Father,
You have appointed for us that we should work. We have our jobs, and we take care of the things that relate to our households, both for ourselves and for others. We keep our eyes open for opportunities and dangers in our lives. We invest in our relationships, enjoying friendships, learning from teachers, and guiding those in our care. Yet it is you who determines whether or not our work will be established, regardless of our own skill. You determine in which families we have been set. You determine what our level of income will be, regardless of our labor. You determine what dangers we will be exposed to, regardless of our vigilance. And so, we go out to our work each day to labor until the evening, not like the godless who consider their lives to be in their own hands, but as your own children, who trust you and hope in you because you are sovereign over all.
Your word is refreshing. It judges us and demands that we change, but the clarity it brings is refreshing. Yet the enemy desires to keep us in ineffective confusion - keeping our sins too vague to really repent of and keeping our contemplated good work too fuzzy to move ahead with boldly. He even uses your word itself to mix us up. Father, we need you to help us bring the word and life together. We know the list of sins you warn us against and we know our lives, but we have a hard time matching two up. You have told us to put away malice, bitterness, wrath, anger, and slander. Teach us, by your Holy Spirit within us when we are committing these sins. Give us the clarity that can lead to repentance. At the same time, don't let us be bound to the burdens set up by teachers who arbitrarily define sins by their own pet peeves. We want to live with clean consciences according to what you have required of us. We know that this is also what you want and so we know we are asking according to your will. Only remember to be gentle with us. You could overwhelm us by showing us too much of our sin too quickly. Teach us to love your work of conviction in us and so strengthen us gradually to bear deeper and deeper cleansing with trust and love.
Continue to give us daily bread. Give us the money we need for food and shelter and clothing. Give us time to spend with you in secret prayer and meditation on the scriptures. Free us from the burden of debts that we owe to others. Satisfy our loneliness with the love of one another and with the private comfort of your Spirit within us. Comfort us in our sickness and physical problems so that we may endure with a deep and genuine joy and let us suffer no more than is necessary for our sanctification and your honor.
Please help Royal York to be a place where believers and unbelievers come in and say, surely God is among them. We want your name to be honored in the world on account of us. To that end, stir up our love, and our strength and skill in exercising it by the Spirit of Christ within us. Teach us to count being like him as the most valuable thing. Help us to know the power of his resurrection, to willingly share in his sufferings, to become like him in his death, and to always be full of confident hope, looking ahead to the day you will raise us like him.
May you be honored by our continued worship this morning.