Gloria Dei Lutheran Church | Urbandale, Iowa

Patriotic Service: What's Right with America

Pastor Burcham’s Sermon

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

This coming Friday, July 4, we will celebrate our 232nd birthday as a nation. So you can either say that we are 232 years old or you might say we’re 232 years young. Really, when you look at the scope of all of history and of the nations of the world, we’re pretty young. When you consider such places as Japan or Germany or China, we’re just mere infants in this whole thing.

That really came home to me when I read an interesting fact this past week. It sort of pointed out that when Thomas Jefferson died, Abraham Lincoln was a young man of 19. When Lincoln was assassinated, Woodrow Wilson was a strapping little boy of 9 and, by the time he died, Ronald Reagan was a young boy of 8. Think about that. Just through four presidents, we can trace all the way back to the founding of our country.

We are a young nation but we are a mighty nation, a powerful nation. We are a nation that has unprecedented freedoms and almost indescribable blessings from God. And so once a year, we take time to celebrate the blessings of God and the freedoms that we have and I propose that we start that celebration here today because such freedom, such blessings, they need to be celebrated. They need to be recognized. And what I propose this morning is that we need to recognize what’s right with America, all the good things that are happening in our nation and the good things that have happened to our nation. And then, most importantly, recognize that blessing comes from God so we can take time to thank Him and praise Him for what He’s done over the past 232 years.

Kind of as our roadmap for that, we’re going to use a celebration from the Old Testament. We read about it a few moments ago in 1 Chronicles and that actually was a celebration that David was leading for the young nation of Israel. A little bit of history behind that, Israel, a young nation, is being attacked by the Philistines. God grants them victory over the Philistines and now David is coming back into Jerusalem and bringing with him the ark of the covenant, which symbolized the presence of God among them, and as he comes into the city, they have an all out celebration. They have a parade. They have a marching band. They have singers. They have jugglers. Read about it, Chapter 15, 1 Chronicles, they have a regular 4th of July parade. The only thing they’re missing, corn dogs and fireworks. I’m sure if they would have been invented, they would have had them as well. All out celebration for what God had done for this young nation and so David composes a song. In the Old Testament language, we call it a psalm. But in that song, he sort of directs us, directs us on where our celebration should be. What he points out first is let’s recognize what’s right.

Let’s recognize what’s right. He wanted to recognize what was right in the young nation of Israel. Let’s recognize what’s right with America. You see, it would have been easy for David to go to the negative. He had a whole host of things he could point out that was wrong with the nation of Israel. He would only have to go back a few years to the first king, Saul. You want to read about an interesting time in Israel’s history, go back and read about Saul. He starts out as a pretty good king and he gets stranger and stranger until, at the end, he’s just weird, the things that happened. A black mark on Israel. David could focus in on all the things that were wrong with the nation but what does he say? Instead, he says, “Sing to Him, sing praises to tell of all of His wonderful acts.” And then he goes on to say, “Remember the wonders He’s done, His miracles, the judgments that He’s pronounced.” He says, “Look at what God has done among us.” Let’s focus in on what’s right with this nation of Israel. Let’s avoid the temptation of the negative.

You see, I think that’s a huge temptation for us today and maybe particularly this point, this 4th of July, is to focus in on all the things that are wrong, all the things that need to change, all the things that are negative about our country. It wouldn’t take long to tick off all the things that we could do. Pass by the gas station, $4.00 a gallon for gas? The economy is tanked. Every time you turn around, a politician or some other leader is being corrupted and being brought up on charges. We have flood waters in Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, everywhere else. We have tornadoes that are happening. The list is endless of all the things we could list that is wrong with our nation. But if we only focus in on what’s wrong with the nation, then we miss out on the things God is doing. And we don’t pay attention to the blessings God is bestowing on us.

I’m not saying that we have some Pollyanna-ish thing where we turn a blind eye to maybe the difficulties we have but instead, I say let’s focus in on what’s right. Let’s focus in on the fact that, in spite of the fact that we live in a fallen world, in spite of the fact that human beings are sinful and they do corrupt things, in spite of the fact that we’re still this side of heaven, we have a God who is still providing for us and who is still blessing us. Let’s focus in on those blessings and let’s recognize what God has done for us and, specifically, let’s recognize what He’s done for us as a young nation.

So, if you will, bear with me, let’s recognize some of the things that are right with America. There are many things we could list but let’s focus in on just a few. Let’s recognize the fact that we have a freedom to worship our God. I don’t know about you, I take that for granted every week. Every Saturday night, every Sunday morning, I get ready to come and do a job. What’s my job? To talk about Jesus. Other parts of the world, that’s illegal. Here, that’s my calling. That’s what I get to do on a full-time basis. The very fact that you can gather here this morning, no fear of government intervention, no fear of breaking any law but we can freely come and gather together and worship the one true God, we can talk to anyone who we want on the streets, in the government about Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. That is not so around the world. Of the 230-some nations of the world, over 66 of them have serious regulations on religion. In some of them, it’s outright illegal to be a Christian. People risk their very lives to come together and to worship Jesus as their Lord and Savior. The most we risk is missing a little bit of sleep on Sunday morning or a soccer game on Saturday afternoon. Let’s recognize the freedom we have to come together and to worship the one true God.

Let’s recognize the fact that we can elect leaders without fear. Maybe we haven’t thought about that but, in this country, we can hold elections, we can cast our votes, there is a winner and there is a loser and that’s the end of it. There’s a person who wins the election, there’s one who loses the election. The loser doesn’t go out and form an army. The loser doesn’t go out and try to lead a coup against the government and take up arms against his opponent. No, usually the loser congratulates the winner. How different is that from some of the countries around the world? That just doesn’t happen.

We have a living example from this past week. We had Obama and Clinton just duking it out for the primary, right? It went on and on, day after day after day as they duked it out with one another. And so what happens on Friday? They’re standing side by side, all smiles and giggles, shaking hands. Yes, yes, I know it was politics. I know that it was all rhetoric and all the rest but I’ll take that over what happened in Zimbabwe. This very week, if you read the paper, in Zimbabwe, they were supposed to have a runoff election. The guy who was opposing the incumbent withdrew from the race, he said, because he feared for his life and he claimed that his supporters were being shot dead. That doesn’t happen here. Let’s recognize the fact that we’re free to choose our leaders.

Let’s recognize the abundance of our land and the blessings God has given us. I counted no less than six grocery stores in a three-mile radius of this building. There are probably more. I counted six. All six of them are filled with aisle after aisle after aisle of food. We have an entire aisle that’s dedicated to cold cereal, for pity’s sake. You can’t even hardly take in all the different brands that are there. We have meat counters that are overflowing with beef and pork and chicken and fish, all we could want. And there are six of them surrounding us. The abundance is amazing. Some countries don’t have grocery stores. They have little huts where you buy your individual things. You know what your choice is? Yes or no. Yes, I’ll take it. No, thanks, I don’t want it. You don’t have a whole aisle worth that you can choose from. What we consider a poverty level here, and I don’t want to degrade that or diminish that in any way, but what we consider poverty here, most people in poverty own a car, a color TV and a cell phone. How many countries are around the world where those are luxuries? You’re on the upper branch when you have those things. God has blessed us with an abundance in this country. Let’s recognize that. Let’s celebrate that.

Let’s recognize the fact that we can travel freely. I hadn’t really thought about this before. We go from state to state to state. We don’t even think about it. The only thing that distinguishes one from the other, there’s a nice little sign that says, “Welcome to Nebraska,” “Welcome to Missouri.” That’s it. We don’t stop at the border and explain why we’re leaving Iowa and what’s our intention as we go into Nebraska. No, we can go from sea to shining sea and the only stops we have to make are rest areas and gas stations. It’s just not so around the world. Let’s recognize that blessing and that freedom God has granted us in this country.

Let’s recognize the fact that Americans are the most generous people on earth, that Americans share more of their wealth than any other country. We as Americans are the ones who rush in to aid the rest of the world. I ran across an editorial this week and it’s an old one I discovered. It’s from 1973 and it was written by a journalist who actually was a Canadian and he wrote for a Canadian paper. Although it was written in 1973, let me just read a couple of snippets of it and see if it doesn’t still apply today. He says, “This Canadian thinks it’s time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least appreciated people in all the earth. Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy, were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debt. None of these countries is today paying even the interest. When France was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up. The reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw. This spring, 59 communities were flattened by tornadoes. Nobody helped. The Marshall Plan, the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now the newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans. When the railways of France and Germany and India were breaking down with age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. I can name you 5,000 times when the Americans raced to help other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? Our neighbors have faced it alone and I’m one Canadian who’s tired of hearing them get kicked around.” There’s one of two ways you can react to that. The one reaction is to say, “Yeah, why doesn’t somebody come in and help us?” The other reaction is, “Can’t we thank God that we’re such a generous nation?” Can we not thank God that He has blessed us enough that we give of ourselves and we expect nothing in return? And even without knowing it, are we not demonstrating the kind of love God has for us? For God loves us and He doesn’t expect or demand anything in return.

One more for you to recognize. I hadn’t thought about this one either. You’re free to leave. I don’t mean right now. You’re free to leave the country. Think about that. You don’t like the politics. You don’t like the policy. You don’t like the economy, whatever, just because you want to, you can leave. There’s not going to be an American soldier who is standing at the border saying, “You can’t go.” The other country might not let you in but they’re not going to say that you can’t go. You’re free to leave. Try that in Cuba. Try that in China. Try that in any number of nations around the world. You can’t leave. You have to stay. Now I can’t imagine why we would want to leave. I just think it’s time that we recognize all that’s right and all the blessings God has given to us because, as we recognize what is right, then most importantly, we need to recognize that is a gift from God. That is His gift for us and we should thank and praise Him for that.

If we go back to David, we see that. David understood that for his young nation that it was a gift from God, that it wasn’t his doing but this was God blessing this young nation. That’s why David goes on in his song and he writes this, “Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the nations, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory that is due His name.” The glory that’s due His name. In other words, give God the credit for all He has done among us people. And so I say this morning, as Americans, let’s give God the credit for all He has done among us, for the great blessings He’s given us, the unprecedented freedoms He’s bestowed upon us. We start with the foremost and the greatest freedom He’s given us and that is the freedom we have in Christ. The freedom we have as a nation reminds us of the freedom we have in Christ, the fact that God has freed us from our own sinful self, that God had such a love for us that He was willing to lay down His life for us, that He was willing to pay the punishment for our sin so we could be free of that sin, we could be free of that guilt. And as we remember the freedom we have in Christ, it reminds us of the freedom we have as a nation but as we remember the freedom we have as a nation, it reminds us of the freedom we have in Christ. Neither one of them can be taken for granted. And for both of them, we ascribe to the Lord the glory which is due His name and we offer up our thanks and our praise to God.

That’s what our celebration should be about. Thanking and praising God all that is right in our country. After all, that’s what the men and women of the armed services are fighting for and risking their lives for, not for all that’s wrong but for all that’s right, for the indescribable blessings of God and the undisputed freedoms God has granted to us.

So as we celebrate as a nation, let’s celebrate as a people of God. Let’s recognize what’s right and then recognize that it’s a great blessing from God and, this week, let’s praise and thank Him for that. Amen.