A Christmas Prayer from Sinclair Ferguson

At our Christmas Eve 2022 Service on Friday, Dec. 23 (so yes Christmas Eve Eve) we prayed the following together. The prayers were taken directly from Dr. Sinclair Ferguson’s excellent 2021 Christmas book: The Dawn of Redeeming Grace (Daily Devotions for Advent) but have been adapted only in very minor ways. Our family has enjoyed going through this book and I highly recommend you buy it and read through it (this year or future years)!

Responsive Reading/Corporate Prayer

Pastor: Lord Jesus, you came into the world so that we might have a new beginning. Thank you that your word assures us that everyone who belongs to you becomes part of a new creation. 

Congregation: Work in us your new creation so that your kingdom may come in our lives. Amen

Pastor: Lord God, every time we say ‘amen’ help us to remember that you have kept the longest-standing and hardest-to-keep promise of all by sending the Lord Jesus to die for our sins and to rise in triumph to be our Lord. 

Congregation: Help us to have confidence that you will keep all your promises to us. Amen.

Pastor: Lord Jesus Christ, you were yourself an outsider when there was no room for you in the inn. You had nowhere to lay your head and even in death were laid in a borrowed grave.

Congregation: Thank you that although you were rich, you became poor for our sake so that through you we might become rich. Amen.

Pastor: Lord you have promised that you do not afflict us willingly but only to draw us closer to yourself.

Congregation: We pray that, being brought to an end of our own resources, we may gladly welcome Jesus as our Savior and Lord and find all we need in him. Amen.

Pastor: Lord thank you for the way you prepared Joseph to be our Savior’s adoptive father. And thank you , too, for the way you shaped and molded his life to welcome the Lord Jesus. 

Congregation: We confess that sometimes, like Joseph, we do not know what to do, or even how to pray. Grant us your wisdom we ask. Amen. 

Pastor: Father, you have taught us that the angels, who see your face, are interested in us because they admire their King, who at such a cost has won our salvation.

Congregation: Help us therefore, we ask, that we too may grow in wonder and praise at all that your Son has done for us. Amen.

Pastor: Lord Jesus, the challenge of receiving you and living for you can be overwhelming at times. But we want to be yours, to trust you, to love you, to serve you. 

Congregation:  And we thank you that when we are yours, you make us more and more like yourself. Amen

Pastor: Our Father, you have taught us in your word that this Child, once lowly born and crucified, is now at your right hand, and that one day every knee will bow at the name of Jesus.

Congregation: Thank you so much that although now exalted, he is still the same Jesus. Amen

Pastor: Father, forgive us if we ever imagined we could save ourselves. Thank you for keeping your promises to send your Son to be our Savior. 

Congregation: We thank you that he is Immanuel—God with us—as well as being our Wonderful Counselor, our Prince of Peace, and the Suffering Servant who died for our sins. Amen. 

Pastor: Father, looking back, we can see your hand at work in our lives. You brought some of us to Christ through sorrow and others of us through joy. 

Congregation: Thank you for those who pointed us to the Lord Jesus and prayed we would journey towards him. Help us to do the same for others. Amen. 

Pastor: Lord Jesus, you gave yourself without reservation for us; throughout the years you have enabled your disciples to bear the cross. 

Congregation: Support and strengthen us that we may serve you well, whatever the cost. Take our lives, and our gifts because we lay them at your feet for your glory. Amen. 

Pastor: Lord Jesus, child of Bethlehem, refugee of Egypt despised and rejected Nazarene, once crucified  but now risen and exalted, thank you for coming for us, living for us, dying for us, and rising again for us. Thank you for the ways  in which you have drawn us to seek you and find you.

Congregation: We trust you as our Savior; we bow before you as our Lord. And this day we offer you the only present you want and that we can give—ourselves. Take us as we are, and make us what you want us to become. We ask it for your name’s sake. Amen. 

Again all these prayers were from The Dawn of Redeeming Grace by Sinclair Ferguson. I strongly commend it to you!

Merry Christmas brothers and sisters in Christ and friends!