This past Sunday, Stonebriar Community Church in Florida heard a surprising announcement as their pastor, Chuck Swindoll, stood to read a prepared statement. Don’t worry. It’s nothing bad or even unexpected. He will soon be retiring from full time pastoral work as he edges to his 90th birthday; October 20, 2024 will be his final sermon there as their founding and senior pastor after 26 years. But don’t be distressed. His energies, he assures us, will be refocused into his radio ministry, Insight for Living, that he started with his wife, Cynthia, more than 45 years ago on July 1979. Ninety years of age; 26 years at Stonebriar; 45 years with Insight for Living. These numbers are sobering for a quick-to-come-easy-to-go world. What struck me was his statement to his church. “I’ve always believed that age is merely a number,” he said. “What truly matters is our commitment to fulfilling the divine purpose laid out before us.”
That’s the secret: the focus on the divine perspective. It made me think about the tension that exists in many conversations that I’ve had where numbers matter more than God’s divine purpose. To be frank, numbers can be extremely intimidating. From the number that displays our net worth, to the two little numbers that indicate our blood pressure, or the number that inevitably climbs on our bathroom scale or our waistline, we are held hostage to the numbers that wear away at our commitment to God’s divine purpose in our lives. The Psalmist writes, “So teach us to number our days” (Psalm 90:12). That’s what we seem to cling to. “There!” we say, “Do you not see it? Numbers do matter.” But that is only half the verse. Read on and you will find what we must spend our days doing, “That we may get a heart of wisdom.” Paul puts it another way, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:15-16). In a few weeks when we celebrate with the Christian world the refocus of a faithful servant, let’s think about our own focus. Is it on numbers? Are we complaining about our age, our bank account or our health, or are we focused on what truly matters – “our commitment to fulfilling the divine purpose laid out before us”?
Just Church
This is what we at Just Church seek to do – to make the best use of our time, in wisdom, to do what God calls us to do. “The vision of Just Church is to establish a church in just the way Christ called the church to be – true to His Word, loving Him, loving one another, and loving the lost.”
