Sermon Tone Analysis

Among the Ruins

We thought that was a kind of catchy series title - among the ruins.

That’s where we live right now, really.

We live among the ruins of a formerly Christian America.

Joe Lieberman - anyone remember Joe Lieberman?

He was a Senator from Connecticut from 1989 to 2013 and he was Al Gore’s running mate in the 2000 election.

He was a Democrat, then an Independent Democrat but he got into a bit of hot water when he endorsed John McCain - a Republican for president in 2008.

He’s also Jewish.

Last Tuesday, former Senator Lieberman wrote an op-ed for Fox News titled, “America needs a new religious awakening.”

In his piece he speaks of the Jewish days of “teshuva” - repentance.

He says, “During the Ten Days of Repentance, Jews are called to consider their behavior during the preceding year and to repent for the occasions when we have acted wrongly which is to say outside the code of law and values that the Bible requires of us.”

He continues, “Focusing on faith to get us out of the morass America is now in is thoroughly consistent with our national history and purpose.

Remember that the Pilgrims who left England to escape the religious persecution of the King believed their mission was to establish a new Jerusalem in the land they were destined for across the Atlantic.

When they landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620, William Brewster recited a psalm of thanksgiving to God.

In the Declaration of Independence, with which American history began, our founders wrote that they were forming their new independent nation to secure the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness which are the endowment of God, our Creator.”

He quotes George Washington, “Of all the disciplines and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports…Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice?

And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.”

Senator Lieberman ends by saying, “America needs a new religious awakening.”

Why would a Jewish Democrat invoke the Christian foundation of America and call for a new “religious awakening?”

Because he realizes, we live among the ruins of a formerly Christian America.

The great moral shift we are seeing now didn’t just start.

It’s been happening for a long, long time.

During President Obama’s term as president, he held a news conference with the leader of Turkey.

Trying to stress how the United States could ally itself with Turkey, President Obama said:

“That is a great strength of the United States, although we have a large Christian population, we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation, a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation.

We consider ourselves a nation of citizens.”

A lot of us really got our feathers ruffled by that statement, but what he said was not untrue.

We live among the ruins of a formerly Christian America.

You can see this in the way we talk about abortion.

One of the candidates for governor of Georgia has a campaign commercial that is very pro-abortion.

She talks about reproductive rights, reproductive justice.

She says with “our righteous might, good will be won.”

What is the good that will be done?

Well, what does a woman want when she has an abortion?

The literal answer is to be un-pregnant.

But I think the actual answer is much more than that.

She wants to have the ability to flourish.

To reach the hopes, dreams and aspirations that she holds for herself.

Why would I say that?

The Guttmacher Institute is a group that says they specialize in women’s reproductive rights.

They track abortion statistics and compile data on why women seek abortions.

In one of the candidates campaign ads, she has some very angry women hitting the abortion hot buttons of rape and incest.

I can’t understand the mental anguish that would come from such a thing.

Horribly and mercifully, less than 1% of all abortions are for those reasons.

74% happen because the baby will affect the mother’s education, work or ability to care for dependents.

73% stated they couldn’t afford a baby.

48% said they didn’t want to be a mom and were having relationship troubles.

40% didn’t want more children.

33% said they weren’t ready for a baby.

All of those answers point to the same thing - I will not flourish if I carry this baby to term.

And I want to flourish.

And I should have a right to flourish.

But here’s where we start to see the mists of our former Christianity in our thinking.

What gives us any idea that we should have a right to flourish?

Yes the Declaration of Independence has that famous phrase about us having the right to “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” but where did that come from?

Yes, I’ve read that Jefferson may have picked the phrase up from John Locke, or Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

But where would they pick up such an idea?

Surely it didn’t come from Darwinian evolution?

That theory talks about natural selection or the survival of the fittest.

The one with the best ability to reproduce and protect itself might flourish.

But not everyone flourishes in that world.

Somebody has to be lunch - somebody else has to fertilizer.

So if it’s not from science, where did the notion that we have a right to flourish - where did it come from?

We talked about this verse during our Lamentations study that just about every parent uses for their high school graduate.

This is God’s ultimate goal for His people.

Sounds like flourishing, doesn’t it?

Or maybe here, Genesis 1:28-30

Again, sounds like flourishing doesn’t it?

Maybe we could even go here - remember us talking about this?

When John the Baptist questioned Jesus, what did Jesus say?

Again, sounds like flourishing.

It’s what people want and it’s what people strive to achieve.

They simply have no clue where it comes from.

They are walking among the ruins of a formerly Christian America.

They want the result God wants for His people.

But they don’t understand that to have it, we must submit to God’s authority.

Joe Lieberman is right.

We do need a religious awakening in America.

That’s one of the things Paul will deal with in 1 Corinthians.

In 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 we hear Paul say:

Another way to say “will not inherit the kingdom of God” is to say “they will not flourish.”

The Lord says the key to human flourishing is in something Jesus said:

That’s how we flourish.

What in the world does denying oneself have to do with abortion?

Do I need to explain that?

See, a woman - and a man’s - right to choose starts way before the baby is created.

It starts before the man and the woman meet really.

It starts when the man and the woman follow Jesus with all of their heart, purposing in their heart to be faithful to their spouse, even before they have any prospects of a spouse.

Then, when temptation does arise - and yo buddy it will - you make your choice.

There is your choice.

And should the temptation overcome you - yes, you can receive forgiveness if you earnestly repent.

But you also accept the consequences - whatever those might be.

That’s why Christians fighting against abortion isn’t the full answer.

Fighting to make our “fellow citizens” brothers and sisters - that’s the answer.

That is the cure for abortion.

In our country right now, there is at least one generation, maybe two that believe they have “certain unalienable rights.”

However, they don’t understand the “endowed by their creator,” part.

We’ve got to help them.

We’ve got to know what we are talking about so we can help them know what they need to be talking about.

So we are going to walk Among the Ruins for a few months of a place most of us have never been physically.