Pastor Robert and TaQuaris Smith
Pastor Robert: Praise the Lord. We are going to try to, and I say try to not have us here too long. We do have a full day of prayer. Amen. But we do have some business to take care of. So I actually would like Pastor Brian and Jacque to come up to the stage, please because it is pastors appreciation month. These two have assembled a great staff and the staff, we love you very much. And we wanted to publicly acknowledge that we love you very much, so we got together and put a little something in the envelope for you. But we also got a card, going to ask TaQuaris to read this card to you on behalf of the staff.
TaQuaris: God shines through you. You are appreciated for your authentic faith, your encouraging words and your heart to serve, and your love for people. Hope you are blessed knowing that God is using you to change the world, one life at a time. May grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God in Jesus our Lord, asking him to bless you today.
Pastor Robert: On behalf of the church staff, we want to say thank you, and Bryce will give it to her. We say we love and appreciate you. Thank the staff for allowing me to do that. Appreciate you guys. Love you, love our team. It's good to be in a place, a community, a community of hope. Last time we were before you, we were talking about cultivating a community of faith, and it’s so important, and we want to build upon that today. I want us to start out by reading from 1 Thessalonians chapter 5.
TaQuaris: Always be joyful, never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances for this is God's will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.
Pastor Robert: As we said before, those who belong to Jesus are called to a community of believers who share a common experience in salvation. The scripture we just read tells us that this community is to never stop praying. Other translations say to pray without ceasing. To never stop praying or to pray without ceasing means to have our minds always on the things of God and to be in constant communication with Him. We may have our individual communications with Him through personal prayer time, just like Jesus often did. We often read in the scriptures where Jesus went off alone and he went to pray. But we want to share with you today that it's a great thing to communicate with God within community.
Sometimes because of our environment in this great country of ours that's very individualistic, and that individualism permeates through every aspect of our lives. Sometimes, even in our church life, we become very individualistic. We have our own prayer time. We have our own prayer closets. We have our own times of fasting. We have our own times of getting away before the Lord. All of those things are great. I believe each and every one of us should have those times of alone time and prayer and getting before God and hearing from God and all those things that we do in our spiritual practices. We need to individually develop them. And I know myself; I love people, but I'm a loner too at the time. I like my solitude. I love fishing with friends. I love fishing with my son, but it doesn't take away from the times that I'm off on the lake by myself. I love that time alone to commune with God. I have to, even myself, challenge myself into joining the community corporately in times of prayer, in times of fellowship, in times of worshipping too.
I believe that as the believers, as we develop this community of faith, I want to challenge us in that area too. I want us to be able to cultivate a community of prayer. Just as we continue in sound doctrine, like we talked about last time as we develop this faith community, it's important for us to receive sound doctrine and teaching of the word. We all affirm that we have that in our church, hope. We have that sound doctrine that's delivered on a weekly basis. One of the first things I noticed when I came here, there is already an established sense of prayer here. And so, this is by no means a rebuke on this faith community because there is already prayer that's going on. But there is a great need for us to grow more corporately, together in prayer.
In my experience in church, we make doctrines. God never intended us to make doctrines. Man makes doctrines, one, so we can try to make sense of God and these things that we do. But a lot of times, traditional things we do and doctrinal things we do come out of a lack or trying to compensate something to get us to seem more spiritual. Because of those things, we have these, what I call these specialized areas in church. It becomes commonplace because we use terminology like prayer warrior or intercessor or demon buster or whatever. But the scriptures I read said these are the things that are part of those that believe not a specialized group. That means every single person in the community has the ability to pray to God. I believe that every person in the body of Christ should be taught and developed and discipled into knowing how to pray to God.
Thank God for the so-called intercessors in churches. I believe many of us would not be here without those who have designated time and specific times to be called out to pray. So again, this is not a message to knock any of our practices. This is a call and a mandate for the entire body of Christ every single person who calls upon the name of Jesus, especially in this local community. We need to pray; we need to know how to pray. We need to come together corporately to pray. As we have this message before our set-aside day of prayer, I'm saying great job. But I'm saying more of us need to be a part of that and do that. Remember this message is about cultivating a community of prayer. We already have the specialists. We want to invite the whole community, and we are going to talk about why that's important today. You want to read Acts 2?
TaQuaris: All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship and to sharing in meals, including the Lord's Supper and to prayer.
Pastor Robert: And my wife has some good things to say about this corporate prayer.
TaQuaris: Corporate prayer is a powerful and essential aspect of the Christian life. It has the power to unite believers and encourage our faith and bring change in the lives of individuals and their communities. And throughout the Bible we can see countless examples of people coming together in prayer to seek God's guidance, seek His provision, seek His healing, etc.
Pastor Robert: All of these are to help build a culture of prayer. Just like in salvation, we share the experience of salvation. It's good for us in a community to share the experience of praying for one another and seeing the results of those prayers and coming together to comfort one another in times of loss, in times of need, and when we see things that threaten our community. I mean our church community, our local communities, things that happen in society. There is a special thing that happens when the community of faith unites together, corporately together, and pray. How do we cultivate this culture of prayer? Well, I don't necessarily have, “These are the ten steps to cultivate prayer,” but I do have a first step. You know what that first step is? We have to pray. How can we develop or cultivate a culture of prayer without praying? We first have to pray, right?
TaQuaris: James 5:13-16 -Are any of you suffering hardships? You should pray. Are any of you happy? You should sing praises. Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you. Anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord. Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well. And if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven. Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.
Pastor Robert: I like this translation. Iit just simply says, are any of you suffering hardships? You should pray. At the end, it says that it has great power and produces wonderful results. There is power in prayer. There is power when we pray corporately. But oftentimes, we can be tempted to do what? Murmur, complain or at worse, do nothing at all, instead of praying. In order for a culture of prayer to be established, we have to actually pray. It seems comical in a sense, but have you ever been in a place, whether God forbid, in church or a public gathering, and there is a crisis or tragedy that has happened? What do they do? Let's have a moment of silence. What? A moment of silence? But see, that's the culture. We come up with all these clever things to do except the very thing we should do. Pray to God; acknowledge God. We do all these things to get away from acknowledging God. We come up with all these so-called clever things to do except the very thing that we need to do that produces something.
Thinking about acknowledging God, prayer does that. We have to humble ourselves, get beyond ourselves and actually acknowledge that there is a sovereign God that we have to answer to, that we have to ask forgiveness for or seek guidance from or obtain direction or get help, that we can't do it ourselves, that we actually need somebody else, there is somebody else actually greater than us, smarter than us, wiser than us, more powerful than us. And that's God Almighty, who loves us enough in relationship that allows us to come to him at any time to communicate with him and pray. That's a great God we have. We don't have to make ten steps. We don't have to jump through hoops. We don't have to go through fifty rituals. Any place, any time, wherever you are, whatever you are doing, you can stop and pray. Did you hear that? You can stop and communicate with your God. That wasn't in the notes. That was just for you.
TaQuaris: I just want to speak on that just a little bit and just share just kind of a little bit of a quick testimony. In my life, like when I was younger, prayer is what kept my mind sane. I wasn't taught how to pray, or you need to say this and that, but I was in an abusive household and my parents were on drugs and my dad was very abusive to my mom. I just heard that there was a God. I would secretly go by myself and pray and say, God if you are real, are you real? If you are real, show me that you are real. Because as long as I knew that he was real, I would have hope, right? Seriously.
I didn't even know my siblings was doing the exact same thing and we end up talking about it later in life but that's when my prayer life kind of developed through hardships and I wasn't taught anyway or how to pray. It was so awesome to me because I'm like God he is listening to me I am nothing like he is hearing my prayers and that just gave me such a motivation in my life. And I just continued that on because I know that God, He hears us even when we don't think He is and even when there is sometimes that we have a hard time praying, the prayer that we have in our mind, sometimes our tears are prayers to God. I just want to encourage you, you know, God is here for us, and he wants to hear from us more, especially in the days that we are living in right now. It's so important.
Pastor Robert: Amen. And we need to be encouraged to pray. I'll deal with the pink elephant in the room because I know there are many people who say there are times with prayers and God didn't answer my prayer. I don't have a great dissertation to tell you, or I'm not going to sit here and have a pretense in explaining God. All I know and believe is that God is sovereign, and I believe that there are sovereign times that God has that's not contingent on our prayer. God knows more than us. But I will tell you this. Nothing will ever happen if you don't pray so it’s not up to you; the only thing that's up to you is to come before God and pray. That's all. Leave the rest to God. And believe with all your heart what you are praying for. Sometimes we pray for things that's beyond our thinking or imagination and we are like, that never could happen like this situation. We are going to read the scripture in a little bit. But there is power when we come together and pray, and we should always expect miracles.
TaQuaris: Amen. Acts 4:23-24. As soon as they were freed, Peter and John returned to the other believers and told them what the leading priests and elders had said. When they heard the report, all the believers lifted their voices together in prayer to God. After this prayer, the meeting place shook and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. Then they preached the Word of God with boldness. Early in the scriptures, the apostles John and Peter have been put in prison for preaching about Jesus. They were in prison for sharing that Jesus was risen from the dead and also incarcerated for inviting sinners to come and follow him and accept him as their Lord and Savior. The Jewish leaders around at that time could not tolerate the word that the first Christians were proclaiming, and they commanded them to be silent. In verse 23, John and Peter, they had just both been released from prison, and they immediately gathered with other believers to pray. And so they prayed for boldness to continue to spread the word of God in times of opposition that they face. As they prayed, the place where they were gathered was shaken and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. This powerful display of God's presence and power, it's a direct result of the unity that they had when they came together and prayed. This example, it also teaches us the importance of praying together in times of persecution and difficulty.
Pastor Robert: Thank God, we have a place, a community already that’s established with prayer. It's very comforting to me, encouraging to me. I don't know. Today is time, pastors, for a promotion of what we do at Hope. Because I don't know if every newcomer knows that. We have people that pray here in the church building every morning maybe before many of you get out of bed. They are here. They are praying. We have prayer requests that go out throughout the week. You can sign up on the email if you would like to receive prayer requests. If you say you would like to get prayer requests so that you can pray, you can sign up on the website and get those emails with the prayer requests.
It’s one of the things as I was a newcomer here, I'm hearing about the different things and I'm asking, how do you know about these prayer requests? And so, I was directed to the website, and I'm able to get the Tuesday emails, I'm able to get the prayer requests as they come. And we don't get bombarded with these emails every week, but when those prayer requests come or are submitted, if you are signed up, you get them. And wherever I'm at, you know, most people, I carry my phone everywhere I go. And so right there on my phone, I see I got a new prayer request. I can stop what I'm doing wherever I'm at. I can pray or I can make a mental note. I need to pray about this later. We have those things going on.
Today, we have a corporate prayer time and I pray we'll get to a time we can be in the building because I know there are requests. But one thing the pandemic showed us is that, hey, we don't have to stop because we are not in the building. Thank God for Zoom. Thank God for online communication. And so, we are going to have prayer today. Different prayer people are going to lead at different times for an hour, do some teaching. And that's the way the whole body, even outside the church, can join your friends if you want– but it's a time for us as a church body to come together and have time for prayer. And so, I love that. I get texts on a weekly basis from Jacque about prayer needs. I was encouraged this weekend. My mom is facing a lot of health struggles right now, and I'm always getting prayers from Jacque, update, how's mom doing. That encourages me, that gives me strength outside of our own prayer times.
I know we have relationships, personal relationships with some of you. We know that you are praying. That's one of the things we notice right away praying, and that's good. This is just a call for more of us to enter into that spirit of prayer, to embrace that prayer foundation that's here. And part of it is here because to cultivate a culture of prayer, you have to have leaders that take the lead in prayer. Let me say that again, because that doesn't always take place in church. I've been a part of many gatherings and churches that the leaders didn't pray. Yeah, the leaders. And so they wonder why it was a struggle for people to pray. But it's a great thing to have church leaders that take the lead in prayer.
When I first came here, I've seen the pastors praying all the time, seen Pastor Jeff lead prayer, incorporate things with prayer. Pastor Brian prays and blesses us every Sunday. I see Jacque just leading women's prayer in the women's group and all those things. Men, when we come together, we pray. In our prayer breakfast, we have a time of prayer. It's a great thing to have the leadership take the lead role in leading. Leaders, the root word is to what? Lead, to be an example to the flock. I'm saying that I'm thankful for that. And we need to encourage that. And we need to encourage and pray for the leaders as well. Because it's one thing to give out and lead in those things, and it's another thing in the corporate body for us to undergird leadership and what they are doing. And that's why it's developing, cultivating a culture of prayer. We are not just leaning upon or dependent on the leadership. We are all coming together as the corporate community to join in the fight of faith. And that includes prayer. Amen.
TaQuaris: Acts chapter 6:4: Then we apostles can spend our time in prayer and teaching the word. I can't think of anything that brings more vitality to the life of the local church, than when God's people are praying together. Creating a culture of prayer requires a deep commitment on the behalf of the leadership. And modeling corporate prayer is a form of discipleship for everyone that's involved. Because every time we pray together, we teach people that it's okay to pray together. Pastors need to champion the value of prayer because cultivating a culture of prayer starts at the leadership level, with pastors and other church leaders, like my husband said, modeling a consistent and fervent prayer life. A leader’s personal commitment to prayer, it can inspire others to see the importance of seeking God's regularly.
Pastor Robert: That has to do with discipleship to discipleship is very important. Teaching is very important in discipleship and teaching on prayer is important to cultivate that culture, that community of prayer as well. And so even in our individual discipleship assignments– I'm talking to you, all you leaders, you mentors, you people who are older, mature in the faith. When you take these young ones, and these babes in faith, have times where you teach them how to pray for their needs too. They can't be reliant on you all the time to pray for them. You hear me? It's important to help them establish a lifestyle of prayer that they too, can go to God in their time of need. It's good to do that. Because I know. I've been pastoring for a long time. If it was up to people, they would bombard my phone all the time, with all of their needs all the time for years to come. But any of them know that they've been discipled by me, know that there is going to come a point where Pastor Robert is going to say you need to pray for yourself. I'm not being cruel. It's about growth. It's about establishing that personal relationship with God, yourself; all of us can come to God. We only have one mediator. I know, there are still religious systems that want to have man as a mediator, we are not in that system. I am not your mediator to God.
TaQuaris: I mean, it's the same thing. When you think about your kids. As a parent, I pray with my children. We pray with our children. And we want them to develop that intimate relationship with God themselves at a time when we are not even around. If you look at it from that perspective, you get a great understanding, you know, Train up a child in the way they should go. And when they grow old, they won't depart from it. My prayer, even when it comes to my kids, I don't want to just enable them, because I want them to have a deep relationship with God, and be able to pray when they are faced with difficult circumstances.
Pastor Robert: Prayer can be intimidating for people. That's why we need to teach on it to make it less intimidating. I think that our religious systems have complicated prayer and prayer life. And so the way it has been presented to people, people feel inferior, they feel inadequate, they don't feel confident that they can pray to God. We presented God as this unapproachable figure. And he is not. He is waiting for all of his chill. He is like a father, a loving father that’s waiting for his children to come to Him. All of us, all of the believers, not just the pastors, not a priest, not any other intermediary. He wants us to cultivate that relationship with Him. If we can foster that as a corporate body together to encourage one another to pray–
I remember sometimes when I was talking to my wife about things even when I was courting her, that's an old term, courting her. She asked me, just like, did you pray? I'm like, what? Did you pray about it? That's how we should be in our relationships, our friendships. When people come to us, you know, Hey, your sister so, your brother so and so I got this idea or I want to do this. Did you pray? You know, what are we doing? We are making sure. We are not putting the onus on us to make the decision for them. We want them to be in the will of God, and we want them to have the backing of God. And so we want them to get into place to communicate those things. Even our daily practices, communicate with the Lord.
TaQuaris: Because God said in all your ways, acknowledge him. That's prayer to me. God, I want to do this. I really feel strongly that this is the direction that you are leading me to go. But you know what, I'm going to just submit to your will, and I want to hear what you have for me. Even though I want to do it, I’m going to put that aside. Because you said I need to acknowledge you in all things, all my decisions. That's a form of prayer. And honestly, it comes down to relationship, really. Really, it does.
My husband was speaking about sometimes, we could be intimidated. And I remember growing up, when I moved to Minnesota and going to church here, some people were very intimidated to pray in front of other people, because you have some, they were saying all these words, all these big immaculate words. And so, I remember at a time, I was intimidated, like, I don't want to do that. I had to grow from that, because prayer is about relationships. It's not about all the intimidating words, these immaculate words. Because if it's really not coming from your heart, it's not really true prayer, really, you are just saying gibberish to God. I just want to also just encourage you that you don't have to feel intimidated or anything like that, when we all get together. Because God is hearing you when you pray, because of your relationship with him.
Pastor Robert: Not only teaching on prayer, but to cultivate this culture. We need to testify about our prayer times and what happens when we pray. And I think we need to be challenged to do that on a community basis. I'm good about telling someone that's close to me about what God has done and answer prayer. But the whole body needs to understand how God is moving in our lives. To encourage those that may be struggling in prayer, may be struggling to see things in their lives, to encourage them to say, hey, this prayer thing is work. It's powerful. Someone may be going through the same thing you are going through and they hear about a testimony of the results of your prayer, your prayer time with God, and he is like, wow, if God can do that for them, God can do that for me or that situation, or for the church or for the community.
We are taught in the world, in sales, if you love your product, you are gonna talk about it. That's the best salesman is– they used to teach us– Brad, I got taught the old school way, the old school of selling. You use the products that you sell. That way you can testify about what you are selling. You are not just memorizing a sale sheet. You use the product, and you believe in the product, and you can sell the product because you are not just coming up with things. You have true conviction about what you are selling. And so it is in your life with God, especially in the times of prayer. Hey, I wanna let you know– like Jacque said, I didn't say the right thing, but I was able to go to God and he corrected me, and I was able to do something about it.
I know recently, personally, there is a financial situation that had been vexing me for a long time, to the point that I wasn't really sleeping at night because I'm like, every time it seems like I'm crawling out the hole, it seems like when I get to the top, there is more dirt that's piled down and I go back down a notch and then I gotta to come back up. I have been doing everything that I know to do. I’ve been working on some things credit wise for the past few years that have gotten me back in a good place because I did the discipline. I had to explain to my wife some things I couldn't do for a while. But that has put me in a bad place. So, I'm like, okay, this is gonna open up the door. The door was closed. And I'm like, okay. But guess what? I wasn't praying about it. I was maneuvering all around trying to do what I know to do. You know what I mean? For months, that's what I'm doing. I ain't praying to God about it.
Well, after that door was closed, you know how something happens. You just get frustrated. Then I went to God. I said, God, you gonna have to do something about it because apparently, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know, maybe this ain't what you want me to do. So I don't know what to do. Have you ever been there? I'm like, I don't know what to do. I said, so I give up. I need your help. This was the prayer, Jacque. I need your help. Less than 24 hours, less than 24 hours, God answered the prayer, and I was able to sleep like a baby. God is good. Less than 24 hours after months of being in mental misery. Yes, I'm telling on myself. Pastor Robert finally decided to pray and ask God.
But I just get a sense that helps some of you. What if I didn't share that? I was about to tell a lie. I was going to say I believe in discretion, but I really don’t. My wife knows I'm a transparent guy. I am free. I really don't care about people's opinions. I don't care about what people think of me. I don't care. My life is an open book. So I don't care about sharing things, but I know people do. I know people have their discretions. I know people have their private lives. I'm just saying every once in a while, let your life be unprivate and let God work. Because there are things we are praying about in secret. Guess what? There is nothing new under the sun. Somebody else is going through the same thing and you never know what the word of your testimony will do to encourage people in their lives. That's all.
I'm not telling you to be like me. That's just a place I've grown to. I have not always been that way, but I've seen God move too many times in my life to worry about man. It's a revelation when you know that God loves you. It's a great revelation. It's a freeing, delivering thing. When you know, without a shadow of a doubt that God loves you. It just frees you up and it brings you to a place of gratitude. God, why me? And I'm just thankful and I'm grateful. I started crying and God answered my prayer. I said I'm just grateful, but also pray the prayer of forgiveness. Lord, forgive me for waiting so long to come to you. Forgive me. But see, that's prayer. That's part of that communicating in prayer. We need to have those testimonies of those prayer times as well.
And then lastly, it's like what we are doing today: designating times of corporate prayer is. There are times that we need to intentionally come together, set aside time to come together to pray, because it creates unity amongst us in the body. And it also helps to focus our attention on God's purposes for us. Sometimes in our own little individual things, our world gets very small, and we have these desires that are not necessarily God's will, but it's something about the presence, the spirit of God's presence in corporate times of prayer that he helps unify us and brings us in a unified purpose, a unified spirit, and focuses us on what God wants to do in our local community, in our local church. That's why it's important for us to come together so we can all hear at the same time, what God wants to do in us, for us and through us as a corporate body.
Since I've been here, God has privileged me with giving us prophetic words about this community. We need to be joining together in prayer for those things. The visions that Pastor Brian has set before us and shaping and directing us in this community of faith, we need to corporately gather together and pray for those things. We need to continue to pray for one another when it's time to come together. It's important for us to have realized that we are a true God family.
TaQuaris: Cultivating a community of prayer, it highlights the fact, like my husband said, that we are all part of the same spiritual family. It strengthens the bond that we have with each other and between us. It creates unity as we pray together. Our hearts are more deeply knit with God's heart and as well as each other's heart. And we pretty much are given a glimpse of what we'll enjoy when we get into heaven. We can experience a stronger sense of purpose as a congregation when we pray together as well because it connects us with one common purpose. And that's seeking God's heart. When we pray individually, we tend to focus like he said, on our own purposes. However, when we pray together, we have shared purposes. And that focus, it just goes beyond ourselves. It fuses a motivation to let go of our own agenda and to search for God's purposes.
Pastor Robert: God wants to do a great thing here at Hope Community Church. We've been saying it, but I believe it's time for us to realize it. We are here where we are presently because of prayers that have gone forward and prayers that have been prayed in faith that, for the most part, could have been forgotten. I know that me and my family being here is not by accident. I'm reminded by certain people on a weekly or monthly basis that we are here because of prayer. There are things that are developing in this city and around this church because of committed faithful prayer. There are things yet to come that will happen as we continue to commit ourselves to develop a community of prayer. I don't care what the new trends are trying to tell you, but I'm a studier of church history. There has never been a sustaining revival that was not birthed in, and through prayer. All of the sustaining revivals throughout church history is because people were burdened to pray because they were pricked in their hearts by the Holy Spirit and were moved in dedication to see God move in a corporate place, a community place, in a tangible way.
A revival is not all about shouting and dancing. It's about changed hearts, changed lives, communities changed and transformed. And I believe, again, like I told you, this church is placed here strategically. I believe that we continue to cultivate this community of faith and community of prayer, and I think ,pastor, next time, continue on community about our fellowship. But as we continue those things, cultivating those things, I believe that what pastor you are envisioning for this place, what God is envisioning for this place, it would be set up for a long time. We get to be a part of that, and we get to sow that. We get to reap it because of prayer. And we get to sow for the future because of prayer. And we get to taste a glimpse of all of that as we fellowship together in this community. I think we are gonna see a great move of God, so be patient, hold on and be encouraged. And let's have a great day of prayer today. Amen.
I just want all of us here in the audience to stand. Those of you at home, you can stand or sit, but I'd like us to just join together and pray. Heavenly Father, we come to you as a corporate body, as a community of faith, and say, we love you. And we say thank you. We humble our hearts before you and say, Lord, we want to be better than what we already are. Lord, we ask that you search our thoughts, which you know, search our hearts, search our desires and everything that's not of you, everything that taints our heart, everything that presents itself as a stumbling block for us, being fully used in the capacity that you want us to be used, remove it. Show us our ways, Lord, that are not pleasing to you, so that we can be clean vessels on fire for you.
Lord, we don't want to be left out in what you are doing. We don't want to be spectators. Because you see fit to use us, we want to be worthy of that calling. Wherever we have bitterness, strife, contention, pride, we ask that you remove it. Wherever we are at odds with our brother, we ask for reconciliation. Where we have a lack of understanding, we pray for clarity, revelation, and wisdom. Wherever we have discouragement, we ask for hope. Wherever we are weak, we ask for strength. Wherever we are sick, we ask for healing. And wherever our hearts are broken, we pray for you to mend them. We pray for those that are not here, Lord, and that we desire for them to be in our midst. We ask that your spirit will go out and to woo them, to love them, cloak them with your love. We call for the prodigal, the wayward, for them to come to themselves and to return unto you.
We thank you that this place shall be a beacon of light in this community and beyond. And just as the nation's flag is flying above, we would raise the banner of Jesus Christ. And that we put out a call to all the broken, to all the loss to come into a place to be loved, and to be nurtured in the love of Christ. We thank you, Lord. We thank you for being attentive to our prayers. And we thank you for what you are gonna do in our midst. In Jesus' mighty name. Amen.
Pastor Brian: Thank you, Pastor Robert. It's my heart that we would all learn how to pray without seizing, really learn what that means. I remember one time opening up a box of something that I needed to put together, assemble, and right at the very top of the instructions that said, “do it our way first.” I think that's kind of a message from the Lord to us. Go to him first. Let's just go to Him first. I think it'll save us a lot of time. And he has got the best answers. So, Father, teach us how to go to you first. Help us to lay down our pride and our self-sufficiency. Go to you first. And Lord, I pray that as a community of faith, we would let our walls down and let people see into our own imperfections where we would actually need people to pray for us or pray for our children, or pray for our families, or pray for our neighbors, our friends, pray for our circumstances. And it takes some humility to do that. But I just pray that there would be a grace come upon us to be open, to let others walk with us and share with us, share one another's burdens, and therefore fulfill the law of Christ, which is the law of love. So we ask in Jesus' name that you grace us in a new way from this day forward in our prayer life and in praying for others, in allowing others to pray for us. Now, let's lift our hands together.
And now, may the Lord bless you and may the Lord keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. And may the Lord turn his face towards you and give you his peace. And may you pray without ceasing. This we pray in the name of the Father, son, and Holy Spirit, amen. Amen. John and Tina will be over here to serve communion to you this morning. We also will have people to pray for you if you want prayer this morning at the altar. God bless you. Look forward to seeing you throughout the day today.
Transcript taken from the Sunday morning service 10-8-23. If you would like to watch the full service, click the link below.