Heroic: You'd Better with Pastor Clayton Tyner

Welcome to the MetaCurch Podcast.

My name's Clayton.

I'm the pastor here at MetaChurch.

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

I hope that you enjoy today's message.

Well, I want to welcome you in.

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

I'm the lead pastor here.

We're so glad that you guys joined us today.

We are in our ninth and final week of our heroic series.

If you're joining us for the first time, we've been looking at a letter that we have in the Christian scriptures.

It's something called the Book of Hebrews.

And this is an encouragement to new believers who were under persecution for their faith.

And one of the ways that they were encouraged is in the 11th chapter of Hebrews, the author starts talking about some of the great heroes of Scripture, these heroic lives and the difference they made.

And so we've really gone through this series in a very simple manner.

Every week we have been digging into one of these heroic lives and drawing out of that a lesson that, if we could apply it to our own life, will help us to live more and more heroically.

We also put together what we called the heroic template.

We learn that heroic lives have faith, that they escape temptation.

Heroic lives rely on God and they're open to change, even when change is difficult.

Heroic lives invest in eternity, which means living for something bigger than yourself.

Heroic lives ultimately change the world around them.

Today we are looking at what I call the untold ending of Hebrews chapter 11.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

This is the part that everyone tends to skip because it gets really uncomfortable really quickly.

And the fact that we're so hesitant to look at these verses or to even preach on these verses really exposes an underlying attitude and an underlying worldview that has permeated our culture.

And this worldview can be described with the same two words that I have titled my sermon.

My message today is called You'd better.

You'd better.

Would you pray with me?

God, we love you.

And as we come to the close of this series, I pray that you would continue to challenge us to take up the journey of the heroic life, a journey that you have called us to, that is not for the faint of heart, but that is the best use of our lives during our time on earth.

And so we're asking that you do what you always do.

You always show up and you're always speaking to us.

And I ask that we would be humble enough to listen.

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

And if you're ready to get going, say amen.

My message today is called you'd better.

You see, what happens is we live in a consumer culture.

And because we live in a consumer culture, we've become a very transactional society.

And a transactional society says, if I do this, then you'd better do something in return.

If I give something to you, then you'd better give me something back.

If I make a sacrifice on your behalf, then you'd better make a sacrifice for me.

This is known by a lot of different terms.

You can call it a bargain, you can call it a trade-off.

There's a Latin phrase we've all come to know in the last couple of years, a quid pro quo.

All of it means the same thing.

If I, then you'd better.

If I do this, then you'd better do something in return.

This seems to be the way that our world works.

You do something for someone else in order to hold that over them as leverage to force compliance when you need something in return.

Most of you know that my favorite TV show is The Office.

And I know not everyone watches The Office.

Some of us are just holier than others, you know.

That's kind of how it goes.

And on one of these episodes, Dwight, who, as you know, is the assistant to the regional manager, he uh he desperately wants to get his coworker Jim fired, and he knows that to pull this off, he needs everyone in the office to be on his side, and so he comes up with a plan.

And early one morning he drives from Scranton, Pennsylvania, all the way into New York City, so he can get some fresh baked New York bagels.

He brings them into the office right at the beginning of the workday.

He hands a bagel to everyone in the office.

They're blown away.

Dwight never does things this kind, and so everyone gets a bagel and they say, Well, thank you, Dwight.

And Dwight says, You're welcome, and you owe me.

You see, he's not doing this out of the kindness of his heart.

What he's hoping to do is to leverage that kind act over them.

And when the time comes, you'd better be on my side to get rid of Jim.

And it's funny, but we relate to it because this is the way we navigate our world.

A consumer culture creates a transactional society, and we live with a you'd better mentality, a you'd better worldview in every facet of our lives.

It's how we navigate our relationships.

We have a very Ud better view of parenting.

And you can really begin to tell this in your parenting when your kids get older, especially when they become adults.

And you think to yourself, look at all that I gave you.

And for some, for some parents, they have goals for their children that their children really aren't even aware of.

It's like I did not raise you, put a roof on your head and food on your plate for you to go to anywhere other than where I went to college.

I did for you, so you'd better carry on the family tradition.

I was the best parent I could be, so you'd better come and work for the family business.

I raised you right, so you'd better grow up and think the way I think and vote the way I vote.

We have these stipulations, these contingencies.

There's always strings attached in a transactional culture.

Our marriages have become very transactional, and it's like we're all trying to win.

We're all trying to get what we want at the highest level out of this marriage equation.

It's like, fine, I'll go to your parents' house, I'll hang with the in-laws, but you'd better not complain when I go out with the boys this weekend, right?

We're gonna make a little transaction here, and so many marriages are in so much trouble because even your sex life in your marriage has become fully transactional.

You're like, look, if you think I'm just vacuuming all the floors of this house out of the goodness of my heart, like you'd better, you know?

And all of a sudden, all of it comes down to this, I do for you, and you'd better do for me.

We're like this at work.

And the thing is, you add on to this what we've talked about in this series, that we're we're so entitled these days.

And we come into work thinking, you'd better be giving me this promotion.

I have shown up on time for work almost every day.

I've gotten all my work done.

You'd better give me this raise.

And I have news for you.

Coming to work on time and doing your work is just called having a job.

You get a paycheck for it.

It's not like I was here at 5 a.m.

and left at 8 p.m., took on three projects that weren't mine, and increased revenue by a million dollars.

We don't even earn things and we expect something in return.

We are a transactional society.

And this is one of those moments where this concept, if you'll be honest with yourself for like 45 seconds, you understand this.

And a key indicator that you have a you'd better outlook on your world is bitterness.

Any area in your life where you have grown bitter, if you trace that bitterness back to its root, you will find there is an expectation that you set because you did something and expected something in return.

And so it gets really dangerous because this begins to seep into and permeate every area of our life, including our view of and our relationship with God.

And we begin to believe that if we just do enough good and if we are obedient to God, that you'd better bring the blessing on the backside of that.

And if we will sacrifice and avoid the temptations of this world, then you'd better bring the reward.

We are transactional even in our spirituality, and it happens, it happens all the time, and we grow up with this view that is pushed forward in every area of our life, and of course, of course, it begins to view the way that we see God.

And you really want the promotion, and so you're just like trying your best, and and you're just making sure, like, God, I know you see this, man.

I have not looked at porn in weeks.

You'd better bring me this promotion.

God, I've been given to the church for like three months in a row now.

You'd better give me the right lottery numbers, you know?

Like, it's all a transaction, and we have this transactional view of God, and people are sold this idea that God is like a genie in a bottle, and his job is if you are faithful, he will make sure to fulfill every desire on your wish list.

This you'd better kind of life is what keeps many from living the heroic, purpose-filled, significant lives that we were created to live.

Instead, we settle back into the status quo of a transactional society.

This is the fastest way to lose our faith, to get caught up in temptation, to begin to rely only on yourself, to close yourself off to change, to invest only in the material things you can see right in front of you.

This is the quickest way to ensure that you don't make any difference on a world who desperately needs you to live out your purpose.

This bargaining with God is so detrimental to your life.

And today, as we look at the untold ending, if we look at the hard parts of Hebrews chapter 11, we are going to see some heroes that show us exactly how we can escape this transactional worldview.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

All throughout Hebrews 11, we've been looking at the great heroes of scripture, and we have a bias towards victory.

And so we look at their exploits and we focus on their wins, and one of the things that's been so phenomenal in this series is we've looked at these big names like Abraham and Moses and Noah and Gideon and all these great heroes that if you grew up in church, these these guys were treated like superheroes, you know, and and we've learned about them, but we've really dug into their life, guys like Samson, the strongest guy on earth, and what we have found is that these were ordinary, very jacked up people who more times than not were living very difficult lives, and that is good news.

Because you and me, we are ordinary, jacked-up people who often are living very, very difficult lives.

There is inspiration to be found in the fact that God can take you as you are in the circumstances you find yourself, and he can enable you to live a heroic life regardless.

To make sure that no one gets the wrong idea and thinks that this whole idea of following God and living heroically is nothing but roses, he ends the chapter making that clear.

Hebrews 11, we're gonna start in verse 32 for some context.

It says, And what more can I say?

Time is too short for me to tell all about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets, who by faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, gained strength in weakness, became mighty in battle, and put foreign armies to flight.

Women received their dead, raised to life again.

So far, so good.

Have a little faith, do some good things, be obedient, and everything will be okay.

But the chapter isn't done.

That is the context needed to begin to tell the untold ending.

In verse 35, it continues and says, Other people were tortured, not accepting release, so that they might gain a better resurrection.

Others experienced mockings and scourgings as well as bonds and imprisonment.

They were stoned, they were sawed in two, they died by the sword, they wandered about in sheepskins, in goatskins, destitute, afflicted, and mistreated.

The world was not worthy of them.

They wandered in deserts and on mountains, hiding in caves and holes in the ground.

Maybe you don't remember these stories growing up in church.

Maybe these weren't highlighted in Sunday school.

We have a bias towards victory.

We tell the story you may be familiar with of Daniel in the lion's den, and we hear that growing up, and we think, man, I'd love to be Daniel.

I'd love to pet a lion, I'd love to see a miracle.

We forget the fact that in order to be Daniel, you first have to be thrown into a den of hungry lions.

We forget about all the defeats, the loss after loss after loss, because we are biased to only look at the win.

We already know the end of the story, and so all of the fear and tension is cut out in our minds.

The truth is, we are living so often right in the middle of the fire, right in the middle of the suffering.

And we think, man, you know, I'd love to be Moses.

I'd love to see the waters parted in my life from time to time.

You realize in order to see the miracle, you first have to be in the mundane.

In order to see the power of God, you first have to get comfortable in the pain.

You have to realize that Moses didn't know the water was going to split, and all of Egypt's army were pressing down upon him.

We think we want to see it.

What we don't realize is we're right there.

We're right in the middle of the suffering.

Heroic life have faith.

That's the number one thing that we learn.

But my fear is that cultural Christianity, Western Christianity, has too limited of a view of faith.

The book of Hebrews was written to some new believers.

And this has like almost nothing to do with our context because we're here today that have rights in our constitution that protect us from being able to gather here and worship freely.

We live in a world that is easy, a world of maximum convenience.

In the first century, the world was hard even if you weren't under persecution and this new movement, the movement of Jesus, it was met with brute force.

The people that this letter was written to, these new Jewish Christians, they were having their homes taken away from them.

They were kicked out of their places of work, they were disowned by their families.

Some of them were put in jail for their beliefs, and they even heard rumors of people who were being tortured and killed just for claiming the name Jesus.

And if you're living with a cultural better mentality, and you begin following Jesus only for your entire life to fall apart, you may begin to lose your faith, and so many people have walked away from faith.

Because somewhere along the way they were taught that God being faithful and God being good meant God always giving you what you desire right here and right now.

We present people a transactional, you'd better God.

And so people begin to follow Him.

They begin reading His word, seeking Him, praying, trying to live the life that Jesus lived, and their life doesn't get infinitely better.

In fact, sometimes it gets infinitely harder.

And some of you have experiences.

And how do you hold on to your faith when all of your obedience is met with nothing but suffering?

This is the situation that they were in.

And so often we talk about God, like, man, if you will just quit sinning a little bit, you know, if you'll be a little bit more obedient, you know, if you'll sacrifice just a little bit more, and you'll hear the televangelist, if you'll just send a little bit more money in and a little bit more money in, God is gonna give you everything you want and everything you desire.

It's gonna happen faster than you can imagine.

The promotion is coming, the houses are coming, the cars are coming.

Anyone can preach like this.

The problem is when it doesn't happen, people lose faith in a transactional God, and they have lost faith in a God that never existed in the first place.

That God is not referenced in our Bible.

Those promises are not given to his people, and yet it's the most natural thing in a consumer culture, in a transactional society, to transfer that over and believe that we have a transactional God.

The life we're actually called to, the heroic life, it requires a brand new perspective, a perspective that is so much higher, that is so much grander than this bargaining, transactional, you'd better kind of life.

And hidden within the untold ending is a story of three heroic lives that demonstrate this maybe better than anybody else.

We find them starting back in verse 33.

It says, who by faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, who quenched the raging of fire.

Now, these heroes aren't mentioned by name, but remember, these are Jewish believers who are getting this letter, and they would be almost certain who that is speaking of.

Three young men named Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

A little bit of history.

At one point in Israel's history, Babylon came in and took over, and they brought a bunch of captives.

They chose the best and the brightest, mostly young men, and they brought them back to Babylon.

Among that group was Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

These were young men who believed in the one true God and who modeled their life after his word, and they were successful.

They continued to climb the ladder, they were given influence and authority.

Part of the job of captors is assimilating the people they conquer.

And one of the ways that King Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, sought to assimilate these Jewish people into Babylon society was to build a giant statue that represented himself and all that he believed, and then to put out an edict through the land that said, when the music plays at the appropriate time, everyone in Babylon will bow down and worship this statue.

We find this in Daniel chapter 3.

Daniel 3 · chapter mention

It says, A herald loudly proclaimed, people of every nation and language, you are commanded.

When you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, drum, and every kind of music, you are to fall face down and worship the gold statue that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up.

But whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire.

This is a big problem.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are Israelites.

They are Jewish.

And the very first commandment that God gave them was you shall have no other gods before me.

The worship of any idol, any graven image, any statue, any representation, anything other than God was strictly forbidden.

And so that the odds are very clear.

The options are clear.

You can bow down and break God's commandment, or you can stand up and die.

There is no third way, there is no third option.

That is what has been presented to them.

And it's very interesting because Nebuchadnezzar is trying to assimilate them into Babylonian culture, and he is the representative of the Babylonians, and he is showing them exactly how things work in Babylon.

I brought you to Babylon.

I saved your life.

I brought you into the palace.

I gave you jobs.

I built the statue.

I did this.

You'd better bow down.

This isn't new.

This isn't a 21st century problem.

Transactional views of the world have existed from the beginning of time.

Bargaining, trading off, you do, I do, you'd better.

They have a big decision to make.

If you've heard the story, you probably know their decision.

I mean, they are in the Hall of Heroes.

We are using them as a model for the heroic life.

They refuse.

The music played, and at the cost of their very life, they stayed standing.

In verse 12, some officials came to the king and said, There are some Jews you've appointed to manage the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

And these men have ignored you, the king.

They do not serve your gods or worship the gold statue that you have set up.

In verse 13, it says, Then in a furious rage, Nebuchadnezzar gave orders to bring in Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

And so these men were brought before the king, and Nebuchadnezzar asked them, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, is it true that you don't serve my gods or worship the gold statue that I have set up?

Now, notice something.

The rule was if you don't bow down, you die, and you die immediately.

That was the rule.

That actually didn't happen.

You see, instead of killing them immediately, he's actually gonna give them another chance, and here's why.

Because when you're living a transactional lifestyle, it is only It's almost impossible to believe that people won't do what you want.

May you know, maybe they've got some hearing loss.

Maybe they don't know what music is.

You know, maybe they didn't see the statue.

Maybe they were napping, standing up, maybe they have narcolepsy.

I don't know.

Why would anybody not do what I told them they better do?

He can't believe it.

And so he's gonna give them one more shot.

And on the other side of that shot is a guarantee, if you don't do it this time, you will be killed.

And here's the problem with a you'd better worldview.

You know, the attitude and worldview that everyone around us, including ourselves, are just enmeshed in.

The problem is, on the other side of you'd better is always uh if you don't.

I've done this for you.

You'd better do it in return, and if you don't, there will be hell to pay.

You see, when you live with a transactional mindset, if someone's unwilling to transact, you see it as transgression.

He's gonna give them one more shot.

In verse 15, he says, Now if you're ready, when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, drum, and every kind of music, fall down and worship the statue I made.

But if you don't worship it, you will immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire.

And then you ask a question and who is the God who can rescue you from my power?

Now the next two verses are perhaps the greatest, bravest answers in all of Scripture.

In verse 16, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied to the king, Nebuchadnezzar, we don't need to give you an answer to this question.

If the God we serve exists, that he can rescue us from the furnace of blazing fire, and he can rescue us from the power of the king.

What a baller move.

He said, Who's the God who can save you?

Answer me, and they say, Bro, we don't need to tell you.

You will know when he shows up.

Don't you worry about it.

I don't have to spell it out.

We're gonna play show then tell.

This is like faith on faith on faith.

And this is when we figure out whether we're living transactionally or whether we're living heroically.

Because at this point, if you have a transactional mindset, you're thinking, God, you'd better.

I can feel the heat from the flames from where I'm standing.

God, I know you see this faith.

Remember, he was like, man, who's the God of showing?

And I was like, bro, I'll show you the God.

Is he gonna show up?

Remember, I did that whole thing right now?

And so I don't know, but you better come stop drop and roll, or whatever the plan is for the fire, you'd better.

I did my thing, so you'd better show up right now, or I'm fried.

Literally, I am out.

And so often we think this way.

So often it's like, man, the have you ever gone through the drive-thru and like the person in front of you paid for you?

And you're like, oh crap, now I gotta pay for the person behind me, you know?

The person behind you is like a 15-passenger van.

Like, I didn't ask him to have all those kids.

I don't know how I got stuck.

And so you're like, okay, fine, here's no, no, okay, you know, pass yeah, pass it along, keep it, keep it going, pay for them.

And then as you're driving out, you start feeling good because it feels good to serve other people, you know?

And then there's this little thought that is like, I wonder what blessing I'm gonna get today, you know?

It's like, I I bet God opens the floodgates today, you know.

Paid for that car behind.

I didn't really want to, but I did it.

God, I know you saw it, not trying to tell you to do your job, but you better come through.

And so we have a transactional mindset.

And a transactional mindset and a heroic mindset cannot coexist at the same time.

Because a a you'd better mentality says if I don't get my desires right here and right now, if my obedience or sacrifice isn't rewarded with a material good in this world that I can touch, feel, smell, experience, if if you don't do your part, then my faith was in vain.

And there's this one little difference that makes all the difference in the world, and it's in the very next verse.

They stand up, tell me who the God will be, and they said, We don't have to tell you.

Our God can do what he wants, our God blinked, and the universe was created, our God spoke you into existence, our God holds it all in his hands, our God has all of the power, he's all places at all times, he has all wisdom, he sees all and knows all.

He knows the beginning from the end and the end from the beginning.

Don't you worry about my God.

If my God wants to, he will show up and extinguish you.

In verse 18.

But even if he doesn't, you see, there's a difference between knowing that God can and knowing that God will.

And a you'd better lifestyle says if he can, then he will.

And I've got news.

He always can.

It takes faith to believe that God can, that God can rescue you in the fires of your life, that he is with you, that he has guided you, that he will resource you.

It takes faith to believe that God can.

It takes heroic faith to continue trusting in God when he can, but he doesn't.

And even if he does not rescue us, we want you to know we will never serve your gods.

We will never worship the statue that you set up.

You see, to live heroically, we must turn you'd better into even if.

That is the opposite.

You'd better said, I did my part, you'd better show up and do yours, even if says, I'm gonna do my part regardless of how you act.

I'm going to live with an audacious faith that says, there is nothing my God cannot do, and yet, like my Savior in Gethsemane, begging for a way off of the cross, I will always end with your will, not mine.

It is a powerful, powerful difference.

And here's what it says the you'd better mentality says, I gotta get it, and I gotta get it right now.

For my life to be right, things in the world have to be right.

To get to my destiny, I must have my desires.

An even if mentality has the faith.

This is next level faith.

This is the faith of the first century that spread the church around the world even while it was under persecution.

It's the kind of faith that says, if I can trust God for what comes after this life, I better be able to trust him for what happens in it.

If I can trust God for eternity, then surely I have the faith to trust God for what happens in the meantime.

These men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they know God can save them.

Their faith never wavered.

They know it.

They know he can, but they don't know if he will.

And as soon as you believe that you can know the can and the will, you now believe you know the will of God, which means you are now God.

The problem is, as we've seen all series long, you're good at very many things.

You are a powerful movement of people.

But you will make a terrible, terrible God.

It takes faith to jump into the fire.

It takes faith to believe that God can.

It takes heroic faith to continue to believe that God is good and God is worthy, even if he doesn't.

The painful path, the path that the world is on, is a life of bargain.

I will, if you will, it is the you'd better life.

The heroic journey is about giving your life away.

It is having a vision for yourself and your time on earth that is grander and greater than anything that this world can promise you or put in front of you.

Many of you know how this turned out for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in verse 24.

Then King Nebuchadnezzar jumped up in alarm and he said to his advisors, Didn't we throw three men bound into the fire?

Of course, your majesty, they replied to the king.

And he exclaimed, Look, I see four men, not tied, walking around unharmed.

And the fourth looks like a son of the gods.

The you'd better life is about changing your own status or position in life.

The heroic journey is about changing the world around you.

The you'd better life is giving, but only giving to get back.

The heroic life is giving and giving and giving, not measuring your wins by how much you can get back, measuring your wins by how many people around you win because of you.

It is a reversal of everything the culture has taught us and ingrained in us.

In verse 28, Nebuchadnezzar exclaimed, Praise to the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

He sent his angel and rescued his servants who trusted in him.

They violated the king's command and risked their lives rather than serve or worship any God except their own.

Therefore I issue a decree that anyone of any people, nation, or language who says anything offensive against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego will be torn limb from limb in his house made a garbage dump, for there is no other God who is able to deliver like this.

And isn't it interesting that even after he experiences God, he still has a you'd better?

I mean, what does he say?

We have found the one true God, and you worship him, you'd better are the whole, you know, limb from limb.

That whole thing, like God still got some work to do, but there is an opening at the king who is at the top of Babylon.

His glory has been revealed, his power has been shown.

It was all because they had an even if mentality.

And so, how do you get there?

Because we all have areas where we're thinking you'd better.

We are all, dude, we are all transactional in different areas of our life.

And if you are willing and brave enough to take an honest inventory of your life, how you think about your life, the roots of bitterness that are tied back to broken expectations because you did something and thought you deserved something in return.

We're all transactional.

How do we break free so we can really unlock the heroic potential inside of us?

We have two verses left in Hebrews 11.

I figure if we're doing the untold ending, we should read the ending.

It starts in verse 39, and it says, All these, all these great heroes, all these names we went through with all their accomplishments, all these were approved through their faith, but they did not receive what was promised.

Since God has provided something better for us, so that they would not be made perfect without us.

The world can make every promise imaginable to us.

And we live in the world.

At Medichurch, we talk about a pilgrim's perspective, right?

We are in this world, but we are not of this world.

We are pilgrims passing through.

Our home is in eternity, but we are in this world, which is why the allure and the temptation of the things the world can promise us are so significant.

We looked at a lot of heroes throughout our series.

And yet not all of them got the fullness of what was promised to them during this life.

Abraham didn't live to see his lineage turn into a great nation.

Moses never entered the promised land.

Rahab didn't know she was the great, great, great, great, great-grandmother of the savior of the world.

They didn't get all they desired and all that the world promised in front of them because they believed in something better.

They had the perspective that the few decades we get here on planet earth are just the precursor to the main aspect of our life that is literally eternal.

They realize that we are temporary bodies with eternal souls and that our time on earth is to invest in what God is doing, not just here and now, but forever and forevermore.

They realize that if they can trust God with what happens after this world, surely they can trust him with what happens in our lives in this world.

We're learning how to be heroic.

And the ultimate hero was Jesus.

And heroes give their lives away.

They don't measure their marriages by how often they get what they want.

They don't measure their parenting by how their kid fulfills all their unspoken expectations.

They don't measure their career path by how quickly they climb the ladder.

Heroes give themselves away.

Their lives on earth are a benefit to others.

They measure their life by how often they can help others win.

Jesus came to earth to literally give his life away.

And if anyone deserved a you'd better attitude, it was him.

He lived the perfect life that we could not.

And he could have drawn a line in the sand and said, I'll go to the cross, but you'd better believe.

And instead, he stretched his arms and he said, Even if you don't, I will give my life for you.

Would you pray with me?

God, we believe you have something significant to say in this idea of the contrast between the you'd better life that the world around us is living out and teaching us, and the even if life that we see in the great heroic lives of Scripture, we want to be known as people who live for the benefit of others, who give our lives away so that others might finally fully live.

I pray we would take an honest look at where we are transactional, our relationships, our thought patterns, our parenting, our careers.

God, that we would find those areas and challenge God, ourselves to see a bigger perspective, to see the end goal, to realize that you are God and you are good.

And if you rescue us with the miracle, you are good.

And if we are in the valley, we are good.

When life is hard, you are good.

And when we are rejoicing, you are good.

We are a movement of people who have put the hope of our eternity in your hands.

Give us the perspective that if we can trust you with that, surely we can trust you with our life in this world.

We love you and we worship you in Jesus' name.

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.

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You can learn where our different venues are at if you ever wanted to visit.

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