Anti-Aging Formula

Delivered February 5, 2012

Isaiah 40:21-31

You have seen it advertised on television, on line, or in magazines – some product with an anti-aging formula. Often it is skin cream or hair coloring. Guaranteed to take years off your appearance. There are the products that promise more than just the appearance of youthfulness – but actually promise keep you alive longer. You can buy herbal formulas in capsules that are supposed to slow down the aging process. There are more radical approaches to looking young - like plastic surgery. There are also all types of advice about how to stay younger longer or at least look younger longer naturally – advice like staying out of the sun, not smoking, good diet and exercise. This actually seems to work for some people. It is amazing how some people do not seem to age hardly at all for decades. They look much younger than their chronological age, whereas others look old beyond their years.

Some focus on feeling younger – the old saying: “You are only as old as you feel.” Some folks look old, but they don’t act it. We have all known people in their nineties who act and feel younger than others in their seventies. There was a story on the front page of USA Today recently about seniors who chose not to retire, but to work into their eighties and nineties. The story and photos highlighted Edward Gerjouy, a physics professor at the University of Pittsburgh who is still working at the age of 93. He says that working keeps him youthful.

Today I am not going to hawk any snake oil that promises to be the fountain of youth. I am not going to preach a health and wealth gospel that says if you are a Christian then you will live longer. It ain’t true. The Bible never promises us such things. But I am going to talk about a spiritual anti-aging formula described in the Old Testament book of Isaiah. The prophet says in these famous words of Isaiah 40:

       ³⁰ Even the youths shall faint and be weary,
      And the young men shall utterly fall,
       ³¹ But those who wait on the LORD
      Shall renew their strength;
      They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
      They shall run and not be weary,
      They shall walk and not faint.

He is saying that we can have the ageless power of God in our lives at any physical age; we can receive from God a spiritual strength beyond our natural ability. There are two aspects of this anti-aging formula described by Isaiah. The first is the key element; the second is three examples of how it works.

I. The first element is Waiting on the Lord. In fact this seems to be the only major ingredient in this passage. You know how a product will list a bunch of ingredients on the label, but only one active ingredient. Well, the active ingredient in this formula is Waiting on the Lord. Verse 31 says, “But those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength.” What does it mean to wait on the Lord? It means three things

The phrase comes from the world of masters and servants. A servant waits on his/her master or mistress. Their job is to be available at all times. The image is of a servant waiting outside the door of the master’s chambers, waiting to be called to perform some service. As soon as the master calls, the servant responds. Jude and I have just begun watching the PBS Masterpiece Classic “Downton Abbey.” It takes places in England at the beginning of the twentieth century, right now during WWI. It is all about the relationships between the aristocracy and the servant class in England. There are the lords and there are the servants who wait on them. The servants are literally at the beckon call of the lord and lady of the mansion. That is the image that Isaiah is using, although he is from the age of ancient monarchs and servants. To wait on the Lord means to serve the Lord, and specifically it means to be available. To drop whatever you are doing when the Lord calls.

That is very different model than the dominant modern understanding of the relationship between God and humans. We tend to speak more in terms of friends (What a Friend we have in Jesus) and having a personal relationship with God. Servants in the ancient Near East did not have a personal relationship with their lords. In chapter 6 when the prophet Isaiah has a vision of seeing the Lord in thetemple, he does not put his arm around him and say, “Hi, buddy. How you doing?” He falls down and says, “Woe is me for I am undone. For I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell among a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts.” I am not saying that there is not a role for friendship in our relationship with God. Jesus calls us friends. Even Moses talked to God as a friend. I like the hymn “What a friend we have in Jesus” But I am saying that it has to be balanced with the concept of the reverence of a servant for his/her master. That sense of reverential awe is missing from much of Christianity today. We do not wait on the Lord. In fact it seems to me that many people expect the Lord or wait on us. And when God doesn’t do what we think he ought to do when we think he ought to do it, we get upset.

Waiting on the Lord also means being silent before. God says in the psalm, “Be still and know that I am God.” If you have ever waited for anything – such as waiting in the “waiting room” to see a doctor, you know that waiting is a quiet time. Waiting rooms tend to be quiet places. If you have ever waited at the bedside of a seriously ill or dying person, you know that waiting is a solitary state of being. A servant waiting outside the door of his master is just sits quietly. That is part of what it means for us to wait on the Lord. The spiritual life demands time of silence and solitude. If we aren’t quiet, we will not be able to hear when the Lord calls.

I saw a news report about the danger of wearing and listening to music on ipods when walking on city streets. When people wear plugs in their ears listening to music or even using cell phones, then they don’t hear the traffic. Pedestrians using such devices get hit by cars more often because they are paying attention to their music or conversations instead of the traffic. We do this with God. We pay attention to things other than God, and then wonder why we get run over by life. We tend to fill the silence of life with noise – keeping the radio on or the TV on or the computer on.

There is a phenomenon now of Christians taking an electronic Sabbath. The idea was raised at a retreat I attended last fall. The idea is for one day each week being unplugged from all media – cell phones, computers, television, radios, ipads and blackberrys - everything - and just have silence before God. Senator Joe Lieberman, and observant Jews, has a book out advocating just that. It is entitled “The Gift of Rest: Rediscovering the Beauty of the Sabbath.” He encourages all people “to stop one day and disconnect all the electronics and just focus in on yourself, your relationship with your family, and God.” If a US senator can do it with his busy schedule, can’t we? President Obama’s new chief of staff, Jacob Lew is an observant Jew who keeps the Sabbath and does not use electricity, including a phone on Saturday. He is inaccessible to the President so he can be accessible to God. If a man who coordinates the activities of the most powerful political leader in the world, can do that, why not us? I am not suggesting that Christians keep the Jewish Sabbath legalistically, but I think it would be good if we unplugged from electronic media once in a while and put a little silence into our lives to wait on God. Then maybe we could hear the Lord when he speaks. If we wait on the Lord, then he will renew our strength. That is the whole purpose of a Sabbath.

Waiting on the Lord also means following God’s timing. It means to be in sync with God. Another way of phrasing these three points is that Waiting on the Lord means to Serve, Be Silent, and Be in Sync.  I keep my calendar on a Blackberry. I found a used Blackberry on ebay for under $20, including shipping. It is not the most recent version, but it is a lot better than the antique Palm Pilot I had been using. Just so I don’t lose my information, I back it up the Blackberry on my laptop, and I sync it with Microsoft Outlook. So the calendar on my Blackbarry and the calendar on my computer are in sync. We need to sync our calendars with God. In fact we need to sync our lives with God. The problem is that most of us have one calendar and God has another, and the two are never synced. To sync with God means you have to connect with God. You have to share information with God. Most importantly you have to let his calendar overwrite ours. It will change our days and our weeks and our lives.

This also means to walk in step with him. You don’t get ahead of God or behind God. A lot of times we think God ought to do something, and when he doesn’t in what we think is a timely fashion, we step in and ruin the whole thing. We should be waiting for God’s timing. The NT talks about our relationship with God as one of walking with the Lord. That means to walk in step. He is the one who sets the pace. A lot of churches decide to do things when God is not in them. Boards, committees and pastors decide on their own and then expect God to bless their decisions. That is not the way it works. We wait on God. God decides and God acts in his time and we obey.

II. I want to move on now to the rest of this verse 31. It says that “those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength” and then it gives us three examples of this renewed strength. The first is: “They shall mount up with wings like eagles.” What does this mean? It means that we will gain a bird’s eye perspective on life. Eagles are known for soaring high above the ground and being able to spot things on the ground. As Christians, if we wait on the Lord, then we will soar high and gain a heavenly perspective on life. Paul says in Ephesians “God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, ⁵ even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), ⁶ and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”  He is saying that our spiritual position is being seated with Christ in the heavenly places. He says in Colossians 3 “¹ If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. ² Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.” 

If our minds are preoccupied with earthly things, then we will get pulled down and sucked in. It will sap us of our strength. This is especially true of church work. People get tired out, worn out and burned out in ministry. It is important to pace yourself; that is part of what it means to wait on the Lord. If we keep our minds on Christ, we have a heavenly perspective on earthly matters. People can get very wrapped up in earthly matters. They can lose themselves in it and lose perspective. Mounting up with wings as eagles is about gaining some altitude, getting a higher perspective on things. When we get a heavenly perspective, then we don’t take things quite so personally or seriously. Most churches and most pastors could benefit from the eagles perspective. G. K. Chesterton said, “Angels fly because they take themselves lightly.” Perhaps Christians need to do the same.

The verse goes on to say “They shall run and not be weary.”  I think he is using the metaphor of running to mean being busy. It is one thing to soar on the air currents like an eagle, but at some point you have to come down to earth. Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “Some people are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good.” We can’t spend our lives in the spiritual stratosphere. We have to come to earth and work. When we work, we get busy. When we are busy, we get tired. Isaiah says that they that wait on the Lord “shall run and not be weary.”  There seems to be a way to work for God that does not tire us out so much. There are two ways to work. We can work out of our own strength and resources or out of God’s strength and resources. The first part of this passage speaks about God’s power. “The Creator of the ends of the earth, Neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. ²⁹ He gives power to the weak, And to those who have no might He increases strength.” God shares his power with us when we wait on him.

Finally Isaiah says, “They shall walk and not faint.”  The progression of this verse is interesting. It goes from flying on eagles wings to running and now to walking. The person here is slowing down! It is all right to slow down. We live in a fast paced society. Technology speeds up every year and we are expected to keep up with it. But it is alright if you are not flying or even running. Even eagles don’t fly all the time. Even runners stop running. It is alright to walk. And when we walk with the Lord, we will not faint. This is speaking about perseverance – spiritual perseverance. That is one of the lessons of this passage. The one who waits on the Lord perseveres to the end, because God gives us the power and strength to endure. 

This is important. Not everyone perseveres to the end. This is one of the basic doctrines of the Christian faith called the perseverance of the saints. It is not enough to start the race; we are also required to finish it. It seems to me that many Christians do not make it to the end. Many drop out. Many get tired. Some get bored. Some get distracted. The spiritual life used to interest them, but no longer. Some get discouraged. In fact this passage is directed toward those folks. Verse 27 says, “²⁷ Why do you say, O Jacob,
And speak, O Israel: “My way is hidden from the LORD, And my just claim is passed over by my God”? Some people get upset and angry with God and think that God does not hear them or does not care. They used to soar and to run, but now they have stopped completely. That is why Isaiah ends the metaphor with walking. There is nothing wrong with walking as long as you keep walking with the Lord – as long as you persevere to the end of our pilgrimage here on earth.

²⁸ Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
The everlasting God, the LORD,
The Creator of the ends of the earth,
Neither faints nor is weary.
His understanding is unsearchable.
²⁹ He gives power to the weak,
And to those who have no might He increases strength.
³⁰ Even the youths shall faint and be weary,
And the young men shall utterly fall,
³¹ But those who wait on the LORD
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.