When you get to a certain age in life, you start doing some looking back and wondering what your legacy is going to be, what difference have you made in the world, what are people going to remember you for, are you even going to be remembered by anyone other than family? Legacies might be something like a statue or a street named after you because you contributed to the community in a special way, it might be a scholarship at a school or university because you believe it contributes great value to the community, it might be knowledge that you leave behind, this past week a neuroscientist died in Edmonton and his colleagues talked about some of the breakthroughs he had made. Sometimes your legacy is your kindness and spirit of service like Joey Moss in Edmonton.
Sports
teams talk about creating a legacy of winning so that when the
team does go through hard times, it has a goal to work towards, a legacy to
inspire them. But it takes hard work and dedication to create a winning legacy,
because legacies can also be negative, teams that never measure up to their
potential, families that seem to have a legacy of addiction or failure, and
others.
The
Bible doesn’t use the word legacy, but the idea is there when the Bible talks
about a lasting influence that carries on in certain families through the
generations. God says to Moses in Exodus 34, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious
God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to
thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave
the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin
of the parents to the third and fourth generation.” In Genesis 17, God tells Abram, “I will be
your God and the God of your descendants,” calling them to be faithful
to him. This is legacy language and imagery.
The
story of Jehonadab is a story of legacy. We first come across Jehonadab in 2 Kings
10 where he joins Jehu in overthrowing the evil King Ahab. Jehu has taken care
of Ahab’s wife Queen Jezebel, and now he’s going after Ahab and the worship of
Baal in Israel. Jehonadab joins Jehu in killing all the ministers of Baal and
destroying the temple of Baal. Jehonadab is passionately devoted to following
God. As part of his devotion to God, Jehonadab commands his children to not
drink wine, to live in tents and not become farmers, and trust God to provide.
For a people who have extremely close ties to the land, these commands will set
his family apart from most others as a sign of their faith and trust in God. We
don’t find out about these commands to his family until hundreds of years
later.
After
helping Jehu, Jehonadab and his family disappear from the story until God
mentions Jehonadab’s family to Jeremiah, hundreds of years later. God is
talking to Israel through Jeremiah and he’s not happy. Israel keeps rejecting
him, keeps embracing other gods and all the disgusting practices that come with
following those gods. Read through Ezekiel to discover some of the disgusting
things the Israelites would do in the temple; it just might turn your stomach. God sees Jehonadab’s children and uses their obedience
to their father as a comparison to the disobedience of Israel to their father
in heaven, “This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of
Israel, says: Go and tell the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem,
‘Will you not learn a lesson and obey my words?’ declares the Lord. ‘Jehonadab
son of Rekab ordered his descendants not to drink wine and this command has
been kept. To this day they do not drink wine, because they obey their
forefather’s command. But I have spoken to you again and again, yet you have
not obeyed me. Again and again I sent all my servants the prophets to you. They
said, “Each of you must turn from your wicked ways and reform your actions; do
not follow other gods to serve them. Then you will live in the land I have
given to you and your ancestors.” But you have not paid attention or listened
to me. The descendants of Jehonadab son of Rekab have carried out the command
their forefather gave them, but these people have not obeyed me.” This
is legacy impact, it’s who the children of Jehonadab have become, their
identity.
A
legacy of faith; I pray this is what we want, not just as individuals, but also as
a church family. There’re a number of beautiful things to who we are that are
legacy kinds of things: planting churches such as Ponoka and Wolf Creek and
some wonderful support type of ministries such as Friendship and Circle of
Friends. But these are simply the outward signs of a deeper legacy: a church
family committed to faith and obedience to Jesus; to building lives
centered on following Jesus wherever he leads us, placing Jesus first in our
lives and keeping Jesus at the center of all our ministry. This doesn’t just
happen, it takes deliberate choices to follow Jesus, to obey him in every area
of our lives.
A
legacy like this begins with a family commitment to God; a commitment to
passing down the faith through teaching and modelling Jesus in every aspect of
our lives. We see this in Timothy’s life, as Paul says, “I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in
your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives
in you also.” Yet it’s not just Timothy’s grandmother and mother who has
been important in passing on the faith to Timothy, Paul has also invested in
Timothy. If we desire to create a legacy of faith here in Bethel, it will take
all of us as a family of faith investing in our children, youth and young
adults; each of us taking personal responsibility for building supportive
relationships with them, encouraging them to explore their God given gifts,
sharing with them our stories of faith and God working in and through us, and
helping them see where God is at in their lives.
It
takes obedience. Jesus tells us that if we truly love him, we will keep his commands, yet
most people find obedience hard. This began already with Adam and Eve who
couldn’t keep one simple command, “Don’t eat from that
tree.” Ever since, our first impulse is to do things our way rather than
Jesus’ way because our way feels like it gets us more than God’s way. Our way
feels more fun than God’s way, which is probably why our ways tend to get us in
so much trouble and leads so often to unhappiness and brokenness. This is why
God hi-lights Jehonadab’s descendants for their obedience, because it’s not
common. Be honest, do you give every thought, desire and action over to Jesus
to shape and guide them? A faith legacy is rooted in dedicated obedience to
Jesus. This is a deliberately chosen life.
This
leads to the next step in creating a strong faith legacy: it’s lived it out
in our day to day lives, we make our faith an everyday everywhere faith. This means that Jesus’ commands become more than
rules, they become our life, living them out deeply in every relationship,
shaping everything we do; shaping our thoughts, words and actions. This is why
in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus takes the laws of Israel and tells the people
that following the laws isn’t enough, we have to follow the heart of the law,
we need to think about why God has given us these laws, who God is shaping us
to be through the laws. This is why anger gets equaled with murder, lust gets
equally with adultery, why mocking your brother and calling him fool gets you
on the road to hell instead of heaven. It’s not easy, but Jesus never promises
easy, he promises hard but valuable. A legacy of faith is deeply valuable.
I’m
reminded of what Wayne Gretzky learned after losing to the New York Islanders in
the finals, “Walking past the dressing room of the Islanders after having
lost the Stanley Cup, we looked in and saw the Islanders lying on massage
tables, in ice baths, getting heat wraps from the trainers and then it hit me
what kind of a sacrifice it takes to win.” It’s the same with creating a
faith legacy, it takes hard work, always focused on Jesus. Jehonadab told his
children to not drink wine and not to live in houses. He realized that as soon
as we become comfortable, the pressure is off to keep focused on God. Jehonadab
wanted his children and grandchildren to never get comfortable so that they
would stay focused on God. I wonder what that would look like today for us.
A
faith legacy is
about investing in our children, young people and young adults; mentoring and
discipling them in real meaningful relationships where faith is shared and
modelled and those who are older humbly learn from our youth and young adults
about how culture and society has changed and the new challenges in living a
faith rooted in Jesus. We also need to be open and honest with our own
struggles, not appearing perfect, but rather being seen as forgiven sinners in
the hands of a gracious God. A living legacy is consistent hard work with a
laser like focus.
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