Oh God, we have heard with our ears. Our fathers have told us what deeds you performed in their days.
– Psalm 44:1
What a picture. This rest of the Psalm, I wish I could read the whole thing just goes on, to recount how these fathers and mothers in the faith have passed down to the next generation. Who God is, what God has done, and how God has worked in the past, and specifically in their lives in glorious, majestic, saving, delivering powerful ways in their lives and among God’s people. And these fathers and mothers in the faith know God has worked in these ways, and they’re faithfully passing the good news of God’s work down to the next generation.
Psalm 44:1 reminds us of our responsibility to the next generation.
So as I read this, I just think about the responsibility all of us have to pass on to the next generation.
The deeds God has performed in our days and in previous days. This is why it’s so important for us to pass on to the next generation, the stories of how God has provided for his people and delivered his people all throughout Scripture that we would faithfully pass those stories down. But not just stories from Scripture, stories from our own lives, of ways that God has shown his grace and his mercy and his power on our behalf. Are you faithfully telling the next generation all God has done for you?
And there’s obvious application here for parents who have children in our homes to make sure that we are intentional to pass the good news of what God has done in the past and in our lives specifically, to tell our kids who God is and what God has done specifically at specific times in our lives, that our children would hear those stories continually from us.
Psalm 44:1 is a call to all of God’s people to share the good news of the gospel.
But not just parents, this is a responsibility for all the people of God to pass on the good news of who God is and how God has worked to the next generation. So how are you doing that in your life? And I want us to pray that God would help us to faithfully tell the next generation all that he has done for us.
Oh God, we praise you for the people who passed down to us and who even now are telling us about who you are, how you have worked in the past, and what you have done in their lives. God, we love hearing testimonies, stories of your faithfulness, and those who’ve gone before us. And we praise you for how those stories and testimonies spur us on to faith in you, in our lives, to see your work, in our lives, and to trust you are at work in our lives that you will save and you will deliver and you will provide all that we need.
So, God, we pray that you would help us to faithfully pass the good news of who you are and all that you’ve done for us, to those who come behind us. And in whatever age or stage situation we might find ourselves in life, help us to faithfully tell the next generation, to intentionally tell the next generation who you are and all that you have done, the deeds you have performed in our days. God, we pray for grandparents and parents and kids who’ve never heard this kind of news…
Prayer for the Khalka Mongol People
Specifically among the Khalka Mongol people… Among 2.5 million Buddhist Khalka Mongols, a group of people who believed themselves to be direct descendants of Genghis Khan, and true keepers of Mongol culture. God, we pray that for the first time they would hear the deeds you have performed, the way you have provided for their salvation in Jesus.
God, we pray that the Khalka Mongol people would be reached with the good news for the first time of who you are and how much you love them. And God, we pray that that would be passed on from generation to generation among the Khalka Mongol people until you return. Please, oh God, may it be so for them, and may it be so in our lives. According to your word in Psalm 44:1. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
