Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of Grace Church
Psalms 89:1-8 I will sing of the steadfast love of the Lord forever;
with my mouth I will make known your faithfulness to all generations.
2 For I said, “Steadfast love will be built up forever;
in the heavens you will establish your faithfulness.”
3 You have said, “I have made a covenant with my chosen one;
I have sworn to David my servant:
4 ‘I will establish your offspring forever,
and build your throne for all generations.’” Selah
5 Let the heavens praise your wonders, O Lord,
your faithfulness in the assembly of the holy ones!
6 For who in the skies can be compared to the Lord?
Who among the heavenly beings is like the Lord,
7 a God greatly to be feared in the council of the holy ones,
and awesome above all who are around him?
8 O Lord God of hosts,
who is mighty as you are, O Lord,
with your faithfulness all around you?
It is with deep emotion and great honor that I greet this special congregation, my dear friend (your pastor) in this special place and address you this morning. God truly has been faithful! Dear church – you are blessed by a good, merciful, providing, shepherding, present, almighty, healing, happy God! I praise God for His work here in you!
What a special moment this is! Twenty-three years ago, in the fall of 2002, one of your elders, James Smith, reached out to me about serving as your pastor. I was just turning 27, a recent seminary graduate, having served for a year in the college ministry at Bethlehem Baptist Church.
I was newly married and expecting our first child. Up until that time, I had preached fewer than a dozen sermons, and no one had ever called me “pastor.” While my zeal was great, my wisdom and experience were limited.
I believed I was called to be a pastor, my home church affirmed this, and a small group of believers in Wyoming, Minnesota, did as well.
God was faithful. God is faithful. God will be faithful.
I testify to that in my life and in the life of this church – together.
This morning, as we celebrate the 30th anniversary of Grace Church’s first service, I want to lead us in exalting the faithfulness of God for the glory of Jesus Christ and the strengthening of our faith—our confidence in Him.
Many verses could anchor this message, but let us focus on one from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church:
“God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Can we not apply this truth to Grace Church?
God is faithful, by whom you were called into a covenant partnership with each other, rooted in Jesus Christ our Lord!
God is faithful! I have seen this truth displayed repeatedly during some of the most formative years of my life. From late 2002 until 2013, my family and I were here. Grace, Paul, Elijah, Barnabas, and Mary were all born here—one literally in our home in Forest Lake. The oldest three were baptized in this building.
I even had the privilege of baptizing your current pastor—once he finally got his baptism theology right!
I have just finished a sabbatical in which the last month was spent thinking and praying about this day (not ever moment – but a lot).
God is faithful! I have witnessed this firsthand through prayers answered (with yes and no), through people coming and going, through God’s patience towards me and us as a congregation, in pain and sorrow and the growth that comes from that, and in provision of every kind.
To frame this sermon, I offer four pillars to uphold our reflection:
- God’s Faithfulness Defined
- God’s Faithfulness Declared
- God’s Faithfulness Displayed
- God’s Faithfulness Applied
I keep saying – God is faithful. What does this really mean?
1. God’s Faithfulness Defined
The faithfulness of God means that He is absolutely true to His Word. He makes promises and keeps every one of them. Unlike humanity, God is unchanging in His nature and character—steady, stable, reliable, a foundation we can always depend on when He has promised.
God’s faithfulness is always praised in the context of His covenant relationship with His people—Israel in the Old Testament and the Church in the New Testament. We see this in our text: He has called you into the fellowship of His Son.
The faithfulness of God is His unchanging, reliable commitment to keep every promise, expressed through His steadfast love and covenant relationship with His people.
Lamentations 3:22–23 declares, “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end… Great is thy faithfulness.”
In a world of unfaithful spouses, politicians, leaders, pastors, and people, God is not like humanity.
Numbers 23:19 states, “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?”
You can always count on God to do what He says He will do.
Can I add something to this: God’s faithfulness isn’t just an adjective – a word to describe God – it is an adverb that brings glorious weight to every one of God’s breathtaking attributes. I needed to ask my daughter Grace to get adverbs right…
God is faithfully wise.
God is faithfully good.
God is faithfully kind, loving, merciful.
Faithfully providing, protecting, shepherding, sustaining, fulfilling all His promises.
He never misses. He always is going to follow through. If it seems slow it is on purpose because He is faithfully perfectly timed.
2. God’s Faithfulness Declared
The Scriptures make it abundantly clear: God is faithful!
1 Corinthians 1:8-9 who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Faithfulness is a defining attribute of God.
2 Timothy 2:13 assures us, “If we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.”
1 Peter 4:19 encourages sufferers to trust in Him as their Faithful Creator.
Deuteronomy 7:9 proclaims, “Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations.”
Deuteronomy 32:4 declares, “The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he.”
On this 30th anniversary, we lift our voices in praise to declare this awesome truth!
When you are tempted, Scripture declares God’s faithfulness: 1 Corinthians 10:13.
When you hold fast to hope, He is faithful: Hebrews 10:23.
He promises to preserve you against the enemy and present you holy before the Lord because He is faithful: 1 Thessalonians 3, 5.
He always forgives the sins of those who humbly confess in Jesus’ name because He is faithful: 1 John 1:9.
Dear saints of God – called into the fellowship of His Son – God is Faithful!
3. God’s Faithfulness Displayed
“God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
To the struggling, divisive, and worldly church in Corinth, Paul reminded them of God’s promises, gifts, and grace. God is faithful!
1 Corinthians 1:8-9 who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.
Philippians 1:6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
Behold how He sovereignly called you! You did not call yourself; He rescued you from the tomb! He called you into a family—the fellowship of His Son, a covenant of grace that holds you fast forever. See His faithfulness in how He forgave you, gave you faith, and promises to keep you blameless to the end. God is faithful! He bats 1000. He defines reliability.
If You call Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior, How did that happen? Not by your wisdom, righteousness, or good works, but by God’s grace. This grace has come to you and made promises to you—see His faithfulness displayed. Will He not give you all things you need if he spared not His Son?
As we celebrate this 30th anniversary, I have reflected on how God’s faithfulness has been displayed in my soul and in this church. Let me share a few ways:
Patience
As a young, inexperienced, and less-than-eloquent preacher and new leader, God was patient with me. So was the church!
I think of my lack of confidence, fears, insecurities…and God (and this church) was so patient with me.
God promises this to us! Psalm 103 reminds us that He knows our frame and remembers we are dust. He shepherds us, His sheep, who need patience from our Shepherd. I thank God for His patience. So when I ponder the display of God’s faithfulness I think – Faithfully patient! Writing straight with crooked lines! He meets us with such grace and care.
I am guessing there are more persons hear this morning who needs to be reminded that God is faithfully patient, tender, and caring for us in our weakness…
Maybe a young parent.
Maybe grandparents who feel sad about past messes.
Pain
I have seen God’s faithfulness displayed in pain—both in my own life and in our congregation. To be a pastor is to feel pain – your own and the pain of God’s people. Pain because of sin and pain because of a sinful world – and pain because of a wise God who plants His footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm.
I witnessed God sustaining the brokenhearted and being a refuge for those in need, including myself. At funerals, in hospital rooms, on the phone, or in person—whether crying, grieving, or singing—I saw God’s faithfulness, comforting me and others in our afflictions so that we would rely not on ourselves but on the God who raises the dead.
This was evident in the lives of the Pearson and Carlson families, in Howie’s story, and through divisions and rejection.
2005 – Dec 9 – a car accident that shook this congregation and this pastor.
Post youth group activity when 3 of our teen girls collided with another car in Forest Lake – killing our dear Hannah and greatly impacting the other two, their families, and our church.
God’s grace to parents and us!
Faithfully comforting; faithfully reminding of truth; faithfully driving our church together – as we sang:
Every blessing You pour out
I’ll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name
“When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
my grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;
the flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.
He promises for his grace to be sufficient.
He promises to give us strength for the measure of the day.
He promises to be our shepherd and heal the brokenhearted.
Prayer
God showed me and our church that when He promised to answer prayer, He meant it.
God is faithfully prayer-hearing! Faithfully near to the one who cries out! Faithfully responding.
The decade of my time at Grace is a decade in the school of prayer – learning how desperately dependent we are on Him and how faithfully He is to care for us and minister to us through the blessing of prayer. He was faithful to open when we knocked and answer when we asked. He taught me to pray for change in my own life and in the congregation. He led me to take prayer walks, crying out in lament, praise, and desperation for Him to work.
The importune prayers that we see in Luke 11 and 18 – the widow and the judge and the neighbor with a midnight guest – God wants us to ask and keep asking –
Call in God’s loan (per say) – with the promises of God.
Please change this person.
Please provide.
Please Help.
Please encourage.
Through prayer we saw the faithfully providing God:
Provision
In times of personal and church financial scarcity, just enough would come—an unexpected gift, vehicles given to us, groceries delivered, or an unanticipated check.
The Lord is faithful! He supplies all our needs according to His riches in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19). The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not one!
If God so clothes the grass of the field…
There were times when we would get a message from the church treasurer – we got something in. You can get paid!
Provision the supplied our needs to add another pastor when it really didn’t make sense and yet we felt it was necessary to take the steps we wanted to take.
How else did he provide?
People
God answered prayers and provided not just with money but with people. I cherish how the Lord places people in our lives. It took time before we had our first service with over 50 attendees (including Grace in the nursery). For the longest time, Molly and I were the youngest in the church. God brought the right encouragers to this young pastor’s life, some to keep me humble, and many to help the work—He led Marty and Selena Pagain, and Luke and Christie, Tony and Heidi Cooper, Kyle and Johanna and so many more.Trombergs, Jensons, Howards, Gilkersons… Some who are here and no longer here.
One story stands out as a testament to God’s faithfulness. In July 2007, I received a voicemail from David VanAcker, who was looking for a church. In the meetings, weeks, and months that followed—first with him joining and then our hiring him—I look back and declare, “You are faithful!” I needed Dave, and this church needed Dave. Thank You, God! The church needed Dave and I needed Dave – in the development of my own life. He has impacted me in ways that I can never really quantify.
How did Dave impact your life?
Place
God’s faithfulness was also evident in providing this place. It was disheartening when, after failing to find a gathering place and being asked to leave the Methodist church, one elder suggested that perhaps God was signaling the church should close. We had found this building, but the city created obstacles, and the owner’s rental terms seemed unattainable. I remember kneeling in the basement of our Forest Lake home with Molly, crying out to God to preserve and grow this work. We knew it would have to be all His doing. I went from painful anxiety to confidence that God was faithful and would do what was best, regardless of the outcome.
Within a week, we met with Ron, the owner. The discussion started poorly, but over two hours of negotiations, the Lord parted the Red Sea and led us through the wilderness. We secured a deal better than we could have imagined. That moment of prayer and God’s special providence remains vivid in my memory.
4. God’s Faithfulness Applied
“God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
If you are a believer—if you have been born again, trusted in Christ to save you, and repented of your sins—you have been called into the fellowship of Jesus, part of His body and His people. His faithfulness is good news, and the promises of God are yours in Jesus Christ because of Jesus Christ!
But if you have not trusted in Christ, God’s faithfulness means He will keep His word and judge you for your sin. You are already under His condemnation and will face His wrath. You are on borrowed time by the grace of God. You cannot claim His promises of answered prayer, provision, help in pain, or steadfast care until you turn to Him.
The Faithfulness of God to the non-Christian is a testament to the goodness of God that they are rejecting and will not be able to enjoy.
Yet, God welcomes you! I welcome you! This church welcomes you in the name of Jesus Christ! Jesus came to save hopeless sinners who admit they are sinful and undeserving of His love. He forgives, cleanses, and makes family all those who turn from their own ways of saving themselves and receive Christ’s gift and Lordship. Would you do that this morning? He will forgive and save you!
Faithfulness cries out for faith!
He gives us water to drink, bread to eat, and faithfulness to close our hearts unto Himself with faith – trusting His goodness.
Grace Church, to those who have been called and rejoice that God is faithful:
- Look Down at His Word—study His character, promises, and track record.
- Look Back at His mighty deeds, great and small, in your life, church, and family.
- Look Around at His creation, which declares His faithfulness—the sun, the lilies of the field, the birds of the air, new harvests, and rains. Summer and winter and springtime and harvest, Sun, moon, and stars in their courses above Join with all nature in manifold witness To thy great faithfulness, mercy, and love.
- Look Up in desperate prayers of need and joyful thanksgiving, both privately and corporately. He faithfully hears. He rewards those who seek Him…
- Look Forward in hope—He who is faithful will complete His work in you.
Conclusion
As I look around, I have no doubt that this church—its leadership and members—has countless testimonies of God’s faithfulness: His provision, answered prayers, growth through pain, souls saved, hearts revived, and wayward souls returned.
God is faithful! This God has called you into an intimate, covenant fellowship because of His Son, in His Son, through His Son, and for His Son—Jesus Christ our Lord!
Grace Church – God is Faithful! He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ!
Psalm 89:1–5 sings, “I will sing of the steadfast love of the LORD, forever; with my mouth I will make known your faithfulness to all generations. For I said, ‘Steadfast love will be built up forever; in the heavens you will establish your faithfulness.’ You have said, ‘I have made a covenant with my chosen one; I have sworn to David my servant: “I will establish your offspring forever, and build your throne for all generations.”’ Selah. Let the heavens praise your wonders, O LORD, your faithfulness in the assembly of the holy ones!”