Welcome And Theme Verse

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Hello, and welcome to the West Side Church's special podcast.

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Good morning, good morning. Open your Bible with me, please, to Ecclesiastes chapter 12. Ecclesiastes chapter 12, going to read one verse there as a platform for everything that we want to talk about in this portion of our worship. What a delight to see you this morning. If you're joining us online, we're really pleased that you're here. It has been, it has been a spectacular weekend. And it is absolutely a joy on my part to get to play a role in that each year. I'm thankful to the elders for all that they do in overseeing and shepherding all the things that go into youth lectures. And I'm especially thankful for all the people who make it happen behind the scenes. So many things occur from putting a sign out there on the street and emailing speakers and saying, hey, I'm praying for you and I'm encouraging you. That means so much. People just do so much to make this event happen. And it happens. And the Lord blesses it. It's just a wonderful, wonderful. It's just the best weekend of the year. And this is my favorite Sunday of the year. It's in Ecclesiastes chapter 12, where the wise man says this. In Ecclesiastes chapter 12, read with me, please, in verse number one. Solomon says, Ecclesiastes 12 in verse 1. Remember also your creator in the days of your youth. Before the evil days come and the years draw near, of which you will say, I have no pleasure in them. Let's just run a little checklist here. Let's see here. Who has their Christmas shopping done? Who's gone ahead and bought their best girl of Valentine's Day card for next year? Anybody got your graduation announcements for 2027 already in the mail? No, no, and absolutely not. Those things are just so far in the future. We're not worried about all of those kinds of things. It's summer, and that means we're doing all the things right now. We're doing camp and youth lectures, and don't look now, but school is around the corner. So we're just involved in everything that's happening right now, right in front of us.

Stop Postponing Faith Until Later

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Can I ask you, young people? Is it possible you're treating Christianity that way? It's easy to do that, isn't it? We talk about Christianity. What's the point of Christianity? Well, the point of Christianity is so I can go to heaven when I die. But when you're 14, when you're 17, when you're 22, planning your funeral and dying is not on the top of your to-do list today, is it? The result of that is sometimes we can push Christianity away. It's something that I'm going to do later in my life. I don't need to think about that right now. Christianity is in the future. It's not now. And I should say, we've heard some amazing lessons this week in solid truths to stand on. But I think Solomon would say the most important truth for young people to stand on is what he just articulated in Ecclesiastes 12 in verse 1, which is you need to serve God now. You need to be serving the Lord today because today matters. And let's be candid, young people. Sometimes the reason a young person hasn't obeyed the gospel and been baptized into Jesus Christ, they have not begun to follow Jesus is because I'm going to do that later. I'm going to do that when I'm kind of adult, like 25 or something like that. And let's be candid, young people. Sometimes the reason why we're not very serious in our following of Jesus Christ is because our life is full of school and friends and camp and all the other great things that we're doing. And you know what? I'll get really into that discipleship later, later, much later when I'm kind of of an adult thing. And Ecclesiastes 12 and verse 1 absolutely overturns that kind of thinking. Solomon says, now, right now, instead of waiting to serve God until you're all grown up, until you're married, until you have a career, until you have a house and two and a half kids, Solomon says, it is now. Go for it now. Full-on discipleship. And he says that because today matters. And I want to give you five reasons this morning why today, serving God now, remembering your Creator in the days of your youth, it matters. Five reasons why today matters.

Pursue Christlike Character Now

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We're going to start in 2 Timothy chapter 2. In 2 Timothy chapter 2 and verse 22. Here the apostle says this to Timothy. Timothy is a young man. And in 2 Timothy chapter 2 and verse 22, here the apostle says this. So flee, 2 Timothy 2.22, so flee, youthful passions, and pursue righteousness and faith and love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. That does not exactly sound like a passage for the old folks' home, does it? Flee youthful passions. What that passage says is that God has expectations of you right now, young person. Unfortunately, I think too many young people read 2 Timothy 2.22 and they just come to a full stop after it says, flee youthful passions. Period. That's the end. And what that means is as long as, well, as long as I don't do seriously bad stuff, and I don't get into big trouble and involved in horrific kinds of sins, then I pretty much can do whatever I want to do with my friends in school and so forth. And I'll let that fill up my life rather than following Jesus. Could you look at that text again? Has anybody got a period in 2 Timothy 2.22 after the word passions? I have an and there. So flee, youthful passions. That's right. Don't do bad stuff. But flee, youthful passions, and, and, and pursue. Pursue righteousness and faith and love and peace along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Christianity is not just about abstaining from evil. Christianity is a life about actively building the character of Christ into our lives. That is something young people are commanded to do now, right now. Are you getting up every morning and saying, Today, I need to glorify God? Well, why not? That's what young people are told to do in 2 Timothy 2.22. Young people need to have understanding here that God has expectations of you in your life where you are. I don't know of anyone in the Bible that God calls and says, now you get ready, because in 20 years I'm going to need you. But I do know about young people like Daniel, like Josiah, like Esther, like Mary, like a servant girl who pointed a leprosyan general to the prophet of God. I know in the Bible about young people who serve God, who served God when they were young, and they served God oftentimes in unexpected places and in even unexpected ways. But they were serving God. They had the character of the Lord in their life. And so God called them, and they were ready on the spot when God needed them right there, right then, not later, not when they were all grown up. Do you see that? It's so essential that we ask ourselves, am I pursuing the glory of God? Am I, 2 Timothy 2.22, am I all about pursuing righteousness, faith, love, and peace? Am I doing that? I should tell you. It's used in Revelation chapter 12 in that amazing vision that talks about the red dragon, Satan. And the word pursue there is used to say that Satan, the dragon, he pursues the people of God. You think that's a half-hearted, haphazard kind of thing? Satan's kind of like, well, you know, when I get around to that, I'll do something about those Christians. The book of Revelation tells us that Satan gets up every morning and is in it all the way, all day. He is pursuing you. If Satan is pursuing you, young person, shouldn't you be pursuing God? Shouldn't you be doing that right now? That's why today matters. And I would add to that

Busy Life Can Choke Faith

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that today matters because the reality is life is going to get busy. It's going to get really, really busy. And that's troubling because of what Jesus says in Luke chapter 8. If you'd find in your Bibles, please, Luke chapter 8. I want to read verse 14 where Jesus is explaining the parable of the sower. In Luke chapter 8 and verse 14, Jesus says that part of that parable is about the seed that gets sown in weedy ground, where there's thorns and thistles and all that kind of thing. I'm thinking probably ragweed. Luke 8, 14, as for what fell among the thorns, Luke 8 and 14, that is those who hear, but as they go on their way, they are choked by the cares and the riches and the pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. Now I expect that sometimes when we talk to young people, we are afraid that they're going to go to enormous state university, and there Dr. Mega Atheist is going to undermine their faith and question God. And I suppose that kind of thing may happen, but that's not really what I see happening in young people's lives that draw them away from the Lord. What I see over and over again is Luke 8, 14. The cares and the riches and the pleasures of life chokes out their discipleship. They're just so busy with so many things that somehow Jesus gets pushed to the margin of their lives. Now, I understand, young people, that you are busy right now. There's so many things going on. Events that I want to attend and weddings that I need to go to. I've got to take care of that, and I've got to do this. And then the school year starts, and it's just crazy. There's homework and papers to write and exams and rehearsals and practice and rushing to this and going to that. And I forgot to tell mom and dad that I need a working model of a volcano for science tomorrow morning. All of those things are going on. Let me show you an important passage. Look in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. If you think your life is busy now, in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, watch what Paul says here. This is verse 11. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 and verse 11, the apostle says, I want you to aspire to live quietly and to mind your own affairs and to work with your hands as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent upon no one. Can I be painfully honest with you? You think your life's busy. It's about to get busier. First Thessalonians 4, 11, and 12 is called adulting. Welcome to the world of being an adult where you have jobs and a family to take care of, and the washing machine caught on fire, and the cat threw up on the rug, which is why no one should own cats, and my insurance just went up, and my boss says he needs the presentation tomorrow, and the car needs a safety sticker inspection, and my kid just told me he needs a working model of a volcano tomorrow. I understand. Young people are not sitting around twiddling their thumbs a lot. Let me ask you this. You've seen your parents sitting around twiddling their thumbs a lot? No, you have not. Life is busy, and it's going to get busier. Look again at that text in Luke 8. Look again in that text in Luke chapter 8. In Luke 8 in verse 14, let's think about our lives, young people. Where are we? As for what fell among the thorns, it's those who hear, but as they go on their way, they're choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life. Result, fruit does not mature. Is that you? Your Christianity is going to wither away because you're just so busy with a thousand things that you never took the time to develop the core disciplines necessary to cope with everything that life throws at you now and even as an adult and maintain your faith. Disciplines like regular prayer. Disciplines like consistent I don't miss worship attendance. Disciplines like no compromise time in the Word of God every day. When would be a good time to build that? When would be a good time to put that into your life? Later? When there's so much stuff on your plate you can't even think about what to push off to make room for Jesus now? Or could maybe, could maybe we start doing some things now that will center our life on glorifying God and following Jesus? Could we start putting things in place that we will never give up the core disciplines that assist us even in our busy lives now, but will help us and keep that word from being choked when we are full on adulting. I know you're busy. We don't ever want to be too busy for Jesus. We don't ever want to let our lives get so crowded with the things of this life that we can't serve Jesus Christ, which means we must learn now to put first things first and to put the things in life that are essential so that we can serve God all of life. See? Today matters.

Samson And The Habits You Keep

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Now, turn your Bible with me, please, over to the book of Judges, and we're going to talk to a Bible character that nobody thought would make an appearance at youth lectures. Let's talk to, yeah, let's talk to Samson. Would you find your Bible and turn to Judges, please, with me? In Judges the 14th chapter. In Judges chapter 14, let's think about Samson for a moment. In Judges 14, Samson went down to Temna, verse 1. Judges 14 and 1, and at Temna he saw one of the daughters of the Philistines. And he came to his father and his mother, and he said, I saw one of the daughters of the Philistines at Temnah, get her. Get her for me as a wife. His father and mother said, Is there not a woman among the daughters of your relatives, among our people? That you must go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines? Samson said to his father, Get her for me. She is right in my eyes. Mark Arbitch International East Texas Translation, she is hot. And that, of course, marks most of Samson's life. Samson does win some victories, but mostly he's crazy undisciplined. He's completely chaotic in his behavior, and he lets his uncontrolled sexual desires run his life. As a result, he pretty much is a catastrophe in motion. Now, that's Judges 14, and I don't know exactly how old Samson was in Judges 14, but people in Israel at that time got married fairly young, so I'm going to guess as I'm looking at Judges 14 that he would be sitting on this side of the building if he was here today, and probably would have come to the coffee and conversations event in my house last night. Now move forward in the book of Judges. Let's try Judges 16. In Judges 16 and verse 4, in Judges 16 and verse 4, guess what Samson's still doing? Judges 16 and verse 4 says that after all these things, he loved a woman in the valley of Sarah, that's Felicia. Her name was Delilah. Where are we now in Samson's timeline? Well, Samson judges Israel for 20 years. So if Judges 14 is when he's 20, then now as we're coming to the end of Samson's life, he's 40, 45? And guess what? He's still hanging out with Philistine women. Why are you doing that? If you ask Samson, why are you still with Philistine women? You know what Samson would say? Well, I kind of got in that habit and it's hard to change now. When uh when I was in junior high, I took an advanced algebra class. Not one of my better life choices. Um it did not go well. At one point in time, I made a 54 on a test, and it raised my average in the class. I don't remember my parents laughing like that. Not amused. My dad decided that he would take me on personally to tutor me and help me do better in the class. And so dad looked over my homework and my tasks, and the first thing that he said is, You are as dumb as a box of hammers. No, that is not what Dad was actually very encouraging, and he actually helped me in many, many ways. But one thing that he noticed was that my handwriting was really sloppy. Really sloppy. And algebra calls for neat equations and careful columns so that you can go over your work and show your work and see what you're doing and maybe where you made mistakes. So my dad was really concerned. For example, my fives looked kind of like S's and sometimes like twos and sometimes even like threes. So my dad decided that the first thing that we would do in every tutoring session is that I would write pages and pages and pages of fives in a very certain, clear, neat, legible way, over and over and over and over again. I made fives in my sleep. I want you to know that if aliens arrive and announce they will destroy this planet, if someone cannot produce a neat, legible five, I'm saving everybody. Thank you very much. Guess how I make fives today? Exactly the same way I did in eighth grade. Why? Because change is hard. And we begin to set habits in our young life that endure and that carry us forward all through life. Why did Samson keep hanging out with Philistine girls? Because he got in the habit of doing that. And change is hard. And even when Delilah keeps giving him away, and the guy who made a 54 and an algebra test, would have been saying, oh, this is bad. Don't be doing that anymore. He just kept doing that. Why? Change is hard. So don't tell me that today doesn't matter. It does. Because the bad habits that we're tolerating in our lives now, like laziness or gossip or irreverence in worship or profanity, all of those kinds of things, dating Philistines, those habits become part of who we are. And they are as hard to get rid of as bubble gum stuck in your hair. Today matters because we're carving ruts out and they just get deeper and deeper and deeper, and they get awfully difficult to climb out of. Today matters because what you're doing now, you'll still be. There's a five. You'll still be doing it even as an adult because change is hard. And you know what? The good news is that doesn't just apply to bad habits. I should tell you this.

The Power Of Compounding Choices

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It applies to good habits. And that's called the power of compounding. One of the reasons why today matters so much is because of compounding, that our tomorrows are really made up of today's. And I should zero in, I think, on the word compounding. What is compounding? What are you talking about there, Mark? What is that all about? Well, compounding is about doing little things over and over and over with great consistency. So that all those little things over time yield big, big results. Surprisingly big. So for example, if when you're 15 years old, you save one dollar a day. A buck. Skip a slurpee. If you save one dollar a day, Every day when you are 15, at age 70, if you invest that dollar a day at a very nominal savings rate, you will almost be a millionaire. Not quite, but almost a millionaire. A dollar a day? How about this? If you practice your piano 20 minutes a day, when you first start playing, it's rough. It's pretty tough. And for weeks, it's going to be terrible. But if you keep investing 20 minutes a day consistently, after years and years of practice, what happens? You sit down to play the piano, and someone will say, You are so talented. No. Just a lot of consistent hard work. You work on a foreign language 10 to 15 minutes a day. Over time, two, three years, you'll start to be able to pick up some things people are saying in that language. Spanish, German, you'll be able to hear it. And if you keep at it in a few more years, you will be fluent and be able to talk with people in that language. That's compounding. Little things that you just keep doing, over time, they build up, they increase. So, for example, what would happen if you read a chapter of the New Testament every day, five days a week, starting when you're 15 years old? By the time you're 30, you would have read the New Testament through 15 times. Fifteen times. There are people who have never read the whole New Testament in their whole life. You'll have read it 15 times. And think about what that will mean. Because the first time that you read through the New Testament, there'll be a lot of things that you don't know where it fits, and how does this go? And I'm not sure what the main message is, but the second time you read it, you'll know it a little bit better and you'll see it a little clearer. I hadn't noticed that before. Oh, I remember this passage also goes with that other passage. And it begins to make sense. By the time you've read the New Testament through 15 times, you're starting to make some headway there, aren't you? Read the New Testament through 15 times by the time you're 30. Where would you be in the New Testament by the time you're 70? That's the power of compounding. And maybe I should say something about that pursuing passage. Righteousness and faith and peace and love. Those compound. Christian character compounds. When you pursue righteousness, that means that you defeat temptation, which guess what? That makes you a little stronger and you're a little better able the next time. When you pursue faith, your faith is getting tougher, more rigorous, more able to meet the challenges, which means you believe a little more. You want peace? If you want peace, you have to learn how to let some things go. Pray and turn some things over to the Lord. And as you do that, then the next time you encounter anxiety and troubles and turmoil, you think, you know what? I turn that over to the Lord so I can have some peace. I can do this as well. You're getting stronger. The same is true for love. The character of Christ compounds in our lives. The more you get, the more you will get. And the more you get, the more you get on top of that. Because you're pursuing the glory of God and you're building into your life everything that the Lord is. Can you find in your Bible Ezra, please?

Ezra And A Heart Set On God

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In the book of Ezra. I love this little passage in Ezra chapter 7. In Ezra chapter 7, look with me in verse 10. In Ezra 7 and in verse 10. Ezra is an amazing and in many ways underlooked Bible character. Later in his life, after the seventh chapter of Ezra, he will meet an enormous challenge. God's people have returned from Babylonian captivity, and inexplicably they're just right back into wickedness and sin. They are majorly violating the law of God. Ezra will rise to that challenge. He will help God's people repent and do what's right. It is a huge moment. And it is all prefigured by Ezra 7 and verse 10. For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the Lord, to do it, and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel. How did Ezra do what Ezra does? He did it because he set his heart daily time with the word of God, daily prayer, daily determination to be God's servant. And he did that day after day, a little at a time, a little at a time, and it compounded until in that moment when God needed him to step up. Ezra does. So the habits that you build at 14 or 18 or 22, those are not small. Daily prayer, reading your Bible, daily kindness, going out of your way to help someone. These are tiny choices that over time build up and they become, they become our lives. Never forget. You can't drift into becoming a great Christian. But you can absolutely grow there and you can start growing there now. That's why today matters. Then finally, let me just add this. And I think this may in some ways be probably the most important thing that I will say this

Friends Need Jesus Through You

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morning. In John chapter 1, let's get a good illustration of what we're talking about. One of the reasons that one of the reasons that today matters so very much is because you have friends who need to know about Jesus right now. Are you turning your Bible to John chapter 1? I can assure you that I have racked my brain to think about how I could read from Hebrews in this sermon. Everybody else did. Somebody missed the memo. I'll have to do the best I can here in the Gospel of John. Read with me, John chapter 1. Here we read in verse 40. John 1 and verse 40. One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. John 1:41. He first found his own brother, Simon. He said to him, We have found the Messiah, which means Christ. He brought him to Jesus. He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, You're Simon, son of John? You'd be called Cephas, which means Peter. The next day, Jesus decided to go to Galilee and he found Philip. He said to Philip, Follow me. Philip was of Messed, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathaniel. Said to him, We have found him in whom Moses and the law and also the prophets wrote. Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. Nathanael said, Wait a minute, wait a minute. Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip said, Come and see. Now, in those passages are the great secret of evangelism. Because what we want to believe many, many times is that evangelism, bringing people to Jesus, is about some big event. Television ads, radio spots, billboards, some viral multimedia campaign on the internet, youth lectures, really big kinds of things. And those things are important and they have their place. But every survey, every study, every poll always shows exactly why people are in the religious group that they are in right now. And that is 90, 95% of people are in the religious group they're in at this moment because, because, because a friend or a loved one invited them. Because a friend said to Peter, we found the Messiah. Because a friend said to Nathaniel, we have found the one that Moses speaks of. Come and see. Nothing is more powerful in evangelism than a friend who says to a friend, come and see. And you can do that now, can't you? In fact, sometime back, there was a high school student who had a friend named Ainsley. Ainsley was a New Testament Christian. So Ainsley invited this high school student to come and go to church with her. And that was kind of an out-of-the-box thing for that high school student. That's pretty weird. It was very different than the church that she'd grown up in. Very, very strange. But she was mesmerized by the appeal to Scripture, by doing Bible things in Bible ways by a church that was serious about the Bible. And so she began to ask Angley all kinds of questions about that. And Angley did her best to answer. And they read the Bible together and they talked about it a lot. And finally, Anley introduced her friend to the preacher. And they sat down and they studied together. And Angley's friend. Angley's friend is my mom. Angley's friend obeyed the gospel. Angley's friend is my mom. And I just can't imagine what would have happened if Angley had decided, you know what, today's not that important. I'll be a serious Christian later, and right now I can dance and drink and smoke and party and club and do all those other things. I wonder if that might have gotten in the way of her inviting my mom to go to church with her. You think? Or what would have happened if Angley had said, you know, I don't want to push my faith on somebody. I don't want to make anybody feel uncomfortable. That might strain my friendship with Irene. What would have happened if Angley would have said, you know, church is church is church. She goes to a different church. But you know what, there's many roads. They all lead to heaven. We don't need to get that serious about New Testament Christianity. I thank God. I thank God. That Angley was not a lukewarm Christian. That Ainsley was not a worldly-minded Christian. I thank God that Angley didn't say, I'll be a serious Christian later. I thank God that Ainsley said, today matters. And I'm going to point someone to Jesus today. It makes an eternity's worth of difference. Doesn't it?

White Oak Trees And Long Obedience

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Now let me put all this together by talking for a moment about trees. Probably didn't have that on your bingo card. Many people don't know that the United States Navy is involved in trees. They actually run, manage a forest in central Indiana. And you may be thinking, why is our Navy growing trees? That doesn't seem like a very Navy kind of thing to do. But those are very special trees. Those are white oaks. White oak trees are unique and very important to the Navy because that is exactly what the famous ship, the USS Constitution, is constructed of. White oak is heavy and dense and tough. So tough that in the War of 1812, when the British fired on the USS Constitution in battle, the cannonballs bounced off. Thus sailors began to refer to the Constitution, you may know this, as old iron sides. But she's not made of metal. She's made of white oak. But here's the problem. You can't just walk into Home Depot and say, I would like a 60-foot length of white oak that is 18 inches wide and 12 inches thick. They don't carry it. Not like that. White oak is a very special kind of lumber, a very special kind of timber. And you need a very special tree, a perfectly straight, long tree, high-quality tree trunk. And a tree like that takes many, many decades to build, sometimes to grow, sometimes more than a century to grow a suitable white oak tree. So the U.S. Navy's foresters at the Constitution Grove, they are carefully tending oaks today that will only become ship's timber in the USS Constitution far in the future. They have to think in tree time, not in today time. But if the Navy wants the Constitution to continue to sail and to be a symbol of strength and our commitment to liberty, then it must plant and tend trees today. Do you see it, young people? If you want to be a strong, committed Christian someday, you have to plant and tend now. That's why today matters.

Prayer And Invitation To Respond

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Let's pray. Would you pray with me, please? Oh Lord our God. We ask blessings upon these young people. That your word will be received in their heart. That they will stand upon these truths. And we ask now, Father, that you will bless them with initiative and courage and resolve to hear and do your word today. To live for you now, to remember their Creator in the days of their youth. Bless all of us. That your word, Father, will draw us closer to you and cause us to live each day for you, starting today. And as always, we pray for our elders as they shepherd us and lead us to you through your word. In Christ we pray and amen. If you need a songbook, sing this invitation song, you should get one. I just wonder if there might be somebody here this morning who is ready to make this day the most important day of their life. The day they were born again into Jesus Christ, their sins washed away, and they began walking with the Lord. Or maybe this could be an extraordinarily important day, a day that you return to the Lord and serve him with renewed zeal and fervor, because you know all you have is today and today matters. Could we help you serve Jesus Christ?

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