In our society aging is often treated as a problem to manage rather than a blessing we should value. People are praised for being young, fast, innovative and energetic – all qualities of life none of us want to lose but which we will all lose if we are lucky enough to reach advanced years.
The Bible though, does not present old age as a season of uselessness – but as a season of fruitfulness.
Listen to the words of Psalm 92 and beginning with verse 12:
“12 The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. 13 They are planted in the house of the Lord; they flourish in the courts of our God. 14 They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green,
15 to declare that the Lord is upright; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.”
This passage does not say, “They used to bear fruit.”
It says, “They still bear fruit in old age.”
That phrase means that a Christian’s spiritual usefulness, their influence and their faithfulness do not diminish with advancing years – those attributes will often deepen. Age may limit strength but our purpose, our potential for being of use in the Lord’s work is NEVER limited.
Bearing fruit is an action of spiritual productivity, not physical productivity. In fact the Bible never defines “fruit” primarily as activity or action, but as building character, and faith and having a positive impact on others to follow the Lord.
I. The World Retires People – God Does Not
In the world, retirement often means stepping aside. It means your productive years are behind you. You are encouraged to slow down, to rest, to enjoy what time you have left.
There is nothing sinful about rest. But Scripture never presents a concept of retiring from faithfulness. God never tells His people, “You’ve done enough; now you’re no longer needed.” Instead, He says that those who are planted in His house continue to flourish—even in later years.
Age does not remove usefulness in the kingdom of God. If anything, it deepens it.
According to Proverbs 16:31, Grey hair is not a sign of decline—it is a crown of glory when found in the way of righteousness.
There’s a story of an older man in the church, he had the thickest head of white hair anyone had ever seen. People joked that he looked like a walking snowdrift. He taught the children’s Sunday school class, and every week he sat on a tiny chair, eye‑level with kids sixty years younger than him, telling them stories about Jesus.
One Sunday a little boy stared at him for a long time and finally blurted out, “Mr. Charlie, why is your hair so white?” The whole class went quiet, waiting to see if they’d embarrassed him.
Mr. Charlie smiled and said, “Well, buddy, every one of these white hairs is from God. They’re reminders of all the years He’s taken care of me.” The boy thought for a second and asked, “So…is it like a trophy?”
Mr. Charlie chuckled and said “You know what? That’s a pretty good way to say it. When you run a race and finish well, they give you a medal. When you walk with God for a long time and don’t quit, He sometimes paints your hair white so everyone can see He’s been faithful to you.”
Then he added, “But remember, just having white hair isn’t the trophy. Walking with Jesus all those years is the real prize.”
The gray (or white) head is a crown of glory as Proverbs tells us, and not just because of time, but because of a long obedience with the Lord.
• For our older saints consider this: Is your “white hair,” which of course is our metaphor for age, being used to testify to God’s faithfulness to the next generation? Is your years of Christian living a testimony for the young to emulate?
• For the younger, and we aren’t just talking to youth and teens but also young adults, are you living today in such a way that, if God gives you age or “white hair,” it will truly be a “trophy” of a life walked with Him?
II. What Elderly Christians Give That No One Else Can
The elderly should not be viewed as just bodies in the pews – they are the backbone of the local congregation. I like to think in terms of art, since I was an art major in college its one of the few things I know enough about to be dangerous (chuckle). A masterful painting, no matter if it’s a Rembrandt, Picasso or a Jackson Pollack (an artist whose paints look like he just poured random streams of paint on canvas) – they’re art all have things in common, the first and most important being the composition of the piece – or how the design is constructed to make your eye move from one object in the painting to another and back again so that your eye never wanders off the painting. In much the same way, the elderly in the church are the ones we look to for advice, they direct our hearts and minds in ways that keep us on our Christian path, so we never stray away from that life.
You see, the fruit that Psalm 92 speaks of often takes the form of ‘wisdom.’
Job 12:12 tells us:
“12 Wisdom is with the aged, and understanding in length of days.”
Job 12:12
As we get older following Jehovah we learn to change some of our more youthful habits that help us to bear fruit in the Lord’s church.
• We speak carefully
• We judge slowly
• We encourage others faithfully
• We correct gently with love
• And we learn to know and tell the difference
between truth and error.
All these attributes are part of the fruit of wisdom and it is a spiritual fruit the church desperately needs.
When an aging member of the Lord’s body persists in their faith and praise of Jehovah God despite the pain of age, loss and failing bodily strength that age brings – that elderly member is still, as Psalm 92 tells us, is still “full of sap and green,” not meaning youthful, but rather they are alive with a testimony of faith and trust in the Lord and a living testimony that God is not only good at the beginning of our Christian life – He is good to the end.
The contributions our senior saints make to the church cannot be duplicated by youth or enthusiasm alone. You see, our elderly brothers and sisters provide the local congregation, and the church as a whole for that matter, with three extremely important services that are not to be denied or discarded.
1. Our Elder Members Have A Perspective Born of Faithfulness.
Older Christians have lived through trials younger believers have only read about.
They have:
• Prayed prayers that took years to be answered
• Endured sickness, loss, and disappointment
• Seen congregations struggle, change and sometimes fail and sometimes heal.
They know – not just intellectually, but from experience – that God remains faithful through it all and the example they give us through the struggles they have remained faithful through is a testament we each should listen to and learn from.
It is an easy thing when we are younger and we study scripture and sit in our pews and listen to sermons which tell us of the pitfalls and dangers of this life and what we must do to survive them. But our senior members of the body know what those scriptures look like lived out over decades. If we but look to our older Christians then that perspective can steady the church and keep it centered, much the same as an artist’s composition keeps the viewers eyes centered on the piece as a whole.
2. Our Elder Members Are A Living Testimony of Endurance
Sometimes in life we have to look to books or manuals to figure out how to do things or in this day and age we mostly go to YouTube where you can find videos which tell you how to do just about anything, how to overcome obstacles we face in life and certainly in our Christian life we have the Bible as a reference and guide for obstacles in our lives.
The apostle Paul tells how older men and women in the church should live their lives as an example to the younger generations and how they can be that example - in the book of Titus.
“2 Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. 3 Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, 4 and so train the young women to love their husbands and children…”
Titus 2:2-4
But we also have a living, breathing resource in our older members. Now to be clear, I’m not suggesting our elder church members can or should be a substitute for the directions we’re given in the Bible, only that they are valuable in that their knowledge of how to fix and/or deal with most situations is vast and comes from having “been there, done that.”
Our elderly Christians show us that:
• Faith can last a lifetime
• Marriages can endure
• Children can be raised in the Lord
• God can be trusted even when life is painful
There was an older man in a congregation who sat in the same pew every Sunday morning. He didn’t teach class anymore. He didn’t serve as an elder or deacon. Most people knew him only as the quiet one who always came early.
If you had asked him about his life, he wouldn’t have started with telling about his blessings. He would have told you about jobs lost, plans that failed, prayers that seemed to echo back unanswered. He would have told you about a marriage that went through years where love felt more like duty than joy. He would have told about the lifelong pain of burying his child. He would have told you there were seasons when he came to worship not because he felt strong—but because he had nowhere else to go.
One morning, a younger Christian finally asked him, “After everything you’ve been through… how did you keep believing?”
The old man paused, looked down at his hands — hands that had worked, trembled, and buried more than they had held—and then he said, “I didn’t always feel close to God. But I decided a long time ago that I wasn’t going to leave Him — even on the days I didn’t understand Him.” Then he smiled slightly and added, “Besides… when you’ve walked with someone long enough, be it a spouse or God, you don’t walk away just because the road gets rough.”
That man bore fruit—not because life was easy, but because faith remained when ease was gone.
And every Sunday morning, sitting quietly in that pew, his presence preached a sermon without words:
God is faithful — not just in the good years, but in all of them.
Sometimes the most powerful sermon is not preached from a pulpit – but from a pew, by an older Christian who has simply remained faithful through good times and bad, life’s highs and lows, the triumphs and the devastations.
3. Our Elder Members Provide Spiritual Parenting
In the book of Titus 2, Paul instructs older men and women to teach by example – to model Godliness, self-control, reverence and love.
This does not always mean formal teaching roles. It often happens quietly, and usually without us even knowing it:
• In conversations before or after worship
• In words of encouragement
• In prayers offered for others
• In hospitality and kindness
The church needs more than instructors or Sunday school teachers and preachers – don’t get me wrong, those vocations in the church are a necessity. However, the church needs it’s spiritual fathers and mothers, and spiritual grandparents to help shape and guide the next generation of faithful Christian men and women.
III. Ways Elderly Christians Serve the Church Today
Service in the Lord’s kingdom does not stop when our physical strength diminishes – it simply changes form.
In the local congregation elderly Christians serve by:
• Praying faithfully for the congregations
• Encouraging the discouraged
• Visiting, calling, writing cards
• Mentoring younger members
• Modeling consistent worship and devotion
I’m reminded of an elderly woman that worshipped with us at Mebane Street along with her husband. Sister Virginia was a very quiet spoken woman, so softly was her voice that you really had to lean in to hear her sometimes. But she took her duty as a Christian woman and wife very seriously. If you were a member at Mebane Street during the time she was alive then you were at some point invited along with a few other members of the congregation for a large fantastic family meal that always reminded me of a scene from the old Waltons TV show. It was a meal that included joyous conversation over wonderful foods such as roast beef with all the trimmings or maybe an Italian spread of lasagna and an assortment of sides. And of course there was always coffee and incredible pies and cakes for desert. You see, those meals were her ministry, her way of sharing her Christianity with younger members (as well as older members too) and sometimes non-Christian friends of theirs. It was her way of teaching and showing hospitality and kindness.
In the broader work of the church our older Christians also serve the Lord by:
• Supporting missions through prayer and wisdom
• Offering counsel to a congregation’s elders and ministers with deference of course to the authority of the elders.
• Helping to maintain doctrinal stability
• Demonstrating generosity and trust in God
The church does not move forward by energy alone. It moves forward through endurance, wisdom and faithfulness to Jehovah.
IV. Biblical Examples of Late-Life Faithfulness
Scripture repeatedly reminds us that God uses people well into old age.
• Moses was called at 80 to lead Israel
• Caleb, in his later years, said “Give me this mountain.”
• Anna, a widow advanced in years, worshipped continually and spoke of the coming Messiah.
• Paul, near the end of his life, continued encouraging others even from prison.
None of these servants of God were sidelined by age. Their later years were not wasted – they were purposeful in their lives, living for Jehovah.
V. A Word To The Younger Members
This lesson is not only for the elderly – it is also for the rest of the church, our youth, our young adults and young married couples and families.
If younger Christians fail to listen to and value the elderly, the church loses more than advice – it loses wisdom and protection.
A young couple once told an older man in the church that they were thinking about skipping some steps in life. They were eager—full of energy, ideas, and confidence.
They talked about love, plans, freedom, and how “things are different now.”
The older man listened quietly. He had raised children. He had buried friends. And he had watched marriages survive storms—and others quietly fall apart. When the young couple finished, he didn’t quote Scripture.
He didn’t lecture. He simply asked, “Do you know why people my age walk so slowly?”
They weren’t sure how to answer.
He smiled and said, “Because we’ve learned where the ground gives way.” Then he added, “Most of what I know, I learned by stepping where I shouldn’t have—or watching someone else do it.”
The couple realized something important: This man wasn’t trying to control their future. He was trying to protect it.
That’s when they understood—the elderly in the church aren’t there to hold the younger back…they’re there to point out the cliffs before you get to them.
We must, as Christians, seek the counsel of older Christians, show them honor and learn from their example.
The church is healthiest when generations walk together, not when one replaces the other. Proverbs 13:20 tells us that
“20 Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise.”
Proverbs 13:20
Our older members have wisdom to help us in our lives and especially in our Christian lives and if we as a whole and more particularly our younger members do not seek and heed that wisdom we stand to lose the wisdom of a generation.
VI. A Word of Encouragement to the Elderly
To our older brothers and sisters:
You may not do what you once did. You may not move as quickly, you may not be as visible. But you are NOT less valuable.
Your faithfulness carries weight, your presence matters, your example speaks loudly.
You are not retired from the kingdom of God.
Conclusion
Think of a lighthouse. It does not move, it does not chase ships, it does not make noise.
Yet it saves lives simply by standing firm in its place.
In the same way, elderly Christians bless the church by remaining steadfast—bearing fruit even in old age.
Let us close with these words from 1 Corinthians 15:58:
“Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”
1 Corinthians 15:58
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