Leaving a Godly Legacy, Part 4

Series:

Leslie Basham: What is God's idea of a perfect home? Find out in just a minute. It's Tuesday, March 19; and you're listening to Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss. Most women dream of having a perfect home. Maybe for you that means a two-story house with a white picket fence on a tree-covered lot. To another, it might mean a seaside cottage overlooking the bay. What does God consider a perfect home? Let's join Nancy as she talks about the kind of home that God wants to build.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: The psalmist speaks in Psalm 127 of building a house--of a workman who is building a house. He speaks of a watchman who is watching over a city to protect it from danger, from enemy attack. He speaks of a warrior who is fighting in a battle and in whose hands his children are as arrows that have been carefully fashioned and sent out as ammunition in that battle.

We've seen in Psalms 127 and 128 over these past couple of sessions that building a home for God--leaving a legacy for the next generation--is intended to be a blessed experienced. We should be happy and joyous and peaceful and at rest as we see our families being built up for God and the kingdom of Christ being advanced.

As I look around this room, I don't know all of you; but I know some of you. In your homes you have experienced perhaps just the opposite. As you look at your family--past or present--you have to say, "It's not really a house that's been built up. We've kind of got a mess on our hands here. We've got some crumbling ruins," you may feel like. You may feel like instead of a city being well-guarded, the walls have been taken over by the enemy; and there's been ground given over to the world and to Satan himself in your own home or perhaps in your extended family or in the families of others that you know and love.

You may say, "I don't know how good of a warrior I've been, but we seem to be losing this battle." I'm looking into the eyes of some women who have known what it is to have your marriage crumble. Some of you have shared with me out of your heartbreak for grown sons and daughters and grandchildren who don't have a heart and a hunger for the things of God. In your heart you're saying, "Why? What is it?"

I talked with a woman earlier today. She said, "We find ourselves saying, 'What did we do wrong? Was it our fault?'" She said, "We know we haven't been perfect as parents. Is there one of God's conditions that we haven't met?" It's easy for parents to beat themselves up and to say, "I should have done something differently."

We're not here to put a guilt trip on anybody; but we're here to say, "What is God's plan? What is God's ideal?" Even in situations in this room where perhaps you'd have to say, "We haven't done it God's way"--some of you didn't come to know the Lord until you were already building your family. There were already some cracks in that foundation. Now you're living with some of the repercussions and consequences of that.

Yet as a body of believers, we still have to go back to the standard of God's Word and say, "What are the basic principles of God's Word that we need to commit ourselves to?" What resources does God give to us for building the lives in our homes?

Some of you may be thinking, "It's too late for my family." It may be that you have a marriage that is irreparably damaged. It may be that you have children who may never turn back to the Lord. But let me say that there is always mercy. There is always grace available when we come in humility and brokenness and dependence before God, and even when we have to say, "Lord, we've blown it. I'm not sure I can explain how it all happened, but I know it's not right in our home. Yet, Lord, would You have mercy and would You somehow allow me as a woman to be a part of leaving a legacy of godliness? Would You help me, even out of my failures perhaps, to in some way influence the next generation--that they will have a heart and a hunger for You."

That's not to say that there won't be pain. There is. Again, as I look around the room, I see some of you (that I know) who have experienced enormous pain in your families. But I think you'd probably be the first to acknowledge that God has an ideal and a plan that we need to commit ourselves to and trust Him as we obey Him to bring up this next generation in God's ways.

My parents, Art and Nancy DeMoss--my dad has been with the Lord for many years. My parents would be the first to tell you that our home was far from perfect. My parents decided when they got married, for a number of reasons, that they weren't going to have any children for five years. My mother was 19. My dad was 32. Within the first five years of their marriage, they had six children. That means, by the way, that a few years later we had six teenagers at the same time; and then a seventh one who came along several years later. Things were always exciting in our home.

I know there were days that they had to think, This is not going according to plan. There have been heartaches and struggles and issues in our family. Now that we're all grown and now there are ten grandchildren, we start all over again. There are more issues that surface as your children get older.

My parents, as I said, would be the first to tell you that they did a lot of things wrong. My parents were first-generation believers. They didn't grow up in godly homes. There was so much about the ways and the Word of God that was new to them, but they did walk by faith. And they did find themselves depending upon the grace of God.

As I look back on my growing up years, there are several characteristics of building a home, leaving a legacy of godliness, that stand out to me out of my growing up experience. They're found, referenced at least, in these twin psalms that we've been looking at--Psalm l27 and Psalm 128.

Let me say that these seven aspects of building a godly home that we're going to look at over the next few sessions--they're not the only important ones. There are many others that we could touch on. But I think these are ones that are frequently neglected today. I want us just to ponder God's ways when it comes to building homes--building another generation for God.

The first thing that stands out to me in this passage--and as I think about my family as I was growing up--is that we must make this a top priority in every one of our lives. The goal in life--in your life and mine--is not to be happy. Our goal is to serve God's purposes in our generation. One of those purposes is that when we are gone, we will have left behind those who will follow in our steps--steps that will lead them to God. Raising a generation of young people who are serious about living out their faith is a high priority to God. It must be to us as well.

The fact is that you and I can be a success at everything else we do in life; but if we fail at this calling in our homes, we're going to end life disappointed. This is very important--to be a workman, a watchman or a warrior as we've seen in these word pictures in Psalm 127. It requires great diligence.

The workman has to keep working hard at the task until the house is built. I'm so thankful when I built my home that the contractor didn't stop midway and say, "Okay, here is your house." I'm glad that he finished the house. It took a long time. It took a lot longer than it seemed to me that it should take. But building a home for God--building a generation that will love God and follow after Him--takes time.

The watchman on that city wall has to stay alert. He can't just stay awake for the first three hours of his watch. He has to stay alert and tuned to what is going on around him. It was one thing for my mother to parent seven children when we were all little. But now that we're all grown and most are married and many have children, the job isn't finished. Now that she is Nana, the grandmother to those ten children, the responsibility still goes on of praying and making this family a priority. You can never stop working at it.

I was with a couple for lunch yesterday who are expecting their third child. I said to my friend as we drove away from that lunch, "One of the things that I appreciate about Wes and Carrie is that they're intentional about their marriage and their parenting." They're a young couple with young children. They're just getting started in this process. The Lord only knows how it will go as these children develop. One of the things I appreciate about this couple is that they're taking this task seriously.

They're having fun at it, too. It's not that they're just all grim and sober about it. They're enjoying their marriage. They're enjoying their children. But they're working at it. They're intentional about the time they spend with their children and what kind of things they want their children exposed to. They're going to learn, if they haven't already, that they're never going to be able to stop being vigilant at that task. It doesn't just happen.

You can get so caught up in the dailyness of surviving as a family, as a wife, as a mother that you lose sight of the big picture--of the long-term, of the long haul. It requires time and sacrifice and effort to build up a legacy for God, to leave a next generation who have a heart for God.

So as we look at each of these characteristics--the first being that this must be a high priority for us, a top priority and focus for us--I want to ask us a couple of questions just to help us evaluate where we are in each of these principles. So I ask this question: Do you and I feel a personal sense of responsibility for the spiritual condition of the next generation? I ask you that question whether or not you have your own children. And then: Are you and I making a conscious effort to insure that they walk with God?

We're going to see in the next session that we can't insure that, but we can make the effort. We are workmen. We are watchmen. We are warriors. Are we being vigilant? Are we consciously expending effort to make sure that that next generation has been handed all the resources that they need to choose God's way?

Leslie Basham: That's Nancy DeMoss exhorting us to live with the next generation in mind. She'll be right back. One of the most effective ways you can invest in your children's lives is through prayer. We're making a resource available to help you do that. It's a book called A Mother's Garden of Prayer by Sarah Maddox and Patti Webb. This book will guide you in intercession for your children. We have it in our resource center for a suggested donation of $15. We'd be happy to send it to you when you call or write.

Our number is 1-800-569-5959. Or write to Revive Our Hearts. When you order the book or make a donation of any size, we'll say thanks by sending you a bookmark based on our current series. It lists Psalm 127 on one side and some of the principles we've been learning on the other.

What's the key to leaving a spiritual inheritance to those who follow in our footsteps? Find out by joining us for tomorrow's broadcast. Now here's Nancy with a word of prayer.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Father, we acknowledge that this is a top priority to You--that we should build into the next generation and create in them a sense of hunger and thirst and longing after You; that we should show them how to walk and that we should lead them in the right paths. God, increase our desire, our longing, our sense of purpose and intentionality about building up a generation that will seek after You. I pray for Jesus' sake. Amen.

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