God, as cluttered as our minds and hearts can be, as many things as has been occurring in our lives, I pray, Father, that our view of you would be clear tonight as we pray. Father, cause us to understand and cause us to see, Lord, that our prayers would be pure and motive, God, that our desires would really be to accomplish yours.

And so thank you, God, and as we sing and as we pray to you, we pray that you'd be honored in Jesus' name I pray, amen. All right, well, tonight, before we go into the first song, I'm going to be asking our AV to be putting up Psalm chapter 90.

And for a good, like, maybe about five minutes or so, it's kind of, well, it's more text than we might be kind of comfortable with reading, but we're just gonna leave it up there for about five minutes for you to read through it, to meditate, to pray, and then after about five minutes, the praise team's going to be taking us into singing our first song.

We're gonna be singing two songs after that, and I'll be coming up and then taking us into the teaching portion of tonight. So if you can, for now, just go ahead, as the praise team's gonna be playing some music for us to read through this psalm and to meditate on it and to take some time to pray on your own, and then we'll sing together.

(gentle piano music) (gentle piano music) (gentle piano music) (gentle piano music) (gentle piano music) (gentle piano music) (gentle piano music) (gentle piano music) (gentle piano music) (gentle piano music) (gentle piano music) (gentle piano music) (gentle piano music) (gentle piano music) (gentle piano music) (gentle piano music) (gentle piano music) (gentle piano music) (gentle piano music) (gentle piano music) (gentle piano music) (gentle piano music) Church, may we let us stand together as we sing together from Upper Alaska.

(gentle piano music) ♪ Oh, I thought the mountains were above me ♪ ♪ And days of spring and summer filled the air ♪ ♪ And everlasting ♪ ♪ Oh, what a sight ♪ ♪ We dwell beneath the stars where angels cry ♪ ♪ And the clouds and winds are nothing in our sight ♪ ♪ And everlasting ♪ ♪ Oh, what a sight ♪ ♪ The mountains are held within your hand ♪ ♪ And the floods bring water, favor, and goodwill ♪ ♪ And the eastern echo is the love of your hand ♪ ♪ And everlasting ♪ ♪ And I'm talking in a tragic love ♪ ♪ When I smile to the star that is beyond the sky ♪ ♪ And everlasting ♪ ♪ Oh, what a sight ♪ ♪ The mountains are held within your hand ♪ ♪ And the floods bring water, favor, and goodwill ♪ ♪ And the eastern echo is the love of your hand ♪ ♪ And everlasting ♪ ♪ And I'm talking in a tragic love ♪ ♪ When I smile to the star that is beyond the sky ♪ ♪ And everlasting ♪ ♪ And I'm talking in a tragic love ♪ ♪ When I smile to the star that is beyond the sky ♪ ♪ And everlasting ♪ ♪ The mountains are held within your hand ♪ ♪ And the floods bring water, favor, and goodwill ♪ ♪ And the eastern echo is the love of your hand ♪ ♪ And everlasting ♪ ♪ The mountains are held within your hand ♪ ♪ And the floods bring water, favor, and goodwill ♪ ♪ And the eastern echo is the love of your hand ♪ ♪ And everlasting ♪ (gentle music) ♪ Create in me a queen in heart, oh God ♪ ♪ Oh God ♪ ♪ And renew a right spirit within me ♪ ♪ Create in me a queen in heart, oh God ♪ ♪ And renew a right spirit within me ♪ ♪ Cast me not away from thy presence, oh Lord ♪ ♪ Take not thy Holy Spirit from me ♪ ♪ Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation ♪ ♪ And renew a right spirit within me ♪ ♪ Within me ♪ ♪ Create in me ♪ ♪ Create in me a queen in heart, oh God ♪ ♪ And renew a right spirit within me ♪ ♪ Create in me a queen in heart, oh God ♪ ♪ And renew a right spirit within me ♪ ♪ Cast me not away from thy presence, oh Lord ♪ ♪ Take not thy Holy Spirit from me ♪ ♪ Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation ♪ ♪ And renew a right spirit within me ♪ ♪ Cast me not away from thy presence, oh Lord ♪ ♪ From thy presence, oh Lord ♪ ♪ Take not thy Holy Spirit from me ♪ ♪ Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation ♪ ♪ And renew a right spirit within me ♪ ♪ Jesus, friend of God ♪ ♪ Worthy is your name ♪ ♪ Jesus, friend of God ♪ ♪ Worthy is your name ♪ ♪ Jesus, Jesus, Lamb of God ♪ ♪ Worthy is your name ♪ ♪ Jesus, precious Lamb of God ♪ ♪ Worthy is your name ♪ - Amen, please be seated.

Well, as we sing songs, it gets very easy to kind of come in and out of songs, and it's very, it's actually a lot simpler, I think, to come to a place where we feel emotionally worshipful when we're singing, and I believe with all my heart that that is a means that God has given to us in order to worship him, but as we sing songs like this, even those short words that we sing at the end there, Jesus, Lamb of God, worthy is your name, what we ought to be able to see very clearly in our lives is that it's very easy to sing those words, and it's very difficult sometimes to live out those words or to believe those words.

In the scriptures, it says, "Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks," and we can very easily sing these songs, and our lips can be saying these truths that we do agree along with, but our lives become a testimony as to what it is that we truly mean, what it is that we truly believe.

I wanna ask today, is that something that we believe, that with our lives, if the people around us were to be able to say something about the quality of our lives, the testimony that we show, the way that we live, has it been worthy of God? Has it been something that would be worshipful towards God, that when we say that Jesus' name is worthy, that our lives begin to preach such a truth to all those that are around us?

Today, we're gonna be going into 1 Corinthians 1:18, and from here, I wanted to delve a little bit into this, this thought of what we believe, and it says in verse 18 through 21, "For the word of the cross is foolishness "to those who are perishing, "but to us who are being saved, "that is the power of God, for it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise "and the cleverness of the clever, I will set aside." Where is the wise man?

Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God, the world, through its wisdom, did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

If you look very carefully in verse 18 there, it says, "The word of the cross is foolishness "to those who are perishing, "but to us who are being saved, that is the power of God." So what we have common in this verse is the word of God. The word of God, this theological truth, is the exact same one given to both the ones who are perishing and to the ones who are being saved.

And yet, what it produces at the end of that is so starkly different. So the difference here is going to be that to a perishing people, it's going to be almost this stench of death, and to those who are being saved, it is the word of life. Though it's being presented to two people, this idea of this being the power of God is going to be seen in how one responds to such a truth.

And so there is going to be this wise man, this scribe. There are gonna be people who are very, very smart and intelligent, and even the way that this passage kind of starts to break it down, it's not just like intelligence with the mind, but there's also this spiritually intelligent part that is being kind of touched upon when he begins to talk about not just wisdom, but when someone asks for science.

In this passage, these two paths might seem so similar to each other because the word of God is the same, but these are polar opposites. And where the word of God goes forth, what it does is it destroys the wisdom of the wise. So whatever seems wise, it's going to break that.

Whatever is clever in the sight of the worldly, it's going to break that. And so as heavenly people, if we're Christians praying to God tonight, then we don't come with a worldly wisdom, we come with a heavenly wisdom. We don't come with worldly, earthly sight, we come with heavenly sight, godly sight, spiritual sight.

We don't pray like fleshly, we pray spiritually because that's the difference between us and the world. Between the believing and the unbelieving. And so when we think about it, we have to be very careful because we think that inherently, because we're believers, the things that we pray, what we believe is going to just simply be exactly what is honoring to God, and we know that that's not true.

We know how prone we are to jump over that back into a fleshly way of thinking, back into a fleshly way of asking, fleshly way of praying, fleshly way of tackling our problems, our fleshly way of just seeing our lives. And we have to come back to this place where what we believe begins to match how we live.

I want to take this time to think about our prayers today because it's quite possible for us to fill the next amount of time in prayer with earthly prayers. Filled with earthly wisdom and earthly cleverness. And many times, it's not just intelligence, but it's spiritual intelligence. Many times, we've figured out how to use the spiritual talk and the religious talk.

We take a quick step back and we know, we can see how we've been living our lives. And my hope is that tonight we're making sure we're taking the examining time to look inside of our hearts and see. Even religiosity that's just fleshliness guised and just spiritual talk and spiritual thought, it can be filled with earnestness.

Religiosity can be filled with tears, fervor, and even a lot of desire. I remember when I was in college, there was a Mormon who came and was evangelizing at our door. We invited them in and I was shocked at how fervent, how earnest this individual was. With tears, she was pleading with me to place my faith in this God.

And I was shocked because that earnestness was based off of a lie. When we look at even the Corinthian church, we see that, right? How could a church that is so filled, most of us are aware of the Corinthian church. It was filled with the most filthy of sins, the most abomination of sins, right?

It was so crazy what they were doing inside of this church. If any of that was found here in our church, it would be shocking, it would be so scandalous. This was a church filled with such fleshliness. So what gets so disturbing is when we get to these portions in 1 Corinthians where we see them to be exercising spiritual gifts, right?

That they're speaking in tongues. That they're probably singing loud songs of praise, praying very, very loudly. Trying to do things that were very spiritual. It's not that they were just trying to be fleshly. And so I wanted to bring that to our awareness today. In James chapter three, it says that worldly wisdom is earthly, natural, and demonic.

But it says wisdom from above is something that we must pray for, ask God for, because he promises to give it abundantly and without approach to us. And so 1 Corinthians continues in chapter one, verse 22, for indeed, Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified.

To Jews, a stumbling block, and to Gentiles, foolishness, but to us who are being called, or who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

And so you see two sets of people here, the Jews who are asking for the spiritual, for these signs to be shown, these Greeks who are asking for the intelligent, the wisdom, the strategies, and the philosophies, but he says we don't go to any of these, we simply preach Christ crucified.

And it's not just a better path, it's that this is in stark contrast. It actually causes the Jews for this to become a stumbling block, and to the Gentiles for this to become foolishness. But for us who are Christians, it's the power of God. The wisdom of God looks so differently.

And so ask yourself that question today. But we can be so religious in our thought, we can be so thinking of our service, and what it is that we're going to be doing tonight, we have to be careful, because our prayers can be so fleshly. And much of that is going to happen, the danger is going to happen is we have not been praying.

And we come to a place tonight where tonight looks so different than how the rest of our lives has been for the last week, month, months. And the more earnest and fervent we become tonight, we have to ask ourselves, is this truly what we believe? Is this what we want?

Do we want what's honoring to God? Because if we don't come into this examining place where we're thinking about why it is that we're here, and checking our motives, and contemplating what it is that we're actually asking for, then our spirituality is going to be incredibly fleshly. And so what we pray for is going to be compromised.

So ask that tonight. What is it that we're asking for? What do we expect from God? Do you really want what God wants? Because if that's what our prayers are going to be tonight, that that's why we're praying to God, because we want what God wants, His kingdom come, His will be done, then our lives need to already be reflecting that.

So we need to come tonight and surrender. Because if our lives aren't reflecting God's kingdom come, God's will be done. God, my time is your time. My money is your money. My energy is your energy. Everything about my life already belongs to you. If that's not set in stone, then everything we pray is going to be about me tonight.

It's not gonna be for God. It's not gonna be for His kingdom. We're going to try to dress it up as spiritually as possible, but then we're going to go right back into what it is that we truly believe, what it is that we truly want. And so surrender needs to happen first.

And that's why many times during praise and prayer, we start the first part of it by surrendering, by repenting, by saying, "God, I can't give you prayer requests, "asking you to do this and to do that "when I'm not ready to even give up my own life." James says that we ask and we do not receive because we ask with wrong motives.

We ask so that we might spend it on our own pleasures. So the answer that's given in 1 Corinthians here, what makes believers so different is actually Christ. It's our desire for Christ. In 1 Corinthians 2, verse one, it says, "And when I came to you, brethren, "I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, "proclaiming to you the testimony of God.

"For I determined to know nothing among you "except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. "I was with you in weakness and in fear "and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching "were not in persuasive words of wisdom, "but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, "so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, "but on the power of God." Christ is actually actively the answer to all our prayers.

The cross is the answer to circumstantial difficulties in our lives. He's the answer to disease and death around us. He's the answer to political turmoil that we see around us. Jesus is going to be the answer to our difficult children sometimes, to every frustration that we have in our lives, to our depression, to our anxieties, to our loneliness.

He is going to be the answer to the sin that we're wrestling with inside. There is going to be no sign that can be given. There's going to be no wisdom that can be given to us that is greater than Christ, and so that's why it's so necessary for us to get to this place where we're singularly in tune with God, in line with God, in step with God.

Otherwise, our prayers are going to be asking for fleshly things, guised in spirituality. Much of our prayer is just going to be Christ. Much of it, in the process of prayer, many things will resolve. Many things will heal in the process of our prayers. We might think that there are other books to read, that there's counsel to receive, but at the end of the day, no matter how much we try to get around it, Jesus Christ is the only answer we have, and that's why in 1 Corinthians, he brings us to that point.

And so, to conclude in this last part, in 1 Corinthians 2, verse 10, it says, "For to us, God revealed them through the Spirit. "For the Spirit searches all things, "even the depths of God. "For who among men knows the thoughts of a man "except the spirit of the man which is in him?

"Even so, the thoughts of God, "no one knows except the Spirit of God. "Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, "but the Spirit who is from God, "so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, "which things we also speak, "not in words taught by human wisdom, "but in those taught by the Spirit, "combining spiritual thoughts and spiritual words." And so, as we pray, ask God for his wisdom.

Look at your situations and circumstances today, and try to look at it the way God would look at it. Ask yourself, what is the best possible way God can actually answer this prayer? If Christ is missing from it, let's reorient our thinking and go into it, truly understanding what it means to come into alignment with God's will, so that when we come to God, we're coming as people who are yearning to live, to think, to breathe, to behave as people, honest in our prayers with your kingdom come, your will be done.

And so, we're going to start with 20 minutes of surrender, and we're trying to be thorough. And so, we're going to put up two different slides here. I know it's a little small, and so, it's going to get smaller. So, if you can't see this, you won't be able to see the next one.

I'm really sorry. I should have made it bigger. I keep forgetting that. But you are totally free in the process of prayer to come right up. There's plenty of seats in the front. But as we pray, we're going to be going through some of these prayers for about 20 minutes.

First one here are general sins to confess. It's just going to be an open thing. What sins have I committed? What sins have I stopped struggling with? And examine your own heart. But we get a little bit more specific here. Places I have not been self-controlled. Ask yourself that.

That's a helpful place to begin. Where have I not been self-controlled? To find your idolatries. You can find it in those places where you're not self-controlled. Where have you been wasting your time? On entertainment, video games, web browsing, political news, fantasizing. Where have you been wasting money? Thoughts of eating out, online shopping, gadgets, collecting, materialism.

Where have you been wasting energy in your hobbies and your laziness? What about places of deceit in my life? Where have we been deceitful? Where have we been deceiving others? Where have we been self-deceived? Pray, meditate, think about these things. Have you been hiding something? Have you been living duplicitously, two-faced, not being the same in the inner man and the outer man?

Ask yourselves about your purity issues. Pray in these places. Pray for a greater result to fight and to depend on the Spirit. Where have I not been a person of my word? Think about your anxieties in your future in general, career, in your education and success and desire to climb the ranks to make more money.

Anxieties about relationship status. Anxieties about our children or our ability to have children. Anxieties about our health. What about things that you've been grumbling about? Have we been generally grumbling in our hearts? Grumbling about our jobs, about our income, our financial situation, grumbling about our relationships, our families, our friendships, our roommates, just our general situation and status in life?

Maybe the complaining has made way for coveting what others have. Have we been like just ungrateful people? Are we discontent? Surrender these things. Repent of these things. What about other sins? Selfishness, impatience, irritability, pride, bitterness. So all of these things, what would it look like not to tackle these things just with wisdom and signs, you know?

What would it look like for us to go into this, understanding what it means? How does God view this? Not to just like think of strategies of how to tackle a problem or just things that we're going to do in order to be able to fight against something. Our own willpower goes only so far, and you know that.

As we pray, we have to surrender and we have to receive Christ. He has to be the center of these things. Is Christ enough for me? Is Christ the one I love? Do I believe that Christ has conquered my sins? Pray. And then pray this putting on portion. Pray in gratitude for the salvation given to you through Jesus.

Pray in gratitude for all the good blessings and gifts you have in your life, both seen and unseen. Pray for the fruit of the Spirit to be cultivated in your life. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Pray for a forgiving heart that's slow to anger and quick to listen.

Pray for trust in the Lord in whatever situations are going on in your life right now. Pray for contentment in Christ alone in these situations. Pray for a growing and passionate love for Christ in all things. Pray for a growing heart of compassion and love for the lost. And so there's a lot of work to do in prayer.

So for the next 20 minutes, we're gonna be playing a track, and this is your opportunity to surrender. And please don't just pray religiously. Because we've been so conditioned to pray religiously sometimes. Open up your hearts and be vulnerable before the Lord again. And ask Him. Ask Him to give you wisdom.

Ask Him to give you strength. And pray in true repentance that you will turn away from sins and wholeheartedly embrace God. I'll be back in about 20 minutes. (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) (soft piano music) - Pray for us.

Heavenly Father, as we lift up to you our hearts, I pray that we would actually be laying our hearts bare, that our words wouldn't be filled with emptiness but full of desire, and God, that you would be honored and pleased in the sacrifice that we might give. Lord, we're so weak, but we thank you that it is, even in weakness, that your power can be made complete and sufficient and enough for us.

We thank you, Lord, that it is not by the size of our faith, but, God, that we can come to you and believe that you can even use us. And so, Lord, I pray that before we're able to go into the next part of prayer, of requesting many things, that first we would be empty before you, and, God, that there would be a purity in our motives.

And so, Lord, as we sing a song to you, I pray, God, that our hearts would be honest and genuine, and, Lord, that our desire and our need for you would grow. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Let's stand and sing the song before we go to our next.

(soft piano music) ♪ No list of sins I have not done ♪ ♪ No list of virtues I've pursued ♪ ♪ No list of doves I have not loved ♪ ♪ Can ever set a place before ♪ ♪ No God merciful to me ♪ ♪ I am a sinner through and through ♪ ♪ My only hope of righteousness ♪ ♪ Is not in me, but only in you ♪ ♪ My only hope of righteousness ♪ ♪ Is not in me, but only in you ♪ ♪ My only hope of righteousness ♪ ♪ Is not in me, but only in you ♪ ♪ My only hope of righteousness ♪ ♪ Is not in me, but only in you ♪ ♪ My only hope of righteousness ♪ ♪ Is not in me, but only in you ♪ ♪ My only hope of righteousness ♪ ♪ Is not in me, but only in you ♪ ♪ No separation from the Lord ♪ ♪ No work I do, no gift I give ♪ ♪ Can cleanse my conscience ♪ ♪ Cleanse my head ♪ ♪ Conquer my thoughts ♪ ♪ And souls ♪ ♪ You can do what you just have ♪ ♪ And no one's prepared ♪ ♪ But my death is over me ♪ ♪ My God is grace ♪ ♪ And mercy made ♪ ♪ With mercy given ♪ ♪ My righteousness is Jesus' blood ♪ ♪ My righteousness is Jesus' blood ♪ ♪ My God is grace ♪ ♪ My Jesus' blood ♪ ♪ My way of life ♪ ♪ Is for the living ♪ ♪ And to the dead ♪ ♪ Amen ♪ ♪ Yes, we know ♪ ♪ Amen ♪ - All right, you may have a seat.

As we go into this final time of prayer, I know that, as Pastor Peter kind of mentions quite frequently during the prayers and prayers, these big lumps of time can be very hard for those of us who are not regularly practicing prayer. It's not the easiest thing to do.

And just as he regularly encourages us, I pray, as I was praying, I was praying that for all of us, that even in those times where it's difficult to wrestle through it and to continue in prayer, to continue in prayer. And just as he says, I'm going to say tonight, do what you need to do in order to stay concentrated on God, to get up, to pray.

If you need to move around a little bit, to come back and continue in prayer. Like he says, sometimes you can go get water. If you need to get into a posture of prayer, please do. And so during this next time, the next 20 minutes, we're going to be praying for some things going on in the church.

And like I said, it's going to be very small. I'm sorry. But the smaller one will be right behind me here. We're going to be praying for the building up of the church. So I've listed out just many things. You don't have to pray just for these things. But if you can, kind of search and think about the things that God has placed on your heart.

But we can be praying for the family ministry. We have three different ministries within family, Jubilee for FIG and for FAM245. We can be praying for each of these ministries. There are many different events that each one hosts. These things, a lot of us are a part of these things.

So we know a little bit intimately more how we might be able to pray. But pray for the staff. Pray for those who are serving in these ministries. Pray for--as we're praying for family ministry, we can pray for engaged couples. Even in preparation for family ministry, we can pray for those who are dating too.

Pray also for our BAM. Pray for contentment in relationship status and career placement. We know those two things are the regular things that whenever they get together, BAM, isn't this so much of what we talk about? And pray that that wouldn't be the idol so heavy that this is all we talk about.

Pray that they would use their time strategically for God's kingdom, that they might be great evangelists in their workplaces. And pray just overall for kind of the isolation that can happen in this season of life. Pray also for our college ministry, for upcoming transitions, for new students who are coming in.

The semester system students are going to be coming in come August. Pray for opportunities for discipleship and evangelism. Pray how you might be able to reach out to the college students. Pray for the college staff and the small group leaders. Next, we could pray for our education ministry, our SO, for our youth, our elementary, our nursery.

Even for the youngest, we can pray that they would come to saving faith. Pray for the elementary students as they're beginning to grow in knowledge of God's word for the youth students as they are in many ways thinking and battling with what they believe. Pray for the teachers. Pray for strength and endurance in them.

Pray that they would have a deep love for the students, for the children, and that they would handle the word with care, that they would prepare well, that they would be prayerful in their lives. Pray for the upcoming Bible study that's going to be coming in pretty soon in a few weeks now.

We're going to be going through the tenfold covenant. And as we do that from week to week, pray that we would, again, use this Bible study time to examine our hearts and that God would be with the ones who are teaching it as well. They might be careful in handling God's word.

Pray for the home group leaders and pray for the small group leaders. Sometimes halfway through it can be very exhausting because of many things going on in life, too. And so please pray for them. Pray for their purity of heart. Pray for them to have genuine love for Christ and for them to have genuine love for their groups.

Pray for the leadership of the church, for wisdom and discernment. We're coming into, again, another season of our church. So pray for the leadership, for personal integrity, for purity and for holiness. Pray for a growing fear of the Lord and a growing love for the Lord. Pray for their families.

And then pray for the lost. Pray for lost people in your life by name, by situation, and pray in faith. Pray remembering that aside from all of what it is that we've been trying to do, that God is the only one who can melt their hearts. So pray to God in faith, in desire, pleading and desperation that he would melt their hearts to allow their eyes to see.

And then pray for some of the upcoming events in the church. The Taiwan mission team is going to be doing a fundraiser on Sunday. But pray as they continue in training for their team unity, for God to open clear opportunities for the gospel there. You can pray for Alex Han and his family and the church they're a part of, the Hope Bilingual Church.

And lastly, please pray for the family retreat that's coming up. Dr. Street is going to be preaching there on God's design for marriage. So much of the church is going to be foundational upon strong families. And so pray for our families in preparation. Pray for husbands. Pray for wives.

Pray that these would become God-exalting families that begin with godly husbands and wives. And that there at the retreat there would be actual change, actual repentance, actual movement towards not just living the same way that these families have constantly been living, but moving forward and believing that God can change our hearts, that believing God can change our husbands, believing God can change our wives, and that we can be a church that actually believes in a spirit who changes and transforms us.

So pray in faith for all of these things. Again, it's going to be about 20 minutes. And I'm going to come up and we're going to sing a final song together with the praise team, and then I'll conclude that time in prayer. So let's spend this time now to pray.

Father, we pray God that we would really have that desire inside of our hearts to not just pray these things, but to continue to pray. And God, to live in obedience to your will. And so God, much of what we prayed, I pray God that we would go and do, that we would act in accordance to the desires that we profess to you tonight.

Lord, I pray in that way your church would be a sanctifying presence in this world. I pray, Lord, that the many ways in which we apply the convictions that you've brought onto our hearts, that it would change the way we spend our time, it would change the way that we would spend our time with our families, our friends, the way we deal with our coworkers, the way we feel, how we think.

God, that it would trickle into every part of us. And Lord, that our testimony would be great amongst the people in this world. Father, in a place that has grown so dark, there are so many more things that we must pray for. And so God, I pray that in that your church would continue to be the place of prayer.

And so God, thank you. Thank you that you are the one who is working, that despite our weaknesses and our failures, we can trust in you with all of our hearts. We can trust that you are going to do what is best and what is good. And so Father, we pray that that would empower us to be bold, to be men and women of conviction.

Lord, that we would open our mouths to speak, and that we would never be ashamed of you or your gospel. And so Lord, thank you for the precious time we have to pray together. And God, thank you that you've given us such a blessing, this thing called prayer. And so Lord, as we go now, whatever it is that we do, we pray that it would be honoring to you.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well, we have one quick announcement here. So if you can have a seat. I believe there's a slide that was sent. But there's going to be a Taiwan Missions fundraiser. And this is kind of in direct, I guess, conjunction to some of what we prayed tonight.

So then one of the applications can be that you pay for some food and make it happen. And so the Missions fundraiser is going to be after Second and Third Services this coming Sunday. The Taiwanese sausage and rice, they said it's a pretty accurate picture. I don't know if they used AI to do that, too.

But it's going to be like cucumber, corn, sausage and rice. Yeah, that's perfect. And so that's going to be $10 for adults, $5 for kids. And then there's also going to be winter melon milk tea for $5. I heard they are going to be making boba, but there might not be enough for every cup.

So you might want to go fast and get that boba. And the big one is on Subsplash. So if you go to the app and go under the Giving tab on our app, there's going to be this thing called Subsplash. It's the way in which we give our offering.

The whole thing is called Subsplash, actually. And we're testing it out. And so it says offering and it says the India pastors. But for now, it's included an extra thing called Taiwan missions or something along those lines. And so you can actually do that earlier. You can do that tonight.

You can do that tomorrow. So that on Sunday, all you need to do is just kind of bring it up, show them like the receipt. So that'll make everything go a lot faster and smoother as well. The other option is you can bring cash on Sunday. So those are your two options.

There are actually no other options for this. So please be prepared to give one way or the other. If you have any other questions, go ahead and you can ask me or anyone from the Taiwan missions team. Pastor Mark is probably the man you can ask. So and that is it for tonight.

We're going to be asking everybody to leave at a certain point in time. We'll kind of go around and start shutting things down somewhere down the line. But our college ministry is going to be by maybe about 930 shutting down this parking lot because we're going to start preparing for a car wash that we're doing tomorrow.

So if you're if you're parked here by about 930, if you can either move your car and you can continue to loiter or just go home. OK. All right. Thank you, everyone. Have a good night. Before the sky.