The Kingdom Way | Luke 6: 20-26 with Pastor Clayton Tyner

Welcome to the MetaCurch podcast.

My name is Clayton.

I'm the pastor at MetaCurch, and I hope that today's message is inspiring and enlightening and really builds you up wherever you're at in life.

I want to welcome you in wherever you're joining us from.

If you're new with us, my name's Clayton.

I'm the lead pastor here at MetaCurch.

If you're with us online, I'm so grateful for this ministry.

If you're online and you're in the San Antonio area, man, I would just continue to encourage you to get to one of our physical locations.

If you're here in Helotus, man, I'm so proud of the work that is going on, the just real kingdom work that is being done and built in Helotus.

And man, the hands that are doing it, the volunteers who show up at five or six in the morning, stay late to tear it down.

As a matter of fact, here at our Potenko venue, can you just make some noise for the people in Helotus?

We ask them to give their lives away and to go out there and help take ground for the kingdom.

And so I'm grateful for everyone that's doing that.

Um, it is Mother's Day, and I just want to wish uh every mother, every stepmother, every adoptive mother, every godmother, everyone who is playing that role.

I want to wish you a very happy Mother's Day.

I'm so thankful for my mom.

Uh she she took the call.

She serves our church out in Helotus.

So thankful for her and all that she poured into my life.

Um, so thankful for my wife and the mother that she is, my mother-in-law, so many women who helped raise me up.

Uh it matters.

And so listen, thank your mom today, hug your mom today, but also hug your mom tomorrow and thank her tomorrow.

And a week from now, hug her and thank her.

And then a year later, uh, you wouldn't be here without your mom.

So uh make sure that we say what's up to mom, give her some love, take her to a nice dinner.

Man, we are going through Luke's gospel.

We've broken it down into seven sections so that we can understand the journey.

We're in the second section.

We've called it the kingdom way.

This is Jesus for the last couple chapters, he's been showing us the kingdom way just through how he lives.

And today we're taking a turn that we've been talking about for three weeks.

Today, Jesus is moving from demonstration of the kingdom to declaration of the kingdom.

We are now at Jesus' most famous sermon.

Uh, we agree with most scholars who believe that this is the sermon that Jesus would preach everywhere that he went to tell people how the kingdom of God operates.

And what we have been learning is that we are surrounded and often infatuated with the kingdoms of this world, the kingdoms of man.

And yet, if we just take a step back and we are willing to be honest and we can analyze any part of human history, what we know is the kingdoms of this world do not last forever.

The kingdoms of this world fade away.

We just know that.

We don't like to think that, because that could mean our little kingdom here in the United States could someday fade away as well.

And if that is the highest concern you have in your life, I have some terrible news for you because we have the end right here in our hands, and we know that the only kingdom that stands forever is the kingdom of God.

Say amen if you agree with that.

That is not bad news, that is the best news because it means that you have been invited into a kingdom that will last eternally.

And just so you know, if you're newer to Metachurch, we are not the church that just hides away in our little stained glass bubble and waits either to die or for Jesus to return to experience the kingdom.

The disciples are gonna ask in Luke, Jesus, how do you pray?

And Jesus said, When you pray, pray like this.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come to the earth, your will be done in that kingdom right now.

We believe we are called to operate in that kingdom right now, that we are called to live for that kingdom and build that kingdom right now.

We are not waiting on anybody.

Jesus has given us everything that we need, and he started the movement that we call church, and he started it specifically to build his kingdom.

That is our call.

And today, Jesus is going to get explicit in what it means to live in that kingdom, what it means to operate in it, what it means to build it.

Now, religion has done us uh a great disservice because so much of religion is about controlling you from the outside in.

So much of religion, and maybe if you came up in church, you learned a lot of behavioral modification.

Do this, don't do this, think this way, talk this way, dress this way, vote this way.

That's behavior modification.

Right now I'm taking my staff and some of our key leaders through one of my favorite books on leadership.

It was written back in 1976, 50 years ago.

It's called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

If you haven't read it, it's one of the best books on personal development and leadership.

And the reason it is such a good book is because Stephen Covey, who wrote it, I don't know if he's aware of this because he doesn't reference it in the book, but whether he's aware of it or not, he tapped into an essential principle that didn't start with him.

Jesus was teaching it 2,000 years ago.

And the principle is that so much of leadership development, personal development, career success ladders, so much of it is about image, behavior, status, influence, manipulation.

It's all external.

Like if you can get the outside right, you will win.

That is outside in thinking.

Stephen Cubby, in this book, he says, true transformation does not happen on the outside.

It must start on the inside.

It's like, well, where did he get that idea from?

You know, maybe 4,000 years ago, when the prophet was gonna pick the new king of Israel, and he went to the sons of Jesse, and he and he was like, Bring me the tall one, and bring me the strong one, and bring me the smart one, and bring me the oldest one.

And they didn't even call David a scrawny short king from out in the field.

David doesn't even get a look.

And then God talks to Samuel and he says, Hey, you're doing what men do.

Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks weird.

God looks at their heart.

This is not my sermon, but there are single women under the sound of my voice, and you have already put it in your profile.

If you're not 6'2, don't even bother swiping.

And I'm just telling you, there might be uh a King David out in the field somewhere who only made it to five foot seven, and they might be short in stature, but they have a heart that is after God, and if you would actually give them a chance, then they would be able to lead you into the fruitful life and maybe even someday into a marriage that pleases God and help you meet your potential.

Shout out to the short kings in the room.

I got your back.

We gotta be like God, God challenged the prophet.

He said, You're acting like men.

Jesus got after the Pharisees.

You know what he said to the Pharisees?

He said, You know what you guys do?

It's like you ate a meal out of a bowl, and then to clean it, you just washed the outside of it and put it back in the cupboard.

He said, You're nasty.

That's what he said.

He said, You dress right and you talk right and you read the Bible all the time, but on the inside, you're nasty.

So fix the inside.

You fix the inside, the outside will begin to take care of itself.

The apostle Paul he put this so succinctly in his letter to the Romans, Romans chapter 12, verse 2.

Romans 12:2

This one verse just wraps up everything we're gonna learn in our passage today.

So pay attention to this.

Paul says, Do not be conformed to this age.

Here's what that means: do not keep living for the kingdoms of this world.

Do not allow the culture to determine success for your life.

Do not allow the influencers who do not know God to determine how you look, how you act, how you think.

Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed not by the renewing of your habits, not by the renewing of your financial stewardship, not by the renewing of how often you drop a four-letter word in traffic.

That's all behavior.

The renewing of your mind.

This is not outside in, because true transformation comes from the inside out.

True transformation comes from the inside out.

What we're talking about today is what is called your paradigm.

It could also be called your worldview.

This is your collection of beliefs about how the world works, how life works, and how reality functions.

This is your paradigm.

We all have one.

Here's the problem: most of us have never critically analyzed our worldview.

We think the way we think because that's how we came up.

We vote the way we vote because that's how we came up.

We talk the way we talk because that's how we came up.

We have never critically analyzed our paradigm or our worldview.

And so the first thing I need to do is help you analyze your paradigm.

And there's a question that I want to ask that can get right to the heart of it.

And so here's my question: In your life, how do you keep score?

How do you assess winning?

What metrics determine success, fulfillment, happiness, resource, relationship?

How do you determine that?

Most of us have never critically analyzed our paradigm, but we are all keeping score.

We all have priorities in our life, and whatever the highest priorities are, that's what you're aimed at.

That's how you're trying to win.

So what's the win?

Literally, right now.

We don't look, if you're new, just so you know, it's like, dude, it's the intro, and the guy is yelling so much.

Okay.

We don't come here to Metachurch to play games.

There are a lot of church that will play games with you, and they will give you a little self-help so you can go and do outside in Christianity.

At MetaCurch, we come, we take off all the masks, we get brutally honest.

So I'm not asking rhetorical questions.

I want you to answer in your own mind what is the win you're aimed at?

Is your next win the promotion?

Is it the salary increase?

Is it a few more matches on Tinder?

Is the win being able to brag to your buddies about a few more sexual exploits?

Is the win finally benching 315?

Is the win finally fitting into a size two?

What is the win that you're after?

We all have this.

We all have something that we're aiming at.

We wake up thinking about it, we organize our lives around it.

How do you keep score?

For most of us, we are keeping score not out of a sense of God's purpose, we are keeping score out of a sense of alleviating pain.

And so the reason you think you'll never be anything to anybody until you finally get that master's degree is because at one point you were young and someone in authority over you said something to you that scarred you, made you insignificant and insecure, and you think that when you finally walk that stage and get that diploma, that that will patch that up.

That's the scoreboard for you.

But here's the problem a lot of us in these venues that we're sitting in right now, a lot of us online, we've lived long enough to where we have achieved what we thought was the win, and we weren't satisfied.

And it did not fulfill us.

And the depression didn't go away, and the loneliness still lingered.

And it made us question if we even know how to win at all.

This happens all the time with salary.

You get into a career and you start somewhere and you think, oh man, if I can get to that next salary level, uh I'm money.

I will be happy, I'll never need anything again.

Here's the problem, and many of you have experienced this.

You make that salary jump, and it might be good for three months or three weeks.

For some of you, it's good for about three hours because you already know the dealership you're gonna go to, and you already know the car you're going to buy.

And so you get the salary bump and your lifestyle expands past the level of your salary.

You're making$800 more dollars a month, but you just went and took out a car that's$910 a month, you're poorer than before you got the raise.

We've just done this and we try it, and we try it.

And it's important that you know how to keep score because if you don't know how to keep score, you don't know how to win.

And God is for you.

You can know that he's for you because he stepped out of perfection, lived in the midst of our brokenness, and gave his life for you.

He's for you.

God wants you to win.

But before you can win, you have to know what winning is.

If you don't know how to keep score, you don't know how to win.

Different games have different scoring systems.

In basketball, you want to get to the most points, you know, like the San Antonio Spurs keep doing against the Minnesota Timberwolves.

If you if you don't have a scoreboard, you don't know that Wimby had 35, 15, and 5, and only Hakeem and Shaq and Karim Abdul Jabbar have ever done that before.

But that's not really what I'm preaching about right now.

In basketball, you want to put up more points than your opponent.

But if that's the only way you know how to keep score, you're gonna go play golf and have a really rough time.

In spades, you want to get rid of all of your cards, and checkers, you want to keep all your pieces.

You gotta know how to keep score.

I don't know if y'all play board games.

My family, especially my extended family, we play a lot of board games.

And I don't know how this happened.

Genuinely, I've thought about it many times.

I don't know.

But anytime there's a new board game, my official role in the family is not the preacher, the pastor, it's not the leader.

My role is the guy that reads the instructions.

That's my role.

Could it be my control issues?

We'll never know.

I don't know.

But I'm always handed the instructions, and you you gotta you gotta read.

And and here's the point I really want to make is we should just never stop thinking God that He gave us the instructions on how to win.

God wants you to win, and God inspired this for us, and He preserved it for us, and He protected it for us.

I was spending all yesterday morning with the students that are in the Meta Academy right now, and for three and a half hours we just talked about how to read the Bible, how to handle the word, and I just made the point you have no idea the countless lives that have gone before you that protected this word for you with their blood, that gave their lives so that you could have a Bible that you put on a shelf and let collect dust and take it for granted.

I'm being mean.

I'm sorry.

You don't know, and it's Mother's Day, so we know this concept that we show gratitude for the people who came before us and made a way for us.

That's what Mother's Day is.

And when we look at the word, we should show gratitude to our Heavenly Father for preserving and protecting us through the ages when entire empires tried to stamp it out of existence, and we should show gratitude to the lineage that came before us who protected us with their lives, so that we have instructions because God wants you to win.

And so we inspired this and he preserved it for us.

You also need to know that we are in a spiritual reality, we are spiritual people, and we live inside of a spiritual reality.

There is more to life than what you can observe with your five senses, and just like God and God's team in the supernatural realm want you to win.

I need you to know this.

The enemies of God, the spiritual enemies of God, want you to lose.

The enemies of God are not ambivalent about the success of your life, they have a vested interest in you losing.

Scripture tells us that the devil is like a roaring lion stalking, seeking whom he may devour.

And often the enemies of God do not need to destroy your life, they just need to distract your life, they just need to derail your life.

All the enemies of God really need is for you to have the wrong scoreboard, to live trying to build the wrong kingdom, to use the wrong metrics to measure your success.

Now we're gonna dive into today's text, but first I just need to make sure you know what Jesus is not doing.

Jesus is not doing behavior modification.

Jesus is not trying to control you from the outside in.

The revelation that came through Jesus is about inside out.

Revelation changes us from the inside out, religion controls us from the outside in.

Do you understand the difference?

Jesus is gonna ask us to do some very difficult things in this sermon, but he knows if you do not get the inside right, then the outcome of that will never last.

And so Jesus is going to try and break your paradigm today, and you are going to have to decide if you will let him.

And so let's start walking through our text.

We're in Luke chapter six.

This is what is typically called the Sermon on the Mount.

We're starting in verse 20.

It starts like this.

Then, looking up at his disciples, Jesus said, Blessed are you who are poor because the kingdom of God is yours.

Blessed are you who are hungry now, because you will be filled.

Blessed are you who weep now because you will laugh.

Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you, when they insult you and slander your name as evil because of the Son of Man.

It's hard for me to get across.

I'm gonna try, but it's hard for me to get across how shocking this would have been.

If you remember last week, Jesus comes off of the mountain.

He is going to teach people the way God's kingdom operates.

There are thousands of people gathered there from Judea and Jerusalem, as well as from non-Israelite countries like Tyre and Sidon.

They've all gathered to hear this word, and Jesus starts by going, Hey, all you who are like really struggling, the poor, the hungry, the sad, the hated, it's you who are blessed.

Now we have to try and put ourselves in the culture and in the context.

When Jesus says blessed, he's using a very specific word.

The Greek word is makarios, and makarios means the fortunate ones.

Makarios was a word that was used in a very, very exclusive context.

If you were makarios in the ancient Near East, it meant that you were financially wealthy.

It meant that you were resourced, you had everything you needed.

It meant that you had power and you had influence.

It meant that you were happy because why wouldn't you be?

It meant that you were loved and everyone looked at you with joy.

That is makarios.

Jesus takes a word with a very specific meaning in a very specific context and he turns it all the way upside down.

This is the most shocking way he could have started his sermon.

As a matter of fact, I wasn't there.

But when he said, makarios are the poor, makarios are the hungry, makarios are those who weep, the most likely response from the crowd that was gathered is they would have begun to chuckle.

The thought of what he was saying was so absurd, they couldn't probably even process it.

Like, Jesus, what are you talking about?

Now at this point, he just opened up.

I think if I were there, I could have rationalized it.

This is how I would have rationalized it.

I would have thought something like this.

You know, Jesus.

He's different.

He's like the nicest, you know.

There's a lot of poor folks here.

Like, he's probably just building them up, you know.

Obviously, the poor are not makarios.

Duh.

You know, that's crazy.

Jesus is just trying to like go.

I've hey hey, guys who are struggling, I've got your back.

That's how I would have rationalized it.

But then Jesus continued.

And what Jesus says next kills any rationalization.

He starts verse 24 with a but, but in contrast, but woe to you who are rich, for you have received your comfort.

Woe to you who are now full, for you will be hungry, woe to you who are now laughing, for you will mourn and weep, and woe to you when all people speak well of you, for this is the way their ancestors ancestors used to treat the false prophets.

We have four blessings directly contrasted with four woes poor and rich, hungry and full.

Weeping, laughing, hated, and loved.

Direct contrasts.

At this point, the crowd would have fallen silent because Jesus just explained the exact opposite of how the world works.

Makarios, blessed, means the fortunate ones.

Oway, woe means the ones to be pitied.

That term, away, in the Greek, we actually have a phrase for this in the South.

It's Bless your heart.

Oh man, you didn't make your rent and your car's getting repo'd.

Oh, bless your heart.

It's you know, bless your heart is so frustrating because it's a way of saying, I pity you and also I'm not doing anything about it.

I pity you and also you're on your own.

That is the term woe.

Here's how the world functioned.

The the makarios, according to the world, were those who were rich, who would have lavish banquets.

There were very few makarios.

People don't live like we live today, where everyone has a baseline of wealth, affluence, convenience, opulence.

The poorest people among us are wealthy by historical standards.

In most of human history, there were very, very, very few people who had any money at all.

There were very few people who were actually well-fed.

There were very few people who had anything to laugh about.

There were very few people who had power and influence.

And everyone else struggled and suffered almost all of the time.

The way the world worked is the Macarios, they sat in their wealth with their lavish meals and they laughed it up.

And then maybe they looked out the window and they saw another beggar like everyone else is a beggar because no one has what they need.

And then they would go, Oh, poor them.

I mean, we're not gonna feed them or help them or give them any money or be in community with them or talk to them, because that'd be gross.

Oh, but man, doesn't that just break your heart?

Would you pass the wine?

That's how the world worked.

Everyone knew that.

And Jesus says, you have it exactly backwards.

Here's what Jesus is saying.

You're just gonna have to decide, every person online hilotus, you just have to decide if you if you are ready to accept this.

Jesus is telling us, you don't know how life works.

We have come up in the culture of man, we have been raised in the kingdoms of man, success has been defined by our culture.

What it looks like to have power, we see that through our influencers and our celebrities and our athletes.

It's like we have no idea how reality actually functions because the kingdoms of this world are not where reality ends.

The kingdom of God is the realest reality, and the kingdom of God is operating exactly opposite of our world.

And we know this because the king just told us.

And so if you don't know how to keep score, you don't know how to win.

And Jesus is telling us how to keep score, and very few people can receive this word.

Christians, especially modern Christians, especially Western modern Christians, struggle to allow Jesus to take their paradigm, break it into a million pieces, and start over with a kingdom view.

If you travel the world at all and you go to impoverished developing countries, what you see is that people will cling to a word like this, like you cannot imagine, and here's why: because they are living like almost everyone has lived for almost all of human history.

And there is a reason that the West and especially America is the most difficult mission field.

We have so much, so much wealth, so much affluence, so much convenience that we kind of feel like we're already in the kingdom.

When someone's paradigm has caused nothing but sadness and heartbreak and suffering, they're often ready to dash it into a million pieces, which is why most people in America don't find Jesus until they first find rock bottom, until they become convinced that their worldview cannot bring them what they're looking for.

When your paradigm has brought you wealth and you have money in the bank, when it has brought you a relationship, when it has brought you attention, when it has brought you influence, when it has brought you power, it's very difficult to give it up and let Jesus dash it.

But here's the reality: if we actually believe in Jesus, that he is king, and that someday his kingdom is coming to the earth, we are going to live this way someday, whether we want to or not.

And so let me just tell you the real struggle of being a Western Christian is that we have such good lives.

This is a really damning indictment, but we've got to be honest, we cannot play games.

If God spoke in this room and he prophesied that tomorrow Jesus would crack the skies and come and get us.

If we are honest, if we knew it was tomorrow, I believe the majority of Western Christians' primary motion would be disappointment.

It's like, but I'm just right on the edge of getting this promotion.

I just started this new hobby.

You know, my babies do any day.

I just got a girlfriend, I just got some power, I just moved into a new house, I'm about to buy the new car.

If you learn Jesus was coming back tomorrow, and the first thing you feel is disappointment, I want to take some weight off of you and just let you know that was my response most of my life, and I've been following Jesus most of my life.

I didn't understand how the kingdom operates.

And if that is you, what it means is that you're keeping score by the metrics of this world.

The kingdom of God is not the primary thing that is influencing and instructing how you know when you win.

If Jesus came back tomorrow and you knew it was coming, would you fall to your knees and weep with joy?

Or would your first thought be, oh man, I had something great planned next month?

I just got tickets to the next game.

Look, God, the Spurs play on Tuesday, and I spent like 800 bucks on today.

Could he come Wednesday?

It's very difficult.

And we just need to know this so we can deal with it.

We might be positioned as the people in all of Christian history who will have the hardest time doing this.

And so that's a little bit discouraging, but in that discouraging reality is unmeasurable opportunity because if you can, if you can trust God enough to give him your paradigm and let him smash it into a million pieces, if you can learn to live with heaven's scoreboard running your life in a world where no one else will do it, you will stand out as one of the people who will change the world.

I say this a lot, it's so true.

I've been having to sit with this passage for a long time now.

I'm really not preaching to anyone but myself today.

This is difficult to do.

This requires an expansion of our faith and a willingness to trust God at a level that maybe you haven't trusted God yet.

I want to tell you what we're gonna do with this passage.

It's obviously very rich.

We are not going to dig into every one of these verses today.

We're gonna do that over the next four weeks.

We're gonna take each pair, poor and rich, hungry and full, weeping and laughing, hated and love, and we are going to spend a week on each of those pairs.

We're gonna break it down like this.

We're gonna look at where does your security come from?

Where does your satisfaction come from?

Where does your sensitivity come from?

Where does your status come from?

Now listen, I know we are taking a long time in Luke.

I actually tried to calculate how long it's gonna really take us to get to the end, and I'm not telling.

I was like, oh no.

And you're like, brother, we're going slow enough.

We're gonna spend five weeks on this one passage.

Here's my conviction.

Jesus started with this for a reason.

He needs your heart, he needs your paradigm.

Before he wants your performance, your behaviors, your habits, he needs your heart.

And it is worth getting this right and understanding what the kingdom scoreboard requires of us.

Let me do a little bit of overview so that we're set up for next week.

The first thing I want you to know is what Jesus is not saying.

When Jesus says, Blessed are the poor, blessed are the hungry, those who weep, and those who are hated, Jesus is not saying that you are in sin because you have put some money away in retirement.

That is not what he is saying.

He is not saying because you drive a decent car that you are destined for eternal separation from God.

He is not saying when he says, Blessed are the hungry.

I already know you guys don't even stay to listen to my announcements.

You have to beat the Lutherans to cracker barrel.

I understand.

You're going to eat after this.

He's not mad at you that you get three meals a day.

That's not what he's saying.

Jesus isn't saying that you should just be weeping and crying and sad all of the time.

Jesus didn't do that.

Most of the time we see Jesus, he's eating a meal at a party, cracking jokes and laughing.

Jesus is saying something deeper, and we have to understand it.

And so I'll walk you through it real quick.

Jesus looks up and he says, Blessed are you who are poor, because the kingdom of God is yours.

This word poor is not primarily about financial poverty.

There were many people in his audience that day who were actually impoverished.

But this word means an awareness of a need that you are sourcing.

An awareness of a need that you are sourcing.

This is why in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew's gospel, Jesus adds, Blessed are the poor in spirit.

This is not about an external reality.

Here's what's true: you either are looking for your security in the things of this world, which is most of us most of the time, or you are aware that your only security truly comes from Jesus Christ.

Amen?

That is that is a spiritual poverty where we are not looking to fill it with the things of this world, we are looking to fill it with Jesus Christ Himself.

And the more you get to know Jesus and the more you understand how reality actually functions, what you will learn is something that God is revealing to me, which is that every single longing in my heart is actually a longing to be back in the presence of my Savior.

And the more I understand that, and the more I realize that, the more my life becomes positioned.

For when he cracks the sky, for my only response to be tears of joy to finally find my true security in him.

Here's what this means: it means you can have one billion dollars in the bank and you can be impoverished.

Here's what this means: it means that you can have no money to your name, live a very threadbare life, and you can be rich.

Here's how we know this.

Back in Psalm chapter 86, it starts like this listen, Lord, and answer me, for I am, say it with me loud, poor and needy.

Psalms 86 · chapter mention

You know who wrote this?

King David.

A king.

The kings are makarios.

He lives in a palace, he has more than anybody.

And yet he looks around at his opulent life, servants at his every whim, all the money he could ever need, lived in a palace, and he comes to the Lord and goes, I have everything the kingdoms of this world could give me, and I am poor.

I don't need any of it.

What I need is you.

Those are the ones who are blessed.

Jesus says, Blessed are those who are hungry now because you will be filled.

In Matthew's gospel, he says, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.

We're gonna dig into this in the weeks to come.

This is about where you find your satisfaction.

This doesn't mean the fact that you're, you know, hitting your protein goals every day means that God's mad at you.

This is questioning whether or not you are looking to people and to things and to expectations and to material goods and to the culture and to power and to influence and to the kingdoms of world to find your satisfaction, or whether you are aware that your satisfaction only truly comes from Christ.

He says, Blessed are those who weep, for one day they will laugh.

We'll talk more about this.

But it costs you to follow Jesus.

And so much of my life I lived with walls around my heart.

Through almost my entire 20s, I was kind of, if I'm all the way vulnerable, I was kind of a little proud of this.

I never cried.

Like I would even bring it up.

I'd like find a, you know, something, I'd find a way to bring it up because it feels so manly.

Yeah, I don't really ever cry, you know.

And man, one day God just like broke my heart.

Like, what's wrong with you?

The world is like broken into a million pieces by sin, and that doesn't move your heart.

The own continuous sin in my own life that doesn't break my heart.

The people who are in peril, the weight of living your life as an ambassador of Christ, giving things up for him, letting things go, being willing to lose.

Blessed are those who weep.

This isn't calling you to depression or melancholy.

It is saying that if you are sensitive to the things of heaven, if you are sensitive to the Holy Spirit, then your heart will break for the things that break God's heart.

He says, Blessed are those who are hated, slandered against, excluded.

We got to read the whole verse.

Some of you are like, Yeah, everybody hates me.

God must, it's like, no, you're a jerk.

Like you're.

The end of the verse says that you are hated and excluded and reviled and slandered for the Son of Man Jesus Christ.

This isn't like you have no social skills and no one wants to be around you.

You gotta work on that.

God's not happy about that.

What this is like, some of you love the Lord, but you're babysitting sins so that you don't lose some friends.

You don't love that you still do it, but you're like, but if I really stop, they wouldn't hang out with me anymore.

Yeah.

And God will bless you for that.

And when you lose, it will hurt your heart and you will weep, and God will dry your tears.

Here's the broadest way to understand this.

And if we don't get this piece of what Jesus is trying to do, we will not be able to apply this into our life.

What Jesus is doing here is he is doing a compare and contrast between now and later.

You want to understand these?

These are called the Beatitudes now and later.

Let me just show you in the text.

Jesus said, Blessed are you who are poor because the kingdom of God is yours.

This is blessed are you who are poor now because this future kingdom belongs to you.

It's now and later.

It becomes more explicit as we go.

Blessed are you who are hungry when?

Now, because you will be future filled.

Blessed are you who weep now, because you will future laugh.

Blessed are you when people hate you, exclude you, insult you, slander you because of the Son of Man.

I haven't shown you this verse yet.

This is the whole key.

Rejoice in that future day, leap for joy in that future day.

Take note.

Jesus is like, if you haven't heard anything, pay attention.

Your reward is great in heaven.

For this is the way their ancestors used to treat the prophets.

This is not, listen, the whole sermon that we're gonna be in for the whole summer.

It is not about how to go to heaven when you die.

This is written assuming you believe in Jesus, and it's telling you how to operate in the kingdom today, so you receive a great reward when that kingdom is fulfilled here on earth.

Jesus makes us even clearer in the woes.

He says, But woe to you, watch the contrast, who are rich now, for you have received your comfort now.

Woe to you who are now full, for you will be hungry.

Woe to you who are now laughing, for you will mourn and you will weep, and woe to you when all people speak well of you, for this is the way they used to treat the false prophets.

Now and later.

For seven and a half years at MetaCurch, we have constantly put in front of you the idea of living your life with what we call a pilgrim's perspective.

The moment by moment recognition that this world is not your home, that this is not the realest reality, that these kingdoms will not last, that if you invest all that you are in all that you have, if you look for your security here, if you look for your significance here, if you look for your status here, if you try to be fulfilled here, if you try to find purpose here, then ultimately all you will have to show is investments in things that will fade away.

And Jesus says, those of you who are willing to follow after him, to deny yourself, to take up your cross, to keep your eyes not on this kingdom, but on the kingdom to come, to keep your eyes not on yourself, but on Jesus, the perfecter and the finisher of our faith.

When we are willing to keep our eyes on eternity.

Okay, I'm the instruction reader.

You guys know this.

This is one of my roles.

In my family, I read the instructions.

I want you to go home, I want you to pull any board game out.

Nine out of ten board games, the instructions start with the end.

It will say, here's the pieces.

Players win when this happens.

You start at the finish line, you begin with the end.

We start with the kingdom that is to come.

And then we decide whether we trust God or not.

Because following Jesus will cost you.

Who are in this room.

I know enough of you who are with us in Helotus today.

And I know how you're suffering.

And I know the burdens you're carrying.

And I know that you're serious about following Jesus.

And today Jesus is telling us, if you want to win, if you really want to win, you have to lose.

You have to be willing to give up.

And some of you are giving up so much to follow Jesus.

Some of you, your obedience to Christ is costing you.

There have been moments in my ministry that the weight of following Christ became so intense.

And it was in those moments that the devil would whisper in my ear, you know you don't have to do this.

You could work at a bank, you could work with your hands, you could wait tables.

There's a lot of things you can do.

All of them pay better than ministry, bro.

You could do any of it.

But up to this point, it has cost me.

And if I did not actually believe this, at the core of who I am, I think I would have dropped out of the race long ago.

But I do believe this.

And here is the core truth as you learn what it means to follow Jesus.

The core truth is there is nothing that you will give up to follow Jesus, that He will not give back tenfold, a hundredfold, a thousandfold, a million fold.

Whatever you are willing to lose, whatever you are willing to give up, whatever you are willing to suffer, someday you will stand before Jesus.

And your Savior will give back more than you can imagine.

You can live to win in this life and show up at the throne of God with nothing to show for the life He gave you.

Or you can be willing to lose.

Jesus said, What good is it for a man to gain the entire world and to forfeit his soul?

Mata Church, I believe that in a world where not many people will live this out, I believe that you will.

I believe you're not here playing games, that you want to build the kingdom now, and you want to enter that kingdom hearing the words from Jesus Christ.

Well done.

My good and faithful servant.

Here's the question, and we started with how do you keep score?

Here's a better question I want to end with.

Not how, where?

Is your scoreboard decided by the kingdoms of this world?

Or is how you win decided in heaven?

Let's pray.

Right where you are across our venues and online, if you would just simply bow your head and close your eyes, create a little bit of space for you, for the people around you.

Listen, if you're a believer in Jesus, you just have to decide.

Tomorrow's not promised.

So today, do you trust him?

Do you trust him enough to hand him your paradigm, all of your beliefs about how life is supposed to work, and allow Jesus to break it down into a million pieces and start over?

Are you willing to live a radically different life at great cost to yourself?

And do you trust your Heavenly Father enough that whatever you give up now, you will get back in unbelievable proportion.

While this passage is primarily aimed at believers, across rooms this size, there are likely people who have never taken the first step of faith.

You've never started a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

Here's what that means for you it means the only scoreboard you have access to is made of this world.

And if you haven't lived long enough, you will to find out that what you think is winning will not satisfy, will not fulfill.

If you don't know God, my guess is the presence of God is pressing in on you right now.

And that is a Father who loves you, calling you to surrender, to humble yourself, and to put your faith in Him.

Jesus didn't come offering you a religion.

And a relationship comes when we simply put our faith in who Jesus is and what he's done, convinced and convicted that he's our only hope for this life, and that Jesus is the only hope for what comes after this life.

And so if that is you and you know it's you, and you're ready to make that decision today with everyone's eyes closed across our venues, I want to ask you right now to just raise your hand up.

This is a symbolic gesture.

Raising your hand just says, Today I choose to put my faith in Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

For those who raise a hand, we can say out of God's word that He sees and accepts your faith.

Every sin that keeps you from a relationship with God has been covered by the sacrifice of Jesus, which means you've now been brought into an eternal relationship with your Heavenly Father, a gift.

That scripture says no one and nothing can take away from you.

And so here's what I want to do.

I just want to help you acknowledge this moment through a very simple prayer.

If you raised your hand, I'm going to ask you to repeat this with me.

I'm going to ask all believers across our venues to pray this out loud as well.

Let's pray like this.

Jesus, today I choose to put my faith in you.

I believe you are God that you died for my sins and rose from the grave.

I thank you for loving me and forgiving my sins.

So glad you joined us for today's message.

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