Sunday Sermons
Soft in the Middle
Soft in the Middle
A owe the idea for this sermon and the title to an article that David Posey wrote in Focus Magazine, the June issue of 1999. This lesson deals with the problem of growing spiritually soft in middle age. C.S. Lewis observed decades ago “the long, dull, monotonous years of middle-aged prosperity or middle-aged adversity are excellent campaigning weather for the devil”. People who study what happens in mid-life claim that at least 75% of men and women will go through a moderate to severe middle-age crisis. As we examine the Scriptures we quickly find a couple of examples of what many would call a “mid-life crisis”. Just as about the time when David is securely reigning as king, he commits adultery with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11:1-2). As Solomon ages, his many foreign wives turn his heart away from God (1 Kings 11:2-4). Carefully observe that God does not attribute Solomon’s apostasy to old age or senility, but rather to an inward problem of the heart (11:4). Solomon is not senile, rather he has become soft in reference to truth, and what he permitted or sanctioned would plague future generations. “The influence of these ‘high places’ he built was long-lasting. They were still standing three hundred years later when Josiah began his reign over Judah and finally destroyed them (2 Kings 23:13)” (Dilday p. 133). “This practice on the part of Solomon diminished the effectiveness of the true temple and made it difficult for the people to distinguish between the true and the false. Foreign deities were given official recognition and this certainly made it difficult to maintain true worship in Israel” (Davis p. 189). There is a warning here, for we can do far more damage in the years of middle age than in our youth, for people view us as being more credible in the middle years and we have far more influence upon others and our children. A mid-life crisis then can easily become mid-life chaos.
Remaining Children
While we must not remain children in our thinking or level of maturity (1 Corinthians 14:20), as we grow older we need to remain children in our humility, honesty with the truth, and dependence upon God (Matthew 18:4). Posey observes that someone has said, “A child dies and the corpse is called an adult”. There is an element of truth in such a statement. If we become so independent and seemly sophisticated in our thinking we are convinced that we no longer need divine revelation for guidance, then we are nothing more than walking corpses (“Is dead even while she lives” 1 Timothy 5:6).
Frequent thought patterns of those in mid-life
Researcher Jim Conway has drawn the following picture of what mid-life looks like in our culture for many secular men and women.
Career: The mid-life man is asking, “Why should I work?” The mid-life woman asks, “When can I start to work?”
Intimacy: A mid-life man longs to regain his relationship with his children and wife, which he has neglected for his career (which is a turn for the better). The mid-life women often trade intimacy for accomplishing new goals.
Assertiveness: The mid-life man is ready to kick back. The woman is ready to take steps to make new things happen.
View of death: Because of the sharp increase in men’s deaths from mid-life on, a man is rudely confronted with his own mortality. The mid-life woman, however, does not think much about death because heart attacks and other diseases usually don’t happen until after menopause.
The fantasy about getting away from it all
One very common sign that one is struggling with mid-life is excessive daydreaming or fantasizing about “getting away from it all”. Psalm 55 was written by David during some sort of difficult circumstance. He describes himself as being “restless” and “distracted” (55:2), under tremendous pressure (55:3), and tremendously afraid (55:5 “horror has overwhelmed me”). Then he says, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest” (55:6). In reference to this verse, James Montgomery Boice writes, “We have not seen anything like this before in David’s psalms. He has been fearful before. But always he has seemed ready to confront the evil boldly. Nowhere before has he expressed wish to escape his trouble, to fly away, and be at rest. Yet here he does. We have here the weariness that comes to a valiant warrior or worker late in life or at least after the passing of youthful battles and triumphs” (Psalms 42-106 p. 460). One temptation as we get older is that we become gun-shy, and dread “another problem”. We find ourselves thinking how nice it would be merely to get away from it all. Yet it is not always possible to escape from our problems. David did not have “wings like a dove”, and more importantly, God does not always give us permission to leave either, especially if flying away means flying away from our responsibility as a Christian. Many here feel that what David is facing as he pens this Psalm is the betrayal on the part of his own son, Absalom (55:12-14).
What happens when we run away
Even though no man or woman has wings like a dove, that fact does not prevent people from running away from responsibility. Posey writes, “But what happens when you run away from responsibility? It has a funny way of catching up to you, and eventually you have to take on new ones, because that’s life. Those who keep running away usually end up in a gutter some place, either literally or figuratively. Those who run away ironically become the people they despised: they break every promise they’ve ever made. They form new enemies” (pp. 7-8).
· Thus the rebel who does not like the rules at home ends up finding an entire set of new rules (without any love) in society.
· The man or woman who leaves spouse and children because they are tired of the “responsibility” and “work” finds more responsibilities and work.
· The man who leaves his wife for a mistress finds that his mistress has turned into a wife.
· The person who wants to be on a perpetual vacation finds that vacations and paradise can equally turn into a full time job.
· The person who seeks to escape from all hard decisions finds that making easy decisions is now very hard.
· The person who wants to avoid various pressures is now “pressured” by the smallest of inconveniences or expectations.
Looking for answers in the wrong places
Growing spiritually soft in the middle of life is often the result of various factors:
· Some people attempt to smooth over realities that cannot be adjusted. Removing the reality of hell, or the need to be baptized or remain faithful may temporarily make one feel better about the destiny of lost friends or relatives, but it is not the solution. My job as a Christian is not to remove realities that are difficult to think about because certain people I love refuse to accept the truth (2 Thessalonians 2:10-12; 1:8-9). Neither is it my job to come up with an inventive way to accept people that God says I cannot accept (1 Corinthians 5:9; 2 John 9).
· “Much of our misery in life is a product of looking for answers in all the wrong places. Dr. Larry Crabb has commented on the distorted view of man offered by liberalism. The view says that God should cater to man, meet his needs, make him happy, isolate him from pain and help him feel good about himself. He criticizes this movement in a book entitled Moving Through Your Problems Toward Finding God: ‘Helping people to feel loved and worthwhile has become the central mission of the church. We are learning not to worship God in self denial and costly service but to embrace our inner child, heal our memories, overcome addictions, lift our depressions, improve self-images, establish self-preservation boundaries’(p. 17)” (Posey p. 8).
· We equally are settling ourselves up for compromise when we try to rewrite the past (Numbers 11:5). This is especially true in how we were parented, how Christians have treated us, or how our spouse has treated us. Any attempt to make ourselves into either the martyr, hero, or victim in the story is overlooking the clear truth that we were sinners (Romans 6:21; 3:23). We are not the suffering heroes in the story of our lives, rather God is the hero.
· There is the temptation to “punish God” when we perceive that His people have failed us. One temptation that happens in mid-life is to reflect upon all the times that we felt that Christians let us down and then turn around and seek to “punish God” by rejecting the faith that Christians must embrace (Jude 3). The sad thing is that such a person fails to see all the real times that they have failed and all the times that they did not come through for other believers. Any reflection upon our past that does not produce sorrow over our own sins, humility, and repentance is not an accurate picture.
· Posey adds, “I see far too many ‘pity-party’ Christians these days. There is only one explanation: they are weighted down with troubles and sorrow because they do not trust God enough to throw their trouble on Him. That’s a lack of faith. And at any age, a lack of faith is fatal: ‘For without faith it is impossible to please Him’ (Hebrews 11:6)” (p. 8).
· Then there is the feeling that somehow I missed out, as in the attitude, “I married young and therefore I missed out on all those wonderful years of dating”. Yet, placed beside another perspective, this excuse looks selfish. The devil attempts to convince us that if we follow God, we are missing out on something good. Eve believed this and ending up missing out on Paradise. There are times that we do not realize how good we have or had it. Ask any single person who would like to get married, if you “missed out” on anything by finding the love of our life early in life. Ask anyone who would love to have children, if you have missed out by having children. Ask the person who would love to have a steady job in a career with real advancement potential if you have missed out by not traveling and bumming around the world instead.
· It is also easy to forget what the “good life” actually is. Read Psalm 127:3-5; 128:3, and you will see God’s view of the good life.
Mark Dunagan/Beaverton Church of Christ/503-644-9017
www.beavertonchurchofchrist.net/mdunagan@easystreet.com
