Rent or Own 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, welcome to MetaCurch.

How are you guys doing?

Yeah.

It has been such an overwhelming morning.

I know we have a lot of new people in the building today.

I want to welcome you.

My name is Clayton, and I'm the senior pastor here at MetaCurch.

We are so excited to be starting out here.

We're calling the next five weeks our soft open.

It's gonna lead to our grand opening on January 9th, which will also be our three-year anniversary as MetaCurch.

And so we're very excited about all of that.

We will never stop telling the story of how God got us here.

Uh, on your way in, you may have noticed uh a small building made out of wood that we put on stage almost exactly three years ago in December of 2018.

And we asked you to write on that building the names of people that you wanted to see God use you and use this movement to touch their lives.

And we even gave an expansion offering through the roof of that.

If you remember, just like they lowered the four friends lowered the paralytic down to Jesus through the roof, we gave our offerings through the roof saying we will do whatever it takes to take our next step, to get a permanent space and allow ourselves to reach more and more people.

And today is the culmination of that and God's blessing on that.

And and what's so incredible is that we got to experience a miracle in the midst of it.

And what we asked all along was for God to put us in a position where when we got our own space, it would be obvious that the only person who could get credit for it was God Himself.

And so we're gonna work like it's up to us, but we're gonna pray knowing that it's only up to God.

And if you don't know the story, we raised as much as we could.

We got in a 90-day contract on this building.

And at day 90, we were$450,000 short.

We sent in and terminated the contract.

If not, we would lose 50 grand in earnest money.

We closed the door, we shut it off, we said, God's will be done, another building will come up, and God said, hang on just a second, I'm not done.

We got the phone call.

And the building owner called us to see if there was anything that we could work out.

You guys may know this, but lucky draw bingo is still operating five evenings a week.

And what we did is we came to the table a few days later, we we sat right about where my son is sitting, right there in the building, and and what we did is we had this great idea, right?

We thought, we prayed, we brainstormed, we sat down at the negotiation table, and we we told the owners of the building and the owners of the bingo, we think you should give us$450,000, right?

That was our great idea.

And then in response to that gift, we would allow them to continue operating for 18 months to recoup that profit.

Within about 10 or 15 minutes, we had a deal and we shook hands.

And on October 15th, we purchased the building.

It was a half-million dollar miracle that only God could have gotten across.

Yeah.

Before we really jump in, there's a handful of people that I need to thank.

First and foremost, I need to thank you guys.

You are the movement.

Metachurch is not an organization, it's not an idea, it's not the service you attend.

You are the church.

You are this movement.

And so many of you have given so generously.

You've been giving your offerings, and some of you went above and beyond, and you've been giving to the expansion fund, and you gave all the way through a pandemic.

We bought a building right at the tail end of a global pandemic like we haven't seen in a hundred years.

Your generosity put us in the place where God's miracle could get us across the finish line.

And I want you to make some noise for you, being generous in the midst of all of it.

I want to thank my staff.

You have no idea the work that has gone on behind the scenes.

And we bought it on October 15th, and we came into a meeting the next Monday, and I put a start date of December 5th, and you may not know this, but most people take about four to six months to transition operations from one building to another, and we decided to do it in four to six weeks, and the staff really, really got on their grind.

I especially want to thank Pastor Bobby and our lighting and audio engineers, Tim Fuller and John Perkins, who literally had some days in the last few weeks where they would work from 7 a.m.

till midnight in this building getting all of our infrastructure.

And I would love for you to show them some love before we get going.

Last, I want to thank my family.

Um, we were working on this building for four years, and there were some times where it got very hard.

Uh, this was the third building.

We lost two others.

It was heavy.

It was a heavy weight, and there were a lot of late nights, and there were a lot of hard phone calls, and my wife and my kids were there and loved me and supported me through all of it.

And I don't shout them out a lot because you know my kids don't like uh me to put too much attention on them, and I try to honor that.

Um, but I cannot thank you guys enough.

And I love you so much, and I am so thankful uh to be your dad and your husband.

It's been really interesting because since the beginning of MetaCurch, we have been renters.

We were renting at the saloon, and when you rent, it's a completely different ballgame, and now we become owners.

And there was a moment where I realized that even though we had taken ownership, I still had a renter's mindset.

The the guys who own Lucky Draw Bingo, man, they're incredible.

And in one sense, we're kind of they're landlords now, they've become our tenants.

That's how we work things out.

And, you know, we we sat at the table together as we were trying to figure out how to kind of co-work in this space.

And and and what I said was, hey, you know, we're gonna need the office here.

This is where we'll run our operations, and so I hope you guys are all right with it, but we'll be in in the mornings and they don't start operating until 4 p.m.

So look, by 4 p.m., we'll make sure we're out of your way.

If we move anything, we'll set it right back up.

And then I asked, is it okay with you guys if we're in the space?

And the the moment I knew that things had changed is AJ, the owner, looked at me and said, You can be in whenever you want.

You own the building.

And I was like, that's right.

We all it's it's so crazy.

You come here in the evenings and people are playing bingo in your building.

It's the craziest thing.

And it's tough because there's been so many circumstances where I've realized that we've moved into a new season, we've moved into ownership, but it's difficult to break a renter's mindset.

And I think the difference between renting and owning is significant, not just practically, but I think it's significant as a mindset.

And my message for you today is rent or own.

This is a question because you're gonna have to ask this about your life and the different areas of your life.

Rent or own?

Let's pray.

God, we love you.

And we come to you recognizing that you are the owner of it all.

You made the world and you placed humanity in it.

You gave us what is called dominion, you created us to be owners.

Today we are wrestling with this idea, and today we are rejoicing and we are thanking you, and we are remembering the miracle of how you got us here.

And so we just ask that you would help us to be humble enough, to have open minds and open hearts.

The beautiful thing about MetaCurch, you know this God, people from all different parts of their faith journey.

And no matter where people are, we're here to ask the biggest questions.

We're here to hear from you.

And so we ask that you would speak in Jesus' name.

Everyone's ready to get going?

Say amen.

Rent or own.

It's difficult to break a renter's mindset.

And let me just set, like right off the bat, I'm not throwing any shade at anyone who rents.

As a matter of fact, I have rented plenty of houses and apartments throughout the years, and a lot of times renting is the wisest decision that you can make.

However, some people default towards renting their property just because renting is easier.

Let me tell you something.

When I would rent a house, if something would break, this is me.

Pray for me, this is me.

Not my house, that's me.

When something breaks and a house I'm renting, I don't know, not my house, call somebody else, they've got to come in and fix it.

It's not mine, I'm just renting it.

You probably know this, but when you move from renting where you live to owning where you live, you're now building wealth.

And so you not only have a place, but you're building equity.

And owning property is one of the keys to drilling wealth.

And this isn't a sermon about wealth, but it's actually a lot easier than you think.

And I can tell you this because I'm not a wealthy person, but I plan to be someday, right?

It's like you gotta have a plan in place.

And so many people have bought the lie the only way to become wealthy is to come from wealth.

And surely that gives you a head start.

Before the rest of us, what you have to do, this this is the key, uh, you gotta graduate high school and then either go to trade school or college if you need it.

After that, you gotta get out of debt and you gotta stay out of debt.

Because when you are living in debt, you are living in a deficit.

And you cannot invest in your life if you are living from a place of deficit.

So get out of debt and stay out of debt.

And once you're out of debt, you can make uh a million dollars a year, you can make$40,000 a year.

If you want to become wealthy, you have to spend less money than you make.

For every dollar you make, you only spend 75 cents.

That gives you 10% to be generous, 15% to invest back into yourself.

And once you're there, you look to buy a house and pay it off as quickly as possible.

These are the steps that are proven, proven to create wealth.

And so if you're renting, that's great.

But rent to own, I'm not saying rent it to buy that place over time, but rent with the mentality that I'm getting my life in order so I can go be an owner.

And that's the practical piece.

You either rent where you live or you own where you live, and there's a big gap in between there.

But renting and owning is also a mindset.

And you either rent or own every area of your life.

And we live in a culture that pushes us towards renting because renting is easier and ownership has weight attached to it.

If the place that you're renting doesn't work out, you may lose a couple hundred bucks, but it's not that hard to walk away.

If the place you own isn't working out, you are in a serious situation to get that off of your hands.

If something breaks down in the house that you're renting, it's not your responsibility to fix.

You call the owners to get it taken care of when you own your house and all of a sudden the water's not working or the hot water heater goes out or the dryer vent clogs up.

It's on you.

There is weight to ownership.

And what we have in culture is this great conflation between ease and happiness.

If something is easy, it will make you happier.

And we've bought the lie as a culture that the greatest pursuit in your life is the pursuit of happiness.

And if that's the goal, if the goal is to be happy, and happiness comes through ease and convenience, then why not be a renter?

And so we rent our relationships, and you actually see it bearing out in the statistics, people are not getting married.

Why?

People will say this, it's just more difficult, you know.

I mean, we love each other and we'll live together and we'll practically be married, but you know, if in a couple of years I get kind of tired of that morning breath, you know, it's pretty easy to just walk away.

Renting is easy, and so we rent our relationships, and and some of you are frustrated because you desire marriage, you desire something more, and you can't figure it out why no one will take you seriously and actually date you and court you and pursue you and want to do life with you and make that covenant commitment with you.

But if you look at how you are displaying yourself to the world, you're not displaying that you're for sale, you're displaying that you're for rent.

And so we can rent, and it's easy.

And some of you are renting your jobs or renting your careers, and so you go into work and you do the minimal amount of work to not get yourself fired.

Let me tell you something.

If your goal at your job is not get fired, you are renting your job.

You are showing up, you're stealing company time, when you clock out, it's over, you don't care, it could burn to the ground.

As long as you get a paycheck, you are fine.

And I get it, you may not be in your dream job, but oftentimes the path to the job that you want is to learn how to become an owner in the job that you don't like.

You build those skills, you build that over time.

Renting is so much easier.

How you manage your money, some of you are renting your finances.

And you know, we're all about the flex.

Everybody wants a flex, right?

Let me tell you what wealthy people think about you flexing your brand new$80,000 car on Instagram.

They think that you just bought a depreciating asset that dropped 30% when you drove it off the lot and has put your life in a deficit where you can't put into any investments to actually gain real wealth.

You just get the status symbol of wealth.

You're renting your finances.

And so are we going to rent or are we going to own?

And some of you rent your spirituality.

You know, you you wake up on Sunday morning and you put the little deposit, you put your spiritual face on.

You know the works of the songs, but you're just renting, boy.

When you get back out into the world, you are ready to turn up because your spirituality and your faith itself is just rented.

And when God created man, he gave us what is called dominion.

And dominion means the right to own.

You were created to be a creator, you were created to take ownership.

And the great lie of culture is that humans were created for the pursuit of happiness.

And the truth of scripture says you were not created for the pursuit of happiness, you were created for the pursuit of purpose.

And if you will discover that God-given purpose and live for something bigger than your own pleasure and your own ways and your own desires, you will actually find something richer than happiness along the way.

You will find joy.

There is there's something significant about taking ownership.

They tell you it's about the pursuit of happiness, and the happier you are is equal to the amount of convenient and ease that you have in your life.

And the truth is that convenient and ease actually tears away at our soul because we were created to work and to own what we have.

You either own your things or your things own you.

If you are renting your job, there's always an owner.

If you are renting your job, all that means is your job owns you.

If you are renting your relationships, all that means is your loneliness owns you.

If you are just renting your faith, and that what that means is that your flesh owns you.

And we either become renters or we become owners.

And it's difficult to break a renter's mindset.

We have to be wary of that because I'm at a church.

We just became owners.

And ownership has a weight to it.

Owners are willing to stand up under the weight of something for the sake of somebody else.

Can I tell you a secret for everyone who's not a volunteer?

It's easier to have churches service at the saloon.

We found that out today.

Bigger building, more seats, heavy seats.

I don't know how cloth is this heavy.

We've got medicids right now in three different spaces.

We got speakers that were in the ceiling on the floor.

This is more difficult.

But I gotta let you know, when we were renting in the saloon, we were renting to own.

We were renting in a way with an ownership mentality to say, God, when you're ready, we're ready to be owners.

And we didn't buy a building to have an easier setup on Sunday.

We bought a building to bring more people into a movement that is fighting against the forces of hell itself.

That's why we're here.

And unrelated, you can sign up for a volunteer team at the Connect deck right after this.

All right, what are we preaching about today?

Rent or own.

There's an interesting moment, and you guys know one of the major narratives of scripture, it's it's in the Jewish scriptures, what we call the Old Testament, is the story of Israel.

And Israel was God's chosen nation to one day bless all nations because through their lineage, Jesus Christ would come to earth.

And so it was a set apart nation.

And through disobedience, they ended up enslaved in Egypt for like 400 years.

And God finally sent Moses, and Moses came and through the power of God, they were released, and they were on their way to the land that God promised them, the land that God gave their ancestors, the land that they rightfully owned.

And first, they had to go through the Red Sea.

And the Red Sea was an impassable body of water, and there was no way.

And pretty soon the Egyptian army was pressing down on them.

And so the option was to drown or to die.

And so there was no good option.

And they started to freak out.

But God displayed his might when he parted the waters of the Red Sea, and the Israelites walked through on dry ground.

It was a great miracle.

And it brought them into the wilderness between Egypt and the Promised Land.

They ended up in the wilderness through disobedience for 40 years.

And eventually, a new generation of Israelites was ready after 40 years to go into the land that they owned.

And a new leader named Joshua was going to take them there, and they had been renting the wilderness for 40 years, and now it was time to take ownership of the promised land.

There was just one problem.

In between the wilderness and the promised land was the Jordan River.

Another body of water.

Another problem.

Different river, same problem.

New day, same problem.

Forty years later, same problem.

And if you live long enough, one thing you will learn about life is the problems always, always, always come.

And sometimes you hear in church people talk about breakthrough.

We're praying for a breakthrough.

We're praying for deliverance.

We are praying for rescue.

And it's hard because we should really make all of those plurals.

Because you get through one breakthrough and you think you're done for the rest of your life.

Wait five minutes, you know?

You're gonna need a new deliverance.

It's peaks and valleys.

We go through seasons.

We need breakthroughs, we need deliverances, you know.

It's like new river, same problem, same God.

God speaks to Joshua and He says, Have the priests take the Ark of the Covenant, which represented the presence of God Himself, and walk out into the Jordan.

And as they walked, the waters departed.

And so we pick up that story.

We're gonna kind of go to the end and then we're gonna go back.

We're gonna do this Tarantino style.

I'm gonna tell you the end.

We're gonna go back to the beginning of the movie.

In verse 10, it says, The priests carrying the ark continued standing in the middle of the Jordan until everything was completed that the Lord had commanded Joshua to tell the people, in keeping with all that Moses had commanded Joshua, and the people hurried.

They hurried across.

And I've preached on this passage before, and I made the case that the people were scared.

And here's why.

This was written in Hebrew, and that word hurried isn't like kind of power walking, isn't like, you know, the way that your kids hurried to get ready for church this morning.

It's like hauling would be a better word in our day and age.

They hauled across the dry land of the Jordan River, and I think part of it was because they were afraid.

You see, after after Israel went through the Red Sea, Egypt came in after them, all of Egypt's forces, and once all of Egypt's army was in the Red Sea.

God removed his miraculous hand, and the waters swallowed up the Egyptian army.

They all, they all perished.

Scripture says.

And some of you just imagine God as a naked baby with a heart floating around.

This is savage God.

This is swallow up an army, God.

They saw the power and might and justice of God.

And some of them remember that, and they remember the stories they were told about how if the waters come down, everyone will die.

They hurried across.

I think there was fear, but I think it was a mix of fear and excitement because on the other side was what they owned.

And oftentimes to get from the place of renting to the place of ownership when you're following God takes an act of God.

It takes a$450,000 miracle.

It takes you being in a season where you're single and you're renting, but if you want to be a successful single, you rent to own.

You get in and you don't just run through hookup after hookup after hookup.

You find someone and you pursue them and you love them and you sacrifice for them.

Girl, we might be renting right now, but you need to know I am renting to own.

We're gonna lock this up one of these days.

And so it takes a miracle sometimes.

Y'all have seen my wife, miracles happen, okay?

And so they're hurrying, they're rushing, they're running to what they own.

It says in the next verse, and after everyone had finished crossing, the priest with the ark of the Lord crossed in the sight of the people.

They have moved into their ownership.

But God knows that sometimes you take ownership and you still have a renter's mindset.

And so before it was over and before the priest walked out, God had them do something.

Let's go back to verse one.

It says, After the entire nation had finished crossing, the Lord spoke to Joshua.

In verse 2, choose 12 men from the people, one from each tribe, and command them take twelve stones from this place in the middle of the Jordan where the priests are standing, and carry them with you, and set them down at the place where you spend the night.

And so Joshua summoned the twelve men he had selected from the Israelites, one man for each tribe, and he said to them, Go across to the ark of the Lord, your God, in the middle of the Jordan, and each of you lift a stone onto your shoulder, one for each of the Israelite tribes.

And what's so, so difficult is that sometimes when you finally get through, God will ask you to go back in.

And this can be really, really, really hard.

And what we often do is when we get through a difficult season in our life, we flush that season out of sight and out of mind, never to revisit it again.

And here's the problem with that approach.

The problem is that before you got to the other side, God was teaching you the lessons that would allow you to actually be successful once he got you through.

And so sometimes people get into marriages and it doesn't work out for whatever reason, one way or another, and they go through the divorce and they throw out everything that would ever remind them of anything in that season.

They light it all on fire, you know, they smash all the CDs they ever made them, they burn up all of the pictures, they never want to remember it again.

And here's the problem if you do not learn from history, you will repeat it.

Sometimes you gotta walk back in to what you just came through to draw out of it the lessons and the memories that will bring you into the success that God actually has for you in the future.

And remember, they were afraid of the water, they hauled through the Jordan, they were Olympic power walking where the hips that they went through it, and now he's asking him to go back in.

And it's like, God, there are stones on the shore, and they're prettier, honestly, not all covered in algae and dirt, and and you know, some fish, whatnot.

And it's like there's stones right here, and we'll just remember, you know?

We'll be like, those were the stones when we came across, and he said, I want the ones in the middle.

The memories that will guide you and protect you and keep you from reverting back to a renter's mindset are not the stones of safety, they are the stones of salvation that happened in the middle of your story.

And if there's something you just can't get through and you can't get to the other side, and that depression is just hanging on to you, and that habit just will not let you go, chances are you need to walk back into it.

You need to walk back into even the painful memories to allow God to illuminate the truth of what that season was and how you can move forward in power from it.

He wanted them to go back in.

Twelve stones right from the middle, build them as an altar.

In verse 6, he says, so this will be a sign among you.

In the future, when your children ask, what do these stones mean to you?

You should tell them the water of the Jordan was cut off in front of the Ark of the Lord's covenant.

And when it crossed the Jordan, the Jordan's water was cut off, and therefore these stones will always be a memorial for the Israelites.

And some of you moved from renting to owning your relationships, and you finally said, I do, and they said, I do.

And that sounds great because at that moment there is an I and there is an I.

But after you say it, there is a we.

And we is a lot more difficult to navigate than I.

And so some of you are single and you showed up to Thanksgiving, and you are so frustrated because you're the only single kid left in your family, and you feel left behind, and you have no idea that the married people are looking at you, spending your own money, setting your own schedule, going to bed whenever you want, your own Netflix account, you know?

And it's like there is freedom in the eye, and we like to stay in the eye, and people won't get married anymore.

Because renting is easy, renting is convenient.

You can break it off and wash your hands of it.

But there is power in the we, there is power in the ownership, there is power in the conflict that goes from trying to bring two lives together.

Because guess what?

You are nowhere near the person that you could be, and they are nowhere near the person that they could be.

And when you come into conflict, scripture says iron sharpens iron, that pressure creates diamonds, that it takes friction to make fire, that your purpose is often on the other side of allowing yourself to navigate the pain of conflict.

And so you come together, but there is weight in ownership.

And so often we want to push that aside and we want to push it back.

And when we do get married, we get married super late because it's like, well, I don't want to miss my 20s, you know?

And then you hit your 30s and you're like, Well, I don't want to miss my 30s, you know?

And you hit your 40s and you're like, man, I would hate to miss partying in my 40s, right?

Let's just push adolescence forward as long as we can.

And what if you had a purpose?

And what if you had a life to live?

And what if you were created to take ownership of the things in your life?

Sometimes you have to go back to when you were struggling to find that job when you're sitting in the job that you hate.

And remember, when you were praying to God, if you will just give me a job, I will do it with all my heart and with all my soul, as unto the Lord.

And now you're in that job.

And man, you will barely lift a pinky to help anyone that is not you.

You are renting that job.

And you're sitting there wishing that you could get to your dream job.

You know, the one that you haven't planned for or executed for or made any strategy for or made any moves towards.

It's just a dream job because that's all you do is dream about it.

You know how to make your way to that dream job?

Take ownership of the day job that you can't stand.

Show God that when he gives you more, you will own it.

And we like to rent.

And it's easier.

And what happened is God knew that if the Israelites didn't remember the 40 years of renting the wilderness, they would fail to take ownership of the promise.

And so we made them go back in to what he just brought them through.

And they went and got the stones and they brought them to the shore.

And eventually, in verse 17, it says, So Joshua commanded the priests, come up from the Jordan, and when the priests carrying the Ark of the Lord's covenant came up from the middle of the Jordan, and their feet stepped out on solid ground, and the water of the Jordan resumed its course, flowing over all the banks as before.

And here's the truth when God moves you from one season of your life to another, you have a window of time to really take advantage of showing your gratitude and learning your lessons because once you become an owner, your life will get very busy.

You will have a lot on your plate, you are choosing to put weight on your shoulders.

And so it's in moments like today, today is another day one for MetaCurch, that we must choose today to remember what God has done.

Here's what's true if we forget all that God has done for us, if we forget it, if we walk through the Jordan, if we transition into our ownership and forget what God has done, we run the risk of forfeiting what God is doing now.

This is how it works.

Miracles happen in moments.

There was a moment where we said, I've got an idea.

You, the owner of this thing, give us the money to buy your thing.

And they said yes and shook a hand.

And it was a moment, and miracles happen in moments, and moments are fleeting.

But memories, memories guide you forever.

It is what you choose to glean out of this life.

It is whether or not you choose to go find the mossy stones, to stack them up in your life, to look back and remember, to tell your children, to tell the community around us what God has done among us that will guide us into who we become as a movement.

There were periods when we were at the saloon, I talk about it like it was five years ago, like last week.

There were periods where we felt like renters.

There were seasons where I felt like a renter, and all I could do was beg God to let us own something.

If you'd just let us own something, we could fill it up.

If you just let us own something, we could really get it together.

And God is looking for people who, even in seasons of renting, will take an ownership mentality, who will rent to own.

We got in a 90-day contract, trusting that God would come through.

But we wanted to show Him that we were treating the saloon where we rented as owners.

The saloon was a constant reminder of what our mission is at MetaCurch.

We do whatever it takes to get people to Jesus.

We go hard after the people who don't think they can go to church anywhere else.

The unchurched, the dechurched, the anti-churched.

This is a place where you can belong even before you believe.

It matters to us.

And we took that ownership.

We decided even when we were under contract, believing God for this building, that we would keep marketing and pushing hard to that building.

As a matter of fact, we did this, uh we did this marketing thing where we made like uh, I don't know, 500 koozies or something, and we left them all over the bar.

And and it says, Ever drank at church?

Now you have.

That's what we did.

Now the church isn't the building, and there's some theological problems there, but here's the point.

We mean it, we will do whatever it takes.

And God moves so quick that we didn't even get to hand them all out.

This is ownership.

You've given us this place, and we will treat it like it's ours.

And even in your seasons of renting, if you will show God that you are ready to be an owner, if you will walk into the job that you hate and care for it with every fiber of your being and support the people around you and give it your all, you are not only practically building the skill sets you will need to be an owner to move into your career field of choice, but you are showing God that you are willing to take ownership of whatever it is that He places in your hands.

It's powerful.

And so we don't have 12 stones, but we have a big wooden house that we put on a stage three years ago.

It came from the middle of our desire, it came from the middle of our journey, it came from the middle of our begging God to let us own something.

And as you gave your offering, you wrote in Sharpie the names of people that you wanted to see God touch through this movement.

And that building is a reminder to us today that nothing about that mission has changed.

We have taken ownership, we've made the choice to come up under the weight of something, and we're all doing it collectively to reach a city that is living without hope.

So here's what I want you to do on your way out.

I want you to stop by our house.

And there's black markers where I want you to write new names, the people in your life, in your circle of influence that you want to see God move in their life through your life and through this movement, and there are red markers.

And I know for a fact that some of you put names on that building, and I know for a fact that some of you are names on that building.

And I want you to take that red marker and begin to circle the work, the names where God has already shown up and began to move.

We have to have our memories over and over and over.

God said, remember, remember, remember.

And if we forget what God has done here, we run the risk of forfeiting what God is getting ready to do.

And in Metaturch, I believe what God is getting ready to do will exceed all of our expectations.

God, we want to be owners.

We don't say that out of pride because we know that you own it all.

You give it to us, you place it all in our hands.

We want to steward it well.

We want to choose to come up under the weight of the things in our life.

We are not looking for the easy path.

We are not looking for the pursuit of happiness.

We are looking for our purpose and your significance.

I thank you for every person who's here.

We ask that you continue to keep this movement going and to keep this movement growing.

We love you and we pray these things in Jesus' 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.