The Longing for Legacy: Part 2 - Warning: Your Legacy May Contain Idols

I was 14 years old. My father had made national headlines with a string of crimes which had him facing up to 76 years behind bars. My dad had not been around much anyway, but this time it looked like he was going away for good. His father before him, even more of an absentee, had abandoned him at an even younger age. My grandfather was still nowhere to be found. At least I knew where my dad was. I would get his letters from prison, but a time came when the language he started to use was different. He talked of God, the Bible, and prayer, and increasingly he spoke of Jesus Christ like he knew him. Good for him, I thought. A little late for religion though. My own destiny was questionable at best, and it seemed that side of our family tree was hopeless. I wanted to cut it down, but later I would learn of a single prayer my father would send from a federal prison cell in Springfield, Missouri. He asked God to send someone, someone to reach his sons and his father, reach them with the love and forgiveness that he had experienced. How God would answer that prayer could not be imagined, and what would happen next would impact generations. Hey, Victorious Living family. Welcome back. This is part two of the Longing for Legacy. This one's titled, Warning, Your Legacy May Contain Idols. So in part one, we talked about the what. Legacy, what is it, why do we have a longing for legacy. Now in part two, we're gonna start getting into the how. How to leave our legacies in the hands of a loving God. I just want to review a little bit of part one that we talked about. We defined legacy as the impact we endeavor to create with our lives. It's, you know, what we want to do with our lives, what we want to leave behind for other people, right? So that's legacy. We talked about our will as being part of that, and our kingdoms that we maintain here on earth, which is the range of your effective will. And so these are the things that we're talking about here with regard to legacy. So if you haven't watched part one of this series, go back and watch the introduction to get a little backstory of my family story. My father, where I left off in this story, was in prison facing up to 76 years for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. And as a teenager, it was a very dark time for my family. But I want to go back even

further and talk about my grandfather. So my father's father had abandoned him at a very young age. Just a small boy, he went off and left the family, and they didn't really know where he was or what was going on with him. So my father's in prison, maybe for the rest of his life. My grandfather is nowhere to be found, and I'm just a lost teenager. So what happened when my father went into prison? Well, soon after he went into a federal penitentiary in Springfield, Missouri, a couple weeks in, some guys had started to approach him and invited him to some church services, some Bible studies, where these followers of Jesus were, these Christians, that they were inviting him to come. And at first he wanted no part of that. Later he would relent, and he would go, but he would say, look, if anyone tries to hug me, I'm gonna knock him out, okay? And I believe that my dad would do that, actually. And so, but he did go. And over time, I don't know if they just wore him down, or God's pursuit of him, probably more likely, wore him out. And my father came to Christ. So at those Bible studies and church services, my father would hear about this, this God that loved him, this Jesus that died for him. So it was in his prison cell in August of 1984 that he made a single decision that would impact generations. Now, having come to believe in Jesus, and experiencing God's love, he started to be concerned for others, and started praying for others. He was concerned about his sons, he was concerned about his father, and started praying for us. It was at that point that he started writing letters to us with things like Bible verses in there, telling us that he was praying for us. And at the time, I thought, well, good for dad. He's getting religion. Maybe a little too late, but at least he's, you know, getting some help there in prison. But he was concerned about us, and about what we were doing. people that we were becoming. Part of my father's bold prayer from prison included something from Joshua 24, where he says, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

After entering the promised land, Joshua pulled together the leaders of Israel and gave them an ultimatum. Let me read this to you. Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt and serve the Lord. But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are now living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. Now the people and places Joshua mentions in this challenge to the Israelites represented a number of idols. Let me point out three of them that I found in this passage. Number one, hand-me-down idols, the gods your ancestors worshiped. Now hand-me-down idols are those things that are handed down to us from our parents, our ancestors, as it says. Maybe they're habits like anger or even things like fatherlessness. These could be dispositions, cycles of dysfunction, could be addictions that are handed down to us. And we can either pick those things up or we can carry them on. And that is the challenge I think

that we are presented with. So I think part of it is figuring out what was passed down to you and then deciding that this is not gonna go any further beyond me. I'm gonna stop it right here. Number two is called proximity idols or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. You see the Israelites had come into this land and now the place that they were living had all these idols, different temples that were built for all these false gods that these people served. And now they're finding themselves in this culture where people are serving false gods and there's all these idols everywhere. Joshua's challenge to them was, are you gonna just join this culture? Are you gonna be a part of this? Or are you gonna throw away these idols that are now possibly in your possession? And so I think for us, that represents the culture that perhaps we're in when we're in proximity to other people that have different worldviews, they have different gods that they're serving. And Joshua is challenging the Israelites to put aside those things, throw them away, he says. Get rid of them. Don't partake in what the culture around you has to offer if it's not serving the one true God.

And finally, number three, hometown idols. Now, the generation before these Israelites that Joshua was talking to, when they face trials, when they're in the wilderness, they would often say, well, things were better for us back in Egypt. Things were better there. We wanna go back there to Egypt. And this really, I think, represents these hometown idols, this hometown thinking. And I think maybe what this represents is partially the good old days, thinking that things were better back there and back when. And I wonder if we fall into that trap today, thinking about the past, reminiscing about things. Nostalgia is very powerful, but not necessarily very healthy sometimes. If we think that things were better back then, we wanna be in a different place in a different time. If we're always thinking about the past, we can't engage God here today in the present and what he has for us now. Now, what does this look like? Perhaps it just looks like unhealthy reminiscing. It feels good to relive positive memories, but at what point do those become unhealthy idols when we are trapped in a time other than the present and God has new things for us? So in his personal declaration, Joshua said two things I think that are worth mentioning.

But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. Number one, he says, as for me, and he's taking personal responsibility here. It starts with him. You can't lead others in these things if you haven't experienced it yourself and saying that I've been a part of this, I need to address this in my life and I need to take responsibility. The second is, as for my house. Now, this kind of goes back to the kingdom that we talked about, the range of your effective will, those in your household that you're concerned about. And in that time, it was much more than just immediate family. It was extended family. It was those. People that work on the farm or wherever they were, the servants, if you will, in the house, he says, I'm gonna do it, but then I also want my whole entire household to be a part of this. We're gonna lay down these idols together and we're gonna address these things and move forward. And so he's making a declaration for his household as well. This goes back to the range of your effective will, being your kingdom. And he's saying, I want my kingdom to submit to God's will. I want my kingdom to be under God's kingdom.

And we're gonna lay down our idols and we're gonna serve God. So when we say, well, what is God's will for us? What does that even mean? Well, there's a verse in Micah 6, 8 that I wanna read to you. He has told you, oh man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you? But to do justice, to love kindness and walk humbly with your God. And that's what God requires of us. Now let's move on to how to disarm these idols that we've been talking about. Number one, we want to identify them. When and where did you start serving these idols? Where did they come from? Were they handed down to you? Are they in the culture in which you live? We simply need to identify them. And if it helps, make a list. Number two, accept responsibility. Resist the temptation to blame others and admit your level of participation and accept responsibility. Number three, renounce them. Joshua says, throw them away. And for them, many times they were physical objects that they needed to throw away. Maybe you have some as well, but more likely we have emotional baggage

and things that we have to deal with in our lives. And God is gonna help you with that. Once you surrender them to him, he's gonna help you walk through that. Number four, write down your commitment. Now I have some fill-in-the-blanks here for you. I'm done with fill-in-the-blank. I no longer serve the false God of fill-in-the-blank. I'm gonna stop worshiping fill-in-the-blank. Blank no longer has power over me. And lastly, I choose to serve the God who created me instead of blank, which I created myself. Number five, tell God your decision. I think at this point, we need to remember and recall as we talk to God, we need to recall all the good things that he's done for us, much more than any false idols could ever do for us. He is faithful, he is good, and we need to just recall that. But as you pray, tell God of your decision that you're gonna put these things aside and throw them away. Tell him what you wrote down and ask for his help. Number six, share your decisions. This is where you get with someone that can help you stay accountable. Tell them about what you're learning. Tell them about Joshua 24 and these idols that you've put aside in your life and that you need help with.

Maybe periodically they can ask you, well, how's it going with this habit that you have? What is God doing in your life in regards to these things that you wanna stop in your family line? So share your decision with someone today. Number seven, walk in your inheritance. Now, what happened after Joshua gave this ultimatum to these people, he sent them off, if you read what happens next, he sent them off into the land that they had inherited. And that was God's plan, is to bring them into this place of inheritance, this new land for them. And I think what Joshua was saying is as you go into those places, don't bring back with you these idols that you came here with. And I think what that means for us is that God has new places that he wants us to walk into. And he wants us to set aside those old things and so that we can enter into this new inheritance that he has for us. Going back to my story, as I think back about this prayer that my father prayed when he was in prison, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. He gave his life to Jesus and started growing spiritually immediately. And I saw these things in his letters that he would send to us,

praying for us, writing scripture. Maybe we didn't understand it at the time. Maybe it wasn't, we didn't get into it at the time, as I remember saying. But as I started to see the fruit of the Holy Spirit start showing up in my father's life, I took notice. He was different. And the words that were coming out of his mouth were different. His attitudes and actions were different. And I can tell that something powerful was happening in his life. Maybe I didn't understand it or maybe he wasn't into it at the time, but I remember seeing that. And that made an impact on me, that he was making. Some decisions that were different, that were changing the trajectory of my family, and that would later impact me when he got out of prison and started ministering to me. Then God was working in my life at the time, a whole different set of circumstances, and I was at a different place of brokenness at the time. But God started working in me, and it was at that point that I came to Christ as well, after my father got out of prison. So more about this story in part three, but thank you for joining me. Let me just pray for you. God, I just thank you for my brothers and sisters who are open to what you have for them, the new things that you have for them. Lord, I just pray that you would bring to their minds these things that maybe got handed down to them that they need to deal with, maybe in the culture that they're in. I just pray that you would show them what is not of you, what are these false gods

that other people are serving that they need to stay away from or just throw away. So I thank you for their hearts, that they're open to you. Thank you that you're going to just fill them with your Holy Spirit as they seek you and look into your word and stay in community, engage in your kingdom. And I thank you in Jesus' name, amen. Thank you all for joining me. Looking forward to seeing you next time on part three. 1-888-2098 or email us through our website at vlmag.org. We are happy to provide our Victorious Living magazine free of charge, in bulk, with or without staples.