Dear Saints,

As you know, I had the privilege of representing you yesterday ministering the Word as the guest preacher for the afternoon chapel service at Fredericka Manor Retirement Community in Chula Vista. My three oldest boys joined me and stood in the front to honor the elderly saints attending while I first read Leviticus 19:32 that says to do so.

We also had fun afterward learning about and participating in their Baseball Darts (see the picture above)!

Psalm 71:18, my theme verse for the topical sermon, teaches that the heart of a Christian late in life is to desire to still be actively useful to the Lord with a lasting spiritual legacy. The sermon message point was, “May Your Last Years Be Your Best Years.”  Though most of you were probably here for that sermon when I first preached it with more detail, here is the link to this briefer message if you’d like to hear it: sermonaudio.com/sermons/81026165343660. I did mention you all several times (including how some of you have influenced my sons’ handshakes which was recognized recently by another senior citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven at an event we attended with this commendation: “Some one has taught you how to shake hands!”).

The sermon reflected part of this article I wrote years ago anticipating that I’d soon be preaching on Leviticus 19:32 while having in view a significant number of our congregation who are in their more golden years.  You can read it here if you’d like to review (also, some of you where not here yet at that time): placefortruth.org/old-princeton-archibald-alexanders-letters-aged.  Following are some things I highlighted in yesterday’s message I’d like to share with you again for your encouragement and to express once more how blessed and honored I am to be serving you and serving Christ with you. They are some highlights from Archibald Alexander Hodge’s five “Letters to the Aged” written while he himself was an aging minister:

“The aged man may serve God … as sincerely and fervently as any others … He can glorify God.”

“My aged friends, permit me to counsel you not to give way to despondency, and unprofitable repining … trust in the divine promise, ‘I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.’ …Learn to live by faith: no class of people need the supports of faith and hope more than the aged.’”

“And not only believe, but act … Your work is never ended while you are in the body.”

“As an aged man, I would say to my fellow-pilgrims who are also in this advanced stage of the journey of life, ENDEAVOR TO BE USEFUL, as long as you are continued upon earth. We are, it is true, subject to many peculiar infirmities, both of body and mind, to bear up under which requires much exertion, and no small share of divine assistance; but still we have some advantages not possessed by the young. We have received important lessons from experience, which if they have been rightly improved, are of inestimable value. The book of divine providence, which is in a great measure sealed to them, has been unfolded to us.”

“There is something peculiarly lovely as well as venerable in the silvery locks and placid countenance of a good old man.  There is in his countenance a chastened expression of benignity and sobriety which long experience alone can produce.” 

A.A. Hodges, “Letters to the Aged”

I closed with these words by Rev. Geoff Thomas, a retired minister with more than 50 years pastoring the same church in Wales [per hearing him interviewed on a Theology on the Go/Place for Truth Podcast interview]:

“He that endures to the end. May your last years be your best years. Keep studying. Keep reading … while you have a breath in your body. Show men the beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ and seek to attract them to Him.”

Semper Reformanda,

Pastor Grant