Wonder Week: Tuesday - Pastor Clayton Tyner

Welcome to the MetaCurch Podcast.

My name's Clayton.

I'm the pastor here at MetaCurch.

And my hope is that today's podcast finds you at the perfect time in your life that God uses it to inspire and enlighten you.

I hope that you enjoy today's message.

MetaCurch, man, we are so so glad that you have joined us from wherever you guys are tuning in.

If it is your first time joining us, my name is Clayton.

I'm the lead pastor here at MetaCurch.

And today is a little bit different.

We made the, to be honest, very difficult decision that instead of gathering in our venues today, that we would be gathering in our homes, around families.

And MetaCurch is set up perfect for this.

It was built on the belief that the church is not the thing you come to on Sunday.

It's not the building, it's not the service, it's not the organization, it's not the pastor or the staff.

The church is the people.

You are the church.

It is the movement of Jesus right here on the earth.

If you haven't been with us, we're in week three of a series that we're calling Wonder Week.

And this is our journey all the way to Easter.

We're looking at the seven days that led up to the most significant moment in history.

And on each day, we're seeing a different way that Jesus was preparing us to fully understand the weight and magnitude and the personal ramifications that Easter has for each and every one of our lives.

As we were looking at what we were going to do for today's service, it became apparent that God is working here behind the scenes.

He's up to something.

We started planning this Wonder Week series months ago, long before any of us had ever heard of the coronavirus or knew anything about it.

And the way that God works sometimes is that we didn't have to shift our message.

We didn't have to go to a different text of scripture to be able to speak in to what's going on in the world right here and right now.

Instead, the message that we had already prepared months in advance is a message that is custom built for this moment.

And so we're gonna dig in and see what Jesus is up to on Tuesday of Wonder Week.

And we're also gonna see how it applies to our lives in the midst of this crisis.

So far in this series, we started on day one, which was Sunday.

In church tradition, we call this Palm Sunday.

This is when Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem to the cheers of the crowd.

It was like a coronation, and on that first day, we saw the first way that Jesus is showing us parts of himself.

We saw Jesus as king.

The next day, Jesus traveled in once again, the two miles from Bethany to Jerusalem.

He went into the city and he entered into the temple, the heart of religion, and there he flipped the tables, not just on the money changers, but he flipped the tables on religion itself.

And now it's Tuesday.

On Monday, we saw Jesus as King.

On Sunday, on Monday, we saw Jesus as prophet.

And Tuesday, we're gonna see Jesus as rabbi.

Before we dig into the text, would you join me in prayer?

God, we love you.

And I'm so thankful.

God, I'm thankful for uh a staff who was able to figure out live streaming in less than a week's time.

I'm thankful for a movement of people who knows that you are bigger than our venues, that you're bigger than Crisis, that you're bigger than it all.

God, I pray for this message.

I feel like there's something special on it, something special you're wanting to say to us today.

And so, God, take these words, the the words of your scripture, God, the the words that you've given me, and I pray that you take them so much further than we could ever think or imagine.

I believe you're getting ready to do something with this live stream today that we don't even know how to prepare our expectations for.

I ask God that you would give us clarity as how we as the movement of Jesus are meant to act, think, respond who we are meant to be in this unprecedented season in our world.

And so, God, we love you.

And I thank you.

And I pray for every single person that's a part of Metaturch tuning in.

I pray for every single person who is new.

I pray that they would stick with this message, God, and that it would mean something to their life.

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

Amen.

On Tuesday, we're gonna see Jesus as rabbi.

And rabbi is a Jewish term for a teacher who's normally also an expert in the law.

You guys, we've talked about how in the three years leading up to Easter, Jesus has been traveling all through that area, up north and Galilee and all that region to the east and Bethany, Beth Page.

He had gone down south into Jericho, he'd even been up in Jerusalem, and now Jesus is back with about a million other Jewish people who have all descended upon Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover.

Over the course of his teaching, Jesus became known as a rabbi.

Those moments happened, like in the time where Jesus was on the side of a hill.

We call it the Sermon on the Mount, and Jesus was digging into the Jewish law in ways that people had never seen before.

He said things like, You've heard it said that you are not to murder.

But now I say, this is Jesus exercising his authority as a rabbi.

Now I say that if you look at your brother with hate in your heart, you have already committed murder.

This was new teaching, new information, new inspiration, new enlightenment for the people, Jesus was known as rabbi.

On Sunday, the people were ready to crown Jesus as king.

This ruffled the feathers not only of the religious elite but of Rome.

The people wanted a king because the important cultural context is that about a hundred years before this particular Easter, all of Israel had been taken over by Rome.

They were under occupation.

They were constantly in danger of losing their land, losing their freedom, and even losing their lives.

They wanted a king who would rise up, who would defeat Rome and win them back their freedom.

On Monday, people started second-guessing because Jesus was going off.

He seemed a little bit crazy.

Jesus, as prophet, was turning over tables and running people out of the temple.

He was wreaking havoc.

Jesus still on Tuesday had the support of most of the people, and so the religious elite got together and tried to figure out a way that they could maybe incriminate him, or maybe they could disqualify him in the eyes of his followers.

In Matthew chapter 22, starting in verse 15, it says, Then the Pharisees, religious leaders, they went out and they laid plans to trap Jesus in his words.

Matthew 22 · chapter mention

They sent their disciples to him.

The Pharisees didn't go themselves.

They thought this was going to be easy enough that they just sent those under them.

They sent the disciples along with the Herodians.

Teacher, they said, We know you're a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.

You aren't swayed by men because you pay no attention to who they are.

And let me just say, anytime someone hits you with this much flattery, uh, you might want to be a little bit on your guard.

Like that is a lot, especially coming from a group that Jesus knows all throughout his ministry has straight up hated him.

It says they sent the Pharisees and they sent the Herodians.

And there is a lot going on here.

And what you need to understand about the context to add more dimension to the story is that the Pharisees and the Herodians they hated each other.

Under Roman occupation, the Pharisees were hellbent on winning back their freedom.

They hated Rome, they didn't believe in paying taxes to Rome, they were zealots, they wanted their independence back.

The Herodians were seen by the Jewish people as infidels.

They had pledged their loyalty to Rome, served Rome, gladly gave money to Rome.

They had cosied up with Herod, the local leader for Rome.

And there's this old saying that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

I don't really know that saying other than from Dwight's root on the office, but the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

And the Herodians and the Pharisees who hate each other, they now have someone that they both infinitely hate more.

And so they band together in order to try and trap Jesus.

They hit him with all of the flattery, and then they ask, verse 17, tell us then, what is your opinion?

Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?

And the first trap that they stick Jesus in is political.

You see, he's uh he's in trouble either way that he goes.

Because on one side, the Pharisees don't believe in paying taxes, they do it only because if they didn't, it would end in their death.

They don't believe in it, they hate it.

And the people want Jesus to be king.

And so if Jesus is king, he's gonna overthrow Rome and they won't have to pay taxes anymore.

And so if Jesus takes the stand, yes, Caesar deserves your money, Rome deserves your money, then all of a sudden, Jesus is disqualified in the eyes of the Jewish people.

However, on the other side, the Herodians stand with Rome.

And if Jesus takes the opposite stance and says, you know what?

You're right, no more taxes.

Hold on to your money.

Let's get this thing going, let's get the rebellion started.

At that moment, Rome steps in.

It would cost Jesus his life to stand against Rome.

It would cost Jesus his reputation to stand against the people.

They hit him with a politically charged, politically motivated trap.

They think they've got him.

How is Jesus going to respond?

Now, it was a little bit difficult to find uh application for this particular passage because um in our society we just aren't really dealing with any politically charged issues.

I'm not sure if that sarcasm transferred uh online, um, but I hope you caught it because all we're dealing with is politically charged issues.

And I I want to just be really transparent for a moment.

Because the last 72 hours have been some of the heaviest, uh, most emotion-filled hours of my pastoral leadership.

And I don't know if every pastor felt this way or felt that same weight.

I don't know if maybe it was a simple decision for some.

What I would bet is that most of them and the ones that I spoke to were really, really struggling with what to do right now on Sunday.

Struggling with whether or not we were going to preach to a room with no chairs and no people.

Struggling between the tension of not living in fear and not living in foolishness.

And I tried to dig in.

I read entire books of the Bible searching for wisdom.

I spent days, it wasn't like I took prayer times, it was like prayer days just wrestling with God.

And what we want to do is we want to make a decision that brings honor to God and glory to God and pushes forward the movement of Jesus.

And it's not about the place, it's about the people, and it's about movement, it's not just meeting together, it's really moving together and making a difference.

And if I'm really honest, when I talk to other pastors, the thing that was most upsetting is that added to the weight of an already very difficult decision was this added element of incredible political pressure from both sides of the political aisle.

It ended up looking like this.

If you close services, that's the liberal route.

If you have services, that's the conservative route.

And what has happened in our overly politicized world is that in a moment of crisis, in the one moment where we should be coming together, laying aside the things that don't actually matter, and having unity, people have actually divided even further, have become further entrenched into their political ideologies.

And it is killing the movement of Jesus.

And I need you to know that before we were able to make a decision, we had to make sure that we set aside any pressure other than our call and our mandate to bring glory to God and to push forward the movement of Jesus.

You see, what happens is in crisis, what's on the inside comes out.

In pressure, what's on the inside comes out.

And it's heartbreaking to look through social media and to see both sides of the aisles taking what could be a great opportunity and using it for opposition.

And for so many of us, our first call, our first jump, our first post, our first idea is to defend a position.

Politics causes us to defend the movement of Jesus as an opportunity to define exactly what it is meant to be upon the earth.

And I'm afraid that we care so much about where we stand in the societal conversation that we're not giving it a chance to shine.

I know this is an uncomfortable conversation.

I I get that.

And man, I just rarely bring it up, but it's breaking my heart.

And I want you to see what Jesus did when he was stuck in a political trap.

In verse 18, Jesus, knowing their intent, evil intent, said, You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me?

Show me the coin used for payment during the tax.

And they brought him a denarius, and he asked them, Whose portrait is this?

Whose inscription?

Whose signature is this?

Well, it's Caesar's, they replied.

Then Jesus said to them, Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and give to God what is God's.

And when they heard this, they were amazed.

And so they left him and they went away.

He's trapped.

If he calls off the tax, he's rebelling against Rome.

If he supports the tax, he's rebelling against the people.

He is stuck between some people who want king and some people who want prophet, but on Tuesday, Jesus is rabbi.

I find it so interesting that on Tuesday, Jesus is outside of the temple.

On Monday, Jesus went into the temple.

He walked into religion.

On Tuesday, he walks out of religion.

He's in the marketplace, but religion comes and finds him.

And we are Metachurch.

We are a movement that flips the table on religion, that prioritizes relationship, that's not trying to build monuments and make it about place, but is building a movement that is about real people.

And we need to be aware that as long as MetaCurch exists, we can leave the trappings of religion, and religion will come and try to find us.

And my major concern isn't Buddhism creeping in, Islam creeping in, Scientology creeping in.

We have a new religion.

We have new people and places that we worship, and it is called politics.

And worship is where you give your time and your energy and your resources.

And some of us are giving more money to our favorite politicians than we're giving to the movement of Jesus.

And a lot of us are spending vastly more time researching and reading and spending time understanding the latest political policies than we are spending time understanding and reading and praying and connecting with God.

And I think our greatest danger of being in a world that we're meant to heal but causing hurt is political division.

Being in a world that we have a chance to fortify and bring hope, but that we will fracture.

We're so divided and we're entrenching deeper and deeper and deeper in.

And Jesus says, give to Caesar what is Caesar's.

I want you to vote.

I want you to have opinions.

I want you to be informed.

I definitely want you to pay your taxes.

I want you to buy a house.

I want you to drive a car.

I want you to put your kids on sports.

I want you to live your life.

This first encounter is a statement of priority.

This isn't about political policy.

This isn't about where Caesar ranks in comparison to God.

This is about the fact that nothing ranks in comparison to God.

What is the priority of our life?

When crisis hits, where do we go first?

When pressure comes, what's on the inside comes out?

What's on the inside?

Can we trust and push forward the mission and the movement of God above all else, above our politics, above the stock market, above our fear, above our worries, above our relationships?

This is about priority.

Give to Caesar.

What is Caesar's?

Jesus is like, it's metal.

It's got it's got his face on it.

This is ridiculous.

Give it to him.

I made the whole earth, I made the metal, they made the coins out of it, it's all mine anyway.

The first lesson of how we move forward in a pandemic is the straightening of our priorities.

Jesus is rabbi.

He gives an answer that leaves them speechless and they move on.

They hadn't quite learned their lesson.

In verse 23, it says that same day, the Sadducees, another religious group, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question.

And here's their question.

Teacher, they said, Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and have children for him.

Now, there were seven brothers among us.

The first one married and died.

And since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother.

The same thing happened to the second and the third brother, right on down to the seventh.

And finally, the woman died.

Now then, now remember, they don't believe in the resurrection, but they're gonna ask about the resurrection.

Now then, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven?

Since all of them were married to her at one time or another.

The first trap was political.

The second trap is theological.

The Sadducees are a religious group who do not believe that there is a resurrection.

We would uh call them annihilationalists, I think I'm saying that right, which basically means that when your life ends, it's over.

That's curtains.

Uh you go in the ground, your body decays, it's just the end of the road.

That's all there is to it.

They ignore all of the clear teachings of scripture that one day we will be resurrected.

Not only do they have that wrong, but they take uh a kind of strange part of the Jewish law and they give the most insane, ambiguous example of it as possible.

Seven brothers, none of them could have kids.

Uh the woman ends up married to all seven of the brothers, and now they want to know in eternity, at the resurrection, you know, who will she be married to?

And they're thinking of things through an earthly perspective.

Listen to Jesus' response.

Jesus replied, You are in error because you do not know the scriptures and you do not know the power of God.

He's saying, not only do you have it wrong about the resurrection, you're painting the wrong picture of eternity.

Not only do you not see that there is life after life, but in your mind, the greatest things in eternity will be equitable to the greatest things during your time here on earth.

In the Jewish world, lineage was everything.

It was the height of status and pride for a man to have many children.

It was the height of honor for a woman to bear children.

And so not only is he speaking to pride and accomplishment, he's also speaking to physical satisfaction.

Not only who gets to be married to her, uh, but who gets to be intimate with her, because sex as the ultimate physical experience on earth, lineage in the Jewish as the ultimate experience of pride on earth, they're going, how do we measure this out in heaven?

He's going, listen, you guys don't even know anything about resurrection.

You don't understand the power of God.

You don't yet get that eternity will be so perfect, so excellent, so exquisite, that the greatest things we can imagine in life won't even be the status quo.

He goes on to correct him.

He says, at the resurrection, people will neither marry nor be given in marriage.

They will be like the angels in heaven.

And about the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what God said to you?

I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

He is not the God of the dead, he is the God of the living.

And Jesus quotes what God said to Moses I am present tense, the God of Abraham, I am the God of Isaac, I am the God of Jacob.

Moses was alive hundreds of years after these men had died.

And God speaks in present tense.

Abraham isn't dead.

He has passed on to eternity.

Isaac isn't dead, Jacob isn't dead.

There is resurrection.

In verse 33, when the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching.

The first interaction we learn about priorities.

Where does God rank in your life?

Where is God at in your response to suffering, pressure, and crisis?

This second interaction teaches us about perspective.

You see, the Sadducees, they inherently had an earthly perspective because they didn't actually believe in resurrection.

They thought that the greatest things they will ever experience will happen right here on earth.

And Jesus says if you don't get that there is life after life, you will never fully be able to live out.

Your purpose.

I believe that the greatest indicator of how we as people will respond to this season, this pandemic, this crisis, the greatest indicator of our response will be what we believe about the afterlife.

Whether or not we have hope to hold on to, that nothing in this world, even death itself, can separate us from the love of God.

That there is no ultimate death for those who are in Christ Jesus.

There is just a crossing into an eternity that is so far removed, so high above, so intensely glorious that our minds are incapable of grasping it.

If we want to get out of just making our decisions based on politics, based on money, based on our own wants, our own needs, our own instant gratification, we have to have a grander vision.

And it starts with what we believe comes after this life.

And so we're facing opposition.

And right now we're we're trying to hang in there as sports leagues are getting canceled, and as local governments are putting restrictions on size of gatherings and spaces, and we're trying to do our best.

There's opposition.

But what God keeps placing on my heart is that when the world sees opposition, the movement of Jesus sees opportunity.

And I believe that we are living in a moment of unparalleled opportunity for the movement of Jesus to define for the world outside of Christ what he is actually about.

We are living in a moment where we can have a greater impact than possibly any other time in our life, but to have the confidence, to step out in faith, to not live in fear, to not live foolishly, to walk the line of doing whatever it takes, even in the midst of this, to get people to Jesus, to tell them about hope, to show them love, to get beyond ourselves, get beyond our own fears, to lay our life down, take up our cross, follow after Jesus.

We have to believe that Jesus has got us not just today and not just tomorrow, but on the other side of this life.

Hope is not something we wish for.

Hope is assurance.

Hope is security.

Hope is knowing that I do not have to live with a spirit of fear.

Because no matter what happens, you can take the breath out of my lungs, you can take the beating out of my heart, and you cannot separate me from the love of God or from my eternal destination.

If we can hold on to hope, we can be the catalyst for the world beginning to heal.

We have this hope.

The song says, as an anchor for our souls and people's souls are in turmoil right now.

And confusion reigns and misinformation reigns.

Darkness creeps in.

What are we gonna do if you have been quarantined because you have been exposed?

What are we gonna do if you actually get COVID 19?

What are we gonna do?

What does this season look like?

Because we can sit behind our keyboards, we can sit behind our smartphones, and we can tweet out our political opinions and waste an opportunity in front of us.

We can hold on to hope.

We can spread hope, we can spread peace, we can be love, we can rise up as the church of God, the movement of Jesus on the earth.

The first interaction showed priorities, the second showed perspective.

If we can broaden our perspective, and let me just say this if you're watching this and you have never believed in Jesus, you've never believed that he is who he says he is, God who had come in human flesh, you've never believed that he did what he said he did, which is die as the punishment for all the wrong you've done, and raise again to give us hope of resurrection.

Today can be your day.

If you've never believed, then you will try your whole life, you will try through this whole pandemic to attach your hope to all of the things, the money, the politics, the relationships, the friendships, the marriages, all things that were not built to hold the weight of your hope.

There is only one.

There is only one who can hold the weight of our eternal hope and eternal future, and that is the person of Jesus Christ.

New priorities, new perspective.

There was one more round.

In verse 34, it says, hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees.

The Pharisees got together.

Now remember, the Pharisees sent their disciples.

They thought this was gonna be a cakewalk, so they didn't even bother to show up.

Now they're gonna come.

The Pharisees got together, and one of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question.

You know what you call a Pharisee who's an expert in the law, you call them a rabbi.

That's right.

They sent their best, rabbi versus rabbi.

And in the Pharisees' mind, this is gonna be like a UFC heavyweight fight, knockdown, drag out.

Who can finally come out on top?

They have no idea that they're not just going against a rabbi.

They're not just going against a prophet, they're not just going against a king, they are going against God in human flesh.

An expert in the law tested him with this question, verse 36.

Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?

The Jewish law that this man is an expert in has 613 commandments.

It covers every single area of your life, your religion, your community, your relationships.

It covers all of the bases.

And this is like an intramural debate that the Pharisees would have of which law, which command was the greatest in the law, and actually whether or not they should even be ranking the commandments in the first place.

And now they put Jesus on the spot.

Is he willing to rank one law above the others?

They know that Jesus is radical.

They know that he has said things about the law and seemingly skirted some of the issues.

And if they can get Jesus to say something crazy enough, maybe they will disqualify him in the eyes of his followers.

If they can disqualify him, then there won't be an uprising when they arrest him.

If they can arrest him, then maybe they can execute him.

Everything is writing on this conversation.

And he asks, which is the greatest commandment in the law, in the law, out of the 613, which one in there is the greatest?

And Jesus replied, Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all your sound and with all your mind.

This is the first and greatest commandment, and the second is like it.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

And then look what he says: all the law and all of the prophets hang on these two commands.

The question is, which is the greatest in the law?

And Jesus gives two commands, neither of which can be found in the law.

Neither of them love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, love your neighbor as yourself.

Neither of them are expressly in the 613 commandments of the Jewish law.

But Jesus says, I'm not gonna give you what's in the law, I'm gonna give you the foundation that all of the law rests on.

Love God and love people.

Love God and love people.

And you see, what the Pharisees were looking for was information.

What's in the law?

What Jesus gave them was application.

And the Pharisees were great at information.

They knew all 613 laws, they had to memorize them, they practiced them, they followed it to the letter, but they never understood the intent.

They had lost over the years that the law was there for relationship.

They had turned it and used it for religion.

Jesus went to application.

Love God, love people.

And if you can do those two things, love God with all your heart, all your mind, and all your soul.

If you can love your neighbor as yourself, if you can do these, all of the rest will take care of itself.

Jesus does something else incredible here.

He first says, love God, all your heart, mind, and soul.

And that makes a lot of sense.

Obviously, that's the whole point.

But then he says, the second is like it.

And if you look at the Greek, the translation really is the second is equal to it.

We don't just love God, but we love people just as we love ourselves.

This is the new law of love.

And for centuries, people had lived as if the way we love God is by following every letter of the law, checking every box of the law, but not really having the application of relationship to God and to the people around us.

And listen, the world outside of Christ defines the church as people who check all the religious boxes.

They never miss a Sunday service, they memorize all of the books, they know the verses, they can sing the songs, they go to the studies, they hit the conferences, they do all the right things to follow the legalistic route of being a good Christian, but they go out in the world and treat people who are living without hope like absolute crap.

And Jesus says, Love God, love people.

And the way that you demonstrate your love for God is by the way you love and radically serve the people around you, especially the people that no one else will love.

While Jesus was on earth, he walked and talked, placed his hands on the members of society who were most disenfranchised, most marginalized, most manipulated, ostracized, who didn't have a seat at the table, he came for them.

When the movement of Jesus started, this thing that we call the church, that first century, they were under incredible persecution.

They were suffering.

It was different than how we're suffering right now.

But suffering is scalable.

And the world sees suffering as opposition.

The movement of Jesus saw it as opportunity.

And one of the largest demographics in the early church were women because women had no worth in society.

Women were used and abused and manipulated.

The movement of Jesus saw them and they saw their worth, saw their value, saw their purpose, lifted them up, gave them a seat at the table before Jesus.

Different ethnic groups, different races.

It was conquered or be conquered.

It was the movement of Jesus that broke down racial barriers, age barriers.

And all of a sudden, the movement of Jesus, while under persecution, while facing opposition, starts to grow and spread and becomes exponential and changes the entire world as this multigender, multi-ethnic, just like multi-age, multi-generational, powerful movement of God.

And now economies are falling.

Industries are closing.

Confusion is rampant.

And what the world sees as division, we see as a chance to define what the church was meant to be.

If we get our priorities right, if we get our perspective right, we have a real chance at getting our purpose right.

And our purpose is to love God by radically, unapologetically loving the people around us.

I believe in front of us is an opportunity like we have never seen before in our generation to show the world what it means to be the hands and feet of God, to show people living without hope and living in darkness.

What it means to be ambassadors of God, crying out, be reconciled to God, pointing them to the only source of hope that can actually hold the weight of their expectation, pointing them to the only peace that passes beyond our own human understanding.

Pointing them to joy in the midst of severe trials.

How are we MetaCurch?

How are you as MetaCurch going to love the people around us during this time?

And so here's what we want to do to close our service with you today.

We're so thankful that you've joined us.

We're so thankful that you've stuck through to the end of my ranting and raving.

This is a message built for this moment.

And I want you, right where you are, to close your eyes.

And I always say this there's nothing magical about closing your eyes.

What this does is it creates some space for you.

It creates a space that is free of distraction.

And as we move into a week where our kids are off school and many people are off work or working from home and we're trying to figure it out, and there are people who are figuring out how to get their kids fed, and there are people figuring out whether or not they're gonna get a paycheck, and there are people who have resources, they're just worried about being bored or whether or not they're gonna be able to put up with their rowdy kids for this whole week.

As we're moving into the uncertain and the unknown, we're gonna take some time and pray.

We're gonna take some time and look at our priorities, focus our perspective, hone in on our purpose.

Would you pray with me?

God, first of all, we trust you, and that's a choice.

You have given us the freedom to choose, and we choose to trust you.

We trust that your ways are higher than our ways, that your plans are greater than our plans.

God, we do not believe that you create catastrophe, that you cause it.

We're in a broken world, a sinful world, but we do believe that you and you alone can redeem it, that you can take the opposition of this world, and you can see it as opportunity.

God, I pray for safety.

Even right now, people who are watching asking for prayers, prayers for uh deliveries of babies, prayers for people who are sick, prayers for anxiety, God, be with people, speak to them, show yourself.

We trust you.

We pray, God, that this is a season as the pressure takes what is inside of us and exposes it on the outside, that it is a chance for us to reprioritize our life, to put you higher than anything, God, to worship you.

Time, energy, resources, attention, affection, God, that you get it, that you get it all, God, that nothing takes your place.

Pray for a new perspective.

God, that hope would win the day.

Hope for today, hope for tomorrow.

God, hope for what comes after this life.

God, I pray for purpose that we would dig in, that we would be a sacrificial movement, willing to get on the front lines, God, willing to risk, to do whatever it takes.

God, not to live in fear.

That doesn't mean to move foolishly, God, but in faith to follow after you, to show your love in a powerful, powerful way.

We love you.

We love you.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Before you guys end your stream, a couple of things I want to connect about.

Number one, uh, we don't know what tomorrow holds or what our world is gonna look like a week from now.

Um, but we will have updates uh about how we are moving forward, not just with our venues, um, but also with the other programs that we offer, life teams.

Uh so make sure you're staying uh checking in on Facebook, on social media.

We will try to email as many people as we have contacts for.

We also are going to be organizing opportunities to move together.

We're looking for critical needs and ways that we can uniquely contribute to them as MetaCurch.

I want to talk about our Keystone habits, which are invite and invest.

Today we have a unique invitation opportunity.

We have about 1,500 people who call MetaCurch their church.

And that means we have 1,500 people who have the capability of sharing the service once it's been posted.

And I'm asking every single one of you to do that.

To share it today, and maybe share it again throughout the week.

We can get this message in front of people who need this, who need hope at this time.

It's a great way to invite.

If there are people and you feel it's safe to invite them over, invite them into your home to watch these services.

Let's move forward, not fear, not foolish, but move forward in faith.

When it comes to investing, right now the economic realities for many people are severe.

We ask unapologetically for you to give to this movement, but we give out of what we are given.

And if you are no longer receiving a paycheck because of this crisis, then we're praying for you.

We're not asking you to give out of something you don't have.

What that means for the rest of us is if you are still bringing home a paycheck, it is more important than ever for you to do your part in helping to fund this movement.

Some of the things that we are trying to get okay to move forward to help out with, it's gonna take funds, it's gonna take resources.

Continue to give generously.

I know the markets are down, but the markets do not affect sacrificial sacrificial generosity to the movement of Jesus.

Man, we love you guys.

We want you to be smart, we want you to be safe.

We love you, and we thank you for joining us today.

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 MetaChurch 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.