Living your Legacy

first chronicles 4 14. and then noah thai beget ophra and serenia beget joab the father of the valley of cherishem and they are craftsmen i want to talk to you about this valley of craftsmen today my title is living your legacy living your legacy thank you for worshiping standing you may be seated god bless you well it's no surprise that tomorrow september 5th we'll celebrate labor day in the united states of america labor day pays tribute to all of the workers the achievements by workers in our country and it's typically it's observed on the first monday of september first congress passed an act that affected in the district of columbia and some territories then on june 28 in 1894 president grover cleveland signed into law making labor day an official national holiday labor day unofficially marks the end of summer and the beginning of college football i made the mistake of saying go something this morning and it was very divisive in the church here with so many people loyal to jesus only go jesus he's my hero amen well in case you're wondering in fashion labor day is or was considered the last day in which it was acceptable to wear white or seersucker so you just file that away for future reference starting tuesday it's somewhat of a coincidence that i'm preaching this message on labor day weekend wasn't strategically planned for that reason but my message does have a lot to do with labor and with life and with the legacy that you leave webster's dictionary says that legacy is a gift by will especially of money or other personal property a legacy is something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or a predecessor or from the past legacy is what you leave to those that you love and live for so what is your legacy i believe as i've thought about this a lot and studied this it is more than what you will one day leave behind legacy is a reflection of who you are right now you are living your legacy and one day when you pass from this life you will leave that legacy behind legacy is the story of your life it's unfolding in real time and it's inspired by what is meaningful what is most important and fulfilling for you you're living your values today and those values implemented by the decisions you make by your actions attitude your choices that is a reflection of the legacy that you're living and will one day leave behind so you're you're building your legacy today in the last couple weeks of my mom's life she would have these conversations sometimes she was coherent sometimes not that was not normal for her but she was in the process of passing away and she would talk and then sometimes she would say you know but but that won't matter to me that doesn't matter to me and then other times she would say something and she say with tears in her eyes you know that matters to me that really matters to me i never remember my mom saying that maybe she did but it wasn't something that was a saying of hers but at the close of her life she was thinking about what really mattered most to her i think it was part of her values and to me it was part of my mom's legacy so your legacy is the difference you're making now and also the difference you will make when you're gone your legacy is who you are and what you do to make things better today it will also have an effect on future generations the bible says of king david of israel that he served his generation well and fell on sleep david left a notable legacy but it was because the way he served in life that he was remembered in death so to leave a legacy you must first live it if your legacy is a financial inheritance you must first earn that money before you can leave it behind and after earning it you have to preserve it so there is something to be left when you pass from this life you can't leave something that you don't have so i've been thinking about this for some time and i was drawn to this verse in first chronicles 4 14 about the legacy of these craftsmen so it made me think about other places regions of the country that are known for certain things if you live in georgia you probably know that dalton georgia is known as the carpet capital of the world the industry employs more than 30 000 people in whitfield county in that area more than 90 percent of the functional carpet produced in the world today is made within a 60 file five mile radius of the city of dalton georgia the carpet capital of the world well i was curious as to how that legacy was shaped so i went back and i started reading about it i learned that this amazing carpet industry in dalton can be traced back to a wedding gift that was given in 1895 by a teenage girl named katherine evans whitener to her brother henry alexander evans and his bride elizabeth kramer the gift was an unusual toughed bed spread she copied a quilt pattern sewed dick carton yards with the running stitch into unbleached muslin then she dipped the ends of the yarn so they would fluff out finally the wash she washed the spread in hot water to hold the yarns in by shrinking the fabric well interest grew in young catherine's bedspreads and in 1900 she made and sold the first one for two dollars and fifty cents demand for her spreads became so great that by the 1930s local women had haulers who would take the stamped sheeting and yarns to front porch workers often entire families worked to hand tough the spreads for 10 to 25 cents per spread nearly 10 000 area cottage tufters men women and children were involved in this industry in the area of dalton georgia the income generated by that preserved some of them through the great depression well later chenille bedspreads became popular all over the country and it provided a new name for dalton dalton was called the bedspread capital of the world and then a form of mechanized carpet making was developed after world war ii and dalton became the center of this new industry because specialized tufting skills were required and the city of dalton already had a pool of workers with those skills so dalton georgia has a legacy as the carpet capital of the world that goes back to a one single gift that a girl gave to her brother and his bride i was also thinking about something that has a unique history and that is furniture built in amish country maybe you've heard about the quality of that furniture i read an article called armish amish carpenters start learning woodworking early in amish country practical skills and trades are taught from a very young age everything from cooking to woodworking is passed down through generations that's part of the pride and integrity that goes into every piece of furniture that is created in amish country each piece is made by hand they use solid wood only and they refuse any wood that is filled with flaws they usually don't use nails or screws which i found interesting they choose other message methods for fastening that wood together amish furniture making is often a family affair and the art of furniture making is a part of their cultural heritage it's part of their legacy so it's hard not to produce top-notch work when the process hits so very close to home amish families have cultivated a culture of furniture making and among other things that's what they're known for i was reading then about jewish history and some of the culture there rabbi victor s apple wrote about a father's responsibility to his son in jewish culture their outline in the talmud according to the text a jewish father is obligated to circumcise his son to redeem him if he's the firstborn son he is to teach him the torah he's to find a wife for him he's also to teach him a trade and then another thing that was added somewhere along the line a jewish father is to teach his son to swim is considered a survival skill for life and i thought about that and my mind went to simon peter who was taught to swim he was a fisherman but he jumped in the water with his fisherman's coat on and he swam a hundred yards to get to jesus you can read that story in john chapter 21. per capita jewish people are the most successful people in the united states and also in the world the idea of legacy that is passed down from one generation to the next is rich in their culture and somewhere living your legacy was sparked in my mind by what otherwise to me was this obscure verse in first chronicles chapter four and menothia day i beget oprah and syria beget joab the father of the valley of cherishem for they were craftsmen i was doing my bible reading when i ran across this verse again i've read this numerous times but it really stuck in my mind and i just want to say thank god for the bible readers who don't cheat when you get to chronicles you know you're not planning your family vacation while you're reading the genealogies of the first eight chapters of first chronicles strange names to the western mind lots of begats but paying attention pays off it's in first chronicles 4 10 that we read the prayer of jabez that became a very popular book published in 2000 by bruce wilkinson that is a very good book and a tremendous concept i was doing my riveting reading in first chronicles this year and when i got to verse 14 it stuck in my head i copied it i pasted it into evernote where i have ideas for sermons and lessons for the future and i thought i'm going to get back to that that's intriguing to me and i want to know more about it this valley of craftsmen well the amazing anointed word of god catches your attention and when i went back i learned some things that i'd like to share with you today i tried to read everything i can find about the valley of craftsman joab is the father of this valley of craftsmen for they were craftsmen he's the father of not just the father of a kid he's the father of a craft he's the father of a region he's the father of a legacy that was left to others the name cherished him or in some translations je hereshem it literally means the valley of craftsman it was located with a cluster of villages including lod and oh no you've been there many times haven't you oh no it's about 30 miles west of jerusalem maybe near lidda a few miles east of joppa i know you know where that is in your bible geography studies well i told you i read as much as i could find about this some translations say it's the valley of artificials they built things one paraphrase broke it down into good old modern english serenia was the father of joab who settled a place called the valley of crafts because the people who lived there were experts in making things or things if you live in the deep deep south that's the valley of craftsman a place where they made things well i started thinking how did joab become the father of the valley of craftsman well he must have been trained to be a craftsman perhaps a carpenter right then he trained his son to do that and all of his sons did that and then joab's grandsons were trained by joab's sons to be craftsmen uncles and cousins must have joined in and were employed in the same type of work of making things and then if you live nearby and you wanted to have a piece of furniture made maybe by word of mouth said you know what you need to do go down to lot and oh no and that that valley there those guys are really good they make great furniture they make great things there and so people started going down to this valley and somewhere along the line somebody said why don't you just go down to the valley of craftsman it was never called that before but but now it was it's where people made things and they were known for that now i want to ask you a question do you think everybody that was a descendant of joab was naturally gifted in carpentry or artificials or craftsmanship i would kind of argue no but if you were a little boy or girl but mainly in these trays it was little boys and you grew up watching your dad make things from a child you knew that's what he did and he would teach you to do the same in the morning dads didn't get up kiss their wives goodbye get their lunchbox catch the train and ride off to work they worked at home in the community in their little villages so boys grew up watching their dad's work their dads were living their legacy and they were leaving their legacy to the next generation so you just grew up knowing this is how you make a table or a piece of furniture or a plow or whatever it was that was made in the valley of craftsman this culture of craftsmanship was strong in the family of canaz these are the descendants of cnaz and all of his descendants joab is the one whose name in the book of nehemiah nehemiah refers to lord and oh no the valley of craftsmen in nehemiah chapter 11. these craftsmen played such an important role in their society that when nebuchadnezzar king of babylon was in the process of deporting jews from judah all the way to babylon he took away the princes all the mighty men of valor ten captives and the bible said that nebuchadnezzar also took all the craftsmen and the smiths so that nobody stayed in the land but the poorest among the people if you were going to try to impoverish a land you would take away all the essential workers it included the craftsman this is intriguing to me that this valley was a place that played great significance in the history of israel in 2007 i was asked to write a paper on the art of mentoring and presented at a symposium at ursuline graduate school of theology it's a long paper but there's an excerpt that applies here today that fathers in agrarian societies typically mentored their sons teaching them their trade while modeling the ethics and character traits necessary for success in life in other words this on-the-job training wasn't just the skill of making a theme it was how to make a life how to have the ethics how to sell how to make a price how to live a life it was a legacy that was lived by a father and then left to the next generation mentoring is how you create a culture it is how you leave a legacy it is how you cultivate a place like the valley of craftsman you know in the ministry of jesus he was called both a carpenter and the son of a carpenter joseph his dad his stepdad not his real father almighty god was his father amen that which was conceived in mary was of the holy ghost not of joseph but joseph taught jesus carpentry not because he needed it to fall back on in case he couldn't make a living in the ministry joseph taught jesus craftsmanship carpentry because good jewish fathers always taught their sons an honest trade or craft jesus learned it at the dutiful training of his stepdad joseph and in case this ever crossed your mind it did mine a couple days ago jesus did not turn over the tables in the temple because they were poorly made but maybe they were legacies in the bible were the result of a culture that trained the next generation when joseph was talking to pharaoh about his family in genesis 47. pharaoh's inquiring of joseph what does your family do and joseph said thy servants are shepherds both we and also our fathers you can go back four generations to abraham and you'll find that abraham the father of the jewish people the father of the faithful he was a shepherd a herdsman we would call him maybe a rancher jacob joseph's dad was also a sheepherder a rancher and very successful at it he had camels and donkeys and cattle and many servants he was a very wealthy man because he lived this culture that had been passed down from generation to generation i was thinking about other skilled people in the bible and my mind went to first chronicles 12 where david was at zig lag he was still fearing for saul and there were some men who came to help him in the war the bible calls them mighty men they were armed with bows and they could use both the right hand and the left in hurling stones and shooting arrows out of a bow and they were saul's brethren of benjamin now i like in the bible a whole lot when the bible talks about some of the benjamites who were left-handed but these guys were switch-handed and i will argue again that i don't believe these benjamites were natural-born ambidextrous people what i do believe is that when they were little boys a dad who was a warrior taught a son if you're going to grow up and have every advantage in battle then you're going to need to learn to do more than use your dominant hand pick up that rock there son what feels natural to you are you left-handed are you right-handed what's your dominant eye maybe that's gonna guide you in how you shoot a bow or how you sling a sling but son we're gonna learn that first but we're not just gonna be left-handed or right-handed you're gonna learn to be use your opposite hand so pick up that inferior hand and throw a stone until it feels just as good with that hand as it does the other get your bow and shoot it until you're good but now i want you to shoot with the other hand until you're just as good and the bible said that these men could fight left-handed or right-handed and they were good either way i started thinking about why this could be really important you're in a battle you're fending off the foe you're behind a tree or a rock but guess what you can move to the left and you can sling a stone or you can shoot your bow you can move to the right of that object you can sling a stone you can shoot your bow what if you're fighting and now you're wounded in battle your right arm is wounded no problem you can still sling with your left hand they are very good at what they do because from a child there is a culture of warriors that would raise them up it made them versatile and valuable fighters in the war i want to stop right now and say that we should take our children from early in their life and we need to teach them how to fight with the left hand and the right hand that they can pray they can worship they've got the word of god they can do something that will put the enemy to flight amen it's a culture that we're building it's a legacy that we're living and that we are leaving amen in the new testament james and john were fishermen we know from mark 1 and 20 that their father zebedee was also a fisherman it was a trade that was taught from childhood the bible does not tell us what zebedee's dad did but i have a pretty good feeling that his father was probably a fisherman as well because typically that's what happened you handed it down from one generation to the next now throughout history vocational skills were important to success and it is no different today however it is much less common for children to grow up working in the family business my dad did get up early in the morning kiss my mom and the kids goodbye and went off to work my dad was a carpenter but i didn't go to work with him he was a union carpenter i couldn't go work on the 55-story high-rise in miami that just never happened i worked with my dad some here and there but it was on home projects or family projects but you think about the child boy or girl who grows up in the family business who learns more on accident than some people do on purpose they learn menial skills they learn how to clean they learn how to do inventory they learn how to stock shelves or fix a tire or build this or that or whatever it is they have a lifetime of education when they get to adulthood that is a tremendous advantage for the future it is one thing to be gifted a family business it's another thing to learn and earn that family business because you grew up in it but we are a church amen we are church of people of many businesses many backgrounds many trades and crafts but there is one thing that we have in common that we are raising a generation of young men and young women of boys and girls that we want them to be successful in life and for eternity amen i may want my boys to know how to sling a stone but more than that i want them to know how to pray i want them to know the bible i want them to be good at god good at doing what matters most it's a legacy of godliness in the bible godly men and women did not choose financial success over faith many of the great and godly people in the bible were very successful and extremely wealthy but that wealth came as a result of living for god living by god's word and the fortune followed the character now james gives us a balancing principle that god has chosen the poor of this world rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom of god so because you're rich does not make you better than someone who is poor and someone who is poor may be richer in faith than you are in the bible success was seen as a result of faith businesses built on godly principles were successful because of that foundation the bible taught morals and ethics to jewish people wise jewish fathers knew that having a biblical worldview would produce success in their children the jewish culture has produced a disportionate percentage of wealthy people as i said before the statistic speaks to the legacy that they leave their children god honored abraham and told him secrets of sodom because abraham would command his children to follow in the ways of god and not stray away from that joshua the successor to moses was a military commander but god spoke to him and said to joshua this book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth but you shall meditate there in day and night that you may observe to do according to all that is written therein for then after joshua you get good at the bible you will make your way prosperous and you shall have good success i love prosperity and success that is the result of godliness not the other way around that it is a result of a shortcut that will soon fade away amen the kings of israel were political leaders but the lord gave specific instructions that every king of israel was to make a copy of the law he was to hand write a copy of the law he needed to be able to needed to be able to read and write the jewish people historically were educated advanced amen there's a lot of background there i read a little bit about that quite a bit about that actually but here's a king he's got to make a copy of the law and the lord said he has to read it every day and the goal is that by copying and by reading the bible he will not be lifted up above his brethren that he's leading he will not stray away from the words of god all the days of his life that was the goal it was a legacy of godliness upon which a life could be built psalm 78 the lord gave us instruction that we are to know the ways of god where to speak to our children showing to the generation to come the praises of the lord his strength his wonderful works that he has done he established a testimony in jacob he appointed a law in israel which he commanded our fathers that they should make them known to their children that the generation to come might know them fathers children their children even the children which should be born who should arise and declare them to their children that they might set their hope in god and not forget the works of god but keep his commandments my brothers and sisters on this labor day sunday i want you to be successful but the legacy that we need to live and leave behind is more than a trade more than a craft it is a life of godliness it is ethics and morality it is a work ethic that we need to exemplify and model and mentor for the next generation i love philip in the bible not philip the apostle philip the evangelist he was a good man in the church honest report full of the holy ghost he had wisdom they put him on the benevolence committee out of that role in acts chapter six he develops a ministry he preaches in samaria we find him years later in the city where paul goes in caesarea and paul goes into the house of philip the evangelist all these years later he's a husband he's a father he's got four daughters that he has raised in the church and by the spirit they are virtues they are virgins but they also are filled with the holy ghost and the gifts of the spirit they are given to prophecy you see you can raise your kids you can leave a legacy that will transcend generations amen living your legacy timothy didn't have a godly father not at all his father was a greek but he had a praying mother a godly grandmother and paul wrote to timothy and he said i call to remembrance the unfeigned faith a genuine faith that is in thee which dwelt first in thy grandmother lois and in thy mother eunice and i am persuaded that in thee also how was paul persuaded of that because grandmother lois called mother eunice and mother eunice taught son timothy and this young boy grew up with the bible being quoted to him by a mother and a grandmother they left a legacy without a godly father in that home they overcame everything that an ungodly father may do to make this young man grow up with the legacy of godliness the legacy you leave behind is the one that you are living right now amen in the past few years in our church and to leaders i've been talking a lot about creating culture whatever you do and say over and over creates culture good or bad right or wrong whatever you do and say over and over creates culture the culture that you are creating forms the legacy that you are leaving behind the legacy you're living is the one that's going to be left to the next generation or if you're not a parent or a grandparent other people in your life that you are influencing so i have some really good news for you all the healthy attitudes and practices that you experienced in your family as a child they form the basis for the culture that you will naturally cultivate in your family that's your legacy the good stuff that you saw growing up but i have some not so good news for you as well the unhealthy attitudes and practices that you experienced in your family as a child they also form the basis for the culture that you naturally will cultivate in your family but i believe the power of the word of god and the power of the holy spirit that you can change the culture you came out of and you can be something different than what you were formed to be by your path the bible said if you're in jesus christ you are a new creation that all things pass away and all things become new it doesn't matter how you were raised you can be different you can raise your family different you can live and leave a different legacy amen i'm not talking about overcoming it by behavioral modification although that might be important i'm talking about the holy spirit working in your life giving you power over sin power over the past power over the self-talk power over the habits you saw power over the attitudes that were exhibited in your home you can overcome it by the power of the spirit joab did not grow up in the valley of craftsman but he created you may not have grown up in a godly environment but you can create it in your own life and in your family and into the people that you affect at work the school wherever your mission field is you are living and you are leaving a legacy so the way you spoke to your spouse and children this morning that's your legacy the spiritual emotional relational climate of your home that's the legacy that you're living and it's the same one that you're leaving behind it is the indelible impression of the culture that you are creating every day that is your legacy and if it's good thank god if it can be better praise god this labor day weekend i pray that you would take church home with you that the culture that we've tried to create in this church a healthy culture would be one that you would take home some people ask about our generosity in our church how do you receive an offering of two hundred thousand dollars to move the mission well it's not by a single year it's 27 years of a culture of generosity and blessing and people understanding the need the value and the blessing of giving if you're relatively new to atlanta west it might seem like a foreign language how can that happen but it happens because year after year it's what we've said and done in this church and whatever we are as a church good and our white spaces and our weaknesses it's the result of the culture so here is my message for you today you are living a legacy so let's leave church today making it better than it's ever been before incorporating godly habits incorporating healthy attitudes and shaping our lives and then lives of our families for good amen i don't think that when joab taught his son how to work with wood or whatever that he envisioned a whole valley of craftsman would have notoriety but he just did what he should do and what he could do for his own sons and they did what they could do and should do for their sons and over time it became the valley of craftsman visit impressive in itself it's just something that you cultivate in the legacy you live and the legacy you leave