There’s a Casting Crowns song playing on the radio these days with a line that always bothers me a bit. The song is “Only Jesus,” and the message of the song is good. It talks about focusing on helping people see and remember Jesus rather than focusing on our own fame and fortune. However, the chorus begins with “And I, I don’t want to leave a legacy.” That line I’m not quite sure I agree with.

You see, while followers of Christ should not be focused on their own fame or aggrandizement, I think we are generally meant to leave a legacy. A legacy not motivated by our own vanity, but motivated by and naturally flowing out of our relationship with God.

I was reminded of this in my recent reading of Nehemiah. Chapter 3 lists the people who rebuilt the wall around Jerusalem, naming the person in charge of each section.  As I slogged through the chapter full of unfamiliar names, I once again found myself wondering why on earth God had the biblical writers include both this list in particular and the various lists we find scattered throughout the Bible. After all, I don’t think I’m unusual in kind of dreading getting to one of those chapters in my Bible reading plan.

I’m not going to claim to have a full explanation, but I think the point of the list in Nehemiah 3 is that this wall was the legacy of the people who worked on it. This list of people associated with the wall building, this explanation of their legacy, provides us with some valuable reminders.

First, it reminds us that God calls us to be involved in what he’s doing. God could have built that wall without the people, but he doesn’t usually work that way. He wants us to be a part of the plan. 

Second, while he sometimes takes us far from home to serve him, he wants us to get involved in his work where we are. The people working on the wall were mostly working on the section that was closest to what they cared about: their home or their work or both. 

Third, this list, along with all of the others, demonstrates that God cares enough about people to want them listed by name. He encourages us to see what the people did. 

We talk about looking to Jesus alone, and he is our only model, but I think God understands that we are human. We don’t always do well without flesh and blood examples, even though all of them but Jesus are imperfect. Thus, we have Paul encouraging the recipients of his letters to look at his example (and through it to Christ). We have the faith chapter of Hebrews 11, where the author takes us through the Old Testament story, pointing out examples of humans who lived out their faith in God.

Over the summer, two different older Christ-followers that I knew fairly well at different times of my life died. I was not able to attend either memorial service, but I saw all of the posts that came across Facebook, and I watched portions of one of the services that was posted online. In both cases, the defining characteristic of all that I read and saw was the legacy of faith that these people left to their family and friends.

Of course, Casting Crowns isn’t the only group that has weighed in on this subject of legacies, and I think I have to stand with a couple of others: Nicole Nordeman’s “Legacy” and Jon Mohr’s “Find Us Faithful.” I want to live a life of faith that leaves a legacy that allows others to see Jesus through me. Those are older songs (one quite a bit older), but worth checking out if you’re not familiar with them.

In the final chapter of Nehemiah, he lists a bunch of accomplishments: his legacy. The final words of the book read: “Remember me, O my God, for good” (Nehemiah 13:31b ESV)

May we choose to live such lives.

 

Photo by Laura Fuhrman on Unsplash