FROM ORDINARY TO EXTRAORDINARY – Part 6 Leaving A Legacy

Leaving a legacy is very important. Legacy is what we pass down from one generation to another. Whether young or old, we each leave a legacy of something. There’s the material legacy and the spiritual legacy. The material legacy we can pass down can be money, jewelry, property, furniture, and houses.  We all know that material things are fragile and unstable. They can be lost or stolen. But there’s another legacy we can pass down that never gets lost or stolen, the fire can’t touch, and the typhoons can’t blow away. It’s the spiritual legacy of faith. Your spiritual legacy is your spiritual impact on your family and your community. Through service, giving, or prayer, you can impact people around the world and future generations.

Leaving a godly legacy for your children and your spiritual children that God has given to your care should be the goal of all Christian parenting.  Although the faith and godliness of your children are ultimately the work of the Holy Spirit, God often uses the influence of parents to make a great impact on their children. Every parent is a missionary, and our mission field is our children. God’s plan, even in Old Testament times, was for parents to pass on the faith to their children and their children’s children.  3 John 1:4 says, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” Joseph’s legacy influenced not only his family but the generations after him. Before he died, Joseph’s final words were recorded in Genesis 50 and Hebrews 11. From looking at these two passages, we discover how faith shows itself at the end of life.

 

GOD WILL COME TO YOUR AID

 

Genesis 50:24-26 – “24 Then Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die. But God will surely come to your aid and take you up out of this land to the land he promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” 25 And Joseph made the Israelites swear an oath and said, “God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up from this place. 26 So Joseph died at the age of a hundred and ten. And after they embalmed him, he was placed in a coffin in Egypt.” (NIV)

Look at the assurance of a promise: “God will surely come to your aid”. This is faith at the very end of life. Though he was old and dying, Joseph saw past Egypt into the distant future. He knew that God would one day keep his promise, deliver the Israelites from Egypt, and give them a homeland of their own. Because he believed so firmly in that promise, he instructed the Israelites not to leave his bones in Egypt but to make sure and carry his bones with them and bury them in the Promised Land.

How could Joseph be so sure about the future? First, he knew what God had promised his great-grandfather Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3 – “1 The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. 2 “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth  will be blessed through you.” (NIV)

Second, his own life proved that from all that he went through, there is no doubt that God keeps His promises. He knew that Israel didn’t belong in Egypt, and he didn’t want his bones to stay in Egypt when the Jews left for Canaan. On the outside he looked like an Egyptian; on the inside he was an Israelite. He never forgot who he was or where he came from. Exodus 13:19 tells us that “Moses took the bones of Joseph with him because Joseph had made the Israelites swear an oath. He had said, “God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up with you from this place.” Years later Joshua buried them at Shechem in the Promised Land (Joshua 24:32). 

 

HEBREWS 11: TAKE ME WITH YOU

 

Hebrews 11:22 – “By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions concerning the burial of his bones.” (NIV) When Joseph died, he was embalmed and put in a coffin in Egypt so that his bones would be a testimony to the coming generations. His children and grandchildren knew what kind of man he was. His descendants knew where he stood and what he stood for. And so the bones of Joseph testified to coming generations that the people of God didn’t belong in Egypt. They were there temporarily, but their real home was in Canaan. Nothing of God dies when a man of God dies. We die, but the promises of God live on. The legacy of a man of God lives on, even beyond his passing.

They bury us, but they don’t bury God’s promises with us. Your death cannot cancel God’s faithfulness. Our God is the God of the future. He is the God of the generations to come.

 

THREE TAKEAWAY LESSONS WE CAN LEARN FROM JOSEPH’S LEGACY

 

1. The greatest thing you can do is pass your faith to your children and grandchildren.

Abraham passed his faith to Isaac, Isaac gave it to Jacob, Jacob gave it to Joseph, and Joseph gave his faith to the whole nation of Israel. The Christian faith is not a sprint and not really a marathon, it’s a relay race. I am but one member of a team that stretches across generations. I have faith because someone gave it to me. And someone gave it to the person who gave it to me. On and on the line goes, stretching back 6,000 years. I must make sure I pass my faith along to my own family. Not only that. I must do all I can to make sure that the faith I pass on to my children is passed on to my grandchildren. I must not fail here. The baton of faith must be passed on to the next generation.

 

2. The saddest thing that can happen is to become bitter in your old age.

We’ve all seen it happen to people we know. Sometimes we’ve seen it happen to people very close to us. As they grow old, they become bitter, angry, and filled with resentment because life didn’t turn out the way they thought it would. Abraham had a promise from God but he never saw it completely fulfilled. Isaac had the same promise but he died without seeing it fulfilled. Jacob had the same promise and he died in Egypt. Joseph had the same promise but died in Egypt too. If ever anyone had the right to become bitter it was these three men – Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. They lived and died with the promise unfulfilled but to their credit they never gave up hope. They never became bitter although they didn’t see everything God promised to come to pass before they died.

 

3. The happiest way to live is to realize that God’s work is bigger than you are.

I may live for 80 or 90 years and never see all that I dream about. I may pray for things that never come to pass. I may trust God for things that do not appear. I may struggle against great difficulty for many years. The way may be hard, the road very steep, the path very lonely. I may climb and climb and still never reach the peak of all that I set out to do. It may not be given to me to see everything I would like to see, but it is given to me to live faithfully day after day so that after I am gone, others may stand on my shoulders and see things I never saw. Here is a great goal: To have dreams so big they can’t possibly be fulfilled in my lifetime. God’s plans are bigger than mine. My part is to live for God and pass my faith along to my children and grandchildren. I must live so that those things for which I am praying and those things I dream about may happen someday after I am gone.

 

LIFE GROUP DISCUSSION:

1) What are your takeaway lessons from Joseph? 

2) Life on earth is short and doesn’t last forever. When you reach the end of your life, how would you like others to remember you? What kind of impact do you want to leave for your loved ones and those who know you?