As a pastor I am constantly thinking about how to better communicate God’s word, and the gospel in particular, to the people at our church and in our community. We are a multi-generational church comprised of people from every walk of life. This means we have young professionals and retirees; successful and unemployed, young men with new tattoos and older men with faded Navy tats. You get the idea. We are not a mono-cultural church built on the “homogeneous principle.” All of these people need the gospel. And while the life, death, and resurrection of the Son of God is every man’s only hope before God, there are a variety of reasons the gospel is our “only comfort in life and in death.” In other words, the gospel and all of its implications need to be clearly and carefully expounded and applied to people of all ages and stages of life. One group that often gets overlooked is the elderly. Those seasoned saints who have retired, or even moved into their twilight years, need the gospel as much as any man. But, do we know how to preach to them where they are?
To that end Joe highly recommends—and I second the suggestion—by Professor David Murray. He looks at how the gospel speaks to five common temptations among seniors: (1) loneliness; (2) regret; (3) bitterness; (4) pain; and (5) fear. And then he offers some suggestions for how younger generations can serve the older generations.
A couple of other recommends: John Piper’s talk “Getting Old for the Glory of God” and Dr. John Dunlop’s Finishing Well to the Glory of God: Strategies from a Christian Physician (Crossway, 2011).
You can read an excerpt as a PDF or below:
Finally, I thought it was worth highlighting this portion of Tabletalk’s interview with Joni Eareckson Tada, who shares the secret of her joy and contentment in the midst of relentless pain:
Tabletalk: Which passages of Scripture have given you encouragement during your struggles with disability and cancer?
Joni: Psalm 79:8 says, “May your mercy come quickly to meet us, for we are in desperate need” (NIV).
Basically, I wake up almost every morning in desperate need of Jesus—from those early days when I first got out of the hospital, to over four decades in a wheelchair, it’s still the same. The morning dawns and I realize: “Lord, I don’t have the strength to go on. I have no resources. I can’t ‘do’ another day of quadriplegia, but I can do all things through You who strengthen me. So please give me Your smile for the day; I need You urgently.”
This, I have found, is the secret to my joy and contentment. Every morning, my disability —and, most recently, my battle with cancer—forces me to come to the Lord Jesus in empty-handed spiritual poverty. But that’s a good place to be because Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:3, NIV).
The entire Tabletalk issue is devoted to death and disease from a biblical perspective.
