8 minute read
My pulpit message notes: Pray for your leaders
from TT 163
by TIMES TODAY
Pray for your leaders
Advertisement
PASSION
PRAYER
PRICE
Paul in similar circumstances that we are in Kenya shares three things to Timothy.
Passion : 1 Timothy 2:1a
Passion is expressed by the language we see God having Paul to pen down. “I therefore urge, first of all that these prayers be made for all people then, emphatically, for kings and all those in authority.”
Do you see the passion in those words, “I urge” and then that word, “first” of all”? Do you see the passion in his writing that this is so important, it is of first priority? It is such a big deal. He uses passionate words. First, make it a priority. Secondly, “I urge you”. It is not just something that Paul is telling, if you had time, could you consider, perhaps. No. He is saying, “I urge”. Other translations use the word, ‘I appeal’, ‘I exhort’, ‘I encourage’. But you see there is a push from Paul. It is not something casual.
Then he goes on to the prayers.
Paul is writing to a people who are not in self-governance, since the days of Christ, the people of God are under bondage and now they are being ruled by Caesar after Caesar. They are under foreign rule and have been given some puppet kings like Herod and those who took over from him. Those are now their kings and rulers. It is in these difficult circumstances, in that context, Paul writes to them with these words of passion, ‘therefore I urge you’, to make this leadership issue of first priority.
- You and I many times say that we are being governed in the county, the ward, etc. we are being ruled by thugs here, by corrupt people, but is it anywhere close to what these people are going through? And yet Paul urges them, by the grace of God, therefore - passion - “I urge you, first that we make these prayers.
- I wonder if you have allowed Tuesday the 9th to be a big deal for you that it would drive you to this kind of passion, but secondly to this kind of prayer.
Prayer : 1 Timothy 2:1b-2a
- A prayer that one commentator in the Message Bible says, ‘Pray every way you know how.’ There are four kinds of prayers listed; “that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— 2 for kings and all those in authority,…”
- Calling us to pray and it is not the kind of prayer that you can prescribe one type of prayer, no. This one needs all-wheel drive, four by four prayer. First because we recognise how leaders are unable to do anything without the help of God. So they don’t need one kind of prayer, but four kinds of prayer. The last one is a prayer of thanksgiving.
- We need to pray for our leaders with thanksgiving. Leadership is not easy. Many times we just look at the inadequacies and inconsistencies etc, but thank God that somebody gave themselves to be able to represent us in these different offices.
- The other three prayers have just a slight degree, of nuance, difference from each other covering pleas, petitions, supplications, request, treaties and prayers of advocacy. There are all kinds of prayers. The ones where you have taken hold of heaven and others where you have allowed heaven to take hold of you.
- Prayers of pacing up and down, and please O God. Prayers of taking authority in Jesus name and commanding things to be as they are decreed in heaven. Prayers of all kinds.
- Tuesday August the 9th, is a big deal,
but we are not the ones original with it being a big deal. It was a big deal then when they had a corrupt government that was not representative and Paul by the inspiration of God writes to them and says, “Therefore, I urge you”. Passionately, ‘I encourage you’, ‘I exhort you, first to pray.’ To pray as you can and beyond.
- Now we are at the eleventh how. My wife was brave enough to allow me to be in the delivery room for both our sons. The nine months of pregnancy are important. You do all kinds of things to prepare, but there comes that end time that is so critical, the doctor says breathe and even I am in full labour.
- That is what we are being called to do today because God is about to birth something in Jesus’ Name in this Nation. And we are not going to be waiting for it at home and ask, ‘was it a boy, or a girl?’ We are going to be in the delivery room and we are going to be pacing up and down in Jesus’ Name making declarations and calling down strongholds and waiting to hold that baby. Not waiting to be told, that baby is a boy, or girl.
- In the first era of the church when they were sat on proper, Paul would say, by the inspiration of God, “I therefore’ - with passion - ‘urge, first, that all kinds of prayers be made for all, especially kings and those in authority.’
- I think of the jurisdiction that these men and women that we choose have, they do need prayer.
- For Paul to say passionately, “I urge that prayers…” it means that leaders are incapable of the things we jump on the Toyota land cruisers, VX, V8s and the things that we proclaim to do in interviews that we can do in the first hundred days, we can do nothing.
- If you are a political leader, you are going to make
it by the grace of God, because the church is praying until this baby is birthed, on August the 9th, your 100 days, 600 days, until full service 1800 days.
Price: 1 Timothy 2:2
- The price of our leaders not succeeding, the price of us not choosing the right leaders is very high. And Paul says, in verse two, “2 for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives …”
- If you and I do not go into the labour room in these next nine days, if we do not pray, then these lives that Paul is taking about, of peace and quiet will be compromised. - We have a role to play. - And Anglican bishop once said, “Well Lord, I may not be very much, but I am one, I cannot do everything, but I can do something, and what I can do, I ought to do, and what I ought to do, I will do.”
Call to Action
I am calling the church now for time of concerted personal prayer to go into the theatre room until we have birthed for this nation, leaders, not chanters, not promisers, not just people who are adequate in their abuse. People who can create an environment where you and I can live in peace and quiet.
- We talk about the situations that have happened in our nation; the cost of living especially and we attribute it to natural weather phenomena, Ukraine and Russia. Indeed it is true that inflation is all over the place. But I keep wondering, what if God would raise leaders for us that even if these external circumstances came to us like every other nation but when we fell, we fell on pillows and had a soft landing.
You see other nations are facing inflation, Ukraine, Russia related issues, famine and other times things worse than we are facing, but they are not falling on the charred rocks of corruption. They are not falling on an environment of lies and hatred being whipped up each time somebody takes the podium. Is there anybody here who is saying, I want to stand in the gap, I want to pray, I want to be in the theatre room?
