Well, hey everybody, and I'm so excited today. We have finally made it to the day we're kicking off our spiritual growth series, we're calling it Thrive. And the idea is we want you to thrive and we want you to be a healthier you, I mean, I think that's what we all want. So how did we come up with this name Thrive? Well, here's how I arrived at this series because I've been asking you guys for the last 18 months now, how you doing? And here's the standard answer, I mean, this was the answer I got 80 to 90% of the time. "Well, pastor I'm surviving, I'm surviving." And you know, that's awesome that we're surviving 'cause I get that, I mean, that's an answer that I would probably give at times myself. But here's the truth, if you know our God and you experience life with Jesus, He doesn't want you to just to survive, does He? I mean, He wants you to thrive. And hey, our church, where we call Highlands Home, we want you to thrive, so we're gonna give you an incredible opportunity over these next seven weeks, I'm gonna lead us through this series every weekend, we're gonna look at our mental health, our physical health, our emotional health, our financial health, I'm pumped up about every one of them. I want you to try to clear your calendar and either join us online, in-person, or somewhere so that you can get connected, and then I wanna encourage you to be a part of a small group so that all of our in-person locations, you can come and you can join a small group if you're new to Highlands, man, that'd be awesome. If you've sort of strayed away a little bit and wanna get back where you need to be, then get in a small group. And we also have online groups for all of you that are watching online, hey, you can still get connected, so I wanna encourage you to do that too. So let's begin this series of thriving. Now, why is thriving so important? Well, because if we're thriving, it answers so many of the conditions we find ourselves in today, right? I mean, if we are to thrive, then it changes us from emptiness to fullness. If we're thriving in our life, it changes us from fear to faith. If we're thriving in our life, we're not defeated any longer, but we're victorious. It helps us to be bold and courageous, not always backing up and turning away from the opportunities that God gives us. So I want you to thrive, and I want our church to thrive, so where do we start? Where do we lay the foundation to a healthier you? Well, here's where we're gonna start. We're gonna start with our spiritual health today, because the truth is when we move away from God in our life, it really devastates our spiritual health, so here's the big idea that I want you to take away today, here it is, spiritual health is achieved the closer you get to God. If you wanna be healthy spiritually, then you've gotta somehow begin to move closer to God because when we move away from God, our spiritual health suffers. But when we begin to move closer to God, that's how we thrive spiritually. Now, we see this principle taught all throughout scripture. Now, if you look in the New Testament and you see Paul and here, Paul was this pagan guy who was trying to stamp out Christianity, and on the Damascus road, he gets smoked by Jesus, and he comes to a saving faith in Jesus Christ and Paul's life truly, truly, out of a radical submission to Jesus where he was killing Christians, now he is changed to an apostle of love, and his life just goes to a whole nother level. I look at the life of Isaiah in the Old Testament, and here's Isaiah who was spared from a depressed person into a courageous person when he met God, and he became an incredible prophet. What about Moses? I mean, I think about Moses all the time, he's an Old Testament hero of mine. So he got so close to God, the Bible says, and man, I hope this for you, I don't know if you'll get there or not, but the scripture says Moses got so close to God that he even changed his physical appearance. Now I was reading that, getting ready for the series, and I thought, man, that'd be awesome, you know? Maybe I can get so close to God or someone can get so close to God, and maybe, you know, my hair turns brown,, I don't know, but Moses, his whole appearance changed so much so that people had to look away from him. The Bible says that when he got close to God, he was actually glowing. I don't see that a lot today in our culture. I see a lot of anger, and a lot of confusion, and a lot of division among even people who would call themselves children of God, but especially those that are far from God. And yet, when I look at people in the scripture who are close to God, there's something about their appearance, there's something about the way they live life, they just thrive. And here's what I believe, we all wanna be close to God. I mean, if you didn't want to be closer to God, you wouldn't be listening on TV today, or one of our in-person gatherings, you'd be out doing something else, right? So by your very presence with us today, I truly believe we all want to be close to God in some way. Notice what the scripture says about us, okay? Isaiah says this, he says, "We're sort of like sheep, and we have a tendency to go astray, we've each turned into our own way." Here's the deal, we tend to wander, don't we? I mean, we tend to just sorta drift off, if you know anything about sheep, which I don't claim to know much about sheep, but what I've studied, they just tend to drift off. And basically what happens, they have to have a shepherd that sort of gathers them back together when they've wandered off and brings them back in. We tend to sort of drift from God. And here's what I've learned, especially in this 20 month pandemic that we've been in, when we've had to change this, and the church has had to be open, the church has had to be shuttered, and all of a sudden church life for you, if you were in a routine, it got all out of whack, right? We're still trying to figure it out. But in the midst, when our routines that helped us stay close to God are pivoted are disheveled, we tend to wander. And so many of us, you know, I mean, we've had good intentions, but we've just sorta wandered away from God. So as your shepherd today, I wanna try to help gather you back to a place of thriving in your spiritual health. How do you get close to God? How do you stay close to God? And if you've fallen away, how do you get back in that close relationship where you can actually thrive? Now, some of you can point to a time in your life and you'll just be honest, you'd say, "You know, Pastor Allen, there was time in my life where I was so much closer to God than I am today." And when you think back on those times where things were right with you and God and you were spiritually healthy, I mean, it was awesome, wasn't it? I mean, it was great. And yet today you look at your life and you see how you've sort of wandered away, and you think back to those times where you were so close and God was so real. I wanna sort of help you get back to spiritual health. Well, the neat thing, there's a great story, I've taught on this story a thousand times, you've been to church very often or Bible school, you've heard this story, but I'm gonna look at it from a little different perspective today, but it's important to read the story. It's a story of what we normally call the prodigal son. So let's look at the story, Luke 15, and let me just read it to you real quick. Jesus tells this story, He says, "A man had two sons. The younger son told his father, 'Give me my share of your estate now, instead of me waiting until you die.' So the father divided his wealth between his sons. A few days later, the younger son packed up all of his belongings, took all of his inheritance, he left home," and the scripture says, "he goes to a distant land, he moves, he got as far away from his father as he could. There he squandered the gift he had been given, and he wasted his life and money." And how do you do it, on wild parties and reckless living. "About the time all of his money ran out, a famine hit the land, and he began to starve," 'cause the guy, he's left with nothing, right? The only job he can find, this is not a great one for a young Jewish boy, is to feed swine pigs on a farm. The Bible says this story that Jesus gives, he becomes so desperate and hungry that even have pig slop he was feeding the swine looked good to him, but no one would give him anything for his hunger. So when he finally came to his senses, this is a turning point, he said to himself, "Oh my gosh, this is crazy! At my father's home, even the lowest paid workers eat well while I'm far away dying of hunger. I'm gonna return home to my father, and I'm gonna," catch this, "Humbly, say, 'Father, I have sinned against both God and you, I'm not worthy to be a part of this family or to be called your son, but please just make me one of your servants who works for you.' And with that attitude, he heads back home to his father." And notice the father's response, "While his son was still a long distance away, his father saw his son coming, and filled with love and compassion, he ran out to his son, threw his arms around him, kissed him. The son said, 'Father, I've sinned against both God and you, and I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.' But the father said to his servants, 'Quick, bring the finest robe in our house, put it on him. Then get the signet ring for his finger, shoes for his feet, then let's roast the calf that we've been fattening. We're gonna celebrate with a feast of eating and drinking for this child of mine was distant and dead, but now he's back and he's alive. He was lost, but now he's found.'" And then let the party begin, right? Let the party begin. I love that story, I just absolutely love that story. It tells a story of how every one of us tends to wander away from God who loves us. And from this story, I wanna give you four things that we need to do to get spiritually healthy, and one thing that God does, I wanna give you five things. And I don't know where you are today, I have a sense of where you are because I've been so impressed by the Holy Spirit to teach this series. Some of you I know you are way, way, way, far away from God. I mean, you're out there. Some of you, you've just been distant for a week or two. Maybe you had one of those weeks where you're just like, where is God in this week? But all of us today, desire to be closer to God than we are. So, how do you get close to God? How do you get back to Him? Here's the first thing. In order to be spiritually healthy, you have to come to a place in your life where you seek a change, where you seek a change. I've gotta get to a place where I get fed up with my current situation, I get fed up with my circumstance, I get fed up with the way I've been living, and I decide I'm not gonna live this way anymore, I'm better than this, my God is better than this. Because here's the truth that we all know, nothing is gonna happen in your life in the next seven weeks until you get dissatisfied with where you are now. And if you've wandered away, I've been praying that God's Holy Spirit would make you discontent. Because here's the deal, if you think, "Well, I'm just fine, I'm just fine, I don't need any change in my life," You probably just need to set out the next seven weeks, 'cause nothing's gonna happen in your life until you decide I'm tired of being distant from God. I mean, you gotta get desperate, right? You gotta get to a place where you are actually hungry to see God move in your life, where you are excited for God to change you. Nothing happens till you get fed up. Look at the story, go back in verse 13 and 14, look at verse 17, look at this guy. He wasted it all, he had nothing left, he got desperate and hungry, and here's the seeking a change, and he finally came to his senses. It's a starting point from moving to surviving. 'Cause he was surviving, right? But he decides, I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna thrive. The first step to thriving in your spiritual life is for you to get disgusted, to get that holy discontent, to get fed up with the way you're living. I love how Jeremiah puts it in chapter 29 I think it's verse 13 is what he says, this is what God says through Jeremiah. He says, "You'll find me when you get serious about finding me, and you want it more than anything else." God, that's His promise to us, listen, you're never gonna thrive in your spiritual life if you just see being a Christian as a part-time hobby, it's just not gonna happen. I wish it were the case 'cause many of you are trying to prove this, but it's not gonna happen. You gotta get fed up with the way you're living. And the first thing you gotta do, just like this young son, you gotta seek a change, you gotta seek a change. Here's the second thing. You have to overcome your denial. You just gotta face up to it, right? The first thing I do as I find myself wandered away from God, I get desperate, I get a holy discontent, I seek a change, and secondly, I have to overcome the denial that I've been living in, and what does that mean? It just means I own up to my sin, own up to my sin. That's it, that's what this guy does, right? Look in verse 17, notice what it says, when he came to his senses, this is the change he seeks. He said, "I have sinned against God and against you." Honestly, guys, nothing's gonna happen in your spiritual health, until you come to stage two, and stage two is just when you own up and face up to the fact that you've been living outside of God's way and His plan, and you've just been living your way, right? I mean, this is what this young guy does, he just lives his way. So I own up to my sin. And the scripture says when he came to his senses, this is what he says, "I have sinned." That's so hard for so many of us. Isaiah, again, I love how he puts it in chapter 59, verse two, he says this, "Your sins have separated you from God, and have hidden His face from you." Have you ever prayed, and you finally get to that place where maybe you've wandered off and then you just get sort of, oh, I need to pray, and you pray and you feel like God's a million miles away. And I can't see God, I can't hear God, I can't feel God, I feel like I'm just talking to myself. When you encounter that, where does that come from? Your sins have separated you from God, He's hidden His face from you. It comes from your sin. If you feel far from God, guess who moved? God hadn't moved, God didn't go on vacation, God didn't move away to a foreign country, God has always been there. He's never not been there, right, He's our God, He loves you unconditionally. But if you sense that you have wandered and you are far away from God, then here's the truth, you're the one who moved, you moved away by giving your life to something else. And when you give your life to anything else other than God being first in your life, the Bible has a word for that, and it calls it an idol, an idol. An idol can be lots of things, it can be your job, I understand how that could happen, it could be money, it could be success, heck an idol, it can be Facebook, social media, it can be CNN, it can be Fox News. In my own life, I love golf and I don't ever want golf to be an idol, but I'll tell you, it could be in my life if I'm not careful. Often these are not bad things, they're just not deserving a first place in your life. So if I've wandered away from God, the first thing I gotta do is I've got to seek a change, and then I've gotta overcome my denial and own up to my sin. The fact is this, you're as close to God as you wanna be. I'm as close to God as I wanna be. And you can't really blame anybody else on how close you are to God. And in this culture, in which we live, that's what we wanna do, right? We wanna blame our spiritual health on our husband, or our wife, or the government, or my mom or dad, or something, you know. Well, if my girlfriend was just a little more spiritual, if my husband was more of a dedicated believer, I would be so much spiritually healthier, really? That's not how it works, is it? You can't blame other people for your spiritual condition, for your spiritual health. When I own up and I say, "God, I blown it. I've been going my way. I've wandered off, I've been doing what I wanna do." What's God's response when we do that? Isaiah 1:18, great verse, what he says, he says, "The Lord says, 'No matter how deep the stain of your sins,' God says, 'I can remove it.'" God's the only one that can remove it by the way, "I can make you as clean as freshly fallen snow." Aint that an awesome verse? He says, no matter what you've done, no matter who you've done it with, God says, man, I can remove it, I can clean it up, I can make it as if it never happened. So, I gotta seek a change, I gotta own up to my sin, here's third thing if you wanna get close to God, if you wanna be spiritually healthy, you have to humble yourself. It just doesn't happen with pride and arrogance. This young guy gets fed up, comes to his senses, he owns up. He says, "Hey dad, God, I've sinned against both of you." And then you know what this young guy does, he offers up, he offers up. Look how he leaves, look at verse 12. He says, "The son drifted away saying, 'give me my share.'" Give me, give me. And then, you know, he blows it all, he wastes his life, he gets hungry, comes to his senses, owns up to his sins, look how he comes back in verse 19. He returned to the father saying, "Make me a servant." Man, I love that. You noticed any change in the attitude there? Hello, right? I mean he leaves saying, "All right, give me, give me, give me it's all about me, give me everything I don't deserve, but I'm still gonna feel entitled to it, give me, give me, give me." And then he comes back saying, "Lord, make me." You know, when your heart, when it moves from being self-centered to God-centered, that's how you thrive, it's how you thrive. God made you to soar, to soar, and to move from surviving to thriving. So how do we do it? We seek a change, we overcome our denial, we humble ourselves, and here's something that God does, and this is really important, I want you to notice the father's response. There's four things we do, but this is God's response. It's really important. In verse 20 of the story, the father, who represents God, says, "Filled with love and compassion," all right, "he ran out to his son," this is so different than how we would handle this as earthly fathers, right? This is not how I would handle it, but this is God. "He ran out to his son, he threw his arms around him, he kissed him, and he starts saying, 'Bring the best, bring the best robe, bring the best ring, bring the best shoes, bring the fattened calf,'" all these things, this is the father's response. When we've wandered away, we don't come back to judgment and condemnation, actually, when we make the approach back, you know what God does, He runs out to meet us. He doesn't go to where we are, He waits till our life changes, and we come to our senses, and we own up to our sins, and we humble ourselves. But when we begin to come back to Him, He actually comes running out to meet you. Here's what I see in that, when you're ready, God's ready. When you're ready, God's ready. He's waiting for this moment in your life. He runs to meet you, He throws His arms around you. And the good thing about our God, He doesn't hold a grudge, He doesn't do all the dumb stuff that we do. God has a better plan for your life than you can possibly imagine. Let me just ask you this question, just to answer this, just to be true. If you knew there was a better way to live than you're living right now, the way that you're currently living, wouldn't you wanna know about it? I mean, man, I want you to know about it. You'd say, "Well, you know, pastor, I'm living a good life." I get that, I get that to you are, I mean, you live in America, the most wealthy country on the globe, you know, you have a good life. You look good, I mean, most of you look good , you feel good, you got all the stuff, right? I mean, definitely in this pandemic season, we bought all the stuff. We got extra money, and you bought all this stuff. Here's the problem, there's only one problem to good life. It is never good enough. It's never good enough. And when you begin to understand that you are a creation of God, that ultimately you are His child, He created you, here's the deal, you were made for so much more than the good life you can attain on your own. You were made for something better. A life that you can not even imagine, it's so much better. That's the reason, the whole entire mission of our church to the core, we believe that your life will be better when you experience life with Jesus. We want all of you to experience life with Jesus. Well, there's one more thing as we wrap this up, once I come home and God wraps me up in His love, He hugs me, kisses me, brings out the best, all is forgiven, Go get the robes, the ring, the shoes, and such. And then, you know, God's then says, let's have barbecue, which that's awesome, right? I mean, God, He's getting the fatted calf, and in that celebration, you now come home, not to condemnation. 'Cause a lot of times, because maybe this is how I'd react if my son did this to me. Yeah, I don't know that, I would really have to check on, if my son ran, I'd be like you dummy, you know? I mean, it's hard to tell what I'd say, you know? But you gotta look at God. And when you decide, I've wandered, now I wanna not just survive, but I wanna begin to thrive in my life, and you begin to come back to God there's no condemnation. It's the exact opposite of what you would expect. You would expect God to say, "You knucklehead, look at what you've done. I mean, are you blah, blah, blah, blah, blah," you know? But God says, "Hey, my son who had wandered is now home." And what's God gonna do when His children wander back to Him." Whoo, is that a party? Here's what you do, you celebrate the goodness of God. I mean, this just causes me to want to praise God, 'cause I think how many knuckle-headed things I've done, how many times in my life I have wandered far from God, how many times I've known better, but I've still been sinful. I mean, I've have chosen at times to be rebellious against God. And yet somehow as a shepherd has led me, or as the Holy Spirit has nudged me back to God, always the same. Hey, here I am celebrating with you. When you celebrate God's goodness, I just have to say thank you God, I'm so undeserving. Lord, thank you for your grace. Oh God, thank you, thank you so much for your love to me. God, thank you for your goodness to me. Look at verse 20, 22, here's what the father says, "We're gonna celebrate with a feast of eating and drinking." This is sort of a glimpse into heaven. Heaven's gonna be an awesome celebration. So many of you have written to me over this pandemic and you've lost, you've lost so much, and you've lost loved ones. And here's the deal guys, as hard as that is, here's a little glimpse into their life today. They are celebrating with the God who loves them. He was lost, now he's found, the party begins. Life truly becomes a party when you're with God, and you start to thrive, and somehow all the clutter, and all the chaos and all the division, and anger, and all the things that the enemy uses to destroy you, and drive you down, and take your joy away, and convince you that if God was real, it would be different today. Somehow when you get your focus back on God, oh man, there's a celebration, right? I just sense no matter where you are right now, God is with you, His Holy Spirit is with you. Notice what the Bible says in Psalm 68, look at this verse, verse four. And scripture says, "Because God treats us this way that we are to sing to God, all right, sing to God, saying praises to His name. Lift up a song to Him. His name is Lord." You know what I've learned about a lot of you that come in person to Highlands? You're what I call prison singers, all right? You're behind a few bars and you can't find the key, okay? Here's the deal. God doesn't say you gotta be on every key, He doesn't say you gotta get it right, it's gotta be perfection. These guys who sing on the platforms for us, man, they they're not performers, they're worshipers, and they're on the right bar, and they're on the right key. Maybe it's hopeless, but here's the deal. God says you don't have to be perfect, He just says you have to make a joyful what, noise. This is what we're gonna do as we wrap up today, the band's gonna come back out, online we're gonna have an experience for you where you just can celebrate the goodness of God. I want you to thrive. Man, I want you to be spiritually healthy. Today, step number one, the foundation. Hey, would you pray with me, let's pray. God, I thank you for this message you've been burning in my heart for months, I mean, just for months. And today, finally the day that I get to just release the Holy Spirit through me, because God, I know you want for every person under my voice today to thrive, spiritually. You gotta figure where you are, where are you? For some of you, you've never taken your first step, you've never asked Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior. You're living the good life, but you found out through this season, it's not good enough. I wonder, would you today, would you change your good life for the best life? And would you just come home to God? Hey, if that's you, I want you to pray this prayer with me, just say, dear Jesus right now, right now I seek a change. I have sinned, I humble myself, and God I ask you to save me, I ask you to come into my heart and my life, I commit my life to you, I surrender my life to you. And hey, if you prayed that prayer, if you're watching online, I just want you to click that little button right there a raised hand, we wanna celebrate with you. If you're watching on TV right now, you see our address, just drop a note say you gave your life to Jesus, we wanna help you. If you're in in-person gathering, grab somebody on your way out. For those of us that are truly children of God, because of the disruptions we faced in these last several months of pandemic, and anger, and division, and all the tension that we've encountered, many of us have wandered away from God, and we're surviving. Lord, you want us to thrive. So today my challenge is that we would begin right now celebrating as we walk toward our Father. And if the Holy Spirit raises things in your life that you've been a knucklehead about, and just ask God to forgive you, He'll cleanse you. You're not coming back today to condemnation and judgment, you're coming back to a celebration and the love of a Father that when you're ready, He's ready to come, and He will meet you, He will wrap His arms around you because He wants you to thrive in His kingdom. God, thank you for what you're doing right now in tons of people's hearts and lives, what you've done in my life, because truly, with all the chaos, I had found myself wandering from you, and God, just because you love us so much, you wooed me back in, us, so awesome. I pray for our church today as well. Sometimes Lord, we can wander as a church. So God just give us clarity of exactly where you wanna point us in the new direction, help us to celebrate all the processes that we need to go through to get the focus that you want us to have to reach our community so they can experience life with Jesus. We love you today, Lord, thank you for loving us, in your name we pray, amen.