Can I Be Faithful to God and Popular at School?

00:00:00.000 | A young listener of the podcast named John writes in to ask this, "Hello Pastor John,

00:00:04.640 | I am in high school. At school I want to be well-liked, even thought of as cool,

00:00:09.520 | but I'm also very scared that wanting to be popular will lead me into sin. How can I live

00:00:16.080 | godly and be well-liked?" Pastor John, what would you say?

00:00:19.680 | Well, I'm glad he feels that way because that's right. I think being driven by coolness is deadly.

00:00:26.960 | The problem with wanting to be cool in our culture is that cool is almost always defined by the fool.

00:00:34.160 | So it's almost always cool equal fool. If you want to know what a fool is,

00:00:43.440 | read the book of Proverbs in the Bible. In fact, I think every teenager, especially boys,

00:00:53.280 | should read Proverbs over and over and over again because of how clearly the Proverbs

00:00:59.680 | expose the stupidity of much that is considered cool. They make the cool guy who is getting a

00:01:08.640 | different girl every weekend look like an ox going to the slaughter, which he is. It's not cool. It

00:01:16.560 | looks cool. Everybody thinks it's cool. TV is going to tell you it's cool. Movies are going

00:01:20.080 | to tell you it's cool. Your friends are going to tell you it's cool. It's clearly not cool to regard

00:01:25.040 | him as not cool. God says he's an ox going to the slaughter where his throat is going to be slit,

00:01:32.000 | and that is not going to look cool in the end. You can be smart. God is very smart,

00:01:37.920 | and you should trust what God says about what's cool. Now, what about letting Jesus define what

00:01:45.520 | is cool? I mean really, really cool, eternally cool, viewed as cool by the smartest, strongest,

00:01:52.560 | wisest people in the world. Here's what an example would be of cool. Jesus said—this is Mark 10:42—

00:01:59.760 | Jesus said to him, "You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over

00:02:07.840 | them, and their great ones exercise authority over them, thinking it's cool. But it shall not be so

00:02:17.120 | among you, but whoever would be great among you." Now, substitute "whoever would be cool among you,"

00:02:26.000 | because I think great is just as good or 10 times better than cool. Whoever would be great, whoever

00:02:33.200 | would be cool among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first—first cool—among you must

00:02:41.840 | be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and give his life a

00:02:50.320 | ransom for many. So the essence of cool—cool before God, cool before the wisest, smartest people

00:02:56.320 | in the world—the essence of cool is being so poised, and so content, and so peaceful, and so

00:03:05.520 | satisfied, and so mature, and so confident, and so joyful, and so courageous in Christ that you are

00:03:13.600 | freed, you are set free from the insanity of the fool who thinks that being cool comes from your

00:03:22.160 | clothing. I mean, this is insane. Or your hair—hair! Come on! Or what movies you go to, or video games

00:03:33.680 | you've watched, or what phone you carry. This is insanity. You are a human being created in the

00:03:42.720 | image of God Almighty, destined to live forever and ever and ever and ever in hell or in heaven.

00:03:49.120 | Nothing could be more stupid than to think that your significance, your worth, your greatness,

00:03:54.960 | your coolness is in what people think about your outward appearance instead of what they think

00:03:59.920 | about your inner reality that's going to live forever and ever and ever. So be one of those

00:04:05.760 | teenagers who wakes up from the lunacy of the cattle drive mentality, where the whole herd of

00:04:14.400 | cattle is going right over the cliff because some cool bull or some pretty heifer is out there

00:04:19.760 | leading the way right off a cliff. Here's the problem, usually, as I see it. Most teenagers

00:04:28.720 | in general—oh, I hope you're an exception to this. I hope everybody who's listening is an

00:04:33.280 | exception to this. But most teenagers in general are doing nothing of any real significance.

00:04:39.440 | They're playing sports. They're going to parties. They're watching movies. They're

00:04:43.920 | playing video games. They're cleaning up the room. They're hanging out. They're

00:04:47.360 | digging around on their computers. They're doing a little homework. And since nobody's doing

00:04:53.600 | anything of real significance, "cool" has to be defined in silly, superficial, stupid things

00:04:59.200 | like looks or cleverness or swagger. Good grief. But what if Christian young people began to do

00:05:08.480 | things that are really significant with their lives, began to be like Jesus, serving other

00:05:14.960 | people rather than thinking that coolness is in how you look, making a difference in the world?

00:05:21.120 | Let me give you a crazy example just to help you feel what I feel when I talk about real service,

00:05:30.080 | real significance, real cool in this world. The year is 1945. World War II is raging. Thousands

00:05:37.760 | of teenagers wanted to fight. They're too young. Jack Lucas fast talked his way into the Marines at

00:05:45.520 | age 14, 1942, fooling the recruits because he's big. And he stowed away later on a transport out

00:05:55.920 | of Honolulu heading for Iwo Jima. And he survived on the boat by sympathetic Leathernecks passing him

00:06:03.920 | food. And now he's 17. He's been doing all this for three years. He's 17, stowed away.

00:06:10.880 | And on D-Day when they went ashore, and got to remember 6,800 American soldiers are buried

00:06:20.560 | on this tiny island of Iwo Jima. And many of them, maybe most, were teenagers, 18, 19 year olds.

00:06:29.360 | He landed without a rifle. They didn't even know he was on the boat. He grabbed one lying on the

00:06:35.840 | beach and fought his way inland. Now it's D-Day plus one. Jack and three comrades are crawling

00:06:42.720 | through the trench when eight Japanese sprang up in front of them. Jack shot one through the head,

00:06:48.560 | his rifle jammed. As he's struggling, a grenade lands at his feet. He yells the warning to the

00:06:54.160 | others, rams the grenade down in the soft ash, and immediately another one rolls in. Jack,

00:06:59.520 | 17 years old, falls on both grenades. "You're going to die," he remembered thinking.

00:07:04.400 | Then aboard the ship afterwards, the Samaritan ship, the doctors could scarcely believe it.

00:07:11.600 | This is a quote, sorry for the language. "Maybe he was too damn young, too damn tough to die,"

00:07:19.120 | one said. He endured 21 reconstructive operations, became the nation's youngest

00:07:25.280 | Medal of Honor winner, the only high school freshman to receive it. Now when I read that,

00:07:30.960 | my spine tingles. I'm 70 years old and my spine tingles. I don't want to waste my life on cool.

00:07:39.680 | Ten thousand times more cool than having your hair twisted just so that nobody thinks you're so

00:07:48.640 | yesterday. So my simple challenge to John and thousands like him is don't try to be cool.

00:07:57.360 | And don't try to be uncool. That's not the goal. Neither is. Try to be free from the herd

00:08:06.960 | mentality and be a radical servant. Focus not on what you're not going to do or not going to be,

00:08:15.520 | but focus on what you are going to be. The things you are going to do for the good of others.

00:08:22.080 | He who would be great cool, Jesus said, must be the servant of all.

00:08:29.760 | Like Jesus who died for others that they might live. What would that look like at your high

00:08:38.960 | school, church, neighborhood? It would turn your whole focus around. How can I serve somebody today?

00:08:49.520 | Not how can I get somebody to like me today? What a crazy, radical, wonderful

00:08:56.880 | revolution. And I just say, John, lead the way in this.

00:09:01.280 | Yeah, very helpful counsel for students, Pastor John. Thank you. And thank you,

00:09:05.760 | John, for the question. If you're a high school student or a college student and you face particular

00:09:10.560 | challenges on campus, tell us about them. No doubt you are not alone, and no doubt Scripture has some

00:09:16.240 | wise counsel to offer you. As always, you can find our audio feeds and our episode archive,

00:09:21.600 | and you can reach us via email to send those questions into us all through our online home

00:09:25.600 | at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn. We are going to return on Friday, but for the life of me,

00:09:34.720 | I can't remember what the topic is right offhand, but I bet it will be important and interesting,

00:09:39.040 | or at least one of the two. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening to the

00:09:43.120 | Ask Pastor John podcast with longtime author and pastor John Piper. We'll see you next time.

00:09:47.760 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

00:09:56.120 | you

Can I Be Faithful to God and Popular at School?

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