Beloved, we have come here tonight to pray, to pray in a specific way, as you can see from the order of service. And to prepare us for that, we consider a meditation on God's guaranteed answer to prayer. If you would turn with me to 2 Corinthians 12, we read together the first ten verses of 2 Corinthians chapter 12. 2 Corinthians 12, beginning at verse 1, as we hear now the Word of God. The Apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, says, I must go on boasting. Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord. I know a man in Christ who 14 years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body, I do not know. God knows. And I know that this man, whether in the body or apart from the body, I do not know, but God knows, was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell. I will boast about a man like that, but I will not boast about myself except about my weaknesses. Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say. To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But He said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. Beloved in the Lord, prayer, we know, is a most blessed gift of God given to His people. We confess that God will only hear and answer prayer prayed according to His will and offered to Him in true faith. That's what the Bible teaches. And that means then that we as believers, we as believers have something that the unbelieving world does not have. As long as one rejects the Lord Jesus Christ and does not believe, that one does not have the gift called prayer by which and through which we respond to God's Word to us. That also means, though, that when one bows the knee before God for the very first time in prayer, that that one, according to God's will, has been prepared for that. Been prepared to pray. But you see, as God's people, we also enjoy another blessing that goes hand in hand with faithful prayer, and that is God's guaranteed answer to prayer. Well, what is it? Well, Paul found out from the very mouth of the Lord Himself who said to Paul, My grace is sufficient for you. Now, we know, of course, that prayer itself is a gift of God's grace. We were reminded this past Sunday evening that a good way to remember what grace is is that it is God's riches at Christ's expense. And prayer is indeed one of those riches. But also, God's riches are given to you and me through that means called prayer. Now, there are many things, of course, for which we are to pray. And if we were to teach one how to pray, we might do so teaching them to use the acronym that we call ACTS. Adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication. We find all those things in the prayer that our Lord taught His disciples, don't we? The Lord's Prayer. And therefore, using that acronym through prayer, we adore God. With our hearts and our voices, we acknowledge the truth of Him and we give Him adoration, speaking of His greatness, of His majesty, of His power, of His holiness, of His love, speaking of all of His attributes, acknowledging who He is, adoring Him. But then we also express the truth of ourselves in comparison with Him by confessing in prayer our sins and unholiness and asking for His forgiveness. And then, of course, we thank Him for hearing us and for granting His forgiving grace. And we thank Him as well for all of His blessings to us, which we are able to recount. But then finally, with regard to that acronym, we cannot leave out our supplications, our petitions, our requests, whether for ourselves or for others. And beloved, we must admit that at times, because of sin and because of sin's effects in this world, this supplication portion of prayer takes up the bulk of our prayers. Asking God for this. Petitioning Him for that. And of course, for some, we know that they might not fall to their knees in prayer until they find themselves in trouble. And let's be honest, how many of us, when we have faced difficult times, whatever those difficult times might have been, but when we face them, how many of us didn't wonder, well, why do these things happen to me? Why do these things continue to plague me? After all, I'm a Christian. I have given my life to the Lord Jesus Christ who first gave His life for me. Haven't you ever wondered that? Isn't it true that we sometimes secretly think that there ought to be certain perks for being a Christian? Well, on the one hand, that's not the proper way to think about the difficult times we face in this life. We all know that the Bible promises that we will face the difficulties in this life, the effects of sin, sin itself, persecution. But yes, the Bible also promises the greatest perk possible that belongs to Christians. Sometimes what we think we need and what God knows we need are two different things. Sometimes, as Paul found out, what we need are the difficult times, like Paul's thorn. Whatever that thorn may have been, which was used for his sanctification. It was used to reveal the power and the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, God does not promise to take away these thorns that may torment us, but He does promise to give something that far exceeds any thorn that we might experience. And it's called His grace. The Lord's answer to Paul was no. No, Paul, I will not take the thorn away because that's not what you need. What you need is My grace, and that I will give to you. Guaranteed. And God's grace includes, as He says in Isaiah 43, Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have summoned you by name. You are Mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And brothers and sisters, that alone is sufficient. That God is with us. God's grace is sufficient. It is enough for us. We need nothing more than that. And it's sufficient simply because God gives us what we need for the situation at hand. That may be physical strength. It might be contentment. It might be hope. It might be comfort. Or maybe some other relief. It may be encouragement in some way. maybe through the words and actions of our brothers and sisters in Christ, but whatever shape or form in which His grace might be provided, it is guaranteed for those who come to God with their needs. But a second question then is, why does God give this guaranteed answer of grace? And the answer is very simple. It's for Jesus' sake. Paul says in Philippians 4, verse 19, and my God will meet all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus. This past Sunday evening, we were also reminded by our brother Quentin of the power of God's grace from Ephesians chapter 3. That power is in and through Jesus Christ. We know that grace is what we call unmerited favor. It's undeserved. It's unearned. And that's why it's appropriate to call it a gift. Again, God's riches at Christ's expense. The merits of Christ that He has earned for us. By His blood, He has redeemed us. He's purchased us for His Heavenly Father who says to you and to me, you belong to me. Why are we able to confess with confidence that nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God? It's because that love of God is in Christ Jesus our Lord. God loves us because of the work of His Son accomplished on our behalf. And beloved, that is to be our confidence as we come to God in prayer that He will hear us. He will answer us in the way that is best for us. Because we are His. We belong to Him in His Son, our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore, beloved, how confidently do you pray? How confidently do you pray? I didn't say arrogantly. I didn't say selfishly. But how confidently do you pray? In humility, we may and we must pray confidently and expectantly. confidently expecting that God will give to us all that we need for body and soul and it's summarized with one word, grace. And therefore, beloved, may He use this truth to transform our prayers offered both in private as well as a congregation of His people. Let's bow our hearts and our minds together in prayer. O Lord God, almighty Lord of hosts, we lift our prayers to you this evening as one in the body of Christ, our hearts and minds united in true faith by the working of your Holy Spirit. We are humbled before you and we acknowledge you to be the creator of the heavens and the earth who out of nothing called into being all things, visible and invisible. We thank you and we praise you for continuing to powerfully sustain and wisely govern the fullness of your creation according to your good and perfect pleasure, sovereignly accomplishing all that you have determined and decreed from before the foundation of the world to the glory of your name. We affirm and worship you as the one and only true and living God. We bow before your absolute holiness. In your being and in your attributes, you are set apart and high above all that you have made. Your judgments are unsearchable and your paths beyond tracing out. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are your ways higher than our ways. And your thoughts than our thoughts. By sight we see the world and we ourselves changing from day to day. But through your gift of true faith, we know and believe in Jesus Christ, your only begotten Son, who has revealed your changelessness. For Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Through true faith, created in us by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel, we confess that we, in Adam, were created in your likeness. in true righteousness and holiness, that we might rightly know you and love you and live with you in eternal happiness, to glorify you and to praise you. And we confess that we, not only in Adam, but also in ourselves, rebelled against you. We are sinners by nature and sinful of our own accord, in the privacy of our thoughts and motives, as well as in our outworking of our sin in our words and in our deeds. We confess that even though our consciousness accuses, however, Father, of having grievously sinned against all of your commandments, and of having never kept any of them, and even though we are still inclined toward all evil, nevertheless, without our deserving at all, Out of sheer grace earned for us by Christ, you have granted and credited to us his perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness. As if we had never sinned, nor been sinners. As if we had been as perfectly obedient as Christ was obedient for us. You loved us and you sent your Son for us while we were dead in our transgressions, in our sins. And you've made us alive in Christ, no longer your enemies. You've made us citizens of your kingdom, indeed children of your household, heirs of your promises in Christ. And we praise you for the greatness of your undeserved love toward us in Christ. Thank you that he came in the flesh to satisfy both your justice and your mercy through his life of humiliation and obedience to your will, even unto death on the cross of Calvary. Thank you, Father, for sending Jesus Christ, who knew no sin to become sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God. Thank you, Father, for the work of the Holy Spirit who applies Christ's substitutionary atonement to us, your people. Thank you that in Christ we may approach your heavenly throne not as a throne of wrath and displeasure, but as a throne of grace. And that we may approach with boldness and with confidence without shrinking back or hiding from you. Thank you that by His Spirit, the Holy Spirit, You work in us to will and to do that which is pleasing to You. Transforming our minds by the mind of Christ revealed in the Scriptures. Conforming our lives to His life. And working gratitude in our hearts so that we are pleased to heed Your command for us to come. By prayer and petition with thanksgiving to present our request to You. Lord, we were born needy people. And though redeemed by the blood of Christ so that we no longer need do anything for our salvation, we remain a needy people. Sin still clings to us. The consequences of sin still bind us and trip us and trouble us. And so we come before you, Father, knowing that every good and perfect gift comes from you for the sake of Christ. And so we will come before you in his name and ask of you your blessing. In Christ's name. Amen. Please pray with me as I lead. Our Father in heaven, we come to you this evening in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior. And we come to you as children. We do not come before you in an effort to persuade you as if you would change. we come as your sons we come as your daughters knowing that when you open your hand we receive good things we rejoice that you are our father and that you have bought us and that you have adopted us please remember that we are dust that we carry burdens that we become corroded by the trials of this life please hear our prayer thank you father in heaven for establishing the family as a basic building block for our society please protect it from the assault that it's undergoing today in this wicked world as husbands prompt us to treat our lives our wives like we treat ourselves help us to encourage our wives to lift them up when they're downcast to be compassionate to share in all of their sorrows as well as their joys to listen to them to love them like christ loves the church thank you father for our wives and as fathers may we treat our children like the precious gifts that they are to be patient with them to care for them to be godly examples for them to teach them all about you we pray that our daughters would grow up to be like the good wife you describe in the book of proverbs and that our sons would be like the mighty men of king david wherever you pray place them So Father, we pray that they would be faithful servants in your kingdom. And Lord, we cry out to you, asking you to pursue our children who have jumped the fence, who are out in the dark, who are in trouble. Please find them and bring them back to us. We have seen your power. And oh Lord, some of our parents are growing old and wearing out. Please comfort them with the fact that in life and in death, that their body as well as their soul belongs to Jesus Christ, and that on the last day they shall see you with their own eyes, with perfect vision, with bodies made incorruptible. Grant those of us who are caring for our moms and dads that we would be patient and loving, realizing that one day soon we're going to be weak on body and mind as well. Also, Father, continue to care for this church, these souls who come to this house of prayer in this building, to be sanctified by Your Word. We thank You for what we have seen and heard from our own pews, hearing Your Word preached, seeing and tasting the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, seeing little boys and little girls being baptized, seeing and hearing our kids profess their faith, seeing our children get married, and also gathering this house in times of sadness, sharing the burden of our dear friends who have lost a loved one. We have tasted and seen that you are good. Thank you so much for our church family, for our brothers and sisters in Christ. And thank you, Father in heaven, for our faithful pastors that you have provided this church with over the many years. They've all been faithful to your word. They've showed us just how great our sin and misery are and appointed us to a redeemer, Jesus Christ. Please bless Pastor Voss. Give him endurance as he prepares sermons. Fill him with your spirit. Let him enjoy times of rest. Bless Brenda as well as she takes care of him and their children. Care for Pastor Donovan as he's very busy counseling, teaching, preaching, dealing with our problems and caring for us. Give him the rest and the sleep that he needs. Replenish his body and his spirit. And be with Suzanne as well. Thank you for the elders here who oversee your flock, who encourage and admonish us, who have found for us pastors and directed us through rough times. Grant them wisdom, discernment, and compassion. Thank you for the deacons who serve your people as well as strangers with acts of mercy. Please keep these office bearers constant in prayer and diligent in reading your word. And please bless all the folks who make this church function And there are many, Lord, humble, faithful servants who teach Sunday school and catechism, work on Project Philip, put the share and care together, serve as secretaries and custodians. Please bless Brent Cooper with the work that he does with our teenagers and bless all of his helpers as well. Be with your congregation, the people who are sitting in front of me here now. May they be found seeking you every morning in prayer. May they be found in prayer with their families and around your word, gaining strength for their journey. Sanctify them by your word, Father. And finally, Father, we bring to you our prayer for Calvin Christian School. Thank you so much for our school. May our children find the reformed faith incorporated into their studies. Bless the board members and administrators and the teachers as they strive to provide an education where every thought is taken captive to Christ. Thank you, Father, for hearing our prayer. We offer it in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Pray with me for comfort and healing and affliction in our church here today. Let us pray. Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth. Father, You are our God and Savior. you know our every need you have prepared all our days long before we were born therefore to who else can we go with all of our petitions father we call you our father to awaken in us at the very beginning of our prayers that childlike reverence and trust toward you which our catechism talks about as being basic to prayer so this evening as we bring our prayers before you we pray that you will hear our petitions we do so knowing you will hear us for Christ's sake therefore we come in faith and humility before your throne of grace for comfort and healing in our broken and sinful lives. Our congregation, which gathers here this evening, has experienced many trials and heartaches in the past few months. We would pray for the comfort for those who have experienced the sting of death in their family circles. In the past weeks, we mourn especially with The Memelars, the Browers, Richard and Kelly, and the Good Hearts, most recently who have lost loved ones. Each week we are reminded in our bulletin of those who have lingering illnesses or because of advanced old age. We think of Bill Brower, Terry Carlson, Gerald Gerking, Betty Prince, Joan Horton, John DeHaan, Mrs. Vinskindle. May our prayers and petition for these never cease. We thank you, Lord, for mothers who have come through the pain of childbirth and now enjoy the caring for a new child, strengthen both mother and child. We remember also our expectant mothers, sustain and strengthen and bless them. We would also remember, Lord, our little children as they grow up in our midst with their enthusiasm, their small hurts, their aches and scratches. Be, O Lord, a God and Savior to them as well, and especially to their parents in the work of training them up in the fear of Your name. Lord, from middle school through high school and college, we find many of our children experience the afflictions of broken bones, of the flu, and some of the minor diseases of life sustain and heal them as well. Tonight we not only pray for the young and aged, but we pray for those in the prime of life who experience Your hand in loneliness and heartache. and diseases also such as cancer, heart problems, headaches, back problems. We pray, Lord, that You will sustain them in their trials and temptations. We see again Your great healing power in this age bracket. You are a God who cares and sustains Your own. We pray, too, for those who have lifelong problems, such as blindness, hearing disabilities, being relegated to a wheelchair. We pray, Lord, for those who are hurt in spirit and mind. strengthen them. Lord, we ask that we may not only be a helping congregation, that we may be a praying congregation. What a wonderful opportunity we have as your people to give encouragement in word and deed or a handshake, a simple smile. You can use each of us to witness to those in need, especially in trying times. Lord, when we get sick or experience pain in our bodies, the first thing that we do most often is that we probably grumble a little bit. And we ask, Lord, that You help us and that You sustain us as we go through our life trying to honor you in our help of others. We would be remiss, Lord, if we would not bless your name for the many in our congregation who step forward with a willing and a helping hand in time of need. We praise you also for the many prayers and expressions of sympathy and cards and telephone calls which help cheer up the lonely and downhearted. we pray too that many times we ask for things which we do not receive and Lord many times we grumble and we complain instead of thanking you for all our daily blessings he has bestowed on us make us Lord of people that shows forth your love and compassion, forgiveness, even when we are having bad times. May we honor you. May we honor your name in every aspect of our daily lives, good times, sad times, hard times, joyous times, times of sorrow, times of heartache. May all of these things be accomplished to your name's honor and glory. We pray all these things in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who deserves all our adoration and praise. It is in his name that we pray. Amen. Please join me as we pray for our nation and its leaders. Father in heaven, Lord God, we praise you for your greatness, for your power and wisdom, for the wonder of your creation, and for the ways you work in the lives of your people. We thank you, Lord, for this nation in which you've privileged us to live, for the freedoms that we enjoy. And we hold up to you now in prayer those who you have put in authority over us. We are thankful that you have seen fit to give us a godly man as president. We pray for President Bush, that he would continue to seek your guidance as he leads our nation. That you would give him strength and wisdom. That you would give him wise counsel, as he is our president, as he is also a husband and a father. We pray, too, for the Congress, for those that make the laws of our land, that they would be diligent and honest, although that is often hard. And we pray for the courts of our land, that they would make godly decisions, especially the Supreme Court and the decisions that may soon be before it. We pray, too, that you would uphold our governor and our state and local officials, those that govern over us locally. May they govern fairly and with equity. And, Father, we especially hold up to you those who serve as our leaders, who are believers, that know you as their Lord and Savior, that their light would shine, that their faith would inform their decisions, that others might see and believe. Father, we must confess that as a nation, we have wandered far from you in spite of the many blessings that you have bestowed upon us. Forgive us for this. Forgive us when we take for granted the gracious provision that you have given us, the bounty of this land. You have given us soil that yields great abundance. You have given us industry that provides not only the basic needs of life, clothing, and shelter, but so much more. And yet we often take it for granted. I think that we do it ourselves. Give us strong hands and strong minds so that we can accomplish the work and the task that you have called each of us to do. We pray that you would continue to bless and prosper our nation's agriculture, our industry, that we would have plenty to eat, all the essentials of life, and that we would be satisfied and content with what you provide. And most of all, Lord, we pray that you would work in the hearts of the people of this nation. Turn us back to yourselves. Renew us and reform us so that we would once again serve you as a nation. We pray this in the name of Jesus, our Savior. Amen. Please join with me in prayer as we pray for Christian ministry and mission. Our Father, God in heaven, we come to you with confidence, knowing that because of Christ Jesus, our mediator and our high priest, we have access to your throne. And so, Father, as your people, as your church, we pray that you will continue to bless us. May your spirit continue to work in this world. through the preaching and the teaching of your word. Father, we pray that the church universal may be built up, that she may be encouraged, and that true and faithful churches throughout the world may continue to administer the sacraments faithfully, that they may continue to preach the true doctrine, the true gospel of Christ Jesus, and that discipline may be administered so that those who are erring in life or in doctrine may be brought back into the fold, that they may be restored to fellowship with you and with your people. And Father, we pray for this church, for Escondido URC, that you'll continue to bless her in many different ways. May those who are members here continue to grow in faith. May we look to you for all of our needs. But may we also grow in numbers as the gospel goes forth and converts people and brings them into the flock. Lord, there are many ministries of this church and many programs which are at work, sometimes even without our noticing. So we pray for them, Lord. We pray for the young peoples, the junior high young peoples, cadets, gems, single adults, Coffee break, story hour, youth of yesterday, various Bible studies. Lord, so many people are giving of their time to lead these groups. And also, those who attend are benefiting greatly from them. Lord, we thank you for the opportunities that we have to come freely to study your word. To be strengthened by it. And to be continually pointed to Christ. Father, may your spirit continue to work in us, transforming us, conforming us to Christ's image. Father, we pray too that even as your work continues in this church, may you continue also at Santee. May that church be blessed as many have been brought into that congregation. Lord, even as they struggle with what to do in the future, May you bless the preaching of the gospel. May people continue to be fed there each and every week. And may we together sing your praises and glorify you in everything that we do. Father, you have promised us that it is by your word that people are brought into the family of God. And so we as that family know that we are incomplete, that the body is not yet whole. And so we pray that your spirit will continue to work in this world, drawing your elect into the body, that you may come again quickly, that we may bask eternally in your presence. Father, we pray also for missions. Lord, we know that the gospel ministry goes forth here each and every week. But Lord, we also forget that it goes forth around the world, even by some who are supported by us. So we pray for our missionaries, Lord. We think especially of Bill Green and Costa Rica. Lord, we pray that you will continue to bless the ministry there, that those that he ministers to may be comforted, that they may be challenged, that their faith may grow. We also pray for Neil Hageman and his ministry, Lord. We pray that he also may be able to preach the word confidently week in and week out that he may be strengthened Lord for the other missionaries too and those whom we support we think of Juan Arjona at the Mission Vida Nueva Lord may your gospel go forth even to to those in this city who speak Spanish primarily Lord they need the gospel as well and may they be built up in their hope and their faith in Christ Father may you continue to bless your church may she grow may she be pointed to Christ continually for without Christ we are nothing he is our head and we are the body and so Lord we ask that you will continue to pour out your spirit that hearts may be changed that lives also may be changed in response to the gospel Father we know that we can come to you in confidence so we lift up our prayers to you this evening in Jesus Christ's name alone Amen