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

I consider one of our Church members to be a guru when it comes to Trucks. Not your F-150’s that make you feel like you are a man, but real trucks – 18 Wheelers and the trucks with wheels that are taller than an average man. He has driven trucks in extreme weather conditions in the remote parts of the country.

During a recent conversation with him, he made a statement that stuck with me. He said, “There are no fender-benders when it comes to trucks & accidents”

I was thinking, wow! the same is true when it comes to our involvement with sin. There is no concept all play and no sin. Whatever the extent of our involvement with sin is, in thoughts or attitudes or in actions, we grieve the Holy Spirit. We displease God to our dismay.

We could say, “There are no fender-benders when it comes to sin & broken relationship with God”

I want to lead us in prayer seeking God’s help and grace to overcome sin, by borrowing words from multiple Puritans.

Let’s pray.

Father God, lover of Your people, You have placed our whole being in the hands of Jesus, our Redeemer, Commander, Husband, Friend, and cares for us in Him.

Keep us holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners; may we not know the voice of strangers, but go to Him where He is, and follow where He leads.

You have bathed us once and for all in the sin-removing fountain, cleanse us now from this day's defilement, from its faults, deficiencies of virtue, harmful extremes, that we may exhibit a perfect character in Jesus.

O Master, who did wash the disciples' feet, be very patient with us, be very condescending to our faults, go on with us till Your great work in us is completed.

We desire to conquer self in every respect, to overcome the body with its affections and lusts, to keep under our flesh, to guard our personhood from all grosser sins, to check the refined power of our natural mind, to live entirely to Your glory, to be deaf to unmerited censure and the praise of men.

We are all poverty as well as all guilt, having nothing of our own with which to repay You, but we bring Jesus to You in the arms of faith, pleading His righteousness to offset our iniquities, rejoicing that He will weigh down the scales for us, and satisfy Your justice.

Keep us humble, dependent, supremely joyful, as calm and quiet as a sucking child, yet earnest and active. We wish not so much to do as to be, and we long to be like Jesus; if You make us right, we shall be right; Lord, we belong to You, make us worthy of Yourself.

Nothing can hurt our new-born inner man; it cannot be smitten or die; nothing can mar the dominion of Your Spirit within us; it is enough to have Your approbation and that of our conscience.

We bless You that great sin draws out great grace, that, although the least sin deserves infinite punishment because done against an infinite God, yet there is mercy for us, for where guilt is most terrible, there Your mercy in Christ is most free and deep.

Bless us by revealing to us more of His saving merits, by causing Your goodness to pass before us, by speaking peace to our contrite heart; strengthen us to give You no rest until Christ shall reign supreme within us in every thought, word, and deed, in a faith that purifies the heart, overcomes the world, works by love, fastens us to You, and ever clings to the cross.

In your Son’s name we pray, Amen.