From Psalm 71:19-24 NIV

¹⁹ Your righteousness, God, reaches to the heavens,

you who have done great things.

Who is like you, God?

²⁰ Though you have made me see troubles,

many and bitter,

you will restore my life again;

from the depths of the earth

you will again bring me up.

²¹ You will increase my honor

and comfort me once more.

²² I will praise you with the harp

for your faithfulness, my God;

I will sing praise to you with the lyre,

Holy One of Israel.

²³ My lips will shout for joy

when I sing praise to you—

I whom you have delivered.

²⁴ My tongue will tell of your righteous acts

all day long,

for those who wanted to harm me

have been put to shame and confusion.

We are the people of God. The Scripture reminds us that we still sin.

We need to confess our failures, knowing that Jesus intercedes for us with the Father, who freely forgives us. So let us draw near to God with confidence and pray in confession together.

Loving Father,
We confess that we have sinned against you
In thought, word and deed, by what we have done, and what we’ve left undone.

We have not loved you with our whole heart.
We have not loved our neighbours as ourselves.
We are truly sorry and we repent in humility.

For the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ,
have mercy on us and forgives us;
that we may delight in your Word,
and walk in your ways,
to the glory of your name. AMEN.

Hear again the good news:

³⁴ Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.

(Romans 8:34)

¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:^[a] the old has gone, the new is here!

(2 Corinthians 5:17)

Friends believe the gospel!

In Jesus Christ we are forgiven.

Father in heaven we lift our eyes to You,

We stand here in Your presence in awe of Your grace and mercy to us Your children

We do not deserve Your love, but You nevertheless poured it out on us without holding back. Father we pour out our thanksgiving, our adoration, our interest, our focus, our devotion, here at your feet Lord. What You have done for us in Christ deserves our everything, and we give You thanks and praise for Your goodness to us and all Your people.

Father You are good to us. We recognise the grace, the mercy, the patience that You exercise over all the earth right now. Lord You have so far held off from pouring out Your wrath on the earth, You have so far not descended from Your throne to judge the world of all its wickedness, rebellion, and strife. Father we know, that the only reason for this, is because of Your great mercy, and because You desire that people from every tribe tongue and nation would hear the gospel and come to Christ. You hold back so that Your church can stand in the midst of all the wickedness, rebellion and strife, and boldly proclaim that Jesus is Lord. Father teach us how to do reach the lost sheep of this world, so that they could be won to the Kingdom of God, and so that You would return and set up Your Kingdom of peace an righteousness. We long for this glorious state. We long for the renewal of all things.

There is right now so much division and disunity in the world, and even in our own communities.

People are being consumed by social media, by hashtags, by every wind of doctrine under the sun. People are stumbling around in the darkness Lord.

Father we ask that You would intervene. We ask that You would hear our prayers as we pray for governments to do what You have ordained them for – to administer justice where it is needed; to defend the defenceless, to punish the wicked, to stand up for the oppressed.

We pray for our own government. We pray Lord that You would hear our prayer as we ask for wisdom and bravery in our leaders to do what is right, not to cave in to the spirit of fear or hatred. We pray Lord, that Australia would have a corporate revelation of the fact that we are all image bearers of God, and that there might be real change in this land, and that we might turn to You for answers.

God we pray that You would help the church to not forget that we have been saved for the purpose of doing good works in the world that will cause the world to one-day recognise the glorious good work that Christ has been doing in us – and that all people would then glorify God because of it. Father help us not to feel the temptation to want to prove how righteous we are, in virtue signalling, or public display… But that we would quietly get on with serving You, and serving our lost world, bringing the gospel to bear in our lives and those You are drawing to Yourself, until the job is done and You call us home.

We pray for PCQ and those who lead our denomination, as they think through how to move forward in these uncertain times. We see how difficult it is to manage these great responsibilities in times like this so we ask You to help our leaders, the commission of Assembly, to be prayerful and trusting in the Chief Shepherd to lead us through it all.

Father help us as a local church to keep loving one another, visiting one another, calling one another on the phone, meeting with one another in homes. Lord, we are tired, stressed, lonely, bewildered, anxious about the future, some of us are nervously excited, optimistic, some finding it hard to be positive. Lord, sit with us in all this messiness. Help us to remember that Christ was no stranger to all these kinds of emotions and burdens. Jesus You understand our humanness! Thank You Father for Jesus.

Father we ask that You would lead our elders, as they meet on Tuesday night to think about ministry over the next months, and how to lead us well, as we all keep on running this race together as followers of our wonderful Lord Jesus.

Father we need Christ. We need to see him up ahead, as we continue our journey as pilgrims through this strange old world. We need Your Spirit to energise our weary souls.

Father hear our prayers in Jesus name. All glory to Christ our Lord, Amen.

Ecclesiastes 8:16-9:12

¹⁶ When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to observe the labor that is done on earth—people getting no sleep day or night— ¹⁷ then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all their efforts to search it out, no one can discover its meaning. Even if the wise claim they know, they cannot really comprehend it.

^9:1 So I reflected on all this and concluded that the righteous and the wise and what they do are in God’s hands, but no one knows whether love or hate awaits them. ² All share a common destiny—the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not.

As it is with the good,

so with the sinful;

as it is with those who take oaths,

so with those who are afraid to take them.

³ This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all. The hearts of people, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead. ⁴ Anyone who is among the living has hope —even a live dog is better off than a dead lion!

⁵ For the living know that they will die,

but the dead know nothing;

they have no further reward,

and even their name is forgotten.

⁶ Their love, their hate

and their jealousy have long since vanished;

never again will they have a part

in anything that happens under the sun.

⁷ Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for God has already approved what you do. ⁸ Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil. ⁹ Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun—all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. ¹⁰ Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.

¹¹ I have seen something else under the sun:

The race is not to the swift

or the battle to the strong,

nor does food come to the wise

or wealth to the brilliant

or favor to the learned;

but time and chance happen to them all.

¹² Moreover, no one knows when their hour will come:

As fish are caught in a cruel net,

or birds are taken in a snare,

so people are trapped by evil times

that fall unexpectedly upon them.

Romans 5:12-17

¹² Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—

¹³ To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. ¹⁴ Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.

¹⁵ But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! ¹⁶ Nor can the gift of God be compared with the result of one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. ¹⁷ For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!

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.

Amen.

¹⁴ May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. (2 Corinthians 13:14)

"Go in peace to love and serve the Lord and your neighbour.

This weeks Kids Catechism video - Question 13