Legacy and Family

Introduction

I’m going to begin this morning with reading a few different texts, and you’re just going to, in your mind, note who these are about. They’re not difficult, most of them. Some of them are a little bit more challenging than others, but I’ll start really easy as we work through this. And there’s a point that I want to make here as we’re working through these quick references of scripture. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. He walked with God. He was not, for God took him. For where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die. There was none who sold himself to do what was evil in the sight of the Lord, whom his wife incited.

Am I my brother’s keeper?

He believed, and it was counted to him as righteousness. And I declared to him that I am about to punish his house forever for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. How many of you knew every single person I was referencing? You can raise your hand if you want. Or you knew most of them. Some of them maybe were a little bit more challenging than others. But for the most part, we hear those lines and we immediately know who these people are. That’s essentially the point I want to make this morning. So we could end it now, and I think there’d be a legitimate point. We know these people by just a few lines, a summary.

We know Ahab because he was so evil, and he had an evil wife. And all I had to do is read that one sentence, and you knew who I was talking about. We know Joshua because he took a stand and said, My house is serving the Lord. It’s probably in many of your homes, on a wall or on a pillow or something. Because we know this is such a critical and powerful statement by Joshua, and now it just stands forever as who he was, the kind of person that he was. And I’ve been working on these thoughts for quite some time, this idea of legacy and family, about the stories that we’re writing in our families and for ourselves. And it sort of all sorts of comes together, I think, during this time of the year when there’s just so much family activity going on, and my thoughts go lots of different directions with this, so I’ll try to hone it in a little bit.

But God works through family. That’s what he does. We’re even about to begin, or actually have begun a whole six-month study in the kids’ classes about God being good at family. But just consider the reality that God has always worked through family. That’s how it’s always been from the very beginning, and it will remain that way through the end of time. And every sort of metaphor that’s used about God and his people relates to family. The children of Israel.

As brothers and sisters in Christ and his church, we are talked about in family type language. And God works through our individual families, but this is called a family. And almost everything about what God does is done and functions either through our literal families or through a metaphorical family that he has established. Because family is so vital and so important to God, and it is the means by which that he carries out his will on earth. So, parents, as we’re beginning this study with our little kids, I think this is a great thing to remind them of, to be looking at frequently, and even to think about what are we doing in our families? What am I doing in my family as the head of my family and myself with my wife?

How are we going to direct our family in ways that are leading toward God’s paths? And we have an opportunity over the next six months to day after day, week after week, drill these concepts into our little kids at least as they work through these stories of different families throughout Scripture. And in the midst of all of that, and what’s going on in those classes, and what we see in scripture is legacies being built where I can read a reference or I can refer to a thought or an idea, and you immediately know who that person is or who their family is. And what I want us to do this morning is to kind of take that thought, it’s a humbling thought, and think a little bit deeper down the road, years to come, maybe even when I’m gone.

What is that story going to be? What are people going to say about me, or not just me, but what are they going to say about my family? What are my kids going to tell their kids about how they grew up? What are my great grandkids going to say about their parents and their heritage and the legacy that is their family? What are those stories going to be when they get together during holiday times when they have time off and everybody gathers and they’re talking about great grandpa who’s long gone now and the things he did and the stories we hear about? What is all of that going to sound like and what’s actually going to matter? And are we doing things now to write and to build a legacy that’s actually important?

And so I want to talk for a minute this morning and think through some of the stories of people in scripture because these people are just like me and you, and they have families just like ours. And yes, some of them did miraculous things or supernatural things, but really most of them live lives much like the lives we lived, and God worked through them in various ways. They were faithful or they were failures in terms of what God wanted to accomplish. And so we learn either way what it looks like to be people of faith, or people who reject or get in the way or try to get in the way of the things of God. And we can see all of these stories, both the good and the bad, and we can learn from those and work through that to try to establish hopefully good paths for ourselves and for our children and for their children.

So then generations to come, our families will be focused on the things of the Lord. Some of you come from broken homes.

And if that’s your situation, and I know there’s some this morning who are here that are in that situation, you have to ask yourself will you perpetuate that problem? Where you perpetuate the issues that you grew up in your home, the strife that existed, the damage that was done to you. Will you continue that on with your own children? Or will you do the hard work to break the chain of chaos? And like Joshua to say, our house is going to serve the Lord. We’ll make whatever sacrifices are necessary. We’re doing the things and doing things in the ways that God wants us to do them. So I want to work through just a few thoughts this morning, a little bit different. I’m just going to kind of bounce around stories and texts a little bit and talk about different people and their legacy and kind of help us understand how this works.

1. Legacy Is Built by Choices

The first thing we have to understand, and the reason we know what we know about different people in Scripture are because of the choices that they made. And so legacy is built by choices, sometimes even seemingly small choices, or a collection of choices along the way that make up who I am or make up what my family becomes. And sometimes all the little choices are not noticed all that much. It’s the big ones, like Joshua’s statement. But Joshua was who Joshua was before he ever said what he said in Joshua 24. Before he ever said, My house is going to serve the Lord. Joshua had made hundreds and thousands of decisions along the way that mattered for himself and for his family. And so my legacy and where I’m going to direct my family and where they’re going to direct their families, because this is something that often continues on, is really the result of choice after choice after choice.

The decisions I’m making that then decide where I’m headed. Whether I’m seeking the things of the Lord, or whether I’m seeking my own desires and my own self-will. And those choices for the people we read about in scripture, it resulted in sometimes greater faith, or undeniable failure, depending on the direction they went. And there’s lots of examples that we could give, but I really want to focus on this concept and the idea of choices, and that is that legacy often comes from sacrifice, from doing things that are hard, from making choices that are difficult, from going against maybe what I feel or the emotions I have, or the desire I have to be happy, or whatever it might be, and realize that’s actually not what matters most.

It’s not my happiness that I really need to go after. It’s following the will of God and doing things in his ways and trusting him. Think about Noah. Noah’s an interesting story. I can’t, we think we live in pretty bad times. And we look around and we see a lot of wickedness and terrible things going on in culture and society. Like, man, I just can’t imagine it could be worse. It definitely can be worse. This is how God describes Noah’s day. The Lord, he looks down and he saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth. Every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. That’s pretty bad. I don’t think I can say that. I mean, there’s bad things I see, but I see people at the store who do really good things for people.

I see people around us probably affected by Jesus Christ, even though they don’t know it. I mean, he’s had such an impact on the world that people don’t even realize how much they’re impacted by him, how they care about poor people, and they care about those who are often neglected by others. I mean, that’s a thought that in many ways didn’t even exist before Jesus. No one cared about the poor. No one cared about the sick. They were often seen as being judged by whatever gods they served. And it’s only after the time of Jesus that people actually cared about this. Pagans thought it strange that pagan priests after the time of Jesus actually cared about the poor. All of this is demonstrated throughout pages of history.

There’s even atheists who’ve written about the effect of Jesus Christ and the difference he’s made, even in people who don’t believe in him. This is a time in the day and age of Noah where God says that every intention and thoughts of the heart was only evil and continually. I mean, that’s terrible. So much so that he regrets that he made man, he’s gonna blot humanity off the earth. He’s gonna uncreate, and then he’s going to recreate. That’s the story. He’s gonna get rid of all humans and he’s gonna recreate through Noah. And so Noah, you might note, as he’s gonna get on the ark, he takes seven days. This is a creation story being told again. He’s gathering all the animals and they’re coming up before him, and they’re making their way onto the ark, and so creation’s being told again.

And God’s gonna uncreate the world and then recreate it through Noah because it’s so bad. But here’s what he says it’s so wicked and violent and corrupt, but Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God. He had a family, three sons, and they had wives. And I’m not even gonna read all of these, but he just repeatedly says this. The earth was corrupt. The earth was filled with violence. This is the culture and the society that Noah lived in.

I mean, can you imagine the choices he had to make? I think it’s pretty obvious we can think about what he had to do in building the ark. And everybody thinks, crazy Noah, what’s he doing here? Building this ark. He’s spending all this time. I don’t know how long it took him to build it. I mean, he said he had children after he was 500, and then it’s 600 when the flood comes. And his sons, it seems, are helping him build it. I don’t know if he took 50 years or what it was. I’m not really sure. But it probably took a while to build this thing. And then after it’s built, you know, God tells him, start getting ready. For a week. It’s crazy Noah guy is getting all these animals and putting them on a ship and taking all their possessions and getting on a boat.

Is he going to live on this thing? But nobody understands what this guy’s doing. And they’re all wicked and evil. I don’t know. I can’t imagine what Noah and his family went through all of that, people mocking them and making fun of them. He’s said to be a herald of righteousness. No one listened. No one would listen to what Noah’s saying. It’s quite the sacrifice to give up everything he would have been familiar with. And it says that Noah did all that God commanded him. Repeatedly, it says that actually in the text. While the world is ignoring God, and every thought and every intention of their heart is evil and wicked. Noah’s just the opposite. It’s tough.

What about Abraham? Abraham is told by God in Genesis 22 to go and offer your only son Isaac on Mount Moriah. The son of promise.

Every family faces defining moments. Choices that can impact their life and the life of their family for generations to come. And very often we have to ask ourselves, am I willing to sacrifice? Am I willing to do what God actually wants, or am I self-willed? Am I just going to do what I want, what makes me happy? Am I going to trust the Lord and do things in his ways? Or I’m going to trust my own understanding and go about it my way. There’s a song that it’s not my favorite song. Actually, I don’t even like it all that much, which is okay. It’s fine if you like it. Trust and obey. You might love that song. That’s mine. But there is a verse I like.

It’s the verse we usually skip. The third verse, that’s the skippable verse that we always look over, but it’s got, I think, the best words. We never can prove the delights of his love until all on the altar we lay. For the favor he shows and the joy he bestows are for those who will trust and obey.

It means offering up my children as an offering to God. The altar means full surrender. It means trusting God and realizing leaning on my own understanding is foolish. Just think about Abraham. It couldn’t have made sense. How could he have understood? This promise that he’s been waiting for, and God says you’re going to have a son, and now he has it, and God says, take Isaac and go offer him on Mount Moriah. Abraham could have withheld Isaac. He could have thought, how can God possibly understand how much he is asking? He can’t know how painful this will be. How will I explain this to my wife? Instead, he laid it all on the altar. And only then did he realize and understand the fullness of God’s love and God’s blessing.

Until we’re willing to fully surrender, we can’t actually know. Until we’re willing to say, I don’t understand how this is going to work. It’s not what I really want. Until we’re willing to do that, we can’t possibly understand God’s love and God’s blessing. It’s only when we’re willing to put it all on the altar, sacrifice self, give up self-will, give up happiness, whatever it is that we’re lying to ourselves about that makes us want to go away from God. Only when we will give all that up and lay it all on the altar will we actually understand the depths of God’s love and wisdom. That’s what the song is trying to convey. And it’s a message that’s coming straight from stories like Abraham’s.

And then, of course, God blesses him greatly. He reconfirms the covenant with him and says, Now I know that you were faithful. You’re willing to do whatever I say to you, and so I will bless you beyond your imagination. But it all starts with choices. Now, here’s the thing I want us to understand legacy is really not what we’re actually after. It’s something that exists. And one day people are going to look back and they’re going to tell our story and they’re going to think about who we were and our kids and their kids and all of that. Hopefully, good things. If we make some bad choices and we ruin our family, they may not want to talk about us. So that’s something to consider. But legacy is only a means to an end.

2. Choices Come With Consequences

You know, it’s an emotional tie. It makes us feel good to think about the mark that we’re leaving or how things are going to be talked about, or the story that’s going to be told, and I think that is valuable, which is why I’m talking about it. But it’s actually more than that we’re interested in. We’re interested in how the decisions we make, the choices we make, how they affect ourselves and other people along the way. That’s what actually matters in all of this. And so with that in mind, we have to understand that choices come with consequences. It’s not just the story that’s going to be told a hundred years from now. It’s how I’m actually affecting my children, or how I’m actually affecting my wife.

It’s how I’m affecting the people around me, other people in church, my friends. This is actually what matters, and it’s going to be what determines the story as it is told later on. Sometimes it can be seemingly meaningless decisions. Abraham and Lot, they’ve got a lot of livestock. They’ve got to split up. And Lot looks one direction and thinks that looks pretty good. And that’s about all he did in his examination. And he takes the easy path and leaves Abraham with what seemingly is worse. And he takes his family to Sodom and Gomorrah, which we must recognize at the time didn’t mean anything. Only now, when we say those names, do we look and think with disdain on what happened in that place? Lot’s making a business decision here, doing what he thinks is best for his family.

But think about how they are negatively impacted in the end. What do we know about Lot’s wife? She turned around. That’s about all we know. Her eyes were set on the world. She was so engrossed in the things that were happening in Sodom and Gomorrah, she couldn’t let it go. And so remember Lot’s wife. That’s what we’re told. That’s her legacy. What about people like Dathan and Abiram and Korah? Out in the wilderness, they’re resisting the authority of Moses. And so through a series of events, their immediate families are destroyed because of their wickedness and rebellion. Eli, who I already referenced earlier in one of the passages I read. Not only were his sons a problem, but think about the influence possibly on Samuel. Samuel has the same struggle, doesn’t he?

And the way we influence people in our lives is undeniable. So Eli doesn’t restrain his own children. Samuel has parents who come and visit and who are interacting with him, and he has a heart for God, but that’s not passed along to his children. But the example that he is around for the most of his life of parenting is Eli, who neglects the evil and sin of his children and yet still allows them to participate in the serving and the worship of the Lord and leading the people, though they are wicked and vile.

David. David’s a remarkable man. But there’s this mark that we all know about in David’s life. His sin with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah. And despite all the amazing things that David did, just think about the absolute chaos that came from David’s decision. David repents. We’ll talk more about that later. But through these choices, there come consequences.

Amnon rapes Tamar. Absalom kills Amnon because of his indiscretion. When things don’t work out for Absalom, then Adonijah tries to take the kingdom. Just murder and death and destruction and assault, all coming from the family of David, this man who is a man after God’s heart, and yet the choices he made, at least in one part of his life, have this monumental effect.

A lapse in judgment. What about Ananias and Sapphira? They lied to the Holy Spirit. And they drop dead. It’s pretty rough. I don’t know. Ananias and Sapphira might have been great people, other than this event. I have I have no idea. We don’t know anything else about them, do we? Sort of the point. But at least in this one moment, they decide they’re going to sell their property and make it seem like they made a lot more than a lot less than they did, so they could keep part of it for themselves and yet still get the glory. And so they lie to God, not just man. And there are consequences that come. But there are also amazing positive stories in Scripture of people who make choices that for generations to come affect their family, their children and their children’s children.

One of the greatest figures in Scripture is Caleb. Remember Caleb? We hear a lot more about Joshua. Joshua’s the one who leads the people in the land, but Caleb is there beside him. And you think about Noah and what he went through, just think about Joshua and Caleb. They go in there with these other spies, and they all come back with a negative report, and just these two guys are saying, hey, we can do it. And everybody else is murmuring and crying, probably telling them to be quiet. And yet they’re the people of faith who end up being able to go into the land. But the story doesn’t end there with Caleb. Caleb is awesome. He goes into the land. Years later, he comes to Joshua and says, Hey, remember 40 years ago when Moses said all this stuff about how I could get the land I’m going to get and the inheritance, I’m ready to do that.

And not only do I want to do that, but I want to take the most difficult land to conquer. Even though I’m 85 and I’m older than all these other people, I want to go into the hill country and I want to fight the giants, the Anakin. This is the kind of man Caleb was.

Yet we still have Caleb here who goes in and he takes Hebron. And Hebron becomes this monumental city in Israelite history. He drives out the Anakim, he gets rid of the giants, even though he’s this older man. He says, Hey, I’m still just as strong now as I was 40 years ago. Think of Ernest. We’ve got to try to stop him from picking up dressers and couches when we move, because Vernus is a beast when you move. It’s like Caleb. He’s like, give me the giants, I’m ready for them. He has daughters and sons whose names are mentioned later in the story of Israel. People of significance. You don’t get mentioned if you’re not significant in some way. Caleb takes this hill country, the city, and it’s established for God’s people for centuries to come.

It’s the capital city for quite some time. And this is all because of a man of faith who said, I know what God told me, and I know God will be with me. Just imagine the influence on Caleb’s family.

What about Ruth’s sacrifice? Her loyalty to Naomi. She gives up her own family. She doesn’t want to stay there in Moab. She’s going to go back with her and take care of her mother-in-law. But the positive consequences of her loyalty span generations. Actually, they still exist. Interestingly, Rahab, who I’ll talk about here in a minute, Rahab and Ruth both still impact us today. They’re a part of our history. It’s amazing. Just because of the choices that they made and the positive impact. Ruth is a Moabitus who comes back with Naomi to serve her and to work with her, to take care of her, and she ends up marrying Boaz. You probably know the story. She is the great grandmother of King David. Through which all the promises are fulfilled.

Because of this decision to follow Yahweh and for Yahweh to be her God, just as Yahweh is Naomi’s God.

We have to come to terms with the reality that our choices come with consequences, short term, long term. They can be good, they can be bad. And we have to wade through that. It’s difficult. And we face sometimes the choices of our past and the things that we’ve dealt with in the past, and we worry about what that’s going to do for our future. But the only thing we can do now is to be working forward and thinking about the choices I can make from right now going forward to positively influence not only myself, but also my spouse and my children and the people around me, thinking about people like Caleb and people like Ruth, various other people in Scripture, like Abraham or Moses, people in the New Testament, like Paul or Peter or Timothy, did all sorts of various things to benefit the people around them in all different ways.

3. God's Grace Can Redeem Any Legacy

Paul gives up his status, his glory, his power as a Pharisee who trained at the feet of Gamaliel to be persecuted, to be beat everywhere he went. But it was for the glory of God, and all of that still affects me and you today. When you hold your Bible, you hold the work of Paul, who made this decision to give up who he was, to sacrifice self, and to not live for Jesus Christ. But I want to end with this thought this morning, and that is that God can redeem my legacy. He can redeem your legacy. God’s grace can redeem any legacy.

And sometimes we feel hopeless. We feel like I’ve made so many mistakes. There’s nothing I can do now to make it right. I saw this quote the other day. I don’t even know who said it, but just randomly, I was already working on this sermon, and it came up. It’s just how things work sometimes. It says, Some of the worst people in the Bible made the most positive impact. Why? Because their story didn’t end with their mistake, it finished with their comeback. You may feel like this, but the reality is your story isn’t over. Whatever mistakes you’ve made, decisions you’ve made, choices along the way that have negatively impacted people. Sometimes there’s only so much you can do about those things now. But you can begin to make choices going forward that positively influence everyone around you.

And I want us to understand that this is the story of the gospel. This is what God was doing through these people. It’s a story of redemption. And so these various figures and people throughout history, real people that we read about in scripture, God’s working through them to accomplish his will. Sometimes they go against the will of God and he still works out his plan because he’s God and He’s sovereign. Often we’re reading stories of people who make great sacrifice, who were willing to give up the things of the world, the riches and the power, or whatever it might be that they could have here to do things in God’s ways. And sometimes it’s just people who have to learn along the way. Like Jacob, the deceiver.

Like his mother, he was deceitful and scheming. And the consequences of his choices forced him to run away from his life from his brother Esau. And along the way, he had to learn the lessons that he had forced on others. His deceitful father-in-law, Laban. Created all kinds of problems in his life. And Jacob is wrestling with God himself, literally, at one point in Genesis 32. But his whole life is one of wrestling and striving. He keeps referencing the God of his father, the God of Isaac, the God of Abraham, but it’s not till later in the story that he actually says God is his God. He wrestles with God and he’s with him face to face before he goes over to his brother. He’s worried about what that’s going to happen.

And of course, Esau receives him with favor. And he settles in the land of Canaan. And he names the place that he settles. El Elohe Israel. God, the God of Israel. It’s now his God. Maybe that’s where you are. You’ve wrestled. God is your parents’ God. It’s the God you’ve heard about. It’s the God you know about. And it could be you’ve made decisions along the way that really aren’t in keeping with who that God is. Jacob was just like that. But God continued to pursue him. And God was with him, and God is with you. God wants you, he’s pursuing you, he wants you to follow him. And you can make him your God just like Jacob did. You can look at the experiences around you can choose to refuse or to reject the God of creation, the God of the world, or like Jacob, you could submit to reality and realize who he really is and say, He is my God.

What about Rahab, the prostitute? Talk about a story of redemption. A woman of disrepute, even in her own culture, would have been looked down on. And I’m not going to go through the whole story. I just want to read two verses from the New Testament. Samon, the father of Boaz by Rahab. And Boaz, the father of Obed by Ruth. And Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse, the father of David, the king.

Two foreign women, one of them a prostitute, whose lives are transformed and changed. Their legacy becomes something completely different because they give themselves over to Yahweh, the one true God. And so Rahab becomes the great grandmother of King David, through which comes the Messiah, who brings salvation to everyone. And then there’s Manasseh, the Ahab of Jerusalem and Judah. This wicked man.

This is the kind of person that Manasseh is. He’s offering his children as sacrifices in the valley of the son of Hinnam. Just a horrible and wicked person. He’s worshiping the hosts of heaven, these false divine beings. He’s not worshiping Yahweh. He’s worshiping these other gods.

God brings judgment on him as God often does on people who are wicked. Many of them do not respond. Many of them do not humble themselves before Yahweh. And yet Manasseh, when he’s taken away to Babylon, when he’s put in hooks and he’s dragged away from his kingdom and brought somewhere else, we’re told that he humbled himself and he prayed. He entreated the favor of Yahweh, and God was moved. And he restored his kingdom. When Manasseh gets back, he commanded Judah to serve the Lord, the God of Israel. It says he then knew that Yahweh was God. And he took great steps. He couldn’t fix all the problems. All the consequences of his wickedness and evil weren’t going to all go away. But Manasseh did what he could do from that point forward to bring God’s people back to him.

His son Ammon was wicked. Manasseh dies. Ammon is brought to power, and he’s wicked and evil, and he’s assassinated after two years. Nobody wants him. The ways of the Lord are way better than man’s ways. They get rid of Ammon and the grandson of Manasseh, is one of the most righteous kings of Judah, Josiah. He’s very young. And it seems likely that in his youth he was affected by Manasseh’s righteousness in his later years. And he brings great reform. So your story’s not over. You’re here this morning. Your story is still being written. And all the possible choices that you could have made that were wicked and evil, God can redeem you from them. God laid it all on the altar to pay for my deliverance and yours.

Conclusion

He did not withhold his son. That story with Abraham and Isaac, it’s amazing. I can’t imagine. Divine perspective, how he must have smiled thinking about Abraham. Being in his likeness, willing to offer so much. And at the same time knowing that he would offer his own son on that mountain in years to come. To deliver all of us. What is your legacy? What are people going to say about you in the years to come? Fifty years from now, 70 years from now, when your children and their families gather, what will the story be? Will it be like Abraham? A man of faith who through the ups and downs showed he was willing to give everything to the Lord. Will it be like David or Manasseh? Men who at times struggled and yet in the end came back to God, or will you step out on your own and lean on your own understanding?

Don’t do it. Don’t act in foolishness. Don’t trust in your own ways. Don’t seek your own happiness. The end of that is destruction and death. Will you trust the Lord? Will you obey His will? If you do, he will bless you. There will be great reward. It won’t always be in this life, although often it very much can be in this life by the ways we affect the people around us. But like those in Hebrews chapter 11, which we haven’t really talked about, although we’ve referenced many of them, we’ll be looking for something that’s bigger and greater and more wonderful. A city not made with hands. That’s awaiting us where we will be with God forever. Do you want that? If you do, you can start today.

You can give your life to Jesus Christ. You can be buried in baptism. Give up your old life. That’s what that means. Sacrifice self. And raise up a newness of life, ready to walk and live for Him. Think about the impact, not just for yourself, but for those around you if you make that choice this morning. Can we help you? Why don’t you come now as we stand and we sing?