Gratitude and Confidence in This Land

7/5/2026

Today we gather to finish a celebration of our semiquincentennial birthday. Our nation is 250 years old—two and a half centuries since a group of imperfect but courageous people declared that human beings are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. …

As followers of Jesus, we don’t worship a flag, a founding document, or any earthly leader. We worship the living God. …Yet on a day like this, we give thanks that God has allowed us to live, serve, and witness in this particular land, at this particular time in history.

Galatians 5:1 tells us, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” On Independence Day, we remember political freedom, but we start by remembering a deeper freedom—the freedom of the heart.

Because of Christ:

• We are free from the burden of trying to earn God’s love.

• We are free from the final power of sin and death.

• We are free to live in grace, to forgive, to serve, to hope. …

Then, flowing from that spiritual freedom, we give thanks for the civic freedoms we enjoy here:

• We can gather openly for worship.

• We can preach the gospel without state control.

• We can speak, bear arms, vote, assemble, and participate in the shaping of public life.

Many believers throughout history and around the world have never known those freedoms. Some worship in secret; some risk prison or violence simply to gather.

So today, in our 250th year, we dare not treat these liberties as trivial or inevitable. We receive them as gifts, recognize their responsibilities, and we thank God. We thank God that we can sing His praise, open our Bibles, and gather as Children of God without fear. We receive these liberties as blessings, not entitlements, and we commit to use them well.

Gratitude does not mean naivety. Confidence does not mean denial. All nations continue to evolve, grow, and transform. Every nation’s story is mixed—beauty and brokenness intertwined. Ours is no exception. 

On the beautiful side, we can celebrate genuine courage and sacrifice, a persistent aspiration toward justice, and historic strides toward greater inclusion. People have bled, labored, and prayed for this country to become a more just home for more of its people. As a nation, we have also reached beyond our borders to help others in need.

On the broken side, we must admit that the promise that “all men are created equal” was spoken in a world where not all were treated as equal—where Indigenous peoples were displaced, Black men and women were enslaved, other ethnicities were imprisoned, and many communities were marginalized. We are still living with the wounds of those choices. And our global “reach” has been both merciful and harmful—so we bring both sides of that story into the light before God. …

But here is the good news: our confidence is not in our perfection. Our confidence is in God’s ongoing, redemptive work. The God who judged Egypt and yet pursued Israel with steadfast love is the same God who deals with all nations today. He both confronts and heals. He both exposes and mends.

So we can say:

• Our story is beautiful.

• Our story is broken.

• And yet, in Christ, our story can be redeemed—not erased or excused, but taken up into God’s healing work so that even our failures become places of repentance and new life.. …

Seeing our story that way keeps us from two temptations:

• The temptation to idolize our country and pretend it can do no wrong.

• The temptation to despise our country and pretend it can do no right.

Instead, we stand in a third place: truthful gratitude and hopeful realism under the guidance of Christ Jesus.

When we talk about confidence today, we are not saying, “We know everything will automatically go well for our nation.”History is too complex, and Scripture is too honest for that.

Our confidence rests in three things:

1.  God’s sovereignty – God is not confused or overwhelmed by the state of our nation or our world. From the beginning, God has been working in and through human history, including this chapter we call the American experiment. He is not finished with his work.

2.  God’s presence – The Holy Spirit is not absent from public life. Wherever there is a whisper of justice, an act of mercy, a step toward reconciliation, God is already at work. There are believers in every sphere—in government, education, business, health care, art, and neighborhood life—quietly bearing witness, living a life of mercy, courage, and patience.

3.  God’s calling upon the church – Our hope for the next 250 years is not primarily located in a policy or a party; it is located in a people—a people formed by God, our Creator. When the church remembers who she is under God, this nation of many faiths and convictions has a better chance to remember what it is called to be. …

Galatians 5:13 also says, “Do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.”

That is our Independence Day calling.

• We are free, so we can serve.

• We are free, so we can tell the truth.

• We are free, so we can love our neighbors.

• We are free, so we can build bridges across divides. …

That is where our confidence lies: Not that we will get everything right, but that God can use a people who are willing to be grateful, truthful, and available. On this 250th Independence Day, we can be confident—not because we believe our nation is flawless, but because we believe our God is faithful. We are confident that if we, the people of God, will listen to the Spirit, love our neighbors, and stand for what is right, then our small acts of obedience can become part of God’s larger healing work in this land.

So with that confidence in God’s sovereignty, presence, and calling, I offer this prayer of gratitude and confidence for our nation.

• “For 250 years of life in this land, and for the freedoms we enjoy—Lord, we are grateful and confident in you.”

• “For the beauty in our story, and for your patience with our brokenness—Lord, we are grateful and confident in you.”

• “For the presence of your Spirit in our neighborhoods, our schools, our workplaces, and our government—Lord, we are grateful and confident in you.”

• “For the calling you place on this congregation—to be a people of truth, mercy, justice, and hope—Lord, we are grateful and confident in you.”

And it is my prayer that as we conclude the celebration of our nation’s 250th year, we will place our ultimate trust not in human strength but in God’s enduring love. May we gratefully remember God’s gifts, and confidently walk by faith, not fear.