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Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom. One generation commends your works to another; they tell of your mighty acts. They speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty—and I will meditate on your wonderful works. They tell of the power of your awesome works—and I will proclaim your great deeds. They celebrate your abundant goodness and joyfully sing of your righteousness. The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. (Psalm 145:3-8)

This Psalm in Hebrew is an acrostic poem.  Each new line begins with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet.  From Aleph to Taw, A to Zed.  Or if you prefer: from alpha to omega, from beginning to end.  There is a completeness to it.  As there is a completeness to the deeds of the Lord and to the generations that are called on to praise Him for it.  

The very structure of this psalm reminds us that God’s people have always told the stories of God.  They have always lifted up their voices in praise of God.  There will never be a time when they don’t, because God and his work is always worth of it.  If somehow we miss a beat, the very stones will cry out.  We simply take up our place in that litany of praise and storytelling—publicly professing our faith again and again in songs, creeds, and stories until we finish our race and take up our place in the great cloud of witnesses.  And even there: we’ll continue praising our God.

Now, the words of our confession do change from time to time as God continues to intervene and act in history.  In the time of Israel, the best way to describe God was the way that God described Himself to Moses on Mt. Sinai: “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.”

The words that we use now are different though.  Because we’ve come to know God through Jesus Christ.  And so when we join the chorus of God’s faithful people, we do so in words like those of the Apostles Creed—declaring the saving action of God in Jesus Christ who came to live, die, and be raised again: who Ascended, who will come again to judge, and who in the meantime has poured out the Holy Spirit.

Our confession is even more particularly shaped in the language of the Reformation—the Heidelberg Catechism’s first question and answer being among our most favorite—recognizing that our only comfort in life and in death comes from our belonging to Jesus Christ our Lord because of all His mighty deeds on our behalf.

As a church denomination we recognize how the mighty deeds of God bear on our contemporary lives and situations through Contemporary Testimonies like Our World Belongs to God and the Belhar Confession.

Even more particularly through the unique prayers we pray and stories we tell, we as individuals in the church continue to confess the ways that God has shown up and been faithful.  We tell out to one another the ways that God has brought healing, comforted us in times of grief or loneliness, saved us, forgiven us, empowered us to forgive someone else. 

God’s people are constantly doing this work of telling out the faith to one another because God remains faithfully present and active in new ways in our lives.  Through this simple act of witnessing in response to what God has done: the faith is passed on. 

So, how will you join this litany of praise that passes on the faith?  What story of God’s praise do you have to share?  How will you tell it out to the next generation?