I want to open with a question.

And it may sound simple, but it has profound implications.

Why are you here?

Not why are you here at Passion, that's pretty obvious, but why are you alive now? You didn't choose to be

born. You didn't say, hey, slot me in in the early 2000s, thanks God. You were put here by God

because he has a purpose for you. Have you figured out what that purpose is?

God has a purpose for every generation.

And what I'm concerned about

is that your generation is being told

is that you have to wait till you're older

to figure out what it is that God has for you.

You've been handed a script that says your 20s are for screwing up and struggling

and you start living seriously in your 30s.

That is not true.

God has always gotten a hold of the hearts of young people and used them at that age.

Jesus' disciples, teenagers at most in the early 20s.

That's right, the stories you're reading about were stories of youth group

kids being mentored by Jesus. Polycarp, one of the first apostolic fathers, who was

disciples by the Apostle John, became a bishop in his mid-20s. A lot of people talking about

the Desert Fathers. Anthony the great, the leader of the

desert fathers, went into the desert when he was around 20. Francis of Assisi, who was a massive

reformer in the Catholic Church, he got going at age 24 or 25. John Calvin wrote the first account or the first edition of the institutes

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