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Aging
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Pocket Paper ______________________ Message by Robert J. Morgan, Senior Pastor The Donelson Fellowship 3210 McGavock Pike 615/871-4769 www.donelson.org Today we’re coming to the end of our series of sermons entitled Life is Good. We’ve looked at childhood, the teen years, the single life, engagement, and marriage, and today we’re coming to a subject that is increasingly appropriate for me and for all of us—aging is good. We joke a lot about aging, and we have many funny stories to tell. I read about one elderly couple that was suffering some occasional lapses of memory, so they went to the doctor and he gave them a complete examination. There was nothing wrong with their memory except for old age. He suggested they write everything down and make notes to help them, and they thanked him and went home. That night the old woman got up to go to the kitchen, and she asked her husband if he wanted anything. He said, “Yes, Maud, I’d like some ice cream, but you’d better write it down.” She told him she could remember that without making a note. “Yes,” he said, “but I’d like some strawberries on it. That’s two things, and you’d better write it down.” She told him she could remember two things just fine. “Yes,” he said, “but I’d like some whipped cream, and that’s three things. You’d better make a list.” She said she didn’t need to, and she shuffled on into the kitchen. She was gone for 20 minutes, and when she came back she brought him a plate of bacon and eggs. He looked at it a moment, looked back up to her, and said—“You forgot the toast!” Well, my wife and I are encountering more and more of those problems. A number of years ago when I was younger I preached a series of sermons here entitled “Aging Gracefully,” on the subject of what the Bible has to say about old age. I remember being hesitant to preach on that subject at all, because I was afraid all the senior adults would snicker at me. But the Bible talks so much about aging that I felt I at least could tell what the Bible said even if I wasn’t very aged myself. So I did my best. Now several years have passed, and I’m older than I’ve ever been—but still not exactly in old age; yet I still feel the same way. The Bible treats the subject of aging in a very positive and exciting way, and it’s a shame to miss all those verses. So I’d like to begin my message today by giving you an assortment of some of the passages in the Bible on the subject of aging, and then I want to zero in on one wonderful passage on this subject in the book of 2 Timothy. But to begin with, here are some verses I’ve gathered here and there in the Bible to demonstrate God’s overall view on this subject: Ø Isaiah 46:4: Even to your old age, I am He, and even to gray hairs I will carry you! I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.
Ø Proverbs 16:31: Gray hair is a crown of splendor; it is attained by a righteous life. Ø Leviticus 19:32: Rise in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly and revere your God. Ø
Job Ø Psalm 92:12-15: The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree; He shall grow like a cedar of Lebanon. Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bear fruit in old age; they shall be fresh and flourishing, to declare that the Lord is upright. Ø
Psalm 71:8-9, 14: My
mouth is filled with Your praise, declaring Your splendor all day long. Do not cast me away when I am old; do
not forsake me when my strength is gone… I will always have hope; I
will praise You more and more. Ø
2 Corinthians 4:16-17: Therefore
we do not lose heart. Though
outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by
day. For our light and momentary
troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. Ø
Titus 2:2-3: Teach
the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound
in faith, in love and in endurance.
Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they
live…. Then they can train the younger women. Ø
Ruth 4:15: He
will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. Ø
And then, of course,
there’s Psalm 23:6: Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Well, as we read through the letters of the Apostle Paul,
we come to realize that he was very aware of the aging process in his own
life. In 2 Corinthians he
referred several times to his increasing infirmities, and in the book of
Philemon he actually called himself an old man. We don’t know exactly how old
Paul was because we don’t know when he was born, but my guess is that
he was about fifty-five or sixty—which in today’s terms
isn’t very old. But in the
days of the Paul probably wrote the book of Philemon about AD 62, but he still had another five years or so of life and ministry remaining. Five hard years of labor, and then he penned his final book, which is 2 Timothy, and that’s the passage on which I’d like for us to focus our remaining time. As a young man very early in the ministry I decided to study 2 Timothy as carefully as I could; and when I found out it was the final letter of the apostle Paul, it totally changed the way I viewed that letter. It isn’t his last letter in terms of the arrangement in the Bible, because after 2 Timothy we still have Titus and Philemon. But in terms of chronology, Titus and Philemon were written before 2 Timothy, and the last paragraph of 2 Timothy is the last paragraph that Paul ever wrote so far as we have record. But in that last paragraph, we have a wonderful theology of the aging Christian and an example of the attitude that should characterize the aging saint. So that is our Scripture reading today, and I invite you to turn there and follow along as I read—2 Timothy 4:6-22: For I am already
being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my
departure. I have fought the good
fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown
of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge will award to me on
that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for His
appearance. Do your best to come
to me quickly, for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and
has gone to Thessalonica. Crescens
has gone to Alexander the
metalworker did me a great deal of harm.
The Lord will repay him for what he has done. You too should be on your guard
against him, because he strongly opposed our message. At my first defense,
no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them. But the Lord stood at my side and gave
me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all
the Gentiles might hear it. And I
was delivered from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every
evil attack and will bring me safely to His heavenly Kingdom. To Him be glory for ever and ever. Amen. This passage is rich and meaningful and personal and interesting, and there’s no way to do it justice in 25 minutes. So what I’d like to do is to pull out four phrases to give us a sample of Paul’s attitude about aging. Someone said that it’s attitudes and not arteries that make the difference, and it’d be hard to find a better example of that than Paul. On the one hand, he had a lot of problems, but on the other hand, what an attitude! Look at these four items that will serve as a framework for our message today. Ø My Departure – verse 6 Ø My Ministry – verse 11 Ø My Scrolls – verse 13 Ø My Side – verse 17 My Departure First, Paul was thinking a great deal about what he called here in verse 6, “my departure”: For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. He was talking about the fact that he was very close to death by martyrdom, but it is very significant that he does not use the word “death,” and he didn’t think in terms of dying. Death was a word he had little use for. Death didn’t express any sense of reality to him. He used the word “departure,” which means you’re on the move, your leaving one place and arriving at another. This is the same concept Paul used when he told the Philippians that he had a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better. The Greek word Paul used literally means to unloose. It was a traveler’s term and was used by sailors for loosing anchor and by soldiers for striking their tents. Now down in verse 18 he picks up on the same idea
again: The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me
safely to His heavenly kingdom.
To Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen. He was on death row, but he said, “The Lord will
rescue me from every evil attack.”
Paul was imprisoned in the imperial city of Sometimes you and I will pick out a metaphor at random to describe how we feel. We say, “I’m as sick as a dog,” or “I’m clowning around,” or “I feel tempest-tossed.” But the apostle Paul uses six different pictures in one breath to describe how he felt about himself as he sat there on death row in that Roman prison. Ø I feel like an offering – For I am already being poured out like a drink offering.
Ø I feel like a traveler – and the time has come for my departure. Ø I feel like a soldier – I have fought the good fight. Ø I feel like an athlete – I have finished the race. Ø I feel like a disciple – I have kept the faith. Ø I feel like a victor – Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day…. Even in the face of what we call death and what Paul calls departure, he was full of anticipation and expectation. My Ministry But the next term is “my ministry.” The apostle wasn’t about to stop
working until the very last moment.
Look at verses 9-12: Do your
best to come to me quickly, for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted
me and has gone to Thessalonica.
Crescens has gone to Here in There’s one sentence that is banned forever in this church and here it is—“I’m going to resign from my position at church and let the young people take over.” I’ve got news for you. They can’t do your job; they have their own to do. There’s plenty of work for us all! Not long ago, I was at a social function and happened to
meet the former governor of I nodded earnestly and thanked him for his advice, but all
the time I was wondering who my “handlers” would be when I retired. He just assumed that everybody has
“handlers.” Maybe he
was talking about our wives. But
it reminded me of what another man told me about retirement. “Retirement,” he said,
“is God’s way of freeing you up for further service.” I like that idea better. I have a friend who is sixty-five. Not long ago, he and his wife felt God was calling them to ministry, and they quit what they were doing, packed up like newly weds, and went off to seminary. Last year, he accepted his first pastorate, and he’s as excited he can be. The apostle Paul was old and sick and imprisoned and on trial for his life, but he was still sending his workers here and there across the kingdom and needing Mark and Timothy to come help him with what he called “my ministry.” God has a purpose for us all our days, and every day must be devoted to Him, for.. This one life will soon be past; Only what’s done for Christ will last. My Scrolls Along those same lines, look at what Paul said in the next
verse—2 Timothy 4:13—as he talked about what he called “my
scrolls”: When you come, bring the cloak that I left
with Carpus at Troas (most scholars take this as an indication that the
old apostle was suffering from cold in his prison dungeon, yet he
doesn’t complain about it) and my
scrolls, especially the parchments. This tells us that Paul’s mind was active and
he wanted to keep studying and learning and reading and growing, and how
important that is! I read a
newspaper article a couple of months ago about a great-great-grandmother in I
think my Uncle Walter Morgan was a good illustration of this. I knew and loved him all my life, but
he was old for as long as I knew him.
My grandparents up in Later,
when I began preaching as a young man, he listened to my sermons with great
interest and once told me I sounded more like my granddad than any preacher
he’d ever heard, which I took as a great compliment. My grandfather, Rev. William Lawson
Morgan, died in 1921. Uncle
Walter was the oldest of his eight children—the first to be born and
the last one to die (or depart).
And whenever I’d go over to his house on I Street, his kitchen
table would be filled with books—his Bible and his Bible dictionary and
his concordance and usually a prophecy book along with his notepad, and as
likely as not, a copy of the Jerusalem
Post newspaper. He prepared
all week to teach his Sunday School class, which was called the “Old
Women’s Class,” and that’s exactly what it was. He was the only man in the class, but
those old women all loved his being their teacher. As long as he was able he kept his
mind active through the study of the Bible. And that’s essential for all of
us. My Side Finally,
look at what Paul wrote in verses 16-17:
At my first defense, no one came
to my support, but everyone deserted me.
May it not be held against them.
But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength, so that through me
the message might be fully proclaimed…. We
aren’t sure what Paul meant by his “first defense” because
we don’t know anything about his legal status or the progress of his
case in the Romans legal system, but apparently there was a preliminary
hearing of some sort and it was very intimidating. Perhaps there were indications that
Paul and anyone with him would be tortured, killed, or thrown to the lions
(which Paul alludes to at the end of the verse). But
Paul said that he was just right being left alone, for the Lord came to be
with him; but he didn’t just say, “The Lord was with me,”
or “I felt the Lord’s presence.” He said, “The Lord stood at my
side.” What did he mean by
that? I believe that he meant the
spiritual presence of Christ (that is available to all believers through the
Holy Spirit) was so real to Paul that it was as though Jesus were actually
there standing beside him; and that awareness gave Paul the inner strength he
needed to remain calm and composed during the ordeal and to proclaim the
Gospel whenever he got half a chance.
The experience of Paul the apostle is the same that’s available
to every aging saint. We can
cultivate and come to know even more strongly the presence of Jesus sitting
in the room with us or standing by our side in times of need. Some
of the loneliest people in the world are senior citizens, and there’s a
certain amount of lonesomeness that comes with age. Sometimes our loved ones pass away;
sometimes our living arrangements change; sometimes we’re unable to
socialize as much as we once did.
But the presence of Jesus was never so real to Paul as during those
days, and the same is true for all of us in His will. E’en down to old age All My people shall prove My sovereign, eternal Unchangeable love And when whitened hairs Shall their temples adorn Like lambs they shall still In my bosom be borne Copyright StatementWe grant permission for any edition of The Pocket Paper to be photocopied for use in a local congregation or classroom, provided no more than 1,000 copies are made, the material is distributed free, and the copies include the notice: "Copyright (year) The Donelson Fellowship."For any other use, advance permission must be obtained from The Donelson Fellowship church office.Other messages are available from our website. Just click on the Pocket Papers link on our home page for a list of available messages. |
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