Worship through Prayer

by Kathryn Feliciano

Worship through Prayer

Father, we come to you this morning confidently and boldly in the name of Jesus Christ. We come into your presence not based on our goodness, but on your grace given to us; your grace lavished upon us through Jesus, who gave his life up for us; who rose from the grave that we might live with eternal hope and heavenly joy. So we praise you. We praise you for your steadfast love and inexhaustible love. As we just sang, great is your faithfulness. You never change. Your compassions never end. Great is your faithfulness, mercy and love, O Lord. We rejoice and exult and take refuge in you.

And we confess our rebellion against you. Not just in what we do, but in our disordered and misplaced loves. We have loved our jobs more than you. We have loved money and material possessions more than you. We have pursued romantic immorality more than you. We confess our transgressions. We confess that we have been impatient, greedy, selfish, and envious. We have doubted your goodness and dismissed your sovereignty. We repent, O Lord. Some of us been lazy and slothful wasting time; others of us have been too busy finding our identity in what we accomplish. Some of us have placed burdens on our children too heavy for them to carry; others of us have not given enough loving attention to our children. We confess these things. We have abused substances, misused food, given more attention to what others think of us fearing them more than you. Holy Spirit, convict us. Help us not to hide, minimize, or excuse our sin. Work in us deep repentance. Yes, Lord, we repent.

And we praise you, that in Christ Jesus, we are not defined our bound by our iniquities; that in Christ Jesus there is fullness of forgiveness and unhindered reconciliation back to you. On the cross Jesus bore our sin, took our shame, absorbed your wrath. Jesus Christ, God eternal humbled to the grave. Jesus, our Savior, risen now to reign.

We pray this gospel message feeds and fuels our souls so that we might increasingly see and savor Jesus Christ loving him above all else. We pray for A and his family as they seek to proclaim this gospel to Spanish speakers in Columbia Heights. Use Iglesia Biblica Sublime Gracia to magnify your name. Use O and S to spread the aroma of this gospel on the campus of American University. Use C and J and others tonight as they proclaim this gospel tonight at Friendship Terrace.

Father, we praise you for the many faithful students and teachers of your word in our church. We praise you for the teaching of K, L, N and T as they led so many ladies through the book of Zephaniah. We praise you for the dozens of faithful Community Group leaders that lead discussions diving into your word. We praise you for D who strives to help us savor your word through selecting songs that inform our minds and stir our hearts to delight in Christ. Thank you Lord, thank you for the many ways your gospel flows between the members of this church. Holy Spirit, change us. One degree of glory to another. Shape us, mold us, deepen our love for Jesus and for each other. Continue to grant us gospel unity above our personal preferences. Use the members of this church to help each other grow in Jesus, to meet each others’ physical needs, to help each other process emotions and evaluate life circumstances. Develop new relationships and deepen existing ones that we might walk alongside each other, rejoicing with each other, weeping with each other, encouraging and rebuking, laughing and crying as we journey to heaven together. Some of this morning are weak and wounded. Some of us are hurting and downcast. Use us, we pray, to bring hope and healing to each other as we point each other to the sweet sufficiency of Jesus Christ.

We pray for the dozens of other faithful gospel churches in this city. Advance your gospel through Christ our Shepherd, Capitol Hill Baptist, Redeemer Arlington, Restoration City Church, McLean Bible Church. Use the saints at Waterfront Church and Alatheia Church and Anacostia River Church to proclaim the excellencies of Jesus Christ.

This morning we also pray for our enemies. We pray for those who publicly slander Christians and for those who physically persecute our brothers and sisters around the world. Lord, do what only you can do – change the hearts of those who hate Christ Jesus to become heralds of him. Eradicate ISIS and the Taliban. We also pray you would eliminate White Supremacy Groups and any group that promotes evil. Bring racial reconciliation to this country; and cause our church to be a model of what it means to treat all people as being created in your image.

Father, your word commands us to pray “for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.” And so we come praying for those who have been sovereignly elected and appointed to lead this country. Grant wisdom and a sense of justice to all leaders around the world who are charged with serving people made in your image. We pray for president Donald Trump. Bend his heart toward true justice and righteousness for all people. Surround President Trump with men and women who give wise counsel that promotes the dignity and equality of all people – men and women, all races and ethnicities, all religious backgrounds, all sexual orientations, all ages – from the womb until natural death.

Let us, Lord, let us as Christians be a light of hope and happiness. We praise you that King Jesus is on the throne right now and forever more. We praise you that he is reigning and he is soon returning to restore all things back to perfection. We pray rejoicing and resting in his name, the name of Jesus. Amen.

by Kathryn Feliciano

Worship through Prayer

Heavenly Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus Christ, the name of your eternal son, the only name worthy before your throne. And we praise you for Who you are. You are righteous and good; you are glorious and mighty; you are beyond comprehension yet near to all who trust in your grace for salvation; you are perfect, holy, just, pure, lovely, excellent and worthy of praise. We praise you for you what you have done. You are the Creator and Redeemer. You have saved us through the perfect, sin-atoning cross of Christ and his triumphant resurrection from the dead. We praise you for what you will do – bring heaven to earth restoring all things back to the way they were always supposed to be; your people in your presence forever and ever. Hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven we pray.

Holy Spirit, we praise you for the gospel unity here at Restoration Church. We rejoice that you, in your kindness, shape and mold us, degree by degree, that we might increasingly treasure Jesus above all things. Continue to use this church body to magnify the name of Jesus. We pray that our church would be marked by unity in our diversity; that each member would intentionally get to know and serve others who are different from them; that we would form meaningful, Christ-exalting relationships that cross racial, socioeconomic and generational boundaries. We pray we would all give generously to our gospel ministry. Mark us, O Lord, will a zeal to help others follow Jesus. We praise you for the many discipling relationships among our members. Holy Spirit, use dinner tables and coffee meetings and car rides and conversations before and after church to spur us on toward faithfulness in all thing. Give us opportunities to share the good news of Jesus with those who do not know Christ as Savior. Grant us boldness and an eagerness to speak of Christ, even when it’s uncomfortable.

We praise you for the wedding of A & K. From the very outset of their marriage, grant them the grace to serve each other sacrificially; use their marriage to wonderfully display the gospel. We thank you Lord for your manifold grace and mercy that’s evident in the lives of W and E & J, D and J. We praise you Lord for the many ways these members and others speak the truth in love making the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Father, we not only rejoice with those who rejoice, we weep with those who weep. We pray for those who are hurting among us, for those who feel lonely and like no one cares. Remind them of all that they have in Christ. Bring brothers and sisters around them to walk alongside of them. We hurt for those battling anxiety and worry, those who are sad and downcast. Give us the grace and insight to compassionately serve our weak and weary brothers and sisters. Holy Spirit, gives us helpful, Christ-saturated words to bring hope and healing to souls; and give us the grace to know when to say nothing at all. For the fame of Jesus, let us be a church that talks freely about our sins and struggles, a place where sin is confessed and confronted, but not condemningly judged; a place where the gospel flows from one person to another. We praise you for the many ways this already happens and ask for you to make it continue all the more.

And we rejoice that we are not alone here in DC. We praise you for other churches that seek to advance the gospel. May your grace be upon Capitol Hill Baptist and GraceDC and The Well in Silver Spring. Use The District Church and Redeemer City to make disciples. Grant our brothers G and D wisdom as they plant Veritas Church, and S and T insight as they pastor Pillar Church. We pray for Washington International and Embassy Church and 4^th Presbyterian and National Community Church and All Nations DC and Arabic Baptist Church. Lord, we praise you for saints from other congregations that eagerly serve Christ and desire to see others delight in his supremacy.

And we rejoice that this gospel is going forth globally. Use our partnership with R & E to get the gospel to a people group that does not know you. Sustain R & E, J & J and W & C in their gospel labors. We pray for the International Mission Board. Grant David Platt and Sebastian Traeger much wisdom as they lead the effort to support 5,000 missionaries around the globe. Lord, for the glory of your name, raise more men and women up from Restoration Church to take the gospel to the nations.

Holy God, this morning we thank you for your Word. Thank you for the book of Philippians and all it has taught us this past six months. Let us not just know more things, but love more deeply; shape not just our actions, but our affections that we might love you with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength, and love our neighbor as ourselves. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.

by Kathryn Feliciano

Worship through Prayer

Petition

Lord, we know that you are a good God who loves his people and listens to our prayers.

We know that we are limited, but you are strong and powerful and sovereign. We know that we are not sufficient in ourselves, but you are fully sufficient. And so as we seek to partner with others for your glory, we come before you asking for your help, your guidance, and your power.

We pray for our friends in the Middle East as they risk their safety and their comfort to proclaim your name to peoples who have never heard it. We pray that you give them endurance, helping them to press on and run the race you have set before them. That through their labors your gospel would be known, Jesus Christ would be known, and that you would transform people’s hearts for their good and your glory.

And we pray for our team that will go to visit these laborers in August, that Lord you would bring refreshment to their souls through the visit of our team and that you would use the team to spur on their ministry.

We pray for H with FCA and O and S with CO as the gear up for the Fall semester. We pray that you bring unity and fruit to their ministries. We pray, Lord, that for your glory, H and O and S would form relationships with students and point them to the immeasurable riches of your grace in Jesus Christ.

We pray for DC127, Lord. We pray that you would give their staff and the many Restoration members who serve in Safe Families perseverance in their work as they seek to serve families in crisis in the DC area. We pray that they would work unto you Lord, that they would, in your strength and wisdom, be effective in helping these families, and that above all that you would bring people to you through their ministry.

Lord, we pray for the M family as they continue the hard work of planting a Spanish-speaking church in Columbia Heights. Prepare people’s hearts to hear your word through their ministry. Give the M’s endurance and patience as they continue the long process of church planting. Alight their souls with your beauty that they may persevere and with zeal go out and share your word with their neighbors in Columbia Heights.

And, finally, Lord, help us, Restoration Church, have servant hearts and minds that want to come alongside these people and others to serve for your glory.

We ask all of this in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

by Kathryn Feliciano

Worship through Prayer

Father,

How lovely are your dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! How great is your lovingkindness! How amazing your faithfulness!

Father, you are the Lord of hosts, who dwells in unapproachable light. And yet, you welcome us into your presence to enjoy your beauty. Kings, queens and presidents we have not access to. But we have access to you. And not only do we get to come and bring you our pleas, but we also come and enjoy you as well as rest in you. We get to rest now, by faith, and we get to rest for eternity, by sight. And even though the threshold of your house is more than we deserve, you welcome us to rest in your very presence!

Father, how can it be that you are so good? Most powerful people we know are only as good as convenience and as evil as necessity dictates. But you are good and no evil is in You. You are good all the time and everything you do is good. The bird has found a house at your altars, the bird! And we, rebellious creatures, get to share in salvation that you crafted through Christ in your goodness.

Father, those who dwell in your house are blessed and continually so. They go from strength to strength. You don’t take care of them once and let them be, but you constantly watch over them to empower them. You are faithful when they fail and you always keep your promises!

God, how amazing you are!

And how wretched sinners are we! We long for the courts of human power and human fame, rather than for your courts. We long to have great resumes and we seek great jobs so we can feel good about ourselves. We run and we strive trying to get ahead, in the process forgetting our neighbor and forgetting what is true, beautiful and just. We chase after man-made, self-made dreams, or after lost happiness, instead of chasing after you. Oftentimes, we come to church and we go to community group, only to find ourselves plunging headfirst towards self-made images as soon as we are out the door.

Father, this week, we doubted you. Your word says “How blessed is the man who trusts in You”. And you are good and you are faithful. But we looked at our circumstances and disliked them and decided that you were not faithful. We grumbled and we lashed out. We sought to save ourselves. If we were unable to save ourselves we tried to avoid walking by faith in repentance by saying “we are too bad to save” or “the world is just so bad."

Father, forgive us our rebellion; forgive our longing for man-made tents instead of longing for your courts. Forgive us that we doubted your goodness and our decision that our circumstances should drive our obedience rather than your eternal character and promises.

We thank you Lord that, in Jesus, you have provided grace. In Jesus we are forgiven of our sin and empowered to obey you.

And Lord, we pray that you would enable us to delight in you and seek your glory and your courts more than human glory and human tents. Empower us to be content, Lord, with your grace provided in Jesus, distributed at the times decided by you. Enable us to seek, not to be full, but to be servants in all circumstances. Enable us to recognize that we live in a strange land, that we are aliens, citizens of a city that is yet to come.

Father, provide grace to our brothers and sisters in Sudan who are being persecuted by Sudan’s president. Since 2011 he has destroyed or bulldozed down 11 churches. We ask, Lord, for the transformation of this man, that he would repent of his sins and stop persecuting your church. We ask that you give your church in Sudan grace to withstand this assault and spread the Gospel mightily. Do not allow this man and his regime to hurt further churches.

Father, we thank you for Jesus. We thank you that He left His throne above and became a man and a servant. We thank you that he lived as a poor, unattractive and practically homeless person for our sakes. We thank you for his dying for our sins so that we may be forgiven. We pray that we would love Jesus and pursue Jesus in all circumstances, good or bad.

In Christ’s name, Amen.

by Kathryn Feliciano

Worship through Prayer

Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus this morning. We praise you for Who you are and what you have done, and what you will do. We rejoice in the good news of the gospel and look forward with a heavenly hope knowing that one day you restore us and all of creation back to the way it was always meant to be.

Holy Spirit, give us the grace to live with heaven in view. That we’d be so hopeful in spending eternity with Christ and all his people that we’d let go the need to condemningly judge others; that we’d not fight for our every personal preferences and tirelessly defend ourselves. Give us such a love for Christ that we’d give our money sacrificially and generously, that we’d eagerly disciple others that they might grow in their faith. Holy Spirit, compel us with the beautiful joys of heaven that we would zealously and winsomely share the gospel with our friends, families, co-workers and neighbors. Use us Lord, use Restoration Church to bring others to faith in Christ that they might taste and see that you, oh Lord, are good.

We pray the gospel would advance through the M family as they plant Iglesia Biblica Sublime Gracia in Columbia Heights. We pray the gospel advances through our brother H as he starts FCA. We pray the gospel advances through O & S as they start Campus Outreach at American University. We pray the gospel advances through our ministries at Friendship Terrace. We pray the gospel advances through our partnership with R and E in the Middle East. For the glory of your name in Christ Jesus, bring many to faith through our humble efforts.

We pray that you would use T2 to help us not just think more accurately but love more deeply. Help us love what you love and be motivated not by a sense of duty but of delight in Christ Jesus.

We pray for those who persecute and oppress your image bearers, whether they are Christians or non-Christians. We pray for the advancement of the gospel among ISIS, Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Al-Shabaab, and Boko Haram. In scandalous grace, bring saving faith to the leaders and followers of these terrorist organizations. Father, in your sovereign glory, turn these men and women from persecuting the church to planting gospel churches. We pray for the North Korean government leaders and other evil leaders who savagely repress those under their control. In your kindness, bring these wicked leaders to repentance, that they themselves would be willing to suffer for the gospel. Whatever you do Lord, in the name of Jesus, we plead that you would restrain the evil these groups & governments are able to accomplish.

Thank you for your word. Use it to feed our souls this morning that we might love what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent and worthy of praise.

And we pray together,

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come, your will be done

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,

and forgive us our trespasses

as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

For yours is the kingdom,

and the power and the glory

forever and ever. Amen.

by Kathryn Feliciano

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!

by Kathryn Feliciano

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.

by Kathryn Feliciano

Worship through Prayer

by Kathryn Feliciano

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.

by Kathryn Feliciano