00:00:00.000 - 00:00:38.000

[Music] Is God over 30? A message by Dr. Bruce W. Thielman. [Music] Let us continue in our worship by giving reverent attention to the reading of God's Word

00:00:38.000 - 00:01:20.000

as it is recorded in the Gospel according to Luke, the third chapter, beginning the reading at the verse number 15. "As the people were in expectation, and all men questioned in their hearts concerning John the Baptist whether perhaps he were the Christ, John himself answered them all. 'I baptize you,' he said, 'with water; but he who is mightier than I is coming, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

00:01:20.000 - 00:01:57.000

His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.' So, with many other exhortations, John preached good news to the people. But Herod the Tetrarch, who had been reproved by him for Herodias, his brother's wife, and for all the evil things that Herod had done, added this to them all, that he shot up John in prison.

00:01:57.000 - 00:02:47.000

Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form as a dove, and a voice came from heaven, 'Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased.' And Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age." May God bless to us and to our understanding this reading from his word. Will you pray with me?

00:02:47.000 - 00:03:25.000

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. It happened in a local barber shop. The barber shop I go to has three barber chairs; the middle one is never used. And on the particular occasion to which I make reference, a young student here at the college was seated in the chair to the left, a very bushy head of hair and a very bushy beard to match.

00:03:25.000 - 00:03:59.000

The chair to the right was a much older gentleman who had only a little hair and that around the edges. I was engaged in a conversation with the young man, or rather, he was engaged in a conversation with me. He was telling me how poor his church at home was, how dead it was, how lifeless it was, how there was in it no enthusiasm, no vigor, no vitality at all. And as a kind of capstone of his indictment of this congregation of which he was a part,

00:03:59.000 - 00:04:43.000

he said, "Doc, you wouldn't believe it, but there are twelve people in that church who are under thirty." To him, evidently, death, lack of vitality, no enthusiasm could be attributed to those over thirty. Well, his haircut came to an end and he left. He had no sooner gotten out of the door when the older gentleman in the right-hand chair said, "Young people today really have tough problems. Why, I heard of a girl the other day who lost her contact lens in her boyfriend's beard."

00:04:43.000 - 00:05:31.000

And then after chuckling for a moment he said, "Oh well, you really can't expect anybody to be responsible until they're at least thirty-five." From the left, nothing any good after you're thirty. From the right, nothing any good before you're thirty-five. And suddenly, in my mind's eye, I saw Jesus enter the barber shop and sit down in that center chair. And as he seated himself, I remembered the words of Scripture from Luke, and Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age.

00:05:31.000 - 00:05:59.000

That would have been altogether too old for the fellow on the left, and altogether too young for the fellow on the right. But have you ever thought about the fact that if you consider Jesus to be the greatest teacher the world has ever known, then his teaching career lasted only three years from when he was thirty to when he was thirty-three years of age? Or if you think of Jesus as the most distinguished leader the world has ever known,

00:05:59.000 - 00:06:24.000

the one who has the greatest sensitivity to human need and the greatest wisdom in answering that need, if that's your view of him, then have you ever paused to ponder the fact that this greatest of all the world's leaders did his principal leading in the period between when he was thirty years of age and when he was thirty-three years of age? Or if you understand Jesus to be God, very God of very God, very man of very man,

00:06:24.000 - 00:06:54.000

when you see him, you see God, then have you considered this truth, that Almighty God decided when he revealed himself to man to reveal himself in one who was between thirty and thirty-three years old? Jesus, you see, is the man in the middle. For some, too old; for others, too young.

00:06:54.000 - 00:07:23.000

And on the thread of that thought, I'd like to string a few pearls tonight. And the first pearl is this, so obvious it almost doesn't need saying. Jesus is the man in the middle between the long hair and the little hair. Now I'm sure that at one time or another you've heard someone putting down the younger generation because of their hair or their dress.

00:07:23.000 - 00:07:51.000

And I want to say to you tonight, quite seriously, that if that kind of comment is uttered as a joke, well, then I guess it's all right. But if someone really means it, if one suggests to you that in some way or other, because your hair is long or because your jeans are worn or because your feet are bare, that that indicates some lack of worth or value or spirituality in you, well, that kind of thing doesn't really deserve much serious consideration.

00:07:51.000 - 00:08:16.000

I had a woman say to me once that it was quite obvious that young people today were not close to the Lord because look at how many boys had long hair. And to justify her argument, she went to some verse in 1 Corinthians 11 where it says that long hair is an offense to the Lord. Now, she failed utterly to take into consideration the context of the verse.

00:08:16.000 - 00:08:43.000

She didn't consider what the word "long" in fact meant, and of course it's a purely relative word. And she also, it seems to me, began to use a very specific word of Paul in a very generalized sense, and she did it over against what was probably the custom of our Lord himself. All of the archaeological evidence which we have from this period in the world's history indicates that the Jews in first century Israel wore their hair long.

00:08:43.000 - 00:09:15.000

The average Jew was about 5 foot 5 to 5 foot 7 inches tall, rather thin, wiry, and muscular in build, very dark complexion, very sparse beard, black or very dark brown hair, not curly, straight, and worn long and seen as a sign of beauty. Now, Jesus is described as not being at all unusual in appearance, and so it's reasonable to accept the truth that he had long hair, but the point is, what difference does it make?

00:09:15.000 - 00:09:44.000

Does Jesus become more attractive to you as a Savior because he had long hair? Is some older person who meets Jesus face to face going to turn on him as Savior because his hair happens to be beyond the length that he personally prefers? A length of hair has nothing to do with one's real self. I've heard people put you down because some of you wear sandals, but my podiatrist tells me that a sandal is the healthiest thing you can put on your foot.

00:09:44.000 - 00:10:10.000

I've heard some people put you down because you sometimes go with their feet. And in your defense, I always say, "Well, it's true, when you go in bare feet, you're getting in touch with nature." You may also be getting in touch with rusty nails and broken glass, too. But whether a person has anything on his feet or not doesn't say anything about his real value as a personality or about his spirituality or worth.

00:10:10.000 - 00:10:32.000

I've had people say that because you wear jeans all the time, that indicates something inferior about you. Frankly, I prefer jeans. I can't buy them for myself. They don't make them that large. But I like to see other people in jeans. It always seems to me that when you put on a suit, when you put on a suit like this, for example, the only thing that's any different on you is from here up.

00:10:32.000 - 00:10:50.000

The cut is always the same, the lapels are always the same, everything's the same. Tubes of cloth, they are. But when you put on jeans or a t-shirt, well, they have a way of clinging to the body. They reveal the natural contours of the body, and I think the body is one of the most beautiful things that God ever made.

00:10:50.000 - 00:11:14.000

Certainly some of the bodies on this campus are. And I enjoy that beauty as it moves about this place. Yesterday, one of our graduates, been out of school a year and a half, has a very fine position with Dow Corning in Michigan. A fellow who was a soccer star when he was here, a very good student, a member of the new Lambda Phi fraternity, was visiting on campus.

00:11:14.000 - 00:11:31.000

He came down and sat and talked for an hour and a half. And amongst the things that he related, he told me about a week ago he was going through an airport with his briefcase in hand, and he walked past a mirror and suddenly stopped and looked at himself. And there he was in a business suit and a very sedate tie carrying this briefcase,

00:11:31.000 - 00:11:53.000

and he couldn't realize that just a year ago he was running around the campus in jeans and a t-shirt and some kind of grubby jacket or another. But he said, "I want to point out to you that I only have two suits, and I don't plan to buy any more. I don't want to lose my contact with the jean generation." Well, I was glad to hear him say that.

00:11:53.000 - 00:12:12.000

What does a Christian look like? When I was in the hospital not too long ago, a lot of people visited me, and most of them were Christians. I remember one Christian who came to see me who was wearing a Brooks Brothers suit and a button-down shirt and a very, very nice striped tie. He was about as straight as anybody could be, but he's a radiant Christian.

00:12:12.000 - 00:12:39.000

I remember a Christian girl from this campus who visited me who was wearing that night army shoes, blue jeans, a t-shirt, an army jacket. And she's a beautiful Christian. I remember one student from our campus who came to see me, and after he was in the room--this happened to be on New Year's Eve-- he took off his pants and his shirt and revealed that he was wearing a large diaper and a banner across his chest which said "1978."

00:12:39.000 - 00:12:50.000

And he's a beautiful person, too. What does a Christian look like? A Christian looks like you. Looks like the person behind you or the person in front of you or the person beside you.

00:12:50.000 - 00:13:11.000

That's what Jesus, the man in the middle between the long hair and the little hair, says. His words were these. "It's not what goes into a man that profanes him, it's what comes out of him." And I think it's a quite legitimate paraphrase of those words to say, "It's not what goes onto a man that makes the man."

00:13:11.000 - 00:13:22.000

Clothes don't really make a man in spite of what the advertisers say. No, no. It's what comes out of the man. Out of the heart are the issues of life.

00:13:22.000 - 00:13:34.000

That's what Jesus, the man in the middle, says. But enough about that. It's so obvious we don't need to say more. Let's go on to another pearl to spin on the thread of the thought.

00:13:34.000 - 00:14:04.000

Jesus is the man in the middle between the insolence of youth and the arrogance of age. I suppose the charge that you most frequently launch against the older generation is that they're phony, that they're fakes, hypocrites, if you will. That expression, "Never trust anyone over 30," is certainly indicative of just such a thought. You say they talk about love, but they don't do much loving.

00:14:04.000 - 00:14:26.000

They talk about peace, but they really advocate personal and national war. They talk about morality and don't live very moral lives. They talk about the things of the spirit, and they're altogether caught up in the material. You say that the Church, the fellowship of the faithful, the older society in general, is a place for phony.

00:14:26.000 - 00:14:43.000

And I'll have to be very frank with you and say tonight that you're 100% right, at least about the Church. The Church is full of phony. There were two tramps walking down the road. They passed a church, and over the loud speaker from the church they heard the minister's voice as he droned the words,

00:14:43.000 - 00:15:03.000

"O Lord, forgive us for those things which we have done which we ought not to have done, and those things which we ought to have done which we have not done." And the one tramp looked at the other and said, "Let's go in there. That's the place for us." The Church is the place for people who are phony.

00:15:03.000 - 00:15:19.000

I'd like to hang a banner over the entrance to every church in the world. Now remember, I said every church in the world. What's the one thing that you could put on a banner that would be appropriate over the entrance to every church in the world? Not the name of the church, not the time of the services, not the theology which was held by those who believed there.

00:15:19.000 - 00:15:38.000

It seems to me only one banner could be so placed over the door of every church in the world, and that banner would read, "For sinners only." And sinners are, by definition, phony. People who pretend they're better than they really are.

00:15:38.000 - 00:15:59.000

Churches are full of them, and that's exactly where they ought to be. You can't even get into the church until you admit that's true of you. This last October I was driving to Pittsburgh with a young man who's seated in this room tonight. It was a beautiful afternoon, and as we drove down Route 79,

00:15:59.000 - 00:16:20.000

he, for some reason that I don't exactly remember, fell into reminiscing about his godmother, who had died just a few days before from cancer. And as he expressed some thoughts about her, he said, among other things, "She made the most wonderful cinnamon rolls.

00:16:20.000 - 00:16:49.000

And when she made those cinnamon rolls, I used to try to always get the ones that were in the corner of the pan, because when the cinnamon would cook, it would melt, and it would run into the corners of the pan, and so those rolls always had the thickest and the gooiest and the chewiest icing on the top." And then he paused for a moment, and he said,

00:16:49.000 - 00:17:17.000

"I guess I'll never have any of her cinnamon rolls again." And then he was quiet for about another minute and said, "Is this what it is to get older?" Now I don't know if he's thought much about what he said that afternoon in the car, but I haven't been able to forget it.

00:17:17.000 - 00:17:45.000

I'll be everlastingly grateful that I was there, because you see, that's what it is to get older. To get older is to recognize that the doors are closing behind you. When you're young, all the doors seem to be open. Everything is possibility. You start to get older when you begin to recognize that there are a lot of doors that are closing behind you,

00:17:45.000 - 00:18:16.000

doors you should have tried and didn't, or doors you should have left untried and went boldly through. And as those doors close, well, the picture of your life isn't as attractive as it was when you saw all the doors as still possibilities. It's like drawing a picture. As long as you have an eraser, you can keep changing things around to suit you. But when you no longer have an eraser, then every line that you draw is final.

00:18:16.000 - 00:18:33.000

And in order to make that line look a little bit better, you tend to start adding lines. And you see, it's when you start adding lines like that, that's what being phony is. It's trying to make the picture into something different than it really was. And that's what it means to get older.

00:18:33.000 - 00:19:04.000

People busy trying to draw the picture again to make it a little better than they know it really was. Now, I'm not saying to you that you're not a hypocrite until you get old enough to know the doors are closing. The fact of the matter is that all of you young people are hypocrites. Let's be perfectly honest about that. 50% of the divorces in this country this year are young people under 29 years of age.

00:19:04.000 - 00:19:24.000

Now, they all made solemn promises of love, and now they're going back on those promises. And if that isn't hypocrisy, I don't know what is. 60% of the young men and women who go into college this fall as freshmen will not complete their college educations. They've committed themselves, sometimes at great cost for their parents, to pursuing their educations to the end.

00:19:24.000 - 00:19:50.000

And they're going to break those promises. And if that's not hypocrisy, I don't know what is. The Department of Housing, Education, and Welfare has just revealed statistics that indicate that 390,000 young Americans who got loans from the government to pursue their education are now deliberately refusing or failing to pay back those loans. Those loans amount to some $417 million.

00:19:50.000 - 00:20:03.000

A commitment was made to pay them back, and they're not being paid back. And if that's not hypocrisy, then I don't know what is. Let's delude ourselves no longer about this. You don't suddenly become a hypocrite when you're 30.

00:20:03.000 - 00:20:26.000

You don't suddenly become a hypocrite when you recognize that the doors are closing behind you. You've been a hypocrite all along. It's just that suddenly you become aware of it. And the only difference between your hypocrisy and the hypocrisy of those older than you is, they're more honest about it than you are. And let me be very frank with you.

00:20:26.000 - 00:20:54.000

And if I can't be frank with you, then I can't be frank with anybody. I get a little uptight when I hear some of you use the hypocrisy of older people as a justification for your own actions. I read an article in Stern magazine, the German magazine, about a young German boy who asked his dad for the car, and his father said no, he couldn't have it, because he'd had it the night before,

00:20:54.000 - 00:21:19.000

he'd kept it out later than he was supposed to the night before, and he brought it back with a scratched fender. And the boy replied by pointing out to his father that his father had once been a member of the Nazi party. And he so attacked his father for his own involvement in what was an ugly chapter of history, that his father eventually caved in, in the light of his own guilt, and let the kid have the keys to the car.

00:21:19.000 - 00:21:35.000

I see that happen. I see young people talk about the hypocrisy of the older with a kind of glee, because it somehow makes them feel better, or they use this guilt feeling in the older to gain what they want. Well, you remind the older people about their hypocrisy, that's good.

00:21:35.000 - 00:21:57.000

Be skeptical if you want to, but don't make skepticism a dogma. Let your mind be open, but not open at both ends. You are not called to be insolent with those who arrogantly try to draw their pictures of their life in some way that they really weren't. Listen instead to the man in the middle.

00:21:57.000 - 00:22:15.000

Jesus says to both the insolent and the arrogant, "Hey, all you hypocrites, come to me. I'll forgive you for those doorways, the ones you admit and the ones you won't admit. I'll forgive you for the opportunities missed. I'll forgive you for the things that were done that should not have been done.

00:22:15.000 - 00:22:44.000

Come, all you Pharisees, old Pharisees and young Pharisees. I'll look upon you in the light of the kingdom and in the light of love." That's what the man in the middle says as he stands between the insolent youth and the arrogant age. "Come unto me, and I will give you rest."

00:22:44.000 - 00:23:10.000

And just one last thought, and then I'm done. It seems to me that Jesus is the man in the middle between the young radical and the old reactionary. Peter Drucker in his book on effective management says it's interesting to observe that most young people who go to work in a company have zero percent experience and 100 percent enthusiasm.

00:23:10.000 - 00:23:35.000

And 40 years later when they retire, they have 100 percent experience and zero percent enthusiasm. And effective management, he says, is managing to get these two things balanced out throughout the course of the employment experience. Well, that's what it seems to me it is to try to balance the radical and the reactionary. Now, I don't want you to think I'm putting you down.

00:23:35.000 - 00:23:56.000

I remember the story of the two little kindergartners who were playing out in the schoolyard during recess and a jet plane flew over and one of them said, "There goes one of those new F-151s." And the other says, "Yes, you know, it'll get up to Mach 5 within 15 minutes after leaving the ground." And the other one says, "Yes, and it has a ceramic nose cone so that it doesn't create too much friction when it moves through the atmosphere."

00:23:56.000 - 00:24:25.000

And just then as they're discussing this plane, the bell rang, recess was over, and the one looked at the other and said, "Well, here we go, back to stringing those darn beads." Believe me, I know you well enough to know that you're far beyond beads. But I want to say to you quite frankly that sometimes when you come at me with 100 percent enthusiasm and zero percent experience,

00:24:25.000 - 00:24:46.000

I get a little bit nervous. And I hear the criticisms you launch against the faith or the church and, well, sometimes I'm embarrassed by them, but more often I'm astonished by them. Some come and say, "Well, I don't know, as I experience the church and what goes on in the church today, I—"

00:24:46.000 - 00:25:10.000

Well, they're always putting people down. They're talking about sin and they're talking about negative things. And I want something that asserts the worth of the personality and the value of the individual. I don't want to hear all the time about some prodigal son living with the pigs. Well, the church does talk about the prodigal son and about wasting the substance in riotous living, because that's what most of us do.

00:25:10.000 - 00:25:28.000

But remember that the church also talks about the return of the son, talks about a robe being put on his back, which shows he's part of a family, talks about shoes being put on his feet, which shows that he's free and not a slave, and talks about a ring being put on his hand, which is a symbol of authority and not of servitude.

00:25:28.000 - 00:25:49.000

In other words, it talks about all a personality can be. It's not one-sided in its gospel, in the truth that it heralds. I've had some of you come and say, "Look, I don't want a lot of ethical rules and regulations. I don't want a lot of moralisms handed down to me in faith. I just want a religion built on love.

00:25:49.000 - 00:26:14.000

And if I confront some situation, well, I'll do the most loving thing that's there." And I want to say to you, the whole experience of the church, which is over 2,000 years old, the whole experience of the church is that when you get in the back seat of an automobile in a drive-in theater and you are as steamed up as the windows, you are not going to make very loving and rational decisions.

00:26:14.000 - 00:26:34.000

When you come and say you're going to live with someone for a year to find out whether you ought to marry them or not, I mean, that's just as valid an idea as trying out an automobile before you buy it. The whole experience of the church says that trying to find out what marriage is without real solemn commitments before God and others,

00:26:34.000 - 00:26:53.000

just living together and saying, "That's a test of marriage." That's no more a test of marriage than testing a parachute by jumping 12 feet. People come and they say, "Well, I want a faith that emphasizes relationships. I want to tangle my heartstrings with other people.

00:26:53.000 - 00:27:10.000

I don't want that which separates but that which draws together." And I look at life here in our community, on this campus. And the most meaningful relationships which I see are not within social organizations where sometimes brother doesn't really know brother and sister doesn't really know sister,

00:27:10.000 - 00:27:30.000

but are within Christian fellowships of which I am well aware, where Christians sit down around the Word of God and so search it and let it so search them that they are tied together in a very real and a beautiful way. So many of the criticisms which you bring to the church, to tradition,

00:27:30.000 - 00:27:59.000

to that which has been and has been for a long while, so many of them are uninformed. They are all enthusiasm and they're without experience. I know you don't string beads, but I pray tonight for a reverence for that which is known and gathered and experienced by others, not just because others are old.

00:27:59.000 - 00:28:14.000

There's a senior here tonight with whom I sat at the Nutcracker Ballet performance last December here on our campus. During the intermission we started talking about something and I made a point and he came on very strongly in agreement with the point.

00:28:14.000 - 00:28:30.000

And he came on so strongly that I was somewhat awed by it and I said to him, "You don't have to agree with me just because I'm older than you are." And he reared back and said, "I never agree with anybody because they're older than I am. I'm agreeing with you because you're right."

00:28:30.000 - 00:28:55.000

Well, that's what I'm asking for. I really believe that what I'm telling you is right. Think of it like this. On December the 12th, 1956, the great cunard liner, the Queen Mary,

00:28:55.000 - 00:29:08.000

was on its way to the United States. It was pooling against very heavy seas. There was considerable question as to whether it would make New York on time. It had a lot of important mail, a lot of important passengers,

00:29:08.000 - 00:29:24.000

many business appointments and social appointments depended upon it getting there. It was carrying a great number of products for very fancy shops in New York for the holiday season. All of this stuff was on board. And suddenly, out of the night, there came a radio signal

00:29:24.000 - 00:29:47.000

sent by a teenage boy who was the radio operator on a Panamanian freighter called the Santa Ana. And he reported that the captain of that ship was seriously ill and needed medical help. Without a moment's hesitation, that great ship, the Queen Mary, pulled off its course and went to that little freighter, and there, using its ship's doctors,

00:29:47.000 - 00:30:06.000

ministered to this captain of the vessel who was in medical difficulty. Then they returned to their course and got to New York very late. Now, what had happened? In that moment of decision, it wasn't the mail in the hold,

00:30:06.000 - 00:30:24.000

it wasn't the products that the fancy shops were waiting for, it wasn't all the important appointments of the big shots who were on board. None of these things prevailed. All of these things were laid aside because of the need of one Panamanian ship captain.

00:30:24.000 - 00:30:42.000

And why? Well, I'll tell you why. Because if you've ever spent any time on a Cunard liner, you know that every Sunday morning, the whole crew—captain, cook, stewards, stewardesses, everybody who's not working—

00:30:42.000 - 00:30:59.000

goes to the worship service of the Church of England. They're all standing there in spit and polish with their white gloves under their shoulder straps, and they pray certain prayers which are part of the tradition and the ritual of that great church. And one of those prayers, one of the ones I dearly love,

00:30:59.000 - 00:31:14.000

it's got a word in it that keeps ringing through it like a ship's bell. It's the word "all." Listen, they pray for all who are in danger, for all who travel by land or water, for all sick and young children, for all prisoners and captives,

00:31:14.000 - 00:31:34.000

for all the desolate and the oppressed. That prayer, you see, has become part of the warp and the woof of the lives of those who direct that ship. It is graved into their consciousness, so when the call for help comes, there's no argument, there's no debate, there's the immediate response.

00:31:34.000 - 00:31:51.000

One of those for whom we pray is in need. And the ship changes course. Now you see, it's the ritual, it's the tradition, it's the accumulated worth of all those years that causes that immediate response.

00:31:51.000 - 00:32:08.000

But what prompts it? A teenage radio operator who sends out a message about a man who needs help. There you have it, you see. You have the tradition, but you have the response to immediate need.

00:32:08.000 - 00:32:24.000

You have the reactionary look backwards, you have the radical and immediate response to today. You have the old and the young, you have it all together. That's what Jesus wants. That's what the man in the middle wants. That's the reason He included in the company of His disciples,

00:32:24.000 - 00:32:45.000

John a young man and Matthew an old man, Andrew a plotter and Simon the zealot, one who was enthusiastic and vigorous in the pursuit of his goals. Jesus is the man in the middle between reaction and radicalism.

00:32:45.000 - 00:33:01.000

So go back to the barber shop. There he sits in the center chair. And he turns to the old gentleman and he says, "You say, 'Trust no one under 35?'

00:33:01.000 - 00:33:21.000

My Father chose to reveal all of His love to you through me when I was not yet 35." And he turns to the boy in the other chair and he says, "You say, 'Never trust anyone over 30?' I didn't leave Nazareth until I was over 30,

00:33:21.000 - 00:33:39.000

till I had finished my responsibilities with my family, till the education I would know was done, till I had familiarized myself with the history of my people, until I had tried out all I knew to be true in the furnace of human experience and adventure.

00:33:39.000 - 00:33:50.000

It was then that I set out on my ministry." He says to the long hair and to the little hair, He says to the insolent and to the arrogant, He says to the radical and to the reactionary,

00:33:50.000 - 00:34:13.000

"I want you both and I want you here in the middle." It's like that night last summer when I saw a father and his son flying a kite on our football field. I never saw a kite that high. And as they had it up there, just a speck,

00:34:13.000 - 00:34:32.000

it began to get cloudy. And that kite disappeared. And I said to the little boy, "How do you know it's still there?" And he said, with his father's hand on his shoulder,

00:34:32.000 - 00:34:59.000

"Why, because every once in a while I feel it tug." That's the picture. Father and son, mother and daughter, old and young, even when they can't see him, holding tight and waiting for the pull of the unseen Savior.

00:34:59.000 - 00:35:14.000

Together. Is God over 30? Yes. A thousand ages in his sight are like an evening gone.

00:35:14.000 - 00:35:25.000

He is older than the oldest. Is God over 30? No. Because he's the same yesterday and today and forever.

00:35:25.000 - 00:35:43.000

To be infinite is to be beyond time and temporality. He has no beginning and no end. He is the one who is in the middle. And where he is, is wisdom and balance and blessing.

00:35:43.000 - 00:36:24.000

And you will know this when, regardless of your age, you let the Christ of the middle become the center of your life. Let us pray. Our Father, gray and green, gray on top or green behind the ears,

00:36:24.000 - 00:36:47.000

we come to thee. Help us to find thee. Help us to be found of thee. And being found of thee, to discover in fullness each other.

00:36:47.000 - 00:36:59.340

We pray this in Jesus' name. [BLANK_AUDIO]