The Power of Blessing | Is This Thing On?

Is your life operating from a place of blessing, or are you constantly striving to earn it?

In the kickoff message of our new summer series, Is This Thing On?, Travis Aicklen dives deep into the profound, exponential power of our words. Far from just a polite cliché or a quick response to a sneeze, a true biblical blessing is the projection of good into the life of another person. By examining the roots of the word—from the Old Testament Barak to the New Testament Eulogia—this sermon challenges us to break free from insecurity, comparison, and the "blessing deficit" that plagues so many families. Discover how to speak life, direct your future, and operate from the secure identity of being fully loved and blessed by God.

Key Points & Scripture References
Work From Blessing, Not For It: Before humanity ever accomplished a single task, God created and blessed them. Just like Jesus at his baptism, we are designed to work from a place of blessing and affirmation, rather than striving to earn it. (Genesis 1:27-29)

The Danger of the Deficit: The story of Jacob highlights the brokenness and deception that occur when we live with an orphan spirit, desperately trying to scheme our way into receiving a blessing. (Genesis 27)

Blessings Must Be Spoken Out Loud: A blessing isn't truly a blessing until it leaves your lips. We must actively and verbally "eulogize" (speak well of) the people in our lives to empower them. (Luke 24, Proverbs 31)

Words Direct Our Future: Just like the rudder of a ship, the words we speak—whether blessings or curses—set the trajectory for our lives and the lives of those around us. (James 3)

Our Spiritual Inheritance: Through Christ, we have been redeemed from the curse and have already been given every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. We are blessed to be a blessing. (Ephesians 1, Galatians 3)

Call to Action
Take a close inventory of your words this week. Are you withholding encouragement from your spouse, children, friends, or coworkers? Don't let your loved ones live with a blessing deficit. Step into your God-given authority, speak life over your family, and intentionally direct the course of their future with your words. If you are struggling with insecurity or an unhealed "orphan spirit," bring it to God and allow your church family to speak truth and blessing over you today.

Join us Sundays at 8:30am or 10:30am. Find out more at RadiantVisalia.com.

Transcript

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I wanted to start this morning by saying I got sign-off on this shirt. I got clearance before I left the house. Not by my older daughters, they were asleep. But my my wife was awake. So if you have any complaints, it's Tiffany at Radiant Viselia. You can send them there. So I am, as a pastor, I'm often asked if I hang with other pastors. I'm often asked if the pastors do anything together. And unfortunately, I have to answer no. I don't. Or I should say I often answer not enough. I don't often hang with the other pastors in Visalia. And as I reflect on that, there's a couple things that have led to that. One, when we planted Radiant Church, a couple things happened that I think made it hard to connect with other pastors. One, our new church plant was treated like a threat to the established church. And for those of you who have started anything, whether it's a company, you know this feeling when people treat you like the new kid on the block. So that was definitely one of the factors that kept me from connecting with other pastors. And then the second thing was I was just deeply insecure. And my insecurities were brought up in the presence of pastors. They would often ask me questions that I couldn't answer. When I couldn't answer them, I felt insecure, and I just tended to stay away. I recognize now that I'm needing to outgrow this, and this was decades ago, but these things still are at play for me. You might be surprised to find out that pastors can be pretty insecure. For guys who stand on stages and grab the mic, there's an insecurity present in us. Is there someone in your life that you avoid because it brings up insecurities? It's it's really not them, it is you. But when you get around them, insecurities come up, you know? Like, no, we're not going over to that family's house. That dad's like Blueie's dad, and it brings up all my insecurities. We're not hanging with that husband. I don't want you to know what's possible. We're just gonna stay away, right? There are people, and it's not about them, it's about us, but it brings up our insecurities. Um, and that that would happen for me. So in 2009, we're a couple years into our church plant, and uh John Venema, who's the longtime pastor at Grace Community,'s now not the pastor, but he was for quite some time, he wanted to meet with me. And he wanted to meet with me because his son started attending our church. And I kind of wondered how he felt about that. I I wondered how I would feel about it if one of my daughters was like, I think I'll go listen to somebody else preach. I think that'd be difficult. And ultimately, I wanted to know also what he thought of me. I felt, again, like really pretty insecure. It's easy to be insecure around John. He he's very smart, uh, actually like a seminary professor, not just a pastor. And he dresses uh real nice, like he had a sport coat on when we met. I remember, I remember that. I had a Walmart t-shirt on. I had not combed my hair, and he had a sport coat on with elbow patches. He looks respectable, he's an elder statesman, and he's led a really established church in our community for a long time. So I really looked up to John. And when I met up with John, he starts asking me questions, probably to find out if his son is a part of a cult. That's what I'm thinking. I was like, this guy thinks his kid got caught up in a cult. So he's asking me a ton of questions, and we're going back and forth, and I find out that he's actually already read up on me, he's already listened to uh sermons, he knows uh quite a bit about us. And then he asks the question, Did you go to school? And I had to say to John, No, I didn't. And then John proceeds to ask, so you have no training. And I said, That's right. And he looked at me, and I'll never forget it. He said, Travis, you're brilliant. And that is not what I expected to hear in that moment. And I wish I could tell you I remembered the other things he said. I couldn't. I wanted to control my face and keep a straight face and act like, oh yeah, of course, I totally know I'm brilliant. You know? A face that would communicate all the pastors in town think I'm brilliant. I've never met with them, but I'm sure that's what they would say. I couldn't control my face like a nine-year-old boy I just melted, and this huge smile came over my face that just felt embarrassing because it was like he could see how very needy I was. He could spot the deficit of blessing in my life, and I thought I was gonna get grilled by a guy, and instead I was blessed, and I've never forgot it. John Venemah, I was thinking about this uh as I prepared this. At least at some point, he was a professor at Western Seminary, which is the seminary that I just graduated from. So 20 years later, don't that's not it, but 20 years later, I'm wondering, did he sow seeds on that day that came to fruition by blessing my life and calling out what he sees and not treating me like a threat to the established churches in our community? I want to talk today about the projection of good into the life of another. I want to talk about the power of blessing. And of course, I'm talking about this on purpose on uh Father's Day, and we will get to that. But we're actually starting a new series for the summer where I'm hoping that we're gonna understand the weight of our words. We're also gonna understand the moment we're in. This is a harvest season. Jesus is saying, not that people are going to be resistant, Jesus is saying right now, people are ripe. Get your mouth moving. The harvest is plentiful, not scarce. And so we believe we're moving into a harvest season, and I'm hoping that by the end of the summer, our whole church is going to be a little bit more bold, a little bit more free to share what God's done in our life, to pray, to prophesy. I'm praying that the cat would no longer have our tongue and that we wouldn't be paralyzed, but we'd quickly, easily, freely speak and prophesy what we see. So that's what I'm hoping. I've been reading a lot about the start of the early church in Acts, and the beginning promises this. Jesus says this as he starts his church, but you, as in you, as in who me, yes, you, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and then you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. This is his plan for us that he would use your tongue and your life to reach the people around you. After Jesus said this to his disciples, he was taken up before their very eyes on a cloud, and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them, men of Galilee, they said, Why do you stand here looking to the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven. He ascends. And the very last thing he says is, You, you're gonna receive power. You're gonna move this thing forward. You're gonna be my witnesses. This thing's gonna go global. That's not actually the last thing he says because Luke records in his gospel, Luke also writes the book of Acts, but listen to this Luke 24 records the ascension story as well, and it says, He led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands, these are his last words to his disciples, he blesses them. And while he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven, and they worshiped and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple blessing God. Like a helium balloon, he's like, I bless you, I bless you, I bless you, I bless you, I bless you. His last words are words of blessing. And so I want to talk about the power of blessing in a cursed world because it's no small thing. This idea of blessing, often we think it's like some sort of cliche, short prayer, you pray before a meal. Who's gonna say the blessing? Or maybe it's something your aunt says to you and she feels bad for you and she says, Bless your heart. Or maybe someone sneezes and the thing that we're supposed to say is, God bless you. Or maybe you're gonna vacation this summer and you're gonna make us all jealous by saying I'm living that hashtag blessed life, right? So these are the cheesy, trite, shallow ways that we use this word, but it's far from that. The idea of blessing and curses is really significant in the scriptures. And if you think it's silly or trite, just watch what happens to a life that goes without it. If you think this is optional, if you think this is no big deal, watch what someone does with their life when there's a blessing deficit in it. And it'll change your mind. This is a serious business, this business of blessing and cursing. So, what is it? The primary word for blessing in the Old Testament is barak. It's this idea of kneeling and extending favor, like putting into the life of someone else something good. Speaking the intentions of God towards someone in their life, right? Um, Monica, we were talking between services, and she was saying, I have this definition for Barack that is basically saying you're good, and then it also has this commissioning edge to it, which is you're good and you're good to go. You have what it takes. It has this sort of commissioning power in our lives. And some of you have experienced that when someone has blessed you. In the New Testament, which is in Greek, when it says the word blessing, it has two words connected to it kairos, which we get our word happiness from, and eulogia, which is where we get our word to eulogize. So the idea is you've been to a funeral where people stand up and they say all kinds of kind things about the deceased. The idea of blessing is that you would say that before they're dead. That those things that you're recognizing upon their passing, you would recognize before their passing, and that you would see and speak those things to their face. Blessing is the projection of good into the life of another, says Dallas Willard. And because blessing and cursing are so important in your Bible, because it's such a huge theme, you don't have to go far in your Bible to find it. So would you grab your Bible if you've got one, the first book of the Bible, and not just the first book Genesis, but the first chapter of Genesis, you'll find blessing and cursing in the first few chapters, and it goes throughout your entire book. But I'm gonna read from Genesis chapter 1, verses 27 through 29. I'm not gonna give you a ton of time because it's Genesis. You'd get a little more if it was a little deeper. So God created mankind in his own image, and in the image of God, he created them, male and female, he created them. And God blessed them. And he said to them, Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it, rule over the fish of the sea and the birds in the sky, and over every living creature that moves on the ground. And then God said, I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth, and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. It'll be yours for food. And I want to point out a few things that will help us be a blessing to the people around us that come from this passage. The first is this we work from blessing, not for it. So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God, he created them, male and female, he created them, and God told them if you keep the garden and you keep it well, and you steward this, and if I come back and I find that everything is in order, I will bless you. No. God doesn't come to them and say, if you do all this, then the world is yours. God says, the world is yours, steward the blessing. Work from a place of knowing that you're blessed. You're still going to work, but you're not working for my blessing before you do a darn thing, before you're fruitful, before you multiply, before you rule, before you subdue, before you do any of these things, here's my blessing. The world is yours. Now work from it. For those of you who are familiar with the Jesus story, you know that Jesus, before he starts his ministry, is baptized. When he's baptized, he comes up out of the water, he hears a voice. What does the voice say? I've got a big job for you. You need to do this, this, and this. If you cast out 17 demons, then you'll have my blessing. No, this is my son in whom I'm well pleased. I like this guy. And of course, Jesus goes on to cast out demons and he teaches and he heals and he does all the things that Jesus is famous for, but before he does any of those things, he's working from a place of knowing that he's blessed. And this is really hard for us to get our heads around because this is not the way our world works, but it is the way our Father works. He blesses you. You don't have to go pre- you don't have to go very far in the book of Genesis to find the fall and to find out what happens to a life that's not blessed. You don't have to go far in Genesis to find a blessing deficit, to find a person who's working for blessing and not from it. You don't have to go far to find somebody who's like, I didn't receive this, so I'm gonna go take it. The life of Jacob is this awesome example of what a blessing deficit does in someone's life. You can read the story in Genesis 27, but I'm gonna paraphrase it because here is the life of someone who's scheming for blessing. He hasn't received it, he has to go take it. There's brokenness in his family, his older brother is clearly the favorite. And so he starts working to get what he can't seem to get his hands on. So here's what he learns as he schemes to get blessing. Since no one's looking out for him, he's got to look out for himself and he learns to deceive. He learns to lie, he learns to manipulate, he learns to be shifty to survive because you gotta do what you gotta do. And then he's got a little bit of small man syndrome cooking. He's always in his older brother's shadow. Instead of blessing the strengths in his other brother, older brother's life, he's in competition with his brother. He's constantly comparing himself instead of being able to just bless what he sees in his brother. There's rejection at work. He's kind of a mama's boy because his father prefers his older brother. This is the first reported case of imposter syndrome. He dresses up in a costume to get the blessing. And you can read this story and snicker all you want, but the men in this room know what it's like to dress up in order to get a blessing or to get the approval or affirmation of the people around us. He then becomes, because he's a deceiver and because he took instead of received something, he becomes a man on the run constantly looking over his shoulder. And then in the end, he ends up reaping what he sowed because hurt people end up hurting people, right? And he sowed deception and then he was deceived. And then this leads to generational sin. In fact, Jacob was really hurt by favoritism in his family, but he ends up doing the same thing to his own kids and showing favoritism in himself. There's this moment, and it's kind of the climax of the story, where Jacob actually has it all. He's wealthy, he's blessed, but he's still striving, and he kills, still can't sort out what's going on. He knows that this blessing's been stolen. And in this wild exchange, he wrestles with God through the night to the point where the angel of the Lord is like, could you just let go? And Jacob's still hanging on, saying, I'm not gonna let go until you bless me. There's something deep down screwed up with me, and I've tried everything to fill that void, and I'm not gonna back down until you bless me. And guess what? This deceiver, this striver, this imposter, this guy who's reaping what he sowed, he ends up being blessed by the Father. It's not his earthly father who blesses him, but his heavenly one. Listen, we're all desperate to be seen, desperate to be wanted, desperate to be known, desperate to be loved. And you will either work from a place of blessing or you will work for it because you cannot go without it. Secondly, blessing must be spoken. So God created mankind in his own image, and the image of God, he created them, male and female, he created them. God blessed them in his heart. No. You've got to speak it out. As Steve Whitmer taught us some years ago, as dads, if it's positive and you think it, you have to say it. It has to leave your lips. Do not withhold your blessing, say it. And I've heard a number of objections to this. Like, I said it in 1995, and nothing has changed. And I'll let you know when something changes. No, you've got to continually announce blessing over the lives of those around you. I've heard people say, I can't, it'll make me cry. And I think, what's wrong with you? Like, that's perfect. People don't remember what you say, but your kids are gonna remember, my dad fell apart. I don't know what was going on in his life, something about loving me, and then he just fell to pieces. If you're a crier, man, please. And some of you are like, well, I'm not very verbal, I don't speak a ton. Perfect. That means your words mean even more. That's always the case up here. There's people who talk, they talk professionally, and because of it, they're easy to tune out. But when someone grabs the mic who Clearly does not want to be on the mic, everybody's leaning in. But when someone grabs the mic who likes the mic, everybody leans out. If you're a man, a woman, a few words, I would say they weigh even more. Get your mouth moving. If you're here and you're like, well, I'm not that kind of person, I'm not very vocal. I also would say, I don't even care. I wish that was a good excuse. You do not want the people you love walking around with a blessing deficit. You do not want them walking around wondering how you feel about them. You do not want to see your loved ones live with a void. You don't want that. Get your mouth moving. You don't want your kids to have that void filled through success or sport or award or grades. You don't want your kids working for blessing. Help them work from it. You don't want your spouse wandering around, wandering around wondering how you feel about them. You don't want that void there because a coworker is going to fill it. You don't want your teenager running around with a void in their lives because you don't want a boyfriend or girlfriend to spot it and announce blessing over their lives. You're it. I don't care. I don't care if it's not your personality. Here's the last thing I'm gonna say, and think unless I think of something else. It says in Scripture that you should do this, that you should encourage one another as long as it's called today, so that your heart isn't hardened. This isn't even about them. This is about something happens to us when we share and bless and encourage one another. So I don't care if you don't do it, I don't care if you cry when you do it, I don't care if it's not your personality. This is good. Let's do it, let's get our mouths moving, let's fumble through it together, we'll get better together. Some of you are here and you're like, well, I'm I'm happy to acknowledge something good. When something good happens. When something, when the people around me do something worth blessing, I'm all for it. Happy to do it. But again, they haven't done anything since 1995. So I'll let you know. And to that, I want to say this third point: blessing and curses direct our future. They don't just describe what's presently happening, they set a course for a future. Both blessings and curses do this. So if you're saying to yourself, I don't see anything worth blessing, I'm asking you to set a course with your tongue. That's what James 3 says about the power of your tongue. Your tongue doesn't just define what's happening, it sets a direction. It says that your tongue is the rudder of the ship. Meaning it sets a course. It doesn't just say it's 86 out. It projects a future when we bless and we curse. Proverbs 31 describes a godly woman. And if you're here and you're a Christian woman, you probably know about Proverbs 31, because it reads a bit like a checklist and an impossible standard. If you've ever read Proverbs 31, you probably walked away wondering if you were saved. It's that steep. And my wife uh shared this with me, this uh this idea that Proverbs 31 is not a checklist, but a blessing. And she shared this quote with me, and I want to read it to you, because I think it does a great job of saying our tongues are not just meant to describe, but meant to direct. And we can bless people into a preferred future. The Proverbs 31 passage commends a woman of valor. In Hebrew, it's a shethail. And this Christian woman living under the burden of Proverbs 31 interviewed an Orthodox Jewish woman named Ahava. And she said this, so do Jewish women struggle with this passage as much as Christian women? And Ahava seemed a bit bewildered. Not at all, she said. I get called an ashet Hail, woman of valor, all the time. Make your own bread instead of buying it, ashet Hail. Work to earn some extra money for the family, a shethail. Get promoted at work, a shethail. Make balloon animals for the kids' party, ashet Hail. Every week at the Sabbath table, my husband sings the Proverbs 31 poem to me. It's special because I know that no matter what I do or don't do, he praises me for blessing the family with my energy and creativity. All women can do that in their own way. And I bet you do as well, she says to the Christian woman. I looked into this, and sure enough, in Jewish culture, it's not the woman who memorizes Proverbs 31, but the men. Husbands commit each line of the poem to memory so they can recite it to their wives at the Sabbath meal, usually in song. The astute reader will notice that the only actual instruction found in the entire poem is that a husband celebrate his wife for all her hands have done. The praise is meant to be unconditional. But the blessing goes far beyond the family. Ahava explained to her Jewish friend, um, her Jewish friends cheer one another on with the blessing, celebrating everything from promotions to pregnancies to acts of mercy and justice to battles with cancer, with a hearty ashet Hail, woman of valor. The biblical heroine Ruth is called Ashet Haheil. In fact, she's called that at a time when her life looked nothing like the life of a Proverbs 31 woman. She was poor, she was childless, she was a widow. Far from exchanging fine linens with merchants, which is described in Proverbs 31, she spent her days gleaning leftover grain from the fields. And this is what Boaz announces over Ruth. All the people of my town know that you're a woman of noble character, a shetha. We're not just describing what's presently going on in people's lives, we're directing their future with blessing and curses. Number four, blessing has exponential power. Blessing is meant to fill the earth. Blessing is not just for your life or for your weekend or for your wallet or for your RV. So God created mankind in his own image, and the image of God, he created them, male and female, he created them. God blessed them. And he said, Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth, subdue it, rule over the fish in the sea, and the birds in the sky, and over every living creature that moves on the ground. Then God said, I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth, and every tree that has fruit with seed in it, they'll be yours for food. For those of you who are familiar with the Bible, you know that there's this idea that we are blessed in order to be a blessing. That God blessed the nation of Israel so that the nation of Israel could bless the world. And we are the sons of Abraham. We've been grafted in through Christ. And this is the promise that Abraham received. God says, I'll make you into a great nation. I'll bless you, I'll make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you, I will curse, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you. So that's a promise for us, but ultimately it's fulfilled in Jesus, who's the offspring of Abraham. And when Jesus comes, lives, dies, rises, and ascends, and then blesses his disciples, he commissions them to go. And what does he say? Make disciples of all nations. This thing's supposed to fill the earth. Again, if your idea of blessing is that God intends to fill my bank account, or he intends to fill my home, you're wrong. He's wanting to fill both your bank account and your home so that it overflows to the homes around you. And it's not just a blessing to your neighborhood, this blessing's for the nations. God intends to pour into you because he knows you're going to overflow, because this thing is global. Ephesians 1 says this blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, because he's blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places. I don't even know what that is, but you have it. Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that's from blessing, right? Not for it. Even as he chose you, that we would be holy and blameless before him. In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the beloved. In Christ, we've been blessed, and now we're going into the nations. And one of the things that we get to bring is blessing into a cursed world. One of the things that we get to do is announce God's blessing in a deficit, in something of a drought. We get to announce this is the year of the Lord's favor. He's closer than you think. I want you to ask yourself the question like, what have you received? I know you're here thinking that there's some needs in your life, but what have you received and how might God want that to overflow to the people around you? Did you have a father who was present? Did you have a good dad? And is that something God blessed you with? And does he intend to bless the kids in the neighborhood with that? Do you have means? Do you have authority? Do you have ability? Do you have expertise? What do you have? And how might that overflow? You're a conduit of God's blessing. If he's pouring into you his expectation, his desire is that it would spill out and overflow and touch the people around you. I want to end our time by speaking directly to the men. This is for all of us. In fact, maybe some of the things that I've said are stereotypical and they don't even apply to your home. Maybe your dad's really vocal and your mom is the one who's silent and withdrawn. I don't know. Of course, these are kind of caricatures, but I want to speak to the men. I want to speak to them because I think these things are especially true for the fathers. You have to, you're driven, you're ambitious. You have to know that you're working from a place of blessing and not for it. Or else you'll lose your soul. You have to speak. You cannot remain silent. You have to use your words. We don't want your people wondering how you feel about them. And you can't just show it in your actions while I provide. Provide words. Number three, you direct the course of your clan with your words. You're not just describing your immediate surroundings, you're directing a course with the rudder of the ship. And you have exponential power to fill, to increase, to rule, to subdue. Your words have weight. And as I thought about your words and their weight, I was reading Colossians 4 and I give it to you this day. Devote yourselves to prayer. Be watchful and thankful. Which is a little different than being watchful and critical. And pray for us too that God may open a door for our message so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ for which I'm in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly as I should. Be wise in the way that you act toward outsiders, make the most of every opportunity. Here it is. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. I almost called this series seasoned speech because I was thinking about the idea of our words being seasoned. And I know because you guys have told me how much time you put into seasoning things, how things sit for days and marinate in a Ziploc bag before they go into another Ziploc bag to marinate in something else. And how the coals are this temperature, and how you started on this grill, but you finish it on this grill. I've been around you guys and I've watched how much time you put into what comes into your mouth, and I'm asking you to put the same amount of time into what comes out of your mouth. Let that marinate. Let that be seasoned. Put a lot of thought into the temperature of it all. Put a lot of thought into the mix. Let it soak and then let it be a feast to your family. You do this in the physical. That you would prepare a feast for them. Next time, try this. Just drive through McDonald's to get a 20 count. Let them set up to where they're hard and especially puckish. Right? But put four hours into what you're gonna say to your family. Let it marinate. Think about the temperature that it needs to be. Think about not just what's coming into your mouth but what's going out of your mouth. Sit down with your family and a 20-piece chicken nuggets and then say to your wife and your kids what you've been working on. It'll be a feast that they don't forget. Put that much time into what you provide for your family. It'll move the needle. Trust me. Would you stand with me and worship team? Would you guys come? I know it can be easy for me to stand up here and say, speak blessing and speak life and speak destiny and speak value and do better and do better and do better. And I think it's pretty tough to give away something you've not received. Pretty hard for something to flow out of your life when it's never flowed into your life. And I know that some of you, not only have you not been blessed by a father, but you've been cursed by a father. Like you're still living under this announcement that you won't amount to anything. And I have some good news for you today. If you're living with a sense of rejection, you're living with an orphan spirit, you're living and you're like, man, I'm just driven and driven, and I have wealth and I have blessing, but there's just still this void in me, this drought, this deficit. The good news is that breaking the orphan spirit is the primary function of the gospel. That the good news is that you can be fathered by God because what Christ has done. And so I'm going to invite us to this table where we remember Jesus, who was rejected, forsaken at the cross, so that we could be folded in and brought in. We're going to come to the table and remember, for those of us who are driven and ambitious, we're going to remember that Christ was driven to the cross so that we could find rest in God. We could have peace for once in our life. And we're going to come to the table thinking about the deficit, the debt that we owed, and the abundance of God's grace and goodness towards us. But there's also going to be a ministry team up front that would love to announce and extend God's favor into your life and remind you that you are to work from blessing. So if you're here and you've never received a Father's blessing, there's a group of people who will stand and bless your life, but more importantly, know this that Jesus came so that you could know your heavenly Father and to have his blessing, because it doesn't matter how good our dads are, this is still the ache and the need. Galatians 3, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it's written, cursed is everyone who's hanged on a tree. So that in Christ the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles. That's us. And so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith, and it's by that spirit that we get to cry out, Abba Father. So come to the table, come receive prayer. There's no shame. If you're wrestling with ambition, rejection, a drivenness, a deficit, we'd love for you to work from a place of knowing that you're loved, wanted, seen, known, all that. Lift your voices. Actually, I thought of something else. You're like, oh my gosh. Let's just do it right now. If you're here with somebody who's significant to you, could be a friend, could be a parent, could be a child, could be a spouse. Would you just bless them before you come to the table? Would you use your words? And don't say Travis made me do this. Just would you say your presence in my life is a massive blessing? And this is why. This is why you matter to me. This is what I see in your life. Share that. If you're not here with a loved one, bless God, bless his name, and then come to this table together.