Learning from the Lord's Prayer and Psalms.

I wanted to take a minute to pray over this week and the upcoming election. As I've been sitting with it and praying, I really felt this invitation from the Holy Spirit to invite us to pray in this direction. And it's even some of the songs we sang today, saying all hail King Jesus. And today our teaching is going to be rooted and anchored in the Lord's Prayer, talking about his kingdom come. I think for us, it's such an important reminder that although if we are only on social media right now, things can feel really tense and there's a lot of high stress things happening. But when we take a moment to sit back and remember that we are in the in-between, that right now we are in the now and the not yet, that Jesus came and his kingdom is still coming.

And so we recognize that no matter what the outcome of this election, our hope is not built in any politician. There will never be any perfect president or leader, but it is in Jesus. And so our prayer and how I want to encourage all of us to walk into this next week is to continue to say, Holy Spirit, what is my invitation to continue to usher in your kingdom and your presence into conversations, into places, knowing that there's going to be people that are going to be anxious, people that are feeling overwhelmed that don't know how to process no matter what the outcome is on Tuesday. How can we walk into those spaces as ushering in the presence of Jesus? How can we be people that are non-anxious presence? How can we be people that are filled with compassion and justice and mercy like Jesus was?

Prayer for the election

Heavenly Father, we thank you that today we can be reminded that we are living here in one country that will have one leader, but at the end of the day that you are our King and it is your kingdom that we are seeking, that we want to see come here in this city and in this nation. God, I pray that you would help each and every one of us to continue to come before you and to submit to you as our King and as our Lord and to say, Lord, what is my invitation into ushering in your kingdom of justice, your kingdom of mercy, your kingdom of kindness, your kingdom of grace and forgiveness. I pray that this week you would continue to help us to stay anchored and rooted in you as our King and as our Lord, and that we would be that non-anxious presence in a world that so desperately needs it right now, that we would be people of kindness in a world that so desperately needs it right now, and that we truly would walk in your love, King Jesus. We ask this in your name. Amen.

I am super excited today. Sean is not a guest to us, but the first time that he's going to be preaching here today. I met Sean and Christy actually a few months ago. I went to a pastor's gathering that I will admit, I always get really scared going to pastor's gatherings. They're just really intimidating. I'm always like the little girl showing up. I was so nervous.

I happened to sit next to this guy who was so talkative and so welcoming. We have all these connections and it happens to be Sean. Since then we've got to connect in other different settings and it's been incredible to have them a part of our church community. If you've met Sean and Christy, you probably also have been welcomed into their kindness and just their welcoming presence. I'm so excited for Sean to share today.

Good morning. If you're a farmer, you love this kind of a day, right? My wife Christy's family has a little farm outside of Watertown on the connection of Highway Q and Highway T, next to a pretty famous wedding venue out there. The Bennett Barn, west of Watertown. I call it the QT farm. I'm thinking of this rain and how great the timing is because the harvest is all in. We're going to have the latter rains, or the winter rains, like we just sang about, come. We're going to have them for probably about three days. I'm really thankful. I'm not feeling very gloomy today about this. It kind of fits November, doesn't it?

Introducing the Lord's Prayer and Psalms

I want us to go through what I call the Psalms of the day. I'm marrying those with the Lord's Prayer. Some people boil down the Lord's Prayer to six sections. Other people do five sections. Today we're going to do five sections of the Lord's Prayer.

You're going to be active a little bit in this. You're going to be saying parts of the Lord's Prayer with me today as we go through. If you prefer to look at the Psalms with a physical Bible and you didn't bring one, I would love to give you one. Some people like me, you like the real physical copy. This is so fun, handing out Bibles at church. Well, three left. We'll trust. When I said the Psalms of the day, some of you went, I know that. Some of you went, what's the Psalms of the day? Well, you take the date and you add 30 because there's 150 Psalms. So today is November 4th. So you get five Psalms every day to think about, to read, to meditate.

Maybe take one of that day. Maybe take all five that day if you happen to have the time for that. So today, as a church body together, we're going to go through line by line the Lord's Prayer and then adding in some of the Psalms of the day that fit thematically with that part of the Lord's Prayer. That's the roadmap of where we're going today. I'm titling this With Jesus in Prayer.

Abbie asked me to do a little introduction about Christy and me a tiny bit because of our roots in the city of Madison. I have some pictures to share of a house you may recognize that's really close by here if you've been on prayer walks or around. This is on Nody Street. It looked a lot different in 1983, I'll tell you that.

So in 1983, I was in that house after a church service. We used to meet in the Memorial Union. I met at a Christian fellowship, a church actually. The idea was planting churches on college campuses. We were with that church, Maranatha, for about eight years. After we graduated from college, we raised support and went into full-time ministry. We would be the ones on the library wall open air preaching the gospel, doing dorm Bible studies at night, following up with people. That was part of our life together.

Before all of that happened, this used to be a sister's house. We had brothers' houses and we had sisters' houses. This was one of those. I'm sure the smell of baked cookies was there when I walked in the first time. That song might have been playing because they loved to welcome people into their home.

Before that happened, there was a meeting in the Beaver room in the Memorial Union, and there was a wrestling coach from UW-Madison who was there. I was a new freshman, and he came up to me after the service, looked me in the eye, and he said, Brother, I love that you're here, but the Lord has shown me that you're full of lust, you're full of pride, and you really need to repent. At that moment, that's quite a greeting for after church. I had a choice. I could say, yes, sir. I was raised by a Marine. My dad was my, yes, sir. Or I could say, who are you? Get out of my face. Or I could just be, oh yeah. Okay. So I went to this house. He said, there's a gathering afterwards. I want to pray with you.

I hadn't had a real experience of confessing your sins one to another and praying for one another that you may be healed. That happened there in the basement of that room. There's that basement window there. It looks really scary. It wasn't an interrogation room, but I was down there with a wrestling coach from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and another brother. The Holy Spirit's bringing up every sin that I had ever done in my heart. I'm telling every sin. I confess them all out to the Lord in that basement. I don't know how long it took. It might have been a half hour, hour. I sinned a lot. It might have been two hours. I don't know, but I was down there.

Then you know what they did? They prayed for me afterwards that the Holy Spirit would fill me up and that I would receive a fresh baptism of the Holy Spirit. I was way empty after he was showing me all these sins. The beautiful part was every time I confessed a sin and I was crying, I saw it hit the cross and then it was like this black thing and then the blood of Jesus just washed it down. And I'd say another one and it was like washed down. And it was just washing it all. The walk home to my apartment was light. I felt like a bubble. I'm just like, what now? What now, Lord? Fill me up. Show me your way. Teach me your path. Let me be like Jesus. I was raised in a Christian home. I had had repentance. My dad was faithful. He would love me. He would confront me when I needed it. Amazing. Pray for me. But I hadn't had that kind of deep repentance with another brother and filling of the Holy Spirit.

So that's my home. That's a spiritual home. And God will do that in your heart. He'll bring you home. Because we talk about the culture of Christ, becoming like Christ. Well, one of the things that he said, what was the first thing out of his mouth when he started his mission? Anybody know? It's the R word. Yes, we just talked about it. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. So it's not just repent so you can grovel in this and have these experiences. It's because the kingdom of heaven is at hand. His kingdom is coming and it's coming to your heart. Repentance is the gate. Like in Pilgrim's Progress, if you've read that book. If you don't go through the narrow gate and you try and get on the path another way, you're not going to make it right. But repentance was where the culture of Christ just began to meet me.

My college testimony

I felt like I was supposed to grab something I haven't grabbed for probably 40 years, maybe a little bit here and there. This is a prayer I started journaling right after that. This was my college notebook. I had my subjects in here and it says Monday, November 7th, 1983. Dear God, here and now at the age of 18 a radically new countenance has taken hold of me. I finally allowed your Holy Spirit to dwell within my heart by giving up all else and counting myself and my interests as nothing. I'm sure this is what you have desired for me for a long time and I thank you for your patience and your grace abundant.

And then I turn the page and the very next page in the laundry room downstairs in Woody, which became like my go-to devotional place because nobody else was doing their laundry. I was just down there by myself. The sound of the machines was nice. It just felt like it was a space to meet God. An excellent guide to live by can be found in Matthew 5, 6, and 7. I had never really done a deep dive into the Sermon on the Mount. So the Holy Spirit led me to the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, 6, and 7, so that Christ could be formed in me even more.

Does he do that with you? Have you noticed that he takes you to himself and to his word? One of the beautiful ways to do that is where you can actually say his words out loud. Like you can be Jesus as you read through. Have you ever just read the red out loud? The Lord told me when you do that for a year, read the red every time you see the red, just read it out loud and you'll get to know me better. I was like, wow. It went from maybe marshmallow Jesus, who's always loving and kind, to this whole spectrum of Jesus as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. I grew in my fear of God a lot that year and in the honor of him and the reverence of him as King.

So when we talk about with Jesus in prayer and creating the culture of Christ, I wanted to root it in the testimony of repentance and then the testimony of his word coming to life in our hearts. You with me? That's what my preacher is. You should say I won't do more than once. All right, I know you're with me.

So here we are with him and the title here is aspects of his practice and teaching on prayer with some tips. When I was considering New Culture, I've been here with Christy. We've been coming for four months this Sunday. What I've noticed is that God is moving us from places of what we would call busy. Abbie talked about that last time. Don't feel guilty about prayer and being busy and too busy to pray. We're not going after that. But there is a difference from being busy to being building. And prayer does that.

It's so simple. Prayer is the thing that takes you from being busy to building with him in his kingdom. It's the way Jesus did it. So we're just following his way. Whatever he saw the Father doing, he did. Whatever he heard the Father saying, he spoke, right?

So how did he do that? He was abiding with the Father in prayer. So he built. We build that same way. And then from wondering, what's going to happen, Lord? I hear that question a lot as I'm praying. Lord, what's going to happen? You don't have to wonder. You can watch. You're going to go from wondering to watching as you are with Christ in his school of prayer. He is good and he leads you into that. And then finally, like Abbie just said, we're in the not yet now and not yet. I had that same phrase here. We're praying in our time and space right now but with a root like a tree. We're like a prayer tree. We got roots in eternity because he's enthroned in the heavens and we've got roots in history, in church history, and just the people of God, the saints of God, all the way through from the first prayer that Abel offered up as an offering and sacrifice and faithfulness to God. That first prayer, all the way up through our prayer today, we're part of the history of prayer. You're just coming into the team. You're part of that culture around the world that Jesus showed us how to live in.

The Lord's Prayer

So we call it the Lord's Prayer when we look at Matthew 6. If you have a Bible, we're going to just go through the Lord's Prayer. In Matthew 6, verse 5, Jesus is speaking, and he says this:

When you pray do not be like the hypocrites for they love to pray standing in the synagogues on the street corners to be seen by others truly I tell you they have received their reward in full but when you pray go into your room close the door pray to your father who is unseen so be unseen and pray to your father who is unseen. Then your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need, even before you ask Him. This then, verse 9, is how you should pray.

Matthew 6:5-9

Let's do this together, whatever version you have. Here we go.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread and forgive us as we've forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

Matthew 6:9-13

Santiago is going to help us with the first part of marrying together the idea of the Psalms of the day and a section of the Lord's Prayer. He's going to read Psalm 33 for us.

Sing joyfully to the Lord you righteous it is fitting for the upright to praise him praise the Lord with the harp make music to him and the ten-stringed lyre sing to him a new song play skillfully and shout for joy for the word of the Lord is right and true he is faithful in all he does the Lord loves righteousness and justice the earth is full of his unfailing love by the word of the Lord were the heavens made their starry host by breath of his mouth he gathers the waters of the sea into jars. He puts the deep into storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord. Let all the people of the world revere him, for he spoke and it came to be. He commanded and it stood firm. The Lord foils plans of the nations. He thwarts the purposes of the peoples. But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people he chose for his inheritance. From heaven the Lord looks down and sees all mankind. From his dwelling place he watches all who live on earth. He who forms the hearts of all, who considers everything they do. No king is saved by the size of his army. No warrior escapes by his great strength. A horse is a vain hope for the deliverance. despite all its great strength it cannot save but the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him on those who hope whose hope is in his unfailing love to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine we wait and hope for the Lord here's our hope and our shield in him our hearts rejoice or we trust in his holy name may your unfailing love rest upon us oh Lord even as we put our hope in you.

Psalm 33

If you agree with that say amen. Amen. If you're English amen is like the Hebrew way. So amen. Have you noticed I have a little bit of you can probably guess that's the western wall behind there. Jesus prayed the Psalms. This was something that was part of his life and the disciples' lives. That's the history of the church. We're praying the Psalms together. As he's reading, we're praying. That's a form of prayer, just to read out God's prayers in his presence.

Just a few highlights here to put this together with Father in heaven, holy is your name. Abbie talked about the Father and coming to him in prayer and having confidence before him. This is how it works out practically in our prayer life. You can sing joyfully. It is fitting for you to sing. There is no Simon giving you a thumbs up or a thumbs down on your voice. Don't let intimidation or anything else, embarrassment, stop you. God loves your voice and he has a machine in heaven that makes it beautiful and angelic. You don't believe that? It's true. He's got it. He created you with the voice that you have. I'm telling you that digs your well. It'll dig your well for your family. If you just sing out to the Lord, God's blessing comes. Sing.

Sing joyfully. Make music. Shout. Shout for joy. The earth is full of his unfailing love.

The number one song that Jesus and his disciples would pray based on Israel's history was, give thanks to the Lord for he is good and his love endures. That's it. That's the number one song throughout all of the history of Israel and probably the church, really, if you look at it. That's it. That's like God's big. It's repeated 26 times in one Psalm, Psalm 136. So it's got to be something really good, right? That's not babbling, by the way. That's not meaningless repetition. When you have 26 repetitions, that's called a parallelism, and you're just exclaiming with the congregation, his love endures forever, right? You're part of that holy congregation saying that.

Okay, he spoke and it came to be. He created you. Jesus is reminding us, holy is your name. You're the one who made me. I come into your presence with singing. All was created through him. His plans stand through all generations. He formed all and he considers all they do. His eyes are on those who fear him to deliver them. And then finally, what's our response of all this? We're waiting in hope for the Lord. In him our hearts rejoice. We trust in his holy name. And then the blessing, Lord, may your love rest on us, even as we have put our hope in you. Father in heaven, holy is your name.

So let's go on. Let's say together the second part, verse 10. Here we go. One, two, three.

Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Matthew 6:10

For this one, the Psalm of the day is 93.

The Lord reigns. He is robed in majesty. The Lord is robed in majesty and is armed with strength. The world is firmly established. It cannot be moved. Your throne was established long ago. You are from all eternity. The seas have lifted up, O Lord. The seas have lifted up their voice. The seas have lifted up their pounding waves. Mightier than the thunder of the great waters. Mightier than the breakers of the sea the Lord on high is mighty your statues stand firm holiness adorns you your house for endless days oh Lord.

Psalm 93

If you agree you say amen. Martin Luther said your amen is like the signet ring and the king had the wax on the scroll and he said make your amen strong. You know, put your signet in the wax. Okay, amen. So in this psalm we're singing or saying your kingdom come your will be done on earth. Yeah, be prayed for that for us and for our country today.

The highlights here are simple. The Lord already reigns. So we're in the not yet but now he is robed with majesty. The Lord is robed in majesty and armed with strength. There's another Hebrew parallelism where they're repeating things in prayer. It's not vain. You are from all eternity. And then it says your statutes Lord stand firm.

The early church used the Psalms in prayer as well. We only have one actual recorded prayer of the early church. It's in Acts 4 and it happens to be completely based on Psalm 2. It was after they had persecution. They took the lash for the Lord and they come back in and they say Lord consider their threats. They lift up specific things like Herod, like Pontius Pilate. They name names and they talk about current events. But they base it in what I have set my king on the throne. And then the place is shaken when they all go out and preach boldly the word of God. The root of it, though, in their prayer is Psalm 2. They're lifting it up before the Lord. But that's your kingdom come. Your will be done. The culture of Christ was formed in their hearts, and they prayed it out, and they lived it out.

Here we go. Verse 11. This is an easy one. One, two, three.

Give us today our daily bread.

Matthew 6:11

Some of you are going to love this Psalm. You know this one. Psalm 63. Daily Bread.

Hands. My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods. With singing lips my mouth will praise you. Oh my bed, I remember you. I think of you through the watches of the night. Because you are my help, I sing in the shadows of your wings. My soul clings to you. Your right hand upholds me. They who seek my life will be destroyed. They will go down to the depths of the earth. They will be given over to the sword and become food for the jackals. But the king will rejoice in God. All who swear by God's name will praise him, while the mouths of liars will be silenced.

Psalm 63

You can say another amen. Amen. It's like you just want to stay in some of these Psalms. I know I'm giving you an overview here of how to do something in prayer. Give us this day our daily bread.

Earnestly, I seek you. The manna was out there. They had to seek it out. They had to go and get it. It didn't just automatically download to their phone, right? They had to physically walk out, grab the manna, get it in those clay pots, whatever they have, and just start to work it and work with it. That's the same way you're mining the Word of God. You're faithful in that. He's giving you His daily bread, and just practically the daily bread that we need. The Lord has been faithful to us, and He will continue to be faithful with that daily bread, not just for us, but that New Culture. I see this heart here big, big, big. It's to bless and to be daily bread for Madison, for the community. I see it on your wall here. It says help us continue to be, you know, with the community. That's it. It's in your mind. It's in your heart. It's in your prayer life.

It's when Nathan goes out and has a taco party with the homeless on Tuesdays or whatever, right? It's part of the life here. It's not just me daily bread. It's what us and that includes the families around here. God help us to help the families. Like we've served your love is better than life. I will praise you as long as I live. So we lift our hands in his name. And then later on it says without wrath we receive as his children and we obey his ways in worship. That's why you'll see me sometimes and other times you know you'll do it where we lift our hands. It's just like to the Father. I'm lifting my hands to Jesus or I'm bowing to Jesus. These are ways that he led worship.

Did you know that Jesus actually did lead worship? Anybody know this little nugget in Matthew? He is serving his disciples at the last supper, has the towel. Finishes the Passover meal. Part of the tradition was that you sing the Passover Psalms. So it says, after Jesus, who was the leader of the night, after they sang a hymn, he went out to die, basically, to go to Gethsemane, which was the ultimate worship service, the cross offering his life. But he's leading this type of worship with the disciples. So daily bread includes that. It says, I will be, there's faith in it, satisfied as with the richest of foods.

On my bed, I remember you. I put this down because, Lord, for the month of November, I'm doing this on purpose, publicly. I will not have this phone checking news in my bed. Amen. Anybody else need to break up with your phone this morning? All right, let's do it. Phony, it's been a good run. But phony, I'm leaving you behind. You will be in night mode and on my stand. Amen. Did you break up? Yes. Amen. We break up with our phone.

The Lord told me to bless my kids every night when my head hit the pillow. So I have blessings that I say. I always fall asleep before the fourth one. My son Simeon. So and then I have to bless him in the morning. So I'm like two, two, two. So then I bless him this morning when I woke up. And then Christy has hers after those. So anyway, that's been my practice since they were born. God gave me each a scripture for them. So I should be remembering this instead.

Peace comes with that practice, doesn't it? When you break up with phony and you remember him on your bed, right? Peace comes. Not as the world gives do I give you. It's a gift. You can't mantra it up. You can't breathe it in and breathe it out. You can't do that. It's a gift. It's a divine gift of God that abides with you and is the undercurrent of your life. As you say, give me my daily bread. Boom, it's done. Peace is part of the daily bread for you. Amen.

Okay, I'm preaching a little bit. I cling to you. Your right hand upholds me. And then the promise is what? The mouth of all liars will be silenced. Amen.

Let's go on. Verse 12. We're almost there. Here we go. One, two, three.

And forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors.

Matthew 6:12

This is a short Psalm. Psalm 123, forgiveness.

I lift up my eyes to you, to you whose throne is in heaven, as the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their masters, as the eyes of a maid look to the hand of her mistress. So our eyes look to the Lord our God till he shows us his mercy. Have mercy on us, O Lord. Have mercy on us. For we have endured much contempt. We have endured much ridicule from the proud, much contempt from the arrogant. Then have mercy on us. Have mercy on us. As we have had mercy on others forgive us as we have also forgiven our debtors.

Psalm 123

Psalm 123. It's as easy as one, two, three. Here we just lift our eyes to you. That's how people were saved in the Old Testament. When the snakes came, they lifted up a snake in the wilderness on a pole and the people's eyes lifted up and the mercy of God came and healed them of the snakes and death passed by them. Okay, so you have forgiveness as that receiving it and giving it. As the eyes of a servant to the hand of their master, this is silent expectation. Silence is prayer. Tears are prayers. Your heart lifted before him. Our first song this morning, I offer you my heart, this is the prayer. Our eyes look to the Lord. What? Let's say this phrase. He shows us his mercy. Have mercy on us, O Lord. Have mercy.

By the way, Jesus says this. They don't reject you. Who do they reject? Him. So you can rest in him and embrace that rejection because he's going to be rejected by every generation. He's going to be received but he's also going to be rejected. Mercy on us. This is what he highlighted here just after the Lord's Prayer. This is the context in Matthew 6.

If you forgive other people when they sin against you your heavenly father will also forgive you but if you do not forgive others their sins your father will not forgive your sins.

Matthew 6:14-15

He takes one part of his prayer that he's teaching and highlights this one part afterwards. That's how important this was to him. Because he knows that there can be no true communion if this is in our hearts. If any unforgiveness is there, we can't have prayers that are effective and that are building his life in us because he forgave. I'm going to skip that part through verse 24. Verse 25 is where I want to go. It says, where you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, he says, forgive them so that your Father in heaven may forgive your sins. It's true. If we don't forgive, he says your prayers are hindered. So may the Lord help us to continue in that heart posture of forgiveness.

And then finally we have the last part, deliver us from the evil one.

O Lord, how many are my foes? How many rise up against me? Many are saying of me, God will not deliver him. But you are sealed around me, O Lord. You bestow glory on me and lift up my head. To the Lord I cry aloud, and he answers me from his holy hill. I lie down and sleep. I wake again because the Lord sustains me. I will not fear the tens of thousands thrown up against me on every side. Arise, O Lord. Deliver me, O my God. Strike all my enemies on the jaw. Break the teeth of the wicked. From the Lord comes deliverance. May your blessing be on your people.

Psalm 3

We agree. You can say amen. Amen.

Thank you. Here's the excerpts from Psalm 3. Deliver us from evil, or originally it's the evil one. Because our battle is not against flesh and blood. It's against principalities, powers, rulers of the heavenlies. And every thought that exalts itself above what? The knowledge of God. So this is where the Psalms of imprecation, the imprecatory Psalms, pronouncing the judgments of God. It's the Lord rebuke you, Satan. You'll see that over and over again. David and others appealing to the Lord to win the battle.

There's only a few times where he says, I'm going to do this. And that was because he lived in the Bronze Age and if he didn't do it he would die and God wanted him to keep living a little bit longer. So that's the difference between imprecation back then a little bit and imprecation right now because Jesus comes along and he says, love your enemies. What love could you still try it? Love your enemies. Do good to those who persecute you. Right? Pray for them. Just like Saul was changed to Paul because the church was praying for him, right? So the Lord can do these things as we pray, deliver us from the evil one.

Deliver us and deliver the people under his control at this time. How many are my foes? Some of you, when I was reading this, you feel this week especially a lot of foes, spiritual foes, things coming that are just like a little bit higher water level than you've experienced. Okay, if you're in that boat, Psalm 3 is a good Psalm for you. Deliver us from the evil one. Ask the Lord to come. That's all you do is lift your eyes. You just say, Lord, it's over my head. I've got to have you come.

Okay. I lay me down and I what? Sleep. I awake again for the Lord sustains me. I won't be afraid of ten thousand on every side. Arise, O Lord, deliver me. This is what we can say together as a matter of fact. Let's just as a church say this together. Here we go. Ready. One, two, three.

Arise, O Lord, deliver me my God strike my enemies on the jaw break the teeth of the wicked.

Psalm 3:7

And then deliverance is from the Lord. May your blessing be on whoever your favorite New Culture person is right now. All right. You want to try it? Here we go. Ready? May your blessing be on Christy. Come on. Here we go. Ready? May your blessing be on Bradley.

Okay. True story. There's a song that your blessing be upon your people. We used to be like in our living room with my kids and we'd sing this, rise, O Lord. They liked the part, you have shattered the teeth of the wicked. You know, for real, we do this with our kids. And then we'd say, your blessing be upon, and we'd all pause and whoever had a name that came up to them would sing it. And they'd go, Ruthie, you know, your blessing be upon. And that was one of their favorite prayer times because they could just fill in whatever name. Grandpa, you know, they're just pray that out before the Lord.

Okay, this is where you're in the Bible. And you can put other people's names in the Bible. May your blessing be upon your people. He delivers us from the evil one. He speaks his blessing to us. And he's going to do that right now. God is going to bless you today. Some of you came with a really bad headache. If you just put your hand on your head, we're going to go into a time of prayer. But if you are that person with that headache, you know, whatever the cause of it is, and you've just been enduring, good job.

The Lord is with you. He's sustaining you. But Lord, we pray your blessing on us. Lord, we receive your healing today. Lord, deliver us and save us because yours is the kingdom, yours is the power, and yours is the glory forever and ever. And I just pray your peace upon everyone here, Lord. Soul, spirit, and body. Lord, you just let your grace flow. Lord, Jesus, you are able to do beyond what we ask or think or imagine. Give the helmet of salvation. Thank you, Lord, for that.

And if we could just exalt him together as the end of the Lord's Prayer does, I love the chorus of that song. And we're just going to sing it before the Lord with our voices like Psalm 33 told us. So here we go.

All hail King Jesus. All hail the Lord of heaven and earth. All hail King Jesus. All hail the Savior. One more time. All hail King Jesus. All hail the Lord. All hail King Jesus. Worthy are you, O Lord our God, to receive all glory and honor and praise for you have created all things and for your pleasure they are created. Lord, we do say your kingdom has come. Your will is being done. We praise you for all you are doing in our lives, in the life of this church, in this city.

Lord, as we focus, you've led Abbie and other pastors to focus in this November on prayer. So Lord, we just submit ourselves to you. We say yes. Here we are. We lift our eyes to you. We thank you for your teaching and we cling to it, Lord. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.

I just want to encourage you guys that in the same way that we just practice praying Psalms and engaging with the Lord through Scripture, that this is something that we can do every single day. And even as this month, we focus on prayer. Maybe it is texting someone here in the church and saying, hey, let's pray the Psalms together. You can do that on your own. I just want to encourage you guys that we get excited for the United Week of Prayer. It's going to be an awesome set-aside time for us to just spend time with Jesus.

We have lots of resources in the prayer room for that. If you don't have a daily rhythms journal, grab one of those that will guide you through morning prompts to pray the Psalms, take breaks throughout the day, end our day in prayer and examine as we continue to say, God, we want to see your kingdom come. So with that, I will just send you off today and just pray that the Lord will bless you and your week as we move and live and breathe through Jesus. Amen. We'll see you guys next week.