What is the most important thing in your life; relationships, career, your health, or faith? What often doesn’t make a list is your legacy. Legacy is the story of your life that lives beyond you, and everyone is in the process of creating and leaving a legacy. The question is not, “Will you leave one?” but “What kind of legacy will you leave?” It’s what we’ll talk about this Sunday.
NEXT STEPS
If you’ve driven the 405 freeway through Los Angeles, you’ve probably seen the Getty Center up on the hill.
It’s an incredible 1.3-billion-dollar facility dedicated to the legacy of creative endeavors of artists, from ancient to contemporary.
I have wanted to visit for a long, long time, not because I’m a connoisseur of art, but simply because the place looked amazing from the 405.
I finally went with three of my kids a few years ago, and it did not disappoint—room after room of art spanning from the Middle Ages to the early twentieth century.
If you ever have the opportunity, go!
The Getty Center is the legacy of industrialist and art collector J. Paul Getty.
But it’s not his only legacy.
He spent his life amassing an oil fortune and, for a time, was the richest man in the world.
Maybe you’ve seen “All the Money in The World,” a movie based on the 1973 kidnapping of Getty’s 16-year-old grandson.
It’s estimated that he was worth 2 billion dollars at the time of the kidnapping. That’d be $12 billion today, which sounds unimpressive compared to the wealthiest today.
He refused to pay the 17-million-dollar ransom demand, instead saying he’d pay a ransom up to a tax-deductible amount.
When his youngest son was battling cancer at 12 years old, Getty complained about the amount of his medical bills.
He was a man who lived with anything he wanted, but also in isolation, estranged from family, paranoid about his safety.
Getty died in a 72-room mansion alone.
At the end of his life, it was said he had done everything possible to earn his reputation as mean, arrogant, and a cheapskate.
That’s also a legacy.
What will people say about you? The impact your life will have had?
I think about this in the context of my marriage, my kids, my work.
How will I be remembered? How do I want to be remembered?
Beyond inheritances, genetic dispositions, baldness possibly, your legacy is what lives beyond you.
Here’s another truth; legacy is a choice.
Your legacy is your choice. It’s a matter of what you choose to focus your life on.
Legacies don’t just happen. They’re being made every day with every decision and action of our lives.
It’s funny; usually, it’s as you approach the end of life that you begin to think about this, yet at that point, legacy is pretty much set.
What if we learned to approach every day, every decision, every action as a line being written in the story of our legacy?
That’s what we’re going to look at today.
Whether intentional or unintentional, focus steers the course and direction of your Actions, and over time, those actions create the legacy that lives beyond you.
Focus … Actions … Legacy.
All three are found together in the Gospel of Mark, one of the four written accounts of Jesus’ life.
Here’s where we start:
(Mark 14:1-2)
Now the Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread were only two days away, and the chief priests and the teachers of the law were scheming to arrest Jesus secretly and kill him. “But not during the festival,” they said, “or the people may riot.”
It’s just before Passover in Jerusalem, which is a celebration of God delivering the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt.
It’s estimated there could have been two and a half million people there. The city was packed!
Jesus is there, and the religious leaders are out for Him, they’re done with this troublemaker from Nazareth
They know to arrest Jesus could provoke a riot. Just days before, when Jesus arrived in Jerusalem, it was like a ticker-tape parade by the people welcoming in a new king.
There was an intense nationalist feeling amid the Roman occupation.
The emperor had stationed extra troops within the city to deal with anything that got out of hand.
The religious leaders know they are walking a tightrope.
Their Focus was self.
Jesus was a threat to their religious system and their control over the people.
He was talking about a relationship with God rather than a religion about God.
His teachings had been dismantling their authority, status, and affluence. He was upsetting the status quo.
Religion had become a source of position, power, prestige, and Jesus threatened all of it.
All the way back to the creation account, the temptation that brought sin into the human experience was, “you will be like God.”
Don’t YOU want this?
Sin, by nature, is selfish. All sin is choosing to give into something that you want, that you feel serves you at that moment.
We’re born with a bias in our soul—a predisposition to self-centeredness, self-absorption, self-indulgence, and self-destruction.
This is the battle of all battles, where we experience our most significant victories and our worst defeats.
They start putting together a secret strategy to arrest Jesus before anyone knew anything about it.
The word used here means trickery, using bait, and deception. Exactly what you’d expect from the leaders representing God, right?
I hope not!
They sent an innocent man to a gruesome execution.
Their focus drove their actions which determined their legacy.
Their legacy was death.
The historical record shows their hatred for Jesus, and this group of religious, God-fearing experts, are known for killing the Son of God.
Life has been so about you that people near you have become nothing but tools to achieve your success, bystanders in the drive for career advancement, an annoyance to be tolerated, or worse, eliminated.
Your wake may not have led to the physical death of someone, but you’ve burned bridges, lost relationships, pushed God into a deep, dark corner of your life, or completely out.
It’s not too late to change your focus, choose different actions, and create a better legacy.
(Mark 14:3-5)
While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head.
Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, “Why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the poor.” And they rebuked her harshly.
But Jesus is at his home in Bethany, which is also the hometown of Lazarus, Mary, and Martha.
Those names might be familiar to you.
Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead.
Mary and Martha are probably best known for time spent with Jesus, Martha working to prepare the perfect meal, Mary sitting at his feet listening to his every word.
It’s believed the woman who came was this Mary.
She breaks a jar of “very expensive perfume” and pours it over his head.
As John tells the story in his account of Jesus’ life, she pours it all the way down to his feet and then wipes it with her hair.
Is it possible to give too much to the person you love?
Roman Abramovich, the owner of the Chelsea Football Club (that’s soccer for us in America), gifted a bronze sculpture to his former wife worth $14 billion, which was given, he said, to keep a smile on her face. I’m assuming by the “former” before “wife,” it didn’t work, and by the look of the sculpture, that makes sense.
If that wasn’t enough, he has also gifted her some paintings that cost about $120 million.
Too much? He had it, and he wanted to give it.
You might look at Mary’s actions and think, “ok, kinda weird, don’t want anyone pouring an entire bottle of perfume on my head anytime soon.”
But in the Jewish culture of the first century, this had beautiful significance.
It was the custom to pour a few drops of perfume on a guest when they arrived or sat down to a meal.
But she broke the jar and poured it all out. Why?
*Maybe she broke it so all of it would be used, none would be left.
There was another custom in the East that if a distinguished guest used a glass, it was broken so that it would never again be touched by the hand of any lesser person. Maybe there was some of that in her mind.
*Maybe she had been reflecting on all Jesus had done for her family, her brother, and wanted to give the best she had to him.
This was an extravagant gift! We’re told it was worth a year’s salary for the average worker.
And just like when she had sat at Jesus’ feet, so focused in on Him that she was unaware of what was going on around her, at this moment, all she sees is Jesus.
There’s no pride, no shame, no withholding, no concern for the cost of her actions or the opinions of others.
But stop for a moment and consider that. I mean, let’s be honest, we consider the cost of our actions every day.
Gas is over 4 dollars a gallon, reaching the highest prices in over seven years. You know you’ve debated the value of some drives!
We think in terms of Return on Investment, what’s the benefit to cost ratio, even in our giving to God. Charitable giving is a tax deduction.
My wife and I made some personal giving decisions this year, and recently we gave to something that has impacted our lives.
As I was giving, I realized it was not a non-profit, and my gift would not be a charitable donation. I’d get no credit for it with the taxman.
Suddenly, I was confronted with my motivation. Now I would love to say I didn’t even hesitate, but I did.
At that moment, my thought was, “we’ll get no benefit from this,” followed by a gentle voice that simply asked, “Is that what’s it about?”
Her legacy was love.
Love can see that there are things, the chance to do which comes only once.
One of the tragedies of life is when you are moved to do something but don’t because of fear, embarrassment, the cost, reputation.
Maybe second thoughts suggest a more prudent response, something with a better ROI.
Love can see beyond the selfishness ingrained in us and act entirely selflessly.
Mary was focused on Jesus, acted sacrificially, and left a legacy of love.
(Mark 14:6-9)
She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”
And here we are talking, over 2,000 years later, talking about her legacy.
To put this in context, look back at verses 4-5:
(Mark 14:4-5)
Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, “Why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the poor.” And they rebuked her harshly.
Who’s the they? The Gospel of John clarifies for us:
(John 12:4-6)
But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages. He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.
Back to Mark:
(Mark 14:10-11)
Then Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went to the chief priests to betray Jesus to them. They were delighted to hear this and promised to give him money. So he watched for an opportunity to hand him over.
He’d heard it all, seen it all, been on the inside of it all.
And yet,
His Focus was personal gain.
The desire for personal gain can be a powerfully destructive force.
For Judas, it was money. Same for J Paul Getty.
“But that’s an extreme example, Scott.” Yes, it is. Most of us will not be billionaires, but it’s not the amount that turns the heart.
It’s the desire, the desire that:
*blinds you to decency, honesty, and integrity
*leaves you careless how you get it so long as you get it
*entraps your heart, mind, and life in a never-ending quest for more
*destroys or objectifies others in its wake
Maybe for you, it’s not money.
What is the thing, the area of life, you haven’t fully surrendered to Jesus?
A focus on personal gain takes your eyes off the One in whom you gain everything.
It wasn’t an accident, or unintentional, a caught-up in-the-moment decision. It was a journey of choices that led him here.
Pastor Andy Stanley calls this the Principle of the Path; direction, not intention, determines your destination.
Your focus drives your actions and, ultimately, your destination, whether you intended to end up there or not.
*destroyed your marriage or your family
*damaged relationships
*earned you a “reputation” among your peers
*led to a legal record that follows you around
*weighs you down with, “If only I hadn’t…”
(Matthew 27:1-5)
Early in the morning, all the chief priests and the elders of the people made their plans how to have Jesus executed. So they bound him, led him away and handed him over to Pilate the governor.
When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders. “I have sinned,” he said, “for I have betrayed innocent blood.”
“What is that to us?” they replied. “That’s your responsibility.”
So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.
He learned too late that the price of some things is simply too high.
That the thing you’re striving after once achieved does not satisfy in the way you envisioned it would, and you look back in regret.
Less than 24 hours after Judas criticized Mary for wasting money, He ended with a life wasted by the pursuit of what would never satisfy.
Legacy is the lasting imprint you will leave on those closest to you, those around you, and the world in which you live.
You might be remembered for a few generations, or possibly your name will make a history book and stick around a little longer.
What will be your legacy? What is the legacy you are building today?
What’s your Focus driving your Actions and determining your legacy?
When it comes to establishing your legacy:
First, check your focus.
Is life all about you, or the empire you can build, your truth apart from a love for others, selfishness rather than selflessness, personal gain over a generous attitude?
There’s an issue with your focus.
Assess your motives in light of a Christ-centered life of loving God and loving others.
Begin to focus or refocus your life in that direction.
What are the actions of your life that need to change or be redirected?
Where is selfishness leaving a wake of broken people and promises, missed opportunities, regret, or death?
A lie Satan loves to use is “it’s too late, you’ve done too much, you’ve gone too far.” Maybe you have that ringing in your ears because of the life you’ve lived to this point.
It’s a lie!
Jesus came to redeem and restore and renew all that was messed up and misguided in our lives.
Don’t buy into the lie. Lean into the truth and with God’s strength, wisdom, direction, His Spirit within you, change your actions.
For you, that might mean taking a next step of faith in Jesus and allowing Him to speak into and guide your actions.
What do you want to be said about you by your family, neighbors, employees, or coworkers, those in your sphere who had nothing to offer you, anyone, and everyone who comes into contact with your life and character?
How others will remember and talk about you when you’re gone is a result of the life you live now.
So create the legacy you want, one that honors God, embraces the love he has for you, and his love for others through you.
Blue Oaks Church
Pleasanton, CA
