Dependence Day

This is the manuscript of the sermon preached at Christ Church Los Angeles on Sunday July 2, 2023.

Tuesday is July 4th, Independence Day.  We, in the United States, like to think of ourselves as "independent." However, we should never want or desire independence from God. Even in our independence, we must rely on Him. So on Tuesday, the 4th of July, Independence Day, let’s be dependent on the Lord to wake us up, dependent on the Lord for the air that we breathe, dependent on the Lord for the activity of our limbs, the sight of our eyes, the sounds that we hear, the sun that shines in other words on July 4th, Independence Day, just like every other day celebrate the day as Dependence Day because we can and must depend on God.

Scripture:

Jeremiah 22:5‭-‬10 NIV But if you do not obey these commands, declares the Lord, I swear by myself that this palace will become a ruin.’ ” For this is what the Lord says about the palace of the king of Judah: “Though you are like Gilead to me, like the summit of Lebanon, I will surely make you like a wasteland, like towns not inhabited. I will send destroyers against you, each man with his weapons, and they will cut up your fine cedar beams and throw them into the fire. “People from many nations will pass by this city and will ask one another, ‘Why has the Lord done such a thing to this great city?’ And the answer will be: ‘Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord their God and have worshiped and served other gods.’ ” Do not weep for the dead king or mourn his loss; rather, weep bitterly for him who is exiled, because he will never return nor see his native land again.

Text

Isaiah 64:8 NIV Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.

Introduction

Tuesday is July 4th, Independence Day.  We, in the United States, like to think of ourselves as "independent." However, we should never want or desire independence from God. Even in our independence, we must rely on Him. 

Each year, on July 4th, America celebrates its “birthday.” On the 4th of July in the year 1776, some 247 years ago, a group of colonists (who at the time were technically citizens of England) drafted a document called the Declaration of Independence, declaring themselves to be “free” from rules of the British Commonwealth, meaning that, from then on, England was to remove its hand from what was once its colony.  This new nation would establish its own laws, its own government, its own constitution and live by its own standards.

History tells us that one of the chief motivators for this declaration was the fact that the colonists were being taxed without having a voice to plead their case, “taxation without representation.” But we forget that the initial reason that these people left England was because they wanted the freedom to worship God in their own way, not the way dictated by the king and government of England.

God was the driving force behind their actions. God was the center of their lives. Just like God took the unarmed Israelites and simply had them march around the wall to bring down Jericho, 

Joshua 6:15‭-‬16‭, ‬ NIV On the seventh day, they got up at daybreak and marched around the city seven times in the same manner, except that on that day they circled the city seven times. The seventh time around, when the priests sounded the trumpet blast, Joshua commanded the army, “Shout! For the Lord has given you the city! 

20 When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so everyone charged straight in, and they took the city.

Just like God took Gideon and 300 soldiers and defeated an army of more than 100 thousand

Judges 7:22 NIV When the three hundred trumpets sounded, the Lord caused the men throughout the camp to turn on each other with their swords. The army fled to Beth Shittah toward Zererah as far as the border of Abel Meholah near Tabbath.

Judges 8:10‭-‬11 NIV Now Zebah and Zalmunna were in Karkor with a force of about fifteen thousand men, all that were left of the armies of the eastern peoples; a hundred and twenty thousand swordsmen had fallen. Gideon went up by the route of the nomads east of Nobah and Jogbehah and attacked the unsuspecting army.

Just like God took a young David  armed only with a slingshot and defeated the giant Goliath and routed the Philistine army.  Just like He did those things, He took a group of tattered, untrained, ill-equipped farmers, and routed the best trained, best equipped and largest army in the world at that time. 

At that time, this new nation remembered what God had done and they praised Him everywhere. The phrases, “One nation under God” and “In God We Trust” became a part of this new nation’s development, and this new nation, the United States of America, prospered. They were happy to trust and to be dependent on God.

But this nation, the United States, like some human beings  the older we get  the more foolish we get. So as our nation becomes older we continue to declare our independence even from God.

The scripture that Jean read was from Jeremiah a prophet to the nation of Judah. Judah, in the days of Jeremiah, was a nation which had forgotten God. When you read the book of Jeremiah which covers about forty years you will see a nation in deep decline; chaos spreading throughout the land, corruption widespread in government, morality constantly declining, evil infecting the people, the life of the nation gradually becoming more and more like the prediction of the psalmist, who said in

Psalms 9:17 NLT The wicked will go down to the grave. This is the fate of all the nations who ignore God.

Today, as you know, the United States is a nation which is rapidly forgetting God with corruption spreading across the nation, the moral fiber of our people losing its consistency, the government increasingly unable to govern properly, the institutions of American life being shaken, the truth being overcome by lies, our long standing relationships all over the world being being shaken and questioned. 

Our independence from God has brought us leaders who just "go along to get along". They do what they think will help them politically.  It doesn’t matter whether they are liberal, conservative or moderate.  Whatever they think advances them politically is what they do.   We were once a nation that represented hope for all, now we are struggling with immigration, and gender and racial inequality.  We are building walls and not opening doors. We are struggling with crime, homelessness, broken families, child abuse, differing views on abortion, our leaders are constantly attacking each other and not really concerned with the people.  We have become a nation that has become selfish. Rather than being straight forward with our problems and differences we are more concerned with being politically correct.

Take a look at what it says in Jeremiah 17:9 NIV The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?

There are two great truths in this verse. 1)"The heart is deceitful above all things, and 2) it is desperately wicked," In other words,  If left our own "There is no hope in mankind.

No nation, ever, has reversed the trend of deterioration simply by trying to gather up its own resources and gird up its moral strength and, through human wisdom, work out a remedy for decline.  There is no hope in man because the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt.

There is hope however.  If we continue reading Jeremiah we will see that we are not completely without hope.  

Jeremiah 17:12‭-‬13 NIV A glorious throne, exalted from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary. Lord, you are the hope of Israel; all who forsake you will be put to shame. Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust because they have forsaken the Lord, the spring of living water.

We are not completely without hope. There is hope in God and when a person, or nation, turns to God, healing begins. 

Think about what we affirm every week when we say from 

2 Chronicles 7:14‭-‬15 NIV if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.

What I am trying to say is that, as we approach July 4th, Independence Day, we need to recognize that the one kind of independence that we don’t need is independence from God. If anyone here thinks that he or she can operate without God, you are like the person David described in

Psalms 14:1 NIV The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.

Let’s go to the book of Jeremiah again quickly 

Jeremiah 18:2‭-‬4 NIV “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.

It’s clear, from this scripture, that the clay can never be more than the potter makes it.  Without the potter the clay is mindless and passive.  If the potter takes his hands off the clay it will harden the wrong way. The clay will never be greater than the potter.  The creation will never be greater than the Creator. 

It’s like you paying for your child’s apartment and they are all the time boasting of their independence.  You are paying the rent every month, and maybe their car insurance, and their cell phone bill, yet they are walking around giving the appearance of being independent.   That is not independence, what that is is dependence on you.

Now look at what it says in Psalms 24:1‭-‬2 NIV The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters.

This means that everything and everyone belongs to Him. Without God there wouldn’t be anything at all.  No earth, no life, no nothing.

Genesis 1:2‭-‬3‭, ‬ ‬ NIV

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 

6‭-7 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.”  So. God made the vault and seperated the water under the vault from the water above it.  And it was so.

‬9‭ And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 

11‭ Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 

14‭-15 And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth. And it was so.

20‭-21  And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.”   So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that is was good.

‬24‭ And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 

26‭-‬27 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

29‭-‬31 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

Without God there wouldn’t be anything at all.  No earth, no life, no nothing.

So Tuesday, the 4th of July, Independence Day, let’s be dependent on the Lord to wake us up, dependent on the Lord for the air that we breathe, dependent on the Lord for the activity of our limbs, the sight of our eyes, the sounds that we hear, the sun that shines in other words on July 4th, Independence Day, just like every other day celebrate the day as Dependence Day because we can and must depend on God.

If you think that what you have and who you are is the result of your INDEPENDENT efforts and skills you are sadly mistaken. It is only because of the grace and mercy of God that you are even here today. The times in my life when I have tried to be independent are the times that I messed up.  Let’s be reminded that EVERY DAY should be a day of celebration of DEPENDENCE on God.

Lord, you are so good, powerful and trustworthy.  You are beyond time and space.  You’re not contained in anyway.  You spoke the world into existence with your word and you created us in your image and likeness. 

You have designed us to live in dependence.  Not independence, but dependence.  Not apart from you, but joined to you.  Not abiding in created things, but abiding in you.  

We confess that we are prone to lean on our own understanding.  To naively think that we can solely rely upon our own strength and wisdom.  

Thank you for your patience toward us, Lord.  Thank you for your grace.  You’re continually growing and forming us, and we’re so thankful that you are faithful to finish what you have begun. 

Remind us that you are our Father in Heaven.   You have united us, and we confess our shared dependence on and worship of you, as your people. You are holy, and by grace alone, through faith alone, and in Christ alone, we have been adopted and brought near where we can approach your throne of grace, knowing that when we do, we are met with mercy. 

Lord, we need you in every way and in each of our days.   We depend upon you in all ways and in all times.  We pray in expectation and we remain watchful for how you will be at work in our own hearts and lives.  May it be for your glory alone, throughout the church and all generations.  May it move us to an ever increasing devotion to you. 

In Jesus’ name, we pray, Amen!

Sermon Audio