Grey power....not girl power!

Bearing fruit as we get older.....

Psalm 92:12-15

We spend extortionate amounts of money at an incredible rate each year with the sole aim to look younger. TV programs display how hard-working, dowdy, exhausted women (most of whom have sacrificed much for their families) can be transformed into glamorous versions of their younger selves…giving little thought to the thousands of pounds the producers spent on new clothes, expensive hairstylists, and cosmetic enhancements! Millions of women, and men, spend money on everything from age defying creams to Botox injections, dermal face fillers to nip-and-tuck. We are encouraged not only to appear younger but to act younger, to take more supplements and vitamins, more exercise, diet more, eat less, date more - there are even apps on our phones to make finding that ideal mate easier!…it all leads to the conclusion that growing old is bad, so do everything you can to stay young….to act young, to look younger for longer, any way you can….it is summed up in three words, delay, disguise, or despair!

The core message is: “Growing old is bad, so do everything you can possibly do to remain young”

However that message makes the assumption that the opposite of old has to be young, but that assumption can be wrong, despite the truth that we are indeed unable to grow younger…..however lets look at this another way, lets say that the opposite of old can be new and it is possible to grow new; everything that grows produces something new, even the oldest tree or plant in existence produces something of itself that is new, every shoot and root is new, every leaf is new, every flower is new, all even though it is, in itself, old.

You and I are growing older every day, but every cell that is reproduced is new, we produce over 20 million new cells every few seconds, red blood cells, skin cells, our hair and fingernail grow, we are growing something new every day…we are growing new!

Abraham could be the patron saint of those who feel betrayed by time, who have been limited by nature's afflictions and society’s rejection.

Abraham accepted a new life, a new purpose, a new vision, and a new hope at the age of 75. To him, old age was a new adventure, not full of death but full of life, not full of fate but full of faith. When Abraham was called to journey out to a place where he would receive an inheritance, he obeyed by faith. And he walked out the door, unsure of where he was heading.

Hebrews 11:8-10 reminds us of this:

By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith, he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God….all this at 75 years of age!

I mentioned plant growth earlier and I remember back to 2000, when a friend at work was made redundant and she left me with a young Jade plant, a Crassula Ovata, I still have it after more than 20 years, it’s been split several times, it’s been pruned and super pruned, it’s been ignored on occasions and nurtured on others….. it's looked near to death once or twice but it's always kept growing…growing new!

However, we are not plants, we don’t produce new leaves and flowers so what kind of newness can we bring out every day?

In Ephesians 4:20-24, The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of spiritual newness; he spoke of the need to “put off…the old person” and “to put on…..the new person”

We can all put on this “new person” by developing new attitudes, emotions, and practices that Jesus has called us to put on. Regardless of our age, there are always areas in our lives where there is plenty of room for growth in Christian character, we are all called to mature and to grow in spiritual newness to become more like Jesus.

Getting older is not an excuse for becoming cranky, we are not Victor Meldrews! Too many people do something inconsiderate and then respond with “Oh that’s the way I am….I’m just getting old and cranky” It is unfortunate that as we get older our sins become more and more the fabric of our lives to the extent that we sometimes have difficulty in recognising them, we can become set in our ways thinking that age equals wisdom, age should bring wisdom but many times it brings obstinance and stubbornness.

Possibly many of us require more patience, not only with friends and work colleagues but with family members, those who sometimes bear the brunt of our shortfalls. Perhaps we should be less self-centered, more humble, more honest, or more willing to see and correct our faults.

Just as Abraham left his old land, we can do the same and strike out for our new land, our new spiritual growth.

Spiritual growth can have a very definite effect on the way that we view ageing. As we grow and mature in Christian character and learn to understand and obey God, we may find that we’ve stopped considering ourselves as growing older, because we’re actually growing new, we’re growing our new character.

As we discover the joy of growing new, we find the future leading us not into declining years, but into the spiritual newness of becoming more like Jesus.

It doesn’t matter how old or feeble we are, we can never outgrow our usefulness. This is all the truer when it comes to serving God and our brothers and sisters in Christ. We will never be too old to serve the Lord. As we get older we should expect to be still serving in the church and a church that has an abundance of older people should expect to be blessed because of the expected plethora of spiritual experience.

God called Abraham at 75 years of age, and he called Moses at 40 years plus and used Moses to lead the people out of Egypt, through the wilderness, until Moses was well over 100…. don’t say you are too old to serve God! You’re never too old.

We have a responsibility to be fruitful all the days of our lives…not just up to 75 or 80.

Psalm 92:12-15 confirms this:

The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the Lord; they flourish in the courts of our God. They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green, to declare that the Lord is upright; he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.

Our goal in life is not to reach a certain number of years; how many times have you heard someone brag about hitting 70 or 80 to discover all they have really hit was perhaps a golf ball or maybe a bottle!

Along with this experience, some of the advantages that the older Christian may have are time, influence, and for some of us…energy. Living a certain number of years is nothing to brag about, what matters is how you have lived.

It is never too late to improve on what you have already achieved, to continue to reach for those changes in yourselves that have not yet transpired but that you long to see. As we think of striving for these changes, changes that would make us more like Jesus, the temptation is perhaps to poo poo that idea because there would be so little time left to live in that new way that it wouldn’t make much difference, would a change now really matter so late in life?

One of the best examples of someone we see exhibiting a defining change late in life was the thief on the cross. One moment he was deriding Jesus and the next thing he suddenly realises the truth of who Jesus is and asks for forgiveness and is given a most amazing promise; “Today you will be with me in Paradise” in his last hour he experienced the greatest change of his life, of course, the majority of his life had been wasted but in his last moments, his last hour on earth a newness of life came upon him. Did that really matter? Did one hour as a new man make any difference? Of course it did, because like all of us he has to face the judgment seat of Christ: 2 Corinthians 5:10

His change mattered, his actions in his last hours mattered for all eternity, it was in his last hour that he was forgiven, he received Christ’s righteousness, he is united to Christ, what a wonderful testimony to the power of God’s grace.

In the last 1% of our lives, we can sometimes get the greatest victories in our lives, we can do amazing exploits for God, we can perhaps get the breakthroughs that we never thought were possible.

Remember, the bible does not speak of retirement, it speaks of fruitfulness, a fruitfulness that means that we are so satisfied with all that God promises to be for us in Christ, that we are released from the cravings that can produce the emptiness and worthlessness in retirement that many people fear.