[Propertalk] Fw: Sermon Resources for Independence Day

[Joe Parrish]

Independence Day Sermons: 
          Galatians 5:1, 13-25 - “Liberty and Civility”
          Galatians 6:24 - “Something to Brag About”          


Galatians 5 - the sermon titled "Liberty and Civility" 

The United States of America is 234 years old today. That’s a long time for a nation to remain free. But, when you look at our history in the context of world history America is just a CHILD among the nations. Egypt, China, Japan, Rome, Greece all make America’s history seem so short. Consider what a brief time we’ve really been here as a nation: When Thomas Jefferson died, Abraham Lincoln was a young man of 17. When Lincoln was assassinated, Woodrow Wilson was a boy of 8. By the time he died Ronald Reagan was a boy of 12.

There you have it. The lives of four men can take you all the way back to the beginning of our country, 232 years ago. We are so young. And yet we stand tall among these nations because of the principles on which we were established: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

Thus begins the Declaration of Independence, which we celebrate today. And do not let anyone fool you. Freedom ought and need be celebrated. So many churches and ministers today loathe patriotism in the pulpit. I am not one of those. I celebrate today with you the freedoms which God has blessed this great nations of ours. Now I cannot tell you whether God has blessed us with liberty and therefore we are free or we have wisely and simply built our liberty based on biblical principles. In any case our freedom is from God.

Now let me temper our celebrations with a caution: With freedom comes great responsibility. We are not free to live excessive lives. We are not set at liberty to pursue selfish ends. Our independence should not make us infidels. As Paul so eloquently puts it: “You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature.”

What is true for the church is true for the nation: Liberty demands civility. Freedom requires righteous behavior. On this July 4th let’s celebrate Freedom and Civility.

1. First Let’s Celebrate Freedom
2. Second Let’s Celebrate Civility.

The rest of this sermon following the outline above can be obtained by joining www.eSermons.com.
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Galatians 6 - the sermon titled "Something to Brag About" 

Welcome on this Independence Day, 2010. Today we celebrate the birth of our democracy. I believe it was comedian Johnny Carson who defined democracy like this: “Unlike communism, democracy does not mean having just one ineffective political party; it means having two ineffective political parties. Democracy is welcoming people from other lands, and giving them something to hold onto--usually a mop or a leaf blower. And, democracy means that with proper timing and scrupulous bookkeeping, anyone can die owing the government a huge amount of money.” We laugh to keep from crying, but we give God thanks for the many blessings we enjoy as citizens of this free land. Our topic today is “something to brag about.”

I want to begin our discussion today by telling you about something interesting that happened live on television in Great Britain sometime back. It involved a professional knife thrower. I say “professional knife thrower.” That doesn’t mean a perfect knife thrower.

It happened with more than a million British television viewers watching. Professional knife thrower Jayde Hanson missed his target and accidentally “nicked” his assistant. A spokeswoman for the show was rightfully disturbed. “You don’t really expect that kind of thing from a world record-holder,” she said.

To make matters worse, Hanson had recently bragged to a newspaper reporter that, in 11 years of performing, he had only hit his assistant on five occasions. I’m not certain that, if you are a professional knife thrower, hitting your assistant with a knife on five occasions is something about which you ought to brag. It might make it a bit difficult in recruiting assistants in the future.

I suppose, though, that bragging or boasting is endemic to human nature. We boast about our children and our grandchildren. We boast about our work. We boast about our athletic accomplishments. We boast about the places we’ve been and the things we’ve done. On this July 4, we boast about the land of our birth.

An American was staying in London. He was introduced to a man from Edinburgh, Scotland. The Scotchman asked him, “An’ what country do you belong tae?”
“The greatest country in the world!” replied the American.

“Mon! So dae I,” replied Scotsman, “but you donna speak like a Scotsman.” 

It’s really quite human to brag--about your school, about your team, about your family, about your country. However, St. Paul said on one occasion that there’s only one thing worth really boasting about--and that is the cross on which Jesus Christ died. Paul writes, “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”

This is quite a remarkable statement for many reasons…

The rest of this sermon following the outline above can be obtained by joining www.eSermons.com.
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A Call to Be Careful

Every year, the media and our local officials remind us to be careful on July Fourth. The combination of inexperience and fireworks can be dangerous, even deadly. Every doctor in town can attest to the burns they will treat from sparklers and fireworks, barbeque, maybe even sunburns. Every policeman in town can attest to the spike in driving after drinking that takes place on the 4th of July. Now is an excellent time to remind your community to be safe while they have fun. 

The U.S. Government has collected a variety of safety tips for this holiday, as well as some more light hearted links about Independence Day at http://www.usa.gov/Topics/Independence_Day.shtml.

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Celebrating the Declaration

Americans celebrate July 4, 1776 as Independence Day. We shouldn't. We should call it our DECLARATION of Independence Day, for merely signing, quite literally, our John Hancock’s on the declaration did not establish our independence. King George did not read the Declaration and then say to Thomas Jefferson, "Nice piece of writing Tom, y'all enjoy your USA, send me a postcard from Colonial Williamsburg." No, it took seven years of struggle before the Constitution could be written. 

Have we forgotten the struggle involved in this noble experiment of democracy? Do we cherish this land or do we shy from a word like "patriotism" because it's been co-opted by the fanatic fringe? To be "patriotic" is not to be blind to our nation's sins. Like every nation, we have our weak points.

King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com

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Only in America

Only in America can a pizza get to your house faster than an ambulance.
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.
Only in America do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries and a DIET coke.
Only in America do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in the driveway and put our junk in the garage. Hello.
Only in America do we use answering machines to screen calls and have call-waiting so we won’t miss a call from someone we didn’t want to talk to in the first place.
Only in America do we buy hot dogs in packages of ten and buns in packages of eight.

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The Inscription on the Statue of Liberty, written by Emma Lazarus

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me;
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

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The Cost of Freedom

On July 3, 1776, the day before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, George Washington wrote a letter to his wife, anticipating the hardships which would soon occur. Here in part are his words, "In a few days, you will see a Declaration setting forth the causes which have impelled us to this mighty revolution and the reasons which will justify it in the sight of God. I am fully aware of the toil and blood and treasure what it will cost to maintain this declaration and support and defend these states; yes, through all the gloom, I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory."

Brett Blair, www.eSermons.com

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"America today is running on the momentum of a Godly ancestry, and when that momentum runs down, God help America."

General Omar Bradley - Details: Bradley is the U.S. Army officer who commanded the highly effective 12th Army Group, which helped ensure the Allied victory over Germany during World War II; later he served as first chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (1949–53).

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Historical Background to the Declaration

On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia in the Pennsylvania State House (now Independence Hall), approved the Declaration of Independence. Its purpose was to set forth the principles upon which the Congress had acted two days earlier when it voted in favor of Richard Henry Lee's motion to declare the freedom and independence of the 13 American colonies from England. The Declaration was designed to influence public opinion and gain support both among the new states and abroad -- especially in France, from which the new "United States" sought military assistance.

Although Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Roger Sherman and Robert R. Livingston comprised the committee charged with drafting the Declaration, the task fell to Jefferson, regarded as the strongest and most eloquent writer. The document is mainly his work, although the committee and Congress as a whole made a total of 86 changes to Jefferson's draft.

As a scholar well-versed in the ideas and ideals of the French and English Enlightenments, Jefferson found his greatest inspiration in the language and arguments of English philosopher John Locke, who had justified England's "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 on the basis of man's "natural rights." Locke's theory held that government was a contract between the governed and those governing, who derived their power solely from the consent of the governed and whose purpose it was to protect every man's inherent right to property, life and liberty. Jefferson's theory of "natural law" differed in that it substituted the inalienable right of "the pursuit of happiness" for "property," emphasizing that happiness is the product of civic virtue and public duty. The concept of the "pursuit of happiness" originated in the Common Sense School of Scottish philosophy, of which Lord Kames was the best-kno wn proponent.

Jefferson emphasized the contractual justification for independence, arguing that when the tyrannical government of King George III of England repeatedly violated "natural law, " the colonists had not only the right but the duty to revolt.

The assembled Continental Congress deleted a few passages of the draft, and amended others, but outright rejected only two sections: 1) a derogatory reference to the English people; 2) a passionate denunciation of the slave trade. The latter section was left out, as Jefferson reported, to accede to the wishes of South Carolina and Georgia, who wanted to continue the importation of slaves. The rest of the draft was accepted on July 4, and 56 members of Congress began their formal signing of the document on August 2, 1776.

>From the Library of Congress:
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/const/abt_declar.html

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An Inner Struggle of Allegiance

On a holiday weekend like this one, we are reminded of the inner struggle of allegiance. We want to celebrate this land that we love, and rightly so, and yet we want to be careful that our allegiance to country never supersedes nor is ever equivalent to our allegiance to God. We sing “God Bless America,” and yet we know that our faith will not allow us to ask God’s favoritism toward us over other nations. We know there are no national boundary lines with God.

We struggle to love our country when our government acts in ways we feel are contrary to God’s ways of justice and peace. But we love our country by calling it to God’s ways of justice and peace. We must not let our fear and struggle render us silent and still. Our first allegiance is to the God whose truth still marches on.

 
W. Gregory Pope, The Inner Struggle

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French writer Alexis de Tocqueville, after visiting America in 1831, said, "I sought for the greatness of the United States in her commodious harbors, her ample rivers, her fertile fields, and boundless forests--and it was not there. I sought for it in her rich mines, her vast world commerce, her public school system, and in her institutions of higher learning--and it was not there. I looked for it in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution--and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power…

The conclusion to this illustration and for many additional illustrations and sermons for Independence Day can be accessed at www.Sermons.com.
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