Respect Them!

Leviticus 18; Leviticus 19; Psalm 13; Acts 19
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Scripture

Leviticus 19

32 " 'Rise in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly and revere your God. I am the LORD.

Observation

Our culture has no respect for the elderly. Have you visited a nursing home lately? There are many left in nursing homes by their family and then the family members don’t even bother to come see them.

In our churches this works two ways: 1. Some people think that when they reach retirement age that they should just let go of responsibilities at church and be free to just do fun stuff. They pull back from areas of leadership and responsibility. 2. The congregation buys into the culture’s idea that younger is somehow better and fails to honor those that are older in the church.

My associate pastor, Rapley Armstrong is 80 years old. He is very wise. I have tremendous respect for him. He is a man of character and worthy of being honored as this verse commands us to do. He is very young at heart too. I am amazed at how flexible he is about so many things. He hasn’t allowed age to make him critical or mean. He loves music. He loves contemporary praise and worship music as well as the wonderful old hymns. I hope that when I get to be even close to his age I will act as young he does right now. My spiritual Dad, Dr. Waylon Moore is also 80 years old, but when he preaches you would never know that he is that old because he preaches with the force and power of a young man. Both of the guys deserve our honor and our respect.

Application

I will show respect and honor for the older members of our congregation.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, help me honor you by honoring the elderly in our church. They are beautiful people. So many of them are struggling with health issues right now. I pray that you will be their strength. Help them sense your presence and your love today. Thank you for allowing me to know them and love them. They have been so good to me. They have honored me as their pastor so now help me honor and respect them as my elders. Give me wisdom and show me ways to honor and respect them. We are blessed because they are part of our church. Amen.

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