A (0:01)

Hey, Highlands family first, I want to say that Jill and I love you with all of our hearts, and it is such an honor to be part of all that God is doing through our church. Today I'm in Daphne, Alabama, and it's a really special day as we are worshiping together and dedicating the land for our new Daphne campus. This land will soon be the home of our permanent location here on the Eastern Shore, a place where people will experience God's presence, find community, and discover purpose for generations to come. The past nine weeks of the Goodness of God series has been such a powerful season for our church. God is moving in every location. Lives are being changed, and we're experiencing his grace, his mercy, and his goodness in a fresh way. And starting next week at the Movies is back. It's one of the best opportunities all year to invite someone to who may be far from God to join you on a Sunday. And believe it or not, There are only 52 days left in 2025, and this next stretch of the year is going to be jam packed with opportunities for us as a church to make a difference. Here at Highlands, we call it legacy season. You know, legacy isn't just about what we build next. It's about carrying forward a heritage of generosity and faith, the very same values that have defined our church from the beginning. It's a season where we ask God to use us to make an eternal difference in the lives of others. As I've been praying about leading us into this season as a church, I have been so challenged and inspired by the words of Jesus in Matthew 25, when he says, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me. That is what legacy is all about. Serving legacy and giving in a way that honors God and impacts people for eternity. Everything we do in this season is all for Jesus today. To help us kick off legacy season, I have asked our founding pastor, PC to share a message on God's heart for generosity. So let's lean in, take notes, and allow the Holy Spirit to speak to us today in a fresh way. Church at every location. Please stand to your feet and help me honor and welcome our founding pastor, P.C.

B (2:16)

Come on, give. Come on. Give Jesus all the praise, everybody. Oh, that's not good enough. Come on, give him what he deserves. Everybody, everybody. Whoo. You may be seated, everyone. God bless you guys. Thank you so much for that. So kind. It's good to be home. How's everybody doing? I know I'm doing so well. Let me Take a moment, look straight into the camera and say hello to all of our campuses. We are one church that meets in 26 locations across the great state of Alabama and into Georgia. And of course, we are bringing this message. And then all we are as a church into all 28 of Alabama's Department of Corrections facilities. And yes, and you want to clap right there, go ahead. I'll let you go ahead. That's fine. And then of course, we're streaming this live and others can watch it later on demand. And we're so glad that you guys are along for the ride. And I'm so delighted that Pastor Mark asked me to share today. And I wanna kick it off by letting you know what's happening in the upcoming seasons. I always like to do this when I speak and just tell you where we're headed as a church. And of course, you've already heard this in the Highlands News that we're doing a series over the next three Sundays called At the Movies. And if that's new to you, what this is all about is we're just simply doing what Jesus did. And that is that he, in order to communicate the gospel, he took modern day stories. So in his case, it was stories about sheep and goats and, and farming and fig trees and things like that. And he used those metaphors to teach spiritual truth. And they were called parables. So they were made up stories to help people understand some things that were sometimes spiritually difficult for them to understand. So we do the same thing. We take modern day parables. They're movies that have redemption built into the story. And Pastor Mark will preach between the clips. And it's one of the best ways for you to actually let a friend that may be far from God or doesn't understand spiritual things to hear the gospel in a way they do understand. So don't miss the opportunity. Because most of the Sundays we're diving into the scriptures. We just came out of a great series where we're studying God's word very, very deeply. But every once in a while, we throw in some Sundays that are all for people that are far from God. So make sure that you have in one of these three installments somebody who is far from God next to you. And trust me, it's one of the greatest experiences of your life to have them sitting there. Cause you're gonna be nervous and, and you're gonna hope they hear it. And then when they respond and tears are coming down their face, you're gonna say it was one of the greatest services you've ever been in because you played a role in somebody finding Jesus. Can I hear a good amen, everybody? All right. Okay. One more thought about this, and that is. It is in person only. So we're not streaming this online. Sorry. Online congregation. Because of copyright laws, we aren't able to stream those online. So you'll still get a service and a message, but if you wanna see it, you need to show up in person. Next, we head into Christmas at Highlands. I know. And if you know anything about this, I think we put on something that is just so God honoring, so spiritual, so meaningful, of course, with great music, orchestras, the whole deal. And we just want you to plan on showing up. We're gonna do a boatload of services that'll begin on December 20th, all the way into Christmas Eve. And then one of the questions that we get on this is, when can we get our priority seating reservations? If this matters to you and you know who you are. Okay, that is on Friday, December 5th. So write that date down. That's when it goes live on our app. So you wanna make sure you have the app. And then, as Pastor Mark says, we're in this season called Legacy, and it'll culminate on this Sunday, December 14th, where we only have one offering like this a year where we all give above our normal giving. And this is an offering that we're gonna give away to make a difference, to help accelerate the vision of our house, but also do some pretty cool things in our communities and around the world that we would want you to be a part of. Right. And so to do that, I wanna bring a message based off of the season that Pastor Mark has us in. And I wanna start off by teaching you something that I've taught before. So if you've been here at least four years or more, you may have already heard at least the first part of this message. The rest of it's brand new. I've never taught it, but I'm gonna share with you today. But I wanna start it off by telling you that part of our job as a church and as pastors and is to prepare you not just for life on earth, which a lot of it is, right? We talk about how to have happy marriages and contentment and better attitudes and all of that. But part of our job is to get you ready for eternity. Like, you're gonna have this moment where you're gonna stand before God. And if you don't even believe that's gonna happen, that doesn't change the fact that you're gonna Stand before God. It's gonna happen, right? You're gonna have this moment where. There he is, right? It's the judgment seat of God. You're gonna. And I want to prepare you for that test. And the best way to be prepared for a test is to know what's on the test. You know, Y' all do know that I was a student at lsu. God help us. Yeah. Thank you. Stop. That's not even nice. All right, so, by the way, I had this beautiful purple jacket I was going to wear, but it didn't turn out anyway. And the only crimson I own is in that little stripe right there. Everybody. In fact, that's all you get. That's all you get. So I don't want to hear it. I just don't want to hear it. But I was a student at lsu, and I always thought I was so prepared for every test. I mean, literally, I thought, man, I'm going to ace this. I got this. D. You know what happened every time? Like, what the world. And especially multiple choice. I mean, because they were so. They all look good. Come on, people. Where y' all at? Right? I mean, A, you looking fine. B, woo. You look good, too. You know, it's like, they all look good to me. And so I just. I don't know. I don't know. I always thought I was doing well. Somebody told me that professors put their old tests on files so that you can study how they test. And in some cases, they would even use some of the same questions in previous tests on these current tests. And once I heard that, so I bought all the tests of every professor I had, every class I had, and I not only studied the material, but I studied for the test because I knew what was gonna be on the test, y'. All. I finished up that last semester and a half with a 4.0, everybody. Problem was, I already had a 1.2, so it only brought it up a little bit. But any. All right, well, you're gonna be tested. In fact, it says it in Romans 14. For we all. It's gonna happen to every single one of us are gonna stand before God's judgment seat. And the Bible says, it is written as surely as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow before me. Now, that means that every person, whether they were Christians or not, believed in God or not. It's gonna be an awesome scene. Cause, I mean, even the people who may believe in another God or believe anything at all, they're gonna go, oh, my goodness, he really is God. In fact, it goes on and says this, every tongue will acknowledge him as God. And by the way, you wanna be on the right side of that equation when it happens. So then each of us will give an account of ourselves for God. So I wanna help you with what's on the test. And what people don't realize is not just one moment, there's actually two. And the first question that you're gonna hear, and it's gonna happen individually, you're gonna get your personal day in court. And I don't know exactly how it's gonna happen, but the content is undeniable. There'll be something like, I need Chris Hodges, please. And I get up, and then I'm there. Hey. Ooh, there you are, Right? And a question's gonna be something along the lines of, what did you do with my son, Jesus? I sent him to earth to pay for your sins. What did you do with that? Well, how did you respond to that offer for your sins to be paid for through him? And this judgment's called the Great White Throne Judgment. It's the everybody judgment from Adam to when it all ends. In fact, I'll show it to you. In Revelation 20, John says, I saw a great white throne, and him, Jesus, who was seated on it, and the earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no more place for them. That's a fancy Bible way to say time ended. Now we're outside of time. We're all in eternity. And I saw the dead, great and small. So that means everybody who would have ever lived standing before the throne. And then notice the language and books, notice it's plural, were opened. And then another, a book, notice that it's singular, was opened, which is the book of life, which means there's gonna be a pile of books, and then a single book when you get there. And then the judge, Jesus, is gonna basically ask you which one you want, the books or you want the book? Now, you would need to know that the book is called the Lamb's Book of Life, and in that book are only names. So the moment you pray to receive Jesus as your Lord, your name gets recorded in that book. No deeds, because you cannot get to heaven based on your deeds. We are saved by grace, through faith, belief in him, not by works. Lest any person should boast. It's all about Jesus. Right? So just names, but over here are all the deeds. Yeah. Everything you ever did, good or bad, everything you thought, all your motives. Everybody say, uh, oh, yeah, it's all in there. It's all in there. Things only you know are. All of it's in there. And the Bible says that the people who don't go to heaven were judged according to what they had done in the books. Not the book. Now this is a no brainer. You don't want to be judged in the books. You want the book. Okay, so the question then begs, how do you get you. How do you make sure when you're there you really get judged out of this, not that. And this is important because there are some. There's gonna be some wrong answers. According to Jesus, there's gonna be some wrong answers. In fact, I'll show it to you. In Matthew 7, he says, not everyone who says to me, lord, Lord is gonna enter the kingdom of heaven. So there's gonna be some people say, hey, I called you Lord. And he goin, that's a good thing. But that's not what I was looking for. He says, in fact, only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. And then he names some spiritual acting things. So he mentions prophecy, driving out devils and doing miracles. And so you could add anything to that list like, I read my Bible, I sang the songs, I attended Church of the Highlands, all good things to do, not what he's looking for. You can do all these Christian deeds, but he wasn't looking for deeds. He says, I will tell them plainly away from me, because I never knew you. I wasn't looking for your religion, I was looking for relationship. And I taught an entire message on that verse at Easter this year, if you wanna go back and watch it. But that's not what today's all about. But I would like for you to know if you wanna pass the test. And this is my job, our job is to help you pass this test. The right answer needs to be something along the lines of, I was in relationship with God, I'd committed my life to Jesus. It wasn't perfect, but it was committed. I was surrendered to his lordship and I loved him with all my heart. And if you answer that question correctly, he invites you into heaven, that is Heaven. You have passed. Now, if you don't get the test right, you never hear the second question. The second question is just for those who pass the first test. And the question's gonna be something along the lines of, what did you do now with what I gave you while you were on Earth? And what he's looking for here is how did you leverage your life to help other people pass that first test? What did you do with your life? Because once you find Your whole life's about finding Jesus. But then once you find Jesus, your whole life's about getting more people into heaven. Cause our life on earth is so short, right? And this judgment is called the judgment seat of Christ. It's a different judgment. And by the way, check it out. It is a works judgment, which will help you read your Bible a bit better. Because there are works in the Bible and then there's verses that say, you know, it's not by works. Which one is it? It's both. But you get into heaven only by what Jesus did on the cross. Only Jesus on the cross. That's how you get into heaven, your relationship to him. But there is a works judgment. And judgment's probably the wrong word because it's not like gavel judge, like guilty. You know, it's more like Olympic competition judge. So it's more like an award ceremony. And so even if you didn't run the fastest and somebody else got the gold medal, you're still going there. Oh, they were fast. That's good, good. Good for you. You know, like, everybody's gonna be happy at this one. All right? And it's described in 2 Corinthians 5 when it says, we're all Christians are gonna appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done. So that's how we know this is not the heaven and hell judgment. Because you can't get there by what you did, but there's still gonna be a conversation about your deeds, whether in the body, whether good or bad. So in other words, there's gonna be. You're gonna be rewarded or awarded for how you lived your life on earth, and what did you do to leverage what you have to get more people into heaven? And Jesus is very focused on this with his church. So it matters to him a lot. In fact, he's very excited about this award ceremony, that there's gonna be this moment. In fact, I'll show you. And by it's all throughout the Gospels, he talked about this more than anybody else in the entire Bible. This is just one place where he says, the son of man, speaking of himself, is gonna come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward. This is the word apodidomi in the Greek. It's gonna blow your mind. The word literally means he wants to pay you back. And I think it's gonna be one of the most embarrassing parts of eternity. He's gonna be like, here, I've got something for you. And to which we're all gonna go. You don't owe me anything. Like the cross was enough. Can I hear a better amen out there? I mean, you don't owe me anything. My goodness. Jesus. No. To which he's gonna say, too bad. This is my show. I'm doing what I want to. I'm God, okay? And I'm gonna reward you. I've got a reward for you. I wanna pay you back for how you lived your life. In fact, he's so excited about this that the last verse of the Bible says this, and behold, I am coming quickly. And I'm so excited to reward you. I'm bringing them with me. Like, I wanna do this for you. And I wanna make sure you're ready for that one as well. It's like, I wanna make sure you're gonna pass that one. And the answer needs to be something along the lines like this. And that is, I took what you gave me. And I'm not talking about your money, by the way. Money's on the list. But I'm not talking about your money. I'm talking about whatever you have. If you have ideas, if you have joy, if you have a good marriage, whatever you have. You were supposed to take what you have and help other people. And to do it for eternal purposes, to make an eternal difference. Like, I literally. I think I have more joy than I need for myself. And I'm supposed to bring that around to people I'm supposed to like. You want to. In fact, you want a little joy. How many would y'? All would you like to hear a Bujo joke? Yes or no? Everybody? Would you? Okay. Haven't done this in a long time. Speaking of tests. So as the story goes, Bujo and Thibodeau were both trying to get the same job, but there was only one place, one position available. So they both took the exact same test trying to get this one job. And so after they took the test, the examiner scored the test, and they came out and said, hey, Boudreaux, Thibodeau, you both got the exact number of questions right and the exact number of questions wrong. So we're gonna give the job to Thibodeau. And Boudreaux said, well, man, that don't seem so fair. He said, but, Boudreaux, on question number 17, Thibodeau put, I don't know. And on question number 17, you put, me neither. That's funny. I don't care what y' all say. That's hilarious, right? We're supposed to take what we have, joy, whatever you have, your resources, whatever you have, and leverage it for eternal purposes. So recently I was in Oklahoma City with our dear friend David Green, the founder of Hobby Lobby. And by his request, he wanted me to come and share with the family what we were doing with Highlands College. They've already been incredibly generous to our school, and they want to hear all about it. And I'm happy to report they have committed to another gift. Can we just thank God for that? Precious, precious family. And the man gets it. I mean, the man gets it. He just, you know, they give, you know, half of their gross profits to ministries. They give literally billions of dollars to further the gospel every year. It's just amazing. And so all over, all he talks about is eternity and making a difference and leveraging things. Like he said, chris, God anointed me just as much as he anointed you to be a merchant to make money, but not so that I would have it, so that I could put it into the kingdom where he just gets it. And then over during my tour, he had this one place where he had a beautiful doorway. And over the top, it had this poem. Only one life twill soon be passed Only what's done for Christ will last. He said, chris, that is my life verse. That is my life thought that I'm trying to live my life, trying to take this short life and do as much as I can for it, for the cause of Christ. And so I took a picture of it and I thought I'd share it with you today. But then I went and looked it up because I didn't know who said it. And when I looked it up, there's more to it. I won't read it all. You can go look it up yourself. But it goes like this. Two little lines are heard. One day, traveling along life's busy way Bringing conviction to my heart and from my mind would not depart Only one life will soon be passed Only what's done for Christ will last Only one life yes, only one. Soon will its fleeting hours be done Please never forget that. I don't care how old or young you are. We are all a mistake, a vapor. This life is just a blip on the screen compared to eternity Then in that day, and this is the day I've been describing my Lord, to meet and stand before his judgment seat Only one life twill soon be passed Only what's done for life for Christ will last. And then in the last stanza, he adds this thought, and when I'm dying How happy I'll be if the lamp of my life has been burned out for thee this is. And so how do I start our legacy season, reminding us to live with this eternal perspective, to take our lives, whatever we have, and leverage it for kingdom purposes. But I want to do something today that I've never done, really, at the encouragement of our pastor, Pastor Mark, because he set us into this theme he calls all for Jesus, and he's based around Matthew 25. So I actually went and studied it at this point, normally what I would do is I would make a case about projects. And while they matter, that's how my brain thinks, I'm kind of more task oriented and kind of businesslike with some things. And he keeps. Pastor Mark keeps saying, offer Jesus, just offer Jesus. And what he's doing is he's making it more personal. And that's what Matthew 25 is all about. And I've actually never taught what I'm getting ready to teach you, and I'm so excited to do it that in Matthew 25, when the son of man comes, and this is that scene again that Jesus is describing in his glory, and all the angels are there, he's gonna sit on that glorious throne, and all the nations, every single person, are gonna be gathered together before him. And he will separate people one from another, as shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his, on his left. And then the king will say to those on his right, come, you who are blessed by my Father. And then here's that apodidomi. Here's that pay you back part. I've got an inheritance for you, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. And then he defines what did it like, what impressed him with how we lived our lives. And watch what he says. It's very interesting. For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, and I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink, and I was a stranger. Notice that's an interesting. Like, even the person who's lost, you invited them, you said, hey, come check out, come see. There were those who needed clothes, and you clothed me. I was sick and you looked after me. I was in prison and you came to visit me. And the righteous are gonna reply now, Lord, we saw people in that condition, but we never saw you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you something to drink. We never saw you as a stranger. We didn't invite you in. We didn't see you needing clothes and clothes when did we see you sick or in prison and go visit you? And then here's the theme of our season. The King Jesus will reply, truly, I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, I know you thought you were doing it for them, but you were exactly doing it for me. It touched me. And you think, well, then that's works, Pastor Chris. And Jesus is not saying that we're saved because of our works. He's saying that our works reveal that we're saved. In fact, let me say it this way. The sheep aren't sheep because they fed the hungry. They fed the hungry because they're sheep. In other words, that's what sheep do. And the goats weren't goats because they neglected people. The goats were goats because it revealed their neglect and the fact they didn't care for people. Right? And that's what the legacy season and offering is all about. It's not just the projects, and it's probably where I would have just gone. But really what it's all about is about loving the things that Jesus loves and doing it first for him. And the people who get on the receiving end just happen to be the recipients of us trying to explain, express our deep love for our God. And I found this quote, I thought it was so cool. You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving. And let me add on top of that that the best way to love someone is to love the things that they love. You really want to love someone, find out what they care about. My wife is an expert at that. Ms. Tammy's in the room today, by the way, everybody. She's. She's still as beautiful as ever. And she knows I love golf. And that precious woman doesn't play golf, but she knows about all the players. She knows all the rules. She'll ask me, oh, Chris, is that Bay Hill or. Oh, is what is. And she knows the courses, and she doesn't care about any of that. She loves the person she loves. She's trying to love the things that the person she loves loves. And so it's just precious. I think it's so cute. I tell her, you don't care about this. She goes, oh, yeah, but tell me about it. Did he make a bogey? You know, like she wants to know. Well, conversely, last night, while I was not enjoying the football game, last night, that was too. That just shows how much I love y'. All. That's all you're getting. Okay, so. But last night, I'm watching this game And I look over and she's on her phone looking at purses. Now, people, purses just do one thing. They carry your stuff, that's it. What they cost, what's on them. That doesn't matter. Oh, but it does to her. And she's over there. Oh, she. And she leaned over and she goes, look at this one. And y', all, I could care less about purses, but I leaned over and said, oh, show me another. I mean, like, y', all, I did not want to see another one. But I love her. And if I'm gonna love her, I've gotta love what she loves. Are y' all following me? Everybody? Okay, if you say you love God, then you need to love what he loves. So let's look at it again. What he loves, he loves the hungry, the thirsty, and the stranger. Now, I do know, and I'm not trying to put this out of context, I do know that that means physical hunger, physical thirst. But when it had the word stranger on the same list that got invited in, it made me think about spiritual hunger and spiritual thirst and inviting them in. It made me think. And I'm not going to neglect the fact that there are hungry people out there. I'll talk about that in a second. But I thought about the spiritually hungry, the spiritual, like, and they're hungry right now. And that Jesus loves the lost. Like, he really does. So much so that he defines his entire life mission in Luke 19 as, that's what I came to do was to both seek after them and to save them. And by the way, the verse 10 is the end of a 10 verse story about Zacchaeus, who was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he. Come on, Baptist. Where y' all at? Okay, and the story begins with. Check this out. Now, that the religious folks muttered, I love that word. I don't know why I love that word, but I love that word. They muttered at Jesus. They were like, at Jesus for going to lunch with a sinner. And they were saying, he is not. And by the way, there's a whole group of religious out there who mutter. They mutter at us because we have series, like at the movies. They're not deep. Look at what they're doing. Yeah, but we don't care, because Jesus loves the lost. And if Jesus loves the lost, we gonna love the lost too, and we're gonna figure out ways to reach them. Are y' all following me? Everybody? Right? This was his mission. In fact, in Luke 15, which, by the way, has three parables in it about lost sheep, lost coin, lost son. It says, suppose one of you has 100 sheep that Jesus is willing to leave 99 of us that know him to go find just 1 that doesn't know him. That's not even good business. If you're a business person, you have 99 of anything, you cut your losses. Not our God. He will leave the 99 just for that single one. That's how much he loves the lost. In fact, the Bible says that when just one gets saved, all of heaven throws a party. The one we love loves the lost. And the lost have never been hungrier. For the first time in 50 years, the data, not my feeling data, is telling us that church attendance is on the rise. College revivals are on the rise. Do you know that the leading demographic of people in church today in church was the demographic that five years ago that the prognosticators thought would be the first atheist generation, Y'. All. The leading demographic in church today in America are Gen Z males. Men are coming back to church and they're hungry for the Bible. That Bible sales are up 41% this year. Oh yeah. For the first time in 50 years, we're seeing real revival. Let me let you think about it this way. All that God has done through us, together to him be all the glory was done without revival. But guys, we're getting ready to be able to do it in revival. And that's why, that's why we start campuses. That's why we build buildings. I mean, there's all. When you give, you give to things like, well, this is already done. You can't give to this. Because I'm just celebrating it with you that we built two campuses this year, buildings completely debt free. That construction's underway right now in Daphne, where Pastor Marcus and in Oxford, and we're building a Montgomery Dream center this year that you need to know this, that you just purchased land in the beautiful city of Columbus, Georgia. And that doesn't excite you, but all of Columbus is shouting right now. All right, then in 2026, we're going to have another campus launch in the great city of Prattville. Why are we doing this? Because the legacy offering is all about feeding the spiritually hungry. And every dollar puts spiritual food on the table of the world. And this is just a drop in the bucket of what we're going to be able to do with this. So if Jesus loves the lost, then so will I. Why offer Jesus? In fact, I'm going to read this again. I'll read this part and you guys, out loud. Every campus say the last few words. If Jesus loves the lost, so will we offer Jesus. I needed clothes. Now we're getting to the poor because we don't just offer salvation, we offer people's practical needs. Why? Because Jesus loves the poor. You know that. In fact, the Bible is really strong here. Dozens and dozens of verses in the Old Testament. Dozens and dozens of verses in the New Testament. Let me just show you a couple. If anyone has material possession, and that's all of us, and sees a brother or sister in need, but has no pity on them, then you don't love what God loves. And the love of God cannot actually be in you. And it goes on to say in Proverbs that when you are kind to the poor, it's all for Jesus. You lend it to the Lord, and he will. There's that apodidomi. He wants to pay you back. And that's why, as a church, you just need to know this. We're already focused on Thanksgiving and Christmas outreaches. We're going to touch tons of people. And then we have this flagship event called Giving Hope, which is on a Saturday, where we have these toys and we find people in need and they come and shop for age specific toys. We wrap them, we load their car. They can get as much stuff as they need. We just load them up with toys. And we don't give the toys to the kids. We let the parents give the toys to the kids because we want to restore dignity to the poor and let them be the hero in that story. Everybody, it's just rub them down. Rub them down. I mean, that's awesome, right? And that's why we have a clinic that every day helps the poor. Christ Health Center, I'm happy to report this year is going to exceed the number of patients it has ever seen in a single year. Over 20,500 patients. Come on, everybody.