- Well, hey everybody, man, welcome to Highlands today. I just want to welcome all of you that are watching with us online. I know you're scattered all over the place, but thank you so much for joining us online or on TV. And then at our campuses in Bristol and Marian and Bluefield, man, we're so grateful for you. And we know we have a few watch parties here and there in different places, out in country, over in chapel, all of our cafes. And hey, here's something neat that you might not know, we have a lot of our global partners that are joining us this summer so I wanna welcome all of you guys from all over the world, man, all of Highlands is cheering you on because we're seeing God do some amazing things in your work. Well, we're in a series. Pastor Steve kicked off a couple of weeks ago called Summer in Highlands. And I love this series. We've been doing it for several years now. And the reason I love it is because we do summer at Highlands in summertime. Summertime is something I love, right? I mean, don't you love it? You're able to get outside. There is a reason, guys, that nobody has on their retirement destination bucket list Minot, North Dakota, right? I mean, they can keep that place. When I retire, I'm headed south where it's warm and summertime all year around. And I don't know about you, but when we embrace summer, our family sort of slow down and we value something in our family that I want to talk about and we're talking about in this series, some conversations that go a little deeper around a fire pit. We value that in our church. Many of our locations have fire pits, down at our G3 house, man, every time we have a group in, we built a big fire pit down there and we gather those folks around from all over the world at times. And some of those conversations for me have just been life-changing. So I want to talk to you today about Summer at Highlands. I want to talk to you today about deeper conversations around the fire pit. I know in our own family, man, we've been doing this. we had a fire last night. It was crazy. And all of us gathered down there and we just have had so many great conversations with the kids. Downside, I've ate way too many marshmallows and s'mores. You sort of have a tendency to do that, but it's just a fun time. Now you probably can relate to this, right? I mean, you spent some time around a campfire or around some kind of little fire where you're at here about and you've been in your folding chair and you've sort of been drawn in by the dancing flames. Maybe it was a big bond fire like Steve talked about a couple of weeks ago where you're just burning some debris or something, but you've gathered everybody around the bonfire. For most of us, it's probably a little campfire where we've gone out camping or we have something built in our backyard where we gather our family and we gather our friends. Maybe we have a tent, maybe there's a lantern involved. And for some of you, it's never outside like that, right? I mean, Brenda's, I'll talk to you a little bit later, she's not really an outside, fire pit, camping, kind of person. She likes that inside fireplace where you just touch the propane button and all of a sudden instant fire, right? And that intimacy that comes around those moments, around the fire pit. Now, no matter where you were, when the flames drew you in, it was almost always a time of reflection where conversations were deeper, where they were richer and where they were real. Now, if you've been coming to Highlands long enough, you know, I'm pretty down to earth kind of guy. You know, I've always loved, they say that communicators take hard things and break it down to where we can understand. I feel like I'm a communicator and teachers are professors on the other side, take simple things and complicate 'em. That's not me, but I want to take some things that I think that are just how God's used these things in my life and I want to try to just be real with you. I want to share a few stories with you as we get started. Some of you've heard this story, but I go all the way back to 1990 and I was planting a church. It wasn't going very well. It was a tough season in my life. I was beginning to wonder, did I really hear from God to go into ministry and be a pastor. And all of a sudden, just out of the blue, after planting a church for a couple of years was going nowhere, I got an invitation to go to Tanzania, Africa. Now I didn't even know on the map where Tanzania was. I'd heard Africa, but really, I didn't know where Tanzania was. I'd not been on a plane. And so my first flight, my goodness was all the way to Tanzania Africa, two days in an airplane. But I decided that God wanted me to go. And I spent the summer there. We were there for about 18 days and God just showed up and he did, it was life-changing for me. And we saw thousands and thousands of people come to know Christ. And it was just sort of this outpouring of God's heart and God's spirit to renew something in me when I was about ready to give up and quit. And if you ever get the opportunity to go to Africa, the African people, man, you just fall in love with them. And one of the things that they always will do for you is they want to take you because they preserved these incredible animals of Africa in these different safaris and different game parks. And they want to, they want you to experience that. I'd never seen these things 'cept on a magazine cover, you know, so they take us down to the Serengeti and there we are. And we had gone out and we'd seen all these incredible animals and our whole team had gathered back together. There were 60 of us that had gone from all across Virginia and then they dispersed all across the country of Tanzania. And then we gathered together for a couple of days, just for a time of reflection. And every night here at the game park, they had this huge bonfire. And I remember the first night, I didn't really get close to it because I'm just sort of renewing relationships and talking about trips, the trip with other people, but the second night we had a speaker and he spoke about, "Hey, we'll never be together in a group like this "ever again. "And God has wanted to do something in your life while "you've been here. "Don't miss that." And so he led us in some prayer and he said, "Just spend some time with, spend some time with dad, "spend some time with God." And a lot of people sort of went back to the rooms and those kinds of things, but I just stayed out, had my little folding chair, looking over those flames in that fire. It's a big, huge fire pit. And across that fire pit, you could still see the Plains of Africa. And it was like, God spoke to me and said, "Alan, you know, I've got your heart, "but I don't have your life." And for me, that was a turning point. And I'll never forget that night, I got down on my knees right there, around that fire, in that Serengeti game park and I said, "God, I give you my whole life, whatever it is. "If it's the stay here, I surrender it all to you." And that was a game changer for me. You may think about times in your life, where you had moments like that, but just God showed up and he spoke to you. And I think all of us as believers, man, we cherish those so much in our life, don't we? Last year, many of you know this too, we, even though it was COVID, we sort of researched it and we'd been planning to go out west and take our family with some other close friends, and we just decided, we're traveling with three physicians and they all looked at it and they said, "We think we can do this. "We think we can go safe, follow all the protocols "and stay away from the virus." So we had planned to rent an RV. So we did it and we fly into Bozeman, Montana, and we meet everybody there. We go, of course, I'd never rented an RV. I've never been in an RV before. I'm thinking it's going to be a disaster, you know, but we go and get our little RV. We load all the family up in the RV and we head south and our first stop got some pictures just because I love pictures. Our first stop was in Yellowstone and it was snowing. This was this time last year. We weren't prepared for that so our first stop was Dick's Sporting Goods before we headed into the park and we all buy coats, right? And they came in very handy. Then we headed to the Tetons. That was our next stop. And this was a team we traveled with. Another picture here. The Tetons that's coming up. It was just an amazing place, incredible place. Then from there we head south and we go on into some other of the parks and if you'll just keep rolling these pictures we're at Jackson Hole. And Jackson Hole, Wyoming, was incredible. On to Salt Lake City. I'd never been to Salt Lake. Here's a, you know, a pretty neat place. The temperature finally gotten up to about 70 and we go down to The Capitol Reef and this was sort of a typical campsite for us. We'd park our RVs and then we'd build some campfires. Now this is an amazing place. This is Bryce Canyon. I'd never been to Bryce. If you ever get a chance to go to Bryce, man, it's incredible. And then finally we wrap up the trip at Zion. Zion is an awesome national park and we turn our camper in back in Las Vegas. And this is Bellagio in Las Vegas, which was another incredible sight to see. All of us were ready to turn in the camper, honestly, although we had really enjoyed it, but we were ready to get into a nice hot, long shower, cause we hadn't had one for two weeks almost, and actually have a nice bed to sleep in. And then we headed back home. I can only tell you guys that that trip was sort of a bucket list trip for me. And I was able to see God's amazing creation, man, during the midst of COVID, that was incredible. God was just reminding me when I'd go to all these incredible places that he was caring for us, he was taking care of us. And then every night when we had pull our stupid little RV into these little camp spots, I'd send Chris out, "Get some wood. "Find some wood," you know, that was his job. And then we'd put some rocks in place if there wasn't already a camp, a little place for a fire to be built and we'd build us a fire. And everybody would gather around that fire and the conversations were so good. It was amazing. You know how God used that in our family and those families to draw us closer together. One of the neat things is one of the families that lives in Alaska now, they adopted from the same orphanage that we did in Ethiopia. And so they have a son named Eouab and Eouab and Timmy and Bella are like brother and sister, right? So they didn't want to leave. I mean, it was like for them in some ways, being able to connect back to their heritage and their history and it was just an amazing trip. My kids loved it. They'd go at the drop of a hat if I told them we were heading west again, Several years ago, I had the opportunity to lead a discipleship group and they were all younger guys. And we did this for about a couple of years actually, but as we would approach summertime, they always wanted, you know how guys are, we always wanted to go out and always wanted to build a fire. We wouldn't meet in the church. We'd go out behind the church. We'd build a, we had a little fire pit and we'd build a fire. And it's so interesting to me, just how guys, especially young guys, how they act around fire. I had a boy scout. Okay, he was always the one who would get the fire started. Probably the only one who knew how to start a fire, but he was meticulous about it. He would gather the little pieces first and he would stack it just right, and then he had exactly what you needed to get it going. And then I had just a couple of good old boys. They'd wait until he got it going and they'd just drop a big old log somewhere on the fire. And this drove my Boy Scout insane, cause he wanted it all ordered. Then, I had a stomper and a poker, you know these guys, right? I mean the stomper, he was always taking his foot and you know, as the logs was sorta burned down, he would sort of jostle it around those, and then the poker, he had to have this stick and he was always poking at the fire, you know, how they do. And then once he got the end of that stick, then he would want to bring that stick really close to my nose at times, or he would just, there's always a, there's always a poker around the fire. Then I had a flasher in that group. This happened to every time. We'd just be sitting there and finally get a conversation going and this guy had collected like dry leaves and he would throw those dry leaves in the middle of it in the most crazy moments. And the thing would just blow up in front of us. I'm like, "Why do you do that?" "Well, I just love to do that." I wanted to kill him at times. And then, had a couple of guys in that group that just would stand by the fire or set in their chair, take it all in, watch all these other crazy guys do what they did without really any need to stomp or poke or whatever. They just enjoyed the fire. Now, Bren and I, we spent a lot of moments around the fire too. Brenda loves a fire. She does. She just doesn't love those outside kind, with mosquitoes and smoke. She doesn't like smoke and she hates mosquitoes. She loves those instant, smokeless fires in the fireplace. We have one in our bedroom. She insisted we have one in our bedroom. It's natural gas. She keeps that thing going all the time. Matter of fact, she don't even like for me and the boys to come in after we've been down in the fire pit, because we got the smell of lingering smoke on our clothes, in our hair, on our skin. But you know, I don't know, it's just something maybe how God designed us guys. I love the lingering scent of the fire pit. I mean, honestly, if we could get that in some kind of roll on or spray on cologne, I would own it. Can you imagine guys? Man in the woods, right? I mean, who doesn't want that? Oak Smoke. I think that'd be awesome. Fire Pit deodorant. All good. Now I would love it, but I would spend a lot of time on the couch probably, which would not be good, but I'd smell great. I mean, I'd smell great. I believe that. Well, I want to tell you all those stories just to let you know, it sort of gets our minds to thinking and it takes us back to really how Jesus lived. Have you ever thought about how Jesus lived? So much of the life of Jesus was spent around a campfire guys. It really was. And honestly, I think Jesus loved the campfire. I mean, we see him use it in illustrations and stories over and over. And he often used these campfires to have these intimate conversations. He was a master at communicating his father's words so that his disciples and others could understand. And he was always intentional. And he set up his teachings in a way where the people listening could take something from that and often it was life-changing for them. You know, for the most part, Jesus taught in parables. I mean, we all know this and parables are simply stories. And this is what I've learned. You don't often remember much of what I talk about or much of whoever our teacher is, but you know what? You do remember stories. We all remember stories, don't we? I think this is a reason Jesus taught in stories and he taught some principles that are just, that we need to know. Jesus taught in these parables that we are better together. We're just better together. These men that Jesus gathered around him, I mean, think about his disciples. He had some just old, brawny fishermen, Peter and James and John, they just made their living fishing. Then he had Matthew who's a tax collector. He had a guy who was a zealot. He had some tradesmen in this group. And he models for them how to live and witness and then he sends them out in their communities, just like we challenge you to do. Just like we did on Love Week. We're going to bring you together. We're going to teach. Hopefully we're gonna have an intimate time together. We're gonna discuss the things of God. And then Jesus, he was doing that around the fire pit. And then he would send those guys out in his community. I love this. Look at Mark, chapter six. We see this in verse six and seven. Says, "Jesus went around teaching from village to village, "calling the 12 to him. He would bring them in and then he would begin sending them out. And notice he didn't send 'em by himself. They didn't go out alone. He sent 'em out two by two and he gave them authority over impure spirits. So he was equipping them so they could go out and do what he called them to do. One thing that Jesus chose was he just chose to spend most of his time outside. He lived his life, like everybody else. I don't know if you ever thought about this or not, but he could have lived his life so much differently. I mean, he was God. But he didn't miraculously transport himself from Jerusalem over to Capernum. He could have easily done that, he didn't have to walk there. But he chose to sort of do away with all of his sovereign attributes during that time and sort of live like everybody else. I mean, he could have had people carry him to these places. He was the king. He's God. He could have at least ridden a chariot, for goodness sake. I mean, there were chariots and horses there. I was thinking I'd at least probably ride a chariot, get somebody to get a horse to draw me down there. At least a camel. But you ever thought about the only animal that Jesus ever gets attached to is a dag-gone donkey, the lowest of the low of the animals that he could have chosen. I think he had a purpose in that. He didn't use any of all of his amazing attributes. He chose to walk with his band of brothers because he knew together that relationships would deepen. And man, those guys created friendships that lasted for all eternity. You know, Jesus, his whole life was this way. The three years we know he was on a mission, man, that dude, he walked a lot. I mean, miles and miles of walking day after day, dusty roads, gravelly pass, rocky trails, up and down hill sides, in rain and heat and wind, daylight and dark. Jesus and this band of disciples would be walking. He had to be a rugged, strong guy. I mean, he just did. He had to do that in order to travel the way he did. And back then, I think, you know, there were obviously, they were few covered roadside shelters, right? I mean, even like on our AT, we got some shelters you can get in. There are few of those. I mean, Cracker Barrel. Jesus couldn't, they couldn't hop down to Cracker Barrel and get what was the Tuesday night special. Holiday Inn Express. None of those things. Have you ever thought about how he lived? The bathrooms were all outside. Think about that guys. The resting areas, all outside. Every place that Jesus went, his destination from here to there was outside, just in the elements of his creation. The whole adventure from one place to the next was all outside. And along those roads, those nights with his trusted men, every night, you know what? They camped. That's just how they lived. And they'd pull off the side of the road. He'd probably send somebody out to collect some sticks or whatever. And just like us, they'd build, set up a little campfire and they'd pull out some bread or some fish, maybe a lamb chop, something like that. And they'd drank a bit of water or wine, whatever they had and they would eat, and then they would rest. And they would sit there and they'd stare at the flames, listening to Jesus as he was equipping them and teaching them. Imagine having those conversations. And that was real, wasn't it? I mean, that was real. There's something that draws me to that. I got to believe that in this group of disciples, that Jesus had people that very similar to same folks that I had in that discipleship group. He had a Boy Scout there, you know. I mean, Dr. Luke would have been the one who have built a fire, you know, and he would have told John, "Hey, get your foot out of there. "You're gonna get burned." You know, come on man. And I think James would say back, something like, "Hey Mark, I thought you were gonna build us a real fire. "He built this little girly fire. "Let me throw a couple of logs on it." And I can see James over there, tossing logs. And then Thomas, you think about Thomas. He'd get there late, of course. And then he wouldn't even believe that anybody even built a fire. "Well, I don't believe y'all did it. "You're going to have to prove to me, you did it." "Nobody really built this thing," he'd say. And then, they'd probably laughed, they'd probably just sort of would gather around that fire, just men, being man around a campfire. Can you imagine the intimate conversations these guys had with Jesus? I mean, there's something. Man, I get a little envious when I think about how they live. They had an incredible mission to accomplish what we see today, the kingdom of God. But Jesus, he never hurried with his disciples. Something else I think about, not only did he want us to know we're better together, but Jesus really taught this idea that rest for us is revolutionary and we get this mixed up at times, right? I really hope as we move back, I think it's probably gonna be the fall season. But as we're beginning to move back into more normal rhythms of life, post pandemic, honestly, I hope we don't move back to the way we were. I hope we move forward to where God wants us to be. And I hope you don't miss that because I truly believe that when life begins to give us opportunity to see and to do what God wants us to do, man, I hope we build some time into our schedule to rest and build some time for God. Rest really is revolutionary, isn't it? In our hurried society that so many of us pre- pandemic, I mean my life was just chaos at times, you know, and I'm the pastor. I mean trying to wrestle down five kids and get them here and get them there and find out what they're doing and visit the ones that have moved away and then do church and try to take care of all the things with church and all the other things going on in our life with the community. I mean, it was sort of chaos at times. And I think our culture before the pandemic, it actually rewarded those who climb to the top. And we had this idea if we climb to the top, we win. But when we climbed to the top, it sure is hard to rest, isn't it? And it sure is hard to invest in other people. We see Jesus living his life, these three and a half years that we really get to watch him and we really get pictures of his life. We see him living without any hurry. Just any hurry. To the point that several times, people would actually tell Jesus when he finally got there cause they were wanting him to get there so quickly. And he never got in a hurry to get there. And then they would say, well, you know, they'd say something like, "If you'd been here sooner, "this wouldn't have happened." They were trying to put some guilt on Jesus. Dude, you should've have gotten in a hurry. My need was great, but Jesus would always do a miracle. He would always rescue. He would always help them to see, hey, you don't have to live life hurried. Jesus modeled rest, he modeled investment. And he helps us to understand that he wants us to do the same thing. It'll not pay off I think until we understand this is a principle that he wants us to see. One way that we can fight back against the powers of the world is just making this connection to rest as a priority. Because if you don't make it a priority, it's not gonna happen. I promise you. You'll get caught up in the rat race of the world and here's the deal, you never win the rat race. All right? You just don't win. Nobody wins the rat race, but he gives us an idea to come to him and to rest and to renew. And often I think those times around that fire pit, those conversations were renewal, and they were times of rest. One last thing, at the end of the book of John, Pastor Steve talked about this a couple of weeks ago, I preached on this same passage. You've heard about this during Easter. So we've taught on this passage a lot, but man, it's a great passage just to sort of help you identify with this fire pit theme that we're talking about. Jesus comes back to his disciples here one last time before he ascends to heaven forever, right? And as Pastor Steve, man, I thought he did just a incredible job breaking this passage down to us but when he was teaching, I felt like the Holy Spirit was telling me to think about this in a deeper way about Jesus and just the love that he had for his disciples. Let's go back and look at the scripture just for a second. This is what he says in verse nine. It says, "When they landed," remember they'd been out fishing all night and then they catch this humongous load of fish and they finally get their boat to the shore. And it says, when they landed, Jesus is there. And they saw a fire burning with coals there and catch this, Jesus already, I don't know if he caught the fish, you know, or the fish just jumped on the grill. But anyway, he's got some fish on and he's brought some bread. Now, if you've been out fishing all night, you know, you're hungry. And in verse 10, Jesus says to these guys, "Bring some of the fish you caught." And so Simon Peter climbed back in the boat. He dragged the net ashore full of fish, 153 of 'em. But even with so many, the net was not torn. And Jesus said to them, "Come and let's have breakfast together." Let's have breakfast together, guys. And none of the disciples dared ask him, who are you? Cause they all knew it was Jesus. They all knew. They all knew it was the Lord. Jesus came, took the bread. He gave it to 'em and he did the same with the fish. So interesting in this last time that he appears with his disciples, they find him waiting on the side of the lake with a small campfire. He's already cooked him breakfast, you know, pretty amazing. And he does some pretty neat things there. He forgives Peter, as Pastor Steve talked about, he encourages the others. I think he probably hugs 'em. They probably have some times they talk about some memories, share a few stories. They probably had a few laughs together and then he's gone. Jesus has gone. At the end of the book, John says this about Jesus, down in verse 25, this is what he says. He says, "Jesus did many things as well" and catch this, "If every one of them were written down, "I suppose that even the whole world would not have room "for the books that would be written." I don't know about you, but I've often wondered, these gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, somehow the Holy Spirit carved in them the right stories to tell so that our lives could be changed eternally. But man, can you imagine after sorting through three years of being with Jesus, how to narrow it down into a few chapters in a book that we're still reading all around the world today because these guys know that if everything they had seen and everything they had heard about Jesus, all the books in the entire world world could not put it in place. You know, if you trusted Jesus with your life, have you ever had that intimate conversation with Jesus, where you've just surrendered your life to him and just invited him into your life to be your Savior and your Lord? If not, I want to give you an opportunity to do that today. But before I do it, let me just say this. And you know this and almost every survival guide, every survival book, what's front and center? Well, fire is crucial, right? If you're gonna survive for long out in the wilderness, fire is crucial. In other words, I think the principle is that intimacy with other people is really crucial in our lives. Conversations at a deep level are part of growing in our relationship with Jesus. And so when I think back on this, I just think, let me just be transparent with you a while here. I'm sort of an open book. I just, what you see is what you get. But one of the things that has always concerned me is I've met people who I consider to be really close. I mean, often there have been leaders in the church and you try to have a deeper conversation and it's just all surface. They'll talk to you about sports all day, or they'll talk to you about stuff that really means nothing. And I've watched these guys and often something just happens in their life where they just go off the deep end. Because I think there's a principle that God wants us to understand. Guys, we have to be willing to share these things that we're struggling with in our life with somebody else that we trust. And we just do, and we're gonna be better for that. He created you not to hold this stuff and think you can conquer all these temptations on your own though. You need some help along the way. He modeled that with his disciples. Always try to give you an action step, you know, with the message. I want to give you, I just want to suggest something to you. I highly recommend we're sort of in the middle of summer, that you gather your family, at least your family and just, man, go in the backyard somewhere, it'll kill a little grass, build a fire and just have a family meeting. You could be really surprised what might happen in some of those conversations with your family around the fire. Or maybe it's been a while since you spent some serious quite time with Jesus. You hadn't hung out with any of your friends. I think we all miss that, just get a couple of families and go camping. Just go camping. You don't have to have everything, man. We do it and it never works out. Last time we went, I forgot the tent poles. You know, we go, we get the tent, everybody else putting their tent up. I'm, like, where's the poles? We didn't bring 'em. Oh, like who doesn't put a tent and poles in the same dad-gum package? Walmart. They don't do that. So, you know, we had to get some sticks and they helped us. These other people knew we were stupid and they helped us get our tent set up. We built a fire. I mean it was awesome. And just pray on your way there that Jesus would speak to you. He would do something in your group because he loves to be invited in, doesn't he? You don't have to prompt him. He can speak without words. Jesus loves us, man. He wants to spend time with us and you know what else? Jesus loves a good campfire. So I would just encourage you, gather around the fire this summer. Don't miss those times. Hey, would you pray with me today? Let's have a word of prayer. God, I think back about how Jesus lived and it draws me into that, just simple life. I mean he could of, he was the king of Kings and Lord of Lords. He could have done anything he wanted and yet he chose to sort of let go of his attributes, walk alongside his disciples, hang out by the fire pit, cook some fish. I mean he did something we all can do, right? I just encourage you. If you're a believer in Jesus, invite him in. Invite him in. And today, if you're not a believer in Jesus, I would just say, man, would you consider it? Would you sincerely think about this? Because honestly, eternity, your eternity hangs in the balance. You can't mess this up, man. And our church is a church that has such a heart for you. We want to help you. If you're agnostic or if you're an atheist or you just been burnt by the church or whatever, we're not a perfect church by any means, but man, we want to help you get somehow into a relationship with Jesus. And so I want to invite you in, just come or just continue to watch online and just be a part of our community because we believe here at Highlands, we're a family that you belong to. And all of us are better in a family. Maybe today, some of you are ready to actually step across that line and commit your life to Jesus. You say, "Man, Alan, I've been on the other side. "I'm ready for a change. "How do I do that?" You just simply say, "Jesus, I surrender my life to you. "Lord, I've made mistakes. "Today I ask you to forgive me of my sin. "I repent and I ask you to come into my life." And the Bible says, if you sincerely believe that in your heart, that you are part of God's family forever, that you're now an adopted child of the father. And he wants to have so many intimate conversations with you. We'd love to know about it. If you're watching online, just click that little raised hand button and let us know. And man, if you want some help, we can send you a Bible. We can send you some study guides as you grow in your Christian life. If you're at one of our locations today, on your way out, grab somebody and tell 'em you gave your heart to Jesus because all heaven rejoices. Thank you for Summer in Highlands. And God just give us a great time as we continue in this series in the days ahead. We ask all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.