The Stuff Legends Are Made Of
When five year olds are asked what they want to be when they grow up a great majority of them say things like, spiderman, superman, wonder woman, supergirl, thor, a princess, things like that. As they get older, and the adults gently tell them that those things are not possible or realistic, it appears as if they change their dream to something more “realistic.”
It appears as if our dreams to become something legendary or great or heroic die as we get older. I say it “appears” that way because I don’t believe those dreams die. I went to comic con last year and I saw very few kids there. The majority of the people were adults age 20 to 50 and lots of them were dressed up as their favorite superhero or comic book character. The dreams didn’t die; they are just hidden unless they are around like minded people.
The biggest movie blockbusters are things like XMen, Black Panther, The Avengers, Thor, Spiderman, and Justice League. There are / were past and present TV shows that keep / kept people faithful to 3 and 4 hour time slots on a weekly basis like Heroes , Supergirl, Agents of Shield, Black Lightning, Gotham, Arrow, The Flash, The Mandelorian, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist.
We all want to save the day. We all want to do something great, something impossible. We are told as children to grow up and live in reality, but the things I mentioned prove that the dream, the desire to do something epic with our lives doesn’t die.
I’m not here to tell you that one day you are going to get bit by a spider and develop supernatural abilities. What I am saying is that you do have the ability in God to become a legend. To be known for something great. To do the impossible.
In looking through scripture, the legends that I saw, the people we still talk about today and that we will talk about for all eternity had a lot in common with each other. Two of those common denominators are faith and loyalty. Below are some statements of faith and loyalty from a few legends from scripture:
Jesus knew He was about to endure horrible torture and death. He asked His Father, “if You are willing, take this cup of suffering and death from Me; nevertheless, not my will but Your will be done.”
Esther was about to do something that no one did unless they were prepared to die, and she said, “if I die, I die, but I’m going to see the King.”
Job lost his children, his riches, his position in society, his reputation, and he was left with bad health and a bitter wife, and instead of cursing God, like his wife told him to, he said, “even if God kills me, I will trust Him.”
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were three young Hebrew men who refused to worship King Nebuchadnezzar. He threatened that he would throw them in a fiery furnace if they did not bow down to his statue. They said, “your threats mean nothing to us; throw us in the fire. The God we serve can deliver us from anything you do to us, but even if He chooses not to, we will not serve false Gods.”
Their lives prove Daniel 11:32 which says, “the people who know their God shall be strong and do exploits.” Exploits are great heroic deeds; legendary actions.
Let’s go deeper into the stuff legends are made of. 1 Samuel 14:23 says, “The Lord saved Israel that day.”
Let me describe that day to you:
King Saul was the King of Israel, the 1st King of the Jews.
They were in the middle of a war that was not going well for them.
Things got so bad, some of the soldiers joined the enemy’s army; others, dug holes and hid in them or ran away into the wilderness.
Jonathan was the oldest son of King Saul.
One day he got it in his mind to go over to the enemy’s garrison and pick a fight. He took his armor bearer with him. He did not tell his father.
He said to his armor bearer, “let’s go over to the Philistine garrison and see if God will save”
The Armor Bearer said, “Whatever is in your heart to do, I am with you.”
He told his armor bearer, let us go to the garrison and reveal ourselves to the soldiers. When they see us, if they say, “get over here,” then that is a sign that God will give us the victory. If they say, “stop and stay there until we come to you,” that will be the sign that God is not with us and then we will run away.
So knowing a garrison of soldiers held at least 20 men, Jonathan and his armor bearer went and tried to pick a fight. They let the soldiers see them and the soldiers started making fun of them saying something like, “well, it looks like the Jews decided to come out of the holes they were hiding in; come over here and let us teach you a thing or two.”
So Jonathan said to his armor bearer, let’s go. God has delivered them into our hands. So he charges into the garrison and starts slaying the men, and his armor bearer’s job was to make sure the men Jonathan slew stayed down. Basically, he killed the ones that Jonathan only wounded.
They killed all the men in the garrison.
As soon as that happens, the Lord rewards Jonathan’s faith and the armor bearer’s loyalty by creating chaos in the entire Philistine camp. There was an earthquake and in their total confusion, they started fighting and killing each other. Things got so bad, the Jews heard the chaos coming from the Philistine camp. King Saul immediately rallied his men and went to the Philistine camp. They saw their opportunity to win this battle and they took it. The men who had left the Jews to fight with the Philistines, started fighting for Saul again. The men who had dug holes to hide in came out of their holes and out of the wilderness and started fighting.
Then verse 23 says, “The Lord saved Israel that day.” Israel wasn’t just a tribe of hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands. There were millions of them, and 2 saved millions. Your day is coming when God is going to use you to gain a great victory.
So, what made God move on behalf of the people? It was the faith and loyalty of two men who are now legends in the eyes of Jews and Christians everywhere.
What is the stuff legends are made of?
Faith and Loyalty.
What is the stuff legends are made of? Faith and Loyalty.
I see four lessons in this story:
If you have faith, and you are walking in Godly relationship with someone who is loyal, you can do great things in your life for God. Sometimes, the other person will be the one walking in faith, and you are the one who will have to be loyal and trusting in difficult circumstances, but the outcome will be the same. You have just created a recipe for great things, legendary things to take place in your environment. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego had faith in God and were loyal to each other, and we still know and tell their story today.
Doing life alone doesn’t work. Before Esther made the statement, “if I die, I die, but I am going to see the King,” she fasted and prayed for three days with her girls and she had her uncle gather together the Jews in his company to fast and pray as well. Jesus could have walked this earth alone doing great things for God, but He chose to do life in a community of 12 disciples and some faithful women.
Although you need other people around you with like faith in God, you don’t need to have a large number. When Jonathan first talked to his armor bearer about picking a fight with the Philistines, he said these words, “Perhaps the LORD will help us, for nothing can hinder the LORD . He can win a battle whether he has many warriors or only a few!” Everyone else around Jonathan was wallowing in despair and unbelief, so he took the only help that still had loyalty and faith; his armor bearer.
This is the most important lesson here to me. God is just waiting for us to move in faith. NO one can convince me that God wasn’t in heaven clapping for joy when Jonathan got up and decided to move in faith. Instead of hiding in a hole, or running away into the wilderness, or even committing treason to join the winning side, he decided to put his faith in God for deliverance.
There is a quote that says, “Men rise and fall like winter wheat but these names will never die.”
Jesus, David, Jonathan, his armor bearer, Esther, the three Hebrew boys. Their names will never die. I want to have one of those names. I believe you do too, and if you don’t, you will.
All of us want to be legendary for something. We all want to make our marks on this world and be remembered long after we are gone. With God, it’s possible. No, with God, it’s probable. The people that know their God SHALL be strong and do exploits. That is a statement of surety; a statement of fact.
I was reading an article in Elite magazine, and they gave a good definition of a legend: “Being a legend doesn’t only involve being good at something, being well known for a short period of time, or simply being famous or rich - there are many people out there like that. It means you have done something with your life that has changed the world or inspired many around you. Your number one goal in life, when it is all set and done, is to be a legend, because at the end of the day that is something no one can ever take away from you. When you die you can’t take your money with you or your huge yacht. You can’t take all your toys or bank account numbers; the only thing that you can take with you is your legacy. It is that simple. It is the grandest achievement and highest honor for any man or woman. It means their story will be retold for generations to come and inspire people in this world. A legend relies on several factors and traits: courage, will power, strength, wisdom, attitude towards life, hard work, passion and simply seeking a broader mind and a bigger mission. It is all about doing what no one thought you can do, the impossible. It is about going against all odds.”
The best news about being a legend is that you don’t have to start out as anything great.
The best news about being a legend is that you don’t have to start out as anything great. My family came from rags, to riches, to hand me down rags, to homeless, to now we are doing ok, and with faith in God, I have no doubt I will leave my mark in this world and leave it a better place. It doesn’t matter if no one in this world has any expectations that you can do anything great. It doesn’t matter what your reputation was before or what it is now. What matters is how you end your life. Ecclesiastes 7:8 says, “endings are better than beginnings or finishing is better than starting.”
Let’s end by looking at some people in scripture that had lousy starts but ended great:
DAVID: When it was time to crown a new future King of Israel (because Saul had messed up bad and lost his faith in God), God sent a prophet to a particular family and said one of his sons will be King. That man brought out all but one of his sons, and one by one, God said no. The oldest one looked kingly, but God doesn’t look at outward appearance, He looks at the heart. The prophet asked the man if he had anymore sons and he finally called his youngest boy from the field who was watching the sheep. David was a shepherd, which means he was a younger son with no hope of inheriting any land from his father. That is who God chose. A sheep herder became the greatest King in history, and the Bible even says that it is David’s throne that Jesus Himself will sit on when He returns.
DAVID’S MIGHTY MEN: Before they became known as David’s mighty men they were described in 1 Samuel 22:2 as losers and vagrants and misfits of all sorts. They were the cousin you didn’t trust your purse around. They were the cousin you saw every 5 to 10 years because they were always in and out of prison. They had horrible beginnings, but they finished well and became legends.
JESUS: Jesus was from Nazareth, a hick town. Hick towns have been given this definition: A place you can park as long as you want to, but no one wants to. Nathaniel, one of Jesus’ disciples, when he first heard Jesus was from Nazareth, said, “can anything good come from Nazareth?” Jesus was from a nothing town. He did not grow up rich or privileged. He had to learn a trade and practice it in order to support Himself and possibly his family. You might think Jesus had an unfair advantage to overcome because He is the Son of God, but today, if you are saved, then so are you. And you have all the benefit that Jesus had on this earth to do great things for God.
Society tells us that we can be anything we want to be. That’s good. There are people in this world that don’t know God that are legends and they will be remembered as long as the earth is here. But, there is something better than that. We can become all that we have been ordained to become by God. That’s better because the things you do for God will last for eternity.
God said that we would do greater things than Jesus. That right there is all the permission I need to believe that I will leave my mark on this world and bring God glory in all I do.
The Lord Saved Israel That Day. Let it be said of each of us that because we submitted to the will of God, that “The Lord Saved Israel that Day.” Your Israel might be a particular section of town, or a city, a state, a country, a high school, everyone on a movie set, a sports team, or the current administration in the White House. Who knows! Just trust and believe that the day is coming when God is going to use you to gain a great victory for His glory.