Patriotic Christians #3
For the Love of Country
Theme: I believe that God has blessed us with a great country in which to live. There are many assets we should celebrate. There are also shortcomings we should mourn. Jesus looked over Jerusalem and expressed the same emotions that we should display for the United States. In the end, we need to pray for our country, stand strong and defend the USA.
Introduction
We are considering what it means to be a patriotic Christian in our world today.
We’ve talked about praying for our country.
We’ve talked about praying for our leaders.
Today I want us to consider the love we have for our country.
In Luke 13, Jesus says these words about Jerusalem, the capital of His country:
34 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God’s messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn’t let me. 35 And now, look, your house is abandoned. And you will never see me again until you say, ‘Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord!’” (Luke 13, NLT)
His words of prophecy are fulfilled in Luke 19.
41 As [Jesus] came closer to Jerusalem and saw the city ahead, he began to weep. 42 “How I wish today that you of all people would understand the way to peace. But now it is too late, and peace is hidden from your eyes. 43 Before long your enemies will build ramparts against your walls and encircle you and close in on you from every side. 44 They will crush you into the ground, and your children with you. Your enemies will not leave a single stone in place, because you did not recognize it when God visited you.” (Luke 19, NLT)
I believe you could say that Jesus love His people, His city, His nation. He loved Jerusalem so much so that he wept over the wrongs that had happened. He wept over the events that would happen in the future.
Jesus did not despise His country or wish ill upon it. Instead, He wanted nothing but the best for it, and it grieved Him to see how His people had rejected His teaching.
I think this morning that Jesus’ example of patriotism perfected can provide a guidepost to Christians today.
<https://www.christianitytoday.com/biblestudies/articles/churchhomeleadership/patriotism.html>
Ryan Hamm, in an article for Christianity Today, writes:
If we apply Christ's words to today, it might mean that we celebrate the times our nation does something great—the times it gives a voice to the voiceless. It doesn't mean we totally deny a love or appreciation for our country, or throw up our hands feeling we can't make it better. Like it or not, we're part of whatever community into which we're born, and proper patriotism takes note of the in-born love many of us have along with a desire to make our home nations as good as they can be. Christ's words mean we embrace a healthy love for country and don't diminish the godly notion that it's okay to love the place from which you come.
But Jesus' lament also means we mourn the times when our nation does something wrong. It means tempering our love for country with the knowledge that there are times our countries will get it wrong. Because if you look just under the pomp of most nations, there are some pretty ugly wounds.
G. K. Chesterton sums up this stance perfectly in The Defendant. “‘My country, right or wrong,’ is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case,” Chesterton writes. “It is like saying, ‘My mother, drunk or sober.’ No doubt if a decent man's mother took to drink he would share her troubles to the last; but to talk as if he would be in a state of … [happy] indifference as to whether his mother took to drink or not is certainly not the language of men who know the great mystery.” In other words, true, good patriotism lies in the ability to judge one's nation in its successes and its shortcomings.
We live in the greatest nation in the world today, I believe.
We have a great history.
We have a great present.
We have a great future.
But we are not perfect. There have been mistakes in our past — things of which we are not proud.
There are mistakes in our present — things going on today that should make us weep.
There will be mistakes in our future.
We are human. There have been sins and mistakes since Adam and Eve ate the fruit in the Garden of Eden.
But I believe today that God has blessed us. God has blessed our nation. And that is nothing for us to take for granted today.
1. Think about, for a moment, the successes we should celebrate.
One of the greatest successes we have accomplished is freedom.
<Freedom No Word Was Ever Spoken That Has Held ...
By SermonCentral
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Someone once said that of “Freedom, no word was ever spoken that has held out greater hope, demanded greater sacrifice, needed more to be nurtured, blessed more the giver...or came closer to being God's will on earth.”
<Celestial Freedom
By SermonCentral
SOURCE: 1776 Thomas Paine. Citation from http://www.trinitycathedral.org/Sermons/11111ser.htm
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In 1776 Thomas Paine stirred the land with these words:
“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands now deserves the love and thanks of man and women. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheep, we esteem too lightly; ’tis dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price on its goods; and it would be strange indeed, if so celestial an article as Freedom should not be highly rated.”
Freedom.
<https://users.csc.calpoly.edu/~jdalbey/Public/Bill_of_Rights.html>
Someone has summarized the Bill of Rights into the Really Brief Version:
We are guaranteed the freedoms of religion, speech, press, assembly and petition.
We are guaranteed the right to bear arms.
We are guaranteed the right of a trial by jury.
We are guaranteed the freedom from excessive bail and cruel and unusual punishments.
We are guaranteed the rights of other people.
In countries around the world, people long to have the freedoms we have today.
It’s these freedoms that allow us to gather today, to be peaceful with each other, to speak our beliefs, all without fear of reprimand and retribution.
It’s one of the greatest accomplishments in world history.
In our country, we are blessed, generally I think, with a kind, helpful spirit. And that’s something worth celebrating.
It’s all about following the Golden Rule. As Americans, we generally do a pretty good job of this.
<French Writer Alexis De Tocqueville, After ...
By Steve Rutherford
Alexis de Tocqueville.
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French writer and diplomat Alexis de Tocqueville (tock - ville), after visiting America in 1831, said, “I sought for the greatness of the United States in her commodious harbors, her ample rivers, her fertile fields, and boundless forests — and it was not there. I sought for it in her rich mines, her vast world commerce, her public school system, and in her institutions of higher learning — and it was not there. I looked for it in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution — and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great!"
Throughout the many trials and challenges our country has experienced, even over the past 20 years, we have always stood by our neighbors, our friends, our countrymen — to help out — to support — to encourage.
It’s one of the greatest things we have as a country. Generally we think of others before ourselves.
And it is this kindest, the willingness to step in and help our co-workers, our friends, our neighbors that makes us a great nation.
<Remember That If The Opportunities For Great ...
By SermonCentral
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It has been said, “Remember that if the opportunities for great deeds should never come, the opportunities for good deeds are renewed day by day. The thing for us to long for is the goodness, not the glory.”
The United States is the land of opportunity.
Only in America are we free to live by trial and error. We have opportunities given to us that we take for granted that are pipe dreams for countries around the world. Say what you will, but if you live a good life, obey the laws, work hard, you have the opportunity to succeed.
<Seizing Opportunity
By Richard Tow
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Thomas Edison said, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
Most of our families can trace their roots to immigrants coming to America, petitioning for citizenship, and seeking the opportunities they did not have in their home land. Opportunities to learn something new — opportunities to do something different — opportunities to start again.
Really, the United States is because people came from other parts of the world seeking a place to have new opportunities — opportunities to worship as they wanted, to work as they wanted, to live as they wanted without having the threat of monarchs or dictators lording their power over them.
<https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/happy-birthday-usa-50-inspiring-quotes-that-prove-america-is-the-greatest-countr.html>
English born Journalist Christopher Hitchens said: “The fact is: It's true what they say about the United States. It is a land of opportunity. It is too various to get bored with it.”
The opportunities are available if you seek them.
<http://www.morefamousquotes.com/topics/quotes-about-america-land-of-opportunity/>
Former President Ronald Reagan said: “The poet called Miss Liberty's torch ‘the lamp beside the golden door.’ Well, that was the entrance to America, and it still is…. The glistening hope of that lamp is still ours. Every promise, every opportunity, is still golden in this land. And through that golden door our children can walk into tomorrow with the knowledge that no one can be denied the promise that is America. Her heart is full; her torch is still golden, her future bright. She has arms big enough to comfort and strong enough to support, for the strength in her arms is the strength of her people. She will carry on ... unafraid, unashamed, and unsurpassed. In this springtime of hope, some lights seem eternal; America's is.”
2. While all of those things are great, we are human. Our country does have some shortcomings we must mourn.
The divisions among us seem to keep getting deeper and wider.
It seems we cannot find ways to get along with anyone.
We are divided by race. We are divided by color. We are divided by background. We are divided by religion. We are divided by class. We are divided by incomes. We are divided by economics. We are divided by politics.
<https://www.ap.org/explore/divided-america/>
The Associated Press said it this way:
It’s no longer just Republican vs. Democrat, or liberal vs. conservative. It’s the 1 percent vs. the 99 percent, rural vs. urban, white men against the world. Climate doubters clash with believers. Bathrooms have become battlefields, borders are battle lines. Sex and race, faith and ethnicity ... the melting pot seems to be boiling over.
I think the mentality of some is to divide and conquer. I think that there are those who divide us so we can be controlled.
We are weaker when we are divided.
We are weaker when we try to stand by ourselves.
All kinds of things are said to be causing the divisions — wars abroad for example, going back into the days of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, have divided our country based on how people have felt about the wars.
<https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-u-s-became-a-nation-divided-11576630802>
The Wall Street Journal in an article about the split in our country, attributes our divisions to “broader cultural pressures that have built up around the political system. Many in the country’s largely conservative heartland have rebelled against what they see as the steady demise of traditional American values and social structures. Meanwhile, their opposite numbers on the largely liberal coasts have crusaded with increasing intensity for what they see as overdue gender, racial and economic parity.
“Meantime,” they say, “cultural tensions are rising, aggravated by big debates over race relations and immigration. As the decade dawned, the country had just finished a period of rapid growth in the population of undocumented immigrants, which rose an estimated 30% over the previous 10 years. That wave altered the face of communities in places unaccustomed to such changes, and hit just as the existing workforce was facing an erosion of stable and long-term employment in traditional industries.
“Deeply polarized views of the decade’s two presidents have only added to the tensions. Mr. Obama’s election as the nation’s first African-American president, and as a progressive who pushed through a broad revamp of the health system, emboldened those on the political left. But Mr. Obama also infuriated those on the right who thought his policies ran to the left of his moderate rhetoric, and those in the heartland who thought he belittled their values with his famous campaign-time comment that economic decline in the Rust Belt had compelled people there to “cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them.”
“Mr. Trump’s arrival heartened those on the populist right, who thought they finally had a president who understood their grievances, but infuriated those who thought he shattered social and political norms and used anger and divisiveness as political tools to his own benefit. By decade’s end, there was an unprecedented level of political division over Mr. Trump, with fewer than 10% of Democrats approving of his job performance and some 90% of Republicans approving.”
It seems, though, that we are not the only ones experiencing this great dividing. According to the same Wall Street Journal article, from Britain to Italy to Hungary to Poland, similar economic and cultural dislocation has produced similar movements toward populism. Marching into the next decade, the big question is whether the resulting divisions will remain as stark as they appear today.
Let’s hope not.
The divisions we feel have a root in selfishness.
<Selfishness Is A Personal Thing. This Is The ...
By Russell Brownworth
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We look at life like a member of a church one time who always had the same comment after the sermon: “You sure told ‘em today, Preacher!”
This member was the most faithful member, always attending every time the church doors were open. But somehow he seemed to think that the sermon was for everyone else, not him.
So the preacher decided to prepare a sermon to speak to that issue.
The day came for the preacher to deliver that sermon — a terrible snowstorm where no one showed up except for Brother Told ‘Em. The preacher hauled out his sermon and pulled every trigger available. At the end of the two-man worship hour, as they were leaving, Brother Told ‘Em had something different to say. Shaking the preacher’s hand, he said, “If they’d-a-been here today, preacher, you sure woulda ‘told ‘em this time!”
A selfish, self-contained life, without Jesus, leaves us thinking only about ourselves, thinking ourselves better than we are, blaming everyone else for the problems of the world.
The left blames the right. The right blames the left.
One side is pitted against the other.
And we are too selfish to realize that just sometimes it may be us who is wrong.
I want what I want and there’s nothing you can do to stop me from getting it.
And in the end, lives are full of sin, and no one cares.
Probably our greatest shortcoming in our country is the sinfulness that abounds.
<The 10 most sinful states, ranked
Zoë Ettinger Mar 3, 2020, 3:27 PM
https://www.insider.com/most-sinful-states-issues-drug-addiction-gambling
https://wallethub.com/edu/most-sinful-states/46852/
Written by Adam McCann, Financial Writer, February 18, 2020>
WalletHub, a financial website teaching financial wellness, did a study to determine which states were the most sinful using a data based approach on seven key vices: Anger and Hate, Jealous, Excesses and Vices, Greed, Lust, Vanity, and Laziness.
For example, WalletHub based how vain a state is on metrics like the number of beauty salons per capita. They based how lazy a state is by the number of volunteering and exercising adults there are against the total adult population.
They based their anger and hate vice on factors like violent crime rates, sex offenders per capita, and hate crime statistics.
Excesses and Vices considered factors like drinking, fighting and gambling.
The top ten most sinful states in the US starts with Mississippi. It is the laziest state and ranked fourth worst for greed.
Mississippi topped the charts in three categories: most gambling addicts, most time spent on adult entertainment sites, and highest percentage of adults not exercising.
In ninth place, South Carolina scored high for anger and hatred and jealousy. South Carolina has higher rates of violent crime and theft than the rest of the United States.
Eight overall place is taken by Illinois. The state ranked seventh for vanity and 13th for anger and hatred. That ranking is based partially on the number of murders in Chicago annually, which in 2016 toped the number in New York City and Los Angeles combined.
Seventh place went to Louisiana. It came in second for anger and hatred, excesses and vices, and laziness.
The state has more than double the average murder rate compared to the rest of the United States, and has higher rates of robbery and assault. Add New Orleans’ reputation for lax public drinking laws and no official open container law, and you can see why they ranked so high.
Tennessee came in sixth place overall, third for anger and hatred and eighth for excesses and vices and lust. The overall crime rate in Memphis is 224% higher than the national average. The overdose deaths involving opioids in Tennessee is quite a bit higher at 19.3 deaths per 100,000 people compared to the national average of 14.6 deaths per 100,000 people.
Number five: Georgia, Jealous and lust causing the ranking. Georgia has higher rates of burglary, theft, and vehicle theft than the rest of the United States. The state also had a high rate of teen births, about 19 per 1,000 people.
California came in number four. However, it was the second worst for lust and vanity.
The third most sinful state was Florida, ranking highly for jealousy and vanity. Florida has a higher theft rate than the US national average, and has the fourth highest rate of identity theft in the US. In 2016, Florida had 2,397 prostitution arrests, the fourth highest in the country.
Texas came in a very close second. It ranked first for lust. In 2016, there were 4,506 prostitution arrests, second highest in the country and ranked fourth for teen birth rates.
Number one most sinful state: Nevada, home of the gambling capital of the country, Las Vegas.
Now if you were wondering, Virginia came in overall at number 25. We were 35th for anger/hatred, 31st for Jealousy, 43rd for Excessive vices, 10th for greed, 27th for lust, 8th for vanity, and 40th for laziness.
I guess we are hard working.
Looking at it from that perspective, we have become a sinful nation. But we didn’t need statistics to tell us that sin abounds. What was once wrong is now accepted as main stream. What the Bible condemns, our world today celebrates.
We have strayed away from God.
<https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/>
The Pew Research Center reports that the religious landscape of the United States continues to change at a rapid clip. In Pew Research Center telephone surveys conducted in 2018 and 2019, 65% of American adults describe themselves as Christians when asked about their religion, down 12 percentage points over the past decade. Meanwhile, the religiously unaffiliated share of the population, consisting of people who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular,” now stands at 26%, up from 17% in 2009.
The data shows rates of religious service attendance also declining. Over the last decade, the share of Americans who say they attend religious services at least once or twice a month dropped by 7 percentage points, while the share who say they attend religious services less often (if at all) has risen by the same degree. In 2009, regular worship attenders (those who attend religious services at least once or twice a month) outnumbered those who attend services only occasionally or not at all by a 52%-to-47% margin. Today those figures are reversed; more Americans now say they attend religious services a few times a year or less (54%) than say they attend at least monthly (45%).
And the trends are not going in the right direction. Strong faith in our country has become a shortcoming to mourn.
Conclusion
In spite of all of these things, we do still live in the greatest country in the world.
But for the love of our beloved country, we need to reflect on where we have been, where we are now, and where are going.
<https://www.apologeticspress.org/apPubPage.aspx?pub=2&issue=851&article=835>
Dr. Kyle Butt writes in a piece for Apologetics Press about a time he visited the Jefferson Memorial. I’d like to share his thoughts as we conclude this morning.
“On the walls of the building, huge blocks of writing surround the statue in the center. When you begin to read the writing, it quickly becomes apparent that Thomas Jefferson believed in God. His belief in God caused him to make many very important decisions. For instance, on the wall to the right of the statue, this statement made by Jefferson is engraved, ‘God Who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift from God?’ Thomas Jefferson was asking a very good question. He understood that our freedom in the United States is a gift from God. But he also understood that if we forget that this gift comes from God, we will lose our freedoms. It is sad, but many people are starting to forget that our freedom comes from God….
“Jefferson also made this statement: ‘I reflect on the fact that God is just, That His justice cannot sleep.’ Jefferson said this in regard to the slavery that was going on in his day. He thought that slavery was wrong, and against God’s will. He also knew that because God is a just God who will punish sin, that our nation would be held responsible for breaking God’s laws. Today the situation is similar. We no longer approve of slavery, but our nation murders children and calls it abortion. Our nation allows sinful things such as pornography to be legal. Since God is just, He cannot continue to allow such sinful things to go on without holding our nation responsible for them. His justice cannot sleep forever.”
Friends, God has certainly blessed us in mighty and powerful ways. Because of His blessings, we can certainly love our country, just as Jesus loved His country. And like Jesus we should weep over our shortcomings. Truthfully, we should weep over our direction.
As patriotic Christians, we need to be the voice of reason and voice of truth.
As patriotic Christians, we need to pray. Pray hard. Pray fervently. Pray often.
As patriotic Christians, we need to be an example. We need to share God’s love. We need to love. We need to unite, not divide.
As patriotic Christians, we need to defend, stand, and protect our country. May God bless America.
