Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Thank you very much. Morning. For those taking photos, this is my best side.
[00:00:10] It's really great to be with you this morning. And we're going to continue our journey through the book of Luke. So if you have a Bible available to you, please do turn to Luke chapter 18.
[00:00:20] We're going to start in Luke chapter 18, then we're going to go back into Luke chapter 17 and then go forward a little bit. So it'd be helpful if you had a Bible with you this morning.
[00:00:30] Luke chapter 18 starting at verse one. It's a great little story that Jesus tells.
[00:00:40] One day, Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up.
[00:00:48] There was a judge in a certain city, he said, who neither feared God nor cared about people.
[00:00:56] A widow of that city came to him repeatedly saying, give me justice in this dispute with my enemy.
[00:01:03] The judge ignored her for a while, but finally he said to himself, I don't fear God or care about people, but this woman's driving me crazy. I'm going to see that she gets justice because she's wearing me out with her constant requests.
[00:01:19] Then the Lord said, learn a lesson from this unjust judge. Even he rendered a just decision in the end.
[00:01:27] So don't you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly.
[00:01:40] But when the Son of Man returns, how many will he find on the earth who have faith?
[00:01:46] Just pray for a moment.
[00:01:49] Heavenly Father, Lord Jesus, Holy Spirit, your word is living and your word is active.
[00:01:58] Will you open our minds and our hearts and our wills to what you may want to say to us this morning?
[00:02:06] In Jesus name, Amen.
[00:02:10] Amen. A few years ago, Liz and I received one of those letters through the post, which was a demand for payment from one of these private parking companies.
[00:02:21] Are we allowed to go boo hiss in a, in a church? I don't know if we're allowed to do that.
[00:02:26] And it said that we had illegally parked in a car park and we knew, and we knew that we paid. We knew and we had the ticket and we sent off our ticket and we said, look, we've paid, we've genuinely paid. And they wrote back and say, no, but you put an extra digit at the end of the number plate. And because you put an extra number on the digit, that means you put the wrong number plate in. That means you, you've defaulted, you have to pay the fine. And I wasn't happy about this. And I wrote back and said, I don't want to pay the fine. We've paid, here's our ticket. And they said, you have to pay the fine.
[00:02:59] So we went to appeal, we went to a independent appeals panel and they sent us, they sent us this monumental letter from the parking company. And it was literally about 10 pages long, a very small print. And it had every court case, legal precedent, it was all legalese waffle. It was very, very long from the parking company explaining why we were in the wrong.
[00:03:27] And then they sent us a lettuce Appeals company gave us a little box on a form, it was about that big. And it said, can you put your side the story?
[00:03:37] So we wrote our side of the story in this little box compared to the 10 pages of legalese that the parking company had sent us. Sent it off. About two weeks later we got a letter through email saying, we've reviewed your case and you do not have to pay the fine.
[00:03:58] That this morning, if you don't remember anything else I say this morning, vindicated means somebody says you are in the right.
[00:04:07] Someone says, I've listened to this side and I've looked at this side of the argument and I'm declaring you to be in the right. And that's what God does for you and for me. He looks at us as we put our trust in Jesus and says, I'm declaring you to be in the right.
[00:04:22] So if you don't hear anything else I say this morning, remember that word and that feeling that you have when you are vindicated. When we got that letter through the email, that sense of yes, someone else has said you are in the right.
[00:04:38] Great feeling.
[00:04:40] We love these stories. Don't. If you think of the post office scandal, that kind of a story. We love these stories of persistence in the face of authoritative rejection. And that's what we get in this story that Jesus tells in Luke chapter eight, eight one five. And to help us understand it, we need to think a little bit about the legal system at the time of Jesus. When Jesus was writing, it was very different to our system.
[00:05:06] What would happen in those days, they didn't have police or lawyers, they didn't have csi, they didn't have detectives in beyond paradise or any of the other paradises. They just said, right, if someone's done something to offend you or to against you legally, you go to the judge, you bring your adversary, you bring your oppressor, you bring the other side and you come before the law court and you present your case and you present your case and the other person will present their case. And then the judge will listen to both sides. And at the end of the process, the judge will decide for one party or the other. The judge will say, either to one side or the other, you are in the right or you are in the right.
[00:05:50] And that is vindication, that one party or the other would be vindicated.
[00:05:56] And so it was an important role in society to be a judge.
[00:06:01] It was something that was treated very seriously. A judge would be somebody who had an intimate knowledge of the law, of the laws of Moses that we read in books like Deuteronomy and Numbers.
[00:06:14] They would see justice done fairly.
[00:06:18] Kenneth Bailey, in his book about Jesus through Middle Eastern eyes, says that there were two reasons, two main categories of reasons that people would come to a judge. The first reason was to say, someone has broken God's law.
[00:06:31] They have done something against the law of God, and I want redress for that. And so the judge would be expected to say, for God's sake, I will find you in the right.
[00:06:42] But you might come to the judge and say, someone's done something against me personally, so for my sake, would you find me in the right? So it might be against God's law. It may be a personal thing. And can you imagine the shock? Just try to put yourself in the scenario where Jesus was talking to these people, where Jesus says, here is a judge who neither fears God nor cares about people.
[00:07:07] This judge. You can't go to this judge and say, for God's sake, because he'll say, I don't care about that.
[00:07:11] You can't go to the judge and say, for my sake, because he says, I don't care about that.
[00:07:16] So this widow was in a hopeless situation.
[00:07:22] On the other hand, we have this widow who now comes to the judge and the widow. If you've been following the book of Luke, you'll know she's a fairly frequent character. The widow. It's someone who's very vulnerable, someone who has no agency or power in her life.
[00:07:39] And because she's a widow, there is no man.
[00:07:43] And in these times, you would normally have a man would go to court, it wouldn't be the woman, it would be a man. And so the fact that this woman is going to a judge is effectively saying, this woman has nobody to speak for her.
[00:07:57] This woman is voiceless. This woman has no power.
[00:08:02] And yet she goes and she goes, knowing that someone is against her, knowing that she has an enemy, she has an oppressor. And she says to the judge, I've Got this oppressor who is making my life very difficult. Please will you find in favor of me?
[00:08:18] And the judge says, you know what?
[00:08:22] I don't really care about the law of the Lord, and I don't really care about you either. Go away.
[00:08:28] Can you imagine?
[00:08:30] Imagine how that would have sounded in Jesus's day. I don't care about the law of the Lord, and I don't care about you either. Go away. And yet she comes back and she tries again.
[00:08:41] And he says, I don't care about the law of the Lord. I don't care about you. Go away.
[00:08:47] Repeatedly coming back. And eventually the judge relents. And he says in verse five, you're doing my heading.
[00:09:00] The Greek there is very violent. It's like you're giving me a black eye. You're wearing me down. I've had enough, okay? I will give you what you want. I will give you justice. I will declare you to be in the right.
[00:09:17] And so the woman is vindicated.
[00:09:20] She is said to be in the right.
[00:09:22] And that's the story that Jesus tells.
[00:09:26] But then he goes on in verse six to say, let's learn from the judge.
[00:09:33] Let's learn from this judge. And so he's clearly expecting his friends, and as we are his friends, us too, to learn from this story.
[00:09:45] So let's see what we can learn from this story. If you're new to faith or you're new to the Bible, you may be sitting there thinking, hang on a minute. Is Jesus saying that God is a grumpy old judge who doesn't listen and gets really fed up when we come to him in prayer? Is that what Jesus is saying? No, it's not.
[00:10:06] This is one of Jesus's how much more? Statements where he says, if this awful caricature of a judge, if this judge, who does the exact opposite of what you'd expect a judge to do, if he even he vindicates that this widow, how much more will the God who is love, who is justice, who is compassion, and who is justice? How much more will this God vindicate those who come to him? God is always on the side of the powerless. God is always on the side of those looking for justice. If you look at Isaiah, chapter 10, verse 3, verses 1 to 3, you find these words, what sorrow awaits the unjust judges and those who issue unfair laws? They deprive the poor of justice. They deny the rights of the needy among my people. They prey on widows and take advantage of orphans.
[00:10:59] The first thing Jesus wants us to learn from this Story is about the character of God.
[00:11:06] Do you know the character of God this morning? It's so good when we worship together and we are given those opportunities to declare the character of God corporately, individually, individually within the corporate body. All of it is great stuff.
[00:11:23] Lord, you are forgiving, you are merciful, you are gracious. It's so good to be able to learn about the character of God.
[00:11:32] But secondly, we also learn about the seriousness of the situation that Jesus was speaking into. Now, are you ready for something slightly deep and slightly, slightly somber?
[00:11:44] Good, good, good, good. Because we. In order to understand what Jesus is saying here, we need to go back into Luke chapter 17 and pick up from where Esther left us last week. So if you have your Bible, let's have a look at Luke chapter 17 because it helps us understand why Jesus said what he said.
[00:12:06] Luke chapter 17 starting at verse 20.
[00:12:11] One day, the Pharisees asked Jesus, when will the kingdom of God come?
[00:12:16] Jesus replied, the kingdom of God can't be detected by visible means signs. You won't be able to say, here it is, or it's over there, for the kingdom of God is already among you.
[00:12:29] Then he said to his disciples, the time is coming when you will long to see the day when the Son of Man returns. But you won't see it. People will tell you, look, here is the Son of Man, or Here he is. But don't go out and follow them. For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other, so it will be on the day when the Son of Man comes.
[00:12:47] But first, the Son of Man must suffer terribly and be rejected by this generation.
[00:12:53] When the Son of Man returns, it will be like in Noah's day. In those days, the people enjoyed banquets and parties and weddings right up to the time Noah entered the boat and the flood came and destroyed them all.
[00:13:05] And the world will be as it was in the days of Lot.
[00:13:08] People went about their daily business, eating and drinking, buying and selling, farming and building until the even the morning Lot left Sodom. Then fire and burning sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. Yes, it will be business as usual right up to the day when the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, a person out on the deck of a roof must not go down into a thunder house to pack. A person out in the field must not return home.
[00:13:32] Remember what happened to Lot's wife. If you cling to your life, you will lose it. And if you let your life go, you will save it. That night, two people will Be asleep in one bed and one will be taken, the other left. Two women will be grinding flour together at the mill. One will be taken the other left.
[00:13:48] Where will this happen, Lord? The disciples asked. Jesus replied, just as the gathering of vultures shows, there is a carcass nearby.
[00:13:55] So these signs indicate the world. The end is near.
[00:14:01] Slightly perplexing and confusing words and we won't have time to go into them in great depth this morning. But they are important in the context of Jesus story because verse 7 in Luke 18 says, don't you think God will surely give justice? We thought about the character of God. We also have to think about the justice of God, because He is a just God, he is a good God, He's a caring God, but he is a just God. And he will not tolerate people who ultimately reject him.
[00:14:34] And this is hard.
[00:14:36] It goes against everything sometimes in me to want to include people and bring people in, which is a good thing to want to do.
[00:14:45] But God also says there's a time when people will be left, when people won't be included in the kingdom.
[00:14:53] Let me try and explain what I think Jesus is saying here. Some scholars say this passage is about the end times. It's an end of the world scenario.
[00:15:02] And while it is true, there is going to be a final judgment and there will be a time when God says to people, either you were for me or against me.
[00:15:09] Some scholars, and I tend to agree with them, don't think this passage is about that.
[00:15:13] I'll explain why and then you can decide and have a think about it as to whether you agree or where you sit.
[00:15:22] Luke's Gospel was written after AD 70.
[00:15:26] So the people reading this would have the recent history of the Jewish people in their mind. And one of the big things that happened in the Jewish story in A.D. 70 was the Temple was destroyed, Jerusalem was destroyed, the temple was destroyed by the Romans. It was a massive thing. It was very, very big.
[00:15:46] And what some scholars are saying Jesus is doing here, he's saying to the scribes and the Pharisees and the religious leaders at the time, he's saying to them, you're saying, where is the kingdom of God?
[00:15:57] I'm saying to you, I'm right here.
[00:16:00] When I heal people, when I deliver people, when I, when I forgive people, that is the kingdom of God breaking into this world. It's here right now amongst you. It's within your grasp.
[00:16:13] And the scribes and the Pharisees and the religious people were saying, no, we don't recognize that. We do not recognize Jesus. We don't recognize his ministry. We don't recognize his power.
[00:16:25] We know what we're doing. We're the elite. We're the chosen people. We. We will carry on doing what we're doing, and we reject Jesus.
[00:16:35] A key question throughout Luke is, can you see what God's doing and how are you going to respond to it? It's a question for us, It's a question for them. And the failure of the religious community of the time to recognize Jesus and to live in a complacent life that says, we know better, we know better, was going to lead to catastrophic consequences. And because they did not change, because they stayed in their complacency and their rejection of who Jesus was.
[00:17:10] There was this cataclysmic invasion by the Romans in A.D. 70. And it was sudden. People didn't see it coming. Jesus says it would be like lightning.
[00:17:20] It just came like that. And in order to help people understand what was happening, Jesus gives them two illustrations from their scriptures that they would know. First of all, he says, remember the story of Noah? Noah was told to build a boat because God had looked on wickedness on the earth. And Noah built a boat, and everyone around him mocked him and laughed at him and said, we are ridiculous for building a boat. And then the floods came and Noah was saved. Noah was vindicated. Noah was shown to be in the right.
[00:17:50] And then the story of Lot and the destruction of Sodom. Again, God looks upon the evil in the town of Sodom and says, I'm going to judge this city. But Lot, because he'd entertained angels previously, he was saved.
[00:18:06] He was shown to be in the right.
[00:18:09] And it's interesting that in this passage, Jesus doesn't really major on the wickedness, although that was the evidence. That's why God did what he did in Genesis.
[00:18:18] Here, Jesus. Did you notice? Jesus focuses on the eating and the drinking and the building. He says people were just carrying on complacently with their lives. They weren't taking any notice of the signs. They weren't taking any notice of what God was asking them to do. They just said, I'm just going to carry on with my life in my own way, on my own terms, and we'll see where we go. And they were destroyed.
[00:18:43] So it's really important.
[00:18:45] God is. Jesus is trying to warn people. He's trying to say, unless you recognize me, unless you recognize my authority, unless you attribute my ministry to God working in the world.
[00:18:57] When the invader strikes, when this cataclysm comes, whether you believe it was AD70 or whether you believe it's at some point in the future doesn't matter.
[00:19:06] When that time comes, you need to be in the right.
[00:19:12] And there's only one way to be in the right, which we'll come on to in a minute.
[00:19:16] It has to be through our trust in Jesus. It has to be by accepting who God is, not anything we can do or anything that we can say that puts us in the right. It's a solemn reminder to recognize who God is and who Jesus is.
[00:19:34] Dismissing God, dismissing Jesus and living a life of complacency is an invitation to disaster.
[00:19:43] Isaiah 10, verse 3 continues, what will you do when I punish you? When I send disaster upon you from a distant land? To whom will you turn for help? In other words, who will vindicate you?
[00:19:58] Who will declare you to be in the right?
[00:20:03] Sorry, that was a bit gloomy, wasn't it? Bit gloomy. Should we do something a bit more cheerful? A little bit more cheerful? So you might be thinking, right, okay, so if God is a God of justice and vindication isn't about what I do or anything like that, how do we know who's vindicated? How do we know who's in the right?
[00:20:22] Who are the vindicated? And if we go forward now into Luke chapter 18, I'm not going to read the whole chapter, but if you've got the Bible, it's a little montage, a little sequence of short stories.
[00:20:34] And one way of reading these stories is to say, these are the. This is what it tells us about being vindicated. This is what it tells us about being right in the eyes of God. Verse 7 of Luke chapter 18 says, God will give justice to his chosen people.
[00:20:51] In other words, who are these chosen people and who are the vindicated? Who are those who are right with God?
[00:20:58] And so there are these little vignettes within chapter 18, verses 9 to 14. There's the parable of a rich, of a tax collector and a Pharisee. The Pharisee comes to the temple and says, look at me, aren't I wonderful? Haven't I. I've obeyed all the laws, I've kept all the commandments. Aren't I wonderful?
[00:21:15] And the tax collector comes in and says, have mercy on me.
[00:21:19] Have mercy on me. And Jesus wants us to know, the vindicated are the people who throw themselves on the mercy of God.
[00:21:27] They don't recognize their own achievements, their own accolades or anything like that. They just say, lord have mercy on me. We don't get right with God by adhering to a set of rules, we get right by acknowledging our need for God's forgiveness.
[00:21:46] And then in verses 15 to 17, some parents bring their children to God, to Jesus.
[00:21:53] And the disciples turn the children away and Jesus says, no, let them come.
[00:21:58] The kingdom belongs to those who accept it. Like a child with a simple, trusting faith. The vindicated are those who have a trusting faith in God, who rely on him. As far as I'm in my. If there's someone who knows better than me, please do tell me if I'm understand correctly the. The sign language or British sign language for trust. Is that.
[00:22:20] Is that right?
[00:22:22] I'll just put the microphone down because I can't do it with the microphone.
[00:22:28] And I really love that. There's something strong about that, there's something reassuring about that. The vindicated are those who trust in God. And sometimes we just need to say, I'm going to trust. I don't always understand, but I'm going to trust.
[00:22:44] And then in verses 18 to 23, a rich man comes and says again, how can I inherit eternal life? How can I be right with God? How can I be vindicated? And he says, I've kept all the commandments. I've done all of the things I think I'm supposed to do. Is that enough? And Jesus looks at him and says, sell your possessions.
[00:23:07] Not because riches are wrong, not because everybody should go away and sell everything they have, but because Jesus detected that this person had an attachment to wealth that was over and above his attachment to God. And so he says, I need you to break that attachment.
[00:23:26] And then in verses 24 to 30, the disciples think they'll get some extra brownie points as well. They say, but we've given up everything to follow you, Jesus. And he says, yes, you have. That's great. You have aligned yourself with me.
[00:23:38] But he's quick to point out that any kind of attachment, any kind of attachment, whether it be family, whether it be wealth, whether it be possessions, whether it be status, whether it be power, whatever it is, addictions, all of these things must not take the place of Jesus. They must not come before Jesus.
[00:24:02] So these are the vindicated. These are those who will know that they are in the right. The people who throw themselves on the mercy of God with a trusting faith that says, I believe what you tell me. I believe in who you are, and I'm putting my attachment to you and your family and your people above every other attachment that I have.
[00:24:24] That is, who will be shown to be in the right.
[00:24:28] And then there's One more if you have the Bible, have a Look at verses 31 to 33, the ultimate sign of vindication. And I'm going to do something slightly cheeky, if I may, as we go through this and I haven't quite finished, so please don't get your hopes up, but when I finish this little section, we're going to take communion together.
[00:24:51] You've got some little communion pots on your. Your chairs, and you may want to prepare it beforehand because that would seem to be just before I finish.
[00:25:00] And I have one more thing to say. After this, it will be a good time to take communion together.
[00:25:07] Verses 31 to 33 Jesus says to his friends, listen, we're going up to Jerusalem, where all the predictions of the prophets concerning the Son of Man will come true. Jesus is saying all the things that the Old Testament, the Hebrew scriptures have been pointing to about who the Son of Man is, about who. Who the Son of God is, about who the Messiah is, about who the rescuer is, the person who's going to lead his people into freedom. All of those prophecies are going to come true.
[00:25:36] When we go to Jerusalem.
[00:25:39] He, the Son of Man, will be handed over to the Romans.
[00:25:46] The Romans in the eyes and the ears of the people listening and reading this. The Romans are the ultimate oppressors. The widow took an enemy.
[00:25:57] The people of God were oppressed by the Romans.
[00:26:00] It was their oppression for us.
[00:26:06] We are oppressed by sin. We're oppressed by wrong thoughts. We're oppressed by wrong behaviors. We're oppressed by selfishness.
[00:26:14] There is, as Esther said earlier, there's a spiritual battle going on for our souls and our hearts and our lives and our allegiances.
[00:26:22] There is an oppressor. There is an enemy out there.
[00:26:26] And he, the Son of God, will be mocked, treated shamefully, and spit upon.
[00:26:33] They will flog him with a whip.
[00:26:36] They will kill him.
[00:26:41] Defeated.
[00:26:42] Mocked.
[00:26:45] Treated shamefully, Spit upon, flogged, whipped and killed.
[00:26:53] The Son of God is defeated.
[00:26:59] The oppressor has won.
[00:27:04] But on the third day, he will rise again.
[00:27:11] It will not be the end.
[00:27:14] Jesus will rise again. Death will not hold him. The grave will be emptied. Sin and evil will lose their grip. The oppressor will have no power over Jesus. And as we put our trust in Jesus, it will have no power and authority over us. He was vindicated. We will be vindicated. He was said to be in the right. We will be said to be in the right.
[00:27:37] On the third day, it was announced to the whole world that he is who he said he was, and he has done what he said he would do to bring the kingdom of God in from heaven to earth. God declares us to be in the right, not because we've done anything to deserve it, certainly not because we're innocent, but because we recognize Jesus. That's who is vindicated.
[00:28:03] If you have your communion pot, let's just take a moment individually and corporately to remember and recognize what Jesus has done.
[00:28:19] If you're someone who hasn't yet put their faith in Jesus, then don't feel like you have to take this.
[00:28:28] You don't have to. There's no shame in not taking it.
[00:28:32] But it's there for people who love and trust in Jesus. And they read those verses and they say, yes, that's what you did for me.
[00:28:41] And Jesus was warning his disciples here and at that last supper that he shared with his friends, where he said, take this bread, take this wine, drink it, eat it in remembrance of me.
[00:28:59] Take a moment in your own heart to bring yourself to Jesus, to thank him that you have been made right with him.
[00:29:12] And it's because of his blood, and it's because of his body and his sacrifice.
[00:29:18] Bring to him any things you know that are wrong in your life.
[00:29:22] Bring to him a confession.
[00:29:28] And then take the little wafer.
[00:29:36] Jesus said, take this bread and eat it in remembrance of me.
[00:29:44] Let's eat together.
[00:29:59] Then Jesus said, take this cup and drink and remember the blood that was shed on the cross.
[00:30:09] Remember the cost of what it was to put us right with God. On this remembrance Sunday, when so much blood has been shed in the pursuit of peace, we thank the one who shed his blood for eternal peace.
[00:30:25] Drink together.
[00:30:46] Who are the chosen people?
[00:30:48] Matthew 5 says, Blessed are the poor, blessed are the meek. Blessed are the brokenhearted. Blessed are those who cry out for justice.
[00:30:57] Blessed are those who seek God's help and recognize Jesus for who he is. And if you haven't done that yet today, please do speak to someone.
[00:31:07] Please do ask a question.
[00:31:10] We've had a fabulous alpha course where people have been asking questions about who is Jesus?
[00:31:17] This is a good place to ask that question.
[00:31:25] But let me finish by making one more brief point.
[00:31:30] Verse 7 that we've looked at a lot says, God will give justice because he is a just God.
[00:31:36] He will give justice to his chosen people, the people who put their trust and believe in the blood of Jesus Christ.
[00:31:45] But he will give justice to the people who cry out to him day and night.
[00:31:51] When I hear those words cry out to him day and night, it makes me think of two things.
[00:31:57] It makes me think of the Israelites in slavery in the book of Exodus. And they cry out to God because their situation is intolerable and it's unjust.
[00:32:07] And God says, I have heard my people, I have heard my people, and I will deliver them.
[00:32:16] But it also makes me think of the heavenly beings in Revelation chapter 4 who says, Day and after day and night after night, they keep on saying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.
[00:32:31] And somehow in this messed up world in which we live, we have to keep both of those types of crying out together.
[00:32:40] We have to cry out to the God who saved us, and we have to give praise and thanks to him for his saving work in our lives, for every addiction he's broken, for every relationship he's transformed, for every bit of work he's done in our lives. We can say, thank you, God, for what you've done for and what you continue to do and what you will do.
[00:33:01] But we also, at the same time, have to cry out for justice.
[00:33:06] We have to cry out and say we live in a world where there is still injustice.
[00:33:13] Luke 17:22 says, Jesus says to his friends, you will long to see the day when the Son of Man comes.
[00:33:21] When Jesus tells his friends not to give up, he says he's used a phrase which means, don't lose heart, don't become weary, do not be discouraged, and do not tire of calling out to God.
[00:33:35] It's what Jesus wants us to do for our world.
[00:33:40] Jesus, as we prayed earlier, teaches his disciples to pray, may your kingdom come soon.
[00:33:47] We want to pray for God's kingdom, for God's justice, for God's vindication to be full on the earth.
[00:33:56] Today, as we've already said, is Remembrance Day.
[00:34:00] And we give thanks for every sacrifice, for every place where peace has come, particularly because people have laid down their lives.
[00:34:12] But we also have to lament and cry out to God for every act of war that continues to to be.
[00:34:21] We have to lament and cry out to God for every act of evil. When people go on sprees on trains and stab people. We have to cry out that that is not right.
[00:34:31] And we want your peace and your justice and your reign to come, for every act of malice, for every unkind word, for every addiction, for every broken relationship, for everything that mars the good creation.
[00:34:48] We need to cry out to God.
[00:34:52] Could I invite you? If you're willing you're able to stand.
[00:34:57] I felt as I was preparing this morning, that I wanted us to pray, not this morning. Not first of all for ourselves, but for our world.
[00:35:09] And in a moment, I'm going to pray. I'm going to ask the Holy Spirit, who is very gentle and very kind, to drop a place in your mind. It may be a place around the world. It may be a place closer to home. A place where you know there is injustice or war or disquiet.
[00:35:26] And just allow the Lord to drop that.
[00:35:29] That name, that place into your heart. Lord, Holy Spirit, will you come now the God of justice?
[00:35:38] A God who is so caring and compassionate.
[00:35:43] And if an unjust judge who neither fears God nor people can give a widow justice, how much more will you come and bring justice to your world?
[00:35:56] So, Holy Spirit, will you drop in our hearts a place where there is injustice, a people who are oppressed, a situation where there is wrong?
[00:36:17] And we try the very difficult task of balancing our praise and worship to God and calling out to him for justice. So maybe. Matt, could we just sing that? Holy, holy, holy let's begin there.
[00:36:30] Holy, holy, holy Is the Lord God Almighty Worthy, worthy, worthy.
[00:36:40] Let's just sing that a couple of times.
