Insecurity: The Lie: Relationships Brings Security 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 guys in if you're new with us.

My name's Clayton.

I'm the lead pastor here at Meta.

I'm so glad that you guys joined us today.

We are in week two of a series where we are taking head on one of the main things that holds us back in life.

We are talking in the series about insecurity.

We all know the feeling of being insecure and the power that that can hold in our lives.

We're gonna be talking about the insecurities that we are dealing with.

And this matters because God created you to live an impactful, powerful, purposeful life.

You'll hear every week here at MetaCurch that God created you on purpose and with purpose.

And insecurity will cause you to shrink back, which means you will not pursue your God-given purpose in a powerful, intentional, dynamic way.

Instead, you'll allow fear to drive.

I'm trying to do two things in this series.

One, I want to go to the deepest level of where our insecurity comes from.

And the second thing we're doing is addressing lies that are constantly communicated by the culture around us, promising us security when those promises cannot actually deliver.

First, where does security come from at a deeper level, maybe even the deepest level?

To understand our insecurity, we first have to understand that we are born relatively in security.

People take care of babies, we take care of babies, infants, even toddlers, in a way that we don't take care of anything else, right?

When a baby cries, we go running.

Everyone gets a season of innocence in their life.

And some people are born into very difficult circumstances, and that season doesn't last very long.

But for many people, especially in the West, you get several years of this where you're always taken care of, your needs are always provided, no one ever lies to you.

You can trust the people around you, and that lasts for however long it lasts.

However, all of us before the age of 10 experience real psychological pain.

And this is the moment where you realize that things aren't always good in the world, people can't always be trusted, the future is not always predictable.

In other words, you realize you are not always secure.

For those of you who have been through the Movement Academy, you know we call this moment your inciting incident.

And we describe it like walking through a door that shuts and then locks behind you.

In other words, you can never go back to the world before that moment.

You will always know that things are wrong in the world.

And this is the moment that you become insecure, and this insecurity lasts a lifetime.

So your insecurity looks different in different seasons, and as you get older, it takes different forms and different fashions, but it is always rooted in this.

And this moment at a spiritual level is rooted in sin.

You are hurt by sinful people who live in a broken and sinful world.

Psychologists have known for a long time that there are two fundamental drivers of human behavior, and that is the search for significance and the search for security.

You will look for significance in your life, and you will search for security for your life until you either find it or until the day that you die.

This is a lifelong pursuit.

In fact, security is one of the most fundamental needs that we have as humans.

Famous psychologist Abraham Maslow, he put together Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

And if you look at the hierarchy of needs, what you will find is that security is your second most fundamental category of need.

The only thing more fundamental than that are things like food, water, shelter, clothing, and literally just being alive.

Like it says, breathing and actually sleeping every once in a while.

Once you're alive and have food and shelter, the next thing you need is a sense of true and lasting security, which makes insecurity such a strong driving factor of our decisions, our actions, and our reactions.

You will search your entire life for the key to security, which will finally free you up to live a life on purpose and with purpose.

And the world is gonna offer you all kinds of things with the promise of security on the other side.

The question is whether or not those promises can deliver.

Today we're gonna look at another one of these lies.

The lie is that relationships bring security.

Today, the lie is relationships bring security.

Would you pray with me?

Jesus, we love you.

We thank you for your great love for us.

I thank you for meta church, a place for all people, all different parts of their faith journey.

We are all wanting to live a significant life.

That that burns within us at the core of our being, that we were meant for something more, that our lives were created for impact.

And I believe that those are your fingerprints on our life, God.

That you created us for that.

We are all searching for security, a sense of safety, that we can move forward passionately and with abandon towards what you've called us to.

I pray, Holy Spirit, that you would move, that we would have open minds and open hearts, that you would speak to us powerfully today as we examine our relationships in our search for security.

We love you.

And we pray these things in Jesus' name, and everyone said, Amen.

When you've been in a relationship, what did it do for you?

Um it provided me, well, with a daughter, but also um like companionship.

I feel like I don't do life alone.

What did it do for me?

Uh peace of mind.

My last relationship was emotional turmoil.

It wasn't that good.

It did therapy for me.

I did therapy for afterwards.

And what do you think romantic relationships provide for people?

Stability, uh, a safe place, you know, a place for you to grow in your vulnerabilities, uh, also a place, you know, a place where you can be held accountable.

I feel like for people it gives them an outlet.

It kind of takes them away from their nine to five.

Um it's not every day that someone runs into romance, so when you do, it adds a little bit to your life.

So what do you think most people are looking for in romantic relationships?

I'll just say the PG version, satisfying their need for sure.

Um and then gaining a I don't want to oversimplify, but gaining a partner in crime, so to speak.

Just someone who will give 50-50.

Um, I've been in a lot of relationships where people don't give as much as I do, and I feel like uh having equal effort put into relationships makes a healthy one.

Uh I think when it boils down to everything, people are looking for stability, you know, somebody that they can experience life with.

The two things you'll search for your entire life are significance and security.

And the lie that seems to be broadcast to us almost every waking moment of the day is that a great relationship will finally give you the security that you are so desperately longing for.

And mostly we see this in our romantic relationships.

Every rom-com, every love song, every romance novel with like a shirtless pirate on it for some reason, always a shirtless pirate.

Uh all the like Instagram kind of fake, influential couples who have these nicely curated and filtered lives reminding you that if you can just find your soulmate, you will finally be secure.

Uh one of the most famous lines in all of cinema, Jerry McGuire burst into a party he's not really invited to, and he just sealed a huge deal at work, right?

He's gonna be wealthy, but there's no security ultimately in that wealth.

What he needs is his soulmate, and so he gives this incredible speech, and you know, Tom Cruise, what a great actor.

And then he looks at his wife and he says, You, complete me.

Y'all didn't know I was an actor.

That was intense, right?

That was intense.

You complete me.

And then for 10 bonus points, what does she say back?

You had me at hello.

Last service, the only one who got that was a dude, and I was like, really, really, rom com fan.

I'm not gonna I'm not gonna lie, I'm a rom-com fan.

You complete me, right?

Like those three words kind of like summarize this lie that we have been told about romantic relationships.

Like, if you can just get in the right romantic relationship, you will be complete, you will be made whole, you will finally be secure.

So we go looking, you know, you used to have to leave the house, you had to go to the park or go to the gym or go to the bar and try to actually meet somebody.

And now we just download apps and we, you know, we swipe and we see who like Mr.

or Mrs.

Wright is, and we try to make a connection.

And and it's kind of interesting, you know, we want that security so badly that if it takes too long, we will start lowering our standards and we'll kind of compromise on our morals.

Uh, believers will even start going directly against God's word, just trying to secure someone who can maybe bring us some security, which is kind of interesting because if you stop and think about it for longer than like 15 seconds, the idea that your insecurity will be solved by a romantic relationship.

When if we were honest and ranked like the top five things that have caused us insecurity throughout our lives, romantic relationships will be in the top two and probably not number two, right?

Like there are a few things that cause as much insecurity as trying to find a romantic partner, and then trying to manage a romantic partner, and then trying to marry a romantic partner, and then trying to be married to a romantic.

It's like insecurities on top of insecurities.

We learned this really, really young.

Uh, when I was in elementary school, I had my first girlfriend, I think.

Okay, now she was not like a figment of my imagination, kind of, I think, right?

Uh I just, I was a little bit confused exactly what was going on.

I had just moved to a very small town, Ala Dulce, Texas, about 500 people, and uh I was sat right next to Emily Kirk.

Her dad was the head football coach of the high school there, and man, I just knew, you know, in my third grade mind, like I was most likely going to marry her, right?

So I it took me like a month, and I kind of got my nerves up.

And then straight out of a George Strape song, I wrote a note.

It's very simple.

It said, Will you be my girlfriend?

question mark.

I drew very neatly two boxes.

I labeled one box yes and one box no, and then I folded it up, I gave it to her right before lunch, and she held on to it for all of lunch and all of recess at that point in my young life.

That was the longest hour I had ever lived through, right?

And then I finally got it back, and this was like an idiot-proof proposal, right?

There's two boxes, you just have to check one of them, or put an X in one of them, or a drop of blood in one of them.

I don't care.

Just signal to me what's going on here.

And I got it back, and I was very excited, and you know, I kind of went in the corner and I unrolled it, and she had checked in the middle, right?

Not an option.

I had a relationship that was labeled It's Complicated before Facebook was invented.

Needless to say, uh, this left me quite insecure about where we were at in our relationship, and that's kids stuff, you know, it's puppy love.

But as you get older, the insecurities change, but they still remain in your romantic relationships.

And it can be very, very difficult to navigate.

The complexity of romantic relationships is perhaps the deepest well of insecurity.

Do we look good enough to attract someone?

Are we witty enough or successful enough to impress them?

Well, they notice all of the flaws that I constantly see in myself.

These are all insecurities just trying to find someone.

Then you finally get a romantic partner, and many insecurities get worse.

People who are naturally anxious live in constant fear of rejection.

Many people begin to self-sabotage, believing subconsciously they're gonna ruin it anyway, so they might as well get it over with.

People with low self-esteem often feel unworthy of their partner and either become overly submissive or they over-correct and become very domineering and controlling.

If you're constantly online comparing like your mundane relationship, your like date at Chili's, shout out to, I love Chili's, but you know, you're like just watching people on Instagram vacationing in Dubai, all of a sudden you don't feel very good about your own relationship.

And of course, probably the number one thing that insecurity causes once you're in relationship with someone is jealousy.

And we've probably all experienced that, and we've probably all felt that in our romantic relationships.

When Katie and I were first dating, I didn't realize it at the time, but I was slowly becoming like kind of a jealous monster.

And I didn't realize it until she one day very clearly made me aware of it.

You know how women will do that for us sometimes?

Um and it it was going to ruin our relationship.

If I couldn't figure it out, um, she rightfully was not going to marry me.

And this is the first time I did any kind of counseling, any kind of work on myself, because it was pretty bad.

And what I discovered is I was living with a reality that I just was not good enough to be in relationship with her.

And there were some facts, like she was just way out of my league in the looks department.

Facts to this day, okay?

So that kind of made me a little bit insecure.

She was also more successful than me at that time.

She made more money than me.

There were a lot of men interested in her, and I became so insecure that every other guy on earth was now a threat to our relationship, and that's how I was navigating it.

Slowly I was killing our relationship.

And I finally went through some work in my own story, much like what we help you guys go through in the movement academy.

And because of that, I was able to identify that insecurity and trust God with it, and that I didn't have to be enough for her based on my own skills, that I just had to be who God created me to be and trust him that our relationship could work out.

And think goodness that we took those steps, because now we're married, and all of these issues, all of these insecurities that come from our relationships are why in scripture, again and again and again, we are told to not find our security in other people.

One example would be Psalm 118.

The psalmist writes, It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in humanity.

Remember, your insecurities stem from something much, much deeper than the current tension that you have in your life or in your relationships.

They are ultimately the result of sin.

Sinful people in a sinful world causing pain that has driven insecurity.

And there's a reason that none of us can create our own security in and of ourselves, and that's because inherently we are temporary and we are sinful.

We are temporary and we are sinful.

I realize that's like not the most encouraging message that I could give you today, but you are temporary and you are sinful.

So let's break that down.

Um we all live with the awareness, most of the time it's subconscious, every once in a while it comes to the forefront of our mind that all of our lives will end.

Everyone dies, and no one knows exactly when their day is coming.

We are temporary.

And if you don't have a solution to the inherent temporary nature of your life, then you don't have an answer to much at all.

If you don't know what comes after death, then why does life really matter?

And why are we here and why is there something instead of nothing?

We are temporary and we are sinful.

And sin is a word that just means missing the mark.

We miss the mark on God's design and desire for our life.

We make mistakes and we hurt people and we cause tension and we cause trauma.

We are temporary and we are sinful.

And so here's what we think we're very well aware of how finite we are, of how flawed we are, of the insecurities that we carry.

So we think if I could just find someone who would really love me for me, then maybe that would mean that I really am enough.

And I am attractive enough, and I am successful enough, and I am educated enough.

Maybe I could find someone and root my security in them.

But here's the problem you are temporary and sinful.

That's a big enough problem, but there's more.

Which means you are incapable of providing true lasting security for yourself or offering it to anyone else, and they are incapable of providing true lasting security for themselves or offering it to anyone else, which means that many of our romantic relationships are two inherently insecure people, both searching for security in each other when neither of them can offer it to each other.

We do this with our romantic relationships, we do this sometimes with our friend groups, we do this with our parents, we do this with our children.

We put the weight of our security on these relationships, and they simply cannot bear the weight of it.

Many parents are living vicariously through their kids, and their security is found in what they hope their kids will become, which means if your kid doesn't make the major leagues, or if they don't go to MIT, or if they go through a season of rebellion, or if they end up in jail someday, you won't know who you are, and your world will fall apart because your kids are great kids, and I'm sure your spouse is a great spouse, and I'm sure your friends are your best friends, but all of those people make terrible gods.

They were not created to bear the weight of your security, and yet the lie that the world constantly reinforces is that your security can be rooted in your relationships.

Remember what Paul wrote to the Romans, and in Romans 3.23, he said, For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

I'm sure you have the perfect husband, I'm sure you have the perfect wife, and you could tell me all of the reasons that they really are qualified to hold the weight of your security, but all means all.

Later in Romans, Paul says that the wages of that sin is death, which means we are sinful.

And we are temporary.

And until you can find someone who can solve your problems of being temporary and being sinful, you have not found a true source of abiding and lasting security.

Now, when you start a new romantic relationship, you may have like this wonderful, bliss-filled honeymoon period where everything is good, everyone's on their best behavior, and it really feels like you have finally found security.

But no matter how many skill sets you have or how competent you are, how strong of a person you are, ultimately and long term, you cannot bear the weight of someone else's security.

This is not a new idea.

The prophet Jeremiah was talking about this almost 3,000 years ago.

Here's what he says in Jeremiah 17.

He says, This is what the Lord says.

Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh, and whose heart turns away from the Lord.

It's 3,000 years ago.

Jeremiah didn't need a panel of psychologists, he didn't need Maslow's hierarchy of needs to know that it is a fool's errand to try and find your strength and your security in other people.

What does he call it?

He says it's just mere flesh.

He almost says this 3,000 years ago, like this should be obvious to us.

Your strength, your security, your worth, your value, it cannot come from other people.

What have we learned throughout this series so far?

We have seen that our insecurity at the deepest level is not a physical problem, it's not an earthly problem, it is a spiritual problem.

And if it's a spiritual problem, it demands a spiritual solution.

He says in verse 6 that person, the person who finds their security in others, will be like a bush in the wastelands.

They will not see prosperity when it comes.

They will not dwell, they will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives.

You know this if you spend any amount of time trying to build your security on other people.

You end up like a plant in the wastelands, withering and dying.

You end up living in the parched places of the desert.

When Katie and I were dating, I had this insecurity that surfaced, and the insecurity showed itself in jealousy.

And thank God I had good people around me to help me and counsel me and take me through my story and show me that my words wasn't gonna be found in my own skills, my security wasn't gonna be found in Katie, that ultimately it would be found in God.

And so I got a handle on that and got that under control and submitted it to the Lord and we got married.

And a new insecurity surfaced.

And it happened so quickly, I didn't even really know where it came from.

Somewhere in our first year of marriage, I grew this almost neurotic fear of Katie dying.

Can't tell you where it came from, can't tell you the exact moment that it happened.

But every once in a while, if I had to travel from for work, I would be a wreck.

I would have panic attacks, I couldn't sleep, I would get ulcers.

It was bad.

If she traveled, it was the same thing.

If she was like 30 minutes later coming home from Walmart than I thought she should be, I was like, she's dead.

Obviously, she's dead.

She's not here exactly when I thought she was gonna be here.

I I would text her way too much.

Husbands, did you know you can text your wife too much?

That is a thing that you can do, you know?

Like, hey, are you know, are you still alive?

And they're like, yes, you know?

Or she's busy, so it doesn't hit me back within 10 seconds, and dude, you want to just really drive someone crazy.

It's like, question mark, question mark, you know, are you there?

Like it was it was really bad.

I can laugh about it now.

Uh it was almost debilitating back then.

And so I had to chase that down.

And having a real insecurity, and insecurity is always rooted in fear, living with fear, like having a grip on your life, I'm sure most of you have experienced that.

It is beyond miserable.

That anxiety is beyond miserable, jealousy is beyond miserable.

And yet, if viewed properly, even your insecurity can be a gift.

But you have to view it properly.

Because if your goal is to submit yourself and truly trust in the Lord, then your insecurity becomes diagnostic.

The insecurities that you're dealing with in your life are always pointing to something in your life that you don't trust God with yet.

And so you start with your insecurity, and you'll probably need help.

This is what we do in the academy, this is what we do when we counsel with people.

You'll need help to walk backwards to the source of that insecurity because when you find the source of that insecurity, you have found something that you haven't yet fully trusted to the Lord.

You see, I I trusted God that I had enough value and strength in him, not of myself, but in him, that my security was in him to be the husband and the father that my family needed.

But I got married and realized I didn't fully trust God with Katie's life.

I had to submit that to him.

You see, our insecurities keep us from living on purpose and with purpose.

And when you're in relationship with people, the harsh reality is your insecurity can keep others from living life on purpose and with purpose.

Katie right now is in the middle of Kenya.

She's in the third world.

She's on the other side of the world, she'll be there for a little over 10 days.

And I'm telling you, if God had not done a work in my life and I had not learned to submit this to him and trust him with it, then this opportunity, which was a calling from God, Katie is over there in obedience, leading a team to do mission work over there, in obedience to God.

If I was still living in my insecurity, I would have sabotaged that trip.

I don't know how.

I would have either figured out a way to just make it where it couldn't have happened, found an excuse, too much going on, got too much with the kids, or she would have gone and I wouldn't be here preaching because I'd be in the freaking fetal position at home right now, right?

Like one of those two things would have happened.

Our insecurities keep us from pursuing the purposeful, powerful life of impact that God created us to live, and because we are relational beings, our insecurities can cause the people that we love the most to not live their life on purpose and with purpose.

And God wants to take those insecurities from you, and He wants to demolish the lies, like last week, that your security will be found in mere religious exercise, or this week, that your security can be found in your relationships.

And I know, like, if I were to hand out a quiz and ask you, is your ultimate security found in your spouse?

You would know the right answer.

No, of course not.

My security is in the Lord, but is it?

Are you looking to your spouse to provide the security that you need?

Are you looking to your children?

Are you looking to your friends?

Are you looking to your parents?

See, Jeremiah goes on, he says, But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord and whose confidence is in him, who draws that strength from him, who draws security from him.

They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends its roots out by the stream, and therefore it does not fear when the heat comes.

Its leaves are always green, it has no worries in a year of drought, and it never fails to bear fruit.

It is secure not in itself, but in the streams of grace that are constant and provided by God.

It is not a plant dying and withering away in the wasteland.

It is a strong, mighty tree with its roots into a water that never, ever runs dry, and relational tension can come, and financial turmoil can come, and your career can end, and a health diagnosis can come, and your friends can abandon you, and your addiction can resurface, and your leaves are still green, and you're strong in the Lord, and you're mighty in the drought because there is no drought in Jesus.

He is the everlasting water and he provides it for you.

But is your security rooted in him?

Jeremiah says, cursed is the one who trusts in man.

Uh, you know, I don't think this is like God has placed some kind of hex and curse over.

It's like, no, no, no.

The natural result of a life putting your security in the people around you will be a life that is cursed.

You want a blessed life, you want a powerful life, you want to meet your potential, you want to make a difference, you want your relationships to thrive, you want your marriage to heal.

Your marriage will struggle to heal as long as you are both putting a weight on each other that neither of you are capable of bearing.

Put that weight on the Lord and thrive in your relationship.

This is how John describes our relationship with God in one of his letters.

He says this God is love.

Whoever lives in love lives in God and God in them.

He goes on to say, there is no fear in love.

But perfect love, that's God.

Perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment.

The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

Listen, the Bible is not anti-marriage.

God created marriage and instituted it through his word in the scriptures.

The Bible is not anti-romance, okay?

Read the Song of Solomon in the Old Testament.

It is plenty romantic.

Some of you are like, there's a romance book?

Dude, if Song of Solomon had a book cover, it'd be a shirtless pirate, okay?

Like, you gotta check this book out.

Maybe not your kids yet.

This is a really romantic book, all right?

It's just saying, abundantly clear, your security cannot be found in earthly relationships.

It will not work.

You can try, and we live in a world that will convince you to try over and over and over again.

Free your relationships.

Free them up.

Take that weight off of them and place it on the Lord.

Perfect love drives out fear, and fear is the root cause of all insecurity.

Fear is at the root of every single insecurity.

And fear is the driving motivator of most of our relational decisions.

We're afraid that we won't find someone, then we're afraid the person we found might be the wrong person.

We're afraid that we're not good enough for them.

We're afraid that they might be interested in someone else or that we aren't attractive enough for them.

First John 4 gives us this series of ideas like God equals love.

And then it immediately says that love equates to no fear.

Well, if fear is at the root of every single insecurity, then we can say, therefore, that God equals security.

Many will search their whole lives for security in another person, but scripture says that there is one name under heaven, given among men, whereby you can be saved.

Saved from your sin, saved from your shame, and yes, saved from your insecurity.

What we've said all day is that relationships are where we turn to find security, and relationships are our greatest source of insecurity.

In every earthly relationship, you have to earn every bit of it.

To get into a romantic relationship, you have to win over that girl of your dreams.

You have to beat out every other suitor on earth to get their hand in marriage.

You gotta earn a great relationship, and that's scary.

And that is how religion says it works with God.

You have to earn your way to God, you have to prove your love for God, but that's not what Scripture says.

The most famous verse in Scripture, John 3.16, says, God loved the world in this way, He gave.

Maybe the two most significant words in the whole verse.

He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life.

He loved, he pursued you.

You don't have to go looking for the source of your security.

The source of your security stepped out of heaven and down into our brokenness and began the pursuit of you that will not end until you take your last breath.

Here's where my life changed.

I spent years in rebellion.

I knew what God said, I grew up in the church, I grew up a believer, I was just in rebellion.

I was running as far and as fast away as I could from everything that I knew was right.

I was living a life of sin, missing the mark purposefully in every way possible until I hit rock bottom.

And I'll tell you what I thought would happen when I hit rock bottom.

I thought that I would turn back to God and God would be a million miles away, and I would start the process of earning my way and proving my way and deserving my way back to God.

Instead, I hit rock bottom and I turned around, and God was right there, waiting on me.

That's what changed everything for me.

That God is pursuing you.

Romans 5 8 says, but God proves.

If God proves something, it's only because he made a conscious decision to.

God proves his love for us.

And that while we were still sinners, still running, still in rebellion, Christ died for us.

Relational insecurity comes from always having to prove yourself.

Scripture says that God proved his love to you.

The savior of the universe, the creator of the cosmos, the sustainer of our every breath.

He gave, he proved, he loved, he pursued.

Jesus reverses everything we know about how to find security.

Your hurt and your pain and your trauma has convinced you that you have to earn it, you have to find it, you have to prove it.

Instead, God says, He proved his love for us, and he loved us so much that anyone who simply believes, puts their faith in who Jesus is and what Jesus has done, your sins will be forgiven and you'll be given eternal life.

You realize in the person of Jesus there is the solution to our real problem.

And our real problem, the reason we cannot manufacture our own security is because we're sinful and we're temporary.

And Jesus says through simply putting faith in him, in his work, your sins, all of them, all the ways you've messed up, all the people you've hurt, all the skeletons and all of your closets, all will be forgiven.

And he will give you eternal life.

He solves the problem of your sin.

He solves the problem of your temporary nature.

You see, you can only thrive in security that comes from Jesus.

And you know, you're free to live your life exploring every other option that the world offers for you to find security in.

Some of you here are watching online, you may not be convinced of the claims of Christianity yet.

You may not be ready to go ten toes down on this.

And so you can try, and they'll offer you security in your money, and they'll offer you security in your status, and they'll offer you security in your relationships, and you'll go down those paths.

But please remember today, September 22nd, 2024, when some crazy guy on stage promised you that at the end of those paths, you will only be more insecure.

And until you put your faith in and submit your life to Jesus Christ, you will lack the true security that you need to thrive in life.

Here's what John said in one of his letters.

He says, God's love was revealed among us in this way.

God sent.

Do you see the pattern?

He gave, he loved, he proved, God sent his one and only son into the world so that we might live through him.

Scripture is saying if you're not living through Christ, if your security doesn't come through Christ, you may be alive, but you're not yet fully living.

And you were meant to live.

You were meant to move.

You were created on purpose, and you were created with purpose.

The next verse says, love consists in this, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

God is love, love drives out fear, and love looks like this.

Not that we loved God, but while we were still sinners, God loved us and he gave his life for us.

That is the true source of security.

You're gonna be tempted because security in your earthly relationships feels natural.

It's a desire you have to put that weight on the people around you.

And you can do that, but you will struggle with insecurity, or you can trust God.

And even though now it may seem counterintuitive, when you begin to take that weight off of the people around you, off of the people that you love, and place it where it belongs in the hands of a God who loves you and proved his love for you and offers you true security, you can begin to thrive.

And you can begin to echo the words of the Apostle Paul, these great words of security, when he said, For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels or rulers, things present or things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

That is true security.

And true security in Christ is where life really begins.

Would you pray with me?

As we close, if you would bow your head and close your eyes, there's nothing magic about that.

Just create a little bit of space for reflection.

We all struggle with insecurity, and I wonder if you were to be honest, what the relationships are in your life right now that you are looking to for security.

What is the fear that is driving your actions, your thoughts, your decisions?

Today, could you make the decision to trust God enough that your insecurity would become a tool for diagnosing the areas of your life that you have not yet fully trusted God with?

Can you begin to imagine the power that your life could hold if you learned to fully submit to the Lord?

I wonder if there is anyone here who has not yet taken the first step toward true security.

There is no earthly relationship that can offer that to you.

The one relationship that brings true lasting security is with Jesus.

And if you've never had a moment in time in your life where you have intentionally put your faith in Jesus, made the decision that you believe He is God, that you believe He really died for your sins and really rose again, today could be your day.

Scripture says when we put our faith in Jesus, all of our sin is forgiven, past, present, and even future.

It is no longer held to our account.

Instead, we are clothed with the righteousness of Christ.

Our sin problem is taken care of.

Scripture tells us that when we put our faith in Jesus, we are adopted as children of God and we are given eternal life with Him.

That is a gift that no one and nothing could ever take away from you.

Jesus solves the problem of us being finite and temporary.

If you're here today and you're ready to make the decision to put your faith in Jesus, with everyone's eyes closed, I want to ask you in this moment to have a little bit of courage and just to lift your hand up where I can see who I'm talking to and who I'm praying with.

Amen.

Amen.

For those who raised a hand, I can say with confidence from scripture that Jesus sees your faith and accepts it.

Your sins are forgiven.

That you now have eternal life.

What I want to do is for those who raised a hand, I want to very simply help you acknowledge this moment through a prayer.

I'm gonna ask you to pray this prayer with me, and so you don't feel singled out, I'm gonna ask all the believers in the room to pray this as well.

So repeat this after me.

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

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

I thank you for loving me and forgiving my sins.

Now let me pray over you.

Holy Spirit, you are on the move here at MetaCurch.

It is so obvious.

You show up every week, every service, and call people back into relationship with their Heavenly Father.

Jesus, we're here because of you.

You gave your life for us, you proved your love for us, you proved our worth and value.

We find our security in you.

And so often we get trapped in the lies of this world.

We become insecure.

Jesus, I pray today we would take another step towards finding true and lasting security and walking in the fullness of power that you've given us.

Heavenly Father, I thank you for those who put their faith in you today.

Your children who have now come home to you.

I thank you for the eternal life that they've received.

And I pray that they would find their next steps and they would take them to live a life on purpose and with purpose.

We love you and we thank you.

And we pray all these things in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

Thanks so much for listening to the message today.

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

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

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

There you can learn how to take next steps.

You can learn where our different venues are at if you ever wanted to visit.

And you can also give financially to help push this movement forward.

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