Serving God Is Serving Your Country Series

Sermon Brief

Date Written: July 02, 2009

Date Preached: July 05, 2009

Where Preached: OPBC (AM)

Sermon Details:

Sermon Series: Seasonal Sermon Series

Sermon Title: Serving God IS Serving Your Country

Sermon Text: 2 Chronicles 7:12-15 [ESV]

Introduction:

This weekend is a HUGE weekend in the history of our nation. Some 233 years ago, we declared our independence from the English Empire and struck out as an independent nation… governing ourselves and seeking our own way.

Some 300+ years ago, people came to these shores yearning for religious freedom! You see in England in the late 1600’s there was an oppression of sorts being waged people who believed that the Roman Catholic Church was apostate and they had established a new church based solely on Scripture alone!

The Catholic Church and the Church of England both began to persecute these new believers in many ways. One way of persecution was they were afforded the chance to go to this harsh new land… for them to worship as they wished they would have to uproot their families and sail across the ocean to a land where they had NO idea of how harsh and difficult it was going to be….

However, our nation was founded by many who came to these shores seeking and yearning to worship God as they believed Scripture dictated…

These people established colonies with laws based on the foundations of biblical principles and Judaeo-Christian ethics. As they submitted to God they prospered and in the late 1700’s a group of men gathered together in what is now known as the Continental Congress. These men sought to separate themselves and the states they represented from the tyranny and tax oppression of the English Empire.

A group of 56 men gathered and commissioned the writing of a document that fundamentally changed the way Gov’t was done…and what they came up with… we now know as the Declaration of Independence… and a new nation was born!

These men knew full well that this would cost them dearly… and it did, most of these founding fathers died either broke or near poverty and some were even imprisoned for their stance for freedom.

But out of their bravery our great nation was born! It was a nation founded on godly Christian principles. Everything used to form our nation was derived from the principles derived from Scripture.

The founding fathers called for prayer and God’s direction and providence to help them to establish this nation! This is why still today we declare to the world that we ARE a Christian nation! This is why I stand here today appalled and angered at our sitting president who has declared that we are NOT!

Now with all that being said… with all the history and facts that we now know WERE the founding elements for our nation… is our nation living up to its claim of being a Christian nation? I believe we can see that we have fallen from where we started!

But this is not the 1st time a nation has fallen before God. You see Abraham was called by God to start a nation… a nation He would call His people. God made a covenant with Abraham, Moses and David for Israel to be a great nation.

Israel enjoyed many years as a prosperous and powerful nation but Israel fell on many occasions when they turned their back on God. Our nation was founded on godly principles and Christian ethics, but over the past 100 years we have slowly but surely moved away from God and toward our own way.

Our passage for this morning is the final part of the dedication of the new temple Solomon had built for God. Solomon was serving God and God instructed him to build a Temple and blessed his efforts.

In chapter 6 Solomon had offered up a prayer to God and in that prayer Solomon recognized that God’s blessing was determined on their obedience to Him… let’s look at some of that prayer:

2 Chronicles 6

22 "If a man sins against his neighbor…

24 "If your people Israel are defeated before the enemy because they have sinned against you…

26 "When heaven is shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against you…

28 "If there is famine in the land…

28b if their enemies besiege them in the land at their gates, whatever plague, whatever sickness there is…

30 "If they sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin—and you are angry with them and give them to an enemy, so that they are carried away captive to a land far or near…

Solomon understood and was praying to God before the entire nation so that they would understand that obedience was a prerequisite to God’s favor and God’s blessing. If they obeyed God, He was going to honor His covenant and bless them… but if they were disobedient God was also going to honor His covenant and He would discipline them!