Save Yourself - 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, we're so glad that you are streaming with us again.

Uh, if you're with us for the first time, my name is Clayton.

I have the huge privilege of being the lead pastor here at MetaCurch.

And we exist for you.

We're so glad that you're here.

And you may be wondering like, how do you know that you exist for me because you don't know me?

And what I do know is that we are a place where people can come and belong even before they believe.

To be honest, the only people who really don't do well at MetaCurch are people who have this idea about religious establishment that they can come in and just because they throw money or clout or status around, that they can really influence the way uh the direction and the mission actually goes.

If you are here, like most people, to really unleash your purpose, to live a significant life, to really wrestle with the big questions of life and faith and spirituality, I can say confidently that MetaCurch is for you.

We keep it really simple here.

Our strategy is to meet together and to move together.

That is an application-based strategy.

This grand experiment.

If a bunch of people sat in seats, sat in pews one day a week for centuries on end, if that would change the world, if that would make everything better, that has failed.

It is time for application-based churches.

People who come, they meet so that they can move and make a real difference.

Now, right now, we can't meet together.

If you are watching this on the archive and it's like the year 2025, it's May 3rd of 2020.

We are in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic and everything is shut down.

We have had to close our Sunday services for two months now.

But that doesn't mean the movement stops.

We can't meet together, move together, but we can stream together and serve together.

We can find ways to emerge in the midst of emergency.

We can use this time to improve ourselves instead of trying to prove ourselves to a world that doesn't really actually even care about us.

We can find the opportunity in the midst of opposition to be the hands and feet of Jesus.

A pandemic cannot stop the church.

Fear cannot stop the church.

Your overly political Facebook friend cannot stop the church.

Nothing can stop.

As a matter of fact, I need at least 10 people to put in the chat right now on the live stream, you can't stop me.

Write it in there.

Write it in there with faith.

You can't stop me.

And here's why: because you, you are the church.

Nothing can stop us.

The devil can't stop us.

Nothing can stop us.

Closing the venues can't stop us.

Just being able to stream can't stop us.

Not being able to gather.

My fourth grader's math homework.

Actually, honestly, that did stop me for a second.

But I've got God and I've got Google, and that didn't stop me either.

We're gonna keep going.

The church can't be stopped.

In fact, we're seeing increased influence during a time when everything seems like it should be off the rails.

And so I'm so glad.

I'm so glad that you joined us.

And all we're doing in this season is very simple.

A lot of times we're in these kind of big, elaborate series.

Not right now.

Right now, we are digging in to God's word, and we're just asking for him to speak to us during this time.

I'm so excited about the message today.

I want to kind of center us in the word in Mark chapter 8.

Mark 8 · chapter mention

These are the words of Jesus.

He said, Whoever wants to save his life will lose it.

But whoever loses his life because of me and the gospel will save it.

For what does it benefit someone to gain the whole world and yet to lose their life?

Man, I feel so good today.

I feel so good today.

I'm so excited to get into the word.

I am so excited to get this message from inside my brain to out of my mouth and allow God to do what he does, which is take that and the Spirit of God that lives and dwells in his children for him to put it into your heart and into your life and insert it exactly into your unique situation.

I feel good because it's difficult for me preaching with nobody in front of me and nobody in the seats.

And so I ask the band, and every week I've had our beautiful production team in the back, but they're like working, you know, they're really working, and I'm like adult ADD, and so they're figuring things out, and I'm wondering what they're talking about.

And I asked uh some of the band and some of the staff to kind of social distance sit right here in front of me.

So I'm actually preaching to somebody today and actually looking at people who are looking at me who I think are also ready for the word.

And I want to know if you're ready for the word, and so here's here's what I want you to do.

I want you to say how ready you are right there in the chat, put it in the chat, but emojis only.

I want to see your emoji emotion.

Let me tell you right now, if I was in the chat, I would put fire, fire, prayer hands, angel face, winky face, 100-100.

That's my emojis right there.

I just think I found out I'm pretty good at emojis.

I want to hear your emoji, emotions.

And if you don't speak emoji, just hand the laptop to your seven-year-old.

They have got you taken care of, they will figure it out.

Fill up that chat with your emoji, emotions.

Let's get ready and let me pray over our time together.

And God, we're here, we're ready, we're excited.

And it is only something as spectacular as your word, your movement, the truth that we believe with all of our hearts that this world is not actually our home, that this is not the main event, that we're living for eternity, that we have purpose in the midst of pandemic.

It is that and that alone that could get me this pumped to be in a room that is that is closed down, where the people I love can't come in here and gather, and yet, God, we will get excited and we are passionate, and we believe you have purpose for us.

And God, this is gonna be a challenging word today.

And I pray that we will buckle down and we will hang in there, and even if it is convicting us to our core, that we will stay in, that we will listen, because I believe you're trying to transform us in this season, that you are gonna take us out of this and we will be better than when we went into it.

And so we give it all to you.

We ask that your spirit is just so present in every living room, in every dining room, in every home office, in every bedroom, in every apartment, across every iPhone, across every you know, Android, across every laptop, across every smart TV, wherever this is coming out of, God, that your spirit will be speaking right into the AirPods, God, right out through the speakers, that you would have your way with us today.

And so we give it all to you, and we ask it in Jesus' name.

And everyone who agrees, say amen.

You can say it right where you are, all alone in your apartment.

You can say it out loud with me.

Amen.

Um, we just saw Jesus.

He talked about if you try to save your life, you will lose it.

If you are willing to give up your life, what did we say last week?

Present yourself as a present, a living sacrifice to God, that you will find it.

I have a message for you today.

I'm very excited.

My message is called save yourself.

Save yourself.

I love superhero movies.

We did an entire series called Endgame, and uh it was right when the movie Endgame came out, and I watched that movie like three or four times in the theater.

It's like I love it, I love Marvel, and and I love this moment in every hero movie, right?

Whether it's a superhero or like an Indiana Jones figure, you know, whoever it is, there's always this moment at the climax of the movie where everything's falling apart.

And it really feels like that's the moment that the hero's done.

The hero's going to die.

He's not gonna make it out alive, everything is falling apart.

And here's what movies do: they don't let heroes be a Lone Ranger.

They put someone with them.

Usually it's either a sidekick that they're kind of like this paternal figure to, they're like a father figure, they're a mentor, they're raising them up, they're really hard on the sidekick, but you know it's only because they love them so much.

Either they do a sidekick or they do a love interest, right?

And there's a beautiful woman and they have this budding romance.

And is he gonna is he gonna actually tell her that he's the Cape Crusader?

Is he not?

How's it all gonna work out?

The reason they do that is because it raises the stakes.

The hero has somebody to fight for, not just something.

They're not just fighting for justice.

Now they're fighting for someone.

It's it's personal, it's real, it makes it real to us because we understand relationship, we understand the risks involved, we understand what it's like to put ourselves out there.

And there's always this moment where everything's falling apart, and it seems like the hero might actually lose.

And they all do the same thing.

They look at the other person, they look at the sidekick, they look at the love interest, and they say, Save yourself.

Run, save yourself, and then the sidekick says, No, I I I well I'll stay here and I'll I'll die with you, and but you'll die.

And then they they do like a close-up and they they really zoom in and they get them, and then that the superhero smolders to the camera and says, I might die, but my memory will live on.

And that's what makes them a hero.

Like it's not that they can fly or shoot lasers out of their eyes or jump over buildings or catch bullets.

What makes them a hero is that they sacrifice, they are willing to put their life on the line, they're even willing to lose their life in order for you to save yourself.

And I was thinking about why that is so heroic.

You know, Jesus said uh, greater love has no one than to lay their life down for their friend.

Of course, that's what Jesus did for us.

Jesus is the ultimate superhero of all time.

As a matter of fact, people a lot smarter than me look at the story of Jesus and say that every other superhero narrative that has ever existed is actually based off the archetype that was Jesus Christ.

You see, the writers, they know something that we don't.

We think that being a hero means you got a hammer like Thor.

It means you can shoot webs like Spider-Man.

The writer knows that what makes them a hero is that they will sacrifice, is that when the moment comes, they will make the play and let you save yourself.

It strikes us as so heroic because it is so opposite of our natural inclination.

When crisis comes, when emergency comes, when things get tough, we don't naturally, as humans, look outside of ourselves for someone else to get saved.

When crisis comes, we naturally self-protect the superhero.

This is why they're the hero.

They look and say, Save yourself.

We don't say save yourself, we say I don't have to outrun the bear.

I just have to outrun you, and I just untied your shoot and I'm gone.

We are about saving ourselves.

And you're like, Pastor, I don't know about that.

I mean, I think people are good.

I think people really are sacrificial.

I really think, really, why can't I get any toilet paper at Walmart right now?

Why is that?

It we are two months in to a virus that was proven in week one to not cause digestive issues, and I can't find any toilet paper right now because people are selfish.

We protect ourselves, we clear out the grocery aisles.

Somebody is watching this right now, and if I could see behind your screen, you have 3,000 rolls of toilet paper.

You're running around all happy like the Charmin Bears.

I'm prioritizing socks right now for when my last roll runs out.

That's how some of us are living right now.

Toilet paper hoarders, we're self-protecting.

You learn it.

Not only is it just naturally in us, you don't have to, you don't have to teach a little kid how to be selfish, it will be modeled for them in the world.

You get into business, and one of the first things you learn is this little acronym, CYA.

I'm not gonna tell you what it stands for because you know, and there's kids in the room.

It means protect yourself.

And I'll tell Celeste what that means.

You cover your butt.

That's a PG version.

You gotta look out for you.

And crisis comes.

And people begin to hoard resources, they begin to hoard their emotions, they begin to hoard their attention, they begin to hoard their finances.

And when we see these pictures, we watch these movies of superheroes, we see something that we long for in ourself, but it's against our natural inclination.

Instead of self-sacrifice, we go to self-protection.

And today I want us to look in scripture.

During this time, how can you save yourself?

I've wanted to preach on this passage for a long time.

Um, it's in the book of Ecclesiastes, which is in the Old Testament, the Jewish Scriptures, and it's a book of wisdom.

So there are history books, there are genealogical books, there are books of poetry in the Old Testament, and then there are some books of wisdom, like the book of Proverbs, the book of Ecclesiastes.

These don't really tell like a narrative or give a bulleted list of commandments like some other places in scripture.

Wisdom scripture is highly metaphorical, and inside these deep allegories, we find meaning that we can apply to our lives.

In Ecclesiastes chapter 10, starting in verse 16, it says this: Woe to you, land, when your king is a youth, and your princes feast in the morning.

Ecclesiastes 10 · chapter mention

Blessed are you, land, when your king is a son of nobles, and your princes feast at the proper time for strength and not for drunkenness.

It says, Because of laziness, the roof caves in, and because of negligent hands, the house leaks.

It ends like this: a feast is prepared for laughter, and wine makes life happy.

We never read that in the Baptist churches.

I grew up.

We would skip right over that.

Can't drink wine, right?

Wine makes life happy.

And here is something that you never knew was in scripture.

The last verse says, money is the answer for everything.

Some of you might be shocked by that.

Some of you are going, I really need to start reading scripture.

I had, I had no idea.

I had no idea.

The only thing I know about the Bible is it says money is the root of all evil.

And some of you have this image in your mind that to be like a really, really solid Christian and a really solid spiritual person, that you have to like just dress in animal skins, and you have to just eat like the locusts of the field, and you have to take a vow of poverty, and you can never drive a new car.

You just gotta drive old BT.

Like you have this idea.

You haven't been reading from Ecclesiastes, you've been like reading from the gospel of BIG, and you think the Bible just said mo money, mo problems, so you've just gone down the and you don't really care about money, you don't really handle it all that well.

And this says money is the answer for everything.

I want to give like almost a trigger warning because some of you walk into church and they start talking about money, and you just feel like you literally can just feel the pastor slipping his hand into your back pocket, grabbing your wallet, looking through your credit cards, getting your information, memorizing your pin codes, like like you just know I'm gonna walk into church.

I haven't been to church in 10 years, but my friend asked me to stream, met a church, this tat it up guy, and I just know I'm gonna show up and they're gonna talk to me about money.

So I'm gonna let you know right off the bat.

We never are gonna bait and switch, we're never gonna get 45 minutes into a sermon, and then all of a sudden it's about money.

I'm gonna tell you up front, we're going to talk about finances today.

But this is not a giving talk.

About twice a year, I do a giving talk, unapologetically.

I I don't ask for I believe in it.

We ask you to give first to God, we ask you to give sacrificially to God, we ask you to give automatically to God.

That's not the message today.

God has pressed something on my heart so, so strongly during this period of pandemic.

And I believe if we can wrestle with this, if we can understand it, and for many of us, if we can quit ignoring it because it's painful to talk about, that we could be transformed in our lives coming out the other side of coronavirus.

There is some deep wisdom as we begin to break down these passages.

Again, this is a metaphor.

This wisdom literature is pointing us to a deeper, deeper, deeper truth.

It says, Woe to you, a land when your king is a youth and your princes feast in the morning.

What is it saying here?

This is example one of a negligent, wasteful, opportunistic king.

This is a king when it says they feast in the morning, what that means is as soon as they're up, the party gets started in the morning, especially you know, written from the Jewish perspective, the the morning is a time for kings to spend in prayer.

It's a time to center yourself.

It is a time to eat not for pleasure, but for fuel.

To to get inside of you what you need to sustain you throughout the day.

The morning is when people from the kingdom would come for you to make your judgments, for you to settle disputes.

It was a time that required the highest amount of wisdom from a king.

It was the time when people were gathered and they looked to you for this role that you play, a role given to you by God, the role to be king, the role to speak into the lives of the people, the role to help people navigate difficult relationships, difficult business dealings.

This was a time for you to be all in, all focused.

But this first king in verse 16, this is a king who gets up and gets the party started.

And they're feasting and they're drinking and they're getting wild.

And it's like, it's like, man, they're hungover, move right into the morning breakfast beers.

It's like, let's just keep drinking.

If you keep drinking, you can't be hungover, so let's just keep it going.

Getting fat, spending lavishly.

It's all about them.

And it says, Woe to you when your king is a youth.

And this isn't about age.

And as a pastor who's on the younger side of things, maybe you maybe you feel like I'm kind of biased in this.

It's not about age, it's about maturity.

As a matter of fact, in the New Testament, we read the word youth, it says, Do not let people look down on your youth.

It's not about age, it's about maturity.

And the Old Testament is written in Hebrew, and it's a it's a very dense language, it's a very difficult language.

And there are other translations of the Bible that see the same Hebrew word, and they say, Woe to you when your king is a servant, and the word servant and the word youth are just one vowel apart from each other.

It's about immaturity, it's about lack of ownership, lack of knowledge, lack of insight into what it takes to be put in this position of incredible purpose and steward it well.

Woe to you.

Now, this is a prophecy to Israel.

This is a a prophecy uh about God's chosen people, and we have to understand the actual context so we can see it and and shift it and apply it to where we are and take out the truths in it for our life.

In verse 17, we get the opposite side.

It says, Blessed are you land, when your king is a son of nobles, and your princes, they feast at the proper time, they feast for strength and not for drunkenness.

And maybe y'all thought I was being a little bit judgmental in verse 16.

I just said they're feasting.

It doesn't mean that they're getting lit, it doesn't mean they're getting wild, it doesn't mean they're drunk by 9 a.m.

But maybe it does, because in verse 17 we get the contrast.

It says that the noble king, the king who is a son of noble, and immediately we get a distinction between son and servant, between maturity and immaturity, between understanding and rebellion.

Son versus servant.

Someone who is up to no good versus someone who is noble.

And you notice that in order to make the case between an immature servant, no good king, and a wise son who is noble.

It speaks specifically to how they handle their resources.

Verse 18, we see the fallout of a wicked king.

It says, because of laziness, because they are too busy celebrating themselves, because they are too busy spending themselves out of house and home, because they are too busy racking up the facade of greatness instead of building a kingdom that is actually great at its core and foundation, because of laziness, the roof caves in.

This isn't like the roof of the palace again.

This is a metaphor.

That this is talking about a whole nation.

This is talking about the state of affairs of an entire people.

Because of laziness, the roof caves in.

Because of negligent hands, the house begins to leak.

In verse 19, it's gonna take us down to the most basic principle, the most basic part of life.

It says a feast is prepared for laughter, and wine makes life happy.

And so we have a contrast.

We have a wicked, lazy servant king.

And how do we know?

Because of how he stewards his resources.

He feasts in the morning, he feasts for pleasure and drunkenness.

We have a noble king, a son, full of wisdom and maturity.

And how do we know?

Because he feasts at the proper time.

He takes his resources and uses them to further his purpose.

His purpose is not simply to flaunt his resources.

A feast is for laughter.

Wine makes life happy.

They're saying the resources themselves are not.

Moral or immoral, they're amoral.

You see, some of you have lived your entire Christian life believing money is the root of all evil.

I remember one of my aunts growing up, she had it on her wall.

She had it framed.

Money is the root of all evil.

You know the problem with that?

Is the ellipsis at the front.

An ellipsis is dot dot dot.

That's not the full verse.

The full verse says the love of money is the root of all evil.

Money is not moral or immoral, it is amoral.

It is an object, it's something that we can either use for our benefit or that we can use for our own self-destruction.

Bread isn't bad, meat isn't bad, protein's not bad, carbohydrates aren't bad, the feast isn't bad, the feast is for laughter.

The feast is for you.

Man, God created the world and saw all that was in it, and he said, It's good.

He created man and said, You have dominion.

Steward it, handle it, use it, build your purpose, build your life, love others, love me, love yourself, use it.

A feast is just a feast.

Wine makes life happy.

And I know some of you are watching this, and you've been sober four years, and you were an alcoholic for ten.

And you're going, wine didn't make my life happy.

Wine ruined my life.

Alcohol ended my marriage, almost ended my life.

I've got cuts on my arm, depression, unable to stop.

Wine didn't make it's deeper than the wine.

It's going, wine is just wine.

And if it sits in the bottle, it's nothing.

And money, money is the answer to everything.

Money that buys the food that prepares the feast.

Money that purchases the wine that fuels the party.

And both kings had feasts.

And both kings had money.

But one was a son, and one was a servant.

And one was immature and one was noble.

Money is what woke the first king up early in the morning and was used for celebrating himself, for filling himself, for partying himself, for filling himself up at the complete neglect of the people who actually needed him to be the king that he was positioned to be.

It was the use of money for positive means, for strength, for sobriety, for clarity, for purpose, for love and service.

Money's the answer to both.

Money is what spiraled king number one to be running a nation that was leaking and caving in.

And king number two, the way he stewarded money, is what led him to be a great king, loved by the people, building a nation that is strong and confident and bulletproof.

And money, and money is the answer for everything.

It's so interesting to me.

And why I wanted to preach on this passage is because, in a very real sense, money is the great equalizer in this pandemic.

And here's what I mean by that.

Up until the pandemic, money was perhaps the greatest negator of equality, especially here in San Antonio, where we are.

In San Antonio, we are one of the least equitable cities in all of America between the richest of our rich and the poorest of our poor.

The wealth gap is extreme.

And before the pandemic, the car that you drove, it said a lot about you.

And the job that you had, it said a lot about you.

And the clothes that you wore, and the shoes that you rocked, and the places you ate.

It was like the great unequalizer.

There were the haves and there were the have nots.

Isn't it so interesting how two months in, so many of our priorities have shifted so radically.

And some of you spent the last five years and you were really on it.

You were really on it.

You felt like you were gaining the whole world climbing the ladder higher and higher and higher.

And every position you moved up opened more opportunities to add to, and you bought newer cars and you traded it in for better brands and you and you bought bigger houses, and now you got a boat.

Now there's an apartment.

Now you've got it all and you're stacking it all up, and now you just knew.

Like two months ago, you just knew that next position that you've been on, you're gonna get there.

You have a pretty idea of the pay scale, you've already spent that money in your mind, and man, just wait, just wait until your in-laws see the car that you drive to the family reunion.

Man, just wait until your wife sees how much money is in the bank account next.

Just wait until your husband finally understands that you're actually the breadwinner.

Just wait.

And now, because you are one of the highest paid employees, you were the easiest to fire because it opened up the most room for the company.

And two months ago, all that had your focus was the next rung on the ladder.

And on Friday, you drove through a food bank distribution.

And all of a sudden, in a time of crisis, money has become the great equalizer.

And I've said this before, I've been talking on some QA's, I do some question and answers on Facebook Live, and I've really been enjoying that.

We've had some of these discussions about uh like we're not all in the same boat.

We are not all in the same boat.

We're all in the same storm, like the whole world's going through the same storm, but we're not all in the same boat.

And if we want to really simplify it, like oversimplify it, because there's like millions of boats.

But if we say there's two, there are people who are financially solvent right now, and there are people who are not.

And the people right now who do not have any money on hand are not sleeping, are full of anxiety.

You know, when anxiety does, it compromises your immune system.

And now states are opening back up, and now you haven't slept, and you're so full of anxiety and so full of despair, and now your immunity is down as we're about to walk back into a world that is full of a virus, that is very like it's just it's a cycle, it is a vicious cycle, and your holistic health of your mind and body and soul is crumbling, and there's another boat, and and it's rocky, and there's waves, and it's not fun, and we would rather be on shore, and we would rather be back at our job, and we'd rather have our kids going off to school where we don't have to teach them, but we're floating.

This side's floating, we're sinking over here, we're floating over here, we're making it.

We're not sure how long the storm's gonna last, but we're alright.

Over here, we're not sure how long the storm's gonna last.

We don't know if we're gonna make it.

Sleeping well over here.

Dreaming a little bit.

You can actually dream, you can you can kind of just see a little bit past the crisis.

I see something on the other side.

Here's a painful truth for the people in this situation: is the people in this situation, some of them are actually gonna come out ahead.

Some of them came in and they had enough, and now they're getting a stimulus.

It's like it's a cycle, it's a cycle.

It's a cycle into despair, it is a cycle into thankfulness.

And money is the answer for everything.

And here's what I mean by that: money's a great equalizer.

Because whether or not you were a 20-year-old with like an eight-hour, uh$8 an hour job, and you were flipping burgers, and you just live in an apartment, and it's not even a single bedroom, you don't have a bedroom, it's just a studio.

You just walk in and the toilet's in the middle of the room, and that's what you live in, because that's what you can afford.

But every paycheck, you've been sticking some back.

Every paycheck, sticking some back.

Every paycheck, it doesn't matter if you're in the studio, apartment, just crowded in the midst of everyone, or if right before the pandemic you were living up in the hills of the dominion.

Because over here we have some people who, even though they had all the trappings of wealth, you've been feasting in the morning.

And you look like you're balling because you've got the whip and you've got the clothes and you wear the brands and you stack it up, and on Instagram, and you've got the house, and you can put the pictures and you buy the toys.

But you've been paycheck to paycheck.

And everything you own, if you're real, you don't own it.

The bank owns it, because everything you own, you bought on debt.

And all of a sudden, we're we're doing all this work.

We're trying to, man, we're trying to stand in the gap, especially for food insecurity, just as much as we possibly can.

And it's been the it's been the wildest thing.

It I almost feel like I can tell.

And I'm I'm not great at reading people individually, but I almost feel like I can tell people who it's their first time through.

And some of you, some of you are in danger of starving because you're too prideful to go through the line.

Because you think to yourself, what are they gonna think when I drive this new Audi through a food bank distribution?

And I'm gonna tell you right now, you are not the only one.

Money is all of a sudden, it has gone from being the great unequalizer to the great equalizer because it doesn't matter your status or your assumed net worth or how wealthy you looked before this, there are people who are making it, sleeping at night, staying healthy, staying hopeful, staying resilient.

They might have made$8 an hour, they might have made$800,000 a year, but the one thing they all did is they all stewarded money well.

And if you steward money well, whether you are in this income bracket or this income bracket, right now, if you steward it well, then you can stay well.

It's a difficult thing.

And I think what we have to ask ourselves as we look back pre-pandemic, here's what I want.

I want this moment, this moment in time, this unprecedented thing that we're all going through, we're all in the same storm.

I want it to be a blank slate for you.

And I want you to ask yourself a question.

Before this pandemic, the way that you handled your money, are you projecting a persona?

Here's what I mean by that.

Are you using your money to cover up insecurities and other things inside of yourself, fears, anger, pains?

Or are you using your money to buy things to make you appear to others as you think they want to see you?

Are you projecting this person that you wished you were?

Are you modeling your life off of the celebrities and athletes and tabloid covers?

Or are you using your money to protect a purpose?

And so many people, for so many years, when the economy is running and business is open and your job is good and you're climbing the ladder, and you can rearrange your debt and you can shuffle it around and you can make the minimum payments here.

And so many people have been able to live, and maybe you could have made it, maybe you could have made it to 80 years old, projecting a persona, wearing brands that you can't really afford, driving cars you can't really afford, living in neighborhoods you can't really afford, getting away with it because everything's going fine.

But the pandemic hit everyone.

Everyone.

If you're not putting for your future, if you're not putting for your legacy, if you're not leaving something behind, you don't have the money to live how you're living, but you're projecting.

And you're so desperate for people.

It's last week.

You're living to prove it.

And what did you do with your stimulus check?

I'm gonna ask you to sacrifice it.

I'm gonna ask you to save it.

I know the thing you want, and you wanted it a long time, and it's right around$1,200.

And thank God you had that third kid, because you now have another$500.

Some of you tried to figure out how to adopt three more kids before stimulus check.

Like, let me get some of that money, because I got something in mind, and it's enough of a down payment.

It's enough of a down payment.

I mean, my car is a 2017.

Embarrassing.

Projecting, insecure, overwhelmed, needing so badly, so badly, for the world to accept a version of you that doesn't actually exist.

And the foolish king feasts in the morning, spends his money in the wrong way at the wrong time for the wrong purposes.

And the storm has come, and the roof is caving in, and the house is leaking.

And this time represents an opportunity for transformational change.

Last week we had the opportunity to move from being people who live to prove ourselves to living as people who improve ourselves.

That's a transformational change.

If you can make that change, you will come out of this a different person.

A person who's so much closer to who you were created to be.

The significance, uh listen, if you're projecting a persona, it doesn't work.

If it worked, you would have been able to stop buying crap five years ago.

It doesn't work.

In fact, it's like a hole that the more you fill up, the more it expands.

And you're still looking for that significance, and that significance is found in your purpose.

And the king's purpose was to protect the people.

You can't protect the people while you're feasting in the morning, and some of you are spending so recklessly, because you haven't ever really been able to believe that you actually have a significant purpose.

If you really believed that it mattered that you are here on earth, not you in general, not like you guys over here, and you guys over here, and all of you, like you as an individual.

If you could believe that God had intention behind putting you on this earth, you would no longer need the approval of others.

And we asked a big question today.

How do you save yourself?

It's so interesting to me that we are so quick to self-protect, and yet the way that we self-protect is to self-project.

We don't actually take care of our real needs.

We don't actually put money in a savings account.

So if disaster hits or we lose our job or the house burns down, or there's a medical emergency that we're fine, we don't do that.

Instead, we get a stimulus check and we spend it before it's even in the bank.

We're not protecting our actual self and we're not protecting our purpose.

We are protecting the projection of who we want people to believe that we are.

And you, your life, means too much to continue living in that way.

How do we save ourselves?

And from a biblical stance and a theological stance, the answer is you can't.

You see, the biggest question we all have to answer is where are we going?

Not where are we going when we get out of shelter at home?

Not what's the first restaurant we're going to?

Not when can we go back to Disneyland?

Not when can I get a haircut again because my hair's getting out of control?

It's like, where are you going at the end?

We believe with all of our heart here that what comes at the end of this life determines how we live this life, how we steward this life, how we view this life, how we navigate this life, how we sacrifice in this life, how we love in this life, how we do relationships in this life.

Where are you going at the end?

And the answer is, you can't save yourself.

The separation that we all instinctively feel between us and God in this broken world, we can't bridge that gap ourselves, we can't save ourselves.

And God knew that, and we couldn't work our way to God, so God came down to us.

We don't have to prove it.

He proved it on a cross.

Now, in light of that, we get to put our faith in Jesus, our Savior, and just live improving, improving in our life, improving in our health, improving in our relationships, improving in the midst of emergency, improving in our finances, improving in our stewarding, improving in our purpose.

And a feast is made for laughter, and wine makes life happy, and things are just things, and and rugs are just rugs, and tables are just tables, and and Bibles, Bibles, can I say something crazy?

Bibles are just binded pages with ink on them.

It's how we use them.

You can have 47 Bibles on the shelf of your house, and if you never open it up, it's not doing anything for your life.

They're just objects, it's just stuff, it's just money, it's just a credit card, it's just a bank account.

Money is the answer for both of them.

Not the money itself.

Money's not the root of evil.

It's how they use it.

When are you feasting?

How do you save yourself?

You start by recognizing you can't.

You start by recognizing your only hope is in Jesus.

And once you see yourself in Jesus, all of a sudden you see your purpose.

Your purpose is a part of the movement of Jesus.

And when you have a purpose to protect, it changes the way that you steward your stuff.

And so many of you, you're trying to save yourself by a persona.

You're saving yourself from the people who think you're not enough.

You're saving yourself from having to deal with the reality of some of the ugly things that are inside of you.

If you can just put enough jewelry on it, enough makeup on it, enough expensive things around it, enough money on it.

If you can just buy the right meals and go the right places, maybe you won't have to look in the mirror at who you actually are.

We're trying to save ourselves from projection.

And what we need is protection to see your purpose, see who you are.

And when you see who you are, you begin to see stuff for what it is.

It's just stuff.

It's just stuff.

These are my kids' sneakers.

These aren't even my sneakers.

My wife bought me these pants.

It's like, it's like they're just target, it's just plastic with lights inside of it.

It's just a screen.

It's just a building.

It's just some speakers, some lights.

Like, what is it all?

And for some of you, it's just stuff and it is running and it is ruining your life.

And you were made for more.

You were made for more than to allow the things God has given you to become the gods in your life.

How do you save yourself?

Number one, you see your purpose.

When you understand your purpose, how do you save yourself?

You begin to save, comma, yourself.

You yourself begin to save.

And instead of buying the next and the best and the greatest and the upgrade and the newest, instead, you begin to save, you yourself begin to save.

Save, comma, yourself.

Let me give you three steps.

Three steps to save yourself.

Step number one is you have to have a budget.

We're about to get really practical.

We just went from the big metaphors of Ecclesiastes to the ground level of this is just the maximum amount of smart that Clayton Tyner is.

This is how you have to do it.

You have to have a budget.

You have to write down every single thing that you're spending money on.

And if you're out of a job, this goes like 300% for you.

You only have the money you have, or the money coming in from unemployment, or the resources that you're getting, or the food that's going through the food bank lines.

And please don't be too prideful.

But when you're going through, let it be a reminder.

When I come out of this, I will begin to save myself.

I will begin to put away.

I will not allow the persona that I think the world wants to see to set the priorities and how I steward the resources I've been given.

When I come out of this, if you drive through, if you are watching your bank account deplete, if you're in this boat over here, losing sleep, riddled with anxiety, today is the day that you flip it around and you turn it into a positive and you resolve, I will come out of this different.

I will come out of this different.

Whatever it takes, I will no longer be the person who is driving through taking the resources.

I will be over here as the kind of person who can pour money in to resource those who need it.

Some of you are going, emerge in emergency.

That'd be fantastic.

I'm trying not to get kicked out of my house.

Can I deal with that first?

What if you came out of this and changed the way that you handle?

You need a budget.

You gotta write down where every dollar goes.

You gotta know where every dollar goes.

Some of you would be shocked at how you're spending money.

Some of you have subscriptions to digital platforms that you haven't used in three years, and 1099 is just going out every single week.

1099 to something you don't even know about anymore.

$11, and that's$120 something away.

It's$360, and you're hundreds of dollars.

You're just losing money.

You're just like setting it on fire.

You need a budget.

Number two, you gotta pay off debt.

Implied in that is you don't go into more debt.

Quit going into debt.

Cut up your credit card.

You've got to take out your debt.

Scripture says that the debtor is a slave to the lender.

One king was a servant, one king was a son.

Are you a servant to your debt?

You gotta get out of your debt.

Y'all know Celeste.

Celeste is one of our young worship leaders.

She's a early 20-something.

I don't know, you're not supposed to ask women their age and all that kind of stuff, and I don't know, but she's like young 20s.

And she came in and she had credit card debt and she went through financial peace.

We're about to tell you about financial peace.

We're about to put a link up to financial peace.

It's digital.

You don't have to go and get coughed on by anybody.

You can do it all online and you will learn every single one of these things.

And she went through it.

How long has it been?

Six months?

Six months.

She is out of debt.

She's only in her 20s.

And now she goes from being a consumer to protecting a purpose.

She is going to save herself.

You know what she's going to do next?

She's going to put three months of money in the bank.

Three months of money.

She'll be able to weather any storm.

What is she going to do after that?

She'll put in retirement.

She'll be 50 years old.

She'll be 60 years old.

She will have like Makanahey money.

She will be all right, all right, all right.

She's gonna be just fine.

She is going to build wealth, not for projection of what she thinks other people want to see, but to protect a purpose, to stand in the gap, to be the kind of per person who nothing can knock off course.

It's just stuff.

It's just stuff.

Breads to eat, wines to drink, feast for laughter.

How you steward it.

It's everything.

Such a young person, such a young person stewarding it already.

You need a budget.

You gotta pay off debt.

Number three, how to save yourself?

You have to save comma yourself.

You yourself have to save money.

And at just the most basic level, there's a boat here.

In this boat, there are millionaires and kids who work at What's there's a boat over here.

In this boat are millionaires and kids who work at What's the only difference is some of them saved and some of them spent.

And money's not the root of all evil, it's just stuff.

We're not a church that says you can't buy things, can't drive a nice car.

We are a church that asks why.

Do you have the things that you have and do you spend the way that you spend in order to project to the world around you a person that God never actually created you to be?

Or do you view everything in your life as a way to protect and push forward your purpose?

At the bottom of it all is what we believe about God.

I believe this with all of my heart, that whether you spend yourself into the poor house, or whether you save, whether you save so that you can give generously, so you can live in your purpose, so you can love the people around you, or whether you save so you can hoard and just keep it to yourself and feel good and count your money and swim around in it like Scrooge McDuck.

Like all of those things at the end of the day come down to your view of God.

There were two kings.

One feasted in the morning, celebratory and drunkenness, terrible king.

The nation began to collapse.

Another was wise.

He ate for strength and clarity, took care of his people, lived in his purpose.

One was a son, and one was a servant.

And if you don't see yourself as a son or daughter of the king of all the kings, if you don't know where your position is when it comes to you and God, at the very basic, deepest part of who you are, you don't have the correct view to understand and protect your purpose.

When you see yourself, every one of you who have believed in Jesus, when you understand that God has got you, He'll never let you go, He loves you forever, and as much as you love your kid and I love my kid, it is nowhere close to the uncomparable, unimaginable love that God our Father has for us.

And when you see it, you can be a king.

You can live in your purpose.

And if you don't see it, my fear is you'll live as a servant.

A servant to your money, a servant to the world, and a servant to immaterial things.

And the feast is for laughter, and the wine makes you happy.

And money is the answer to everything.

Would you pray with me?

God, um, right now, I know we've got a link up right there in the chat.

If they're watching uh live, if they're watching uh on an archive, God, they they see a link to Financial Peace University.

God, everything we need, everything we need.

I think everyone in this room almost has probably been through Financial Peace University.

It's changed our life.

It has changed Celeste, your daughter, God, your daughter's life, who now is more enabled to live and walk in her purpose.

It has changed my life, my family's life, Katie's life.

God, we believe in financial peace.

We believe it is a program that is helping people to budget, to pay off their debt, and to save money.

God, we see all of those principles in scripture.

We believe in them, but it's not enough.

God, I pray more than all of it that we would ask ourselves the serious question.

Are we handling our things to project a persona?

Or are we utilizing our resources to protect the purpose you've given us?

And I just pray for honesty.

We're in the midst of a crisis, we're in the midst of emergency, spending a lot of time at home.

We got some space to get honest with ourselves, and I pray we'd use it.

God, and if anyone is on the wrong side of this equation, if anyone is in the wrong boat right now in this extreme storm, I just, oh God, I ask that this would be a starting place, a blank slate, God, that they would come out of this and build towards using things to support their purpose, not living with their purpose to be to get more things.

God, I believe with all my heart that if your sons and daughters would understand who we are in you, understand our purpose, and steward things well, that the impact we can have on this world will be something that really, even in our wildest dreams, we could not imagine.

And so we love you.

We pray all these things in Jesus' powerful name.

Amen.

Man, we thank you guys so much for joining us.

As always, if you are a part of this movement and you are still working and receiving a paycheck, we always remind and encourage you guys to give generously to push this movement forward.

We're doing everything we can on an organizational level to steward those resources so well and make a difference during this time.

Next Sunday is Mother's Day, and so we're so excited to talk right to you, all the mothers out there.

We love you guys so much.

Y'all continue to reach out, follow us on social media, invite people to these streams.

I love you guys.

Y'all be safe and 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.

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