Psalm 61:5 For thou, O God, hast heard my vows: thou hast given me the heritage of those that fear thy name.
When we think of small churches like ours, sometimes we think we’re not important. We may ask ourselves “how important am I?” “What good are we doing?” The devil wants us to think that way. We have a heritage and sometimes think it’s too much or we don’t really matter. God is counting on the bigger churches that are following the way of the Lord, but he counts on us just as much. Regardless of how little we see ourselves, we all matter in the great plan of God. There is a purpose for every congregation and a purpose for every Christian.
David said for thou, O God, hast heard my vows: thou hast given me the heritage of those that fear thy name. He was a shepherd boy. Outwardly he was not qualified to be king. Surely God wouldn’t choose him. David asked “who am I” to have such a responsibility. The future of the church depends on what we do with the church handed to us, the one we have right now. Everything matters in the eyes of God. We are able to be Christians today because someone else prayed and witnessed to us. We got under conviction and were saved. Someone else’s work was handed down to us. It needs no improvement; it is the heritage of God. A person needs the witness to be saved.
If an heirloom has been handed down from generation to generation and you get it, it has been entrusted to your care. What we have in the church and as a Christian has been handed down to us, entrusted to us to keep it as God intended. It’s a matter of continuing what God handed down. Many have stopped continuing. Many have changed it or added to it. Many think the changes better suit the modern day. Nothing about God needs to be changed. The blood of Jesus Christ, the gospel, the Word of God, God himself—none of this changes. Change occurs within us. Our forefathers died in faith that we would carry on their legacy. That heritage will be our legacy one day.
Will we be found faithful to the heritage? Will we hear the Lord say “well done thou good and faithful servant” or will we hear him say “depart from me?” It depends on what we do with the heritage. Keep it the way God wants it to be. Know God. Know the Bible. Know right from wrong, good from bad. Stick with God. It should be our determination to keep the promises our forefathers kept.
Proverbs tells us not to get curious with those who want to change things. It’s not God who changes; our ways need changing, not God’s. Like all lies that people swallow, it starts with idle curiosity. The prodigal got bored with his family and thought he could take his inheritance and check it all out. He thought he could do anything he wanted with that inheritance. He found out the grass is not greener on the other side of the fence. Let’s keep on keeping on. We have a heritage of blood and sweat, of sleepless nights and many battles against the devil and the world in order to preserve the purity of God. We have the real thing because those before us stood with it. Let’s keep the real thing so we can leave something true.
Hebrews 10:38 states now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. We’ll make it if we go the right way. Live by faith—faith in God, faith in his Son, faith in the gospel, faith in real and right living. When other things have died out, we’ll still be okay if we trust in Truth. Verse 39 in that chapter states we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. We can corrupt it and go back. We can be part of the crowd or we can believe to the saving of the soul. Fight the good fight of faith. Finish the course. Can others go on because of what we’ve handed down? The purity of what we have is worth it.
In earlier days there was a form of punishment where Christians were martyred with heavy ropes put around their necks and twisted because they would not deny God. Many sang and continued to witness until their last breath. They held on so we could have a heritage. We owe it to them. We owe it to our Master to go on, to vow the vow of vows to be faithful to all things pertaining to the Lord.
This is the heritage. We have a great responsibility. David said it made him feel small to have such a heritage entrusted to him. Let us do right by it so we’ll do right by those to come. Let it be our legacy.
Adwolfe Freewill Baptist Church 