We like to say that age is a state of mind more than it is a set of numbers on the calendar. We tell each other, "You’re only as old as you feel." But you know, I’m finding that it is important to know what you feel. It is important to listen to yourself as you age.
I am not referring to aches and pains. I am thinking about more than how much energy we have or whether our muscle tone is what it used to be. I am thinking about how we see ourselves as aging people ... how we perceive ourselves, how we relate as persons who are growing older.
Just think, for example, about the phrase "growing older”. Who is growing older? Anybody older than I am is "growing older", right?! No, we are all growing older, aren’t we? There’s only one way to stop growing older, and you know what that is! You’re not ready for that yet, are you?
So growing older is not something we can avoid. We may as well learn to read it. We may as well learn to understand what aging is about. We may as well decide to listen to ourselves and to discover what we feel about growing older.
This is something that I’ve been trying to do of late. I’ve been one of those people who has always thought of himself as young. As long as I could avoid the mirror, I could keep that illusion going! I never really thought of myself as reaching that thing they call middle age. Actually, to tell the truth, I whizzed past middle-age quite a while ago; I don’t think my age is in the middle. How many people do you know who live to be a hundred and ten? I sort of woke up one morning recently and realized that I was "growing older". And so I’ve begun to listen to myself. What does it feel like to be growing older?
I find I’m asking questions, questions like, "What do I really want out of life? What do I want to accomplish? What is important for me to give myself to? What is worth my spending precious years doing it? And can I get it done? Can I really get something solid accomplished?"
Those questions are really very spiritual. "What does God want of me? And what may I expect from God? What will give me spiritual satisfaction? What will cause my God to say, when ’growing older’ becomes very old, and even becomes death ... what will cause my God to say, ’Well done, good and faithful servant’?" I find, in this time of my life, and maybe you find, in whatever time it is in your life, that we need to feel that we make a difference to somebody. We need to feel that we count for something. We need to know that our living has not been in vain.
A man named Barnabas jumps out of the pages of the New Testament at us to give us some lessons in growing older. When you trace Barnabas’ life and work through the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, what you find is a man who had the spiritual balance that allowed him to grow old gracefully.
Let me tell you what I see in Barnabas’ life. The key to Barnabas’ ability to grow older gracefully is that he believed in the promises embodied in Christ, and so he was able to believe in the promise of young people. Barnabas found that the secret of growing older and liking it is that when you trust the promises of God, you are able to encourage young people. And that gives you meaning.
Let’s work that out with Barnabas. When we first meet Barnabas, by the way, we discover that his name is really a nickname. His name is Joseph, but he was called Bar-nabas, which means “son of encouragement”. You are about to find out why they called him that.
I
First, Barnabas shows us that when you believe in the promises of God, you are able to deal with fear. And when you deal with fear, you can believe in the promise that lies in someone else and you can encourage them.
When you believe in the promise of God, you can drive away the irrational fears that immobilize us. You trust God to raise up a generation of trustworthy people, and you encourage them.
In the ninth chapter of Acts, there is the story of the conversion of Saul, who had been the chief persecutor of the infant church. This man Saul had made it his personal business to root out Christianity and to do it in the most ruthless manner possible. He had made quite a name for himself, running up and down the road between Jerusalem and Tarsus, securing warrants and fomenting trouble for the Christians.
But now Saul had met the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, and had become a believer. Not only did Saul become a believer, he became, after only a few days, a convincing promoter of this new faith. The chief persecutor, in just a matter of days, had become a very vigorous spokesman for the very thing he had been attacking.
Two things happened as a result. First, his bold preaching drew the attention of the authorities, who tried to silence Saul. And second, his preaching drew the attention of the Christians back at the mother church in Jerusalem, who just didn’t know what to make of it.
What was their reaction? They were afraid. "When [Saul] had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples; and they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple."
And why not? What would you make of this? If the guy who tried to sell you a Toyota last week turns up at the Ford dealer’s and tries to sell you that, aren’t you suspicious? If the lawyer who sued you for all that you are worth when he represented that driver whose car you hit now turns around and wants to defend you against the claim, aren’t you rather resistant? Small wonder that the Jerusalem Christians were suspicious of Saul the ultra-Pharisee when he came down to Jerusalem and proclaimed himself a Christian and a preacher to boot.
But listen to what Barnabas did when he found that Saul was being rejected by the Jerusalem Christians.
"Barnabas took him, brought him to the apostles, and described for them how on the road [Saul] had seen the Lord ... and how in Damascus [Saul] had spoken boldly in the name of Jesus.”
You see, what Barnabas did was first to deal with his own fears, and then, to deal with the fears of his fellow believers. Because Barnabas trusted what Christ had done and had promised, Barnabas was able to see promise rather than threat in Saul.
Frankly, one of the great things about growing older is that you no longer have to feel that everything depends on you. You no longer have to fear that if you don’t do it, it will never get done.
Now I suspect that a lot of us came through the stage of "Mother, please, I’d rather do it myself!" Do you know what I mean? Do you remember the TV commercial that had an older woman trying to help her daughter do something, but daughter has a bad headache, and shrieks out, "Mother, please, I’d rather do it myself!" Remember?! Well, a lot of us came through that stage. We thought we could do it better. Better than the old folks and certainly better than the young ones. We’d rather do it ourselves. And, if the truth be told, we didn’t quite see how God managed to run the world until we came along.
What was that about? Was that sheer ego? Was that pride? Yes, but deep down it was something else. It was fear. We were afraid. We were afraid to trust anybody ... and ultimately if you do not trust others it means you do not trust God. If you do not trust others it means you do not trust the power of God to work in them. Fear makes us want to be in charge of everything.
But growing older is teaching us, if we are wise enough to learn from Barnabas, that first we deal with fear, our own fear, by acknowledging that God is at work. God is at work even in the worst of people, like Saul, and God is able to change them. We have to dismiss our fears; we trust His promises; and we trust the next generation.
Believing the promise of Christ is believing in the promise that lies in those who are coming after us. It is believing in the promise of the Creator, who has not stopped creating. It is believing in the promise of the Redeemer, who can redeem all persons. It is believing in the promise of the Holy Spirit, who has not withdrawn from the world. Barnabas helps us see that we do not have to be afraid of the next generation; we can encourage them.
II
But there is something else we can learn from Barnabas, the son of encouragement. Not only can we deal with the fear that someone else may not be able to do what we do, not only can we dismiss the anxiety that the next generation is not going to be capable, but also we learn from Barnabas that growing older makes it possible for us to be guides for others. If we believe in the promise of Christ that He will raise others up to do His work, then it becomes our task to look for people with promise and to foster them in Kingdom service. That’s not only trusting God; and it’s not only trusting the next generation; it’s also trusting ourselves and what we have learned.
In the 11th Chapter of the Book of Acts, Barnabas comes to the surface again. This time the situation is that persecution of the church has spread, and times are tough. The church basically went underground. The text tells us that they curtailed their witness. They would not witness to anyone but Jews, for fear of stirring up resentment.
But up in Antioch revival broke out. In Antioch someone broke the silence, and large numbers of people began to turn to Christ. There was potential there for great growth, of course; but there was also potential for an explosive, dangerous, life-threatening conflict. Without sensitive leadership for the widening movement in Antioch, grave danger could come for Christians everywhere.
And so to Antioch the mother church in Jerusalem sent Barnabas. The son of encouragement would be a trusted and wise leader. Maybe they even hoped he could put a damper on the ardor of the Antioch Christians.
But notice how Barnabas operated in this tinderbox: "When [Barnabas] came and saw the grace of God, he rejoiced, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast devotion; for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith ... Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. So it was that for an entire year they met with the church and taught a great many people."
Barnabas’ great gift, the gift of encouragement, was to take a novice and match him with a need and so make a context in which the Spirit of God could work. Barnabas had enough trust to sponsor and encourage someone in whom he saw promise.
As you know, I worked with college students for some 23 years. There are aspects of that work I loved so much, and one of them was finding young people I could encourage into the ministry or into missions. I have former students who are pastors of churches from New York to California and who are missionaries from Mexico to the Philippines. It was powerful to recruit students for Kingdom service.
Why was it so powerful? What does it mean to sponsor some young person? One of my friends said it well the other day. She said, "It’s like giving birth. Even after you’re past the age of having children, it’s like giving birth to new life. You feel creative again when you help someone else find the work that is right for them."
I think that’s it. I think that’s what Barnabas teaches us. Reach out and find someone who needs something meaningful to do; reach out and discover a young person who has potential. Invest time and money and energy and devotion in that person. And you will find that the creative power of God surges up in you. You will recapture a little of your own youth.
Why? Again, believing the promise of Christ is believing in the promise that lies in those who are coming after us. It is believing in the promise of the Creator, who has not stopped creating. It is believing in the promise of the Redeemer, who can redeem all persons. It is believing in the promise of the Holy Spirit, who has not withdrawn from the world. Barnabas helps us see that we can nurture the talents of the next generation; we can encourage them, and find new life ourselves.
III
All right. So now we have thought about conquering our fear that the next generation might take over from us. And we’ve discovered that if we can believe in the promises of Christ, we can dismiss that fear.
And we have thought about rekindling our own creativity. We have imagined that it’s like being a parent all over again, if we can see the promise in some person and can help him find a direction for his life.
But what if young people do fail us? What if they do disappoint us? What if they mess up? What then? What do we do about that?
Barnabas has something to teach us here too. Barnabas can teach us that when those we’ve tried to teach don’t learn, we teach again. When those we’ve trusted betray us, we trust again. When those who show promise fail to make good, we go back to Square One and start all over again.
Acts, chapter 12, tells us that the two great missionary companions, Saul and Barnabas, whose lives had been hooked up for quite a while now, started out on a missionary journey, and took with them a young man named John Mark. They traveled through several cities in Asia Minor and Cyprus, preaching and teaching and strengthening the churches. But abruptly, halfway through the trip, John Mark just up and left. Not a word, not a warning. He just quit.
All twenty of us who got to church during the snow know why John Mark quit. The rest of you will just have to wonder about it!
But quit he did. And so in Acts, chapter 15, when Paul and Barnabas, after several months, decided that they needed to go on another missionary journey, Paul was adamant against taking John Mark. He was not having a deserter along. But Barnabas was equally determined to give John Mark a second chance. The disagreement was spectacular.
"Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark. But Paul decided not to take with them one who had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not accompanied them in the work. The disagreement became so sharp that they parted company; Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus. But Paul chose Silas and set out... through Syria and Cilicia."
Barnabas teaches us that it may cost us something, but we will have to give young people room to make mistakes. We will have to give them a chance to make good. Barnabas teaches us that where others may say, "This kid is no good," we will try again. Barnabas shows us that where others may argue, .You have to protect yourself", we, if we have learned from the son of encouragement, will go back and go back and go back again. Everybody needs room in which to make mistakes. And everyone can be brought back from failure.
When I was chaplain at the University of Maryland, there was a religious group on campus which left no room for mistakes. If you didn’t measure up, out you went. We heard that one of the students had been sent out of that group for drinking. Then we heard that another one had been asked to leave because he had stolen some money. Still another was publicly humiliated because she was pregnant. The message this group sent out was, "one mistake and you are finished". Well, you can guess the outcome. After a while the group was down to a bare handful of people, all of whom professed absolute moral purity. But guess what else? They also all suspected each other! They mistrusted each other! Having had no trust in other sinners, they could not trust each other either.
I think that means that they did not trust God. For, again, believing the promise of Christ is believing in the promise that lies in those who come after us. It is believing in the promise of the Creator, who has not stopped creating. It is believing in the promise of the Redeemer, who can redeem all persons. It is believing in the promise of the Holy Spirit, who has not withdrawn from the world. Barnabas helps us see that mistakes can be remedied, grace can cover all sins, sinners Jesus will receive, and so can we. We can encourage them.
"Just as I am, Thou wilt receive, Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve, Because Thy promise I believe. 0 Lamb of God, I come, I come.”
Growing older may not be so bad. Not if Barnabas is any example. Not if the son of encouragement teaches us anything.
For “if I can help somebody, then my living will not be in vain."
