There have always been two age groups that have brought a great amount of joy and cheer to my life, children and the elderly. The post today is about the latter. There is something about growing older in Jesus that absolutely gets me excited. There is something about getting closer to heaven that just thrills my heart. Aging in Him is a good God thing. It sure beats the alternative.

ILLUSTRATION: How You Know You Are Getting Older
Everything hurts! and what doesn’t hurt, doesn’t work!
You feel like the night before, and you haven’t been anywhere!
You sit in a rocking chair and you can’t get it going!
Your knees buckle and your belt won’t!
Dialing long distance wears you out!
Your fortune teller offers to read your face!
The little gray haired lady you help across the street is your wife!
You sink your teeth into a steak, and they stay there!
You wake up in the morning and your water bed has sprung a leak, and you realize you don’t have a water bed!
When you watch a pretty girl go by, your pace-maker makes the garage door go up!
When you know all the answers, and no one asks you the questions!
When you decide to procrastinate, but never get around to it! ¹.

1 Timothy 4:13 (KJV)
13 Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.

• Reading is important.

ILLUSTRATION: How much time does it take to read from Genesis to Revelation?
If you would read the Bible at standard pulpit speed (slow enough to be heard and understood) the reading time would be seventy-one hours. If you would break that down into minutes and divide it into 365 days you could read the entire Bible, cover to cover, in only twelve minutes a day. Is this really too much time to spend reading about God?

• In order to read, you have to have an established vocabulary. When you went through your early grades at school, you had to learn to recognize words in order to learn to read.
• Reading is important but so is vocabulary.
• You know reading the Bible is one thing.
• Understanding what you are reading is an entirely different thing.
• You know that’s one of the ways people knew that something happened to you when you first came to Jesus.
  • Your vocabulary was different.
  • You started using different words.
  • People who knew you before you said to Jesus knew that you never used such words.
• You started using words like…
  • “Bible”,
  • like “saved”,
  • like “thank you Jesus”,
  • like “Hallelujah”.
• When people attend schools of higher learning, they come out using a higher level of words and you can tell where they have been.
• The same thing with believers in God.
• When people hear you, they know where you have been.
• When you enter God’s school of learning and you learn your godly ABC’s, you learn words like…
  • Redeem
  • Righteousness
  • Justification
  • Sanctification
• On the website, you will find some blog posts on ‘Big Bible Words’ where I tried to help people increase their spiritual vocabulary.
• Well how many of you know that just because you know a few Bible words that doesn’t mean that your spiritual vocabulary is completed.
• So, let’s look at a Bible word today, that may not be in your spiritual arsenal: the word ‘Elder’.

2 John 1 (KJV)
1 The elder unto the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the truth; and not I only, but also all they that have known the truth;

DEFINITION: elder – An older man/women – aged –

• As we talk about this today, we are not going to look at the ministry use of the word ‘elder’ that is another subject. We are simply going to look at the term elder as it relates to older age.
• The term never meant, which is why some of us in this generation need to go back to the school of the Spirit of God, and learn some vocabulary,
• The word never meant…
  • Old-fashioned
  • Feeble
  • Weak
  • Unimportant
  • Nothing to contribute
• I know in some people’s minds that’s what it seems to mean, but it never meant that in the Bible.
• As this word evolved in the culture of the Jews, it became a word associated with respect.
• What should Elder mean?

Elder Should Mean ‘Respected One’

• I have said this before and I will continue to say it to this generation, the kingdom of God is built on respect.
• Elders, older saints in Jesus should be and must be respected.
• Why?
• For the sacrifices that they made to raise their children.
• Parents of course should be respected also because what is a parent anyway?
• Isn’t a parent an elder in training?
• Why should older saints be respected?
• Shouldn’t they be respected for the contributions they have made to society?
• Just about the time that you say that some young person who thinks they are so smart will say ‘Yeah but we didn’t ask to be here’.
• So you think, it’s the parents fault that you were born do you?
• Let me deal with that:
• First of all it’s never a ‘fault’ when a child is born.
• You are alive young person because God wants you here.
• Your eternal spirit did not come from your parents, it came from God.
• You’re here because you were meant to be here; because God wants you here; because there is a great plan for your life and you are supposed to be here.
• Parents are simply the vehicle that God used to get you here.
• So if its anybody’s fault, its Gods fault.
• Let say this a little differently, respect is love in demonstration.
• There is no love without respect

Ephesians 5:33 (ESV)
33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

• Notice this verse does not insinuate that wives should not love their husbands – it reiterates how they should love them.
• It is easy to make this statement because there is no love without respect.
• Respect is love in plain clothes.
• Mark it down – The best thing to give…
  • To your enemy is forgiveness;
  • To an opponent, tolerance;
  • To a friend, your heart;
  • To your child, a good example;
  • To your parents, conduct that will make them proud of you;
  • To the elderly, respect;
  • To all men, charity.
• One of my favorite verses in the Bible is this verse in Lev. 19:32. It just does something to me every time I hear it.

Leviticus 19:32 (ESV)
32 “You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am the Lord.

• Two things you should note in this verse.
• Sorry, don’t mean to burst your bubble but everyone on planet earth is on the path to gray headedness!
• Second, notice the Lord put honoring the aged and reverencing God in the same sentence.
• What else should elder mean?

Elder Should Mean Story Teller

• Elders are the holders of tradition.
• There are some traditions that are good and right and godly.
• The Bible was transmitted through them.
• God stories came through the elders.

Deuteronomy 6:1–8 (KJV)
1 Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the Lord your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it: 2 That thou mightest fear the Lord thy God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son’s son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged. 3 Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it; that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath promised thee, in the land that floweth with milk and honey. 4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: 5 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. 6 And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: 7 And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. 8 And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.

• The reason we even know anything about God today is because people, especially older people, told how God interacted with them in their everyday lives.
• I will say this unequivocally, the older you get the more God stories you should tell.
• Tell the story of how God worked miracles in your life.
• Then this generation will know that God is a miracle working God.
• Tell the story of God answered your pray.
• Then this generation will know that our God is a prayer answering God.
• Tell the story of how God clothed you; how God fed you; how God brought you out; took you over and carried you through.
• Then this generation will know that the Lord can be trusted to do all of these things for them.
• Mark it down, don’t ever forget it, if God did it for Mama, if God it for Papa, God will do it for you.
• Those of you that are growing older:
• Tell the story
• In Joshua 3, Israel crosses over into Canaan.
• They approach this new land with a new leader.
• There is only one problem, the Jordan River is in the way.
• The Jordan is at flood level because of all the melting snow.

Joshua 3:15 (KJV)
15 And as they that bare the ark were come unto Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bare the ark were dipped in the brim of the water, (for Jordan overfloweth all his banks all the time of harvest,)

• This may seem to be a problem, but not for God.
• He splits the Jordan River not only solving one problem, that is how we get an entire nation of people across a flooded River but also He solves a second problem, that is establishing a new spiritual leader in the eyes of the people. And not only that, God solves a third problem with the same miracle. He puts a fear of Israel into the hearts of the Canaanites.
• Now, what does the Lord instruct them to do next? We find the answer to that in Joshua 4.
• The Lord instructs them to take 12 stones out of the riverbed and set them up on the other side of Jordan.
• Why?

Joshua 4:20–24 (KJV)
20 And those twelve stones, which they took out of Jordan, did Joshua pitch in Gilgal. 21 And he spake unto the children of Israel, saying, When your children shall ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean these stones? 22 Then ye shall let your children know, saying, Israel came over this Jordan on dry land. 23 For the Lord your God dried up the waters of Jordan from before you, until ye were passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red sea, which he dried up from before us, until we were gone over: 24 That all the people of the earth might know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty: that ye might fear the Lord your God for ever.

• So, the older ones can tell the story of God’s power.
• What was the result? Judges 2:7 tells us.

Judges 2:7 (KJV)
7 And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord, that he did for Israel.

Elder Should Mean Transmitter of Values.

• We are responsible for maintaining godly values.
• Here is exactly where the pride of youth can become a problem.
• Young people may think that older peoples values are old-fashioned and not ‘in’.
• Is consecration old fashioned?
• Is commitment old fashioned?
• Look at the divorce rate today and you can readily see that this generation knows nothing about commitment.
• I am here to tell you that commitment is not old-fashioned.
• What about dedication?
• Isn’t that a godly value that we should maintain?
• Hanging in there and staying with your word, staying with God’s Word is not an old-fashioned concept.
• What about sanctification?
• What about being separated unto God?
• What about making decisions about what you do and don’t do simply because you are a child of God and do not wish to dishonor God or leave a bad example for someone.
• Being separated unto Him is not old-fashioned.
• What about holiness?
• What about purity?
• What about dressing discreetly instead of publicly showing everything God blessed you with?
• When I was raising my girls, I was constantly telling them to cover up!
• Sharon and I constantly monitoring what our kids were watching, what our kids were listening to, who my kids are hanging out with.
• Why? Because every generation has to learn these concepts.
• Purity is never old-fashioned.
• What about following the will of God?
• How is that going to be solved?
• It is not going to be solved by the elders standing back and saying how bad it is that the young people don’t know.
• It is not going to be solved by our standing around and bemoaning how bad it is that this generation doesn’t understand.
• If they don’t hear these things from the elders of this generation – who are they going to hear them from?

Ezra 3:10–13 (KJV)
10 And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, they set the priests in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise the Lord, after the ordinance of David king of Israel. 11 And they sang together by course in praising and giving thanks unto the Lord; because he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever toward Israel. And all the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. 12 But many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice; and many shouted aloud for joy: 13 So that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people: for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard afar off.

• Note the reaction of the elders that lived to see the first temple versus those that were only around for the second.

Elder Should Mean Leader

• The word originally meant ‘older person’ but because they were respected, because they were the holders of tradition and the transmitter of values, they naturally became the heads of families.
• It’s easy for the elder to be leaders
• One good thing about becoming ninety years old is that you’re not subject to much peer pressure.
• By the time Exodus rolls around (3:16) the elders of Israel are seen as representatives of the whole nation.
• Do you remember that “nothing to contribute” was one of the words used to describe ‘elder at the beginning of this post?’ In fact, in the nation of Israel, the opposite was true.
• The elders were literally running the whole nation.
• As the word comes into the New Testament, the elders were classed with the scribes and Pharisees.

Matthew 15:2 (KJV)
2 Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread.

• All of which goes to show you that old age is not a guarantee for wisdom and spiritual discernment.

Job 32:7 (KJV)
7 I said, Days should speak, And multitude of years should teach wisdom.

• Notice it says ‘age should speak.’
• It doesn’t mean that it always does.
• Later on the church picked up on this same theme and you see elders being set over churches (Acts 20:17-28).
• Elders you see were and should be leaders
• It’s not the young that should just be leading us, it is the old.
• Why should the young have all the fun anyway?

ILLUSTRATION: The Elderly and Toys
A distinguished elderly gentleman, walking through the toy department, stopped to admire a toy train. It whistled, belched smoke, deposited milk cans, in fact did virtually everything a real freight train does. After looking at it for some time he finally said, “I’ll take it. Please have it wrapped.” The clerk said, “Fine, I’m sure your grandson will love it.” The elderly gentleman said thoughtfully, “That’s right. Maybe you’d better give me two of them.”

• God calls the young because they are strong and the old because they know the way.

Call to Action:
Between the ages of seventy and eighty-three Commodore Vanderbilt added about 100 million to his fortune.
Kant at seventy-four wrote his Anthropology, Metaphysics of Ethics, and Strife of the Faculties.
Tintoretto at seventy-four painted the vast Paradise, a canvas seventy-four by thirty feet.
Verdi at seventy-four produced his masterpiece, Otello; at eighty, Falstaff; and at eighty-five, the famous Ave Maria, Stabat Mater and Te Deum.
Lamarck at seventy-eight completed his great zoological work, The Natural History of the Invertebrates.
Oliver Wendell Holmes at seventy-nine wrote Over the Teacups.
Cato at eighty began the study of Greek.
Goethe at eighty completed Faust.
Tennyson at eighty-three wrote Crossing the Bar.
Titian at ninety-eight painted his historic picture of the Battle of Lepanto.

People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest in life wrinkles the soul.
You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair.
In the central place of every heart there is a recording chamber. So long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, and courage–so long are you young.
When your heart is covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then, and only then are you grown old–and then, indeed, as the ballad says, you just fade away.

Question: So, what do you think about growing older in Jesus? Does it excite you? If it does would you leave a comment in the comments section below?