Legacy Series: Purpose (In the Beginning)

I want to begin this series by looking at the ultimate legacy—the beginning of it, anyway. And for that, we will journey to Genesis. In going back to the beginning, with the aim of helping us begin to look at our own individual legacies, we will look at what God had intended for mankind, then we'll look at how that vision initially seemed to fail, and finally we will look ahead to the redemption of this original purpose and the revitalization of our hope.

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." (Genesis 1:1)

I want to begin by setting the stage. What you've just read there was the very first verse in the very first book of the Bible. Why? Because we must remember what (or Who) our source is when digging within ourselves to figure out what we're meant to leave behind: And that source is God. Everything is from Him and, therefore, everything is to point back to Him. I think that this is a point where many of us, myself included, get lost when thinking about what we'd like to do with our lives; I reckon, though, that it's actually as simple as just looking to God: the source of life. I will come back to this a bit later, but as you go through the entire series remember that God is to be at the heart of everything that we do.

Mankind Was Made in the Imago Dei (Genesis 1:26-31)

In verses 26 and 27 of Genesis 1, we see that the very core of who we are is God—not that we are God, but that we were meant to be like Him in certain senses. This distinction is very important, the fact that we are not to be gods in our own right, but rather that we are meant to be a representation of the one, true God -- and we'll see why in the next point. So what does this section of verses tell us? We are created in the image of God (v. 27), we are blessed, we are to "be fruitful and multiply," to fill the earth and subdue it (v. 28), we are to have dominion over every living thing that moves, and access to the rest (v. 29-30). This is what we were created for, and God saw that this was Good (v. 31).

There is a plethora of things we can and do place our identities in as a people. For many of us we place or identity and importance in our accomplishments, titles, and occupations — "valedictorian", "doctor", "engineer", "pastor", "student-athlete", "millionaire". These title and distinctions aren't useless, or to be ignored, it's an incredible thing to have accomplished anything in your life, but a lot of these distinctions are temporary. What happens once you've retired, or you get injured, or demoted, or replaced? What happens when we try to take power from God, or when we attempt to become a god ourselves? Answer: we fall and separate ourselves from God and His purpose for us.

We Are Our Own Downfall (Genesis 3 - Pretty Much the Rest of Human History)

We were created with one purpose: to be with God. That's it. God is supposed to be our everything, He provides life and wealth, the things that we all truly desire in life can be found through intimacy with the Father. As honest as I can be, I can look back on my life and remember the times in which I gave God control of my life (or rather, returned it to Him) and others in which I've attempted to take it back from Him (oh, so many times), and I could tell many stories of how different the two look, how good God truly is, and how powerless we truly are without Him. Now, part of the beauty in God is that He gives us a choice: believe in Him, trust in Him, and love Him, or live against Him according to the desires of your flesh, your "human-nature"; if you pay attention, the Bible provides example after example of what happens when we pick the latter. The first of these comes in Genesis 3.

We are introduced to "the serpent" here — you can think of him as the devil on your shoulder, like in the movies. The serpent came to Adam and Eve and tempted them with the splendor of wisdom, if you will. Mankind was led to believe that wisdom ought to be taken into our own hands, away from God, against God's clear instruction and warning, and this very quickly proved to be the wrong choice. God banishes Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden (paradise or pleasure in Hebrew) and humanity is left to fend for itself on Earth. What did humanity do with this newfound "freedom"? Brother murders brother out of spite and jealousy (Genesis 4:1-8). After just having heard from God, Cain kills his brother, Abel, and God punishes Cain as a result — not without protection, for God loved and cared for Cain even in his sin (or shortcoming), but punishment nonetheless. Remember this idea of "sin" it's important to the rest of this story.

As the story continues, as history continues, we see humanity dissolving into wickedness, pride, and violence. As we continue to take matters into our own hands we see the atrocities of war, slavery, perversion, greed, racism, injustice, and corruption take hold on Earth. Wars are started over royal birthright and self-aggrandizing. Millions of lives are lost because of the selfishness and desperation of a few. We have thousands of years of history which point to the fact that humanity without true acknowledgement of God (the person) is simply doomed to fall into chaos. So where do we go from here? How can we escape this legacy of horror? Jesus.

We Have Hope...

In the New Testament, we're introduced to the redemption of mankind: Jesus Christ. If you've never heard of Him, He can be a bit difficult to describe. Jesus is fully man; he walked on the earth and lived life among humanity, but he is also fully God. The apostle Paul puts it this way in Philippians 2:

"...Christ Jesus: who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." (Philippians 2:5-8)

Now, why is this Jesus important to us? And what does any of this have to do with our legacy? Well I'm glad you asked.

Remember that idea of sin I mentioned earlier? Romans 3:23 says that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" — it's because of this verse that I tend to define sin as our shortcoming or our deviation from our original design. Romans 6:23 tells us that "the wages of sin is death". If that's the case, it'd have made sense for God to simply end humanity after the incident with Cain and Abel, or even with Adam and Eve in the Garden, but God allows humanity to continue and instead comes to earth as His son, Jesus (Luke 1:26-38 explains this) and He died in our place that, through faith in this Jesus, we might be returned to eternal life with Him (John 3:16). This is the ultimate legacy I mentioned at the start; this story (The Gospel/ Good News) is the most important story in the history of mankind. Everything else pales in comparison.

So, What's the First Step Toward Discovering Your Legacy?

My purpose in starting with this essay is that we'd return our focus to the One who actually has a say in our "legacy", in what we leave behind for future generations. We were made to be with God — to rely on Him, to love Him, and to know Him — but we chose, instead to be our own gods, or to place our faith in others. This separated us from God, but He came as Jesus Christ and died, to pay the price for our shortcomings, our sins, that we might be reunited with Him. And now, if you've accepted Christ as Lord and Savior, part of what you're here to do, your purpose, is let others know about this Jesus and what He did for us. If you haven’t accepted Christ, I’d appeal to you: God wants to be close to you. Come home, it’d be the greatest decision of your life. Reach out to somebody and ask questions. I can promise you that we (Christians) don't have all the answers, but we know the One who does.

I offered this reminder last week, and I’ll do so with each part to come: This is a discovery more so than a creation or manifestation of legacy. God created each of us for a specific purpose, He knows what we're meant to leave behind; so if you gain nothing else from this series, remember that fact and place your trust in God. As we go along, remember that this is a life long journey in which we really don't have much control. My hope is that we’d work on the things we can control: our actions and decisions. I believe the first step in finding your legacy is finding your "why?"; mine is Jesus, his sacrifice is the reason I have what I have. He's changed my life, and everything that I do, every decision I make (ideally) is in response to what Christ has done for me. Any specifics beyond that have been found through prayer and experience, which I'll share more about as we continue. As you go through this journey, remember the beginning, remember where you’ve come from, where you are now, and find a reason to leave an impact. Remember that there is a purpose for everything, including yourself. Be blessed, seek wisdom, and enjoy.

Verses to Get You Started:

Genesis 1:26-31

Psalm 139:1-24

Proverbs 1:7; 3:5-10

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8; 3:11

John 3:16-18

1 Thessalonians 5:16-21