Solutions for Young People — Zac Poonen

Through the years, whenever I have spoken to young people, I have frequently thought of the main problems that young people face. And around the world, they are usually the same. And there could be more, but I think I want to mention five of them, which I have mentioned before, but it is good for us to be aware and to see that the Lord has a solution for us in all these areas.

The first is the problem of not accepting oneself the way God has made you. If you don't settle that matter, you are going to have problems all your life. The second is conflict with parents. That is also universal.

The third is what I call peer pressure. That means people around your age who pressurize you to behave in a certain way, to do certain things, and you want popularity with them, so you do it. Sometimes you do sinful things.

The fourth is sexual temptation, especially for young men. For young men it is physical, with young girls it is emotional. It can be physical too. And the fifth is coping with failure, injustice that you face in school, college, place of work, discouragement, etc.

These are some of the main things. There could be other things as you go on in life, become older, you can face other things. But let me just say a few words about these five before I move on. First of all, accepting oneself.

You know, if you are a Christian and you have given your life to Christ completely, the Bible says that you were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. So if you don't know where that verse is, I'll show it to you.

It's in Ephesians 1, where it says, verse 4, He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. That means before Genesis 1, verse 1, He chose you, He chose me. If we have accepted Christ, because we live in time and not in eternity like God, it's difficult for us to understand that.

A lot of concepts about eternity we can't grasp. So don't worry if you don't grasp it fully, but it has comforted my heart tremendously to know that way back in eternity before there were any angels, before there was any devil, before there was any earth or heaven or all the problems in the world.

Long before all that, I have looked at it like this for myself and you can look at it like that for yourself. There was the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and me in God's mind. If you think that's blasphemous, it's unbelief.

I accept it. Before the worlds were created, there was Father, Son and Holy Spirit and me in His mind. So you see, though I may be unimportant in the world, I'm pretty important to God. Once you are gripped by that.

Now if you have not surrendered your life to Christ, that doesn't apply to you. But if you have surrendered your life to Christ, then it applies to you because He has chosen people in Christ. I tell you, I can't think of anything that brings more security than to know that, you know, like some parents say, these children were planned but this one was an accident.

What do you mean accident? Sometimes those children whom parents say are accident turn out to be the best children of all. There is no accident. If you are a child of God, you are not an accident. One of the greatest preachers in Scotland many years ago was born as an illegitimate child.

It means parents were not married there. There are many godly people. I've met people like that, godly people. One brother, an elder in the church, I don't even know who my father is. Is that an accident?

God chose even someone born in adultery. Can you believe that? God is amazing. How much more you? If you don't understand your value before God, the devil is trying to devalue people. Makes you feel you are nothing, you are a nobody.

Because everybody in the world treats you like, you are useless, you are rubbish, you are not gifted, maybe you don't come first in the class, you don't get good jobs like other people get, you are not smart, you are not capable, you can't get up here and sing like other people, you can't play instruments like other people and you feel discouraged.

Are these the basis on which God chooses anybody? A lot of people who do all these things, who may not be half as good as you are, God doesn't place any value on all these things. The first thing you need to recognize as a young person is that you are a significant and important person in God's eyes.

It doesn't matter if other people know you. I mean people around the world may know me and they don't know you. But you are just as important to God as I am. If you can believe that, I believe that. I don't care how many people in the world know me, it doesn't mean anything to me.

Everybody in the world knows Osama Bin Laden, so what? He is more well-known than me by the way. You want to be like that? Well-known, to be known in heaven by God, that's more important. Don't look for fame on the earth.

Find your security there. Don't seek to be well-known in the church. Well-known has got no value. God has known me before the foundation of the world and he determined everything about my life. He determined the way he formed me in my mother's womb in the days of my life.

I never get tired of quoting Psalm 139 and many of you have already heard me speak on that, but to the benefit of those who haven't, Psalm 139, Lord, verse 13, Psalm 139, 13, you formed my inward parts, you wove me in my mother's womb.

I don't know what type of nose David had or ear David had, but he was pretty sure that God made it. Are you sure that God made your nose and your ear the particular shape it has? You may not like it, but God said that's good for you.

Learn to accept it. Because there are certain things about you, you cannot change. There is a wonderful prayer called the prayer of serenity and acceptance which says, God, give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.

Serenity means the calmness of mind to accept in my life the things I cannot change. You cannot change the color of your skin, you cannot change your appearance, you cannot change the background you grew up in, you cannot change the shape of your eyes or ear or nose or you know 101 things, even your intelligence is pretty well fixed when you are born and many things like that.

Things you cannot change, the blunders you made in the past, what can you do about that now? Accept it. Don't say it was alright. The things that God did in your mother's womb, that was okay, but accept the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.

The second part of that prayer is Lord, give me the boldness and the courage to change the things I can. Your bad temper, your lustful looks, your internet pornography, those things you can change. Ask God to give you the courage and boldness to do it, to give up some bad habits that you have.

And third, Lord give me the wisdom to know the difference between what I cannot change and what I can change. What a beautiful prayer. Give me the calmness of mind to accept the things I cannot change.

Courage and boldness and I would also add faith to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference between these two, what I can change and what I cannot change. It's an old prayer. It's a very lovely prayer.

So God made my inward parts and He made you exactly like you are. Accept it, intelligence, everything. And also He determined, it says here in verse 16, Psalm 139, all the days that were ordained for you before you were even born.

There was not even one of them means before day one in your life, God determined your whole life. So He's got a plan for your life. I'm thankful that I believed that when I was 21. I don't know what my life would have been today if I did not believe when I was 21 years old that God had a plan for my life.

And I decided at that young age that I would seek God's plan and not my own. I had my own plans too, sure, like all of you have. But I'm so thankful that I gave up my plan to accept God's plan. And you know when I say that I don't mean that God will call all of you to full time Christian work like He called me or to give up your job.

In my case He called me when I was 24 years old to quit my job. But that's a special calling, maybe one in a thousand. You may not be that one in a thousand. Remaining 999 or at least 99 out of 100 or 999 out of 1000, I don't know, are to put God first in their secular jobs.

But God's got a plan for your life. And I've prayed this prayer many times, Lord, I don't know where I'm supposed to be on a particular date, but I want to be where you planned in your book that I should be.

Sometimes God has stopped me from going somewhere by sickness or something like that. That's good. Paul was once stopped by sickness and made to stay in one place where he planted a church. Wasn't that a good thing?

Sometimes our plans are frustrated. But God is sovereign. He is the one who opens the door, shuts the doors. I don't go banging at doors that God has shut. The doors that God opens are like these automatic doors.

As soon as you come near them, they open. So, God has a plan for your life. All that you have to believe in the fact that you must see you're valuable to God. You know, like earthly fathers plan for their children and they don't make any plans.

Who's the one who goes six months before and stands in a long queue outside the school to get a seat for their four-year-old child? The child is not bothered. You know, in some places they have to book as soon as the child is born.

In some places, when the child has conceived itself, you have to book a seat in schools. You know, it's like that in some places. There are really good schools in some cities. Who's planning all that?

Isn't it good to know that when the child is conceived, God has also got some plans, not just your father and not for just some kindergarten admission, but something ten times better than that, a million times better, a plan for your life.

So, learn to accept the fact that you're very valuable in God's eyes and that he arranged for you to be born in a particular family, at a particular time in history. I'm thankful that I was not born 300 years ago.

I don't even know whether I'd be converted. I'm thankful that I'm born in this last century, within the last hundred years and that I could I'm thankful, for example, things like I learnt English, which I think my grandfather probably never knew.

God has allowed certain things. He has allowed you to be in a particular family. And that's one reason why you're at this meeting today. Because somebody, your family member, parent or a relative or a friend perhaps, brought you in touch with this church where you could hear the truth.

All this is part of God's plan. Don't despise it. Don't take it for granted. There are millions of other people in this world who don't have this privilege. And secondly, conflict with parents. That's another thing.

Honoring Parents Amid Conflict and Imperfection

Don't think you're peculiar. Even people who have good parents have conflict with their parents. It's part of the process of growing up. Because usually when a child becomes around 13 -14 years old and begins to mature, there are two mistakes that people make.

The parents think he's still a child when he's a teenager. And the teenager thinks he's an adult when he's only a teenager. So the mistakes are both ends. The teenager thinks he's about 45, when he's actually about 15.

And the parents think he's 5, when he's actually 15. So when you have this wrong understanding of what is happening, there's conflict. That's normal. Of course there's conflict from the time you're 2.

But those are on less serious matters. But conflict with parents is something which Jesus faced as a young person and he obeyed. That's why even children can follow Jesus' example. All can follow Jesus' example.

And if you conquer in this area and obey the word of God which says, honour your father and mother. If your father is a drunkard, you can't have confidence in him, naturally. To have confidence is different from honouring.

Say you have a boss who's very wicked and cruel. Well, you've got to submit to him unless you want to resign your job. But you don't have confidence in him. You can't respect him spontaneously. The Bible doesn't say you must have confidence in your father.

Because that would be a very difficult command on your mother. That would be a very difficult command to obey if your father and mother were ungodly. So God doesn't give such commands. He only says, honour them.

You say, how can I do that? In 1 Peter 2 .17, it says, honour all men. How do you do that? Honour all human beings? Yeah, that means I respect people. It means I speak to them respectfully. I mean, the Lord told me you must even speak respectfully to a beggar.

And you know there are times when one gets a little upset with these telemarketers on the telephone. But I've always repented after doing that. I say, oh Lord, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have spoken like that to that telemarketer.

That person's trying to do it for a living. Help me to, all these people who come to your door trying to sell something and pester you. Even after you close the door, they still ring the bell. Well, I haven't always conquered, but I'm on the way.

But I'm going to respect all human beings. Because that's my goal. I don't care if I don't reach the peak in one day. But I'm determined to reach it. That's all I say. Be determined to reach that peak.

And even if you can't honour your father straight away and all that, say, Lord, that's a goal I want to get to. Any command in scripture which you can't immediately obey, make it a peak you're going to conquer.

That's a general rule in life. So conflict with parents is there. Honour your father and mother even if you leave their home, you're married. I honoured my father and mother right up till the time they died.

And it says it will go well with you. I want to testify it has gone well with me. Because I've honoured my parents. And I would recommend that to anybody who, if you want it to go well with you, do that.

And if there's difficulty, disagreement, disagree respectfully. Compare yourself with someone who's from a non-Christian family, where father and mother are bowing down to idols and the whole oppressive atmosphere of idol worship.

And they force this young Christian in that home to worship idols and he has to have conflict with the parents every day. Saying, no, dad, I'm sorry, I can't bow down to the idols. What is your conflict compared to that?

Yours is a mosquito bite. Think of that. But you make so much of it, blow it out of proportion. Be thankful for your parents. And you don't have to agree with them always. You don't have to respect them.

And you don't have to have confidence in them. You know, there's nothing wrong in a brother who doesn't have confidence in his parents, going and asking another elder in the church for advice. Because he says, my parents can't give me spiritual advice.

There are so many cases like that. I don't have confidence. I have fellowship with many brothers, but I have confidence in a very few. Even in my fellow elders in all the churches in India. I value them, but I don't have confidence in all of them.

I'll tell you honestly. I don't have to have confidence. Confidence is spontaneous. You don't have to have confidence in an elder brother. You must submit to him if you're in a church. But confidence is not something that can be forced.

If it doesn't come up automatically, you can't have it. It's not confidence. Confidence always comes up spontaneously. You know, I have confidence in that brother. So, don't worry if you don't have confidence in your parents, but respect them.

Honour them. Okay. The third thing is peer pressure. The people who are your age, you know, who are in school, college, they say, go on, be a man, do this or do that. I always tell people, say, I am a man, that's why I don't do what you say.

Or if you're a woman, say, I'm bold, that's why I don't do what you say. You know, I remember I was invited once to a charismatic church in England, many years ago, to speak there. I'm on a trip I was making there, one day in that place.

Resisting Peer Pressure Through Christian Conviction

And I went there, and I was supposed to be the main speaker that evening. But, you know, in the initial time, they have this time of praise and worship, as they call it. And here were people where everybody was a dancer.

That means the chairs are not like this, the chairs are in a circle, and the middle is for dancing. So, I saw one by one as they were singing, everybody one by one leaving the chair and going into the middle, and dancing one by one by one, and finally, I was the only one left, standing by my chair.

And they said, we're not bothered what anybody thinks, we dance. I said, I'm not bothered what anybody thinks, I stand here. I mean, if I were bothered what other people thought, I would have also gone out there and done a jig or something like that just to...

I can do that, sure. But I'm not here. You know, the question is, and you know what happened? They asked one person to testify, another person to testify, another person to testify, and they never let me speak.

And on the way back in the car, they said, oh, Brother Zak, there wasn't enough time. I said, okay, fine. It's the main speaker, not allowed to speak. And I knew why, because I didn't go out onto the dance floor.

But I had the courage of my conviction. I had that when I was 23, in the Navy, where I would tell my senior officers, I'm sorry, sir, I can't do that. I was lonely sometimes on the ship. You'll be lonely, but those are the days where I got a spiritual backbone.

From the age of 21 to the age of 24, I went through so many experiences where I had to say no to my senior officers, and I would not do things that my fellow colleagues in the Navy did, all types of things.

I'd say, sorry, I can't do that, I'm a Christian. Always I'm a Christian, I'm a Christian, I'm a Christian. I would stand there with my glass of orange juice when everybody's drinking whiskey and whatnot, because it was free.

And in three years, the Lord said, okay, I want to call you for my work. Boy, think if I had not stood for the Lord in those three years, where would I be today? Wasting my life as an admiral somewhere or something like that.

Think what you're going to miss in your life if you don't stand up for God when you're young. So I want to tell you, stand up to that peer pressure. Be a Christian, man or woman, and say, I'm not going to yield.

My boldness is seen in the fact that I don't do what everybody else is doing. Your boldness is not seen in doing what everybody else is doing. Then you're a coward. And I tell you, today's young people are all cowards.

And if you don't have the boldness, ask God to give it to you. Stand up to it, and God will watch you. Like Joseph, can you imagine the pressure he faced from that evil woman every day after day after day after day?

He said, no, no, no. Same answer as I gave you the last 25 days, no. God said, hey, you're the chap I want to serve me. You think God will ever say that to you? Not only men, I think Mary also must have said many times, no to many things.

God was looking for a woman, young girl. I think she was only 18 or 19 when the Holy Spirit came on her. And they were engaged at a very young age those days. Imagine an 18, 19-year-old girl being selected from all over Israel to be the mother of Jesus Christ.

She must have been really godly. She wouldn't have been the one fooling around with boys and dating this one and that one and the other one. You think God would have chosen such a girl who was following the fashions of the other worldly young girls in Nazareth?

God would say, forget it, let me look for somebody else. Do you want to be one whom God chooses? He's still choosing people today to manifest Christ in their life. Stand up to peer pressure. Number four is sexual temptation.

Overcoming Sexual Temptation Before Marriage

That is absolutely normal. And I would say if you are a young man and you don't face sexual pressure, you probably need a medical check-up. Yes. If you are facing sexual pressure you are normal, you don't need a medical check-up, you are alright.

And if you girls find yourself not attracted to any boys even after you are 15, 16, you probably need a medical check-up too. It's normal, that's what I am trying to say. I have asked the Lord once, Lord why did you put this sexual desire coming up in us when we are 13, 14 years old and nowadays girls are maturing when they are 9 or 10.

And boys, I don't know what age nowadays people begin to get attracted, what they call puppy love. Love some girl in the class. Comes up pretty early, 11 or 12 years old, you begin to get attracted. I said Lord why did you allow this to come up at such a young age, 12, 13 years old when the guy has got to wait 15 years to get married.

He's got to face this pressure, pressure. Why didn't you let sexual desire come up when a person is 28. So till the age of 28, just like little 3 year old boys say, I don't like girls. Imagine if boys were like that till the age of 28.

You know how little boys say, I don't like girls, I want to be with boys. But God has allowed it to come up in such a young age because, and I felt the Lord tell me, because I want them to overcome that before they get married.

Overcome it before you get married. You know it's something like this, if you get some tough questions in your maths paper, well you know that you are not in a corporation school, right? You are probably in a good school which has got tough question papers.

In a corporation school you have very easy papers. You are probably in a good standard as well. So if you find some area tough, that means it's something good God has for you if you conquer it, if you pass in that examination.

Think of if all of you sat down for the IIT, decide to sit for the IIT next year. Okay? All of you. How many of you think you will pass? I tell you that's tough. But imagine if somebody passed that, that would really be an accomplishment, you would really get into something.

It's something like that to conquer sexual temptation. Say Lord this is my IIT, I am going to really pass this. I am going to get all the coaching I need from scripture to pass it. I want to pass it because I will get something good.

I will tell you you will get something hundred times better than IIT. Believe me. It's a battle that everybody has to fight and if you fight it, you can be an overcomer. And it will help you tremendously in your married life.

Because married people are also tempted. Let me tell you that in case you didn't know. A lot of preachers you hear fall into sin, they are all married people. So fight that battle when you are young and say Lord I don't care what it costs, I want to conquer it.

I want to, you know soak yourself in studying the scriptures. That's what helped me when I was a young man. I was tempted just like you. But the sad thing was something I didn't have, which you all have, is I never had anybody talk to me so plainly from a pulpit.

I went to an assembly where they studied the tabernacle. Well my problem was not the tabernacle, my problem was sex. They never talked about it. And I know your problem is sex, however holy you look. I know it.

Unless you are abnormal or retarded or something like that, which I hope you are not. And everybody looked holy in that assembly. I knew that everybody, I didn't know it then, I know it now. Everybody's problem was sex, but they were studying the tabernacle.

Well great to study the tabernacle man, but you got to deal with practical problems as well. They never talked about it and all the time I was there. And you know the result of that, I was a young man, nobody would talk to me about it.

I said boy I must be a sex maniac or something. Nobody else seems to have this problem, they seem to be taken up with the tabernacle. So that's what I want to tell all of you, it's 100 normal. Now I'll tell you how I battled it.

I spent my time studying the scriptures and occupying myself with the Lord's work and with the Lord's people and the Lord's book. His work, His people and His book. Those were the only three things I had in those days and that kept me when nobody told me how to overcome these temptations.

Nobody told me it was perfectly normal. So I want to tell you it's perfectly normal but you must be an overcomer. And number five is to face the problem of injustice. You'll face it. I remember when one of my boys was being treated very unjustly by his teacher in school.

It was so bad that he came to me and said, Dad I don't want to go to school anymore, to this school anymore, I want to go to another one. And he was so high up in that school that I said it's difficult to change now at this stage.

And then I told him, I said listen, you are being prepared in this school for life. And life is not just chemistry and physics and history and maths. Life is injustice that you are going to face in your place of work.

You think everybody is going to treat you nicely in your place of work? How many of you are experiencing that? There is injustice. If you are a Christian, an out and out Christian, there is more injustice.

So I said listen, you are being trained for that as well. I am paying only for the chemistry, maths and physics but this injustice treatment you are getting free experience and teaching. Take it. He took my word and he went through.

So if you face injustice in school, if you face injustice in college, that's a free education. Your parents don't even have to pay for it. And if you are an overcomer, you pass in a subject which will help you much more in life than chemistry or physics.

I'll tell you that. Failure is another thing that God allows for us to get an education. You know because I have failed many times in my life which has helped me to be very compassionate with people who are failures.

In my ministry in the last 40 years or more, numerous people, I get numerous emails from people who have made a mess of their life. God is, and many people come to me for counsel as well, God is my witness.

I have never despised or looked down on even one of them no matter how great a mess they made of their life. I have hope for them. I may not have made such a big mess as they did but it doesn't matter.

I failed, that's the point. And I couldn't get victory till God helped me. So failure also has a purpose. If you read my book Purpose of Failure, you'll understand it more fully. So you shouldn't allow failure or injustice or anything to make you give up.

Never. These are all things that are going to make you strong and give you a backbone so you can stand erect spiritually. So those are some things which I want to say if you are able to overcome as a young person, it will take you a long way.

You need to be filled with the Holy Spirit, that's true, you need to read the Bible, you need to go for meetings, all that, but you don't deal with these practical issues that I mentioned, you'll still have a problem.

I mean I'm telling you from scripture. Okay, now I'll try and deal with these questions. Here is an honest testimony. I live a double life, I live like a devil in the office and like an angel outside.

Overcoming a Double Life Through Wholehearted Faith

I'm disturbed, help me. How many of you can sympathize with that? Like a devil in the office and an angel outside? Like a devil at home and an angel in the church? It doesn't have to be like that. You know, but it won't change overnight.

Don't let me tell, don't let me give you some false hopes that tomorrow you'll be okay. It's like telling a fat man, come here and one day we'll make you thin. Don't believe those gyms that have such advertisements.

It doesn't happen. You can become muscular and thin over a period of time, but it'll take years. But you can do it. You need to be filled with the Holy Spirit, you need to be a wholehearted Christian, you need to seek fellowship with God's people, you need to believe God's word.

You must put your past behind you, believing the blood of Christ has cleansed you. Be wholehearted, radical and put God first in your life. And I believe you can overcome. Do you know that in my case it took me 16 years after I was born again to get rid of my double life.

I didn't live a double life in the beginning of my Christian life. Beginning I was absolutely sincere inside and outside the same. As I grew more and more and more and became more and more accepted. The danger is when you get accepted.

I'll tell you who are the most people facing the maximum danger in this church. Those who are more visible than others. You are in a hundred times more danger than some of you sitting there, out there, nobody knows.

You're safe. So I began to backslide when I became visible. I became proud and pride always goes before a fall. And I began to live a double life. My thoughts mainly, what I preached. You don't have to wait 16 years.

Be wholehearted. You don't have to confess your sins to everybody, to be honest. Let's confess them to God and don't pretend. Okay, another question is somewhat along the same lines. Along the same lines again.

I'm a fallen person. Will CFC accept me? Sure. If Jesus accepts you, he took the worst of sinners. Are you worse than the thief who murdered many people and was hanging on the cross? How many of you murdered?

I don't know who wrote that question. How many of you murdered? Tell me. How many have you stolen from? That thief was worse than anybody. One of Jesus' last actions in saving that man was to say, his last message to the world, I can save the worst.

Grace for Christians Under Family and Cultural Pressure

Okay, how can I be faithful to Christ and honor my parents in a Hindu home? Very difficult. You know, quite recently I visited a Hindu home and a lot of idolatry going on. It didn't disturb me at all because greater is he that is in me than any pressure in the world.

I can sit anywhere. I can sit in a Hindu temple and I think the demons there will be scared of me because the one who is living in me is Christ. Don't disturb me. But not everybody is so strong, so I don't recommend that to anybody.

But the point is this. Remember that the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. It's a tremendous pressure that young people were converted from Hindu home space in their home.

I can sympathize and I think I really learned to sympathize more after I went to this home and I saw, boy, and I think God allowed me to go to that home just to see that pressure under which people are living.

It's not easy, but God will give you more grace. I mean, if your company tells you to go out and buy something worth 500 rupees, they give you 500 rupees. If they ask you to go and buy something worth 50 ,000 rupees, they give you 50 ,000 rupees.

So if you are facing more pressure than I am, you will get more grace from God. You know that verse, my grace is? What? Sufficient. Exactly. 50 rupees, 50 rupees, 5 ,000 rupees, 5 ,000 rupees. You need more grace in your home than I do in mine, you will get more.

It's like the guy who came to me and said, ah, brother Zach, it's easy for you to talk about all this when you got a good wife. You don't know what my wife is like. I said, well, then you'll get more grace.

Nobody can make an excuse that my parents are bad or my wife is bad. Then you'll get more grace. My grace is? Sufficient. Okay. Here's another question which is also similar concerning consistency. I think we can be consistent with the Christian life only if we seek fellowship and walk with God's people.

Giving, Generosity, and Richness Toward God

Another question is, should I type or not? I want apologies 100%. If not, should I continue in a church that's teaching typing? I would not encourage you to continue in a church that doesn't teach victory over sin.

That's the number one thing. Typing is all secondary. Typing is 10%, giving 10 to God is not a command in the New Testament at all. And neither do you need to feel guilty if you don't give it. But I'll tell you something I found in this church, that because we don't speak much about giving because we want to be different, I feel that many people are missing out on what God has for them because it is more blessed to give than to receive.

I've never preached or practiced typing in my life, but I really honored God in the area of money from the time I became a Christian. I really learned to give to God and to poor people. I can say God has honored me.