Well, I wonder if you have ever lamented the state of your prayer life, if you’ve ever lamented and sorrowed over your prayer, your praying or your lack of praying. If you had times of dryness and distance in your praying, indeed all of us have, I’m sure you would answer in the affirmative. Our spiritual lives wax and wane as fallen people in a fallen world and we are grossly yet imperfect. And this is true of all of us, right? We have times when we feel spiritually rich and other times we feel spiritually dry. The 19th century theologian Robert Dabney said this, he said, prayer is the Christian’s vital breath. The Christian’s vital breath. Indeed, a Christian can no more not pray than a man can not breathe, is what he’s getting at. And I’ve never met a believer, a sincere believer, who hasn’t longed for closer intimacy with Christ and longed for more and a better prayer life. Today in Daniel chapter nine, we have one of Scripture’s great model prayers, model prayer. And as I said, Colossians 1, there’s a section in there as well that is indeed a great model prayer. And we’ll work through this prayer from Daniel chapter nine, the first half of it today. And we’ll see also the significance when we get into the next couple of weeks, that this prayer is very integral for our understanding of what comes next, right? The 70 weeks that we see that’s been so wildly interpreted and debated and people try to figure that out. But Daniel 9, 1 to 19 help us to understand that, right? We can’t lift that out of context. Daniel 1 to 19 is a primer on prayer, right? A primer on prayer. The first part of Daniel 9 is a kind of, we notice there’s an abrupt change from what’s happened before, right? What’s gone on most recently in Daniel. There’ve been these truly remarkable visions in chapters seven and eight. Now, not another vision, but prayer, right? There’s this switch, it seems like. In verses one to three, we see the impetus, or incentive, or motivation, or provocation to pray, right? The provocation to prayer. The date that Daniel gives us here in the opening verses is significant, right? Again, it says, the first year of Darius, son of Ahasuerus, I think is what he said. This tells us that there’s been a, it’s an indicator that there’s, the time has changed. There’s been a regime change, indeed, and the Babylon has fallen. And this history is interlaced, as we see Daniel tell us, with the prophetic assurances of the prophet Jeremiah. He references Jeremiah. Dan’s been reading Jeremiah, the scrolls of Jeremiah, and his prophecies, particularly in Jeremiah 25 and 29. And he sees here that the 70 weeks is the period allotted for both Babylon’s dominion and Jerusalem’s desolations, right? Babylon’s might and Jerusalem’s miseries. 70 years, he reads in Jerusalem and he tells us as well. And so Daniel isn’t confused here by Jeremiah’s prophecies, if you notice. He’s actually stirred by them, right? He’s excited about them, why? Because if Babylon’s dominion is at an end, that means Jerusalem’s restoration is at a beginning, right? It’s about to begin. In Yahweh’s word, the Lord God, his word was what? In Jeremiah 29, verse 10, it says, for thus says the Lord, when the 70 years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you and I’ll fulfill to you my promise, right? My promise, that word there is good word, my good word to you and bring you back to this place, right? And then Daniel’s response is this, in verse three of Daniel 9, it says, then I turn my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleased for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes, right, as he begged for Jerusalem’s restoration, right, in this prayer, specifically verses 16 to 19. And it’s pretty simple here, right, we see that the Lord’s promises drive his prayer, right, the Lord’s promises drive the prayers of his people. It’s as if God’s promises are sticky. Our prayers should be bound to them, the promises of God. Our prayers aren’t meant to, they are meant to get stuck, as it were, to be bound to his promises and driven by those promises. In practice, what this means for Christians is that we should always allow God’s word to become our prayer book, right? Our prayer book is called the Bible, right? All of it. What has God given his people to direct us how we should pray? Well, it’s the whole word of God, right? The whole word of God. We read the promises of God for his people in scripture to sustain them, to gird them up. And this drives us to pray what is true, right? How do we know what to pray for? Our posture of prayer, our attitude, our perspective. Well, it’s from Scripture, right? And so we can’t be ignorant of Scripture if we’re to pray accordingly, according to the Lord’s will. All this drives us to pray what is true. It perspectivizes us, so to speak, right? For instance, think of the promise to Abraham, right? Genesis 12, 15, and 17. right, to be his God, and to his countless descendants after him, and a land, and that the nations would be blessed right through him. Blessing to the nations. This should drive us to pray certain ways. This should inform us, instruct us how we are to pray, right, to pray for the advance of the gospel in the world. Pray for our covenant children, to pray for the hope of glory, right, even when things seem desperate and futile in life. We know this promise and we can pray accordingly, with confidence, with assurance, and with boldness, especially when things seem desperate and futile. When the enemy has, and all that is against the truth and the gospel and the biblical worldview, when the church is persecuted, the promises of God should adhere to and drive our prayers. We must be Bible people, Bible people, people of the book as a way that used to be referred to Christians as. God’s word is to shape and condition and drive our prayer lives and our lives indeed. And so as my former pastor used to say, you have to get into this book and get this book into you. It’s imperative, right? And now I know that not all, Some in our tradition would think that this is true, but not everyone are readers, right? Nobody loves and thrives to read. And I know that’s true, and we shouldn’t assume that all are, but we must, all of us, however we can, with whatever tools we need, grow in God’s word, for it is the truth, and it’s for us, it’s for you, reader or not. And you can do it, right, you can do it. And so if you struggle with this, ask me later, and we can help you out, right? Get this book into you, get into this book. And his promise is what? The Lord’s promise is that through this word, Through the Spirit working, he will grow you, he will convict you, he will refresh you, you will be assured in your life, and you will be sanctified. It’s the process of our growth in our Christian life. And so let Scripture drive your prayer, I think is the main point. Let Scripture drive your prayer. Be grounded in Scripture, and the goal throughout be set from Scripture.

All right, and then in verse four, We saw the provocation to prayer. In verse four, we see the praise of prayer, the praise here, or adoration. After setting the stage in verses one to three, Daniel does what? He actually begins his prayer in verse four, and he says, I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, saying, O Lord, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandment. Right, this is the address of the prayer. And notice that here and there is a little praise or adoration. Right, oh Lord, the great and awesome God. Right, and so even when the main burden of prayer is here in this chapter is a confession of sin and petition, even though we have this praise and adoration, it’s not missing. Sometimes in Scripture we see that the prayer, God’s people are under such pressure and such urgent need that they go directly to the burden of their prayer. Psalm 3 begins like this. Psalm 3 says, Oh Lord, how many are my foes? Many are rising against me. Many are saying of my soul, there is no salvation for him in God. But many times there’s this explicit address, this acclamation of praise, this attestation of praise. And it makes sense, right? We should stop to consider who it is to whom we are speaking when we pray. Daniel’s words here, notice, also are both retrospective and prospective, right? They talk about things, there’s mention, there’s echoes of what has come before and what will be found after Daniel. Right, for instance, before, there are echoes here of Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 7, and then after, there are echoes, foreshadowings of Nehemiah that we see. Deuteronomy 7, by the way, contains both components of Daniel’s address here. Yahweh, notice it says, is in our midst, in your midst, a great and fearful God, and he is the one who keeps covenant and faithful love to those who love him and keep his commandments. Right, this God is both a God, is fearful and he’s faithful. Right, he keeps covenant. He is both great and he is good. Praise God that he is. He is both one who makes us afraid and one who gives us assurance. Daniel teaches us how to praise and to rejoice over God here, even if briefly. And this is something that we can do and that we can recognize and acknowledge in our prayer lives, in our prayers, in spite of the circumstances and feelings that we’re going through, because God is who he is and he doesn’t change despite those things, despite that drama and stress that I may be in. And so, do you know who you’re speaking with when you pray? Do you know who you’re talking to, if it were? He is a God who hears. Psalm 3 also says, he hears from his holy hill, he hears you, he hears the people of God. But notice, we never forget, he is the Lord God Almighty, our Heavenly Father. Most never lose the weight and reality of this truth. And so when we go to him, we should go in praise and adoration with a proper posture. And often this is the best praise, prayer that we can offer, right? Acknowledging who he is and that orients us and again, perspectivizes us. It says verse four, and then what follows, verses five to 14, we see the kind of sorrowful content of this prayer, the sad substance of prayer here in Daniel. Daniel prays, and it’s sad because it’s a prayer of confession. And Daniel is talking, he’s drenched with Israel’s sin and confessing this sin. As we look through briefly, let’s look at a survey of what his main concerns are. What are the main things that he points out as he prays this prayer of confession to the Lord God? He begins by speaking of radical guilt. Verses five and six, and this is clear, that Israel’s guilty by virtue of their actions, right? It says, we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly. And also their attitudes, right? Their attitudes of defiance and rebellion. It says that in verse five, right? And we have rebelled, right? They have defected, as it were. It says, verse five, turning away from your commandments and rules. Verse six, and we have not listened to your servants, the prophets, right? Remember the Lord sends his prophets there, prosecuting attorneys, prosecuting the law, the covenant that they broke. They have not listened to them, Daniel says. And he mourns over the obvious consequences of such intensified guilt. Verses seven and eight, particularly the manifest shame of these sojourners that Yahweh has exiled from their covenant land. And so verses nine and 10 we read, of their only hope, it is abundant, the Lord’s abundant mercy. Notice in verse seven, Daniel said, right, he says, to you, O Lord, belongs righteousness. Then in verse nine it says, to the Lord, our God, belongs mercies, or compassions, and forgivenesses, right, these are plurals, these words are in the plural. It sounds like bad English to us, that’s because it wasn’t originally in English, but they’re plural there. This is a reference to the multiple, multiplied, repeated acts of mercy and repeated acts of forgiveness that the Lord must bring and that he must have. It says that he is rich in mercy, and he must be so if guilty people are to have any hope. Verse nine, for we have rebelled against him. There’s to be any hope he must be rich in mercy after this intense shame and guilt that Daniel’s confessing that they’ve committed. And notice also that Daniel doesn’t fixate, he doesn’t focus alone on God’s warm mercy, his squishy love as it were. Daniel drives us to remember that God also is faithful in what? He’s faithful in his wrath, in his wrath. Verse 11 says, all Israel has transgressed or broken your law. And so the curse and the oath written in the law of Moses has been poured out upon us. He’s acknowledging the broken covenant and the consequences of that. Verse 12, God put into effect his words which he had spoken against us and against our rulers. Verse 13, all this disaster has come upon us. Again, remember this was mapped out in Deuteronomy 28. in Leviticus 26, right, this covenant that they entered into with the Lord, where Yahweh spells out, right, the Lord spells out there in explicit, terrifying, precise, terrible, and unsettling detail, these multiple disasters that he would inflict upon them, these people, were they to turn away from him and break that covenant, right? Covenant theology is important, right? Remember these curse sanctions, right? They’re sanctions for blessing and for obeying and disobedience, cursing and blessing. And remember, if you do not obey the words of the Lord, your God, it says what? There will be cursing, cursing, cursing, cursing everywhere. Cursing when you rise, when you sit in the city and your animals and your young, cursing. And Dana’s point is that Yahweh has been faithful in that covenant, in his wrath, in his anger against him and bringing all of this upon these curse sanctions upon unfaithful Israel precisely according to the terms of that covenant. And we can’t forget this. Our culture is so, again, so soft and irrational and crumbles at anything other than sappy, fake, unreal, so-called love. It cannot conceive, it will not tolerate a God who is faithful in what He demands and what He promises. The God of Scripture, the true and the living God, and the creator of all things is a covenant-keeping God, and He’s rational and He doesn’t change. and he’s true, he’s consistent, he doesn’t contradict himself, right? So yes, great is thy faithfulness, amen, he is. But there’s a dark side to that for those who are in covenant with him, who break that covenant of works given on the mountain there with the nation Israel and indeed with Adam in the garden. What does the author of Hebrews say? It’s a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. And it remains, again, for those in Adam, Perfect obedience is required. And though God’s son, Adam, failed that perfect obedience, and though God’s son, Israel, failed that perfect obedience, we know that there was one, a son of God, who did not fail that perfect and perpetual obedience, but rather satisfied exactly and fully the terms of that covenant. God’s Son, Jesus, did, in fact, earn merit life for you, for those who trusted in him for your life, as he’s offered in the gospel, right? And so that principle remains. Heaven must be earned. It must be earned. And it was, right? It was. It was. We are saved by works. Not our works, but by Christ’s works. We’re saved by his works. And those who are in Christ no longer have that covenant of works upon them. It’s been satisfied. For us, it is grace, because it was works for him. And so Daniel goes on in verse 13 and 14, and he says, all this calamity has come upon us, yet we have not entreated the favor of Yahweh our God, right? All this calamity has come upon us, but we have not entreated Yahweh, turning from our iniquities and gaining insight by your truth, right? And so what’s Daniel saying here? He’s saying that though Israel has gone through the ravages of God’s curses, Nevertheless, the people remain unbroken, unrepentant, unchanged. They’ve not called upon him. Verse 14, Yahweh has kept ready the calamity and has brought it upon us, and we have not obeyed his voice. Again, horrifying, right? We think of the wandering in the wilderness, and we think, how could they be so foolish? Lame, not to get it, and keep sinning, and keep sinning. And here too, it’s all this calamity’s come upon you. What are you doing, people? But we shouldn’t presume that we would do any differently, right? We have the same fallen natures and the same stiff necks in our natural state. And so on this less than uplifting note, right, of the confession part of Daniel’s prayer, it comes to an end. So that’s a brief look at what Daniel’s confession is. And notice a few things here. As Daniel grieves and laments over Israel’s guilt, notice he doesn’t simply point out the dirty people, those dirty Israelites, sinners. Pay attention to the pronouns as he prays. They’re mostly first person plural. We, as in our, us. He includes himself in Israel’s guilt. And also notice this point that distresses Daniel again. Israel has a history of rebellion and idolatry. It has suffered God’s judgment for it, but it has not driven them to godly grief or genuine repentance. It’s not driven them to change. And what concerns Daniel, it seems, is not so much the return to the land as the people who are gonna return to the land are an unrepentant people. And so what good will it do to have the people back in the land with no sense of their sin, no exercise of repentance, who’ve never been crushed in the spirit over their idolatry and their sinning? But it’s not just Israel alone, right? This is humanity. Humanity in general is at birth to admitting sin and guilt. Sin and guilt, they want no part of it. and they deny it, and part of the suppression, and Paul talks about Romans 1, part of the suppression of truth and unrighteousness is a denial of who fallen man is, a denial that he is not right, that he is broken, that he is helpless and hopeless, and without God in the world, he’s guilty. But if we let Daniel teach us, we will know better, as the rest of the scripture does. And in fact, one of the primary marks of the Christian is that he or she continually mourns over his or her sins and laments those sins. They’re heartbroken over it. Self-help programs and New Age systems, they’re not about doing an honest assessment and seeing that man is fallen and guilty and diseased with sin. They deny that. They don’t bring followers to confess their sins. They brainwash to think that they are perfect and that they have all they need within themselves. If only they would just tap into it and try hard and unleash it and realize their true potential. This is nonsense. It’s a denial of reality. And the guru just gets richer, right? The church is the only body, it seems, that confesses and acknowledges our sin. Where the confession of sin dies out, one theologian has put it, the church is no longer the church. It’s been part of Christian worship service from the beginning, confession of sin, after measured in light of God’s law. And this is why the claim is absurd, this claim that Christians think themselves to be perfect. This is the old canard, this is the claim that I’m sure you’ve all heard. But we’re about the only ones that scream out that we’re not perfect. We’re not perfect. That we need one who is perfect. That we need Jesus. And then you think about how this is hammered out. Think of the prophet Ezekiel. He hits home the same doctrine, the same truth. You’re familiar with Ezekiel 36, right? This glorious promise, this description of what God does to give people life. And it’s this sketch, as it were, of Yahweh, his restored people. And Ezekiel talks about Yahweh, God, cleansing them and giving them a new heart and a new spirit, giving them a heart of flesh in place of a heart of stone and placing his spirit within them. And in verse 31, this assurance continues. In verse 31, we come to this, he says, then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations, right? And so if you go back over this passage and you follow the grammar and you follow what’s being said, and Ezekiel’s point is clear, though denied by many, many, many, and that’s that loathing ourselves over our sins is an evidence of having a new heart and a new spirit, right? Not denying that that’s true, but grieving over it. And of course, Ezekiel goes on, thankfully and wonderfully, and he tells us that the Lord cleanses us from those iniquities, cleanses us. A new spirit will produce new sadness that mourns and agonizes over sin, right? And this is what the Puritans called a perpetual brokenheartedness, acknowledgement, a realization, and a grieving over our sin, always, by the way, to be matched with the praise and worship and a posture of incredible gratitude for the Savior who died for those sins and promises to grow us away, away, to mortify those, to put them to death throughout our Christian life. And so Daniel’s worry here seems to be that there was hardly any such sadness at all or mourning among Israel in his own time. They’ve gone through, as Daniel said in verse 13, all this calamity. They’re without a home, without a temple, without freedom, and sadly, without repentance. And the spirit of Daniel is broken about this. The Spirit of God through Daniel wrote up this prayer for us to learn from, right? To not see these things. May we indeed learn to be honest and bear before the Lord that we love. And most importantly, before the Lord who loves us and died and rose again for us to give us life. And then briefly, verses 15 to 19, we see the main point, right, the primary point of prayer here. And he says there in verses 15, we see it also in verse 17, and now, right, he said, and now. And this tells us that Daniel’s about to make his request. The bulk of his prayer is so consumed with lamenting for sin, verses four to 14, that only now Daniel comes with this expression of his petition. And his primary request comes in verse 16. Verse 16, he says, let your anger and your wrath turn away from your city, Jerusalem, your holy hill. This is also a plea for restoration. But notice the basis for this petition. And in this, we hear echoes. We hear echoes of this, when Daniel alludes to how the Lord made for himself, it says, a name, right? Make a name for himself. There are echoes of the exodus, right, the deliverance there in the exodus in verse 15 in Daniel line that we see. And when he speaks of Israel now being a cause of derision to all around, right? And this is significant in scripture. The fear and the pain and the concern about the Lord’s honor, right? About what others will say due to this or that thing. And note especially how Daniel multiplies this appeal to God’s honor. In verses 16, your city Jerusalem, your holy hill, your people have become a curse and derision. It goes on, make your face to shine upon your devastated sanctuary for the Lord’s sake, the city which is called by your name. Do not delay for your own sake, oh my God, for your name is called over your city and over your people. Daniel is very concerned about the Lord’s honor. And even beyond the Lord Yahweh’s many compassions, right, it says in verse 18, Daniel appeals to his reputation, to God’s reputation, and he pleads with Yahweh to reverse the derision and reverse the scorn of the nations, right? That scorn being, who are these people? How pathetic Israel. Who is Yahweh? He didn’t protect them, he sent them into Israel, they’re weak. Their God is weak. And Daniel pleads with God to restore his own reputation and his name. And of course for us, genuine believers, always have this concern close to our hearts. Daniel teaches us that God’s reputation should be a driving concern in our prayers. Our petitions should be sprinkled with us pleading for his honor. Again, this is conditions and drives and grounds our prayers, right? Thinking, what honor would it bring you, Lord, if my loved one came to Christ, right? What glory and joy, what honor for Christ’s name that would be. What praise would come to Christ if this marriage is renewed, right? What honor would that bring Christ? What credit to Jesus would come if that brother can walk through this hard season and grow stronger and sweeter in his faith? It puts a grounding to our petitions. There is such a pleading note at the end of Daniel’s prayer here that we see. It reaches an intense pitch, right? And Daniel seems at the very end there, verse 19, to be reduced to just short phrases, right? He says, oh Lord, hear. Oh Lord, forgive. Oh Lord, pay attention and act. Do not delay. And then why? For your own sake, oh my God, because your city and your people are called by your name. You see his concern. Daniel’s here. And who would have thought that it would be an out-of-place government bureaucrat in the complex maze of the Persian Empire that would teach us how to pray? But we must submit ourselves to the truth of God’s word always. We must have a posture of submission and eager expectation before the Lord and his word. It is the word of the Lord. And in this word, we find a God who is perfect. He’s perfectly holy and he’s perfectly just. And we shall sacrifice, we can sacrifice neither one of those. God is not a God of mythology or a fairy tale or make believe. I’ve always thought it was shockingly unintelligent and silly when people claim that men just made these stories up, that this is an invention of man. The scripture is just from the mind of man. But the thing is, it’s silly because no man would make up a God like this. God doesn’t contradict himself. He does not lie, he is not capricious. And so contrary to even what some in many churches say, God is not merely a God of squishy love atop, One man used to say, big rock, candy mountain, smiling down in sweet saccharine smile. Right, that’s not really, that’s not the case, and it’s kind of intuitive if we think about it, and we’re serious. If you think about this, right, if God were only a God of grace, a God who forgave sin simply and easily because it was part of his nature to do so, then there’s no explanation for the cross. The cross doesn’t make sense. There’ll be no reason for the Son of God to be so cruelly executed unless God also is a God of righteousness. And the truth is that sin, our sin, had to be paid for. There had to be a day of reckoning for the wrong things that we have done, a day of reckoning that occurred on that first Good Friday. And Jesus hung on that tree, hung on the cross there, and he died, and he paid in full the death that each of us deserve to die. True payment was made for true sin so that there could be true grace for true sinners, right? And this show of God’s greatness and grace at the cross is also sticky, right? Our prayers stick to them and are driven by this truth, glorious, glorious truth. His grace is motivation for our prayers. It’s motivation. And since God loves his people so much that he sent his son to die for us, he will surely give you the resources and the words to bring that good news to those around you. God has promised our holiness, right? He’s promised our holiness. So we should be in prayer as a result for that great work in our hearts and in our lives. God has promised to save his wandering sheep and add them to his flock. And so we should be praying fervently for the conversion of our neighbors and our friends and our loved ones. And indeed for all those throughout the world that he will call and give life who are not yet believers, right? We could go on, but you see the pattern. Let us conclude, brothers and sisters, rejoicing that our Savior Jesus loved us to the point of death, after living a perfect life, all for us, all for us, that we would live our lives for Him. May we go back into this world taking the Word of God and a humble heart, begging for opportunities to show that love of Christ to a death-obsessed world, telling them of the sure escape from the foolishness and make-believe worldviews that only end in death, the rescue of Jesus, who calls sinners, and he calls them, come, believe in me, and I will give you life. Amen.

Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, we indeed delight to give you praise. Father, we are so slow to believe and slow to act. Lord, we are forgetful and we are foolish and we are feeble. Lord, we praise you that you are none of those things, that you are strong and that you remember, Lord, that you are mighty to act. And Lord, we thank you for this, your word. We thank you for condescending to us and speaking to us in a way that we can understand and preserving that word for us over time. We thank you that you are mighty and holy and just and that you’ve satisfied all that needed to be done for us to have life. We thank you for the faith that you’ve given us. Father, we thank you that you’re sovereign and powerful in this world and we praise you for the way that you work and for your wonder and love and great mercy shown to us in the gospel. Lord God, we pray, help us to embrace the bigger picture as we look at our lives and we assess what we go through in those of our loved ones, Lord, and that all the trials and pains and difficulties, and that we would do so in a way that brings honor to your name, trusting in you that you’re working it all out according to your plan for our good, even if we don’t understand what that is. Give us faith, Lord. Pray that you would mature us and that we would not waste our suffering in self-pity. that we would embrace your promises, and that we would gain comfort, and that we would grow thereby according to your sovereign desire. Lord God, we do not pray as the world does. We do not look for the peace of the world, but we look for the peace that only Christ can give. And we pray, Lord, that as your word goes out, that you would feed your people here and around the world, and that you would draw people to yourself, that you would give them life, that they would come. We pray for those who suffer in our midst. We do pray, Lord, encourage us, use us as your body on earth to act in that encouragement, to show the love of Christ to our brothers and sisters. Lord in the faith and may you indeed grant them the comfort of your son And of your spirits and the peace that you tell us transcends on that we experience transcends all human understanding Father we pray for those who are struggling against particularly The battle the wages against particular sin Lord. We pray that you would give us victory in and that we would see who we are in Christ, dead to sin, once and for all, free to walk in newness of life, and that the life we live is not our own, but that we belong to another, our faithful Savior Christ. Lord, we pray that we live in newness of life. Lord, we praise you for the expectant mothers. Lord, we pray that you would strengthen them, give them health, Lord, we pray that you would bring these covenant children safely into this world, Lord, that they would see modeled for them true faith and they would embrace the promises of the gospel as you see fit in your time, Lord. We do praise you for the newest covenant child here, Lord, the Hensley’s new boy, Levi. Lord, we pray again that you would continue to give mother and baby health and strength. Lord, when you pray for the children, other children of this church, Lord, that you would bless them in their lives, that you would bring to them a true spiritual awareness of who they are in Christ and of your presence with them, Lord, bless them, that they would love you with all their hearts, and that as they struggle in this life, and as they suffer, and even as they sin and they fail, that the gospel would become all the more real to them and truly become good news, indeed, as they embrace it by faith time and time again. We pray for the parents here today of those children, that they would love the children and rear them according to your word and the true and holy faith. Father, we do pray for our unbelieving loved ones that we have in our families and elsewhere, Lord. We pray that your will to grant them faith and repentance, give them life, even new hearts and a home in glory. Father, we pray for the husbands and wives, Lord, that they would love one another with a Christ-like love and sacrificial service to each other, even for all of us, Lord. Marriage, single, whatever our age, Lord, help us to have hearts filled with your love, loving and caring one another, that we would be a spectacle to the outside world and they would wonder and be captivated by our love and peace. Lord, use us, we pray, in our lives to witness to your glory, for the honor of your name. We pray that you would feed us afresh this day with Christ, the bread of heaven. May we see that this is our life and sustenance, even in the midst of famine, this Jesus, and it’s in his name that we pray, amen.