Prayers 9 7 2014
*Welcome: back to our regular schedule, Joe Chan is cooking breakfast again, welcome visitors
*Senior Center, this Wednesday featuring Pastor Visal as the speaker; sign up with Dick and Anna Wong
*Women’s Fellowship, Saturday with Alexa Heung sharing about her experience in Thailand, 9:00 at Brenda Choy’s; RSVP to Lea or Joy
*EFG’s 52nd Anniversary Luncheon, next Sunday, Sept. 14, 12:30 in the Fellowship Hall; honoring James and Marie Chuck; all are welcome
*Special Offering—2015 Biennial Mission Summit to become a Gold Sponsor; Goal of $1000; special envelops next Sunday
*Tiffany Lee will share about her China mission trip next Sunday at 11:20 service; come to hear how God is working in the lives of our church members
Prayer Concerns
*George Chen receiving chemo treatment
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Prayer of God’s People
God of love, we pray to be a community of believers united in love for you and one another, a fellowship whose life honors Christ, whose name we bear, and is a worthy witness to the world. Having been established as church, we are charged with the responsibility to grow and mature, to be a people of integrity. Help us to be more real in our relationships, more willing to be with one another in openness, sincerity, and truth, to both rebuke and encourage, to reprove wrongdoing and counsel holiness.
Restoring God, we pray for ourselves and specifically for those who are in need of your miracles. We lift up George Chen to your loving and merciful care to restore his health from the cancer that is in his body. Give him strength and the confidence that you love life that has been demonstrated by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We pray for…
O God, it seems like the world is consumed with violence and atrocities that we can bear to watch, conflicts and wars that devastate livelihoods, finger-pointing and accusations that only paralyzes us from doing good work with each other. Sometimes, Lord, we wish to escape from the problems of the world and to come into this sanctuary where it’s safe and quiet. Forgives us when we are afraid and uninterested in what is going on out there in the streets and highways of life. But rather, Lord, equip us and lead us to become active ambassadors of reconciliation and justice for the only purpose of bringing the peace of Christ to our fractured world. Show us how to bear witness of your love and understanding that bonds us as sisters and brothers regardless of our nationality, religion, language, and borders.
As we pray together, may streams of justice and mercy converge among us with cleansing, healing, life-giving waters. We pray in the name of Christ Jesus who taught us to pray, “Our Father…”
The Lord’s Supper
The message from our Scriptures today is to take people seriously and to grant them the honor and respect that we wish for each other. This passage is also about times when we have differences and how we might resolve them in a Christ-like manner. This reminds me of a story.
Two sons were left a large piece of property by their father. For months they fought over how the land should be divided. Finally, they brought their problem to their pastor and asked him to solve it.
“Come back tomorrow,” said the pastor, “and we’ll talk.”
The next day the sons returned, and the pastor gave them his solution.
“Toss a coin,” he said to one of the brothers. “You call it, heads or tails,” he said to the other. “The one who wins the toss, divides the land.”
“That’s no solution,” said one of the brothers. “We’re right back where we started from.”
“Not so,” said the pastor. “The one who wins the toss divides the land; but the other gets first choice.”
When we come to the Lord’s Table, we come with a heart to care for the other person—to give the other person the first choice, to take the other person seriously because God took us seriously enough to send his Son, Jesus Christ to die on the cross so that we may have eternal life.
Benediction
Lead a life worthy of your calling,
Bearing one another in love.
Maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Take each other seriously because God took you seriously to give you his Son.
May the blessing of God, the restoring Christ, and the sanctifying Spirit be upon us all. Amen.