Sunday Morning in the Word September 8, 2019 Ministry Year Kickoff - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Sunday Morning in the Word

September 8, 2019 Ministry Year Kickoff Sunday

CORE VALUES

God’s Glory, Our Focus The Bible Our Authority The Gospel, Our Passion Christ’s Church, Our Family

DISCIPLIN G

“Helping others to follow Jesus for their spiritual good.”

Coming to Grace Sunday mornings NEXT Sunday!

PRAYING the Psalms

Confession, Lament, Praise and Thanksgiving

Sunday mornings beginning Nov. 10th

Sunday Morning in the Word

Ephesians 6:18-20

Psalm 127:1 Unless the Lord builds a house, its builders labor over it in vain; unless the Lord watches over a city, the watchman stays alert in vain.

John 15:5 I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me.

“While prayer is unquestionably natural, necessary and normal for Christian people, it constantly proves in practice to be the very opposite of plain sailing . . . For we end up struggling, and not just over making time for prayer or finding a place for it. Thoughts wander, hearts that ardently long to be praying freeze once we start, and we dry out. We thought we knew what we had to say to God, but our minds lose focus as soon as we start to say it, our muddle reduces us to stumbling, using words that do not express our meaning, and finally our muddle descends into silence”

(J.I. Packer and Carolyn Nystrom)

“It seems, then, that struggle is the realistic word to describe the typical Christian experience of praying.”

(J.I. Packer and Carolyn Nystrom)

Ephesians 6:18 Pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and request, and stay alert with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints.

Ephesians 6:18 Pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and request, and stay alert with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints.

Ephesians 6:10-13 Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by his vast

• strength. 11 Put on the full armor of God so that you can

stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens. 13 For this reason take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having prepared everything, to take your stand.

Ephesians 6:18 Pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and request, and stay alert with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints.

Ephesians 6:19-20 Pray also for me, that the message may be given to me when I open my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel. 20 For this I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I might be bold enough to speak about it as I should.

Ephesians 6:18 Pray at ALL times in the Spirit with EVERY prayer and request, and stay alert with ALL perseverance and intercession for ALL the saints.

“Since prayer is talking with God, why don’t people pray more? Why don’t the people of God enjoy prayer more? I maintain that people—truly born-again, genuinely Christian people—often do not pray simply because they do not feel like it. And the reason they don’t feel like praying is that when they do pray, they tend to say the same old things about the same old things. When you’ve said the same old things about the same old things about a thousand times, how do you feel about saying them again? Did you dare just think the “B” word? Yes, bored. We can be talking to the most fascinating Person in the universe about the most important things in our lives and be bored to death.” (Donald Whitney)

“Brilliantly simple but hugely effective.”

“Turn the Bible into prayer . . . This is the best way of knowing the meaning of the Bible, and

• f learning to pray.”

Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“I have learned to . . . season my prayers with the word of God. It’s a way of talking to God in his language—speaking his dialect, using his vernacular, employing his idioms. . . . This is not a matter simply of divine vocabulary. It’s a matter

• f power. When we bring God’s word directly

into our praying, we are bringing God’s power into our praying. Hebrews 4:12 declares, ‘For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword.’ God’s word is living, and so it infuses our prayers with life and vitality. God’s word is also active, injecting energy and power into our prayer.”

Joni Eareckson Tada

1 John 5:14 This is the confidence we have before him: If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. his will, he hears us.

Praying that my church would . . .

Praying that my church would . . .

Remember what we are (1 Pe. 2:9-10)

Praying that my church would . . .

Remember what we are (1 Pe. 2:9-10) Be a body growing in maturity (Eph. 4:11-16)

Praying that my church would . . .

Remember what we are (1 Pe. 2:9-10) Be a body growing in maturity (Eph. 4:11-16) Be devoted to one another (Acts 2:42-47)

• 1. Sunday morning in our worship, our elders will be

using the book as a basis for their prayer, highlighting

• ne “theme”.

• 1. Sunday morning in our worship, our elders will be

using the book as a basis for their prayer, highlighting

• ne “theme”.
• 2. We as a church will then take the same “theme”

and pray one thing per day (five things, five days) and make that particular thing the focus of our prayer for that particular day.

• 1. Sunday morning in our worship, our elders will be

using the book as a basis for their prayer, highlighting

• ne “theme”.
• 2. We as a church will then take the same “theme”

and pray one thing per day (five things, five days) and make that particular thing the focus of our prayer for that particular day. OR, If you want to go deeper … take several days to pray all five things thus going over the requests several times during the week.

Carl Laferton, the Editorial Director

“When righteous people pray righteous prayers, things happen. Things change. So as you use this book to guide your prayers, be excited, be expected, and keep your eyes open for God to do ‘immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine’ (Ephesians 3:20). He’s powerful; and so your prayers are too.”

Carl Laferton, the Editorial Director

Praying that my church would . . .

Remember what we are (1 Pe. 2:9-10)

• A Holy Nation
• A Royal Priesthood
• God’s Special Possession
• Called
• Recipients of God’s Mercy!

Ephesians 6:18 Pray at ALL times in the Spirit with EVERY prayer and request, and stay alert with ALL perseverance and intercession for ALL the saints.

We observe communion to remember what God did for us through Christ! The bread represents Christ’s broken body, the cup his shed blood.