To All Generations | Psalm 146 | 2025 Dutch Festival Community Worship

In a world obsessed with the temporary, Scripture calls us to think generationally. Psalm 146 reminds us that true legacy isn’t found in wealth, politics, or human power—it’s found in the unshakable reign of the Lord, who is faithful to all generations. This sermon explores the contrast between earthly rulers who perish and the eternal God who feeds the hungry, lifts the lowly, and reigns forever. Our hope, and the legacy we pass on, is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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Thank you for joining us for this week's sermon from First Reformed Church in Edgerton, Minnesota. Each week, we dig into God's word, trusting that the Holy spirit will continue the good work of sanctification in us. Legacy has always been something that is important to cultures. Now, perhaps we've lost sight of that idea a little in our modern throwaway culture that becomes more and more self-centered by the moment and more obsessed with the things that are in front of our faces. But this is still an important concept for our culture, regardless of time. Most people do not want whatever it is that matters to them to cease after they're gone. You don't want to labor for years building a business and just it closed when you aren't able to be in charge of it anymore. You don't want the church that you have faithfully attended and served for decades to have to close its doors when you're no longer around. You don't want to look back on your family history and desire for your generation to be the end of the line. Legacy matters to everyone. But for Christians, it carries eternal weight. We don't want the hope of the gospel in our churches and in our families to end with us.

We want those who come behind us to consider us as faithful, That we have followed the great commission, not because we want people to think we failed or that we were unsuccessful, but because the message of the gospel is true. It's the only means by which man can be saved from the wrath God. The blessing that we have as believers is that because the message of the gospel is true and because Jesus said that he would build his church, we can labor faithfully and we can trust that he will do his good purposes to bring salvation to his people. We trust that he will not only do this in our time, but scripture promises that he will be a God to us and to our children, to all generations. We tend to think that the best way to have legacy is through earthly powers and institutions. That's just how we are wired, that the greatest powers of this world are Kings and governments. Those are the things that we think are things that can't be toppled. Think about how general moods shift based upon whether or not the political group that we like is in power.

I'm guessing we're all guilty of believing the country is going to topple because the people I don't agree with are running it. I think we've all probably done that. In my lifetime, folks have been fatalistic about these things from, well, as long as I can remember. I can't remember hearing about politics all of 50 years, but a significant portion of it. People have been fatalistic. But I think it's gotten worse since we've developed in the '90s, the 24-hour news cycle. And now with the Internet, everything has increased these thoughts within us, these fatalistic feelings, and we are worried. It causes us stress. Why? Because we put our trust in princes. But as our passage from the Salter this evening reminds us, there is no salvation in human authorities or powers. And what a blessing we have as the people of God that the institutions of this fallen world are not where our legacy is to be found. But instead, our legacy is in the unshapeable king that we have in heaven and the Kingdom that he reigns over. So as we arrive in Psalm 146 this evening, we find the Psalmist directing his worship towards the only one who is worthy of this praise.

So as we take a look at these two verses, as we start off, it is essential that we give ourselves a quick reminder of something important as we look at them. As you look at this here, notice that we have the word Lord indicated to us in all caps in our English Bibles. As you probably know, this is to indicate a difference between the two Hebrew words that we translate as Lord in the Old Testament. The word Lord with only the letter L capitalized, that's how we translate the word Adonai from Hebrew. This word literally means Lord in the sense of an authority figure or ruler, someone who is over us. But when all the letters of the word Lord are capitalized, like we see here, we are translating here the divine personal name of God, Yahwe. The Hebrew people were so concerned with not violating the third commandment by misusing the name of God that they would not even say it even when they were using it properly. So they would put the word Adonai in any time they saw the word Yahweh because they were showing great levels of respect for the holy personal name of God.

In our English Bibles, Continue this tradition, and this lets us know. This is shown to us, they let us know this, by capitalizing it with all these letters here. So this is helpful to know because here it's reminding us that The one who the Psalmist is praising is not a random, unknown, higher power or deity somewhere out there in the Ether. The one that the Psalmist is praising here is Yahweh, the God who made all things, the God who has revealed himself by name to his people. We know the identity of the one the Psalm is praising. It is who we are praising as well. It is the God who has revealed himself not only by name, but that the God who has put himself into covenant with his people. Even without saying that God is faithful, that God is steadfast, the Psalmist here pushes us towards that idea and that thought just by using this personal name of God. Knowing the faithfulness of God inspires the Psalmist here to say more than just, Praise the Lord, and, Praise the Lord, oh my soul. He says that he will praise the Lord as long as he lives and will sing those praises as long as he has his being.

Why? Because he knows the covenant God of history, and he knows who he is. So he will offer praise to him throughout his whole life. He is worthy of that praise because he does not fail. His steadfast love and his faithfulness is unending. This is a truth known by the people that God has revealed himself to. But we know that this is not true for those who do not him. So like I mentioned earlier, our fallen human hearts. We are prone to believe that earthly institutions and human authorities are how we have a hope and how we have a future. But as we move to the third and fourth verses of this Psalm, the Psalm points out the clear futility of putting our hopes in these things. There's no reason to put a trust in princes because they are human, and there is not salvation in them. There are a lot of hardships that earthly powers can potentially solve in our lives. They can pass laws that decrease tax burden. They could stave off military invasions when invaders are potentially standing at the gates and they could overtake us. Earthly powers can even give you a sense of security just because they agree with you think that they believe with your view of the world.

And so you think everything is going to be fine because these people in power agree with how I understand things to be. And those feelings may be justified. They may even turn out to be true, but they don't deal with the biggest problem that we have. The problem that every last person person under the sun has to deal with. When breath departs, our earthly lives end and our plans perish. When we expire, our plans become someone else's plans because they no longer do us any good. No matter how how important finances or security or any other issue can be in our lives, these things are nothing compared to our greatest enemy who will come and lay siege to every last one of us. Death is our real problem. And no prince, no president, no judge, no congressman, no billionaire can do a thing about it for you or for themselves. The curse gets every last one of us. And this is the state of affairs for all of humanity. And so the Salmos gives us an alternative option. The futility of putting hope in humans is made clear by our mortality, because in the fall we are cursed.

But we find in verses 5 through 8, the only true hope that we have. We see here that those blessed are those who trust the God of Jacob. The Lord God, our covenant God, is our hope. How this psalm progresses shows us a clear contrast between man and God, not only in power, but in integrity. We read that humans go down to the dirt and their plans perish. But the psalm is points to God's creative power to drive home this idea of God's power and immortality. But it also shows us that he is the one who makes heaven and earth, the sea, and all the creatures in them, that he is before all time, that he brought life. And so therefore, he is the one that we should put our hope in. He keeps faith forever. And we see that this reminds us as the readers of the Psalm that God isn't going to change. You are headed to the dust. Your plans perish. But that doesn't mean that everything perishes. That doesn't mean that there is no hope at all. God, who is outside of time, is forever. And so this is a powerful pronouncement of God's power and Majesty.

But there is more to God than just being immortal and other from us, being separate, being holy from us. Human humans fail in more than just being able to keep breathing. The evil in the world has been brought on by the sin of humanity. And to give us even more reason to praise God and to have hope, we're reminded here that God is just, that he executes justice for the oppressed. And so we can be confident, the Psalm tells us, that the evil that we see in the world will not go unpunished. God cares for those who do not have food we see. He sets prisoners free. He opens the eyes of the blind. He lifts up all those who are bowed down. Humans do injustice, but God does justice. He does that which no human can do. And it is here where we, as New Covenant believers, see clearly the hope of the gospel. Apart from Christ, we were starving, but we have been fed by the word of God. We were slaves to sin and held captive. But through the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, we are set free. We were spiritually blind apart from Christ.

We believe only because he has given us sight. Through the proclamation of the word, the spirit convicts us of sin and unbelief, and the scales fell from our eyes, and our eyes were open to the gospel. He gives sight to the blind. And those who come to the foot of the cross and humble themselves, acknowledge that they have no righteousness of their own, they are lifted up. Our covenant God makes us righteous and makes us able to stand in his presence. The stuff that the Psalmist talks about here is stuff only God can do. Our salvation is also only something that God could do. It is all a work of God. It is all a work of grace. Without the gospel, we are the wicked, and we are in ruin. We have no hope. And so what a blessing it is that we have received the gift of faith from God. This gift is our inheritance. The gospel is our legacy. It transcends space and time. It is the hope of those who came before us, and it will be the hope of those who come after us. And so the Salma says, what he has said in many different ways here in this psalm.

He says it in beautiful things up to this point. But here, he says in a way that makes it more clear than it has been at any other point in this chapter. He says, The Lord will reign forever. In contrast to those princes who go down to the dust, there is one who will reign forever. He is not a distant, mystical power that we can talk about to get good feelings about spiritual things. No, he is more than that. He is the King. He reigns, and he is your God. It's personal. We see here that it's to all generations. In an affluent age, we either lose track of the idea of legacy because we are so busy with the temporary, or we find ourselves infatuated with passing on things that don't really matter. We spend time, energy, and money making sure our kids have the same hobbies and favorite sports teams as we do, but we can so easily lose focus on ensuring that the faith is passed down. In verse 10 here, we find not only a call to praise God for his covenant faithfulness to his people, but we also see a charge to pass the faith down.

The gospel is an announcement and the truth of what Christ has done. God does not zap his people into the faith. He works through means. The word of is claimed, and the Holy spirit quickens faith in those that God has called to himself and appointed to salvation. He works through the means of his word and spirit, so we must be diligent in proclamation and in discipleship. We trust in the steadfast love of our covenant God to be a God to us and to our children. We need to be sure that we are proclaiming the word of God, for there is no greater legacy than passing Christ on from generation to generation. We could build big bank accounts. We could build fabulous businesses, powerful governments, and impressive buildings that reach into the sky. But every one of Every last one of those things is going to fail and fade and crumble. The only thing that does not fail is our God who reigns forever. We We have to say, how amazing is it that we know him, that he has revealed himself to us by name. The last three words of this psalm tell us to praise the Lord, and that is what we do each Lord's day, and it's what we are here to do tonight.

We praise our God for the fact that he has rescued us from sin, death, and hell. We are able to do what he created us to do. We We don't blindly put our faith in human power and ability, but our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. We are not blind to the truth. Our eyes have seen the light of the gospel, and it is a glorious thing. So may we never grow weary or succumb to an even greater danger, distraction. As we labor in the work of passing on the faith, may we be persistent in our witness through prayer. May we be persistent in our worship, in our instruction in the word, and may we always lean on Jesus as our only hope. Let us trust the means that God has ordained to carry the gospel forward to the next generation. Our children, our grandchildren, our neighbors, and our churches need to continually see and to hear that our hope is not in possessions. Our hope is not in programs or princes, but our hope is in the Lord God who reigns forever. And so how do we witness to this great truth?

We do what the Salma says here. We praise the Lord. Our worship to our God is a witness to a lost and dying world of the hope that we have in Christ. So praise the Lord. Proclaim his gospel. Trust his word. This is the great gift that we have received, and this is our legacy. This what we pass on, and we can trust and hope that because God is the one who does this work, it will last to all generations. Amen. Let us pray. Great and Merciful God, we thank you for the gift of your word. That we can see within it the hope that we have in Christ, but we can also see that this hope will not terminate with us. It goes on to all generations. And so we pray for persistence and diligence in worshiping you, in proclaiming your word, in raising our children in the faith. We pray, oh, Lord, that you would bless us with fidelity to your word, and that we would put our trust not in princes, not in institutions, not in governments, but in the one who made heaven and earth, the one who took on our flesh, to rescue us from sin, death and hell, the one who lived, died, rose again, and has ascended on high, and rains over each and every one of us.

It is in his great and holy name that we pray. Amen. Thank you for joining us for this week's sermon. For more information about First Reformed Church, head to our Facebook page or website, edgertonfrc.org.

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