Giving Thanks for 250 Years
In the year of our Lord, July 4, 2026
Today we gather to give thanks to God for two hundred and fifty years of the United States of America. Few nations in history have contributed so much to the advancement of liberty, representative government, economic prosperity, scientific achievement, and the spread of democratic ideals throughout the world. Whatever our present challenges may be, we should not fail to acknowledge the many blessings that God has bestowed through this nation.
As Lutherans, we understand these blessings through the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms. God rules His creation in two distinct ways. First, He rules through the kingdom of the left, His earthly kingdom. Through governments, laws, courts, and civil authorities, God preserves order, punishes evil, and protects the neighbor. As Saint Paul teaches in Romans 13, governing authorities are servants of God for our good. Civil government is therefore a gift of God for this fallen world.
Second, God rules through the kingdom of the right, the kingdom of Christ and His Church. Here God reigns through the Gospel, through forgiveness, and through the means of grace. This kingdom concerns eternal salvation and the forgiveness of sins. Today, as we commemorate our nation's anniversary, we especially thank God for His blessings in the kingdom of the left.
The founders of our republic established a government based upon the consent of the governed. Yet they did not believe that liberty could exist without a higher moral order. They grounded their understanding of human rights in what they called natural law, a law that comes not from man but from the Creator Himself.
The Declaration of Independence speaks of "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" and declares that all people "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights."
It is true that many of the founders were skeptical of traditional Christianity. Some rejected miracles, doubted Christ's resurrection, and questioned the supernatural elements of Scripture. Thomas Jefferson even produced his own version of the New Testament with the miracles removed. Yet despite these theological differences, the founders recognized that society required a moral law above human opinion. Most believed that the Ten Commandments expressed this natural law.
Again and again, they drew upon biblical morality. John Adams wrote that our Constitution was made only for a "moral and religious people." Benjamin Franklin called for prayer during the Constitutional Convention. George Washington warned that religion and morality were indispensable supports for political prosperity.
The founders understood something that we often forget: freedom requires virtue, and virtue requires a moral law that stands above ourselves.
When our nation celebrated its Bicentennial in 1976, there was still a profound sense of national confidence. America had helped save the world from tyranny during the Second World War. It had become the most prosperous and technologically advanced civilization in history. It inspired movements for freedom across the globe.
Yet something had already begun to change. The Vietnam War had shaken national confidence. The cultural revolutions of the 1960s and 1970s had profoundly altered the nation. The older understanding of liberty as freedom under God increasingly gave way to a new understanding—freedom from all restraints. A nation once grounded in natural law began to ground itself in personal autonomy.
Government by consent can endure only when people govern themselves according to God's moral order. But increasingly we have exchanged God's law for self-expression, duty for desire, and virtue for autonomy.
America once described itself as a "melting pot." Later it became a "stew pot," where different traditions retained their distinctiveness while sharing a common culture. Increasingly, however, we resemble a "potluck," where every individual becomes his own authority and brings his own definition of truth, morality, and identity.
In effect, every person becomes his own god.
During the American Revolution, the Anglican minister Mather Byles posed a penetrating question: "Which is better—to be ruled by one tyrant three thousand miles away or by three thousand tyrants not a mile away?" His question still confronts us today. When every individual becomes sovereign, society becomes a tyranny of competing passions.
The Revolution itself exposed the realities of human nature. We rightly remember the Boston Tea Party and the Boston Massacre. Less remembered is that the British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre were surrounded by an angry and hostile crowd. Clubs and stones were thrown. One soldier was struck and fired his weapon. John Adams defended the soldiers because justice demanded it.
Likewise, some of the earliest revolutionaries in Boston engaged in theft, destruction of property, kidnapping, and tarring and feathering.
Yet the response of the British Crown was also marked by human sinfulness. King George III's abuses of power helped give rise to the Revolution itself. Native tribes were enlisted to attack frontier settlements. Hessian mercenaries were employed, and reports of atrocities filled the colonies.
All of this demonstrates a single truth: when human passions are unrestrained by God's Law, sin produces violence and destruction.
The prophet Jeremiah speaks plainly: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick."
A quotation often attributed to James Madison declares: "We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves, according to the Ten Commandments of God."
Whether Madison actually said those exact words is doubtful, but the sentiment captures an important truth. If the future of our republic depends upon the capacity of people to govern themselves morally, then there is reason for concern. Human beings, born sinful and corrupted by the Fall, have never had a particularly good record of controlling themselves.
Scripture teaches that we do not fear, love, and trust in God above all things. We do not love our neighbors as ourselves. We are by nature sinful and unclean, bound to sin and unable to free ourselves.
Human nature cannot save itself.
If our hope rests only in ourselves, then there is little reason for confidence about the future of any nation. The history of humanity is the history of kingdoms rising and falling, of republics flourishing and then decaying, of civilizations advancing and then collapsing under the weight of their own sins.
But our hope does not rest in ourselves.
We need more than ourselves.
We need a King.
Jesus came proclaiming, "The kingdom of God is at hand." He is the Son of David, the King of kings, and the ruler whose kingdom shall never end. He is the good and gracious King who sacrifices Himself for His people. He willingly went to the cross to save His subjects. He became like us in every way, yet without sin. He is our Creator, our Redeemer, and our Savior.
In Him we find a kingdom unlike any other. The kingdoms of this world, the kingdoms of the left hand, rise and fall. Nations are born, prosper, and eventually pass away. But Christ's kingdom, the kingdom of grace, endures forever.
He does not rule by coercion, force, or the sword. He rules by forgiveness and mercy. He forgives our sins. He changes hearts. He creates citizens of heaven.
"The King who reigns forever is not distant from His people. Even now He comes to us in His Word, in Holy Baptism, and in His Holy Supper, forgiving our sins and strengthening our faith until that day when every earthly kingdom has passed away and we stand before His eternal throne."
Therefore, as Christians, we hold dual citizenship. We love our country and give thanks for its many blessings. We pray for our leaders. We seek justice, virtue, and the good of our neighbor. We desire that our nation remain free and prosperous.
Yet we also remember that our ultimate citizenship is elsewhere. As Saint Paul writes, "Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ."
So today we thank God for our nation. We thank Him for the many ways He has used this republic to bless not only its own citizens but peoples throughout the world. We pray that He would preserve liberty, restore virtue, grant repentance, and bless our land.
But above all, we give thanks that our salvation does not depend upon the endurance of any earthly republic.
For we have a King.
A crucified and risen King.
And of His kingdom there will be no end.
Amen.
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