Download GOD BLESS AMERICA

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GOD BLESS AMERICA
I Tim. 2:1-6: 1 I urge you, first of all, to pray for all people. Ask God to
help them; intercede on their behalf, and give thanks for them. 2
Pray this way for kings and all who are in authority so that we can
live peaceful and quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity. 3 This
is good and pleases God our Savior, 4 who wants everyone to be
saved and to understand the truth. 5 For there is only one God and
one Mediator who can reconcile God and humanity—the man
Christ Jesus. 6 He gave his life to purchase freedom for everyone.
This is the message God gave to the world at just the right time.
Tomorrow is the 4th of July… our nation’s Independence Day.
God Bless America….
America is far and away the greatest country in the world. We
enjoy more freedoms… better services… and more fertile lands.
Purple mountain majesties and amber waves of grain… But
America is also also a pretty strange place…
1- Only in America can a pizza get to your house faster than an
ambulance.
2- 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.
3- Only in America do people order double bacon cheeseburgers,
large fries and a DIET coke. (that’s me)
4- Only in America do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in
the driveway and put our junk in the garage…
5- Only in America do we buy hot dogs in packages of ten and
buns in packages of eight.
Only in America ….
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Yes, America is the land of opportunity and hope. But it isn’t all
good and well…
- 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 college degrees but less common sense, more
knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems,
more medicine, but less wellness.
- We 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’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life. We’ve added
years to life not life to years!
- We’ve cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul.
- We’ve conquered the atom, but not our prejudice.
- We’ve learned to rush, but not to wait.
- We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble
crossing the street to meet a new neighbor and invite them to
church...
And even though there are a lot of negative things about
modern America I still believe that it is the greatest country in the
world. We are blessed to have been born and raised in America.
So where am I going this morning? We keep asking God to bless
America… He already has… Now it’s our turn.
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It is our turn to bless America. It’s 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, obey the laws, pay our taxes, respect its
leaders, and not park in handicap parking places when you’re not
handicapped! But what about things that will bless America and
advance the kingdom of God?
The apostle Paul gives us some specific things we can do to bless
America. They are:
I. WE MUST PRAY UNCEASINGLY
Vs. 1-2 1 I urge you, first of all, to pray for all people. Ask God to help
them; intercede on their behalf, and give thanks for them. 2 Pray
this way for kings and all who are in authority so that we can live
peaceful and quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity.
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’re shooting
dice." She replied, "That’s all right. I was afraid you might be
praying."
This is a part of the sadness of America. People often gather
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 few attend church and pray. Prayer is vital to
our blessing America.
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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."
Charles Spurgeon said, "I would rather teach one man to pray
than ten men to preach."
Here’s the point: We must be a people of prayer if we are going
to see any good come to America and our own lives.
We must pray. We must pray for everyone who means anything
at all to us and for those who don’t mean anything to us. We must
pray for our spouses, for our children, for our family members, for our
pastors, for our church members, for our Elders, and for our
country’s leaders… pray for our enemies.. and for strangers…
We must pray at home! We must pray at church! We must pray
at Bible Studies! We must pray while driving our cars, while doing
our laundry, while cleaning our yards!
We must pray when we get up in the morning and when we go
to bed at night! We must pray every chance we get if we want to
see some good things happen to America and in our own lives!
James 5:16 "The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and
effective." How powerful is prayer? How effective is it?
In 1872 the famous American preacher, D.L. Moody, went to
England, not to preach, but to listen to others preach. One Sunday
morning he was asked to preach in a London pulpit. But somehow
the right spiritual atmosphere was not there. He confessed
afterwards that he never had such a hard time preaching.
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Everything seemed dead. He said to himself. "What a fool I was to
consent to preach. I came here to listen and here I am preaching."
Then the awful thought came to him that he had to preach
again that night, and only the fact that he had given his promise to
do so kept him faithful to the engagement.
But when Moody stepped into the pulpit that night and faced
the congregation, he was conscious of a new atmosphere. He said,
"The powers of an unseen world seemed to have fallen on the
audience." As he concluded his message and offered the
invitation, he said, "If there is a man or woman here tonight who will
accept Jesus Christ, please stand up." AND ABOUT 500 PEOPLE
STOOD UP!
Now for the rest of the story! Or the story behind the story.
When Dwight L. Moody preached at that morning service there
was a woman in the congregation who had an disabled sister at
home. When she returned home she told her sister that the
preacher had been Mr. Moody from Chicago.
"What!" she exclaimed, "Mr. Moody from Chicago! I read about
him some time ago in an American newspaper, and I have been
praying for God to send him to London, to preach in our church. If I
had known he was going to preach this morning I would have
eaten no breakfast. I would have spent the whole time in prayer.
Now, leave me and send me no dinner. And no matter who
comes, don’t let them visit me. I’m going to spend the whole
afternoon and evening in prayer."
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And so it was that Sunday night when Dwight L. Moody
preached that there was a completely different atmosphere and
500 people said they wanted to accept Jesus as their Savior.
Does it do any good to pray for those around you? What do you
think? Perhaps we need to spend more time in prayer and less in
worrying! More time believing and less straying!
If we pray long enough, hard enough, fervent enough, and
faithful enough God will change some things for the better!
Never doubt... Never doubt the power of God or the power of
prayer! We must pray unceasingly!
II. WE MUST LIVE RIGHTEOUSLY
Vs. 2 “…that we can live peaceful and quiet lives marked by
godliness and dignity.”
A pastor wrote, "The ugly part of me sure showed his beastly
face the other night. I was driving on a two-lane road that was
about to become a single lane. A woman in a car beside me was
in the lane that continued. I was in the one that stopped. I needed
to be ahead of her… My schedule was, no doubt, more important
than hers. After all, am I not a man of the cloth?
"So I floored it. Guess what? She did too. When my lane ended,
she was a fender ahead of me. I growled and slowed and let her
go ahead. Over her shoulder she gave me a sweet little bye-bye
wave. I was angry…
The sinister part of me said, ‘Wait a minute.’ Am I not to shed
light on dark places? SO I PUT A LITTLE HIGH BEAM IN HER REARVIEW
MIRROR.
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"She retaliated by slowing down… To a crawl. This woman was
mean. She wasn’t going to go beyond fifteen miles per hour. And I
wasn’t going to take my lights out of her rearview mirror. Like two
stubborn donkeys, she kept it slow and I kept it bright.
"After more unkind thoughts, the road widened and I started to
pass. Wouldn’t you know it? A red light left the two of us side by
side at an intersection.
She made a rude gesture at me. I was steaming…
"Moments later, conviction surfaced, ‘WHY DID I DO THAT?’ I’m
typically a calm guy, but for fifteen minutes I was a beast!"
Is that you? Are you a beast at times? At home? At work? At
Wal-marts? While driving or shopping?... I am…
We can be pretty good people at church most of the time, but
God is very much interested in how we act and react outside the
church.
I Pet. 2:12 12 Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving
neighbors. Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will
see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God
when He judges the world.
Max Lucado tells this interesting story about his encounter with a
self-proclaimed prophet. "I wanted breakfast. I got a prophet. I
went to the deli to order some breakfast. For a couple of bucks you
can get all the eggs and sausage you can handle... The prophet
had the same idea. He was short and thin - a wispy fellow with
cropped, unkempt hair, and a bushy, red beard… wearing a robe
and sandals.”
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"By the time I got there, he was already ordering his food.
Meticulously ordering his food. ‘Do you serve a breakfast taco with
no meat? Just potatoes and eggs? I don’t eat meat. Is it salted? I
don’t eat salt. How many potatoes do I get?’ The deli lady lifted
the pan so he could see.
"Maybe he wanted to be sure he got his money’s worth. Maybe
he observed a self-imposed religious diet. Or maybe he was just
very picky. I couldn’t tell. But I could tell that he was polite…
painfully polite.
"As the worker was preparing the prophet’s food, a second
worker appeared. He thought the prophet hadn’t been waited on
and asked if he needed help. ‘No, I’ve been helped. But since you
asked, may I ask you if you are a believer in Jesus Christ? I am His
prophet and I have been sent to you.’
"As the prophet was about to leave, he turned to the deli lady
and said, ‘I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ for your kind
assistance.’ And he caught a glimpse of the deli man and said to
him, ‘I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ.’ He didn’t say what
for... But he made sure everyone knew that he was a prophet…
"As I was about to leave, I bumped into Lawrence, a friend from
my church. Bumping into Lawrence is no small matter. He’s an expro football player. Everything about Lawrence is big, and
everything about Lawrence is kind. A strong hug from Lawrence
can last you a week.
"And that’s what he gave me...a good hug, a warm handshake,
and a genuine question about my well being. Not much, just a
couple of minutes of kind concern.
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"As I was leaving, I was struck by the contrast of the two
encounters. Both the prophet and Lawrence are followers of Christ.
Both are unashamed of their faith.
Both love to carry a Bible. Both like to bless people. But that’s
where the similarities end...
"One wears sandals and a robe, and the other wears tennis
shoes and jeans. One dresses like Jesus, but the other ACTS
like
Jesus. One introduced himself as an ambassador for Christ; the
other didn’t have to. One stirred my curiosity, but the other
touched my heart."
Here’s the point: If we want to change America for the better…
if we want to bless America… we must live righteously but without
presenting a "holier-than-thou" image. We must kill the "fleshly,
proud person" within us.
1- We must pray unceasingly
2- We must live righteously
III. WE MUST EVANGELIZE FERVENTLY
Vs. 3-4 . “This is good and pleases God our Savior, 4 who wants
everyone to be saved and to understand the truth”.
God wants all people to be saved, not just you… And
evangelism is presenting some kind of witness for Christ with the
idea that perhaps they will come to believe in Him, trust and obey
Him and be saved.
Leighton Ford, one of Billy Graham’s associate, said one time, "I
was speaking at an open-air crusade in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Billy
Graham was to speak the next night and had arrived a day early.
He came incognito and sat on the grass at the rear of the crowd.
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Because he was wearing a hat and dark glasses, no one
recognized him.
"Directly in front of him sat an elderly gentleman who seemed to
be listening intently to my presentation. When I invited people to
come forward as an open sign of commitment, Billy decided to do
a little personal evangelism. He tapped the man on the shoulder
and asked, ‘Would you like to accept Christ? I’ll be glad to walk
down with you if you want to.’ The old man looked him up and
down, thought it over for a moment, and then said, ‘Naw, I think I’ll
just wait till the big gun comes tomorrow night.’
"Billy and I have had several good chuckles over that incident.
Unfortunately, it underlines how, in the minds of many people,
evangelism is the task of the ‘Big Guns,’ not the ‘little shots.’"
My beloved, evangelism or leading people to Christ is the job of
every Christian! It doesn’t matter if you’re the pastor or the
passerby.
Have you ever heard of Rockin’ Roland Stuart? How many of
you have ever watched a sporting event on TV and have seen the
giant sign reading "John 3:16" in the audience?
Rockin’ Roland Stuart is responsible for that. At one time, Stuart
was a drunk. Somehow he was introduced to Christ and became a
Christian. God healed him of his alcoholism.
One day, the idea struck him that if he could just get into major
sporting events and put the Word of God before the hundreds of
thousands of people it might do some good.
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So today, Rockin’ Roland Stuart and his wife, Margaret, and a
friend named William James, live a very strange life. They drive
55,000 miles a year in an old beat up van, using their money to buy
tickets to major sporting events in order to hold up a sign reading,
"John 3:16."
I don’t know if what he is doing has done any good to help lead
people to Christ or not. But he’s doing SOMETHING!
One of my favorite quotes from D.L. Moody comes from him
being criticized over the evangelistic methods he used. Moody
replied, "I like my way of doing it better than your way of not doing
it."
The sad truth is most Christian people do little or nothing to
present a witness for the Lord Jesus Christ. While the unbelieving
world is shouting out its message, we go to church but do little
outside the church to spread the message of Christ.
That’s one of the reasons we’re in the Assist3ed Living
communities… on the radio and in the parade tomorrow.
And if all we’re doing is saying "Amen" to the sermon inside the
church and doing nothing outside the church to witness then we’re
not accomplishing much as far as evangelism is concerned.
I have read that 95% of all Christians never try to lead anybody
to Christ in their entire lifetime! That means that only 5% of all
Christian people do 100% of the work of evangelism.
How tragic…
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The Lord doesn’t expect us to do everything, but He does
expect us to do something. He expects us to be more alert to the
opportunities around us to witness for Christ.
I Pet. 3:15 "In your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be
prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the
reason for the hope that you have..."
One Sunday as they drove home from church, a little girl turned
to her mother and said, "Mommy, there’s something about the
preacher’s message this morning that I don’t understand." The
mother said, "Oh? What is it?" The little girl replied, "Well, he said that
God is bigger than we are. He said God is so big that He could hold
the world in His hand. Is that true?"
The mother replied, "Yes, that’s true, honey."
"But Mommy, He also said that God comes to live inside of us
when we believe in Jesus as our Savior. Is that true, too?" Again, the
mother assured the little girl that what the pastor had said was true.
With a puzzled look on her face the little girl then asked, "If God is so
much bigger than us and He lives inside us, wouldn’t He show
through?"
If God is on the inside of us, He will show through to the outside! If
the fire of Christ is burning on the inside of us, then that fire will
spread to the outside and to those around us.
We must constantly look for opportunities to witness, to testify, to
invite, to encourage, and point people to Christ! We must
evangelize fervently!
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CONCLUSION
When George Bush, Sr. was our Vice President he represented
the U.S. at the funeral of former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. Bush
was deeply moved by a silent protest carried out by Brezhnev’s
widow.
She stood motionless by the coffin until seconds before it was
closed. Then, just as the soldiers touched the lid, Brezhnev’s wife
performed an act of great courage and hope. She reached down
and made the sign of the cross on her husband’s chest.
Apparently, she hoped that there was another life, and that life
was best represented by Jesus who died on the cross, and that the
same Jesus might yet have mercy on her husband.
Christ is the only hope for us all and for all the world.
Including America! In looking at our nation’s history, we can see
that God has blessed this country… And we must do whatever we
can to bless America and others with the love of Christ!
PRAY