Wisdom From the Elders
For the last few months I have had the privilege of preaching to a group of believers where the average age in the room is 70. This has been an incredibly enriching and eye opening time for me. While my job was to deliver truth from God’s word each week, they were constantly giving me invaluable wisdom for the Christian life. I’d like to share some of that wisdom with you today.
This time stretched me as a preacher. I had grown accustomed to preaching to people roughly within my age group, and I couldn’t hit my normal beats and jokes with this crowd. I had to think outside the box for relevant illustrations and references. Words can’t express how excited I was to see someone’s grandkids there to use this Star Wars reference I had been saving!
This time also stretched me as a pastor. I was tasked with caring for people in a different life stage from my own. They had cares and concerns that I have no category for. My aches and pains were nothing compared to the woman with chronic, debilitating pain. I haven’t yet experienced grief like that of the woman who lost her husband and son in the same week.
They taught me to see life differently. When you’ve lived as long as many of them have and seen what they’ve seen, your vision is colored with a different level of perspective. In your 70s, you’re able to see life from a vantage point people in their 20s and 30s don’t have.
Here are seven lessons I learned from my septuagenarian friends:
We fight over trivial things and it’s a curse of youth: When we are young and full of energy we seem to think every battle is worth fighting. As we age, we begin to understand: not every fight is worth having. Friendships, families, and churches are torn apart all the time over secondary and tertiary arguments. We would do well to take a step back, breathe, and ask: is this worth it?
Maybe you do earn the right to candor. Hear me out on this one. Christian speech should always be seasoned with grace no matter our age. But there is something to be said for having lived long enough where we can just say it straight and not have to sugarcoat it. In our younger years fear can prevent us from being honest. There comes a point in life in which we realize we just have to say it plain. There is also a certain level of respect given to the honest words of our elders due to their years of faithful service that at our younger ages, we haven’t proven yet. Bonus points if we learn to speak the truth graciously.
We desperately need intergenerational churches. When we spend all of our time with people who are just like us, our blindspots only grow larger. The wisdom of the salt and pepper generation can help younger churches go so much further. From a purely discipleship standpoint, there is a lot of grace and wisdom that is being missed in our young churches. We need our elders to show us what decades of faithfulness looks like. When we are tempted to walk away from the faith, the older hand on our shoulders reminding us to stay the course is invaluable. The benefits are not just one way. We can show them new ways of doing things and help broaden their perspectives as well.
The reality of our mortality. Each week we would devote a portion of the service to praying for the needs of the body. It was rare for a week to pass without us praying for the family of someone who passed away. Given the age of our church it was common for the recent death to be a member of the congregation. There is a different perspective on life when we know that our number can be called any day. This is true no matter our age but many of us are still young enough to think we’re invincible. When we are young, we don’t think of death as something near. We think we will live forever but understanding our mortality reminds us to make the best use of the time. It reminds us to live every moment as though it matters, because it does.
Relationships matter and you will regret the broken ones later. We live in a time in which we treat people like they’re disposable. There’s a popular saying that goes a little something like this: “If you don't add value to my life then you don’t need to be here.” I have seen a statement similar to this one on social media far too many times. We treat people like commodities to be traded and dumped when they’re no longer useful. But when it’s all said and done and we reflect on our lives in the end, more often than not we will not be proud nor happy with the relationships we’ve lost.
Some struggles don’t die. There are some sins we age out of whether it be due to desire or physical ability but there are some that stay with us to the very end. Watching older people work to fight sin is a beautiful reminder that endurance to the end matters. James 1 tells us that those who endure to the end will receive the crown of life that God has promised.
The journey to live and labor well never ends. Ephesians 5:10 tells us to try and discern what is pleasing to the Lord. As we progress through life, experience various trials, and enter new arenas, that answer will shift for us. To live and labor well wherever we find ourselves in life starts with answering the question: can we be faithful where God has us?
I am incredibly grateful for this time in this course and the wisdom and grace that has been imparted to me. Therefore, my advice to you is if you can’t get into an intergenerational church, I strongly suggest finding older people to be in relationship with. When we only surround ourselves with people in our age group we miss out on the blessing of the seasoned saints. As one prone to anxiety and worrying about the future, the wisdom of my elders telling me to hold tight, it will all work out, have been and continue to be a source of great comfort for me.
May we not just respect our elders but celebrate and appreciate them while we still can. In the same way they need our energy, we need their wisdom.