What are you living for?
It’s the question we’re always answering at every moment. What we are living for and what we give our life to will be our legacy. Our legacy is what we will have done with our lives. How did we love others? How did we care for our families? What did we do with the gifts that God gave us? How did we make our lives count, not for our fame, but for God’s?
This is the question that Pastor Mark puts forward in the first week of our Malachi: Living for a Legacy series.
Many of us struggle with the idea of living for a legacy. We think of the awful family we had growing up and can’t imagine how life could be different in the future. Maybe we still hold on to the old hurts and pains; they have become moments that define who we believe we are and always will be. Some simply don’t believe that life matters beyond the moment and living for the weekend is all that really makes sense. For others there is an ambition to make our own name great and accomplish all we can in this world so that we won’t be forgotten—that with enough occupational and societal success we will be able to overcome the silence of the grave.
God shows us in the book of Malachi that we have a heavenly Father who is deeply involved with our lives and cares greatly how they turn out. And because of his great love for us we are free to live lives that count and truly matter. Pastor Mark highlights in Malachi 1:1–5 that a godly legacy starts with continually remembering how greatly God has loved us (Mal. 1:2).
Here are some of the things we must battle through and return to God’s love for us that Pastor Mark taught on:
- The hurts that we have caused or have been done to us are absorbed by God.
- All of life is a gift. God does not owe us anything and all that we have is more than we deserve
- Our circumstances or feelings are not the true measurement of God’s love for us. Rather, Jesus and his life, death, and resurrection are.
- Our Father is greater than we feel and we are worse than we fear.
The bottom line is that because of Jesus’ legacy you have a legacy. Because of Jesus’ life, your life can now count for an eternity. In fact, there is a legacy that God has crafted for you and he has already orchestrated the good works he wants you to accomplish (Eph. 2:10). This should be freeing because it tells us that whether we are the first Christian in our family legacy or part of a linage of Jesus followers, he is the link that holds us all together as he makes our lives count.
Maybe some of you, like me, are a continuation of a legacy that was started generations ago. For others, maybe you’re the very first in your family to have a relationship with Jesus and your life and family (present or future) will mark a new legacy starting. No matter who you are, no matter how young or old, regardless of background, this series will be critical as we think about the future of Christianity in and through our families, community, and church.
For more information on what we, as a church, are doing to further the legacy of the gospel and how to participate, visit marshill.com/legacy.
Pastor Ryan Kearns is the Director of Community Groups for Mars Hill Church. Each week, he writes a post about the sermon to aid discussion in your Community Group. This is part one from the Malachi series.
