Tabernacle Prayer

Hello, church. How are you doing this morning? God bless you. Wow. There's some excitement in the crowd.

That's good. That's good. Thank you for being with us today. If you're new with us, if you'll fill out one of those connection cards right there in your seat, pass it off to Becky over at the First Steps area after the church, we've got a gift for you and we'd love to connect you with anything, any information we have at the church. If you're online with us and this is your first time with us as well, go to saltchurch.

org slash card and fill out that card right there. We are so thankful and we've been praying for you and we're so glad that you're with us today. Amen. Amen. Yeah.

Yeah. Give them a clap to all our guests. Thank you guests for being with us today. Just real quickly before we begin our new series, I'm really super excited about a book of prayers. Um, we don't want to let you know that tomorrow night, six 30, um, we are having a small group training.

Um, it'll last about an hour. We'll have some refreshments and things like that, uh, over at 1701, um, uh, over at the oceanfront. You can sign up right there on your app. In fact, if you haven't downloaded the app, go ahead and download that, the, the, uh, church center app and go to signups and you'll see it right there. Um, anybody who's planning on leading a salt group or hosting a salt group wants to know more about it.

You're not obligated to commit necessarily. It's just an opportunity to, to find out more about what we are and what we're doing, you know, there with salt groups. And we are launching our salt groups September 11th again. And, uh, we, uh, we, uh, we want as many salt groups as possible because we want people connecting with each other outside of just Sunday morning. Amen.

This is where discipleship takes place. This is where, uh, relationships for a lifetime last. So we, we would love for you to be a part of that, um, if you're planning on leading a salt group. Uh, so, uh, well, we are in this new series. I'm super excited.

So the month of August is a time where we kind of focus on prayer a bit more. As we go into the new season, September's coming and, and, uh, fall's coming and people are going back to school and people are going back to work vacations over usually by then. And, uh, but, but during this season, we just want to focus on prayer. You know, prayer is absolutely the, the conduit in which we connect with God. We hear from God.

It inspires, motivates us. It boosts us, if you want to put it that way. There's power in prayer, and prayer is one of the most important things we can do as believers, to connect with Him. And throughout the book called the Bible, right, this Bible we have, there's patterns of prayer. There's patterns of prayer throughout the Bible.

And in every situation, we like to say, you got to pray first. Pray first in every situation, whether you're going to work, whether you're sending that email, whether you're getting ready to give that phone call, whatever you're doing, pray first, pray first. In fact, the theme verse for this series is Ephesians 6, 18. Pray in the Spirit in every situation. Can you get a good amen for that?

Pray in the Spirit in every situation, every time. It is a conduit of light, the light of life, who is Jesus Christ, pouring down into this dark world, amen, and bringing life. There's breath, there's breath of fresh air that comes from prayer. And every one of us should be in prayer, seeking God, connecting with God. So, I know that prayer can be intimidating at times.

I know some of you, if you go back to, if you're churched and you go back to your Sunday school, when your teacher says, okay, who's going to pray today? And everybody slides down in their seats, you know, don't call on me. Or you're in that prayer circle and says, okay, somebody pray for us and everybody's kind of quiet. And don't, don't, don't call on me. Don't call on me.

Because I think prayer can be intimidating. But maybe it's because your prayer life may be too routine. Maybe you're thinking about it too much, right? And maybe switching it up a little bit, doing something a little different, practicing something a little different, might open a world of inspiration to you when you're connecting with God. It might open up the Spirit doing something in your life that maybe, perhaps, you haven't experienced before.

So, we're going to talk about some patterns of prayer throughout the Bible. And I think this is really, today is, in fact, I've thought about not even talking about this today because it's really deep. How many of you are ready to go a little deeper into the patterns of prayer? Amen? I've got a pattern here that's pretty deep and pretty powerful.

But I believe that if you practice this routine of prayer, if you practice this pattern of prayer, it could revolutionize your prayer life. It can connect you to God in ways that you've never experienced before. You can be face-to-face with God. So, we're looking today at tabernacle prayer. We call this tabernacle prayer.

And if you remember, Moses led the people out of Egypt, the Israelites out of Egypt. And they were supposed to just go on, like, maybe a couple of months' journey. And they should have been in the promised land that was promised to them, but it ended up being 40 years and they lived like nomads. They would go from place to place, pop up and break down, set up and break down. So they were basically a mobile church like us, right?

They would set up and break down and the presence of God would go with them. It was a cloud by day and a fire by night. And they were given specific instructions on how to set up this thing called a tabernacle. The tabernacle was a mobile church. It basically means mobile church.

You have the temple that was eventually built where the presence of God dwelled, but they had this tabernacle that was put in place. And God said this in Exodus. He gave specific instructions, exact pattern of how to build this tabernacle. It says this, Have the people of Israel build me a holy sanctuary so I can live among them, and you must build this tabernacle, its furnishings exactly according to the pattern I will show you. So there was an exact pattern, there was an exact specification for all the pieces of furniture that were set in place.

And this was the place where God dwelt. God dwelt in a tabernacle. The good news is that God dwells in us today. Did you know that? That we no longer need a tabernacle for God to dwell because we are the tabernacle of God.

And where we are, the presence of God is. Because we can speak to him face to face. As you see in Exodus 33, 11, Inside the tent of meetings the Lord would speak to Moses face to face as one speaks to a friend. Now I want that for you and I want that for me. Amen?

I want to be able to speak to God. And that is available to us because we have the presence of God. The very spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead lives in us and we are able to connect with him. And he wants to speak with us. And this Old Testament pattern is actually available for us today.

Some of you are like, well that's Old Testament, we're New Testament now. But what did Jesus say? I didn't come to abolish the law of the prophets, right? I've come to fulfill them. He's come to fulfill what was spoken, the types and shadows of the Old Testament.

So we have a pattern we can use today. And I want to show you this pattern as it parallels with the six elements, the six pieces of furniture and the tabernacle. And it teaches us how to pray. It teaches us how to pray. Before the priest and Moses would even go into the Holy of Holies, they had a set pattern that they would have to follow in order to enter into God's presence.

And even petition for the people, petition for Israel. There was a set pattern in which God prescribed for them to walk through. And we're going to parallel that with our prayer lives today. Because here's the deal. You are a royal priesthood.

Did you know that? I know that there's something in these lines. And I know that you've 20nd, 25nd, 25nd, 25th, 25nd, 25nd, 25nd, 25th. second 1 Peter says that, you are a royal priesthood, and you were called to proclaim the God who called you out of darkness into this wonderful light. Amen?

Amen. So we are called, we are a royal priesthood. We are a royal priesthood set apart. So, I'm going to give you a little picture here of the tabernacle, and if you'll pop that on real quick. So we have the tabernacle.

This is kind of a sketch of what maybe the tabernacle looked like. As you can see, there's a tent in the middle, and then you have this fence that was built around the court. We call all that area the outer court. So before they would even enter into the sacrifices or anything that they needed to go through, they would first come into the outer court and give praise and thanks to God. Before they would even enter in, before they would start doing anything, they would give thanks and praise to God.

So you need to give thanks to God. The first thing you should do when you're entering into prayer and tabernacle worship is give God the praise. Just say, thank you, God, for my life. Thank you, God, for everything that you've provided for me. Thank you, God, that you've given me a great family, that you've given me health, and you've given me my job.

Thank you, God. And it's amazing how thanking and gratitude makes our needs seem less small, you know, so small. It makes our needs seem less. Because gratitude does that. There's something special about gratitude as we start to pray.

And we have needs and stuff, and it's important for us to bring those needs to Him. But before we do that, before we even walk into His presence and petition for those needs, we need to just say, God, if you don't do anything else in my life, it's enough. You are enough. And I'm so thankful for all you've done and all you continue to do. I am so thankful and I just give you thanks.

And I don't see God as some cosmic Santa Claus that's just going to give me what I want when I pray. I see Him as a God who has already done all this great stuff in my life. And gratitude is powerful. So we enter His gates with thanksgiving. This is what the psalmist says.

And His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him and praise to His name. Amen? Let's just give praise to His name. We enter His courts with praise.

We walk into His courts with praise. Thank you, Jesus. I thank you, Lord. And then the next step they would take is called the brazen altar. The brazen altar.

As you can see, there is a box with four horns on the side. And this is where they took the lamb and the bulls and made offerings to God. They took it in there. So before they could even enter into the tent, the altar was outside and they would offer a sacrifice for the covering of their sins, blood for the covering of their sins. Something...

had to die. Blood had to be shed in order to enter the Holy of Holies, to enter the court of the Lord, the room of the Lord, the inner place of the Lord. In order to go to that room, to go face to face, you had to walk through that process. Something had to die. Something had to die before you could see God.

Praise God, Jesus Christ is that sacrifice today. So we remember the cross. We come into prayer remembering the cross. The brazen altar focuses on the cross. We say, thank you, Jesus, that you gave your life for my sin, that I no longer have to sacrifice bulls and lambs, that you are the ultimate sacrifice, Lord, and I'm so appreciative.

And what I do is, I just focus on that old rugged cross and all that he went through. And that he paid the price for my sins. And I thank God for the gift of Jesus. And I thank Jesus that he gave his life for me. And I can claim that transforming power.

I can claim that new life that he's given me. I can claim health. I can claim all those things and healing because I know what Jesus has done. And I can pray, God, I thank you so much for giving your life for me. Romans 5, 6 says it like this, when we were utterly helpless, we were utterly helpless.

I love how they say that Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Amen. And you were utterly helpless. We couldn't do it on our own. No self-help could do it.

No doctor can do it. No wisdom of this world could do what Christ did. He saved us. He gave us new life through his sacrifice. And we are covered and we are able to enter the Holy of Holies today.

We are able to be tabernacles of God today because of what Jesus did. And there were four major wounds. There were four major wounds that Jesus went through. And I think it's interesting how this parallels with Isaiah. First of all, he was whipped.

He was whipped. He was beaten. And then he was nailed to the cross. Hands and feet were nailed to the cross. Then thorns were put on his head.

He had thorns on his head. They took a crown of thorns and pressed upon his head. Pain, agony, he witnessed then. And then the spear to the heart. There was a spear that was actually put into his heart.

It crushed his heart. And Isaiah talks about this. Isaiah 53 says, But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was on him.

And by his wounds, we are what? We are healed. Amen. What is a transgression? What is a transgression?

It's when we've gone too far. When we've crossed the line. We've all transgressed. We've gone too far. Well, His hands and feet were nailed to the cross because your hands and feet went too far.

And He bore the pain for your transgressions. What are iniquities? Iniquities are the things in our heart, the things that keep us far from God, the evil of our heart. Our hearts, the Bible says our hearts are evil. They're drawn towards doing the wrong things.

They're drawn towards evil. Amen? I mean, you know that. You experience that, right? But God, in His sovereignty, gave His Son so that our iniquities...

His heart was crushed so that we no longer had to endure the pain of sin in our hearts. He was crushed. His heart was crushed so that you didn't have to endure that, so that you could be healed from that pain in your heart. And then we have the peace. Peace.

The crown that was put on His head. His head, He bore pain on His head so that you didn't have to have pain in your head. That you can actually have peace. Your thoughts can have peace. You can have peace.

And then you don't have to worry about thoughts and anxiety and stress or any of that. And then He says by His wounds or by His stripes, depending on the Bible you're reading, we are healed. We are healed by His wounds. We are healed by His stripes. This isn't just physical healing, people.

This is healing in every part of you. Amen? Every experience you have, every relationship, your emotions, your marriages, your life, and your spiritual way of being as well. He heals us spiritually. He heals us at the fullest level.

The blood was shed for you and me. And when we come into prayer, what do we do? We praise God. We praise, I thank you, God. I thank you for what you've done for me.

And I remember the cross of Jesus Christ. I remember your cross. I remember your blood. I remember the salvation, what you've done for me. And then there's the laver.

Some people pronounce it laver, but it's actually pronounced laver. And it's a cup. And this cup had water in it. And there was a mirror at the bottom of this cup. So they would go in before they could enter into the next room.

They would wash themselves. They would wash themselves clean. And then they would look at themselves and say, Oh man, that's a sinner right there. I need to wash myself up. So they look at themselves.

They assess themselves. They're making sure that they are in alignment with God. That there's no part of their life that is off. The laver is offering every part of our life to God. That's what it means.

That's what it symbolizes. In our prayer life, what do we do? We offer every part of our lives to God. God, is there anything in my life, God, that's off? Is there anything in my life, Lord?

Forgive me of any sin that I may have come in contact with. Done the place. As I've gone, or if I'm wandering off in some area, God, pull me back in. Pull me back in, Lord. I want to be aligned with you.

If there's any area of your life, assessing your life, looking at yourself as you look in a mirror, is there anything in my life that needs to be adjusted, that needs to be cut out, that needs to be brought in, to get me back where I am to be with Christ? We've got to fully surrender ourselves in our prayer. Fully surrender ourselves. I'm preaching to myself here today, I think. I just want to fully surrender myself today.

In fact, in the Old Testament, it was so important that they were fully consecrated, fully surrendered, and had no sin, that they would actually tie ropes to the priest and send them in, right? And if they came into the presence of God and died in the process, a bell would ring, and they would pull them out so they wouldn't die as well. That's how serious that was. God is so holy, and God is so righteous. We want to make sure.

We need to take that seriously. Seriously, as we enter in the presence of God and petition for our people, petition for our families, petition for our needs and for others, we should take that seriously. And you know what I do? And I've started praying this over myself. As I go into this phase of my prayer time, I say, God, I pray over my eyes that I don't look at anyone lustfully, but I only look to others that need you, Lord, those that need help.

I only look to you. I want to see through your eyes. Help me, Lord. I consecrate my eyes today. I consecrate my ears, Lord, to be able to hear your voice.

I want to hear your voice, God. Don't let me tune in to the things of this world, all the noise out there. I want to tune in to you. I consecrate my ears. I consecrate my mouth.

And this is really important because I'm a communicator. And there's power in the tongue, right? Life and death. In fact, the Bible says there's life and death in the tongue. And God can use what you're good at and pervert it for evil.

Amen? You might have a gift. He can use that and pervert it. But I tell God, you know, I want to speak life into people. I want to speak positive things.

I don't want to bring people down. I want to build people up. I give my mouth to you. I give my hands. I give my feet to you.

Where I go, I want to walk in your way. I want to do what you've called me to do. I want to stay on the path towards you. And I go down and down and down. And then I talk about my thoughts.

I surrender my thoughts, my mind to you today. That no evil thought will come into play. Thoughts are the place, the battleground. And I deal with thoughts. You deal with thoughts.

This is where the devil likes to work. This is where devils like to play with you and take you out or away from misalign you with God. I want to pray for good thoughts, for that which is good. And that which is God. And keeping my thoughts on God and who He is.

And I pray that. Romans 12 says it like this, Therefore I urge you brothers, in the view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices. That basically, He doesn't want dead animals anymore, He wants you. He wants you. You are a living sacrifice.

All He wants is you. And it says this, Holy and pleasing to God, this is your spiritual act of worship. It's worship. As we come in and we pray, we consecrate our lives. If there's any sin, if there's anything off, Lord, I realign my life to connect with you.

And then you move further into the tent. And you come to what we're all probably familiar with, if you've had any association with Jewish faith, faith is the candles. You have this candle. There are seven prong candles. And they would walk into a dark room and this candle would be there lit.

And they would keep it lit 24-7. This represents the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit. When we come into our prayer life and we walk into that part, we have to ask the Holy Spirit to give us wisdom. To give us that you, Lord, consume me, Holy Spirit.

Take over, Holy Spirit. I need wisdom. I need knowledge. I need understanding. Direct me, Lord.

Anoint me. Give me fire. Give me power. Plug me in. Plug me into your Spirit, Lord.

In fact, some of you here probably need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Amen? That's a message for another day. You need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. You need power.

You need anointing in your life. He can take a simple gift and make it powerful because you need the Holy Spirit. We ask the Holy Spirit. We invite the Holy Spirit in to emphasize and demonstrate His power through our gifts and through our personalities and through who we are. He takes something normal and makes it supernatural by His Spirit.

2 Timothy says it like this, This is why I remind you to fan into flames the spiritual gifts God gave you when I laid my hands on you. Paul reminds them of that. Fan the flames of your gifts. The Spirit. You need the Spirit in your life.

You need that breath of fresh air in your life. The Spirit that's calling. For God hasn't given us a spirit of fear, right? He's given us a spirit of love, of power, of self-discipline. And we want that.

Amen? We want that. No fear. Amen? That's not the Spirit we want.

We want a power, love, and a sound mind. Amen? We need that. We need that in our lives. There's a lot of fear in the world today.

You don't need to be fearful. The Holy Spirit is with you. He's in you. The power that raised Jesus from the dead. He's a person and He is God.

Amen. And he lives inside of you. And you can tap into that anytime. So, I pray, Holy Spirit, help me. Help me.

Help me in every way. Help me be a better father. Help me to be a better husband, Holy Spirit. Help me be a better pastor. Help me be a better leader, Lord.

In every area of my life, Lord, I cannot go without you, Spirit. I need you, Holy Spirit, in my life. And then the next piece, which is just a little further over, is a table. And it had twelve freshly baked pieces of bread. Now, have you ever walked into a room with fresh baked bread?

Smells good, doesn't it? Amen? Are y'all bread people in here? I love bread, man. Put some honey butter on that bread.

Walk into the Texas Roadhouse or something like that, and you smell that bread in there. You smell it when you walk in the door, don't you? It's great, man. Well, this is representative of God's Word. The bread of life.

Jesus, the living Word. The Word become flesh and dwelt among us. And we have the Word of God. And we have everything that we need. And we need to be eating, partaking, grabbing the nutrition from the bread of life, which is the Word of God in Jesus Christ.

And we need the Word. So what I do is I enter into a time where I just go to the Word and I begin to read and I begin to pray as I read. Because Jesus answered Satan this way. Man cannot live by bread alone, but every word that comes out of the Father's mouth. Every word that comes out from the Father's mouth.

We need that. We have the Father's voice right here in the Bible. I know this is an iPad. This is my Bible, though, for today. We have everything we need.

Every promise. We need to claim the promises of God. Amen? We need to look in the Bible and see that God has our back. He has everything that we need.

He gives us instruction. He gives us correction. He realigns us. He gives us hope. He gives us peace.

He gives us joy. And it's all right here in the Word of God. Every answer that we need in life, whether we're on the mountain or down in the valley, we need God's voice. And I'm going to give and live my life according to the Word of God and not culture. Culture has no place in my life.

The Word of God is where I'm directed and where I'm going. And I'm going to live by the Word of God. We need to live by the Word of God. And then we walk into this next part. It's the altar of incense.

The altar of incense. And it was a smaller box, much like the brazen altar where you made the sacrifices outside. Now you have incense. And you all know incense is a smell. You know, they would light the incense and smell.

That's worship. That's worship to God. Now did you know the . . The Bible actually says that when we worship Him, when we worship Him, it's a fragrance that goes up to heaven.

Like, God smells it and God enjoys it when we worship. He dances over us, did you know that? When we worship Him, He dances over us. It brings joy to Him when we worship Him. At the beginning, we talk about praising Him, but there's a difference between praise and worship.

Praise is, I thank you for what you've done, but worship is, I worship you because of who you are. Because of your name, you are holy, you are righteous, you are king, you are over all, you've created everything. And everything trembles before you, Lord. You are the ruler of all things. And there's something about someone's name, right?

There's something about a name, it defines a person, it makes a person who they are. And we're looking to God and we're like, God, wow, how glorious are you? You are so good. And you are so faithful. And you are so powerful.

And you know all things. And you are our provider. And you are our protector. And in fact, it says this in Psalm 95, Come, let us bow down in worship. Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker, right?

For He is our God and we are His people of His pasture, the flock under His care. We are under His care and we have a powerful God that we align ourselves under, amen? The authority of God on this earth, Lord. We don't have anything to be afraid of. We have nothing to fear because we have a God that's so powerful.

We worship Him, amen? A person is, there's worth in a person's name. There's worth in a person's name. I just think about my daughter. She's kind of, she's an encourager.

Even at her age, she comes in and she says the sweetest things and the nicest things. And one day I came in and she's sitting over in the chair and she just looks over at me and says, Daddy, you're a good daddy and you're a good pastor. I mean, it just came out of the blue and it just warmed my heart and made me feel good because she was speaking to me. She was, she put a name on me. When she sees me, she sees a good pastor and a good dad.

And I represent a good dad. And that's how God feels. It just warmed my heart. God feels the same way when we talk of Him and His name and who He is and how powerful He is and how glorious He is and how much we love Him. There's something in a name because the name of the Lord is a strong tower.

The righteous run to it and are safe. Amen. They run to it and are safe. So I just, I just call out the name of God. I just, I call Him for everything He is.

And there's this powerful scripture in Psalm 97. And I quote this in my prayer time. I don't have this up on the screen, but it says this, The Lord reigns. Let the earth be glad. Let the distant shores rejoice.

Clouds and thick darkness surround Him. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne. Fire goes before Him and consumes all His foes from every side. His lightning lights up the world and the earth sees and trembles. The mountains melt like wax before the Lord, before the Lord of all the earth.

The heavens proclaim His righteousness and all the people see His glory. All who worship images are put to shame. And all who boast about their gods, they're no good. Zion hears and rejoices and the villages of Judah are glad because of Your judgment, Lord. For You, Lord, are the most high over all the earth.

You are exalted above all gods. Can you all proclaim that? You are exalted above all gods of all things. Let those who love the Lord hate evil, for He guards the lives of His faithful ones and delivers them from the hands of the wicked. Light shines on the righteous and joy on the upright in heart.

Rejoice in the Lord, you who are righteous and praise His holy name. How powerful is that? Worship. Worship His name like the psalmist did. How powerful He is.

We worship Him. We worship Him. So, we give Him praise. We praise His name. We remember the cross.

Thank You for my sins, Lord. Thank You for forgiving my sins. Forgiving me of my sins, Lord. Thank You, God. And we walk in and we ask God to, we consecrate our lives again.

Reveal any sin in my life. Reveal anything that's not there, Lord. Lord, make me completely Yours. I consecrate my life to You once again. I invite the Holy Spirit in, the Spirit of the living God.

Fall fresh on me. Guide my prayer. Guide my wisdom. Guide my life. I need You, Spirit.

And I walk into the Spirit. And then I invite the Word of God to speak to my life. I invite the Word of God to speak to me. And then I worship Him. I worship Him.

And then we get to the part that we all want to be. Because Moses spoke face to face with God. And you can speak face to face with God today because of what Jesus did. You can speak face to face to God. You can enter His presence.

Enter His presence. Enter the room of the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant. It was a representation of a box, if you'll show it here on the screen.

It was a box that had three elements in it. And I'll save that for another time to explain those. But it had the rod of Aaron in it. It had the rod of Aaron in it. The Ten Commandments in it, and manna from heaven in it, and the presence of God would come in and dwell in this area.

And there was two angel wings, or angels, serapin, that the wings touched together. And in the middle of that was the mercy seat of Christ, or mercy seat of God that is. The mercy seat, which represents Christ's blood. Amen? That they would take the sacrifice, and they'd pour it on the mercy seat.

Because we're coming into His presence, and we're petitioning Him. Lord, have mercy on our people. Have mercy, Lord. And Jesus is interceding by the Father as we're crying out to Jesus today. We are intercessors.

The church is intercessors for the world today. Amen? So, as we walk in, we begin to pray. And what I pray, I beg God for your lives. I beg God for your marriages.

I beg God for your health, and your families, and everything. I beg God for those. And I'm petitioning and seeking, and I'm intercessing, God, for our city. I'm intercessing for the things that are going on in our world. We're coming into the Holy Holies petitioning as Moses petitioned for his people.

In fact, it says this in 1 Timothy 2, 1 and 2. I urge then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving be made for all people, for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. We're petitioning. The church is an intercessor for this world. Did you know that?

When we're not here, the Holy Spirit is not here. Because we are temples of the Holy Spirit. And we are now the tabernacle that sits in the middle of a world, the church. And we are interceding on behalf of the people. We're interceding on behalf of those who are far from God.

We're interceding on behalf of governments. We're interceding on behalf of countries. We're interceders. We're praying, and we're seeking God for intercession. Intercession.

We submit even to, and what I do is, as I pray, I begin to pray for our governor. I pray for our city. I pray for our president. Some of you are like, I don't want to pray for my president. Okay?

You need to pray for your president. Because you need to pray for the authorities that are over you. You need to pray that God gives them wisdom and God gives them direction. You need to pray for your country. We pray for, and that's what I do.

I pray for them as I pray for you. And I pray for our church. And I pray for those that are lost. Those that are away from God. I pray.

I pray. And I pray for our overseers. Those who are over us. That watch over our church. In fact...

Right now, one of our overseers, Bishop Dayton Burt, has been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, and it doesn't look good for him. And I have a tag on my arm here, a bracelet on my arm that reminds me to intercede for him, to pray for him, that God would heal him, that God would protect him, that God would give him life in such a dark season. I pray for those who God has placed under me. I pray for you. I pray and intercede.

Thanksgiving made for all the people. So, if you don't understand anything else about Jewish traditions and Jewish customs, that's okay. There's a lot there. You can understand these seven elements and walking through these seven places in order to reach God. We call it Tabernacle Prayer.

And we can do that right now. We can practice that now. I just want to, like, pray over our church, and I want to pray a Tabernacle Prayer over our church right now. And you can just join in. It's really simple.

It's really easy once you get these elements. You just come in, and if y'all would just lean in, close your eyes, and just begin to pray. Just begin to pray, Father. Father, we give you Thanksgiving. We give you Thanksgiving.

Thank you, God, for all you've done. Thank you for what you're going to do. Thank you, God, for giving me life, for giving me strength, for giving me people in my life, for my family and for all that you've blessed me with, my job and my opportunities, Lord. If nothing else is given to me, you are enough. You are enough.

And, Lord, I remember your sacrifice. Jesus, I remember your sacrifice. I remember what you did on the cross. Thank you, God, for saving me from my sin because I was utterly helpless without you. And I consecrate my life to you, Lord.

I align my life with you once again. I want to be a living sacrifice, Lord. So every area of my life, every area that might be off to the side, maybe straying out, Lord, bring it back in. I bring it back in. Every part of my life.

I don't give you just part. I give you all of it. I consecrate myself fully to you. And, Holy Spirit, I need your guidance. Holy Spirit, come.

Holy Spirit, come. Holy Spirit, just come in right now. Invade our environment right now, Lord Jesus. Come in and give us direction. Give us wisdom and give us counsel, Lord.

And flame the fire of our gifts. Flame the fire of our hearts once again. If we've lost that flame, Lord, flame the fire of our hearts once again, Lord. And, God, thank you for your word that we know who you are. We know what you're doing.

And we have promises that we can hold on to, Lord Jesus. We can see where you're going. We know the end result, Lord. And as we walk this life in times of uncertainty, Lord, we have a word that tells us that you are with us. And that there is an end goal.

And that you're not a mistake. And that you have purpose. And that you have life waiting for you. That right now you can live a life of purpose. Thank you for the word.

And God, I worship you for who you are. Because you are the God of all gods. There's no other God. Everything will one day bow before you. And we worship you, Lord.

We worship you. And Lord, I pray for the people today. I pray for everybody here today. In the name of Jesus. That might be going through trials.

That might be going through heartache. That might be without. And they're searching. And the economy's bad. And they don't know where they're going to be tomorrow, Lord.

I pray for them. And I petition for them, Lord. That you would provide all their needs, God. That you would make their marriages healthy. That you would make their families healthy.

I'm petitioning for their children. Those who may have gone wayward and astray, Lord. I'm petitioning for those, God. Those who are lost. And those who are far from you.

Those who are strayed away from you. All the sheep, Lord. Lord, we're calling out, Lord. We're calling out for them. We're interceding, Lord.

We pray for our nation. We pray for our leaders. We pray for our world, God. We pray. We pray.

We pray in the name of Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Because there is no other name. There is no other name.

There is no other name. Jesus. In that same spirit of prayer. Perhaps there is somebody here today. With all heads bowed and all eyes closed.

Maybe you've never given your life. Or never given your heart. Or maybe you don't have a relationship with Jesus. Because it's not about bulls and lambs. And processes anymore.

You can have a relationship with him right now. He can be your friend. And you're probably pulled towards him right now. You're like, what's going on? That's the Holy Spirit working in your hearts.

And drawing you to him. Today you can give your life to him. And you will not go without. He's promised that. He'll give you everything that you need.

He'll fulfill your life and give you purpose. If you just pray this with me. Father, forgive me of my sin. Thank you for dying on the cross. Come into my heart.

Come into my life. Amen. Amen. Make me a new creation. Make me a new person.

I praise your name and I no longer walk one way. I walk your way, Lord. I no longer walk the opposite way. I walk towards you. I surrender and there's no turning back now.

No turning back. I'm all yours. I'm all yours. In the name of Jesus. Amen.