Families Are Forever III, Playing the Back Nine

You may notice immediately, if you're looking at your notes, that this is not about adolescence, and I want to apologize. I know some people came specifically to hear the message on adolescence. I will bring that message next week, but how many believe that God wants the pastor to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit? And once in a while the Lord just changes things, and I can tell you Wednesday night at 930, the Lord spoke to me and said, change the message. And so I'm going to talk to you this morning a little bit about the facts, the feelings, and some of the foibles of turning 50. If you need a scriptural justification for this, if that's a problem for you, look at 2 Corinthians chapter 11, and you'll see where the Apostle Paul took time to talk about his life in some specific ways. But I today just felt that liberty, and I want to share with you about what it means. I know for some of you this is going to be a review. You're already past 50. You can nod and say amen at appropriate times. For some of you who are sitting out there smugly 40, 42, 43, looking at this, you know, poor old guy up here, your time is coming more quickly than you think. And if you're in your 20s, I hope you get one shred of goodness out of this. I think you will, if you listen carefully. In fact, I wish I'd known some of this when I was 20. But I am officially old now, I expect. I was watching a CBS made-for-TV movie on Monday night. Playing with the computer really was what I was doing. And so, but had one eye on the screen, and interesting. Wasn't really into the movie yet, but as it came near the end, I saw this one scene where these two folks in their 20s were trying to find their dad who had apparently secretly killed the mother of the children, who was his second wife, or whatever. I don't know. It was a weird combination. But anyhow, in the end, the two children went into the boathouse, and there was a guy in his early 20s in the boathouse. And they said, well, did you see the guy? And they said, yeah. The guy said, I saw him. And he was carrying his body. And the two kids said to the other guy, well, what'd he look like? And the guy in the boathouse said, well, he was kind of old, maybe 50. Not 50s or, you know, late. He just said 50. Boom. Well, that settles it. I went up and had Carol console me some. I said, well, I guess that's it, you know. I mean, if it's on TV, it's got to be true, right? But I want to use the metaphor, if that's okay, of a golf course. You know, this is Tiger Woods time and all, and most of us are thinking golf now that it's sunny out. And a lot of my friends are golfers. One of them here, Paul Modzelewski, mentioned that no matter what you can say about 50, you're definitely playing the back nine. So that's what I've entitled this message. Playing the back nine. Let me give you nine observations. This is not, by the way, all of my observations about life. Not necessarily even the most important I've ever had. But these are nine that are meaningful to me right now. And I want to share them with you. Number one, life is a puzzle. You might want to write this down. Things just don't fit into little neat boxes. The older I get, the more I realize that what Pastor Dave demonstrated graphically a few weeks ago often happens. God takes our life just when we get our puzzle almost complete and turns it upside down, and we start over again. When you turn 50, you realize that people that you used to look to to have answers to life's puzzles don't really have the answers after all. Have you noticed that? People who are so-called authorities really don't know all that much, and you wonder how we've made it this long with the kind of, you know, so-called people who are in authority out there leading us. With the saturation of information, I'm convinced that most of our heads of state and our elite of academia really don't know all that much when it's all said and done. They're just as amazed that it's working as we are. And I've also discovered there's no satisfying answers to most of the why questions that some of you are asking even today. People come and often ask me, well, why does God let this happen? I don't know. You know, well, what if we discover alien life on another planet? I don't know. Maybe we will. Or what about the comet? What if the comet hit in the Atlantic Ocean? What might happen then? I don't know. Computer model says that all the east coast will be under water, so I sure am not going to stay up tonight thinking about that, are you? But more seriously, things like, well, why do some really good people seem to suffer so much? I don't know. And why do some nerdy people seem to get away with so much? You ever asked that question? You know, why do some people, like, with no real scruples, seem to get ahead in life? I don't know. I do know that wisdom comes with age, and it differs a lot from information. More and more, this age we're in is called the information age. I saw a cartoon recently with this huge superhighway that said, information. And then this one man crawling along, desperately looking for a drink of water up there in his mind, which said wisdom. And that's really the truth. There's lots of information. There's not all that much wisdom to be had in today's world. By the way, for those of you who don't know, wisdom is knowledge applied to living. And that's what this world is short of. There's tons of information. The more you get on the computer, the more you realize that you have access to all the information that man has ever accumulated. But we don't have all that much wisdom, do we? And in fact, I'm not sure that life is getting better as a result of all that information. I think I could make an argument that life, in many ways, is getting a little bit worse. I remember when the principal said, call the school security person, he meant the custodian. Remember that? Not today. Now they come with armament, basically, to quell the riots in the schools. I remember when there wasn't any such industry as the auto alarm industry. When V-chips and television sets weren't necessary because there wasn't that kind of stuff on TV that you had to worry about your kids watching. I mean, all this information, I don't know, and all this stuff out there, it's all a puzzle. But I do know that God says in His Word that He is working all these parts of our puzzle together for good. That in the end, when He puts our puzzle together, it's going to be a good thing. That's what you need to hold on to. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No. In all these things, we are more than conquerors. Second thing is this, the physical side of life is uncertain. All men are like grass and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fade. Over 50? Hello? Is that true? Yeah, amen, it's true, isn't it? Well, I'm not so sure. Amazing contradiction in our society today is that we've never been more preoccupied with keeping our bodies in great shape, but with really relatively little result. I mean, we've upped the median age of death now to like 74 or 5 or something like that, but it's still 3 score in 10 or 4 score, as the Bible said, on average. As my surgeon said when I first developed my back problem, he said, up to age 40, your body takes care of you. After age 40, you take care of it, and I found that to be true. When you hit 50, I mean, you know everything's not working right. First tip off is your handwriting. I mean, I used to have a pretty decent handwriting. Now I can't, I mean, you know, you start thinking, well, who wrote that? I mean, I can't even read my own stuff. My secretary said, what is that? I said, I don't know. Who wrote it? You did. Oh. All kinds of weird things begin to happen. Stuff that was easy for you when you were 40 gets a little tougher. You know, go out and throw the football with your boys. Well, I used to be like, okay, man, let's put them to the test. Let's see if they can run underneath this one. Now it's like, no, don't hurt yourself. You know, don't, don't take any risks. You know, good hard game of tennis. I mean, it used to be all the time. Now, now you can't, can't risk getting hurt. A little survey of the countertops and dressers and other little flat spaces reveal all these kinds of things. These little prescription bottles, you know. I never used to have these things. Now they're everywhere. I have more of these, you know, than I have to neckties. They're just everyplace. You know, the term aches and pains used to be a euphemism like needles and pins and pots and pans and aches and pains. But now aches and pains mean real aches and real pains. And that's just the kind of the way it is. Another phrase I never used to say, honey, have you seen my reading glasses? Up till three years ago, I never even said those words. Now, every time I pick up a little reminder, a little reminder that, well, things aren't exactly going the right direction. And it's funny, you know, when you look in the mirror in the morning, you see the face and the body there. What that image is telling you is not what you feel on the inside. You see, on the inside, you're thinking, come on, you know, I'm going to take, let's go, whatever, let's do it. And your body's saying, yeah, right, just back up and take a look again. What do you see in that, you know? It's a funny thing. There's this contradiction going on in your head and your body, and you just got to kind of work through it. It's interesting. There's an upside to that, I suppose. On the other hand, you no longer worry about what you look like on the beach or at the pool. Because basically you don't. I mean, for most people, you're invisible now. I mean, at least to the people in their bikinis or their surf jams, you don't exist anymore. They don't see you. It's, you know, you're kind of like a lounge chair or a deck hamper or, you know, a towel hamper to put things in. They just don't see. You look in the mirror and you see Fabio, you know, but they don't see anything like that. And it's weird, the little things that just people say. Incidentally, I was going out one evening just, you know, to a meeting or something, and it was the end of the day, and Jonathan had been meeting with the group of kids planning something. It was mainly gals there and came down, and I guess I just put on a little too much cologne because you're not supposed to be real obvious. But as I was going out, one girl said, oh, that's really nice. You know, what is that? And I said, I don't know. She said, oh, that smells. Well, you smell like a dad. I said to myself, well, what does a dad smell like? Have you ever seen a cologne in coffins called dad? It's a big seller now, you know. Oh, give me some of that dad cologne. That's some good stuff, right? I don't know. You know, at 50, you discover people and professions you never knew existed before, like podiatrists and, you know, urologists and things like that. You're never worried about that stuff. And now, oh, you know a new podiatrist. Oh, that's really great. You know, that's like a prom queen or something. So now I've got to introduce me to that person. Really important out there. And diet. You know, this whole thing of your diet becomes a great big deal. Five words that sort of define your character when you're 50 are like, would you like some dessert? Huh? I'm going to find that that really reveals the kind of person you are. Why? Because, well, it first of all says, do you have self-control? Can you resist temptation? All this is going on. And this is from someone for whom, you know, fudgsicles and milk duds and Oreos and Hershey bars were the major four food groups that I grew up with, right? Now it's like, ooh, what's your diet? And then there's those constant reminders when you're young. You don't hear those things on the radio like, I'm so-and-so, you know, a 49-year-old stockbroker and I had heart check America. And then, you know, all these things are designed to get your attention. Like maybe you better watch out because you're going to break down soon. You know, and you start all these funny things that never felt before and thinking, oh, I wonder if that's the big one coming. It's like, whoa, what is that? I've never felt that before. So it's funny. Let me just put it down here. Whether you're 20 or 50 or 80, the physical side of life is uncertain. No guarantees. No guarantees. These bodies are passing away. But as was said before, in Jesus, we look forward to that resurrection body when all things are made new and you can trade this one in and it won't be any too soon for me. I'm not sure about you. All right, next. Beware of babble. You know, with all the advance of technology out there, I'm not so sure things are all that much better now than they were a generation ago. Richard Foster says this, contemporary culture is plagued by the passion to possess. The unreasoned boast abounds that the good life is found in accumulation, that more is better. Indeed, we often accept this notion without question with the result that the lust for affluence in contemporary society has become psychotic. It has completely lost touch with reality. At 50, you remember when simple things worked well, like the phone company. Remember when you called the phone company and they put in a phone and it worked? And when the phone didn't work, you called the phone company and they fixed it? Now it's like this long, you process of like getting phones. You have all these choices to make, you know, all these colors, all these designs, and all these styles, and all these features that you don't know anything about. Like, you know, what does flash mean? Huh? Flash. What does flash mean? I mean, you got all these features on these. Who knows what that is? Why does it just work? If it doesn't work, you're in deep weeds, right? Now you got to fix it or buy another one. I found out what flash meant in the first service. One person knew. Yeah, no, that's right, call waiting. Now you know what I think about call waiting? Call waiting is the technological equivalent of looking at someone else coming in the room while you're having a conversation with someone, huh? Isn't it about that rude, huh? Yeah, I mean, it's like, I'll talk to you, oh wait a minute, somebody more important may be on the line. Hold, would you please? That's not an advancement. I guess, don't put me on call waiting next time because I just, you know, those are just little things, I guess, that I've noticed as I've gone along. I used to have one phone, one little black rotary phone. Now you have, like, how many? You know, you got one in your car, and one you carry with you, and one in each level of your house, and six phone numbers to remember, a fax line, a computer line. What does all of it amount to? Just this barrage of information, and what it basically does, it pushes out of your life peace, and quiet, and order. And I feel sorry for those of you who are attached to beepers, and they just go off whenever you, you know, you don't have any control over it, because it's like a one-way message, like, I'm bullying you, you know. I'm not so sure all that's really that great. Carol and I got away for a couple of nights, about 10 days ago, and there was no phone. And I remember coming back thinking, wow, that's one thing, I didn't miss that at all. I mean, not having to be on the other end every time someone went. And that's, by the way, that's one thing that adolescents, that's the time to know that that's when that sets in in your life. If you're an adolescent, it's like the phone is a body part, all right. In fact, most adolescents would like to phone implants, that way you wouldn't have to look for the phone every time it rang, because you'd have it connected. You just have to click something on your wrist, and you could start talking. And, you know, another thing that kind of happened along the way that was kind of interesting that I missed out on was the girl calling boy thing. I mean, I grew up when boys called girls, but now it's girls call boys, and I'm kind of sorry I missed that, aren't you guys? That would have been a great time, but it's just another change that I've seen. Um, babble. Look what Genesis 11 verse 4 says. Come let us build ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens so that we can make a name for ourselves. You see, what a lot of this is, friends, is just an attempt to gain more and more and more information to elevate ourselves. I mean, even the news today. It used to be that you'd get the morning newspaper, and then you'd watch Walter Crankcase at night when you came home. But now it's like news anytime you want it, and even when you don't want it, you get it. You know, and you're made to think if you miss the news, you might miss something big. Well, by the time you're 50, you realize that if you miss the news this hour, you probably haven't missed a thing, because it's gonna be the same news the next hour and the next hour and the next hour. I'm not so sure all of it's all that great. I'm wondering, I mean, a lot of strange things out there. How about wind chill? Where'd that come from? I felt so good when I picked this out of USA Today a few months ago. Does wind chill factor really affect your life? The wind chill factor is a phony statistic, an example of junk science that has more to do with Nielsen ratings than with meteorology. Its purpose is to make normal winter weather seem newsworthy and frightening. Mix frigid temperatures with wind and most people feel uncomfortable, so dress warmly. But what does that have to do with anything? How would you know what 18 degrees below zero feels like on bare skin unless you go outside with your clothes off? Anyhow, these are just things. I'm not saying information is wrong. I'm not saying we shouldn't listen to the news. All that's fine. But I'm arguing for some simplicity. I'm arguing for moderation. And I am saying this, it's probably more important to get some breaking news from God than it is to listen to what's coming out all the time on the radio and television and computer screens. Beware of babble. Beware of trying to just keep elevating the importance of the things that you're hearing. Next, the older things still have substance. You know, it's amazing how some of the old standby things are still the best. Isn't that true? What's better than a great old cheeseburger cooked on an open grill, huh? I mean, who cares about cholesterol? Load it up and throw it on there, right? It tastes great. Or how about an ice cream cone on a warm summer evening, huh? In a convertible with a good friend. I mean, there's just some things that don't get any better. I mean, it's great memories. I pulled out my camera, the camera that I was given for my 40th birthday. It's a good camera. But it had been abused recently on a vacation. And it was all beat up. And I took it into the camera store to see, well, maybe it's time to trade it in for, you know, a newer one because I've got a big wedding coming up. My daughter Amy's getting married on June 21st, and you're all invited. And I want to have good pictures. Well, I took the camera in and I showed it to the gal there. And she checked it all out. She said, well, this new one has a plastic body. Yours has one of those warm metal bodies. This new one has a cheaper lens. You have a Nikkor lens. And she said, sir, she said, to be truthful, I would just keep this one. Older is better in this case. And that's true for some things like that. And you know, somehow some of the older things have said substance to them that defines who they are. And friends, listen carefully. This really has to do a lot with who we are as people. This has something to do about who our parents were. You see, what defined our parents more than anything else, when you get right down to it, was World War II. It made them kind of what they were. Out of the depression of the 30s, the sacrifice and hardship of those times emerged a unity and a humility and a victory spirit and a sense of prosperity that shaped them, that gave them their stories and their movies and their music and revealed a lot about who they were. And now for us, isn't it interesting when you overlay our movies and our stories and our music today, what a difference there is. In a lot of ways, World War II defined our parents and who they were and what they stood for. And maybe in some ways we never imagined kind of defined who we are too, or maybe who we aren't. And that bothers us. I don't know. My mom and dad, I guess, you know, the Glenn Millers and the Cole Porters and those, you know, Night and Day and Rhapsody in Blue, all those are great, great musical things that don't happen anymore. When you're 50, our music was a little less substantive than that. I grew up with music like this. Let's see if we can get it to roll. I'm going to play a song. How many of you remember this one? Boyfriend's Back? This is a great instrumental song. Remember this one? This is about as good as it got. They would just pound on the drums for a while. Oh, yeah, it's improving here. Somehow it was still making it to the Hall of Fame. That was what came out of my head. And if you really wanted lyric, I mean, real meaty lyric that really grabbed your heart, we've got another one that's going to come up right now. Rank it up, guys. The Beach Boys, you remember that? That's, you know, like it or not, that's the music that we have. Not exactly, you know, Glenn Miller, but that's what kind of made us. It's interesting. The older things that last and the newer things that kind of... What happened to quadraphonic music? Remember how that was going to be it? That never really happened. But the safety pin still rules, you know? I expect that 20,000 years from now, when they dig here underneath all the rubble, you know what they're going to find? The one lasting invention of this culture? It's this one. Everything else is going to probably pass away, but the frisbee, well, it will stand. I'm tempted to throw it, but I could hit somebody in the head the way I throw things. Okay? How about you? You find that the old things, some of them have great meaning in your life. Number 14, perspective is powerful. You know, at 50, this gift comes to the rescue in many occasions. When you're young, everything has a certain urgency to it, and as a result, you have some built-in reactions. But perspective teaches you that so many apparently huge issues really aren't all that big after all. Things that look like they're going to change the destiny really have very little to do with life when it's all said and done. And you discover that if you don't hurry right on down now, that sale item will probably still be there the next day. At 50, you've climbed a little higher on the mountain, and you can see where the battles really are raging, and you know where you need to bring in reinforcements. You discern a little bit more clearly because you know what really matters to people because you've kind of been there and done that. You know that when you forget somebody's important moment in life, it's going to have a consequence. Or if you don't follow through, that there's going to be some fallout. At 50, you realize the amazing power of love to heal wounds and hurts and how love conquers all things, as 1 Corinthians 13 says. You've also lived long enough to know that most crises out there really aren't. In fact, when people call and say, I've got a marriage crisis, come fix it tonight, I realize that if it took 15 years to break, you probably won't fix it tonight. It might take a year or two to get it back on track. At 50, you're rarely impressed with the title or position that people bring to the table. Perspective tells you someone else probably had the title before, and someone else will have it again. What really matters to you by the time you're 50 is what's behind the title. Who's the person? What's their character like? Perspective is a wonderful thing, and it only comes by living. You can't read it. You only gain it by living life. Number 15. This is a par 5. This is a big one. 15 is finding it in your life. Finding it in your life. At 50, you've probably come to the answer, find the answer to that question. It, friends, is that deep, true inner satisfaction. That's what it is. As the Rolling Stones said back in the 60s, I can't get no satisfaction, and I try, and I try, and I try, and I try. It began with me around the age of six or seven, riding my little bike around the neighborhood, and then one day my neighbor kid came along, and he had a brand new Huffy. I remember thinking, boy, if I had that Huffy, it'd be the neatest thing. I wouldn't want anything else ever again in my life with that Huffy. Then mom and dad saved up, and helped me to save up, and got a new bike, and that new bike was great, and it was fun, and then it was a go-kart, and I really had to have a go-kart. Well, we figured out a way, and dad got me a go-kart, but even after I got the go-kart, I found that that really wasn't it. I wanted something else, and then it got to be in like eighth grade. I said, for me to make the eighth grade basketball team at Beaver Junior High, that would be it, because then, you know, I'd have status, and people would think, but you know what? I didn't make it, and so I worked all through my eighth grade year, and under my ninth grade year, so I could make the ninth grade team, because I knew then that would be it. Wow, I made the team in ninth grade, but that wasn't it. Then it was getting a date with Marcia. Marcia was hot. Marcia had a boyfriend in college, but that didn't matter. If I could get a date with her, which I did, she was great, but not it, but it could be a lot of things. It could be getting the right college after high school. It could be going, finding the right job after you get out of college. It could be marrying the right spouse, or living in the right house, or having the right kids, going to the right schools. It could be getting the right promotion, getting the right job description in the right location, having the right office with the right title, and just the right amount of money. How many of you have ever been to the place where you said, if I made this much money, that would be it? I mean, I'd have enough money. I used to think, if I just made that much money, you know, you put the number in there for you, maybe it's $30,000, or 50, or 100, whatever. If I made that much, I would never want for more than that. And it's a funny thing, you get there, and all of a sudden you realize, well, you know what? Really, that's not quite enough to be where I need to be. I need to be up here. And what you discover over time is that none of those things ever really get you there. People push, and sacrifice, and struggle, and evaluate themselves based on attaining this mystical thing called it. And friends, as Solomon said, it's all vanity. It's all vanity. There is no top rung of the ladder. And it's a sad thing to watch people spend their whole life looking for it and never finding it. I had a friend recently who built a $600,000 home to have privacy and all those kinds of things, you know, more space, farther out. He built the home on three acres of ground way out there in the north, and went out there to see it a couple years ago. And he showed me the home, and he walked out on the deck, and he looked out, and he said, now, you know, this neighbor who just bought this lot here, he's going to build his house down just past the tree line, so I'm going to have to see his house every time I look out on my deck. And what he thought was going to be it didn't work for him. So at 50, you come face to face with the knowledge that it doesn't exist. It has to come from the inside. And I've discovered this, that for me, and you might want to write this down, it could be different for you, but for me, it is having a daily intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. Walking with the Savior in the garden alone, hearing his voice, walking with me, talking with me, telling me this is what I'm to do. And the other part of it for me is doing it with people that I love, people that I partner with in ministry who have the same goals, the same dreams, doing God's work together. Friends, just a few weeks ago, we had eyewitnesses here on this platform, and on the first night, 1,600 people jammed in the auditorium, and there was the orchestra and the choir, and there was the people serving out in the parking lot and the ushers, and all over the building, and at the end, 100 people gave their lives to Christ. And I remember standing up here thinking, you know what? That was it. That was it. That's what I want to do. Again and again and again, I want to see people come, give their lives to Christ, and get on in their journey. That's it. And the great thing about it, might I say, is that that it is available to all of you as well. Did you know that? It doesn't cost anything. Isaiah says this very clearly in his prophecy, that all of us can come, and we can gain it for ourselves. Let's read this together. Read with me. Come, all you who are thirsty. Come to the waters, and you who have no money, come buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend your money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight. The great thing is, that's it, friends. And that it is something you all can have, and you know what? That it doesn't stop when you're 50. That's it when you're 60, and when you're 70, and you're 80, as well as when you're 20. That's it. Well, number 16. It relates to this. Write it down. Giving is the essence of living. Turn and tell your neighbor. Just say the words to your neighbor. Giving is the essence of living. What does that mean? You know, with so much of our lives geared toward acquiring and searching for it, and so, it's no wonder that so few of us find this secret before they die. I know it's going a little long here, and some of you just are just antsy and ready to go, but let me just have your attention for a couple more moments. You know, one of the saddest things that I faced as your pastor, I'll just tell you this as an honest sort of confession. One of the saddest moments I have is when I have to confront the reality of the number of people in this church who haven't learned to give. Because it tells me that when a person doesn't give anything, or virtually anything, that they are still on the quest for it. Because one of the sure signs that you've found that it is an inner thing is that you are free to give. You realize that Jesus Christ knew life better than you did, and He said clearly in Acts 20-35, it's more blessed to give than to receive. And so, I want to make an appeal today to you, if you've not learned to give, if you've not learned the essence of biblical tithing, giving the first 10% of your income, and then gifts and offerings as the Lord enables, then you haven't really learned to live now. You haven't discovered the joy. And it doesn't mean that all your problems go away, that all your financial needs get met overnight. I know that. You still work it out. But you know what? You're free in your heart because you know God's working. I had to help my kids do their taxes this year, as I do every year. They all have little jobs. And forgive me, this is a little boastful, I guess, but I was really proud of Jonathan this year. I helped him do his taxes, and he gave something like five or six hundred dollars this year out of his income. His money, not mine. That was big. And I said to him, Jonathan, I said, you know that there's a lot of people out there making 50, 60, 70 thousand dollars a year who aren't going to give that much this year because they're afraid. You did really well. I'm really proud of you. And if you happen to be one of those people, when are you going to learn that you don't get it? See, we have this thing that we're taught. We're going to, we'll get it first, and then we'll give it. No, no. You give, and then it is given to you. Press down, shaking together, running off. Giving is the essence of living. I trust that you'll learn that. And the Bible says, 2 Corinthians 9 11, you will be enlarged in every way if you learn to do so. Next, relationships are what really count. At