Eternal Legacies
Eternal legacies
You only get one shot at life. There are simply no re-starts. And when the end of your life on earth has come, people will attend your funeral and they will remember you for who you were and what you did. You will leave a legacy.
The founder and senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in the U.S., Bill Hybels, puts it this way: on your tombstone or plaque, under your name will be two dates- your birth date and your death date, separated by a dash. What are you doing with your dash?
At death, legacies are left; the question is only about what kind of legacy we leave. Some will leave a remarkable impact on the world, some will leave a remarkable impact on only a few people, others will ‘go out with a bang’, others will quietly slip away. And whenever and however you die, you will be leaving a legacy. What kind of legacy are you leaving?
Here are a couple of things we tend to focus on when building a legacy. They are all good and beneficial, but ultimately inadequate:
Success:When it comes to striving for what we often define as a successful life, we tend to focus on position-building. This is probably because we have come to believe that leaders are of more worth than non-leaders. While it is good to inspire people to aspire to self-betterment, the simple fact is that, while being a leader will get you more popularity and often a bigger paycheque, it does not intrinsically mean you are more valuable than someone further down the leader-ladder. In the Bible, God has often used the ‘nobodies’ to leave the most remarkable legacies. Do not believe the lie that a higher leadership role equals a better legacy. A godly legacy, then, cannot be equated to success in this life.
Possessions and money:
I have yet to hear at a funeral how wonderful and impressive it was that the deceased had so much money and ‘stuff’. Yet I think it is safe to say that most of us strive for this lifestyle. We have come to believe and strive for the lie that more money and more possessions mean that we are more than people who have less than us. The greatest legacy ever left came from a man who had nothing in this world but the clothes on His back – Jesus (and even His clothes were taken from Him at His death!). Having money and stuff is not necessarily ungodly, but when you die none of it goes with you- and you will stand before God and your priorities will suddenly become clear. The best legacies come from those who live with clear and Biblical priorities in this life.
Influence:
The legacies we all remember come from those who were greatly influential. And so, we reckon, we must aspire to the same influence in order to leave great legacies. Where this goes unbiblical is that it implies that less influential people leave lesser legacies! This is utterly false. In fact, I’m sure that the greatest legacies in the world come from those who have long since been forgotten. Since when did we come to believe that a famous legacy is a better legacy?! And if we’re striving for a famous legacy, whose glory are we living for really? I’m convinced that the greatest legacies are left by those long forgotten. And sometimes the best legacies will even make some people hate you, just like what happened to Jesus.
Social Betterment:
Most people agree that it is a good thing to “make the world a better place”. Some of the most well-remembered legacies are those that exhibit this motto well. The importance of social betterment cannot be overstressed and to leave a legacy that exhibits this when you pass on is an excellent thing. But every person will one day die, and eternity is a much, much longer existence than life on earth. Does your life meaningfully sow Jesus into the eternity of others?
Please don’t misunderstand me, the above aspects of legacy aren’t all bad and in fact there can be a lot of good in them. But a Biblical legacy is much greater than any of these things alone. Leaving a godly legacy doesn’t require a leadership position but a servant disposition; it is not epitomised by what you have but by how you live with what you have; it doesn’t depend on your influence but on your redemptive influence; and it is not primarily about “making the world a better place” but about introducing the world to the ‘better place’ (heaven). In all of these things, Jesus is central. Godly legacies must always point directly to God. The first step, then, is to understand how worldly understandings of ‘legacy’ fall short when it comes to the Biblical purpose of all human life; the glory of God.
The goal of your life and your legacy is that people are induced to worship Jesus.
But the Bible goes one step further:
John 3:30- “He must become greater; I must become less.
When John the baptist says this he is responding to his disciples who felt threatened when Jesus was gaining more followers than they were. John is saying ‘as long as people are flocking to Jesus, I am absolutely fine with being forgotten’. Does this describe your life? If we are honest, we have to say ‘no’. We will never be able to perfectly live for God’s glory 100% of the time, and in fact, an honest view of ourselves will expose just how crooked we are as glory-thieves. We can either strive for a legacy that makes much of us, or one that makes much of Jesus. The latter requires you to “become less”.
If you are ever going to truly make much of Jesus in your life and leave a legacy that reminds people of this fact, you can’t also strive to make much of yourself. Living a life that makes the utmost of Jesus clear to the world means that we have to increasingly slip into the background. The best legacy you can ever leave is for Jesus to be remembered and worshiped, and this inevitably requires you to be increasingly forgotten.
A biblical legacy will always have Jesus at centre stage. This also means that you must learn to slip into the wings, as it were. And to do so in such a way that when people remember you at your funeral and long after, they are induced at once to worship Jesus.
Jesus, help us believe that you are more important than we are, that the worship of you is more sweet than the worship of ourselves, and that the happiest we will ever be is when you are more and we are less. Please captivate us by your grace once again which makes us willing to become less, and help us we are not the main character of our own story. Amen
