Life of David Part 68-The Lessons of Age

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

When she died on April the fifth , 1997, Mrs. Jean Kme of Ales France had lived longer than any person in modern history 122 years to be exact. She outlived her only daughter, she outlived her only grandchild. And Ms . Kme until, until over a hundred years old, attended opera, played tennis, roller skated, swam, hunted, and rode a bicycle. She regularly ate high fat goose, liver, duck, thighs, cheese, and two pounds of chocolate a week. And she smoked earlier in her life, but she quit at age 117. True. Now, when she was asked by a reporter on her 120th birthday, what kind of future do you expect to have? Her reply was a very short one. Well, she went on after that to make a very interesting comment though. And here's what she said. She said, my old age should not be impressive at all. She said, it is natural to grow old. Now folks here in America, growing old is not something that we consider natural or I hate to say valuable. In fact, just look on TV commercials. And what you will see is virtually all of them have young actors talking to young constituencies about the only time you'll ever see a senior in a television commercial is if they're advertising Viagra or prunes. That's about it. Now, when we look in the Bible, what we find, however, is that God has a completely different outlook on aging than we in America here do. And I want us to talk about that today and about some of the wonderful lessons that God teaches people through the passing of years. And so that's our plan for today . Let's begin, however, in the passage out of which this whole discussion flows, two Samuel 21. Little bit of background. Remember David has been the king of Israel now for over 30 years. David is somewhere in his mid sixties right now. And once again, war breaks out with the Philistines. And that's where we pick up the story. Chapter 21, verse 15, it says, and once again, there was a battle between the Philistines and Israel. And David went down with his men to fight against the Philistines, as was David's usual custom. He led the army out. He was at the head of the army of Israel as they marched out to war and friends. This was not just an attempt on David's part to be macho, no more than that. It was an expression of what good leadership is all about. Good leadership leads by example, speed of the leader, speed of the team . Good leadership doesn't ask anyone to do anything on the team that that person is a leader's not willing to do. And when you're sending troops into battle, a good leader doesn't say, go get 'em. A good leader says, follow me. And so even though he was gray-haired, even though he was 60 something king, David insisted on personally leading his troops into battle. The end of verse 15. And as the battle wore on David, he became exhausted. And Isbe Bonno , one of the descendants of Rafa , this is a Philistine warrior whose bronze spearhead weighed 300 shekels, seven and a half pounds, and it was armed with a new sword , said he would go and kill David. As the battle wore on, of course, David became weary and he became so weary that one of the Philistines was on the verge of slaying him. And the clear implication of the Bible here is that the Philistine would've killed him had it not been for what happens next, verse 17. But Aisha , who was Joe Abs brother, remember him, one of David's general's, Abishai, came to David's rescue and struck down the Philistine and killed him. Had it not been for Abishai stepping in, David would've lost his life in this battle. And this whole series of events really scared David's men . Look at the rest of verse 17. And then David's men swore to him saying, never again will you go out with us to battle. So that the lamp of Israel, that's what they're calling David. The lamp of Israel will not be extinguished. I mean these guys had come within a hair's breath of losing David. And remember what Joe Abbot said to David years before he said, David, if they killed half of us, it won't matter, but you are worth 10,000 of us, David. And that's the way his men felt. And so the men all rise up and they say, David, that's it . No more battles for you. If you wanna fight, you're gonna fight all by yourself. 'cause we're not going out anymore unless you stay home. That's it. Your military career is over king. And you know, folks, sometimes leaders become bigger than life. And after 30 years of being king, this is what had happened to David. The men referred to him as the lamp of Israel, and they said there was no way that they were going to let his advancing age lure him into a combat situation where he would end up getting himself killed. They weren't gonna do it. And so as much as David probably hated to admit it, and knowing David, I'll bet he really hated to admit it. He was aging and there were some losses that were associated with that aging. One of those losses was that he was no longer gonna have the ability to ride in the lead tank when they went out to battle anymore. So there are some losses associated with aging. And as all of us age, we sense we go through some of those very same losses. But you know, there are also some incredible gains that are associated with growing older. And you say Lon , well, what in the world might some of those gains be? Well, that's an important question that we want to answer, except that here at McLean Bible Church, we have a slightly different way of asking that question. You know, the way we ask that question here, you ready? 1, 2, 3. So what ? Alright, we say lon . So what? Listen, friends, as I said here in America, we don't generally look on aging as a positive thing, but the Bible does. The Bible has a very different outlook than American society. Listen to Proverbs chapter 20, verse 29. It says, the glory of young men is their strength, but the glory, the honor of older men is their gray hair. The Bible says there is something honorific, there is something beneficial, there is something advantageous about growing old. And you say, well lon , what in the world could that possibly be? Well, the Bible says that there are some lessons that we can only learn from age. There are some lessons we can only learn from having lots of hours of flying time, lots of hours in the cockpit, lessons that make us people of wisdom and experience and seasoned maturity. Folks, it is no mistake in the Bible that the leaders of the local church are called elders. That's not a mistake. It's not a misprint and it's not an accident. There is a recognition in the scripture that as people age, there are lessons. They learn that you simply can't learn as younger people. You can go to every seminar, you can read every book, you can take every course, but you just need some flying time. And the Bible recognizes that. And so in this audience this morning, the vast majority of you are younger than I am. And and I want to take a little bit of time as we close to share with you some of the lessons that God has taught me. I was born in 1948. I'll save you the trouble. I'm 51 years old and I've learned some things in 51 years of life. A lot of them I learned the hard way because I didn't have somebody older standing around telling me these things. So I stepped on the landmines. But I'm hoping that by telling you these things, perhaps even though many of you may be younger than I am, perhaps you can learn some of these lessons without having to learn 'em the hard way like I did. I mean, experience is a wonderful teacher. It's just that the tuition is really high and we want you to keep the tuition down. Okay? So let me tell you five things that I've learned, and may I say when we start, these are not the only five things I've ever learned. I don't want you to walk out here and go, man, I mean these in 50 years. This is all the guys learn . What an idiot. No, they're just the only ones I can get in in 20 minutes. Okay? So listen up. Listen . Number one, here's what I've learned. Number one, people are the most important thing in the world. That's one of the lessons God's taught me. Listen to Acts chapter 20, verse 28. Paul is giving his farewell speech to the elders, the leaders of the church of Ephesus. And you would think in your farewell speech, you're gonna tell people the most important issues. You're gonna cover the most important core values. So listen to what Paul says. Acts chapter 20, verse 28. He says, keep watch over yourselves and all the flock over which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers be shepherds of the church of God, which he Jesus Christ bought with his own blood. Now isn't it interesting where Paul's focus is on his farewell speech? Would you notice his focus is not on church budgets, building programs, denominational squabbles, attendance figures or numbers of baptisms? He doesn't even mention any of that. His focus is on the sheep. His focus is on people. He says, take care of these people. Watch over these people. Care for these people. Nurture and treasure these people whom Jesus bought with his own blood. That's your prime directive, fellas, because you see folks, no mission, no accomplishment, no objective, no task, no goal is important enough that it's worth damaging, hurting and misusing people. And you know, even though I might have known this in my head many, many years ago, it's taken me a number of years to finally get it, to really get it. But I got it. Thank God. Eventually I finally got it. And you know, that's why core value number one here at McLean Bible Church is that people matter to God and they matter to us. We try to make sure everything we do is done in light of this. Number one core value is done with this in mind. If you've been watching the Master's tournament this week down in Augusta, unbelievable the win , the weather. But you know, on the first two days of the tournament, they match people in threesomes instead of twosomes before the cut. And so this year, for the first time ever, there was a threesome matched up that consisted of the following. Three golfers, Jack, Nicholas , Gary, player and Arnold Palmer. Those three guys in the same threesome together, the three of them have won 13 masters tournaments and the crowds around them, the first two days the paper said was unbelievable. 10, 20, 25 people deep everywhere they went, people cheered for every shot. Even if they hit it in the woods, people roared for 'em, cheered for 'em. I mean, this was like an unbelievable event to see these three golf legends playing together for two days. But what really interested me the most was the attitude of the golfers, not the crowd. When they first met, the first day on the first tee, they all shook hands and embraced each other. They laughed, they joked when Jack Nicklaus was asked by reporter what was the most memorable pairing he had ever been in in the masters. He said, this one with Arnold Palmer and Gary Player. When player was asked how he felt, he said, and I quote, as the years go by, what we're doing here today is something you learn to appreciate. That is them all playing together. This brings back great memories of 40 to 45 years of the three of us walking down the fairways of Augusta. Now here's something interesting. These three guys are three of the most competitive individuals you will ever meet in your life. Some of the toughest competitors in the history of golf, when they were in their prime, these guys hardly even spoke to one another, hardly even acknowledge one another's presence. And now here they are, years later, embracing each other and saying that this is the best thing that's ever happened to 'em . The chance for the three of them to play together. What happened? Well, I'll tell you what happened. Friends growing older begins to redefine what's most important to you. And so as you heard Jack Nicholas say, as you heard Gary player say, no longer is the most important thing in their life winning golf tournaments. Now what they really treasure is the relationship that they have with one another. Because as you grow older, you begin to realize that the most important thing in the world is not golf tournaments, it's people. Lesson number two that I've learned is that every hill is not worth dying on. Every hill is not worth dying on. I love what happened with Jesus back in the gospel according to Luke. Listen Luke chapter four, here's what it says. Jesus had visited his hometown and it said, after he claimed to be the Messiah, all the people in the synagogue were furious When they heard this, they got up, they drove him out of town, they took him to the brow of the hill, which overlooks where the town was built in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way. Now, when we read this, isn't it true that part of us wants Jesus to rise up and say, okay, okay, you want to throw me off the cliff, bring it on, bring it on. You want me to show you who I really am? You want me to reveal my power and prove to you I'm the Messiah? Okay, well watch this. Kaboom . Then there are part of you that would like for him to have done that to these folks. Sure, but isn't it interesting, the Lord Jesus, he just walked away, walked away from the insults, walked away from the challenge to his authority, walked away from people who wanted to harm him because Jesus said, Hey, you know, I could win this battle if I wanted to, but not every hill's worth dying on. Now this is not a hill I want to die on. I'm just gonna walk away. And when you're young and when you're macho, and when you think you got the whole world by the tail , let me tell you something, you believe every hill's worth dying on. I've been there, I understand this. But as you get older, you begin to realize that's not true. After you get some years in the cockpit, you begin to realize that yes, there are some hills in the world worth dying on, but there's not nearly as many as you used to think there were. And that's wisdom. Wisdom is to walk away and not die on a hill. You don't have to. It's a lot easier and you take a lot less casualties just going around the hill. You don't have to go over it and take every single hill in front of you. Lesson number three I've learned is that timing is everything with God. With God. Timing is everything. Ecclesiastes chapter three, look what it says. It says, there is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven, a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal. And on and on and on the passage goes. But the point of the passage is that there are times and seasons in the way God runs his world and that everything doesn't have to be done yesterday. The Bible is clear, Isaiah 55, that God's ways are not our ways. God's thoughts are not our thoughts. And may I add God's timing is not our timing. And God has a timing to the way he does things that as you grow older, you begin to realize smart people wait on God's timing. They don't ram and jam and push things through. They wait on God's timing because God's timing, everything's perfect when you wait on God's timing. You know, my son Justin and I had the opportunity several years ago to go skiing together, just father and son deal out in Jackson, Wyoming, and we stayed with some friends there, but they kinda let us do whatever we want. And so we went into town one day and we went to Billy's burgers. Now, Billy's burgers is a fabulous place. I mean, they're the best hamburgers I've ever had, you know, in a long time. But one of the things I noticed is when you ordered a Billy Burger, you had it in about two and a half minutes, they flopped this thing on this grill that must have been about 5,000 degrees. And you had this burger in about two and a half minutes. In fact, you had it so quick we decided to have another one after the first one. 'cause you didn't have to wait all that long. Now the person running Billy's burger was a cook. But then we also went to some nicer restaurants out there where in two and a half minutes you couldn't even get your water where your food took a long time to come and everything came in courses and everything came very delicately prepared because they didn't have a cook there. They had a chef there. See, there's a difference between a chef and a cook. A cook just cooks it. A chef understands the importance of timing, of stewing, of simmering, of letting things go until the timing is perfect. Now, what I'm trying to say to you here, God is not a cook. God is a chef. And there are times where things just need to simmer. And there are times when things just need to stew in order for the flavor to be right. And we are all cooks, every one of us. We want it, we want it now, right now, come on, we want it now. We don't wanna wait. God's not a cook. He's a chef and smart people. As you grow older, you'll learn to realize that. And if the chef says it's not ready yet, then guess what? It's not ready yet. And if you try to eat it too soon, you'll mess it up. You gotta wait. That's what you learn as you grow. Lesson number four is that some failure in life is a good thing. Some failure in life is a good thing. Listen to Proverbs, if you would. Proverbs chapter 30, and I wanna read to you beginning at verse eight. We'll put it on the screen for you. Here's what it says, Proverbs chapter 30, beginning at verse eight. It says, give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread because if you give me too much, I'm gonna disown you and I'm gonna say, who is the Lord? Or if you give me too little, I'm gonna steal and dishonor the name of my God. Now, we all as followers of Jesus Christ will agree that too much failure is not good for us. We all agree with that. But what the Bible's also telling us is that too much success is not good for us either. Jesus said, whoever exalts himself shall be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be exalted. God rewards humility. That's clear in the Bible. And friends, nobody, look here, nobody ever got humble from success. It has never happened. It is never gonna happen. Success only crosses us to grow more self-sufficient, more arrogant, more haughty. And as Proverbs 30 says, when that happens, there's a tendency to disown the Lord, to deny the Lord, and to engage in behavior that God has to humble. But see, failure is a whole different story. Failure brings us to the end of ourselves. Failure drives us to our knees. Failure forces us to depend on the Lord and not ourselves. Failure humbles our high opinion of ourselves and follow my logic. Now, since God wants to exalt every follower of Jesus Christ and he does. And since God blesses and exalts the humble, and he does, and since failure is what causes us and teaches us to be humble and it does, then the result of all of this is a statement that some failure in life is good, is beneficial. It's helpful. You know, during the Olympics, several years ago, Nike ran a commercial that simply said this. It said, you don't win silver, you lose gold. You don't win silver. You lost the gold medal. You didn't win the silver medal, you lost the gold medal. Now, I don't know about you. I thought about that a lot and it haunts me that commercial haunts me because whether we realize it or not, what we're hearing in this commercial is a defining value of modern American society. A value that says only losers lose. Only failures fail. You didn't win silver. There's no redeeming value in silver. You lost gold. There's no redeeming value in failure or setbacks. All failure is bad. That's what you're hearing now friends, that mentality is crept into American Christianity. There's a book out recently called God Wants You Well and that All Sickness is Not from God. It's a curse of the devil that we need to shake off, you know, name it and claim it the prosperity gospel. You know, if in doubt, cast it out. That kind of thinking. Now, let me say to you that this is not true. In fact, I've thought about writing a book. Sometimes God wants you sick. I don't know if I'll sell many copies of that, but But it's true. It's true. All sickness, all failure, all setbacks, all loss is not from the devil. It is not completely out of keeping with the will of God. I have learned in my 51 years that failure is a doorway through which God teaches humility, through which God gets the freedom to exalt and bless our lives. Now, none of us want to hear that. We don't want to hear that. But that is just as biblically true as the deity of Jesus Christ, that some failure in life is good . You say, well, wow , Lon , I'm so glad I came today. I'm thoroughly depressed right now, <laugh> . Well, no, let me tell you number five, this'll help you some. Number five, lesson number five that I've learned is this, that Romans 8 28 always comes true for the followers of Jesus Christ. What does Romans 8 28 say? It says, God causes all things to work together for good to those who love him. And one of the things I've learned in 51 years of living is that this verse always, always, always comes true for followers of Jesus Christ. That yeah, God may send some failure. Yeah, God may send some setback. Yeah, God may send some loss and tragedy into your life, but give God the time and he'll turn it into a blessing in your life. Now, God's not saying in this verse that everything is good. He didn't say that. What he said is he'll take the good and the bad and the ugly and he'll work it all together and produce something beautiful in your life if you'll just give him the time. And the problem with so many of us is we jump into quick and we try to decide whether God's keeping his promise. We're a minute and a half into some kind of trouble and we decide it's time to evaluate whether God's doing what he said he was gonna do for us. Folks, you cannot

Speaker 2 23:44

Decide a minute and a half or a day or two days into trouble whether God has been true to his word. You haven't given him enough time yet. Sometimes you can't decide it in a week. Sometimes you can't decide it in a month. Sometimes you can't decide it in a year. Sometimes it may take a decade before you can see what God was up to. But I'm here to tell you , after 51 years of doing this, 30 of them is a follower of Christ. You give God the time, he will always be true to his promise. He'll turn it into good. We were at the doctor's office with my little girl, Jill, her neurologist that we go to see locally here is a Jewish doctor. And we've gotten to be friends with him. He's treated her for eight years. He's a wonderful doctor. And we've kind of struck up a friendship. Some of the other people here in our church family also bring their children to him. And so as we were sitting there talking, my wife Brenda asked him, said, well , you know, doc, I mean what's really the long-term prognosis for our daughter? My daughter, as you know, has a severe seizure problem, is mentally retarded, is severely delayed. And so he said, well, he said, you know, children like that. He said, eventually they end up in a wheelchair very often. And it's not the seizure disorder that gets 'em , it's pneumonia or urinary tract infection or something else. He said, but to be honest with you , you know, I would not think she's gonna have the kinda lifespan of a normally developing person. And we said, well, that's kind of what we suspected. And I said to him, you know, I said, I have to tell you though, whatever God does with Jill, she's been a blessing in our life. And he said, well, that's very noble of you to say that. I said, no, no, no, you don't get it. I'm not being noble. I'm telling you the truth. I believe that because I have seen Jill change my life. I have seen her suffering change my marriage. I have seen her suffering change the lives of my three boys. I have seen Jill's problems change our church. I have seen Jill's problems generate a ministry here to hundreds of children like her that never would've happened if Jill hadn't come along. And I have seen us begin to touch churches all over the United States to do the same thing in their communities. This girl has been a blessing. And I said to him, you know, if God were to ask me to go back eight years and to make the choice whether to give us Jill again, or we could skip it if we didn't warn her, I said, I have to honestly tell you , I would ask for God to give us Jill again, even though it's been very hard and very painful because the good that has come from this, I'm beginning to see it. I said, now, doc, I couldn't have told you that five years ago. I'm not even sure I could have told you that two years ago. But I can tell you that today, and friends, maybe you have a Jill in your life where if you look at it right now, maybe you can't think of one good thing that's coming from the suffering and the heartache and the pain that you're going through. But I'm here to tell you don't, don't judge God too soon. Give him a chance. If I'd have judged God five years ago, I would've said the same thing. But you gotta give him a chance to work out his perfect plan. And if you do, I'm here to tell you, after 30 years of walking with Jesus Christ, Romans 8 28 always, always, always comes true because it's the promise of God. If you're here and you've never trusted Jesus Christ as your personal savior, may I say to you that one of the things you get when you trust Christ is you don't just get a ticket to heaven. You get wonderful promises like this. And this is the kind of promise that suddenly takes the randomness and the suffering and the nonsense of this world and makes some sense out of it to have the assurance that there's a God running your affairs who's gonna work them all together for good. I don't know how anybody faces life without knowing that that's true. And that's a promise God doesn't make to the whole world. It's a promise he makes to followers of Jesus Christ. So if you're here and you're not a follower of Jesus Christ, one of our goals for you is to bring you to that decision point so you can have this promise for your life. And I hope you'll help us and work with us. 'cause that's what we want to do with you. Well, let's summarize. What are some lessons you learn as you grow older? Number one, that people are the most important thing in the world. Number two, that every hill is not worth dying on. Number three, that timing is everything. Let God be the chef and learn to wait on God. Number four, that some failure in life is a good thing. It's okay. And number five, because Romans 8 28 always comes true for followers of Jesus Christ. And I hope that this has been of some help, and that for those of you who are younger or older, that you will really base your life around these kinds of lessons. Maybe you could learn 'em faster than I did. I hope you can. Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, thanks for a wonderful opportunity to talk about growing old. And Lord, thanks for reminding us today that there's something honorific, there's something blessed and advantageous about aging if we allow you at the same time to teach us wisdom. And these are principles of wisdom that come from time in the cockpit that I pray Lord would benefit every one of us who are here, take these principles and change the way we live, change our value system, and make us seasoned men and women of God. And I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.