Scripture: Psalm 78:4
Sermon Series: Building Changed Lives Together – Phase 2 – Sermon 01

Children, please come to the front! This is our future! Let’s pray!

If you’ve been at Grace very long, you know I grew up in Atlanta, though I’ve lived up north so long most people don’t know where I’m from. They just know I’m not from Wisconsin…but I do know what a bubbler is.

I was born in Knoxville, Tennessee. In fact, I was the only one in my family of five that was born in Tennessee. Our family only lived there one year and that’s when yours truly landed on this planet. The reason that my family moved to Knoxville is that my dad was asked to move there to manage the Rich’s Department Store in Knoxville.

When I was growing up, Rich’s owned the Atlanta retail market. Not only did my dad manage the store, but my family wouldn’t be caught dead in a Sears or K-Mart. If we couldn’t find it at Rich’s, we didn’t need it.

Each year we would go downtown to see Rich’s Great Tree Lighting and to ride the Pink Pig, all part of the Rich’s legacy. But in 1994 Rich’s was sold to Macy’s and the store that literally owned Atlanta, today is little more than a memory. Today it’s Macy’s.

That happens to a lot of things…companies, institutions that were thought to be around forever. The Sears Tower is now the Willis Tower. The John Hancock Building has the creative name of its address – 875 N. Michigan Avenue. Miller Park is American Family Field. What will Packer fans do if they ever rename Lambeau Field? Maybe the world will end.

Everything in this world changes except what we invest in eternity. If you’re a Christ-follower, you’re part of an eternal legacy. You have the opportunity to invest in eternity. That’s what we want to talk about today, Leaving a Legacy. I love Nicole Nordeman’s song, Legacy. The chorus goes like this:

I want to leave a legacy,
How will they remember me?
Did I choose to love?
Did I point to you enough?
To make a mark on things
I want to leave an offering
A child of mercy and grace
Who blessed your name unapologetically
And leave that kind of legacy.

As Christ-followers, we have an opportunity to leave a legacy, to be part of God’s plan outlasting all of the Rich’s Department Stores, Sear’s Towers and Lambeau Fields of the world. What we do here can last for all eternity.

At Grace, we’re committed to planning generationally for God’s glory. Psalm 78:4 says, We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord, and His might, and the wonders that He has done.

When we planned this building, we planned to have an educational wing. We though wanted to be wise with God’s money. We had two properties in the City of Burlington that needed to sell first to build the educational wing – the old church and a house next door. But they didn’t sell until 2020. This building was completed in January of 2018, so we used that money to make a dent in our mortgage.

This morning you are literally sitting in a miracle! God did it. There is no way our much smaller church could buy this property, build this facility for $1.2 million and pay off a $750,000 mortgage in seven years without God doing it. God has richly blessed us. We could be here all day sharing all that God did to get us here.

Yet we don’t think He’s done, and He’s still got His hand of blessing on us. For example, at the end of 2025, we ended up with $20,000 more than we began 2025 with.

I love getting the mail at church. Recently, we received a check from someone for nearly $1000 and I don’t even know who they are. A week ago, we received a $1000 check from a retired leader in our community who’s a friend and retired from the area. We recently corresponded. He shared how in retirement he was investing his life, and I shared how God was using us. It was just news…just communication, no ask for anything – and he sent us a check for $1000.

When I was on my study week in January, I received an email from a couple who attended here five years ago. They moved out of the area but shared how our church had impacted their lives when they were here and they were putting our church in their will. That’s God! Incidentally, remembering a church in your will is a great way to keep giving after your Home with Jesus. Today let me share where we believe God is leading us.

1. At Grace Church we are committed to leaving a legacy in eternity. 

This is our DNA at Grace. It’s very important! Our buildings are only tools. We work to have everything we do at Grace to be part of the mission, but it’s all a tool. This building is not our church; our ministries are not our church. Do you want to see our church? Look around…We are the church…you and me.

I love the story of a little girl and her dad who had been transferred to a new city. In the interim, the family was living in a hotel while they looked for a place to live. One of the hotel staff, said to this little girl, “Honey, it’s too bad your family doesn’t have a home.” And that little girl quipped, “Oh, we have a home. We just need a house to put it in.” That’s us! This building, our programs, our worship service, the preaching and teaching – they’re not our church. They’re tools to help us grow to be more like Jesus. We are the church, living stones in His Temple according to 1 Peter 2:4-6.

2. At Grace Church we have a defined purpose. 

On the back of the bottom of your church bulletin, you’ll find our purpose statement: Grace Church exists to glorify our Heavenly Father by continually making more followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Sadly, most churches and attendees have no idea what the purpose of the church is. McDonald’s knows their mission. Make burgers. Ford Motor knows their mission. Build cars. The Milwaukee Bucks know their mission. Win basketball games. All those are all this earth, temporal stuff.

Read the New Testament. Our purpose lines up with our marching orders found there. Our purpose makes a difference in this world and eternity.

The church is not about attending. It’s not a religious social club or for a weekly pick me up. We’re on the front lines of Jesus’ plans. As Jesus told Peter, And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven (Matthew 16:18-19).

Just as Jesus stormed hell when He came to this earth and rescued those doomed to hell! We have the same mission. We’re His rescue operation because everyone is going to spend eternity somewhere. Jesus came so people could be forgiven and go to heaven. That’s our mission!

Our mission is not to feed the hungry, care for the poor or bring social justice. We’re not a political action group. Most of the things that most people think that a church should do are not our mission. While they’re good things, they’re not the mission. J. B. Phillips warned: The real danger to professing Christians lies not in the more glaring and grosser temptations and sins but rather in a slow deterioration of vision.

You don’t have to be a Christian to build homes, feed the hungry, care for the poor or try to make political changes. There are other groups that do those things and do them better. What’s the one thing that the church has to offer that the world can’t get anywhere else? Grace! Where else can the world go to find grace?

We all know that this is not a grace-filled world. When was the last time you drove in rush hour and saw grace? When was the last time you saw grace on social media? When was the last time you saw grace at work?

Because we’ve experienced God’s grace, we’re the sharers of God’s grace. It’s why we have a Lego Day. It’s why we encourage you to reach out to friends, neighbors or co-workers. It’s why we have GSM and Amped. We want to share God’s grace and truth. We want to reach those who don’t know Him yet.

There are three groups maligned in today’s culture. At Grace, we want to be on the front lines of being bridge builders: Teachers, Law Enforcement and Politicians. Last week we took Valentine gifts to the staff at Trailside Elementary. We pray for elected officials each week. This Tuesday I’m going to Madison with my friend, Pastor Bill Busch. We’re visiting several elected officials to thank them for serving and to pray with them. I do it every year. It’s why I’m the police chaplain for Burlington.

Did you know that you can make a difference in eternity with 20 steps? Ten thousand steps…roughly that’s the distance you travel sunrise to sunset every day of your life. It adds up to about 115,000 miles in a lifetime—or more than four times around this big planet of ours.

So, are you using your steps wisely? Assuming the average distance across most rooms is twenty feet…about ten steps. What if ten steps…just one-thousandth of your daily average, could impact eternity? Walk next door to your neighbor, walk to the next cubicle, take the time, care, make a friend so you can share the greatest friend – Jesus. Share grace because if we don’t who will? Jesus is just asking us to walk 20 steps to potentially make an eternal difference. That’s half of our purpose – to reach those who don’t know Jesus yet. But salvation is only the beginning, it’s why…

3. At Grace Church we are committing to making disciples. 

Jesus didn’t command us to just see people get saved. He commanded us to make disciples. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you (Matthew 28:19-20). Notice two key words – disciples and teaching. It’s not enough to go to heaven. We’re to live heavenly now. That comes with discipleship. It’s what it means to be a disciple, and it begins with our youngest attendees.

Children were important to Jesus and must be important to us. 

Currently our children’s areas are too small and they’re not specifically children focused. We’re lacking when it comes to kids’ spaces!

Our new addition will have a separate children’s area, so only children, parents or workers are in that space. This is not a final drawing, The shaded area gives you an idea of the plan. Later we plan to add a playground outside.

At Grace, we do background checks and have policies in place. We want to increase our children’s space, safety and focus on them.

We need to increase our discipling of children. It’s vital that we partner with you to ground them more in what will make an eternal difference. On average, children spend some 30 hours a week in school. How much time do they typically spend in church? An hour or two a week.

Currently, because of space issues we have children from too many age groups together. We want to do better. We’re planning for the future. We want parents to feel their children are safe and loved at Grace. What’s the best and easiest day to increase Christian teaching for children? Sunday.

We’re all busy, so we want to make it easier for families. I know sports and other activities like karate, dance, and school activities are good, but they’re not going to help your children go to heaven or live for Jesus.

Then, our world is increasingly anti-child. We care about children because God’s Word teaches they’re a special gift from God. We must treat every child as God’s special creation. Our nursery and Grace Kids serve parents and their small children while they worship and study God’s Word.

The purpose of our nursery and Grace Kids is to provide a physically, emotionally, and spiritually safe place for children. A place to have opportunities to model and share God’s love. It’s one of the most important ministries we have. We want to do better than we’re currently doing.

There aren’t many adults who enjoy watching Sesame Street, but kids do. Just as adults are bored with a children’s class, children are bored with an adult class. We know physical diets must be age appropriate. The same is true with spiritual diets. And we have so little time to teach our children at Grace biblical truth. The couple of hours of spiritual instruction children receive at church is a drop in the bucket in a sea of secularism and often anti-Christian messages.

Discipleship is vital for Christ-followers. 

Most believers want to have a closer walk with the Lord. They want to know the Bible better, but they have one huge hurdle – T-I-M-E.

We want to use our new addition to help move that forward. But for most of us, another day or night out is a lot. We’re already scrambling with work, kids’ schedules and other activities…not to mention to commute to church or a small group. Between Little League, youth football, soccer, dance classes, Scouts – there’s just not enough time to attend Sunday School or an adult bible study or small group. All of us are time stretched.

So, this is our plan – get two for the time of one. You’re already here at church. So, if you attend first service, then we want you to stay during second service for an adult Bible study and your children will have a class for them. Or attend an adult Bible study during 1^st service and your children will have a class for them and then you all attend second service. And everyone is out of here in time for kickoff. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Packer or Bears fan. We’ll even beat the Lutherans to the area restaurants.

Why do we think this is important? Because attending an adult bible study is one of the best ways to get involved relationally in the life of a church. It’s one of the best ways to become an integral part of this wonderful church family. A weekly small group is where you meet people and interact with them as you study God’s Word together. The masks start peeling off. You know better how to pray and care for each other. Burdens are divided and joys are multiplied. It’s where we get to know each other well enough to encourage each other to develop and use our spiritual gifts.

This doesn’t often happen in a corporate worship service because we experience little interaction with other Christians as we sit, sing or listen to sermons. Someone once wisely said, there are two things you can’t do alone – be married and be a Christian. To grow as disciples of Christ, we need interaction with other believers. Proverbs 27:17 alludes to this when it says, As iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

Very few people are experts in anything all by themselves. They need a supporting community. Do you know a good musician who wasn’t trained and nurtured by a music community? Show me an athlete who achieves excellence all alone, apart from an athletic community. What business leader does it alone without dedicated experts in finance, personnel, and marketing? Excellence requires participation in and support of a community of those like-minded.

The same is true of a church family. Few achieve Christian maturity all by themselves. Each week as you spend an hour together studying God’s Word, you grow in Christ and in spiritual relationships.

These studies are vital because of the textbook that we use.That textbook is of course the Bible, a book different from any other book that’s ever been written because every word in this Book is, “God-breathed.” (2 Tim. 3:16) Unlike any other book, the Bible is the inspired Word of God. Studying it is profitable for correction and training in righteousness.

Making disciples is not informational. Jesus’ purpose is transformational. It’s too easy to think we have all the Bible knowledge that we need. So, let me ask some vital questions:

• Do you know enough about the Bible to lead your children to Christ? 
• Do you know enough about the Bible to lead your grandchildren to Christ? 
• Do you know enough to have a Christ-honoring marriage, be a godly parent? 
• Do you know how to study your Bible, pray, counsel a friend who has cancer or facing a trial, to handle money?

Those are biblical truths that we learn as we study God’s Word together. At Grace we are not looking to be a megachurch. Our purpose, our commitment is to be a church of committed Christ-followers!

Willow Creek, one of the largest churches in America, was shocked to learn when they commissioned a study of their own church how few knew even the basics of God’s Word or practiced biblical habits. We don’t want that to be us. That’s not discipleship. It’s just a crowd.

Planning generationally means that we need onsite church offices.

When we built this building, we couldn’t afford offices, so currently we rent office space. That limits counseling and the team spirit of our church staff. We struggle to communicate because we rent space and are not together. It hurts us for that energy that you get with a team. A church office with staff in the same location will help make us more effective.

4. What’s the bottom line? 

About three or four houses in this community. Our current facility cost $1.2 million nearly a decade ago. It was 9000 square feet. We’re looking to build a 5,000 square foot addition. But construction costs have jumped in the last decade. Our estimates for this addition are coming in at around $1.5 million. It’s about 3 or 4 houses.  

We have a lot more details that we’ll be sharing in coming weeks. Today is only an introduction to where we’re headed and where we believe that the Lord is leading us. So, it won’t answer every question.

We sought to be wise, frugal and flexible when we built this building. We stepped out on faith. By God’s grace, that will be our approach again.

Many of you are new to Grace and even came because God used this building as a tool to reach you. We want to keep that godly energy going.

So today, we’re asking you to do two things – PRAY and give us your feedback! Please fill out the questionnaire before you leave today and give it to an usher.

Please mark this down in your mind. This is not our church! It’s the Lord Jesus’ church and we want His will and to glorify Him.

Conclusion

As we close, recently, I stumbled on a story aboutTug McGraw. He was quite the baseball pitcher. He won two World Series with the New York Mets and was one of the best closing pitchers in Philadelphia Phillies history. He was also a team cheerleader, the guy who coined the phrase, You Gotta Believe!

He might still be on TV as a game announcer if it hadn’t been for his sudden change of health in 2003. By the time a brain tumor was discovered, doctors told Tug, just 59 years old, that he had three weeks to live – just three weeks.

He lived nine months, pouring his time into his family, into a legacy dedicated to curing brain cancer, and even to reconciling with a part of his past that he’d tried to ignore. He had a wife and kids, but he also had another son he’d ignored. The mother of this son was Elizabeth D’Agostino. She didn’t tell her son about his famous father, in part because she wanted to move past that particular part of her life. But Tim found his birth certificate and made the most shocking discovery of his life. His favorite baseball player was also his father. So, Tim changed his name from Tim Trimble to Tim McGraw.

Tim found Tug when he was an older teen, but there was nothing there. No warm feelings, no immediate connection, and no future. But once more, as an adult, Tim tried it again. The second time, the attraction took. Father and son, as strange as it must have seemed to them, became close. When news came that time was running out for Tug, they became even closer.    In the end, Tug McGraw died at Tim McGraw’s Nashville home.

Do you remember Tim McGraw’s song, Live Like You Were Dying? It’s the powerful story of a man who got the news that he was dying, and he made a decision of how he’d live with the time he had left.

So, let me ask you – would it make a difference if you learned that you had just a little time left? Would it change your priorities if life was slipping away?

We’re all running out of time. The opportunity to leave the legacy we want to leave is one day shorter today than it was yesterday.

Everyone leaves a legacy. For good, bad, or even indifferent, we all leave footprints behind. We’ll be remembered for our generosity or selfishness. Those who mourn us will talk about the ways we loved them, or the ways we neglected them.  

There’s only one way to leave a true legacy, to leave footprints that last. That’s by surrendering your life and everything you have and are to Jesus. That’s Romans 12:1-2.

Rich’s Department Store is gone. So, is the Sears Tower. Someday this building will be gone but we won’t be.

We’ll be Home and with who knows how many came to Jesus because we were faithful, that we left a legacy. Those who surrender and live for Jesus will have a legacy that will last forever!