The Prayer After the Sermon

 By Pastor Benjamin Glaser - Posted at Thoughts From Parson Farms:

How to Use This Time For the Blessing of God's People

Good Morning,

Today by God’s grace marks the first Thursday devotion of the new year of 2025. We began these in the early days of Covid nearly five years ago and have now reached the four-hundred and second edition. I want to thank you for bearing with me through these. As we’ve worked through the Westminster Standards, first the Confession of Faith (at a 10,000 foot vantage, maybe a closer look in the future is warranted), then the Shorter Catechism, and last August we concluded two-years in the Larger Catechism. Right now we’ve been walking through the Directory of Public Worship. Our goal will be to then move into the Directory of Church Government, and then close with some of the attached documents like the Solemn League and Covenant, the Sum of Saving Knowledge, and the Directory of Family Worship.

These next two installments will cover a section of the DPW that may seem a bit strange to spend a lot of time on, and that is the prayer after the sermon. Some of what is covered here we do at Bethany in other prayers during morning and evening worship, but now is as good a time as any to cover them. My own personal use of this time is a little different than what is covered, and maybe it would be good for me to use some of what we learn here. Let’s go ahead and look at the meat:

THE sermon being ended, the minister is to, “give thanks for the great love of God, in sending his Son Jesus Christ unto us; for the communication of his Holy Spirit; for the light and liberty of the glorious gospel, and the rich and heavenly blessings revealed therein; as, namely, election, vocation, adoption, justification, sanctification, and hope of glory; for the admirable goodness of God in freeing the land from antichristian darkness and tyranny, and for all other national deliverances; for the reformation of religion; for the covenant; and for many temporal blessings.

To pray for the continuance of the gospel, and all ordinances thereof, in their purity, power, and liberty: to turn the chief and most useful heads of the sermon into some few petitions; and to pray that it may abide in the heart, and bring forth fruit.

To pray for preparation for death and judgment, and a watching for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ: to entreat of God the forgiveness of the iniquities of our holy things, and the acceptation of our spiritual sacrifice, through the merit and mediation of our great High Priest and Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ.”

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