7/12/23

This has been a sentimental summer for me. During our “Camp Meeting Days,” we’ve sung songs I remember singing as a kid and at a convention I reconnected with folks I haven’t seen in 40 years! 

While I was traveling, I saw one of the boys who grew up in my Athens congregation, whom I hadn’t seen in several years – more years than I realized!  Anthony usually sends me a card or at least a text on Father’s Day, but this year . . . nothing. Since I was passing through his town, I thought it’d be fun to just show up at his front door unannounced and ask, “Where’s my card?” When I knocked on his door, he was in the middle of gluing something one of his kids broke  and was so surprised to see me he forgot what he was doing and glued his fingers together! 

We had a great, short and enlightening visit. He and his wife are very health conscious and he told me about a new gym they were going to. . . and then started complaining about the skimpy clothes worn by the college girls there. 

I couldn’t help but laugh at him! This was NOT the same Anthony I knew when he was in school!

I asked him how old he was now (39 – which made me want to go lie down because I was thinking something more like 29), and I told him he is now the same age I was when I was his pastor. . . back when he was the same age as these college girls he was complaining about. Then he needed to lie down!

Getting older changes your perspective, doesn’t it! 

And some will say, “age is just a number,” which is true. . . until you’ve been sitting down for a long time and then (try to) stand up! Then you realize age is a bit more than just a number! I’ve learned that as you get older, you have to make certain adjustments to your lifestyle (mostly giving up stuff like salt, caffeine and sleep).

Another thing I have learned and am still learning is that age means nothing to God. 

In Joshua 13, about midway through the book, we read: “Now Joshua was old and advanced in years.” If that is not enough, in the next verse the Lord tells Joshua, “You are old and advanced in years.” 

If the Ancient of Days, the eternal God who existed long before the dawn of creation tells you that you are old and advanced in years, then you can mark it down: you are old and advanced in years! But what does God say to him next? “It’s time for you to think about slowing down? It’s time for you to retire? It’s time for you to step aside and make room for younger leaders?”

Nope. 

God says, “You are old and advanced in years, and there remains yet very much land to possess.” And then verse after verse, God lists all the land this old man was to conquer. 

How was he to do it? How could he – Joshua who was old and advanced in years, with all the wonderful aches and pains and other unexpected joys of getting older – serve God? Ten chapters later we find out:

“A long time afterward, when the Lord had given rest to Israel from all their enemies all around, and Joshua was old and well advanced in years [did we need to be reminded?], Joshua summoned all Israel, their elders and heads, their judges and officers, and said to them, “I am now old and well advanced in years [almost sounds like he’s bragging]; and you have seen all that the Lord your God has done to all these nations for your sake, for it is the Lord your God who has fought for you.”

“A long time afterward,” means by now he’s REALLY old and well advanced in years! But he can look back on all that was accomplished, even when he’s an old man, and he knows that it certainly wasn’t in his own strength. He tells them, “it was the Lord you God who has fought for you.” 

What was “old-and-advanced-in-years” Joshua’s role in all this? To be faithful. And so now, as he’s about to die, Joshua urges the people to stay faithful to God, promising them “One of you will put a thousand to flight, since it is the Lord your God who fights for you, as he promised you.” 

God often uses what the world would consider small and insignificant (and old and redundant) to accomplish His will. We see this over and over in the Bible. David was the youngest son, the “runt of the litter” pretty-boy musician who became Israel’s greatest king. In the New Testament, Jesus took a young boy’s lunch, 5 hushpuppies and 2 sardines, and fed a multitude. Despite their constant failings, God used the disciples to shake the world. John was probably in his 80’s when he oversaw the 7 churches in the book of Revelation.  

“Little is much when God is in it,” the old camp meeting song reminds us.

And Joshua, who in his very advanced years was able to look back and say, “not one thing has failed of all the good things that the Lord your God promised concerning you; all have come to pass for you, not one of them has failed” (23:14). And he knew it to be true because he was there, serving God faithfully all along – even when he was old and well advanced in years. 

We can all serve in God’s kingdom. The only requirement is a willing heart . . . even one that’s been beating for a while. 

Blessings,
Pastor Terry