Hey, I want to welcome all of you from our Jones County campus off of Busch Dairy Road, which is only two and a half miles from chick-fil-a. You need to know that. And this is the one-year anniversary, and we're so excited about what God is doing here. And a lot of churches, you guys are so amazing because you've been willing to give, you've been willing to go, you've been willing to serve. And because of that, we launched this campus in the middle of covet. Now think about that. While a lot of churches were closing down, many to never open again, uh, you were launching campuses, and this is one of them. And we're so excited about what God is doing here, the team that here, the people that are here that are reaching out to this community. And we couldn't be more happy with the future in Jones County.

Now this all fits amazingly well into our series on identity. And two weeks ago I talked about identity and what identity is for most people, and it's seeing yourself through the lens of culture, your body image, trauma, and relationships. And I said a lot of people do that, and that's one way to do it. And because of that, there's a lot of insecurity, there's a lot of frustration, you're seeing a lot of things happening, uh, in our world — confusion about identity because of that. And and I gave you a couple of ways that most people kind of live their lives and the way they get identity. And the first is a traditional way where you keep the rules. You say, "Hey, I'm going to play this part, I'm going to do this, I'm going to go to church, I'm going to be nice to people, and I'll keep the rules, and my identity will be in all the things that I do." And then the other was the modern identity, where you say, "I'm going to make my own rules, I'm going to rebel and do the things that I want to do. I don't care what you think, I don't care what anybody thinks, I don't know what the culture thinks. I care about what I think and my friends think, and that's what I'm going to do with regard to my life. And that's how I'm going to find a sense of a purpose in my life, is making myself happy."

Well, I want to tell you, there's a better way, and it's the Gospel. It's the reason we do this. It's the reason we plant campuses, because the Gospel is seeing yourself the way God sees you, and understanding that you were made by God and for God to know Him and to make Him known. And so I want you to kind of see today how this whole thing of planting churches fits in with Gospel identity by thinking back all the way to Genesis chapter 3. In Genesis chapter 3, there's this amazing verse that nobody ever talks about, and it's after God made Adam and Eve. In their perfect place, have perfect bodies, have everything in the world going for them, and they choose to rebel. "Hey, I can do my own thing, I can be my own god." In Genesis chapter 3 verse 21, there's a little verse there that says that because they were naked and ashamed, that God came, and and He put some skins of an animal on them. And you just kind of race past that. And and I want you to know that that is a picture of the covenant. It's the picture of God saying, "Hey, hey, sin is a big deal. A sin is deadly, and because of that, I'm going to have to — someone's got to pay." You know, no justice, no peace. And so so an animal, a sweet animal that's never hurt anybody, is killed, because the person that sins, the Bible says, must die. Genesis 6:23 says the wages of sin is death. And in Hebrew says, without the the remission of sin, without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sins. And then James 1:5 says when you lust, it conceives in you, and it brings forth death. And you're going, "You got to be kidding me." No, I'm not kidding.

And the reality is, we're in a covenant relationship with God. And the reason we plant churches, and the reason we find our identity in Him, and the reason we want people to know about Jesus, is because there's no other way to Heaven but through the covenant relationship that exists with Jesus Christ. So the very first week when I talked about identity, you find your identity in a covenant relationship where you're born into the family of God, because not everybody created is a child of God. You've got to be born into the family through trusting in Jesus Christ in the exchange life that He gives you, by Him paying for all of your sins on the cross, because without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. And that's in the in the New Testament in Hebrews.

And then Timmy talked last week, and I love this, because covenant has everything to do with the way you see your marriage. Okay? The identity you have in marriage is not just, "Hey, I'm going to meet this person, they're going to meet all my needs, and we're going to be happy and have to eat." No, no, no. It's a covenant relationship that God gives you in a relationship with another person. Now, you may not know about this, but in the Old Testament it was not a written language, because there wasn't a lot of things to write on, uh, and it was a symbolic language, language. So when you got married — and this would mess up most of venues, like the venue I'm in right now — where where you cut an animal in two and put them on either side, and the couple would stand in the middle, and they would say, "Hey, we're agreeing, we're agreeing that this is a permanent relationship. And so we see this relationship in this marriage through the covenant, through the fact that we are together. And may this be done to us, even and even more, if we break our covenant relationship to one another." Not only don't get into the covenant with circumcision, and how when you're with somebody and you consummate marriage, you do that through sex, and that means that you're one in one. Your your souls connect. You know, well, where are you going with this, with with regard to the church and planting churches?

Guess what else happened with regard to the covenant? God designed a covenantal people that we call the church. In the Old Testament, it was the people of God through Abraham. So we're going to talk about that today, and you're going to see how you're connected all the way back to Genesis chapter 12, beginning with verse 1, where God says, "Hey, I'm going to make a covenantal people that's going to be My family. And I'm going to work in them, and I'm going to work through them to change the world." So you kind of know the history. You had Adam and Eve, and then they had, you know, children. And then there was the first murder in the Bible. And then you had the Tower of Babel, trying to build a tower to God. And then you had Noah, and God says, "I can't believe I've made these people." And then they start all over, and God says, "Now I'm gonna begin a covenantal people, call My people, a people for My position." And I want you to understand who you are, not just as an individual, not just as a person married to someone, but who you are in being a part of the family of God, and all that it means for you and me. It's our identity and why we do what we're doing. It's why we have the campuses that we have. It's why we preach and we go and we serve.

Genesis chapter 12 verse 1: "And the Lord had said to Abram, 'Go from your country and your people and your father's household to the land that I will show you. And I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse, and all the peoples of the earth will be blessed through you.' So Abraham went, as the Lord had told him. And Lot went with him as his nephew. And Abram was 75 years old when he set out to Iran. And he took his wife Syria, his nephew Lot, all of his possessions he had accumulated, and the people that they had acquired in Haran. And they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there. And Abraham traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Morya in Shechem. And at that time the Canaanites were in the land. And the Lord appeared to Abram, and said, 'To your offspring I will give this land.' So he built an altar there to the Lord that who had appeared to him. And there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent there with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built another altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord. And then Abram set out and continued toward the Negev."

And what does all that mean? Well, it means that you're connected with regard to the plan of God. When God said to Abraham, "Hey, I'm going to make of you a great nation," He had Bush Dairy Road in mind. And I think through this, you've got Abraham. He says, "I've given this to you. You're going to be My people for My possession. You're going to be My family." To Isaac, to Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel, all the way to the Judges. When you read the Judges in the Old Testament, all the way to the to the kings, and David and Saul and all the kings, and to get going on and on, and then 400 years of silence, and then Jesus. And Jesus comes and He develops a covenant, not just with you personally, but with the people of God in His family called the church. Now you need to get that, because we live in a Western culture, and if you're not careful you're going to be thinking, "Well, why do we need to plant a church over here? Why don't we need to have a church over there? Why can't just be all about me and my needs?" Because because of the covenant of God, the people of God, it's not just about you. Okay? Your faith is personal, but it can't be private. And there's three things that are demanded of you with regard to the covenant with the people of God.

Now I want you to write these down, because maybe you've never heard these, and it's why we launch churches. That's why we do what we do. Okay? It's who we are as the people of God. Not not just our church, but all the churches. This is where we are, and this is what we do. Three things that the covenant demands of you as the people of God in community. And the first is that you go with purpose. Now, now I want you to think through this, because we read the Bible a lot, and we go, "Oh, that was nice, you know, that was cute." No, no. This really happened. God came to Abraham when he was 75 years old, and He said, "I want you to go now. Start stepping." Can you imagine that? You're 75 years old, you got your wife, okay, you don't have any kids, you got a young nephew, he's probably 35. And God tells you to leave the earth, the Keldis, the only place you've ever known, and you never left. Your family was the only safety that you had. It was the only hope that you had. It was the only future that you had. And He says, "I want you to go, and I want you to start stepping. I want you to go by faith. I want you to be on a journey for your lifetime." Think about this. "And I'm not going to tell you where you're going. There's no GPS, there's no Google Maps. I want you to start stepping by faith, and I'll tell you when you get there."

Listen, listen, for us to go like God is telling us to go, we've got to be willing to say, "I'm willing to go in spite of my busy schedule." I mean, I know I've got this, I've got that, but but God has said, "I'm to go." Not not just to Abraham, not just the preachers, not just the super Christians — to every single person. You're like, "Well, wait a minute, you, you mean I need to be willing to do whatever God says?" Yes. In the family of God, when God says go, you go. He says get out, you get out. He always calls us in — get this — He always calls us in to send us out. And that was Abraham and Sarah. This really happened. You said, "Well, well, wait a minute, I thought, I thought church was about, you go to church and you sit in a classroom and you get information, you try to be a better person." Where do we get that from? The Romans. I'll be doing some study on this, and then realizing where we've gotten to as a church, and and why we're so impotent as a church, and why we're so stuck as a church, and not us, but just talk about churches in general, while people aren't growing in their faith, while people don't want to go out and be a part of the community of faith. And we got it from the Romans. The Romans, when Christianity began to kind of be a part of the political landscape of Rome, it was, you come and sit, and the priest will teach you what you need to know, because you don't need to know anything other than what they teach you. And you come here and you listen and you learn and you pay and you go back, and you come back. And that was never God's plan for the church.

You say, "How do you know that?" Because Jesus said five times in five different books of the Bible, "Go. Go and make disciples." I don't really have time to read these, but I just got to tell you, I mean, Jesus is in the going ministry. He says, "Hey, hey, therefore you go and make disciples of all people, baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." In Mark's Gospel: "Go to all the people of the world." 500 times He says, "To all the people of the world, and you share with them the good news." In Luke: "The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for all the forgiveness of sins will be preached in His name." John, He says, "As the Father" — but this is unbelievable — "has sent Me, so I send you." Acts chapter one, after He's risen from the dead: "You'll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth." He says, "Hey, you better go." And that's why Christianity can't be like dialed in to just an area like Islam in the Middle East, like Buddhism, where you go into Asia and India. Christianity is exploding everywhere because people are willing to go. China, North Korea, South America. Do you know the place in the world that's one of the greatest mission fields is North — you can look it up — North America is one of the most lost areas in the world. And He says go, He says go, He says go.

Listen, listen, listen, listen. Do you understand that our world around us, even in Mississippi — I got to hurry up — even in Mississippi, where we are, listen, when I drive by Walmart or I drive by t.j maxx, they're having revival during church time. He says, "You go, you go." Think Uber, don't think taxi. Listen, look, you're not in a monastery, you're not a monk, you're a missionary. You're not in a seminary, you're an ascending agency. He says, "Go, go, go, go, go," and live, live with purpose, and live with power. Listen, if God calls you to do something, He's got your back. I can't tell you how many people when we were launching Venture about 15 years ago said, "I'll tell you one thing, you'll never get that paid for, you'll never do this, you'll never do that." You know what? They underestimated God. Where God guides, God provides. When God says go, He's got you, man. You live with power. Listen, God — listen to this — God having a plan that includes you is better than your plan that includes Him. Now, now let that settle in, because it sounds like semantics. Let me read it again. God having a plan that includes you is better than you having a plan that includes God. Now what does that mean? Well, just like Moses. You know, when Moses, "Well, I'm gonna set my people free, I'm gonna kill one at a time. Gonna kill this one. God help me, because I know You want me to do this. I'm gonna kill this one, I'm gonna kill this one." God says, "No, that's not My plan." But when God comes to him in Exodus in the desert and says, "Hey, I want you to go back, and I want to, you, work through you to lead My people back to the Promised Land," things begin to work out. Listen, when God has a plan and He involves you in His plan, it always works. But when you have a plan to go, "God, I want you to bless this, and God, I want you to do that," man, it doesn't always work out.

One of the blessings about Venture, and the reason Adventure is the name of the church, is because we're about going, not about staying. We're about going with the power of God, where God calls us to do the impossible with the improbable. What? Like David with the slingshot, you know, like Gideon with the 300 men, you know, like, like Moses standing at the Red Sea. Listen, God's Spirit is with you when you go with Him. That's why Peter says, "Hey, hey, you are a chosen people, you're a royal priesthood, you're a holy nation, you're a people for God's own possession." It's the power of God where in the book of Acts He weaponized the church. I, I did this study, and I, in Colorado, who, who leads this campus, and his team were talking about, after, after Jesus rose from the dead, and and you know, they're waiting for that 50 days of Pentecost. And and you're thinking, man, they're going to be thousands of people waiting for the power to fall. And do you know how many people were in the upper room? You know how many people really believed after all the teaching and all the miracles and all the feeding and raising people from the dead? Do you know how many people were really waiting on God to move? 120 people. Now there's over 2 billion people that say they're Christians. How does that happen? It happens one to one, two to two, three to three, where you say, "You know what? I can't do everything. I can do one thing. I can find one person." Can you imagine what would happen if every person just said, "Hey, I'm going to live in such a way with power that I'm going to bring one person to come and hear and understand who God is," that there would be a Gospel multiplication that would change our communities? It would change our state, it would change our nation.

Listen, it's no longer about, "Come and see with us." It's about, "Go and be." Go and be what? Live holy lives, have open mouths, have serving hands, where people see that you're different. Listen, the reason people are joining tj maxx and wanting to join that church, or the tj maxx, is because, man, that, like, they get a product that they like. The reason people are skipping church and they're skipping Christianity is, they don't see anything different. They don't see any power there. Listen, God has given us power to tear down strongholds. He said the gates of Hell will not prevail against you. It's not that the gates are coming towards you, it's that you're going into the gates, that you're going into where people are. People that are broken, people that are hopeless, people that are addicted, and you're saying, "Hey, I've got good news that God can set you free." We're a covenantal people, that that is our identity, a people for God's own possession, to know Him and to make Him known, where where we go with purpose, and we, we live with power, and we give passionately.

You know, I got to thinking about Abraham kind of walking through the desert. I did the numbers on this. I mean, I got fixated on, I get obsessed over things. And and I was just going through these different areas. Nobody gave him a ride. I mean, it's not like he's walking, he's got his family, they're going through the desert, and somebody pulls, "Hey, I got some, I got some camos, you want to ride?" I mean, nobody gave him a ride. Every place he went into, he was a threat to them, and they wanted to kill him. He lied about his wife, called her his sister. I mean, there was all kind of crazy things going on. He traveled over 3,500 miles. What? Wanted to give his life, whatever it took to obey the Word of God. It'd be like us setting out from South Mississippi going to Portland, Oregon, and then when we get to Portland, we go down into San Francisco. Can you imagine? I read a book about Daniel Boone right now, the whole idea of people moving West, when they first got to this country, and how, how difficult it was, and how the price that they had to pay. And Abraham was willing to do that.

Listen, here's the thing about being a part of a family. The church literally means, by the way, in Greek, to be called out. It, in Latin, mission means to be sent. It's, it's the idea that you can't stay where you are and go with God. It's going to cost you something. That's going to cost you your comfort. I mean, it's just uncomfortable. And they're going to be times when, when you're going to want to go back to pleasure seeking, you want to go back to comfort, you're going to want to go back to power, you want to go back to all the possessions, all those things that you had. And you go, "No, hey, ho, ho, I'm on mission. I, I'm a part of the family of God. I'm about redeeming the world, about setting things straight, about the Kingdom of God taking root where I am." There's a cost.

You know, I have to tell you, I'm fascinated with Laurel. I don't know if you, you watch the show, where they're doing all the amazing things with their redoing houses. And I mean, I was in, I was in, I was in Walmart, like, near Christmas, and and and our sweet couple was on the front of People magazine. I was like, whoa, whoa, they're in Laurel. This is amazing. And and I've kind of watched this thing with a lot of interest, because people from all over the country are moving to Laurel. And I'm watching this, I'm thinking, man, this is cool, like, the world is coming to Laurel. And and the vision and the brand of taking older houses and renovating them and having a small town feel is drawing people. I would have come just for PDI. They'd just show those burgers on TV, I've been moving here. And I was thinking, what if we did that with regard to the Gospel? Where it wasn't just about renovating old things, it was not making things brand new, giving you hope for your marriage and for your kids, living holy lives with open mouths and serving hands.

Listen, listen, for what God said to Abraham, He is saying to you. Not not just here in in Jones County, okay, but all of our campuses. He's saying, "I've made you to be a blessing to the community. I've made you wherever you go. You're in Walmart, you're a blessing, you're teaching." I'm actually, "You're a blessing." I'm sorry, I'm hung up on tj maxx, I just can't believe that many people were there this morning when I went by. They're just crazy, it's insane. They're giving stuff away, it must be drugs. But the reality is, wherever you go, you're being a blessing to these people. "I will make you a blessing, and I will bless you." You say, "Well, why the big deal?" Because in Jones County, 68,000 people reside here. Is the eighth-largest county, I think, in in the state, and it's growing. People are moving here. But you may not know this. There's 41,000 people, they don't go to church anywhere. 41,000 people. There's there's 24,000 people that say, "Hey, I have no religious affiliation at all." And God says go. It's time. Go. Go with purpose. Go serve. Give. Listen, it's time for us to take the mask off and come out from behind all the fear and angst we've been feeling for the past two years plus, and be the hands and feet of Jesus where we are, because that's who we are.

I'm gonna give you just a moment to kind of bow your heads. And and I want you to stop and think about what I've been talking about. We, we've connected you, if you know Jesus and you're part of the family of God that meets adventure, we've connected you all the way back to Abraham, where God said to Abraham, "You go. You, you go. You be a blessing, and I want to change the world through you." Would you just begin right now, saying, "God, tell me how You want me to respond. God, tell me how You want me to serve, because I want to be all that You've called me to be." Let me pray with you. Father, we thank You, the God, You have called us to be Your children, You've placed this in Your family. And God, You want to do amazing things in our community. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.