Pastoral Prayer

*This prayer was delivered at Gethsemane Baptist Church during Lord’s Day worship on January 28, 2024.

Introduction

Heavenly Father, we confess how wonderful it is to come to you in prayer. Thank you that you hear us; thank you that you are sovereign. Give us grace to trust you as we lay our requests before you now.

Supplication

Lord, we pray for church this morning as we worship you. Conform us into the image of Christ, we pray. Give us a love for holiness and give us a distain for worldliness. And move us to delight in holiness by looking at the holiness of Christ Jesus. Let our hearts be transformed into his likeness as we gaze on his beauty, his loveliness, his perfections, his person, and his works. Help us to lay aside every hindrance and every sin that keeps us from growing in holiness by looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. We pray for our church in regards to members’ meeting after the fellowship meal. Let our worship in this room and then our fellowship at the meal today be the grounds of our peace and unity with one another in our members’ meeting. Help us not to find it a drudgery to be the church members you’ve called us to be, but rather let us find it a delight to steward well what you’ve given us. Give us wisdom, give us peace amongst ourselves, and give us unity in the gospel. Let the world be able to know us by our love for one another.

We pray specifically Scott and Amy and their two children, Zoe and Levi. Lord God, thank you for saving them from their sins. Thank you placing their names in the Lamb’s book of life apart from any good you ever saw in them. Thank you that they have heaven and the eternal bliss of the presence of Christ awaiting them. Thank you for how Scott and Amy serve our church so wonderfully. Thank you for Scott’s leadership in our music on Sundays and his advice for our audio system, and thank you for Amy’s behind the scenes work in cleaning our church so we have a clean building for Sundays. We pray that you would supply all of their needs. Give them everything they need for life and godliness. We pray that you would cause their faith in the Lord Jesus to persevere to very end.

The Afflicted

Father, we also pray for those who burdened and weighed down with the cares and sufferings of life in a fallen world. We pray for those who are struggling with clinical depression. We pray that you would give their doctors and physicians wisdom as they diagnose those complex issues. Make yourself their Rock and their fortress, their deliverer and their stay. Give them hope and deliver them from despair.

We pray for those who struggling financially right now. Do abundantly above and beyond all that they could ever ask or think. Please help those who are looking for new jobs, even those who need to look for new jobs because they’re not able to get by. Lord, meet the needs of our whole congregation and give them enough to be generous and to have enough to give to others in need.

We pray for those who are in the battle against their flesh. We know the devil walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour; the world would have us forsake Christ and worship it instead; and our old man wages war on the new man every day. Give those in the throes of spiritual battle to emerge victorious in Christ. Give victory over sin and rest in the Lord Jesus. In fact, give victory over sin by causing them to rest in the Lord Jesus.

And we pray for those who are struggling with their physical health this morning. We pray for strength for the days ahead. Help us to trust you that whatever comes into our lives are nothing more than providential hinderances that you have placed on us. And you do this for our good because you are good. Give those who are struggling now with illness or health issues healing from their ailments, but trust you for your goodness when you don’t bring that healing.

The Word

Father, as we open your Word, open our eyes that we might behold wondrous things out of your law. And as we examine the book of the Revelation, cause your Word to examine us. Show us our sin, show us what our sins deserve, and then show us Christ and him crucified.

All this we ask in Jesus’s name. Amen!