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Amen, John chapter number 11, so very famous story in the Bible, the story of Jesus and Lazarus. So we're going to look at the story in weeks to come, but I want to focus this evening on something that Jesus says at the beginning of this story tonight. Look down at John chapter 11 in verse number 1, where the Bible says, Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. And it was Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. So here we have a brother and his sisters, and of course Jesus is very close to this family which we find out a little bit later. Look at verse number 3, Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold he whom thou lovest is sick. When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God that the Son of God might be glorified thereby. So here we see a similar type of methodology that Jesus is going to use this miracle to show who he is, to show his power as the Son of God. Look at verse number 5, it says, Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. They were very close. When he had heard therefore that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where he was. Then after that he said to his disciples, Let us go into Judea again. His disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee, and goest thou thither again. So he wants to go back where he was having all the trouble before into Judea where the Jews were after him. And Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him. These things said he, and after that he said unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth, but I go, that I may wake him out of sleep. So I want to look at these two verses, verse number 9 and verse number 10, where Jesus gives kind of this, you know, this ominous statement to the disciples after they asked why he wanted to go into Judea. And to understand what he was talking about, just flip one chapter over into John chapter 12 and look at verse number 35. Look at John chapter 12 and verse number 35. So you kind of understand why the disciples didn't really understand the depth of what Jesus was saying much of the time. But we kind of have this advantage of having all the words, you know, that the Bible has for us that Jesus spoke in front of us so we can do things like this. Look at John 12, verse 35. Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you. For he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. So what Jesus is saying in verse number 9 and verse number 10, and he explains further in John 12, 35, is I'm not going to be with you always. And he's saying I'm going to only be here for a little while. The light he is referring to is himself. And we've looked at that in depth in a whole other sermon that I preached on Jesus being the spiritual light and the actual light. So he's literally talking to them about, you know, look, he's talking to them about not wasting time. He's talking to them about utilizing the time that they have with Jesus to the fullest. And that's what he says in verse 35 of John 12. He's saying I will not always be with you. Use the time that you have. So that's what I want to preach about this evening. I want to preach about three things that you have limited time with in this life. That's what I want to talk about. I'm going to look at starting out with what Jesus said, and I'm just going to apply this concept that Jesus says to three things tonight in your Christian life. All right. Look down at verse number, look down at verse number 35 once again where Jesus says, walk while ye have the light. So I'm going to give you three things tonight that you have limited time with in your life. And the first one is this, and it applies directly to what Jesus says in verse 35 of John 12. The one thing that you have limited time with in your life, and Jesus is literally using this as an example, a literal example in John 12 and John 11, you have limited time to labor in your life. And that's what Jesus is really getting at with the disciples. He's saying walk. He's saying walk while I am with you. Why would we waste time? We have to walk while the light's here. And he's talking about himself. Go to Colossians chapter 1. Go to Colossians chapter 1. Look, your Christian life, I mean, look, your physical life is only so long. And you know, depending on when you got saved, your Christian life is even shorter than your physical life. So your Christian life is something that you only have a limited amount of time to work with. Look at Colossians chapter 1 and look at verse number 10. What is Jesus talking about? He's talking about walking while the light is with them. Look at Colossians 1 10. The Bible says that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing being what? What will happen if you walk worthy in your Christian life? Being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. So two things will happen. Two things will happen if you walk worthy of the Lord in your Christian life. The first thing is you will be fruitful. Turn to Matthew chapter number 9. So start walking now in your Christian life. That's what Jesus is saying. Obviously, we need to not waste our Christian lives because it's a limited amount of time that we have to deal with. Look at Matthew chapter 9 verse number 37. This is the problem right here. Matthew chapter 9 verse 37. Then he said unto his disciples, the harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth laborers into his harvest. So the first thing that you have limited time with in your life is your labor itself. The work that you can do. You can only do a limited amount of work in this Christian life in this life. I mean, literally Jesus is saying here is the harvest is too big for the number of laborers that we have. And I've said this before. I've used this comment before. But it's like we're trying to gather up all this grain, but we don't have enough people to do it. What does that mean? That means we will leave grain behind. We will leave grain on the ground. So we don't have time to have people that are not walking now. People that are not going to start walking, not going to walk at all. We need to get walking as soon as we possibly can. So after salvation, people need to be discipled. They need to get baptized. They need to be discipled. They need to be encouraged to start walking in this Christian life. Because look, already Jesus tells us that we're not going to get it all. We're not going to get everything that is out there for the getting. Turn to Job chapter number 32. So again, John chapter 11, John chapter 12, Jesus is like start walking. Start walking in your Christian life. There's only so much time. The second thing that we see in Colossians chapter 1 and verse 10, it says as far as our labor goes, we're talking about being fruitful, going out and gathering the harvest, going out and getting people saved, preaching the gospel, talking about being fruitful. But the next thing it says, it says and increasing in the knowledge of God. Look at Job chapter 32 and look at verse number 9. This is another thing that your labor, it's limited. You have limited labor to do this. To do what? To increase in knowledge as Colossians chapter 1 and verse number 10 says. Job 32, 9 says, great men are not always wise. Isn't that interesting? Neither do the aged understand judgment. So the Bible here is saying, I mean you kind of have to look at what it's inferring here. The Bible is saying that great men are not always wise, neither do the aged understand judgment. It's implying that great men, aged men should be wise. It's implying that the older you get, the wiser you should be. But just because you're older or aged doesn't mean you're automatically wise or you automatically have good judgment. A lot of people think this, just because I'm older than you. Just because I'm older than you, then I mean how many foolish people have you met that are older than you? Why? Because great men are not always wise. The aged, you know, they don't always understand judgment. So we should use our limited labor in this life to increase in knowledge and increase in the knowledge of the Lord. Look, I don't know about you, but I want to be a wise old man. When I'm old and gray haired or grayer haired than I am now, I want to be able to have my kids and my grandkids, maybe even my great grandkids someday saying, you know, grandpa has a lot of understanding of things. I would like to be a wise old man. But guess what? You're not going to do that if you waste your labor now, if you just completely waste everything that you do now and don't use the limited labor that you have to increase in knowledge. Look, I want to gain understanding of things. I want to read the Bible, I want to understand the Bible, then I want to read a bunch of other stuff and I want to apply the Bible to those things and understand all those things through the lens of the Bible. And you know what I want to do? I want to pass that on to future generations. I want to help give the future generations of my family, of this church, a boost in wisdom. And you know what? That's fruitful. That's fruitful for the next generations. We need to be people that are increasing in knowledge with that limited labor that we have in this life. So we need to be walking in the Christian life, we need to be fruitful, we need to be out there preaching the gospel as much as we possibly can and we need to be increasing in the knowledge of the Lord. Because guess what? It's not, it's finite, folks. Your labor, I've thought of this so much in my life and I don't know how much you think of this, you should. You should think of this. But I've thought about this in my life, especially times in my life when I was really, really busy and I was really working hard. Maybe I was doing two things. Again, I've done two things for all you guys that work 40 hours a week. I've done two things for as long as I can remember. Seventy hours a week, easy, it should be easy for you. Especially if you're under, you know, 70. But the point, I don't even know where I was going with that. But the point is this, I've thought so many times when I was in those busiest fights of my life, maybe things were really tough, I was trying to get a business off the ground or whatever it was in actual labor in my life and I thought, you know, I can run this hard, I can run this hard for about another 25 years. I've literally had those thoughts. And look, I don't know how many more years I can run the way I run or you can run the way you run, but the point is, it's limited. It's limited. You will not be, look, you will not be as sharp today when you're 90. You will not be as sharp as you are today. You know, you will not be as strong as you are today. And use the limited time that we have to labor for the Lord, to labor for your family, and to what? To increase in knowledge. To sharpen yourself so you can be that blessing, you can be that wise, aged old man or that wise lady for the next generation of your family, your church members, your brothers and sisters in Christ, whatever it is. Because guess what? It's limited. It's limited. It is not infinite. You have eternal life, but you don't have infinite time to labor on this earth. So that's the first one. It's just your labor. You know, don't be thinking that, you know, you're going to labor tomorrow, and you can learn things tomorrow. You know, it is limited, and you have less time tomorrow than you had today. There should be some urgency there. This is a sermon of urgency tonight, all right? Now here's another one I'm going to just, y'all are just going to be knocked backwards, especially in this church, in your chairs this evening. But here's another one, kids, kids. We are a church of young children, and everybody, I'm going to throw a blanket statement over this one, everybody has this exactly backwards today. Everybody with young children thinks, everybody with young children thinks, my kids are young, I have time. The opposite is true. Because you have limited, turn to Proverbs chapter 22, you have limited time with your children being young. And there should be an urgency, look, my children are older than, I have the oldest children in this church. And my time, I should have less urgency than you. You say why? Because you have young children, but people have the opposite attitude today. People have the attitude like, yeah, I got some time to get things right because my kids are young. Wrong. The Bible teaches that the opposite is true. Turn to Proverbs chapter 22. There's a lot of young kids here. My kids are older, but people have the exact wrong idea. Look at Proverbs chapter 22 and verse number 6. People think my kids are young. It's not serious. I can figure things out as I go here. I'm telling you the urgency is now because your kids will not be young for very long. And the children, when they are young, that is the key in their life right there. Look at Proverbs 22, 6. The Bible says train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. So, you've got to read the Bible here, okay? What does it say? Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old. So when should you train the child? When he's old? No. When he's young. When he's old, he'll not depart from it if you train him when he's young. You must train them when they are young. That's when the training needs to occur. Turn to Proverbs chapter 13. You're like, how do we train them? How do we train our children? Well, the Bible is very clear about how to train young children. The Bible says, he that spareth his rod, hateth his son, but he that loveth him, chasteneth him, betimes. That means early. Children need to be chastened. This is talking about spanking your children when they are young. You don't see me spank my children because they're older. So don't look at me and be like, oh, he doesn't spank his, you know, 15 year old or 17 year old or 22 year old or whatever it is, and be like, you know, oh, he's just soft on his kids. No. You need to be training them. You need to be spanking them when they are two, three, four years old. You need to be chastening them, and guess what? You don't reason with a three year old. They only need to learn one thing when they are young, and that one thing is to obey. That is it. It's the whole point of spanking. The whole point of spanking is really it's twofold. Number one, they understand it. Number two, they just need to learn to obey. From one to one and a half to two to three to four, what do I need to teach my kids? They need to obey. That's it. They need to learn how to obey. Obey what? Obey what? Turn to Ephesians chapter six. I was just going to read it to you, but I want you to turn there for a second. You say obey what? What do the children need to obey? They need to obey your commandments. You say what does that mean? Turn to Ephesians chapter six and look at verse number one. I want to explain to you tonight, I want to reason with you parents. I want to reason with the parents tonight, but you should just obey too, and I kind of just gave it away, but you should just obey what the Bible says, but I just want to reason with you and show you why it is so important that they learn to obey when they are young, when they are small. Look at Ephesians chapter one and verse number six. What does the Bible say there? It says children what? Obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right. So what do your children have to learn to obey? Your commandments. That should be what? They should be in line with the Lord. Now it's the parent that just goes and makes up a bunch of other commandments that are like outside the Lord that, you know, this is the parent in Ephesians chapter six and verse number four that provokes his children to wrath. Because guess what? When your children are young, I'm just going to give you the whole stretch of your children's life here this evening, but when your children are young, they need to learn how to obey. That's it. You don't have to explain why. Just do it. Think of how silly it would get when you're like, you know, you have to explain everything to your children, to your small children, to your one and a half year old or whatever. You have to try to, you know, reason with them and get them to follow along. Does God reason with us? This is the problem. It says children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Because what is going to happen, see, as your children get older, you're going to start giving them more explanations of things. You know where your explanations are going to come from? Ephesians chapter six and verse number one. Your explanations for things are going to come from the Bible. And what is required in order for them to follow what the Bible says. You're going to say, hey, this is where my rules came from. Son, when he's six, seven, eight, nine, ten years old, they get saved. They can understand the simplest thing in the Bible. They understand salvation. They trust in Jesus Christ. They get saved when they're six, when they're seven years old. They start learning the Bible and growing as a Christian. They start doing what? They start walking. They start walking in the Lord. They start walking in the light of God's word. They start to understand more and more of the word. But guess what? That's just where your commandments came from. They still have to look at those things that they understand and do what? Obey. Guess what you have to do as a Christian in your life? You have to read the Bible and what? You have to obey. Go find me a bunch of explanations in the Ten Commandments. It's just like, do this. Don't do this. God doesn't explain. He doesn't have to explain a lot of things. John 15, 14, if you love me, keep my commandments. If you love me, what? Obey. The more your children understand where your commandments came from by looking at the Bible and reading the Bible, if they don't know how to obey, it will do them no good. This is why you see adults. You see adults that cannot function and cannot succeed in the Christian life. You say, why? Because no one taught them to obey. No one taught them when they were what? When they were two. I'm like, yeah, that early, yeah, that early. No one taught them, because guess what? As you get older in this Christian life, the excuses for me to do what I want to do, they just get more and more elaborate. I know I should do that. I know the Bible says that. But I have all these other things and all these other reasons and excuses and all these different things. They just get more and more elaborate. This is the danger of telling your child when they have a candy bar and you say, no, you can't have another candy bar. Why not, dad? I already had one, you know, and well, son, you know, the thing is, you know, the pancreas and you know, the stats on diabetes in the United States today are, you know, 33% of children under the age of 10, no, obey, that's it, obey. God just tells us, obey. Success in the Christian life when they get to be a 15-year-old, a 16-year-old, a 17-year-old, it depends on them obeying, because it's always going to come down to, hey, kids, this is where my rules came from. This is where, this is why you shouldn't be some psycho legalist holier than thou that makes up his own extra biblical rules, because sooner or later, especially if you stay in this church, your kids are going to figure out what the Bible says and they're going to be like, ah, yeah, dad, like, we're not doing any of this stuff. They're going to be like Josiah. They're going to like figure out that like none of the things that you do in your house are biblical, because you want them to learn the Bible. I can't tell you how many times I've seen that. Kids start figuring out that their parents don't have it right. Now what do you do? Now you got a mess. But the point is this, obey your parents in the Lord, teach them to obey, and then you're going to teach them just where those rules came from, those commandments that you gave came from, but they have to have the obedience trained in, or it's a complete waste of time. Because the older you get, the better you get at justifying sin. I mean, this is libertarianism. This is libertarianism. What is libertarianism? Libertarianism will destroy the country just as completely as communism will, because libertarianism will destroy it through the lust of man's flesh. Because you have a bunch of people that are like, it's my right to do this, and I'm free to do whatever I want, and they have no ability or desire or even interest in obeying God's word. So it always had to be, it always had to be, the only reason it worked, with the limited government, it always had to be a limited government, but the people themselves in their hearts, they obeyed the word of God. They obeyed. It had to be those two things together. You take the obedience of the word of God away, and you just get the flesh and I can just do whatever I want, and look at us today. Look at us today. So look, the explanations on where the commandments came from come later in their life. Right now, it's easy. They just need to obey. Look, and you gotta watch out for the signs of defiance. The opposite, look, the opposite of obedience is no! A child saying no to their parents, that should be taken as a very big deal as a parent, especially of a young child. A child that would say no to his father or his mother, especially to his father. But it's just as bad to his mother. It's a sign that they're rejecting obedience. A temper tantrum is rejecting obedience. It is just outright rejecting obedience. Those things need to be handled quickly, swiftly, and as the Bible says, we're not talking about child abuse, we're talking about spanking your children. And ideally, every time a child is spanked, it should not be something that's done out of anger, it should be something that they're getting spanked because they did something, and then they'll know not to do that thing again. And look, it's very effective. It's very effective, it works very well. But obedience is necessary, folks. Look, this is me, but I didn't spank my children past 10, 11 years old. I think it was around that age. But the urgency is this, folks. As they get older, as they get older into the 10, 11 and up and into the teenage years, there will be more explanation, there will be more understanding, but it all is built on the foundation of obedience to God's Word. They will just know where the commandments came from when they get older. If teenagers haven't been taught to obey, I mean, good night. We've all seen that. Because look, I'm not going to spank a 15-year-old in my house, that's strange. To me, at that point, you've lost control if they have no obedience at that point. So look, turn to Isaiah chapter 3, but people have it backwards today. People with young kids have it backwards today. This time is limited. This time when your children are young and need to be taught straight obedience is very limited. These children are coming, they're developing their character early and quickly. People have it backwards. And look, when your kids are young, they need a parent, not a friend. And the irony of this is as my kids get older, and my wife has said this many times about my oldest, but you know, if you want to be their friend when they're 30, you will be their parent when they are 3. That's what you need to understand. They have friends here. This is where their friends are. They need you to be their parent. And look, turn to Isaiah chapter 3. Look at verse number 12, and men need to be the leaders of this in their home. Because women are there to pick up the pieces. Women are there to be that emotional support. Women are there to, you know, comfort, and they're never going to lead the charge on this. This is to be the man's, you know, it's to spearhead this obedience goal for his children. Look at Isaiah chapter 3 in verse number 12. It says, as for my people, you know what, as men get weaker, these generations in front of us are going to get worse and worse. In Isaiah 3 verse 12 it says, as for my people, children are their oppressors. Tell me this isn't us today. And women rule over them, oh my people, which they which lead thee cause thee to err and destroy the way of thy paths. The man needs to spearhead this in his house. I can't tell you how many times that my wife has told me that one of the kids, look, I spank my kids all the time, not today, years ago. I can't tell you how many times my wife called me at work and said, so and so did this, and they need a spanking. And then I would come home from work, and she'd be like, well, you know, they made peace, and you know, everything's all good, and they're doing crayons and Play-Doh. And I'm like, no, the spanking still has to happen. The punishment still has to take place. And then, of course, the mom is there to comfort, and look, it's all good, it's not this angry situation, it was just this is what you did, and this is why you're getting spanked, and bam, it's done, and in, you know, 15 seconds, we're all good. That's the nice thing about a spanking, all these other modern things, the time out and all these disasters of putting somebody in a corner for hours on end or whatever it is, spanking is like done, everybody understands, we can now move forward, and we're all wiser and smarter, especially the child that just learned to obey. But look, there's only so much time for this. That is why it is making the list for tonight, and the critical time is now. You say, well, it's kind of a new way, people don't really spank their kids anymore, and it's kind of a new thing, nobody's really doing that anymore. Well, you know what, Gen Z is here, folks. Their kids aren't even Gen Z, I don't think, they're the next, next one. So do you like the results that you're seeing? That's what you have to ask yourself. I mean, does it take a lot of faith in the Bible to follow just what God says on this one? You look at this train wreck that is coming as this next generation, and, you know, it should be easy to just follow the word of God on this one. Turn to Matthew chapter 22. So look, have some urgency. Don't be these parents that are like, my kids are young, no problem, I'll get these things fixed when they're older, because guess what? There's no, you know, the corrections, and I've said it this way, the corrections get smaller and smaller and smaller as they get older. The more you can steer better when they're younger. So you have more control, you have more influence today than you will have tomorrow. Think about it that way. Your influence goes down every single day they get older. Look at Matthew chapter 22, look at verse number 30. Here's another one, here's another one that, you know, you don't have infinite time with that you need to understand in this life, look, your marriage is not going to last forever. So you need to work on that and pay attention to that now, not later. Look at Matthew chapter 22 and verse number 30, and this will especially apply to parents, married people that have younger children, again, because, look, when I look back at my marriage and the time that my wife had, my wife and I had just us alone, between us, when we, our children were younger, it was more difficult. When children were younger, it was more difficult to have one-on-one time with my wife, and it was more difficult for her to have one-on-one time with me, where we could just, you know, talk and just be, you know, married together. When the children are young, it's the most difficult, but look at Matthew 22 and verse number 30. It says in the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as angels of God in heaven. So look, you're married on this earth. You're married to your spouse, your husband, your wife for a limited period of time. So tomorrow is not the day to work on your marriage. Today is the day to work on your marriage, no matter what stage in your marriage you are in, because you only get one shot at this, this time to be married in this life. And think about it this way, every day that goes by, your marriage either gets stronger, that relationship either gets stronger or it gets weaker. Look, to never get divorced is a low goal. I mean, great, don't get divorced. But to just say, I'm never going to get divorced, that is a low bar. That should be a bar that you could just kind of like, you know, just step over just like that. I mean, you want to have a good relationship. Just because you don't get divorced does not mean you are guaranteed to have a good relationship with your spouse. I mean, you could get to be 60 and you've ruined the whole relationship. You could get to be 60 where your kids are grown up and they're out of the house and all these things, but then you, you know, you spent 40 years destroying something. You're not going to fix that in one day. This is the problem. This is why you need to work on your marriage while the light is here, now, during this time. You can't, I mean, it's best since time is limited to not ruin it in the first place. But don't take a break from your marriage until the kids grow up. That's the lesson for people with younger children in the church this evening. Because if you say, you know what, I just got to take a break from my marriage and I just can't work on my relationship with my wife or my husband, you know, right now, until the kids grow up, things are just too chaotic right now, it just might not be there for you when you think you're ready for it again. And I've seen that happen so many times, too. Make time for each other now. Not tomorrow, today. What do I mean by that? You have to have a time, you have to have a time in your marriage where you, we've all messed up at this. We've all gotten busy and things have gotten out of control and I'd be like, oh, I haven't talked to my wife for several days. But I bet she knows that you haven't talked to her for several days. You have to make time. You know what a great time to talk to your wife and your family in general is? Dinner time. You know the old-fashioned thing? It was a tradition that Americans used to do. Way back, like in the 1700s, they used to sit down and have dinner together as a family. You laugh, but it's super important. It's super important that the family sits down and has dinner together. It's not just cheaper and it's not just more economical for your wife to make food for everybody than to go out to a restaurant or whatever, but it is just a time where there can be calmed down and you can just talk to everyone in your family about how their day was, where you can connect with your wife, how was school, how are the kids doing, and you can just, look, you have to make time for each other. In your marriage, you have to block out time for each other. My wife and I do a stupid thing where we go get a McDonald's-dyed Coke. That's like a thing we do. Want to go get a Coke? Neither of us are probably even thirsty. We just like to drive and drive for 10 or 15 minutes and sit in the drive-through line because McDonald's is horrible and they can't even move three people through a drive-through in half an hour, but it's nice because I get to, we're in an enclosed space. There's nobody else. We can leave the kids because they're older and we can just go and we can just talk, but I don't care how old your kids are. You have somewhere you can go, make time for your husband every single day, make time for your wife every single day. You have to keep a relationship with each other or you'll wake up in 2, 3, 4, 10 years and you won't have a relationship and that is not something that you want to happen. Thirty minutes before you go to bed. Thirty minutes. Put the kids to bed and just block out 30 minutes where you can just have time with your spouse or you can just talk. You can just connect. You can just keep that relationship going and look, schedule it. That's what I'm saying. Do it on purpose. It's not going to accidentally happen because we're all busy. We're all busy. So look, the point is tonight, the point is tonight with your family, with your wife, with your children, the point is that you only have with time, Jesus is saying you only have so much of this stuff. That's the whole point of time that God uses time in the Bible is to show us we don't have enough of it. Turn to Proverbs chapter 18. Look, and the irony of time is it doesn't matter if you're sitting here tonight and you're 75 or you're 25. You can't say that one person has more time than the other because nobody knows. Nobody knows how much time they have. So here's the point. Don't waste it. That's what Jesus is saying to the disciples. Walk with me while I'm here. Don't waste time. But look, people waste time. Look at Proverbs 18 verse number 9. It says, he that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster. I always think that's such an interesting verse. Somebody that's just lazy is very similar to somebody that wastes everything. What does that mean? You know what those two things have in common? You know what somebody that wastes everything has in common with somebody that is just really lazy? Neither of them will accomplish anything. That's why they're brothers. One wastes everything, including all his time, and the other one just is lazy, and neither of them will accomplish much, if anything, at all. Think it's social media. Two and a half hours a day most people spend on social media. You know what that is? That is a complete waste of time. Screen time in general. I did a 2024 update. Screen time in general is seven hours a day for the average American adult. Yeah, but I'm learning things on YouTube. I'm learning wrong. You aren't accomplishing anything by watching that much screen time. You are watching some... In the best case scenario, you're watching somebody else accomplish something. Worst case scenario, you're filling your head and your heart and your mind and your eyes and your ears with a bunch of trash, with a bunch of garbage that is going to ruin your children, that is going to ruin your marriage. Just think of the evil that you bring into your house. Your house should be like this portrait of solitude that you protect, that you try to keep things out. Look how much effort you put in your family to keep your kids away from the school system and to homeschool and to have your wife raise your own children. Think of all the effort, and then you bring all this trash in for seven hours a day into your home. What's the point? Why would you do that? At best, it's a complete waste of your whole life. Seven hours a day, you're wasting your whole life. Look, I mean, Gen Z is nine hours. Nine hours. That's Gen Z. Those are kids. Nine hours of screen time every day. Zero to two-year-olds, 50% of them regularly watch a smartphone. I believe it. We went out to eat the other night, and we were waiting. We were waiting, because somebody didn't make reservations, we were waiting forever to get into the restaurant, it was me. And there was this one and a half, two-year-old, whatever it was, just throwing a fit. You know where the parents are trying to grab them and they're doing like the board thing where they can't like control the kids like doing this thing and just screaming? What did they do? They just give them a phone, and the kids just like power, just powers down, just right into the phone. And everybody was like, even me, I was like, good thing for the phone. But I mean, zero to two-year-olds, 50% of them regularly watch something on a smartphone. Just put that screen right next to their face. I mean, what could go wrong? Everybody is wasting all their lives, and you know what I've found in this life, in this Christian life, and I've had, you know, you'd be shocked how much you can accomplish if you just do one thing, if you just don't waste all this time like everybody else wastes. Are you kidding me? Seven hours a day? Seven hours a day? I've had this two-hour rule in my life for years where if you get, I just need two hours of uninterrupted time. My wife will tell you, like, if I get into something for an hour and then I get jumped out of something, it just like, it just frustrates me because you give me two hours of uninterrupted time and I can make some stuff happen. I don't care what it is. You give me a block of two hours, and then you have people wasting seven hours an entire day. How do you accomplish things in your life? How do you walk in the light? How do you have a successful Christian life? How do you have time to spend with your children? Don't waste all this time. Just utilize the time that you have. How do you have a good marriage? Make some time. Hey, maybe you would just put the phone down for one hour and only do six hours a day and spend an hour with your wife and your life would be infinitely better. It seems ridiculous to even say that. Think about the video that we give people. I often say that to people out soloing. When I give them the video, they don't want to hear the gospel, I'd be like, you waste, you waste 15 minutes watching stuff, don't you? And they're like, oh yeah, I waste my whole life. And I'm like, this video's only 15 minutes long. Waste some time watching that. Because you know everybody's just wasting time watching screen after screen after screen after screen. You want to accomplish things? I mean, look, think of it this way, too. So little of our time in this life is spent serving the Lord anyway. Think of the time that you do have. You say, pastor, I don't watch any screens, I don't waste any time in my life. Yeah, but what's the percentage of the time in your life that even though you're super productive that you spend serving the Lord? Most of the time in our lives is spent enjoying the blessings that God has for us. And yeah, your job is a blessing. Teaching your children, even though that may be frustrating and, you know, drive you bonkers some days, that is a blessing. Most of the time. Because guess what? Your children themselves are blessings from the Lord. Most of your time, especially you ladies that spend all the time with the children, that is just enjoying God's blessings right there. That is just enjoying the heritage from the Lord that God gave you. How much time do we really spend serving the Lord? It's a small fraction. So the least we can do is not waste it and use it to the best of our ability. Because look, people out there can't afford for us to waste our Christian lives. People need us. I mean, they're not figuring this stuff out for themselves. That's what we're here for. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.