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Happy early 4th of July, everybody. This week we're thanking God for America and for the 250 years of freedom we have had as a country. It's time to reflect on everything that has made us the nation we are today.
Different images come to mind when people think about our country. For some, it's the American flag, the stars and stripes. For others, it's the Statue of Liberty standing tall in the New York Harbor. And for others, there's nothing more American than a baseball game — eating a hot dog and maybe even some Cracker Jacks.
This week we stop to remember those who have given their lives so that we can live in a free nation. We remember the godly heritage our country has been built upon. In a few days we'll gather with friends and family, cook out in the backyard, and light some fireworks — all to stop and remember that freedom isn't free. It costs us dearly. You've heard it said before: the only reason we live in the land of the free is because America is the home of the brave.
America was founded as a nation under the authority and the blessing of God Almighty. Some have tried to write God out of our history books, and they've done a pretty good job at it. But the truth remains. Our founding fathers established this nation on the fundamentals of our Christian faith — not simply on religion, but on the lordship of Jesus Christ.
Even before the founding fathers, it was the intent of the pilgrims who traveled to this land to build a nation governed by the principles of God's word. In 1620, when the pilgrims launched out for the new world, they formed an agreement known as the Mayflower Compact. In it, you see the intent and the motives of these first settlers. They wrote:
Having undertaken for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith, a voyage to plant this first colony in the northern parts of Virginia.
They went on to say they wanted their nation to be a stepping stone to take the gospel to the nations of the world.
When our founding fathers gathered decades later to form our country, they actually looked to the word of God for guidance. Patrick Henry — the man known for shouting, "Give me liberty or give me death" — also said:
It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists but by Christians, and not on religions but on the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And it was our first president, George Washington, who said, "You do well to learn above all the religion of Jesus Christ." The nation we're celebrating this week was formed on the truth and the principles from the word of God.
As we prepare to celebrate the 250th anniversary of our nation, it's important not just to look back, but also to look ahead. When you think about 250 years as a country, that's a significant milestone. Some milestones are just bigger than others. You probably still remember your 16th birthday, when you were finally old enough to drive — or maybe the year you turned 30 or 40. Those birthdays feel more significant, and they usually cause us to stop and reflect.
I couldn't help but feel the same way about this milestone for America. Think about how much has happened in 250 years:
We've seen incredible breakthroughs in medicine, science, communication, and technology. We've seen movements for justice, freedom, and equality. We've seen companies built on this soil that have quite literally changed the landscape of the world. We've come so far in so many ways — making advancements our founding fathers could never have imagined.
And yet, it's not hard to see that we still have a ways to go. Wars rage on. Injustice has not disappeared. Division is everywhere, and sometimes the path forward can feel unclear. But I believe that when people find themselves facing problems bigger than themselves, eventually they realize they need something — or someone — bigger than themselves.
Throughout our nation's history, men and women have been used by God to call us back to God through prayer.
In 1787, in the early days of the Continental Congress, there was a lot of division and arguing on the congressional floor. (Some things never seem to change, right?) Benjamin Franklin stood to his feet and said:
I therefore beg that prayers imploring the assistance of heaven and its blessing on our deliberation be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business.
The Congress took a two-day leave of absence to pray and to seek the heart of God. They actually called the people to a day of prayer and fasting.
Presidents from George Washington to Franklin D. Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan have called our nation to prayer. President Truman established the National Day of Prayer. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led our nation in prayers for forgiveness, unity, and equality. Billy Graham led our nation to pray in times of turmoil and crisis.
When people find themselves facing problems bigger than themselves, we eventually realize we need someone bigger than ourselves.
As I was preparing for this message, I came across a prayer that Abraham Lincoln prayed during one of the darkest moments in our nation's history. Lincoln was our 16th president, serving from 1861 until he was assassinated in 1865. He led the nation through the Civil War, preserving the Union, and issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which paved the way for the abolition of slavery.
He wrote this prayer in the middle of the Civil War, yet the words feel like they could have been pulled from a modern-day social media post because of how relevant they are today:
We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. We have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the hand which preserved us in peace. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace — too proud to pray to the God that made us.
Isn't that the danger of success? The more we build, the more we believe in our own ability. We begin to believe we built it all ourselves — that our success came from our intelligence, our innovation, our systems, our effort. And slowly and subtly, we drift away from being dependent on God.
That's a danger for us as a nation, but it's also a danger for us as individuals:
And we eventually stop praying. Perhaps the most sobering line from Lincoln's prayer is when he said, "We have become too self-sufficient, too proud to pray." When we stop praying, we start drifting. Nobody drifts accidentally toward God — drifting always takes us away from God, slowly.
Schedules get busier. The noise of life gets louder. Prayer becomes occasional. Church becomes optional. Conviction becomes quieter. Before long, we find ourselves anxious and overwhelmed, spiritually empty, wondering, "How did we get here?"
Could it be that we've become so productive that we no longer know how to be present — present with God or present with each other? We've learned how to optimize every moment, perhaps at the expense of our own souls. We have apps for productivity, calendars for efficiency, watches that track our sleep and workouts. But many of us have no rhythm of connecting with God, no rhythm of prayer, no solitude with our Savior, no secret place with our Sustainer — and we're suffering because of it.
I know a lot of people in our country, and even in our church, believe in God. But I wonder how many of us would say we're desperate for God — desperate for his presence, desperate for him to move in our nation and in our own lives.
As America was being torn apart during the Civil War, President Lincoln became more desperate for a move of God — not just a nationwide revival that would heal the land, but a move of personal impact in the hearts of men and women. So he called for a time of prayer and fasting.
When you look back over our nation's history, you'll discover that some of the most influential moments didn't begin in a courtroom or a capital, but in the prayer closet. They began in prayer meetings, in churches, with people crying out to God.
Prayer shapes history.
In his prayer, Lincoln said, "We have forgotten God." Do you know one of the most repeated commands in Scripture? It's to remember. Not believe. Not trust. Remember. Remember who rescued you. Remember who carried you. Remember who strengthens you and provides for you.
Remember the wonders God has performed, the amazing things that he has done. — Psalm 105:5
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits. — Psalm 103:2
Why does God tell us to remember so many times? Perhaps because he knows we're prone to spiritual amnesia. We forget the prayers God already answered. We forget the doors he's already opened, the times he made a way when we didn't think there was a way. We forget the grace he's already given us.
God knew we'd be prone to forget and prone to wander, which is why he gave us a pathway back to him:
If my people, which are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sins, and I will heal their land. — 2 Chronicles 7:14
I love that God doesn't begin with condemnation, but with an invitation. God says, "If my people come to me." He's not talking about the world — not the politicians in Washington or the influencers on social media. He's talking about you and me.
He says, "If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves." That word humble literally means to bend the knee, to surrender, to bow low, to acknowledge our need for God.
"If my people will humble themselves and pray." Prayer is the secret that unlocks the promise in that passage. Prayer is more than talking to God — it's a dependence upon God. Prayer says, "God, we can't do this without you. God, I need you." Prayer tunes our heart to heaven. It puts us in a position to hear. It aligns us with the purposes of God.
Think about this: the disciples followed Jesus closely for three years. They watched him raise the dead, heal the sick, take a little boy's lunch and turn it into a feast for thousands. They saw him calm storms with just his words. They even saw him walk on water. And yet the one thing they asked him to teach them was how to pray. "Lord, teach us to pray." Not to perform miracles, not to turn water into wine — but to pray. Somewhere along the way they realized that prayer was the most powerful thing they could do, because prayer changes things. Prayer gets a hold of the hand of God. It changes us, our families, our churches, our communities. It can even change a nation.
God goes on: "If my people seek my face" — not just his hand, not just his provision, but his presence. There's a difference. Too many people want what they can get from God instead of just wanting God himself. Too often we're looking for a quick fix, asking God to meet our need, when the greatest need we have is for him.
We've been made to be known by him, to know him, to be loved by him, and to love him. Without him, you will never experience the life you were created for. Revival begins when God's people become desperate for his presence.
"If my people seek my face and turn from their wicked ways." That's repentance. And repentance isn't just feeling badly about something bad you did — it's a change in direction. It's saying, "God, my way isn't working. I want your ways." True repentance leads to true change in my life.
Then God says, "Then I will hear from heaven. Then I will forgive their sin. Then I will heal their land." It's all about renewal and reviving. And that's what America needs on this 250th anniversary. That's what our families need, our marriages, our communities. We need God to do what only he can do. And I believe he still wants to do it today.
I have a hope for this nation — not because politics can save us, not because of man's best efforts, but because God still responds today when his people humble themselves and pray.
If you've been to our nation's capital, you know the Washington Monument stands high above the rest of the city. It took nearly 40 years to build, made up of over 36,000 massive marble blocks, each weighing over two tons. Every one of those blocks was laid intentionally over the decades by different builders.
At the very top of that monument is an inscription: Laus Deo — "Praise be to God." Think about that. At the top of one of the most recognizable monuments in the world, over the most powerful city in the world, is the prayer, "Praise be to God." That declaration encapsulates the prayers of our founding fathers — men who set out to build one nation under God.
As I thought about that monument and all the hands it took to build it, I couldn't help but wonder how many prayers have built our nation:
How many mothers have knelt beside the beds of their children and prayed for the country their kids would grow up in? How many pastors have cried out to God for revival? How many believers have gathered in churches like ours and asked to see the move of God one more time? How many people carried this nation in prayer long before you and I were ever born?
We'll never know. But what we do know is that every great move of God can be traced back to prayer. And our prayers don't have expiration dates. When you pray in accordance with God's will, for God's glory, all of heaven backs you up — and God continues to answer those prayers long after you and I are gone.
So it makes me ask: Who is going to benefit from the prayers we're praying today? Who is going to walk in freedom in the future because of the prayers we're praying in the present? Could it be that generations from now, people will be standing in freedom, peace, and revival that begins with prayers we pray today? Maybe the prayers we whisper in secret will become the stones that future generations stand upon. History belongs to the prayer warriors — but so does the future.
As powerful as President Lincoln's prayer for our nation was in 1863, our prayers today are just as powerful. Lincoln closed that prayer by saying:
All this being done in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly on the hope authorized by the divine teachings that the united cry of the nation will be heard on high.
We can have hope for America today because God hears our united cry. He hears our prayers. Near the end of his life, Lincoln said:
It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, and to recognize the sublime truth announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.
Today, we want to take some time to pray for our country — to dedicate it back to God on this 250th anniversary. And that begins by dedicating ourselves back to God individually. As it goes with you and me, so it goes with our nation. We will never be one nation under God until we are a people who live under God's authority and his rule in our lives. So this prayer is personal as much as it is for our country.
Remember the scripture in 2 Chronicles: "If my people will humble themselves and pray." That word humble means to bow low, on bended knee. It's a posture of surrender, a disposition of dependence.
So today, as we pray, I want to invite you — if you are physically able — to kneel at your seat. We kneel to acknowledge our weakness, but also to acknowledge his strength. We kneel as a posture of humility and dependence. We bow so that we can stand strong as one nation under God.
Let's pray together:
Father God, we thank you for our nation, for blessing us to live in this country that has been built upon the principles of your word and your truth. As we gather this week leading up to the 250th anniversary of this nation, we pray for your blessing to rest upon America. We pray that you would heal our land as your people pray and humble themselves — as we seek your face, as we turn from our wicked ways and follow your ways which are righteous and pure. We pray that we could be instrumental in helping our nation be truly one nation under God. We pray for your favor, your kindness, and your grace to rest upon this country once again. We dedicate ourselves back to you, and we dedicate this nation back to you, that we truly would be one nation whose heart is devoted to the kingship and the lordship of Jesus Christ. It's in your name that we pray, and everybody together said, amen.
