Hello, this is Brother Denny.
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Greetings to each one of you this afternoon.
I'm grateful for the opportunity to be here
with you.
It's a bit of a shift, five days
since we came back from Ghana, West Africa,
but I'm grateful to have this opportunity to
be here with you, to join in what
God has been doing here, what God has
been teaching you, what you've been learning, what
you've been responding to from God's Word.
I'm grateful for the chance to be a
part of at least the last half of
it.
We've been here since, I think, Wednesday.
So we've joined you for this last half.
When these meetings were coming together, my father
asked me whether it would be possible for
me to come home a couple of days
early, back from the mission station where my
wife and I are working, to come home
and share a message from the perspective of
the next generation.
And I'm grateful for this opportunity to do
that this afternoon.
That is what I would like to do.
My heart beats with all that you've been
hearing.
My heart beats with what God has been
doing here in your hearts, for your families,
for your homes, for your marriages.
It's the will of God.
And I'm grateful to be able to come
and share something with you.
God bless all of you for your sincerity.
God bless you for the spirit that I've
sensed here in the bit of time that
I've been here.
When I look at you as a group,
I know that most of you are what
we could refer to as first-generation Christians,
or maybe first-generation godly families, or first
-generation godly marriages.
Maybe some of you have a Christian heritage,
but you're seeking to set the standard higher
in your own family.
So you're the first generation.
I'm not.
I'm a second generation.
And that's a privilege, and that's a blessing.
That doesn't make me better or you worse,
but it only is a difference.
It's a difference of perspective that we have
as we sit here and look at God's
Word.
You're a first generation.
For the majority of you sitting here, God
has shown you something that your parents didn't
see.
God has shown you something that you are
striving for.
That means you're first generation.
God has also shown me things that I'm
striving for, but I inherited most of what
I have because I'm a second generation.
And I'm not the only one of the
second generation here.
Thank God for the work that He has
been doing in families all across this country,
and there are young people here, there are
young couples here, who are also part of
the second generation.
And I'm elected to speak for all of
you this afternoon.
It is our desire this afternoon to be
an encouragement to you.
It is our desire to give you words
that will help you to keep pushing forward
for the things that you are striving for.
We are the voice of the second generation.
I hope to use the unique perspective that
I have of having grown up with much
of what you are now striving for.
I hope to use that perspective to encourage
you with some of the blessings that have
flown out of that life that I've been
privileged to live.
The title this afternoon of what I would
like to share is this.
The second generation and the overtaking blessing.
In Christ there are no grandchildren, but I
don't think you understand what I'm saying this
afternoon when I say the second generation.
You're sitting here and God has put in
your heart a desire to give your children
something that you did not have.
God has put in your heart a desire
to give your children a family, a marriage,
a home life, a church life that you
did not have.
You desire to give them a foundation underneath
their feet as they set out to live
their life that you did not have.
That means you're first generation.
Maybe you had Christian parents, but you still
set your goals to go farther than what
your parents had.
You've seen truths in God's word that your
parents did not see.
That makes you first generation.
But as I stand here today, I'm second
generation.
I have grown up under all the teaching
that you've been hearing these last ten days.
I've grown up under that.
I've grown up not only under that teaching,
but I thank God that I've grown up
under the reality of what you've heard the
last ten days.
And I know that I'm privileged and I'm
very grateful to my parents and I'm very
grateful to God.
But we are the second generation.
We are those who have been raised with
these principles in our life from the time
we were young.
And that gives us a unique perspective.
And that gives us unique blessings.
And I would like to share with you
some of those blessings this afternoon.
We are now walking out the truths that
our parents put into us from the time
we were small, growing up through.
And we're now living out those principles.
And we're finding unique blessings.
We are the second generation.
The generation of the overtaking blessing.
And that's what I would like to share
on with you this afternoon.
Let's turn in our Bibles to Psalms chapter
112.
We'll read verse 1 and 2.
Praise ye the Lord.
Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord,
that delighteth greatly in his commandments.
His seed shall be mighty upon the earth.
The generation of the upright shall be blessed.
We want to talk today about the blessed
second generation.
And I think it's important that we lay
a foundation that it's clear in all of
our hearts that God passes blessings from generation
to generation.
I think it's very clear in all of
our hearts as we look around society that
curses pass from generation to generation.
I'm quite sure that that has been preached
in the last ten days here.
That it's possible that a curse on the
life of your parents because of the life
they lived or your grandparents can pass down
to you.
That is a principle in God's Word.
God works that way.
That's listed time and time and time again
in the Old Testament.
And it's a principle that's a part of
the character of God.
The curses pass down from generation to generation.
But it's also very clear when we look
into God's Word that blessings also pass from
generation to generation.
And that is what we want to focus
on this afternoon.
Let's turn to Deuteronomy chapter 28.
These are some of the most lovely verses
of blessing in the whole Bible, surrounded by
about three chapters of curses.
But because our hearts this afternoon, I trust,
are sincere, we can read just the verses
of blessing and God can use it to
motivate us.
Deuteronomy chapter 28 verse 1 and reading.
And it shall come to pass if thou
shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the
Lord thy God to observe and to do
all his commandments which I command thee this
day that the Lord thy God will set
thee on high above all the nations of
the earth.
And all these blessings shall come on thee
and overtake thee if thou shalt hearken unto
the voice of the Lord thy God.
Blessed shalt thou be in the city and
blessed shalt thou be in the field.
Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body
and the fruit of thy ground and the
fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy
kind and the flocks of thy sheep.
Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store.
Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in
and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest
out.
The Lord shall cause thine enemies that rise
up against thee to be smitten before thy
face.
They shall come out against thee one way
and flee before thee seven ways.
The Lord shall command the blessing upon thee
in thy storehouses and in all that thou
settest thy hand unto.
And he shall bless thee in the land
which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
The Lord shall establish thee and holy people
unto himself as he hath sworn unto thee
if thou shalt keep the commandments of the
Lord thy God and walk in his ways.
And all the people of the earth shall
see that thou art called by the name
of the Lord and they shall be afraid
of thee.
And the Lord shall make thee plenteous in
goods, in the fruit of thy body, in
the fruit of thy cattle and in the
fruit of thy ground, in the land which
the Lord swear unto thy fathers to give
thee.
The Lord shall open unto thee his good
treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto
thy land in his season and to bless
all the work of thy hand.
And thou shalt lend unto many nations and
thou shalt not borrow.
And the Lord shall make thee the head
and not the tail.
And thou shalt be above only and thou
shalt not be beneath if thou hearken unto
the commandment of the Lord thy God which
I command thee this day to observe and
to do them.
And thou shalt not go aside from any
of the words which I command thee this
day to the right hand or to the
left to go after other gods to serve
them.
We'll stop reading there.
This is a portion of blessing.
God in these words is giving Israel a
chance to be blessed.
God has been giving them in the chapters
leading up to and after this.
God has been giving them his law.
And God has been promising them in these
verses.
If you will obey my law, you will
be blessed.
And if we continue reading, then God says
if you break my law, you will find
nothing but curses.
But I want to focus this afternoon on
the blessings.
I think if we looked around us in
the world of today, we would see multitudes
of examples of the overtaking curse.
We see generations after generation after generation inheriting
curses, adding their own curses because of their
own sin, and passing it down to the
next generation.
That's clear to all of us.
We agree on that.
But the same principle works on the flip
side, praise God.
The blessings also pass down.
And that's what we would like to look
at this afternoon.
We have a clear understanding of the passed
on curse.
But I would like to motivate you this
afternoon with the truth of the passed on
blessing.
If we look throughout God's word, there are
many verses that speak about the next generation.
How God will bless them.
How the generation of the upright shall be
blessed.
So the blessings do pass down.
As you parents choose to follow God, as
you choose to live out what God is
teaching you, as you choose to set your
sights higher, God promises to bless you.
And God promises that as He blesses you,
He will bless your children.
Both directly and indirectly.
As you fulfill God's word, your lives will
be blessed.
And that's wonderful.
If it stopped right there, it would be
wonderful.
It would be a worthwhile life to live
out God's commands if it stopped right there.
But it doesn't stop right there.
The blessings that God pours out upon you
are passed on to your children.
Hallelujah.
That is what God's word is giving to
us this afternoon.
If you take the promises of God's word
to bless the next generation, the promises that
our seed are going to walk in the
right path if we teach them, if you
take those promises and then couple them together
with the blessings that we've just read here
in Deuteronomy chapter 28, you have the title
that we have this afternoon.
The second generation and the overtaking blessing.
Because God promises to bless your children.
Because of the steps that you are taking,
because of the decisions that you are making,
because of the battles that you are fighting,
God promises to bless your children.
Let's look a little bit more specifically at
this word, overtake.
Verse 2 says, All these blessings shall come
on thee and overtake thee.
Overtake is not a word that we use
in American English, but I come from where
I live is a British colony and we
still use the word overtake.
When you're passing a vehicle and you get
into the passing lane, you overtake a vehicle.
That's the word we still use in Ghana
to describe passing.
The word overtake means to pursue, to catch
up to and to pass.
And God promises to us this afternoon that
as we live out his principles, God will
send his blessings to pursue us, to run
after us, to catch up to us and
to pass us.
That's God's word.
These blessings will come on you and not
just come on you, but they will overtake
you if you will live out God's word
in your marriage, in your family, in your
church, with your children.
God's blessings will come on you and they
will overtake you.
Ponder with me.
You as godly parents are living out God's
word as you see it.
You are striving for something greater in your
lives.
You're striving to put into practice God's word
in whatever area you put the area in.
You know what area you're striving towards.
And because you are striving to fulfill God's
word in that area, God promises you an
overtaking blessing.
But now take it a step further.
Those blessings that overtake you, they overtake your
children.
Those blessings that come on you, that pursue
you, God sends them running after you.
Could we say that?
They pursue you.
God says, you see that person?
You see the life they're living?
You see how they're obeying my commands?
Here, blessing.
Go and overtake that person.
Go and overwhelm them.
That's the word I like to use.
Here, blessing.
Go, overtake that person.
That person is living out my word.
And God promises that to you and he
promises that to your children.
God promises your children, your generation, your seed
will be blessed.
We need to claim that promise.
And we need to be motivated by it
this afternoon.
So God says, blessing will overtake you.
Not blessing in one area.
Blessing in every area of life.
I know as we look at these Old
Testament verses, you may say, well, that looks
like we're going to be rich.
That's not the focus.
We're in the New Testament now and God's
blessing is poured out in so many other
ways besides just increasing the cattle that we
may or may not have.
But God promises to bless us.
It's very clear when you look down through
this list that every area of life, physical
or spiritual, is encompassed in this overtaking blessing
that God promises.
And God promises that to us this afternoon.
Blessed in the city, blessed in the field,
blessed in the farm, blessed in work, blessed
going out, blessed coming in.
God promises that for your children and you
dear first generation parents this afternoon.
If I could this afternoon give you a
spark of faith that would help you to
reach out and claim the blessings that God
is promising for your children.
I know that it would encourage you.
I know that it would motivate you to
pull through some of the difficult battles that
you are fighting for your children.
So the second generation has the overtaking blessings,
not only of their own life, but the
overtaking blessings that come because their parents have
set out to follow God and to follow
his word.
And that blessing overtakes them.
It's not possible for me to share this
without making it personal.
That is the testimony of my life.
I'm a second generation Christian.
I've grown up from a small child living
under what you've been hearing the last ten
days.
No, it wasn't perfect, but I've lived under
that.
There is a legacy of godliness underneath my
feet as I stand here this afternoon.
And I'm not proud of that, but I'm
awfully grateful for it.
I'm very grateful for it.
I'm a second generation.
I am one who has picked up what
has been given to me, and I'm now
endeavoring to build on it.
And your children are going to do the
same.
If I were to call others to come
and stand here, we would all with one
mouth say, We are the second generation, and
we are living under a special blessing of
God.
The overtaking blessing that God poured out upon
our parents because of what they've done.
It is on us as we live out
our lives, as we now endeavor to obey
God's word in our own families and live
out what God is showing us.
There is in our hearts a consciousness of
a supernatural blessing of God that is so
far beyond what we personally have done in
our life in following God that the only
answer to where that blessing comes from is
to say that it is the overtaking blessing
that God put on our parents, overtaking us.
Hallelujah.
That is what God is promising to us.
And that is my testimony this afternoon.
There are many, many times in my life
with my wife and my young family that
we look at each other with tears in
our eyes and say, God, why are we
so blessed?
What have we put into our marriage?
What have we put into our family?
What have we put into our life that
could possibly explain this blessing that you've put
on our lives?
And in the end we look and say,
it must be the blessing of the foundation
that we've been given.
We have been given a legacy to stand
on.
We have been given a heritage of godliness.
And we stand upon that.
And as we stand upon that and then
endeavor with our own heart and our own
soul to follow God, the blessings of God
just multiply upon us.
A waterfall, a cascade of blessings coming down
upon our life through our parents and now
into our own life.
And you first generation parents, that should motivate
you.
That should encourage you.
Because you are fighting for something.
And your children will be blessed because of
what you are fighting for.
This message could have been called, Fighting for
the Next Generation Part 2.
I believe last night you heard a message
about fighting for the next generation.
And this message could be called Part 2.
This is the perspective of the second generation
now looking back and saying, Yes, my father,
my mother, my parents have fought for me.
And now I'm standing here on the ground
that they fought for.
The ground that they achieved by the grace
of God.
I now stand upon it.
This is Part 2 of that message.
Because indeed our parents have fought for things.
They put forth a heroic struggle.
And I've seen that struggle.
What I have observed in my parents' life
over the last 20 years is a heroic
struggle to put God's Word to practice in
their daily life, in their marriage, in our
family, in our church, in our personal lives.
They have put forward a heroic struggle.
And I've observed that struggle.
But now I'm the second generation.
They have fought for standards of godliness in
their marriage.
They didn't inherit it.
They didn't have it.
They honestly didn't have it.
Maybe it could encourage some of you, if
you would know where they came from in
the last 20 years.
If you could know the struggle that they
have put forward to come to the place
where they are now, it would encourage you,
because maybe some of you are struggling in
the same areas.
They struggled to put godly principles in place
for their family.
And we observed that struggle.
We lived through that struggle.
Some would say we were the guinea pigs.
As they found their way in how to
have a godly family, how to preserve a
godly seed, how to discipline us, how to
raise us up to follow God.
They fought for that.
In church life, we ran the gamut when
we were young children, finding our way to
a place where we could walk with God
and we could hear godly preaching, but yet
we could also see godly lives being lived
out.
While our parents sought for a place where
we would not have to stand alone every
Sunday.
They struggled.
They fought for what we now live in.
And we now stand upon that foundation.
We are now seeking to live out the
same things that they lived out.
And we're seeking to continue that growth in
grace.
But as we do that, we are conscious
every day of an overwhelming, overtaking blessing of
God upon our lives.
And that blessing is the blessing of our
parents.
And that blessing is available for your children.
God bless you for the struggle that you
are fighting for.
You as first generation parents, families and Christians,
you are fighting for every foot you gain.
Every foot you gain is a struggle.
You're clawing.
You're reaching forward for every inch you attain.
God is helping you.
But it takes a lot of grace.
But your children will run where you crawled.
Your children will fly where you walked.
Because of the foundation that you are giving
to them, they will.
God says they will.
And by God's grace, they will.
What you are giving to your children, the
legacy that you are giving them, of constantly
striving to reach forward, to attain more, to
know more of God's Word in your heart,
lived out practically in your lives, that legacy
is a tremendous foundation.
And your children will take that foundation and
they will run where you've walked.
And that's the words of encouragement that I
would like to give you this afternoon.
You're struggling, wrestling for every inch you gain.
And you feel like you have to hold
on tenaciously to what God is giving you.
God bless you.
But I wish today to be a voice
calling out to you, dear parents, it's worth
it.
It's worth it.
Your children will have something that you do
not have.
There's no way that you can fathom the
blessing that God is going to pour out
upon your children.
God is pouring a blessing out upon you.
But I think sometimes, because the first generation
is so caught up fighting and struggling to
gain every inch they gain, you're not as
conscious of God's blessing on your life.
Because it's taking so much of God's grace
in your life just to grab something new,
just to hold on to a loving relationship
with your wife, just to find your place
as a woman in the home, just to
find your place as a father.
It's taking so much of God's grace that
you're not conscious of the grace of God.
How much it's being poured into you.
But your children will inherit what you have
fought for.
God's Word promises that.
They will stand on the land that you
have conquered.
And when they stand there and set their
own heart and their own soul to follow
God and to live out what you have
put into them, they will be so conscious
of blessing in their lives.
An overwhelming, overtaking blessing will come on them,
will tackle them, will take them down and
take them captive.
God says, you will send a blessing to
pursue your children.
And I am the second generation and I
speak for the second generation.
To you, our parents, keep fighting.
God bless you.
God give you energy.
God give you strength.
What you are fighting for is valuable.
What you are fighting for is worth fighting
for.
Don't give up.
Don't become tired of your whole life being
a battle.
Your children will be able to run where
you have only been able to crawl.
Keep going for the best.
You may reach out for something and you
may not achieve it.
You may reach all your life for God's
best and feel like at the end of
your life you were not able to achieve
all that you would like to achieve.
But guess what?
Your children have another chance.
And they have a better chance.
And they have a better chance because you
gave it to them.
They have a better chance because you have
given them a legacy of blessing to stand
on.
Hallelujah!
That is what God is giving to your
children through you.
And you need to keep that vision in
front of your hearts when you are struggling,
when you are battling.
You need to remember, I am passing on
the legacy of blessing to my children.
My children are going to be the second
generation.
My children are going to be those who
take what we have put into them and
take it even further.
Our children are going to achieve things that
you could hardly dream of.
That's God's Word.
But it's not only God's Word.
It's my testimony.
The testimony of my gratefulness to my parents
for what they have done.
My testimony of the foundation that they have
given us to stand on.
The foundation that has enabled us to live
a life in which God's blessings overtake us
and overwhelm us at every curve.
I would like to give you a couple
of examples this afternoon of areas that my
parents fought for that we now walk in
with God's blessing on our lives.
I have about nine areas here that I
fought of as I've pondered on specific areas
that my parents fought for that we have
now inherited.
I have nine areas here that I would
just like to go over quickly and mention
just a couple of things about each area.
The first thing that comes to my mind
is courtship.
If you're a first generation parent here, good
chances are that there's no way for you
to experience courtship because you already live that
stage of your life.
You listen to a message like we heard
this morning with longing.
Yes, with jealousy like my father said.
You listen wishing you could have had that.
You have to listen and when you listen
you have to say, okay God, apply your
grace over this area of my life because
it wasn't like that for me.
I don't have happy memories of a godly
courtship.
But you ask God for grace and in
your heart that seed desire says, God, I
want that for my children.
I want my children to know what I
didn't know.
The blessing of a courtship that is number
one based on a spiritual attraction long before
it's based on an emotional attraction and long
before it's based on a physical attraction.
You cannot underestimate the beauty of it.
There is no way for you to overestimate
the beauty, the holiness, the purity, the blessing
of God on that kind of a courtship.
Please take it from me.
And I'm not boasting.
I'm thankful to God and my parents.
But I lived it.
And I lived through a courtship.
And now I'm married.
And I've lived through four years of marriage.
And the blessing that God has put upon
our relationship is nothing but supernatural.
It is nothing but the overtaking blessing that
has caught up with my father and has
now caught up with the second generation.
It has now overwhelmed us as the second
generation As my wife and I were courting,
we made a commitment for a hands-off
courtship.
We made a covenant together that in order
to keep our hearts in the right place
and in order to make sure that our
attraction was spiritual first and emotional second and
physical waiting until after marriage, we decided to
be hands-off.
But you parents, you have no way of
knowing how deeply in love a pure young
couple can be with no physical contact.
You cannot imagine it.
Because you didn't have it.
And I'm not slamming you when I say
that.
I'm rather trying to put a taste of
something sweet in your mouth so that you'll
push forward and push forward for your children.
I remember probably three times in the last
two months before I married my wife, my
parents would pull me aside and I'm very
grateful that they did.
They would pull me aside.
How you doing, Daniel?
You keeping your heart?
Being tempted to break your covenant to be
hands-off until marriage?
It was hard for my parents to understand
how we could possibly be so passionately in
love with each other and we'd never held
hands.
How we could possibly be so crazy about
each other and we'd never kissed.
That's the blessing of God on the legacy
of purity that our parents gave to us.
And God wants that for your children.
And it is possible for your children.
God is planning it for your children.
And you are planning it for your children.
God bless you.
Keep fighting.
Keep struggling.
Your children will have it.
Your children will walk with the legacy of
purity into their courtships and they will come
back to thank you.
And I have many times back to my
parents, thank you for helping me to remain
pure.
Thank you for putting in place structures that
helped me to follow God in my courtship.
Moving on to the next area of marriage
relationship.
And these two are very tied together.
Because a godly courtship that has been built
upon principles, standards of purity, principles of how
we fall in love, spiritually first, emotionally second,
physically third, a marriage that is built upon
that foundation is ten miles down the road
before it even gets started.
I cannot overestimate to you parents the blessing
that it is that my wife and I
gave each other our whole self, body, soul
and spirit when we got married.
That creates a foundation for our marriage that
keeps blessing upon us from day one of
our relationship.
There were certain principles in place in our
marriage relationship from day one that we did
not have to learn.
Yes, we've had to walk in grace.
Yes, we've had to choose to follow God.
I know that we as a second generation,
we are given a free will.
We can walk away from those principles.
But we haven't had to try like you
had to try.
We have not had to fight like you
had to fight.
I imagine, because I heard my father speak
many times, I imagine that sometime in the
last ten days he's spoken to you couples
on your marriages and said, you need to
put in place laws, concrete walls in your
mind that I will never raise my voice
speaking to my wife or my husband.
I'm sure he said something like that in
the last ten days.
He said something to you about purposing in
your heart, making a law in your heart
that you will never argue in front of
your children.
Those are laws that you as first generation,
you are trying to put them in place
in your relationship.
You are struggling to put them there.
But they were there in our relationship from
day one because of what our parents gave
to us.
We never had to struggle to put them
in place.
They were just there.
And that equals blessing.
Blessing.
More blessing.
Overtaking blessing.
And it's because of the legacy that our
parents have given to us.
Yes, it's because we're living out God's principles
in our life.
But it's largely because our parents have given
us a heritage.
The very legacy that you are trying to
give to your children.
Our parents have given it to us.
And it is yielding fruit.
The next area I thought of is God's
roles in the home.
The roles for a husband and wife.
We heard teaching on that just yesterday.
And I know that you first generation parents,
your daily struggle as a father is to
find your place.
You know that God has called you to
be a godly man.
God has called you to take the authority
in the home.
But you struggle to find your place.
First you're too soft and you're over here
and you're just kind of cowering.
And then you're over here and you're bold
as a lion.
But then there's no grace on your life
because you're using your authority without any mercy.
You're struggling to find your place.
And you dear sisters, you're struggling to find
your place under your husband.
How to be a sweet, submissive, supportive wife
without threatening your husband.
And you're constantly back and forth bouncing between
the extremes in these areas.
And God bless you for that struggle.
It's better to struggle than to just let
it where it is.
But as you continue to struggle and as
you continue to find God's grace, and continue
to find the principles of God and where
God's place is for you, your children will
grow up.
And they will get married.
And they will immediately walk into their marriage
relationship and know their roles.
Here's the husband.
Here's the wife.
Wife in submission to the husband.
Husband dwelling with his wife according to knowledge.
Equal heirs together of the grace of God.
Your children will plumb depths in their relationships
that you can only dream about.
And don't be jealous of them.
Do all you can so that they can
do it.
That's God's heart.
But your children will go farther than you've
been able to go.
Because they walk into their relationship from day
one knowing, here's the husband.
Here's his role.
Here's the wife.
Here's her role.
Now let's walk this out.
None of this back and forth trying to
find their way.
Because they've learned from you.
Because you gave them a legacy that you
did not have.
Hallelujah.
That is God's plan.
No confusion on our places because of what
our parents have given to us.
Let's move on quickly to the fourth area,
parenting.
I'm from a large family.
My wife is from an even larger family.
She's the oldest of eleven.
And I'm second of eight.
And we watched our parents parenting.
We're towards the top of our families, which
means that we not only watched our parents
parenting, we parented with our parents, so to
speak.
We learned alongside them.
We disciplined beside them.
We helped to guide our younger brothers and
sisters the way to discipline children and what
works and how the relationship works together with
the discipline and how it needs to be
done and the time it needs to be
spent with the family and how to build
relationships and how to bring godly order into
the lives of our children.
All of these things we learned with our
parents while we were still children at home.
And now we're married.
And now we have our own children.
And we're parenting.
But parenting is easy for us.
Yes, we need God's grace.
We desperately need God's grace.
And we have to find it on a
day-by-day basis.
But compared to the heroic struggle, the fingernail
-clawing struggle that you parents have had to
raise godly families, it's easy for us.
Because we are dwelling on the foundation that
you laid for us.
Thank you.
We are dwelling on the foundation that you
laid for us.
And parenting is natural for us.
We have our new little one.
Give birth for the first time.
Going up through a couple of weeks, a
couple of months of age.
And, hey, you know what?
We say to each other, that's the will.
That's the first time we've seen the will
in this child.
We know what we're looking for.
Why?
Because we saw it in our parents.
We watched it in our brothers and sisters.
We often say to each other how grateful
we are that we were towards the top
of our families because we got to be
a part of all that process as our
parents learned.
And then helping with our younger brothers and
sisters.
So now we're disciplining our own children.
And, yes, we're learning.
But there's so much that we already know.
We're setting godly goals for our own families.
And those goals are already a part of
us.
That is the second generation and the overtaking
blessing.
I hope you're following what I'm saying here
this afternoon.
The next area that comes to my mind
is life skills.
And this one is just a little bit
more, maybe some would say, less spiritual.
But I think that you parents who have
wrestled with what you were handed by your
parents when it comes to simple life skills
would say that it's not just physical.
It is spiritual.
When it comes to raising a godly family
and you feel like you started out with
all thumbs, you started out not knowing how
to do anything, those life skills, you are
handing them to your children.
Do you realize what a blessing you are
handing to your children?
You just stop and think about where you
were when you got married.
You sisters in this room, let's say your
daughters are about 13 years of age.
I think every woman in this building would
raise her hand and say, my daughter at
13 is better prepared to be a wife
and mother than I was at 22 or
25 or 30 when I got married.
Isn't that right?
They're prepared because they've grown up under you.
And you had to learn, and it was
tough.
The first time you had to cook a
meal for a whole bunch of people, and
you just...
The only thing I know how to make
is spaghetti.
Well, I guess it will be spaghetti again.
But you are handing those practical life skills
to your children, and they will bless you.
And God will bless them because they have
those practical skills already in their hands.
I know we come from varied backgrounds here,
and some of you, though you didn't know
Christ, and your parents didn't know Christ, you
did know how to bake a dozen loaves
of bread.
And you can thank your parents that you
did because those life skills you didn't have
to relearn.
But I think about my dear mother when
she gave birth to my older sister Rebecca.
Wanted to have a family.
God says we should have children, so we're
going to start having children.
And Rebecca comes along, and you know, you
have a new baby girl, and you know
what mothers do, first-time mothers especially.
You dress them up.
Some pretty little baby girl dress, and you're
just enjoying playing doll for the first couple
of hours.
And then, as always happens, a baby eats,
and when a baby eats, it fills its
diaper.
And my dear mother had no idea what
to do with that.
What do you do?
The baby filled its diaper.
It's all up the back, all over the
dress.
What do you do with it?
You peel it off, and you throw it
in the trash, and you go get another
outfit and start over again.
You do that a few times, and you
realize that, you know what, we're going to
have to learn to wash these out.
She didn't know, and you laugh because many
of you didn't know.
Maybe you didn't have the same thing, but
the first time you tried to bake bread,
or the first time you decided to put
on a meal for some company, you had
some flops.
You didn't know how to do it.
And you are handing to your children a
legacy of life skills that will bless them
every step of their way.
Those things have not been difficult for us
because we learned them from our parents.
Think about my father.
We moved to Lancaster County, and he said,
my children are going to grow up knowing
how to plant something in the ground and
harvest it and eat it.
It's a part of raising a godly family.
Not that you can't raise one without gardening,
but it's good for children to know where
things come from and the work that goes
into the food that we eat, even in
this push-button computer age.
So he said, I am going to learn
how to garden.
I don't know how to garden, but I
am going to learn.
And he learned.
And he asked questions.
And he went up to all these dear
plain men in Lancaster County and said, how
do you plant peas?
And they looked at him and said, how
do you plant peas?
Well, you just put them, you know, about
so much under the ground, just a bit
of dirt.
Well, like a bit.
Is that like an inch or six inches?
No, not six inches.
You can't plant peas six inches under the
ground.
They won't come up.
And he learned those things.
Why?
Not because he wanted to garden.
Because he wanted us to learn those practical
life skills.
And I'm thankful for that.
And your children will be thankful for that.
And that is part of the blessing, that
you are passing on to your children.
They will know all of those things that
you have struggled to learn.
Those things that you've had to groan your
way through.
You've made lots of mistakes, but you've learned
them.
And your children will know those things.
The next one.
Godly disciplines.
Godly disciplines in our family life, in our
personal life.
You've wrestled to learn to get up when
you turn the alarm clock off, you first
generation parents.
You've wrestled not to push the snooze more
than three times at any given morning.
You've wrestled to put in place those godly
disciplines that are not the Christian life, but
that aid us in walking with God.
You've struggled and you've wrestled for every inch
you've gained in this area.
Family devotions.
Meals that the family shares.
We all gather for meals.
Some of you didn't have that.
And you struggled for it.
And now you have it.
And your children will marry and begin their
lives with that legacy.
Church life.
Many of you, dear parents, are searching, or
you have searched for many years, for a
place where you can raise a godly family.
A place where your children can have friends
who are not always working in the opposite
direction of the way that you're going.
And you've waded through a lot of garbage.
You've gone to a lot of churches.
You've gone to churches where it's godly teaching,
but the people weren't living it.
And you've gone to places where it seemed
like there were some godly lives, but there
was no life.
And you've wrestled back and forth.
And you've found a place.
Not all of you.
Some of you are still looking.
But you've found a place.
For us, we the second generation, we have
grown up, maybe from our youth, maybe from
little children, we've grown up in a church
where God's Word is taught, and God's Word
is lived.
No, things aren't perfect, but it's so much
better than what you had, and so much
better than what you started out with when
you started looking for a place to raise
your family.
And you've given us a legacy of blessing.
We stand in these churches where you've raised
us, blessed of God, in this area of
our life, because you have fought for us.
Because you have placed us miles ahead of
where you were in these areas.
We don't have to wade through the garbage
that you had to wade through.
We stand here because of what you've done
for us.
Thank you, and may God bless you.
Two more areas here.
Think of ministry.
We know that God calls all of us
to minister.
We know that God doesn't call any of
us just to be a Christian as an
end in itself.
We're called to do something.
We're called to reach out.
We know that.
But you've given us an ability to reach
out that far surpasses what you had.
You exerted your spiritual energy fighting to give
us a place to stand.
And we now stand on that ground that
you've given us.
And we have both the responsibility and the
opportunity and the tremendous blessing that comes from
ministering, that comes from being a vessel that
God uses to reach out.
And I don't just mean across the seas,
just because I'm from working in Africa, I
don't mean just in Africa.
But you, as first generation parents, you are
giving your children a platform from which to
minister.
Because you are dealing with those basic areas
of godliness in our lives, in our marriage,
in our families that form a foundation from
which we minister.
You are giving them that heritage.
And they will rise up and stand the
place that you've placed them.
And they will minister.
You've given us that opportunity.
It took all the grace that you could
possibly find just to walk with God.
Just to have a godly family and walk
in love with your wife.
But it won't take that for us.
And we'll be able to minister because of
the foundation that you've laid for us.
And we are able to minister.
I serve in Africa.
And I serve in a stressful environment.
And I'm gone a lot from my family.
But I have a wife that supports me.
And we have a close-knit family.
And we have a godly family.
And we don't have any of those pressures
and strains tearing at us while we try
to minister.
Not because of what we've done.
We've only been married four years.
There's no way that we could have, in
four years, laid the foundation for blessing that
we're experiencing.
But our parents laid that foundation.
And now we're ministering.
And that's a foundation that our parents have
laid for us.
And it's an opportunity for blessing for us,
for your children, for the second generation, for
that generation of the overtaking blessing.
Do you get a picture of it?
Are you grasping it?
You dear first generation parents, reach for it!
Your children can live it!
Your children can experience God's overwhelming blessing.
The last thought I have here, the last
area, was just simply the area of walking
in grace.
Walking with God.
Keeping our hearts pure.
Keeping our lives open before each other and
before God.
You wrestled to do that.
We remember the first time that you fathers
confessed something to us.
And you struggled to do it.
You remember the first time that you opened
up in a confession circle.
And it wasn't easy for you.
We remember your struggle to walk in grace
day by day.
You were in grace and then you failed
and you walked back out of grace and
you said, no, I'm not going to live
this way.
We're going to walk in grace in this
family.
And you pushed it back and started walking
in grace again.
And you went back out because the patterns
of life were not easy to break and
you walked back out of grace and you
said, no, we're going back.
And you gathered the family together and you
said, I'm sorry, let's walk in grace together.
Let's walk with God.
Let's keep an open heaven.
And you started walking in grace again.
We observed that struggle.
And out of observing that struggle, we respect
you.
We don't look down on you in any
way because of that struggle.
We respect you.
And out of watching that struggle, we have
learned how to walk in grace.
And yes, we have to make choices, but
honestly, before God and to God's glory, we
the second generation, we walk in grace with
such ease.
It is so natural for us to walk
in grace.
It is so natural for us to confess
when we fail.
It is so natural for us to confess
our needs to our family and to our
wives.
We walk in grace when compared to you,
almost effortlessly.
And I'm not preaching false doctrine here.
Yes, we strive.
Yes, we work.
Yes, we must be faithful.
But compared to your struggle, it's almost effortless.
And that should motivate you.
Dear parents, as you battle forward, we are
the generation of the overtaking blessing.
And your children are part of the generation
that I'm speaking of.
Whether they're older or younger than me, they're
part of that generation.
Your children are part of that second generation,
that generation of the overtaking blessings.
And as your children get older, you young
parents, you are going to observe that overtaking
blessing in your children's lives.
And you're going to wonder.
Your mouth is going to be open.
You will wonder, how is it possible for
them to walk in grace like that?
It seems so easy for them.
They seem to flow in their marriage relationship.
They seem to flow in their family.
It seems like raising their children for them
is just like the back of their hand.
It's so easy for them.
And they will bless you.
Because they will know, as I know, that
it is the legacy that has been handed
down to us that has made this overwhelming
blessing, this overtaking blessing, possible.
Just a couple of thoughts in closing here.
The legacy that I'm talking about, that you
are handing to your children, that you are
striving to hand to your children, that has
been handed to me, is not a legacy
of perfection.
Dear parents, it's not a legacy of perfection.
My parents were not perfect.
And especially when I was a little boy,
they were a whole lot less perfect than
they are now.
It wasn't a legacy of perfection.
And you don't have to give a legacy
of perfection.
But your children must know that you are
striving to walk with God.
You don't need to be perfect.
It's okay for your children to see you
struggling.
They'll know what you're struggling for.
And they'll one day rise up and say,
no, Mom and Dad weren't where they would
have liked to be.
But they pressed ever forward.
They can see the progression.
Your children know.
They know your marriage isn't perfect.
But they also know that it's better than
it was five years ago.
And from that, they will learn we can
go forward.
We can have more.
It will put in them visions of something
beyond even where you are.
And when they start their life, God's blessing
will come and overtake them.
And they will receive more than you've been
able to receive.
They will fly where you've run.
They will walk where you've crawled.
God promises it.
They are the generation of the overtaking blessing.
Don't say you're not perfect.
I'm not talking about perfection this afternoon.
I'm talking about doing exactly what you've been
doing the last ten days.
Your children saw you at the altar crying
out to God.
We want a godly family.
I want to take my place in the
home as a father.
I want to be a submissive wife.
Your children saw you and in their little
computers of a mind, all those things are
being typed in.
Mom and Dad want something.
Mom and Dad want godliness.
Mom and Dad want to walk with God.
And it will be there.
And it will be a foundation for them
when they take their place.
And they are the generation taking their family
forward.
All of those things will be a legacy,
an unbelievable blessing, a foundation of overwhelming blessing
in their life.
Many times, as I said at the beginning,
I look to my wife.
Just two days ago in the morning we
woke up and we were talking about our
marriage as we often do, and we said
to each other, you know, we observed our
parents fight to have a godly marriage.
I don't mean fighting each other.
I hope you understand me.
We observed them working to have a godly
marriage and failing and confessing and starting over
and walking in grace and stumbling and jerking
along steadily, so to speak.
We observed that.
So when we got ready to get married,
we said, yes, this is what marriage is
about.
If we're going to have a godly marriage,
we are going to fight for it.
And in our courtship, we agreed we're going
to fight for it.
We're going to fight for a godly family.
We're going to fight to walk in grace.
All of these areas of our life, we
are going to have them.
And now we're married.
Four years.
And we look at each other often and
say, where's the fight?
Where's the struggle?
Where's the difficulty?
Hallelujah!
That's the overwhelming blessing.
We know that it's God's blessing.
We don't think it's anything that we've done.
There's no way in four years that we
could have built a foundation for the ridiculous,
may I say, blessing of God on our
marriage.
It's God's blessing on our parents.
It's God's blessing on their choices.
And now that blessing is on us, on
our marriage, on our ministry, on our children.
We know why.
We're the generation that God hath blessed.
The second generation.
Blessed by God and blessed by you, dear
first generation parents.
In closing, you dear parents, God bless you.
We honor you.
We, the second generation, we honor you.
We're thankful for all that you've fought for.
We're thankful for all that you've done.
There are areas in which we desire to
pass you.
But we respect you.
We're thankful for what you've given to us.
We're thankful for the legacy of blessing.
You have enabled us to run where you
crawled and we thank you for that.
And to you parents, you first generation parents,
think of all the things that you are
striving for.
And in your mind's eye, jump forward another
generation and see your children living in all
that you're dreaming of.
No, take it further.
Dream about them living far beyond your dreams
and you will be in the realm in
which they will live.
Because they will be the second generation.
The generation that the Lord hath blessed.
The generation of the overtaking blessing.
May God fill your hearts with courage, strength
and tenacity.
Thank you very much and God bless you.