How to leave a Godly legacy.
Scripture reading
Hebrews 11: 8 By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed [j]by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise, 10 for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
12 Therefore there were born even of one man, and him as good as dead [m]at that, as many as the stars of heaven in number, and innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore.
17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only son, 18 to whom it was said, “In Isaac your seed shall be called.” 19 [o]He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which, [p]figuratively speaking, he also received him back.
A few weeks ago we started looking at the life of Abraham and the lessons we can learn from his life. We began by looking at what his experience told us about God; God is in control, God chose you, and God keeps His promises. Now, this week we are looking at how Abraham responded to those truths about God. In order to do that, we have to look at the life of Abraham in Scripture.
When I started looking at the life of Abraham, and considering what to preach about it, it was kind of overwhelming. The story of Abraham covers 12 chapters in the book of Genesis. He is mentioned 554 times in Scripture and mentioned in 27 out of the 66 books of the Bible. And as part of the Firm Foundations series, we have been looking at the high points of Scripture and discovering the major doctrines of our faith. There seemed to really be no way to do Abraham justice in just a few messages.
But then I had a thought. I thought that I would look at what the New Testament had to say about Abraham. How does the New Testament view his life, summarize his contribution. And I was able to sort the New Testament Scripture passages into some categories. Some of the New Testament passages talked about how being a descendent of Abraham was a blessing. Many New Testament passages tell us how Abraham walked by faith. Others tell us of how he dealt with trials. Still others emphasize his obedience to God and finally his persistent undaunted trust in God.
So, I have built these final points around Abraham’s legacy.
And that’s where the rubber meets the road for us. Legacy. As we get older, we begin thinking more about that word. Legacy: Here’s the definition
· .an amount of money or property left to someone in a will:"my grandmother died and unexpectedly left me a small legacy"Similarbequestinheritanceheritagebequeathal
It means some tangible property that you leave for someone in a will. But we know that it also means…
· 2.the long-lasting impact of particular events, actions, etc. that took place in the past, or of a person’s life:"he left us a rich legacy of buildings that are both innovative architectural creations and genuine works of art"Similarconsequenceeffectoutcomeupshot
It means something we leave behind, after we die, that is identified with us. When people look at that thing, or think about it, they will think of us. It can be tangible like a recipe you were known for, or some craft that you built. It can be non-tangible; you were known for your wisdom, humor, music, compassion, listening, or your Christian witness.
Of course, we also know that our legacy can be something negative. We might hear a relative say that we have our mom or dad’s bad temper, or colorful vocabulary.
I read some quotes about legacy from a variety of individuals.
‘No matter what happens in life, be good to people. Being good to people is a wonderful legacy to leave behind.’ – Taylor Swift
‘No legacy is so rich as honesty.’ – William Shakespeare
‘The greatest legacy one can pass on to one’s children and grandchildren is not money or other material things accumulated in one’s life, but rather a legacy of character and faith.’ – Billy Graham
‘We stand our best chance of leaving a legacy to those who want to learn, our children, by standing firm. In matters of style, hey, swing with the stream. But in matters of principle, you need to stand like a rock.’ – Kevin Costner
‘That is your legacy on this Earth when you leave this Earth: how many hearts you touched.’ – Patti Davis
As I said a moment ago, I built this message around New Testament passages about Abraham. The New Testament was written over 2000 years after Abraham died. So, it really is a record of the legacy of Abraham particularly in the Church. So, we will be referring to several New Testament passages about Abraham as we look at his legacy. And here is his legacy laid out in 5 points. This is how to leave a Godly legacy.
He was be a blessing. He walked by faith. He endured trials. His walk matched his words. And finally, he was present, he lived in the moment.
Prayer
I. He was a blessing.
When I began looking at New Testament passages about Abraham, I came across many that, at first glance, seemed to say little to nothing about his legacy. For example,
Matthew 1: The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham:
Jesus was born in the line of Abraham.
Matthew 3:9 and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.
John the Baptist said this to the Pharisees and Sadduccees.
Matthew 8:11 And I say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven;
Jesus said this describing how Gentiles would be in Christ’s kingdom.
And, at first glance, those, and others seem to tell us little more than that Abraham was the physical father, and original ancestor of the Jewish people. But, upon further inspection, I noticed something. All of these passages, not only list Abraham as the ancestor of the Jewish people, but they look at him in a very positive light. Matthew one gives Jesus’s genealogy, but he pulls two great names out of that genealogy, Abraham and David, to let you know the wonderful stock from which Jesus comes. In Matthew 3, John the Baptist is referring to how proud the Pharisees and Sadducees were of being descendants of Abraham. And Matthew 8 equates being a child of Abraham with entering into the eternal kingdom of heaven.
In short, in the New Testament world, everyone spoke highly of Abraham. They wanted him as their father, their progenitor, their ancestor. He is viewed in the New Testament as the source of blessing.
Acts 3:25 It is you who are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’
God had promised Abraham that he would be a blessing to all the families of the earth.
God made a number of promises to Abraham. He promised him that he would become a great nation. He promised him that the land He brought him to would belong to him. He promised that He would bless him in all the ways that a person can be blessed. And He promised him that he himself would be a blessing to others, and not only some others, but a blessing to all people.
That’s some kind of a heavy promise and legacy, isn’t it? Your life is going to bless people. Your life is going to bless all people. And we know what God meant. In Abraham came the nation of Israel, Moses, and God’s law. Through Abraham came the prophets, and the Messiah. Through Abraham we have the Bible; God’s Word. The Bible alone should tell you how much of the world has been blessed in Abraham. The Guinness Book of World Records still records the Bible as the most published book. They tell you that there is no way of knowing how many copies have been published. But they estimate that it is between 5 and 7 billion copies. It has been translated into 2,073 languages. It really is true that all of the world has been blessed in Abraham.
And we also know from other New Testament references that all those who put their faith in Jesus Christ are the Spiritual children of Abraham.Galatians 3:7-9 so know that those who are of faith, those are sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God [a]would justify the [b]Gentiles by faith, proclaimed the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the nations will be blessed in you.” 9 So then those who are of faith are blessed with [c]Abraham, the believer.Abraham was the first believer.
What as Abraham’s legacy? He was a blessing in the world. So, what kind of legacy can you and I leave? Be a blessing in the world. Our response to God blessing us, is to bless others. We become the conduit for blessing the world.
Be a blessing wherever God plants you. What else did Abram do that created a Godly legacy?
II. He Walked by faith.
Hebrews 11: 8 By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed [j]by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise, 10 for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
12 Therefore there were born even of one man, and him as good as dead [m]at that, as many as the stars of heaven in number, and innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore.
One of the major lessons that God would have us learn from the story of Abraham is that he walked by faith not by sight. Faith means that he could not see the physical reality of what God was promising. God promised him a son. But he was 100, and Sarah was 90 when that son was finally born. But he took the Word of God that he would have a son as all the evidence he needed for the fulfillment of God’s promises.
Abram was called away from Ur of the Chaldees. He was promised by God that he would be led to a new land that would be his inheritance. And these verses describe for us what his response was.
“he went out, not knowing where he was going.” This describes his faith in God. I never really thought about it before. But when God called on Abram in Ur of the Chaldees to leave that place, He doesn’t give him any further directions.
When we planned our trip to Georgia this last summer, we got a lot of information ahead of time. We plugged information into the internet search engine and found three major alternate routes we could go to get where we were going. We found out that it was 985 miles. That it would take 14 hours and 37 minutes to get there. We figured out where we would be staying after one day of driving and where we would be staying when we arrived. We figured out what stops we wanted to make on the way, and how much money it was going to take to make the trip. And we figured out our itinerary for when we arrived.
Abraham was given none of that. God just said, “Leave Ur, I’ll tell you the next steps when you need to know them. And that is why he is called the father of faith. He walked by faith, not by sight. Abraham’s legacy was that he was a blessing, and that he set up a standard of believing God’s Word. We know it is his legacy because 2000 years after he lived his faith is being written about in the New Testament.Romans 4:4 “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”
Galatians 3:6-7 Just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness, so know that those who are of faith, those are sons of Abraham.
How did Abraham respond to God’s Word? He believed it.
And we are the spiritual children of Abraham when we choose to believe God.
Let’s go back for a moment to Hebrews 11, because there are a couple of things I’d like to point out about Abraham’s faith.
Hebrews 11: 8 By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed [j]by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise,
There are three important details here that further describe Abram’s faith. Verse 9 says that he “sojourned in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise.”
He sojourned. The passage goes on to say that he was “dwelling in tents.” A tent is a temporary, mobile dwelling. Today, it would be like living in a camper, attached to the bumper of your truck. He lived as a stranger, alien, or visitor, as in a foreign land. This further describes his faith. God called Abram to leave Ur when he was 75 years old. He died at 175. For 100 years he had no permanent house. Even when he arrived at the land that God said He would give him, Abraham just kept moving from place to place. We have a record of 17 different places where Abraham pitched his tent. And he never owned the property in any of those places. He had no deed of ownership to any of the land he parked on.
And there’s an added note that describes how nomadic a life he lived. Hebrews tells us that he “dwelled in tents with Isaac and Jacob.” Not only did he live in tents, his son and grandson did as well. They never had a permanent dwelling either.
All that is to point out that his whole identity, as God’s chosen, as the heir of Canaan land, only existed in the mind of God, and in Abram’s mind, for his whole life, and for the lives of generations after him.
Now Hebrews goes on to say
10 for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
This is a legacy of faith. It is a life of taking God at His Word, even when all outward evidence seems to be saying something different. And here’s the beauty of it. All of us can choose to leave that legacy.
He believed that he would have children, a nation, that God would protect him, that he would inherit a land, that his name would endure. He took God’s specific promises and believed them.
That’s how we believe. We believe in heaven though none of us have been there. We believe in the indwelling of the Spirit, though we can’t see Him in us. We believe that Jesus lived, performed miracles, died, and rose again though we only have this written account of the events. And we believe that God is at work in and around us, despite the fact that life is often hard, disappointing, discouraging, and confusing.
Everyone can have a legacy of belief and trust, over cynicism and despair.
He was a blessing and he had faith.
III. His walk matched his words.
Hebrews 11: 8 By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed [j]by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise, 10 for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only son,
When I read the summary of Abraham’s life in Hebrews 11, I was struck by the activity of Abraham. He is a man of action. God commands and he responds with action. In fact, in all the life of Abraham recorded in Scripture, we have no sermons, moral treatises, no speeches, no marvelous examples of oratory. God says leave Ur, and he goes. There’s strife with Lot, so they separate. Someone kidnaps Lot’s family, Abraham leads a military raid. Then he gives a tithe of the war chest to Melchizedek. God says circumcise all the men, so he does. Probably his longest speech is his pleading for Sodom in chapter 18 of Genesis. God says send Ishmael away, so he does. God says offer Isaac as an offering, and he sets out to do it. Isaac needs a wife, so he sends his servant. He is always doing. I imagine that Abraham was a man of few words and daily work. Abraham walked by faith; he believed God. But his faith could be seen by the actions he took.
We always talk about Abraham as a man of faith. But he was also a man of works. That was his legacy.
One of the big debates around Christianity is whether Abraham was saved by his faith or his works. The debate really started at the birth of Christianity. You see, up until then, the major proponents of the Jewish faith had taken God’s Word, and twisted it into a whole religious system of commandments. “Do you want to inherit eternal life?” “Do this.” “Don’t do that.” First recorded in the third century B.C. they were taught that there are 248 positive commands, and 365 negative commands, for a total of 613 commandments in Scripture. If you want a list of them all, you can look it up on Wikipedia.
And so, for them, a person pleases God by keeping all of God’s commandments. They even go so far as to say that Abram followed the law of God even before he was called out of Ur of the Chaldees.
A Jewish tradition tells the story of Abram as a young man. It is said that his father was an idol merchant. Abram came to believe that there was only one God. So, one day, while
Abram tried to convince his father, Terach, of the folly of idol worship. One day, when Abram was left alone to mind the store, he took a hammer and smashed all of the idols except the largest one. He placed the hammer in the hand of the largest idol. When his father returned and asked what happened, Abram said, "The idols got into a fight, and the big one smashed all the other ones." His father said, "Don't be ridiculous. These idols have no life or power. They can't do anything." Abram replied, "Then why do you worship them?"
But, when Christianity was born at the death burial and resurrection of Jesus, works-based salvation was dealt a mortal blow. John the Baptist called Jesus the “Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.” Jesus said that if you want to be saved, you need only believe in Him as the propitiation for sin. And Paul makes this argument for salvation by faith alone in a number of his letters.
Romans 4: What then shall we say that Abraham, [a]our forefather according to the flesh, has found? 2 For if Abraham was justified [b]by works, he has something to boast about—but not [c]before God! 3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”
Galatians 3: 5 So then, does He who provides you with the Spirit and works [a]miracles among you, do it by the works of [b]the Law, or by [c]hearing with faith? 6 Just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness, 7 so know that those who are of faith, those are sons of Abraham.
Paul was preaching that Abraham was saved by faith. But then what happened was, as Paul preached that salvation is by faith alone, some took that as a license to sin. God saved me because I believed. Jesus’ blood covers my sin, past present and future. So, I can now live any way that I want.
Jude 1:4 For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
So, this is the debate. Are we saved by faith, or by works.
But then later, James, Jesus’ brother wrote this…
James 2:21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? 22 You see that faith was working with his works, and [p]as a result of the works, faith was [q]perfected. 23 And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “And Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God. 24 You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.
So how does that work together?
Faith is belief. Real belief is followed by action. Abram believed, and then took action demonstrating that he believed.
Now, that’s the doctrinal point I needed to make about Abraham. But let’s get back to legacy. And someone who truly has faith in Christ, believes in all that He did and said, believes that what He said is good and evil, are good and evil, believes the words of His disciples in the New Testament, and obeys those words. We won’t all leave a legacy of some building or monument with our name on it. We won’t all leave behind some book or wisdom that will pass on to next generations. But we can all choose to bless rather than curse, we can choose to believe God, we can choose to do work in accordance to what we profess.
We want our children to see that our lives had integrity, not hypocrisy. That our actions matched our words.
We’re going to stop here. Next time, he endured trials and he was present.
Source Unknown.
And I found another interesting definition of legacy concerning computer software.
· 1.denoting or relating to software or hardware that has been superseded but is difficult to replace because of its wide use:"integration with legacy systems has been cited as a problem by over half of respondents"
Do you know what this is? It is really quite a good definition of legacy. It perfectly describes what our legacy is. What it means is that there are computer programs that come into widespread use. And then they come up with a new and improved version. The new program is better, easier, more user-friendly than the old. But no one wants to even try the new program, because they are so used to the old program. The old program is engrained in their minds.
That is a perfect definition of your legacy in life. It answers this question; when you are gone from this world, what part of you will be engrained in the minds of those that you knew? What about you will keep coming to mind as those that knew you live their lives? What about you will they not be able to shake? You are woven into the fabric of their gray matter?
Will it be your love? Your witness? Your empathy? Will it be your availability? Your kindness? Your passion for truth? Your courage?
Or will it be something negative, or worse, will it be nothing?