All our groceries have sell-by-dates or expiry dates.
So much of our thinking comes from our consumerist way of seeing the world. This mindset can creep into our view of people as well. Even if it’s unintentional, we think of people as having a “best-before” date—a date after which people no longer play a useful role in our lives and in the church.
Ageing is the hard reality of living in a world tainted by sin. We can joke about the aches and pains, and the difficulties of getting out of bed in the morning. But beyond the jokes lie many fears, losses, and feelings of uselessness. It can become a time of mourning, grieving over the loss of ability and purpose. We enter a time in which we feel obsolete. In Western societies we feed this thinking by treating older people as obsolete. Even churches fall into this trap, yearning for more young people who bring vibrancy and energy, and relegating older people to the sidelines. Churches start to see older people only as recipients of care.
But do older people not have value and purpose? Do they not have gifts to use and service to offer? Should they merely put their feet up, put on the TV and live out their final days in comfort and ease?
This is what Psalm 92 says:
The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. 13. They are planted in the house of the LORD; they flourish in the courts of our God. 14. They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green, 15. to declare that the LORD is upright; he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.
That doesn’t sound like planned obsolescence, does it?
We must refuse the lie that people in their old age cannot be productive, cannot make a contribution. Scripture contradicts this heinous lie without ambiguity. Scripture is clear that EVERY member is vital to the body (see 1 Corinthians 12). This is particularly true as the war on truth escalates.
There are many things that our older “war-veterans” can do (encouragement, wisdom, mentoring, hospitality, discipleship), but none so valuable as prayer—not because other forms of service are unimportant, but because prayer is the church’s lifeline in the battle. People who have experience, who have walked with God faithfully, who have trusted him through thick and thin, are able to pray with great wisdom. These mighty warriors are the backbone of the church without whom the people on the frontline will fall. Day and night they uphold their comrades in the faith, they provide cover when the battle is intense.
This is why Anchored Baptist Church has begun recruitment for a Special Forces Unit. These are the faithful, trustworthy soldiers who will be on their knees or on their beds, interceding for the sheep.
We are in a war and the ground forces need skilled signallers to support them. We salute our prayer warriors. Until the day they are called home, may they be about the Master’s business, and may they bear fruit in old age, be ever full of sap and green, and declare the Lord’s majesty to the end.