The VowsToKeep Marriage Podcast

How Your Marriage Can Leave a Lasting Legacy :: [Ep. 262]

• David & Tracy Sellars • Episode 262

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How Your Marriage Can Leave a Lasting Legacy :: [Ep. 262]

What kind of legacy are you building through your marriage? We are exploring just how our love and marriage relationship can grow a beautiful legacy that can be passed down from generation to generation. This episode will cover the following:

- Address heart issues behind communication problems in marriage
- Reflect on the legacy we leave: good or bad, spiritual or material
- Provide practical steps for listeners to begin crafting their personal legacies 

Join us in this insightful discussion and be inspired to make actionable changes in your relationships! Don’t forget to subscribe, share, and leave a review!

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to Vows to Keep Radio with David and Tracy Sellers. Our mission is to help couples develop biblically healthy marriages through the application of God's Word and a deeper relationship with Him. We desire to help you and your spouse grow closer to each other and closer to the heart of God's design for your marriage. Now here's David and Tracy with today's broadcast.

Speaker 2:

Today on Vows to Keep Radio, we're wrapping up a 13-week series on how to help a hurting marriage. This has been quite an adventure. I hope you've felt the same. Even though we can't see you, we know we're going shoulder to shoulder with you and building biblically healthy marriages, and that means more than words can describe. We've been counseling marriages and teaching about godly marriage for almost 20 years, but that doesn't mean we're high and mighty experts. What we do have, and what we hope you've gleaned from this series, is the power of God's word. In this series, we've studied over a dozen common things that you might hear in conversation with someone you care about Everything from purpose to accountability, to someone who wants a divorce, to someone who's fighting over their finances.

Speaker 3:

Before we dive into this last topic today on legacy, I want to tell you the story behind the catalyst to this series. David and I were on our way to Menards one night after we'd had a dinner date and, rather than go into the store to shop for lumber, we ended up sitting in the parking lot on the phone with a good friend of ours. She had called us, but let me tell you it was a conversation well worth having. But her marriage wasn't the one she was calling about. Her heart was so broken and therefore moved to know what to do about this friend of hers who had just received some news that her husband was having an affair.

Speaker 3:

My friend had two requests Could we call this person that was in her life and offer her some advice and, in the meantime, could we tell her what to say to her friend the next time they were on the phone? Well, david and I knew right away that we couldn't cold call this person. It would be like my mom telling her doctor that I had problems with my back and then asked the doctor to call me at home to offer his help. I'm not very likely to run to his office. There's really a disconnect there. We don't make cold calls, but let me tell you we were smiling just the same as our friend talked to us, because there was something we could do. We could help our friend, to help her friend.

Speaker 2:

With God's word we can see he's done a perfect job of equipping you and I to have a healthy marriage. His love for us is on display in every page of the Bible. He models for us the kind of love that we're to give our spouse, whether, in your view, they deserve it or not. So we walked our friend through some scriptures, some concepts that night that she could take and directly apply. When she talked to her friend, we didn't say anything magical. There's no secret formula or tricks to this, but we did share real truth from God's word that, when put into action, ends up resulting in heart change and then life change. Her friend's marriage is still together years later Now, not to her credit or to ours, but to God's glory. You've got people like that in your life, people that I hope are listening to the leading of the Holy Spirit and telling you the truth that you need to hear. But I hope also there are other people's lives that you are speaking into.

Speaker 3:

As we've gone through this series, we want to really equip you to know that sometimes the most obvious answer to a question isn't the right one. So let me tell you another story to set this up. A friend of mine asked me recently if I had any good book recommendations about communication in marriage. I would have loved to have given her a real quick answer and said yeah sure, hey, read this one. But I know that communication problems are never just that.

Speaker 3:

Communication problems are heart problems and we can't communicate well if we don't know our savior, or we don't know the purpose of our marriage, or if we're chasing after idols that don't satisfy but we're actually demanding that our spouse gives us what we think will satisfy. That's going to cause communication issues. Or if my heart isn't right and I've got bitterness and unforgiveness. Well, I think you see where I'm going. If we get our hearts right first, then we don't really need a book on communication. When we have our vertical relationship with our heavenly father in that healthy spot, our horizontal relationships are the way that they should be. Now, I say all that about communication because addressing the top layer of a problem will only help for a moment. Getting a facelift doesn't make my cancer go away. We have to learn to be really good listeners, tuning in to the heart of a problem and not just the symptoms when we're trying to help a friend with a hurting marriage.

Speaker 2:

When it comes to helping a hurting marriage. The word legacy is probably not going to be brought up in those initial conversations, but your friend might say some key words, like things about communication or finances or fighting. What I want you to do is listen for the clues. The clues that say that legacy actually might very well be the topic that you need to dig into with them. Things like hey, now that the kids are gone, we don't have anything in common anymore, or we're like roommates at this stage in our relationship, or I'd rather have my life, he's got his. It's better that we do our own thing. Maybe they just are commenting on how much they enjoy their alone time, being free of their spouse.

Speaker 2:

These kind of words are the ones that, if you listen too carefully, you're going to distinguish that it's possible they are missing the big picture of marriage. They don't understand that God has got a purpose in that marriage and now God's positioned you perfectly to help them to see far off in the distance, giving them some hope, giving them some perspective. You may not even need to use the word legacy initially, but that's where the conversation is heading. When you do get to that point, you're going to experience what we have when we mention about the importance of leaving a good legacy. They'll always nod their heads and say yeah, of course. Yeah, no, I want that.

Speaker 3:

Well, the good news is, it is a foregone conclusion that they will indeed leave a legacy. Well, the bad news is guess what? They're going to leave a legacy. All of us leave behind something for the generation after us, whether it's good or bad. There's not an option here, and we're really not talking about money at all. This isn't an inheritance in any way, shape or form. That's tangible. If your bank account is spent building God's kingdom and you've got nothing financially to pass on to your kids when you're gone, I would say good job. Money is here today, gone tomorrow. We really can't put any stock in it.

Speaker 2:

What we're talking about today is a spiritual legacy that starts with you and extends down through the generations that are going to follow you 20 years ago, around the time that Tracy and I were getting married, if you would have gotten together all of the living generations in the Sellers family for a family photo, there would have been two people in that picture me and my dad. No granddads, no great granddads, no children yet to pass the family name on. But now, 20 years later, we're not too far away from having four people in that picture my dad, me, my son and soon his children. But really, if you would have taken that picture 20 years ago, it's like my grandpa could have been in that picture. Yeah, he's gone, but when I was a boy he planted a good seed. The day he became a Christian From my dad and my grandfather, I watched my faith take shape.

Speaker 2:

I actually became a Christian as a result of seeing the way that my dad handled my grandfather's death. He didn't mourn like those who had no hope. No, instead, that was the day that I put my hope in Jesus, and today the branches of our family legacy stretch out even farther. As we see, our children have come to faith in Jesus too. What I'm getting at is that in my family my grandfather planted a seed, and generationally I can look back and see, he is one of the heroes of the faith.

Speaker 3:

In my family. My grandpa was the first one to give his heart to the Lord while he was overseas serving in the Navy. When he returned from war, he began to go to church with his family and, as a result, my mom and my dad raised me in church, where I heard the truth of the gospel, and now we're doing the same with our children. I'd like to suggest, however, that there's a lot more to leaving a godly legacy than just telling your kids and grandkids about God. It's a perfect place to start, and we need to start with our own faith, rooted and built up in Christ, but it can't stop there. When I became a Christian, I began my faith journey as an infant, and, to be honest, I was completely self-absorbed, but beginning to grow in Christ as I learned what God's Word said. What does he want me to do? How can I begin to understand this life of faith that I'm beginning? The thing about becoming a Christian, though, is it's perfectly possible to remain a baby Christian my entire life, or maybe I advance to being a toddler or a child in the faith, but that's not the kind of faith I want to leave as a legacy.

Speaker 3:

Jesus calls us, in Matthew, chapter 28, to go and make disciples, and you've probably heard us say this before, but we're going to say it again We've got to first disciple the people in our very own family. That's how we begin to build a legacy. Our faith and our obedience to God's word will, first and foremost, be put to the test within those four walls of your house. If you could just see a video of the last week of the interactions between you and your family within your house, then you would know what I mean. Legacy always comes from how we live our faith in Jesus every day and in the roughest and toughest of moments, when we don't feel like loving our spouse through their sin, when we can't see anything good up ahead, when we hear voices tell us to just get out of this messy relationship, when we can't remember why we're sticking this.

Speaker 2:

Our sin. Nature makes remaining an infant in Christ the default. We're focused on the troubles and the circumstances of the day. We live in the moment without even thinking about what's ahead. Sometimes I don't think we even perceive that growth is possible, so we don't really strive for it, especially when things aren't going super awesome in our marriage relationship. We just hope to get through the day through this next conversation. So here's your friend feeling hopeless and having an eye on legacy. Well, that's just not on their mind at all. It's hard sometimes to connect our everyday choices with the things that we can't see, that future legacy. That's where faith in God and obedience to his word and your job in your friend's life is to put some light on this, helping them to look up, to keep their eyes fixed on Jesus, to remember the purpose of their marriage, so that they stop tripping over what's wrong and stumbling over what's missing in their marriage and remember that God really is up to something much bigger than they can see in the here and now.

Speaker 1:

If you have a marriage question, please email questions at vows2keepcom. Vows to Keep will respond to you via email and perhaps use it on the air. Now let's rejoin Vows to Keep Radio with David and Tracy Sellers.

Speaker 3:

We're going to spend a little bit of time here in Hebrews, chapter 11. And I know that this chapter is lovingly referred to as the heroes of the faith chapter, but can I just add a little more to that title? Let's call it the faith and obedience chapter An awesome place in the Bible where we specifically see those two things really converging together faith and obedience. It's a faith builder to read through the recounting of these heroes that are listed in this chapter, to know that they were real people who kept their eyes on the eternal rewards of their faith, like Abel and Enoch and Noah and Abraham and Sarah and Moses, and so many more. If you look at each of their stories, you're going to see four things they have in common.

Speaker 3:

Number one, you guessed it they had faith. Each one of them had such a heart of faith faith beyond what they could perceive or even predict. Let me clarify this for you, though they did not have faith in themselves. They knew they had to put their faith in a God that could be trusted, and they knew that his way was better than theirs. Each and every one of these people believed in God's promise to them, and that actually changed the way they live. So one of the four things you're going to see they all have in common is obedience. Their faith produced something they could not conjure up on their own specific obedience to God. God gives us the gift of faith. That is a gift from him, and it's because of that gift, and by his power working to change our hearts, that we have the ability to be obedient to his word. That's what he calls us to. He says if you love me, you will obey my commands.

Speaker 2:

This leads us to the third thing about these fears of the faith. The thing they had in common was the choices. Let's go pick on the Israelites for just a minute Hebrews 11 30. It was by faith that the people of Israel marched around Jericho for seven days and the walls come crashing down. Now, the legacy that they were creating for their nation didn't happen in the moment the walls crumbled. That was the power of God on display. But think about what led up to it.

Speaker 2:

Day after day, they had to get up off the dusty ground. They had to brush themselves off and go do something physically taxing, certainly hard to wrap their heads around. What are we doing? You're saying, if I march for seven days, god's going to do a miracle. Yep, that's our God for you. When he speaks and we listen and act without argument and follow through on his word, amazing things happen.

Speaker 2:

I hope what you can see is that these Old Testament stories are still relevant to you and I and your friend now.

Speaker 2:

God gives us these stories to show us that he can be trusted.

Speaker 2:

Sometimes what we're hearing and seeing is unconventional, but if you can help your friends see what God might be up to, to help them to look further down the road than where they are and to ask them what is it that God is specifically asking for you and your spouse to do that you've been unwilling to follow through on.

Speaker 2:

These are powerful places to start and then pray, asking that God would bring about a heart change to really really help them follow through, because it is actually possible to make these little momentary behavioral changes that look like we're trying to line up with God's word, but we all know that doesn't stick around, that doesn't make lasting change. For example, if I know that I need to speak kindly to Tracy, even when I don't think she deserves it, if I remember I'm called to build her up rather than tear her down, I can make a determination to do that. But if it doesn't come from my heart, guess what? It's going to quickly fail. Now, if my faith is in my Lord and Savior, relying on his love for me and knowing that he's got my back and he has things planned beyond my ability to see them, then my heart changes toward Tracy, even in the worst moments that we might have together, and my faith in God helps me to want the obedience to his word and the powerful changes it can bring when I am obedient.

Speaker 3:

What we want you to hear clearly today and to help your friends see, is that faith begets obedience and obedience begets legacy. And that's the fourth thing you're going to see from each one of these heroes. In Hebrews 11, legacy. Verse 13 says all these people died still believing what God had promised them. They did not receive what was promised, but they saw it from a distance and they welcomed it. And that's what we need to strive for. The faith that got them on the right track in the very beginning, that helped them to be obedient and make those good choices, kept them till the end, when they were each leaving this world. Each of these people planted seeds for a future harvest, some they wouldn't even see till they got to the other side of eternity. Your friend has been planting seeds too, and maybe they're kind of wrinkling their nose right now. They're not liking this crop that is popping up in their marriage.

Speaker 3:

The seeds of sin and self that we plant. They result in spiritual death. There will always be consequences for our sin. We think what we do in the dark no one needs to know about, but sin has a domino effect. Galatians 6, 7 says domino effect. Galatians 6, 7 says do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. This applies in your friend's marriage today. Whoever sows to please their flesh, verse eight says, from the flesh will reap destruction. Whoever sows to please the spirit, from the spirit will reap eternal life. Sin is going to corrupt a healthy family tree. But here's the flip side in Hosea, chapter 10. God says plant the good seeds of righteousness and you're going to corrupt a healthy family tree. But here's the flip side in Hosea, chapter 10. God says plant the good seeds of righteousness and you're going to harvest a crop of love, a crop you're going to love. Plow up the hard ground of your hearts. Now is the time to seek the Lord that he may come and shower righteousness upon you.

Speaker 2:

It's in the seemingly insignificant things like forgiving quickly and putting aside my hobby to go hang out with her, changing a nighttime routine to show my spouse I am more into them than my personal preferences. It's respecting my spouse, not because they're always respectable, but because they're made in the image of God. It's behind closed doors, in the little moments where legacy actually gets legs to stand on, not just that I have Christ as my savior, but that I'm living the gospel in my life. It's in action and these are dots you can connect for your friend who's in that hurting marriage. It's not necessarily that they need to have their eyes fixed on legacy. It's that they need to have their eyes fixed on their Savior and as they follow him in these tough moments, that beautiful legacy will be built while they're not even looking.

Speaker 3:

When David and I meet with a couple, we always give some follow-through homework, and you can do the same thing with your friend. You can even dig into God's word together. But we've got six things that we think are good questions for them to answer, for you to ask them. Number one what does the Bible say about inheritance and what does the Bible say about legacy? Open up God's word. Flip to those passages. Find out the truth that's contained within the pages about those topics. Secondly, make a list of what am I consistently doing that's going to last into eternity. That's a really good thing to spend some time in prayer about. Third, have them ask their spouse to help them see an accurate representation of their current legacy because, honestly, that's the best person in their life to help them see their blind spots.

Speaker 2:

Fourth, what action steps can I take to start changing my legacy into one that is eternal? Fifth, how will living to leave a godly legacy affect my marriage? And finally, how will it affect my children and my grandchildren? Your home may be full of anger, impatience, bitterness, unforgiveness, materialism, sexual sin, malice and a whole host of other sins that are leaving a legacy that you don't want For your friend. It may feel like this is the way it will always be, because this is the way it's been for so long, but God has put you in their life to encourage them. There's a lot of hope packed into the truth that it can look different than it does right now.

Speaker 3:

I believe that, too, god through us, can create a family of faith. Our marriage, your friend's marriage, can be a legacy, and it can look different for my children and grandchildren and their children after that. And we're going to go right back to Hebrews, chapter 11. It all starts with faith. Ask God to increase your faith in him, ask him to help you to get to know him better. That is a prayer he will answer every single time and remember what comes next. The seed of that faith is going to produce obedience, and obedience is seen in those small, seemingly insignificant choices of our days. Without us knowing it, the constant decisions we make to adhere our lives to God's word bring about a harvest of an amazing legacy, one where we can confidently know that one day we can stand before God and hear those words well done, good and faithful servant.

Speaker 2:

The exciting thing to us is that, as we finish this series with the focus on legacy, we know God is stirring some hearts to be thinking beyond their own marriage. God is raising your awareness and, at the same time, calling you to help hurting marriages in a more consistent way, people who realize they could step forward in obedience. Saying yes, lord, I'm willing to be used in other people's lives, in their marriages. Saying yes, lord, I'm willing to be used in other people's lives, in their marriages, to meet them right where they're hurting. The world has made marriage counseling some mystical science, something expensive, something that can only be done by paid professionals. Look around the world's way of defining and handling marriage issues is not working.

Speaker 3:

In John, chapter 14, the Holy Spirit is called our counselor. He not only resides within us as Christians throughout our lives, he is working to disciple us, helping us become more Christ-like. Then he calls us to do the same thing with others. We see this in the Great Commission go and make disciples. God made counseling to be part and parcel with discipleship. God made discipleship a part of all of our lives, not because we're paid to, but because we love.

Speaker 2:

Most of the time, we don't say yes to God's call because of one of two things First, we feel unprepared and second, we have fear. In Exodus, chapter three, god talks to Moses and says this is what I want you to do. Go and speak my truth to my people. I have a promised land want you to do. Go and speak my truth to my people. I have a promised land for them to enter. I want to rescue them and I'm using you as my mouthpiece. Does this sound like a marriage you might know of? They need God to lead them to a promised land that he's already made ready for them. But if you've ever read Exodus or know anything about Moses, you'll know he didn't jump up and down at this opportunity, moses pleaded with the Lord. I'm not very good with words. I never have been and I'm not now and even though you've spoken to me, I get tongue tied and my words get tangled. Send anyone else.

Speaker 3:

Lord, please let that not be us. Help us to say yes to you and understand that you're not going to call us to something you won't equip us for.

Speaker 2:

God will not call you to speak to a hurting marriage and then ask you to use your own words to make it up as you go. He's given you the Bible. He's given you the Holy Spirit to help you remember his word. He's given the conviction of the Holy Spirit to help you apply it not only to your own marriage but to any marriage you come alongside to disciple. But here's a caution for you today If you feel God pulling at your heart strings to step up and say yes, don't discount yourself because you're not qualified.

Speaker 2:

A year ago, tracy and I finished counseling with a couple who had gone through some amazingly hard things in their marriage and in our final meeting with this couple, they shared that they had felt the call to be a tool in God's hands for someone else's marriage.

Speaker 2:

We talked in depth with them about the training that we had received through the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors, and it was so cool to see their eyes light up as they considered what this could look like in their own life, that God could use their testimony of his saving grace, the way he saved their marriage, to share truth with others people in the lowest of places, and that they wouldn't be alone. In fact, a couple who's been on the Bows to Keep team for nearly eight years now had walked through a very similar process team for nearly eight years now, had walked through a very similar process feeling the calling after being changed by the very application of the gospel in their marriage, applied at a time when tragedy was finally being overtaken by the truth of Jesus Christ. What they can't see is the outcome the fruit of God's word spoken at just the right time when someone needs to hear it the most. God is mighty enough to take our little acts of obedience and turn them into something much bigger.

Speaker 3:

So what's the next step of faith you need to take today to get equipped to help hurting marriages? Pray about it and if you'd like to continue the conversation, reach out to us via our website, VowsToKeepcom.

Speaker 1:

Vows to Keep is supported by a team which includes biblical coaches, writers and pastoral advisors. If you have a desire to serve marriages in your community, we would love to hear from you. Vows to Keep is a not-for-profit marriage ministry designed to bring God's encouraging truth to the marriages of our area. As a not-for-profit organization, our commitment to Christlike marriages includes providing much-needed services, regardless of a couple's financial ability to offset the cost of Vows to Keep operations. If you are unable to donate your time or abilities, but would like to help support Vows to Keep financially, visit VowsToKeepcom and click on the Donate link. This program is sponsored by Vows to Keep of Zanesfield, ohio.

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David Sellars

Host
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Tracy Sellars

Host