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I mentioned last time that today I’m going to tell you how the Bible defines old age for us, and also how it tells us to grow old gracefully. We are going to do that by looking in the NT at Titus Chapter 2.

“But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine: that the older men be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, in love, in patience; the older women likewise, that they be reverent in behaviour, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things”.

(Titus 2: 1-3)

It could take someone a long time to go through all the attributes contained in these verses. I could preach a sermon on these 3 verses; in fact I have., I just want to give you a taste, of what it says. 

First of all, what does it mean to be old? The Greek word that is translated old/older in this verse was used in classical Greek of somebody between the ages of 49 to 56, they had another term for people who were older than that. Would that include you? Well, if it doesn’t include you then hang on, it will apply to you someday, right?  

This is where you should aim to be by the time you reach what we today call “middle age”. This is what you should be concerned about.  Be sober it says, is that just talking about not drinking too much? The Greek word translated sober means sober in outlook, being morally alert, calm, circumspect, temperate. A sober minded person is not given to excess, as in the use of wine, or any of the pleasures that are primarily of the senses. The sober minded person is characterized by moral and spiritual alertness.  He or she are moderate, balanced, and steady. That should be our concern also, because that is the will of God for us when you get older. Don’t get old and become a silly, smutty, or irascible older person but be mature and sensible. 

It also says that we should be reverent. This is a very difficult Greek word to translate into modern English. As a matter of fact there is no English equivalent of this word. There is no one word that does this word justice.  The idea here is about being serious, and even inspiring. If I had to pick one word that I thought translated, it. I would probably pick the word, ‘dignified’. It’s probably the best English translation, and yet it still falls short. Someone with this attribute is not only dignified, but they invite reverence and respect and it the word that some sections of the western church adopted as a title for people who having demonstrated that characteristic and were called into full time ministry. Courtesy, independence, and humility, all of these ideas are embedded in that little word, ‘reverend’.  Sober, reverend, that’s the will of God for you. That’s the way to grow old, gracefully. We should also be temperate. This is one of my favourite words in the Book of Titus. This word is referred to in this book several times.

It is required that a church elder has this characteristic, but here it’s mentioned of just older people in general, so it’s not restricted to just leaders in a church.  Again, it is difficult to find one English word that really gets all the nuances of this word. It means to be sensible and self-controlled. This type of person curbs their appetites, desires, and impulses.  This kind of a person is not one to lose control of their temper and fly off the handle. When they get angry, they control it, instead of their anger controlling them.  As I get older that’s the kind of man I wanted to be. Not sure I made it yet, I’ll let others be judge of that. Is that the kind of person you’d love to be. Sane, sensible, sober minded with self-control.  That’s the will of God for all of us when we grow old. By the way. It wouldn’t hurt if you are not that way yet, to start working now on developing these virtues because you’re going to need them when you get older. 

There’s one more characteristic I want to consider, the final word is ‘patient’. The word translated patient, in the book of Titus is really the word for being long suffering and always willing to always help other. By aiming in developing these characteristics we are aiming at the characteristics that are the will of God for all of us as we mature through life.  As we get older, we should be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in the faith, with love and patient. That’s the will of God for us. How you doing so far in this regard. You see as we get older, we may all need to endure physical infirmities, disappointments, maybe even loneliness  This is warning for us not to grow in anger, bitterness and criticism as we grow older in years. Rather, increase in our affection and blessing towards others and let endurance complete our sense of hope. I’m simply saying to you, this how to grow old? By being concerned about the will of God and developing godly virtues.  We shall be back in the book of Genesis next episode as we continue to look at Abraham as he gets very old indeed.