America - God Shed His Grace on Thee -- July 6, 2025

It is my privilege to invite you to today's sermon podcast.

I have made the Apostle Paul's prayer request my own.

When he states in Ephesians 6, 19, pray also for me, that whenever I open my

mouth, the words may be given to me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel.

May today's sermon come alive to you and aid you in your understanding of God's plan for your life.

I think there's a few people in here that are very grateful to live where we

live in the United States of America.

You know, this day and age, there's an insult that people like to throw around

when people are Christian and patriotic, and they like to throw around this

idea of Christian nationalism that,

you know, we're looking to do something radical.

And I guess in a way we are, because we just want to radically love Jesus and be free to do that.

And so, you know, I think that it's okay, even though in times past people have

said, and maybe have alluded to

or flat out said, hey, no, you can't be a patriot and a believer in Jesus.

But I say, yes, we can, as long as we keep the first things first.

And, you know, when we say this words, the words that Dallas just closed with

in his song, when he said, God bless America, what do we think of when we think

of God blessing America?

Because as long as I've been alive, every president has always said those words,

giving a speech, God bless America.

And some acted like they really believed what they were saying.

Others, you weren't sure if they really meant that or they were just saying

some kind of saying to close out a speech.

But what do we mean when we say God bless America?

You know, is it the financial prosperity that we're wanting God to bless America with?

Is it military might? We want to be the greatest nation on the face of the planet.

Is that what we're proclaiming when we say God bless America?

Is it the materialism, the stuff that we have? Is that what we want God to bless America with?

Is it imperialism, where we're looking to take over the world kind of thing?

I mean, what do we mean when we say God bless America?

For the believer, I think sometimes, and probably all the time,

it's different than when someone out in society who doesn't have a connection with God.

I think there's a difference there.

But you, this morning, as believers in Jesus, are exploring faith,

or trying to find Jesus, trying to find out what God wants from you.

I think for us, when we say God bless America, there's a firm meaning behind it.

Because we've experienced the blessing of God already when we gave our heart

and our life to Jesus Christ.

When we asked Jesus to forgive us of our sins.

We asked Jesus to forgive us of those trespasses, those things we intentionally

did that crossed the line.

And we knew they were wrong when we did them.

When we ask God to forgive us of those, to pick us up out of the muck and the

mire, and to teach us a new way on how to live, how God truly wants us to live.

We've experienced the blessings of God. Man, we've been talking about people

of grace for over a month now.

And as people of grace, we've experienced the blessings of God.

And so I think when we say, God bless America,

We have some specific things that we want God to do in our nation And like you,

I'm very grateful to have been born in this nation I could have been born in Uganda,

I could have been born in Australia and England and many other places I didn't

have any control over that.

It was by the grace of God that that's happened. And on account of that,

just like we are good stewards with the salvation God has given us,

I think we also need to be good stewards with the nation that He's given us to live in.

And I'm grateful that in this nation, the United States of America,

that we have the ability to influence our government.

And that's something we should never take for granted, something we should definitely

be very, very grateful for as we seek to live out life as God calls us to.

And so this morning, I want to remind you of Matthew 6, 33.

I said this last week in the sermon, but it's just, it's a scripture you can't

get beyond because it's just so in your face all the time, everything that you do.

And it's just simply this, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

If you grew up like I did in the King James Version kind of church,

it was seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

Same thing, and all these things will be added unto you.

God's going to sort out the rest. Just put him first.

You know, it's interesting. George Washington, the first president of the United States,

said in the Thanksgiving proclamation in the year 1789, it is the duty of all

nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will,

to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor.

And Thomas Jefferson wasn't all that of a Christian, I think,

but listen to what he says.

Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that

these liberties are a gift from God?

We know that the freedoms that we have, we know that the nation that we have

is a great gift. And so let's steward that and steward that appropriately.

When we look to the scripture this morning, we're going to read Psalm chapter

Psalms 33:12–22

33, verses 12 through 22 this morning.

Would you stand for the reading of God's Word, if you're able to and willing.

The psalmist writes, Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,

the people he chose for his inheritance.

From heaven, the Lord looks down and sees all mankind. From his dwelling place,

he watches all who live on the earth.

He who forms the heart of all, who considers everything they do.

No king is saved by the size of his army. No warrior escapes by his strength.

A horse is a vain hope for deliverance, despite all its great strength it cannot save.

But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on whose hope is in his

unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine.

We wait in hope for the Lord.

He is our help and our shield. In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name.

May your unfailing love rest upon us, O Lord, even as we put our hope in you.

Let's pray. Father, thank you for this scripture passage.

Lord, we know it was directed to Israel. And we know, God, the great promise

that you had for your people, Israel.

And Lord, as believers in Jesus Christ, we know your scripture also says that

those who place their faith in you, those that are a part of your family because

of what Jesus has done for us, we've been grafted in.

And so, God, we're so grateful to you for that. Lord, we take the truths of

the scripture passage this morning, apply it to our hearts, we pray very liberally,

Lord, in all that we do, may we love and God be glorified in Jesus' name. Amen.

Thank you. You can be seated. Thanks for honoring God's word this morning.

You know, when we look at this and the immediate criticism is,

yeah, that was talking about Israel.

It's not talking about the United States or any other nation.

And I just kind of say time out because there's some wording in the scripture

passage that tells me different.

Yes, the context. He was talking about God's nation, the nation of Israel, the chosen people.

But if we look at some of the passages here, some of the passage...

You know, we can see the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him.

Anyone fearing God this morning?

Anyone respecting in awe of God? So I think that could be for us and whose hope

is on his unfailing love.

Anyone else here trusted in God's unfailing love?

Yeah, I think we qualify to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine.

It says we wait in hope for the Lord.

He is our help and shield. anyone

else trusted in God as our help and our shield. I think that we qualify.

I think that we as people who have placed our faith in Christ are those said

of in verse 22, may your unfailing love rest upon us, O Lord,

as we put hope in you. Anyone putting your hope in Jesus?

All right. Then I think we can settle that matter, that it applies to us,

those who have faith in God, who are trusting God through faith in Jesus Christ.

And so this morning, I just want to look at three things that we probably should

mean when we say, God bless America.

And first and foremost, I think we need to mean when we ask God to bless America

is this, we want spiritual blessings.

We want God to bless America with spiritual blessings.

We think about this Proverbs 14, 34, Righteousness exalts a nation,

but sin is a reproach to any people.

We know in our nation we have freedom, and praise God for the freedom that we have.

But it's not spelled out what kind of freedom we have. And a lot of people take

advantage of freedom to do things that aren't so good, to do things that aren't

what we consider moral from the Bible, what we consider good or ethical.

There's a lot of people that are doing a lot of good things,

and we praise God for that.

But we really want our nation to experience the spiritual blessings that God can bring to a nation.

First of all, personally, the relationship with Jesus Christ,

but secondly, through the community of faith that gathers together.

We want God to bless our communities. We really need, I think,

in our nation continually,

and I believe, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, it's up to the church

to steward this, to share this, to guard this, not just in the buildings of a great church,

but in city hall, in the meetings of our community, in the way that we vote in all of this.

I'm not going to give you a pitch for biblical citizenship class,

although that's a good one, but I will say it's up to us to be the stewards

of truth, of integrity, of true compassion.

We've got to get back to these biblical values of what's right and what's wrong.

Micah 6.8 says, Has he showed you, O man, what is good? And what does the Lord require of you?

To act justly, to love mercifully, and to walk humbly with your God.

These values, people have twisted them and they turn them and they try to make

them say something they're not.

But I think it's pretty cut and dry to act justly.

When a law is broken, there's a punishment.

Aren't you grateful for grace when it comes to spiritual things?

Because there's laws that have been broken.

We've trespassed. We've sinned. And that sin needs to be taken care of.

And Jesus has done that for us. Are you trusting him today for that?

To act justly. We're to act justly with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

There's always room for grace there. That's the kind of justice that God brings.

But there's an accountability.

And in that accountability, God wants us to be free from that,

all that sin. He wants us to love mercy.

Aren't you glad that God is a merciful God? Boy,

there's a lot of people trusting in some kind of faith to where they have to

earn their own salvation, where they have to do works, where they have to give

of themselves, of their money, and still at the end of life,

not sure if they're making it to heaven or not,

not sure if they're right with God.

Man, I'm glad God is merciful. I'm glad that God is gracious,

that he gives us a favor that we have not earned, that we could never earn through anything that we did.

And that in fact, the scripture says that all of our righteousness,

all those things that we do or could try to do to be right with God are as filthy rags,

a disgusting connotation of every good thing we try to do to live up to what

God expects from us, which really what God expects from us is just to humble

ourselves and trust Jesus for the salvation we're trying to earn.

Now, I know some of you have lived through some legalistic times in the church,

of the Church of the Nazarene or other churches,

and those are hard because, yes, we want to live as holy people,

but we don't want to get caught up in trying to earn our way to heaven because

Jesus has already taken care of that.

It's about a faith trusting God that he is sufficient.

What Jesus did on the cross is sufficient for you, and it's sufficient for me.

And if we want God to bless us and bless our nation with these spiritual blessings,

we've got to recover those lost values that first start when we humble ourself.

George Washington, and I'm going to have a lot of patriotic quotes in here,

quotes of our forefathers, so just hang on, all right?

This isn't every Sunday, Jevin, that I'm quoting Thomas Jefferson or George

Washington, just so you know.

But I think it's appropriate today because we have in our faith a strong connection

throughout its history, even to our founding fathers. And we'll talk about that in a minute.

But George Washington said, of all the dispositions and habits which lead to

political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.

That they are what upholds the kind of nation we're going to have.

And when we talk about religion, I know we're more about relationship with Jesus around here,

but religion is just those works that you do, those things that you do that

are evidence of your faith in Jesus Christ and what stems from your personal

relationship with Jesus Christ, that righteousness, that's the morality we're talking about.

Those are what are to uphold the political prosperity that we want in our nation

and asking God to bless us with those spiritual blessings.

Not to get hung up on point one, not only recovering lost values,

but we need to recover the faith of our fathers.

We got to remember the roots of our nation. They're not a rewrite of history.

I think the history of our nation is well-documented, but even just going so

far back as when I was in grade school,

learning about the pilgrims that came over to worship God, to find a land where

they could worship God and to find a land where they weren't going to be oppressed

by the state or even by other religions or other churches.

So the pilgrims came over to seek religious freedom, the freedom with which

to worship God, the freedom that we're sharing in today.

And it's interesting that in the Mayflower Compact, 1620, it began with this

covenant for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith.

At the foundation of our, I mean, before of the Declaration of Independence or any of that.

There was a desire for those coming here to seek that out.

George Washington again said, to the distinguished character of a patriot,

it should not be our highest glory to add the more distinguished,

or it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of a Christian.

In essence, George Washington said, man, the best patriots are those that first

have their faith in Jesus Christ.

And from the outset, recovering that faith again, that we're not a secular society,

that we were never really meant to be a secular society, but that God at the

beginning was involved in that.

And I think also what goes along with this, Christians, is point C here.

If we're going to ask God to bless our nation with spiritual blessings,

we've got to have a rebirth of reverence.

And it's got to start in the house of the Lord.

It's got to start with you, and it's got to start with me. Everyone who names the name of Christ.

We've got to have this reverence again for God's day, the Sabbath day.

Now, I'm not saying Saturday per se, but God set aside a day for us to rest.

Now, I'm a hypocrite telling you this right now.

Wow, that was almost the loudest amen in the room, I think, from my wife.

Because I get caught up just like you, and there's a lot to do.

A lot of work for the Lord, especially. But yeah, we've got to take a time out

and let's have this reverence again for the day the Lord has made to set aside

to rest, to remember Him. We celebrate on the Lord's Day on Sunday.

We gather together as was the custom, it seems, in the first church.

We gather together. But again, having this reverence for God and believing God

that He says, okay, you got six days out of the week to work and do everything.

Saying, take that seventh one and rest.

We've got to have a rebirth of reverence again for God's book, for the scripture.

And I'm grateful that this church is a church that believes the Bible.

The Bible is preached. The Bible is studied.

We share God's Word as much as we can.

We've got kids that memorize it. We've got adults that are still memorizing

Scripture, that we love God's Word so much.

It's foundational to everything that we do. But in our society,

to help people recapture that reverence for God's Word again.

Not twisting it to be something it should not, but believing what it says and

studying that, studying to show ourself approved unto God, workmen,

which do not need to be ashamed.

I think, again, we need a rebirth of reverence for God's house,

for worship, for gathering together.

And again, just to affirm you and to say, thank you for being here today.

Didn't you know it's a holiday weekend? But you're here. You have a reverence for God.

You have a love for God's people and you've gathered in.

You know this is my favorite day of the week.

You know how hard it is for me to take vacation because I usually am over a

Sunday and I hate missing church. I hate missing gathering together with you.

In a couple of weeks, I'll be on vacation. It's going to kill me because I can't be here with you.

I mean, I know we have online and we have a lot of people that watch online,

but I can't get a hug online.

I can't hug my phone. It doesn't work the same.

But in our culture, in our American culture, again, to revere God's house,

our acts of worship is something that is sacred.

And of course, we cannot neglect God's will. If we're going to have this rebirth

of reverence, we have to seek God's will in all that we do.

And when he says, this is what you need to do, then go for it and do that.

Well, I don't know how I'm going to do that. It's going to cost too much money.

Well, take a step of faith and trust God.

Make sure you're being a good steward of your finances.

Well, I just don't feel like I can do that.

I don't know how I could ever go across the street and talk to my neighbor about Jesus.

Well, just take the first step and then go knock on the door and be confident

God's going to give you the words to say.

He's going to give you the message

to share. Well, I don't know how I can do this or how I can do that.

Quit questioning God, and if he's put something on your heart,

if he's told you to do it, just do it.

Take a step of faith believing God's going to provide. The words to say,

the resources that you need.

The equipping internal and external from other people helping to build you up and go along with you.

Oh, that's an exciting thing. We got to trust God in that. The author of Hebrews

gives us this encouragement.

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess for he who promised is faithful

and let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.

And let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing,

but let us encourage one another, and all the more so as you see the day approaching.

Boy, we talk about getting back to reverence. You know, how can we expect the world to respect Jesus,

to respect God, to respect the people of God, if we've caved in, if we've surrendered?

I mean, think about this, and this is just a quick example. It's not on my outline

by any means, but when I was growing up, we had church Sunday morning like we're doing now.

We had Sunday school before that, of course.

We'd go home, we'd come back for Sunday evening service, right?

And then we would meet during the week. We would have visitation Tuesday or

Thursday. We'd go out and just visit God's people.

Just come, hey, how you doing? Hey.

Of course, we'd arrange it ahead of time usually, but sometimes we'd just go

out and just knock on people's doors.

And if they were welcome to it, we'd share Jesus with them.

Of course, we had Wednesday night that we would come and we would worship.

But I have you noticed over the past, it's been a short time,

in my lifetime anyway, we've seen Sunday nights go away. And that's true here too.

We've seen Wednesday nights go away.

We've seen other midweek activities kind of go away, except church board meeting,

which of course is this Tuesday. Just a reminder We've seen these things happen

And What has filled their place,

No, there's been stuff that's filled their place. Sports.

Now, even in the school districts, they schedule Wednesday night games.

Sunday nights have been replaced with other things. Even Sunday mornings,

there's some great soccer tournaments that go on.

I was on vacation once, and I

drove through a park, and there was a ton of people there playing soccer.

I'm like, man, maybe we should have a soccer church here to catch all these people.

But you know, when we compromise, when we give up something that we've held

sacred, that we've revered before, then the world's going to glom onto it and make it something else.

I don't know who needed to hear that this morning because it wasn't in my notes,

but it's just important that we remember.

President Calvin Coolidge says this, and I'll move on to the next point.

The foundations of our society and government rest so much on these teachings

of the Bible, that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease.

Let that sink in for a minute.

When we cease to teach the Bible, because we cease to believe in the Word and

its efficaciousness, its effectiveness on people,

then it really affects the whole of our government, the whole of our society,

the whole of our communities. so important.

We want God to bless our nation with spiritual blessings.

That doesn't happen unless we seek for God to bless our nation,

which should also mean that God would save our nation.

We want God to save everyone in the world. We can't leave out the place where

we dwell, the place where we hold citizenship either.

I read earlier 2 Chronicles 7,

14, if my people will humble themselves and pray, I will heal their land.

Are you God's people? Do you believe that this morning, that you belong to God?

Well, are you humbling yourself and are you praying for your nation?

Are you humbling yourself in all that you do and just asking God to come alongside?

We need God to save our nation from moral decay. We're talking materialism.

We're talking selfishness.

We're talking all the greed and the corruption that we hear of that's on the evening news,

not just in our government but in our

local communities say man i

can't believe this first peter 2

11 says dear friends i warn you as temporary

residents and foreigners or aliens and strangers to keep away from worldly desires

that wage war against your very soul peter says hey remember you're not of this

world your citizenship is in the kingdom of god and so you're an alien you're a foreigner here.

So watch out. Keep yourself from worldly desires, desiring things that are just

here and now and temporary instead of focusing on what God wants,

those things that are eternal.

Because he says they wage war against your very soul.

I'm not saying it's not good to have stuff.

Praise the Lord we have stuff because we do stuff with stuff.

And when we're not doing stuff with stuff, we store stuff. But it's handy when we need the stuff.

But when your life becomes about the stuff, that's when you're in trouble.

When you're more concerned with the stuff that you have and what you're going

to do with that stuff, then you're worried about your brother or your sister,

your neighbor, then that's when you're in trouble.

When that becomes the whole of who you are and when a neighbor especially is

in need and you have all this stuff, but you don't want to share it.

I'm not saying I have a need this morning that you need to share anything with

me. I'm just saying we've got to watch out and keep what we read a few minutes ago.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Keep the first things first.

We've got to have God save our nation from this moral decay.

And Christian, you've got to guard against it too.

Keep on your guard. Protect your families. Guard your families.

And church, guard your brother and your sister. Come alongside them.

Brothers in arms, sisters in arms. Thank you.

Abraham Lincoln knew of the horrific civil war.

In 1863, he gave this proclamation, a national day of prayer and a national

day of fasting, the president of the United States.

And he says this in the context of that horrific war, we have been the recipients

of the choicest bounties of heaven, but we have forgotten God.

We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace.

And we have vainly imagined that in all these blessings, that all these blessings

were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.

President Lincoln said, we've taken credit for all the good things that God has blessed us with.

It was a warning to us to be careful.

Be careful of the moral decay that can happen when we put ourself in the place of God.

We also need to have God save America from false ideologies or ideas and false religions.

When you think about this, and I talked about this, I won't get into it too

much, a few weeks ago, talked about secularism, how people want to kick God

out of every public place.

That's the secularist, to remove God and just to do it on your own.

Again, placing yourself in the place of God. We talked about moral relativism

or relativism, where everything is equal value, even the stupid stuff,

even the stuff that's fake and false.

You know, I always want to say for the moral relativists, you know,

okay, if you do a job for me, are you going to let me pay in monopoly money?

Because that's just the same as American money, right?

If you go and build a house for me, I can pay you in monopoly money instead

of the real cash American money.

Well, no. Well, what's the difference? Well, the American money, in a sense, has value.

Monopoly money only has value if you're playing Monopoly. And then sometimes

not even there if people cheat. I won't name names, trust me.

Got to be careful of that, not to say that everything is equal.

We've got to be careful of other ideas, ideologies, including false religions that distort the truth.

I want to say this, and we've got to be careful in the church because we are

loving people, because we love others,

because we are compassionate toward others, that we don't let others twist our

compassion and our love for others into something that is unbiblical.

There's a move right now with this ideology that's not new, but it's called

Marxism, sneaking into the church and playing off of the compassion and the

love that we have for others.

But what they don't understand is that when you have compassion and love for

others, you want to see a transformation happen in their lives.

You want to see a change happen in their lives.

Not does everyone fall into line, not class warfare and this kind of thing,

but we're all one body in Christ.

I don't know why I said that other than it's very prevalent even in some Nazarene churches.

And part of what we do here is to follow the scripture and to help lead our

brothers and sisters, even in other congregations that are being lured away

and tempted by this, to say, no, come back to the Bible. Come back to Jesus.

Don't get sidetracked, but trust God and His plan and what He's doing.

Colossians 2.8, see to it then that no one takes you captive through hollow

and deceptive philosophies, which depend upon human tradition and the basic

principles of this world rather than on Christ.

John Quincy Adams said the highest glory of the American Revolution was this.

It connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with

the principles of Christianity.

In essence, John Quincy Adams was saying, what we have here in this nation is unique.

And he believed that God was in the founding of this nation,

that there was an ideal way to do government, and that ideal way to do government

could be found in the Scripture, with those foundational principles.

Well, it's not your notes this morning, and it was my fault that it wasn't.

I didn't type it into the outline.

But if we're saying that God bless America should be God save America from moral

decay, from false ideologies and religions, we've got to make sure that we all

understand that America needs to be saved from sin.

We read Romans chapter 6, verses 1 through 4, what shall we say then?

Romans 6:1–4

Shall we continue go on sinning that grace may increase? By no means.

We who have died to sin, how can we live any longer in that?

Or do you not know that all of us were baptized into Christ Jesus,

were baptized into his death?

We therefore were buried with him through baptism into death in order that just

as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father,

we too may live a new life.

It's this freedom that is true freedom that leads to any other freedom that we can have.

And we want to remind the great fellow citizens that we have of this nation

where the true freedom comes from. It comes from Jesus.

We need to be out and about proclaiming the message of salvation to all those that are around.

It's easy for us to share it with one another because we've experienced that.

And what do they call that? They call that an echo chamber, right?

We already know what it is.

We echo one another because we found the saving grace of God.

But there are people in our neighborhoods.

There's people in our Walmart stores and our Albertson stores and other stores

that we shop at that don't know Jesus.

There's people you run into when you're out playing and having fun and when

you're conducting business that don't know Jesus.

If we want God to bless America, we want God to save America.

And folks, it's the church that's going to be part of that helping to save America

because we have the gospel. We have the good news.

It is begging to be shared. You want to make America great again and share the

gospel of Jesus Christ with others that you come across.

And that leads me to my last point this morning. We want God to truly bless

America through the church.

We want God to bless America, I want, through you guys.

What does the scripture say? Jesus said in Matthew 5, 13 through 16,

you are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.

And while we're in here in this salt shaker, we're not doing much good.

We've got to get out into our communities, and we've got to make it flavorful for the Lord.

We've got to make people thirsty for the gospel, thirsty for the living water.

And as the church, we're the ones through whom a blessing can come to our nation.

The church must lead in repentance and renewal.

I'm grateful over the history of our nation that there's been godly men and

women who have stood up against evils, who've stood up against,

we know, the evils of slavery.

That those who later discovered, boy, this is wrong, and they repented of that,

and they turned away from that.

We've got to lead in that. We've got to lead in renewal. The church must do that.

You know, revival does not begin with what happens in the halls of Congress in Washington, D.C.

Revival happens right here in these pews, in these seats, and it happens with

you, and it happens with me?

And are you open to God doing something with you new, reviving you again in

your walk with him, renewing your relationship with him?

You know, there's a story of a man and a wife, and they'd been married for quite

some times, and they'd started having some difficulty.

And the wife turns to her husband and says, you don't love me anymore.

And the husband was watching the baseball game and kind of paused it, turned to him.

What do you mean I don't love you anymore? She said, you don't love me anymore.

Well, why do you think that? Well, you just don't tell me that you love me anymore.

The man looked to her and said, well, I told you the one time that it counted

when we set our vows at the altar.

Even our marriage relationships could stand some renewal, don't you think?

How about our relationship with Jesus? I think that needs some renewal.

When's the last time you told Jesus you love him? When's the last time you showed

Jesus that you love him? We've got to lead in this way.

Ben Franklin, 1787 said, only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.

There's no greater virtue than serving God, than have a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Freedom can only be maintained by people that possess moral character and virtue.

And when citizens of a nation become corrupt, they lose that virtue.

They lose that morality. They become susceptible to tyranny.

They become susceptible to authoritarian rules because they got to have a lot of bosses over them.

They've got to have a lot of masters to help control their behavior because

they've lost all of that.

Would our church be considered a place of leadership in our community?

When people think of Mountview Church of the Nazarene, are they going to think

of us as people who lead by faith with virtue and morality in our area?

If not, we got some work to do. You see, our faith must be active.

We know James says in James 2.17, faith by itself without works is dead.

Hey, tell me all day long you're a Christian and how good your church is and how much you love Jesus.

But if you don't demonstrate that by the outworking of the Holy Spirit,

using your gifts, your talents, yourself, your personality to bless other people,

are they really going to believe it? Are they really going to see your faith?

We must be agents of grace.

We must be agents of justice, truth in our communities.

Again, I just want to reiterate that. We have a group that meets several times

throughout the year, perhaps even monthly.

And they're watchmen on the walls for the stuff that happens with our families.

And I'm talking about the Grizzlies for Good Books.

And they're watching and they're keeping an eye out for the stuff that,

boy, we're busy working and loving other people and serving the Lord,

but they're watching the things that come at us because they want to be agents

of grace, because they want to be agents of true justice,

because they want to be agents of truth in our community, to stand up against

that stuff that's just garbage, that likes to seep into the public arena.

Two more political quotes, or they're not really political, it's just historical

quotes. Let me correct myself. Here's what Ben Franklin said.

Have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs

I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men.

And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without notice, it is probable that

an empire cannot rise without his aid.

We have been assured, sir, and the sacred writings, that except the Lord build

the house, they that labor build it in vain.

I firmly believe this, and I also believe that without his concurring aid,

we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel.

We shall be divided in our own little political interests.

Whew, great warning to us, I think.

We think that God is the one who helps the nations to rise and brings them to ruin.

God has used our great nation to help send the gospel overseas.

Still is doing that to new and more and greater people groups.

When we think about the move of God, we have got to, as believers,

live out our faith, live out who God wants us to be in our families,

in our churches, in our communities,

and in the entire world.

Let's live as the people that are truly trusting in God.

So this morning, as we conclude, I just want to call you to hope and to holiness.

Again, from the reading this morning, our soul awaits for the Lord.

Let your steadfast love be upon us.

America's hope is not in her wealth or its might. It's in her maker.

We should not ask God to bless America if we're not willing to bring that about

through our own gifts, our own talents, our own faith that we have in Jesus Christ.

One last quote, and that's this. President Ronald Reagan in 1984 said this,

If we ever forget that we are one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under.

That's a great truth that we should take to heart and that many of our political

leaders should take to heart too.

So what I want you to do, I want you to pray for national repentance,

to pray for the corruption.

Pray against that. The power that people get power hungry and power drunk when

they get to the halls of Congress, to other political positions, pray against that.

Let's pray that in our own communities, there's some repentance.

We turn away from that. We begin to live as God would want us to live.

And I'm asking you to live as a holy people.

Holiness isn't easy, but it's possible through Jesus Christ,

through trusting in him, through taking care of sin once and for all when it shows up.

Don't keep jumping in the same

mud hole all the time. Once you know where it is, don't go back to it.

Let Christ clean you off. And

man, just be salt and light in a darkened world, in a flavorless world.

Will you do that? Just those simple steps to start, seeing what God will do.

And guess what? He's already started doing that.

He's already started moving, and He's going to continue to do that.

As we come to this morning to partake in the Lord's Supper, I said before, this is a means of grace.

It's a means by which we receive the grace of God.

Remember the pool noodles? This is time to open that pool noodle, all right?

To open that conduit to the Lord and let Him bless you. Let Him pour out His grace to you.

We think about the actions that we take and, you know, to outsiders,

why are you just having like a snack before lunch? What's this all about?

But it's so much deeper because we're thinking and we're remembering Christ's

body that was broken for us, Christ's body that hung on the cross.

Before that, the lashes that he took, his beard that was pulled out,

the crown of thorns that were placed on his head, the suffering he went through.

We remember that when we crunch on this little wafer bread.

We think of his blood that was spilled out, not because of anything he did.

He was innocent. But the blood that poured out was the blood that would blot out your sin and my sin.

The sin of all humanity that would cover that.

Receive this grace anew today, to remember when you said those words,

Jesus, forgive me of my sin.

I give my life to you. I want to live for you.

When we made Jesus our Lord and our Savior, it's a time to remember that.

But we just don't remember it and leave it in these pews here.

We take what Jesus did with us and we go out and we share it with other people.

That Jesus saved me from my sin. He's given me a brand new life,

a clean slate. Now I can live for him.

Not only that, he's activated these gifts of the Spirit within me so I can serve

others. I can bless other people.

I can help others know about who Jesus is.

That's what this supper is about. It's a foreshadowing of an even greater supper

that we're going to share with everyone in here, but all those through time

and eternity who have placed their faith in Jesus.

And so it's with excitement that we get to take this too.

Yeah, there's a somberness because we're remembering what Jesus did for us.

Yeah, there's an action call because we want to take what Jesus did and go out.

But then there's the excitement of all those who will come to faith in Christ.

We'll be seated at the marriage supper of the Lamb.

Oh, exciting time. I want to thank you for joining today's sermon podcast.

You can find a copy of today's sermon, as well as other sermons,

and the sermon outline from today on our church's website, www.mvcnaz.org.

It is my prayer also that you will seek out a church home that recognizes the authority of the Bible.