We are profoundly grateful for all those who have gone before us in this journey of faith. Hebrews 11 talks about the heroes of faith who have gone before us and who continue to inspire us through their faith, and there are many in our church’s individual history who remind us of God’s greatness, mercy and love. As Sir Isaac Newton once said, if we see further, it is because we stand on the shoulders of giants.
We are called to build on the past, to learn from the past and to be grateful for the foundation of faith we have received. I am profoundly grateful for my paternal grandparents, even though my grandfather died when I was only three months old and my grandmother died when I was only young, for I know that their faith and prayers had a great influence on my life; I am in effect reaping now what they sowed and am keen to sow into my grandchildren’s lives the seeds of faith and love which have greatly blessed my own life.
We are indeed called to build on all that is good in the past and to honour those who have gone before us in faith, but we are not called to live in the past. God calls us to be ambassadors for our generation, to be people who will serve His purposes now (see Acts 13:36). Now, He does a new thing (Is 43:19). In Is 48:6, we read, ‘I will tell you of new things, of hidden things unknown to you.’ This is our heart’s cry for our church at this time, that we are attentive to God for the new things He has planned for us, for the hidden things that may be unknown to us as yet, but which He will reveal so that we can live for His purpose and His glory.
We can only live in the present (today is God’s gift to us), but we can build for eternity. We can look to the future in all we do now and seek to build with things that will last (see 1 Cor 3:10-15). Living in the light of eternity helps us through present sufferings and trials (see 2 Cor 4:1-18). We serve a God who lives outside of time and who has set eternity in the human heart (Eccl 3:11).
We build on the past, but we don’t live in the past. We live in the now, but we’re not living for now. We’re building for eternity.