MetaChurch Service 11/29/20 with Pastor Ryan Roberts

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.

Hey there, MetaCurch.

I'm Ryan, your next gym pastor, and I'm so excited to be with you today, and I'm so excited to be gathering here once again.

You know, last week we got to celebrate Thanksgiving, and I hope each and every one of you had just a great, great Thanksgiving, even if it looked like different than ones in the past.

You know, I saw so many posts on social media, on Facebook and Insta this week, where people were posting what they were eating.

Let me ask you, why do people post what they're eating on Thanksgiving?

I mean, it's literally like the only day of the year, the one day of the whole entire year where we're all eating the same thing.

It's literally like people will be posting pictures like, dude, check out my turkey.

We're all eating the same turkey.

I get it.

And they'd be like, dude, check out my check out my green bean casserole.

We're all eating the same.

No, none of us eat the green bean casserole, that's right.

But seriously, though, I hope you had a great Thanksgiving and had a great time with family, maybe if you weren't able to gather physically.

But as I was thinking this past week about Thanksgiving, I literally uh read this verse and it really rocked me to my core, really made me think.

And I want to share it with you today.

It's it's from 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 18.

1 Thessalonians 5 · chapter mention

It says, Whatever happens, always be thankful.

This is how God wants you to live in Christ Jesus.

And to be honest with you, I when I read that, I was like, come on, God, I mean, you want me to always be thankful?

Whatever happens?

I mean, God, don't you know this is this is 2020.

This is the year, I mean, we've been facing this global pandemic.

Many of you have lost loved ones and friends.

Many of us have taken financial hits, or maybe you lost a job or your business has tanked.

Many of us have have have struggled with this season and wrestled with this hard time in life, you know, with all the racial division, the political upheaval, all the pain and the brokenness.

And I literally was like, in that moment, God, are you serious?

You want me to always be thankful?

How can I be thankful in a year like 2020?

And this leads me through really to the question I want to wrestle with today.

How do we have thanks to give when our life is hard to live?

I've wrestled with this, and if you're honest, 2020 may have been a challenging year for you as well.

I think it's something we all wrestle with, and so I invite you to join with me today as we dive into God's word to see what he has to say about this.

Would you pray with me?

Father God, I just thank you for this day and just ask that you be with us.

I pray that as we dive into your word, Lord, that you would just make your scriptures come alive to us, and I pray that you would show us, teach us how to be grateful, how to give thanks in all things.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Now, it's it's so easy to be grateful when when times are good and we can see God's blessing in our life, but how do I be grateful when times are tough?

How do I be grateful when life is full of things that are not great?

You know, I was thinking about this year of 2020, and it's it's been like a year like none other.

We always hear often about how unprecedented times.

This truly has been a year unlike any other.

And you know, I was thinking about this time last year as we were coming into 2020, and it seemed like in November, December, in the beginning of January, all I heard people talking about, hey, this is gonna be a year of 2020 vision.

Man, all my dreams, all my visions, they're gonna come to come to come to pass.

I mean, who can't get excited about that, right?

And I bet now, if we talk to those same people, they'd be hoping for more of a 2020, a year of revision.

They'd say, hey, let's just can this right now.

Let's just see if we can just fast forward to 2021, just skip the rest of the year and let's move on.

But unfortunately, we don't get to do that.

So, how do we go from a holiday of thanksgiving to a life of thanksgiving?

How do we go from giving thanks once a year on a holiday to a becoming a way of life?

How do we have thanks to give when our life is hard to live?

Now, this is a real struggle.

I I've wrestled with this, our our staff wrestles with it, and I'm sure that you may have wrestled with this too.

So maybe today if we look at scripture, we might just see how relevant God's word, the Bible, is to these very real situations, these very real issues that we wrestle with every day.

Now, if you don't read the Bible, uh, if you you should at least read one of the gospels, I mean the story of Jesus.

Even if you don't believe the scripture is true, even if you don't believe that Jesus was the Son of God, you should at least read this story of Jesus because, I mean, this man, he changed society and culture.

He he altered nations like no man ever before and ever since.

It's a life worth reading about.

Today we're gonna take a look at a part of Jesus' story where Jesus encountered this very issue we're talking about today.

It's found in the New Testament scriptures in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 17, and we're gonna pick up in verse 11.

Luke 17 · chapter mention

It says, While traveling to Jerusalem, he passed between Samaria and Galilee.

And so let me help you just kind of picture this.

In the nation of Israel, there was Galilee, it was like an area to the north where Jesus did a lot of his ministry, and then down to the south, there was Judea, and there's a lot of the famous cities you may have heard of, like Bethlehem and Jerusalem, they were down there.

And then sandwiched right in the middle was this area called Samaria.

Now it's interesting because Samaritans and Jews, they hated each other, they despise each other like none other.

You know, they they actually, Samaritans were kind of they viewed as half-bred breeds because they were of both Jewish and foreign descent.

You know, they both actually wrestled with and fought over whether God should be worshipped on the mountain in Samaria or whether God should be worshipped in Israel's mountain.

They literally both despise each other for racial and religious reasons.

And so it says in verse 12, as Jesus entered a village, ten men with leprosy met him.

You see, leprosy was the worst disease of their day.

It literally would cause uh a deterioration of the skin and potentially even limbs over time.

And at that time, people were so afraid of leprosy, they were so afraid because they thought it was so contagious that they would literally have to stay away.

Uh the lepers would have to stay away from people and announce when they were coming.

They literally had to social distance, or more aptly put, anti-social distance.

They lived on the fringes of society.

He's truly a Samaritan leper, was an outsider even among outsiders.

To the Jew, a Samaritan leper would be the lowest of the low, the most despised person of any.

And so continuing there in verse 12, it says, They stood at a distance and raised their voices, saying, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.

Now, I want you to get a picture of this, because I can almost picture these lepers.

They're like over here from a distance.

They're like, yo, I dude, is that is that Jesus over there?

I can't really tell.

I can't, is that is that Jesus coming?

And his friend's like, bro, you know I lost my eyeball last week.

You want me to pick out a guy from 100 yards away?

And then one of his friends is like, no, no, no, I think, I, I think that's him.

Hey, hey, let's try to get his attention.

Jesus, Jesus.

And you know, Jesus' MO, the way he normally operated was that he would he would go up and heal someone by by reaching out and touching them.

He would literally lay hands on them and heal them.

But here he does something different.

I think it's so interesting because he does something different.

Instead of going over and touching them, he literally hollers back at them.

He literally shouts back at them, go and show yourselves to the priests.

And I can almost in that moment just kind of see the lepers are over here from a distance.

What did he say?

What I can't really hear.

What did he say?

Dude, you know you lost your ear last week.

You haven't been down here a thing since that ear fell off.

What did he say?

I think he said, go to Chick-fil-A to eat.

And his friend's like, what, dude, shut up.

No, he certainly said, go to Popeye's and get something to eat.

And that's where it all began.

The epic battle over who has the best spicy chicken sandwich.

Right there, folks.

You know, it's okay to laugh about things like this when there's many things in life that we can't laugh about.

But diseases that have been cured, though, that's definitely something we can laugh about, like scurvy and rickets and even leprosy.

It's okay to laugh about those things.

And you know, we've joked about it.

But I also really want you to understand what the life of a leper really was like.

They were segregated, marginalized.

They were outcasts living on the fringe of society.

They had no contact with people other than other lepers.

You had to ring a bell or shout out and announce when you're coming so that people could steer clear from you.

They tended to roam together begging, looking for food.

It was almost like a long-term death sentence, like a prison without walls.

You actually could live a long time with this disease, but every day you were reminded how you were did not fit in.

You just simply didn't belong.

Many times people judged you as this was punishment for your sin.

It truly was the worst disease of their day, and leprosy did attack the body.

It did uh create sores all over the body, and eventually hands and fingers and limbs could could actually fall off.

This disease literally could have taken 30 years to run its course.

It was a very horrible disease.

But I want you to imagine, if we were there, it wasn't even just the grotesque damage to their to their skin and their physical bodies that would have caused us to divert our eyes.

It was also that that loud shouting and ringing of the bells that would have attacked our ears.

It also was that the just the smell of rotting, decaying flesh that was so pungent to our nose.

But I think the emotional pain that a leper experienced must have been even worse than the physical pain.

You see, they were removed from their family, they were removed from their community.

There could be no contact, none whatsoever, none.

No job, no family, no love, no compassion, no purpose.

And yet Jesus said, Go and show yourselves to the priests.

And I want you to get this because this is big, because these ten lepers, they knew something that maybe you and I didn't know.

And that's if if a leper's skin condition cleared up, if all of a sudden over time it got better or he was healed, he literally had to go and show himself to the priests.

And in those days, priests weren't just leading worship, they were also kind of a version of a local health official.

They would go and show themselves, the priest would kind of inspect them, look them over, make sure they were clean, and then he would give them a clean bill of health.

Lepers truly were not allowed to do anything before going to the priest.

They weren't allowed to go and visit their family, to go check on their business.

They weren't allowed to go finally get some good food to eat.

They weren't allowed to do anything before going to the priest.

And Jesus tells them to go, but based on what they could see in that very moment, nothing had changed.

They literally had no reason to go to the priest.

They were just as bad off as they were 10 minutes before, before they hollered out at him.

Nothing had changed.

And yet they obeyed.

They stepped out and started walking to the priest.

And Jesus continued his way into the village.

Think of the faith that these lepers must have had in Jesus.

This must have been such a statement of the confidence that all ten, not just the one, but all ten lepers had in Jesus.

And I love the end of verse 14.

It says this, and while they were going, while they were going, they were cleansed.

They had to take that step, or perhaps many steps of faith.

We don't know if they just walked a couple hours, or they may have even walked a couple days to get to the priest.

We don't know how long it took, but we know this that as they were taking steps of faith, something began to change.

You see, in order for the miracle to happen, these men had to start walking and stepping out in faith before any of the circumstances had changed one bit.

They started walking before their sores ever began to fade.

Likewise, we cannot wait till our problems fade to begin taking steps of faith.

So they decided to head off in search of the priest.

Now I want you to get a picture of this because scripture says, on the way they were cleansed.

I don't know about you, but sometimes when I read the Bible, I think it's like so anticlimatic.

It's like, and on the way they were cleansed.

I want you to get a picture of this because I can imagine all 10 of these lepers are like walking to the priest, and they're they're heading, they're like, I don't even know why we're doing this.

Why are we doing this?

You still look the same, you're just as jacked up as you were before.

But I guess we'll do it.

Jesus said to do it, we're gonna do it.

And then somewhere along the way, someone's hand starts to tingle.

They start feeling something a little funny, and all of a sudden there's there's like a finger there where there wasn't one a minute ago, and they're like, bro, dude, you've got a foot now.

There's not this just this peg, like you've got an actual foot.

And I can you imagine in that moment, they're just like this just ecstatic excitement, and they're just like, dude, you look, look, you actually got your ear back.

You can hear again.

In that moment, I can just imagine the excitement and the frenzy.

And scripture just says, and as they went, they were healed.

But I imagine they were just so excited.

That's in that moment, they must have started sprinting to the priest.

I mean, this priest was their ticket back to society.

The author of Luke could have stopped right there, and it would have been just this amazing story, this amazing miracle, but he doesn't.

They started sprinting to the priests.

It says in verse 15, though, but one of them, seeing that he was cleansed, seeing that he was healed, returned and with a loud voice gave glory to God.

He fell face down at his feet, thanking him.

And he was a Samaritan.

I love how Luke adds that last little comment at the end, and he was a Samaritan.

To a Jewish audience, that would have been a mic drop moment right there.

That would have been like boom.

Oh, and by the way, y'all, he was a Samaritan.

He was the most despised, he was the most the one you would have like just ridiculed the most.

Regardless, the other nine, I have no doubt, they ran, they sprinted to the priest.

The nine who did not return, once they got to the priest, like I said, that was their ticket back into society.

They got their life back, their families, their jobs, their social status.

Those nine were more concerned with the effects of the healing than knowing the healer himself.

They were so busy working towards the process that they forgot to thank the person.

But the one went back to the one who gave him his life back.

He literally, instead of going to an earthly priest, then the Samaritan leper ran to the great high priest, Jesus.

By turning back the Samaritan, he literally prolonged his own misery, his own time as an outcast in society in order to show his gratitude, his thankfulness for what Jesus had done for him.

You know, it's interesting because gratitude often costs us something.

The one leper turned back to Jesus, but it cost him.

Sure, his skin was clear, but nothing else had changed.

If you think about that moment, nothing else had changed.

He was still a leper, he was still didn't have a job, he still was poor, he didn't have his family, he still couldn't get a date, and in that moment he even did have lost his nine friends.

He had nothing.

But he put all of that on hold and he threw himself down at Jesus' feet in worship and surrender.

He was broke, and yet he placed himself broken at the feet of Jesus.

So, what does this have to do with you today?

Let's think about this year.

Let's think about this year of 2020 and everything that we're going through.

Because of COVID, some of you may have experienced the loss of a friend.

Or maybe some of you have experienced even worse the death of a family member.

Some of you have experienced loss of income, perhaps a job loss, or maybe some of you, your business is tanked.

I'm sure many of you become disenfranchised by all the racial and political division in our nation.

Maybe today you find yourself struggling with addiction that you walked in victory before this, but because of this, these tough times, you slip back and struggle with that addiction.

Or maybe you're desperately praying for your kid who's struggling with addiction.

Perhaps you find yourself gripped with fear just because of all that's going on around us.

Or maybe you're wrestling with just this mental health aspect of this crisis, which leads to depression, anxiety, loneliness, and thoughts of even ending your own life.

Well, I could be wrong, but I don't think that any of our lives are worse than the lives of those lepers that day in Jesus' time.

And yet, he gave thanks.

Now I know that some of you are in horrible circumstances right now, and I do not mean to make light of that.

But what awaits us today is the question, in spite of those circumstances, in spite of what you face this week, the rest of this year, we're faced with a question how do we have thanks to give when life can be so hard to live.

To find the answer, let's take another look at that scripture.

That scripture we looked at in the beginning, let's take one more look at that today.

Again, that was in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verse 18, Paul says, Whatever happens, always be thankful.

1 Thessalonians 5:18

Remember, we talked about whatever happens, always be thankful.

But what I want you to see is the second part of this today.

This is how God wants you to live in Christ Jesus.

You see, that's the person, uh, that's that's the answer to the person of Jesus is the answer.

The answer is to live in Christ.

That's the answer to how we can have thanks to give when life is hard to live.

We always think of what, and as I think back to when we celebrate Thanksgiving, oftentimes a tradition in our family is to go around the table and everyone says something that they're thankful for.

We always think of what we have to be thankful for.

And when our thanks are based on things, then without those things, we have nothing to be thankful for.

But when our thanks are based, not on what, but on who, specifically the who of Jesus Christ, then we always can have something to be thankful for.

I admit there will be times where you may not have something to be thankful for.

But our gratitude, and I want you to get this today, our gratitude is not based on something, but on someone.

Our gratitude is not based on something, it's based on someone.

Even if the world is up in flames and uh just the world is falling apart, our relationship with Jesus is secure, our eternity with him is secure.

That is how you can have thanks to give when life is so hard to live.

That is how you can go from thanksgiving to thanks living.

That's how you can have thanks to give all days and not just holidays.

It's a shift in your perspective.

You don't need something to be thankful.

You have someone to be thankful.

And that is how we can have thanks to give when life's so hard to live.

Let's go back to the story of the ten lepers for a second.

You see, the nine, the nine, they were healed, they were they were cleansed, and they ran after the some things the the family, the job, the income, the food, the friends, the relationship.

And really, who can blame them?

But the one.

The Samaritan leper ran not after the some things, but after the some one.

He ran after Jesus.

Now, to be honest with you, this is something I've had to wrestle with in my life.

I think the greatest example of my life comes from really the most painful time in my life.

It was January 6th, 2011.

And uh I didn't even realize this until writing this.

It's been almost a decade now, since the day that we lost a child.

See, my wife Nadine, she was pregnant.

She was about 14 weeks along, and our baby didn't make it.

And it was such a dark and lonely time in my life.

You know, I really feel for those who who've lost children later in life.

I don't imagine that the pain could be the same.

I don't imagine that I understand the pain that you could go through, but when you lose a child, it's such a loss, whether it's early in life or whether it's later, it still leaves a gaping hole.

I remember the pain.

I remember the very real frustration with wrestling with God.

I love you.

How could this happen?

I remember trying to stay so busy that the noise of life would drown out the pain.

I remember how it impacted our family and our other kids.

And where do we go from here?

See, our baby, the doctor told us, had heart problems.

And eventually we came to realize that God truly did love our child.

As much as we loved our child, he loved our child even more than we could.

And he did receive our child home to be with him.

And that child didn't have to live in this broken, painful world with a broken heart, a literal deformed heart.

So eventually we came to realize that God truthfully probably spared that child, spared us a great deal of pain and agony.

Eventually we realized that our baby did not cease to exist in that moment.

It just simply got to heaven earlier than us.

We began to realize and get the perspective that our baby wasn't just part of our past.

That baby was part of our present and a very real part of our future.

We wrestled with the pain of that loss for quite some time.

I don't think we really started to heal from that until we decided to name our baby.

Like I said, we it finally dawned on us that this baby wasn't just part of our past, but a very real part of our present and our reality.

And so we talked about it, prayed about it.

And we named our baby Justice.

Because no matter what we go through in life, we serve a God who is still just.

No matter what that experience, no matter how traumatic and painful it was, God loved us and he was still just.

And it's amazing because once we did that, it really began to shift and change our perspective.

No longer did I really find myself blaming God, but it shifted my perspective.

But we weren't able to become to that perspective until we learned what we're talking about today.

And that's that our gratitude is not based on something, it's based on someone.

It's based on Jesus.

But this is one thing that I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that we got right.

How we handled this situation of the greatest loss, the greatest pain, and still came through to praise God and give thanks.

I know that we got it right because it brought healing and wholeness and health to our family.

To this day, our children will still talk about justice.

It's not like an unmentioned, untalkable event that we can't speak of.

We still talk about justice and wonder what justice would have been like and think about when we get to heaven and we're reunited.

It's been a healthy experience.

It's enabled us to see God at work through the midst of our pain.

It gave us a greater perspective to where we're not thankful for something, but we're truly thankful for the someone of Jesus in our life.

And through it all, it's empowered us to truly be able to help others.

This is actually the first time I've shared this story publicly, but we've had the opportunity to walk alongside several couples who've experienced the same tragedy and the same pain.

And it's empowered us to help others.

What if we all, what if we all, no matter what the circumstances you're going through, what if we all got this right?

That even though this 2020 has been an awful year, what if we all got this perspective right that we can still have thanks to give when life is hard to live?

It would enable us to see God at work, it would give us greater perspective, and I tell you what, others around us would take notice.

It would empower us to help those around us who are in a lost and dying world, who are looking for hope, and you would have it.

Where do we get hope when all seems lost?

Our hope and therefore our gratitude is based not on the some things of this life, but on someone.

And that someone is Jesus.

Now I'd like for us to go back for just a second to the story that we read earlier of the lepers.

You see, the story ends with the one man, the one Samaritan leper coming back to Jesus.

And when he did that, when he came back, Jesus said this in verse 19.

He said, Jesus told him to get up and go on your way.

Your faith has saved you.

Jesus said, get up and go on your way.

Your faith has saved you.

I think he's saying to us this year in 2020, get up, get up, man of church, let's go.

We've got a thing to do, we've got a mission to accomplish, we got to move, let's go on our way.

Your faith has saved you.

In fact, the other nine were healed, but the one found not only healing, but found salvation and grace through Jesus.

And just as this man ran back to Jesus, I wonder if there's anyone listening today who's realizing you need to run back to Jesus.

If so, he isn't far off.

Scripture doesn't paint a picture of him being a far-off God.

And no, in fact, in fact, he's not standing there with his arms wide open.

Scripture paints a picture of him like running after us.

He loves you that much.

And if you haven't believed in this Jesus I'm talking about today, I invite you to begin a relationship with him today.

This Jesus, you see, he was the Son of God, but he laid all that aside.

He put on a body like you and I, but unlike you and I, he lived a perfect, sinless life.

And yet he took the price, he paid the price and went and died on a cross so that we might have life.

Three days later, he rose from the dead, and one day soon he's coming back for all of us who believe in him.

If you're listening today and you're like, I haven't believed in this Jesus, I don't have a relationship with him, I want to encourage you, today is your day.

There's no magic prayer to pray, there's no special thing to say, but you could say something like this.

As simple as, Jesus, I choose you.

I believe you died for me.

You rose from the dead, and I believe you're coming back for me.

Today, I choose you.

And Jesus, now I pray for all of us that are listening today.

I pray for all of us.

But thank you, Lord, for being present with us when life is hard because this life, this world is broken, and life does get hard at times.

And I thank you for being present with us.

You never leave us, you never forsake us.

We realize today, Lord, that our gratitude is based not on something, but it's based on the someone.

It's based on you, Jesus.

It's because of you that we can give thanks in all things, no matter what the situation is.

Today we realize, Jesus, that you are enough for us.

And I pray that you would empower us to live that out so that others around us who are without hope, who really just don't have something to give thanks for, they will see something different in us, lead us, transform us, help us to move out and impact our world in that way.

Thank you for changing us.

Thank you that we can be grateful in you.

Amen.

Well, I want to thank you today for joining with joining us.

I hope that this message really spoke directly into your life.

And if you're going through a tough season, I hope that it really will be something that you can remember and that God can bring back to your memory in those tough times.

You know, we're continuing to stream together and serve together, but I'm so excited because we're also now gathering together.

And so I hope that even more of you will be able to join us next week as we're gathering in our our 151 and Helotus venues.

I want to encourage you to be sure to stay connected with us, to follow us on social media, to stay connected and see what's going on.

And if you have anything that you want to reach out to us about, feel free to contact us.

Feel free to reach out to us if you have prayer requests or anything that we can do for you to better support you.

You can email us at info at metachurch.tv.

And I want to encourage you for those of you who are a part of this movement.

I want to encourage you to continue to do your part to support and to fund this movement.

You know, it matters that this movement exists.

It matters that there's a place where people who are not like Jesus can come and meet Jesus.

It matters that we continue to move.

And I want to encourage you to do your part to continue to fund this movement.

You can give on miniature.tv or in the MetaCurch app.

We pray that you continue to be safe and we pray that you continue to be the movement.

Thanks so much for listening to the message today.

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