Fulfilled: The Chosen King: No Room with Pastor Clayton Tyner

Welcome to the MetaCurch Podcast.

My name's Clayton.

I'm the pastor here at MetaCurch.

And my hope is that today's podcast finds you at the perfect time in your life that God uses it to inspire and enlighten you.

I hope that you enjoy today's message.

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

I'm the lead pastor here at MetaCurch.

Wherever you're joining us, if you're at our Holotus venue or if you're joining us online, I'm so glad that you're here.

I think God has a special, special word for us today.

Before we get into the word, um, I just want to honor some people.

Uh the first group of people is just all of you across our venues.

Last Saturday, kind of at the last minute, we asked for you to bring supplies for the devastating floods in Kerr County.

And you guys showed up, you blew us away with how much you brought.

Not only that, uh, you know, I want to honor Pastor Tony, who led a group of people out in Kerr County helping with the cleanup yesterday.

Uh, we're gonna continue to try to get people on the ground and just do our part to be the hands and feet of Jesus.

Uh last, I want to honor Katie.

Um, I know Katie's heart very well.

She is my wife.

She's also our missions director here.

From the beginning of MetaCurch, uh, her natural gifting, her social awareness, her love for the world and for missions, it has really built that kind of culture here at MetaCurch where we just know we are going to show up.

Uh, we're doing this again, you know, next Sunday.

We've got a school supply drive.

We'll talk more about that at the end of service.

But you guys keep on showing up, and it really is making a difference.

Now, we are going through the Gospel of Luke.

If you're new with us, we're looking at this first section of Luke's gospel.

We've called it the chosen king, the chosen king.

We're looking at Jesus not just as friend, not just as savior, not just as healer.

Jesus did come to be the last and final chosen king.

And uh we did it, guys.

We finally did it.

We made it to Luke chapter two, all right?

It only took us eight weeks, but we did it.

And we are finally at the birth of Jesus.

So Merry Christmas, I guess.

I don't know.

It's like we're finally here, we're in the Nativity story.

And to be honest, this is a difficult passage to preach, and I'll tell you why.

It's difficult because number one, it is so well known, and the version of it we know doesn't really reflect the text of scripture.

The reason for that is that Christmas and the story of the nativity has become so bogged down in layers and layers and layers of commercialization and whitewashing and religious iconography that we don't really know the true human story and what is taking place here.

So when we think of the nativity story, we think of it more like in terms of the Hallmark cards that we see, or the precious moments figurines, or the really sanitized cartoon versions of the story that we might have watched growing up.

And if you peel back all of the layers and you look at what was actually happening, you see it is a story of pain and shame and rejection, suffering, broken expectations.

I think if we could actually put ourselves in Mary and Joseph's shoes today, and that is what we're gonna try to do, I think we could easily see how they might ask the question that I believe God gets more than all other questions combined, why?

We are experts at why.

We build expectations for like every aspect of our life.

We have expectations for our health, for our wealth, for our career, for our relationships, for our looks, for our children.

Inevitably, life doesn't always live up to those expectations.

And when that happens enough times in a row, we kind of just look up to God and ask, why?

Why did they have to leave?

Why didn't the relationship work out?

Why did I lose my job?

Why don't I have as many friends?

Why haven't I lost the weight?

Why did they have to die?

Why aren't my kids misbehaving?

Why, why, why?

We're experts at why.

And today I think we're gonna find time after time after time in this story that it would be more than understandable for Mary and Joseph to go, why?

Why does it have to be this way?

Why aren't things different?

Why haven't you shown up?

Why are we suffering?

It's really important that we set some context.

If you haven't been here as we've been going through Luke, there's a couple things you need to know contextually.

The first is that Israel and the Jewish people, this is the context the story of Jesus is told in, um, they have been occupied by the Roman Empire.

So by force, the Roman Empire has come in, taken away their autonomy, taken away their freedom.

They are levying massive taxes and burdening the people, almost bankrupting the people, making it difficult to even put food on the table for many people in Israel.

Not only that, but the Romans have their soldiers all throughout the empire.

And if you are foreigners like the Israelites were, part of their job was to make sure you knew that you were inferior.

It's a very difficult situation to live in.

So there is a culturally difficult situation, and the other piece of context that we need to remember is a very specific and personal difficulty that Mary and Joseph were going through.

The text is going to say that Mary and Joseph were engaged.

That is a bit misleading because we talk about engagement in our own culture, and it means something very specific.

It means you are going to get married, but you're not married yet.

You don't have any legal tie when you're engaged today.

You can break off an engagement.

It's difficult emotionally, but it's not difficult legally.

In fact, there is no legal bearing on engagement.

That's not true for Mary and Joseph.

Mary and Joseph were betrothed, and this was a legal covenant.

And because of that, if you were betrothed and you wanted to break that off, you actually had to get a divorce.

And so they are betrothed, but they're not married yet.

There were two steps.

And when they had the resources and the time was right, once you were betrothed, you would get married.

That was the spiritual covenant.

Betrothal is the legal covenant, marriage is the spiritual covenant.

Now, importantly, you did not sexually consummate until after the marriage, the spiritual covenant.

So they are betrothed, but they are pregnant.

They're in a very legalistic society, and this would have created a social stigma on Joseph, and especially on Mary, that you might be able to understand at some level, and whatever level you may have experienced social stigma, it was more extreme at this time.

And so that's the situation they find themselves in.

And we have to know both of these pieces of context if we're going to push past the veneer and the whitewashing of Christmas and understand what the text is actually trying to communicate to us.

And so I want to dig in in Luke chapter 2, verse 1.

Luke 2:1

It says, In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole empire should be registered.

This first registration took place while Quirinius was governing Syria.

So everyone went to be registered, each to his, it's gonna be important, his own town.

Now, what is happening here, for all intents and purposes, is they are taking a census of the Jewish people.

This would have been incredibly frustrating.

The only purpose for a census is to make sure that you are fully leveraging the people that you are occupying when it comes to the tax burden you're placing on them.

So you take a census because someone might have had some more children in their family and now you can tax them more.

Someone might not have been counted the last time you came through town, and now you can tax them more.

Someone might be making more in their operations, and now you can tax them more.

The Roman occupying force is already sucking them dry with the taxes.

Now they're going to do a census to make sure they can leverage even more money out of you.

Now, we don't even like paying taxes, and we're paying taxes to our own government.

And our own government is not necessarily like the most competent people in the world, but hypothetically, they are there representing us, right?

Rome doesn't represent Israel.

They are a foreign enemy occupying force, and now they're gonna squeeze more pennies out of these poor and destitute families.

Now here's what it meant: it meant you had to go back to your ancestral hometown.

There are 12 tribes in Israel.

Each of those tribes has an ancestral hometown.

For some people, sure, they might still live in that ancestral hometown, but this is like thousands of years later.

So many people have moved.

Joseph specifically lives 90 miles from Bethlehem, where his ancestral tribe of Judah is from.

That 90 miles is very difficult and very dangerous.

Think about this in context.

No one in the ancient world could remote in from Dunkin' Donuts.

If you are gone, you're not working, you're not making money, and this trip will be at least a month that he is out of pocket, which means he's out of work.

Joseph's already poor.

Mary and Joseph are poor.

He cannot afford to take off a month of work.

He has to pay to get to Bethlehem at cost to himself.

So it is costing him to take a dangerous, difficult journey to not work in order for the enemy to take more money from him.

Can you imagine how frustrating that would be?

Maybe if you were in Joseph's shoes, you would look up to the heavens and go, why?

Why is this still happening?

Why does it have to be this way?

It's a fair question.

You could kind of categorize this whole experience of Joseph having to go and register for the census in one word, and that word would be inconvenient.

Now, in the ancient world, everything was inconvenient.

You just lived with virtually no modern conveniences.

We are the opposite of that.

Everything is convenient for us.

Everything is convenient.

You could order a refrigerator today, it might be at your house tomorrow, right?

Like everything's convenient, and because of that, there are few things we hate more than being inconvenienced, which is bad news for all of us who live in the San Antonio area, because driving these days in San Antonio is an exercise in inconvenience.

You will have taken the same exit for 13 years, and all of a sudden, it just won't be there anymore, you know?

It is the wildest thing.

Dude, when they just disappear an exit, I react like someone has taken my family hostage.

I turn into John Wick all of a sudden.

Like the inconvenience, when we expect convenience, it hits hard.

Here's another one we have all experienced.

At HEB, I am batting 1,000 in picking the wrong line.

Every single The Lord must love me because He gives me so much opportunity to work on my patience, bro.

I will pick the line and I'm a strategist.

I observe, I'm like family of six.

Not going in that line.

I'll find the line where like three of the people have the handheld baskets.

I'm like, well, I'm about to blow through this line.

Every time I will get in line and watch 20 other lines move while mine just stands still, dude.

I've got King Coupon at the front of the register.

I'm like, dog, I'll give you$100 right now to not use those coupons.

Like, let's get going.

You know, I've noticed too, there's this thing we do because we expect convenience.

If you're in a long line, you start desperately trying to make eye contact with someone else in that line.

You just want to make eye contact so you can go like this.

And then they can go like this.

We hate it, bro.

We hate being inconvenienced.

And if you think like the worst inconvenience you have ever suffered, it just doesn't compare to what Joseph is having to do right now.

It just doesn't compare.

And so part of what we're getting in this story as we're getting to the actual human aspect of it is can we have faith that God even wants to use our inconveniences for his glory?

See, here's what's wild.

If we look at verse 4, it says, Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and the family line of David.

Now I'm not gonna go through all of it, but if you were here last week, we talked about the Davidic covenant.

The passage we read was Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, his benediction, his song of praise, and he pinpoints this unconditional covenant that God had made to King David that one day a descendant of David would come to sit on his throne forever.

And Zechariah correctly believed that Jesus was going to be the fulfillment of that prophecy.

Jesus came from the line of David.

Joseph, his father on earth, came from the line of David, and so he had to go back to Bethlehem, which the only thing that Bethlehem has ever been known for is it is the birthplace of King David.

Other than that, it is small and insignificant.

It's a town full of shepherds and blue-collar workers.

Nobody thinks about it, no one vacations there, nothing happens in Bethlehem.

But that is where Joseph has to go, and it's incredibly inconvenient for him.

However, about 300 years after King David, and 750 years before Jesus was born, God spoke through one of his prophets.

The prophet's name was Micah.

And in Micah chapter 5, verse 2, it says this Bethlehem Ephrathah.

Micah 5:2

You are small among the clans of Judah, but one will come from you to be ruler over Israel for me.

His origin is from antiquity, from ancient times.

I want to point out two things in here.

Number one, when it says Bethlehem Ephrathah, that's kind of Bethlehem and the region that it's in.

This isn't a direct comparison, but it's kind of how we talk about Dallas Fort Worth, you know, just this larger region.

At the end, it says his origin is from antiquity, from ancient times.

The Old Testament is written in Hebrew.

This phrase, if you just translate it literally, means his origin is from eternity past.

What Micah is actually prophesying is that an uncaused, uncreated ruler, aka Yahweh, the one true God, the only uncaused cause in the cosmos, is going to come and they will be born in Bethlehem.

Bethlehem, you are small, you are insignificant, no one would ever think about you.

But the last and final chosen king will be born in Bethlehem.

I want to go a step further because this is proof that God may be trying to use your inconveniences for his glory if you have enough faith.

You can ask why, God can handle your why, but on the other side of your why should be faith-filled curiosity and an expectation that God will answer that if you give him enough time.

Not only will God use your inconveniences for his glory, but this decree came from Caesar Augustus, the emperor of the Roman Empire, the most powerful man on earth.

He had more land, he had more money, he had more power, he could snap his fingers and take out your city.

He could point at any woman in the empire and she was his.

As a matter of fact, Caesar had begun accepting worship as a deity.

The Roman people would say, Caesar, the light of the world.

Caesar, the son of the gods.

He saw himself and positioned himself as a god on the earth.

And so Caesar thinks, you know what we should do?

Uh, the Hebrews, they're bringing in some money.

What if we did a census?

And then we'll know.

We can count every one of them.

We can know exactly what they're up to, how much money they're bringing in.

We could get even more money out of them.

Yes, that's what we'll do.

They should be thankful for Rome.

And you know what?

They will pay tribute to Rome.

And so we'll make them.

I don't care if it inconveniences them, it will build the empire.

Maybe God doesn't just use your inconvenience for his glory.

Maybe God will even use your enemies to position you for your purpose.

Mary and Joseph were purposed to be in Bethlehem.

It was prophesied 700 years earlier, and there is not one word that God prophesies that comes out in vain.

They had to get there.

And God used their enemy, Caesar Augustus, to put out a decree to put them in position to fulfill the prophecy.

Maybe even the people who are opposed to you, who have positioned themselves against you, who seek to harm you, who try to make your life hard, maybe the boss that you're convinced hates you, and they probably don't, but maybe they do.

Maybe your ex who's just always on your case and trying to make your life hell.

Maybe God will even use them if you have enough faith to position your life, to live out your purpose.

We miss this, we gloss over it.

We just assume, of course, they go to Bethlehem.

I've watched the cartoon, I know that's where Jesus was born.

This is pain.

It's pain and suffering and inconvenience that got them there.

And there's more.

See, the Roman Empire took very careful records.

We know how they functioned, we know how their laws worked, and so we're not guessing, we know this.

When Rome would take a census, the only people expected to come legally were the male heads of house.

Remember, we read it, each to his own town.

Legally, only the men, the head of house, were required to come, and then they would speak on behalf of their household.

And you would tell the truth, because if not, Rome would kill you.

So the men would show up and they would speak on behalf of the house.

And that's it.

No one else would come.

Legally, it was only the men, and culturally, the women would not have come.

They would have stayed home, they would have taken care of things, kept things in order, looked after the business, looked after the family.

Only the men would come.

But Mary went.

I want to read this.

Verses 4 and 5.

Joseph went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family line of David to be registered along with Mary, who was engaged to him and was pregnant.

We don't know how to read this.

Scholars believe, and I happen to believe, that Luke, who wrote this gospel, interviewed Mary.

He actually got to talk to her.

We know that Joseph died when Jesus was young, and we know that Mary lived on beyond his ascension after his time on earth.

And I do believe that Luke got to sit down and actually get this story from Mary.

So it's crazy that Mary went to Bethlehem.

Number one, women wouldn't have gone.

Number two, they're not even married, they're only betrothed.

She definitely wouldn't have gone.

Number three, if you don't have enough reasons already, Mary was like eight months pregnant.

This is a not only dangerous 90 miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem, it was a very difficult travel.

Mountains and valleys overnights in foreign territory.

There is no possible reason for Mary to go to Bethlehem.

Now, we know that God in heaven is working all things for his good.

Probably the Spirit of God was on them.

They were obedient, they were righteous, they were following God, they were prompted by his spirit.

I believe all of that.

I do believe there was a cultural reason for Mary to go as well.

In John's gospel, we learn something very interesting.

Towards the middle of his gospel, the people of Israel are rejecting Jesus.

And in the moment they reject him, one of the accusations that they bring against Jesus is hey, we don't even know who this guy's real dad is.

This is an incredible moment because what it tells us is that Mary had been rejected.

The only reason Joseph stayed with her, we learned in Matthew's gospel, is the angel of the Lord also visited Joseph.

Joseph was getting ready to divorce her.

You don't understand.

God got me pregnant.

That's a tough sell.

Not only that, but in the Jewish world, even making that excuse puts you right on the edge of blasphemy for which you could be punished by death.

I think there is a good chance that Mary took the very difficult and very dangerous trip with Joseph because Joseph is the only person who believed her.

This is a very human story.

It's a story of pain and suffering and rejection.

There's no reason for Mary, eight plus months pregnant, to walk half the way, try to ride a donkey half the way, up mountains, down dangerous valleys, 90 miles, a month away from home.

There's no reason for her to go, but she goes.

And I wish I could tell you that once she got to Bethlehem, things got better.

Bethlehem's a small town, but it's bigger than Nazareth, has a better reputation than Nazareth.

Maybe it will be more hospitable.

She's not quite as known there.

Maybe her reputation won't follow her.

But of course, you know that's not the truth.

In verse 6, it says, While they were there, the time came for her to give birth.

And she gave birth to her firstborn son, and she wrapped him tightly in cloth, and she laid him in a manger, which means an animal's feeding trough.

And she did that because there was no guest room available for them.

That's a very sad story.

But my guess is it is far more heartbreaking than you realize.

Here's how we have been told the story in a commercialized, sanitized fashion.

We've been told the story that Mary and Joseph get to Bethlehem and they go to the motel 6 and there's no vacancy.

And so they go to the La Quinta and there is no vacancy, so they go to Best Western, there's no vacancy, there is no motels open because so many people have flooded into town.

That's not what happened.

There was a large influx of people coming in for the census, but only the male head of house was coming in from every family.

You see, when Luke says there was no guest room available for them, he uses a very specific word, and Luke is a very specific writer.

It's the word kataluma in the Greek.

It means a residential guest room.

There is a word for a commercial motel room.

It is the Greek word pandoexion.

We know that Luke knows the difference between these words.

I'll tell you why.

Because in the parable of the Good Samaritan, where the man is left for dead, and the Samaritan comes and bandages his wounds and takes him into town.

He takes him to a pandoexion.

He takes him to a commercial motel and he pays the innkeeper to keep him in a room until he gets back.

He knows what that is.

He also knows what a cataluma is.

It's a guest room.

In this part of Israel, virtually every house had a main story, that's where the family lived, and then had an upper loft.

And it was culturally expected that if there were travelers coming through town who were Israelites like you, you put them up.

The kataluma, it means guest room, it also means upper room, because it was almost always a loft.

We know Luke knows this because when Jesus has the final supper, it's in a cataluma.

The upper loft guest room of a person's private residence.

Here's what that means.

Mary and Joseph didn't go motel to motel and just happen to find out there was no vacancy.

In a culture where you were expected to put people up in your loft, it means they went door to door and were denied.

This is Joseph's ancestral hometown, which means he has family there.

They probably went to family first.

They knocked on doors.

And when the doors opened, they found a young betrothed couple who were pregnant before they were married.

And door after door was shut in their face.

And my guess is that some of the people felt pity, but that pity was overcome by thoughts of, yeah, but what will the neighbors think?

What if the priest finds out?

What if the Pharisees here?

What kind of rumors will spread?

How will their sin reflect on me?

It isn't just that there was no guest room available, it's that there was no room made available for them in their time of obvious need.

As I studied this passage a couple of weeks ago preparing for this sermon, it is one of the times that my study has brought me to tears.

I thought about the creator of the universe coming down into his creation to save us from our sins.

The God who we rebelled against, loving us enough that he proved his love by stepping out of perfection and down into the midst of our brokenness, and house after house after house shut their doors in his mom's face.

I'm a nice guy, but if you want to see me not be a nice guy, mess with my mom, okay?

Like this is what happened to the mother of Jesus.

Jesus grew up.

And the way he behaved towards people was very countercultural.

And it was very confusing.

Jesus, why do you dine with tax collectors and prostitutes and sinners and the marginalized and the stigmatized?

One of the last things Jesus said in Matthew's gospel, he said, Whatever you do for the hungry, whatever you do for the thirsty, whatever you do for the outcast, for the naked, whatever you do for the least of these you have done for me.

And as I realized what this story actually is, it registered to me.

That's not a metaphor.

The doors were shut on the mother of Jesus while he was in her womb.

He's like, what you do for the least of these is what should have been done for my mother.

Why there's always room at my table while Jesus' doors are always open is because no one would open their doors for his mom.

I grew up in a small town.

News travels fast.

A good friend of mine, him and his girlfriend, when they were both sophomores, became pregnant.

Good kids.

I invited them to my church.

It's a good church with good people in it.

But when they walked in, what they experienced were people spotting them, and then very quickly returning.

Spotting them, who it is.

And they liked the service.

I was in the band at the time.

They liked the service.

But they let me know they just did not feel welcome.

And how many people have walked into how many churches?

And very quickly it was made apparent to them that the doors are not open for them.

Because of who they are, how they live, how they dress, what they know or don't know.

This is why Metachurch exists.

Because when I was stuck in my sin and my shame and my brokenness, and when I thought that God wanted nothing to do with me, I realized his doors are just always open.

And as long as I'm here, and as long as I'm leading this movement, our doors will be open.

Our doors will be open to people who are hurt and broken and rejected and living in shame and ostracized and marginalized.

They will find a home here.

Jesus demands that of us.

What was not done for his mother, he demands that we do for the world.

Jesus is God.

He could have been born anywhere, at any time.

He could have been born at the heights of luxury, in the grandest palace, on the most expensive throne.

Every door slammed in Mary's face.

I bet she lost just a little bit more hope.

A little bit more hope.

And if we're honest and we understand the story that's actually being told, if we were in her shoes, we might have just looked up and asked God why.

And she couldn't see it yet.

That they were being positioned to fulfill a prophecy a thousand years in the making.

She couldn't see it yet.

She didn't know that there were angels already communicating to shepherds on a hillside.

That by the end of the night there would be men bowing down at the feet of her infant, praising him as king.

She couldn't see the full picture.

That God chose to be born in shame and humility and rejection.

So that when you and I are in the midst of our own shame and humility and rejection, we can have hope that God shows up there.

She couldn't see it yet.

But she had faith.

And this is what faith looks like.

It looks like asking very big, very difficult questions when we're in the midst of very big, very difficult times.

God is big enough to handle your questions.

You can ask God why.

But we should ask it with faith-filled curiosity.

Faith means believing there is an answer even when we can't see it.

That there is a reason even when we can't understand it.

That there's hope even when we do not feel it.

You see, the actual story is that someone finally took pity on Mary and Joseph.

It's like, look, you can't go in the Cataluma.

It's just too risky.

Can't put you in the upper room.

But we have a barn.

I'd appreciate it if you guys kind of keep quiet.

I don't want this coming back on me.

And so they were put in a barn, housed amongst the animals.

Seen as unclean because of what people perceived as their sin.

And put in an unclean environment among the animals.

And it was there.

Away from her home, away from her mom.

It was there where she wasn't even supposed to be.

Rejected at home, now rejected here, that the Savior of the world entered our reality.

We are in danger of missing what the gospel is trying to communicate to us because we have so sterilized it to make it more accessible.

This word speaks to where you are and what you are going through.

You're inconvenienced, God knows what that feels like.

You feel rejected, God knows what that feels like.

You're living in shame, God understands what that feels like.

And in this story, properly understood, we can ask our big questions and we can live with faith.

The faith that says, God can use my inconvenience, my shame, my rejection, my suffering, and my circumstance for his glory and for my purpose.

It matters that we are people of an open door.

Now, here's where church complains.

It's like, oh, so we're just not gonna talk about sin then.

We're just gonna go soft on sin.

You're just gonna let anybody into your church, and then you're just gonna go really soft and not preach what the word says.

First of all, shut up, okay?

You are a sinner as well, and let him who has no sin throw the first stones.

Amen.

So that's my first advice.

Shut up, all right?

My second advice is not only will we preach the word, and not only will we preach on sin, we have to.

Here's how it worked.

Jesus always had an open door.

Everyone was invited to the table, everyone was invited to break bread.

That's grace.

And Jesus always taught truth.

And there are times in Scripture where thousands show up and Jesus teaches truth, and by the end, only dozens are left.

Jesus did not close the door, he did not kick them out of the door.

The door is open and it goes both ways.

I have taught the text of Scripture, I have taught on sin, and over the years there have been people who have left our movement.

And those are the moments really where leadership is at its heaviest for me.

It is truly heartbreaking.

And those same people who left, there is still an open door for them to return.

We don't close the door.

That's not our job.

Our job is to do whatever it takes to get people to Jesus.

Our job is to understand that it is by the grace of God alone that I go, and the same grace that was afforded to me is offered to everyone else.

It is our job to stand on the words of this sacred and holy text and to preach it with conviction and without apology.

And I believe when you do both of those, you honor God.

You honor Jesus.

And you honor his mother, who brought him into this world.

You honor the baby who no one would make room for his mom.

And you decide to be people who will not do the same.

And if we carry both of those in tandem, we will continue to see great things in this movement.

If we carry both of those in tandems, we will see miracles.

If we carry both of those in tandem, we can approach God with confidence and we can ask why.

With hopeful, faith-filled curiosity.

Because if God is who we believe he is, an answer is coming.

And that answer will be to his glory and for our purpose.

Would you pray with me?

Right, we were at across our venues.

If you would bow your head and close your eyes, create a little bit of space just to reflect.

The kind of rejection that can haunt you for a lifetime.

I wonder what is inconveniencing your life, and it can be very real, very painful.

I wonder if you have enemies, people who are in opposition, who are making your life difficult.

What would it look like to leave here?

Properly understanding the story of Christmas and having faith that God can use all of those things in your life.

Every week I give an opportunity for anyone who has not taken their first step of faith.

This story is the story of God loving us so much.

He came down to this earth and he came down for a purpose.

Because of our sin, we have separated ourselves from God both on earth and in eternity.

And so God came down to rescue us.

Jesus was born in humility, he lived in perfection, and he died, substituting his life for ours.

To come into relationship with your Heavenly Father, all that is asked of you is faith in Jesus.

A moment in time like right now, where you are convinced and convicted that Jesus is who he claimed to be and has done what he claims to have done.

If you're at our venue and you have never had a moment in time where you've put your faith in Jesus and you're ready to do that right now, with everyone's eyes closed, I want to ask you to simply raise your hand.

By lifting your hand, this is a symbolic gesture that says, Today I choose to put my faith in Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

For those who raised a hand, God sees and accepts your faith, which means your sins have been forgiven and you have come into a loving and eternal relationship with God.

What I want to do is just help you simply acknowledge this moment through a prayer.

If you raised your hand, I want to ask you to repeat this prayer with me.

And I'm gonna ask all the believers across our venues to pray this 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.

Let me pray over you.

Jesus, we are just overwhelmed by your love for us.

We are so thankful that you are a savior who understands our struggles, who came and lived, started your life out in rejection.

You do understand what we go through, and you have made a way for us not just to survive it, but to use it and redeem it and glorify it and make our lives more powerful and more significant.

Jesus, I thank you for those who have put their faith in you for the first time today.

I pray that they would take their next step, next step, next step, find out all that it means now to follow you into a life on purpose and with purpose.

We love you.

We pray these things in Jesus' name.

And everyone said.

Amen.

Thanks so much for listening to the message today.

If this was helpful to you and you want to help us get the word out, you can subscribe to this podcast.

You can rate and review or share it with your friends.

If you want to get connected further with what MetaCurch is doing, you can go online to metachurch.tv.

There you can learn how to take next steps.

You can learn where our different venues are at if you ever wanted to visit, and you can also give financially to help push this movement forward.

Man, I love you guys, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.