Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - Alistair Begg - Advice for Young People

Episode Date: September 7, 2023

Jonny Ardavanis is the Lead Pastor at Stonebridge Bible Church in Franklin, TN and the President of Dial In Ministries. He formerly served as the Dean of Campus Life at The Master’s University and as a Camp Director at Hume Lake Christian Camps. Jonny’s heart is to see people understand and love the Word of God and more so, to love the God of the Word. Jonny is married to Caity Jean and they have two precious daughters.Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis: Big Questions, Biblical Answers, is a series that seeks to provide biblical answers to some of the most prominent and fundamental questions regarding God, the Gospel, and the BibleIn this episode, Jonny Ardavanis sits down with Alistair Begg, the founder of the Truth For Life and discuses his advice for young people.Watch VideosVisit the Website Follow on InstagramFollow on Twitter

Hey guys, my name is Johnny Artavanis and this is Dial In. In this episode, I sit down with pastor and founder of Truth For Life, Alistair Begg, and ask him what advice he has for young people. Let's dial in. Pastor Begg, I wanted to ask you maybe just what your advice or counsel or general input would be for young people today and when I say young people I think I'm thinking of both teenagers young adults people in their 20s people my age I'm 30 and so you can throw a lot of ages under that general category but what

are things maybe that you see in our contemporary climate that you would warn against or caution young people against? What are things that you see even in the lives of your grandchildren that you would go, hey, I would want you to be mindful of this, things you see in your church. What would just be your input for young people today? Well, that's a wide spectrum. Well, just really talking off the top of my head, the question of identity for young people is so huge. You know, who am I? And why do I matter if I matter at all? And on what basis do I have significance? Is it my looks, my family background, my possessions?

And the world of social media that I am a participant in, but a reluctant participant in many ways, is something that I never had to deal with when I was a child, when I was a teenager. You know, there was very little influence outside of your immediate circle of friends. But now I notice that young people are constantly preoccupied with whether they are, quotes, being liked

or defriended or whatever it is they do to one another, which seems to me particularly for young girls to be a huge pressure. And so one of the things we want to be able to do is to show how it is that our identity is found in Jesus and in what he's done and that the plans and purposes that he has for us transcend many, many of these things. I notice, for example, that now, you know, we live in the selfie generation. The autonomy of the self, you know, is the big issue. You know,

I am who I want to be. I am what I believe I am. And again, that all comes back to that same issue of understanding that we've been made by God, for God, for a relationship with God that becomes ours in and through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that, you know, we've been raised with him into heavenly place. Yeah, I mean, the whole, they really need to know,

we need to teach young people the union with Christ, what it means to be in Christ. At another level, one of the things I want to say to young people, especially in male-female relationships, boys, girls, dating, all of that stuff, never assume that a friendship has to be more than a friendship when it begins and I watch young people and they're whether it's the pressure of the culture or

whatever I don't know to be well you know like hived off or isolated or I see even parents not necessarily in a particularly helpful way reinforcing reinforcing that kind of thing. And there are people in whose company it's easy to be good. There are people in whose company it's easy to be bad. And so in finding friends and in making friends, and particularly across the boundaries of gender, these things are really important. Another thing would be the whole generation is growing up with no realistic sense of need.

I mean, humility is in short order, a humble perspective that doesn't push you to the front of the parade, that doesn't say this is my, this is me, this is mine, to encourage people in that way. At a far more fundamental level, I want to say to people that if we're going to be followers of Jesus, then we have to be in his word.

We've got to be meeting him on a daily basis. We've got to be building out of the scriptures the kind of person that we are going to become as we grow. I want to tell guys that he who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord. That's helpful. I think one of the things you're saying in regards to the selfie culture, even the average teenager, millennial is on their phone 7.5 hours a day. Is that right? Yeah. And even kind of what you're saying is we live in a context that's kind of in this fog and illusion

that they're more connected to more people than at any other point in history, but they've never felt more disconnected. And even when you mentioned that about the dating relationships that they kind of hive away that almost our entire life individually is lived in a silo. Then in our dating relationship, it's lived in silo. Maybe just lastly, talk about the need for community, the people of God, older godly influence and how young people need to find that in the local church. Yeah, yeah. Well, absolutely they do.

And part of the challenge in local churches in America is that, and I mean, I'm in a local church in America, but I'm still British in so much of my mentality. And I still think in much smaller terms and in, you know, you don't have a luxury in Britain of being able to split into all these multiple groups so that the interaction between the ages happens far more readily just because of size than happens here. It seems to me that we have to be almost intentional about it here. So the youth group prays, but they pray youth group prayers. The senior citizens group on Tuesday prays, they pray old people's prayers. But the old people need to be energized and flavored by the very often open and unguarded way in which the young people tend to pray

and and vice versa that that you learn to pray by praying and praying with people and you learn what matters in the company of those who are you know a few a few steps further down the road than you. And so that whole idea, you know, that the Pauline perspective of Timothy is so vitally important. And I think many of us as older folks don't realize how much the young people really do covet our concerns, interaction, and offer. And so we hold back from it.

Well, I don't want to be an interfering old person. And then the young person maybe find themselves saying, I wish I was bold enough to approach so that I could engage. No, that's helpful because I think my life has been so shaped by people that are older than me. And you're right. There is kind of this huddling of demographics now,

even within healthy churches at times, it can be the older people hang over here and the younger people are here and they pool their ignorance and the older people pool their kind of, you know, the young people. So I think obviously that integration is both biblical and needed for young people today. And one of the things that goes around all the time, you get it in Christianity Today or whatever magazines come out, all about the drop-off rate of young people. And I'm not convinced by those arguments. Many of those young people have never been, quote, in church.

They've never been in church. They've been in a group. They've gone through their own demographic. And they went off to university again into their own demographic. And if they go into an environment where there is no godly influence or instruction at all,

then why would they start going to that church? Yeah. Because they never, ever did. Yeah, they've been attending a show their entire life. Yeah, they've been, yeah. And so that, again, because they never ever did. Yeah, they've been attending a show their entire life. Yeah, they've been, yeah. And so that again is,

the pastor has the responsibility to be teaching the congregation and the parents in the congregation what it means to do the hard work, do Deuteronomy 6, to have these things upon your heart and teach them to your children when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

And when that isn't being done and the idea is that some bright youth pastor, no matter how good he is, will take care of it. When that system goes away, then you got nothing left. There's nothing there. So it's an argument, actually, again, for the integration of church life,

especially in the worship community. Yeah. No, I think that's, and it's helpful because we do say 80% of people leave the church and they've been in something that's been catering to them, trying to attract them and entertain them their entire life. And then they get to a church and they're 22 and they go, what is this? Yeah.

So no, I think that's really helpful. And I'm sure your input will be welcomed by many people. So thank you so much, Pastor Big. My privilege.