Church is open this week Sunday 11 am for Worship Service and Tuesday 5:30-7 pm for Food Pantry. No Bible Study this week. Covid risk is high now, so take extra care everyone! Here’s a recording and copy of the message for those joining from home.
8 November 2020 Sunday Message “Praying for Society”
Call to Worship
Jeremiah 29:7
7 Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”
1 Peter 2:11-17
11 Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. 12 Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
Invitation, Prayer Concerns, Tithe and Offering; Father in Heaven, thank you for all that we have been gifted by you in this life of ours. Lord, we pray that you grow us and lead us to be your tools for goodness in this world. Please teach us compassion for those we disagree with and lead us all to come for your wisdom.
Amen!
Message Reading; Colossians 3:5-15
5Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. 7You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. 11Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
12Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
15Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.
Message: “Praying for Society”
Last week we talked about being Exiles in this world that we live in. That for us, life goes beyond just where we were born, and to whom our family, town, or region of the country we grew up in. The idea being that since we have started following the Lord, our lives have been transformed into something new, and that the things we care about are much more long term than they once were. Back when we were all about feeding that endless appetite called instant gratification.
This week I am excited to talk with you on some ideas that we might kick around on what to seek after, and what we might want to avoid. As always, at the end of the day, it will be your job to do the heavy lifting of praying and searching your own hearts with the Lord, studying Scripture both alone and with others you trust to learn with and from, then deciding for yourselves with the Lord what’s right for you!
As always, we want to begin all of our activities in life in humble thankfulness for all the opportunities and options the Lord has gifted each of us, our community, and society. We have more available to us than any Christian people that have ever lived before. It is so easy to get so caught up in the frustrations of the moment, that we sometimes lose sight of all we have.
I am instantly reminded of our Call to Worship reading for today beginning with Jeremiah 29:7;
7 Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”
God is saying that the people who He is talking to (you and me), have been placed where they live in this world by him, and that they are to seek the peace and prosperity for the people with whom they live with. Even if those people were different from the Children of Israel in Jeremiah’s day, due to all of Israel being conquered exiles.
The background of this passage is that the setting takes place in Babylon after the nation(s) Israel / Judah have been conquered and destroyed. Most of the children of Israel now reside as foreigners in a strange land (Babylon), as exiles and a defeated people. And God is instructing His children to pray to God for the peace and prosperity for the city they now live in. The very people who have destroyed their land and homes, and if their overlords prosper, they will prosper.
In fact, God wants His children to be all in with His agenda of flourishing, thriving, and transforming into a new people. Here is our passage from Jeremiah in its fullness starting this time at Jeremiah 29:5-7
5 “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. 7 Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”
One gets the feeling that Israel has been humiliated, devastated, and imprisoned into exile, and that only now God’s people are humbled enough to listen to what God has to say.
And what does God want from His children in exile? I believe the same things He desires for us today.
- Settle down
- Enjoy what we produce
- Build families
- Seek peace and prosperity for others
- Pray to God for others
To do these things requires us to seek out God’s direction by living in harmony with other people. I am reminded of Peter’s instruction also in today’s Call to Worship reading from 1 Peter 2:11-17;
11 Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. 12 Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
The God of the Old Testament and the God speaking through Peter are one in the same and very consistent. As I learn to abstain from my sinful desires that wage constant war within me, I learn to:
Settle down: This first step God is giving us, make the following possible. It all begins with settling down by focusing on the Lord’s direction instead of my own desires which are an assortment of a mental whirlwind, moving very fast but going nowhere.
- Enjoy what we produce: Not only enjoy what I produce, but enjoy that I can produce! Now that I have begun to settle down, I am in a position to actually build up things from my efforts with the Lord, and actually becoming a productive member in a society that I am praying for. That I have skin in the game for.
- Building families: This is key for the stability of society. Strong families are the number one defense against bedlam and anarchy. The breakdown of the family has been a prime factor in the destabilizing of western civilization. By the way, families come in as many ways as there are people building them. You actually do get to choose your family in life. Remember, God is not trapped in where you come from, He is concerned about where you are going. If you don’t have your own family, support others who do through prayer and help, or build a hybrid family of your own!
- Seek peace and prosperity for others: As a people and as a Church, we are in the business of praying, hoping, and working for the good of other people. By looking outward and not just at the people who we agree, live, and worship with, but the people we live next to in our society who are different and we differ with. Knowing that a tide coming into a harbor raises all vessels. It’s up to us to help our neighbor become seaworthy.
- Pray to God for others: Meaning, praying for the people and leaders of the communities that we live in, and outside my own little group whom I agree with. By doing so we are working with God to transform our attitudes about others through positive humble self-programing in ourselves, and leading by example for others.
God warned Israel, that as a people their attitudes were unacceptable. God called time and again through Prophet after Prophet, for His people to humble themselves and come back to their first love, God! Now Israel is ready to listen, they have been conquered, exiled, and humbled to a point that they are able to hear and respond to the Lord, and the first thing they are told to do is settle down and pray for their new leaders.
This would have been much less painful, back in Israel before the breakdown of their own society. Now Israel, will have to learn from the ground up what a productive society based on the tenants of God’s righteousness looks like, by living in someone else’s society.
This is what time-out looks like in a failed state, when a people of God go on permanent Holliday and a society fails in the world. And it isn’t pretty.
As I look around the world in the here and now, I see Christian brothers and sisters struggling in places just to have Church Services, to worship God, to live. That through their struggles their faith becomes alive and vibrant! There is a deep lesson about humanity there.
And then I look at Christians in Western Society living in; Europe, North America, with some affluent pockets in Latin and South America, and I see a new version of ancient Israel. People taking the teachings of God and the actual practicing of their faith for granted.
Our faith must be more than a falling back position to the Lord every once and a while when we are scared from; a job concern, a financial market crash, a housing issue, an earthquake or tornado, a broke down car, an election, or even a pandemic. Occasionally paying lip service to faith but deluding ourselves as the masters of our own lives is a recipe for disaster.
It seems as if Israel’s problems were fed by their prosperity. For hundreds of years God had provided Israel wealth, peace, and stability, and Israel began to believe that all of this was their own doing. That the general good condition of things was based on Israel being a superior people because they were God’s chosen. No need to work at anything. Just cruse, and live off of reputation. And they did. For a while.
We know that sleepwalking through life didn’t work for the children of Israel forever and an end did indeed come, based through our knowledge of history. We also know God’s consistency about our sinful natures, and the plain truth that sin results in death in any age. There is always an accounting to and from the Lord in some manner.
In fact the same concerns apply in our own lives, leading us back to today’s Message Reading from Paul in Colossians 3:5-15
5Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. 7You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. 11Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
12Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
15Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.
Wow, verses 5-9 are kind of a “what to do list” in many of our old lives. The “what not to do” in our new realities. That isn’t bragging by the way. If we don’t own our sin, how do we fight it and then move on with God? Suffice to say: our earthly natures of: “sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry, including anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language, plus lying”, are all things we are dedicated to walking away from as members of God’s family.
Knowing that those mentioned behaviors have plagued human beings from the time of the fall of mankind, and when we separate ourselves from them, we become exiles from those who are still of the world. Knowing that membership in God’s family is an open invitation where there is; no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. Which is why we pray for all people to know the Lord and enjoy His gift of life. We sincerely pray for our communities to prosper in and with the Lord. Not because we have the answers, but because God does.
This requires: 12Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Not because we are good, but because God is great! And we humbly thank God’s grace upon us and our community.
A community that is based on a lot of different people from a lot of different places, who agree and disagree on a whole myriad of competing ideas but have a tradition of coming together in times of trouble, challenge and hardship. A society that has an innate way of looking at adversity as opportunity for a common future of us all.
It is my hope and prayer for you this week as you find yourself in this wonderful life, that you find some time to thank the Lord for all he has given us, and that you ask the Lord’s protective guidance for our leaders, elected officials, and first responders. That our whole community would find ourselves enveloped in the protective love of God, as we earnestly try to follow and grow in His guidance.
Amen!
Benediction based on;
Colossians 3:12-15
12Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
15Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.