Fulfilled: The Gospel of Luke: His Name Is John 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.

I'm so glad you joined us today.

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

I'm the lead pastor here at MetaCurch, and we are walking verse by verse through the historical account of the life of Jesus that we call the gospel of Luke.

We're in this first section of Luke, we've called it the Chosen King.

And what we've learned is that Jesus did not just come to be Savior, He did not just come to be healer, He did not just come to be our friend, that Jesus came first and foremost to be King.

So we've called this here at MetaCurch a season of obedience.

We are learning how to submit our lives to Jesus as king.

And we want to make sure if we're going to do that, we know who Jesus is.

So we're taking our time, we're going through the gospel very, very slowly, and we're allowing it to speak to us and to instruct us.

I'm so excited about today's passage.

Uh, we're looking not just at the birth of John the Baptist, we're looking at the naming of John.

And this is really, really critical.

This is really how I feel like the Holy Spirit is gonna move amongst us today is looking at the naming of John the Baptist.

Luke's gospel is unique.

There's Matthew, Mark, John, and there's Luke.

There's four historical accounts of the life of Jesus.

Luke is the only one who doesn't start his story with Jesus.

He starts with John the Baptist, who is the forerunner of Christ.

He came to prepare the way for the public ministry of Jesus.

And we're gonna see him finally enter into the world and receive his name.

Studying this, I was reminded of one of the most famous lines of any play.

It's from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

If you don't know the story of Romeo and Juliet, they are star-crossed lovers.

They want to be together so desperately.

The problem is that they are Montagues and Capulets.

That's their last name.

And that their families are in a long, historic family feud.

And not the fun kind where Steve Harvey hosts, right?

Like a real, legit, like shedding of blood, deep-seated hatred between the Montagues and the Capulets.

And so you you kind of end up in this famous monologue by Juliet, where she is lamenting the fact that just because the arbitrary nature of their last names, they cannot be together, and we get what is maybe one of the most famous lines from perhaps the most famous play, Juliet says this, what's in a name?

That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.

The point she's making is that how we name things is arbitrary.

So if you take a rose and the tire off of a car, if we had decided, when the English language was being formatted to call a rose a tire and a tire a rose, it would not actually change the function of them.

If roses were called tires, they would still smell good, they would still have petals, they'd be colorful, they would have thorns.

If a tire was called a rose, it would still be circular and help our cars go places.

The names are arbitrary.

And I think about words in part for a living.

And so sometimes, I'm gonna be honest with you, I get lost in the sauce on words sometimes, right?

Like, I'll give you an example.

Just a couple of months ago, I was thinking you have all these apples.

You have Fuji apples, you have honey crisp apples, you have Granny Smith apples, you have pine apples.

You know what I'm saying?

Like one of these doesn't fit, okay?

And so I came up with a better name.

I think they should be called pointy melons.

You know, that's really that's really what they are.

They're just pointy melons, and it would still be the same thing, right?

Just because you give it a different name, it would still be the same thing.

And this is kind of how our culture thinks about names, including like our names.

So the way that we name our kids, some people have an idea of tradition in there.

But for most people in the 21st century in the West, we name our kids maybe off of trends, right?

And so about 15 years ago, really, you had never met someone named Olivia, and all of a sudden there were three Olivia's in every kindergarten classroom, right?

It was the number one name for girls in America for several years in a row.

So we follow trends.

Sometimes we name after celebrities, sometimes we name after family members, sometimes, like, we want all of our kids to kind of have the same first letter.

So we have all of these ways that we name, but they are arbitrary by definition.

They are random.

They're not often imbued with this deep, deep meaning.

And that is unique.

In the ancient world, and specifically, we're we're trying to become Bible scholars here, right?

So this is why we've handed out hundreds of these Gospels of Luke, where you can read on one page and take notes on the other.

If you don't have one, at either venue, stop by the connect area.

We will give you one of these so you can become a Bible scholar as well.

We're trying to set ourselves in the historical setting of the text.

And at the time of John and Jesus, names meant everything.

Here's some of the things that a name represented it represented tradition.

And so at the time that John is born, males were named after either their father or their grandfather.

There were very obscure exceptions.

Maybe you had an uncle who did some great heroic feat and your parents decided, but typically you were named after father or grandfather, you were always named after a relative.

Uh the tradition was to uphold your lineage, and lineage mattered.

We don't always think about that in our current cultural context, but lineage was everything.

These are the Hebrews, the Israelites.

This matters.

It matters the 12 tribes and who they descended from.

They thought about this kind of thing.

Now, your lineage informs your identity, and that still happens today.

Your lineage informs your identity, how you see yourself and how the culture sees you.

Lineage leads to identity, identity leads to expectation.

And so you were given the name of your father or grandfather.

If your father was a carpenter, you were going to be a carpenter.

If he was a fisherman, you were going to be a fisherman.

If he was a politician, you would end up a politician.

If he was wealthy, you were likely to be wealthy.

If he was influential, you would have influence.

If he was poor, you would likely end up poor.

This is how it worked.

And your name mattered.

What's in a name?

Today, almost nothing.

Arbitrary.

We can change our name, it doesn't change anything about us.

Back then, a name was everything.

Tradition, lineage, identity, and expectation.

I bring all of this up because we're gonna look at the naming of John today.

My parents named me Clayton.

They liked the name.

Uh they felt like it was masculine.

Obviously, they could look into the future and know I would just be like walking testosterone.

That's a joke, if you're uh they thought it was kind of a classical name, but they did say, like when I was born, they let it be known, um, we're going to call him Clayton, his full name.

They didn't know that'd be the bad guy in Tarzan, like 15 years later, but he's gonna be Clayton, everyone's gonna want to use the nickname and shorten it to Clay, but we're gonna stand our ground, he's gonna be Clayton full name.

About the time I was old enough to start playing outside with the neighbors, there was a boy a few years older than me, and he had lost his front two teeth.

And so he came and he knocked on the door.

And what he wanted to ask was, can Clayton come out and play?

But he didn't quite have the tooth structure to make a hard C L.

So what he actually asked is, can Satan come out and play?

And my parents were like, Come again?

He was like, Satan, can Satan come out and play?

And my parents just dropped the whole thing.

They were like, you know what?

Let's call him Clay.

And I was Clay the rest of my life.

Uh I finally, you know, I became an adult.

I was a traveling musician, I started a new band, I called it the Clayton Tiner Band.

I'm finally getting my name back.

I moved to San Antonio, introduced myself as Clayton.

Everyone in my life calls me Clayton now.

Except my parents who wanted me to be called Clayton the whole time.

They're the only people who call me Clayton.

Our names are somewhat arbitrary, but not in scripture.

And the naming of John will tell us so much, not just about what God is developing here in scripture and his plan to bring the chosen king to the earth, but it will inform us about our own lives and how we think about ourselves and how the world views us, and most importantly, how God views us.

So let's get into our text in Luke chapter 1, verse 57.

Luke 1:57

It says, Now the time had come for Elizabeth to give birth, and she had a son, and her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her his great mercy, and they rejoiced with her.

Now, if you're new and you haven't been following along, man, I'd love for you to get caught up, youtube.com slash metachurch.

Uh we've we've been telling this story, and part of what we learned is that uh Elizabeth had been disgraced.

And we don't like this, and you probably shouldn't like it, but during that time in a patriarchal society, a woman's worth and value and honor was in her ability to give her family sons.

That's how it worked.

It was tradition, lineage, identity, expectation.

The wife had a major role to play by producing sons.

And what we learn is Elizabeth was barren, and at this point in the text, Zechariah and Elizabeth are very old, they're well past childbearing years.

So she had lived with that disgrace her whole life.

And now Zechariah was told from the angel Gabriel they will have a son, and yet Elizabeth stayed in seclusion.

So her friends and her family and her neighbors did not know this miracle had occurred really until it was time to give birth.

All of a sudden, they are all rejoicing with her.

However, what also makes the story very interesting is when the angel Gabriel came to Zechariah, Zechariah doubted.

And we're gonna look at that.

This was back in week one of the chosen king.

In Luke 1, verse 11, an angel of the Lord of the Lord appeared to him, standing to the right of the altar of incense.

Luke 1:11

And when Zechariah saw him, he was terrified and overcome with fear.

But the angel said to him, Do not be afraid, because your prayer has been heard.

Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John.

Down in verse 18, Zechariah asked, How can I know this?

For I'm an old man, and my wife is well along in years.

And the angel answered him, I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and tell you this good news.

Now listen, you will become silent and unable to speak until the day these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their proper time.

Now, in this moment, John has already been born, and Zechariah is still mute.

He has not been able to speak for forty weeks.

And that creates a problem because in the Hebrew culture, what would happen is on the eighth day, you would take your son, he would go to the temple, you would offer prayers, you would circumcise, that was the sign of the covenant with Israel and God, and then you would name the child, and Zechariah cannot name him because Zechariah cannot speak, he has remained mute.

And this really sets up the tension of this passage.

For Zechariah, his doubt was actually disobedience.

You can go back and watch if you miss, but it's very interesting.

The same angel comes to Zechariah that comes to Mary, the mother of Jesus.

They both ask questions, one gets punished and one gets blessed for their questions.

See, Zechariah was unfaithful and was doubting, and it was taken as disobedience.

Mary had faith-filled curiosity, assuming it would happen, but questioning how it would happen.

And so, because of his disobedience, now he is put in a position where he cannot speak.

And we see that play out in verse 59.

When they came to circumcise the child on the eighth day, they were going to name him Zechariah.

Listen, they were going to name him Zechariah after his father, but his mother responded, no, period.

No.

He will be called John.

Now, again, we don't love this, uh, but kind of a very strong objection like this, speaking up over the crowd, women would not do that back then.

Now, if even hearing that really frustrates you, I totally understand.

You don't have to like that.

You do need to know that the reason that we don't believe like that anymore is because of Jesus.

So we're not there yet.

Jesus hasn't been born yet because I'm going so slow through the gospel of Luke, and I realize that.

But Jesus comes, he uplifts women at every turn, he positions them in places of influence.

The rest of the New Testament shows us how to follow the commands of Jesus.

And in all of ancient history, the New Testament is the first document that asserts the equality of men and women before God.

And so Jesus changes that, but Elizabeth isn't living in those changes.

She is living in a scenario where women are to be seen, not to be heard.

And so what does it say?

They said, let's name him Zechariah.

It's an ambiguous they.

We don't know who it is, but we have some educated guesses.

Number one, they're men.

We just know that culturally.

It would be men, and it would likely be relatives of Zechariah.

So maybe his brothers, or if he didn't have brothers, his cousin.

Zechariah is very old, so his dad and his uncles have probably passed, but they're likely relatives and they're definitely men.

And Zechariah can't speak.

So they're just like, look, this fool can't talk right now.

He's either gonna get named after his father or grandfather.

That's just the way things work.

So let's take the easy route here.

They're only gonna have one son.

We don't even know how they had this kid, you know?

So let's name him Zechariah.

Big Zechariah gets his Zechariah Jr.

Everybody's good and let's call it a day.

And Elizabeth interjects, way out of the cultural norm, and says, no, period.

Luke's originally written in Greek.

Uh this is an exclamation.

It's a great translation we have here in the CSB translation.

Because she wasn't like, you know, let's let's really re rethink this, or I have a suggestion, or you know, maybe we should.

She just said no.

Like, absolutely not.

The idea is like over my dead body, kind of a no, right?

He will be called John.

And nobody knew how to take this.

Number one, it was very out of the ordinary for a woman to stand up against a crowd of men like this.

And number two, John is not a family name.

We're asking the question today: what's in a name?

Like, what does it really mean?

And you can look at all of the biblical names, and they're all ascribed very deep meanings.

Like, Zechariah means Yahweh, which is the Hebrew name for the one true God, Yahweh remembers.

And what an appropriate name.

For a guy who went through his 20s and wasn't given a child, and his 30s and wasn't given a child, and his forties and wasn't given a child, and his fifties and wasn't given a child.

The man who thought God had forgotten him, and yet the angel of the Lord shows up and says, Zechariah, God has remembered you.

God remembers your prayers, the longings of your heart.

John, Johannin in the Greek, means Yahweh will be gracious.

If you don't know, John ends up preaching for a revival of the hearts of the people of Israel.

And what is he saying?

He's saying the religion has become corrupted, the politics have become corrupted, trying to follow the letter of the Jewish law has become corrupted.

And so you've got to prepare your hearts, prepare your minds, prepare your souls, for the grace of God will be demonstrated to you, and the chosen king who will be sent.

It's the perfect name for John.

I want you to notice as well.

Zechariah's name points to the past.

John's name points to what God is going to be doing in the future.

We will not name him that.

His name will be John.

In verse 61, then they said to her, None of your relatives have that name.

And so they motioned to his father, Zechariah, to find out what he wanted him to be called.

Now, I'm not a woman.

I've never given birth to a child.

Um, if I'm in Elizabeth's shoes, I can imagine myself being a little bit frustrated at this point, you know?

It's like, I just told you his name, you know?

By the way, she's like, I'm the one who carried this kid for the last 40.

I'm the one who just birthed this kid, right?

Like, I can have an opinion here.

Have your kids ever asked you a question and you give them an answer and they look at you and go, I'm gonna ask mom.

You know, it's like, wait, what?

Like, I've already told you his name is John.

But she doesn't have a voice.

So they say, let's go and let's see what Zechariah thinks.

And there's a reason that they're going to Zechariah.

And it's not just that they don't want to listen to Elizabeth, it's that Elizabeth is asking for a name that's not in their family.

They're going, Elizabeth, I mean, dad's not John, granddad's not John, great-great-grandfather isn't John, you don't have an uncle John, you don't have a third cousin twice.

Remove John, there are no Johns in this family.

And what does a name signify back then?

Number one, tradition.

We name after the dad.

If it's not the dad, it's the grandfather.

There's no Johns in this family.

And the tradition informs the lineage.

We're carrying something on.

And I'm about to show you all the way back in the Torah, the Jewish Torah.

The incredible lineage that Zechariah has to extend.

Your lineage informs your identity, who you are, and your identity creates expectation.

And so I want you to hear about Zechariah.

We talked about it in week one.

I want to expand on it.

Because Zechariah is from the tribe of Levi, he's a Levite.

That is one of the 12 tribes that God set aside to be the priest to take care of the temple.

However, not all Levites are the same.

You see, the very first high priest of Israel was Aaron, the brother of Moses.

And there are the Aaronic descendants, the sons who trace directly back to Aaron.

And they're not just priests, they're the only ones who are allowed by God to do the high or higher priestly duties.

I want to read this to you right out of scripture in the book of Numbers, which is part of the Torah, first five books of our Bible, the Jewish Torah.

Numbers chapter 18, verse 1.

Numbers 18:1

The Lord said to Aaron, You, your sons, and your ancestral family will be responsible for iniquity against the sanctuary.

You and your sons will be responsible for iniquity involving your priesthood.

But also bring your relatives with you from the tribe of Levi, your ancestral tribe, so they may join you and assist you and your sons in front of the tent of the testimony.

They are to perform duties for you and for the whole tent, but they must not come near the sanctuary equipment or the altar.

Otherwise, both they and you will die.

They are to join you and guard the tent of meeting, doing all the work of the tent, but no unauthorized person may come near you.

Verse 5, you are to guard the sanctuary and the altar so that the wrath may not fall on the Israelites again.

Look, I've selected your fellow Levites from the Israelites as a gift for you, assigned by the Lord to work at the tent of meeting.

But you and your sons, that is Zechariah, will carry out your priestly responsibilities for everything concerning the altar and for what is inside the curtain, and you will do that work.

I'm giving you the work of the priesthood as a gift.

But listen, an unauthorized person who comes near the sanctuary will be put to death.

Let me break that down for you.

You have levels to this.

There's all of Israel, and all of Israel gets to come and worship at the temple.

Out of all the 12 tribes of Israel, there's one tribe, the Levites, and they are the priests who uphold the duties of the temple.

But out of those Levites, there's a small select few who are descendants of Aaron, and they get to go into the most holy place.

They get to light the incense.

They get to replace and even eat of the show bread.

They get to do the highest of the temple duties.

The only thing higher is the high priest himself, who once a year goes behind the veil into the Holy of Holies.

This is Zechariah's lineage.

He can trace back over a millennia, a thousand plus years, all the way to Aaron in an unbroken chain of sons of Aaron who become the priests who go into the most holy place.

Where was Zechariah when the angel Gabriel came from the Lord and spoke to him?

He was in the most holy place.

This is where he found out he was having a son.

If anyone has a lineage to protect and a lineage to push forward, it's Zechariah.

And we know that Zechariah is mute because of his doubt, but I want to suggest there's more to his interaction with the angel than you or I will see on first reading because of what we've learned.

What we've learned is in a name there is lineage and there is identity and there is expectation.

And so what did the angel tell him?

The angel said, Zechariah, you will have a son.

Boom! Zechariah's been praying for this his whole life.

We know in the Torah that when that son turns 25 years old, he will pick up the priestly duties.

When Zechariah, imagine when he's 20 and 30 years old and praying for a son, he's going, if I have a son now, when he's 25, we will get to walk into the temple side by side and work together.

Unreal.

Unreal.

He's thinking to himself, these dreams.

If I can have a son, the lineage continues.

I'll teach him how to put on the royal priestly robes, how to tie it upright, how to walk with dignity, how to carry yourself, where you follow the letter of the law, but you understand the heart of the law.

You remain righteous before God.

We'll walk side by side in the temple.

I'll teach him how to perform the duties not just of a Levite priest, but of someone from the descendants of Aaron.

This is the dream.

I actually understand this dream.

I have two sons.

My oldest is about to be 21, my youngest is about to be 16.

My oldest is an entrepreneur.

He's out there running his own business.

And guess what?

I am his totally free 24-7 business consultant.

All right.

We're on the phone all the time, chopping it up, strategizing, client acquisition, putting pitches together.

He calls me.

He gets to learn from both my experience and my mistakes as an entrepreneur.

We're working side by side all the time, and it's a dream.

My younger son is a basketball player.

He's very talented.

That was my sport.

I was recruited as a collegiate athlete.

That's the dream.

He wants to get there.

I can help him get there.

So I don't just watch his games, boy, I watch his games.

You know, we dissect the game.

Even on the court sometimes, something's not going right.

He'll kind of look over at me in the stance.

And I'm not trying to step on the coach's toes, but I will, you know what I'm saying?

Like side by side with my sons, with these common interests, like working together on things.

It's literally one of the most fulfilling things in my life.

And that's the dream.

And that dream dies because he gets too old and his wife is barren.

But God remembers Zechariah.

And the angel Gabriel shows up during his priestly duties and he says, You will have a son.

Boom.

And you will name him John.

Well, what's in a name?

To us, not much.

To Zechariah, everything.

What's the angel saying?

We're throwing out the tradition.

What does the angel say if you remember in week one?

He will have the power and the spirit of Elijah.

Elijah's not a priest, he's a prophet.

Elijah didn't work in the temple, he preached against the temple.

Tradition out the window.

Lineage out the window.

Identity, completely different.

Expectation, completely different.

Zechariah didn't just have to wrestle with the reality of him and his wife, past childbearing years, having a child.

Zechariah has to deal with the death of a dream as he finally has a son, but his son will go in the opposite direction of all of his expectations.

I don't know how much you know about John, but John didn't grow up and put on royal priestly garments.

John ran out to the wilderness and wore animal skins.

John didn't go into the most holy place and eat the showbread and eat of the sacrifices like a priest.

He lived in the wilderness and ate locusts.

John did not try and revitalize a dying institution from inside the temple.

John stood outside of the temple and pointed at the institution that his father had built and condemned it.

I mean, it's not just not quite what Zechariah thought, it is the opposite of the dream he would have had in all of scripture.

John the Baptist is not just a Levite, he is from the Aaronic line.

In all of Scripture, there is not one singular example of a Levite male turning his back on the priesthood.

There is no extra biblical evidence of any Levite ever turning their back on their identity and expectation as a priest, except John.

Everything had to change for the purposes of God to happen on the earth.

This is what's writing on Zechariah's decision.

And so Elizabeth says, like, no.

I don't know how he communicated.

I don't know if he wrote it down.

Obviously, Zechariah has her caught up.

She says his name is John.

And they're like, I don't know, man.

That's out of pocket.

That's crazy.

That's not a family name.

Names mean something.

He gets the wrong name.

He goes in the wrong direction.

Let's ask Zechariah.

I want you to feel the weight of this moment.

It's not just obedience, it's the death of his own dreams and desires.

In verse 63, Zechariah asked for a writing tablet, and in faith and obedience, he wrote, His name is John.

And they were all amazed.

John.

What does this mean?

I love that he didn't say, We're going to name him John.

His name will be John.

You know, my wife is right.

You know, like there's a lot of things he could have.

He wrote it as a definitive.

I know we haven't named him, but he's already named.

His name is John.

I didn't name him.

Elizabeth didn't name him.

The angel Gabriel didn't name him.

God named him.

God had a name for John, and his name was attached to his life's purpose.

John, Johannin.

Yahweh will be gracious.

And you need to know this.

God has a name for you as well.

I want to show you the last book of the New Testament, the book of Revelation, chapter 2, verse 17.

Revelation 2:17

John, not John the Baptist, John the Apostle, writes, Let anyone who has ears to hear listen to what the Spirit says to the churches, to the one who conquers.

How do you conquer?

You submit the entirety of your life to Jesus as King.

To the one who conquers, I will give some of the hidden manna extra resource.

I will also give him a white stone, and on that stone, a new name is inscribed that no one knows except the one who receives it.

This is a vision of heaven.

This is a vision of life after this life when God will reveal to you a name that will only be known to you and God.

Did you know that God has a new name for you?

Did you know that God will reveal your new name on the other side of this life?

Did you know that God has many names and descriptors of you and they are found in his word?

You see, here's the problem.

We think our names are arbitrary.

My parents named me Clayton because they knew I would grow up to be the very picture of masculinity.

That's a joke again.

There's all these reasons that we name people what we name them.

But what I actually care about is that the enemies of God and the forces of our culture take our names and they imbue them with meaning.

They drench them in descriptors, they consume them with adjectives and adverbs.

And so your name might be Michelle, your name might be Tanya, your name might be Rachel, but to all of your friends, when your name pops up in the group thread, what they think is party girl.

That's what your name has come to mean.

Your name might be Tony, or it might be Juan, or it might be Michael, but to your people, your name means gossip.

You're the source of information and dirt on everyone else.

You have conversation A, you get a little bit of information, you bait that, you throw it into conversation B, you reel out some more information, you take that and leverage it in conversation C.

Pretty soon you're the guy who knows all the dirt on everybody.

Your name now means gossip.

The enemies of God will work as hard as possible to make your name mean something that God does not have it mean in heaven.

And so you hear your name, but to you, your name means failure.

It means too far behind.

It means immature.

It means unlove.

It means divorce.

It means so God is speaking through his word constantly, saying, I've got a name for you, saved.

I've got a name for you, redeemed, I've got a name for you, child of God.

I've got a name for you, powerful, purposeful, intentional, urgent, on mission, and yet the world comes and says, No, no, no, no, no.

Don't you know?

Look at your lineage.

Look where you came from, bro.

Look who raised you.

Look at the influences in your life.

You know who you really are.

You're no good.

You're angry.

Way too angry to be used by God.

You're a mistake.

You've messed up too many times.

You're a convict.

That's your name.

I know what your mama named you.

Your real name?

Convict.

Spent too many times, in and out.

And so we receive these names, and they're attached to our lineage.

And you need to know this: your lineage informs your identity.

And so we take on that identity.

Failure, lost, confused, stupid, ugly.

Lineage informs identity, identity creates expectation.

And so you live out of an identity that was formed by a lineage.

You have lineage, identity, expectation.

L, I, E.

Some of you are living not out of the truths of God, but out of the lies of your lineage, a broken identity, and false expectation.

And so look, God says you don't name him because he's not yours.

God says he is mine.

God says that about you.

And if you will receive it, it will change you, it will fill you with power.

You get to say to the devil, you don't get to name me, bro.

You don't get to say who I am.

You don't put an identity on me.

You know who I am?

I am a child of the living God.

That's my lineage.

You know what my identity is?

Covered in the blood of Christ.

You know what my expectations are?

To bend the knees and submit my life to the one and true chosen king and watch me change the world.

And I will not let these lies inform who I am anymore.

I am not broke walking into your broken lineage anymore.

I am not gonna become the worst parts of the people who raised me anymore.

I am not going to live with an identity that does not come directly from heaven itself.

I will not pick up your expectations, the expectations of culture, the expectation of celebrity, the expectation of virality, the expectation of wealth in excess.

I don't care about your expectations.

I bend my knee to Jesus and Jesus alone.

I reject the lie.

If it doesn't come from the mouth of God, it does not speak to who I am.

If I can't find it in here, I will not own it, I will not wear it, it cannot leverage me, it cannot extort me.

I belong to Jesus.

This is new to some of you.

You're okay.

This is the sound of freedom.

This is the sound of someone rejecting the lies.

Do you know what Satan means?

It means the deceiver.

And so we think he's powerful like God's powerful.

He's created like we are.

It's not leveraging power over you, it's leveraging lies.

And we all have a story and we all have hurt.

But if you allow the truth of the word to speak to you, freedom will come.

Sometimes freedom hurts.

Sometimes God will hurt us to heal us.

Sometimes God will prune.

He will prune lies out of our life.

You know how hard it is to change an identity?

You know how hard it is to let go of the coping mechanisms that have gotten you through some of the hardest times in your life, and now God's asking you to release so that you can walk into your purpose.

The Holy Spirit is moving across our venues here at Meta Church.

And it's not magic, and it's not because we have the best one-liners, and it's not because we have the best production, it's because we're just opening the word of God, and the word of God will set you free.

You will know the truth.

This is the truth, and the truth will set you free.

Amen.

Sister, are you okay?

God's moving.

I want to show you what happens.

He asked for a writing tablet.

He obeyed and submitted.

His name is John 64.

Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue set free.

And he began to speak, praising God.

Obedience, yes, and submission.

We're a culture who hates submission.

We're a stubborn culture.

We don't want to be owned by anybody.

We don't want anyone to take any freedom.

We love our rights.

We hate responsibility.

We didn't call this section of Luke the chosen friend.

Jesus will be the best friend you could ever have.

A friend that's closer than a brother, a friend who never gets it wrong.

But before he is your friend, he needs to be your king.

We're learning obedience, we're learning submission, and we are fighting every cultural instinct that we have to hold on to power and hold on to control and hold on to our rights and be our own kings and be our own gods.

Zechariah had that tablet, and he could have been like, you know what?

I heard the angel.

I've been planning too long for my son to be a priest.

I've been dreaming too long.

His name is Zechariah.

What are the broken parts of your lineage?

Parents.

Let's put ourselves in Zechariah's shoes.

What if God's plan isn't for your kid to run the family business?

What if he calls him to something else?

What if he calls her to something else?

What if God's plan for your kid moves them to a different city or a different state or a different country to serve the Lord?

What if God's plan for your kid is different than your plan for your kid?

Can we die to our own dreams?

Let me talk to the men real quick.

What if your son wants to play the sport that wasn't your sport?

You know what I'm saying?

Like we start living vicariously through our children.

And we may have to die to that to see what God has actually called them into.

Here's what happens when we begin to trade the lies of broken lineage and misplaced identity and worldly expectations for the truth of what God has said about us.

Our last two verses.

What does it mean?

And notice it spread from neighbors through the town through their entire region.

And the fear of God fell on the people.

God is moving and He's doing something new.

What happens when we reject the lies and we walk in the truths?

Revival starts to break out.

People begin to take notice.

God begins to do something new and fresh in your life, and the people who know you see it and they receive it as light.

And that is our job.

Light in a world of darkness, pointing the way to the truth.

And as the church, the modern, western, 21st century church, we have the truth and we've received it, and we have received faith in Jesus, and we have our eternity sealed.

But far too often we live the daily rhythms of our lives, not out of the truths of King Jesus, but the lies of our lineage, worldly identities, and incorrect expectations.

For revival to come, we must damn the lies and hold on to the truth.

Send those lies to the pit of hell.

I mean, this technically, damn the lies.

Send them to hell.

That's where they belong.

Your truth is spoken from the word of heaven.

And you cling to that, as countercultural as it may be, as scary as it may be, and you begin to walk that out and watch as this little movement in the heart of San Antonio and Helotus, random assortment of ordinary people begin to live lives of extraordinary impact, lives on purpose and with purpose.

What's in the name?

If it's the names that the world has put on you, nothing.

Reject it.

If it's the names that Christ has given you, it's everything.

Embrace it.

Live it out.

Let's pray.

Right where you're sitting across our venues, if you'd bow your head and close your eyes, it is obvious the Holy Spirit is moving.

Convicting, challenging, encouraging.

If you are a believer in Jesus, what parts of your lineage are you holding on to?

Or maybe more appropriately, what parts of your lineage are holding on to you?

Scripture says when we put our faith in Jesus, we are no longer children of this world, we are children of God.

That's our new lineage.

You will live out of your identity.

It shapes who you are and how you interact in the world.

Is your identity found in Christ?

Is that your starting place?

Do you see yourself the way Jesus sees you?

Your identity will create expectation.

Are you living to try and escape pain, numb pain, escape trauma, suppress, deny, distract?

Or are you living in submission to Jesus?

Does He set the expectation?

If you're here at one of our venues or even with us online, and you've never had a moment in time where you've put your faith in Jesus, then the world is all you have.

It names you, it puts you in a corner, it sets the expectations, and you were created for more than that.

You were created by God to come into his family, to have a new lineage, to find your identity the way that your creator sees you, to live under expectations that will lead to your flourishing, your power, and your purpose.

God loves you so much, he came down into the brokenness of our world.

He conquered this world by living a perfect life, and he died to pay the price of everything that separates you from God, and all he asks for is your faith.

A moment in time where you become convinced and convicted that Jesus is who he claimed to be and has done what he says that he's done.

So here's what I want to do.

If you don't know Jesus, the Holy Spirit likely has a hold of your heart right now.

I'm gonna ask you to respond across our venues with everyone's eyes closed.

If you are ready to put your faith in Jesus for the first time today, I want to ask you, right where you're sitting, to just raise your hand.

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

Amen.

Amen.

For those who raised a hand, I want you to know God sees and accepts your faith.

I can say with confidence out of his word that your sins are forgiven, that you've been adopted into God's family, and because of that, you will have eternal life with him, a gift that no one and nothing could ever take away from you.

Here's what I want to do across our venues.

If you raise your hand, I want you to pray this prayer with me, repeat after me.

I'm gonna ask all the believers 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.

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.