Mentoring Men for the Master

A DAY OF COMMERATION A DAY OF CELEBRATION A DAY OF CONCENTRATION A DAY OF CONSECRATION

This Sunday, July 4th, 2010, America will celebrate the most important single event in its history – the 234th anniversary of our political freedom.  How should Americans mark this all-important day?  In 4 ways:

  1. Americans should COMMEMORATE ( remember) the cost of their political freedom.  Freedom is not free; it is the most costly thing on this earth.  We enjoy freedom because brave Americans have been willing to shed blood to keep us.  Beginning with the Revolutionary War in 1776, then in 1812  1845, 1861-1865, 1918, 1945, 1950, 1965, 1991, 2001-2009, well over one million of our citizens have made the supreme sacrifice to preserve our liberties – over 50,000 in the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, and over 500,000 in World War II.  Thus we should mark the 4th of July as a time to hold in grateful memory for these wonderful patriots.  Jewish parents constantly rehearsed their deliverance from bondage from Egypt and told the stories of sacrifice to their children.  And parents should especially follow their example this July 4th, 2010.
  2. American Christians should do much more than COMMEMORATE the past.  Christian Americans  should CELEBRATE their present freedom from the bondage of sin.  Why?  Because our great Emancipator, 1700 years before our Declaration of Independence, Jesus Christ shed the last drop of His blood that we should be free from both the penalty and power of sin; and when we accepted Christ we died to sin, both its penalty and power, and today are free from  sin if we trust His victory.

Just how do we experience this freedom today?  Many Christians confess (just admit) their sins constantly each night and arise the next day to repeat the sins they confessed.  Illus:  Watchman Nee, a notable Christian writer, in days past tells the story of an American who overcame many of his sins but there were five sins he kept repeating even after confessing and admitting them to God.  Then one day he was reading Romans 6 and read verse 11 which commanded “Consider yourself to be dead indeed to sin and alive to God through Jesus Christ,” and “Sin shall not have dominion over you, because you are under grace, not law” (Romans 6:14).  So he prayed, “O lord, your word declares that sin shall have no dominion over me, and today I believe your word and declare that I am free of all my sins, including the five I have kept repeating.

Illus:  in 1863, Abraham Lincoln pronounced that all slaves were free, yet many slaves continued to remain in slavery, including the slaves of my great great grandfather.  What a pity, what a tragedy.  But something more tragic is that many Christians continue to live in sin when they have already been emancipated, if they would believe it.

  1.  Americans should CONCENTRATE winning the lost to Christ.  James Kennedy used to say, “The most patriotic thing a Christian can do is to win a lost person to saving faith in Jesus Christ.”  And what better time than when we are celebrating our freedom from political bondage and spiritual bondage.
  2. Finally, American Christians should CONSECRATE  themselves to the Saving of America.  But how?  By doing what God commands us to do to save our nation, and what was that?  It is stated in 2 Chron. 7:13-14, “When I shut up heaven, and there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people,  “IF MY PEOPLE WHO CARE CALLED BY MY NAME (CHRISTIAN) WILL
  • Humble themselves,
  • Pray,
  • Seek my face, and
  • Turn from their wicked ways, THEN (GOD KNOWS WHERE TO PUT HIS “THENS”), I WILL HEAR FROM HEAVEN AND FORGIVE THEIR SINS AND HEAL THEIR LAND.” (2 Chron. 7:14).

Note carefully that God is saying, “IF MY PEOPLE WILL, I WILL.”  “IF MY PEOPLE DO NOT, I CANNOT.”  Note three things Christians are commanded to do:

  1. HUMILITY – “If my people who are called by my name (Christians) will HUMBLE themselves.” When pride walks in, God walks out.  “God gives grace to the humble but resists the proud” (James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5).  When we focus on ourselves, which most professing Christians are now doing, we miss the Holy Spirit, but when we come to the Lord with a “broken and contrite heart (Psalm 51:16) the Holy Spirit moves in with mighty saving and sanctifying power.  “HUMILITY ALWAYS ATTRACTS HIS PRESENCE.” (Steve Gaines, Morning Manna, p. 16).  But what is humility?  Humility is not merely putting God first, others second, and ourselves third.  Humility is “esteeming others better than ourselves” (Phil. 2:3) and not just taking care of our own interests but the interests of others (Phil. 2:4).  “Humility does not mean thinking demeaning and low thoughts about ourselves.  It’s not denying the truth of our achievements or thinking less of ourselves.  Humility stems from an honest understanding of who we are.”[1] Humility is a trait which if one possesses he doesn’t know it and certainly does not brag about it.  Illus:  In a                little town, the citizens voted annually to award the most humble person in town with a “humility pen.”  But alas, one guy began to wear his pen and the citizens had to withdraw it.
  2. HUNGER – “And pray and seek my face.” Prayer in this context is not a 5- minute devotional, but the words mean to bombard heaven for God’s intervention with “brokenness of heart.”  We can do more than pray after we have prayed but we can never do more than pray until we have prayed.  “We should never pray for a greater work, for prayer is our greatest work” (Oswald Chambers).  Our priority should not be the latest church growth fad, building buildings, and having seminars, but it should be desperate prayer.  “The kingdom of God does not belong to the well meaning, but to the desperate.”  We must “seek Him” with all our hearts and soul.  He must become our FOREMOST LOVE AND FOREMOST FOCUS.
  3. HOLINESS– “And turn (repent) from their wicked ways.” Humility and hunger alone will not meet the requirement of God for His mighty intervention.  George Barna says that there has been an increase in prayer recently among Americans, but a decrease in repentance and holy living.”  However, God is holy; He works through the Holy Spirit working through holy people.  We must repent and be cleansed by the Holy Fire form heaven as was Isaiah (Isaiah 6).

Many confess their sins daily but never repent, but “He who covers his sins shall not prosper but he who confesses (admits) his sins and forsakes them will find mercy” (Prov. 28:13).  Of what must God’s people repent?  “Their wicked ways.”  What is wickedness?  Any thought or action contrary to God’s Word and will.  “Sin is the transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4).  It is obvious to all that murder, rape, adultery, theft, arson are sins – these are the disrespectful sins of the flesh which even a lost person can see and will condemn.  But the more serious sins which prevent the Holy Spirit from working mightily in our personal lives and in the church corporately are the so-called “Respectable Sins.”  Unforgiveness, envy, judging, prayerlessness, neglect of Internalizing the Word, robbing God, criticism,  gossip, laziness, unfaithfulness, anger, hatred, absenteeism, lukewarmness (Rev. 3:16 made Jesus sick) self-righteousness, pride, undependability, self-promotion, greed, breaking promises, lust, procrastination, coveting, lying, lateness, etc.  The average church overflows with such sins.  Even pastors, deacons, teachers, singers, can commit these sins and no one complains, except the blessed Holy Spirit who is so grieved and quenched that He is dysfunctional in many churches today (Ephesians 5:30; 1 Thess. 5:19).

But praise the Lord there is forgiveness and cleansing for all who will with Humility, Hunger, and Holiness, come to the Lord.  David is the great proof of this statement.  David committed both “disrespectful” and “respectable” sins, but with humility, hunger and brokenness of heart he prays, “Create within me O Lord a clean heart, Do not take away the Holy Spirit” (prior to Pentecost – Since Pentecost, the Holy Spirit does not leave us  (John 14:16) but His power is “taken away” as we sin which grieves Him and quenches the manifestation of His power.”  Finally, David cries out “Restore unto me the joy of THY SALVATION.  Then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will be converted unto you” (Psalm 51:10-13).

Conclusion:  The Roman Empire lasted for 1249 years (773BC to 476 Ad).  But it fell, not because of the attacks of Barbarians on the outside, but because of the moral and spiritual rot in the hearts of Roman citizens.  America is traveling the “Road to Roman Ruin” at an alarming rate.  Edward Gibbons, after studying the Roman Empire for 25 years, wrote that one of the chief reasons the Roman Empire fell was that the citizens of the Empire began to expect and depend upon “the government dole” for their livelihood.  This is precisely the increasing trend in America as we move rapidly into Socialism, a system of government which controls both the means and distribution of wealth.  Will you help save America from this ruin?  Will you be a part of the solution or a part of the problem?  You hold the choice in your

[1] Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, Spiritual Disciplines Handbook, Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2005, p. 190