Worship through Prayer
Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be your name. We celebrate that the curtain is torn in two, and we can have full access to your throne by the person and work of your Holy Son. Father, we come to you this morning with tons of individual, joyful praises and some concerns we can´t handle. We want to leave them all in your sovereign gracious hands so your will be done in earth as it is in heaven. We are honored in joining our voices to the chorus of every tribe, tongue, nation, and people, singing eternally your praises around your throne, and to the millions of brothers and sisters who are worshipping you today all around the planet as well.
We come to you this morning remembering and thanking you for many encouraging and challenging sermons preached from this pulpit in past months and also rejoicing for a completed joy and a mindful unity in Christ that we have renewed through Philippians. We praise you, our mighty God; you never change; your steadfast and faithful love brings us your gracious and just purposes for the glory of your name and the joy of your people. We thank you for our elders, for Nic, Chris, Kyle, Joey, and Nathan. We thank you for the past, present ,and future dedication they each one will give and that they love you and care for this church. Help us to imitate their faith as they walk with you. Please bless their souls, wives, and kids with surprising blessings from you. Help them to keep their first love for you and cause them to seek first your kingdom of God and your righteousness through their quiet time with you in your word and in prayer. Protect us all from the materialistic sense of success and give us, please, an ever-increasing sense of service out of joy in terms of faithfulness to you.
Father, while this nation will be celebrating this coming 4th of July a new anniversary of its independence, and while every American citizen is remembering the costly sacrifice of those brave people who died to make this land free from a foreign empire, we cry out that you sovereignly help many on that day to compare that sacrifice with the supreme value of the sacrifice of the Lamb who was slain to make us free from the slavery to the empire of sin and death. And to all of us, Father, remind us who we are in Christ to treasure our citizenship in heaven more than our citizenship in our native lands.
Father, creator and sustainer of the universe, we humbly intercede for the new families created this past week. We beg you for blessings for L&D and C&A. Please grant them more unity and purity as they begin to live together; please surround them with godly couples who can counsel them and guide them through their initial stages of their marriages. Please protect them from the evil plagues that threaten modern families nowadays. Please help our brothers D and A to lead and love their wives humbly and sacrificially as Christ loved the church; and please, help also our sisters L and C submit and help their husbands as the Scripture teaches that Christ willingly submitted to His Father out of joy, obedience and dependency. Help each new couple live for you and trust in you. Grant them many happy years together until you call for one or both of them. Help them to be united, content, and satisfied in you first and foremost and to honor and respect each other. And let them do it for the unsearchable glory of your Holy Name and the mutual pleasures you designed to occur within the bond of marriage.
We also come to you with an indescribable mix of thankfulness and sadness for saying bye to the W family. We know you are sovereign and merciful and it was your will to bring and keep them with us until today. We thank you for the huge blessing they were for us and we hope to have marked their lives with the love of Christ. We ask you for direction, provision and protection for our brother R as he leads his family to move. We especially intercede for S to continue being a godly wife and mom, to continue loving and obeying you; to continue developing Christ-exalting relationships, and for E, A, and C, that they can grow up in Christlikeness and abandon themselves in your loving arms through every season of their lives. Help them to settle down there and find together a faithful gospel church were they can continue to worship you and love and be loved by your people, as well as a good house and a good school where they can have good neighbors and friends.
Use our lives to see others come to know, trust, and treasure Jesus. Give us boldness for sharing the gospel with friends, family, neighbors, co-workers and classmates with a deep sense of honesty, urgency, and joy. Give us intentionality, clarity, and audacity to turn worldly conversations into godly conversations. Please, use our lips and brains to testify of your love and power to those you providentially put around us. Help us to win the mental battle to take advantage of every little opportunity we could have with one of them. Help us to feel empathy for their worth, dignity, significance, and value as you created them. We cry out, in the name of Jesus, to see and know of more conversions and baptisms of reluctant enemies of you (brought by your Spirit and through the preaching of your glorious gospel) to be willingful children of you. We know you can do this, Lord. Do it for the glory of your name, Lord!
We thank you that we labor alongside other faithful churches both locally and globally. Please, bless Iglesia Biblia de la Gracia in Franconia, VA; Iglesia Gracia Soberana in Gaithersburg, MD; Iglesia Bautista Hispana Gilford in Sterling Park, VA and Iglesia Bíblica Bautista Emanuel in Ashburn, VA with faithfulness and love to your word in the heart of every member. Help their pastors Josué Raimundo, José Mercado, Freddy Hernandez and Raúl Santamaría to keep preaching your word, only your word and nothing but your word. Please protect and bless our fellow brothers at Zion Church in Lucknow, India from the attacks of radical groups because of the advance of the gospel amongst hindu & muslim population. Please protect and help the pastor there and his family as they labor to advance the gospel in Northern India.
Father, as we pray these things we’re mindful of your saving, priceless, and undeserved grace toward us, who were once your enemies, yet in your infinite kindness, you demonstrated your own love in sending your eternal Son, Jesus Christ, to die on our behalf. Forgive us our sins, please God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done wrong, and by the good we have left undone. Help us to have the same repugnance you have about sin. Help us to have the same treasure you have for Christ. Help us to live thankfully and gratefully for who you are and what you have done. Help us to live out the joy, the delight, the assurance, and the peace we can only find in Jesus.
For all of these, Father, we thank you, we glorify you, and we beg you because you are our strength, our rock, our fortress, and our deliverer, our highest refuge, our shield, our stronghold and the horn of our salvation. We need you, as the deer pants for flowing streams.
And all of these we trust in your mighty hands, in the glorious and meritorious name of our, King, Master, God, Lord Jesus, Our Savior; Amen!
Worship through Prayer
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We pray, come Lord Jesus, come; transform our lowly bodies to be like your glorious body; redeem and restore all of creation that we might enjoy you together with all your people forever and ever.
We praise you this morning. We lift up your holy, triune name—Father, Son and Spirit. We praise you, Lord, for you are majestic and merciful; full of grace, perfect in justice; beyond comprehension, yet near to those who have childlike trust in you; eternal but existing in time and space in Jesus Christ. Praise the Lord. For we know that the Lord is great and that our God is above all gods.
Father, we come to you this morning in the name of Jesus Christ. We rest in your grace and mercy and sovereignty. You are in control and you are good and gracious. We grieve the brokenness of this world and the pervasive effects of sin. We are daily bombarded with the face of poverty, terrorism attacks, the evil of racism, religious persecution for Christians and other faiths around the world, and many other tragedies. Father, we come to you pleading for an end to these horrors. For the glory of your name, feed the hungry, clothe the poor, bring an end to famine. We pray for our enemies, those who attack Christians, those who persecute religious minorities, those who practice and promote racism, those who systematically oppress your image bearers. Bring grace to our enemies, save them; transform those who promote hatred that they might proclaim the glorious good news of the gospel. However you work Lord, restrain the evils, promote justice, and bring about your good purposes. Holy Spirit, keep our hearts soft toward evils and injustices; even if we’re not directly affected, prevent our hearts from growing cold and callous.
Use us, use Restoration, to be a model of racial reconciliation, of compassion toward the needy. Cause each member of our church to have a deep love for all image bearers, Christians and non-Christians. Mark us with humility, generosity, and an eagerness to see the hope and healing of the gospel go forth in Washington, DC and beyond. We praise you for the work our sister is doing in the Middle East. Grant her much grace to continue caring for refugees and sharing the gospel. We pray for DC127. Continue to use this organization and our members like T and M, W, K and others to care for the impoverished. We praise you for the many ways our members care for others and ask that you’d use us all the more to advance the gospel in this way that all peoples might taste and see that you are good.
Lord, as we think about the brokenness of this world, we’re also aware of our own brokenness. Sin lurks deep within our hearts affecting what we do and distorting what we love. We confess our own racism that causes us to think we are better than others because of our ethnicity or race. We confess our dullness toward evil not hating what you hate and loving what you love. We repent, O Lord. Forgive us, we pray. We confess our pride promoting self and personal preferences more than Christ and his glory. We confess that we have lied this past week to protect our image; we have been greedy treasuring things of this earth more than you; we have been immoral romantically be it physically or virtually; we have used harsh words to wound others; we have been impatient thinking the world revolves around us and our comfort. We confess our sins against you and against your image bearers. We repent, O Lord. Forgive us we pray.
We praise you that this morning that we have forgiveness in Jesus Christ. He is our righteousness. He is our purity. And we rejoice that we are not just forgiven from our sins, but because of Jesus we are reconciled back into sweet, intimate fellowship with you, our great and gracious God. We confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that you raise him from the dead. We plead the sin-atoning, Satan-defeating, shame-removing, heaven-bringing blood of Jesus Christ. We rest in Jesus and rejoice in the heavenly hope of the gospel as we await for our Savior to return.
Until then, use us to help each other follow Jesus. We pray for those members moving from DC this summer. In your grace, use them to serve other local churches using their gifts to build up fellow brothers and sisters around this nation. Holy Spirit, as we face challenges and difficulties, as we work through disagreements and disappointments, keep us united in the gospel of our Lord. Use each one of us to protect and promote agreement in the Lord. As we build each other up, give us the boldness to tell others about the joy and eternal hope found in Christ. Do that this morning as the word goes forth from this service. Do that this morning as the word goes forth in Restoration Kids. Do that as we leave this place and interact with family, friends, co-workers and neighbors. We praise you Lord. For you are great and gracious and good. In the precious and powerful name of Christ, we pray. Amen.
Worship through Prayer
God, today, I am especially thankful for Restoration church, and the body of people you have called together here in your name. These people have become our family’s closest family, as Christian brothers and sisters. I pray for this church, God; may you use her mightily! I pray for the leaders of this body. God, may you provide encouragement, comfort, wisdom, and knowledge to Nathan, Joey, Chris, Nic, and Kyle. May you allow them to lead this church well. May their families be enriched by their leadership, and not feel drawn from. May their wives feel strengthened, and may their children be diligent in their faith. May you use them mightily, to advance your kingdom, to win people to Christ, to comfort and protect their flock, and to teach with conviction.
Father, also be with all the other members of the church who work to make this body the familial place it is. Thank you for the work of the deacons, the community group leaders, and the many volunteers on Sundays. Thank you for the love our children are shown, especially. May each church worker feel encouraged in their giving, refreshed, and not drained.
God, we are also thankful for the community of churches Restoration is a part of. Thank you for the churches who share our mission here in Washington, DC. And thank you especially for the community of Southern Baptist churches across the country we work alongside to make disciples. This week we were reminded at the Southern Baptist Convention that we, as earthly bearers of your message, are broken, sinful people. But despite this, you work through us! Your word goes forth, as it did this week in the repudiation of racism, in the support of collaboration, and in the rejection of moral depravity. May you use churches across the convention for your name. May you strengthen the convention just so it can more effectively bear witness to you. May your Son’s humility be made known by our own. Where our path strays, set us right. Guide your church, locally, nationally, and globally. May your word be made known. And may seeking you be the first and foremost mission of any church body. In fact, may you wither those bodies who turn from you. But bring grace to all who seek you.
God, today on Father’s Day, we celebrate the fact that you have called us to you, our Father, and adopted us as your sons and daughters. You have poured out your love on us and blessed us richly. We thank you for the fathers here on Earth who give us a glimpse of what this soul-filling love can be. Thank you for all the dads here, and may they love their children unconditionally. May they show wisdom and discretion in raising their children, and grace when needed. Thank you for all of our fathers, wherever they may be, and may you make this day special for each. Give us the right words and actions to show the love we have for our fathers today and every day.
Father God, we also pray a special prayer for the fatherless. Your design is that everyone should have family, but sadly this is not so. Some of us may be mourning a father who has died. Give comfort to those who have experienced this loss. Others may be struggling to relate to, or even forgive, fathers who have wounded us. Provide your arms of love and a shoulder to lean on where there is not one. Remind us all that you are the perfect Father. The one we can turn to no matter what, no matter what we’ve done or where we’ve been. No matter how wretched we may feel. You offer us unconditional love, and acceptance no matter what. Thank you for this love, and the assurance and comfort it brings.
God, we look forward to the day when we will dwell together with you, with each of our Christian brothers and sisters, with the whole community of believers. We look forward to the joy of being in a community free of sin. We look forward to sitting comfortably in the streets, enjoying this community. We look forward to working productively, to seeing your creation restored from the fractures sin has given it. But we look forward first and foremost to being in your presence. You are our perfect Father. Your presence will be a salve of joy on our parched hearts. We struggle to even grasp what this will mean, but we look forward to worshiping, and bringing you glory through praise that will last forever.
We rejoice in your promises God. We rejoice that you are our Father. We rejoice you sent your Son to redeem us and your Spirit to fill us. May we rest in these truths. May we remind ourselves of them incessantly. May we obey you as your children. May we seek your kingdom here on earth, remembering that the world as it is is not all we have. May you strengthen us to be the fathers and mothers you call us to be. May you bring peace to our world even in the midst of our sin.May we join together in bringing you praise now and always. May our meditations be pleasing to you. May you make your presence known and felt here today. We love you, Father God. Amen.
Worship through Prayer
Lord God, this morning we thank you for your evident mercy and goodness to us in giving us the church.
And we thank you, in particular, for Restoration Church. Lord, we bring this body before you today.
Father, we speak often of unity, and we do ask you to bring a deep bond to our fellowship. Let it be evident that the believers here possess a supernatural love one for another. But God, remind us that unity and love do not come because of anything we do to foster them. Rather they come as we each focus on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Cause each of us to seek you Lord with increasing fervency. Surprise us with ever more intense desire to spend time in your word. Lord, plant in us an unquenchable passion to know you ever more deeply. Because we understand that what brings unity to your church is not fundamentally community groups and discipleship, or hospitality and sacrificial love. Instead we know that those are simply outward manifestations of a unity that comes only from a shared love for you.
And yet Lord we do desire those good outward signs of true unity. We pray that as we grow in spiritual maturity, both individually and corporately, that we will be a people of remarkable hospitality. Father, cause us to serve each other in ways that are inconvenient, move us to make our homes places that our brothers and sisters feel welcome and wanted. And God, as we grow in our knowledge of you, lead us to share that knowledge with each other through discipleship. And while we pray that you will motivate each of us to seek to disciple others, help us never be arrogant. Cause us to recognize that each of us have more to learn than we have to teach, and that true wisdom comes only through your Word.
But as much as we desire unity and spiritual growth within this church, Lord convict us of our sin in hesitating to share your saving love with the lost around us. Help us to see the people of NW DC the way you see them Lord, to love our neighbors the way you love them, and to pursue their reconciliation to you the way you pursued reconciliation with us.
And as we, through your strength, endeavor to share the good news of Christ with this city, we hold up the M family in particular. We praise you for this family who would willingly leave all that they know, their family and friends, their church and their country, all to share the gospel with the people of our city. Inspire us with their example, and strengthen and encourage them even today. Let them glimpse in hard moments, the glory and majesty of eternity. Remind them that the work they pursue is worth more than all this world has to offer. Help them, and us with them, to hope in heaven as we seek your glory in a broken world. Establish your work in Columbia Heights through them. Bring many to yourself through our partnership together for the gospel.
In your name we ask these things, Amen.
Worship through Prayer
O God of heaven we humbly place ourselves before you this morning. We take our refuge in you. You are our Lord. We have no good apart from you. It grieves us to see the sorrows of those that run after other idols and multiply. But you Lord, you are our chosen portion and our cup. You hold our lot. Truly, the lines have fallen for us in pleasant places and we…oh we by your grace have a beautiful inheritance.
We bless you Lord, you the one that gives us counsel. We set you before us…and may we set you before us continually. And because we do, Lord we are confident that because you are at our right hand, we will NOT be shaken. Therefore, our heart is glad and our whole being rejoices. For we, your saints…we dwell secure in Christ Jesus. Yes, in Christ you will not abandon our souls to hell. Instead, you have made for us a pathway of peace that leads to life everlasting…you have brought us to you, the presence of the fullness of joy and where pleasures are found forevermore. Blessed is your name, o God!
We beg your forgiveness for the ways in which we don’t set you before us. The ways we have sought out idols this past week. Forgive us for following the idol of personal pleasure where it directly deviates from your path. Forgive us for the adultery that we committed this week. Lusting after men and women that weren’t ours in marriage. Give us eyes to see the destruction lust causes to our souls and the glory it robs from you.
Forgive us for the ways we feared our fellow man more than we feared you. Forgive us for failing to speak up for the cause of Christ when opportunities were clearly presented to us to speak, but instead we shrank. Forgive us for the ways we have failed to pursue others for their good and your glory.
Forgive those of us that drank too much or said too much. Teach us, Lord, to be more discerning with our handling of drink and the handling of our tongues. Cause us to remember that we ought not use our freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but instead may we all things to build others up in Christ Jesus, and not tear others down by abusing our personal freedom.
We are a collection of deeply flawed men and women…and yet, you have shown us mercy upon mercy, grace upon grace in the person and work of Christ. We are saints in Christ Jesus. We have been declared holy, not because of any holiness of our own performed by the law…but we are holy because of the righteousness that came from heaven and was secured for us on the bloody Cross. Oh God thank you for forgiveness! Thank you that through our faith in Christ we have been Justified through the blood of Christ that has propitiated your wrath. This is our plea. We plead the blood of Christ and rejoice in the forgiveness we have received through it.
And so we thank you for this Great salvation. The song of our souls that orients us towards heaven, our home. And Lord, thank you that you have granted us passports to heaven…our true home. We long to see our Savior and enjoy Him face to face forever.
Until then we know that we have a mission here to display your infinite glory on earth as the church. So, we turn now to plead for you to work through your people.
We pray for our sister Z whose body has been riddled by a stroke. Lord, we rejoice she still rejoices in you through all that she has been through. But Lord, we pray that she would be able to join us here more regularly that we may enjoy her company and she may hear your word preached. And if not here, we pray you’d grant her another Gospel believing church nearby where she can get to more regularly.
We pray T and J in these early days of marriage. May they build habits of grace towards one another as they both pursue a passion for your glory. Lord, do the same for D and L and A and K, and C and A as they prepare for marriage themselves.
Lord, I pray for K, J, and J. May these days in their lives be marked by prayer and fasting where their one plea is to have more of you as their daily portion. May you hear those prayers and meet them in their times of need.
Father, we pray you’d grant Restoration Church to see a harvest through the proclamation of your Gospel throughout Washington, DC. Grant that we would see 5 or 10 people come to faith in Christ as a result of our being generous with our time and intentionality in turning conversations towards things of depth. Please, we pray you’d grant more people to believe for your glory here in DC. May we rejoice with the angels at the baptism of these saints in the coming months.
Lord, likewise, we join the call of our church planting network, Treasuring Christ Together to see 10 or more new believers in all the TCT churches this year. May we come to the close of this year and hear about magnificent ways in which you moved through Jubilee Church in Minneapolis, Grace Church in Memphis, Treasuring Christ church in Raleigh, Desiring God church in Raleigh, Covenant Life church in Tampa, and Kaleo Church in San Diego. Lord we plead you would do this.
Father, we plead that you would also move among the nations. Amongst the unreached peoples in India, the unreached peoples in China, Cambodia, and Pakistan. Lord, send more and more missionaries that are equipped with languages and an unceasing passion for your glory amongst those have not yet heard.
Lord we pray for the people that are mourning in Manchester, and in London, as well as Istanbul, as well as Mogidishu. God please, end the violence that these soldiers of Satan are bringing about. Bring peace and justice amid the world….and do it soon, we pray. May Christ return soon and establish the world we all long for. Until then, God give peace to the hurting and resources and wisdom to governments that may rid the world of such evil.
Finally, Lord. We pray for our brother Joey who will open up the word you have breathed out. Grant him freedom and the fullness of the Spirit and grant us ears to hear your word. Father we thank you your servant J. His tireless efforts to be light in the darkness are an encouragement to so many of us. Use him to create more and more courageous men and women that spend themselves for Christ. Do that now as he comes to preach in just a moment.
God thank you that you hear our prayers. We commend all these things to you and we ask them in the name that is above all names…Christ Jesus the Lord. Amen