Reid Hillin 8-16-26

Be seated.

It is so good to be together, and it is a blessing to get up here and to share with you. And first, let me preface this. And I don't think you've gotten this impression, but recalling the stories of what God has done in and through these works this summer is in no way turning this into, like, a shareholders meeting where we're like, hey, what did you create on the backside of the giving, right? Like, what did you go and do with the funds that came in instead? This is an invitation for the formation of our body, of the body of Christ here at Highland.

Through the work that God has been doing and will continue to do through all of us, our students are often big recipients of that formation. As I was reflecting on this text this week and sitting with it reminded that as adults, sometimes we might offload the formation onto the kids.

Not intentionally. It's not like. It's like, we don't think we need to be formed anymore. It's that, like, we are moving so fast, we have so many things we've agreed to do that we really don't have time to experience the formation of the Holy Spirit. And so we find ourselves being like, will somebody please tell me a good story about what God did?

Because I'm pretty blind to it right now, if I'm being honest. I'm moving really fast.

And so this morning, I'm excited that we've heard a couple of these stories. And in just a moment, but not quite yet, I'm gonna invite my friend Owen up and he's gonna share another story from Brazil. And I am.

We hear a lot of stories out of Brazil. And I want you to know it's not because it's like, some special, like, ultimate version of what God is doing. It's because sometimes you have to fly 5,000 miles to learn that the people that live one mile from you are also made in the image of God. And for whatever reason, flying that far and putting yourself in an uncomfortable position of having to hear in two languages for a whole week and waiting on translation, and then there's laughter, and you aren't a part of it yet. And then you finally get translation, like, oh, that is funny.

But now I can't laugh because I'm too late to the party.

Creates a bond that's very real. And so it is in no way like a spiritual high. Sometimes we use that language as adults. We'll say, like, oh, that must be a fun spiritual high you're on. It almost degrades the movement.

It almost degrades the work of the spirit. I would invite you to stop using that language.

It might last only for a while, but it doesn't make it not real. It doesn't make it fabricated. It doesn't make it manipulative.

It's just that sometimes we get to experience God in some ways that truly start the transformation process within us. And taking the courageous step to fly that far can do that, or to ride that far on a bus to Camp Barnabas. And you put yourself in a position where you are one on one with somebody. You don't know if you're going to be able to do this thing because it is scary. It is scary to do that.

And then you see yourself rise to the occasion. And you know deep within yourself that it is only the power of the Holy Spirit that dwells within you, that empowers you to do such good work, that empowers you with such courage. And so, church this morning, I want to invite you as a whole to reflect for 30, 30 seconds with me. I want you to reflect on the last time that you felt that same power. When was that?

When was the last time that you experienced something that you were like, only God could move this way. So it's going to be awkward. We just made you move for the first time in a while too, so I actually hit you with the old curveball. Now I'm hitting you with the opposite. HSM really tearing us up today.

All right, so put both your feet on the floor, close your eyes, and I want you to reflect for just a moment. And trust that this moment of holy memory, where God is going to bring a memory to your mind, will remind you of the power of God to work in your life. 30 seconds.

Lord God, thank you for being a God who moves and speaks.

That you are a God who is inviting us, beckoning us ever deeper into your love and presence. That you are not a God who has forgotten us. You are not aloof to our pain or our frustration or our doubt. And that when we do experience such double mindedness that you meet us right where we are and you lift us up out of the water like you did for Peter, and you speak a kindness to our hearts and you calm the storm.

Lord, as we hear stories this morning, we've heard them and continue to hear them, we ask that you would refine in us the work that you're doing, reveal to us the work that you're inviting us to continue to do, and then give us the courage to actually do it. It's the name of Christ who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever, we pray. Amen. I'm going to invite my friend Owen up. And as Owen's on his way up, I want you to know that Owen's been to Brazil twice.

He went last summer and this summer. And as we were talking and kind of thinking through what he was going to say, I heard him say this phrase. He's like. It's almost like it gives me a glimpse of life to be there and to experience this. And so, Owen, will you talk to us about this glimpse of life that you've experienced in Brazil?

Yeah, for sure. Brazil has really changed my life. Before going to Brazil and my other previous youth group activities, we did stuff like build community with friends. We did service projects, whether it's making a meal or helping with yard work. But that stuff always had a clear helper, and it had a clear recipient.

When I first got to Brazil, I was excited to make some new friends, and I was also intrigued on how we were going to help. But it quickly became apparent that we were the recipients.

And when we get there, the people there are so overwhelmingly loving to the point where you realize they portray the character of God in a way that I'm not. They have something that I don't have and something I desperately need.

And the rest of the time, you're just trying to figure out what that is and if I can apply that to my life, and if so, how do I do that?

I think that's what's so attractive about Brazil is that you're uncovering things about these people's life that were previously unknown. And I really wanted to figure out for this talk what that was. What was it that was so special? And to be honest with you, I don't really know. But I do know it portrays the character of God, and I will pursue it from here on.

Beautiful. Thank you.

It portrays the character of God, and I will pursue it from here on. That is baptismal language. I want to put my life after the life of Christ. I want to walk that way, and I want it to look like that forever. This text today, the Ministry of Reconciliation, the reason I picked it is because I think it captures what we experience when we go there and what we've all experienced.

I'm sure in some setting, it's a different way of viewing, of seeing. It's like a different set of lenses that have been put on. And part of it is that Camp Roots is a youth camp. So if you've been to youth camp, before, you know, you're at camp and it's like, whoa. Yes, we in here.

Oh, my goodness. We're jumping around. It's exciting. We're doing, like, playing games. Like, we're just doing stuff.

It feels good. But then you go to church on Sunday morning, and there's a segment of church called hugs. It's just. It comes up on the screen, it just says hugs. And the whole church stands up and they go around and they hug everybody.

Now, it's not this many people, but still, I was worried when Ashley went off the cuff there for a minute that we were, what are we going to do? We're going to stand up and pray for each other, much less just like, all right, go hug people.

Don't worry. I'm not going to make you do that. I thought about it. I was like, and now, no, no, no.

But there's just this different way of viewing. And Paul, from the beginning of this. So from now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view. And worldly there is not a strong enough word. He doesn't say worldly.

He's talking about, like, flesh, but he's not talking about, like, human flesh. He's talking about all the powers and principalities that are diametrically opposed to the kingdom of God. He writes about this all the time. And we often hear flesh when we think about my flesh and my failure. That's not what he means.

He means it is a too small way to view somebody else. So we don't regard them that way anymore. We view them through the lens of Christ. Therefore, we see them as the new thing. And I would say, I think what Owen just reflected on to us is that he felt seen in that way.

And that's what I asked you to think about a minute ago. When was the last time you felt that? When was the last time you experienced that level of being seen? Like Hagar in the wilderness? The.

The God who sees me. The first person to really name God. This is the God who sees me. God sees you. You are known just as you are not as you want to be because you're never going to be as you want to be.

And you are fully loved just as you are. It is not a game. You're not working your way up the ladder. You are loved and you are cherished in the kingdom. You do not earn it.

We do not earn it by worshiping the right way or saying the right thing or praying the right way. It is not an earned thing. Tim Keller used to say the Biggest fear is to be fully known and not loved.

And the flip side is, like, to be fully loved but not known is also just kind of like a, you know, affront. And the Christian invitation is to be fully known and fully loved. And that is what we are, fully known and fully loved. Because we no longer regard each other from the worldly point of view through the powers and principalities of this world. We view each other through the spirit of Christ, which works in and through us to bind us together into one for the sake of God's good work.

I led a prayer walk this year. We lead prayer walks a lot of our stuff. I led one at the beginning of the summer at an event we call Labyrinth, which is our biggest event as far as people go. We had about 100, 110 people, I think, in total this year, which is not the point of the story, but it's just like, a lot of people to try to take on a prayer walk. We had five stations, and the key was I wanted everybody to experience the labyrinth, the one at UP at acu, you know, and I wanted everybody to experience the labyrinth at the event called Labyrinth.

And so it was like, we really set aside time to make sure this happened. We had this prayer walk, and I thought it was beautiful and hearing our students reflect on. Because you're walking the labyrinth in your groups that you're with. And so you walk in this labyrinth, and one of the things that you notice as you walk a labyrinth is you might turn a corner with somebody, and then for whatever reason, you depart and you don't see them again until the very end. Because that's how labyrinths work.

And some of their reflections were like, it kind of feels like life. Or like, a couple years ago, I had this one friend, and it's like, we were tight for a while, and then it just. For whatever reason, we turned a different one different ways. It's like, man, sounds like you get. It sounds like you're understanding.

It doesn't mean that that friend isn't important to me anymore. It just means that we might have gone different directions for a while. So the labyrinth experience was really formational for us. And then in Brazil, they asked me to lead the prayer walk, which is always a prayer walk. On the Brazil trip.

I was really nervous about this one, because the history of that prayer walk is, like, deeply ingrained. You know, when you take over something that's deeply ingrained in a place, and you're like, oh, don't screw this thing up. Whereas, like, our prayer walk is New, it's like, sure, we do whatever you want. Like, building something new is pretty easy. Building something that's like.

Or changing something that's been going for a long time can be like, don't step on the wrong spot, right? And. And like, building that prayer walk, there wasn't a labyrinth. And so I couldn't just, like, go with the old, you know, bring in the reliever, and just throw the old labyrinth, you know, down the middle. I was like, I gotta come up with something.

And the center of the prayer walk, the core of the prayer walk, was this ancient form of prayer called centering prayer. And I think my core thought for all of our students that come through HSM beyond anything else, is that I want them to leave knowing they are beloved.

More than I want them to espouse the right theology or even understand the right things. I want them to know deep in their bones, they are the beloved of God. And so that prayer walk, the center of that prayer walk was centering prayer, which is you just, like, sit in silence and you pick a word. And the word I gave them was beloved. I picked it for them that day.

And as your mind wanders, you return to the word. So this is what we did. Set aside 10 minutes in the middle of this prayer walk, and I actually had them sit in silence, pick a spot, get comfortable. And I gave them this image. This is my favorite image.

I got it from forever ago. One of my college professors at Lipscomb used this for us, and it was really, really helpful for me. It's like the image is you are underwater. In your mind's eye, you're underwater, and you're looking up at the surface, and you can see these boats passing. Above those boats are your thoughts.

And you'll find in these 10 minutes, or however long you choose to do this, you'll find that you'll grab one for a while, and it'll take you. You'll just go, and you'll be like, oh, man. Right. And my brain is one of those brains. I'm gone.

Like, I'm gone, gone. We're like, full speed ahead over there. And then you release that thing. You remember. Oh, right.

And you return to the word beloved. And so it's a practice of always that. It's an actual. Like, to let go of that thing and return to the word, return to God. That's the practice.

And one of the things that I punted on is, like, micro formation for our students. I don't think it's terribly helpful. I want to play the Long game. I don't want them to experience just micro, like, boom. You're formed now.

Fully formed. Like, no, no, no. It's going to take a long time. It's going to take a long time. And in 30 years, if you're still remembering that, you can let go of that thing and return to the word beloved.

That's something real. That's something good. You know that you're seen. You know that you're cared for. You know that you belong in the kingdom of God.

Church. I thought about making you do that. I just skipped the page where. I'm not going to make you do that today. Because it feels uncouth in a sermon.

It feels like. It's like, we're not allowed to do that in a sermon. We're not allowed to, like, stop for a whole minute and make somebody sit in silence. That would be weird. I already did it once anyway.

But I do want to encourage you this week.

Take 10 minutes, take 5 minutes. If you have 30 minutes, take it. Adults don't offload the formation onto students. We need you to be formed. We need you to continue to allow God to work in you.

I had this thought this week. Sometimes I used to think that, like, the image that Paul gives of the pottery, like, we're jars of clay. Helpful. But, like, I think maybe it's more like God is, like a master, like, creator of, like, statues. And this takes our whole life for God to turn us into something.

Instead of God sitting down, like, throwing us into this. There's one. You're done. You're good. Now go.

Just be a jar of clay instead. God is, like, tediously working with us, shaping us, forming us, calling us, inviting us and beckoning us deeper into the presence of God so the Holy Spirit might form us for God's good work in the world that he has for us. So this week, sit with the word beloved. Take the 10 minutes, set a timer. If you like that image, that's great.

If you want a different image, that's fine, too. I like the boats above me. I think that helps with my thoughts as they run as fast as they possibly can.

Because God is not dead. God is not gone. God has not forgotten us. God is not inviting us even to perfection. God is inviting us to remember the core of who we are, that we are beloved and that we have a role to play in his kingdom.

So let's step into it this week, and let's play it amidst your faith. Christ has died. Christ has risen. And Christ will come again. And because that's true, everything changes.

And as we head to our what's the thing called? Potluck lunch, we're going to start with an L. There's an L in there. As we head to our potluck, Hug somebody. Maybe we don't do hugs in here. Maybe we hug in there.

Meet somebody you don't know. Be courageous. Take the formation onto yourself and wonder what the Holy Spirit's inviting you to do. And be Will you stand and receive this benediction?

Hylan? May you this week receive a word from the God who still speaks, the God who does not lie dormant within us, but is ever beckoning us deeper and deeper into his presence.

Not because we're deeply flawed or because we're just failures, but because God loves us. And may you receive that love today and go with great courage, knowing that you are fully known and fully loved just as you are, and that God will continue to beckon you in his great love. Go in peace. May the Spirit of God go with you. Amen.