Whatever It Takes: Messy Miracles with Pastor Clayton Tyner

Welcome to the MetaCurch Podcast.

My name's Clayton.

I'm the pastor here at MetaChurch.

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.

MetaCurch, I want to welcome you to Pledge Day.

Uh, this is something we've been building to over the last three weeks.

And if you're joining us for the first time, my name's Clayton.

I'm the lead pastor here at MetaCurch, and you have come in at an incredibly exciting time in the life and the history of this movement.

We're three weeks into our Whatever It Takes series, where we're gearing up to fund a new permanent space to reach more lives so we can continue living out our mission to do whatever it takes to get as many people as possible to Jesus.

Now we've covered a lot of ground in this series, and if you haven't seen the first two weeks, I would really encourage you after this one to get caught up because in week one we looked at the project that we're actually funding.

It's a super Kmart here in San Antonio, uh over near the corner of Fortin and Marbach.

We talked all about the details of it and why we're doing the campaign, the way that we're doing it, and why we're fundraising the way that we're fundraising.

And so you can get all caught up.

And what's really important in week one is we ask the question why in the world would anybody be fundraising right now?

Right in the middle of a global pandemic of the craziest year that probably any of us have ever lived through, why would we do it now?

We saw in week one that oftentimes when the world makes the least amount of sense is when we see God do the biggest miracles through people who are willing to move forward in faith anyway.

In week two, we got to really slow down and tell the story of all that God has been doing throughout this time.

And it's really amazing when you hear it back to back to back all the ways that God has blessed and provided and shown favor, and we see his fingerprints through every part of this process.

You can get caught up on those messages at metachurch.tv or you can go straight to our metachurch YouTube page.

What we're doing here is we are asking everyone who is a part of Meta and even those who God moves their heart outside of this movement, outside of this city, state, or even outside of this country, anyone who would be willing to make a three-year financial commitment.

This is above and beyond what we normally give to fund the operation of MetaCurch, a three-year pledge.

The reality is MetaCurch is not a wealthy church.

And if we just asked everyone to write the biggest check they could write right now, it would be like asking me to do that.

The biggest check I could write right now would not be a very big check.

And although we are not monetarily wealthy, we are overwhelmingly wealthy with missional clarity and vision buy-in and people who really want to do whatever it takes.

Making a three-year commitment allows people to give smaller amounts every month for three years, totaling a significant amount that will help us as we move in and help to fund and pay off the construction of that building.

So we've talked about why we should build it now.

We have talked through our story arc, and today my message is called Messy Miracles.

Messy miracles.

And I'm I'm very excited about today's message because I've preached this message before, and we're gonna talk about how in this story, in scripture, we see a messy miracle.

But I love it because when I first delivered this sermon, it was a messy message.

We're talking about messy miracles, but this was a messy message, and here's why.

It was just a few months after we had first discovered the Kmart.

Katie and I were driving by and she spotted it, a big four-lease sign, and it wasn't long until we were standing in an old abandoned Kmart, and it's like you could still see, you know, the layaway section over here and the outdoor section, and it was really it's like being in the middle of a haunted house or something like that.

It was it was so crazy, it looked like a horror movie in there, but but we were there, and God had put a contractor in our path and an architect in our path, and pretty soon we had these renderings, and we were seeing graphics of what this space could be.

We saw an amazing tool in our toolkit to reach exponentially more people than we're able to reach today, and we were so excited, and almost as soon as we got those renderings, we went public with it.

Now, here's where it gets messy because traditional business practice and traditional church leadership would say, wait, do not go public too fast.

Here's how it actually works behind the scenes.

You work on it for months and even years, you get all the engineering out of the way, all of the permitting out of the way, and you even get most of the money already secured.

And then, once everything's taken care of, then you go to the congregation.

You allow them to write some checks so they feel like they have some buy-in, and then you move forward.

It's very clean and it is very precise.

And let me say this: I actually believe for most people, in most scenarios and most businesses, that's actually the best way to do it.

It is absolutely far more strategic, it is absolutely less messy, but here's where I get screwed up.

I am the lead pastor of MetaCurch, but I alone am not the church.

And MetaCurch has an organization with pastors and staff and strategy and vision and metrics and all of it.

But the organization itself is not the church, and metachurch has Sunday services where we come together and sing together and get in the war together, and that Sunday service alone is not the church, and we have some buildings right now.

We've got the 151 Saloon, and we have a building over in Helotus, and we're looking to build out a permanent building at Cambridge, but those buildings are not and never will be the church, and you know this because you are the church.

Do you see why this was different for us?

I'm not saying anyone else is bad for doing it differently, do all the work behind closed doors, just come out public at the end, but here's what they say: you get the church in order, and then you go to the congregation.

See the disconnect?

Get the church in order.

That means the money, that means the strategy, that means the organization, that means the building project.

Get the church in order and then go to the congregation.

And yet, I've looked at every single time that the word church is used on every single page of scripture in its original language.

I've tracked it all down.

And here's what I know you can't separate the church from the people because you are the church.

And so it's messier because we talked about this in December of 2018.

And I was just telling the staff, even for me, and I've been working on this day and night for two years almost, even for me, it feels like a long time ago.

It's messy.

Because if you heard about it that long ago, it's like, will this ever get done?

And that December we took an expansion offering and we were pretty clear like this might be for the Kmart, but what we do know is we're gonna expand this movement because we do whatever it takes.

And some of you gave so generously and so sacrificially to that.

And you're wondering, how in the world are we still doing a fundraiser?

It's messy.

It's cleaner to get it all in line.

But I would rather be messy.

This is the bottom line.

I would rather be messy and trust this movement.

I would rather be messy and trust you.

This will not be my building, this will not be the staff's building, this will not be the organization's building, this will be our movement's home base of operation.

This sermon is about a messy miracle.

And looking back, many would say that it was a messy message.

But I know MetaCurch.

And MetaCurch is willing to get messy in order to see a miracle.

Would you pray with me?

Father, we love you.

We look to you, we lean on you.

God, many of us for the last two weeks, we have been praying and we have been preparing for this moment.

And there are others, God, who are still on the fence, and there are others who are walking in for the first time and hearing about this movement that you've been using and growing, where real lives have been really changing, where families have been healed and marriages have been brought back together, where addictions have been vanquished.

And we're asking you, God, to move, to move upon the hearts of your people, to stir us to radical generosity during an unprecedented season.

We are asking that you, God, make a way for us to continue to reach more and more people with the hope of Jesus.

As we get in your word, give us open minds, open ears, open hearts for whatever you would say.

And we love you.

And we pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

We're gonna start today in Mark chapter two.

Mark chapter two, verse one says, When Jesus entered Capernaum again after some days, it was reported that he was at home.

So many people gathered together that there was no more room, not even in the doorway, and he was speaking the word to them.

They came to him, bringing a paralytic, carried by four of them.

And since they were not able to bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him.

And after digging through it, they lowered the mat on which the paralytic was lying.

And seeing their faith, Jesus told the paralytic, Son, your sins are forgiven.

I remember hearing this story growing up in church as a kid.

And here's what happened.

I got the message, but I missed much of the meaning.

To understand the context of where we're at, which is Mark chapter 2, I think we have to get a little bit of a picture of Mark chapter 1.

Mark 2 · chapter mention Mark 1 · chapter mention

In Mark chapter 1, Jesus is just beginning his ministry here on earth.

Mark 1 · chapter mention

And one of the first things he does is he casts an unclean spirit out of a man.

And so this man who had been tormented and possessed was now clear, praising God, living a normal life.

It was shocking to the people around him.

Not long after that, he went into the same house where we find him with the paralytic in chapter two.

In chapter one, we learn this is Simon Peter's house.

Peter, the disciple who walked on water and who claimed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God, and Peter, who was always interrupting and getting things wrong.

Peter has Jesus come to his house, and Peter's house kind of becomes the base of operations for Jesus' ministry for a time.

And when he comes into Jesus' house, he he learns that Jesus' mother-in-law is on her deathbed.

And Jesus is like, Peter, I got you, bro.

I'm gonna heal your mother-in-law.

And Peter was like, Jesus, I'm sure you're a busy guy.

You know, I'm sure there's lots of us.

She lived a good life.

You know what I'm saying?

We won't miss her in that.

That's a mother-in-law joke.

Listen, Jesus comes in and a woman who is like hanging on for life is healed.

Oh man, word gets out.

Here is a guy who can cast out unclean spirits, change your life, who can heal the people who are as good as dead.

Word got out, and Jesus was surrounded.

Every person who was sick, every person who was in need came to Jesus.

And Mark chapter 1 says that Jesus healed them all.

Mark 1 · chapter mention

And that day, I am sure there were many paralytics on many stretchers who were carried and who found healing from Jesus.

But not our paralytic in chapter 2.

Something else happened.

Jesus' popularity obviously swelled, someone who has the power of God just flowing through them like that, God and human flesh.

And it became very dangerous for Jesus because the religious leader saw him as a threat to their power, and pretty soon Jesus had to kind of hide and he had to move very, you know, inconspicuously.

And so we get to Mark chapter 2, and it says, when he entered Capernaum again after some days, after he let the heat die off, he snuck back in, but it was reported.

Mark 2 · chapter mention

Jesus didn't come in in a parade, he snuck back in, back into home base, and it was reported that he was at home.

The word got out.

Jesus is back.

Jesus is back.

And if you missed it the first time, if you were deaf or blind or mute or paralyzed or living in some kind of desperate situation, Jesus is back.

You missed him last time.

You were out of town last time.

Jesus is back.

You've got to get there.

Whatever it takes, you gotta get there.

Jesus is back.

In verse 2, so many people gathered together that there was no more room, not even in the doorway.

And Jesus was speaking the word to them.

The whole town just floods onto Peter's house.

They fill the whole house, every room, every corner.

In fact, they are spilled out through the doorway, around the house, it's surrounded.

People are leaning into windows, people are doing whatever they can to get close to Jesus.

And what was Jesus doing?

In this moment, it says that he was speaking the word.

Not a word, the word.

Not some word, not just something they wanted to hear, not something that would be popular.

Jesus, the living word of God, was speaking to them the word of life.

And this is really what we've done at MetaCurch.

And God has been so faithful to us.

And man, big part of the reason that we're fundraising right now is because pre-pandemic, right here at the saloon, we were out of space.

We had people standing in services.

We had ratio problems where we might have to close down an age group in meta kids.

Turning people away.

It was filled up.

And how does that happen?

How do you get to that place?

Is it because we're special?

Is it because we're better?

Is it like the bar?

Is the bar magic?

People come because of the bar.

We believe with all of our heart that the reason that we have seen God's favor and filling of this ministry is because we have prioritized the word.

And we've done everything in our power to get out of the way.

Not a word, not something that you want to hear, not a seminar of what will make you feel good, not a message every week about how you can do you and live for your own glory, the word about how the God who created us created us with a purpose and the ultimate purpose of our life is to bring glory back to that God, not by getting into Christian circles and feeling good about ourselves, but by going out and loving the people who no one else will love it.

And it sounds simple because it is.

We find everything in the world to fight about in the church world instead of organizing around the truth that a God loved us so much that he came down to this world, gave his life for us, and has asked us to live that same sacrificial life to bring people to him.

It's the word.

The word that gives us our mission to do whatever it takes.

The talents, the gifts, the resources you have, you have them, and the expectation that God has on those is for you to use them to do whatever it takes to get people to Jesus.

On staff we'll talk, and uh a lot of times what's shocking is not how good we are, it's how lacking we are.

It's how many worldly church qualifications we're missing, it's how many degrees we don't have hanging on the wall, it's how jacked up we actually are.

And we look in scripture and we see a God who does not wait for the people who are cleaned up and put together and have it all and have all the intelligence and all the wisdom and all of the strategy because when you already have it all, it's too easy for you to take the credit for it.

Instead, we see a God who does not call the qualified but qualifies the called, and in that way he gets more glory.

And I missed the meaning.

I heard the message, I heard the message, verse three.

They came to him bringing a paralytic.

I heard the message.

There was a guy who could not walk, and by the end of the story, he's gonna walk again.

That to me was the message, but I missed part of the meaning.

The paralytic is is the miracle, right?

And surely the miracle is the meaning.

Surely the miracle is the message, because we all want the miracle.

They came to him bringing a paralytic.

A guy whose life is done.

Anything he's gonna get in life is gonna be because someone has pity on him and will bring it to him.

He has no way of bringing in any income, he has no way of being in relationship.

We've talked about it before in that time.

People would have assumed he was that way because he was cursed by God.

And we all want the miracle.

We all have something that we're desiring and longing for and seeking God for.

We all we all want to be the paralytic in the story because we all have some big question, some big ask that we're making of God.

And it changes, right?

Certain points in our life, we're 15 years old and we're like, Jesus, I will literally never ask you for anything else if you get me this date.

Like that's gonna be the only thing you're ever gonna need in life.

And you're 35 going, Jesus, if you will keep me out of this divorce, there's always the big ask.

We all need healing.

We all have something, we all have a disease, we all have have a part of our mental health that's struggling, we all have financial problems, we all have relationship problems.

We read it and we see ourselves as the paralytic, and there's times where we are, and there's nothing wrong with asking God for healing, but there's more to the story.

I miss so much of the meaning because the meaning isn't just found in the miracle.

They came to him bringing a paralytic, they came carried by four of them.

What I missed is the part of the story that isn't focused on the need of the paralytic, but on the effort of these four unidentified, unnamed individuals.

In verse 4, they hit bad luck.

Since they were not able to bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they couldn't get in.

And of course they couldn't.

They were late.

Everyone else just walked.

Man, maybe ran.

They might have run.

Man, if they needed healing, they probably ran.

They filled the house, they filled the doorway, they spilled out into the street.

These guys are a little bit behind.

They walked across town, but they had a heavy weight.

They carried a full-grown man all the way.

Might have slowed him down.

Maybe they heard about it late.

Maybe the word didn't reach them in time.

Whatever happened, they get there and there's no way in.

And this is a moment that we often find ourselves in.

We know that our call is to do whatever it takes to get people to Jesus.

And so, in our effort, we do what is reasonable to that end.

Maybe we have a conversation with the family member or with the friend or with the coworker that we know is struggling, but they're just not interested.

They're too full of advice and information to hear about what your so called God might have to say about it.

We really want to kick the addiction, and so we we listen to some podcasts.

About it, and we talk to some friends about it, and we really try, but it just keeps coming back.

The door is closed.

There's no way in.

There's no way to get to the miracle.

And I thought about how these friends could have given up, and no one would have ever blamed them.

There was quite literally no way inside.

I'm sure they kind of like, you know, bargained at the door.

Listen, guys, just let us in.

We just need this guy to see Jesus.

Once we get up to Jesus, he's gonna do his thing.

We'll get out.

You can have your spot back, just give it to us for a second.

Maybe they tried the window.

Can we get this full through the window?

Maybe they went to the backyard, checked, jiggled the handle.

Maybe they tried, maybe they knocked, maybe they screamed, maybe they hollered.

Maybe they really went to a great extent.

And if they would have walked away, the paralytic would have had nothing to complain about.

Guys, thanks for your effort.

They could have said, man, we really tried.

Maybe Jesus will come back.

Man, if he comes back, we'll be ready.

You know, we we know the busybodies in town.

We'll we'll talk to them, we'll make sure we're in the loop.

If he gets back, we'll get there sooner.

Nobody would have blamed them.

But these were four friends who had something in common with the people who make up the movement of Metachurch.

These were people who would do whatever it takes.

Since they were not able to bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him.

And after digging through it, they lowered the mat on which the paralytic was lying.

And unfortunately, what we don't get to see is the reaction of the people who are below them.

The people who are in a house listening to Jesus, packed to the brim, shoulder to shoulder, when all of a sudden some debris started falling.

And I'm telling you right now, this was not a small hole in the roof.

This was not something you could just barely look through.

This was something that had to fit a man laid out horizontally.

This wasn't like a thatch roof.

It wasn't made of palm branches.

As a matter of fact, the way that they constructed homes in Capernaum, the roof was like an unfinished second floor.

It's where you would go to wash the clothes, it's where you would go to enjoy an afternoon tea.

It's where some people would go to pray in the quiet of the morning.

It was actually a structure that could hold multiple human bodies.

They didn't just, hmm.

They had to work, they had to dig, they had to use their strength.

They had to want it more than they wanted anything else in that moment.

They wanted to get that man to Jesus.

They had to.

It's the only way that they would be able to go through with it.

They're digging through Peter's house.

Peter's a hothead.

Later in the book of Mark, Peter is gonna chop a dude's ear straight off of his head with a sword.

They are doing this at the risk of cost to themselves.

It will cost them to replace that roof.

It will cost them if the homeowner decides to defend his territory.

It will cost them shame and ridicule if they do all of this work and Jesus says, no, thank you.

This isn't how it's done.

You should have waited your turn out front.

This was such a sacrifice.

And if you look in the Greek, where it says that they were digging through it.

If you translate it literally, it says they were unroofing the roof.

Unroofing the roof.

Almost two years ago I preached this message.

And I talked about us being the kind of movement that does whatever it takes.

That we unroof the roof.

If that's what we have to do, if that's what it takes, if those are the extreme measures that we need to follow in order to get more people to Jesus, then that's what we do.

We unroof the roof.

And this is the challenge.

Because there's going to always be a laundry list of excuses to not do whatever it takes.

And for some of us, we have been praying and we've been preparing.

And we've been asking ourselves, what does a sacrifice mean to me?

What can I give to make more space?

How can I make space in my life to create more space to reach people for Jesus?

And what happened in my life, and I'm gonna be transparent, is I went to the door.

I went to the door of my finances, and I'll be honest, they were pretty full.

And so I thought, man, let me try the window.

Slide this fool through the window, get him to Jesus.

No.

Back door, jiggled the handle.

Oh, still got still got student loans, still okay.

And so we made a pledge.

We made a pledge that based on the circumstances I could see made sense.

And two months later, we remembered we hadn't checked the roof.

And it was uncomfortable.

It was uncomfortable.

We had to put some things on hold.

But we knew that we are the kind of people who are a part of a movement who unroof the roof.

And maybe for some of you, you're gonna have to unbudget the budget.

I'm not saying quit living by a budget.

I'm saying to get into your budget and see where you're prioritizing your money.

And for some of you, you're gonna have to unspend your spending.

You're gonna have to look at the things that your money is going to and see what you can give to give more people to Jesus.

And some of you might have to uninvest that investment for three years and stop investing in what is temporary for something that is eternal.

And you're like, Pastor, you're losing me.

You're talking crazy right now.

And I know.

I know that.

I also know that these four dudes could have walked away, no one would have ever blamed them, they would have given a great effort, and we would have never known their story.

I don't believe this is a normal movement.

I don't believe this is a normal gathering of people.

God has given us a vision and he's given us a mission, and it is worth unroofing the roof.

It's worth doing whatever it takes.

The story goes on.

I I'd gotten the message, but I'd missed the meaning.

Can you imagine this moment?

There had to be silence in the room when they finally lowered their friend right in front of Jesus.

And can you imagine being the paralytic?

And all you've thought about for the last couple of weeks is that a man came to town named Jesus, and people who could not walk could walk again.

It's all you've thought about, it's all you've dreamed about, you've cried out for it, it's all you've prayed for, and now here you are.

You're right in front of the great physician.

And you look at Jesus, and Jesus looks at you.

And seeing their faith, Jesus told the paralytic, son, your sins are forgiven.

Wait, what?

It's like keep going.

Your sins are forgiven.

Pick up your mat and walk.

Jesus stops.

Son, your sins are forgiven.

I realize that while I've always read this as if the meaning is about the paralytic, the paralytic lived it as if the meaning was about his paralysis.

The whole point and purpose of all of this was for him to walk again.

He came for what he most desperately wanted in this life.

But Jesus came for what we most desperately need.

And we're not the church that says if you just come here and you just give and you just pray and raise your hand a little in worship and go to a class and join a team, all your dreams are gonna come true.

You're gonna drive that brand of car you want, you're gonna wear that brand of clothes that you want, you're gonna have the man or woman of your dreams, you're gonna have perfect children, your retirement's gonna climb, the guy you want for president's gonna get elected.

Everything's gonna line up if you will just have enough faith.

You know how much faith it takes to tear off somebody's roof.

I can't promise that we're gonna get everything we want in a new space.

But that's not our mission.

Our mission isn't to do whatever it takes to make people's wildest dreams come true.

Our mission is to do whatever it takes to get people to Jesus because Jesus is more interested in what you need.

You see, on the other side of life, we all, all who are in Jesus, get the healing.

I've lived with an autoimmune disease for over a decade.

Going on too.

Prayed for healing, begged for healing.

Maybe if I quit this sin so much, maybe if I clean this up, maybe if I read more, maybe if I sing louder, God could heal me any moment he wanted to.

And maybe he will, but he hasn't yet.

You and I know is someday on the other side of this life, I will be healed.

The healing is what I want, but the salvation is what I needed.

And if we create space for people to come, Jesus will give some of them what they want.

He will give every one of them, he will offer to every one of them.

He's stretched out his arms and made possible for every one of us exactly what we need.

So far we have met the paralytic and the four friends.

There's one more group in this story, the religious leaders.

In verse 6, some of the scribes were sitting there questioning in their hearts, why does he speak like this?

He's blaspheming.

Who can forgive sins but God alone?

And right away, Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were thinking like this within themselves.

And he said to them, Why are you thinking these things in your heart?

And there is nothing like religion that will take a moment of faith and turn it into fear.

And there is nothing like religion that will see opportunity and perceive it as an obstacle.

And Jesus sees right through it.

And he hits them with a riddle, which is easier to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven, or to say, get up, take your mat, and walk.

And it's a trick question because in the Jewish world, only God could do either.

One of them is an invisible healing of people's sins.

One of them is a visible healing of people's bodies.

And Jesus says, just so you know exactly who you are standing in the presence of.

Verse 10.

So that you may know the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, so that you will know that this isn't some regular dude.

This is God in human flesh.

Not only do I have authority to forgive sins, but he told the paralytic, get up, take your mat, and go home.

And immediately he got up, took a mat, took the mat, and went out in front of everyone.

And as a result, they were all astounded and they gave glory to God, saying, We have never seen anything like this.

And once again, Jesus went viral.

Jesus went viral.

And when Metachurch started, we said, we're gonna radically prioritize Jesus.

We're going to radically strip away anything else that could possibly be put in his way.

We're gonna do whatever it takes to get people to Jesus.

We're gonna plan every service around it, we're gonna make every decision around it, we're gonna set our strategy around it, we're gonna decide what classes we do around it, we're gonna form our community around it, we're gonna do everything that we can do.

And God blessed it.

Because when people experience Jesus, Jesus has a tendency to go viral.

This was a messy miracle.

Tearing a roof off, destroying a property.

And I think we have to be okay with messy because it's a part of following our leader who left a perfect, pristine heaven and came down.

Born to an unwed mother, born in a barn, laid in a feed trough, living in poverty, despised by his own people, nailed to a cross.

Do you understand?

We're here today because God got messy.

Jesus wandered right into the middle of our mess, and that is what it took to see the ultimate miracle.

Too many churches for too long have done everything in their power to stay insulated and as far away from the messy things as possible.

And so they create the unwritten rules and they plant in areas where the right kind of people that they are comfortable with live and move.

And comfort is so often the enemy of the advancement of God's kingdom.

Every one of us has a choice to make.

And it really comes down to this: will we get messy?

Last week, uh, Pastor Ryan had never seen the Kmart.

He's been here for a while, but we hired him in a pandemic.

You guys have no idea he's gonna be the most incredible youth pastor.

We just haven't had the ability to start up the program yet, soon.

He hadn't seen it.

And so Pastor Tony took him out, and Kim, our admin, and they they went and they pulled up to our side of the building, the far right side.

We've got about 40,000 square feet, we're gonna lease and build out.

And as they pulled up, there was a man who was laying down, leaning against our space.

And they believed he was dead.

And that's a nerve-wracking moment.

They approached cautiously, and when they got closer, they could see his stomach was moving.

He was breathing.

Pretty soon the EMTs came.

He wasn't dead, but he is living a life, experiencing hell on earth.

Addicted, strung out, homeless, impoverished.

We've been talking about going to the Kmart forever.

It's like almost every month we're like, oh, snap, Ryan hasn't been to the Kmart, we should bring him out there.

There's no doubt in my mind that that was a divine appointment.

Because the mission was leaning against our building.

We've been out of space.

Pre-pandemic, we're out of space.

And I'm telling you, the world is hurting.

And we have hope.

And we have to make space in our lives so that we can give to create space to reach lives.

In December of 2018, I preached this sermon.

A little different, but same passage, same message, same miracle, same meaning.

It's actually where we really developed our language to do whatever it takes.

And some of you remember that when I preached this the first time, I had some help.

And uh what we did is we put our little scaled model representation of the house.

And if you remember, and if you were here, what we did is we actually unroofed the roof.

We destroyed this roof right in the middle of the service.

And a few weeks later, we used this house and we actually put our expansion offering right through the roof.

It was a symbol.

It was a symbol of what our movement is and who we are and what we do.

We unroof the roof, we do whatever it takes.

Everyone whose heart was moved walked onto the stage, gave their offering, grabbed a Sharpie, and filled this house with names of real people in their real lives that they were committing to doing whatever it would take.

And when I got here today, I circled around, and there are some names on this house that now are a part of this movement.

And there are many names of people who are still living without the hope of Jesus.

The friend showed up, and there was no room.

And when Metachurch first ran out of room, when we first had this sickening realization that we had hit our capacity to reach more people, we didn't know the answer.

But God has provided.

And last week we saw blessing after provision after favor after blessing after provision after favor of God making a way.

Almost$200,000.

And just so you know, for every one of you who gave to that, that money, that cash up front on hand, is the very reason why we are positioned right now through a pandemic, through the chaos, through the unrest.

It's why we're in a place where we can seriously pursue this today.

The offering was too early, the message was too early.

All of it was messy.

But we're a movement that, like our Savior, is willing to get messy in order to see a miracle.

Today is the day we've been praying and preparing for, and we are asking everyone who's a part of MetaCurch to make a three-year financial commitment to give to this building project.

This is a commitment above and beyond what you normally give to fund the operation of MetaCurch.

We cannot steal from our normal offerings and become unhealthy in the operation of MetaCurch in order to build this.

It has to be above and beyond what you normally give.

And here's what we believe, and we've believed it the whole time, that if everyone will do everything that they can do, God will take care of the rest.

Sacrifice is scalable.

It doesn't mean the same thing for you that it means for somebody else.

This is about making space in your life to give, to create space to reach more lives.

This is about doing whatever it takes.

And some of you have already.

Stepped up to the plate, and there are some of you who just got serious and you've never lived with a budget, but you made a budget so that you could actually put the money aside to give to this so that we could move forward.

You organized your life.

There's some who will cut cable.

You like cable, but if you're honest, you're a little bit tired of paying$200 a month just to be disappointed by the cowboys every single week.

And that$200 you will pledge to this.

Some of you for a three-year period are diverting some investments.

Some of you are changing your spending.

Some of you are just going to simply quit hitting Starbucks every single morning.

You're going to brew coffee at home as part of your sacrifice to do whatever it takes.

This can happen quickly.

As we mentioned in week one, if there were 400 people who would pledge$200 a month for three years, 400 people, we have over 1,200 people in this movement.

If 400 people give 200 a month for these three years, that's$2.8 million.

For some of you, you could rearrange every single thing in your life and you could never get close to$200 a month.

Give what you can give.

Everyone doing everything that they can do.

For some of you, you would never feel$200 a month, and you may need to give$400.

And we don't have a lot of people like this, but you may need to give$800.

You need to ask, what does a sacrifice mean to me?

What does it mean for me to unroof the roof?

Everyone doing everything that they can do.

God will do the rest.

We've tried to make it really easy to give your pledge.

You can find all the information at metachurch.tv slash whatever it takes, or uh you can just go to the metachurch.tv website.

We've got a lot of different links that you'll find on there that will take you right to that page.

When you open it up, you're first going to put the full amount of what you plan to give over those three years.

If you're giving$200 a month, that first page you'll put$7,200.

That's what you'll give over three years.

It'll automatically take you to the next page where you can set up your monthly giving for the three-year commitment of this campaign.

We saw in week one that building a tabernacle in the middle of the wilderness was messy.

Building an ark in week two in the middle of a desert was messy.

Fundraising in the middle of a pandemic was messy.

But we will get messy because we will do whatever it takes.

Whatever it takes to reach real people in their real lives.

Whatever it takes to reach people just like this.

Not for the best decisions.

Doing things I wasn't proud of, selling things I wasn't proud of, but it had me in that crowd and it made me feel wanted.

Made me feel love that somebody wanted me, even if it was just for what I was selling them or what I was doing with them or anything like that.

As soon as it was over, it was back to that emptiness, the depression that I would go through.

It was just the addiction was bigger than me, and I couldn't get my hands on it, and yet I wasn't ready to fully surrender myself.

You get to the point where you're just sick of living that life.

And regardless of how bad I wanted to change, I couldn't get myself to do it.

And so I kept coming and coming to this church.

There's times that I'd circle the parking lot and I'd sit in the parking lot.

And yeah, I would be smoking in the parking lot, getting high, debating whether to go in or not.

Get out of my car, walk around the car, then take off and come back, and finally, you know what?

It was just the love that you felt when you walked in that door.

It was just it just makes everything worth it as far as coming back and changing your life.

And then I started getting more involved with the Bible study, and then the Bible study and the church were somehow going hand in hand, and everything was just falling into place.

Just being, I guess you can compare Metachurch to Planet Fitness.

It's a no-judgment zone.

They don't judge you, they take you as you are.

It's a place where you can belong before you even believe.

I look forward to Sunday.

I've been wanting to get baptized for a while.

It's just I never felt at the right place with God.

And being as more I went to the meta church, and the more it taught, it wasn't about that being in the right place of God.

It's about just believing that Jesus is who he says he is, and that he did die for our sins, and that we are forgiven, and that no matter how or what we did, God loves us recklessly.

My daughter was when she was young, she was into the Medikids.

Then she got old enough where she started volunteering and started working there.

It's just the whole lifestyle changed since we started going to Metachurch.

Well, it took almost 35 plus years that I've been looking more for to find my place.

And once I found MetaCurch, it wasn't just that place I was looking for.

I found more than just the place I was looking for.

I found the change in me, the people that who believed in me that where I didn't have anyone to believe in me, that made me want to change, that made me feel good, that made me feel loved.

It's just such a great family with MetaCurch.

The way they've helped me through my journey and continue to be there with through me and my kids and the grace and the love that I felt from the church and them praying for me and having someone to believe in me and like not judging you and accepting you for who you are.

Regardless of where you're at in your transformation or in your journey with Christ, they accept you no matter what.

Every week we have tried to put real people who are a part of this movement in front of you.

And every one of us has our own metachurch story of how God has been working in our lives.

And we're so blessed and we're so fortunate that we have gotten to be a part of what God is doing here.

Now it is time to do what we need to reach more.

Would you pray with me?

Father, we love you.

I thank you for every single person who is a part of MetaCurch.

They make up MetaCurch.

They are the church.

I pray right now that you would stir our hearts, that we would continue to pray, that we would prepare, and that we would make our pledge, that we would all do our part and stand back and watch in awe and wonder at what you have planned for us.

We love you and we look to you, we're following you, we commit our lives to you.

And God, we believe what your word says that you will do unimaginably more than we could ever even hope or wish for.

And so, God, I pray that you take all our effort, you take all our pledges, God, that you use them for your mission.

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

Amen.

Guys, we are gonna continue getting out information about this.

We're gonna continue talking about it.

This is something that if you have someone in your life that God has laid on your heart to share this with, man, get it in front of them.

Give them the opportunity to be a part of something that is so significant.

Make sure that you're following us on social media.

We're on Facebook, Instagram, or also on YouTube, and make sure that you're still giving to fund the operation of MetaCurch.

These pledges are above and beyond these normal gifts that help us continue to operate at a very healthy and very strong level.

You can make those gifts at metachurch.tv or on the MetaChurch app.

I love you guys so much.

Thank you for partnering together on this project for your movement.

You guys continue to be safe and continue to be the movement.

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.