How Do You Want to Be Remembered?
A Sermon Preached by Rev. S. Randall Toms
On Sunday, November 8, 2009
At St. Paul’s Reformed Episcopal Church, Baton Rouge, LA
I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy, For your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now; Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: Even as it is meet for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart; inasmuch as both in my bonds, and in the defence and confirmation of the gospel, ye all are partakers of my grace. (Phil. 1:3)
We often hear people say, “I want to be remembered as ….” Fill in the blank. How would you like to be remembered? Sometimes we hear presidents talk about the kind of legacy they would like to leave. I suppose that within many of us there is this desire to leave behind us something that would cause other people to remember us favorably. The great poet John Keats asked that on his headstone the following words would be inscribed: “Here lies one whose name was writ in water.” For the time being, we can say that Keats was wrong, for there are still a few of us who devotedly read Keats’ poetry; but, there will probably come a day when no one will remember Keats and the beautiful words that he wrote. Like Keats, many of us feel that when we are gone, we will be forgotten.
We are still in the octave of All Saints’, so we are still remembering all of the people who lived their lives in devotion to Jesus Christ. But as we remember them, I want to ask you, “How do you want to be remembered?” When I ask that question, I am not only asking you how you would like to be remembered after your death, but how you would like to be remembered now whenever your name is mentioned. When the Apostle wrote this letter to the Philippians, he begins it by saying, “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you.” What a wonderful compliment! This should be the desire of every Christian—to be remembered with thanksgiving. Each Sunday morning, in our prayer of intercession, we say, “And we also bless thy holy Name for all thy servants departed this life in thy faith and fear; beseeching to grant them continual growth in thy love and service, and to give us grace so to follow their good examples, that with them we may be partakers of thy heavenly kingdom.” This is how we should want to be remembered, both in this life, and after we are gone. We should desire to be remembered as those who set a good example for others to follow, and that when people think of us, they would thank God for letting us have a place in their lives, because we provided a life for them to imitate.
In our service for the burial of the dead, there is a prayer that says:
Almighty and everliving God, we yield unto thee most high praise and hearty thanks, for the wonderful grace and virtue declared in all thy saints, who have been the choice vessels of thy grace, and the lights of the world in their several generations; most humbly beseeching thee to give us grace so to follow the example of their steadfastness in the faith, and obedience to thy holy commandments, that at the day of the general Resurrection, we, with all those who are of the mystical body of thy Son, may be set on his right hand, and hear that his most joyful voice: Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if one day, people could stand at your graveside and give God thanks for the grace and virtue he had imparted to you? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if people could say, “This person was an example of steadfast faith and obedience to God’s commandments. Thank you Lord for this holy example, and grant me the same grace that you gave to this person.”
As we enter this Thanksgiving season of the year, it is appropriate that we should give thanks for all the blessings that God has given to us, especially those people in our lives who bring us so much happiness and joy. It is natural for us to give thanks for our family members and our friends who provide for our necessities and comforts in this world. But as the Christian thinks of those for whom he should give thanks, he is most thankful for his brothers and sisters in Christ, the members of the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ. As we approach this Thanksgiving time, I want all of us who are members of St. Paul’s to give thanks to God especially for one another. Get out your church directory in the next few weeks leading up to Thanksgiving and go down the list of all the members in our church, and bless God’s holy name that he has allowed you to be in a church where you can have fellowship with that person. I hope and pray that every person in this church could look at every other person in this congregation and say, “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you.”
As we look at the other members of our congregation, there are all kinds of reasons to remember them with thanksgiving. Some can give God thanks for the close ties of friendship that have been formed as a result of being brought into this church. There may be some people in this congregation that you don’t know very well, but even if you don’t you can still give God thanks when you remember them for their faithfulness to this church, for the way they support its worship and work, and for the words and acts of kindness when we have gone through trying and troubling times.
But there is one other reason to give God thanks for one another that the Apostle Paul spells out for us in this epistle reading for today. Paul thanks God for the Philippians and their fellowship in the gospel. This fellowship in the gospel is something that binds all of us together in this church. Some of us in this congregation may not be united to others by anything else. We come from different backgrounds, different cultures, different interests, and different likes and dislikes. Some of us love art, some of us love books, some of us love football, baseball, basketball, golf, and some of us, inexplicably, love soccer. Some of us love cooking, some of us love rock and roll, and some of us love opera. We are a diverse congregation of doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers, builders, homemakers, couples, singles, parents, children, and spouses. For such a small congregation we are quite diverse, but there is one thing we all have in common—one thing that unites us all—the fellowship of the gospel.
What has brought us here? Why have we been willing to struggle as a small congregation for nearly 7 years now? The fellowship of the gospel! We have a common love for the inspired, inerrant, infallible word of God. We have a common love for the form of worship that is guided by our Book of Common Prayer. We have a common goal of influencing and shaping the culture in which we live. We have a common desire that Jesus Christ would be exalted and glorified in every institution of our society, whether we are talking about government, education, or business. We are united by a common desire that all people would come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. This is our fellowship in the gospel. When we think of one another, we can say, I thank God for that person, for God has given me that person as a brother or sister who desires that the gospel of Jesus Christ would be known in all the world.
In his commentary on Philippians, William Hendriksen points out several features of this fellowship: it is a fellowship in love for one another; it is a fellowship in helping one another and contributing to one another’s needs; it is a fellowship in promoting the work of the gospel; it is a fellowship in separation from the world; and it is a fellowship in warfare. When we think of how we share these things with one another, shouldn’t we give God thanks for one another?
It is a fellowship of love for one another. Jesus Christ has drawn us to himself by the power of the gospel, and we all love him. Since have this common love for our Lord and Savior who died for us, since this Christ lives in each of us, how can we not have a fellowship of love? Since we love one another we also have this desire to help one another in times of need, to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep for we have been united into one body. We have a fellowship in promoting the gospel, so we join together to sacrificially contribute our time, our talents, and our money so that the gospel would be spread in this city, our nation, and our world. We are united by a common separation from the world. Though the world is constantly calling to us, telling us to forsake the path of obedience to God, we are encouraged by our brothers and sisters in Christ to stay the course. Though we may be few, we are not alone in the world. We have brothers and sisters who have bid farewell to the way of the world, to walk in it nevermore. In the church, we find those who love what is true, honest, just, pure, and lovely. We are bound together as we fight a common war against the world, the flesh, and the devil. Ask almost any military person, and they will tell you that nothing unites you to another person like standing side by side, in times of great danger, fighting against a common enemy. We are all soldiers in the army of the Lord and have been called to arms, to see that gospel prevails, so that “Jesus shall reign where’er the sun, doth his successive journeys run.” Having experienced this kind of fellowship with one another, what else can we do remember one another with thanksgiving?
As a pastor, I can say, I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, for you have been willing to be faithful to the gospel and what it teaches, so much so that you would be willing to be steadfast to this tiny congregation with all its limitations. Yet, you believe that what we are doing here is according to the will of God. Not many people in this generation are willing to do that, so I give God thanks that he has worked in your heart and life in such a way that you are willing to join us in this fellowship of the gospel. Our fellowship is in the gospel. Think of it. Were it not for the gospel of Christ, most of us would have probably never met. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ that brought us together, and it is the gospel of Jesus Christ which sustains our fellowship. We often sing the hymn, “Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love.” But what is that tie that binds us together. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ.
How do you want to be remembered? There are those who want to be remembered as powerful military leaders. Some want to be remembered as famous entertainers. Some want to be remembered as great statesmen. Some want to be remembered as great athletes. But no matter how well known you may become in any of those fields, ultimately, your name will be writ in water. Remember the words of St. John: “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever” (I John 2:15-17). Only those who do the will of God will be remembered for ever. The Psalmist said, “The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance” (Ps. 112:6).
Today, we continue to remember those who have lived for Christ, some of them dead for nearly 2,000 years now. But we remember them with thanksgiving. There are many others whose names have been erased by time, but who are remembered forever in the heavenly city. Why? One reason—their fellowship in the gospel. How do you want to be remembered? Whenever other people think of us, we should hope that we have lived our lives in such a way that people would bow their heads for a moment and offer a prayer of thanksgiving for the blessing that we have been to their lives. They will remember us with thanksgiving if we have shared in the fellowship of the Gospel. Amen.
