Matthew chapter 16 and verse number 18, the Lord Jesus speaking of course says, and I say also unto thee that thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. The pastor says often that the Lord Jesus promised to build his church. Not that we would build his church, not that he would build our church, but he would build his church. And I think far too often people who work in youth ministries and work with young people see the youth ministry as a separate entity from the total work of the entire local church. And that's not the way it ought to be. The youth ministry is just like any other ministry, it is a part of the whole. if it is correct, if it is scriptural. And there are parachurch organizations, some of which no doubt do a fine job of reaching young people, that type of thing. But my question has always been, what do they tie those young people to after they win them to Christ? God's program, God's plan in this world is the local church. There's no doubt about that. God ordained the local church to accomplish His work in this world to carry out the Great Commission. So if I'm going to be scriptural about my work with young people, then I have to do it under the authority and within the boundaries of the local New Testament church. And that's the way the Lord Jesus has structured the entire thing. Now the exciting thing to me about that is this, that working in a local church youth ministry provides things that no other organization could provide. Look at the last part of this particular verse where the Bible says, the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Immediately two things spring to mind. One is God's power. If you've worked with young people very long, you know that you need more than just your ingenuity and your ability. You need the power of God, and I need the power of God. There is nothing that changes the life of a teenager but God working through His Holy Spirit in the life of that young person. Not activities, not entertainment, not my program, not all the good ideas I think I have, but only God working in their life. And God does that work through the ministry of the local New Testament church. There's power there, the power of the local church. The second thing that this particular verse suggests about the power of the local church is not only the anointing that God's placed on His church, but there is security in that local church. The Bible says the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Young people, if you've worked with young people for any length of time, you know are constantly looking for something with which they can belong. That's why gangs and clubs and organizations and high schools are so full of young people because young people are looking for something to belong to. And they need to realize that God's already established the only thing they need to belong to. And that's the local New Testament church. And they'll find security there. I'm going to tell you something. Satan is after young people. I believe he's targeted the minds and the lives of teenagers. And the reason is very simple. If he can get them while they're young, he has them for the rest of their life. And God has given us such a holy, sacred, sobering work in working with teenagers. And we need to realize that if we're going to be effective about it, we must do it within the confines of the local New Testament church. Now, if that is true, here's what that means. That means that the effectiveness of our youth ministry is not defined by the latest youth ministry manual book that just came out. And there are lots of them. If you go to the average Christian bookstore and try to look through their youth ministry resource section, you'll find a lot of things that we just can't even use. In fact, most of what you'll find we can't use because it is wrong philosophically. In other words, it starts from the wrong premise. It starts with the young people instead of starting with the word of God. Our effectiveness in youth ministry must be measured by the Word of God. I believe that I hold in my hand this morning the greatest youth ministry resource book in the world, because God Almighty speaks to every need in the human heart. And if that's true, though teenagers sometimes seem like they're not human, that means that He also speaks to the needs of teenagers. And they're no different than anybody else. They have the same basic needs, and God speaks to the needs of young people in His Word. At least 70 times in Scripture, the word youth is found. But there are hundreds of references to young people found in scripture. And the exciting thing to me is this. The Bible talks about preaching the whole counsel of God. They don't need just the verses that address young people specifically. They need all the word of God. I remember when I first started working here with the young people, we were teaching in our Sunday school hour on the Christian home. And I thought, how in the world am I going to talk about being a good husband and being a good wife and being a good parent? All that kind of thing to teenagers. It made me dig and study. But I learned something very valuable during those few weeks that we were studying the Christian home. I learned that all of God's Word is applicable to teenagers. Now I may have to work and study and pray and ask God, Lord, how can you use this lesson in the life of a teenager? But they need all of it. If they didn't, it wouldn't be in there. God's Word, all Scripture, is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for proof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. And so we measure the effectiveness of what we're doing by the standard that is set forth in God's Word for the local church youth ministry. Now let me give you several statements in this particular lecture about the local church youth ministry. Statement number one, the youth ministry must be ultimately led by the pastor. And I'll give you a few things that you can jot down underneath this particular point. First of all, there is one pastor in the local church. One pastor, not many. Somebody said that anything with more than one head is a monster. Very true. That is why, and some people think it's just a matter of semantics, but in our ministry we do not refer to the person that leads the youth ministry as the youth pastor. We refer to them as the youth director. And the reason for that is we feel like the role of the youth director is constantly to be pointing young people back to the pastor. There can only be one pastor in the local church. A second thing that I want you to make a note of is that the pastor should lead the youth ministry just like he leads every other ministry in the church. Ministries are not mutually exclusive. They do not stand alone. They all work together. They're all members of the same body, the same local body. And so they work together. And who leads them? The Lord Jesus through the under shepherd, through the pastor. The pastor should be the overseer of the entire ministry. I'll be honest with you. One of the great joys of my life is the opportunity to work for a pastor who loves young people. Frankly, I wouldn't want to work in a church with young people working for a pastor that didn't love young people. Because it's his burden, it's the desire of his heart impact their life. A pastor has taught me personally so many things about working with young people. I'm grateful to God for it. I know who would be the youth director in this church if he could be. It would be the pastor. There's no doubt about that. So what that suggests to me is that my role as a youth director is simply to be an extension of the ministry of the pastor. And I think that's so very important. In other words, the youth ministry is not mine. Frankly, the youth ministry is not his. The youth ministry is a part of the local church and the local church belongs to the Lord Jesus and the Lord Jesus appointed one pastor to lead that local church. So ultimately, just like every other ministry, the youth ministry must be led by the man of God in that place. And that is the pastor. And I'll tell you what that'll do. That'll save you a lot of trouble. A lot of trouble. As a youth director, as a youth worker, it will save you getting your feelings hurt. When you have a great idea and the pastor says, I don't think we want to do that. You see, there are all kinds of ideas all of us have. And I had to learn that every idea I have is not necessarily a good idea. Just because it came to mind and at the moment it seemed brilliant and wonderful and tremendous and great. It doesn't necessarily mean it's always exactly what needs to be done. I learned something that is hard to believe. I learned that there are things the pastor knows about the local church that I don't know. That's why he's the pastor. And my role is to be an extension of his ministry. So what do I do? I should constantly be turning the young people that I'm working with to the pastor. Now there's a very sensible reason for this. One is, it's scriptural. But the second reason is, and you know God always knows what He's doing, doesn't He? Always. The second reason is that He's going to be their pastor for the rest of their life. I think far too many youth workers take only a very short-sighted look at the life of a teenager and they only see the years between 7th grade and 12th grade. And they're wondering how they can draw those young people to themselves during those years and help those young people. Let me ask you a question. What happens to those kids after they graduate from high school? That's why in most local churches, good kids who've been in church all through their teen years, when the activities stop, and when the trips stop, and when they no longer can attend a youth group meeting, they just fall off the planet. You can't even find them anymore. There's a very large percentage of young people that aren't even around the local church after they graduate from high school. Why is that? One of the reasons is we fail to tie them to the local church and point them to the authority of the pastor. And a young person may come to me and ask me about something, and I want to try to help as many young people as I possibly can. But I always ask the question, have you talked to the pastor about this? Well, no. And if it's something of great importance, I always try to direct that young person to the pastor. He's their pastor. They're trying to make some major decision. I always try to say to that young person, you need to speak with a pastor about this. Why? Because he's going to be their pastor long after I have ceased to be their youth director. So ultimately, the youth ministry must be led by the pastor. Statement number two, the youth ministry is a vital ministry of the local church. And I'll give you a couple of reasons why it is a vital ministry. It is so very important. Number one, it is important because it concentrates on a group of people that have been targeted by Satan. I believe, as I said a moment ago with all of my heart, that the devil is after the minds and lives of young people. And he's trying to destroy a generation. That's why having a strong, thriving, working youth ministry is so vitally important in the ministry, the total ministry of the local New Testament church. There are basically two kinds of youth ministries. There are what we call preventative youth ministries and remedial youth ministries. Somebody says, what's the difference in a preventative and remedial youth ministry? Let me give you an object lesson. A preventative youth ministry is a guardrail at the top of the cliff. A remedial youth ministry is a hospital at the bottom. That's the difference. Somebody says, well, I have a preventative youth ministry. That's great. Somebody else says, well, I have a remedial youth ministry. That's great. The scripture youth ministry ought to be both. In other words, I should try to be preventing young people from going off the cliff, so to speak. from wrecking their lives, from wasting the opportunity and ability that God has given them by giving their life to the Lord Jesus Christ. But when young people do mess up, when they do get out of the will of God, I need to be there and the local church needs to be there to try to pick them up and encourage them and get them back on the right track. It is a vital ministry of the local New Testament church. The second reason is that the youth ministry is a family ministry. Now I'll be honest with you, in all the youth ministry books that I've read, And all the people that I have listened to as they've talked about the youth ministry, this is a truth that I had never given much thought to until pastors started talking about it several years ago. The youth ministry is a family ministry. The greatest thing that you'll do in the local New Testament church is strengthen the Christian home. Because strong churches are made up of strong Christian families. And as a youth director, part of my job and my responsibility is to try to strengthen that Christian home. I'll give you the truth. I cannot, I should not, try to substitute for the parents. There is no possible way that I can take the place, the God-ordained place, of a mother and father in the life of a young person. Can I help their mother and father? Yes. Can I help them? Yes. But my purpose and my objective is not to take the place of mom and dad. I'll tell you what that'll do away with. That'll do away with a lot of busy work in the youth ministry. A lot of activity that goes on that we think substitutes for spirituality and strengthens and matures young people when really all it does is keeps them away from their family all the time and we try to keep them busy and cross their fingers and hold on and just pray they don't get in trouble until they graduate and get out of high school and we feel like we've done our job. That's not the local church youth ministry. The local church youth ministry ought to help a young man or help a young woman be a stronger Christian and thus a better young person in their home. And ought to strengthen and encourage their mother and father to continue to lead that home to glorify and honor Jesus Christ. It is a family ministry and because of that it's a vital ministry of the local New Testament church. Statement number three, the youth ministry must be bigger than a youth group. The youth ministry must be bigger than a youth group. Let me try to explain to you what I mean by that. We have tried to stop using the term youth group. And the reason is very simple. Youth group turns everything in. Youth ministry turns everything out. In most places, the youth ministry is not really a ministry at all. It's just a group of kids that get together once a week. And it becomes a social club. And kids sit around and they belong. Because that's where their friends are. Here's the greatest test of whether you have a youth group or you have a youth ministry. Whenever your young people meet, do they all come in and plop down in the same place next to their friend and never budge, never speak to anybody, that kind of thing? If they do, you have a youth group. You have a group of kids that meet together and they're buddies and that kind of thing, but you really don't have a youth ministry. A youth ministry is a ministry that ministers to young people and it ministers through young people to others. The truth of the matter is, I don't believe that we've done everything that we should do in the youth ministry until we actually have young people ministering to others. I think sometimes we get the idea that we bring the young people in and we sit them all down in the room and we try to be as dynamic and as exciting as we possibly can so they stay interested and we hold their attention. Well, I'm going to tell you something. You can't compete with the world, but you shouldn't try because that's not our objective. Our objective is to try to bring young people along, to lead them along to the next step in their Christian life and get them to the place, develop key teenagers to the place where they in turn can help minister to other young people. I tell you one of the greatest truths you could possibly learn about the youth ministry is that the best people to reach teenagers are other teenagers. Now I can't expect young people to do what I'm not willing to do, so I've got to be winning young people and discipling them and working with them and befriending them and all that kind of thing. But if we want to have a thriving, growing youth ministry that honors the Lord Jesus Christ, we have to get our young people to the place where they are actually involved in that local church youth ministry. And we'll talk more about that a little later. But it is more than a youth group, it is a youth ministry. That's so very important. Statement number four. The youth ministry seeks to minister first to families, then to young people. I want you to take your Bible, if you would, please, and turn to Luke chapter number 2. And let me show you a great principle about ministering first to families and then to young people. To me, there is no greater example anywhere in Scripture than the example that the Lord Jesus Christ gives us in any area. And that is essentially true in the youth ministry as well. Luke chapter 2 and verse number 51, the Bible says, and he, that's the Lord Jesus Christ, went down with them and came to Nazareth, mark this please, and was subject unto them. But his mother kept all these sayings in her heart. Verse 52, and Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. Verse 52 is the verse that is almost always referred to as far as the youth ministry is concerned. But notice, please, the divine order. The divine order starts with verse 51 and then verse 52. And in verse 51, what do you see? That the Lord Jesus Christ was subject unto them. The first great priority of the youth ministry is to minister to families. Then, once I've ministered to families and strengthened the home, then it is to minister to the individual needs of each young person. So the local church youth ministry must minister first to families and then to young people. There are several different kinds of ministries within the youth ministry. Let me give you some of them if you'd like to jot them down. First of all, the youth ministry ministers to familial needs. the needs of the family. And that's so very important. I tell our young people that they cannot be right with God and wrong with their parents. It's impossible. You cannot be right with God and wrong with your parents. So the first thing I need to get them to do is submit to authority. By the way, submission to authority will answer most of the other questions they have about life. If I can teach them what it means to submit to the God-given, God-ordained authority in their life, What a difference that will make in their own heart spiritually. And by the way, I believe the reason young people grow in all these other ways is because first, they learn to submit to authority. There is safety in submission. And that's so important. Secondly, not only does the youth ministry minister to familial needs, it also ministers to intellectual needs. The Bible says in verse 52 that Jesus increased in wisdom. I think one of the things that the youth ministry ought to do is it ought to help to educate young people in a Christ-honoring way. Christian education cannot be confined to a classroom. For a Christian young person growing up in a Christian home and a good church, everything is a part of their Christian education. And the youth ministry is no different. It ought to help to build in their lives a Christian worldview. For example, in light of current events of recent days, they ought to see what is going on in the world and know what God's Word has to say about it. They see other religions and other things going on in the world. They ought to know this is what I believe and this is why I believe what I believe. We have ministered intellectual needs. We've taught them things. They're learning, they're growing all the time. Frankly, we live in a society where young people do not have to think. We have so dumbed down education and we have so drummed up entertainment that young people, for the most part, can sit around and never think, never use their minds. So the youth ministry ought to challenge young people to think. Think seriously about things. That's why the Bible says so many times, young men be sober. What does that mean? I'm all for kids having a good time. When we play, we play. We have big activities and have a great time. I'm all for that. Young people need that. We'll get to that in just a moment. But at some point, young people need to be stopped dead in their tracks and challenged to think seriously about their life. Where they came from, why they're here, where they're going. what God put them here to do. And the only way that happens is when the youth ministry ministers to those needs. Thirdly, not only does it minister to familial and intellectual needs, but it also ministers to physical needs. The Bible says that Jesus increased in wisdom and stature. We ought to try to minister to physical needs. Young people have a lot of energy. Amen? A lot of energy. And they ought to be given the opportunity to do a couple of things. One, they ought to be given an opportunity just to vent their energy. Have a big activity, let them run, play, have a good time, scream and yell. It's wonderful. It's all part of being a young person. Secondly, they ought to be given an opportunity to channel some of that energy to actually serve God. I think one of the greatest things that we ever started to do was have not just regular youth activities, but have what we call service activities. where young people go and witness to people, where young people go and try to encourage folks, or mow a shut-in's yard, or do something to be a blessing, help clean around the property here at the church. But they're doing something to serve God, to use the energy that God has given them, to make the most of the years of their youth. And it is ministering to their physical needs. In light of that, I think we ought to give young people the opportunity to develop certain skills, to learn how to do certain things. That's all part of ministering to the physical needs of a Christian young person. Number four, we should minister to spiritual needs. The Bible says that Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God. By the way, you should make a note that this is always the divine order. Favor with God always comes before favor with man. This is the exact opposite of the way the world works. The world always tries to get favor with man. In other words, learn how to carry yourself, learn how to speak, learn how to dress for success. That's what the world says. But that's not the order, that is not the emphasis found in God's Word. The emphasis found in God's Word is favor with God, and when you have favor with God, God gives you favor with man. We ought to try to develop young people's spirits, so that means that we know they're saved. I'll tell you something, I think far too often we've made a terrible mistake by assuming instead of asking. So many times we assume that certain young people are saved and right with God simply because they've grown up in the church. They've been around a while. They have good Christian parents. That's not always the case. Make sure they're saved. Make sure they are baptized. I remember one particular year, we had our young people to sign a little thing, a little piece of paper, just to challenge them to be a certain kind of Christian, to honor the Lord with their life. It had certain statements on it, like, I have trusted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior. The second statement said, I have followed the Lord and believers' baptism since I was saved. Several things like that. And a great host of our young people signed this little commitment card that we're going to live for God and take their stand for Christ. I remember that was on a Wednesday afternoon. On that Wednesday night, we were standing in the service, in the invitation, and one of our teenage girls, one of the best girls in our church, stepped out and walked the aisle. She got to the front and I said, what have you come for? She said, I can't be baptized. I said, excuse me? She said, I got to thinking this afternoon. We were talking about all those things. I got saved years ago, but I've never been baptized since I was saved. I need to be baptized. And she followed Christ in believers baptism. I learned a very valuable lesson. I learned do not assume, always ask. Make sure that you know kids that follow Christ in baptism. Make sure they're growing. That means they're reading God's Word and praying every day. I have never met a strong Christian young person that did not read God's Word and pray every day. Never. Never met one. I did not say I never met a Christian young person. I said I never met a strong Christian young person that did not read God's Word and pray every day. You see, I think sometimes we think that our only obligation is just to get the Bible into teenagers. And we do that when we stand up and we teach our Sunday school lessons and preach our sermons and all that kind of thing. That's only step one, getting the Bible into teenagers. Step two is getting teenagers into the Bible. You see, if we stop short And the only word of God that they get is what they get on Sunday or on Wednesday night. You've got shallow Christian young people. They're never going to take the next step in their Christian life until you develop some practical way of actually getting those young people into God's word for themselves every day. And you help them to grow in their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We ought to help those young people spiritually to learn how to witness to others. how to lead people to Christ, how to serve, all those kinds of things are so very important in ministering to the spiritual needs of a Christian young person. And then, number five, the youth ministry ministers to social needs. The Bible says that Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. Young people do have social needs. We all do. We need fellowship. And the teenage years are a perfect opportunity to try to put the right things in the life of a young person. It's a time to teach them about purity, how to keep their relationships pure. It's a perfect time to teach them about friendships, how to develop the right kind of friendships. By the way, the way to have the right friends is to be the right friend. And so we teach them how to be the right kind of Christian, and God will give them the friends that He wants them to have, and choose those friends very carefully. What you're doing is you're helping them socially. We've said often around here, and people ask about the relationship between young men and young women, that we encourage young people to get to know lots of young people in a group type setting with attention given to everyone and intention given to no one. And that saves a lot of hassle and a lot of problems among young people, young men and young women in the youth ministry. But you are ministering to their social needs. Now here's the interesting thing. You pick up the average youth ministry resource book in the average Christian bookstore and guess which one of these things comes first. the one that God puts last. Isn't that interesting? Anytime you see a list in scripture, it's always there for a reason. You pick up the average youth worker's manual and the thing it's going to cover first is how to get kids involved socially, help them have a great time, have big activities and all that kind of thing. But God says that's important, but it is not the most important thing. The local church youth ministry must minister to families and then to young people. Here's the next statement. The youth ministry must be measured by the standard of God's Word, not the standards of the world. I'd like you to do something. I'd like you to turn over a few pages to 1 Timothy chapter number 4. Let me show you something. The youth ministry must follow the standard of God's Word, not the standards of the world. The world measures the effectiveness of something a certain way, and God measures exactly the opposite. How does the world measure what they call success? They measure success by numbers. I say to you, you cannot measure the effectiveness of your youth ministry by the numbers. Now I'm not against getting as many young people as you can get. We push and work and try to minister to as many young people as we possibly can, but that is not the measure of our effectiveness. The world measures their effectiveness by excitement. How excited are the young people? I like excited young people. I like young people who are thrilled about what they're doing and being a part of something. And by the way, young people like to be a part of something that's going on, that's happening, that's exciting. But that's not the way we measure effectiveness. The world measures their effectiveness by activity. How much is going on? Are things offered consistently for them? And I think we ought to have something going on all the time. Every week around here there's something going on for teenagers. Many things going on for teenagers. But we don't measure the effectiveness by the activity. We don't measure it by entertainment. Our goal is not entertainment. All of those things are fine in their proper place, but none of those things mature young people. So what matures young people? What is the standard of God's Word? Look please at 1 Timothy chapter 4 verse number 12. The Bible says, Let no man despise thy youth, but be thou an example of the believers. Now let's stop for just a second. Let no man despise thy youth. I can still see David as Saul looks at him and says, Thou art but a youth. And his brother looks at him and says, Thou art but a youth. And Goliath looks at him and says, Thou art but a youth. The really sad thing is he should have expected it from Goliath, but he never should have expected that from King Saul. And the amazing thing is when King Saul is speaking to David, what does he say? He says, you're but a youth, and Goliath's a man of war from what? From his youth. It's almost like we believe this brute out here has the potential to do evil from the time he was young, but you don't have the potential and the opportunity to do right from the time you're young. We give kids credit for getting into trouble, but we don't give them credit for having the opportunity and ability to serve God while they're young. That's why the Bible says, let no man despise thy youth. Some of the best Christians I've ever known have been Christian young people who surrendered their life to Jesus Christ. Sometimes they put their parents to shame. And we ought to work with them and stay after them, try to encourage them. To do what? To be an example of the believers. Then here's a list given to us in Scripture. in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. The goal of the youth ministry is to develop exemplary Christian young people. Let me say this, the goal of the youth ministry is to develop Christ-like young people. You cannot be exemplary without being like the Lord Jesus Christ, following in his steps in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. Now here's the point. That's the goal. But anytime you want to get to the destination, you always have to have a vehicle to get you to the destination, correct? So what is the vehicle that gets young people from where they are to where they need to be? Look at the very next verse. Watch the text in its context. Verse 13, "'Til I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on the hands of the presbytery. Meditate upon these things. Give thyself wholly to them, that thy profiting may appear to all. Take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine, continue in them, for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee." The destination is exemplary Christ-like young people. The vehicle that gets you to the destination is the Word of God. That's it. And there are five things that every young person needs to be challenged to do with the Word of God. Mark them please in your Bible. Verse 13, till I come give attendance to reading. The first thing is that we have not been effective in the youth ministry until we've actually gotten young people reading God's Word for themselves. They need to be reading God's Word every day. That's the first thing. Secondly, the Bible says give attention to reading and then it says to exhortation. Young people are exhorted when they are taught and they are preached to. So not only do we need to get them reading God's Word, we need to get them listening to God's Word at every available opportunity. Every opportunity that you have to teach young people something about the Word of God, living for Christ, all that kind of thing, by all means do it. When you stop at a fast food restaurant to go inside and eat, why not take 30 seconds before you get off the bus and remind them that they're Christians and they ought to pray over their food and represent the Lord Jesus well in that restaurant. You know what you've done? You've taken every available opportunity to teach them, to exhort them in the Word of God. You get them reading and then you get them under the exhortation. Then what does the Bible say? Give attendance to doctrine. The third great way by which you can measure the effectiveness of what you're doing is not only that the young people are reading God's Word, they're listening to God's Word, but they know what they believe and why they believe what they believe. There must come a place in the life of every Christian young person where they cross a line and they no longer just say, this is what my parents believed, but now they say this is what I believe and this is why. And by the way, in a day like our day, with Islam spreading around the globe and saturating our country and infiltrating our schools, public education all across the country, this is not a day for young people not to know what they believe and why. This is a day for young people to have strong Bible-based convictions. And that is one of the great tests by which you can measure what you're doing. Then, number four, I've got to get them meditating on these things. Verse 15, meditate upon these things. We've started a program this year called Memorize and Meditate, getting young people to meditate on the Word of God and memorize Scripture. David said, by word, if I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee." You cannot quote scripture that you've never memorized. And so we have to get young people meditating, not just reading it now, but meditating, thinking about it, putting it in their heart. And then number five, we have to get them living it. Verse 16, take heed unto thyself, unto the doctrine, continue in them. I've got to get them taking the truths that I've given to them on Sunday or on Wednesday and get them out to apply them to their life. Someone said that the great key to speaking to people is number one, application, number two, application, number three, application. That's very important. Spurgeon said the sermon begins when the application begins. I think one of the greatest things you learn to do in speaking to young people is learn how to make application. And if you get young people doing all of these things, then God, by His Spirit, will work in their lives the work of the Word of God to bring to pass exemplary Christ-like young people. And that's the standard we have to measure by. The standard of the Word of God, not the standard of the world. One last statement. The Christ Honoring Youth Ministry will help parents with their children and tie young people to the local church. Two goals. Number one, help parents. You should always strengthen family relationships. There's a couple ways you can do that. One way you can do that is by teaching their children. Teach them to obey and honor their parents. Help mom and dad every opportunity you get. The second way you can do that is by involving the parents. We have sent newsletters to our parents on a regular basis. We have regular meetings just with parents to discuss things, to answer questions, try to train mom and dad and help them. If the only people you ever teach in your church are the children, you failed. The pastor said to me when I started working here, he said, if you're going to work in this youth ministry, you have to be able to not only work with the young people, but work with their moms and dads. involve the parents and you help the home. The second goal is not only help the parents but tie the young people to the local church. A couple of ways you can do that. One is that you teach the young people that they are an integral part of the church now. Not someday but now. And you teach them that on a regular basis. The second way you do that is by involving them in the church now. It's one thing to say it, it's another thing to do it. So you get them involved in local church meetings like the meeting this week. Our teenagers are involved. You get them singing in church and playing instruments in church. You get them involved in prayer meetings. You get them out on soul winning for the church soul winning program. You know what you're doing? You get them in the church choir. You know what you're doing? You're tying those young people to that local church ministry. And guess what happens? They graduate from high school, they get out of the youth ministry, but they stay in church because they have been tied to the ministry of that local New Testament church. Why these two goals? Why these two things? Because they may graduate from our youth ministry, but they will never graduate from their family. And they may graduate from our youth ministry, but they'll never graduate from the local church. Those two institutions must influence them for the rest of their life. For the rest of their life. I know of no greater privilege in all the world than working with the two eternal things that are on this earth. You know what they are? The Word of God and the souls of people. The Bible says in Psalm 119, wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according to thy word. Two ingredients. Two eternal things in one verse. Young men on the Word of God. Young men on the Word of God. But, the one way that working with those two things becomes a double blessing is when I do it, within the confines of the two God-ordained institutions of the Christian home and the local New Testament church. And when I work with young people and the Word of God, getting young people into God's Word, getting the Word of God into young people, and I do it in such a way that it strengthens the home and it ties people, those young people, to the local New Testament church, then, and only then, have I done exactly what God has given me to do in His Word. That, friends, is the local church youth ministry.