1 Timothy 2:1-7
First of all, then, I urge that
supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for
kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and
peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.
This is right and is acceptable in the sight
of God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the
knowledge of the truth.
For there is one God; there is also one
mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave
himself a ransom for all--this was attested at the right time. For this I was
appointed a herald and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a
teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.
SUBJECT: A Prayer for Security
TEXT: Psalm 72
INTRODUCTION:
Paul's
first letter to Timothy continues with an exhortation to pray. Paul is not
speaking of perfunctory prayer but of fervent prayer: supplications, prayers,
intercessions and thanksgivings for everyone. . Paul exhorted them to pray for
everyone, even the government that many experienced as oppressive. Paul's
reason for praying for the government is not grounded in civic sentimentality,
but rather in the need for peace so that the gospel might spread without
hindrance. The Early Church Fathers understood this well and defended the need
to pray for world leaders. Tertullian exhorted his audience to pray for
their enemies and to beg for blessings for their persecutors
(Apology 31.1-2).
The remaining verses contain a theology of
salvation, a reminder that Jesus came in the flesh, and another reminder that
God's salvation is for all -- Jews and gentiles alike (Galatians 3:28).
Chrysostom elaborated on Paul's instructions with these words: "Do not be
afraid to pray for the Gentiles. God himself wills it. Fear only to pray
against anyone. For that God does not will.”
Each year, it seems brings
some new national crisis.
John Kennedy was killed in Dallas.
We were already involved in the affairs of Viet Nam.
I saw that situation become a full-fledged war under Lyndon Johnson.
During the Johnson administration I saw the Civil Rights
movement change America
and the assassination of Dr. Martin
Luther King. Jr.
The Crosses are Burning on the Parsonage Lawn.
During this administration I saw the war against poverty
lost.
The Nixon Years
scarred America.
“Watergate”
became the code name of the loss of confidence in the Presidency of the United States of America as an
Institution.
Viet Nam
still raged and our bravest young men continued to die.
Jimmy Carter did
little to restore confidence in the presidency.
He could not get his programs enacted by the Congress and his inability
to get anything done further eroded the prestige of the nation’s highest
office. The
Iranian Hostage
situation painted a dismal picture of America under siege.
Ronald Reagan’s
very strength brought us into crises in world affairs and foreign policy. Out of this struggle has come the dismantling
of Communism throughout the world but every victory has been a crisis.
George Bush faced
his greatest crisis in the sands of the desert of Kuwait. War seemed imminent on Veteran’s Day, 1990.
What a mess!
The Exxon Valdez
dumped millions of gallons of oil in a pristine bay of Alaska.
Bill Clinton brought
both prosperity and humiliation to America. His intelligence and hubris brought economic
growth and the world’s ridicule.
George W Bush let
faulty intelligence and a personal agenda lead us into a way that, at best, was
a mistake. We face the greatest Crisis
in recent history in Afghanistan
and Iraq.
It remains to be seen what the result of this crisis will be. We are
at war with terror, whoever that is!
We are at war on many fronts.
Now
President Obama, is faced with war in Afghanistan, an economy nearing a fiscal cliff, natural
disaster in the Northeast US, and unemployment still at 7.9%. In
addition, there is the threat of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. Our president, our
country, and our community is in crisis!
We need a great president!
I am not qualified to sit in judgment of any of the presidents I have
mentioned--each one has had to survive their own crises. I am qualified, however, and authorized--even
called--to lead you to become involved in salvaging the confidence lost in the
presidency and our country.
I
call you to prayer! As Paul exhorts Timothy to pray for Ceasar, I
hope to persuade you to pray for the President of the United States and our
country believing that praying for him will make him a better president.
Reasons for failing to pray for the
president:
(1) A lack of concern for the
presence of God in our Government,
(2) An inability to express
to God what we really feel about the president.
(3) Divisive nature of our
two party system.
(4) Racism
I hope that we, by looking to
an ancient prayer for a King of Israel, will be able to voice our desires to
God for the nation and recognize that the success of our president must be
among our greatest desires.
The prayer I have chosen is
the seventy-second Psalm.
TEXT (Psalm 72) for the coronation of
Solomon
1 Give the king thy judgments, O God,
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and thy righteousness unto the king's son.
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2 He shall judge thy people with righteousness,
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and thy poor with judgment.
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3 The mountains shall bring peace to the people,
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and the little hills, by righteousness.
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4 He shall judge the poor of the people,
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he shall save the children of the needy,
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and shall break in pieces the oppressor.
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5 They shall fear thee as long as the sun and moon endure,
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throughout all generations.
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6 He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass:
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as showers that water the earth.
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7 In his days shall the righteous flourish;
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and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth.
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8 He shall have dominion also from sea to sea,
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and from the river unto the ends of the earth. Zech. 9.10
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9 They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him;
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and his enemies shall lick the dust.
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10 The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents:
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the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts.
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11 Yea, all kings shall fall down before him:
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all nations shall serve him.
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12 For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth;
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the poor also, and him that hath no helper.
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13 He shall spare the poor and needy,
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and shall save the souls of the needy.
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14 He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence:
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and precious shall their blood be in his sight.
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and to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba:
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prayer also shall be made for him continually;
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and
daily shall he be praised.
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16 There shall be a handful of corn in the earth
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upon the top of the mountains;
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the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon:
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and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth.
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17 His name shall endure for ever:
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his name shall be continued as long as the sun:
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and men shall be blessed in him:
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all nations shall call him blessed.
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18 Blessed be the LORD God, the God of Israel,
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who only doeth wondrous things.
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19 And blessed be his glorious name for ever:
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and let the whole earth be filled with his glory.
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Amen, and Amen.
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20 The prayers of David the
son of Jesse are ended.
This
Psalm may be the work of a poet who read it at the coronation, much as the poem
by Sandburg was read at the inauguration of John Kennedy in 1960. The poet has offered a prayer for the king
that states to the king as well as to God, the needs and the wishes of the
people. As we pray for our President, we
must pray in a way that will present our national and personal need, our
physical need. We must pray believing
that God can answer our prayer through the president. Let us pray for the security that America and its
President symbolizes to us and to the world.
I. PRAY THAT THE PRESIDENT WILL PROVIDE MORAL SECURITY, (v.1-4).
The king of Israel
was to the people both the symbol and
vehicle of God’s Justice, Righteousness, and peace. It is not surprising that the poet asks God
to give to the king of His divine justice and his righteousness so the people
will be judged fairly. To pray that the
leader will be just and compassionate is to pray that he will be an ideal king. It is a
prayer for moral security for the people.
Israel’s
prosperity and happiness depended upon the righteousness of her kings. Josiah’s reform in 621 B.C. was the beginning
of a period of prosperity.
The ideal president will be both the symbol and vehicle of
the righteous principles which assure the security of the people of America. Our president must be the symbol of moral
security and should bring to his office justice and compassion.
As we pray for the president, let us as God to give to him
of His divine justice and His divine compassion so that we may enjoy divine
peace in America!
Moral security will include equal opportunity for all Americans
regardless of race, creed, or social standing.
The black American looks to the president of a life of equal rights and
opportunity. The Jewish American looks
to the president for a life of freedom from fear. The poor American looks to the president for
a life of freedom from want. All America
looks to the president for moral security.
We must pray that the president will be enabled to provide that moral
security
II. PRAY THAT THE PRESIDENT WILL PROVIDE SOCIAL
SECURITY (VV 5-7)
The King of Israel was the government. The longer the king lived, the more stable
the social structure of Israel
became. The classes became more clearly
defined. The religious parties were
stabilized. A citizen of Israel felt
more secure in the reign that lasted.
The poet prayed for a long and beneficent reign for his king, “May he be
like the rain that falls on mown grass…”
The poet’s prayer was that all
society would benefit from the just and righteous reign of Israel’s king.
Our
government does not depend upon one man.
Ours is a government of laws, not
of men. This was demonstrated in the
way the presidency was passed to Lyndon Johnson when John Kennedy died. This was demonstrated when the presidency
passed to Gerald Ford when Nixon resigned.
Each time a new president is elected and takes office and the torch is
passed, the government continues--it is a government of laws!
Our prayer for the president is that he will be able to
maintain in effect those laws which give us social security.
III. PRAY THAT HIS ADMINISTRATION WILL PROVIDE
INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL SECURITY (VV. 8-14).
The
psalmist impresses upon the king that a reign of justice and righteousness will
bring international influence. This is
not a plea for world conquest; it is a
prayer that the entire world will benefit from his just rule. There were those nomads in the desert of Israel
and Judea who would not be ruled by anyone and
there were kings of remote areas who paid homage to no other king. The poet
prayed that these unruled ones would be influenced and would accept the king’s
rule.
The office of the President of the United States of America
has enjoyed a history of prestige among nations since the days of George
Washington. In recent times, the office
has been that of World Leader. As the
symbol of America and the
vehicle of international policy to the world, the presidency is the symbol and vehicle
of international security to us in America. Pray for our president that his prestige and
esteem will permeate all the world and that all men everywhere will benefit
from the justice and righteousness of America.
IV. PRAY THAT HIS ADMINISTRATION WILL PROVIDE ECONOMIC
SECURITY (VV. 15-17).
The psalmist prays that the king may prosper and this
prosperity may come in the form of life, gold, prayers, and fame. But verse 16 indicates his real desire for
the nation: that there be prosperity in
the land. He asks for much grain and
many men. It appears that this means
much food and good health among the people so they will be able to multiply.
Television
News commentators and analysts give the impression that our economy is on the
verge of collapse. Food prices have increased, to be sure, and inflation is still, with us but, nevertheless, we are the world’s most prosperous nation. The problems of the economy must be solved by
the joint efforts of the president and congress. The adversarial relationship between the two
has always been counterproductive and in the recent budget struggles it has
been disgraceful and crippling.
There must be a
non-partisan, pro-America approach to solving our economic problems. Problems which will become much worse as the
war in Afghanistan drains our coffers.
It may be that if we pray that this president will be able to provide
economic security--that the poor, the needy, the aged, the oppressed, the
hungry, the unwanted will all enjoy an unknown era of security from want--he
may be able to overcome the opposition of congress and institute programs which
will bring prosperity to the land.
CONCLUSION:
We cannot stress the need to pray for the president too
much. A prayer for him is a prayer for
security: moral security, social
security, international security, and economic security. Christians believe
that the security we seek can only come from God. We must ask God to give to our leaders the
wisdom which will cause them to be just and compassionate. We must ask God to give them health so that
this will be a strong and beneficent administration. We must ask God to lead our leaders so that
our president can lead in world affairs.
We must ask God to give them economic programs which will bring us
prosperity.
We believe that God wants us to have all these
blessings. We believe that our
government is responsible, to a great extent, for providing these
blessings. The message is that we should
expect that God can bless us through our government--through our president.
Once, in a large church in Texas, the deacons and elders met to plan a
strategy which would force the resignation of the pastor. Rumors had persisted that some irregularities
existed in his ministry. Most of the
diaconate were in favor of the action but one deacon was hesitant, “You know, I can’t really want to fire this
man. You see, I just realized that I
have never prayed for him or his ministry.
Why don’t we try praying for him and see if that improves his ministry?”
It did! That pastor led that church for many years
and was considered by his parishioners and by his associates to be one of the
truly great ministers of the last century.
It
may be that our prayers really will improve a president. I believe that they will. The president serves by our pleasure, but according
to God’s pleasure. Our prayer for
security shall not fall on deaf ears.
God will bless and our days shall be long upon this land which God has
given us.
O Lord, our Heavenly Father, you have given us freedom in this great
land. You have created us a bit lower
than deity, you see and know all things and nothing is hid from you. We come to you for our president, chosen to
lead us. Lord, we are a people who
deserve nothing because of our intrinsic worth but by the grace shown to us by
you have inherited a nation greatest among nations. May our nation continue to be great and may
our president lead us to even greater days.
To this end, Lord, we ask that we be forgiven of our sins and cleansed
from unrighteousness and that our nation’s government be likewise forgiven and
cleansed. Give the president strength
and wisdom, O Lord, make him your servant so that we will be secure. Amen.
