2021.11.7 Carrying The Legacy

Carrying The Legacy

Today is All Saints Sunday. COVID has changed many of our traditions, but I don’t want to miss the opportunity to remember the saints who passed this year. But I’d also like to help you think a little more specifically today than we often do.

Mr. Deeds, 2002.

Deeds inherits a giant company from an uncle he never knew. Then, he gets swindled out of it. When the guy who took the company away is preparing to sell the company at a huge profit knowing all of the employees would be fired, Deeds buys one share of stock so he can address the stockholders before they vote to sell.

“When you were kids did you dream about becoming a savvy investor one day?”

He let them share some of the things they dreamed as a child.

He brought the shareholders to a gut-check moment.

“You're not those things you wanted to be, are you?

Everybody made a compromise, then another compromise, and now...

...you're about to put 50,000 people out of work to make a quick buck?

Come on. I bet if we ran into the 6th-grade versions of ourselves right now...

...they would kick our [butts] and put Bubble Yum in our hair...”

"Mr. Deeds" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2020. Web. 9 Sep. 2020. <https://www.scripts.com/script/mr._deeds_14146>.

Carrying The Legacy

In the Church, we don’t have our younger selves to look back to for a gut check.

Instead, we have the ‘great cloud of witnesses’ mentioned in Hebrews 12. We have our God “calling on heaven and earth to witness” our choices in Deuteronomy 30.

Many of us are likely familiar with the “great cloud of witnesses from Hebrews 12, but today I’d like to follow what the writer says in

Hebrews 13:7 “7 Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you; and considering the result of their way of life, imitate their faith.”

Today, I want to call on some “more local” witnesses. I want to return you to a day you may not have visited in a long while.

Carrying The Legacy

I’d like for you to walk back into the day or the time you became a Christian.

I’ll tell you a bit of my story: I was an 18 year-old college Freshman, and about as green as can be.

Who were the influential people in your life that led you toward Jesus? I think immediately of our campus minister, Greg Hatfield. He was so patient with me. I learned so much from him, and a lot of who I am as a person and as a pastor can be drawn back to him. I am so thankful for Greg’s influence in my life.

This is Thanksgiving month, so while you’re visiting that time frame, I also want to give you a chance to express gratitude for your influencers. Who is your Greg? [have them call out names] “Thank you, Lord” as names are shared.

In case you didn’t know … Temple has a LOOOONG history in Terre Haute! Temple was established around the same time as the city itself! We bear the mantle of being the first established congregation in Terre Haute.

Many of you may know that story as well or better than I do. But our forebears received a land grant from the city founders because they were the first to claim it and offer to build a church structure.

That structure for the church known as Asbury Methodist stood 1841 - 1895.

When the church relocated in 1895, we were renamed to First Methodist. We became Methodist Temple in 1929,

and moved to this building in 1969.

Imagine how many souls have come to Christ here; how many marriages have been solemnized in this room; how many calls to ministry have been cemented at this rail. Imagine how many of those events happened down on 7th & Poplar, and at “Old Asbury” on 4th & Poplar. Imagine how many lives have been changed in the 180 year history of this congregation!

Carrying The Legacy

We gather for many reasons. But we exist for one purpose: to make disciples of Jesus Christ that this world might be transformed by him. Our forebears left a legacy of disciple making. They told new people about Jesus, they studied together, and encouraged each other to grow closer to God through his son Jesus. WHAT A LEGACY WE HAVE INHERITED!!!

I’ve told you before that I won’t refer to this building as the Church … because the Church is people, not a building. So, the building has nothing to do with this next statement:

The legacy of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is what built this Church!

That same legacy is the place Greg has in my life. He helped build me into who I am with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I would suggest your ‘Gregs’ have the same legacy in your life. I can’t imagine the number of people Greg helped to find Jesus or to follow him closer … and your Greg is probably similar in that.

Now, I want you to imagine your Greg looking at your life today. If your ‘Greg’ looked at your life today, what would they see? Would they see their Christian legacy being passed along to others? Or would they see that legacy stop with you?

This morning, I call on your Christian influencers as a witness to your life.

As you recall their legacy in you finding Jesus, how are you continuing that legacy?

Who are you leading to Jesus?

How are you growing in your faith?

Isn’t that what they would want? I know that’s what Greg would want to see in me.

So … I don’t want to disappoint “my Greg”, and I’m sure you don’t want to disappoint yours. I don’t want his legacy to die with me. I want that legacy of passing along the faith to continue well beyond me. Ya know, it didn’t start with Greg.

There was one before him … and one before that one … and one before that one… and so on.

There were 11 apostles who were told to “go and make disciples of all nations.” The legacy we’re celebrating today began with Jesus himself.

When you face him on that day … will he be pleased and proud of your continuing his legacy? If you’re even a little hesitant in answering that question … change the answer today. My Greg … and my Jesus … would be sorely disappointed if I let the Christian legacy end with me. But today, I can reclaim that legacy and start anew. And so can you.

Carrying The Legacy

A minute ago, when I asked, “Who are you leading to Jesus right now?” your answer may have been a sheepish, “No one.” So change the answer today! Who will you lead to Jesus starting today? It doesn’t start with a grand revival service, or with the lights flickering in your living room. It begins with a decision. You made the decision all those years ago to follow Jesus, and perhaps somewhere along the line that following has slipped. Today, you have the opportunity to pick it back up … to recommit yourself to the ways of Christ, including telling all nations about his salvation and what it means to be a disciple.

So, I call on Heaven and Earth and the great cloud of witnesses … and your Greg to witness your choice today.

What will you do with the legacy you’ve been given?

[Pray over the elements]