Overflow: Rich vs Enriched? 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.

Well, I want to welcome you back to our Overflow series.

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

I'm the lead pastor here at MetaCurch.

I am so glad that you joined us, whether you are here at our Holotus location, our Petrenko location, or streaming with us online.

Uh, for everyone who showed up to a service braving the incoming polar vortex, extra heavenly credit, right?

Something.

Uh for those of you who are streaming online also, we're glad that you're here.

For those who are in our rooms, man, extra heavenly credit, we do not like cold weather in Texas.

Uh, we're in a series that is part of our annual rhythm here at MetaCurch, where at the beginning of the year we come and we make commitments about our generosity for that year because it demonstrates how we believe in the mission and vision that God has given us and how we are going to move it forward.

Today, my message is rich versus enriched.

Rich versus enriched.

Would you pray with me?

Jesus, we love you.

We thank you for your great love for us, that we are experiencing all of the time.

I thank you for this faith community, uh, one movement with one mission.

Now, meeting in multiple locations.

God, that you would speak to us today.

Holy Spirit, I believe that you are here.

So I ask that we would just have open minds, open hearts, humble ourselves, allow you to speak powerfully to us today.

We love you.

We pray these things in your name, Jesus.

And if you're ready for the overflow, say amen.

Amen.

Now, if you missed last Sunday, uh, I want to really encourage you to get caught up.

We make it really easy.

You can go to youtube.com slash metachurch.

All of our previous sermons are on there.

Now, not every series works this way, um, but in this series, if you missed last Sunday, it's kind of like you just walked in one third of the way through a movie and you're gonna be like, wait, what's going on?

Right?

Like, who are these characters and what's uh I'm gonna give you a recap and catch you up the best I can.

But if you are a follower of Jesus and a part of this movement at MetaCurch, you're gonna wanna watch this to get the full context as you get ready to make your financial commitment.

If you are skeptical of the claims of Christianity, if you do not consider yourself truly a follower of Jesus, but you're coming to meta church, you're wrestling with life's biggest questions, you are in the right place, and you need to watch last week as well.

The reason that finances are so hard to talk about, even though scripture talks about them all the time, is because for hundreds of years people have been taking and twisting the scriptures and teaching in dangerous and harmful ways.

And so the only thing I really know to do about that is what I did last Sunday, which is directly confront those teachings and expose them for how harmful they actually are.

What that allowed us to do is to get to why the Bible implores us to be generous and what biblical generosity actually means.

We're rooting the series out of the words of Jesus himself in Luke chapter 6, verse 38.

Luke 6:38

Jesus said, give and it will be given to you.

A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be poured into your lap.

For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.

Now, we made very clear last week, this is not Jesus teaching the prosperity gospel that if you give some money to the church, you're gonna drive all the cars and have all the mansions and get all the hot chicks.

That's not what Jesus was teaching here, because the context of Jesus' life and his teaching was always about building the eternal kingdom of God.

And so, yes, Jesus is saying, if you live a life that is generous towards God and generous towards others, you will receive blessing.

And yes, your heavenly father loves you and he sees your needs and he wants to meet those needs and he wants you to experience blessing in this life.

But Jesus himself said, store up your treasures in eternity, where they will last forever, where moths and rust cannot destroy them, where thieves cannot break in and steal them.

You can't really understand Jesus' teaching and the Bible's teaching on generosity if you don't understand a pilgrim's perspective, that we are pilgrims passing through this world and our real home is in eternity.

That's where we want our blessings to stay.

So Jesus uses this metaphor, and it's kind of lost on us because it's about the ancient marketplace.

They did not have an H E B.

They didn't go to Walmart to get their groceries, they had to go, and in the marketplace, they figured out a standard unit measurement in some kind of clay or earthen vessel, and everyone knew I could get this amount of grain or wheat or corn for this amount of money.

And what you would expect is that the person in the marketplace would fill this up just to the fill line and not one kernel of corn more.

That's what's fair.

You would give them your money, they would give you your produce.

Jesus paints this picture of how God gives return to us, and it's so abundantly generous that Jesus' original audience would have burst into laughter.

He says, when you give to God, he will give it back to you, but as he's giving it, he will stop and it will be pressed down, making sure that there's none that is sticking to the sides, none that is creating air pockets.

He will give and he will then shake it together, making sure it all settles and you get your full amount.

He will give, not just pressed down and not just shaken together, but he'll go past the full line, past the fair line, all the way until it overflows.

And the only option you have is to take all of the excess and carry it home in your lap.

Jesus is giving us a promise that when we live generous lives, God will bless us super abundantly, some of it here on earth, and the majority of it in eternity.

This is what we are calling spiritual reciprocity.

Scripture teaches that we should offer what we have to God, and then we trust his eternal blessings that overflow both in this life and more importantly, in the life to come.

In other words, what we learned last week is that your generosity expands your capacity to receive the blessings of God.

God loves you, he wants to bless you, your generosity expands your capacity to receive those blessings into your life and into your marriage and into your family and into the movement of Jesus that you're a part of here at MetaCurch.

Now, if that is true, and that is what scripture teaches, then the obvious question is: why aren't many Christians living generously towards God?

If that's how we experience the fullness of life, is that if that's how we experience the blessings of God, then why aren't we doing it?

We can look at church statistics and we see that very few people who follow Jesus are giving to God through their local church.

It's a small percentage of people.

It's a much smaller percentage, people who are giving and giving consistently.

We live in a world that demands our resources and that is constantly marketing to take more and more of our money.

I saw a honestly shocking statistic I read recently that today in 2025, in the most affluent time in all of human history, we give as church members about 33% less per capita per household income, 33% less in 2025 than church members gave during the Great Depression.

In the most affluent period in human history and in our nation's history, we give per capita 33% less than in the most financially devastating moment in our nation's history.

We are living in a world where we are constantly pulled between rich and enrich.

And so why does this happen?

Today I want to give a real answer to that that I think is insightful and will actually be helpful to how we think about our life and following Jesus.

And it's gonna start by taking us back to the beginning.

And admittedly, I often go back to the garden narrative in Genesis because that is where we get a sneak peek into God's design and desire for our lives.

And if you remember the garden narrative, you have the first humans and they are living in perfection.

They have perfect relationships, they have meaningful work, they have actual access and proximity to God.

And then, if you know the story, they are tempted.

In Genesis 3, it says, The serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made, and he said to the woman, Did God really say, You can't eat from any tree in the garden?

The woman said to the serpent, We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden, but about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.

The serpent said, No, you will certainly not die.

In fact, God knows that when you eat it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

Now, we know the story.

Adam and Eve fell into the temptation, they ate from the tree, and it plunged their lives and consequently all of our lives into sin and pain and darkness and destruction.

There are a million things to learn from this moment, but the one I want to focus on today is the reality that we often do not know how to get what we need.

We do not know how to get what we need.

What did Adam and Eve want?

They wanted to be even more like God, they wanted to be even closer to God, maybe even gods themselves.

But by disobeying God, they didn't get closer to God, they were separated from Him.

The inverse happened.

We don't know how to get what we need.

And you have to remember that Satan can't actually beat God.

He's already a defeated foe.

And so his best option is to distract you and derail you and convince you that instead of going after God's desires for you, that you should go after the cheap imitations that the world offers you.

Now, the reason that this idea of us not knowing how to get the things that we need is so appropriate because when it comes to our money, our wealth, our resources, that is probably the most obvious case of not knowing how to get what we need.

The ancient book of wisdom, Proverbs chapter 11, says this one person gives freely and yet gains more.

Proverbs 11 · chapter mention

Another person withholds what is right, only to become poor.

A generous person will be enriched, and the one who gives a drink of water will receive water.

A generous person will be enriched.

Now, this is very counter-cultural advice, and it's also very counterintuitive advice.

Our intuition says if I have something and I keep freely giving it away, giving it away, I obviously now have less of this thing.

If I have money and I'm just giving that money away, giving it away, I am now poorer.

Proverbs says, no.

The person who gives freely will ultimately have even more.

We don't think like that.

And it's cascaded into all areas of our life.

Even in the business world, we say you have to be ruthless.

You have to look out for yourself, you have to be a taker, right?

Uh we don't watch Good Samaritan tank.

We watch shark tank, right?

It's like you gotta be a shark, man.

You gotta smell blood in the water, you gotta go after it.

And what do we say in business?

Good guys always finish last.

In 2013, a Harvard researcher named Adam Grant shocked the business world with his findings.

He looked at a massive data set following people over 30 years of their career.

And the conclusion he came to is at the very, very highest heights of the corporate ladder, you find the most generous individuals.

Completely the opposite of what we would think.

Now, to be fair, in his research, what he found is those he calls givers, people who are selfless and generous and look out for others.

The givers early in their career always get passed up.

The people he calls takers, the people who are ruthless and they are sharks and they are looking out for number one, the takers, they rocket ahead in their first five years in the corporate world.

The givers are seen as chumps, losers, doormats.

The takers get the early positions.

However, when you look across time, what happens is the takers eventually have burned so many bridges, they have screwed over so many people that they have a massive fall and usually cannot fully recover.

Meanwhile, the givers, they have such a wide network and they have blessed so many people and they have propelled so many careers that they have an army of individuals rooting for their success, and the givers win in the end.

Now, I love Adam Grant, I've read all of his books.

I think it's amazing that in 2013 he figured this out.

What he may not be aware of is King Solomon figured this out 3,000 years earlier.

In Proverbs chapter 11, he already knew this.

Proverbs 11 · chapter mention

One person gives freely and yet somehow gains more.

The takers they selfishly withhold what is right only to become poorer.

A generous person will be enriched.

It's almost like your generosity increases your capacity to receive blessing into your life.

This is what Solomon taught in Proverbs.

This is what Adam Grant discovered in 2013.

You guys know this if you've been at Meta for any amount of time.

We start with the belief that God created you on purpose and with purpose.

You were created on purpose, which means it's by no accident that you're here on planet Earth.

You were created with purpose, which means there is some kind of white, hot desire inside of you for your life to matter, for you to be fulfilled, for you to impact the world around you, for you to leave a legacy behind you.

But we don't always know how to do that.

If we were to talk about that desire to live a life on purpose and with purpose, what we're really saying is we desire to live an enriched life.

And who does scripture say lives an enriched life?

Those who are generous.

So back to my question why don't we do this?

Why don't we live radically generous lives?

Well, we already admitted we often don't know how to get what we need.

And remember, the devil can't win against God, so the best he has is to tempt you away from the enriched life of purpose that God created you to live and to convince you that instead of bearing the pain and struggle of life by keeping your faith in God and being radically generous towards others, instead that you should turn to the cheap imitations that the world offers you.

Instead of living an enriched life, we just try to be rich.

When we don't know how to live an enriched life, we settle trying to be rich.

It's my sermon titled, Rich versus Enriched.

And we do this.

We eat the forbidden fruit, we go after things like fame and influence, money, status symbols, popularity, sexual conquest, addictive behaviors, pride.

The world desperately tries to convince us that what we actually want, what we actually need is more and more and more to live selfish, indulgent, hedonistic, pleasure-seeking lives, that the devil whispers to us, that is the ultimate path to fulfilling that deep longing inside of you.

And yet, the more we pursue the path of just being materially rich, the more miserable we often become.

The apostle Paul said it like this in the New Testament: those who want to be rich fall into temptation.

They fall into a trap, they fall into many foolish and harmful desires, and the result is they are plunged into ruin and destruction.

Do you see the contrast to the enriched are blessed and fruitful and impactful?

And those who settle for the imitation to just try and be rich, they fall into ruin and destruction.

I like uh watching documentaries.

I I've have a couple YouTube channels that do these mini documentaries.

It's really interesting.

I find myself learning about companies I knew nothing about, like a company you're not gonna be surprised at I know nothing about.

I know nothing about Gucci, right?

Gucci brand?

I knew nothing, right?

Uh I've learned a lot though.

I watched this documentary, and the the family became so unbelievably wealthy, and all it caused them was misery.

And in circum certain circumstances, it even caused death.

And one of the founders, he ended up marrying a certified gold digger.

I am not being disparaging.

She was outwardly known for this.

Like, I marry rich guys on the verge of death so I can get their money.

That kind of gold digger, right?

She's got this great quote.

Uh, it's a heartbreaking quote.

It really sums up her outlook on life.

She said, I would rather cry in a Rolls-Royce than be happy on a bicycle.

I'd rather be miserable and rich than find out the path to an enriched life.

It's the easiest thing in the world to find someone who is rich and famous and miserable.

Divorce rates, suicide rates, drug abuse, depression, all of these negative statistics are orders of magnitude higher among those who are rich and famous.

It's the easiest thing in the world.

Rich, famous, and miserable, they almost go hand in hand.

It's equally virtually impossible to find someone who is living a life that is truly generous towards God and truly generous towards others, who is not thriving in an enriched life.

We see this play out in uh a really interesting story during Jesus' time on earth.

Uh, Luke, the great historian, he documents it in his gospel.

The man's name is Zacchaeus.

Now, the text makes really clear that Zacchaeus is what we might call today a short king.

All right?

Maybe 5-3, all right?

The script Luke says Zacchaeus still buys his sneakers at Kid's Foot Locker.

It says that.

Don't go read it, it says it.

He's so short that Jesus comes into his town and he he can't see Jesus over the crowd, and no one's gonna help him.

Not because he's short, no one cares about that.

They're not gonna help him because Zacchaeus is the chief tax collector.

Now, to be a tax collector, what that meant practically is that you stole money from your own people and then gave that money to the oppressors who had taken you captive.

And for your efforts, they would make sure that you were incredibly rich.

Zacchaeus isn't just a tax collector, he's the chief tax collector, which means he oversees a network of other regional tax collectors, which means he is like rich times rich times rich, and he's hated that much as well.

To be a tax collector in Israel, they saw it as being worse than a prostitute and worse than a murderer.

He's the most hated person in his area.

And Jesus is coming through and he's heard the rumors, and so he climbs a tree so that he can get a look at Jesus.

And as Jesus is coming through, he spots Zacchaeus and he does this incredible thing.

He points Zacchaeus out and says, Zacchaeus, tonight I'm gonna have dinner at your house.

Now I love this for two reasons.

One is very spiritual.

When Jesus found me, I was also an act of rebellion against God.

I felt very far from God, and it was incredible to me that Jesus still wanted something to do with me.

Just like Zacchaeus, the most hated man in town.

This doesn't really matter to my sermon.

It's also incredible to me because I have a long and frustrating history of just inviting myself to everything.

My poor wife has had to live through every event anyone's ever talked about around me, something in my brain going, I think they want you there.

I've worked on it, thank goodness.

But Jesus just straight up invites himself to dinner at Zacchaeus' house.

And Zacchaeus accepts the invitation.

And the city is in an uproar.

This rabbi, this teacher of the scriptures, is now going to eat with the enemy.

And he does.

He goes and he breaks bread with Zacchaeus, and something incredible happens.

Zacchaeus has an encounter with God.

Here's his response in Luke 19, 8.

It says, Zacchaeus stood there and he said to the Lord, Look, I'm going to give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone, I will pay back four times as much.

This is not Zacchaeus making things even.

Zacchaeus could have been like, Jesus, here's the deal.

I'm going to be real with you.

I haven't always been honest in my tax collecting.

But I keep really careful numbers, so I'm going to go through the numbers.

Anytime I've skimmed some off the top, I'm going to find that money, I'm going to go make it right.

That would have, frankly, been an incredible story.

That's not his response.

His response is not to make it right.

His is a response of super abundance.

He says, first of all, the poor, they don't even pay taxes because they don't have anything to pay on.

And so those who are less fortunate, I'm going to take half.

50% of what I have, and I'm just giving it away.

Out of the 50% that's left, I'm going to go through the numbers, and every person I've wronged, I'm going to give it back at 400%.

This is what happens when we experience God.

And I have to think that one of the reasons the Western church continues statistically in a decline of generosity is because we're surrounded by so much affluence and we're surrounded by so much distraction that we are failing to stay in consistent rhythms of times with the Lord.

When you experience time with Jesus, the natural reaction that overflows out of you is generosity.

When you encounter consistently the one who gave his life for you, your only response is, I'm now gonna give all I can back to him.

Zacchaeus is this incredible example of someone who had lived to be rich and he did it.

He was as rich as you could be in that time, and it was empty.

And when he had a real experience of Jesus, he learned quickly.

This is what happens to us when we see Jesus for who he is, it changes everything.

And so I want to share one more story, and this one isn't from 2,000 years ago, and it's not from someone on the complete other side of the world.

This is from someone who is a part of our movement here at MetaCurch, who met Jesus in a real way here at MetaCurch, who is living, trying to satisfy the things inside of him with the things the world offers and has now found out what it means to live an enriched life in Jesus.

You guys check this out.

And I didn't understand the full scope of what you know it meant to follow Jesus.

I didn't find any fulfillment in chasing these selfish things.

I found I found nothing but emptiness really at the end.

I had a feeling of just being lost, unfulfilled.

A lot of the lows, you know, were I can say that like my marriage was headed in the wrong direction.

My career as a teacher was just so stagnant, so almost purposeless.

Being a dad, I felt like I wasn't doing what I could and what I should for my son.

Uh the turning point for me was when I started coming to MetaCurch.

I was volunteer by my wife that we were coming, and when I started coming to Matichurch, I was very skeptical.

The one thing that does come to mind, I guess like a phrase that Pastor Clayton says that will be the only Bible that some people will ever see.

When I started thinking of it like that, that's when I was like, no, you know what?

Things need to change.

Following Jesus uh has enriched my life in so many ways.

I've I have this newfound respect and love for my wife and my family for that matter.

Before Jesus, I found my job purposeless.

But now I find so much purpose and I find so much love and joy.

And I've been teaching for you know 15 years, a little bit over, and this school year I started a uh Bible study.

And the Bible study that I started was I was gonna take part of the rap sheet and then part of some like some small scripture and so and just kind of share that on Wednesday mornings with us, just kind of with whoever wanted to show up.

And next thing you know, I had 30 kids show up at my door.

Uh since I started this, I've had uh about 15 kids give their life to Christ.

It's been kind of an ongoing thing, so uh it's been it's been really good.

I've experienced more joy since I got baptized last uh Easter than I've ever experienced in the 42 years of my life.

Like I've never experienced that much joy, but joy in serving and giving my time and doing like doing things for Christ in his name for other people.

Uh I live in the same world that you live in.

I know the constant temptation to be rich, the constant pull for status and status symbols and recognition.

Bobby's story is such an incredible example of the power of pushing past the illusion, the falsity that is offered to just be rich and pursue the things of the world and what it means to live an enriched life, a life of following Jesus.

This isn't the prosperity gospel.

I know Bobby, he's not driving a Rolls-Royce now, okay?

It's deeper than that, it's better than that.

He is experiencing a life lived on purpose and with purpose, and he is laying up significant treasure in heaven.

And that is the life that we are called to as well.

It's what we're calling spiritual reciprocity, offering what we have to God and trusting his eternal blessing that overflows both in this life and more importantly, in the life to come.

What we're doing for the next two weeks, starting this Sunday, concluding next Sunday, is we're going to together, as Metachurch, make our commitments for how we are going to exercise generosity in 2025.

Uh, it's interesting, just you know, to be transparent, every time you talk about money or have like a commitment moment like this, inevitably there are some people, Jesus followers, who say things like, all they want is for the church to have more money.

Yeah, of course.

You have to remember a theological premise.

The word church in the New Testament is the word ecclesia.

It doesn't mean a building, it doesn't mean a service, it doesn't mean an organization, it doesn't mean a staff.

It means the called-out people of God.

The commitments that we are all making together across MetaCurch today, these are commitments to fund your movement.

These are commitments to fund our own purpose.

This is increasing all of our capacity as individuals, as marriages, as families, and as the movement called MetaCurch, increasing our capacity to see the blessings of God flow into our lives and overflow into a world that desperately needs the hope of Jesus.

That is what we are committing to today.

And let me remind you: a year ago we stood and made these commitments and had a vision to open a new location, and we lacked the resources to do it.

But because we chose generosity, we now have people right here in Helotus who now are gonna join in making commitments so that we can get to the next part of town and the next part of town and the next city and the next state and do what Jesus clearly called his church to do, which is take his movement and his message to the ends of the earth.

That is why the church exists.

What I'm asking is for everyone to think through the resources that God has given you and decide what you can give back.

At Meta, we encourage you to give in three ways.

First, sacrificially and automatically.

First means that God becomes the first priority in your money.

Before you give to, you know, pay your bills, to buy your groceries, uh, to go to the movies, anything else, you first give to God through your local church.

Second, we ask for you to give sacrificially.

Uh, we don't believe in telling you an exact percentage to give an exact dollar amount to give.

Only you can know that, and only you and God can work through that, because only you know what a sacrifice means to you.

And it will be very different person to person.

For some of you, starting at$50 a month will be a tremendous sacrifice, and you have to trust that God can use that sacrifice in immeasurable ways.

For too long, we've talked about giving in the church that makes people feel like if all I can give is$50 a month, that's not gonna do anything, I might as well keep it in my pocket.

Let me tell you how quickly this happens.

There's like somewhere between 1,200 and 1,500 people who would tell you metachurch is their church.

If 500 people committed to$50 a month, do you know what that is in a year?

It's$300,000.

This happens so quickly when everyone does their part.

If you are not giving at all, or you're not giving consistently, your commitment is to start and to start giving what you can.

For some, it might be$25 a month.

For some of you, you've been really financially blessed, and you could give$100 or$300 a month, or maybe even more.

For those who are giving, what we're asking is over these two weeks for you to do what my family has done in this same time period, is to look at where you are at and how God has blessed you and see if there is room for increase.

Maybe God has really blessed you over this last year, you've moved up in your career.

We're asking to see if there's room to increase because we genuinely believe that when we exercise generosity, we are increasing God's ability to bless us.

And it's not for our own sake, it is for the sake of the kingdom of God that He is desperate to use us in.

Now, we're gonna cement this in a very specific way.

Here, in a little while after we pray, the band is gonna sing a song over us.

Some of you remember last year we did bricks, and every brick was a certain amount.

This year's gonna be different.

It's just whatever you're committing, we're gonna ask you to come forward and symbolically to trust God with the overflow.

So there's all these bags on stage, and we've been using corn, right?

But it's more than corn.

It's like I trust God that He will give to me what I need in this life and a superabundance in the next, pressed down, shaken together, and overflowing.

And so you take this, and I'm gonna ask you to not uh spill it everywhere, to take this and to put it somewhere that you will see it consistently as a reminder of your commitment and a reminder that you trust your Heavenly Father to give you what it is that you need.

We ask you to give first, to give sacrificially, and to give automatically.

And so, one way we have to help you with that, where we're not just giving here and there and every once in a while, but we become consistent, is to just set up your gift to be recurring.

And that way you know you're giving first and you know you're giving your sacrifice, and it comes out automatically, and we're gonna make it really easy for you to do that as we make our commitments.

And look, if we continue to take this seriously, we are going to continue to see God do things through this movement that are more than we could ever imagine.

You were created on purpose and with purpose, and Jesus' movement is an unstoppable force, and God is just waiting for a movement of people who take that seriously and are ready to sacrifice to those ends.

Before we go into our time of commitment, would you pray with me?

Right where you're at, across our venues, if you just bow your head and close your eyes, we like to give a little bit of space for reflection.

As some of you are thinking through your commitments right now, my prayers that God would give you clarity and confidence.

As we're in this time of reflection, I want to speak to those who might be at one of our venues or with us online, and you are still on the fence, you're not sure you believe the claims of Christianity, you're coming to Meta Church and you're wrestling.

I want you to know you're in the right place, and I need every person to hear me say, if money will get in the way of you being a part of Meta, then don't give.

I believe we should exercise generosity, it allows God to bless our lives at a greater capacity.

But if that is the deal breaker for you, just keep coming and wrestling with these big questions.

We believe God will bless our generosity.

In order for that to happen, we need a relationship with God.

And so before we make our financial commitments, I want to speak to anyone who hasn't yet made the first and most important commitment, which is putting your faith in Jesus.

Jesus is the ultimate act of generosity.

He gave us his life on the cross.

He rose again and he gave us the greatest offer: the forgiveness of all of our sins and eternal life with our Heavenly Father.

The craziest part is Jesus said this is going to cost you exactly nothing.

Jesus paid it all.

And what he asks from us is for our faith, believing that Jesus is who he says he is and he's done what he says that he's done.

So if you're here and you're ready to take that step of faith today, I want to ask you, with everyone's eyes closed, to just simply raise your hand up in the air.

This is a symbolic gesture.

And by raising your hand, today you're saying, I choose to put my faith in Jesus.

I am choosing Jesus as my hope for this life and for the life to come.

Amen.

Listen, for those who raised a hand, you just made the most important decision in your life.

I need you to know that your sins are forgiven, all of them, past, present, and future.

And you have been given eternal life.

And what I want to do is help you acknowledge this moment through a prayer.

So for those who raised a hand across our venues, I want you to repeat this prayer with me, and I'm gonna ask all the believers at our venues to pray this out loud as well.

Let's pray like this: Jesus, today I choose to put my faith in you.

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

I thank you for loving me and forgiving my sins.

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.