Reflect and Respond

Hey church, I hope you and your family truly experienced the joy. peace and hope that only Jesus brings in the Christmas season. As we wrap up the year, Jill and I just want to say how grateful we are for you. We are so excited and looking forward with so much faith and expectation for all God is going to do in 2026. We cannot wait to step into the new year together as a church family. During our Christmas services, we shared our focus for the year ahead, and it's simple. We seek God first. Jesus tells us in Matthew 6.33 that when we seek first His kingdom, and his righteousness, everything else in our life finds its proper place.

And that's not just a verse to memorize, it's a promise we're stepping into together. That's why we're continuing to invite every person at Highlands to take the one-year challenge. For all of us to give God one year of our life, attend church, be a part of 21 Days of Prayer, be at our conferences, be in small groups, discover our purpose, and of course, serve others so we can make a difference. I truly believe that when we see God first, He will do more in all of our lives than we could ever imagine and that's going to be our journey in 2026. Now today I'm especially excited because you're going to hear from some of my favorite people on the planet, your campus pastors.

Of course you know them and you already love them. They carry the heart of this church. They shepherd our campuses and communities so well and faithfully serve the people of Highlands weekend and week out. I'm incredibly grateful for each of them the teams they lead and all that God is doing across Church of the Highlands. So as they preach God's Word today, lean in and open up your heart. It's going to be a powerful day. Now before we get into the message, let's take a moment to reflect on and celebrate the goodness of God and how powerfully He moved over this past year.

Hey guys, I'm Jillian and We're gonna start over. Do you kinda remind me of energy level that I should come up with? Hey, church! That's how Mart comes in. Woo! Here we go. Ready? Our first Easter show. Woo! And boom! Lights, camera. What's up? Wait, what's camera? This one? Yeah, that's right, that's right. What if your kids turn to God? Who fuck off? Here we go. All right. That's how it's going to be.

Oh my goodness, you sure my shirt's okay. You could not do what we're doing. With my beautiful last time out. With my woman. God has been doing some incredible things over the last couple of weeks and we hope to see you soon.

I really waited for this moment to re-enact my dad's bloopers, actually. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Many great things happening in the church. Great! You didn't say what you were going to say. What was I going to say? Before Mark comes and shares a diva, we wanted to share some stories with you about how massive summer... Why? Because he knew that if they could ever...

Spit on my... I was distracted by the spit on my face. And you spit on your own face. And you will never walk along. And we will never walk along. And you... Wow, guys! I think we just had a moment together! Okay. Oh, I won't be silent For the Lord is in this place Oh, I can't be quiet

Cause he's worthy of all praise. He has been good. These next 25 years are going to be about more people knowing God, finding freedom, discovering purpose, and making a difference. I'm going to say it one more time, knowing God, finding freedom, discovering purpose, and making a difference. Oh, praise the Lord of all creation.

Oh, place is named forevermore. Tell me everything till it happens Let everything with bread come praise the Lord Now it won't be silent For the Lord is in this room All we can be quiet Cause this power is breaking through Great isn't made I conquered the Great Above every

Kingdom is well-brained Now with everything God's people will proclaim Oh Praise the Lord of all creation

Oh, come on, can we give God praise? What an amazing year. Okay, that's pretty good. I think we can do a little bit better than that. What an incredible year it's been. Amazing. Welcome to church today, everybody. So glad that you're here. I hope you had a great Christmas. How many of you were at a Christmas service last week? Raise your hand. Did you guys enjoy it? Wasn't it special? Really, really awesome. And so I hope you had a great time with family and friends. I do want to take just a moment and welcome all of those that are joining us online right now on the other side of the camera. Hey, Grants Mill, it is just our campus, though.

There are no other campuses watching us. Every campus pastor is preaching today, but everybody is joining us online. You want to say hello to everybody on the other side of the camera. Wherever you're traveling, maybe watching around a computer or a phone or a TV screen right now. Thank you for being with us. If I haven't had the privilege to meet you, my name's Blake. I'm the campus pastor here, and I'm honored. I'm honored to have the opportunity to share God's word today. I want to take a moment and honor our lead pastor, Pastor Mark. Of course, a dear friend of mine, but I want to just say to our church and our campus how grateful I am for his leadership.

He has been leading the church in incredible way this last year, he and Jill. And so I know that they're not in the room right this second, but could we just honor our lead pastor? Aren't you thankful for the year of new beginnings? been so much fun. And then I also want to take a moment and just honor God. I think we have a special opportunity today because it is just us. We can kind of celebrate what God has done here at Grant's Mill this year. And I just thought it'd be cool for you guys to know. You guys hear every week when we ask people to raise their hands if they want to make a decision for Jesus.

To me, the greatest thing to celebrate is a change life. And you never get to hear necessarily an update though on how many just at our campus have made that decision this year. And so I've already had you clapping a good bit, but I really want this to be the loudest clap we have in us because you guys just through our Christmas services. So the year's not even done, not counting today. This year alone, right here at Grants Mill, 3,607 people have made a decision for Jesus. Their lives has been changed and transformed. Best decision of their lives.

And if you want, if you want me to help put that in perspective, that's if you fill this room up, and then you fill up our 1000-seat theater, and then you go over and almost fill up our 400-seat chapel. That's how much heaven has grown from this room, this campus, this year, which is remarkable. And so, I'm just grateful to God. We baptized 598 people who have made a public declaration of their faith. And so, super excited about that. Yeah, you want to clap one more time, okay? Okay. I just think it's important for you to know what's happening right here at our location. And it's easy to get lost in numbers. It's easy to hear over 3,300, 600 people and be like, oh man, that's a huge number.

But I think the individual stories are important because here's the deal. Every number is a person. Every person has a story and every story matters to God. You have a story that matters to God and you have a story that matters to you. And so to each one of those people, I wanted to share a couple of those. Just specific stories to bring that big number down. to two individuals. This one right here is Michael. Michael got baptized after the 1130 service. The team got to meet his mom and his dad, among other family members and close friends. His mom shared that she had been praying for his salvation for over 13 years as he had battled deep drug addiction.

He overdosed seven times that she knows of and totaled multiple cars. Four weeks ago, he had an encounter with Jesus and his life was totally transformed. His parents, friends, and family just wept in celebration as Michael took his next step to get water baptized. His mom is also on the greeter team, and she specifically stated that the prayer team knows Michael by name because she has put in so many prayer cards over the years, even submitting multiples at a time to ensure he was covered. Have me y'all know God is faithful? God answered her prayers and Michael's life will never be the same again. Michael is one of the stories. This is Ezra's story. I grew up in a Christian home at Church of the Highlands with parents who loved me and pointed me towards God.

I didn't reject him, I just wanted my own way. When I was very young, I was exposed to something I shouldn't have been, shame and guilt crushed me. But my mom showed me grace and led me to Jesus. Peace replaced fear. But as I grew older, I drifted, treating faith like a routine instead of a relationship. Though God was faithful, anxiety and fear took over. By the start of summer, I felt like I was drowning and I didn't know if I would survive it. I joined the 252 leadership program, choosing to face my fear with God. The first week I passed out from stress, I felt completely broken. During chapel, I prayed, asking who God was and who he said I was.

I thought I just want someone to run after me the way that God would. Moments later, a student sat beside me and said, God told him to pray for me. In that moment, I saw Jesus chasing his lost sheep. God became real to me, not a story, but a savior. That summer didn't end my life. It gave me one. My life is still hard, but I no longer walk alone. I walk with Jesus. And because God wrote my story, I know how it ends. Look at Ezra right here holding a microphone, sharing his faith in Jesus. Can we give God praise? I hope we never get tired of hearing stories. Individual stories, man just honoring God for what he has done.

And then again, because we are just us, just our campus here, and those that are joining online. I thought it would be super fun. I wanted to just honor our dream team, those that serve you week in and week out. I was reminded again during our Christmas services. Man, people coming and just pouring their life out for the mission. God has got us on a mission. We're going to talk more about that. But people are just giving themselves away so that we can all have these experiences and encounter God together. And there's no way to bring the entire dream team up here. But I thought it'd be cool for you guys to just meet one rock star dream teamer from our campus.

Well, you have me welcome to the stage, Mr. Kenny Beaver's everybody. Come on up here, my man.

Come right on over here. And Kenny, just in front of your campus family and church family, I want to say how much we love you, how grateful I am for you, man, the way that you serve, you're so consistent, you're so faithful. Your love for God is so pure. Your love for your family is so pure. He leads small groups, serves on our safety team here. You lead and serve in so many capacities are impacting more people than you know. But you're a beautiful example of what the entire dream team looks like. And I wanted you guys to put a face with a name. Kenny is amazing. I love you. I'm grateful for you on behalf of Pastor Mark, our entire team.

Thank you for being a part and living your life on mission. Well, y'all give it up for Kenny one more time, everybody.

Now the truth is, we could honor all the team, but these guys are great examples of it. And I just think it is so good for us to look back. See how God has moved. That's why we have the year in review video. It's why we do all these things. We talk about all the things that God has done. If you're taking notes, I want you to write this statement down. Remembering God's faithfulness in our past helps us receive God's promises in our future. And that's just something good to hang onto you. And I want to share a couple of verses that kind of backed that up. Hebrews 10, 23 says this. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess for he who promised, everybody say this last word out loud.

He who promised is. He's a faithful God. Psalm 77 verse 11 says this, I will remember the deeds of the Lord. Yes, I will remember your wonders of old. It is good for us to look back. Everybody, it's good for us to look back, but it is important for us to live forward. Good for us to look back, but it is important for us to live forward. The title of today's message is reflect and respond. Will you pray with me, everybody? Lord Jesus, we love you. We are so grateful. We're grateful for what you've done and how you've moved and all the things we've celebrated already so far. God as we reflect today our hearts are filled with faith, but also they're filled with faith to be able to respond to what you're speaking to us right now.

As we step out of one year and into a new one, we are so grateful for what you're already doing and what you're going to continue to do. Our hearts are open, speak to us and have your way today. Will you say that to them? Lord speak to me, have your way in my life today. In Jesus' name we pray and everybody said, Everybody said, hey man, all right. Hey, who loves to travel? Raise your hand. Just love a trip. Love a good trip. Hey, I love a good trip. One of my favorite ways to travel though is I love traveling. with a carry on. Y'all know what I'm saying? Love traveling with a carry on.

And now I'll just give you a little dynamics of our family. My wife, Lindsay, and I have four kids. We have three girls and a boy, okay? Me and Liam, me and my son, we like to travel with a carry on, all right? That means there are four ladies in our house if there are two men with the numbers I just gave you. We like to travel with a carry on. Our ladies, a little bit different. This is how our ladies like to travel. Their packing flow is a little bit different than ours. So I want to survey the room real quick. How many of you would say you're a light packer? Wave at me.

Light packer, bring me a carry on any day. All right, how many y'all would say I'm a heavy packer? Wave, come away boldly. Just be bold. Be bold with it. You pay all those baggage fees. Yeah, okay. Here's what I've discovered in one of the reasons I think I like a carry on so much. It's because when we travel in a carry on, the only thing that makes it inside this bag are the essentials. When we check a bag,

When we check bags, you can take things that you might not even need. You can take things that you might not even use. One of the things that drives me crazy when I go on a trip is to have had things in my bag that I didn't even use on the trip, because I went through all the hassle, all the lugging and around, all the things that I never even used it, right? All the way, all the things that I never even used it. My girls are like, we wanna have options. I'm like, well, do the options not work in Birmingham before we go? Like, can't we just decide out of our options before we head out?

But I don't love taking checked bags because you know why? We take things that we might not need. And what I was thinking about with this today was this. We're getting ready to go on a trip. We are going on a trip out of one year and into a new year. And what I want to challenge us with today is I want to talk about the essentials. What are the things that we need to leave behind and what are the things that are essential to go with us? Because there are some things that are essential. If we're going to step into a year of seeking God first like Pastor Mark talked about, it's really important that we only take the essentials.

Because listen to me, the devil, your enemy, would love nothing more than to weigh you down with things you don't need. So as we step into a brand new year and we go on this journey together, we're gonna study a short text. I want you to turn with me to Second Corinthians chapter five. If you have your Bible, it'll be on the screen if not, but if you wanna read along, you can turn there in your Bible. Second Corinthians five. And we're just gonna break this down, verse by verse, and I will say this, I love the language of this verse, but today's message is going to be very simple. I'm not going to say anything that is going to be super profound probably.

I'm not going to blow your mind with any deep, deep, necessarily deep teaching, but what I am going to give you is something that I believe is a powerful way to close out one year and step into the next with practical tools that we can use. Because I'm telling you, God, look at me. God has a plan for your life for 2026.

But so does the enemy. And today we get to choose. Whose plan are we gonna hang on to? Look at 2 Corinthians chapter 5, it says this. It says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone. The new is here. And then look at this next phrase. All this is from God. I want to stop right there for just a second. And I want to say this. These verses are reminding us that the old being gone and something new coming is from God. I think sometimes we step into new years with the mindset of, I've got to do a lot of things to make this new year better.

I'm going to submit to you today, we've just got to do some God things and then God will make the year better for us. Okay, so let's keep reading all of this is from God who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against Him. Can I hear a good amen? and he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf be reconciled to God, beautiful, beautiful verses. But if we're really honest, wouldn't we just ask the question, what does that actually mean for me?

The old has gone, the new has come, we hear that, but is the old really gone? Is the new really here? Like, is this verse really true in our heart? We know that God's word is true, but is it really true in our heart in our life? Is the old really gone? Is the new really here? Because I think sometimes I'm guilty of this. Sometimes we step into a brand new year, carrying some things that God never intended for us to carry over into the new year. Instead of just packing the essentials, we check some bags and the enemy weighs us down, and there's just some stuff we were never intended to carry over. And I was thinking about this in my own life, and maybe you'll relate to this, but I want to share a few of the things that I came up with that I've struggled with in the past, maybe even this year, some.

And one of the first things, and these kind of actually build on each other, one of the first things is sometimes it's easy to carry disappointment over into the next year. Like men, there were things where maybe you're just your expectations in life weren't met. Like you expected one thing you got something else. Maybe there was a timeline you had in your mind. You just thought you knew that God was gonna show up. That timeline came and went and nothing had changed. I've got a friend walking through a financial need right now. It's kind of pushing into the new year. Didn't work out on his timeline and we're walking through just some disappointment. If we're all honest, I think we've all kind of been there.

Maybe somebody let you down. Maybe it's a person this year. It's like, man, they let you down and you're kind of in this disappointed place. If you compare yourself to others, God, why them and not me? Disappointment sets in. What about this? What about an area of pain in our life that hasn't been redeemed yet? Like that thing, it still hurts, and it feels like, again, that timeline is not working, like we wanted to, and we just find ourselves disappointed. What happens is that disappointment can then turn to discouragement. Unless you've ever been there, been discouraged before, and this is where men, our confidence kind of gets shaken a little bit. Maybe this year your job changed unexpectedly.

Hit you out of nowhere. You weren't looking for that. You were expecting that. It was just kind of, oh my goodness. Maybe there was a relationship in your life that you thought was gonna be the one. And this was the year that it ended and it just doesn't make sense. It didn't work out.

What about this? What about repeated struggles with the same sin over and over and you're kind of at the end of another year and you're like, man, I'm so discouraged because I thought this was gonna be the year. What happens when we get so disappointed that it turns to discouragement? We get so discouraged that then if we're not careful, it'll turn to disengagement. This is where we kind of pull away and we isolate. We get ourselves, honestly, we're just, we're worn out. We feel like we've been spinning our wheels so much and we've been doing so much on our own and we've got to isolate from other people and we find ourselves in a place.

You might be in a room of thousands right now. But if you're honest, you'd be like, man, but I really feel alone. You almost feel numb to life. because you're so disengaged from what God has for you. In fact, I went to the UPS store the day after Christmas.

Terrible idea, by the way. So I'm standing in a very long line. And as I'm in there, I hear this lady say, Christmas just went by so quick. Now it's just back to regularly scheduled programming, I guess. And I thought in that moment, but does it have to be? Do we have to just pick right back up where things were, or is there more that God has for us that we could be looking forward to? The fact is, before we step forward, we have to seal up this past year. Not by pretending that it didn't happen and those things, I'm not making light of what you've walked through in the pain and the struggles. It is very real.

We feel those things too. It's all very, very real, not minimizing it. What I am saying is, if we will just get honest with God today about it and let God into those parts of our life and allow him to see the parts that feel that way, he's gonna do what only God can do. And that's the miracle working God I was talking about earlier. He's gonna meet you where you are and he's gonna bring strength and encouragement and joy and hope and life again to those areas where maybe you kind of sealed it off.

There's a reason why the rearview mirror in our car is so small. And the windshield is so big. Because it's good to look back. But if you try to drive in your rear view mirror, you are going to wreck really, really fast. God is saying, I just want you to, it's good to look back, but it's important that we live forward. The windshield of our life is so much bigger than the rear view mirror of our life. The good news is this text that we read gives us both the what of God's promises, but also how it becomes true in us because if God is going to declare about our life that the old is gone and something new has come, we've got to understand how

It actually happens and what makes it possible for us to leave the things behind that need to stay behind and take the right things with us to only pack the essentials. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to take second Corinthians 5. There's three key truths in that passage that are going to shape how we step into all that God has for us. Let me do another quick survey. How many of you would say you want all that God has for you in 2026? Raise your hand. Anybody? Come on, I want everything God has for me in the new year. I'm going to give you three simple truths that if we will embrace these as we reflect on 2025 and as we respond in 2026, God's going to move in a great way.

So let's go verse by verse. You can look at the first one on the screen. Second Corinthians 5 verse 18 and 19 says this. All this is from God who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ. The first thing so simple but it's so powerful that we have to do is we have to remember what God has done. How long has it been since we gave real mental energy to the fact that God removed the distance that was created by sin and brought us close to Him through Jesus? That our life has been saved, redeemed, and changed. And hey, just a reminder everybody, we're not the ones that repaired the relationship with God.

He did. How long has it been since we thought about that? Even in our Christmas services, you heard Jill say, the longing of God's heart, his greatest desire is to be near to us. That's why Ephesians chapter two says this, Ephesians chapter two 13, but now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. You are not alone. God wants to be close. And all we have to do to respond is just allow him to get close to us and we'll get close to him. We have an incredible opportunity coming up, a time that is focused literally on getting close to Jesus. And that is next Sunday, we start 21 days of prayer and fasting.

And it is going to be an amazing season. They're going to put up the details January 4th through the 24th. We meet on Monday through Friday at 6 a.m. At all of our locations, we have live prayer services, Saturdays at 9, and then of course on Sunday, we have church. But I want you to really lean in. I've been at Highlands for about 20 years now. And if I hear stories about one thing more than anything else, it's how God moved in people's lives and got so close during 21 days of prayer. So if that's something that you're looking for, make sure you really engage with it. I'm gonna give you an action step for each one of these points.

Here's the action for this one it is. Every single day, can we just begin the day with a prayer of thanksgiving? Start off with a grateful heart. Find something every day to thank God for, live with humility and gratitude towards your relationship with God. and never forget the moment you got saved. Never forget the moment that God pulled your life up out of the muck and the mire. I remember where I was before Jesus. And I know I might not be where I want to be, but I thank God I'm not where I was, that He's brought me to where we are now. And if you believe that, why don't you clap your hands if you're thankful for what God has done.

Thank you, Jesus. Man, he's brought us so far. We can't ever forget. We have to remember what God has done. The second part is in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 19. Look at this. It says he doesn't count our sins against us. This point is getting ready to set some people free. I felt the spirit of God say before they put it up there, when you see this point, hit the screen. Some of you are going to find freedom that you haven't had ever in your life. The second thing we have to do, this is an essential that we're packing into our carry on of life going into 2026, we have got to release what God has forgiven.

We have to release what God has forgiven. God isn't counting our sins against us, so why are you? God wants us to live our life from a place of victory. Not from a place of feeling like a fight for victory all the time, but from a place of confident victory because he doesn't count our sins against us. If you give your sin to him and you ask him to forgive you, it is done. In fact, Psalm 103, look at what it says. He has removed our sin as far as the east is from the west, and he doesn't even remember it anymore. Romans chapter 12 says this, be transformed by the renewing of our mind.

We gotta remember, there are things that God has forgiven in our life that we also need to forgive ourselves for. The enemy would love nothing more than to pull you into 2026, still burdened by some of that baggage of life. But I'm telling you, the more you involve yourself in consistent community, people of God, the life of God, church, all the things, God will remind you over and over and over again of how forgiving you are, how redeemed you are, and how much He loves you. Here's the action step for this one. Decide right now. Not next week. Don't wait on a resolution. Don't wait on the first. Decide right now. 2026, I'm gonna go all in.

I'm going to live my life for Jesus. If I can help it, I'm not going to miss a Sunday next year. Hey, especially in January, we're starting a brand new series on Seeking God First. Don't miss a Sunday in January in the middle of 21 days of prayer. It is going to be powerful. First Wednesday's next year, all about spiritual formation. In fact, this coming first Wednesday, Pastor Chris is gonna be bringing the word. And we're gonna teach you how to become more like Christ over the course of this year. It's gonna be powerful. We're launching small groups in the first part of the year as well. Make sure you get in a small group and allow your life to be discipled by others.

We gotta get our lives around others so that God can do what God wants to do in us. So making a decision right now, going all in in 2026, It's not going to look like maybe 2025 did. And the only way we can do this point, forgive ourselves the way he has is we got to have his perspective. When I was thinking about the perspective, it's easy for me to see myself one way, maybe not the way God sees me. I don't know if you ever find yourself in that place, but I want to see myself the way God sees me. There's always more than one way to look at a thing. So several years back we got to go to Washington and we actually were there on one day we went and did a trip and we came back and on day one and day eight,

There was no rain which they said was a miracle in and of itself but we got to see Mount Reneer and the first picture I wanna show you this is Mount Reneer, majestic, beautiful. I don't climb mountains but even if I did that one looks impossible. You know what I'm saying? Like massive. But then as we were leaving and flying out I saw Mount Reneer again show him the other picture and it looks so much more manageable. And I was reminded a lot of times I see my life and my sin and my struggle and my things like the first picture. So impossible, so hard, so difficult. But when God looks at it, He looks at it completely different.

And for Him, it is a little Mohill. And so we have to have the right perspective. We have to see it the way that God sees it because if we do, we won't have to be afraid of the future. And we can step in with confidence when we release what God has forgiven. Let's look at this verse, second Corinthians 520, to get us to our third point. And that is we are therefore Christ ambassadors as though God were making his appeal through us. The third part, don't put it up there yet, guys. The third point is this is important to understand. You aren't just loved and saved and redeemed and called just so you can be.

All of those things that God has done in our life, when we remember what God has done and we release what God has forgiven, the reason we get to do all of that is because now we respond to God's mission. Our life is a mission. God has put us on mission. Kenny, that's why I brought Kenny up here. Kenny is living his life on mission, much like many of you are as a part of the team, giving your life away for other people. We are changed by God to help others be changed by God. And we can never forget that. Church was never meant to be a fun little place that we go once a week and enjoy ourselves, get our holy goosebumps and then go back to regularly schedule programming.

Church was meant to be a place where we gather together with the body of Christ, our lives are transformed and that in us and through us God then sends us back out into our world and we begin to live our life with the mission in the middle. That's what we're called to. That's why Ephesians 2.10 says this. We are God's handiwork. We're created in Christ Jesus to do good works. It was prepared in advance for us to do in fact. We have a mission that God wants us to live in. I love the language of that verse that we are called ambassadors. You know what an ambassador does? An ambassador doesn't come and speak for themselves.

An ambassador carries authority. They represent their home culture and listen to this. They deliver the message of the one who sent them. So that's what we are, man. Our life has been transformed and changed, and we are now called to go out and let the one who sent us pour through our life. What Paul is saying here is this, wherever you go in 2026, Christ goes. Whoever you meet in 2026, Christ meets. Whatever you say in 2026, Christ speaks through you. You were made on purpose for a purpose. God didn't just save us from something. I'm grateful that he did. He saved us for something. And that is to make a difference. We cannot do it alone.

We have to have other people brought into our life so that we can. Here's our action step for this point. And that is, we're just going to say yes to God's mission. Say yes to God's mission. Make a decision on December 28th, 2025. Jesus, the answer is yes to the mission. I'm not gonna live this year just for me. I'm gonna live this year for others. Say, where do I even begin? The growth track is a great place to start. We have an experience here at Highlands. It's gonna start again January the 4th. 6 p.m. is step one of our growth track experience. This is meant to be a catalyst to start you on a pathway of growth and formation in your life that never stops where we're continuing to be the people and become the people that God has called us to become.

In fact, God's purpose is not just what you do. Many people are looking, what is God's purpose? What should I do? It's not just what you do, it's who you're becoming. It's all a part of the process and the growth track experience is a great catalyst into that for 2026.

Let this year be the year of spiritual formation in our lives. Where Christ is being formed in us, we're becoming more like Him, but then also Christ is being moved through us into the lives of others. I love what D.L. Moody says. He says, let God have your life. He can do more with it than you can. Can I get an amen, everybody? Is there anybody that's ever tried to do life on your own? We all have. God can do so much more with our lives. Hey, hey, look at me. It's good to look back.

It's important we live forward. Last thing I want you to write down, then we're gonna pray. When we remember what God has done and we release what God has forgiven. we can then confidently respond to God's mission. And that's the challenge.

Let's only take the essentials into 2026. And if we do, it can be the best year of our life, if it's the best year of our life, spiritually. Will you pray with me, will you bow your heads right there where you are? I love how those verses end, and it says in the second Corinthians 520, we implore you There's an earnest and a desperation to that word implore. We implore you to be reconciled to God. I don't know where you are today and what you're facing in your life, but as I was teaching those three points, I think some of you may be identified with those. So I'm gonna pray to prayers. I wanna pray the first one is for those of you who say, you know what?

I need to remember what God has done, or maybe you need to release what God has forgiven, or maybe you know you need to respond to that. I'm gonna pray through those three things. And then the second prayer I'm gonna pray, if you've never stepped into a real relationship with Jesus, today is gonna be your opportunity to do just that. And you're gonna be able to start the year in the right way, and I'm telling you, it will be the best year of your life when you give him your life. First prayer, if you say, Blake, one of those are all of those areas stuck out to me. I need to

Respond, remember, release any of those three things. I want you just to open your hands before the Lord. No one's looking to surprise at moment. I want to pray for you. Yeah, thank you. Lord, I pray for every person who right now is acknowledging that they need to take a step today. Only bring the essentials over into the new year. But for the ones that need to remember, I pray that you're giving them a fresh picture right now in their mind and their heart of what you've done for them, your unconditional love, the way you care for them. But I pray that they sense it. I pray that they feel it. Physically, we'll feel it right now.

Your love for them. And they would remember it in a fresh way. God, I pray for those right now who need to release something that you've already forgiven. Come on, let it go. I sense right now the Holy Spirit just taking the weight off of you, or the weight of that sin, just being gone. Maybe it's been there a decade, maybe longer, but right now in this moment, the weight of it is being gone. They're releasing it, Lord God, because you have forgiven and cleansed. Lord, for the one who's challenged today to respond to the mission, they know they've been living the life for themselves and not necessarily for you. I pray, God, that you give them a boldness to live on mission

Stepping into a brand new year. A bless them in Jesus' name. If you're in the room right now, you're watching online. You've never given your life to Jesus. You've never received his forgiveness. You don't have a real relationship. You don't understand everything that we talked about today, but you know you want that. You know you want to know God like that through Jesus. Heads or bowed eyes or clothes, I'm gonna pray a simple prayer. And if you wanna be included in that prayer so that you can start your new year the right way with the essentials. On the count of three, I want you just to lift your hand, nobody's looking around, but then I'm gonna lead you in a simple prayer.

If that's you, you wanna go all in with Jesus today, you wanna start the year off right. One, two, three, just slip your hand up, put it right back down. Yeah, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, God bless you, God bless you, thank you, thank you. Yeah. Anybody else just hand up right back down. Blake, count me in that prayer. Yeah. Thank you. Awesome. I'm proud of you. All right, real simple right there where you are. You can whisper. You can say it out loud or just say it in your heart. Just say, Jesus, today I need you in my life.

I want a real relationship with you. Right now, I ask you to forgive me of my sin. make me brand new, wash me clean. I believe that you have called me on purpose for a purpose, and I want to live it out. Jesus, I believe that you came and lived a perfect life. You died on the cross to pay for my sin. You were buried, but three days later, you rose again, and now you live inside of me.

From this moment forward, I'm never gonna be the same. Right now, Jesus, I commit to you for you to be my Lord and my Savior. To change me, to transform me from this moment forward, I'm never gonna look back. Thank you for saving me today in Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. And amen. You guys wanna clap your hands and celebrate every person. There were hands all over the room. People making the best decision of their life. Adding to that number we mentioned earlier.