0:18 Good to be with you all. I'm a father of three teenagers and I've met a younger one who's not yet a teenager. And sometimes I feel more like a brother to them than a father to them because I really feel that age sometimes. 0:36 So I hope to make this today more of a conversation than a lecture, so to speak. So don't think of me as your high school professor, but just as a friend and somebody who's having a conversation. And I wanted to talk today about heroes. 0:54 Heroes in our life and who they may be. And some of the lessons I've learned from mistakes I made in who I made my heroes early in life and how I've adjusted that from things I've learned. And hopefully some of you are listening can learn from my mistakes earlier than I did in your teenage years. 1:15 So as we talk about this topic, I want each of you to consider who your heroes are in life. And some of you might have the right heroes already, which is good. Some of you might have, if you're honest with yourselves, it's people in the sports world. 1:33 Perhaps if you're in India, perhaps it's someone like Virat Kohli. If you're here in the US, it's Steph Curry or LeBron James or Patrick Malone. Those could be one of the heroes or Taylor Swift if you're into music. Or if you're in India, maybe it's a Bollywood actor, actress that you're just crazy about and 1:50 can't get enough of. And these people may be people that you think are your heroes or you want to be your heroes because you look up to them for something that they do really well, some talent or good looks or some dancing skill or musical skill that they possess 2:07 that really stirs up something emotional in you when you watch them or when you listen to them. And there's a verse in Psalms 115 verse 8 which talks about idols. And this is really, I think, the difference between idols and heroes. It says that those 2:28 who make idols for themselves become like them and everyone who trusts in them. And so we see that it is actually a dangerous thing and something we have to be cautious about and careful about when we decide who our heroes are going to be because we will tend to become like them. 2:48 We will tend to dress like them. We will tend to behave a little bit more like them. We'll tend to obsess about them. And that could be a bad thing or that could be a neutral thing or that could be a good thing. And I'm sure all of us want it to be a really good thing who we become like and not have it 3:05 be something that we're drifting away into something that is not so good, so to speak. But as you consider and have considered now who your heroes are, let me present a hypothetical situation that, let's say, happened to you and how that could change your heroes. 3:25 And this is a little bit drastic, so just bear with me. But just imagine for a moment that you have these set of heroes and then one day, let's say, the house you were in caught fire and you were in the middle of that fire. And then a firefighter had to come and rescue you. 3:49 But he may have rescued you perhaps a little late and you wish you had got to him earlier, but he still rescued you and he saved your life. And then the paramedics and the ambulance rushed you to the hospital because you had burns and the doctor had to, a surgeon had to operate on you and 4:13 I realized that maybe one of your, as a result of one of your burns, one of your organs like your kidneys needed to be replaced. And so then they had to find a donor for a kidney for you. They kept you in the hospital for a few days, working with you on those 4:28 burns and then finally found somebody to donate a kidney to you. And they did a special painful surgery to transplant that kidney into you. And then they brought in a different plastic surgeon to fix you up and make you look beautiful again. 4:48 Now, if you had this event happen to you over a period of a week or two weeks, and now after all of this event, when you reflected on it, and now you're back to being healthy and you've had a year or a few months to get back and be strong again. And now if I ask you the same question, 5:06 who are your heroes? You might pause for a while and think about it and you might ask yourself, did Virat Kohli come and save me from that home when my home was burning down? Did Steph Curry or Patrick Mahomes or Taylor Swift, did they come and operate on me in the hospital? 5:27 Did they drive me in that ambulance? When did they get there in time? Were they the ones who saved me? And you might reconsider and think, actually my hero is the guy who risked his life to save me from that fire. And then this doctor who had this amazing skill. 5:48 I want to grow up to be a doctor now because I see the amazing skill that he did to give me a kidney or to do that transplant surgery. Or it could be there's this nameless person I don't even know who gave me a kidney. And another one who donated their blood because 6:06 I had a special blood type that couldn't be easily matched and gave me their blood. And that person's my hero. In a situation like this, you can see that you have five or six heroes already that have just changed and transformed from who you 6:20 thought were your heroes. And spiritually speaking, that's what happened to me. And in a sense, what as we come to realize it is true about all of us. And in a way, what I realized when I was 17 years old, almost 18, 6:42 was that I was indeed in a house that was burning. I was indeed burning up. I was in need of an ambulance rush to the hospital. I was indeed of a special surgeon's hands. I was indeed in need of a blood donor and an organ donor. 7:01 And I was really in need of a heart transplant from somebody who had a perfect heart. And this is the amazing thing for me is I realized that all six of those people, whether it be the firefighter, the surgeon, the blood donor, the organ donor, the plastic surgeon, 7:24 the one who rushed me in the ambulance, they were all the same person. And that was Jesus Christ. And that experience for me, and that continuous experience for me, there's still fires I need to be saved from every day. There's still some surgeries that need to be 7:42 done or minor medical procedures need to be done on me every day, spiritually speaking, has really transformed my thought into who my heroes are. And I've sort of learned to look through the lens of the ones who are really giving their life for me in love, 8:03 and not so much from the ones that have some amazing skill. And I wish I'd known this earlier. My teenagers were, a lot of my early teenagers were wasted with the wrong interests. Interests in girls, in music, in friends, and the approval of friends in sports. 8:24 Not all of it necessarily bad, some of it bad. Some of it that was certainly had become idols in my life. And I would say I had a tendency to despise or look down on the ones who really loved me, starting with my own parents. 8:41 I thought I knew better than them, when I actually did not know better than them. I hid things from them. I blamed it on a generational gap or a cultural gap. There's no way you could relate to what I'm going through in this day and age. Things were 8:56 different in your age. Does that sound familiar? I'm now a dad of teenagers, and my kids have the tendency to tell me the same thing that I told my parents 30 years ago, when I was a teenager. But what I've realized since then, that now as a parent, 9:18 95% of the things that I disagreed with my parents 30 years ago, I was actually wrong about, and they were right. It's crazy. It's actually crazy to think. I was so sure I was right about many things. They were not perfect by any means. They had their imperfections. 9:40 But many of the things, the spirit of what they were trying to establish through rules and regulations and firmness with me, they were actually right about it, and I was wrong. And perhaps the 5% where I may still disagree, like, maybe they were wrong about that. 10:00 Maybe I'll find out in another 10, 20 years that actually they were right about that too. I don't know. I'm willing to be proven wrong about that. But even still, the spirit of what they were trying to accomplish was the intention of 10:11 what they were trying to do was still one out of love, and I wish I'd known sooner. And I want to share with you something, share with you with that perspective so that you could learn from my mistakes of somebody who was in need of heart 10:25 transplant. What really lasts forever is not the love that the world sells you as a good, as a feeling that makes sparks fly and kind of, there's no such thing in my mind as love at first sight, or love that sparks up your emotions. That's infatuation. 10:47 That's a feeling. That's an emotional thing. And God created our feelings, but he created our feelings for a special purpose, to be tamed by our will, by our mind, by our faith, and not to rule us, so to speak. So don't mistake that for love when you see that in friends, when you see that in somebody that 11:13 might be a romantic interest or might be something that appeals to you, when you are stimulated by that, by music you listen to or things you watch on TV. What I found is, and I wish I realized this earlier, is that the real love is the one that lasts forever. It's not the Hollywood love. 11:33 It's not the Bollywood love. It's the one that is willing to lay down its life for me, the one that is willing to painfully cut me open like that surgeon, the one that is willing to cure me, to encourage me, to serve me. And sometimes 11:51 that might take painful methods, like it takes a surgeon cutting me open. And sometimes it might take violent methods, like a fireman rushing me and grabbing me and crashing through the door that I may not agree with because I don't see the fire or I don't 12:07 feel the fire. And what I've seen in my true heroes is that love that was willing to lay down their life for me. And the life and these heroes, the life and the heroes of this world, gave nothing to offer me in that regard, besides some short-term satisfaction of pleasures. 12:29 There's a verse in Psalm 16, again, Psalm 16, verse 3, which says, the saints in this earth are the majestic ones whom I delight. That's in a way, who should be my heroes. And there's another verse in Psalms 101, verse 6, which in the Living Bible says, I will make the godly my heroes. 12:49 And there's a reason for that. There's a reason I have understood those verses now, is because I see that the godly have been examples to me of a love that is far more lasting than what people in the world call love, which is just infatuation. It's a love that is an act of the will and not a feeling. 13:10 It is a love that is willing to lay down its life for others. So with that in mind, and with that revised perspective of who the firefighters, the organ donors, the surgeons in my life, the blood donors in my life were, I want to share just informally about three heroes of mine. 13:30 The first one is, as I said, the person who was all six of those things, all five or six of those things, which is Jesus Christ. And as I already mentioned, if Jesus Christ was my hero, you know why he was my hero, because I now believe that he laid down his life for me. He risked his life to come into 13:51 that burning room, rescue me out of there, drive me in an ambulance to a hospital, cut me open, transfer his own heart into my heart, donate his blood for me. How could he not be my hero? I've realized now that the reality of that, as I've learned that from what I've been taught, 14:09 as I've meditated on that, and as it has been impressed on my own heart. And so if he is my hero, and I hope he can be your hero too, I really want to study him and become more like him, like that verse we read in Psalms earlier says. So I want to share a few things that 14:28 I can learn from Jesus as my hero, and perhaps you can learn from Jesus as your hero. And the first, and if we really believe that he's our hero, we'll want to imitate these things. The first is from a passage in Luke chapter 2, which actually represents the only two 14:45 verses in the Bible which speak about Jesus when he was your age. Most of you are between 13 and 19. There's only two verses in the Bible which talk about Jesus when he was your age, and that's Luke chapter 2, verse 51 and 52. 15:03 This is right after Jesus at the age of 12, which is a little bit younger perhaps, or around the same age as some of you are, came down from the temple, verse 51 and 52. And so these are the two verses that talk about you as teenagers, 15:19 that how Jesus lived his life as a teenager. Then I should really meditate on these two verses. If I were you, I would spend my time thinking long and hard about these two verses and saying, I don't need to spend much time on the rest of the Bible, let me spend most of my time 15:36 on these two verses of the Bible, because these two verses teach me how Jesus was as a teenager. Luke chapter 2, verse 51 and 52. And it says, Jesus went down with his parents and he came. That was an interesting interruption. I lost power in our home here and the Wi-Fi 15:56 went out. But it's a great reminder that the Lord allows these things, maybe perhaps for me to talk a little bit about that. And as I was sharing, I have learned from Jesus to be my hero and to be in this connection with 16:14 him. And I'll just share a minute off topic about how my life has been in connectedness with Jesus, where any small interruption between that connection, which is what sin is, actually now, when I discover that, makes me want to run back to Jesus and restore that connection. 16:39 And so when I think about a power outage and losing connection with all of you and being completely disconnected globally from an important meeting, that important conversation that I want to have with all of you, it can cause anxiety for me, cause anxiety for you. 16:57 What just happened? But it's important to think that it is far, far more serious than getting disconnected from a global meeting, that I don't get disconnected from Jesus ever. And if there's any disconnection that comes between me and Jesus, I want to treat that far worse than 17:18 this power outage that disrupted this global meeting. And I want to be able to restore that with a much greater urgency than if the power, if the electricity went out and disrupted me from doing homework or doing schoolwork or an important project or speaking at a global meeting. 17:41 This, I've come to find, doesn't bother me because the Lord allows it. And perhaps the Lord allowed it for me to talk to you about what it means to be connected to Jesus at all times and not let that connection ever be broken. But anyway, as I was saying, 17:59 the two verses that we can spend most of our time as teenagers, because those are the verses Jesus, that speak of Jesus when He was a teenager, are these two verses, Luke chapter 2, verse 51 or 52, which says, He went down with His parents, came to Nazareth, and He continued in subjection to them. 18:21 And it says in the next verse, Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature in favor with God and with men. And what I see there is as a teenager, I'm called to do a couple of things. I'm called to be in subjection to my parents. 18:39 And Jesus, is it true that Jesus had perfect parents to submit to or ones that were more perfect than Him? Absolutely not. They were completely imperfect parents. They were far more perfect than Him. I'm sure they made some imperfect decisions when they were parenting Him. And I'm sure 19:01 there's times maybe they asked Him to go apologize for something that He didn't do wrong. We know He didn't sin, but He still, I'm sure, obeyed them because He wanted to be subject to them. Because being submissive to the authority that God had put in His life was much, 19:19 much more important to Jesus than winning an argument. I'll say that again. Being submissive and obedient to the authority that God had put in His life was much, much important, much, much more important to Jesus than winning an argument. 19:35 Winning an argument, all it does is you win an argument. You prove yourself right. I believe submitting to authority, even when you think they're wrong, and as I said, 95% of the time I've discovered I wasn't. I wasn't wrong. But even when you think they are wrong, in that 5% chance that 19:55 you may think that they're wrong, still has a much greater blessing than having to try and win an argument. And there's something much more blessed in joyfully subjecting. So this is an important lesson we can learn. Jesus 20:13 is my hero. I want to follow what He did as a teenager. And if He chose to do that to imperfect parents, I have no excuse, because I know I'm imperfect. I know all of you are imperfect. And regardless of how many faults our parents may have, they're probably no different than Joseph and Mary. 20:37 And certainly the gap in terms of perfection or right and wrong is far less than it was between Jesus and His parents. So if He could do it, I have no excuse. And if He did it without an argument, I have no excuse. And then the second verse which says He kept increasing wisdom, 20:53 and I believe He kept increasing wisdom because of His attitude in subjecting Himself to His parents. And it says increase in wisdom. What is wisdom? We read in James chapter 3 about wisdom. It says, the one who is wise shows in his deeds of gentleness of wisdom. And then it says the wisdom 21:20 in the last verse of James, the second last verse of James chapter 3, it says the wisdom, the heavenly wisdom that is talked about in this verse that Jesus grew in was pure, peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy, good fruits, unwavering, and without hypocrisy. Hypocrisy 21:41 means without pretending or hiding things or living a double life where you're showing one life to your church and your parents but doing something else behind the scenes. And so when I read that definition of wisdom and I compare that with what Jesus grew in, 21:55 it's not that He grew in knowledge of science and chemistry and physics and those things and computer science and economics and biology and medicine. Yeah, He may have done that too. But I see that He grew, when I see 22:12 He grew in heavenly wisdom or biblical wisdom, I see that He grew in the fruits of the Spirit. He grew in peace. He grew in gentleness. He grew in steadfastness. He grew in not pretending and not ever having hypocrisy. And that's the growth in wisdom that 22:27 starts with submission to parents. And we read that later on, it says Jesus grew up. It says He ran this race in Hebrews chapter 12 verse 1 to 3. It says we can follow His example. Hebrews 12 1 to 3, it says we have such a great cloud of witnesses. You can 22:47 say we have this great set of heroes from the Bible of which Jesus is the foremost. Let us lay aside all of these encumbrances and sins which so easily entangle us and let us run the race like Jesus did who was our forerunner. He was our 23:01 forerunner who came down to earth to be a teenager, to be a baby, a child, a teenager just like me. And He followed His heavenly Father and submitted Himself to His earthly parents and His heavenly Father all of those years that He was on earth. 23:17 And what can I do? I can fix my eyes on Jesus, not the Jesus who is in heaven, but the Jesus who came here on earth and with joy endured the cross, despised the shame. There is a shame associated with following the way of heaven and following Jesus. And 23:40 there's a shame you may endure in school and in college with following Jesus and following God. But what do you do with that shame? You despise it. You say, I don't care about it. That's not worth paying any attention to. 23:54 I'm going to put that shame, that temptation to be ashamed in the garbage bin, in the trash can, because it's not worth thinking about because that's what Jesus did. And endure any suffering that comes with that and follow Jesus' example because He did it joyfully. And 24:10 it says in verse 3, consider him who endured hostility by sinners. And you may endure some hostility or some jealousy or some mockery from friends in school and college, but you can follow Jesus' example and endure that and entrust himself 24:29 to his father so that you will not grow weary or tired in running this race. In 1 John chapter 3, verse 2 and 3, it says, we know that when Jesus appears, we will be like Him. What a great assurance that when Jesus appears or when we die, we will be just like Jesus. 24:51 But there's a journey to get there to be like Jesus. And the journey to get there to be like Jesus is in verse 3, which says, if I have the hope to be like Jesus, then I purify myself every day as He is pure. And that's something we can all start today, 25:05 which is to cleanse our heart with the power of God, which is His Holy Spirit. Cleanse ourselves of things that might be displeasing to Him. These things in our lives, these idols in our life, these temptations in our life, these lusts that are prevailing 25:21 in ourselves with the power, because we don't want to break connection with them and because we truly want to become that hero that we see in Him. And then as we progress in that, the Lord can take us higher to where as Jesus lived out his life, he lived a life of laying 25:40 down his life, not just his physical life of dying on the cross for our sins. He extended that to also just lay down his life in day to day situations in service to us. So if you look with me, if you look at me, actually, we don't need to turn. I'll just speak about these briefly. 26:01 In John chapter 13, we read about Jesus preparing for the Last Supper, and it says he knew that he was coming to an end of his life. He knew that God had given him all things into his hands, that God had entrusted him with so much, including his disciples. And his last act 26:21 with his disciples in that at the Last Supper was to get up and to gird himself. I love that word, gird himself, which means the word gird is to prepare yourself for a difficult task or challenging task. And he girded himself to do what? For the difficult task, 26:40 the dirty task of washing his disciples' feet. And that was the last act that Jesus did for the ones he loved before he gave up his life in another act of service. And what does Jesus look like in heaven? The same Jesus who is my hero, 26:58 whom I want to follow in the same act of service of laying down my life fathers, it says in heaven, in Luke chapter 12 verse 37, it says, blessed are those whom the master, who is Jesus, find on the alert when comes. Truly I say to you, he, Jesus, 27:15 and here's this word again, he will gird himself. Again, that same verse which Jesus did at the Last Supper, it says he will gird means to prepare yourself for a challenging task. What is the challenging task that he has in heaven? He will gird himself to serve 27:31 and have them, have you and me reclined at the table and will come up and wait on them. It's a beautiful verse, Luke chapter 12 verse 37, which means Jesus in heaven, yeah, we see Jesus on a throne in heaven, that's not a wrong picture, but have you seen this picture 27:46 of Jesus in heaven preparing to gird himself to serve you? And if Jesus is willing to do that, as my hero, I should be willing to do that. I should be willing to lay down my life for others, serve others, maybe my younger siblings at home, maybe people in the church, in small ways, serve 28:09 others, because that's probably what I'm going to be doing in heaven if Jesus is my hero too. And I want to get used to doing that in earth as well. And it says that Jesus lives to make intercession for us in Hebrews 7. What a great attitude to have as a hero, 28:25 somebody who's living to have intercession for us. And that's something we can start practicing for one's young enough family, even for our own parents. So that was what I wanted to speak about in terms of Jesus. I want to talk briefly about 28:35 two other heroes in my life. The first one is, the second one is outside of Jesus is my dad. And many of you know of my dad as a great preacher, very effective preacher. Many of you have heard of him from your parents. But I want to share with you why my dad is my hero. 28:57 My dad has become my hero because of the life of Jesus I've seen in him, the same spirit of Jesus, the service of Jesus that I've seen in him. That is not one that, that's not the preaching or the sermons or the words. That's not. 29:13 I don't seek to become a great preacher like him. I don't seek to have his ministry. That's not my desire at all. But I see in growing up in my home and seeing him over the years, even as I went past my home, once I had this blindness of the world taken away from me, and I saw the true love that my 29:37 dad had for me, it really transformed me into seeing him as my hero, as one who was willing to lay down his life for me in many small ways. In the way he sacrificed his finances for me, to take care of me, in the way he sacrificed his time for me, to teach me in school, to love my 30:00 mother, to love us children, to teach us the Bible. And sometimes that came in hard ways. It came in strong words and discipline. But at the same time, and I may have not seen that at the time, I now realize that a surgery was needed at that time. And I saw it as pain, 30:21 but he saw it as cancer that needed to be taken out of me. And so now I see even love in those difficult things and those difficult form conversations. And I see love in everything that my father did towards me, in his strong words, in his strong 30:38 discipline, his strong rebukes, but also in his kind and encouraging words, and also in the love and the time he spent with us, teaching us the Word of God, playing games with us, teaching us subjects in school, like computer science and physics and science and things that he could help 30:56 us with, and sacrificing financially so that we could have a good life, sacrificing his own pleasure and comfort. And all of these things I mentioned are exactly the life of the firefighter, the life of the surgeon, the life of the blood donor, the life of the organ donor. 31:14 And in a small way, smaller than Jesus, but in a big way for me, my dad was that person for me. And I saw his life, his love, his joy, his peace, his patience, his kindness, his gentleness, his self-control, his goodness, his faithfulness, 31:33 the fruit of the Spirit were what made him my hero, and not just the gift that allowed him to speak effectively in the church. I'll just share one story of how I recall one day somebody cut him off on the road on his scooter, and I was riding at the back of the scooter, 31:53 and he drove back home, and this person followed him all the way home, and kind of threatened him. And I was, kind of in a weird way, I was kind of looking forward to how this exchange was going to happen, because I've seen my dad speak very strong words in the pulpit, 32:10 words of rebuke. And I was like, oh man, I can't wait for my dad to give this person a piece of his mind, like how he speaks from the pulpit. And what I saw was actually quite the opposite. This person came home looking for a fight, looking for an argument, 32:27 followed us all the way home, and my dad was never scared, but at the same time, he was never angry. And he looked at that person, and he said, I'm truly sorry. I don't remember if I cut you off on your motorbike, but I'm truly sorry if I did, and please forgive me. 32:45 And I saw a humility there, where he was not going to engage. He did not want to pick a quarrel that was not worth picking, and he was willing to admit fault, even though he didn't even know he had committed that fault. 32:58 And it was quite the opposite of what I expected in terms of engagement in a situation like that. And that's where, it's a small example I share with you, to say the love, the long-suffering, the willingness to admit fault when wrong, but yet the high standard of willing to rebuke and 33:18 discipline and preserve the purity where he saw impurity in his children or in the church. The last hero I'll share about is my mom, who equally reflected the love of Jesus to me in her laying down her life for me, and in her fighting for me and standing up for me 33:41 in being a listening ear to me, in encouraging me in serving in the home without complaint, things that I didn't notice. I had many, many arguments with my wife, not with my mom, without realizing that she was being patient with me and I was being impatient. 34:03 And I wish I realized that earlier in my teenage years. She cleaned our home like a servant, and I took that for granted. And she truly was the servant in our home, laying down her life. And I wish I had known, seen that, rather than being blind to the small areas in 34:20 which she served in practical ways in our home, both physically and also spiritually, laying down her life for me. And again, I'll share one story. I was going through a, probably one of the most difficult times of my teenage years, where I was extremely discouraged about 34:38 a rejection that I experienced, and absolutely shattered and discouraged and despondent. And I remember coming home that day in my state of complete rejection, thinking my life is not worth living. And my mom didn't say a word. She just hugged me. 35:00 And it's a hug I've never forgotten in my life. And that's the love that I've experienced from my mother that really went up above and beyond to lay down her life for me, to be that firefighter, to be that organ donor, to be that blood donor for me in a way, in the 35:20 same way that Jesus was. So to close, let me ask you and invite you to practically apply this. How do you respond when you think about Jesus as a hero? And perhaps maybe you don't think your parents are heroes yet, but consider that if they're godly parents, Christian parents, or 35:40 even if they're not, there are things that you can see in them that may make you appreciate them. The first response that we can have is to take notice. Take notice of things we've never noticed before. Take notice and take notes. Take notice and take notes. 35:57 Appreciate what the things that you may not have paid attention to, the way they work hard, the way they earn their living, sacrifice their finances, not for their own pleasure, but for you to have a good education, for you to teach you the scriptures. 36:17 When you see hardness or arguments or form-talking, maybe they're imperfect, maybe they're making mistakes, but rather than seeing the words or trying to win the argument, try and assess the heart behind what they're trying to talk to you about and the spirit 36:35 behind it and say, is there something good in there? Is there love in there? And if there's love in there, I don't need to win the argument. I can just submit because it's not worth winning the argument because I see love in there and I see a willingness to 36:49 lay down their life for me. Secondly, how can you practically apply this? If you see Jesus as your hero or one of your parents as your heroes, or maybe there's others older than you in the church that you see as heroes, you want to become like them, 37:06 which means you want to also start to become like them in laying down your life values. And that could be to a younger sibling at home, to a friend, to others in the church. It could be right back to your parents. You don't have to just do it to people who are younger than you. 37:23 Do you know that your parents are in much need of encouragement? And maybe you don't have a great verse or scripture to tell them, but just giving them a hug or a kiss is an encouragement to them, especially when you don't feel like it. And it may not be natural. You may not 37:42 get it as much as you feel from them, or you say, oh, I don't feel that same way. But it's a small way you can encourage. And if you're not comfortable doing that, maybe say a word of appreciation. Say thank yous a little bit more. 37:54 Encourage them with your response of gratitude, with physical affection, and then start serving the way they serve. Maybe there are small needs in the home that you can meet and fill gaps where that will relieve a burden for your mom or your father. Maybe it's just a cleanup. 38:14 Maybe it's washing the dishes, loading it in the dishwasher, or sweeping the floors where your mom's breaking her back just so that you can study. But it'll take 15 minutes out of your time. It'll take the 15 minutes or 30 minutes that 38:30 you're spending on TikTok or social media and the dining room instead. And I'll tell you, you'll find way more permanent joy from that than you will get out of a mindless time on your phone or social media. And then you can use the rest of the time to study or 38:51 work hard or whatever it is that you need to do. These are small ways that you can appreciate. If you're already out of the home, maybe call up your parents frequently, appreciate them, learn from the mistakes of what you made maybe earlier in your life. And certainly 39:05 take it from me, from one who has been there and now has been on the other side of it, who has teenage children. I have many regrets about not appreciating my parents early on in life, not appreciating Jesus's sacrifice of taking me, 39:20 of giving me a heart transplant and taking me out of a burning room early on in life. And I hope and pray that all of you will have the same, won't have to go through the same mistakes that I went through, but will learn who your true heroes are early on in life. Amen.
