Reaching The Next Generation | The Book Of Psalms Week 7

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- Listen to me, don't be the last link in your chain.

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Today we're talking about legacy,

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and we could use a family tree,

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but chains are just a lot cooler,

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and we like to have fun over here.

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But also generations is -- it's linear,

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one to the next to the next to the next.

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And this is exactly what a chain is.

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And I'm afraid just possibly your family legacy

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is going to end with you instead of go beyond you.

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Hey, my name is Joel, and I lead the student ministry

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at all of our sites across Crossroads.

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And I am so passionate about what we as people

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are doing for the next generation because

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we will not let the generations stop with us.

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We will have it go through us to the next generation.

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And I think the same is true for you.

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In fact, at Crossroads we're at the series

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called All of the Feels, and it's about the Psalms,

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which has all these emotional feels to it,

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and it talks about deep theological concepts

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that they put a melody to it.

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And today we're going to get into the Book of Psalms

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as we talk about why this is so important

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and what you can do to make sure

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you're not the last link in the chain.

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- Where are we in the Bible?

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Let's begin at the beginning, shall we?

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The Bible begins in the Old Testament,

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written around 3500 years ago.

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The first five books of the Old Testament:

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Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy

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are known as the Pentateuch, or books of the law.

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The next 12 books: Joshua, Judges, Ruth,

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1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings,

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1 Chronicle, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther.

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Whew. That's a lot.

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These are known as the historical books.

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This brings us to the books of the Bible

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known as the Wisdom Literature.

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It starts with Job and then into

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a collection of 150 poems known as the Psalms.

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- It's fun to joke about the generations behind us

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and ahead of us and and even our generation,

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in fact, something that's so popular right now

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for this generation it's called Tic Toc,

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maybe you've heard of it.

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So today we're going to have some fun

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and we're going to make one.

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[tone]

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[music]

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[tone]

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- Gosh, I am so not cool to this generation,

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but that doesn't mean I couldn't be impacted

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to reach them, and the same is true for you.

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Let's talk about family chains, all right.

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Mine starts with my dad.

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He started the legacy of our family. Why?

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He was a first generation Christian in our home.

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So he didn't grow up with people telling him about God

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or even in a home that that took him to church

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or showed him any sort of concept of God.

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But at eight years old, a friend invited him

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to something called Vacation Bible School.

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And, you know the puppet thing. Yeah.

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And it worked for him, and he gave his life to Christ.

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And he became the first link on a legacy

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that went through and beyond him.

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In fact, he actually went home

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and started trying to reach his parents.

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He started telling them about church,

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and eventually they went

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and both his mom and his dad gave their life to Christ

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because an eight year old invited them

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to something called Vacation Bible School.

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And now I'm here now. This is me.

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I'm Joel, this kind of cute link right here.

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And now I get to have Christian parents and grandparents

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because an eight year old told somebody

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about a God who loved them so much

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and it better not stop with me.

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It better not stop with me.

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In fact, maybe you're listening and you're going,

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"I don't even have kids

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or I'm not even close to the kid age,"

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and I don't have kids either.

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But yet, it's why I've dedicated my life

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to reaching this next generation,

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to a legacy going beyond me.

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And I hope you're interested in doing the same

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because we're going to talk about it today.

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We are in this series that's all about this concept,

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theological concepts put into melodies.

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And the theological concept we've been talking about

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and will talk about is legacy.

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But I want to show you it.

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This is what the psalmist, his name is David,

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this is what he says about the generation

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below him and beyond him. He says:

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In other words, it is a biblical command

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to pass your faith on to the next generation.

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Well, why don't we have a little bit of fun

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and talk about how different generations

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have done this over the years?

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The very first generation, the oldest one

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is the traditionalist or the silent generation.

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They are 77 years or older.

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And if you're watching, good for you.

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You're a legacy builder. Keep going. All right.

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Now, your generation, you got it handed to you

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or you handed it on to the next with big revivals.

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And they did these revivals

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with a guy named Billy Graham.

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And Billy Graham would reach the masses.

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He wasn't in a dope vibe-y bar like this.

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He would reach so many people from stages

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and they handed it on to the next generation,

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the boomers.

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And the boomers then took it in

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and handed their generation on to,

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about 58 years old to 77,

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to Gen X by a thing called tracts.

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You remember Bible tracts? You'd go door to door. Yeah.

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And then Gen X got wild. You all got out of control.

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If you're Gen X, you about 47 or older right now

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and you pass on your faith to our generation

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by using something like this.

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If you didn't grow up in church or any sort of mass

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or anything like that,

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you probably have no idea what this is.

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This is a flannel graph board. It's incredible.

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Some people argue that it never works

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past 6 a.m. on a Sunday morning,

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but this is how literally the generation above me,

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Gen X, handed their faith

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on to the millennial generation, mine,

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was through a flannel graph board.

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The first time I heard about Jesus

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was through a piece of felt.

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Now, if you didn't grow up in church,

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let me explain what's going on here.

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Just pretend it's six in the morning.

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Your parents drag you to some room

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that smelled like dust, and some person

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that was 140 stood next to this

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and put magical felt pieces on a board.

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You're caught up. All right.

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And I literally heard about Jesus this way.

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Now, I didn't start following Jesus because of this.

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It was fun to see a teacher take a boat

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and wave it over and put it on a board that would stick.

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If you were if you were picked as a volunteer

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to come put the character up, it was crazy.

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However, this was all 2D.

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Those teachers could then go

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and live and do whatever they wanted.

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The way I learned about faith,

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the way my faith started expanding,

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was through my dad, a 3D example,

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skin to skin of somebody who wanted to make sure

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the generation behind him, me,

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knew that it wasn't his link.

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I couldn't hang on his link.

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I needed my own link to do this,

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because way more is caught than is taught.

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Let's just talk about this generational fade. All right?

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This doesn't just happen in the Christian world,

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like, they will catch what our generation hands them.

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And the generations above us,

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we've caught what they've handed us.

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I'll give you an example.

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Right now I work a lot, as I mentioned,

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with the next generation.

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And a 16 year old, so someone a part of Gen Z,

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this was the exact phrase they said to me.

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They said, "Respectfully,"

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which if anybody of that generation looks at you

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and says, "Respectfully," you're about to get roasted.

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He said, "Respectfully, the outfit,"

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I think he said fit. "That fit is mid."

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You need a translator, right?

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But what he was saying here is basically

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my outfit is like okay and average.

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And he just wanted to tell me and he was allowed to

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because he said, "Respectfully."

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Where did they catch a concept like that?

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My generation.

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I'm part of the millennial generation,

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so that's right now about 27 to 45.

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And for our generation, it was, "No offense."

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You could just be like,

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"That shirt doesn't look good, no offense."

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And you were fine. Where did we get it?

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The generation above us, it was "Bless their heart."

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You remember that?

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You could say whatever you wanted,

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and if they said, "Bless their heart," then didn't matter.

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So, so much is caught from generation to generation,

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from chain link to chain link to chain link.

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And what I want to make sure

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and what I want to challenge you on

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is that your faith, your link,

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it can't stop there because right now we are failing.

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Barna, a Christian organization, said that

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64% of the millennial generation

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have left the faith altogether,

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if they grew up in any sort of concept with it.

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Gen Z, the one beyond them,

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they are twice as likely to do it

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as the millennial generation.

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And it's impacting our nation.

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It's impacting our world.

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Teen suicide is at an all time high.

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Depression is at an all time high.

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Anxiety is at an all time high.

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Addiction, even in young people, is at an all time high.

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And we can blame the generations above us.

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And they may have been a part of it,

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but all I know is this time to get solution minded

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and to make sure the link doesn't stop with us.

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Maybe you're listening

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and you're not even a Christ follower.

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You don't even believe in God,

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but you love chains, big chain guys.

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You're followed along and you like watching.

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But I'll give you a business principle

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that's doing the same thing.

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It's not being passed on from link to link,

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generation to generation.

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It's called the third generation problem.

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If you're in the business world, you've probably heard about it.

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The concept's simple.

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It's that it's almost impossible for a business,

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a family business that's successful

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to last three generations.

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The joke in the business world

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is the first one starts it,

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the second they run it,

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and the third one, they just ruin it.

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And this is what happens in the business world,

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because the first one is their business

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and they're entrepreneurial and they run after it

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and it's successful and they see some reward

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and the next one just says,

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"I don't want to screw this up."

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So they preserve it and they keep it safe.

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And then by the time we get to the third generation,

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they're sitting there going,

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"I don't want just a safe life running someone else's business.

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There's no risk there.

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There was no really even big reward there.

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I want to do my own thing," and usually they do.

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You see we see countless examples of this in Scripture,

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not just the Psalms.

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There's a guy named Joshua who he was so successful,

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he was a man of God.

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He got a generation to follow God

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and they would win all these battles.

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They were victorious.

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And then they hand it on to the next generation

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and they just keep it safe.

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They say, "Let's not fight any battles.

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We did pretty good.

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Joshua handed off a pretty good thing."

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And by the time it gets to the third generation,

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here's what we read, Judges 21:25 says this:

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In those days Israel had no king

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and they did whatever they wanted in their own eyes.

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You see, it's one thing

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if it's happening in the business world,

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but in the faith world, the exact thing is happening.

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A first generation Christian usually is inspired.

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They're excited. It's like my dad.

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He couldn't stop telling everybody about it.

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He was the first links others need to know.

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And maybe you have someone in your legacy line,

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your chain that's like that.

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Maybe you have a grandmother

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that they just have such a strong faith

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and like you always see them praying.

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Why are they always praying?

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But you're also glad that they're praying for you.

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And then it got to your parents possibly,

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or people your parents age and they said,

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"Let's just preserve it. Let's just -- I mean,

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we'll go to church Sunday mornings

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or watch something online once a week.

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And that'd be good. That'd be good."

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And you look at that faith, you say,

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"That's not inspiring.

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I don't want anything to do with that."

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And listen to me, faith is inspiring.

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Around here we call it an adventure

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and we say you're born to do it,

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but not when it's a 3D thing

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that you're just being told about or preserving.

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When it's one lived in action and when handed off

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to the generation behind you, it's a life giving.

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It's exhilarating.

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And we can't be the one.

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We can't be the one that fails to hand it on

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to the generation below us.

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We can't afford it.

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The faith of the next generation is worth everything,

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and we need you to do it.

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You see, people think legacy is about your name

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being put on a college dorm or a statue,

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maybe a business handed off.

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But it's so much bigger than that.

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It goes beyond you.

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In fact, what if it's not about your name at all?

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What if it's about a bigger name?

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What if it's about God's name?

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What could you do to make sure the next generation

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gets and catches this faith?

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What can you make sure to do to make sure

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you're not the last link in it?

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We're going to talk about that in a little bit,

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right after this.

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- Hey. I'm Kyle. - I'm Hannah.

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- Hey, we hope you've been with us through

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this entire series in the Book of Psalms.

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And whether you have, whether you haven't,

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we want you to know that we're able

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to do videos like this in the series like this

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because of your giving. - That's right.

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And if giving is something that you want to try,

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it's super simple, you just go to the Crossroads app,

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you click the gear in the corner,

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and then you click give.

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- So easy. Let's get back to the message.

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- Here at Crossroads we go to the Bible

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for our ultimate source of truth.

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Like, if we've got questions or want advice,

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it's where we go.

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And if you're kind of new to faith

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or the whole Bible thing,

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it's split up into two different sections.

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There's an Old Testament and a New Testament.

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In most Bibles right in between the two

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they've got a single page, usually a blank page.

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And people don't know this,

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but that page represents about 400 years.

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So between the Old Testament ending

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and the New Testament beginning,

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it's about a 400 year gap

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that you could just rip out if you wanted to,

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because really it's one total story of legacy,

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chain building, of people passing things on

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from one generation to the one behind them.

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In fact, all of Malachi,

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the very last book of the Old Testament,

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it's talking about a prophesied to come Messiah

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by the name of Jesus.

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And then you flip past that one page

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and the New Testament starts with this.

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It's just a list of names that, honestly,

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people always skip over and just go to like verse 22,

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because they don't want to read

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all those long, weird Bible names. Right?

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Well, guess who's one of the names on that list?

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It is David, who I know, looks exactly like Jesus.

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But, you know, budget cuts probably.

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And David was on that list of names, like,

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he was one of the names of people

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that went through him all the way to Jesus.

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And it's fascinating.

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If you missed it earlier, David is the guy

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who wrote the Psalm we talked about,

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the theology of legacy put to a melody.

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He cared so desperately

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about the next generation hearing about this.

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You see, a lot of you in here,

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you have some sort of chain,

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you have some sort of chain in a way or another,

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and maybe you're the first link, you started this.

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You're like my dad, the first generation Christian.

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Or some of you, though, you're pretty far down.

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Legacy has been handed on to you.

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But the heartbreaking part is

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it's not going to start with you, or even continue with you.

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It's possible you actually are the one

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that breaks the link, it ends with you.

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And the reason this is,

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is we care so much about happiness,

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bowing down to the God of happiness

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that we care about the now and me.

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When the entire message of Jesus was

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what if you cared about later and others?

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It's the key to passing down generational stuff.

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In fact, my dad was a first generation Christian.

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You knew that. What I didn't tell you is

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he was actually a first generation pastor.

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And so it's cool when now I get to do the same thing.

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And a few weeks ago,

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Shep called this a professional churcher.

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And I hope there's a long legacy behind me.

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I hope I'm not the final link.

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I hope I can pass this on to the next generation.

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My dad likes to tell this story

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of while we were at church, w

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e basically just lived there as a pastor's kid.

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I was pretty much born on a pew.

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I was there all day Sunday.

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And I just -- all my memories were at church.

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At about five I figured it out that other kids,

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they don't just go to church all day

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and I got mad about it.

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And they tell the story where I ran up to them

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while they were praying with someone.

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And I literally said,

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"Do you know some kids just go to part time church?"

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This is the problem.

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The problem right now is

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that we're attending part time church.

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We think church is either what we do

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for an hour on Sunday

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or what we watch for some hour during the week.

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And we call it good, but it's 2D.

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Our faith's never affected or changed because of it

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because we're so content

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with this part time version of what church is.

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You are the church.

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You are made to pass people on to the next generation.

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This is what David did.

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In fact, we did have one other felt character.

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David had a son named Solomon,

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who I think is a little older than him

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in my 2D analogy. That's why we got to be 3D.

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And he cared about him knowing.

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1 Chronicles we have this recorded talks about this.

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It says this in Chapter 28:

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In other words, what he's saying is,

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"Go be the church, go and do this.

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Pass this on to the next generation."

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In fact, let me take you back to David's Psalm.

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Psalm 145, remember,

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this theology of legacy put to a melody, says:

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When I read that word commend,

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I legitimately thought my Bible had a typo in it,

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but it's a real word, commend.

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The definition here, I had to look it up myself,

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it's praise formally or officially.

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And this is a lot more fun because

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what David is saying is not, hey, tell and a 2D way

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the next generation and make sure

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you're extra boring when you do it.

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He's saying model it, just praise,

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live this big faith, and it's how

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the generation behind you will catch it.

00:17:47

And so hear this today:

00:17:50

if you're worshiping, I need you to do it

00:17:52

with both hands raised because

00:17:54

there are tinier hands behind you modeling what you do.

00:17:58

If you're singing, I don't care if you can sing or not.

00:18:01

I want you to singing at the top of your lungs

00:18:03

because there's tinier squeaky voices behind you

00:18:06

that will be repeating what you're saying.

00:18:08

Feel like doing something with your time,

00:18:10

serving somewhere at a nonprofit

00:18:12

or even we do these things called Go Trips,

00:18:14

we put our faith in action.

00:18:15

Go on one,

00:18:16

because there's littler feet behind you following.

00:18:19

There's tinier bank accounts watching how you give.

00:18:22

So give generously.

00:18:24

Get in a Bible study with people.

00:18:25

Get around a community because

00:18:27

the next generation behind you, they're watching you

00:18:31

and the way we pass our faith on,

00:18:32

it's not by just saying it,

00:18:34

it's not by preserving our faith and keeping it safe.

00:18:36

It's by having a faith in action.

00:18:38

It's by modeling it, it's by moving it,

00:18:41

it's by doing it.

00:18:42

And we will see the next generation reached.

00:18:45

We will see them have a faith of their own

00:18:47

if we first can work on our faith of our own.

00:18:51

We've got a tool for you today to help you do this.

00:18:53

We actually put the theology David talking here

00:18:56

to a melody and we're going to play this song.

00:18:58

This is one of our own,

00:18:59

and I hope you stick around for it.

00:19:01

In fact, I hope you play it all week

00:19:02

so that this doesn't just stay

00:19:04

in this one little moment you're watching this.

00:19:06

I hope you're on the treadmill

00:19:08

and you're singing this song loud in the gym

00:19:10

because you know there's smaller people there listening.

00:19:12

This is for you so you can take your faith,

00:19:15

put it in action, go and do something about it,

00:19:17

not just for your life, but because

00:19:19

the next generation behind you hangs on it

00:19:21

and their faith is worth everything.

00:22:13

- We hope you enjoyed the message today

00:22:15

and that you were able to get something

00:22:17

out of going deeper into the book of Psalms.

00:22:19

- That's right, and this entire series on Psalms,

00:22:21

that's all been connected with an initiative

00:22:23

our whole church has been doing

00:22:24

called the Bible Challenge. - That's right.

00:22:26

As a community, we're in the Crossroads app

00:22:28

all throughout the week,

00:22:29

reading and diving deeper into scripture.

00:22:31

I know I'm going to be there

00:22:32

and Brian's there and Kyle's there.

00:22:34

- I've been trying to hit three times a week,

00:22:36

helped me connect to God. It's been amazing.

00:22:37

If you want to jump in with us,

00:22:39

just download the app and you're all set.

00:22:40

- That's all we've got for you today.

00:22:42

We'll see you next time on Crossroads.

00:22:45

- You might be here right now

00:22:46

feeling like your joy has been stolen

00:22:48

or it keeps getting stolen from you.

00:22:50

I got good news for you, no one can steal your joy.

00:22:54

You choose to give it away or you choose to keep it.

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