So if you have your Bibles, feel free to keep them locked and loaded. I'm gonna be kind of hopping all over the place today, but a few weeks ago, I once attend, I attended a one day student ministry conference hosted by life way at First Baptist Church here in Tyler. At the beginning of this conference, we started off with an interactive portion talking a bit about consumer trends and what they looked and how they pertained to teenagers. So these trends that we read from came from a survey of over 13,000 students. So that's people ages 13 to 19. Now, some of these students really surprised me. These statistics really surprised me, because as someone who works with students daily, I kind of pride myself in knowing a little bit about what they're talking about. I was a little wrong. Let me share with you some of the findings that we had. So I'll start off with an easy one. Did you know that Nike has maintained its number one position as number one footwear and clothing brand for teenagers. Most all of you probably could have guessed that, but the one that surprised me the most was New Balance. Of all shoes companies has been climbing the ranks, getting up to number three in terms of most popular footwear brand when I was in middle school and high school, new balance was the shoes that my grandpa wore to mow the lawn on Sunday mornings. Some more statistics, goldfish have remained the number one snacks for students. I didn't realize how popular they were until I started working here, and all of my students go crazy for them. In the world of consumer electronics, iPhone is the reigning champion. 87% of teenagers own iPhones. And this one really surprised me, because of how popular Tiktok has become. The number one social media platform is actually YouTube. The statistics are that 95% of students surveyed report using the site daily. And while Tiktok is on the rise, things like Instagram and Snapchat also being used, Facebook has seen the most decline out of all of them, sitting at 32% of teenagers using it, which has been much lower since its peak in 2015 at 71% and this is a statistic that I saved specifically for the second service, because I think all my students will think this one's great, but 46% of students have played Roblox once in their life. So that means one out of every two of you guys over there play Roblox, and some of you guys are looking at me like, What is a Roblox? See? The reason that they shared these statistics was to paint a small picture of what it looks like to be a teenager today, and the reason that Lifeway shared those was to give us insight as to why they do what they do, what they do, and who they are. You see, students are at an interesting time in their lives where they're trying to figure out what kind of person they want to be, what role they're going to hold in society, what they're going to do after high school,they seek to know who they are,and we live in a culture that seeks to answer those questions through all kinds of means, such as materialism, identity politics, through relationships, through what they can offer others, what others can perceive or perceive them as, what they're good at, what they enjoy doing. And the list goes on and on, see, but we, the church, know the answer to that question. Who are we? We are people created in the image of a loving God for a loving purpose. We are defined not by ourselves, but by the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. And so that is the point of student ministry. That is why we are here, because we know who they are, and our goal is to teach them that at their current stage of life,and our enemy knows who they are too.Satan knows just as well as we do who we are, and he doesn't want them to know who they are. Second Corinthians, 44 gives us a little insight into Satan's thought process. It says this. It says, in the case of the god of this world, in this case, the god of this world, Satan has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel, of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. That's how Satan works. Is he's blinding a generation of people from the from the gospel, from the very thing our identity is found. In in their own they sorry. He encourages them to seek who they are in things of this world, in the things that they can do, in the things that others say they are.And we are seeing an impact of this in today's generation,among young people. It is globally estimated, one in seven teenagers, ages 10 to 19 experience mental health conditions such as clinical anxiety and depression,the majority of which remains untreated.One in seven students globally, that is 226million teenagers.Suicide is the third leading cause of death amongst people ages 15 to 29 according to the National Center for Drug Abuse statistics, 46% of students will try illicit drugs by the time they reach the 12th grade. Three of every four teenagers are exposed to pornography by the age of 13, and according to one specific study done in 2023 every single participant that was surveyed was exposed to pornography before the age of 12, and the vast majority of those teenagers surveyed continue to go on to consume it, and a percentage even claim to be addicted to it.These aren't just numbers on a page.These aren't just statistics you find in an article. These are real people with real souls, with personalities who were beautifully and wonderfully created by the God of the universe, people whom he loves dearly.This is the reality.This is nothing less than a spiritual attack, a spiritual attack that we don't have to go far beyond these walls to see. In the amount of time that I have been here at Colonial hills, there have been students who have entered this church who struggle with clinical anxiety or depression. There are students who have confided in me that they have struggled with pornography in the past. There have even been students who I've met in my time in student ministry who have come to me saying that they have struggled with suicidal thoughts and even attempts at their own lives.The enemy is at work, andhe's good at what he does.Do you want to know why Satan is targeting our teenagers? Because he does not want them to know that they are free from those chains. See, the truth of the human condition is found in Romans. 323, it says, For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. See, our sin is a disease that infects each person to their very core. Romans 623, says for all have for the wages of sin is death. See our active disobedience, our active choices to sin, has given us the the has earned us death. It has earned us the judgment of God. But despite that, despite us earning his judgment, He paid the price for our sin. Ephesians, two, four through five says, But God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses made us alive together with Christ, by grace, you have been saved. You see even when we earned our death, even when our sin earned us His judgment, God loved us so much that He sent Jesus to give us life through faith, and that is the hope of the gospel, the gospel that Satan is blinding a generation to Galatians 220 says, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith, in the Son of God who lived, who loved me and gave himself for me. See, the gospel offers us life through Jesus' death and resurrection. Resurrection, and through that death and resurrection, we place our identity in those things, in His death and resurrection. See, it's no longer our life, but Jesus's life. And Satan knows this, and he doesn't want them to know it. He doesn't want the church to know it. According to one survey done by the Barna Group, which is a a faith based survey organization that that deals a lot with church statistics, a little over two thirds of believers had come to know Jesus before the age of 18. See our teenagers, our children, they are a vital mission field. By show of hands, how many of you in this room today have come to know Jesus before the age of 18? Doesthat put it in perspective?Do you know what this means that over 66% of the Church of us became believers as a child. We became the church as children. And I want to emphasize this because we don't often recognize this about our students. We don't often recognize this about our children. Often we see them as as junior believers, right, as people who put their faith in Jesus. But you know, as they continue to grow and mature, that's when they'll be fully realized Christians,like you're a Christian, but you're not all the way there yet.But that's not what Scripture says. You see Ephesians, 113 says, and you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, when you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit. Iwant you to noticePaul doesn't make a distinction among believers.He doesn't say when you adults believed.Paul says, All believers receive the Holy Spirit through faithin Jesusand through the Holy Spiritthrough GOD HIMSELF DWELLING IN the lives of our teenagers, we get to see the power of God living through them. So you don't take my word for it, take Jesus's, he says in Acts one eight. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. Jesus didn't say you will receive my power when you've come of age. Church, there is not a junior sized Holy Spirit.Holy Spirit is one size fits all.There is one Holy Spirit who dwells in all believers, and that starts then the moment you put your faith in Jesus. So this is what I'm trying to get at, is that our students are not the next generation of the church. Our students are the church to need. Teenagers receive the same Holy Spirit that you and I received through faith in Jesus, that same Holy Spirit does not change from the ages of 12 to 18 and onwards, the Holy Spirit is continually providing you and our students and myself with direct access to the throne of God. He is producing in all believers spiritual gifts and fruits and talent that we can now use to build up the body of Christ. He is indwelling and active in the lives of every single believer, including our children and teenagers. See that means that God is currently and will continue to use our students to advance his kingdom. He will demonstrate His power through the lives and giftings of colonial Hill students,and he already hasthe spirit is active in the lives of our students, just as much as he is yours and in the past. Seven days alone, we got to witness just how active he is in their lives. I mean, you heard both Sean and Kaylee tell their stories about how God was active in their lives. But even so, Nathan Rivera atales, Baron Lizzie Lee, Sean Rocco all of those were our leaders for Rainbow express this year. That means they took on a leadership responsibility, guiding their peers, their fellow students, in sharing the gospel in these in rainbow Express, which is like a backyard Bible club where there's games, crafts, songs, and sharing the gospel with children who need it most. And so at the beginning of the week, they were going to be more timid, right? Some of them don't have experience with this, but by the end of the week, through the Holy Spirit, continually renewing them, continually providing them with his life, we got to see people come to know Jesus for the first time. Miss tilly Bergen is the lady who started mission Arlington in the first place, and she met us at the end of the week and told us that, with our church and the rest of the church is there that week, 41 souls were saved and have a relationship with Jesus that week.And that happened because our students were equipped by the Holy Spirit to go out and do these good works. And outside of a leadership capacity, Martina Moreno, McKenna diamond, were always the first to find something that was needed. And if they couldn't find something, they would seek it out because the Holy Spirit was working through them, trying to help our team, trying to make it easier for our teams to share the gospel with these children, even at the end of the week, when you could tell on their faces, they were exhausted. They were there ready to ask what can be done next. In both of our rainbow Express groups are our large group leaders were middle school boys who had either never had experience doing this or have had one year of experience doing this. Jonas Clark and Sam Razaq were our large group leaders, and they killed it this year, sharing the gospel to children without ever having experience doing that in this setting. And they weren't able to do that by themselves, because it is all the Holy Spirit working through them.I have plenty more stories. I could be here for another hour and ahalf I have witnessed each and every student this week live the life of Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit. And the point of me sharing these stories with you is to say that the Holy Spirit does not discriminate by basis of age, the power of God is just as powerful in a 13 year old as it is of a 31 year old. Now,hear me when I say this churchteenagers listen up.This does not mean that students know everything.If you have a teenager, please say, Amen.See, students are the next generation of the church, or are not the next generation of the church. They but they are the next generation of church leaders, like I was saying earlier, students are at a crucial point in their lives where they're trying to learn what it looks like to be their own person,what it looks like to to learn how to lead,how to be a godly person, so to speak. And so that's the purpose of what we do. That's the purpose of student ministry is to develop the church at their current stage of life in the same way that we have adult small groups, adult classes. We have studentministry, ourstudent ministry volunteers, our children ministry volunteers. Those aren't holy babysitters. Those are evangelists. They're missionaries.They are teachers of the gospel.Student ministry isn't all fun and games. I'm sure all my students at Mission Arlington Can Say, Amen to that. Don't get me wrong. Student ministry is fun, and there are times where it calls for a little bit of fun, but we are more than that. We are a ministry first, we experience life with our students. Uh, we experience community and fellowship. We we teach them, we sharpen them, we build them up, just like how the church was designed to do. We aren't sorry. Frederick Douglass is quoted as saying, it is easier to build strong children than it is to repair broken men.We aren't building up the church.See, God does that.God provides the growth, he provides the life, but what we are doing is building up a generation of church leaders, and if we don't start early, if we don't start now, the enemy will do whatever he can to prevent that from happening. Like I was saying earlier, 66% of believers come to know Jesus before the age of 18, those statistics wildly drop after that point. So if we don't start now, the enemy will get his hands on them, because what we do at Colonial Hill students, this is Kingdom work, just like any other branch of the church. God has equipped our people. God has equipped his people, and our students are his people that he has equipped with spiritual gifts, with talents that we are able to use to build his church. I mean, you saw it literally 20 minutes ago, where our students were using the talents God has given gifted them to lead our congregation in worshiping him. I was talking with a church member and a friend of mine, Michael Curtis, a few weeks back. Most of you all probably know him, but we're talking about how something that I value in my student ministry is adult leadership. See, for me, life experience is a very valuable tool that students can use to see what it's like to be a follower of Christ, 2030, years from where they're at. AndI'll be honest, that's not something I can offer a whole lot of andso as we were talking about it, he said something to me that really stuck out. He said that when he pictures himself in that position, right in serving in student ministry, that a thought goes through his head that he doesn't have a lot to offer our students. And he told me that there's plenty of other people in our church who feel that same way?I heard that, and that spoke to me,because, just by a show of hands, someone correct me if I'm wrong. How many of you would say that you think student ministry is like all energy, like non stop?See a couple hands? IYes, see, there are definitely days where it requires a lot of energy. I wrote this before we left for mission Arlington, and so now I'm really like, okay, it requires a lot of of energy. So yes, there are definitely days where that's the case, but there are more than that, student ministry is a part of the church, which means evangelism and discipleship come first. Aaron and Brittany Dickey led a Wednesday night class a few months back called relational discipleship, basically talking about how the best way to do discipleship is to develop relationships with people first, and that that right there is student ministry in a nutshell, that we are building relationships with these students. We are providing them with a space to grow alongside other people in their same stage of life, but also so that people with more life experience can grow alongside them and guide them. That they have people who they can ask the tough questions to that they have people to lean on who have more experience more wisdom than they do to teach them what it looks like to be a follower of Jesus. If you want to see what that looks like, what it looks like to develop our students at a later, later stage in life, we can look no further than my own Sunday school teachers. Stan Rutherford has been teaching our high school guys for years, he's got a passion for it, so much so that I have young adult leaders who help out with things like mission Arlington and our Wednesday nights who vividly remember just how much of an impact Stan had in their own lives, because he's been gifted by. With the ability to teach, but he also loves students as parts of the church. Nancy Kirkpatrick has a passion for teaching, but also simply loving our middle school girls. As I was preparing this message, I found out that Nancy had been taking some of our own middle school girls out for one on one ice cream or coffee like I didn't know that was happening until a few weeks ago,just because she wants to get to know them,because she sees them as members of the Body of Christ and loves them deeply. Natalie, White has been opening her own home every other weekend for our high school girls to to pour into them and to deepen their understanding of Scripture, but also give them an opportunity of community of real fellowship. This is one of the greatest things that's ever happened to our student ministry, because I have students asking, when is the next one that they look forward to this every single weekend and that they wish they could do it more? Not I'm not telling you to do it more. I'm just saying that they want it. But like you take some rest, it's fine. See, this is how we see the Holy Spirit work in the lives of our church, of my volunteers, of my team, of my teachers, because that is who they are, and that is who he has called them to be. But let me make it clear that that is how God has called them. God leads each and every one of us in a different way, and he might be calling you to get involved in our student ministry or children's ministry in some other way. See all this to say, involvement with students doesn't require you to have as much energy as someone in their 20s. What it does require is that God has called you to it, and that you love the church at this stage of life, if you are unable to serve in our church, in our student or children's ministry, physically, we can build up our children and students through giving, through generosity, your regular giving allows us to have events like mission Arlington, where we can send our children into other communities to share the gospel and to preach the words of Jesus to people who need it, to meet needs where they're at through your giving, we're able to have things like summer camp, where students are able to, like hear Jesus and His words and receive him for the first time in their lives. We can have things like VBS, where kids come to know Jesus for the first time. So through your regular giving, we are able to do the kingdom work that we are here to do. And if you are unable to serve in any of the previous ways mentioned, you can always serve our students spiritually. You can pray for our children. You can pray for our teenagers. How often do we look at prayer and see it as the least we can do, that the least we can do is pray for our ministers, pray for our volunteers. The least we can do is pray for children and that seeds be planted, the least we can do is pray for our students as they grow into the next generation of church leaders,guys, prayer iscommunicating directly with the God of creation, whom We have direct access to is prayer not the most that we can do. So if you aren't able to serve our students or our children, physically or fiscally, you can serve them spiritually through pleading to the God of creation on their behalf, pray for a generation that they might come to know Jesus within these walls and that seeds are planted. Pray that students and children are equipped with the power of the gospel, that they can take it into their own families, their own communities, their teams, and wherever else that they are found. Pray that students develop a love for the local church and the people within it. Pray for our volunteers who sacrifice their time, their energy, their money, their whatever, for the sake of our children and teenagers.And so if I can stand uphere and preach that. Prayer is the most that we can do, then I want to give you guys the opportunity to do the most we should be able to practice what we preach. And so as the band is getting ready to come back up and lead us in the time of response, I'm going to be at the front. We'll have some prayer prompts on the screen. I want this to be a time dedicatedto prayer.I want this to be a time for us to pray over the next generation of students. We'll have these prayer prompts on the screen. Take this time, respond how the spirit is calling you, Lord, thank you so much for this day we thank you for all that you have given us, God. We love you so much and we thank you that we have this blessing to serve our students where they're at. We thank you for the blessing of mission Arlington, being able to see our students come and experience what it means to be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ. Lord I pray over our church right now that your spirit moves in them to to seek you in praying for the next generation of leaders. To pray for our students. Pray for our children, pray for our leaders.Lord, I pray right now just that you give them a heartto seek you in thisJesus, we love you and we thank you for the cross. It's in your name we pray amen. Amen.