Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Morning Chapel Prayer Today
Pastor Dustin…
Welcome to Morning Prayer, everyone. Good to see you. I’m honored to be with you today. My name is Dustin Sherry. I’m the Next Gen Pastor here at Living Word. And on behalf of our senior pastors, Mac and Lynne Hammond, I want to welcome you and thank you for joining us today.
God’s Spotify playlist…
I have some verses I’m going to read out of Psalms. Psalms is like God’s Spotify playlist. It’s all of His favorite songs. I’m going to read through some verses and then we’ll spend some time praying together.
Psalms 65…
Psalms 65 says, “Praise awaits you, oh God and Zion. To you our vows will be fulfilled. You who answer prayer, to you all people will come. When we were overwhelmed by sins, you forgave our transgressions.”
Isn’t that awesome? We weren’t just sinning a little bit. We were lost in it. We were stuck in it. We couldn’t get out. We couldn’t save ourselves.
We were stuck in our sin…
We were preaching on the Gospel last night in the youth ministry and we were talking about the good news of the Gospel, that we were separated from God. We were far away from God. We were stuck in our sin. And God looked at us with love and grace and He sent Jesus to die on the cross for us when we were overwhelmed by sins. You forgave our transgressions.
Ps 65 cont…
“Blessed are those you choose and bring near to live in your courts. We are filled with the good things of your house, of your holy temple. You answer us.” I love that. You answer us. I love when you like sit and just read things slowly in the Bible. There’s so much to get excited about. Just this little half of a sentence of one part of a verse. “You answer us.” That’s huge!
“You answer us with awesome and righteous deeds, God, our savior. The hope of all the ends of the earth and the farthest seas who formed the mountains by your power, having armed yourself with strength, who stilled the roaring seas, the roaring of their waves and the turmoil of the nations. The whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders. Where the morning dawns, where evening fades, you call forth songs of joy. You care for the land and water it. You enrich it abundantly. The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain, for so you have ordained it. You drench its furrows and level its ridges. You soften it with showers and bless its crops. You crown the year with your bounty and your carts overflow with abundance. The grasslands of the wilderness overflow. The hills are closed with gladness. The meadows are covered with flocks. And the valleys are mantled with grain. They shout for joy and sing.”
Prayed…
Father, we just shout for joy. We rejoice in the abundance that you’ve provided. We rejoice in the abundance of grace that you’ve given to us. We rejoice in the abundance of forgiveness that you’ve given to us. That you lavished it on us. You lavished your goodness on us. You’ve given us more than enough to do the things that you’ve called us to do.
Great grace…
Great grace is upon each and every person here today. There’s more than enough grace available to you… That supernatural empowerment from God, the free favor from God. Great grace is upon you. So look up, rejoice. His yoke is easy and His burden is light. Rejoice because He’s good, because He’s faithful.
Don’t believe the lie…
Don’t believe the lie that you aren’t enough and you don’t have enough and things are going down and whatever else. No, the great grace is upon you. And at the end of this life, you step into eternal joy. You step into the greatest promotion of your life, into the kingdom of God, into heaven in His presence for eternity. And so you can rejoice. Because the path of the just grows brighter and brighter. He takes us from goodness to goodness. Glory to glory. Favor to favor.
He has good things planned and prepared for you. And then you just step over into eternity at the end, and you just step over into His presence, into perfection, into glory. And so why would we dread anything? Why would we be anxious? Why would we be fearful?
His blessing is pursuing us…
So goodness and mercy follow us all the days of our life… God’s blessing is pursuing us. God wants to bless you. God wants good things for you. And so you can celebrate. You can have joy. You can have a confident expectation. You don’t have to look around. You don’t have to use other people as your reference point. You don’t have to base your expectation off of what your family’s experienced or the people around you have experienced. No, God’s got good things planned and prepared for you.
That can be you!
All throughout scripture, you see examples of these groups of people that God sustains… individuals even sometimes that God will sustain. That can be you! So you don’t have to look at what’s happening around you and expect the same thing to happen in your life. No. God can sustain you, support you, enable you, empower you regardless of what’s happening around you. And so, Father, we just thank you for the abundance that you’ve given to us in Jesus’ name,
Psalm 73:23 says…
“Yet I am always with you. You hold me by your right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you. The earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
Psalm 1:21 says…
“I lift up my eyes to the hills from where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord.” Not from the hills, not from the people living on the hills. Nobody. It is from the Lord. My help comes from the Lord. I look to the Lord. He’s my help. “Who made the heaven and the earth. He will not let your foot be moved. He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper. The Lord is your shade and on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all evil. He will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and you’re coming in from this time forth and forevermore.”
Prayed…
Lord, we’re grateful that you keep us. We’re grateful that you don’t sleep, you don’t slumber. We’re grateful, Father, that you are our help. You’re our source. You’re our supply. We can look to you. You’re constant. You’re steady. You’re not volatile. You’re not up and down. No, you’re consistent. You don’t change.
And so we thank you, Father, for the stability that we can have, Lord. I thank you that the people here in this room, all of us as believers, I pray that we would be stable. I pray that we would be steady. We would be consistent. We wouldn’t be spazzes and running around like chickens with our heads cut off, freaking out, up one minute down the next. Lord, I pray that we would build our lives on the firm foundation of your Word. And we would be stable. We would make decisions from a place of faith, not from a place of fear. We would be wise. We would be consistent. That we would be faithful witnesses.
Let’s serve a higher purpose…
We want to do everything God’s put in front of us. We want to be faithful with the time that He’s entrusted to us. But the Apostle Paul said “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present world pale in comparison to the glory that lies ahead.” In other words, he wasn’t living for just his gratification and his happiness while he was here. He was serving a higher purpose, and he recognized that after this life, he’s stepping over into eternity. And the way that he lives this life will impact his eternal experience. Saved by grace. We’re saved because of Jesus, but the Bible makes it clear that our experience in heaven is a result of how we live here on earth. The Bible talks about weeping and gnashing of teeth when it talks about faith. It’s the parables of the servants.
The lazy servant cast into outer darkness…
And I heard a commentator say in his opinion, that doesn’t imply hell when it talks about the lazy servant, the wicked servant being cast into outer darkness where there’s weeping and gnashing of teeth. He said, “I don’t think it’s talking about hell. I think it’s talking about when rewards are being given out, when God is distributing rewards. The regret that people are going to feel over how they used their life and their life’s resources while they were here on earth.”
Let’s be about our Father’s business…
And it’s just a very sobering reminder, isn’t it? And so like Jesus said, “Let’s be about our Father’s business. Let’s use the time that He’s given us to build His kingdom. Let’s use the resources He’s given us to build His kingdom.
Of course, God wants you to have things.
Of course, God wants you to enjoy your family.
Of course, God wants you to enjoy things.
We must keep Him first…
You can have cars and houses and go on vacation. It’s not either/or. But we need to make sure that we’re keeping Him first. We need to make sure that we’re serving no other gods before Him. And an idol is just anything you put before Him. That’s all an idol is. I heard a pastor say an idol could be a good thing that you’ve made into an ultimate thing. So it could be your family. Good things. But they’re not the ultimate thing. A job. It’s a good thing. Not the ultimate thing. House, cars, money, vacations, good things, not ultimate things.
He’s number one…
You see, it’s about priority. It’s about the order of it. It’s about the place that it occupies in your heart. He’s number one. And there’s only one, number one. And so we need to be maybe on guard about this, is a good way to say it. And just be constantly evaluating. And looking at these things, being honest with ourselves, and just make sure that things aren’t moving out of the proper place. We’re keeping Jesus number one. We’re keeping His Word, His plans, His purposes, His callings first in our lives.
