 just start off by wishing all of you a happy birthday because today, everybody say today, is Radiant Church's 22nd birthday. September 8th, 1996, so happy birthday to you. I don't know if you've come along on all 22 years or 22 minutes, but happy birthday to you. It's been a wild ride and it's been awesome to see what the Lord has done just really quickly. How many of you have been a part of Radiant Church for 10 years or longer? Raise your hand. Okay, look at that. Raise your hand if you've come in the last five years. Raise your hand. Look at that. Raise your hand if you've been here for all 22 years. There's my family right down there, so here we are. So happy birthday, Jane and Mikey and Ashley. And so thanks all of you for joining us tonight. If you had your Bibles turned with me to Isaiah chapter 58, Isaiah chapter 58, this is part of our tuned-in series. We've been talking throughout the month of August and now September about hearing the voice of God, the different ways that God speaks to us and the different ways that we can engage with the Lord on a very personal level. And tonight, we're gonna be talking about praying and fasting, prayer and fasting. And you might think to yourself, well, that's not like a one-on-one level class there. You know, I mean, prayer is kind of one of those things everybody kind of gets, but fasting, that's like for the Ninja Navy Seal Christians. I mean, this is not like one-on-one stuff. But let me just tell you, yeah, it's not one-on-one, but we're not a one-on-one church. And we're not living in one-on-one days. How many know that the days we're living in require a little bit more than kind of your entry-level Christianity. We need to know God, we need to hear God, we need to have His Word hidden in our hearts. We need the strength and the power of the Holy Spirit. And so when we talk about something like prayer and fasting, it's really two sides to a nuclear, a nuclear weapon in our spiritual arsenal that God has given to us. Prayer, there's lots of different ways that we pray. We'll highlight some of those tonight a little bit. But when prayer and fasting are combined together, they have an atomic reaction in the spiritual realities of our life. And I wanna draw your attention to Isaiah 58, beginning in verse number six, we'll read a few verses. But God said this, He said, is this not the fast that I choose to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house? When you see the naked to cover him and not to hide yourselves from your own flesh, then shall your light break forth like the dawn and your healing shall spring up speedily. Your righteousness shall go before you and the glory of the Lord shall be your rearguard. And so Isaiah is writing several hundred years actually, even before the coming of Christ, Messiah. And God is speaking to His people about fasting, about His chosen fast, because you see the Jewish people had all kinds of different fasts. But like with anything else, whether it's reading your Bible, whether it's going to church, whether it's singing songs, reading a devotional, whatever you can think of, something that is life-giving can eventually become religiously stagnant in our lives, to the point where we can actually go through the motions of doing the same thing over and over, and at one time, what we were doing actually brought life to us, but now it's become routine to us and we just do it out of obligation, but it's not transformation. You know what I'm talking about? It's kind of like one time I used to read my Bible and it's like every time I read it, it was something new was coming off the page and feeding me. But now it may be that you found yourself in a season where reading the Bible is just kind of obligatory. I'm doing it because I know that I should do it. I go to church because I know that I should go to church. Well, the Jewish people were fasting and worshiping God on the different high days, the holy days, but their heart wasn't in it anymore. And that's why God speaks to them in Isaiah chapter 58. He says, listen, I've seen all of your fast. I've seen all of your religious rituals and your ceremonies and this is the fast that I want for you. This is not only the kind of fast, but this is the reason for the fast. And he lists off all kinds of different things that are listed in there, but at the bottom line of this entire text that Isaiah is speaking over God's people is God saying, I want your heart. I want there to be a transaction of the heart when you pray and when you're fast that changes how you see things, changes how you relate to other people and it actually rejuvenates and stirs once again your passion for the Lord. And that's the kind of fasting that we want. Even in our day, we have certain denominations have 40 days out of the year or even 21 days out of the year. And if we're not careful, we can do the right things outwardly without the right condition inwardly. And that doesn't produce anything other than hungry saints. Not hungry for the right things. And we want to be hungry for the right things. You know, prayer when it's combined with fasting, you know, let me just say this, there's really three different things or three different kinds of prayer. So it's important that we know this. Number one is prayer is devotional. That's us relating to God. That's you and your quiet place. Pastor John, before a tornado blew through was in the middle last week of talking about building a secret place. And how many know in Michigan, we get tornadoes and when they're like category zero, you know you are not in Kansas. We're like the category fives come through, but did anybody see that picture of the cloud that came over Richland? How many of you were here last week? Raise your hand. Okay, great. And Pastor John became the star of the sequel to Twister. You know, it's... But so as he was teaching you, prayer is devotional. That's me and God. That's me listening to the voice of the Lord. It's me reading the Bible. It's me worshiping. It's devotional, but prayer is also petitional, which means I ask God for things. I ask him based on his word, based on his will for as Jesus called it, my daily bread. I ask for forgiveness. I ask for, you know, if I have needs, if you ask anything in my name, according to my will, my Father in heaven will do it for you. So we can have confidence that we can ask God. Paul writes in Timothy, he says, I wish that prayers. And he talks about supplications or petitions. In other words, asking God. And that's the second kind of prayer. But the third kind of prayer is intercessory prayer. An intercessory prayer, literally the word intercessor means standing between two parties. And so when we stand in the gap between God in heaven and situations on earth or people on earth or environments on earth, and we stand in the gap, agreeing with God, but pleading for mercy and pleading for him to move on behalf of situations on the earth, that's called intercessory prayer. And many of you in this room are intercessors. You know, I mean, I'm preaching to the choir. We have some incredible people in this church over the years that have just given themselves intensely to intercession, where they're praying on behalf of others as if they were praying for themselves. And when we're talking about prayer and fasting, obviously prayer devotionally is important and we do that daily. Petitioning God is important, we do that daily. But when we find ourselves in a place of intercession where we're standing in the gap, that is where fasting oftentimes is a atomic, or we'll call it a nuclear option that God gives to us in our spiritual arsenal. It's really important that we understand that because listen, in the West, in the West, and I'm talking about Western civilization, we have way more than anybody else has. And we have all kinds of options and things that are appealing to us and to our appetites. I mean, when you travel overseas, if you go to some third world nations, when they pray, God give me my daily bread, they literally mean, give me bread because they don't have anything to eat. When we pray it, it's more of a metaphor for Lord, just kind of meet my special needs today so that I just feel loved and affirmed and maybe sometimes we're praying for groceries, but we're not praying it as literal as maybe some other places. Why is that important for us to understand? It's because it's very easy for us to get filled up on the things of the world just by default because we live in a consumeristic American prosperous culture and there's nothing wrong with that. We just have to be really, really aware of the fact that by our, just our default setting, we get filled up on the things of the world from morning until night. How many can relate to that? It's like you drive by a Chick-fil-A and that spicy deluxe sandwich is dragging you through the drive. It's like, mm. And I'll have that with waffle fries, extra well done. And then you go home and you go to the cabinet and those tortilla chips are calling your name. It's like, hey, man, how you doing? You want some chips, man? Come on over here. It's like those chips, they got a voice all their own and the salsa, man, I'm gonna have some salsa. And I do, I like it. And chocolate chip cookies. And if you try and do a diet, all you have to do to get some really good food in your life is just go on a diet. Go keto, I dare you. Go keto diet, all of a sudden people will have parties with baked goods at it. It's like, oh, come on over, have some muffins and some cookies. It's the devil, I'm telling you. There are demons of carbohydrates in the atmosphere of America. Somebody said, amen, thank you for that. Wave your hanky or your wrapper at me. But we just have so much. And we are full, we're full, oftentimes of all the wrong things. And so the idea of fasting, see in America it's like our pursuit is to get more. Fasting is actually taking a step back from the things that feed our appetites. Somebody asked me one time, they said, well, did God ever fast? And my answer to that was no, God's perfect, right? But then I was preparing for a teaching on fasting during Sikh about two years ago. And the Lord actually said to me, the Holy Spirit, I felt like it was the Lord when I was reading the Bible. He says, actually I did fast for 33 years. You see, Philippians chapter two says that Jesus, when he came in the flesh, he emptied himself or he set aside all of his God-deserved privileges in heaven. And he set them aside for 33 years. See, when God fasted, he set aside the spirit to step into the flesh. When we fast, we set aside the flesh in order to step into the spirit. But I'll guarantee you that what God gave up for 33 years in order to come and to save and to redeem us in order to be an intercessor was far greater than anything that we'll give up. I mean, us give up a little food to give up a little social media or to give up some of the pleasures of the things of the world for the sake of standing in the gap in prayer is nothing in comparison to what Jesus gave up when he emptied himself of omnipotence and omniscience and omnipresence. And he became a man, a child, an embryo in the womb of a Middle Eastern teenager who was born into a feeding trough who had his life threatened from the first year of his birth who was nailed to a Roman cross while people spit on him and the very people that he came to save were the very ones who said crucify him and were ridiculing him right up until the time he gave up his last breath. But it was because he was willing to do that, it says, because he humbled himself even to the point of death that says that God has also highly exalted him and given him a name above all names so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that he is Lord. What did he do? He humbled himself in fasting and prayer. I just want to give you some principles, maybe a better way of saying it is describe to you what fasting does because I know for a lot of us, it's like, well, I've never fasted before. I don't know how to do that. I'm not even sure if that's for me. Number one, Jesus said Christians would do three things. When you pray, when you fast and when you give. It's in the Sermon on the mountain. Jesus didn't say if you pray, if you fast, if you give. He said when you do it. In other words, it's built into what it means to be a follower of Jesus. And there's some reasons for it. And I'm gonna share that with you. But let me give you three revelations about what fasting does so that we can all kind of wrap our heart and mind around the truth of it and then be able to participate and engage in it with the right attitude and the right heart. Number one, first thing that fasting does is fasting breaks the bonds within us so that we can break the chains around us. Breaking of bonds, that's what Isaiah says. It says, is this not the fast that I chose to lose the bonds of wickedness and to undo the straps of the yoke and to set the oppressed free? You see, if you don't know what a yoke is, a yoke is a farming tool that when you had large animals like a cow or oxen or a mule, that you would put a beam across their shoulders that yoked, it's called a yoke because it yoked over their necks and then you would strap the yoke around them and you would put two side by side and they would pull the plow. And so the yoke kept them in line so that they would move in the direction that you wanted them to, not going to the side. And literally what it did was it forced the beast of burden to move at your will because you would whip at it and it couldn't get out of the yoke. So when God talks about fasting, breaking the yoke, it's talking about loosing the straps off of the yoke that the enemy through bondages and addictions and issues of the flesh and sin have become a yoke to us to where the enemy is treating us like a slave and we're being driven by those things and we can't get free. I'm fully convinced that the reason why so many Christians are weak is not because the Holy Spirit on the inside of them is inferior, it's just because they're bondage to things that are associated with shame and guilt overwhelm them so much that they can't see who they really are in Christ. They've come under the yoke of an enemy and the very first thing it says about fasting is the reason why God wants us to fast is because he wants to remove the bonds. He wants to take the bondages off. He wants to remove the burdens and he wants to deal with the hardened hearts. Says, is this not the fast that I choose for you? To loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, listen, to set the oppressed free and to break every yoke. Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and to bring the homeless poor into your home when you see the naked to cover them and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? What's that part dealing with? It's dealing with hard hearts. That we can actually see brokenness around us and get to the place where we're not moved by it anymore. You see in 1996, when we were 25-year-old kids and we were moving to Kalamazoo to plant radiant church, God gave me one mandate. I want you to build a praying and a worshiping church. I want you to build a praying and a worshiping church. And so for 22 years, prayer and fasting have been a part of what we have done. There have been moments in my own life where I've driven through our city and thought to myself, you know what, I don't feel, I don't feel the heart of God for my city anymore. And I've actually gone to God and said, God, this isn't right, I've become hardened. I mean, have you ever had something like that where it's like, yeah, you just see things, but it's like, it comes at you too fast and too much that you almost, you build calluses on your conscience because you can't take being that vulnerable to see what's happening in our young people, to see what's happening in the entertainment industry, to see what's happening on our college campuses, to see how the devil is just deconstructing young people's identity, destroying the nuclear family, making a mockery out of Christianity. And we begin to look at these things. And if we're not careful, we just kind of go through our life and we build like this force field between us and what's going on on the other side of that force field in the real world, where there's 7 billion people over 5.5 billion of them that have never heard Jesus before, but as long as I'm living in my glass little bubble and everything's okay and I don't have to feel the pain, then I'm just gonna live my life, arrive safely at death, go into glory into heaven and rejoice forever and ever. But God says that's not why I put you on the planet. I put you on the planet because I want you to feel what I feel. I want you to look on the city and I want you to see that the harvest fields are ripe unto harvest. I don't want you to say nine months from now, I want you to say right now they are harvest of all. Right now I want you to look into the eyes of people that are in your city and realize so many of them don't know Jesus. And God doesn't just want us to feel, listen, part of the reason why we don't like to feel is because we don't know what to do with it. It's like, well, what do I do with it? Do you know that the greatest thing that you can do is to pray and to fast. And say, number one, God soften my heart once again. Loose the bonds. If there are issues in me, I can't be an agent of change in my community. I can't win my friends to the Lord. I'm not gonna be able to invite people to at the movies. I'm not gonna be able to share my testimony. I'm not gonna be able to pray for the sick and see them heal until I deal with some issues in my life. I'm not content to live in my little bubble and just leave it that way. God, deal with me so that I can be part of the change outside of my bubble. It's kind of like I'm letting down the force field and I'm gonna let the breeze of the world flow in and I wanna feel it, I wanna smell it, I wanna hear the heartbeat of God. And if that takes fasting, then God, I'm gonna fast and I want you to change my heart. I believe that God will do that if we'll ask Him. See, the second thing that fasting does is it says no, fasting is saying no to the flesh so that we can say yes to the spirit. I used to have this kind of wrong religious idea about fasting. I thought fasting was if I fast, I put God's arm behind his back. It's like, God's like, you know what? I hear what you're saying, I hear what you're praying, but I don't really wanna do that. And it's like, God saved my city or God healed somebody and God's like, no, no, no. I'm like, you remember what you used to do with your siblings, right? It's like, you put their arm behind their back and you begin to like hold them and it's like, oh, hey. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Somehow we feel like, God, I'm gonna fast and God's like, whoa, let's not get crazy. And you're just like, fasting, I'm fasting for a whole day and God's like, oh, oh, okay. You're just like, no, three days, oh, oh, okay, okay. No, God, I'm gonna fast 21 days and God's like, okay, uncle, uncle, I'll give you what you want. It's almost that we create fasting to be some adversarial posture between us and the fathers. If we're trying to convince God to do something he doesn't wanna do, but he is willing to do to get you off of his back, but that's not really what fasting does. Fasting is you and I saying no to the flesh so that we can actually say yes to the spirit. We're talking about hearing the voice of God. And there is something about fasting and when I say fasting, let me just, I know that there's lots of different ways to fast. Social media, I'm fasting television, I'm fasting comfort, I'm doing whole 30, whatever. I mean, there's all kinds of crazy fasts out there. All of those are awesome entry level fasts. At the end of the day, here's the biblical definition of fasting. Are you ready? Don't eat. No, wait a second, I mean, is that like no carbs? No, don't eat. Now, can I have peanut butter protein shakes? Don't eat. Now, you need to consult your physician to make sure that you're healthy enough. You may go on an extended fast and do juice only, but it's giving up physical food. And you might say, well, why does God care that I give up physical food? Because there is something about denying your flesh. And there is no stronger appetite that your flesh has than food and drink. And when you give those up, when you say, I am not gonna eat, let me tell you, you will hear from your body. You will hear from your body. And by the way, your body and your mind are conspiring. Your mind is colluding with your body. And it will do everything to convince you. It's like, come on, man, this isn't gonna really change the world anyways, and you really need it. You're getting too skinny, come on. I mean, you know, that's a lie. I mean, it's like, I've seen myself in the mirror. I could fast for nine months and still be all right. And your body's like, come on, you're gonna die. You're not gonna be sharp-minded. Really, God needs you sharp-minded. And how about you fast tomorrow? When you begin to hear those thoughts, it's your mind, it's your flesh. And that's exactly what we're attacking by fasting. And here's what happens. When you begin to fast, you weaken your flesh, but your spirit rises up, and your spirit is what communicates with God. The spirit on the inside of you is what the Holy Spirit speaks to. It's what you hear from God. And when we are able to tone down the voices of the flesh and its appetites, and we elevate our spirit so that it can become dominant, all of a sudden now we can begin to get clarity. We can begin to partner with what God is doing. The scriptures begin to come to life, even though we're hungry, you will be hungry. I mean, there's times, they call it fasting, they should really call it slowing, because like a whole day of fasting is like a week of eating. It's like, how long have I been fasting? 30 minutes. It's 8.30 in the morning. I'm already starving, Jesus. Don't you see? Hear me from heaven. Slow. Why is that? It's because we're so used to being on the go, eating, thinking, feeding, watching the news, listening to our music, reading the newspaper, podcasts, all this kind of stuff. But when you fast, it's not just giving up food, but you combine it with prayer, where it's like I'm getting along with the Lord. I'm suppressing the flesh and its appetite so that I can hear the voice of God. It's powerful. Jesus said this in Matthew 26, verse 41. He says, watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation, for the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Your spirit wants to hear from God. Your spirit wants to worship. Your spirit wants to intercede. Your spirit wants to rise up and fulfill its destiny, but your flesh is very powerful. And as long as you feed your flesh, it is dominant, it's dominant over your life. But as soon as you begin to say, you know what, God? I'm hungry, but I'm hungry for the food of doing your will. I'm hungry to hear your voice. I'm thirsty for a fresh outpouring of your Holy Spirit. God, I'm going to afflict my flesh because I want to feel your heart for my life. I want to hear your voice over my family, over my situation, over my friend. I don't want to enter into temptation. My flesh is weak, but my spirit is willing. And so we lean into the spirit. Romans chapter eight, it says, for those who live according to the flesh, set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit, they set their minds on the things of the spirit. To set the mind on the flesh, listen, to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile towards God. Your fleshly mind is hostile towards God, for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God, but you are not in the flesh because you have the spirit of God living on the inside of you. So when we dial down, it's kind of like, all right, you know what, music's a little loud here of my flesh and I'm not going to give it what it wants. Immediately, what you will recognize is that life and peace flood you. And the voice of the Lord is loud and clearer in your heart. So some people make the mistake of fasting, but not praying. It's like, well, God didn't say anything. That's because you're fasting, but you're still doing all the other things. You need to, fasting and prayer are the nuclear option. It's nitro and glycerin. They come together and it's explosive. Why? It's because the volume of the flesh is turned down and my ear of my heart is turned up to hear what God is saying. Last thing about fasting is corporate fasting, which is when people fast together, shifts spiritual atmospheres, shifts spiritual atmospheres. You and I, we live in a natural world and if you watch the news or, you know, it's hurricane season, my daughter, Tiffany, is in college down in Florida. And so last year at this time, there was a hurricane, one of the largest recorded hurricanes in history that was coming right now, coming towards Florida. And we were trying to decide, should we get her out of there? But she's in the middle of the state. So we kind of thought, oh, she'll be fine. She's with a friend, their house is hurricane ready. But as we begin to watch it, and like we all do, you begin to watch that storm and they show you that little spinning cyclone, right? And how it's coming up here. And the meteorologists are awesome. They're just like, this is gonna be so destructive. I mean, they're excited about it. It's like, I know that you just paid like $400 billion to go to college to be a meteorologist, but don't be excited about these storms. It's like, this is the largest storm ever. My daughter's in that state. The storms coming up and they've got all these diagrams and they can also show you the projections of where it's gonna go. And they were wrong. Because they said, first it was gonna come up the east coast of Florida. And we're just like, all right, safe. Then they said, no, it's gonna come up the west side of Florida. And we thought, okay, we're safe. And then they said, no, it's actually going right up the middle. Like, and one of the guys was like, kind of like a ball going down an alley and a bowling alley. It's just heading right towards Lakeland. That's where my daughter's at. And it's like, this is not funny. And you begin to see this storm category five going right up the middle of the state. And you see these diagrams and these satellite images of the atmosphere. And we prayed like crazy. And miraculously, really, the storm dissipated before it got to Lakeland, before it destroyed. I mean, people were saying it was gonna be the largest, most powerful hurricane in history. And it actually was destructive, but it didn't do the damage. And it came right over where our daughter was. And it hardly did anything. They didn't even lose power. And we were so, so thankful. We were praying and we were fasting. But when I saw that meteorological, there we go, map of the atmosphere, I wonder whether we realize that there are spiritual atmospheres all around us that are unseen to the naked eye. I wonder if we live our lives ignorant of the fact that unseen to the natural eye is a spiritual realm. And that just like in the natural, there are storms, there are demonic strategies and attacks. There are angelic ministries that are taking place. Probably, well, probably in this room. And what's crazy is that we've had three or four people over the last year or so that attend our church, don't know each other, that have actually seen angels in our church. And if for some of you, you're just like, whoa, that's kind of weird. Read the Bible, it's there. We've actually had people who are just like, there's literally angels that are in the room. Why are we so blown away by that? Just because we can't see it. But if right now, if God were to just pull back the curtain, we would see atmosphere, spiritual atmospheres. In other words, things that are shifting. You read the book of Daniel and Daniel prays and he fasts for 21 days for his nation. They're in exile. And he prays and he repents and he intercedes. And on the 21st day, the angel Gabriel shows up and he comes with the answer, the answer of deliverance. He has the whole rest of his prophecy. He says, God's gonna deliver you. God's gonna set this in motion. Israel's gonna come back into his land. But here's what he says. He says, I was sent from heaven to give you the answer the day that you started praying. But I was detained by the Prince of Persia and the Prince of Greece. And I was in a battle for 21 days until Michael the Archangel came and assisted me in the battle so that I could be set free to come and deliver the answer to you. You just don't see that happening in the natural. Who's the Prince of Persia? Well, what we know is Persia would overtake Babylon that Daniel's in as the New World Empire. But before it ever manifest in the natural, there was a spiritual storm swirling over that region between angels and the demonic over principalities or over political regions of the earth. And Daniel finds himself smack in the middle of that. There are spiritual atmospheres. And listen, it's not just in the book of Daniel in the Middle East. It's in Kalamazoo, Michigan. There are spiritual realities that you don't see and I don't see that are happening as we speak. And we shift, we can shift spiritual environments with prayer and fasting. Just like the meteorologists are like, well, here comes a storm and project where it's gonna go. We can cry out to God and we can say, God, shift it, move it. Don't let the strategies and the demonic ploys of the enemy and the designs that he has on our city, don't let them come to pass. We want your kingdom to come and we want your will to be done in Kalamazoo, in Southwest Michigan, in our generation, into your 2018, in America, in the nations, on earth as it is in heaven. We can pray like that. Consider this example, Acts chapter 13. It says in verse number one, now there were in the church of Antioch prophets and teachers Barnabas, Simeon, and one who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manayan, a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch and Saul. And while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. And then after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and they sent them off so that being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia. From there they sailed to Cyprus and when they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God. Now here's what I want you to see. A massive door opened up for Paul who's the greatest evangelist, the greatest church planner, greatest apostolic leader of the church. He took the gospel into territories nobody else went in. But until this event took place, he was a Bible teacher in a local church in Antioch. On the road to Emmaus, he had been called by God to be an apostle and stand before kings and preach the gospel to the whole world. But he didn't have a release from it. He just went and he submitted to a local church. But while they were praying and fasting together, it says that the Holy Spirit said, you know why they could hear what the Holy Spirit was saying? Because they were fasting and worshiping and praying together. And in that environment, God said, and so they laid their hands on Paul and says, all right, God's saying that through a word of prophecy, through the affirmation of all the leaders. And they said, this is what God's saying, laid hands on Paul and Barnabas. And Paul and Barnabas left there and preached the gospel in territory to people who had never heard the gospel. And within three short years, more people, misciologists say, through Paul's first missionary journey, more people were saved in one year under Paul's ministry than the first 30 years of the church. And you know why it happened? It's because there was a church at Antioch that prayed and fasted corporately and it shifted spiritual environments. And that's what I believe that we're called to be, those kind of people. Like I said, this is not one-on-one Christianity. This isn't just Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so. We believe that, it's foundational. But church, it's time we grow up. It's time we recognize that this is why we've been put on the planet. To know God and to make him known. But more than that, we've got these weapons in our arsenal that God has given to us. And you may just think to yourself, well, I'm just living my life, I love Jesus and that's great. This isn't about salvation, at least for you. But this is about shifting the environment so that we see God move in our city. See, what I'm believing for is 100,000 people to be saved in the next decade out of Southwest Michigan. Let me repeat that so you hear that. I'm not believing for a trickle of a handful of our friends and neighbors to come to Christ. I'm believing for 100,000 souls in the next decade out of Southwest Michigan. And I don't care if that's at Radiant. I don't care if that's at Center Point. I don't care if that's at Mount Zion downtown. There's not enough seat and capacity in our city if we had a revival for every church to be full. And we need every church to be full. We're contending for that. And the way that we're contending for that is we're going to pray and fast. We felt coming into this fall that this was a significant season for our church. And so we've declared a 10 day instead of 21 days, 10 days of praying and fasting as we go into the new kind of school year in the fall. And so I don't know if you got these when you came in. If not, they're out in the back, but basically this is seek 10 days of prayer and fasting. And we're going to do this together. And we've got, here's what we're doing. It's 10 days. We're going to have a prayer meeting every single day, Monday through Saturday. One that is at noon, that is going to be at our Portage Campus. And then one at 6.30 p.m. that's going to be here at Richland, up in our upper room, with worship and prayer as we fast. So I'm going to ask everybody, let's all stand up. Let's stand up all over the room. Here's what I'm asking everybody to do. Number one, if you're a Christian, if you love Jesus and radiance your home, even if it's not, would you pray and fast for this for the next 10 days, for breakthrough? For you, if you've never fasted before, it may be for you saying, I'm going to fast one day. One 24 hour period of timer from sun up to sun down, I'm going to fast. And I'm going to give some time to really praying over some of these things. We've got prayer for our business leaders. We've got pray for families, pray for marriages, pray for prodigals to come home, salvation for the lost. Every day has a new theme, and it's written on there. We're going to ask you, would you fast? Some of you will do a meal a day, or two meals a day, or fast for several days. Some of you, because of how you work, you can't not eat because you need the physical strength, but you might say, well, I'm going to fast and have juice only, or I'm going to just do minimalism. I'm not going to eat much other than what I need to. But all of us to say, yes, I'm going to fast. And then to say, yes, I'm going to pray. And I'm going to ask us to go against the current. See, the devil doesn't think that the church in America is ever going to rise up in prayer and fasting under revival. He's fully convinced that we're way too comfortable, that we're weak, that we're self-centered, that we don't care about anybody besides ourself. And so he just, he thinks the sleeping giant is anesthetized, but I believe different. I believe that if my people who are called by my name will hear the voice of the Lord, we'll fast and we'll pray, we can shift the environments in our city and in our region. So I'm going to ask you, would you come to a prayer meeting, portage, give up your lunch hour at work and come to portage and worship and pray for an hour at noon during the week? Or would you come at 6.30 PM, maybe come to both here at Richland and over the next 10 days. Here's what we're doing. We're bombarding heaven saying God, we are hungry and thirsty for you to move in our city. And then we're going to culminate it on Wednesday night the 19th. We have Corey Russell from the International House of Prayer is going to be here teaching on intercessory prayer, worshiping and we're going to pray like we have never prayed before. Come on, how many are in with me? Come on, raise your hand if you're in with me. Here's what I want us to do. We're going to worship for just a moment. We're going to take some time and just tonight we're going to minister to the Lord and I want you to ask the Holy Spirit tonight. Lord, what would you say to me? What bonds and yolks need to be loosened off of my life? Lord, tonight does my heart need to be stirred? The callus is removed, the layers taken off. Lord, tonight how do you want to use me to shift atmospheres and environments? Let God download and deposit that into your heart as we worship Him. To make my life a prayer, did you want it? Token prayers when you said to sing for myself and I just pray you'll comfort me to know you're real. A song that Corey was singing, but it's an old Keith Greene, all of his old people. I love that song, I love Keith Greene because he was somebody that challenged me in the early days of my faith to live radically for Jesus. To not live moderately, conservatively, play it safe. To go all in, no compromise. Love Jesus radically, love my city radically. And tonight I want to challenge us that if tonight the Lord is moving on your heart, saying I'm going to be a part of this next 10 days, I'm going to pray, I'm going to fast, I'm going to figure out how I'm going to do that, I'm going to pray, I'm going to fast, I'm going to come to, pray means I'm going to give 10 days. I really believe that a window will open up over our region and over our city for at the movies when we're going to see thousands of people saved. I really believe it's going to open up a window in our high schools for young people to be saved and to experience the presence of the Lord and to encounter God. We have no idea what God has in store, but he's just waiting for some people to say, no compromise, I'll go in all the way. If that's your heart, I want you to just step out of your seat tonight. I want you to just make your way to the front and we're going to consecrate ourselves in prayer before we go. If you just say, Lord tonight, I'm consecrating myself and be a part of this. I want to lay my life down, I want to pray, I'm going to fast, I'm going to ask God to move. You don't have to come. I don't want you to come because somebody else next to you is coming. But if your heart tonight just says, God, yes, I want to be a part of that. So I want you to step out of your seat, come on, we'll just fill this area. We will never know what heaven has in store if we don't knock on the door and seek and we ask. And that's what we're going to do. Just squish right into the middle, everybody. We believe God's going to raise up an army of Gideons out of the wine press that say, God, use me. We're going to pray. Before we do that, I want to make an announcement. I'll wait until this time because I want us to close in prayer. Is that okay? Is that all right if we pray in church? But I want to make this announcement tonight. Many of you know one of our dear pastors, John Porter. Pastor John Porter, his wife, Melissa, been a part of Radiant Church for 21 years. And he oversees our care ministry and some of our counseling. He's one of my dearest friends and just has invested his entire life into the kingdom of God. Just loves Jesus so much. He was just diagnosed about a week ago with stage four colon cancer. And really, they're weighing all their options, but there really is only one option and it is a miracle. It's a miracle. We need a miracle in Pastor John Porter's body. His heart is alive, soaring, full of faith, loving Jesus. He's not mad, he's not bitter, he's not upset, he's not any of those things. But he's hungry and he's thirsty. And one of the things that we're gonna be praying for over this period of fasting is him and other people that have serious terminal illnesses that need breakthrough miracles in their life. So before we go, we're gonna pray for John, but I just wonder how many are here tonight and either you or somebody that's near and dear to you needs a breakthrough miracle of healing in their bodies. I want you to just raise your hands. Look at this. Isaiah 58 says, and then your healing will spring forth. And I'm not content to just pray weak prayers. I really think that we just need to storm heaven. God, pour out healing power. Pour out your grace and your mercy. Come on, let's raise our hands towards heaven in this place. Lord, we pray that as we consecrate ourselves tonight for what you're gonna do over the next 10 days and beyond, that Lord, you would hear us from heaven, that you would be stirred, that you'd be moved, that the atmosphere over our region would shift, would shift, that the light would break through where there's been darkness. Lord, and we cry out for healing over John's body and over every other name that's been mentioned that needs a miracle. Lord, extend your hand. Heal, deliver, save, repel the works of the devil and darkness. We recognize the storm as being from the enemy. But Lord, you're the God of breakthrough. This is how we fight. This is how we battle. Prayer, worship is our weapon. And Jesus, we're gonna win the battle because you've already won it. We don't fight for victory. We fight from victory. And in the name of Jesus, we declare right now the kingdom of God will come unearthed in Kalamazoo as it is in heaven. Healing break forth, deliverance break forth, prodigals coming home, businesses changed and different. Schools protected in the name of Jesus, Lord. Send your reign, God. Send your reign, God. Release revival over Kalamazoo, Michigan, God. Do an astounding work. Behold, I do a new thing. Behold, I do a new thing. Behold, I do a thing that's never been seen before, that you've never seen, never thought of, that's unheard of, that no one would have ever considered or thought possible. God says, I'm opening a window over the Great Lakes. I'm opening a window over the Great Lakes and I'm about to let it rain over the Great Lakes. I'm about to fill the lakes to overflowing. I'm about to fill the churches to overflowing. Rivers are gonna overflow their banks. The sun is gonna shine even while it rains. For God says, I'm opening a window over the Great Lakes and it's gonna be the latter and the former reign that I release in Jesus' name. Come on, let's lift up a shout of victory in Jesus' name. Just lift up your voices and worship Jesus like it's already happened. Lord, we surrender everything to you. God moved powerfully in our midst in Jesus' name. Lord, move powerfully in our city, in our schools, in our families, every church that names the name of Christ and preaches the Bible in this city. Lord, pour out your spirit. Everybody say this with me, say, I solemnly swear that I will not be lulled to sleep, but I am awakened to what God is doing in my life and through my life, in my church and through my church and in my city and through my city. So help me God. Amen.