Leaving a Godly Inheritance - Part 1

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Thursday, May 5th. Are you a parent struggling to lead your children in the way they should go? If so, listen closely for a biblical pattern for leaving a godly inheritance. When you hear somebody talking about an inheritance, you usually think in terms of how much money they have, how much property, how many stocks and bonds, and all the possessions that they have in life.

And usually, the more they have, the more careful they are about how they leave their inheritance. And sometimes what you discover is this wonderful, happy family all just love each other, then somebody dies. And all of a sudden, what happens? Greed, selfishness, pride, just all these emotions start surfacing. And so often in this materialistic age in which you and I live, most of the time, things that have real value get overshadowed by things that have little real, lasting value. And if I were to ask you, how much are you going to leave your children?

Some of you would say, well, probably everything. Secondly, you might say, well, I'm not leaving them much for some other reason, whatever that may be. So, people have different attitudes and different ideas about their inheritance. What they oftentimes forget is this, the most valuable inheritance you can leave your children cannot be counted, can't be measured, you can't see it, but it's far more valuable than any of those things. So, when I think about an inheritance, and you think about, for example, what you've been thinking about, or one of these days you will, or maybe you look back and say, well, my parents or my grandparents passed away and here's what they left me.

Do you still have it? Most people squander lots of money. If you get lots of money, they're not prepared for it. Or if they don't squander it, little by little, they'll use it up on something that they wish maybe they would have done it differently. So, what I want to talk about in this message is this, leaving a godly inheritance.

I want to give you a number of things as suggestions, wise suggestions, for you to think in terms of leaving your children or your grandchildren as part of your inheritance. So, I want you to turn, if you will, to Second Timothy chapter one. And you remember that Paul loved Timothy, said he was his son in the ministry.

And I want us just to read these first verses to get us started. He says, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God, according to the promise of life in Christ Jesus, to Timothy, my beloved son, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. I thank God, whom I serve with a clear conscience, the way my forefathers did, as I constantly remember you in my prayers night and day, longing to see you, even as I recall your tears, so that I may be filled with joy. For I am mindful of the sincere faith within you, which first dwelt in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice.

And I'm sure that it's in you as well. And for this reason I remind you to kindle afresh the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given you a spirit of timidity, but of power and of love and of a sound mind, of discipline.

More than likely, he was a little timid, according to some other passage of Scripture. But if you'll turn over to the third chapter now, let's look at a couple of verses, because we're still talking about Timothy here and how he grew up and so forth. So the Scripture says in verse fourteen, You, however, continue in the things you've learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. Which is Paul's way of saying to Timothy that he recognized that his mother and grandmother, Eunice and Lois, that these women had a tremendous impact upon his life.

Now you say, well, wait a minute. Now when you talk about leaving an inheritance, how can you leave a spiritual inheritance? Well, a spiritual inheritance, we're talking about leaving something that has lasting value, of course.

That's something you can write and see. But a spiritual inheritance, we leave over a period of time, but we leave by influence, by impact, by persuasion, by demonstration, by pattern in our life. We leave it. We live it.

We live it. And the second thing, we leave it. And then that child comes into this world, your little child comes into this world, and you immediately as a mother begin to love that child and cuddle that child to your breast. Child grows up, before long they're walking around, and from the very beginning, you started to leave something within that child. You were, at that point, you were leaving them.

It was getting on the inside of them. Because remember this, that that little child, first thing you begin to say to them, they don't question, they don't say, Well, what does science say about this? What do the historians say? What do the theologians say? You say Jesus loves you.

Before long, they're saying Jesus loves you. And so, what you do by persuasion, by influence, by impact, by pattern of your life, you begin to develop that child. You are leaving something within that child in their conscious mind, in their consciousness.

And you are leaving something within them that's going to be there the rest of their life. Because remember this, everything you and I've ever heard, it's still here. Don't we wish we could recall it? Everything we've ever seen is still here. Everything we've ever felt is there. So, we are leaving an inheritance. And the question is, what kind are you leaving? Now, you may look around at your parents and say, Well, you know what, my parents didn't leave me much. Or you may say, They didn't leave me anything. Or you may be thinking, I don't have anything to leave. If you had asked my mother, for example, What are you going to leave Charles when you leave this world?

She's, I can see on her, she'd look around and she'd say, Well, I don't have anything to leave him. And I would say, Oh, yes, you do. But you've already given it to me. You gave it to me when you poured your life into me. Something money can't buy, death can't take it away. It's a treasure. And every single one of you mothers have poured into your children something of who you are.

It can be positive or negative. It can be love or jealousy or hatred or envy or whatever it might be. You've poured it into them. So, you have already begun to leave it. And what many folks don't realize is it isn't something you decide after you get to be sixty-five. Or when you think you're going to die, you get your lawyer out and you get your will out and say, Well, I'm, let's see what I'm going to leave my kids. You've already left it, friend.

And if it was the right kind of wealth, spiritual wealth, you've left them a treasure. So, how would you describe those things? So, what I want to do is I want to give you a list. And we'll just talk about each one of them a little bit because there are a number of them. And any one of them would be a message. So, as a parent or as a grandparent, and you think about, What's the most valuable things I can leave my children or my grandchildren?

Let's start off with this number one. A desire to follow Jesus Christ. You say, Well, how can I leave that to them? Are you saying that I can leave them salvation?

Oh, no. But here's what you can leave them. When they hear you talking about Jesus, when they hear you reading about Jesus, when they hear you giving testimony of how He's worked in your life, how He forgave you of your sins, and how He's given you the gift of eternal life, when they hear this and they notice that when you talk about Him, there's a sense of happiness about you and a sense of joy within you. And when you talk about maybe how old you were when you trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior. And when you say to them, the most important decision you'll ever make in your entire life is when Jesus Christ becomes your Savior as He became mine.

You know what you're doing? You're creating within them this desire for Him. Because remember this, you ask any little boy who's His favorite man in the world, my daddy.

You ask any little girl about the favorite woman, my mama, my mother, you know why? Because they have absorbed you. They've listened to what you said. All the things you've said about Jesus Christ. And remember this, you listen and say, Amen.

That's pretty weak, one more time. Watch this, that you as a mother and as a grandmother, you have this awesome Helper, and He's called the Holy Spirit. He's there, not only in your life to show you what to say, how to say it, when you ought to say it, how many times you ought to say it. I can remember my mother, she taught me a number of things by saying it over and over and over and over and over again.

Hang up your trousers, hang up your trousers, hang up your trousers, hang up your trousers. You come to my house, you're never going to see any of them lying around, but it's what you say and you say and you say. When you're talking about Jesus at the table, and you're talking about Him when you're writing, and you're talking about Him when you're taking your kids or grandkids to school. In other words, you see, He is so popular to you, He's going to be popular to that child, and they're going to ask you questions, well, where is He?

He's in heaven, where is heaven? And so, all the questions that you can't possibly answer sometimes, you know what you've done? You've poured part of your true, genuine, eternal, spiritual wealth into that child. So, it would be natural and normal for them to want to become a Christian early in life.

Somebody said, well, wait a minute now. I've been going to church and taking my family to church for years and years and years. I didn't say anything about going to church. You can go to church every Sunday.

You can listen to messages and messages and messages. Your children and your grandchildren are not going to copy it, necessarily, a few things that you do. They're listening, first of all, and watching to how you live.

Who is the center of your life? And if you're going to leave them with a desire for Jesus, it's got to come from a heart in which Jesus Christ is ruling and reigning. Just talking about Him once in a while or going to church and listening to the sermons, that's not it. So, that wealth begins with leaving them with this awesome desire in your heart for them to know Jesus Christ like you know Him personally. A second thing is this, and that is a reverence for the Word of God. How do you convey, how do you leave with your children or grandchildren a reverence for the Word of God? If you want your children to respect the Word of God, you listen, not only defend it, but you read it and you explain as best you can, as best you can what you believe the Word of God means. And God will show you, remember we have a help of the Holy Spirit, who will teach you how. And you see your children are going to ask you questions. And see, God makes children, just He makes them pliable for us. And so, they have questions.

Well, you could say, well, ask your teacher at school. Sometimes that may be good, sometimes it may be a disaster. So, what you want to say is, well, why don't we get in the Word of God and find out what the Bible says?

You know what? When you start that so early in life, here's what happens. When they have questions, that's where they're going. Now, they get out in the world and they're going to get tempted and tried, and you know what? God's going to keep bringing the Word of God back to them. But what does God say? What does the Word of God teach? If you're going to teach your children to reverence the Word of God, you have to reverence it. Defend it at all costs. Talk about it. Explain it.

And one of the best ways to do that and the best times to do that is around the dinner table, whenever you meet. Listen, probably with television, I'm not saying all television's bad, but television has absolutely just scooped out our interest in spiritual things. And people eat their dinner by the TV, they eat their breakfast by the TV, they get up at the TV.

And do you remember what, you know what you're looking at? Except for In Touch and a few other programs like that. You're finding out how bad the world is and how tough everything is and taxes are going up and we got wars here and terrorists here, in other words, mine's fill, fill, fill. What about the Word of God?

When you look at how much time you spend in this book listening to the Word of God versus how much time you're glued to a television set, most of the programs which do not contribute anything to your well-being. And you know that. If that's the way you live, that's the way your children are going to live. Only watch this, watch this carefully. If you go this far in your life the wrong way, mark it down. Your children are going that much further.

You can just mark it down, that's the pattern. That's the way we live. So, if you want your children to respect the Word of God, if you want them to live an obedient life, then they've got to respect and reverence the Word of God. And nobody can do that like you can. And the way you do it is you reading it with them. Reading it, listen, you say, well, I don't understand it.

Let me tell you something. You're training those children to respect the Word of God. You understand more than you realize you do.

For example, if I said to you, do you think it's wrong to steal? Oh, yes. Where do you find that? Most of you know where that is in the Ten Commandments. Well, everything else you want to know is in here. Your children need to have a respect for this book that puts every other book and every other source of information on the periphery of their life. A third thing, and that is an understanding of how to listen to God. You say, well, how do I teach my children that?

Well, first of all, you have to learn yourself. How do you learn to listen to God? And if you'll just think about it for a moment, you want your children to learn to listen to you.

And so, you go about it in whatever way you choose. Well, what about learning to listen to God? Now, when you start talking about that to them, they're going to say, well, listen to God. I can't see Him. I can't feel Him.

I can't touch Him. And I remember when my children were coming along early, I would say to them, the most important thing in your life is that you learn to listen to God. Well, how do I do that? I said, well, just start listening. Well, how, why do I start?

Just ask God to start speaking to you. And so, I watched this develop in them. And I watched them begin to pray when I would, they would bring me some question and I didn't want to answer it. I wanted them to figure it out themselves. I said, why don't you go ask God?

So, I'd send them off, especially if they wanted to do something I didn't think was a wise idea. I said, why don't you go ask Him, whatever the two of y'all, you and God, whatever you all agree on, be fine. So, they came back out and said, what did He say?

He said, ask you. I said, no, that's not going to work. You've got to learn to listen to God. I can remember the day that I was kneeling in prayer with my daughter and we were praying together and I thought, thank You, Jesus, she's learned to hear You. She's learned to hear You.

One of my granddaughters, I did the same thing with her and she was living in another state and so I had to write, I'd call her once in a while and write her and say, well, because I had a good long talk with her about learning to listen to God. And she said, well, what is He going to say? I said, I don't know. Well, when is He going to speak to me?

I don't know. Well, now, Gram, see, if He's going to, how am I going to hear if I don't, I say, I'll tell you what, you just tell Him that you're listening. I'd call her every once in a while, I'd say, what's going on between you and listening to God?

What's happening, tell me. She'd say, well, so far I haven't heard anything. I said, that's okay, because I didn't hear it that early in life either, so you just keep listening and He's going to speak to you one day. I said, now the best way to learn how to speak to Him is to ask Him about something that you need for Him to give you an answer for.

It may be something very simple, but you ask Him to give you, that you need some direction at this point. I can tell you. And one day when I called her and she said, Yemps, I think I heard from God. Listen, can you tell me anything any more valuable than learning to listen to God speak to you and give you direction? Think of the assurance that you have. Think of the assurance that a child has early in life when they're able to talk to God and listen to Him. Now, they may come to you and say, well, here's what I think God said.

They may be dead on right and you just congratulate them. Or they may say something that you know God didn't say it. Well, you don't say, mm-mm, God didn't say that. No, you say to them, well, is that what He said? Well, why don't we just get in the Bible now and see if we can find something like that in the Scripture. Well, God's going to show you a verse that helps them realize that God wouldn't contradict Himself.

If I should ask you this morning, and I wouldn't want you to tell anybody, it's nobody else's business. How many of you know how to listen to God? And most of you would probably say, I don't know how to listen to Him.

I can tell you why. Nobody ever said to you and impressed upon your mind that one of the most important things in your life, earlier in life, is learning to listen to God. So, you make wise, right decisions in your life. And so, when kids grow up and they don't know how to listen to God, who's responsible? Well, their parents are responsible. Or if they go to church and the pastor never talks about it, he never explains it or never gives them any information, then he too is responsible.

I'm simply saying, we're responsible for finding out. Finding out how to listen to God. One week, I spent with my grandfather sitting on his screened-in back porch in Silas City, North Carolina, listening to him tell me how he listened to God.

That's the reason I was seventeen, almost eighteen. That's the reason I went to see him. I thought, now I know God's worked in his life in an awesome way, and if God'll work in his life that way, how will He work in my life? I've got to find out how he listened to God. Most valuable week of my life, because he told me four things and directed my whole life. He never knew it, and we didn't sit down and I didn't say to him, I call him Grandpa, Grandpa, please explain to me how you listen to God.

You know what I heard? I heard him tell me how God worked in his life and how he prayed and how God gave him direction and how he'd go back to the Word of God and search it out to see if that was consistent with what God said. And he told me these things had happened in his life. When I walked away, I knew that I'd heard one of the most valuable lessons in life. You owe it to your children to teach them how to listen to God. Thank you for listening to Leaving a Godly Inheritance. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.