"One generation shall commend your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts." (Psalm 145:4)

October gives us a picture of Psalm 145:4 at work. Three times this month we will see one generation passing the faith on to the next.

On the first Sunday we honor the women of the LWML. For decades they have served the Lord with gladness. They have prayed, taught, cooked, visited, and filled mite boxes one coin at a time. Much of their work goes unseen, but it has carried the Gospel to missionaries overseas, to seminary students, and to neighbors here at home. They have commended God's works to others.

On the last Sunday we celebrate the Reformation. Five centuries ago, God used Martin Luther and others to bring back what had been buried: that sinners are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. That Gospel did not reach us by accident. Parents taught it at the kitchen table, pastors preached it from pulpits, and hymn writers set it to music. One generation after another declared it until it reached us.

On that same Reformation Sunday, two of our young people will stand before the altar and confess the Christian faith as their own. They were baptized into Christ as children, when God made His promise to them. They have learned the faith according to the Small Catechism, that Luther wrote for households just like theirs. Now they will declare their faith in God's mighty acts with their own voices.

  Notice what gets passed along in this verse. It is "your works" and "your mighty acts," the things God has done. We do not hand down our own wisdom or our own goodness. We hand down the news of Christ's cross and empty tomb, of sins forgiven and death defeated. The message is His, and so is the power. The Lord keeps His Word alive, and He works through ordinary people telling it to one another.

    So here is my challenge for October. Don't leave Psalm 145:4 to the LWML, the pastor, or the confirmation class. Grandparents, tell a grandchild how the Lord carried you through a hard season. Parents, pray with your children at bedtime and talk about Sunday's sermon on the drive home. Longtime members, learn the name of a young person who sits near you and ask how you can pray for them. Young people, ask an older saint why they still come to church after all these years. The Lord has been faithful from generation to generation. Now it's our turn to tell it.

                                                                                  In Christ,

                                                                          Pastor Tom Vanderbilt