Legacy

But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear him,
and his righteousness with their children’s children Psalm 103:17

Legacy was the big buzz word of the London 2012 Olympics by which it meant that the organisers wanted something to live on after the Games that would be an inheritance to the nation.  Everyone hopes that good sporting facilities and an increased desire by people to participate in sport will last long after the happy memories of the Olympics start to fade.

I believe legacy is also very important for us as Christians – that we do not just live for our lives but that we leave something after we have gone to heaven that will bless those coming after us.

We are on holiday in Wales and one day we briefly passed some women who as they went by us were singing away. One of the men with them said to us rather apologetically, ‘Revival has come.’ It is the sort of remark that would never be made in England because we have no recent history of revival unlike the Welsh. The 1904 Welsh revival is still in the collective memory over a hundred years later so when people are singing happily away it is a natural thing to say that revival has come. That is legacy.

An Anglican clergyman Henry Lyte wrote the hymn Abide with me three weeks before he died of TB in 1847.  I wonder if he knows that it is still sung regularly today and especially at FA Cup Finals and would he be delighted that 165 years after his death his hymn was used in the Opening Ceremony of the London Olympic Games to movingly commemorate the 7 / 7 London terrorist bombings?

Jarrod Cooper wrote that of the 1,394 known descendants of Jonathan Edwards, the famed 18th century revival preacher, 100 became preachers and missionaries,100 lawyers, 80 public officials, 75 army and navy officers, 65 college professors, 60 physicians, 60 prominent authors, 30 judges, 13 college presidents, 3 United States senators, and one a vice-president of the United States. 42% of his descendants made a significant contribution to society.

One of Edwards’ contemporaries, Max Jukes had 310 descendants who died as paupers, 150 criminals, 100 were drunkards, 7 were murderers, and more than half of the women were prostitutes.

God talks a lot about generations in the Bible and passing on the blessing to thousands of generations.  The Bible is filled with examples of God blessing people because of the actions of their godly ancestors.  We all leave a legacy; the question is what sort of legacy will we leave? I am very conscious of the legacy that has been left to me both individually and spiritually. My desire is that both as individuals and as a Church, we make a difference in our area of influence and leave a blessed legacy that others can build on.