(rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) (rock music) I'll break you up, oh I'll break you up.

In ruin and flesh, God's promised to fall. You came with power to save. The life of life was crushed for our rebellion. He died our death and rose up from the grave. My soul, my sin, to you we're offering. I'll break you up. Hello, Church family. Welcome to Praise and Prayer.

Let me open us up in prayer. Let's pray. Father, great are you, Lord, and most worthy of praise. We thank you for tonight, for this night of prayer. May you bless tonight. May we continue to be prayerful, to be watchful, to be sober-minded during these times. Help us, Lord, to be firm in our faith, unwavering in our hope, and that we will love you with all of our heart, soul, and mind.

It may be our greatest desire to know Christ and to make him known. And our desire would be not for the things of this world, but for your praise, for your glory, your honor. We thank you, Lord, in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Let us all rise as we sing these praises.

(upbeat music) The earth is filled. ♪ The earth is filled with your glory ♪ ♪ We stand in awe of your majesty ♪ ♪ Hold the splendor of the king ♪ ♪ And join the angels as they sing ♪ ♪ Holy, holy, holy, holy ♪ ♪ Is the lamb of God ♪ ♪ Honor, praise, and glory ♪ ♪ Are yours, O Lord, forever ♪ ♪ As we gaze at your beauty ♪ ♪ We cannot help falling on our knees ♪ ♪ We have come to adore our king ♪ ♪ And join the angels as they sing ♪ ♪ Holy, holy, holy, holy ♪ ♪ Is the lamb of God ♪ ♪ Honor, praise, and glory ♪ ♪ Are yours, O Lord, forever ♪ ♪ As we gaze at your beauty ♪ ♪ We cannot help falling on our knees ♪ ♪ We have come to adore our king ♪ ♪ And join the angels as they sing ♪ ♪ Holy, holy, holy, holy ♪ ♪ Is the lamb of God ♪ ♪ Honor, praise, and glory ♪ ♪ Are yours, O Lord, forever ♪ (gentle music) (gentle music) ♪ There is no song we could sing ♪ ♪ To honor the weight of your glory ♪ ♪ There are no words we could speak ♪ ♪ To capture the depth of your beauty ♪ ♪ Jesus, there's no one like you ♪ ♪ Jesus, we love you, ever adore you ♪ ♪ There's no one like you ♪ ♪ Jesus, we love you, ever adore you, Lord ♪ ♪ There is no sinner beyond ♪ ♪ The infinite stretch of your mercy ♪ ♪ How can we thank you enough ♪ ♪ For how you have left us completely ♪ ♪ Jesus, there's no one like you ♪ ♪ Jesus, we love you, ever adore you ♪ ♪ There's no one like you ♪ ♪ Jesus, we love you, ever adore you ♪ ♪ There's no one like you ♪ ♪ Jesus, we love you, ever adore you ♪ ♪ There's no one like you ♪ ♪ Jesus, we love you, ever adore you, Lord ♪ ♪ All we have ♪ ♪ All we need ♪ ♪ All we want ♪ ♪ Is you ♪ ♪ All we have ♪ ♪ All we need ♪ ♪ All we want ♪ ♪ Is you ♪ ♪ All we have ♪ ♪ All we need ♪ ♪ All we want ♪ ♪ Is you ♪ ♪ Jesus, there's no one like you ♪ ♪ Jesus, we love you, ever adore you ♪ ♪ There's no one like you ♪ ♪ Jesus, we love you, ever adore you ♪ ♪ There's no one like you ♪ ♪ Jesus, we love you, ever adore you ♪ ♪ There's no one like you ♪ ♪ Jesus, we love you, ever adore you, Lord ♪ (gentle music) ♪ Great, great ♪ ♪ Is the Lord and most worthy, praise ♪ ♪ In the city of our God, the holy place ♪ ♪ The joy of the whole world ♪ (gentle music) ♪ Great is the Lord in whom we have the victory ♪ ♪ He aids us against the enemy ♪ ♪ We bow down on our knees ♪ (gentle music) ♪ And all we want ♪ ♪ And all we want to lift your name, oh Lord ♪ ♪ And all we want to thank you ♪ ♪ For the works you've done in our lives ♪ ♪ And all we trust in your unfeeling love ♪ ♪ You alone are God eternal ♪ ♪ You are the earth and heaven above ♪ ♪ Great is the Lord ♪ ♪ Great is the Lord and most worthy, praise ♪ ♪ In the city of our God, the holy place ♪ ♪ The joy of the whole world ♪ (gentle music) ♪ Great is the Lord in whom we have the victory ♪ ♪ He aids us against the enemy ♪ (gentle music) ♪ We bow down on our knees ♪ ♪ We bow down on our knees ♪ ♪ And all we want to lift your name, oh Lord ♪ ♪ And all we want to thank you ♪ ♪ For the works you've done in our lives ♪ ♪ And all we trust in your unfailing love ♪ ♪ For you alone are God eternal ♪ ♪ You are the earth and heaven above ♪ ♪ And all we want to lift your name, oh Lord ♪ ♪ And all we want to thank you ♪ ♪ For the works you've done in our lives ♪ ♪ And all we trust in your unfailing love ♪ ♪ For you alone are God eternal ♪ ♪ You are the earth and heaven above ♪ ♪ For you alone are God eternal ♪ ♪ You are the earth and heaven above ♪ (gentle music) - You may be seated.

Okay, we're gonna do our prayer meeting a little bit different today. And probably going forward, we're probably gonna use this format more than what we've done before. We're gonna give you a good chunk of time for you to pray by yourself. We wanna get in a habit of praying for a more extended period of time.

And I know some of you guys are very awkward and I could tell you sometimes even three minutes, you know, three or five minutes, like some of you already kinda like your mind is wandering and you're having a hard time praying. If you do not learn to persevere through that, you will never learn how to pray, right?

So if the moment you get distracted or oh, I don't know what to say and then you stop praying, you'll never practice your muscle how to pray. Just like anything else, if you want a fellowship, and if only fellowship happens when it automatically happens. Somebody just, you know, it's just organic and it just happens all the time and you're not deliberate about it, you know, you probably aren't experiencing genuine fellowship.

And same thing with the Bible, right? We're doing inductive Bible study. How much you get out of the Bible study is directly linked to how much time you put digging and struggling and wrestling with the text, right? And same thing with evangelism. Evangelism, you know, isn't somebody's, isn't gonna just come up to you and say, hey, teach me how to get to heaven, right?

You have to be praying and deliberately searching and then sometimes get rejected and wrestle through how to answer prayers and that's how we become better at evangelism. And same thing with prayer. Prayer's not something that just like, oh, I don't know how to pray. Those people are good at praying, these people are not good at praying.

And then so, you know, like if you do not learn how to wrestle in prayer, your ability to be able to pray never really matures and grows, right? Only during periods of time of urgency or something's moving you emotionally. But outside of that, you do maybe like one minute, five minutes, six, seven minute prayer, but if you've never prayed consistently for over 30, 40, 50 minutes to an hour, that's something that we need to kind of train ourselves to do.

So I'm gonna, we're gonna give you plenty of time to pray and then again, I wanna really like challenge you to struggle in prayer today, right? Even if half the time, more than half the time, your mind is wandering, you're thinking about, you know, should I have bought that stock or not, right?

You know what stock I'm talking about. Should I have bought that? Did I missed out on it? Should I show, even if all that stuff is going on in your head, right, to learn to persevere in prayer, okay? So what I wanna do is we've given you a sheet for you to go through.

Now I give you a physical copy because I wanted you to have that in front of you and to really pray through that. So I don't wanna give you broad topics of, let's pray for missions and let's pray for this. I wanted you to really get down to the specifics on what you're praying for.

So again, I'm not gonna give a, just as an encouragement, you know, at the Garden of Gethsemane in Matthew 26, 36, Jesus takes his disciples and he's trying to get ready for what's coming the next day. And you know the text, when he comes back, he sees them sleeping and twice he says to them, could you not stay and watch and pray with me for even one hour?

Obviously it was in the middle of the night, they were tired, they had a huge meal, right? But because it was that important, he wanted them to wrestle in prayer, right? And so again, the challenge is to wrestle in prayer. So what I wanna do is if you look at number one, the very first thing that we should always do before we come to God is the sin of confession, right?

If you look at the Old Testament, there's five major, major offerings and the most frequently given offering was the burnt offering because that was the general offering for atonement. And so before you did anything else, there needed to be forgiveness, there needed to be restoration. So in the restoration, in Psalm 139, 23-24, it says, the psalmist says, search me, O God, and know my heart, try me and know my anxious thoughts and see if there be any hurtful way in me and lead me in the everlasting.

I'm less concerned about people who came into this room really feeling the need to repent. Like your sins are weighing you down, maybe you've been struggling with something and you're not being successful. And you know, as soon as I say, we need to repent of something, you know what it is that you need to repent of.

The people who are gonna struggle in prayer tonight are the people who are not aware, right? Because you're not actively searching to guard our hearts and make sure that we're right before God. And so that's what that psalmist is, to come before God and search. First of all, what are the compromises that you have accepted in your life that you've become desensitized?

You know it's there, but you don't feel any strong urgency to pray. There's two things that we need to pray for, there's a sin of commission and sin of omission. Sin of commission are the things that you've committed. Maybe you watch things that you shouldn't have watched. Maybe you've said things that you shouldn't have said.

Maybe you've gone places that you shouldn't have gone to. Sin of omission are the things that God has commanded you to do and you are in a regular pattern of neglect. And so those are things that you may not have thought about because you're just kind of in the habit of burying.

Maybe certain way of doing things. And there's certain things that God has commanded you to do and you're just like, ah, you know, I don't have the time, I'm busy raising my children. And so we have all kinds of excuses not to participate. But in the end, the end result is disobedience.

So what are the sins of commission? What are the sins of omission? And again, James 4, 17 says, "Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do "and does not do it, to him it is sin." So the first thing that we wanna encourage you to do is take some time to confess that before God.

Search me, oh God, and know my heart. Even if I'm not aware of it, help me, Lord, to be aware of it. What are the compromise that I've gotten accustom to? Lord, help me to see the weight of sin. Help me to see sin the way you see sin.

And then to first come before the Lord and be specific. So whenever you confess your sin, don't just have a broad brush and say, you know, I wanna be a better person, I wanna be more focused. What are the specific sins? What are the specific sins that you wanna come before God and pray and ask for forgiveness for those things, okay?

Specifically. Second, building up with the body of Christ, the church. Are there relationships that need to be reconciled that we have been ignoring? Now, I know that we may not have full control of all the relationships that we have. So the two questions that I encourage you to ask is, do you have something against someone?

You're holding a grudge against someone in your heart and you're not reconciled. That person may not even know it, right? But you're harboring in your heart and you're justifying it and that may have given a foothold for the devil and may have made your heart callous toward God. So the first question is, are there things that you need to reconcile?

Does someone have something against you that you are aware of? The Bible's clear. Before you come to the altar, if a brother has something against you, go and deal with that first, right? So take time to think about the fellowship, right? The second offering in the five major offerings is the peace offering, right?

When we have peace with God, God calls us to have peace with one another. So pray for specific people. So outside of the reconciliation, don't just pray broad strokes and pray for people. Pray for the world. I wanna encourage you to pray for specific people and where I encourage you to start is, pray calling out each name of the people in your small group, right?

Name by name, what you know about that person, what they're struggling, what challenges are they going through. If you are in a home group, pray by name, one by one, pray for those people around you, right? So if you are leading one of those groups, make sure that you pray again for them, same thing.

And if you are a member in that group, pray for the leaders in your group. Again, don't just pray broadly, pray each one individually. Pray for our leadership in the church. Pray for all the pastors, myself, Pastor Mark, Pastor Peter, Pastor Nate, and then the elders, Philip Kim, Joseph Chun, James Hong.

Again, it's always challenging, but especially right now, because of all the things that are going on, there's constant things that are changing. And we need to make sure that we, everything that we want our church to do, that the leadership is first practicing this. So there's specific things that we ask to pray for, deepening prayer life for each one of us, that this is not just something that we do corporately, but each individual, that we would grow in our depth in praying.

Unity in love, faith, and hope, right? And again, because we discuss a lot of things that a lot of times we may not fully be on the same page. And if we keep a healthy distance, we're always united. Right? Generally, we love Jesus, we love the church, but when we talk about the specific things about what we should or should not do, there's always opportunity for the devil to come in and bring disunity.

So please pray for each one of us by name for unity and humility in heart, wisdom to lead the church, and then above reproach. Right? So everything that we're asking you to pray for, we ask that you would pray for each one of the leaders that we would set an example of what that means.

Spreading of the gospel, okay, locally and globally. Pray for church-like college ministry as they started their campus ministry, even though they're not physically on campus yet. That ministry is going, again, started by, led by Pastor Nate. And so please pray for them. They meet every Wednesday here, and then eventually when the campus opens, they're gonna be on campus for the purpose of evangelism.

And I was reading an article this morning that I think it's UCI and UCLA had record number of freshmen apply than ever in history. So they think the pandemic may have something to do with it, but they said they had record number, right? So there's that many students who are, you know, who are probably gonna come into town.

So either God placed us in a unique place near campus so that we can be a witness, so please pray for the church-like college ministry. Pray for your coworkers by name. Pray for those people, instead of even the people that you may not know well, the non-Christians that you are in regular contact with, pray for them specifically by name, right?

Pray that God would open their hearts. Pray specifically so that God would give you an opportunity, not to just pray from a distance, but ask the Lord to open the door, that you would have the courage to make an appointment with that person, to sit with that person, to work with that person, and be deliberate about sharing the gospel with that person.

So pray for that opportunity. Pray for your heart, pray for courage on your part so that you may be a witness, and not just kind of spend day in and day out, you know, and be satisfied that they know you're a Christian, but actively, what kind of Christian are you, right?

Do they know how important Christ is to you, or do they just know you're a Christian, so therefore you go to church on Sunday, right? So be deliberate, be proactive, and to pray specifically for those people by name. Are there non-believers around you? Are there non-believers in your home?

And I know that you've been praying for them, and maybe some of you, because they haven't come to Christ, maybe some of you have been praying for a long period of time, to pray. Pray with all your heart, right? Pray with all your heart, pray out to God, because I know that if you have a non-Christian that you love in your home, there's probably nothing more important that you would pray for than them, right?

But so pray with determination that God has to answer this prayer, right? Like the way Jacob wrestled, like, "I can't let you go until you answer this prayer," to pray with fervency. Pray for each one of them by name, right? And again, and then not just to pray for them, pray that God would give you the courage to be proactive to share the gospel with those people.

And then ultimately that God would use our church, right? During the pandemic, we had a lot of people who were coming to church, and even now we have a lot of non-Christians who are being invited by our church members. So there is a good chance that on Sunday, you may be sitting next to somebody who's not a Christian, right?

So it's easy on Sunday just to kind of, you know, go to our safety zone and see the people who are familiar and just gravitate toward them and spend that day talking with them and going home. But, you know, we miss the opportunity to share the gospel with people when we attend church that way, because there are non-Christians who are coming.

So pray specifically maybe for other people that some of you who know that there are non-Christians here, pray for them. Pray for yourself, right? Don't leave the welcoming and outreach just to the welcoming committee. That's something that the whole church needs to do. The welcoming is just something that they are leading us in doing, but the calling for outreaching is something that God calls all of us to do, right?

So pray for the outreach for the church, that we will be, that God would use us to spread the gospel and to spread it urgently, that we do not go week after week thinking that we're gonna be here forever, right? So if you look at Apostle Paul's prayer, there's always a sense of urgency.

He wanted to get the gospel out to as many people as possible, to as quickly as possible, that we would also have that sense of urgency and spread the gospel. Globally, pray for Pastor Alex, Jen, and their children, that while they're here, they're gonna probably be here another eight, nine months, that God would use this time wisely, that they would not just be in a holding pattern, but that they would learn to be fruitful here, use their time to be sober, and that when they do go back to Taiwan, they will be refreshed and ready to go, right?

Same thing with Harry and Linda. As you've been, many of you are reading their newsletters, they're very active in what they're doing over there. They're kind of in a holding pattern until they go to China, but that God would cause them to be fruitful while they're there, okay? So pray for Harry and Linda.

Pray for the Indian pastors. Pray for their protection, fruitfulness. You know, I don't post up everything that I get from them for safety reasons, but they are, they haven't skipped a beat, you know, even though they're very challenged. And if you've been reading the news, I was reading a list of 10 countries where the COVID has made it very, very difficult, where the persecution has intensified much more because of COVID, and India was on the top of that list.

And again, all of that is being confirmed by the pastors because the radical Hindus are using that as an excuse to attack the Christians, and because the government is busy with COVID, they're just kind of sweeping it under the rug. But the pastors and their families are, you know, are not any less active now than they were before, okay?

So if you guys can continue to keep them in your prayer, keep them safe, to be bold and to be fruitful, and to plant more churches in the villages, if you can pray for them. Pray for the missionaries in general. Some of you guys may know other missionaries that maybe we're not aware of, but this COVID has affected everybody.

So it's not just the missionaries in China, everyone had to kind of go back and they're all in the holding pattern, okay? So that God would use these missionaries, not only for where they are, but wherever God sends them, that they will be fruitful, and that this would be a reason and a cause for other people that may not have been reached because of this, but that God would use it for that purpose.

And then specifically pray for the persecuted brothers and sisters. And I'm sure you've read as much as I did that the persecution around the world is increasing rapidly, right? We've been talking about what's going on here at home, and you could see what's going on here, right? But this is not unique to us.

This is going on all over the world. And the Bible says that there's gonna be hatred toward Christians, and as the closer we get to the coming of Christ, persecution is going to increase. And we're seeing that right now. And so if you guys can keep that and pray for the churches, the leaders, pray for all the Christians.

And so if you know people specifically by name, to take some time to pray for them specifically. And then for your personal needs, okay? And I put that last for a reason, okay? Because sometimes we can get caught up in some of the things that we need to pray for, and we just kind of skim over the other things.

So get in the habit of praying for them. And then for your personal needs, after the repentance, your personal stuff, pray that you will be diligent to better prepare for the inductive Bible study coming up. Those of you who are participating in that, that you don't just show up and then glean from what other people are doing.

The whole purpose of our Bible study is not to spoon feed you, but that you would learn how to eat for yourself. So really ask God that you would prioritize your time to give the attention that the Word of God deserves, and to really pray that God would help you to do that.

For your daily disciplines in the Word and prayer, if you are not in a regular pattern of praying and reading the Word, studying the Word on a daily basis, there is nothing else that you will do in your spiritual life that will revolutionize your spiritual life than doing that on a daily basis.

I guarantee it, okay? I'll give you a lollipop if I'm wrong, right? I mean, just from experience and years of just talking to people, if you're not regularly praying, regularly reading, and intaking the Word of God, there's nothing that you will do. There's no retreat, there's no mission work, there's no friendship, there's no church that you will go to that will have a direct impact on your life than to do that first, okay?

So pray, if that's not a regular pattern, to do that, to pray and to be in the Word regularly. And then to have the courage to live obediently, right? Again, as the pressure comes, it's easy for us to just compromise and just, you know, just don't obey fully and live comfortably, but pray that God will give you courage to be able to live worthy of the gospel that He's given us.

And then finally, number five, write down the prayer requests of others on the back. So before we get started, what I'm gonna ask you to do is to, again, I know we're in the middle of, like, we need to be socially distanced and all this stuff, and so this is gonna be a little bit tricky, okay?

But we're gonna do it anyway, okay? I'm gonna ask you to turn around. Try not to move around too much, because again, we don't want too much movement, but take about four or five people around you, maybe four, maybe five is too many, maybe about four people around you.

Ask them what their prayer request is, okay? So you're not gonna pray with them. You're gonna pray for them, okay? So ask them, "What prayer request, how can I pray for you?" And then write their name, write their prayer request down here, and then, so I'm only gonna give you about 10 minutes to do that, like, less than 10 minutes to do that.

Then after that, we're just gonna give you a chunk of time, about 30 minutes to pray, okay? Pray on your own. So you guys can stay here. You guys can go out, grab your chair, go outside. You can spread out, okay? Don't go upstairs, 'cause there's people, but you're welcome to grab your chairs and go outside, just to get away from people if you want, okay?

So let me ask you to do this. Take a few minutes, get their prayer request first, and then let me pray for you before you guys go, okay? So do that now, get prayer request. You're not praying together. You're only getting their prayer request, okay? (congregation chattering) (congregation chattering) (congregation chattering) (congregation chattering) (congregation chattering) (congregation chattering) (congregation chattering) (congregation chattering) (congregation chattering) (congregation chattering) (congregation chattering) (congregation chattering) (congregation chattering) (congregation chattering) (congregation chattering) (congregation chattering) (congregation chattering) (congregation chattering) (congregation laughing) (congregation chattering) (congregation chattering) Okay, about three more minutes.

(congregation laughing) (congregation chattering) (congregation chattering) We should be wrapping up. (congregation laughing) Don't share your life stories. (congregation laughing) (congregation chattering) If you're done, if you could just kinda look this way, I'll know you're done. (congregation chattering) (congregation chattering) Okay. (congregation laughing) (congregation chattering) Okay, if you guys can look up here.

I wanna give you as much time to pray as possible. Okay. All right, as I said, you guys can stay in this room, you guys can go outside, you can grab your chairs and walk outside and pray, but again, when you pray, if you pray generally, it's hard to pray more than a few minutes because you can cover the whole topic of evangelism, Lord, let the gospel go out fast.

You're done, right? Pray for safety for the church, you're done, right? So pray specifically, that's why I wrote this down specifically, so go down the list and pray specifically. Don't just read the sentence, pray for them by name, okay? Some of you, like when I first learned how to pray, it was all just praying out loud, right?

And that's kinda how the Korean church was, like we just prayed out loud, like we were screaming. In fact, I was probably the loudest, right? 'Cause I had a lot to repent of every week. So when I first went to Biola, it was weird when they said let's pray, it was just 3,000 people just dead silence.

And so it took me a long time to figure out, it doesn't feel like prayer if I'm not crying out. But as time went by, I realized there's also a benefit in meditation and prayer, right? To think deeply about what you're saying and actually having a conversation with God, right?

But when you're having a hard time concentrating, it helps to pray out loud. So I'm not saying you need to pray out loud, but it helps. If you're thinking about that stock, if you're thinking about some movie, if you're thinking about some trip you're taking and then just like constantly, every two seconds, that's all you're thinking about, it helps to pray out loud, okay?

So I'm not asking you to like scream or anything, but sometimes like causing you to speak, like you're talking to somebody else in front of you, it helps you to pray. So if you wanna pray quietly, right? And to be honest, I enjoy praying quietly more now than I did before, you know, just 'cause I want my mind engaged in all of it.

But again, there are times when praying out loud definitely helps me to pray more in depth and longer periods of time, okay? So however you pray, I want you to learn how to wrestle in prayer today, right? Don't give up after a few minutes. Don't give up because, oh, I have nothing more to pray, right?

It just means you're distracted. But fight with that, right? Just like Jesus told his disciples, you know, they were sleepy, of course they're sleepy, they had a huge meal. But he said, no, this is important enough that you need to wrestle in prayer, watch and pray. And so we really need to learn how to do that, right?

If you're, oh, I'm so tired, it's like, tell me when you're not tired when you wanna pray. Don't you always get tired when you wanna pray? So you need to learn to fight the fatigue. You need to learn, if you get up, drink something, go to the bathroom, come back.

So wrestle in prayer today, okay? Fight against your fatigue, fight against your mind wandering with something else, and to really come before God and to wrestle in prayer, okay? So even if you felt like, man, I'm so tired after 40 minutes or 30 minutes of prayer, those 30, 40 minutes of wrestling in prayer, think of it as a workout, right?

Not a second of that would be wasted, right? And hopefully that we continue to do that and then we learn how to pray. So let me pray for us. And then right now it's 8.15. If I can, I'm gonna call you back here at 8.50. So it's about 35 minutes, okay?

So again, it's praise and prayer, not praise and share. So don't spend the rest of 15 minutes going around saying, hey, I wanna, you didn't get to finish your thing, so I wanna talk more to you. So if you didn't get it, just pray for the people that's on your card, okay?

'Cause I want you to take more time to pray, okay? So let me pray for us and I'm gonna dismiss you and then we're gonna have music playing and then again, in 35 minutes, we'll be back here. Okay, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we wanna learn how to pray. Teach us, Lord God.

We know mentally, we know because of your word and we believe, Father God, that we are helpless without you. So teach us how to pray, Father God. Teach us how to persevere in prayer. I pray that you would help us to use the prayer muscles, Lord God, to come before your throne, that you would give us a sense of urgency, Lord God, in the things that we pray.

I pray for our brothers and sisters who are fatigued because of a long day. Lord, I pray that you would give them soberness, alertness, that our corporate prayer, Father God, for one another would strengthen our church in ways that we could tangibly see. And so we pray for guidance, we pray for your Holy Spirit to empower us and move us, that we would engage in this spiritual battle tonight together, Father God, that with all the things that are going around, we know, Father, that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, Lord God.

So we pray that as we pray, that you would open our eyes to see the spiritual battle that we're in, the demonic forces that are around us, Father God, hindering your work. So we ask, Lord, that you would guide us and teach us how to pray tonight. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen. Okay. Okay, we'll see you guys in about 30 minutes. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ I'm gonna have the praise team to come back.

All right, if you guys can stand with me for the final praise. But before we do that, I'm gonna pray for us and finish, and then we're gonna let the last thing we do end with praise. I hope your spiritual muscles are sore tomorrow, okay? So again, I know some of you guys may have been struggling through prayer, and I can hear the chairs wiggling about 15 minutes into it because some of you guys are struggling, but that's a good thing, that you're wrestling through that, wrestling through your fatigue, and when you get in the habit of keep doing that, your prayer life, you'll see it getting strengthened, right?

If you're in the habit of quitting, as soon as it gets harder, you're fatigued and you can't concentrate, that's gonna be a pattern also. So hopefully that, again, as we said that we want to be a church that is genuinely committed to prayer, that this is something that will kind of continue to go down this path.

And again, not just when we're gathered together. We gather together to do this because we want to encourage you to do this when you're alone, to get in the habit. So now that we've kind of wrestled through in prayer, I know some of you guys, 30 minutes is nothing.

Some of you guys have prayed like that before. Some of you guys, this may be the longest time you've prayed continuously. So my encouragement to you is when you go home, set aside time, whether it's at office or maybe in your car or maybe just somewhere else, Tuesday or Wednesday here in the morning, to come here and really learn how to pray and wrestle.

And so let me pray for us and then our worship team is going to lead and then after that Pastor Peter is going to make an announcement. So we're getting rid of all the chairs? We're putting it all in like first? Okay. All right, let me pray for us and then we'll finish with the closing praise.

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for giving us opportunity to pray. We know that more than anything else that we do, coming before you and asking your help, Father God, is the best use of our time. I pray that you would open our eyes to be able to see things through your lens.

Lord, we're of the flesh. Lord, we live just day to day, Father God, forgetting, entangled, trying to take care of our families, paying bills, things that are going on at work and at home. But in the midst of all of these things, Lord God, that distract us, help us, Lord God, as we pray to have an eternal perspective.

Teach us what it means to truly be broken for the lost. What does it mean, Lord God, to pray with tears, Lord God, because we desire to see these souls saved, even the ones that we do not know. So help us, Lord God, to live by faith and not by sight.

Teach us this year specifically as we desire to be a church that really prays. Lord, though we are weak, make us strong, that we may be vessels used for your kingdom. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. I hear, I hear the Savior sing. Thy strength indeed is small. Child of weakness, watch and pray.

Find in me thine all in all. Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe. The sin I lived to crimson stain, He washed it white as snow. Lord, now indeed I find that Thine and mine alone can change the land of spots and melt the heart of stone.

Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe. The sin I lived to crimson stain, He washed it white as snow. Never before, never when before, I've known, I've stood and known, I've come clean. Jesus died my soul to save. My lips shall still repeat His Jesus' name. Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe.

The sin I lived to crimson stain, He washed it white as snow. Sin I lived to-- The sin I lived to crimson stain, He washed it white as snow. He washed it white as snow. He washed it white as snow. Oh, praise-- oh, praise the one who paid my debt and raised this life up from the dead.

Oh, praise the one who paid my debt and raised this life up from the dead. Oh, praise the one who paid my debt and raised this life up from the dead. Oh, praise the one who paid my debt and raised this life up from the dead. His Jesus paid.

Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe. The sin I lived to crimson stain, He washed it white as snow. Sin I lived-- The sin I lived to crimson stain, He washed it white as snow. All right, thank you for coming. Again-- oh, we have an announcement. Just to clarify, maybe what we could do is everyone on this side, if you guys could put away your chairs, and then all you guys, you guys lucked out, okay?

You don't have to do nothing. But if you want to help grab these chairs and move it, then please do so, and then we'll try to set up for Sunday, all right? All the chairs on this side, just clear it up, and you guys are good. Thank you.