Stupid in Love 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 in.

If you are new with us, I'm the lead pastor here.

My name is Clayton.

We're in a brand new series called Stupid in Love.

Now, we chose that title very carefully.

It's an interesting title because it's used very positively in our culture.

Like, how much do you love her?

Like, oh dude, I'm stupid in love.

Like, in other words, I just love her so much.

It's crazy how much I love this person.

And right now, one of the biggest songs climbing the charts is called Stupid in Love.

And it has a chorus that has amazing lyrics like, uh, let's get married in Vegas, you know, always a good idea.

We don't need a guest list.

I don't want to think too much, because I'm so stupid.

Oh, in love, stupid, in love.

Uh, see, the problem is when you listen really carefully to the words of this song, they are stupid.

Not stupid in love, they're just really like life-alteringly bad decision, stupid.

And this song joins a massive collection of popular songs that when we hear them, I mean, we just ruined a Bruno Mars song for you because you've heard that for years, and your reaction is like, oh my gosh, that's so romantic.

And it's not.

Like, we're not very far into the series, but this is for free.

If you get married because you're looking for something dumb to do, that's stupid, okay?

That's a bad idea, write some of the biggest songs.

Beyonce, what does she say?

Love's got me looking so crazy, looking so crazy, looking so crazy in love, right?

That's not good.

You don't want to be in love with crazy.

There's actually one honest part to that entire song, and it's the chorus.

You know what the chorus says?

It's her one moment of clarity.

It's where she says, uh-oh, uh oh, uh oh, oh no, right?

Uh-oh, uh-uh.

Uh uh.

You don't remember that part?

It's the best part of the song, because it's the only true part of the song.

You don't want to be crazy in love.

But this is what happens culturally.

We don't have a clear understanding of how relationships work, what love actually means, how to be attractive to the right kind of person, how to date in a godly manner, and what marriage is meant for.

We're left really with no other option than to follow the culture and to be stupid in love.

And we know this.

Uh the last 17 years or so in ministry, uh, I've done a ton of counseling.

Every week I'm counseling with people, and the majority of counseling I do is people who are struggling romantically.

Either they're married and they're in a very difficult marriage, or they're single and they don't know how to find someone who's right for them, or they're dating and they've been dating a long time, but they're living kind of in that dating hell that maybe you've been through as well.

So, what's the problem?

We're gonna try to diagnose that over the next five weeks and look at a biblical prescription for how to do the hard work as followers of Jesus to get on the right paths romantically.

But it starts where we're gonna start today with understanding the broadest issue and understanding what love is.

My message today is stupid in love.

Would you pray with me?

Jesus, we love you.

Uh, we thank you for your great love for us.

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

Holy Spirit, we know you're here.

I pray that you would speak to us in powerful ways.

We love you.

We pray all this in Jesus' name.

Everyone who's ready to get going, say amen.

Today we're gonna spend time with legitimately one of the coolest characters in scripture.

He's in the Old Testament.

He is like a real life superhero.

He's the strongest man who ever lived.

He was my personal favorite as a kid, which really proves I didn't understand his story because his story is not one of triumph, his story is one of catastrophe.

Today we're gonna look at the character of Samson.

Now, when you think about Samson, you probably think about his size and his physicality, but we hardly ever think about his purpose.

And the story of Samson is a story of purpose.

This is how he was prophesied before he was even born.

In Judges chapter 13, it says, indeed, you will conceive and give birth to a son, you must never cut his hair, because the boy will be a Nazarite to God from birth, and he will begin, here's his purpose, to save Israel from the power of the Philistines.

Judges 13 · chapter mention

To save Israel from the power of the Philistines.

The Philistines lived right next to Israel, and they were completely opposed to God and to God's people, and they terrorized God's people.

And you notice in this announcement of the coming of Samson, it makes no promises about his physical stature or strength.

That wasn't his purpose.

It certainly was a gift, but your gift and your purpose are two different things.

And when you're living in the sweet spot in life, you are lining your gifts up to fulfill your purpose.

And unfortunately, that's not how Samson lives his life.

Often, his purpose gets hidden behind these incredible feats of strength.

When I was growing up in church, we would learn about Samson.

We never talked about his purpose.

We just talked about all his incredible exploits, like this in Judges 14.

Samson, this is when he's a young man, he went down to Timnah while his father and mother and came to the vineyards of Timnah, and suddenly a young lion came roaring at him.

The Spirit of the Lord came powerfully on him, and he tore the lion apart with his bare hands, as he might have torn a young goat.

But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done.

Uh, this is his first act of incredible strength.

It's like the origin story of a superhero.

It's it's the first flex, right?

It just shows there never was a man like this.

Now, again, the angel never prophesied about his strength.

And we often make Samson's strength his whole identity, but that was just a superficial blessing, a gift to be used.

And it could be used for good, or it could be used for selfish gain.

Interestingly, the way that we look at the superficial aspects of Samson, and we make that all that we think about, is kind of getting to the core of the same issue that we have in dating.

Often, the first issue in dating is that we fall in love with the outer person, the superficial aspects, before we know their inner purpose.

Growing up, Samson was my absolute favorite Bible character, hands down.

And the reason was because he did things like this in Judges 15.

When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came to meet him, shouting.

The Spirit of the Lord came powerfully on him, the ropes that were on his arms and wrists became like burnt flax.

He tore through the ropes, he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his hand, took it, and with the jawbone of a donkey killed a thousand men.

John Wick has nothing on this fool.

This is crazy.

And I grew up in churches where we read King James Version, right?

And it didn't say donkey, right?

He was literally out there opening up a can.

You can finish that in your own mind.

This is how I thought of Samson.

I just thought of the outer person, the shell, the package that he came in, all the things he did exterior, and missed that he was birthed with a very significant and specific purpose.

And we do this all the time.

We are looking for the superficial, we're looking for the things on the exterior, and often we get involved romantically so quickly, and we attach ourselves to someone so quickly before we even know who they are, before we know if we're aligned at the deepest level, at the level of purpose.

Now, before we feel too bad for Samson for being a little bit misunderstood, uh, he does the exact same thing.

He takes his gifts and he uses them, not for his purpose, but for his own selfish game.

In Judges 14, Samson went down to Timna and he saw a young Philistine woman there.

He went back and told his father and his mother, I've seen a young Philistine woman in Timnah now, get her for me as a wife.

I guess that's how you talk to your parents when you're the strongest man on earth.

Now get her for me as a wife.

I'd be looking for a chunkla, right?

I would be I'd be nervous if I talked to my mom like that.

Get her for me.

Okay, so just a reminder: what is Samson's purpose?

To save Israel from the power of who?

The Philistines.

He went down and saw a Philistine woman.

And he told his father and mother, I've seen a Philistine woman.

Now get her for me as a wife.

Samson is adamant.

There are the enemies of Israel since the time of David and Goliath.

Goliath, you might remember, was a Philistine.

They have been haunting and persecuting the people of God like forever.

And now Samson is going to join ranks with him.

His parents did not like this idea in verse 3.

His father and mother said to him, Can't you find a young woman among your relatives or among any of our people?

Must you go to the uncircumcised Philistines for a wife?

But Samson told his father, get her for me.

She's the right one for me.

Now, Samson is not an easy guy to argue with because all he needs is a jawbone and some motivation, you know, and he can do a lot of damage.

And he's so confident she's the right one.

Now, why does he think that?

Has he gotten to know her?

Does he know that she's a Philistine, but secretly she worships the one true God?

Does he see her her inner life and that she's filled with compassion and love for the people around her?

Does he know that they have a common life purpose that they can join together and build the kingdom of God together?

Does he know any of those things?

Of course not.

You see, he sees the person superficially, the package, the looks, the figure.

He's not even concerned with the purpose or the fact that as a Philistine, she has a purpose given to her diametrically opposed to his.

He says, you must get her, she's the right one for me.

And if you translate the Hebrew literally there in Judges 14, what it says literally is she is pleasing to my eyes.

AKA, she's super hot.

That's what he's concerned about.

Samson has been blinded by his sight, blinded by his lust.

Samson is what we would say is stupid in love.

And see, here's the real danger of just falling in love with the outer person and moving quickly romantically, is that you set yourself up to be blinded to somebody's very real red flags.

Now you probably know what red flags are, it's a common cultural term.

Red flags are the obvious warning signs that this is not a good person for you to invest in a romantic relationship with.

And so let's talk about how we typically date these days because it exacerbates this very problem.

For a long time throughout human history, there was a long period of courting that was uh forced by the parents in the relationship.

And so you took time whether you wanted to take time or not.

And now everything is instant.

And so if you are single or dating, then odds are you're finding a lot of your connections either on social media or on dating apps.

Maybe you're finding some connections like we would, you know, in the 90s, out in the wild, you know, off of the internet.

But what you're looking for initially is physical attraction, common shared interests, the things that you happen to be attracted to.

And we're gonna talk all about attraction next week, but we are starting visually, and you need to know that's not inherently wrong, but when it is the only factor, it becomes very dangerous.

Here's what's true the more physically attracted you are to someone, the more likely you are to rationalize away their red flags.

In other words, if you think someone is crazy fine, you're probably gonna look right past the fact they're actually crazy, right?

The more physically attracted, the easier you will just ignore the very real red flags.

We also live in a hookup culture, and statistically, with adults, by the third date, most people have become sexually active.

Now, you probably, even if if you're new to church, you probably have some idea about what scripture teaches about sex.

And I've taught a lot here at MetaCurch about God's design for sex and how it is intended to be within the confines of the marriage covenant.

And a lot of people won't even preach on that because it just seems so antiquated.

It seems so unrealistic.

And the way the culture responds is like this is exactly why I don't do religion.

God is always trying to step on my game.

This is why Christianity sucks in the first place.

He just doesn't want me to have any fun at all.

He's taking away like the best thing out there for us.

And look, you can go back and find all kinds of sermons about the beauty of God's plan and his design for sex.

But today we're talking about red flags.

And look, if you're really attracted to someone, you're already going to be tempted to rationalize their red flags.

But even if you're just marginally attracted to someone, but you start a sexual relationship, you now have the world's strongest biological and neurological conflict of interest.

Your sex drive is most likely the strongest, if not one of the strongest, drives in your life.

And every time you think about bringing up one of those red flags, your brain will literally talk you out of it, knowing it will start conflict that will keep you from being intimate with that person later.

Not only that, we just move quickly.

We often start cohabitating very quickly.

We've talked about that in the past.

There is no verse that says, thou shalt not cohabitate with the other person.

It's not in the Bible if you're looking for it.

However, that just didn't happen 2,000 years ago when scripture is written.

And we can see the statistics and how it actually isn't helpful at all.

And the reason it's not helpful is because now you have sunk costs.

And after you move in and you start realizing there's real red flags, and you're not lined up on your life purpose at all.

You have sunk so much into this, it's very complicated.

And all of a sudden, you end up living in relational hell for an extended period of time because you were attracted, and then you became intimate, and then you sunk a bunch of cost into the relationship, and you don't know how to get out of it.

So let me actually demonstrate for you how this works and what this looks like and how it might function in your life.

I've asked my good friend Pastor Tony to come out here and help me.

Y'all welcome Pastor Tony to the stage.

Now, uh, Tony may or may not be your cup of tea.

I think he's very handsome personally.

Um he's married, ladies, so calm.

His wife, Tori, though, if you ask Tori, he is like Ryan Gosling and Ryan Reynolds and Ryan Seacrest, mainly the height, all rolled into one, right?

Like he's the full packet for, and he's a great guy, but for the sake of this illustration, Tony is gonna be someone who's like a walking red flag.

And what happens is we often can't see the red flags that are so obvious because of what we're calling today the love lens.

And the love lens distorts and distracts, and it's not everyone.

How red flags work, and you know this, you've experienced it, is you can't see it, but your friends can.

You can't see it, but your mom can.

You can't see it, but your co-workers can.

And every time they try to point it out, you're able to rationalize it away.

And so your mom is like, wait, he's been fired from his last 12 jobs?

That's a red flag, you know?

And you're like, you don't understand, he's a maverick.

A nine to five job just can't hold his creativity.

Okay, maybe.

Your coworker is like, hey, I looked on his Instagram, all of his photos are with other women, and you're like, I know, right?

He just understands the feminine spirit.

Your best friend is like, so let me get this straight.

He only calls when he wants to hook up with you.

And you're like, look, he's like really investing in his career right now as a rollerblader.

Also, rollerblading, let's be honest, another red flag.

Everyone can see it, but you can't see it.

They're like, he doesn't shower, and you're like, he's saving the whales, you know?

They're like he screams at you all the time, and you're like, he's fiery and passionate, you know?

They're like, all he does is smoke weed all day long, and you're like, he's one with nature.

Red flag after red flag, everybody can see it, but you can't.

And here's why: because you're not looking at him normally, you're looking at him through the love lens.

It all disappears, it all goes away.

You're not seen correctly because you have fallen in love with the outer person, and you never got to know his inner purpose.

And you fell in love so quickly and you moved so quickly, you invested so much, you sunk so many costs, that now, even though you are aware, it's all distorted and you're confused.

You don't know how to get out of it.

Help me thank Tony for helping us out today.

Everyone in this room has had a friend in this situation where you're like, How are you not seeing this?

And unfortunately, if we're honest, many of us have been in this situation.

We have been blinded, looking at someone through the love lens.

Not true love based on a core common purpose, but stupid love based on superficial things that can't carry the weight of a relationship long term.

What did Samson say?

He told his father, get her for me.

She is pleasing to my eyes.

I'm looking at the outer person, even though the obvious red flag is a Philistine.

She's completely opposed to his life purpose.

And how many people have spent far too long in dating hell?

Ignoring endless red flags because you jumped in, you fell in love, you became intimate, and you couldn't find a way out.

Now, what's crazy is Samson is on such a bad path, and we haven't even gotten to Delilah yet.

See, we think we know these Bible stories.

We gotta go back, we gotta spend time in the Word.

His first wife was not Delilah, his first wife was a Philistine woman, and it ended horribly, like things getting burnt to the ground horribly, okay?

Exactly as anyone would have expected it to.

And you would hope that it going that poorly would be like a wake-up call, but that's not how the story goes.

Samson is unstoppable physically, and he's like insatiable relationally, and by now he is just full-on living in sin, living apart from his life purpose.

His relational stupidity is causing him to fall in love with women who don't share his God-given purpose, and they are now dragging him away from his own purpose.

And this is often what happens is you're on good tracks and you have a vision for your life, and you feel like God's placed a purpose inside of you, but you fall in love with someone because of the outer appearance, and they don't share that same purpose, and most of the time, not all the time, but most of the time, they will end up pulling you away from the purpose that God has placed in you, and you end up losing on both sides.

So let's see just how far Samson has fallen.

When we get to Judges 16 in verse 1, it says Samson went to Gaza, where he saw a prostitute and went to bed with her.

Let's pause right there.

Hey, that's not good.

Like, this is a man of God created for God's purposes, and now he's going into Philistine territory to see prostitutes.

Three verses later, sometime later, he fell in love with a woman named Delilah who lived in the Sorek Valley.

He went to Gaza to see a prostitute.

Gaza is where the Philistines lived.

He later meets the infamous Delilah in the Soric Valley.

And you'll never guess where the Soric Valley is.

It's also in Gaza.

Which means he met Delilah, the love of his life.

Again, another song that we go, uh, hey there, Delilah.

Delilah was the problem, guys.

He meets her, most likely, on his way to see a prostitute.

And that's how I met your mother, right?

Like that's not how you want the story to go.

Samson is off course here.

And how did he make all these decisions?

He made them by sight.

What he could see, what he could physically experience.

Samson was given this incredible power and strength in order to save his people from the power of the Philistines.

And he's getting ready now to marry his second Philistine wife.

And look, uh, we're not Samson, we don't know.

Uh I'm I'm sure it's difficult managing looking like Thor and having all the strength and no one being able to tell you anything.

I'm sure that there's a lot of responsibility there.

However, he was given the strength as a gift to give back to God.

And he only used it to please himself.

And if you use your gifts that God has given you for your own selfish gain, it may work out for a season.

You know, I I don't like, I don't like the kind of preaching where it's like, as soon as you sin, God is just gonna strike you dead and everything's gonna go to hell and it's all gonna be terrible.

Because you can look around at the world and you can see people living in opposition to God who just seem to keep winning and winning.

It's one of the difficult things of really committing to a life of following Christ.

Christ called us to take up our cross and to follow him.

He promised us actually that we would suffer.

And then you see people who are living apart from God, and they seem to be on the rise and gaining popularity and making all of the money.

It can work for a season, but ultimately it will lead to your downfall, either in this life or in the next.

And we at MetaCurch live with a pilgrim's perspective, and a pilgrim's perspective says that the life that comes next is actually the realest reality, that the 80 or so years that you might get here on earth are nothing compared to your eternal life that comes after this.

Samson marries Delilah.

This kind of living will catch up to you.

In the next verse, right after they're married, the Philistine leaders went to Delilah and said, Persuade Samson to tell you where his great strength comes from, so we can overpower him, tie him up, and make him helpless.

And each of us will then give you 1100 pieces of silver.

A whole group of leaders will each give 1100 pieces of silver more money than she would ever see in her entire life, and she does not hesitate.

So Delilah said to Samson, please tell me, where does your great strength come from?

How could someone, I don't know, tie you up and make you helpless?

This is a red flag.

If the person you're dating is like, hey, just out of curiosity, like if someone wanted to deplete all your bank accounts and ruin all of your relationships and just like completely drive you insane, what would that look like?

That that's bad news.

And Samson knows it.

And at some level, he knows what he's gotten into because their purpose is at odds.

And all it took was the smallest bribe.

And she turned on him immediately.

And so if you know the story, Samson lies to her.

She tries to bind him, he easily gets free.

He lies to her again, she binds him, he easily gets free.

He knows the game that they're playing.

Then in verse 15, Delilah said, How can you even say, I love you, when your heart is not with me?

This is the third time you have mocked me and not told me what makes your strength so great.

That's manipulation.

Do you even love me if you won't let me kill you?

That's and if you don't know the story, you you have to assume he's never going to tell her.

Never.

But there is a secret in marriage, and it is so evident.

Verse 16, because she nagged him day after day after day, and pleaded with him.

One thousand men couldn't stand against him with the jawbone of an ass.

And here she is, just bugging him.

She wore him out.

He convinced press 550 for reps.

Oh, but nagging.

It did a man.

Oh, you better marry the right woman.

You better show up to every week of this series.

He told her the whole truth.

He said, My hair has never been cut.

I'm a Nazirite to God from birth.

If my hair is shaved, my strength will leave me, I'll become weak and be like any other man.

And she told the Philistines, she got the bag, and they captured him.

He was the biggest problem to the Philistines.

He was the only guy they were worried about, and they got him.

Here's where the story gets interesting.

In verse 21, the Philistines seized him and they gouged out his eyes.

And they brought him down to Gaza and they bound him with bronze shackles, and he was forced to grind grain in the prison.

They gouged out his eyes.

They gouged out the one thing that kept getting Samson in trouble.

Samson might have been the greatest hero in all of the Old Testament if he had been born blind.

It was his eyes that got him into situation after situation after situation.

She is pleasing to my eyes.

I'm falling in love with the outer person, with what I can see and perceive and experience.

Not even caring about the inner purpose.

And what's so interesting about the story is once his eyes are gone, he finally begins to focus on his purpose.

Look at what he says.

He called out to the Lord, Lord God, please remember me.

Strengthen me, God, just once more, with one act of vengeance, let me pay back the Philistines for my two eyes.

And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars supporting the temple, and he leaned against them, one on his right hand and one on his left.

And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines.

And he pushed with all of his might, and the temple fell on the leaders and all the people in it, and those he killed at his death were more than those he had killed in his entire life.

And it wasn't until Samson could no longer perceive the external world in the same way that he focused, once again, on his inner purpose, called out to God, and was blessed with his gift of strength once more.

And finally, he used it not for his own selfish gain, but for the Lord's gain.

During his life, Samson ignored every red flag.

And if the only thing I can get across to you today is that you have to open your eyes to how crazy our culture thinks about dating and love, then that's enough.

Most of the things that we call romantic are actually quite stupid.

If you just slow down and pay attention and look past the surface.

And maybe in your dating relationships, as much as you're using your eyes to see what is attractive to you, maybe you then need to close your eyes and talk to God, open your eyes, read His Word, and seek wisdom.

The more attractive you find someone, the more likely you are to rationalize the fact that you don't stand on common ground, that you don't have the same purpose, that you don't live with the same values, that you don't share the same beliefs.

And you're setting yourself up for disaster, especially if you follow the culture's prescription and start dating quickly and get intimate quickly and move in quickly and do everything quickly and sink your whole life into a relationship before you really know who the person is.

The path of relational wisdom that scripture lays out runs in direct contrast to the path that culture lays out.

Two years ago, we did a series called Love Up that goes through these prescriptions in great detail.

You can find that on our YouTube channel.

If you want to escape the trap of stupid love, you have to change your approach, shift your perspective, commit to God's plan, and search for common purpose.

And over the next four weeks, we are gonna help you do that very thing.

There's one other key.

To really live your relational life God's way, you have to be in relationship with God.

And the same that is true for Samson, that as a kid, I just looked at the feats of strength and never understood his purpose.

It's true for dating, that we often just look at the physical attraction and don't look at what's on the inside.

And the same is often true for how we approach God.

And some of you may have never started a relationship with God, but you appreciate him from a superficial level.

You're glad there's a God.

Maybe you believe at some level that something obviously has to be responsible for this universe.

Maybe you don't have a relationship with God because you don't appreciate God on a superficial level.

You don't understand why he's made your life so hard or you question his goodness.

But the first step is to get in relationship with the God of the universe.

And scripture tells us how to do that.

It's through putting our faith in his son Jesus.

And the reason that we are out of relationship and separated from God is because of our sin.

It's because God gave us the gift of life, and instead of always giving our gifts back to him, we use our gifts for selfish means.

That was the very first sin in the Garden narrative.

The temptation was you can be just like God.

So they disobeyed.

And sin always separates us from a God who is perfect, can't be in the presence of sin, but he loves you so much.

Whenever you thought about God before, God demonstrated how much he loves you by coming down to this earth and giving his life as the sacrifice to pay the price of your sins.

All you have to do is put your faith in Jesus.

And by putting your faith in Jesus, you will be back in relationship with God, who Scripture calls our Heavenly Father.

And once you're in relationship with God, you now have a new life and a new purpose and can begin finding someone in your life to share that purpose with.

Would you pray with me as we close out today?

Right where you're at, and you just bow your head and close your eyes.

There's nothing magic about that.

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

I wonder for those who are married, how much you and your spouse think about your common purpose?

Are you just going through the steps in life or are you just kind of navigating day to day?

Do you know what your spouse's purpose in life is?

Do you understand that if you're believers in Jesus, your biggest purpose is to build God's kingdom right now on the earth?

And you pursue that.

Your marriage, that probably struggles at times, could today begin to get on a better path if you would get serious about following God together.

For those who are single and dating.

What are you looking for?

If you're following the stupid love prescriptions of our culture, then you're looking for what's on the outside.

And that might be fun for a season, it might be fun for a few months, but eventually, lifelong happiness is found at the level of purpose.

And I wonder if there's anyone here today who has not yet started the purpose they were created with, because they've never put their faith in Jesus.

Before we leave today, with everyone's eyes closed, if you're here today and you've never put your faith in Jesus, you've never had a moment in time where you believed, you chose to believe, that Jesus is God, that he died for your sins, and that he rose again, and you're ready to make that decision today.

I want to give you that opportunity.

And so if you're here today and you're ready to put your faith in Jesus, right where you're sitting, I want in a moment of courage for you to just lift your hand up where I know who I'm talking to, who I'm praying with.

If you're here today and you're ready to put your faith in Jesus, just lift your hand up in the air.

Amen.

Amen.

Praise God.

Here's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna pray together.

And if you lifted your hand, I want you to know that God sees your faith and accepts it.

And all I want to do is help you acknowledge that faith through a simple prayer.

And so if you raised a hand, I'm gonna ask you to pray this prayer with me.

I'm gonna ask all the believers in the room to pray it as well.

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 that you rose from the grave.

I thank you for loving me and forgiving my sins.

Now let me pray over you.

Jesus, we love you.

We thank you for what you continue to do here.

We ask that you would encourage us in our relationships.

God, you have given us a better way that we would reject the lies of culture that keep us stuck, and that we would do the hard work of submitting to you and submitting to one another out of love for you.

God, that you would give us clarity for those who are single and dating, clear paths, that you would give strength and peace to our marriages, that you would bless this series and all who sit in it.

We love you.

We thank you for a new life for children coming home.

We pray all of it in your name, Jesus.

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.