What America Needs Series

What America Needs

Extending your Arms

July 01, 2011

INTRODUCTION

In this last week I did a little survey on line of all for signs of all the things that America needs. It seemed like America needed a lot.

America needs fatima

America needs revival

America needs fewer taxes

America needs more jobs

America needs Good jobs

America needs universal health care

America needs books not bombs

(Some I didn't understand)

America needs lame comedy

America needs a hockey mom

America needs Indians

America needs a cowboy

America needs you (but I guess not me)

America needs a clean environment

America needs better schools

America needs school choice

America needs prayer in schools

America needs the Ten Commandments

America needs leaders not politicians

America needs the church to really be the church

America needs a balanced budget

America needs less debt.

According to the summer programming schedule on TV, I guess the only thing America doesn't need right now is talent.

So into this morass of ideological pontifications I had decided to dare to do share message on what America really needs. I'm excited about

Because if you've been in church a long time than this will either be one of two things for you today. For some I have no doubt that it will be an encouragement, a reminder that how they have chosen to live their lives matters and is making a difference. But I am sure for some who have been in church for a while that this thought will be a wakeup call; a reminder of what their allegiance to Jesus the Forgiver was meant to produce in their lives.

If you haven't been in church for a long time I also think that you will be encouraged. You see I believe this message gives a clear picture of what our lives are intended by God to be like and that portrait is compelling and worth pursuing.

& WHAT AMERICA (AND BY EXTENSION THE WORLD) NEEDS MOST IS FOR THE CHURCH TO TRULY BE THE CHURCH.

1 Peter 2:11-12

The Message (MSG)

11-12Friends, this world is not your home, so don't make yourselves cozy in it. Don't indulge your ego at the expense of your soul. Live an exemplary life among the natives so that your actions will refute their prejudices. Then they'll be won over to God's side and be there to join in the celebration when he arrives.

For the church to be the church we must learn to live like pilgrims.

Friends, this world is not your home,

Pilgrim -- a traveler: one who travel through foreign lands

Passing through, On Journey, Enroute.

When I'm traveling I want to get there. It is the end goal.

We don't settle down in route.

Imagine being in route Tempe Arizona, and in you got as far as Newton Iowa on I 80. Imagine stopping at the days in outside of town and just staying there. Not for a weekend, not for a festival, imagine just settling in and never leaving. You go once a week to a AAA and get new maps and new coupons to use between Newton and Tempe, but you never use them. You start going to a local travel agencies programs on how to make the most out of you move your journey. There great, you never miss one, after all you're a traveler. You are in route. But I wonder what the housekeeping at the Days inn thinks.

After all you've been living there for days, weeks, months, and your life doesn't look much different that hers. She sees you at the store, at the park, in restaurants, around town. You don't look like a person living to get to tempe Arizona.

Peter reminds the church that this world is not our home, don't get too settled into it.

so don't make yourselves cozy in it.

Appl: To live a s pilgrim is make decisions that matter for the journey we say we are on.

For the church to be the church we must remember that life is not just about us.

We are incredibly fortunate. All of us. We live in a prosperous land where we get to celebrate freedoms like the right to gather, the right to worship, the right to disagree with each other.

Today nearly 3 billion people will eek out an existence on less than $2. In America the Median the middle of the road individual will "get by" on 20x that amount. Not a few of us of us are a part of the two income prosperous Americans that get by on $55 or more per day. It's not wrong to be so fortunate, but Peter warns us not to indulge our ego at the expense of our soul.

Outside of the United States 11% of all children born will die before age 10. In the States .8%