Dev Ramcharan - Class 6: Evening Program - The Power of Old People

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:00

   It’s a devs turned to speak to us this evening and you can see the topic he’s chosen, I don’t know what it’s about and I don’t want to ruin it, but I do want to read Ecclesiastes 12 and hopefully it’ll not ruin it. This is Ecclesiastes 12 from the message. A new version.

2. 0:22

   Honor and enjoy your creator while you’re still young. Before the years, take their toll and your Vigor Wayans. Before your vision dims and the world blurs and the winter years, keep you close to the fire. And your old age, your body no longer serves you so well muscles slacking grip weakens and Joints.

3. 0:47

   Tiffin The shades are pulled down on your world. You can’t come and go at will things grind to a halt. The hum of the household Fades away and your awaken Now by Birdsong. Hikes to the mountains are a thing of the past. Even a stroll down, the road has its terrors Your hair turns, Apple Blossom, white adorning a fragile and impotent Matchstick body.

4. 1:17

   Yes, you’re well on your way to Eternal rest while your friends make plans for your funeral. Life lovely while it lasts is soon over Life. As We Know It Precious and Beautiful ends, the body is put back in the same ground. It came from It’s all smoke nothing but smoke. Hope that’s not too depressing Dev but little bit of Truth bomb from Solomon there. Thank you.

5. 1:48

   I’ve never asked Jeff to do that, reading, just so y’all know. You come from a couple of generations. You come from a generation that is referred to as the great generation. Many of you gave birth to a brawling noisy, prosperous generation called the Boomers who in turn. Gave birth to a generation called Generation X.

6. 2:17

   Yes somebody celebrating in the back by himself there’s no one else with him. And that largely characterized Generation X. Generations have come generations of God. And the world in which we live today old age is seen almost as something. That one has to hide away in a corner has to hide away. From has to pretend is not going to happen, every one of us.

7. 2:47

   That’s all Western Society. In other societies. Old age is revered, great respect is accorded to the elderly. They are deferred to their views are sought. Their point of view is still significant and important. That you happen to be in a western country where people worship youth, Vigor strength, and where old age is something that is well, it’s an inconvenience of life. But that’s not the biblical way.

8. 3:20

   There is a great power and old age there’s relevance there’s importance. There’s a kind of Vitality that can continue in our older years. If we decide that this is what we want to be able to have How does the World Experience old age? How do we experience it in reality? Welders declining health and in that beautiful reading that Jeff chose it.

9. 3:48

   It really walked you through the decline. I mean we don’t want to hear those things but that’s what happens to everyone of us. It was happening to you. Now right now, you’re experiencing these things, we get used to pain chronic illness. We get used to our joints hurting in the morning. Getting out of bed in the morning is an adventure, isn’t it? Right?

10. 4:14

    You can’t find your slippers and then you slip on one, and you could make it to the hospital just because of that. Your bones ache. It’s hard to describe it to young people because they don’t get it. You live with pain is a constant companion all the time? There is also the loneliness that can affect us at that stage of life. Many.

11. 4:42

    Many of the many of us have experienced a bereavement of that companion that we had beside us for so many years. And we know what, that that descent into being alone can feel like Just a terrible feeling of isolation. That is hard to describe hard for other people to understand. Disappointments Galore. All the things you hoped would be. None of which came to fruition many of which are associated with your kids.

12. 5:18

    The marriages. You thought they would have the work, they would do the careers that they would have and the accomplishments that they would achieve and the peace and the happy family lives. You hope for them would be the case that many of you have found just didn’t turn out that way though, they don’t realize it. You carry the burden of grief that they feel Almost as heavily as they do.

13. 5:46

    You feel for your child? When you look at that, 60 year old child, that 50 year old child. You still see the baby you carried in your arms. They don’t realize that. They don’t understand that, that is the case. That’s who you see? and when you see your baby hurting, you hurt deeply too.

14. 6:09

    You’ve learned about the disappointments in the struggles of life that you didn’t know to the same degree in your youth. You understand to what restriction feels like everybody in covid is talking about how hard it is. You’ve been there for decades already. Can’t go everywhere. You want to go, can’t get in the car and drive yourself someplace.

15. 6:37

    When you do, your kids are calling the police because you’re on the road. You’re knocked down a couple of people in a squirrel, but you only notice the squirrel you stopped because of the squirrel. Poor squirrel. My mom went right through a construction zone to this day, she doesn’t realize she went through a construction zone.

16. 7:00

    She said there were some noisy, men calling out to her at the time. These things happened. They’re part of the experience of old age of old age, fear and anxiety, what’s going to happen to me? What other condition will? I develop? What’s going to take me away? Will it be my heart? And will it hurt a lot? It’ll be cancer.

17. 7:24

    Will it be diabetes? Will it be dementia? What it’s going to be that will take me and all of these things. By the way, are indicative of the fact that we’re living longer. We’re living longer than past Generations. So we’re developing more the way of chronic illness and we ever had before cancer.

18. 7:45

    For instance, is primarily a disease associated with aging with aging. I know that there are young people to get it but primarily cancer is a disease associated with, with aging. So we worry and we feel anxious. We worry if our money is going to run out, will we have to rely on our kids? I don’t want to be a burden on my kids is something that is in all of your minds at some point.

19. 8:17

    I don’t want to be a burden. On my kids already have a difficulty as a mother with my daughter-in-law and the last thing I want to have to be as depend on on her Goodwill and kindness to me I know it’s a hard one, isn’t it sister?

20. 8:35

    Aren’t you glad it’s not Jeff up here right now because then I know your name so you know what? I’m describing to you. You know what, I’m describing to you. We don’t want to become burdens that are presented by our kids. So we’re in Terror that we are going to have to go there.

21. 8:57

    And our children don’t understand it. But the last vestiges of Independence that we have. Have to almost be pried out of our hands. Living on our own. Being able to take care of ourselves until that time that we leave the stove on and forget we left it on and there’s a problem. Or we faint and were found in a terrible state by a child that happens to come. Visit us because we didn’t answer the phone. So that that decline of life as it is experienced, then makes people begin to think I’m no longer relevant. What do I have to offer?

22. 9:47

    Is there anything in me that I can say is the power of old age? And then that uncertainty about the future which seems to be a shorter and shorter period of time for every one of us. Now, the way that the world experiences these things is that’s all they have. But we have God’s truth.

23. 10:16

    And we recognize that whatever condition we be maybe in today. This is not the end of us. It might be the end of this phase of Who We Are. but when the Lord returns, We will run and not be weary. We’ll fly with the wings of eagles. Can you imagine that? You won’t have to use a walker, you won’t have to use a cane.

24. 10:45

    You won’t have to worry about that pain in your hip that you continually few it’ll all be gone. And you’ll be able to do anything and do it for God with love. And with the sense of joy, we have some guidance for old age throughout scripture together with that lovely passage in Ecclesiastes, which we will talk about this week. We have guidance that Paul gives to a young man who had a role to play in serving part of the occlusal world. He says, look Titus.

25. 11:25

    As for you teach what Accords with sound Doctrine, make sure that what you’re teaching is Right teaching according to what we believe and the first thing I want you to reflect on is this older men. What’s well, if this was written for an American Audience, by an American, wouldn’t it be the young men first and the old man in the old women last But that’s not how God sees it. God sees the Ecclesia structured in this way. Elderly For the ones that we look after. So that their spiritual well-being flows through to the rest of the Ecclesia.

26. 12:15

    So you might think, well, what can an old man do in the Ecclesia? The older men are to be sober-minded. Dignified. Self-controlled. Sound in faith. Other words sound the Greek. He Guillen us. The word. Hygiene comes from that it has to do with health. It means that you as an old brother have to be healthy in your faith.

27. 12:46

    Not embittered towards God, not disappointed in God. Not seeing God as having. Let you down with all the trouble you’ve experienced and continue to experience your life, but healthy in your faith. Holding onto it, delighting in it, treasuring it, but that healthiness continues. So you might read this way healthy in your faith, healthy and love. Healthy and steadfastness.

28. 13:18

    Now, for unhealthy, in any of those three, we lose the positive impactors old brothers that we have on the Ecclesia. Sometimes you might think to ourselves, you know, I was on the board for 50 years. Not nobody even tells me what’s going on. They never even asked my opinion, they don’t care what I have to offer.

29. 13:40

    It’s as if they forgot everything that I did, all the years that I did it What God is telling you through Paul to Titus as this. Keep in the faith, strong in what you believe. Healthy in your faith healthy in love. Now, why would he need to say that? because in that period of decline that we go through the sense of isolation and the feeling that were not important anymore, we can become embittered quietly resentful. In the Ecclesia, but withdrawn into ourselves, not feeling a sense of connection to the people around us. Feeling isolated from them though, we’re in the midst of them. what God is saying through Paul is this don’t stop loving the Ecclesia.

30. 14:47

    Now, we talked about that word agape and sometimes in a very limited way, we say it means self-sacrificing. Love that’s not what it means. That is a consequence of what the word means. What the word means is this. Love that chooses its object that makes the decision to care about something. Roll back.

31. 15:14

    The years of your teenage son is shaking his fist in your face, dad, screaming, and cursing at you and you look at that child. And you think Well, you think things you shouldn’t think?

32. 15:31

    And you make the decision, you know what? This is hard for me. But I’m going to make the choice to continue to love you. Unlovable though, you may be at this moment in time. Because this is not naturally welling up inside of me, son. It’s a choice. I’m going to make two love you. God made that choice to love us the Lord. Jesus Christ, made that choice to love us. That’s what I go pee is.

33. 16:07

    It’s love the chooses to love. And that’s what we need as older brothers. Love becomes a choice. We make is not a thing that happens to us or falls upon us naturally, or Wells up from us because he watched the Ecclesia and his challenges as you look at your family and the extension of the problems that occur down through the generations, you make the choice to continue to love.

34. 16:38

    Even when it’s hard to do it. Because that’s how God loves us. That’s what he did for us. So being healthy and love is about continually making that choice to love and to be steadfast to be well, grounded anchored and to keep on holding on through thick and through thin. the older women, likewise So they are as important as the older men, the older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior.

35. 17:16

    That would Reverend is associated with well. The women who served in Pagan temples at the time, that’s how a Greek reading. It would have understood that word, they conducted themselves with reverence. With gray so they believe wrong things but that’s what they were supposed to be like in some of the temples in others, it was not. So but in some of the temples this is how the women conducted themselves who were priestesses so God takes a word used in the Pagan world and he elevates it to say and in my house and my Ecclesia, This is how I want the old sisters to conduct themselves to be reverent in their behavior. Not slanderers, a Greek word that’s used. There is Diablo Lloyd.

36. 18:10

    Right, at the diabolic activity of Gossip is what he’s saying. Don’t do just don’t do it. Don’t ever be associated with it. Did you be Reverend not gossips or slaves? Too much wine. Now, why would a woman be a slave to Wine? Because in her older years with her, physical Beauty god, a woman of this world when she has lost her, physical Beauty, believe, sometimes she’s lost everything.

37. 18:47

    When she died, Elizabeth Taylor was probably 75 percent plastic. And not much of Elizabeth left. Has he tried and tried with all kinds of surgical procedures? But she could not hold on to that spectacular Beauty, which became her Essence. It was what she saw. As value in herself. as opposed to Faith and warmth and love and reverence before God, It goes on. And it says, They are to teach.

38. 19:27

    What is good? So older sisters are sources of wisdom. Of encouragement. Of instruction. Now, you know what? The same time you all going to be a little bit, fearful about approaching some of the younger sisters, especially when they give you that, that Granite face. Look, yes. Thanks very much for your opinion. We’ll talk another time.

39. 19:57

    And it frightens you off. And you think why I’m not doing that again that not hurts. I am not doing that. There are opportunities. when you see a young woman struggling in her marriage, You think, you know? I’m just going to go give her a custom kiss cus I guess don’t give her a cuss. I’m going to give her a kiss and a hug and I’m going to tell you look I don’t know what it is.

40. 20:28

    But I want you to know. I love you and I’m here for you. And if you ever want to talk And if you ever want to talk just confidentially, I’m here if you want to but I won’t, I won’t intrude. I’ll just pray for you and I know. I know that we all go through challenges. I’m here for you.

41. 20:53

    Sometimes that’s all a sister needs, she might reach out to you but without even realizing it, you may have kept her alive and with her husband, one more day. One more day. And if they ask your advice how did you get through? Like what did you do? Did you ever have this happen in your marriage?

42. 21:12

    Did you ever have that happen in your marriage and the chances are, if you didn’t have the specific thing happen, you had other things happen. that you can speak from and say, well, You know, we went through things. This is what kept me going. I held on to my faith.

43. 21:34

    There were times when I sat and cried by myself and I reached out to God and I said, I don’t know what to do. Just help me get through today. And he did.

44. 21:46

    And I found that prayer was Was a thing in my life that kept me going. And when she says, well I’ve tried that but nothing seems to happen.

45. 21:59

    And out of your wisdom out of your experience of Life Of God, that of the truth. You talk to her about waiting. And patience. But sometimes God’s answer is no. Sometimes God’s answer is no answer. There is not going to be an easy way through this. You just have to hold on and trust me. Now that may not seem like a lot to you, but that is a lot. To a young wife, who’s struggling? And you don’t know how far that will go to keeping her going. So they are to teach what is good. And to train the young women to love their husbands and children.

46. 22:53

    Now, that could mean. To keep on loving their husbands and their children. When a woman has a teenage daughter, it could be active combat every day.

47. 23:09

    Today when a woman has a 35 year old or 40 year old daughter. It can be like having a teenage daughter used to be Because the generations are maturing more slowly than ever, they’re taking longer to learn lessons that you learned when you were 16 years old, and 17 and 18. And you you sometimes stand there and shock mom and you can’t believe they don’t know the basics of whatever the thing is, they don’t know the basics of that. You knew when you were a very young woman That’s so teaching. Training without coming across as being a teacher and a trainer.

48. 23:54

    But more a sharer of what you have learned, the mistakes, you’ve made the things that you’ve come to realize are the most important. Excuse you remember, that first set of nice furniture. You got mum. Maybe had the ragtag assortment of things, you saw people, putting the garbage Decor, still usable, you could put some work into them and they’d be good enough or things are brothers and sisters or relatives passed on to you and then you finally bought that beautiful. You know, dining room set with all the matching chairs made of wood and one day you walk by and there’s a massive scuff on their side of the table or on the top.

49. 24:35

    Can you feel your heart collapsing in on yourself because the thing you always wanted for so long you have and now it’s been scuffed and you could tell that young wife going through the same thing. That’s not that important after all. Those things are important just for a brief moment in time and then they’re not important anymore. How do you keep on loving your husband? When he’s distracted or selfish or neglectful or worse? How many of you know, how you got through? And you just need to share that with a younger sister. That, that that’s what God is saying to us. The old brothers and sisters have relevance, they have a power to influence with their quiet, loving wise hearts, They have so much to give.

50. 25:36

    You have so much to offer. And not just to help them to keep on loving their husbands and to keep on loving the kids to the difficult phases. But to be self-controlled. Pure working at home kind and submissive to their own husband’s. That the word of God may not be reviled is any one of those things easy to do.

51. 26:03

    Not a single one of them, not one of those things is easy to do. But you learned so much through your life as a wife that you can share. Do they know more than you do from an intellect. And and and fact and knowledge and education perspective will show. They do, do they know more than you from a spiritual perspective.

52. 26:30

    They most certainly do not you have so much you can help them with and teach them with one of the great dangers of old age is a yearning for the past. I remember how it used to be. When we went to a Bible School, everybody wore jackets and ties. Their slacks and they were neat. Well, polished shoes.

53. 26:57

    Everybody had manners and spoke with great respect to each other. Remember how kids behaved? Remember how every meeting we had? Was an event, that was so reverential. It was all in everything that we did and how everything is so slack and slapdash and, you know, a jokey circus act. It’s nothing is serious. Like it used to be I think they’ve lost the truth. They’ve lost everything we used to have That’s how every generation has felt.

54. 27:36

    If Robert Roberts, which is see your generation in its youth. It would not have been pleased. And so it goes for every single generation. Ecclesiastes chapter 7 verse 10 says, do not. Say why were the old days better than this? For it is not wise to ask such questions. Whoo, that’s cold and hard and edgy isn’t it? Stop whining about the past.

55. 28:09

    That’s what it says to me. I don’t like that. I feel it’s wrong. But it’s God speaking. The past is behind us. The days of Ezra with the foundation was laid. There was a combined outbreak.

56. 28:35

    Of heartbroken weeping and joyful rejoicing. One generation who had never had their own Temple, they grown up as Exiles, they’d been a minority group that was discriminated against in Persia. And now they had the foundation of a temple, that would be uniquely theirs, and recapture everything that had been lost in their worship.

57. 29:03

    But the other generation looked at this pathetically small in adequate replacement for what they remembered for, what used to be for the way it was for how things used to work for how glorious they once were. And in looking at what they had lost. They fail to see the beauty of what they now still had. So, the truth is still alive.

58. 29:37

    Are Ecclesia is a still going. The gospel is still believed God’s truth. Is still preached. We still have Sunday schools. We still have Bible classes. We still have the readings. We still have the word of God that imperishable foundation for our lives. The way it once, was the way things once were, is more a memory to hold onto fondly as opposed to a stick with which to beat today, and the way things are.

59. 30:18

    Now, of course, we’re going to see things we wish were different, but rather than us being critics, Coming from the way things used to be. Let’s find a way to rejoice in the things that currently are. Add to be to be grateful for the fact that we still have ache leisure’s. We’re still in, Ecclesia has And to pray for her closures.

60. 30:44

    So then what can you do? Our job is old, brothers and sisters is to help the younger Generations. In Psalm 71 the psalmist, right? Even when I’m old and gray, do not forsake, me my God, why Until I declare your powers to the Next Generation. Your Mighty acts to all who are to come. Now, you might think to yourself. Well, you know what?

61. 31:15

    My memory of scriptures is fading I’m losing track of passages and where to find them. I can remember phrases, sometimes, remember a piece, but I don’t always remember where it is, but it’s not just talking about scripture. What has God done for you? And your life. When you have reached out to him in crisis, it prayer.

62. 31:43

    In agony. Talk about the mighty acts of God in your life. Talk about what you went through and how God got you through. Share those stories. With brothers and sisters with young ones especially because they will surely go through the things you have been through. It might be a different age, but they will still go through them.

63. 32:11

    And you can tell them how God got you through. So that you can show God was not just active in the lives of the Jewish people. It wasn’t just a force in the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Their marriages and the raising of their kids. He has most certainly been a force in my life.

64. 32:35

    And I couldn’t have gotten through so many things. We’re not for him. So, talk to them about these things. See it as part of your responsibility. To share with younger people. The mighty acts of God in your little life. we also read in verse 19, your righteousness, God reaches to the heavens, you have done great things who is like you God Of all the people in your life that you have had. Even though you’ve had your rough times with him, he’s the one person who has never ever let you down, even though you felt let down sometimes in hindsight, you realized no. He didn’t really let me down.

65. 33:28

    I just had to go through that thing and get through it. So, tell them share those stories, we are creatures. That are tied to. And energized by and strengthened by stories. So tell you a story. Now, sometimes, sometimes the story can go on and on and be repetitive, there’s a brother at our Ecclesia.

66. 34:01

    Is baptized about 13 years ago. And every time you see in, that’s every Bible class every Sunday school, every Sunday morning every other time we get together, he talks about how he was baptized. How his son changed his name to Luke from Louis? And he Berta Louis says, I asked him. Why did you change your name?

67. 34:26

    He’s an Old Dutch brother. And he says this, he tells you the story every time he swim and Luke told me because I like the Gospel of Luke dad you should read it sometime and Louis says and I was a strict and devout Catholic, I said we don’t read the Bible. Re-read. The missile, the Catholic missile, the priest reads, the Bible tells us what we should believe.

68. 34:51

    And his son said, dad, you should read it. A one-day old Brother, Louie was on the subway, he saw a sign advertised on the top of the, of the car and it said, learn to read the Bible seminar for the public at the church, treaty Collegiate downtown Toronto. And he went to Italy.

69. 35:11

    Learned the truth. And to this day, he never stops telling the story. At first, I said they go, no story. I don’t want to Louie. Do you realize, you’ve told me this story, 25 times and I’d run away, I would run away. Now, I’m delighted to hear it every time, I hear it because it underscores to me.

70. 35:36

    A man’s story of faith. That comforts me and I look forward to it. I just look for up. Here’s the story. Yes as God working in a man’s life. So, tell your story. And tell your story. And share your story. Because your story becomes integrated into someone else’s story. And gives them the hope to hold on. When you’re gone and you’re not here anymore. So what do you have to offer them as an old brother or sister perspective?

71. 36:17

    When you’re 40 years old and you’re pushing yourself up the line in your organization. The most important thing to you is that promotion that bonus, that next stage. and it’s not the most important thing that there is and now in your 70s and 80s that you’re way past, Career or or caring about career.

72. 36:45

    You know, that the Grandeur perspective is higher than that. And it’s about where we going. Through what we believe. That what we believe is going to happen. So you can offer a different perspective to someone that might be struggling in their career, to just give them an insight into how to balance it. So that it does not overwhelm their lives. And so that the truth remains vibrant and strong For them. You have experience to offer that young people don’t have, you have a story of faith and confidence in God. Like Brother Louis has you have regrets? The older you are, the more regrets you have now? Regrets are not a stick that you use to beat yourself up with. They are evidence of growth.

73. 37:50

    If it’s 75 years of age, you have no regrets. Something is seriously wrong with you. but if you could look back and say to yourself, you know, If I could do it over again. I would do so many of those things differently. The what that indicates is you’ve grown to a point where you can look back and understand what you’ve done, where you’ve been How you’ve behaved in your life and the decisions that you’ve made and now you would do things differently. You might be 75 years old, but if I could snap my fingers and you were 30 years old again, would you be happy about that? No.

74. 38:40

    You would not Not one of us. And that means you’ve grown and that means you regrets or evidence of growth and they should give you a sense of all right. God’s got me. This far. Is going to take me the rest of the way.

75. 39:00

    You have empathy that is deeper than it was when you were 25. You can respond to and feel. Someone else’s suffering. And be willing to be there with them to comfort them. You have greater broader compassion that the narrow compassion, you may have had when you were 20, you’ve got love. Which if you are healthy in, it can strengthen other people. You have wisdom, the practical application of all the knowledge, you’ve accumulated and the outcomes of the experience that you have.

76. 39:45

    And you have the greatest superpower a human being can possibly have on the face of this Earth. You can pray for people. Now, we think I can’t build a house. I can’t lift boxes to help somebody move, I don’t have money to pay for somebody’s health care costs, but I don’t have a lot of smart things, I can say to people, but You can pray for them.

77. 40:14

    And that means little you with all your aches and pains can reach out to the most powerful being in existence, who is your father? And ask him to help somebody. I trust him believe that he will. At the court, back to him and say, you remember how you helped me? I’m asking you to help this brother out the same way. Just get him through Lord in heaven, shall be. Is there anything I can say that will help him just give me the right words so I don’t make things worse. I helped him to hold on.

78. 41:05

    Psalm 92 says, the righteous will flourish like a palm tree. That’s good to hear it. Palm Springs, isn’t it? 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. Now, what’s that? Talking about babies?

79. 41:31

    No. Thank goodness. Isn’t it sister? Can you imagine it’s 75? Having a baby. Oh no. They will still bear fruit. In the lives that they influence. The people that they comfort. The people, they encourage the people, they pray for they will still bear fruit. In old age, they will stay fresh and green doing what’s proclaiming listen son listen daughter. The Lord is upright.

80. 42:11

    I can’t rely on money. I don’t care about my car. I don’t care where I live my clothes don’t matter to me anymore. He is my rock. There’s no wickedness in him. God will never you. Do you wrong? Child. He may not answer you the make the way you want him to answer you. But there’s no wickedness in him. There’s no greater thing that you can leave for your children. The knowing that.

81. 42:44

    And so, brothers and sisters. Though, you may struggle with loneliness. Though, you may have your time of deep isolation, you’re never alone. Even when you’re alone. as I 46 verse 4 says, God says, even to your old age and gray hairs. I am he I am he who will sustain you. I’ve made you and I will carry you. I will sustain you.

82. 43:22

    And I will rescue you.