How “Special Persons” Stay Fresh and New

The oldest person on the planet died this past Tuesday.

Sister André, a French nun, and the world's oldest known person, lived through two world wars and the 1918 influenza pandemic and caught Covid-19 and survived. She died on Tuesday in France at the ripe old age of 118.

Wow! She was 50 years older than I am…

On Thursday, I boarded the bus to Hamilton and showed my driver’s license. The female driver smiled and in a very courteous tone advised me that a “Special Person’s”Card was required to enjoy the benefits of a free ride. I have the card—I am a “Special Person”.

It is the same in the Kingdom of God.

The Bible is clear that simply getting to old age doesn’t mean you automatically enjoy God's and other people's favor.

There are some lovely scriptures regarding seniors:

The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon; planted in the house of the LORD, they will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green,

Flourishing—Staying Fresh, Persevering in Old Age for Christ’s Glory,

To Persevere is to maintain a purpose in spite of difficulty, obstacles, or discouragement; continue steadfastly. Old age is full of challenges. Yes?

This past week I have been reflecting upon the writings of a poet and a preacher.

Dylan Thomas was a poet who died in 1953. John Piper is a pastor, preacher, scholar, and author of dozens of books and numerous articles. He is 77 years old.

1. Not persevering is not an option, not an option that God will bless.

Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas

I want to share some insights from John Piper’s writing, Rethinking Retirement: Finishing Life for the Glory of Christ

Like the poet Thomas, John Piper also insists that we must persevere till the end and persevering is not an option. But unlike Thomas, Piper argues that we must persevere in finishing life for the Glory of God.

It’s a mistake to think that perseverance in faith and love is not necessary for final salvation. A deadly mistake.

Jesus said in Mark 13:13, “You will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.”

In Galatians 6:9, Paul says, “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap [eternal life], if we do not give up.”

Piper says,

So finishing life to the glory of Christ means using whatever strength and eyesight and hearing and mobility and resources we have left to treasure Christ and in that joy to serve people—that is, to seek to bring them with us into the everlasting enjoyment of Christ. Serving people, and not ourselves, as the overflow of treasuring Christ makes Christ look great.

Ralph Winter wrote an article titled “The Retirement Booby Trap” when he was about sixty.

In it he said,

Most men don’t die of old age, they die of retirement. I read somewhere that half the men retiring in the state of New York die within two years. Save your life and you’ll lose it. Just like other drugs, other psychological addictions, retirement is a virulent disease, not a blessing. . . .

Where in the Bible do they see [retirement]?

Did Moses retire?

Did Paul retire? Peter? John?

Do military officers retire in the middle of a war?”

Let me clarify questions about my upcoming retirement.

I am not retiring from the Call of God upon my life to minister and serve in the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

I am retiring from the position of “active clergy in the UMC” and from the post of the pastor of Marsden First UMC.

I am not retiring from ministry in the Kingdom of God.

I am closing one chapter to begin another.

I am not leaving Bermuda.

I will still be a servant of God to Marsden as needs will determine, only I will not be serving as “Pastor”.

Not persevering is not an option for me.

2. Persevering to obtain God’s favor is not an option that honors God.

Romans 8:31–35: If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? And the answer to that question is Nothing! Which means that all those who belong to Christ will persevere. They must, and they will. It is certain. Why? Because God is already now in Christ 100% for us. Perseverance is not the means by which we get God to be for us; it is the effect of the fact that God is already for us. You cannot ever make God be for you by your good works because true Christian good works are the fruit of God’s already being for you.

You don’t persevere to obtain this. Because of this, you will persevere.

Staying Fresh comes from

1) Staying in Christ, in His Word, in pursuit of His purposes.

2) Receiving the Fresh anointing of Yeshua’s Spirit—the Holy Spirit of God who enables us to flourish in His Kingdom.

The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing.

The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life.

John 6:63

3. Persevering because of God’s Goodness (Grace and Mercy) is the key to growing old to God’s Glory.

The Goodness of Daily Practice—Giving Thanks and Praise, Focusing Attention in the morning upon God’s Love (Presence) and in the evening upon God’s Faithfulness (Power, Provision, Protection from our enemies)

Psalm 92:1-5

Some of you, like “Millions of Christian men and women [have finished] their formal careers in their fifties and sixties, and for most of them there will be a good twenty years before their physical and mental powers fail.

What will it mean to live those final years for the glory of Christ?

How will we live them in such a way as to show that Christ is our highest Treasure?

You still have oil in your lamp.

You may have physical challenges.

You may have other difficulties and limitations that come because of old age;

But you still have oil in your lamps.

Piper spoke of listening to “J. Oswald Sanders at the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School chapel speaking at the age of eighty-nine say that he had written a book a year for Christ since he was seventy, (Piper recalled) everything in me said,

“O God, don’t let me waste my final years!

Don’t let me buy the American dream of retirement—month after month of leisure and play and hobbies and putzing around in the garage and rearranging the furniture and golfing and fishing and sitting and watching television.

Lord, please have mercy on me. Spare me this curse.”

Special Persons in Christ do not gentle into that good night!

Rage against the dying of the light!

Piper reminds us that we have a passion and a promise to hold on to.

Psalm 71:18—a passion to make the greatness of God known to the generations we are leaving behind: “Even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come.”

O that God would give us a passion in our final years to spend ourselves to make him look as great as he really is—to finish life to the glory of Christ.

Promise: We Are As Secure As Christ Is Righteous and God Is Just The promise: Isaiah 46:3–4, “[You] have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb; even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save.”

Don’t be afraid, Christian. You will persevere. You will make it home. Sooner than you think. Live dangerously for the one who loved you and died for you in his thirties. Don’t throw your life away on the American dream of retirement. You are as secure as Christ is righteous and God is just. Don’t settle for anything less than the joyful sorrows of magnifying Christ in the sacrifices of love. And then in the Last Day, you will stand and hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant. . . . Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:21, 23).

1. We must preserve till the end

How many Christians set their sights on a “gentle good night”—resting, playing, traveling, etc.—the world’s substitute for heaven since the world does not believe that there will be a heaven beyond the grave.

The mindset of our peers is that we must reward ourselves now in this life for the long years of our labor.

Eternal rest and joy after death is an irrelevant consideration.

When you don’t believe in heaven to come and you are not content in the glory of Christ now, you will seek the kind of retirement that the world seeks.

But what a strange reward for a Christian to set his sights on! Twenty years of leisure (!) while living in the midst of the Last Days of infinite consequence for millions of people who need Christ.

What a tragic way to finish the last mile before entering the presence of the King who finished his last mile so differently!

Summary of Piper

Perseverance is necessary for final salvation,

and perseverance is certain for all those who are in Christ.

The works we do on the path of love do not win God’s favor.

They result from God’s favor.

Christ won God’s favor.

And we receive him by faith alone.

And love is the overflow and demonstration of this faith.

This is the key to finishing life to the glory of Christ.

If we are going to make Christ look glorious in the last years of our lives,

we must be satisfied in him.

He must be our Treasure.

And the life that we live must flow from this all-satisfying Christ.

And the life that flows from the soul that lives on Jesus is a life of love and service.

This is what will make Christ look great.