Sermon Central
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Leaving A Legacy That Will Last Series
Contributed by Johnny Creasong on Jun 4, 2004 (message contributor)
Summary: How will our children and grandchildren remember us!
How Good is Your Memory?
Two couples who had been friends for years were spending the evening together. While they were taking a break from their card game, the wives went into the kitchen, while the men stayed in the den. One man said, "Joe, you played a great game of cards tonight. I usually have to remind you what cards have been played, but tonight I didn’t have to. How come?" Joe replied, "I went to memory school." His friend asked, "Really? What’s the name of the school?" Joe thought for a minute and said, "Let me see. Umm . . . uh . . . what do you call that flower that’s red, with thorns on the stem?" His friend said, "A rose." Joe said, "Yeah, that’s it." Then he turned toward the kitchen and said, "Hey, Rose! What was the name of that memory school I went to?"
*A memorial helps us keep a memory of something significant that has happened alive in our hearts and minds.
*The word memorial in scripture comes from a word that means to prick, to pierce, or to penetrate the memory.
WE NEED MEMORIALS
TO REMIND US
OF GOD’S SALVATION!
“...to serve as a sign among you.”
Has God ever healed your body?
BUILD A MEMORIAL!
Has God ever delivered you?
BUILD A MEMORIAL!
Has God pulled you out of the pit? BUILD A MEMORIAL!
Has God ever met a financial need
for you?
BUILD A MEMORIAL!
Build a memorial of the great things that God has done for you in your life. He has been good to us. To many times we forget the things that God has done for us in the past so we have no faith for the future. You can point Satan back to your memorial and tell him God changed you there.
WE NEED MEMORIALS TO HELP US SHARE OUR FAITH
WITH OUR CHILDREN!
“Christianity is never more than one generation from extinction!”
A.T. Pierson records the careful study that has been done concerning the descendants of the Jukes and Edwards families. The Jukes Family was known for its long line of criminals. A total of 1200 descendants were traced of which 400 were physically abused, 310 became wards of the state, 130 were convicted criminals, and 7 committed murder. Only 20 out of 1200 ever learned a trade and half of those learned that trade in prison! On the other hand, some 400 descendants of Jonathan Edwards, a great preacher from the last century, have been traced, of which 14 became college presidents, 100 professors, 100 ministers, more than 100 lawyers, and 60 judges!
Deuteronomy 6:1-2, 7-9
These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life...Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
(NIV)
“... In the future, when your children ask you, ’What do these stones mean?’
tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever."
“How many of you recall a saintly mother or Godly father who loved this book, read it, lived it, and seeped it into you? With all your influence today, how many of you are so living that your children will remember you for your faithfulness to this same book?”
-Gypsy Smith
WE NEED MEMORIALS TO SERVE AS SIGNPOSTS TO A LOST WORLD!
A picture is worth a thousand words!
22 “...tell them, ’Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’
23 For the LORD your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The LORD your God did to the Jordan just what he had done to the Red Sea when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over.
24 He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the LORD is powerful and so that you might always fear the LORD your God.”
(NIV)
If the Lord has done this for you, surely He can do it someone else. The most powerful thing you have is your testimony!
