Telling Every Generation

Every family has stories. Some are funny, some are painful, and some get repeated so often that everyone knows the ending before the story begins. But stories do more than entertain us. They shape identity. They tell the next generation, “This is who we are. This is where we came from. This is what matters.”

Psalm 78 reminds us that the people of God have a story to tell. But our story is not mainly about how faithful we have been. It is about how faithful God has been to people who are prone to forget Him.

The psalm begins with a clear command: “We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD.” God’s people are called to remember His works and pass them on. Faith is not handed down by accident. It is proclaimed, practiced, and prayed into the next generation.

This is bigger than parenting, though it certainly includes parents and grandparents. Psalm 78 calls the whole covenant community to generational discipleship. A church must be more than a place with age-specific ministries. It must be an intergenerational family where the works of God are rehearsed, celebrated, and embodied.

But Psalm 78 also warns us. Israel repeatedly forgot God’s works. They saw His power in Egypt, ate manna in the wilderness, drank water from the rock, and still asked, “Can God spread a table in the wilderness?” Their forgetfulness became unbelief, and their unbelief became rebellion.

That warning is for us too. We can know the stories, sing the songs, attend the services, and still drift into a heart that does not trust God. Forgetfulness is not merely a memory problem. It is a worship problem.

Yet the hope of Psalm 78 is not that God’s people finally became faithful enough. The hope is that God remained merciful. “Yet he, being compassionate, atoned for their iniquity and did not destroy them.”

That mercy points us to Jesus. At the cross, God did not ignore sin. He atoned for it. Jesus, the greater Son of David and the Good Shepherd, laid down His life for forgetful, sinful people like us.

So let us tell the coming generation. Tell them God is holy. Tell them sin is serious. Tell them mercy is real. Tell them Jesus saves. And let us set our hope in God together.