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Ecclesia Princeton
Ecclesia Princeton
Romans [Season Two]- Ian Graham- Romans 13vv1-14: Subjecting Government To Christ
Pastor Ian Graham looks at Paul's instructions to "be subject to the governing authorities" and when it's time for Christians to disobey in love.
Good morning, ecclesia. It's good to see you. Those of you who are new here welcome. We're so glad to see you. Those of you who are here every week or every other week or every once in a while, it's really good to see you too. What an honor to worship Jesus together.
Speaker 1:Paul writes in Romans 13,. Just an easy one, right, right? What does it look like to live in regards to what we, as modern people, call the state? How do we, as a people, bear witness to King Jesus in the midst of other kingdoms vying for our allegiance?
Speaker 1:It's important for us to remember the differences in civics that exist between our own representative democracy and that of the Roman imperial world. We have to talk about this often because it's important for us to get in step with the world of the biblical authors. I remind you of this frequently because it is so imperative. When we read the scriptures, we are reading words from people that spoke in different languages, that had different cultural assumptions, different cultural locations, and we are trying to, in order to hear God, first, get in step with the ways that they are speaking. Paul, obviously, is writing within the context of the Roman Empire, to the center of Roman authority, that being the church at Rome, these Christians would have been familiar with several of the claims of Rome. I'm going to look at three today. That it just so happens that throughout the story of the scriptures the people of God would speak of what God was doing in the world in light of these terms. But also the Roman Empire would speak of what they were doing in the world in light of these terms.
Speaker 1:The first the Pax Romana. The Pax Romana, that Rome had given the world the gift of peace. It came gift-wrapped with brutality, might, taxation and colonization, both physical and figurative, but nonetheless Rome just says to the world we've given you peace, you're welcome. The second the gospel. Euangelion is the word that the New Testament translates good news, gospel. This also comes from the prophet Isaiah, especially in Isaiah, chapter 40 through 55. The gospel of Caesar that the gods had appointed the current Caesar as their emissary in the world and in some parts of the empire. This wasn't true throughout all of the empire, but in some parts of the empire Caesar wasn't just designated by the gods as the appointed ruler, he was divine himself. This is especially true in the eastern quadrants of the Roman Empire and here in the midst of these contested places Pax, euangelion, gospel and I put through the fourth one in there just for fun, because our name is Ecclesia.
Speaker 1:The earliest Christians identified their assembly, their gathering, their Sunday morning, their expression of that, as the Ecclesia, the called out ones of God. And here are the Christians, in the midst of these contested terms, claiming that the resurrected Christ has given an eternal and borderless peace that is both systemic and personal. That his peace that he gives to us comes not through conquering, not through shedding the blood of his enemies and the anxious maintenance of sustaining a tenuous empire, but through allowing himself to be conquered and pouring out his spirit as the first fruits of a kingdom that will never end and creating a new humanity bound together by the blood of Christ. That, the gospel that the Christians claim, is indeed about the ascension of a king to a throne. But the scale of this king's kingdom and his throne makes Rome look like a little child walking throughout the house announcing to everybody who would listen that I am a king. Jesus' kingdom is just patronizing. Patting them on the head Sure you are. Jesus demands total allegiance heart, soul, mind and strength. Thus the earliest Christians cannot participate in the civic worship of the emperor as divine. The Pax Romana and the Pax Christus, the gospel of Caesar and the gospel of Jesus, the worship of the empire and the worship of the kingdom. These three broader areas show how contested the claims of the people of Jesus were in the face of the stories Rome told about itself. And it's within that contested context that Paul gives those instructions that we started with. Let's read them again Romans 13, verse 1. Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. Now, what is Paul doing here? Because we have so many questions that should be cropping up Now.
Speaker 1:In Paul's day, there was no small amount of revolutionary fervor that often would rise up among the people, one of the key historic streams feeding the necessity of the letter to the Roman church. You have to understand again, just as we're talking about a different cultural world, paul takes to writing this letter because there are things that are happening in the church that he wants to address. Paul didn't wake up one day in prison and say I'm going to write scripture to the church in Rome. Paul is hearing about what is plaguing the Christians at Rome. He's hearing about what is going on in their life together and he's saying I need to write them a letter and I'm going to have one of my emissaries deliver it and recite it out loud. Again, these letters were read as total holes to the church. Likely, this letter, the letter to the church at Rome, was read by Phoebe. The first words, the first people to speak the words to the Roman church, a woman that's pretty beautiful.
Speaker 1:But Paul undertakes to write this letter and one of the key historic streams feeding the necessity of the letter to the Roman church was the expulsion of the Jewish people from the city of Rome by the emperor Claudius and their subsequent return to the city following his death sometime in around 54 AD. Returned to the city following his death sometime in around 54 AD. Now it is likely that Claudius deported all of the Jewish people, citizens and non-citizens alike, due to what the Roman historian Suetonius called the Crestus Affair. This was some sort of civil disturbance and many historians believe that Crestus is just a misspelling of Christus, that really this was about Jesus. It was an intramural dispute between ethnically Jewish people and Jewish Christians and Gentiles that were in their wake and that something happened and Claudius was like I can't deal with all this. You guys got to get out of the city. And so the Roman church for a while was almost predominantly Gentile. And then, following Claudius's death in 54 AD, now we have Jewish Christians returning to the church and we have this complexity. These people are having to figure out how to live together all over again. Revolutionary fervor would often rise up among the people, and we'll see this in its starkest form thousands of miles away in Jerusalem, a mere decade and a half later, in about 70 AD, when Jewish factions will revolt against Caesar's rule and will be completely obliterated, temple destroyed, as Josephus records Pastorally.
Speaker 1:It seems that Paul here in Romans, chapter 13, is saying to this specific church, at this specific time and place you can hate what is evil and love what is good. You can trust vengeance to the Lord, but revolution is not the way of the kingdom. Paul's instructions in Romans 12 echo the vision given to the exiles in Babylon, given by the prophet Jeremiah In Jeremiah 29,. Jeremiah, quoting the Lord, says this Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I've sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. Build houses and live in them, plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters. Take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage that they may bear sons and daughters. Multiply there and do not decrease, but seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray to the lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare, for surely I know the plans I have for you, says welfare. You will find your welfare, for surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. Plans for your welfare and not for your harm, to give you a future and a hope. It seems that Paul is telling this Roman church how to exist in exile. 1 Peter will address the Christians as exiles, as wanderers, as pilgrims. And so first we start with Paul's very specific pastoral point.
Speaker 1:But as we've been talking, romans 13 raises some questions, doesn't it? Why does God allow evil rulers to come to power in the first place, and what are we to do about it? Romans 13, verse 1, tells us plainly that the ruling authorities have been instituted by God. Paul writes this book most likely during the reign of the emperor Nero. Now I don't know what you know about Nero, famously upright and integrous human being. No, that's not at all what's going on, right, nero? If you're unfamiliar historically, there was a massive fire that likely he started in the city of Rome that he then blamed on the Christians. He would use Christians as torches for his dinner parties while he dressed as a woman and reveled.
Speaker 1:And it's within the context of this kind of leader, in the context of this kind of government, that Paul is saying that all authority has been instituted by God. That's really the kind of leader that God is appointing. We couldn't find anyone else. The Greek word for authorities is the word exousia, which is often used to generalize about the office of authority. Jesus uses this word upon his resurrection as he institutes the great commission. All authority, all exousia has been given to me in Matthew 28. Notice, paul does not say let every person be subject to Nero specifically.
Speaker 1:Sure, the Old Testament gives us a little warrant for the way that God guides the rise and fall of individual rulers. If you read in the book of Daniel Nebuchadnezzar, you read in the book of Isaiah, the Persian king, cyrus, but it does not necessarily follow that God is drafting every earthly king, ruler, governor, to their appointed position. That's not what Romans is saying here to their appointed position. That's not what Romans is saying here. And we do well not to just play the scoreboard and determine that because a ruler is in power, that they are ordained by God. Just because a ruler rises to power, whether they take it by force or are voted into office, does not demand theologically that God chose that person.
Speaker 1:The book of Revelation takes a quite different vantage point of the Roman Empire itself, that the Roman imperial power has become a beast that is seeking to devour the faithful Christian believers. And, as Revelation reminds us, they overcome the pretensions of the beast and its delusions by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony. What is clear here in Romans 13 is that God has ordained government, with all of its flaws, to curb chaos and promote flourishing. According to verses 4 and 5, earthly governments have been entrusted with the sword as extensions of the wrath of God. These institutions are to be stewards, caretakers of truth and justice, and according to Paul, this exercising of truth and justice is possible and available even to an idolatrous regime like the Roman Empire. It's a stunning claim. The presence of the sword here does not legitimize capital punishment or state-sponsored killing, but merely serves as a condensed symbol for the policing powers of Rome. Specifically, esau Macaulay, in his book Reading While Black, demonstrates how the Roman soldiers, especially within the capital city itself, served as the police force in Rome. They were the bearers of the sword.
Speaker 1:And the point that Paul is making here is that government is instituted by God as a good. It has that potential, Just as individuals are called to reflect God's goodness in the world. We have that potential, but we can also choose to go ways that are out of step with God's designs. It is a good thing for citizens when those who seek to do harm, to kill, to steal and otherwise are curbed by punishment from the state. Christians have had a profound impact in the world on the treatment of prisoners, on acknowledging that even those who have committed vicious crimes still in some way, though it be marred, bear the image of God and are called to that vocation. There's much to be done in this area, but Paul is making this broader statement, that government itself in all of its different forms and again we're talking, we're sort of straddling two lines here we have the imperial version of government, we are speaking from the location of a representative democracy. The government can be good and should be good, but just as this responsibility can be submitted to the authority of Christ, so also this authority can be abused or exploited.
Speaker 1:Paul writes in verse 3, for rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority, then do what is good and you will receive its approval. This sounds like a proverb. The only problem with this statement is that it is decidedly not true. It is not true in Paul's life, it is not true in Jesus's life. So what are we going to do then? Do we just dismiss Paul? There's a new stream in biblical theology that just anytime Paul says something they disagree with, they're just like oh, paul didn't know what he was talking about, he's misguided. It's like well, okay, that doesn't seem like the answer.
Speaker 1:No again, we see here Paul's specific pastoral instructions to the specific situation in the Roman church. Paul is not saying that for all of time, everywhere, that those who are doing good will not encounter terror in the face of their good conduct, or that you'll receive endless endorsement from the government. That is clearly not true. He is saying that in this specific time and place in Rome, and broadly, this is the general way that things work His counsel is to live as exiles in this way. Doing this is an important thing for us to acknowledge because, as our black brothers and sisters can often attest, there is often fear in encounters with police, even though they've done nothing wrong, and we could see how a surface-level reading of Romans 13, though it would have all the markers of trying to be faithful, could be shallow and callous. When we receive the testimony of our brothers and sisters in Christ who are black, and the black population more broadly, we see there is often much fear in encounters with police because of the historic and systemic characterizations of those encounters. This doesn't mean that every police officer is bad or racist Far from it but it does put us into contact with what Paul will call the powers, a subject that we'll return to in a moment.
Speaker 1:Paul then directs the church to pay their taxes. Dang it, we couldn't have gotten away with that one. It's like sorry America. I conscientiously object to paying my taxes. People have tried this. In the 1960s, a group of Quakers lobbied Congress to have their taxes directed towards non-military spending. This has evolved into an unenshrined bill that sits on the desk of Congress, called the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund, where conscientious citizens could direct their taxes towards non-military uses. Again, great, I think this is a nice idea. But it's kind of naive.
Speaker 1:Paul tells the Roman church, with all of the compromises of the Roman empire, hey, pay your taxes Again. Paul was not blind to the excesses of the Roman government, their brutality in doing things like crucifying his lord and savior, their idolatry, demanding the emperor be worshipped, the inequality that was rampant throughout the empire. But Paul doesn't overly concern himself with this because he recognizes that the authority that was rampant throughout the empire. But Paul doesn't overly concern himself with this because he recognizes that the authority that the state exercises is a derived authority, it is not the ultimate, and that to be a Christian in the world that has been saved by God but not yet fully consummated, is to live in a complex world, is to live in a complex world. We in our culture are obsessed with this idea of being on the right side of history and we can try to absolve ourselves of any entanglements and compromise, and yet we find that we stand on ethically and morally perilous ground.
Speaker 1:Nonetheless, this doesn't breathe in us a cynicism. It doesn't cause us to throw up our hands and say what can be done, but it does put us in touch, first of all, with our need for confession. Throughout most of Canada, assemblies, even some church services, begin with an acknowledgement of the land, the historic indigenous citizens of the land. Here in New Jersey we are on the grounds that are historically home of the Lenape people. Now you may roll your eyes and say this is just progressive mumbo jumbo, but I think it's often the closest Western culture gets to confession. The story didn't start with us. There are chapters that are, quite frankly, really ugly and there's not a lot we can do about it. And it's on this morally compromised ground that we stand and we acknowledge that we have this allergy to just telling the truth about our history so often and that's corporate, that's personal One of the things that our interactions with government bring us into is just this fraught place of what it means to be human. None of us is righteous, none of us stands on our own accord, and yet God holds us up by his grace. It also puts us in touch with our limits. What most of us don't do is direct the state budget, but what we can do is follow Romans 13, verses 8 through 12 in Romans 12.
Speaker 1:Read Romans 12 on your own time. I'll read Romans 13 for you now, owe, no one, anything except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet, and any other commandment are summed up in this word you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. We can do that now, ecclesia.
Speaker 1:What that doesn't do is overly personalize what the gospel is bringing forth in us. No, it means we listen to the testimony of our neighbor. So when our neighbor says, yes, there is fear when I encounter the police because of the color of my skin, we don't have to say well, well, well like, if you do good, then only good will come. No, we as the people of God, can say tell me more about that. As Romans 12 reminds us weep with those who weep. Hate what is evil. Love what is good, neighbor. Love is the politic that Jesus invites us into, and it is an effective politic that doesn't overly individualize our response to the grace that is poured out but instead multiplies exponentially and turns us into the movement, the people of God, that he has called us to be. Okay, so some wisdom. How do we embody Romans 13 in our own politically fraught times?
Speaker 1:First, we subject government and put it in its proper place. The word used for b subject is the greek compound word, hupotasso comes from hupa, which means under, and tasso, which means to bring about an order of things by arranging them, putting them in their place. How many of you are just incredibly type A and you just like things to be really organized? Thank you, thank you, we need you, thank you. I don't know if type B is a thing, but here I am type B, organized, order things in their right place. We have a staff full of people that are incredibly organized, and there's good reasons for that. When I go in that closet, if I were managing the storage of Ecclesia, it'd be like those cartoons where they just have to shove things in there and stuff like bowling balls roll out. Why is there a bowling ball in there? Nobody knows things in there and stuff like bowling balls roll out. Why is there a bowling ball in there? Nobody knows, but when you go in there. It's order. God creates order.
Speaker 1:The image of a filing system is a useful one that the authority of government has been filed in a certain place by God, who is the sovereign and absolute authority. He is the one who stands outside of the filing cabinet putting everything in its right place. And if we talk of a filing system, that government has a proper file that has been assigned. And we talk that every expression of government has been designed with certain places, certain limits, we entrust that God will exercise his authority and his judgment upon those that bear the sword and the scriptures talk often of this that the Lord is sovereign, that he will call the nations to bear, that he will call rulers to bear, that he will call teachers and leaders to bear upon his judgment. That, just as we have been called to lead, we have been warned and told over and over again that we will face a severe judgment from God because of the responsibility that we carry and that exists at all different levels.
Speaker 1:And one of the things I find so sad in my life, in my own personal relationships, is the way that so many Christians have allowed the filing system that God has created just to overflow. It is just completely in disarray. I have so many friends and colleagues, left and right alike, that have allowed the government file to completely overrun the entire filing cabinet. I mean, the thing is overflowing with scrawlings of conspiracy theories. Our hypercharged media enables this to completely subsume our lives, and much of the idolatry and deception that is wrapped up in the American political system comes from the way that Christians have placed so much more emphasis on their chosen political perspectives than that of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:I've been saddened to watch, dear friends and colleagues and I say this with no superiority complex, I say this with no judgment, but as I've watched friends of mine who are wise, kind and thoughtful essentially become left-wing mouthpieces, hold that thought I've been saddened to interact with people who have been a part of my life, churches that were deeply formative for me, who just rattle off right-wing talking points and it's almost as if you know what they're going to say by their chosen political posture. It's like oh, what do you think about this? Actually, I kind of already know, because I heard it on. You know, insert name here. I say this again, not for Christians to. Okay, let's find the middle. Perfect, it's comfortable here, this is great. Now we can just stand in judgment of both sides. This is awesome. You're welcome. That's what we're here for.
Speaker 1:No, it's because there are things that on the left that are kingdom-oriented and righteous, but not everything, and there are things on the right that are kingdom-oriented and righteous, but neither comprises the whole of the kingdom vision, and both sides are hopelessly compromised, because you cannot have the kingdom of Jesus without the king, which means that, as Christians, when we make choices in the political realm which we are called to make to exercise wisdom and authority, we should not be trying to justify them endlessly, to entrench ourselves in them, to wrap our whole identity up in our chosen political perspective. Again, the pastoral wisdom I've been counseling for some months now is make a decision and move on, or take in new information and say you know what, maybe I was wrong about that? Heaven forbid, because there's ambiguity, there's complexity wrapped up in each choice. When we subject ourselves to government that is properly subjected to Christ, we acknowledge both our own limits, in that God has not given us all the agency in the world, all the information in the world, and we acknowledge the limits of government itself. We bear witness that the government, no matter how totalitarian in its claims, cannot claim our heart, our soul, our mind, our strength or what the New Testament calls our allegiance. And so we put government back in its proper place. It is not everything. And second, we have to discern.
Speaker 1:I mentioned the powers earlier. Elsewhere, in Ephesians, chapter 6, paul speaks of powers that are behind the power. He says this, beginning in verse 10, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Paul recognized that Claudius or Nero were not his enemies, just as Jesus recognized that Caiaphas and Pilate were not his. And you can insert American political figure that you despise into the Senate here. They are not your enemy. There are powers that asise and descendants here they are not your enemy. There are powers that, as Romans 11 reminds us, these powers are from God, they are through God and to God, that exist in the world. These powers are not specific individuals, but are always embodied in human agents. These powers can be individual people or institutions, like governments, or constructs, like race, and these powers have all one and the same, been disarmed by Jesus on the cross.
Speaker 1:Look at Colossians, chapter 2, one of my favorite texts. God made you alive together with him when he forgave us all our trespasses. Amen, forgiveness, individual grace, beautiful, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. Praise the Lord, he's paid our debt. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. Look what he does next. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them triumphing over them. I love that Paul mentions a public example because it gives me an excuse to mention that the Oklahoma City Thunder won the NBA championship this past Sunday. Jesus is parading his defeat of these powers. He's just saying look. And Paul says elsewhere in Corinthians if the powers that be would have known what Jesus was up to, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory, that Jesus was doing the deeper magic that CS Lewis talks about, that Jesus has so thoroughly disarmed them that, though we wrestle with them, as Paul says, they have no last word in the face of what Jesus has done.
Speaker 1:Paul's response to this, taking Romans 12, 13, and Ephesians 6 together, is that we are to wrestle with these powers. It is not a new story that we live out as Christians in a perilous and complex age. It is our tradition. We receive this inheritance. We receive this baton the book of Hebrews talks about we run this race fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, and there are multitudes of people that have faithfully lived this out. Some we know their names, some we will not know until the other side of glory. They're cheering you on and saying don't give in. Don't give in to these small stories. You've been given the true story of the entire world, but we struggle against them, not in our own strength. Paul says there's armor. You should put it on.
Speaker 1:We wrestle with the powers by fulfilling the law in love. We wrestle with the powers through intercessory prayer. We wrestle with the powers by fulfilling the law in love. We wrestle with the powers through intercessory prayer. We wrestle with the powers by electing leaders who have integrity and courage. We wrestle with the powers by being youth baseball coaches, mentors, by being artists, by visiting prisoners and sharing life with them, by serving the undocumented in our midst, by bearing witness to life in the womb, by coming to the table of Jesus from every socioeconomic, ethnic, cultural background, receiving His grace, by lamenting what is broken and sad in this world and crying out with all of creation. How long, joining with creation in its groans and travails, anxiously awaiting for the sons and daughters of God to be revealed and for creation to be made new.
Speaker 1:Be subject to the ruling authorities is simply one way that we bear witness to the limits of the ruling authorities. And there comes a point where we must conscientiously object and dissent, because we are bearing witness to a higher authority, to a higher law. Martin luther king jr and the southern christian leadership conference bear witness to this authority with bus boycotts and sit-ins because they acknowledge the ruling authorities and laws of this land were an unjust. Dj bonhoeffer convenes a seminary at Finkenwald to bear witness to the injustice of Hitler and his regime and to raise up a generation of preachers who will tell the truth in the face of deception. William Wilberforce and the Clapham sect prayed and financed the overhaul of chattel slavery in England because they realized the extent to which the slave trade was an idolatrous capitulation to mammon and a complete denial of the Christian faith. Frederick Douglass ran away from his legal owners because no man or no woman should be owned.
Speaker 1:Perpetua and Felicitas, scrolling way back to church history, refused to capitulate to the imperial ideology and bore witness at the cost of their lives. John and Peter, arrested by the governing authorities, said hey, do what you want to us, but we cannot stop speaking in this name. It's both Paul and Peter telling us to be subject to the governing authorities to honor the emperor that ultimately, will be executed by that same imperial system, because they held on to a better hope, a citizenship in a country without end, a city whose foundations are unshakable. And Jesus? Jesus told Pilate you would have no power if it were not given to you from above. Jesus told the high priest he would see the Son of man riding in power on the clouds. Jesus told the soldiers who came to arrest him I am he, ego and me. And though he constantly and rightfully protested, you arrest me and yet you bring no charge against me. He willingly went to the cross to confront and unmask all the pretensions of the powers, all powers of government, of religion, of systemic oppression and, ultimately, the powers of sin and death themselves. He submitted himself to them and overthrew them, and we can take heart because he has overcome the world in his life, his death, his resurrection.
Speaker 1:I'm going to invite the worship team forward as we transition to a time of response. Ecclesia, ecclesia. This victory that is Christ is then given to us as the gift of what the scriptures call grace. And it works itself out in a couple different ways and we've sort of talked along two vantage points and I want to just name them as we respond to God's presence here in our midst. First of all, there is the corporate peace, the Pax Christus, the Shalom, the first word that Jesus speaks to his disciples when he appears to them upon his resurrection. Peace, my peace, I give to you, my peace I leave with you. I do not give as the world gives.
Speaker 1:And that peace is not just a nice inner feeling for us, it is the cosmic writing of all things. It is all things that are created from, through and to Jesus Christ, recognizing their true Lord and sovereign. And when that happens, we see the image in Revelation 21 and 22. Sin and death are no more. God wipes every tear from our eyes. There is no more pain, there is no more distance between us that is misunderstanding, miscommunication, but love is truly the distance that is between us. And so we pray in the midst of this longing, we pray that God will bring his peace into our midst and that we can be agents of that peace.
Speaker 1:That is the corporate, collective side of this peace, and we both long for it and we work for it. But there's another side to this. That is the beauty of Jesus's gospel. It's not just something that is about us collectively, it is something about us individually, that we all stand before God as the unique person throughout all the history of the world, throughout all the eight billion people that exist in the world right now. You are singular, and that may sound aggrandizing, that may sound like you're making too much of yourself, but I assure you that is much less than God makes of you, and he is calling you to himself and he's saying my peace, I give to you my peace, I leave with you.
Speaker 1:And so this is the invitation, both for us as the people of God, to endeavor to be this kind of people of peace, by the power of his spirit, to say yes, lord, come, we want you here. But then say individually Jesus, I need you. In the midst of these anxious moments that I live, in the midst of my powerlessness in the face of what I am facing, in the midst of the sin that is so readily before me, god, I need you and the beauty of Jesus. As we're talking about ruling authorities and sovereign, he's a good king, as Tolkien reminds us, the hands of a king are the hands of a healer, and this is what he comes to do to heal and restore, to make all things new. We pray, come Holy Spirit, lord Jesus, we focus our attention on your healing hands and I can see where you are. I just invite you to just form an image of Jesus stretched out on the cross. His hands are pierced through with nails, they are wounded, but, as Isaiah reminds us, by his wounds we are healed.
Speaker 1:And with that vision just sitting in your mind if it's more of the corporate vantage point that you are sort of sitting with and wrestling with, how is the world as it is? How are there so many people that lack integrity or courage or truthfulness Wielding the levers of power? I ask, just allow the Spirit of God to rise up, a lament in you. The Spirit groans with sighs that are too deep for words, sighs that are too deep for words. And that same groaning meets us in our individual stories and lives, the places we often come to dead ends. Again and again we feel powerless. Again and again we find this profound need for grace, and it's not just one time, it's not just a few times, it is every day of our lives and Christ Jesus have mercy upon me, you sinner.
Speaker 1:We believe the Holy Spirit is here, that Christ's resurrection is not just a nice idea, a nice story that we tell ourselves, but that he truly poured out his spirit, that his presence is no less here with us than it was in the stories that we read in the scriptures, that he looks at us without turning away, that he invites us to touch the wounds in his hands so that we might believe that he speaks words of peace to us, that he speaks words that say I see you, I have you, and that he's doing that here in this place. And so I just invite you to listen. And so I just invite you to listen. I'm going to take just a moment in quiet before the worship team begins to sing. When they start to sing, you can stand and respond together, but I'm afraid on the team. If you guys would just give us a minute, when you're ready, just go into the song. It's a lot of the Holy Spirit just to have His way in this place. We pray come, holy Spirit.