 Good morning, welcome to morning prayer on this beautiful day that the Lord has made that we get to choose to rejoice and be glad in. And it is a beautiful day indeed. And so we want to approach His throne of grace with gratitude, with thanksgiving, with praise, with honor, with holy reverence and holy awe, holy fear. We are praying right now with other churches around our area for unity among the church of Kalamazoo in Southwest Michigan. And we're going to intercede later on in our hour, going that direction. But the Lord put Psalm 111 on my heart for us to open up with, for us just to get our attention and our focus on Him and how great He is and how even history speaks of how wonderful and good He is and that our thanksgiving that even in a moment when we can't necessarily see it, we can reflect back and remember how good He is and that that can pull us forward into the moment that we are at right now and praise and thanksgiving can erupt from us. In Psalm 111, the psalmist says, praise the Lord. I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart in the company of the upright, in the congregation, great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them. Full of splendor and majesty is His work and His righteousness endures forever. He has caused His wondrous works to be remembered. The Lord is gracious and merciful. He provides food for those who fear Him. He remembers His covenant forever. He has shown His people the power of His works in giving them the inheritance of the nations. The works of His hands are faithful and just. All His precepts are trustworthy. They are forever, they're established forever and never to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness. He sent redemption to His people. He has commanded His covenant forever. Holy and awesome is His name. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. All those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever. Lord, we come to you on this incredible morning, this beautiful morning of which the Son has risen upon us again. And we just say, thank you. Lord, you are holy. You are awesome. You are true. You are righteous. You are beautiful. Lord, these words fall incredibly short of how deserving and how wonderful you truly are. But Lord, it's our very best and we bring you our very best this morning. We don't bring you leftovers from yesterday, God. We come to you this morning with our very best because you are deserving of our very best. And we lavish you with thanksgiving. We lavish you with praise, God. We thank you for your righteousness that endures forever, Lord. We thank you, Lord, that you are faithful, that you are generous and merciful. We thank you, Lord, that you are our provider, Lord. We may work and we may receive a wage, God. But Lord, you are our provider. In fact, just right now, I just feel this nudge on my spirit for us to confess that despite us having an employer, a place of work, despite us having a bank account and receiving paychecks for us to confess as His people, that He is our provider. So with your mouth, with your lips, just thank Him for provision. Thank Him, brought and given and trusted you in. The works of His hands, they're faithful and just and He is faithful to provide. He is just to provide. Just begin to thank Him. Thank you, Jesus. But the breath in our lungs, you have provided us with God and we return our breath back to you with praise and with thanksgiving and without a ration and exaltation and all. Lord, that you are holy because they are sung in repetition off of a screen, but Lord, because they are coming from the depths of our hearts in the midst of all the traffic of our lives, the noise, the scrolling, the arguments, the division, the confusion. Lord, we hit mute on all of that traffic and all of that noise. And with unity this morning, Lord, from the center of our city, we raise up one sound, one song, one decree. We love you, Lord. We love you, Jesus. May this sound that is arising from the center of the city, God, be a sweet sound to you, Lord. May it be a sweet sound, God. May it be a sweet aroma to you, Lord. A costly one, God. We're not bringing you yesterday's fragrance, Lord. We're bringing you today's. We love you, Lord. And we lift our voice to say it. We lift it, God, to say we love you. We love you, Lord. Oh, we love you. You love us, God, but we are taking the time right now to say we love you. I feel unworthy of saying it, but Lord, I love you. Let's continue to lavish it with love. Just express your love to Him. Tell Him how you love Him. Tell Him how you love Him. Into the world so that we might live through Him. Not that we have loved God to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God's Lord right now, I pray that these would not be mere words on a page, but these would be words that we live out as your people in this area, in our church, in our city, on our block, that we live these words out with our lives, Lord. That, Lord, that the manifest love of God would be present among us, in us, and through us, that we would truly love one another, God, because you have loved us. Lord, may we unite around your love. Lord, we are even able to love because you first loved us, Lord. Lord, may this not just be a song, but may this become a lifestyle of your church in Southwest Michigan. May we love love like you have loved. May we love in the way that you have loved God, that exemplifies you, that lifts you up, that brings you praise and honor, that ministers to you, God. May your church not be divided among declarations of the past in such a way as lies. May be brought back in, Lord, with such eyes. We love people. It's chapter two, starting in verse one. The apostle Paul says, so if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not to his own interest, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. Lord, right now we lift up to you the churches in our area. Lord, I pray that all of us who are united around your truth, around your word, who are in accordance and agreement with your gospel, Lord. I pray that we may participate in this spirit by being in full accord and of one mind, and that mind is your mind, your mind, Jesus. Not our mind, not politicians mind, not legislative minds, Lord, but your mind. We ask for the mind of Christ to fall upon the church in this area, Lord. Would you unite us around the mind of Christ, Lord? May we not be conformed to the mind of this world, but may we be transformed by the renewing of our minds, and that is your mind, Lord. Would you give us your mind for people, your mind for this city, your mind for politics, your mind for people, God? And Lord, in the midst of that, would you rid your church of competition and comparison, Lord? Those two destructive brothers that are dividing your church, we rebuke them in the name of Jesus. Rid us of competition, rid us of comparison, rid us of selfishness and conceit, rid us of pride and personality, Lord. Would you give us the mind of Christ, Lord? The spirit of division, give us the mind of Christ in Jesus' name, your apostle Paul. Joy was complete by the unity of joy. May we find joy united by the mind of Christ, not the mind of no more competition in Kalamazoo. No more comparison, only Christ. May we, your sons and your daughters, ideologies, pointless things, like our brothers and sisters have done. They argued, mindless and pointless genealogies, God. And we do the same thing, you mindless and pointless ideologies. So God, we repent of that now and we say, Lord, we want your mind. Unite us with the mind of Christ. Unite us, unite us, Lord. Churches have been praying for unity over the last almost 21 days now, as we're coming to the culmination of these 21 days, we've been uniting around this prayer in our prayer time in the morning that one of our local pastors wrote. It's called King Jesus. I wanna invite you, it'll be on the screens to pray this out loud as we close this time of intercession and worship. King Jesus, awaken the sleeping giants of your church in our city, as we pray and collaborate to seek the common good for our region. Open our eyes and hands to the marginalized and our voices for the voiceless. We endeavor to live such counter-cultural lives that our places of work and neighborhoods will experience the beauty and the power of the gospel. Give us such an unquenchable passion for you and your word, that we can't help but tell others about Jesus and his unstoppable kingdom for the glory of Jesus and the advancement of his kingdom, all of God's people said, amen, I just wanna encourage all of us whether we are in the room right now or we are, you know, I believe that for the majority of this hour, we're really ministering to the heart of the Lord. And just because 60 minutes has gone by, it doesn't mean our ministry to the Lord has. And so as we go out to where we are going and where the Lord is sending us in this day, I wanna remind us to keep on reminding him and telling him and singing that song of I love you, you don't have to rewrite the song. It's three words, it's I love you. I love you, just keep singing that song to him, keep ministering to him and keep being united around the mind of Christ. Have a blessed day. Moving back at 12 in the prayer room, 630 and on the live stream tomorrow morning. See you then, be blessed.