Thank you, Fess. So, you may know me as Philip Jewell. Some of these, all these guys up here know me as Snowball.
! Whichever name you know me by is how you want to do it. You know, maybe you would say, okay, well, I could identify myself as a Christ follower, a husband, a father, a son, a church member, whatever it may be, but that's not who I am.
I can go to the scriptures I can find, and maybe you've asked the same question, who am I really? The truth is, our identity isn't something that we have to build on, like Fezzik was speaking about, have to guess at.
It's not something that we even have to earn. It's something that we have to navigate our way back to.
See, the Bible tells us, and you see the verse up here behind me, that in him we live and move and have our being, as even some of your own poets have said, for we are indeed his offspring.
Paul went into Greece here, and he's preaching along, and he says, hey, your poets have said this, that in him we do these things.
We live in that.
And so, if you went back, that says Acts 17, 28, if you were to go to 26 and 27, in 26 you would find this word, that we are to inhabit the earth.
In 27 you would see that we are to seek God.
So, that's who we are, right?
We're supposed to be these, these inhabiters that seek God, that in him we find life.
Well, if you were going to take notes for sermons or anything like that, the first thing I would say is that you, I, we were created in God's image.
Don't believe me?
Let's look in Genesis.
Genesis 1, 27 says, so God created man in his own image, and in the image of God he created him.
Male and female he created him.
We are created in God's image.
It's the foundational step of Christianity.
Understanding where you came from and how we can get back to where we came from.
You matter because you were made in the image of the one who matters most.
Here's the second thing I would take notes on.
Don't let the world name you.
Whatever the name is that you've got, whatever that title is, however the town perceives you, don't let the world name you.
Romans 12, 2 says, do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
If you flip a little bit to 1 Peter 2, 9, you'd find, but you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession.
The charge from this, live to receive your identity from the one and only one who never changes.
So we're created in him.
We're not going to let the world name us because we can receive the identity that God has given us.
The third thing I would say, if you're going to take notes, would be to receive our new identity in Christ.
You become a new creation.
When you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you become that new creation.
And in 2 Corinthians 5, 17, we would find this.
If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
The old has passed away.
Behold, the new has come.
See, when we put our faith in Jesus, it's not a religion.
It's not a performance.
But in him, we are made new.
Christ defines you.
Galatians 2, 20 echoes this.
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
So if you're in Christ, then your identity is secure.
You are who God says you are.
So who am I?
Well, the Bible tells me I am loved.
The Bible tells me I am forgiven.
The Bible tells me I am free.
It tells me I am chosen.
It tells me I'm a child of God.
And that I am God's workmanship.
And it tells me that I'm never alone.
It also tells me over in Acts 1, verse 8.
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.
And you will be my witness in Jerusalem, in all of Judea, and in Samaria.
And to the end of the earth.
So who am I?
Well, if you're already in Christ, live like it.
Live like Jesus is in you.
Walk in confidence, not in security.
Live with purpose, not pressure.
Let your identity shape your actions and not the other way around.
If you're not in Christ yet, you can be.
Preacher Daniel is going to give an invitation here in a little while.
And Jesus invites you into that new life.
And you can come down and talk to Daniel about what those steps are to get to that.
When we receive Jesus Christ, we have a charge in our life, an obligation in our life to go out and tell the world.
To go share what we know with those that we meet.
That may be right across the bedroom to the one we love, the one we call spouse, or the one we call son or daughter.
To share the gospel with them.
It may be to our neighbors across the road.
It may be to your teammates on your team.
Or to a classmate across the hall.
Or, hey, students, it may be to share to that teacher that you're not so sure about.
That's okay, too.
It may be that you get on a plane and you go to Peru.
Or you get on and you go flying across another ocean.
Or you get on a train or a boat or whatever it is.
And you go to great lengths to go share the gospel somewhere else.
That's fantastic.
We are all called to serve.
The identity of Camp McCall is that of service.
It's that of missions education.
It's that the Christ followers come together to share and to tell other people about who Jesus is.
But it's one thing for us to share about who Jesus is.
It's another thing for us to actually go and do it.
We can talk about missions all we want to.
We can raise money for Janie Chapman.
We can do whatever other offering we want.
Lottie and Annie.
We can raise those funds.
And that's fantastic.
We're a product of Janie up here.
Like the money you take up for Janie Chapman, it helps send our guys on mission trips.
But also the giving, the love offering this morning that we take up here at the end of the service, that is also 100% goes to sending these guys on mission somewhere.
We believe that by their second summer with us, they should have the ability to be able to go and talk to other people.
That's not just at Camp McCall, but it's somewhere else about who Jesus is and how Jesus has changed their life and what their identity and who their identity is found in.
And so over the last seven years, we've had 158 guys and some of our kitchen staff and health care workers, so some ladies in there too, that have gone on 72 different deployments.
They've gone to 72 different locations over the last seven years.
This year alone, we're fixing to go to Cuba.
We're going to be going to Dominican Republic.
I left you out this morning on the first service.
I apologize.
Dominican Republic.
We're going to Portland with Shady Grove Baptist Church to go help with a soccer camp out there in Portland, Oregon.
We're going to go to Clarkston, Georgia with Marietta First Baptist Church.
We're going to go to Camp Carraway.
We help the North Carolina Baptist camp out.
They don't have enough young men that they can hire every summer.
So for the last, I don't know, seven, eight, some time back, we've developed this partnership with them where we'll send them a couple of guys each summer to go help that one week of boys camp.
We get to do 12 camps of boys camp.
They only have one, and so we go help them out there because camp's what we know, right?
And so if you've gone on a mission trip this year or in the past by Camp McCall, please raise your hand.
Let's see where you've gone.
You've gone to Cuba.
Alaska?
Yeah, either one.
Sedona?
Alaska?
Cuba, North Carolina.
New Orleans?
Sedona.
Sedona?
New Orleans and Utah.
New Orleans, Utah, New Orleans.
Cuba?
Cuba.
Clarkston, Georgia.
Clarkston, Alaska, Alaska, and Clarkston.
Kenya and Italy.
Spain and North Carolina.
Spain and North Carolina and Alaska and Peru.
True.
Yep.
And so some of you, so there's some former staff out here too that you've been around as
well, and we thank you for being willing to go.
But it takes time.
It takes effort.
Sometimes it takes a little prodding.
Some may find it harder to travel than others, and you get to experience new things and new
places and that sort of stuff.
But we want you to continue to pray for us this summer on just being on mission, that
these guys will be encouraged to go.
Sometimes they get to go during the summertime.
Other times they go throughout the school year.
They'll take their fall breaks off, and instead of going and hanging out somewhere with a bunch
of friends, they'll go on a mission trip somewhere.
They'll go on a spring break trip and have a good time and tell others about Jesus instead
of going to a beach somewhere.
And so that's just the kind of heart that we get to serve with up here.
So thank you for what you do as a church.
I know y'all have helped with Sedona, Arizona before, with Alethea Church.
And we got some products of that here.
We got Sidewinder and McFly and Anna out here.
They're the children of Josh Jennings, the pastor out there.
So if you've ever been out there to work in Sedona, his family is here.
And so that's kind of even a tie that First Baptist has had with Camp McCall and some
of that kind of stuff there.
So thank y'all again.
And I want to pray for us this morning as the challenge and the charge that we will find
our identity in Christ and that we will go out and tell the world.
God, we're grateful for the opportunity to be able to go share about you.
Father, we're grateful that you have given us a challenge as we receive your son, Jesus,
in our heart to be able to go out and share about who he is to help the world to know about
this incredible God that we serve.
Lord, thank you for your love.
Thank you for finances, for funding, for places to go, for transportation, all those things
that are wrapped in on going on a trip.
God, we're so thankful for that.
And we feel blessed and honored.
God, may you continue to guide us through this service this morning.
In your precious name we pray.
Amen.