Re_Boot: Re_veal 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.

We're so glad that you guys joined us in Holotus, those of you who are streaming online at the 151 Saloon, we're so glad that we've uh gathered here today together.

This is our sixth week of our reboot series, and it is our second to last week.

Over the last couple of weeks, we have been looking at this idea of some disciplines or characteristics that we can add to our life to help tie together all the other truths that we've learned in this series.

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

I'm the lead pastor here, and you are coming in on kind of the tail end of what we've been doing for the last several weeks.

You can get caught up, though, anytime online at metachurch.tv, watch previous messages, and we make sure that every week stands on its own as well.

I want to jump right into what Scripture has to say to us today.

We're gonna be in Colossians chapter three, we're gonna start in verse five.

It says this Therefore, put to death what belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry.

Because of these, God's wrath is coming upon the disobedient.

And you once walked in these things when you were living in them, but now put away all of the following anger, wrath, malice, and slander, and filthy language from your mouth.

Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old self with its practices, and have put on the new self, you are being renewed in knowledge according to the image of your Creator.

In Christ there is not group uh Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, scythian, slave and free, but Christ is all and is in all.

Therefore, as God's chosen ones, holy and dearly loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another, and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against another, just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive and above all.

Put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.

I really hope that this series has been helpful to your life.

I know it's been very challenging for me in many ways.

And the idea of this whole reboot series is simply, with all of the tensions and trappings of our world, with all of the frustration and pain and division, that we believe there is a way to live a significant story and a life that is filled with purpose and power right in the midst of all of it.

And it's no coincidence that every week we have come in and we have cemented the truths that we've learned in the pages of Scripture.

Scripture is very similar to the one that we just read out of Colossians chapter three.

Today we're gonna take the next logical step in rebooting our lives.

Our big idea for this week is to reboot Scripture must reveal.

To reboot, Scripture must reveal.

Would you pray with me?

Father, we love you and we're thankful.

We are thankful for your word that you've given us these scriptures as a foundation of truth for our lives.

God, we want to know what it means to live the life you've created us to live.

We want our time on earth to make a difference.

And so, God, I ask that you would show us today just how critical your word is to our life and how we can read it and apply it in a meaningful way.

We love you.

We pray these things in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

There's a museum in downtown San Antonio, and I'm not talking about the Museum of Art.

Some of you are very cultured, I'm sure you spend some time there, and I'm not talking about the witty museum where you can learn about the natural wonders of the world.

I'm talking about kind of more like my paste uh museum.

It's the Museum of Ripley's, believe it or not.

It's a wonderful museum.

It's full of the odd and fascinating, interesting facts, crazy skills that different people had.

There used to be a show called Ripley's Believe It or Not, and me and my sister would love to watch it and see all of the different world records that people had broken and all the crazy things that people could do.

And of course, at the end, you were left wondering whether or not you should, in fact, believe it.

The museum really makes a lot of sense when you understand the context.

You walk through all these different exhibits of the weird and curious, and a lot of them are really hands-on, you know.

You can like actually try to do all of these record-breaking things that people have done in the past.

Maybe you could even be featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum.

One of the first exhibits you come to, you see all of these people with these incredible skills with their mouths, faces, and tongues.

They can just do crazy things with their eyes and fold their tongues in all different ways.

People can open their mouths so wide, it's unbelievable.

And they give you a chance to try, they set up a mirror there and give you some instructions, and so you're you're stuck there just contorting your face and all these crazy physicians just trying to replicate what these world record breakers had done.

And then you go on with the museum.

Go on to the next exhibit and the next exhibit and the next exhibit.

And by the time you get towards the end of the tour, you've all but forgotten about the crazy faces that you tried to make at the beginning.

That is, until you come to the end and you come to an exhibit that's very confusing, doesn't really have a lot of instructions, you don't even really understand what you're looking at.

There's just a window between you and other people who seem to be making the craziest faces at you.

Pretty soon you find yourself just hysterically laughing because the people look so, so crazy.

Like, what are these losers doing on the other side of this window?

And then it dawns on you.

This window only operates in one direction.

It is, in fact, a two-way mirror, the same mirror that an hour earlier you were making the same faces into.

Your laughing gives way to a little bit of shock when you realize that as fun as it is to look through the window at the people who look like idiots, an hour earlier you were that idiot.

A two-way mirror, if you're unfamiliar, is one structure that operates as both a mirror and a window.

If you've ever watched like a crime show where they bring people in to interrogate them, and in the interrogation room, there's always a large mirror, but you know it's not really a mirror.

On the other side of it, there's other agents and it's a window.

A two-way mirror operates in both settings.

One of them is very fun.

It's fun to be on the window side and look and laugh at all the people, but you realize it was actually very painful to be on the mirror side and to be the butt of everybody's joke.

So hold that thought because we're talking about scripture today.

And we believe this is something that is imperative to our life, our growth, walking the path that God has for us, discovering our purpose, knowing Jesus more deeply, and yet statistics show that very, very few Christ followers ever spend time reading the scriptures.

The statistics are like close to zero.

Almost no one in the church following after Christ, desiring to live a God-given purpose, are spending any time reading the Word.

And I grew up in church hearing a lot of different excuses, you know, like, well, I'm just not really a very good reader.

You know, I don't I don't read any books, and I've tried, but I get distracted.

And it's like, well, okay, I mean, there's options now.

We have the Bible on audiobook, and probably the most common, you know, comment is, I'm just too busy.

Oh my gosh, my life is so busy.

I would love to read the Bible if I had a spare second to myself.

And now, of course, we're all doomed because we can go in the settings of our smartphones and see how many hours upon hours we stare at screens and scroll through feeds.

So that kind of killed all of our excuse on the time category.

We do have time.

You see, I think there's a lot of guilt that's been associated with not reading the Bible.

People come to church and on Sunday we get into the Bible a little bit, and I try to dig in and we try to, you know, really serve it up and give it to in bite size and bring in all the context and explain the ancient languages behind the languages, but people feel guilty.

So they come up with some excuses, or they just say, maybe I'll try.

I'll try better next time.

I'll, I don't know, I'll start from the beginning and work my way to the end.

I'll I'll just have the resolve and determination to do it.

I want to admit, I think the church at large and religious leadership has done a really poor job acknowledging that the Bible's hard to read.

So let me take a little bit of weight off of you and just admit scripture can be very confusing.

It was written thousands of years ago.

It was written in ancient languages that have been translated and translated.

That's why you have hundreds of different translations that you can choose from.

It's written in context that we don't understand.

It's written from an Eastern perspective while we live in the West.

It has unfamiliar words, long-forgotten traditions.

The Bible can be a very confusing book.

I think some people maybe just lack the discipline and they don't want to wake up a little earlier or take some time on their lunch, and so they're not even trying.

But I think the majority of believers have tried at some point, and if we were able to be honest, which if there's anywhere to be honest, it should be in the church.

If we were able to be honest, we would say that the Bible is just intimidating.

It feels confusing and it's hard to read.

I don't know how to get something out of it.

And so let's take some weight off and just admit that.

That's okay.

God's not mad at us for admitting it.

However, he is desperate for us to get into it.

We are all building a foundation for our lives.

We are all making decisions today that are going to affect where we end up tomorrow.

We're all making an almost infinite number of decisions, moment by moment by moment, in the life we're called to live, and the purpose we're called to live out.

They all are built on the foundation not of a truth, but of the truth that is grounded in Scripture.

Every week of this series, as we've been talking about how to reboot our lives, how to revise parts of our story, how to respond appropriately to God, how to retain all that He's given us, how to have the resolve and the renewal to walk in faith.

All of those are rooted in and grounded in the testimony and the revelation of Scripture.

And so, what if there was a simpler way to approach the text?

What if we could, what if we could talk about a very practical filter for you to approach Scripture with that could build your confidence and allow you to get into it and allow it to begin to get in to you.

Today I want to suggest that a very practical and powerful way to approach Scripture is much like a two-way mirror.

That scripture in our life often desires to operate as both a mirror and a window.

This is how scripture reveals to us.

Scripture reveals like a mirror through reflection.

It helps us see ourselves, and in comparison to where we're currently at and where God desires for us to be.

Scripture works as a mirror that reveals through reflection, and it works as a window that reveals through projection.

A window into the future God desires for us, the destiny He has for us, and the purpose that He has placed in us.

This idea of a mirror and a window can take you to almost any place in Scripture, especially the Christian scriptures, what we call the New Testament, and give you a lens or a filter for God to speak to you.

God, help us to grow in our confidence today.

I want to start where we started in this service, Colossians chapter 3, a beautiful passage that has a lot for us, but also is filled with unfamiliar words and ancient context that for many, many believers with good hearts and good intentions could be drawn away from it.

Colossians 3 · chapter mention

We're gonna look first at the Apostle Paul in this letter he wrote, using it as a mirror that he is holding up to the Colossians.

Colossians 3, verse 5, it says this Therefore, put to death what belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry.

Colossians 3:5

Scripture works as a mirror.

You remember at Ripley's how fun it would be to be on the window side?

As a matter of fact, you can go on YouTube, there's a bunch of videos that people have taken just hysterically laughing, looking through the window.

The window is the fun part.

The mirror, the mirror can be very hard.

It's difficult to be called out and to have a light shined on the areas that we have worked so hard to keep in darkness.

Paul begins with a list of these five attributes.

And we could see these as personal reflections.

Scripture is a mirror, it reveals through reflection.

These are personal reflections, which means this is speaking to our inner life.

Sexually impure thoughts, sexually impure personal actions.

Lust, greed, evil desires.

It's interesting that Paul writes a list that couldn't be more culturally relevant to where we're living today and the things that we're struggling with today, and yet he wrote it 2,000 years ago.

These aren't generational problems, these are human problems.

These are problems when what is in us does not line up with what God has desired for us.

These are things which, if they are left alone, they grow and grow.

They weave their way into the fabric of our life and they sabotage us from within.

It can be painful to really see who we are accurately.

Scripture says that the word of God is sharper than any scalpel, that it can divide in between what is real and what is false.

It can go to the deepest parts.

It gives this picture of dividing even between the bone and the marrow.

It gets to the deepest core of who we are and how we're living.

It's painful.

It requires faith to look in the mirror of Scripture.

Faith that God is not digging in just to leave us to bleed out.

That God is a good physician.

He doesn't hurt us to harm us.

But sometimes he will allow hurt to heal us.

A lot of us live our life and we pass off the deep, broken parts of ourself.

And the significant life you're called to live is being sabotaged by something that's being kept in secret.

Some of the world's greatest athletes go under the knife.

They go through the pain because they know without it they will fall short of their potential.

And the same is true for you in the spiritual realm.

If you're not going to allow the word of God to dig in and expose, you can be sabotaged from your God-given potential.

It's a mirror.

It shows you some of your personal, deepest, darkest things that God is so desperate to bring into the light.

He understands it will hurt.

But he understands that it will heal.

In verse 6, it says, because of these, God's wrath is coming upon the disobedient.

Hold that idea of God's wrath.

Verse 7, and you once walked in these things when you were living in them.

And we often think of God's wrath, and we immediately go to like hellfire and damnation and eternal separation from God.

But often when Scripture speaks of wrath, it's actually speaking to believers.

Paul is writing to people who have believed in Jesus.

And if there's one thing Scripture makes clear, it's that if you have believed in Jesus, your eternity with God is secure.

It does not mean that you are immune to the natural wrathful consequences of your decision.

And we think it's just lust.

And we think it's just a website.

And we think it's just thoughts and letting our eyes follow wherever we think that it's not really a big deal.

And all of a sudden, we find ourselves doing things and putting ourselves in situations we could have never imagined.

All of a sudden, our our relationships and marriages are in jeopardy.

All of a sudden, we may not be going to hell forever, but we're living in hell on earth.

And greed takes something that God gave us dominion.

And it puts us in a position where instead of us owning our things, our things begin to own us, and all of a sudden, we are slaves to the very things that we are slaving for.

The wrath of God isn't always magic, it isn't always thunderbolts and lightning, it isn't always hellfire and brimstone.

It is allowing you to experience the natural consequences of avoiding the mirror of scripture and correcting what it shows you.

Paul's gonna turn the corner from these personal reflections to public reflections, he says, but now five more virtues put away anger, wrath, malice, slander, and filthy language from your mouth.

He goes from the personal, that which you can hold in and only affect yourself, to the aspects of how you live that have no choice but to affect the people around you.

Your anger will hurt those that are closest to you.

Your slander will damage others' reputations.

An inability to control your tongue will hurt your influence and will hurt your relationships.

This is a mirror.

And in that mirror, it shows us reality.

Something that many of us are living actively trying to avoid.

In the mirror, it shows us our truest self.

And it shows us ourself in comparison to God's desires for the life that He's given us.

Personal reflections, public reflections.

And in verse 9, he ties it together.

He says, Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old self and all of its practices.

Did you know that mirrors can lie?

Maybe you've been to a fun house and you've seen an exaggerated version of this where you get a big convex mirror and it looks you makes you look five times your normal size.

Mirrors lie to us all the time.

Every once in a while, and I mean it's rare, but every once in a while, I get in the right mirror, in the right bathroom, with the right lighting and the right colored walls, and I look and think, yo, I am kind of tan right now.

Like I am like a golden bronze.

And then reality snaps in, and I remember I'm never tan.

I am pale and then I am burnt.

And when I'm done being burnt, I go back to being pale.

This mirror, this mirror is lying to me.

Did you know in some department stores now and even in some hotel chains, they are putting mirrors in that are slightly, slightly concave to make you look skinnier.

Oh, I am buying this outfit.

I have never looked this good.

This really is slimming.

No, the mirror is lying to you.

Our real physical mirrors can lie to us, and I want to suggest that while most Christ followers are not going to the mirror of scripture, that we all choose a mirror.

A mirror is for comparison.

Does this outfit look like it looks?

On Pinterest, let me compare.

Am I really losing the weight the scale shows?

Let me look.

Let me visualize it.

Give me a point of reference of where I'm at compared to my desire.

We all choose a mirror, and far too many people are choosing as their mirror social media influencers who are airbrushed and overpaid, and until you look just like them and drive the cars they drive and have the following, they follow, and you're never gonna be satisfied.

You have fallen short of a standard outside of yourself in comparison.

It's your mirror.

And some of you have a dollar amount, and if you could just get to that salary or that amount in retirement, or that amount of money in the savings account, that's your mirror.

That's your standard, and it's what you're falling short of.

We all choose a mirror, it might be someone at work, you're kind of ashamed of it, but you're secretly just so jealous.

If I could have a marriage that good, if I could have kids that well behaved, we all choose mirrors.

And here's the danger any mirror outside of Scripture lies to us.

At some point and at some level, every mirror lies to us.

And we can lie to anyone about anything.

But perhaps the most dangerous person to lie to is ourselves.

You can lie to others, and there is something outside of you that at least has an opportunity to step in and correct.

But if you lie to yourself, if you become self-deceived, then there is no one left to help.

We approach the mirror of scripture.

And maybe you wonder like, what does that even look like?

I can go through this list, but how do I even make sense of it?

And this is the beauty of what God has done for us.

Because you see, God sent Jesus the living word, the word made flesh.

He sent him to the earth.

And when Jesus left the earth, he sent us the Spirit of God, and the living word provided the written word.

And the Spirit of God inside of us illuminates the written word of God to grow us deeper into relationship with the living word of God so that we can get busy building the kingdom of God.

This mirror represents reality to you, and the spirit will convict you, it will impress and prod on you, it will bring to light and bring to mind the areas where what you see God has created you to be and how you are currently living are not in congruence with one another.

Do not lie to one another, do not lie to yourself.

And if your standard of comparison, if the mirror you choose, is outside of God, give it time.

Every other mirror lies.

Scripture is a mirror, revelation through reflection.

But it's also a window, and Paul is gonna now turn the corner to it in verse 10.

He says, You've put on the new self.

You're being renewed in knowledge according to the image of your creator.

This is what the mirror does it brings things to light, it builds your knowledge, it grows and matures you, not based on a standard in this world, but based on who created you.

You can feel Paul turning a corner, and now he's gonna move us to the window.

Revelation through projection.

A projection is a forecast about your future that's rooted in your current reality.

We like to detach the window from the mirror, but the mirror tells us where we're at, and the window shows us where we could be if we would line ourselves up to what God's asking us to do.

He's gonna give us another five virtue list.

Verse 12, therefore, we're turning a corner, therefore, as God's chosen ones, holy and dearly loved by God, put on, he asked us to take off, that's the mirror, now the window, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.

These are the virtues of someone who's fully walking in their purpose.

These are the characteristics of someone who has looked consistently in the mirror of Scripture and is beginning to line their lives up to what God has for them.

We're a culture that's built on passion.

We're told to follow our passions.

We go to concerts and experiences to have this euphoria of passion.

And passion is largely self-centered.

What is compassion?

It is projecting that desire of fulfillment to others around you, including those, and maybe especially those who are most disadvantaged, compassion, kindness.

I don't even hear adults talking about kindness.

It almost feels so elementary.

Like, didn't we learn this at four?

We got in preschool and it was like, you've got to be kind.

You have to share, you can't hit, you can't talk bad about each other, can't call each other names.

It's like we just take kindness for granted.

We learned it at this early age, and it lasted us all the way until we got our first Twitter handle.

There's no kindness or civility in our culture right now.

Kindness is the mark of someone who is living out the future that God has for them.

This is who we could be.

It's the difference that we could make.

Humility.

An accurate assessment of who you are.

Some people think humility is like false humility, like where you're good at something and they tell you good job, and you're like, oh no, I could never, I, I, oh no, I really, I could have done better.

It's like, take a compliment, please.

Humility is not false humility, it's not feigning like you're bad at something you're good at.

Humility is an accurate assessment of who you are, which you can only truly discover if you have looked in the mirror of reality.

You know how rare humility is when every single process in our society pushes us to self-aggrandize and make ourselves more than we are.

Perfect family with the perfect filter, with perfect money, on the perfect vacations, with the perfect job, and I'm never sad and I'm never depressed.

And meanwhile, you're driving on the highway wondering if anyone would miss you if you're gone.

You see, the false sense of being more than we are swings us into an overcorrection of believing that we are actually nothing.

Humility is the middle ground rooted in Christ.

These are the virtues of personal projection.

This is what your life will look like when you are truly following Christ, knowing him deeply, living in your purpose.

We go from these personal, this inner life, how we're thinking and feeling, our emotions now, to our public projections, how we are with the world around us.

It's just two things bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance.

And a reminder, you should probably forgive.

Verse 13, you should probably forgive, you know, like Jesus forgave you.

We don't bear with one another.

We berate one another as soon as there's a disagreement.

We belittle one another to try and raise our own status.

There's no patience.

We don't forgive.

We are a generation of professional grudge holders.

Bearing with one another, forgiving one another.

This is the pathway to peace, having patience with one another.

We love the window.

We love thinking about being that guy, that woman, living that life, having that kind of peace.

We dream about having patience.

We're so far away from patience that we're like, oh man, I would freaking kill someone for some patience.

It's like, what?

You would kill someone for patience.

We love to look through the window, but we're so hesitant to face ourselves in the mirror.

And so we're desperate for patience, but we won't look at the current reality and the things inside of us that are eating away at our souls that are causing us not to have the patience in the first place.

We want the window without any of the work.

Scripture must operate as both.

Finally, he ties it together.

Above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity, the ultimate virtue and the ultimate filter for both the mirror and the window.

Love is the ultimate good, and love is the ultimate goal.

It's the ultimate characteristic of Christ, and it is the ultimate character trait that we are called to pursue.

Love is the test of whether or not what you see in the mirror lines up with God's desires for your life.

Love is the test of what you see in your window, your future and purpose, if that lines up with God's destiny for your life.

Love is what ties all of it together.

To reboot, scripture must reveal.

And for scripture to reveal, we must actually be spending some time in Scripture.

Something that very few Christ followers are doing.

And I always want to be super transparent.

You know, as your pastor, my highest concern and my greatest priority is not for you to read the Bible.

I know that's maybe an odd twist in an entire 40-minute sermon trying to get you to read the Bible, but it's just not.

My highest concern is for you to believe in Jesus, to know him deeper and deeper, and to live the purpose that God has placed inside of you.

That is my heart's desire for your life.

But here's what I know.

To understand and walk the path towards that purpose, to develop a deeper and deeper knowledge of Jesus, and to move past the simple faith that guarantees you heaven and begin living a life that brings pieces of heaven to earth.

All of that is contingent on digging in to the written word of God.

It matters.

It matters that we spend time looking in the mirror that God has given us in Scripture, allowing the scalpel of truth to dig into the parts that we so desperately want to keep God out of.

It matters that we choose the right mirror.

Because we look at some mirrors of comparison to make us feel better about ourselves.

Like we feel a little convicted because we're gossiping a lot and we're like, well, you know, I mean, I'm not like freaking Karen over here.

You know what I mean?

Well, now you've refracted your reflection onto something that's the wrong comparison.

I mean, I I get angry every once in a while, but I'm not like this guy.

He's your mirror now.

It's important that we choose the right window.

We all have things and people that we look to as our desired outcome of our future.

Every mirror and every window that is not God, at some point, at some level, will lie to you.

None of them can hold the weight of your present, none of them can hold the weight of your future, nothing but God can hold the weight of your hope.

I've fallen victim to this so many times.

I mean, I'll never forget there was a pastor that I really looked up to, and let me just say this: have role models.

It's a great thing to have mentors, but even they have to bow in submission to the authority of God's word.

This person moved beyond role models where I was idolizing them.

They they looked like a mirror, you know, of how am I doing in my own journey and how am I preaching and how am I leading the organization and how and a window into like, man, if I could do what this guy pulled off, if I could reach as many people as he had reached, it he was a he was a mirror to me, he was a window to me.

I read all of his books and I went to his conference.

There was a long line of people to meet him.

And I thought, I just gotta shake his hand, you know.

I gotta let him know, like, bro, thank you.

I wouldn't say these words because I'm not a crazy person, but like, bro, you're my mirror, you know, you're my window, you know, you complete me.

Like, I didn't know what to say, but I went down and was like, I don't get real excited about celebrities, you know, so I was just gonna, hey, thank you.

No, no picture.

I didn't need that.

I got up, I was the last person in line, and he was the biggest jerk to me.

I mean, it was unbelievable.

I was like, did I offend this guy at some point?

Do I remind him of someone that he really dislikes?

It's a huge jerk.

I love giving the benefit of the doubt.

I need it a lot, so I better give it every once in a while.

And I thought, man, he had had a long day.

I was the last person in line.

You know, I gave him all these excuses.

And I gave him excuses because I didn't want to admit that sometimes our mirrors lie to us.

A couple of years later, it all came out.

He had abused his authority about every turn and every chance he got, sexually harassed almost every woman in his organization, embezzled money from a very successful ministry, and was let go out of ministry, and to this day has not apologized for any of it.

There's one truth that's found in the Word of God.

There's one mirror that will never hold back and never lie to us, and there's only one window that can actually point you to your purpose because that window was created by the very God who created you and placed that purpose inside of you.

Anything short of God runs a very real risk of sabotaging the significant life that He's given you to live.

And so it's time to go to scripture and to allow it to be both the mirror and the window.

And a lot of us like to pick one or the other.

A lot of people like the window.

It's like, just give me the feel-good sermons, you know what I'm saying?

Just give me the prosperity gospel where I'm gonna be rich and handsome and skinny, and I'm gonna have friends, I'm gonna live in a big house.

Like, that's what I want.

I just want to look through the window, that's all I want to do.

And other people are like, all I want is the mirror.

I just want to be miserable, and I want to think about just how crappy of a person I am, and I just want to focus on myself, and the only thing I can see in the Bible is me.

And we must have both.

Another way to say that is that the mirror only is arrogant.

The mirror only is arrogant.

It's just focusing on you.

And we work on ourselves, and that's good, and we should work on ourselves, but we get better, and we're able to tell everyone around us all of the things about me, and we're focused here, and every page of scripture has my face on it.

God doesn't show you you for you, He shows you you so that you can then live like Him.

The window only is air, the mirror only is arrogant, but the window only is artificial.

This life where all of our wildest dreams come true without any effort on our part is fake.

It doesn't happen.

We don't get to the life of our dreams without acknowledging the current reality that we're working in and living in and taking real steps to get there.

Scripture must be our mirror and our window, all of it hinged and held together with love.

Many church, as we close, it should be no surprise that I'm gonna ask you to get in the word.

But I want to be specific.

Number one, I want to take some of that weight off of you, and I hope you hear me that scripture can be very hard to read.

Please know I understand that.

Whatever guilt is weighing on you, take it off because guilt is not helpful.

However, it is also imperative that we get in it.

God has given you his spirit to illuminate that scripture for you.

And today we have taken a simple strategy for approaching the text.

Here's what I'm gonna ask you to do.

If you're not reading the Bible at all, and chances are, statistically, you're not.

I want you to download, many of you probably already have the Bible app.

This is by UVersion.

The UVersion Bible app, it is in the Android and the Google and the Apple store.

You can download it right now as I'm talking if you don't already have it on your phone.

On the home screen of the Bible app, there's a verse of the day.

And right under it, it says tap here to get this daily.

By tapping that, you give your phone permission to send you one verse every day.

And that's where I'm asking you to start.

To make time and space, to be quiet and contemplate one verse.

To ask the Spirit of God to say something, to ask, is this a mirror?

Is it showing me something that is off in my life?

Is this a window?

Is God pointing me towards my future or my purpose?

UVersion Bible app.

Get that daily verse in all your notifications of Instagram and TikTok and ESPN and all the things that are bringing you anxiety and making you depressed for the love of God.

Let's get a Bible verse in there so that God can begin saying something to your life.

Just start with one.

Start with one.

Would you pray with me?

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

I want to stop and thank you for your word.

We thank you for Jesus, the word who became flesh, who lived among us, and led us into the ways of truth.

We thank you for this movement that created these Christian scriptures.

God, we thank you for the Old Testament that gives us the backstory to the main story.

We thank you that all of it, every page is dripping with wisdom and knowledge for us to just soak up and apply to our lives.

Maybe we're scared of it, but God, we know at some level we need the mirror of truth.

God, I need it.

I need it every day.

I need to address the reality of where I'm at and how much further I have to go.

Not to be drowned in my guilt, God, but to be inspired by the window of who you've created me to be.

I pray that for every person that we would get that, God.

You don't take us to the mirror to leave us there hurt.

You point us to the window.

You give us motivation, inspiration, you enlighten us.

You give us a path, you show us our purpose.

God, I want that.

I want that for this movement.

I want to break all the statistics, God, even if it's one verse a day, we will be a people of the word.

We love you.

We pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

All right, a couple of things before we head out.

Um, I want to thank you guys so much for being here.

Uh, man, I I can't wait for uh tonight.

You know what I'm saying?

Uh I haven't really been keeping up, but I assume go cowboys, right?

Did we make it?

Are we?

Yeah, I'm gonna pretend we did.

Um I uh I hope you guys have a great time next week.

We are excited for Valentine's Day.

We're also wrapping up this series.

On the 28th, we're going to circle back in on our whatever it takes campaign to create a new permanent space and just share all the cool doors that God has been opening.

And again, to just thank those of you who are giving above and beyond.

Speaking of that, make sure that even if you're giving to the campaign, your your first gift goes to the operations of this movement.

Make sure that you're helping to fund this place.

We invest in what we believe in.

Our prayer team is right over in the cafe.

Our connect area is in there as well.

If you have questions, if you need to talk to someone or you need prayer, you guys can head right over there.

Man, I love you guys, and I hope to see you next Sunday.

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.