With the stroke of a pen, the United States doubled in size. In 1803, under the supervision of future president James Monroe and U.S. Minister to France, Robert Livingston, a treated was drawn up with the French for America to acquire the land referred to as “the Louisiana territory” for 15 million dollars. In 1803, Thomas Jefferson authorized the Louisiana Purchase, roughly 828,000 square miles of land, and expanded the US Westward to such a monumental degree that we really did not even know what it was that we were buying. American became twice the country it used to be, and we hadn’t even seen our western borders yet.
Which is exactly why Thomas Jefferson created the Corp of Discovery to figure out exactly what the Louisiana purchase looked like. As adventurous as the title Corp of Discovery sounds, Today, we don’t typically refer to this brave and intrepid endeavor by that title. Instead we identify it by the names of the two men that led the Corp. The Lewis and Clark Expedition.
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were tasked with several things:
#1 to map out and survey all of this land that we had just bought.
#2 In President Jefferson’s words, “to find the most direct and practicable water communication across this continent, for the purposes of commerce.” At the time, it was believed we could find a single waterway that would connect the Atlantic to the Pacific – Lewis and Clark never found one because it didn't exist.
When Meriwether Lewis and William Clark departed St. Charles, Missouri and headed west towards the Pacific they were headed into uncharted territory. They would see things that no U.S. citizen had ever seen before. They would encounter peoples, landscape, and animal species that were entirely unknown to modern man. They would face impassable mountains, raging rapids, frozen and barren wastelands, sickness, and the loss of crew.
Which begs the question, where did these guys come from?
I'm Scott Beyer and this is the Love Better Podcast where we explore the truths and the lies about love and more importantly how to turn love into a skill, something we can get better at and hone along the way.
Today, we're not going to look at Meriwether Lewis and we aren’t even going to look too much at William Clark. We're going to look at Clark's parents.n Because a guy like William Clark doesn't just appear. He is the product of a family of frontiering people. So that when the call came for the Corp of Discovery and he was asked to go where no man had gone before, William Clark said, sure, I can do that… because William Clark is a part of a legacy of adventurous and stalwart people.
William Clark is the second to last child of John and Anne Rogers Clark. The history books won’t tell you much about John and Anne, there aren’t any surviving pictures of them, and what we do know about them is almost entirely indirectly through the accomplishments of their children. Because William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition was only one of several Clark children to make a massive impact in the history of America.
William Clark’s five older brothers all served with distinction in the Revolutionary War. His older brother, George Clark, was a Brigadier General in the Revolutionary War and had an exceptional impact on the fact that America even won that war. His wartime contributions became the thing of legends – leading a couple hundred soldiers into battles against British forces and their Indian allies and walking away with victory in spite of the lopsided odds against them.
Three of their other boys, Jonathan, John, and Edmund all survived life as POW’s during the same war and went on to serve in various capacities as lawyers, soldiers, and politicians in the infancy of the American Republic.
Their daughters married well and kept the home fires burning as their son-in-laws also served with distinction in the war for American independence… and when it was all over, this family that started with John and Anne became a part of the fabric of American history. You cannot talk about the beginning and expansion of America without the Clark family, they were simply everywhere.
And it all began with a humble, hardworking couple of Virginia farmers who loved their children and raised them to lead. Few remember John and Anne, but there is no Lewis and Clark expedition without them and there is no Kentucky without their son, George.
Their love led to a legacy of impact.
In the Bible, we read of another husband and wife team. Amram and Jochebed – and boy were they a power couple! …but most people have no idea who they are. You may not remember reading about them – but I bet you remember their son. His name was Moses.
The book of Hebrews talks about them when it says, “By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was beautiful, and they were not afraid of the king's edict.” (Hebrews 11:23)
Amram and Jochebed were fearless. With great courage they protected their baby. Exodus records their efforts to hide him from the Egyptians who were slaughtering the sons born to Jewish families and their brave plan to protect him.
Moses would go on to be the greatest leader in Israel’s history. The great lawgiver and prophet of the Old Testament. The man God used to save them from Egyptian oppression and to bring the Hebrew people into the promised land.
And so, the Bible is full of references to Moses, and Amram and Jochebed are a footnote. And that is exactly what a legacy of love looks like.
The word ‘legacy’ refers to ‘something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past’ it is often used as a synonym for the word ‘inheritance’. An inheritance is typically measured in wealth – the money we leave behind for the next generation so that our children can benefit from the work we have done… but a legacy is so much more comprehensive than finances. A legacy is what those who go before leave behind for us to build upon. If you are John and Anne Clark, it is a legacy of hard work, patriotism, and an adventurous spirit. If you are Amram and Jochebed, it is a legacy of knowledge of God, value of human life, and courage to trust the Creator when others cower in fear. Legacy is the moral framework, prioritized values, hopes, expectations, and views of life we leave behind. An inheritance of money can buy your kids a vacation home, a legacy of love can point your children and grandchildren toward the Promised Land.
Interwoven into the idea of legacy is the belief that we want those who come after us to be better than us. We want them to run where we stumbled and climb higher because they had sturdy shoulders to stand on. Legacy doesn’t mean you expect them to have it easier, after all, Acts 14:22 warns us that all followers of Christ will have many tribulations – it means you want them to go farther because they could begin their journey from higher ground.
The children of John and Anne Clark faced trials their parents never dreamed of as the Revolutionary War unfolded… and Moses – I can’t imagine Amram or Jochebed ever expected their baby boy to lead a nation. There is no guarantee that the next generation has a cushy existence – they may in fact have it harder than us – so the gift of legacy is preparing them with the skills and tools to face bigger problems, not live with smaller ones.
That’s what David did. When God informed David that it was his son Solomon that would build the temple and not David… David got to work. He prepared Solomon to be a better leader and equipped him with the supplies for the job ahead. From cedar trees brought in from Lebanon to relationships with wise men that could guide Solomon when David was gone. David left Solomon with a legacy because David wanted him to be ready to do great things.
The legacy cycle isn’t the normal generational pattern. Most of the time the generational cycle is a broken one. As the book of Judges records after the greatest generation in Israel’s history: “And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD or the work that he had done for Israel.”
The generational cycle of Judges shows us that giving the next generation a fantastic lifestyle, in their case, an entire Promised Land, but without equipping them with the skills and character to have proper dominion over that lifestyle is a curse instead of a blessing.
There is nothing new under the sun – broken generational cycles are normal. Fatherlessness, broken homes, and an epidemic of children being raised by devices is producing the same impact in our modern world. Disengaged parenting and helicopter parenting are producing the same results. Vulnerable children are underprotected from society’s influences and shielded from responsibility and hard work. Societally we have decided to give children unfettered access to culture through devices and media and deny them the benefits of ownership and the skill of taking dominion.
As of today, in 2026 the next generation is set to have a fantastic lifestyle. They will have more access to healthcare, a higher education level, a greater level of comfort and luxury, than all previous generations. By just about every metric the generations to come will have a better life physically… but I suspect that you, just like me, see how those temporal blessings can be a burden instead of a blessing if a generation isn’t equipped to handle the increased prosperity.
So, what does legacy love look like? It looks like coaching instead of benevolence.
And the great thing is – you don’t even need to have children to leave a legacy behind.
Let me prove it.
The apostle Paul had no children, but he left a legacy of men behind that could preach that gospel after him.
Paul trained men like Luke, Silas, Timothy, Erastus, Sopater, Aristarchus, Secundus, Gaius, Tychicus, and Trophimus. Paul littered the landscape of Italy, Asia, and Galatia with his students. And that was always the plan because Paul told Timothy to do the same thing. In 2 Timothy, Paul’s farewell address, he tells Timothy, “You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.”
And that is exactly what these men did, they took the gospel Paul entrusted them with and equipped others to preach it, too… and in so doing, the Holy Spirit created a legacy of faith carried down all the way to us.
Legacy love understands that people may start out as part of our story, but then we hope to someday become a small part of their far greater story.
It is the sentiment John the Baptist expressed when he said, “He must increase, but I must decrease.”
When we coach and mentor others, including our children, we are preparing to watch them pull away from us because we aren’t just giving them gifts of benevolence, we are standing on the sidelines of their life helping them as they endure the hardships, guiding them as they compete for the prize, and rejoicing with them as they attain victories instead of just letting them enjoy the spoils of our victories.
There is no legacy if we do all the work for them. All those men I listed that Paul trained – each and every one of them were sent to preach without Paul at times. He would leave them behind to do the work he couldn’t or send them ahead to investigate and strengthen people he couldn’t reach. He was with them in spirit, but oftentimes, they alone had to do the thing.
Because legacy also implies another hard reality: legacies are given by those who leave us. All ancestors die. We leave those we love to continue on without us and either we equip them to love the Lord without us or we can expect them to abandon the Lord when time forces us to depart.
Hebrews 12:1 describes the great cloud of witnesses that God has given us as examples to guide and mentor us and that because of that cloud of witnesses, “let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us”
If life is a race, we either equip the next generation to run well, or we wonder why they are sitting on the sideline of their own lives. We are meant to be part of the cloud of witnesses encouraging them to run with wild abandon and do hard things because the prize is worth the struggle.
And if we do it right, we leave a legacy that remains long after us. Almost every coach started out as an athlete, but one day they realize they can no longer run as fast or jump as high… but maybe, just maybe, they can share the glory time has given them – the wisdom of gray hair and life lived. The best legacies aren’t found in accomplishments and records – the real legacy is found in the people we have equipped along the way.
Learn to love better. Learn to leave a legacy so that when they forget your name, they still feel your impact.
As always, thank you for listening and hopefully we've done something to help make your life a little bit better.
If you are looking for other resources, you can visit my website BibleGrad.com where you can find tools for Bible study and video lessons to help you understand the Bible. If you are interested, you can sign up for a video series challenge through the website called the #HopeDoes challenge. Two short videos each week and a chance to grow in your hope by doing hopeful things. Just go to BibleGrad.com, scroll down and enter your email to get started.
Or maybe you have a fun or obscure history account, a feel-good news story, or a riveting scientific fact you think could help us love better. If so, I’d love to hear it! Feel free to email me at scott@biblegrad.com
And if you are ever in the Louisville, KY area, I’d like to invite you to come worship with me and my family at the Eastland congregation. We meet for worship every Sunday and have Bible classes for all ages on Wednesdays, too. If you want more information about Eastland, visit us at eastlandchristians.org. We would love to worship God with you and help you on your walk of faith.
And as always, until next time, “Remember, you are loved, so go… love better.”
