"Robust and Resplendent God" - 29 October 2017


O God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit; one God who is simultaneously three persons in eternal love and joy: thank you that you created all creation and creatures from love and joy; and from love and joy will not let us go but are actively working out the restoration and liberation of your sin-enslaved, sin-damaged creatures and creation. Praise God from whom all blessings flow; praise him all creatures here below; praise him above, ye heavenly hosts. Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost!

Robust and Resplendent God, please take note of our world situation; the destroyed families, homes and livelihoods crushed under the heal of demonic and despotic powers; ethnic tensions promising to explode; regions ravished by this revolution and then that; people groups hunted down and decimated by reigning powers; populations writhing under poverty and pecuniary paralysis. Yes, please take note of our world situation, take note of the Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, and Barbados, and defeat that which is evil and advance that which is good!

Robust and Resplendent God, please take note of our own nation with all of its plenty and power, tensions and turmoil, history and hysterics, decency and discriminations. Yes, please do take note of our nation, and steer us a straight passage where we may again firmly and beautifully hold up and uphold the self-evident truths “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Robust and Resplendent God, please take note of the sick, sore, strained and sapped…Yes, please do take note and supply refreshment, restoration and resolution.

Robust and Resplendent God, please take note of those who live in our neighborhoods and communities whose lives are in a shambles, or their bank accounts, or their bodies…Yes, please take note and bring to them the aid and encouragement fitting for their situation.

Robust and Resplendent God, please take note of those organizations and agencies in our greater OKC area who are striving and working toward giving a cup of cold water in the name of Jesus: for Restore OKC, Little Light School, Hope Pregnancy Center, OKC Metro Literacy Program, just to name a few. Yes, please take note and pour out on them exactly what they need in resources, resilience, personnel and pleasure.

Robust and Resplendent God, please take note of your Church in all places, this congregation, as well as Christ Evangelist Baptist Church; Christian Faith Missionary Baptist; Christian Temple Baptist; and Classen Blvd Baptist churches. Help us all, once again, to exult in and hold tightly to the realization that we have been and are being rescued by grace alone, in Christ alone, received by faith alone, and therefore our only rule of faith and life is Scripture alone, so that we may thrive and live and love to the Glory of God alone! And so, renewed with this realization may we be freed to love you and our neighbors; work toward the reunion of your church; become the means of healing old cultural, ethnic and social wounds; and happily play our part in your world reclamation project, so that in the fullness of time, you will unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth (Ephesians 1.10); when “Jesus who died shall be satisfied, and earth and heaven be one.”

Robust and Resplendent God, please take note of our prayers we offer in Jesus’ name; and what we have asked faithfully, provide plentifully. Amen.

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