I Woke Up Like This | Sunday Message with Special Guest Levi Lusko

Hey there. Thanks for listening to the Greg Laurie Podcast, a ministry supported by Harvest Partners. I'm Greg Laurie, encouraging you.

If you want to find out more about Harvest Ministries and learn more about how to become a Harvest Partner, just go to harvest.org. So if you have a Bible, we're going to be in Genesis 28 today. When I think about walking with Jesus, as I have been since I was really a freshman in high school, is when I made my bold faith decision to follow Christ publicly, and from that day forward, have really sensed God's hand in my life. Even though before that, I could just tell that was sort of a theme to my life. I mean, looking back at photos like that, I hadn't yet given my life to Jesus when I took that photo behind Pastor Greg's pulpit. But from the moment I gave my life to Christ until now, if there's one thing I would tell you that has helped me continue to move forward in my faith journey, that has continued to propel me in walking with Jesus and sowing to the Spirit, as the Bible says, and not sowing to the flesh, and listening to, I mean, if you're in a cartoon language, the angel on my right shoulder and not the demon on my left shoulder, I would say it has been the developing of a discipline of a daily personal time with Jesus.

When I was coming up, it used to be called a quiet time. And I think that that is really important for you to have. It's one of those things in church like, oh, I know that's important.

But here's what I've discovered. The easy things to do are also the easy things not to do. And you cannot have a quiet soul without a quiet time. And more than ever, in this loud, noisy, over-advertised, over-social media day we're living in where everyone's screaming at us, more than ever, it is important to have a quiet soul. So I want to talk to you today about why it is so important to develop a morning routine.

I'm fascinated by the idea of routine. I, my wife and I run a podcast called Hey It's Celescos that we produce with our good friends at Air One and K Love. And we have conversations with different people. We're going to have Pastor Greg on coming up here pretty soon. And one of my favorite things to do in our podcast, it's free form. We don't have any time constraints on it.

It's not like 20 minutes. So we just kind of go where the conversation goes. And I love, especially when I'm talking to successful people, to ask them about their morning routine. Is there something you do every day? Because I've noticed that whether we're talking about spiritually successful or not, that when it comes to successful people, one thing they have in common is generally speaking, it's not just a fly by to the seat of the pants approach to the morning. Generally speaking, there's some sort of a routine, some sort of a way that they approach systematically what they need to do that day. Generally speaking, successful people are not successful by accident. And so I've sort of had fun over the years collecting unique, eclectic, different stories on morning routines.

And a few of my favorites are Benjamin Franklin, who every single morning had a famous three hour morning, three hours long, a morning routine he developed that involved, in particular, my favorite note is that he would every day ask himself this question. What good shall I do today? Imagine how different your day would go if you took a moment each day to ask yourself the question, what good shall I do today? Maybe you wrote that in lipstick over your mirror. I could see a real small Kendall Jenner style tattoo on someone's wrist. You know, what good shall I do today?

That's an amazing thought. Then President Teddy Roosevelt had a famous morning routine. And that is that he would read an entire book before breakfast. A famously prodigious reader. He could speed read books. And so he, even during his busiest days as president of the United States, he was the youngest person to ever serve as president of the United States.

Even though JFK was the youngest person ever elected to the office, Teddy was the youngest person still there. He would read three books every single day minimum. And one of the ways he accomplished that was that he would read one book before breakfast. Now, I know when people talk about reading, everyone goes, oh, I should read more. I know I should read more, but I'm just too busy. Hey, what do you have on your plate today more important than the president of the United States?

All right. And this cat was reading a whole book before breakfast. Then you have Mark Wahlberg. He posted, some of you probably saw this on Instagram, his morning routine. And here's how it goes. Mark Wahlberg wakes up every single day at 2.30 AM. When I saw that, I was like, what time does this cat go to bed?

2.30 AM. For first of all, prayer. Then he has breakfast. Does his first workout of the day. Then plays golf.

Then does cryo. And all of that before the clock even strikes 10.30. Tony Robbins, self-help guru, he has famously said that he, every single day when he wakes up, the first thing he does is jump into a 57 degree tank of cold water, a cold plunge, which he has installed in every single one of his houses around the world. He rationalizes that it's easier than coffee to wake him up. And number two, it's likely to be the worst thing that happens to him all day.

So might as well just get it out of the way. And it's all going to be uphill from there. Winston Churchill, his morning routine is more my speed. This guy would wake up every single day at 7.30, but not get out of bed until 11. In his pajamas, he would have his breakfast and his first of probably 50 cigars of the day brought in, as well as all the papers from around the country, any correspondence he needed to deal with. Then all of his secretaries and war assistants, they would all come in and just be there in his bedroom. And he would just be in his pajamas dictating responses and choosing where soldiers were to go. Then he would go take a bath where he would continue to speak to a secretary just outside of the door. And he would continue to dictate.

And she could sometimes barely hear him for the sloshing of the water in the bath. And then he would finally get dressed. And then eventually he would take his second bath of the day right after his nap. He always took a nap, he said, because he realized he was brighter in the morning. And after having a nap every day, he got two mornings and gamed the system.

Well done, Churchill. Now, I don't know what it's going to take for you to be at your best physically or mentally, whether it's going to need to involve a tub of 57 degree water or two baths. But here's what I know and what I want to ask you. You'll never be at your best on this earth if you don't figure out what it takes for you to thrive spiritually. And so the question I want to ask you is, what do you need to do each day in order to wake up your spirit, to wake up your soul, to wake up the part of you that can interact with God and receive his power and walk with him on an unseen, invisible level? According to Genesis 28, I want you to read with me the encounter one man had with God one morning.

Genesis 28, starting in verse 10. Now Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran. So he came to a certain place and he stayed there all night because the sun had set. So one of the stones of that place and he put it at his head and he lay down in that place to sleep. Then he dreamed and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth and its top reached to heaven. And there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.

And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham, your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie, I will give to you and your descendants. Also, your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth.

You shall spread abroad to the west, to the east, to the north and the south. And in you and in your seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you. Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it. By the way, that would be even better than Benjamin Franklin. If you woke up every day and declared over your life, the Lord is in this place and I do know it.

And anybody with me on that? And he was afraid. Yeah, come on.

That encourages me too. And he was afraid and said, how awesome is this place? This is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven.

Then here's his morning routine, ready? Then Jacob arose early in the morning, took the stone that he had put at his head. He set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. Verse 19, he called the name of that place Bethel. A word in the Hebrew that means the house of God.

For the name of that city had been Luz previously. Then Jacob made a vow saying, if God will be with me and keep me in this way that I'm going and give me bread to eat and clothing to put on so that I come back to my father's house in peace, then listen, then the Lord shall be my God. And this stone, which I have set as a pillar, shall be God's house. And of all that you give me, I will surely give a tenth to you. I want to preach to you from this text a message that I'm calling, I woke up like this with sincerest appreciation to Beyonce for my sermon title. And let's pray together. Father, we do thank you for your word. We thank you for what you did in Jacob's life this day.

And we thank you that you are willing in and even eager to work in our lives this day and every day. And I pray as we consider the implications of what Jacob set into motion this morning as he began this new routine that would change his life, I pray you would help us to develop and foster the routines that will help us to be at our best so that we may, like you said, love you with all of our heart, our soul, our mind, and our strength, and our neighbors as ourself. And I pray, Father, for your specific and mighty blessing to continue to flourish upon the Harvest churches, their staff, every single volunteer, every single family member. I pray that you would continue to give Pastor Greg and Kathy vision and wisdom and encouragement. Thank you for the long obedience in the same direction that has been the story of this church all these years. And I pray that you would just continue to have your hand mightily upon this church family. And I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Is anybody thankful for scripture?

Just reading God's word. Amazing. I woke up like this. That's what we say when we want to downplay the amount of effort that has gone into how we look, right?

Like, wow, you look so great. Oh, I just woke up. I woke up like this. Like, we're all like, yep, sure you did. Right? Sure you did.

Well, some of you watching Harvest at Home, you really did wake up like this. Well done. Well played.

Church in your pajamas, right? The rest of us have to try. But sometimes we like to pretend that, you know, we didn't really think about what we actually did really work hard at. Like, oh, wonderful outfit. Oh, this whole thing.

It's like it was your fourth outfit attempt. You don't pretend like. Have you ever noticed how like weird Christians are receiving compliments? Right? Like, oh, I like I like those shoes. Oh, I got them on sale. Like, OK.

I didn't pay I didn't pay full price for it. It's like, awesome. What if you did?

Like, would that be terrible? Hey, good job. No, it was not me. It was the Lord brother. Like, it wasn't that good. Yeah, right?

There was a lot of you in that. Right? Just say thank you. Pro tip. Just say thank you. Don't make it awkward for the rest of us. Right?

Well played. I woke up like this. Jacob really did wake up shockingly, radically different. And this moment, this Genesis 28 God encounter, it changed the entire. It's no exaggeration to say that this encounter he had with God this night changed the very course of his life. He woke up in every sense of the word. And there are a lot of senses of the word. Right? These days, everyone's talking about are you woke?

Like it's like an overly politically correct. That's not what we're talking about. When we talk about being wide awake, the Bible has four different ways it uses the word sleep. Four different uses of the word sleep we find in scripture.

The first is, of course, to be asleep physically, biologically. Like when the Bible says Jesus fell asleep in the boat. His disciples were afraid because he was physically asleep.

That's what that word means. He was sleeping. But the Bible, it's also tricky because also we'll use the word sleep as a synonym for the death of a Christian.

It's interesting. Lazarus, Jesus's friend dies, meaning his body is dead. And Jesus says, I'm going to go wake him up. He's sleeping. I'm going to wake him up. And the disciples are confused. They say, why would you need to wake him up if he's sleeping? And Jesus goes, well, because he's dead. And they're all like, that's clear as mud. But I like it.

I like it. Because it gives us insight into how to face grief as a Jesus follower. That he looks at what we see as terminal, final, fatal, unfixable, the greatest problem that there is. And he goes, they're just sleeping.

Translation, it's temporary and he can do something about it. Is anybody thankful that when you die, God doesn't see that as the end of the road, but as simply the bend in the road, and that he knows early to sleep, early to rise. That's what Paul said in First Thessalonians. Don't cry, don't weep, don't grieve for the Christian that has died.

Be sad for yourself because you're going to miss them. But they're not missing out on the Resurrection. In fact, they're going to experience it first of all, for early to bed, early to rise. Usually, those who have died will not miss the coming of the Lord. They shall rise first when the angel gives the shout at the trumpet of God. They'll be the first to get their resurrected bodies when their soul that has been with God since death gets re-clothed with the physical body, but not as we last saw it. I will not see my daughter, Lynia. Pastor Greg and Kathy will not see Christopher as we last saw them. They will be reanimated, re-clothed. Their body will be coming out of the grave just like Christ's resurrected body did, immortal, never to die, never to sorrow, never to experience pain again. This is the great hope of the Christian church.

Because Christ rose, we will too. So sleep is how we're to look at that. It's not the worst thing in the world. It's simply sleeping for the body for a season. There's a third sense in which the New Testament uses the word sleep. And it's a synonym for being lost spiritually, separated from God on the inside, sins unforgiven, without hope, without God in the world. This is, in fact, another sense in which someone can be sleeping.

And I like this because it is something God can do something about. You don't have to stay lost. You don't have to stay dead in your sins. For the gospel is an invitation to come out of the casket of sleep and to wake up to eternal life in Jesus Christ. If you today are sleeping spiritually, you can be saved. You can be made whole. You can have the hope of heaven.

Jesus Christ is willing to come into your heart, to be your friend, to be your Lord, and to be your Savior. In fact, that is what Ephesians 5 says, Ephesians 5, verse 14. Wake up, oh, sleeper. Rise from the dead. And notice, Christ will shine on you.

This is the promise of salvation that Jesus came to usher in, the new covenant purchased by his blood. But there is a fourth church. There is a fourth sense in which someone can be sleeping. And that sleep is the sleep of the backslidden.

That sleep is the sleep of the Christian who is snoozing at the wheel, the Christian who has experienced life and experienced light, but has dozed off and is now, listen to me, living a lazy, non-aggressive, decaf, kombucha-filled. OK, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I just offended half of the hippies in the church. I just can't go down that road, man.

It tastes like rotten mushrooms. All right. Romans 13, 11.

Listen to me. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber church, for our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. It is easy, possible, and probable to doze off and to be given salvation, to be given healing, to be given hope, but to hardly be using it. To know your name on a seat at the heavenly table that is coming for us at the marriage supper of the Lamb, to be given the Holy Spirit without measure, to be given spiritual gifts to use, to be given a testimony, to be given the gospel, and to live and play and serve and work along people that don't know Jesus, but to hardly do anything about it.

It would be like having a gym membership, but then never working out. Too convicting. Far too convicting, right? It's that peloton. It's sitting there. God bless it. It's sitting there. It's there.

How many of you have a peloton that is just not getting its use, right? Well, that's what the Bible says can happen to us. And so I think that this is perhaps, for many of us, the way in which we all need to wake up anew to what a great joy it is to be Jesus's followers. Jacob, in this moment, in one fell swoop, woke up in just about every sense of the word there was. And like I said, it changed the trajectory of his life. In fact, if you look behind him, you just see mistakes.

You just see heartbreak. You see him basically living up to the name that man spoke over him. The name was Cheater. The name was Heel Catcher. That's what they called him. Because that's just how he played. He was always manipulating circumstances and people and outcomes and trying to put himself ahead. He was a finagler. He was a networker. He was a schemer.

He was always running a hustle or two. He was just always like, you just couldn't trust him, you couldn't keep valuables around him. Jacob was the reason that hotel rooms have safes. You know what I'm saying?

Your watch would just go missing with Jacob around. That was just how he rolled. He put himself first. And it really burned him bad.

Because when you live that way, eventually people get exhausted. The only thing more exhausting than being an insecure person is being around an insecure person. Jacob was fundamentally insecure, always thinking he had to do things to get. He didn't trust that God was going to bless him. So he had to get it for himself. And that caused him to become alienated from all of his family. And that's how he ended up here in the middle of nowhere, camping out on the desert floor.

His older brother Esau, whose foot he had tried to catch his whole life, had decided he was going to kill him. And so here he is on the run, penniless. He has no one.

He has nothing. But amazingly, this encounter with God changes him so radically that he will soon, in a few moments, in a few chapters, have his actual name changed from cheater and foot catcher to Israel, governed by God. And that is what made the change. He went from being governed by himself to being governed by God.

It's the simplest distinction between my will be done and thy will be done, governed by God. He was under new management. He yielded. He submitted.

UFC language. He tapped out of controlling his life. And he gave the reins to Jesus. He gave control to God, imperfectly for sure. He still would make mistakes. He still would flesh out.

He still would fall. Listen, that's what it means to be human. We're all going to make mistakes.

We're all, at times, going to do things wrong. But he began to seek to honor and worship God. And that just changed everything. So if you met him before, here he is penniless. Here he is broke.

Here he is out with nobody with nothing. But as he begins to follow God, as he begins to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, God slowly but surely begins to build up his life. And God blesses Jacob in every way, spiritually, relationally, socially, but also materially. And soon, he goes from being destitute on his own, sleeping on the desert floor with a rock under his head as a pillow, to having so many possessions, so many herds, so many servants, so many children, so many animals that he has to split them up into two contingents, into two parties. And he will say to God later on in life, Genesis 32, verse 10, I am not worthy, God, of all the least of the mercies and of all the truth which you have shown your servant. Look at this, for I crossed over this Jordan with only my staff, with just a stick.

But now I have become two companies. How blessed was he? Genesis 30, verse 43 says, he was exceedingly prosperous.

He had large flocks, female and male servants, also camels and donkeys. Now, humanly speaking, if we could interview wealthy Jacob, blessed Jacob, doing good Jacob, we would sit him down and go, Jacob, what did you do? How did you change yourself? How did you get so good here? Was it a 57 degree coal plunge you jumped into every day?

Did you do online courses? Jacob, what did you do? And he would just smile at you. And with a twinkle in his eye, he would say, I woke up like this. I woke up like this. Truly, it wasn't something I did.

It was someone I met. I wasn't even seeking him. I was just sleeping.

I thought I was alone. I didn't think God would want anything to do with me. I was disconnected from my family, disconnected from my purpose, on the run, thinking my brother was going to kill me. My sins, they were many.

The chickens had come home to roost. I had made my bed, and now I was sleeping in it. And that was when God sought me. That was when God found me. Heaven broke through.

The sky opened up. God spoke my name. He let me know he wasn't mad at me, that he was mad about me, that he had a plan for me. He gave me a name. He gave me a new identity. He gave me a calling. I didn't earn it.

I woke up like this. You might say that the foot catcher met the foot washer. And he taught him a whole new way to be human. You don't need to take and get and grab and look out for number one.

You can have a light touch. You can have a broken and contrite heart. And you can bend down and take care of other people, and God will look out for you. That's what Jacob saw in the desert that changed everything.

And that's what put into place a series of morning routines. For this would be the first time he has a time with God in worship and adoration and sanctification and taking God's word and putting it into his heart and praying. But it will not be the last. And he, like his father before him and his grandfather before him, will make a habit and a tradition out of essentially the act of making an altar and calling on God's name.

That's what I want you to figure out what it looks like for you. For it's different for all of us. Sometimes I know people who like to take a prayer walk. Other people, it's time writing prayer journals. Other people, it's praying to God like you're talking on the phone to somebody. If you need to, put an earbud in with nothing on it just so people don't think you're crazy. It's fine.

You're allowed to do that. But figuring out what it means for you to make an altar and call on God's name, to make an altar and call on God's name. And I think that as a church community beginning on September 5, to really come around the book of Acts together and to be going through this small group curriculum that the team has worked so hard on.

Kathy has specifically poured a lot of her heart into it and Pastor Greg into it. And to take these scripture verses and to make an altar each day and call on God's name. Make an altar, call on God's name. Then getting into a small group, getting together in coffee shops and in living rooms and on Zoom screens and saying, hey, what was God speaking to you while you were making your altar and calling on God's name? Here's what God spoke to me and challenged me while I was doing it. Could you pray for me while I was making my altar and calling on God's name? Here's what I realized.

Here's what I saw. Here's what the Holy Spirit said to me. And then when you come together on the weekend and Pastor Greg is leading you through the verses together, I am telling you something. The world is waiting to see what God will do through this church community who all together says, I woke up like this. God's waking me up to his glory, waking me up to the pain of a hurting world.

Waking me up to my calling that was sleeping. The fact that I wasn't pushing myself. I wasn't really accelerating. I was saved but flabby. I knew Jesus but wasn't using much muscle.

I wasn't getting after it. I think we should go to bed tired because we were trusting God and putting ourselves out there each day and having to listen to him and learn from him and know what to do, even just in little things. My wife and I were in Florida a few weeks back. And we were leaving a gas station headed somewhere. And she said, turn around, Levi.

I said, what? She goes, go back to that gas station. Did you see that woman over there at the air section putting air in her tires? I go, I noticed her. She goes, she said, God wants me to encourage her. How much money do you have on you?

I don't know. I got 60 bucks. She was like, I got 20. One of her kids had 10.

So she gets all this money together. And I pull over kind of at a distance so we didn't scare her. And this woman who you could obviously tell at 7 AM putting air in her tires was falling out of hard times. I saw my wife get out of the car, walk up to this woman. I saw her speak to her for a moment. And then I just saw her hand, whatever $80 or $90 we had on us. And I saw this woman just a flood of tears. And then she rushed into my wife's arms. She got back in the car like my wife did.

And we drove away. And we were all quiet for a moment because we realized we were in the presence of something that the Holy Spirit was doing bigger than any one of us. And when we had enough composure to speak, we said, what did you say to her, honey?

And I loved that my kids got to be a part of this. She said, I just told her that when we saw her pumping gas, God told us we just needed to encourage her and that we don't know what's going on in her life. But we just want you to know you're seen by God and you're doing better than you think you are. And that was when we saw her tearing up.

And I said, well, what did she say to you? She said, you don't know what this means because sometimes it just feels like you are in life all alone. And I'm telling you, it's just little things like that of putting yourself out there and trusting God and knowing you're on mission. You don't just go to work. You are sent into your workplace. Students, when you go to school, you're not just, oh, another school year. No, you are sent, filled with the Holy Spirit into that school system to bless, to encourage, to heal, to save, to touch. God has you on a mission in this 10th grade year of your school year. Every day, there's no ordinary moments. Go into the gas station. There's just people around you.

And if your antenna's up, if your radar's on, you're there to bless people who are hurting. I was getting off a Delta plane two days ago. You know how they say, the gate agent says, any specials? That's what they say to the flight attendant to ask, is there a wheelchair? Unaccompanied minor. And normally, the person says, yes, and hands the paperwork, says, yes, we have two specials, whatever, whatever, row 27. And unaccompanied minor, this row. A person needs a wheelchair, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right, the guy in row 15's annoying. Or whatever they tell him.

Any specials. And this flight attendant, for whatever reason, said yes. And the gate agent kind of was like, yes. And she goes, every single one, every single person on this plane special.

It just touched me. Because that's how God wants us to look at everybody. God wants us to see every single person as special, made in His image, that He loves them, saves them. He loved the people in your life enough to send you into their life on mission, if we're awake to it. If we're ready and willing to help in the event of a water, of a different sermon.

All right. Four things I noticed that are so powerful about Jacob's encounter with God that you should write down. We just have a few minutes. I'm going to send you out with a prayer, I promise. The first is that Jacob was amazed. I'm telling you, when you learn to seek God, you're going to go into every day amazed. Because you'll realize, like I did this morning, when I got up at 615 and made a cup of coffee in my hotel room, and got out to the little table they have in the hotel lobby, and got my Bible out, and got my journal out, and got my devotional materials out, and put my headphones in, and put some piano worship music on. No words, because it distracts me.

I start singing along, but it's a little like Chick-fil-A, where you say, you can tell it's a Christian song, but you're not hearing it, right? And I'm just there. And I said, God, I'm ready to meet with you. I know today you want me to encourage these people. What do you have to say to me in your word? And God spoke to me so clearly through the Gospel of John. And God spoke to me so clearly through Psalm 65. I read the promise that God makes the outgoing of both the morning and the evening shout for joy. And I looked up and saw the morning sky, and I realized God was making the cloud shout for joy. And He woke me up to see it's now my turn to shout for joy. I'm just telling you, when you make time in your life to seek God, to encounter Him, He's going to meet you.

He's going to speak to you. No one has ever drawn near to God, and then found God unwilling to draw near to them. But a lot of people, a lot of us, have had days where God was there waiting to meet us, and we were too busy. We were too distracted.

We were already on Instagram doing our scroll thing, feeling discontent about our lives because we were staring at everybody else's. But when we open up the promises, we're reminded God is in this place. God built me for a purpose. If God wanted me to live somewhere else, He'd have sent me somewhere else.

If God wanted me to have a different apartment, He would have given me a different apartment. God put me in this life. God put me in this job. God gave me these skills. God gave me this family.

You know what? It's on purpose. You are not a mistake. You were fearfully and wonderfully made. It was on assignment that God built the details of your life and even trusted you with the pain that He's trusted you with.

I woke up like this. So Jacob was amazed. He said, this is awesome.

This is amazing. This is how heaven works, was what he was saying. For the ladder came down, and that culture believed if anybody was going to get to heaven, they had to build a ladder up. But Jacob realized the ladder comes down. God put the ladder down to him. Genesis 10, the phrase babble is used for the first time. Babble means gate of heaven. And Jacob said, this is the gate of heaven, not us climbing a ladder of religion, climbing a ladder of good works up to God.

Jacob said, this is the gate of heaven. God comes to you when you're unworthy. God comes to you when you're broken. God comes to you when you're still hungover. God comes to you when you're still addicted to internet pornography. God comes to you when you just got divorced. God comes to you when your life is a mess. And he doesn't say, fix yourself up, boy.

Hope you can get your life cleaned up, girl. He says, my son died for you, did everything for you, did everything for you. Come on up. Come on up the ladder. Come on up, receive. Come on up, taste the living water. Come on up, have your sins forgiven.

Come on up, I'm the friend of sinners. Come on up, I'm willing to be touched by you and I will make you clean. I don't need you to get clean to come to me. Touch me and I'll make you clean. I'll forgive you, heal you, mend you. I'll fill you with purpose, fill you with life. I'll give you the hope of heaven. No one will recognize who you become. I will change your name. You don't have to stay stuck at being a cheater. You don't have to stay stuck at being broken.

You can encounter the foot washer today and leave here different. You can become governed by God. He's a great governor.

Too soon, California? All right, so, all right, I just, I'm not going to go there. Secondly, included, Jacob's time with God reminded him he's included.

It's one of the two states that joke would go over really well, by the way, at the moment. Included, Jacob's included in God's plan. Jacob didn't just get told, I'm going to bless the east, the south, the north, the west, so you stay out of trouble, idiot, right? God said, I'm going to use your seed, your family. What if every day as a part of your prayer time you realized your seed is a part of the promise, your spiritual lineage? Single people, I encourage you now to begin to pray for your wife. You pray for your husband. I encourage you now to begin to pray for your grandchildren. It will impact your life if, while you're single, you think about your grandchildren. What kind of a godly legacy do you start today?

Hint, it doesn't happen on Tinder. But beginning to pray about your seed, your family, your great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandchildren. It will help you make sense of the temptations in front of you on Tuesday.

You're included in God's plan. So act like it. Wake up to that. Live for it. What does that mean specifically? Here's what it means.

Turn your pillow into a pillar. Serve day. A day for the church family to say, how can we mobilize? How can we serve? How can I get more a part of Harvest Kumalani?

How can I begin to engage in the chat comments at Harvest at Home on the YouTube page? How can I bless and encourage? How can I take a pillow of my comfort? I'm sleeping as a Christian and wake up. And Jacob took his pillow and turned it into a pillar and said, this is a stone of the house of God now.

Are you a stone of the house of God? What are you doing to further the mission? What are you doing so that October 3rd there are more people going to come to know Jesus at Angel Stadium? What can you do to turn your pillows, your comfort into a pillar of God radically working through you? You are included. You are a part of the plan. Your time with Jesus each day will remind you of that.

Then thirdly, he got invested. What did he say? God, whatever you give me from this day forward, I'm giving a tenth of it to you.

Any blessing you give me materially, first 10%. Notice he did not say, God, if you ever give me a million dollars, $100,000 is yours, no cap. Right? He didn't say that.

Because nobody is able to do that. If you can't give on $10, you will never be able to give on a million. And so if you say today, when I'm rich, I'll be generous.

No, you won't. You'll be exactly as faithful with what you're a steward over then as what you are over today. So put into the rhythms at your minimum wage job.

Put into the rhythm at your, I just get money from grandma on my birthday because I'm a kid. I'm telling you, honey, you start giving on anything God gives you, he'll be able to trust you with more. For every time you get paid, you're taking a test. And the one question test is, who do you honor the most? Do you honor Visa the most?

Do you honor your mortgage the most? Those things can't save you when you have cancer. Those things can't help you when you die and stand before God.

But God can. So every time you get paid to honor him first, says, I honor you above everything. You're the author and finisher of my faith. You're the one who gave me my life. So I honor you the most. And I say that you own everything when I give you the first and the best 10%. And you have the security and strength of his blessing on the 90% that remains in your hand. And as Jacob discovered, you cannot outgive God. Harvest, listen. You will never come in second when you're putting God first.

All right. Included, amazed, invested, we're done with this one. Jacob became dedicated. And his dedication amounted to this. He poured oil out on top of the pillar as a way of saying, my life is poured out before you. I love the act.

I love the sense. The devotional that I read has a little bit of a beginning prayer. And they always start out with a quote from A.W.

Tozer or whatever else. I did the same thing in Take Back Your Life. Just some sort of inspiring verse or statement at the beginning to set the pace for every day. And someone told me, whenever you see those in your devotionals, to always open your hands. And I love that posture. Because to start my quiet time with God by opening my hands is the same as Jacob pouring one out for the homies.

I'm sorry. Different illustration. He pours out the oil. For those who have fallen, right? He pours the oil out, and it's the posture of saying, my life's poured out. My hands are open, God.

I love the idea because, listen, only empty hands can receive a gift. And when my hands are out, like God, I submit, I yield, I'm dedicated to you. That was me as a newly saved person. And I just say, God, whatever you can do, I give you me. I give you my life. I give you this day.

And that overarching sentiment works every single day. And so each day, put God first. Each day, give God your heart.

Each day, dedicate yourself and that day to Him. And you will watch God do wonders in your life. In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen. Father, we thank you for this time in your word. We pray you to work through our families, our hearts. And we pray that we would develop morning routines, God.

Some of us, we aim at nothing, and we get it every time. So I pray that through intentional acts of faith, we would aim at heaven. If this message has touched you all across the church or harvested at home, and you would say, I'm in. I want this. I want God to wake me up to the newness of each day with Him. Could I just ask you to raise up a hand as we're praying? Just raise up a hand saying, I want that. I want that.

I commit to that. I hear you speaking, Father. Help me to seek you each day. Help me to trust you. That resolve is on my heart even more because I don't want to go through the motions. I want to meet Him and worship Him in spirit and truth.

I don't want to just give Him my messages. I want to listen in prayer. Father, I pray you bless each with their hands raised, each person pouring that out to you, raising their hands to you. And I pray you would continue to do great things in their lives so that you could see and be aware of things happening all around them that they didn't notice before because they were too busy and distracted.

So you can put your hands down. And now as we close in prayer, I want to invite anybody who today has never made the decision to wake up from sleep in the sense of deadness, spiritual separation from God. You've never come out of the casket of your sin and selfishness. But today is the day for you to hear the voice of Jesus, who is the cuppo sleeper. Rise from the dead, and I will give you light. If that's you today, and you would say, I need to invite Jesus to come into my heart because I've been religious but not saved.

I know a lot about God, but I don't know God. If that's you I'm describing, could I ask that right now, before the service concludes, you would raise up your hand. Raise up your hand.

Raise up your hand. You're saying, I want to give my life to Jesus. God bless you.

Anybody else? Right there, God bless you. Every location, God sees your hand. God bless you guys.

How about in Orange County? Raise your hand. God bless every single one of you responding to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, who alone can call us to salvation.

Anybody else before we close? God sees you. God sees you. God sees you.

Put your hands down. I'm going to invite you to pray a prayer to ask Jesus to become the governor, the Lord, of your life. Say this to him.

Mean it in your heart, and he will hear you. The Bible promises if we confess, we will be forgiven. Church family, pray this with us, no one praying alone, all of us praying together. Dear God, I know that I'm a sinner.

I can't fix myself, but I believe you can. Please come into my heart. Make me new. I give myself to you. Thank you for new life. I give you mine.

Amen. Hey everybody, thanks for listening to this podcast. To learn more about Harvest Ministries, follow this show and consider supporting it. Just go to harvest.org. And to find out how to know God personally, go to harvest.org and click on Know God.