World Record

I discovered something amazing a few days ago. I was conversing with some friends when one of them asked me who was the oldest person I had baptized. I shared about a man named Jim whom I had baptized in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho in 1984. He was 99 years and 10 months old! They replied, "Wow, that must be a world record!" Out of curiosity, I looked into it. Guess what?  According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the oldest person ever baptized was 97 years, 53 days. My man Jim was nearly three years older than that, meaning I baptized the oldest person in recorded history! I actually hold the unofficial world record.

I remember Jim well. He came to Idaho as a young boy with his parents to homestead before Idaho was even a state, and had spent his entire life there. A couple in the church where I was preaching managed the apartments where Jim lived, and began talking with him about Jesus. He made a decision to follow Christ and was baptized on September 30, 1984. Two months later we celebrated Jim's 100th birthday, and a couple of years after that, he went to be with the Lord. "Better late than never" certainly seems an appropriate adage. 

After my amazing discovery, I reveled in the wonder of my "magnificence" for a few minutes. I actually held a world record! Then two words came to mind: "So what?" (Which is probably what some of you are thinking right now!) Nothing had changed in my life. The heavens didn't part. My face didn't glow. I wasn't any richer. I didn't have any fewer aches and pains. I still had to mow the lawn and take out the trash. In other words, "So what?"

I say that because it's easy to become impressed with our own accomplishments. In Philippians 3:4-6, Paul rattles off a long list of his achievements. Then he follows it with the famous statement, "I count them dung" (vs 8). The world translated "dung" is from the Greek word SKUBALON, which was actually a crude word for manure. If you know German, Luther translated it "scheisse", which in English would literally be...well, I think you can figure it out. Human feats may impress people, but God is impressed with our faithfulness and love toward others. To Paul, his accomplishments were a pile of manure, compared to knowing Jesus. Nothing even comes close. Don’t get me wrong. The thought that I baptized the oldest person in recorded history is very exciting to me. But when it’s compared to the immeasurable joy of experiencing Jesus, those two words pretty much sum it up: "So what?"