 Every year that we celebrate what God has done over the last now 26 years, I'm incredibly humbled at what God has done. And Jane and I even talked about it this week leading up into this anniversary, just, it's incredibly humbling to be a part of what God has done because it really is not about any other name other than the name of Jesus. Jesus is the Lord of the city. The city will never be ours, it will always be His. It's always His purpose, but what an incredible privilege it is for us to be a part of it. And it's both humbling and I was trying to think about the scale of 26 years. It's like 26 years. And then this morning it hit me as I was watching the video announcement that all of the staff that were on our video weren't even born when we launched Radiant Church in 1996. So I'm like, yeah, you don't remember any of that. So, and that's a testimony by my old hairstyles, the fact that I had no facial hair and that we lived out of a trailer, a little red trailer that we set up, but God has been so good to us. And this morning, I wanna bring a message to you that I felt the Lord gave me for this anniversary, for us, not just for today, but actually for us as a people moving forward. A lot of times on vision weekend, I'll come with bullet point goals and very specific things like, this is what we're going into, but this particular message really has to do with the heart and soul of who we are as a people. I've entitled it, A People in Pursuit. And I wanna read actually the opening paragraph because I wrote it and I wanted to be very precise about how I framed this message. So I wrote this, for 26 years, Radiant Church has existed for one purpose and one action, pursuit. When we were only a dream scribbled on a yellow legal pad and then a small congregation meeting in a rented facility, the trajectory of our vision was the same as it is now that we are one church of thousands of people now, meeting in three locations as of today and a family of churches scattered across dozens of states and a few nations, but we are still a people in pursuit. We are not a people of inaction or of the status quo. We set our hearts upon making a difference in those early days and from that time, all of our goals, numbers, budgets, buildings, campaigns, prayers, ministry, statistics, wins, losses and purposes have existed as a constellation of stars pointing us ever back to our one true North, Jesus Christ and his glory above all things. Today, I want to remind us and orient us once again forward facing towards the future, not with mere bullet point goals that we may or may not achieve or check some boxes to feel as though we are making progress. Goals have their place and I've said many of them but today I want instead to call us again to the starting line and exhort us to take our marks and to get set and to go in pursuit of these guiding pursuits and then once again commit ourselves corporately and individually to them as our primary purpose. This is what it means to be a people in pursuit. When you look at our world today and you look at the eight billion people that are on this planet and you were to answer the question, what is the greatest currency and the standard of wealth right now at this particular moment on the planet? There's one word and it may not be the word that you're thinking of. Some might say, well, it's the US dollar. Some might say gold. Some might say silver. Some might even say time. All of those are great answers but the true currency of the hour in which we live in is attention. It's what everybody's fighting for, attention. It's what all the money is spent for, attention. It's what all the social media platforms. It's what the 24 hour news cycle. It's what all of the different subscriptions are focused upon. It's about what every government and every council and every confederation is shaped around. It's attention. Do we have your attention? And this morning I want us to become a people and to continue to be a people that have set our attention upon the one who is seated on the throne. Has been and forever will be the eternally worthy Lamb of God who was slain, resurrected, is seated and enthroned. He's worshiped and he's praised by saints and angels and he is the soon incoming King. I don't want us to be a people who put our attention on him on that day when he cracks the eastern sky. I want us to be a people whose eyes are firmly fixed upon the one who is enthroned right now and to be a people in pursuit of him. And because of that I want to call us today as a solemn call to be people in pursuit of these four primary pursuits. These four primary attentions that we give our lives to so that we do not become distracted. That's the enemy of attention is distraction. How many know that? It's easy in our world to get distracted. How many of you have ever started out doing one thing and about two hours later figured out that your two steps removed from what you started doing. Anybody done that? You know, you started, I'm gonna reorganize the closet and then you got into the closet and you found an old golf club. So you wouldn't found your set of golf clubs and you signed up for a tea time and then you showed up at the golf course and realized that you left your wallet at home. And you know, you're just like, how did I get here? I started to clean the closet. It's distraction. How do we fight against the pull, the gravitational pull of distraction? We have to align our hearts. We have to make decisions. We have to give a thousand no's to a whole lot of other things so that we can give our one yes to that which matters most. And so this morning I wanna lay before you four primary pursuits, the presence of God, the transformation of lives, the flourishing of our city and the inheritance from the nations. These are the four pursuits of radiant church. They have been and they will continue to be and I don't want them to just be monikers that are, you know, put up on banners and hung in hallways that we pass under but we don't allow them to be written on our hearts. Today I call this individually to grab a hold of these pursuits and realize these are the things, these are the pursuits that will forever matter. I don't know about you but that's how I wanna live my life. I wanna live my life so that at the end of it, everything I've been given my life to has not evaporated, but it's gone forward into eternity. And will forever resonate as glory and honor and praise to the one who gave his life for me. So this morning let me talk about these four pursuits. Number one is the presence of God and I've written a statement for each of these. Number one, we will pursue the presence of God with reckless abandon. We will pursue the presence of God with reckless abandon. In Psalm chapter 132, the writer of the Psalm is looking back on the life of King David and he says to the Lord, "'Remember, O Lord, in David's favor.' All the hardships that he endured, if you've ever read through the story of David, you recognize David went through some hard, challenging circumstances and difficulties. He did not live an easy life. He lived most of his life actually on the run. But he wasn't on the run from enemies as much as he was on the run towards the presence of God. And it goes on and it says, he swore to the Lord, here's the vow that David made. And he vowed to the mighty one of Jacob, I will not enter my house or get into my bed. I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids until I find a place for the Lord. A dwelling place for the mighty one of Jacob. I love this, I mean, this is the vow that David made. David, this king who was a shepherd that God selected when nobody else would have selected him and made him king. David lived his whole life saying this, God, I don't want you to be a commodity. I want you to be the center. Everybody else viewed God as useful. Hey, let's pull the ark out and bring him when we need him, when we're going into battle against our enemies. Let's pull God out of storage and bring him out because we need him. Hey, let's put God in a religious center about 20 miles outside of our real lives and we'll go and visit him every once in a while. Now, when David finally becomes the king over all of Israel and the ark has been relegated to a man named Obed Edom's house on the outskirts of Israel, David's first order of businesses, he says, let's go get the presence of God. Let's go get the ark. And so he led a procession, a whole group of people to Obed Edom's house. And he said, we're here for the presence because that's where God dwelt between the cherubim on the ark of the covenant, the box that was covered in gold that held the 10 commandments, the rod of Aaron that had butted that speak of authority and then a jar of the manna that God had provided. It was the testimony of God's faithfulness and his goodness that was then overshadowed by God's manifest tangible physical presence on the earth. It was God's address on the earth. And everybody honored the ark, but nobody bothered to go get the ark. But I think what somebody does when they come into power and the very first things that they do when a president becomes a president, he talks about his first hundred days. Why? Because that's his priorities. When David becomes king, he says, we're going to Obed Edom's house. We're getting the presence and we're bringing it back into the center of Jewish life. So the first time he goes, it doesn't go well because he did it wrong. How many know it would be terrible to be the guy who got bad instructions? Uzzah reaches out to steady the ark and the Lord struck him and he died because he didn't do it the right way. God's very particular about how he will be worshiped. God will not be handled. He will be honored. But then David comes back a second times and he says, we're going to do this. And he brings the ark and instead of making a left turn at the intersection to take the ark back to the Tabernacle of Moses, which is in the city of Gibeon. Instead, when he gets to the intersection, David makes a sharp right and he heads straight into the city of Jerusalem. That's not where the ark goes. The ark's supposed to be in Moses' Tabernacle. That's where the priests are. That's where the three compartments are. That's what God actually prescribed in the book of Exodus. But David gets to the intersection in which he can go left or he can go right. He can go left and he can set it all back up in a religious structure and let the priests handle it and go visit God occasionally. But David actually takes a right turn and he brings it into Jerusalem. And he doesn't allow the priests to go out in front as the worshipers. He puts on the ephah that a priest wears and he becomes the chief worship leader. And when he gets to where his palace is in Zion, on Mount Zion, he has a tent erected and he says, put God there right next to his house. And he did that for two reasons. Number one is he wanted to be close to God himself. Imagine a king who every morning for his devotions comes out and goes under the tent and stands before the presence of God. And the second reason he did it is so that everyone in Jerusalem, the capital city of Israel would see that the presence of God is what we build around. We don't build around programs. We don't build around kings. We don't build around monuments. We don't build around buildings. We build around the presence of God. And it all started before it was ever a pursuit to go get the presence at Obed Edom's house. It began with a pursuit and a vow that David had made in his own heart. I will not give rest to my eyes. I won't crawl in bed until I have found a resting place for the Lord. Why did David make that vow? Because he valued God's presence above all things and he knew that with God's presence at the center, it changes everything. Can I just tell you today, nothing has changed. We need the presence of God. You need the presence of God. You might say, well, God's everywhere all at the same time. Yeah, God is omnipresent, but there's a distinction in the presence of God in heaven. There's a distinction between that and the omnipresence of God that is invisible and holding all things in the universe together. And then what the Bible describes as his manifest presence, in other words, him making himself known and the breaking in of his kingdom in response to the building blocks being set in place by the people of God, creating a spiritual habitation for his dwelling place. And those building blocks are prayer and worship. It's prayer and worship. When you pray, God comes. Can anybody testify to that that when you pray, God answers? And he doesn't answer from Pluto. He's not out by the Hubble telescope out in some parallel universe. No, when you pray, God draws near. Jesus said in Matthew 6 that the Father is in the secret place, which means he's here, he's near. And when you worship, God comes. The Bible says that we, by our praise and by our worship, Psalm 22 says that God is actually enthroned. That's the focal point of what worship is. You know, we live in a culture, a consumeristic American culture that we have become convinced that everything's about us and our preference. Well, I don't like worship. Worship really didn't impact me this week. I don't like all those songs. Why can't we just sing songs that I like? And we all have preferences. I like songs that nobody else likes and younger generations have their songs and older generations have their songs. And there's, I love the artistic and the variety. I love the hymns. I love the modern songs. I love the electric sounds. I like old 80s rock and roll worship. That actually sounds like if Aerosmith got saved, I like that. But at the end of the day, we can have our preferences, but we have to realize that worship is not about us. It's about him. And the worship he's looking for is not style-driven. It's heart-driven. It's possible for us to say the right words and our hearts be far from him. But there is a promise, church, that if we will put the building blocks in our own lives and together as a church of prayer and worship, of being people of prayer, of being people of praise, of being people of adoration, of giving our attention to the one who is seated on the throne. If we'll do that, God says I will come. And let me tell you something. When Jesus walks in a room, everything changes. We've had people healed physically in their bodies without anybody praying for them, just standing in a room filled with the presence of God. We've had God soften people's hearts, download wisdom, restore marriages, impact children in environments where there is prayer and where there is worship. In the very beginning in 1996, when we were not even a church yet in the summer and I was driving in my car, the Lord encountered me in a very powerful way. And he told this 25-year-old endeavoring pastor, if you will build a praying and a worshiping church, you will strengthen the body of Christ and you will reach the nations of the world. That's one of the reasons why we put such focus on it. Listen, we are never gonna be a church that just sings the songs, takes polls, ask everybody what they want. We're not here to do a light show. This is not about entertainment. This is about enthroning the one who is already enthroned into heavens and seeing it established in the earth. That's what we are gonna be. We are going to be a people of praise and we're gonna be a people of prayer. It's never gonna change. And so if you're waiting for me to break dance or do something like that, it's never gonna happen. But if you're drawing near with the heart that says, God, we're desperate for you, come. I believe we're in the right place. See, Exodus 33, Moses said something that was powerful. God had brought Israel up to the edge of the promised land and they were about to go in, but their hearts had become heart towards the Lord. And the Lord said to Moses and to the children of Israel, I'm gonna keep my promise. My promise is this. I said to you that I will bring you into the promised land and I'm gonna give you the land that you did in the homes that you did not build and the vineyards that you did not plant, I'm gonna do that. But the Lord says the people have rejected me. And so I'm gonna send my angel before you and he's gonna defeat your enemies and I'm gonna keep my word and give you the land. But I'm not going with you. This is what he says to Moses. I'm not going, but you go on ahead and I'm gonna keep my word. And Moses' response to God is so convicting. He says to God, if your presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else distinguishes us and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth? It's your presence. So literally Moses said to God, I would rather stay in the wilderness without your promises than go into the promised land without you. That's what it means to be a people in pursuit of his presence. Not that we can take it or leave it, but we recognize that we need the presence of God. I'm unashamed to be a person of the presence of God. I need the presence of God. And can I tell you something? This world and our generation needs the presence of God. We don't need to hear about God. We don't need to hear testimonies of previous generations encounters with God. We have a generation on the face of the earth that needs a divine collision with the presence of God. And it's not gonna happen unless we create that environment. We owe it to the next generation to create in a habitation, a dwelling place, a resting place for the presence of God. Kalamazoo is going to be a resting place for the Lord. The Lord has marked it out. It's not gonna be a resting place for evil foul spirits. It's not gonna be a propaganda hub. It's not gonna be defined by homelessness. It's not gonna be defined by the universities in its midst. Kalamazoo is destined to be a resting place for the presence of God. That's why we are here. Number two of people in pursuit is we will be relentless in our pursuit of transformed lives. It's the gospel of Jesus Christ that transforms lives. Romans 1, verse 16 through 17, Paul says, I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek, for in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. First Corinthians 1, 18 says, for the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. Romans 10, verse 13 through 15 says, for everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved, how then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news. Radiant, we want beautiful feet. We want beautiful feet. Now if I were to kick off my boots today and peel off my socks, not one of you would describe my feet. I promise you, it's beautiful. I've broken every one of my toes. They're, you know, they're man hobbit feet. I got hobbit feet, but I want us as the body of Christ, the church of Jesus Christ in our city to be known in the spirit as those with beautiful feet because we are actively bringing the gospel to every person, young, old, black, white, brown, and whatever other color, ethnicity, language, socioeconomic status, orientation, identity, whatever they are. I believe that Jesus is an equal opportunity, savior and life transformer, and we are going to adamantly and relentlessly pursue transformed lives at all costs. Cause that's what Jesus came to do. The cross is not about God coming down and telling us we're all okay. The cross is the price that was paid for all of us who are not okay, who have been dead in our sins, enemies of God who could not fix ourselves and destined for hell, separated from God for all eternity. The cross is God's only solution, not plan B, not one plan among many. There is no other name given among men by which we must be saved other than the name of Jesus. And the gospel is the message that has the ability to transform lives. And that's why we will relentlessly preach and proclaim and live out the implications of the gospel as a people. That's what the gospel is. The gospel is Jesus died. Jesus died in our place. He bore our sins, our shame, our guilt, our curse. And then God raised him from the dead, elevated him above all other names. And he has said, just like we read here, whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Is anybody else grateful for the grace of God and for the salvation of Jesus? I got to wake this 9 a.m. up a little bit. I'm grateful for the cross because it is the power of God and salvation. But listen, Arthur Wallace one time said, you can't offer a pardon to somebody who doesn't know that they've been convicted of a crime. And half the problem is we're living in a world where nobody wants to confront the issue of our sin and our separation from God. We have to preach the whole Bible, but the other, the flip side of that is, I got bad news and I got good news. The bad news is you are sick. You are ridden with sin. You are an enemy of God and you are destined for nothing but spiritual death. But the flip side of that, the good news is Jesus saves. Jesus rescues. You're not here today because you're good. You're here today because God is good. We're not worshiping as those who got it all together. We're here worshiping the only one who has it all together. And his name is Jesus and we are going to relentlessly preach that. And listen, you might think, well, of course, we're gonna preach that. That's what churches do. We preach, right? We preach the Bible. Well, listen. In our day and age, there is a spirit at work in this generation that wants to silence anybody who talks about sin, talks about the exclusivity of Christ, preaches the whole Bible and tells anybody that there is a literal hell to avoid and that Jesus is the only way. You can preach that to some people, but you can't preach that to all people. And if you do that, you're gonna get canceled. I'm gonna tell you this. I would rather be canceled in history than to be canceled in eternity. Canceling is nothing new to the church. The way they canceled the gospel in the first century was they cut your head off or they put you in jail or they put you in shackles. Cancel culture is nothing new. Cancel culture is not political, cancer culture is spiritual. It is the devil's reaction to the nuclear powered transforming power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And yet here's what I know that wherever sin abounds, grace does much more abound. I am so radically committed to Jesus' desire and ability to save anybody that we are going to boldly preach it and we're gonna shout it from the mountain tops. We believe the word of God. And we wanna be a people not just from the pulpit, but we wanna be a people who believe that. I want you to believe that. I want you to live like you believe that. I want us to walk the streets like we believe that. I want us to pray like we believe that. I want us to share our testimony and invite people to receive Christ like we believe that. And I want us to be in pursuit of the one thing that Jesus came in pursuit of. The Bible says Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. He found me when I was 12 years old and I am eternally grateful for that. I don't know when it was or where it was that he found you, but the same way he found you, he wants to save and he wants to reach those who right now are in our city, 200,000 people within 20 minutes of all of our locations who are right now speeding fast forward ahead into an eternity without Jesus Christ. And there is no other way. Church, we have to have a deep conviction and a commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Number three, we will tirelessly labor for the flourishing of this city. Jeremiah 29, the Lord says, the God of Israel to all the exiles whom I've sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon, might as well just put in there in Kalamazoo, build houses and live in them, plant gardens and eat their produce, take wives and have sons and daughters, take wives for your sons and give your daughters a marriage that they might bear sons and daughters. Somebody said amen and multiply there and do not decrease, but seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf for its welfare. For when you find its welfare, you will find your own welfare. We are committed and will tirelessly labor for the flourishing of our city. And when I say our city, I'm not just talking about Kalamazoo, I'm talking about wherever the Lord has put us in this county and multiple counties in a region, in an area we will labor for the flourishing of the place that God has planted us, which means we're gonna continue to lead the way in generosity towards agencies and ministries that serve the poor and underserved and needy in our city. Many of you might not even know what we do in our cities because maybe all you've ever read about is an MLive article or maybe you've only heard rumors or you've had people at work say, hey, why are you guys downtown? What are you doing there? Whether it's in Richland, Portage, downtown. But let me tell you what we do in our city. You do this, we do this together. Beyond praying morning, noon, and night every single day, beyond now having a location in the heart of our city. We, on a regular basis, partner financially and through volunteers with these agencies, alternatives of Kalamazoo, alongside ministries, Youth for Christ, Tree of Life Schools, Loaves and Fishes, the Kalamazoo Gospel Mission Urban Alliance, Power Up, Warm Kids, Communities and Schools, Kindness Act, K-PAP, Fostering Partnerships, Reach the Forgotten and Redeemed Rides. You aren't gonna find anybody in this city that is more invested into the flourishing of our city. Why? Because God's called us to that. He's called us to pray. He's called us to preach, but He's also called us to plant our lives and to invest and to be involved in things that produce flourishing in kids and in family and the welfare and the poor and the needy and to those who can't help themselves. You guys do this, when you give financially and you're a tither in this church, you might say, well, where does that all go? A large portion of it goes into things right here in our own city for the flourishing. We want our city to flourish, to thrive. We don't want it to be marked by all the negativity or all the problems that we see from time to time. On any given day, many of you serve as first responders, as teachers, as police officers and law enforcement, as those who work in the city communities, scattered across businesses and corporations across our city, and every single one of us have the same call that Jesus gave one of us, which is to be salt and light. And all of us, we carry within us the same desire that Jesus has for our city, which is to see it flourish, to see it grow, to see it strong, to see strong families, strong churches, strong businesses, and to not see darkness prevail, but to see the light of the glorious gospel that Jesus shined in very direct ways and in very indirect ways, because God cares about all of those things. The Bible says that God causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. How many of you know God's just good? God's just good, and we want to be good in our city, working for the common good of our city. And we're not just going to maintain that, we're going to continue to grow and to increase in that. The last of our pursuits is this. With urgency and joy, we will pursue an inheritance for Jesus from the nations of the earth. One of the commitments that Jane and I made 26 years ago was we said if radiant or any church that we build cannot be a blessing to the nations, we don't want to have anything to do with it. We're missionaries at heart. We move down here as missionaries to Kalamazoo. If we would have had our way, we may have been missionaries in a foreign nation. We actually thought about it in the early days of being married, of moving to the Philippines and being church planners and teaching in a Bible school. God made it very clear that we would do more to impact and reach the nations of the world by planting and building a missions focused church than we ever would by going by ourselves. And that has been a focus for us. The very first check in our brand new checkbook of at that time, Resurrection Life Church of Richland, check number 1001, before it was to a building, before it was to a payroll, was to the mission field. And we did that on purpose because we never wanted to forget that Jesus still has an inheritance in the nations that he is worthy to receive. And that there are still millions, and may I say even hundreds of millions of people on the planet today that still have not heard of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I don't, why is it that we should hear it thousands of times, but yet there are still people on this planet that have not heard it even once. And we've had a commitment from the very beginning that we would be ascending people, a missions people. In the early days in our old sanctuary, some of you who are here may remember it, some of you downtown or even at Portage may recall that, but we used to have the flags of the nations around the perimeter of our old sanctuary. The nations of the 1040 window in which we would pray every single week and we gave missions dollars. And that has continued even though the flags aren't up, the flags are in our heart. And we have missionaries all over the world, sent to ones, global partners, impact trips. Right now we have an impact trip that is in Guadalajara, Mexico at the church that we planted. Think about that, we planted a church in a city of 19 million people in Mexico. And right now we have people from radiant church that are there. Right now have a team of people in Kurdistan, Iraq who are helping minister to the Kurds in Iraq at this present moment. And in a few weeks, we're about to send a whole another team of moms, dads, sons and daughters who are gonna go to the Philippines and they're going to be preaching in islands and in villages that have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. These impact trips, kingdom builders trips. We do those because we want missions and the nations to become contagious in our hearts. What did Jesus say to the church, Matthew 28, some of his last words? All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father in the name of the Son and in the name of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I've commanded you and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. We're not there yet, church. All the nations of the world have not been reached. In a few weeks, we're gonna be rolling out to you the blueprint for the big give. What we're going to do this year, we just invested as a church $850,000 in the nation of India in June. What a miracle that is. Last year for big give, we gave $650,000 to like 14 different local and global projects. One of the projects, I'm gonna slip, I'm just gonna tell you. I'm just gonna slip and tell you one of the projects. One of the projects we are taking on for the next decade is helping to translate the Bible in a language that has never previously had the Bible in written form. And radiant church is gonna be responsible for bringing the word of God to a people who've never had it. It's gonna take a decade to do. And a lot of money, we're tackling it. Why? Because Jesus is worthy to receive the rewards of his suffering. Psalm 67 is just a verse that resonates in my heart. It says that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all the nations. Let the people praise you, oh God, and let the peoples praise you. Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the people with equity and guide the nations upon the earth. I love that, let the nations be glad. There's no more glad nation than a nation that has heard the gospel for the first time and it's changed everything. If you were to fast forward the tape of your life and of history today, remember those days when you could do that? Now you have to like use a remote and on the screen, but the old days, the old VCR days, come on old people. Remember you could fast forward and rewind. If you were to fast forward the tape of history to the end of the age that Jesus made reference to, after he's returned, after he's reigning and ruling, after he's made all of his enemies his footstool, the book of Revelation gives us a snapshot of what that day will look like. And here's what it says, gathered around the throne where people from every nation, from every tribe, from every language and from every kinder group who are worshiping together and saying worthy is the lamb who was slain. We have been redeemed from every nation. Worthy is the lamb. Can you imagine what a day that's gonna be? Go and read it in Revelation. When you read it, here's what you need to realize. You're there. That's not, this isn't a picture of somebody else. No, you and me, we're in that. You wanna know, well, what's my future look like? I don't know everything about your future, but I know that's part of it. And when we're gathered there on that day, there are going to be people from nations of the earth that are there as Jesus's inheritance, that are there because we were people in pursuit who lived our lives with intentionality, gave sacrificially, prayed like it mattered, trained full-time laborers to go to the nations both on short-term and lifelong assignments. And in that moment, we are gonna come rejoicing into the very presence of Jesus, either by rapture or resurrection, and we are going to join our voices together with the voices of people from other nations that are there because we sacrificed, we prayed, we gave, we went. And I want you to know on that day, the only tears that are gonna be allowed in heaven are the tears of joy at seeing the faithfulness of God. Radiant Church were called to be a people in pursuit. Let's give our full attention to the one who's on the throne. Would you stand with me at whatever location you're at? I wanna invite those campus, those location pastors to come into place and here at Richland, we stand together. And I want us to consecrate our hearts and our lives this morning before the Lord. You may be here, you might say, well, before I would ever preach to anybody else, I know I need to get my life right with Jesus. See, because Jesus came for you. Jesus came for me, He came for you. He didn't come looking for people who have their act all together. Jesus came for people who had their lives all messed up, who've been ravaged by sin, who've made terrible decisions, who right now are under the burden of regret and the weight of fear of death. And Jesus said, I'll save you, I'll rescue you. I've paid the price, trust in me, call on me and I'll save you. You can be born again, have a brand new heart and receive eternal life. So that scene I'm talking about, that can be you there. You say, well, I'm not good enough, you're right, but He is. It's a gift of grace, the great exchange. You trade in your sin and He gives you His righteousness. You surrender mastery over your life and Jesus becomes king and Lord of your life. If you've never made Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior, I'm talking about really repented of your sin, recognized, I've been in opposition to God, but God have mercy on me, save me and forgive me. Today He will. Today can be the first day of the rest of your eternity. Some of us may be in this room today and we've had an encounter or an experience or even a faith in our past, but we've wandered away from that and we don't know how to reset our lives. Today, He's one step away. If you'll take a step in His direction and say, Jesus, I've made a mess of things, forgive me, I need to start over, I'm coming home like the prodigal son. Today He'll meet you. All over this room, I just wanna invite you to take 30 seconds, close your eyes and bow your heads, giving space for God to move because as I talked about at the very beginning, His presence is here, He's here to save. To heal, to transform. He can change your life if you'll invite Him, if you'll surrender to Him. Today all over this room, if you say, Pastor Lee, I know I need to get my life right with God and today is the day that I'm gonna do it. I know I need to make Jesus the Lord of my life or I know I need to repent and come home. I've been away, I've walked away, I've been living for myself, but today I know I need to get right with God. You've never made Jesus the Lord of your life, maybe that's you. You've never invited Him in, today is the day. I wanna lead you in a prayer of invitation and consecration, but I want you to take that step in His direction. Here's the step. In a moment, I'm gonna count to three and when you hear me say three, without hesitation, without fear, you know it's you, you're gonna raise your hand and say that's me and you're gonna hold it up and then we're gonna pray together. Here we go. One, two, three, just raise it right where you're at and hold it up. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm looking all over the room. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I see several hands all the way in the back, sir. I see your hand. So many, so many people saying yes. Thank you, sir. Today's the day, today's the day. If you've not done it, do it right now. There's a young man, you're in your 20s and you're wrestling with it because your intellect is saying no and your pride is telling you no but also the Holy Spirit is drawing you right now. Don't you resist. If that's you, last call, you put your hand up. Today, find salvation, thank you. You can put your hands down and I'm gonna lead us all in a prayer. The whole room's gonna say this together and when we say amen, Jesus is going to be your Lord and your savior. Let's say this together. Say, Heavenly Father, I come in Jesus' name and I repent of my sin, of living my way and offending your heart. I ask you to forgive me and Jesus, I believe in you. I believe you went to the cross. I believe you rose from the dead and I believe you can save me. Come into my heart and be my Lord and savior. From this day forward, I turn my back on my past. I turn my back on the world and I turn my back on the devil. I belong to Jesus. I am a new creation. All things have passed away. Everything is brand new. I am a child of God, heaven is my home, the church is my family, the Bible is my promises and I will never back down. Thank you for saving me in Jesus' name, amen and amen. Come on, church, can we celebrate that? Come on, that's good news. Hey, hold on, time out, time out. If you're waiting to get excited about something, it's not the Lions game this afternoon. There's nothing more exciting than the fact that lives were just transformed from darkness into light. Come on, church, let's celebrate that. Let's celebrate that. Amen. I wanna invite our prayer team to make their way down front and here's what I'm gonna ask everybody to do. Number one, if you just prayed that prayer and you received Christ or you recommitted your life before you leave today, your first step in obedience is when everybody's going that way, is to walk down here to the front to one of these pastors and prayer partners, just walk up to them and give us two minutes to pray with you and encourage you. Just tell them I prayed that prayer today. Second thing is this, if you need prayer for anything, you're already a believer, but you're just like, man, I'm going through something or I want my heart to be awakened or I need healing in my body. We believe the presence of God changes everything. If you need a touch from God, we're gonna invite you to come and receive prayer. And everybody, as we walk out the doors, let's go in pursuit of the presence of God, the flourishing of our city in the inheritance of nations. In Jesus' name, amen. God bless you.