God Bless America

GOD BLESS AMERICA

I Tim. 2:1-6

INTRO.- Here is some of America’s craziness.

ILL.- Someone wrote these interesting words entitled, “Only in America.”

1- Only in America can a pizza get to your house faster than an ambulance.

2- Only in America are there handicap parking places in front of a skating rink.

3- Only in America do drugstores make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions, while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front.

4- Only in America do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries and a DIET coke.

5- Only in America do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in the driveway and put our junk in the garage. Hello.

6- Only in America do we use answering machines to screen calls and have call waiting so we won’t miss a call from someone we didn’t want to talk to in the first place.

7- Only in America do we buy hot dogs in packages of ten and buns in packages of eight.

Here is some of the sadness of America.

ILL.- It’s written by George Carlin and entitled "Paradox of Our Time."

- The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints.

- We spend more, but have less. We buy more, but enjoy less.

- We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time.

- We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.

- We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.

- We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values.

- We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

- We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life. We’ve added years to life not life to years!

- We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor.

- We’ve done larger things, but not better things.

- We’ve cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul.

- We’ve conquered the atom, but not our prejudice.

- We write more, but learn less.

- We plan more, but accomplish less.

- We’ve learned to rush, but not to wait.

- We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

Brethren, even though there are a lot of negative things about America I still believe that America is the greatest country in the world. We are blessed to have been born and raised in America.

ILL.- Someone has said, “We keep asking God to bless America. He already has. Now it’s our turn.”

It is our turn to bless America. In our turn to do something good for America. God has and still is blessing America. But we need to do our part to bless America!

We can do many good things. We can be good citizens, vote, be patriotic, salute the flag, sing the national anthem, show courtesy to all people and especially, the elderly, obey the laws, pay our taxes, respect the law and its leaders, and please don’t park in handicap parking places when you’re not handicapped!

PROP.- The apostle Paul gives us some specific things we can do to bless America. They are:

1- We must pray unceasingly (1-2)

2- We must live righteously (2)

3- We must evangelize fervently (3-4)

I. WE MUST PRAY UNCEASINGLY

Vs. 1-2 “I urge that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone - for kings and all those in authority.”

ILL.- A teacher went into her classroom about fifteen minutes before the class was supposed to begin and caught a bunch of boys in a huddle on their knees in the corner of the room. She asked what they were doing, and one of them shouted back, "We are shooting craps." She replied, "That’s all right. I was afraid you were praying."

This is a part of the sadness of America. People often huddle together here in America, but it is not for prayer. They are generally huddled together to play something, to attend something, to watch something, but seldom to attend church and pray.

ILL.- Samuel Chadwick said, "The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work and prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but he trembles when we pray."

ILL.- Andrew Murray said, "The man who mobilizes the Christian church to pray will make the greatest contribution to world evangelization in history."