 Good morning. Welcome to day nine of Seek. Quickly approaching the halfway point. If you have jumped off the train, now is a good time to jump back on. Nice thing with fasting. It's not a single elimination tournament. You can get tagged out and you can jump back in. There's no shame. It's not a blatant sin to break your fast. The important thing is that we keep our eyes on Jesus, keep seeking after him. If you felt, whether it's your actual fast or just even your heart posture, if you've kind of felt that lean out right before this halfway point, this is a perfect morning just to lean back in, and to run to that throne of grace that Pastor Lee preached on this weekend. It's not a throne of judgment. As we seek him, we're not trying to win his approval. It's a throne of grace that we are running to this morning. I just want to begin in Psalm 33 in verse one. It says, Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous, for praise from the upright is beautiful. Praise the Lord with a harp. Make melody to him with an instrument of ten strings. Sing to him a new song. Play skillfully with a shout of joy, for the word of the Lord is right and all his work is done in truth. And he loves righteousness and justice. And the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord. I just wanted to remind us of that as we go before the Lord in an intercession that we don't have to convince him to love righteousness and justice and to be good. He is good and he loves righteousness and justice more than we do. And even the things that we petition for and offer supplications for, he desires them more than us. And he's looking for our hearts to come into alignment with his heart of righteousness and justice. And that's why it's so important to just begin with worship and praise. It's so important to just begin with the altar of praise to just declare his goodness and his righteousness. To declare who he is and to just get our cold hearts thawed out in his presence in the fire of his love and his grace for us this morning. And so let's go before the Lord, that first word of Psalm 33, that rejoicing. 1 Thessalonians 5, 17-19 says, Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in everything. Let's just practice that, rejoicing always. Let's just begin offering like we so often do, the fruit of our lips. Let's begin offering just phrases of welcome and gratitude and thanksgiving. We're just, we're thawing our spirit out and we're reminding ourselves of his goodness. Just walk past the gate of thanksgiving into the court of praise this morning. Thank you for your blessing. Thank you for your mercy. Thank you for your goodness. Mercy is new every morning. It's new this specific morning, Lord. Thank you for that mercy. I'll agree with this chorus this morning. There is forever. Like you took Isaiah up, translated out of earthly circumstances, gazing upon the throne of God. Lord, take us up, lift our gaze higher. We cry out like Moses, show us your glory. We want to see the face of God. We want to see the glory of God and the face of Jesus Christ. We want to see the risen, exalted savior of the world. Holy Spirit, we ask that you would do your favorite thing and reveal Jesus to us. Open the eyes of our hearts. Open the eyes of our understanding. Open the eyes of our imagination. Now, ourselves low this morning. We want to behold the Lamb of God. We fix our gaze, our affections, our time, our words, our hearts on the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. As we behold Jesus, we ask that you would reveal Him to us. We ask for the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of the person Jesus Christ. Open the eyes of our heart and lighten the eyes of our understanding. Lord, we want to see Jesus. We've beheld our own sin for too long. We've beheld our issues and our problems. Sin has caused our gaze to turn inward. Shame has caused us to turn our face. But we boldly approach your throne of grace this morning. In our time of need, we say more than we want anything from your hand. We want to see your face. Would you let your goodness pass before us? Would you show us your glory? We want to see your face. We want your goodness to pass before us. We want to behold you like never before. Like the four living creatures, God, show us a facet of your glory that we have never witnessed. That causes us to sing, Holy, Holy, Holy. We've revealed Jesus as we behold the Lamb this morning. Show us your glory. The train of His robe filled. We want to see you high and lifted up. The train of your robe filling the temple. We want to see that you are the king of kings that has conquered every other kingdom. But we want to be pulled out of our anxieties and our fears when we see that you are firmly and confidently seated upon the throne. And the train of your robe fills the temple. Every other king and kingdom. Or you have taken their robe. And you have sewn it to yours. And you have triumphed over every king and kingdom. And just like Isaiah and the year King Uzziah died in the middle of national turmoil. Come down to Isaiah to talk about his problems. But you brought him up to the throne room scene to see a prophetic vision of who you are. Where we need to be brought up, lifted out of the myriad clay of our circumstances so that we can see you rightly. So we can cry out with the seraphim, Holy, Holy, Holy. Lord we ask that you would take a call from the altar and that you would touch our lips. For our lips are unclean, we dwell with the people of unclean lips. Lord we are in need of the purification that only comes from the call from your altar. Lord we have no ability to purify ourselves. We have no ability to cleanse ourselves. It's only the blood of Jesus. We come under the authority of the blood of Jesus. We appropriate the blood of Jesus. And we say, would you cleanse us? Lord we want to be prepared for greater glory. We need to be cleansed, but we are completely incapable of cleansing ourselves. We need your blood. We need the cleansing flow. We need the call from the altar to touch our lips. So Lord we ask, God would you release a spirit of repentance. Not in our own striving, but the grace of supplication. The grace to see you rightly, to see you for who you are. To have the cry of woe is me in my heart. Not because of self-hatred, but because of deep love and affection for the King that we see on the throne and the fact that we want to bow and go low. Release that spirit of conviction or take the call, cleanse our lips, wash us in your blood in the name of Jesus. Let's take that moment and just appropriate the blood of Jesus. So much of this fast and impermins the Lord's been highlighting self-reliance and humbling ourselves saying, God it's not about what I want. It's about you. It's not about my best efforts. It's not about my striving. Let's take this moment and appropriate the blood of Jesus over our bodies, over our hearts, over our minds, over our spirits. This is all of our righteousness. This is our confidence. This is the only reason we can boldly approach that throne of grace. Lord we just declare your blood. Lord it's not by our own righteousness. Think of Joshua as a rubable. Just clothed. Joshua just clothed in rags of filth. Just in a moment those are removed and robes of righteousness that he did not earn or deserve replaced on him. Lord we give you the idol of self-reliance. We give you the idol of our own strength. We apply the blood of Jesus. We cry out, Lord, we ask for a tidal wave of your blood to crash over us as a church. Over from the top of our heads to the soles of our feet that we would be covered no part of us elevated but every part of us baptized under the river of your blood and your righteousness and your mercy. So we take this moment to bow low so that if my people are called by my name we'll humble themselves. Lord we humble ourselves. We bow down and say, what was me? And would you cleanse us with your blood? Or we ask for your blood to cleanse us of our pride, our self-sustenance, our striving. Lord for your blood to cleanse us of our ambition, to cleanse us of our anger, to cleanse us of our lust, to cleanse us of our hatred of others and hatred of ourselves. To cleanse us, wash us, purify us. We sing a song about bowing down and continue in our hearts humbling ourselves. I just feel that the Spirit is inviting us in to even offer specific areas that we are just humbling and bowing down. Just 15 minutes left if you've checked out, if you've disengaged, right now is the moment to step back in, have ears to hear what the Spirit is saying and how He's leading and let's continue to adore Him. Focusing on parents and gatekeepers for the home but it's just interesting how it's a scripture about repentance really. Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord and he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers lest I calm and strike the earth with a curse that sending Elijah the prophet the point of the prophetic ministry is for the declaration of the word of the Lord that leads people to repentance in the way that the hearts of the fathers turn to the children. It's initially humbling themselves and repenting. So Lord we just going to zero in on parents at Radiant Church. Lord I ask in this Sikh season Lord that the hearts of the fathers and the mothers would turn toward their children Lord in this moment Lord not just of just loving them more out of their own overflow of their own heart but a genuine seeing who they are in the spirit caught I ask that you would open the eyes of our understanding Lord and we would see what you're doing in the next generation Lord we repent for not laying our lives down for the next generation Lord we even repent for jealousy and envy when we see young people walk in the fullness of God's call and there's jealousy what about us what if we lose our place Lord God I just ask that you would remove that altogether Lord I ask for parents in this church God that we would lay our lives down for the next generation Lord I remember I think of the prophetic words that this house would give their children up like Samuel to the altar of the Lord they would give their kids up Lord to the mission field and to the great commission and to the harvest Lord we for that to happen our hearts have to turn both toward you and then to our children so Lord we just ask that we would be able to have eyes to see what I think about what you did last year starting at Asbury that bled into this church and so many other churches Lord and there was just such a spirit that was released on Gen Alpha and Gen Z Lord the young people just inexplicably filled with the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit came upon them there was boldness there was anointing authority to preach and to pray and to proclaim so Lord we stand in the gap again with the spirit of Elijah and our hearts are turned toward our children Lord we bless the children of this house Lord we bless our sons and daughters if you're a parent just speak out blessing for the name of your kids right now in this moment Lord we bless our children Lord I bless Elijah Lord I bless Jordan Lord I bless the children of this house and I speak of Father's blessing over them Lord and I am willing to lay my life down Lord that they may inherit the kingdom of heaven and so Lord we just contend and we cry out for our children and our kids Lord we pray for our students team and our kids team Lord as they pastor and they shepherd and they preach the gospel Lord we ask Lord for angelic visitations in those kids classrooms Lord for your glory to appear Lord you said our young men would see visions Lord and so we ask Lord that there would actually be visions and encounters for our young people Lord they would see you in their dreams Lord they would see visions of who you are Lord that you would pour out your spirit in that way God we ask pour out your spirit on our kids in the name of Jesus speaking out another blessing over our kids and our young people just the Barak the blessing from our mouth and so Lord from this house Lord we speak a blessing we bless our children we say the Lord bless you and keep you may cause his face to shine upon you we just pray for the light the countenance of God his glory to fall upon them but we thank you for what you started doing last year Lord we ask for another wave God we ask in our student ministry services Lord for an outpouring of your spirit we say we would gladly lay our lives down and so we just speak a blessing Lord we love the children of this house Lord we love the gifts that you've given us we bless them with our mouth and we say we're willing to lay our lives down we don't hold on to or grasp our own life and focus on ourselves but we are willing to lay our lives down for the next generation and to the next generation we say run faster than we ran go further than we ran go deeper into the heart of God than we ever experienced encounter him in new ways have a boldness that we never walked in we long to see you surpass where our generation has walked we bless them and them for joining us in prayer I want to encourage you especially staff join us for another prayer meeting come to the noon and 6.30 I know the noon typically we're down in the work room hanging out and there's a prayer meeting up here just for a seat during that hour when we're not eating it's miserable to just spend the lunch hour and not eat and so spend it in the presence of God come up here join a prayer meeting noon 6.30 tonight and we'll be back this morning