Elders

29, September 2002
Dakota Community Church
All The Kings Men
Part: 4 – Elders

Introduction:

You do not break Gods word – you break yourself on it!

Don’t be discouraged men this is the reward week – the beating is over – here now is the payoff!

Seriously do not take condemnation from anything - be challenged, encouraged – God is not asking you to do anything he has not equipped you to do!

Quote.
Wisdom doesn’t automatically come with old age. Nothing does -- except wrinkles. It’s true some wines improve with age, but only if the grapes were good in the first place. Abigail Van Buren, Chicago Tribute-New York News Syndicate, quoted in Reader’s Digest, May 1980.

1. MAINTAIN A YOUTHFUL HEART.

Psalm 92:12-15
12 The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon; 13 planted in the house of the LORD, they will flourish in the courts of our God. 14 They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green, 15 proclaiming, "The LORD is upright; he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him."

2 Corinthians 4:16
16Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.

This is all about attitude!

a) Stay teachable.

Ill.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. was and still is generally regarded as one of the most outstanding justices in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court. He was known as the Great Dissenter because he disagreed with the other judges so much. Holmes sat on the Supreme Court until he was 91. Two years later, President Roosevelt visited him and found him reading Plato. "Why?" FDR asked. "To improve my mind," Holmes answered.

b) Keep teaching.

Proverbs 20:15
15 Gold there is, and rubies in abundance, but lips that speak knowledge are a rare jewel.

c) Keep dreaming.

d) Keep seeking. (Pursuit)

Ill.
History records that many people made some of their greatest contributions to society after the age of 65. The Earl of Halsburg, for example, was 90 when he began preparing a 20- volume revision of English law. Goethe wrote Faust at 82. Galileo made his greatest discovery when he was 73. At 69, Hudson Taylor was still vigorously working on the mission field, opening up new territories in Indochina. And when Caleb was 85, he took the stronghold of the giants.

e) Keep fighting.

Joshua 14:6-14
6 Now the men of Judah approached Joshua at Gilgal, and Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, "You know what the LORD said to Moses the man of God at Kadesh Barnea about you and me. 7 I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the LORD sent me from Kadesh Barnea to explore the land. And I brought him back a report according to my convictions, 8 but my brothers who went up with me made the hearts of the people melt with fear. I, however, followed the LORD my God wholeheartedly. 9 So on that day Moses swore to me, ’The land on which your feet have walked will be your inheritance and that of your children forever, because you have followed the LORD my God wholeheartedly.’ [1]
10 "Now then, just as the LORD promised, he has kept me alive for forty-five years since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the desert. So here I am today, eighty-five years old! 11 I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now