Fulfilled: The Chosen King: Luke 1:46-56 with Pastor Clayton Tyner

Welcome to the Medichurch 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.

And kind of uniquely, if you're joining us at our Petrenko location for either the 10:30 or the noon, you are watching me on video right now because I am in Holotus at our Holotus venue, preaching live there.

We opened our Holotus location about eight months ago now.

And uh man, it has just kept moving and shaking and it's new.

It's in its infancy.

And so there's a lot of change, and that happens.

If like there's no greater span of time where you change more in a little period of time than in your infancy.

It's like, you know, you can't go on the road when you have an infant because if you leave for three days, you will miss 35 things, you know?

And so I'm very excited uh to come out.

The Holodus volunteers are watching this service with us right now.

I'm so excited to be out there with you guys here in just a little bit.

And it's a good reminder that we don't prioritize at metachurch.

Other people can do what they want, but at meta church, uh we don't prioritize the messenger.

We don't prioritize the medium that the message comes across.

We prioritize the message itself.

And so, however, you're receiving this, if you're watching online and you're sitting on a couch right now, if you're at our Petrinko location or Holodus location, if you're watching this in the future on the archive, you can receive from the Word of God if you just humble yourself and lean in.

And so that is my encouragement to us today because I think our passage is rich with meaning and with application to our life.

Now, we are going line by line through the book of Luke.

We are in this first section that we're calling the chosen king.

And as we navigate through the birth narratives of both John the Baptist and Jesus, we have learned some incredible things.

We have learned that Jesus did not just come to be your savior, he didn't just come to be your friend.

Jesus is not just your homeboy, right?

Jesus came to be king.

And so we are learning about the kingship of Christ, how to submit our lives to the kingship of Christ.

And we're in this very interesting part of Luke chapter 1 because this isn't a section that pushes the narrative forward.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

This isn't a section that informs us more about the historicity of the birth of Christ.

This is a spontaneous proclamation of praise and worship from the lips of his own mother.

And what is so interesting about the God that we serve, a triune God, one God who expresses himself in three persons or three manifestations, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, is that Mary is worshiping God, and therefore Mary is worshiping the seven-day-old zygote that has been conceived inside of her.

She is already positioning herself as the mother of Jesus to also submit to her son as her king.

And worship matters.

I'm gonna give you a very, very simple definition.

Worship is where we give our time, energy, attention, and affection.

Worship is where we give our time, energy, attention, and affection.

And so as we look at the worship from Mary, the mother of our Lord, it's going to help us understand how to leverage our time for the kingdom of God.

It's going to help us understand how to prioritize our energy for the purposes of God.

It is going to help us understand how to ensure that our highest priority and our attention is, in fact, our Heavenly Father and our King Jesus.

It's going to help us learn how to make sure that we are cultivating admiration, affection, and intimacy with Christ so we can know him better.

We started this fulfilled series off going through the book of Luke, saying we have to know the real Jesus.

If we follow Jesus, if we believe in Jesus, if Jesus is our only hope for this life and our only hope for eternity, we better know who Jesus is.

And that comes through worship.

And so we think worship just comes at the few minutes that our worship leaders are up here with guitars on and lights on and fog machines on.

We love all of that.

And that is a part of worship.

And it and it trains us how to worship, and it trains us how to experience the presence of God.

It trains us how to hear from God in these scripted moments of worshiping through music.

But worship is a lifestyle.

And so we worship through music and we worship through the word and we worship through fellowship of the gathering of the church.

That matters.

There's a reason we are commanded in the New Testament to not neglect gathering together as a supernatural body of Christ.

We worship through our giving, through our generosity.

There's all of these ways, and what we're trying to do is learn to live a lifestyle of worship.

And I think we are going to see these four movements, almost like a template, in Mary's song of worship, that will help us learn how to integrate this into every fiber of our life.

And so I want us to look, and you know, we're learning to be uh biblical scholars here at MetaCurch, and so hopefully you you have a copy of the word and a notebook, or you have the book of Luke we handed out, which is kind of the word and notes all at once.

We're gonna start with verses 46 and 47, right?

Right beside that, you can write the word react.

This is how Mary starts.

She starts by reacting to God.

She says in 46, My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior.

My soul magnifies the Lord.

Now, it's a very uh interesting word, magnifies, because it can kind of mean a couple of things.

You might think of like a magnifying glass, where it takes something really small and helps make it bigger.

Or if when you were a little kid, you were a psychopath like me, you would try to get the sun in the magnifying glass and find like an ant, you know?

And so some psychopathic tendencies I had to pray about when I was little.

Take small things and makes them big.

But uh a telescope also magnifies.

It takes something that is sometimes way bigger, even than our planet, and it makes it to where we can finally see it, something that is far away and it brings it near.

Tella, which means far away, scope, which means to magnify, to bring it to view.

And this is the sense of the word because God is never small.

And God never changes.

So it's not like God is small, so we need to magnify him and make God bigger.

God is actually bigger than big, God is transcendent.

That's definitionally what transcendence means.

It means bigger than big.

God is outside of space and time, outside of our reality that we can perceive.

God is omnipresent, he is everywhere all at once.

God is omnipotent, he is all powerful, God is omnibenevolent, he is the source and the locus of all things that are good.

He is all-wise, he is all-knowing, he is all things, he is all perfect love.

And so when we magnify God, we don't make God bigger.

You cannot make God bigger, he's bigger than big.

When Mary says, My soul magnifies the Lord, what she means is I am living a life that expresses worship because as big as God is, for those who do not know God, they can feel very, very far from Him.

And so the question in our lifestyle of worship is are we living in a way that helps people see how big our God is?

Are we living in a way that helps people understand and perceive what God actually offers them?

Mary begins this way, and one of the things it shows us is that proper worship starts with acknowledging who God is.

A lot of times in prayer, and I find myself doing this too because we know that God has all of the strength and all of the answers, and He is God, and He can do whatever He wants.

So a lot of times we enter into prayer and we start with us.

It's like, God, here's what I need, and here's what I'm frustrated about, and here's what I'm worried about, and here's what I need you to change, and here's the person.

You ever you ever prayed for God to like smite someone and you're like, I'm not sure if I like if that's a good prayer?

But God, if you don't smite them, I'm gonna smite them, so maybe you should smite them.

Vengeance is the Lord or something, because I'm about to smite, bro.

I'm about to, if you, God will throw hands so I don't have to.

And we we start with us and our needs, but proper worship starts with God, acknowledging who God is.

One of the things studying Luke so in depth, we're in week five and we're in chapter one.

So that's about how this is gonna go, right?

We're going slow.

One of the things that it has really brought to me is a greater understanding of this dynamic between Jesus and his earthly parents.

And we've talked some about that in the weeks before this.

And one of the things that I noticed as I was studying this song, this spontaneous moment of worship from Mary, is that what is called the Magnificat, the song that we're looking at today, that it actually lays over the model prayer, the Lord's prayer, uh, almost perfectly.

Now, I don't have time to teach on that because I'm already preaching way too long in Sunday service, and that would take me at least two hours to get through.

But think about Jesus from birth being raised by Mary, and we get insight into how Mary worships.

I'm gonna jump ahead 10 chapters to Luke chapter 11.

Luke 11 · chapter mention

In Luke chapter 11, the disciples of Jesus have noticed he doesn't pray like they pray.

Luke 11 · chapter mention

The Jewish people at that time they had had very formulaic, templated prayers, they had certain times of day that they would get down, they would pray, they'd face the temple, they'd go through their formulaic recitation, and they're like, Jesus doesn't pray like us, he prays like all of the time.

It's almost like he's just talking to his father.

In Luke chapter 11, his disciples come to Jesus and they say, Jesus, teach us how to pray like you pray.

Luke 11 · chapter mention

And you know the beginning of the Our Father, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed, holy, set apart, bigger than big, greater than great, grander than grand, hallowed be your name.

It's like Jesus grew up hearing Mary start her prayers that way.

This is how you pray, you start with acknowledging who God is.

I want to point something out to you in the text.

Mary said, My soul magnifies, and my spirit rejoices.

Now, we're too busy like scrolling on TikTok or whatever to have these big, like, ontological questions of what's the difference between your soul and your spirit.

You might not spend all of your free time thinking about that.

But without going into all the details, that would turn a 50-minute sermon into an hour and a half sermon.

Go in in the Jewish mind, this is an ancient Hebrew idiom where they would talk about my soul and my spirit.

And to give you kind of a modern equivalent, it's like when we would say, I feel it in my bones.

Or we might say it like this I believe that with every fiber of my being that expresses the same idea of them saying, It's not just my soul, it's my soul and my spirit.

What Mary is saying is the totality of who I am.

There is not one singular part of me that does not magnify the Lord.

There is nothing I am choosing to separate off and say, This is kind of church Clayton over here, and then this is kind of worldly Clayton over here.

There's no excuses.

I don't say, look, I don't mind singing songs of praise to God, but I sure am not gonna love my enemies over here.

I don't mind coming and serving with my energy, but God cannot have my pocketbook.

There's nothing hidden.

Every single part of me shows the world how big my God is.

Are we living lifestyles of worship that point people to how big our God is?

Or are we doing what the Western church and Western Christians have done for the past 50, 100, 150 years where we come in to a Sunday service, we talk a big game about how big God is, we sing songs about how big God is, we read scriptures about how big God is, but when we live out in the everyday rhythms of our life, we live in ways and we treat people in ways and we steward our finances in ways and we're in relationships in ways and we're married in ways and we parent in ways that show the world our God is small.

When disaster comes into our life, the way we react to it, does it show people we have a big God or a small God?

If people saw the check you write every month to build God's kingdom, would they think you believe in a big God or a small God?

This is magnifying the Lord.

How you treat your spouse, do you have a big God?

Marriage is hard.

I was at multiple weddings this week.

Anytime I officiate a wedding, I'm like, hey, y'all just need to know this.

You're signing up for hard.

And so when something hard comes into your marriage, when you're out of the honeymoon phase, when you walk in and they think it's okay to use your toothbrush, they're like, we kiss, it's the same thing.

Hey, no, it's not.

Marriage gets hard, man, and it's like how big is your God when it gets hard.

See, your reaction to suffering in life, your ability to maintain faith in the midst of struggle in this life will be in direct proportion to how big your God actually is.

And not only is it not helping to talk a big game and sing a big game and preach a big game and then go live lives as if we have a small God, it actively hurts the movement.

The movement of Jesus couldn't be stopped in the first century when no one was educated, they didn't actually have Bibles to carry around, they were under persecution, it was illegal to come into a Sunday gathering.

No one could stop it in the second century, no one could stop it in the third century because the Christians lived like their God was so big and loved them so much that he stepped off of his throne in heaven and came down to this world, allowed creation to kill the creator, and then walked out of his grave three days later.

People lived like that actually happened and they transformed the world.

And so, do we live in ways that magnifies our God?

Because when we live that way, if you're far from God, it may feel like God is so distant, but God is not distant from those who are far from him because you're here.

I'm here, and we are the ambassadors of God, crying out to a world that feels far from God.

God is right here, God is reaching out his hands, God walked on this earth for you, God stretched out his arms and died for you, God has pursued you your entire life.

We magnify him.

We are the telescopes, taking what seems far away and showing that it's right here and available to you.

This is why it matters that we create church environments that are not just for the saints.

As a matter of fact, here at MetaCurch, we gear ourselves to make sure that someone who is unchurched or de-churched or unconvinced or skeptical or atheist or agnostic can come and belong before they believe.

Because that is what we do in Sunday service.

We come together and we magnify the Lord.

And if that's you and you're here and you don't believe, you don't have a relationship with Jesus, you are not convinced of the claims of Christianity.

I'm so glad you're here and you belong in this movement, and you're gonna continue watching as we magnify the Lord in service as we meet together, and you are going to watch a movement of people who begin to walk out of these doors where our mission actually starts and move together in ways that magnifies the Lord out in the real world, and someday you are gonna submit and bend your knee.

In Jesus' name, I believe you're gonna give your life to Christ because as we magnify the Lord, you will realize He is not far from you.

You've tried to be far from Him, you've run from Him, you've tried to live as your own God, but God has come after you, and eventually you will turn and you will find Him and you'll give your life to Him.

And that is how revival happens.

My soul magnifies the Lord.

My marriage magnifies the Lord.

We start in reaction to who God is, which means we must be paying attention to who God is.

Think about Mary's journey.

The angel comes to her unannounced, surprises her, gives her this news.

She goes and takes steps of faith to see Elizabeth.

When you take steps of faith, we learned last week, it brings affirmation.

When affirmation comes, you react.

This is the journey.

Steps of faith lead to affirmation, lead to just awe and wonder at who God is and what he is doing in your life.

And after you react, you respond.

After you react, you respond.

Verses 48 and 49, right next to that, you can write respond.

My soul magnifies, my spirit rejoices, because God has looked with favor on the humble condition of his servant.

Mary says, Surely from now on, all generations will call me blessed, because the mighty one has done great things for me, and his name is holy.

After we react to who God is, and this should be the central aspect of our worship, we start with God.

Our worship starts with God, our days start with God, our thoughts start with God, and we just stand in awe and wonder of who He is.

And we allow that reaction to draw out a proper response.

Mary says, All generations will consider me blessed.

I just want to point out, especially for those who are skeptical of the Christian message, Mary said this 2,000 years ago.

Mary from Nazareth, a nobody from nowhere, doing nothing of significance with her life.

She said this 2,000 years ago, 2,000 years later, on a continent that no one knew existed, we stand here and we call her blessed.

You remember Mary asked a really good question to the angel.

When the angel said, You will conceive as a virgin, you will give birth as a virgin.

She said, How will this be?

And the bottom line answer is nothing will be impossible with God.

Nothing will be impossible with God.

This is the proper response when you allow yourself to react to who God is.

See, all of the giants that you're facing, we use this metaphor because of King David as a young boy, and he came out, and the giant Goliath was threatening the armies of God, and he said, I don't care about that giant because I have the power of the God of the universe inside of me.

And so he went and got his five smooth stones, and he said, It's like everybody else saw a giant, and all David saw was God's power.

This is what happens when you start with God, when you allow yourself the natural reaction of dwelling on who God is, the God who spoke you into existence, and yet deeply desires relationship with you.

King David expressed this in the Psalms.

He's like, Who is man?

Who are we down here that you take any notice of us?

And yet you have given us this world, you have given us life on purpose and with purpose.

Nothing will be impossible with God, which means your problems scale directly proportional to your faith.

So if you're not starting with God, if you're starting with your problems, and this is a lot of our prayer.

Prayer is an act of worship.

We begin with our problems, we begin with our pain, we begin with our trauma.

God cares about that, He knows that, He wants you to bring that to Him.

But what we're seeing in Mary is a proper procedure in our worship.

When you start with your pain, your pain is the focus.

When you start with the relational tension, that is the focus.

When you start with your anger, that is the focus.

We have to cement ourselves on the Foundation of who God is.

That is our first reaction.

Our first reaction isn't to our pain, it's to our provider.

Our first reaction is to who God is, and that draws out of us this response of, oh yeah, you know what I'm going to is a big deal, and work is really hard, and my marriage is on the rocks, and my kids do not know how to behave, and my money is drying up.

But do you know who my God is?

Nothing is impossible with my God.

Nothing is impossible with my God.

Nothing is impossible through faith.

It draws out a response that nothing is impossible.

It also helps you understand who you are in relation to God.

Notice in the text, Mary said that God has looked with favor on the humble condition of his servant.

On the humble condition.

See, we have deified Mary.

It's a mistake.

Not only is it theologically a mistake, but it is a mistake because when we defy Mary, we bring separation between her and us.

Mary says, Look at look at me.

I'm a nobody from nowhere.

He's looked on this humble condition of an impoverished young girl from the backwoods of Nazareth.

Here's how it works: when we acknowledge who God is, it brings clarity to who we are.

Now, this does not mean you come before God with some kind of false humility and throw a pity party.

That's not godly.

Mary isn't saying, Oh, woe is me.

I am so impoverished.

How could God ever use somebody like me?

I just can't even.

That's false humility.

And in other words, for false humility is pride.

Humility is an accurate assessment of yourself.

And the most accurate assessment I can make of myself is I'm not God, he is.

That's where humility starts.

I'm not God, he is God.

Like that's the playing field we're on.

He gets to be God and I get to be me.

So he's given me some gifts, and I better use them for God.

He's given me some talents, I better submit them to the real king, or else I might be tempted to try and become my own king.

And a lot of times we approach God and we put our pain first and we put our problems first and we put our trauma first and we put our hurt first and we put our anger first, and you know what comes second?

Our expectations.

Because the entirety of your culture is trying to form your mind to believe that you are meant to be your own God.

That is the proto-temptation.

It's the temptation behind every single temptation you'll ever encounter.

It's the first temptation.

When the serpent came to Adam and Eve, uh I grew up learning scripture in the King James Version.

I learned it like this ye shall be as gods.

God doesn't want you to eat this fruit because if you eat it, he's holding back.

He's holding out on you.

He doesn't want the best for you.

He knows if you eat, ye shall be as gods.

I grew up King James.

I was five years old.

I talked like I was from the 1500s, alright.

Behind every movie you watch, every TV show, every song in pop culture, behind every false narrative that runs through your mind, lurking at every job site, around the corner of every cubicle, in every relationship, wedged up in your pride and your lust and your insecurity.

This is the proto-temptation.

It's the temptation underneath every single temptation.

You know, you could kind of be God too.

It's like the temptation goes like this.

If God is so powerful, I mean, look what's going on, man.

Another war in the Middle East.

Well, God doesn't really know what he's doing.

Is God really paying attention to you?

Look at how many things have gone wrong in your life.

Look at how much hurt and pain you've had to endure.

Look at how often bad people get good things and good people get bad things.

I mean, you might be able to do a better job than God could.

And of course, as God-fearing people, we'd be like, I would never, I would never.

But often we start with our pain and then we bring God our expectations.

And so here's what's wrong, God, and here's what I want you to do about it.

Proper lifestyle of worship starts with God, and when you react to who God is, it does two things.

Number one, it builds your faith.

Audacious, life-changing, mountain-moving faith.

Nothing is impossible.

The second thing it does is it humbles you.

True worship produces humility.

Humility is not false humility, it's not downplaying who God has made you.

You are powerful.

You have the purpose of God inside of you.

The fingerprints of God are on your spirit and soul.

It's not false humility, it's true humility.

It's an accurate assessment of self.

Here's life.

He is God, he sets the rules, he sets the agenda, he sets the expectation, he gives commands.

I am not God, I follow the rules, I live up to the expectations, and I obey the commands.

And because he is God, and because he is good, if I submit to Christ as King and if I live in that way, I trust that my life will be blessed beyond measure now, and my life will be blessed beyond measure in eternity.

Mary reacts.

And that's good because that sets us up to be able to obey God.

If you read through the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Jesus has this very specific question that he asks over and over and over again.

And it takes different forms, but several times it's asked like this.

Who can accept this?

Who can accept this?

Or sometimes he'll ask, like, who could really believe this?

Or who actually is willing to live this out?

Who can accept this?

Jesus asked this always when he was teaching about the coming kingdom of God.

And the reason he asked this question is because every time he taught about the kingdom of God, it was so diametrically different than the kingdoms of this world.

He would get to a point in describing how the kingdom of God works, where he would look at a crowd of people who have so deeply ingrained in them the power structures and the metrics of success and the way that culture is calculated and organized on earth and the way the actual kingdoms of the nations around them operated, so deeply ingrained that when he described the kingdom of God, he would stop and say, Who can accept this?

Who can have enough faith to actually believe in a kingdom that is an upside-down kingdom?

It doesn't operate how it operates on earth.

In fact, it operates in opposition to the power structures of earth.

Who could accept this?

I think in Mary's prayer, we have at least in part our answer.

The people who can accept the upside-down kingdom of God are the people who allow themselves to react first to who God is.

You are God in heaven, and here am I on earth.

You are the God of the universe.

You are the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the one who sees the ends from the beginning and the beginning from the ends.

You are hallowed and holy and righteous and set apart.

You are not like us.

You are infinite and we are finite.

You are all love and we struggle to love.

People who start by just reacting to God, seeking God, dwelling on God, and then responding to that.

When you react and respond, it positions you to revere God.

As we look at verses 50 through 53, look at the reverence required to submit yourself to the upside-down kingdom of God.

Mary says, His mercy is from generation to generation on those who fear him.

He, God, has done a mighty deed with his arm.

He has scattered the proud because of the thoughts of their heart.

He has toppled the mighty from their thrones.

He has exalted the lowly.

At that time and at that place, and still in many parts of the world where Christ has not come in and changed the culture.

It is those who are on the bottom who are expected to stay on the bottom.

The world operated in caste or class systems for all of human history.

Everyone was divided among class, among ethnicity.

If you were in the majority, you win.

And nothing changes that.

Everything was divided along the lines of gender as well.

And now God has chosen Mary, poorer than poor.

She has no power, she has no social influence, no cultural influence.

Everyone expected the Messiah to be born in a palace to someone of means and upper class.

And yet Mary begins to realize and almost prophesy.

The king that is coming, the king that Gabriel said, is now in my womb.

This king is going to turn the world upside down.

Who can accept this?

Who can accept that the way to be exalted is through intentional humility?

Who can accept that the way to achieve status is through choosing sacrifice and service?

Who can actually engage in this kingdom?

It's people who allow God to be God and submit themselves to Him.

It's people who respond in humility to the constant awareness that the God of the universe actively pursues relationship with us of who he is and who we are.

And because that is true, now I can submit myself in reverence to the decrees of his kingdom, not allowing a culture that communicates how power operates.

24-7365, you are formed by information.

Information puts your mind and your heart in formation.

It tells you how the world is supposed to operate.

And you must be seeking the Lord because God's kingdom will not operate, how the kingdoms of our world operate.

And if you fall so in love with the here and now, you might miss out on what God has called you to.

Are we willing to adopt new ideas of how power and status and influence actually work?

We will be ready if we live a life of worship like Mary did.

There are four movements to this.

We react to who God is, we respond in kind.

That leads to reverence, we revere Christ and his kingdom.

And now she ends in remembrance.

In 54 and 55, she says, He has past tense.

He has helped his servant Israel, remembering, remembering his mercy to Abraham and his descendants forever, just as he spoke to our ancestors.

Mary knows she's going to give birth to the Messiah.

The Messiah is the fulfillment of a promise made in Genesis chapter 12 to Abraham.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

God said, all the way back, all the way back, let me find it for you.

Genesis, all the way back.

Genesis 12, all the way back.

I mean like almost the whole Bible back.

God comes to Abraham and says, I will make you a great nation.

And someday all of the nations of earth will be blessed through you.

This is the promise of the coming Messiah, the coming Savior, the chosen king who will show up and begin to make all things new.

Mary is realizing she's remembering all the way back a thousand plus years to Abraham.

Going, the promise has happened.

God has remained faithful.

It matters that we choose to remember.

That we dwell on what God has done.

This is part of how we have faith to move into the future that God has for us by remembering what He's already done for us.

Maybe you're in a season where you don't feel like God has done much for you.

It's like, what has he done for me?

I'm single and miserable and broke and can't get the job I want and don't have a lot of friends, and I'm unhappy and I'm depressed.

It's like, well, let's go to the top.

Who is God?

Is he God and is he good?

And if so, how do you react to that?

It's like God has given you life.

God has given you the breath that you are breathing in right now.

God created this universe out of love for his creation.

He created this for relationship with us and with you specifically.

We look back and we remember.

We remember what God has done.

And it fuels our faith for what God will do in our future.

There's one final verse today in verse 56.

It says Mary stayed with her about three months and then she returned to her home.

Elizabeth and Mary, these two walking miracles, miraculous life, inside of both of them, learning together and growing together and seeking the Lord together.

And we don't know this, but I assume that this worship continued and continued during their time.

And so let's look at our template together.

We react, we respond, we revere, and we remember.

And what I want to get across to you is that for this to be effective, it must become a lifestyle of worship.

And this is not a linear process.

React, respond, revere, remember.

This becomes a cycle.

We react, which creates a response, which creates a reverence, which allows us to look back and remember.

Well, what does remembering the great acts of God do?

When we remember, it leads to reaction, which leads to response, which builds our reverence and our ability to accept his kingdom, which leads us to remember, which draws us into reaction.

And now we are living in a lifestyle of worship.

We begin to see the world differently.

Some of you, you look at your spouse and you see frustration.

You look at your spouse and you just start thinking about the things you know they didn't do when you get home.

You know?

It's like when we get home, I would bet my life those dishes are still in the sink.

For some of you, you look at your kids and you see resentment.

They can't obey.

Some of you, you look at your finances and you see anxiety.

A lifestyle of worship begins to change this.

Your problems begin to scale in proportion to your view of God.

And so, yes, marriage is hard, and yes, parenting is incredibly hard, and yes, finances can be very stressful.

But when you start with God and that draws out the proper response that nothing is impossible with God, and that he is God and I am not, and I can cast all my cares, worries, and anxieties on him because I cannot handle them, but he can.

When a proper response allows for the reverence necessary to be a part of the upside-down kingdom of God that we are going to look at for the next two years together in Luke's gospel.

And when all of this draws us back to remember all that God has done, you start looking at your spouse, who I'm sure can be frustrating, and I'm sure has habits that drive you crazy, and I'm sure that you have differences of opinions, but you begin to look at them and remembering how good God was to you to give you a spouse.

You'll start looking at them and remembering the prayers you prayed in your loneliness before they walked into your life.

You guys know this.

I have three kids, none of them uh are mine biologically.

And I'm a parent and it's hard.

And there are times I look at my kids and I think, I could strangle them right now.

You know, that's probably not good.

But more times than not, and sometimes I wish my kids could feel what I feel because God gave them to me.

And I look at them and I remember the blessing it is to get to be their parent.

Sometimes my job is very stressful.

Anybody else have a stressful job?

Preaching is the easiest part of my job.

I work, it's what I spend the most hours on, but I lead a lot of people, and that can be very stressful.

And this is my dream job.

So I can either look at it and see the stress, or I can look at it and see the blessing.

And how I look at it on any given day, how I see my kids, my spouse, my friends, my finances on any given day determines, is determined by whether I am walking in the flesh or I am walking out my worship.

And you begin to see things differently.

And when you start with God, all of the things you see in life don't remember you, don't remind You of your worry and stress and anxiety, they remind you of the goodness of God in your life, and it causes you to react and just thank God even more.

And the world doesn't really need another church with excellent praise and worship.

I'm glad we have that at Meta.

It's not what the world needs.

They need the gathering of the supernatural body of Christ as they meet together to result in lifestyles of worship as we move together.

They need to see us react and respond and revere and remember and repeat and repeat and repeat.

And what will happen when we begin to live like that is our lives, our soul and our spirit, every fiber of our being will begin to magnify the Lord.

And people who feel very far from God will suddenly realize that God has come close and is calling them into relationship with himself.

A lifestyle of worship in the people of God, his movement, his church, his people.

This is how revival starts.

Not because of good sermons, not because of good music.

It starts because of lifestyles of worship, reacting, responding, revering, and remembering who God is.

As we close, if you would pray with me right where you're at, you can bow your head and close your eyes.

Something magic about that.

I want to create a little bit of space.

I have mainly preached towards believers today, people who are already convinced, already in an eternal relationship through Jesus with their Heavenly Father.

I want to speak to anyone who is not.

You're here or you're with us online, and you've never had a moment in time where you have made the intentional, conscious decision to put your faith in Jesus.

If that's you, you need to know that God loves you so much that he came down to this earth in the person of Jesus, put on human flesh, experienced all the pain and brokenness of our world, lived an actual perfect life in order to become a perfect sacrifice.

In the greatest reversal, Jesus, God, substituted his perfect life for my sinful life, for your sinful life.

When he died on the cross, he took the sins of the world, past, present, and future, on himself, and he paid the price.

And now he doesn't just offer you some religious experience, he offers you relationship that just comes through faith, believing that Jesus is who he says he is and has done what he says that he's done.

And when you believe, you are given eternal life.

Your sins are forgiven, you're adopted into God's family, and you are promised you will spend eternity with God.

Jesus, three days after his death, walked out of his own grave.

That was proof that he can deal with death.

If you're here with everyone's eyes closed and you've never had a moment in time where you've put your faith in Jesus, and you're ready to do that today, I want to ask you, right where you're sitting, for a moment of courage, just to raise your hand.

By raising your hand, it's a symbolic gesture that says, Today I choose to put my faith in Jesus.

Amen.

Listen, for those who raise a hand, I want you to know God sees and accepts your faith.

And all I want to do in this moment is help you acknowledge your decision through a very simple prayer.

I'm gonna ask you to repeat this with me.

I'm gonna ask all the believers in the room to repeat it 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.