towards some book, thinker, artist, theologian, doctrine which had confronted this before. I had parents who were equipped and intentional and constant. And, they prayed for me. There is no end to my thankfulness for my parents.

God is the Doer

You, as a parent, can’t save your kid.  My parents were faithful, but they didn’t save me or keep me.  God did.  He can use anything he wants to save and keep and sustain people.  That’s why we have hope for those students who have no kind of positive parenting whatsoever.  If parents are horrible or ideal, the only well-placed hope is hope in God.   Still, the biblical responsibility of parenthood is so, so clear… while the idea of youth groups are not something I see in the New Testament. I maintain that discipleship, growth, changes in desire and knowledge of the gospel all ought to be modeled and emulated and treasured at home. And parents have to pray for their kids.

I don’t want to be a youth group basher… well, ok, I do… but I think they have a time and a place. I’m still close friends with several people from student ministry days. They are wonderful, godly people, and I so value their continued presence in my life. Teenagers do need close friends who are Christians, and facilitating such time is important. But youth groups shouldn’t replace what parents are meant for… and when they do teach, it should be the gospel (and the message of depravity which that entails.)

Really, what I really, really pray for is parents who take their child’s faith seriously and view it as a responsibility worth time and effort.  I’m so thankful to have a lived an example of such parents.

He first viewed it on Kevin DeYoung‘s blog.

Perhaps a picture has been painted for you of the astounding brightness of God’s righteousness and holiness in contrast to the utter darkness of our wretched sinfulness.  Yet, into this perilous portrait, God acts in love towards us to save us in Jesus.  That is amazing grace.

Or perhaps you have been reminded of the incredible mercy of Christ in atoning for our sins by the substitution of Himself in our place – laying down His life of His own accord – a free act of love and a stunning display of grace.

God’s grace is amazing, gloriously amazing, and deserving of our praise as this Sentinel has reminded us.  So, before we end our present series, we need to turn our attention to one more discussion of grace – namely irresistible grace.

What do we mean when we use the term “irresistible grace”?  To answer that question, we should first review our understanding of “grace” by itself.  In short, “grace” is used in the Bible to describe the free acts of love and favor that God performs for the undeserving.  Maybe you have heard “grace” defined as “unmerited favor” or “underserved love”.  These phrases are an accurate broad-brush picture of the meaning of grace painted in the Bible.

When we couple the word “irresistible” to “grace”, we are then describing the work of God in turning sinners to Christ in faith.  Irresistible grace is simply the love and favor of God expressed towards rebellious and sinful men to overcome their rebellion, cleanse their hearts from sin, and make them children of God.

Let’s dig a little deeper.  Why does God need to act towards us in love to overcome our rebellion?  What does that mean to overcome our rebellion?

Well, the Bible describes the condition of the unbeliever in stark terms: dead in sin, foolish, ignorant, hard hearted, held captive by Satan to do his will, under the domain of darkness, hostile to God, enemies of God, non-seekers of God, unbelieving, blinded from truth, slaves to sin, children of wrath, boastful, proud,  … .  These Biblical terms which characterize the unbeliever depict a desperate state of rebellion against God.

Understand that in this rebellious state where the unbeliever is dead in sin and hostile to God, there is no inclination on his part towards God.  Even you and I in our unbelief before we tasted of Christ were not inclined towards God.  We did not want anything to do with God.  In fact, any truth about God revealed to us we suppressed in our unrighteousness as we sought to worship everything else instead of God alone.  None of us in our unbelief were seekers of God.  None of us did good and morally upright things from God’s perspective – not even one of us.  Our rebellion against God was thorough and complete, gripping every faculty of our being.

The question now becomes, “How did we get out of our state of rebellion and become inclined and then reconciled to God?”  The answer is, of course, we heard the gospel and we believed.  But, how did we hear?  Did not our rebellion affect our ability to truly hear?  Don’t you have to have more than physical ears to really hear from God, for Jesus said many times, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”, implying not all have true “ears to hear”?

The answer is “yes”, we needed to have more than physical ears to truly hear the gospel and believe.  In fact, there are many things we need besides true ears to be brought into Christ’s kingdom.  We need a new heart to replace our old stony heart; we need new life instead of deadness; we need sight instead of blindness; we need wisdom instead of foolishness and ignorance; we need freedom instead of captivity to sin and lawlessness; we need reconciliation to God instead of hostility to Him.

All of these things that we need are completely beyond our ability to affect.  Therefore, we need God to act for us and that is exactly what God does.  God acts in love towards us and overcomes our rebelliousness.  His powerful acts of love towards us is grace irresistible and it affects a change in us that brings us from death to life, from darkness to light, …

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved).”  [Ephesians 2:4-5]

“The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. …

For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”  [2 Corinthians 4:4,6]

“But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, ‘Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.’”   [1 Corinthians 1:30-31]

“Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.’” [John 6:43-44]

It is the sheer free and sovereign grace of God that overcomes our rebellion and makes us His children through faith in Christ.  God comes to us in our rebellious state and performs acts of love: He takes out our heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh; He pulls back the veil of our heart and shines the compelling light of the glory of Christ, such that we see and believe; He calls us forth from the dead, causing us to be born again to a living hope… all of which are acts of irresistible grace.

Irresistible grace is how God made us born-again believers and brought us into His eternal kingdom.  In fact, irresistible grace is how God has always worked to seek and save the lost

“A woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of God, was listening; and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul.”  [Acts 16:14]

“‘There are some of you who do not believe.’ For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him. And He was saying, ‘For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.’” [John 6:64-65]

God graciously acts towards us in love such that our hearts are opened and we are made alive to respond in faith to His saving gospel.  These gracious workings of God will not be thwarted for God accomplishes all that He purposes – that’s why His grace is called irresistible

“I, even I, am the Lord, and there is no savior besides Me. It is I who have declared and saved and proclaimed, and there was no strange god among you; So you are My witnesses,” declares the Lord, “And I am God. Even from eternity I am He, and there is none who can deliver out of My hand; I act and who can reverse it?”  [Isaiah 43:11-13]

“For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, ‘My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’”  [Isaiah 46:9-10]

God mightily acts to save and none can stay His hand.  His actions are the powerful workings of love to renew us and make us His own.  Nothing can keep God from doing His good pleasure and nothing can undo God’s saving acts.  His grace is irresistible.

May our hearts brim with wonder and praise and adoration and rejoicing in the Lord who mightily conquers and overcomes our rebellion, making us His children, and bringing us to faith in our risen Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.  What amazing grace!  What grace irresistible!

“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us” (A.W. Tozer; The Knowledge of the Holy).  It is of extreme importance that each of us understands that it’s not the God of our imagination or emotion that is the true God. The one true God is the God of Scripture.  God has revealed himself to us through creation, but He has graciously and specifically revealed himself to us through His living revelation, Jesus Christ and His Word (The Holy Bible).   God reveals himself in Scripture as the one true God.  That’s the God we must believe in and place our faith in.  Even our worship of God is affected by our pure and true knowledge of who He is and who we are.  “Wrong ideas about God are not only the fountain from which the polluted waters of idolatry flow; they are themselves idolatrous.  The idolater simply imagines things about God and acts as if they were true.  The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God until it is once more worthy of Him and of Her.” (Tozer; ibid).

The Righteousness or Justice of God

God’s Word hardly distinguishes between God’s righteousness and His justice.  They are interchangeable in Scripture.  So when we say God is righteous we are saying He is just.  Simply defined: God is right and just in all He is and does.  Let us examine the Scriptures in reference to this truth.

^{Ge 18:25} Far be it from you to do such a thing —to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous ^y and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”

In the above Scripture Moses speaks with God in reference to God’s destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.  Moses knows that God, “the judge of all the earth” will do what is “right.” Because God is just he will judge rightly; because He is righteous He will judge justly.

^{Ro 9:13} Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” ^{Ro 9:14} What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! ^{Ro 9:15} For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”

It would take a book or two to do a full exposition of Romans, Chapter 9, but in reference to our topic allow me to explain.  In verse 14 Paul ask, “Is God unjust?” Meaning, in context, is God unjust to elect Jacob and not Esau on the basis of His sovereign will and freedom and the answer is “Not at all!”  And in verse 15 Paul denies any injustice in God in His dealings with Isaac and Ishmael and Jacob and Esau by appealing to God’s sovereign right to dispense mercy (non-justice) on those He chooses and justice on those he chooses.  In God’s mercy he applies non-justice which is different than injustice.  Injustice is outside the category of justice and is a violation of justice. God never does anything that is unjust or falls in the category of injustice.  Mercy and compassion are also categories outside of justice but are not a violation of justice.  So when God shows mercy to a believer through our faith in the finished work of Christ, he chooses for us non-justice by being gracious and merciful.  In other words, God chooses graciously not to give us the punishment we are due because of our sin.  We praise God for his grace in Christ, because we know we are sinners and justly deserve his wrath.

^{Ex 34:6} And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, ^{Ex 34:7} maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.” ^{Ex 34:8} Moses bowed to the ground at once and worshiped.

In the verses above you will find many of God’s attribute but I would like to focus on the verse I have underlined because it speaks of God’s justice/righteousness.  Even though God tells us in verses six and seven that he is compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, and forgiving, he also tells us that he “does not leave the guilty unpunished.”  He is just and righteous and he will punish the sin (unjustness and unrighteousness) of all men.  The only men and women that will escape this punishment are those that have been redeemed through the blood of Christ.  In God’s justice he never has and never will let sin go unpunished.  The punishment for our sin is either paid for on the cross, by Jesus, or we will be punished for our sin eternally. See Nehemiah 9:32-33 and Psalm 145:17 for a couple of other Scripture verses you can study in reference to God’s Righteousness.  Let us now move from our brief study on the righteousness of God and consider our own condition and response.

The Unrighteousness (sin nature) of Man

Since the fall we human beings have been corrupt. We are born with a sin nature and our acts of sin flow out of that corrupted nature. Sin flows from the very core of our being or as it has been interpreted in Scripture; sin is at the heart of every man and woman.
To help us better understand, Jesus described our sin nature, using illustrations from what we see in nature. He said that just as a corrupt tree yields corrupt fruit, so sin flows out of a corrupt human nature.
Let’s examine Romans, Chapter 3, verses 9 through 14 where the Apostle Paul describes with clarity the universal condition of sin at the core of all humanity.

Romans 3:9-18
Ro 3:9 What shall we conclude then? Are we any better ? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin.
Ro 3:10 As it is written:
“There is no one righteous, not even one; Ro 3:11 there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.
Ro 3:12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one” (Ps. 14:1-3; 53:1-3; Eccles. 7:20).
Ro 3:13 “Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit” (Ps. 5:9); “The poison of vipers is on their lips” (Ps. 140:3);
Ro 3:14 “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness” (Ps. 10:7).
Ro 3:15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
Ro 3:16 ruin and misery mark their ways,
Ro 3:17 and the way of peace they do not know” (Isa. 59:7-8).
Ro 3:18 “There is no fear of God before their eye” (Ps. 36:1).

Notice I placed in parenthesizes where these truths can be found elsewhere in Scripture.

As you can see from the text given, Scripture reveals the truth about man; due to our sin nature (that’s at the very core of our being) , we would never seek God, if it were not for God graciously turning us to Himself through the power of His Holy Spirit in Christ
As stated in verse eleven, our sins keep us from seeking God. If left to our own accord, we would never seek God because we are enslaved to sin; we love our sin to much. Note also that “there is no one who does good, not even one.” No human being ever born of woman is good until they are born again by grace through faith in Christ alone. Then and only then can any man or woman be positionally good (righteous) and do good (right) in the power of the Holy Spirit. For our acts to be “GOOD” they must be ultimately motivated out of our supreme love for God and this is simply not possible unless one is born again of the Spirit, by grace through faith.

Conclusion:

We must, as David and Daniel did, acknowledge our own unrigheousness. We must confess our unrepentant hearts and our failure to acknowledge His righteousness and justice. Let me make this even more pointed. If one does not acknowledge his own unrighteousness before God he or she will not be saved from the wrath of God that comes from His right justice. As a result our prayers will gain power and effectiveness and God, through our faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ, will show us grace and mercy.Let me make this even more pointed. If one does not acknowledge his own unrighteousness before God he or she will not be saved from the wrath of God that comes from His right justice.

In Christ Service,

Pastor Preston

You can find more from Tullian Tchividjian on The Gospel Coalition