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Weekend Recap – Prayer Encouraged

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My 11/11/12AM sermon, Prayer Encouraged from Hebrews 13:18-19 is online.  In this sermon, I sought to, once again, ground everyone in the Gospel (has to be the case reading the book of Hebrews) and help them see how that encourages pray.  Specifically, my outline involved 3 directions for prayer: we pray for people, Gospel-centered living and circumstances.

I hope the sermon helped people to see the access they have to their Father and to pray more diligently.

And, I hope you had a blessed Lord’s Day.

Weekend Preview – Prayer

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This coming Lord’s Day, we plan on looking on Hebrews 13:18-19 and it’s call for people to pray.  There are some specific ways this author contributes to our thinking on prayer that will, undoubtedly, be a great encouragement to us.  We all know the importance of prayer.  This, coupled with the amazing truths we’ve seen time and time again in the book of Hebrews about how we’re made acceptable in God’s sight, what our great High Priest has done to give us confidence to enter, and how Christ Himself is interceding make this a very exciting text to pursue this weekend.

I hope you’ll come and be encouraged to be a person of prayer.

Corporate Prayer at Crestview

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I love that our church regularly disciplines our time for corporate prayer.  This Sunday (9/30) at 6PM, we will take time to gather together and pray.  Recently, Sinclair Ferguson commented on the importance of corporate prayer in a post entitled Does Your Church Pray Together.  He said:

There is the lack of prayer and of the Church praying. This is to me the most alarming, for this reason: we have built apparently strong, large, successful, active churches. But many of our churches never meet as a congregation for prayer. I mean never! What does that indicate we are saying about the life of the Church as a fellowship?

By contrast, the mark of a truly apostolic spirit in the church is that that we give ourselves to prayer and the Word together (Acts 6:4). No wonder “the Word of God continued to increase and the number of the disciples multiplied” (Acts 6:7). If this is so, it should not surprise us that while many churches see growth, it is often simply reconfiguration of numbers, not of conversion. I greatly wish that our churches would learn to keep the main things central, that we would learn to be true Churches, vibrant fellowships of prayer, Gospel ministry and teaching, genuine mutual love. At the end of the day, such a Church simply needs to “be” for visitors who come to sense that this is a new order of reality altogether and are drawn to Christ.

Will you join us?  Let’s gather and see if God doesn’t do amazing things through these prayers.

Helping You Help Me

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A great post came over at the Gospel Coalition recently entitled Sermon Prep: A Week in One Life.  I’m often super-blessed when I’m asked by people in the church how they can pray for me.  My reply usually is something like “Pray that I would be faithful to honor God week in and week out.”  While this sounds trite, this post on the nature of a pastor’s work week may help you understand some particular struggles inherent in my work.

I found this post helpful, as well, in reminding me of some important parts of my work.  So, if you’ve ever wondered how you can pray for your pastor, why not take some time and check out this post, which begins: “For those unfamiliar with ministry, the pastor’s work week can be mystifying.”

Praying to Our God

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My sermon, Praying To Our God, from Psalm 34 is online.  This sermon, which served to kick off our church’s Week of Prayer, sought to encourage us to be a people of prayer by showing that God gives joy, listens to our prayers and comes near to help us.  We distributed our Week of Prayer devotionals and had an enjoyable morning looking heavenward for help.  I trust you had a glorious Lord’s Day kicking off the New Year.

Weekend Preview – Psalm 34

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For the next couple of Sundays, Crestview will be looking at Psalm 34.  This coming Lord’s Day, in particular, we will be thinking about prayer in this Psalm.  Those who cry to the Lord are heard.  We are called to praise. There is so much for us.  Over on Twitter, I’ve been tweeting meditations on these verses.  I would encourage you to read this Psalm and think about what it means for your prayer life.  If you are interested in some of our Week of Prayer resources, they are available here.

Weekend Recap – Prayer, Prayer and Christ

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Yesterday’s sermon, Clinging To Christ, from Hebrews 4:14-16 is online.  The sermon was led by this big idea in this portion of Scripture about Jesus being our high priest and the exhortations to hold fast our confession and draw near to the throne of grace with confidence.  It was an encouraging and needed word in my life.

In the PM, we met for corporate prayer praying together for some needs that are pressing in our congregation.  We typically do this once a quarter and have found it to be most productive when the Elders lead out with some specific requests.

At any rate, we enjoyed a tremendous Lord’s day and I’m grateful that I got to participate in it.

Ash Wednesday, Lent and Other Things…

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Today is Ash Wednesday (cue the yawn from most of Protestantism). We don’t tend to think or observe these days in the church year because we perceive that in some cases what they mean has been hijacked for empty ritual (in the best thinking) or we are just plain ignorant (at worst).

Lent was a traditional time in the early life of the church when converts would prepare themselves for baptism. It was a time of deep reflection and purification preparing one’s heart to celebrate the passion week events of Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter. Ash Wednesday marks the day in which we’re 40 days out (of Easter).

If you are looking for help in going deeper with God this season, check out the amazing tools at Apostles Church NYC. Specifically, they are doing 40 Days of Prayer, including a daily devotional. Here’s their description of Lent and what they hope to accomplish:

Lent is intended to be a time of refinement, reflection, repentance, worship, and preparation to really celebrate the death of Jesus on Good Friday and his resurrection on Easter Sunday. In 40 Days of Prayer, we sincerely hope to lead our people (and ourselves) through Lent and into a deeper delight in Jesus, appreciation for the gospel, and desire to “seek things above” out of his goodness.

Find ways to seek the Savior and honor Him in this season. May the grace of our Lord be with you richly as you think about Him and His work.

Learning To Pray (Again)

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As a church, we’ve spent a great deal of time over the past few months thinking about prayer and what that means for us. Today, I was encouraged to read a post by Thabiti entitled Learning to Pray…Again. I would commend the post to you because he gets to some core struggles we all face (not praying enough, thinking we don’t pray well, etc.) and offers some wise and godly encouragement. Here’s his conclusion:

I’m learning to pray this way again. I suspect that once I’ve “learned” this time, the Lord will teach me yet more.

Why not head over and check out this post and learn to pray…again, yourself.