Well, hey everybody and welcome to Highlands Fellowship! It’s so good to have you with us at all of our different locations—whether you’re in Bluefield, Marion, Bristol, here in Abingdon, or online. I also want to welcome all of our different venues out in the country—Tin and In Chapel—and all of our cafés, and those of you watching on TV. It’s great to have all of you with us today! For those of you who are with us for the very first time at Highlands, we are so glad that you’re here. Please make yourself right at home because, as we like to say around here, Highlands is home. So, welcome, welcome, welcome!
Now, we’re just coming out of a series—a message series that we’ve been in for five weeks—where we’ve been talking about pruning. God’s word is very clear that pruning is a process that we must go through in order to be ready for the growth that God desires for us. Pastor Steve gave a great message on how we’re pruned for a purpose, and he also challenged us to make a choice to get involved by serving others. Is our life going to be about Christ, or is it going to be about ourselves? We have the choice. Let me just tell you something—I believe that as you get involved, you will be helping us to fulfill the mission and the vision that God has given to our church, and that is to help people experience life with Jesus as we make disciples, love our communities, and change the world. If you ask me, I believe that every single one of you wants to make an impact with the life that God’s given you.
So, as we get into the message today, let’s consider what God is doing in our lives and how we are to follow Him. Really, if you want God to do big things through you, you’ve got to be ready. You’ve got to be ready for God to do big things through you—like, you have to desire and expect God to do big things through you. So, we have to understand how to prepare, and not only that, we have to start preparing right now. Then, we have to be willing to work and to sacrifice for what has to happen. Listen, God wants to get into the communities that we serve, and the communities that we serve truly need Him. So, we have to be about making a way for Him and breaking down the barriers for people to hear the gospel and to receive His grace.
We’re going to start off with a game today, and the name of this game is "Tell the Truth." All right, sounds fun already, doesn’t it? This shouldn’t be hard for most of you—maybe it might be hard for some of you, I don’t know. The way that this game goes is I’m going to ask you a question, and then you’re going to raise your hand if this question relates to you. Again, tell the truth, all right? Tell the truth. For example, I want you to raise your hand—and I want you to participate in this—but raise your hand if you absolutely hate audience participation games that make you raise your hand. Anybody want to be honest and vulnerable about that? Okay, well, thank you—thank you for your honesty. Okay, but it doesn’t matter, we’re still going to play. We’re still going to play. I was just curious where you landed on that.
All right, so let’s do this. Raise your hand if you are not satisfied with maybe your cell phone or your cell phone coverage. Go ahead and raise your hand if that’s you. All right, got a few of you. Okay, raise your hand if you’re not satisfied with your current financial situation. Anybody? Okay, a few of those as well. All right, that was kind of the mild version. We’re going to move a little bit to a warmer version of this, and I’m going to let you opt out if you want to, but I would encourage you to answer. Go ahead and raise your hand if you’re not very satisfied with your body—the way that you look, maybe your physical health. All right, man, keeping it real—I appreciate that, thank you. All right, so the next question is, raise your hand if you’re not satisfied with the job you’re doing as a parent. Anybody? Okay. And here’s the last question—raise your hand if you’re not very satisfied with the way that you’ve been living your life. Anybody? I know that one’s a little bit harder, isn’t it?
Listen, there are many other things that I didn’t mention that you may not be satisfied about, that you need to name today, and you need to name it well. In 1965, there was a guy that felt a lot like you guys do, and he sat down and wrote a song called "I Can’t Get No Satisfaction." Yeah, well, so who wrote that song? Mick Jagger, exactly. That was like 60 years ago, and you would think that over a 60-year period, he would at least get some satisfaction, right? But man, the guy’s like 81 years old, and he’s considering a comeback, and he’s probably still putting on those tight pants and going out there and rocking the world, isn’t he? I mean, he still can’t get no satisfaction. But if we were to sing that song today—which we’re not, I’m not—but if we did, we wouldn’t just be singing a rock and roll song by the Rolling Stones; we would actually be singing the soundtrack to the book of Ecclesiastes.
Ecclesiastes is a private journal of a guy by the name of King Solomon, and he has recorded some thoughts of his life for us so that we have them to read, and it’s really fascinating. So, let me give you a little bit of a background and tell you a little about King Solomon. When he started out as a young guy—and he was a king—he had a very intimate, a very close relationship with God. God blessed him; God poured out His power into King Solomon’s life. He gave him resources to build his kingdom, leadership gifts—I mean, the guy truly was amazing. But what started to happen was he started to become more prideful. He started to become prideful about who he was becoming, and life became all about him and not about God. So, on the outside, you could see him, and there was this visible outward climb of success, but on the inside, there was this internal erosion that was wasting away inside of his life. He was really dying on the inside. It was literally like Solomon hopped in his car and drove away from God, and for much of the 40 years that King Solomon was king, he was lost, just wandering through life.
Here’s what you need to understand: King Solomon could not get any satisfaction. All right, he could not get any satisfaction. So, we’re going to look at the words that he wrote that are in the Bible, and it’s basically like this journal where King Solomon tells us about life. He tells us in Ecclesiastes 1:2, he says, "Man, meaningless," says the teacher, "utterly meaningless, everything is meaningless." As soon as I read that, I’m like, "Hey man, if you could just be a little bit more honest with us about what you really think, that would be great, right? Like, just kind of share with us your true thoughts about life." What happened here is you’ve got this king, right, that at one point in his life was full of meaning, and now he feels meaningless. He feels like life is absolutely meaningless. So, you’ve got this king who was full of purpose, and he has a plan, and he was willing to do whatever it was that God asked him to do, and then it’s like he got in a car and he drove away from God, and now he’s wandering through life lost as a goose.
So, what happens is King Solomon goes on this journey through life, and it’s like he goes on this taste test, trying to find satisfaction and meaning in life. King Solomon went on a nearly 40-year search for satisfaction. It was like this 40-year taste test where he just taste-tested all of these different things that this world has to offer. His first taste test was wisdom and power. Let’s look at that in Ecclesiastes 1:13, and he says this: "I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens." In other words, he gave his heart to searching for wisdom. So, King Solomon started to go after wisdom, and he did—I mean, he went after it, and he got it. He was considered to be the wisest man who ever lived. He goes into music, and he starts composing all these songs, and he wrote over a thousand songs. So, he became this guy who was full of wisdom, and then he started to get all this power. Today, it would look a little bit like this: he started writing all these books, and people would fly him all over the world so they could hear him, and he would sell out auditoriums. Literally, the Bible says that people came from all over the surrounding countries just to come and hear the wisdom and to see the power of King Solomon. And yet, none of it satisfied. None of it satisfied.
King Solomon’s next search was all about possessions and money. Ecclesiastes 4:8 says this: "I undertook great projects. I built houses for myself, planted vineyards. I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. I amassed silver and gold for myself and the treasures of kings and provinces. I acquired male and female singers and a harem as well—the delights of a man’s heart." I mean, the Bible tells us that it took him 13 years to build his house. This guy built parks and all kinds of things. He had servants, and anytime he got thirsty, he’d just snap his fingers and say, "Hey, I’m a little bit thirsty here," and they would come and bring him a drink, and it would just come right to him all the time. Eventually, he had acquired and built this huge palace, and he built this huge life for himself. Really, if you add up all the money in today’s money, he had more money than Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos put together. I mean, it’s amazing—he was the most powerful guy in the entire world. And you know what? Absolutely none of it satisfied. None of it satisfied.
His third and final search was all about the women and the wine. The Bible says that Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines. I think about just having one wife and how difficult that can be at times—and listen, it’s me, it’s not her, okay? It’s me. But I can’t even imagine having that many relationships to have to manage. But you know what? He was living what he thought was the dream. So, he had the wine, and he had the women, and it was night after night after night. But you know what? After nearly 40 years, as he had been taste-testing all of these different things that the world had to offer, he said, "You know what? It doesn’t satisfy. It just doesn’t satisfy." I mean, if you look at it, he went on this 40-year search, right? And we just talked about it—he tasted unbelievable power, incredible wisdom, and it didn’t satisfy him. So, after that, what does he do? Well, he pursues this more money and possessions thing, and he tastes it, and it doesn’t satisfy. Then what does he do? Well, it’s the whole wine, women, and song deal, and he tasted that, and it doesn’t satisfy.
We look at King Solomon and say, "Well, man, I’d never do that. I would never pursue satisfaction through power. I would never look for it in money and sex and all those types of things. I’m beyond that. I’m beyond that." But you know what? The reality is that you and I, we do it every single day. Maybe the way we do it looks a little bit different, but it definitely takes these little tastes. We definitely take these little tastes that the world has to offer because none of us are above making a bad decision. I had a meeting with our campus pastors a couple of weeks ago, and Pastor Gary from our Bristol campus just asked if he could have a word of prayer with our team to not do something dumb that would damage the church. Because one thing that we know is, we know all of us are capable of doing something foolish. We know that we are.
So, maybe you’re trying different things, taste-testing different things in hopes that it will satisfy you. You know what? It didn’t work. So, you find another one. Maybe your relationship is not all that great—not really satisfying you. You know what? You go and find somebody else—maybe that’ll satisfy. Maybe you feel like if you could just get a new job, that’ll bring satisfaction. Or maybe if that friend that you really love would just treat you the right way and be the kind of friend that you really need them to be, that would satisfy you. Or maybe you feel like, "If my kids would just obey what I say, that would satisfy, right?" Or, not that they would just obey, but "If they would turn out to be the kind of kid that I want them to be, then I know that would bring satisfaction." "If I could just get this degree, if I could just make the perfect grade or get the great job or do well on my paper or whatever it may be." Or, "If my husband would just come to church with me, then I know that would satisfy."
So, one day you wake up, and you look around at your life, and you see all of these things that you’ve been taste-testing, and just like King Solomon, you find out that all of it is meaningless—utterly meaningless. None of it satisfies. So, what is it for you? What is it that you continue to taste day after day, week after week, just for the small hope that it’s going to satisfy you? Maybe for some of you, it’s validation—like, you want validation from someone—and maybe you take a drink of that, and it doesn’t satisfy you. Maybe for you, it’s money, and you think, "If I could just get this much, right, then I would be able to live the dream. I would be able to live comfortably." So, you go out and you spend your life at work, just hoping, just hoping that it’s going to satisfy. Maybe you’re not happy with the way that you look, and so you try all of the different fads out there that will make you look the way that you want—one after another after another after another—because you think, "Just maybe if I look a certain way, then I’m going to be satisfied." And listen, the list goes on and on and on.
King Solomon says it’s all meaningless, and he was the wisest man who ever lived. Every bit of it—none of it will satisfy. So, he went on a 40-year search—40 years of his life, lost and gone. Some of you are sitting there, and you’re saying, "You know what? I feel the same way. Look, I’ve lost a year. I’ve lost two years. I’ve lost five years. I’ve lost 10 years, maybe 20 or 30 or 40 years." Well, Solomon, he knows exactly how you feel. So, here’s what happened in Solomon’s life, okay? As he was kind of driving through life, doing this taste test, one day he pulls over, and he grabs his journal, and he grabs his pen, and he makes a final entry. It’s in Ecclesiastes 12 verse 13, and this is what he says: "Now all has been heard; here’s the conclusion of the matter." He’s saying, "You know, listen, I’m being authentic here. I want to be real with you. I’ve told you the whole story." He said, "I’ve got more money to search higher, deeper, farther than anyone has ever searched," and he says, "Here’s the conclusion. Here’s what I’ve found in all of this searching." He says, "Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of man." He says, "That’s it. I want you to know what really matters in life—fear God and keep his commandments."
Some of you are like, "Fear God? Forget that—that’s the way I grew up." Some of you have walked into church today, and you’re beaten up, you’re broken, you’re sick and tired of church, and you think that God is like this extreme buzzkill that lives up there in heaven, and He’s got a quiver full of lightning bolts, and He’s just waiting for you to screw up. As you do, He’s like, "Bam!" and He zaps you, right? And you’re scared of that. But I want you to know that that’s not the God that we serve, and that’s not what this verse is saying. "Fear God" is to worship God and to bow down to Him. Psalm 95:6 says, "Come, let us bow down and worship, let us kneel before the Lord our maker."
The other day, I was driving through Abingdon and heading to a meeting, and I had to fill up my car with gas. I was just kind of having this little bit of a conversation with God—"God, thank You for being with me today." I mean, I felt His presence. "I thank You for who You are." And then all of a sudden, I became very, very aware of the presence of God in that very moment, and it was awesome. So, as I was having this conversation with God, I started just to praise Him, and I was just overwhelmed by who He was—like, "God, thank You so much that You are the creator of all things. Thank You for who You are and how You care for us. Thank You that You are the healer. Thank You that You are a provider and that You’re a sovereign God—You’ve just got everything in Your hands." In that moment, I was blown away at the awesomeness of God and how big He is and how in control He is, and at the very same time, how small I am. There was an internal kneeling and bowing going on in my life. I started singing these worship songs as I was driving down the road, you know, and I was in town, and there were tears coming out of my eyes, and people were probably looking at me like, "What’s up with this guy?" But you know what? There was really, really this internal kneeling and bowing that was going on before God.
Some of you may say, "Well, I haven’t connected with God like that in a long, long time." You walked in the doors today, and you’re tired, and you say, "I just can’t keep it up, and I just want to connect with God so badly. I want to have that connection. I remember when I had a relationship with God that was fresh, and it was new, and it was real, and I’m spiritually dry right now." Some of you say, "I just don’t even know what to do. I don’t know where to start. I haven’t had a fresh touch from God in a long time." And you say, "I want that kind of connection, but I don’t know where to go." So, what needs to happen in so many of our lives is that we need to begin to develop a heart of worship. We’ve got to develop a heart of worship. What does that mean—to develop a heart of worship? Well, how can I make that real in my life? I want to throw some thoughts at you and how you can begin to develop this heart of worship.
Life is just so hectic for so many of us. I mean, we’re constantly going to meetings, and we’re picking up our phones, and we’re on calls, and we’re chasing kids around all the time. You know what? We’re just way too busy—life is just way too hectic. So, some of us just need to be still. Some of us need to be still. The Bible tells us that we’ve got to be still and know that He is God—like, we’ve got to slow down for a second so that we can hear what God is trying to say to us. Some versions of Scripture say, "Cease striving." So many of us are just busy striving after this and striving after that, and we’ve just got to cease striving for a moment. Because if we want to develop a heart of worship, we’ve got to be still—got to be still and hear from God, know that He is God.
Another thought on this whole "develop a heart of worship" thing is the idea of confession. All right, we’ve got to confess. We’ve got to be honest with ourselves, and we’ve got to be honest with God, and we’ve got to come before Him and just begin to confess those things in our lives that are barriers to Him. So, if we really desire to develop a heart of worship, we’re not only going to stop and be still before God, we’re not only going to confess our sins, but we’re also going to meditate on God’s word. Like, we won’t just walk out of this service and not pick up God’s word again until we come back next week, right? But hour after hour, day after day, we’ll constantly be meditating on God’s word. We meditate on His commands, doing what it is that He’s asked us to do.
So, what we’re going to do—we’re going to begin to develop this heart of worship. Really, the real key to developing a heart of worship is to practice the presence of God. We have to practice the presence of God. Because no matter what we’re doing or what’s going on in our lives, we’re constantly talking to Him—"God, just bring people across my path today so that I can speak with them about what it is You would have me to speak with them about." So, we really want to develop a heart of worship—we’ve really got to begin to practice the presence of God if we want that in our lives. I think this is what King Solomon is talking about when he says not only do we need to fear God, but we need to keep His commandments. Here’s the point: God deserves our complete obedience. All right, God deserves our complete obedience.
So, we’re driving through life, and once you become a Christ follower, God gives you His Holy Spirit, and He talks to you. You remember the freshness of the beginning of that relationship—you’re like listening all the time. "God, where do You want me to go? Who do You want me to talk to? What is it that You would have me say to them?" And He says, "Go right," and you go right. And He says, "Take a left," and you take a left. But what happens is we start to look around at the scenery, don’t we? We take our eyes off of what’s going on around us, and we stop listening to what God has to say to us, and we start concentrating on all the things of this world and what it has to offer. Then we kind of wake up, and God’s saying, "Hey, you’ve been going the wrong way. Your destination is actually a relationship with Jesus Christ, where there is meaning, and there’s purpose, and there’s satisfaction." He says, "I’ll take you there—you just got to listen. You just got to obey. You got to do what it is that I’m asking you to do."
It’s at that point in time that we reach a decision—we reach a point of decision. What are you going to do? Are you going to change your direction, listen to the voice of God, and do exactly what it is that He’s asking you to do? Or are you going to keep driving through life, hearing Him maybe as some background noise, but not doing what He’s asking you to do? I believe that there are some of you that have taken God out of the driver’s seat, and you’ve thrown Him in the back. Well, you’ve actually opened up the trunk, and you’ve thrown Him in the trunk, and you’ve slammed the door, really, and now you’re absolutely lost.
Well, let me read something to you—it’s John 10 verse 27, and it says this: "My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me." I love this verse, and the part I love about this so much is that the shepherd wouldn’t, like, stand behind the sheep and kick them and whip them and drive them where they needed to go—that’s not what he would do. No, when a new sheep would come into the shepherd’s flock, he would start to create a personal relationship with them. He would spend time with them, he would give them a name, and he would talk to them, and he would give the sheep a chance to recognize his voice. Then he would teach them how to hear his voice and how to respond. What the shepherd’s job was after that was to begin to lead the sheep to a place of safety, to a place of food and satisfaction, and a place of rest.
So, some sheep, they would do that—they would follow the voice. But then there were other sheep that decided to do whatever they wanted to do, and they wouldn’t listen to the voice of the shepherd, and they would wander just wherever. Some of them, they would get lost and just wander, never to be found again. But those sheep that would listen to the voice of God, He led them. He led them to a place of meaning, He led them to a place of satisfaction and significance, He would lead them to a place of rest. So, my question for you right now is this: Do you recognize the voice of God in your life? Do you recognize that? And what is it that He’s saying to you? Because if you want to find satisfaction in your life, and you want to find meaning, and you want to find purpose, it is only going to be found by following after what God has for you.
King Solomon says, "Hey, listen, you’ve heard my story—that’s it, that’s all I’ve got to say." He said, "When life is done, when you’ve lived your 60, 70, 80, 90 years, and you’re in that coffin, and you go underground, and people walk by your grave and they remember you, the only thing that is going to matter in your life is if you obeyed God, you had given your heart and life over to Him, you obeyed Him, you worshiped Him, and you listened to His voice." It doesn’t matter how much stuff you have. It doesn’t matter how much money you have to pass down to your kids or grandkids. It doesn’t matter the vacations that you go on—absolutely none of that matters. King Solomon says none of it is going to bring satisfaction in your life. The only thing—and I mean the only thing—that is going to satisfy you is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, following after Him, obeying Him, worshiping Him, and listening to the voice of God. Would you pray with me today?
God, we thank You for the examples that You give us in Your word, and I just—I’m blown away every time I get into Your word and read it and see how practical it is and how much it can apply to my life. When You say that Your word is living and active, I can see how it shows up each and every time I dig into it. But God, we thank You for the example that You’ve given to us in King Solomon, because here’s a person who was considered to be the wisest person in all of the world—maybe even the richest person that’s ever lived. So, he had all the power, he had all the possessions, he had all of these desires fulfilled that we think is what the dream should be or would be. But after going on for 40 years pursuing all of these things outside of You, he ends up coming to the conclusion that none of that satisfies. But the only thing that satisfies is to fear You and to obey Your commandments.
This is what we’ve been called to do. This is what we were created for. And so, my question to you today is, are you doing what you were created for? Like, do you fear God, and do you follow His commandments? Because if not, you’re driving through life just lost as you can be, wandering around with no purpose, no meaning, and no satisfaction. So, God, in our pursuit of satisfaction, we’ve forgotten the one who can satisfy. Help us to remember what it is You’ve called us to do and how it is that You want us to live.
Maybe there’s somebody here today who has been searching for satisfaction in their life this whole time, and you still can’t find it, and today you would say, "You know what? I realize that I will never find satisfaction apart from God." And so, today, I want to give my life over to Him. I recognize that I’m a sinner, I am lost, I’ve fallen short of the standard that God has set forth. And today, I confess my sins. I believe that God, You sent Your son Jesus Christ to be the perfect sacrifice, to die on the cross, to be raised again on the third day so that I could be forgiven and to live in a life of freedom. And today, I want to follow after You. I believe in my heart that You are the one true God. I want to follow You.
If that’s you today—you’ve given your heart and life over to Jesus Christ—we believe that God changes lives in a significant way. So, start to pursue Him. Let us know about it—we want to walk with you through this journey. And if there are those of you who are here today who maybe you’ve been in church a while, but you know what? You’ve started driving down through life, and you’ve turned the car around—you’re driving away from the Lord, and you’re caught up looking at the scenery and dabbling in all of these things, taste-testing all of these things that really don’t matter in life—I’m here to tell you today that time is too short. Our life is just a mist, and today we’ve got to get back on the right path and pursue our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and go after Him with everything in us.
Because the only thing that truly matters, the only thing that we will ever find satisfaction in and purpose and meaning, is when we give our heart and life over to Christ, when we obey Him, we worship Him, and we follow what it is He’s called us to do. So, God, we thank You for the challenge. God, I pray with everything in me that we would have the satisfaction of this life that only You can give when we follow after You with our entire lives. God, we’re all in. We love You, we praise You. It’s in the name of Jesus we pray, and everybody said, "Amen."