We're going to read from the Bible, from the book of Daniel, chapter 10, verses 1 to 21.
The word of the Lord.
In the third year of Cyrus, king of Persia, a word was revealed to Daniel, who was named Belteshazzar.
And the word was true, and it was a great conflict.
And he understood the word and had an understanding of the vision.
In those days, I, Daniel, was mourning for three weeks.
I ate no delicacies, no meat or wine entered my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all for the full three weeks.
On the 24th day of the first month, as I was standing on the bank of the great river, that is, the Tigris,
I lifted up my eyes and looked.
And behold, a man clothed in linen with a belt of fine gold from Uthaz round his waist.
His body was like beryl, his face like the appearance of lightning, his eyes like flaming torches,
his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and the sound of his words like the sound of a multitude.
And I, Daniel, alone saw the vision.
For the men who were with me did not see the vision.
But a great trembling fell upon them, and they fled to hide themselves.
So I was left alone, and I saw this great vision, and no strength was left in me.
My radiant appearance was fearfully changed, and I retained no strength.
Then I heard the sound of his words, and as I heard the sound of his words, I fell on my face in deep sleep,
with my face to the ground.
And behold, a hand touched me, and set me trembling on my hands and knees.
And he said to me,
O Daniel, man greatly loved, understand the words that I speak to you,
and stand upright, for now I have been sent to you.
And when he had spoken this word to me, I stood up trembling.
Then he said to me,
Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand,
and humbled yourself before God,
your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words.
The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me 21 days,
but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me,
for I was left there with the kings of Persia,
and came to make you understand what is to happen to your people in the latter days.
For the vision is for days yet to come.
When he had spoken to me according to these words,
I turned my face towards the ground and was mute.
And behold, one in the likeness of the children of man touched my lips.
Then I opened my mouth and spoke.
And I said to him who stood before me,
O my Lord, by reason of the vision,
pains have come upon me, and I retain no strength.
How can my Lord's servant talk with my Lord?
For now no strength remains in me, and no breath is left in me.
Again, one having the appearance of a man touched me and strengthened me.
And he said, O man greatly loved, fear not, peace be with you.
Be strong and of good courage.
And as he spoke to me, I was strengthened and said,
Let my Lord speak, for you have strengthened me.
Then he said, Do you not know that I have come to you?
Do you know why I have come to you?
But now I will return to fight against the prince of Persia.
And when I go out, behold, the prince of Greece will come.
But I will tell you what is inscribed in the book of truth.
There is none who contends by my side against these except Michael, your prince.
This is God's holy word.
We'll take two weeks to finish our series on Daniel from last semester.
And then we'll start a new series on the book of James for the coming semester.
And so we need a refresher review, or maybe you've not been here at all for Daniel.
So what happened in the book of Daniel is that the king of Babylon, King Nebuchadnezzar,
went to Jerusalem in 605 BC, and he conquered Jerusalem.
And he sought to destroy the people of God, their religion, their way of life, their culture.
He wanted to turn them into polytheists and to Babylonize them, we might say.
He didn't do it primarily by violence, only partially.
He wanted to assimilate them and make them into Babylonians, into polytheists.
So chapter 1 to 6 is these stories of Daniel and his friends and what it means to be faithful.
When you've been taken into exile, when you've been taken into a place,
you live in a city where your faith, belief in the Lord is irrelevant to most people,
or thought to be silly, or traditionalistic, or fundamentalist, or even dangerous.
And so the question in the book of Daniel is, how do you live faithfully
in a place where most people disregard your faith, your belief in the Lord, in the midst of exile?
And so we've seen these principles throughout the book of Daniel.
Daniel teaches us what to do.
He's such an example to live with conviction without compromise in the midst of exile,
to live in a place where you are not separate from the city.
You are in the world, but you're not of it at the same time.
So to reject the idols of Babylon or the idols of the city of Edinburgh,
but at the same time to be for the city.
The nuance of Jeremiah 29, this letter that God wrote to the exiles, He said,
pray for Babylon, live in Babylon, seek the peace of the city.
It's in our philosophy of ministry, our vision statement,
that we're to be in the world, but not of it, for the city,
seeking its true peace, its shalom.
And that's what the book of Daniel is all about.
The back half of Daniel, 7 to 12, are four visions that Daniel sees.
They're apocalyptic visions, that famous word.
And apocalyptic visions are prophecies.
They're highly imagistic.
They're shocking.
And they really are, and a way to think about them is,
they are comfort food for the ancient Near Eastern person.
So they are there for when you are in the midst of exile,
under oppression, under a yoke, in a place where nobody believes what you believe in.
These shocking visions are actually comfort, comfort food to say,
the true God, the God you worship really is the Lord of history.
And you need to trust that while you're there.
And so that's the section we're in, the back half, these apocalyptic visions.
This is the fourth vision, the final vision.
And it's three chapters long, chapter 10 to 12.
So we'll just look at chapter 10 today, and then 11 and 12 next week.
And this is really the prologue of the vision, chapter 10.
So verse 1 says, the third year, we're in the third year of King Cyrus.
That's 536 BC.
And the question in the book of Daniel has been, again,
how do you live by faith in the midst of exile?
In a place where your faith, most people think of your faith as irrelevant.
That's the overarching question.
The question of chapter 10 is a little more specific within that.
What is it that prompts this vision?
And the question I think we could say is something like this.
What do I do?
What do we do?
When we have been faithful, when we have prayed, when we have sought the peace of Babylon,
the peace of Edinburgh, and we've not seen ministry fruit,
we've not seen ministry success like we longed for,
that's really the question that prompts this vision.
And so let's look at that, the problem here, that problem.
Faithfulness, yet not seeing ministry success, ministry fruit,
and then the three things God gives us answers really to that problem.
So first, the problem.
Now in verse 2, if you look down with me, Daniel is mourning.
He says, I, Daniel, was mourning for three weeks.
He says, I ate no delicacies.
So he ate for three weeks, 21 days, no good food, no meat, no wine,
nor did I anoint myself.
The text says, nor did I put lotion on.
So for 21 days, dry skin and dry heat, that's what he's saying.
He's fasting and he's mourning, we're told here.
Now, what's so striking about this is that when you read between the lines a little bit,
he says that the vision came to him on the 24th day of the first month of the year,
in verse 3, 4.
And that month in their calendar is the month of Nisan, or Nisan, we Americans say.
Nisan, the first month of the calendar.
And if you know maybe a little bit about the Torah, the book of Leviticus especially,
you'll know that in the middle of that first month is the feast of Passover.
And so this is the month of Passover.
And it really is a violation of the law to be fasting at Passover.
It's like fasting on New Year's Eve, violation of all norms.
And yet he is, he's mourning.
Why?
The month of Passover, a month of great celebration in the Hebrew calendar,
a month where you're celebrating the ministry success,
the ministry fruit of redemption from Egypt, from the slavery in Egypt.
And Daniel here is mourning instead.
Why?
And again, you have to know a bit of the context in history,
read between the lines a little bit.
But we know that this is the third year of the reign of Cyrus.
And in the first year of the reign of Cyrus,
Cyrus, the king of Persia who conquered Babylon,
let the Jews, the Israelites in Babylon,
go back to the land of Jerusalem, Israel, to rebuild.
So that 70-year prophecy that Daniel had prayed about in chapter 9
has come about, Cyrus, this king, this pagan king,
has let the people go back to restore the temple in Jerusalem.
Yet, remember Daniel is head of state.
He gets all the letters from the governors all around the Babylonian Empire,
the Persian Empire now.
So he has read the notices,
and he knows that for the past three years,
the project of restoration in Jerusalem has been terrible, awful.
It has not gone well.
The temple is not rebuilt.
The walls are not rebuilt.
And you can read about that in the book of Ezra.
Ezra chapter 4 says that really from the first day
of this great hope of rebuilding the temple,
enemies were opposing it,
both inside the Israelite,
in the nation of Israel,
and foreign enemies as well.
And that even one of the real reasons I think he's mourning
is because really the people of God back in Jerusalem
just are not doing what they're supposed to do,
what God has told them to do.
They lack courage.
They don't have the faithfulness and the strength
that Daniel and his friends had,
that Esther has,
that Ruth has in the midst of exile.
And instead, what we really see is in Ezra,
the people of God have Babylonian hearts back in Jerusalem.
And Daniel has heard about it.
And so he's here in the month of Passover,
the month where you're supposed to celebrate redemption.
And he's mourning because there is no restoration.
There is no redemption.
And so really you can see here that he's mourning
a lack of ministry fruit.
He has lived his entire life with faithfulness
to see the restoration of the temple in Jerusalem.
And he thought the prophecy of Jeremiah,
the 70 years would finally bring it about.
And it hasn't.
And now a deeper level, he's probably,
he's at least 85 years old at this point.
And he's probably thinking,
I'm going to die and never see the ministry
that I lived for come about.
And that's, he's weak.
He's confused.
He's exhausted.
Did God's promises fail in all this?
Now, what about us?
I think that we can see where he is,
believer in the room.
Probably the most obvious place
is when you have prayed for someone,
you've longed for someone to come
and see the truth about Jesus
and to follow him or to return,
to come home again to the faith
for years, for a long time,
and it's not happened.
And maybe even beyond an individual,
you've prayed for a movement of the gospel.
That's in our philosophy of ministry as well.
A movement of the gospel.
In a community, in the city, in the nation,
you've prayed for revival
and it's not come.
And you're saying the same,
you're thinking the same things,
a state of mourning and grief over that.
Secondly, three answers God gives
to this problem.
A lack of ministry fruit.
In the midst of faithfulness,
in the midst of prayer,
in the midst of longing for it.
Number one,
the first is through Daniel's example.
So Daniel, part of the reason Daniel's mourning
is he's provoked by the people of God
not doing what the people of God
are supposed to be doing back in Jerusalem.
And we have the same experiences
where we look in our lives out
and we see the people of God,
churches, whole denominations,
not doing what they're supposed to be doing.
Not doing what God has called us, them to do.
And of course, we not only see it
in local churches and denominations,
but we can look back and say,
hey, I see it in my own life as well.
That there are seasons where I look up
and realize I'm not doing
what God has called me to do in life.
And so this could be hypocrisy,
passivity,
sitting on hands,
bearing our ministry treasures,
as the New Testament puts it,
succumbing to fear,
not having ministry boldness and courage,
changing core doctrines more substantially,
disregarding the truth of the Bible
more substantially,
not caring for one another pastorally,
secret sins that are blocking
the successes of ministry,
ignoring the ethics of the Bible
in huge ways.
And the list could go on and on, right?
So what do you do
when you see hypocrisy,
let's say hypocrisy,
and so many other things
in the lives of churches,
denominations,
even in our own lives,
we see it in our hearts personally as well.
And a lot of the answers today
is we,
some of us,
generically,
we will maybe deconstruct.
We'll say,
well, there must be a different version
of the faith that I need.
That was the fundamentalism.
I need something more progressive than this.
Or we'll respond with anger and bitterness.
Or we might respond with passivity,
just continuing to kind of just not care
and be okay with that.
How does Daniel,
the first answer we get here,
what do you do
with the lack of ministry success,
especially when it's because God's people
aren't doing what God has called them to do?
The first thing we see is Daniel,
he doesn't deconstruct.
He grieves to God
with lengthy,
extended seasons of prayer.
So here Daniel fasts
and he prays for three weeks.
Have you ever entered into a season
of extended prayer and fasting
because of a ministry burden,
because of something you long to see God do
that hasn't yet happened?
And boy, can we say in 2026,
I want to want to fast and pray
because of a ministry burden,
because of fruit that I haven't yet seen
that I long for God to do.
And in verse 12,
this messenger,
we'll come back to the messenger in a moment,
comes to Daniel and says,
from the first day
that you set your heart
to understand,
to pray through prayer,
you humbled yourself.
Your words have been heard.
So for three weeks,
he thinks I'm not being heard.
Nothing's happening.
But this messenger comes and says,
from the very first moment,
you started fasting and praying
for this ministry burden you have,
this person,
this people group,
this hope of redemption
that's yet unseen.
You have been heard.
Your prayers have been heard
the entire time.
And notice Daniel,
how Daniel comes.
He's the way the messenger speaks.
It's saying Daniel knew
he did not understand.
He said,
Lord, I don't understand
why the temple's not being rebuilt.
He didn't understand.
So he humbled himself
with a season of prayer and fasting.
He didn't turn bitter.
He didn't turn silent.
He wasn't passive.
He didn't deconstruct.
Do you pray your griefs to God
for seasons
because of unresolved hopes,
not yet seen redemptions
in people's lives that you long for,
for revival that hasn't yet come,
for ministry that you want to see this year
that you don't yet see?
That is the ministry.
That is the ministry,
the prayer,
the fasting,
the pleading with God for long seasons.
That's the ministry.
I was working over the holiday
on 2026 goals,
looking at the calendar,
both for the church,
praying through some goals
I longed to see here at the church
and also personally for me.
And I'm sure lots of people of us
will have done something like that
over the break.
And one of the things I noticed this week
as I was studying
and thinking back through Daniel
up to this point
is Daniel was a great,
he was a man of prayer.
He was a great prayer,
prayer-er, we might say.
And we, I'm sure with me,
many of us in this room,
men and women,
we could say,
boy, I want to be a man
or a woman of prayer this year
in a way that I wasn't in 2025.
That's the first answer God gives.
That's the ministry.
Secondly, secondly,
what does God say to us here?
He says to us through this messenger
that we need a deep sense of modesty.
He teaches us modesty.
All right, so the second thing is
he shows us how little we see.
So in verse 13,
this messenger speaks and says,
the prince of Persia,
the prince of the kingdom of Persia
has withstood me 21 days,
but Michael came to help me.
Now here what's happening is
God is,
the messenger is pulling back the curtain
and notice how many days
this prince of Persia
withstood,
contended with the messenger.
21 days.
How long did Daniel enter
into prayer and fasting?
Three weeks,
21 days.
You see,
what's happening is that
the messenger is saying
that from the moment
you started praying,
battling in prayer
for ministry fruit,
behind the curtain,
there was spiritual warfare
directly contending
with your prayer life.
So who is this prince of Persia?
We know that in a moment
he calls Michael a prince.
He calls Gabriel in this book
a prince.
These are not earthly princes,
sons of kings.
It's a word that's being used
to describe angelic beings.
And here,
the prince of Persia
is an evil,
what we will later call
in the New Testament,
a demon,
a demonic force,
an evil spiritual being
that has been withstanding
Daniel's prayers
before God for 21 days.
You can think of Satan
before Job
and the book of Job
doing the same thing.
And so here we have
this curtain being pulled back
and we learn,
if you pull out the book
of Deuteronomy,
Deuteronomy 32
teaches us this really clearly
that behind these ministry battles
and national battles
and political battles
in the earthly visible realm,
there are spiritual battles
behind the curtain
that correspond,
that are in parallel.
Now,
the modern Western mind today,
even as believers,
our modern Western minds
can push back so much
against this,
that there is this realm
behind the curtain,
that it's medieval,
it's superstitious.
And you may be here today
thinking,
indeed,
it is medieval
and superstitious.
And let me take 45 seconds
to ask you today
to doubt your doubts,
to doubt your doubt.
And to say just simply this,
the modern Western assumption
that the spiritual realm
does not exist
is a tiny outlier
in all of human history.
You are the 0.1%
if you don't believe
in the spiritual realm
in all of human history.
And that's not proof,
but it's important,
I think,
to contend with
and to recognize.
Look,
if you're a theist at all today,
if you believe in God
at all today,
why would it not
also make sense
that there are spiritual beings
in a realm
that we cannot see
behind the curtain?
And if so,
does it not make
so much sense of the world
to believe
in these great entities,
these evil entities
that we can,
we learn in the Old Testament,
get a grip
on an entire nation,
an entire people group?
Have we seen
in our history
entire people groups,
nations controlled,
cultures controlled
by ideologies
that seem deeply evil?
And we say,
how did this happen?
You see,
believing
in the prince of Persia,
the prince of Greece,
evil spiritual beings
that contend
with God's purposes
makes so much
more sense of life.
Disbelieving in them
makes life
very hard to understand.
It makes things
very difficult to understand.
And so here,
we learn that there is
a prince of Persia,
an evil spirit
that has been contending
with Daniel's purposes
before God
for three weeks.
Now,
why is this relevant
for the question?
What about a lack
of ministry fruit,
a lack of ministry success?
So what?
So what for Daniel?
So what for us?
And here it is.
Daniel has been saying,
will I die
without seeing
the redemption,
the temple restored
in the land of Jerusalem?
Will my ministry
hopes be dashed?
And this second answer
is something like this.
And this is for all of us today.
There are forces
at work
in realms
you cannot see,
battles being fought
that you are not
equipped to fight.
Resistance to God's purposes
that God himself
is sovereignly addressing.
He is in control
and there is resistance.
And he is sovereignly
addressing these things.
And we can't control that.
We don't have the power.
Our shoulders
aren't big enough.
But God's are.
And so he's telling Daniel here,
look, you can,
what a relief.
You are not in control
of so many of the battles.
You can't contend
with these beings
and prayer is part
of the battle.
So you're not,
you don't have to worry
about that burden,
yet you have agency
in the midst of the fight.
Prayer is the battle.
Fasting is the battle,
he's saying,
in the midst
of the spiritual realm.
Well, we don't understand
the river,
the great tigress
of history
like God does.
But he's saying,
you have agency
in the battle.
That's the second answer.
And then finally,
the most important of all,
the most important answer
of all as we finish,
what does God give us
when we are experiencing
the grief
of a lack
of ministry fruit
in a city
where we have
tried to be faithful?
A better way
to ask that question,
who does God give us
when we are experiencing
a lack of ministry fruit?
And the answer
comes to us finally
in the question,
who is this messenger?
Who is this one
that appears
at the bank
of the Tigris River
and shows up to Daniel?
Now, just for a moment,
if you have a Bible,
especially look with me
at verse five and six
and we'll slow down
for just a second
and try to imagine
what Daniel sees.
He says,
I lifted up my eyes
and I looked
and behold a man.
He sees a man,
a man clothed in linen.
That's the clothing
of a priest
with a belt of gold,
a sash of gold.
That's what a priest
would wear.
And his body
was like beryl.
Beryl is a beautiful gemstone
that can come
in lots of different colors.
So he's beautiful.
He shines.
He has an effulgence,
a radiance about him.
And his face
is like lightning
and his eyes
are like flaming torches.
His arms,
burnish bronze.
There's a purity
to burnish bronze.
There's a purity
to the appearance
of this one,
this man.
And the sound
of his word
is like a raging ocean,
a sound of a multitude.
And we have this moment
where Daniel sees
a man
who appears
to be divine.
And Daniel,
we see,
is so rattled.
He falls down
on his knees.
He's shaking.
He's trembling
in the midst
of being
in the presence
of this one.
Who is this?
Some commentators
will say
this is an angel
who's appearing
in this great effulgence,
this great radiance.
I don't think so
because I think that
and I know
that when you come
to the New Testament,
the book of Revelation
and you open up
Revelation 1,
John's Revelation,
John uses
the same language,
the very descriptions
of Daniel 10
to describe who?
The eschatological Jesus,
the Son of God,
incarnate.
Revelation 1.
What does John say
of him in Revelation 1?
He says,
One like a son of man
wearing a robe
with a golden belt.
Eyes like fire,
feet like burnished bronze,
voice like the roaring
of many waters.
It's the same person.
This is a vision,
a condescension
of the pre-incarnate
Son of God himself,
the one who would become
Jesus Christ
by taking on flesh
in the incarnation,
the Christ.
It's the personal,
what does Daniel need most
in the midst of a moment
where he is deeply grieving
a lack of ministry fruit?
He needs the personal presence
of the Son of God.
He needs to see
the Lord of glory
and he needs to be shaken up
by the Lord of glory
in his life.
And you see what happens
when you encounter
the Lord of glory
by faith or by sight.
You know,
there are men there
in verse 7 with Daniel
who don't see
the Lord of glory.
They don't have the curtain
pulled back for them,
yet they still tremble.
They by faith
know he is there.
And you in your life
can by faith
see the Lord of glory
and all his glory.
And what happens,
let me finish
by giving you two things
that happen to you
when that takes place
that really,
I think,
can help us
with this problem
of the lack of ministry fruit
and success
and the grief it brings.
Number one,
when you meet the real God,
it is like dropping
a giant rock
into still water
and the water quakes,
you know,
it leaves,
it doesn't come
without a big effect.
And that's what happens
when you encounter
the glory of the real God.
There is a quake
that takes place
in your life.
You can't come out
of that unchanged.
So the word for glory here
means weighty,
heavy,
substantive.
It's reality.
It's not illusory.
It's the most real thing
is a way of thinking about it.
And when his glory
drops in like a rock
in still water,
there's a quake
that happens
in your soul
and your life.
And one way to say it
is that everything else
that you were worried about,
everything you've been
worried about
gets displaced.
You know,
when you encounter
the real God,
the Lord of glory,
all the worries
in your life
get displaced.
Your priorities shift.
Your agenda changes.
What was peripheral
to you becomes central.
He changes you
entirely in this moment.
And you can see that
in the way that
Daniel falls down
on his knees
and he's trembling
and he's shaking
in this.
It says that he is
undone.
He's undone.
He's deeply afraid
because when you're
in the presence
of true glory,
what happens?
You realize how small
you are
and how insubstantial
you are next
to his substance
and how much
of a sinner
you are next
to his glory,
next to his purity,
how epistemically modest,
how modest,
how much you don't know,
how much you don't know
that you don't know
next to his glory.
And so when you see
God's glory,
and you can,
you can,
by faith,
when you see it,
it reorders
your entire life.
And that,
in the midst
of grief
and struggle
over good desire
in our lives,
over ministry successes
that we haven't seen,
we need an experience
of the glory of God.
Have you,
let me ask you,
have you had an experience
of being in the presence
of God's glory?
glory.
You know you have
if it's caused you
to tremble.
But then secondly,
at the same time,
finally,
the Lord of glory
who makes Daniel tremble,
who makes him mute,
he can't even speak.
He has to touch his lips
because his lips
are unclean
like Isaiah
in Isaiah 6.
The Lord of glory
turns to him
and speaks
in the language
of the Lord of love.
Verse 11,
verse 19,
not once but twice
he says to Daniel,
Daniel's shaking,
he's trembling,
he's on his hands and knees
and he says,
he touches him
on the shoulder
and says,
you are greatly loved,
oh boy.
This looks so much
like the paradox
of the gospel.
And in the paradox
of the gospel,
the Lord of glory
is simultaneously
the God of the gospel.
And in the paradox
of the gospel,
the heart of the Christian gospel,
the closer you get
to God's holiness,
the more you quiver,
shake, tremble,
the more you see your sin,
your smallness,
your insignificance.
And yet,
the more you see your sin,
the more you see
your smallness,
the more you see
that he is the Lord of love
who wants to put his hand
on your shoulder
and say,
son, daughter,
you are greatly loved.
What did Daniel need
in the midst of his grief?
You're carrying burdens today.
What burdens
do you bring today?
Maybe it's a lack
of ministry fruit,
a thousand other things.
You need the personal presence
of the son of God.
You need a vision
of his glory
and to hear
you are greatly loved.
The Lord of glory,
the Lord of love,
you see?
Boy,
this looks so much
like the gospel.
In the New Testament,
Matthew 17,
Jesus Christ,
not the one
who appears
like a man
but is a man,
was a man,
became a man.
He goes up
the Mount of Transfiguration
and before James
and John and Peter,
he unveils his glory
for a moment.
He looks like this.
He emits light.
He doesn't receive it.
He emits it.
They got on their hands
and knees.
They shook.
And then he came back
down the mountain
and the text tells us
that they said,
it was only Jesus.
The Lord of glory we saw
but yet it's Jesus.
See,
they saw the Lord of glory
unveiled for a moment,
veiled in flesh,
the Godhead.
See?
Hail the incarnate deity
and then he came down
the mountain
and they said,
it's Jesus
and he said,
now it's my time
to suffer.
The Lord of glory
became the Lord of love.
What is it that Daniel
was really praying for?
Daniel was praying
for a redemption
he never saw.
He was mourning
over ministry fruit success
that he never saw.
What was it?
The rebuilding of the temple?
No,
more.
The true temple,
the cross.
The Lord of glory
become the Lord of love.
And it's at the cross
where Jesus Christ
has the power
by his love
to put his hand
on your shoulder
and say,
you are greatly loved.
Your burdens
you're carrying today,
you are greatly loved.
That is what you need
more than anything else
in the midst
of unresolved redemptions,
unmet hopes.
What burdens,
ministry burdens especially,
are you carrying
into 2026?
Keep praying fast,
grieve for them,
keep longing,
keep going to God,
battling spiritual warfare,
Ephesians 6 for them.
Seek above all by faith
the personal presence
of the Lord.
He offers it to you
by the Spirit.
And look at him,
look for every wound,
every grief,
every sorrow,
look at him 10 times.
For every sorrow you carry,
look at him 10 times more.
See the Lord of glory,
see the Lord of love,
hear Colossians 2,
he has dismissed
the spiritual powers
and authorities
of the heavenly realm.
He has dismissed them,
he's defeated them.
You are greatly loved.
Hear the word of the Lord,
you are greatly loved.
Let us pray.
Father,
we need,
in the midst of our burdens,
spiritual burdens,
ministry burdens,
a lack of so much
of what we've longed for,
we need your presence.
So we ask now
that even as we sing,
we would experience
by faith
a vision
of your glory,
that we would tremble
before you
and yet
be able to hear the words,
be of great courage,
fear not,
the Lord loves you.
So we want that
so much today.
We ask for it,
Lord,
come now
by your Spirit
and speak to us
as we sing.
We pray this
in Jesus' name,
Amen.