Leaving a Godly Legacy, Part 5

Series:

Leslie Basham: Something powerful happens when mothers and grandmothers get on their knees to pray. This is Revive Our Hearts for Wednesday, March 20. If you were blessed with a mother or grandmother who prayed for you, you're seeing the results of their act of love even now. Nancy is in the middle of a series called Leaving a Godly Legacy. Today we'll discover what happens when we pray for our children. Here's Nancy.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: There's a sense in which I believe that I would not be here today if it were not for the power of a praying grandmother. She actually was my great-grandmother. My father is of Greek background, and his parents were Greek immigrants. He had a grandmother that they called Yaya, which is the word for grandmother. Though the home was not really a Christian home, Yaya was a woman who did know the Lord; and who prayed earnestly for the salvation and spiritual life of her children and grandchildren and perhaps her great-grandchildren of which I am one.

My dad's cousin, Ted DeMoss, whom you may have heard of, was a great man of God and a real leader in ministries. He is now with the Lord. I remember hearing him tell the story of how when he was a little boy, he shared a bedroom with Yaya. He told about how sometimes at night he would go to bed and Yaya would be on her knees praying for the family. She never learned English. She prayed in her mother tongue, which was Turkish.

Then he told how he would sometimes wake in the morning and find that she was still up praying for her family, her children, the grandchildren--and the impact that that made on his life as a little boy. I never knew Yaya, my great-grandmother; but she was able to see God answer, in time, her prayers on behalf of my father, her grandson, who as a teenager and a young man was very rebellious. He was far from God. He had no heart or hunger for God. But on Friday, October 13, 1950, God got a hold of my dad's heart. (He) brought him under the hearing of the Gospel. He was converted and dramatically converted. He gave his life to Christ.

At the same time or about that time, God was working in the heart of my mother, a little Southern girl from Charlotte, North Carolina, bringing her into the kingdom. God brought their lives together and gave them seven children, of whom I'm the oldest.

How I thank the Lord for the prayers of that great-grandmother, Yaya, who laid hold of God and said, "This matters to me--that God would give my children, my grandchildren and the next generation a heart and a hunger for God." I thank the Lord for her, and I realize as I think about Yaya how important it is that we as women recognize our utter dependence upon God when it comes to this matter of the next generation.

We're looking at a pair of psalms, Psalm 127 and 128, that talk about this matter of leaving a legacy--bringing up a new generation that has a heart and a hunger for God. One of the most tragic verses I think in all of God's Word is that passage in Judges 2:10, where it says, "There arose after them another generation who did not know the Lord, nor the works which He had done in Israel." Their parents knew God. Their grandparents knew God, but something happened. The baton didn't get passed. As I read that verse about a generation growing up who did not know God, I think it's such a picture of many in our younger generation today.

We call it the post-modern generation, and we give all kinds of reasons and explanations for why they don't have a hunger after God. But God's plan is that the baton should be passed from one generation to the next and the next. Be intentional. Be purposeful in the way that you bring up your family. Then recognize your utter dependence upon God. Recognize that though you may be that workman, that watchman and that warrior that we've been reading about in Psalm 127, you can't do it without God.

I see lots of heads nodding because all of you who are mothers know the truth of what I'm saying. You know that you can do a lot of things right. You can be intentional and purposeful. But if God doesn't come through in their lives, they're not going to have a heart for God. You can make your children do a lot of things right, as long as they're smaller than you are. But you want more than that for your children, don't you? You want them to love God. You want them to have hearts that pant after God.

We've said as we've looked into this psalm that this is something that should concern us all, whether we have children or not. We all bear a responsibility for passing on to the next generation the heart and the ways of God. Let me tell you that what happens to your children matters to me. I feel partially responsible as an adult in this generation of believers for what happens to the next generation, even though I don't have my own children. Together we're in this as a community of faith. It's our responsibility to leave that heritage.

Now again, it's their responsibility what they do with it. They have to make choices. They will give account to God for what they do with what we have entrusted to them. But as we seek to leave this heritage of godliness, we've got to acknowledge our dependence upon God. Any effort undertaken independently of God will be futile.

That's what we read about in Psalm 127 in the very first verse: "Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it." You can't have a godly family if God's not building the home. Now that sounds so obvious, you may wonder why I even have to say it. But that affects the way that we think about family, the way we do family day in and day out. Are we consciously recognizing our dependence upon God?

He goes on in this passage to say, "Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain." I know that every parent, particularly mothers, are tempted to be afraid in this day and age about what's going to happen to their children. (You are) Afraid when you send them to school, afraid when you have a babysitter, afraid even sometimes when you take them to a church nursery--of what is going to happen to them. Will they fall? Will they get hurt? Will somebody do something wrong to them? You hear all the horror stories. Maybe you've experienced some of those things with your own children. It's easy for mothers to become watchmen, to become zealous in their protectiveness over their children.

The psalmist says here that no matter how good of a watchman you are, that unless the Lord guards the city, you're staying awake in vain. Even if your children are within your eyesight every moment of the day, you can't protect them from getting hurt. Certainly as they get older and move out of your immediate sphere of influence and control and move out into the world and move away from your home, you can't watch over them every moment of every day.

But there is Someone who does. One of the names for God that I think must be a precious name to every mother is the name El-Roi, the God Who Sees. When you send your children out into the world, you send your children out to school or out of the home and into their own marriages and into the workplace, aren't you glad that you can trust El-Roi, the God Who Sees? Doesn't that motivate and encourage you as you pray?

You say, "I can't see where this son or daughter is right now. I can't see what they're doing. I'm not there physically to protect them. If I were there physically, I couldn't protect their heart. But, Lord, You see them."

"Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain." It goes on in verse 2, "It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows." He says, in other words, if you undertake building a home or watching over this city in your own effort, independent of God, you will end up with heartache and sorrow. You just can't control the situation. You can't control your children. For certain, we can't control the next generation.

That's why we must acknowledge the Lord. Acknowledge His role as the master builder, as the ultimate watchman. We are partners with Him. Certainly not equal partners--He is the senior partner, for sure! But partnering with Him in this incredible undertaking--this impossible undertaking--we are co-laborers with Him. We watch under His watchful eye. We build under His instruction and leadership. We are linking arms with Him and doing what is important to Him and what is on His heart.

No matter how much we try to do everything right--and by the way, any person who has children or any person who doesn't have children is a sinner. Our efforts at best are flawed. We are fallen. We are weak. We are sinful. We do make mistakes. We make wrong choices. If it depended on our doing it all right, we'd never have children who have a heart for God. Even with our best efforts, we are still dependent upon the Spirit of God and the grace of God to make it click in our children's lives.

That's why I think every mother realizes--and why we need to be reminded--that our greatest resource is prayer. Unless the Lord does it, it's not going to happen. The house isn't going to get built. The city is not going to get guarded, unless God is the workman, unless God is the watchman, unless God is the warrior.

So moms, I ask you this: "If you don't cry out to God on behalf of your children and your grandchildren, who do you think is going to?" Now we all need to be crying out to God on behalf of the next generation, but I don't know that anyone has as much of a vested interest to do so as a mother, a grandmother. Some of you, your children are grown and you think, My task is done." No! Your task is not done. You have grandchildren. There will be great-grandchildren. And if the Lord tarries, great great-grandchildren.

I have prayed numerous times over my brothers and sisters and their mates and their children and their children who aren't even thought of yet. Down to four generations, I pray that every one will know God, will love God, will have a heart and a hunger for God.

When we pray, when we cry out to God on behalf of our children, we acknowledge our need for God and our absolute utter dependence upon Him.

Leslie Basham: Today we've been called to pray for the next generation. Let me tell you about a book that can help you effectively pray for your children. Sarah Maddox and Patti Webb have written a book called A Mother's Garden of Prayer. It'll help you think of ways to pray for your children and the decisions they'll face. We're making it available for a suggested donation of $15. To order, give us a call at 1-800-569-5959. Or visit our Web site, ReviveOurHearts.com.While you're there, you can discover how to read a transcript of today's program. And (you can) read the special article we've posted on how we can be praying for our children.

Could we ask that you pray for us as well? Revive Our Hearts needs the prayer support and financial support of our listeners. If you're able to commit to praying for us or to make a financial contribution, we'd love to hear from you. If you make a donation of any size, we'll say thanks by sending you a bookmark based on this series.

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.

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