FaithWay Baptist Church gathered to celebrate 51 years of God’s unwavering faithfulness. Pastor Léveillé opened the Word in Psalm 78:1-8 with a clear charge: the goodness of God is never meant to stay locked in one generation. When the Lord proves Himself faithful, His people have a joyful duty to declare it so that sons and daughters yet unborn will rise up and call Him their God as well.
Open Your Ears to God’s Word (vs. 1-2)
Everything begins with hearing. “Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth.” Before we serve, before we teach, before we pass anything on, God calls us to lean in and listen. A church that loses its hunger for the preached Word has already begun to drift. No programme, no personality, no tradition can ever replace the living voice of Scripture. The same need that existed on the first Sunday this church opened its doors, and it exists just as strongly today. There will never be a day when Bible preaching becomes optional. Faithway began because a man stood and proclaimed the Word of God plainly, people were saved, disciples were made, and a church was born. May the same priority mark every year 52 and beyond.
Rehearse God’s Faithfulness (vs. 3-4)
We have received a heritage: “which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.” The psalmist refuses to hide these things from the children. He will show “to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done.” Israel’s darkest failures came when they forgot what God had done. Churches face the same danger. A congregation that only tells 30-year-old stories risks becoming a museum instead of a mission. God is not merely the God of Kirkland knew, or the God Baker knew, or the God Walt knew. He is the God of right now. He can do today what He did on the first Sunday in this building, and infinitely more. Our children need to hear us praise Him for what He did last week, not only for what He did in the 1980s. Every answered prayer, every soul saved, every mercy shown is another stone in the memorial that says, “This is where the Lord brought us through.”
Pass On the Truth of the Gospel (vs. 5-6)
God “established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children: That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children.” This is the Great Commission in Old Testament clothes. The faith that reached us is meant to reach through us. Every church is always one generation away from extinction if the gospel stops being passed on with clarity and passion. Children growing up in this church are deciding where they will park their hope. The Holy Spirit will use parents, Sunday school teachers, youth workers, and every believer who joyfully tells what Christ has done and is doing. We dare not let them grow up thinking the Christian life is a museum exhibit. They must see God moving today.
Walk in Faith and Obedience (vs. 7-8)
The goal is “that they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments: And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation.” The psalmist prays that the coming generation will go further than the one before. There never was a golden age when everything was perfect; every advance this church has ever known came by the sheer grace of God in spite of human weakness. Our desire should be that our children and grandchildren surpass us in love for Christ, in usefulness, in holiness. Like David rejoicing to see Solomon on the throne, like Jesus promising His disciples they would do greater works, like Jonathan Edwards praying his descendants would outrun him in gospel influence, we long that the next generation runs farther, loves deeper, and trusts more boldly than we have.
Faithway Baptist Church stands today, not because brilliant men built it, but because a faithful God has kept it. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The God who carried this congregation through 51 years of joys and tears, victories and bruises, is more than able to carry it forward until He comes. May every heart here resolve afresh: we will keep our ears open to His Word, our mouths ready to rehearse His faithfulness, our lives committed to passing on the gospel, and our steps ordered in faith and obedience, so that the children watching us today will one day rise up and say with all their hearts, “The Lord, He is our God, and His mercy endureth to all generations.”
