Is it okay just to think people look beautiful? I just think you look great. You know, I'm looking out at you, and man, it is so good to have you here. And so many of you that I'm looking at you through the camera, if you're down on the Gulf Coast or in Wiggins or at the Hunt Club or in Jones County, or if you're worshiping online — we got people all over the world. And let me say, if you're worshiping online, if you're watching, if you're doing this on Facebook, get off Facebook, because you're gonna be distracted, and get on our platform. If you do it on YouTube, go ahead and download. If you want to, just go to our website and you can get on the platform, because we don't want you to miss any of this. We want to connect you to our church online staff and their our team.

We're in a brand new series, one of one, and I hope you realize this, that God made you unique. There is nobody else like you. You know, some of you going, "I'm so glad you're married." And I know that we did that the early service like, no, no, there's nobody like you. In fact, there's never going to be another person ever born in the world like you. And so we're going to talk about identity, and how we can find our real identity in a relationship with God, who is our father. We're his children, and uh, he will never fail you. Man, when Taurus kept singing that, I wanted to skip across the stage, because he will not fail you. So we're going to talk about identity.

Let me give you a definition for identity, and I want you to think with me, because a lot of this is stuff that's happening to you and it's really in your subconscious. You don't realize it's happening, where you're getting your identity from. But identity — uh, the definition that I've given, that I've written — is how you see yourself through the lens of culture, your body image, trauma, or relationships. Now, if you just kind of want to know, like, where you're getting your identity from, it's coming from one of those things. You know, your self-image, your self-worth, if you're secure, if you're confident. And uh, so let me ask you, if you realize this, uh, many of you are getting your your identity from what you think others think of you.

Like the psychologists say that, you know, the looking glass cells — when you look in the mirror, you're thinking, "This is how the people I really like, this is how they see me, or I want them to see me." And that's where you're getting your identity from. Her trauma — a lot of people come to church, and they've been through traumatic experiences. I've had that in my past, a long time ago. It does affect you, and if you're not careful, you'll blame yourself and you'll think you're dirty, and you think God can never use you, and and that's not who you are. Okay, messages you receive from social media — I mean, you're being bombarded all the time. I mean, every time you open that computer, every time you turn on your phone, I mean, messages are coming. "You need to look like this, you need to have this, you know, you need to live in a house like this." And because we live in a post-truth world, we're having an identity crisis. And you look on TV and you say, "I've stopped turning on the news." And that's a lot for me, because I used to like to watch news. Now I know what they're going to say before they even get on there, and and we live in a post-truth world.

And I need you to know this, because you're never going to hear this anywhere else: until you know how God sees you, you can never be free to be fully yourself. Now you're not going to hear that anywhere else, especially in our culture. But until you know how God sees you, you're never going to be fully the person God created you to be. And God created you, okay? You're not an accident. Genesis chapter 1 verse 27: "God created man in his own image, in his image he created them, male and female he created them." You're not an accident. It's not — I don't care what they told you, okay? Don't listen to the science on this, because it wasn't just two atoms that happened to hit together. God had a plan for you. He created you in his image, and he loves you, and he's got a great plan for your life. And I'm gonna tell you, I don't care what you've done, I don't care where you've been, I don't care what's happened to you — God created you and loves you, and he's got a great plan. He will not fail you.

And this is the thing you need to understand: that not everybody who was created by God though is a child of God. Now let me let that kind of sit there for a second, because I don't know if we've done a good job telling you that. God created you, he he he created everyone, okay? I mean, the very beginning, he had a plan, he created you. But just because you've been created by God, it doesn't mean you're a child of God. I mean, until you're born again, until you come to say, "Hey, I know that I'm not right, I know that I need saving, I know that I've sinned, I want to be born into the family of God" — until you do that, you're on the outside looking in. Matter of fact, Romans says that you're an enemy of the cross of Christ. I mean, it's really scary. We've not done a good job preaching that. We're going to change all that, because I want you to know the truth about you. God loves you and he's got a plan for you, but you've got to be in the family of God.

Here's the second thing: just because you're a child of God, it doesn't mean that you've embraced your identity, your gospel identity in him. And some of you've never even heard that term before. I'll be honest with you, it's taken this long for me to understand what this means. That we have, for years and decades and centuries, we've said, "You need to do this, and you need to do that, and you need to do this," but we've not told you who you are. God created you, he loves you, he's got a plan for you. But until you see how he sees you, until you look at yourself through his eyes, through the eyes of scripture, you will never become the person he's called you to be.

And you'll find your identity in one of two ways. Now this is everybody that's listening to me, this is including me. And the first is, you'll find your identity in following the rules. How many of you are rule followers? Just just raise your hand. You love the rules. You just give me to show me the rules. You know, "I need the rules, I need the instructions." You you laid that thing out — if I know what I'm supposed to do, I'll lay that sucker out. I know it's just page one, okay, page two, page three. How many of you, like, you throw the instructions away, you don't need that to put that thing together? Yeah, yeah, don't point at your wife. And yeah, yeah, I get that.

See, so here's the deal. Some of you are rule followers, and you love this. Your identity is in how you perform. I mean, your your worth is — when you go to work, man, you work and you make this happen, and you do that, you make that happen. And and you know, if you go to church, man, you're doing this and you're checking that box off, and and "I'm worthy because I follow the rules." That's an outside in identity, where you are good based on how well you perform. And I've got a lot of that in me. I mean, from the beginning of time, I mean, like, if I was going to be noticed, if I was going to feel worthy, if I was going to get attention, I performed and I did my very best. And man, that followed me into ministry. And for so much of my life, it's been about my performance. Was that good enough? Have I, you know, matched the expectations that everybody has for me?

And when you live like that, it's exhausting. When you live to perform, you're going to be exhausted. "I've got to perform financially." You're watching the stock market. You're up here, you're up there, you're down there, you're up here, you're down there. Your friends — you know, they got to all like me, they got to invite me. Man, you're here or you're down here. You know, you're here you're your faith. You know, "I got to read my Bible every day." You're here or you're down here. It doesn't work when your identity is based on you following the rules. Man, you're going to be frustrated.

And then lobby, "But I don't have a problem with that. I mean, if you're under 40, you're thinking, 'Man, I don't listen. The way the way I find my identity is, I just do what I want to do. Hey, you do you, and I'll live my life. I'll make my own rules. You know, nobody tells me what to do.'" It's an inside out identity, where you have secular values. You know, because there there is no absolute truth. And you're seeing that happen all over the world. And I'm I'm not being critical of culture, I'm just telling you what's happening. We're all over the world, people are saying, "There are no rules. I mean, I make my own rules. I do what I think is right for me. I do what I think is right for my family. You don't impose that on me. I mean, if you impose your your ideas on me, if you have a conversation you don't agree with me, I'll just cancel you. I mean, the Bible in religion is what's wrong with the whole world. We need to get rid of all that." I mean, it's tolerance to my feelings and death to your faith.

Isn't it crazy how that's happening in our world? I mean, we can't even have discussions anymore. We we can't even talk, because because everybody's truth is the ultimate truth for them, and they try to impose that on everybody else. We've switched the price tags. I mean, we've made the good guys the bad guys, and we made the heroes — the heroes are people, not — they're not the good guys. When the bad guys lose, they're not the heroes. The heroes are people who become themselves, who become what they feel they want to be. And it happens at an early age.

How many of you have watched Frozen so many times you want to throw up? Do you raise your hand? Yeah, thank you. Like, even the kids are like, "I don't want to hear that again." Yeah, you you hear that thing and you watch that and you go, "Man, that's such a great movie, we've watched it a thousand times." But but there's a little little tweak in the narrative, where where the person that is the hero, they're they're they're becoming who they want to be. You're going, "What's wrong with that? I mean, we should be who we feel like we ought to be." Well, everything you didn't create, you — God created you, you you belong to him. This is his world, this isn't your world. It's his dreams for you, not just your dreams for you. And you're hearing that song. You know, when she say — what's the song? Let It Go. Can we sing that for just a second? Do you mind? Do you mind if you — do you mind?

I mean, Elsa — in her name, Elsa, I mean, like, you know, it'll be — she may, she's free to be who she wants to be, that's why she's trapped in a frozen castle. Here's what she says, look: "It's funny how some distance makes everything seem so small." But you're welcome to start singing. "And the fears that once controlled me, you can't can't get to me at all. It's time to see what I can do, to test the limits and breakthrough." I'm trying not to sing it, but it's just, it's taking over, it's taking over my body. "No right, no wrong, no rules." See? "No right, no wrong, no rules for me. I'm free. Let it go." Stop laughing! "Let it go. When I'll rise like the break of dawn. Let it go, let it go. The perfect girl is gone. Here I stand." I'm sorry. "She got saved in the light of day."

You see what they're doing? They're saying, "No, the hero of the story is, you become whatever you want to be." You self-select whatever you want to select. I mean, I mean Babe — have you seen the movie Babe? It's not quite as good because they don't have Elsa in it and there's not the singing. But but Babe is a pig and wants to be a sheep dog. In the end, oh, the narrative, the hero — the pig becomes a sheep dog. No, they're going to eat you, bro. Pork nachos. You see what I'm talking about? How how we, "No, I'm going to be this, I'm going to be there." No, no, no, no, no, no, that that's not how that works. And until you understand how God sees you, you will never be fully the person God has created you to be.

Now Luke chapter 15 verse 11. I want to read this real quick and try to kind of kind of work this in. If you know this story in Luke 15, it's a story, it's a chapter of lost things. And uh, the lost coin, you know, the lost sheep, the lost — now the lost son. But when you read this, how many of you have in your Bible it says "the lost son" or "the prodigal son" is the heading? You have that in your Bible? You don't have to, you know, get it out, but I'm saying mine has "the lost son," and that's not inspired. Because this is a story Jesus is telling about two lost sons. And so many times when we've preached this, and I've preached this a lot, we always stop with the prodigal. We're always like, "This kid was, this kid was out partying and viva la, and he, you know, he's terrible." And and we forget about the other son. They're both separated from God, and one is traditional rule follower, and one is like, "Nobody tells me what to do, I'll make my own rules." And so they both have an identity that's a false identity, and and neither one of them have a relationship with the father.

So Luke chapter 15 verse 11: "Jesus continued. He said, 'There was a man who had two sons. The young one said his father, "Father, give me my share of the estate." So he divided his property between them. And not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, he set off for a distant country, and there he squandered his wealth in while living.'" Man, he was going for it. "'And after he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in the land.'" Covey hit, everything shut down, the market failed. "'And the whole country began to be in need. So he went and hired himself to assist that country, who sent him into the fields to feed pigs.'" Jews felt that pigs were unclean. They don't eat barbecue. They're missing out. They'll get into heaven. "'He longed to fill his stomach with one of the pods that the pigs were eating, but he but no one gave him anything to eat. And when he came to his senses, he said, "How many of my father's hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death? I'll sit out and go back to my father and say to him, 'Father, I've sinned against heaven against you, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.'"'" He's kind of rehearsing, "maybe like one of your hard servants."

"'So he got to be, went to his father. While he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming and he was filled with compassion, and he ran to his son and he threw his arms around him and he kissed him. He said — he said, "Father, I have sinned against heaven against you, I'm no longer too worthy to be called your son." And father said, "No, stop it. Quick, bring the best robe and put it on, put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet, bring the fatted calf and kid up, let's have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and now he's alive again. He was lost and he's found." So to begin to celebrate.'" Usually we stopped there.

"'But meanwhile, the older son was in the field. He came near the house, he heard the music and dancing.'" Here's the roof: "You did dancing? What are they doing dancing?" "'He called on the service and asked him what was going on. I said, "Your brother's come home, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he is he has him back safe and sound." The older brother became angry, refused to go in. He said — so his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, "Look, all these years I've been slaving for you. I've kept the rules, I've done the right thing, I've never disobeyed your orders. You never gave me a young goat so I can celebrate with my friends. But this son of yours, who has squandered your property with prostitutes, he comes home, you've killed the fatted calf." The elder brother — "my son," the father said, "you're always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because you're your brother — he was he was dead and he's alive. He was lost, but now now he's found."'"

And I've just wondered how many people have had that experience, when when they've come to church. You know, I got to reading that story and I thought, "Man, I don't — I see why the kid ran. I mean, if I was living with that, it's always rules and you can't measure up and you can't do this and you can't do that. Man, I don't blame it. I mean, that's why people don't go to church." I mean, I mean they come to church like, "Well, you gotta you gotta look a certain way, you gotta dress a certain way. Why don't you have your hair like that? And what did you do last night?" I'm getting off track here, but I just — I'm having a moment. And it's the reason we have Venture, because I saw that happen so many times where the elder brother or the elder sister would size somebody up as they were walking through the hallway. And all of a sudden you had this rule followers saying to this person over here, "You're not welcome here, because you don't look like me, you don't dress like me, and you don't think like me." And so here's the younger brother. He says, "That's fine, I'll make up my own roads." That's why so many people left the church. Man, I mean, why go there? I mean, why go there if you know you're going to be judged? I mean, I mean why go there? You know, if you know you're not going to be loved and accepted, I mean, why go there? Because God's mad at you, now the church people are mad at you, so there's nowhere you can go. He says, "You know, I'll just be me, I'll just do what I want to do, I'll kind of follow what I feel like I ought to do." And and all of a sudden you find him broken.

Here's the thing, here's the thing: everybody's listening to me, that you're going, "Hey, I make my own roads, nobody tells me, preachers don't tell me what to do, I don't even believe that." Well, when you decide to do what you want to do because you feel like it's the right thing, you become a fragile person. You know why? Because those things you're going to will not fit you. You weren't designed for those things. You were designed for God. And there's a law of diminishing return. I don't care what it is you go to. You say, "Well, I like to go and do this, well, I like to go and do that." You'll have to have more and more and more of that to find out it will not satisfy you. You were made by God and for God, and nothing created would fill in that God-shaped vacuum that's in your heart. You'll be fragmented. I mean, when you say, "I'll make my own rules, I'll do my own thing," you you never know what — you're afraid you're going to miss out on something. "If I go over, you can't commit to anything, because if I commit over here, then I may miss that over here. And well, I don't want to miss out over there." Then you spend your whole life looking for people, like, to feel you, and you use people, and you find yourself alone. We've all been there, who we thought, "You know, I'm going to give up on all that, I'm just going to go for it, I'm going to go for it," and you find yourself alone.

But then there's the elder brother. "I'll keep the rules, I'll wear my Sunday best, I'll check off all the little blocks, you know, and make sure that God knows that I'm I'm there for him, you know, and I i'm taking care of things." And all of a sudden he he finds himself in a position where where the older brother, when he sees that the younger brothers come home — I mean, they're not excited about somebody getting saved, they're not excited about somebody coming home. Man, they're angry. "Who do you think you are? Why are you coming home?" I mean, you get cynical, you you forget grace. You forgot you're saved by grace. Every one of us have been saved by God's grace, and nothing we've done can earn our way to heaven. We become self-righteous. "My rules, my way." He is angry. It's exclusive. When you begin to have rules, and you — "this is the way things ought to be," if people don't measure up to your rules, man man they're not in. You become a hypocrite. You know why? Because you make mistakes too. You break the rules too. We are all sinners in the need of grace. And that's why Jesus will say, "Hey, it's the prostitutes and pimps that would get into heaven before the people who are self-righteous and go to church."

You say, "Well, goodness, Jeff, what's left if you know following the rules and doing what I feel like doing?" It's a gospel identity. It's the good news. God loves you. You were made by God. You were a child of God. God's not mad at you for rules or rebellion. He wants a relationship with you. God showed you how much he loves you in the person of Jesus, who died for you. But just because he created you doesn't mean you're a child of God. You say, "Well, how do I know I'm a child of God?" Listen what Paul says in second Corinthians 5:21: "God made him who was who knew no sin to become sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God." That Jesus took our place. Jesus on the cross, when he died on the cross, it wasn't just a person, a good person, dying on the cross. No, this was God's son. This is the perfect sinless son of God dying on the cross to open the door to you, to come in and be with the father, to come in and to be a child of God.

You say, "But my past." Listen, he'll forgive your past. "But my trauma." He will heal your trauma. "But you don't understand, I feel so weak." He will empower you. Listen, when you understand who you are in a relationship with God, it will change you. You won't have to depend all the time on your performance and, "I'm not worthy because I didn't measure up." You won't have to keep all the rules. "Well, I got to do this, well, I got to do that." No, you'll have a relationship with God. You'll be personal. He will work inside you in a unique way.

I'm just coming to this. Look, look, I was raised, "You better do right, you better do good, you better not do this, you better do that. If you don't do that, man, you're all going to hell, and we're glad." I mean, I had preachers that we had at our church, they were glad you were going to hell. I preached about it every week. She said, "I don't preach about it." I mean, I got so tired of hearing, I'm like, "Dad gum, you know, it'd almost be better than this sermon you preaching." That's why I didn't want to be a preacher.

God loves you. He says, "Come to me." Jeremiah — and this is like 2,800 years ago, I mean, we've gone through the same thing, a century after century after century — he says in Jeremiah chapter 2 verse 13, God says, "My people have committed two sins." He said, "One, they have forsaken a living water, the stream of a fountain. I'm a fountain of living water." He says, "They said no with all the things I want to do for you and I want to bless you and what I want to give you. You said no, I don't want the fountain of, uh, that this clean water coming coming from a spring. No, no, I want to — I want to dig me a whale." They call it a cistern in the Bible. I thought you'd mistake that. "I want to be, I'm going to dig out a little place so that the rain can come, and I'll scoop down and drink the dirty water of rules and rebellion, of creating my own identity, of running the things that will not satisfy me."

Listen, that is all of us at different seasons in our life. You can be a child of God and return to those broken wells. For some of you, that's where you are. That's what's wrong with your marriage, that's what's wrong with your family, that's what's wrong with your business, that's why you're so unhappy, that's why you're turning to things that are destroying you. You're going, "Hey, I gotta have more that I gotta have more than I gotta have more of that." You're becoming addicted. It's ruining you. And I'm begging you, because you're loved, to come back home. For some of you, to come home for the first time, because you've never heard that you needed a personal relationship. You just thought if you tried to do more good than bad, somehow it would even out. That's not good news, that's bad news, because you can't do that.

You said, "What are the steps to having a gospel identity?" Number one, recognize what you're putting your identity in. What are you looking to — think with, I'm almost done — what are you looking to to validate you? You say, "Well, my body." Well, I got bad news for you. Uh, you hadn't lived long enough to know this, but uh, like, I made a move earlier in the in the earlier service and pull a hamstring. I mean, it's like, you know, the reason I'm not wearing jeans because they don't fit me right. I mean, like, something happens. Like, if that is your if that is your validation, you're going to be in trouble. Your performance — look, you're going to have some bad days. What are you putting at your job? What are you putting your identity in? What is it? This is this is the way to help you. What is it that, if you lost it, you would give up hope for living? Follow? If that happened, I i don't think I could carry you. That's where your identity is.

Listen, the quicker you understand where your identity is, the quicker you can come to your senses, where you can recognize where you're going to drink from. It's just a broken well. It's not going to set more of the same thing. It's not going to satisfy you. You you come to your senses and you go back to to the father. You you realize, "Hey, I'm i'm with pigs." Some of you are with pigs, okay? You're in there. I talked to God earlier about the peace. You're you're in the pigsty, like, "Hey, this is not working well, we'll get away from it." It's insanity to keep going and doing the same thing expect different results. You turn and you go.

The third thing is, you receive your new identity and you celebrate your freedom. Listen, there is so much God has for you in a relationship with him. It's not, "You can't do this and you can't do that and you can't do this." No, no, no. He says, "Hey, hey, I'll bring the ring and put it on your finger, you'll have authority." The ring was where it was like a signal — rings like a signature, like a stamp on checks and everything. You've got authority. "I'll bring a robe, you'll be royalty. I'll put slippers on your feet, you're a child, you're taken care of, you're a son, you're a daughter. There'll be a feast, there'll be a party." They'll be dancing. Yeah, there's dancing. It's not a sin. Listen, the kingdom of God is a party. You'd rather describe heaven, it's a feast. It is a party. It's the party to end all parties.

Then you reorganize your schedule so that you can grow in your gospel identity. We want to help you with that. The reason we do this thing right after the sermon where we have some time kind of built in, where you can come down and pray, or you can go to the cross, or or whatever you want. It's a moment for you to get with your heavenly father, man, and to kind of come to him and go, "Hey, hey, I love you, I'm going to take a moment, I'm going to carve this out, I'm going to spend time with you, I want to get to know you." And we've given you all these tools so that every day you can get by yourself and, like, use your imagination and and think about where you fit in the story of God and read his word and talk to him and just enjoy him. I spent my whole life doing and doing and doing for God and his people. He said, "Why don't you just stop before you're dead and enjoy me? Just enjoy me, just give me your focus." And when you do that, you'll want to reach out to your friends, and you can forgive them for trying to go to them for validation, because they're not that good, they're not gods. You can forgive yourself for saying, "Hey, I was trying to do this and I was trying to do that." We've all done that. And you can celebrate who you are and invite people you love to join you in the celebration.

There is nothing better on this earth — you won't believe the things I've done, good and bad — there's nothing better on this earth than knowing that you're a child of God and that he loves you. He says, "This is my son in whom I'm well-placed." After that, I don't care what you think. "This is my daughter who I love." Your girlfriends don't invite you, my daughter the king. I'm not gonna do any more because I get hurt.

Would you buy your heads for just a moment? Hey, listen to me. If you've never been born again into the family of God, where you're not just keeping rules or making up your own rules, if you've never been born again, I want to ask you to join the party, and to say, "God, I know that I'm a sinner. Forgive me of my sins, save me and change me and welcome me home. I am not fit to be called your son or daughter." And you hear the band start up, because heaven rejoices more over one person who repents than over a hundred people who need no repentance. For some of you, man, you've been you've been keeping rules, you you went from grace back to rules. For some of you, you went to God's grace in his love back to doing your own thing, making your own rules, and God's asking you to come home. And during our moments we have, would you just give your heavenly father a chance to show you how much he loves you, to see yourself through his eyes, so that you can be fully who he's made you to be? One of one.

Father, I thank you. God, I thank you because you're still revealing yourself to me. And God, I've spent my whole life trying to work my way to some sense of being accepted, and I didn't realize that that was really keeping me from enjoying you. Father, I thank you today that there's not one thing we can do to earn our way to salvation, and there's not one bad thing we've done that can keep us from your grace. And so, father, we just pause to just sit in the fact that you've created us and you want to be our father, Jesus our savior, and the Holy Spirit our comforter. God, moving all of our campuses online so that we can truly have our identity rooted in you. And I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.