(upbeat music) We have a big week ahead with Easter looming, but today we talk retirement. And of course we're moving from winter to spring, and as we make this transition, the snowbirds are moving from the south back to northern cities and towns. And Kyle in Somerset, Kentucky emails in, "Hello, Pastor John, "do you have any thoughts on snowbirding, "the practice of retirees who leave for warmer climates "during the cold months "and return when the weather gets warmer?

"As a minister in a local church, "I have seen segments of the population "disappear in the winter, "and it seems to have an impact "on the life of the congregation. "Do you see this as an acceptable practice for believers, "and how can church leaders address this issue with care "and without giving unnecessary offense "to those who have worked hard during their careers "and feel this is their prerogative?

"Thanks for any insight you can give." I just turned 70, all right? So I feel an increasingly privileged position from which to make pronouncements about the evils of the American dream of so-called retirement. - And you live year-round in Minneapolis. - I do, I do. It's natural to go to Florida in January from Minneapolis.

That would be a natural thing to do. Helpful, maybe not, but natural, yes. So this question about snowbirds is part of a larger question about how those of us who have stepped away from our lifelong means of livelihood should be spending the last 20 years of our lives. That's the big question, much bigger than just snowbirding.

The Bible is not silent about this because it's not silent about life, and the period between 65 and 85 is called life. It's not something else. In fact, it is a crucial part of life because it is the last period of preparation before we stand before the Lord face-to-face and give an account for every idle word and moment, according to Matthew 12, 36.

Snowbirding is just one of many lifestyle issues that come with being fairly wealthy Western people. Most people in the world don't have these choices, right? We have these choices, at least many of us do. We could just pull up and go and rent and live in another place. It's in the same category with questions, should you have a lake home?

How many homes should you have? How many vacations should you take? And how long should they be? And where should they be? And how expensive should they be? And should you go to the lake every weekend during the summer and teach your grandchildren how to skip church? Should you spend thousands of dollars on eating out every year?

How many cars should you have? And what kind? And where should you live? And what kind of house should you buy? And what neighborhood should you live in? Or should you just rent and on and on and on? The lifestyle questions go, right? So I've tried over the years, both in writing and in preaching, to address these things generally rather than specifically.

I've never, to my knowledge in any way, said in public, you can't live here. You can't buy that. You can't have that. Because it just seems to me that the Bible doesn't do it that way. It doesn't go about specifying those kinds of things so that we have a nice list that we can all check, whether being naughty or nice, with regard to the things we buy or not.

Rather, it seems to me that the Bible goes about it in a much broader, more general way. And that's what we should do too. So my approach has been, and I commend it to others, if that's a pastor asking about what to say about his snowbirds, call for a radical Christian wartime lifestyle based on clear biblical passages of love and sacrifice and suffering in ministry and the brevity of life and the lostness of the world and the suffering of those around us, all of which I think have the tendency, for virtually everybody, have the tendency to guard us against luxury and opulence and to move toward need rather than toward comfort and security, toward generosity and simplicity.

Those are the, that's the drift of the New Testament rather than maximizing our own comforts and luxuries now. So on the issue of snowbirding, I wouldn't scold older people in my church who do this, especially not from the pulpit. Rather, I would spend a few years trying by word and prayer and example to create a mindset in the church which knows and feels that self-sacrifice and generosity and ministry and love are where true joy is found.

And I would try to show over and over from the Bible, from modern life, that following the mindset of the world to maximize comfort and escape hardship is the path of boredom and guilt and emptiness in the end. I would labor in the exposition of the word to create that mindset in the church before I address specifics like snowbirding.

And then I might get more specific with regard to a period called retirement. And I would try to create a mindset among older people in the church that this is a golden opportunity, not for coasting and resting and playing and self-indulgence, but for ministry and service and meeting needs and making disciples and showing love, maximizing usefulness, not maximizing physical pleasures through leisure and luxury.

God has not given us 70-somethings, us 70-somethings, a lifetime of experience with God and with the world to be shelved while we putz around endlessly with our hobbies and games and leisures and let all of that experience with God and with the world that should be making us useful, we just don't wanna shelve it.

So very practically, I would try to get everybody to buy J.I. Packers, or maybe I would buy them and give them away. Everybody over 60 in my church get a copy of J.I. Packers' book called "Finishing Our Course with Joy, Guidance from God for Engaging with Aging." Really clever title.

Packer develops a biblical vision for what these older years might look like. And I just jotted down here a cluster of quotes, and I'm gonna read them. Here's what he says. "Aging is not for wimps. So far as bodily health allows, we should aim to be found running the last lap of the race of our Christian life, as we would say, flat out.

Retirees are admonished in our day, both explicitly and implicitly, in terms that boil down to this, relax, slow down, take it easy, amuse yourself, do only what you enjoy. I see," Packer says, "I see this agenda, well-meant as it is, as wrong-headed in the extreme. I think it is one of the huge follies of our time, about which some frank speaking is in order and indeed overdue.

For the moment, I leave aside its lack of Christian content and focus on the fact that it prescribes idleness, self-indulgence, irresponsibility, as the goal of one's declining years. This, over time, will generate a burdensome sense that one's life is no longer significant, but has become quite simply useless. The challenge that faces us," this is still Packer, "The challenge that faces us is not to let physical slowing down produce spiritual slowing down, but to cultivate the maximum zeal for the closing phase of our earthly life." Well, I love that.

The last phase, maximum zeal. So, this is Piper now talking. So, the key question with regard to snowboarding is not a matter of schedule or geography or temperature. It's a matter of ministry. The question to ask is, do you move, wherever you move, Florida, Mexico, New Mexico, Phoenix, wherever you, do you move as a means of maximizing ministry, maximizing spiritual growth and impact?

Is there a greater impact for ministry in Florida than in Northern Minnesota? Will you have a more integral influence for Christ in the big mega church that you visit in Florida than you would have if you stayed in your rural church in Wisconsin or Kentucky or wherever? Are you thinking mainly of comfort, or are you thinking mainly of your own, or mainly meeting needs, comfort or meeting needs, not just your own needs, but the needs of others.

And so lastly, that's the kind of question I would be asking. If a pastor has established a vision for a ministry mindset between 60 and 85, he might then be in a position to speak individually with the snowbirds with a view to challenging them for something fulfilling and useful and joyful on the home front in the cold of winter.

And my guess is that a lot more spiritual heat of soul and warmth of love would be generated by ministering in the snow than by migrating with the geese. Maybe not, maybe not, but I think that's the question to ask. Yeah, it sure is. Those are really valuable points of consideration.

Thank you, Pastor John. And for more on retirement, see John Piper's booklet, "Rethinking Retirement." It's only 30 pages long, but you can download it. You can download the PDF right now, free of charge at desiringgod.org/books. Tomorrow, we look at prayer, and John Piper will return to answer a question from a listener who wants to know how he can refresh a sluggish prayer life.

You won't want to miss it. I'm your host, Tony Ranke. Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast. (silence) (silence) (silence)