It’s Good to Grow Up

Introduction:

What’s up students, it’s so good to be back with you! I hope you had a great break and enjoyed the new year!

I love this time of year. There’s always a new, fresh energy everyone has… there’s maybe some fresh motivation and inspiration to try something new.

(SP NOTE: Story about taking responsibility for something you didn’t used to and how that propelled growth. Wrap it in a “new year, new me” box.)

A few years ago, I knew I needed to get back into working out. Which isn’t new, I felt that again this year, but the difference a few years ago was that I went to the doctor and they said if I don’t change my habits it will impact my future in a real way. It wasn’t anything crazy it’s all the stuff we know lead to a healthy life, it was most shocking to me because it was the realization that I’m not young anymore haha. So I started taking responsibility for my health in a whole new, fresh way because of that.

We understand that we grow. So many things around us grow. Plants grow, humans grow, animals grow. We don’t just grow physically but humans grow in other ways too. We grow in our sport we play; we grow in education. I know you like to think you don’t but I’m pretty sure you know 2+2 already. You’ve moved beyond the starting point. You’ve grown.

So, if growing up is a natural thing for us to do… why do we sometimes feel like all I want to do is not grow up? Like take all my responsibilities, let me just be a kid right… I remember I used to love the summer; it was always free of responsibility. I would play video games, eat what I wanted, hang out with my friends, not have a care in the world. It was what life is all about right!

Is that what life is all about though…?

Should we be fighting for a life free of responsibility? Or something different. Well at Wednesdays, we believe that the Bible is the word of God given to us and in it is everything that we need to know how to live while we’re here. So in order for us to all be on the same page, I want us to read what the Bible has to say about this for us. Should we be fighting for a life free of responsibility?

We’re going to use a passage from 1 Timothy 3 as the foundation for our teaching series this month, let’s start with verse 1:

Here is a trustworthy saying: Whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task.

This is an important moment for us this month, we’re going to read this scripture a lot this month. I want us to be on the same page with what this verse really means. If you’re anything like me sometimes when I read the bible and I come across words that aren’t familiar to me, I really need some help understanding what they’re trying to say. Sometimes a helpful thing for me to do, is look at different versions of the bible to see if the translation helps me understand it better. Here’s the verse in the message version:

If anyone wants to provide leadership in the church, good!

Let’s use this to help us understand the first verse, what we can see about how it was translated is two words were exchanged for each other.

Overseer = provide leadership

Noble task = good

So what we can understand the Bible to say, is that if you want to provide leadership in the church, it’s a good thing. If you want to lead something, that comes with responsibility. So let’s go back to our question for the night already, Should we be fighting for a life free of responsibility?

The answer is No, God’s design is to grow us in responsibility!

In fact, what I want you to know tonight, is that Growing up is good, and we grow up by taking on the responsibilities that God gives us.

It’s through more responsibility that God desires to give us joy, meaning and purpose in our life.

(SP NOTE: Share a story of a time a pastor gave you more responsibility than you were ready for.)

Here’s what I mean, when I was in 8th grade I was given a big responsibility. I grew up at a small southern Baptist church, which I really enjoyed as I was growing up. I spent a lot of time at church, and it got to the point that the student pastor asked me one day, do you want to take on more responsibility? I thought that’s a good question, how much responsibility would you give an 8th grader? So I said sure. He then introduces me to Scott, and Scott was our “Sound Guy” at the church. My student pastor then said, why don’t you learn from Scott, and one day you can run it on your own. “On my own?!” you want me to run the sound that everybody listens to on my own… You want me to be responsible for that?! I was so nervous at first, I thought for sure I would mess everything up. Eventually I took over completely and had several Sundays that I was responsible for on my own. Every time I did that, I noticed I felt more meaning and purpose, like I actually did something. I was full of joy when everything went smoothly because “I was responsible for that!”

I know that a life of responsibility sounds boring, until you realize that the only path to a fulfilling life, is taking on more responsibility.

Something that sometimes gets in the way of that though is the style of thinking we were talking about earlier. Like maybe you believe that you’re still a kid, why don’t you just keep being a kid not taking on more responsibility because that’s normal right…? If that’s you I want you to know something it’s that You’re not too young to grow up. God might want to use you right where you are to make an impact and give you more responsibility, no matter what grade you’re in. I’m sure you could easily fall into thinking that you’re too young for this, but please you need to know, you’re not too young to grow up.

Sometimes what you need though is a vision for your life that’s worth growing up for. I didn’t know I could take on more responsibility until I was asked to… then I started thinking about what that would lead me to… it’s a long story, but that actually led to me being here. Because over time God helped me see what my life could be like if I continued down a path of taking on more responsibility.

So I want to give you a chance to do the same thing. A vision for your life isn’t something God is likely to reveal to you in a dream or something like that, I mean he can, but that’s not likely.

A vision for your life is something you pray through by asking yourself a few questions. So I want you to close your eyes and think for a minute while I ask you some questions…

(SP NOTE: I would use this time with a pad going in the room and maybe invite them to take notes on the things they think about.)

What type of person do you want to be? Do you want to be successful person, a happy person, a kind person, a smart person, a trustworthy person, a hard working person, a Jesus following person… you might even have some of your own that come to mind think about those for a second, what does that mean for you to be that type of person.

What type of marriage do you want to have? Like who do you want in a future spouse? If you were just thinking about who do you want to be, who do you want in a future spouse? Do you want a successful spouse? A smart spouse, a funny spouse, a caring spouse, an attractive spouse, a patient spouse, a Jesus following spouse? Do you want to get married or not? Maybe God is inviting you to singleness. Again you might have your own thoughts on that, what comes to mind…

What type of family do you want to have? Like what do you want your kids to be like, where do you want to live, what things do you want to be involved in, what traditions do you want to have… what things does your family currently do that you would never do, what things does your family do that you really want to make sure you do… what does it mean for you to have that type of family?

What type of job or income do you want to have? What do you want to do? How are you going to make sure that family has a house to live in, food to eat, a future to prepare for, what gives you joy? What could you do that you would be excited to wake up every day?

Now tie them all together, get the picture in your head. Ask God, is this your plan for my life or my plan for my life? If it’s your plan for your life, ask God, what would you change about your plan for my life?

That’s one way you can Open-handedly build a vision for your life worth growing up for and it is one of the ways God speaks to us and leads us.

As a high schooler I want you to know the more narrow your goal can be, the more likely you are to hit it. Write this down, aim small, miss small.

It’s a phrase used in a movie called the Patriot. I want to show you the clip because I think it’s a helpful illustration for us to get this: VIDEO

If you are able to focus on the vision God has for your life and get real specific, even if it’s not exactly what you had in mind it’s still really close.

Trust me, nothing is ever going to go exactly like you think it is supposed to go. But that doesn’t stop us from still having goals remember: Growing up is good, and we grow up by taking on the responsibilities that God gives us.

This whole month we’re going to focus on specific ways that God desires to grow us up. But as we close for the night, I want to give you a helpful way to think about growing up that will be the process we follow all month.

It’s this:

How we grow: Immature (others are responsible for me) Adulthood (I’m responsible for myself) Maturity (I healthily take responsibility for others) (Production note: keep this slide up until the end.)

Let me break it down, when we start growing we start immature. When you’re born you are dependent on others being responsible for you. This isn’t just true when you’re a baby, but it’s true everywhere. You ever start playing a sport for the first time with someone who really knows how to play, they’re responsible for you. You ever start learning something in class that you haven’t learned before, your teachers are responsible for you. This is even true spiritually, when you start out spiritually, others are responsible for you. We’ll get to that more next week, but this process continues.

How you begin to take the next step is simple, start taking responsibility for yourself. It’s not as hard as it sounds, but it does require more of you.

In fact, Jesus says this in Luke 16:10:

Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.

This is where we mostly get stuck. But it’s simple. You start to get into adulthood, by simply doing things to take care of yourself. As Jesus said if you can be trusted with little you can be trusted with lunch. What are those things? You make your own lunch, you do your own laundry, you do your own homework. This is the beginning of maturity.

Because real maturity is now that I can take care of myself, and be a healthy person. I can actually help take responsibility for others. Usually this step is when you start helping others take steps spiritually, or that’s when you’re ready to be a parent one day, or that’s when you’re able to provide for a family.

This whole month, we’re going to be learning how do we continue growing in responsibility. I believe God is going to show you some things of how you can take some steps to grow up because remember Growing up is good, and we grow up by taking on the responsibilities that God gives us.

Let’s pray.