Building a Lasting Legacy Through Faithful Living

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What we do for ourselves dies with us but what we do for God lives beyond us. If you keep living for you, your moment, your 15 minutes of fame, and you keep trying to build your legacy, it's going to die out with you if you're building it for you. But what we do for God, my friends, will last for eternity. [00:01:27]

Legacy is for men and women who understand that your role in the bigger picture is probably bigger than what you think because we all leave a legacy and we just got to ask ourselves but what kind of legacy am I leaving behind. [00:02:08]

See what you got to realize is legacy is not accidental, it's got to be intentional. We just can't hope that our kids get this, we can't just hope that the next generation sees us loving Jesus and they catch it. We got to be intentional in passing it on and if you're not building legacy on purpose then you're going to end up passing on all your junk and all your issues and all your struggles. [00:02:36]

It's about leaving something behind that the next generation sees as valuable enough to pick up, so it's through discipling, through mentoring, investing, and living for something bigger than your own name. If you're a believer, legacy isn't optional, it's your responsibility. [00:04:03]

You don't build a legacy through one big grandio single action, you build it through the million small ones that you think don't really matter. It's consistency, it's your obedience, your faithfulness day in and day out because again, legacy isn't built in the spotlight, legacy isn't built in those big moments as much as it's built in the small ones that maybe no one else sees. [00:05:40]

It's the daily mundane decisions that you think nobody else is watching that your kids and those behind you are modeling and they're following. Those are the bedrock of legacy. It's not about being famous, it's about being faithful—the way you show up all the time, the way you forgive when it hurts, the way that you treat your family, the way that you love those that are hard to love. [00:06:13]

Every moment that you choose integrity when nobody's watching, when you make the right decisions when no one's watching, that's legacy. Every moment you forgive somebody and don't hold a grudge, that's legacy. Every night you pray with your kids and you serve without recognition, that is legacy being built in your life. [00:08:29]

Legacy isn't what you leave for people, it's more so what you leave in people. It's built when you think nobody else is looking—that's integrity. You know what, I would rather leave something in my children than for my children. I'd rather leave the legacy of godliness and holiness rather than leaving them a bunch of stuff. [00:09:13]

Truth is taught through relationship and it's not your truth. I said it last week, none of us in this room are special enough to get our own version of the truth. Truth is truth, God's truth, and that's the truth that we pass on through our relationships because legacy is caught, not taught, as much as it is you being there and showing somebody and teaching it to them. [00:09:47]

There's things that we can learn from each other, young or old, and the enemy wants to pit the old against the young and the young against the old and make us think we ain't got nothing to learn from each other, but that is so wrong. That's what legacy actually is. [00:11:21]

Legacy is about thinking two generations deep. It's about planting trees that you might never sit under. It's about building a table that you might never sit at and eat, because after we're all gone, I want people to see God and what we left behind. [00:13:14]

When it comes to legacy, legacy requires long-term vision and commitment. Don't just live for today, live for what you're going to leave tomorrow. Legacy requires staying power because in a world full of options, of so many things that you can do, God calls us to be rooted. [00:14:45]

Legacy happens when you stay planted till God says go. You got to develop some stick-tuitiveness. You can't run every time you get hurt, you can't bail and jump ship every time things don't go your way. I'm not saying stay in a bad friendship or stay in a bad relationship or one that's abusive, but what I am saying is ask yourself, am I running every time things don't go the way I want them to? [00:17:19]

If the enemy can detach you from your history, he'll sever you from your legacy. There's real trauma in the world, we're not going to deny that, yeah, but disappointment isn't trauma. Not everything that makes you uncomfortable is trauma or abusive. Being corrected isn't abuse, being told no is not oppression, accountability isn't control, it's love with guard rails. [00:27:28]

Legacy is not about how many people that know your name, it's about how many people who know Jesus because of your name. I don't want people to remember me, but I do want to remember the Jesus that they saw in me. That's legacy. Legacy is not automatic, it's transferred. [00:32:49]

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