Transcript
Ben Fallon: Thanks for joining us for a new episode of Ask Paul Tripp. Today's question comes from a high school student who read Wednesday's Word titled, “How to Ask Better Questions;” “As you try to build intentional discipleship relationships, you need to know somebody, not just facts about them, but about their heart; and the best way to do that is by asking questions.” But this teenager has a problem:
I live in a small town (She says) and I don't have many friends my age. My church is mostly elderly people or people my parents' age. I am so blessed to have a loving church family, but I have noticed that Christ is not integrated into their everyday lives. I have a really hard time asking spiritual questions, especially hard and deep questions with those in my church, because I feel as though I'm not allowed to ask these due to my age. I often get brushed off or a short response. I don't want to come across as disrespectful or as though I think of myself wiser than those who are older, and I don't have much life experience, so I feel I can't ask certain questions that have to do with life experiences that I haven't gone through yet, like marriage or parenting. How can I ask deep spiritual questions and have deep spiritual Christ-centered conversations with those who are 30 plus years older than me? How would I even start these conversations? I would like people in my church to grow in their walk with the Lord, and I know I have a lot of growing to do as well.
Paul Tripp: Well, there are so many things that I want to say in this conversation, but I want to start this way. You have to accept your limits. It's not an accident or some weird twist of fate that you happen to be younger than most of the people you'd like to have this conversation with. That's God's choice. God has placed you where you are, and that's a wise choice, because all of God's choices are wise, but there are limits to that. Look, if I'm forty-five and you're seventeen, you do look like a baby to me. I look at you and I see diapers. So, you just have to live with that; that's not going to go away; you're not going to come across as being aged and mature, and you have to accept that. You're not where those people are; you do not have that life experience. They probably do not look at you with immediate respect, thinking you're going to be a font of wisdom, because you're a teenager. Now, that doesn't mean you can't have conversation with them. Of course you can, but there are some things that I think are important.
First, just be humble. Humility is such a protection. I'm very aware in my ministry that there's nothing I would ever say to anybody else that I don't need myself. I'm not a paragon of wisdom. I just believe in God's wisdom, and it's worth sharing with others. So be humble and humbleness is a willingness to learn; it's a willingness to be corrected; it's a willingness to be confronted; it's a willingness to be encouraged. So, I want to begin with humility.
Second is transparency. Transparency is a willingness to be honest about your struggles, your weaknesses, your temptations, your fears, and your failures. You're in no position to be a spokesman for the Lord if you're consistently more concerned about the sin of others than you are your own. That comes across as self-righteous, and that self-righteousness is not attractive when it comes to good, deep conversations.
Third is a commitment to gospel fidelity. What do I mean by that? It's making sure that I'm constantly thinking through life in community with others who are committed to the authority, the sufficiency, and the transformational practicality of Scripture. That means I carry with me a humble desire and willingness to learn. I have found, again and again, in conversations where I thought I was there to minister to somebody else, I was the one who got ministered to, and I was convicted of my sin, and God pointed out something in me that I needed to face. Sometimes the other person didn't even know that. Sometimes I meet with people, and I can't wait for them to leave so I can pray, not for them, but for me because of what God has revealed. Just be ready for that.
Next is love. Not love to be a contributor, not love to have something to say, but a genuine desire to be part of what God is doing in the life of somebody else. A willingness to bear the burden of another versus being consumed with all the things you'd like to say, and how you'd like to say them, and when you'd like to say them, and who you'd like to say them to, and you just live with a hair-trigger way of having conversations. That doesn't go anywhere good.
Courage is the next thing. That's the willingness to step into awkward, intense moments in order to be God's instrument of seeing in the life of somebody else. I think we often lack courage. I think often we're silent not because we love the other person, but because we love ourselves and we don't want to be in awkward moments.
And then patience. Good conversations tend to be a process and not an event. Let me say that again. Good conversations tend to be a process and not an event. You can't ask every individual encounter to be deeply meaningful and affirming. If you ask every encounter you have with people to be deeply meaningful and affirming, you will become a scary person because you're way too serious, you're taking yourself too seriously, and you're lacking the patience that good conversation requires.
I want to say one other thing. Maybe, if you're seventeen, and you're around lots of people that are way older than you, maybe your big commitment should not be to have deep, rich conversations with them. Maybe your commitment should be to learn more. Maybe that's exactly where God wants you to be because you've got so much to learn, and you've got people around you who have that great combination of experience with walking with God and just life experience, and that comes together with lots of wisdom. When I get up to speak, it feels like to me there's a thousand people that got up behind me who have all contributed to my ability to do what I'm meaning to do. They had patience with a seventeen-year-old and a nineteen-year-old and a twenty-one-year-old and a twenty-five-year-old and a thirty-year-old, not giving up on me.
In times when I was full of myself and thought I knew more than I did, God continued to put people in my life to teach me and to help me grow. Maybe this is not the time for you to be the spokesperson, but for you to be open to the spokespeople that God has put in your life. I like what Paul says in Ephesians 4, 1 through 6:
I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called (That's gospel living.), with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit–just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call–one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
Just be patient, be humble, be gentle, bear with the inconsistencies of people that are older than you, and let God mature you and open up opportunities of ministry for you.
BF: Thank you, Paul. I know that we all, regardless of our age or experience in ministry, could benefit from the reminder of James 1:19 that says, “…let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak…” But what about 1 Timothy 4:12 that says, “Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.” So, let's flip the scenario. Let's say you are a seasoned Christian, decades of walking with the Lord, and a young believer, maybe it's even a teenager or a young pastor, is attempting to disciple you or speak biblical truth when they have obviously very little life or ministry experience. How does an older person refrain from the temptation to despise or immediately reject and cast off that younger person and their biblical wisdom?
PT: So, I want to speak the other side of this. Say you're the older person, say as a seasoned Christian or a person in ministry, you have to be very careful that you don't despise a person just because they're young, that you are unwilling to receive what God wants you to hear just because the person appears too immature to you. Look, the Bible really, in humorous ways, presses us here. If God can speak through Balaam's donkey, then I should be able to receive from a young person. Come on, I don't get to choose who God raises up to be a spokesperson in my life–that's God's choice. And perhaps there is a young person that God has just given a bit of insight to, that I should be open to. Now, it's right to consider who I'm listening to, and age does make a difference, and age is limiting because of its lack of experience, but I should not be closed to whomever God will raise up. God often uses unexpected instruments to do His wonderful work of grace, so I should be open and humble enough to receive whatever God has for me from whomever.
Can I give you a personal example? We're leaving church; our kids were young, and Luella’s driving, and I don't like the way she's driving, and I'm just chipping away at her, getting more and more irritated. My then 10-year-old son said, “Dad, can I say something?” I wanted to say, “No, just shut up and leave me alone.” But I didn't. I said, “Sure, you can talk.” He said, “Dad, maybe it's not a driving problem; maybe it's a heart problem.” Now, he wasn't being disrespectful or impertinent. He was right, and I was immediately convicted, and I said, “You're exactly right!” Now, I believe God put words into that boy's mouth because God loves me and wanted me to see what was going on in my heart. I should be open to that, and obviously, that was a meaningful enough moment, I've never forgotten it. So, we should never set limits on whom God can raise up to do His work in our lives.
BF: What about in your own life, Paul? Do you have any other examples, not of your kids, but of someone maybe half your age or even younger, being used by God to speak truth to you when you needed it?
PT: I had a situation where, in my church, there was a severely depressed young man. His life was a mess, and I was driving up to talk to him, and I was angry that so much of my life was being eaten up by this ‘loser.’ That was what I was thinking about–“I'm a pastor. I have so much to do, and it seems like two or three times a week, I'm having to deal with this guy. Why didn't he just get his act together?” And I got to the place where he was staying; it was a mess, of course, because he was depressed and wasn't doing anything, and I began to speak with him, and he saw my anger, and he stopped me and said words that just exposed that anger to me. I finished my conversation and left. On the way home, I was under such conviction, I turned around and went back and confessed my attitude and asked for his forgiveness. Now, I want to tell you the story. I heard from this man twenty years later, out of the blue, and he said, I want you to know one of the things that God began to use to turn my life around was that day that you drove back and asked for my forgiveness.
He said that, “I looked at you as a guy who had his life together and me as a mess, yet you came back and said, ‘I needed to hear what you had to say to me, and please forgive me for my anger.’” So again, I had no idea that day that this messed up guy was going to be used by God to deal with something in my life. Listen, if you're a pastor out there, you know that pastoral anger is an issue. You know there are people in your congregation that get under your skin. You know there are calls that you dread. You know that after church, when someone comes up to you and wants to talk to you, that not everybody is welcomed in your heart. So be open; you don't know who God is going to raise up to speak into those kinds of issues in your life. None of us are beyond being confronted, and so none of us should close our hearts to whomever God raises up to confront things in us!
BF: The Wednesday's Word, titled, “How to Ask Better Questions,” was part of a series that we adapted from Paul's book, Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands. It focuses on ‘Love, Know, Speak, Do’–a four-part model for discipleship relationships. You can find that book at paultripp.com/instruments, or search on the internet for “Paul Tripp, ‘How to Ask Better Questions,’” and there you'll be able to find that specific Wednesday's Word devotional.
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