Matthew 22
Pastor Lawrence

Prayer of Adoration/Thanksgiving: Our Father, we praise your name, for you are the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. You are not the God of the dead, but of the living. You, O Lord, kill and you bring to life; you bring down to Sheol and you raise the dead up from the grave. O Christ, we glorify your name, for you are the Son of David yet you are his Lord and King, the one who sits at the right hand of the Father even now in heaven until all your enemies are under your feet. You are the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in you though he dies, yet shall he live. O Holy Spirit, we praise you as the breath that brings life to dry bones, as the light that illumines dark minds, and as the joy that fills our hearts with hope. O Lord, we give you thanks that you have invited us to the wedding feast of your son. Though many were called, few have been chosen. And although we were unworthy even to receive the invitation, we are now eager to celebrate in fellowship with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And we give you thanks again and again for your great grace and mercy to sinners.

Prayer of Confession: Father, even though we have gladly responded to the invitation to the wedding feast, at times we too have preferred to work at our farms and our businesses than to enter into the joy of our king. We too have rejected your holy reign and treated your servants with contempt. We too have put on the old sinful rags rather than the righteous robes of Christ, walking in the flesh rather than keeping in step with your Spirit. And although we know that we will not be thrown into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, we still have sought to hide in the darkness and we still have mourned over the consequences of our sins. Yet we do not mourn enough over the sin itself or how our sin grieves your Holy Spirit. Lord, please forgive us and give us a greater gift of repentance. In Jesus name.

Prayer of Sanctification: Our Father, as we read your Word this day, help us to know both the Scriptures and the power of God. O Christ, we pray that we might know you and the power of your resurrection this day, that we might share in the fellowship of your sufferings becoming like you in your death, that by any means possible we might attain the resurrection from the dead. O Holy Spirit, so fill our hearts with the spirit of the law that we might love the Lord our God with all of our heart, all of our soul, and all our mind, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. May we render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.