December 1, 2020
OPENING PRAYER
Search me, O God, and know my heart; Test me and know my anxious thoughts; And see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
CONFESSION OF SIN & PRAYER FOR GRACE
O Lord of heaven and earth, remember me, cold of heart and impure, in your Kingdom. Deliver me from every ignorance and heedlessness, from pettiness of soul and stony hardness of heart. O Lord, save me from temptation; receive me in repentance; grant me pure thoughts; that I may love You with all my heart and soul and that I may obey your will in all things to the glory of your name. Amen.
OT READING: Isaiah 8:11-22
THE LORD’S PRAYER
NT READING: Luke 1:5-25
PRAYER OF ADORATION
I rejoice, O God, in your great mercy. To the barren, you bring fulfillment; to the hopeless, you give joy and gladness; to the poor, you grant abundance. I thank you that just as you answered the prayers of your servants Zechariah and Elizabeth, so you hear the prayers of your people today.
PSALM READING: Psalm 80
PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
O Lord, this psalm unfolds my family history. It tells the story of your work with your people; how you brought them to freedom, how you cleared a space for them, and then how they fell under the weight of their own sin. It’s punctuated by their repeated cry for restoration, and I echo that cry in my own soul. I add my prayer to the ancient prayer of your people. Restore us, O Lord! Your people are so prone to worldliness, to selfishness, to idolatry. Thank you that at the very moment when the story seems to fall apart in failure, a voice cries out in the wilderness, “Every valley will be exalted, every mountain and hill made low. Prepare the way of the Lord.” You sent your son to enact the magnificent restoration that your people need. We cried out, “Let your face shine on us,” and you sent Jesus, the radiance of your glory and the exact imprint of your nature, to bring us back to yourself. Glory be to God.
BENEDICTION
And now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us now and always, until the day of Christ's return.