Today seems like an appropriate day to continue this series in legacy. We just talked about kids and youth ministry, the human beings, the children that we have to hand this church's legacy to. Courtney talked about the legacy of this church. We're building it together.
Today in the second service, I'm going to dedicate a beautiful baby, another child of God, a kid that's going to grow up in this church. This church will leave it a legacy. So the question we have to ask ourselves is what are we leaving them? Mike talked about what his dad left, we're talking about what our church left.
Remember, now my premise has been that all of us, because we're human beings, we all want to leave something beyond ourselves, something that will outlast and outlive us, beyond our short, relatively short time on earth. My conclusion has been after this study that the truth is, whether we're intentional about it or not, and really we should be intentional about it. But we're all leaving this legacy. We're all leaving behind to our kids, and those we're in community with and inherence.
The question is, what is it? Now, the desire to leave a legacy is not just something that's human. It's a biblical concept. In fact, it's just about a command.
And here's what the Psalmist said. He goes, we're not going to hide these truths from our children. That's what we're just talking about up here. We, and we is not just mom and dad, and we is not just the children's ministry, or the youth pastor, we, all of us, will tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the Lord, about His power, and His mighty wonders.
The writer of Proverbs, this ancient book of wisdom in the middle of the Bible, he writes that a good person leaves an inheritance for their children's children. In other words, a good person leaves an inheritance that lasts. Now, last week, if you were here, Mike did a great job talking about unintentional legacies, because we're all leaving one. We should leave intentional ones.
Unfortunately, we tend to leave unintentional ones. Next week's gonna be the final installment of the series, and it's gonna end, I think, fairly powerfully, so I don't want you to miss it. But today, I wanna share with you a personal discovery I've made, and I want you to consider, and it's not gonna be easy, and it might not really be popular, adopting it as your legacy. Now, if you miss any of the series, and want you to go back and catch up, we kicked off by understanding the real world powerful impact of legacy.
Remember, we looked at three different families, real world families. One who's essentially the legacy of one man was a ton of prisoners in the state of New York. Another wound up being all wound up being, I think, the legacy was the president of the United States, and federal judges, and mayors, and just all kinds of of wonderful servants of God and man. And then we looked at a biblical family.
Legacies carry on, this is real, this is not just some pie in the sky concept, right? We looked at maybe what is a preeminent importance for those of us who follow Jesus. How to leave a legacy of faith. We just talked about that with Michael Courtney.
Then I shared with you a realization I came to after studying the scriptures. What I discovered is if you would ask me prior to my study of the series, if somebody had said, John, what kind of legacy inheritance do you wanna leave for my children? See, I'm a pastor, right? So I know the answer's not money, and you know that too, right?
There are more things more important and powerful than money to leave. Not that money's not important, and not that you shouldn't leave it. But all of us know that money can have just as powerfully negative an impact on the generations that follow as positive. And you can save your whole life, and all that money is only one generation from being blown by bad investments or habits.
See, what I would have told you, because I know the answer is money, what I would have told you is the things I want to leave behind would have been more value oriented. As I said two weeks ago, for some reason, I don't know, this is something in my psyche, maybe handed down to me, right? A legacy from me. I would have said work ethic.
I want my kids have a good work ethic. Now there would have been other things too. What else do you want to leave as your legacy? Oh, you know, I would want them to say that their dad was a good man.
I don't know what that means. Things like kindness and honesty, they're all good. But here's what I discovered. Those things are good, but their values, now values are better to hand down than money or things, but they're not virtues.
Here's how I would define the difference. Values are in a sense of human construct. Everybody has values. Nobody that's ever lived doesn't have values.
You might not like their values, but they have values. And they're temporal. Virtues are different. Virtues are spiritual in nature.
And I think the Bible would teach that they're accessible to us as the Spirit of God dwells in us. We've been looking at three of them that the Scripture say are eternal values. And if you're going to leave your kids anything, right, why wouldn't you want to hand them down something that is for use in this kingdom and the kingdom to come? Something that lasts.
Now what are those virtues? Most of you know them, the Apostle Paul, and he'll let her re-wrote to the church in Corinth. Here's what he said, these three remain. Faith, hope, and love.
But the greatest of these is love. Now this is not just think about this. How about this? This is a verse to be read in weddings.
It's one that should be read in a eulogy at your funeral. My dad, my mom, was a woman or a man of faith and hope and love. They left this for me. I'm going to leave it for my kids.
Now here's what we discovered. It's important we get this right because faith, this is why you should care. Faith changes the way the generations to come live. We have faith in the promises of God, right, that he's going to keep them.
Then when we live this life, we will walk differently than other people. We will do things that seem counter-cultural, radical, crazy. Some of you are familiar with the Bible. Hebrews 11 is that famous chapter, the heroes of the faith.
Why did they live the way they lived? Why did they do these crazy things? Because they had faith. Now hope, hope changes the way we feel.
Why? Because our eyes aren't just on this world. Our hope isn't here. We place our hope in God and in the life to come.
Our hope is not in this world, but it's in the next. So we focus our eyes on things on scene. We focus our mind on things in the heavenly realm. We don't get discouraged and overwhelmed by circumstances because we have hope changes the way we feel.
And finally love, the most powerful one because love changes who we are. Love as the spirit dwells in us. Love makes us patient and kind and humble and forgiving. Love changes our nature.
It not only allows prodigals a path home, but when they get home, it calls them sons and daughters. Three virtues, all eternal. But it's up to each of us to make them intentional and intentional part of our legacy. We've got to not just teach them to our kids.
We have to walk the talk. We have to show them them. We have to point them out, if you will. Daddy, why are you doing that?
Because I have faith. Daddy, why are you down? Because I have hope. Daddy, why are you treating him that way?
Because I have love. Now, with that said, over the last couple weeks, I turned my attention back to what I started with because I'm stubborn. But what about values? Can I get to work ethic somehow?
So with these virtues as a framework, I began to think about legacy and was there any values that could play a role in this? And of course, the answer is sure, there's lots of values, biblical values. But there is one, and this is so interesting to me. Maybe I'm just weird, but there's only one as I worked on this, which binds those three eternal virtues together.
And it's one you likely didn't have on your list, but most of us don't write this down. Here's what I'd like to be known for. If you're going to leave one value as your legacy to your children, one value that will matter in this life and carry on eternally, that one value? Generosity.
Now let go of your wallet. I don't want your money. This isn't a talk on giving. Generosity.
Rick Warren has done some wonderful teaching on the idea. He notes that in the Bible, faith is mentioned 246 times, hope 185 times, and love 733 times. But the word give is mentioned 2,285 times. The authors of the scripture say more about the concept of generosity than faith, hope, and love put together.
Why is that? That was so much on generosity because generosity is a practical expression of those three eternal values. Which, look, if I'm being honest, is not on my list? How about work ethic?
How about being a nice guy? Nope. Generosity. Listen, now I want you to think about adding this to your list, and I'll show you why over the next few minutes.
When I say generosity, I think in the room, the reactions are split between one of two thoughts, okay? The first might be the one I had when I discovered this, which is, oh, not that. Generosity. What do you really understand what it means to be generous?
You see, my nature, I'm cheap. Like I'm fairly cheap. I spend, and if you're my friends, my friends are really laughing, you know this. I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to save a dime.
Do you know when I book any hotel I've ever stayed in? About five minutes before I walk into it. I can hear Eric much more in the back because he knows this show. We go on vacation to the same beach every year.
Do you know when I book the week-long vacation? The morning of the vacation. Because I call the place and say, well, I see this room is empty. I was wondering if you'd be willing to give it to me for this.
I'm cheap. Yesterday I drove down to see my daughter. She was running in a competition. I had a new pair of shoes on.
And she looked down and she said, new drips. At first I said, what? I thought I spilled something on myself. She said new drips.
And I said, oh, you mean kicks? Because that's the cool word for shoes, which apparently that went out sometime in the 90s. No, she said new drips. And I said, yes.
And she goes, you got him at Marshall's, didn't you? And I had. Along with this pair right here, actually. I mean, my kids, I force them to walk around and sweatshirts.
It's freezing at this house, put another sweatshirt on. At night. Listen, you're under a blanket. That's my bottle.
At night, the thermostat in the eyes of the house goes down to 52 degrees. Nothing freezes at 52 and the dogs have fur. Everybody is fine. Joe said to me, you're so cheap when you die, you're probably going to walk towards the light and turn it off.
That's fine. You can laugh, Abby. And I know I'm a little over the top. But it's not just me.
That's stingy. It comes naturally for all of us. That's the truth. You want to know?
Go spend some time in the two-year-old room with Courtney. How many kids do you see walking around? There's a billion toys everywhere. How many walk around and go, I really like this one, but I'd love for you to have it instead.
Right? No. Mine. What if the other kid tries to take it?
Bangs them over the head with it. Generosity is not natural. So that's one reaction. Maybe you're like me or go, oh, not generosity.
Now, the second reaction to a room might be this. As you think about your own legacy and your own lifestyle in terms of this value of generosity. Hmm. I'm pretty good about it.
I'm a pretty giving person. And I would tell you, you're probably right. Most of us, if not all of us, are giving people. We give with regularity to all kinds of causes and needs.
We give to our church, we give to charity, we give to causes and needs. We're great givers. But I'm not talking today about the act of giving. I'm talking about the value of generosity.
In fact, for many of us, the problem is that because we're so good at giving, it actually masks the fact that we're bad at being generous. Because this is not about a doing thing. That's giving. This is about a being thing, generous.
Here's my premise. Almost every one of us gives. Almost none of us is generous. Let me explain why.
Because there's a difference. The thing is a momentary act of the human will. Generosity is an eternal state of a transformed heart. We're good at giving.
Guys like me get up microphone on, right? Give it a peel. Show some pictures of the kids in Guatemala, right? Give a need.
And many of you would take out your wallet. Maybe you're like me, right? You get up late at night, you can't sleep, you turn on the picture, you've seen the picture of the shivering dogs, the video of the shivering dogs. And somehow you're in the arms of the angels, there's playing behind in them.
And the dog is looking at me. And next thing I know, I'm writing a check to the dogs. We're giving people, right? We give.
Neighbors house burns down, gold fund me account gets posted, outcomes are wild. Almost all of us give. We're really good at giving. But it's usually in response to a request or a plea.
It's some kind of monetary impact. It moves our emotions, our hearts. And so we take out our checkbook. Tony Campolo tells a wonderful story about giving you.
He was invited to speak at a ladies meeting. There was 300 women there. But before he spoke, the president was a missions meeting. Before he spoke, the president of the organization read a letter from a missionary.
It was a really moving letter, right? And the missionary expressed a need for $4,000 to take care of an emergency that had cropped up. And so the president of the organization said, we need to pray that God will provide the resources to meet the needs of this missionary. And he says, Pastor Campolo, before you get up, would you please lead us?
And if you know what Tony Campolo, he got up and he goes, no. And startled. I beg your pardon? He said, I'm not going to pray for that.
He said, look, God's already provided the resources. All we need to do is give. And so he looked around and he goes, tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to step up to this table and I'm going to give every bit of cash I have in my pocket.
And if all of you do the same thing, I think God's already provided the resources. So the president of the organization chuckled a little bit and said, well, I guess we get the point, Tony's trying to teach us to give sacrificially. And he goes, no, that's not what I'm trying to teach you. I'm trying to teach you.
God's already provided for this missionary. All we need to do is give it. And so he goes here. I'm going to put down all the money I have with me.
Later on, he would confess that it was only $15 so he wasn't that worried. But he puts it all down on the table in front of him. And then he looked at the president of the organization in front of everyone. And so reluctantly she opened her purse and took out her money, which was about $40 and put it on the table.
And one by one, the rest of the women in the room for this mission was lunch came up and put their money down to. And it was over. They had collected more than $4,000. And then Campolo looked around and said, there's the lesson.
God's already supplied for the need. He's supplied for the missionaries. The problem is we keep it all for ourselves. See, giving is wonderful.
That's a wonderful story of giving. Giving is powerful. But giving has this ability to mask the fact that we're not generous. That same Tony Campolo shared a statistic on generosity that sheds a little light on the difference.
Here's what he wrote. Americans don't realize the wealth that we've gained since the middle of the 20th century and that it slowly made us very selfish people. We know that after World War II we helped rebuild Europe under the Marshall Plan. And we still think that that same kind of generosity marks our present day foreign policy.
That's not the case. Of the 22 industrial nations in the world, the United States is dead last on a per capita giving to the poor people of the world. By way of comparison, let me point out that on a per capita basis for every dollar that America gives to the world, the people of Norway give 70. Now, this is no shot in America.
We are very giving people. We've given more money away than any nation that's ever lived. But are we generous? See, giving and generous are different.
Generosity is not a momentary act of the will. Generosity is this lifelong way of being that results from a changed heart and a changed understanding. This is the one value which ties together all three of the virtues. The Apostle Paul knew as Machi tried to explain it to the church in Corinth.
He goes, listen, since you excel in everything, in faith, right, in speech, in knowledge, in earnestness and in love, see that you also excel in the grace of giving. In honor pins it all. If you're going to give to your kids, if you're going to leave behind a pattern of living, for those who watch, who follow you, who are influenced by you, children and old children, leave behind the value of generosity because it is the practical expression of faith, hope and love. I mean, just think about it quickly with me, right?
If you have faith in God's promises, it would change the way we live. We know that, right? Well, what are God's promises when it comes to being generous? Well, maybe the first one is by the great Italian prophet, Malachi.
Just kidding. He's a Jewish prophet named Malachi. But here's what he wrote. God told, God, he's speaking on God's behalf, bring a whole tithe, a tenth of what you have into the storehouse that there may be food in my house.
Test me in this, God says. And see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there won't be room enough to store it. They're so serious about this concept of tithing, of giving, of prioritizing the things of God with the first tenth of what we have. He says, test me in this.
If you'll be generous with me for my causes, for my people, then I promise you and you can test me on this, I will be generous to you. You cannot give me. I'm the most generous being there ever lived. It's not a one-time promise.
It's over and over and over again. Proverbs, a generous person will prosper. Whoever refreshes others will be refreshed. The Psalmist, good will come to those who are generous and lend freely, who conduct their affairs with justice.
Listen now. You can't have faith and not be generous. And you know how you develop faith by being generous? Now how to hope?
Hope changes the way we feel, right? Because we stop looking at our current circumstances. But instead we lift our eyes towards the things of God and heaven. We hope because our focus isn't here, but it's there.
Now why in the world would generosity have to do with hope? Well, here's what Jesus said. Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where Molot and vermin destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where Molot and vermin do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal.
Here's what Paul wrote to his prodigy, Timothy, he said, command those who are rich in this present world. And isn't it interesting that we don't feel rich, but we are, and we feel generous and often we aren't. Tell those that are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put, and here it is, their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good and to be rich in good deeds and to be generous and willing to share.
It can't be clear. Hope is tied to generosity. And when you're here in this generosity is not just about money. It's about good deeds, right?
It's about these good works. It's about our time and our talents and our treasure. He concludes it this way. In this way, they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.
You cannot have hope and not be generous. You cannot because you're not building into that world. You are going to keep focusing your eyes here. I'll show you that in a second.
If you want to have hope, start being generous. Start investing there. Do you see the power of this? And then finally love.
You know, you can give without love. We do that all the time. I bet many of you leave a tip for the garbage, man. Every Christmas you've never met them.
I'm too cheap, but I know many of you do. See, you can give without loving, but you can't love without giving. See, loving means we're generous with our money, but we're also generous with our patience. I'm generously patient and our kindness and our praise of others and our forgiveness.
You see that? Here's what Jesus says about our hearts. This is a huge lesson on generosity. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
What Jesus is saying, and this is misunderstood a lot, is your heart, your love, your concern, your passion, it follows where you put your money, where you put your time, where you place your talents. See, we tend to think the opposite. We tend to think whatever it is we're passionate about is where we'll put our time and our treasure and our talent. And that's not the way it works.
You know why? Because many of us are passionate about God, but give them very little of our time, our talent, our treasure, and he knows that. Right? It's the other way around.
Let me ask you a question. How many of you just raise your hand if I can get a volunteer or two? How many of you own Tesla stock? Anybody?
So I am going to move. Well, if you own Tesla stock, how much would you care about Tesla stock? A lot. Now, how many of you don't own Tesla stock?
Anybody care about Tesla stock? You see? You don't care because you haven't put any treasure there. You put the treasure there.
Suddenly, you're going to begin the care. Trust me. Your heart will follow. It works that way with our treasure.
By the way, it works that way with our time. Start putting your time into your spouse and your kids and serving others. You'll begin to care a little bit more about your spouse than your kids and serving others. Trust me.
You can't love without being generous. And if you want to love, you have to be generous. If you want to leave your kids an inherent of faith and hope and love, you've got to leave them a legacy of generosity with your time and your treasure and your talent. How?
It's not natural. They're not going to just pick this up. You have to plan it. You're going to have to focus on it.
You're going to have to prioritize it. It's unnatural. I mean, here's what's natural. We have our stuff.
We consume most of what we have, whatever it is, our time, our treasure, our talent. We use it for ourselves and our wants. If we have some left over, then what we do is we save it up, right? Maybe it's for retirement.
Maybe it's for a rainy day. But we save enough up so that if something happens, we're pretty comfortable that we'd be able to make it through. We put our confidence in there. I'm going to have enough there just in case something happens.
Then, once I've burned up all I feel comfortable burning up and I've saved enough so I don't have to worry. Everything left over I'd be willing to give. See that? That's not generosity.
Generosity is completely different. Generosity means you have to think completely different. It's quite simple. Here's what a generous people have discovered.
They understand. Generous people, this is the premise. It's rock. It's just right at the bottom.
Generous people understand they are stewards, not owners. We walk around like we own all of these things. See, when I think I'm the owner of my talent, my time and my treasure, I think it's all to be used for my purposes as much as I want. I save some for tomorrow.
If I have some left over and maybe somebody, you know, the dog shivers and there's a song, maybe I give some away, but not enough that it might impact my lifestyle or my cushion. Generous people think completely different. They understand they're not owners of anything. They're just temporary managers of their time, of their treasures and of their talents.
It's not their own. Generous people go, what would the manager want me to do with his money? How should I spend his money? And they work on it and they discover it and they plan and they allocate.
And there's an inversion of priorities. First it becomes what would the owner have me give and to whom and for what. Once I fulfilled my commitments to the owner, I'm free to take a portion that he deems adequate for me. Jesus tells a brilliant story about this.
It's a story about inheritance and owners and managers. Check this out. I'm going to close with this. He told this parable, the ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest and he thought to himself, what shall I do?
I have no place to store my crops. This is what we do, right? I get raised. The stock market has gone up every, I mean, double digits for years now, right?
My parents passed and left me their house. What should I do? I mean, I have so much stuff. I guess I could get a new car.
I've always wanted to be a house. How about a pool? And so what do you do? He did just what we do.
Get more, spend more, save more, right? And this is so important to understand because so many of us think, well, I can't be generous because I mean, I barely get by. I can't be generous because I don't make any money, right? I'll be generous.
I'll get to that Thai thing and I'll get to worrying about, you know, starving children and water and all these other things. I'll worry about that later when I have some money. I get 10% are you crazy? Here's the truth.
Every study shows it. It's always the complete opposite. The more people make, the more people make, the less money people give. That means the more you make, the less generous you become.
That's what's natural. And so this man did with his money just what he would do with ours. He said this is what I'll do. I'm going to tear down my barns and build bigger ones.
I'm going to finish the basement and store my grain and I'm going to say to myself, you have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Here's where all of my faith and trust is now. Take life easy. Eat, Drink and be Mary.
I mean, let's be honest, this is the American dream, right? It's all mine. I'll do what I want. And now I have plenty to take care of myself forever.
But God said to him, you fool. Why? It's because he's got mad at him, he's got angry. I don't think that's it.
Why you fool? What did he do that made him a fool? He thought he was the owner. He thought he owned it.
This very night your life will be demanded from you. And then Jesus asks the guy a question. I think it's a question that needs to be asked to all of us who think we're generous but we're more likely givers. Then who's gonna get what you have prepared for yourself?
Who's going to get what you've prepared for yourself? That's a serious question. You know what the answer was? Somebody else.
And not because he was generous because he was dead. You fool. You know what you could have done with those resources that I gave you, you could have lived a life of faith and hope and love. Instead you only lived this existence of worry and anxiety because all of your trust was built on your stuff.
You thought this stuff could protect and provide for you. You fool. Now who's gonna get what you did with it? What good is gonna come of any of it?
You fool. And then Jesus sends the story. But he gives a life lesson at the end of it. A lot of times Jesus doesn't do this but this is super interesting.
He pulls himself out of the story and then he looks around at the crowd and I think he would look around us and he goes, this is how it will be. Notice, he doesn't say this is how it was for the man. He says this is how it will be. So he's speaking about us with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich towards God.
And how was it? How will it be? What did he mean? He meant that it was always wasted.
Wasted. It all amounted to nothing. It was worthless. It did no good.
It could have built faith and been used for faith. It could have built hope and been used for hope and could have built love and been used for love. Instead because you had an owner's mindset, you thought it was all for you. Now look, it's all gone.
Wasted. And it did no good. You know why? Because you fool.
You put your trust in your riches and not in the God who richly blesses. Matthew would record Jesus putting it quite simply. You cannot serve both God and money. Notice Jesus did not say you should not serve.
He said you cannot serve. Because our stuff, our money is the single greatest threat to the one thing that God has a single focus on. Our hearts. The cure?
Generosity. It's the value you've been looking for all along. I mean, come on now. If I asked you when you came in, if you're a parent, I said, look, when this story started, if there was only two things that you would want for your kids, we're talking about legacy, you're gone.
What do you want for your kids? I think most of us would have had some version of, well, look, I'd like them to leave fruitful lives or productive lives, right? Be good people and I'd like for them to be happy. Well, here's what Titus says.
Our people must learn to devote themselves to doing what is good in order to provide for urgent needs and not live unproductive lives. You want your children to have productive fruitful lives? You have to teach them to devote themselves to doing what is good and helping others. Paul said, I've shown you in all things that by working hard in this way, we must help the weak, remembering the words that the Lord Jesus himself said, there is more happiness and giving than in receiving.
You want your kids to be happy, then teach them generosity. As the band comes up, how do you do that? You have to live it before them. Be generous with your treasure, with your time, with your talents.
I don't want you to show other people what you give, but you should show your kids. I had a giving statement come home the other day and someone in my family opened it up and they looked at it and they said, whoa. And it was somebody in the family. And I was, you know, I'm not bragging, but I was kind of happy that they saw it.
They should see it. You have to train these folks who you have an influence on. You have to show them this. It's not natural.
Don't just teach them to give first to God, train them. Let them see you doing it. Prioritizing them with your stuff, prioritizing others. When you sit around and dream with your kids about where they're gonna go to school and what they're gonna be when they grow up, don't let it just be about the prestige or the position or the paycheck.
Teaching that God gave them their talents and that the first thing they need to do is serve God with them to be generous with their time and their talent and then let them see you doing that. Be generous with your time and your talent and with others and be generous with your kids and your spouse first and then with others and then be patient, be generously patient, generously kind and gentle. Be generous if you live in your praise and forgiveness. Be lavish with it.
Pulsors is only three things that are gonna last. Faith, hope and love. And generosity is the practical outworking of all three. You see, you can give without loving, but you can't love without giving.
You know, by the way, what, that would make God? The most generous being in all of the universe. Check this out. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
For God so loved that he gave. Now go and be generous like your dad. Let's stand and close this song.