So good to be with you on this Saturday! I’m glad we can be together in the Pastor’s Workshop.
As you know, Saturday is when we “prepare with prayer”. That’s a good mantra for Sunday’s sermon and for so much else in life!
Prayer is “God with us” and “us with God”. Prayer centers us In God’s grace. It gets our hearts and minds ready. It adjusts our attitude and aligns us with what God wants to do in and through us in the day before us.
So what do we pray for as we celebrate our graduating seniors on this Senior Sunday?
A large part of my prayer is gratitude. I’m so thankful for our seniors. They are wonderful young adults. I’m grateful for who they are and for what they’ve accomplished and achieved. And I’m thankful for all who have supported, encouraged, instructed, provided and prayed for them along the way. There is so much to be grateful for on this Sunday.
Part of my prayer is for continued protection and provision as they move forward. I ask God keep them safe and secure. I pray God open doors of opportunity and give our graduates the wisdom and courage to step through them.
Part of my prayer is for hope. I’m hopeful for how our graduates will continue to grow, for who they will become, for the difference they will make in the world. I ask God to continue to work in them so they will be their best and become the blessings God has purposed them to be.
Part of my prayer is for myself. Even as I pray our graduates would be living into God’s grace and “working out their own salvation”, I pray the same for me. There are opportunities of love before me today I need to see and seize. There are chances to share and serve I need to embrace. I need to “work out my salvation” too!
What are your prayers for our graduates this morning? As with all we do, I encourage you to write down your prayers. I recommend you use a notebook. It’s amazing how when you put “pen to paper”, prayers (and everything else) take on a different and more permanent perspective.
It’s been a blessing to be with you this week. It’s great to consider how God’s grace has blessed and grown our graduates. It’s a blessing to be called into that continued working of God as we work out our own salvation.
In that growing grace I look forward to being in worship with you tomorrow at Spring Valley!
Prayer: Gracious God, thank you for our seniors and this Senior Sunday. Thank you for all you have done, are doing and will continue to do in and through them. Thank you for your word that calls them and us into a mindset of cooperation. Thank you that even as you are working, we can be working too! Strengthen us by your Holy Spirit that we might use this day and everyday to “work out our own salvation” through Jesus Christ our Lord. In his name we pray. Amen