Burn the Boats with Pastor Clayton Tyner

Welcome to the MetaCurch Podcast.

My name's Clayton.

I'm the pastor here at Medichurch.

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.

I'm so glad that you joined us.

Today we are going to have a discussion that I feel like is sorely missing from the Christian faith and the Christian experience.

And you know, MetaCurch is built to be a place for all people and all different parts of their faith journey, all the way from people who are pretty hardcore skeptics to our seasoned believers, everything in between.

You can belong even before you believe.

And so for those who are believers, it can be really difficult to know exactly how to integrate your life, all of these years and decades of experiences, relationships, career path, habits, strengths, personality, how to integrate all of that into your new life following Jesus.

And for those of you who aren't convinced of the claims of Christianity, I think our conversation today will help you get a real clearer picture of what it means to try and fully follow Jesus with your life.

How do we do this?

How do we integrate all that we are and all that we have from our BC life before Christ into our life actually trying to follow him?

What do we do with our job, with our material possessions, with your current relationships, with the habits that you've built up over the years?

How do you handle your finances now that you're following Jesus?

What happens to your friend group?

The question is like, how many things do I need to change and how quickly do I need to change them?

We're gonna try to answer some of this in kind of a broad fashion today in a message I'm calling burn the boats.

Burn the boats.

Would you pray with me?

Jesus, we love you and we are here seeking after you, wanting to hear something from you.

Some of us curious about what you might have to offer and how real you just might be, and many of us convinced that you are God, that you've called us into the adventure of a lifetime, following after you, discovering our purpose, making an impact on the world.

No matter where we're at, I pray that we would have open minds and open hearts.

That's what you might have for us today.

Holy Spirit, I believe you're here and that you're moving, that you're wanting to speak to your people, and I just pray we would have ears to hear.

We love you, we pray these things in Jesus' name.

If you're ready to get going, say amen.

Amen.

My message is burn the boats.

This comes out of a military strategy that was first written about 2,500 years ago.

The great Chinese military tactician Sun Tzu wrote in his famous book, The Art of War, that often in military, to motivate your soldiers, whenever you land on the enemy's shore, you should burn your boats, destroy the bridges after you walk across them, because when they don't have the option of taking flight, soldiers are more likely to go all in and more likely to win the battle.

And many people throughout the years have actually used this tactic.

There's evidence that there were some ancient Greek generals who deployed this.

When they would land on enemy territory, the generals would give the command to burn the ships because when there is necessity to fight, no other way out, often it is the greatest motivator.

Alexander the Great, who took over a large swath of the known world at that time, when he led the Macedonians to fight against the Persians, a much larger army, he burnt all of the ships so no one had anywhere to turn back.

And this story became most famous in 1519 when Cortes, a Spanish uh explorer, landed on the shores of what's modern day Mexico to fight the Aztecs.

And of course, he ordered burn the boats.

And there's something powerful about that image and about that thought that there's no turning back, there is no other option, there's no retreat.

And sometimes in life, this is the exact approach we need to take.

This is really what we're signing up for when we get married, you know.

It's like all the other romantic possibilities out there, all the other relationships you could have, you're burning the boats, you know.

There's one and one only for the rest of the time.

Sometimes in your career path, often you're tempted to go back to what is comfortable but what isn't challenging you.

And you need to take like a burn the boats approach.

However, that is not a reasonable way to live your life in every single area of your life.

If the Navy always burnt the boats, very quickly, they would have no boats, you know?

Like sometimes you need a strategy that incorporates a little more of a reasonable tact.

And I've come up and been around a lot of church environments, a lot of Christian environments, who treat the question of what does it mean to follow Jesus?

What do I do with this whole life I lived before I put my faith in Jesus with a burn the boats mentality?

That everything that came before that moment of faith, everything that came before when you went through the baptismal waters, it all has to go.

Everything gets cut off.

You cut off your friends, you change your jobs if you have to, you give away all of your money, you make a clean cut from anything, and anything less than that in these environments is seen as a lack of commitment or a lack of faith on your end.

And often where people go to to teach this kind of burn the boats Christianity is Jesus when he called his very first disciples.

We read about this in Matthew chapter 4.

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

It says, As Jesus was walking along the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who's called Peter, and his brother Andrew, and they were casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.

Follow me, Jesus told them, and I will make you fish for people.

Or you might have grown up with a translation that said, And I will make you fishers of men.

And immediately they left their nets and they followed him.

Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James, the son of Zebedee and his brother John, and they were in a boat with Zebedee their father, preparing the nets, and he called them.

And immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.

Peter and Andrew immediately says they dropped their nets.

James and John, immediately it says, they left their father and their boat.

And so people take this one moment out of the call of the first four disciples, they ignore any other context from the rest of Jesus' time on earth, and they make their point that this is the way.

You burn your boats, you don't look back, you leave life as you know it, you leave your friends as you know it, you leave your occupation as you know it, you leave your source of income as you know it, and you follow Jesus and you never, ever, ever look back.

But is that what Jesus was actually teaching us in this moment?

And is that the way forward that we leave behind everything we were and everything we had and we incubate ourselves as this Christian community, never looking outside of ourselves again?

Before we get to the answer to that question, I do want to highlight what this moment does teach us, what we can actually pull out of this moment where Peter is willing to drop his nets and leave what he knows and follows Jesus.

And it's kind of a simple conclusion.

The conclusion is if you want to really experience God, then where Jesus tells you to go, you go.

And what Jesus tells you to do, you do.

If you want to experience God in your life, experience purpose, experience significance, live the life you were created to live, then when Jesus says drop the nets, you drop the nets.

And we've got to be really careful because you know we can become kind of prideful in our Christianity, and when we read stories, we tend to read ourselves in as the hero of those stories.

And so I think most people are like, man, if I was out on the boat and Jesus said drop the nets, I'm dropping the nets.

I'm going all in, I'm gonna be like Peter, I'm gonna change the world, I'm gonna go on this adventure.

But the people who drop the nets are the people who are willing to do what Jesus says to do and to go where Jesus says to go.

Peter, James, John, and Andrew, they didn't have the New Testament of the Bible.

They didn't have the teachings of Jesus.

They were learning in real time.

We don't have to guess what Jesus tells us to do.

We don't have to guess the kind of life that Jesus calls us to live.

We have it in his word spelled out for us.

He tells us how to manage our marriages and love our spouses.

He tells us what he feels about lying.

He lays out a sexual ethic for us to follow.

He tells us how we should unconditionally love the people around us, everyone, even including our enemies.

And so we have to be real because we can stand in our Christian pride and be like, Bet, I would drop those nets, I would follow so fast.

But if you're not willing to selflessly love your spouse, you might not have been willing to drop the nets.

If you can't stop like habitually bending the truth to get your way or keep yourself out of trouble, you might have struggled to drop the nets.

Because dropping the nets just means doing what Jesus says to do and going where Jesus says to go.

And when we're willing to do that, we can live a life of power and impact that we can barely imagine.

So, what about the boat?

What about Peter's boat?

Was Jesus really calling him into this burn the boats kind of Christianity?

Drop the nets, Peter, come after me.

Was he really saying, like, just push that boat off, let it rot at sea, throw it on Craigslist, put the money in the offering plate?

Like, what is he actually instructing him to do?

This is how we've taught that passage in church for a while, but I'm gonna suggest that that can't be the lesson of this moment.

That it's impossible for that to be the outcome of this moment with Peter.

And I think it's impossible because Peter's boat keeps showing up over and over and over again in the life and ministry of Jesus.

In fact, some of his most famous moments come on this boat.

We're gonna look at a few of them.

I'm gonna go through them kind of quickly.

In Luke chapter 8, it says, one day Jesus and the disciples got into a boat, and he told them, Let's cross over to the other side of the lake.

Luke 8 · chapter mention

And so they set out.

And as they were sailing, Jesus fell asleep, and a fierce storm came down on the lake, and they were being swamped, and they were in danger.

And they came and woke him up, saying, Master, master, we're going to die.

And he got up, and Jesus rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was calm.

And he said to them, Where is your faith?

This is an important miracle in the life of Jesus because God had worked through other prophets and God had worked through other great men and women throughout time.

But everybody knew only God himself could control the actual forces of nature.

This was a key moment in the disciples of Jesus beginning to understand that he was more than a man, and he was more than a messiah, that he was actually God in human form, and it happened on their boat.

Or what about John chapter 6?

John 6 · chapter mention

It says, after this, Jesus crossed the Sea of Galilee in a boat.

And a huge crowd was following him because they saw the signs he was performing by healing the sick.

And Jesus went up on a mountain and sat down there with his disciples.

And now the Passover, a Jewish festival, was near, and so when Jesus looked up and noticed a huge crowd coming toward him, he asked Philip, Where will we buy bread so all these people can eat?

And you might know how the rest of this story goes.

This is one of the most famous moments in the life of Jesus, where he feeds 5,000 men, close to 20,000 people with just a few loaves of bread and a few fish.

And all of this happened because Jesus was able to cross the sea.

He went further and faster because he was almost exclusively traveling when he went on the seas by boat.

Or what about Matthew 14?

It said immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go ahead of them to the other side while he dismissed the crowds, and Jesus came toward them walking on the sea very early in the morning.

The disciples go in the boat, and Jesus shows that he's gonna use their boat, even though apparently he doesn't need it, because he can walk on the water.

Sometimes the crowds would grow so large that for Jesus to be seen and for his voice to carry across thousands of people, Jesus would take Peter's boat and he would use it as a floating stage, a platform, so he would be elevated and heard by the immense crowds.

For example, in Matthew 13, it says, On that day Jesus went out of the house and was sitting by the sea, and such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat down while the crowd stood on the shore.

There are so many examples of Jesus utilizing the boat as one of the most important tools in his ministry.

And most scholars agree that this was Peter's boat because we know Peter didn't give his boat up because after Jesus died and Peter lost all hope.

Do you know where you found Peter?

In his boat, fishing.

In John chapter 21, Simon, Peter, Thomas, Nathaniel, Zebedee's sons, and two of the other disciples were together.

John 21 · chapter mention

And Simon Peter said to them, I'm going fishing.

We're coming with you, they told him.

And they went out and they got into the boat.

But that night they caught nothing.

So Jesus calls Peter, Andrew, James, and John.

All four of them are fishermen.

Come and follow me.

You're no longer fishing for fish.

You are now fishing for men, but they do not burn the boats.

As a matter of fact, they do the exact opposite.

They don't burn the boats, they bring the boats.

Jesus potentially put more miles on Peter's boat, sailing it from mission field to mission field than Peter ever put on it trying to catch tilapia.

It's not burn the boats, it's bring the boats.

Following Jesus means committing all that we have and all that we are to trying to serve him with it.

Jesus was like, Peter, follow me.

Drop the nets, follow me.

And I imagine this conversation, Peter is like, I'm in.

I'm in, I'm ready, drop the nets.

I'm not fishing for fish, I'm fishing for men.

Don't know what that means.

I guess I'll figure it out as we go along.

I'm in.

And Jesus is like, and I'm gonna need your boat.

Peter's like, I mean, you can borrow the boat.

You know, I don't know.

Work out like an hourly rate, or I don't know.

Jesus is like, no, no, no, I like I basically am gonna own your boat now.

Okay.

Not only that, you may not know this, but Jesus also took over Peter's house.

It became like the base of operation for his ministry.

He's like, Peter, I'm gonna need a boat, and I'm also gonna need the house.

Peter's like, well, little complication.

Um, not too happy about it, but my mother-in-law actually just moved in.

And Jesus is so smooth, Peter's mother-in-law gets a fever, he comes in there, heals her.

She's fine with Jesus hanging out.

All that we are and all that we have.

That is the call to follow Jesus.

Bring the boats, bring your strengths, bring your resources, bring your personality, bring your experience, bring your connections, bring your network, bring your relationships, but bring it all and submit it by placing it in Jesus' hand.

Peter, drop the nets, follow me.

We're fishing for men now.

I'm in.

I want your boat.

You can have the boat, that's fine.

You know, I'm I'm all in on this thing.

I want your house.

All right, I still owe some on the mortgage, but yeah, you like you can have the house, I guess, you know.

I want it all, Peter.

I want all that you have to bring.

This whole life that you've lived, this whole collection of experiences that you have, and strengths that you've built, and trauma you've endured, and pain that has shaped you, and relationships that have molded you.

I want all of it.

And if you're willing to trust me with every single boat you have, every single thing you have to offer, you will live a life of power and purpose and significance and impact that you cannot even imagine.

I love the way that Jesus called Peter.

I think it's really, really instructive for how Jesus wants to use who you are in your life.

Because typically, I think I think we do this a lot in church.

We say, and Peter, you are a fisherman.

But now you're gonna be a religious guy, you know?

It's like Peter, you smell like chum.

Take a bath, all right?

Clean your robes, clean it up.

You are a fisherman, but now you will be a disciple of the Messiah.

You're no longer a man of the seas, you are now a man of the Torah.

Peter doesn't know the Torah.

Peter didn't make it all the way through the upper levels of Torah school.

That's why he's a fisherman.

Instead, the way that Jesus calls him, it speaks to the greatest strengths that Peter possesses.

It speaks to the identity that has formed in him over time.

It actually points right to the deepest level of Peter and assures him that by following after Jesus, he will be used to his maximum degree of effectiveness.

You will no longer be a fisherman.

Now you will be a fisher.

Amen.

You know that thing you've done?

That's like all you know?

Like you were on the seas as a little kid, learning all about this, learning how to cast the nets, learning how to bring it in, learning how to steer the ship, learning how to raise the sails, all of the skills that you've got, all the strengths you have, all the connections you have, all the resources you've been given.

I'm about to use all of it, but instead of fishing for fish, we're gonna fish for men.

It's a powerful, powerful call that tells you Jesus doesn't just want you to burn the boats on everywhere you've been and everything you've done and everyone you've known and every strength you've formed and every resource you have.

Instead, he's wanting to leverage all of that and use all of that and maximize all of that.

Don't burn the boats, bring the boats.

And yet, he also tells Peter to drop the net.

And the metaphor I want to try to build is we all have boats, countless boats in our life.

And these are the things that are usable and redeemable by Jesus.

The things in your life that have come out of your story and out of your experience and out of your strengths and out of even your pain and even out of your trauma, out of your deepest regrets and your darkest days, you have boats that have been built in your life.

And if you can willingly submit them into the hands of Jesus, he can use them to build his kingdom and give you a role inside of it that is unimaginable.

We all have boats.

Those are your strengths.

God wants them.

He wants all of them.

And we all have nets.

And for Peter, the net was a part of his identity.

He didn't need it anymore.

Bring the boat, Peter, but drop the net.

You're not catching fish anymore.

That's who you were.

You're doing something new for my kingdom.

We all have nets.

These are our habits, our worst ways, our sin patterns, our worldviews and ideas that don't line up to the worldview and ideas in Scripture.

The things that we hold on to because we're comfortable, because we've done them for so long, because they help satiate our pain, because they help numb the experience of life that can be so difficult.

We all have nets that we are holding on to.

And as long as you are not willing to drop your nets, they will hold you back.

You will become entangled in them, impeding your progress towards the purpose that God has for your life.

Jesus calls every one of us to follow him.

And I think that this is a gap in the experience of Christians in the church today.

A gap that we are trying to address through classes like Starting Point, many other programs that we're gonna have coming up by the end of this year to help you guys go on a journey of spiritual formation and discover your purpose and live it out.

Because often we make the decision to believe in Jesus, to put our faith in him.

Maybe even we get baptized and go public with our desire to follow after him.

But we never stop and intentionally take an inventory of our life.

All that we are and all that we have.

We never stop and assess what our strengths are, the things that God is wanting to use, asking us to submit and trust him with.

We never take an inventory and realize what our nets are, the things that we are holding on to, because they keep us comfortable when in reality they keep us stuck.

And because we never take inventory, we don't know how to drop the nets and we don't know how to bring the boats.

And we know there are promises in scripture that God wants to use all things for our good.

But a lot of times people don't quote that verse in its entirety.

It's in Romans 8.28.

It says, We know that all things work together for good.

And there's a caveat.

For those who love God, and there's another caveat, and are called according to his purpose.

In other words, God wants to use all that you are, and he wants to use all that you have, but to know what is useful to God and redeemable by God, to know what is a boat and what is a net, it must pass through the filter of what is loving towards God and what lines up with his purpose for your life.

What is loving towards God and what lines up with his purpose for your life.

Because so often we're not willing to submit our strengths.

We're not willing to submit our areas of expertise.

We're not willing to submit the boats that God could use for exponentially more good than we are using them for.

So often we're not willing to drop the nets of our sin patterns, our worst ways, our toxic relationships, our broken worldviews.

We hold on to our nets and we harbor our own boats and we want so badly to follow Jesus.

What a powerful promise.

God works all things together for good.

Your strengths, your resources, your personality, your experience, your network, your relationships.

God works all things.

Your deepest pains, your most difficult trauma, your biggest regrets?

It's a promise that God can use it all for your good.

But so often the call to follow Jesus in modern Christianity is like, come follow me.

And we're like, Bet, I'm in, I'm ready.

Let's I want to be Peter, I want to change the world.

Come follow me.

Bring your boat.

We're like, yeah, but I like my boat, you know?

I make money with my boat, I take my boat to the lake on the weekends, I party on my boat, I like my boat.

Jesus is like, I that's fine.

I mean, you can use your strengths and your skills and who you are and who God created you to continue trying to build your own kingdom, but you can't do that and follow him.

Bring bring your boats.

But I I just got my boat.

I've worked for 20 years for this boat.

I'm I'm can we half it?

Can I have half?

You have half.

So often Jesus is like, follow me, and we're like, I'm in.

Let's do this.

I want this.

I want to experience God.

I see these people who like experience the Spirit of God, and I want that.

I want that peace.

I want to live with hope.

I want to live with security.

And he's like, Yeah, just drop your nets.

And you're like, Well, I've had this net since I was seven.

This net's gotten me through hard times.

I, you know, I leaned on this net during my darkest days.

This net covers my pain.

If I drop this net, it will expose the things in my life that aren't lined up to your word.

Bring the boats, drop the nets.

And the call to live the adventure of a lifetime in following Jesus is open to every single person.

It is not for the religious elite, it's not for the people with seminary degrees, it's not for those who were raised up in church, it's not the people who can quote every verse.

It is a call for every single person.

And the people who get to experience that life are the ones who are willing to bring the boats.

Jesus says, follow me.

I want the boat.

I want the house.

I want the relationships.

I want the bank account.

I want the career.

I want it all.

And if you will put it in my hands, I will do something with your life that you could never even dream of.

And a lot of times we trust Jesus enough to keep us out of hell, but we don't trust him enough to actually follow him while we're on earth.

Bring the boats.

Burn the nets.

Can I be real, real now that we're all uncomfortable?

I mean, there's just evidence of this, and for five years almost, Metachurch has never fallen into the statistics of the rest of the church world.

Never.

We have been this outlier on all church statistics.

And we still are on the really important ones, like the percentage of people we baptize.

We baptized 42 people at the beginning of this year.

That's unusual, okay?

But more and more, the statistics of church are people are attending about as irregularly as you can imagine.

Attendance is down significantly, giving is down significantly across the entire Western church.

And we just kind of settled in.

It's new for us to not stand up and stand out in light of church statistics.

Y'all said I can be real, so here we go.

In the last two years, we've more than doubled in attendance.

Two years ago, we had about 300 people on a Sunday out of pandemic.

Don't clap too fast, okay?

I told y'all.

We've doubled in attendance.

Our annual budget is slightly lower.

Not as a percentage of attendance.

Our annual budget is slightly lower, period.

We were bringing in more money with 300 than we are with 700.

Jesus says, follow me.

And we're like, yes! Amen.

You're God in human flesh.

You're the savior of the world.

And he's like, I want your money.

We're not so sure about that because I like my money, you know.

I buy stuff with my money.

Follow me! And I'm gonna need you to be generous.

And we're like, I'm not I don't want to argue, but have you seen the economy?

Because the economy is there's this gap between understanding and applying.

There's a gap between inspiration, I want to do this, and application, denying myself, taking up my cross, and following Jesus.

And Jesus said one time, narrow is the way that leads to righteousness, and wide is the path that leads to destruction.

And in that moment, you may not know this, Jesus was not talking about who goes to heaven and who goes to hell.

He was talking about who is willing to bring the boats and drop the nets and who is going to live their life to build their own kingdom in their own way.

It's a large gap between being inspired to follow Jesus and putting your inspiration into action.

And I think we would do well as we seek to follow Jesus to take intentional inventory of our life.

And here's basically the question we're asking: what do you need to bring and what do you need to burn?

What do you need to bring and what do you need to draw?

And let me let me circle back to where I started.

There are broken faith cultures that say following Jesus is a burn the boats mentality.

And I've seen this do damage to people.

People who have built businesses and built careers and are good at making money and have plentiful resources and they start following Jesus and this blessing of resource that they have that they could use to fuel the kingdom in ways that very few people could now becomes a burden of guilt on them because they were convinced that when they follow Jesus, they've got to burn everything that came before them.

Bring your skill set, burn your pride.

Bring your abilities, drop your ego.

We all live in the midst of a painful world, and in a painful world, we have to find ways to mitigate that pain.

And some people go to addictions, and some people go to multiple relationships and sexual escapades, and in the bottom of those weaknesses is a strength that God is wanting to use.

The ability to move through multiple relationships.

You know what is somewhere in the core of that?

The ability to connect with people, the ability to make social connections and networks, the kind of things that God needs people to have to spread his gospel.

So bring your strengths and drop your sin.

Bring your extroversion and drop your selfishness.

If you would inventory your life, inventory your relationships, inventory your finances, inventory your career path, inventory your resources, your network, all that you have and all that you are, what you will find is there are countless boats in your life, the things in your life that God is wanting you to submit to him and allow him to use in amazing ways, and you will find that you're holding on to quite a few nets.

That you're all tangled up in them and they are impeding your progress towards the life that you are created to live.

And if you will drop those nets, get help, get on a life team, get accountability, get people around you, tell people what you're struggling with, be real, let people help you, drop your nets.

If you will find those strengths, find those resources, bring your boats.

There is not one fiber of my being, there is not one atom that comprises Clayton Tyner that does not believe that MetaCurch is a movement that will absolutely impact our city and our world in unbelievable ways because of the people who make up this movement.

You need to know I believe that.

And I know that for us to do that, we have to be the kind of movement that drops the nets, that brings every boat we can find, trusting that in the hands of Jesus, the things we've been using to build our own kingdoms and to cover up our own pain and to distract from our own shortcomings and to mitigate the shame in our life, in the hands of Jesus, those boats, those strengths, those resources will be used to change your life, to change your family, to change your community.

And if all of us together go on that journey, it will be used to change the world.

What do you need to bring?

And what do you need to drop?

What's in your hands that shouldn't be?

What's in your life that you need to give to Jesus?

Whenever I can, I try to end services with a time of reflection, a time for you to really think about what we have discovered in Scripture and see how it actually applies to your life.

And so one of the things we do, if you're kind of new to church, there's nothing magic about this.

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

Is I want to ask you to bow your head and to close your eyes.

It just shuts out some distraction and allows you to really, really process and reflect.

With all of your heads bowed and your eyes closed, I want to give you a moment to do exactly what we saw in scripture to take inventory of who you are, to take inventory of what you have.

And if you are new to Metachurch, and maybe you've come up in church environments that are very sterile and plastic and inauthentic, incentivized to wear your nice Christian mask, pretend everything's okay.

We don't do that here.

We come here to Metachurch to get real, to be brutally honest, even with ourselves.

And so in that spirit, I want you to take inventory of your relationships.

Maybe those that are closest to you, if you're married, your spouse, if you're a parent, your kids, if you're a kid, that relationship with your parents and your siblings.

What are the strengths that are there that you're not really leveraging or using for God and his kingdom?

As you broaden that circle to your extended family, your parents, your siblings, your in-laws.

You broaden that circle to your closest friends, your acquaintances, your coworkers, anyone in your circle of connection.

Our call relationally in Scripture is to be ambassadors of God on the earth, crying out to all who will listen, be reconciled to Jesus.

Are you using the relationships that God has given you to give them back to Jesus?

Oftentimes in our journey of faith, one of the last things that we will allow it to affect are our relationships because some of them are so longstanding and they're so deeply connected, they become so much of our identity.

If you're really honest, there may be some net that you're holding in your relationships.

Maybe it is fear, fear of how they will respond to your faith and what Jesus is doing in your life.

For some of you, you are holding on to lust, using your relationships as objects.

Some of you, it is manipulation or selfishness.

What would it look like for you to drop your nets?

What would it look like for your relationships, your network to become a boat, a strength, something that you could put in the hands of God?

How would it change things?

I want you to take a moment and take inventory of who you are, your personality, your skill sets, your strengths, your weaknesses, your temperament, your worldview?

What are the parts of how you see yourself or how you see the world that you know are false narratives?

They're not from God, they're not true, they're not accurate.

You've been holding on to them for too long.

It's time to drop the nets.

What are your strengths, your skill sets, your personality that you are using to build your own influence, you're using to build your own status, but you haven't yet submitted into the hands of Jesus to make his name known.

You can inventory your resources and see how much fear there is in your finances.

Our money is so deeply emotional to us.

If you're married, odds are finances are one of the most frequent things that you fight about.

Somewhere at the core, there is this net that we're holding on to I want the money, I want control of the money, I want say in the money.

And what would happen if you truly submitted your resources to Jesus where it's not their money and it's not your money, it is Jesus' money that He has given you to steward while you're here on this earth.

Your life will change.

If you will drop the nets, if you will find, bring the boats.

Let me pray for you.

Jesus, you see, our heart, you see that many, many of us here, many of us online, we are inspired.

We want to do this.

And I pray that we would have the boldness, the audacity to cross that giant chasm between inspiration and application.

And we would no longer hold on to the nets you have shown us.

We would no longer allow the things of this world to impede our progress towards the life you've given us to live.

That we would find our strengths, find our resources, find our boats, and trust you completely with them.

But we would be a people, a movement that does whatever it takes to get people to Jesus.

Give us strength, give us clarity.

Pray it all in your name.

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.

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