When the powerful plot to blot you out (Esther 3:5-15) DIY Sunday Service Kit 20/11/2022

 

Welcome back to the DIY Sunday Service Kit ... this edition goes out on November 20th., 2022.

We've been having quite a time in the book of Esther but Christmas is coming and things are bound to get seasonal shortly ... then we'll pick up on the great deliverances God brought about in Esther to lift our spirits into the New Year.

But first, here's the Word for the Week, filmed on a day when I got rather breathless, but God was definitely doing art spectacularly in our Welsh hills ...

So Lord, we come to seek you.
Grant us true and persevering hearts that wholeheartedly seek after the Living God.
Help us to press on to find your presence in our hearts and in our lives in this act of worship online, in the coming week and every day of our lives until we meet in person in your presence.
Deal with our hearts we pray. Inspire our love of our presence by the presence of your Holy Spirit in our hearts, and make us both whole people and wholehearted people.
We ask for Jesus sake.
AMEN.

We pray today

For the people of Ukraine facing the onset of winter with power cuts, energy issues and continuing bombardment in residential areas.

For the people of God seeking to serve you in this complex situation.

For those believers organising aid deliveries of food and necessities to the most damaged and dangerous areas of the land.

For the radio stations and their workers who broadcast the Gospel of hope and minister to and pray with people enduring desperately tragic and difficult personal circumstances on the radio stations' telephone helplines.

For soldiers at the front, for their medics and paramedics, and the nurses and doctors who take great risks every day to tend to the sick and wounded.

And for the future deliverance of your people and of the people of Ukraine from the oppression, the discomforts and the dangers that they are enduring today.

For the people of Qatar hosting the football World Cup, and with it a large number of people from countries where life is very different from their own.

Prayer News Desk: Qatar

Almost every Qatari follows Islam, whether they are from Arab, Persian, or Bantu (former slave) backgrounds. Pray that Qataris at home and abroad would hear about Jesus, and for the birth of a Qatari Church. Expatriate workers come from many nations. 

Let's pray for Christians to take employment opportunities (from manual labour to executive positions) to increase the presence of God’s Kingdom in Qatar.

Let's pray for the encounter with other cultures to arouse interest in the possibilities offered by other systems of faith and belief to the ones they have seen before.

Following the lead given by the Prayer App for Qatar this World Cup week:

Lord, we ask that Muslim men and women in Qatar will recognize Jesus as the “Pearl of Great Price" (Mt. 13:46)

Lord, would You please bless Qatar’s leaders with wisdom and compassion.

Lord, we ask that those who work in Qatar will receive justice, mercy, and care. 

Lord, we ask that Christ-followers in Qatar will share God’s truth, love, and grace in boldness and power. 

Lord, would You establish Your Church among every people in Qatar and the Arabian Peninsula.

Let's pray that God would build His Church in this very different, distant land, and that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.

For the people of Wales and of the United Kingdom we pray, as we enter what is predicted to be the most trying time economically that we have faced for some long time.

We pray for wisdom and compassion to characterise the churches and the people of God at this time.

We pray for just and compassionate government, for restraint in politics and in the media ... particularly in the popular press ... so that times of hardship and deprivation might be both minimised and cut short.

We pray that we might see you open doors for us to serve you usefully and faithfully in the livestock markets at Carmarthen, Llandovery and Llandeilo in these challenging times.

We pray for the establishment of a presence for y GRWP again in Llandovery in premises that will be of service and assistance to people undergoing these pressures in our rural communities.

And we pray for the material security that has built complacency into a God-resistant force in the land to be overwhelmed by a turning to and trusting again in the one true Living God ... Who controls our personal welfare and destiny with His compassionate hand.

Lord hear our prayers. Meet our needs whatever they might truly be and equip us with the means and the motivation to be of service to you as we serve the people who surround us and have contact with our lives as they are lived out in your presence.

We ask for Jesus' sake and glory.

AMEN.

It's Bible time ... click the pic 👇

The sermon Studiocam is here:

Even in the Old Testament book of Esther, a book where God is not visibly at the centre of things but is powerfully active behind the scenes, so the Almighty is still to this day powerfully at work to redeem His people from the twists and turns of their lives and to reverse the malice of the forces of darkness ranged against their souls.

And that same God is OUR God, as we turn and trust in Him.

And so we prayerfully rejoice in this sure and certain Saviour:

The Apostle Paul writes (Galatians 2:19-21)

"For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. 

I have been crucified with Christ 

and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.

The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, 

who loved me and gave himself for me."

Guard us Lord against setting aside this amazing grace of our God.

Protect us from ever imagining that righteousness may be gained from observing the requirements even of your Law.

And may we never live in such a way that anyone should conclude from seeing us that Christ has died for nothing.

Turn back the darkness in our hearts and souls and empower us to live in your light.

We ask for Jesus sake.

AMEN.

Finally, here's something from the Getty clan to consider as we leave today ... the giving link lies below it, if you are able to join us in supporting the work of yGRWP today.

Thanks for being with us. God bless your week!

Giving link (click the pic)