Yeah. Hey, look at what God has done through you together, all of our campuses, those of you worshiping online, our forefathers 139 years ago. I mean, that's hard to even imagine. And we're standing on their shoulders and we thank God for them. And, and what a great time to start a series on our core family values is venture.

So we want you to know what we value. Now, this is not our beliefs. That's another series that will come later in the fall when we talk about our biblical beliefs. But these are our core values as a church family, so that you know what you're getting into and you have core values as a family at your home. Like, you know, there are certain times that you want to eat dinner.

Uh, maybe you want to eat dinner together. Maybe there are certain times that you, you go to bed at night or there's curfew for your teenagers. And I remember my kids growing up, they would always say, well, so and so gets to do this. Why do we have to do this? And I remind them, because you're in our family, and these are our core values.

So one of our core values is that we cultivate heroes because we have a vision for pointing them to their purpose. And you say, well, I'm not a hero. Yes, you are. If you know Jesus Christ, if the Holy Spirit lives in you, there is a hero in you. And part of our goal is to cultivate that in you so that you'll understand your vision and your purpose for being here to know Jesus and to make him known.

Now you say, well, I would never be a hero. I don't qualify as a hero. I'm flawed. Yeah, you're flawed, but you're called and, and all of our heroes in the comic books, that's just the world's way of trying to get to Jesus. There, there's a supernatural power that somebody has and, and that they, they know that they're to use that to help the world.

They're just trying to get to Jesus. And so, like even Batman, how many of you like Batman? That's your favorite character, okay? Three of you. Okay, good.

No, Batman and Batman, you know, lost his parents, fell down, A whale scared of bats becomes Batman, you know, so you get that, uh, Superman. How many of you like Superman? Yeah, one of you. Okay, good. Superman.

Like he is from another planet. He's adopted and he has these superpowers. Spider-Man. Yeah. Uh, spider-Man.

Yeah, he puts that suit on, man. He's rolling. And, uh, and his, his uncle who was raising him passed away. So all of these people that are these superheroes, you find that they're trying to overcome some hurt or some difficulty. And that's you and me, okay?

Our hero is Jesus. And, and the Holy Spirit lives inside of us, the third part of the Trinity. And we know we're flawed, but we know we're also called. And we're called to be like our hero, Jesus. And you know what the Bible says, Jesus said was his purpose for being here.

He said in Luke 1910, he said, I came get this to seek and to save those who were far away from me. He said, I didn't come for people who were healthy. And and matter of fact, the religious people are the ones who killed Jesus. I mean, they're the ones that had all the legal rules and all the specifications. And Jesus didn't go to them.

He went to the people who were far from him, the broken and the lame, and the people who were not from the Jewish background. And so you begin to see something happening in Jesus that is supposed to be happening in us. So in the Book of Acts, if you have your Bible, I love my Bible because I can still kind of hold it, and, but some of you, you got your phone, that's okay. That's great. You know, go to our app and you can find the Scripture.

But in the book of Acts, it is the acts of the Holy Spirit through the people of God. And we're gonna find today that the Apostle Peter, who I love, I love that guy, and he's gonna learn something that's brand new. I mean, you would think he's been with Jesus. He's seen the miracles. He saw him after the resurrection.

He was forgiven for denying Him. Uh, he's preached to thousands of people. He's got it down. He didn't have it down because he believed the Gospel was just for certain people. And there are a lot of people like that, like, like the Gospel in church.

And you know, my, my angle on this, it's, it's about people like me who think like me, who are getting a little more religious and a little more better than better. And that's who it's for. No, Peter's gonna find that the Gospel is for everyone, regardless of your religion, regardless of your race, regardless of the class that you find yourself in or even the neighborhood you live in. The Gospel is for everyone. And I want you to get that.

In Acts chapter 10, we're gonna hear the story of the very first Gentile that comes to know Jesus. And, and God is saying something to the world. He said, it's always been my plan to have a family. And that family would be on mission in the world, and they would be sharing the good news of who I am. And, and they didn't realize He met, he met Gentiles.

He met people far away from him. Listen, there's only two things you can't do in heaven. One is sin and the other is witness. So the reality is, this is our time. This is our moment.

So Acts chapter 10, I don't have time to read the whole passage. So you're gonna have to read that later, and I hope you'll do that. Like, if the only time you hear the Bible read or you read the Bible is when you come to venture, man, you're missing the boat 15 minutes a day. And we can teach you how to do that. It's not complicated.

You know where you read the Scripture, you observe what it says, you apply it, and then you pray. This is simple. You can do this. You say, well, I never understand it. Yes, you can.

The Holy Spirit will make it come alive to you. So, so I'm not gonna read it all. So you can read some of this this afternoon, like right before you take a nap, you know, you read this and you'll kind, you'll kind of fall into, you know, to that deep sleep and you'll be thinking about it while you're sleeping. Acts chapter 10, stay awake with me. At Cesarea, there was a man named Cornelius or Centurion.

He was over a hundred soldiers that was known as the Italian regiment. And he and all of his family were devoured and God fearing, and he gave generously to all those in need. And he prayed to God regularly. And one day, about three in the afternoon, he had a vision. He distinctly saw an angel of God who came to him and said, Cornelius, can you imagine that?

Cornelius looked at him and said in fear, and said, what is it Lord? And the angels said, your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God. I mean, when you pray and when you give, like it's not just, you know, like for, for you. I mean, God is getting the praise from you and, and, and, and, and is coming up as a moral offering. He said, now send men to Japa to bring back a man named Simon, who's called Peter, staying with Simon the Tanner, whose house is by the sea.

Now, let me tell you what's happening at the same the next day, about the same time Peter is sleeping, he's taking a nap in the afternoon, and he's hungry, and he sees a vision of this sheep being let down. And all these kind of figures of all these animals that he's not supposed to eat, they're unclean. And my brother couldn't eat a barbecue sandwich. I mean, like all of that was unclean to him. And three times, God says what I call clean, don't you call unclean.

So we skip over. He, he goes with the men that come and get him. And now we're in verse 34. Then Peter began to speak. He said, I now realize how true it is that God doesn't show favoritism.

Really, you're just now figuring that out 10 times in the Bible. It God's gonna say, Hey, I don't have favorites. Like, like, you're all my favorite. Like, like, I love all of you. You there.

There's not a difference in this person and that person because I made you and I loved you, and I sent Jesus for you. But he accepts every nation, the one who fears him and does what is right. You know, the message God sent to the people of Israel announcing good news of peace. He's gonna share the Gospel through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. And you what has happened throughout the province of Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit in power.

Now we went about around doing good and healing all of those under the power of the devil, because God was with him and we're witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. And they killed him by hanging him on a tree. But God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. And as Peter is preaching, they begin to get saved. Now.

Now, let that sink in because like, like right now, I'm speaking to you and you can be saved. Like for some of you, like we had four people online at nine 30 who said, I wanna be saved. I'm, I'm placing my faith in Jesus. Four people who said I, I'm I'm, I'm in, I I I'm gonna place my faith in him. I wanna know him.

You can do that at any point in time. And that's the beauty of, of the Holy Spirit and the power of the word. And so here's what he says after he begins to see them getting saved, he said, oh my goodness, surely no one can stand in the way of their being baptized with water. And they receive the Holy Spirit as we have. And so we ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

And they asked Peter to stay with them a few days. Four things that I want you to see about how we want to cultivate the hero in you if you know Jesus and unleash the Holy Spirit so that God can use you in a powerful way. And I mean you, I don't mean me on this stage. Listen, I'm not the hero. You the hero.

When they see me coming, my babies start flying. Beer starts flying cigars, start flying people start quoting Scripture. I mean, you can sneak up on them. I mean, you can do stuff I can't do. 19 people said, Hey, I wanna serve.

I want, I want to give, I want to do. Man, you're the heroes. All that stuff on that video, that ain't about me. Look, I just happen to stand on the stage long enough. You know?

Now you saw how young I used to look. That's what y'all did to me. And but the reality is, it's you. It's Christ in you. That's the hope of Lord.

So what do you do? Four things. Number one, you join God in what he is doing. God is always at work around you. You say, well, what is he doing?

He's drawing people to himself. Listen, I want you to get this because that we, we've not taught this a lot in the Baptist church or in, in the Protestant church. And that is that you don't find God. God finds you. Now, Romans chapter three, verse 11 says, there's no one that seeks after God.

There's none that's righteous. He said, there's nobody that's like looking to like say, I want to be a godly man. No, no. God draws you. And that's how you begin to understand, Hey, I am a lost person far from God.

You say, well, well, well, well, why didn't God, why didn't the angel just say that to Cornelius? I mean, I mean, he appears in a vision. He's got a great opportunity. Here's the angel, here's Cornelius. Well, didn't just say Cornelius, you know, you, you've been doing some good things, but you need to place your trust in Jesus to save you right now.

'Cause we don't waste any more time. Well, why didn't he do that? Because he wants to use Peter like he wants to use. You see, God draws people through people. God doesn't show up in a burning bush anymore.

Like I go, whoa, you need to come to know Jesus. No, no, no. He sends somebody to you like, you know, I I don't really know. I I wanted to come, come to church with me if you would. And, and you know, I go, I try to go over there a lot.

Would you come with me? That's how he works. I said, you, you don't have to be amazing to be a hero, to share the Gospel with other people. The Book of Acts says in chapter 15, verse 19, we shouldn't make it hard for people to come to know Jesus. You, you don't tell people, you gotta believe this, you gotta clean up your life.

If you stop doing that, then you No, no, no, no, no. You say you come to Jesus and he will help release you from all those things that are trapping you. Listen, God uses people to share with other people how they can be safe. It's a lot like u s m anywhere, anytime, any place. Yeah.

Same with the Gospel, you say, but, but, but lost people. They can't worship. Well, hold on, hold on, hold the bat. Phone shut the front door for a second. Cornelius is not a Christian.

Uh oh. He's not a Christian. Let that sink in because he, he's been praying, okay? He's praying, he's devout. He goes to the synagogue every week.

He's giving his money. He is a God's seeker, but he's never placed his faith in Jesus. See? See, that's very important because a lot of times we say this, well, you know, lot people can't worship. Well, he's worshiping his prayers came up as a memorial offering to God.

You, you, we want to be careful to not put God in a box. You don't know what God is doing. I mean, he's crying out right now to some of you. And so we are aware of what God is doing around us. And, and this is what Carius says.

He goes, well, I sent for you, Peter, because God sent for me. So, so we're aware of what God is doing this fall, man, I am begging you to be aware of what God is doing. I could tell you some stories. I don't have time. Be aware that God is working around you.

He has you where you are for a purpose. He has a plan to use you in your life, at your school, at your neighborhood, in your zip code. You are a hero. And we wanna cultivate that. You say, well, how create space for unchurched people.

Listen, I want you to get this. An empty chair has never gotten saved. We create space. The reason we went to multiple campuses is not because we were trying to see how big we can get. We were trying to make space for one more person that's far away from God.

And it has been difficult. Matter of fact, it has been impossible. But when God calls you to do something, he makes a way. He brings people to help you. He brings people to give money.

I've had people come up to me outta nowhere and say, Hey, what do you need? That's why I need $10,000. And they've had a check in their pocket that they had written before they got there and dropped it on my desk. Don't tell me God can't do anything he chooses to do. But you know, the number one way you can be a superhero, that one thing they all had in common, they were willing to be interrupted.

They were willing to like, take their schedule and go, Hey, I could put the Heisman on my schedule because I, I, I I'm needed by God to do something. You got Batman and oh, you don't like him, but he's dancing with Catwoman and they're like doing, you know, doing the two step. And they're dancing and she's around, and all of a sudden he sees the bat sign and he goes, hold on girl. And he spins her over to somebody else and he goes and puts that suit on you with me, Superman. How?

Where could she not tell that was him when it was just the glasses? Man, I knew that was Clark Hemp. I mean, come on now. Come on girl. And Loce Lane, you know, he's flirting with Loce Lane at work and he hears something coming.

He goes, I gotta go. And he goes to this thing called a phone booth. You can see them in museums and somehow he can change clothes. And nobody sees he naked. And he comes outta there.

It's a bird. It's a plane. No, it's Superman, all five of you. Thank you Spider-Man. Okay?

Mj, mj, mj. He's hanging around talking to MJ on the balcony, and all of a sudden he hears so wreck and he goes, gotta go. Why? He's gonna be interrupted because he knows he's on a life-saving mission. Listen, when you understand that God has a plan for your life, he will make space to be interrupted.

So God can use you to help other people and see them come to know Jesus. Peter was interrupted. My brother's trying to take a nap, nap. Have you ever been interrupted on a nap? I mean, I'll just tell you, it, it, it goes all over me when I'm trying to take a nap and like somebody comes and wakes me up.

And then if I'm, if I'm also hungry on top of that, have you ever been like hungry? You know somebody, you know, like somebody's keeping from getting to lunch and you angry. And then they come in and say, Hey, we got some men here. You don't know they're unclean. There are people you don't like.

And you go, Hey, okay, they're gonna have a place to stay and you're at a friend's house. Okay? Think about the friend. You invite them to come in and spend the night at your friend's house. Then the next day you get up and you walk 30 miles.

That Fitbit man is going crazy because you're willing to be interrupted because you know there's a hero in you that has a vision to point people to their purpose. And listen, the number one purpose in life is to know Jesus and to know that you know Jesus. See, here's the thing about us that makes us different. And other people say, no, we're like that. No, they're not.

We're, we're not a constituent church. A constituency church, you know what constituency means? Constituency means there's, there's certain people that you like that you can help you, that you wanna be on your row and be in your class and be in your church. We ain't like that. We're called church.

We, we called to everybody. Oh, oh, oh, oh, you unchurched. Oh, okay, you're from wherever. We don't care. You look whatever.

We don't care. You, you got, you ain't got a tattoo. We'll give you one. I mean, the reality is, we're we're a call church. We're, we're, we're not a menu church.

We're not a menu church. We go, well, you know, I wanted that and I want that. I going with this and that. I don't like that lemon tar on Wednesday night. No, no, no.

We're, we're, we're, we're, we're a map church. We're not a menu church, we're a map church. This is where we're going. Do you wanna go with us? We're not a transactional church where you come and you get something.

Oh, I want this. Oh, I want that. No, we're a relational church. We're, we're not an informational church. Goodness.

You got information all around you. We're a transformational church. We wanna see people's lives change. We wanna see you encounter God. We're not just after you getting more information about the book of Hebrews, should you get that information?

Yeah, but it's everywhere. You, you plug through like three things on your phone. You can get all the information you've ever wanted. Listen, if you'll crack open this book, if you'll crack open this book 15 minutes a day, we'll help you online. We got devotions, we got prayers, we got Bible reading plans.

If you'll do 15 minutes a day, it will change your life. And we can't give you enough just on the weekend to do that. If you only ate once a week, just think how, how you would struggle. Here's the third thing. We see people as God sees them.

So I do that. I don't, I don't really, you do that. You, you don't have any prejudice. You don't have any like, uh, preconceived ideas about things. Let me, let me, let me help you here.

When you hear these names, tell me what you think. University of Alabama football. Did you throw up? She threw up in her mouth. That hurts my feelings.

Auburn football. Now you can throw up. See what I mean? Like, you see what I mean? Like, like, we have favorites, right?

And we, we have, we have preconceived ideas. Those Alabama families. Uh, here we go. Sushi, Mexican food. Yeah.

Oh, you hurry up, we gotta go. They got margaritas. Half fries on Sunday. Alright, here, here we go. I'm sorry.

I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. I could do that a lot. I'm sorry. The staff has asked me to stop doing that.

And I'm sorry. I don't know that that happens 10 times in the Bible. God says, I don't have any favorites. Every person that's born is a pers and unborn is a person I love. And I sent Jesus to die for.

He says, I don't have any favorites. He said, when I look at people, I know that these are my people. These are my creation. I'm drawing them to myself. See, the question for the church of the living God is not How much information do you have?

It is, are you kind? Are you loving? Do you have joy? Do people like to see you coming? That's what it means to be the Church of the living God.

Paul says, we have this treasure in clay pots. Now, I'm not gonna go into a lot of detail about the clay pots. The reality is the clay pots were everything in the first century. He says, you need to understand there's some big pots and there's some little pots, and there's some brown pots and some white pots. He said, there's some crack pots and there's some whole pots.

He said, the bottom line is not the pot, it's what's inside the pot. And that's the spirit of God. And when you begin to see people like that, it will change you and it will change our community. Because if you are saved, you didn't do one thing to deserve it. You were saved by grace.

You said. But now I can say the books of the Bible. I can wrap the books of the Bible. I don't care. You're not saved by works.

Well, I grew up in church. I I oh, oh, No. Listen to what Paul says in one Corinthians chapter one. He says, brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. He said, not many of you were wise by human standards.

Not many were in influential. Not many of you're noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong God chose the load things of this world and to despise things. And the things that are not to nullify the things that are so that no one could boast before him.

It's because of him that you're in Christ Jesus who has become for us the wisdom from God. And that is our righteousness, holiness, and redemption. Listen, I have a dream to see this fellowship, this family, and all the places we are and all the places we will be filled with every kind of person there is so that the people of God can look like heaven. You can clap on that 'cause that's good. That wasn't even in my sermon.

I guess it's a little bonus, little bonus action. 'Cause here's the thing, a movement of God doesn't come through one type person. Oh, we live in this neighborhood and we, you know, we making this kind of money and you know, we really religious and you're probably not gonna see God work. But when you are broken and needy and you love people and it's like a ru of different people coming to know and love and follow Jesus Christ, a movement starts. Babies are born, lives are changed.

Listen, you ought to be very concerned about people who don't know Jesus. You know why? 'Cause at some point somebody was concerned about you. Somebody brought you to church. There was a time in, in my community where I grew up, where I was young, I was going through a lot of hard things.

And there were people in my little church that would come get me and pick me up and take me to church. And there, there, there were people that would come and get me and take me with them on vacation. When the body of Christ is acting like the body of Christ renewal and revival happens. See, here's the last thing. We celebrate spiritual conversion.

The Bible says that, that when they saw these people getting saved, they were astonished. They were in awe. They were blown away. Have you ever been somewhere and you've seen somebody and you're like, what are they doing in church? Have you ever been like, what are you doing here?

Have you ever been like that? They looked at these guys and said, man, you, you, you are a Roman centurion. All the stuff you've done to my people, and you're getting saved. They were astonished. They were blown away.

Listen, every time you see a baptism, it ought to freak you out that somebody has gone from death to life. That's how powerful that is. Listen, when I see them states, it's like the gold medal deal. Okay? It's like the Olympics.

When I see them standing up there and their family behind them, I'm, and I'm, and I just have to control myself not to get off the message that I have because I wanna go, yes, God, yes, God, yes. God. Oh, Cornelius, first generation believer, first Greek, first Gentile, saved in the New Testament, along with his wife and his kids, and a house full of friends who becomes the bishop of the church in cea. And generations are changed because of his salvation. Do you see how powerful this is?

153 people have been baptized in the first six months of this year. Adventure. Yeah. And 53 19 During, at the movies. And it just keeps going and going and going.

Why? Because people are being drawn To Jesus. I said, if you'll lift me up, I'll draw 'em into me. Listen, we cultivate heroes. There's A hero in you.

There's A hero in you. We have a vision of pointing people to their purpose. Join him in what he's doing around you. I mean, they're, they're like, they're, they're like fish in a barrel, like, like just shooting fish in a barrel. They're right there before you, you, you, you say, well, what?

Like, don't we like to come just witness to 'em? Yeah. If you, if you are into that, if you can do that, I love that. I do that a lot. I've done that this week.

But if you're not like that, you can at least invite them. You see, God is working in them. You invite them because we made room for them. If you invite somebody to church and you think, hey, they may get saved, you're gonna look at church a lot differently. You're gonna come in thinking, man, I hope we hit it right on the music today.

Hope we sing this song. I hope you know, blah, blah, blah. I hope we have a good message. I hope they don't say anything that's gonna offend them. I mean, all of a sudden you see everything differently because you're seeing it through the odds of a lost person.

Because you understand this is going from death to life. If you embrace that core value, it'll change your life. It's spiritual growth on steroids, biblical steroids. You say, well, how do I do that? I want you to bow your heads.

I got one thing I wanna leave you with. You say, well, how do I apply that? Well, who is one person you need to invite to come with you? Adventure? You say, well, I don't really know anybody that's lost.

You better look. You better look again. 'Cause I don't know that many people that are saved who's God put on your heart to invite. Nine out of 10 people said, I would come if someone I knew and and trusted would invite me. Who's God put in your life, who's called you to be interrupted so that you can simply invite them to come like Andrew with Peter.

Come see the man that we've all been looking for. Come see the man who's told me everything I've ever done and still loves me. And a revival and renewal will break out in your home. Because there's nothing like being used by God. There is nothing like it.

I've, listen, I have been fortunate to experience a lot of things. Nothing is like the hand of God on your life. It's like being tased by Jesus. Father, we love you. We honor you, God, we, we are here to only lift you up so that people can come to know love and follow you.

That's our purpose. No matter what we do for a living, no matter where we live, no matter what the color of our skin, no matter our bank account, we cry out to you and we say, God, use us. Cultivate the hero in us so we can point people to their purpose here on this earth. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.