 Welcome to morning prayer from the Radiant City Center. We get the privilege and honor to approach the throne of grace boldly this morning, offering our thanksgiving which is our spiritual sacrifice and to bring our requests before the Father. I want to begin as we enter into worship today and pray at a Psalm 149, just one of my favorite psalms that leads us into the place of corporate praise. Starting in verse 1 it says praise the Lord, sing to the Lord a new song and his praise in the assembly of the saints. Let Israel rejoice in their maker and let the children of Zion be joyful in their king. Let them praise his name with the dance, let them sing praises to him with the timbrel and harp, for the Lord takes pleasure in his people, he will beautify the humble with salvation. Let the saints be joyful, let them sing aloud on their beds, let the high praises of God be in their mouth and a two-edged sword in their hand, to execute vengeance on the nations and punishments on the peoples, to bind their kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron, to execute on them written judgment. This honor have all the saints praise the Lord. The scripture talks about the honor that we have to sing joyfully and to praise, but also the power of intercession, that it's a sword that is driving back the forces of darkness. And I just love the paradox too, let the saints be joyful in glory, let them sing aloud on their beds and let the high praises of God be in their mouth. It's saying even in the most intimate places it says in the action we all get together and we all pretend we're someone we're not, but there's this continuity between the altar at home and the corporate altar of singing his praises and lifting up his name and exalting the Lord that we come together. So let's come before him this morning with hearts of gratitude and thanksgiving and just begin right now like we often do, but go through the journey of Psalm 100 to enter the gate through thanksgiving and into the courts with praise. This is how we begin, this is how we offer ourselves before him daily. We need to get good at just being able to overflow with thanksgiving and praise. You need to have phrases that come to you easily because you're used to offering thanksgiving. And so let's just begin as the singers lead us, let's just begin offering up praises of thanksgiving and praise, glorifying God together. Hold a throne with our praise for you to rule and reign from. King Jesus, come rule in our midst. King Jesus, come reign amongst us. Sing these two simple words, thank you. The perspective waits on the other side of this phrase. A new lens, a new filter when we offer our thanksgiving. Let's just push in a little longer and keep singing this. It's unlocking our spirits just as we're thanking him. And this morning, just of the supreme worthiness of Jesus, just the progression of us walking through the gate of thanksgiving and blessing his name into the courts where we see him rightly and we start to be consumed with his worthiness. Just as Josh just led us in that moment of just offering ourselves our time, our family, our work, our anxieties, all those things at the feet of Jesus. We wash ourselves clean with the water of the word that speaks of the worthiness of Jesus. Lord, wash over us with that reminder of your supreme worthiness. There was no one more worthy and deserving of our time, our affections and our love. Lord, even in the midst of summer, Lord, where there's so many things around us and so much happening and so many events and the busyness of life and fun and rest that you're in the middle of it, but just think of Song of Solomon 1, your love is better than wine. That your love is better than even the best things of this life. Lord, your love is better than all and everything. Your love is better than a great summer day. Lord, your love is better than everything. We just pour out our affections on you this morning. We offer our prayer and our worship, our love and our attention and our affections before you. I want to turn our attention and prayer and intercession to Isaiah 56-7 as we're singing of the worthiness of Jesus. Just praying Isaiah 56-7 over the church asking that he would raise us up as his house of prayer out of Isaiah 56-7. Even then, I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar for my house shall be a house of prayer for all nations. The Lord God who gathers the outcasts of Israel says I will gather to him others beside them who are gathered to him. So, Lord, we come before you this morning, Lord, from a room designated for prayer, Lord, in this city. And, God, I live before you, the nation. And, God, I ask that you would raise up your house of prayer in America. God, I ask that you would set your watchman on the wall, Lord, intercessors who do not rest day or night contending for the return of Jesus, contending for Israel, your people, contending for revival in America, contending for habitations of God to rest and to dwell. God, we thank you for what you began pouring out at Asbury, Lord, what you did even in our midst in February and March, what you began. I just think of Jim LeFoon's word of just unique spilling over. It's like the bowls were tipping in these little splashes of your glory and your presence that fell. Lord, we thank you for those. But, Lord, we're hungry for more. We're asking for you to tip the whole bowl over. Lord, we want to see an outpouring of your glory. But we know that we need to be the wine skin where we are the house of prayer able to walk in the glory that you pour out. So God, I ask that you would raise up your house of prayer. God, I ask right here in Kalamazoo, Lord, that you would raise up your intercessors, your musicians, your worship leaders and singers. Lord, I think of the presence worship camp happening in two weeks and these 40 teenagers that are coming to learn about music and to learn a little bit about worship. God, I ask that you would ambush them with your presence. Lord, you would ambush them and reveal your hearts for the prayer room. Lord, your hearts for prayer. Lord, your heart for prophetic worship and prophetic musicians. Lord, I ask that you would call forth prophetic singers and musicians, Lord, all over this nation. God, those who are just singing in their bedrooms right now that are reading their word, Lord, that you would begin to take them deeper into the river of your pleasure and presence, Lord, and that you would set them on the wall. Lord, worship leaders in your house, singers in your house, musicians in your house, Levites in your house who administer before you. You said you would make them joyful in your house of prayer. God, we ask that you would even release new expressions of enjoyable prayer. Lord, where being in your presence is actually joyful and enjoyable for your people, that prayer would not be a drudgery or people showing up just because it's a requirement because they have to, but Lord, there would be a delight to come into your house to the corporate altar and to bring forth sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving. And so Lord, we look over the state of the entire nation, Lord, for the church in America and we say, raise up your house of prayer in the name of Jesus. It's joyful in your house. Lord, draw people into your presence. God, I ask that you would release the spirit of Elijah, the hearts of the fathers turn toward the children, Lord, just like we are singing in worship earlier, the generations, one generation declaring to another. God, just think of my parents starting 6 a.m. prayer meetings when I was 12, 13 years old and inviting me to come and play guitar and lead worship for it, even though I had no idea what a prayer meeting was. There was something about the older generations going before and inviting me in that love and appreciation for your presence and a love and appreciation for your house of prayer. God, I just ask for the hearts of the fathers to turn to the children. Well, I just think of the Psalm, come, let us go to the house of the Lord together. Come, let us go to the house of the Lord together. God, I ask for parents to grab the hands of kids and bring them into your presence. Lord, even this summer that would not be neglected. Lord, amidst the fun and going to the beach and the water and the zoo and the museums and the camps and all the fun of summer, Lord, I ask there still would be a cry in the heart of the older generation that says, come, let us go to the house of the Lord together. Bring a generational unity, Lord, that our kids would grow up to the corporate altar, 12 year old singing instruments and serving the Lord with a family to come on a Wednesday night or a Thursday night into your house and to pray for kids to see their parents in devotions at home and prayer at the family altar. God, I just ask that you would release the spirit of Elijah, the hearts of the fathers to the children, the children to the fathers, Lord, that there would be such a unity, Lord, in your house of prayer in the name of Jesus. This house of prayer to release grace over his people to pray day and night in this hour. Luke 18, Jesus was telling the disciples a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart. And the parable that he tells is of the unrelenting widow and the unrighteous judge. And he said, she just kept coming to him. She just kept coming. And the unrighteous judge says, all right, I will give her legal protection. Otherwise, by continually coming, she wears me out. And the Lord says, hear what the unrighteous judge said. Now will not God bring about justice for his elect who cried to him day and night? And will he delay long over them? I tell you that he will bring about justice for them speedily. However, when the son of man comes, will he find faith on the earth? And so, Jesus, I thank you that your answer to wrong things being made right is your praying church. Lord, I thank you that you ordained God that from the mouths of broken and weak human vessels who just stand in agreement with you, Lord, you turn the tables. You make wrong things right in the earth. So God, we stand before you this morning. And we ask you for grace, God, to pray as we ought to pray day and night with the tenacity God of the unrelenting widow who just kept coming. Father, our confession is that apart from you, we can do nothing. So we're asking, Lord, would you open up the heavens over this very altar, over these very intercessors? Would you open up the heavens over our homes, God, and our family alters? Would you open up the heavens, God, over the congregations across this city in America? And would you give grace to stand in the day watches and to stand in the night watches, God, tugging on the hem of your garment, Lord, until we see the rain cloud on the horizon? Wrong things made right. Your people grace to pray in this hour in Jesus name. Can't do it without the grace of God. We can't do it in our own human eye. Would you Holy Spirit? We need the Holy Spirit's power on the inside. Fan the flames. Fan the flame, God, fan the flame. Holy Spirit on the inside. Fan the flame. Fan the flame, God. Yes, God. Oh, Lord, we cry out to you right now. Oh, God, we need you, Lord. We can't do it in our own human effort. Holy Spirit, come. Oh, Holy Spirit. The faith is a smoldering prayer. Safe vocabulary. Again, God, that we would be unrelenting. Left us on our own. Grow dull in our hearts in the mystery of delay. So Holy Spirit, we just say, come and fortify your praying church in this hour. Come and strengthen us with might on the inner man. That we would stick the landing on the walls of intercession across this land, God. When we fall off, God, we jump right back on. I pray, Holy Spirit, that you would fortify your bride. That you would put in her mouth the cry, even so, Lord, come. That you would fortify family, God, and build those family altars in this hour. That even as Pastor Caleb prayed earlier, that the generations, God, would be brought into your presence together. We're asking Holy Spirit for an outpouring of grace to believe, to hope, and to stand in the power of agreement with your heart as intercessors in this hour. We love you, Lord, and we thank you for this honor and this privilege to minister to your heart this morning. I agree with you as the great intercessor, and, Lord, we do bless you. We do bless your name, your beautiful name, Jesus. All that is transpired this morning, God, we ask that you would multiply it many times over, many hours over, many watches over in this place, in this city, across this land, and across the nations of the earth. That you would find God's perpetual prayer fires burning on earth, mirroring the reality of the heavenly sanctuary for your name's sake, for your glory. We love you, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for joining us for morning prayer this morning. We're back here at noon again at 6.30 tonight.