Resources
Transfers Generationally
Sermon #6 from Pastor Floyd's series "Big Faith"
$6.00 — $12.00
My mother has been quite ill. My mother has a pre-leukemia condition, which results in chemotherapy treatments, along with other matters that she’s been going through a number of months. She found out recently that her gall bladder decided to really become like poison in her body, and at 82 years of age she had to have major surgery. Due to the severity of the matter, she could not have the laparoscopic surgery, but they had to do the old time cut you deep, and cut you wide and long, and she had that surgery which really the doctor was not sure she would ever get out of recovery. She has struggled. In fact, not until the last few days have we begun to see a turn in her physically, so I hope you will pray for her.
This past week Jeana and I got on a Continental jet and we flew south. We were suppose to be on American, but they canceled our flight, and got on Continental, and got there, and we were there for about 30 hours with mom, something like that, and then flew back on Thursday after leaving on Wednesday morning. Later on in the afternoon after I arrived, I said, “Mom, you want to go out and ride?” And she had hardly hadn’t done that at all. Ladies, she just got her hair done for the first time in about 2 or 3 months. You can just imagine. When your 82 and you’re used to getting your hair puffed up every week, that ain’t good news.
She had done that, and that was about it. Went to church for the first time a week ago. But I drove around and, it doesn’t take long to drive around in my town. 5,500 people, something like that. And we took the usual drive. I went by the old high school. Went by the football stadium and saw the team practice, based off what I saw I knew they were going to lose. And then did this past Friday night. And then I went by the little church that was right by the stadium where I was saved.
I drove past it, and then I stopped, and backed up. Mom and I just sat there for a moment and talked. Dad built that church, he and another couple of men in our church. I remember going up at night as a little boy and mom would make dinner for him, usually it was something that was fried, and put it in a can, and take it up. I remember one night daddy was putting in the ceiling, and we sat there and we watched him put in the ceiling of that little church. Daddy’s been gone 5 years to heaven this November 22nd, November 17th, excuse me.
I stopped there in front of that little church, and I, I reflected on the night I came to Christ. It was at that little church that probably was not much bigger than this right here, honestly. 75 people. I talked to mom, and said how many people do you think you could get really seated? And she said, oh man, I wouldn’t know, but I would doubt it would be 75. It was very small. I laughed, and I said you know all these people think is all I’ve done is been around big church all my life. They don’t have a clue. And I kind of laughed and told her a couple of stories.
You know, it was 39 years ago yesterday when I knelt my knees on that little church alter and gave my life to Christ. 39 years ago today, I followed Christ in baptism, to the day, and to the date. Boy it goes by fast. It goes by real fast. I was 15. How many of you are 15 tonight? A few of you? Some of you haven’t seen 15 in years so don’t lie. But you know it’s something very interesting that goes on in all that, I began to think about how my faith was transferred to me. I think about both of my grandmothers, they were saved. My grandfathers were also, they died before, one of them died right before I got on the scene, and then one died when I was a little boy. But I remember momma, I drove by the school, and I told, I think it was my wife or somebody with me at that time, it was in that little school I remember my mom came and got me and told me that grandfather had died.
I walked across the street and I remember them waiting on me. I was a little boy. I was probably in the 2nd or 3rd grade. And my grandmothers, I remember preaching at their churches. I preached their funerals, my grandmothers. And the faith transferred from my grandmothers, and it may have been way back beyond then, I don’t know, I’m not one of those genealogy guys that some of you want to take the time to do that for me, go ahead. I don’t know much of who they are beyond them. But then my parents came to Christ, and then I came to Christ. My boys have come to Christ, and the faith keeps transferring generationally.
That’s I want to talk about in our very brief time here tonight. I want to talk about how big faith transfers generationally. I want to begin by lifting up what I call the biblical principle. And here is the biblical principle here tonight: Big faith transfers generationally. How do we know that? Well if you have a copy of God’s Word, would you please look with me please to the 25th chapter of the scripture in Genesis? Genesis chapter 25. I want to begin reading verse number 7. The Bible says, “This is the length of Abraham’s life, 175 years,” now next week we’re going to study Genesis 22, but we’re going to fast-forward here just for tonight to talk about Genesis 25.
“The length of his life was 175 years. He took his last breath and he died at a ripe old age, old and contented,” wow, what a great statement. Wouldn’t it be great to die old and contented? I haven’t met a lot of people who have died with a contented heart. Old and contented, I could take both of those. “And he was gathered to his people. His sons, Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Macpala, near Manley, in the field of Efron, son of Zohar the Hittite. This was the field that Abraham bought from the Hittites. Abraham was buried there with his wife, Sarah, and after Abraham’s death, God blessed his son, Isaac, who lived near Bear Lake Aroy.”
Right here in Genesis chapter 25, 7 through 11, we learned the length of his life. We learned his death, that he died old and contented. We learned he was buried by his sons, in a very special place. Now if you would, let’s fast-forward to verse 19 in the same chapter. “These are the family records,” the Bible says, “of Isaac, son of Abraham, Abraham fathered Isaac.” Did you get that? Abraham fathered Isaac. “Isaac was 40 years old when he took his wife, Rebekah, daughter of Bethul, the Armean from Patamaram, and sister of Layhon, the Armean. Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife,” listen to this, “because she was baron. The Lord heard his prayer, and his wife, Rebekah, conceived. But the children inside of her struggled with each other, and she said, ‘Why is this happening to me?’ So she went to inquire of the Lord, and the Lord said to her, ‘Two nations are in your womb. Two people will come from you and be separated. Our people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.’
The Scripture continues, “When her time came to give birth there were indeed twins in her womb. The first one came out reddish, covered with hair like a fur coat, and they named him Esau. And after this, his brother came out grasping Esau’s heel with his hand, so he was named Jacob. Isaac was 60 years old when they were born.” Look at verse 27. “When the boys grew up, Esau became an expert hunter, an outdoorsman; but Jacob was a quiet man who stayed at home. Esau, or Isaac loved Esau because he had a taste for wild game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.”
And then if you would, look with me to the book of Matthew in chapter 1. I am going somewhere. Matthew chapter 1, and look with me please to verse 1, and verse 2. “The historical record of Jesus Christ,” this is a genealogy of Jesus Christ, “The historical record of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the son of Abraham; Abraham fathered Isaac; Isaac fathered Jacob; Jacob fathered Judah and his brothers.” Did you get it?
Look at verse 6. “And Jesse fathered King David.” Look at verse 16 and 17. “And Jacob fathered,” this is another Jacob, “fathered Joseph, the husband of Mary, who gave birth to Jesus, who is called the Messiah. So all the generations,” look at this, “from Abraham to David were 14 generations. And from David until the exile of Babylon, 14 generations. And from the exile of to Babylon until the Messiah, 14 generations.”
Now I want to simplify all of that for you tonight, and rather than go through and teach you genealogy tonight, I want you to trust me on a
1. Biblical principle that big faith transfers generationally. Let me show you how. Notice this with me for a moment. Abraham, then Isaac, Jacob, David, Jesus Christ. Those were the big players. Get it again if you would. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, now who was Jacob? Jacob’s name was changed later to who? To what? Israel. So let’s start again. Abraham transferred faith to Isaac. Isaac transferred faith to Jacob, or Israel. Jacob transferred faith generationally to David, and then David obviously transferred to the coming of the Messiah. He came from the root of Jesse, meaning that David was a part of the genealogy of Jesus Christ.
So Isaac had faith. Ishmael did not. How do you explain that? Same parents, same lifestyle. Let me give you another scenario. Think about this one. Jacob had faith, Esau didn’t. Why? Why did God chose Jacob and He didn’t choose Esau? Here was Isaac praying for Rebekah to have a baby. Remember what it said there in the book of Genesis? And that’s a living example of big faith.
I could imagine when Isaac was a teenager, and a young adult, and they began to explain to Isaac, “Isaac, you know, your mom and I, we’re kind of old. You know when we go, and we take you to soccer games, I mean we’re, we’re on canes and everybody else, they’ve just been out for a morning jog.” And here they are, 100 and 90 when they were born, and so all of a sudden let’s fast-forward to the teenage years; he’s 115, and she is 105, and everybody else is out there about, you know, 30 or 35, 40 years of age. I mean there had to be an explanation, don’t you imagine?
Well you’ve got to see, I mean, your momma couldn’t have babies, and all of a sudden God did a miracle when mom was old, because God’s got a big plan for you in your life. And God’s going to use you in a great, great way. And so God began to see Abraham transferring that faith into the faith of his son, Isaac. And then when Isaac met his wife, Rebekah, is it not interesting that God used the big faith of his daddy to remind Isaac that he needed to pray for his own wife who was barren, to have the womb opened so that God could fulfill His promise?
Let me tell you something, God never takes you on a journey that He doesn’t want to teach your children through the journey. And God doesn’t ever take your parents through a journey that you as a child, doesn’t matter if you’re my age as a child, older, or much younger, God wants to use that in your own life.
This reminds me of something, and it reminds me of a text over in 2 Timothy chapter 2. I want to point it out to you briefly tonight. But in 2 Timothy chapter 2, can I read 2 verses for you? It says, “You therefore, my child, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” And notice this next statement. “And what you have heard from Me in the presence of many witnesses, commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” Now here was the Apostle Paul giving to us a priority to leave what I call a big faith legacy. He challenged his son in the faith named Timothy to do the same as he had done. In other words, Timothy, I have poured into your life, and now what I want you to do is to take that which I have poured in your life, and I want you to pour it into the lives of other men. Do you understand what he is saying?
He challenged Timothy to raise up what I would call grandchildren in the faith, challenging him to make disciples. In other words, Timothy I discipled you. I transferred generationally big faith into your life and now I want you to take that big faith that I have transferred into your life and transfer it into the lives of other people. So notice in the text, it’s very obvious and clear whether it be in the lineage of the Messiah, or rather it be through the life of the Apostle Paul, what you see is a biblical principle, and the biblical principle is big faith transfers generationally.
Now here is a second item I want to call your attention to tonight. Questions we will answer. Do you realize that there are serious questions in your life that you will answer? I’m convinced that one of the reasons some of us don’t grow is that we don’t ask ourselves the hard questions. We like easy questions. We like questions we know the answers to. But there are a lot of questions in life we don’t know the answers to. There are a lot of questions in life we need to struggle with.
2. Questions we will answer.
Let me give you a few of those questions tonight. And I want you to really wrestle with these in your heart. I want you to take them to the Lord tomorrow morning, let God do something in your heart with these questions. Questions like this one:
(1) What kind of legacy will we leave? Ask yourself that. Will I
leave a big faith legacy? But what kind of legacy will we leave? Right now do you understand you are determining what kind of legacy you’re going to leave? I’m determining that in my life. Every one of us need to ask ourselves that serious question because life will come to an end one day. It is inevitable unless the Lord comes, you will die. You will degenerate. You will perish until you go presence in the presence of the Lord. Perish meaning you will eventually die. I want to urge you today to ask yourself the question, what kind of legacy am I going to leave?
Let me ask you a second question that I want you to wrestle with tonight.
(2) When people see our children and grandchildren, what kind of
Legacy of faith do they see? I mean when people look at my, my boys, what kind of legacy do they see? One day when people look at my grandchildren, what kind of legacy will they see? Every one of us need to ask ourselves what kind of legacy of faith do we want them to see? Because you see if we want them to see the kind of legacy that I think we want them to see, then that means that we have to live a life of big faith today. So when you look at your children, what does, what do other people see? When people look at your grandchildren, what do they see?
You see, do they ask are we people that believe or not? Are we leaving a legacy of belief or unbelief? One of big faith or of worry? Which one?
Notice the third question we need to wrestle with:
(3) When people look at our church one day, what kind of legacy will we leave them? What will we leave them? I promise you 20 years from now people will look back at what we are doing as a church right now, what we have become, what we are, what we leave them. What kind of legacy do we hand down to them? Will we hand to them one of restraint, or will we hand to them one of release? Will we hand to them one of big faith, or one of little faith? Any time I’m ever in any kind of quandary, I tell you I revisit a history here that I did not and was not a part of. But it happened years before I came. And I review that history in my mind, and I know the miraculous hand of God that began to really move in a powerful way in this church in the 1970’s, I’m telling you all that does is motivate me to have greater faith! And to not hold back, because if they had held back, we would not be where we are today!
Question number 4:
(4) Are we transferring big faith or worry to others? Wow. That’s a sober, sobering question to ask ourselves. Are we transferring big faith or we transferring worry? I mean think about it, worried parents produce worried children. Do you understand that, parents? If you act like your life is rattled by the events of the world, and you’re going to worry about the worst thing in the world that could happen tomorrow, I’m telling you you’re going to develop kids like that! And while you might be able to handle it, your kid might become a nutcase over it. And what they’re going to do is develop that same traits in their children. And your grandchildren are going to grow up so insecure, and so worried about tomorrow they’ll never have any great faith at all in their life! I challenge you please transfer big faith to other people.
Another question:
(5) Are we leaving a legacy that man can explain and expect, or one that God alone could do and only God could receive the glory? Which one? I mean are we leaving the kind of legacy that man can easily explain, and man can easily expect, or are we leaving the kind of legacy that only God could do, and only God alone could get the glory? I don’t know about you, but I’d rather leave the latter, rather than the former. I would rather leave something that I cannot explain, that no one else could explain, and no one else can expect, but God intervened in life. God did a miracle. God did something that only God could do, and He alone gets the glory when it’s all said and done in my life and through my ministry. So which one are we leaving?
So tonight I want to move to a third major category, and we’ll be gone. I want to answer a simple question:
3. How can we create a big faith legacy? How can we create a big faith legacy? This is not hard, but with it I want to challenge you tonight.
(1) Live with big faith. You will not leave what you are not. Did you hear that? You will leave that which you are. Live with big faith. We cannot create what we are not. Let me say it another way, we will not leave anything different than what we are now! You see we are so used to making our own truth up. We’re so used to having our own imagination that we, that we live in this, this skewed day, and this, this spinning of truth constantly that we lie to ourselves. But it happened in Jesus’ day. It happened in biblical times. That’s why James, the brother of our Lord, said you better watch out. The most deceptive person you know is yourself! And you will deceive your own self! And how much does that happen? I’m telling you today I’m challenging us tonight; we cannot create what we are, not. We will not leave anything that we are not living, and that we are not. Live with big faith. If you want to leave a legacy of great faith, live with it! You’ve got to live with it now.
How can we create a big faith legacy? Notice the second thing:
(2) Plant seeds of big faith into others. Plant seeds of big faith into others. Planting seeds of big faith into others. Let me address this even deeper tonight for a moment. Right now, are you planting worry seeds, or big faith seeds? Which one? What are you planting in the lives of other people? Are you planting worry seeds, or big faith seeds? When someone comes to you with an issue, what do you plant in their heart? Oh man that is really bad. You’re right man. Dude you are in real trouble. I mean you are in real trouble. What are you planting? Are you planting worry seeds or big faith seeds?
Or how about this one: right now are, are, are you planting trusting self-seeds, or trusting God seeds? What are you telling people? Hey, you’ve gotta, you’ve gotta do this and you’ve got to do this, and you’ve got to do this, and we give them some human solution to the only thing that really can be solved by a divine intervention of God. But we give them human methods to try to do something divine. Or do we point them to a God way? This is what God says. This is what you need to do according to God’s Word. I’ll stand with you in agreement and prayer. We will agree in prayer together, and perhaps our God will intervene, and God will do something great in our lives. You have a choice, which one are you going to do? So are you planting in the hearts of people trust yourself…ah it will be okay? Or trust God? Which one? So plant big seeds, and seeds of big faith into others.
And finally:
(3) Leave big faith for others. Leave big faith for others. How do you do that? You know I’ve thought through that a little bit this week, and I’m by no means a genius on this, but just a few quick thoughts. Leave a testimony of big faith for your family. Leave a testimony. Some of you are, are, are perhaps not as verbal as I am, or you know, like me, which is great. God bless you. But let me tell you there’s another way to do it, leave a testimony before you die about how you’ve had faith in Christ. Leave it by letter for your family. Tell them about how God has developed faith in your life. Perhaps you could leave it on video. It could be used even at your funeral if it’s accurate, and the family wouldn’t be embarrassed by it. But leave a video to your loved ones. Not about you’re going to get this, and I want you to do this with this. I mean that’s shallow. Let the legal firms take care of that. But tell them about big faith. Challenge them to live for God. Challenge them to do something great for God in their life.
Also, leave a financial legacy to your church that is a testimony of big faith to everyone. Die the way you supposedly say you want to live. Wouldn’t it be awesome to be able to treat some of your funerals one day, not that that would be awesome, but to be able to stand up and say at those funerals, you know what, let me tell you about this guy. Back in 2010, he and his wife went to their local attorney, and they left at least 10% of all of their assets to the life and the ministry of this church because they wanted to die the way they lived all of their lives. That’s a big faith testimony hitting them right in the face of what’s really important in life versus what is not important in life.
Leave a generation behind you of big faith. I mean there’s a generation behind you, you have the privilege to invest in. Your children. Their friends. Your church. Students in this ministry. Children in this ministry. Preschoolers in this ministry. Young adults in this ministry. Leave a legacy of faith behind you! You see all the faith I have today began with the seeds that someone planted in my life years and years ago. Additionally God has taken me as He’s taken many of you through trials, through suffering, schools of trial, and schools of suffering that grow us in our faith, and develop us into having big faith.
Today, I am permitting others to plant new seeds of big faith in my life. You know recently as I run and work out, I’ve started listening to pod casts. I know that pod casts have been around for a long time, and all, and while I’m pretty high-tech in some ways, I just really had never done that a lot. But I’ve really begun to do that recently, and it’s really blessed my life. You know a guy I’ve started listening to, and the only reason I listen to him is because he plants great seeds of big faith in my life? Is Pastor Steven Furtick of Elevation Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. 30, 31 years of age. Started a church with 8 families about 5 years ago; today they’re running 11,000. 6000 on average attendance. One of the fastest growing churches in America. He’s an energetic Bible teacher, and Bible preacher of the Word of God. But you know why I listen to Steven? Because he puts big faith in me.
One day not long ago I sent him a direct message on Twitter, and I said, “Steven, I listened to your pod cast today and I want to thank you for what you have done, and what you have encouraged me in big faith.” And I was reminded of a direct message he sent me, and he and I have never met to this day. But he sent me a direct message almost a year ago saying, “Years ago you made a huge deposit in the faith in my life through your preaching, and through your writings, and God used you in my life to give me faith.” And then all of a sudden I didn’t even know that was ever influenced by my life came back and God is using him to plant big seeds of big faith in my life.
You know I just want to tell you; you will become what you listen to. You will become what you’re around. What you put in will come out of you. On the last Sunday of this month I will have been here 24 years. I don’t know if God will let me die here or not. I’ll do what He wants me to do. I tell Jeana, I’ve told her this for years, we live like we’re here our whole lives, we live with our bags packed. We belong to Jesus and Jesus alone. I may be here 40 years, 50 years, and then lay it down. But I tell you this, when it’s all said and done, here’s what I want others to say and they’re right about me, Ronnie Floyd lived before us. Planted seeds into others and now has left a legacy of big faith for his generation, and generations beyond. The power of planting seeds can never be underestimated. I was so youthful, foolish, and immature. I did not get it. I did not get it, and quite honestly have not gotten it until about the last 5 years of my life. But the greatest thing I can do is to plant seeds of big faith into your life that God nourishes, blesses, and develops in years to come.
May God help us all to understand big faith transfers generationally.
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