Untitled Sermon (4)

A Pastoral Prayer

Thank you for leading us in worshiping our God in spirit and truth. Jason and his team work hard and diligently each week to serve us in leading us into a time of worship. Thank you for serving the Lord in this area. Church you may be seated. Good Morning, my name is Patrick and I am one of the pastors here at Antioch, Antioch kids you may be dismissed to the doors at the side of the sanctuary. Young Disciples there are sermon guides at the back of the church for you to work through as we look at God’s Word this morning.

This morning as we enter into our communal prayer time, I want to highlight and ask for prayer for our youth here in the church. Next week they will be embarking on a 6 week in-depth study of what the bible has to say about sexuality. Pray that their minds would be enlightened by the Word of Truth and that we would be able to teach in a way that is simplistic but comprehensive and true to what the Word says. Pray for the teachers and for the parents, whom we have asked to get here just about 15-20 minutes earlier each week so we can get a few more minutes in.

Bow with me and seek the Lord for a few moments in silence and then I will lead us.

Heavenly Father,

Thank you for being our rock and our refuge! We praise you that you deliver us in your righteousness and that you looked upon my cold heart and chose not to pour your wrath out on me, a sinner, but that you gave us your son and now I am a son adopted into the family. We praise Jesus, for the fact that even though you counted yourself as equal to the father you did not count it as a thing to be grasped, but emptied yourself, by becoming a servant, being born into the likeness of men. We praise you that you humbled yourself by obedience to the point of death, death on a cross. And we rejoice in the truth that death could not hold you down and that you rose from the dead and have ascended to heaven where you are seated at the right hand of our father and that He has highly exalted you as the son and that every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth, and under the earth. We praise the Spirit that you have sent to us that indwells in us, sealing us for the inheritance and that we likewise are counted as sons. In these truths we have refuge, our god who is our salvation. May our praise be only of you.

Incline your ear to us. Convict us of sins that beset us, that break our fellowship with one another and ultimately with you. Help us not to grumble about one another, but to speak the truth in love to one another, forgiving one another as you forgave us in Christ Jesus. In this we ask that you would save us from the wicked, but yet when we look upon the mirror of your word, I tend to realize the darkness of my own heart and that I am part of the common denominator in our culture. So I seek you today, that your cleansing and sanctifying work would pour out upon me and upon this people here at Antioch, today, this very moment. Teach us to wholly lean upon you, to sustain and fix our hope upon you, that we may teach fellow sinners the way of the Lord and that you would grant them repentance as you have granted us.

Lord, we seek your spirit to be poured out on our youth as we look upon the upcoming series on sexuality. We see how the world can take common things about natural created order and get them so twisted because of the fall, and we ask that you would help our youth to see the truth of your word as it is applied to this often thought of a taboo subject, of how we are fallen and how in Jesus Christ we can redeem that identity and be faithful to you.

Now Lord I pray for this service, this hearing of the word, I pray that you help us not to be distracted, of to do lists and would have’s and could have’s feelings of guilt of the week gone by. But that you would give us a solid state of mind to feast upon the word as we hear from our pastor this morning. Lord would you would nourish our souls with the meat of your word. For those that sit here and are unbelieving, we pray that you would convince their souls of your word, the supremacy of Christ and his atonement for their sin. Awaken us that we may praise you continually.

In His name we pray.

Amen