Thursday, August 20, 2026

Opening Scripture

Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. For the LORD is the great God, the great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. Psalm 95:1-7

Opening Prayer

Worthy of worship, worthy of praise, worthy of honor and glory. Worthy of all the glad songs we can sing, worthy of all of the offerings we bring. You are worthy, Father, Creator. You are worthy, Saviour, Sustainer. You are worthy, worthy and wonderful, worthy of worship and praise. Worthy of reverence, worthy of fear, worthy of love and devotion. Worthy of bowing and bending of knees, worthy of all this and added to these. You are worthy, Father, Creator. You are worthy, Saviour, Sustainer. You are worthy, worthy and wonderful, worthy of worship and praise. Almighty Father, Master and Lord, King of all kings and Redeemer, Wonderful Counsellor, Comforter, Friend, Saviour and Source of our life without end. You are worthy, Father, Creator. You are worthy, Saviour, Sustainer. You are worthy, worthy and wonderful, worthy of worship and praise. Amen!

Daily Bible Reading

Psalm 100

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.

Reflection  

The introduction to today’s passage says, “A psalm for giving thanks.” It is a call for everyone – all the earth – to praise the Lord. “Shout for joy!” with an attitude of worship. Sing joyful songs! Why? Because the God who made us is good, and His love endures forever. His faithfulness continues through all generations.

We are God’s people. We belong to Him. He is our Shepherd. We are His sheep. Sheep are not very bright. They cannot provide for themselves. They cannot defend themselves. They are totally dependent on their shepherd to lead, feed, care for, and protect them. That is us! If we think we can do this on our own, we are fooling ourselves.

Because Almighty God is our Good Shepherd, we can “enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise.” We naturally “give thanks to him and praise his name.” Jesus said that He is the Good Shepherd and the Gate for His sheep. We happily come to Him and find just what we need for today.

Psalm 100 has been a “joyful song” for God’s people for many years, not just for Jews, but for Christians as well. The hymn “Old One-Hundredth” – frequently referred to as “All People That on Earth Do Dwell” – is one of the oldest and most continuously sung congregational hymns in the English language.

During the Protestant persecution under Queen Mary I, Scottish clergyman William Kethe fled to Geneva. There, in 1551, he translated Psalm 100 into a metrical verse that matched a melody by Louis Bourgeois, written for the Genevan Psalter under the direction of Protestant reformer John Calvin. “Old One-Hundredth” was published in the Anglo-Genevan Psalter in 1561.

You faithful servants of the Lord,
sing out his praise with one accord,
while serving him with all your might
and keeping vigil through the night.

Unto his house lift up your hand
and to the Lord your praises send.
May God who made the earth and sky
bestow his blessings from on high.

In 1674, Thomas Ken shortened “Old One-Hundredth” and gave it the name, “The Common Doxology.” Perhaps you have heard it.

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

Flourishing Habit

Flourishing Christians

“For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.”

The “generational blessing” embedded in Psalm 100 is the promise of unbroken divine protection, identity, and provision that God guarantees to every successive generation of believers. The spiritual inheritance given to parents who follow Jesus is fully available to their children as well.

Each generation must choose to seek after God for itself. God has no grandchildren,  yet there is a passing down of generational “blessing” or generational “curse” based on how families (for better or worse) establish their home life. The home – not the church – is the primary environment for spiritual formation.

Healthy families require healthy marriages. A husband and wife must first choose to prioritize their relationship with Jesus individually. They must willingly bind themselves together in love and stay committed to one another: “for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health.” Then, they must model and pass their faith down to their children.

Of course, that doesn’t always happen, as indicated by the results of our Flourishing and The Church survey in October 2025. Here is how 1,079 respondents in our FBCA survey answered the question: “Growing up, how often did you have open conversations with your parent(s) or caregiver(s) that encouraged your Christian faith?”

• 7% = my parents were not Christians
• 10% = never
• 16% = yearly/a few times a year
• 17% = monthly/a few times a month
• 13% = about weekly
• 15% = more than once a week
• 17% = about daily
• 6% = more than once a day

Children learn and adopt faith by watching their parents live out their Christian life each day. Like most things, following Jesus is both taught and caught. Consciously or unconsciously, parents model pretty much everything for their children, including faith, marriage, love, responsibility, honesty, stewardship, and priorities.

The blessing of knowing Jesus can be nurtured and passed down from generation to generation, but so can apathy, neglect, and dysfunction. Praying often, telling Bible stories, establishing a Christian identity, attending church, and helping a child know who “their people are,” all shape a young mind in powerful ways.

The Christian identity – being in Christ – is a strong shaping influence for followers of Jesus. As Tom Holland says in his book, Dominion:

“Christians did believe they belonged to a common ethnos: a people. The bonds of their shared identity spanned the world, and reached back across the generations… Never before had there been anything quite like it: a citizenship that was owed not to birth, nor to descent, nor to legal prescriptions, but to belief alone.”

A godly legacy is not a guarantee that a child will choose to follow Jesus, but it certainly improves the odds! “Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it” (Proverbs 22:6).

How would (or did) you respond to the survey question above?

How can you help the next generation learn to follow Jesus?

This week’s collective prayer: Lord, I come before You on behalf of my fellow believers here at our church. Make Yourself known to them and draw them to Yourself. Amen.

You can do more than pray after you’ve prayed, but you can’t do more than pray until you’ve prayed!