Prayers for Global Conflict | June 22, 2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Good morning. I know I said good morning already, but
say it again.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Please take the next thirty seconds wrap up your conversations
if you could.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
We're gonna continue this morning service here shortly.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
So as I said earlier, if we haven't met, my
name is Jake. I'm one of the pastors here, and yeah,
I want to thank you for joining us for worship
this morning. This morning service is going to be a
bit different than usual, quite a bit different than usual.
The majority of our time together is simply going to

(00:44):
be an extended time of prayer and worship. That's prayer
and worship that you could do at the tables where
you are now standing or sitting, or you could ask
a couple of folks to go with you over to
the couch there and pray together. You can pray out
loud together, you can pray silently. You can pray by

(01:04):
writing if you want. There's like, should be some doodle
paper on most of the tables. If not, there is
on another table you can grab some. There should be
pens too, So I do want to like, however, you
best communicate with God and like whatever is the easiest
way for you to to kind of focus on Him.
That's what I want to invite you to that. Maybe
that's reading the Psalms, whatever that is for our time

(01:27):
of prayer, I want to invite you to do that,
and we're gonna have some specific times set aside just
to do that. So this was an idea that the
Lord not only laid on my heart, but also a
few other folks at church.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
So I truly.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Believe it was something that was like Holy Spirit inspired
because it just was like on our hearts and we
hadn't even talked about it yet. And I'm sure many
of you know there are a lot of like heavy
things going on in the world right now. There's a
military conflict happening in Iran that involved Israel and as
of yesterday, the United States, and there's still a lot

(02:04):
of uncertainty on what the consequences and scale of what
this conflict could look like, but it has the potential
to be very destructive into stabilizing to.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
The region and beyond.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
In a few minutes, Sarah Colton is actually going to
come up and speak more on this specific situation in
the Middle East and share with us how we can
be praying for that situation, and then after that we
will spend some time singing, worshiping, and praying to the Lord.
In our own nation, we have felt a continued and

(02:40):
ever increasing instability and polarization. So in addition to praying
for things that are happening across the globe and maybe
sometimes kind of seem like far from mind and not
in our immediate purview of the things we think about
and focus on. We know that we have a God
that is the King all nations, and there is a

(03:02):
global church all around the world that could experience some
very real suffering with what's happening now and has been
happening not only in that region.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
But all over the globe.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
And we know Paul instructs us in Fus Salonians to
pray for all people and all kingdoms and all rulers
at all times. So it's part of our discipleship, is
important for us to kind of look beyond only ourselves
and our family and our community and kind of like
lean into also the suffering that's happening in the globe
as well. So in our nation, we felt this continued

(03:38):
ever increasing instability and polarization.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
And I'll talk more about this later.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
For the second half of our time together, the first
half will be focused on praying for Israel and Iran,
the second time in just that conflict in general. The
second time will be centered around praying for our own nation.
And we haven't done anything like this in quite some time.
And I know that for some of us, an extended
time of prayer and worship it might feel a bit
uncomfortable or awkward, are boring, even I know some of us,

(04:06):
including myself, we might struggle to stay focused, and of
course there's like grace for that. We're gonna do our best, though,
to facilitate and by minimizing distraction and facilitate an environment
where we can pray and commune with the Lord together.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
But we love your.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
Help in that, just by silencing your phones and maybe
like putting them in your pocket or turning them over,
just so that you're not tempted to be distracted by
them during our short time together this morning. I also
want to acknowledge that some of the things that we'll
be talking about this morning can be uncomfortable and distressing
to think about. And if you find this is too
much for you, there is a room in the back

(04:45):
corner next down that hallway, next to the women's restroom
that has some comfortable couches and can be used as
a prayer room as well this morning if you need
to take a break. But I would gently and challenge
us to consider if we're feeling this way, to just
maybe first asking someone to pray for us if we're

(05:07):
feeling like a little overwhelmed, and if not, then obviously
there's that room that.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
Space back there for you.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
And ultimately, the heart behind this time together is that
myself and a few others felt that the Holy Spirit
and his infinite wisdom and love is inviting us to
cultivate as a church, a peaceful, non anxious presence in
a world that is very anxious and in desperate need
of peace. And no other time in history have we
had more ways of escaping or distracting ourselves from things

(05:38):
that might be uncomfortable for us to think about. And
the irony in that is that one of our go
to vices for distracting ourselves for me anyway, social media.
It uses algorithms that are also very effective at manipulating
our emotions and enhancing our polarization. Media outlets and influencers

(05:59):
are incentivized to be as hyperbolic as possible. In order
to keep us outraged or afraid and ever more addicted
to our own echo chambers. This does not change the
reality that there are very real injustices and frightening things
happening in our world. But as followers of Christ, we
are never actually called to be outraged or afraid, or

(06:20):
to doom scroll or to despair. Philippians four sixty seven says,
do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation,
by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
And the peace of God, which.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
Transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds.
In Christ, Jesus is one of God's promises that when
we he pray and ask for his supernatural peace, that
He imparts that on us. We're called to be a
people of peace, not a peace that we conjure up
ourselves through human effort, rather a supernatural peace from Christ

(06:55):
himself that is fully available to us through prayer. Now,
please don't hear this as me saying that Christians should
never speak out our protests and justice. If that was
the case, we never would have had the civil rights movement.
But the very foundation of the civil rights movement was
one that was birthed out of Black churches where there
was a heavy focus on prayer and worship and confession.

(07:17):
There was a desire for it to be a movement
of God because He is the source of true lasting justice,
true lasting peace, and true reconciliation. And Psalm sixty six
eighteen through twenty says, if I had not confessed the
sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
But God did listen. He paid attention to my prayer.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
Praise God who did not ignore my prayer or withdraw
his unfailing love from me. And throughout Scripture, we are
called to to pray to God because not just because
it's something God tells us to do, because He listens
to us.

Speaker 1 (07:53):
He like values our voice.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
He's interested in knowing what we think about a situation
in our desire, and are crying out to Him and
praying to him, communicating with him. It influences and impacts history.
So please don't discount the power there is in our prayers,
and Scripture also talks about that. But before we are

(08:15):
called to pray against the sins of others, to first
acknowledge and confess that we also have sin in our
own hearts. There's no true justice without personal transformation. So
for the first portion of our service this morning, I
want to invite us to do just that. During the
first song, just spend a few minutes acknowledging the holiness

(08:36):
of God. That He alone is holy, he alone is
always loving, he alone is truly just. He's the source
of every good thing, And left to our own devices,
this world would be much more worse than it is now.
And if our hearts this morning are harboring bitterness, our
hatred towards those we disagree with, even towards those who

(08:56):
are in power, let's confess that to Him and walk
in his grace. If we feel only loathing towards our
enemies and no empathy or compassion, let's confess that to
him and walk in his grace. Remembering Christ looked on
those who were literally killing him and said, Father, forgive them,
for they know not what they do. This is a

(09:16):
heart posture that is impossible to manifest without a supernatural
presence and work of the Holy Spirit. So let's seek
Him this morning as we sing this first song together.

Speaker 3 (09:31):
Good morning everyone. If we haven't met yet, I'm Sarah Cullitson.
I'm a member here at any metro. So before I began,
like Jake said, all nations need our prayers right now.
So even though I'm going to be focusing on Iran,

(09:54):
the unspoken words are that we also need to be
lifting up Israel. I'm guessing based on my own background,
my own biases, being an American kind of grown up
in suburbia all my life. Whether you share that background
or not, just being in America, you may be more

(10:17):
informed or more sympathetic towards Israel. When I was growing up,
all I knew about the Middle East was Aladdin and
nine to eleven, and then the Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan conflicts
can place those on a map. But in the last

(10:40):
year God has blessed me greatly with humbling me, challenging
my biases, my assumptions, and my misconceptions about especially the
nation of your own. My husband. I had the pleasure
and honor attending a wedding of two Iranian Americans, one

(11:03):
of whom is an old friend of mine from med school,
and the wedding was Persian, so culturally most of the
people in Iran are Persian. Since then, I have had
opportunities to meet and befriend more Iranian people, learn more

(11:23):
about the language, the culture, the food, and of course
current events and past events, but also about what God
is doing in Iran. Because I've learned and also received

(11:44):
God's heart for these people, I have that piece that
Jake just mentioned that Philippians four seven talks about, the
piece that transcends all understanding. Even though I now know
people who have friends and family inside Iran right now,
and my heart is with them, I can't even say

(12:12):
that I'm anxious. It again, is beyond words. The compassion
I feel mixed with the certainty that God is at
work and is mindful of every single one of them.
Is he is mindful of every single one of the
people in Israel and in the region and US and
the rest of the world. Nothing is impossible with God.

(12:37):
So a little bit about the current state of affairs,
and I wrote up a handout that appears on all
the tables. That's the one with a lot of text.
If you know me, it's kind of like how I
talk like I have a lot to say. But even
the sheet does not suffice, and as of last night
it is out of date. So where we are at

(13:01):
presently really started the early hours of Friday, June thirteenth
local time in the capital city of Tehran, in the
city of Isfahan and the city of Tabriz, which I
have up on the map, when Israel started striking key
nuclear and military facilities and took out many leaders in

(13:23):
Iran's military and political regime. Note that even though there
were civilian casualties, this is very largely and miraculously not
as bad as it could be as far as a
human cost of life. This is very strategic on Israel's part,
surgical as how I've heard it described, targeting these facilities,

(13:46):
targeting these government leaders. Currently, phones and internet are largely
down in Irans, so people cannot correspond with their loved
ones within the country, let alone outside the country. So
people do not know how their families are doing. They
lack basic access to resources like gas, food. The banks

(14:10):
shut down so no one can access their money. It's
really wild times out there. There was some return to internet,
thankfully in certain areas as of this past Friday, but
it's still released body and then, of course, as you
may have seen either last night or this morning if
you were checking your news, the United States is now

(14:33):
officially taking part in the offensive partnering with Israel in
its initiative against Iran, with President Trump ordering the deployments
of seven stealth bomber planes that drop bombs on key
nuclear facilities in for Dao, Natons and then again Isfahan.

(15:00):
So that's what's going on. I also want to touch
on what has gone on in recent years that I
hope will start to introduce to you the reality if
you were not aware already, that the people of Iran
are not equivalent to the government of Iran. The Islamic
Republic of Iran is and prides itself in being the

(15:25):
only true theocracy in the world. It is based on
strict interpretation of Shiite Islamic law. But it's people, by
and large not only have not benefited from this, have
not found deeper communion with the God of Islam. They

(15:51):
have found oppression. They have found beatings, imprisonment, arrests on
false charge, just and often death. So the pictures that
should be up on the screen right now are from
a particular protest movement that became very popular in the

(16:12):
Fall of twenty twenty two and goes on today, the
Woman Life Freedom Movement or in Persian zan Zendegi Azadi
based on the brutal police beating of a young woman
named Massa Amini who was visiting from Kurdistan. She was
Party Ronnium Parkard and it was because her head scarfs

(16:36):
showed just a little too much of her hair by
the moral police's standard, so they beat her, but they
went too far. She died in police custody from her injuries.
This is not new to the people of your own
I had the privilege of taking part in a zoom

(16:58):
call a prayer meeting just this past Thursday, the nineteenth
for a ministry, a Christian ministry to Iran that I
support and that I've been following for several months now.
The leaders of the ministry have been able to talk
with people inside Iran, particularly in the capital Tehran. They

(17:22):
report that people do not hate Israel. Now that doesn't
apply to everybody, but there are in Iran who do
not hate Israel, do not want it attacked, do not
disagree with the attacks on their nuclear facilities and their
military leadership. These folks who are reporting from inside Iran

(17:43):
even said that people were shouting death to the Ayatola
from their rooftops. Now, the Iranan government, as you might
imagine wants to project a different story. So footage that
it allowed that was posted on CNN on Friday, and
a video from state run Iranian television showed videos of

(18:05):
people protesting, shouting death to America and holding up pictures
of the Ayatola and support of him and the regime.
So consider this is a nation that has long been
at war with itself since of course before the revolution
of nineteen seventy nine that brought the Islamic Republic to power,

(18:29):
but just that that internal war has intensified, and that
the government is very oppressive of its people. So some
people see the attacks by Israel and now the attacks
by the US as a harbinger of the fall of
this regime that has held them down for so long.

(18:50):
Looking back even further than history in the Bible, and
you know, in historical records outside it, Iran is. The
nation of Iran as it stands today is just a
part of what used to be the Persian Empire. And
the name given to Iran by Western countries who knew

(19:14):
their Bible better than the people themselves, was Persia. So
that changed in the middle of the twentieth century when
Iran said no, we want to be known by the
name we have called ourselves for thousands of years Iran,
which was all good. But if you're familiar with your Bible,
and on the next slide after the map, I highlighted

(19:35):
several books of the Bible where you can find israel
relations with the kings of Persia, with the governments of Persia.
Persian kings, even though they did not believe in the
God of Israel, were instruments of the God of Israel

(19:56):
to bring the people back from exile and also to
save them. Whether they knew fully what they were doing
or not. Is in the case of King Xerxes and Estra.
God has a special heart for both the people of
Iran and the people of Israel, and has for thousands

(20:17):
of years. And I think it's really cool. In Acts
two nine, which we've been going through Acts this year
as a church, the very first people groups to hear
their language spoken by the power of the Holy Spirit
at Pentecost were the Parthians, the Medes and the Elamites.
On the map I showed you and in your info

(20:38):
hand now and it says, but these regions comprise western Iran.
The site where bombs are being dropped in the current conflict.

Speaker 2 (20:49):
So.

Speaker 3 (20:52):
Showing again a map. Just as the people are not
the government and vice versa, the cities that are being
targeted are not just their military facilities or not just
their nuclear facilities. So I have some pictures up here
kind of going counterclockwise, from the top left of Tabreez,

(21:13):
one of the beautiful gardens and estates there, of the
Freedom Tower in downtown Tehran, of the tomb of a poet,
one of their most famous poets, Hafez in Shiraz, which
was another side of bombing, though not a nuclear site,
and a beautiful, beautiful temple in Isfahan. The Persian culture

(21:37):
is rich in poetry, in cuisine, in the cultivation of gardens,
particularly roses and saffron. The people of Iran are by
a majority ethnically Persian, so that's how their language, Persian
or Farsi, it's also said, gets their name. They are

(22:00):
actually more related to Europeans than to Arabian tribes or
you know what we see as the Middle East. It's
not homogeneous at all. That was something I was very
surprised to learn. All right, but what's God doing. I
save the best for last guys, So, like I said,

(22:23):
people are not agreeing with this government, with this theocracy,
with this Islamic republic. They are actually, by a majority,
a two thirds majority, abandoning Islam. The pie chart up
here shows that little less than a third are Seite

(22:43):
Muslim or identify as that. And this is a survey
as of twenty twenty. I believe this was a secular study,
so this is not a Christian study at all. But
people took an anonymous survey. Only a third of them
identified with the state religion, the red section of the pie,
which is almost a quarter of the people. But then

(23:04):
add that up with a couple other pieces of the
pie are atheist, agnostic, or have no identification with any
spirituality or belief stance. Now, the remaining third is where
you'll see about one five percent include Christians. So the
picture of the book I have on this slide is

(23:24):
actually the Bibles, the Holy Book. The Bible is illegal
to have an Iran but Christian ministries have managed to
smuggle the Bible over years and years through partners in
the underground church, so people are getting the word. The
other the logo I have on the screen is for

(23:44):
the twenty four to seven satellite TV channel that one
of the Christian ministries here broadcast to In fact, the
ministry that organized the call I was on on Thursday.
So Mohabat TV. Mohabat means love like the love of
God in Persian. This particular twenty four to seven channel,

(24:05):
and it's not the only one that's out there, broadcast
Christian programming, Gospel Center programming, as well as live segments
inviting people to respond with questions, with prayer requests, with testimonies.
I told you earlier that the phone and internet had
been shut down, satellite has not. What are people doing

(24:27):
as bombs are falling? They're staying at home? So what
do you think God's doing in those homes? Potentially very
exciting time, all right. So to conclude all this points
for prayer, and these are on the handout, These are
not out of date. But in this time of prayer

(24:52):
ahead and in the days and weeks to come, I
ask you all to join me in praying for peace
and salvation, not only with an Iron, but the whole
region Israel, the surrounding countries. I invite you to pray
for safety and aid to those inside Iran, so not
only meeting their basic needs like food, shelter, clothing, safety

(25:14):
from bombs, from shrapnel, et cetera. Pray that the strikes
would continue to spare civilian lives, but also that they
would also get the living water, the living bread, the
message of the Gospel, the Word of God. Pray that

(25:35):
it would spread like never before inside Iran despite all
the obstacles. Pray also for peace and comfort to those
friends and family members who are outside Iran. And also,
and I imagine we'll touch on this in the US
portion of our time together in prayer today, these are

(25:58):
our neighbors. We have Persian speaking people throughout the city,
throughout the state, throughout the nation, throughout the world who
may be facing increased discrimination, but some of whom may
also feel increase hatred and anger and discrimination in their

(26:19):
own hearts. So pray for protection for our neighbors who
do not look like us or sound like us, but
who are people made in the image of God. That
our hearts will not turn against them, and other people's
hearts will not turn against them, but also that their
hearts will not turn against other people indiscriminately. Pray for

(26:40):
wisdom and boldness for believers inside Iran, for the underground church,
for hope and faith to grow more and more, for
them to seize this opportunity to spread the Kingdom of
God through love, through service to their neighbors, regardless of

(27:01):
their current beliefs or lack thereof, and that they would
share again not only meeting basic needs, but also spiritual
needs for the truth of Jesus Christ. Lastly, please pray
for wisdom for the government in Iran and repentance even

(27:23):
now for its leaders, for the governments the leaders in Israel,
certainly the United States, and certainly the rest of the world,
that no matter what God's will would be done on
this earth.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
So this time we are going to transition to a
time of prayer, praying for our nation. As followers of Jesus,
myself in the other pastors of our church, we truly
strive to fix our allegiances not on any political parties

(28:04):
are kingdoms of this world, but on God's kingdom, in
the king that we serve, King Jesus, whose kingdom is
eternal and is breaking out as we speak, even when
it seems even if it doesn't seem like it or
doesn't feel like it. So this morning, if you more
strongly align with the left and usually vote Democrat. Welcome,

(28:26):
I probably have some views that would be offensive to you,
and I probably have some where we agree. If you
more strongly align with the right and usually vote Republican, welcome,
I probably have some views that would be offensive to you,
and I probably have somewhere we would agree. And in
my and our imperfect efforts, speaking mostly for myself because

(28:49):
I can't speak for matter Jair, but I think I
am to the best of my ability, they're not here. Then,
in our imperfect efforts as pastoral staff trying to follow
and align with the politics of King Jesus, and in
our efforts of just trying to also just manage life,
work a full time job pastor a church, and care
for a family, I think at times it might be

(29:09):
perceived that we are indifferent or uncaring towards how people
are being affected by the politics, by the policies. I'm
sorry of our current administration or past administrations for that matter,
and in all honesty, sometimes we may be because we
are just as susceptible to apathy and indifference and at

(29:31):
getting things wrong as the next person. And I'm truly
sorry if our lack of speaking out from the stage
on a particular topic has made you feel unseen or unheard.
We do our best to speak to you and call
out injustices in our world, but we don't always get
it right, and honestly, we don't always. I think honestly

(29:51):
we're not always informed as we could be on everything happening,
because everything has been happening so fast. And it's something
that I really value is making sure that I can
at least learn as much of the context and the
facts and hear both sides of the story before I
do speak on anything. And so please know that my heart,

(30:15):
our attention is not one of uncaring or apathy, even
though sometimes that can be something that can happen. And
so this morning is we prepare to spend some time
praying for a nation, I do want to make sure
that as a pastor, as a follower of Jesus, I
make it clear that there has been rhetoric and methods

(30:36):
used by our current administration that do not represent those
of the kingdom. And I speak to this current administration
because that's the one we are in now, and I
don't have time to unpack every rebuttal and nuance and
all the complexity that goes behind the things that we're
seeing this morning, but I do want to speak to

(30:56):
the few things that I believe God is leading me to.
There have been cruel and reckless immigration enforcement practices. There
have been people who are residing here legally, whether with
student visas, are through asylum seeking legally, are following the
correct immigration procedures, who have been deported, some even deported

(31:19):
to a foreign prison that is infamous for its poor
treatment of prisoners. This is not the first time people
have been unlawfully deported. Instances of this happened under both
the Obama and the Biden administrations as well, but rhetoric
and responses of our current administration, I think do make

(31:40):
these recent instances truly unique in what appears to be
a desire to be unnecessarily cruel and divisive and to
stoke tensions, even going as far as to ignore a
court order to return someone that was unlawfully deported. There
have been ice rays on factories and communities, with the
priority of expediency and efficiency, deporting as many people as possible,

(32:04):
regardless of whether or not they have a criminal record
or have been long standing, hardworking members of their communities
and have families here. This takes a devastating toll on
families and children. I think no matter where we would
fall in the political spectrum, we can align on that fact.

(32:26):
Similar raids have also happened under past administrations. Also, they
were although they were not accompanied by the National Guard,
which many observers perceived to be a preemptive escalation to
the chaos in disorder. In response, we've seen peaceful protests
and we've also seen violent, destructive rioting. Early on in

(32:50):
the administration, there were indiscriminate cuts to foreign aid, some
of which were being mismanaged and wasted, but some that
were providing life saving treatment for millions of people with
AIDS in Africa, including many young children. Even earlier in
the administration, one of the first things that President Trump

(33:12):
did once he got in office was to pardon everyone
who was charged with criminal activity on January sixth, even
those who violently assaulted police officers. And no matter what
side of the political asle you find yourself in, no
matter who you voted for, you're welcome here. But I

(33:35):
think you could agree with me that this is not
what law and order looks like, this is not what
peace looks like, and this is not what a nation
of hope and liberty and justice for all looks like
no matter what side of the political isle you find
yourself in, I think you would agree with me that
our nation needs prayer. And as we prepare to do

(33:57):
that together, all your attention to the larger handout that's
on your table that says five ways to pray for America.
I want to invite you to look over that as
we sing this next song together and play some instrumental

(34:18):
music and pray to God, you know, follow the prayer
prompts on there. Let's pray for healing and true justice
and true reconciliation and and just grace for one another
as we navigate uh this kind of difficult time in
our history as a nation.