A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children

So this morning, we're going to be stepping away from 1 Timothy and the study of deacons to take a week to study the question or the issue of inheritances. Now that might seem like a strange thing. Why are we talking about inheritances? And by the end of it, I trust that it'll make sense to you. An inheritance, if you're unfamiliar or you're wondering just what our working definition will be, an inheritance is something that parents and grandparents leave for their children or grandchildren, right? So the question of inheritance is closely related to wealth. It's related to stewardship. It's also related to sacrifice and delayed gratification. And the goal of our study this morning is that we would learn about the nature of inheritances and what God has to say about them. But the application as we study these things is not only for our individual families. By the end of our time this morning, I hope that we will see how what we're doing as a church is aimed at giving an inheritance to those who will succeed us. Would you please stand now for the reading of God's word from Proverbs chapter 13, verse 22, and we'll be focusing just on the first half of this verse today. It says this, a good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children, and the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated.

Now, when we think of inheritances, if we could go back to the first time you heard the word today, inheritance, if we could take what popped into your head as what an inheritance is, I think that most of us would think of money, that money is an inheritance, a transfer of money from one person to another, usually upon death. Now, we have examples in Scripture of inheritances. In the story of the prodigal son, what you have is an inheritance being given before death, right? The wicked son, the rebellious son says, I know what's mine. I know there's wealth that's to be mine one day. I don't want to wait for it. I want it now. And his father agrees and gives him his inheritance. The prodigal son takes it.

and squanders it, all of it, and then is in poverty and now without the hope of another inheritance. There's not more inheritance for him. And one of the things I want to say to you, just as an aside, is that to take money from your parents or grandparents before it's time or under circumstances that are not in accordance with their will is stealing. Does that make sense? the prodigal son stole from his father. He said, it's mine, but it wasn't his yet. Now, his father allowed it, and it all ended well for the prodigal son in the end, save the inheritance. But what he did was steal. And we have to be very careful when we think of inheritances, and we think of wealth, and we look at what may be coming our way.

That we have a good and proper view of what an inheritance is. If something is to come to us, it's a gift to us. It's not something we've earned. It's not even something we deserve. It's something that's given freely, and it would be wrong for us to steal it. And that might seem like a strange thing to say to you, but if we could all close our eyes and raise our hands and say, have you ever known of this sort of thing happening? Where the wealth of a parent or grandparent is stolen by one of the children. as they're dying. I bet a number of you would raise your hands and say, yeah, we've seen that happen and it was wicked. And so all I'm saying to you is, it's wicked. And we as Christians ought never to do it. An inheritance is a gift that someone gives to us freely. It's not something we earn. We don't have it coming to us. Galatians 4, 1 and 2 gets at this idea of something being promised to us, but not ours yet.

In Galatians 4, 1 and 2, Paul says, Now I say, as long as the heir is a child, meaning the son of the wealthy man, so long as the heir is a child, he does not differ at all from a slave, although he is owner of everything. Now here's the strange thing. What that teaches us is that if you were to look at the circumstances and the responsibilities and the blessings of the child of the owner and his slave, when that child is young, you don't observe a difference. live within the parameters that are given to them. But there's a difference. That son is the owner of all things. That's what the scripture says, but it's not his yet. And he doesn't get to enjoy it yet. He is under obligations, under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. And so the first thing we learn about inheritance is that it's the prerogative of the giver to give them and to give them how they want to give them and to whom they want to give them.

and in what portions or divisions they want to give them. It's theirs. So money is one of the things that we can receive as an inheritance. Another thing would be possessions. And it's often true that when a parent or a grandparent dies, there may be some wealth, some money, and there may also be some possessions. And what generally happens is the possessions are gone through. The family comes and takes the possessions that they want, and the rest of it's sold. It's turned into money. Maybe some of it's thrown away if it's not of value. But historically, possessions are a much more common inheritance than money. It's not historic commonly for people to store up big piles of money that is invested in things like a stock market. Normally, their wealth would be invested in land and commodity or cattle.

some sort of farm or buildings or some sort of business, some means of earning a living. And so it would have been more common historically for a father or a grandfather to give to his children a means of living and earning a wage. They'd give them a house to live in. How many of you know people who were born in a house and lived in that house until they were grandparents' age? We don't have a whole lot of that. You do, Drew. We don't have a whole lot of that in our days. You know what the average time in a house is for people these days? Seven years. Five to seven years and they sell. And we all say, I'm going to buy this house and I'm going to stay and we're going to put down roots. But the statistics are against that panning out. What normally happens is people buy a house and within five to seven years they move again. And then within five to seven years they move again. But that's not how it always used to be. It used to be that the family would own a piece of land and that...

the kids, when they got married, would go onto a part of that land and they would build a house on that family land and they'd live there. And when the grandparents passed away, someone else would move into that house. Someone in the family would move into that house. And that land and those houses and all the things that are on that land belong to the family. And that's more commonly the type of inheritance you would see biblically and Even in our country, if you were to just go back 50 years, or if you were to go out into rural settings, this is still more commonly the case. So we tend to think, being city folk, that inheritances are money. And they can be. And I'm not saying that's wrong or bad or anything like that. I'm just saying, historically, money is not normally what's given. Normally, possessions are given. A form of wealth. Now, what's the difference between getting money and getting the family farm?

Well, money is free and clear. You can do whatever you want with it. What about the family farm? If someone was to give you and say, here's the family farm and all of the cattle that are on it, or here's the family farm and all the equipment to produce a crop, what are they giving you? A lot of work, says Luis, and that is right. And so we sell the family farm and we turn it into money. This is how we think. We think what I want is an inheritance to come to me. without any responsibility attached to it. And that's not as it should be. And I'm not saying you can't sell things that you've received an inheritance and turn it into money. Don't learn the wrong lesson. What I'm saying is if you're doing it to escape responsibility because you go, I just want what I want and I don't want to have to be obligated to anybody, that's a novel and a new way of thinking about inheritances. Think of it this way. If we lived 100 years ago,

And we lived in a small town. We would have a baker who baked the bread, right? Nick, why is your last name Baker? You're a great example. Because at some point back in your family, they were probably bakers, okay? Why is Smith such a common last name? Anyone want to venture a guess? There are all kinds of Smiths. Goldsmiths, blacksmiths, all what? Locksmiths, right? There's all kinds of Smiths, so we've got all kinds of Smiths. Our names used to be associated even with our work and our possessions and our inheritance. So what would happen if the patriarch of the baker family died? What would happen if his children decided we aren't bakers anymore and they sold the baking stuff? What would happen to the community?

they'd be without a baker, right? And so there was an interdependence tied into inheritances historically that we just don't even think of. You had obligation not just to carry on your father or your grandfather or your great-grandfather's line of work. The community was dependent on you carrying on that work. But now we think of inheritances and we say they have to come. free and clear, and I have to be able to do with them whatever I please. They can't come with strings, responsibilities, or work attached to them. And we need to know that that's not normal historically and that there is a danger associated with that. We shouldn't think of inheritances that way. Here's an example of what I was describing about the bakers. How many of you have seen It's a Wonderful Life? Favorite Christmas movie, mine, right? What is the inheritance? Yep, the savings and loan company.

And what does Harry, is that his name? My favorite movie, I don't know his name. George. George. What's he want to do? He doesn't want to be a banker. He wants to travel the world and be an explorer. Then his dad dies. And what's he do? He takes on the family work. He inherits the work. And who is dependent on him doing that work? The whole town was. You remember when he says, I just wish I was never born. And his little guardian angel takes him and shows him what Pottersville would be like if he had never been born, if he had not received his inheritance and been faithful with it. All of that town was dependent on him accepting the inheritance as it came to him and dispensing with it faithfully. And that's the same that's true of us.

When we think of inheritances, we shouldn't be appalled or running away from the obligations that they bring to us. We should expect them. There's another type of inheritance that we leave, and that's an inheritance or a heritage of faith. As Christians, the most important thing we can give to our children and to our children's children, our grandchildren, is the gift of faith. And you say, well, how do I give them the gift of faith? And I say, You'll give them what you care about and what you love. And to the extent that you want them to have faith and a love for God and his word and his people, you'll give that to them as they watch you throughout your whole life. And your kids will observe and see. It's very common when people get pregnant and they're about to have their first child that the husbands often get scared. And they say, oh, I'm going to end up with someone just like me.

And what are they saying except that I don't know that that's entirely good. And that's normal. But what he's processing, if you felt that way, what you're processing is inheritance. What am I going to give to this child? What do I want for him? When I'm dead and when I'm gone, what do I want him or her to be like? Will you give them a gift? Will you give them an inheritance? Will you teach them to love the Lord? That's the question. And as Christians, that ought to be. our top priority. That's the best thing we can give them. In Acts chapter 3, in verses 6 through 8, the apostle Peter says this, when there's a man begging alms who can't walk, and he's begging for money, for mercy from the people of God as they go in to the temple. Peter says, I don't possess silver or gold, but what I do have, I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ, the Nazarene, walk.

And he seized him by the right hand and he raised him up and immediately his feet and his ankles were strengthened. And with a leap, he stood upright and he began to walk. And he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. So what did Peter give that man? What gave him an inheritance. He gave him what he needed. That man didn't come and say, thank you so much. And now about the money. That man understood his need. And before Peter spoke to him, he thought the best I can hope for is gold and silver to supplement my infirmity and my weakness. That's the best I can hope for is some money to buy food and maybe some shelter. And Peter says, I don't have any of that to give you. But what I do have, I do give to you. And he gave him something better. And so our desire as parents and as grandparents ought to be to give them first and foremost what Peter gave that lame man, his faith. And you think, well, how do we know if he gave him faith? And if you were to go on and continue reading in Acts, you'd see that the people, you know, this guy walks into the temple and all the people are like, isn't that the guy who lays on the cot outside? And they're amazed and they stand in awe. And they all give glory to God. Peter gave him the most important thing, top priority, the best thing he could give him. And he gave it to him without any money.

Because he didn't have any. And so when we think of inheritances, I don't want us to get caught up in the idea that what's really, really important is that we give money or that we give possessions, that we work and slave as hard as we can to give them those things. Because those things, you could work your whole life to do that. And you could lose it. We can't put our hope and our trust in riches because they're fleeting. That's what Scripture tells us. And so if we're going to look at inheritance and we're going to consider our children and our grandchildren, we need to look at them and say, it may be that I can give them wealth. It may be that I can give them money. And God bless you if you can. But if you can't, you can still give them the most important thing. And if you want to be, as this proverb describes, a good man, then you'll give him that inheritance without money, without cost.

By the way you live your life each and every day and what you teach them to love. Okay? So I want to move on now from the objects of inheritance, money or possessions or faith. I want to take some time now to talk about who provides an inheritance and what they have to do to be able to give one. This scripture tells us that a good man leaves an inheritance. Well, what else does that mean? Well, it means there's such a thing as a not good man or a bad man. And he doesn't leave an inheritance for his children or his grandchildren. And if we only understand inheritances in terms of wealth, you can get really discouraged about saying, well, I don't have anything to give. And I say, you have something to give. So if you want to be a good man who leaves an inheritance to your child, forget about money for a minute. Forget about it. If you have it and you can give it, that's wonderful and that's fine. But you have something to give. And so this good man,

ought to be the sort of good man we aim to be. And most parents, remember I described parents being worried about or concerned about, what am I going to give to my child? What am I going to be able to leave behind for them when I'm gone? That's the question of a good man. That's not the question of a bad man. That's the question of a good man who says, this child, I have obligation to this child and I want to bless this child. What do I need to do to be able to do that? This man's desire is to which is a word we don't use anymore, but simply means to hand over or to pass along, to leave behind something to his children's children. Now, the first thing we learn about him is he has children. And I want you to know in our society that there is an inverse correlation between the love of money and having children. The more you love money, the less children you'll have. Okay? And I realize that could be kind of like, ah, to say, but it's true. You'll get a dog, you'll get a cat, you'll get some kind of critter.

But children, they are seen as a threat to wealth. And so those who love money and who don't love God, as a result, you could generally look around and go, they don't have kids, or not many of them. But this man has children, and he has concern to have them, and he has concern that they would have children. And so he pursues it. Not only does he want to gather up something to give to someone, he wants to add to that the work of creating, raising, loving, and discipling the people he wants to give to. What good is wealth if you have no one to bless with it? Job says, naked I came into this world, and naked I'm going to leave. A man whose wealth went up and then went down, and in the end, by God's kindness, went up more than it was before. But at the very beginning of all of that turmoil, Job says, what? Shall we accept good from the hand of Lord and not adversity? Naked I've come into this world and naked I'll leave. Job had a concern for his children. Job was the kind of man who would offer sacrifices for them in case they sinned in some way that he and they were unaware of. He loved his kids. He had kids.

and he loved them, and he was concerned that they would love God and that they would have peace with God. He wanted to give an inheritance to his children and not just his wealth. And so when you think of an inheritance, I think we could go so far as to say in our society, many people work very hard to give themselves an inheritance. They work very hard to store up and to save so that they can spend it later. And it's selfish. In the end, That's just selfish. Because God didn't put any one of us on this world to serve our own self, but to serve others. Remember Jesus' words, it's more blessed to give than to receive. And that includes to yourself. It's more blessed for us to go without than others might have. And that's especially true of our children and our children's children. And so this good man doesn't want to hoard his wealth. He's not storing it up for himself.

He's storing it up for his children and his children's children. He wants to bless other people, and he wants to labor to that end. He's generous. And not just once he gets all the wealth, along the way. So then you have to ask, well, where does a good man get his inheritance? Where does he get his wealth? Well, some of you may listen to Dave Ramsey, and this is a question he often asks people when he has a millionaire call in. And we all think, I want to be a millionaire. And we all have these crazy ideas about how you become a millionaire. You think, I become a millionaire by winning the lottery. I become a millionaire by somebody else giving me a bunch of money. And the overwhelming answer, one of the questions Dave Ramsey will regularly ask is he'll say, how did you become a millionaire? And they'll say, I worked for it. And he'll say, how much of your wealth was given to you? And the vast majority of them say, what? Nothing.

no money was given to me or maybe they say a hundred thousand dollars but they're worth three million dollars and it's like so did that hundred thousand dollars turn into three million without you doing anything no so how does a good man acquire an inheritance well just a few verses before this in proverbs 13 11 we read that wealth obtained by fraud dwindles but the one who gathers by labor increases it and so we learn about good men who acquire wealth for an inheritance we learn how they do it and it's very simple and it's not uh exciting in the way that we would hope it would be the answer is he works for it he labors for it that's what he does now that's true of monetary wealth or possessions that's also true of of a spiritual heritage how do you get something how do you get your kids to Love God and to prioritize his word and his will in their life over everything else. It's very simple. It's hard, but it's very simple. You pursue holiness every day of your life. And you show them that and you tell them why you're doing what you're doing and you explain to them. And they go, oh, dad works at serving God. Mom really wants to love Jesus. That's why she does all this stuff.

They go, oh, that must be important. Because look at the things that they give up to provide a spiritual inheritance. And so the good man gathers his inheritance over time by working for it, both spiritual and physical. There's no other way to gather an inheritance than to seek God's blessing and working hard for it. You might think, well, If I have to work for it, then how is that God giving to me? If I just go out and work with my own two hands and make good, prudent financial decisions, how is God at work in that? And I say, if you don't know, I can't tell you. If you take for granted your ability to get up and to go work hard and to have a job and to succeed in it and to be wise with your money, if you take all that for granted and think that came from what's between your two ears, then you're a fool. Because that's the kindness of God to you.

That he gave you an intellect and a body to earn an inheritance with. That he gave you his word and his church to build up a spiritual inheritance with. If you take all that for granted and think, well, that's just a perpetual motion machine that just takes off and does it all by itself, then you don't understand how the world that God made actually works. Because there's nothing good that comes into our lives that we have, that we work hard for, that God hasn't given to us. And that's as true of our inheritance, physical and financial, as it is of your next breath that you draw. This is the God that we serve. And this is how good he is to us. Now to this point in the sermon, we've talked about inheritances, what they are, what they can be. We've talked about what kind of man it is that gathers an inheritance. And we've talked about what he has to do to gather that inheritance. And now what I want to do is change gears.

And I want to remove, you remember how earlier I said in It's a Wonderful Life, there was an obligation not just to the family, but to the community with regard to inheritances? I want to shift now from our families and our thinking about ourselves and our own children and our own grandchildren, and I want to shift to thinking about the church. Because this scripture could be just as easily applied to a church. You could replace the word man with church. A good church leaves an inheritance. to her disciples' disciples, to her children's children. And everything works the same way. So there are two basic types of inheritance that we've been talking about. One of them is spiritual. One of them is financial. And they're actually related, and I'm going to tease that out for you as we continue on. The first thing I want to talk about is a spiritual inheritance. What does that look like in a church setting?

How does a church give to her children's children a spiritual heritage? Well, by being committed to the Word of God and teaching and preaching it faithfully. That's how they do it. And if a church doesn't do that, they are sacrificing the heritage and the blessing and instead giving a curse to their children and to the people who come after them. And so we as a church, And the leaders of our church especially have on our hearts a desire to give to those who come after us a spiritual blessing. And we've worked and we've labored to our ability and the Lord's provision to this point, to that end. We want to give to you and to your children and to your grandchildren and to our neighbors who aren't here yet and don't know Jesus. We want to give them a heritage, a spiritual heritage. And so our commitments are to the Word of God.

And you think, well, what about the places where it's unpopular, what the Word of God says? I say, well, this is the choice we have. We have a choice to give a blessing, which comes with responsibilities and costs and danger to our children, or we can give them a curse. What we want to give them is a blessing. I'll give you one example of how this is currently at work in our day, all right? The sorts of pressures that you feel. A common question that gets asked when people come to church relates to translations of Bibles. What sort of Bibles do you guys use? We'll read scripture and they'll say, that's not what my Bible says. They've got a different translation. And so people often ask, well, what kind of Bible should, why do you guys use the NASB, the New American Standard Bible? Why do you use that? Because sometimes it's kind of clunky to read. I know that. I'm not making any excuse for it. It is clunky to read.

Why do we use it then? Why don't we use the ESV or why don't we use the NIV or why don't we use the New King James or something like that? There are other translations. Why don't we use them? Well, because in Bible translation, we understand that God didn't write down the scriptures in English, right? Generally speaking, Old Testament in Hebrew, New Testament in Greek. Some Aramaic thrown in there. How many of you speak Greek or Hebrew? Tim, kind of. Might recognize a word or two. So what we realize is that everything we read in Scripture, every word of it, somebody has come before to the original autographs, to the Greek and to the Hebrew, and they've said, what's that mean in English? What is the closest way we can communicate this content into another language?

Now, there are different ordering principles or ways of doing this. One would be to say, I'm going to translate word for word. Now, I'm going to ask Luis a question to show you what I'm getting at. Luis, in Spanish, say, big, ugly, red hat. Just slowly and loudly so everyone can hear it. Big, ugly, red hat. Say it in Spanish. How would you say it in Spanish? If you were to say, your hat is... How would you say it in Spanish in a sentence? Not just those words. How would you use it in a sentence? Huh? Your hat. Yeah. I know you did. I know enough Spanish. Thank you. Now, we're all going to find out what you actually said. In the same order, what did you say? It has an ugly hat. That's close enough. I didn't say anything about fat, but who's denying it, you know? The risks you run when you...

Ask Luis to talk. You didn't do what I thought you were going to do. In Spanish, don't the nouns normally come before the adjectives? No. What's that, Di? Adjectives come after, but that's not what he did. Well, it didn't work, and Luis insulted me in the process. There's no hat in my hat, right? My point in all of that failed experiment was to say my understanding of Spanish was normally you would give the object first, the hat, and then you would describe the hat. as being ugly red and whatever else. Where's your wife? She's the one who learned. Maybe she would. Okay, forget the example. We'll forget the insult and we'll move on and we'll just make the point, okay? In other languages, there's work to be done to communicate the same thing. And if we were to take the way we organize our sentences and translate it into another language, There would be problems like our words would be out of order. We would use idioms. There's all kinds of translation things that go on. And the translator's work is to decide, how am I going to communicate what was said in the original language into English? And so he has to take some liberty. Now, he could do a literal word-for-word translation.

I gave this example to my sons earlier this week when I was talking to them. I said, I want you to tell me what this means. Son, it's cold outside. So I want you to go put on your coat, your hat, and your gloves. Okay? Now that makes sense. That's a fine sentence, right? You all understand what I'm saying. Right? But what am I really saying? What am I telling him? Yes. I'm telling him I want him to go outside. When I say to him, it's cold. Put on your coat, your gloves, and your hat. There's an implicit because I want you to go outside. Okay? But I never said go outside, right? I didn't actually say it. But he understood it. He translated. But what he translated was not word for word. What he translated were my intentions or my thoughts.

He made a judgment, right? Is it possible, which does he have a better chance of being exactly right about? If he takes my words at face value and stops when they're over, or if he takes my words and he tries to figure out what I meant by them, where is he more likely to make a mistake? He's more likely to make a mistake with the second one, because what if his judgment is wrong? We have these same principles at work in Bible translation. And the NASB says, their ordering principle of translation is to say, we're going to take word for word, and we're going to communicate that. And that's why the NASB reads very clunky to us. Because the translators have not taken what's written and said, we're going to make this more palatable to the way English works. So we end up with these really long, run-on sentences. For instance, if you were to look at the NIV, Who is the NIV? Not the TNIV or the NIV 2011, but the older NIV. What reading level is it written to? Do you know? I wouldn't expect you to know. I think it's 8th grade. 6th to 8th grade. It's written. The translator said, we're going to take the Word of God and we're going to translate it to the comprehension level of an 8th grader. And so what are they going to have to do to the Scripture?

Well, they're going to have to simplify it, right? I just want to tell you, you don't want translators taking those liberties. Okay? You don't want them taking those liberties. And the reason is because they're going to take their commitments or the pressures that they feel from society, and they're going to put those into their translation work. Okay? Now, I brought all of this up to say something. We use the NASB at our church. And if you're familiar with the NASB, you know it's gone through different phases, revisions. Revisions is the word. So the original was in 1973, okay? And they used certain language that they retained in there, these and thous and some archaisms that we don't use anymore. So they revised it in 1995. What I read out of is the NASB 1995, okay?

Just so you know, because you might be like, I went and got an ASB and it's still not the same. It says these and thous. You got the different revision, okay? They went through and updated the these and thous because is the first person or second person? Is it plural or singular? I bet not half of you know. I'd have to think about it to be able to tell you because we don't speak that way. And so they went through and said, the people of God are going to have a... a reduced capacity to understand what the word says because they don't use these words anymore. So they went through and they revised it to you, you, and you all, and I, and they, words we use, okay? There's another translation, a revision of the NASB coming out in 2020, this year. Do you know what they're changing? He, him, her. And you're like, well, why in the world, why would they do that? That's a strange thing.

They're doing it because of the pressures that they feel in our society. Okay? So I just want you to know, whenever you read the phrase in your Bibles, and the ESV does a similar thing, whenever you read brothers and sisters, I want you to know that's not what the Greek word says. It's not. Okay? It's not. What is the Greek word? The Greek word is adelphoi. What does it mean? It means brother. And if it's plural, it means brothers. Okay? Now, can we refer to a group of men and women as brothers? Yes, you can. What is that piece of grammar? It's called a male inclusive, okay? It's a male word, but it includes women. The most common one that we use in our language is guys. You can have a whole group of girls and one of them leave and say, I'll see you guys later, but none of them are guys. And yet, it's appropriate for them to say that. It's not wrong. But there's pressure in our day to...

move away from the differences between male and women and how they relate. And so the Bible translators are feeling this. And so lo and behold, they're coming out with a new revision that's better at accommodating our society's priorities. And that's not good for us. Right? Okay. This is a long, long rabbit trail. Why am I... But there's a reason that you have to understand this. So it's kind of a current event solution. Listen, don't go buy an NASB 2020. Work hard to find a 95, okay? It's going to become increasingly harder to. If you can afford to go buy a box of 100 NASB 95s, do it. Be good. Give them away, okay? Now, why do I bring all of this up? Well, I bring it up because a church has a responsibility to bequeath to her people, her children and her children's children, a spiritual heritage.

And that means that we have to be aware of what's going on in society, even with Bible translations, so that we're careful to guard the good deposit because that's what Scripture tells us we have to do. Or we will sacrifice your and your children's inheritances. Okay? So we have a commitment to the Word of God, to what it actually says and what it actually means, not what our society wants it to mean. Okay? A good man, a good church, leaves an inheritance to our children's children. And that requires faithful teaching and commitment to the Word of God, even at the points where it sticks and cuts across the grain of our society. And we're told in Scripture that these pressures are going to present themselves against the church. In 2 Timothy 2.2, Paul says to Timothy, The things you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. What is he doing? Well, generally speaking, that's succession planning.

He's saying, I want you to find men who have the same commitments that you have seen me have, and I want you to give to them what I've given to you. Why? So that the people of God are protected for generations and they know the truth. That's the kind of man you need. Because there will be no inheritance for the people of God. There will be a curse for the people of God if you don't give this to them. So find faithful men who will not only believe it, but be able to communicate faithfully to the next generation of men. Give them a spiritual inheritance.

And that's not easy work. In Acts 20, Paul says this in verses 29 to 35. He says, I know that after he's talking to the Ephesian elders, he's come to Ephesus. He says, I'm going on to Rome and I don't know what's going to happen to me other than I'm never going to see you again. And so this is his farewell address to them and instruction as he goes away saying, I'm never going to see you again. He says, this is what you're going to deal with. I know that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Translated to our context, I worked hard to pass along this spiritual inheritance, and you're going to have to fight to be able to do it and to carry on this work. He says, I've coveted no one's silver or gold or clothes. Now isn't it interesting that he talks about wealth? And he says, I did all this work and in the process I made sure I didn't fall in love with money. Because there's a real danger between falling in love with money, you remember, and giving to children. I've not coveted anyone's silver or gold or clothes. You yourselves know that these hands...

minister to my own needs and to the men who are with me in everything. I showed you that by working hard in this manner, you must help the weak and remember the words of our Lord Jesus that he himself said, it is more blessed to give than to receive. And so Paul worked hard. He told Timothy, you need to find faithful men to carry on this good deposit, to protect it and to proclaim it. And he tells the Ephesian elders, you're going to face trouble. And I commend you to God and to the spirit of his grace who's able to make you stand. And to protect the good deposit, the inheritance for the people. Now, here's the question. In the normal life of a church, what is one thing that's the most difficult for churches to process through? Don't think too hard about it. It's money. Money is the hard thing that churches have to deal with. Now, does it surprise you that Satan would use that to take away and attack the good deposit? Of course he does.

This is how he works. And so Paul warns against that. He warns Timothy in 2 Timothy 4, he says this, for the time will come when they, meaning the people, will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they'll accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires. And they'll turn away from their ears from the truth. And they'll turn aside to myths. Now I want to ask you, how does a group of people accumulate teachers according to their own desires? Again, don't think too hard about it. Money. Okay? Money. You know the pressure that churches face? If you say that again, if you tell me I'm a sinner, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to stop giving. Well, I guess I can't say that anymore. Wrong answer. Wrong answer. And yet this is the way Satan works among the people of God to tear down and to deteriorate the spiritual inheritance that the church is supposed to take hold of and pass on to the generations to come after her.

It uses money. It's a very real struggle that churches all face. The church has to decide, do we pursue money or do we pursue holiness? If they come into conflict, what's our priority? And every church has to answer that in her own way. And some give good answers and some give bad answers. And the fruit in time will be manifest. So how ought a church protect herself against that sort of danger and that sort of temptation? Well, it's the same way you'd protect your family against that sort of danger and that sort of temptation. How do you protect your family against the loss of a job? You were financially prudent, right? How do you guard against not being able to work in old age and yet still needing money to live? You save up some money for retirement, right? Financial prudence. And so if that's true in our families, it's also true in the church. That one of the ways the church can...

shore herself up and guard herself against the temptation to turn aside from the word for the sake of money is to be financially prudent. To make sure that she's not so dependent on money that she has to decide whether she's going to say that thing because she has to think about how much money it's going to cost them. Proverbs 10.15 says, the rich man's wealth is his fortress and the ruin of the poor is their poverty. And if we were to take that and apply it to churches, what you'd say is that churches that have some and money are in a better place to stand against the temptations and the assaults that come against her because they're not questioning whether or not they're going to be able to exist if a danger comes to their door. Now I want to end with three things. And I know I'm over time. Please bear with me. I want to take time to explain three reasons why I'm preaching about this because we're talking about inheritances and it's like, why are we talking about inheritances?

And now why are we applying it to the church? Well, the first reason is, for those of you who've been around for a while, you know that in our church we've talked about wanting to build a church for our children's children. Wanting to have a place where my kids and your kids become the pastors and the elders and the deacons. The ones who are in diapers yet and the ones who aren't born yet. We want to prepare a place for them. And so all the decisions that we've made as a church, have taken this long-term view into account. We haven't said, well, we've only got five years left and we don't have to have any money at the end of five years, so let's spend it all. What we've said is we want something that as we're celebrating our 10-year anniversary, that in time they'll celebrate their 100-year anniversary and that we will have given to them, because I won't be here then, something good, spiritual and financial. And so if we were to compare this to, say, the current national debt,

which instead of giving a blessing to our children and their children, we're giving them a curse, we in this church have said we don't want to do that to our kids. We want to protect them and provide for them as much as we're able against those hardships that they'll face. How have we done that? Well, every year since we've started, we've developed and maintained a budget that's been public for everyone to see. Anyone can come see it. You don't have to be a member to come to the budget meeting and look at the budget. If you're curious how the church spends their money, you can come to the meeting. If it's the middle of the year and you're like, how's the church doing with spending her money? You can ask and we'll tell you. We want you to see. We want everyone to know here what we spend our money on. Because what we spend our money on is a communication of our vision long term and our goals and our priorities. And so we want everyone to get a piece of that and to see it, not have it hidden. We've worked to save. And over the course of

10 years before we bought this building, we'd saved a significant amount of money for a 10-year-old church that now is about 80 people. It wasn't that big five years ago. And we've saved a significant amount of money that put us in a position to be able to buy this building. We've also kept a close eye on expenses. In short, we've done everything in the church budget that you do in your home budget if you have an inheritance in mind. Okay? That's what we've done. Even going so far as back in September, we amended our budget because we saw that the things we wanted, weren't going to be realized if we continued on with that budget. So we made changes, right? And so at every point, we've had to count the cost of our choices. We've had to make sacrifices to work toward the goal of giving inheritance to our children and their children after them. And we've had to delay our comforts and our hope in hope of a future blessing that we may never see, but that our children and their children after them will see.

This has been what's close to our heart as a church. And if you've been here a while, you've seen more of that. And if you're new, I can tell you this has been who we are. And it's what we'll continue to be. Now here's the thing about life. When you work hard at stuff, and you're faithful and you trust God, you end up with more opportunities. And you often end up with those opportunities having further responsibilities and costs and sacrifices. attached to the blessings that come with those opportunities. And in general, I want you to know, that's the position we're in right now. We have a very good opportunity in front of us that would move us a long way down the road toward being able to provide for our children and our children's children. But it comes with a significant cost to us right now. And I'm not ready to tell you what that is yet. I don't know exactly what it is yet. But I can tell you that if you want,

To be a good man who leaves an inheritance to your children's children. In the next two weeks, what you ought to be doing is praying hard and fasting and seeking the Lord's will for what sort of sacrifices you can make to provide for your children and your children's children. Okay? That's the work that we have in front of us right now. And a week ago, four days ago, I didn't know it existed. Okay? And isn't that how God works in our lives? Here we are. bumping along, struggling along, working, thinking, when's it ever going to change and how's it ever going to be different? And then all of a sudden, everything's different now. And you go, oh, I never would have thought that. What am I going to do? That's where we're at. I was more frantic a day or two ago than I am now. I'm more excited and encouraged about it now because I've had the most time to figure out what the sacrifice looks like for us and how we could do it. And so I want you to pray.

And I want you to think about the sacrifices you can make. And the one thing I'll tell you about sacrifice that you can make is that a sacrifice is a free gift. It's a free gift. It doesn't come with strings, and it's not something that makes you upset. So as you think and as you pray, and as we learn more of what this is, I want you to think, what I'm supposed to be praying for is the ability to look into my life, financially, and see if there's some money that I can sacrifice. And by sacrifice, I mean do without. And by do without, I mean give with a cheerful heart and not be upset that I don't have it anymore. And that's going to have to take into account your financial position. Some of us don't have money to give. Some of us have money to give. And to the one who doesn't have money to give, I'd say look to the widow who gave a mite.

And it was more than everyone else give. And don't despise where God has you and what you're able to do. Because there's no shame in being where God has you. There's none at all. But to those of you whom God has blessed that way, financially, look and say, this is all yours. You've given to me. Out of your kind mercy, I don't deserve this. What would you have me do with it? How do I negotiate the responsibilities that I have to my wife or my husband or to my children or to our retirement or our paying off a house or buying a house or whatever it is that we all have in our minds? What would you have me do? What can I do to give to the community? That's the question that's before us. That's what we need to be praying about.

and seeking the Lord's will. I'll just end by saying I'm very excited about what's in front of us. So come to the financial meeting and you'll find out more about it in two weeks, okay? Let's pray. Amen.