We’re in the series Recession-Proof Relationships and since today is Mother’s Day we’re going to talk about Leaving a Legacy by training the next generation. Moms are great examples of this topic. They can be great teachers!
Things My Mother Taught Me...
My mother taught me TO APPRECIATE A JOB WELL DONE
"If you’re going kill each other, do it outside - I just finished cleaning!"
My mother taught me RELIGION
"You better pray that will come out of the carpet."
My mother taught me LOGIC
"Because I said so, that’s why."
My mother taught me HOW TO MEET A CHALLENGE
“Answer me when I talk to you! Don’t talk back to me!”
My mother taught me FORESIGHT
"Make sure you wear clean underwear, in case you’re in an accident."
My mother taught me IRONY
"Keep laughing and I’ll give you something to cry about."
My mother taught me about the science of OSMOSIS
"Shut your mouth and eat your supper!"
My mother taught me about CONTORTIONISM
"Will you look at the dirt on the back of your neck!"
My mother taught me about BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION
"Stop acting like your father!"
My mother taught me about ENVY
"There are millions of less fortunate children in this world who don’t have a wonderful mother like you do!"
My mother taught me about JUSTICE
“One day you’ll have kids and I hope they turn out just like you!”
Leaving a legacy by passing stuff on to the next generation can be serious business but don’t ever forget to laugh!
And while you’re laughing, hare are some biblical principles that need to be passed on to the next generation so that they will be prepared for the recessions in their relationships.
Our Scriptural basis for today’s teaching comes from a man of God in the Old Testament. God had given the prophet Joel a message to share with others and then God says something very riveting to His people…
"Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation." Joel 1:3 (Amplified Bible)
God is making it very clear that we’re to pass on the things that God has taught us to the next generation. We’re NOT to keep our wonderful experience of learning God’s truth to ourselves. We are to share what we’ve learned with the next generation. Until I plug my life into God’s plan for caring for others, including the next generation I’m missing out on some of the greatest joys for which God created me.
You don’t have to be a biological parent to do this. Every adult needs to be aware of his or her responsibilities to the next generation. Anytime you’re around somebody younger you have a chance to positively influence him or her and you need to take advantage of that opportunity. Whether it’s a kid here at Pathway, or a neighborhood kid that needs an older person in his or her life, or someone in your family, God wants you to share your knowledge, wisdom and experience.
I was recently made so very proud of some of the young adults at Pathway that made themselves available to take the kids from Junior Church to the Nashville zoo! They already grasp the joy of training the next generation!
The Bible talks about how adults can become “unavailable” to the next generation.
21their children are honored, but they do not know it; their children are disgraced, but they do not see it. 22 They only feel the pain of their body and feel sorry for themselves." Job 14:21-22 (NCV)
A lot of adults are walking around in utter selfishness. They see nothing but their own problems and they’re so self-centered and self-focused that they spend most of their lives feeling sorry for themselves when they could be experiencing tremendous joy by coaching the next generation!
We have a choice! We can live joyful lives by focusing on others or we can lead miserable lives by focusing on ourselves all the time!
If you want to stop the misery of feeling sorry for yourself start looking at the needs of others! If you want to rise out of your depressed state – take your eyes off of yourself and look at someone else’s needs. A great place to look is the next generation! Look at the children and youth of our culture and think about how you can positively influence their lives! Then, they can positively influence the next generation, and so on.
How do we do this? The Bible is great! It doesn’t just tell us WHAT. It tells us HOW. How do we effectively communicate and convey the spiritual truths that God has shown us to the next generation? God’s Word places an emphasis in several areas.
THE NEXT GENERATION NEEDS WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE.
"It’s much better to have wisdom and knowledge than gold and silver." Proverbs 16:16 (NCV)
The Book of Proverbs, which was originally written for the next generation, says that it’s better to have knowledge and wisdom than money. It’s better to be spiritually smart than to have material possessions.
We must get this settled in our own minds if we’re going to pass it on to the next generation.
We’re all too often like the traveler who was between flights in an airport. She went to a shop in the airport and bought a small package of cookies. Then she sat down and began reading a newspaper. Gradually, she became aware of a rustling noise from behind her paper. She was flabbergasted to see a neatly dressed man helping himself to her cookies. Not wanting to make a scene, she leaned over and took a cookie herself.
A minute or two passed and then came more rustling. He was helping himself to another cookie! By this time they had come to the end of the package, but she was so angry she did not dare allow herself to say anything. Then, as if to add insult to injury, the man broke the final cookie in two, pushed half across to her, ate the other half and left.
Still fuming some time later when her flight was announced, the woman opened her handbag to get her ticket. To her shocking embarrassment, there she found her pack of unopened cookies!
Whoops! Coming to grips with “Whose cookies are they?” That changes everything doesn’t it?
Here’s where we are a little confused. From the age of about two on, “Whose cookies are they?” becomes very important to us. Yet the Bible is very clear about to whom the cookies belong.
"The earth belongs to the Lord, and everything in it— the world and all its people." Psalm 24:1 (NCV)
The earth belongs to the Lord and WHAT in it? Everything! The answer to the question “whose cookies are they?” is – God’s cookies! God’s house; God’s clothes; God’s car; God’s body. It’s all God’s stuff.
When we help the next generation settle this issue – in fact, some of us adults still need to come to grips with this issue – but when we help the next generation settle this issue their lives become much less complicated, much less stressed - especially when their lives are going through relationship recessions.
How do we get the next generation to see that wisdom and knowledge are better than silver and gold? We teach them from a very young age to see themselves as stewards, managers, of the things that belong to God. We teach them not to worry as much about “whose cookies are they?” as gaining spiritual knowledge.
The next generation needs to know how to live more than they need to know how to make a living.
THE NEXT GENERATION NEEDS CHARACTER AS A MORAL COMPASS.
"Take on an entirely new way of life, a God-fashioned life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces His character in you." Ephesians 4:23-24 (Msg)
Character is a word that describes morals and ethics and integrity. It’s about learning how to be the right kind of person and how to do the right kind of thing, especially in tough situations.
Every generation needs character. Living without character is like trying to find your way around Chicago with a map of New York. Many members of the next generation will be following the wrong map unless we instill biblical principles in their lives.
Two great ways to pass character on to the next generation:
a. Protect their minds from evil thoughts.
"A wise person is hungry for truth while the fool feeds on trash." Proverbs 15:14 (NLT)
The old adage is “Garbage in – garbage out.” If we want to keep the next generation innocent regarding evil, so that they can mature in what is good, then we must help them feed on the truth and not on trash.
We must especially teach the next generation media discernment.
b. Don’t protect them from difficulty.
3 We also have joy with our troubles, because we know that these troubles produce patience.4 And patience produces character, and character produces hope. Romans 5:3-4 (NCV)
Maturity doesn’t come with age. It comes with responsibility. Some people are mature at 17 while others aren’t mature at 37. Why? Sometimes because they haven’t taken on responsibility. They can’t learn responsibility if we protect them from difficulty.
The key to these two character promoters is balance. If you go too far to either extreme you encourage an imbalance in character development. The next generation will be confronted with unwholesome ideas and suggestions. Our job is to help them filter through the lures of our culture without over-sheltering them.
If we’re too strict – the spirit of the next generation is shattered. That’s why the Bible says,
"Fathers, do not irritate and provoke your children to anger [do not exasperate them to resentment], but rear them [tenderly] in the training and discipline and the counsel and admonition of the Lord." Ephesians 6:4 (Amp)
That’s good advice for every adult interested in training the next generation. We don’t want them to become bitter and resentful. So we don’t want to come down too hard on them. We show them respect.
But we also don’t want to be too permissive. Then they’ll not have boundaries so they end up being involved in behavior that is harmful to them and to others.
THE NEXT GENERATION NEEDS CONVICTIONS, VALUES TO LIVE BY.
"Hold tight to your convictions. Give it all you’ve got." 1 Corinthians 16:13 (Msg)
Convictions are the values you live by, something you won’t give up for peer pressure.
First, you gain wisdom and knowledge, then comes character, next are your convictions.
Character is being right; conviction is having the fortitude to choose right.
The deepest and most long-lasting blessings in life, the greatest joy and abiding inner peace come from make the right choices! We must pass this truth on to the next generation!
One of the many great biblical illustrations of conviction comes from the Book of Daniel. We remember how he was thrown into the den of lions because he wouldn’t worship the king’s idol. That was conviction! But his determination to live by conviction began much earlier in his life.
"Daniel made up his mind to eat and drink only what God had approved for his people to eat." Daniel 1:8a (CEV)
Daniel was a next generation Jew, probably a teenager, when taken captive to ancient Babylon. But he didn’t give up the tenets of his belief system just because he was in a foreign land and ungodly people were in control. That’s conviction. You make up your mind that you’re going to do what God says and you live by that whether or not its always easy.
Daniel did this tactfully and he wasn’t a pious prune by enlisting the help of one of the king’s servants – so you don’t have to be a weirdo to have convictions. But he was able to show that living by his conviction was better than living by the ways of the Babylonian culture.
Do you remember what happened to Daniel? God promoted him and others respected him because he was a person of conviction! Kings wanted to know what Daniel thought. He became their advisor.
Convictions produce passion, and passionate people change the world. It isn’t the person who lives a willy-nilly life and does what is easy all the time that rises to influence and success in life. It’s the person who has the courage to live by their convictions!
If kids don’t have convictions, they’ll be captivated by the four main values of our culture:
a. Pleasure – “I want to feel good.”
b. Possessions – “I want to have a lot of stuff.”
c. Prestige – “I want other people to envy me.”
d. Power – “I want to be in control.”
How do we effectively pass our convictions on to the next generation?
Convictions must be modeled. They are more “caught” than “taught.”
6 In the same way, encourage young men to be wise.7 In every way be an example of doing good deeds. When you teach, do it with honesty and seriousness. Titus 2:6-7 (NCV)
If you’re passionate about your convictions then the members of the next generation that you influence will pick up on that passion. If your life exhibits an honest reflection of what you say you believe in, they will know the true value of convictions.
Our behavior has an enormous influence on the behavior of the next generation. If we want to direct the behavior of future generations we must look at our own behavior.
So let’s close this message by doing just that. Let’s look at our own behavior.
How are you doing in some of the main areas that it takes to leave a legacy for the next generation? Not just moms, since this is Mother’s Day, but all adults. Ask yourself…
Am I sharing wisdom and knowledge with the next generation?
Am I teaching character to the next generation?
Am I modeling convictions for the next generation?
I was blessed to come to Christ in a church that cared deeply about the next generation. Quite honestly, I don’t know where I would be today if not for that church. I don’t know if I would be alive today. I might have become an alcoholic like my father. I might have died young like he did. I really don’t know.
It wasn’t a big church. There weren’t a multitude of programs, there wasn’t a lot of money to spend, but there was a philosophy in that church that emphasized the importance of focusing on the needs of the next generation!
I know that it began with the pastors we had. We had some pastors while I was between the ages of 12, when I came to Christ, and 18, when I left for college, that, during those 6 years, made a tremendous impact on the lives of the youth in our church. I have never been the same because of that atmosphere!
I say that because as pastor at Pathway I’m going to be the first today to recommit myself to the needs of the next generation. And I ask you to join me. I ask those of you who will say that you will dedicate yourselves to leaving a legacy to the next generation to join me down front to kneel in a prayer of dedication.
