After thirty years of ministry, I feel more burdened for the lives of young men than I have ever felt before. Has a more challenging time existed for a young man to figure out who he is supposed to be? I have two teenage sons. They will soon be out in the world, navigating life as believers in an increasingly post-Christian society. I long and pray that they will walk wisely with Jesus in this confusing world and treasure him more than anything. So, I wrote this letter to them and other young men like them, in hopes that God uses it to keep them near himself.

Dear Sam and Isaac,

Your mom and I love you deeply. You’ve both grown into such strong and delightful young men. You are gifted in so many ways and have been flourishing as you’ve developed the gifts God has given you. I’m so proud of you both. I’m also burdened for you, however, because the world you’re growing up in has a level of spiritual warfare and complexity I’ve never seen before.

The very existence of something that could objectively be called “manhood” is questioned, and if it does exist, it is often viewed as toxic and oppressive — it deserves to fade into the patriarchal past. Our image-obsessed and hyper-sexualized culture has certainly done great damage to young ladies, but men have suffered as well. Great numbers of young men live in bondage to sexual sin of all kinds. Paul’s command to his son in the faith, Timothy, to “flee youthful passions” (2 Timothy 2:22), still applies to young Christian men, but you face some unprecedented temptations. So, what is the way to flee foolishness and find God-glorifying wisdom? More than anything else, I think young men need to believe and depend on the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

A few years ago, a friend and seasoned counselor told me that he thinks the best way to begin all his counseling sessions, no matter the primary issue, is to ask the person, “Do you believe Jesus rose from the dead?” He is a wise and loving man to point people to Jesus’s empty tomb. The answer will frame the way you deal with whatever life brings your way. Trusting in Jesus as the resurrected Savior changes everything.

Raised to Hope

First, the resurrection means that you can have assurance of victory, even in the darkest days.

Many young people are reporting increased depression, hopelessness, anxiety, and fear about the future. Many young men today also seem to think it’s cool to be cynical and apathetic. God doesn’t think that. In the resurrection of Christ, God “has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3).

Sin, sickness, mental or physical illness, addictions, shame from our past, relational strife, war, pandemics, inflation, corrupt governments, ruthless leaders, financial hardship — these are all tragic symptoms of the fall. But because Jesus rose from the dead, none of these should lead us to despair. By faith and union with Christ, his resurrection is our resurrection. Because Jesus became truly human, he represents us not only in his life and death, but in his resurrection as well.

As C.S. Lewis said, “The Man in Christ rose again: not only the God. That is the whole point” (Mere Christianity, 179). If the Man in Christ rose again, then we were raised with him and can walk in joy, hope, and newness of life, even in the darkest times. We have nothing to fear because Jesus is alive and, by faith, we have been raised with him! We should not fear even death because one day we will be raised to new and eternal life together. The resurrection gives a future hope, but also a present daily hope that can give us confidence and peace in any circumstance.

Raised to Favor

Second, the resurrection means you have nothing to prove.

The Bible teaches that Jesus “was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Romans 4:25). This is at the heart of what we believe as Christians. Jesus obeyed, suffered, died, and rose from the dead for us so that we could be saved to the uttermost and find our identity in him. On my best days, when I’m thinking rightly, I understand and rejoice that my whole life depends on God’s grace. But I realized a long time ago that something deep in my heart resists grace. It comes from the influence of the old me — even though he died with Christ when I became a new creature by faith.

Men are taught from an early age to find their identity in athletic accomplishments, the attention of girls, and academic and professional success. These sources of identity are bound to fail us. My pride and the father of lies tell me that I need to earn, prove, demonstrate, deserve, and somehow make myself worthy of God’s love and forgiveness. But when I remember that Jesus provides everything I need for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3), I find the peace and confidence I need. The resurrection frees us from the filthy rags of our so-called self-righteousness and the impossible burden of proving ourselves worthy of God’s kindness.

When Satan mocks you and throws your sin in your face, these words from Martyn Lloyd-Jones may help: “We must never look at any sin in our past life in any way except that which leads us to praise God and to magnify His grace in Christ Jesus” (Spiritual Depression, 75). If you are going to be confident men who can focus on the needs of others, you’ll need to live with nothing to prove. We need to preach the gospel to ourselves often, and, as Robert Murray M’Cheyne said, take ten looks at Christ for every one look at ourselves. Jesus is enough.

Raised to Power

Third, the resurrection means that you are no longer a slave to sin.

You are daily bombarded with messages that tell you that your desires, feelings, experiences, and personality type define you. You are told that, to be your authentic self, you need to fully express all that stirs within you, even if it dishonors God and hurts others. “Follow your heart” has become the cardinal doctrine of our time. Jesus teaches the opposite. He tells us that true life is found only in dying to ourselves and living in him through the power of the resurrection.

The apostle Paul said that his great aim in the Christian life was to “know [Christ] and the power of his resurrection, and . . . share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” (Philippians 3:10). When I baptized both of you at church, you remember I said, “buried with him in baptism, and raised to walk in newness of life.” The same power that raised Jesus from the dead has made you a new creation in Christ and now lives in you. By the resurrection power of Christ, you can overcome sinful temptations and desires that conflict with God’s ways (Romans 6:4–5).

Romans 6 is worth your serious study, meditation, and memorization. Even though you may feel, at times, like sin has a death grip on your heart and life, God promises that the power of sin has been defeated by Jesus and that you are now slaves to righteousness (Romans 6:17–18). When you obey God, you are living according to your new identity. God promises that when we trusted Christ, he “made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved — and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:5–6). Live like he has raised you from the dead.

Press On, Young Men

My dear boys, the resurrection is not merely a doctrine to be affirmed intellectually; it is the resounding affirmation that Jesus reigns over all. The power that raised him from the dead is your power for living the Christian life on earth and your assurance of eternal life in heaven. The resurrection changed everything, and you now have the hope, identity, and power to become the men of God that he created you to be — men who will walk in humble confidence, empowered by the Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead (Romans 8:11), to lay down your lives in Christlike service for the good of others and the glory of Christ. Press on, young men of God.

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15359297/dont-underestimate-the-power-of-human-example

Although Jesus was not the first to use parables in his teaching, his extensive use of them was a distinct feature of his teaching style. But why? Some suggest that he simply harnessed the power of story to enhance his teaching. But Jesus himself explains why he used parables, and he grounds his explanation in a network of Old Testament texts, with Isaiah 6:9–10 as the star of the show.

Grasping Jesus’s purpose provides valuable lessons for our understanding and proclamation of the gospel.

Lest They Turn

Jesus’s explanation for why he teaches in parables is embedded within the parable of the sower and soils. (Although this parable is recorded in all three Synoptic Gospels, we will focus on Matthew’s version.)

The parable comes at the beginning of an extended section of parables focused on the nature of God’s kingdom (Matthew 13:1–52). After Jesus tells the crowd the parable of the sower (Matthew 13:1–9), the disciples ask him privately why he speaks to the crowds in parables (Matthew 13:10). Jesus responds by highlighting their privileged position as disciples: God has chosen to reveal the secrets of the kingdom to them (Matthew 13:11–12, alluding to “mystery” language used in Daniel). He then directly answers their question:

This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says: “You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive.” For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them. (Matthew 13:13–15, citing Isaiah 6:9–10)

Jesus’s statement that he teaches in parables alludes to Psalm 78:2 (which Matthew cites explicitly in Matthew 13:35), but the sensory malfunction language (ears that do not hear, eyes that do not see, hearts and minds that are dull) anticipates the quote from Isaiah 6:9–10. Why does Jesus turn here to explain his purpose to the disciples?

Unseeing Eyes, Unhearing Ears

In its original context, Isaiah 6:9–10 is part of God’s commission to Isaiah as a prophet. In response to seeing Yahweh exalted on his throne, Isaiah responds to Yahweh’s question, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” with an emphatic, “Here I am! Send me” (Isaiah 6:1–8). Verses 9–10 then give the content of Isaiah’s message to rebellious Israel. God commissions him to denounce their spiritual deafness, blindness, and hardness of heart — the realities that keep Israel from responding to God’s call to repentance and restoration.

This was not a new response for Israel. It had been this way since Moses’s day, who used similar sensory malfunction language to describe Israel (Deuteronomy 29:2–4). Elsewhere, Scripture connects this sensory malfunction language to the effects of idolatry. Those who worship idols become like them, having eyes that cannot see, ears that cannot hear, and hearts that do not understand (Isaiah 44:9–20; Psalm 115:3–8).

“The parables are more like thermometers than thermostats; they reveal a person’s spiritual condition.”

But when Jesus cites Isaiah 6:9–10 and applies it to the listening crowds, he is doing more than simply identifying a recurring pattern in redemptive history. Notice that Jesus introduces the words of Isaiah 6:9–10 by saying, “Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled” (Matthew 13:14). The sensory malfunction and hardness of heart directed toward Jesus is the culmination of that pattern. The climactic nature of God’s revelation of himself in Jesus leads to a heightened level of sensory malfunction and hardness of heart that fills up the significance of previous occurrences of this pattern.

Wrapping Pearls in Parables

Jesus teaches in parables in order to expose a person’s spiritual condition. The parables are more like thermometers than thermostats; they reveal a person’s spiritual condition more than they determine it. That is why Jesus repeatedly says, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” (Matthew 11:15; 13:9, 43). Those who have been made spiritually alive and are now able to hear the voice of the Son of God (John 5:25–26) must respond by obeying Jesus’s word. They must be not merely hearers of the word, but doers (James 1:22).

By contrast, the parables further harden those whose spiritual eyes, ears, hearts, and minds have malfunctioned because of their idolatrous rebellion against God. “For those without ears to hear, parables seem to conceal more than they reveal, so that superficial hearing and seeing do not lead to true spiritual understanding or perception,” Craig Blomberg writes (Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, 46). The parables are thus a way of speaking the good news of the kingdom to the crowds while at the same time not casting pearls before swine (Matthew 7:6). As D.A. Carson puts it, Jesus teaches in parables “in such a way as to harden and reject those who are hard of heart and to enlighten — often with further explanation — his disciples” (Matthew, 309).

John also uses Isaiah to explain the people’s rejection of Jesus (John 12:36–43). Despite all the signs Jesus did, they did not — in fact, could not — believe in him, which fulfilled the words of Isaiah 53:1. Indeed, the reason they could not believe in him is explained by a citation of Isaiah 6:9–10. After quoting the prophet, John explains that “Isaiah said these things because he saw his [Jesus’s] glory and spoke of him” (John 12:41). In other words, the exalted Lord whom Isaiah saw sitting on the throne of heaven was none other than Christ himself (Isaiah 6:1–5). Thus, Isaiah foretold the rejection of Jesus nearly seven hundred years before he was born.

Simply put, Jesus teaches in parables to demonstrate the need for divine revelation to understand the mysteries of the kingdom and to reveal the spiritual condition of his listeners. Both of these realities are grounded in his understanding of Isaiah 6:9–10.

Eye-Opening God

The way that Jesus and the New Testament authors use Isaiah 6:9–10 teaches us at least three important lessons.

First, the gospel was hidden in plain sight in the Old Testament but is now revealed through the person and work of Jesus Christ. On the one hand, the New Testament makes it clear that the good news of Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the Old Testament hope. At the same time, the way that Christ fulfills the Old Testament hope is unexpected in many respects.

Second, God must open a person’s spiritual senses to rightly perceive the gospel. By fallen nature, we come into this world as spiritually dead sinners with hearts of stone (Ephesians 2:1–3; Ezekiel 36:26). Apart from God’s Spirit making us spiritually alive (Ephesians 2:4–6), giving us eyes to see (2 Corinthians 4:6) and hearts that are responsive to God (Ezekiel 36:26–27), no one ever comes to faith in Christ. If we trust in Jesus, our hearts should be filled with gratitude that God has opened our eyes to see the beauty of Christ, because none of us deserves such a privilege. There is no room for arrogance in the kingdom. No one comes to know Christ because he is smarter or wiser than others. As believers, we should marvel at the fact that God has opened our eyes to see “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6).

Finally, truly understanding these realities will make us people of prayer. All our efforts to share the gospel with others should be bathed in prayer. Learning how to respond to common questions about Jesus, the Bible, and Christianity is wise, but our ability to explain and defend the gospel is not what enables people to repent and believe in Jesus. This truth frees us from the anxiety that comes from thinking a person’s response to the gospel depends on how well we communicate.

Instead, we can confidently pray for God to do what only he can do. We can pray that, as he did with Lydia (Acts 16:14–15), God would open our hearers’ eyes to see the beauty of Christ, open their ears to hear the good news, and replace their heart of stone with a heart of flesh that responds to God in faith and obedience.