Seven Principles for Building a Meaningful Legacy
Tom Shrader presents six principles for building a meaningful legacy: consequence, authority, opportunity, duty, significance, and reverence, with stewardship added as a seventh. Drawing from his own conversion in 1980 and decades of pastoral ministry, he argues that every believer leaves a legacy whether intentional or not, and that true descendants are not limited to those who share our DNA but include all those within our sphere of influence. He calls the congregation to see themselves as stewards of God's resources — time, energy, and money — and to pass on these principles deliberately to the next generation.
“You are leaving a legacy right now, whether you realize it or not. What I'm encouraging you to do is be much more deliberate about it.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Scottsdale Bible Church
Recorded: 2013 at Scottsdale Bible Church
Duration: 45 min
Themes: legacy, stewardship, influence, purpose, faithfulness, generosity, mentoring, significance, pastor, mentor, approaching retirement, church leader transitioning, parent, new believer, long-time believer, seeking purpose
Scripture: Galatians 6:7, Romans 13:1-2, Habakkuk 1:5, Hebrews 12:2, Philippians 2:20-21, Philippians 2:5-7, Matthew 28:19, 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, 2 Corinthians 5:14, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Romans 5:6-10, Isaiah 6:1-8, Deuteronomy 6:4-7
Theological Themes: stewardship, biblical stewardship, sanctification, pastoral ministry, discipleship, church planting, spiritual inheritance, kingdom purpose
Full Transcript
Introduction
The year was 1980, and the date was March 6th. God called a renegade commercial real estate agent here in Phoenix into His kingdom. This was not somebody anyone thought would become a Christian. In fact, if you were a betting man, you would not have bet that Tom Schrader, this renegade commercial real estate agent, would have become a Christian. Before long, Tom was teaching three or four different Bible studies, and hundreds of people were coming to hear him speak. At one point, he went down to Tucson to lead a Bible study there twice a week because hundreds wanted to hear him speak down there as well.
I have heard Tom teach on numerous occasions. In 1992, he planted a church called East Valley Bible Church, which grew to thousands of people. Now, twenty years later, he has handed that church off to the next generation and continues teaching the Bible. When I knew I was going to be out of town with my dad — as some of you know, he went through surgery this week — I called Schrader and said, "Would you address Scottsdale Bible Church on the theme of legacy as we are doing this vision series, getting ready for our Compelled by Grace campaign?" He said, "You bet, I'd consider it an honor." I am so excited that you get to hear Tom today.
Update on Pastor Jamie's Father
I talked to Jamie last night, and he gave me some thoughts on what to share. He asked me to send a text so everyone would hear the same thing. Here is what he sent this morning: "Here is an update on my dad. He came through surgery well on Thursday — heart surgery for a valve replacement and bypass. He has been in ICU since then and is still in ICU this morning. They are trying to get a heart arrhythmia and some congestion under control, but he is recovering fairly well. He is demanding this morning to see his doctors. He wants some questions answered and wants a razor. I do not know if those two are connected — hope not. But I have met his dad, and maybe they are. Both are good signs. I appreciate all your prayers. Pastor Jamie."
I did talk to Jamie last night, and he was expressing how cold it is back there, while I was noting how rainy it has been here.
Tom's Own Experience of Legacy and Transition
Part of what Jamie had in mind with the theme of legacy connects to something I went through about four or five years ago. I knew that we needed to transition the church, so I put some things in place and began that process. The last thing to transition was the pulpit. I announced that in March, and they targeted a date for the end of the year, which came two weeks ago today.
Interestingly enough, what took place was called, for lack of a better phrase, Tom Schrader Appreciation Day. It was twenty-one degrees in Gilbert that morning, and the irony was not lost on me when I thought of all those people who had said it would be a cold day in hell before they went to a Tom Schrader Appreciation Day. I loved it.
I am in a very reflective mood. I sent a text last night to Tim Maughan, who is now the primary teacher at our Gilbert campus, with Habakkuk 1:5: "Look among the nations and see, wonder and be astounded, for I am doing a work in your day that if I would have told you, you wouldn't have believed." I think that is true of what God is doing at the Redemption Churches, and I have the same sense that it is true of Scottsdale Bible Church.
Standing on Others' Shoulders
I have been on your website and watched most of Jamie's messages from the last two weeks. The logo caught me: "Our next 50 years begins here and now." As I think about legacy, I have the privilege of sitting in a front-row seat watching you all in that transition. One of the really meaningful things to me is the way you honored your previous senior pastors last year — having them all here together, with that wonderful picture of all of them. I am convinced Jamie loves it and has it posted everywhere because it makes him look young, but I love that picture. I love that sense that you all understand you are standing on other people's shoulders.
With that comes the responsibility for the next fifty years, which begins today. I am selfishly excited about what you are doing, because I believe a strong Scottsdale Bible Church contributes to a strong Valley of the Sun. When I hear Jamie talk about five years, four campuses, multisite, and church plants, it is wonderful to see.
Defining Legacy
When Jamie originally called, I was scheduled for March 10th. He said, "Talk about whatever you want." Then he called again and said, "The thing with my dad is coming up — do you have the freedom to come on the 27th?" I said I did. He said, "Here is the one condition: I am going to give you a topic for that day." The topic is legacy, as part of the vision series.
I do not think you need me to paint a corporate vision of legacy for you. What I wanted to do — what I have been turning over in my mind — is to deal with each of us individually. So the topic is this: what does it mean to leave a legacy? Webster's definition of legacy is roughly this: money or property left to someone by will, or anything handed down from, or as from, an ancestor. We tend to think of that in terms of generational transfer among people who share our own chain of DNA.
This sounds a little strange to say, but I am something of a newlywed — I have been married about eight months. One of the things we had to work through was estate planning. We spent many hours trying to figure out what that looks like, and that process brought the question of legacy into sharp focus in a very personal way.
Introduction: What Is a Legacy?
What do we want to do with our estate? When I told some friends working through that question, I suggested they read their decisions to the kids after the funeral, because the kids weren't going to be very happy with how things shook out for them. But that's how we tend to think about legacy.
This is an amazing artifact — this is the original Ryder Cup, and we are so happy to have it on loan. It is here for tomorrow night's event at the Bird's Nest. Samuel Ryder was a businessman and a Christian, and he made this cup — the original, in 1902. He came into contact with many ministers in his home area and felt they were working very hard, so he wanted to create a moment where they could have some recreation. The original Ryder Cup was, and still is, given to a group of pastors who play golf, and except for some war years, this is the cup that has gone to them. It was won last year by a five-handicapper — a Baptist, so apparently he had time to play. John Hall has won it two years in a row.
When you think about legacy, something like that is worth considering. But what is your legacy? What I want to do is get you to see that your descendants are not just those who share your chain of DNA. In a very real sense, everyone in your sphere of influence is a descendant. You are passing on to them probably not physical assets, but your life touches their life — and that is God's plan.
A Personal Legacy: Larry Wright
As Jamie mentioned, God saved me in 1980. If all God wanted to do was get me to heaven, He would have taken me at that moment. But He left me here for a reason. I am the product of a generation — specifically, a man by the name of Larry Wright, who poured into me.
I went to a Bible study where Larry was speaking. I had grown up, gone to grade school, high school, and college, and was taught in grade school by the most misnamed group of people on the planet — they were called the Sisters of Mercy. I am not sure where that came from. So I had a lot of religious background. But that day I walked into that Bible study and Larry was teaching, and it was like I was the only person in the room.
I went back to my office trembling, got out the phone book, turned to the W-R-I-G-H-T's, found the Larry's and Lawrence's, pointed at one, and called that number. I said, "Listen, my name is Tom Schrader. I was at a Bible study this morning taught by a man named Larry Wright. Do you know how I might reach him?" He said, "That's me." We met the following Tuesday, and I asked him all those probing questions about Adam and Eve, creation, Noah, and everything else. He said, "Here is what you should do tonight, Tom — read the Gospel of John." So I did. It might as well have been Greek; it made no sense to me at all.
The next morning — a Wednesday — I was at McCormick Ranch waiting to hopefully meet a tenant, and I was there all by myself. I said, "God, here is what I have figured out so far: I am a sinner — we have empirical data to support that. And Jesus came and lived and died. I have always believed that. But what I understand now is that He died in my place. He paid the price for my sin. And God, I trust that. I put my faith and trust in that for my salvation." The next day I went into the Bible study, Larry was there, I told him what happened, and he hugged me. I thought, oh my goodness — they are huggers. We are going to be hugging everywhere we go.
About two weeks later he said, "Listen, you need somebody to disciple you." I did not know what that meant, and he explained it. I said, "Friend, you won the lottery — congratulations — because you are the only person I know." Larry poured into my life, and not just my life. All around the valley there are people whose lives have been touched by Larry Wright. A legacy can look exactly like that, or it can work itself out in some other way.
You Are Already Leaving a Legacy
Here is what I want you to realize: you are leaving a legacy right now, whether you realize it or not. If you pull out of the Cactus Campus, off of Shea, or from the venue, and a truck hits you and you die, we are going to have a memorial service — and you have a legacy. Maybe good, maybe bad, but you are leaving one. What I am encouraging you to do is be much more deliberate about it.
So I want to raise a question and then answer it: what do your descendants need? I am going to give you six principles, and maybe slide in a seventh depending on time. These are principles I believe you should pass on to those around you. As I sit with our staff, these are principles I try to teach them, and the same goes for my kids. Wherever I have the opportunity to talk about basics, these are the things we talk about.
Now, my favorite thing on a Sunday morning is to open the Bible to John chapter one, verse one, and go right through the text. We are not going to do that today. Six principles — here is the first one.
Principle One: The Principle of Consequence
The decisions you make today will affect tomorrow. Paul writes, "Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; whatever a man sows, he will also reap." There is this principle — this law of sowing and reaping. If you plant corn, you get corn. If you plant wheat, you get wheat. Paul said if you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption. What I want to pass on to the people around me is this: the decisions I make today affect tomorrow.
Life Is a Film, Not a Photograph
There is no etiquette for how you conduct yourself at Costco, but here is a general rule of thumb: if you have a cart and you are going to get something, take the cart with you. Do not leave it in the aisle. We were going through the long lines, we got through, we were coming out, and right by the door where you pick up your photographs, there were long lines of people picking them up.
I try to tell the people around me, my kids in particular, that life is like a film, not a photograph. When you open a package of photographs, there is a picture at the beach, one from the mountains, one from the birthday party, one from the game, but one picture is not related to the other and not dependent on it. In a film, this frame and this frame are tied together by the frame in the middle.
God has this law, this law of consequence. He said, "Do not be deceived, do not kid yourself, God is not mocked." God has these laws that are in effect. We see them physically in the world around us. Two plus two is four. Gravity — jump off a building, and it does not matter whether you believe in it or not, it is a law.
Here is the law as well: what I do today affects tomorrow. These are God's principles. They are unchangeable and universal. When I was a young man in my first sales job — I am from Iowa originally — my first job was selling paper products, so I would call on these bosses. They all had a contraption, a metal frame with balls hanging on it. You would pull one back, let it go, and it would swing and knock the others — boom, boom, boom — and the one on the other end would swing out. It did not matter how many times you did it. It was just physics. God has those same kinds of laws: the decisions you make today will affect tomorrow.
I need to begin to think long-term, and that is hard to do. Every summer I take about 500 junior high and high school kids over to the coast for summer camp. One of the things I tell them is that one day they are going to drive a minivan. They resist that, and I say, "I understand how you feel, but you are going to have kids, and that is just the way it is. That is the law." The things you do now as a junior high student can have long-term effects.
The Principle of Authority
Here is the second principle: respect the position, not just the person. In Romans chapter 13, Paul talks about government and says, "Let every person be in submission to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those who exist are established by God." Verse 2 says, "Therefore, whoever resists the authority resists what God has appointed."
God has these systems and chains of command. He has one in the office, one at home in the family, one in the government, and one here at church. When I am opposed to the government, I am rebelling not against the government but against God. If I am a wife who is not submitting to her husband, or a husband who is not loving his wife, that rebellion is not against a spouse — it is against God.
The minute we hear this, we have one big question: what is the exception? That is what we want to know. And that just shows how rebellious we are. The minute somebody says do not do it, we want to know under what condition we can do it. That is the principle of authority at work.
I went to college in 1968, and many sociologists and historians would say that 1968 and 1969 marked the beginning of the demise of our culture. I was there — it was sex and drugs and rock and roll and everything that went with it. Richard Nixon was president at the time, and there was a great deal of backlash against him. I was told over and over again that you do not have to respect him necessarily as a person, but you respect the position. I heard people say the same thing about President Clinton, then about President Bush, and we say it again today — there is this understanding that there is a position of authority that deserves respect.
In 1968, when I arrived on the college campus, there was a bumper sticker that was everywhere. Two words: "Question Authority." That planted the seeds for everything that followed. Now, I am not advocating blind obedience. If a government or authority figure commands me to do something God prohibits, or prohibits me from doing something God commands, then I understand I have to deal with that. But apart from that, if I do not grasp this principle of authority, I will chronically want authority for myself while resisting the commands of others.
My daughter used to illustrate this perfectly. She would say, "What time do you want me home on Friday?" I would say, "Twelve o'clock." She would say, "Well, everybody is going to be out until one." I would tell her, "Anything we are going to do after twelve, we could do before twelve." She thought that was a compelling argument. It was not. The moment she pushed back, my answer changed to nine-fifteen. That is what happens when you adopt that attitude.
When I got here in 1975, my first job was working for Motorola, which at the time was the largest employer in the state other than the government, with about 56,000 employees. Motorola was primarily an engineering company with a sales component. If you wanted what was then a car phone — what we now call a cell phone — it cost $3,000, and it was —
The Principle of Opportunity
You have the potential to impact people for generations. Every time I'm in a situation like this, all I can do is think, I wish Larry were here to see this. Other than my immediate family, no one has had an impact on me like Larry.
Five, six, seven years ago, we were examining the values of the church and asking whether there were some things to be done, some tweaking. I said, yeah, I think there's a value we need to add — and that is to have an impact beyond this generation and beyond this campus. That was a value that was really important to me, and we championed it.
I was telling Sandy last night: think of tomorrow morning. Out of East Valley Bible Church, there is one of our guys teaching at Gateway, one teaching at the Tempe campus, one at the West Mesa campus, one at the Flagstaff campus, one at the Gilbert campus, Tyler is teaching at Life Connection Church, and I am here this morning. Isn't that amazing — that God gives you the opportunity to impact generations? As Matthew writes, "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations." That is the ultimate thing.
I have two daughters. One has four kids, the oldest is seven. The other has three kids, the oldest is six, and she is pregnant — the baby is going to be delivered the Saturday after the Kentucky Derby this year. We will have eight grandchildren and the oldest is seven.
I do not know if there is any job more difficult than the job of a stay-at-home mom — maybe a single mom, but a mom. My daughter Haley has a daughter who is two and a daughter who is seven months, and she is changing diapers constantly. She will change Lucy's diaper, Lucy will start running away, and from the other side of the room she hears the signal that Harmony needs attention too. She sprints over, gets Harmony up, puts her down, changes that diaper — and she will never hear thank you. Neither of those kids is going to walk up and say, "Wow, Mom, what a job. Way to go." And yet I already see the impact she has had on generation after generation. You have the capacity, in the smallest ways, to impact people's lives.
The Principle of Duty
The next principle is the principle of duty: do what is right no matter the cost. The author of Hebrews writes, "We fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despised the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him."
There are times when I simply do what is right because it is right. Very honestly, sometimes it may not feel that way. I want to be moved and motivated by desire, not by duty — I want to love Sandy out of a desire to love her, serve her, and nurture her, not because I have to. But duty is something we have kind of lost.
Imagine if I went into the superintendent of the Scottsdale School District tomorrow and said, "I have an idea for a new organization." Now, there are some hangups. It is gender-specific. And I wrote this oath — see what you think: "On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God, to my country, to obey Scout law, to help other people at all times, to keep myself physically strong, mentally alert, morally straight." Strike one, strike two, strike three.
I was flipping through channels the other night and landed on the old movie channel, where they were showing newsreels from World War II. There was Jimmy Cagney, Mickey Rooney, and all of these movie stars out raising money for war bonds, and here was the pitch: Uncle Sam wants you. You have an obligation, you have a duty, you are a citizen. Even the Army has largely given up on that attitude now. What is the Army slogan? Be all you can be. The message has shifted from duty to self: this is about you.
If you Google "leader" or "leadership," you get something like 30 million entries. If you Google "followers," you get something like 30,000, and almost all of those are followers of Christ. When we talk about duty and we talk about what we have discussed together, that contrast tells you something about where our culture stands. If you can pass along this idea of duty to the next generation, you will be giving them something our world has nearly forgotten.
The Problem with "What About Me?"
When we talk about these principles, I know this is not popular, but we need more followers, not more leaders. Here is the obstacle: I am not sure that as a nation we are at a point where we are governable. I don't even know if that is a word, but it should be, because we have 330 million special interest groups. The minute you pass a bill, the question arises — why are we stuck? We are stuck because 330 million people are saying, "What about me?"
There comes a point where you say, you know what, it is not about me. We tell our kids that all the time. I would come home from a trip, and there would be Sarah and Haley. I'd give Sarah something, and Haley would say, "What about me?" We get older and we learn to mask it, but we are all little "what about me's."
There is a great scene in the book of Philippians where Paul is writing to this church and he says, "I'm going to send you a guy, and I don't have anyone else like him. No one else is a kindred spirit. He's something special." Now, if you knew that Paul, or the equivalent, was sending you someone and said, "This is really somebody special," you would be thinking he must be a great teacher, a leader, a man of vision. But here is what Paul actually writes in Philippians chapter two, verse 20: "I have no one else of kindred spirit who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare, for they all seek after their own interests, not those of Christ."
Those are the obstacles to this whole matter of authority and duty — "What about me? What about my rights?" Paul gave us the answer right before this passage in Philippians two: "Have the mind in you that is also in Christ Jesus, who being in the very nature of God did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness."
Authority Without Responsibility
If you do not grasp these principles of authority and duty, here is what will happen: you will always want authority, but you will not want any responsibility. My daughter Sarah came to me in eighth grade and said, "I want to run for student council. Will you help me?" There were about 26 kids in the class, and I said sure, so we sat down together.
She explained that six of them were running, and there would be a runoff election — the top two vote-getters would go head-to-head. She made it through the primary and came back to me saying she had to win. I told her what Joe Kennedy told Jack: "I'll help you, but I'm not going to buy a landslide. I'll come alongside and contribute any way I can."
So we sat down, and I said, "Listen, you only have to get 14 votes." We broke the class down — figured out who was on her side, who wasn't, and who was in the middle. I told her she was going to have to start being nice to some of those people in the middle. All that mattered was winning the election. She asked me to help her with a speech, and I said the first thing we want to do is thank the four who ran but didn't make it. She said, "Oh, that's good, that's very good."
She gave the speech, they held the election, and she won. It was a great moment — high fives, celebration. Then she said to me, "Can I ask you a question, Dad?" I said sure. She said, "What does student council do?"
I feel like there are 535 people asking that same question every day. But that is what you breed when authority is sought without understanding. You do not know anything — you just want the title. Compensation becomes more important than character.
The Principle of Significance
Moving on to the fifth principle: you do what is right, no matter the cost. This is the principle of significance — understanding that some things are more important than others.
I have a talk that is one of my favorites, titled "What Are You Afraid Of?" I have delivered it all over — to women's groups, men's groups, and professional athletes. One Tuesday night I was at ASU in a classroom set up theater-style, with maybe 150 students. A guy came in and I noticed him right away. He looked like he had fallen into a tackle box and climbed his way out. I recognize that sounds disparaging, and I'll be honest — it stirred up my own prejudice, because I found myself wondering what he was doing there. He went all the way to the top of the room and sat down.
So I began the talk. If we were doing it right now, I would ask: what are you afraid of? And you would say loneliness, rejection, death, not having enough money, suffering. But I have one on my list that no one has ever said — and the tackle-box guy said it. I asked him to speak up, and he said it loud: "Insignificance. I am afraid of being insignificant. I am afraid I will be born, live, die, and no one will ever care. I want to make a difference."
We are born, in a sense, with that kind of idealism. Paul writes about this in 2 Corinthians chapter four: "Do not lose heart, though the outer man is decaying, the inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary light affliction is producing in us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. For we look not at the things that are seen, but the things that are unseen, because the things that are seen are temporal, the things that are unseen are eternal."
Much of what occupies our time is important, but ultimately — how important? Ultimately, it is all passing away. I want to be significant. The problem in my natural state is that I am separated from the One who can truly make me significant, and that is Him.
The Root of Meaningful Behavior
When Adam and Eve ate the fruit in the garden, the first thing they did was hide from God. They heard Him coming and they hid. That is the first record of abnormal behavior we have in all of history, and it is the result of sin. But that abnormal human behavior changes once I am in right relationship with the Father.
When I visited your website and saw the promo for the next fifty years, it quoted from 2 Corinthians 5:14: "It is the love of Christ that controls us" — or, as the New American Standard renders it, "compels us." That is God's love for us. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." Romans chapter five, verses six, eight, and ten tells us that while we were still sinners, while we were helpless, while we were enemies, Christ came and died for us.
Reconciliation and Purpose
2 Corinthians chapter five, verse 14 says the love of Christ compels us. A few verses further, in verse 17: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creature. The old has passed away." But God says, "I am not done. Here is what I want now — I am going to give you a ministry of reconciliation, a message of reconciliation."
If all God wanted to do was get you to heaven, then for me, on March 6th, 1980, He would have taken me there. But He left you here for a reason. The things that are truly significant are His Word and people. God has placed you right where you are for an important reason — to live this gospel, to show what it looks like to be in right relationship with God, and to let that transform every area of life.
That transformation affects the kind of parent you are, the way you date, the kind of spouse you are, the kind of employer or employee you are. We see those things that are truly significant only once we begin to understand God and who He is.
Gaining an Accurate View of God
Tozer says it this way: our theology does not ascend high enough or descend low enough. We do not have a big enough view of God, and consequently, we have too big a view of man. It was Isaiah, recorded in Isaiah 6, who said that in the year King Uzziah died, he saw the Lord seated on the throne. Once Isaiah saw that one true God, he cried out: "Woe to me, for I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips." God cleansed him, and then God said, "I have a whole lot to do — who should I send?" And Isaiah answered, "Here I am, send me."
That is the consequence of seeing God as He truly is. You see God as He is, you see yourself as you are, and then — as John the Baptist said — Jesus must continue to increase, and I must decrease.
The Principle of Reverence
This brings me to the last principle: the principle of reverence. It is the call to gain an accurate view of God. Deuteronomy chapter four, verse four: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and these words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart, and you shall teach them diligently to your sons, and talk of them when you sit down in your house, or walk by the way, or lie down, or when you rise up."
That is lifestyle evangelism. It is to understand who God is, and suddenly all of life begins to make sense. I have an accurate view of Him, I see myself in my proper place, and I begin to look at life not through the grid of a sociologist or a philosopher — though those disciplines have their value — but I take all of that and submit it to Scripture. That is how I understand life.
The Principle of Stewardship
I said I was going to give you six principles, but my phone died this week. I do not know if that has ever happened to you, but it had never happened to me before, and I did not realize how utterly dependent I am on it — I do not even know my wife Sandy's phone number. After receiving some information from the church and sending along the outline, I thought we really needed to add one last thing that ties all of this together: the principle of stewardship.
There is a popular radio talk show host who says he operates on talent on loan from God, and that is true. God has transferred possession to you, but not ownership. If I reach into my back pocket and pull out money, I am in possession of it, but it is God's money that He has transferred to me. I am a manager. I am a steward. I will be held accountable for how I handle the assets of my time, my energy, my effort, and my money.
Here is how this became concrete for me. Our church is in the process of redoing and building some facilities on campus, and at the end of the year we had to sit down and think through how we felt about that. There were two questions — they sound like the same question, but when asked in two different ways, they produce two very different answers. The first question was: how much money should I give? I got one answer. The second question was: how much of God's money should I keep? I got a very different answer.
We tend to get defensive when money comes up, so let us set the dollar amount aside and think about time instead. We all have 168 hours this week. How should I invest those 168 hours?
Obstacles to Passing It On
In this whole process of stewardship and legacy, there are obstacles to passing these principles on to the next generation. Let me give you several of them quickly.
First, you cannot give away something you do not have. You need to take an honest inventory and determine whether these principles are actually present in your own life. Second, you are tending to underestimate yourself as a role model. I had a moment two Sundays ago where I was standing in a receiving line — people were greeting me, knowing it would be the last time they would see me in this role — and it was stunning.
Building a Legacy Worth Passing On
You tend to yield to the tyranny of the moment, which leads naturally to a fourth challenge: you will get distracted as you pursue this. God has called you into His family, and we have a legacy. You have a legacy right now. It could be good, or it could be bad. But to those around you and to your descendants, there are material things to consider — I understand that, and you will work that out — but there are also things of far greater importance that need to be passed on.
Let me tell you, this is worth it. I found this story the other day. My daughter Haley's eighth-grade graduation committee called and asked me to be the commencement speaker. Haley came in and said, "You know who's going to introduce you?" I said I didn't know. She said, "I am." I asked if she needed help writing the introduction, and she said, "No, I've got it."
Here is what she wrote: "Our guest speaker tonight is a man who is very important to me and has had a great influence on my life. He teaches Bible studies to businessmen and women during the week, and on Sunday he is a pastor at a church called East Valley Bible Church. In his spare time, he enjoys golfing and spending time with his family. He is a husband as well as a father of two teenage daughters. Our speaker tonight is a man who is living proof that if you give your life to Christ, He will do miraculous things. Would you please help me welcome my dad, Tom Schrader."
As I was walking off the stage and Haley was walking up, there was the customary hug. I hugged her, and she whispered in my ear, "Don't screw this up." That — she got from me.
My whole point today is to whet your appetite for this thing called legacy and to help you see it from a different perspective. It doesn't take much. A little incident, a small moment — these are the things people remember. These are the things that get passed on.
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*Let us pray. Father, thank You for this truth. I pray that we would be a legacy of Your love and grace, that Your love for us would compel us, that we would live in a way that would bring honor and glory to You. Now here this morning, gathered in this place, let us leave knowing that we have the privilege to represent You in this world. God, make us aware of that, and then empower us. We ask it in Christ's name, amen.*