Introduction
A legacy is about creating memories and experiences together. It can be intentional; or it can be just by chance.
As a family, we’ve valued building family experience. We've just had a week together, mother and sisters - and it's a bonding experience, an experience which may never repeat, but it'll last a lifetime.
The Bible tells us that good people plan inheritance (or legacy) to leave on to their children; so it can be intentional or unintentional.
I'll just explain legacy again; then I want to talk about how you receive something to pass on; and the ways that we can go about doing that. They're quite easily defined, and I want to share them out of my own experience.
Review
Every person is going to leave a legacy. The only thing you can make a decision on is: what it will be - whether it will be stumbling stones for the next generation; or blessings, and a way that they can go ahead.
Whether you give them a stepping stone, help the next generation forward; or whether your life is a reproach, and an offence - and when your name is mentioned people are embarrassed. We always make decisions about this.
The Bible tells us that a good person (or a righteous man) will plan and consider how he will leave a legacy - not just to his children, but beyond them to the next generation. I want to encourage you, as we're looking through this series, to think about your life; and what you will pass on, or what you will leave, to the next generation. Every one of us will leave something.
A legacy is what you stood for. It's how you lived your life; what you accomplished, or did with your life.
Every person who comes into this world is born with a plan and a purpose, designed by God; that you would leave something in this world, as a result of being here - not just bones in a box buried somewhere, but that your life would count for something - that your life would accomplish something.
The challenge is to discover: why did God place me on this earth; then bring me into relationship with Him? What am I called to accomplish with my life? What legacy will I leave behind me? Every one of us has to answer that decision; no one can decide this for you.
You decide what you will leave for the next generation. What we leave behind for the next generation can be tangible – property; money or shares; or personal items that were a treasure to you. You can leave some things which are tangible.
Maybe you've accomplished some great things - tangible accomplishments. When I depart this world, one accomplishment we have is a building, and a church that was not here, but has been built and established - that's a tangible thing.
The intangible ones are what have been built into lives - that go on and change them, and affect them forever. You can’t see it, but it's there and it's real nevertheless.
It can be values - certain kinds of values you stood for: integrity, honesty, hard work. Those are intangible, but they're very real. You can't see them, but you can see the impact that they leave.
Your reputation, or your character, is an intangible but very real legacy that you leave. Your name, the Bible says: “a good name is more to be desired than silver and gold” - the reputation. When people hear your name what do they think? What words come to mind when they hear your name?
Think about this: when you gossip about someone - you are stealing from them. You are stealing their reputation, and their name. You are a slanderer - and God requires an accounting for those kinds of things; so it's important that we consider the things that we're going to leave, and what we're going to establish in the lives of others.
The intangible things are how you lived your life, the values, the experiences. For us, it has been important in our family that we establish experiences together, that create memories that go on through into life. Things that you buy come and go, but the experiences you have together become lasting memories of shared life. They become a legacy to leave.
Keywords: Honour, Respect, feedback, correction, protect the relationship, guard the relationship, little foxes that spoil the vine, ask questions, applied learning, serving, impartation, humanity, love and truth, idolatry, offence, Jesus, failure, appeal, personal boundaries, boundary