Good afternoon, Church family!
A few days ago, I was pleased to deliver a message from Ecclesiastes 11:7-12:14 on rejoicing in one’s youth while remembering God as our Creator & Judge.
The big idea for that portion of Scripture is to encourage young people to pursue rejoicing in their life before they grow old but it also adds warning: pursue rejoicing in your younger years while governing your joy by God’s standards and with anticipation for judgement day. And my favorite part of that portion of Scripture was the exhortation to remember your Creator in the days of your youth. In other words, give Him the credit and glory and praise in every experience and unique benefit of your younger years.
I aimed that sermon at the youth because it was Youth Sunday and because that passage of Scripture spoke specifically to the youth. However, it’s also a wonderful word from the Lord for the aging because chapter 12 describes the aging process in poetic language.
The descriptions of aging are meant for the young to lay to heart: to believe that those days are coming for them and live with extra gratitude and motivation to praise their Creator while they still have pep in their step and a good memory in their head. I hope and pray that our young one’s learned to “teach us to number our days, and so give us a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 91).
However, those verses also speak presently into how God views the aging process for us who are not “young grasshoppers” (12:5) anymore!
I think it’s important for those of you who are in the aging process to submit to the fact that the Creator is in charge of the “de-creating” (12:2-8). We believe that God is absolutely sovereign and that He controls all. Aging is a part of that as the Creator has ordained that we “de-create.” However, especially in America, our culture is built around idolizing youth, devaluing the aged, and a multi billion dollar industry trying to prevent the aging process or keep old people from looking old!
It’s very likely that many of you resist the aging process and experience the darkness/pain of those days (12:1b) and look back on the golden years of your youth with longing. It’s true that we are meant for a renewed body someday like Jesus (1 John 3:2-3).
However, until then, know that just as Psalm 116:15 says “precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of the saints,” so also “precious in the eyes of the Lord is the aging of the saints.”
Ecclesiastes chapter 12 depicts the precious nature of the aging process as the Spirit of God uses precious and poetic language to describe one’s growing maturity. And at the end of the process, as desire fails, it’s because you are being prepared to go to your eternal home (12:5). As desire wains for this world, desire longs for the next.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18 says it like this: “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”
To my aging friends, press on in your journey away from youth. As the sun begins to set on your life “under the sun” (in the words of Ecclesiastes), and as your eyes begin to lose vision, set your eyes on Your Creator above the sun, God the Son and our Eternal Light, because God is preparing you for the day when you won’t need the sun to shine because “God will be your light and you will reign forever” (Revelation 22:5).
Stand encouraged, and as 1 Corinthians 15:58 says “therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”
Ecclesiastes says that life is vanity under the sun. It’s a vapor. It’s too short. But as your life begins to accelerate towards the evening of life, anticipate with joy the dawn of another day that is long and will continue forever, making all of your labor throughout this short life rewarded and enjoyed forever with Christ.
I’m praying for the young and old together in our Church, that we would “with one voice glorify our God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 15:6) in every season, in every joy and in every tear of sadness. May our old rejoice with those who rejoice (our young) and our young mourn with those who mourn (the old) (Rom. 12:15).
What a blessing it is for me to walk alongside of every stage of life among this Church family.
With love in Christ,
Aaron
