Living Outloud: Building a Legacy that Matters

We rethink legacy through David’s charge to Solomon, contrasting wealth with obedience, and explore how discipleship builds a living temple that outlasts money and monuments. We speak to those with complex family stories and offer hope, courage, and a clear next step.

• repentance as daily recalibration toward God
• Paul’s “worst of sinners” as growing humility
• David’s lesson: victory from God, not numbers
• success defined by obedience, not resources
• legacy reframed from wealth to wisdom
• discipling children as temple-building
• Solomon’s writings outlasting his riches
• encouragement for absent or painful family stories
• practical ways to pass on a spiritual inheritance

Thanks for joining us in this conversation today, and we'll see you next time

Chapters

• 0:00 Light Banter And Last Week’s Recap
• 1:34 Repentance And Paul’s “Worst Of Sinners”
• 4:40 Introducing Legacy Through 1 Chronicles
• 7:11 Success Defined As Obedience Not Assets
• 11:31 Reframing What We Leave Our Children
• 15:11 Building Temples Through Discipleship
• 18:31 Solomon’s Wisdom Versus Wealth

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:23

Welcome back to the Out Loud Bible Project Podcast. And this is another segment of Living Out Loud, where Kelsey and I talk about what we read earlier in the week and talk about how we can live it out. Do what the Bible says. And uh that's what we're gonna do. I'm Mike, and this is my wife Kelsey, in whom I am well pleased. Which she made me promise to introduce her that way all the time last week. So I feel like I have to continue.

SPEAKER_01: 0:50

Okay, I'll let you off the hook. I honestly I forgot about that until you just mentioned it.

SPEAKER_00: 0:55

Okay, because I was like, man, this is a dangerous precedent. If I do it again as a joke, it's gonna quickly be, you know, next year still running gags. Hey, running gags are not bad.

SPEAKER_02: 1:06

Um It's okay if I'm just Kelsey.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09

Okay, great. Well, just Kelsey.

SPEAKER_02: 1:11

The great and beautiful.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14

We'll just have to change it up every week then. Uh oh, speaking of last week, I did want to follow up on something we had talked about. We were talking about repentance, talking about uh the Ark coming back to Jerusalem on a cart and how that was inappropriate and Uzzah died. And I I had said something in that conversation that the more you repent and the more which which we kind of defined as just bringing back to the center, right? Like compensating for the drift that our that our hearts naturally do away from God, coming back to him, the more we do that, the more we find ourselves not having to do it as often, you know. Uh talked about that. And I well, I I do think that's true. I did want to clarify that when we it made me think of Paul's uh confession, I guess, that I'm the greatest of sinners.

SPEAKER_02: 2:08

Jesus came to save sinners of whom I am the worst.

SPEAKER_00: 2:11

I am the worst. And it's not saying of whom I was the worst. Like and he he'll say, like, I I oh I was bad. Like I I killed Jesus' followers. That's how bad I was. But he's not saying like of whom I was the worst and he saved me, and now I've gotten better and better. He says, of whom I am the worst. And I think that is not a contradiction to what we were talking about last week. I think it it is the other side of the coin where yeah, I think you do tend to drift less and less the more of God's heart that you know, but I think you also tend to recognize more and more of your own sin and shortcoming.

SPEAKER_01: 2:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 2:50

The more of God's heart that you know, the more you realize you don't line up with it, and you never will, and you are very aware of every time that you fall short, every time that you do sin. Yeah. So I think that Paul wasn't trying to make like a false modesty, oh, I'm the worst sinner. Uh, you know, I I may be the Apostle Paul, but I'm still the worst sinner. Like, I don't think it was even that sort of thing. I think it was genuinely like he's thinking of God's heart and God's holiness and his own depravity so much and and repenting so often that it's like I can't imagine anyone else repenting more than me. Like, I've got to be the worst sinner. Like, I'm repenting all the time because I just keep massing up. And anyone else maybe looking at him would be like, Oh, I can't imagine that's true. But I think it's because he's become so aware of his sin and falling short of the glory of God that uh he see legitimately sees himself as like, man, I I repent all the time. I'm I'm like the worst sinner. And um so it because if you get to a point where it's like, you know what, I haven't repented for a while, I'm doing pretty good. Well, you know, you should probably repent. So uh the more aware we are of his holiness, the more we are gonna feel like we need to repent and the more we should, and the more we do. Yet we can also rest assured that we find ourselves transgressing away from the heart of God less and less. I think both can be true in some weird sort of don't let your heart think yourself more highly than it ought to. Um keep being humble. But the more humble you are, the less humble you think of yourself. Uh anyway.

SPEAKER_02: 4:27

That's a good clarification.

SPEAKER_00: 4:28

Weird thing to be true, but I wanted to follow up on that.

SPEAKER_02: 4:31

Today I wanted to talk about legacy, because as I was listening to these chapters of 1 Chronicles 21 and 22 this week, I was really uh moved by David's passing on the building of the temple to Solomon. Right? Like you read the whole thing this week, so we don't really need to recap all of that, but the the idea that there's this huge, God-honoring project that God isn't gonna let David do. But David, what David can do is like collect all the gold and all the silver and all the resources and all the stuff that's gonna be needed for Solomon to be able to do it. And so Solomon can pick up the mantle where his dad left off and like go be the most peaceful, wealthy, successful king that Israel has ever known, right? And reading it, it kind of boiled up in me these feelings that someone might be able to read 1 Chronicles 22 and read it and use it as a defense for you see, this is why we need good financial planning so that we can leave our children a legacy of wealth. This is David leaving his child a legacy of wealth. This is David saying, I've worked hard to provide materials for building 4,000 tons of gold, 40,000 tons of silver. Like, and there's this mindset, this modern mindset of like, we I don't know if it's just modern.

SPEAKER_00: 5:58

I apparently it's not too modern.

SPEAKER_02: 6:00

Yeah. This mindset of, I want to leave my kids with more than what I had.

SPEAKER_00: 6:04

I want to leave them better off than what I'm gonna work hard so that they can have a foot up in their life.

SPEAKER_02: 6:09

Yeah. And how we define that is by supplying them with a lot of resources, right? The more resources you can leave to your kids, the better off they'll be. And I I want to have a conversation that pushes against that mindset and pushes against even using this story to perpetuate that mindset. Because in the context of all the chapters in 1 Chronicles that you read this week, you you started with the story of how David tried to count his men, and God was like, that was not a good thing, and punished him for it. And and then how David went into battle after battle after battle, finding victory in the Lord. And the Lord is the one who provided the victory. And it kind of feels like those two concepts and those lessons that David learned really shine through into what he's passing on to his son. Because in in 1 Chronicles 22, um verse, I'll just come into 11. I'm reading the NLT. He says, Now, my son, may the Lord be with you and give you success as you follow his directions in building the temple of the Lord your God, and may the Lord give you wisdom and understanding, that you may obey the law of the Lord your God as you rule over Israel. For you will be successful. You will be successful because I have stored up for you 40,000 tons of silver. And wait, hold on, that's not. That's not what it says. He says, You will be successful because I have worked really hard and set you up for success. That's not what it says. Oh, you will be really successful because I have a 501k, 401k. This is how much I don't know.

SPEAKER_00: 7:53

Don't come here for financial advice. We don't know anything.

SPEAKER_02: 7:56

No, it says you will be successful if you carefully obey the decrees and regulations that the Lord gave to Israel through Moses. Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or lose heart. I what I'm seeing here, and this is one of the beautiful things, and I've said it over and over again, and I will continue saying it, one of the beautiful things of reading large passages of scripture or listening to them on this podcast, is that these verses are not just in isolation, they're in a whole context. And so this week we have heard, we have heard how David messed up by trying to draw his security from the number of men he had in his army. We heard how he repented of that and how he said, I will not give God something that cost me nothing. And he developed this understanding that his victories come from God and God alone. Like all his strategic planning is useless if it doesn't, if he's not fighting God's battles. Like fight God's battles and you will have God's success. And so we come into this moment where he's passing on this legacy to Solomon, his son, but it isn't about the money. And I would argue that if David was sitting in the room with us today as our podcast on as a guest on our podcast, I would argue that he would say that the greatest thing he left his son Solomon was not the wealth, was not the position as king in of Israel, was not this grand project of building the temple. I would argue that his heart, because I what I understand of God's heart and David being a man after God's own heart, I would argue that he would likely say the greatest single thing that he left his son is a fear of the Lord and a call to obey the Lord's laws and the Lord's decrees. And so when when we in our modern era are looking at what kind of legacy we're passing on to the next generation, a lot of times legacy conversations are surrounding financial legacy or positional legacy or like resource and asset legacy. I don't know about you. Maybe, maybe it's just because we don't have a lot of assets to pass on to our kid, but I would much rather pass on to my daughter the re the understanding that you'll be successful if you carefully obey the decrees and regulations that the Lord gave through Moses. Like I would much rather our daughter have a legacy that the Lord gives you wisdom and understanding so that you may obey the law of the Lord. Like I would, if I give our daughter nothing else, I want her to be raised with a childhood and into an adulthood so that she lives a life that is marked by knowing God's word, loving God's word, and obeying God's word. Everything else, he's gonna take care of her financially and it like I'm not worried about her if I leave not a dime to my name, you know, and Lord willing, who knows what's gonna happen. I don't know how things are gonna end with our lives. But money's the easy part. Money's the easy part, and what isn't easy is discipling your kids. What isn't easy and what isn't gonna come overnight and what isn't gonna come at the snap of a finger is instilling in them a biblical worldview. Like what I want for my kid is not to have more than I had when I was a kid. Like, I don't want her to be more financially successful than I was. I don't want her to be, this is all sounding cruel, right? Except for hear my heart. Those are not my primary concern. My primary concern for our daughter is that she is a person who loves the Lord her God with all her heart, with all her mind, and all her strength. That's what I want for her. That's the legacy I want to pass on. And so I want to be living a life and I want to be building up resources for her that are kingdom resources. I want to be building up faith in her. I want to be building up hope in her. I want to be building up a trust in the Lord in her. I want to be building up a desire to know the truth in her because that's actually the stuff that lasts. That's actually the stuff that is building God's temple here on earth. David was leaving Solomon with the instructions to build God a temple. What's the temple nowadays, Michael? In the New Covenant, under the New Testament, what is the temple?

SPEAKER_00: 12:15

We are the temple. We are the temple.

SPEAKER_02: 12:16

And so my job is to build the temple by discipling my daughter so that she will be a temple of the Holy Spirit. That's what we're supposed to be doing. And so let this be a conversation about legacy. And whether you have kids or whether you are going to be a surrogate, spiritual parent for someone. All of us have the call and the responsibility as Christ followers to make disciples, teaching them to obey everything Jesus taught. And what that is doing is that's building little temples. We are we ought to be working to build the next generation of little temples of the Holy Spirit who are going to storm the gates of hell. That is more valuable than literally any portfolio you're gonna leave your kids. It just is. There's not a business I'm gonna build to outlast me that's gonna be more valuable than the Holy Spirit I'm leaving inside my child as I leave this earth. Right? There is not a there's not a 401k that's gonna sustain her better than the God Almighty of the universe. Like, I want that kid to understand that she doesn't need to want for anything, not because I provided it, but because he will. So, like, can we just flip the script on and and take even David's example to flip the script on legacy? Yeah, he had a massive project. He wanted God put on his heart, and God said, Your son's gonna build it. And so he's being obedient to God by equipping his son to do the work that God said Solomon would do. And he does have a bunch of resources. So if you do have a bunch of earthly resources, use them for the kingdom for the love. Like equip your kids to use your wealth for kingdom things. A hundred percent. That's in here for sure. But I think David's primary concern is that his son has wisdom and understanding so that he can obey the Lord law of the Lord as he rules over Israel.

SPEAKER_00: 14:15

And the legacy comes from, if I can distill that the past 10 minutes, if I can, if I can distill that. Uh one one of the main points you're saying here is that the legacy comes from your past experience with God. Sometimes you do things well and you learn the easy way, sometimes you do things wrong and you learn the hard way, but either way, you should be learning and developing the wisdom of knowing who God is and how to please God. And your lifetime of experience of of what that looks like, again, whether you've been following faithfully or you've been making a lot of mistakes, that's what you can pass on to your kid to get a leg up, so to speak. Not that they they not that they can have a relationship with Jesus based on, you know, that you can you can't give that to them. They have to have their own unique walk with Jesus, but you can certainly help them learn the easy way, you know, and and avoid some of those same mistakes and and see what a walk with God looks like, that you can demonstrate that. And money is not really part of that conversation. Right. And and so legacy really comes from the experience that you have with God that you pass on, the wisdom that you have from God that you pass on, not so much the resources. And what do we see Solomon doing with that? Solomon in turn passes on a legacy to his kids. What is it? It's not so much the wealth. Frankly, the kingdom was ripped in two, and his son only got like half the it wasn't even half the kingdom, it was like one or two tribes, and it was it was a mess. But what did Solomon pass on? The book of Proverbs, the book of Ecclesiastes that we still have today, because we can start try to learn things the easy way by doing what the Bible says and what he wrote and and heeding that wisdom so that we can be further along in our walk with Christ.

SPEAKER_02: 16:10

Yeah. And guess what? The temple that Solomon built was destroyed. So like those earthly things, if that's what we're putting our hope in, building some sort of legacy that will outlast us here on earth, they're gonna d rot and decay and be destroyed and taken over. But if our treasures are in heaven, if our if our legacy that we're building for the next generation is a spiritual one, is a kingdom-minded one, is a biblical worldview, that's gonna serve them well here on this earth and last into eternity.

SPEAKER_00: 16:41

And before we bring this to a close, I I want to acknowledge the fact that this conversation can be prickly for people. Maybe you don't have a dad who was in the picture at all, or who was a positive role model, or who who maybe he wasn't a Christian and and did not pass on these legacies of faith and walking with God to you, and you feel like you're at a disadvantage. Um maybe you don't have someone to pass on a legacy to, and you're thinking about what that looks like, but you maybe don't have kids, which is a a whole other package of pain. Uh or you do have kids, but they're not following the Lord, and you desperately want them to, and you're praying for that, but they they don't care.

SPEAKER_02: 17:24

You've done all you can to leave them a legacy of faith and they just haven't picked it up.

SPEAKER_00: 17:27

And so this conversation is difficult in those contexts. And frankly, I'm not qualified to speak into all of the layers of pain of those situations. And the b the best I feel like we can say here is that if you're in the context of, I don't I don't have a father who passed on anything like that to me, you do have a heavenly father who has passed on this to you through the word of God, what we've been talking about. May David's words to his son also be true of you, that you may be able to read what your heavenly father has preserved for generations for you, and that you may do like he says, that that you may have wisdom and understanding, that you may obey the law of the Lord, and and if God's given you a a project or a mission, then just like David said, like go do it. Go do it, and may the Lord be with you. Begin the work, may the Lord be with you. And uh I know that's no substitute for an uh an earthly father who you know should have been playing a better role in your life, but God is able to heal and restore better than better than you think you you could have had possible. Um and as far as passing it along to someone else, no matter who you are, we all have the responsibility of making disciples. I I I know that has a tendency to be a pat answer for, you know, if you don't have kids or don't have kids following the Lord, then you know, share your faith with someone else. And I I know that doesn't feel the same, and that's gonna be a a long walk between you and the Lord to figure out what fulfillment and purpose looks like in that. Um it may just have to be a step of faith now and today to just say, Lord, I I believe that my life experience and the wisdom that you've shared with me and the legacy that you are preparing in me to pass on to someone else will not be wasted. What that looks like, I don't know. But the faith can engage today in the God's not going to waste what he's given me. His word doesn't go out and and come back void, and his work in you does not either. So maybe we have to just keep stepping forward in the tension of well, what does that look like for me? I don't know. I don't know. But if I can share a little bit of my faith with you, it's that it will not be wasted. And I'm excited to see. Maybe, maybe we get to see on this side of eternity what the legacy is. Maybe we'll only see it when we all stand together in our final destination for eternity. But uh, but there will be much joy based on the work that God has done in your life. Excited to share it with you. Thanks for joining us in this conversation today, and we'll see you next time.