06 August, 2022 By Gary Yagel

May I ask, “How much thought have you given to your fathering legacy?” If you are like I was, when first asked this question, your answer is probably “Not very much.” No matter what stage of life we are in, we are probably too busy doing what we need to get done this week to think much about something as nebulous and far away as my fathering legacy. Yet, whether you are on the front end of adulthood or adding great grandchildren to your tribe, it is worth considering how we can make the most strategic investment of ourselves to build a godly heritage because, God, himself, underscores the importance of the spiritual heritage we are to pass on. This episode examines the importance of building a godly fathering legacy and identifies a few practical suggestions about HOW to do it.

Several years ago I was sitting in a Great Dads seminar when the speaker read from Exodus 20: I the Lord  your God visit the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but show steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments (Ex 20:5-6). He remarked, “A father can send the darkness of sin down through the next four generations or send the light of God down to his descendants.” He then pointed to 2 historic examples of these two contrasting choices. In 1874 a man named Richard L. Dugdale was employed by the New York Prison Commission to visit the state prisons. As he visited, he was surprised to find criminals in six different prisons that were all descended from the same family. This led Mr. Dugdale to an exhaustive study of 1200 people who were the progeny of a man to whom he gave the fictitious name, Max Jukes. Dugdale compiled this list of Max Juke’s descendants.

  • 310 of the 1,200 were professional paupers begging others for handouts instead of earning their living—more than one in four.
  • 300 of the 1,200—one in four—died in infancy from lack of protective care and healthy conditions.
  • 50 women lived lives of notorious debauchery.
  • 7 were murderers.
  • 60 were habitual thieves who spent on the average twelve years each in lawlessness.
  • 130 were criminals who were convicted in some way of crime.

A generation later a researcher named A. W. Winship compiled records of the descendants of Jonathan Edwards, a busy author, theologian, pastor, and President of Princeton Seminary. Winship compiled a list of Edwards’ descendants and then decided to contrast the list to the descendants of Max Jukes in the book Jukes-Edwards: A Study in Education and Heredity, published in 1900. In the Legacy of Jonathan Edwards are:

  • 1 U.S. Vice-President
  • 3 U.S. Senators
  • 3 governors
  • 3 mayors
  • 13 college presidents
  • 30 judges
  • 65 professors
  • 80 public office holders
  • 100 lawyers
  • 100 missionaries, pastors and theologians.

Here is the point. This did not happen just because Jonathan Edwards was a Christian or because he was a brilliant Christian thinker. Lots of Christians and great theologians have families that are a mess, with their kids wanting nothing to do with Christ or Christianity. What was Edwards secret? He was very intentional. You might say he was devoted not to just being a spiritual hero himself (which he WAS) but being a hero-maker of his children. Every evening before dinner, Edwards gave all eleven of his children his full attention for one hour—to build biblical thinking into their hearts. Understanding that leadership IS influence, when he could, he took one of his children with him—building his relationship with each one while he traveled. When Edwards died, his wife, Sarah, commented to her daughter, “Oh what a legacy my husband and your father has left us.” God’s intention is for every Christian father to build a godly spiritual heritage that he passes on to his descendants.  Let’s do an overview of Scripture to see how important this concept really is:

A. In Genesis 17:7, the covenant that God made with Abraham, whom Paul tells us is the father not just of the Jews but of the Christian faith, involved a commitment not just to Abraham, BUT TO HIS POSTERITY:  I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. Though Abraham was saved by faith, GOD’S covenant commitment was also to Abraham and Sarah’s succeeding generations. A chapter later we discover ABRAHAM’S responsibility in this covenant. God said about Abraham, I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing rightouesness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him (Gen 18:19). As the head of his family, it was Abraham’s responsibility to lead his household to keep the way of the Lord. But throughout Israel’s history, this responsibility gets lost, forgotten, and ignored.

B. After Abraham’s descendants were delivered from 400 years of slavery in Egypt, and completed 40 years of wondering in the wilderness, the Israelites are ready to enter the promised land. Listen to these precise words of Moses, who reiterates this covenant responsibility of parents to pass on their spiritual heritage.

You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth (Deut 11:18-21).

C. Joshua then leads the Israelites into the promised land. It appears that Joshua DID PASS ON HIS SPIRITUAL HERITAGE. Living to be 110, he would have known his descendants to the fourth generation. He must have passed on his spiritual heritage because Scripture reports, And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work that the Lord had done for Israel…..And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. But four generations from Joshua the link was broken. We read, And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel.  And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers (Judges 2:7-10).

D. As Israel’s history unfolds, the book of Judges reports what happened to God’s covenant people when the fathers did not fulfill the responsibility given to Abraham as the head of the covenant family to command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice. A familiar pattern began to emerge. The people would abandon the Lord, the god of their fathers. He would punish them by letting their enemies abuse them until they cried out to him. Then in mercy God would send a deliverer like, Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah, or Samson. Each time, the Lord delivered them, there was a superficial return to him but not the turning of the hearts of the fathers towards the children to lead them to follow the Lord. Judges 2:18-19 summarizes the pattern of the book and this time in Israel’s history,

Whenever the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge, and he saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge. For the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who afflicted and oppressed them. But whenever the judge died, they turned back and were MORE CORRUPT THAN THEIR FATHERS, going after other gods, serving them and bowing down to them.  

E. Moving on to the monarchy, King David, a man after God’s own heart did recover and fulfill this responsibility, though it appears making mistakes with his adult children. Solomon writes about his dad, When I was a son with my father, tender, the only one in the sight of my mother, he taught me and said to me, “Let your heart hold fast my words; keep my commandments, and live. Get wisdom; get insight; do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth. Do not forsake her, and she will keep you; love her, and she will guard you (Prov 4:3-6). We have second example of David’s commitment to this principle of passing on his spiritual heritage, i.e. when he is on his deathbed. He calls his son, Solomon, to his side and says,

“I am about to go the way of all the earth. Be strong, and show yourself a man, and keep the charge of the Lord your God, walking in his ways and keeping his statutes, his commandments, his rules, and his testimonies, as it is written in the Law of Moses, that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn that the Lord may establish his word that he spoke concerning me, saying, ‘If your sons pay close attention to their way, to walk before me in faithfulness with all their heart and with all their soul, you shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel’ (1 Kings 2:2-5).

F. David’s son, Solomon, began well, humbling himself and asking unselfishly for wisdom; but in 1 Kings 11:4-6, we read, When Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. As punishment for his sin, most of Solomon’s kingdom (10 tribes) are torn away by God from his son, Rehoboam, leaving him only Judah. Judah plunges into idolatry and constantly experiences God’s judgement through the oppression of its enemies, despite God sending prophets like Jeremiah to urge the people to return to their covenant obligations to keep God’s moral law. King after king led Judah into evil eventually leading to the Babylonian captivity. It appears that even the one righteous king—Josiah—did not succeed at turning his sons’ hearts towards their forefathers—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and their heritage of faith and covenant obedience. We read that Josiah’s son, Jehoiaz, did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord (2 Kings 23:32) and that Josiah’s other son, Jehoiakim did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord (23:37). It appears that even godly Josiah failed to build into the next generation.

G. Having established the principle with Abraham that a covenant father was to command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, Israel’s history reveals this stark fact: Obedience to this Fatherhood calling was very rare. The fathers did NOT turn their hearts and attentionto influencing and training their children to follow God’s ways. This failure resulted in the children’s hearts NOT turning towards their spiritual heritage embracing their forefather’s belief and obedience to the covenant. But the OT ends on a note of hope. I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. AND HE WILL SUCCEED WHERE ALL THE OTHER PROPHETS FAILED: He will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction(Malachi 4:5-6).

400 years later, Jesus tells us it is John the Baptist who fulfills this promise. The failure of the covenant fathers in Israel to command their children and their household after them to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, will be replaced in the coming Messianic kingdom, where the Holy Spirit is poured out, by fathers’ hearts being turned towards their children, embracing their covenant calling to lead and guide their children into covenant faith and obedience. In short, the hearts of the fathers turning to the children refers to the dads embracing their call to pass on a spiritual heritage to their children; the hearts of the children turning to the fathers refers to the children embracing that godly heritage as their own.

In other words, the story of Abraham’s descendants, the fathers of their covenant families failing to pass on their spiritual heritage to their children after them, WILL ONE DAY END. A new era—the dawning of the kingdom of heaven–was still 400 years away, but it would begin with a prophet like Elijah who would TURN THE HEARTS OF THE FATHERS TO THEIR CHILDREN (i.e. cause the fathers to lead their children to have a heart of covenant obedience) and TURN the HEARTS OF THE CHILDREN TO THEIR FATHERS (cause the children to accept and embrace the spiritual heritage that belonged to them). This major re-orientation of the fathers of God’s covenant people back to leading their children to a heart-driven embracing of their spiritual heritage was the starting point for the arrival of the kingdom of heaven. Only the coming Messiah could empower his followers to recover this vital responsibility in God’s kingdom–building a godly legacy. No wonder Jonathan Edwards devoted one hour a day with his kids guiding them into biblical truth. Edwards understood that membership in Christ’s kingdom, for fathers, meant embracing this calling to passing on our spiritual heritage to the rising generation. And in Christ we have the power to make the same commitment. Why not ask him right now to give you the determination you need to pass on your spiritual heritage, whatever that looks like for you? In September’s series we are going to outline a plan to do this very thing—identify the destructive worldviews impacting our culture and how to guide the rising generation into the wisdom to refute them winsomely. So, what does this teaching mean for us today?

For Guys Without Kids

1.  The best time to plant a tree is 25 years ago. One of the greatest ways to invest in a fruitful spiritual heritage is to invest in daily obedience to God’s Word: To Joshua, God had said, This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success (vs 1:8). What a fruitful legacy he left behind.

2.   Another great way to invest in your eternal legacy in your descendant’s lives is to learn to abhor evil (Rom 12:9). One of the reasons to train yourself to hate sin and to love righteousness is the cost or benefit of your actions to your descendants: From Exodus 20, I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me,  but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. Our walk with Christ impacts our kids.

For Guys With Kids at Home

  • Invest time with them one-on-one. Jesus appointed the twelve so that they might be with him. Our spiritual heritage is our influence. It requires time.
  • Seek to understand them. Ask questions: What is going on in their world of experiences, feelings, and ideas? Jesus became flesh to enter our world.
  • Empathize with them. Jesus, our High Priest sympathizes with our weaknesses.
  • Give them constant affirmation. Paul wrote to the believers at Thessalonica, You know how, like a father with his children we…encouraged you (vs 2:12).
  • Fill their emotional tank with affection. Jesus rebuked his disciples for thinking that giving his affection to children around him was unimportant (Luke 18:15-16).
  • Teach them the wisdom of God. (Stay tuned for our upcoming September series, “Protecting Our Families from Destructive Cultural Worldviews”).

For Grandfathers and Great-Grandfathers

  • Recognize that loving our grandchildren well is a grace-filled way to still build our heritage no matter how much we may have failed as a father.
  • Take the initiative to do special things with them. Even taking them out for an ice cream cone—a grandpa date sends the message that you love them.
  • Make a list of biblical truths your grandchildren need to internalize. Remember Abraham was commanded to teach his whole household the way of the Lord—not just his immediate children. (Stay tuned for September series—“Protecting Our Families from Destructive Cultural Worldviews”).

I realize that many of those hearing this podcast or reading this blog have children not walking with the Lord. But don’t let that dishearten you. God has his own timetable and your prayers matter. In the meantime, let’s cling to this promise: Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments! His offspring will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed (Ps 112:1-2).

For Further Prayerful Thought:

  1. Which aspects of Israelite faithers’ failure to pass on their spiritual heritage to their children stood out to you?
  2. What are some ways in today’s world that you see men concerned for their legacy and some ways you think they aren’t as concerned as they should be about their legacy?
  3. What are your biggest challenges to building a godly legacy to pass on to your posterity?