I AM: I AM Shepherd 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.

Welcome to MetaCurch.

It's so good to see everyone here.

If you're new with us, my name is Clayton, and I'm the lead pastor here at MetaCurch.

We are in week four of our I Am series.

Now, the reason we got into this series, as we got closer to Easter, we started asking how we could use our Sunday services and the time that we have together every week.

And we decided that leading up to Easter, which is all about Jesus, to spend these Sundays getting to know Jesus at a deeper and deeper level.

And there's a lot of ways to go about that, but we thought this year we would let Jesus speak for himself.

While Jesus was on earth, he had a good friend and one of his 12 disciples named John.

And we we now have in the Christian scriptures what we call the gospel of John.

This is his eyewitness testimony of the life of Jesus, all the things that he saw and heard and experienced during three years of ministry walking alongside the Savior.

In this document he put together, he quotes Jesus seven times using these very specific statements that start with Jesus saying, I am.

We're calling this the I am seven.

So far, we have seen Jesus say, I am the bread of life.

I am the light of the world.

And last week in John chapter 10, we saw Jesus say, I am the gate.

John 10 · chapter mention

Today we're walking into the fourth of our I am seven.

And what's really cool is we are literally picking up exactly where we left off.

Last week we ended at John chapter 10, verse 10.

John 10:10

Today we're starting in John chapter 10, verse 11.

John 10:11

It's there that we read this I am the good shepherd.

The good shepherd lays his life down for the sheep.

The hired hand, since he is not the shepherd and doesn't own the sheep, leaves them and runs away when he sees a wolf coming.

The wolf then snatches and scatters the sheep.

This happens because he is a hired hand and doesn't care about the sheep.

I am the good shepherd.

I know my own, and my own know me.

Just as the Father knows me and I know the Father, I lay my life down for the sheep.

But I have other sheep that are not from this pen, and I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.

There will be one flock, and there will be one shepherd.

This is why the Father loves me, because I lay my life down so that I may take it up again.

No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own.

I have the right to lay it down, and I have the right to take it up again.

I've received this command from my father.

Today I have a title for my message, and it's not just a title, it's really a question that during our time together, we're gonna have to wrestle through.

Today, my message is called rent or own.

Rent or own.

Would you pray with me?

Father, we do love you.

We thank you for this time.

We ask that as we come together, wherever we're at in our faith journey, God, I know there are many people here who are already convinced they have put their faith in who you are, Jesus.

And there are so many who come to Metachurch because they are spiritually curious or maybe they're skeptical from a different faith background, maybe agnostic or even atheist.

And yet, God, I pray we would all have the humility to come before you with an open heart and an open mind to give you room to speak to us.

Your word says, if we seek you, we will find you, and we trust that for today.

We love you, and we pray these things in Jesus' name, and everyone who's ready to get started, say amen.

Amen.

So we're starting out exactly where we left off, John 10, 11.

Now, today, today, we are entering into Holy Week.

This is known as Palm Sunday, traditionally, and it celebrates the day that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the cult of a donkey, and he had like a rock star welcome.

They were pulling palm branches down and paving the road with them, taking their jackets off, making like a proverbial red carpet entrance for Jesus.

The crowds were crying out, Hosanna, Hosanna, welcome to the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

And yet, we know in hindsight that Jesus didn't come for what the people wanted.

They wanted him to sit on a throne.

Jesus came for what we all needed, which was to hang on a cross.

Jesus says in verse 11, I am the good shepherd.

This is our fourth of the I am seven.

I am the good shepherd, and the good shepherd lays his life down for the sheep.

It's hard to live in the West, much less America, much less the Bible belt of America, and not have some idea of the Easter story.

We know that the crowds on Palm Sunday who were welcoming him in, many of them would turn on him by Friday.

The ones who were yelling, Hosanna, Hosanna, will be crying out, crucify him.

You see, Palm Sunday is just one step on the journey to what we call Good Friday.

I can remember growing up in church and we would always celebrate Good Friday.

We still celebrate it, right?

We're having a worship night this Friday, Good Friday, celebrating it.

And yet as a kid I thought, why in the world would we call this Good Friday?

What is good about it?

It strikes me as the worst day in human history.

If you're not familiar with the sorry Friday, is when Jesus' own disciple betrays him.

Judas Iscariot, who Jesus plucked out of obscurity.

Judas, a zealot, trying to find purpose in religion and all the other paths of life, and is now promoted to walk alongside God and human flesh, to see miracle after miracle after miracle, to hear Jesus speak the words of heaven themselves, to be lifted up and seen as an example to the community, and he betrays Jesus into the hands of the religious leaders who want to kill Jesus.

He does it for 30 pieces of silver.

It's about two months' wages.

That's it.

That's all that it took.

When Jesus wouldn't get on Judas's agenda, he betrayed him.

He stabbed him in the back.

Friday is when Jesus was pulled in front of an illegal trial where he was found guilty.

It was Friday where the Jewish community took him to the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, and demanded that something be done about him.

It was Friday where Judas, or where Pilate weighed his options.

It was obvious that Jesus hadn't done anything wrong.

He'd like healed too many blind people and lifted up too many broken spirits, you know.

This was an innocent man, and yet the mob was growing more and more violent.

It was Friday where to try and appease the unruly Jewish crowd, Pilate sent an innocent man to be whipped.

40 minus one lashes from a cat of nine tail.

Now, what a what an odd number.

At the end of these leather strips, they would secure small pieces of bone or glass or metal to make sure every hit would dig into the person and by pulling back would rip through flesh and meat and tendons 39 times.

You would be disfigured beyond the point of humanity by the end of it.

It was on Friday where that beating didn't satisfy the crowd.

It was on Friday where Pilate released a violent murderer back into society because the crowd would rather see that than Jesus be set free.

It was Friday.

Where the Roman governor had no other choice than to turn Jesus over to be killed.

It was on Friday where they put the instrument of his own execution on his shoulders and made him walk the hill of his death.

Friday they nailed him to a cross, stripped him of his clothes, hung him high above the crown, naked and cursed.

It was Friday when Jesus breathed his last.

So the question is, what is good about Good Friday?

What is good about the day where Earth's only innocent man was tortured and put to death?

And to have any framework for understanding how in the world we could call that Friday good without stripping the word good of all of its meaning, we have to understand the good shepherd.

The good shepherd who lays his life down for his sheep.

Jesus begins to explain what he means by I am the good shepherd by drawing an important contrast.

He says in verse 12, the hired hand, since he's not the shepherd, this is the contrast, he's not the shepherd, and he doesn't own the sheep, leaves them, runs away when he sees a wolf coming.

The wolf then snatches and scatters the sheep.

Verse 13, this happens because he is a hired hand and ultimately does not care about the sheep.

Jesus draws this contrast.

If you were here last week, we talked about the third I am seven, I am the gate.

And it was there Jesus also contrasted the gate to eternal life, to peace, protection, and promise.

He contrasted the gate with the thieves and the robbers who try to get in the pin from the outside.

He was contrasting himself with the religious leaders, thieves and robbers, which are obviously and blatantly bad.

But this contrast is different.

A hired hand is not necessarily a bad person.

They're just not the good shepherd.

Jesus brings to light a very important point.

Something that I'm gonna suggest you cannot go one more single day of your life not understanding.

And that is that there is a wide gap, a wide gap between renting and owning.

A wide gap, a massive difference between renting and ownership.

You know, one of the things I've really missed during this pandemic is travel.

And we've done some road trips where we all pile in the minivan and that kind of stuff.

But you know, I used to travel a little bit more, and when you fly in somewhere, I I don't like traveling, but I like renting cars.

I really love driving a rental car.

And the other men in the room are either gonna have my back or they're gonna lie in church in front of God.

Because what you do as a man when you get a rental car is you you kind of keep an eye in the rearview mirror.

And as soon as you can't see enterprise rent a car any longer, you put that accelerator through the floorboard.

You gotta test it out, right?

You gotta just see what kind of giddy up it has in it.

When I rent a car, it's like the entire time I have it, I'm auditioning for the fast and the furious.

I drive it like I would never drive my own car.

There's a few reasons for that.

Number one, I drive a 2004 pickup truck.

If I accelerate too fast in my truck, the doors fall off.

So it's not really an option.

But even if I had a sports car, I would tame it down a little bit, you know?

I drive a rental car like that exactly because I don't own it.

I'm not gonna wash it, polish it, change the oil.

It's not mine.

I enjoy driving it, but I really don't care about it.

There's a huge difference between renting and owning.

Some of you have owned a business, or maybe you weren't the owner-owner of the business, but you had a management position that you took very seriously.

And here's what good managers do: they delegate, right?

They give away tasks and they give away responsibilities.

And if you're a good leader, you delegate influence, you give away your influence.

But owners of businesses know there are a few things, a few things that are so critical to the operation that require so much care and so much passion that only the owner keeps those roles.

No one else has enough skin in the game for them to be delegated to.

We experience this in all aspects of our life.

Maybe we just don't think about it in these terms, renting and owning the owner or the hired hands.

You know, one place that we see this in our families, it's the difference between parenting and grandparenting.

They call it grandparenting because you're not the owner anymore.

It's grand, it's so much fun.

And I know that the grandparents are like, I don't want to be called the hired hand, you know, I love my grandkids.

I know that you do.

But also, if those kids are over there long enough, you will send them back to where they belong.

You'll send them back to the owners.

There's nothing more infuriating than watching your parents who would beat your behind into the next dimension, come over at dinner and be like, son, I think you're being a little bit hard on the kids.

What?

Like, if I would have talked back like that, you would have to surgically remove that fork from my body.

I don't have skin in the game anymore.

They're the helpers, they're not the owners.

There's a big difference.

There is a big difference.

We are all trusting our life to something.

The question is, the thing that you're looking to for hope for your future and your purpose, the thing that you turn to when life gets hard, where you go when you experience pain, are those people and those processes, are they renters or are they owners?

When the wolves come and they will come because life is very hard.

When it all hits the fan, when push comes to shove, are they renters?

Will they take out of you what they can and leave you behind?

Or do they have skin in the game?

Will they stand between you and suffering, you and pain, you and evil?

The difference between renting and owning in this sense was made very, very clear to me when I very first started dating Katie.

I was like head over heels, and I hadn't particularly been very good at relationships.

I thought about them in very wrong ways, I pursued them in very wrong ways, and and and I had taken like a year where I was like, I'm not dating anybody.

And I did it, man.

I knew like my ideas about this are so, so broken.

You know what?

I was a renter.

I rented relationships.

They weren't going anywhere, they had no goal, I wasn't putting any skin in the game.

It was more about me than anyone else, and I was done.

Katie was such a spectacular person, it was like, I'm going for ownership.

And so, like everything I do, I can't do it halfway.

So on our very first date, I told her I wanted to marry her.

The first date, like a crazy person.

I didn't have language for it at the time, but what I was saying is, I'm not interested in renting this relationship.

I'm here for ownership.

And after, you know, her jaw like was picked up off the floor and she decided not to like run away in fear, she said she was willing to pursue that.

Let's see where it goes.

Let's see if we're right for each other.

But there was one big caveat.

Most of you know Katie had already been blessed with two incredible kids.

Kids I had not yet met.

Lane and Paxton were still little guys at that point.

And so she said, we can pursue this, but you have to know you can't just love me.

You have to love my sons.

And so if you're single and you're trying to figure out the dating world, as difficult as that is, or if you're a stepparent, you know this somewhere at the core of who you are, you know that you can't own the marriage and rent the kids.

It will not function properly.

She had put her line in the sand, and so we started hanging out, all of us, all of us together, and God did his thing.

And man, I fell hard for these little dudes, and and we eventually got married a couple years later, and we all stood at the altar.

And I didn't write one set of vows, I wrote three sets of vows because I needed my family to know, and I needed the witnesses to know I'm not here to rent, I'm here to own.

There's a wide gap.

There's a wide gap between renting and owning.

And you cannot own without skin in the game.

And an owner will lay their life down for the sake of what is theirs.

It's not difficult to determine where your hope is.

It's not difficult to determine what you're trusting your life with.

It's not difficult to determine what you're looking for for your future and security and purpose.

You just have to answer the question: who or what do I turn to when pain comes?

For some people, they have deep, deep-seated insecurities.

And all of it comes from the pain of the story of our lives that we've lived through.

And so it's just achievement.

It's like if I can get the next achievement and take the next mountain and get the next promotion and make the next amount of money and buy the next house and drive the next cars and wear the next brands and have the right status and the right influence and manage enough people, then maybe, just maybe, I can finally quench this deep-seated insecurity inside of me.

And sometimes we get lonely or angry, we feel devalued, worthless, unloved.

Too many of us go to our phones.

We have generations of people who are living believing that their digital life is realer than their actual real life.

And it's like if I can convince everyone in the digital realm that my life is picture, filtered, perfect, then maybe, just maybe, my life that is imploding around me will find a sense of hope and equilibrium.

And so many people are living with such deep wounds from fathers and mothers, and all they want is to be loved, and the only way they know how to be loved, and the only way that society presents is just to continue hooking up when we're in a hookup culture, and it's as easy as swiping, right?

And this is the problem.

The people that you are hooking up with, you're another conquest for them.

They have no idea of ownership.

They are renting you to get out of you what they can in that moment, and they will leave you emptier than when you got there.

And some of us are happiness is directly tied to dollar amounts in our bank accounts or what the stock market did that day.

We're all putting our hope in something, and the world likes to present all of these different options as if they are wanting ownership in your life, wanting to protect you and to serve you.

But if push comes to shove, most of what the world offers is simply there to rent you, to use you, and discard you when you are no longer useful.

Social media is a tool, it can be a good tool, but it is not there to serve you.

You are there to serve it.

Here's some kind of free advice, not really part of the sermon, but in this world, if anything is truly free to you, do you know what that means the product is?

It's you.

They are getting you addicted to their platform because every time you go back to it, it raises their stocks and pads their pockets, and if you aren't useful to their bottom line, they have no problem getting rid of you.

Most of what this world has to offer.

Tourists, renters connecting themselves to your life, drawing out of you what they can.

There's very little in this world that will stand in the gap to protect you, to give you peace, promise, and purpose.

And your life is simply too important.

It's like Jesus is saying to us, dear sheep, be extremely careful who you trust your life to.

That means that you have a significant.

Role to play and unlimited potential in your future.

But if you give your life away to renters, then you will constantly be used for something else's gain instead of being used to gain what you're meant to for the rest of the world.

Be extremely careful who you put your hope in.

Jesus starts with this contrast, and it's an incredible contrast, and it's one we should think very deeply about, where our hope is and who we're trusting our life to.

And then he turns in verse 14 and he starts talking not about what the good shepherd is not, but listening to the positive qualities of what the good shepherd offers.

In verse 14, he reiterates, I am the good shepherd.

I know my own, and my own know me.

There's no part-time protection from the shepherd.

Jesus came and he put real skin in the game.

I know my own and my own know me.

The sentence continues in verse 15, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.

I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father.

The opportunity for relationship with the Good Shepherd, the opportunity of relationship with Jesus that is offered to every single one of us is an offer that if you have not experienced it, it's truly difficult to even understand.

The greatest moments in your life, your greatest achievements, your greatest like moments of euphoria where you felt like you were absolutely on top of the world.

Do not even hold the slightest candle to understanding the depths of the love and the riches of the mercy that Jesus has for us.

We can't get too far into this, but we believe in a Trinity, a triune God.

That means God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

They have three roles, but they are one.

One God in three persons.

You literally cannot get closer than that.

And Jesus says, I know mine, and they know me just.

Like literally equivalent to how the Father and I know ourselves.

Do you know what this means?

It means that when we live in those moments of relationship and fellowship with Jesus, it is like a bottomless well that the further we dig into the grace and love and mercy of Jesus, the more we become aware of the infinitely expanding resource that it is.

It's indescribable.

When you understand the love that Jesus has for you, the purpose and fulfilling life that He offers you.

When you experience it, when you see it, that's what we mean when we say it's like living in a way where we see pieces of and evidence of heaven right here on earth.

And so I don't know, you know, where you're at.

Maybe you're like, look, Pastor, sure, you know.

It sounds great, and it's like the Good Shepherd, and you know, maybe it's even true, I don't, you know.

But that sounds really good for good people.

You know, good people.

Like, not perfect, but you know, they come from a good family, and you know, they like made good choices, and they they didn't drop out, they don't have all the, you know, multiple divorces, and they, you know, they're like addicted to Facebook, but that's really different than being addicted to heroin, you know what I'm saying?

It's like, you know, they dress the right way, and they know the right times to raise their hands and the songs.

Like, this is good news for good people.

And if you feel that way, I can't tell you how much I empathize with that thought.

It wasn't even that I was raised outside of the church and was mad at God.

I came up from in it.

I knew God, I believed in Jesus, and then I ran.

I ran like hell.

I ran as fast and as far as I could.

And along the way, people would interject, you know, like, come back, man.

Come back to Jesus.

He has life for you, He has purpose for you.

And it was like, that sounds great for good people.

But I didn't know what that had to do with me.

I just assumed that surely after all I had done, that Jesus would have no interest in me coming back.

And Jesus says, I am the Good Shepherd.

And the Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

And if that's how you feel, like you've simply done too much, racked up too many sins, too many skeletons, and too many closets, the good shepherd has some very good news for you.

In verse 16, he says, but I have other sheep.

And they're not from this pen.

And he doesn't say, I guess I'll bring them.

I guess.

You know, God's really on me about bringing them.

I'll make an exception.

He doesn't say, I'll bring them, but you know, they're not the real sheep.

You know, they'll sit in the back and we'll put the the most righteous, holy people up front.

He doesn't say they can come and kind of be a part, but they're not really members.

They can join, but they can't really leave.

They can't really participate.

And you know, pretty much every Sunday we're gonna remind them there's a big difference between you and the rest of us.

No, no, no.

He says, I must, I must bring them.

It is imperative.

This is the plan.

And they will listen to my voice.

And maybe you have some doubts.

But if you are honest, you feel the Spirit of God moving in your life right now, they will listen.

And then there will be one flock, and there will be one shepherd.

And Jesus is speaking to the Jews, and you know, they're God's chosen people to bring Jesus into the world, but they don't understand that distinction.

They're the chosen ones, everyone else is not.

All the non-Jews, what they call Gentiles, they saw them as dogs, they called them barbarians, and they could not even imagine the Gentiles inheriting the kingdom of God.

And Jesus says, I've got news.

The people who are furthest from me, the last people you would ever think would come and be a part.

I must.

The Good Shepherd lays down his life for all of the sheep.

And I have no doubt, I'm sure you have hurt a lot of people, and I'm sure you've broken a lot of hearts, and I'm sure you've made some terrible decisions, and I'm sure you have some things in your past that keep you up at night.

But what Jesus did on a cross 2,000 years ago was the single most powerful event in human history, in the physical realm and in the spiritual realm, and whatever you've done and wherever you've been, however bad that you made it, it does not compare to the power of Jesus shed blood on a cross.

And what Jesus has done allowed Paul to write in Romans that there is nothing on heaven or in earth, there is no depth, there is no width, there is nothing in all of creation, including you with all of your baggage and all of your worst ways.

There is nothing that can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

One flock, one shepherd.

Jesus started in verse 11 by saying, I am the good shepherd.

The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

I think that we have done a huge disservice to shepherds.

It's probably like the church's fault because we like to paint the shepherds as these very meek and mild, subdued individuals.

They're not really physically imposing, they're not very strong, not very brave or courageous, but golly gee, are they nice, you know?

They spend their days rolling around in the grass with the lambs and looking at the clouds and seeing what shapes they can make out of them and stuff.

I almost always thought like you became a shepherd because you weren't like brave enough to go and be a fisherman and have to brave the storms on the sea, or maybe you weren't strong enough to be in construction, uh, to be a builder, right?

Like the manly men did other stuff, and then you know, everybody else became a shepherd.

And that couldn't be further from the truth.

You see, I grew up in a precious moments view of the shepherd, you know?

Like this little guy, this was this was a shepherd to me.

Not exactly an intimidating guy.

The truth is, a shepherd's job was to take a flock of sheep.

And if you're wondering about sheep's defense mechanisms, they have none.

If something wants to eat a sheep, guess what the sheep does?

It gets eaten.

That's it.

They cannot fight back.

We brought some here just to show you.

They're dumb animals, they cannot fight for themselves.

And the shepherd would bring them out into the countryside because that's where they would graze.

And in the countryside, that is where the fiercest predators on planet earth lived.

There was no infrastructure, there were no skyscrapers, nothing was scaring the animals away.

It was in the country where the shepherds brought the sheep that the lions and the tigers and the bears and the wolves roamed.

You remember Jaws?

Right?

They had to catch Jaws because he's like eating everybody.

And so what did they do?

They came out, and to catch them, they had to chum the water.

So we take a bunch of chopped-up fish and they're all bleeding everywhere, and you throw it in, and then the shark smells the blood.

That's basically the land version of a shepherd's job.

They just bring all these fluffy snacks into the field and wait.

The truth is, you became a fisherman if you weren't brave enough to be a shepherd.

You worked in construction if you weren't fighting enough, strong enough to fight the savage animals.

A good shepherd was physically strong, ultimately courageous.

They were noble, they were wise, they were athletes, they were imposing figures.

When Jesus says, I am the good shepherd, he's not saying, I am the precious moments doll that you grew up thinking a shepherd is.

He's saying, I'm the real deal.

And as a shepherd, if you could not protect your flock from the most dangerous predators on earth, you would be out of business very quickly.

Jesus came and moved the metaphor out of analogy and into the spiritual realm.

Not only is he there to defend and protect, but he actually is required to lay his life down for the very flock that has put him in danger.

It's easy to think about all the atrocities on Good Friday, the beating, the gruesome trip to Calvary, the nails in his hands and in his feet.

Jesus slowly suffocating until he breathed his last and assumed that Jesus was overwhelmed and overcome.

A bystander might have thought that Jesus was defeated by his enemies.

John 10 comes a short time before Jesus actually goes into Jerusalem.

He's speaking of what is to come when he will lay his life down, and there's something he needs you to know.

In verse 17, he says, This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life.

I lay down my life.

And if anyone was confused about what he meant, he clarified it in verse 18.

He said, No one takes it from me.

I lay down my life on my own.

Yes, it was human beings who beat him and whipped him and hung him on a cross.

But no one could make Jesus do something that he was not allowing to happen.

Jesus' life was not taken from him, he was not defeated, the Good Shepherd gave his life so that he could defeat death itself.

Why do we call it Good Friday?

It's called Good Friday because Jesus did not come to rent your life.

He came for ownership.

And ownership requires sacrifice, it requires having some skin in the game.

Jesus took the ultimate act of ownership.

It is a good Friday because it because it is the moment that Jesus paid the price to take up his role as our Savior.

Verse 18, again, it says, No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own.

I have the right to lay it down, and and this is where we pause, because Easter is coming.

Good Friday is upon us, but Easter is coming, and I have the right to take it up again.

Every path that the world offers you will try to sell itself as an owner, something for your benefit, something to serve you.

We should be extremely careful who we trust our life to.

And the hired hands are not always bad things.

There are many good things in life, there are many good paths in life, and most things aren't actually good or bad.

It kind of depends on how we use it.

But everything in this world will end when this world ends.

Everything that seeks to improve your life will end when your life ends.

And what that means is that even the best things in life, at the end of the day, can only be renters.

The Good Shepherd laid down his life and he took it up again.

In doing so, he defeated death itself.

He isn't just offering to come in as owner in your life, empowering and serving your life right now, but he is offering eternal life.

The ultimate owner who can give you life after life.

Would you pray with me?

Father, if there's anyone here today who has not truly wrestled with the question of who Jesus is, I pray that even right now they would begin to do so.

Jesus, you did all of the work for us.

You took the pain, you took the punishment.

All that you ask is for our faith.

And Jesus, if there's anyone here and you're impressing on their heart, your spirit right now is just impressing on them that now is the time, I pray, that they would do whatever they need to do to make the decision to put their faith in you.

God, you have promised if we believe that you are who you say you are, that you've done what you say that you've done, that you are God who came to this earth, that you died for us and rose again, if we believe that, we will have everlasting life.

An eternal promise sealed by your spirit that can never ever be taken away.

If anyone has not made that decision, God, I pray that today would be that day.

And as we continue to worship you, that we would show our incredible gratitude for you, Jesus, the Good Shepherd who laid down your life on Good Friday.

We pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thanks so much for listening to the message today.

If this was helpful to you and you want to help us get the word out, you can subscribe to this podcast.

You can rate and review or share it with your friends.

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

There you can learn how to take next steps.

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

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