Sacrifice 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.

Well, welcome to MetaCurch.

I'm so glad that you joined us in Holotis Online and at the 151 Saloon.

Hey, before we go any further, could you just give it up for our band like week after week?

Showing up and leading us in worship so well.

Uh, we're continuing a conversation we started last week.

And last week we started talking about sacrifice.

Now I know not everyone makes it every week, and sometimes we encourage you to get caught up, but I'll really go to bat for this one.

Uh last week's message was a starting point for this conversation.

And the idea of sacrifice is not just how you guarantee a successful life, it's more importantly how you guarantee a significant life.

And we start with the assumption out of scripture here at MetaCurch that you were created on purpose.

It actually matters that you're here on earth, and you were created with purpose, which means that you have work to do.

You were meant to move, you were meant to make a difference in the world around you.

I want to echo what Katie said.

I'm so proud of everyone who found a way to serve yesterday here in our city.

A lot of you fought the rain and the inclement weather to get out there and really get after it.

If you weren't here last week, I'll give you a brief synopsis.

We learned that the proper path to sacrifice is looking in and looking up.

We look in to battle with our intentions and we look up to give God our proper attention.

Our intentions are where we decide what we value the most.

And when we value the wrong things, they end up blocking the path of our purpose and potential.

And our attention is where we orient our life towards the highest value.

And last week we really focused on looking in, and today we're really gonna focus on looking up.

And to help us with that, we're gonna be a little bit in the Old Testament or the Jewish scriptures, and a little bit in the New Testament or the Christian scriptures.

We're gonna start in Genesis chapter six in the Old Testament, and it says this when the Lord saw that human wickedness was widespread on the earth, and that every inclination of the human mind was nothing but evil all the time, the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and he was deeply grieved.

And the Lord said, I will wipe mankind, whom I created, off the face of the earth, together with the animals, creatures that crawl, and birds of the sky, for I regret that I made them.

Noah, however, found favor with the Lord.

And these are the family records of Noah.

Noah was a righteous man, blameless among his contemporaries, and Noah walked with God.

Would you pray with me?

Father, we love you, and we are talking about the proper path to live life in this broken world.

And so, God, I pray wherever we're at in our life, in our spiritual journey, that we would have the humility to just lay down the baggage that we all bring in and to make room for you to speak to us.

We thank you for loving us, and we pray all of this in Jesus' name, and everybody said, Amen.

Now, even if you didn't grow up in the church, uh chances are that you probably are familiar with the story of Noah and the great flood.

This is a story that pervades culture even outside of Christianity.

Now, Noah's future has been made known to him.

Death is coming, and it is death by flood.

We don't think about it a lot, but that is where our future is heading as well.

It's the one thing that all people hold in common.

One out of every one person dies.

That's right.

You come to metachurch for that kind of encouraging word in the mornings.

One out of every one person dies.

And we're probably not gonna die by flood, although I was on Fortune in Broadway at one o'clock yesterday praying for an ark, you know, like it got kind of crazy there for a second.

And then the story always teaches a deeper truth.

And scripture is this unbelievable, miraculous collection of ancient texts that we believe as Jesus followers, we're inspired by God Himself, that you can just plunge as deep as you possibly can in and you'll never find the bottom.

And one of the things this story seems to tell us is that the flood is always coming, and the flood is always inevitable, and that death is coming, and we know that we'll all die physically, but we're also in danger of a different kind of death.

And that's the kind of death where you're alive but not really living.

Like the death of your passion or of your purpose, the death of your potential or of your future, and so we all deal with the flood, and the floods come day after day, and life is suffering.

And if you don't realize that yet, then your eyes aren't open.

You're not really awake.

Either that or you just haven't lived long enough.

Because life is suffering.

And so I don't know what your flood looks like, but maybe it's the flood of anxiety that just leaves you incapacitated in every aspect of your life, or maybe it's the flood of pride and self-infatuation where you have this very shallow existence and your life is only about you, even though you were created to live in community with others.

Maybe you deal with the floods of fear that just cripple you and paralyze you in your career, in your relationships, in your social life.

We can't escape the floods.

They show up time and time again, the floods of anger and distrust and addiction and lust, and on and on the list goes.

We're always in danger of these floods stealing our lives, killing us spiritually, emotionally, relationally.

The flood is coming.

And so the question is: how do we survive?

And Noah is like our template, he's our example.

And out of all of humanity, Noah was saved because Noah walked with God.

That's a big spiritual statement.

And so the hard work is determining what that actually means for us and what does it actually look like in our life.

If we want to overcome the flood, how do we walk with God?

We're looking at Noah as our example, and then we're going like thousands and thousands of years into the future from Noah's point of view to Jesus.

In Matthew chapter six, Jesus is teaching on a hill.

We call it the Sermon on the Mountain.

This is where Jesus is laying out what the kingdom life is like.

This is what life looks like when Jesus rules and reigns in our lives.

And so on the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew chapter six, Jesus said, Therefore I tell you, don't worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or even about your body, what you will wear.

Isn't life more than food and the body more than clothing?

This section of the Sermon on the Mount is known as the cure for anxiety.

And we find anxiety right at the beginning of our fallen world.

Last week we started there.

We started right at the fall of man.

And if you're not familiar with the story, the first man and the first woman they lived in perfection and they had full access and relationship with God, and they had all the resources that they'd ever need, and they had actual perfect relationships, and they only had one rule.

And the rule was that there was a tree and it was near the center of the garden, and they weren't to go near it, and they weren't to eat the fruit of the tree.

And last week we talked about instinct gratification, and so they were tempted.

And the instinct gratification temptation always sounds like this You want this thing, you have access to it, do it right now.

And so they they gave in.

They could not delay, they could not sacrifice what they wanted then for what they needed later, and so they ate.

And the world was touched by chaos.

And that's the biblical narrative of the fall of man and the fall of all of creation.

And now we're just here in all of this brokenness, with all of our hate and mistrust and division and evil.

That's the world that we are occupying currently, a world of incredible trouble, incredible suffering.

We saw last week that sacrifice is the way to navigate a fallen and broken world.

The first thing that happens when Adam and Eve eat the fruit is they realize that this whole time they have been naked.

Have you ever had one of those dreams where you're like going about your day and it's a very realistic dream, and you're going through a lot of steps and you've seen a lot of people and you've done a lot of things, and all of a sudden in the dream you look down and you're naked?

Anybody?

Can anybody testify?

Naked dreams?

They're very common.

Psychologists would say a high percentage of you have, if I'm the only one up here who's gonna admit to having it's like you go to the office and everything's cool.

Bob, Janet, how's it going?

You know, you go, you make some copies, you drop the paper, no, that's too far, that's too far.

It's like, and then you realize nude, anxiety, man, that's the height of anxiety.

And so that's what happens.

Their eyes are open, and the first thing scripture tells us is that's what they realize shame and insecurity, lack of confidence, anxiety.

And then they realize what the curse, what the result of this fall is going to be.

And God lays it out and he says, if you want to eat, and eating's a good idea, because if you don't eat, you're gonna die.

So if you want to eat, you have to work.

And it's gonna be very difficult.

You have to work the land, and the land will now work against you, and it's gonna take you some time to figure out exactly how to produce some plants.

And by the way, most of the plants are poisonous, so be really careful about which ones you pick.

And so now all of nature is conspiring against us, and the only way that we get any food is if we do the work.

Scripture says, by the sweat of your brow, you will eat.

You can't eat, you die.

You can't drink, you die.

Incredible, incredible anxiety.

And so, right from the jump, what are the first fears?

Clothing, food, water.

Jesus says, Don't worry.

Don't worry about your life, what you will eat, or what you drink.

Don't worry, don't worry about your body or the clothes that you will wear.

I need you to understand the significance of what Jesus is doing when he's telling us about the kingdom life, is he is telling us about the reversal of the curse that started at the moment the world fell.

And so this isn't some like Sunday school teaching to just approach casually and hope that maybe you can add some of it to your life.

This is the answer.

This is how to live the life that you were created to live.

This is deeply, deeply spiritual, but also deeply, deeply practical.

Jesus begins to expand his thought.

In verse 26, he says, Consider the birds of the sky.

They don't sow or reap or gather into barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them.

And aren't you worth more than the birds?

It's a rhetorical question, and the answer is an obvious yes.

In verse 27, he asks, Can any of you add one moment to their life by worrying?

This passage is the antidote to anxiety, the cure for your worry.

Jesus is gonna ask several questions in a row that are worth, we don't have time, but they are worth your consideration.

And some of you worry like it is your full-time job.

Some of you are professional worriers, as if by worrying about the future, you're going to do anything meaningful to make it better.

Can you add one moment to your life?

And modern science would say, go ahead and worry like it is your full-time job, and you are slowly taking minutes, hours, and days off of your life.

Verse 28, and why do you worry about clothes?

And that's a pretty good question for us to consider as well.

Observe how the wildflower uh flowers of the field grow.

They don't labor or spin thread, and yet I tell you that not even Solomon, the richest king ever, in all of his splendor was adorned like one of these.

And if that's how God clothed the grass of the field, which is here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, won't he do much more for you?

O ye of little faith.

It's very, very important when we approach scripture, and especially the words of Jesus, that we let the passage speak for itself, that we get the full context, because a lot of people stop right here.

And so far, what we've learned in this passage is don't worry.

Don't worry.

God's got this.

He takes care of the birds, he takes care of the flowers.

God's got you, no worries.

And if you worry, you know, just stop.

Like that's the whole answer.

And so we stop right here and we kind of get this like hippie Jesus, you know.

Don't worry, be happy, Jesus.

Like big Lebowski Jesus, you know?

He's he's like, don't worry about your clothes, bro.

Just put on some pajamas.

You don't need a suit and tie, just be comfortable and do what you want.

And and and whatever you gotta do to be happy today, you know, this is like you do you, Jesus, you know?

He's not ever gonna really contradict your desires.

Just bro, you do you, you know.

You you live your best life.

And that's not the full picture.

And you're gonna get that advice a lot if you are going to culture for your advice.

Live your best life.

Well, there's a follow-up question, which is which you?

The you right now that wants to jeopardize your future by giving into your temptations, or the you in the future who still wants to have some significance and self-worth.

So this is like hippie Jesus, and it's hippie Jesus because we're not done.

In 31, Jesus goes on, so don't worry.

That's the same advice.

Don't worry, don't worry, don't worry.

Don't worry saying, What will we eat or what will we drink or what will we wear?

But now we get some more context.

For the Gentiles, the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly father knows that you need them.

Now, this is Jesus before the cross, before the empty tomb, before the ascension, before the church has started.

And when the church started, the good news, the gospel, went to all of the nations, but right now it's just the Jews.

They're God's chosen people.

The Jewish people are the children of God, and that's who Jesus is speaking to.

And Gentile just means non-Jew.

And so what Jesus is communicating right now is something like why are you, as God's children, worrying the same way as people who don't know God?

Why are you, as the people chosen by the Creator who holds and sustains all things and can give you exactly what you need, worrying like the people who have no source of hope in their life?

And the context isn't done because the passage isn't done.

And some people go right to this point and they stop.

And they don't believe in hippie Jesus, but they believe in prosperity, Jesus.

And they say, listen, if you if you're one of the chosen, then you're good, man.

Show up, come to service, stay in church, write a big enough check, lift your hands in worship, do all the right religious things, make sure you stay away from the big, bad sinners.

You know, those out there outside of the church, we'll stay in the church, we'll come four or five times a week, we'll all stay together, we'll band together, we'll do our little Christian thing, we'll all give the right things, we'll all say the right things and dress the right way, and then God will give you exactly what you want.

And you want to live in that house, you'll live in that house, and you'll drive that car, and you'll wear those brands, you'll have that money, and you'll find that love.

Your addiction will melt away without any effort on your part.

It's Oprah Jesus.

It's like you get a car and you get a car and you get a car, and that sounds great.

We love that Jesus.

And so here's the problem: we turn Jesus into the genie in the lamp, and so people show up and start rubbing, and they start making their wishes, and their wishes don't come true.

And they walk away from faith in a Jesus that never existed.

We don't need hippie Jesus or Oprah Jesus or prosperity Jesus or fire and damnation, Jesus.

We need Jesus, period.

And any attempt to qualify who Jesus is is an attempt to take the things we value and to get him on our agenda.

And so that's the question for the life of sacrifice.

Do you want Jesus for what he can do for you and what you value, or do you just want him?

Do you actually trust that your life, your purpose, your significance, your peace, your love, that it is found in the person and the work of Jesus Christ?

So often we come and we have this immature view of what it means to follow Christ.

And we think that if we follow Christ, eventually Christ will follow us.

And if you needed Christ to follow you, you wouldn't need him in the first place.

You'd work your own way to heaven, and I gotta tell you, none of us are even close.

And so we want to qualify Jesus, and Jesus is unqualifiable.

And so we have to get the full picture.

There's more to the answer than just don't worry.

That is what we're going to stop doing.

But first, we have to understand what we need to start doing.

And we we get the answer in 33.

Jesus says, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

So don't worry, don't worry, don't worry, don't worry, don't worry, but don't worry.

Instead, seek first God's kingdom and God's righteousness and all these other things, the things you're staying up worrying about, the things that are taking all of your capacity and all of your energy and all of your emotion, the things that are driving you to your addictions because they're so painful you can't bear them.

All of these other things, all the other needs, all the other worries, all of it will be taken care of.

And it sounds simple, but it's far from it.

The call to seek God's kingdom is the call to orient our attention and our life towards the highest possible good that we can do every moment of every day.

And it's quite the task.

And I actually believe that we probably cannot imagine or quantify the power that is within this movement we call metachurch, if we would all take even just 10% of our time and our energy and attention and focus it towards the highest possible good we could do in this world.

And if we took an inventory of our last week and we were viciously honest.

And if you want to be successful and you want to live a significant life, you will have to be viciously honest first with yourself.

And I just wonder where your energy and emotion went this last week.

And we live in a world right now where culture is begging for our attention and our emotion in the political landscape.

And so we're just binge watching the worst news that we can find.

And then when we're not looking at the news, we're on social media platforms and we're just reading all of these comments of whatever idiot is on the other side of the aisle that you sit on.

And maybe you're even venting some of that rage out, just keyboard warrior, not changing anyone's hearts or anyone's minds, sowing more division, but dang it, you made your point.

And some of you, 40% of your emotional capacity, went to who your team was gonna take in the draft this week.

It's like we're all aiming at something.

And how much of your energy and how much of your attention is on parts of your job that you can't stop worrying about that you have actually no control over?

And Jesus says, You want to quit worrying?

You want to rid yourself of anxiety?

You want to pursue the life you were created to live?

Seek first.

And the word seek is a Greek word originally, and it's a hunting term.

And I'm not much of a hunter, but I've been a few times.

And when you hunt, you have one aim.

And whatever animal you are after, you are dialed in.

All five of your senses are activated as you are pursuing that target in every step that you take, and every move, every action, almost every breath you're aware of, every breath that you're breathing.

And when you finally get close enough, you take aim.

And it's great.

The church can get up and we can sing about and we can preach about and we can talk about and we can post about what our lives are aimed at with our words, but our actions will actually display it.

What is actually getting our worship?

What is actually getting our attention?

What are our lives pointing at?

How is our intentions lined with our attention?

Seek first God's kingdom and his righteousness, and all the worries, all of the things, the sleepless nights, the constant running through the same mental scripts over and over and over again, all of it will be taken care of.

And Jesus sums it up.

He says, Therefore, and here's a side note when you see therefore in scripture, that that means it's about to summarize uh the next the passage that's before.

In verse 34, he says, Therefore, don't worry about tomorrow.

Because tomorrow will worry about itself.

Each day has enough trouble of its own.

And what it doesn't say is don't plan for tomorrow, because we're learning.

About sacrifice and sacrifice is bargaining with the future.

Sacrifice is laying down the things that you value that are wrong in order to make your way to the life that is right.

Over and over and over again, scripture informs us that we should be living with the end in mind.

It doesn't say don't plan for your future, it says don't worry about your future.

You've got enough on your plate today.

You see, the call to following Jesus is not a call to passivity, it's not a call to just sit in the seats and nod along with the songs.

It is a call to the adventure of a lifetime.

It is the call to bear up under the weight of the world, to lift it off of those who are oppressed and marginalized, to shine light in a world of darkness.

It is not to be entered into fullheartedly.

It is the call of a sacrificial life, and here's how we live.

We live so worried about tomorrow that we are paralyzed to do anything today to make our tomorrow better.

And so it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And you spend so much time worrying that you're gonna miss the promotion, that you can't do any work that would lead you to maybe get the promotion.

And so you get passed up, and what do you say?

Of course.

And it's not of course.

You brought it into being and eliminated yourself before it ever even started.

And we're worried about a tomorrow that we can't control, and we're giving up on the decisions today that we have some agency over.

And this is really hard because you can plan for and sacrifice for tomorrow, and it will actually allow you to live a life where you're not overcome and overwhelmed by the troubles today.

But it takes intention, it takes looking in and wrestling with what you value in it, it takes your attention and orienting your life towards the highest possible good that you can imagine.

And this is deeply, deeply, deeply spiritual because if you do that, God will take care of you.

But it's also deeply, deeply practical.

And so maybe you hate your job and maybe you're miserable, and you and you don't get along with most of your coworkers, and your boss is quite the tyrant, and you're underpaid, and you're passed up for promotions, and no one really values you, and so what are you gonna do about it?

And the chances are you're just gonna worry, and you're gonna worry about those coworkers that you don't like, and they don't like you back, and you're gonna worry about your boss, and you're gonna worry about how little you're compensated, and you're gonna worry about whether or not you can even get yourself out of bed to make your way to work because you're so miserable.

That's a lot of anxiety, that's a lot of worry.

And what would happen if you woke up and you assessed your intentions and you tried your best to orient your life to the highest possible good that you could do in every moment of your day?

What if you tried?

What if you took God up on the adventure of a lifetime?

And it might look something like this.

You go into work and everyone gets to work a little bit early because there's only a few good parking spots.

And if you don't get those parking spots, you're in the remote lot.

And so everyone fights over it, and you get there, and there's a spot, but you're aimed at the highest possible good, and you drive your car to the remote lot, and nobody sees you because you're not in this for the praise and acclamation of the world around you.

You are aiming your life at the highest possible good.

And so you've done good, but nobody cares.

But good for you, you've aimed your life in the right direction.

And so you walk into work and you pass by the person and they don't like you, and you don't like them, and no one in your company can work with them because they're an impossible person, and we all know someone is on our mind right now, and that's fine.

Don't say their name out loud, pray about it.

And you walk in, and all you do is smile at them on day one, because it's all you can muster, because this is very new, and you're trying to do the right things.

And you smile at them and they think that guy's on crack, and that's fine because it's just day one.

And then you go to your meeting and your boss is a tyrant, and he has a couple of things that he does, or she has a couple of things that she does, and they make everybody's life hell.

And your life is oriented towards the highest possible good.

Spoiler alert it's always wrong to lie.

And so you have to sacrifice your comfort and your deep desire to just go along to get along, and you might be sacrificing your job, but you tell the emperor he has no clothes on.

You suggest some changes, and you do it kindly because you're gonna do it kindly because your life is oriented towards seeking God and the highest good.

And so now your boss hates you and he moves you into an office that is like the smallest office, and he gives someone else your nice office, and you're like, this whole following God thing is really going well for me.

You know, I had to walk a mile and a half to get to work now, and I had to smile at someone I hate, and now my boss hates me even more, and and and and something's happening because it's just day one.

And so day two comes in and and you you're there even earlier because it was easier to wake up that day and you really could get a good spot.

But you go to the remote lot and you're like, what is this whole following Jesus thing?

I'm almost out on this, and and you go in, and because you smiled the day before, you can actually say something to the person that nobody can work with.

And they're like, I don't know, if he's on drugs, I want some of those drugs, so I don't know what's going on here.

And you go in and your boss, your boss, he heard you.

He can't he can't acknowledge it because he's a tyrant, but he heard you, and he's made small changes, and every single person's workplace is just incrementally less miserable, and it's because of you, and they know it.

And that's day two, and so then day three, and you keep building, and over the course of a week it's easier to go to work, and over the course of a month, you actually feel a sense of purpose in a place that felt like you were living in hell.

And six months later, leadership is meeting, and they're saying, This one lady, I don't know what's going on here, but the people no one can work with, she can work with, and she has the influence of all of her peers.

And you want a real team player?

I've noticed she parks in the remote lot every single morning.

We should probably move her on up.

It's deeply spiritual, but it's deeply practical.

And you just aim your life at the highest possible good because the life of following Christ is the life that you are created to live.

And I don't come here to lie to you.

That's not my job.

I come here to shoot you very straight.

And so I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna sugarcoat it.

Most marriages are not good.

I see friend groups where the marriage that's on a pedestal, like the best marriage, is not a good marriage.

It's hard.

It is hard to have a good marriage.

Most of them are struggling.

There's some that are good, but most of them are struggling.

And so you're six months in and you're just worried.

You're worried that it's not gonna work.

You're worried that that you're actually the bad guy.

You're worried about splitting up the kids and splitting up the assets, and you're worried about the lawyer bill, and you're worried about all of it.

And so, inevitably, there's like three months of dishes in the sink because you would rather swallow needles than actually give in and do the dishes, right?

And you barely see each other in the morning, and you come home, and you watch different shows in different rooms, and you go to bed, maybe in the same bed, maybe not.

There's no intimacy, there's no magic.

That was gone a long time ago.

And so, what do you do if you're aiming your life at the highest possible good?

I mean, what does it really look like?

What would it look like to have a cure for your anxiety?

What would it look like for your life to be successful and significant?

And so you wake up and you you wrestle with your intentions, and you're gonna immediately realize that you're both being jerks for doing the dishes, but someone's gotta do them at some point.

And you orient your life towards the highest possible good.

And because you want to do that, you're gonna do all of the dishes, and then you're gonna cook a breakfast, and then you're gonna make a coffee.

And I got a news flash for you.

This is not the notebook, this is not a chick flick, this is not a love story, it's not gonna fix anything.

They're gonna walk in and be like, that's good.

It's gonna take a lot more than one breakfast to get you out of this.

And they're gonna grab their coffee, and to spite you, they're not gonna eat the breakfast you cooked, and that's it.

And that's that's the first morning.

And so you're gonna go to work and you're gonna wrestle hard and you're gonna fail at this, but you're gonna fail forward, and you're going to point your life towards the highest possible good that you can do.

And she's gonna get a text message from you in the middle of the day that she hasn't gotten in a year and a half.

I hope you're having a good day.

And you're gonna come home from work.

And instead of going to different rooms and watching different shows, you're gonna sit next to her on the couch and you're gonna put your arm around her.

And y'all are y'all are such foreigners to each other that as soon as your arm goes around, she's gonna be like, this fool is strangling me.

Here we go.

I knew it was coming.

And you're not gonna strangle her, you're just gonna try and demonstrate some love.

And who knows how that's gonna go, and I'm not kidding, probably poorly.

You're not gonna undo seven years of bad in one day, but you're building something.

You're seeking something, you're on the hunt for the life that God actually has for you, and that's just day one, and you'll prove it's real on day two, and you'll prove it's real on day 200, and you'll prove it's real in the second year, and you'll keep going, and you will fail, but you'll fail forward.

And you'll look at your intentions and you'll see the things that you value that are holding you back from that marriage and holding you back from that career, and holding you back from those relationships, and holding you into these addictions, and you will lay them down and sacrifice them.

You'll sacrifice of yourself and you will seek God, and you will begin to live the life that you desperately want to be living.

And so Noah's our example in Genesis 6.

Then God said to Noah, I've decided to put an end to every creature, for the earth is filled with wickedness, and because of them, therefore I'm gonna destroy them along with the earth.

And so make yourself an ark of gopher wood, and make rooms in the ark, and cover it with pitch inside and outside, and this is how you are to make it.

The ark will be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, 45 feet high, and you're to make a roof, finishing the sides of the ark to within 18 inches of the roof, and you're to put a door at the side of the ark, making it with lower, middle, and upper decks.

And the the flood is coming, and the metaphorical floods are always coming in our life.

But this is a literal flood, and it's on our way.

And what does God do?

He asks Noah to sacrifice all of his own plans, all of his own intentions, all of his own dreams, and to point his life at the highest possible good, the salvation of humanity.

Most scholars believe it took 75 years to build the ark.

Day after day after day, for 75 years.

On day one, it did not look like a boat.

It was maybe some plans, a few pieces of wood.

On day 10, it did not look like a boat.

On day 100, it did not look like a boat.

On day 1000, it did not look like a boat.

On day three thousand, it did not look like a boat, but he's building something.

He's building something, and his life is pointed towards a direction that actually matters.

In verse 17, understand, I'm bringing a flood, floodwater's on the earth.

It's gonna destroy every creature under heaven with the breath of life in it.

Everything on earth will perish, but I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark with your sons, with your wife, with your son's wife, and you are also to bring into the ark two of all of the living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you.

One decision to look at his intentions, to see what he valued the most, to lay it down, orient his life towards what God had for him, the highest possible good that he could do in his lifetime, and he saved the world.

And maybe at that point you're like, I'm out.

I mean, bro, I'm flipping burgers.

How am I saving the world?

You know what I'm saying?

Like, well, I'm not Noah, you know?

I'm not building a boat.

And what I find so sad is how deeply we underestimate the power of a life pointed in the right direction.

And how much we minimize the difference that we can make as individuals, the difference that we can make as a movement that we've named metachurch, if all of us would put our attention and our intention to building the kingdom of God.

And we wore the bracelets, WWJD, and it was just a fad, but it's so much more than a fad because the highest possible good came down to this earth and he put on flesh, and he suffered through every temptation we suffered through, and he experienced all that life had to offer, and he suffered like we suffered, and he lived the perfect life.

What would Jesus do?

Is a question that orients us to the purpose that God has placed on our life.

To pursue the highest possible good is by definition higher than yourself.

God help us if any of us are the highest possible good.

If Clayton Tyner is the highest possible good, we are in deep, deep trouble.

It must be something bigger than us, and that matters because the world is full of suffering and you need something bigger than yourself, a higher purpose to navigate the pain.

And when we don't pursue, with all that we have, seeking God's kingdom and his righteousness, we seek to build our own kingdom.

And if you have to build your own kingdom, then you have to make sure you have enough status and enough wealth and enough money and look the right way and sound the right way and check all the right boxes.

And to me, that sounds like anxiety.

But if we put our life to building God's kingdom, then we join with a movement, thousands of years in the making, a movement that has brought hope, joy, peace, and love to every corner of our world.

The truth is you cannot walk with God and seek your own kingdom.

And the floods are coming day after day after day, and those who walk with God will be spared.

And so if you've put your faith in Jesus, your eternity is secure.

The question is, what will you do with the rest of your days in this temporal world?

What difference will you make?

What kind of life will you live?

It took Noah 75 years to build the ark.

He worked every day for 75 years.

It's unimaginable all the things that he had to sacrifice.

But in the end, it was worth it.

And so, how do we live like Noah?

How do we walk with God?

We get intentional about sacrificing of ourselves and seeking after God.

And if we will be the people who wake up orienting our life towards the highest possible good that we can do, it is unimaginable the difference that your life will make.

Would you pray with me?

Father, we love you and we just thank you, God.

We we thank you for loving us, we thank you for making a way for us.

We thank you, God.

It's almost impossible to understand how you chose us to join with you in what you're doing in the world, and yet you did.

You loved us and you proved it with the life of your own son, the ultimate sacrifice.

And so, Jesus, we don't just want what you can do for us.

We want you.

We want to orient our lives towards you.

We want to make our decisions for you.

We want to navigate our relationships with you.

We want to raise our kids in you.

We just want you.

And so we ask, God, that you would give us the courage and you'd give us the strength to continue pursuing you with all that we have.

We love you.

And God, as we go into a time of worship, I pray we would do just that.

We would set our attention on you 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.

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