Present Pain, Future Gain 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.

But uh today we're gonna be talking about the topic of sacrifice.

We see this illustrated very early in the Jewish scriptures, what we often call the Old Testament.

In Genesis chapter 4, it says the man, Adam, was intimate with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain.

Genesis 4 · chapter mention

And she said, I have had a male child with the Lord's help.

And she also gave birth to his brother, Abel, and Abel became a shepherd of flocks, and Cain worked the ground.

In the course of time, Cain presented some of the land's produce as an offering to the Lord, and Abel also presented an offering, some of the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions.

The Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but he did not have regard for Cain and his offering, and Cain was furious and he looked despondent.

And the Lord said to Cain, Why are you furious?

And why do you look despondent?

If you do what is right, won't you be accepted?

But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door, its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.

And Cain said to his brother Abel, Let's go out to the field.

And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

Today I want to talk about sacrifice, and my message for you is called present pain, future gain.

Present pain, future gain.

Would you guys pray with me?

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

We thank you that you love us.

And uh, God, we ask that as we approach your word and as we spend this time together, that we would have open minds and open hearts, and God, that we would be prepared for whatever you might want to say to us.

We love you.

And we ask all these things in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

I think sacrifice is one of the more misunderstood parts of Scripture where we're looking today in Genesis 4.

This is very early on, and as scripture goes on, God eventually takes one people for himself, the Jewish people, and they have a very specific and very significant role to one day bring the savior of the world into existence through their lineage.

And one of the things that God instituted in the Jewish law was the sacrificial system.

And when we talk about sacrifice in the Bible, this is usually what modern people think of.

And it was a very elaborate system, and people brought uh animals and other offerings, produce, and they would bring them to the temple and they would sacrifice them there.

And there was a lot of sacrifice, which meant a lot of fire and a lot of burning and a lot of blood.

And so people look back on that in modern days, and many people view that as very barbaric and grotesque.

And maybe if you want to give it the benefit of the doubt, like at best, it's looked back on as ignorant.

And I want to suggest today that that view of Old Testament sacrifice is completely and entirely missing the point.

Sacrifice is an idea that is rooted in the Jewish scriptures that carries on to today that transformed how humans think about not just their lives, but time itself.

We struggle with sacrifice.

In 1972 at Stanford, they did the very first marshmallow test, and this has been replicated a lot of times, and you may have studied this in high school or college, but it's a very simple test.

They brought a group of kids and they would bring them into the room one at a time, and an adult would sit down with them and they would give them one marshmallow.

And I don't know if you know this, but kids really like marshmallows, and this wasn't like a mini size, this is like s'more-size big daddy jet puffed marshmallow, okay?

And this is what they would say: they'd say, Hey, I've got to leave the room for a little while, maybe 10 or 15 minutes.

Um, but when I come back, if you haven't eaten the marshmallow, I will give you another one.

And then you can eat both of them.

So it's a very simple task.

Could these kids delay gratification for just a little while, maybe 10 or 15 minutes?

And if they could, if they could make that sacrifice and not eat that marshmallow, they would double their marshmallow intake.

Present pain, don't eat the marshmallow, future gain.

And what's happening in this experiment is it's lighting up a part of all of our brains called the hypothalamus.

And the hypothalamus sits like right on top of the spinal cord, and it's a part of our brain that we share with most higher level animals and pretty much all of the mammals.

And it's from this that we get basic instinct.

And so your hypothalamus does two things it controls desire, so like hunger, thirst, attraction, really this deep desire.

And then it tells a very, very simple story.

And the story is something like this that's a marshmallow.

You like marshmallows.

Eat the marshmallow right now.

That's the whole story.

And so it's just like instinct.

It's desire, and then acting on that desire instantly.

Instant gratification.

And so the adult would leave the room, but they'd be behind a two-way mirror, and they would they would observe these kids.

And the kids would try everything not to eat these marshmallows, you know.

They would sing to themselves and they would close their eyes and they'd push the marshmallow farther away, and they they would cover the marshmallow with a napkin, you know, so like it's out of sight, out of mind.

And some of the kids, some percentage of the kids, were able to wait, and because they waited, they got a future reward and they doubled their marshmallows.

But a lot of the kids, they just simply could not wait.

And maybe it's like, who cares?

And they're kids, and you know, it is hard to delay gratification, and we even struggle with it today.

In 1972, the kids that came in were tracked all the way into adulthood, and their lives were measured, and on almost every measurable level of success, the kids who could delay gratification, who didn't eat the marshmallow, scored higher.

Present pain, putting something off, giving something up, future gain.

I thought I'd share another example of sacrifice.

Have you ever heard how to catch a monkey?

I don't know if you've tried to catch many monkeys in your life, but if you did, you might Google how to catch a monkey.

And it's a very interesting way because they're very difficult because they can probably run faster than you can run, and they can certainly climb higher than you can climb.

And you know, we've got thumbs, so like we beat, you know, most animals, like cats.

You know, if cats had thumbs, we'd all be in real trouble, you know.

And but but monkeys have like thumbs on hands and feet, so they're they're really, really hard to catch.

And and what you have to do is you kind of have to trick them.

And so here's how you catch a monkey you you get something that's hollow, like a jar, and what you have to make sure is that you can fill it up, but that it has a very small opening.

And so what you do is you fill it with rocks until it's heavy enough that a monkey can't carry it around.

And then you get treats, and you put some of those treats all around the jar, and you put some treats right on the lip of the jar, and then you put a bunch of treats inside of the jar, and then you go and you wait.

And when the monkey shows up, they will see the treats and they'll begin eating the treats, and they'll see there are some treats right on the lip of the jar, and they'll eat those treats, and then they'll see there are treats inside of the jar.

And so what the monkey will do is they will put their hand inside of the jar, and once it's in, they will grab the treat, but now that they've made a fist, they can't get their fist out of the jar, and it's full of rocks, so they can't move.

Now there's a very simple solution.

Drop the treats, open your hand, and you're free.

And the monkey can't do it.

They're trapped.

And what's trapping them is their hypothalamus, and the hypothalamus controls desire and tells you a very simple story.

There's a treat, you want the treat, take the treat right now.

You see, monkeys can't give up the part for the whole.

They can't let go of what they want now, and because they can't let go of what they want now, they can't let go of instant gratification, they trade their future, or if a predator beats the human to the monkey, they might just trade their lives.

Okay, so what do marshmallows and kids and monkeys and monkeys acting like kids and kids acting like monkeys?

What does that have to do with us?

I think it really sets the context for understanding where we're at in Genesis today, because it's all about sacrifice.

In Genesis 4, it says the man was intimate with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said, I've had a male child with the Lord's help.

And she also gave birth to his brother Abel.

And Abel became a shepherd, and Cain became a farmer.

And Cain and Abel in the biblical narrative are kind of the first human beings.

Now, they're not the first humans.

Adam and Eve were fully human, but but they did not get their being from a natural process.

Adam and Eve were created supernaturally.

Adam and Eve also were created in perfection, right?

And so they knew what it was like to walk and talk and be intimate relationship with God.

And Cain and Abel were born like we were born, and they were born into a broken world like you and I were born into.

And so they're like the prototype for all of us.

And in verse 3 it says, In the course of time, Cain presented some of the land's produce as an offering to the Lord.

And Abel also presented an offering, some of the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions.

And so they both brought some.

They were both making a sacrifice.

And I think this moment highlights just how critical of an idea sacrifice is.

I mean, I'm really, I'm really staking my claim that if you understand and apply this, your life will get significantly better.

We're in Genesis chapter 4.

Genesis 4 · chapter mention

Genesis is the first book of the Bible.

Genesis 1 and 2 is the creation story.

In Genesis 3, it's the story of the fall of man, Adam and Eve tempted to no longer delay their gratification.

There's the fruit.

You want the fruit, eat the fruit.

And the world falls.

And it evolves into sin and chaos and brokenness and evil.

That's the end of chapter 3.

Chapter 4 is the first chapter.

This is the first story, the first lesson in a broken world.

And the first lesson is about sacrifice.

And there's a reason for that.

Because sacrifice is the way that we properly navigate this fallen world.

Sacrifice is the way.

Understanding proper sacrifice is the answer for navigating in this incredibly complex, broken, fallen world that we all live in.

Sacrifice is the antidote to the fall.

It is the cure.

And we saw the fullness of the cure on the cross of Christ, the ultimate sacrifice.

It's so critical for us to understand.

And we have this story of Cain and Abel, the first brothers, the first human beings who are human beings like us, born into the brokenness, and it's a story of sacrifice.

And they both brought some.

And Cain is a farmer and he brought some produce.

And Abel is a shepherd and he brought some meat.

And they both offered it.

But there was a difference.

In verse 3, it says, In the course of time, Cain presented some of the land's produce as an offering to the Lord.

And Abel also presented an offering.

And he also brought some.

But Abel gets some more descriptors.

He brought some of the firstborn of his flock.

And not only that, he brought the fat portions.

And in the ancient world, the firstborn meant everything.

It was a huge deal.

As a firstborn child, you got a double inheritance from all of your other siblings.

The firstborn even mattered to the flock.

It was the most precious of all of the sheep.

And so not only does Abel give the best animal, but then he gives the best cut of the best animal, the choice meat, the fat portions.

He gives the best of the best, which means that Abel sacrificed the thing that was the absolute highest value to him.

Abel is going to be our template for what proper sacrifice means.

And the first thing we see in these descriptors, this differentiation between him and his brother, is that Abel took time to look in and to wrestle with his intentions.

And we see his intention because he's very intentional about what he gives as an offering.

The firstborn, the choice meat, the fat portions.

Cain is different.

He doesn't look in, he looks out.

And he looks out at his produce and he sees what is most expedient.

And it's almost like Cain gave the very, very bare minimum of what would qualify as an offering.

And so Abel looks in.

And Cain looks out.

And looking out is just following our instincts.

You see, our hypothalamus, that part of the brain that makes you gobble up the marshmallow when you could get to, that's there for a reason.

It keeps you alive, it helps protect you.

It helps you know what you should want.

And yet it can also destroy you if you don't integrate it with the rest of your brain and the higher functions.

And when you look in and you assess what your intentions are in the decisions that you make, what you're doing is you are questioning your instinct and lining it up to the proper intentions.

And so Abel has the right intentions.

And Cain just moves off of instinct.

He gives some.

Abel gives the best.

In verse 4, the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but he did not have regard.

He did not accept Cain and his offering.

And Cain was furious and he looked despondent.

Sacrifice is about your intention, looking in and wrestling with what is of highest value to you that's keeping you from the life that God has for you to live.

It's about intention and it's about your attention.

And there's this great image from the 1800s, a painting, and this is kind of a replica of the painting.

We couldn't get it in high enough quality, but it just really, really strikes you when you look at where their attention is going, because Abel's attention is fully on God.

I mean, it's like he is not, he is not moving his eyes from the one who actually holds his potential and purpose.

His eyes are on the highest good.

He is orienting his life towards the divine.

And that's a powerful thing because when your intentions are correct, you no longer have to worry about the judgment of the people around you because you are safe with God.

And so Abel looks up and he gives his attention to the proper place.

And Cain's like on the other side of this, and he's furious.

And why is he furious?

Is he mad that God didn't accept his offering?

Maybe.

But we know the end of the text.

We know that he was furious, not because his offering didn't live up to God's expectations, but because Abel's did.

He wasn't trying to contrast his life with God's purpose.

He was comparing himself to his brother.

He was furious.

Not that he didn't do what was right, but that his brother was accepted.

And so Abel starts lining this path because he gives the proper intention behind the offering, and he gives the proper attention, and you could see in the image that Cain is just staring down.

He is staring down at his brother.

His point of comparison that is driving his fury.

Abel gives the right intention and he gives the right attention, and he begins to show us the path to proper sacrifice.

And this is how it works.

And it sounds simple.

We look in and we look up and we look in to assess our intentions and we look up to give proper attention.

We look in to question and discover the things that we value most in life that are holding us back from the life that God has for us to live.

And we look up to discover our highest purpose and to orient our life with God's plan for the life that He has given us.

We're putting this very simply: look in, look up, your life will be great.

It's very, very difficult.

And it's very difficult because we're all a little bit able and we're all a little bit Cain.

And we live in a culture that is telling us not to look in and to look up, but to look down and compare ourselves to everyone and everything around us and to look out and to move off of the instinct of what will satisfy us the quickest.

This was Cain's path.

He looked out, he decided what was what was the most convenient for him to give.

It's like I can't give away all of my produce, you know.

I mean, I can't if I give away all of my food, then I will starve.

And you know, if I give away too much of it, then I won't have any to give away.

And if I don't have any to give away, then I can't barter.

And if I can't barter, then I I can't get any meat to eat.

Now I'm like an accidental vegetarian, and who wants that?

And so it's like I've got to keep most of this for myself.

So, you know, I'll get a few things here and there and I'll put it together.

And I mean, it's like, what does God want from me, really?

You know, I mean, why does he need any of this?

I grew this, like, I'm gonna give him some and it'll be fine.

And so he looks down and he compares himself around and he looks out at what is most expedient, and and Abel shows us the path.

He looks in.

And shepherds had a real bond with their animals, and the firstborn was the most precious.

And if you have this picture in your mind that Abel just effortlessly took what was most valuable to him and just gave it up to God, then you are you are severely misunderstanding the story.

This was painful.

Sacrifice is painful, it cost us something by definition, and yet it is the path to the life that we were created to live.

We are a lot of cane, and our culture is run by canes, pushing us towards instant gratification.

And it's like, how are we making the decisions we make about our relationships and our parenting and our finances and our career and our spirituality?

Are we really taking the time to look in and to really do battle with our intentions and to try to move past just mere instinct and to prioritize something other than your immediate satisfaction?

Are we really taking time and looking up to God and orienting our life to something that is so much higher than us and so much greater than us and actually has the key to the life that we have been created to live when we're taking action?

Are we thinking about what this action is gonna mean in five years or 10 years or 30 years or sometimes even like 15 minutes from now?

We're a culture of instant gratification.

We want it and we want it right now.

What does Taco Bell say?

Hungry.

Why wait?

Isn't that what it says?

Hungry, why wait?

Taco Bell.

I'll tell you, you should at least wait until you can get some food that is made out of food, right?

It's like I give you a thousand reasons not to eat a Taco Bell.

But that's how we live.

Are you even a little bit hungry right now?

Eat a full meal.

Are you a little bit tired?

Show up late.

Whatever makes you the happiest right now.

And this is how we live.

Instant, instant, instant gratification.

Are you attracted?

Look up now.

I know you don't really know them or care about them.

It's like you want it.

You have access to it, so do it.

And that's your instinct, and that's your hypothalamus.

And the entire culture and everything around us is telling us, give in to it.

Not feeling great?

Go swipe your card.

Can't afford it?

Who cares?

Who waits until they can afford things to buy them?

Open up a line of credit because you better be wearing the right things and holding the right phones and driving the right cars, and because if not, you're looking down and comparing yourself across the culture, and you might not live up to the arbitrary standards of people who don't care about you anyway.

And so it's instant.

It's instant.

It's instant.

We won it, we have access, we do it.

And the story of Cain and Abel is trying to tell us that if we're never willing to sacrifice for our future, then we are actually sacrificing our future.

It's not an option of whether or not you're going to sacrifice, it's whether or not you're going to give a proper sacrifice.

And if all you're going to hold on to is the instant gratification and what is right in front of you right now, then you are sabotaging the significance of the life you will be living later.

And there are deep spiritual truths to this, but also know that Medichurch is made up of people from all different parts of their faith journey.

And some people are like all the way convinced and all the way following Jesus, and some people are brand new on this journey, and some people are very skeptical of.

And some are curious, and some are agnostic, and some are atheists, and we got a lot of people watching online, and they all fitted all of those categories as well.

And here's the thing: successful people sacrifice.

They bargain with the future.

They understand what tomorrow means.

The future is not something that just comes to you and magically changes your life.

The future is created by the decisions you make in the present.

And if you cannot take on present pain, you will not achieve future gain.

And so it's like, what do we have to do with marshmallows and monkeys and everything else?

And maybe you're like, I'll give up a marshmallow here and then to eat one right now, right when I want it.

And that's why we have two different examples.

Because your marshmallow, the thing you're unwilling to give up, the thing you're gonna keep doing, even though it's ruining your life, it's not just costing you another marshmallow.

It is the treat that traps the monkey.

You're not giving up one marshmallow.

If you cannot sacrifice properly, you are giving up your future.

And maybe you're giving up your life.

And I'm not saying that if you can't figure this out tomorrow, you're gonna drop over dead.

What I am saying is that it is more than possible to be alive and not actually living.

And if you cannot sacrifice properly, your life might be some level of okay, but it will not meet the potential that is within it.

Your life matters, and a life that matters fully is a life that understands sacrifice.

In verse 6, the Lord said to Cain, Why are you furious?

And why do you look despondent?

I think in the King James Version, like the old school with the these and the thous and the shouts and the it says, And his countenance fell.

It means literally his head dropped.

And why is that?

He didn't know how to sacrifice properly, or he knew, but he wasn't willing to, and and he wasn't looking in and up.

He was looking down and he was looking out.

And what does it mean to be despondent?

It means to be down and out.

And there are areas of all of our lives where we get despondent.

There are areas in all of our life where we are fully aware that we are not living maximally fulfilled life.

We're not making much of a difference.

We are not happy with our behavior, we don't like the way things are turning out.

And what is the answer?

In verse 7, God said to Cain, if you do what is right, will you not be accepted?

And it's a rhetorical question, which means the answer is, of course you will.

If you do what is right, you will be accepted.

And here's how the pattern goes: We don't want to sacrifice.

And everything in our culture tells us, don't sacrifice.

Sacrifice is for dummies because you can have it, and you can have it right now.

Don't worry about the future, just live for today.

Get what you can get and get it right now.

And so that's what we do.

And we look down and we can compare ourselves.

See, 15 years ago, you can compare yourself with the people in your house and the people at your job and the people at your gym and the people at your church, and a lot of those had crossover, and then maybe some neighbors.

And so maybe you had a pool of like 40 people that you could compare yourself to, and that was pretty tough.

And now we're on platforms where we are connected with a billion other people.

And our social lives are being lived connected to an almost infinite number of people to compare ourselves to.

And so if you want to be wealthy enough, good looking enough, smart enough, have enough status, if you're looking for enough and you're looking down and comparing yourself to the endless possibilities of comparison in the world, then good luck.

You will never get there.

And if you get there, as soon as you meet the standard, the standard will move.

And so we look down and we look out and we make decisions based off of instinct and what what is most accessible to me right now and what is most convenient for me right now.

And inevitably, you live that way long enough, and chaos will touch your life, and your relationships will fail, and your career will stagnate, and your addictions will overrun you, and you will come to a place in your life where the bottom has fallen out, and that is the end result of a life that looks at sacrifice and thinks that it's foolish.

And so, what happens when we look down is we look around for someone to blame it on, and when we run out of people to blame it on, we will finally look up, but we don't look up for guidance, we look up to curse God for making our life so miserable.

And God says, I don't think so.

If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?

And the idea is God is not wrong, your idea of how to live life is wrong.

God is not wrong, your presuppositions about reality is wrong.

God is not wrong, your desire for instant gratification is wrong.

Instant gratification caused the fall of humanity.

It is sacrifice that is the antidote.

And thank God he didn't tell Cain if you would have done what is right.

I can't tell you how many times I have failed to sacrifice properly in my life.

I can't tell you how many times I let things in this world that I value orient my life away from God's purposes for me.

I can't tell you how many times I found myself despondent, down and out, because I was living my life, focusing down and out.

And God says, right where you are, Cain, that offering, that sacrifice is in the past.

Right where you are today, you can look in, you can look up, you can get the right intentions, you can orient your life to me, and if you do what is right, you will be accepted.

And to be accepted by God is to join him in the history that he is writing and playing a role in it with your life, which is the fullness of your purpose and the path to your potential.

If you do what is right right now and you can change, and I don't know where you're at in life, and you might be living in a very, very, very difficult season right now.

And listen, suffering is complicated because some of it we bring on ourselves and some of it is brought on us, and most of it is a combination of those two things.

But the path holds true.

You look in and you look up and you follow God by proper sacrifice into the life that He has for you.

Somebody say amen.

If you're glad there's a way out, there is an answer to this fallen world, we just have to grasp it.

If you do what is right, won't you be accepted?

But if you don't, sin is crouching at the door and its desire is for you, and this is a promise.

And if you're just like, this is too spiritually mumbo jumbo, and I don't really understand it, and I I came to church for the first time, and the guy has tattoos, and I really don't even know what's going on right now.

And it's like, I just maybe later, and instant gratification is really kind of my jam, and so I'm gonna keep doing that.

That's fine, but this is God's promise to you that sin is crouching at your door, and sin doesn't necessarily mean hell, hellfire, and brimstone.

It means missing the mark on the life that God has created for you.

And if you do that enough times, chaos will inevitably touch your life.

And when the bottom falls out, you remember that you can look in and you can look up, orient your life to God, and you can begin to climb out of that pit, and God will be with you.

And Cain has a chance.

And it's heartbreaking because God has extended a hand, and Cain looks down and he looks out.

And he says to his brother Abel, let's go up to the field.

And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother and he killed him.

So I hope you're beginning to see the power of sacrifice.

And in my years as a pastor, it's overwhelming how many people have this idea of the future that, you know, I'm not really being intentional about things today, and I'm not really following God's path today, but in the future I will.

And so they'll say things like this like, I'm really terrible at relationships, you know.

Like, I just, I don't know, I always screw them up, I self-sabotage, I'm I'm selfish, I cheat, you know, it's like I I just I'm terrible at relationships, but but I'll have a great marriage someday.

And it's like, how?

You're never going to learn how to love someone properly and assume that the future is going to manifest a great marriage for you?

It's like, yeah, I mean, gosh, I'm in so much debt, you know, and and it's like I'm adding to my debt, and I'm not paying on the debt that I have, but I'm gonna be wealthy in the future.

You'd be shocked how many people believe that.

It's like, how in the world do you think that's gonna happen?

Well, I don't spend much time with my kids today, but man, I can't wait till they're older when we can be friends.

It's like your freaking kids are gonna hate you, man.

You gotta show up every once in a while.

How?

How's it gonna happen?

If that's what you think, you don't understand what the future means.

That's a big deal.

If you don't know what the future is, how are you going to be successful in it?

And the future is comprised of the actions that you take today, and a successful future is comprised of the sacrifices you are willing to lay down today in order to assure a better future tomorrow.

You're making decisions today for the future you.

Maybe that sounds like crazy or whatever.

It's like obviously true.

Because on Friday night, that eighth shot of Jaeger, the future you Saturday morning will have something to say to you about it.

You're tied to the future you.

And we're in hookup culture, and so what do they say about hookup culture?

Yeah, you know, no strings attached.

Just hooking up.

You know who the strings attached to?

It's attached to you in the future.

It's attached to the marriage you're going to enter with so much baggage that your marriage might struggle to make it.

Understanding sacrifice is becoming a friend of the future.

You, it's bargaining with your future, it is making a pathway today for the life that God has for you tomorrow.

And so you have to look in.

Because if you're just living off of instinct, congratulations, you're an animal.

It's looking up and orienting your life to God.

When you look up, you realize just how small you are, and that's what sacrifice is.

Looking down is trying to make yourself large and live as your own God.

Looking up is making yourself small, trusting that God in the future will build you up into the person he created you to be.

Successful people sacrifice, and maybe you don't believe in God, and I'm gonna tell you this right now.

I'll be honest with you.

You can orient your life to the highest possible good you can imagine and live a better life.

Because success requires sacrifice, but sacrifice does a lot more than that.

Sacrifice also leads to significance, and significance is only held by a creator God who placed the purpose inside of us that he wants to lead us to if we would just lift our eyes to him.

And so I wonder what part of your life isn't going as well as it could be.

And instead of looking around for someone to blame or looking up and cursing God for your circumstance, the starting place is to look in and to evaluate your values.

The famous philosopher Carl Jung said that we all serve a God.

Atheists, everyone, they all serve a God.

And your God is the thing you value the most.

The thing you value the most, you will orient your life to.

And if you value status more than anything, then you will orient your life to it.

You will step over whoever you have to step on to get to that status.

You will play whatever games and add whatever filters to build yourself up.

And if money is your highest value, you will orient your life towards it.

And if it's power or if it's sex or if it's love or attraction or acceptance, you will orient your life towards it.

And if your highest value is anything other than God, you will not be led into your potential and purpose in life.

The answer to navigating a broken world is to find the highest value that is holding you back and to sacrifice it.

And if you can do that, you can not just live, you can be alive.

We want to give you an opportunity today to evaluate your values, to look in and to look up.

I'd ask that uh wherever you're at, hello it is online 151, just close your eyes and you can just get comfortable, and there's nothing magic about this.

I we just want you to have some space to think.

And I know your life is busy, and maybe you feel like you you just have almost no time to do stuff like this, but today I want to ask you what it would mean to sacrifice the thing that is holding you back.

What is your highest value?

Another way to pinpoint that is to ask a series of questions.

What is most important to you?

And be viciously honest with yourself.

I know Jesus is the right answer, but what's the real answer?

What is the one thing that you could not give up doing or possessing?

What habit are you in that if you had to stop, you aren't sure how you could keep living?

Whatever that thing is, that is what's trapping you.

That is the thing that you're holding on to, even though you're potentially damaging your future or your life.

At the bottom of it all, sacrifice is deciding whether or not we trust God enough to put our offering on the line.

It's releasing our grip on the thing we want the most today that's keeping us trapped.

It's fighting our instincts by looking at our intentions.

Sacrifice is the answer to the problems posed by our broken world.

Your life matters.

And to meet your potential, you must look in.

You must look up, you must learn to live a life of sacrifice.

So we're gonna give you an opportunity to practice this in real time.

And in a minute, the bands are gonna play at our venues.

And if you're here with us live, you got uh paper in your seat, and you got a pen, and and so music is gonna be happening, but before you jump up and sing and raise hands and everything else, I want you to look in.

I want you to evaluate what is holding you back.

I want you to look up.

Ask yourself what would it look like if my life was oriented towards God's plan for my life.

We've given you that paper, and those of you watching online, I'd love for you to participate as well to actually write down the thing or things that you know you need to sacrifice.

And when you're ready, and when you've written it down, we're actually gonna ask you to move in service.

And at the front of the rooms, there are baskets, and by placing your card in there, you are symbolically showing your intentions in sacrifice.

Let me pray for us.

Father, we love you.

And as we as we move into this time of application, I pray, God, that you would bring clarity.

And God, you have already spoken to many hearts, and you've already made it so clear exactly what it is that's holding them back.

And now I just I ask you would give them the courage to put that on paper, to make that their intention, and God, that you would give them wisdom and direction and following through.

And we know, God, you have shown us that to live the life you've given us, we must sacrifice properly.

And I pray that today would be the first step in that direction.

We love you.

We ask all of it in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Every part of my take this life and breathe.

This heart that is now yours, you can have it all in every part of my work.

And take this life and breathe on this heart that is now yours.

Surrendering my crowns at the feet of the king who surrendered everything in all the peace that comes when I'm broken and done you're fake.

I can lift my voice and say you can have it all take this life in prison.

This art that is not you can have it every part of my work this other.

This something is a little bit more.

So take this life and breathe on this heart that is now yours, Father.

We we look to you, and God, we we sing these words, desiring for them to be truth in our life, that you can have it all, whatever you want, God, that we trust you at a level that we will lay it down no matter how absurd it seems, you can have it.

God, we know that starts with one decision, with one sacrifice.

It starts by looking in, it starts by laying down, lifting our eyes to you.

God, these pieces of paper, this is our intention.

This is our sacrifice, and I pray that this would be the start of a life well lived.

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

Amen.

Thanks so much for listening to the message today.

If this was helpful to you and you want to help us get the word out, you can subscribe to this podcast, you can rate and review or share it with your friends.

If you want to get connected further with what MetaCurch is doing, you can go online to metachurch.tv.

There you can learn how to take next steps.

You can learn where our different venues are at if you ever wanted to visit, and you can also give financially to help push this movement forward.

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