Live A Life That Outlives You

Well, we have been in a story for really the entire year.

We're almost done with this story.

It's a series that we started back in January or early February called Getting to Know God.

And we've been going through the life of a man in the Bible and his family named Abraham.

Abraham and Sarah and their children and all that happened through them.

The reason we're calling this series Getting to Know God is because when the story begins, Abraham believes in God, but he doesn't know God.

He's not very familiar with God.

He has faith, faith enough to obey God when God calls him to leave his home and go to a place he's never been before.

But he doesn't know the character and the nature of God.

He couldn't say, Oh, I am close with God.

But over the course of Abraham's life and the interactions that Abraham and Sarah have with God and how they see God's faithfulness in times of challenge, in times where they make serious mistakes and God is still good to them and he still stays true to them.

They get to learn bit by bit the character and the nature of our God.

And so we've been getting to know our God better as they got to know him better.

And it's been a really amazing journey.

If you're new to his hands, by the way, what we love to do is just go through scripture.

Sometimes it's a whole book of the Bible, sometimes it's a big story like this, but we're just going bit by bit, and we haven't skipped any of it.

And here we are today at a really interesting moment in the story, and it's actually the moment where Sarah's life ends on this earth.

Sarah passes away.

We get to see as Abraham mourns this, and we get to reflect on this.

It's an interesting story, though, because it's a story for us today to reflect on this unique concept.

Because of our faith and because we serve an eternal God, we have the ability as people to live lives that outlive us.

You can live a life that outlives you, truly.

You can do things in this life that will affect generations to come.

And that is not just a cheesy statement that sounds nice on a stage, that is reality.

And I think we all understand this dynamic to a degree.

All of us deal with decisions that other people made before us.

And so, for example, in my backyard, we love our backyard.

It's one of the reasons we bought our house.

We have a nice big backyard.

We have three boys, one girl, and they run around all the time.

We needed space.

But the person who was who is in our home before us decided to plant some trees in the backyard, and my wife loves trees.

I love grass that grows and isn't, you know, and is there.

I like grass.

My wife loves trees, and trees and grass don't always get along.

Some of you guys who who do work in yards, you understand this.

And so when we first bought the house, the trees were small.

And cute and Megan was like, Oh, I just love the trees, and I was fine with the trees because the trees weren't killing the grass.

But that has changed.

The trees are out of control.

They've grown, they're huge.

Whatever trees the people before us decided to plant are much bigger than what we thought they were.

And so now we're at this impasse because I want the trees gone.

Like the trees, they're they're killing all the grass.

Every time it rains, there's mud.

We have a dog, the dog runs outside, mud.

I just, I don't, I don't, I don't want it, I want the trees gone.

And actually, Warren, who's on our staff, he removes trees.

He's really good at it.

He has chainsaws.

Like, this is, we can get this done right now.

But Megan is insistent that we keep the trees.

So we decided to consult an expert.

We had someone come to our house, and and here's what the guy said.

He said, Look, yep, these trees, there's no way your grass is gonna grow.

So either you guys are gonna have to get new sod every couple of years just to have grass, and that's gonna have to be a constant thing.

You're gonna have to redesign all the landscaping back here to accommodate for the fact that you don't have grass, or you just gotta get rid of the trees.

And what I found is that Megan and I heard two very different messages in that conversation, right?

What I heard was get rid of the trees.

I actually heard, Justin, you were right.

You were right, you have been vindicated, the trees have to go.

What my wife heard was, oh, all my husband has to do is completely reorganize all the landscaping, and we just have to get sought every couple of years, and we get to keep the trees.

But that's not what I heard.

And so as of today, the trees are still there, no trees have changed.

We'll see what ends up happening.

But but the reality is I'm dealing with the decision that I didn't make.

I didn't put those trees there, I didn't plant them.

Someone else did that, and here it is years later, and I'm now dealing with the consequences, which to me are a curse, and to my wife is a blessing.

It just is what it is.

We all understand the idea that someone can do something even years before you, and their decisions affect your life today.

And this can happen in more than just a decade.

This can be a generational thing.

Many of us right now are dealing with either the blessings or the challenges that are the result of decisions that people made in your life generations ago.

And through faith in God, we have the ability to live lives that actually bless people we have never met and will never meet this side of heaven.

We have the ability to live lives that outlive us.

And we're gonna explore that this morning.

And so with that said, we're gonna open up Genesis chapter 23.

Genesis 23 · chapter mention

And um, if you guys ever go to our website, we have a message companion for every single message that we do, or you can look at all the scripture that we use, you can read along if you want, or ever go back to it if you want just to do some further study.

But we're gonna be in Genesis chapter 23, we're gonna read the entirety of that this morning.

Genesis 23 · chapter mention

Here's what it says Sarah lived to be 127 years old.

She died at Kiryath Arba, that is Hebron, in the land of Canaan, and Abraham went to mourn for Sarah and to weep over her.

I want to put a pin in that for just a second.

One of my favorite things about Scripture is that it tells us the truth, right?

It reveals all the details, the good, the bad, the ugly, the hard, the difficult, about the lives of the people who we might call its heroes.

And Abraham and Sarah are definitely in that category of Bible heroes, even though they made a lot of really terrible decisions.

They're people of faith.

And I love the fact that the Bible shows us how godly people deal with death.

And the reality is it's hard for them.

They weep, they mourn, they struggle.

I've been in this role for a long time, and I've known many of you for a long time.

I've done over a hundred funerals.

In fact, I was thinking about that as I read this.

I've done many funerals of family members for many of you in the room right now.

And I know some of you, this holiday season, like this 4th of July, might have been your first major holiday without someone that you love that's passed on.

And I love the fact that Scripture gives us a guide for what we do when we lose people we love.

And then the reality is we grieve and we mourn.

I mean, Abraham Sarah was 127 years old.

And Abraham did not say, finally, you know, he didn't say that.

Abraham did not say, well, I mean, she was 127.

I mean, how much more could you expect?

Logically, that's I mean, come on.

No, Abraham grieved, he mourned.

Death is always a tragedy because we weren't created to die.

God did not create us to die, so it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter when a person dies.

I believe in God's eyes, death is always a tragedy.

And I just think it's comforting to know that even those who walked the closest with the Lord, who knew him, who had an eternal perspective, they still struggle with death.

They still need help grieving and mourning.

And uh, and I just want us to know that and take comfort in that if that's something that you're dealing with.

And look, if you ever are dealing with that in a really major way, uh, we have a grief class that's gonna start up pretty soon, and that's something that uh Fred and Scott have led for years, and it's super helpful, and if we can do anything to help you with that, let us know.

But I think it's important just to recognize that.

I want to keep going.

Verse 3 Then Abraham rose from beside his dead wife and spoke to the Hittites.

He said, I'm a foreigner and stranger among you.

Sell me some property for a burial site, so I can bury my dead.

And the Hittites replied to Abraham, Sir, listen to us, you are a mighty prince among us, bury your dead in the choicest of our tombs.

None of us will refuse you his tomb for burying your dead.

Then Abraham rose and bowed down before the people of the land, the Hittites.

He said to them, If you're willing to let me bury my dead, then listen to me and intercede with with Ephron, the son of Zohar, on my behalf.

So he will send me, uh sell me the cave of I'm not going to try to say it, uh, which belong I can't, I just let's try it together.

Makpalah, let's go with that.

Yeah, let's say that confidently.

Makpelah, we're going with that.

The cave of Makpelah, which belongs to him and is at the end of his field.

Ask him to sell it to me for the full price as a burial site among you.

And Ephron the Hittite was sitting among his people, and he replied to Abraham in the hearing of all the Hittites who had come to the gate of the city.

No, my lord, he said, Listen to me, I'll give you the field.

I'll give you the cave that's in it.

I give it to you in the presence of my people, bury your dead.

And again Abraham bowed down before the people of the land, and he said to Ephron in their hearing, Listen to me, if you will, I will pay the price for the field.

Accept it for me so I can bury my dead there.

And Ephron answered Abraham, Listen to me, my lord, the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver, but what is that between me and you?

Bury your dead.

Abraham agreed to Ephron's terms and weighed out for him the price he had named in the hearing of the Hittites, four hundred shekels of silver, according to the weight current among the merchants.

So Ephron's field in Macpullah, near Mamre, both the field and the cave in it, and all the trees within the borders of the field was deeded to Abraham as his property in the presence of all the Hittites who had come to the gate of the city.

Afterward, Abraham buried his wife Sarah in the cave in the field of Machpullah near Mamre, which is Hebron, in the land of Canaan.

And so the field and the cave in it were deeded to Abraham by the Hittites as a burial site.

And what's interesting, archaeologically, we know exactly where this is.

If you wanted to go to Israel and go to that cave, you can.

Okay, it's in a place called Hebron, which is still around today.

So Sarah passes away.

It's sad on one level.

Like I said, death is always a tragedy.

But yet, Scripture gives us this really interesting perspective about Abraham and Sarah and the way they live their life, and how even though their life, like all of ours, has a beginning and an end, they lived with a very, very different perspective.

We actually read about it in Hebrews chapter 11.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

I'm gonna read verses 8 through 16.

It says, It was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave his home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance.

He went without knowing where he was going, and even when he reached the land God promised him, he lived there by faith.

For he was like a foreigner, living in tents.

And so did Isaac and Jacob, who had who inherited the same promise.

Abraham was confidently looking forward to a city with eternal foundations, a city designed and built by God.

It was by faith that even Sarah was able to have a child, though she was barren and was too old.

She believed that God would keep his promise.

And so a whole nation came from this one man who was as good as dead, a nation with so many people that, like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore, there's no way to count them.

All these people, Sarah included, died still believing what God had promised them.

They did not receive what was promised, but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed it.

They agreed that they were foreigners and nomads here on earth.

Obviously, people who say such things are looking forward to a country they can call their own, but if they had longed for the country they came from, they would have gone back.

They were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland.

That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, and he has prepared a city for them.

Sarah did not receive the fulfillment of everything that God had promised when she died.

God promised to make them into a nation.

They had a son.

A son.

Some of you guys uh have one child.

Uh I doubt I doubt you walk around and introduce yourselves as a nation.

You know?

I doubt you walk around saying, Let me introduce you to the nation of whatever your last name is.

As we have one child, we are clearly on our way to becoming a nation of our own.

No.

God promised them a nation, they have a child.

God promised them a land, but as you can see, they weren't even owning the land they were in.

Abraham had to go buy the land they were living in just to bury Sarah there.

And so when Sarah died, God had not brought the fulfillment of his promises to them into fruition.

And yet, as Hebrews tells us, they didn't live disappointed.

Sarah didn't die disappointed.

Her life doesn't end with her going, man, God didn't come through.

God didn't do what he said he would do.

She died looking forward.

Excited about the promises that God had begun to fulfill in her life, and with the faith to realize that those promises were going to be fulfilled in future generations, and they were.

Her decisions, the way that she lived her life, her faithfulness to God, her faith, it all reverberated for generations, and it still is today.

So about ten generations after Sarah passes away, she's gonna have a descendant named David who becomes king of Israel and does amazing things for God and writes this collection of songs that we call the Psalms, most of them written by David, that we still sing to this day.

Several generations later, there's gonna be a descendant of Sarah named Esther.

And Esther's going to become the queen of a powerful empire, and she's going to have the opportunity to save all of her people from complete extinction.

And it's going to take an act of boldness and courage, and she does it.

Many, many generations after Esther, there's going to be a man named Jesus, a descendant of Sarah, and he's going to save all of us.

He's going to free us from the wages of sin and death.

Everything that God promised to Sarah, he has fulfilled, but it didn't happen in her lifetime.

And her life and the lives of really everyone in Scripture, it gives us this perspective of what if we lived life looking so far forward, what if we lived life with the perspective that our decisions and our choices can be big enough and important enough that they will outlive us and they can bless generations to come.

I don't know how much time you've spent thinking about how much your life is actually impacted by those who have gone before you.

I mean, I think about it a lot here.

Obviously, like I shared earlier, we're in this building and we have this church, and though, I mean, let's be honest, those of you who give, thank you so much for being faithful, because that's how we do everything that we do financially, obviously.

But we started because a couple sold this really successful business.

And instead of just buying a house here and a house there and doing all the things that, let's be honest, most of us would be pretty excited to do had we had we done something that major financially, they prayed and said, God, what do you want us to do with this money?

And he told them to buy a Kmart and turn it into a church.

And and almost everyone that knew them thought they were nuts.

And wouldn't you?

I mean, let's be honest.

Like, if you have if you got a family member and they sell this huge company and they have tens of millions of dollars, like, what are you gonna do with it?

And they're like, you know, buy that old building that's been completely abandoned for seven years and turn it into a church.

I mean, almost anyone would be like, you're you're crazy.

Trust me, their story is not one where everyone was like, yeah, great idea.

I I I support that.

But here we are.

Here we are, celebrating 20 years because of a sacrificial, generous decision that someone made, and most of you have never even met them and never will.

And yet you benefit from that.

But in all of our lives, if we stop and we think about the life that we have, and sometimes this is hard because sometimes people made bad decisions years ago that we're affected by today.

That can be true as well, but if we stopped and said, okay, Lord, what blessings do I have in my life right now because of decisions that were made before me?

If you've never done that, I cannot, I cannot think of a better exercise to do with your day, with your week.

I was thinking about it this week.

Um I was thinking about my family, and specifically the fact that I have three siblings, so myself, my sister, my two brothers.

This is kind of sad in a way, but if you took, if you took the four of us and then you compared our lives to all of our cousins, and I got a lot of cousins, like a lot.

My mom was one of eight, so I have a lot of cousins.

Our lives are totally different, and just inarguably in a better place than the lives of my cousins.

And like I said, it's kind of sad.

And it's because of decisions that my mom and dad made that were very different than the decisions of their of their siblings growing up.

Um, this is kind of a deep cut, but has anyone ever seen the show?

This is a show that was like, I guess, semi-popular, it's kind of old, it's in that category of like never was huge, not that old, not really a classic, but it was called My Name is Earl.

Anyone ever seen the show, My Name is Earl?

That show hits way too close to home for me.

Um that show is not, it's it is funny, but it is familiar.

I'm from really southern rural Missouri.

And my parents both grew up in, I'm talking tiny, tiny towns in southern rural Missouri.

And in their families, some some tough things happened, especially in like the 70s and the early 80s.

There was this a factory in the town where my mom is from, and it closed down, and pretty much everyone in the town was employed there.

And what most of the people did when it closed down was they just kind of quit.

They just really quit life.

And what they all did was they just started, you know, taking unemployment and they stayed on unemployment their entire lives.

And that city, that town, city's not a city, that town where my mom's from, like it just slowly began to deteriorate.

And as a child, I would go there to visit my grandparents and and my cousins, and it's just like every year it was a little worse, a little worse.

There were no businesses, everything was kind of abandoned, it was just in a in a state of disrepair, and like no one worked.

And and I remember my family, like I love my family, but I got some interesting family members, I'm sure we all do.

Like, I have an Uncle Wayne, and most of us probably have an Uncle Wayne.

Okay?

I've never seen Uncle Wayne sober, not one time in my life.

My wife met Uncle Wayne once.

He was laying on a couch, and we we were, I was introducing her to my family, and we walked in, and Uncle Wayne said, uh, and I'm gonna use the voice, this is not mockery, this is just to understand the tone.

Uncle Wayne said, Boy, Justin, you sure got a pretty wife.

And Megan squeezed my hand very hard.

Uncle Wayne later became the mayor of the city that I'm from, and uh he hadn't had a job in 20 years, and he was not the least qualified mayoral candidate.

Like, that's the unique town I'm from.

Again, I'm not being mean, I'm just telling you, that's why I say, like, my name is Earl, it's just it's too, it hits too close.

And you know, go look at a trailer of that show when you get home if you're not familiar.

Um But the the reality is this life got hard, circumstances happened that affected the area that my parents are from, and pretty much everybody quit.

And my my dad has a brother that hasn't had a job in 35 years, hasn't tried.

Everyone just sort of quit.

But my parents were totally different.

They were like, we're not staying here, and this isn't gonna be our life.

Like my dad, for example.

My dad, his parents did not help him with college at all, um, and that was pretty normal back in the day.

But my dad worked two jobs in the summers to pay his way through college.

He worked one job the entirety through college.

It was like two some two jobs in the summer, one job during college, paid his way entirely through college, put himself in a totally different place than everybody else in his family, never stopped working.

Like my dad is like a workhorse, so much to the point.

Thank you guys, by the way.

You all prayed for my dad a few months ago.

He had uh he had to have triple bypass surgery, and I remember talking to him on the phone and being like, hey dad, uh, how's it all going?

He's like, It's good, but I just paid someone to mow my lawn for the first time in my life.

73 years old, right?

He's he's never not mowed his own lawn.

That's how hard of a worker that he is.

And he was like a major executive in the big business.

Uh he actually worked at O'Reilly Automotive when they had one store, and now they have 6,000 something stores.

He worked at store number one and became their vice president of marketing when I was a kid, very successful.

And yet we would we we went from a trailer to a duplex to like a rental house, and eventually we had my dad was very successful, but he still mowed the lawn, and I mowed it with him, and it was dad, it was great.

I'll just say that, it was great.

I had a blast mowing those lawns was wow.

No, it was my dad works really hard, and so he has a triple bypass surgery, and he pays this kid in his neighborhood to mow his lawn for the first time in his life, and it like broke my dad.

He's like, I can't stand this.

That poor kid probably thought he got a great gig because here's this guy that just had heart surgery, he's gonna be mowing this lawn for years, three weeks.

Three weeks after the surgery, my dad's like, You're fired, and he's mowing his lawn again.

That's just who he is.

He works so hard, and so I'm just saying this again, I'm not knocking my other family, but I grew up in this home where I watched pretty much everyone that I was a relative of do nothing.

Just sit around and complain and talk about how this thing that happened and the factory closed down, and the factory closed down, and all this kind of stuff.

And yes, that's sad, and yes, that made them victims to a certain degree, but they all just sat in that for decades, and then that became drugs and arrests and jail.

I've got so many cousins in jail, and and my parents never did that.

No complaining, no whining, just work.

And so my mom and dad, they just outworked everybody else in our family, and they put myself and my siblings in a totally different place.

And we were able to start life from a totally different place than everybody else in our family, and now even my kids are benefiting from that.

And it's stuff I can't really take credit for.

Because my parents are the ones that did that.

My parents are the ones that worked so hard so we could be in a different place, and here a whole other generation is being blessed by that.

Here I am, and like I'm driving my daughter to Chicago and dropping her off at this ballet school because she's a ballerina, and like the concept of You know, a girl going to Chicago for ballet school was a very foreign idea to my parents in the 1970s.

But their hard work and all of that, it just put us in a different place.

And I have so much gratitude for that.

Guys, that's the way that life works.

Our decisions and our choices, they reverberate for generations.

We see this, by the way, on a spiritual level as well.

So many of you might be familiar with the story of a man in the Bible named Solomon.

Solomon was a king, and he was a good king for a while and then a really bad king at the end.

Solomon's life is really, it's interesting because when he's a king and he's very young, he goes to God and he asks for wisdom.

If you've never read the story, it's in 1 Kings chapter 3.

1 Kings 3 · chapter mention

It says, Solomon loved the Lord and followed all the decrees of his father David.

He's David's son.

Except that Solomon too offered sacrifices and burnt incense at the local places of worship.

The most important of these places was at Gibeon, so the king went there and sacrificed a thousand burnt offerings.

And that night the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream and said, What do you want?

Ask and I will give it to you.

Think about that.

God says, Whatever you want, I'll give it to you.

And Solomon replied, You showed great and faithful love to your servant, my father David, because he was honest and true and faithful to you.

You've continued to show this great and faithful love to him today by giving him a son to sit on his throne.

Now, O Lord my God, you've made me king instead of my father David, but I'm like a little child who doesn't know his way around.

And here I am in the midst of your own chosen people, a nation so great and numerous they cannot be counted.

Give me an understanding heart, so that I can govern your people well, and know the difference between right and wrong.

For who by himself is able to govern this great people of yours?

And the Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for wisdom, so God replied, Because you've asked for wisdom in governing my people with justice, and you haven't asked for a long life or wealth or the death of your enemies, I'll give you what you've asked for.

I will give you a wise and understanding heart, such as no one else has ever had or will have.

And I will also give you what you did not ask for, riches and fame.

No other king in all the world will be compared to you for the rest of your life.

And if you follow me and obey my decrees and my commands as your father David did, I will give you a long life.

So Solomon asks for wisdom.

And then he writes a book of the Bible we have called Proverbs, along with some others.

But if you know the story of Solomon, it doesn't go well because it's one thing for God to give you something, it's another thing for you to use it.

God can give you things, he can give you talent, he can give you blessings, he can give you wisdom, but it's still your choice whether or not you exercise it.

And for many years Solomon does, but at a certain point in time, whether it's pride or it's the influence of other people that he was trying to impress, he did have 700 wives, that wasn't so wise.

Umes way off the rails.

But listen what we have in 1 Kings chapter 11.

1 Kings 11 · chapter mention

At this point in time, Solomon's older and he is completely abandoned following God.

He's worshiping other false gods.

It says this, in Solomon's old age, they, meaning the 700 wives that he had, because he married women from all these different pagan religions, um, he said, They turned his heart to worship other gods instead of being completely faithful to the Lord his God, as his father David had been.

Solomon worshipped Ashtareth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molech, the detestable god of the Ammonites.

In this way, Solomon did what was evil in the Lord's sight.

He refused to follow the Lord completely as his father David had done.

And then in verse 9, it says the Lord was very angry with Solomon, for his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice.

He had warned Solomon specifically about worshiping other gods, but Solomon did not listen to the Lord's command.

So now the Lord said to him, Since you have not kept my covenant and have obeyed, have not obeyed my decrees, I will surely tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your servants.

But for the sake of your father David, I will not do this while you're still alive.

I'll take the kingdom away from your son.

Even so, I will not take the entire kingdom.

I'll let him be king of one of the tribes, for the sake of my servant David, and for the sake of Jerusalem, my chosen city.

All right, let's track with this.

Solomon has completely abandoned worshiping God.

He's been given wisdom by God.

He is the wealthiest king, probably, in the history of the world, truly.

And yet, no matter what God did for him, he turns his heart and he starts worshiping false gods.

He really worships himself.

It's a really terrible situation.

And God is so angry, and rightfully so.

And God says to him, like, I'm not gonna let you keep this kingdom, but for the sake of your father David, because your father David, who's who's past at this point, was so faithful to me, I'm gonna be gentle with you.

Guys, consider this for a moment.

Here's a person who has chosen wickedness, and and you know, he's a king, right?

To those whom much is given, much is required.

If you're the king, you you have you gotta toe the line, and God says, like, I'm gonna take this from you, but ooh.

Your father David was so faithful to me.

I'm gonna I'm gonna pull back a little bit.

I mean, Solomon in that moment must have been thinking, Thank, thank goodness, thank God for my father David.

The way that David lived his life, David's faithfulness to God was still affecting God after David's life was over.

David's love for the Lord, his faithfulness to God, was still affecting the way that God was treating David's descendants.

Just imagine this for a moment.

Like truly imagine that you could live your life in such a way that you could pursue God and know God and be obedient to God and faithful to God to such a manner that your children, years from now, that your grandchildren's lives can be affected by the way that you live for God.

That's crazy.

I mean, if that doesn't inspire you to want to take your faith so seriously and live your life for God so passionately, I don't know what else will.

Your faithfulness to God can bless your children and your grandchildren.

Our lives can outlive us.

They truly can, both in a good way and in a negative way.

So what if we lived like that?

I want to give you a couple quick thoughts as we wrap up, then and we've got a couple uh we've got a few people getting baptized this morning, so we've got to celebrate that here in just a minute, which is awesome.

Um I want to give us a couple thoughts.

Number one, think multi-generationally.

Like think about your life multi-generationally.

Now, now, some of you guys are older and you've got grandkids, and maybe even great-grandkids, and that's easy for you.

Yesterday we were at my my in-law's house, and my wife's grandparents now live with her parents, and so we had uh, you know, the great-grandparents, the grandparents, us, and and the grandchildren, like all in one home.

It's really cool.

Lots of different generations represented at once.

As we get older, it becomes easier to think multi-generationally because we have lived through multiple generations.

Some of us are younger.

Some of you guys are in your your 20s, and so you know, it's easy for you to think ahead right now.

It's probably harder for you to look back.

Because what are you nostalgic about, right?

Some of you were like, oh, the iPhone 12, like it was that was it, you know.

Remember when the iPhone had a button?

Some of you like that is nostalgia for you.

I I know for me, I'm getting older now, I'm in my 40s.

Um, I'm starting to look way back more, and I'm looking at a different time, a different era.

And I know I'm getting old.

I know I'm getting old because my kids are making fun of how old I am.

Yesterday I fell asleep on a on a chair, which is what you do as an old man on the 4th of July.

And my oldest son decided to take a picture of my head from the top down while sleeping to show me how big the bald spot is becoming.

That was that was great.

It's, I mean, it's getting there, you know, it's pretty thin.

But we're a hat church, so it doesn't really matter.

Um that's how you know you're old when your kids are taking pictures of your head from the top down while you're sleeping on the 4th of July like an old man.

But as I get older, it's easier for me to think in terms of multiple generations because I have multiple generations around me, but even those of you who are younger begin to think this way.

Because, man, if you're in your 20s, if you're in your 30s, and you start thinking about the fact that your life is going to, it's gonna have an effect for a long time.

The decisions you're making right now can affect people that are a long way from even existing.

Like, think like that now because that that is how God thinks.

Like God thinks multi-generationally.

He does.

We know this, we see this in scripture all the time because God's always making promises that sound very like very right now.

There's all kinds of examples in the Bible of God saying something that seems like it's gonna happen now.

And he's like, oh no, no, this is like a long time from now.

That's like the promise of the Messiah in the Old Testament.

God's like, I will send you a Messiah in 700 years, you know?

And the people probably heard that, and they're like, oh, that sounds like it's happening now.

A great example of that is Jeremiah 29, 11.

That's a lot of people's favorite uh verse because it's a really inspiring verse.

Um, no one ever reads Jeremiah 29, 10 and 11, because it's a very different tone.

At this point in time, the nation of Israel has been defeated and they're captives now, and they're living uh as foreigners in a foreign land.

They've been exiled from their home.

And here's what God says to them in Jeremiah 29, 10 and 11.

He says, You will be in Babylon for 70 years.

But then I'll come and do for you all the good things I've promised.

And I'll bring you home again.

Can you imagine that?

Hey, it's just 70 years, and then we'll be back home.

That's nothing.

And then he says, For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord.

They're plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.

Everyone always puts verse 11 on a t-shirt.

Right?

I know the plans I have for you, plans for a future and a hope.

70 years from now.

I think that's awesome.

That had to have the effect of like, it must have been a sobering moment to the people who heard that from the prophet.

Like, okay, that's not gonna be me.

But in a in a way that's really beautiful because it's not about you.

Like, you can live your life for yourself.

You have that choice, all of us do.

You can live your life for you, and it's your achievements, your accomplishments, your comfort, your whatever, your fulfillment.

That can be how, that can be what you dedicate yourself to, and that's all well and good, but it will come to an end.

And most of the people I know who have lived their lives for themselves, when they start getting further along in life, they look back at life with nothing but regret.

They're like, I could have done this, I could have had more.

What if I would have made this decision?

What if I would have invested in this?

And I I could have had so much more.

But if you can recognize that maybe life is bigger than you.

And maybe you're meant to live for something bigger than you, and maybe you're meant to think bigger than you.

And maybe the filters you're supposed to use when you make decisions for your life are bigger than you.

And it's not just about your own comfort and your own satisfaction, but it's about how it's going to affect those who come after you.

If you think that way, it's really beautiful.

And God is basically saying to these people, stay faithful.

Stay faithful because you know what, yes, you're probably not going back to Israel, but your children will.

Your grandchildren will.

There's actually a really famous uh Jewish story.

It's not in the Bible, but it's uh it's part of that culture.

And it's it's about this man named Honey.

And in the story, he meets someone who's planting a carob tree.

And carob trees are interesting because they they don't produce fruit.

They're fruit trees, but they don't produce fruit for like 75 years.

And so basically he says to this man, why are you planting this tree?

You'll never eat its fruit.

This man was older than he sees planting the tree.

And he says, Yes, but I eat the fruit from the tree that my grandfather planted.

And I want my grandchildren to eat the fruit from the trees that I plant.

So he's thinking in terms of multiple generations.

And I believe that if we could be like Sarah and Abraham, and we can understand that God has promised us things and he's promised those who follow him things, and you know what, we might get to experience some of it, but there it's just so big and so wonderful, we'll never experience all of it in our lifetime.

But what if we live in such a way that we inspire our children to know God and our grandchildren to know God, and we we make decisions now that bless multiple generations down the line?

If we think that way, it totally changes our perspective.

It makes us far less selfish.

It makes us freak out a lot less when things don't go our way because it's not about us, it's about something bigger than us.

God is a God who always thinks in terms of multiple generations.

He's eternal.

Sometimes that's annoying to us because you know, 70 years seems like nothing to God, but to us that's a long time.

Like that's life.

But what if we had God's perspective and we thought about our lives and our decisions in a multi-generational way?

Second thought, real quick, as we as we wrap up and worship team, you can make your way out.

You gotta live life looking forward.

Always, always look forward.

I'll go back to Hebrews chapter 11, talking about Sarah and Abraham and many others that Hebrews 11 will talk about.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

It says, all these people died still believing what God had promised them.

They did not receive what was promised, but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed it.

In other words, Sarah didn't just live looking forward, she died looking forward.

When her life was over, she wasn't looking back on the past and going, what if this and I regret this?

She was like, Oh, what's God gonna do in the future?

When Jesus was arrested and in the garden, he prays for us.

In fact, we did a whole series on his prayer last year, John chapter 17.

John 17 · chapter mention

He says, This, I am praying not only for these disciples, but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message.

Consider this.

When Jesus was in the garden, about to be arrested and crucified, he prayed for you.

Think about that.

He prayed for you specifically.

He prays for his disciples, then he stops and he says, He's thinking so far ahead, he's thinking so far forward that he says, Father God, I'm not just praying for my disciples, but I'm praying for all who will ever follow me.

He prayed for us.

Like we are supposed to live life looking forward, not looking backward.

Some of us, we have major mistakes that we've made in the past.

Yes.

Yeah, of course.

And you can live with regret, and you can look back and you can feel bad, but that doesn't change the future.

Or, or you can decide to live looking forward.

You can decide to never take your eyes off what God is up to and what he is doing.

Because God is always doing something, God is always doing something new, God is always working things out.

In fact, the Bible says that God never sleeps, it says that God is always working things out for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose for their lives.

God is always doing something, and you can be part of it.

You can be part of it.

You can you can be someone who says, no, no, no, like Sarah, I I cannot wait to see how God takes this and takes my life and decisions that I've made.

I've done my best, and I can't wait to see how he uses this in the future.

She died looking forward, she died with an expectant heart.

I think I shared this, yeah, I know I did, a few weeks back, but I'm just reminded of it.

This wasn't in my notes or anything like that.

But a few months back I had a woman who asked me to be with her as she passed, and I went and visited her in the hospital, and then she specifically wanted me to be there at the end.

And one of the things that she loved to do was just to give random strangers 20 bucks, 10 bucks, whatever cash she had in her pocket at the grocery store.

And I and I got there and we talked for just a little bit, and her kids gave me the money that was in her purse because they said that right at the end she was very concerned that that money would be given to somebody that needed it.

It was like it was$40.

$20, I can't remember the exact number,$20 for it, it was something like that.

But she here she is at the end of her life, and it's a beautiful, it's a beautiful thing.

Because she's not looking back and regretting, and she's not bitter about all the people who had hurt her, and I'm sure there were many.

There are for all of us.

She wasn't looking back and thinking through all the poor decisions she had made and all the struggles that she had had.

She was thinking about the fact that she was about to pass away and had$40 in her wallet that someone could use.

And she wanted to make sure that they got to the right person.

Guys, that is powerful.

That is beautiful.

And I want to be like that.

I hope you want to be like that.

I want to live life forward.

I want to live life with the recognition that God is always up to something and He's way ahead of me.

Whatever I think could be possible, I mean, the Bible says God can do anything you know, far more than you could possibly think or imagine.

Ephesians chapter 3, right?

Ephesians 3 · chapter mention

One of the translations says he doesn't do that by pushing us around, but he does it by working in us and through us, his spirit deeply and gently within us.

Like God can do so much more than any of us can do, and he is thinking way ahead.

Like we're freaking out about next week or next year or next month, and he's like, oh yeah, that's taken care of.

I'm thinking 70 years from now.

That if you'll live for me, if you'll follow me, if you'll be true to me, if you will take your faith seriously and live life with the joy that comes from knowing the Lord, and let me be your hope and let me be your foundation, God is saying that your children, your grandchildren, they will be blessed.

There might be situations in your life, or in the the lives rather not your life, the lives of your grandchildren.

Think about this, what we read with David, where maybe they mess up and God is like, ooh, man, that was serious.

But because of your grandfather, because of your grandmother and their faith, for their sake, I'm gonna bless you.

I mean, come on.

Do you guys, I mean, just I I would love some.

Do you guys want that?

Do you guys want to have that be your legacy?

Like, does anyone want to have a life that actually outlives you?

Because it's a choice.

It's a simple choice.

Your life, its significance can either be about you or it can be about something far greater than you.

Just matters, just depends really on how you live it.

And so my prayer today is that our perspective will shift.

Not that you don't already have that perspective, it's just hard to because I mean, life happens every day to us.

And it tends to make our perspective very right and now, and God is always thinking forward.

And so my prayer today is that for myself, I would stop fixating on the here and now, and I would recognize that my decisions now have the ability to affect generations to come.

So do yours.

We're gonna take Lord's supper together.

If you're new to his hands, by the way, when you walked in uh this room, there were uh little cups with bread and juice on tables.

And if you missed those, you can go grab one right now at the back four columns, or just next week come back and take this with us.

But you're not bothering anybody by getting up and grabbing one.

Um, I love the fact that this little meal that represents Jesus' death on the cross, if you don't know the context, right before Jesus was arrested, he had a meal with his followers, and he took some bread and he broke it and handed it out.

He said that it represented his body that was about to be given up as a sacrifice.

He took some wine and he passed it around, he said, This represents my blood that he's gonna give as an offering to cover us from our sin.

And it's amazing how this meal, which we finish every Sunday with, it just always connects to what we're talking about.

I don't know, it's like God knows what he's doing.

You know, this was Jesus thinking way ahead.

I was talking to a young guy years ago who was struggling with the idea of being forgiven.

Some of us actually struggle with forgiveness and receiving forgiveness.

And he was like, Look, I didn't ask Jesus to die for me.

He'd done some things and he he was beating himself up pretty hard, but he was basically like, Look, I didn't ask Jesus to die for me.

And I was like, Yeah, but he did.

What are you gonna do about it?

Like, you he already did.

We take this meal every every week to thank him for what he's done, to recognize that if not for his sacrifice, if not for what he did for us, we couldn't, we couldn't hope to have a restored relationship with the God who created us.

We couldn't hope for our sins to be covered and forgiven completely.

There's just there's too many of them.

But before you other before you ever took a breath, before your parents took a breath, before your great-great-grandparents took a breath, this decision that Jesus made had already saved your soul.

Think about that.

Like God thinks multi-generationally, God thinks multi-millennia, I mean, whatever.

When Jesus did this, he thought of you, he prayed for you.

And so here we have the ultimate example of what it means to do something that might actually be painful right now, but has the ability to bless every generation after you.

It's a beautiful thing.

So, with that in mind, we're gonna take the bread, we're gonna pray.

Father God, we thank you for this bread and what it represents.

This is your body given up on the cross as a sacrifice.

Your sacrifice is a perfect sacrifice because you are perfect, Jesus.

And your perfection covers our imperfection.

Your perfection purchases, as your word says, purchases our right to be called sons and daughters of God.

Thank you for what you've done for us, Jesus.

Let's take the bread.

And now the juice.

Lord, we thank you for this cup.

This is your blood.

You gave it willingly and lovingly, and here we are, thousands of years later, and this decision still affects us.

It's just as powerful today as it was when you first did it.

And our lives are forever changed by it and blessed by it.

And Lord, as we take this, we thank you, and we also ask, Lord, that you give us that same perspective and you give us the ability to recognize that our decisions can echo way beyond our lifetimes.

So help us take that seriously and help us uh be encouraged and inspired to live differently because of how important our lives can be, just like yours.

And we pray this in your name, Jesus.

Amen.