What will your mark on the Kingdom be? Let’s explore together the legacy we’re building. Catch Kent’s sermon this Sunday and be inspired!
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OPENING ILLUSTRATION:
My uncle Lou died in his forties. I can remember, I was a freshman in high school and I can kind of remember that it wasn’t going well. My parents had gone to the hospital that was about 4 hours away to be with him. I remember them coming home after he passed and the darkness as my dad dealt with the pain of losing his brother. We were sitting there and my dad was talking about the last few days of my uncle’s life. He started chuckling and said, you know your uncle Lou wasn’t doing very well and your uncle Roger was in the room with him.. He said, Lou motioned for Roger to come over and hold his hand…. He mumbled something softly and Roger leaned down to hear him. Lou looked at him and whispered, “Pull my finger…” lol, that tells you everything you need to know about Wagners… Ha…
We all have a legacy we leave for those who follow us.
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Every one of us is promised just a few things
We are born, We live, We die…
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It’s all the in-between stuff that sets one person apart from another.
You have a legacy you are setting up to leave. Some of you are being intentional about it and some of you are not…
What kind of spiritual legacy do you want to leave? What are the kind of faith stories you want to be told about you after you are gone?
I want to take you into the story of someone who understood legacy, I want to then look at your own life and I want to challenge you to take a stand…
SCRIPTURE:
King David from the Old Testament is an old man at this point. He has been planning on building a temple for God as his crowning achievement. But God speaks to him and tells him because he is a man of war and bloodshed he is not going to be the one to build the temple, it will be his son.
I don’t know if you’ve ever had a dream of yours taken from you, but for David, this had to crush him. He had plans on what the building should look like, he had purchased the land for it. I’ve stood there in this magnificent spot in Israel. David stood there and knew everything he had put together for it was going to become someone else’s.
Listen to what He does…
1 Chronicles 29:1-3 (NIV)
Then King David said to the whole assembly: “My son Solomon, the one whom God has chosen, is young and inexperienced. The task is great, because this palatial structure is not for man but for the Lord God.
David knows what he is asking Solomon to do, is going to take a lot from him. It’s funny, the Hebrew word for inexperienced is “soft”. David knows Solomon hasn’t faced the challenges that he has faced. He doesn’t have what he’s going to need to face the world that’s in front of him.
Isn’t that true for every generation?
ILLUSTRATION:
I remember as a kid my dad telling me he was worried for us about what we were going to have to face as adults and now with my own kids, I feel the same way.
David saw the challenges Solomon would have to face and was determined to set him up for success.
That’s what this whole series is about. It came out of these verses. I thought, “What an incredible thing that David took what He had and set his son up to be successful in this endeavor… What would it look like for us to set up our kids and the generations to come to undertake the mission of God in this world and to be resourced to do so?
We have dreams for the next generation as a church, as a matter of fact, it’s one of the places we put the most resources.
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We want to expand and build out parts of our building that have never been developed to open up additional space for kid’s ministry
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We invest in staffing for our kid’s ministry and see a need in the future to continue to expand those roles.
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We want to reach more families and individuals and have them connect with the good news of Jesus in a way that leads them to become fully activated disciples for Jesus!
It’s honestly a palatial dream. What are your dreams?
Listen to what David does to set Solomon up for success….
2 With all my resources I have provided for the temple of my God—gold for the gold work, silver for the silver, bronze for the bronze, iron for the iron and wood for the wood, as well as onyx for the settings, turquoise,[a] stones of various colors, and all kinds of fine stone and marble—all of these in large quantities. 3 Besides, in my devotion to the temple of my God I now give my personal treasures of gold and silver for the temple of my God, over and above everything I have provided for this holy temple:
David personally gave:
100 tons of gold
250 tons of refined silver
In today’s economy, a rough estimate of the amounts we are talking about is $6.11 billion in gold and $177.6 million in silver…
There was something about David that got him to say, I’m all in… “With all my resources”
Look, this is not a sermon to try and get you to “give more” to the church, although that’s not a bad thing.
My real goal for this sermon is to get you to pull your eyes up to look at something bigger than what you currently look at…
I want you to think larger when it comes to your future than just your future…
I want you to seek first the Kingdom of God even in your future planning…
I really hope you will be asking a question like this:
What will my mark on the Kingdom be? What will my Kingdom legacy be?
CLOSING ILLUSTRATION:
There is a family in West Texas that none of you have even heard of, but who has had a direct impact on you and what God is doing in your life here in Kentucky and the impact started in the late 1900’s. This family owned a home-building company that became super successful. They started making lots of money and began to become very wealthy. But they also loved Jesus a lot. They were faced with the same question most of us are faced with, “What will I do with what I’ve been given?” They knew if they left all their wealth to their kids it would set their kids up for success and they’d be wealthy, probably for generations, but they also knew their kids didn’t love Jesus and their money would just go to satisfying their worldly desires.
They made a really tough call, they decided that they wanted their wealth to be used for the Kingdom of God.
So they did something unusual. They started a foundation to ask how can we invest in Kingdom endeavors. They gave significantly to their church. But one thing they decided to do was help young men and women who had a heart for ministry to be able to go to college without owing a penny when they graduated. One of the young pastors they ended up giving a full ride to was a young guy named Kent. I have always understood the sacrifice and gift that was given to me. Honestly, at times it was what kept me in ministry, that these people gave their resources – gave it all for the kingdom.
Their legacy will be SO much more than they were rich and got to be snowbirds when they were old…
That’s the American dream, right? get to the point where you turn back into a teenager with money and an old body?
What if the dream instead was to take as many people with me to heaven as possible?
What would it look like for you? How would you give? would you be paying for kids to go to camp and on trips? Would you be sponsoring kids to go to bible college? Would you be asking Shawn for a list of kids to be praying for? This isn’t just something for those with money – it’s about perspective. It’s about aiming your heart.
What would it look like for you to aim your heart like David did today, at setting up the next generation and leaving a mark on their hearts?
Today, I want you to come up and write down what it is you want to see for the Kingdom of God on a piece of paper and leave it at the cross!
