Well, friends, before we jump into God's Word, I would like to introduce the set of talks that I'm going to be giving this weekend and the sermons that I'm going to be preaching on Sunday. And I'd like to talk to you a little bit about how we understand our lives, the duration of our lives specifically. Well, let me do it this way. I'm going to ask you kids a question. You can raise your hand if you have an answer, and then I'll pick you, and you can yell out your answer, okay? So I'm going to ask you a question, and I'll let the definition of kid be left up to your own definition, okay? So if you're a kid at heart, you can answer too. So off the cuff, without too much thinking, how many weeks do you think that the average person gets to live in their whole life? How many weeks? 600 weeks, you think? That's a pretty good guess. Anybody else? How many weeks do you think you get to live in your life? 3,600, okay. Somebody said 900? 80,000? 8,000, okay. Somebody else? 1,000? 1,000, that's like one of those guesses where you're trying to get close to the number of gumdrops or candies in the bottle, so you guess just a little bit more. All right, so, yep, back there. Somebody used their calculator or something. So, in Canada, the average age is about 80 years old. It's a little bit longer if you're a woman, maybe the average age of 84. And if you live to be around that age, you live somewhere around 4,000 weeks. 4,000 weeks. No, it doesn't seem very much, does it? 4,000 weeks. So, if you were thinking much larger than that, like, you know, I heard of somebody who guessed, oh, maybe somewhere around 500,000 weeks, which would mean that you get to live for 10,000 years or so. But 4,000 weeks. 4,000 weeks is how long we live. And so I actually printed off this graph that I saw somewhere. And so this is a chart. You can't see it because it's so far away. You could turn the lights on this one if you want. This is a chart of an average life in weeks. And each little square represents one week. And so you could tick them off as you're living them. And so I'm 45. You know, so I'm like, like I'm half done here. Like I would have this half of it all ticked off. Which means that I'm, you know, we'll talk about that tomorrow. I'm about middle-aged. So, I don't know if you find that encouraging or depressing, but we'll just leave that over here. Maybe we'll give it away as an award for talent show or something. All right, so 4,000 weeks is not very long, and so about 10 years ago, there was this new saying that came into the English vocabulary, and that saying was YOLO, and it's an acronym for You Only Live Once. You only live once. It's a little bit like if you're a little bit older, it was Carpe Diem, seize the day. It's an acronym, YOLO, you use that to say, hey, you only live once, so why not throw ourselves out there and engage perhaps in risky behavior or behavior that perhaps is a little unwise, because after all, you only live once. You only got 4,000 weeks. You only have 4,000 weeks if the Lord gives you a long life. So that's one way to think about time, or think about your life. Another way is this. Now I need one of you kids to be my volunteer. Do I have a volunteer here? Yeah, lots of hands. Oh, okay, you over there. Yeah, can you come over here? So I'd like you to imagine that this rope goes right out here. And it goes down the steps, and it goes down the driveway, and then it starts heading a long, long distance towards, say, Toronto, like 400 kilometers away. And the rope is like 400 kilometers long. And it goes all the way to Toronto, and then it keeps on going. And then it goes out, like way out to Windsor, and it crosses the border into the States. And it keeps on going. This rope that I'm holding keeps on going. And it goes like 4,500 kilometers until it hits Mexico. And then it keeps on going. The same rope keeps on going. It goes all the way to the bottom of Argentina, you know, 12,000 kilometers away. all the way down to the far end of South America, and after that it shoots off into space, passes the moon, and goes off infinitely into the universe to billions of light years away. And that would represent the Christian life going off into eternity with God. That we will live forever with the Lord. And then if you think about life like that, your life extending out into eternity with the Lord, then those 4,000 weeks, they represent maybe just like this little part here. You know? Just this tiny little section of life. And then the eternal part of life, the huge part of life, will be with the Lord. Now that's a different way of thinking about your life, right? You can think about life in terms of 4,000 weeks, not very long. Or you can think of life as eternally long with your Lord and Savior. Both of those ways of thinking about life, I find, are helpful. And then you might say, okay, so then, well then we shouldn't have this YOLO attitude, like you only live once, gotta do everything now, and that's true, because life continues on forever. And at the same time, we only always live in the present. The moment that you're living is this moment. And so we still need to pay attention to how we live here. Right? We still need to pay attention to how do we live today, in light of eternity, and in light of the fact that the Lord has given us only a limited time here on this earth. And so what I would like to speak about this weekend is I would like to speak about how we do we live in this little section here. What wisdom do we have from the Lord about how to live now in light of eternity and given the brevity of this life that we have here, the shortness of this life. And so I'm calling these talks YOLO, you only live once, and by that I mean you only live once as a believer with the Lord that once continues on into eternity. But how do we live this life here and now today? And tonight we're going to talk about how do you live when you're young. Tomorrow morning I would like to speak about how do you live when you're middle-aged. Sunday morning I'm going to preach to you the gospel under the theme of how do you live when you're older. And I noticed that we have kneeling benches in the front here, so maybe tonight I'll invite the young people to come forward and kneel, and then the middle-aged people can come tomorrow, and then the older people can come on Sunday. Or maybe not. All right. Yolo, you only live once. How to live when you are younger. There is a lot of things that we could say about how to live life when you are young. What I would like to do this evening is to look at a specific text of scripture with you from the book of Ecclesiastes. And we're going to be looking at Ecclesiastes 11. So Ecclesiastes, like the Psalms and the Proverbs, is known as wisdom literature. And wisdom literature is literature in scripture that helps you understand how to put one foot in front of the other in the nitty gritty everyday life that you live. It teaches you how to wisely live in a fallen and often frustrating world. And I would like to look at Ecclesiastes 11 specifically to understand how do you live life when you are young. So Ecclesiastes 11 and verse 1, we'll read chapter 12 and verse 1. This is God's holy word. Cast your bread upon the waters for you will find it after many days. Give a portion to seven or even to eight you know not what disaster may happen on earth. If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves on the earth. And if a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie. He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap. As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything. In the morning you sow your seed, and at the evening withhold not your hand. For you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good. Light is sweet and is pleasant to the eyes to see the sun. So if a person lives many years, let him rejoice in all of them, but let him remember that the days of darkness will be many. All that comes is vanity. Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment. Remove vexation from your heart, put away pain from your body for youth, and the dawn of life our vanity. Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evildoers' days come and the years draw near, of which you will say, I have no pleasure in them." So far, our scripture reading. Before we jump into this, let me say, I don't want all of you older, middle-aged, older people falling asleep because you're like, well, this message is for the young people, so I don't need to pay attention. Perhaps it's helpful to know that in the Bible, when the Bible speaks about young people, you could say, when the Bible speaks about young people, it means people who are not old. So if you don't consider yourself old, then what the Bible says to young people is also relevant to you. I think a good way when we think about young people is to focus on people who are young children, teens, all the way through into your 30s. Although I truly believe that what I'm about to explain and teach and preach to you is also applicable for when you are older. So YOLO, living life when you are young. I want to talk about two different things from this text. What life is like, and how to live it. Let's talk about what life is like and how to live it. So what is life like? You young people, what is life like? And I'd like to pull out three things from what we just read in Ecclesiastes 11 and 12 verse 1. And the first one is this. You want to know what life is like? Life is unpredictable. Life is unpredictable. If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves on the earth. And if a tree falls to the south or to the north in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie. He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap. In other words, clouds rain when they rain. And if a tree falls, well, you don't really know where it's going to fall. And if you spend all of your time staring up into the clouds, you're going to be kind of paralyzed because it's all rather unpredictable. Now, some of you might hear, maybe we have one of those people who are like weather nuts, like they love to follow the weather and they always know what the weather is going to be like tomorrow and it's like a hobby. Do you have any people like that here? Even you kind of people can't always predict the weather. Can't predict it because it's pretty unpredictable. You can't predict the weather and life's also unpredictable because you can't predict what the person sitting next to you is going to be like or what they're going to do. People are unpredictable as well. You can't predict what's going to happen in the next minute or in the next hour or you can't predict what's going to happen in the next day, what's going to happen this weekend. You can't predict what's going to happen in the next year. You can't predict what your teacher is going to do when you start school. You can't predict what your boss is going to be like or what your colleague is going to do. You can't predict how your family members are necessarily going to act, even though you would really like it if it was perhaps a little bit more predictable. Life is unpredictable. The New Testament affirms this in the book of James, James 4.13. Come now you who say today or tomorrow we'll do such and such, go to such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit, yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. Life is unpredictable. And you all know that already. This is not news to any of you because if we were to go around the room and I was to ask you guys questions, you guys could give me all kinds of examples in your own life how very unpredictable things happen to you, right? Now, you might be the person that would say, well, there is lots of things that are predictable in life. And that's true. So most of you younger people are going to start school again. And it's true. If you don't study for your test, well, then I can predict that you're not going to do well on the test, right? There is a lot of life that's structured around cause and effect. And you can predict certain things. You do this, and you do that. But there's also those times, you know, that you study really hard for a test. And then you get an unexpected test. And it was unpredictable. Or, you know, you think you did everything right and then the wrong things happen. You don't get the result that you're hoping for because life is unpredictable. In Ecclesiastes chapter 9 verse 11 we read this, Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor the bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all. Life is unpredictable. Time and chance happen to us all. That doesn't mean that God's not in control. God's in control, but we just don't always know what he's doing. So for us, it seems unpredictable. Time and chance happen to us all. Chapter 11, verse 5. As you do not know the way the Spirit comes into the bones of the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything." There are mysterious things that you can't see and that you don't really know. There, I believe, there's some pregnant women here. And you can't see inside that pregnant stomach. You can't see exactly what's going on in there. There's mystery to that. Mystery to that. You don't know the plans of God. You don't see what the Lord does not show you. God's in control. God is sovereign over all things. We believe in God's providence. He keeps care of this world. But we don't know how it all works from day to day. Life is unpredictable. So from our perspective, time and chance happens to us all. Who knows what will happen this weekend at Silver Lake? We don't know. Who knows what is going to happen in your relationships? Who knows what's going to happen in your future? Who knows what's really going to happen with your studies this year or your career path? Who knows what will happen with your health this year? That's what life is like. Life is unpredictable. The second thing that life is like. Life is unpredictable. There's three things that, you know, this text tells us about what life is like. The first one is life is unpredictable. And the second one is bad things happen. All right? Bad things happen. 11 verse 2, you don't know what disaster may happen on earth. 11 verse 8, remember the days of darkness will be many. Life is unpredictable and bad things are, you know, happen. And now you're thinking, who is this guy that we invited to, you know, be our speaker for this conference? Like, this is Nebraska. Life's unpredictable. Bad things happen. This is wisdom literature. It gives you like a dose of reality. It says, look, this is how it really is. All you young people, life's unpredictable and bad things happen. That's the truth. 1 Peter 4 verse 12 says, Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you. Suffering and bad things happen, and that should be an unsurprising part of life. People get sick. Even young people get sick. Car accidents happen. Your school year can get wrecked for one reason or another. Your friends can let you down. You can fail. You can miss out on things. You can not get the job that you were hoping for. You can have people treat you poorly and get the raw deal. You can find yourself suddenly deep in debt or unemployed or find yourself so lonely or misunderstood. betrayed. And life can sometimes be real disappointing, even when you're young. And sometimes people even die, people that you love. Bad things happen. In my church, when we have young people who make a public profession of faith, stand up in front of the congregation to profess their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. After they do that, we read to them 1 Peter 5 verse 10, which says, after you have suffered a little while, because bad things happen. Life is unpredictable, and bad things happen. That's what life is like. The third thing that life is like, your youth does not last. Being young does not last. I just saw someone go, yeah, youth doesn't last. In chapter 11 verse 10 it speaks about youth and the dawn of life are vanity. The book of Ecclesiastes, that's one of the favorite words of the author. Vanity. Vanity of vanities all is vanity. It's a word that means like a mist or a vapor. It's the mist that you see if you're out canoeing on a lake or if you go out early, you probably see it on a lake tomorrow, the mist that's over the water and then it evaporates, it disappears. And being young is like that. Being young is like being a mist. You are young only for a short period of time. Within your 4,000 weeks, there's only a short period of time in which you are young, it lasts for a while, and then it disappears. And that's why every single old person you know says, life goes by so quickly. They all say it because it's true. And one day, all you young people, you're going to say it too. Life goes by so quickly. So next time some old person says, oh, young people, life goes by so quickly. Don't eye roll. It's true. Life is unpredictable. Bad things happen. And your youth is short. The dawn of life is vanity. It doesn't last. It passes away quickly. Before you know it, you turn out to be an old person. That's what happens. It's a little bit like me. This past summer, I got invited by a bunch of young people in my church and said, can you want to be part of our pick-up soccer team? I was like, yeah, I'm a soccer player. Last time I played soccer was like 20 years ago. I was like, yeah, I'd play soccer, no problem. I go out to Canadian Tire and buy myself a pair of cleats, and I get my sports shirt on, and it's a little bit tighter than I remember. And I go out, and I'm going to play soccer, and I'm like double the age of the average person I get out there. This is going to be great. And I start running, and I see someone kick the ball, and I'm running. And I turn around and fall flat on my face. on the grass and watch the ball roll past my head, and I'd have to almost crawl to the sidelines, you know, get someone to sub in for me. And my dear wife, who was watching me, she was like, Winston, you run like an old person. She's so biblical, eh? Because, you know, youth doesn't last. It's true. That's what happens. James reiterates this in James 4.14. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. And some of you people have realized that lately when you sort of caught a glimpse of yourself in the mirror as you were passing by and you're like, oh my. Somewhere I got old. Youth passes by quickly. In chapter 12, I didn't read it, chapter 12 verse 1 through 8 is this beautiful text that is this poetic description of old age, and it describes old age as the evil days, and the grinders cease because they are few. That means that your teeth fall out, your grinders cease, your teeth fall out. And it says, strong men are bent and old. And those who look through the window are dim. That is, they look through their eyes, but it's dim. They can't see very well. So their teeth are falling out, and they're getting bent over, and they can't see very well. And it says, they rise at the sound of a bird. They don't sleep very well. And so it's this picture of what happens when you get old. Are you looking forward to it? Yeah. And that's the whole point. People get old. Your youth is not going to last forever. Perhaps when you think about YOLO, you only live once, you ought to say, well, yeah, you're only going to be young once. You're only going to be young once. You're not always going to have the physical energy that you currently have. You're not always going to have the physical capabilities that you currently have. You're not always going to have the mental capabilities that you currently have. Right now you can, you know, be sort of carefree, and later on in life you're going to have a lot more responsibilities. Right now as I look out there, there's all these young, strong, handsome, beautiful young men and women and children, and one day you're not going to be quite so handsome. And you're not going to be quite so beautiful according to the worldly standards, and you're going to get wrinkles, and you're going to wake up with a sore back, and you're going to get a dad bod, and a muffin top, and you're going to have that saggy chicken skin under your throat here that goes go-go-go-go-go-go-go like that when you play with it. That's right. And then your gums are going to recede, and your hair will turn grey, and you'll be the person that tells people, turn down the volume of the music, don't do it so loud, I don't like that. And then you won't be able to read the menu at the restaurant, I already have dinner in person. You know, all those good things are going to happen, because life is unpredictable, and bad things happen, and your youth is not going to last forever. That's the most depressing speech ever, isn't it? This is a shot of realism from scripture. This is wisdom literature. The Bible tells it like it is. And then the big question is this. How, when you are young, do you live in an unpredictable world where bad things happen and youth doesn't last forever? How do you live given those realities? How do you live when your youth is like a mist that's going to disappear? Some people, what happens, they hear all these depressing things I'm telling you, and what happens is they get scared, they get anxious, they want to pull the covers over the top of their head, they want to stick their head in the sand, they want to be like, okay, I don't even want to think about it. You can do that, you can be paralyzed with fear. And you can be stuck in your anxiety about that. Or you could do something like stick your head in the sand and pretend that none of the stuff that I said is actually true. Or that it's actually going to happen. And that life is rosy and fun and you can go walking around singing. forever young, I'm going to live, I'm going to be forever young. And you'll be like, yeah, it's going to last forever, dreaming that you'll always be young and handsome and beautiful and strong and capable and all those things. And then one day you're going to wake up as a grumpy old man or a grumpy older woman, and you're going to be all bitter and jaded because life didn't match your fairy tale that you've been telling yourself this whole time. Or worse than all of those options is you can be a young person and be like, YOLO, you only live once, man, and go like do a whole bunch of really stupid, silly, ungodly, reckless, dangerous, harmful things, and then make your life and the life of the people around you worse. A lot of people do that. All of those options are the loser options. It makes everybody a loser. You and the people around you, if that's how you're going to react to the realities of youth. There is a better way to live when you're young. And this is what it is from God's Word. I want to look at our text and tell you three ways to live life when you're young in this unpredictable, suffering life where youth does not last. The first one is this. How do you live life when you're young? The first one is this. Put yourself out there. Put yourself out there. I'm getting that from chapter 11, verse 1. Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days. Now there are a bunch of different interpretations of that verse. It's kind of difficult to understand. I think that it's best to understand that bread, cast your bread upon the waters, to mean your life itself. your life itself. The best thing that you can do is to cast your breath upon the waters, cast your life upon the waters. The best thing you can do is to put yourself out there. Ecclesiastes 9.10 says that whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. You live in an unpredictable world where bad things happen and youth doesn't last. And the best thing that you can do is not hide under the covers or ignore it or yell YOLO. The best thing to do is to jump into that world and put yourself out there. Jump into it with two feet. All right? Verse 4 says this, he who observes the wind will not sow, he who regards the clouds will not reap. If you try to sit around trying to figure out when the wind is going to be just right and when the clouds are going to drop their rain, then you will never sow your seeds in the ground. You'll never get to work. The point is you can't wait till all the conditions are perfect. You can't wait till everything is just right, because life is unpredictable. If you do that, you won't do anything. So you have to go for it. You have to do something. You have to put yourself out there. And that means you might have to take risks, because maybe the rain won't fall. Right? Maybe it won't work. But you have to put yourself out there and try. That's how life works in the nitty-gritty. You have to try to go do things. You have to put yourself out there and have the hard conversations with your parents. Or with your children. You have to put yourself out there. Maybe you have to ask the girl out. Or maybe you have to ask the boy out. Put yourself out there. You need to try to do the things that you're scared and fearful of. You have to take the risk of embarrassment and of being told no, the risk of failure, and put yourself out there. If you don't put yourself out there, then you fail every time. There's an expression in French where someone, you know, the expression is, avoir deux pieds dans la même boutine. It's when you got two feet in the same boot. You got two feet in the same boot, you never take a step forward. And if you try, you just fall flat on your face. The teacher of Ecclesiastes is saying, life is unpredictable. Bad things happen. Your youth does not last. So go out there and be active in that world and do something and put yourself out there. And that doesn't mean you're just like, YOLO, and you go put yourself out there doing stupid things. Because that's important that I note that, by the way. It's important for us to tell young people, don't do stupid things. And here's why it's important. It's because when you are young, you have a higher risk of being stupid. I'm not trying to be insulting to young people. It's true. Because you don't have any experience yet. You haven't lived very long, you haven't had the opportunity to learn from your mistakes, and so you have, I'm not saying you are stupid if you're young, but you have a higher risk of being stupid when you're young. I have a lot of stories from my own life about, you know, that would prove that to be true. I remember I went to a youth conference once, and the very last event at the youth conference, there was probably about 500 people there, and the very last event at the youth conference was a piñata. And they hung a piñata in the middle, and we all stood around the gym, and they called someone out, and they swung, and they hit the piñata, and they hit it, and some candy fell out. And I didn't know, but the piñata had two sides to it, so you could play the game twice. You hit it once and broke it all, but you could play it again. And apparently everybody knew this, but I didn't. And I was sitting at the side of the gym, and I looked at the piñata, and they had taken the person who had hit it, and they were bringing it over, and they were giving the blindfold to somebody else. They're going to do it all again. And I was like, I could see a hole in the piñata. I could see there was candy in there. And I was like, I'm the only one who knows that there's still candy in the piñata. I don't know why people are... So I walked into the middle of the gym as 500 people watched me and I went to the pinata and I punched it as hard as I could and I broke open the second half and then I started collecting candy. And then I noticed it was totally quiet and I looked and everyone was just staring at me like, what kind of idiot are you? And I thought I was being smart. You're at a higher risk of being stupid than you are. That's just one story. I've got lots more. Proverbs 7, verse 7 says, I have perceived among the youth a young man lacking sense. Jesus' story of the prodigal son is one of a young son who sort of yells, YOLO, you only live once. Give me my inheritance. I'm going to go out and party. And he ends in a pigsty. So when I say, how do you live in this unpredictable, suffering world where youth doesn't last, when I say put yourself out there, it doesn't mean put yourself out there and do silly things, or ungodly things, or stupid things. You put yourself out there in ways that might be risky in some ways to you, but not to others. The clouds are full of rain. Give a portion to seven or even to eight, this is verse two, for you know not what disaster may happen on earth. In other words, give a portion to seven or to eight because you don't know what disaster. Life is unpredictable. Life is dangerous. And yet, take risks with generosity. Give a portion to seven or even to eight. Put yourself out there for other people's benefit. Take action in the world. Put yourself out there. Cast your bread upon the waters. Take risks with generosity for the benefit of others. Don't increase suffering in the world. If you're a young person, your family has enough suffering. Don't increase the suffering of your family life by being dumb. Put yourself out there in positive ways that might have some risk for you but will bless those around you. Be a young person that is an asset to your family and to your friends and to your church community. Be an asset to the people that are around you. You want to be an asset to your employee, an asset to your spouse, an asset to your friends, your family members. You want to live a life so that people say, if that person was gone my life would be poorer. Put yourself out there. Another way to live life in this world is this. Rejoice in your youth. That's verse 7-10. Rejoice in your life. How do you live in this unpredictable suffering world where youth is like a mist? Put yourself out there and you rejoice in your youth. 7. Light is sweet, it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun. So if a person lives many years, let him rejoice in all of them, but let him remember the days of darkness will be many. All that comes is vanity. Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and in the sight of your eyes, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment. Rejoice in your youth. Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice. That's a command. Do that when you're young. Rejoice. Rejoice. Let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Practice being happy. Practice being happy. Enjoy laughter. Like I've heard lots of laughter already in a couple of hours we've been here. Enjoy laughter and fun things. Make laughter and fun and rejoicing a real part of your life. Don't act like a grumpy old person when you're young. Rejoice in the days of your youth. And that's a good lesson for parents too. Also for this weekend. Parents ought to allow the youth to have fun. and to laugh and enjoy themselves. Let's not burden young children with too many of the dark things of this world. We don't want our youth to be naive. That's what I'm not saying. But neither do we want them to be overly troubled in their youth. And that means youth also need to protect themselves from some of the bad news of this world. Most of the news that you have on your phone or that you hear elsewhere is bad news. And most of it is things that you can't do anything about. and you need to fight for joy in today's world. You have to not allow all of the negativity to drag you down. A lot of the entertainment that you're involved in, a lot of the movies that you watch, the videos that you observe, a lot of the books that you read can be dark and melancholy and they drag you down and you need to be very careful with that. joy and fuel your mind and your heart with joyful things so that you can rejoice in the days of your youth. Our text speaks about, in verse 10, remove vexation from your heart and put pain away from your body. Remove vexation or fight against anxieties in your life. Vexation of the heart. That's incredibly important. We live in a moment in history where, especially amongst the youth, we see unprecedented levels of anxiety and depression. I read a fascinating book called iGen by Jean M. Twenge. in it, he looks at 30 years of surveys where they surveyed 11 million American teens, more than 30 years, 50 years, because it's the 60s. And they surveyed 11 million American teens throughout all of the years since the 60s until now. And what they notice, it shows in the graph, is that at a certain point in time there is just this massive spike amongst the youth in anxiety and depression. Youth from all kinds of backgrounds, all kinds of different groups, all across North America. And he describes it as a pandemic of anxiety amongst the youth. And when does the spike happen? It happens in 2011, 2012. That's when suddenly we see a gigantic spike. and anxiety amongst the youth. And so he asks the question, what is that from? Why, what happened at then? And he looks at various things and he says, well, 2011, 2012 is the time where the majority of American youth began to have a smartphone in their pocket. And so he lays it out, all of this information, 11 million youth 60 years, and he looks at that and he says, graph it all out, and then he shows graph after graph after graph after graph through the whole chapter three in his book, showing this correlation between poor mental health and screen and internet use. Now, when I speak about this to my kids, my lovely children, sometimes they're like, here goes dad again, sort of his pet peeve. This is what he's always on about. So I don't want to be that guy for all you young people. You're like, oh yeah, typical pastor. Tell us we should not look at our phones so much. I mean, there's not even Wi-Fi at the camp. Here's why I and other adults are really concerned about this, OK? In this book, iGen, page 84, he writes this. So teens who spend a lot of time looking at their phones aren't just at higher risk of depression. They're also at an alarming higher risk for suicide. That's why the adults in your life are concerned about this, amongst other reasons. A couple years ago, I asked my catechism class high school students if they could have a moment of honesty and raise their hand if they were addicted to their telephone. And they were graciously honest with me, and every single one of them raised their hand. It's not just all you teens either, okay? I'm not picking on you. It's all of us. I mean, be honest for a second. How many of you spend an evening scrolling through your social media, looking at things, and then get up off of couch and be like, I feel great! Do you ever feel like that after you spent useless time looking at the screen? Do you ever walk away from me like, that was so refreshing, I feel awesome. Nobody ever says that, right? Nobody ever says that, young or old. How many young couples, for instance, spend their time in the same room but apart, frittering away their youth and their marriage by being involved in separate affairs? We need to fight that. Jean Toinge, in page 300 of his book, he says, this is how you need to fight it. He has this six-part program that involves sunlight exposure, exercise, a diet high in omega-3 fatty acids, avoiding rumination, getting enough sleep, and engaging in in-person social interaction. All good things. The text that we have in front of us says, this is how you fight it. Rejoice in the days of your youth. Ecclesiastes 11, verse 7 says, Light is sweet and it's pleasant for the eyes to see the sun. Go outside and enjoy some of God's good creation and enjoy other people face to face and rejoice in the day that the Lord has made today, the day that He has made. If you go to Ecclesiastes 9, it speaks about enjoying wine. Chapter 9, verse 7, enjoying food. That's in chapter 2, 25. Enjoy good sleep. He says in chapter 4, verse 6, enjoy going out and dressing up. Chapter 9, verse 8, enjoy dancing, embracing, peace, laughter, and love. That's chapter 3. Appreciate money and use it well. That's chapter 11. And take pleasure in gardens and music. That's chapter 2. And yes, your intimate relationship with your husband or wife, chapter 9. Don't miss out on the days of your youth when you are young and healthy by wasting them away on activities that only increase your anxiety and make you feel depressed. Or on other things that may ruin your life. Don't darken the days of your youth. Live them while the sun is shining brightly. You don't want to look up from your screen one day and go, oh, I'm old. I missed it. There's an old song that I remember from my ill-gotten youth. You gotta fight for your right to party. We need to fight for our right, our God-given right and the God-given command to enjoy the days of our youth and rejoice in them. The end of the book that I quoted, iGen, the author writes this. youth are able to escape the traps of modern life, the rest of us will be there cheering you on. That's what the adults, the older people in this room, want to do, to cheer you on, that you might rejoice in the days of your youth. And I'm not saying that means you've got to go out and live a party lifestyle and sow your wild oats. And I don't know about you, in my church tradition, when I was much younger, there was a certain thought of like, oh, they're just young people and they're gonna do stupid things, you know, they're gonna go through a stage. Oh, young people, they go through a stage and eventually they'll come around. I think that that's nonsense. Our text says in verse 9 that, know that for these things God will bring you into judgment. Don't be like the sons of Eli and don't be like Absalom or Rehoboam or Manasseh, young people who lived evil lives. Don't do that. Don't let anybody look down on you because you are young, but set for the believers an example in speech and in conduct, in love and in purity. The Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross to give you the ability by the power of His Holy Spirit to live a joyful life, not by pursuing evil things or the evil desires of your heart, but by pursuing the godly desires of your heart planted there by the Holy Spirit. Think about that. The Lord Jesus Christ spread His arms out on the cross and died so that also you young people who put your faith in Him might have the God-given ability through the power of the Spirit to live a joy-filled life. Not a life that pursues evil. A life that pursues the godly desires of your heart planted there by the Lord Himself. Enjoy your youth and rejoice in it. Do it responsibly. Do it biblically. And I can imagine now, and I would understand if there is somebody here tonight who says, is he really telling depressed and anxious people just to be happy? Like, really? I'm not being simplistic. I don't have any experience with crippling anxiety or depression, to my wife, she has lived with it for most of her adult life. So I know something about anxiety and depression. I'm not being simplistic, saying, well, stop being depressed and anxious, just be happy. That's not my point. What I am saying is this, is that everybody is called to do whatever currently lies within the realm of your power to live with joy and rejoice in the Lord. For some of you, you only have a very small ability to do so, and others have a greater ability to do so. But whatever, however amount, whatever level of ability you have because of what's going on in your life, within what is possible for, in the realm of your responsibility, your ability, fight for joy and rejoice in the Lord in these areas. And then this final point, the final way that you live in an unpredictable, difficult, suffering world where life is, where your youth is just like a mist, is this. Chapter 12, verse 1, remember your recreator. Remember also your creator in the days of your youth, before the eager days come, and the year is drawn near, but she will say, I have no pleasure in that. Life is unpredictable. Bad things happen. Youth does not last. Put yourself out there. Rejoice in the days of your youth. And brothers and sisters, remember your Creator. It's not put yourself out there, rejoice in your youth. And also, by the way, don't forget to remember your Creator. Remembering your Creator is how you go about putting yourself out there and how you rejoice in your youth. Remembering your Creator ties everything that I've said together. Okay? So think about this. I had a wise older gentleman in my last church say this. He said, Winston, remember that the person that you will be in the future is largely determined by your decisions that you are making today. The person you will become in the future is largely determined by the everyday decisions you make today. The idea is that you begin early in life, early in life, as early as you can, to begin a lifestyle where God is central, where God is in the center, that you live now, in the earliest days of your youth, where the Lord is first and the Lord is in the center. 1 Timothy 4 verse 12, don't let anybody look down on you because you are young. But now in your youth, set an example for the believers in speech and in conduct and in love and in faith and purity. You want to be able to get old one day and sing Psalm 71. For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, the Lord from my youth. You want to live like godly young women have lived, like Ruth and Esther and the Virgin Mary and Philip's daughters who prophesy in the book of Acts, who lived in unpredictable times and in difficult places, and their youth did not last, but they cast their bread upon the waters and they put themselves out there and they rejoiced in the Lord and they remembered their Creator in the days of their youth. And you want to live like the godly young men of old. Like Samuel, only a boy in the temple. Like David, fighting Goliath in his youth. Like Joash, who became a king at age seven and walked in the way of the Lord. Josiah, who became king at the age of eight and remembered his Creator. Like Timothy, who was young but with Paul's help rejoiced and remembered the Lord in the days of his youth. Remember your Creator. And when we say, remember your creator, then we remember Colossians 1, 16, for by Jesus and through Jesus all things were created. With New Testament eyes, we read these verses and we say, remember the Lord Jesus Christ, who has become wisdom for us. Jesus, who once was a young person, about that. Jesus who once was a young person in an unpredictable world. Jesus who was a young person in a world where bad things like betrayal and crucifixion happened. Jesus who cast his bread upon the waters and his body on the cross. Jesus who rejoiced in the Lord as a young person and who was crucified for the joy set before him. Jesus who remembered his Father and the Creator and sought to do his will. Remember Jesus in the days of your youth. Remember his example. Imitate him, but more than then, remember his actions on your behalf. Remember Jesus When you're afraid like sometimes I'm afraid in an unpredictable world. Remember Jesus, brothers and sisters, when bad things happen. Remember Jesus when you see your youth disappearing and evaporating like a mist. Remember Jesus, too, when you fall into the stupidities and the pitfalls of being young. Remember and believe that his body was broken and his blood was shed. for the complete forgiveness of also your youthful sin. Remember Jesus who died and rose again, so that in all of the unpredictability and the bad things, the fleeting realities of your youth, you could be given the Holy Spirit today, so that you could say, YOLO, I live once and forever in eternity with my Lord, and by grace through faith I shall seize this day, and I will put myself out there, and I will rejoice in the days of my youth, and I will remember my Creator.