"How To Leave A Godly Epitaph"

Hi there, this is Lon Solomon and I'd like to welcome you to our program today. You know it's a tremendous honor that God has given us to be on stations all around the nation bringing the truth of God's word as it is uncompromising and straightforward. And I'm so glad you've tuned in to listen and be part of that. Thanks again for your support and your generosity that keeps us on the radio.

And now, let's get to the Word of God. Last year my wife and I, Brenda, were down in New Orleans. We took a little tour of the city, one of these organized tours, and they took us to one of the graveyards there in the city of New Orleans.

I didn't know this, but you know they don't bury people underground in New Orleans because the water table is so high everybody gets buried above ground. So we went and we got off the little bus and we were walking around through this graveyard and the tour person was kind of talking a little bit and I kind of wandered off and started walking around looking at the tombstones. You ever do that in a graveyard? And looking at what's written on the tombstones? I mean if you ever got a free day and you don't really have anything to do, go find a graveyard, walk around and read the tombstones.

You say, that is so sick. No, honestly, really, it's an amazing thing because you know you can learn a lot by what's on a person's tombstone. People generally take the most significant, the most important thing that that person represented and that's what they put on their tombstone.

So it's interesting to read. There's some very humorous tombstones like this one. It says, here lies an atheist all dressed up and no place to go.

I thought that was pretty good. And then you have some that are chock full of meaning, you know, and really are just full of passion like the one that lies over top of the body of John Newton who wrote Amazing Grace, used to be a slave trader. Listen, he said, once an infidel and a libertine, a servant of slaves in Africa by the rich mercy of Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned and appointed to preach the faith he had long labored to destroy. Now that's a tombstone. The question I want to ask you this morning is if people were to sit down and write your epitaph, what would they say? I mean, what is it about your life that they would highlight? What is it about your life they would write on your tombstone? If right now you died, you were gone. They had to sum it all up and put it on your tombstone.

What would they put on there? Would it be a godly epitaph where they mentioned what a blessing you were or would it be like this one? Here lies the man who lived for himself and had no concern for how others fared. Suddenly he's dead and where he is now, nobody knows and nobody cares. I want to talk to you today about how you and I as Christians can leave a godly epitaph behind when we're gone, something that we would be proud to have people say about us at our funeral, something that we would be proud to have people write on our tombstone. And we're going to find how that can be done in a passage right here in 1 Samuel 11. Now remember we're in a series on the life of David. The problem is we haven't gotten to David yet. We're leading up to David. We're getting there. Trust me, we're getting there. But we're looking at the end of the life of the man Samuel, the great prophet of Israel, who in just a little while is going to anoint David as king over Israel. So let's look together.

Here we are, a little bit of background. Samuel had been leading the nation of Israel now his whole life. He'd been a good leader, a godly leader. Now that he was dying, the people wanted a king and he had appointed one, a man named Saul. And as we pick up the story, all of Israel is gathered together to have a coronation service for Saul. 1 Samuel 11, look at verse 14. Then Samuel said to all the people, come and let us go to Gilgal and there we will reaffirm this kingship. So all the people went to Gilgal and confirmed Saul as king in the presence of the Lord. And they sacrificed to the Lord and they had a big celebration there. But while they were there, this would be the last time that the prophet Samuel would ever have the whole nation gathered together in his presence. And so he took this opportunity to give a little farewell speech, a little look back speech, a little epitaph speech about his life.

Look what he said. Chapter 12, verse 1. And Samuel said to all Israel, I have listened to everything you've said to me and I've said a king over you. Now you have a king as your leader and as for me, I am old and gray. My sons are here with you. I have been your leader from my youth until this day. Here I stand.

Now watch what he said. He said, testify against me in the presence of the Lord and his anointed, the king. Whose ox have I taken? In all the years I've led you from being a young man to an old man, did I ever take an ox that I shouldn't have taken, Samuel said.

And he goes on to say, whose donkey have I taken? Whom have I cheated? Whom have I oppressed? From whose hand did I accept a bribe to make me shut my eyes?

If I've done any of these things in any of the years I've led you, you make it clear now and I'll make it right. And the people said, Samuel, you have not cheated us. You have not oppressed us.

You have not taken anything from anyone's hand. Samuel said to them, the Lord is witness against you this day that you have found nothing that I did wrong with my hand. And they said, yes, Samuel, the Lord is witness. You know what Samuel says here is not long and it's not wordy, but man is it powerful because here, here we have a Christian leader who lived a life of integrity and humility and honor and honesty and authenticity. And the whole nation knew it.

The whole nation said, yes, that's right. This has been a decent man. This has been an honorable man who has led us.

There's not a thing in all those years we can point to and say, you did a dishonorable thing, Samuel. You know, folks in our world and our day and our age, Christian leaders, we're a joke. I mean, everybody from Jay Leno to Saturday Night Live makes fun of Christian leaders. And, you know, I'm not saying that, frankly, we don't deserve some of this. We do, because when we as Christians go out and we present Jesus Christ to an unbelieving world, they expect us to live lives that back up our message. They should expect that.

And when we don't live lives like that, they're going to laugh us out of town. May I say, if you're here today and you've never trusted Christ as your savior, one of the greatest objections I ever hear to people giving their life to Christ is, well, I knew a Christian once and they yada, yada, yada, yada, and because they did that, I'm now interested in being a Christian. Wait a minute. Folks, the trustworthiness of Christianity is not based upon the fact that Jesus has perfect followers.

He doesn't. It's based upon the fact that Jesus is a perfect savior. We are not perfect followers, no matter how hard we try. And if you wait to find a perfect follower of Jesus before you're going to believe, you're never going to believe. If we were perfect, we wouldn't have needed a savior to start with ourselves. What you need to be looking at is whether or not there's a perfect savior leading the band, not whether everybody marching in it is perfect. We'll admit we're not perfect, but I don't think you can find anything wrong with the leader, Jesus. So be careful now.

Don't just decide that Christianity isn't trustworthy because you met an untrustworthy Christian. And this is the great part about Samuel. Look at this.

After years of leading Israel, after years of having his life inspected with a fine-tooth comb by the pickiest people in the world, he's able to say what he says here in 1 Samuel 12, and the amazing part is everybody agrees with him and says, Samuel, you have been a decent man. You're right. Man, what a way to finish your life, huh? I'm always telling my children, and I wouldn't keep telling them if they'd ever listen. You know what I'm saying?

You know how that works. I'd stop if they listen. They go, why don't you stop saying this?

I go, why don't you listen? And then we go around again. But anyway, what I'm always telling my sons is, hey, fellas, they don't give out gold medals at the beginning of the race. They give them out at the end. They hand them out at the finish line because everybody can start well. It doesn't take anybody special to start a race well. It takes a special person to finish a race well, a person who's been willing to come up with the stamina, the integrity, the commitment, the persistence, the tenacity, and the grit to carry it all the way to the finish line.

That's why they give the medals out there. Fellas, don't be like the Titanic, huh? Halfway across is not good enough. Titanic had a great start, but the end left a little to be desired. Don't be a Titanic. If you want to start well, that's fine. But you know what? I'd much prefer you to start tough, but finish well. Finish well.

That's what this is all about. Here we've got a godly man who successfully finished well. What a great testimony to be able to stand up and say, did I ever do anything wrong to you people and have the people say, Samuel, you were a man of God. Now, that's the end of our passage, but it leads us to ask the really important question, and what's the really important question? So what? Lon, never been to New Orleans, never walked a graveyard, never met Samuel, don't know where his tombstone is. So what?

What difference does this make? You hear the story about the guy who went in to see this spiritualist because he wanted to know whether or not there were golf courses in heaven. And so he says, hey, are there any golf courses in heaven? She goes, I don't know.

I've never been asked that before. She said, well, can you give me a week to work on it? And he said, sure, I'll come back.

So he comes back in a week and he says, well, did you find anything? She said, yeah. She said, I got good news and bad news for you.

Which do you want first? He said, give me the good news. She said, the good news is there are golf courses in heaven. She said the fairways are long and luscious. The greens are gorgeous. They said the clubhouse is elaborate, immaculate. It's fabulous. He says, that's great.

So what's the bad news? She said, you tee off Wednesday at two o'clock. Now, here's the question. If somebody told you you were teeing off Wednesday at two o'clock and asked you to write an epitaph for your own life, what would you write? In other words, if somebody said, hey, your tee time's two o'clock Wednesday. So before you go, we'd like you to give a little speech to us and sum up your life for us.

Like Samuel did. What would you say? What would you pick out in your life to talk about? Would you pick out your political power? Would you pick out how much money you'd made? Would you pick out where your career had gone? Would you pick out what possessions you had when you left? Would you pick out, you know, what you shoot in golf? I mean, what would you pick out?

You ever thought about that? You know, what's really interesting is what Samuel picked out. Samuel knows his life's almost over.

You know, isn't it interesting what he picked out to talk about? Samuel was a big shot. Samuel was the religious leader of the whole nation of Israel, God's people. Did he talk about that?

No. Samuel was a political heavyweight. The political future of the whole nation was in his hands his whole life. He was the political leader recognized throughout the whole nation of Israel. Did he talk about his political power? No.

Samuel was a real man of God. Do you realize he talked to God personally face to face all the time? I've never done that. You ever done that?

That's pretty big. Did he talk about that? No. Isn't it interesting Samuel, given the chance to look back on his life, didn't talk about any of this stuff? You know what he talked about? Look, he simply talked about being a servant. He said, I've served you my whole life from the time I was a kid to the time I'm an old man. Didn't take your donkeys, didn't take your oxes, didn't take bribes, didn't cheat anybody, didn't oppress anybody. All I did, folks, is be a humble, honest, put your needs ahead of my own needs. Do it in the name of God's servant. And if you're going to remember me in any way, just remember me like that.

Isn't that interesting that's what he picked to talk about? Friend, my Christian friend, I submit to you that if you want to leave this kind of impact behind, if this is the kind of epitaph that you want, instead of having somebody write on your tombstone, nobody knows and nobody cares where they are. Then Samuel and Paul have given us the secret how to make this kind of impact. They've told us. Nobody's going to kiss us and weep over us and grieve that they'll never see our face again because we were a big shot. Nobody's going to weep over us being gone because we wore designer clothes or drove expensive cars or belong to the country club or lived in a well decorated home or had our picture in the post-business section or played scratch golf. That is nobody knows and nobody cares territory. That's what they write on your tombstone.

They don't care. But it's when we touch people's lives with love and compassion and caring and prayer and genuine concern. This is how we create a godly epitaph for our life. This is how we leave a godly impact in our wake. And this is only accomplished by being a servant. Isn't it interesting that both Paul and Samuel, given the chance to comment on what they thought was the most significant thing in their whole life? The thing they both commented on is that they have been servants to people.

You said, well, Lon, I understand what you're saying. How do you be a good servant? I mean, put some handles on this for it.

Make us practical for it. Let me do it in the last couple of minutes I've got. What are the three elements that go into being a great servant? Can I give them to you real quick?

Here they are. Number one, integrity. Integrity.

Look what Samuel, remember what he said. He said, I haven't cheated anybody. I haven't oppressed anybody. I didn't take your donkey. I didn't take your oxen. I didn't take a bribe.

I never took advantage of anybody. Paul right here said, I didn't covet your silver. I didn't covet your gold.

And I didn't covet your clothes. These men were not men that fleece the sheep. They were not here to see what they could get from people. They were here to see what they could give to people. They were men of integrity and they didn't use the opportunity they had as leaders to take advantage of their people for their own personal gain. But they were men of integrity who said, our goal is not to take from our people. It's to give to our people.

That's a servant. Integrity. You're not there to get.

You're there to give. Number two, humility. Humility. Isn't it interesting that Paul didn't consider himself above making tents? Isn't it interesting that Paul didn't consider himself too good to work with his own hands and earn a living? I'm the apostle Paul. I'm the bishop or the archbishop or the cardinal. Can't be the pope.

Peter has that. But whatever. I'm up there and I don't work with my hands. He could have said to these people, friends, manual labor. Don't you understand who you're talking to here? I am the apostle Paul.

Go around, start churches, do that thing, you know. I don't work with my hands. Is this Paul?

No. Paul worked all day, not only for himself, but he paid for everybody in his troop. And then stayed up to who knows what time at night doing the work of God. This was a humble man. This was a man who was willing to do the hard grunt work that it takes to be a servant. And if a person, you or I are going to be a good servant, it's going to take the same kind of humility and the same kind of willingness to do the grunt work. Listen, there is nothing glamorous about being a servant.

Get it out of your mind. Servanthood is just plain old fashioned hard work. Moms and dads who serve their kids by going out and earning a living and washing their clothes and fixing their meals and running the carpools, there's no glamor to this. This is just hard work.

Sunday school teachers and children's workers who prepare lessons and come in and go into a room with 35 two-year-olds, there is no glamor to 35 two-year-olds, folks, trust me. This is hard work. Bible study leaders who go home and study for hours during the week so they can come in and lead a Bible study of maybe a half an hour and be a blessing to people. Don't glamor to being the Bible study leader. It's a lot of hard work. Small group leaders who are there for people in their group on the telephone till two in the morning at the hospital visiting their family in crisis.

This is not glamorous. This is hard work. And a servant is a person who says, hey, I'm willing to do the grunt work it takes to serve people in the name of Jesus Christ. Integrity, humility, one more, last one, generosity. Generosity. See, a servant has a certain perspective on the money and the material things God gives them.

And their perspective is this. God didn't give me this to spend it all on myself. God gave me this to be a blessing to other people. Paul says that right here.

Look with me. Look at verse 35. Paul says in everything I did, I left you an example that by hard work, we need to help the weak. Remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, it's more blessed to give than receive. Now, in talking about helping the weak, I don't believe Paul's talking about giving them his time and his energy. I think he's talking about giving them money. I think here was a man who went out all day, worked hard, made money, paid his bills, his friends' bills, and then gave money away to weak people, indigent people, poor people.

They're in emphasis. Friends, that's the heart of a servant. You want to be a servant?

Let me tell you how you do it. You have integrity. You're not there to get.

You're there to give. Don't fleece people when you're given an opportunity to have some leadership. Serve them. Second of all, humility. It's grunt work, folks.

If you think it's different, you don't understand servanthood. But you're willing to do it in the name of God. And third, generosity. God didn't give you everything he gave you to use on you.

He gave you to use it to serve people. You say, Lon, you know what? We love you. God bless you.

You're the sweetest thing. You know, God bless you, man. But you know, you're totally out of touch, friend. You can't go out in the world and live like this.

Are you nuts? This is a lock and load world, buddy. You walk out there and live like this, they will eat you for lunch. I mean, this is great church talk.

But this doesn't work. I mean, you know, this is stupid out there. People kill you for living like that out there. Dumb.

Well, I don't believe that. I don't believe Jesus would ever tell us to live dumb. I don't think the world is any more lock and load today than it was in Jesus's day. You remember, they had the Roman army that just kind of whacked people's heads off.

That's pretty lock and load. But look around and see who is it that our world idolizes if you don't believe that this is the right way to live. Look around and see who our world considers its greatest heroes.

Who are they? How about Mother Teresa? Talk about a servant. The world loves this woman. Did you read down now in Texas, they're making nun buns. They're making these little buns. And the icing is in the shape of Mother Teresa's face. Did you read about this?

It's pretty cool. Billy Graham. Hey, the world loves Billy Graham, even though he preaches the gospel, because here is a man that for his whole life has been a genuine servant and Martin Luther King Jr., regardless of what you may have heard or may think about his personal life.

And I certainly don't know what the facts are or aren't. This is a man who served his people with everything he had. And people love this man. Gandhi. I'm not in favor of Gandhi's theology. But you go to India and these people idolize this man.

Why? Because he served his people. And we've got Abraham Lincoln and George Washington and Florence Nightingale, the founder of the Red Cross. These were not lock and load wizards, friends. These were servants and they are the greatest heroes in our culture.

Don't tell me, don't tell me that you can't live like this and have people respect you for doing it. I don't believe it. And I believe as Christians, this is God's dream, God's goal for you and me, that we embrace the role of being servants to other people in Jesus name. That's God's heart for us, because that's what Jesus was.

Didn't he say, I did not come to be served, but to serve? Hey, I'll close by telling you, I was out on the West Coast a while back and I was talking to a guy about possibly joining our staff. Great guy. I love this guy. Great communicator. Great leader. I just love this guy.

He's all over the world talking, preaching. And as we were talking, he said to me, he said, you know, Lon, he said, you know, all of the things considered, you know, a lot of good things you're saying. He said, but, you know, I just don't know if I could come to one place and be with one group of people like all the time.

You know, you with the same group of people all the time. I said, well, OK, let me ask you a question. OK, we're sitting here at a restaurant. I said, let's say you got something stuck in your throat. I tried the Heimlich maneuver.

We couldn't get it out. You die. OK, right here on the spot. How many of these people from all over the world that you fly around speaking to and impressing, how many of these people you think would get on a plane and fly here and go to your funeral? He said, well, I don't know.

Probably not that many. I said, well, then I think you've got a problem. Because people, other than the fact, I mean, there's a few people who go to a funeral because they feel like they're obligated to, but people who go because they want to only go for one reason. And that's because you've touched their lives. You've made a difference in their lives. And what you're telling me is, with all your speaking and all your traveling and all your sermons, you haven't made that much impact on that many people's lives. And I'll tell you why that's true. It's because to do that, you've got to stay somewhere and you've got to serve people and you've got to be there for people.

And you can't just go running around in and out of airports two days here, two days there. You've got to be somewhere and you've got to put it on the line for people, man. I think that's what it's all about. It's all about serving people and making a difference in their lives. And that's what God wants for you.

It's what he wants for me. Integrity, humility, generosity. That's what it means. And wouldn't it be great if somebody wrote on your tombstone, hey, we wept because we knew we'd never see her face again and she meant so much to us.

Boy, that's the way to end your life. May God help us all live in such a way that we can. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for reminding us today that the world's propaganda is a lie, that lock and load wizards are not the people who make a difference in this world. But humble, godly servants make a difference. And I want to pray, Lord Jesus, that you would change the way we see our lives, our agendas in life. Help us, Lord, to change the way we see our purpose for being here.

That you didn't leave us here to be lock and load, roll over people, take advantage of others, get ahead wizards. But you left us here to be servants of others in the name of Jesus. And I pray, Father, you would convince us that if we'll live this way, not only will the world respect us, but far more importantly, you will honor and bless our lives. So use the Word of God to change the way we think and the way we live today and make us servants for Jesus' sake. I pray in His name.

Amen. You've been listening to So What with Dr. Lon Solomon. So What is an outreach of Lon Solomon Ministries. To listen to today's message or for more information, visit our website, lonsolomonministries.org. Thank you for your support. If you would like to contact us, please visit our website or call us at 866-788-7770. We hope you will join us next time when Lon seeks to answer one of life's most important questions, So What.