What Will You Pass On to Others?, Part 2

For most people, living a legacy is a lofty ambition.

After all, we're far too busy with the here and now, solving complicated problems that dog us every day. But the Bible describes a higher calling for those who love God. Today on Insight for Living, we have the privilege of hearing a message that Chuck Swindoll presented to a receptive audience of seminary students preparing for full-time Christian service. In his address, Chuck challenged these seminarians to live each day with the end in mind. He titled his message, What Will You Pass on to Others? Thanks to the Apostle Paul's careful work in Romans, we find a veritable checklist of the qualities that are worth passing on from one life to another in the latter half of Romans chapter 12.

I'm looking at 9 through 16, actually. I want you to listen for characteristics in a life worth living. Paul writes in verse 9 from the New Living Translation, don't just pretend to love others, really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. Love each other with genuine affection. Take delight in honoring each other. Never be lazy but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically.

Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble and keep on praying. When God's people are in need, be ready to help.

Always be eager to practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you. Don't curse them.

Pray that God will bless them. Be happy with those who are happy and weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with each other.

Don't be too proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people and don't think you know it all. Not surprisingly, love takes center stage right away as it should for it is the pervasive trait that colors all others. So Paul highlights love and not only lands there but stays there for a little longer than with any of the other characteristics. Let me say a couple of things about love. The best definition I've come across is that love is seeking the highest good of the other person.

When it is lived out, it wears these various garments. The first is it is un-hypocritical. So love is to be sincere.

Second, it is to be discerning. That's the other side of the same coin of love. Love is not blind sentiment. It has backbone.

It doesn't check its brains at the door when it walks into the room of good and evil. Love clings to truth. Verse 10 refers to devoted affection. Paul draws upon terms that are usually reserved for the family. Familial affection, warmth, and depth.

And second, he mentions in verse 10 to honor one another. One of my favorite concepts. It works its way out in listening when they speak, caring about how they feel, paying attention to their opinions, and showing gratitude for their lives and saying so. So important that we be demonstrative in these qualities. Third is one of my favorites, enthusiasm, passion. This is long-lasting optimism, true zeal about the work of the ministry.

You live your life on tiptoe when you live it with zeal and enthusiasm. Then he mentions patience and the importance of enduring hard times and being steadfast in prayer, something that is so easily, easily forgotten in our lives. He came across an interesting story regarding prayer.

A group of young college students went to hear Charles Haddon Spurgeon preach. They had never been to the Tabernacle in London, and therefore they had never seen him in person. They were waiting out in the cold while the doors were still locked, waiting for them to open while they were there, and older gentlemen walked up and asked if they would like to come and see the heating plant of the church. They thought, well, they weren't interested too much in the heating plant, but it might be a place to get warm, and they didn't want to offend the old man, so they said sure. So they walked behind him as they went down a stairway and came to a door that he opened slowly, and they looked inside, and there were 700 people on their knees. And he whispered, here's the heating plant of the church, and they realized that above them was a sanctuary that would soon be filled with God's blessing, but the heating plant was down below.

When it was all over, the older gentleman introduced himself to them. It was Spurgeon himself, who wanted them to know the value of prayer as it relates to the ministry of the word. And I would emphasize the same to all of you. If you have a body of people who hold you up in prayer, you're a rich individual. Billy Graham used to talk about the one who would get the greater reward, himself or the lady who prayed for him throughout his ministry back home, and he was quick to say the greater reward will go to her. Encourage great commitment to prayer in your ministry.

It will outlive you, and it will not be forgotten by others. Fifth, he mentions generosity in verse 13. We tend immediately to think of being generous with money, but there are other kinds of generosity. Generosity of our time, generosity of interest and attention.

When you talk to others, be sure you look at them rather than around them. Hospitality of encouragement. These are all what we call random acts of kindness that mean so much to others. And then he mentions hospitality. You know what the Greek term for hospitality means?

It really is. It really comes from the words love of strangers. Reaching out to those you've not known before. Make a habit of that in your life and in your ministry. We're not simply to be hospitable.

This word here is pursue hospitality. Take time for those whom you've not known before and reach out to them. And then of course would be empathy. That would be both sympathy for those who are sad and the ability to rejoice with those who rejoice.

We're better at the former than we are at the latter. When we see someone broken in grief, our hearts quickly are moved over that. But when another is promoted, how rarely we rejoice over their promotion. How good it is that you cultivate the habit of writing a note of congratulations to those who've achieved something of a particular benefit or celebrative note in their life that's so valuable that you rejoice with those who rejoice. There's an old Swedish proverb that used to hang in a little frame in our kitchen at home that my mother would often read, shared sorrow is a double, shared joy is a double joy, shared sorrow is half a sorrow. The blessing in it is in the sharing of it. As a minister of the gospel, be one who shares in this in the lives of others. As they rejoice, rejoice with them. As they grieve, take time to grieve with them.

How valuable that is in ministry. It's all back to love, isn't it? Love sings when those around us are singing. Love mourns when those around us are weeping. Love laughs when those around us are cheery and filled with joy. Love stays awake when those around us cannot sleep. All of this sets the stage for the seventh and final expression of true love that's worth passing on. This is one of the fairest flowers that ever grew, humility.

He mentions it in verse 16. He speaks here against our being snobbish, proud of our status, proud of our training, of our degrees, of our birth, of our giftedness, proud of our accomplishments. The remedy is to remember how everything got started in your life. Remember where you were when you just began life. Years ago, my daughter and I were traveling from Southern California, younger daughter and I. We were going to Houston and it was a long trip.

We loved it being together. We'd stopped in a place for the night when we got nearer Houston and she was looking at the map. That's where we would be traveling tomorrow as we got to Houston and she said, oh, Daddy, look here.

We're going to be on a road that's not that far from El Campo, which is the great white way of my birth. Of course, you've never heard of it and most people on the planet have never heard of it, but she had heard me talk about that little town of El Campo where I was born. She said, I'd love to go there. I said, sure, we can pull off and take that side road and visit there.

I'd not been there since forever. So we drove in the town and a little nostalgic seeing some of the sights as you go through when you go to the place where you were born and spent your earliest years. She said, do you know the house? I've heard you talk about it where you were born. My dad used to say that all three of the kids were birthed in the same bed where they were conceived.

My mother never liked it that he told that to everybody he met, but he was proud of it. She said, you can you think we can find that place? I said, well, it's a little garage apartment. Maybe we can find granddaddy's place and then I'll take a right and another right and I think that'll be. So I did that and there it was. Tiny.

In fact, it's leaning a little bit toward the north as a result of the the ocean breeze or the or the bay breeze that blows across El Campo, not far from Palacios. And she said, turn the turn the motor off, turn the engine off. So I did. We sat and looked at it. She put her hand over on mine.

I'll never forget this. She said, gosh, like is that it? I go, yeah, isn't that impressive?

Look at that. Then all of a sudden, she began to cry. She said, I think it's wonderful.

I think it's great. She said that I can see where it all got started. I remembered a statement one of the prophets made that we should remember the hole from which we were dug. I sat in the car and I looked at this little place. I remember we had a cow out back. My mom and dad took turns milking it so we would have food and a little four room garage apartment. Older brother, older sister and I all born and for the first few years of our lives reared there.

Who would ever know who would ever care? It was good for me to see it and to put myself back in that place and remember. I suggest you do that sometime in your own life. Clarence Thomas did that. I remember reading his memoirs several years ago. You remember Clarence Thomas, Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America. He tells the whole story in his book, My Grandfather's Son, which he became because his grandfather raised him. I want you to hear his roots. I'm descended from the West African slaves who lived on the barrier islands in Georgia.

My people were called Geechee's. Mother was born out of wedlock. Her mother died in childbirth and she saw little of her father who was a slave.

And she was just a child. I was delivered by Lula Kemp, my midwife who came from the nearby community of Sandfly. He, by the way, was born in Pinpoint. He says in the book, neither is on the map. It's too small.

Pinpoint and Sandfly. Our lives were a daily struggle for the barest of essentials, food, clothing and shelter. The place in which I was born was a shanty. Kerosene lamps lit the house. Water came from a nearby faucet that stuck out of the ground and we carried it through the woods in old lard buckets.

They were small enough for us to fill up and tote home where we poured the contents into the wash tub or larger kitchen buckets out of which we drank with a dipper. In the wintertime, we plugged up the cracks and the holes in the walls with old newspapers. That was the late 1940s in Pinpoint, Georgia.

Fast forward to the fall of 1991. Following his being sworn in, he writes, I walked into the awe-inspiring great hall of the court and through the imposing doorway, glancing at the huge brass doors. We then walked slowly down the gleaming white marble steps lit by the brightness of a beautiful sunny morning. I thought back to another sunny day when my brother and I had walked for miles through the woods to a house where we would live with our grandparents.

All of our belongings were stuffed into a pair of grocery bags. Every time I look at the nine justices, I always spot Justice Thomas and remember the hole from which he was dug. No wonder he still has a heart for the ordinary person. Never lose that heart, men and women. I don't care what title you're given. I don't care what degrees you earn.

I don't care what amount of money you may make. Your humility is worth passing on and it starts with remembering how life began for you, whether it's El Campo or Sandfly or Pinpoint or wherever. The man understands both extremes, doesn't he? What a list.

Devoted affection, honor and respect, enthusiasm, passion, patience, generosity, empathy, sympathy, humility and love. I think I'm probably looking into the faces of some whose love has been burned. I regret that for you because it probably has caused you to restrain yourself lest you be burned again.

Want to caution you about that. People don't show love either because they're proud or because they're afraid of the risk. I hope as the minister of the gospel, you will leave both aside and let your love flow. Don't forget to write the words, I love you, to others outside your family.

Use the pronoun and when you're with them, don't be afraid to say it. Your love will last long after your face is forgotten. Your love will linger forever in another's life, but it's a risk.

C.S. Lewis writes in the Four Loves, to love it all is to be vulnerable, love anything and your heart will certainly be wrong and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully all around with hobbies and little luxuries. Avoid all entanglements.

Lock it up safe in the casket of your selfishness and in that casket, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken. It will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

The only place outside heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers of love is hell. What are you passing on to others, those who will outlive you? Give it thought because as Stephen King has written, all that lasts is what you pass on.

All that lasts is what you pass on. I understand. I know your life is busy. I know there are deadlines. I know there are demands.

I know there are exams. I understand. I know it like the back of my hand. But in all of your getting, all of your learning, pay attention to some qualities that will be seen in you over and above the sermons you preach, the counsel you give, the books you write, give attention to these qualities. That's what they'll remember when you're gone. Bow with me, please. Thank you, Father, for this brief journey through this splendid passage of Scripture. Thank you for leading Paul to write it and putting it in our language so we can grasp it. Thank you for the reminders today and the value of them. May we not soon forget them. May they be demonstrated first at home with those who know us best, at school where we are in training with others, learning and growing together, and ultimately in places where we will minister in the years to come. These are our way of saying, just be glorified, innocent through us, in our lives, be magnified. I pray in the name of our model, our Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Everyone sit. Amen. Speaking to an audience of seminary students preparing for ministry, Chuck Swindoll posed a question that relates to all of us. What will you pass on to others? This is Insight for Living, and today's program has featured message number five in a brand new six-part miniseries called The Pros and Cons of Ministry. To learn more about this ministry, visit us online at insight.org. We often hear from pastors and church leaders who've come to rely on Insight for Living as their daily source of spiritual nourishment.

It makes us smile, and the reason is simple. When we encourage a pastor, we're actually helping a congregation as well. Along those lines, bear in mind that your gift to Insight for Living, large or small, will help advance the cause of the church. Did you know, for instance, that a portion of your donation helps us send field pastors around the world to help build God's church in places like Brazil, Romania, and Poland? In fact, if you received the recent Insights publication, you saw the pictures and read the encouraging report of the ways that God is using your investment to impact the church in Poland.

To give a donation right now, go online to insight.org. By the way, if you're looking for a helpful book on today's topic, let me point you to Chuck's biography on the apostle Paul. It's called Paul, a Man of Grace and Grit. In order to truly understand the book of Romans, it's helpful to know the man that God used to write the letter. Chuck explains, in a manner that's refreshing and easy to grasp, the story of the radical conversion of this one-time Christian hater. Paul became a revolutionary leader in our faith, and we continue to experience his profound legacy to this very day. To purchase a copy of Chuck Swindoll's Paul, a Man of Grace and Grit, call us. If you're listening in the United States, call 800-772-8888, or go online to insight.org slash store. I'm Bill Meyer. Join us again next time when Chuck Swindoll continues to describe the pros and cons of ministry, right here on Insight for Living. The preceding message, What Will You Pass on to Others?, was copyrighted in 2022 and 2023, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2023 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.