The Work Of Faith And Power

The Work of Faith and Power

Veterans Day Message

2 Thess 1:11-12

This week we honor our nation’s as we celebrate Veteran’s Day. We celebrate and recognize this American spirit that is willing to tirelessly defend our nation against any threat to our boarders and or to our freedom. I am privileged to work with these men and women 5 days a week. I can tell you that the majority of them fit this description. They are highly trained and ready to deploy within an hour’s notice to anywhere they are called to defend freedom. We give praise and thanksgiving to our God for those who have served and those who continue to do so.

Today I want to talk about a different kind of veteran that is needed and that is the veteran of Spiritual Warfare. For some time I have been emphasizing the need for a concentrated effort in holiness. Last week I challenged you to a week off of the media but it wasn’t just to turn off the TV, the internet or the cell phone. It was to turn them off and turn Him on, to turn your attention to the Lord, to seek His face. We desperately need Christians who are ready, willing and able to do spiritual battle so that we can turn this nation back to its foundations, to God, the Bible and Biblical morality.

Let me call your attention to 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12

Therefore we also pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness and the work of faith with power, 12 that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

There is a great deal to be said from this passage but one thing that stood out to me as something that not only applies to our walk with Christ and supporting the work of the Kingdom of God, but also speaks to the Christian in his or her duty as a citizen of this great nation. That is, that God’s calling is to fulfill His good pleasure, a work of faith with power that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in us and us in Him.

I don’t believe we are Americans by accident anymore than I believe life is an accident. I believe we live in this nation by providence. I believe we were created for such a time as this. I believe God our Father has designed us to engage the current culture of rebellion and lovingly but boldly with firm, educated understanding, point this wayward society to the Gospel truth.

Listen to this absolute truth from Hosea 4:6

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being priest for Me; Because you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.

Israel was destroyed not “delivering knowledge” but for abandoning knowledge. So I challenged you last week to give up some media time in order to gain some Godly knowledge time. I did this because I believe we are entertaining ourselves into oblivion and have relinquished the education of biblical values to a few hours a week in church while hundreds of hours are spent in an anti-Christian brainwashing society. We are far too comfortable allowing a godless government and an anti-Christian media strip away the foundations that hold us together.

I make no bones about it, I am a proud, Freedom seeking, Bible believing Gun toting Flag waving American. I love this country. I am proud to be an American! My pride does not stem from any one person, or from the military, certainly not from any political figure. My pride in being an American stems from our roots, the foundations that have made us great. I’ve not always been this way, but I didn’t always know what I know today. Today, my knowledge of those foundations is much greater than it used to be. And, the more I discover about the creation of America the more awed I grow of God’s handiwork and the more proud I am to be an American. There are many foundational truths about this great nation that, sadly, a very limited number of people know and understand. The fact that our nation was built, structured from the ground up, on Judeo Christian principles, is something we are not taught outside the church, nor have been for many years. As a matter of fact, you have to go back before the turn of the 20th century, back before John Dewey, back to when the William McGuffey Readers were the primary source for education to find teaching that combines Judeo Christian values with public education.