back to indexBerean Community Church - Praise and Prayer 7/18/25
00:07:25.840 |
Let us just take a moment to prepare our hearts in silent prayer as we come before God. 00:07:30.500 |
After that, we will praise his name together. 00:12:32.800 |
I'd like to, you know, I'd like to, you know, I'd like to give you just a, not simply an exhortation, but an open invitation to express yourself and worship as you please. 00:34:12.940 |
people come to me and they unload their situation hoping that I would have that flip of the switch 00:34:19.860 |
answer. Do you know what I mean? 90% of the times, there's nothing I can say or do to make their 00:34:27.240 |
circumstance better. Right? Like 95% of the time, what am I going to say to make the circumstance 00:34:34.500 |
actually better? Am I going to like get rid of certain people in their lives, give them a million 00:34:40.820 |
dollars? You know, just be like, ta-da, flip of the switch, like your life is better. This just doesn't 00:34:45.540 |
happen. But this is the go-to passage for the struggles. Here, both in 1 Peter 5, that we should 00:34:55.100 |
lay our anxieties at his feet, but also another passage, 2 Corinthians chapter 1. Blessed be the 00:35:02.000 |
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, the God of all comfort, who comforts us 00:35:08.960 |
in all our affliction, so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, but the 00:35:15.660 |
comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in 00:35:22.620 |
abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. Going down to verse 8, Apostle Paul says, 00:35:30.960 |
for we do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction which came to us in Asia, that we were 00:35:36.440 |
burdened excessively beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, we had the sentence 00:35:42.580 |
of death within ourselves, so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead, 00:35:47.980 |
who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and who will deliver us. He on whom we have set our hope, 00:35:56.200 |
and he will yet deliver us. Wow. What an incredibly comforting and encouraging passage. 00:36:02.940 |
In thinking about this, I dare not say that like, you know, our immediate struggles, we can't exaggerate 00:36:11.740 |
them to be like, oh, I know exactly what Apostle Paul's feeling. The scenarios are quite different, 00:36:17.200 |
right? Where we have hardship and experiences, but then Apostle Paul has literally near-death threats 00:36:24.800 |
constantly as he travels. And both physically, he was so beaten, he essentially was just string away, 00:36:33.240 |
right? But nevertheless, the feeling of hopelessness, he explains here that the burden was so heavy, 00:36:42.620 |
that it was excessive and beyond strength. So the feeling there, how do we wrestle with that? 00:36:47.640 |
My request again is, if you, if you have come tonight, resorting to over-talking it, just talking 00:36:57.400 |
and talking and talking and talking to anybody and anybody who would possibly listen, etc. If you have 00:37:03.640 |
been numbing it with trying to forget, or which is really, really like a modern thing, I think, 00:37:09.040 |
not necessarily modern, but a habit, it's just looking for any escape possible. Looking to get away, 00:37:16.640 |
looking for a new scenario, all that kind of stuff. Please, please don't, but rather go to God and say, 00:37:24.720 |
God, I hope in you, even when this is far, far beyond my strength. Amen? So that, the last part is, 00:37:33.020 |
we would receive God's peace. That we would first rejoice in the Lord, request of the Lord, and then 00:37:41.520 |
receive from the Lord his peace. Verse 7 says, and the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension 00:37:48.620 |
will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus, we can go to God and say, in receptive, 00:37:55.540 |
with receptive hands, thank you. I know one, you, in your grace, you hear me. Thank you. I know I have 00:38:05.660 |
the absolute assurance that you care, and thank you. I know I have a sure found hope in you. 00:38:13.340 |
I know I've got everything in you. I don't have all the plans, and I don't have all the decisions 00:38:19.340 |
exactly how they're supposed to be made, but I absolutely have hope, and that is worth so much 00:38:25.600 |
more. There are people who move from problems to worry, deep anxiety, and then ultimately to despair. 00:38:36.460 |
no hope. But God says, within the midst of your suffering, within the midst of your pain, 00:38:42.960 |
I will be your hope. Here's another passage, not so common, Lamentations chapter 3. 00:38:50.680 |
This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. The Lord's loving kindness indeed never cease, 00:38:58.680 |
for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning, great is your faithfulness. 00:39:05.460 |
The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I have hope in him. The Lord is good to those who 00:39:11.660 |
wait for him, to the person who seeks him. It is good that he waits silently for the salvation of the 00:39:18.380 |
Lord. Obviously, this is where the famous song, Great is Thy Faithfulness, comes from. And as we take 00:39:26.120 |
a moment to think about that, I pray that the way we handle the anxieties we carry, and truth be told, 00:39:33.500 |
maybe some of us like, we didn't come in with like, oh, woe is me. We didn't come in here with just like, 00:39:39.020 |
oh, I've got all these burdens I'm carrying on my back, and I'm just dragging them in here. Good, you know. 00:39:45.500 |
But nevertheless, we are warned, we will. Through this life, we are going to experience suffering in the 00:39:53.060 |
future. But what's more, we're going to be sometimes surrounded by people who are wrought with anxious worry, 00:40:00.540 |
wrought with heavy burdens. Can we give this encouragement that we can have our rejoicing in the 00:40:06.900 |
Lord, we can cast all our anxieties on Christ, we can request and make all our supplications rise to the 00:40:14.400 |
Lord. And for sure, we will receive. Let's pray. God, as we enter into time of prayer, I ask Father God that 00:40:25.540 |
every worry that we daydream about while we're at work, all the strains, just fears we play in our minds, 00:40:35.180 |
all the bad images of what could happen and what we could lose. Help us, Father God, not to carry these 00:40:42.260 |
things as baggage in our minds, but God, help us to cast them all down at the feet of our Lord. 00:40:49.260 |
God, we are reminded today that you care so deeply that we are able to relinquish our prideful control 00:40:58.640 |
over our lives. So help us do that even now, as we're joined together to lift all of our burdens 00:41:05.380 |
and all our requests to you. We thank you, God, that in your mercy, you will hear our prayers. In Christ's name, amen. 00:41:13.180 |
At this time, I'm going to give you guys a minute just to come forward. Anybody who would like to come 00:41:19.000 |
forward to the front carpet area, you can come. And we're going to go into the individual time. 00:41:24.000 |
So as the AV team plays the just prayer time music, please go ahead and write into it. We'll give about 00:41:31.040 |
10 minutes for you guys to just follow those steps. And again, if you've already come with just 00:41:37.280 |
a desire to seek the Lord and there are things you want to address directly, 00:41:40.980 |
obviously, you can just put this aside for later and go directly to seek the Lord, okay? All right. 00:41:46.180 |
Please take this moment to come forward. Please kneel and take use of the space. And then I'll come back 00:41:51.960 |
in 10 minutes to guide us into the next portion. 00:54:57.180 |
God, that we could receive your comfort, God, that we could receive your comfort and 00:55:27.160 |
the effective prayer, the effective prayer, the effective prayer, and the effective prayer,