1. Understanding the Twenties

Story: Cotillion

Mrs. Galante:

“When do you plan to spend time with that pretty wife of yours?”

Decades are Different

Why is it important to understand the different decades in your life?

Each decade has it’s own advantages that will pass.

Each decade has it’s own challenges to be aware of.

Each decade has things that you must learn.

Each decade has common pitfalls and temptations to avoid.

If you are not aware of these things, you will end up facing the natural consequences later on in life.

Roadmap

Childhood 0-10 : Learning from parents

Control themselves

Relate with people

Walk with God

How to focus on work when needed

Teens 11-19: Becoming and Adult

Self-govern: To take responsibility for themselves.

Develop discernment

Develop patterns of…

working

relating

self-management

Twenties: Getting good training

Thirties: Building

Career

Family

Ministry

Forties: Maintaining forward progress amid difficulties

Provide and manage income for expanded family life.

Maintain healthy marriage.

Parenting teenagers.

Increased work responsibility.

Help parents as health declines.

Solidify what your life is going to be about.

Fifties: Re-assessing and Re-visioning

Keep building wealth for retirement.

Help your kids get established in career and marriage.

Exert leadership in the family with your wisdom and finances.

Career: Add value to your work and invest in younger leaders.

Ministry: Keep supporting the ministry and work to help the ministry move forward.

Deal with issues that arise with…

Health

Families of your adult children

Extended family

Re-assess and re-vision what is needed for you to move forward with the things of God.

Sixties: Accelerating to the finish line

Planning for retirement.

Thinking about ministry after retirement.

Helping kids and aging parents.

Dealing with personal health issues.

5 Decisions to make in your 20’s will impact the rest of your life

Matthew 6:33–34 ESV

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Normal: To make decisions without looking to God.

Christian version: To ask God for help getting what you want.

Better: To ask God for guidance.

Best: To ask God to guide you to what is most strategic for the Kingdom and growing in righteousness.

Where you will live.

Wherever you land a good job?

Rather:

Connect with a Ministry I will grow in?

Have an impact for the Kingdom of God.

What you will do for your career.

Money?

You need an income.

What has God shaped me for?

Who you will marry.

Possibly

Who do I have Chemistry with?

Rather:

Commitment to Christ.

Seeking the Kingdom

Can you team up with this person to make an impact for Jesus?

Discipling kids.

Living missionally.

The group you will run with.

Your tribe.

Your wolf pack.

Who are the people you are going to spend your time with?

The ministry you will do and be a part of.

How are you going to use your gifts to serve the Lord?

I dabbled in alot of ministry roles in my twenties:

Jr. High and High School.

Music - focus

Church plant

Settled in with full time college ministry.

Learn by experience how to succeed biblically in the fundamental arenas of life.

Job

College

Internship

Mentors

Money

Financial Peace University

Start budgeting when you have little, and it will prep you for when you have more. Luke 16:10

Luke 16:10 ESV

“One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much.

Mentors

Ministry

Get discipled.

Training opportunities.

Extended family

Problem solving

Not just learning what to do in certain situations.

But how to find solutions to problems.

Marriage

How to get into marriage.

How to establish godly relating.

Parenting

Managing this new responsibility without dropping other priorities.

Helping kids experience God.

Discipline

Walk with God

Look to him.

Meet with him.

Hear from him.

Love him.

Obey him.

You don’t want to be in your thirties and forties with no idea how to do these things biblically. It will be hard enough as it is. You will save yourself and others alot of pain if you spend your twenties focusing on learning these things

Preparing for the next decade

Your thirties are for building.

Temptation is to want to skip the training phase and go on to the building phase.

“Shooting stars in their twenties and thirties are falling stars in their fourties and fifties.”

While you will do some building in your twenties, it is primarily a time of laying a solid foundation for building by getting good training.

If the foundation isn’t solid, what is built on it will be compromised.

Once you are able to handle the basic arenas of adult life prudently, in line with Scripture, that is when you should focus on building.

Application: For this decade of your twenties, make your focus be getting training.