All right, well, Psalm 80, Psalm 80, I would like to just pose a question to you, and that's this, what do you want from God this year? What do you want from God this year? We just got through Christmas and everyone's been asking, what do you want for Christmas? What do you want for Christmas? But now it's the new year. What do you want from God this year? What is it that you're asking him for? What is it that you're wanting him to do?
in your life. And honestly, what we want and what we ultimately need don't always line up. The danger is always that we would want from God without really wanting God. The danger is that we would ask more from God, but not ask more of God. And really what God would love to do in all of our lives this year is just to give us more of himself in our lives. For us to come to know him more personally and have his...
presence and active favor felt in our life. I'm asking that God would just give us as a church a renewed sense of vitality, that he'd bring some spiritual renewal to our lives personally. and corporately, that there'd be a renewed hunger for God's presence among us as a people and more of his active favor and blessing among us. And that's the great need that the people find themselves in Psalm 8.
80. This is the great need they had. They found themselves in a pretty difficult situation and this whole psalm is about this need for renewal. I want you to see a few things. One, the need for renewal. Look at these people. Look what they're dealing with. This is a psalm of lament. they find themselves in a difficult situation.
and they're gonna have to be honest about the situation they're in. And that's the truth, is that we're never gonna get anywhere with God, and we're never gonna get anywhere in the Christian life until we're ready to get honest about ourselves. We're never gonna get anywhere with God or in the Christian life. We're never gonna see his purposes for our life fulfilled or actually accomplish the purposes of God for our generation until we're ready to face the truth about ourself and really...
hone in on our true condition. And that's what's gonna happen in this psalm. They're gonna get real honest about what's happened in their life. They're gonna deal with themselves and they're gonna deal with themselves before God. They're in a dire situation. Again, this is a lament psalm where they're mourning and lamenting what's going on in their life. They are under the disciplining hand of God. They've been unfaithful to God.
They've broken their covenant with God. God has said to them, he's rescued them out of Egypt. He's brought them into relationship with himself. He said, I'll be your God and you will be my people. And they said, yes. And then they abandoned him. And Jeremiah confronts the people with the same question. He says, what fault did your fathers find in me that they should go far away from me? God said, I'll be your God and you'll be my people. And they said yes, and then they just left him.
They abandoned him and turned away from him and they rebelled against God. They became indifferent to God. They chose idols to replace God. And now they've been brought to a low point because of their sin and the fallout of it. They've been dead. decimated by foreign powers. It says here that they're like this vine that's planted and spreading out, but now it's being plucked and broken into and ravaged and torn apart.
Enemy nations have come in and just decimated them, and they've experienced loss at every level. And this is what brings them to that place of needing renewal. They're starting to experience their loss. There's a loss of God's presence that they feel. They have a sense of God's presence being absent. There's a loss of intimacy with God. Verses one and two, he's a shepherd, but he's a distant shepherd.
That they're calling out to this shepherd. That shepherd is a picture of intimacy, of God being very personal. And then he says he's enthroned. Among the cherub, that's not like cute little baby angels that like market toilet paper. These are warring, angelic, terrifying. And it says that God's enthroned among these sheriffs. So it's a picture of God's power, his preeminence, his supremacy. And yet, they're not experiencing his power. He's a distant shepherd.
They're asking to shine forth because he's like a sun that's hidden whose rays are blocked by some dark clouds. He's a power that lies. dormant. So you're a distant shepherd. You're a hidden son. You're a dormant power. We just sense your absence in our life, God. We don't sense that you're present with us anymore.
Now we know that God is omnipresent. We learn this if you've been around church. You've learned this that God is all places at all times. There's no place you can run from God or hide from God. But there's a difference between God's presence and God's presence to bless. There's a difference between the fact of God's presence and the experience of God's presence. Knowing God is present convictionally.
versus God making his presence known experientially. You see that? One is a theological conviction. One is an actual encounter and experience. And God never abandons his people. We know this from the scripture. but he will withdraw his active experiential presence from their lives, just like he does here. He will remove his hand of blessing.
from the life of his people. He'll never withdraw his love, but he might withhold the warmth of the rays of his love. Just like if you go outside on a sunny, on a cloudy day, the sun's there. But you don't feel the warmth of its rays because it's being blocked by dark clouds. And that's sort of the situation they found themselves in. This dark cloud of their own sin and their own indifference and their own apathy and their own rebellion against God.
has kept them from experiencing the warmth of the rays of God's love for them. And so they just feel the absence of God. He's removed his active favor from their life. He's removed a felt sense of his nearness. He's become a God who's silent, a God who's distant, a God who feels far away from them. This is the situation they find themselves in. The biblical language is he's hidden his face from them. They've lost a sense of God's presence, his nearness to them. Have you ever been there?
Where God just seems silent and distant and doesn't feel near or close. He's just sort of way out there somewhere. I know I have. And it might not even be because of some grave sin. It could just be some apathy or some distractions or some busyness where God gets marginalized in your life, where he doesn't sit front and center in your life.
And because of our neglect and our own apathy and our own distractions and our own busyness, God gets pushed off to the side and gets silenced in our life. And it's easy to become accustomed. to distance with God and used to distance with God and just treat that as the norm and the expectancy. Sort of like we just got this arrangement. I'll keep coming to church. You keep meeting my needs.
But as far as really having an experience of God and having a personal walk and encounter with God, we're missing out on that. God... will give you either the distance or the nearness that you want. Whatever you're happy with is usually what you're gonna end up with. And here they have felt such a loss of God's presence and they're not happy with it.
and there's something starting to stir up in them. Notice the second loss is a loss of joy, verses four and five. How long would you be angry with your people's prayers? You've fed them with the bread of tears. You've given them tears to drink in full. Again, they're experiencing God's discipline and his displeasure over their unfaithfulness. Even their prayers displease God because they're just prayed from a hypocritical heart. It's like a lot of form.
In a lot of words, but no heart. Isaiah said, you honor me with your lips, but your hearts are what? Far from me. God said, I don't even take pleasure in your prayers because your hearts are so far. Far from me. And God fed them, he says, the bread of tears, and they drank tears by the gallon. There's just this sorrow. And this is what sin always does to us. Sin always robs us of joy. One of the pictures of sin in the scriptures is that sin is like this.
that comes and bruises us and beats us and wounds us and depletes us and steals from us. Sin ravages the body. It ravages the conscience. It ravages our inner lives. It leaves us weary and tired and exhausted and guilty and feeling feelings of shame and regret. I mean, have you ever been there? That's what sin does to us.
It's like the traveler in the Good Samaritan story gets jumped, ambushed by some thieves who beat him and bruise him and wound him and leave him bleeding for dead. Remember this story? And then eventually, you know, some religious people walk by. Eventually a Samaritan, who's not from these parts, sees him and... has compassion on him and pours oil and wine on his wounds and takes him to an end and cares for him at his own expense. But that picture of those thieves, that's a picture of sin.
that just ambushes us and beats us and robs us and leaves us with our wounds. I personally felt the wounds of my own sin. And I've sat across the table from people who held their head in their hands. And just with such tremendous regret, just broken and beaten and bruised and wounded by sin. We've all experienced the painful and sorrowful effects of sin. It dismantles marriages. It dismantles families. It dismantles our interior life. Sin never raises us up.
It always brings us down. It always diminishes us. And they've just had a loss of joy. And it's easy to think of gross moral trespasses like, Yeah, I imagine if I do that kind of sin, yeah, that's gonna bring some real destruction. But sin at its core is the embrace of a substitute for God. That's really what sin is. Sin is just... substituting something in the place of God, exchanging the truth of God for a lie.
And any time we do that, we do it to the detriment of our joy, whether that's a relationship or a career or a pleasure or a lifestyle. When you replace God with anything, You're gonna experience a loss of joy. I love what St. Augustine said. He preached a message on this psalm back in the 300s. And listen to what he said. For wherever the soul of a person may turn, unless it turns to you, God,
it clasps sorrow to itself. Even though it clings to things of beauty, if their beauty is outside of you, God, it clings only to sorrow. I mean, you can even substitute God with some really good things, but you're just clasping sorrow to yourself because God is all beauty. all goodness, all life, all joy. And when you substitute anything for him, you're gonna get sorrow.
And that's what they're experiencing, a loss of joy. But they're also experiencing a loss of spiritual power. Notice this in verses 8 through 13. God had a plan for them. He's going to rescue them out of Egypt.
He's gonna plant them and they're gonna grow and expand and the nations are gonna come under their shade and all who come under the good rule and reign of their God is gonna receive blessing from God. But instead of being a believer, blessing to the nation, instead of confronting the nations, they start to conform to the nations, become like the nations, and eventually are overcome by the nations, and now they're being decimated by them.
Instead of blessing the nations, they became just like the nations and they were victimized and seized by the nations. They have no real spiritual power, no real influence. They're impacted. by the world instead of impacting the world. And this is a sad state for God's people where there's a lack of spiritual power that's actually enabling the people of God to confront the spiritual needs and challenges of its day.
I think it may be a situation we find ourselves in. We lack the spiritual power to confront the challenges and needs. of our day and age. It's like when Jesus comes off the Mount of Transfiguration. He took three of his buddies up there. They saw Jesus in his radiance and glory. They have this incredible mountaintop experience. They come right back down into the midst of some hardcore ministry.
There's a dad who's brought his son to the other disciples. This son is demonized. He's possessed by a demon. He's been hurting this child since he was a small boy. And the father says this. He says to Jesus, brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him. What an indictment for a hurting world to look to the church. And not find help. Because the church lacks the spiritual power.
and resources to face the needs and meet the challenges of its day. Later on, Jesus pulled these guys aside and they said, why couldn't we cast out the demon? We've cast out demons before. And Jesus said, this kind comes out only by what? Prayer. In other words, what Jesus is saying is you don't have the intimacy with God that's required to meet this kind of spiritual need.
Your prayer life is such it's not prepared you to face this kind of challenge. And until your prayer life grows, your power will not grow. And until your intimacy with God grows, your capacity for effective, fruitful ministry won't grow. You'll never be able to meet the spiritual challenges and needs of your day.
And so these disciples are called to prayer. What an indictment on those disciples and maybe even on us. And I just wanna say this, political power won't do it. Political power will not enable the church to face the spiritual needs of the day. What we need is spiritual power. What we need is the anointing and the help of the Holy Spirit. So here's just a summary of these people. Loss of intimacy with God, distant from God, out of sync with God, out of fellowship with God.
Feeling... The absence of God, filling the pains and sorrows of their sins, spiritually impotent, failing in its mission, unable to meet the spiritual challenges of the day, conforming to the world, unable to confront the world and impact the world. and call the world to something better. It's what the Puritans would call spiritual declension of the soul. Declension, a declining of the soul. And our hearts are prone to this.
I don't care how zealous you start the new year. If you don't fight it, you will drift. It'll happen to us. Our hearts are just prone. Remember the hymn we sing? Prone to what? Wonder, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. This is what our hearts have a tendency to do. To just... And we often don't know it's happening, but it's happening. There's a slow drift from God, a slow departure from him.
And Jesus died to give us more to life than that. God wants more for us than that. He wants a lot more for us than that. So I want you to see the second thing in this, the ache. So that's the need for renewal, but I want you to see the ache for renewal, this ache for renewal. The truth is that there are many Christians, and God forbid, maybe even some in this room, that are content with a distant God. If he gets any closer, he might start messing with my life. And I'm okay with the distance.
I'm okay with the substitutes. There are some people who just want to know my sins are forgiven. And I want a happy family life with good conservative Christian values. And I want a good career. And I want a robust retirement. And I want an easy death. And I want to miss hell. And I want just enough of God to help me pull that off.
And there's some people who are okay with that. That's not biblical Christianity. I love how Tim Keller made that distinction, finding God useful and finding God beautiful. And there are some people who are just okay having just enough of God that's sufficient to help me have the life I want. But there's no wonder. There's no love. There's no nearness. There's no spiritual power. There's no fruitful, effective ministry. And that's not the life.
that God wants for us. And one of the greatest tragedies you could encounter is God granting you that kind of life where God is just useful to you. But no nearness, no intimacy. no spiritual vitality and joy, no power, no fruitfulness. What a tragedy. But I believe God's putting more into the hearts of people. And I believe he's putting them.
putting that into the hearts of people at Church of the Cross. I think he's putting so much more. I'm sensing such an appetite and a hunger and an awakening. passion in the hearts of so many of our people. And you can hear the ache in Asaph who wrote this song. His name is Asaph. In verse four, oh Lord, God of hosts, how long? Do you hear the ache in that? How long, O Lord? Asaph's saying, we need a turnaround, God. We need a breakthrough here.
We need renewal. We need revival. We need you to step into our situation and revive us. We want you, God. We need you, God. We want your nearness. We want your presence. We want you to draw. near to us with power. That's the ache he has. This is what God is looking for. Let me give you a spiritual principle. God always responds to hunger. Always. God is drawn like a moth to a flame. He is drawn to spiritual hunger. He's attracted.
to spiritual longing. When he hears things like, oh God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you, my soul thirsts for you, my flesh yearns for you, as in a dry and weary land where there's no water, God responds to that. When the psalmist says, one thing I ask, one thing I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire of him in his temple, God responds to that.
God loves and is drawn to spiritual hunger. He loves holy discontent where you just want more of God. He loves that. Where you just desire more of God. Now listen, there are what we would call the ordinary operations of God's spirit. and extraordinary operations of God's spirit. Here's what I mean by that, that God is always at work in the lives of his people in a million ways.
In small, ordinary, important ways where he's growing us, providing for us, assuring us, nurturing us. But there are times when God intensifies his work. intensifies his presence among his people, where there's an extraordinary sense of God's blessing, an extraordinary sense.
an experience of God's spirit and of his power. And he's looking for people who won't despise the day of small things, who won't despise all the ordinary ways that God's at work in our life, but he's looking for a people who ache for more. who want to see in their day extraordinary operations of the Holy Spirit in their life, in their church, in their community, in the world. And he's looking for that kind of ache.
I planted a church in New York City. There's a guy that planted at the same time we did. His name is John Tyson. John was a good friend and just the hand of God upon that guy. His church is just doing amazingly well in New York City. And one of the things John says is God... comes where he's wanted. He comes where he's wanted. That's that spiritual principle. God always responds to hunger. He comes where he is wanted. So we say, come God.
Take up your home in my heart. Take up your home in my home. Take up your home in my family, in my church, my city, my nation. I have a holy discontent. I want more. Do you have that kind of ache? I love what A.W. Tozer said in his book, The Pursuit of God. He said, complacency is a deadly foe for all spiritual growth. desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to his people. He waits to be wanted. Too bad that with many of us, he waits so long, so long.
very long in vain. He waits to be wanted. What do you want this year? Do you want to go deeper with God, to know more of his presence and his power, his working in your life. Let's not make him wait. I want you to see the third thing, the prayers for renewal. The prayers for renewal. Verse three, notice how this refrain, verse three, restore us, O God. Let your face shine on us that we may be saved. Verse seven, restore us, O God of hosts.
His angelic armies, it's talking about the power of God. Restore us, O God of hosts. Let your face shine that we may be saved. Verse 19, restore us, O Lord God of hosts. Let your face shine that we may be saved. And then he also has, in 14, he's gonna word it a little differently. Turn again, O God of hosts. Look down from heaven and see. Have regard for us. Verse 17. Be honest. Verse 18. Give us life. We'll call upon your name. These are all prayers. These are the people crying out.
And this is how renewal and spiritual renewal, revival always happens. It starts with a feeling of our condition. It's met with an ache for renewal that drives us to pray to God for this kind of renewal. And that refrain... Is their prayer. Now notice some things to note. He says, restore us. Literally translated, turn us again to you. So get the picture. God.
Will you turn us back to you? It's not even a resolve that says we're going to turn ourselves back to you. This is a plea for God to give them a repentant heart. He pleads with God because he knows we don't have it in ourselves. We don't have it in ourselves to do it on our own. We cannot find it in ourselves to turn back to him. It feels too dangerous.
It feels too demanding. I don't know what's on the other side of that turning that he's gonna ask of me, so I don't know if I wanna do that. And so he says, God, you've gotta do that for me. I need you to give me a heart that turns to you. And then notice verse 18, give us life. God, we're numb, we're apathetic, we're uninterested, we're asleep. We can't rouse ourselves.
You must revive us and awaken us and shaken us. And listen, when we don't want renewal and we don't want revival, when our love is chilled, when we become content and stale and apathetic and prayerless, We're worse off than we realize, and this is where we have to start. We need this prayer. God, would you turn my heart? Would you awaken me? Would you shake me? Would you arouse me? Would you just...
Turn me back to you and I'll call on you. I'm gonna ask you this. Are you in a state of spiritual apathy? Listen, there's no condemnation on you for that. We're all gonna find ourselves there. If you're in that place, this is where you start. God, would you turn me to you again? Would you just turn my heart to you? And then he says, let your face shine on us and save us. Notice what he says. Turn us.
to you and then verse 14 turn to us oh god he's basically saying this god we've been living with our backs to one another would you turn us to you And then would you turn to us? And would you let your face just shine on us? We want to see your smiling. You know, you can learn a lot from someone by their countenance. I remember growing up as a child, and I wanted this to be a source of encouragement for some of you parents of a rambunctious child. I was awful.
I was so bad, I would sit in church. And when I started to get to sit with my friends, I just acted up constantly. And I remember being on the back row one time, and my mom heard me in the back. And she turned around and all it took was a look. You know the look? It's a superpower. I've been trying to perfect this as a parent, but I cannot compare to my mom's. It was amazing. She could look at me, just one look at me.
And I could sense her disappointment. I could sense her anger. I could sense fear welling up inside of me, right? I knew what was awaiting me at home. When I was younger, what was awaiting me down in the church basement? She didn't even wait till we got home. I made that trek. I remember in Laverne, Oklahoma, First Baptist Church of Laverne, Oklahoma, first grade, I remember making that trek nearly every Sunday down to the basement to get disciplined for my behavior in church. But that look.
You can learn a lot from someone's countenance, but you can also learn a lot, not just a scowling countenance, but a smiling one. I remember when I asked Ginger to marry me, she was so choked up, she couldn't even say, I will, it just came out, will. I'm like, whoa, who's Will? My name's JR. Have I made a mistake here?
No, I knew the intentions just by her countenance and her expression. You know a lot about something by just seeing the facial expression and the countenance. And here's what they're saying. God, would you look on us with a smiling countenance? We don't want a frown.
We don't want a scowl. We need a smiling countenance. Would you look on us with love and compassion and delight and an intention to bless? God, we've been living with our backs to you. Would you just turn us to you and would you turn to us and would you look upon us and would you have... Would you have compassion on us? We're in despair, God. We've experienced so much loss and so much sorrow, but one look from you can change all of that. That's what they're praying.
Rescue us out of this loss of intimacy, out of this loss of joy, out of this loss of power. Save us from despair and apathy and decline and sorrow. Just look upon us with your smiling countenance, God. And then he says, put your hand on us again. Verse 17, do you notice what he said? Let your hand be on the man of your right hand. He calls Israel his right hand man who's supposed to carry out his purposes in the earth.
And he's saying, God, we don't have the power to carry out your purposes in the earth. You've removed your hand from us. Would you place your hand upon us once more? Would you make us your right hand man one more time? We not only want intimacy with you, we want partnership with you. And would you use us and restore to us your power and empower us to meet the spiritual challenges of our.
That's the prayer. God, would you restore us? Would you turn again to us and let your face shine on us? Would you put your hand on us one more time? That's the prayer. And here's the good news. God is ready to bless. He's ready to answer. He's ready to look on us in that way with compassion and love when we return to him. We know this because of Christ.
Christ is the good shepherd, O shepherd of Israel. Christ is the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep, who loves his sheep and gives himself up for them. We know God will respond to this. to us in this way because Jesus is the good shepherd and Jesus is the good Samaritan who comes to us who've been beaten and wounded and robbed by sin and he pours wine, his blood out.
And he pours his oil, his Holy Spirit out upon us to heal our wounds and to restore us. And he does it at his own expense. We know God's eager to answer this kind of prayer. This is the kind of God we're praying to, a gracious and generous God who's not stingy with his presence. He's not stingy with his power. He's eager to bless a hungry people.
So would you call out to him? Now, let me just end with some application. To you who are Christians, you know Jesus Christ, and particularly to you who are members of Church of the Cross, will you seek this kind of renewal? This year. It's always a remnant. I know that. You know that. It's always a remnant. Will you be part of the remnant who will seek the Lord for this? To say, I want to experience God visiting his people in a special way this year.
I want to experience God visiting my life in a special way this year. I'm ready to rebuild the altar of my heart and the altar of my home and to see the altar of my church. Rebuilt, prepared for the presence of God and an outpouring of his spirit. I'm ready to seek a new sense of God's presence and joy and power in my life. And when God does that, when he visits his people, friends, it's breathtaking.
When you look at the scriptures and through the history of the church, there's this keen awareness of God's presence, a humility before God's presence. There's a delight in the gospel of God's grace and forgiveness. There's a felt sense of security.
In the love of our Father, there's this intensified hunger for the word of God. There's a vibrancy in community. There's a boldness and effectiveness in sharing the gospel. People are swept into the kingdom of God and baptized in the church. It's just a powerful thing. And it all begins with prayers that are born out of an ache for God. I'm asking, would you give yourself to that?
We need to have our desires stoked for that. I was reading about Jeremiah Lanphier in the 1957 Fulton prayer revival that happened in New York City. I don't know if you're familiar with this story, but Jeremiah Lanphier was... A businessman turned missionary in New York City. And in 1857, it was a time of prosperity in our nation. And because everyone was prospering, gold had been discovered out west. All sorts of economic prosperity. God.
had been forgotten and faith was marginalized. This is what prosperity will do. You gotta be careful. God got marginalized and Jeremiah Lampert just began to experience the spiritual decline of his city and his nation. And so he decided to try to gather businessmen together every Wednesday at noon to pray. And so he handed out some ads that he had made. And it said, Wednesday prayer meeting from 12 to one o'clock. Stop five.
10, 20 minutes, or the whole time as your time allows. Just come, stay as long as you can. And the headline in the first section of that handout he gave read this. How often should I pray? As long as the language of prayer is in my heart, as often as I see my need of help, as often as I feel the power of temptation, as often as I'm made sensible of any spiritual declension.
or feel the aggression of a worldly, earthly spirit. In prayer, we lead the business of time for that of eternity, and communion with man for communion with God. And he put up a sign in front of the church on September 23rd, 1857, and no one came to the meeting. So Jeremiah Lanfield prayed by himself for half an hour, and at 1230, he heard footsteps entering the church, and a man joined him.
And as time went on for the rest of that hour, four more men joined him for prayer that day. The next week, 20 men came. The following Wednesday, 40. showed up for this. And Lamphere decided to make the meeting a daily event and find a larger room. And that very week, on Wednesday, October 14th, the nation was staggered by a financial Banks closed, men were out of work, families went hungry, and people were just driven to their knees and brought to a sense of their need for God.
The prayer meetings began to multiply. People were coming to seek the Lord together by February. Five months after that first prayer time, 20 noon meetings were happening throughout the city. By March, every church and community hall were filled to capacity. It began to spread throughout the nation. And then by the summer of 1858, news crossed the Atlantic and churches in Ireland and England began meeting for noonday prayer. God moved powerfully in those meetings.
For a season, they say that 10,000 people came to Christ every week in New York City. It's estimated that over a million people were converted in these prayer meetings. And some of the most violent men. You can imagine we're converted in this meeting.
There are stories that are remarkable of people just showing up at these meetings and hearing people pray and coming under the conviction of the Holy Spirit and converting to Christianity and their lives being changed forever and all throughout the history of the church. When the church intensifies its prayers, God intensifies his presence. He just shows up. That revival in New York City started with a sense of need and carving out time to pray.
and seek the Lord. I'm asking you, will you do that personally this year? Just carve out time every day to spend time with the Lord and to seek him. And I'm asking us to do this corporately. We do prayer and songs every month where we come together and we pray for God to move in power in our church. And I'm inviting you to come to that. But also this February, we are setting a time, a special time, setting aside a special time.
carving out time just to pray and seek the Lord's face. The end of February, we're gonna do 48 hours of prayer. So for 48 hours, around the clock, we're gonna have our student center transformed into a prayer room. And on the hills of that 48 hours of prayer, we're having a three-day conference called Awaken. Sunday night, Monday night, Tuesday night. And then we're gonna have a Wednesday night time of prayer and testimonies. And I wanna encourage you to put that on your calendar.
and say, yeah, I'm gonna join the people of Church of the Cross. We're gonna carve out some time. We've got a special teacher coming in, worship leader coming in, and we're just gonna seek the Lord together. And we're gonna hear in his word, and we're gonna pray together, and we're gonna ask for an outpouring of God's spirit on us.
As a church, would you be a part of this? Would you put it on your calendar and make it a priority to be here? So that's my first application. To us as a church, will we make it a year of seeking the Lord? And here's... My final application is to those of you who are still exploring Jesus. You're still exploring Christianity. My encouragement to you today is to turn to Christ.
Sin has bruised and wounded you and it will lead to eternal sorrow. But Christ has come and he was wounded for you and he poured out his blood for you. to forgive you, to cleanse you, and to heal you. Would you turn to him? Maybe even say to him, give me life and I'll call upon your name. Would you turn to him and be saved? That's the invitation for you today. Let me pray for us.
Father, I'm just so grateful for these markers throughout history of when you did exactly what you promised you would do if people would meet the conditions. Would you give us the grace to meet these conditions? To desire you, to seek you, to not grow weary, to persevere in prayer. and to make it a priority this year, not to seek things from you, but to seek more of you. God, for those who might find themselves in a place of spiritual apathy,
Give them life that they may call upon your name. And for those of us who've been seeking and praying, help us not to grow weary, but to keep seeking, keep asking, keep knocking. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.