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When Your Best Years Are Behind You · Pastor John Piper's answers

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Well, so much of this podcast has been dedicated to
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  Speaker 1: chronic pain and aging and learning to live life amidst
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: mounting sorrows in the later years. Dozens and dozens of
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  Speaker 1: episodes cover this episodes. I've done my very best a
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  Speaker 1: catalog for you and to digest for you so that
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  Speaker 1: you can fully appreciate the ground that's been covered. CBAPJ book.
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  Speaker 1: If you have it, close on pages three sixty five
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  Speaker 1: to three ninety four. It's a huge section pages three
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  Speaker 1: sixty five to three ninety four because there's so much
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  Speaker 1: to cover. And we're back to the theme today in
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  Speaker 1: this question from Austin. Hello, Pastor John, I thank God
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  Speaker 1: for your ministry, which has been a great encouragement to
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  Speaker 1: me over the years. I'm seeking advice from scripture on
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  Speaker 1: how to trust God when it feels like my best
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  Speaker 1: years are behind me. Nine years ago, God blessed me
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  Speaker 1: with my dream job, and my wife and I had
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  Speaker 1: the incredible opportunity to go on a mission strip to Japan,
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  Speaker 1: a country we loveterily. Life was full of excitement and
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  Speaker 1: I was eager to see what God would do next. However,
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  Speaker 1: that job ended several years ago. We haven't returned to Japan,
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  Speaker 1: and my health has declined significantly. Now I'm wrestling with
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  Speaker 1: feelings of depression and apathy about where my life has landed.
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  Speaker 1: How can I find joy and satisfaction knowing that physically, vocationally,
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  Speaker 1: ministerially things may never be as good as they once were?
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  Speaker 1: How can I continue to trust God in the midst
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  Speaker 1: of this season of a loss and uncertainty?
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  Speaker 2: Here's the short answer. And then I'll give a longer one,
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  Speaker 2: and trust be Austin. I'm preaching to myself. I'm seventy
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  Speaker 2: nine years old, and I have all these same questions.
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  Speaker 2: So here's the short answer. You continue, We continue, You
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  Speaker 2: and I continue to trust God in the season of
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  Speaker 2: aging and loss and earth the uncertainty. And yes it
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  Speaker 2: is earthly uncertainty, not heavenly uncertainty. Here's how we do
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  Speaker 2: it by fixing our attention steadfastly on the word of
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  Speaker 2: God and not the word of man. That's how we
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  Speaker 2: do it. The Bible says faith slash trust comes by
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  Speaker 2: hearing and hearing by the word of God, not the
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  Speaker 2: word of Man, which means you continue to trust God
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  Speaker 2: in old age by continuing to hear the word of
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  Speaker 2: God and not the word of Man. This is very,
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  Speaker 2: very crucial because the Internet and every other source of
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  Speaker 2: media are the word of Man, and they crowd us
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  Speaker 2: all the time. If you listen to your own anxieties
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  Speaker 2: talking to you, or if you listen to the advertisements
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  Speaker 2: for senior living, or if you listen to the beckoning
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  Speaker 2: of scenic cruises and how handicap accessible they are, or
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  Speaker 2: if you listen to the latest way to scratch off
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  Speaker 2: your bucket list in comfort, or if you listen even
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  Speaker 2: to a list of ministry jobs you can't take, you
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  Speaker 2: will grow increasingly hopeless and depressed. With every loss of eyes, ears, memory, productivity, mobility,
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  Speaker 2: and friends and family that you outlive. The only way
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  Speaker 2: to maintain Christ, honoring, hope and joy in the wasting
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  Speaker 2: way of old age is to let God continually tell
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  Speaker 2: you what reality is really, the perspective of God on reality,
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  Speaker 2: not man's perspective. The plan of God for reality not
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  Speaker 2: man's plan. The promise of God to an aging saint
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  Speaker 2: not man's promise. That's how to continue to trust God
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  Speaker 2: in the midst of loss an earthly uncertainty. Now here's
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  Speaker 2: the longer answer. What we have to get clear in
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  Speaker 2: our minds and God's word makes it crystal clear, is
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  Speaker 2: that this world is not our home. It's not heaven.
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  Speaker 2: It's not intended to be an endless playground, or even
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  Speaker 2: an endless ministry ground that lasts until you drop. It's
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  Speaker 2: not intended to be easy. It is the prelude to
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  Speaker 2: heaven and the world to come, and it is given
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  Speaker 2: to us as a test of whether we will trust
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  Speaker 2: God and treasure Him above all things and display him
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  Speaker 2: as superior to the world, even at the end of
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  Speaker 2: our lives. If we think of our years from sixty
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  Speaker 2: five to ninety five as our last best chance at life,
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  Speaker 2: we're idiots. We're unbelieving idiots to think like that, which
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  Speaker 2: is the way the world, the word of Man wants
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  Speaker 2: us to think. Our last best chance at life is
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  Speaker 2: with Christ in glory beyond the grave. That's our last
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  Speaker 2: best chance of life. Or if he comes first before
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  Speaker 2: we died, that would be even better. And this world,
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  Speaker 2: whether at age thirty or ninety, this world is nothing
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  Speaker 2: compared to the glory that will be revealed to us
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  Speaker 2: Romans eight eighteen. This is God's word, not man's word.
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  Speaker 2: We must believe it. The losses of old age are
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  Speaker 2: simply one kind of test for our faith. But this
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  Speaker 2: test is not unique. Johnny Ericsson Tada has been in
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  Speaker 2: a wheelchair since he was seventeen. That's a big loss.
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  Speaker 2: Fanny Crosby was blind. That's a big loss, and she
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  Speaker 2: produced eight thousand hymns. John Milton went blind in the
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  Speaker 2: middle of Paradise, lost and he finished it. That's a
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  Speaker 2: great loss. And gain Beethoven went death and continued to
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  Speaker 2: write great music. That was a huge loss. The losses
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  Speaker 2: we experience as we move towards death are just one
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  Speaker 2: species of loss that mark all of Christian life, and
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  Speaker 2: the Bible has lots to say about what those losses
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  Speaker 2: are meant to accomplish in our lives. Here's what the
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  Speaker 2: Word of God, not the word of man, says. Counted.
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  Speaker 2: All joy, my brothers. When you meet trials of various kinds,
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  Speaker 2: like the trials of aging, for you know that the
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  Speaker 2: testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let's steadfastness have
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  Speaker 2: its full effect. That you may be perfect and completely
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  Speaker 2: lacking in nothing, James one. And that effect it produces
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  Speaker 2: when you endure trial. That effect is not physical fitness,
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  Speaker 2: Oh Lord, It's not physical fitness, but endurance and patience
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  Speaker 2: with joy as collostions, one says, take Paul as an example.
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  Speaker 2: I love the apostle. Paul. Have a picture, at least
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  Speaker 2: of Rembrandts imagination of what he looks like, hanging on
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  Speaker 2: the wall in my attic. Here he is in prison.
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  Speaker 2: He's in prison as an old man writing to fileman
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  Speaker 2: for the sake of Onesimus, usually says in verse ten
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  Speaker 2: nine and ten, for love's sake, I prefer to appeal
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  Speaker 2: to you, I Paul, an old man and now a prisoner.
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  Speaker 2: Also for Christ Jesus, appeal to you for my child Onessemus.
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  Speaker 2: He's old, his body is racked with the effects of
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  Speaker 2: decades of suffering, and his thorn in the flesh, and
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  Speaker 2: he's in prison. And what does he do? He does
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  Speaker 2: what he can. What can he do? He writes a
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  Speaker 2: letter to phi Lehman out of love to Onesimus, to
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  Speaker 2: try to help them be reconciled. That's a ministry. That's
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  Speaker 2: a ministry. And it was glorious. It was beautiful. Makes
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  Speaker 2: me love the apostle Paul. Jesus said, one who is
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  Speaker 2: faithful in very little is also faithful in much sixteen ten.
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  Speaker 2: In other words, we will only be held accountable for
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  Speaker 2: the little we can do. That's what Paul says in
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  Speaker 2: Tewod Corinthians eight twelve. If the readiness, if the readiness
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  Speaker 2: is there, it is acceptable according to what a person has,
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  Speaker 2: not according to what he does not have. God doesn't
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  Speaker 2: expect from eighty somethings what he expected from thirty somethings.
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  Speaker 2: When you were thirty, you could store up a reward
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  Speaker 2: in heaven by traveling one hundred miles, staying up all
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  Speaker 2: night with a grieving saint, and not miss a beat
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  Speaker 2: in the next two days. When you're ninety, you may
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  Speaker 2: store up that same reward by scratching out in your
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  Speaker 2: shaky handwriting a precious short note of encouragement to your
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  Speaker 2: great grandchild. Same reward. The word of God does not
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  Speaker 2: leave us guessing as to how aging or even disabled
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  Speaker 2: or imprisoned saints maintain hope and joy. Paul was very
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  Speaker 2: self conscious about the fading away of his powers. He
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  Speaker 2: is what he said in second Crindans, for we do
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  Speaker 2: not lose heart. That's what Austin is asking me about.
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  Speaker 2: And I ask myself, how do I not lose heart?
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  Speaker 2: We do not lose heart though our outer self is
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  Speaker 2: wasting away. Our inner self is being renewed day by day.
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  Speaker 2: How Verse seventeen, For this light, momentary affliction is preparing
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  Speaker 2: for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.
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  Speaker 2: None of your suffering is wasted if you bear it
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  Speaker 2: in faith. With every loss, there is a thousandfold gain
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  Speaker 2: of glory in the age to come. And even more
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  Speaker 2: than that, while we are painfully approaching heaven, we have
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  Speaker 2: this promise according to God's word, not man's word. In
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  Speaker 2: Isaiah forty sixty three, let us think, Austin, you have
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  Speaker 2: been born by Me speaking to his people, and that
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  Speaker 2: would be Christians. Now you have been born by Me
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  Speaker 2: from before your birth, carried from the womb, even to
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  Speaker 2: your old age. I am he and to gray hairs.
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  Speaker 2: I will carry you. I have made and I will bear,
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  Speaker 2: I will carry and will save. How sweet is that?
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  Speaker 2: And finally, God promises, not man. God promises that for
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  Speaker 2: the Christian the best is always yet to come. We
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  Speaker 2: are not moving towards sunset, We're moving toward high noon.
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  Speaker 2: Proverbs four eighteen. The path of the righteous is like
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  Speaker 2: the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until
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  Speaker 2: the full day and the full day is the presence
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  Speaker 2: of Christ, face to face. How can Psalm sixty three say,
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  Speaker 2: the steadfast love, O Lord, your steadfast lovel Lord, is
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  Speaker 2: better than life, better than life. How can it say
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  Speaker 2: that the word of God not the word of man.
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  Speaker 2: The word of God gives the answer. In God's presence
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  Speaker 2: there is fullness of joy. At his right hand are
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  Speaker 2: pleasures forevermore. This is not sunset, this is high noon.
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  Speaker 2: So dear Austin, dear dear, my fellow aging Christian warrior,
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  Speaker 2: how can we find joy and satisfaction in the final
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  Speaker 2: season of loss and earthly uncertainty? Believe the word of God,
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  Speaker 2: not the word of man. To paraphrase John Bradford when
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  Speaker 2: he was being burned at the stake with young John,
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  Speaker 2: leif be of good comfort, brother, for we shall have
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  Speaker 2: a merry lunch with the Lord this high noon.
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  Speaker 1: So good thank you vestor John Yeah. If you listen
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  Speaker 1: to your own anxieties talking to you, or if you
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  Speaker 1: listen to the advertisements for senior living, or if you
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: listen to the beckoning of scenic cruises and how handicap
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: accessible they are, or if you listen to the latest
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: way to scratch off your bucket list and comfort, or
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: if you listen even to a list of ministry jobs
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  Speaker 1: that you can't take now, you will grow increasingly hopeless
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  Speaker 1: and depressed with every loss of eyes, ears, memory, productivity, mobility,
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  Speaker 1: and the friends and family that you outlive. Pointed, thank you,
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  Speaker 1: Pastor John for that prophetic clarity. The best years are
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  Speaker 1: never behind the child of God. What a promise. And
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  Speaker 1: for more on aging and learning to live with joy
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  Speaker 1: in Christ as life sorrows mount over the years, be
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  Speaker 1: sure to see my catalog and digest of dozens of
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  Speaker 1: APJA episodes in the chapter I titled on Trial, Sorrow
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  Speaker 1: and Chronic Pain in the APJ Book, pages three sixty
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  Speaker 1: five to three ninety four. We're back on Thursday. Not
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  Speaker 1: sure what's up next, but I am Tony Rank expecting
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  Speaker 1: another great question from you all. You never disappoint. We'll
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  Speaker 1: see you on Thursday.