Christian sociologist Tony Campolo tells of a research project once conducted with people over the age of 90. The interviewers asked these very elderly people, “As you look back on your life, what do you wish you had done differently?” Three answers emerged from a sizeable majority:
1) they wished they had risked more;
2) they wished they had spent more time in reflection; and
3) they wished they had done more to leave a legacy: something to pass on to the next generation.
You’ve seen the bumper sticker, I’m sure – usually on the back of an expensive RV or luxury car: “We’re spending our children’s inheritance!” Most people slap those things on as a joke, of course – but behind the humor is the rather sad picture of retired people living only for themselves and their pleasures, oblivious to the needs of the next generation.
Management and life-planning guru Stephen Covey wrote a book several years ago called First Things First [Simon & Schuster, 1994]. It’s sort of a handbook for living a joyful and productive life – and, as self-help books go, it’s not bad. Perhaps the best line in the book is its subtitle. Covey declares that the purpose of a human life can be summed up in four essential points, all of them beginning with the letter “L”: “to live, to love, to learn, to leave a legacy.” It’s this matter of leaving a legacy that concerns us today.
One of the things that the Lord Changes in us is our legacy. He calls us to leave an everlasting legacy and if we do not leave that legacy then ultimately the most important change in us is left undone. So how does one change one’s legacy?
1. Share God’s Changing Power With Others
v. 10 I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, who became my son while I was in chains.
Our most important legacy is not a legacy of dollars and investments in a will, nor is it even just a legacy of offspring of the biological variety, but it is a legacy of transformed lives an eternal legacy of people who will live eternally in heaven because of our efforts.
Years ago I was privileged to be part of an Evangelism Explosion team that led a woman to the Lord who died a short time later. At her funeral someone had placed her “spiritual birth certificate” in .the casket. I’ve been privileged to send some of that eternal legacy ahead of me.
Now I know not everything is everyone’s specific call to ministry, but I believe that in the heart of every true Christian beats the desire to be where the action is in reaching the lost. It may not be sports camp for you, maybe it’s an outreach in the inner city or in the Czech Republic or even your own living room but if it’s none of the above then you need to ask yourself what the problem is.
If you can’t point to someone in the recent past who came to Jesus and wouldn’t have without your effort in ministry then I hope you’re deep in prayer and fasting asking the Lord what’s wrong with your life because your legacy as a Christian is a legacy of souls in heaven.
And listen here, I’m not just talking about long distance rear echelon support—that stuff is important and the battle is won because of it, and churches get healthy and grow because of it, and the one who gives a prophet a cup of water receives a prophet’s reward. But I’m convinced that every Christian is called to duty in the front line of soul-winning service, and I think there are folks you are strategically placed to bring to Jesus that neither I nor the person on your left or right will ever reach.
2. Believe that God Can (and Does!) Change Others
v. 11 Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and to me.
One teacher of mathematics describes what a difference it made in his professional life when he underwent a subtle transformation. The transformation, as he puts it, came when he stopped teaching mathematics and started teaching children:
“I had a great feeling of relief when I began to understand that a youngster needs more than just subject matter. I know mathematics well, and I teach it well. I used to think that was all I needed to do. Now I teach children, not math. I accept the fact that I can only succeed partially with some of them. When I don’t have to know all the answers, I seem to have more answers than when I tried to be the expert. The youngster who really made me understand this was Eddie. I asked him one day why he thought he was doing so much better than last year. He gave meaning to my whole new orientation. ‘It’s because I like myself now when I’m with you,” he said. [An anonymous teacher, quoted by Everett Shostrom in Man, The Manipulator, and quoted in Chicken Soup for the Soul, 1993, editors Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen]
Paul understood that God could change people because he stood as living proof that God could take a murderer, who arrested and killed Christians and turn him into an apostle sharing Jesus all around the world. And you should know it too if you’ve trusted in Him for salvation because he took a useless you and made a useful you, now He’s asking you to use your usefulness to make others useful.
To do that you’ve got to believe in a God who changes people, who turns drug addicts into useful citizens and the lost into the saved. If every time you see somebody get saved you’ve got rolling around in the back of your mind “Well we’ll see how long it lasts.” Then I’m worried about you, I’m worried that it must be because God hasn’t really transformed you, because if you’ve experienced the touch of the Master’s hand then you’ve gotta get excited at seeing God’s grace get ahold of people, then you’ve gotta have a burning desire to be close to the action where God is transforming lives.
Now I know not everything is everyone’s specific call to ministry, but I believe that in the heart of every Christian beats the desire to reaching the lost. It may not be sports camp for you, maybe it’s an outreach in the inner city or in the Czech Republic or even your own living room but if it’s none of the above then you need to ask yourself what the problem is. If you can’t point to someone in the recent past who came to Jesus and wouldn’t have without your effort in ministry then I hope you’re deep in prayer and fasting asking the Lord what’s wrong with your life because your legacy as a Christian is a legacy of souls in heaven.
And listen here, I’m not just talking about long distance rear echelon support—that stuff is important and the battle is won because of it, and the one who gives a prophet a cup of water receives a prophet’s reward, but I’m convinced that every Christian is called to duty in the front line of soul-winning service, and I think there are folks you are strategically placed to bring to Jesus that neither I nor the person on your left or right will ever reach.
But to be willing to put yourself out there on the line you must believe that God Can and Does Change People.
3. Take a Chance on Others
v. 11 Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and to me.
In the words of British playwright George Bernard Shaw “This is the true joy in life... being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one... being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”
To have a changed legacy you’ve got to be willing to put yourself on the line for others and trust in the change God is working in them. Paul puts his own resources and reputation on the line for a a formerly worthless, runaway slave named Onesimus.
I know you’re thinking, yeah but He’s Paul, c’mon Paul… What does he really risk he’s never been burned like I have.
2 Timothy 4: 9Do your best to come to me quickly, 10for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica.
Demas is mentioned in Philemon as one of the brothers who sends greetings. Paul knew what it was to be burned by trusting in people, but he still was willing to trust in people. When you’ve quit doing that, you’ve quit living and you’ve definitely quit leaving a legacy.
Did you know that it’s actually healthy to leave a legacy? So say a group of psychologists who reported a couple years back on the results of a research project they’d conducted. These researchers tracked 423 retired couples over the course of five years. Over that time, they asked their subjects about their lives: how much they typically took from life, and how much they gave back. When the five years were ended, the researchers discovered that those who had been consistently generous in giving to others of their time and money were half as likely to have died. [Marilyn Elias, “Generous spirit may yield generous life span," in USA TODAY, 11/2002]
This surprised the research team. They had long known that older people who socialize with others are likely to live longer; and so they’d assumed, that in the case of people who frequently gave of themselves, it was the supportive social contact that made the difference. Not so. In the words of UCLA Psychologist Shelley Taylor,“...it’s always been assumed that the benefit comes from support people get. This turns that assumption upside down. It’s path-breaking because it suggests giving day-to-day help can protect the helper’s health.”
But that’s not the reason we take a risk on others, we do so because Jesus laid himself on the line for us and our due service to him is to pass on that legacy of giving, winning others to the Lord.
Conclusion
Let me close with a story told by Stephen Covey, in his book, First Things First, that I mentioned earlier. It’s the true story of an Englishman who, in his early years, had lived a sort of rags-to-riches life. By hard work, he had transformed himself from a poor kid growing up in the mean streets of London into a celebrated writer. At this particular time in his life, though, he found himself hard up against a sort of “writer’s block.” No longer did he feel inspired. It was as though his creativity had turned itself off. He was drowning in debt, and his publisher kept demanding the next, long-promised manuscript. The writer began to fear that maybe his life was coming full circle: that his own children might one day experience the sort of poverty he had known as a young man.
The author took to walking the streets of London, and there he began to notice things. In particular he noticed the urban squalor, the poorhouses, the children working long hours as factory workers, street vendors and chimney sweeps. His thoughts turned to human greed, and the terrible damage a self-centered outlook on life can inflict on so many.
At long last, a story began to emerge. When words finally found their way onto paper, the latest novel of Charles Dickens proved to be not nearly so long as most of his others: but it was destined to become his best-loved work. The little novel called A Christmas Carol tells the story of an old miser named Ebeneezer Scrooge, who discovers – just before it’s too late for him – what a joy it is to leave a legacy.
God is calling us to leave a better legacy than a happy storty of Christmas Cheer, He’s calling us to invest our lives in others, to leave a legacy that we can bring with us, a legacy of souls.
