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

Almighty God and Merciful Father, 

It is right to give thanks to you, for you alone deserve all praise. You alone are God, living and true, dwelling in light inaccessible from before time and forever. 

You are the fountain of physical and spiritual life, and you are the source of all goodness. You have made all things and directed all circumstances, and we come before you today recognizing that you have brought great blessings and that you deserve all glory and thankfulness as we marvel at your wisdom and depth of your truth. 

Multitudes of angels stand before you to serve and worship you, night and day, and they rejoice and unceasingly praise you as they experience the glory of your presence. How much more so should we, who were once rebels and lost in our sins, approach before you with thanksgiving and praise for your salvation in Christ Jesus? 

We thank you, Father, for the grand sweep of your redemptive purpose. You formed us in your own image and gave the whole world into our care, so that in obedience to you, we might rule beneath you and spread the knowledge of your name through all the earth. 

When we disobeyed you, you did not abandon us to the power of death. In your mercy, you called Abraham into covenant with you and promised blessing to all the peoples of the earth. Through the prophets you taught us to hope for your promised salvation as the downward spiral of history showed that we were incapable of saving ourselves. In your love, and in the fullness of time, you sent your Son to be our Savior. Incarnate by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin, he lived the perfect life that we could not live, died to satisfy your justice, and paid the price of our redemption. In giving himself up to death, he defeated death. In rising from the dead, he destroyed death. 

Thank you, Heavenly Father, for all the blessings attendant with your salvation: for the great joy of fellowship with fellow believers, for worship in and with your church, and for your Word, opened to us. We thank you that in a topsy-turvy world full of chaos and sadness and that which opposes you, we can rest in the confidence of your redemption. 

Bring us to pour ourselves out in praise and thanksgiving this day, and in this week that stands before us. If there are any here who are not thankful for your salvation, we pray that you would bring them to rejoice in your eternal saving purpose even before this service is over. 

All this we pray in Christ’s name, 

Amen