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How grateful are we to live in the United States of America today? This year marks a special milestone—250 years since our nation's founding. As we celebrate this historic anniversary, I want to share what God's Word teaches us about true national strength and our responsibility as a generation.
Let me put something in perspective for you. According to global income statistics, 84% of the entire world makes less than $12,000 a year. If you live in the United States, you are rich compared to the rest of the world. But here's what really strikes me: the odds of being born in America are only about 2.5%. You had roughly a 2% chance of all the people born in the world that you were born in this country. If you live here, you live by the grace of almighty God.
I'm deeply grateful for this nation, but I want to be crystal clear about something: my citizenship is in heaven. I'm just passing through here. I'm only going to be here a little while. I'm just a blip through time, but I'm going to be in eternity for the ages. Still, I'm thankful to pass through America rather than any other country on earth. The main reason I love our freedom is that I have the ability and freedom to go to church, hold up a Bible, preach Jesus, and talk about Him with other people.
Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord (Psalm 33:12).
Don't you think that in God's heart and mind, He longs for all nations of the world to honor Him? He wouldn't just want one nation or a few nations to honor Him—God would long for every nation to honor Him.
When we look at America's founding, we see something remarkable. The United States was established on July 4th, 1776, to create a nation where people would govern themselves, where they would enjoy God-given rights and God-given freedoms, where they would be protected from tyranny, and where they would be free to worship without government interference.
There was a moral foundation when this country was founded. The blueprint included five pillars: liberty, self-government, resistance to tyranny, moral foundation, and religious liberty. That was the dream.
Now, people debate whether America was ever truly a "Christian nation." Let me clarify: a Christian nation is not necessarily a nation where all citizens are Christians. Rather, it's a nation that was shaped and formed by the Bible and the faith of its forefathers—where the basis of our laws, our freedoms, and our morals were shaped and sharpened by the Word of God. Historically and factually, biblical Christianity did help shape this nation.
Consider the evidence:
George Washington, our first president, knelt and prayed at Valley Forge during the darkest hours of the Revolutionary War. An eyewitness, 26-year-old Isaac Pottots, saw Washington on his knees in prayer in the woods. He went home and told his wife, "I saw something and heard something that I've never seen or heard before. At that moment, I understood it was the cause of God that America would prevail."
George Washington wrote: "Almighty God, we make our earnest prayer that thou wilt incline the hearts of the citizens, that thou wilt most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of mind, which were the characteristics of the divine author."
John Adams, the second president, declared: "The Holy Ghost carries on the whole Christian system in this earth... There is no authority, civil or religious. There can be no legitimate government but what is administered by this Holy Ghost."
Thomas Jefferson, the third president, stated: "No nation has ever existed or been governed without religion, nor can be. The Christian religion is the best religion that has been given to man and I as chief magistrate of this nation am bound to give it the sanction of my example."
James Madison, the fourth president and principal author of the Constitution, wrote: "We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government. Far from it. We stake the future of all our political institutions upon our capacity to sustain ourselves according to the ten commandments of God."
Benjamin Franklin addressed the Constitutional Convention, saying: "I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God is the one who governs the affairs of men... I firmly believe this: unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain that build it."
However, we must also acknowledge this truth: Freedom, which ultimately comes from God, was the stated idea of America, but slavery was the glaring sin and hypocrisy of America. America declared that "all men are created equal," but the nation did not live up to those words.
The task of later generations—which we are—is to lead America to live up to its own creed. Thank God, 250 years later, our nation now reflects the original intent of the founding fathers more fully than ever before.
I'm thankful for our country, but my hope is not found in my government. My hope is found in God's Word. This Bible is the only reason I can hold it up before you today and preach it freely—because we live in a country with freedoms. Because of our liberties, you can hear God's Word, learn it, and choose to live by God's truth, direction, and promises.
Let me tell you a story that changed my perspective. I have a friend who preached in an underground church in China. He said they had to navigate through a maze of buildings, through sewers, underground passages—just to reach this secret church. As he was about to preach, a beautiful young Chinese girl came to sing. She asked, "Can I sing two songs instead of one?"
The pastor explained: One year ago, the government discovered that this girl's family was attending church. They took her father, brutally tortured him, beat him, and killed him, then threw his body on their doorstep. One month ago, the same government caught her mother and her brother and killed them as well.
This girl wanted to sing two songs because she believed the government was onto her and that this might be the last chance she'd ever have to sing in church.
The first song she sang was: "Joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart, down in my heart to stay."
When she finished, my friend asked: What would your song be if that was you? Would you even still go to church if they had killed your father for going to church, then your mother, then your brother? Would you still show up the next week? And what song would you sing?
Ladies and gentlemen, the only way you can do that is if you stand on the promises of God's Word.
Listen to what God says in Psalm 33:
"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... He who forms the hearts of all, who considers everything they do" (Psalm 33:12, 13-15).
God has an eternal perspective. We have a temporary perspective. But the Judge of all the earth is attentive to what's going on in this nation, in your home, in your marriage, in your life. He's attentive.
"No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength... A horse is a vain hope for deliverance; despite all its great strength, it cannot save" (Psalm 33:16-17).
Do you think we as a nation put our hope in our military so much that we don't really need God? Because our planes are too fast, our government's too big, our technology's too good? Your greatest security will never be found in human power. Your greatest security will always be found by having the presence of God in your life.
"The eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive during famine" (Psalm 33:18-19).
Holy fear invites holy favor. God has a watchful eye, but He watches not just for observing. He watches for the purposes of protection, provision, and being present in your life.
"We wait in hope for the Lord; he is our help and our shield... May your unfailing love, Lord, rest upon us even as we put our hope in you" (Psalm 33:20, 22).
God blesses and God watches and God delivers and God loves and His love never fails.
Now we come to the third and most critical responsibility: we must continue the legacy of faith and trust in God to the next generation.
Listen to Psalm 78:
"O my people, hear my teaching. Listen to the words of my mouth... Things our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, about his power and the wonders he has done... He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in Israel, which he commanded our forefathers to teach their children, so that the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children. Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget his deeds, but would keep his commands" (Psalm 78:1-7).
I want you to understand something vital: all of our freedoms, all of our blessings, could go away with just one generation who fails to take the things of God and hand them down to the next generation.
We've now had roughly four generations since 1776. If each generation lived about 68 years, and we multiply that by four, we get 250 years. That's how brief our tenure has been. And right now, in our church nursery, there's a brand new baby born just this last month. That baby knows nothing except perhaps its mother's love.
My prayer is that all of us here today live such faithful lives that we're so good at raising up the next generation that one day that little baby will turn 68. When that happens, there'll be another baby in the nursery at Shepherd Church. And this process will repeat—just four people in succession—and our country will go by another 250 years. We'll be having our 500th anniversary!
But I want you to know: as great as that is, it all depends on whether we faithfully pass down the things of God to the next generation.
Let me tell you what happened to me last week that brought all of this home. I was preaching in Hawaii for my friend Mike Kai. One day, I went to a restaurant called Heavenly in Waikiki to get some loco moco. While I was there eating, a young serviceman sat down right next to me and started a conversation. His name was Ernest, and he told me he was in the military, stationed in San Diego but temporarily in Hawaii for war games involving 32 nations.
When I asked if I could visit his ship, he said yes. The next day, I went to the USS Theodore Roosevelt, one of 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. It's longer than three football fields. It carries 65 planes—F-18s and F-35s. About 5,000 people live and work on that ship.
Ernest showed me his sleeping quarters. It was a tiny space—so small that if you stuffed me in there with my knee and shoulder, I couldn't even roll over. He's already been on four or five tours of duty and is about to go on another one. I met a young woman named Kennedy there too, from Alabama, stationed at an Air Force base near Fresno. She fixes the engines on F-18 fighter jets.
When I saw where these young people live and work—in filthy conditions, in spaces smaller than closets, defending our freedom—something happened inside me. I thought about that girl in China whose father, mother, and brother were all killed for attending church. And yet she wanted to sing two songs.
Then I looked up the statistics: over 1 million young people like Ernest and Kennedy have paid the ultimate sacrifice since this nation was founded. They gave their lives so that you and I could sit in church, open a Bible, preach God's Word, and lift it up freely.
Many of us get online and criticize everything about this nation. Instead, we ought to thank God for those who paid the ultimate sacrifice. We ought to be thankful that we have a Bible. We ought to be thankful that we can open it up, stand on it, preach it, and lift it up.
And we must pass these freedoms and the things of God down to the next generation so they will not forget the things of God. That's why God has His hand on us as a nation.
Let me close with a prayer for all of us:
Dear God in heaven, we thank you for your grace. We were born in grace. We were blessed to live in this country. Even the poorest person in this room is rich compared to the rest of the world. God, we're not a perfect people. We're not a perfect nation. We never will be. But I'm thankful that I live in a generation here today where I am convinced that most of us in this room desire for this nation to live up to its creed.
And I pray, Father God, that you would speak to us here today. As you have given us grace and mercy, salvation, a church, the Holy Spirit, and this holy book called the Bible—and as you've entrusted all these things to us—oh God, I pray that the freedoms that we hold dear in this world we will never take for granted. May we remember the men and women who've paid the ultimate sacrifice. As we look around at every single person in this nation and especially in the lives of the children, may we take all this and hand it down to the next generation.
Blessed is the nation and blessed are the people whose God is the Lord. And I pray that in me and my household and my friends and this church and those who are here today that we will worship you, fear you, honor you, and have reverence for you. And God, may your hand of blessing rest upon each and every one of us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
