The December 11, 2002, online issue of Forbes magazine carried the story of a family feud in one of the richest families in America. The Pritzker family of Chicago owns the Hyatt hotel chain. They also own many other businesses, including cruise lines, railroads, and banks. In 2002, 18-year-old Liesel Pritzker sued her father and other family members, claiming that they drained her trust fund of more than $1 billion. Because of their mismanagement, Liesel claims, her inheritance has been greatly reduced. She is suing for $5 billion dollars in punitive damages. (1)
One billion dollars! Poor Liesel! Some of us would like to have her problems. She didn't have to lift a finger to earn this money. It's just there, what's left of it, earning interest, and waiting for her to collect it. Don't you just weep for her? Perhaps we should. No amount of money is worth being alienated from your family. It is sad to think that Ms. Pritzker didn't trust her own father to protect her inheritance for her.
What would you do if you knew you had an enormous inheritance waiting for you? Would it make a difference in how you live while you wait to receive it? Reflect on that as I tell you another story I heard recently about a man who came into some money unexpectedly.
In 1959, James Carter was a convict in a Mississippi prison. While working on the prison's road crew, Carter taught his fellow convicts a mournful song called "Po' Lazarus." A visitor happened to record the men singing. The recording ended up in an archive file. Forty years later, the producers of the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou came across the recording and used "Po' Lazarus" as the opening song on their soundtrack. The soundtrack was a surprise hit, selling millions of copies. Imagine James Carter's surprise when, 41 years after his stint in prison, two men from a record company showed up at his door with a $20,000 royalty check for a song he didn't even remember. Since then, this obscure song from the prison road crew has earned Carter thousands of dollars. (2)
Do you think that unexpected blessing changed Mr. Carter's life in any way? Would it change yours, if you were in his place?
The apostle Paul was known for a sort of single-minded enthusiasm. He was extraordinarily enthusiastic when he wrote the passage from Ephesians which we read a few moments ago. In our Bibles, this passage is broken down into nice, neat paragraphs with proper punctuation. In the original Greek version, however, it is a 220-word run-on sentence written by a man who was so excited that he didn't even stop long enough to throw in a comma. It's an English teacher's nightmare! What was St. Paul so excited about? He was excited about our inheritance as believers in Jesus.
Listen to the extravagant language Paul used in this passage. He says that God "has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ," and that He has "lavished" on us the "riches of God's grace." And if that's not enough, we have been given the Holy Spirit as a guarantee of an even greater inheritance waiting for us in heaven. To Paul this was exciting stuff--stuff he was willing to give his life to declare. I wonder if it's that exciting to us. Why should it matter to us--that we have an inheritance in heaven?
It might matter to you if you've ever been forced to make a hard choice about right and wrong. Sometimes you and I are forced to make difficult decisions, ethical decisions, that require us to choose a path that is temporarily more painful, but ultimately more rewarding. This is what following Jesus is all about. It's living a life of integrity, faithfulness and love--and that's not always easy.
Years ago Jack London wrote a book titled, The Call of the Wild. It's a story about a dog that was brought to Alaska during the Alaskan gold rush. This dog, named Buck, was sold to a couple of men, Hal and Charley, who knew nothing about dogs and sleds, but were determined to try to operate a dog team in the frozen north country of Alaska, anyway. To make things worse, they waited too late to get started with their adventure. They started out in spring when the rivers and lakes were beginning to thaw. In their ignorance, they headed out with 14 dogs, an overloaded sled, and not enough to eat.
Things got progressively worse as the dogs began to die until there was only Buck and four huskies left. It took a lot of whipping and clubbing each day to get the dogs ready to move on. Every time the men stopped the sled, the dogs fell down. The men beat the dogs to make them get back up and start pulling the sled again. Only then would the dogs stagger to their feet and half-heartedly attempt to pull the sled. The dogs were in really bad shape when they staggered into John Thompson's camp at the mouth of the White River. Thompson told the men that the ice was melting and the bottom was about to drop out of the trail. He advised them not to try to go any farther. But Charley and Hal rationalized that if they had made it this far without the ice breaking under them, they could make it the rest of the way.
Hal got out the whip again. "Get up here, Buck! Hi! Get up there! Mush on!" The dogs staggered to their feet as the men mercilessly beat them. The dogs finally managed to get up--except one. Buck. This drove Hal into a rage. He exchanged the whip for a club, and began hitting the dog over and over. John Thompson couldn't take it. In a screaming rage he jumped up, knocked the man off his feet. "If you strike that dog again, I'll kill you!"
Hal drew out his hunting knife and lunged at Thompson. Thompson hit Hal's knuckles with an axe handle, knocking the knife to the ground. He rapped Hal's knuckles again as Hal tried to pick the knife up. Then he stooped, picked up the knife himself, and cut Buck free from the harness.
Realizing that Buck was worthless to them, the men left the camp without him. And then, what John Thompson feared, became a reality. About a quarter of a mile down the trail, a big chunk of ice broke off. The men and their dogs disappeared. The bottom had indeed dropped out of the trail.
For days afterward, Buck would not let John Thompson out of his sight. Buck followed Thompson everywhere he went. At night he laid by the fire at his master's feet. Buck understood that Thompson had saved his life, and he would do anything for his master.
In later years, Buck saved Thompson's life twice. On one occasion Buck pulled a loaded sled with 1,000 pounds of flour in 50 pound sacks to help Thompson win a bet. Before he started to pull, Thompson whispered in his ear, "As you love me, Buck. As you love me." (3)
There have been followers of Jesus though the ages who have stood up to injustice, stood up to intolerance, stood up to violence, stood up to oppression and all they had going for them was the Master whispering in their ear, "As you love me, Paul. As you love me, George. As you love me, Andrea." They had their Master's love and the promise of an imperishable inheritance.
Paul was writing to people who were being persecuted for their faith. Paul himself was imprisoned twice while preaching in Ephesus. He knew what it meant to choose between conformity and commitment, and he knew how difficult that choice would be for each of us. But ultimately this life isn't our focus, and earthly pleasures aren't our goal. We have an eternal inheritance in which we place our hopes. That is the first reason our eternal inheritance is important. This world may not be very hospitable if we truly follow the Master.
Our future inheritance is also important because we need to have something permanent and imperishable to hold on to in this world of constant change and decay. Let's face it--we live in a fast-changing world. And change is not always our friend.
Author and evangelist Anne Graham Lotz' house was broken into a few years ago. The robbers took almost everything of value. The night after the break-in, Ms. Lotz lay awake as fears assailed her from every side. Just as her valuable possessions had been taken, she began to contemplate all the other precious things in her life that she could lose. Through illness or accident, she could lose her children or her husband. She could lose her health. She could lose her job, or her finances, or reputation. Just as her anxiety reached a fever pitch, she recalled these words from I Peter 1:4, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade--kept in heaven for you . . ." Did you catch that? We have an inheritance that cannot be taken from us.
Anne Graham Lotz sat down and made an alphabetical list of the eternal blessings that cannot be taken away from us. Listen to the items on her list and notice her clever use of the letters of the alphabet. She wrote:
I am: Accepted by God / Beloved by God / Chosen by God / Delivered by God / Enlightened by God / Forgiven by God
I have: Grace of God / Hope for the future / Inheritance in heaven / Justification / Knowledge of God / Love / Mercy of God / Nearness to God / Oneness with God / Peace / Quickening of the Spirit
I am: Redeemed / Sealed with the Holy Spirit / Treasured by God / United with other believers / Validated as an authentic child of God
I have: His Wisdom And one day I will be: Exalted with Him! (4)
What a beautiful way of saying that in this fast-changing world we have one thing we can count on--an inheritance from God. At some point in our lives, many of us start to feel like we are losing more than we are gaining. We experience the loss of friendships, jobs, health and strength, new ambitions, respect or status. Where do we find hope for tomorrow? In the realization that we can never lose the grace and mercy and love of God. And someday--when we see Christ face to face--we will experience the awesome fullness of God in all His glory, and that glory will never end! That is God's promise that is sealed in the life of every believer.
And this grand inheritance is ours for the taking. All we have to do is accept it. This inheritance already has our name on it. All we have to do is claim it.
In the summer of 1961 the Leningrad Ballet was returning to Russia from a triumphant tour of the West. The plane that was to take them back home was ready to board at the Paris airport when suddenly one of the group, a dancer named Rudolf Nureyev, made a break, leaping into the arms of two surprised French inspectors. The inspectors told Nureyev he would have to do two things. He must first sign a request for safe asylum, and then he must spend five minutes alone in a room deciding if this was really what he wanted to do.
Nureyev sat down, facing two doors. One, they told him, led back to the boarding area, and if he decided to return, he could slip through the door quietly, unobserved. No one need know he had momentarily tried to escape. The other door would lead him into the inspector's office. Nureyev sat there, thinking furiously. One door meant home, friends, and his beloved. The other door meant a strange land, perhaps hardships, but also liberty. When the time was up, Rudolf Nureyev rose to his feet, strode to the door, and stepped into freedom. (5)
You and I are confronted with a decision. We have an inheritance awaiting us. We did nothing to earn it. So, in a sense I guess we are a little like poor Liesel Pritzker with her billion-dollar trust. Except for this--this inheritance cannot be taken from us. It is imperishable. All we have to do is to walk through an open door like Rudolf Nureyev and claim it. The door to which I refer is Christ, and when we walk through that door, everything he has will be ours.
1. Forbes.com: "Liesel Pritzker, Meet Meadow Soprano" Dan Ackman
2. By the Bathroom Readers' Institute. Uncle John's Ahh-Inspiring Bathroom Reader (Ashland, OR: Bathroom Readers' Press, 2002), pp. 356-357.
3. Jack London
4. Anne Graham Lotz. Just Give Me Jesus (Nashville: Word Publishing, 2000), pp. 37-38.
5. John Rilling, Insights (Springfield, Ohio: Chantry Music Press, Vol. I, No. 19), p. 3.