We are going to um talk about lessons in legacy this weekend. And being that it’s Memorial Day weekend and there’s so much legacy with that and in our families and even in the life of our country, I just was really inspired and really felt God dropped this on my heart to talk about what we can learn lessons and legacy from people in the Bible. And um as we go through it, I just want to start with this. Psalms 112 verse 1 and 2. You guys are great. Thank you so much. Give it up for our band. They’re amazing. They were looking for their exit, so we just had to help them. Give them a a hand clap. We love them. Okay.

Psalms 112 verse1 and 2. Blessed are those who fear the Lord. Not like the I’m afraid of you God, but just respectfully have a reverence for who he is, what he can do. Blessed are those who fear the Lord, who find great delight in his commands. Their children will be mighty in the land, and the generation of the upright will be blessed. This is our foundational scripture this weekend because we want to put this in our heart that when we have respect, when we have reverence, when we fear the Lord, first of all, that’s the beginning of wisdom is what the Bible talks about. And those who find delight in his commands, there’s a promise that our children will be mighty in the land and that the generation of the upright will be blessed. Doesn’t say might, doesn’t say could. It says will. It’s a promise that when we put our lives in the foundation of who God is and the word of God and and do our best to put our feet on the solid foundation of the word of God, then the promise is our children will be blessed and the generation will be blessed.

And so as we’re getting into this lessons of legacy, it reminded me of that really famous quote from the older Gladiator movie with Maximus where he says, “What we do in life echoes in eternity.” If you’ve seen that movie, you know that line. It is so powerful and it reminds us that what we do in our lives. It echoes not just in eternity but it creates a ripple effect when you choose to have faith in God. It doesn’t just affect your life. It actually has a ripple effect in your family’s life, in your friend’s life, those people who come in contact with you, your decision to have faith, your decision to obey God, your decision to repent when you get it wrong, all of those decisions not only affect you as an individual, it actually creates a ripple effect.

What we do in life echoes in eternity. What we do in life echoes in the lives of our children. What we do in life echoes in the life of our friends. What we do in life echoes around us. And so as we talk about this Memorial Day weekend and these lessons that we’re learning, I just want to remind all of us that it’s not just how we’re remembered. It’s about who is changed because of how we live.

And so we’re going to talk about five people from the Bible who believed God’s truth and changed their legacy. We’re going to look at some of these stories and I’m not going to be able to get into all of the minutiae of every story. Okay? So, my goal today is to give you sort of a 30,000 foot view of these stories and these people and the lessons that they learned. And my hope is that if you see a lesson that really resonates with where you are in your life right now, that you’ll go and you’ll do some reading this week or you’ll go on Bible Project and watch some videos this week about these stories and get to know them and learn the lessons in your own life.

But if you want to leave a godly legacy in your life, if you want to leave a godly legacy in your children’s life, if you don’t have children yet, but you want to leave a godly legacy for those around you, you’re in the right place. And today we’re going to talk about it. So before I get to our next verse, I just have to ask you, whatever room you’re in, do we have any people who really hate spoilers? Like you’re like, don’t ruin the story for me. Whatever room you’re in, look around. If you’re by yourself, this is just a reminder. Being in community is better. So, if you’re at home alone, get to church next week and then you can see who else is like you.

Okay? Whatever room you’re in, come on. If you don’t like spoilers, raise your hand. Okay? What if the people you’re reading a book and you skip to the back to see what happens? You want to know what happens. Raise your hand. Every room, every room, I have a confession to make. It’s confession time.

So, I’m more of like a romcom girl. Like, when it comes to movies, I would much prefer to be relaxed and kind of know the ending. Like, it’s pretty predictable. I know what’s going to happen. I like those kind of movies. My husband, bless him, loves suspenseful movies. He loves those movies that you like, uh, I didn’t see that coming. Like, he loves those movies. And I don’t want to be stressed out for 2 hours. Like I just I don’t want to be I literally physically like start shaking if this movie is really suspenseful because I’m so stressed about it and I’m sweating and I’m just like this would not be good for my nervous system. So I’ve learned he watches the movie, he finds out the ending. I ask him the ending and as long as I know the ending, I can sit through the movie.

It’s great for our marriage. I can watch the movie with him after I know what the ending is. So I don’t mind the spoilers. Okay. I have to start at the ending for you today. When we talk about these five people, I need to tell you sort of the end of their story before we go back and talk about the beginning of their story. So, we find them in Matthew chapter 1. And these are people that are in the genealogy of Jesus, the savior of the world. Okay, we’re going to talk about four people who actually show up in the genealogy, plus another one that’s indirectly related. But the genealogy of Jesus, the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham, there’s several generations before we get to Judah. But then there’s Judah, the father of Perez and Zarah, whose mother was Tamar. And then Salmon, the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab. And then Boaz, the father of Oed, whose mother was Ruth. And then another couple generations. And then David was the father of Solomon, whose mother was Uriah’s wife. And then several more generations. So again, I’m just giving you some overviews, okay? And then Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah. So if you look in Matthew chapter 1, there’s just names of people that Jesus was part of their lineage. All right? So we’re going to talk about four of these people that are listed in this little passage that I just read and then one more that’s not listed, but he’s connected. These aren’t perfect people. They have messy, flawed stories. If I was picking the people who were going to be listed in the genealogy of Christ, the savior of the world, I might have picked other people. And yet these people that we’re talking about today and their messed up stories and their flawed moments, they were still chosen to be highlighted in the lineage of Christ directly or indirectly because they aligned their lives with God. Because they chose to live a life of faith, because they chose to live a life of repentance.

So let’s jump into these lessons of legacy. The first one is lesson one. My faith can rewrite my family’s future. Your faith can rewrite your family’s future. The lesson that we learned this from is Rahab. Thank you chat GBT for our picture of Rahab today. I don’t know if she looked like this, but for visual purposes. Here you go. This is Rahab. We meet Rahab in Joshua chapter 2. And how she is introduced to us is as a prostitute. She makes a living probably as the madam of the brothel in Jericho.

We just read her name in the lineage of Christ, but she didn’t let her past disqualify her from her future. You see, she may have had a messy past and we don’t know why, how she got there, what decisions led to what. But what we do know is that she decided to have a different kind of faith. She decided to recognize who God is and was and decided to take a step of faith and decided to change her family’s future. Not just her own future, her whole family’s future. Because when she put that scarlet cord up in her window, anybody from her family who was in that house with her on the wall, the condo on the wall, they all lived. When all the walls of Jericho fell down, anyone in her family who was in her house with the scarlet cord hanging, they were saved. Her faith rewrote her family’s future because she decided to have faith in God. She changed her whole trajectory, not only of her life, but of her descendants. And Rahab is the great grandmother of King David. Don’t let your past disqualify you from your future because God doesn’t want to erase your story. He wants to redeem it. He doesn’t want to change what’s happened in your past. It may not be pretty. He doesn’t want to erase it. He wants to redeem it. and he wants to use it for his glory so that other people around you can come to know who God is and the miraculous working of the God that we serve who changed your life and can change your future and the ripple effect that goes out from your life doesn’t just affect you but it affects your family it affects your friends it affects your future.

Lesson number two. Repentance restores what pride destroys. Repentance can restore what pride or sin destroys. We learn this lesson from King David. We first meet him in 1st Samuel 16. And he is a man after God’s own heart from a very young age. Believes in God, has a strong faith in God, becomes a warrior, becomes a king, and later in his life, he commits adultery, and then murders Basha’s husband to cover it up. So he’s an adulterer and a murderer. And yet he’s listed in the lineage of Jesus Christ. Why? Because in his worst moment, he didn’t let that be the end of his story. And through confession and through repentance, he realigned his life with God and his faith. And he put his heart back on track.

He’s responsible for a majority of the Psalms that we read in the book of Psalms. And his cry out to God. His worship to God, his repentance is seen over and over and over again. Pride, sin was trying to destroy his life. Maybe he was tired. Maybe he was weary. Maybe he was bored. We don’t know. But he committed adultery. And then he committed murder. But because of his confession and repentance, repentance isn’t just saying, “I’m sorry.” Come on, parents. You got more than one kid in your house. You hopefully you’ve had this conversation before. I don’t want you to just say, “I’m sorry.” I want you to mean it. That means don’t do it again. That’s what repentance is.

But God chose to continue the messianic line through David because he kept trying again. He kept repenting again. Even when he messed up, even when he didn’t get it right, he would come back to God and he would say, “I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Clean my heart. Make me new.” Repentance can restore what pride and sin is trying to destroy in your life. Don’t let your worst mistake become your final identity. We can take this lesson from David and we can know that one chapter of his story wasn’t the end of his story. And he went on to have Solomon who became King Solomon and asked God for wisdom. So David becomes the father of wisdom and is in the lineage of Christ.

And I want you to know this too that God sees the truth and he still wants to include you. I might not know what you’ve done. The person sitting two rows in front of you might not know your story, but God sees the truth. And I hope that through this lesson, you can learn that your worst mistake doesn’t have to become your final identity. And through repentance, you can come back to God and you can realign your faith with him. And you can change your future and your legacy. And God knows the truth. I might not. God does. And he still wants you. And he still wants your story. There’s so much happened that in David’s life. I encourage you to go and read about him.

Lesson number three. God works through everyday obedience. Are you learning something today? We’re just on lesson three, but I hope it’s helping you today. We learned this from Ruth. We find her, she has a whole book of the Bible, but we find her in Ruth chapter 1. Now, Ruth had some things happen to her out of her control. She didn’t choose her fate. She was handed it. And the world saw her as a foreigner, widowed. But she chose to be loyal. She chose to be obedient. She chose to show up. She showed up in the fields and did work. She wasn’t afraid to do some hard work. She wasn’t afraid to stay committed to her mother-in-law, even though she could have gone back to her own family. And God saw her obedience and saw her loyalty. And in the Bible, we read that Ruth, as it turns out, was working in the fields of Boaz, who happened to be a kinsman redeemer for her. Could change her life. Just happened by coincidence. But I hope that you can see the providence of God in it. And God can use our everyday obedience and he can turn as it turned out, he can turn convenience into your destiny. He can turn as it turned out into God assigned connections where you can be in the right place at the right time meeting the right people.

I’ll never forget years ago we used to do altar calls where if you said yes to Jesus you would come forward in front of everybody. We haven’t done that in a while. Maybe we should do it today. I don’t know. There’s something that happens when you take a step of faith. But this story, there was a man who came down and the altar was filled right here in Tacoma and he was given his life to Jesus and somebody from our church, one of our prayer partners comes up and stands behind him. Didn’t know him, didn’t recognize him, didn’t have a connection with him at all, but stood behind him as a prayer partner. They go out and they, you know, do whatever we did at that point when people said yes to Jesus, give them their next steps or whatever. And they start talking and the person that came up for the altar was looking for a connection in business that just so happened, as it turned out, the guy who came up behind him as a prayer partner was a perfect connection for what he needed to happen in his business. And the door of opportunity happened because he took a step of faith and was obedient and the guy behind him took a step of faith and was obedient and God assigned connection happened.

You never know when you’re doing every day the mundane routine acts of obedience, but you’re doing it on purpose because you love God because you don’t exactly know what might happen, but you’re going to trust him anyway. You’re going to do those things and be obedient. God can use your obedience and he can put you in the right place with God assigned connections that will open up doors of opportunity that you wouldn’t have been able to do on your own just by showing up. God uses our willingness more than our resume. You might not know, I mean, I don’t think Ruth had ever gleaned in the field before. So, she probably didn’t know what she was doing, but she figured it out. She was willing. And because she was willing, because she was obedient, because she just kept showing up, because she wasn’t afraid to put in some hard work, God used her willingness and he changed her life. And she was the grandma of King David. So she probably knew Rahab and then King David like she’s a part of a legacy. She was a foreigner. She was widowed. She could have said, “I’m a victim.” She could have said, “Life is bad. Bad things happen. I’m out.” She could have excused herself from her destiny, but instead she chose to show up. She chose to put in the hard work. She chose to have everyday acts of obedience and God saw it and God used it.

Lesson number four. God can use my detour to deliver others. God can use your detour. Maybe you didn’t know you were going to go down that road. It’s a detour, but God can use it. And he can use it to help others. We learned this from Joseph. We find him in Genesis 37. And he is rejected. He is betrayed. He’s sold to slavery by his own brothers because they’re jealous. Like this kid had it bad and then he was betrayed again in his next place of employment and then he was put in jail and then he was promised some things in jail and then he was forgotten. He could have he could have checked out too. A lot of things that he didn’t choose were handed to him. He took a pretty big detour from what he thought was the dream that God put in his heart. And yet God used the very detour of betrayal, of being forgotten, of being imprisoned. And because Joseph continued to just, “All right, God. I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t know how I got here. I don’t know what you’re doing, but I choose to trust you anyway.” And because Joseph kept his heart right, he was able to get into a position of power in a time of famine where he actually was responsible for continuing the legacy of Christ because his brother Judah, who we read in the lineage of Christ, Joseph was in power in Egypt.

So that when the famine hit the land and all of his brothers, Judah included, came to get deliverance because everybody was dying because everyone was starving and Joseph was in power and he was able to save his family and Judah and his family was sustained and the lineage of Christ was able to pass through Joseph’s brother. Why? Because he kept his heart right. And even though he went on a detour, God used that very detour that ended him in Egypt to put him in position so that he had the power to make decisions to save not only himself and his family, not only the community that he was living in, but to save a legacy and a generation for generations to come. God can use the detour that you think is just wasting time and he can use it for good.

In fact, Joseph told his brothers when they came to get help with the famine, he said, “What you intended for evil, God has used for good.” We see it in Romans 8:28 that God wants to work all things together for the good. Not just the good things. He wants to use all the things and work them together for the good. The things that you did plan, the things that you didn’t plan, the things that you could control, the things that you can’t control. He wants to use all the things, the good, the bad, the ugly, the flawed, the messy, the drama. He wants to use all the things. and he wants to work it together for your good. And not just for your good, for the ripple effect that happens for everyone who’s around you. Your faith, your obedience, your repentance, it doesn’t just help you. Yes, it helps you 100%, but it doesn’t just help you. It’s also for the ripple effect that happens in your life, your kids’ life, your spouse’s life, your friends life, at work, your family, your neighbors.

Lesson five. I can carry God’s promise even when I don’t feel qualified. You can carry God’s promise even when you don’t feel qualified. We learned this lesson from Mary, the mother of Jesus. We meet her in Matthew chapter 1. And here’s the thing about Mary. She had a really boring testimony. Like she lived a good life. She was honorable. She was engaged to be married, but she hadn’t had sex yet. Like she was saving herself for her husband. She was like she was doing all the things right. And I mean I have a boring testimony for that matter. And I’m praying we’re praying that our boys will have boring testimonies. Like I think sometimes the church can glorify the testimonies that are out there and do all the things. Why? Because we believe in grace and we believe that God can restore your story and he can use your past. He doesn’t have to erase it. He can redeem it. I believe all of those things. But when I’m praying for my sons and their story, I’m praying that they have a boring testimony in Jesus name. Steal it. You can have it.

But Mary had she didn’t have all this drama. Her drama didn’t start until she said yes. And then so the angel comes in and says, “You’re going to have the savior of the world and you’re going to have be be pregnant and have a baby.” And she’s like, “What? How can that be? I mean, you can read about it, right? But then she says, “Be it unto me.” She says, “Yes.” And it wasn’t until she said yes until all the drama started in her life. Like she was labeled, you know, the unwed, all the things that you we don’t get called today in our society, but she would have been called today if she would have been pregnant before she was married. Shunned from society. The bad girl. Trying to give you the G-rated version because I already said sex in the message. So, but she said yes even when she didn’t know how it was all going to happen, what it was all going to look like, how she was going to be accepted into society, how her kid was going to be accepted into society. She just said yes. She probably didn’t feel qualified. I mean, sources say she was somewhere between 14 and 17 years old. You’re going to give birth to the savior of the universe. Okay. Yes. She did it.

Even when you feel unqualified, even when you feel overwhelmed, God wants to use you to raise up whatever he has put inside of you. Maybe it’s the kids that you’re raising. Maybe it’s a business that’s in your heart that God wants to birth through you and raise that up into your life and make a difference in your family legacy that way. And there’s all sorts of ways that God can put a promise in your heart for you to carry and raise up and live out. And you might not feel qualified. You might feel overwhelmed. But what we learned from Mary is that your yes to God can impact generations. Doesn’t just impact you. It impacts it changes the legacy. It changes the landscape. So stop arguing with God about your worth and start speaking his truth over your life.

In a moment, I want to pray with you. Maybe maybe you want to say yes to God for the very first time today or as a recommitment. I want to pray with you about that in a moment. Just want to start preparing your heart for it. But I’ve started to tell Cody, he’s our nine-year-old, and he’s he goes through the, you know, this eb and flow of like super confident, can like walk into the middle of a high school baseball team and like carry on conversations, you know, and everybody loves him and all this. And then he goes through these moments where he’s like, I’m stupid. I can’t do anything. I can’t pass the test, you know, I’m dumb. You know, and all the things that kids would say. But I’ve started to say to him, you know what? I can’t choose to believe this for you. You have to choose to believe it for yourself. I believe it. I believe that you’re smart. I believe that you can do it, but I can’t I can’t believe for you. You You have to choose to believe it for yourself.

And I feel like God dropped it into my spirit that that’s just how we are with God sometimes is that God is trying to tell you today. You can do it. You are worth it. You are valuable. You do have a story that can glorify him. You can have a ripple effect of positive and godly legacy in your life and in your family’s life and for generations to come. You can you you can and God wants to use you. But I can’t believe that for you and God can’t believe that for you. You have to choose to believe it for yourself. And so stop arguing with God about your worth. Stop arguing with God about your future and start speaking his truth over your life.

I’m going to leave this next step, this next slide up here. It’s just a declaration that you can choose to screenshot it. You can choose to say these over yourself. You can choose to make your own. Take the word of God and make declarations for yourself. But start speaking to the highest level of your faith and start speaking God’s truth over your life. You might not even believe it at first, but the more you say it, the more your head hears it and the more you start to believe it and you choose to believe it for yourself and watch what God can do to change the legacy that you’re leaving in your life and your family’s life.

I want to pray for you today. Maybe you’re in the room and you want to say yes to Jesus for the very first time. And maybe you want to say yes as a recommitment. I would love to pray with you wherever you’re at in this room, whatever room you’re watching in. Just want to ask that you bow your head and you close your eyes and say this after me. We’re all going to say this as a sign of support. Say this after me. Lord Jesus, welcome to my world. I invite you into my life. To be the leader and the Lord. I confess with my mouth and believe in my heart that Jesus, you are the son of God. That you died on the cross and you were raised again for me. And I pray I’ll never be the same again starting today in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Can we give it up for everyone who made that decision today?