What Does God Think About Nations

Giving as an Expression of Worship

We’re going to take time to receive our offering before we do anything more today. It is another expression of our worship. We’ve taken a lot of time over the years, moments in the middle of our worship time together, just to remind ourselves that God loves us and that we ought to love. And one of the ways we love is through our giving, by supporting what God supports.

You know, the Bible says Christ loved the church and He gave Himself up for the church. Some translations use the word “sacrificed.” And He ties this to how husbands ought to love their wives. He makes it a relational issue. He says, “Husbands, love your wives the way that Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for the church.” Men have a great responsibility to their own wives to remind them every day that God loves them, and that they love them.

So as I thought about that this week — about how we express our love toward Jesus — I was reminded that Jesus didn’t stop loving the church after the resurrection. He still loves the church today. Did you know that? He’s very active at the right hand of the Father right now. The Bible says one of the things He does — only one, but it’s important — is intercede for us every single day. Every single day He’s praying for us. He’s lifting us up. Can I have an amen? If you ever wonder if someone’s praying for you, you don’t have to. Jesus is right now interceding for you.

The Bible says He is able to save to the uttermost, which means to experience the uttermost of the salvation He’s provided for each and every one of us through Christ Jesus. He loves His church. He continues to pour Himself into the church for the benefit of the church. There’s a ton of things that the church — His family, His bride, His body — has not yet tasted, not yet experienced. And He continues to work every day to draw us into those things, to lead us into those things, to reveal those things to us, to get us to hope for them, to pray for them, to receive them.

Now, this is not heaven, and it never will be heaven, but there can be a lot of heaven on earth. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. God’s got some things for you to experience in the sweet here and now. He’s got some great things waiting for you in the sweet by and by. But He’s got some sweet things for you in the here and now, too.

If we love what He loves, then we’ll express that love in the same ways that He does — He’s set an example for us to follow. We pray for the church. We serve the church. We encourage one another in the church. We invite others into the church family, into the life that we share as brothers and sisters in Christ. And one of the practical ways we express that love is always through our giving. And our giving is not restrained just to the church — it’s everywhere we go.

My brother got into a little financial tight spot just this past week. A number of unexpected expenses had descended on him — his wife needed a certain surgery, and I guess they didn’t have insurance to pay for it. Then his car — he was driving home from work, and just as he went to apply his brakes to get into the driveway, he had no brakes. He shared the story with me: God was with him. He was able to maneuver that car, get it to slow down, and he started using his parking brake. He went through a couple of stop-sign intersections — nobody else was there, thank God — and made it back uphill to his property and his home. Just as he was coming to his house, it slowed down enough for him to get into the driveway and stop. God was with him. Amen.

But he needed brakes. That’s not cheap to do anymore. And I thank God we were able to step in. Cydney and I were able to bring a little relief. We didn’t pay the whole bill, but we were able to be a part of the answer to the prayers they were praying. What a privilege. Church family, can I have an amen for that — for God? God has blessed you to be a blessing.

Cydney and I had our own things descend on us just days prior to that — roof repairs, car repairs — and it hit us hard. But when we saw what happened to them, we still had enough to give and contribute in Jesus’ name into their life. And how we give is such an important part of worship. It’s following Jesus into the life He intended for us to have. We spend time with those we love. We listen to them. We speak well of those we love — God does that for us, and we do that for other people. We serve them. We protect them. God uses us to rise up and protect those we love. We encourage them. The world’s not going to encourage you — I don’t know why we even look to the philosophies of the world to help us. They’re vain and empty. The Bible teaches us they’re humanistic — man-centered, not God-centered. They have a quick end. They might make us feel better in the short term, but they won’t help us in the long term. But what God does in His love for us helps us in the now, helps us in the middle, and helps us in the end. He is the Alpha and the Omega.

Love shows up. It’s always present. Love builds up — it encourages rather than just criticizes. Love serves. Love looks for ways to help. Love prays — it carries others before God. And then love gives. Love contributes in ways that genuinely help others, in ways that lead to success. Not human love — God’s love at work.

God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that none might perish.

He loves so deeply that He doesn’t want anyone — not a single person in all the world — to perish. He didn’t want you to perish. That’s the depth of God’s love. And it’s a love that always gives.

When you give this morning — whether it’s a dollar or $10,000 (did you hear that? $10,000 — I’m kind of stuck on that; you remember records, if you’re old like me, and sometimes they’d get stuck and just play the same thing over and over — I’m just stuck on $10,000) — whatever it is you have to give, engage your heart and love the church. Be a part of someone who loves the church.

Did you know that in helping the church, you’re actually helping yourself? You’re not putting yourself first, but you’re actually helping yourself when you help the church. Love always gives with purpose, and that purpose is multifold. It is to relieve. Say it out loud — relieve. It is to remind. Say it — remind. It is to restore. Say it — restore. And it is to raise up. Amen. Relieve, remind, restore, and raise up. That’s what our giving does.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank You for putting seed into our own life, and that the seed and what it produces — the good and wonderful that it produces — is for us to partake of. You said that in the Word: You gave seed to the sower and bread to those who would be hungry. And so we thank You for Your provision again in our life. You’ve put us in a position where there’s something You’ve given us that we can now give from and bring to You — the first fruits of the increase, the tithe, the first ten percent — a special way of honoring You. Every believer should be a part of that. But there are other ways to give and other avenues to give — targets here in the city that we’re connected to, people who work to protect and deliver people from the slave trade, the sex trade, and we thank You we can support that outreach. There are other ministers this church supports, like Terry Matthews in his evangelistic efforts and travels, Charlie Miltrot over in Thailand, Pastor Daniel and his wife Dina in Romania and their children, Janu and Ramona. There are others in our city working with the homeless that we’re now partnering with, making a genuine difference. And then there’s God, today, walking into this building, coming onto this campus. There are people in this room — sitting beside us, maybe a few rows behind us or ahead of us, someone we’ve already said hello to, someone we’ll say goodbye to as we leave — and You might move on us by the Holy Spirit to contribute into their life. God, help us always be looking for ways to give the way that You give, so that people might know Jesus — the real Jesus — that they might experience that He’s right here, right now, for them.

Today, God, we thank You for this opportunity once again to worship You in this way, this gathering of people — giving together in a way we can’t do by ourselves. There are things we can only do on a corporate level. Father, help us to do that today. I pray every one of us, as we pause just a moment to be quiet, would hear the voice of the Spirit of God in our giving today. And as You’ve spoken, we are quick to obey, because we are doers of the Word of God and not just hearers — practitioners of the things You’ve taught us and are teaching us. Help us to seize this opportunity today, once again, to be generous as You are generous. In Jesus’ name we pray.

What Does God Think About Nations?

I’m going to serve a hot potato today. We’re going back into the summer series Pastor David introduced a couple of weeks back. He did tell us this — that the purpose of the hot potato series in the summer is because we know people come and go; we hope you get a great vacation, and if you’re gone, we hope you’re watching online — but we also know it’s really hard to do an in-depth series during the summer. So we take this as an opportunity to do a one-off message each week about something we’ve prayed over, something we believe God wants us to speak into, or something you may have come to us with questions about. Here’s what we endeavor to do: we want to know what God has to say about it. Whatever the issue, whatever the question, whatever the concern, whatever the topic — we’ve got to know what God has to say.

My hot potato today, as we start into a week of celebration in our nation for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, is this: what does God think about nations? We’ve got a whole lot of information, disinformation, misinformation, and just dumb ideas floating around in the world today about nations. We don’t need any more of that. We just need to know what God says. Because we are on God’s side. We are followers of God.

I want to start with this quote from John Adams, America’s first vice president and second president. During the process of the Declaration and the Revolution, and up to his election as second president, he frequently wrote letters to his wife Abigail. When he passed, his son turned over all his papers to the National Archives, so we have a lot of documentation from him and others about what they thought and understood God to be saying. After the Declaration of Independence had been crafted and voted on, on July 2nd — which he thought would be the day of celebration, though we now know it to be July 4th — he wrote to Abigail:

“July 4th of 1776 will be the most memorable epic in the history of America. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward, forevermore.”

And here we are 250 years later, doing exactly what John Adams thought would be happening. I hope you enter into the celebration safely, sanely — some people in our neighborhood are not very sane about it; please be sane. Leave your gun in your holster, and do not aim your illegal fireworks at your neighbor’s roof — soberly, and also with some sense of our God-appointed place in this nation.

What Does God Say About Nations?

If you want to know what God thinks, you’ve got to go to what God said in His Word. Let’s look at Acts chapter 17, starting at verse 24, and for time’s sake skipping down to verse 31. Reading from the Amplified:

“The God who produced and formed the world and all things in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in handmade shrines. Neither is He served by human hands as though He lacked anything. For it is He Himself who gives life and breath and all things to all people. And He made from one common origin, one source, one blood, all nations of men to settle on the face of the earth, having definitely determined their allotted periods of time and the fixed boundaries of their habitation… so that they should seek God in the hope that they might feel after Him and find Him, although He is not far from each one of us. For in Him we live and move and have our being, as even some of your own poets have said. For we are also His offspring. Because He has fixed a day when He will judge the world righteously, justly, by a man whom He has destined and appointed for that task. And He has made this credible and given conviction and assurance and evidence to everyone by raising Him from the dead.”

The apostle Paul makes these incredible statements in the city of Athens, Greece — which was not a Christian nation, it was a completely pagan nation. He had walked around and seen how many shrines and idols and gods they worshiped. He came upon an image of a god they worshiped called “the unknown god,” and he took the opportunity to introduce them to the unknown God. In this city, where it was said the people spent all their leisure time talking and hearing about the latest new things — they would have loved social media — he enters this place, and they invite him into huge arenas where they’re debating all types of philosophies, and he preaches the gospel. He says to this very pagan nation: one common origin, one source. Isn’t that amazing?

They went right back to their ways. The people of the world came together, and if you’re still here when the one-world government arises, the Antichrist — you’ll be told what to think; you won’t think on your own, and that makes you susceptible to being deceived. Revelation chapter 7 speaks of our God, worthy now and forevermore. God loves all people, and God wants all people in heaven with Him, standing before the throne. God wants all people right now in every gathering of His church — every nation, every tribe, every tongue, every race, worshiping the one true God together. If you’re not there yet, let’s get the work done to get our hearts in alignment with what God wants.

There’s work to be done. I have work to do. You have work to do. We have work to do to welcome people of every race, every nation, every tribe, every tongue. Isn’t it interesting the way God laid that out — there’s no ability to misunderstand. He’s not overlooking one nation, one group of people. He does not want anyone excluded from standing before His throne. Every person has the opportunity to make their own choice — He will not force them to stand before His throne in worship. But there will come a day when every human will bow their knee to the King of the universe.

Psalm 22:27-28 — “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall bow down and worship before You. For the kingship and the kingdoms are the Lord’s, and He is the ruler over the nations.”

God is aware. God knows what’s going on. He knows what nations are doing — which lean toward Him and which pull away from Him. He knows what is happening in the earth. His eyes run to and fro throughout the whole earth. In Luke, we’re told that when Jesus is born, of His kingdom there shall be no end. Every kingdom of this world will come to an end, but the kingdom of God shall never come to an end. Jesus also said, “My kingdom is not of this world. My kingdom is of a completely different world.”

He also said that the only reason any human has authority to govern another human being — the only reason you and I have authority to parent our children, to govern in any aspect, to employ people, to educate people — is because God chose to delegate His authority to humanity. And every single one of us will give an account of how we used that authority. Did we use it in a godly way, or for our own selfish gain? Every person — me, you, the president, the governor, the police officer, the judge, the teacher, the driver — every one of us needs to start repenting now. Let’s get much better at repenting. Repenting is not just saying, “I’m sorry I got caught, I’m going to do it again, but I’m sorry.” No — that’s not repentance. Repentance is turning around — instead of going your own way, going the direction of God. It’ll go a lot better on that day if we’ve been repenting. I think we should bring it back. How about you?

In Matthew 25 and Revelation 19, it’s very clear that all the nations will be judged. How’s that going to happen? I don’t know, but I want to be on God’s side, and we’ve got to start that now. You’ve got to decide that now.

Psalm 2:1-8 — “Why do the nations assemble with commotion, uproar, and confusion of voices? And why do the people imagine an empty scheme? The kings of the earth take their places. The rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed one, the Christ. They say, ‘Let us break their bands of restraint and cast their cords of control from us.’ He who sits in the heavens laughs. The Lord has them in derision and in supreme contempt. He mocks them. He speaks to them in His deep anger and troubles them in His displeasure and fury, saying, ‘I have anointed and installed and placed My King firmly on My holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree of the Lord. He said to Me, “You are My Son, this day I declare, I have begotten You. Ask of Me and I will give You the nations as Your inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth as Your possession.”’“

He’s laughing. All the people in positions of authority in our nation today, and those before us, and those who will come after us, who think they’ll be able to cast off all the restraints God has imposed on humanity — God’s not upset. God’s not worried. He’s laughing. Maybe we should take up more laughter after our repenting.

What does God say about nations? There’s a whole lot more. But that should get you and me curious enough to go back and look at what God has been doing from the beginning of time. God does set boundaries for nations. Marshall and I have been blessed in our lifetime to travel mostly in ministry, and we’ve been to six different continents — no wonder I am tired. We’ve flown to or through at least twelve different nations in the world, and every single time we left this nation to fly to another, in many instances we had to have their permission to come before we could land and get a visa. We had to agree to follow their laws, not American laws. We had to identify who we were. We had to have a passport to leave this nation and get back into it. And we never thought that was evil. Why? Because God set borders.

The scariest moment for me was our very first trip into Romania. We had flown into Germany, ridden a train through Austria, gotten in a van in Austria, and driven through Hungary and into Romania with an American man named John, our guide. We got to a very small town in northern Romania, and the hotel — probably very nice in 1935, but this was 1992 and it was not — required us to present our passports, and they kept them. When they took my passport, I looked at Marshall and John. I said, “No — you’ve drilled into me that my passport must stay on my body at all times.” John said, “It will be fine, it will be fine.” I did not sleep. The next day, we went down to check out, and the man handed me my passport — and there was a rose stuck in it, because they noticed it was my birthday.

Is Christianity a Part of America’s Heritage?

My second question to you today is this: is Christianity a part of America’s heritage? We’ve heard so many different things about our nation — the good, the bad, the ugly. There is absolutely no doubt that this nation, like every other nation in every period of time, has done good and evil, and we continue to do it today. Righteous and unrighteous actions have been taken by this nation. Individuals have been helped, and they have been harmed. Repentance is absolutely necessary. Course correction should take place routinely. But the pride of man makes that extremely distasteful to every human and every nation. In the kingdom of God, humility is a virtue that is celebrated, even as it is dishonored in this world.

Slavery was an abominable part of our nation’s history. It went on far too long, but it ended — thank God the practice of slavery ended in 1865. The practice of slavery did not begin in America. It began when mankind rebelled against God in the garden and perverted what God had given all of humanity — the mandate to be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth, and have dominion over the creeping things of the earth. Instead of taking dominion over creeping things, we started trying to take dominion over one another. It’s abominable. It was never the intent of God. And sadly, slavery is still practiced around the world, still practiced here in our own nation. There are men who actually buy little children and women. It happens on your phone. It happens sometimes right in front of you and you don’t recognize it. It’s still abominable, it is illegal, and it should be stopped. Can we all agree on that?

I would say to you, in my lifetime, the way we treated veterans returning home from Vietnam was disgraceful. It should not have happened. People disagreed with the war, but you obeyed your leaders and went where you were sent. Any of you in this room who came home from Vietnam and were disdained and disgraced and left on your own — I apologize to you. That should not happen. It’s disgraceful. Nations should not do that. Thankfully, we’ve come past that period of time.

There are many things God will hold us accountable for. Family, we have had well over 60 million abortions in the last 50 years, and 99.9% of those are for birth control. That’s the only reason. There will be an accounting. God will have many things to say to this nation. Judgment will come. But along with all of that, notwithstanding all the wrongs, there are many righteous doings that have happened in this nation, and through this nation to the rest of the world. When 9/11 happened, the nation did not pull apart — it pulled together to fight one common enemy. There have been so many wonderful inventions, wonderful advancements, wonderful help going to other people. A wrong does not negate a right. And thank You, Jesus, that there is forgiveness for all of us — personally and nationally.

I want to lay out some things historically, because we hear so many things today, and I know you hear them too. But family, we have documentation — documents, things engraved in stone all across this nation — that clearly detail that Christianity did play a part in the founding and settling of this nation. Every person then and now was not, and is not forced to be, Christian. Even God does not force people to worship Him. But you, in this nation, cannot prevent Christians from worshiping the one true God. Don’t let it happen. How would that ever happen? You’re right now voting people into positions of authority whose stated intent is not to uphold, defend, and protect the Constitution of their state and of these United States — their stated position is to bring it down. Pay attention. Karl Marx said, “If I can steal their history, I can steal their country.” And it’s at work right now.

So let’s look at some documents, because roots are powerful and foundations matter. Our Declaration of Independence declared our separation from Great Britain and from King George. After wars and despair and fighting, here we are now, hundreds of years later, allies once again — but with our own separate country.

The pilgrims arrived in 1620, the Puritans after them. They were mostly God-fearing men and women. This goes much further back than that, but for time’s sake, and because this is the week of the celebration of the Declaration of Independence, I’m starting here. They wanted freedom to govern and freedom to worship — freedom, but not freedom to live any way they wanted. They wanted freedom within the boundaries God sets for humanity. It is the nature of mankind — the lost nature of mankind — to build governments, nations, and systems to organize themselves without God. But this group of people wanted to build a nation and organize themselves with God at the center. Many of them believed God had directed them to come to this nation and help establish it as a free people.

I want to read a couple of excerpts. This one in particular concerns George Washington, whose name has been greatly maligned in recent years as our history is being stolen. George Washington was not a perfect man, and neither are we, and neither was Abraham, and neither was King David, and neither was any man who has ruled upon the earth, except Jesus Christ. In 1755, George Washington first fought in the French and Indian War. Years later, this happened: the leader of a band of warriors, an old and venerable Indian chief, wished to have words with Washington. A council fire was kindled, and this is what the chief said:

“I am chief and ruler over my tribes. My influence extends to the waters of the great lakes and to the far blue mountains. I have traveled a long and weary path that I might see the young warrior of the great battle. On the day of the great battle, I said to my warriors, ‘Mark yon tall and daring warrior — he is not of the redcoat tribe. He hath an Indian’s wisdom, and his warriors fight as we do. Himself alone is levelled, himself alone is exposed. Quick, let your aim be certain, and he dies.’ Our rifles were levelled — rifles which but for him knew not how to miss. It was all in vain. A power mightier far than we shielded him from harm. He cannot die in battle. I am old, and soon shall be gathered to the great council fire of my fathers. But ere I go, there is something that bids me speak in the voice of prophecy. Listen: the Great Spirit protects that man and guides his destinies. He will become the chief of nations, and a people yet unborn will hail him as the founder of a mighty empire.”

There’s much in our history, family, that should not be stolen, that should not be forgotten. We should not live in the past, but we cannot forget the past.

Around 1740 through 1770, a British evangelist named George Whitfield — many of us have never heard his name — began preaching the gospel as a very young man. At first he preached in the drawing rooms of Europe, particularly England. He preached that all men are created equal, that Jesus Christ died for all men, that all men were loved by God. It greatly inflamed the king, and he was banished from speaking in Britain. So George Whitfield came to America and preached to all the colonies and all the natives of the land: God loves all people, God died for all people, all people are equal before God. Through that, the initial impressions of God, which had begun to die, were reignited, and the Great Awakening swept across our nation. The language of the Great Awakening is in our Declaration of Independence. It says:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

That’s the message of the gospel. The Declaration of Independence has four references to God in it, and at the very last, an appeal to “the Supreme Judge of the universe.” They didn’t all agree, they didn’t all believe, they didn’t all worship exactly the same — not everyone was a Christ-follower — but they did have a reverential fear of God. Proverbs 9:10 says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. When you go back and read the beginnings of this nation — the Declaration of Independence, later the Constitution and the Bill of Rights — you see great wisdom applied, because they sought God in how they set up the governing of the nation. It was not done perfectly. It was never perfect. It will never be perfect. No nation on this earth will ever be perfect. But we can choose to follow hard after God, or we can choose to become our own god. That’s what happens when we deny God.

In Isaiah 33:22, we see the pattern for three branches of government: “For the Lord is our judge” — the judicial branch; “the Lord is our lawgiver” — the legislative branch; “the Lord is our king” — the executive branch. He will save us.

Leviticus 19:15 — “Do not pervert justice. Do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.”

This is where we got the idea of blind justice. Our money still carries the inscription “In God We Trust” on the back. Most of us aren’t even carrying paper money and coin anymore, but it’s still there on every bill. It was first in the Star Spangled Banner, in the third verse. It was added to every coin in 1864, and then in the 1950s, under President Eisenhower, Congress voted to put it on all currency. Under that same administration, “under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance, to separate and distinguish ourselves from the atheistic, communist nation of Russia.

It’s followed us through our world — it’s in our buildings all over. If you’ve never been to Washington, D.C., you should go, you should walk around, you should see it. Our family stood in the middle of the Lincoln Memorial when our kids were teenagers, in the grandeur of that place, reading the words of President Lincoln on both sides of that great monument. His words have been chiseled into granite so they can never be forgotten. We should pay attention.

The Washington Monument, when it was built, was the tallest building in the world in 1884. At the top, at 555 feet, these Latin words are engraved: Laus Deo — “Praise be to God.” It faces east, so that every morning when the sun rises and hits the cap of that monument, what is seen is: praise be to God.

Is Christianity a part of our heritage? I would say yes. And I would also say it’s our turn to keep it going. David has often said to us that Christianity is only one generation away from extinction. President Ronald Reagan said that freedom is only ever one generation away from extinction. It’s the gospel of Jesus Christ that came to bring freedom to all men everywhere — not freedom to live any way you want. We have laws. We have boundaries. You have property boundaries. You lock your door at night — if you don’t, you should. You should lock your car in the parking lot here at church, because all kinds of people drive through. We have boundaries, but we also have a God who is still on our side.

The effect that Christianity has had on our nation is there. Search for it, and you will find it.

The Church Is Presently the Nation of God on the Earth

My last point is this: the church of Jesus Christ is presently the nation of God on the earth. I know even saying that is offensive to some of you, because you’ve been led to believe that America is God’s nation. It’s not. It’s the church of Jesus Christ. And any nation on earth that will allow for the worship of God will be blessed by God. For blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.

1 Peter 2:9 — “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a dedicated nation, God’s own purchased, special people, that you may set forth the wonderful deeds and display the virtues and perfections of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”

Peter is writing to the church. Church in every nation in this world — we are God’s nation, the churches. Right now, there are nations in our world that have completely outlawed the worship of God, the worship of Jesus Christ. Our brothers and sisters in Iran today cannot worship God freely. They have to worship underground, and they do so at great risk to their own lives. Many have been killed for their faith. But they worship God and represent God in their nation. Right now it is estimated that Christianity is the fastest-growing religion in Iran. Why? Because Iranian Christians have stayed faithful. They’ve sacrificed. They’ve stayed true to God, and they spread the gospel even at risk to their own lives. It’s the same in communist China. It’s the same in many nations around the world. It’s why you and I must be careful in this nation to preserve that freedom, because other nations look to the church in this nation to help them spread the gospel. It’s of vital importance. It’s right now our time. It’s our responsibility.

I have five things I’m going to bullet-point, that I think will help us do this well:

Love God. Love God every day. Love God at work. Love God at home. Love God at school. Love your neighbor — really work at it. Love your neighbor at school, in your neighborhood, at Walmart. Love your neighbor. To affirm everything is not love, and to tolerate is not love. You can love people and not agree with their philosophy, and we’ve got to get better at that. To cast one vote — not ten — over this nation, over this state, worships a false god if we don’t. You say, “Well, I don’t know who to vote for. I don’t like any of them.” Me either. Some days I feel like Lot, surveying all around him in his city. The Lord God knows how to deliver. Will He save our city?

It feels like at 250 years, our nation has really entered a place where we have people on all sides — when the Star Spangled Banner plays, when the colors of the flag are presented — and I’m glad, politically, join your party — but listen, you and I don’t have to fight online. We don’t have to fight over allegiance. We don’t have to do any of that. Just stay faithful to God. Faithful to God. Faithful to God.

Psalm 11:3-4 — “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? The Lord is in His holy temple. The Lord’s throne is in heaven. His eyes behold, His eyelids test and prove the children of men.”

Closing Prayer

So as we close today, would you stand with me? The Lord is on His throne. He has witnessed it all, from the beginning of time till the end of time. He knows it all, sees it all. He remains faithful to His purpose and His plan. He remains faithful to His church right now. He remains faithful to what He has deposited in me and in you, so that we will do good in the earth — that we will be light and salt. And if darkness increases, light gets brighter. When evil increases, grace gets stronger. How does that happen? Because the people of God — He has us sprinkled throughout the earth. We’re in every nation. We’re in places they don’t even know we’re in. And what are we doing? We’re appealing to the Lord God Almighty.

Father in heaven, we thank You for Jesus. God, we thank You that You didn’t give up on humanity, but You found a way — You had the way from the beginning to redeem humans for Yourself. And God, we come this morning in repentance. We ask You to forgive us for the ways we have sinned against You. We have not held firm the ground that was gained by those who came before us in our nation. We didn’t know about it. We didn’t know how. We’ve been lied to. We’ve been confused. No excuse. We’re just asking You, Father, to forgive us, to get us back up on our feet, and to make us not ambassadors for America, but ambassadors for the kingdom of God. Our allegiance is unto You, God, and unto Jesus. We are in this nation, and other nations around the world, to proclaim Your goodness, to speak of all You have done, to pray in the name of Jesus and ask You to bring heaven to earth.

God, we do as Paul wrote to Timothy: we pray for those in positions of authority in this nation. We pray for their salvation, because You said that was of the utmost concern to You — that they would be saved, that they would come to a knowledge of the truth, that they would come to know You, because You know them and want them to know You. We pray for the salvation of President Trump, for the salvation of his cabinet members and family members. We pray for the salvation of Governor Lujan Grisham and her cabinet members. We pray for salvation for any person in our realm who is in a position of authority but does not know You. And even if they do not want to, we pray that You, God, continue to reveal who You are. Soften their hearts. Bring them to Yourself. And if they resist, then Lord, we thank You that You have ways of setting one down and raising another up, for we need righteous leadership — men and women who will lead us toward the paths You have for this nation, for this state, and for this city.

God, embolden us, empower us, but most of all, cause Your love for humanity to spread in our hearts, and from our heart to another heart to another heart — because we know, God, that the greatest changes we seek and desire always begin in the heart of a human who is attached and reconciled to You. Father, I thank You that this week You will remind us to be grateful, to be thankful, to pray on behalf of our nation and its leaders, and You will help us to stand responsibly in the places You have set us, in the name of Jesus.