Leaving a Legacy God's Way
Family God's Way • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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We measure a family by its business and its busy-ness for a short span of years. God sees something longer and larger.
O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.
So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come.
The beautiful story behind this psalm includes the people who sang it while Jerusalem burned in 586 BC.
The Septuagint Version of the Old Testament: English Translation (Psalm 70)
By David, a Psalm sung by the sons of Jonadab, and the first that were taken captive.
To understand that inscription, we need to go back in time about fourteen years.
The year is about 600 BC ...
“Go to the house of the Rechabites and speak with them and bring them to the house of the Lord, into one of the chambers; then offer them wine to drink.”
The clans also of the scribes who lived at Jabez: the Tirathites, the Shimeathites and the Sucathites. These are the Kenites who came from Hammath, the father of the house of Rechab.
Then I set before the Rechabites pitchers full of wine, and cups, and I said to them, “Drink wine.”
But they answered, “We will drink no wine, for Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, commanded us, ‘You shall not drink wine, neither you nor your sons forever.
Why does a nomadic family refuse free celebratory wine offered to them by a prophet in the temple?
You shall not build a house; you shall not sow seed; you shall not plant or have a vineyard; but you shall live in tents all your days, that you may live many days in the land where you sojourn.’
Turns out their entire nomadic way of life is based on the same principle. Why?
We have obeyed the voice of Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, in all that he commanded us, to drink no wine all our days, ourselves, our wives, our sons, or our daughters,
and not to build houses to dwell in. We have no vineyard or field or seed,
but we have lived in tents and have obeyed and done all that Jonadab our father commanded us.
The Rechabites were following the tradition of their forefather, Jonadab, who had swore some kind of oath. Why?
The answer is at least two hundred years old.
The year is about 840 BC ...
So he arose and went into the house. And the young man poured the oil on his head, saying to him, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, I anoint you king over the people of the Lord, over Israel.
And you shall strike down the house of Ahab your master, so that I may avenge on Jezebel the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the Lord.
And when he departed from there, he met Jehonadab the son of Rechab coming to meet him. And he greeted him and said to him, “Is your heart true to my heart as mine is to yours?” And Jehonadab answered, “It is.” Jehu said, “If it is, give me your hand.” So he gave him his hand. And Jehu took him up with him into the chariot.
And he said, “Come with me, and see my zeal for the Lord.” So he had him ride in his chariot.
And when he came to Samaria, he struck down all who remained to Ahab in Samaria, till he had wiped them out, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke to Elijah.
Johanadab had got wrapped up in Jehu’s war against the pagans just by being a faithful, loyal person wondering around Samaria.
Why is a guy like Johanadab wandering around Samaria?
The answer is at least three hundred years old.
The year is about 1200 BC ...
And Barak pursued the chariots and the army to Harosheth-hagoyim, and all the army of Sisera fell by the edge of the sword; not a man was left.
But Sisera fled away on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, for there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite.
But Jael the wife of Heber took a tent peg, and took a hammer in her hand. Then she went softly to him and drove the peg into his temple until it went down into the ground while he was lying fast asleep from weariness. So he died.
And behold, as Barak was pursuing Sisera, Jael went out to meet him and said to him, “Come, and I will show you the man whom you are seeking.” So he went in to her tent, and there lay Sisera dead, with the tent peg in his temple.
Why does Jael kill Sisera if her family is an ally of his side of the war?
Now Heber the Kenite had separated from the Kenites, the descendants of Hobab the father-in-law of Moses, and had pitched his tent as far away as the oak in Zaanannim, which is near Kedesh.
Some of the Kenite family had separated from other the others, possibly because they good no live at peace with the foreign oppressers.
Why is this family of nomads living in this region to begin with?
The answer is at least two hundred years old.
The year is about 1400 BC ...
After the death of Joshua, the people of Israel inquired of the Lord, “Who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites, to fight against them?”
The Lord said, “Judah shall go up; behold, I have given the land into his hand.”
The tribe of Judah is selected to go claim lands from the Canaanites.
And the descendants of the Kenite, Moses’ father-in-law, went up with the people of Judah from the city of palms into the wilderness of Judah, which lies in the Negeb near Arad, and they went and settled with the people.
The Kenites offer their assistance to Judah in their war.
Why are the Kenites travelling around with the Hebrews anyway?
The Kenites are the descendants of Hobab.
The answer is at least two hundred years old.
The year is about 1600 BC ...
And Moses said to Hobab the son of Reuel the Midianite, Moses’ father-in-law, “We are setting out for the place of which the Lord said, ‘I will give it to you.’ Come with us, and we will do good to you, for the Lord has promised good to Israel.”
But he said to him, “I will not go. I will depart to my own land and to my kindred.”
And he said, “Please do not leave us, for you know where we should camp in the wilderness, and you will serve as eyes for us.
And if you do go with us, whatever good the Lord will do to us, the same will we do to you.”
Why does Moses insist that the Midianite descendants of his father-in-law travel with them away from Sinai?
The answer is about forty to fifty years old.
The year is about 1650 BC ...
When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian. And he sat down by a well.
Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and drew water and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock.
The shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and saved them, and watered their flock.
When they came home to their father Reuel, he said, “How is it that you have come home so soon today?”
They said, “An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds and even drew water for us and watered the flock.”
He said to his daughters, “Then where is he? Why have you left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread.”
And Moses was content to dwell with the man, and he gave Moses his daughter Zipporah.
She gave birth to a son, and he called his name Gershom, for he said, “I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.”
What is the point of all this?!
Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah:
“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Go and say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, Will you not receive instruction and listen to my words? declares the Lord.
The command that Jonadab the son of Rechab gave to his sons, to drink no wine, has been kept, and they drink none to this day, for they have obeyed their father’s command. I have spoken to you persistently, but you have not listened to me.
God is using this family’s story as a model for legacy of faithfulness.
Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I am bringing upon Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem all the disaster that I have pronounced against them, because I have spoken to them and they have not listened, I have called to them and they have not answered.”
But to the house of the Rechabites Jeremiah said, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Because you have obeyed the command of Jonadab your father and kept all his precepts and done all that he commanded you,
therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Jonadab the son of Rechab shall never lack a man to stand before me.”
And the story didn’t end there. The story continues at least another 150 years.
The year is 445 BC ...
Then I said to them, “You see the trouble we are in, how Jerusalem lies in ruins with its gates burned. Come, let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer suffer derision.”
Malchijah the son of Rechab, ruler of the district of Beth-haccherem, repaired the Dung Gate. He rebuilt it and set its doors, its bolts, and its bars.
O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.
So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come.
That psalm would be compiled into the book of Psalms during the same era that the Jews were returning to rebuild their city.
But the final page of our story actually comes two hundred years after that.
The year is about 250 BC ...
The Septuagint Version of the Old Testament: English Translation (Psalm 70)
By David, a Psalm sung by the sons of Jonadab, and the first that were taken captive.
Leave larger legacy by being part of a longer story.