03 Nov Prayer For Our Nation

One of my favorite, if not my very favorite parables is the Parable of the Sower:

You know, the one where a man with a bag of seeds scatters his seed across different kinds of soil. There’s the rocky soil, the shallow soil, of course there is the good soil, but there is one more, and it’s the one that Jesus goes into great length describing in Matthew 13, and that is the thorny soil. Check out what he says in verse 22:

The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful.

I love how Jesus just acknowledges that there is, in fact, more than one way to worry about life!

He knows our frame, as it were, and empathizes with us. Aren’t you glad for that kind of Savior?

But in the midst of his empathy, he exhorts us to something greater—to not allow the worries of this life to choke the seed, which he defines as the message of his Kingdom:

The truth that He is God and rules and reigns and that He has come into the world, and because of that, we can take heart and stand STRONG.

He empathizes, and then he exhorts: Yes, it’s easy to get worried. But when you allow your worries to seem greater than the Word, you’re in danger.

Don’t allow the Word, the seed, the eternal Kingdom truth of God’s great reign, to be choked and obscured by today’s worry.

I know for many people, our upcoming election is a source of worry, and to a certain extent, it is understandable—but understandable is different than profitable. Are your worries profitable? I’m pretty sure mine aren’t. They ruin my day and strain my relationships and in general, make me feel pretty terrible, no matter how warranted and founded they seem.

Before I go any further, I do want to say that I am extremely proud of this church for, overall, how we have handled this election season. Despite all the media rhetoric and external pressure to paint people of a different political light as evil and demonic, we have, overall, handled this well as followers of Jesus. And by the way, in a multiethnic church, learning how to handle this kind of thing well just comes with the territory. If you are wanting to be in a place where everyone looks and thinks and votes like you—this isn’t the church for you.

But if you are wanting to be in a place where you can not only be challenged to grow, but be challenged to love more deeply, than this is the right place for you. Jesus said the world would know we are his, not when we vote the same, not when we look the same, but when we love one another. And love really looks like love when it is least deserved.

What’s going to fill in the gap in our nation? God’s word says love covers a multitude of sins.

What’s going to fill in gap in your relationships? You’ve got to pick a priority. Is it being around everyone looking the same and liking the same stuff and feeling understood all the way down to the bottom?

That doesn’t even totally happen in my marriage, as amazing as my wife is and as much as in love as we are—and we are. 🙂

Would going back to our own ethnic silos help to repair our nation? I don’t think it would.

Love means, like in a marriage, I am committed to you, no matter what.

And I, and Mosaic Church, and our leaders and our staff, and I hope you too, are committed to that kind of love and that kind of vision—the vision that realizes that no matter who wins, who loses and who gains political power—

The greatest of these is love. And against such a thing, there is no law, no candidate, no party, no news article, no political scandal, no thing that can separate us.

And so I want to invite you to pray with me this Friday morning, if you are able to make it from 7-8 am in Elevate. If you are unable to come, please consider marking off that hour, or the one before it, for prayer for our nation. I know many of you have work during that time or children who have needs or school. But come if you are able!

Come and pray, and do what Paul, in I Timothy exhorts us to do—to lift up holy hands in prayer, and to pray for those in leadership and government.

We’ll supply the coffee and the music and some live worship to get us going. We just need to you to provide the prayer and faith.

Let’s allow the word of God to be fruitful in our lives, which the New Testament says later looks like things like joy, and peace and patience.

May these things be ours, in Jesus’ name.

Morgan