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What a great day to be in the house of God with the people of God. We're gonna be diving into a new couple of messages this week and next week. A little bit of a different title that I will have to explain. But it's called the door. The door. It's not the door, the D-O-O-R door. Although there's some similarities to what we'll be talking about, but it's called the door. And here's the point of it eliminating generational gaps, releasing generational blessings. Eliminating generational gaps, releasing generational blessings. That's what we're going to be talking about for the next couple of weeks. Let's pray. Father, minister your word to our spirits. And I pray that it would come from our spirits to our souls. That your word would be worked out through our minds and our hearts, our will and our hands. In the name of Jesus. Amen. Genesis 17, 7 says, I will confirm my covenant with you and your descendants after you from generation to generation. Say generation to generation. That is the word in Hebrew, the word door. And it's D-O-R, and as you saw, the O has that little thing above it, little arrow above it. It's probably pronounced dur, but we're going to call it door. But every time you see the word generation in Scripture, it's usually that word, door. Then he says, this, this is the everlasting covenant. I will always be your God and the God of your descendants after you. Okay, so what is the everlasting covenant? That he would always be our God, always be our God, and the God of our descendants after us. That is the covenant. The covenant is a door. The covenant is a generational covenant. In Luke 150, it says, and his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation. How many of you know we need the mercy of God? So I want to dive into the Father's heart here today about the importance of the generations, the importance of generational blessing, and what it's going to take in order to see that in our lives and in our families. I was having a conversation with someone a few years ago, and this person's a high-level leader, tremendous amount of responsibility, corporate responsibility, and leading hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people, thousands of people on her teams. And we were having a conversation just about the brokenness of humanity in our country. And we were talking about all the political dysfunction at the time it was after COVID with all the BLM stuff and the woke left insanity and the victim mentality and the welfare mentality and the entitlement mentality and the rage and the riots and the protests and the looting and the burning and all the insanity. I mean, we're just talking about just, you know, how how did we get here? Like, how did our country get here? How do how do people get to this place of such depravity and insanity? And you not even to mention, you know, sexual immorality and drug addiction and alcoholism and all of that. And I said, I said, how does this happen? How how do we have that many people in our country that are so lost and broken? And I'm thinking, like, well, sin, it's because of sin and deception and racism and anger and selfishness and and all of those things. And she and she said this. She said, I believe that it's all systemic to the family unit. I believe that it's all systemic to the family unit. And I immediately agreed with her. I said, a hundred percent. The vast majority of the time, if someone lives as a follower of sin and selfishness, it's because that's what they were raised up in. And if someone lives as a follower of righteousness and sacrifice, it's because that's what they were raised up in. But how many of you are thankful that because of the gospel there are exceptions to that? Amen. People can escape from inherited brokenness and generational curses. So as I mentioned at the title of the message, the door, eliminating generational gaps and releasing generational blessings, I want to talk a little bit about what is a generational gap. A generational gap, this is just my definition, is a lack of honor and connection causing an interruption and a hindrance of the flow of God's character, nature, power, and ways between the generations. I'll say that again. A lack of honor and connection causing an interruption and hindrance of the flow of God's character, nature, power, and ways between the generations. So then a generational blessing would be an intentional honor and connection, causing a continuation of the flow of God's character, nature, power, and ways between the generations. Now, I want you to understand something that that is God's will. That is his will, that is his plan, that is his good and perfect and pleasing way. Is that it is perpetuated from generation to generation to generation. He makes it incredibly clear in his word that that is his will. I'm also so glad that he makes provision when his will hasn't been done in the lineage of a family. Amen. So when I say generational blessing, uh blessing is one of those things that I like to redefine. I remember when I became a Christian, I was coming out of such darkness and family brokenness and dysfunction and deception. Um and I had, you know, grew up in the Bible Belt in Louisiana. And so as a kid, I heard Christian terms. I heard terms like saved and grace and faith and all of these kind of things. I heard those terms mercy and and and I remember uh when I got born again, the Lord told me, He said, I'm going to redefine everything you think you know. I need you to take everything you think you know about me and everything you think you know about church and everything you think you know about spiritual things and throw it in the trash. Because you learned all of those terms from a place of spiritual death. You were spiritually dead. So the only thing you could do is understand it with your natural mind. You had no spiritual understanding to comprehend those things, and so all of your conclusions are garbage. Throw them away. And it really was. It's like you had to go, uh, okay, I'm coming to you, God, and I'm saying, I know nothing. I have no preconceived opinions, conceptions, uh, uh conclusions about you or anything that belongs to you. And it was just this like redefine everything, God. And he just began to do that, and it changed the the way that I thought. He wanted to change the way I think, which is the definition of repentance, to change what you think, or I the way I say it is to change what you believe to be true about God, to change what you believe to be true about yourself, to change what you believe to be true about somebody else. That's ultimately what repentance is. And so, and and how many of you know this? When in when you're debating and arguing or you know, trying to flesh out something with somebody, whoever controls the terms wins the argument. Whoever controls the terms wins the argument. And uh so you have to, in order to have a good argument, somebody else has to have control the terms besides the people who are debating one another. The terms have to be set. How many of you know God defines his terms, he writes the definitions of his words. And so I feel like even uh since that was such a kind of a Genesis work that he did in my life as a young uh Christian and as a young follower of Jesus and as a young pastor, one of the themes I began to see is that he used me to do that in other people's life. And so it's very common that he would use me to help people redefine stuff that they thought they knew what it meant and to actually show them what it really means according to his terms and his definitions, right? I call it God's glossary. We gotta, we gotta erase everything we think we know and get God's definition of those things in our life because behavior follows belief. And if we believe something is one thing and it's really another, that's actually the definition of deception, and we don't want to do that. And so the reason I'm saying all this, I feel like part of my mission and my calling is to help people get beyond where they currently are. Pay attention to the language here, it's gonna mean something in a minute. This was the literally the mission statement God gave me. I wrote it down, I don't know, 20 years ago, something like that. To help people, Ben, you are called to help people get beyond where they currently are by changing the way they think through the preaching and teaching of my word. Now, what's interesting about that is when I started out in ministry, we were mostly helping addicts and people who were in darkness, right? But then as that progressed, I was actually helping people grow that were in good places, having success. And, you know, uh they were on their way. And the Lord still said, No, you're still gonna help people get beyond. It's not that where they are is a bad place, it's just I've got more for them. And in order to help them get beyond where they currently are, how many of you want to get beyond where you currently are, right? Uh you have to change the way you think, which is repentance. Now, if you if I looked at you and said, Well, you just need to repent, you'd probably get offended because we have a negative connotation about that word because we have the wrong definition of that word. When Jesus said, repent, the kingdom of heaven is here, he said it with a smile on his face and an exclamation mark at the end of it. Repent, I've got good news. He said, I came to bring you good news. Repent, the kingdom is here. And what he's saying is, you need to think differently, or you're gonna miss what I came to bring, right? And so I feel like that's something that got. So as I'm as I'm talking, I just want to give a little a little context to that. So we're gonna redefine the word blessed based on what the Bible says it means. How many of you know that's a very common Christian word? Blessed, and people throw it around. People that aren't blessed, throw it around and say they're blessed. Right? How are you doing? I'm blessed, blessed and highly favored. Everything's blessed. Lord, thank you for your blessing. But what does that actually mean? Well, this is what it means. I've studied a lot about this, and I'm summarizing what it means in the original Greek and Hebrew, and this is what it means. It means to be happy, to be caused to prosper. Listen to the language there. To be caused to prosper. It means to push down the road. That's actually what the word prosper means, to be pushed down the road, to advance. That's what it means to be blessed, to advance or to be advancing, to increase, to go straight, to pro to progress successfully, to be led on and made happy. Essentially, is what that means. To be led on and made happy. So that's what the word blessed means. So then, based on that definition, the biblical definition of what it means to be blessed, then we have to ask ourselves, am I blessed? Am I blessed? Is this happening in my family? Is blessing happening in my family? Are we being caused to prosper? Is there a force that is pushing us down the road spiritually? Uh I love where it says to uh increase, to advance. Um, that is so important. It's so important because we should always be moving forward. Our faith should always be advancing. The fruit of the Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit, the power of God at work in our life should always be advancing what? In us and through us. There should be movement. We're always moving forward. Uh, you remember last week. Well, hang on, let me get ahead of myself. Now, what does it mean to be cursed? Because blessing is like a fluffy word in our Christianese society, right? It's it's like a soft word. It's very fluffy, it's very light. It's very like, oh, blessed. Can I even say it like that? Blessed. Can y'all say blessed? Say bless. Blessed. But that's not how you say cursed. What's the opposite of blessing? I believe the blessing of God is one of the most powerful forces in the universe. It is not a light, fluffy thing. It is the power of God in and through our life. There's nothing more powerful than God's blessing on your life, on your family, on your marriage, on your ministry, on your business. There is nothing like the blessing of God. Now we feel the weight when we say cursed, because what's the opposite of blessed? Cursed. Well, we say cursed, we don't say cursed. It's not a light, fluffy thing. It's serious, it's weighty. Like you don't play around with that. But we play around with the word blessing. And so, my what I want, how I want you to change the way you think is blessing is weighty. It is serious. It is a matter that should invoke the fear and the awe of God. To go, I don't want to, I don't want to think I'm blessed when I'm really not. God, what is your blessing? I want your blessing. How do I get your blessing? What causes your blessing to be on a family from generation to generation? How many of you know what a generational curse looks like? So here's what cursed actually means. At least we have a definition that Hollywood gave us. Here's what cursed means. It means to be made bitter, to be stuck, to cause, to be shaken. It means alone or apart from. It means to decrease. That's the biblical meaning of the word cursed. A little different than maybe what what we thought. God's helping me, He's changing the way that I think. I'm learning as I'm studying this out. Now, based on that definition, it's a little easier to identify where the enemy may be trying to get a curse to stick in your life. It literally means to be made bitter. Bitterness. To be stuck, to not be able to move forward, to cause to be shaken, alone or apart from, to decrease. Um Psalm 112, verse 1. I love this. It says, Praise the Lord. Blessed, come on. Blessed are those who fear the Lord. Okay, so what's we're talking about? We want to be blessed. We want generational blessing. Okay. Fear of the Lord brings blessing. Blessed are those who fear the Lord. Listen, who find great delight in his commands, in his word. Listen, their children will be mighty in the land. The generation of the upright will be blessed. Upright brings blessing. Uprightness in a generation brings blessing. Verse three: wealth and riches are in their houses, and their righteousness endures forever. In other words, it doesn't get stuck, it doesn't get bitter, it doesn't, it endures. It moves forward, it progresses. Their righteousness endures forever. Even in darkness, light dawns for the upright, for those who are gracious and compassionate and righteous. God will come to those who are generous. Good, sorry, good will come to those who are generous and lend freely. So generosity, generosity and lending freely brings blessing. Listen, who conduct their affairs with justice, surely the righteous will never be shaken. Isn't that powerful? They will be remembered forever. In other words, they will endure, they will be blessed. The righteous will not be shaken, they will not be cursed. They will be blessed. So you remember last week I talked about the blueprint of discipleship, a discipleship blueprint. And we were talking about the ministry model of Jesus and how he ministered to four to five different groups of people, mainly four groups of people. He ministered to each group differently. Each group got something different from Jesus. They got a different form of his teachings, they got a different form of his deeper explanations and meanings and then his authority and power and things like that. So you had unbelievers, you had believers, followers, disciples, and disciple makers. But let's just talk about the believer. So I was talking about how important it is that we don't get stuck on being a believer. We have to move from being a believer to being a follower. And so many people get stuck on just being a believer because maybe they were told that's all, that's it. You're a believer now, everything's done, everything's good. You're a believer, that's the pinnacle. You went from being unbeliever to believer, and now you're good. And people, how many of you, let me say it like this. How many of you know somebody that is a believer, but they're not a follower of Jesus? Do you know some people like that? I know, I know people like that. My family was like that growing up. That was my parents growing up. They were believers, they were not followers of Jesus. They believed in Jesus, they believed in God, but they lived their own life, their own way. They were stuck on belief. And guess what didn't happen in my family? Generational blessing. Belief is stationary. Belief is a fixed stationary place. There's no movement, there's no advancement. What is follower? Following, that means movement. That means advancement. That means we're going somewhere. We're not staying in some stuck place and having our lives shaken by the by life, right? That's curses. Going to be blessed. So being a believer doesn't line up with blessing. Being a follower lines up with the definition of blessing. So we got to get out from the place where we're just stuck and we're a believer and we love the good Lord and we got to help people. Listen, and I recognize I'm talking to a bunch of followers of Jesus here, okay? So I've said this before, but when I when I when I lay out some of these, some of these principles and some of these teachings, this is so you can help the people that you know that are believers, but they're not followers. How many of you know most of them have never had anybody ever look at them and say, you know, you've been a believer for a long time, but you're not a follower of Jesus. And he's calling you by his love and his grace and his mercy. He is extending an invitation to you as a believer to become a follower. He wants you, why? Because he wants generational blessing to flow through your life. The number one thing, listen, the number one thing that hinders, this is from 25 years of ministry experience and being a follower of Jesus. The number one thing that will hinder this progress, this blessing, this movement, this advancement is offense. It is offense. That's why part of the definition of a curse is bitterness. Okay? It's living in a bitter place, bitter heart, bitter bitterness, root of bitterness. The number one thing that will hinder this is offense. So offense is the word scandalon most of the time, scandalon, and it means a stumbling block. Think about that. An impediment, a hindrance. It means something in your life that's going to block. Number one, that's going to stop advancement, because when you stumble, if you're moving forward and you stumble, what happens? You stop moving forward. And then it impedes advancement. It impedes forward progress. So when you get offended, that's what happens. It also means to turn away from. And so what happens when we get offended is we stop, whether it's a, it's a, it's always a it's always about a person. It's always something someone did or something, something, something somebody did, or something somebody didn't do, right? Is where offense comes from. And when we get offended, we stop. We pause the relationship, and then what happens is we turn away from it. We turn away from it. We turn our heart away from it. If we get offended at God, we get offended at God, we stop the relationship, we turn away from it. If you get offended at a person, it stops the relationship and you turn away from it. And then here's what happens: you get stuck. When you get offended and you don't forgive and resolve it, you get stuck. Now let me say this. You are going to get offended. You are going to get offended. I get offended. The question isn't what are you going to get offended? It's what are you going to do when you get offended? If we forgive and we resolve it, guess what happens? Advancement. We can move forward together. That's why I love the definition of unity that I love is moving forward together in disagreement. Moving forward together in disagreement. Guess what? Our unity doesn't depend on our ability to agree on everything. If unity in my marriage depended on our ability to agree on everything, we wouldn't have it. Wouldn't have it. Been married 22 years, we wouldn't have it. Doesn't depend on that. In order to have unity and to be able to move forward together, to be able to advance with other human beings, you have to be able to forgive and resolve offenses. All forward movement and advancement stops. And what I've seen also is personal spiritual growth stops, blessing stops, everything stops. And there's obviously other things, but when I was just reading that definition of cursed, I that's what I just kept hearing is that stumbling block, that hindrance, that thing that causes us to stop making progress and stop advancing. Hebrews 12, 15 says, look after each other so that not one of you will fail to find God's best blessings. Listen to this. Look after, I'm gonna slow this down a little bit. I need to slow this down a little bit. Look after each other, so that not one of you will fail to find God's best blessings. Listen, watch out that no bitterness takes root among you. For as it springs up, it causes deep trouble, hurting many in their spiritual lives. That's something that we have to take seriously. If we want to see generational blessings in our lives, in our families, if we want to see the blessing of God in our church, it's gonna happen around unity. The Bible says that unity, when brothers dwell together in unity, and it always means and sisters, brethren and sistren, dwell together in unity. Listen, it says there God commands his blessing. It's like the oil that flowed down Aaron's head and his beard and his robe. Blessing flows and is commanded on unity. It's commanded on unity, and unity depends on our ability to forgive and to repair relationships, to resolve those conflicts. And my parents divorced when I was seven, and my whole universe just fell apart. It just fractured. Up until that point, I rem I don't remember having any worries, any stress, any cares, any any mental or emotional issues. Uh I had a good life. And when that happened, it was like this fracture. The term broken home is so appropriate. That's my world just broke. My heart broke. The rejection. Over the years after that, my relationship with my dad would disintegrate. And by the time I was about 11 or 12, I had no relationship with him at all. And same with my brother and my sister, my older brother and sister. I was the youngest. And from the time I was 11, 12 to the time I was 23, had no relationship with my dad. And my mom was a believer, as I mentioned, but she wasn't following Jesus. She wasn't living healthy. She wasn't mentally healthy, emotionally healthy. Um, you know, our lifestyles weren't healthy. And so lots of addiction and things like that. And so that crept in at an early age, and I ended up uh being a really, really, really bad drug addict and alcoholic as a young adult. And so here I am as a 23-year-old young man, completely broken. Every area of my life, I mean, talk about a curse. My whole life was a curse. And and not only was I stuck, I was going down. I mean, that to decrease, I mean, I was decreasing. Every area of my life was in debt, was broken. And I go into this recovery program that was a faith-based recovery program, and they took us to church. And I walk into this church, and I remember I never felt what I felt in that room. It was a big church, it was a large church. There's probably a thousand people in that room. And, you know, worship and the presence of God. I didn't know that I was even feeling the presence of God. I just knew I had never felt what was in that room. And here I am, this broken young man, this broken son. And I'm standing in that room and I just began to realize everything that I need is in this room right now. Where was I? I was in the presence of God with the people of God. Let me say it like this: I was in the presence of God with the family of God. And I'm standing there in that room, not knowing any of what was gonna unfold in the future or what that path was gonna look like. I just had hope for the future all of a sudden. I just had hope for the future. Like I everything was gonna be okay. I get born again, surrender my life to Jesus, decide that I'm gonna be a follower of Jesus, and then begin to make all of the decisions necessary to be a follower of Jesus. But that wasn't what changed my life. What really changed my life? What I believe the life that we have today, the generational blessing that we are living in today and that we are passing on to our children, was supernatural. And but it was only possible in the natural elements of that church that He brought us to. And what I mean by that is we were positioned since we didn't have in the natural what we needed, God made provisions for us in the spirit. So we're surrounded by spiritual mothers and fathers and grandmothers and grandfathers and brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles and cousins and the whole thing. And we began to, God began to put our lives back together. And He did it using the people in that church, the people that had generational blessing flowing in their life. They had uprightness and righteousness and the fear of the Lord. And they were moving, they were advancing spiritually, they were advancing in their marriages, they were advancing in their families, they were training up their kids in the way they should go. What is that? That's movement. That's advancement. We're not raising our kids. We're training them in the way they should go. And we got into the lives of these people, and it was unbelievable. Everything we lacked in our biological family, our faith family supplied. The beautiful thing about that is God's heart for our biological family that is still present. Because he wants that too. He wants to put a stop to those curses. He didn't just want the curses to stop in our life, which had happened. We said, no more. It ends with us. Come on. How many of you, that's your season of life? Like it ends with us. And it's not to put fault and shame on our parents, they did the best they could with what they had. But what happened when we became followers of Jesus and we began walking in the blessing of God is that started to get on our parents and our families. And thankfully, I had the opportunity. And my mom was praying for me. So when I'm saying she was a believer, she was praying for me. But she wasn't living her life as a follower of Jesus. When I became a follower of Jesus in this church, the same time my life was being transformed, her life was being transformed in that same church. And she became a follower of Jesus. And now then we just got to follow him together. It was beautiful. And then later on, my dad became a follower of Jesus. And my dad, my relationship got restored. My dad, when I was 23 years old, God did it supernaturally. And because I was following him. And so that blessing, collateral, you've heard of collateral damage. What is collateral damage? That means it's the damage that follows someone who's going the wrong way. Right? As they're decreasing, as they're going down the wrong path, unrighteousness, it's the it's how it negatively affects everybody around them. Well, I started moving in the collateral blessing of the mothers and fathers and the big brothers and big sisters that God tucked us in in their families. And we got in on their blessing. I remember having a conversation with Pastor Denny one time, and I said, you know, I have no, God's called me to ministry, but I have no heritage of ministry like that. Nobody in my family's ever been in ministry. And he he said, uh, that's not true. He said, because God grafted you into this family. And he said, You're actually, you're actually third generation. Because his parents were pastors, and he was a pastor, and we got grafted into that. It's pretty amazing how it works. We got in on that generational blessing, and it's powerful in our life. That's what God's trying to do with the church and with this church. He wants to eliminate generational curses, eliminate generational gaps, and release generational blessings. His will is, we're going to dive into this here. His will is, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It's a covenant of generations. So I was uh I was in Walmart this week and I didn't print my receipt. I got gas and didn't print my receipt. So I had to go in the little deal to get the receipt. And I walk in, and there was this young black man in there, good looking guy, and he was a young adult, and he was selling t-shirts, and he was asking me, did I want to buy a t-shirt? And the t-shirt said, uh, God will see you through. And he's like, Do you want to buy a t-shirt? And I was like, No, I'm good. I'm good, thank you. And I just kept walking. And then I stopped and I turned around and I said, Who are you who are you selling these for? Who are you raising money for? I thought it was maybe a ministry or like a sometimes rehab centers will be out there selling baked goods and stuff. And I was I was just curious. And uh he said, Well, I'm a single dad, and I'm just trying to make it, you know. So I'm out here selling some selling some t-shirts. And you know that story, right? That doesn't really hold water. And so um I'm like, okay. And and I just said, Well, I said, you know, your t-shirts say God will see you through. I said, Are you a part of a church? And he said, No, do you know of one? And I was wearing my hat, the hat, River Life hat. I said, I said, yeah, I said, I've uh, you know, we have we have a church up in Saline, I don't know where you're at. He's like, I live in Dallas. I'm like, is it's about 20 minutes north of here. I was in McKinney at the time. His name was Charleston. Great name, Charleston. And I said, uh, I said, you want to know one of the ways God will see you through as a single dad, Charleston? I said, family. I said, I don't know what your earthly family is like, I don't know what your story is, but I'm sure there's some brokenness there. I said, but God, the way God's gonna see you through is family. I said, you need to find a church and you need to and you need to get plugged in and and to put roots down of family. I said, because God's got fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles for you, and people that will be that for your little girls. I said, but you you won't you won't make it without that. You need family. You need to get in some generational blessing. He wasn't operating in generational blessings selling t-shirts in Walmart. Probably not even being honest about what what's going on with them. So then I go outside and I get in the get in the car and he comes up to my window and he says, Hey, I know you don't want a shirt, but would you be willing to just make a donation, you know, make a just give me some money, you know? And I said, What do you need? He said, Well, I'm out of gas and I can't get back to Dallas. You know, I need some gas. I said, Is your car here? And he said, Yes, so I I pulled around and I filled his gas tank up and he's got his hatch open, his tailgate open on his really, really old Tahoe. And he had all this pile of shirts, you know, and stuff, and he's sitting on the back of the tailgate, and I put the pump on automatic, you know, where it would just run. I went over to him and I said, I said, man, I said, listen to me. I said, You and God is not enough. I said, when Adam was in the garden, God looked at him. I said, You know the story of Genesis creation, Adam and the garden. I said, When Adam was in the garden with God, he God looked at him and said, It's not good that you're alone. I said, Charleston, was Adam alone? And he said, No, God was there. I said, Exactly. I said, You need family, buddy. And and I prayed for him. But it just made me think, I knew I was gonna be speaking along these lines this week, and it made me think, you know, when you have family, when you have generational blessing, you will never lack anything. You'll never lack anything. You might have some hard times, you're gonna have some challenge. I'm not saying you're gonna have challenges. Let me just say it like this you'll never be homeless trying to sell t-shirts on the street. Living in a Tahoe. That's not gonna happen to you. Do you know why that's not gonna happen to you? Not because hard times might not hit, but because you have family and you have friends. You have family and you have friends if you're living in that generational blessing, right? That's why it's so important to have family. Whether you biological family set you up for success or not, faith family is just a is just a choice that we make. Everybody has that choice. Come, come whosoever will, and drink that water from that well. And so that's just what's on my heart right now is being family, being family, and not letting anything come in between those relationships. I know what it's like to not have what I need from my biological family, to have to break generational curses. And I know what it's like to step into generational blessing that came from my faith family that then trickled onto my biological family. And so don't underestimate or undervalue the power of blessing and the power of generational blessing. It is how God moves in and through people, and it's how he establishes his what we call the ecclesia, which is the church, is what literally the word ecclesia means his governing family. His governing family. It's his family that operates in his authority in the earth in a governing way as his family. Mothers and fathers, right? Children and grandchildren. Now I want to give you just a quick visual aid as I close of this. I want to have the Vidito family come up here. Jim and Linda, Joe, Callie, and Noah. You guys come up here real quick. And I just want you to see this. And there's other family, I don't think there's another family in here today that has three generations of followers of Jesus. But I just want to show you a picture of what it looks like. And so you guys kind of stand in the middle, Jim and Linda, and then Joe and Callie behind them, then Noah. And just kind of stand in a row. Right there. There you go. There you go. Perfect. I like that. That's great. Okay. So Jim and Linda. And they have a story, and they have a story about their parents and all of that, but it's just the three of them here today. So we're going to start with Jim and Linda. But they made a decision that they're going to be followers of Jesus. They're going to worship Jesus. They're going to live for Jesus. They're going to prioritize being a part of a faith family and building the church. And then they raise their kids up, Joe Vidito, and there's others of them, but he's the only one here today. And they raise him up. They train him up in the way he should go. And then how many of you know the Bible says when they're older, they won't depart from it? Sometimes there's a gap. There was a little gap. But when he was older, he came back to the generational blessing of being a follower of Jesus. So there's Joe and Callie. And then they have children, and they decide Tucker the terrific is in kids' ministry right now. So Tucker, just imagine Tucker right here. But Noah, it's it's father and mother, it's parent, child, grandchild. Noah has decided he's going to be a follower of Jesus because his parents are followers of Jesus and his grandparents are followers of Jesus. And the tremendous power of God that is at work in and through this family will continue for generations. Amen. I just wanted you to see that picture. Okay, y'all can be seen. I know Jim does not like coming up here and being made an example of. Some of you are families of three generations, four generations of followers of Jesus, but I'm just talking about the people who are actually in Riverlife, right? So the Nealy family is another example. Greg and Leah, Enoch and Chelsea, and then they're they're four little nuggets, little kneely nuggets. So I love seeing it. It's my favorite thing. It's my favorite thing to see. The more I study this and the more I let the Holy Spirit speak to me about this, the more important I realize it is. Whether you had it biologically or not, God wants you to live in blessing and in generational blessing. In Exodus 3, 5. And I'm going to close and then we'll pick up next week, kind of right here. And I've got some really, some really practical things that I'm going to teach next week about how to eliminate generational gaps and how to actually see generational blessing flow in you, to you, and through you. This is more foundational today. Don't come any closer. During worship. Don't come any closer. God said, take off your sandals. This is when Moses encountered God. For the place where you are standing is holy ground. Then listen, the next thing he says, don't come any closer. Take off your sandals. Why? The place you're standing is holy ground. Why is it holy ground? I am the God of your father. That's holy ground. I don't even, we don't know much about Moses' father. Other than he was a Hebrew. I am the God of your father. And what he's saying is, because I'm the God of your father, I'm about to be your God. The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. At this, at what? At that revelation, Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God. What's that? The fear of the Lord. In the midst of the revelation of a generational God, a holy generational God, the fear of the Lord hits. So you most of you know the story, but I just want to point this out. In Exodus 3.15, God also said to Moses, so they have this whole conversation, but listen, God also said to Moses, say to the Israelites, the Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. Listen to what he says. You know, what's interesting about that passage is he reveals himself to Moses, and his chosen method to do that is to say, I am the Lord, a generational God. I am the Lord a generational God. I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and that's how I want everybody to know me. There's no mistake that I want to establish my blessing in generations, from generation to generation. And so what we know is that generational gaps are not a kingdom thing. They're not a kingdom thing. And so we've got to figure out how to eliminate generational gaps. And that's what we'll start talking about next week. But I just find it fascinating as you dive into certain what I would call mega themes of scripture, and you just begin to realize how important something really is. How important something really is, how much it matters to our lives, if brokenness has been perpetuated in your life, it's been perpetuated generationally. And if wholeness, if God is wanting to do a work of wholeness and healing in your life, he's trying to do that in you because it's not just about you. It's about your kids and your grandkids. And he wants them to be the God of your, you know, the your God, their God, and their children's God. That's the goal, amen. That's the goal. That's the goal of my life is to see generational blessing in my family. Amen. How many of you want to see that in your family? Come on. Let's stand together.