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Good morning.

My name is Mason King, and I want to begin this service a little differently.

I want to read a prayer that our brothers and sisters in the Anglican tradition

read to finish their days.

Our text today has a great deal to do with the posture of our hearts,

because to mock God is to turn our nose up to him,

is to think we can do what we want and get away with it in the long run.

Though we can enjoy God's gifts and ignore God Himself.

And so this prayer reminds us of our need for sobriety instead of self-loathing,

of our remaining in need of mercy and being deeply loved.

Those in Christ are new creations as dependent on grace in a need of mercy today

as the day we were born.

And so all read the prayer you can just listen and take it in.

Almighty and most merciful Father, we have aired and strayed from your ways like lost sheep.

We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.

We have offended against your holy laws.

We have left undone those things which we ought to have done,

and we have done those things which we ought not to have done.

And apart from your grace, there is no health in us.

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