Please find below the notes from the Elder's Prayer this past Sunday.

(Prayer)

You are glorious and mighty. You are above all gods. You created the heavens and the earth and everything in them. Your laws, your words, can never be changed. You are the one true God.

On our own, we are dead in our sins. Our minds are darkened in their understanding of you and your creation and your words. Our hearts are full of sin and are hard toward you and each other. Our lives are marked by lies and anger and greed and selfishness and bitterness, hating one another and being hated by others.

But because you are a God above all gods, because you can do whatever you will, you provide for us new life, new lives marked by truth and kindness and love and forgiveness.

You provide new life for us through Christ, who you sent to earth to bear our sins and receive your wrath for sins on the cross. He lived a life of obedience to your word, submitting himself completely to your will, accomplishing all that you asked him to do.

You provide new life through your Spirit, who renews our minds to think like you think, who changes our hearts from stone to flesh, who convicts us of sin in order that we would stop living like we once lived.

You provide new life through your word, which was written for our benefit, your Spirit helping us to understand its fullness and its application in our daily lives. It is your word that we can trust, your word that helps us to know how to live lives pleasing to you.

You provide new life through your body, the church, through which you work out our salvation day by day, helping us to develop and put into practice the habits of the new life that you have given. It is through the church that you will mature us and bring us into the fullness of Christ, so that we can remain faithful to the end.

Thank you for the new life that you give to those who trust in Christ to save. Help us to live lives worthy of your calling, lives that reflect the joy and grace that mark the new life that you give.

Amen.