Have You Considered Your Life Legacy?

Have You Considered Your Life Legacy?

In 2020, the evangelical church was rocked with the passing of a highly respected servant. After his death it was discovered he had been living a double life of immorality, deceit and evil exploitation. An honorable Christian legacy had become compromised with gross sin. When we pass from this life, it is important for us to think about the legacy we leave behind. How will we be remembered by our children and grandchildren? What will be said about us on earth when we arrive in heaven?

With legacy, all of us need to think beyond the values of money and estate we leave for loved ones. We need to think about matters of values and character. What level of godly uprightness will we leave behind?

Here are seven areas to consider when thinking about the kind of legacy you want to leave behind.

1.) Consider Your Legacy Toward God’s Word (Psalm 119:9, 11, 36, 37, 133).

The Bible is essential to understanding right and wrong. The longest chapter in the Bible clearly addresses that issue.

• “How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Your word”
• “Your word have I treasured in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee”
• “Incline my heart to Your testimonies and not to dishonest gain. Turn away my eyes from looking at vanity, and revive me in Your ways.”
• “Establish my footsteps in Your word, and do not let any iniquity have dominion over me.”

My wife’s recollection of her father was his early morning practice of sitting on the open oven door in the kitchen reading God’s Word. His time in the Word reflected a desire to know God and experience life-change. He left a legacy of devotion to the scriptures. Will our legacy include a high assessment of the word of God in a way that reflects our values?

Dwight L. Moody: “The only way to keep a broken vessel full is by keeping the faucet turned on.”

2.) Consider Your Legacy of Love (Matthew 22:36-40; Deuteronomy 6:4; Leviticus 19:18).

Recently I have been struck with the importance of expressing the love of the Lord toward hurting people around us. Upon visits to the doctor’s office it is my desire to express my appreciation for their interest in my health. It is important to demonstrate the love of Christ to the physician by asking if I can pray for them. Surprise has always been the initial response. I have never been rebuffed, but have always been shown appreciation. 

We are surrounded with hurting people. Out of our own pain, we need to be concerned with the burdens of others.

3.) Consider Your Legacy of Humility (James 4:10; Philippians 2:5-8)

• “Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.” (James 4:10)

Will you be remembered as a self-centered person or a person of meekness?

Jesus exchanged His Spirit-form with the Father and chose to humble Himself into the form of a servant. He emptied Himself yielding to the Father, then to the womb of a Jewish girl. From there He yielded to the authority of a crooked and perverse Roman government.

• “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and becoming obedient to the point of death, even death  on a cross…” (Philippians 2:5-8)

I read of a family who had lost a loved one in death. Their home became filled with people expressing sympathy toward them in their grief. A neighbor quietly went into the house, found the shoes of the family members, shined them for the upcoming funeral and quietly left. Humility ought to be driven by love, seeking a need and filling it without being asked.

4.) Consider Your Legacy in Adversity (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5).

• “Consider it all joy my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces” … God always has a purpose in the sufferings He allows in our lives.

An honorable legacy includes responding to opportunities to bring glory to the Lord in our God-allowed trials. James 1:2-4 tells us God’s purpose in our trials is to strengthen our faith and teach steadfastness, with the ultimate goal of producing maturity. 

A couple of additional thoughts come to mind as to how maturity becomes evident in adversity:

• Mature Christians are able to look beyond immediate causes for adversity to the sovereign plan and purpose of God in the experience. 
• We often become consumed with our aches and pains. The mature believer sees suffering as a means to bring glory to the Savior. In the words of Vance Havner, a pastor of a former generation … “we are to glory in our tribulation not glorify our tribulation.”
• Mature believers see hardship as a motivation to lean into the provision of our Lord, the one who is described as “the man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.”
• Established Christians see trials as a means of strengthening their faith, hope and love toward the Savior.

5.) Consider Your Legacy of Speech (Ephesians 4:29-32).

• “Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear” (Ephesians 4: 29).
• “Gentle words bring life and health; a deceitful tongue crushes the spirit” (Proverbs 15:4).
• “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but hard words stir up anger” (Proverbs 15:1).
• “A person’s words can be life-giving water; words of true wisdom are as refreshing as a bubbling brook” (Proverbs 18:4).

Our words can help or hurt, heal or harm, humiliate or honor.

The way we communicate to our spouse, our children, grandchildren and others will be remembered. Our ability to find reasons to encourage others will be a part of our legacy.

6.) Consider Your Legacy of Labor (Colossians 3:23; 3:17).

• “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men” … ( 3:23).
• “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father” (3:17).

Mom and dad raised four boys. Dad believed that boys who got into trouble didn’t have enough to do. We were made to work! Part of the time we worked in our father’s funeral home. We drove the hearse, the family car, mowed the lawn, washed funeral cars and even worked with his ambulance service. 

When not engaged with those tasks we worked at home on the pig farm. At times, we had scores of hogs to feed, water and take to market. In addition, we milked a cow, changed sprinklers, planted and cared for a large garden, picked up and hauled hay and mended fences. Dad believed that boys needed to learn to work long hours. Today all of us have a pretty good work-ethic. It is part of dad’s legacy.

7.) Consider Your Legacy of Facing Death (Ecclesiastes 7:2; Psalm 90:12).

• “It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, because that is the end of every man, and the living takes it to heart” (Ecclesiastes 7:2).

Over the years of pastoral ministry I have performed a host of memorial services and celebrations of life. These experiences are normally sobering, allowing people to face their own personal mortality. Solomon wrote that funerals are better than parties. As a result, Christians ought to think about when they will face eternity. 

The first thing a parent or grandparent will show his family is how to live; the last lesson he will teach them is how to die. Our pilgrimage into the valley of the shadow of death ought to be one of confident trust in the One who has promised never to leave us or forsake us. Our family ought to see a sense of certain hope.

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer wrote: “In the early centuries of the church, the Christians were distinguished from the pagans by their attitude toward death. When the plagues came, the Christians accepted death with tranquility, knowing that they would be reunited in the world to come. In contrast, the pagans refused to be comforted. They said of believers, “They carry their dead as if in triumph!”

So what will your legacy include? I encourage you to ponder these seven areas of your family’s inheritance from you.