I want to spend this time focusing on a group of people that we often overlook, a group of people we don’t take seriously. That group of people is our teens. We overlook them and what they are going through in life. We don’t take what they are dealing with seriously. I want to draw you back to the time you were a teen. Can we just think about the time we were teens? Think about going to Junior High: caring about everything you were wearing, wondering if anyone was going to like you, caring about other’s opinions more than your own and feeling awkward with the changes your body was going through. Your emotions were all over the place and for the first time in your life, you were ashamed of your body. You may have felt like every problem you faced was the end of the world. Do you remember those days? They were horrible weren’t they?
However, there were good things happening during this time as well. You were open to new ideas and more curious about things going on around you that previously you may not have noticed. Think about the opportunity we have as adults to shape our youth. What our teens believe in now will be the foundation on which they stand in their twenties. Being open and curious means they may be open to hearing the Gospel. You may think to yourselves, “No one takes teen’s emotions or faith seriously,” but I want to spend the rest of this time challenging your thinking. Do not belittle what God can do. God does take teens faith seriously and He showed this by using a teen and her “yes.”
God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph. The virgin’s name was Mary and she is historically thought to be 13 years old at the time. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what type of greeting this may be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her six month. For no word from God will ever fail.”
“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her. Luke 1:26-38.
Did you see it in the text? God sent the angel, Gabriel to talk to Mary (a 13 year old girl or a teen as we like to call them) and told her that God wants her to give birth to the Savior of the World, Jesus. Look at the conversation between them: she wanted to know how she could do this, since she is a virgin and Gabriel tells her how it will happen. Mary says, “May it be to me as you have said.” Basically stating “Yes, Lord” and God took a 13 year old girl seriously. If God took Mary’s faith seriously, don’t you think we should take our teens faith seriously?