Old Age in a World that Worships Youth
Passage Joshua 14:6-15
Speaker Cavan Wood
Service Morning
Series Good News for Today
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6 Now the people of Judah approached Joshua at Gilgal, and Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, ‘You know what the Lord said to Moses the man of God at Kadesh Barnea about you and me. 7 I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh Barnea to explore the land. And I brought him back a report according to my convictions, 8 but my fellow Israelites who went up with me made the hearts of the people sink. I, however, followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly. 9 So on that day Moses swore to me, “The land on which your feet have walked will be your inheritance and that of your children for ever, because you have followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly.”
10 ‘Now then, just as the Lord promised, he has kept me alive for forty-five years since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the wilderness. So here I am today, eighty-five years old! 11 I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. 12 Now give me this hill country that the Lord promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but, the Lord helping me, I will drive them out just as he said.’
13 Then Joshua blessed Caleb son of Jephunneh and gave him Hebron as his inheritance. 14 So Hebron has belonged to Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite ever since, because he followed the Lord, the God of Israel, wholeheartedly. 15 (Hebron used to be called Kiriath Arba after Arba, who was the greatest man among the Anakites.)
Then the land had rest from war.
Holy Bible, New International Version® Anglicized, NIV® Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
This transcript has been automatically generated, and therefore may not be 100% accurate.
As we come before God's word this morning, let us pray. Father Almighty, help us to see the importance of your calling to us to show a long obedience in the same direction. Amen. So the title that I was given was old age in a world that values youth.
Why are you laughing?
Yeah, okay. Some of you were there when I was in the youth group or a youth group leader. Some of you were there when I was eleven, being my house master, Keith. And therefore, how very odd to have this 61 year old talk to you about this subject. What on earth does he know about it?
Because there are people in the congregation who are far more travelled in the one direction.
Of course. Of course, of course. So what I want to say is this. I want to use that phrase I used in prayer, and I've stolen this from a book by Eugene Peterson. And he has a great book on discipleship, which is called a long obedience in the same direction.
So if you remember nothing else from this sermon, remember that phrase today along obedience in the same direction. Wherever you are on that journey, whether you are a mere youngster of 61 or much older than that, or much younger than that, because I can see the one or two people in the room who are much younger than that, that's the important thing. A long obedience in the right direction.
So last night, and Steve Hagar, I can see he's got evidence where he went with me last night. We went to see a 75 year old man. He'll be 75 on September 23. I checked my facts on this called Bruce Springsteen play 3 hours of rock music. I have to say, steve and I are a bit younger than Bruce Springsteen, as you can imagine.
I won't reveal Steve's age. We were, by the end of it, we were quite tired. And yet Bruce Springsteen at the end said, do you want me to go on a bit longer? And we're thinking, well, yeah, but we'd like to go home as well, Bruce. After 3 hours now, amazing.
There was one person, nearly 75, full of energy, full of go. This week the news has been dominated by an 81 year old man, President Biden, who made a decision that now is the time to quit because age had caught up on him. Now we live in a very conflicted world then. One where there's a 75 year old man who has enough strength and vigour to entertain Wembley Stadium. And another one where a man just six years older than him says, I've got to go.
Both men are remarkable in what they've achieved, but whether you are remarkable or unremarkable in terms of fame. It's that long obedience in the right direction that really matters. When we hear people talking about the cult of youth, we need to reflect, don't we? If you hear somebody say something like this, you are the future of the church.
I think that could be quite offensive to members in this congregation here, because if we get obsessed with the future, we forget the present and we also forget the blessings of God in the past. Youth aren't the future of the church, they're the church now. Everybody in the 1115 is the church now. And that's really where we ought to focus. Yes, we ought to think about long term development.
We ought to think about growing our church. But one of the important areas of growth in this church in the last few years has been tiger at ten, and many people well over the age of 65, coming to church, coming to faith, coming to understandings that they haven't had for their life. Perhaps some of you can give testimony to that today. So age should not be the main focus of the church. Calling people to a long obedience in the right direction.
Caleb was 85 and he was up for the fight. Now, I don't know about you, I'm not completely sure he would have been able to handle a big fight if he was 85. He may well have been. He actually claims he was as fit as he was when he was 40. I think that's probably stretching it, but who knows?
He may well have been. Now, physically we may go up and down, and physically we may struggle, particularly as we age, but the long obedience in the right direction is still ours to do. So I want to look at some of the ideas that come out of this passage this morning. So, firstly, Caleb knew the promises of God. He had spent a long time preparing to go to the promised land and probably had got to the point, perhaps even got to the point in his head where he was thinking, this isn't going to happen.
I'm going to try and trust God, but really, I'm getting so old now, how can I get to the promised land? But then he does, and then he's there and his descendants are in the land. We need to keep reminding ourselves of the promise of God. We have a God who can be trusted at every point of our lives that's really, really important, that we all hold onto that at every point of our lives, when we're young and physically fit, when we're middle aged and coming to terms with moving on from jobs or status as we get older and we feel frailer, both physically and mentally, we have a God who loves us and his promises are the same, and we need to reflect on that.
It's a time, I would say, as we get older, to cash in on the bank of wisdom.
Right. You should now be not saving, many of you for a rainy day. Right. Rainy day saving is, you know, why do you bother to do it? It rains most of the time in Britain.
So why do we bother to do rainy day saving? It's really irrelevant. Now's the time to sort of start spending some of that spiritual cash. What I mean by that is this. If you've been blessed by God in your life, how are you sharing that with somebody else?
How are you sharing that with somebody else? It's a time, as we get older, we're often free of some other responsibilities. There are some responsibilities that will come to us being grandparents or great grandparents, but there are some responsibilities that we don't have to worry about. We don't have to get up that early to go to that job and get back that late. That's gone.
So how do we then use our time? When we're able to use our time, we should use it to show that long obedience in the right direction. And that might not be going on a mission, doing something noble. It might just be making time for that person to come around and have a cup of tea with you and for them to share their story of where they are and their needs. It might be sitting down and writing that letter or emailing that email to somebody who needs that support.
It might not be something very visible to the rest of the world. It might not be standing at the front of preaching a sermon, for example, but it might be actually really powerful for the kingdom.
Old age does not stop you from that. In fact, sometimes it can give you more opportunities. And in some of those vulnerable places that you might have to go as you get older, to more people's funerals, to more hospitals. Actually, your witness as a Christian in those places can be really, really important, because you can show that there is hope. And we can, as we are, we are mourning.
Dorothy, you know, dotted was great. She inspired us and encouraged us and challenged us, and she was a wonderful person. But I also know that she is with her lord today, and that is fantastic. I can hold on to that great truth. So we have a different way of looking at life.
Life isn't just ended with death. Life is actually, in some senses, begun with death. So being old is a different calling, but it's still a calling.
Keith has said to me many times that there's no such thing as retirement in the christian life.
And he recently. Well, not that recently. You see, this is a thing old people begin to say. It recently means any time between yesterday and about a year ago. Anyway, that's my observation of my own understanding.
A while back, he gave me a copy of this finishing well, which is Ian Knox's brilliant book. On it says, God's eye view of ageing. What I find really encouraging about this was so many of you in this congregation are mentioned in the book, examples of how God has worked in their life. I won't go through all of them. You know who you are.
And that I found really inspiring as I picking up and reading Ian's book, I didn't actually know you were going to be mentioned, some of you in this book. But that was really inspiring to me, that the people I'd known and loved and been brought up with in this church were so inspiring to Ian. And Ian's work as an evangelist, and then as somebody particularly concerned for ministry to older people, particularly concerned for ministry around bereavement. So life may be slower, it might be more confined. It might be about caring for that husband or wife.
It might be about not having that status of a job that you really enjoyed having that status, and you have to deal with that. But you have got an even better status than you had in even the best job in the world. And your status is that you are a disciple of Christ. And as a disciple of Christ, you are called to witness to him that friendly words to the hairdresser or the newsagent, that stopping to have a conversation with somebody on the street, that having a cup up with somebody can all be kingdom business.
One writer put it like christians may be free to retire from their occupation, but as disciples of Christ, we aren't ever free to retire from serving God and others. If you're fortunate enough to be freed from the demands of working for a living, that opens a door of opportunity to do more work for the kingdom using the wisdom, experience, talents and resources the Holy Spirit has given us through a lifetime of discipleship. Now, let me make this clear. This does not mean that everybody here should feel compelled to do holiday club next year, right? Some of you, that may be your calling, and you may feel physically and emotionally fit enough to do that, that's fine.
But others of you, it might just be your calling is to pray more regularly for your grandchildren.
It may be your calling is to pray more regularly for other people going through difficult times in their life. That may be your calling, not something upfront, not something that involves a lot of activity. But actually that's sometimes the hardest calling not to do, but to be and to be with God in prayer over something. So here's my message once again, and most of you know this much better than me, okay? Our calling is a long obedience in one direction.
And that one direction is to find Christ in all things, in all the difficulties and uncertainties of our life. We bring them to God and we try and find. And through his gracious spirit, he will actually help us find him there. Let us pray.
Father, this is difficult for many of us as we adjust to having a slow pace of life and perhaps finding some things really challenging in terms of the way the world is changing or our body is changing or bereavement all kinds of changes that come at us as we get older help us in all of these changes to make that long obedience in the right direction. Amen.