Ecclesia Princeton
Ecclesia Princeton
Fountains: Life In The Spirit-Ian Graham: Power
Pastor Ian Graham looks at Acts 16 examining the expectations of God's power through the Spirit available to us today.
Hey, there, back with you, pastor Ian Graham, here in my office. We had a little hiccup with the beginning part of Sunday's recorded sermon, and so what's going to happen is I'm going to do the beginning part, the initial part, here from my office, and then you'll hear a shift in the audio as we move. We're transported magically from my office back in time to our Sunday gathering, and so I hope you've been following along with our Holy Spirit series. And also, I always just want to say, when I get the chance, to those of you who listen, from wherever you are, whether you're friends that used to be here, local in our congregation, or you just found us some way somehow thank you, thank you for listening, thanks for participating in the life of our church from afar, and please don't hesitate to reach out. Just beautiful to know who you are and where you're coming from, but what a joy it is to be able to share the story of Jesus, our Messiah, together and pray that, wherever you are, that you experience God's blessing and his presence. And so thanks for listening. We're going to get into the sermon content now, as we continue our series on the Holy Spirit, and I want to start with a question that, for many of us, forms a lot of our assumptions about what God's Spirit is up to in the world. What does God's power look like? Or perhaps the question you'd better ask what expectations do you have of God's power in your life?
Speaker 1:I find often, when it comes to the power of God, that there are streams that vacillate between two poles. There's the demonstrative streams, that's, looking for explosions of God's power everywhere, obvious big healings, speaking in tongues, casting out demons. People call that the real Jesus stuff. And then there's maybe, on another extreme, there's the quietest version, that God's power is simply a strong inner strength for things like the fruit of the Spirit emerging in our lives, that God's power is at work in the ongoing sanctification of the people of God. And no matter where you find yourself on that continuum, it's important that we situate ourselves because, within the realm of the Scriptures, we see that these are not poles that exist apart from one another, but truly they are pillars that support the wider structure of our life, individually and collectively together. That, yes, jesus told us explicitly to look at the works that he had done and to expect that we, as his followers who abide in him, would do even greater things and that abiding in him, that the fruit of our lives would be of our love, that we would know ourselves as loved by God and that we would love one another and our neighbors well, and that the world would know that we are disciples of Jesus by that love.
Speaker 1:Now many of us have been wounded by church streams that place demands on the power of God that the scriptures don't place. We have been told that we would be healed if we simply believed rightly or hard enough. And then, when we weren't, or when the situation didn't work out, the not so subtle insinuation is that we simply didn't have enough faith. Or perhaps you've been in a place where there was a high premium placed upon God's power but a low value placed on actually behaving like Jesus. So you get domineering leaders whose claim to authority rests on their public expressions of scare quotes, ministry, but their private character is toxic and destructive, which often breeds church cultures of toxicity. Or perhaps you've been told that the power that we see in operation, for instance, like the book of Acts, was for a time and a period, and that that period has ceased. You've been told not to expect much in the way of God's power and thus been told to simply accept the way things are.
Speaker 1:Last week we talked about the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit and the way that God produces fruitfulness in and through our lives, and that very much serves as a precursor, a preamble, to what we're going to talk about today. And, as we talked about last week, the demonstrations of God's power are never removed from the fruitfulness that he produces in us, and that fruitfulness is indicated by what Paul talks about in Galatians 5. The fruit of the Spirit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control, faithfulness. Those kinds of things are expressions of God's power, and today we want to take that first chapter and add on to it. How do we, as the people of God, live expectantly that God will be moving in the world, that he will be moving through our lives, that he will do things that we regard as miraculous but are really signs and wonders pointing to the reality that has been brought forth in the life, the death, the resurrection, the ascension and the pouring out of the Spirit of God in Jesus of Nazareth? We're going to look through Acts, chapter 16, and highlight some parts of the story that demonstrate the power of the Holy Spirit. I want to start there, in verse 11. If you want, you can open your Bible there. Acts 16, verse 11. I'm reading from the NRSVUE and you can join along with us in Acts 16. Let's read the word of the Lord together.
Speaker 1:We therefore set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Symmethros the following day, to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in this city for some days. On the Sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there. A certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there. A certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of God, was listening to us. She was from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul. When she and her household were baptized, she urged us, saying If you've judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home, and she prevailed upon us.
Speaker 1:Paul and his companions, timothy, luke and Silas, find themselves in the Roman colony of Philippi. They had intended to go to Bithynia in Asia, but had been prevented by the Spirit of God. Paul then sees a vision of a man from Macedonia in Acts 16, verse 9. The man is saying come over here and help us. And they determine that this is the Lord's prompting to go. Philippi in present-day Macedonia was a Roman colony, and to describe something as a Roman colony was not just to say that Rome had conquered it, but that the city itself held a special prestige within the larger empire, and thus Philippi was very devoted to Roman customs and was very devoted to the emperor. A lot of former soldiers had been settled upon their retirement in Philippi and the surrounding region. Now, paul's custom upon entering a new city usually involved him going to the local synagogue, but historically Philippi did not have a large Jewish population, so it's likely that there was not an established synagogue in the city.
Speaker 1:So verse 13 tells us that on the Sabbath day, they've been told, there's a local place of prayer where some of the small minority of Jewish people would gather and to honor the Sabbath, and it tells us that they sit down and they speak to some women there. This is noteworthy as it was not customary for Jewish men in this patriarchal society, to address women in public. Not that it didn't happen, but it was rare. If you recall, in John 4, the disciples are sort of surprised that Jesus is not only talking to a Samaritan woman, but that he's talking to a woman at all. And so this band of Jewish men, these disciples, apostles of Jesus, go and they start to talk to these women. And it says that there's a woman named Lydia there, and we're told that Lydia is a dealer in purple cloth from the Asian city of Thyatira. If you read in Revelation, you know that there's a letter written to the city of the church at Thyatira, but she deals in purple cloth, which at this time was a luxury good.
Speaker 1:And so what this is telling us is that Lydia is a woman of some means. Telling us is that Lydia is a woman of some means, and it tells us that Lydia is listening to the story that the disciples of Jesus are telling these women. And I have no doubt that not only is Lydia listening to what they're saying but again, lydia being a woman of means who, it seems, has some sway over her own business, is probably used to dealing with men and it's probably used to being treated a certain way by men, and so I don't think Lydia is just listening to what the disciples are saying, she's listening to how they're saying it, and this so often has everything to say to us when we design to tell of the good news about Jesus, it's not just having your doctrine straight, having all the facts right, it's about the way our posture. Peter says let your gentleness be evident to all. And we see this here in operation in Acts, chapter 16, here on this Sabbath day, and these Jewish men are telling these women and Lydia is listening on that the one that they have been waiting for, the Messiah, has come in Jesus of Nazareth.
Speaker 1:And it's such a stunning contrast because, for most of the Jewish people, their expectation of a Messiah would be a conquering king like David. David was famous for the way that he brought the Jewish kingdom to prominence in regards to the other nations that surrounded them. It was a brief, lived high point in the story of the people of Israel. For most of their history they've been dominated and captivated by bigger, stronger empires, but for these several years there was this brief glimpse, and so people expected that when the Messiah came, there would be some sort of a return to that that would not be short-lived but would be eternal. And yet the story these men tell these women is of a crucified Messiah that, as Paul talks about elsewhere, is a scandal to the Jewish people.
Speaker 1:And yet, and this is what's so important for us to remember as we seek to be people who tell and live the story well, telling the story has power in and of itself, no matter how dissonant it is, no matter how upstream, no matter how counter-cultural it is to our culture. Telling the story of what Jesus has done carries power and it invites people to behold God and, as Lyra said, to see that he is who he says he is, and thus we are who he says we are. And so they tell the story and Lydia, who is listening in, says this is good news indeed, and her heart has been opened by God. You see, the other thing we see in regards to God's power is there are times when God has gone before us in the lives of people that we will encounter Oftentimes.
Speaker 1:For us, as a church, these are people that are in your lives all the time. These are people that you live with, around, in proximity to your classmates, those people that share an office with you, those people that you live with around in proximity to your classmates, those people that share an office with you, those people that you encounter every day at the coffee shop. And for us it's about being people of discernment. It doesn't mean that every person in your life has had their hearts open and is ready to receive. I try to be a faithful witness in my life and there are lots of times where I will kind of like start dipping my toe and like does this person want to hear anything about Jesus? And the answer is decidedly absolutely not. They do not, and that's okay Because, again, oftentimes the way that I approach it actually creates further inroads as we walk the path. But there have been times where it is clear that God has gone before this person, that something in their life whether it be crisis, whether it be disappointment, whether it be just confusion is making a way for this kind of good news to be heard with an open heart. And for me, this happens with people that I know, as it does for many of you, but also it happens with people that I don't know. I got to tell you, my favorite thing as an introvert is not when I feel like the Spirit of God is telling me at a coffee shop or something. It's like, hey, why don't you go talk to that person? I don't really want to do that actually. And what often happens is, as you are willing to take the steps that are highlighted to you by God's ongoing presence, you see that God has been going before you, opening a heart Again.
Speaker 1:We see the disciples were trying to go to Asia. God's been leading them and guiding them to Macedonia, to Europe, and so there's so many streams that have converged to create this one world-changing moment where the church at Philippi would be born. The gospel would take root in Europe for the first time. Paul would later write a letter to the church in Philippi. The church at Philippi would become this consolation, this support system for Paul throughout his ministry and his life, one of the few churches that would remember Paul in his chains.
Speaker 1:We see that the Lord opens the heart of Lydia as we go on. We see in verse 16, one day so now they've kind of taken up residence in Philippi and Lydia's invited them to stay at her house, and if you've ever been invited to stay at somebody's house, that's a lot nicer than yours. Good accommodations. This is good news for the disciples. They've had hard travels. Lydia says come, stay here. Plenty to eat, soft, high thread count sheets. This is going to be great, All right. So they've been taking up their residence in Philippi. They're ministering there, they're trying to tell people about Jesus.
Speaker 1:And it says one day, as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave who had a spirit of divination and who brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune, telling. While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out these men are slaves of the most high God who proclaim to you the way of salvation. She kept doing this for many days, but Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the Spirit I order you, in the name of Jesus Christ, to come out of her. And it came out that very hour. So Paul and his companions are ministering in Philippi and they have attracted the attention of one who we now see is possessed by some spirit and she's walking around. She's telling the truth. These men proclaim to you the way of salvation, the servants of the Most High God. But for whatever reason, paul deems that that truth, ironic as it may be, is not suitable and eventually he just gets kind of fed up and annoyed and he just turns to her and says Spirit, come out of her in the name of Jesus, and the Spirit comes out. Now I know that's an experience that many of you had before you got here today.
Speaker 1:But you see, as we start to live out of the power of God, as we've seen even in the testimony of Mark and Lyra, we become aware of alternative forces in the world. And again, for us as good Westerners, we think that the world is as it presents itself, that there's nothing deeper, not a spiritual reality that is orienting everything else. But from the witness of the scriptures, that is not the case. Paul reminds us in Ephesians, chapter 6, that our battle, our conflict, is not against flesh and blood, not against those you deem your enemies, whether that be a politician or a person or a group of people. That's not your enemy. But we wage war against powers and principalities in high places, spiritual forces unseen. And when we start to live in expectations that the presence and the power of God will operate in our lives, we start to see that this is in fact the case, that it's not just human opposition that we face, but that we face realities that are bigger than humans, what Paul will talk about in regards to sin sin as a power, sin as a force the Scriptures describe this slave girl who is enslaved with this spirit, as well as one who has a pneuma pythona spirit, a pythonic spirit.
Speaker 1:Now we have our associations with pythons and most of us, rightly so, recoil at the idea of reptiles. Some of you like to put them around your neck, and that's great. But at the Greek city of Delphi, in the region of Pytho, the Delphic oracle was at the foot of Mount Parnassus, in a temple guarded by a python. The oracle of Delphi, also known as Pythia, was renowned across the world for her ability to tell the future. And here in Philippi, a young slave girl seems to have this sort of spirit and is functioning as kind of a paid medium, a revenue stream for her owners.
Speaker 1:If we could like somewhere between a psychic you can encounter you know, walking down the street here, or somebody who tells you that if you like a lot of sports, that they can tell you who's walking down the street here, or somebody who tells you that if you like a lot of sports, that they can tell you who's going to win the game and, you know, follow their picks at the way that gambling has taken such root in our appreciation of sports. Somewhere in that realm we have this kind of young woman and she is walking around and she's kind of both mocking the disciples but also telling the truth about them. And at some point Paul says I've had enough of this and I don't want to listen to you anymore. And he orders the Spirit to leave her in the name of Jesus, and immediately the Spirit leaves her. Now we are not told what becomes of this woman. So again we are doing a little bit of biblical inhabiting the story hypothesis. But I would love to think that in this liberation of this young woman from this spirit, that she becomes part of that burgeoning Philippian church, and again, is that in there? Are we exegeting the text? We are not, so I'm stepping away.
Speaker 1:Paul says that there are times where I have the Spirit of the Lord and I'm telling you something directly. This is all hypothesis. But when the Spirit of the Lord, I'm telling you something directly. This is all hypothesis. But when the Spirit of the Lord is present, there is liberation. Jesus says the Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me to proclaim good news to the captives, and this is good news to this woman who has been encumbered by this Spirit and now she's been liberated by the name of Jesus.
Speaker 1:And again we see these markers. And again we see these markers, the presence of oppositional forces, and as we, as Ecclesia, hope to do beautiful things for God that bring liberation, that bring good news, we will encounter opposition, and it won't be about people coming against us. It will be about forces in dark places that we have to both recognize for what they are, but also recognize that the name of Jesus is superior, has overcome all the forces of darkness. Colossians 2.14 tells us that he nailed them to a cross, and so, for us, we have nothing to fear, even though the enemy that Peter describes as prowling around like a roaring lion, that Jesus describes in John as the father of all lies. The enemy will levy its blows against us and the people of God, and especially as you hear the testimonies of people persecuted, christians from around the world. You know that this is true. We still stand on the unshakable, unassailable truth that God has overcome and that he will set all things under his rule and his reign, and we see that the disciples, in proclaiming their faith, now are moving into the public sphere in an even greater way.
Speaker 1:Verse 19 says but when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities. When they had brought these men before the magistrates, they said these men, these Jews very important they emphasize those two things are disturbing our city and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us. And then they center themselves again, being Romans, to adopt or observe. Verse 22,. It says the crowd joined in attacking them and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison, ordered the jailer to keep them securely. Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.
Speaker 1:The owners of this dear slave girl are outraged that their economic opportunity has now collapsed. They seize Paul and Silas and their accusations are very specific. Again, there's not a large Jewish population here in historic Philippi and Jews, historically and terribly, have been victims of xenophobia and racism, and we have nothing less than that going on here. The owners in verse 20, these men who are not like us, these foreigners, these strangers, these Jews are advancing customs that are not lawful for us who are good, respectable Romans, to observe. And so, at one and the same time as the disciples encounter this young slave girl and they set her free, they are now being placed square in the crosshairs. This brings the ire of the mob and the authorities have them severely beaten with rods and then they have them locked in stocks, which were likely wooden boards that would restrain their ankles.
Speaker 1:And here we see as we embrace the power of the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God upends assumptions of economies and empires. Being led by the Spirit of God does not mean that we will all find ourselves in direct conflict with authorities and customs, but it does mean that we will not find ourselves easily aligned or accommodated by the assumptions of our culture. This is hard because it means that we don't get to easily aligned or accommodated by the assumptions of our culture. This is hard because it means that we don't get to simply go with the flow. Do you understand that if the earliest Christians would have just consigned themselves to a privatized little faith with a practice in secret, they would have been fine. Nobody would have batted an eye at their existence, they would have been fine, nobody would have batted an eye at their existence. But they recognized that the claim that had changed their lives was not a set of beliefs, it was a fact and that that was a public fact and that they had to proclaim that fact in public. And that claim that Jesus is Lord also carried the subtle intonation that Caesar is not and that brought them into direct conflict with the powers that be. And so they suffered. And when we see the Spirit of God, we see that we are not easily accommodated to the assumptions of our world, that we are brought into the light, that there are dark forces in the world, and this all prepares us to do things in the Jesus way, which means that we are prepared to suffer with Him.
Speaker 1:Paul will write later to the Philippian church in Philippians, chapter 3. Paul has been creating this kind of unbalanced equation. He's saying I could have gone all of these different ways, I could have gained all these things, but none of them compare to the greatness of knowing the majesty, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, he says in Philippians, chapter 3,. Writing to this church that is being birthed right here, at Acts 16, later on he's writing to them to encourage them. He says more than that I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and I regard them all as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. And then he says Ecclesiastes, I invite you to make this your prayer, because, as I sort of fumble in my own following of Jesus, this is what I'm after. This is my ambition, he says. I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the sharing of His sufferings by becoming like Him in His death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Paul's ambition was no matter what the cost, I want Jesus because he's better. And if you were to ask Mark and Lyra, why? Why go from a place that you know, why go from a sunny, warm climate? Mark's from Melbourne, australia, which is like top-notch climate was why go from there? Because Jesus is worth it. He's better.
Speaker 1:About midnight, back to Acts 16, paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaking, and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's chains were unfastened. When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted in a loud voice Do not harm yourself, for we are all here. The jailer called for lights and, rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them outside and said Sirs, what must I do to be saved? They answered Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household. They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house At the same hour of the night verse 33,. He took them and washed their wounds. Then he and his entire family were baptized. Without delay. He brought them up into the house and set food before them.
Speaker 1:The story tells us that, though Paul and Silas have open wounds and are locked in very painful stocks, that about midnight, probably because they can't sleep, because they're so miserably uncomfortable, they're praying and singing hymns to God that, living out of the power of the Spirit, reorients our circumstances in such a powerful way that that is their primary orientation. And it's no small detail to me that the prisoners are listening Like I don't know what your assumptions are about prison culture, but the fact they're not yelling at these guys shut up Like it's midnight. Stop singing. But something about the power of these disciples' witnesses causes all of the prison that is awake to pay attention. Suddenly an earthquake erupts that opens all the prison doors and unfashions the chains.
Speaker 1:The jailer, who presumably lives close by, sees what's happened. He runs to the jail and, upon seeing all the doors open, he draws a sword to kill himself because in the Roman equation they are his responsibility. If they were to escape, he would be responsible. But in a loud voice, paul screams to this man Do not harm yourself. We are all here. This announcement is gospel message to the jailer. He falls down at the feet of Paul and Silas, asking what must I do to be saved? Paul and Silas tell him the same that is true for each of us Simply believe that Jesus is Lord and you will be saved, you and all your household. The jailer then takes these prisoners to his house, washes their wounds sets a table before them.
Speaker 1:This night that starts in condemnation for Paul and Silas, ends in communion between Paul, silas the jailer and his entire household. The power of God is present throughout. I don't know how Paul and Silas the jailer and his entire household the power of God is present throughout. I don't know how Paul and Silas knew that the literal shaking of the ground and the unhinging of the doors and the unleashing of their chains was not heaven's invitation for them to get up and run out of the prison. I mean, like the doors are open. I'd be like, yes, lord, thank you. I mean in Acts 12, peter has a very similar experience. An angel comes to get to him'd be like, yes, lord, thank you. I mean in Acts 12, peter has a very similar experience. An angel comes and gets him and just says, hey, come on. But somehow, because of their sensitivity to what God is doing, they know that the call is not to leave but to stay and in staying a whole household is liberated and set free. So something about their paying attention to God. Even in the midst of their suffering and their circumstances, they see that God is doing something beyond their immediate awareness and they stay, and they go and they proclaim the good news to this Gentile. Perhaps this was the man from Paul's vision. We're not told Come over here and help us. We see this beginning of a gospel movement in Europe. I'm going to invite our worship team forward as we transition.
Speaker 1:I remember this passage to me. I hold so dearly. My youngest son is named Silas and named for his namesake here in Acts 16 and elsewhere, and I remember praying over this passage when our son Silas was born. After he was born, they did a preliminary genetic screening Apparently, it was just run in the middle in the state of Pennsylvania. All of our other children were born in New Jersey. Silas had to be born in Philadelphia, which he will not let us forget.
Speaker 1:We got a call late on a Friday night that genetic screening had revealed that Silas had a genetic anomaly consistent with Hurler's disease. Silas was in the NICU due to some complications with his breathing and it was the very early stages of COVID. So he's in the NICU. We can't stay with him. Only one parent can go per day. We can't trade out. So we're just kind of in this place already.
Speaker 1:It's not awesome, you know, recognizing our circumstances, but then we get this call and it's devastating. I know all of our symptoms. When we Google them will suggest that the prognosis is death. I understand that. But the Googling of this disease that I'd never heard of and the symptoms consigned him to a very short and very pain-filled life. And of course, as it goes, you get this kind of phone call and you're just kind of left in this uncertainty and unknowing.
Speaker 1:And so I'm holding on to Acts 16 and Courtney's holding on to it, and we're just praying, lord, like Silas. Lord, would you release him? Lord, would he be a man who's lifted out of his chains, lord, in order to proclaim your name, to serve the church? And we're just holding on to this. Again, it's an extrapolation of the promise that's there. It's not the direct line, but we're just saying Lord, come on. And then a few days later our doctor calls a little bit more bedside manner the doctor we have chosen for our kids and he says I've never seen anything like this. He said these tests are never falsely positive and whatever transpired whether Silas was healed by the power of the Spirit of God or he was always well and it was just a false positive we don't know. But what we do know, courtney and I is that we experience the power of God in turning towards him.
Speaker 1:Now, ecclesia, I tell you this story not to say, hey, look at our faith, like, look, there are times where we do it well. There are more times where I look back and I say, lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. I'm not telling you that if you pray the right things or have the right posture, that God's going to make it all work out in the way that you want it to. I tell you that story because it's simply a testimony of God's power from my own life. God's power comforting us in our suffering, bringing us to cry out to Him that even in the midst of our circumstances, lord, even though this is where we are, we will find a way to lift our voices in praise and prayer to you, to remind us that worship is not cognitive dissonance, it's not denying the facts of the world.
Speaker 1:Even in the face of great sorrow and trial, god's power to work miracles and, as we see in Acts, god's power is present, is operating and, as we know from our experience in the world, he doesn't open every heart that we decide like I'm going to tell you about Jesus. Not everybody is like Lydia, whose heart has been prepared beforehand. He does not open every prison door and free every dear one still mired in slavery, but he has called us, as His people, to be ambassadors of this good news, to be expected that we will not only have the form of godliness, but we will have its power, and that we live by the power that is both gentle and causes the foundations of the earth to tremble. And that when Jesus tells us that he will be with us even to the end of the age, he has already embodied that by going down to the depths of the grave, by conquering our sin by his blood, and that he offers that to each one of us, his power as our life force, as our sustaining life here today. He loves you and His power is simply an expression of that love of making all things new. And though not everything may be healed, and though not everything may be healed in the instant that we want it to, all will be healed, all will be well Because Jesus is risen.
Speaker 1:Let's pray together. We pray. Come, holy Spirit, welcome God. Would you have your way in this room, jesus? God, we believe that even now, angels are walking the rose, god, that your presence is here, lord Jesus, to heal, to minister, to tell us the truth, god, to absolve us of the lies of shame, god, the lies that tell us that we cannot draw near to you, god, the lies of mediocrity and lowered expectations. Lord, lord, your power is not just for far-flung places, your power is not just for previous times in history. You are wanting to pour your Spirit out in us and through us, god, and so make us willing, lord, make us expectant, jesus, that we would be a sign and a wonder of your presence.
Speaker 1:God, lord, I want to pray for those who are in our midst, god, who have never taken a single step with you, god, that you would bring the question to the top of their mind what must I do to be saved? And that we would offer that same answer Simply believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. That same gospel invitation that has stood the test of time stands here today, lord. We have nothing that we have to offer you on our own. We simply say yes to you, god.
Speaker 1:I want to pray for those, god, who need this fire, god exhortation, lord, who need to be brought back to their first love, to be shaken awake, lord, jesus, that you would do it in our midst, god. Lord, would you overcome cynicism, god, charges of emotivism, god, anything that would stand in the way of us saying yes to you and us being expected that you want to do more than we can ask or imagine here in Princeton and beyond? Lord Jesus, or would you revive us again, god? I pray that we would have power to suffer, lord, as whatever cultural winds blow. God, that you would give us courage to stand with the least and the lost.
Speaker 1:Lord Jesus, that we would be an ambassador of your kingdom, god, your kingdom that promises us that the last will be first, your kingdom that is comprised of people from every tongue, every tribe, every nation, that transcends borders. God, we are your people, citizens of heaven. Lord Jesus, we declare our allegiance to you today. Lord, give us courage. We pray and we ask all these things in the name of Jesus, the Messiah. We pray these things expectantly. We say together amen.