Give Young Christians a Chance to Lead
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - What role do young Christians play
00:00:07.200 | in leading and guiding a local church, a local congregation?
00:00:11.800 | It's a good question, especially in light
00:00:13.040 | of young Christians honoring older Christians.
00:00:15.800 | Here's the email, Pastor John, hello.
00:00:17.800 | I am a young pastor in Missouri.
00:00:20.520 | Lately, I've noticed older Christians in the church
00:00:22.960 | appealing to 1 Peter 5:5.
00:00:25.960 | It has been used to silence younger believers in the church.
00:00:30.300 | What should be the role of younger members of the church
00:00:33.980 | related to older members in, say,
00:00:36.340 | church business meetings, for example,
00:00:38.660 | when older members seek to shut down conversations
00:00:41.540 | and to avoid discussing uncomfortable topics?
00:00:45.580 | I would love your input on how to navigate
00:00:47.980 | through this sticky and confusing topic.
00:00:50.940 | - It seems to me that most human cultures
00:00:56.900 | from around the world give evidence
00:01:00.820 | that something is written on the human heart
00:01:04.060 | to tell us that younger people should respect older people.
00:01:09.980 | Now, by respect, I mean accord them a certain deference,
00:01:16.220 | a certain honor, a readiness to serve them
00:01:21.040 | and give serious attention to what they say.
00:01:24.620 | And I think that's what the scriptures say.
00:01:26.900 | For example, Leviticus 19.32 says,
00:01:30.540 | "You shall stand up before the gray head
00:01:34.900 | and honor the face of an old man,
00:01:37.360 | and you shall fear your God, I am the Lord."
00:01:42.140 | And Paul cautions Timothy in the exercise
00:01:47.300 | of his pastoral authority toward older members.
00:01:50.780 | He says, this is 1 Timothy 5.1,
00:01:54.420 | "Do not rebuke an older man,
00:01:57.380 | but encourage him as you would a father.
00:02:01.380 | Younger men as brothers, older women as mothers,
00:02:05.740 | younger women as sisters in all purity."
00:02:09.100 | And I think that's Paul's way of saying,
00:02:13.020 | yes, young man, Timothy, yes,
00:02:16.340 | you have pastoral authority to guide
00:02:19.840 | and correct older people, but there's a way to do it.
00:02:24.880 | That shows a special respect for them as older.
00:02:29.880 | Now, I start my answer to this question that way
00:02:35.660 | for this young pastor in Missouri.
00:02:38.240 | I start my answer that way
00:02:41.600 | because I think this tone ought to color
00:02:46.600 | all our dealings in the church.
00:02:51.220 | I think older people in the church should be treated
00:02:54.180 | with a peculiar kind of respect
00:02:57.100 | that is different from the young people.
00:03:00.020 | Now, Peter says, "Honor all men, respect all men,"
00:03:05.740 | in 1 Peter 2.17.
00:03:07.860 | And then he says, with the same word, "Honor the emperor."
00:03:12.860 | Now, all people should be honored
00:03:16.260 | or respected as human beings,
00:03:19.120 | but that does not mean that all human beings
00:03:22.340 | should be respected in the same way.
00:03:24.720 | Similarly, all ages should be respected,
00:03:29.580 | but an 80-year-old is not to be respected
00:03:33.360 | only in the same way you respect a teenager.
00:03:36.360 | But having laid that foundation
00:03:40.380 | that I think is really crucial for the culture
00:03:43.700 | or the ethos of a church,
00:03:46.460 | there is a clear and powerful stream in the Bible
00:03:51.320 | that warns us against assuming old equals wise.
00:03:56.320 | It doesn't.
00:03:58.880 | It may, an older person may be wiser because of his age,
00:04:03.880 | and it often does.
00:04:05.040 | I mean, it should.
00:04:06.600 | The old men gave good counsel to Rehoboam.
00:04:10.200 | I just read this in my devotions this morning.
00:04:12.600 | The old men gave good counsel to Rehoboam
00:04:15.840 | in 1 Kings 12, and the young men gave stupid counsel.
00:04:19.640 | Oh my goodness, the centuries-long horrors
00:04:23.640 | that came from that stupid counsel.
00:04:25.960 | That's the way it is ordinarily, in fact, I would say.
00:04:30.480 | Young don't have wisdom yet, and older people do,
00:04:34.400 | but that's not always the case.
00:04:38.200 | A long life should be a good teacher,
00:04:41.700 | should produce wisdom, and long study of God's word
00:04:45.780 | should yield a ripe mind and heart
00:04:48.880 | so that our older men ought to be the great repositories,
00:04:52.860 | and our older women ought to be
00:04:54.260 | the great sages of the church.
00:04:57.780 | It should, and we ought to hope for it.
00:05:00.540 | We ought to expect it, look for it.
00:05:03.340 | But it is the case that often there are arrogant,
00:05:08.220 | stubborn, foolish, lazy, ignorant old men,
00:05:13.220 | and there are humble, patient, wise,
00:05:16.700 | diligent, knowledgeable young men.
00:05:19.840 | We simply dare not equate age and wisdom
00:05:25.620 | or youth and folly.
00:05:27.460 | The Bible is very clear that that is a wrong way to think.
00:05:31.980 | For example, Psalm 119, 100,
00:05:34.820 | "I understand more than the aged,
00:05:38.660 | for I keep your precepts."
00:05:41.580 | There's the reason why we dare not equate wisdom with age.
00:05:46.420 | The word of God makes the key difference,
00:05:50.180 | not the years lived.
00:05:53.140 | And there are some young men who have been shaped more
00:05:58.140 | and more deeply by the word than some old men
00:06:02.820 | who have been very neglectful of the word all their lives
00:06:07.180 | and are still in the church,
00:06:09.300 | and not as wise and as mature
00:06:12.160 | as people 30 years younger than they are.
00:06:14.720 | For example, Jeremiah,
00:06:19.620 | who is so hesitant to speak God's word
00:06:23.860 | because of his youth,
00:06:25.560 | and God gets a little bit upset with him, I think,
00:06:29.720 | in Jeremiah, he says,
00:06:33.080 | Jeremiah 1, 5, "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.
00:06:38.080 | And before you were born, I consecrated you.
00:06:42.080 | I appointed you a prophet to the nations."
00:06:47.480 | And then I said, "Oh, Lord God, but I'm only a youth.
00:06:51.340 | I don't know how to speak."
00:06:53.720 | And the Lord said to me, "Do not say I am only a youth,
00:06:58.060 | for to all I send you, you shall go."
00:07:02.080 | And whatever I command you, you shall speak.
00:07:04.640 | Do not be afraid of them.
00:07:06.160 | I'm with you to deliver you."
00:07:08.000 | That's a pretty strong word from God
00:07:12.480 | for a man who's saying, "I'm too young."
00:07:15.520 | Paul was just as concerned
00:07:19.760 | that Timothy would be cowed
00:07:22.880 | by his own youth
00:07:26.440 | as he was concerned that Timothy
00:07:28.680 | would be disrespectful of older people.
00:07:32.240 | So not only did he say,
00:07:34.820 | "Encourage rather than rebuke older men,"
00:07:39.560 | he also said, "Let no one despise your youth,
00:07:43.640 | but set the believers an example in speech,
00:07:46.880 | in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity."
00:07:49.520 | In other words, do not let your youth
00:07:52.640 | keep you from ministering the word
00:07:54.760 | with power and courage to older people.
00:07:56.980 | Two years into my ministry at Bethlehem,
00:08:01.840 | this is 1982 now, I came in 1980,
00:08:05.120 | I came back from vacation in August of that year.
00:08:07.800 | You can go find this message online.
00:08:09.820 | I preached a message titled, "Let the Young Speak."
00:08:14.200 | And I remembered it after all these years
00:08:15.880 | because I felt it was a risky message.
00:08:19.120 | Let the young speak.
00:08:20.640 | The church was overwhelmingly older people,
00:08:23.400 | wonderful older people, in fact.
00:08:26.600 | I was 36 years old,
00:08:28.800 | but newer, younger people were streaming to the church.
00:08:33.800 | And it would only be a matter of time
00:08:37.360 | till this, at that time, 113-year-old church, I think,
00:08:41.440 | would see young names on the ballots
00:08:45.840 | and young people at the business meetings
00:08:50.200 | standing up perhaps with something to say.
00:08:52.360 | So I thought I should head off at the pass
00:08:57.320 | any notion that only older people
00:09:00.720 | have biblical maturity and wisdom.
00:09:03.480 | So I chose as my text, I can remember it so clearly.
00:09:07.920 | I was in Georgia getting this sermon ready during vacation.
00:09:12.080 | I chose as my text Job 32, which is Elihu.
00:09:17.080 | Elihu gets ready to speak and rebuke Job.
00:09:25.600 | He's gonna rebuke Job.
00:09:27.480 | He's gonna rebuke Eliphazad, Bildad, and Zophar
00:09:32.160 | because he thinks all of them have got it wrong.
00:09:35.160 | And I think Elihu's right.
00:09:37.400 | I argue in the sermon that Elihu's a good guy.
00:09:39.960 | He's not one of these bad teachers
00:09:42.360 | and there are all kinds of reasons for that.
00:09:43.640 | But here's what that text says.
00:09:46.560 | Now, Elihu had waited to speak to Job
00:09:51.560 | because they were older than he.
00:09:55.320 | And when Elihu saw that there was no answer
00:09:59.800 | in the mouth of these three men,
00:10:02.080 | he answered and said,
00:10:04.960 | "I am young in years and you are aged.
00:10:08.840 | Therefore I was timid and afraid
00:10:11.600 | to declare my opinion to you.
00:10:14.000 | I said, let days speak, let many years teach wisdom.
00:10:21.480 | But it is the spirit in man,
00:10:25.880 | the breath of the Almighty that makes him wise,
00:10:29.120 | that makes him understand.
00:10:30.840 | It is not the old who are wise,
00:10:34.840 | nor the aged who understand what is right.
00:10:38.680 | Therefore I say, listen to me.
00:10:42.160 | Let me also declare my opinion."
00:10:45.560 | So I concluded that in that message
00:10:49.160 | that being old and being young is not decisive
00:10:54.160 | in who is qualified for office
00:10:58.840 | or who has the greater wisdom.
00:11:01.080 | The word of God decides,
00:11:02.880 | the spirit of God decides what is wisdom.
00:11:07.400 | On any issue we ask, what does the word of God say?
00:11:12.240 | Not how old is the speaker?
00:11:16.680 | The elders in 1 Peter 5, 5 are the same.
00:11:21.680 | Now this is my answer to how to deal with those folks
00:11:26.200 | that are misusing this text.
00:11:27.560 | I think misusing this text that our questioner,
00:11:31.480 | the pastor in Missouri asked about.
00:11:34.400 | I think the elders in verse five,
00:11:37.160 | to which the young are said to be submissive,
00:11:40.200 | are not just older people.
00:11:42.840 | They are the same elders four verses earlier
00:11:46.480 | and they are pastors, they are officers.
00:11:51.080 | Pastor and elder are interchangeable offices
00:11:54.080 | in the New Testament.
00:11:55.000 | So when the younger members are told
00:11:57.360 | to be subject to the elders,
00:11:59.160 | it means that they should show a special deference
00:12:02.920 | to the pastoral leaders of the church.
00:12:05.520 | But the most important exhortation
00:12:09.360 | is probably the second half of verse five,
00:12:12.000 | which says, "Clothe yourselves, all of you."
00:12:16.400 | That means young and old, officers and laypeople,
00:12:19.760 | "Clothe yourselves, all of you,
00:12:22.400 | "with humility toward one another,
00:12:25.360 | "for God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble."
00:12:29.520 | So the older people and the younger people
00:12:33.680 | should clothe themselves with humility.
00:12:37.440 | And I'm just, I mean, looking back on those days,
00:12:40.120 | those early days of my ministry as a 35, 36, 37 year old,
00:12:44.680 | surrounded by very old people,
00:12:47.760 | that's what they were like.
00:12:49.840 | It was just wonderful.
00:12:51.640 | I think we both labored to clothe ourselves
00:12:55.360 | with humility toward each other.
00:12:58.240 | And I think that means that in the church,
00:13:01.800 | both older and younger, will make every effort
00:13:05.880 | to submit their wills to the word of God.
00:13:10.560 | It's not age and it's not youth
00:13:14.520 | that is decisive in settling what is true
00:13:18.920 | and what is wise.
00:13:20.480 | It is the word of God.
00:13:23.520 | - Yeah, thank you, Pastor John.
00:13:24.760 | And that old sermon, "Let the Young Speak," is online.
00:13:29.320 | It was preached 40 years ago now on August 29th, 1982.
00:13:34.320 | And the whole thing is at desiringgod.org.
00:13:36.960 | Thank you for joining us today.
00:13:39.280 | Ask a question of your own, search our growing archive,
00:13:41.600 | or subscribe to the podcast, all at askpastorjohn.com.
00:13:46.600 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:13:48.320 | We'll see you back here on Wednesday.
00:13:50.160 | Thanks for listening.
00:13:51.200 | (upbeat music)
00:13:53.780 | (upbeat music)
00:13:56.360 | [BLANK_AUDIO]