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This is a special Sunday in that it's National Youth Sunday when we think of our young people who are not only part of the Church today, but will be part of the Church and the leaders of the Church tomorrow when we have descended into the grave. So I want to speak especially to our young people today, but all of the rest of you who are young in spirit may listen

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in. I know that many of you live lives that belie your chronological accumulations, so don't hesitate to be a part of this conversation between a pastor and some fine young people. I want to begin by sharing with you one of the nicest things that has ever happened to me. It was some years ago now when I was teaching on a college campus and I was going to a performance

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to be on the campus that night and I got there a little bit late, saw an empty seat and dropped into it right next to a young man on the campus. He was a biology major, a very brilliant student. He has now completed all of his work, has a terminal degree and is engaged in medical research. Well, the performance went through its first half and at the intermission I made

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a few comments to Randy about what we had just seen and he replied by agreeing with every single thing I said. And I smiled and I said, "Now Randy, you don't have to agree with me just because I'm older than you are." He said, "I'm not agreeing with you because you're older than I am. As a matter of fact, I don't particularly respect people just because

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they're old. It all depends on what they've done with their years. It's true. There are no fools like old fools." "No," he said, "I respect what you have to say because I know that you respect and love me." "That," he said, "is the reason. Not because of what you are, but because of who you are." I've never forgotten that. It was one of the most

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beautiful things that has ever been said to me. And I'd like to say today to you that what I want to share, I don't share just because I'm older and not because there's a few stripes on my sleeves and not because I stand in this sacred place, but because in Jesus Christ I love you and I respect you. I make no other claims. And what I want to say can be summed

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in just seven words. Life is too short to be little. Now those words are not original with me. As far as I've been able to tell, they were originally coined by the famous British Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli. But I'd like to think about those seven words this morning and make two comments about them. And then we'll all go home and watch the football

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game. First comment, life is too short to be little. So don't let little things worry and upset you. Jesus was in the last week of his mortal life. And the pressures in Jerusalem were quite intense. And so each evening he sought some escape from those pressures and went to a small town outside of Jerusalem called Bethany where some very dear friends,

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Mary and Martha and Lazarus, lived. And he visited in their home each evening. Now Martha was very anxious that everything be perfect for his visit. So she poured herself into all of the activities that you might expect, making excellent dishes, much busyness in the kitchen, pouring herself into cleaning the house, all that kind of thing. But her

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sister Mary didn't do this. She just sat at Jesus' feet and listened to everything he had to say. And finally Martha got tired of this. And she said, "Lord, can't you see that I'm busy doing all these things and Mary isn't helping at all? Tell her to assist me." And Jesus replied, "Martha, Martha, you are busy with so many things, but few things are needful.

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So take off your apron and come and sit with us." Which being translated might say, "Martha, life is too short to be bothered by little things." Now we do confront some big issues in life which take all of our skill and all of our talent and all of our concentration. And this is altogether right and good. What we must be careful about is that we don't

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pour the limited energies which are ours into insignificant and non-essential things. A man named Robert Moore learned this in an interesting way. He was a seaman on board one of our submarines, the Baya SS318 during the Second World War. They were traveling along the coast of Indochina looking for Japanese convoys. They found one and fired three torpedoes

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at a Japanese vessel. But the torpedoes somehow misfired and missed the vessel. But the Japanese saw the torpedo trails and converged on this submarine seeking to destroy it. Now the depth of the ocean at that particular point was only 276 feet, which isn't much for a submarine to escape bombardment from overhead. They went down to 150 feet, turned off all of their

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engines and tried to keep everything very quiet. But six depth charges exploded just above them and drove them all the way to the bottom, 276 feet. Now the captain said there was to be no talking, no conversation. Every crew member was to get into his bunk and stay there without making a sound. Everything was turned off, including the air conditioning

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and the fans. And so it quickly became very hot in the sub. It was over 100 degrees. But Robert Moore in telling this story said that he was so frightened that he shivered all over and his teeth were chattering. He actually pulled two blankets over him in 100 degrees and still couldn't find warmth. The bombardment went on for 15 hours. And mind you, during

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the days of the Second World War, if one of those depth charges exploded within 17 feet of a submarine, it could puncture the thin skin of that vessel and it would mean certain death to all of those on board. But for 15 hours, the bombardment went on and then ceased. Talking about this experience much later, Robert Moore said that those 15 hours were

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more like 15 million years. And he said, "I learned more in those 15 hours than I had learned in my four years as a student at Syracuse University." He said, "I've always given myself to worrying about things, what I was going to wear and how I was getting along with my boss and about this family quarrel or this dissension or this little thing or that little

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thing." He said, "I gave myself to all kinds of little anxieties, but I vowed right then and there, never, never, never to worry about minor matters again." When he came face to face with a matter of extreme seriousness, it made all these other things seem insignificant. There are some things which confront us, which are so crucial we must give ourselves to them

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totally. But there are only a few of those things. Now, unfortunately, most people do exactly the opposite of what I'm suggesting. Most people allow themselves to become very upset about trivial things. Marriage counselors will tell you, for example, that most discord within marriage relationships starts over very, very small matters. Did you hear about

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the man and woman who were married and she didn't like the fact that he ate crackers in bed all the time, crumbs all over the bed, you know. She put up with it, but she didn't like it. And then one night he brought a big jar of Smucker's jelly to bed and he was smearing it on the crackers and that was too much. And she yelled at him and shoved him out of

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bed, whereupon he got up and smeared the Smucker's all over her. And she immediately took him to the divorce court. And according to those who reported the story to me, this was the first smear Smucker suit. Now, if you don't get that, your parents will explain it to you later. The point is that conflicts often start over very little things. I remember

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when I was in high school, my best friend was a fellow named John. We did almost everything together. Now, his father did not drive back and forth to work, my dad did. So John had the car every day and he would drive to school and back again. Now, one morning, either I was late or John was early, we've never settled which, but in any case, I got left. And I

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had to walk to school and I got there late because I'd been planning on the ride and got in halfway through a test, which I flunked and so on because I wasn't there for the whole thing. And I was very angry. We had a verbal duel that afternoon. That duel kept us separated so that we did not speak to each other or even recognize the existence of one another

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for eight months. Then that next summer, we both got enough sense to get things back together again. And we've continued to be very close friends ever since. You see, the sad thing is that right there in the midst of all the happiness of our high school years, here were two people separated for eight months over a tiny little insignificant thing. Young people,

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it's not the lions that get you, it's the ants. It's the insignificant things. It's the non-essential things. It's the unimportant things. And that's the reason Jesus says, "Martha, Martha, you are busy with many, many things, but few things are needful. Life is too short to be little." My second comment would be this. "Life is too short to be little,

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so don't let little things become unworthy goals." Go back with me to that Bethany village again. You might wonder why it was that this little story about what was going on in that house is reported in Scripture. You know, Jesus' ministry was three years long, but if you take everything that's recorded in the four Gospels and put it together, it only

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tells us about a hundred days out of the thousand days of his ministry. Yet here the Holy Spirit has inserted into the sacred text this little story about what appears to be a household incident. Why? Why, because in this, as in so many other things, the Bible is focusing on the practical, on what we confront every day in our experience. Now Christ was there

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in that home, and wherever Jesus is, that's where the most important goings-on are. Now if he followed the custom of the day and it was in the evening, he probably would have been on the roof. That's where people went for the coolness of the evening breeze. He wasn't in the kitchen. He wasn't involved with all the little household duties. And

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Mary was where the most important things were going on. She was with him. She had a right goal and she was pursuing it. Martha got lost in other things, and she comes and complains, and Jesus says to her, "Martha, Martha, you're lost in a lot of minor matters. Let's get down to the things that are important." When I was on campus as a professor, a young lady

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lost her father, and about a month later she was in to see me, and she said, among other things, that what saddened her the most was not the fact that her father had died, but the fact that her father had never lived. And I said, "What do you mean?" She said, "Well, in the last week of his life, just three days before he died, he said to me,

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'Sue, I've spent my whole life making cherry pop.'" Now there's nothing wrong with cherry pop. In fact, cherry pop tastes good. If you don't believe that, ask Phil Ailey, who drinks a case of it each week. Phil Ailey has the cooks in our kitchens downstairs so trained that when nobody else going through the line can get cherry pie, there's always one piece

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set aside. Not for me, but for Phil. In any case, there's nothing wrong with cherries, there's nothing wrong with cherry pie, there's nothing wrong with cherry pop, but the manufacture of cherry pop, you see, is an occupation. It's a job. It's not a vocation. It's not a calling. We take on our work, in most instances, to support us in order that we might do greater

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things. God hasn't put any of us on the face of the earth just to make cherry pop. Our first goal is to love him and to love and serve others in his name. Now, if this man had made cherry pop all of his life and had used it in order to be able to tithe in support of the church, in order to bear witness to his employees, in order to be, perhaps, a

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model employer and to demonstrate to other employers what the Christian way of being a boss is, if he had done this in order to proclaim one truth or another about how God loves us and how we, in turn, are to love others, well, that would be good. That would be a wise use of his time. But when you come to the end of your life and all you can say

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is that you've made cherry pop, something that you buy with nickels, well, that's not enough. The scriptures say, "What shall a prophet of man if he gained the whole world and lose his own soul? Seek ye first the kingdom of God and then these other things come in line." See, the fact of the matter is that service of others, ministering to others with

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the love of God, that's the only thing in this world that lasts. They say that the Great Wall of China is the only man-made object which can be viewed from the moon, and I suppose that's true. But that Great Wall has fallen down in many places, and eventually it will all totally disappear. The pyramids are being eroded away by the desert sands, the Colosseum

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in Rome is falling apart because of the accumulated debris about it in the air from all of the cars that soak all of it every day. I remember standing once at the base of the Hoover Dam. Now that's an immense structure. There is so much concrete in the Hoover Dam that you could take it and make a sidewalk three feet wide and six inches thick all the way from

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the earth to the moon. Ninety-one men lost their lives in the building of the Hoover Dam. But I tell you, the day will come when the Hoover Dam and Lake Mead behind it and every other material feat of mankind will pass away. They will be thrown aside just like yesterday's newspaper. Only things that are done to the soul last because the soul

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is the only thing on earth that is eternal. So when you touch a soul or when you mold a soul, you're doing that which is going to last forever. I had an executive in the United States Steel Corporation, one who's now gone to be with the Lord, tell me on one occasion that he loved his work, referring to his job, because he said, "It opens so many doors where

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I can go in and say things that are true in the name of Jesus." Now that is what we're called to. We're called to take the principles of our Christian faith, to dip them into our very heart's blood, and to lay them quivering across the hearts and the souls of other people so that they are influenced. And when you influence a soul, you influence that which

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lasts. Now I know the world often ignores service, doesn't pay any attention to it, it does that with some of the most important things, though, if you think about it. Take life, for example. There's nothing more important than life. If we didn't have life, we wouldn't have anything else. And yet, what do we know about life? What does the world know about

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life? No one's ever caught life under a microscope. No scalpel held by a physician, no matter how talented he is, has ever caught hold of life. No biologist has ever created life. No chemist has ever mixed things together in a test tube and out of it brought life. No eye has ever seen life. And yet life is the most significant thing that there is.

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The great principles, the great underlying realities of the human experience are often ignored by the world. What the world calls big skyscrapers, they don't scrape God's sky. And these things eventually disappear. But love and sacrifice and service, these things endure. Whenever you're tempted to make as the great goal of your life something which

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is designed to get the applause of men, remember that the applause of men lasts only for the shortest of times. Earthly accolades just fade quickly away. But, when you're tempted to do something for the service and love of God and the service and love of others, when you impact upon a soul, well first you have the applause of all that cloud of witnesses

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surrounds us. And Jesus says that even the angels in heaven break into cheers over such a thing. And the saints who are with you in the faith, they applaud you for your witness in Jesus' name. And while all of this happens at the moment, when you gain the kingdom of heaven you have the greatest accolade of all. Jesus says, "Well done, thou good and faithful

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servant." And that's an eternal ovation. That goes on forever. And that's the reason that Jesus says, "Martha, Martha, Tim, Howard, Jane, Ken, don't lose yourself in little things." There are but a few things that are needful. Give yourself to them. You know, this is a very good time to be alive. I know a lot of young people don't think that today. They

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look at unemployment, it's not as bad as it was in the Depression. They look at AIDS. AIDS is nothing compared with the influenza and diphtheria and the black plague that spread across the world years ago and took hundreds of thousands of lives. They look at the drug culture. The sale of drugs in this country today is not as great as it was in 1890 and

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a few years beyond. That's one of the reasons that the Prohibition Amendment was passed. They used to go into any saloon in the land and say, "Give me a beer and a Coke." And the Coke was not Coca-Cola, it was cocaine. This isn't the worst drug threat we've ever known. And then there's terrorism. But terrorism, young people, is nothing like what Nazism

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was. And this last few days we've seen something which has made us ashamed about civil rights in this country. And yet what goes on today is not nearly so bad as the days when there were the Jim Crow laws and lynchings. It's not the best of times, but it's a good time to be alive. Outer space is calling to you. I believe there will be a day when we have

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hospitals on the moon so that people who are laid up with serious injuries will not have to contend with gravity and crutches and all those kinds of things, but will be able to move about and heal that much more quickly. And inner space is calling. We're discovering new ways to deal with the psychoses and the neuroses that confront so many people. In

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a time like this, I'm pleading with you, don't lose yourself in piddling worries or in puny goals. You know, out on the slopes of Long's Peak in Colorado, there's a place called the Mountain of the Dead. It's a place where the dead are buried. And it's a place where the tree was 400 years old. That means it was a seedling when Christopher Columbus landed

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on San Salvador. And it was half-grown when Plymouth Rock felt the feet of the pilgrims. They studied the tree and discovered that it was struck by lightning no less than 14 times. And no one knows how many avalanches and storms thundered about that tree. And it stood. For four centuries, it stood. And now it has fallen. And you know why? Because

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some beetles, some little beetles, ate their way into the center of that tree and took little by little the very core out of it. Till what lightning and avalanches and centuries could not do, the beetles did. And the tree fell. You could take one of those insects and crush it between your thumb and your forefinger. So I plead with you today never to forget

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the destructive power of little worries and the destructive power of tiny, miserable, unworthy goals. Focus on Jesus Christ. Follow the goals to which he calls you. Love God. Love and serve your neighbor for life. [END]

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