Daniel 10

And here's my question for you
Is there anything in the state of the church
The state of your life
That makes you mourn
Anything that makes you morn

I would love to see a generation of young men mourn
Who called it quits on getting angry at how dumb things were
And how much the kingdom was advanced
And got on their knees and fasted and prayed for three weeks
Eating no delicacies passing by the ice cream after lunch
Praying to God and asking God to do amazing
Kingdom advancing things
Some of you are in places in your marriage
Where it feels like it will never get better
It just feels insurmountable
And you just sorta fill your life with multiple little pleasures that sorta it bearable
When really the lack of intimacy and the
Lack of kingdom growth in your marriage is driving you crazy
But you can kinda make it bearable
What I think the Lord would want you to do to be like Daniel
And not to numb the morning
But to intensify it for a season
With fasting and with prayer
Maybe passing by the delicacies
Daniel actually was eating food just not delicacies
He was going through a time of severity to increase the mourning
And he was pleading with God
Probably for the advance of his kingdom if we know Daniel
Sometimes we have men fighting lust and we say well
Get an accountability partner and get Covenant Eyes
Chris Shippley was here one of our former pastor recently
And he says now when he counsels men to
Fight lust he says lets fast together next week
I just want to make myself available to any man battling with sin
I will fast with you
Any time you want

We have ignored prayer and fasting
And we have wondered why we know so little of Christ
And why the Kingdom does not advance with power
And I'm here to tell you the response from God will come in response to our prayers
To our mourning
To our fasting

As a work by which we earn his favor no
Because we have been given access to God
Through the spirit we have been made children of God by the cross
We have had our sins paid for there's no guilt in life
There's no fear in death
Now we can approach God

But when you look at this miserable world
And you see prostitution in Bangkok
And you see child trafficking all over the world
You see a crack house on this corner
You see a neighborhood full of wickedness
You marriages that don't grow
You see people that are always depressed.
We would be better off to let ourselves mourn
Rather than talk about what a healthy church we are
And deny the delicacies for a season
And to seek our God for a greater display of the Lord Jesus Christ
And I've got news for you he loves to answer prayer