"DO HARD THINGS - A BETTER WAY"

Proposition - As we continue in our book study this evening - we are going to learn that there is a better way to live your teen years. We are going to see that God calls believers to live a counter contractual life.

Interrogative question - What are the teen years all about?

What are the teen years all about?

What do you want to accomplish in your teens years?

Example - Raymond -

Raymond is eighteen years old and lives in Baltimore, Maryland. His parents divorced when he was fourteen, and Raymond is involved in everything you can think of: smoking, drinking, drugs—even drug dealing. He moves from house to house, crashing with various friends, and has struggled to hold even the most basic jobs.

When he looks at the direction his life has taken, he expresses regret. “When I first went to high school, my understanding was like, ‘Wow, this is the time to party. It’s high school, everybody’s supposed to party in high school.’ I don’t know,” he says. “I wish I wouldn’t have thought that.”

Raymond insists that he’s not going to do drugs forever. He plans to sober up, get his GED, and move on with life. Someday he hopes to own a car dealership and sell BMWs. To help keep his dream alive, he subscribes to duPont Registry, a magazine about luxury cars, houses, and boats.

When he’s older, he plans to go to church more too. “I think about my future a few times a week,” he says. “What do I want to do with my life? Do I want to sit around and be a pothead all my life?” No, he says. And so why not change now? “I don’t know,” Raymond replies. “I’ve thought about it, but I kinda look at this as the summer to have fun and party, ’cause I’m eighteen years old, and I don’t have to worry about living under my mom’s roof, [so] I can be out as long as I want. So I’m like, ‘This will be a summer for fun; I’m gonna party and have fun this summer.’ Then after that I just want to sober up and be clean and get my life together and straighten up. “But I don’t want the future to get here too quick,” he adds. “I want to be able to live life and still have fun.” There’s probably a little bit of Raymond in all of us. Do you see him in you or in people you know? His views reflect the thinking of so many in our generation. Like many teens, he figures that he has plenty of time. At any point in the future, he can decide to clean up, grow up, and pick up his life as if nothing happened. - Do Hard Things (pp. 46-48). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Failure to Launch -

We took swimming lessons when we were kids, but growing up in the rainy Pacific Northwest, we didn’t really swim a whole lot. In other words, don’t expect us to demonstrate any nifty strokes or perform crazy flips off the high dive. It’s not happening. One thing we did learn, though, was that diving boards have a “sweet spot.” If you take a big leap and land on it just right, the diving board will launch you up into the air and down into the pool in a perfect swan dive. You hope. Of course, if you miss the sweet spot, things don’t work out so well. Your body jolts, the board clunks, and you bounce, teeter, and careen into the water. You may even do a belly flop. In fact, if someone’s watching, you’re guaranteed to do a belly flop. But back to the big picture. Do you see it?

The pool is your future life. The diving board is your present life. The Myth of Adolescence would have you think that now is your time to party beside the pool. But the fact is, you’re already on the diving board. Do Hard Things (pp. 48-49). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

The whole purpose of the diving board is to launch us, with purpose and precision, into our futures. We will either make a successful dive into adulthood or deliver something closer to a belly flop—a failure to launch. Do Hard Things (p. 49). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

In his book Thoughts for Young Men, J. C. Ryle wrote, “Youth is the seed-time of full age, the molding season in the little space of human life, the turning-point in the history of man’s mind.” In other words, what each of us will become later in life largely depends on what we become now. Are we taking that seriously? Do Hard Things (p. 49). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

1 Corinthians 9:24–25 NASB95

24 Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. 25 Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.

Proverbs 20:29 NASB95

29 The glory of young men is their strength, And the honor of old men is their gray hair.

The Rise of the Kidault -

In 2005, Time magazine ran a story on “kidults,” a new breed of adolescents in their mid- to late twenties and beyond who offer convincing evidence that the modern concept of adolescence is not a biological stage, but a cultural mind-set. It doesn’t stop when you graduate from high school, or when you turn twenty-one. “Everybody knows a few of them,” the article pronounced. “Full-grown men and women who still live with their parents, who dress and talk and party as they did in their teens, hopping from job to job and date to date, having fun but seemingly going nowhere.” Kidults generally have neither clear direction nor a sense of urgency. “Legally, they’re adults, but they’re on the threshold, the doorway to adulthood, and they’re not going through it,” says Terri Apter, a psychologist at the University of Cambridge. In other words, they’re standing on the end of the diving board, but they won’t jump in. And it’s not just in America. Countries around the world have developed names for young “adults” like this: they’re called “kippers” in England, “nesthockers” in Germany, “mammones” in France, and “freeters” in Japan. - Do Hard Things (pp. 50-51). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Example -

I had my own idea of fun, which was too much recreational reading, too much playing video games, too much of my own thing. To this day, I’ve never held a job, and I’m still living at home. My lack of real life skills has had some very negative consequences to a relationship that is very important to me. When I was a teenager, twenty-six seemed so far away, but my bad decisions then (to do nothing) are affecting my life now in some pretty serious ways. I’m an example of how low expectations and our “if it’s fun, do it” culture can mess things up, and I’m living proof (as are the others out there like me—still living at home, doing very little but still dreaming big) that adolescence truly can be extended past the teen years. Do Hard Things (p. 52). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Kidults are a tragic example of the Myth of Adolescence in action. Do Hard Things (p. 52). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

William Wilberforce, one of the greatest rebelutionary examples who ever lived, wasted the first twenty-five years of his life on parties and social extravagance. And yet he went on to be the unrelenting force behind the abolition of slavery and emancipation of slaves throughout the British Empire. How did he do it? First, God broke through and changed his heart. Immediately Wilberforce was filled with a profound sense of regret, bemoaning the “shapeless idleness” of his past and “the most valuable years of life wasted, and opportunities lost, which can never be recovered.” But second, Wilberforce chose to do hard things. He threw himself into study and serious work. For over forty years he fought against slavery in the British Empire and, through his unwavering efforts, saw it abolished shortly before his death. Few men have left a greater mark on history. This is the good news of the gospel. God offers grace and redemption to those with wasted pasts. But let us never presume upon God’s grace by wasting even a minute of what Wilberforce rightly called “the most valuable years of life.” Do Hard Things (pp. 53-54). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

The Genius of Hard Things -

Remember George, David, and Clara from the previous chapter?

We left George as official surveyor of Culpeper County at age seventeen.

David was in charge of a prize ship at age twelve, calmly keeping an unruly captain under control.

Clara was nursing smallpox patients and overseeing a classroom of students at seventeen.

Each of them clearly used their teen years to train and to launch. How did it serve them?

After three years as a surveyor in Virginia, the governor appointed George to the state militia as a major, a high rank. Then, when word came that the French were entering Ohio Territory, George was ordered to lead a midwinter expedition over hundreds of miles to assess their strength and to warn them to leave—which he successfully did. By age twenty-two, George had been promoted to lieutenant colonel, and by age twenty-three, he was commander in chief of the entire Virginia militia. You might’ve heard about what he did later in life too. After twenty years, George became the commander in chief of the Continental army in the Revolutionary War, eventually becoming the first president of the United States—George Washington.

David’s full name was David Farragut, the U.S. Navy’s very first admiral and a hero during the Civil War. His courage in the face of heavy enemy fire in the Battle of Mobile Bay won him lasting fame—but it was far from his first act of bravery. He had been preparing for that moment ever since his childhood days as a cadet on the Essex.

Clara is best known as the founder of the American Red Cross—Clara Barton. Her desire to serve others started when she was eleven years old, caring for her brother David, and it only grew from there—to the sick in her village, to the children at the school where she taught, to thousands of wounded men in the Civil War, and later to millions through the American Red Cross.

There’s a reason we still know the names and stories of men and women like George Washington, David Farragut, and Clara Barton. They invested their teen years in a way that shaped them into the history makers they later became. You probably weren’t surprised to hear how George, David, and Clara turned out. That’s because all of us know that the teen years aren’t some mystical period disconnected from the rest of our lives. For good or for bad, they will launch us into the future—our future. Do Hard Things (pp. 54-56). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

We need to be honest with ourselves. Is how we’re spending our time right now preparing us for what we hope to become in the future? Are we doing things now that will equip us for the greater things God may have for us to do? These are the fundamental questions for this season of our lives. A historian once said that George Washington “became the man he strove to be.” That statement is not only true of Washington; it’s also true about us. We will all become the men and women we strive (or don’t strive) to be. Do Hard Things (p. 56). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Five Kinds of Hard -

We call the following five categories the Five Kinds of Hard. They aren’t secret, mystical, or helpful to just some—or even to just teens. They’re God-given opportunities powered by God-given principles that work for everybody. If we launch into these opportunities now, we’ll see powerful results—now and in our future. Do Hard Things (p. 57). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

So here we go. Five different kinds of hard things:

1. Things that are outside your comfort zone. This could include activities like public speaking, learning a new skill or expanding an old one, traveling to new places, or meeting new people—anything that takes you outside the rut of your normal day-to-day, week-to-week activities. These actions can challenge us because they are unfamiliar or even scary, but they usually become some of our greatest memories, and they always end up growing our comfort zones for the future.

2. Things that go beyond what is expected or required. For example, say you only need a C to pass a class, but you aim for an A+. You aren’t content to “do no harm”—you purpose to do good. You might volunteer to clean up after the church breakfast, stay late at work without pay to help a friend finish a job, or perform household chores you aren’t even assigned. These actions are hard because they rest entirely on our own initiative. No one else will make us do them. Because of this, they are almost always the accomplishments we feel best about.

3. Things that are too big to accomplish alone. These are usually big projects like organizing a rally, making a film, forming a teen ministry to the homeless, changing your school’s policy on a key issue, campaigning to get a shock jock off the air, or starting a band. They could also include really big causes like fighting modern-day slavery, abortion, or poverty and AIDS in Africa. We’re passionate about these causes because God has placed them on our hearts. In order to be effective in these kinds of projects, we must be able to share our passion with others and recruit them to work alongside us.

4. Things that don’t earn an immediate payoff. These are tasks like fighting sin, working out, doing your schoolwork, and obeying your parents. They’re hard because you won’t see much progress from one day to the next and because, especially at the time, it can seem like you’d be happier if you didn’t do them. Also, these are often tasks that no one else sees and that don’t win you recognition or praise—things like being faithful in your spiritual disciplines, expending energy on good study habits, or driving the speed limit (even when you’re late). We do them because they’re right, not because they have an immediate payoff. In every case we’ll be better off long-term, even though the things are “hard” or distasteful in the short-term.

5. Things that challenge the cultural norm. These choices go against the flow—dressing modestly, saying no to premarital sex, holding unpopular positions on issues like homosexuality and abortion, refusing to watch R-rated movies, sharing the gospel with others, or living as an obvious Christian.

These choices are hard because they can cost you popularity and friendships. In some countries they can even cost you your life. In order to accomplish things in this category, we have to care more about pleasing God than we do about pleasing people around us. But the payoff is huge: if we do them, we can change the course of history. Do Hard Things (pp. 57-62). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

SO WHAT??

As you read through the five categories, you probably thought of some hard things you’ve already done. If so, we’re asking you to throw yourself into doing these things with a new level of passion because they are unique challenges God has prepared for you—because it’s what you were made to do. We’re asking you to live not your easiest life, but your best life according to God. Do Hard Things (p. 62). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

1 Timothy 4:12 NASB95

12 Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe.