 At our Radiant Church, I want to welcome everybody at Portage and those who are watching online, as well as all of you who are here at the Richland campus. Obviously, I'm not here in person this weekend. I'm at our Radiant Church in Kentucky and I'm utilizing the tool of video to bring this message to you. I wanted to be the one to teach this and to communicate this message because part two of Flourish that we're going to look at this weekend is so important to me. And some of you, maybe right now, thinking to yourself, I'm going to tune out, this is video, I'm not used to video, but let me just tell you, we are so grateful here at Radiant Church for the tool of video. It enables us to reach people that are farther away than we could ever imagine reaching. We already have a video campus. We will totally utilize the method of video to preach the message of Jesus and it's not just going to be at one or two campuses. We envision a day when we will have eight, nine, 10 or even more by the grace of God campuses. And we will totally use every method short of sin to reach people with the gospel of Jesus Christ and video is an incredible tool to do that. So here we go, are you ready? Open your Bibles with me this morning to Genesis chapter 28. This is part two of our series entitled Flourish and today's message is entitled this. It's the revelation that can change everything. I want to say that again, it's the revelation that can change everything. We're going to look at the life and the experience, the revelation of a person that you're maybe familiar with. His name is Jacob. He's the grandson of Abraham. He's the son of Isaac. He's one of the big three patriarchs that we find in the story of Genesis that became the foundations of our faith. We're going to take a look at a revelation that he had with God that changed everything in his life. See, I believe that one revelation in our lives, one discovery about something of God has the ability to change the trajectory of our lives in such a way that we grow from failing to thriving. I want you to think about this. I had a friend in high school who lived all of his life and when he was 14 years old, he had a revelation. His parents sat him down and told him that he was adopted. That revelation changed the trajectory of his life and it helped fill in a lot of the gaps that he had wondered all of his life, why he didn't look like his siblings, why he always had the sense that there was something more for him to do. He went into social work and actually got involved in adoption and helping foster care and adopted kids. That revelation changed his life. I know the story of a mother who gave birth to an autistic child and wondered, is my son ever going to live a normal life? One day, her son sat down next to her at the piano and began to play music at four years old that he had heard his mother play that took years and years for her to learn how to play. She was classically trained and even though he was autistic, there was a part of his brain that was turned on to where he was a savant. He was able to play the piano and that one revelation changed the trajectory of that young man's life, changed the trajectory of that mother's life. Another revelation is I had a friend in college who declared to me at 21 years old, I am never ever getting married. Why in the world would I ever get married? I don't wanna commit my life. A girl is a ball and chain. I can date a whole bunch of them and begin to date them before Thanksgiving so I can eat mom and dad's pie but break up with them before Valentine's Day so I don't have to buy them any gifts and I'll just live my life. I am a bachelor until the rapture, until one day when he met his wife, Stacey, he saw her and he had a revelation. I cannot live my life without her and so he went and he got fitted for his ball and chain. I mean his wedding ring and he stood in front of all of us, his family and his friends and he committed to give his life and better for worse sickness and in health until death do us part. One revelation can change your life and the trajectory of your life forever and one spiritual revelation can change a person's life, literally can take you from being complacent, apathetic, not feeling like your life is going anywhere, wondering and having questions all of your life about things to beginning to thrive and beginning to flourish and live a life of purpose and destiny. Jacob was one of these individuals. Jacob was a man who had a revelation that we're gonna read about here in Genesis chapter 28 that changed his life. Look with me, beginning in verse number 10, we're gonna read several verses. It says in Genesis 28 verse 10 that Jacob left Bathsheba and he went towards Heron and he came to a certain place and he stayed there that night because the sun had set and taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head, he lay down in that place to sleep and he dreamed and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth and the top of it reached to heaven and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. Behold, the Lord stood above it and he said, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham, your father, the God of Isaac and the land on which you lie, I will give to you and to your offspring. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth and you shall spread about to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south and in you and in your offspring shall all of the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go and I will bring you back to this land for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised. Verse number 16, then Jacob awoke from his sleep and he said, surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it and he was afraid and he said, how awesome is this place? This is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven. So early in the morning, Jacob took the stone that he had put under his head and he set it up for a pillar and he poured oil on top of it and he called the name of the place Bethel but the name of the city was Luz at first and then Jacob made a vow saying, if God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear so that I come again to my father's house in peace then the Lord shall be my God and this stone which I have set up for a pillar shall be God's house and all that you give me I will give a full 10th of it to you. So Jacob is traveling and he comes to this city called Luz some people call Luz and how many know you should never stay overnight in a place called Luz but he sleeps in this desolate wilderness and in the middle of the night he has this dream and an encounter with God a revelation that changes his life but before we get to the revelation it's important that we understand why this was so significant in Jacob's life. If you know the full story of Jacob Jacob was a young man whose actual name Jacob means one who lies, one who supplants or tries to take somebody else's place deceiver and manipulator that is Jacob's name. There's a lot of different names you can name your kids I'm not sure that that's one that knowing the full meaning of it I would necessarily select I know Jacob is a real popular name and the reason why it's popular now to name our kids is because we know the backstory of Jacob we know what Jacob became but in Jacob's day when he received this name it wasn't a blessing it was actually a detraction and what we know about Jacob is that all of Jacob's life he was living in search of some things. You see Jacob was not dad's favorite. Jacob was the brother to a manly man by the name of Esau and Esau was dad's favorite. Jacob actually was a mama's boy. Jacob was loved by his mom. Esau was hairy you know he was a man's man he was a hunter he was a fisher he is strong he was husky you know that's how I envisioned him this hairy husky guy wearing wrestler jeans with farming utensils in the back of his F-150 and his gun rack and his NRA membership and he went out into the woods and he killed things and he caught things and dad loved him and then there was Jacob and Jacob was not the one that dad connected with. Jacob was smooth Jacob was artsy Jacob spent time in the kitchen and all of his life he was in pursuit of some things that he couldn't find in his father's house. What was he looking for? Well number one he was looking for favor. He was looking for his dad to express his affirmation over him as a son and to display favor upon his life that's why when Esau one day comes in from hunting he's coming in from a hunting trip and he's starving and he's famished. Where does he find Jacob? He finds Jacob in the kitchen cooking lentil soup. He's cooking a Daniel fast meal. He's cooking lentil soups but Esau comes in and he's starving and he says to Jacob his brother he says hey give me some of that lentil soup and Jacob sees this as a moment to try and seize a hold of something that he desperately wanted that he wasn't being given. He says I'll tell you what, I'll give you a bowl of soup if you give me your birthright. Biblical times of birthright meant that when dad dies everything that dad has will be handed over to the firstborn the one who has the rights to everything. It wasn't like today where dad gives his watch to one son and his truck or his car to his other son. No, the firstborn got everything because he had the birthright. And so Esau comes in and he doesn't even value what he has. He doesn't value the favor of his father on his life. It's just kind of nothing to him. And so he's so hungry he says sure take it. What good is it to me if I'm gonna die? And so Jacob being the manipulator, the self-starter, the one who has to make things happen for himself. He seizes a hold of the birthright in exchange for a bowl of soup. You would think that getting the birthright, the very thing that he wanted would satisfy him, but it didn't. And so all of Jacob's life, he lived at a distance from the father. Esau was the one who was invited into dad's tents. Esau was the one that when dad wanted something he called because he was the man's man. Jacob had found favor, but he had found favor with his mother. And there was a holy frustration on the inside of Jacob. That actually drove him. Drove him to seek out his identity. It drove him because he knew that inside of himself that there was a purpose for his life. He knew that God had put him here. There was this gnawing sense on the inside of him that in God's big story, he played a part in it. He just didn't have anybody to affirm it or to give him a sense of identity or favor so that he had a security in it. You see, when we don't have security in our identity and who we are, then we live our lives like Jacob, going out and trying to do whatever it takes to meet those needs and to satisfy that longing that we have in ourselves. If we're searching for identity, then we're looking for somebody to tell us who we are. If we have a sense that there's a purpose for our life and we don't have God's purpose for us, then we'll go searching for it. We'll even make one up if we need to. At the end of his life, at the end of Jacob's dad's life, his mom comes out of dad's tents and says, dad's about to die. And you've got his birthright, but if you want his blessing, then you gotta go in right now. Dad's going blind. He doesn't know who's there. So here's what we're gonna do in order to fake him out so that he thinks you're Esau. Esau's gone hunting to get dad the venison that he wants so that he'll be in a good mood and release his supernatural blessing. You see, blessing is supernatural. It's something that fathers have the ability to give that nobody else can give. And he says, here's what I want you to do. His mom says, I want you to go and put some animal pelts on your arm so that when you go in and dad says, is it you Esau? And he feels your arm, he'll think that you're Esau. Little bonus information, how many know you gotta be a hairy mess if dad confuses you with a venison pelt? But that's exactly what Jacob does. In order to trick and manipulate dad, he puts it on and he says, are you Esau? He says, I am Esau. And he feels his arm and he says, yeah, you feel like Esau. And he releases his blessing. So Jacob thinks what he wants is his dad's birthright, his possessions. He thinks what he wants is dad's blessing but in order to get it, he had to lie, cheat and steal. And it didn't satisfy. And not only didn't it satisfy but it created a division between him and his brother. He wanted to kill him. So mom says, pack your stuff and go to your uncle's house, get out of dodge, let some steam blow off here. And Jacob leaves the house and he's on this journey across the wilderness. And that's where we find him when he comes to the city of Luz. Luz is nowhere. Luz is desolate, it's wilderness. There's no reason to stop there. We know that there's nothing there because Middle Eastern culture would have said if anybody lived there, they would have had a responsibility to welcome Jacob into their home but there's nobody to welcome him there. The only hospitality he has is a rock. A rock to sleep upon. And so here he is in the middle of nowhere on a journey to his uncle's house but can we just be honest? Jacob is really on a journey to find himself. And he lays down in this place called Luz and he goes to sleep with his head on a rock. He takes a rock and he lays that bad boy down and goes to sleep. I mean, how many know you gotta be pretty desperate to put your head on a rock, but he does. And he goes to sleep and he has this vision, this revelation from God of a ladder set up between heaven and earth and angels ascending and descending and coming up and going down. And he wakes up and he realizes that this dream is just more than a dream. How many know some dreams are because you ate too much pizza the night before. Some dreams are because you've been binging on Netflix. Some dreams are because you've had some crazy conversations and your mind is processing. And then some dreams are the result of God getting you at the moment of your most peaceful and still and speaking into your subconscious, something that is connected to his eternal purpose for your life. And that's exactly what this kind of dream was. God says, Jacob, and he shows him a ladder and he shows him where he's at and Jacob wakes up and he says, I've had a revelation. I understand some things that I did not understand before. He says, I understand that this place that I was in that I thought was obscure, this place of wandering, this place that in the natural and according to natural eyes doesn't look like anything. It's just a wasteland. It's a wandering place, but there's a spiritual reality that's here that I did not know about. He says, this place is where God is. That's the first thing he says, God's here, but I didn't know it. Do you know that it's possible for God to be working in your life, but it's not obvious? Do you realize it's possible for you to be in a place when God is moving, to actually even be in a church service and God is moving on somebody's life, but if you don't have eyes to see it, you'll miss it? He says, God is in this place and I did not know it. He says this, he says, how awesome is this place? Now you and I use the word awesome all the time. And really what awesome means is good, but awesome, awesome is a superlative, which means it's a word that's supposed to explode with, there's ordinary and then there's extraordinary. And in Jacob's life, he had not experienced very much that was extraordinary. And for him to say this place is awesome, what he was really saying is my life, all of my life, I've been looking for something that would give me extraordinary meaning, extraordinary purpose, something that would say, yes, I'm with you. And I just had this dream and I believe that God just spoke to me and gave me a revelation about this place. You see, it had nothing to do with the natural environment, had everything to do with God was there. He said, how awesome is it? And then he said this, he says, this is none other than Bethel, the house of the Lord. It is the gateway to heaven. You see, he had a revelation of this that wherever God chooses to make himself known and his presence known is the house of God, it is Bethel. That's how you say it in the Hebrew. And really what it means is the house of God. A house of God is significance because families live in a house. A house of significance because a family has an identity, has a name, and there's a table in the house at which family belongs. And in the house, there are resources that belong to the father that the family who live within the house now have access to. There's a doorway in the house by which people leave to go and to fulfill their purpose and to labor on purpose and they return home to celebrate and to bring the harvest back into the house. And so when Jacob says, this is the house of God, what he's saying is, look, all of my life, I've been trying to find favor, purpose, meaning, and identity in my father's tents, but I was never invited inside unless I deceived him. I had to take matters into my own hands. All of my life, I've been journeying and struggling, trying to find out who I am, why I'm here, what's my part in God's big story, and all of my life, anything good that's happened, I've had to trick my way into. Honestly, what Jacob had done all of his life is what many of us do, where we take upon ourselves the role of being provider and creating our own identity and significance. The reason why this moment was so important for Jacob is because it was the first time that God ever broke through his defenses in a dream and gave him a revelation and said, Jacob, all this time you thought you were overlooked, I've been watching you, all this time you've been struggling for purpose, I was the one that had it, all this time you were manipulating to get resources, I was your provider, all of this time you thought that you didn't have favor, but I have a place at the table for you. It's the house of God. A revelation of the house of God changed Jacob's life and a revelation of the house of God can change our lives because let me tell you, there are so many of us, so many of us that are living our lives in this world and for us, church is just kind of a building that you go to, it's an add on accessory to the real life that we're living, but what we don't realize is there's something very unique and special about the house of God, the church, the family of God that all of us are connected to and all of us are called to be a part there's a place at the table for all of us. It's a place where purpose is revealed, it's a place where identity is given, it's a place where favor is released, it's a place where resources are available, it's the house of God. And if all we do is measure the church by the natural environment, then we'll be like Jacob standing in a wasteland going there's not much here, but if we'll ever get a revelation of why he's created the church and why Jesus said he would build the church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it, then it can change everything in our life. And then we're invited to respond the way Jacob did because Jacob's response is just as important as the revelation. You see, Jacob responded in three ways. Here's what Jacob did. Number one is Jacob in response to the Bethel revelation of the house of God, the first thing that Jacob did was he set his rock. Remember the rock? The rock was where Jacob had set his head to rest. And it says that Jacob took the rock and he set it down in the place and he set it as a pillar. It's not gonna sit for me. He set it as a pillar. And why a pillar is significant is a pillar speaks of covenant. You see a pillar in the Bible is always symbolic of someone entering into a covenant. You and I don't live in a covenant community. We don't live in a covenant culture. We live in a contractual culture. See in our world, we make agreements and we determine commitments based on contracts but God doesn't operate in contracts. God operates in covenants. See a contract is based on mistrust. A covenant is based on trust. A contract says I'll do this if you do that. A covenant says I'll do this no matter what you do. A contract is mental. A covenant is spiritual. And when a person would set their pillar up, what it spoke of was a commitment that they were making. Probably the rock that Jacob set down was significantly larger than the rock that I have today. And you know, it can become wearisome to carry a huge rock around big enough to become a pillar. So when you finally move it and you set it, there's intention behind it. It speaks of commitment. When Jacob set the column and he set the pillar down, what he was saying is, God, I'm making a commitment to the house of God. I'm setting my rock down. I'm not gonna be carrying my rock from here to here to here. I may be on a journey, but this is going to be where I always come back because it is in this place that you've revealed yourself to me. It's in this place that you've spoken to me about my identity. It's in this place that you've invited me to the table that you've given me your name and made me a part of your family. And so I set my commitment. And can I just tell you that probably the greatest decision that we can make in response to an understanding of the church or the house of God, not from a worldly perspective, a consumer perspective, but from a covenantal perspective is God's asking us if we haven't already to set our rocks down in a place and to make a commitment because when you keep carrying and you keep moving your life and your family and your commitment from option A to option B and from here to there, you can go into the environment and draw from it. You can step into the tents and they'll invite you in for a meal, but you're never going to experience the benefit of family and covenant. And that's what we desperately need. In the middle of a world of mistrust, the church is supposed to stand as a beacon of family and covenant and commitment. And as I said last weekend, we are a culture that is connected to everything but committed to very little. We got to stop putting God in our second wallet. You know, the wallet that has all our membership cards of things that aren't a priority to us in our everyday life, but we pull out when we need it. We need to make it a covenant. Think about the covenant relationships that you have in your life. They're mostly family based. And it's why it's because family is that thing that just turned the lights on. It's like you and I can be friends, co-workers, peers, neighbors, and that's fine. You can have a certain level of commitment, but when something goes family, everything changes. And one of the missteps that I think that the American church has made is we've made everything corporate and we've skipped over family because we view family as being old fashioned and corporate as being the new sexy, sophisticated way of structuring things. And obviously we need structure and obviously we need organization and obviously we need to learn some things from the corporate world, but it should not be removing the foundations of family. We need to be people of commitment. The second thing that Jacob does that I love is it says that he poured his oil on the rock. What does that mean? What's his response mean? Well, if the rock means making a commitment and some of us, can I just tell you, some of us, we just need to make a commitment to church. It's like, you know what, church isn't gonna be optional. We're gonna go, we're gonna raise our family, we're gonna go there, and we're going to enter into a covenant relationship. We're gonna join, we're gonna go to the growth track. We're gonna get involved. We're gonna say, this is our place. And if radiant church isn't the place for you, then find a place for you because the more important thing than anything else in your spiritual journey is that you find your people. But second thing that Jacob does is it says he pours his oil. You see, oil was significant because oil speaks of life. And oil all through the Bible speaks of anointing, gifting, and talents. The Holy Spirit, it says in 1 John, you have an anointing from the Holy One. Romans chapter 12, which I think is one of the most powerful chapters anywhere in the Bible. It says in verses six through eight, it says each of us having gifts is then differing according to the grace given to us. Let us use them if it's prophecy, then in proportion to our faith. If it's serving, then in serving. The one who teaches in his teaching. And it goes on and it says, the one who encourages in his encouragement, the one who is a giver in his generosity, and the one who leads with zeal, and the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness. All of us have a grace that's been given. All of us have an anointing on our life. We're not all the same because God doesn't build his church with bricks that are all uniform and artificially shaped. God builds his spiritual dwelling place, his church with living stones. And living stones are stones that have been shaped by their life, the currents, their experiences, and every stone is different. And because every stone is different, it fits together uniquely. You're unique. You have a talent, you have gifts, you have perspectives of a spiritual shape about you that fits perfectly in the house of God in which you are needed. Not another brick will do in place of you. You are uniquely shaped and crafted by God. And what God wants you to do is once you've made your commitment, he wants you to pour your oil on the stone, on your commitment, to pour your oil of your anointing on what God is already doing in the house. Because when you do that, how many of you know you can't put oil back in the bottle? Oil releases power, oil releases presence. Oil adds value. Oil makes sure that the places where there's friction are lubricated so that it's smooth. Oil is fluid. Oil is valuable. Oil is what they used in lamps to light the lamps and the fuel the lamps. It's what they used to cook. It was a staple of everyday life. And in the house of God, in the local church, we need every person to take their bottle. Number one, recognize that you have some oil in your life. And number two, be willing to get it out of the jar and onto the rock of your commitment. You see the question that oftentimes we ask in reference to commitment and serving in a local church is this. Because we've been trained in our culture to ask it. Here's the question we ask. What's in it for me? Right? Okay, what's in it for me? Oh, you want me to go to Girl's Track? Okay, what's in it for me? That's the wrong question. That's a failing question. But there's a flourishing question. The flourishing question is not what's in it for me. The flourishing question is what's in me for it. What's in me for what you are building, Jesus? What's in me that can add value? What's in me that if I were invested, if I were involved in the ministry and serving Jesus in the family of God, yeah, it can be messy. Come on, pouring oil out is messy. Our facilities team right now is already figuring out how they're gonna clean that mess up. Pouring oil out can be messy, but it adds incredible value. Jacob made the decision. This was his covenant declaration that everything that I have of value, my time, my talents, my experience, my giftings, my availability, I'm pouring it on my commitment because once I pour it out, it can't go back in the bottle. But once it's poured out, the potential of what oil can accomplish is never fully accomplished as long as it stays in the container. It's only useful when it's poured out. And listen, inside of you, God has deposited some oil. Some of you are, maybe you relate more to Esau. You're just like, well, I come to church and I'm not artistic, I'm not musical, I'm not corporate, I'm more of a hunter, I'm a man's man. Listen, there are other men's men and women's women's that walk in through the doors of our church and they need to know that there's people just like them. Don't discount yourself. You are important. We need people that are in production who are making all the things that go on in our sanctuaries with our light, our video, our cameras, our sound that makes everything go smoothly that nobody pays attention to. We need people who are saying, I'll be trained in that because I wanna help create the environment, an awesome environment. We need some people willing to get here early and make coffee because everybody knows nobody's listening to me until they've partaken of what you have made out there. His name is Jehovah Java, y'all. And coffee makes all things better in the kingdom. Thank God for the baristas at our cafe. Thank God for the people that are standing in our parking lots at both of our campuses, welcoming people with a smile saying, come on, park over here. See, before they ever enter into the presence of God in here, they can experience the presence of God on you out there. Everybody has oil. Everybody needs to be willing to pour their oil out. The third thing that Jacob did is he offered his tithe to the Lord. Now some of you right now, you're just like, oh, there it is. There it is, there it is. It was all that spiritual stuff and now, boom, you just dropped it. Now we're talking about money, but can I just tell you, money talks. Money talks, you can't have commitment and investment without it also touching your finances. Sam Houston, who helped build the Alamo and helped establish the city of Houston. Actually, before he died, he actually paid fully for the building of the church, the very first church in Houston, and he paid the salary of a pastor to come there and someone asked him one time, they said, Sam, why are you so generous with the church? Why are you so generous in the kingdom of God? I love his answer. He said this, he said, sir, when I got baptized, so did my wallet. And I want my money to be used for the kingdom of God. Jacob, here's what he said in verse 20 and 22. He said, if God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and if he'll give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, what's that provision? So that I will come again to my father's house, what's that protection? In peace, then the Lord will be my God and this stone which I have set up for a pillar shall be God's house. And of all that you give me, listen, of all that you give me, I will give a full tent or a tithe back to you. So I want you to think about what Jacob was saying. He was saying, God, I've realized that God, you are the one taking care of me. Number two, I realized that everything I already have in my life, you provided, even though I didn't recognize it. God, I realized that when I go on the journey of my life and trying to fulfill my potential and my destiny, I realized that you are my protector. And listen, here's the big one. I realized that it's not enough for you to be the God of Abraham and Isaac. I have to make the decision that you're also the God of Jacob. Notice what he says, you shall be my God. It's not enough to say you're my mom and dad's God. It's not enough to say you're my grandparents' God. We all have to make a decision where we say, God, the story that started before me, I'm entering into. And I'm gonna find my part because I've realized that you have a plan for me. Your favor is for me. You are protecting me. Everything I have in my life, I thought I achieved with my own two hands is really the result of your grace and your provision over my life. That you've deposited something in me that needs to be added to what you're building. You've invited me to partner with you in this thing. And God, this is awesome. Oh, it's only in the church that that kind of revelation or that type of invitation is experienced, where we're invited to partake of something we didn't start that we're invited to be family that we're invited to the table that God says, look, you didn't know it, but you've been carrying some things that have been set and established to be time released into the earth and the trigger mechanism of them being released into the earth is a revelation not only of who I am, but a revelation of who you are and the context, the environment in which I've placed you to flourish, which is the house of God. And that's true for Jacob, that's true for Lee Cummings, and that is also true for you. So today I wanna ask you, have you had a revelation of the house of God? Have you had a revelation that God is for you, that you don't have to be your own man or woman, that you don't have to strive and try and make something happen, that God has a purpose for your life? It's important that we find our place in the house of God, it's important that we serve, it's important that we give, but listen, the most important thing, the most important thing today is that you and I choose to not be Jacob in that we become manipulative and under our own self power, thinking that we've got to make something of our life and that if we're ever going to be anybody, it's because we choose that. We need to realize that even when it wasn't obvious, God, our Father has always had his eye on us, following us, writing our story and waiting for a moment to reveal himself. And today for many of us, that's today. God is revealing himself to you today. You say, well, what do I do with that? How do I go from being manipulative and a self-starter and thinking nobody's looking out for me? You don't know my story, you're right, I don't know your story, but God knows your story and here's what I know about what God knows about your story. He's not only the starter of your story, he's the finisher of your story. He's the author and he's the orchestrator and what God says over your life today is what you thought was the end of the story is just the beginning of his story and that's today. I want everybody, if you would, would you just bow your heads with me in an attitude of prayer? God's greatest desire for you is that you would flourish. Not just flourish in what you do, but flourish in who you are. Jacob had this amazing revelation where he realized that God was real, God was coming to him, God had a purpose for him, and God would protect him, provide for him. Can I just tell you today that that is the same God that is here in this place today. And he's made a way for you to enter into a relationship and John chapter one, Jesus said, basically, I am the one who is ascending and descending. I am the one that God sent down the ladder to save you. Jesus bore your sins on the cross. Jesus made a way for you to be reconciled to God. Your manipulative ways, your deceptions, the mistakes that you've made, your sins and even your doubts and unbeliefs. Jesus has cleared the way for you to have a relationship with the Father. And today, if that's you in both campuses, whether it's here at Richland or whether it's here at Portage, I wanna invite you all over this room if you'd say, I know on my heart, Pastor Lee, that I need to get my life right with God. I'm tired of running, I'm tired of trying to make things happen in my own strength. I'm tired of feeling like I don't know what my purpose is. I'm tired of carrying the burden of the weight that I carry in my life. I wanna surrender that and I want God to be my Father. I want God to be the head of my life and I want Jesus to be my Lord. If that's you, right now, wherever you're at, you say, Pastor Lee, I need to get my life right with God. I want you right now, just raise your hand in all of these places. Even if you're online right now, just raise your hand or make that response that that's me. And just say, I need to get my life right with God. Today, I want to flourish. Today, I wanna enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ. What I wanna do is I wanna lead us all in a prayer today. Everyone, if you would join with me in saying this, say, Heavenly Father, I come in Jesus' name. And I thank you that you are the God of Abraham, you're the God of Isaac, and you are the God of Jacob. And today, I declare that you're my God. I believe that Jesus Christ is Lord. I believe he came to live, to die, and to be raised from the dead, so that I could be reconciled to God. Jesus, come into my heart, be my Lord and Savior. Wash my heart and cleanse me completely. I believe that you're my protector. I believe that you're my provider. I believe that you're my father, and that I belong to the family of God. Help me to set my stone, pour out my oil, and live my life for the one who laid his life down for me. In Jesus' name, amen.