Don't Be a Young, Proud, Know-It-All - Clint Leiter

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.