Welcome. Hey, Lincoln Road. Can you help me? Welcome in everybody at all of our campuses. Welcome in.

Everybody excited that you are here, man, it is the week after Thanksgiving and we are all still full. Surely I know you are. Where's my Turkey people at? Anybody Like, gimme all the salty foods at Thanksgiving. I need salty people like our savory.

We can call it savory if you want to. Where are my sweet people at? Like give me the pie. I want it all like pecan pie. Like we just start naming 'em off.

Y'all like I can go down the list if you want to. I'm the same way. Like I love Thanksgiving. I love what it's about. And we have so much to, to be thankful for, right?

Like what God is doing in our church, in the midst of our church. I have so much to be thankful for and the way that he is moving, we're gonna get into all of that. But Thanksgiving's a really weird season for me, especially when it comes to venture. Uh, the first time I ever hosted it was at the Hunt Club campus many, many years ago. And the first I remember it was the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

I had my first opportunity to host and I had worked on it all week. Y'all like truthfully, I had been planning it, getting ready, like amping myself up. I had all of the stuff that I was gonna say mapped out and, and so I get out there at the Hunt Club campus, God bless you guys for dealing with me in that first year. And I come out there and I said, Hey everybody, welcome to venture. If you're like me on Thanksgiving, then you ate too much and you drink too much.

And immediately as the words were coming outta my mouth, I realized that those were the wrong words because I was talking about my grandmother's sweet tea and it just didn't really translate 'cause I didn't add sweet tea on, on the end of it. And so Tommy Griffin, God bless you, uh, at, at the 11 o'clock, uh, on that sun or the nine 30 rather on that Sunday, he text Byron, the campus pastor at the time, he said, Hey man, you need to bring Blake back out for the closing 'cause he's gotta clarify what he was talking about in the welcome. And so luckily we went out and it was all fine. But I always feel really weird during the Thanksgiving season, but there's so much to be thankful for. Like, it's just really, really good to see how God is moving in our church family here.

And at every location I hear stories of, of people's lives who are being changed. Now for me, Thanksgiving I get really simple. Like there's, I'm thankful for the little things like the the opportunity to wear this jacket for instance. I wear it like two times a year. 'Cause I understand that most people, and you came in and you talk to me, you're like, like that's that's a really weird jacket.

Like you kinda look like a nerd bro. And I'm like, I know it's part of who I am. And but the reason why it's gonna make sense to you in a little bit, I really am excited. My wife begged me not to wear it. She said, please, please don't wear the NASA jacket.

But I I need you to know I love rockets. Like I am the guy that if you wanna talk about rocket launches and all the kind of stuff, I'm the guy to go and talk with. I like watching all everything that anybody NASA's what they're doing with the Artemis missions or, or what, uh, Elon's doing with SpaceX and you got the blue origin thing and they're all just going to space now. I mean I just love everything about rocketry and NASA and, and that's why I get to, to wear the jacket every now and then. I just get really excited about it and you guys get to share in that with me today.

So congratulations to you. But we, we have an opportunity. Like we're we're, I love talking about the, in fact, several years ago I took Henley to the Infinity Space Center, uh, to see my favorite rocket on demand. It's called the Saturn five. It's huge.

There's actually a picture I wanna show you guys of the Saturn five rocket. This is Henley Grace, my daughter standing next to the largest rocket at that time that had ever been created. That's just the bottom half of it. Like this thing that's a real rocket that they use to, to fire up people in the Apollo missions in the sixties and seventies, this rocket sent people to the moon. I mean, think about it.

You had people who were on this ball of dust get on something that was supposed to explode in order to take them to another ball of dust. That blows my mind. And so you've got the Saturn five and this is a huge record, but don't just take my word for it because I mean this thing is powerful. When I say powerful, it is very powerful. Think 7.6 million pounds of thrust kind of powerful that's stronger than more powerful than 85 Hoover dams.

But don't just take my word for it. Check this out. There's something I wanna show you. Ten nine ignition sequence, 5 6 5 4, 3, 2, 1 0 all engine run. Okay?

That's pretty cool. Like, I mean, just think about it. Can you imagine being there in the moment? I love everything that Rocket sent people to a place that we had never been before. We had never been there.

We we took humanity further through that rocketry than anything else. And you're saying Blake, okay, are we in a sermon right now? Are we in a science lesson? Like what's what's happening? Why am I here?

'Cause school starts tomorrow. And so like if you're just here to like teach about science, then I can just wait till tomorrow. Now there's a point. Trust me, over the next two weeks we are entering into a special series called Be Generous. Now one thing we say here at Venture often when part of our strategy is that we ignite by giving, we use that word ignite very intentionally because through the giving of our church, through you and the gifts that God has given to you and the resources that he has given to you, when that is collected together, it ignites ministry allows us to go further faster than anywhere we've been before.

And here's what we're believing that setting us up over these next two weeks that God is going to launch us just like the Saturn five rocket into places that we've never been before, that we're gonna see more people give their lives to Christ. We're gonna see more things happen. We're gonna see more salvations and more baptisms and God's gonna move. So the challenge for you in this message today is this, is to accept your role. Did you notice this about the rocket?

That it wasn't just one big piece, right? Like if you looked at that rocket, you go back, there are so many different pieces that make up what launched those humans into space. The Apollo missions to the moon. In fact, there are 5.6 million individual parts to the Saturn five rocket. That's a lot of pieces and it's part of, it's the fuels, some of it's the boosters, but some of it's the clamps that hold the hoses down.

It may not look like it's important, but I guarantee you if any piece of that messes up, nobody's going to the moon when they all work together, they were able to go further faster than ever before. And that's the challenge to you today is I want you to accept your role to lean in and say, okay God, what part do I play in this mission of see seeing people come to know love and follow you? In fact, Paul in second Corinthians chapter nine, he talked to the church at Corinth about the same thing. In fact, he wrote to them a letter and in the ninth chapter of this letter, he started to talk to them about generosity. And he said, okay, there's something for you to do with the resources that you've been given.

In fact, there's a collection that you're taking up to give to the church in Jerusalem. And so they've never met the people in Jerusalem. They, they don't know 'em from Adam, but they know that they're fellow believers and that God was calling them in this moment, in this season to collect what God sacrificially, what God had given them and to send it to the church at Jerusalem. And just like us, Paul is going to walk through almost a countdown to launch. And that's what I want us to do today, is to lean in and see what Paul says to the church at Corinth about generosity and giving and what we can glean as well because God's about to launch us into an amazing season where we see his glory go all across South Mississippi and us be a part of it.

So I wanna pray for us as we enter into the word and and just to seek God as we enter into his word. Let's pray. Father we love you and we pray that right now that it wouldn't be about us, but we would just receive your word. That you have given us a good word and you've encouraged us through it. So now as we read it, father would it, would it touch us?

Would it move us to to be a sacrificial giver and to realize that it's not about what we have, but it's about who we have that enables us to, to see things take place that we could never dream of. Lord, we love you. We thank you in Jesus name we pray, amen and amen. So, so what are we gonna do? How do we unpack this?

I kinda wanna do a countdown to launch as it were to ignition because that's part of our strategy. So the first question we gotta ask ourselves is why give, right? I mean think about it. It doesn't really follow logic, right? Like you're saying, okay, I'm a part of a church, I wanna be a part of the family here and I and I want to to to be a part.

How does, what does that look like? What it means that you sacrificially give of what you have for the good of others? Well, dang that don't make a whole lot of sense 'cause I worked really hard for what I got, right? I I've earned this, this is mine. I've, I've, I've kind of, but there's something about living for Christ and this and this, this life that we've been given that calls us to sacrificially give, listen to what Paul says starting in verse six as he's talking to the church at Corinth, he says, remember this, whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly.

And whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give notice that he doesn't say each of you should give whatever's told of you to give. No, no, no. He says each of you should give whatever is you have decided in your heart to give not reluctantly or under compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver.

This is the economy of the kingdom of God. This is something that we have to take in. If we follow Jesus, we've given our life to him. We have to notice something. Now the first verse, if you, if you're not careful with it, it can be really easy to take that verse and say, okay, I can, I can get a part of this.

This is like a kind of a quid pro quo with God, right? Like I'm gonna give and I'm gonna sow generously and then I'm going to reap generously in my own life. That leads to terrible theology. Can I just go ahead and tell you that when you start to go into what's called transactional, like I'm going to give so that I get something back that leads to a very dark place when it comes to giving and generosity through the kingdom of God. That's not kingdom economics.

We don't give of what we have so that somehow some way God is a great investment engine and you know my 4 0 1 k and my annuity over here, it's given like seven, 8% but give to God and you're gonna get like 30, 35%. And that's not how this works. That's not what this is about. Now what we have to see is when we so generously we are sowing into the lives of other people, okay? Understand this like when we give and we're generous, the reason why we give is because we want other people to know what we know.

What is it that we know? One John four 10 says this, it says this is love. Not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. You see this? We're generous not because of what we will get, but because of what we've been given.

Friends, this is the first foundational step that we have to understand when it comes to generosity. It's not just saying, okay God I have something so I'm gonna give it and hopefully somewhere in the future you're gonna give back to me and I'm gonna get so much more than I thought. No, that's not what it's about. It has everything to do with recognizing that the reason we're here in the first place, the reason we've been blessed in the first place was because 2000 years ago there was a man from Nazareth who was the son of the living God who stepped forth onto Calvary and said, I'm gonna take all of your sin. I'm gonna take all of your shame.

I'm gonna take all of your guilt. I'm gonna take everything that has ever been wrong with you and separated you from my father and I'm going to give you new life. This is why we give because the greatest gift has already been given to us. Everything in our life boils down to this. Do you see this?

That it's not about trying to form a perfect future because of sacrifice. Now know it because all those years ago in a place that many of us will never step foot, the savior of the world gave his last breath so that you could take your first and it's from that breath, it's from that goodness, from that empty tomb when it opened up three days later that grace and hope and mercy and love flowed out out of calvary, out of the empty tomb and into your life. And now we have a role to play in seeing that same wave, that tidal wave of love and grace go into the lives of other people. That's what it means to sow generously. We're not just sowing seeds of investment later on, we are sowing seeds of the Gospel into people's lives.

And my prayer is that we as a church would sow generously because there are so many people that don't have what we have, the knowledge of Christ, the goodness of his mercy in our lives. I want you to think back. If you are a believer and maybe you're not, like you're just came in as like, like this is the day after Thanksgiving. I'm still in my Turkey coma and you like you shouting at me, you're like, what's up? It's because God is that good?

Jesus is that worth it? He is that good in our lives that I want everybody to know. I want you to know if you are here today and you don't know him, this is why we do what we do. Nothing but Jesus because he's given us so much that we wanna sow generously into the lives of others. But here's the thing, another a tricky thing can be very easy once we start a rhythm of generosity in our life right to, to kind of give out of compulsion.

This is what Paul says is, is it can be easy just to kinda like do my thing and go to the next place and like write my check and turn into, or I've got my budget line item here and it's all nice, prim and proper and I'm gonna just turn that in to God every month. And it's just kind of a thing that I don't even really think about. And then it just become, becomes what became a rhythm turned into a rutt. And it doesn't require sacrifice. It doesn't require thinking about who Christ is and what he's done for us and the overflow of that in our lives.

Paul warns against that. He said Don't give out a compulsion because God loves a cheerful giver. What does cheerful mean? I love what the podcast said last week and if you go back and listen to extra, um, unschooled in ordinary, you can, you can listen to it. And I think Brandy was the one that said it.

She said the word there in Greek for cheerful almost means hilarious like this. So good do we not recognize the gift that is so good for us? And so whenever we're almost at this level of being hilarious that we want to give as much as we want to give because Christ has given to us, this is not about compulsion or have to do or checking off a box or anything like that. The reason why we give is because we have been given a gift that is so good that we just have to see other people take it. I love what Amy Carmichael, the Irish missionary to India said she, she said this about giving.

She said, we, we can give without loving. We can but we cannot love without giving. Think about it. When you love someone, you wanna give for them, right? You wanna give of yourself, you wanna give of your time, you wanna give of your resources so that, so that they know that they are loved.

That is the avenue by which we love other people is by how we give ourselves to them. And as the body of Christ as his church at all of our locations, when we come together, we should be known by our love for others and how we are generous, radically generous, sacrificially generous because we want every single person around us to know Jesus. That's why we give, that's why we give as a church. And you say Blake, that's that's all really, really well and good, but there's a lot of places to give, right? Like it's giving Tuesday's coming up and this is a a generous season.

You know, we come outta Thanksgiving, we spend all money on Black Friday so we need to make ourselves feel better. And so we have giving Tuesday, right? And we need to be generous the week after, uh, because we went into credit card debt to get all this stuff on Black Friday. You know, that's just the nature of culture. I get it.

But there's a lot of good places to give. So why give here? That's the second piece to our launch. Now we know as as a people of God we are to give. But the second question is why give here at venture?

Paul goes on to explain the same thing to the Corinthian church because there's no shortage of people saying, Hey give here. There's no shortage of opportunities to give. But listen to what Paul says about the power of the local church. Starting in verse eight of chapter nine, it says, and God is able to bless you abundantly. Did you see that God blesses upfront.

So then in all things at all times having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. This is the economy of the kingdom. Real quick I wanna pause. And so it's not about hey, I have a deficit so I'm going to give and therefore I'm gonna get what I need. That's not what the economy of God is all about.

It is God has blessed me richly no matter what that looks like. No matter if it matches my perceptions of blessing or not, God has blessed me and it's through the overflow of that blessing that I sacrificially give for the lives of other people. This is what Paul is expressing. And so then he goes on in verse nine. It says, as it is written, they have freely scattered their gifts to the poor.

Their righteousness e endures forever. Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food, he will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You'll be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion. I love that. And through us, through the context of the local church, your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord's people, but it's also overflowing in many expressions to God. You see here, Paul is orchestrating, he's bringing about an understanding of what it looks like in the kingdom of God to leverage the local church for the good of other people. This is what our heart is to be. This is what we are to be about. This is why venture exists so that people everywhere will come to know Jesus.

So that eternities will be changed, echoed out for all of eternity, for people to come to know love and follow him. And every single one of us have a part to play. Just like the rocket, there's so many different pieces and maybe you feel like you're a big piece or maybe you feel like you're a very, very small piece. I want to tell you that you have a purpose here, that you are not just needed in our church, but you are wanted. It doesn't matter what your gifts that is.

It doesn't matter what you feel like you can or cannot bring to the table. You have something to offer. And I wanna encourage each and every one of us to play a role for a grander purpose of seeing eternity changed, seeing generations healed, seeing families restored. We want all of these things to happen and that's what happens when we as a church come together and link arms because here's what we know. Just like Paul said, we can do so much more together than we could ever do apart so much more when we link arms and we come in.

But don't just take my word for it, their story after story after story of people's lives who have been changed through this family here adventure. I want you to hear a few of them 'cause they can say it better than I ever could. This is what some people said and these are some people at your campuses, at your locations whose lives have been changed. This is what someone said, this adventure helped me through the darkest part of my life. My ex-husband left me when I was pregnant with our second child.

I was a stay-at-home mom and left with no money and worried about how I would take care of me and my kids. The only thing, the only thing that remained constant in my life was venture. I knew that there were people who had my back and were constantly praying for me. I went every week knowing that I could give my children peace and knowing that their heavenly father loved them and would never leave. I went through divorce care at the Hunt Club and I learned how to mourn my failed marriage and move on.

Now I'm remarried, my husband has adopted my children. We have had another together. We go to venture every Sunday. We're involved in a house church that's become a family to us. I'm a small group leader for the movement.

My daughter attended mission trip this summer and is going to TPW. I'm emotional even typing this. Looking at where I've came from and what God and our venture church family has done in our lives. Someone at one of our campuses whose lives has been changed 'cause the people who have gone before and have seen their lives, the people that she will never know because of their yes saw her eternity change. Here's another one.

We first experienced venture through house church at my job, my assistant at the time hosted house church in our apartment complex. One night I said to my family, I want to go to House church tonight. We went and we loved it. We started going every Wednesday night. I kept contemplating on going to church on Sundays, but I was scared about not feeling welcomed or being judged due to my life situation.

But one Sunday I got up and God spoke to me and said, today is the day I got the kids up and ready. And we went. We absolutely loved the experience we received warm welcomes, love and made friends. Ever since that Sunday we've been to the service myself and three others in my family, we've been baptized. Our kids love KXP and our six year old is wanting to get baptized.

Venturer has done and is still doing great things in my life. I'm now AKXP leader and I've recently let the skeletons of my life outta my closet to my house church. Previously I was scared to let them out because the thoughts I'd be kicked out or I wouldn't be able to stay a part of the church. But the complete opposite happened. They reassured me it was going to be okay and gave me positive feedback with stories from the Bible.

My faith has grown stronger and my love for God and Jesus are stronger. I'm so happy I made the choice to start adventure. Do you see these are just two of the thousands of stories of people's lives who have been forever changed by the movement that God is using you to perform. There is more friends, there is more to accomplish. There are more stories like this to be told.

There are more salvations to happen and baptisms to take place. We are just getting started on what we are going to see God do in the coming days. This is why we are generous, because we want more people to be able to say that I was broken, I was hurting, I was hopeless. I had nothing left in my life. I had nowhere else to go but someone stood in the gap for me.

Someone said yes to the Lord for me. And now I am here as a living, breathing testament of the goodness of God because of somebody else's. Yes, this is who we wanna be. This is who we are going to be as a radically generous people, this is why we get together at venture. But then you say, okay, that sounds really great, Blake, but why now?

This is the third part of our countdown. All right? We, we know that generosity isn't just about getting something. It's about taking what we have been giving and sending it out through the resources and the the energy that we have. We know that venture's a great place to do that because people's lives are being changed day after day.

We see 'em every Sunday. But why now? Why now? And we know it's like a really good time. Everybody's talking about generosity and I mean are we under budget?

Like do we, do we need to kind of catch back up to where we're at or the the things that we wanna do? Absolutely. All of those things are true. But the truest thing, the reason why right now matters is because there's never gonna be a perfect time to be generous with your finances. There's never gonna be, lemme just go ahead and burst that bubble for you.

I have to bust it for myself. There's never gonna be a time where you feel absolutely ready to give, just never gonna be. That is a lie from the pit of hell where he says, Hey, you just need to get yourself together a little bit more. You just need to be a little bit more financially independent or just be a little bit more financially settled. Can I tell you, it has nothing to do with money, has everything to do with trust in the Lord has everything to do with faith and it has everything to do with sacrifice.

That's probably not the message you were coming to hear the week after Thanksgiving. But I'm telling you, when you sacrifice and give to the Lord, you take ground for the kingdom of God in your heart and it begins a reformation in here that changes you forever. So it's not about, Hey, let me prim and proper and make sure everything's right and I'll have it good and I'll just give it on the silver plotter to the Lord and God, you take it because now it's ready. Now God says, Hey, I see you when you feel like you don't have anything. Do you trust me?

Do you trust me because I'm gonna supply your every knee. I am the source of your strength. I'm the shield forever. And I'm calling you to be sacrificial in your generosity so that other people can know the same things about me that you know about me. The reason why now is the time to give.

Why now is the time to be generous is because there are people outside of these walls. There are people whose stories are hurting. There are people who are broken. There are people who are far from God. There are people that are asking questions wondering what the next thing.

There are people with addictions. There are people with generational curses. There are people in all of our communities, in all of the cities that we are in and all of the places that we have campuses that need to hear about Jesus. And God has commissioned us as a family to go, how are they gonna hear unless somebody goes to 'em? And my response to that, our response to that is we're on our way for the glory of God and the good of others.

It's like a countdown. 3, 2, 1, ignite. Let's go. Let's go. What are we waiting for?

Let's be generous. There's never going to be a perfect time. I love what Paul wraps up with in verse 13. He says, because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, others will praise God. Love, love that others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the Gospel of Christ and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else.

And in their prayers for you, in their hearts. They will go out to you because of the surpassing grace God has given to you. And then he ends with, thanks be to God for this indescribable gift. That's what gets me excited. That's what gets should get us excited as we move into this season of generosity and being generous is there's gonna be people in other places and other times at other campuses, in other house churches.

They are praising God. They're going to be praising God, lifting up their voices with the angels in the heavenly places, saying Glory to God in the highest and on earth. Peace to those on whom his favor rests because of your decision to say yes in the next two weeks. That's what gets me excited. 'Cause it's a movement, it's an igniting of ministry.

And when we give the mission of leading people to know love and follow, Jesus has accomplished, not so that we get something else. We've already been given everything we've been given Jesus, y'all. But now we step firmly into the power of God through generosity. So here's what we're gonna do next week. When you leave today, you're gonna be given an envelope and on that envelope's a little QR code.

It's AB generous envelope. And I want you not just to half-heartedly do it. I want you to take this envelope and with your family or by yourself, I want you to pray. Pray about what God would have you give above and beyond what you're currently giving. If you're tithing, man, that's awesome.

We believe in the tithe. We believe it's a great rhythm to trust God with your finances. It helps you to build a rhythm of financial security and, and, and trust in your life. We believe in that. But we're gonna ask you to give above and beyond that as an offering, a free will offering to the Lord.

Say, God, we want you to go further than we know what we can do with, if you're not tithing yet or you're not even giving yet, use this as an opportunity to start your journey to generosity. So that has nothing to do with the mountain. One of my favorite stories in the Bible is where the Pharisees, they come and they've got all their like tithe and offerings and they like basically like slam dunk them, LeBron James 'em into the tithing box at the temple and everybody's, oh yeah, look at them. They've got all the good stuff. They know what they're doing.

They're so holy. And there's one lady, she comes in very meek, very mild, humble in rags. She takes a penny, she drops it in, she walks out and Jesus says, truly there is more faith in that woman. There is more giving and sacrifice in that woman. And God is going to use that in such a powerful way because the economics of the kingdom is we just give what we have and God makes it more.

That's what God does. We leave that to him. But you give what God has called you to give. I want you to pray through that this week and then next week at that, at our response time at all of our campuses, we're gonna have boxes down here. And you come and you bring your envelope.

Even if you give online, you can scan the code and give online, still bring the envelope as a testament of saying, yes Lord, I trust you. Yes Lord, I choose this. Yes Lord I sacrifice for this so that other people will come to know you. That's what it's all about. That's why we're radically generous.

We're just getting started on what we're gonna see. God do the best is still ahead. We're gonna enter now into a time of response and we're gonna encourage you to pray, pray fervently, ask God what he would have for you. The the the front will be open. If you wanna come and take communion and recognize that it's only Jesus by which we are able to live and move and breathe, come and do that.

You can come to the crosses and write something down. It's just the way of saying, yes Lord, I'm gonna trust you. No, I don't have full faith. No, I don't have full confidence. And yes, this is gonna hurt, but I'm going to be a part of this mission 'cause you've called me to it.

And like every piece of that rocket coming together, we're able to see God launch us into a brand new season. Let me pray for us and then you respond today at all of our locations, as God calls you to Father, we stand in all, it'd be so easy to just kind of flippantly talk about resources and money. It can be so easy just to kind of move on to the next thing. But before we do all of that, Lord, we just wanna, we wanna rest in you. You are the gift.

You are what sustains us. Jesus. You have changed this. You've given us new life and we just want other people to know you. So God, now as we give, as we plan and pray, as we seek your face in all of this, let us only step as far as you've called us to let us only go to the places that you've sinned so that others will come to know love and follow you.

We love you Lord. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.