(Assurance) Expressing our confidence in God’s provision of grace, drawn from 1 Peter 2:24, "and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed." 

Almighty Lord and Heavenly Father,  

We praise you for the great confidence that we have in Christ. Our salvation and all that we need for reconciliation and relationship with you has been effected and worked out by Christ Himself.  

How often have we been tempted to think Christ is not enough this week! That His obedience has been outsourced to others, that we must fill up some lack in our salvation through our own efforts, that you are yet angry and unreconciled with those who trust in Christ, that we must pursue additional remedies for our spiritual healing, and that we cannot be sanctified as you desire. 

We come before you, praising you for the great assurance that we have by your grace in Christ. You provided your own Son, the God-man who could alone bridge the gap between God and man. Christ lived a perfect human life and bore our sins on the cross, so that the clear judgment and penalty for our disobedience might fall on Him rather than us, and so that we might now be alive before you, declared righteous, in fellowship with you. By your sovereign grace brought into your family as adopted children through our union with Christ. What joy, what confidence, we have, if we have Christ!  

In Christ, uphold the weak and the feeble, and by your Spirit working through the Word today, show them the strength of the certainty of your love and mercy in your saving grace. Convict the proud and the self-sufficient, and bring them to cling to the power and fullness of your grace, as well.  

We have felt many things at many times this past week, Father. Alone, in our relationships, in our work, in our recreation, in our needs, and in our plenty, in considering the past and the present, and in looking to the future we have experienced fear, anger, disappointment, confusion, despair, uncertainty, passing joy, and unfounded confidence.  Only in Christ can we find an unchanging foundation and true rock of confidence. Only in your grace can we have peace and certainty unblemished by caveats and changing circumstances. We praise you that you do not dole out your salvation in diminished portions, but that we can have unending assurance in your eternal grace. 

As you pursued us who now love you, and as you turned our self-assurance to the certainty of your work, your sacrifice, your righteousness, and your grace, even so run after rebels today and bring them to rejoice and exult in the certainty of their salvation in Christ’s healing wounds. 

As we hear your Word today, as we sing your praises, as we disciple and are discipled, fill our eyes and our hearts with the grace of Christ and may our assurance of Christ glorify you in testimony to your eternal worthiness. 

This we pray in Christ’s name, Amen.