-Mature Livers |
from The Donelson Fellowship Our world is becoming more and more bizarre, and I can prove it. The Wall Street Journal recently carried an article titled, "Statistics Confirm It: The World is Getting Weirder and Weirder." The article, datelined London, said: These are weird times. In fact, the times are a full 3.5% weirder than they were just a year ago. That is the conclusion of the Fortean Times, a London-based magazine dedicated to the study of all things bizarre. The journal (has compared) thousands of zany happenings in 1992 and 1993 and declares that the overall strangeness index has risen. Among the curiosities of 1993: A trash bin belonging to the London borough of Lewisham was found beside the Sea of Galilee. Sixty lambs in Germany were attacked and killed by hundreds of crows. Swedish doctors cured a deaf man by removing a 47-year-old bus ticket from his ear. A Chinese city (became) convinced that a giant deranged robot from America was killing and sucking the blood of people who wore red. "People are more and more erratic," says the editor. "There are just such stupid extremes of behavior." There are early signs that 1994 may be even weirder than 1993... As if to confirm this story, the same newspaper in a totally separate front-page article discussed a new trend among young people -- toad-licking. It said that a small but growing segment of the drug culture has taken up the bizarre practice of licking toads and ingesting toad venom. The venom contains dozens of chemically active compounds, including enough poison to kill dogs that sometimes catch the "warty little hoppers." Apparently, it gives humans some sort of high. That is, if you don't croak first. Well, in a world so bizarre that people are licking toads to find some kind of diverting emotion -- who should be the stable ones? Who should be the mature ones? Who should be wise and winsome and dignified and worthy of emulation? Who are the mature livers? Titus 2:1-3 tells us: You must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine. 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, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. This passage gives us God's profile for senior adults, a beautiful picture of maturing Christian. These three verses begin with one instruction, then they list nine character traits, and end with one assignment. Learn The opening instruction, given three times, is for Titus to teach senior adults -- with the obvious implication that senior adults should learn the things Titus would teach them: You must teach them what is in accord with sound doctrine. Teach the older men... Teach the older women.... In other words, older people are teachable, fully capable of learning, of feeding on the words of sound doctrine. The word that Paul used here for sound is the Greek word hugias from which our English term hygiene stems. This is a word that primarily means healthy or health-producing or healing. This is the word Matthew used when he said that the crippled man Jesus touched became well. This is the word Jesus used when he told the woman in Mark's Gospel, Your faith has healed you. This is the same term used by our Lord when he said in Luke's Gospel, It is not the healthy who need a doctor.... It's primarily a medical word, so Paul was saying that older people should stay spiritually healthy by regular intake of the Word of God. I recently read a report about cookbooks in America. Nearly 1000 of them are published each year, many of them glossy, full-color, and very expensive. But at the same time, fewer and fewer people are cooking, and increasing numbers are eating in restaurants. The reporter interviewed one lady, a portfolio manager in New York, who has acquired 16 cookbooks in the last four years and who subscribes to two cooking magazines. But the last time she prepared a sit-down mean was four years ago, "and," she said, "it didn't turn out." Well, there are more Bible translations, study aids and devotional books now than ever. Christian publishing is a big business in America. But for all that, people are reading and studying their Bible less and less. Titus wanted to change that. He wanted to turn the older people of Crete into fresh learners, drawing them into a diet of healthy doctrine. We're never to old to study God's Word. As we do, what happens? Nine different character traits begin to develop in our lives. The first three are given in verse 2: You must teach what is in accord with (health-producing) doctrine. Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled. Temperate, Worthy of Respect, Self-Controlled A current movie depicts seniors as being "Grumpy Old Men," based on the assumption of older men are irritable and crusty -- though with a tender heart beneath it all. But the Lord tells us here that seniors shouldn't be ill-tempered, but temperate. What does that mean? It's a tough word to define. In the Greek it originally related to staying sober, of not becoming intoxicated; but it seems to have the broader meaning of being self-controlled and moderate in one's overall lifestyle. The dictionary defines temperate as: marked by moderation, as keeping within limits; not extreme or excessive; mild, moderate in indulgence of appetite or desire. If you live in a temperate zone, you live in a part of the country that normally doesn't experience extremes of weather. You don't live in the Arctic on the one hand, or in the Sahara on the other. Well, as we grow older our extremes should level out. We mature, stabilize, learn to be moderate. We learn to get reasonable amounts of exercise and sleep; we watch our diets and eat wisely; we shouldn't over-react to things we don't like; we shouldn't become over-excited about the things we do like. Temperate people take things in stride, and leads a healthy, balanced, moderate living -- being temperate, worthy of respect, and self-controlled. Sound in Faith, Love, and Endurance The next three qualities are given in verse 2: We should be sound in faith, love, and endurance. The word sound here is the same term we saw in verse 1 -- hygias, hygienic, healthy. As we grow older, we may begin to lose our physical health, but it's more than compensated by the fact that our spiritual health is increasing in inverse proportion. The older we grow, the weaker we may become physically, but the healthier we should grow spiritually. Our faith in God has built itself up over a lifetime, and we are healthy in faith, in love, and in endurance. The word endurance is especially meaningful. It's a Greek word that literally means to remain under, or to remain behind. Those possessing endurance remain under the load, able to remain behind after others have departed, able to bear up, to endure patiently. In other words, the older we become the tougher, the stronger we are, because we're backed up by a lifetime of faith in Jesus Christ. Several years ago, I read about a man in China that I've never forgotten. They call him Father Jonah, and he's an independent itinerant evangelist, originally from Shanghai who, though in his mid-70's, maintains a killer-schedule. A reporter once met Father Jonah in Shanghai as the evangelist was collecting a 60-pound package of Bibles to take into the interior. The weight almost bent the older man to the ground, but he staggered with it to the railway station and boarded a train for Henan Province. The reporter watched Father Jonah witness freely throughout the duration of the 20-hour rail trip, pulling out his frayed Bible and taking the passengers through it book by book. When they disembarked, Father Jonah and the reporter mounted old rusty bicycles, and for three hours they pedaled, the older man still bearing his package of Bibles. They arrived at the village, grabbed two tin pots, and started banging them together. When the crowd of 200 villagers assembled, Father Jonah spoke for nearly an hour about the Lord, and about 50 men and women prayed to become Christians. He spent the rest of the day with three converts that he had selected to lead the new little church, giving them a crash course in Christian doctrine. That evening, he had to flee from the village because someone on the train had reported him as being a Christian, and the authorities were on his trail. They pedaled for four more hours, boarded a bus after a very narrow escape at the station, and continued to another preaching spot. By the end of the weekend, the reporter was exhausted; but Father Jonah was ready to head out again, one step ahead of the Communists, bearing witness and taking Bibles from village to village, serving as missionary and apostle to new and growing churches. He had found his seventies the strongest, most effective period thusfar in his life for Christ and his kingdom. Now that's an unusual example, but it illustrates a true point: The aging process should find us growing increasingly healthy in faith, love, and endurance. And very often, that faith, love, and endurance provides the stamina we need for pressing on physically. Reverent, Not Slanderers or Addicts The Apostle Paul then proceeds in verse 3 to give us a final trio of qualities: "Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine." In other words, older saints should never lose the wonder of God's power and grace. They should have, as the Greek puts it, a reverent demeanor or deportment, a quiet appreciation for God and his power. They should feel a sense of awe and wonder in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that sense of awe bestows a certain poise and polish, an elegance of spirit. The Good News Bible translates it: Instruct the older women to behave as women should who lead a holy life. Teachers Now, if seniors learn the Word of God, and grow in these nine graces, then they're the world's most eligible applicants to be teachers for God: to teach what is good, as Paul puts it at the end of verse 3. That entire phrase is one, long word in the Greek which is a compound word coming from the terms good and to be a teacher. In other words, the older we grow, the more wisdom we have to share. The more qualified we are to teach. The more obligated we are to minister. It's the prime time in our service to the king. I'd like to conclude this series by sharing with you the finest picture of the joys of aging that's ever been written (apart from God's Word). John Bunyan wrote a famous Christian classic called Pilgrim's Progress that tells the story of a man -- Christian -- who travels from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City. All along the way, he encounters hardships and dangers all along the way until the road winds through it's final territory before reaching the Celestial City, a wonderful place called Beulah Land. According to Bunyan, the fields and hillsides of Beulah Lard are filled with orchards, vineyards, orchards, and gardens, their gates all opening onto the highway. They belong to the King of the Celestial City and are planted to refresh weary pilgrims as they approach the gates of heaven. The air in Beulah Land is very sweet and pleasant, and the pilgrims continually hear the singing of birds. Flowers bloom across the fields, and the sky is clear, the sun always bright. Pilgrims here are within sight of the Celestial City, for Beulah Land borders heaven, and its occupants rejoice more than those in other, more remote parts of the pilgrimage. Beulah Land was Bunyan's way of describing the Biblical truth that the best days are always ahead of us, that the path of the righteous grows brighter and brighter until that coming day. In God's scheme of things, the golden years are the best, the richest, the most mature. The world is growing weirder and weirder, but Christians, as they age, provide stability and wisdom and strength on a planet increasingly bizarre. Christians view aging from an exactly opposite perspective as the world, for Christians know that for us the best is yet to be, and the finest days are still to come. So let our songs abound and every tear be dry. We're marching through Immanual's ground. We're marching through Immanual's ground. We're marching through Immanual's ground. To fairer worlds on high.
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