I compose a pastoral prayer each Sunday that I hope teaches my congregation. It hits different emphases each week. We start with a minute of quiet so each attender can confess sin and ask God to prepare his or her heart for worship. It’s been awhile since I’ve done this, but I’ve included a pastoral prayer I prayed at our church in December. Hopefully it encourages you.
Dear Father, We love the birth of Jesus. It reminds us of how humbly he came to earth. The God of the universe robed in human flesh—it’s so far beneath God the Son, but he did it for us. So we celebrate the humble birth of Christ. And not just humble by divine standards; it was also humble by human standards. Jesus was born to a poor family in a small town in a humble stable. That’s not how a king would be born we would think. Yet, Jesus exceeds our expectations in the humility of his birth. Father, thank you for Christ’s birth. He needed to be human so that he could die in our place. Millions of lambs were sacrificed in the years before Christ was born, but not one could ever permanently take our sin away. We needed a human substitute. And Jesus became that human substitute for us. So Father thank you for Christ’s birth.
God, help us to be unselfish this season. We develop such towering and enslaving expectations about what each event should be like, how our family should act and treat us, and how each person should react to our gift giving. There are many more expectations that we can have that we judge others by. They become idols that we serve. We want the perfect Christmas as defined by our expectations. Sometimes they are sinful; other times they are just too big. Most times they are reasonable expectations which makes them so dangerous. We live for them rather than living for your glory. We want others to serve us by meeting our expectations rather than us serving them as Jesus would. You never take a sanctification break on us—even during Christmas. So grant us grace to serve you and not our dreams, desires, and expectations this Christmas.
Father, our country needs Jesus. They need the gospel. So many are lost and blinded by their sin. They pursue what this life has to offer with no concern for its eternal results. There is a real, literal hell of unending pain for those that reject Christ. That is reality. You tell us in Matthew 25:46 that there is both eternal punishment and eternal life. If one is eternal, so is the other. Sins against an infinite God deserve unending punishment. It’s the awful reality of an eternal hell. Please don’t let us get numbed to that reality while we live for the temporal pleasures of this world. Save our relatives, our neighbors, our coworkers, and our friends. If we believe this, then we must obey the Great Commission and tell others about Christ. Give us ample opportunities combined with godly motivation to share the good news—that all can escape hell through Jesus. And may our gospel sharing be fruitful. May we share the gospel because we are so thrilled with Jesus that we cannot help it. In Jesus’ name, Amen.