I will read Matthew, chapter 21, verses 12 and 13, and then we’ll pray. Matthew 21, verse 12 and 13.
And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple. And he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, it is written, my house shall be called a house of prayer, but you make it into a den of robbers.
12 And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 13 He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.” (Matthew 21:12-13, ESV)
Okay, let’s pray.
Father, this is your house. It is a house of prayer. We welcome you into your house, Jesus. We lift up your name in the Father’s house. We invite the Holy Spirit to be here. Without your presence, we’re just wasting our time. We invite you. We want to meet you in a time of prayer.
As we pray at the beginning of this service, as we close our service, these are opportunities to have an encounter with you. So we invite you into this place. We want to meet you before we leave. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.
So it’s the final Sunday of the year. So why do we gather every Sunday? And this is not rhetorical. Why are we here? Why are we here every Sunday? Yes, yes, yes, yes. Thank you, Sophia. We’re here to rest in God’s presence. That’s very true.
Because as busy as we are in the world, if we did not have a Sabbath where God forced us to put down our work and put down our studies at least for a few hours, one day of the week, then I think a lot of us would just be busy until we die and never really meet the Lord.
So thank you for that. Any other reasons? Why are we gathered on a Sunday? Anybody? I think Andre mentioned one. To repent. There’s something there. To pray and to meet the Lord. It is time to fellowship with the Lord. It’s time to worship the Lord and thank the Lord and meet the Lord.
We’re not gathering to listen to a Bible study or a preaching or. We’re not here to have a small group afterward or go have lunch afterward. It’s not really about people or even content of what you’re hearing. It’s a time of praying in God’s house. Of course, in Romans 12, verse 1, it says that our whole body, we present as a living sacrifice.
1I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. (Romans 12:1, ESV)
So the fact that somebody is preparing the food, that is part of our worship in a sense. The fact that somebody has to turn on the audio visual equipment, somebody has to prepare communion, somebody has to prepare the praise. These are all parts of our sacrifice to the Lord.
And this is what we do in our bodies when we gather. But that’s really not the primary thing that we’re doing when we gather in God’s house. Jesus describes church as a house of prayer. If that’s the case, then the primary activity when we gather is prayer.
It’s what Matthew did to start our service. It’s what we’re going to be doing in a few minutes to close our service. It’s a time to pray before the Lord.
And there’s that one verse. It says, my house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers. In that short verse, Jesus is referencing two Old Testament passages. One is in Isaiah 56:7, and he mentions a house of prayer for all people.
7 these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” (Isaiah 56:7, ESV)
Back then it was only the Jewish people. But there was a prophecy in Isaiah that eventually it will be for all peoples. It will be for Jews and Koreans and Chinese and Hispanics, blacks and whites. Every person will have an opportunity to gather in God’s house and to pray.
The other passage that’s referenced in that verse is Jeremiah 7. This is an important one, so I want to read it to you. Jeremiah 7:1-16.
The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord. Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house and proclaim there this word and say, hear the word of the Lord, all you men of Judah who enter these gates to worship the Lord.
Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel. Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words. This is the temple of the Lord. The temple of the Lord. The temple of the Lord.
For if you truly Amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another, and if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, then I will let you dwell in this place in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever.
Behold, you trust in deception, deceptive words to no avail. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, we are delivered, only to go on doing all these abominations?
Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the Lord. Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it because of the evil of my people Israel.
And now, because you have done all these things, declares the Lord. And when I spoke to you persistently, you did not listen. And when I called you, you did not answer. Therefore, I will do to the house that is called by my name, in which you trust, and to the place that I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh.
And I will cast you out of my sight as I cast out all your kinsmen, all the offspring of Ephraim. As for you, do not pray for this people or lift up a cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with them, for I will not hear you.
1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord : 2 “Stand in the gate of the Lord ‘s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all you men of Judah who enter these gates to worship the Lord. 3 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. 4 Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’
5 “For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another, 6 if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, 7 then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever. 8 “Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail.
9 Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, 10 and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these abominations? 11 Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the Lord. 12 Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it because of the evil of my people Israel.
13 And now, because you have done all these things, declares the Lord, and when I spoke to you persistently you did not listen, and when I called you, you did not answer, 14 therefore I will do to the house that is called by my name, and in which you trust, and to the place that I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh. 15 And I will cast you out of my sight, as I cast out all your kinsmen, all the offspring of Ephraim. 16 “As for you, do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you. (Jeremiah 7:1-16, ESV)
The context here is what happened at Shiloh. That’s in 1 Samuel 4. The Philistines were attacking the Israelites, and the Philistines had just beaten the Israelites. And so the Israelites said, well, let’s go to Shiloh, where the Ark of the Covenant was residing for close to 400 years.
And they said, let’s bring this Ark into the battle, because it’s like a good luck charm. The presence of God will go before us, and he will win for us, and we will defeat the Philistines. So they bring the Ark out of Shiloh. What happens is the Philistines utterly destroy the Israelites, and the Ark of the Covenant is stolen, captured.
And Eli the priest hears about it, he falls over backward in his chair, and he dies. That’s what happened at Shiloh. And all the while this is going on, the people in God’s temple are saying, this is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.
God is here with us. God is for us. And God is telling us through the prophet Jeremiah, no, I’m not with the people. They gather in the temple. I am not there because I see how they live.
Just because you enter into a church doesn’t mean the presence of God is there. I think that’s what we’re supposed to take away from this message. Just because we are a Christian doesn’t mean when Christians gather, the presence of the Lord is there.
First of all, do pastors and do church members even care about the presence of the Lord? Do they even care? Do they even invite God’s presence into the corporate gathering?
As a believer, do you even care if God is there and he meets you or not? Or as a leader, do we just care to? Well, we just have to complete the program successfully. We just need to do it without a glitch, without.
We have to check the attendance numbers, we have to check the offering numbers. We have to make sure we can survive next year. And we have to make adjustments and, and then people coming with a desire. Well, I’m lonely. I want friends.
All kinds of reasons that leadership has approaching a Sunday and then members of a church have. Or newcomers have coming to the Sunday and God is saying, don’t you care about my presence? Don’t you care if I’m there? Don’t you want to meet me? This is a house of prayer.
And so we invite him to the service. We don’t assume he’s here. We invite him to the service. We want to meet the Lord. That’s why we gather.
Why do we open the Bible? We’re not just reading the Bible and learning about the Bible. We want to meet the Lord, want to learn about his character. We want to have an encounter with Him. That’s why we read.
Why do we pray? Is it a one way communication? I just have to get my requests out there. I don’t know if he hears me.
I don’t know if my prayers left the ceiling. I just have to have my prayer time. I have to be disciplined about prayer time. Or do you care if he hears you? Do you care if he shows up in that prayer?
God is saying, don’t you care about me? This is my house after all. you’re here to pray to me. I want to meet you. I desperately want to meet you. Do you want to meet me? Do you want to meet me? Raise your hand. Anyone here a full-time minister? Okay.
Anybody here a bivocational minister? I’m raising my hand. I’m a bivocational minister. Okay, number two, bivocational minister. Anybody else? By the end of this message, I want to convince you that we’re all bivocational ministers. Maybe you’re not doing it full time. You have a job, you have something you’re doing on this side. I want to convince you by the end we’re all bivocational ministers.
1 Peter 2:9. Let’s turn there. 1 Peter 2:9.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. (1 Peter 2:9-10, ESV)
We’re all royal priests, all of us. We’re all royal priests. Whether you have a title or not, I don’t know if you knew this. You are a priest. You are a priest. And so as a bi-vocational minister, what do you do? Well, most people would say you do ministry.
So what is ministry? Is it running church? Is that what we do as bi-vocational ministers, as priests? Is that what we do? We run church, we run programs, we keep things moving? Is that what we’re doing as bi-vocational ministers who do ministry, who perform ministry duties? Is that what we’re supposed to do?
Thankfully, God doesn’t leave it up to us to fill in the blank of what is ministry. He tells us in the earlier verses, verse 4, 1st Peter 2, verse 4, as you come to him a living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
4 As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 2:4-5, ESV)
So that’s the clue. We are offering spiritual sacrifices as a holy set apart Royal priest, all of us, we’re all bi vocational ministers. What ministry ministry do we do? We perform spiritual sacrifices. That’s what we offer.
And who do we offer it to? Are we serving one another primarily and giving the food and giving the Bible study and leading the small group, and we’re doing it before one another? There’s a lot of secular groups that have that kind of an emphasis. you’re just gathering friends around some common interest. That’s not what a church is. A church is.
We are offering spiritual sacrifices. We’re offering ministry. Before whom? Before God in prayer. And so I want to unpack that today. We offer. We minister before God in prayer. We offer God himself spiritual sacrifices.
There’s five types of sacrifices in the Old Testament and they’re divided into two categories. There is the voluntary sacrifices and it’s up to you. You can do it or not do it. And then there’s the mandatory sacrifices. The voluntary offerings or sacrifices is the burnt offering, which is expression of devotion or commitment, or a surrender. And this is voluntary. You can do it or not do it. It’s really up to you. And then there’s the grain offering or the peace offering. These are thanksgiving. So when we have an open mic time, it’s voluntary.
No one’s forcing you to give thanks or to give praise unto the Lord. But this is an offering we give to the Lord. We thank him. We praise him for who he is, for what he has done. These are voluntary. And then there’s the mandatory ones. And it’s all around sin. There’s a sin offering. You do it for your sins, personal sins, and there’s a trespass offering. Sins that are direct. You know, maybe you committed against somebody or it affected somebody. That’s a trespass offering. These are mandatory.
And so a bulk of our prayer, it is confession of sin, as Andre said. That is a bulk of our prayer. It is mandatory because sin is so important. It is so important to deal with it, because you cannot have fellowship with a holy God while still being a sinner through and through and just having all of these issues.
Because every time we sin, there’s a blockage. So if you want to fellowship with God, we need to go through all of the sins that are intentional, deliberate, and also unintentional. We look at the personal sins that nobody else knows. We see the sins that spill out and spill over to others that we need to confess as well. These are mandatory.
I just want to break it down a little bit more. So, prayer of surrender. It’s voluntary. Jesus had a choice at Gethsemane. Do I take the easy way out or do I say, not my will? Father, I trust you. I will take this cup. I prefer not to go this way. But not my will. your will be done. And he surrendered his life.
That’s what we do in prayer. We surrender our lives, and it’s completely voluntary. You can do life your way and make a mess and fall into traps and fail the trials and never level up and grumble and just barely make it. That’s up to you.
Or you can say, I’ve tried living that way for many years. It doesn’t work. I’d rather cooperate with the Lord. I’d rather maximize blessing. I’d rather maximize impact to other people. So why don’t I do it the Lord’s way and let me surrender? And we surrender. We’re good at surrendering.
I think about the macro things, the major decisions, who to marry. I think we pray about that, hopefully what job to take. It’s a little bit of a bigger decision. We pray about that.
But how many of these big decisions do we have in a year? Not many. But we have so many micro decisions. So if you look back on this year, if 95% was a micro decision and you just made them. And then the 5%, the macro, the big decisions.
You surrendered and you asked the Lord at the end of the year, can you say that you are surrendered? Or would you say I was? Actually, only 5% surrendered this whole year. I just did it my way. And it’s completely up to you. Do you want to repeat that next year where 95% is your decision, it’s your way, and you ask God to bless your ways?
God says to Jeremiah, to the people, they need to Amend their ways. It’s voluntary. We can do life completely different, even in the small things. We can surrender to the Lord. Praise and thanksgiving, completely voluntary.
You can go through next year the way you went through this year, with a lot of grumbling, a lot of complaining, and end of next year it’s going to be, oh, I did it again. I spent another year grumbling and complaining.
How many thank yous did I do to the Lord? How many offerings of thanks and praise did I give to the Lord? You know the Lord, he doesn’t owe you anything. The fact that we, we are saved, that he brought us from death to life, from darkness to light. Shouldn’t we be? Shouldn’t we be singing his praises every day?
Even if he doesn’t answer another prayer in all of 2025, 2026, for the next 50 years, he doesn’t answer a single prayer. Just the fact that you met Jesus and you’re holding onto Jesus today and you believe in Jesus. Shouldn’t we be singing his praise?
That I have a Father in heaven, that privilege, that I can call Him Abba, and I’m a child of God. He lavishes His love on me, and I wake up and I have another day to live for Him, to praise Him, and to thank Him.
The fact that I have good health, the fact that I had gasoline in the car, that I could actually drive to church. I didn’t have to take the bus, I didn’t have to walk here. The fact that I could actually open up a fridge.
I have a fridge and there’s food in the fridge. The fact that I could fill my stomach before coming here, so I’m not hungry. And I’m like desperately trying to devour all the snacks and the crackers because that’s the only food I have on a Sunday.
We are so blessed. So blessed. He doesn’t have to answer anything else. He doesn’t have to give us anything else. Doesn’t he deserve so many offerings of praise and thanksgiving for all eternity?
Hebrews 13:15. Through him, through Jesus, then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God that is the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.
15 Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. (Hebrews 13:15, ESV)
Father is listening for our voice. And even if you don’t say it, he’s looking at the state of our hearts. He knows if you’re thankful. He knows if you’re grumbling. Even if it doesn’t come out, he sees everything. He wants us to acknowledge his name, offer up a sacrifice of praise. Doesn’t he deserve it? Hasn’t he been good to us? The next prayer we offer is repentance. It’s mandatory. This one is mandatory.
Churches and entire denominations, it seems like they’ve turned church into a money making enterprise. Like certain denominations, they don’t vet out their conference speakers. They just ask, how many church members do you have?
How many churches did you plant? How many baptisms did you have? How much money did you tithe to the denomination? And if you, and if you check all the boxes, oh, can you be our guest speaker at our next denominational conference? Because it’s all about money. And it’s not just money.
But think about all the things that were happening in Jeremiah’s day: BAAL worship, injustice, oppression, lying, cheating. And yet they say this is the temple of the Lord. God is with us, right? While living this way.
So it’s not just about money, it’s just everything. Everything how we live. There’s a lot to repent over as church leaders. There’s a lot to repent over the state of the church worldwide that we’ve made it into a den of robbers, into a place where we don’t even care. We could care less if God shows up or not.
We just got to complete the program, just fulfill the. Just make sure it’s smooth and there’s enough offering coming in. That’s all that certain people care about.
Just meeting the needs of the people. Whether or not God is there. They oh, they just want small group. Let’s give them a small group. They feel a heart toward the homeless. Let’s start a soup kitchen.
As long as these programs are running, it doesn’t matter if God is there or not. God is saying, don’t you care that I’m there? You keep saying it’s a temple of the Lord.
I’m not at the temple of the Lord with you because I see how you’re living. I see how the leadership is. I’m not there anymore. Why don’t you repent and come back to me?
So we have prayers that are voluntary, offerings that are voluntary. Surrender is voluntary. We offer that up in prayer, praise, and thanksgiving. He doesn’t twist your arm. It’s voluntary. That’s a prayer. We praise and thank God. Repentance is mandatory. Make sure we confess.
Make sure we’re all confessing our sins on a regular basis, on a daily basis, at least at the end of a day. How, Holy Spirit, did I sin today? Please convict me and show me, because as I was living my day, I didn’t even know I was sinning. Holy Spirit, please show me at the end of the day, how did I sin? And then we offer up a prayer of repentance.
Lastly, we offer a prayer of intercession. First Peter 3:8.
Finally, all of you have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling. But on the contrary, bless.
8 Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. 9 Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. (1 Peter 3:8-9, ESV)
And I’ll read James 3:8. But no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing, my brothers. These things ought not to be so.
8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. 10 From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. (James 3:8-10, ESV)
So as we think about offering of intercessory prayer, I think we will also see. Oh, there’s a lot of repentance here as well. What came out of your mouth as people, maybe even over this Christmas break, as you spent time with family and certain people got on your nerves and they did certain things.
And under your breath you’re like, murmuring, and then you’re talking behind people’s back. I can’t believe they said that. I can’t believe they did this. And coming out of your mouth, instead of blessing your family member, you’re cursing them.
It happens in families. It happens in churches all the time. Just look back at this past year, the church, brothers and sisters. How many times did we complain? I can’t believe they said that. Did you. Did you. Did you see what they did? We curse them by complaining.
There’s a lot of repentance as God is calling us to intercede. We’re supposed to bless the Lord. Obviously, the Lord is easy to bless. He’s perfect. Can you bless an imperfect, sinful person? That’s what God is saying through First Peter. Jesus says, follow my example.
When I suffered as a sinless person, when they persecuted me and they reviled me and they scorned me, and they said all kinds of false things against me, how did I respond? I said, Father, forgive them. He blessed them. He blessed them. He didn’t curse because he was cursed.
He says, now follow my example. Intercede for them. Pray for them. The people on your list, your naughty list, people who wronged you this past year, there’s going to be many people in your family on that list.
There’s going to be a handful of church brothers and sisters on that list. Because if somebody on the street does it, you’re bothered for the moment, but it doesn’t stay with you.
But when your family member, your church member does it, that stays with you. And not only that, maybe some trauma happened, some sin was committed against you, and so you were darkened by that.
But as you open your mouth and you start cursing them, you’re further darkening yourself and corrupting yourself. Because out of the overflow of the mouth, the heart is speaking.
And it’s not what comes into the mouth that defiles you, not the food that we eat. It’s what comes out of the mouth that defiles. So when a sin is committed, we add on to that sin by cursing instead of blessing.
And what is the greatest blessing for somebody who is immature, somebody who just might be a churchgoer not really believing? A family member who maybe doesn’t even go to church or is just going through the motion? They don’t really believe, or they’re so immature, they’re so unsanctified, and you’re just colliding with them and you’re clashing with them every Sunday or throughout the holidays.
How are we supposed to bless those people that we can’t just dismiss as a stranger and then just passes by, but we’re just reminded, we’re re triggered over and over and we keep defiling ourselves by the cursing and the complaining.
What is the biggest prayer that we should offer for such people who knowingly or unknowingly are sinning against you or insulting you for following Jesus and saying, oh, you’re too much. Why don’t you just do Christian life the way that the rest of us are doing Christian life?
Whatever you’re hearing from the family member, the friend, the church member, what do they need the most? What kind of prayer do they need the most?
They need a prayer of Jesus. Please meet them. That’s such a blessing to them. That’s you’re saying, God, please show them mercy, show them favor, bless them.
How can you bless them? Are you asking for them to have a great job? Is that going to fix anything in their character and how they do life? Is that going to guarantee their salvation? By just blessing them materially, does that solve anything?
No, it doesn’t solve anything. So what you’re asking for, your family member, your church member who drives you crazy, who’s insulting you for the name of. Because. Because of your devotion to Christ, the person you’re tempted to curse, you restrain your tongue. You tame your tongue.
That’s why few people should preach. When I read James, I just say, I don’t think I should preach. I think I’m disqualified. I think God is going to judge me very severely unless I get this right.
The person you’re tempted to curse, complain about, that’s the very person God is inviting you to offer a sacrifice of intercession. Ask Jesus to meet them. That’s the greatest blessing that you can offer.
Your family member who’s driving you crazy, your church member, your church sister, brother, who drives you crazy. This is for children who think your parents are driving you crazy. Well, pray for your parents. Pray for Jesus to meet your parents more so that they’re sanctified and then they are a better parent.
Instead of cursing your children, pray for your child to meet the Lord so that they obey you, and it’s easy and everything is smooth in the home.
We should be praying for one another instead of cursing one another. And as you look back at this year, did you intercede for such people? Who insulted you? Who triggered you, who annoyed you? They’re the people on your naughty list. They’re the people God was inviting. You pray for those people. you’re seeing something other people may not see, but you’re seeing it.
The best way you can pray for them is Jesus, please meet them. They don’t know you well yet. That’s why they keep doing this. That’s why they’re acting this way spiritually. They must not be doing well.
So we pray. Please meet them. What if we are a church? Whenever we gather, we’re reminded, oh, there are other brothers and sisters I should be actively praying for. What if reminded not just our church members, but our extended family.
Of course, we pray for ourselves, our spouses, our children, but beyond that, our uncles and our aunts, our parents, our grandparents, our cousins, nieces, and nephews. We pray for them. Jesus bless them. Please meet them. Please meet our brothers and sisters. Please meet our extended family members.
What a privilege that we can offer up a spiritual sacrifice of intercession for one another. That’s why we gather, we pray to the Lord, we offer up these sacrifices.
Let’s pray. I wanna lead us through some guided time of prayer. The first two are voluntary. You can sit there and be silent if you like. God is not gonna force you. But I invite you and I encourage you to offer a prayer of surrender and a prayer of praise and thanksgiving.
Surrender not just for the big decisions of life, but all the small micro decisions. We can’t call Jesus master and Lord unless he’s a master of all. It’s a prayer of surrender to our Father. Not our will, but his will be done in our lives and through our lives.
Praise and thanksgiving for who he is, for what he did to save us, and just so many other things that we can thank him for. This is completely voluntary, but I encourage you to spend some time. Prayer of surrender. Praise, thanksgiving. I surrender my life before you. I pray that you would have all of my life, 100% of my life. All the small and big decisions, not just the big ones, but all decisions 100% micro and macro. Pray, Lord, you I surrender my life. I surrender my marriage.
I surrender my children, my family. I surrender extended family. I surrender Hill Community Church. I surrender EZ Cloud. Lord, you’re the Lord of it all.
I surrender my finances. I surrender my future, my present. I surrender. Today everything belongs to you, Lord. Today I want to do your will. Tomorrow, I want to do your will, not my will. I want to do your will each day.
I surrender, Lord. I praise you for who you are. I thank you that you are my father. I thank you that you’re my Abba. I thank you that I’m a child of God. I thank you that I have a privilege to call you father. Thank you that you brought me out of darkness into your marvelous light. I thank you that I have ever a chance to testify about your goodness today.
I thank you that I can be a priest of God, offering and ministering blessings before you and before your people. I thank you that I can lead us through a time. You are leading all of us through a time of spiritual sacrifices and offerings of surrender, praise, and thanksgiving.
I thank you, Lord, for a new day. I thank you for food in my stomach. I thank you for financial provision. I thank you for a blessing of brothers and sisters and friends of Jesus. I thank you, Lord, for having a place to worship. I thank you for having a place to lay down my head. You didn’t even have that, Lord Jesus, but you gave me that privilege to have a place to lay down my head. I thank you for that.
I’m not a beggar on the street. I’m not dying of hunger. I’m not dying of thirst. I thank you, Lord, for children who are trying their best to follow you. I thank you for Jackie, who is trying her best to live for you and to submit and surrender under the headship of Christ.
I thank you, Lord, for every brother and sister here, for their encouragement. Every time I see them just gathering together, such an encouragement. Thank you, Lord. Thank you for Matthew leading the praise. Thank you for Emma for doing the finances. And thank you for all the testimonies, the sermons, the preaching, the testimony, mission trips.
I thank you for all the times we gathered here with other believers. I thank you. There’s so much to be thankful for. Thank you, Lord. Thank you for today. Thank you for your blessing. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. You’re so good. I thank you, Lord.
I thank you that for another year. I don’t deserve it. I deserve hell. I thank you that in Christ heaven is waiting for me. I don’t deserve it. Thank you, Lord. Thank you for salvation for me today. Thank you. You’re so good.
Thank you for bringing newcomers here from Korea, from Santa Barbara, and from Indonesia. Thank you, Lord, for the body of Christ. It is a house of prayer for all the nations, for all the people. Thank you, Lord.
Thank you that we’re seeing a fulfillment of that verse in our gathering today, as small as it is, and it is a fulfillment of that verse. Thank you. We praise you, Lord. We praise you. Bless every single person here. I want to meet you, Lord. I want to meet you, Lord.
Now, I want to guide you through the last two offerings: prayer of repentance and a prayer of intercession, especially for those who’ve sinned against you. These prayers are not optional; they’re not voluntary. It is mandatory.
Let’s offer our prayers of confession to the Lord, confessing all the sins of our lips, all the grumbling, all the failure to be thankful, all the failure to offer God praise, all the failure to surrender our lives in daily mundane things.
Let’s offer a lot of repentance and also for all the people who wronged us, all the people. We complained about our failure to bless them by praying for them, by inter failure to intercede for them. But let’s now put that into practice. Repenting and now interceding. For all the people in your lives who’ve made it difficult in various ways, let’s intercede.
Let’s pray that Jesus meet them. That is the greatest blessing for them. Let’s pray specifically. And after you’ve done that, after you’ve completed the self examination, the Lord’s Supper will be here for you. Let’s pray that the Lord meets us as we close out this service. Let’s pray.
