Prayer & Preparation for April 3rd, 2022

This Lord's Day

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Hey church,

I think this week’s text provides not only for great preaching, but also for great praying:

Our Father, thank you for giving your Son to us and for us. Thank you for revealing him to us in your Word. Thank you for the privilege of knowing him and knowing you because of him. And yet we confess to you that we don’t know him like we ought. Like the travelers on the Emmaus road, we have deficient, even if accurate, views of our Savior. Oh, that we may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming like him in his death! Oh, that we may press on after that very prize!

And we confess to you that we are often foolish and slow of heart to believe all that you have spoken to us in your Word. Please forgive us and cleanse us and give us ears to hear. Give us eyes to see. Open our eyes that we may behold wondrous things out of your law. Please show us the necessity of Christ’s sufferings in connection with his glory. Please show us the things concerning himself in all the Scriptures, and especially in Luke 24.

Lord Jesus, please come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel. Please stay with us. Please give us to know your heart in longing to be with us. Please give us the ears to hear your knocking at the door and the sense to open the door in anticipation of your coming in to us and communing with us. Through your Word and your table, please give us to enjoy your presence and our relationship with you this Lord’s Day.
Please, Holy Spirit, give us burning hearts as we hear, not the voice of a mere man, but our Lord Jesus himself speaking as you open to us the Scriptures you’ve given to us. And then please give us the kind of fellowship with one another that increases our delight in you.

Here are some other details about the morning sermon and service that may inform your prayers and aid your preparation:

Songs:

“Man of Sorrows,”
“Open the Eyes of My Heart,”
“He Will Hold Me Fast,”
“Show Us Christ,”
“Jesus, Firm Foundation,”

and in the evening communion service:

“It Was Finished Upon That Cross,”
"Christ Our Hope in Life and Death,”
“His Mercy Is More,” and
“Come Behold the Wondrous Mystery”

Sermon title:

“Their Eyes Were Opened!”

Supporting texts:

Ps. 16; John 5:39-40; 2 Cor. 3:14-16; 2 Tim. 3:16-17; 2 Pet. 1:3-4

Jeff Tague