Harvest Pointe Christian Church, Milford Ohio is a non-denominational Christian Church (Church of Christ) on the Eastside of Cincinnati OH

Appreciating Our Heritage| Series: America's Spiritual Heritage| 11-02-08

America's Spiritual Heritage
Appreciating Our Heritage

It is important to know our heritage

  I. To enhance our identity.

 II. To express appreciation.

III. To properly interpret the Constitution.

 IV. For inspiration.

Full Text 

I've had the privilege of visiting 4 other countries.
 Each time I have developed
  a deeper appreciation of the good ole USA.

I have watched near naked children
 surviving by eating what they found in garbage cans.

I've traveled highways where every 10-15 miles
 police stopped every vehicle, looking for drugs.
Just in case of a gun battle,
 soldiers with automatic weapons were stationed
  about 100 yards up the road in both directions.
The penalty for drug possession is death.

I've seen children thrilled to be in an orphanage
 where they slept on
  a thin plastic mat on a tile floor.
 It's far better than the streets.

I've ridden through major intersections that
 had no street lights.
No one stopped before going through.
 For some strange reason nearly every car has dents.
There were only 2 street lights in the whole country.

Even in one of the nicest countries you will ever visit,
 Canada,
you are guilty until proven innocent and
 the national health care system is not good.

I am so blessed to have been born in America.
Now why is that?
Why have we had such
 prolonged productivity and prosperity in this land?

Why is it that it's been estimated that we have
 50% of the world's resources and
 only 4% of the world's population?

Why is it that during the last 200 years
 France has had 5 different forms of government?
 Italy's had over 50 different forms of government.
 The Soviet Union with all their vast resources
  collapsed after only 75 years of existence.

Why are we so blessed in this land?
 Is it because we're lucky?
 Is it because we're more intelligent or harder working?

Psalm 33:12 reads, "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people he chose for his inheritance."

I believe that our country has been blessed of God.
 We have a rich, spiritual heritage
  that God has honored.

Now, there are some today that
 would disagree with that.
They say, "Our forefathers did not intend
 to establish a Christian nation.

They wanted to establish a nation that
 was spiritually neutral.

They didn't come here for God;
 they came here for gold."
So, for the next 3 weeks I want to
 examine our heritage as objectively as possible.

There was a tour bus driver in Chattanooga
 who was showing the people
  the various Civil War sights.

He said, "Now over here
 our Southern boys really put it to the Yanks.
And up here is another battlefield
 where the Confederates
  held their ground for 4 hours and won.
Over here is another decisive Southern victory."

Somebody on the bus asked,
 "Didn't the Union army win any battles in Chattanooga?" And the driver said,
 "Not as long as I'm driving the bus they didn't."
--------------------------------
It's nothing new for people to
 rewrite history according to their own personal biases.

I guess we all have a certain amount of
 selective memory when it comes to the past, but
I'll try to be as objective as possible and
 so that we are not guilty of revising history.

I hope that
 you will have a new appreciation for America's heritage and you'll be committed to reclaiming that heritage
  in your sphere of influence.

Psalm 61:5
"For you have heard my vows, O God; you have given me the heritage of those who fear your name.
Then Verse 8 says, "Then will I ever sing praise to your name and fulfill my vows day after day."

4 reasons why it is critical that
 we learn to appreciate our heritage.

I. It is important to know our heritage
 to enhance our identity.

History gives us a sense of identity.
It gives us roots,
 an understanding of who we are and
 what we're to be.

In Joshua chapter 4,
 the Bible records that
  the children of Israel were about
   to enter the Promised Land, but
 they had to cross over the Jordan River first.
The problem was,
  the river was at flood stage.

They couldn't get across.
 So God commanded the priests who were
  carrying the Ark of the Covenant to
   go into the water by faith.

When they stepped into the water,
 the water damned up upstream and
  the Israelites walked across on dry ground.

God ordered a member of every tribe to
 take a huge stone from the center of the river and
  to pile it up where they camped that night,
12 huge stones as a memorial to that event.
God said in Joshua 4:6-7, that these stones were
 "6to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, 'What do these stones mean?' 7tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the  ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it crossed the  Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These  stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel  forever."

God wanted every generation of Jews to remember
 the miraculous entrance into Israel, so that
they would have a sense of identity and
 know who they were and
 be obedient to him.

Now, it is important that we in America
 have a sense of God's blessing in our past.

In 1911, President Woodrow Wilson said, "A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday does not know what it is today or what it is trying to do. We  are trying to do a futile thing if we don't know where we  came from or what we have been about."
He went on to say, "America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the  revelation of Holy Scripture."

If Woodrow Wilson felt that way 97 years ago,
 he would be totally shocked at
  the ignorance and distortion of history today.

Some people see no benefit in our history.
 They think the past doesn't matter. 
  What matters is the present and the future.
There are those who like to put America down.
 They say our forefathers really stole our country
  from the Native Americans, and
 they were greedy slave traders who were as
  exploitive as Adolf Hitler."

Even some Christian people
 do not understand our heritage.

They say we don't worship America.
 We worship Jesus Christ, and
  Christianity can thrive under any form of government."

Well, that is partially true…but
 it also reflects a very shallow understanding of history
  and a very naïve understanding of
   what it would be like for
    our children to live under tyranny.

We need to understand the past to have
 a sense of identity and
 know who we are.

We need to have our roots deep in the past so
 we can be stabile and fruitful for the future.

II. It is important to know our heritage
 to express appreciation.

In Deuteronomy chapter 8,
 Moses addressed the Israelites
 just before they were to enter the Promised Land, Israel.

He told them they were entering a land that was
 rich in resources.
Then he said in Verse 10 , "10 When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the LORD your God for the good land he has given you. 11 Be careful that you do not  forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his  commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving  you this day. 12 Otherwise, when you eat and are  satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, 13  and when your herds and flocks grow large and your  silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, 14 then your heart will become proud and you will forget the  LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of  the land of slavery."
Verse 17, "17You may say to yourself, 'My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.' 18 But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who  gives you the ability to produce wealth ...
Then Verse 19 says, "If you ever forget the LORD your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be  destroyed."

God said, "When I make you wealthy,
 you appreciate your history and
 obey my commands or
  you will be destroyed."
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Have you ever wondered why
 our Revolutionary forces could defeat
  the largest, most technologically advanced
   expeditionary force England had ever sent out?

This would be like Clermont County taking on
 the rest of the United States and winning!

How could that happen?
I believe God was with our 13 colonies.

At the beginning of the war, August 27th, 1776,
 British General Howe had trapped
  Washington and his troops on Long Island and intended to advance the next morning and crush them, probably winning the war.

In a desperate attempt to escape,
 Washington gathered every boat he could find,
  including rowboats, and
 he began to row his people over in the night.

But when morning came there was still
 a large number of troops trapped on Long Island.

Major Ben Talmadge who was Washington's Chief of Intelligence wrote, "As dawn approached, those of us who remained in the trenches became very anxious for  our own safety. At this time a very dense fog began to  rise out of the river, and it seemed to settle in a peculiar  manner over both encampments. I recollect this peculiar,  providential occurrence perfectly well. So very dense  was the atmosphere that I could scarcely discern a man  at six yards distance."

"Providential". 
 Their version or our "God thing".

The fog was so dense that
 the British could not attack and
Washington was able to evacuate all 8,000 of his troops.

Never again did the British have
 such a rare chance of winning the war.
Psalm 33:16-19 reads,
"16 No king is saved by the size of his army;
   no warrior escapes by his great strength.
17 A horse is a vain hope for deliverance;
  despite all its great strength it cannot save.
18 But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him,
  on those whose hope is in his unfailing love,
19 to deliver them from death
  and keep them alive in famine."

Our hope is in the Lord.

Our Revolutionary forces
 won a decisive victory at Yorktown.
It was a pivotal battle of the war.

A guide said, "I think the colonists won because of three reasons. Number one was the brilliance of General George Washington and the help he got from the  French. Number two was the division in the British army.  (They were bickering among themselves.) But, thirdly, I  think we won because of luck." He said, "Let me give  you an example of luck.  Cornwallis had the British army  camp at Yorktown because it was an excellent place for  battle-good harbor, high ground-but he also chose  that place because it was the only place where the  James River was narrow enough that if he needed to  retreat he could get across. And when he learned that  Washington was coming up from the south, he sent for  reinforcements from New York, but the reinforcements  were late in coming. When the battle began, Cornwallis  was being hammered and he realized he needed to  retreat. So during the night he began to evacuate his  troops across the James River. But the first wave got

 across and then a fierce storm came up and the wind blew so hard that the boats couldn't get back across the
 river. The troops were divided and Cornwallis had no recourse but to surrender." He said, "That's what I mean by luck."

What this person called luck,
 Washington, a couple of days later called
  the providence of God.

November 15th, 1781, Washington wrote to Thomas McKean, the President of the Continental Congress, "I take a particular pleasure in acknowledging that the  interposing hand of heaven in the various incidences of  our extensive preparation for this operation has been  most conspicuous and remarkable."
A sense of history enhances our appreciation
 for the work that God has done among us.

But in recent years we've become prosperous.
 People have forgotten and
  they scoff at the idea of God's intervention.

They say, "It is by our own strength and
 our own intelligence
  that we are strong and wealthy."

They want to remove
 the 10 Commandments from the courtroom walls and
 prayer from schools, and
 the Bible from public gatherings.

If we don't know our history,
 we have no sense of appreciation that
  all these things originate from God.
III. It is important to know our heritage
 to properly interpret the Constitution.

Our country is not meant to be a pure democracy:
 It is a constitutional republic.
Our country is based on laws which are
 outlined in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Without respect for the Constitution,
 our country would be in chaos.

That's what Watergate is all about:
 No one is above the Law,
  not even the President of the United States.

Football is an exciting sport that
 has been played for over 125 years.
It would not have lasted this long
 if there had not been a rule book.
Without the rule book it would be chaos.

So there are judges, officials who
 have to interpret the rules,
  whether it be in the NFL or NCAA, or whoever.
They have to determine the intent of the rules.

Now, the United States of America has
 judges to interpret the laws
  according to the intent of
   the Framers of the Constitution.

That is not always easy to do because
 they are complex matters…and
the English language is a difficult language and
 it is 200 years old.
Steve Wyatt commented about how
 the English language makes absolutely no sense.
"How else do you explain that there's no egg in eggplant and no ham in hamburger?  Why is it that boxing rings are square? And if a vegetarian eats only vegetables,  what does a humanitarian eat?  If con is the opposite of  pro, does that mean that Congress is the opposite of  progress? And why are they called apartments when  they're all stuck together? It's crazy! In what other  vernacular does the nose run and feet smell? Who else  parks on driveways and drives on parkways? If we  transport something by car, it's called a shipment. If it's  transported by ship, however, it's called a cargo. A wise  man and a wise guy are the opposite, but a slim chance  is the same as a fat chance. Now you go figure."

Now since the English language is
 a pretty complex language,
it's imperative that the people of the land,
 especially the judges of the land,
  understand the intent of the Constitution
   so that it can be properly interpreted.

For example, the First Amendment says that,
 "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

What exactly does that First Amendment mean?
 What was the intent of our founding fathers?

Did they mean that there is to be
 no spiritual emphasis in
  any government funded organization?

Or did they mean that the government was
 not to show favoritism to one particular denomination?

Only when we read about our history
 that we fully understand the intent of the writers.

By "establishment of religion," they meant that
 the government was not to repeat
  the error of Great Britain, their homeland where
the Church of England was
 the official state-sanctioned religion and
  all others were oppressed by the state.

For example, just after approving the Constitution,
 the Congress voted in 1789
  to elect Reverend William Lynn as chaplain
   to open each session of Congress with a prayer.

Obviously it was NOT their intent to
 prevent Christian prayers from
  government sponsored activity.

Thomas Jefferson was one of the
 Framers of the Constitution.
He's the one who originated the language
 "wall of separation between Church and State."

That's NOT in the Constitution.
 It was in a private letter of Jefferson to an individual.

He was telling the guy that
 even though he was of a different denomination
  than Jefferson,
he would be welcome in America because
 there is no state mandated religion.
But while Jefferson was President he was also Superintendent of Schools in Washington D.C.

Now Jefferson was a Deist.
 He believed in God, not necessarily in Jesus Christ.

But while he was
 Superintendent of Schools in Washington D.C.,
he mandated that there were 2 books that
 had to be used in every classroom.
One was the Bible! ...and the other was Watt's Hymnal.

Now, if the man who had the most influence
 in establishing the First Amendment
  said the Bible HAD to be used in the public school
   over which he was the superintendent,
obviously it is inconsistent for us to
 take the Bible out of the school today.
That's not the intent of the Framers of the Constitution.

Associate Justice William Rehnquist of the Supreme Court in Wallace vs. Jaffree (1985) wrote, "There is simply no historical foundation for the proposition that the Framers  intended to build a wall of separation between Church
 and State. The recent court decisions are in no way based on either the language or intent of the Framers."

Now once we appreciate our heritage,
 we'll be able to interpret the Constitution properly.
Without that appreciation there's a lot of
 ignorant discussion and inconsistent laws.

That's why James Russell Lowell when asked, "How long will the American Republic endure?" He said, "As long as the ideas of the founders be dominant."
IV. It is important to know our heritage for inspiration.

We all need heroes.
 We need role models.
 We need people who will set the bar a little higher and
  then jump over it to show that it can be done.

For example, for years people in track and field said that
 it was impossible to run the mile in less than 4 minutes. But then in 1954
 Dr. Roger Bannister ran the mile in
  3 minutes 59.4 seconds.

And you know what happened?
 Within a few months, a half a dozen other people
  had broken the 4-minute mile.

An inspirational example motivates us to
 stretch beyond what we thought possible.

Even in the Christian life we need heroes.
 Jesus is our ultimate example.
  We're to follow in his steps.
But Paul said in I Corinthians 11:1
 "Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ."

Now some of our forefathers are
 inspirational heroes that we need to know about.

Think about George Washington.
 Revolutionary War General.
 1st President of the United States.
 "Father of our Country."

The account of George Washington in Braddock's Defeat in 1755 used to be included in student textbooks.

Washington was an officer in the British Army under General Edward Braddock.
During the French and Indian War,
 the British were attacked and nearly annihilated.

Washington's responsibility was to
 take orders from General Braddock and
  ride across the battlefield on his horse and
   take the orders to the men.
Who were getting wiped out.

The officers were being targeted and killed.
 Finally General Braddock was shot and
  the men fled for fear of their lives.
But Washington wasn't killed.

After the battle, July 18th, 1755,
 Washington wrote to his brother John,
"By the all powerful dispensations of providence [There's that "God thing" again] By the all powerful dispensations of providence I have been protected beyond all human probability or expectations. For I had four bullets through my coat and two horses shot under me yet escaped unhurt, although death was leveling my companions on every side of me."

15 years later, Washington and a friend Dr. Craig were  going through that same area and
 they were met by an old Indian chief who
  talked to Washington through an interpreter.

The chief said, "I have traveled a long and weary path that I might see the young warrior of the Great Battle. I called to my young men and said, 'Mark yon tall and daring  warrior. He hath an Indian's wisdom. Quick! Let your aim  be certain that he dies.' Our rifles were leveled, rifles  which but for you knew not how to miss." In fact, this  Indian chief said, "I shot at you myself seventeen times,  couldn't hit you. 'Twas all in vain. A power mightier far  than we shielded you. Seeing you were under special  guardianship of the Great Spirit, we immediately ceased  to fire at you, and I am come to pay homage to the man  who is the particular favorite of heaven who can never  die in battle."

Now that was in history books until the mid-30's.

In 1774 when the English colonies were
 thinking about separating from the British,
Washington entered into his diary,
 "I went to church and fasted all day."
He kept a daily prayer journal that you can read.
 He talks about the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ.

That's why in Washington D.C. today
 there's a Washington Monument 555-feet high.
If you were to walk up the steps,
 you'd read Scripture verses etched on the wall, and
  at the very top, there are the words,
   "Praise be to God."

We need to know about our heroes,
 not perfect people but
people who raised the bar and
 were courageous in spite of difficulty.

This morning,
 Are you walking in the footsteps
  of our ultimate hero, Jesus?

If not, it's a walk of faith.
 A faith that causes you to
  repent of your sin and
  be baptized into Jesus.

If you are ready to take that step today,
 or if you have already and
  would like to place your membership with us,
come forward as we stand and sing.

Based on a 1997 Bob Russell of South East Christian Church, Louisville, Kentucky sermon