What Does It Matter? 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.

I want to welcome you in.

This is an exciting time to be a part of the MetaCurch movement.

We are starting a new series next week.

I think it's going to be very, very helpful to all of us, even in preparing for it.

It's really helping sharpen me financially, reminded me of a lot of the wisdom of Scripture.

This is one of the types of series that it's really easy to invite friends to.

I hope you'll do that.

We have a new service starting next week, the 115 service.

We're very excited about that.

Yeah, you can clap around here, you can holler, you can do whatever you want.

And by next Sunday, we will be in some new construction.

We are going into phase one of construction on the building.

When we're done with it, in about six to eight weeks, there's going to be a brand new Metakids experience.

It is really going to be a huge upgrade.

And so here's what you need to know we are in a season of transition.

It feels like we're in a season of transition a lot around Metachurch, and that's because we're in seasons of growth.

And so we thank God for that transition.

Also, we have to be prepared for it.

We come in, we've prepared our hearts to have patience in a season of transition for some things to be moved around and different.

Some of our elementary age kids will be displaced for the coming six to eight weeks.

And so here's what I need you to do if you have an elementary age kid.

I just need you to add this into your typical rhythm of Sunday service.

As soon as you get here, and before you check them in, your first stop with your beautiful angel baby is the restroom.

There will be restrooms available still, but they will not be near as convenient.

And I know, because I've raised three kids.

They're going to say, but I don't have to go.

And your answer is, well, we're going to try.

Because everyone who has kids knows that they don't have to go, and if you make them try, they will pee like they haven't gone for six and a half weeks, okay?

So just get them in early before you check them in.

That will be hugely helpful in this very, very exciting season of transition.

Last Sunday, we're not really in a series right now.

I just had some things that I felt like we needed to bring clarity to here amongst our movement, specifically on the fundamentals of our faith.

And so we really dug in.

I think that every Sunday service is something that you should watch, but last week in particular, if you missed it, you should go to our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash Medichurch, and you should catch up on that because it is an essential, fundamental part of our faith that if we don't have clarity on, we will fall short of unlocking our true purpose and the power of your life as an individual, which means the power of our movement communally.

We spent some time on that.

Today is gonna be kind of like week two, and before we go any further, I want to just root us in our text today in Scripture.

We're gonna be in uh the New Testament, the Christian scriptures, a letter called Philippians chapter one, starting in verse 12.

It says this Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually advanced the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to everyone else that my imprisonment is because I am in Christ.

Most of the brothers have gained confidence in the Lord from my imprisonment and dare even more to speak the word fearlessly.

To be sure, some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill.

These preach out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel.

The others proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely thinking they will cause me trouble in my imprisonment.

But what does it matter?

Only that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is proclaimed.

And in this I rejoice, yes, and I will continue to rejoice.

My message today is what does it matter?

What does it matter?

Would you pray with me?

Father, we love you.

Um, and we thank you for loving us.

We are here seeking you.

You said in your word, if we seek you, then we will find you.

And I just pray that we would do that.

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

And I just ask that we would have the humility to lay down our own ideas, our own truths, our own conveniences.

And we would seek you and allow you to speak to us and change us today.

We love you.

And we pray these things in Jesus' name.

And everyone who's ready to find out what actually matters, say amen.

Amen.

Uh last week we did a bit of a theological crash course, freshman, sophomore year of theological studies.

We dove in, and what we found is that in Christianity we have these terms saved and salvation, and we use these terms as a catch-all to just mean go to heaven when you die.

And yet, that isn't all the way accurate.

When you study the words saved and salvation across all of the times they're used in the New Testament of the Bible, what you find is that a majority of the time it does not mean simply going to heaven when you die.

And there's actually three biblical words that encompass the full system of salvation.

We studied these words last week.

They're the words justification, sanctification, and glorification.

I mentioned last week, but if you're not a normal note taker, this might be the one to open a smartphone and pull out the notes.

Justification is when you are declared not guilty by God.

This happens at a moment in time and it lasts forever and ever.

Amen.

We learned something really important last week about justification.

We learned that when you are justified, that is not something you can earn.

It's not something that you can work for, you can't earn it, you don't deserve it.

It is given to you by God when you simply have faith.

The biblical word that is usually used is the word believe or put your trust in Jesus.

When you become convicted and convinced that Jesus is who he says he is, and he's actually done what Scripture says that he has done, then you are justified.

You are declared righteous, and this declaration of not guilty lasts forever and ever, which means you cannot earn it and you cannot lose it because it was not about you in the first place.

Justification is really about our faith.

This is believing in Jesus, which secures your eternity with God forever.

Sanctification is a process over time.

It's an important distinction.

A point in time is justification that lasts forever.

Sanctification is a process that happens over time of becoming more and more like Jesus.

You can call this your growth or your maturity.

This is where you discover your purpose.

This is where you begin to be led by the Holy Spirit that Jesus gives to every believer.

Sanctification is your works.

This is how you live.

Dying to yourself daily, putting others before yourself.

Last is glorification.

And glorification is about reward.

This is what happens after this life.

Glorification is where we experience the fullness of what God desires for us.

These three are so important.

And what we learn is that all throughout Christianity, there's been this temptation that they have fought against since the very, very beginning.

And the temptation is to link our sanctification, our works, back to our justification, how we become right with God.

And so they take works and they try to add it to your faith and say, Jesus did most of it, but now you have to pick up the rest of the slack.

And if you're not doing enough good works, you're probably not going to heaven.

And if you're doing too many bad works, then you're probably not going to heaven.

And what we create is these judgmental cultures where everyone is inspecting everyone else's life, comparing and contrasting, all the while we have actually been given the greatest gift in the universe, the free, unearned, undeserved, everlasting gift the moment that we put our faith in Jesus.

Amen?

We have to understand this.

You cannot earn being right with God, and you cannot lose relationship with God once you have it through faith in Jesus.

That is so essential, and we explored that at a very, very deep level last week.

Now, in this tripart structure of salvation, your works, your sanctification, do not aim backwards at your justification.

But that doesn't mean that they don't play an essential, essential role in how you live this life.

One of the ways to think about it is when we are justified by simply believing in Jesus, we are saved from the penalty of sin.

When we pursue sanctification, we are saved.

This is all salvation.

We are saved from the power of sin in our lives.

And how many of you have been following Jesus for a little while and you've been growing and you've been maturing, and you can look back a year ago, five years ago, ten years ago, and there was some sin that was playing defense on you like white on rice.

You could not get away from it, you couldn't shake it, it was at the driver's seat, it was owning you.

And the more that you pursue Jesus and the more that you grew and matured, and the more you learned how to listen and be convicted by the Spirit of God in your life, the less and less power that thing held in your life.

Show me a hand if you have seen sin in your life that has less power today than it used to.

That's called a testimony.

Amen.

When you pursue sanctification, over time you are saved from the power of sin.

Justification saved from the penalty of sin, which is separation from God now and forevermore.

Glorification is when we are saved from the presence of sin itself.

It is when the justified saints are taken out of this world and into the next to live in God's presence forever and ever.

Amen.

We have to get this right.

How we live, how we pursue Jesus, how we follow him, how we grow, how we mature, how we make changes.

It is not about proving our earning our salvation, but there is a tether, there is a causal chain in the system of salvation.

It is not backwards trying to earn what you've already been given, it is forwards.

Your sanctification, how you live today, will determine how you fare someday at what scripture calls the judgment seat of Christ.

When I talk about this, I always call this the realest reality.

It is realer than your experience of this service right now, it is realer than the air you're breathing or the beating of your heart.

The realest reality is that someday on the other side of this life, every believer will stand before Jesus.

We will give an account of the life that we have lived, and we will be rewarded by Jesus for all of the ways that we pursued his calling on our life for taking this great, unearned, undeserved gift that we cannot lose and actually walking out in the power of it.

In other words, how you move today is how you will be measured tomorrow.

What we call sanctification at its simplest is movement.

Spirit-filled, passion-filled, purpose-filled movement.

Not just meeting together and feeling like we've done something, but actually moving out in our life and how we move today, how we live and learn and love like Jesus will determine how we are measured, how we fare, someday standing before Him.

And I wish that I could preach the rest of this sermon just on that moment of when we stand before Jesus.

I've preached about it before and I will again, but today I want to dig in in light of the fact that how we live matters, and in light of the fact that how we move and live today will determine how we are measured, how we give an account for our life tomorrow.

How do we deal with the brokenness and the suffering in this world to actually do it, to actually pursue sanctification?

How do we move properly today?

I think that there is a key answer in our key text.

We're in the book we call Philippians.

The Apostle Paul wrote this letter to a church he had started about 10 years earlier.

Paul had gone into a region called Macedonia.

It was a pretty affluent area, but they were in turmoil.

They had just come under the imperial rule of Rome.

And he started this church and it was flourishing, man.

I mean, they were all about it.

They understood who they were in Christ, they were pursuing sanctification, they were living this life out.

As a matter of fact, in one of the letters that Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, we have that as first and second Corinthians, Paul was even bragging about the church in Philippi, just talking about how incredible they are and how generous they are.

And let me just say, Paul was a church planter, and I'm a church planter.

I planted met a church, and I can completely, completely put myself beside him in that feeling of just being so pleased with the people that I get to do this movement with.

There are so many situations I get put in with, other pastors in town, and all they can do is complain about their congregation.

And I'm almost embarrassed because all I can do is just talk about the powerful, amazing, beautiful people that God has put right here in these seats all around us.

So I resonate with Paul's relationship with Philippi 10 years after he planted it, which he planted it just about 10 years after Jesus left earth.

And this is all happening really, really close to the cross.

And he writes back to them, and he's writing for a lot of reasons.

But one is so that they know he is okay because Paul is in prison.

In verse 12, he says, Now, I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually advanced the gospel.

If you're new to church, gospel just means good news.

And in the scriptures context, it almost always means the good news about Jesus.

That God Himself came to this earth, lived the perfect life that you and I could not live, died, even though he was the only actual innocent person to ever walk the earth, died to pay the penalty for all of our sin, all the ways we missed the mark, all the ways we go too far, all of the ways that we screw up, all the ways that we are jacked up.

Jesus paid for all of that on the cross, and then even death could not hold him.

He rose again.

He ascended back to heaven with a promise that he will come back to everyone who has been justified.

That is the gospel.

That's the good news.

And he says, Look, I know you guys have heard, Rome is holding me, I am in chains, but even this has been used to advance the gospel.

Verse 13, so that it has become known throughout the whole Imperial Guard and to everyone else that my imprisonment is because I am in Christ.

Rome's Imperial Guard was 9,000 of the most skilled warriors.

9,000 of them.

And when you look at this in the Greek, it was written in, it doesn't seem like Paul is using hyperbole.

When he says that the whole imperial guard, it seems to interpret that he means all nine thousand of them.

And so he's been put in prison, and he's been put in prison because he's talking about Jesus.

And he's been put in prison to stop him from spreading the good news of Jesus.

And Paul's biggest church is probably 500 to a thousand people that he has planted at that point.

And so they put him in chains and they put him in jail so less people will hear the good news of Jesus, and it's in jail that he now has his biggest congregation, all 9,000 of Rome's imperial guards.

This is the kind of perspective when we actually pursue sanctification that is an unstoppable force in the world.

And we've talked a lot about this, but you know, a few weeks ago we talked about uh the affliction of affluence that we have more money than we know what to do with, and even the poorest people in our society today are like significantly richer than basically any humans who ever walked the earth at any other time.

And and even those of us who are like lower to middle class, you know, there isn't a chance in hell that if we actually knew how people lived 200 years ago, that we would trade places even with the kings and emperors.

No Wi-Fi, no indoor plumbing, no air conditioning, no automobiles.

Like we are so rich that we don't know what to do with it.

And our affluence is the number one thing that's putting a halt to the movement and the spread of Jesus.

You see, what happens historically, you can trace it through 2,000 years of church history, is every time that people try to tamp down or put out the fire of the gospel, they think they're throwing water on it, and in fact, they are throwing fuel.

It's just how it works when you're really pursuing this kind of life.

And Paul is like, jokes on them.

I'm preaching to more people every week in prison than I was ever able to when I was a free man.

The whole Imperial Guard has whole has heard about it.

And he says, Because I am in Christ.

Now, that's a term that Paul uses a lot.

And of course, I would encourage you guys to read scripture, you know, start in the New Testament, the story of Jesus and the movement that he started.

And when you read Paul, who wrote 13 of the 27 books in the New Testament, he uses this phrase all the time to those who are in Christ.

And in Christ is more than just justified.

In Christ is the picture of actually being in the same vein, in the same mode of operation, on the same path, taking up the same call to gather your cross and follow after him.

In Christ is about joining with Christ, not just in the joys of following him, but even more specifically, joining with Christ in the suffering that comes from following him.

And isn't it interesting that Jesus turned a bunch of loaves and fish into a meal and attracted the thousands?

But it was Jesus' brutal, brutal, life-ending death on a cross that ended up saving billions.

And Paul knows this: that it is actually in our suffering that God is shown to be the strongest.

He is in Christ, He's a part of this.

He's not just believing in Him and then waiting to die to go to heaven.

He is following after Him in a way that brings glimpses of heaven right here to this earth.

There's another effect that his imprisonment is having in verse 14.

He says, Most of the brothers have gained confidence in the Lord from my imprisonment and dare even more to speak the word fearlessly.

He's having kind of this two-pronged effect by being put in chains.

The first is that the whole imperial guard is getting witness to.

Every day they can't get rid of him, they haven't given him the death penalty, and so they just have to sit and listen to all of the ways that Jesus has changed his life.

All 9,000 of them.

And he says, and even some more, even some guys not in the guard.

Like everyone's getting this if they're coming to my cell.

But then he says, the other brothers in Christ, the other members of the churches around us, the other preachers and teachers, they're gaining confidence.

They're growing, they're becoming even more emboldened.

And that's really wild.

Because you would think on some level that if you're a preacher and he's a preacher and he gets put in prison for preaching, then you might go a little more underground, you know.

You might pull the sermons off of YouTube, like, I'm not gonna quit preaching, you know, but do I really need a microphone?

We'll just do small groups, okay?

Somewhere where we can run faster if they come.

You would think they would lose confidence, and yet the way that Paul is handling his imprisonment, the boldness to which he is still declaring the love of Jesus in his life, the way that he is using the worst possible circumstances as a megaphone for the gospel, is emboldening the people around us.

And if you think about this, this works just on almost any level.

You know, one of the things we do in Texas, because it's hot and we've got lots of lakes, is we go to lakes, and when we're young, we try to find the highest point that overlooks the lake, and then we do what?

We jump off of it, right?

And it's not because we like hate life, you know, it's because it's fun and it's exhilarating and it's an adrenaline rush.

And usually how it works is someone has to jump.

And the first person jumps and you hear them hit the water and it hurts, but they come up and they're smiling.

And once one is jumped, everyone else will jump.

And if you don't jump, then you'll get to learn about this thing called peer pressure, right?

And you will jump, okay?

If you go with me to the lake, you're going to jump, alright?

And it's like if all your friends were jumping off of a cliff, you probably would.

Like, that's the answer to that question.

And Paul goes first.

They say, Hey man, you can't do this.

You can't preach about Jesus.

There is only one son of God, and that is the Emperor of Rome, and you will bow down and worship to him and him alone.

And he says, Watch me.

And they put him in prison.

And his confidence begins to grow the confidence of all of the other brothers.

They are preaching even more fearlessly.

They are watching that even if they imprison us, they cannot stop us.

And that's powerful, and you need to remember that because one of the things we say a lot here at Metachurch is what we're doing right now, this isn't community.

Community doesn't happen in rows of hundreds of people, it happens in these small Circles, and so we have our live teams, and you get on a live team, and there's like 10 or 12 other people, and and everyone's sitting in a circle, and they're taking what we learned on Sunday, and they're trying to apply it to their life, and live teams are gonna take this message today, and Monday through Saturday, they they're gonna say, What are we gonna do about this?

and how's it gonna actually affect us?

And what changes do I actually need to make?

And and then you're you're sitting in a circle, but metaphorically, you're standing on the edge.

And you're gonna see who's gonna jump.

Who's gonna actually jump into the life of sanctification that Jesus has offered us?

Who's gonna actually jump and make real changes to their life?

Who's gonna change their behaviors and outlooks?

Who's gonna treat their spouses differently?

Who's gonna handle their finances differently?

Who's gonna start being generous with what God has given them?

Everyone's waiting.

And if someone will jump, others will too.

And in your life's example, this is so key to this text, in this life's example, even if your decision to follow Jesus cost you and cost you dearly your example and your testimony, as you show what Jesus is doing in your life and how he's changing you, it will pull others along with you.

We are not called to follow Jesus on our own.

And Paul was the first mover, he was the first in prison, but he was certainly not the last.

And his example pulled others into the fray.

It welled up within them a spirit-filled confidence that we can do this even at risk to ourselves.

See, we have to get this right because Paul isn't saying, hey guys, hashtag too blessed to be stressed, you know.

This isn't this fake, like happy, go lucky Christianity where everything's crumbling on the inside, but you put the happy Christian face on, happy Christian filter on, oh, my family's always perfect, we got it all figured out, everything's good.

You know, people own this as if stress in your life is the same thing as sin in your life.

They own this as if any emotion other than happiness and joy is an affront to the God who created us with emotions inside of us.

It's not about pretending like life isn't hard.

Paul isn't saying, love it, might as well be in Kabul.

It's great, catered meals.

He's like, yo, I'm in prison.

It's terrible, and God's using it.

That's what the world needs.

And why this matters and why breaking this down and understanding this on a deeper level matters, is because if there's any part of you who still believes that sanctification is tied to justification, that your works and how you live is tied to whether or not you are in relationship with God.

If you believe that, it will leave you no choice but to always pretend that everything is okay.

And the reason, and we wonder this, right?

Because a lot of us have grown up in church and a lot of us have attended churches, and they feel very plastic, very inauthentic, and you know nobody's actually telling you the truth about everything.

And if you actually get ingrained into that church and you get invited to the meeting after the meeting, where everyone shares the gossip about how everyone's life is actually falling apart to make them feel better about the things falling apart in their own life, if you get there, you realize that they're just as screwed up as we are here at MetaCurch.

They're just trying to hide it.

And why are they trying to hide it?

They're trying to hide it because they have been sold a theology where if they admit that there is something wrong, if they admit they're suffering in life, if they admit that they are in some chains, if they are in prison to some habits or to some addictions or a bad relationship or finances that are out of control, if anything's going wrong here, it gives people reason to doubt at the justification level.

We have to get this right because Paul says and Peter says and John says and James says, and Jesus says that the world will know God not through our perfection, not through our strength, not through getting everything right, not through our fake plastic filtered appearances.

The world will come to know God through our weaknesses.

It is our chains.

And maybe, maybe your chains are actually the link to your calling in this season of your life.

Maybe it's the very things that you are struggling with that God is not wanting you to pretend are okay for everyone else's benefit.

God is wanting you to be vulnerable, vulnerable enough to allow the world to watch him work in the middle of your weaknesses.

And when you know you've got this, this isn't about me.

This was paid for by Jesus, this was his blood, not my work.

This is forever and ever.

Amen.

I didn't earn it, I didn't deserve it, I can't lose it.

When you have that kind of outlook, then you can show the world your chains, you can show the world your suffering, you can be real and authentic, and real and authentic Christ followers, whether they know it or not, is what a broken, lost world is desperate for.

Somebody that they can actually see themselves in and yet is still living with a hope that is attached to something beyond this world.

And so we try to keep it real here.

And we all have our chains and we all have our problems.

And God is not wanting for us to pretend them away.

All that will do is cause them to compound over time.

God is wanting us to bring them into the light of his goodness and grace and to allow the world around us to see exactly what he can do with them.

It's a significant, significant moment for Paul because he's in like the ultimate level of suffering, and we're about to see that they are going to add suffering on top of his suffering.

In verse 15, Paul says, To be sure, some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others preach him out of goodwill.

Paul continues to narrow the scope of who he's talking about.

There are these believers, but even within the believers, he's gonna parse them out into two different categories.

Verse 16, these over here, they preach out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel.

But the others, the others proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, thinking that they will cause me trouble in my imprisonment.

There's a lot of competing explanations for what exactly Paul is talking about here.

What's clear though is there are two radically different motives from these two radically different groups.

One is just showing out of their love for Christ, their love for Paul, their love for the church, they're gonna show up and fearlessly proclaim the name of Jesus.

The others, out of jealousy and envy, are preaching and they are preaching, hoping that it actually causes Paul some problems.

You may not know this, but the same way that there is competition in the world of technology, in the service industry, in the restaurant industry, I wish it weren't true, but there is absolutely competition in the church world.

Do I think it's right?

No.

I think it breaks the heart of God.

But out of our carnal, sinful nature, it's broken church leaders, this happens more than you think it happens.

And Paul's the big dog.

Paul is the premier church planter.

Nobody can touch his record or his influence.

And now the big dog is out of the picture.

Some people are trying to claim territory.

Do y'all think every church in town loves meta church?

If you do, you're silly.

And I know this is true.

They don't say it to my face.

I'm not actually scary, but I do have tattoos.

It helps, you know.

I know, because over our three and a half years, many, many of you have come.

Some of you heartbroken, uh, some of you about to commit a felony, and let me know that you went to whatever study or whatever conference or whatever men's or women's breakfast.

And they tried to let you know you weren't really going to a real church, you know, with the secular songs and and the and the t-shirts and the jeans, and and at the time, meeting in a bar for a minute, all of it put together.

And so, if that's you, you know what my response has been.

Who cares?

Who cares?

And we can get sucked into that, and we can be like all of the other churches, so many good churches in town.

Please believe that.

Please believe that.

But you also know, and you've watched, and some of you grew up in them, churches that are slowly dying, entropy within themselves, focused on everything except the people outside of their four walls who are dying without knowing Jesus.

And Paul is in prison.

He's suffering for doing the right thing, and because he did the right thing, he's getting even more hate.

You guys need to know this.

I bring it up from time to time because sometimes you have people who are in opposition to you because you're not doing the right thing.

You've been rude, you've stepped out of line, you've gossiped about them, you've wronged them.

That's your job to go and make amends.

And sometimes you will have people who do not like you, who are against you, who are rooting to see you fail just because you were brave enough to get out of bed every day with a sense of purpose and actually walk through your life trying to leave an impact on the world behind you.

If you do not have haters, there is a chance that you aren't living your Christian life boldly enough.

People who actually wake up thinking that the Spirit of God inside of them, Jesus in front of them, their future secure, can make a real impact on the world around them are dangerous, deadly people.

You get up out of bed and the enemies of God start to shudder because you're back online, you're ready to do work, and people who just want to sit in the pews and raise a hand and give a dollar and feel like they've done something, they are going to end up throwing shade on your life and on what you're doing because you're actually doing the thing that they have not found the security in their justification to do yet.

Yes, Paul has haters, and yes, it is stacking up, and yes, his life is about as bad as it could possibly be.

And so let's get real.

You've got problems.

I've got problems.

Look at the person you came with today and say, You got problems.

You got problems.

If you came alone, I'll tell you, you got problems.

Paul had problems.

And what's Paul's answer to all of this?

Stacking up, wrongfully imprisoned, haters running after him, he can't even do anything about it.

What's his answer?

In verse 18.

What does it matter?

Only that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is proclaimed.

And in this I rejoice.

Yes.

And I will continue to rejoice.

What does it matter?

Really?

What does it actually matter?

Paul's perspective is if it is hatred for me that will motivate someone to preach even more boldly the name of Jesus, then I am happy to accept their hate.

What does it matter?

You've got problems.

I've got problems.

And what we need is perspective.

Problems require perspective.

And the reason that we get into trouble is because we're broken and we're flawed, and for most of our lives, we have a very narrow perspective.

We're thinking about today, maybe we're thinking about tomorrow, maybe we have plans in a couple of weeks, maybe we have a vague idea of where we want to be 10 or 20 years from now.

But for most of our lives, we are spent thinking about right here and right now.

And we all have problems, and our problems are persistent and they are consistent.

And for most of us, whatever our problem is, we keep it as close to us as we can.

And so you got problems because your finances are a mess, and you got problems because your relationships are a mess, and you got problems because everything is a mess, and you got problems because your health is a mess, and you're under an incredible amount of debt, and that's all that you can see, and you've got little problems that feel like big problems because really all you did is you got a hundred likes last time, you got 20 likes this time, but it feels like a big problem, and it feels like a big problem because your problem is just right here.

We keep our problems so close and our perspective to them so narrow that it feels like all we have is problems.

And the truth is we don't just have problems, we just hold our problems in a perspective where they're all that we can see.

And so you're not unique because you have problems.

It means you're alive and you're human.

We all have problems.

And the power of what Paul does with four words, asking, what does it matter?

is he shows you something, and you should know this.

That you have the power to choose your perspective on your problems.

And I know a lot of you personally, and I know if I had a real problem, that I could call any of you, and I bet you would do whatever you could do to help me with that problem.

And most of you, you're not just coming and consuming, you're you're involved here, you know people, and you know if you had a real problem, you could call those people, and they would do everything in their power to help you.

And the issue that we come up on is there's no chance of finding the solutions to our problems because our perspective is only the problem and is blocked out our solutions.

And if I carry my problems like this, then I can't even see the people who are willing to help me out of this problem because I'm being blinded by the very thing that I am trying to solve.

And some of you come to service on Sundays and you don't really engage in the music and let the Holy Spirit move through your life in that way, and you don't even really hear the message because you come in and it looks like you're engaged, but the truth is you have carried in your problems, and you're holding your problems so close that there is no room for a new perspective in your life.

And this is a real problem.

It's a real problem because we all have problems, and so we hold them so closely to ourselves that we are blinded to the purpose that God has in the midst of our problems.

We have to find a way to zoom out our perspective, and I'm telling you, Paul has given us a tool today, a life-changing tool.

Four words and a question mark.

What does it matter?

And yet, to Paul, it is so much deeper than that.

In verse 20, he says, My eager expectation and my hope, this is Paul's hope for his entire life.

My hope is that I will not be ashamed about anything.

Future tense.

I will not be ashamed about anything.

But that now is always, with all courage, Christ will be highly honored in my body, whether by life or by death.

I will not be ashamed.

Here's a clue to reading the New Testament.

Everyone, everyone is looking forward to the end.

They are living with the end in mind.

At Meadow, we call it a pilgrim's perspective.

The daily, moment by moment reality that this world is not actually our home, that this is the pre-show to the actual show, that what we're doing right now is settling us up for what is actually coming.

That our life, our 80, maybe 90 years now that you get, it is a blip on the radar of an eternal life that you will live someday.

And as they are pursuing their sanctification, every writer of scripture, they're not pursuing Jesus and giving up their life and being put in chains.

They're not doing that, looking backwards, trying to earn something they already have.

They are doing it always, always looking ahead.

They are always looking ahead.

When Paul says, I will not be ashamed, he is talking again, again and again and again about when he stands at the judgment seat of Christ, when he stands before his savior, where for the first time he actually can see the holes in his wrists, the scars on his feet, where he sees his savior face to face, where he looks into the eyes of actual love.

You know, like that moment when you fell in love and the way you looked at them and they looked at you, and and you melted and butterflies and confetti and gusts of wind and spotlights.

That's human love.

Imperfect flawed.

When you look at Jesus someday, even if you wasted your whole life, took this message, threw it away, did whatever you wanted.

If you believed in Jesus, you will stand before him and you will see and you will experience love like never before.

True love, pure love.

You will review your life, all of it.

You will look back through the corridors of time, you will see the cross, you will see the price that he paid for your life.

This is the reality that Paul lived with every single moment.

My eager hope, my expectation is someday I will not be ashamed.

Paul knows that how you move today is how you are measured tomorrow.

He wraps up the section by saying this for me, to live is Christ, and to die is game.

They let me keep living, they get me out of these chains, good.

Christ wins.

They kill me, fine.

I'll go to be with him.

You see, our perspective is going to determine the weight of our problems.

Here's what I'm not saying.

I am not saying that you don't have very, very real problems.

I'm not saying that you are not deeply suffering in life or that you should not be grieved by the hardships that you are enduring.

What I am saying is what Paul said to the church in Thessalonica, he said, We grieve, but we do not grieve like those who are ignorant of what is coming.

We suffer, but we suffer differently.

We have problems, but we put our problems in proper perspective.

This one question, I really mean this.

There's not a lot of things that could really just change your life this simply.

This one question could.

What does it actually matter?

The decisions I'm making today, the way that I feel, the emotions I'm carrying, the relationships that I'm in, the way I'm behaving, the way that I'm spending, the way that I'm saving, the way that I'm navigating, that the path of my career, what does it actually matter in light of eternity, in response to what Jesus has done for us, with eternal perspective, with our justification secured, with heaven in our hearts?

What does it matter?

There's an old, old hymn.

And it says, turn your eyes upon Jesus, turn your eyes towards eternity.

Look full in his wonderful face.

And the things of earth, these problems we all have, the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and his grace.

For some of us, the weight that we are carrying is so magnified because our perspective is so truncated.

If you're only living for today, then today's problems will carry immense weight.

But if you are living for eternity, and if you can view the situations in life in light of eternity, if you can actually ask every morning starting your day, what does it matter?

Every situation, every problem, every every broken or breaking relationship, every stressor, every distraction, if you will genuinely ask, what does it matter?

Maybe even a better question, what will it matter?

Someday when I stand before Jesus, what will it actually matter?

This simple question can inform how you navigate this life, how you handle disappointments, how you stand up under the suffering of the world around you.

What does it matter?

If we could get to the point where whatever comes against us to live, that's Christ.

In Christ, following Him, modeling my life after Him.

And even the worst outcome, even someday when I die, and remember, we all die.

Even death is gain.

You can bow your head and close your eyes.

Nothing magic about that, just create some space for yourself and for the people around you.

What is distracting you today?

Distracting you from your purpose, distracting you from really pursuing what Jesus might have for you.

A lot of people think that the enemies of God have to get us addicted to hard drugs, a life of crime, murder.

That's how they derail us.

Really, it's usually just the small distractions.

Keep your attention away from eternity.

That make it feel like today is all that matters.

I wonder what you might feel chained to in this world, in your life, in your relationships, in your career.

Where are you suffering?

Scripture never asks us to not feel our emotions.

Never asks us to pretend like everything's okay.

As a matter of fact, it uses the fact that we're not okay to showcase just how powerful our God is.

Where are you feeling attacked?

Maybe like Paul, since you've begun to follow Jesus, there are people in your life who have at one time stood with you and now seem to be standing against you.

I know many of us have been hurt by people in the church, leaders in the church, friends in the church.

Where you are distracted, where you feel chained, where you feel attacked, most importantly, how are you responding?

Is all you can see your problems?

If so, perhaps today is the day you need to broaden your perspective.

Today is the day that you realize who you are as a child of God.

Today is the day that you grab hold of the gift that you've been given.

The free, unearned, undeserved gift.

Relationship with God now and forever.

What does it matter?

As a son or daughter of the king of all kings, who holds it all in his hands, who has every resource that you need, who's guiding and protecting you, whose spirit lives inside of you, what does it matter?

What will it matter someday as you stand before Jesus?

And are we living like it?

Let me pray for you.

Father, we love you.

We thank you for a free gift, an eternal gift, new life.

You've made us new creations.

God, we want to walk that out.

We want to live it out.

We want to follow you, model our lives after you.

God, I pray that we would look ahead, that we could live like Paul.

Live with the end in mind that we would allow a new eternal perspective to shape our actions, to shape our reactions, to change how we handle the temptations and trials of this world.

I pray for courage to walk this out.

I pray for strength in life's battles.

I pray for a new rhythm, a new habit, a new question in every situation that we would genuinely and honestly ask, what does it matter?

And then, with your help, we would live like it matters.

We love you.

We pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thanks so much for listening to the message today.

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