How two young men led their peers away from lust and toward Christ
When God grips the heart of a young man for the purpose of
transforming him into material fit for His use, the process is often violent. One
moment you see sparks of brilliance and the next you see sparks from the sofa
he just chose to turn into a smoke signal to his buddy across the room.
So when a young man approaches me with a “good idea” my
kneejerk reaction is to fall into a posture of skepticism and to swiftly but
subtlety place myself between these young men and any other innocent targets of
their adolescent genius.
My cynicism was dealt a welcome blow in January at the
Leadership Advance (JLC), our annual conference for young men. The group of
around 60 young men had been broken into smaller groups that for the most part
go through the three day event as a small group together.
Two young men in my small group both of whom I have had the
privilege of discipling separately the past few years had hit it off and
apparently had got to talking about all that God has done in them the past
three years. They are indeed two examples of young men in whom the Spirit has
left no area untouched by his winnowing grace.
They came to me with a courageous suggestion. Both of them had
been struggling with sexual sin when we first met. But as I have seen time and
time again, this sin so deeply rooted, was no match for the strong and kind
hands of our triune God. Both of them have seen God work to such an extent that
what had enslaved them for so long has been replaced by freedom and a life
given over to serving God and others rather than serving themselves.
These two young men wanted to do something crazy. They
wanted to share with the guys in their group how they found freedom from their enslavement
to lust. They were passionate and serious about sharing not so much about the
depth of their struggles but the depth of God’s mercy and the freedom that is
so very real at the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ. I knew these guys. Yes
they are young and are not beyond the occasional indoor smoke signal, but when
it comes to their faith they are passionate and sober minded about seeing other
young men experience the joy of their salvation. They had come to see the
freedom that can only come from allowing Christ to topple the lying adolescent
idols that without care are as common to the young man’s heart as weeds are in
my garden at home. They wanted passionately to communicate the hope that is
available to young men from lips that would carry a special kind of weight.
God’s promises are not wishful thinking.
I said yes and prayed that God would be glorified and I
wouldn’t be mortified.
