At times, youthfulness carries with it
a negative stigma.
Mark Twain said, "youth is wasted on the young."
And I believe the reason he said that
is because typically young people
are not humble, but proud.
And so, we sure don't want that
lack of humility.
We don't want as young people
to be noisy and self- assertive know-it-all's.
I've seen that before.
On the news I was watching recently,
there were young people -
college age, millenials as they're called -
that were advocating socialism
in the government.
Communism basically - socialism.
They were advocating that.
There were high schoolers
that were also very vocal
in what the school system should do
to fix itself so that it would be safe.
You know, we've had recent shootings
in school systems.
And these kids were being put on news programs.
They were hosting rallies.
They had a voice given to them
and they were very noisy
and very assertive.
"This is what our country should do.
We should go the way of socialism."
Or, "this is the reform that we should make
in our school system
in order to make it safe."
And I couldn't help it,
but I had the thought, you know,
you high schoolers -
how is it you've become an expert
on such a difficult matter
when you've only had your driver's license two months.
I mean, there are great minds at work
trying to figure out what we should
and shouldn't do in these ways,
and here are these kids
that are noisily asserting that this is what we ought to do.
I've seen young people, unmarried,
teenagers, who had assertive,
confident advice for older, married couples -
how they should handle their kids
and their marriages.
I have seen, and these are examples
that I'm aware of -
I've seen teenagers reprove their pastors
with confident, assertive opinions
on how the pastor should handle
their church policies
and the way things should be handled
in the church.
You see, that noisy, confident, assertive viewpoint -
that ought not to be in our young people.
There ought to be an element of humility
because what that causes is
it takes away all their credibility
and it gives people a reason
to look down on them
because of their youthfulness.
Rather than being noisy and self-assertive
we ought to concentrate on this right here
that we find at the very end of that verse:
an example.
Be an example.
A quiet example of a genuine believer.
And I say that such a simple example as that
is often undervalued.
You look at a young person and you say
this is an example of a young believer.
That's good.