 Well, good morning and welcome to Morning Prayer, 8 a.m. here at the Radiant City Center. Thank you for joining us online and all of you are here in the room. We're gonna go right from the start, just high praise, lift in our eyes and our voices to the Lord so you can open up to Psalm 121. Psalm 121. This is the word of the Lord. It says, I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved. He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper. Say that again, the Lord is your keeper. The Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all evil. He will keep your life. He will keep your going out and your coming in in from this time forth and forevermore. This morning, I just really feel like the need for us to really do what the Psalmist says, to really lift our eyes and let it build confidence as we think about who our God is. So we're gonna start right from the beginning. If you're in a room, even right now, drop your Bible, lift both hands, lift both hands. I know Pastor Bucky's like, I just have my Bible. Lift both hands, lift both hands. I have encouraged you right now, lift your eyes. Like literally lift your head physically. And I want you to even just smile when you think about the help that you have, the keeper that you have, the God that you have, the father that you have, that our confidence being the one that we're praying to before we're confident in what we're saying. That's what makes prayer work because he is awesome because he doesn't sleep because he doesn't slumber. So God right now we do lift up our eyes. We lift our eyes only to you. We don't look inward. We don't look beside us. We don't look behind us. We look up. We look to you, Lord. We say that you are our help. God, you are our help. God, you are our help. You are our keeper. God, you are our strength. Father, you are our shield. God, you are our song. God, you are our answer prayer. And we want more of you. Before we ask you for anything, we say, God, we want you. We want more of you. We want to bring joy to your heart. We want to bring glory to your name. So God, with our hands lifted high and our head lifted high, God, we do it as an act of saying, we're not living for the things of this world, for the concerns of this world. God, you're beyond our schedules. God, you're beyond our job descriptions. God, you're beyond our to-do lists. We start with you first. We put you first. And we highly lift you up. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Would you say that? Blessed be the name of the Lord. God, you are worthy of our praise and our adoration and our love and our time and our attention. God, we say right now, we're glad to be here. God, we say right now, God, that we would rather be nowhere else than right here in your presence among our brothers and sisters lifted you high. God, we get to be here. What a holy privilege it is to know you and to be known by you. Thank you for being our help. Thank you for being our strength. Thank you for being our Father. We love you. We sing to you. We worship you in Jesus' name. Blessed worship. Praise, O servants of the Lord. Praise the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord from this time forth and forevermore, from the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the Lord is to be praised. At this moment, I want you to really think about reasons and we have thousands, thousands upon thousands of reasons to bless and to praise him. I want you to think about that and as the musicians play, I want it to just begin to swell and build up and build up and I want praise to erupt. I invite you and I invite us all to have praise erupt from our mouths so whatever it means for you to bless him and to praise him at this moment, in this prayer meeting, that's what I want you to do. So whatever obedience looks like to you in that way, I want you to express your love and your thankfulness and your gratitude and your praise, your praise into the Lord. Yes, God, bless and be the name of the Lord. Bless and be the name of the Lord. You're worthy of our praise. Begin to stir yourselves up begin to pray, begin to pray in the spirit. Begin to stir yourself up. Press in, press in, stir yourself up. The God who saved you, the God who formed you, the God who has protected you, the God who kept you. Come on, begin to lift your voices. Begin to sing your own song. Begin to lift up a shout of praise. The God who fills us. The God who is with us. The God who is for us. Bless to be the name of the Lord. Come on, bless to be the name of the Lord. I just want to personalize that prayer that Josh is singing for a moment. It helps you engage with it, put your hand over your heart. I just want to take maybe a minute, ask this question to the Lord and just say, Lord, in what way do you need me to prepare my own heart for what you have for me right now? And we're just gonna wait for a minute as the music plays. It's Josh who's been singing this, prepare the way of the Lord. Let's just take a moment and say, Lord, where is my heart unprepared and how can I prepare my heart for what you want to speak to me and what you want to do in me in this moment? Let's just sing this chorus to the Lord. If there is something you need to repent of or bring before the Lord, just bring it as you sing this chorus together. I'm of intercession, just encourage you. 25 minutes, I just think of when I do a 30 minute workout on the Peloton, you step on that puppy and you're like, all right, I see the time and I'm kind of making this conscious decision, like, okay, I'm gonna give it my all for this 25, 30 minute period and so just wanna invite you and we're gonna pray for unity in the church. I wanna pray for the city, Kalamazoo, if you're watching online, pray for the city where you are, but then lead in so kind of the time of praying for a rise shine as well and so I'm gonna pray out of Ephesians four, wanna invite you to join with me as we pray. If anybody in the room has a strong prophetic word or leading or has a burden they want to pray, as always, I wanna invite you to come up, pass your tins up in the front row, share the word with him and then he can deny you so I'm just kidding, you can be embarrassed in front of everybody, it'll be great, no, I'm just kidding, Ephesians four, verse one, I therefore the prisoner of the Lord deceits you to walk worthy of the calling with which you are called that all lowliness and gentleness but long suffering bearing with one another in love enduring to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace cause there's one body, one spirit just as you were called in one hope of your calling one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and so Lord, we pray for the church in Kalamazoo Lord we ask for this city Lord for our church we ask for radiant church and for the church of this city which is how you see Kalamazoo Lord we start by praising your oneness even though you are father, son and spirit even though you are a triune God like you are one you are unified within yourself and in you there is no shadow there is no darkness, there is no confusion there is no division what an incredible honor to be able to be joined to you and to be joined to your oneness with yourself God that you are one and there is no confusion and division within you it's just light, it's just love there's no division, it's just peace it's just hope and so Lord we just thank you for and praise you for who you are, that you are the example Jesus you came to the earth not only to die for our sins and be resurrected and raised so that we could be raised but you came as an example of what it meant to live in unity with the father and unity with one another and so Lord we just pray for this city Lord Kalamazoo God and we just ask for an incredible move of unity in this city God I just ask Lord that same unity that happened in the second grade awakening Lord where there were the five churches that were downtown came together and they prayed together they set aside their denominations they set aside their divisions and they came together and prayed Lord and the result was in a couple months 500 people were saved because your presence came because your scripture promises wherever the brethren dwell in unity that's the place the location of your commanded blessing like oil down the beard of air and Lord like dew down Mount Hermit and Lord we just ask in this city Lord we thank you for just different ways this is happening Lord just prayer in the park last year where we saw so many churches gathered together to take a stand and pray for life Lord we thank you for the different prayer meetings that are happening between the groups Lord there's some of the worship leader gatherings and God we just ask in this city Lord help us bear with one another in all loneliness and gentleness and long suffering but we want to bury with each other in love we don't want petty divisions or we don't want just little belittling comments between the churches but God we wanna love and care for the entire body and so just ask for the church in Kalamazoo Lord would you release unity to us in the name of Jesus then your heart as you sing this just even declare it over your own self I'm not gonna choose envy or jealousy no entitlement we wanna walk in perfect love in the name of Jesus entitlement, go in the name of Jesus in the name of Jesus it talks about a demonic strategy to wear out the saints and when you're worn down when you're worn out you're not carrying the glory of God and it's the glory of God that makes us one and in John 17 Jesus prays Father fill them with glory that they'll be one as we are one so I wanna just lean in and pray against what I believe is a demonic strategy over the city so if you're gonna stretch your hands out with me just different directions around the room and let's intercede with faith and come against an assignment from the enemy to wear out the saints of God Holy Spirit right now we've lift up the church in Kalamazoo Father and I pray for fresh grace and strength on the inside just even declare that out just prophesy that God we pray for grace and strength on the inside of your leaders and your pastors God and in your churches in Kalamazoo Holy Spirit I ask for fresh energy on the inside God the discouragement and heaviness God discouragement, heaviness and disappointment God would melt off at the light of your face that the light of your face would shine on hearts God there would be a melting and a lifting of discouragement and heaviness Father we lift up senior pastors specifically right now just picture senior pastors in the city in your mind Father we lift up senior pastors and senior leaders in this city and right now in the name of Jesus in the name of Jesus we ask Holy Spirit that you would give them a new gift of faith a gift of faith imparted on the inside those that are feeling weary those that are feeling worn out God I ask that you would give them strength today so that glory would fill your church so that glory would fill your church just being to ask him now just for glory to fill the church just ask him in your own words just whisper to him Holy Spirit would you fill your church with glory again fill your church with glory again in John 17 it says I have given them glory that you, the glory that you have given me that they may be one as we are one Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit we're asking God for fresh glory on your church God we're longing for fresh glory on your church thank you for what you've done before thank you for what you've done in times past but we want fresh glory God we need daily bread, daily encounter with you and we ask for a new wave a new wave, a new outpouring of your spirit and power and glory on the church just begin again, picture different churches but God we lift up valley family we lift up Calvary, we lift up grace spring God trenches, God stones and we ask in the name of Jesus in the name of Jesus for your glory to fill your people again God we don't need man's best ideas man's best strategies we need glory from heaven and Holy Spirit we rebuke a strategy and an assignment to wear out your saints to depend on ourselves Lord and we ask for glory God glory from on high to fill your church in conference we have opportunity we probably have about a thousand pastors and those who are in ministry that are coming here to Kalamazoo you know this is not about us sharing our brand of doing church to the way we figured it out and this is about the saints of God coming together waiting on the Lord, the Lord speaking being encouraged by one another to not quit, to not give in that word that Zach gave about being worn out the enemy is trying to wear out these pastors and leaders and we're just asking for the breath of God to breathe into them for in worship for the presence of God to refresh their spirit when the word is preached and shared for it to bring conviction and strength and encouragement on the inside and so I'm going to invite everyone to stand up and we're going to get in groups of like three to four-ish and just close out the end of this prayer meeting just praying together just everybody you know pray for 30 seconds in a minute and let's pray for the pastors and pray for those coming to receive the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the work of the Lord on your church while we need you thanks for praying those joining online but in the room thanks for gathering in groups and praying for in the city praying for a rise sign conference just praying for a profound unity of the spirit not unity around the lowest common denominator not unity around politics or anything but unity around Jesus and what his spirit is releasing to his church so amen amen let's go encourage let's go being ones who want to bear with one another in love enduring to keep the bond the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace so awesome bless you have an amazing day