Inheritance
Tom Shrader concludes his Financial Foundations series by examining what we should truly pass on to the next generation. Drawing from Deuteronomy 6, he teaches that the most valuable inheritance is not money but four spiritual principles: fearing God, obeying God, loving God, and worshiping God. He emphasizes that this legacy is passed on through lifestyle evangelism - teaching diligently through everyday interactions and modeling godly character in all circumstances.
“You have a legacy. You're leaving it right now. The question is, is it any good?”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Financial Foundations
Recorded: March 23, 2006
Duration: 38 min
Themes: inheritance, legacy, stewardship, parenting, obedience, worship, fear, love, parent, grandparent, mentor, raising children, planning estate, building legacy, teaching faith, modeling faith
Scripture: Deuteronomy 6:1-7, Titus 3, Psalm 119, John 3:16, Romans 12:1, Ecclesiastes 2
Theological Themes: discipleship, making disciples, biblical parenting, child training, lifestyle evangelism, godly character, spiritual inheritance, covenant faithfulness
Full Transcript
We are in the final week of an eight-week series titled Financial Foundations. This is timeless stuff. I mean, this is really good stuff. The series was developed 30 years ago. There is no reason to change hardly any of it other than maybe illustration, but the principles are good.
At the beginning of this series, there were three principles that to me became transformational. It happens to me in teaching where I get an idea, I get it, and it becomes just this huge transformational process for thought.
Lifestyle Faith
I was talking to a guy last week. He's a medical guy, but not a doctor, and a very nice, knowledgeable guy. He was talking to me about lifestyle medicine. I was afraid this was going to sound a lot like Sandy when it was done. It sounded like it had exercise and food involved in it. This guy was terrific. In fact, I had lunch again with him yesterday. He was just a terrific guy. But when we're talking about our Christian faith, we're talking about lifestyle faith.
I taught at Gateway, our Gateway Campus Sunday, Titus 3, great passage. In this, what Paul is saying as he's writing to Titus, it's kind of a cool background. It would be fun for you if you're just looking for something interesting to do a little background study on the book of Titus.
Paul and Titus traveled together, and they had very much a relationship like Paul had with Timothy. Titus is very much a protege. He's with Paul in Corinth, which was this horrible city. But now Titus is on Crete, which is an island that was taken over in 65 B.C. by the Roman military to kind of control paths in the Mediterranean. So here's this island, 155 miles long, 35 miles wide, down to as narrow as a mile. It's an island filled with sailors. So let your mind go wherever that goes.
Paul comes with Titus, and they establish a church. So Paul's writing to Titus, who he left there, to say, "Here's how you minister to these people." They had great parallels to the world you and I live in, huge parallels. Paul's point was you've been saved by grace, now you live differently. Your lifestyle is different.
He talks in Titus 3 about being subjected to rulers and authorities and obedience and not arguing with them. But in the climate we're in politically, and I've done an amazing job of staying out of all of this, showing great restraint, but of just saying it's so stupid. If he hits me, I'll hit him back harder. It's all naive. Paul's saying, "Listen, you come in there, you don't malign one another." Here's words he says for us. Now think about this when you're at happy hour tonight talking politics: gentle, peaceable, malign no one.
Three Life-Changing Principles
Well, there are three principles in this series that are life changers. Week one was ownership. The principle there is I'm a steward, not an owner. All of the stuff that I have is God's transferred possession to me, but not ownership. That changes everything.
Then we talked about savings and security. We talked about borrowing and the trouble you get into borrowing. We introduced a radical principle from the scripture: you should pay back your loans. We said people get in trouble when they borrow.
So we asked, why do we borrow? This was huge point number two. Oftentimes we take on this obligation for a possession or an experience. We borrow money to go on vacation. We borrow for a house or whatever it is. Because we're trying to meet a need with a person, place, or thing other than Jesus.
Understanding Our Needs and Longings
Remember this from week three. We said in us, and this helps me understand me, we have needs, longings, casual needs, critical needs, crucial needs.
I have a casual need. I woke up this morning, I don't know why, because we ate dinner last night, but I woke up really hungry. I woke up a little bit early. So I had a little bowl of flaxseed, whatever it is that Sandy's got out. I don't know, whatever it is. The same thing she puts in this, she puts in the bird feeder. That's what I've noticed so far. So I had a bowl of that. Well, that hunger's gone. Now I have a breakfast appointment and I'll eat then. That's a casual need. It can be met that way.
Then we have critical needs. Those are often relational. We need people around us. We need information. We long to be part of a team. I just read some stats on youth sports. You'll nail this. 65% of kids playing youth sports said their number one motivation for playing was, what would you guess? To be with their friends.
Think about this if you're coaching. I've been around some of these youth sports things lately. Some of these coaches are pretty intense. Think about this, Travis. 65% are there because they want to be with their friends. A third of them say they're not going to play this sport next year. Here's a stat that blew me away: only one in five want to get better at the sport they're playing. So you're coaching them up like you're trying to get them to the Super Bowl. And they're going, "All I want to do is have fun." So you've got that critical need. They want to be part of a team. They want to be friends.
Then you have a crucial longing. That's that longing to be reconciled with the creator God of the universe.
The Big Point About Crucial Longings
Here's the big point here. When I get in trouble is when I try to fill that crucial longing with a person, place, or thing other than Jesus. So I say, "If I buy that house, car, driver." I took out the golf club the other day. I tried to swing in the driveway to see if I can swing it, and I can't. But I opened, and I looked, and I have a G1, a G2, a G3, a G whiz pretty soon. I mean, I got all these drivers. But that's it. I need that. I'm watching golf the other day, and I saw some new driver. I thought, "If I had that driver," and I mean this, "I'd be happy."
probably never play another hole of golf again in my life. But I fall into this trap. You fall into this trap of trying to go, that's going to make me happy. And no, that won't make you happy. Only Jesus will.
So now I begin to borrow and all that goes with it. Then we talked about investing. And now it gets really significant. We said we're making an investment every time we make a purchase.
Every Purchase is an Investment Decision
So I had the privilege of doing a funeral the other day. And I ask all the time, what's the dress code? Because I don't want to wear a suit. And the guy said, "Well, we want to honor Dad. It's a coat and tie." And I said, "You understand, Dad's dead. He's not going to be there. He's not going to care. We're going to wear shorts if we want." "No. Coat and tie."
Dress shirt. The last time I took it to the cleaners, they shrunk it. And so I have to buy a new shirt. Now, here's where you go. This is a big deal. And this unhinges all sorts of things.
I can get a shirt. I can go to Kohl's and get a white shirt for $25. You probably wouldn't know the difference. You would after I laundered it twice or sent it to the dry cleaners, maybe. Or I can go to Joseph A. Bank and get that shirt for, let's just arbitrarily pick, $50. Or I can go somewhere else and get it for $75. Or I can go, and I can tell by looking at your face, none of you would spend that little on a shirt. I can go and it's a couple hundred bucks to get a nice dress shirt.
Well, look at what we're doing there. And this is with every purchase. I'm not just meeting a need, because I met the need at Kohl's. I'm investing in either profit—doesn't make sense I'm going to get a return on this shirt—or prestige. I've never been stopped and had somebody say, "Wow, you're a Land's End guy." Or prestige, that might happen with a logo. I got a logo down here, but you can't see it. But I was deliberate not to wear a logo shirt today. I had one out and I thought, "No, that will only negatively prove my point." Or in people.
So I'm with a guy, I'm trying to stay busy. I've decided a body at rest stays at rest. I need to schedule myself. So I'm with a guy at lunch on Monday. And He said to me, "I'm getting into minimalism." So not millennials, minimalism. And I said, "Oh, yeah." He said, "I got all these books on it." And that seems ironic. And He said, "I've got all this stuff teaching me." And I wanted to say, "Listen to this sentence. You've got all this stuff telling you how to get rid of stuff."
But how'd my life get cluttered? Well, I made investments in prestige or pleasure, like comfort. Well, that's how my life gets all garbled. So we talked about that. We talked about giving, and that's a long introduction, I know. Giving, we said, if you have a lot, give a lot. Taxes, pay them. Retirement, don't.
From Inheritance to Legacy
Today we talk about inheritance. Now, when you hear that, there's a flinch to say, "I don't have kids and I don't have money. I know I should have stayed in bed." It's inheritance, it's kids and it's money. But let me give you a better word. It's legacy.
So if you go on the Priority Living website, prioritylivingaz.org, there is an audio archive. There's a series on legacy. I think we talked about eight topics. But look at it, it can be odd. We're going to follow the outline today. We're going to look at principles about inheritance and what God wants you to pass on to your kids. But I'll leave kids in there, but sphere of influence. If you're a manager, an owner, your employees, your friends, the people in your life, and how God expects you to pass it on.
God's Legacy: Freedom to Work and Prosper
God's legacy is a freedom to work and prosper. God encourages us to work. I was talking to a guy the other day about a mutual friend who retired. And He said, "This guy has a job interview next week. I think I bought Him a retirement gift." And He said, "Yeah, but He doesn't want to stay retired." And that's what we're seeing. There's this whole thing. There's 79 million of us boomers who are retiring, but still want to do something. Why? You were made to work. Now work became toil after the fall.
And when we're talking about inheritance, you've got to quote, and it's not universal, it's William Vanderbilt. Over now, over 130 years ago, He got a $60 million inheritance. He said, "Inherited wealth is as certain death to ambition as cocaine is to morality."
The Danger of Wealth Without Work
I have a Fortune magazine from about five years ago where they did this exhaustive study on inheritance. And here's what they found. New wealth, old wealth. Old wealth left millions in foundations and generations to their kids. New wealth left like hundreds of thousands of dollars, thousands of dollars.
And they did a study on a guy, I can't remember which family it was. They're in their fourth generation. There's 64 people living off this foundation and not one of them is working. And they were talking to one of the kids and He was saying, "It's bizarre. We get a limousine ride to school. We have a limousine driver that goes to Jack in the Box to get us lunch." And He said, "Here's what happened. Our parents gave us all this and we skipped the middle step which is I need to work for it." And He said, and I quote, "I wish they hadn't concentrated on comfort but had concentrated on character."
Those are those principles. To leave money to lazy people is a waste of time. It's an ambition killer. And a godly man or woman impacts generations. So don't do it.
Personal Reflection on Legacy
I mean, I know you got kids. The minute we talk kids, I lose some of you because guilt kicks in, mistakes kick in. I look at my life. I look at, I'm trying to evaluate myself as a grandfather right now. And I just think I just don't do this very well. I just don't think I'm a very good grandfather. I don't think I'm giving those kids much. And so it's part of my resolve to go, what are they, well, this is what they need right here.
I'm not leaving them any money. I don't have much, but I'm certainly not leaving it to them. I'm not leaving it to their parents. But my daughter
Sarah called me the other day. Our boys are having a hard time. Our baseball team right now is one in 10. That's not good, and the boys are having a hard time. The one, she said, "Dad, he's just like you. He's thinking too much." He's not pouting. He throws a strike, the guy hits it, and he can't let it go. You know that—carrying that play over, taking that shot over, forgetting that last shot. "Dad, he's just like you."
Well, what can you tell him? I said the last time we did this, I told him how much I screwed up. By the end, he was crying for me and what a failure I was. So I don't know—in my attempt to relate to him, he lost all respect for me.
But as you listen to somebody—I just watched an hour and a half on Coach Wooden. I would think by now I've got all the Wooden stuff, but it was just his players talking. Jamal Wilkes said, "Coach Wooden touched my heart after my divorce." So he stayed in his life. Here they are at the end. Coach Wooden's been dead now, and this is Jamal's 40 years ago, and yet you can impact people for that long.
What to Pass On to the Next Generation
Well, the question here is: what? Look at Deuteronomy 6. Turn there if you would, please. "This is the commandment, the statutes, the judgments which your God has commanded me to teach you that you might do them in the land where you possess them. That you and your son and your grandson might fear the Lord your God, keep His statutes which I command you all the days of His life, that you should listen carefully to do it, that it may be well with you, that you may multiply greatly just as the Lord promised. Hear, O Israel, the Lord God is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind."
Here are four things to pass on to your kids, to your friends. I did a funeral two weeks ago for Dr. Pertzer. Dr. Pertzer was 94, and a guy got up and said, "I've been mentoring him." I'm thinking, wow. What was Abraham Lincoln really like? Is what I wanted to ask at this point. But mentoring him—what do you teach him? What do you teach that young guy at church or that young gal at church that says, "I want to grow up, I want to be a godly man, a godly woman, I want to be this"?
Four Foundations to Pass Down
Here's the four things—you see them listed there: to fear God, obey God, love God, worship God. That's the order they appear in this passage, and so we just take them that way.
Fear God
First is to fear God—a reverent awe of God. We have too casual a view of God, a customized view of God. Larry Wright used to say this: "We don't get God and therefore we don't understand ourselves." Larry would say this: if you see yourself as just a little sinner, then you only need a little Savior. But if I see God for His holiness and who He really is, there's an awesomeness there.
You can go today, right now, at breakfast or lunch, and you can hear people speculate about God and offer their opinions. My granddaughter, Harmony, does not like facial hair on men. That's a problem because that's all I had—for 20 years I didn't know that. Her dad has it and she calls it "sticks." "I don't like sticks." The other day, Harmony said, "Jesus won't have sticks." Haley said, "Really?" "Yeah, Jesus won't have sticks." "Well, how do you know that?" "Well, I love Jesus and He wouldn't have sticks."
In her own way, see what she just did? She made God the God that she would want Him to be. A fear of God is a reverential awe of God, understanding who He really is. That it's His rules, not mine. That everything I have, in my opinion, is subject to His authority.
Teaching Children About God
So in these discussions, and I would say this on parenting, grandparenting: "I don't want to force my religion down my kid's throat." It's so funny to me—we don't take that view in anything else. I never see a parent go to a three-year-old: "Okay, here's broccoli, here's a carrot, here's a donut. I don't want to force—you eat whatever you want. Here's television, you watch whatever you want. Here's school, you don't want to go to school? I understand that. I wouldn't want to go to school. That's kind of hard. Do whatever you want."
No. I feel like I'm talking here more to grandparents than parents, but either way, to both, for sure: epidemic in our society right now is that parents have ceased to be parents, and they want to be friends to these kids.
They dress like—it's fun, I go to these Little League games. When our girls were in junior high and high school, it was hard to find clothes for them. They would say, "I want to buy that dress." I'd say, "Okay, I get it. I don't think you're ever going to wear it anywhere, because you're not going out of the house like that. You look like a hooker. You're not going out dressed like that." Everything's cut like that.
Here's what I don't get now. I go to these Little League games, and these moms have all this—I mean, I'm a mildly healthy guy, but I look like Secretariat going to the dugout. I got blinders on, I can't look at you. The moms and the daughters are dressing alike and acting alike and talking alike. You're the difference, and you teach them about God. The kids are looking to you. The people around you are looking to you.
I have 35-year-old guys all the time that are looking to me, not so much to be their friend, but to tell them who is God and how. The only way to do that is to study this Word.
Obey God
It's to fear Him, and then here you go—it's to obey Him. If you love me, Jesus says, what? You keep my commandments. If you love me, you don't act like it. If you love me, I'll see the difference.
I did a wedding Saturday at the Botanical Gardens. I've lived in Arizona since 1975. I've never been to the Botanical Gardens. There's a bunch of stuff down there, including every species of plant, which is blooming right now, and the wind—
When Love Becomes Worship
I had a wedding recently where I've never seen a bride so excited. She was an athlete at ASU, and that's how I met her. Twice during the ceremony, she was just jumping because she was so excited. I said, "This is contagious. Nothing is going to solve this but 25 years of marriage. I mean, that's the only thing that's going to... I don't know how I'm going to take this out of you. You're so excited. Maybe 26 for you."
Every time I've met with her since we scheduled the wedding, she just said, "I'm so excited. I want to make him so happy." And I said, "I think he is. You know, I think they are."
If you love somebody, you own them. Someone offered this insight, speaking of husband and wife. There's a problem in it, which becomes obvious. It's impossible not to love someone who loves you unconditionally and meets all your needs. Well, that's true. Here's the problem with that sentence: It's impossible to find someone who loves you unconditionally and meets all your needs. It's impossible to find this other than Jesus.
Understanding God's Love
Sandy teaches a Monday morning ladies study. They've been talking about a lot of ethereal, abstract stuff that doesn't interest me. Sandy was not going to be there two weeks ago and she said, "Will you teach the study for me? The ladies love it when you come in." I said, "Oh, I kill it with 75-year-old women. I mean, I know that. So I'm in."
She said, "What are you going to teach?" And I said, "I don't know." So here's what I taught: John 3:16. "For God so loved the world." And I'm still trying to get my arms around that because I really know who I am and what I'm like. And I don't always love me. How did He?
I watched an interview yesterday with Charles Barkley asking Dwight Howard, "Why don't you think people like you? Why do you have people not like you?" And he said, "Well, they don't really understand me. They don't really know me." Well, they're your teammates, but they don't really understand. They don't really know me.
Transactional Versus Transformational
It's "what have you done lately?" Is that conditional? Every relationship we have... I was listening and they were talking about the meeting with Trump and Paul Ryan today. The guy said, "Trump tends to be very transactional." Let me tell you what that means: We're going to figure out how I can get the most out of this I can possibly get and give you as little as I can. That's transaction. That's what transactional is.
Jesus comes along and says, "You know what? I'm not going to hold anything back. I'm going to give you everything I've got." As I pass along this amazing love, it becomes not a transactional relationship with God, but transformational. Because now I move into worship. Now I begin to acknowledge Him as God.
Romans chapter 12 verse one says, "Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, acceptable act of spiritual worship." Here's what it says: God, when I understand what You did, then my whole life is Yours. Worship is not just the songs we sing and the things we do. It's my entire life. It's the way you work.
Serving Like Jesus
I had to go to Sonora Labs for a blood draw yesterday. The last time I was there, I didn't have an appointment. I signed in and after an hour I had not been called up. They were so jammed. So I had an appointment. I went in and I was the only person there. This little gal came out—and I don't mean that in some pejorative way, she was not a teenager, she was, in fact, she told me, I did the math, she was 47.
She looked me in the eye and said, "Hello Mr. Schrader, I hope you didn't have to wait long." I said, "Not like last time—I waited an hour and left frustrated. No, it was great." She said, "Oh, come on back, which arm do you prefer?" And I said, "Well, I'm left-handed, but I like to use my left arm." She said, "That's not unusual, dominant arms have better veins."
She's talking, and I said, "What are you going to do this summer?" It was the most incredible experience. Everything in me wanted to say, "Are you a Christian? I don't know if you are or not. You sure do act like one." And the implication to us is stronger than that: and so should we.
Living as Witnesses
The way she served—when it was all done, I said to her, "Thank you so much, that was incredible." And she said, "Well, it was good to serve you." I thought I was at Chick-fil-A. I mean, this is a whole different deal.
This morning, I got my coffee. Here you go—something cataclysmic is going to happen. Because I bought the coffee, and she gave me the change. And I said, "Thank you." And she said, "Thank you for stopping at Circle K." Seriously, you got to be new. I mean, this has to be. But it just changes everything.
Lifestyle Evangelism
You do this in that kind of lifestyle evangelism you see in Deuteronomy 6:6. You teach them, verse 7 says, "You teach them diligently, you talk to them when you sit in the house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up." You bind these verses on their heads. It becomes a lifestyle.
I used to watch Susan with the girls, and she would take a trip to the grocery store, and it would become an amazing Bible study for her, to the girls. How to act, how to behave, how you treat one another. Look at how God...
it was a summer day, and we didn't have cell phones, but we had an answering machine. I got home late, she wasn't there, and I had an answering machine. The girls had to be three and four, four and five. The machine said, "Tom, the car broke down, I'm on the freeway, I called a guy." So I was relieved. She was safe, and I didn't have to do anything. Double relief. I couldn't get hold of her.
Here comes a tow truck. It's July here, 150 degrees, no AC. Here's this mom with a broken down car, who's probably got an hour or two sitting on the freeway. She's got a three-year-old, four-year-old. They get out of the car, they're smiling. They come in. I said, "Are you guys all right?" "Yeah, we're fine." They go in, and she said, "We gotta take a shower, gotta take a bath." I hear her down the hall, and I hear her say, "Girls, look how God protected us today. He saved us from an accident, and then He brought along that very nice man who brought us home."
That's how we do this. It's lifestyle.
Living Out Your Values in Real Time
You can't be mentoring a young man or woman and saying, "We treat people with dignity and honesty," and now you're in the middle of negotiation. The guy said, "You know, we probably shouldn't do this, but if you'll do this, I'll do that." And you go, "Eh, you know, all right." I mean, it's a rule, it's a letter of the law. You have this amazing opportunity, and you do it through example and through thinking.
Psalm 119, if you turn to Psalm 119, you'll just see the idea of the word of God again and again and again. That's what we begin to just think about. That's what we begin to focus on. They become our comfort. Just randomly, you could go through and take the word statute and the word of God and just start to look at them.
The Word as Our Foundation
Psalm 119:105, "Your word is a lamp to my feet." Verse 93, "I'll never forget Your precepts, for by them You've revived me." Verse 66, "Look at this, teach me discernment."
About Thanksgiving last year, I got a little down, a little discouraged. I wasn't feeling well, and a bunch of things coming together, and I couldn't break it. I'd be all right for a day, but then I'd drift back into this kind of funk. About March, I realized I'm not spending any time in God's word. I'm not teaching. Reading was really hard. Concentrating was hard. I wasn't making any notes.
You're Already Leaving a Legacy
So here's the bottom line. You're leaving a legacy. It may be a good one. It may be a bad one.
Interesting, the other day, Charles Keating IV, the young man, the seal dies, and I never met him. I knew his dad a little bit, and I knew his grandpa, and it was interesting to me in the article. By all accounts, I know his uncle, who said, "This kid's really a great kid." It was amazing to me in that article, as great as he was, the article ultimately ended up being not about C4, but C2.
You have a legacy. You're leaving it right now. The question is, is it any good?
Teaching Through Example
And what do you teach? Well, you teach Him to fear, obey, love God, and how do you do it? You do it by being with them in all your ways. "I want to acknowledge Your ways. You make my path straight. You unpack the world around me." You're not so smart, but you know where to look for the answer. That's a great bow on that whole idea of money and stuff.
We started by saying, God talks more about money and stuff than He does about heaven, self-faith, prayer, not because He's hung up on it, but because it reflects our heart. It shows me.
What Our Choices Reveal
I'm in a discussion the other day, and this guy is ripping one of the political candidates. The guy, I thought, was funny, smart, witty. It was biting. It was nasty. We're five minutes into it, and I realize it's me talking. I'm saying, "You know what? This is saying way more about my heart than it is about this dude." And that's what God's saying.
We live at this time where we ought to live differently, not odd, differently.
Father, help us learn this truth and change our heart. We pray it to You in Christ's name. Amen.