Pursuit: Trivial to Intentional - Pursuit Requires Partnership with Pastor Clayton Tyner

Welcome to the MetaCurch Podcast.

My name's Clayton.

I'm the pastor here at MetaCurch.

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

I hope that you enjoy today's message.

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

I'm the lead pastor here at MetaCurch.

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

We're jumping into a brand new seven-week series.

But uh, if you've been at MetaCurch for a while, one of the things that you know about my leadership is if there's ever an elephant in the room, I feel compelled to go.

Everyone, look, there's an elephant in the room.

And uh I think when things happen culturally, we need to discuss them.

I'm sure you're all aware, yesterday there was an attempted assassination of the former president Donald Trump, uh current political frontrunner.

And uh one of the things I love about MetaCurch is that we are a diverse congregation among every measure imaginable, including politically, people have very political different political ideas from one to the next.

And we've worked very hard that this platform is never a political platform.

Um at the same time, what this is indicative of is just the state of the culture that we're living in.

If you weren't here, the last time I was on stage was June 23rd, that was three weeks ago.

I preached a message called election season about how Christians are called to rise to the moment.

And I made the uh, I put forward the idea that the world is growing darker and darker than we've ever seen it, that we're more divided, that we're angrier, more frustrated than we've been, at least in my lifetime.

And I think what happened yesterday is indicative of that, that things are getting darker and darker.

And you probably experienced a lot of emotions yesterday.

You might be angry, you might be scared, you might be confused, wondering how we move forward.

And I just want to remind you before we get into the message today, that if you're a believer in Jesus, with every situation, you have an assignment.

Jesus said, You are the light of the world.

And as the light of the world, when the world around us gets darker, our light shines brighter as long as we shine our light.

And this is a moment that we should stand up and be who God called us to be.

And if you want to know specifically what that means, I'd encourage you to go online and watch the message from three weeks ago, because scripture outlines, in the context of incredible political tension during Jesus' life, how we can follow God and make a difference in the world.

And so have the emotions that you have, have the political ideas that you have, but know that your first assignment is to follow Jesus and as the light of the world, now more than ever, we need to shine brightly.

Would you pray with me?

Jesus, we love you.

We thank you for hope, even when the world seems so hopeless.

I thank you for a place like Metachurch where anyone can come and belong and truly be loved, even if they don't believe everything that we believe.

Thank you for this movement, and I pray that you would help us know what it really means to pursue the life that you've given us to live.

We love you.

We pray these things in Jesus' name.

And if you're in agreement, say amen.

Amen.

We are starting a new series.

The series is called Pursuit.

And this is gonna be seven weeks where we go through the book of Philippians in the Christian scriptures, what we often call the New Testament.

And in this letter, over seven weeks, we're gonna see seven keys to pursuing the life that God created you to live.

You know how we define this life here at MetaCurch.

It's a life lived on purpose and with purpose.

If you're new, let me make sure you know what we believe as a starting place at Metachurch, that God created you on purpose.

It is by no accident that you're here on planet earth, and God created you with purpose.

He has placed something inside of you, not just for your own success in this life, but for success in the next life, which is your eternal life.

And the book of Philippians is gonna help us tear all of this apart and look at it and understand it.

We're calling this series pursuit because everyone is pursuing something.

It might be money, a career, fame, influence, sex, relationship, health goals, weight loss, beauty, purpose, meaning, everyone is pursuing something in life.

That pursuit is what gives our life organization, it's what gives us motivation, it's what gets us out of bed in the morning.

And if you've ever lived through a stretch in your life where you don't have anything to pursue, the inverse is true.

It spirals us into depression, we become very meaningless, it's hard to get out of bed in the morning, and you start asking questions like, is my life even worth living?

When we were putting together this series, we were reminded of the game Trivial Pursuit.

If you ever played Trivial Pursuit, I'm gonna guess that like a lot of uh 30 and plus hands will go up and a lot of younger people maybe have it.

Trivial Pursuit has been popular for a very long time.

It's been around for decades and decades.

It's a board game.

And it's also, if you've played it, like the most frustrating board game imaginable.

Now, if you're like me, you could use the word trivial in a sentence, but you really don't know how to define it.

Here's the definition: trivial means of little importance or value.

Trivial is of little importance or value.

And that's what made trivial pursuit so interesting and in a lot of ways so frustrating, because um, unlike other game boards, there is no set intentional path for you to move your game piece.

Think about Candyland, you've got to start and you've got to finish, and unless you hit one of the ladders, then you just keep going in the same way.

Or even Monopoly, you know, destroying families since like 1945 or whatever.

The game Monopoly, you can go around and around and around, but only in one set direction with trivial pursuit.

The directions are trivial.

You can go any way that you want.

Even more frustrating are the questions.

You have to answer the question right in order to move your piece.

And the questions are trivial, which means they're of no importance or value.

In other words, they're random.

It's not something you would need to know, like who was the president during this major war or who invented this really important thing.

They're just random, frustrating, trivial questions.

I'll give you some examples.

Questions like, who was the official hair consultant in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics?

Who knows that, right?

If you know the answer to that, I've got news for you.

We can't be friends, all right?

That's a crazy thing to know.

Questions like, what is the scientific name for a rabbit's tail?

If you're not a veterinarian, don't know that, right?

How many rings make up one arm of the Michelin man?

It's four, if you're wondering.

Uh, which European country's flag is the flag of Monaco with the colors reversed?

Bro, I would get zero of those answers correct.

Like, that's so difficult because it's so trivial.

It just doesn't matter.

None of those things have any importance or any real value to your life.

Now, it does make for a fun game, obviously.

This board game has existed for decades and decades and decades.

The real problem is when we begin pursuing our life in a trivial fashion.

So many people are spending enormous amounts of their time and their energy on things that have very little value and almost no importance.

You guys experience this all the time, like just binge watching TV shows and movies for hours and hours and hours, a lot of times all by yourself, engaging in endless online shopping sprees, spending excessive time on video games, gossiping and spreading rumors, constantly seeking approval and validation from others, prioritizing material possessions over meaningful relationships, worrying about superficial appearances, focusing on temporary pleasure rather than long-term goals, falling into addiction to alcohol or drugs, getting caught up in gambling or other risky behaviors, relying on pornography for gratification, engaging in meaningless sexual hookups, chasing career advancement solely for power or prestige, sacrificing family and personal life for professional success.

Trivial.

Things that ultimately will not have any value or importance.

Of course, the most damning aspect of trivial pursuit in our own lives lives in our pockets.

It's on our smartphones.

Research shows that the average person looks at their smartphone unprompted almost 150 times a day.

That's not when you get a message or an alert or a beep or a buzz.

That's just like looking at it to check on it, to make sure it's still doing okay, you know?

150 times a day.

The average American spends over four and a half hours every single day on smartphone apps.

Some of this may be business related, but the majority of it is simply trivial.

When we're pursuing trivial things in our life, here's what's the most frustrating is you can actually be successful.

You can make the money, you can get the job, you can drive the car, you can have the spouse, you can have the six-pack abs, you can have the size zero dress, you can get all of it and still feel empty inside.

And it's really tough because on the outside you look like you're put together and influential and beautiful, but on the inside, you're void of meaning or purpose.

I'm excited to go through the letter that the apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians for a few reasons.

Number one, because it's gonna give us the seven keys to proper pursuit in our life, pursuing the life that we were actually created to live.

And the second reason I'm excited is because Paul was writing to such a unique movement of people.

The church in Philippi, those are the Philippians, they were just so unique.

And we're gonna see that as we go through the letter.

And I love that because I might be a little bit biased, but I believe that metachurch is such a unique part of the movement of Jesus.

We've seen that over our five and a half years since we planted.

Every time you are called into action, you go above and beyond.

Over the last five and a half years, we have thrown off the shackles of this idea that church is just another religious box to check.

And instead, we've been meeting together and moving together and actually making a difference in our world.

And at the same time, what Paul knew is we can all still get stuck and we can find ourselves chasing trivial things.

And as long as we're alive, we should be growing and we should be maturing.

And so Paul wrote this letter to encourage the Philippians and to challenge the Philippians to pursue the life that God created them to live.

And I think this summer of the next seven weeks is gonna help us do that very same thing.

First, I wanna give you a little bit of context by looking, not in the book of Philippians, but in the book of Acts.

Now, in the New Testament, the Christian scriptures, we start with four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

These tell the story of the life of Jesus.

And then there's the book of Acts.

And it's a unique book in all of the New Testament because it is a history book of the early church.

And so in Acts chapter 16, we actually find the history behind the church in Philippi.

Acts 16 · chapter mention

In Acts 16, 11, it says, From Troaz, we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace the next day to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, a Roman colony and a leading city of the district of Macedonia.

We stayed in that city for several days.

On the Sabbath, we went outside the city gate by the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer.

We sat down and spoke to the women gathered there.

A God-fearing woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatera, was listening, and the Lord opened her heart to respond to what Paul was saying.

And after she and her household were baptized, she urged us, if you consider me a believer in the Lord, come and stay at my house.

And she persuaded us.

And that's exactly what Paul did.

And more and more people heard the message.

And the ministry in Philippi began, and pretty soon the church was taking shape.

However, trouble soon came, as it almost always did for the Apostle Paul.

Scripture says a demon-possessed girl was following Paul around.

It actually says this in Acts, that she was annoying him so badly that he turned around and cast the demon out in Jesus' name.

And this stirred up a lot of controversy.

In verse 20, it says, bringing them before the chief magistrates, they said, These men are seriously disturbing our city.

They are Jews and are promoting customs that are not legal for us as Romans to adopt our practice.

The crowd joined in the attack against them, and the chief magistrates stripped off their clothes and ordered them to be beaten with rods.

After they had severely flogged them, they threw them in jail, ordering the jailer to guard them carefully.

Receiving such an order, he put them into the inner prison, the darkest, furthest back part of the prison, and secured their feet to the stocks.

There's nothing trivial about getting thrown into prison in a foreign land.

This is a bad situation for Paul.

And one of the things that's interesting in modern Western Christianity is there are a lot of people who put their faith in Jesus and then they start trying to follow Jesus, but they're still following Jesus with a worldly trivial mentality.

You see, the truth is any part of our life that is not lived for God, in the end, is trivial.

All of the things that we invest our life to in this life end when this life ends, except for the things of God, which go on into eternity.

So often we start trying to follow Jesus, and because of following Jesus, struggle comes, suffering comes, relational conflict comes, financial conflict comes.

And we have this mentality.

And a lot of this mentality comes from a lot of preachers who do not have your best interest in mind, who try to convince you that if you just believe in Jesus and have enough faith, everything will go your way.

You'll get the car you want, your life will be easy, you'll always be healthy, you'll get the job that you want, you'll get the spouse that you want.

If you just have enough faith, when you follow Jesus, it will be the easiest path in your life.

But what did Jesus say?

Jesus said, if you follow me in this life, you will have trouble.

And so for so many of us, we set out following Jesus and struggling comes, and we're like, I don't think this whole Christianity thing is working out for me.

Everywhere Paul went, this would happen.

And you know what Paul's reaction was?

Every time he was put in prison, every time he was beaten, every time he was whipped, every time he was stoned with stones, every time he was put up to trial, every time Paul's reaction was like, Yeah, that checks out.

In prison, it was about right on time, honestly.

It's an easy connection, but for some reason, in our world of convenience and affluence, we don't often make it.

Paul's like, of course, I'm being persecuted.

The guy I'm following was nailed to a cross.

That's what being like Jesus got Jesus.

What is trying to live like Jesus going to get me?

And so Paul's response was very different because Paul is not in a trivial pursuit.

He is actually pursuing the life that God created him to live.

It says about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God.

And the prisoners were listening to them.

When we're pursuing trivial things in life, every inconvenience feels like persecution.

Which is why the modern Christian is so quick to grow resentful towards God at the first sign of suffering or disappointment.

But Paul is pursuing a life on purpose and with purpose.

And we're gonna learn in this series that when you orient your life towards proper pursuit, even your suffering will lead to your success.

And that's what Paul believed.

That everything that looked like a setback was actually a setup for God to do something incredible in his life.

I would hope that if I was ever imprisoned for my faith, that I would handle it well.

But to me, handling it well is like not trying to kill everyone within arm's reach of me, you know?

Like that's kind of my standard for me.

For Paul, he's like, you want to put me in the very back of the prison?

The part with the best acoustics?

Let me get my worship on real quick.

It's midnight and he's preaching and praying.

He's on Hillsong's seventh album.

You know how annoying that would be if you were the guard just trying to get some sleep, and these fools in the back won't stop singing and praying and preaching.

This is Paul's response because Paul expects to suffer because he knows that a great life has never been built without suffering.

He knows that Jesus redeemed all of humanity through his path to the cross.

And Paul was going to change the world in the exact same way.

Suddenly, there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the jail were shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's chains came loose.

And when the jailer woke up and saw the doors of the prison standing open, he drew his sword to kill himself, since he thought that the prisoners had escaped and taking his own life would be far better than what Rome would do to him if all the prisoners escaped on his watch.

But Paul called out in a loud voice, Don't harm yourself.

We're all here.

Now let me tell you something about me, right?

If I was put in the back of the prison and I was preaching and praying and worshiping all night, and then an earthquake came and my chains fell off, I would take that as a sign and I would run a 4440 to as far away as I could get, you know?

Thank you, Lord, and I'm out.

Paul stays in a jail cell with his chains off and the door open.

Because Paul's prerogative, his first priority was not his freedom.

It was the gospel.

Paul was not pursuing his own freedom.

Paul was not pursuing his own life.

Even his freedom was opportunity to spread the gospel to the one who was holding him behind bars.

And that's exactly what happened.

The jailer called for lights, rushed in, and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas.

He scored them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?

To be saved.

How does he even know that vernacular?

How does he even know?

How does he even know how to talk about this?

It's because he had these loud fools in the back of the prison preaching and praying and singing all night.

What must I do?

This thing you've been talking about all night, what must I do to be saved?

And they said, and you need to know this, all it takes, believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.

Amen?

You and your household.

And they spoke the word of the Lord to him along with everyone in his house, and he took them the same hour of the night, washed their wounds, and right away he and all his family were baptized, and he brought them into his house, and set a meal before them, and rejoiced, because he had come to believe in God with his entire household.

This is how the Philippian church began.

Now, shortly after this, Paul leaves, he's on a missionary journey.

On his next journey, he circles back through Macedonia, he stops in and encourages the Philippians, but then he gets arrested, and this time it sticks.

There's no more going and visiting the churches that he's planted.

So instead, he writes them letters.

And many of those letters become the documents that make up the New Testament of our Bible.

Like everything they did to try and stop the spread of the gospel in Paul's life, because he lived a life of proper pursuit, only pushed the gospel further.

And that's how we get this letter to the Philippians.

Now, if it's not obvious already, Paul is incredible.

He's like a biblical all-star, he's the apostolic MVP, right?

I believe that other than Jesus Christ himself, Paul is the most influential single human in all of human history.

And you look at Paul, and it's easy to see the accolades, it's easy to see the accomplishments, it's easy to see he's a championship caliber player.

But in his letter to the Philippians, the first 11 verses we're gonna look at today, we get some insight into how Paul was so successful.

Paul starts the letter to the Philippians with his typical salutation.

If you read Paul's letters, this is how he starts them.

He says, Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, including the overseers and the deacons.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is very, very typical, Paul.

This is how every time he writes a letter, he starts.

Paul and whoever he's ministering with, uh, to the church and wherever, to all the saints.

What's different is what comes next in Philippians, because a lot of the letters that Paul was writing to churches were quite corrective.

In nature.

False teaching had come into the church, immorality had come into the church, bad ideas had come into the church, division and factions had come into the church.

And so Paul would hit you with the salutation, grace to you.

It's Paul, a servant of Christ, writing to you guys.

And then pretty soon after that, he's like, Has everyone lost their minds?

You know, like this is kind of how his letters go.

I left for seven seconds, and you guys have run this thing into the ground.

And then he gives them a lot of correction.

The letter to the Philippians is unique because the Philippians themselves are so unique.

And I want you to see the affection that the words that he uses in the very next verses, he says, I give thanks to my God every time I remember you.

Always praying, full of joy, praying for you in every prayer.

It's our first indication that the Philippians are a unique movement.

They're just a unique faith community.

Several of Paul's letters in the New Testament are kind of half correction, half encouragement.

The Philippians are gonna get a little correction, a little bit of straightening out, but he is writing to encourage them and keep them going.

And where does this deep love come from?

He tells us in verse five.

He says, I give thanks every single time I think about you, I just can't help, I'm filled with joy.

I thank God because of your, say this word with me, partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.

He's so overwhelmed with gratitude because of their partnership.

Says the Greek word koinania.

It means deep fellowship through shared work, each carrying the weight for each other.

And there's something that happens, like if you grew up playing team sports and you really had to struggle to win some games and you go through the grueling off season together and you're all sharing the load together.

Even if you don't really like each other, it has this bond, right?

It's this fellowship through shared work, shared struggle, shared pursuit.

The Philippians had become more than just a church plant, more than students of Paul's teachings, more than attenders of a church service.

They were truly partners with Paul for the spread of the gospel.

And this gives us our first key to living the powerful, intentional life that we were created to live.

Pursuit requires partnership.

Pursuit requires partnership.

The Philippians prayed for Paul.

Some of them would travel with him, they gave him food and lodging, and they contributed financially to his missionary journeys and the needs of the other churches in massive ways.

We actually see Paul bragging about the Philippians in another letter that he wrote to the Corinthians that we have in the New Testament.

Pursuit requires partnership.

Your life, if it is going to be maximally lived to its full potential, requires partnership with the people of God.

We know this.

Paul is the star of the show.

He's the most impactful human in history, other than Jesus, but Paul needed partners.

And those partners needed Paul.

So let's bring this to our context.

You know, I love San Antonio.

Uh when I think about San Antonio, there's a lot of great, successful people, but to me, the true champion of our city is Tim Duncan.

Can I get an Amen?

Uh the loudest amen.

I'm not gonna let that hurt my feelings.

All right.

Let's go through the list.

Top five NBA player of all time, right?

If you want to wrestle after this, we can.

Top five NBA player of all time.

Best power forward of all time.

Uh though those are those are kind of subjective.

Here's the objective facts.

Uh 1998 Rookie of the Year, two-time league MVP, three times finals MVP, 10 times NBA first team, 15 time all-star, and of course, five-time world champion.

You can clap for that.

I mean, that's our that's our folks.

But you have to know that if Tim was alone playing one-on-five every night, he gets zero of those accolades.

And so for most of his career, he had the big three.

He had Mono Ginobili, he had Tony Parker.

This dynamic trio set the pace for the team on and off the court.

They struck fear into the entire league.

They're largely the reason that over a 20-year span, the Spurs were the greatest franchise of any sport in any league in the entire world.

But even playing three on five would not have done it.

And so throughout the years, there was always a supporting cast of other players.

In the 90s, we had David Robinson and Avery Johnson, we had the Admiral, back then the Twin Towers, you get into the 2000s, you had Robert Ory, you had guys like Brent Berry, you get into the 2010s, you had the Red Mamba, you had Boris Diaw, you had Kawhi Leonard, I guess we have to bring him up.

There was always a supporting cast around him because pursuit of a championship requires partnership.

And we know the teams didn't lead themselves.

We have the greatest coach in the league, Coach Pop.

And Coach Pop is incredible.

He might go down as the best NBA coach of all time.

But even Pop has partners.

There's assistant coaches behind him, like a whole team of them.

And then behind the assistant coaches, there are specialists, shooting coaches, there's trainers, there's physical therapists.

It's a whole army that makes this happen.

And behind them, there's the front office.

The people who are really behind the scenes, but often carry the most weight and make the most difficult of decisions.

The front office is everyone from the C-suite down to the facilities, the production directors, the parking team, it takes everyone.

Because pursuit requires partnership.

And guess what?

When Tim wins a ring, everyone wins a ring.

You may not know that, but when Tim wins a ring, the facility guy who's cleaning up your popcorn that for some reason nobody can throw in the trash gets a ring too.

It's an acknowledgement that none of us can do this on our own.

Paul is incredible.

What he accomplished is incredible.

But he couldn't do it without partners.

The Philippians became those partners to him.

Not only did they receive the gospel, but because they became partners, they were now actively spreading the gospel around the world with him.

For you to live the life you were created to live, you need partners, and not just anyone, you need partnership with the people of God.

The people who are going to push you towards the purpose that God placed on your life.

The people who are going to encourage you and challenge you and hold you accountable.

Christians are not meant to live in isolation.

We are meant to know others and be known by others.

It's how God created us.

And living life in isolation will keep us from ever reaching our potential.

Paul continues, I'm sure of this that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Indeed, it's right for me to think this way about all of you because I have you in my heart, and you are all, say it with me, partners with me in grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.

Let me give you a little more context.

Paul was in prison when he wrote this, and the way the letter got back to the Philippians, there was no U.S.

Postal Service in the Middle East in the ancient world 2,000 years ago, is a man named Epaphroditus risked life and limb to go to Paul.

Epaphroditus was a Philippian.

And he came to Paul and brought him a massive financial offering for the continuation of the gospel spread.

And what he brought back was the letter written by Paul to encourage the church in Philippi.

Paul starts his letter with an emphasis on partnership.

And so that's where we're gonna start our series.

When we were starting MetaCurch a little over five years ago, one of the questions that we asked is what do people need to live out the purpose that God placed inside of them?

We keep our ministry model as simple as possible here.

And yet there are many people who come and attend Sunday service.

And if you're new, that's beautiful.

Keep showing up.

You can come here with no expectation.

But for those of you who have been coming for six months now, a year now, and you hit Sunday service every once in a while, but you haven't taken any next steps into the heartbeat of this community, you are leaving something on the table for your life.

God put you on earth to pursue all that He has for you, and that pursuit will require partnership.

And so we're not shy to tell you you need to be on a team.

You need a community of Christ's followers around you.

You need people to lead you and encourage you and guide you along the way.

When we tell you that, we're telling you you need to partner up because we can do so much more together than we can just as individuals.

What we do here on Sundays, we call this Sunday service.

This service is not church.

You are the church, you are the movement.

The author of Hebrews, another letter in the New Testament, he wrote, do not neglect meeting together.

Why?

In order to spur each other on, goes first go, right?

In order to spur each other on to love and to good works.

What's he saying?

Proper pursuit requires partnership.

It requires community.

Being on a team with people.

This is not community.

This is a service because community doesn't happen hundreds of people at a time.

It happens on teams.

Paul concludes this section.

Says, For God is my witness how deeply I miss all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus, and I pray this that your love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment, so that you may approve the things that are superior and may be pure and blameless in the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.

In other words, you guys are doing amazing.

And let me tell you, as your pastor, MetaCurch, you guys are doing amazing.

It matters that Metachurch is in this city, it matters that we're opening new locations to get the gospel into different parts of our city.

And yet, as long as we're living, we should be growing, we should be maturing, we should be challenging ourselves, learning what is pure and blameless, and learning how to discern the life that God created us to live and that which is trivial.

We have to be really careful as Americans.

We're the most individualistic society that's ever existed.

We love the motif of the Lone Ranger, paving our own path, pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps.

We love that.

But proper pursuit requires partnership.

And the starting place might be just acknowledging that for you to be who God created you to be, you need help.

You need the people around you.

Paul needed partners.

So do you.

For most of human history, we knew that we couldn't survive without other people.

Now we live with so much convenience and so much affluence that we've fought the lie that we can do it on our own.

And you can try and you'll have some measure of success.

But to reach your potential, you need other people.

We need each other.

Partnership with the people of God, helping you to pursue eternal things.

We're done playing trivial pursuit with our lives.

MetaCurch, it's time to do something new.

And to get out of what is trivial, which means of no importance or value, we have to take intentional steps.

We have to get serious and purposeful about how we're navigating our life, including who we are partnered up with.

Like I mentioned at MetaCurch, we have very few things that we offer, but what we offer is very potent.

And so when you came in, you were given a quick start guide to living the right kind of pursuit.

This is kind of like if you open a board game and you don't want to read five pages of instructions, you get a quick start guide, you know?

Like here's how to take some next steps.

For some of you, your first step is meeting Jesus.

To pursue the things of God, you must have a relationship with God.

And we live in a very churched city, at least until you're about 12 or 13.

We live in a very Catholic city.

And a lot of people assume they have a relationship with God because they grew up in the church, or because their parents were faithful, or their grandparents were faithful.

But scripture shows us that a personal relationship with God requires a personal decision, an experience of the Lord where you put your faith, you choose to put your faith in who Jesus is and what he has done.

For some of you, that may be the first step to take.

For others, it might just be doing what the author of Hebrews said, not neglecting gathering together, making it a priority to actually get among the movement that you are such an important part of.

Post-COVID attendance patterns went haywire.

Sunday service, even was no longer something people felt like they needed to be at.

It was more based on convenience.

If we're going to be the powerful movement Jesus has created us to be, then we need to make that a priority.

For some of you, you may need to get healthy.

You need to attend our info session about our upcoming Movement Academy.

We'll talk a lot about that in this series.

But everyone needs to be partnered.

One of the easiest ways to do that, to take an intentional step, is to join a team.

And the easiest teams to join are our volunteer teams here at MetaCurch.

This is a place to know people and be known and to use your gifts, not just to consume what happens during Sunday service, but to actively help create it.

You already come to Sunday service.

And so you can start putting feet on the ground and get on a team of people who will help you pursue the life that God created you to live.

We have two huge opportunities right now.

The first is in MetaKids, and the second is in production.

Listen, Meta keeps growing.

Summer schedules are crazy, but right before summer, we had back-to-back weeks of about a thousand people in attendance here at MetaCurch.

We keep growing, and y'all keep having more and more babies, right?

Like, y'all know how that happens, right?

So many babies.

And MetaKids has so many kids in it lately, and we need people who have a heart for God and to raise up the next generation to come in and be a volunteer.

You can do that.

God will equip you.

The second is our production team.

Our production team here at Richland Hills is about to start carrying the weight of this and our second location.

Because we're simulcasting the sermon, we need people in production to help partner with us.

When you partner, when you join a team, it's like the Philippians.

They weren't just a church that Paul started, they were partners.

They were actively helping spread the gospel.

And that's what you do when you partner up as well.

We're just scratching the surface of what Philippians has to offer.

I'd encourage you to read through this quick start guide.

For some of you, you're doing all of this.

Some of you, you're doing some of it.

For some of you, you're doing none of it.

Over the next seven weeks, I want to challenge you to get real about where you're at in life.

What you're pursuing in life.

If your life is indeed a trivial pursuit, what do you have to lose?

Try something.

Intentionally take a next step.

If you have any questions about anything on here, that's why our connect area exists, so you can find out how to get connected.

God created you on purpose, He created you with purpose, and together we're gonna learn to pursue that purpose and unlock the life that we were created to live.

As we close, would you pray with me right where you're at?

You bow your head and close your eyes.

There's nothing magic about that.

Just create some space for yourself and for the people around you.

For those who've already put their faith in Jesus, we come here to metachurch, not to check some religious box.

We come here to get brutally honest with ourselves.

So I want to ask you, what are you pursuing in life?

What percentage of your time and energy are going towards pursuit of eternal things?

The things of God that last beyond this life?

What percentage of your life is spent pursuing trivial things?

Things that have little to no value, little to no importance.

And what would it look like to surround yourself with people who will help you pursue a life that matters?

For those who are here or watching online, who've never had a moment in time where you made the decision to put your faith in Jesus, that is the starting place for proper pursuit.

I want to quickly remind you what the gospel is.

It's the good news that God loved you so much that instead of setting up a religious system where you have to try to work your way towards Him, God came down to us.

This is the story of Jesus, a God who got small, who left the perfection of heaven to come down into the brokenness and pain of our world.

Jesus lived the life that you and I could not live, a perfect life, and he died the death that you and I deserve.

His death paid the price of all the ways that we have sinned.

All the ways we have missed the mark on God's design and desire for our life.

And all he asks is for your faith.

And when you put your faith in Jesus, your sins are forgiven, all of them.

Your past sins, all the things you've done, all the people you've hurt, the bad decisions you've made, your present sins, and even your future sins.

Scripture says you are clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

You're given eternal life and brought into relationship with your Heavenly Father.

That is a gift that lasts forever, and no one can take it away.

If you're here and there's never been a moment in your life where you have made the decision to put your faith in Jesus, and you'd like to do that today, with everyone's eyes closed, I want to ask you to just lift your hand up.

This moment of courage, by lifting your hand, you're saying, Today I choose to put my faith in Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

For those who lifted a hand, Jesus sees your faith and accepts it.

Your sins are forgiven, and you have been given eternal life.

And all I want to do is simply help you acknowledge that decision through a very, very simple prayer.

So if you raised a hand, I'm gonna ask you to pray this with me out loud, and I'm gonna ask all the believers in the room to pray this as well so you don't feel singled out.

Let's pray this.

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

I believe you are God, that you died for my sins, and I believe you rose again.

Thank you for loving me and forgiving my sins.

Now let me pray over you.

Jesus, we continue to celebrate those who have made the decision to put their faith in you, that you have given eternal life.

We rejoice with all of heaven over these decisions.

God, I pray for all of us that we would quit pursuing trivial things.

God, that we would enjoy the life that you've given us, but that we would use our energy and talents to build up your name and make you known.

God, that we would invest in things that are eternal.

I pray you would give us the courage to do that and the wisdom to find true partners, teammates in this life who will help us to that end.

We love you.

And we pray these things in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

Thanks so much for listening to the message today.

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

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

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

There you can learn how to take next steps.

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

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