Good afternoon. It’s good to come back and be here. Mark asked me to come a couple of weeks ago, and I thought to myself, “Cook dinner myself, and have dishes to do, or go to the church picnic? Needless to say, it was a pretty easy decision.
I believe that we are here today having a Homecoming celebration, right? It is in celebration of another year together. In a way, today is a lot like an anniversary celebration.
Anniversaries are special. They remind me of a husband and wife who were getting ready to celebrate their 30th Anniversary. The couple decided as a gift they would purchase a new vehicle. He wanted a new truck. And she wanted a fast sports car. The discussion was getting very heated when finally the wife stated, “Look, I want something that goes from 0 to 180 in 4 seconds or less, and that’s all there is to it!”
When her big day came, the wife went out to the garage, but there was no new car waiting for her. Angry at her husband, she went back into the house looking for her husband, but he was not at home. Frustrated and upset, she went into the bathroom to get dressed, and there, sitting on the floor and wrapped in a big red ribbon, was her birthday present. A note read, “Here you go honey. Something that will go from 0 to 180 in 4 seconds or less!” And there it was, a brand new set of scales.
Well, needless to say this was not a happy anniversary. But, today, we all come together for homecoming, a time that we celebrate another year as Dry Run Church Of Christ.
Did anyone watch the Ohio State Football game last night?
Well, it was …
But let’s shift our attention to the 2003 Buckeye’s. Just before the National Championship game in 2003, Jim Tressel, the coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes gave an encouraging speech to the players in hopes of raising them to another level. In that speech he asked the players a very powerful question, “What do you want to be remembered for?”
In case you don’t know, that year they wanted to be known for winning the National Championship. The game went into double overtime as the number 2 ranked Ohio State Buckeye’s defeated the number 1 ranked University Of Miami Hurricanes.
Now, life is a lot more important than some football game. It can be challenging, and it can be rewarding at the same time. So, let me ask you that same question. What do you want to be remembered for?
What kind of legacy do you want to leave? Will you be known for your kindness, your devotion to loved ones, your athletic ability, your devotion to God, or perhaps you will be remembered for something bad? We WILL leave a legacy, the question is, “Will it be a Godly legacy to leave behind.”
Let me read an email for you. During the waning years of the depression there was a man named Mr. Miller, who owned a roadside market. One day I noticed a young boy entered the marketplace and was looking at some fresh peas. Mr. Miller’s wife informed me that the boy had no money and that Mr. Miller realized that and would always trade and barter with him and 2 other boys that were real bad off. He would ask what color of marble they had, then he would tell them that he wanted a different color and would send them home to come back with it next time. When they returned, and they always would, he would change his mind about what color he wanted, telling them he like red marbles more.
Well, I left that stand that day amazed with that man and his generosity. Returning home after some time I found that Mr. Miller had passed away, and that his funeral showing was that day, so I went with some of my friends. Ahead of us in line were 3 young men, one in an army uniform, and the other 2 dressed in suits and looking very professional. They went to the casket, paused, and then left the room. When it came our turn to meet Mrs. Miller I told her about how she had met me and told me about her husband trading food for marbles with the poor boys during the depression. With tears in her eyes she took me to the casket.
“The 3 young men that just left were the boys I told you about. They just told me how they appreciated the things that Jim traded them. And now at last, when he couldn’t change his mind about color or size, they came to pay their debt.”
“We never had a great deal of the wealth of this world, she confided, but right now, Jim would consider himself the richest man in the world.” With loving gentleness she lifted the lifeless fingers of her deceased husband. Resting underneath were 3, exquisitely shined, red marbles.
You see, this man left a legacy that allowed him to be remembered for a great heart and great generosity as well. What is it that you want people to say or remember about you?
Mom and Dad use to tell me that I was related to Santa Clause. Needless to say, I never believed them. Finally one day they informed me that him, his wife, and their son were buried in a near by cemetery. Well my curiosity got to me and I had to go and see for myself. Sure enough, there were the grave stones of Santa, his wife, and their son.
Jessie Watters, AKA Mrs. Santa Clause was born in 1884 and died in 1950. Here legacy was her generous, kind, and giving heart. In the 30’s when money was tight she owned a business and had more money than the others in her community. She was know for using what she had to buy and make toys and Christmas presents for kids and families that would not have been able to afford things.
Each year she would do this, even after the depression was over. She would also make and take food to the kids in school for lunch so they wouldn’t go hungry. Thus she was given the nick-name Mrs. Santa Clause. The name stuck and eventually it was engraved on her gravestone.
Her husband and her son both had Santa’s Husband, and Santa’s Son carved into their gravestones as well. They were kind and generous people, and they were remembered for that.
By show of hands, how many of you tend to skip the genealogies when you read the Bible? It’s okay, I tend to do that too! But as we take a look at the genealogy of Jesus, we find some interesting characters, as well as some interesting names. Try not to fall asleep on me while I attempt some of these names. And if you are thinking of baby names, pay attention to this passage. Matthew 1:1-17 says, “1”
So, what is your family history like? Is it full of people who have made a positive difference? Maybe it’s got a few nuts that have fallen off the family tree. Maybe your family history is filled or spotted with criminals. It could be that your history is a sad one. The idea here is that we all have a family history, weather it be good, or bad.
We can’t do anything about the legacy that is handed down to us, but we can do something about the legacy we leave for those to come. Today I want to talk to you about leaving a positive legacy. The fact of the matter is that we WILL leave a legacy. But YOU get to choose what kind of legacy that will be. This afternoon, I want to give you 3 steps to leaving that positive legacy.
First, Acknowledge Your Own Legacy.
You might as well, you can’t do anything about it. We all have 2 parts to our history:
One, is our ancestry. Unless you’re Adam from the book of Genesis, you have a family history called an ancestry. And if you’re like most people, it’s not made up of perfect people. You know what? Jesus’ ancestral line wasn’t perfect, either! In fact, the genealogy of Jesus is packed with people who did not meet the standard of perfection.
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, are recorded in Scripture as men who lied when it was convenient, and cheated people. Yet God chose these men to begin the line of Christ.
We go down to verse 3 and we see Judah. He was the leader of the tribe of Judah, and he is named with Tamar. Tamar was the daughter-in-law of Judah. She was married to one son of Judah who died. She was then given to another son, who also died. God had put both of them to death because they were evil.
Judah promised his third son to her, but he was very young. Later, Tamar realized that Judah was not going to give her his remaining son to marry, so she decided to do something about it. She dressed up like a prostitute and seduced Judah, and she became pregnant by him. She gave birth to twins, and they are mentioned here in the genealogy, as ancestors of Jesus Himself.
We also see a name in verse 5 that brings attention to itself: Rahab. Scholars are pretty unanimous in their opinion that this is the same Rahab who hid the spies in Canaan. She was a prostitute, remember?
My point here is that you are who you are. You cannot change your ancestry. You can’t control how you came into the world. You can only control how you handle it. The point here is that your ancestry does not have to limit you. It didn’t seem to limit Jesus, did it?
Everyone has an ancestry. Everyone also has a personal history. Your personal history is made up of everything in your life since coming into the world. But what I want to focus on here is the life that you have carved out for yourself through your own decisions. We have all made decisions in our life that have affected who we are today. The fact of the matter is: that you’re a product of both your ancestry and your own decisions.
Hopefully, the vast majority of those decisions were good ones. But there’s no use in denying the fact that we can make decisions that get us in trouble sometimes as well. And these are part of what we bring to the table in looking at our past.
So just be upfront about your past, at least with yourself, and understand that your past is your past. Don’t try to deny what has helped to shape you into the person you are today. And when you do this, you can move on to the next step.
Secondly, Refuse To Let Your Legacy Decide Your Future.
Jesus could have looked at His ancestry and threw in the towel. Jesus could have said, “My ancestry is full of cheaters, liars, adulterers, murderers, and prostitutes.
How could God ever use me?” But if God could use Jesus with His ancestry, what’s to keep Him from using you and me? And the answer is simple. Nothing except our willingness to be used, or lack of.
Charles Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship, could have let his past decide his future. He was convicted of a felony in connection with the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of President Nixon, and sent several men to prison, including Mr. Colson.
Instead, during his months in prison, he determined to be a positive force in an area that had very little positive in it. He became a Christian, and allowed himself to be used by God. And now, almost 30 years later, he and his organization have done more to minister to prisoners and their families than anyone else.
Instead of allowing his past to control him, he saw his past as an opportunity to affect the future.
So, let’s review. In order to give the gift of a good legacy, you need to first of all acknowledge your own legacy and then you need to refuse to let that legacy decide your future. And that brings us to our final step.
You Need To Actively Seek To Influence The Next Generations.
Live a life of purpose. And in order to do that, you need to use every possible opportunity to lead by example. James Dobson, who does a lot with families, says that “…more is caught than taught…” If you say one thing and live another, you lose the ability to leave a good legacy. But if your example matches your teaching, then you can leave a good godly legacy for those to come.
Many of you I am sure have heard the song Three Wooden Crosses by Randy Travis. In that song it says, “It’s not what you take when you leave this world behind you, it’s what you leave behind you when you go.” That is a very powerful statement. What you leave when you go is your legacy. Will it be good or bad, that’s up to you.
On another stone in the same cemetery that Santa and family were found in, I found these words engraved, “Remember friends as you pass by, as you are now so once was I, as I am now soon you must be, so prepare for death and follow me.” John Maxwell writes in his book, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, “Success is not measured by what you are leaving to, but by what you are leaving behind.”
A legacy is not based on where you go, but what you are leaving behind you. So, let me ask you again, “What do you want to be remembered for?”
Let’s Pray!
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