Introduction

It used to be that when we took a family member or visitor to the airport, there was plenty of time for formal good-byes. Saying good-bye was an art. You had to work up to a high point, a final message, a last hug, at just the right time. Too soon and you would have to endure those awkward last moments knowing everything had been said. Too late and you would end up shouting crucial messages at someone’s back down the Jetway. Timing was everything.

Things have changed now days haven’t they. Security and curbside check in has changed everything. Now there is rarely time to get the traveler and his or her luggage out of the car. You can’t craft a meaningful, heartfelt farewell while trying to get a bag out of the trunk, getting your e-ticket and being rushed out by the sky marshals. Our “good-byes” have become something we simply shout from across the driver’s side of the car, over the roar of confusion and smell of exhaust.

What a pity. Because good-byes are messages that can stay with us. Leaving family or friends is a poignant, sometimes painful moment in our lives. We tend consciously to remember all the details of our final minutes together. As children, we all experienced a very important good-bye every day of our lives—when we were tucked into bed and left alone in the dark. Our parents called it “good night,” but this end-of-the-day ritual is really a good-bye, a farewell to the day we shared together.

Do you remember the last words your parents spoke to you before you went to bed at night? Did it vary from night to night or did you have a set routine, or even no routine? What is the last thing you say to your kids before they go to bed?

Susan Stiles, of Foley, Minnesota, has two little girls -- ages 6 and 4. As she tucks them into bed each night, she has a special saying for them. She says, “Remember, you are special to God. Remember how much we love you. Sleep loose.”

Hello!!! Sleep loose??? The Stiles recite this strange-sounding directive to their girls each night for a very important reason: they want their children to relax and let go to the love of God. They want their children to sleep loose in the security of that divine love. Too many children, too many adults, are sleeping “tight” instead – tensed and ready to bolt and run at the slightest appearance of danger, the smallest indication of risk. It is hard to get a good night’s rest when all of your muscles are tight. Sleeping tight is an uncomfortable, unhappy way to go through life. But for those who know they are “special,” that they are “loved,” each bedtime brings the comfort and security of sleeping loose.

How are you doing on your good-byes?

How are you doing on preparing the next generation for the final good-bye?

Are you filling them full of spiritual heirlooms or are you filling them with emptiness?

What are you willing to do to ensure the next generation would know the truth of God?

I want to look at two passages of Scripture tonight that remind us of the importance of leaving behind spiritual heirlooms.

Psalm 78 contains some powerful instructions that should remind us about one of our most important tasks.

I want to look specifically at verses 4, 6, and 7. For emphasis, I’m going to be reading from the New Living Translation.

4We will not hide these truths from our children, but will tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the LORD. We will tell of His power, and the mighty miracles He did.

6So that the next generation might know them – even the children not yet born – that they in turn might teach their children.

7So each generation can set its hope anew on God, remembering His glorious miracles and obeying his commands.

As parents, grandparents, church members, we are all must work together to ensure the truths of God will continue to be told until he returns.

Children are a gift from God. We have the responsibility to love them, to bring them to Christ, to train them up for God. We are to be a blessing to them as well as to bless them.

They see and hear everything we are about, especially in the hard times. When the pressure is on, what comes out? What do people around you see that make them want to know more about Jesus?

What are you willing to do so that the next generation would know the truths of God?

I like the Apostle Paul’s final words to the Corinthians. They speak about putting things in order so that others might come to know Jesus as Savior.

Let’s look at that passage tonight as our outline for leaving behind a legacy that will be pleasing to God.

2 Corinthians 13:11-14

11Finally, brothers, good-bye. Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.

12Greet one another with a holy kiss.

13All the saints greet you.

14The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.

These words, Paul’s last to the Corinthians, demonstrate how a well-crafted goodbye can be meaningful and moving. Paul’s future, as well as the future of the Corinthian Christians, was unclear. The apostle continued to face the possibilities of persecution, arrest, and execution. The Corinthian church had both its internal battles and the external threats of persecution to cloud its destiny. When Paul invokes the message of “farewell” to these Christians, it reaches beyond the moment of its reading.

Farewell also means, “may you have a good journey”, and the journey Paul constantly envisioned is one that travels through this life toward an ultimate destination with God. Paul’s good-bye to the Corinthians, then, is like his spiritual “marker” for their own journey through life, even unto death. The words Paul left ringing in their ears offered the Corinthians and us a prescription for holy living – a way to sleep loose every night of our lives.

Put things in order. This is Paul’s attempt to get the Corinthians to prioritize. When we put our lives in proper order, “last things” (the things that “last”) will go “first.” That which is important will separate out from the extraneous “junk” we find cluttering up our lives. We can’t sleep loose if our beds are hidden under piles of this junk.

Listen to my appeal. The most important word here is listen. We can’t hear if we won’t be quiet and tune in. Listening saves us from the risk of going off half-cocked, misinformed, and misdirected. To sleep loose, we must listen for the message of God’s love, which comes to us through the sounds of the Holy Spirit.

Agree with one another. We are not just to tolerate each other’s company (some of the Corinthians apparently could not even do that). We are called to celebrate one another. Since God’s love extends to each of us, there is reason to celebrate every individual. Instead of criticizing shortcomings and highlighting the negatives of each other, try emphasizing the positives. Just because we have differences doesn’t mean we can’t agree to disagree in love.

Live in peace. When differences are celebrated instead of criticized, we can experience harmony instead of discord, shalom instead of shouting. Sleeping loose takes place in such peace and quiet.

Receive the gift of love. Susan Stile’s 4 and 6 year old daughters are probably better at receiving love than most of us are. Children receive love graciously and un-self-consciously. For adults, it is more difficult to relax and sleep loose to the offer of God’s love after we have spent the day keeping our vulnerabilities tightly locked away from view. We can accept that God is love, but it is far more difficult to accept that God is love for us. The joy and the bliss of the Holy Spirit is ours.

Join the cloud of witnesses. Paul invoked the presence of “all the saints” in his farewell to the Corinthians. Likewise, we must feel a part of all the saints, the entire community of faith. It is in feeling the strength of all that support that we can relax and sleep loose.

What kind of good-bye do you plan on giving to your family and friends?

In the fall of 1984, my family lost our spiritual matriarch. Sarah Hardin, who my daughter is partially named for, spent her life living for other people and giving them love like no other person I’ve ever known. She was my great-grandmother. One of the questions that came up was what kind of a tombstone were we going to get for Grandma. I remember it being a major issue. In the selection of a gravestone, my grandfather and family wanted to show the respect and love we felt for her. We almost hired one of those new “cemetery artists” who contract with families to sculpt in stone highly personalized monuments that feature values and uniqueness of loved ones.

But my Grandma wasn’t like that. She was a very simple woman. She had lived a very hard life, but all the while shared the love of Jesus in simple ways. When I would visit, we would sit on the front porch swing in good weather and she would sing the old hymns. The kind that had shaped notes. In the wintertime, she would sit at her old plastic organ. The kind with the chord buttons on the side. She would open up her Heavenly-Highway Hymnal and play those hymns and sing out loud.

The tombstone that adorns my grandparents’ graves is very simple with a small inset picture of them on their 50th wedding anniversary. The real tombstone, which states what I really want remembered about my Grandma, is at my house. I went out and bought a copy of a Heavenly-Highway Hymnal. It reminds me of the peace and love that she shared with each and every one she ever met.

When I see it, the hymnal brings me back to sitting at that old out of tune organ and reminds me of how my own life needs some repair and tuning.

My Grandma may be physically missing, and the whole world seems a little “depopulated” with out her. But her spirit is still alive in my life, and that hymnal serves as a reminder to me to tune my life to God’s perfect pitch, Jesus Christ, God’s tuning fork to the eternal.

What have you given others to remember you by? How will your life effectively change the lives of those who survive you?

Modeling or “mentoring” is a popular concept today. But what does it mean for you and me to be mentor Christians? Although mentors or teachers often appear in elevated or “up-front” positions, genuine mentors do not try to be stars. Rather, the role of the Christian mentor is that of a lamp to light the pathway that lies directly at his or her student’s feet, offering guidance and service in indirect ways.

Even after death, your lamp still burns; and there are no lamps that cannot throw at least a little light on some darkened portion of a fellow traveler’s pathway. Take confidence now in the potential power of your lamp.

A story I heard once illustrates this well. I went to a leadership seminar where one of the speakers, Calvin Miller, told about his spiritual heirloom to his children.

He said, “I work my Bible to shreds about every five years, so when we had our first child I decided to dedicate my new Bible to her. I am now working on my tenth Bible like this.”

“Before I open my Bible to do my devotions, or exegete certain passages, I pray for the child or grandchild for whom this Bible is dedicated. While I am working through the Scriptures I write notes to him or her in the margins, telling them how much this verse means to me or informing them of a prayer I offered for them while reading that text.”

“Sometimes I find a poem I want to share with them and stuff that in the pages. Or sometimes a quote will come to mind, or a special wish for them, and I jot that down too. Then, when my Bible is so threadbare and worn from working through it and preaching from it and taking it with me everywhere I go, I present it to them on their birthday as a special gift.”

What spiritual heirlooms are you and I leaving to our children, our neighbors, our church, our community, or our world?

Spiritual Heirlooms

Introduction