Better with Age, a sermon based on Exodus 19: 16-19 and Hebrews 12: 18-29, preached on August 24, 2025

In both our Scripture lessons for this morning, we learn that Moses, a great hero of the faith, a symbol of faithfulness and dedication, was less than confident when he approached God high up on that mountain where he received the Ten Commandments. We read from the book of Exodus: Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God. They took their stand at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire; the smoke went up like a kiln, while the whole mountain shook violently. As the blast of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses would speak, and God would answer. Our second Scripture lesson alludes to this moment and tells us that as Moses approached God, he trembled with fear. Why wouldn’t he? After all, our God is, according to the book of Hebrews, “a consuming fire.” “A consuming fire,” that refines us so that our impurities go up in smoke. The work of a silver smith is one of refining. Do you know anything about how silver is refined? I’m glad because I want to tell you about it. Silver comes out of the ground full of impurities. You can’t make fine jewelry out of silver fresh from the ground. The impurities must be burned out of it. The silver ore is melted, and the heat of an intense fire burns the impurities so that what remains is pure silver. The silver refiner knows that the silver is finally pure when he looks into the melted silver and can see his reflection looking back at him. Now that’s refining, which is not the same as aging. Birth leads to childhood. Childhood to adolescence. Adolescence to adulthood. Adulthood to old age, but getting old is mandatory. Growing up is optional. Many people resist the whole process and would rather stay young. The comedian Lucille Ball said that the secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and to lie about your age. The continual process of refinement calls us to embrace hardship and to face challenges with courage until our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer looks at us and sees His own reflection looking back. I’m not sure that’s how our youth-obsessed culture thinks about aging. What do we know gets better with age? Wine? Whiskey? Cheese? People? I don’t know that many in our world today believe that people get better with age. If we believed that we could get better with age, we might not spend so much money trying to look young. In 2016, men and women in the United States spent a total of $16 billion dollars on cosmetic treatments to defy ageing. We spend that money because when our skin sags, we want to keep it tight. When our hairlines recede, we resist baldness. To avoid atrophy in our muscles and to maintain bone density, we exercise in weighted vests. When varicose veins appear or unsightly hairs spring out from chins, we do something about it. We pluck and dye. We diet and apply creams. But what if instead we were bold enough to believe that with age comes refinement? That aging makes us better. One of my favorite sayings about aging is that a child becomes a teenager when he can see that his parents are not perfect; a teenager becomes an adult when he forgives them; and an adult becomes wise when he forgives himself. That sounds like refinement. Which requires courage. When I was a pastor in Tennessee, I would often visit Mrs. Jean Love, who would get upset with me whenever I was late for our appointment. Once, she called me to visit because she wanted to plan her funeral. I asked why she wanted to plan with me her funeral when she wasn’t sick and was still living on her own, and she said, “Pastor, getting old is awful, but it’s so much worse if you’re afraid to look it in the eye.” There is so much in this life that I’ve been afraid to face. I’ve feared getting older. I’ve feared looking older, and some mornings I’ve even feared just looking in the mirror, but last Wednesday night I had to. Did you hear that last Wednesday night at the Glover Park Brewery there was a Joe Evans impersonation contest? I was nervous about it, for I feared looking in the mirror. How am I being perceived? When people dress like me, will I be ashamed of how I look? Matt Sitkowski was the winner. There was no question from our daughters, who served as the judges. Matt Sitkowski was the best. He wore a robe like the one I have on. He found some glasses that look like the glasses I’m wearing, and he started out his impersonation talking about growing tomatoes in the basement, which is something that I do, and how I grew the perfect tomato, but went upstairs to make a tomato sandwich, only the Duke’s Mayonnaise jar was empty. How many times have I mentioned Duke’s Mayonnaise? Several. Finding the jar empty, I was at first, “happy, and hungry, and hopeful,” yet the “jar was empty,” Matt said. It was like looking into a mirror only it didn’t make me self-conscious. I didn’t feel embarrassed or ashamed. I only felt thankful because this church, every year, is getting better and stronger and is reaching out into the community with a greater dedication for service, and if I have something to do with it, then I simply want to say, “Thanks be to God” because I just want to be useful. I just want to be found faithful. I just want to serve the One who created me, who sustains me, who gave His life for me, and for Him to look at me and see His image looking back. In this culture of isolation, narcissism, and selfish ambition, let us all get better with age, focused less on looking younger and more on the needy. Focused less on the car that we drive and more on the widow, the orphan, the immigrant, and the unhoused. This morning, if you were in Holland Hall, then you had the opportunity to get involved in something new: a new Bible study, a new fellowship group, a new way to serve the Lord in this community. If you missed it, it’s not too late: Just pick up one of these catalogs and find a new activity. I promise that every opportunity listed is more fulfilling that staying at home and watching the news, and each one provides the opportunity for you to get better with age because all these opportunities keep us focused on someone other than ourselves. Let us all be refined to love our God and our neighbor more deeply. There is a world outside our doors calling for us to pay attention. Let us shape and change this world as we are refined by the power of God. Amen.

So Great A Cloud of Witnesses, a sermon based on Hebrews 11: 29 - 12: 2, preached on August 17, 2025

The seminary where I was a student was attempting to build relationships with churches in Jacksonville, Florida. Along with four or five others, I was asked to represent the seminary. I had the idea that the development office asked their best and brightest to go on this trip to preach well, reflecting the quality of education at Columbia Theological Seminary, but as the congregation left the sanctuary after my sermon, one man asked me, “What year are you in the seminary?” Proudly, I said, “I’m in my third year, sir.” “Three years? Well, they should have taught you something better than that by now,” he said. I still hear his voice some days. Although, I also hear the voice of Jim Hodges. I’ve told you about him before. A picture of his thumb sits by my desk. He chaired the committee who interviewed and called me to my first church. After each sermon I preached, he’d give me a thumbs up, telling me I’d done well. As he lay dying in the hospital, he took a picture of his thumb and gave it to me so that I’d feel his encouragement even after he was gone. These two and many others whisper in my ear as I stare at the empty page attempting to write another sermon or nervously walk the steps into the pulpit. On the one hand are the critics and on the other, the encouragers. My confidence wavers between the two. If my hands are shaking as I walk into the pulpit, it’s because each Sunday morning, I ask myself the same questions: “Is this sermon any good?” Do I have a word to proclaim? Or am I still that seminary student waiting to learn something better than that sermon I preached in Jacksonville, Florida? Can anyone here relate to what I’m saying? When you step out in faith, which voices whisper in your ear? Is there one saying, “You can do anything” and another saying, “You’ll never amount to anything?” The voices from our past come sneaking back to our consciousness, and for some, the negative voices are the easiest to believe, yet I had a grandmother who thought I hung the moon. When I was 10 or 11, she got a hold of a picture of me in my baseball uniform, and she took it to the photo shop where they blew it up into a three foot by five foot baseball card. That I rarely got on base and mostly sat the bench was of little importance to her. In her eyes, I was going to the major leagues. Did you have a grandmother like that? My friends, there is a great cloud of witnesses cheering us on while we run this race. Can you hear them? A verse from our second Scripture lesson reads: Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us. I love those words. I appreciate the thought of sin as a weight we carry that we are invited to lay down. I love that image of a crowd of people who love us, who are cheering for us as we journey through the ups and downs of life on our way to glory. That image reminds me of a man I heard about who collects pictures of baseball players as they’re rounding third base after they hit a walk-off home run. Do you know what a walk-off home run is? A walk-off home run is the term used for a home run that wins the game. When a player hits a home run that wins the game, it’s traditional for his teammates to clear the bench and to gather around home plate to welcoming him as he seals the win. When asked why he collects these pictures, the man said, “It’s because that’s how I imagine it will be when we get to heaven.” That great cloud of witnesses, having cheered us through the ups and downs of life, will welcome us to our eternal home. Can you hear them cheering you on now? Do you listen to their voices? And are their voices loud enough to drown out the critics holding you back? Our second Scripture lesson mentions Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets. If you haven’t been to Sunday school in a while, you may not know all their names or all their stories. Let me just tell you what they all have in common: They all suffered but never lost faith in the Promise. The odds were against them, but God was on their side. They overcame hardship. They had faith amid despair. Even in times of conflict, they expected peace. They remained hopeful for the rising sun even though the night was long. Their lives pointed to Jesus, who is the Pioneer and Perfector of our faith. He faced the cross, disregarding its shame, and now sits at the right hand of God. In the last two weeks, three members of our church were added to their number in that great cloud of witnesses. Cam Jones died last week. When Cam Jones first visited our church after trying out several churches in the area, during the worship service, he looked at his wife, Darcy, and said, “This is the place.” Harry Vaughn died last week. When Harry was the greeter at the front doors of our church on Sunday mornings, he wore his best chartreuse blazer and seasonally-appropriate tie. The week before last, Bob Brown died. When Bob Brown was recovering from any of his age-related injuries or setbacks, his physical therapists would ask him, “What goal are you working for, Mr. Brown?” “I just want to get back to church.” My friends, they’ve joined that great cloud of witnesses, and when we get there, I look forward to hearing Cam say, “This is the place.” I look forward to Harry welcoming me through the pearly gates wearing that chartreuse blazer. I look forward to Bob telling me, “Getting here was worth working for, but you made it, not of your own strength. You made it by the grace of God.” Bob Brown died at the ripe old age of 98. He loved his country so much that he enlisted in the Navy. A few years later, he reenlisted in the Army. Then a couple years ago, he heard our choir sing a patriotic anthem during a Veterans Day event. Bob walked up to the lectern and declared, “I’m more than 90 years old, but after that, I’m ready to enlist a third time.” One bright morning, our battle will be over. When that day comes, you’ll be welcomed into the Kingdom by that great cloud of witnesses who have been cheering you on all the way through. Listen to them today. Learn to hear their voices, so that you might run without growing weary. Walk, but do not faint. Let us all run this race in faith until we make it to our eternal home. Amen.

Faith: the Assurance of Things Hoped For, the Conviction of Things Not Seen, a sermon based on Hebrews 11: 1-3, 8-16, preached on August 10, 2025

Faith is one of those elusive religious words that we use freely but which is difficult to nail down and define succinctly. That’s one reason I love the first verse of this Scripture lesson from the book of Hebrews: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Faith is something like saving for retirement in your 20’s. Do you remember what that was like? Some of you remember what it was like to start saving; others are starting now. I remember being in a meeting with a representative of the Board of Pensions for the Presbyterian Church. I was 25, and he was telling me to prepare now for being 65, which at the time seemed to have so little relevance to me because in that moment I didn’t have enough money to pay the bills that were past due. Why should I worry with bills that would come 40 years down the road? We plan for the future because the future is coming. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Aesop tells the story of the grasshopper who lived only for the day. It was Spring. Why worry about Winter? Yet the ants were filling their storeroom while the grasshopper was enjoying the sun. Winter is coming. Plan for what is not here yet. If you think about faith as something like saving for retirement, then more or less, you are acting on faith all the time. We good Presbyterians don’t just live for today. We’re always preparing for tomorrow. We are all convinced that what we see right here is not all that there will be. We know that change is the constant, so we live today with bright hope for tomorrow. We send our kids to school to prepare for careers that are far down the road. Faith isn’t so complicated a thing. You’re living this way all the time but remember that faith is on the one hand while fear is on the other. When you think about the future, are you acting in faith or out of fear? As you raise your children, which impulse guides your decisions? Listen to this passage from a classic chapter book that my mother read to me: Ramona’s day was off to a promising start for two reasons, both of which proved she was growing up. First of all, she had a loose tooth, a very loose tooth, a tooth that waggled back and forth with only a little help from her tongue. It was probably the loosest tooth in her whole class which meant that the tooth fairy would finally pay a visit to Ramona before long. But not only did Ramona have a loose tooth to make her feel that she was finally beginning to grow up, she was going to walk to school all by herself. Do you remember this book? Those Ramona books were popular years ago, but they’re showing their age now because the scene that I just described, it unfolds as Mrs. Quimby, Ramona’s mother, takes Ramona’s older sister, Beezus, to the dentist. With Mom taking Beezus to the dentist, little Ramona must wait in the kitchen by herself until it’s time to walk herself to school. Her mother tells her to wait in the kitchen watching the clock until it’s a quarter past 8. It’s not a digital clock she’s watching, but a clock with the hands moving around in a circle that some adults have a hard time reading. Mrs. Quimby tells Ramona to leave the house a quarter past 8. Ramona understand 8 but isn’t sure about how many minutes are in a quarter of an hour. She remembers that a quarter coin is worth 25 cents, so she leaves the kitchen at 8:25 when she should have left at 8:15. She misses the chance to walk with her friend Howie, who was waiting at 8:15 but went on to school without her. By the time Ramona left the house, the sidewalk was empty, the crossing guard had gone, and Ramona made it to Kindergarten late. That’s right. Kindergarten. My friends, I was still walking our girls to school into their 5th grade year because in our culture, it’s not just faith that guides our actions, it is also an overwhelming sense of fear, worry, and anxiety. I looked back at a sermon I preached on this passage in Hebrews that we’re focused on this morning from six years ago. In that sermon preached in 2019, I told you that I had just walked Lily to her first day of 5th grade, and I told you that I stood there waving as she walked into Westside Elementary, saying a silent prayer for her safety and her success. I was worried standing there, but I felt better because just before she made it into the school she turned around and waved back to me. It was a wonderful moment that warmed my heart until that afternoon. Lily came home from school and told Sara, “Mama, dad just stands there for so long when he drops me off at school. I finally had to wave him away. Go on to work, Dad. Please tell him to stop standing there for so long.” My point here is that faith is on the one hand while fear is on the other. The Bible speaks to this reality. The phrase “fear not” appears in some form 365 times in the Bible, once for every day of the year, because our lives as Christians must be defined, not by fear but by faith, and when I say faith, I’m not talking about your acceptance of doctrine or dogma. I’m not so worried about how well you’ve memorized and digested the essential tenants of the Creeds and Confessions. What I want is for you to walk out these doors every Sunday assured once again that the One who holds us in His hands is not going to let your foot slip. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. The conviction of things not seen. What do you hope for? What have you not seen, but you dream of? I’ve been reading a book that Dr. John Knox wrote. In addition to being a long-time member of our church, John’s been working in the emergency room at Kennestone Hospital for years, and he wrote a book that you can buy on Amazon.com in which we follow the exploits of a surgeon operating on wounded soldiers fighting in the Civil War. It’s a gruesome account. Dr. Knox describes these surgeries, some of which we know took place in our Sanctuary after the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain. Back then, there was so little that anyone could do for a gunshot wound other than cut off the whole leg or arm, whichever had been shot. The surgeon had to sand down the bone so it wouldn’t poke through the skin once the wound had been stitched closed. Reading this book helped me gain a new appreciation for the suffering of those boys who laid on the floor of our Sanctuary. Can you imagine what it would have been like to be among them? Moreover, could they have imagined what it’s like to be us? Could the 12 families who donated their savings so that our Sanctuary could be built back in 1850 have imagined this church as it is today? Moreover, can you imagine what it will be like to be a member of this church 50 years or 100 years from now? Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen, and the future is coming, but do you believe that tomorrow will be better than today? My friends, we all know that we are living in this 21st century, where the influence of the Church is waning, where faithfulness appears to be in short supply, but my greater concern is that in the absence of faith comes fear, and I see fear at work all over the place. Fear is making our minds closed rather than open to the promise. Fear is making our hearts small, rather than filled with compassion. Too many are living without knowing where we are going. Too few make wise decisions because they are so fearful for what lies ahead. Those articles covering the decline of Roswell Street Baptist Church have haunted my dreams. Have you seen them? A church that declined in membership from 9,000 to 450. My friends, such reports are staggering, but I’m not afraid today. I’m done with fear. The only way we’ll fail is if we give up. God is with us, working His purpose out. Our lives are defined not by fear but by faith, which is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen, so while you might look out on a world today marked by bloodshed and scarred by division, the future we are promised gives us reason to be ever hopeful. We are walking towards the Kingdom of God. Be convinced that love always wins, and that our God is working against injustice for the betterment of all His children. Scripture promises that we are moving towards a tomorrow that is brighter than all our yesterdays. Halleluia. Amen.