How To Stay Young And Fruitful All Your Life - Part 1

We'll be right back. Welcome to In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. Dr. Stanley served the Lord faithfully for many decades. Maybe you've wondered how you can remain productive and involved as long as the Lord allows. Today, we'll jump back a few years to a message Dr. Stanley preached in 2008, giving us practical guidance for how to stay young and fruitful all your life.

Well how do you stay young and fruitful all your life? Do you take a pill? No. Take a drink? No. Have an exercise plan that'll make you that way?

No. Well, what is it? How do you stay young and fruitful all your life? Well, a lot of people would like to think they know how, but usually they go about it the wrong way.

It's something they take, they talk to this one and that one and so forth. But I think the Bible is very clear that that is the will of God for His people. And so when somebody talks to me about retiring and I'm sixty-five or seventy-five or whatever and so forth, what I do is I look in the Word of God and say, Is that scriptural? And so what I'd like for us to do in this message, I want us to consider some things, actions and attitudes that'll keep you youthful and fruitful all of your life. Because I don't believe it's the will of God for somebody to start talking about, I'm so old this, that and the other and why they can't do this and why they can't do that.

The Bible's crystal clear. So I want you to turn, if you will, to the ninety-second Psalm. And I want us to read beginning in this twelfth verse and hear some very encouraging words to us, no matter who you are and what's going on in your life. I think the truth is we would all like, if we're honest, like to live a long life. That's up to God.

We'd certainly like to remain as youthful as possible and to accomplish as much as possible. So look, if you will, beginning in this twelfth verse. He says, The righteous man will flourish like the palm tree. He will grow like a cedar in Lebanon, planted in the house of the Lord. They will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still yield fruit in old age. They shall be full of sap and very green, to declare that the Lord is upright, He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him. That very important you read the first phrase of that. The righteous man or woman will flourish like the palm tree.

So what do we do? What are the attitudes and the actions that keep us youthful in life and fruitful all the days of our life? So what I'm going to do is I'm going to give you ten words.

They all start with an L so you will not forget them. Because if you want your life to change and change for the better, if you would just put to work what we're going to just talk about here, I can guarantee you something will happen in your life. Does that mean that you'll be able to run a hundred yards in a few seconds?

No, maybe a hundred yards in a half an hour or so, something like that. But anyway, it's all about your choices and it's all about discipline. If you're not willing to practice discipline in life, you're not going to get anything done anyway.

But here are some suggestions that I know works. Now if I were thirty-five years of age and told you this, you'd say, I don't believe that. Well, if you're my age, you better listen because I know that this is true. I want us to see exactly what He says in this passage verse by verse for just a moment.

And then you're going to see these issues that I'm talking about. When He says, The righteous man will flourish like the palm tree, to flourish is to grow and to be fruitful. And He uses two trees, one of them is a palm tree, it was a date palm. They grow to about ninety feet and they do flourish with dates. Then He says the seed is of leaven. The seeds of leaven grow to a hundred and twenty feet.

The limbs start at about ten feet from the earth and all the limbs are exactly parallel to the ground. It's a majestic scene. And not only are they delightful, but there's something about them that speaks of stability and strength.

Stability and strength, thirty to forty feet around, a hundred and twenty feet high, and awesome trees. And here's what He says. He says, The righteous man, a woman, will flourish like the palm tree. He will grow like a cedar and leaven, stable, strong.

They will flourish in the courts of our God, which is His way of saying people will live close to Him in the courts of our God in the house of our Lord. They will still, listen to this, still yield fruit in old age. Yielding fruit in old age. Well, what's old age?

Well, it just depends on how long you live. And so, still yield fruit in old age and He says, they shall be full of sap and very green. Now the King James Version, and I'm glad there's a little different translation, it says, fat and flourishing.

Well, that's not a very good term maybe in some people's eyes, but what He's saying is simply this. Full of sap, that is, listen, full of life. The sap is the life in the tree. Full of sap and green, fresh and creative and moving, something's going on. So we're talking about, we're talking about being youthful and fruitful even in old age.

So what is the first thing? Simply this, and that is, you've got to keep learning. If you don't keep learning, here's what happens. If you cease to learn, you begin to age. There's something about stimulating your mind, something about reading and something about listening and something about learning to do new things.

And when you think about the age in which you and I live with telephones that we have, then you walk around, talk to anybody in the world, computers, you sit down in front of a keyboard and find out anything you want to know in just a matter of a few seconds. But we have to keep learning. And a lot of people who sit at home, watch TV, they don't learn much. First of all, they don't watch to learn, they watch to be entertained. And they can spend three and four hours being entertained by things that have absolutely nothing good to do with them in their life.

Doesn't mean that all programs are bad, it just simply means that many people not trying to learn something, they just want to fill up their time. And when somebody says to me, well, I'm just wasting time. What you're saying is I'm wasting my life, which is certainly not a godly way to look at it. But to keep learning. And of course not thinking about keep learning, to keep learning about God. And you know, I've been reading the Word of God since before I was twelve years of age. And I've been reading it day after day after day and studying it year after year after year after year.

And you know what? One of the things I'm so excited about is every time God brings me to a passage of Scripture, I get excited about what am I going to learn new. What is it in God's Word? Because it's like a, it's fathomless. There's no end, there's no bottom to it. And to keep learning things about God, if you want something to stimulate your life and to stir you up, you get in the Word of God and you see every person can do that.

And it costs you a dime to do that. You get in the Word of God and say, Well, I want you to speak to my heart today. Give me a passage or maybe if you happen to be one of those persons who's reading through the Bible, remember that you're not just reading through the Bible so you can say you did. You're reading through the Bible to discover God in a new perspective in a new way. Always learning, whether you're listening or whether you're watching by television or whether you're listening to the radio, always listening to learn something. How can I apply the truths of God's Word in my life? What is it that you want me to learn?

Always learning. If you're going to stay young and fruitful all your life, you've got to keep on learning. The second thing you must do is to keep loving. Very important, the Scripture says, when God spoke to Moses, He said, here's what you tell the people, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your strength. And Jesus said to His disciples, He said, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another, even as I've loved you. There's something, listen, there's something about love and its effect upon a person's youthfulness and upon a person's age. Because love, listen, love is a healer. Love does something to the life.

If you have someone that you genuinely love with all your heart and you sense that love coming back to you, I'm here to tell you, it'll keep you young. To feel love, to sense love, to experience love is an awesome gift of God. And He teaches us, first of all, that we should love Him. And when we're able to love Him, we're able to love other people to the degree to which they need to be loved. Until a person learns to love God, no matter how much you say you love someone, there's always a limitation to that.

When you fall in love with God through His Son Jesus Christ, your capacity to love other people is greatly enlarged. And here's the reason loving is so important. Because a person who is loving, a person who genuinely loves someone, here's what happens. It's a protection because you can't love someone and be bitter toward them.

You can't love someone and hate them and be angry and resentful and hostile and reject them. A loving spirit, listen, flows in a person's life. And when that love genuinely flows, what's happening? It's going to keep you younger because what happens? It affects your whole body. When you get tension, stress, anger, bitterness, resentment, hostility, it tenses you up. It gets you a fretting and fuming over things, which God never intended.

And so what happens? Many people age themselves. And when a person lives out their life with no love, it's going to age you. Live your life and never feeling love, listen, which is one of the most important things God desires that you and I experience. His love. Listen, His love, which has no limitation. And He desires that you and I are able to love other people the same way.

And He also knows that that is a great stimulation in our life to all the good things that can come along. And besides that, if I don't learn to love, then I don't learn to forgive. Because loving and forgiving go hand in hand. And people who cannot love and cannot forgive, it ages them, I'm telling you. Because the physical body is a responder to the emotions that you and I have.

So first of all, you have to keep learning and then keep loving. But when I think about what follows that so clearly, and that is to keep laughing. Amen? I just want to see if you'd laugh.

There you go. Now, when we think about keeping, keep laughing, laughing is very important because it relaxes your body. And if it relaxes your body, it helps to get rid of the tension and the stress. And down in the green room every morning before we come up here, we're laughing about this, that, and the other.

Here's something I've noticed. It relaxes your throat. It relaxes your whole body. When you're laughing, something good's going on. So have you ever thought about Jesus laughing? When we think about Jesus, He's this stern Son of God, Savior, born of a virgin, coming again, righteous, awesome God who's the Judge of the universe.

That's not all of who He is. Because think, if you're a fisherman, you know this. Or if you've got friends and you go whether it's hunting or fishing or photographing or whatever it might be, one of the joys is all the laughing that goes on. And I can think about when I go photographing my buddies, as soon as we get in the vehicle, we start laughing about something. There's something funny going on all the time.

And so, after I've done that for two solid weeks, I come back, I'm a whole new person. Now, when you think about Jesus, think about this. Do you think that Jesus went fishing, He got in a boat, and everybody was very stern? Jesus is the Lord. And so, you know, they were saying, well today, Jesus is not on board today. Man, we're going to have a good time today. And think that. When He was on board, did He laugh?

Yes. He had to do funny things. Listen, you can't get a bunch of guys together who are fishermen and who are fishing who don't laugh about a lot of stuff. And so, there was enough humanness in Jesus that He laughed. Another reason I know that He did, because He was a happy person, was I think about how children responded to Him. Children ran to Him. And just because the Scripture just gives us once or twice maybe about children, I'm sure that everywhere He went, they were.

Why? Because His countenance, His attitude, when your countenance is love and your attitude is love and you're smiling, what happens? People who smile attract you. A smiling, listen, a smiling person and a loving person is an attractive person because usually they're kind in the Bible says that kindness makes a man attractive. And so, a person who is loving does what? Attracts people to themselves. And I would say to a young lady who's thinking about getting married, if you get into marriage with somebody who can't laugh, you better look the other way because you're heading the wrong direction.

You, listen, you want to live with somebody who knows how to laugh and knows how to love and knows how to just let their hair down and be themselves. And so often, people have this stern face because they think that's the proper thing to do. There's nothing in the Bible that says, well, what does the Bible say about laughing? Not a whole lot, but the issue is this, what's the effect on your body? It helps you to relax.

It helps you to remain youthful. And when I see little children, for example, and thank God they do come up to me and I hug on them and so forth. If I was standing up here week after week like this talking about so-and-so, they wouldn't be messing around with me. But why do they want to come up and hug me and grab me? There's no simple solution except that God is doing something in their heart.

Please put something in their heart that says, this man who's talking about God, well, it's our attitude. And so, if you don't have very many friends, ask yourself this question, how often do you laugh? Do you laugh before you go to bed at night?

Well, depends on what you watch probably. Do you laugh when you get up in the morning? Do you ever lie in the bed and think about something and just start dying laughing by yourself? Laughing is godly, as long as you're laughing about the right thing.

Now, there's some things you don't want to laugh about. Then of course, there's a whole issue of leaving. Now somebody says, what in the world do you mean by that?

I mean this. God wants us to leave, listen, He wants us to leave what He has forgiven us behind. He doesn't want us bringing it back and living with it again. He doesn't want us to carry burdens over and over and over again. In other words, whatever burden you and I have taken to the Lord and left there, we leave it there.

You have to keep leaving it there. And sometimes you leave it and pick it up and leave it and pick it up, leave it and pick it up until finally you learn to leave it there. If you're going to be youthful, listen, you can't be carrying burdens all the time. And what these burdens are, they're emotional baggage and they weigh you down. And when you keep in your mind and you keep thinking, for example, about things that were bad and things have been bad back yonder and all the stuff in your past that you would probably like to get rid of, but you don't, you keep hanging on to it. You have to leave it behind. We've all had experiences we've had to leave behind. You say, well, there's sins in my life.

Did God forgive you? Leave it behind. And He says, cast all your cares upon Him.

If I cast it on Him, I don't have to carry it. And so God doesn't want us living in the past. There's nothing wrong with saying, well, so-and-so has passed on to heaven, I'll be happy to see Him one day.

But look, don't increase your speed of getting there. In other words, you keep your mind on what God wants you to do and how He's working in your life. So you have to keep leaving some things behind and God'll show you what you keep your mind on. In other words, keep longing. You say, well, what do you mean by that?

Simply this. You've got to keep dreaming. There are a lot of folks who have no dreams.

They have no imagination. And remember this, your imagination is a gift of God. It is a powerful gift of God.

It has more effect upon you than you realize. Listen, what you imagine, if you keep on imagining, it becomes a reality in your life. So much of what you and I enjoy today is something somebody first of all imagined, began to think about it, had the courage to give it a try, probably failed many times, but something happened.

Finally, they were able to create something that all of us are enjoying. Now, when I say keep longing, I mean keep dreaming, keep longing for things you'd like to have. You say, well, I don't want to be materialistic. That's, you can long for things or people or relationships. For example, if you are looking for a husband or wife, and what kind are you looking for? What kind are you longing for?

What is it out there? Some people are afraid to dream, they say, oh, listen, that sounds like I'm being prideful. There's nothing in the Bible that says longing for good things in life, longing to know the Lord, longing to be married to the right person, a godly person, longing to be the best you can be, longing to accomplish the things you want to accomplish, longing to reach the maximum of your potential in life. There's nothing wrong with that. There's something good within.

What it does is, listen, to a great degree, it keeps you youthful and listen, it keeps you fruitful. Because if you don't have any dreams, you don't have anything to long for and look for, then there's something missing in your life. Too many people are too afraid to dream big dreams. Remember this, you can't dream a dream too big for God. You can't think a thought too big for God, because He wants His children to be blessed and He wants you, He says in this passage, very clear, to be fruitful in old age.

Well, oftentimes people don't stop to evaluate themselves. Look at yourself to think about, now what talents do I have? What gifts do I have? What could God do with me? And you ask the question, what, listen, if there were no hindrances, what could God do with me? And I'm here to tell you that God is powerful enough to do far more in you, through you, for you, to you, and for others through you than you could dream of.

That's why you have to keep dreaming, keep looking, keep longing, keep learning, keep loving, keep yourself in a position where God is able to make something awesome out of you. You're listening to In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. His message, How to Stay Young and Fruitful All Your Life, continues on our next program.

We obviously can't stop the advancing years, but believers who focus on the Lord can continue to joyfully fulfill His plans, and making that kind of positive impact for the glory of God is more significant than the number of years you live. Our Bible study resources at intouch.org can help you learn how to invest your life every day in things that matter for eternity. And if you go to the bookstore page, you can order a copy of Dr. Stanley's complete message, How to Stay Young and Fruitful All Your Life. Our web address again is intouch.org, or call 1-800-IN-TOUCH.

If you prefer, you can write to us at In Touch, post office box 7900, Atlanta, Georgia, 303-57. Is it your nature to want what God wants? Today's moment with Charles Stanley is coming up. The Christian life is an exciting journey with great joys and challenges. We don't always know the right questions to ask, or the best way to approach scripture in search of answers. Dr. Stanley's Handbook for Christian Living is an easy-to-use help system that will bring scripture to life so you can see God moving powerfully in your life.

To order, call 1-800-IN-TOUCH, or go to intouch.org-slash-store. In Lebanon, families that had fled civil war, leaving homes made of burlap, cardboard, and tin. But Ammar and his sisters are seeing Christ through the love of missionaries. Now, he has a school, and his parents can hear God's word through the In Touch Messenger, an audio Bible that is discipling new believers in Lebanon.

Learn more at intouch.org-slash-messenger. What's going on within a Christian who willingly puts personal interests aside and faithfully serves God? Here's a moment with Charles Stanley. The man and the woman who has the heart after God will be prepared to face anything the world throws at you. The man or the woman who does not have a heart after God will not be prepared. God wants His children, men and women, to be men and women with a heart after God. That we're living for Him, but not ourselves, a man or a woman who has a heart for God. No matter what comes our way and what the offer may be, deep down inside there's this awesome passion to obey Him that supersedes every single other desire that we have. Because that's what obedience is all about.

And a man or a woman who has a heart after God, that's going to be their testimony. They're committed to being obedient to God than to being a king. So ask yourself in your life, what is it that you really want, that you're really working after? But maybe in your heart you know it's not the right thing. Can you say, God, I'd rather be obedient to You than to have or to go or whatever?

Because it's more important to me. A man or a woman who has a heart after God, and listen, could you and I want anything less than that? Could we be so dishonoring to God as to desire things at the price of being a genuine servant of the living God?

A man or a woman up to God's own heart, their first priority is that relationship. Their life is wrapped up in the growing in their faith. Listen, having this awesome passion to obey Him and to watch Him work. Get by InTouch.org for resources that can fuel the flames of your passion to serve Christ. You can hear today's message again and listen to previous messages at our website. And if you'd like to take InTouch with you, choose from our selection of podcasts. These resources and much more can be found at InTouch.org. Today we heard five essentials for maintaining youthfulness and vitality. We'll add to that list next time on In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. This program is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia, and remains on this station through the grace of God and your faithful prayers and gifts.