- Well, hey everybody. Man, I wanna welcome you to the start of a new year, and I hope you had a wonderful Christmas holiday. I hope you had a wonderful New Year, and today I get the privilege of kicking off a brand new series that we're calling ReEngage, ReEngage. Now, my hope is that all of you, every one of you will decide to ReEngage with Highlands as we kick off a new year, literally a new season, and actually join the movement that we believe God is placing on our hearts. So today I want to welcome all of you from all of our locations, those of you that watch on TV and online, we're very grateful for you, and today we just ask that you would take some time, pray, ask God to help you focus over these next few weeks as we talk about reengaging with our Savior. Now you might ask, "Well, come on Pastor Allen, why would you ask me to ReEngage? I mean, why would you ask me? I'm usually there. I usually try to come. I usually join online, so why are you asking me to actually ReEngage?" Well, here's the deal. Honestly, when we think back over the past few years, the pandemic changed the level of engagement of so many, and now we want to invite you to actually ReEngage, be a part of all God's doing through our church family locally, regionally, and around the world, and while we've always wanna honor the rich past we have as a church, what happens so often is it's easy for churches to get caught up celebrating in where God was instead of seeing where God wants to take us now, and what I would say to all of you at Highlands, Hey, it's a new day. It's a new season. I think God has given us some incredible opportunities, and if you're new with us, maybe this weekend's your first weekend here, Highlands is a church with five locations, and in those locations we have several different venues. We have country and chapel at our Abingdon location. In others, we have cafe type settings like Starbucks, and then we have a vibrant online ministry, and we also have a television program that we produce every week. Now, all these ways are great, and we're so honored that we can offer all these different ways that you can be a part of our church and what God's doing. We remain committed to having all these opportunities, and since we have all these different ways that you can be part of our church, you know what? Honestly, and I have to own this, we've sort of failed to offer you the opportunity to become a member, to actually join our church and to be a part of all God's doing, and since we have a sort of a new year and a new season, then we wanna give you that opportunity. When we've been focused on the past four years, we've been doing some incredible things, and I wanna say thank you to everyone that is under my voice today. We've been focused on reaching the lost. We've been focused on surviving the pandemic. We've been focused on serving thousands and thousands of people in our local communities, paying off our debt, finishing up our four year vision, fulfilling the Great Commission, not only regionally, but literally all around the world, and while all those things are wonderful things, we've actually neglected to continue to offer some simple on-ramps for you to become a member of our church family. So in every week of ReEngage at the end of this series, I'm gonna ask you to actually ReEngage with us, and join the movement and become a member of our church. Now, membership is not a requirement, of course, it's just an invitation to engage on a deeper level. There's not gonna be any pressure at all. That's not who I am at all, but I think 2023 will be a season where we can see exactly who is with us as God stretches our faith, and we reach out as a church to take new ground, move forward as a church family. It'll be an opportunity to enable to care for you in a much, much better way. Over these past 26 years, our church is relatively still a young church. We have amassed over 8,000 people in our database. You attended or you came to a Christmas service or whatever. We have thousands and thousands of people on our database, and today, on every weekend, we actually engage with around 2,000 people every weekend, so in order to serve you better, we need to know who our membership is to provide you, I think the highest level of care, and whether you've been with us for decades, and you've been a long time Highlands folks, or you're brand new and you've been with us only a few weeks or a few months, or maybe today is your first day, I'd just say today's a great day to ReEngage, so that's the why. Well, how are we gonna do this? We wanna make it as simple as possible. Beginning next week on our website and in all of our in-person gatherings, we will have listed for you several things. You will know all about the beliefs we have as a church. You will see our values, and you will see a membership covenant that we'll ask you to sign, so if you're watching from home today or online or TV or in-person, wherever you are, you can go to our website, just HF.Church/hub, or if you're at an in-person gathering next week, you can go to our welcome center, and we'll have somebody there that can help you, and you can begin praying that God would give you guidance about reengaging with our church. You can sign and return that covenant, and fill out everything online, submit it back all month long, whenever it's convenient for you, but we're gonna really encourage you to wait until the last Sunday of the month, and we're gonna do this together, and I hope a couple of thousand of you will do this for sure, and maybe more. So on Sunday, January the 29th, we're gonna invite all of you who said, "I know this is a place that God wants me to be," I'm gonna invite you on that day to actually sign that membership covenant, and become an official member of Highlands Fellowship. So if you're new with us, again over these past couple of weeks, or even past couple of years, I would think that you're probably listening to me and you're probably thinking, "Well, I'm fairly new here. I like what I've seen so far, but before I would ever think about joining a church, this is a big move, then I wanna know more about the church before I can make a decision to join." Well, I totally agree. I think that's an awesome response that you would have, and please hear me, this is an opportunity to engage or actually to ReEngage with the church, so what I'm gonna do over the next four weeks is I'm gonna talk to you about who we are as a church, 'cause before you would wanna join, surely you wanna know who we are, and what I wanna do is I wanna talk to you about our mission. Now, our mission as a church is the reason we exist. This is really set forth from Scripture, and our mission actually will always dictate what our vision will be. So our mission so that we can all be on the same page, let's look at this together. It says, "Why Highlands exists. This is the mission of Highlands Fellowship. We exist to help people experience life with Jesus." It's the reason our church is in business. It's the reason that you're here today. We want you to experience life with Jesus. Now, who are we as a people? Well, we are a people of truth and love. We believe the Scripture is God's inherent word, His message. We believe it's absolute truth for us, but we share it in love because that's the message of Jesus. We're a place where you can belong. We call Highlands home, and we are a church that is, on purpose, doing what God has called us to do as a church. So this is the mission, the reason we exist at Highlands. This is what I want you to do. If you're at home, you're watching on TV, I want you to get this so we can all understand this. You're gonna hear me say this over and over and over, but would you say this with me? All right? Let's go back and let's look at this. What is the mission of Highlands Fellowship? We exist. Say it with me, to help people experience life with Jesus. It's the reason we exist. Our mission is truly the mission of Jesus, and actually when you study the Scripture, He defines who His church is, and what we are to do is we are to join Him. Now I begin to think about what's the best way to sort of help you understand why we arrived at this mission to experience life with Jesus. I know that you sort of get that, but there's a story, one of my favorite stories, we find it in John Chapter four. We normally hear this story as a woman at the well, the woman at the well, and Jesus gives us an indication in this story, and I want you to think as I read this story, it's quite a bit of scripture. If you brought your Bible, if you have your phone, I'm reading it from the NIV today, and you can follow along with me, but I want you to think of two questions as I read this story to you. What does this woman want? All right, when she comes and talks, has a conversation with Jesus, what does she want, and what does Jesus offer her? Alright, these are the two questions I want you to be thinking about. Let's read this story. So John Chapter four, let's begin reading in verse three. So the Bible says, "So he left Judea," this is Jesus. "And he went back once more to Galilee. Now he had," the Scripture says, "to go through Samaria." It's really interesting. So he came to the town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son, Joseph. And Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the noon hour." Now what I want you to see, stop there just for a second. What I want you to see is that he says he had to go through Samaria. Now this is really interesting because most Jewish people, they didn't go to Samaria, all right? They bypassed at all costs because as many of you know, Jews were considered outcast, or the Samaritans were considered outcasts. They were considered traitors by the Jewish people. Jewish people couldn't stand the Samaritans, so they avoided them. They avoided this place at all costs. They would go sometimes hours around so they wouldn't have to go through Samaria, but Jesus said I had to go through Samaria, and here he ends up at a well in Sychar, Jacob's well, and it's at the noon hour. Well, let's notice what the story goes on, verse seven. "When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, 'Will you give me a drink?'" Now his disciples, it's just the two of them. "His disciples," the Bible says, "had gone into town to get some food. The Samaritan woman said to him, 'You're a Jew. I'm a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink? Jews don't associate with Samaritans.'" Again, they just were arch enemies, and yet Jesus engages this lady at the noon hour in a conversation, "And so Jesus said, 'Well, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.'" I want you to see how she sees Jesus. She's very respectful. Right out of the gate, this woman sees him as sir. She says, "'Sir,' the woman said, 'you have nothing to draw water with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father, Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?' And Jesus answered, 'Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water that I give them will never thirst. Indeed the water I give them will become in them a spring of water, welling up to eternal life.'" She's coming for H2O water, and he's trying to give her salvation, living water, eternal life. "So the woman said to him, 'Sir, give me this water so I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.'" She still doesn't quite get it, but she's beginning. "And he told her, 'Alright,'". Notice what Jesus does. He shares truth in love. "'Go call your husband and come back.' And she says, 'Well, I have no husband.' And Jesus said to her, 'You're right when you say you have no husband. The fact is you've had five husbands, and the man you have now is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true. Sir,' the woman said," Now notice he goes up a level. "'I can see that you are a prophet. So he is gone from sir to prophet,'" and then she does what a lot of us do when we get sort of accountable about, somebody questions us about our lifestyle, or our sin, she changed the subject. So in verse 20, "'Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain.'" Mount Gerizim is what she's talking about. "'But you Jews claim that the place we must worship is in Jerusalem.'" There is a big debate going on for centuries or years about where you should worship God. Samaritans wanted to worship God on Mount Gerizim, but Jewish people worship God in Jerusalem. "'Woman,' Jesus replied, 'Believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and truth.' The woman said, 'I know that,' notice now, Messiah, Sir, prophet, 'Messiah, called Christ, is coming. Where he comes, he will explain everything to us.'" And then Jesus sort of drops a bomb here, right? "And he declares, 'I, the one speaking to you, I am he.'" Well, they have this conversation, verse 27. "Just then his disciples returned, and they were actually surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, 'What do you want?' Or, 'Why are you talking with her?' Then leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 'Come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?' They came out of the town and made their way toward him." Now skip down to verse 39. We're almost finishing this story. Says, "Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony. 'He told me everything I ever did.' So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two more days. And, because of his words, many more became believers." And now I love this verse, verse 42, "They said to the woman, 'We no longer believe just because of what you said. Now we have heard for ourselves and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.'" Now that is an incredible story. It's one of my all-time favorite stories in the entire Bible, I've actually visited this Jacob's well where this story happened. It's an incredible place, and this woman comes to the well for water, and yet Jesus says, "No, I know you're coming for just water like we would know, but what I wanna do is I wanna give you living water." And of course his living water is salvation, and he knows that this is really what she's truly searching for. I mean, this is a woman, we don't know a lot about her, but we can sort of safely say that she has made some bad decisions, and Jesus knows all about her bad decisions before she ever tells him. It's pretty amazing, and he begins to tell her the history of her life. And again, when he begins to tell her of her past, she does what we all do right? And it's things that she doesn't want to hear about, so she sort of changes the subject, and she starts trying to think, "Well, how's he gonna receive me? If he is Messiah, I want him to think I'm really a spiritual person." So she goes into this age old debate about where you should truly worship God. We're good at this, like my kid. If you got kids, you know, it's like Chris, man, my son, my youngest son Chris, he is great at this, changing the subject, right? I'll say, "Chris, have you finished your homework?" And normally what Chris'll say is, "Dad, I'm hungry. What's for supper?" He doesn't answer the question. Or, "Chris, I'm looking through your notes here today. I see your teacher has sent out a note that you're talking again in class. Can you tell me a little bit about, did you disrupt the class today? Did you clap? Did you talk?" And he'll say, "Dad, are we going to church on Sunday?" He loves to try to spiritualize it a little bit, and "What are you preaching on dad, on Sunday?", 'cause he don't wanna deal with it, right? And Jesus does, for this lady, what we as parents have to do over and over, and he brings her back and he gets her to refocus, and she actually found what she was looking for in Jesus Christ as she experienced life with Christ, and here's what I want you to see. This lady was forever transformed when she met Jesus, forever. What was she looking for? She was looking more than water, right? She was looking for what Jesus could give her. What are the needs that this woman had? It's the same needs that we all have. I want you to go back to our mission just for a minute. She was looking for truth and love, and that's what we look for, and yet she didn't recognize it until Jesus helped her. And through the process of this story, Jesus helps her to see that He is truth, and He shares his truth in love. Jesus is truth. She was looking for a place to belong. I mean, obviously she had had all these relationships with all these other men. She wanted belonging, and she didn't really find belonging until she experienced life with Jesus, and she found belonging in his family. And today we would believe that's the expression of the local church. We want you to find belonging in Jesus' family, which is his local church. You know what? I read this story and I think this woman, she really was looking for a life of purpose, wasn't she? I mean, we all desire for our life to have purpose, and all of a sudden she starts fulfilling a life for a greater purpose. Can you imagine what's going on this woman's life? She's sort of an outcast in her community. She's forced to come the hottest part of the day to the well to draw her water because she's not liked. When the other ladies come earlier in the morning when it's cool. Her community really doesn't have anything for her. They've shunned her. She's an outcast and she has to get water to sustain her family at the noon hour. Now, I love that Jesus had to go by Samaria at the noon hour. This tells you a pretty neat story about our Savior, right? And he knows what her deepest needs are. She's looking for truth in love. She's looking for a place to belong. She truly is looking for a life of purpose, and she sees him as Sir, then she sees him as prophet, and then she sees him as the Messiah and she trusts Jesus, and he becomes her Lord and Savior, and she begins to experience this life she's never had, this newfound purpose, and she's so excited about it that she goes back to her town, and she, through her testimony, is able to see her whole town transform. It's pretty incredible. Here's a story of an outcast that becomes a hero, and a whole town is changed by the love and the truth that Jesus offers. I think that this is what we know. It's just hard to change from a meaningless routine. It's hard to move out of sort of a mundane life by yourself. It's just hard. I mean, you think that you've made too many mistakes or that you've blown it too many times, and when I tell you that God loves you and he wants the same for you that he does for this woman, you think, "No, there's no way a sinless, perfect God would want anything to do with a sinful person like me," but I'll tell you, if that's your conclusion, you would be wrong. Couple of lessons from this story that help us to see the heart of God. Here's the first one. Jesus desires for all people to find salvation in Him. That's you, and if you're here today, or you're watching online and you have never trusted in Jesus Christ, I don't care what your past has held up until this point, Jesus loves you. He died on the cross for you. He offers salvation and forgiveness for you. Jesus breaks down the walls that separate us. This is what he was doing when he was going into Samaria, when the Jewish people wanted nothing to do with him. It was the Samaritans then. It later became the Gentiles. Today, Jesus breaks down all the walls that we build up between us and the salvation that he offers is available to you. The second lesson I get from this story is that our deepest human needs are only met in Jesus when we experience life with Him. I mean, this is so true. Our hearts are restless until we meet Jesus. We think that we can pursue the things of the world, because the world is so good at this, and we think, "You know what, if I get money, or if I get success, or if I climb the ladder at work, man, if I actually win in the world, then I'm gonna have a blessed great life." And we know that's not the case. That's not what our deepest needs truly are. It's what the world says, but we can have all those things and still be miserable. Matter of fact, a lot of us are. The deepest needs that we have, because we have been created by Holy God. We can only experience through Jesus Christ. He's the only one that can meet the basic, deepest human needs that you have, and we believe to the core of our being as a church, that when you experience life with Jesus, your life will be on a journey to fulfillment. So as I close, I wanna remind you that we all know people just like this woman, don't we? We all do, looking for these same three things. It could be a a neighbor, it could be a coworker, it could be your college roommate, it could be a family friend, a family member. We all know folks who are just like this lady. Now, you know, when I think about our church, and I think about the mission that God has called us to achieve, that we want people to experience life with Jesus. This is the reason Jesus came. He came to seek and save those that were lost. He had time to go through Samaria to a woman that society had said, "No, there's no way we want to have anything to do with you," and yet, at the cross, she found salvation. When you experience life with Jesus, life is so much better, just so much better. Why do we exist as a church? To help all people experience life with Jesus, 'cause we believe to the core of our being that that is truly what the church is to do, so I would just ask you, as you begin to pray, as you begin to think about reengaging with us as a church, that I don't know where you are in your spiritual journey. Again, there's no pressure here, but I just believe that God is doing something for such a time as this. We've sorta made it past this pandemic to where, even if it's not over, we're gonna go live again in a normal kind of way to the best of our ability, and in the church today, we got ground to take. We're in a position where we can actually go and fulfill what God is asking us to do, and what we wanna do is we just wanna say, "Hey, who's with us? Who wants to join this movement of God, get engaged and go forward to pursue and experience life with Jesus on a whole new plane?" And man, I hope it's you. I really do. I hope you will actually decide that you're gonna get reengaged here at Highlands. Make this your local church home. Join if you haven't joined, become a member, and man, let's go experience life with Jesus. It's gonna be exciting, isn't it? So don't miss next week. I'm gonna break the mission down. We're gonna talk about truth in love. Then the next week we'll talk about, hey, Highlands is home. It's a place to belong, and then the last week in January, we're gonna talk about how we are a church on purpose, because our ultimate reason for existence is we want people to experience life with Jesus. It's more than a Sunday morning, one hour adventure, and when we really experience church the way Jesus wants us to experience church, we come to this place and we join with friends not only on Sunday morning, but we worship God. It's not about us when we get here. It's not, "Well, I don't think the temperature's right. My seat's not comfortable. I didn't like that song, his message, or the," No, no, no, no. That's not what it's all about at all. It's a time where we set aside ourselves to say, "God, it's not about me. It's not about me." But how can our church reach the next generation? How can our church be a church that is seen and seeking those who are lost and helping people from all walks of faith so that they can know and they can understand when you experience life with Jesus, it just gets better. So I'm excited. It's gonna be a great year in 2023. I hope you'll be a part of it, and I hope you'll ReEngage with us. Let's just pray about that today. And would you pray with me right now? Lord, thank you so much for the opportunity just to look at this incredible story, and God, through this story, we see that you want all people to find salvation in Jesus Christ. And God, we know that we may think that we can meet the deepest needs in the world in which we live, but we know that that is not true. And there could be so many give testimonies to that today. The only way we will ever fulfill our deepest needs of belonging and purpose and truth is to experience life with Jesus. So, right now, I just pray for those that are watching on TV or online, or you're at one of our in-person gatherings, wherever you are, and you have never experienced life with Jesus, I wanna be the sort of the spokesperson of Jesus today, just like he was with this woman at the well. You may be thinking, "There's no way God wants anything to do with me." He does. He left heaven and died on a cruel cross so that you could be forgiven, and you could be a part of his family, and right now, I just would ask that you would pray, just say something like, "Jesus, God, I've made mistakes. I ask you to forgive me. God, I repent today of my sin, and I surrender my life to you, Jesus. I ask you to save me today." Hey, if you prayed that prayer, and you're watching online, just click that little raised hand button. Email me if you're on TV. Let me know that you made a decision to trust Christ, experience life with him. That's incredible. All heaven's rejoicing. And God, I just pray during this entire series as we define who we are as a church, that it will be so inviting and so inspirational that all of these that are listening to my voice today and the future days ahead will wanna join the movement that is created, not by me, but by your Holy Spirit, so that we can help others from all walks of life, experience life with you. I trust you'll do that, Jesus. In your name we pray. Amen.