What Is Your Legacy? (Part 1 of 3)

Life is Short What is Your Legacy? Verse 1, In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, and in view who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge. Preach the word, be prepared in season and out of season, correct, rebuke, and encourage, with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.

They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry. For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight.

I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing. Amen. Now, just a brief prayer together.

God our Father, with our Bibles open before us, we pray that you will be our teacher. It's such a futile prospect to spend all this time simply listening to a relatively knowledgeable fellow speaking with emphasis. We don't want that.

We don't have time for that. We do believe that when your Word is truly preached that your voice is really heard. That's the voice we're listening for. So speak then, in certain cases as if there was no one else in the room but ourselves. Speak to our waiting hearts.

For Jesus' sake. Amen. A week passed on Friday evening. I spent part of the evening as the shadows began to fall. It was still daylight, but the sun was down in the sky. And I went to a seat that has become one of my seats now, when I think of places that I like to go and sit.

This is one of them. It's in the graveyard of St. Peter's Anglican Church in Addingham, Yorkshire. It's a wooden bench that was left as a memorial to somebody, and it's down at the end of a long pathway that is essentially a corridor in between some ancient tombstones. And I sat there last Friday evening purposefully, listening to the choir, trying to get itself organized for Sunday, and also waiting for the bell to toll in the clock tower above me, and seizing the opportunity to move amongst the tombstones in the graveyard, and because to reflect upon the very transience of life and its frailty, not out of a desire to be morbid, not out of any feelings of melancholy at all, simply as an opportunity to recalibrate things. I like to listen to the bell ring.

I like it when it rings, just one stroke on the quarter of an hour, a little more on the half hour, and then dings out the hours, peeling out over the thoroughfares of life and over the occasions of men and women's scurryings here and there, and marking the fact that our times are going by, reminding us that our lives are like a morning mist, that as I arrived this morning in the earlier hours was over the golf course here as we came down Pettibone Road, but I can guarantee has long since passed. That, says James, is what our lives are like. And while we know that the future comes in at the rate of sixty seconds a minute, the fact is that the older we get, the faster time seems to go by. I don't fully understand that.

I've been thinking about it this week. I don't know whether there's anything in the notion that when you're five years old and you have another birthday and you turn six, a fifth of your life has just gone by—twenty percent of everything you've known so far. But when you're fifty years old and a year goes by, only two percent of all that you've known has hastened past. And there is something about the reality of death and its prospect which brings clarity to the living of life. Strangely enough, that is one of the reasons that we want to steal ourselves against the prospect of death, because most of us do not want to think seriously about the issues of life. We want to live as if there was no yesterday and no tomorrow coming, and we can live simply in the moment for the now and squeeze all the juice out of it that we can, and then we'll deal with tomorrow should it ever come.

But when we think for a moment or two, we realize that that is unrealistic. Because very soon the camping trip of life is going to be over. The tent is going to be folded up—that's our bodies—and packed away, and we will head for an eternal dwelling, which the Bible says will either be in the presence of Christ, which is heaven, or absent the presence of Christ, which is hell. And in the meantime, as we walk this earthly sod, each one of us is leaving a legacy. Leaving a legacy. And I want to talk to you this morning about the legacy that you and I are leaving.

The Bible is replete with information regarding this—not in this striking way that it is put down, but nevertheless, you turn, for example, to the life of Jacob in Genesis, and he says to those around him, I am about to be gathered to my people. Therefore, come here. I want to bestow my blessing on you, and I want to give you my instructions. Joseph pulls his feet up on the bed, and he says, I am about to die. Therefore, listen very carefully to what it is I have to say. Peter, writing his second letter, says, The time has come when I will fold up this tent of my life, and that's why while I lived I wanted to refresh your memory, so that when I am now gone you will be able to bring to mind all the things that I have told you. In other words, that his legacy will live on in the lives of those who come after him.

And the exact same thing for Paul here in the sixth verse of 2 Timothy 4. I am, he says in the present tense, already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. The word there is analucis. It is the word that is used for unyoking oxen at the end of a hard day's work in the fields. It is the word used for striking camp and going home to a permanent dwelling.

It is the word used for weighing anchor and heading now finally to our destination. That, says Paul, is what is about to be my experience. And in light of that, he is concerned that Timothy will understand his legacy.

Now, I'm using the phrase legacy, or the word legacy, in its figurative sense, not in its literal legal sense—which, of course, is the bequeathing of money or property via a will or a last will and testament—but rather in a more figurative fashion, simply using it to designate something that is handed down to those who follow. So many things have come across my path in these last nine days to arrest me in this issue of a legacy that it is incumbent upon me to convey it to you. Little things. Simple things. The kind of things that have happened to you this last week. Nothing that is unique to me, as if somehow or another I would teach from my own experience, not for a moment. Things like this.

Invited for lunch on Wednesday to the Glass House, near the home of William Wordsworth, of old. There with good friends from the past who tell me that their son will be joining us. And so he does. And Ronnie arrives in the company of his wife, Elspeth, and in the company of a little bundle this size, eight-and-a-half months old, called Fiona. Beautiful blue eyes, big cheeks, and her hair scented with Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo.

You know, that distinctive baby smell. And so I took this little bundle in my arms, and I held her up close to me. I looked at her fingers.

I sniffed her hair. And in doing so, I looked across her tiny frame into the eyes of her father, thinking, her father? Ronnie's a father? Ronnie was this high when Sue and I went to Hamilton. He used to come by after school in his shorts with his school cap on, looking for a biscuit or looking for a drink of orange juice.

And now he's a father, and he has Fiona, and he's supposed to look after his wife. Am I really getting that old? Is the time going through my fingers this fast? So by the appearance of some, and by the departure of others, this has struck me. When I speak at Keswick, I take my J.B. Phillips New Testaments.

I have two of them. And I have people sign in them—my colleagues in ministry, my mentors in ministry, perhaps would be better to say. And I have there, for example, Keswick 98, and then they all sign their names on Friday morning.

And as I went around the circle, and in some cases at the breakfast table, and said, Would you please sign this for me? My eyes looked not only at their signature, but my eyes looked across at the last Keswick I attended, which was 93. And there are the names of people who are no longer present. Last time I was there, they signed. This time, they're gone. What have they left? A legacy. Names that are irrelevant to you. Even if I mentioned them, it wouldn't mean anything.

I could spend a long time impressing the people on you, but it really wouldn't matter that much. But the fragrancy of their legacy stirs my heart. You see, our lives this morning, loved ones, are like an artist's canvas on which we are painting every day that we live.

Sometimes dark strokes, sometimes bold, sometimes thin lines. But all of our lives as they unfold are increasingly becoming the canvas of who we are and what we are. And we will eventually create a picture which we will walk away and leave behind. And people will look, as it were, at that, and that will be the legacy that we have left to them. And the striking thing is this, that none of us know when we have put the last brushstroke on the canvas. None of us know when we have made that most familiar journey for the last time.

None of us know if there will be opportunity for another hello or for another hug goodbye or for another telephone call. Therefore, the issue of a legacy is not something for people with gray hair and who've been around for a hundred years. Teenagers in our church have left their legacy to us.

Children have left a legacy to us. Now, we could go to any part of the Bible and illustrate this, but I want to illustrate it from 2 Timothy, the reason being that I had to teach 2 Timothy all the way through the last five days in England. And therefore, it is most upon my heart, it's most familiar to me. And I want, therefore, to use the verses there as a means of guiding our thought. In coming to this, let me say that relationships are seldom neutral.

There are those in whose company we are strengthened and encouraged, and there are others who are frankly a drain on our resources, and they tempt us to falter and to quit. And when we look at old photograph albums and we see certain people's faces, very often we will immediately have a thought that comes to mind. There will in some cases be a phrase that is directly related to that face. You can't see that face, but you say that. You can't see that face, but you relate it to this. Because just to look at that is to bring back a whole kaleidoscope of memories which are directly related to the individual who is there. Now, while there are no pictures in the Bible in terms of photographs, the Bible is full of pictures that are here in literary form. And as we leaf through these pictures, as it were, we see the legacy that these individuals have left—some harmful and some helpful.

So we're going to look at harmful, then we'll look at helpful, and then we'll draw it to a close by saying, So what is ours going to be? Incidentally, another thing that triggered me in this direction was a gentleman who came up to me and said he had something for me, and he had a large frame that was wrapped in more of that bubble stuff than was ever necessary. But he wanted to protect it, and I understood why. Because when I unveiled what he had given me, I discovered that what he had given me was a picture taken probably around 1958 or 1959 in the church in Glasgow where I was brought up as a small boy. And it was a picture of an evening attendance with 2,200 people in this auditorium, and apparently I am somewhere in that picture. But it's like, Where's Waldo? And I took it back to my room, and my arms are not long enough to find myself in the picture.

And I need a magnifying glass. But I looked through it, and I could see, Oh, there's Mr. Clark! He was the leader of the junior choir. He was a nice man, I found myself saying.

Oh, there's John Moore, who wrote Burdens Are Lifted at Calvary. He was a kind man, I found myself saying. Oh, look at her, I said.

I'd forgotten about her. And so I went through as many as I could. And in every case, every picture tells a story.

Your picture is telling a story. Now, let's just look at those who left a harmful legacy here in 2 Timothy. I don't want to belabor the point. I just want to draw your attention to them, and you can follow this up with your own homework. This is a sort of thumbnail sketch.

It's not an in-depth study. Verse 15 of chapter 1, we have these two characters, Phygelus and Hermogenes. Imagine having only one mention in the whole of the Bible, and this is it. You only get one line in the Bible, and you're in there as a deserter. That's your legacy. Hey, good news, Phygelus. You're in Paul's second letter to Timothy. I am! Yes, bad news.

You're in as a deserter. Whoa. See? Because you can only write, if you're going to be true, what is true. And if Paul had written about Phygelus and Hermogenes and said, I'm so thankful for our Phygelus and Hermogenes, and he made up a bunch of baloney about them, the people who read the letter said, that's bogus. Why would he even say that about these characters? These characters were worthless. They bailed on Paul. Why would he do that? He couldn't do it.

It was his legacy. Phygelus and Hermogenes. They deserted me. They were one of a larger group, but maybe they were the ringleaders. Go to the 17th verse of chapter 2, and you have Hymenaeus and Philetus. Not described in the most glowing terms, I think you will admit. Their teaching will spread like gangrene, like sepsis from a wound.

Ugly, disgusting thought. And among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have wandered away from the truth. When you're around these people, they give you blood poisoning, he says. That's their legacy.

Anybody that comes in contact with them has to have pieces of themselves chopped off. Demas, chapter 4 and verse 10. Do your best to come to me quickly, says to Timothy, for Demas has deserted me.

Legacy. Demas deserted. What about Alexander in verse 14? Alexander, the metal worker, did me a great deal of harm.

We don't know what he did to him. Except we know that it was somehow related to the cause of the gospel. It's not a personality issue. It's not that Paul is concerned that, you know, Alexander didn't like his preaching or didn't think he was that good of a pastor or didn't like him for some personality venture.

Who cares about that stuff? No, no, he says, Alexander did me a great deal of harm, and you should be on your guard against him, because he strongly opposed the message. That's the issue, you see. Paul's great concern is that the legacy of the gospel will be passed, like the passing of a baton in a relay race in those, what is it? What do you have, 20 meters there or 15 meters in that box?

I don't know what you have. It's a short distance, and you've got to get it out of your hands and into their hands, and if you don't do it then, it doesn't go. Or if you drop it then, it doesn't go.

And there's little time to drop it and pick it up, as many of us have found, to a great disappointment. And when he thought in terms of that and he brought Alexander's picture up to mind, he said, he harmed me. And what about the crowd in verse 16? At my first defense, no one came to my support.

No one came to my support. Is that a dreadful thing to have in your recollection? You go back through your journal, as it were. Do you keep a journal? Don't let anyone else read it. No one will be interested, first of all, and probably you've got stuff in there they shouldn't read in any case, at least not until you've been dead for long enough for them to sort of revere your memory.

But if you go back through your journal, and I've kept a journal over many years now, you go back in there and you bring pictures to mind and you say, you know, just when I needed the encouragement, no one came to support me. Just when this guy needed help, no one was there. Why was that? Because they all united against him. They said, now, don't anybody go and help Paul? And they sent word around, probably not.

I think it's more likely that it happened like this. Everybody sitting there said, someone else will support him. Someone else will do it. Someone else will be there. It's not important that I'm there. Someone else will carry it out.

And the result of thinking like that was that no one supported him. Oh, someone else will go to the service. They don't really need me. Do you realize that every single one of you thinks someone else will go to the evening service tonight?

There'll be nobody at the evening service. So the legacy of this crowd was harmed. You're listening to Alistair Begg, and this is Truth for Life. Our message today is a reminder that all of us leave a legacy. If you're a parent or a grandparent, you know that the greatest legacy we can leave to our children or grandchildren is a love for God and his word.

And that starts when they're very young. So to help you begin that conversation with a preschooler or an early elementary age child, we want to recommend a book titled The God Contest. This is a book that retells the Old Testament story about Elijah and his challenge to determine who is the real God.

Is it Baal or is it Yahweh, the God of Israel? The book The God Contest contains bright, colorful illustrations and expressive characters. It will capture the attention of your child as you lead them from Elijah's contest on Mount Carmel to Jesus' ultimate victory on Mount Zion. They'll be encouraged to cheer for the winning team. In fact, if you look closely, you might just recognize the legacy of Christian writers, missionaries, and heroes of the faith who are a part of Team Jesus. We're convinced that your kids and grandkids will love hearing this story, and you'll love reading it to them.

It's a great reminder of how wonderful, how powerful, and how real God is. That's exactly the kind of legacy we want to pass down. Request your copy of The God Contest when you give a gift of any amount. Just go to truthforlife.org slash donate and tap the image in the app. Or if you'd prefer, you can call us.

Our number is 888-588-7884. And if you'd like to dive deeper into Alistair's full sermons, you might be interested to know you can follow along with the written transcripts as well. You'll find hundreds of sermon transcripts when you go online to truthforlife.org.

That link takes you directly to our homepage. You'll immediately see the image of each day's message. To the right, you'll see the transcript prompt.

When you select it, you're able to view the transcript and scroll through the text as you listen to the sermon. I'm Bob Lapine. What if your epitaph was written tonight? That's the question Alistair asks as he continues his message tomorrow. I hope you can join us then. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.