God's Not Finished With You Yet

God’s Not Finished With You Yet

2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Intro: Valentine’s Day is this week. I hope all of you are getting prepared to tell your sweetheart how much you love them. Valentine’s Day can have some issues for our seniors though. Let me tell you what I mean.

. A couple had been married for 50 years. Valentine’s Day rolled around and this conversation took place.

"Things have really changed," she said. "You used to sit very close to me."

"Well, I can remedy that," he said, moving next to her on the couch.

"And you used to hold me tight."

"How’s that?" he asked as he gave her a hug.

"Do you remember you used to nudge my neck and nibble on my ear lobes?"

He jumped to his feet and left the room. "Where are you going?"

"I’ll be right back," he said. "I’ve got to get my teeth!"

. Today is our senior appreciation day.

. We will have a luncheon right after our service today and we want all our seniors to come and allow us to serve you this day.

. This day is dedicated to you. I hope that you have enjoyed the music program that was created with seniors in mind.

. There seems to be some confusion though as to when someone is really a senior so I thought I would take a page out of Jeff Foxworthy’s “you might be a redneck” by telling you how you can determine if you are a senior or not.

. You might be a senior if:

. You sing along with elevator music

. You remember when gasoline was 26 cents per gallon.

. You’re proud of your lawnmower

. When you are with your friends, all you talk about are your doctor’s visits.

.You stop holding your stomach in no matter who comes into the room.

. You have more hair in your ears than on your head.

. I’ll let you decide if these apply to you or not.

. One Senior said: “There are four advantages to getting old and forgetful: One, you meet new friends every day; two, every joke you hear is new; three, you can hide your own Easter eggs; and I forget the fourth thing.”

. To our seniors, let me say from the bottom of my heart, I love and appreciate you.

. Through the years, I have had seniors say to me that they have spent their life in service to God and now they want to retire.

. They want to sit back and take it easy and let the younger folks take on what needs to be done to further Gods kingdom.

. The bible tells us that we can’t do that.

. You have heard me say this before, you can’t retire from God. You can’t quit God.

. Our scripture this morning tells us this.

. In 2 Corinthians the apostle Paul is writing a rather personal letter to the church in Corinth and in the fourth chapter He is sharing with them why he preaches and why he continues even as he is getting older and is being persecuted more and more.

. Then he gets to our scripture this morning.

. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18:

. 16That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day.

17For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!

18So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.

. Paul writes that he will never give up. Never quit preaching and teaching and sharing the gospel with the world.

. He says that I do this because it is so vitally important for people to know the love of Jesus Christ.

. Look at verse 16 again.

. 16That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day.

. Paul writes that yes we are getting old. He is getting old but his spirit is not old.

. God refreshes and renews his spirit every day.

. Folks God will renew and refresh our spirits daily if we will allow Him to do so.

. In verse 17 he writes:

. 17For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!

. Yes our bodies are getting old and we can’t do the things we used to do but compared to what awaits us in glory, they are insignificant.