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

Psalm 25:11 - For the sake of Your name, LORD, forgive my wrongdoing, for it is great.

Heavenly Father,

We recognize that our sin, both of commission and of omission, is violence against your holy nature. You have redeemed your people to fellowship with you and from the power of death, and we confess that we have yet rejected you and we have pursued death in great ways, in small moments, in both the pondered and the unthinking postures of our hearts.

Father, may the terror of sin fall upon us that we would run all the faster to Christ, and we ask that you would show us the exceeding vileness of our transgressions so that we might gaze upon the beauty of your holiness with renewed reverence and appreciation.

Show us how sin poisons our free relationship with you, our relationship with our families and friends and with our brothers and sisters in this body. Show us how it degrades our minds and bodies, how it is a thief of our peace, joy, and eternal reward. Show us how unforsaken sin imperils our very souls.

And in our seeing these things, we thank you for calling us back to yourself through your kindness to us in Christ, for seconding your Word of grace with your works of mercy and for pardoning our great iniquities for your name’s sake.

As we are in prayer together, today, our petition is that we might lay aside our pride and self-will and cling to you in fervent repentance. We pray that we might hold fast to you approbation of your worthiness and perfection. Apart from your plan for our redemption, we have no other hope of forgiveness, no other hope of fellowship with you, no other hope for victory over sin, no other hope of renewal of heart and mind and action.

Today, through Christ-centered discipleship, through the singing of Scripture, through our shared prayer, and through the preaching of your Word, we entreat that you would show us the great bounty of power over sin and the infinite guarantees of forgiveness that are found only in Christ. We pray that you would draw us nearer to you and to each other as a repenting people.

All this we ask in Christ’s name,

Amen