Satisfaction for the Soul--Sermon on the Mount Series

            After our need for air, no need is more essential for life than our need for food and water. We cannot let these needs go unmet for long before we start to have serious problems. We also plan much of our lives around meeting these needs. Your daily schedule probably revolves around meal times. Every time we plan some kind of special event at church, we must either plan to provide a meal or plan to avoid mealtimes so that you can take care of that need on your own. Or think about planning a vacation—if you’re driving, you plan your route and your travel time to make sure that you’re near a town when mealtimes roll around. Otherwise, you plan ahead and take food with you.

            Imagine if we gave the same kind of concern to obeying God. Imagine if we woke up every day and thought, “How am I going to plan to obey God today?” You and I have never lived a day in which we didn’t think about eating and drinking, because they are needs; they are necessary for survival. Imagine if we thought of obeying God as being necessary for our survival.

            That’s the kind of attitude and passion for obedience that Jesus praises in the next Beatitude—“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied (Matt 5:6).” The Lord uses the metaphor of a physical need to encourage us to have a spiritual appetite. Let’s look at the two parts of this verse.

“BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO HUNGER AND THIRST FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS…”

            To truly appreciate this metaphor, we have to travel back in time for a minute. The way that we meet our need for food and water today is vastly different than it was for the people in first-century Israel who heard Jesus speak these words. Few of us have ever experienced a life-threatening hunger or thirst. Most of us have far more than enough to eat and far more than enough to drink, and we have very easy access to food and water, but life was very different back then.

            Imagine waking up one day as a person in first-century Israel. To meet your family’s need for water that day, you would have to take a bucket and go down to the river—or more likely to the local well—and haul water back to your home. Perhaps you would make that trip a couple of times, depending on the size of your family. Don’t forget that parasites in that water could kill you, so you may have to build a fire and boil some of it before you could drink it.

            By then, it would be time to get to work cooking food, because after all, you have to do everything yourself. If you want to make bread, you have to grind the flour. If you want to eat chicken, you have to butcher it and prepare it yourself. For at least one member of the household, then, cooking would have been a virtually continuous occupation.

            So for those who heard Jesus speak these words, hunger and thirst were typically a much more urgent need than what we experience most of the time. We can afford to let our need for food and water be almost an afterthought because we can easily run to Subway and have food and drink in front of us in a matter of minutes. But for the first-century Jew, meeting those needs required a great deal of thought, planning, and effort, and their daily reality was far closer to the line between starvation and survival. Author William Barclay put it well when he wrote, “the hunger which this beatitude describes is no…hunger which could be satisfied with a mid-morning snack; the thirst of which it speaks is no thirst which could be quenched with a cup of coffee or an iced drink. It is the hunger of someone who is starving for food, and the thirst of someone who will die unless given something to drink.”¹

            Hopefully now we have a sense of the urgency and intensity in these words “hunger and thirst.” But what is “righteousness?” What is this thing that we’re supposed to long for with such intensity? A basic definition of righteousness would be “that which meets God’s standards.” When the Bible talks about our righteousness, it describes it from two angles.

            First, there is our position of righteousness. This angle refers to our standing before God in light of His commands. To be righteous in this sense means that no case can be made against me in light of God’s commands. This position of righteousness is what we refer to when we use words like conversion, being saved, being born again, being forgiven, or accepting Christ (if you know the big, fancy theological word, this is justification).

            Let me illustrate what I mean. If you looked right now at the laws of the state of Kansas and then examined my life, you could not bring any charges against me or make any case against me because I haven’t broken any laws. That means I am righteous in the eyes of the state of Kansas; I have met the state’s standards for a law-abiding citizen.

            Now I must confess that it hasn’t always been that way. I have received some speeding tickets in my day, and at those times I have broken the law. In those instances, I did not meet the standards for a law-abiding citizen and I had to pay a fine, but once I did, the case against me was closed and I again became righteous in the eyes of the state of Kansas.

            Now according to Scripture, when we receive the gift of salvation from God, He treats us as being righteous in light of His law or commands because He accepts the sacrifice that Jesus made for us as the payment of the fine (so to speak) for all of our sins. This reality is described well in 2 Corinthians 5:21, which says, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Don’t miss what this verse is saying. Even though Jesus had never committed a sin, God treated Him like a sinner when He was on the cross. He took our punishment in that moment so that now, after we accept Christ, God can treat us like righteous people, even though we don’t deserve that status simply on the basis of our own lives. So, because Jesus took what we deserved from God, we receive what He deserves from God—that is our position of righteousness.

            But the Bible then goes on to describe righteousness from the angle of our practice of righteousness. This angle refers to our efforts to live in obedience to God’s commands. After we are saved and we receive that position of righteousness as a gift, we can then actually obey God’s commands through the power of the Holy Spirit. This practice of righteousness is what we refer to when we use words like discipleship, walking with Christ, growing in Christ (or sanctification).

            This angle is described well in 2 Timothy 2:22, when Paul tells Timothy—who is already saved—to “flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.” So Timothy, who has the position of righteousness before God, is challenged to live out that righteousness in his life.

            I believe this second angle on righteousness is what Jesus had in mind in this Beatitude. We who are forgiven by God and empowered by the Holy Spirit should hunger and thirst to live in a way that meets God’s standards. The desire to obey God should create hunger pangs in our soul that will not subside until we have met the desire. The Lord pronounces a blessing upon those who have this desire by saying, “they shall be satisfied.”

“…FOR THEY SHALL BE SATISFIED.”

            I don’t think its difficult to understand what Jesus means here. Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will receive what they desire—approval from God that they have lived by His standards. We can have this knowledge today as we live for the Lord, but it will be most evident when we stand before Jesus to hear His assessment of our lives. The New Testament makes it very clear that each one of us will be assessed or judged by the Lord Jesus to receive either reward or rebuke from Him (or quite possible some of each!). 2 Corinthians 5:10 states, “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.”

            1 Corinthians 3 talks about building on the foundation we have in Jesus Christ, and it states, “each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire (1 Cor 3:13-15). As one pastor has put it, there are going to be some smoky Christians in Heaven! When you are evaluated by Christ, do you want to come out smelling like roses, or smelling like you were standing too close to the campfire?

            If I want to avoid seeing my life’s work for God go up in smoke, I need to hunger and thirst for righteousness. I must have an arresting passion to obey God that will not leave me alone until I have addressed it. Obeying God cannot be an afterthought in my life, just like food and water could not be an afterthought for the people who heard Jesus speak these words.

            Along this line, I think the scenario I raised earlier is most appropriate—imagine if we woke up every day and thought, “How am I going to plan to obey God today?” I have this appetite to obey God that just won’t leave me alone—how am I going satisfy it? Now when you envision this scenario, you can easily become overwhelmed. Just think of how many commands there are in the New Testament! Here’s what I want you to do—I want you to use this question (How am I going to plan to obey God today?) and simply focus on the commands that present you with the greatest struggle. Focus on the area where you have the most obvious need for growth.

            Its probably not difficult for any of us to pinpoint our area of greatest struggle. Once you’ve settled on that, look up the commands in the Bible that deal with that particular issue, and then let that become—for right now at least—your primary focus. When you ask yourself, “How am I going to plan to obey God today?” make your planning specific to that issue, because here’s what’s going to happen—as you grow in that area, your growth will bear fruit in all areas of your life. A rising tide raises ALL of the boats in the dock, doesn’t it? Well, there’s a very similar effect that takes place when you grow spiritually.

            Its kind of like learning how to play a musical instrument. When you learn how to play an instrument—say the piano, for instance—there are times when you will spend most of your practice time focusing on just one song. On one level, that may seem silly; after all, after you’ve put out all that time and effort, you will still only know how to play one song. But here’s what you discover—when you start to look at other songs, they are easier for you to play. You discover that your fingers are stronger and more flexible. All of the progress you made in that one song now carries over into many other songs.

            Spiritual growth is very similar. When you learn to walk closely with God in one area of your life, it will create a ripple effect that spreads into other areas of your life. That’s why Paul talked about the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5 rather than the fruits. Have you ever noticed that? Paul says “the fruit (singular) of the Spirit is…” We would expect some kind of singular after that, wouldn’t we? But Paul goes on to list nine character traits—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

            The reason for this is that all of these traits are tied together. If you grow in love, you will also see growth in the area of self-control. If you grow in patience, you will also see growth in the area of gentleness. You will never find a loving person who completely lacks kindness, or a patient person who completely lacks self-control. These traits fit together, and as you grow in one, you will see some growth in the others as well.

            So please don’t feel overwhelmed when you think about having a passion to obey God that is like an essential need for survival. I’m not saying this is easy, because we have the Devil and our own sinful desires working against us, but we don’t need to make it more complicated than it really is. A pebble only hits the surface of a lake in one place, but the ripples that it creates can be far-reaching.

            Start today with a narrow focus on growing, and when the difficulties and temptations do come, we have the promise of approval from Jesus to carry us along. It will be worth it in the long run to remain faithful to Him. Let us pray now for the faith to believe that!

Notes:

1. William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, vol. 1, The New Daily Study Bible (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 115.

Righteousness--Satisfying the Highest Standard

Do any of you like to learn about the history and meaning of words? I have to admit—I’m kind of in that category myself. I like learning about words and their history and how they’ve changed over time. Most words tend to change their meaning a little bit over the years, and this is particularly true of words that get picked up as slang words. When a word catches on as a slang word, it usually ends up with a meaning that barely resembles its original meaning.

Such is the case with the word that we are going to study today, the word “righteous” or “righteousness.” Some of you might remember when “righteous” was a fairly popular slang word. Well, I did a little homework on this and found some interesting information. Apparently some of the slang synonyms of “righteous” include: awesome, cool, sweet, gnarly, rad, and tubular. One website had some examples of “righteous” being used in a sentence to help us get it right. Apparently after you finish a nice Italian dinner you can say, “Oh, man, that lasagna was righteous!” Or if you find yourself in a group of surfers you could say, “That wave was righteous man! That so totally rocked!” Or if you’re a fan of action movies you could apparently say, “Did you see Chuck Norris kick those guys in the head? That was righteous!”

Well, to some people, the word “righteous” might be nothing more than a slightly out-of-date slang word, but in the Bible it is a very significant word that we run across quite a bit. In the New American Standard translation, the words righteous, righteousness, or righteously occur 619 times! That means that if we don’t understand this word, then we’ll be lost throughout a fairly large portion of the Bible. And what’s more, this word plays a very important role in passages that talk about our standing before God. So today I want to spend a moment defining this word from the Bible and then we’ll apply it in an important passage that deals with how God looks at us and our sin.

I. What does the word “righteous” mean?

A. Synonyms of righteous

One of the best ways to get a quick handle on what a word means is to look at its synonyms. The Bible provides us with several synonyms for the word “righteous,” many of them in describing the character of God. Deut. 32:4 is one verse that describes God as righteous and gives us several synonyms to help us understand what that means [READ Deut. 32:4] You can see that we have several synonyms here that describe God’s character and the actions that flow from his character. He is called “upright,” which is the opposite of crooked; he is called “faithful,” which means that he is trustworthy and honest. Also, the idea of justice is mentioned twice—the verse says that His ways are just and He is without injustice. So the things that he does are fair. If we measure his actions by the standard of justice, we find that his actions line up exactly. Thus, a basic summary of this verse gives us the idea that righteous character is character that meets the standard of justice.

This idea also comes through in verses that use the word righteous as a virtual synonym for “innocent” [READ Deut. 25:1]. The righteous person in this verse is the one who had not violated the standard of law; he is the innocent party. Other verses convey the same idea. In 1 Kings 8:31–32, Solomon is saying a prayer of dedication for the temple in Jerusalem and he says, “If a man sins against his neighbor and is made to take an oath before Your altar in this house, then hear in heaven and act and judge Your servants, condemning the wicked by bringing his way on his own head and justifying the righteous by giving him according to his righteousness.”

Or you may remember that when Jesus was on trial before Pilate, Pilate’s wife “sent him a message saying ‘Have nothing to do with that righteous Man; for last night I suffered greatly in a dream because of Him’”[Matt. 27:19]. Jesus could be called righteous because he had not violated the standard of law—he was innocent of all of the charges that were being brought against him.

So I believe that the synonyms of the word “righteous” start to give us a basic definition for this word—“righteousness” is character that meets the standard by which it is judged. It is character that conforms to proper standards.

B. Descriptions of righteous people

I think this definition becomes even more evident when we look at descriptions of righteous people that are found in the Bible. One of the first people described as “righteous” is Noah. Genesis 6:9 says, “Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God.” This is not to say that Noah had never sinned, but by the standard of pursuing a relationship with God, Noah was apparently the only one who met the standard, and so God spared him from the flood.

Luke 1:6 is a great example as well. In that verse, Luke talks about the parents of John the Baptist and says, “They were both righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and requirements of the Lord.” Again, this doesn’t mean that they had never sinned; it simply means that they lived according to God’s law and took the proper steps when they did sin. So their lives matched the standard that God laid out in his law.

C. A word picture of righteousness

Finally, we also have a word picture of righteousness to help us understand this term. In the Old Testament, the picture of having clean hands was used as a synonym for righteousness. For example in 2 Samuel 22:21, David sings a song of praise to the Lord and he says, “The Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands He has recompensed me.” David repeated the same idea in Psalm 18:20. You might also remember in the New Testament when Pilate washed his hands after he turned Jesus over to the people. That was a symbolic way for Pilate to claim that he was innocent with regard to Jesus’ death.

We have a very similar word picture in English when we talk about someone being caught “red-handed.” The idea is that the person who is caught is guilty and we know they’re guilty because we caught them in the act. And so we say that we caught that person red-handed.

So the word picture of having clean hands communicates the idea of innocence, the idea that someone has not violated the standard of judgment. So if we could pull all of this information together, I think we could come up with a good definition of the word righteous. Since the idea behind this word is the idea of meeting a standard, I think we could say that righteousness is character that meets God’s standards. Thus, righteous actions are actions that line up with God’s standards. A righteous person is someone who meets God’s standards.

But you may notice a little problem at this point—the rest of the Bible tells us that on our own, we haven’t met God’s standards; we have fallen short of them. Romans 3:10 says, “no one is righteous—not even one.” So what can we say then? Is there any hope for us? How can we be righteous in the eyes of God?

II. How can we be righteous in the eyes of God? Romans 4:1–8

This is a question that Paul answers in Romans 4:1–8. Turn there with me if you would. In this passage, Paul uses the example of Abraham to illustrate how we can be seen as righteous in the eyes of God [READ 4:1–8]. This passage is loaded with bookkeeping terms, or accounting terms. Picture in your mind your bank statement or your credit card statement. In one category you have your debits—all of the withdrawals you’ve made or the charges that you have on your credit card. In another category you have your credits—all of the deposits you’ve made or the payments you’ve made. Now think about this in spiritual terms for a moment—picture that debits category. The debits category contains all of the sinful things you’ve ever done; that’s a big category. And then picture your credits category. What Paul is telling us is that when we place our faith in Jesus Christ, God pulls up our account and writes the word “righteous” in the credits category, so that now in his eyes, we have met his standards. Even though we haven’t earned it, God gives us that status as a free gift.

This is so important for us to understand—when you place your faith in Jesus Christ, God looks at you and says, “You have met my standards. On the basis of what my Son has accomplished for you, I accept you according to my standards.” It is so important for us to understand this because it really colors the way that we look at our relationship with God. Far too often we feel like God demands that we earn his love and acceptance, and that’s because of the way that we usually relate to one another. In human relationships, we often use our love and acceptance like bargaining chips to manipulate the behavior of others. We hold back our full love and acceptance from each other because as long as we do we feel like we still have something to dangle over the heads of others to get them to do what we want.

And it is so easy to think that God is doing the same thing when we pick up the Bible and read his commands. So what we have to realize is that when we place our faith in Jesus, we are fully and completely accepted by God. That means that his commands for us must serve some other purpose. In fact, his commands for us show us the way to live out the meaning of life; they show us how to fulfill the purpose for which we were created, which was to be God’s representatives in this world. Because when we follow the commands of God, he receives glory from our obedience, and we fulfill our created purpose, and then we get to enjoy all of the things that come from that, like inner peace, joy, fellowship with God, and so many other things.

So even though we in ourselves are not righteous, we can still be seen as righteous in God’s eyes by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. But being declared righteous is not the same as actually living a righteous life. That is the great struggle of the Christian life—becoming what God says we are in Jesus Christ. So…

III. How can we pursue righteous behavior in our lives? 2 Timothy 3:16

Fortunately, God has given us a tool that will train us in righteousness if we will allow it to shape our minds and our hearts. It’s called the Bible. In 2 Timothy 3:16–17, Paul writes, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” If we are going to try to meet some kind of standard for living, we have to know what the standard is and how to get there, and that is what the Bible reveals to us. It spells out the standard in God’s commands; it gives us a living, breathing picture of the standard in what it records about Jesus; it tells us how God has given us His Holy Spirit to empower us to live up to that standard. So if we are going to live righteous lives, we’ve got to follow the advice of our trainer! We must allow the Bible to shape our opinions and attitudes; we must choose to act in the way that it tells us to act rather than just follow our own desires. And when we do, it will shape our character after the pattern of Christ’s character, which will allow us to live out the status of righteousness that we now enjoy in Jesus Christ.

I believe the last word on righteousness should be that of Paul from 2 Cor. 5:21 where he describes the great trade-off that Jesus accomplished for us in his death. Paul states, “God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” On the basis of Jesus’ death, God offers us the free gift of salvation, and everyone who will receive it can rest assured that they are accepted according to God’s standards. Because we have no righteousness of our own, God offers to credit the righteousness of Christ to our account so that we might be forgiven. Praise be to God for His indescribable gift!

"The Key to National Greatness"--Proverbs 14:34

Today, as you all well know, we remember and celebrate the independence of our nation—we remember the events that led to the founding of the United States, and we celebrate the freedoms that we enjoy in this country. For Christians, this is always a very appropriate time to praise God for the blessings and the prosperity that He has given to our country.

But this year, in 2010, we celebrate this holiday at a very interesting time in our nation’s history. It is not hard to see that the United States today is divided by deeply held opinions on many different things. Politically, we are re-living some of the same debates that took place after 1776, dealing with questions like: What is the role of the federal government? What is it supposed to provide for the citizens? What does the Constitution mean? What sort of activities does it allow or not allow?

We are living in interesting times in this country, and I get the sense that as most American Christians look at the nation, our most common response is that of worry. By and large, we are somewhat worried about our country; we see that it has problems, and we want them to be fixed, but we’re not quite sure of how to do that. We want our nation to remain a “city on a hill,” a strong and prosperous place that is a force for good in the world. But what can be done to make that happen? What is the key to national greatness?

I want to direct your attention to a short proverb that offers us the key to national greatness. It is Proverbs 14:34, and it says, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.” Here we find the key to national greatness stated very simply—it is righteousness, or godly character. In other words, our strength, our stability, our progress as a nation lies in our moral character. Moral character forms the true foundation of a nation because nations consist of people and the interactions between those people. Thus, no matter what kind of appearance a nation may put on, its moral character determines whether or not it is on a firm foundation—whether it will be “exalted” and built up, or brought to shame.

Think with me for a moment about all of the other things that we might be tempted to insert into that verse in place of the word “righteousness”—all of those things that we might think form the foundation of a nation and give it strength. Some might say, “a strong economy exalts a nation,” but this thought is really putting the cart before the horse. A strong economy is built upon honest transactions between people, and once we start to talk about honesty, we’re back to the idea of righteousness, aren’t we? So I think we can argue that righteousness is necessary for a strong economy.

Or some might say, “military might exalts a nation.” Well, that may appear to be true for a short period of time, but a country that is founded upon military might has often sown the seeds of its own destruction. Once the military gets into the hands of unprincipled people, that nation often experiences extreme turmoil. But wait—I mentioned principles, didn’t I? That means we’re back to the idea of righteousness once again!

Or some might say, “godly leaders exalt a nation.” Now godly leadership is very important, but there’s still a problem—the people may not follow their leaders! The leaders of a nation can be very godly people, but if that godliness does not extend throughout the rest of the population, then those leaders often have a very limited impact.

No, my friends, it is righteousness that exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people. This proverb was written by King Solomon, a man who knew a thing or two about leading and building a nation. But what most people in our country today don’t realize is that our own leaders in America have long spoken about the importance of national righteousness for the strength of our nation. I’m going to run the risk of trying your patience for the next few minutes, because I want to read for you a series of quotes from our presidents down through the years that highlight the fact that godly moral character is the only sure foundation for our nation.

Let’s start with George Washington. George Washington, of course, was the first president of the United States and was known to be a devout Christian. In his first Inaugural Address in 1789, he said, “the smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained.”1 Later, in 1795, President Washington issued a proclamation calling for a national day of Thanksgiving. In that proclamation he wrote that we must “humbly and fervently [ask] the kind Author of [our] blessings graciously to prolong them to us; to imprint on our hearts a deep and solemn sense of our obligation to Him for them; to teach us rightly to estimate their immense value; to preserve us from the arrogance of prosperity, and from [risking] the advantages we enjoy by delusive pursuits, to dispose us to merit the continuance of His favors by not abusing them, by our gratitude for them, and by a corresponding conduct as citizens and as men.”2

How about John Adams, the second president of the United States? In 1776, just a few days before the Declaration of Independence was signed, he wrote, “Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Measure, than they have it now, they may change their Rulers and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting liberty.”3 Later, after he was elected as president, John Adams addressed the military on October 11, 1798 and said, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge…would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”4 Then later, in a personal letter dated August 28, 1811, Adams wrote, “Religion and virtue are the only foundations, not only of republicanism and of all free government, but of social [integrity] under all governments and in all the combinations of human society.”5

Let’s fast forward now a few years to the 1830’s. This next quote comes not from a president, but from someone who observed America as an outsider. In the 1830’s, a Frenchman named Alexis de Tocqueville came to America to study what made America a great nation. Here is what he wrote: “I sought for the key to the greatness and genius of America in her harbors…; in her fertile fields and boundless forests; in her rich mines and vast world commerce; in her public school system and institutions of learning. I sought for it in her democratic Congress and in her matchless Constitution. 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. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”6

Let’s now move forward a little later into history, to President Teddy Roosevelt. In 1910, President Roosevelt gave a speech in which he said this: “Just in proportion as the average man and woman are honest, capable of sound judgement and high ideals, active in public affairs—but, first of all, sound in their home life, and the father and mother of healthy children whom they bring up well—just so far, and no further, we may count our civilization a success. We must have—I believe we have already—a genuine and permanent moral awakening, without which no wisdom of legislation or administration really means anything.”7 He then said: “Every thinking man, when he thinks, realizes that the teachings of the Bible are so interwoven and entwined with our whole civic and social life that it would be literally impossible for us to figure ourselves what that life would be if these standards were removed.”8

And now a little later into history, to President Gerald Ford. Just a few months after taking office, President Ford said this: “Without God there could be no American form of government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first—the most basic—expression of Americanism. Thus the founding fathers of America saw it, and thus with God’s help, it will continue to be.”9

Now closer toward our own day, to President Ronald Reagan. In a speech at a prayer breakfast in 1984, he said, “Without God there is no virtue because there is no prompting of the conscience…without God there is a coarsening of the society; without God democracy will not and cannot long endure…If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a Nation gone under.”10 President Reagan was not alone in recognizing the need for national righteousness during his administration. In 1983, Congress passed a resolution declaring that year to be the “Year of the Bible.” A portion of that resolution said this: “Whereas the history of our Nation clearly illustrates the value of voluntarily applying the teachings of the Scriptures in the lives of individuals, families, and socities; whereas that renewing our knowledge of and faith in God through Holy Scripture can strengthen us as a nation and a people: now, therefore, be it resolved…that the President is authorized and requested to designate 1983 as a national “Year of the Bible” in recognition of…our national need to study and apply the teachings of the Holy Scriptures.”11

As you can see, there is a continuing testimony from our leaders down through the years that bears out the truth of Proverbs 14:34—“Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.” If our nation will no longer listen to the Bible, we should at least listen to our own leaders who have taught us the same lesson time and time again! And more than anyone, we as Christians need to take their testimony to heart. I fear that we often think that if we can simply elect the right leaders or pass the right laws that our nation will turn around. But our hope does not rest in leaders or in legislation—our only hope is in the Lord, in embracing the Lord Jesus Christ and living out his teachings as a nation. Our hope is not in the halls of Congress but in the homes of Christians across this land, that we would act in a righteous way and would teach others to do the same by spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ once again throughout this nation.

This means that our hope for national greatness lies at the feet of Christians in this country. We must see to it first of all that we are living in a godly, righteous way in our lives and then we must beg God to bring about a revival in our nation. A firm foundation for our future can only be built upon righteousness, which means that if we do not work first and foremost to promote righteousness among the people, all of our political efforts will be useless. As John Adams said, “if [virtue] cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Measure, than they have it now, they may change their Rulers and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting liberty.” And so on this national holiday, my challenge to you is to remember that it is righteousness that has made us great, and righteousness is the only path upon which we can turn our country around.


All quotations taken from William J. Federer, America’s God and Country: Encyclopedia of Quotations (St. Louis: Amerisearch, Inc., 2000).

1. p. 652 2. p. 656 3. p. 8 4. p. 10 5. p. 12 6. p. 206
7. pp. 540–41 8. p. 541 9. p. 237 10. p. 530
11. pp. 709–10