Teach Us to Pray Pt. 2 :: Adoration

In John 15, Jesus proclaimed, “apart from me you can do nothing”. In saying this, he invites us into a deep, intimate connection with Him. Not just for ourselves but that we may bear fruit for the sake of the WORLD.

Prayer, as we know, is the blood flow of life in the kingdom. It’s the air we breathe, the food that nourishes our souls, and the drink that quenches our thirst.

Yet for many, it has become too easy for our prayerful connection with Jesus to be pushed to the margins of our lives - squeezed into brief moments between busyness and distraction. 

For others, prayer comes hand in hand with disappointment. Years of seemingly unanswered cries have left many feeling confused and forgotten.

But it’s time for us to reimagine a life of prayer infused with purpose, hope, and power.

Together, we’ll press into what it means to develop a CONVERSATIONAL life with God — both in the secret place AND in communal agreement.

We’ll expand our imagination for what prayer is and what prayer can be.

Both intercession & contemplation

Adoration & petition

Silence & singing

Lamentation and delight

It all belongs together.

Join us for a season of seeking God together.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Thanks for joining us today as you listen to a portion of the message recorded at Fine Life Church in Boulder, Colorado. If you'd like to connect with us further, you can visit us online at www.finelife.com.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

So there's been a few things. If you were here a couple weeks ago, we mentioned a couple things. There's a couple invitations really that we want to encourage all of you into. We'll have these on the screen. First of all, we want to encourage you in this as we're finishing out the fall. If you don't have a daily prayer rhythm with Jesus, a daily time to be with Jesus, before him, with whatever that looks like for you, there's a lot of different ways prayer can look, but at least committing to being before him for a certain period of time every day, we want you to make that commitment. There's some cards in the back that explain that a little bit more. But that's one of the commitments that each of us are actually taking the time, not just once a week, but taking even a few minutes every day, or however many, you know, however much time you feel like you can give to be before God and to let him address to you and to um and to to let your own prayers uh rise to heaven and to be with him in that way. And so that's the first commitment. The second one is that we want to encourage all of us in this time to pray with other people every week. So we'll have daily prayer rhythms ourselves, but every week we want to encourage you to pray with others. Again, on the back table, there's cards. There's several groups that are starting this week, okay? One of them is at my house on Tuesday nights out in Erie. There's several midday, there's several in the morning. Um, there's even the Sunday morning group. The midweek thing doesn't work for you. Um go find the groups. Now, some of you are already part of groups and uh and that are praying together and maybe you're spending time with each other. Just continue to do that. You don't have to you don't have to stop everything you're doing just to come be a part of these groups. We just wanted to make these groups available to you and accessible so that all of us have a chance to be able to pray with other believers. And and lastly, lastly, um the heart and the spirit is just to contend for more of God. So whether you're doing that personally or with others, um let's continue as a church to contend for more of God and to let God stir hunger and thirst for more of Him in our lives and in our homes. Amen. And so this morning I'm excited because uh bringing us into the first real movement of this series as we open up the Lord's Prayer and we talk about adoration today, I get to welcome my good friend that I've known longer than all of you. We're talking 25 years. We were junior hires back in Fort Wayne, Indiana, running around the church, getting in trouble, and uh and God miraculously saved both of us. And somehow we ended up here. So, but I I'm excited. Uh, you guys know Piper because she leads worship on Sunday mornings. Um but what you need to know that she there is a message in her heart, and it is a message that is not just good ideas, it's one that God has formed and forged through her personal life experience and walking with God in hidden places. Can you guys help me welcome Piper Kappen this morning?

SPEAKER_02 3:16

It's true. I've known him for a really long time, and I have a lot of good blackmail. So if at any point you need some, let me know. He probably has some on me too, so I'll be choosy, I promise. So before we jump into this, I just want to open up in some prayer. We're talking about prayer, it's probably a good thing to do it every once in a while, right? So, Father, holy is your name. You are good, and you are kind and you are generous, and you are gentle, and you are powerful, and you are mighty, and you are sovereign. And we love you. Lord, we fix our eyes on you this morning. Anoint my lips to speak your words today, Jesus. And tune our ears into you, Holy Spirit. The Spirit of Revelation, we welcome you in this house. We love you, Lord. Amen. So I'm gonna kind of just jump right in this morning. I hope that's okay with you guys. A couple of weeks ago, Luke brought a message, just two weeks ago, brought a message just telling us, um, giving us the context. I think most of us are aware that we should pray. Amen. Right, okay. So most people in Christianity say, I'm a believer in Jesus, therefore it's probably a good idea that I pray. And Luke brought a couple of weeks ago some context for maybe why that's a good idea. You ever find yourself believing something but you don't actually know why? That that happens, and I think it actually happens a lot in our faith. And so a couple of weeks ago, Luke opened us up with this series, this uh season that we're joining into, with talking to us about why. Why do we pray? Why is it a good idea? And if you didn't hear that, go back and listen to it. It's really good. And then last week, I was so grateful for James Maloney. How many had fun with him? He is a character, right? He is a character. I love when he comes into town because he just says it straight like he means it and doesn't try to candy coat anything. And I love that. Personally, I like that direct approach. And it's I just love when he comes into town and he speaks straight from his heart. And he was speaking to us about the heart of God, like Luke was just mentioning. He's speaking about how God meets us in our pain, he meets us in every season we're in. And that was so beautiful and so precious. And today, I want to talk, and over these next several weeks, we're actually gonna start unfolding not only that we should pray or why we should pray, but maybe how we can begin to pray. And the great news is we were not the first person, people, we were not the first group to ask this question. Um we're gonna start in Luke chapter 11, verse 1. And it just says one day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples. And he said to them, When you pray, say, Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, give us each day our daily bread, forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us, and lead us not into temptation. Now, one of the things that I love about this scripture, and we're gonna be unpacking this movement of prayer, this prayer that Jesus modeled for us over the next several weeks. And today we're gonna start in the very first movement there that says, Father, hallowed be your name. One of the things I love about this passage is that Jesus oftentimes, when people would come and connect with him and ask him questions, he would often turn around and ask them a question in return. Have you guys seen that in scripture? Yeah. So I love though that these disciples had watched Jesus in his rhythms all throughout his life, all throughout his ministry and his life. He had been pulling away, tucking away into the Father's heart. And then he would come out and he would move in signs and wonders, and then he would tuck away into the father's heart, and he would come back out. And it it says to me that any time that you feel the father pulling you in, and I believe this is true for vine life right now, but anytime you see the father is pulling you in to tuck you away into a season of intentional prayer, it's a divine setup for the glory and the wonder and the miracles that the world needs around us. Amen. So I'm so excited about the season we're in, and I love the way that Jesus answered their question because he didn't give them a big dissertation on prayer, and he didn't come at them with questions like, Well, how do you think you should pray? You know, which he kind of did that a lot. But in this situation, he just said, just pray like this. And he made it so simple, and he just modeled for them, this is how you should pray. And we understand this isn't a formula. We're not coming to you over these next several weeks and saying, hey, if you want to earn God's favor, make sure you hit points A through Z and don't get them out of order. That's not what we're saying here, okay? So please hear our hearts. We just want to follow the model of Jesus and say, why is it maybe that he would have said to pray in this way? What is it in each one of these sections? What is it in each one of these movements that he's modeling for us? And this morning we're gonna really unpack what is it about Father, hallowed be your name, that might have been so important to him. So there's really two sections to this one movement. Are you following me there? Two sections, one movement, right? Father, hallowed be your name. And I have found in my own prayer life that I tend to be really good at getting that first section of this prayer of this movement in order. Like I tend to, when I come to the Lord, I tend to say, Father, or Jesus, or dear Lord, or um one of my most awkward moments in when I was standing in in a circle. I call them the um the pray, bounce, sway circles. Do you know what I'm talking about? Like everybody gets in a circle and holds hands and everybody's praying, but also people tend to be swaying or doing the bounce two, three, back, two, three, bounce, two, three, back, right? Come on. You guys know what I'm talking about. If you've ever been in a prayer circle, you've seen the people. They pray, they sway, they bounce two, three, back, two, three. It happens every time. You just pay attention. But I was in one of these pray, bounce, sway circles, and we're praying, and I'm standing there like, yes, Lord, I agree with these prayers. These are beautiful prayers. And then somebody next to me says, Oh, Daddy. And I lost it. Kid you not, total, all my spirituality, all my salvation went straight out the window, and I stood there like, tried so hard not to just lose it in the middle of that circle because I agreed with their heart, and it was beautiful that they had this moment of intimacy with the Lord, but I had never heard somebody refer to the Lord as, oh daddy, in a group like that. So it threw me a little bit. But most of us have a tendency to address the Lord directly. We tend to know that saying Father or Heavenly Father or Dear Lord or something or oh Jesus, help us, tends to be the first things out of our mouths when we start directly addressing the Lord. But there's but if I'm honest, I don't find myself in a very good rhythm of hallowed be your name. And I think there's something really intentional about that space that Jesus is inviting us into. Hallowed means holy or set apart. So Jesus here is modeling a coming before a father who whom we belong to, knowing we have a space as dearly loved children, and acknowledging the might, the power, the strength, and the holiness of God all in one c one phrase. Father, holy is your name. And I think that this might be important because if all we ever do is come to the Father, aware of his tenderness, his compassion, his gentleness, like James Maloney last weekend, he had this like this uh running joke where he would step over to this side and he'd go, Oh, I know, all you guys want is mmm, love you Jesus. But not very many of us are comfortable with this, oof, right? Thank you. Not all of us are really comfortable with the might, the strength, the power, the sovereignty of Almighty God. Right? Amen. You gotta talk to me, guys. I'm a verbal processor, so I'm gonna need to hear some feedback. All right. But I would say to you, if all we ever do is come to the Father and see him as loving, tender, kind, gentle, and merciful, we are at risk of thinking of him as less than who he is. But on the flip side of that, if all we do is come before the Lord, knowing him and his sovereignty, his holiness, his power, and his might, we're at risk of thinking of ourselves as less than we are. See, if we are children who are deeply and dearly loved by a Father, we can come to him knowing that he is eager to hear the desires of our hearts. And if that Father is sovereign, almighty, holy God, then just maybe he's capable of receiving and responding to everything we bring before him. Amen. So I think there was something really wise and intentional in the way that Jesus presented, Father, holy is your name. So this posture that Jesus invites us into, we're calling adoration. Okay? And I've seen uh one of the most beautiful practices of adoration I've seen in the history of church actually comes out of the Catholic Church, and it's a practice called Eucharistic adoration. And Eucharistic adoration, it is I'm simplifying it here, but it is basically just a time where everybody's invited to communion, and the priest will take a part of the communion called the Eucharist that he will set apart as holy, consecrated to God, as the manifestation of the blood in the body of Jesus on earth. And they'll put it in a dedicated vessel, and they sit it up at usually at the altar at the front of the church. And during this season of Eucharistic adoration, everybody is invited to come one at a time and present themselves. They just sit at the feet of the Eucharist and they dwell or they focus and they fixate their minds in adoration of the manifest presence of Emmanuel God with us. Right? That's beautiful to me. And actually, Saint John Vienny, he's known as the Cure de Ours, lived a life of incredible, amazing, miraculous stories. If you read his story, it's really profound. But he was leading his congregation in a season of Eucharistic adoration in the early 1800s. And while he was standing, inviting his parishioners to come and partake of the communion and then go sit themselves before the Eucharist, he watched as one of his parishioners came up and they knelt themselves before the Eucharist, and they had such intensity on their face. They sat for a long time just gazing at the Eucharist, their eyes fixed intently. And Saint John Vini was so moved that when they got up, he invited them over to over to the side and he said, What is it that you pray when you're seated there? And his parishioner just looked at them and shook his, shook their head and just said, Nothing. But I look at him and he looks at me. And when I heard that, you guys, I just wept. Something in me was like, Yes! That's it! That's adoration. To behold God and to allow ourselves to be held by God, to be beheld by God. That's adoration. The book of common prayer that was written in 1662 says it like this Adoration is the lifting of the heart and the mind to God, asking nothing but to enjoy his presence. Amen. And I'm not going to read this scripture right now, but um many of us are familiar with the story of Mary and Martha, where Martha was busily um oh busily hosting Jesus and the disciples, and she gets frustrated because Martha, because Mary is sitting at the feet of Jesus, and Martha is busy at work, and she says to Jesus, Hey, what the what? Tell her to get up and help me. I'm paraphrasing, sorry. And Jesus just says to her, Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but the only thing that's needed is this one thing. And Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her. See, Jesus knew the importance of coming and beholding him and allowing him to behold us. Amen. Adoration is an invitation to enjoy God. It's an invitation to fix our eyes on him and enjoy who he is and allow him to enjoy us. When we behold him, something must change. Amen. Now I have to be honest, but there are seasons when the last thing that you feel like doing is coming and enjoying God. When you've got some burden on your heart, your heart is heavy. Maybe you've had a medical uh diagnosis that feels scary, or you're in a financial hardship, or you've lost a loved one. And maybe the last thing that you're really motivated to do is just come and sit and just oh, this is so nice. Everything's good. Right? I actually found myself in one of these seasons at the beginning of uh 2019. We had um had a friend got into an accident, a car accident, and passed away. He was young and it was sudden, unexpected. He loved the Lord with all his heart. And he was this incredible influence in his community. And I was sitting with Jesus like, I don't get it. I don't get it. And my heart was ripped up. And I was watching his family, who I love so deeply, sit before God, going, I don't understand. God help me understand. And adoration in that season looked more like intentional agreement rather than emotional response. Because in that time, my emotions were not shouting and declaring the goodness of God. They just weren't. And that's maybe that's wrong, but it is true. Maybe they should have been able to, but they weren't. I was in grief. I was in pain, and I didn't know how to help this family that I love so dearly process through their grief and their pain. And so adoration in that season was saying, Lord, I don't know how to reconcile my heart and my emotions with what it is I believe that you say is true about yourself, but what I'm choosing today in a posture of adoration is to align myself with this is true about you, whether it feels true today or not. Because that was adoration in that season. Adoration isn't an emotional response, it is a choice. C.S. Lewis was actually talking about this journey of faith that we walk on and some of these difficult seasons in his book called Made for Heaven. And he gave us a caution regarding our understanding and our perspectives, living with uh living this life with eternal perspective. And he said this it will be true for those who have completed the journey someday to say that good is everything and heaven is everywhere. But we at this end of the journey must not try to anticipate that retrospective vision. If we do, we're likely to embrace the false and disastrous converse that everything is good and everywhere is heaven. What I think he meant by that was that we have to be careful in these difficult seasons to not try to ascribe goodness to our moment, to a difficult moment, to a challenging season, to deny that this moment is difficult. We're not to ascribe good to this moment, but we're to ascribe this difficult moment to a good God. Amen? We're to take these moments that we don't feel the adoration rising up within us and go, Lord, whether I feel this or not, whether I've realized the good that will come someday, because Romans 28 or 8, 28 says, and we know that for those who love God, all things will work together for the good, right? But in this moment, this doesn't feel good. I haven't seen or realized or had revelation about the good of what's coming for me here. But what I do know in this moment, in this bad, hard, difficult, challenging season is that you are good. So I'm not going to try and say my season is okay and everything's good because God said it's gonna be good, so it's good. It's good, right? Have you ever tried to like white knuckle yourself into that? This is good, this is good, this is good, this is good, this is good, this is good, this is no, right? I've done that, I've done that myself, but that's not what we're what he's asking of us. That's not what that promise holds. What that promise holds is that even in the worst situations, in the worst scenarios, we have a good God. And if we fix our eyes on the goodness of God, then we can now align ourselves with the truth of who he is and the truth of who we are. Amen? So adoration. Adoration is is um it's so vital. It's beholding him, allowing him to behold us. It's choosing to enjoy him, and it's aligning ourselves with the truth of who he is and who he says we are. When I first started this teaching and was sitting before the Lord with it, I said, Lord, what do you want me to know? What do you want me to say? What do you want me to know? And he gave me this picture. And in this picture, I was this little girl sitting before the Father, and I had this frame with all these broken pieces of glass in it, and I held it up and I looked at him with doubt and question in my face, and I just said, I broke it, can you fix it? And my heart was so fearful that the answer was gonna be no. Well then suddenly this picture shifted in my heart, and I was suddenly seeing through the father's eyes. And he was looking down at this little girl with this broken glass. And as I looked through his eyes, I saw that that frame full of broken pieces of glass had actually become a really beautiful stained glass window. And I just heard him say to me, Piper, when you view your need through me, instead of viewing me through your need, it changes everything. And see, my circumstance in that picture hadn't changed. The glass was still broken. But what had changed was that I was seeing it that even in even in the worst, most broken places, in God's hands, the most broken parts of us can become the greatest potential for beauty. Amen. We can see so adoration equips us with heaven's perspective and hope. In the story in 2 Kings 6, we can find this playing out with Elisha and his servant. Elisha lived a lifestyle of adoration. He lived knowing the face of his God. He lived knowing who his God was and saw profound miracles happen in his lifetime because of it. And in uh chapter 6, he also, because he was a man of God, had found himself with many enemies. And the Aramean army had come to take Elisha and his people, his servants. And they'd surrounded the city. And in verse 15, chapter 6, verse 15, it says, When the servant of the man of God, so when Elisha's servant, got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. Oh Lord, O my Lord, what shall we do? the servant asked. Those who are with us are more than those who are with them. And Elisha prayed, O Lord, open his eyes so he may see. Then the Lord opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. See, their situation, just like my situation with the broken glass, in this situation, the army had not fled, right? The circumstance had not changed. But when Elisha, knowing his God because of his lifestyle of adoration, came out and saw that he was surrounded by an enemy army, he began singing that song that we all like to sing now. It may look like I'm surrounded, but I'm surrounded by you. Amen. It wasn't the enemy army that his eyes were fixed on, it was the army, the angel army of God standing in support of him, ready to do battle on his behalf, that stood there and it changed his perspective. And because of the hope he walked in, if you read through the rest of the story, because of that hope that he now walked in, because of his eyes had been opened to see the one that was for him, he actually was able to do what made no sense at all and go out and lead the army back into their own captivity. And God blinded their eyes and he led them away. Now it took faith to walk out there. Elisha and his servant. Mighty vast army, enemy army, right? It took faith for him to walk out there and say, All right, well, yep, if you just follow me, uh, right? But that's what he did legitimately. Like, read the story. That's what he did. He said, if you'll follow me, I'll just take you over here. No, Elisha's this way. He's he's that guy over there. And he actually took his enemy instead of becoming the captive, he sent his enemy into its own captivity and he lived in freedom and victory. Amen. So adoration, that's adoration equips us with heaven's perspective and hope. And before we get into thinking that adoration is a one-on-one, me in Jesus only moment, I have to say, as a worship leader, that's that's something that I just can't stand hearing when somebody's like, Well, I just I I worship in my own space. I don't need to worship with the church. And I'm like, ah, there's so much power. There's so much power in the collective adoration of the people of God. I have the privilege and the honor of being the event director for Worship on the Rocks, which is a gathering of somewhere between seven and ten thousand people at Red Rocks Amphitheater. And we just gather together and we worship. That's the whole night, the whole purpose, the whole point is just to worship and exalt the name of Jesus. And we did one just back here in September, and it was powerful and beautiful. And I shared with a lot of you the testimonies that came from that time of people being healed and experiencing the Lord's presence. And it was so beautiful. But my favorite testimony actually came just about a week and a half or two weeks ago. And it was um just a text message that came into us, and it just said, Thank you. Thank you for being faithful to hosting a space that gathered the people of God to worship and praise and exalt the name of Jesus. I brought my mom from several states away, and for six years she's been battling colon cancer, and it's been unmovable and aggressive. But while we were there, Upper Room Dallas led in a time of declaring Jesus as the king over cancer, and she felt something in her in her body. So we went back home, met with her doctors, and every ounce of her cancer, but one tiny tumor that had shrunk to more than 50% its original size, had been removed, healed, completely cleared out of her system. Amen. Now there wasn't there wasn't this moment where she was brought on stage and David Hogan shundied that situation. That didn't happen. She was just in the midst of collective adoration, lifting up the lordship of Jesus Christ over this prognosis of cancer and saying, nope, Jesus is king. And as that was declared, heaven and earth responded and her body manifested. And we find that in Acts 16. We can find it in Scripture too, just in case you need a scripture reference. We can find it in Acts 16. It's when Paul and Silas have been taken into prison because they've been preaching the gospel and they've been thrown into prison. And on uh starting on verse 23, it says, After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. Upon receiving such orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks. About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Now listen to this. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and at once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody's chains came loose. Come on, right? When I first read this scripture, I I mean, I'm a pastor's kid. I've grown up, you know, we probably did a felt board thing with this story at some point. So I've heard the scripture a million times over, but when I first heard the scripture a couple of years back and really heard it, that that uh verse stuck out to me. All the prison doors were opened and everybody's chains came loose. And I had lived for a long time believing like Paul and Silas were freed. Yes, amen. But it wasn't just Paul and Silas, right? It says all the prisoners were listening, and because they were listening, because they had witnessed the adoration of Paul and Silas in the midst of their captivity, not only did Paul and Silas get set free, but everybody in that prison experienced freedom, even if it was just for a moment. We don't know what happened to those prisoners. But we do know that the jailer and his family all came into faith. Because church collective adoration ignites faith and releases the miraculous. Amen? So adoration is so pivotal. It's not just a line that we can bypass in the scripture when Jesus says pray like this, Father, hallowed be thy name, your kingdom come. We tend to engage right there, right? But there's something if we can stop, if we can come into this posture that Jesus has invited us into, to pause and reflect. If we can wait, before I present anything else to you, Jesus, I need to be reminded that I belong, that I am a dearly loved child of God, and that your name is holy and you are capable of doing far more than I could ever ask or imagine. But just like Sonia reminded us this morning. If we can start there, then suddenly our spirit is aligned with the truth about who he is and who we are. Amen. And we can move into the rest of everything that we want to bring, whether it's Thanksgiving, whether it's petitions, whether it's just contemplating what he's done, all these other movements that we'll be talking about the rest of the week, if we can begin with the posture of adoration, things will become unfolded for us through the rest of our time with him. Amen? So adoration is beholding God and allowing him to behold me. And can I just say, church, it's really hard to adore someone you're hiding from? Okay? I love you guys and I know myself, and I have a tendency when I'm in pain, when I'm frustrated, or if I'm in some level of disillusionment, to want to hide my own face from God. But it is extremely hard to adore him when I'm hiding from him. Adoration is coming before him and beholding him and allowing him to behold me in return. It's an invitation to enjoy him. It aligns us with the truth about him and ourselves. It equips us with heaven's perspective. And when we gather together in collective adoration, it ignites our faith and releases the miraculous. Amen. So this morning, I want to move into a time of collective adoration together. Can you do that with me? Can we join together and do that? Mark and the worship team is gonna come up and lead us, and I want to invite you, because there are more ways than just musical worship that are adoration. Amen? Okay. So I want to invite you into a few other spaces. There are so many more than what we're gonna have represented here this morning, but I want to invite you to another few other spaces as well. Cheryl Yarusso had the dance extravaganza this weekend, and it was amazing and beautiful. Such a great way of expressing adoration to the Lord. And I'm gonna have uh Cheryl and her team will be over here standing under the cross, and they will be leading in a collective movement where everybody can join together in a dance before the Lord if you want to participate in a dance of adoration. They'll be over here on this side of the stage. And over on this side, we have Terry Morelli and the flag ministry, and they actually have over there with them several flags and a description, um, a paper that has the description of each what each one of those flags really represents. Because each one of those flags, it's not just waving a flag for fun, there's actually intentionality and meaning behind the colors and the pictures on these flags. So there's some paper, there's a paper over there that can describe what the flags are, and if you want to join into adoration over there with us as well, you can grab a flag and look for the meaning of what that flag is and just wave it in agreement. I wave this flag, agreeing that you are the king above all kings, as represented in this flag. Amen. And then we also have communion available. If you want to practice this morning, just coming and saying, Lord, I need to behold you and allow you to behold me. If you want to take a moment like that parishioner in the early 1800s, I look at you and you look at me. And just engage in adoration in that way this morning. I invite you to get some communion and go sit with him and adore him in his manifest presence. Amen. So as they lead into these songs, feel free to go ahead and Cheryl and Terry, if you guys want to go to your stations. Feel free to go ahead and go do that. And I'm gonna pray over you as we go. Father, holy is your name. Holy is your name. Thank you, Lord, that we belong. Thank you, Lord, that you are capable of responding to every need that we bring before you. Thank you, Lord, that we are your dearly loved children. Thank you, Jesus, that we we come to you. You are not weak, but you are mighty to save. And Lord, we come before you this morning and we fix our gaze. We fix our eyes on you. We love you, Jesus. We worship you, Jesus. Lord, I pray your grace over this room, that the spirit of revelation would move out, that we could see your face in a way we've never seen it before today, that we could know you in a way that we've never known you before today, Lord. Because you are always new and always making things new. So, Jesus, we just come before you and we fix our eyes on you this morning, and we just stand in agreement that you are who you say you are. Whether I feel it, think it, or even see it, you are who you say you are. So we come into alignment with that this morning, Jesus. We worship you, we love you, we adore you, God. And I bless your hearts to go see the face of God in a new way this morning.

unknown 37:43

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 37:44

Feel free to get up and move around the room as you would like to.