Handing over the faith

June 6, 2023

I have often thought about (and maybe you’ve heard me mention) the foresight required to build our church building just over 100 years ago.

Folks now long gone were thinking about generations to come when they planned and constructed the building that still stands today.

You may hear lots of chatter in our world about what we’re leaving behind for future generations. That’s always a bit puzzling to me coming from the same world that believes we’re just clumps of cells that emerged from goo billions of years ago. Why should we care about future generations? I’m not sure what answer the world would give.

But if you’re a Christian, then future generations matter tremendously. They are souls, precious in the sight of God, redeemed by the blood of Jesus, who need to hear the Gospel in order to be saved. Remember God’s words of judgment and promise: “I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousandsof those who love me and keep my commandments” (Exodus 20:5-6).

We often think of evangelism in purely horizontal terms – reaching friends, family, neighbors, or strangers who have not heard the Gospel. But perhaps far greater in terms of sheer numbers is the impact an individual can have by transmitting the Gospel to the next generation.

But that requires generational thinking. It requires thinking not just to the end of my life, which can be painful and troubling. Many people avoid thinking about it for that reason. It requires thinking beyond the end of my life, even beyond the end of my children’s lives. It requires thinking about things that will outlast this generation and the next and the one after that.

“All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the LORD blows on it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever” (Isaiah 40:6-8).

I would guess that’s what our forebears had in mind when they sought to build our church building out of the best brick.

It’s not that they thought the building would stand forever, which it won’t.

But they did think that what the building housed – a congregation of Christians hearing God’s Word, a flock of sheep tended by the Good Shepherd – that would last forever. And so they built a place for us, to make it easier for us to have access to the boundless gifts of God.

Let us also be so generationally minded! Whether it is your own children, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren that you think about, or the future generations that will count you as family in Christ – let us consider what great blessings we have to hand over to them in the Gospel, and let us be diligent in passing them along!

God bless and keep you,

Pr. Buchs

COMING EVENTS: Elder’s & Council – Thursday, June 8 @ 6 & 7pm Old Settler’s Day – Saturday, June 24