Prioritize: Prayoritize 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.

All right, MetaCurch, so glad that you made it today.

If you are new with us, my name is Clayton.

I'm the lead pastor here.

We're in the fourth week of our prioritize series.

If you've missed any of the messages that have come before this, you can get caught up online anytime at metachurch.tv or by going to the MetaCurch YouTube.

We are talking in the series about how to properly prioritize your life.

This is a big deal because we believe if you properly prioritize your life, you will maximize your purpose, you will minimize the distractions in life that are holding you back in.

You will multiply your life's impact during your time on earth.

This is what scripture calls a fruitful life.

A life that brings more life, a life that produces what it was purposed to produce.

This is so critical because an escapable part of our human nature is a deep, deep longing for a significant life.

A deep longing to reach our potential, to have a life of purpose and passion, a life that really matters.

Outside of God, all of the paths that the world offers us, not only do they not produce fruit in our life, they devour it from us.

We are looking for something to worship.

We are looking for a God.

It is imprinted on our hearts.

And so we try to find it in success, and we try to find it in relationships, and we try to find it in things, we try to find it in status, we look for it in our addictions.

And the way that the world works is the more of something you get, the greater your need is for it.

When you get to the end of the line, you find yourself emptier even than when you began.

It is only when we discover and begin to live out our God-given purpose, when we live for a higher call, that we begin to understand the fulfillment that life can actually bring.

Over the first two weeks, we talked about how to break free from our past, from these prior ties that tend to set the agenda for our future.

Last week we turned the corner.

We began to build a framework for proper prioritization.

We're gonna continue building that framework today.

Now, this week, I gotta be honest with you.

I think honestly, we finally done it.

You guys know me, you know, I love a pun, a good play on words.

The cheesier, the better.

I think we did it, guys.

The ultimate cheesy church pastor sermon title.

So good, we may have to retire sermon titles altogether.

Today, in order to help us pray oratize, my message is called pray, oratize.

I told you, it's pretty good, pretty cheesy, pray, oratize.

With that in mind, let's pray.

Father, we love you and we thank you for loving us.

We thank you that even though you are bigger than big, above and beyond it all, that you are also right here with us.

We thank you for your great love for us.

We thank you that you've given us the opportunity to join with your plan and the story that you are writing here on the earth.

God, we're honored by that.

And so we ask that today we would set aside anything that is weighing on our hearts or our minds, that we would open ourselves up to whatever you are wanting to say to us.

We know that you're speaking.

I pray you would help us to hear.

We ask it all in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

In Philippians chapter four, the apostle Paul says, Don't worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition, in everything, like all the things, through prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

This is Paul calling us to a fruitful life right in the middle of all of the pain and suffering that we all endure.

And the Apostle Paul called us to start everything, that is all things, including our priorities, with prayer.

The truth is that most followers of Jesus, if we were honest, struggle to have a consistent prayer life.

At the same time, we've seen over and over again in this series that we're not great at intentionally prioritizing our lives.

We struggle, we end up victims of our own decisions, we end up stuck in life, feeling like we've settled for the status quo.

We're struggling in our marriages.

We are confused beyond belief in our parenting, we're dissatisfied with our careers, we're terrible at handling our money.

We all have these things, we're all broken and we're all jacked up.

We don't know how to properly prioritize our life, and we're spending very little time seeking God in prayer.

And those two things are, of course, related.

We end up allowing the people, places, and things from our past to set the agendas of our future.

We make wild decisions about how we spend our money, who we surround ourselves with, the way we navigate our work environment, and the habits that we allow to form in our lives.

We don't pray.

And there are these great promises in scripture like if people will pray, God will hear us, He will speak to us, He will guide us, He will direct us, convict us, encourage us, but we don't pray.

We don't pray unless, of course, we're in trouble.

We all pray when we're in trouble, when we're going like 15 miles over the speed limit, and then we see the lights in the rear view mirror, and it's like, Lord Jesus, if it could just not be me this time.

We don't pray.

You know, unless our team is like only down one and it's like the end of the fourth quarter, and then then maybe, you know.

Some of us haven't prayed in three years.

Because that's the last time the spurs were good, you know?

It's tough.

We don't pray until an emergency.

Someone that we love is diagnosed with a disease.

Someone gets sick or is it an accident, we lose our job.

And what that should tell us is that somewhere we know instinctively that God is the answer, and yet we don't go to Him for our priorities until life brings us emergencies.

Most Christians, people pursuing Jesus with their lives, are not consistently praying, and there's a lot of reasons for this.

Some people just aren't really sure exactly how to pray.

They're intimidated by it.

Or maybe you're not really convinced it worked.

Maybe there was a time where you prayed really hard for something and God did not come through.

So why would you waste your time praying again?

Maybe you are intimidated because you grew up in religious environments where people could pray like crazy.

I grew up with just normal people who had a normal vocabulary until we prayed.

And then it was the 1400s.

I don't know how it happened, but all of a sudden it was like these and thou's and shows and shants.

It was like, man, what is going on here?

It's intimidating, you know?

Grew up in church with the people who knew like God's nicknames, you know, Yahweh, Adonai, Jehovah.

You just get lost in it.

And the truth is, most people, desperate to discover their purpose, desperate to reach their potential, desperate to get unstuck in life, don't pray.

Because they don't really understand how.

There's a lot to say about prayer, but our starting place today is getting enough of a grasp to build your confidence to start.

And I'm confident that if you will begin praying, if you will make it a consistent part of your life, you will see the power of it so clearly that you will continue in a life of prayer.

Back in Jesus' day, about 2,000 years ago, the Jewish people of his society prayed very structured prayers three times a day.

There were these windows of times, three times a day, every single day of your life, where you would pray, and you wouldn't just pray what you wanted to pray, you would pray written out, scripted prayers, the same prayers at the same time every single day.

And what happened is over time, the intention behind these prayers was lost.

It was no longer really about seeking relationship with God.

Instead, it was more about just a religious exercise.

They were praying to check a box that society had created for them.

The prayers had lost their power.

Also, and not coincidentally, the society and the people in it when Jesus came to earth, their priorities were all kinds of messed up.

The way that they set priorities for people, places, and things and their culture were completely backwards.

If you read the accounts of Jesus' life, it's like everywhere he goes, he is constantly correcting the improper prioritization of how they navigated life.

So of course they go together.

Prayer is one of the starting points for our framework of proper prioritization.

They had lost the power of prayer, they had lost the power of their priorities.

And so maybe you don't pray.

Or maybe you don't pray very often.

Maybe you even feel guilty about it sometimes.

Maybe you don't understand it, you're intimidated, or you're wondering if it actually works.

If that is you, I've got great news.

You are not alone.

Number one, there is perhaps a majority of Christians who feel exactly the same way that you do, and even better news than that, Jesus' 12 disciples themselves did not understand how to pray.

They knew that they had three prayers that they repeated three times a day, over and over, day after day, every day of their lives.

They were spending time with Jesus, and Jesus prayed differently.

We know that they didn't understand because one day they came to Jesus and they asked.

It says that Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray.

These are the disciples.

If you don't know much about the disciples, when Jesus' time on earth was through, he handed them the mission, he handed them this movement that is still going today.

2,000 years later, these 12 men changed the world.

They spread the gospel to the ends of the globe.

They became the greatest prayer warriors that perhaps the church has ever seen.

They ended up giving their lives as martyrs for the cause.

These are the foundation of the church that we are still a part of today.

And these men did not know how to pray.

It's interesting how Jesus chose the disciples because they were basically like this ragtag group of nobodies.

They were passed over, they were looked down on, they were radicals, they were poor, they were uneducated, they came from all walks of life, and Jesus saw them.

These guys who don't even know how to pray, the most basic of spiritual disciplines, and he calls them.

And so maybe you feel like you're not an expert Christian, you know.

Maybe you feel like you've really struggled in this journey to follow after Jesus and live out your purpose and reach your potential, and you need to know the same way that Jesus called these disciples and could see a potential in them that nobody else could see, including themselves.

And if you follow him, you will live a life not just of success, but of significance and of impact beyond what you can even imagine.

You don't know how to pray, you're in good company.

Neither did the disciples.

And so, in two different places in Scripture, Jesus teaches them how to pray.

And chances are you're gonna recognize this prayer.

It's usually called the Our Father.

And what's happened with the Our Father, and a lot of us grew up Catholic, and so you've said the Our Father like more times than you could ever possibly count.

We know it and we memorize it, but this was never meant to just be a prayer prescribed for us to repeat.

This is more accurately called the model prayer.

This prayer was a template for the disciples and for us today to learn how to pray like Jesus.

In Matthew 6, Jesus said, This then is how you should pray.

Not what you should pray, not repeat line for line.

This is the model.

This is how to pray.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

This is, without a doubt, the most famous prayer in all of scriptures, and maybe even the most famous passage.

It's interesting because a lot of us grew up repeating this as the prayer, like this is the prayer.

And if you think of it in the historical context, it's kind of interesting because what the disciples wanted to know is how to break free from these scripted prayers of their culture and learn how to pray for themselves.

They no longer wanted to repeat lines until they repeated the power right out of it.

They wanted to pray like Jesus.

They've been following Jesus for a year or so at this point, and I can kind of imagine all of them like this guy prays weird, you know, like what is going on when this guy prayers?

He's not saying the right words, he's at the wrong time of day, and eventually they see the power of it, the power of his miracles, the power of his message.

I can imagine the disciples because they're they're kind of like always getting things wrong, just trying to convince, drawing straws, like who's gonna ask him?

And finally, finally, one of them, Lord, teach us to pray.

They wanted to pray like Jesus.

They wanted to pray in a way that created power that moved them towards their purpose and on the path to their potential.

They wanted to pray in a way that impacted the world.

They wanted to pray in a way that leads to a life where we maximize our purpose and minimize our distractions, where we multiply our impact and make our lives count.

This was a model prayer.

It was a template to teach us how to pray our own prayers.

It's a powerful template.

And there's so much we could learn from it.

We could preach a different message on the model prayer every week for a year.

But today we're looking at it through the lens of priorities.

We're gonna break this down into two sections that will be incredibly informative for us.

Here's the two major sections.

Section one, we're calling perspective.

This is the section that says, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

This is the section of perspective.

Hold that in your mind.

Because next there is section two, which is our priorities.

Before we get to priorities, we go through perspective.

The priority section says, give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive others, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

It is so critical for us to see the flow of this model prayer, the two major sections.

First, we gain perspective, and then we go to our priorities.

What does this teach us?

This is our big idea for today.

If you forget everything else, hold on to this.

It teaches us that until you have proper perspective, you will not have proper priorities.

Until you gain a proper perspective on life, you will not have proper priorities.

This is the first thing that prayer does for us.

It orients our lives towards a higher perspective.

It gives us a grander vision of our life and the world around us.

Helps us to begin to see the world the way that God sees it.

Without prayer, we are missing a crucial step in our prioritization framework.

And that step is perspective before priorities.

Here's how life works.

We are in the proverbial forest, but we are in it.

We are in the pain, we are in the suffering, we are in the broken marriage, we are in the difficult parenting, we are right there in it.

And so we can't see the forest.

All we can see is the tree.

The tree of that broken relationship, of that marriage that is crumbling and falling apart, of that career that is completely dissatisfying, of the kids who just will not obey and will not respect you, of the finances that are dwindling, of the debt that is stacking up, of the addiction that is overwhelming, all we can see is the tree.

That is our limited perspective.

We are small.

We're broken.

We can't see the forest because we're in it.

We're trying to tackle life one tree at a time, and it's incredibly difficult.

And so we don't know how to set proper priorities.

And if you're struggling in your marriage, and all you can see is the pain of your marriage, there's no way you can set proper priorities.

You're gonna set priorities to self-protect, to take what's yours.

You will not go into conflict to push each other towards the better person you can be.

You will go into conflict looking for blood.

You don't argue to figure things out, you argue to win.

That's the priority.

You get yours, your schedule comes first, your needs come first, you're gonna spend the money the way you want to spend the money, that's the priority.

You can't see the forest.

You're blinded by the tree.

You cannot have proper priorities until you have gained proper perspective.

And prayer elevates us, it lifts us up, it helps us to see things the way that God sees them.

You see beyond the pain of the moment or the pain of your past, you see what your marriage could be if only you could get your priorities right.

Parenting is incredibly difficult.

It's so hard.

If you don't have kids and you get like super annoyed because there's a baby crying in chilies or whatever, have a kid, all right?

Like have a kid and then come talk to us.

It's so hard raising kids.

And it's so easy to prioritize convenience and just getting that kid to shut up for one second and just hand them the iPad, you know what I'm saying?

Just one moment of peace.

It's not always the wrong answer.

But it's definitely not always the right answer.

And how can we set proper priorities for these little people whose lives we are shaping?

If we don't zoom out, if we don't get a grander vision, a higher perspective, if we don't realize that every decision we make with our kids now is informing the adult they will become.

We're the movement of Jesus on the earth.

Metachurch is a small part of it, but a critical part of it.

And the one thing that makes it critical is because we have cracked the code in creating an environment and a gathering where all people can come.

Anything that Jesus didn't originally intend, we will burn to the ground.

We create bridges, we don't build walls.

Everyone can come and find Jesus at MetaCurch, and so it matters that it's here and it matters that it grows.

And our growth strategy is as simple as it can get.

We invite and we invest.

And the truth is, a very small percentage of people do either of those things.

It's a problem of priorities.

You've got a lot of things to fund in your life.

I know.

Adding this to the list is difficult.

It takes courage to risk the rejection of inviting someone to come with you to a Sunday service.

I get it.

How do we grow?

We we get here, we grow here, we give here.

We've settled into routines, we got comfortable watching online, we're neglecting gathering together.

It's all about priorities.

And if you will broaden your perspective, if you will see this movement the way that God sees it, you will realize that this is the only thing that should sit at the top priority of your investment of time, energy, and money because nothing else is rescuing people in between the clutches of heaven and hell.

Proper perspective will lead us to proper priorities.

These are our two sections, and this was how Jesus started the model of.

For how we are to pray.

And what happens consistently, even in my own life, is that I get into prayer and I jump directly past the perspective and I just dive in with God on my laundry list of desires and demands, hoping I can get him on board with my plan.

We skip right over the part where we ground ourselves in understanding exactly who God is.

And so let's break down this section.

It starts by saying, Our Father in heaven, this is who we are talking to.

This is the person, it is God.

It is the creator of all, the one who spoke and didn't just create you and didn't just create Texas, thank God, and didn't just create America or didn't just create our earth.

He created all of it, not just our galaxy, not just our little section.

The entirety of all that exists was started with a word.

He is God.

He sees the end from the beginning, in the beginning, from the end.

He is all wisdom, all knowledge, all love, all power.

He is all places at all times.

He is outside and above it all, and yet he is with us, in us, uh, before us, behind us.

He goes with us everywhere that we go.

He is God.

This is so grounding.

This is so grounding.

And like, if you don't do anything else, if there's no application out of this message, except that every day you wake up and you realize who God is.

It will change your life.

It will ground you.

And in the scope of the universe, you are imperceptibly small.

It's a good starting place for humility, and yet, as small as we are, God has chosen us.

He's given his life for us.

He's involved us with his plan for the universe that he spoke into existence, our Father in heaven.

Hallowed be your name.

This is a statement of his position.

It is drawing a line of distinction between who we are and who he is.

He is hallowed, which means holy, which means set apart.

He is not the same as us.

He is righteous.

He is all good.

He does sit on the throne where he rules and he reigns.

He has all power and yet he reserves and allows us freedom and purpose.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.

Now, this isn't um, this isn't an aspiration.

This is a guarantee.

Your kingdom come is a statement of the highest perspective.

This is the reality that God will come, he will rule, he will reign.

It is coming.

All the kingdoms of the earth will pass away, and the kingdom of God will stand.

You understand before we even touch our priorities, we have to get the right perspective.

Because if you are not careful, and if you don't realize who he is and what he is, and if you don't understand the magnitude of his potential and what is coming, we all have a deep longing.

We all need a God.

When we forget who he is, we make ourselves little gods.

We seek to live, to build our own kingdom, our own name, our own brand, to measure up our own success, and one day it will all fade.

Your kingdom come and your will be done on earth, just as it is in heaven.

You see, the perspective is leading us to our purpose.

The purpose of your life lived out.

Whatever it uniquely looks like based on who you are and the skills that you have and where God has placed you and the resources He's given you, whatever your unique purpose is, it is only true purpose if at the end of it it is building God's kingdom and your success is meaningless if it is not being leveraged for what God is doing on the earth.

And your skills are worthless and powerless if they are not being used to push forward the one thing that will stand eternally, and we don't understand our purpose if we don't understand the ultimate potential of God's coming kingdom, and we don't understand the kingdom if we don't understand God's position, and we don't understand his position if we don't understand the person, who he is.

We must start with perspective.

We must start by realizing that he is God.

We are not.

He is holy, he is set apart, he is the creator, and I am the creation.

Remembering that it is his plan, it is his story that is unfolding, it's his kingdom that will reign forever.

And we have been invited to help build it.

It is only once we have proper perspective that we can begin to jump into prioritizing our lives.

But this is what we do.

We prioritize when there are emergencies, and when there's an emergency, you gotta get right to it.

Here's what I need you to work on, God.

God, here's your assignment for the week.

We pass to perspective.

I was really convicted while I was putting this message together.

I thought about a time in my life, I've shared this story because it's it's one of the coolest things that's ever happened to me.

And um, I woke up really early one morning, like five or six in the morning, and I went to the gym.

And when I got to the gym, there was one person on the basketball court, and that person was David Freakin' Robinson.

It was just me and David Robinson shooting hoops at the same basket for like 15 minutes.

I've been a Spurs fan my whole life.

I grew up, love David Robinson.

He's one of the 50 greatest NBA players of all time.

So frustrating.

I could not hit a shot.

I was so nervous, brick after brick, you know.

I'm never gonna make the Spurs at this rate.

It was really cool, man.

We got to talk.

He's super kind, he's a follower of Jesus.

He shared his basket with me, didn't have to do that, you know.

And so here was my experience.

Uh about 15 minutes, we shot and we talked.

And about every eight seconds, I would remind myself, bro, you're shooting hoops with David Robinson.

And then about eight seconds later, I would be like, David Robinson just shot a hook shot right in front of me.

Every eight seconds, they're like, I touched David Robinson.

Like, every eight seconds, reminding myself over and over again, it was like all I could do to just not pinch myself, like, is this happening?

I'm playing basketball with the admiral.

It's just crazy.

And David Robinson is amazing.

He's the man, no doubt.

Lifelong spur.

Do you know David Robinson scored 70 points in an NBA game one time?

He's built like a yield sign, 50-inch shoulders, 20-inch waist, you know?

He's awesome! David Robinson.

But he didn't speak the world into being.

He didn't lay the foundations of the universe.

He certainly didn't trade his own life so that I could live eternally.

And somehow, every eight seconds, I had to remind myself of the magnitude of who I was sharing a hoop with.

And yet, I can jump into a prayer with the God of the universe and never think twice about the unbelievable opportunity to be speaking with Him.

Perspective must start our prayers.

Before we get to priorities, before we get to the pain, before we get to the trauma, before we get to the answers, before we try to figure it out, before we get the solution, before we start working the problem, we must start with perspective.

And if nothing else, if once a day you will begin to acknowledge who he is, it will begin to change your life.

When you begin to realize that the one who exists outside of space and time is also right with you, is pursuing you, is desperate to bring you into relationship with himself and unleash the purpose he placed inside of you on this world.

That is when life begins to change.

And so only after Jesus modeled proper perspective does he begin to talk about priorities.

And so when we break down the second section, we begin to see the same three categories we've seen throughout this series.

Give us today our daily bread, that's how we view our things.

Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors, that's how we relate to people, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

These are the places and spaces that we allow ourselves and our minds to go.

You see, when you start with proper perspective, it changes the way you view your priorities.

Jesus doesn't ask for a cattle on a thousand hills, he realizes that God already has that.

What does he want?

He needs daily bread.

God, give me what I need for today to do your purpose in the world.

How does he deal with people?

He says, Help me to forgive others.

Why?

Because I have the perspective that I've already been forgiven.

He asks for help in the places and spaces where temptation reigns, the places and spaces you allow yourself to go, or your mind to go, or your web browser to go, your thoughts, your dreams to go, that leads you to actions that you don't want to take, that put you around people that you shouldn't be in relationship with, that develop in you habits that derail your destiny, that shape you into the person who you don't want to be.

If you're familiar with the Our Father, you probably know that there's one more section.

The model prayer ends by saying, Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Amen.

And as soon as the model, as soon as the template comes out of priorities, it goes right back to where it started, back to perspective.

Perspective, priorities, perspective.

You are God, I am not.

Here's what I'm struggling with today your plan, your will, not mine.

Don't pray much.

Not sure where to start.

This is the model.

If you can't figure out anything else, acknowledge who God is.

Tell him what you need, acknowledge who God is.

Begin praying, and God will speak.

Would you pray with me now?

And as you guys close your eyes, nothing magic, just creating some space for yourself and for the people around you.

As I pray, I want to challenge you right where you are to pray as well.

To work the model, to work the template.

To start, maybe for the first time in a long time, acknowledging who God is, what he is.

He is hallowed, wholly set apart.

What he is doing, the kingdom he is building, and what your purpose is.

For heaven to come right to the earth.

God knows what you need, he knows what you want.

After proper perspective, give it all to him.

You can be ruthlessly honest, he's God, he can handle it.

But before you close, go back to perspective.

His will, not ours.

Father, we love you.

And we're blown away that you love us, that the God of it all, that the God of the universe, the king of all of the kings, all power, all might, all wisdom, all love, all power, that you love us.

God, we want to live out our purpose.

We want to discover it and give everything to it.

God, we struggle with the things in our life.

We struggle with how to manage them.

We struggle with finances, with debt.

God, we struggle with insecurities that we try to cover up with name brands and new rides and bigger houses and better things.

You are God, you own it all, and you've chosen us.

I pray that even that reality would begin to shape how we prioritize our things.

God, our relationships are hard.

It's a struggle.

But you know, God, you know and you see us, and I pray that you would give us the proper perspective on the people in our life.

And God, there are places and spaces that we're allowing ourselves to go.

Places and spaces that we have made priorities that are leading us away from the life you've given us to live.

Father, we give this all to you because you are worthy, because you are God.

We are not.

We love you and we worship you 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.