Lasting Legacy
It’s family Sunday! One of my favorite things in life is being a dad to my three girls. I remember when I first found out about Ava, I was 23 and we had only been married for 7 months. I instantly was sick to my stomach. All I can remember thinking, “I am not ready to be a dad.”

I’m sure that many people have been in that situation. They didn’t feel ready but here we are. I wouldn’t change a thing since that little girl helped me become a father. I look at her and I see her mother in her mannerisms, I see myself in how she process her thoughts, you can really tell when she gets angry.

We are all going to leave a legacy. But the question is will you leave an intentional legacy or an accidental legacy? What is legacy? This is a word that has been thrown around in church and leadership circles I have been in for a long time. So what is it? It is defined as “something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past”

If we realize it or not, we are sharing[ed by the legacies of others around us. For example, I am the combination of legacies. I have people like my kids pastor that took me in after my dad dies, my mother, my grandfather, my grandmother, a mentor, and many others. And the two decisions we have with the legacies that people impart in us, is to continue them or to avoid them.

With some of the people, I have continued them because they taught me how to work hard, be diligent, and God focused. I wanted to carry that legacy forward.

This is one thing we all need to remember though, we aren’t just the summation of our actions but those that came before us. Don’t believe me check out this photo. (Picture of My dad.) Can you tell me who that is? It’s my father. It doesn’t take a lot to guess that. I am a carbon copy of him.

While I read this passage I want to invite up some of our kids. I need 5 volunteers. Raise your hands really really high!

I want you to take this playdoh and try to recreate yourself. Shape it and make it look like you.

While they are doing that, I want everyone here to realize that we are all created in the image of God. This is how God designed us. He designed us in his image. It’s theimago dei. We see this in Genesis 1:26-27:
26 Then God said, “Let us make man[a] in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

We aren’t made by accident or without purpose. We were made in His image destined to reflect God in everything we do. Just like how I reflect my dad in how I look, ultimately I reflected him in my actions as a young boy.

As parents the legacy we leave isn’t just with our looks and personality, the thing that we leave behind that lasts the longest is how we have made the people around us feel. Let’s see what our helpers for today have come up with.

As Christ followers, there are 3 things we should be doing to not just leave a lasting legacy but to leave a legacy that is Godly.

1. Honor God

I have an almost two year old. She is adorable but she has had a hard time learning what it means to share. But that is true for most two year olds. We have had to tell her, show her but also reinforce it with her to do those things.

This how God works with us. He tells us how to live through his word, he shows us through other people that are further along in their walk, and reenforces it in us through putting us in situations we have to practice it.

He develops the actions in us through the situations. These things have two purposes, to prepare us and prepare others. As parents, friends, and brothers and sisters in Christ our goal should be to allow the people around us to stand on our shoulders so our peak is their starting point. Where do we start that?

The first thing that we should teach our kids and others through our actions is what it means to have relationship with God. There is an old saying that I find is very true: More is caught than taught. In other words don’t just talk about it, be about it. You can teach your people how to do something but the thing that is going to be more impactful is showing them. If you want your family, your friends, your coworkers, and whomever else it might be to know what it means to honor God, you show them through actions not words.

How do we honor God?
We put Him first. In short, honoring God is about aligning your whole life. Your heart, actions, and attitudes need to align with his will and character. We should live our lives in such a way that others can see how great and worthy he is through you.

I believe that all of us want to get to a space where we are consistently living those things out, so I want to give you some steps on how you can model honoring God through your daily actions. We have to obey his word. I know we talk about this a lot but his word our source of truth that we weigh everything against.

John 14:15
If you love me, keep my commands.

Honoring God starts with obedience. When we follow his instructions and live according to the word, we are honoring him by acknowledging the his wisdom is higher than our own.

Prioritize Him.
We prioritize what we care about. Why is that we can make time for kids extracurriculars, TikTok, Facebook, and other things but we sit in disappointment when we feel like its hard to access God? It’s simple, it is easy to access a close friend, its hard to build up the courage to talk to someone you don’t know.

Matthew 6:33
“Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.”

Putting God first in your time, decisions, finances, and relationships demonstrates that he holds the highest place in your life. Don’t be surprised when the people around you don’t experience God through you, if you aren’t making time to experience Him yourself.

Worship with your life.
Worship isn’t just about music. Mollee our worship leader talked about this a few weeks ago during the 4 for 10. How we honor God with our actions is worship.

Romans 12:1
“I appeal to you therefore, brothers,[a] by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”

We need to reflect His love, grace, and holiness in everything we do.

Use your gifts for His glory.
Time and treasure tell you where your heart is. What do you spend your time on? What do you spend your money on? Your talents, time, influence, and opportunities aren’t just for personal gain, they’re tools to point people to God and make His name known.

1 Corinthians 10:31
“whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”

I know that I am making all of this sound so simple, but I know that its not. So I want to add one last key to honoring God.
Aggressive accountability.
We are going to mess up. We are gonna have bad days and let our emotions get the best of us. And in those moments all we can do is apologize. One thing I try my best to do with my kids when I overreact is to get down on their level and own it. I want my children to live a legacy of honoring God through repentance. When I sin, I want to repent quickly and aggressively. When I sin against someone, if I am aware of it, I want to apologize and ask for forgiveness, quickly and aggressively. It doesn’t just honor God but it makes the world around us more enjoyable to live in when people just own their mistakes and move forward.

When we commit to honoring God—by obeying His Word, prioritizing Him, and worshiping through our daily lives—we begin to look more like Him. The more we align our hearts with His, the more His nature starts to show up in us.

That’s what brings us to the next piece of a lasting legacy: reflecting God.

Honoring Him is the internal choice, reflecting Him is the external result.

2. Reflect God

As we get closer to God it will seem like all we can see is our brokenness. But there is a reason for this. He is refining us the way a silver smith refines silver.

In Malachi 3 we see this:
Malachi 3:1-3
“Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. 2 But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap. 3 He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord.

This passage is talking about preparing the way of the lord and withstanding his judgement but the key here is the person that can endure that. Its the person that can be purified.

In order to reflect God, he is going to have to work things out of us. I saw a TikTok the other day where it was talking about the process of silver refining. And the question that was asked was “how do you know the silver is ready?” And the smith responded, “I have to diligently watch it, and I know its ready when I can see myself in it.”

This is the thing, as we honor God, we are going to realize there are things in us that need to be worked out. That is a part of the process.

How do we reflect Him?

We start by living with love.

We know that we are honoring him when we aren’t just loving people out of obedience but we start showing genuine love towards people. We have compassion and kindness towards those that our justice says don’t deserve it.

1st John 4:16
“God is love, whoever lives in love lives in God”From there we have to walk in integrity and truth. God is pure and truthful. Reflecting Him means choosing honesty, righteousness, and moral character, even when no one is watching.
We forgive the way he forgives.

God’s grace is a powerful part of His nature. When we extend forgiveness instead of holding onto bitterness, we mirror His mercy. A part of that forgiveness is serving people selflessly. Serving others shows humility and reflects the servant-hearted nature of Jesus. Every act of service points people to Him. In that service to people we are going to be confronted with the opportunity to be a peacemaker and unity builder or we are going to be tempted to add more fuel to the fire. God desires reconciliation and unity. When you bring people together, calm division, and lead with grace, you reflect His peace.

Matthew 5:9
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”
What does any of this have to do with legacy though?

It’s simple, what you nail to the cross your kids won’t have to. We often think about this in big generational curse type issues but it applies to things like being a person of integrity or becoming a peace maker.

Your decisions to deal with the sin allows your kids and the people around to be able to work through faster and more efficient to grow closer to God without the pain that you had to endure.

This goes back to being made in his image. We are to reflect that image of God throughout of lives.

As Jason and I were discussing the message he brought up something interesting. The moon reflects the sun. And the only part of the moon that we see is that which is reflecting the sun.

Here is the thing, we have only ever seen that one side of the moon. The moon doesn’t rotate and so there is a whole side to the moon we don’t know. IS that how you are living life?

Is there something that you are trying to keep hidden from God? The problem with that is the holy spirit will tell on you. He is going to force you to face it, even if that means breaking you down to nothing so you are forced to rely on God.

God would rather break you now and spend eternity with you than for you to coast along in life only to face eternal separation. We should be reflecting Christ in everything we do but eventually we are going to have to deal with the things that we don’t willingly show people.

And maybe some of you in here are good at playing the church game and putting that mask on when you walk through the door but I would challenge you to allow God to shine a light on that so he can refine you. And maybe that’s why you feel the heat of life is so strong right now is because God has turned the temperature up to get that stuff to come to the top so he can remove it. Reflecting God is an important step in leaving a legacy that doesn’t just have temporary impact but has generational impact.

We reflect God when His nature is visible in our words, choices, and relationships. It’s not about being perfect—it’s about being surrendered. Letting the Holy Spirit shape you into the image of Christ is how you truly reflect Him to the world.

3. Love people

When we say loving people within the context of christianity there usually is a collective eye roll because “well of course we are supposed to love people.”

But here is the problem, are we as christ followers that have the initiative to love God with everything and love people with every thing, are we doing that? Are we loving people with everything we have to offer or are we loving people with what have left over to offer them?

If we are supposed to be practicing the disciplines of Jesus then where is the radical love we are supposed to show people? Or do we reserve that love for everyone we like, agree with, and want to hang around?
1 Corinthians 13:1-7If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;[b] 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Paul is making it very clear, that if our actions aren’t based in love, it doesn’t matter how much truth we speak, what miracle is performed, or even martyred.

If you want to change the next generation start with loving them where they are at. People don’t remember what you do but they always remember how you made them feel.

I know so many people that have strained family relationships because they simply don’t feel loved by their family. WE CAN CHANGE THAT!

We don’t have to continue the plans of discord for our lives. The greatest way that you can honor God is to love people the way he loves them. The greatest way that you can reflect him is to love people like he loves them.

How do we love people? It’s a simple but hard truth: We serve them.

Serving them doesn’t mean submitting to them but it might mean crucifying your justice to the cross because we realize justice has already been had on the cross.

1 John 3:18 “Let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.”

Saying “I love you” isn’t enough, real love shows up in how we serve, forgive, and care for others.

Ephesians 4:2“Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.”

Love sticks around. It makes room for people’s imperfections and chooses grace over offense. How do we model this? Start with your spouse. The relationship you are showing your kids will impact the type of person they pick in the future.

Walk it out with your kids. Just because you are the parent doesn’t mean you are off the hook of accountability.

One thing that I have noticed is that people that grew up with parents that wouldn’t admit when they messed up or didn’t talk about how they messed up, usually created inflated images of themselves to their kids only for that bubble to burst and have a negative impact.

Talk your mistakes through with them. Show them what it means to course correct.

Then, With everyone else. Serve people. Show love through volunteer opportunities at the church. Look at these kids around you today. You have the opportunity to impact their lives if you are willing to love them the way God has loved you.

I am the by product of several people just taking the time to love me even when I was in a rough state. They chose to serve the potential in me and overlook the hurt in me and it changed everything.

Mrs. Duncan my first grade Sunday School teacher took time to reach out to me and check on me after my dad passed. She took me shopping and always was just a positive influence. Thats the type of love I want to show people.

You have the opportunity to be that influence in a kids life here. But you have to decide its time to get off the sideline and start serving people.

All of this starts with choosing to serve people the way Jesus did. He cared more about their experience with Him than what they could ever offer him. And we need to make sure that we are doing the same.

If we want to leave a legacy that future generations can build upon, we have to be willing to be willing to face the things that will stop them in the future today. One truth that I will continue to live by in everything I do is that more is caught than taught.

I have to walk out the actions that I want my children to walk out. I have to make sure they are seeing me honor God, reflect God, and loving people. If you find your self in a spot where you need to work on honoring God come down and pray with someone and seek help in your walk. If you need help to reflect him more or maybe you are feeling the weight of the things he is trying to work out of you, come pray. Maybe you need your heart softened towards people and need to learn how to be serve them, come down and pray.

What is the Holy Spirit saying to you through this message?

How does he want you to respond?