1 Give ear, O my people, to my teaching;
incline your ears to the words of my mouth!
2 I will open my mouth in a parable;
I will utter dark sayings from of old,
3 things that we have heard and known,
that our fathers have told us.
4 We will not hide them from their children,
but tell to the coming generation
the glorious deeds of the LORD, and His might,
and the wonders that He has done.
(Psalm 78:1-4 ESV)
Listen up! I'm going to tell you what happened in the past - the good, the bad and the ugly. That's what the Psalmist is saying here. He embraces his history because it is God's history, displaying the glorious deeds of the LORD and His might to coming generations.
History is His Story.
From Genesis 1, where God creates all that exists and crowns His creation with human beings, made in His own image, to Revelation 21 where God consummates His Kingdom and ushers in His eternity of joy and peace, history is the story of God moving in human events to reveal Himself to His lost, broken people, whom He loves with an everlasting love. Scripture does not filter this salvation history, but presents it whole - the good, the bad and the ugly.
History is His Story.
One reason this is so important for us is because the same God who split the Red Sea can deliver us from the attacks of the enemy of our soul. The same God who sent manna and quail in the wilderness can provide all we need in every circumstance. The same Savior who cast out demons then can cast them out of our lives now. The same Lord who healed the sick 2,000 years ago can heal our diseases today. The same God who raised His Son from the dead can raise us to eternal life.
History is His Story.
I believe our history gives us perspective on who we are and who God has raised us up to be. At Grace Church, where I serve as pastor, we are Global Methodists. We are intentionally part of a new denomination that launched on May 1, 2022, from the conflict that has racked the United Methodist Church for decades. We seek to recapture the best of Wesleyan Christianity and its grand depositum - the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit who makes us Christlike and holy as we walk with Jesus by faith.
Our roots go back into and through the UMC, which began in 1968 as the merger of the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren (EUB) Church. The roots extend back into camp meetings where the gospel was preached and circuit riders who traveled on horseback to spread the good news of Jesus throughout the United States.
We count as spiritual parents people like Jacob Albright, who founded the Evangelical Association in 1817, and people like Philip William Otterbein and Martin Boehm, who founded the Church of the United Brethren in Christ in 1800. These two groups united in 1946 to form the Evangelical United Brethren Church.
We count as spiritual parents people like Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke, the first Methodist Episcopal Bishops in the US, and their spiritual fathers, John and Charles Wesley, who began the Methodist revival in England that was aimed at renewing the Anglican Church, and that likely prevented England from the kind of revolution that marked France and Russia and the US in the 1700's.
Our roots go back through the early church fathers like Augustine to Jesus Christ and the apostles. And beyond them to Judaism and the Old Testament. God raised up a people, Israel, and through them sent His Son to redeem the world. He raised up the Church at Pentecost to spread the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ until He returns to consummate His glorious Kingdom for eternity.
History is His Story. And we are part of something bigger than ourselves, bigger than our local congregation and bigger than the denomination to which we belong. We can thank God for the lives of our spiritual parents, even with all their flaws. Because it's not about them, it's about Him. And we can carry on the legacy of faithfulness they leave us by being faithful on our leg of the race.
When we make Jesus part of our story, giving our lives to Him in faith and walking with Him in faithfulness, we become part of His Story - the great story of God's redeeming work to save His fallen, broken creation. My story is His Story, now, and for all eternity...