What is it you PLAN to do with your one wild and precious life?
2 Kings 2:1-12; 2 Timothy 3:10-17
As we’ve been moving through this series titled “One Life,” one of the questions we’ve been focusing on is based on that quote by poet Mary Oliver which we have posted on one of the banners out in the Great Room: “Tell me what it is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
So far we’ve talked about living a gifted life, living the gift of the Holy Spirit within us. We’ve talked about living a life that is pleasing to God, a “God-approved life” that perseveres and does the work of the kingdom. Last week we talked about living our one life in the “godly” way, that reflects the goal of life in Christ. Those are all about the nature of living a life that is wild and precious to God.
This week I want to focus on the word “plan.” What is it you “plan” to do with your one wild and precious life? It’s a question about intentionality and one that, as a former Army officer, I really gravitate toward. I am trained to get up every day and have a plan before my feet hit the floor. That might not be the way you operate (and I envy you in some ways!). But the truth is that all of us, on some level, need a plan if we’re going to live our one life with a purpose. The things we’ve talked about: giftedness, pleasing God, living in a godly way, are all about living a life that can fit into God’s plan for the world. When we are intentional about living our one life for God’s purposes, we find purpose for our own lives and can live them with joy and abundance.
But one of the things that the gospel calls us to do, in addition to living our one life to the full right now, is to think about what happens when our one life is done. We know that in Christ we have the hope of resurrection—that’s the gospel that Paul preached and the good news that insures our future. In the meantime, however, we know that our present life is finite—as we said in the first sermon, we only get one shot at this. The planning question, then, is about what impact our life will have beyond us. What legacy will we give to the next generation and the one beyond that?
You can tell as you read 2 Timothy that Paul is thinking about these things. He still has some time left, but he’s already considering the legacy he wants to leave behind—in his case, the legacy he wants to leave in his young apprentice Timothy, who will no doubt carry on the work after Paul is gone. Paul isn’t at the end, but he can see it from where he is, languishing in prison—again—and he wants to make sure that he invests the time he has left in leaving a legacy.
In writing to Timothy, then, Paul gives us a chance to think about our own legacies. What kinds of legacies are most important? What kind of legacy will continue to keep paying dividends after we’re gone? This morning I want to look at three legacies that Paul hints we need to pay attention to if we’re going to use our one life for an eternal impact.
A Spiritual Legacy
A spiritual legacy. In verses 14-15, Paul reminds Timothy to “continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it , and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” Not only has Paul been instructing Timothy in faith and practice as his mentor, this is also an echo of chapter 1, where Paul reminds his young apprentice of the faith that his mother and grandmother had also poured into him.
What Paul is illustrating here is a key aspect of Christian faith: none of us comes to faith strictly on our own. Our faith is the product of generations of people before us, be they related to us or not, who have shared the Christian faith with us. Indeed, for most of us, it’s a series of people in our lives who help us become mature people of faith. If it’s true that Christian faith is even more caught than it is taught, then it’s the way we live our lives even more than the words we speak that leaves a legacy of faith to others.
Notice what Paul says in verses 10 and 11 about his spiritual legacy to Timothy. The young apprentice has “observed” several things about Paul that speak volumes about his faith:
- Teaching – the sound teaching of Scripture
- Conduct – the way he lives his life
- Aim in life – remember 1:1, where Paul says that he is living his life “for the sake of the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus.”
- Faith – Trust and devotion to God despite all the hardships he had been through
- Patience – waiting for God’s perfect timing
- Love – Love for God and love for neighbor, the greatest mark of a Christ follower
- Steadfastness – endurance in the midst of suffering
- Persecutions – Paul was persecuted for acting and speaking on behalf of Jesus. Indeed, Paul says in verse 12 that all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
In short, these are Paul’s spiritual legacy to Timothy (and to us), and faithful Christians throughout history have passed on a legacy of faith to others by focusing on these things—living their lives in front of others. Christian faith may be personal, but it’s never private. People are always watching to see if our actions match our words. Toward the end of his life, Paul can look back and say that he has lived with all these things in mind, and while he wasn’t perfect, he was always working at being perfected by God for the work that he had been called to do.
As I thought about this, I remembered some of the people in my life in whom I observed these qualities: The teaching of Sunday School teachers and godly professors; the conduct of people like Brian and Hanne Miller, who poured their lives into me when I was a struggling teenager; the singular focus of a seminary friend who gave away all of his possessions in order to go to China as a missionary “for the sake of the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus;” The faith, patience, love, and steadfastness of my mother, watching her stay close to God and observing her unshakeable faith in the midst of great suffering. All these people and many, many more, whether they knew it or not, were leaving a spiritual legacy for me that I still draw upon every day. I’m sure you can think of people in your life who have been a Paul to your Timothy—people who passed on a legacy.
It’s been said, however, that Christianity is always one generation away from extinction. We’ve seen that play itself out in much of the world, as societies and cultures become more and more secular. Within a ten-mile radius of TLUMC, for example, only 13.2% of people see regular participation in a community of faith as a valuable part of their lives. There are lots of people who have never had a spiritual legacy given to them, particularly those of younger generations. When you look at the numbers of declining churches, the fewer people seeing faith as important in their lives, it’s easy to see that we are just one or two generations away from Christian faith being extinct. God has no grandchildren, only children who are called to pass along the faith to the next generation.
Someone in your life gave you a legacy of faith that brings you here today. The question is, with whom are you sharing that legacy? Who is benefitting from your example, your teaching, your conduct, your purpose in life? Who is benefitting from your faith, your patience, your love and endurance? Who is watching when you are suffering for doing the right thing? Who around you is in danger of never knowing Christ because you haven’t been diligent in leaving them a legacy of faith? Maybe it’s your children or grandchildren, maybe it’s your neighbor, your coworker… Who will you pour your life into and offer a legacy of faith?
In our Old Testament lesson today, Elijah leaves behind his mantle as he takes off in that heavenly chariot. It’s highly symbolic. Before he leaves, Elijah took the time to pour his life into his apprentice, who then picked up the prophet’s mantle and crossed the river to carry on the mission. We all have a mantle of faith, a spiritual legacy to leave behind. Who will be willing to pick it up because you were faithful?
A Financial Legacy
A financial legacy. Last week, as we looked at living a godly life, we read Paul’s reminder in I Timothy that those who follow Christ shouldn’t fall in love with money because “we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it” (6:7). A godly life is concerned with contentment, not excess.
Paul’s attitude about money here reflects one of my favorite illustrations: the Monopoly board. Monopoly, if you ever make it to the end of the game, is all about owning everything, but when the game is over, all of it goes back in the box, and someday someone else is going to pull out that box and play with what was once your stuff. At the end of our lives, everything goes back in the box—come to think of it, so do we!
But that reality also gives us a chance to think about things with a longer perspective. What if, instead of just allowing it to go back in the box, we chose to manage the resources God has entrusted us with in such a way that continues to make a difference in the lives of people long after we are gone? Certainly, we want to leave our children a financial legacy, which is right and good, but what if we went a step further and left a legacy for God and his kingdom? That’s one way to insure that it doesn’t go back in the box!
Ralph Waldo Beeson was a frugal man. An insurance executive, he was so frugal that he was famously reluctant to buy a new pair of trousers until he absolutely needed them, and kept the air conditioning off in his Alabama home during the sweltering summers because, as he put it, “It costs a fortune to run that thing.” Unbeknownst to many, however, Beeson amassed a fortune of more than $100 million by buying cheap stock of Liberty Insurance before the stock market crash in 1929 and holding on to them until they reached their peak value in the 1980s (talk about patience!). As he neared the end of his life, Beeson wanted to do something impactful for the kingdom of God. He had sat under a lot of preaching during his life and realized three things about pastors: 1) That many were bad preachers, 2) That many were inadequate leaders, and 3) That many of those who are appointed to lead churches have weak faith in God. He wanted to change that trend, and vowed to create a program that would enhance the preaching, leadership, and spiritual formation of some of the most promising pastors in the country and left much of his estate to make that happen. He gave money to several different seminaries, including Asbury, my alma mater, which received the $38 million dollar endowment in 1990. That endowment later made it possible for me to get my doctoral degree, including the chance to travel to different places in the world to observe other churches, for absolutely no cost.
Every time I sat down to work on a paper or get ready for a trip overseas, I thought about Ralph Waldo Beeson and his legacy that will increase the ability for pastors to impact the kingdom in immeasurable ways. When I teach a seminar on clergy transitions, I think about the churches, pastors, and people who will be impacted by my work, which was made possible by Mr. Beeson.
Most of us aren’t as wealthy as Mr. Beeson, but all of us have the opportunity to think about the kind of financial legacy we want to leave for Christ and his kingdom. Imagine that after you’re gone, that the money you left behind doesn’t have to go back in the box; it can be invested in the lives of people you will never meet and affect them and those that they in turn affect for eternity. That’s a financial legacy that honors God!
We recently established an endowment fund here at TLUMC that is designed to be a legacy opportunity for people to invest in the future of the church and its work. An endowment builds capital through the investment of church members who want to leave a financial legacy, and then the interest on that capital is used for ministry year after year. Even long after you have gone back in the box, your money can still be working, making an impact for God’s kingdom through the work of the church. Our endowment committee will be hosting a seminar in the spring to show you all the ways you can use your will (and hopefully you have a will even if you’re young) and your financial legacy to make an ongoing difference in the world, so watch for that.
But whether you invest in the church, in scholarships at a college, or any other place that furthers God’s kingdom on earth, I invite you to think about the financial legacy you are going to leave behind for your family and for God. You can’t take it with you, but you can leave it for a purpose!
A Church Legacy
A church legacy. Our spiritual legacy and our financial legacy are important for us to think about individually. When we’re focused on leaving a legacy in these ways, we begin to think about how we can individually pour our lives into the lives of others. But what about our life together? Is there such a thing as a church legacy?
Remember that Timothy is a pastor, whose own life will have an influence on many people, who will in turn influence many others, and so on and so on. Paul isn’t just leaving a legacy for Timothy, he’s leaving a legacy for the church, which in turn will leave a legacy for the world around it.
One of the questions that I have often asked when thinking about the church is this: “If our church disappeared tomorrow, when anybody in our community notice?” That’s a powerful question, because it goes to the level of eternal impact. There are lots of church that are focused internally—gauging success by what Will Mancini calls butts, bucks and buildings (attendance, income, and facilities). Sure, those things are good indicators, but are they the goal of the church?
Jesus gave two great commandments to his disciples that seem to outline the work and the goal of the church. In the Great Commission, Jesus commanded his disciples to “go into the all the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing and teaching them all that I have commanded you.” In the Great Commandment, Jesus said that the sum of the Scriptures is found in the command to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.” Notice that both commandments are active and not passive: “Go” and “love.”
One of the reasons the church is declining in the West is that these commandments have been flipped on their ear: Instead of go and love, we have too many churches that sit and count. That’s certainly not the vision of Jesus or the vision of Paul, who spent his life on the go and called his protégé Timothy to invest his life in the same way. It certainly wasn’t the vision of the Wesleys, who sparked a movement that went beyond the old Anglican model of the parish church of dreams where, “if you build it, they will come.” Instead, it was a movement that engaged strange practices like field preaching, going to where the people were, and affecting society through building schools and hospitals more than more church buildings (of which there were plenty, both then and now).
In short, the legacy we have been handed as a church is a mobile one, a movement of God into the world, making it look more and more like his kingdom. And now we have a chance to begin passing that legacy on—to be a church that recaptures that passion, that refuses to sit still and count and instead to go and love and serve and make ourselves indispensible to our community.
In a couple of weeks we’ll be giving you a glimpse of the kind of church God is calling us to be as we hear the report of the vision team and church council. I hope you will be here that day to hear about the legacy we believe the church is called to live and leave. On that day we’ll also give you an opportunity to invest in that future through your giving. We all have a chance to invest in a legacy, to be a church that goes back to the future and lives out the vision of Jesus and the passion of Paul, the resolve of Timothy, and the mantle of Elijah.
Paul reminded Timothy of the legacy he wanted to leave behind. What will be your spiritual legacy? Into whom will you pour your life so that they might become great for God’s kingdom? What financial legacy do you want to leave? It doesn’t matter how much it is—when we offer it to God it can be multiplied for his glory. And then, how will our church leave a legacy in this community—one that we can begin even now?
Tell me, what is it you PLAN to do with your one wild and precious life? That answer to that question has an eternal dimension! May you plan and invest your life well so that others may be impacted forever!
