Sacred Relationships – Building a Legacy
Sunday Morning Sermon at the Bridge Church.
Matt 25:14-28
Last Sunday afternoon, our family went to the funeral of two 23 yr old men, one of who was the brother of one of Sarah’s best friends. The guys were traveling in Austrailia when they were involved in a head on collision with a van of 4 other young people, three girls and the fiancé of one of the girls who was driving. A person who came upon the accident just after it had happened pulled the driver of the van out as both vehicles exploded. Five young lives were tragically snuffed out that Sunday, two weeks ago today.
The funeral was the largest one I had been apart of. There was estimated over a thousand people attending the memorial service of the two best friends, Arno and Andrew. While both young men were followers of Jesus, it was clear that Arno had had a huge impact on many people in his short lifetime. Many of his friends spoke of how Arno had impacted them, and always in the midst of sharing with them about his own relationship with Jesus. There was nothing more important to him, nothing more valuable to him than that. Everyone knew that he longed for everyone he came into contact with to know what he had found in a relationship with Jesus, whether it was his friends at the Catcus Club where he worked as a server or his friends at school. Everyone knew there was something different about Arno, something special and it wasn’t just an ambiguous ‘faith’ but a real and vibrant relationship with the person and God, Jesus Christ.
The idea of building a Legacy is something people generally begin to think about as they get older, having kids, grandkids perhaps. After someone has accomplished something in their career. At least when I was younger, I didn’t always give it much thought. But the truth is our legacy is something we build through our whole life for the benefit of others.
This month, we have been considering what it looks like to have Sacred Relationships. Relationships that are significant, set apart, that God is involved in establishing and growing these relationships. We looked at Sacred relationships that we can have with friends. How the relationships we have at church are Sacred. And, last week we looked at the Sacred Relationships we can have with our mates. Today we are going to consider how the most Sacred Relationship we can have is the one we can have with God. This relationship is so valuable and significant that it colors every other relationship we can have, with our kids, our familes, our friends, community members, the people we have in our lives, ~ our clan. Some are very close relationships, some are casual, but regardless, these can be sacred relationships because the life of Jesus is working in and through our lives, and in the process it is building a Legacy.
This relationship moves our perspectives beyond ourselves – our lives to the lives of others around us and the generations to come
We have been given an incredible gift. We have been entrusted with an extraordinary relationship.
The most valuable thing you have to give is – yourself. If you are a Christian, a follower of Jesus, you are a very valuable person. Not because your good looking, not because your smart, not because you ‘got your life together’, but because you have Jesus, and Jesus has you.
Because you are in a Sacred Relationship with the living God, who is transforming your life, bringing you joy and peace where one time there was none. Where you are finding strength that goes beyond the challenges where before you felt broken. Where you are experiencing patience and grace growing in your heart and mind where previously was growing criticism and anger. As a follower of Jesus your life is changing. Your not perfect, no one is, but you are changing and you have something extraordinary happening in your life and you have something to give – that others do not have.
Are you giving it today
You have something sacred – more valuable than gold or silver
We can not, must not, hold on to it like it is for ourselves alone –
Our sacred relationship must be given away, passed on to others who will carry it for us to the places we will never go.
A sacred relationship is a sacred trust – entrusted to us and God expects us to pass it on as an inheritance
Our inheritance, the sacred trust, is the inheritance of faith that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who opened the door for us to a relationship with God that we did not have before.
God has placed His Holy Spirit within us
Eph. 1:14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.
Eph. 1:18 I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,
1Pet. 1:4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you,
1Cor. 4:1 So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God.
1Th. 2:4 On the contrary, we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please men but God, who tests our hearts.
Our lives are not about how good we can make our days. However many we have.
Maybe you have seen the movie “The Bucket List” about 2 old guys who are both dying and decide they want to go out with a bang, accomplishing all the things they wanted to do before they died, so they could feel good about their life.
Life is not about how much gusto we can grab.
Instead it is about how much gusto we can GIVE
We give much because we have been given much – the life of Jesus, His Spirit which resides within his followers as a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance that is to come.
We have been entrusted with something very valuable and significant. Too often we want to protect what little we have and we forget how much we have been given and we stop living in His grace that is our strength.
We must pass on what we have been given to the people who are important to us, our families, kids, our friends.
I discovered a number of years ago that the best way to gain friends is to give to them. The more precious and valuable the things I give them the more special and significant the relationships.
On my recent trip to see many of our partners, I took each of them a gift of a jade inukshuk. I presented it to them and shared with them the significant symbolism of the inukshuk. I had traveled along ways to see them, made the effort to be with them and share the significance of relationship and each one was received graciously, sometimes with tears, and our relationships were strengthened.
But we have something much more valuable than a jade inukshuk to share with our friends and family our community or clan. It is not our faith – for everyone has ‘faith’ an ambigious notion of spirituality, what we have is much more valuable than mere ‘faith’ – we have JESUS, the person who saved our souls from a living and dying hell. The person who brings us life. The person who brings us light in the midst of our darkest times, who restores our hope and fills our lives with joy.
We have been entrusted with this gift and it is the imputus of the legacy of our lives, and God our Father expects us to Legacy. To give what we have been given so that it may grow and have it’s effects in the lives of others. They must see it in our lives to believe that it is real, and we must give it to them inorder for them to receive it.
Arno shared his relationship with Jesus with everyone he met. A young man who as a follower of Jesus had built a great legacy in the 23 years of his life that would put many 33 yr olds, 43 yr, 53, 63 year olds to shame. Because he was not afraid to give away that which he had been entrusted – JESUS. He gave himself away any way he could – every way he could. Arno took who he was, and what he had, gave it away and it came back many more times and while he may not have realized or intended it Arno was building a legacy in the lives of other people that will last into eternity.
I believe, a couple of weeks ago, when he stood before Jesus, and Jesus saw the return of his life, like the story of the talents in Matthew, Arno was able to hear “Matt. 25:23 “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’
The question this morning –
if you are a follower of Jesus, how IS His life transforming you? – where you have something to give. Where the Sacred Relationship you have with Jesus is impacting the relationships you have with your friends and family? Where the strength of God’s grace is growing in you.
Are you Giving Jesus Away?
What kind of Legacy are you building? I hope it is not mearly a monitary or experiential legacy that no one will really care about after your gone, but a lasting, eternal, spiritual legacy that is changing you and others.
If you are not yet a follower of Jesus, and you want your life to change, where it really matters and you begin to have something, that you don’t have now, that is truly significant, sacred and worth giving to others, you can begin to experience that today, right now. You can open your life up and let Jesus begin to work in you, so his peace and joy, life and hope begin to bring you back to life again and put your life on a road that will build a Legacy of your life, where you have and know the purposes for which you were made.