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The transcript is a sermon given by Pastor John DiQuatro from Authentic Life Church in Mobile, Alabama. The main focus is on living an authentic life for Christ and being a fully devoted follower of Jesus. It emphasizes the importance of biblically authentic discipleship, which involves denying oneself, taking up the cross, and following Jesus. The sermon also discusses the concept of authentic identity and discovering God's purpose for one's life. The church's vision is to build a community of fully devoted, authentic followers of Jesus Christ through seeking God, serving others, and making disciples. The sermon emphasizes the command of Jesus to make disciples and the need for a culture of evangelism within the church. It's not just for you and your family, it's not just for the rich, it's not just for the poor, it's not just for the talented and the influential, it's not just for the Baptists, or the Pentecostal, or the Calvinists, or the Arminians, or the Catholics, it's not just for Americans, it's for whoever will believe! Whoever! And we just have to respond to the invitation. Welcome to Elevate, from Authentic Life Church in Mobile, Alabama, with Pastor John DiQuatro. We hope it builds your faith, and helps you to live a life for God that you've always wanted to live. We hope it inspires you to be a fully devoted, authentic follower of Jesus Christ. Enjoy the message, and welcome to Elevate. We are in the sermon series, Fully Devoted, and we have made a big change here at our church, in naming our church Authentic Life Church. And in doing so, you know, it's yeah, we all got green shirts, and it looks real good, but it's not just about a name change, it's not just about a new branding idea, so we can sell mugs and t-shirts and give pens away. That's not why we did it. It is an identity shift for who we are as a church. It's an intentional focus for how we do discipleship, and how we will teach people to follow Jesus, so that we can make a difference and truly develop fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. And so, what does it mean to live an authentic life for Christ? And that's what we've been talking about here over the last several weeks. The word authentic means real, genuine, not counterfeit. Authentic means you are the real deal, right? You're genuine, you're not counterfeit. And so, I'm going to do a little vision recap here, because it's the vision of our church, and I want you to hear it, I want you to know it, I want you to be able to recite it. If somebody says, what is your church all about? You'll be able to tell them, because we're just going to keep on hammering this for a little while here. But there's two areas that we have been talking about. If you'll remember, we talked about biblically authentic discipleship, and we talked about authentic identity. And biblically authentic discipleship says, what does Jesus say is what it takes to be a follower of Him? What are the words that came out of His mouth? And we see it in Matthew chapter 16, in verse 24 and 25. Then Jesus said to His disciples, whoever wants to be My disciple must, and anything that follows that word must, is going to be the criteria for what it truly means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. And He says, whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves, and take up their cross, and follow Me. To deny ourselves, right? We said that's really what we symbolized in this baptismal tank this morning, that people are coming in and saying, I am dead to myself. It's not me that lives anymore, but it's Christ that now lives in me, and I'm living my life in Christ. So my goals, my plans, my dreams, my wants, my desires, they all die, and I am raised to Jesus' plans, and goals, and dreams, and desires for my life. That is biblically authentic discipleship. And as we walk that out, we ask this question, what do you want from me? And when we find that what we want, and what He wants, are at conflict with each other, then these are the words that come out of our mouth. Like Jesus said, nevertheless, thy will be done. Because our desires in our flesh, and His desires in the Spirit, sometimes are going to conflict. But Jesus, when His desire was conflicting in the Garden of Gethsemane, He said, Lord, if there's any other way that we can do this, I'd rather it be some other way. I don't want to be tortured. I don't want to be beat. I don't want to hang on a cross to die. However, nevertheless, thy will be done. And that is biblically authentic discipleship. Dead to me, alive in Christ, following the will of our Savior. Even when it's not what we want in our flesh. And let me just give you a little, you know, spoiler. Usually what you want in your flesh is not what He wants from you. Now, He loves you, and He wants you to be blessed. He wants those things. However, He's going to require some things of you, personally, either through the Word, or things that He puts in your heart. And He's going to ask us to make sacrifices, because He wants us to walk into ultimately our, and this is the second thing that we've been talking about, our authentic identity. The real you. The real you is not the you that has been formed by your past, or by your decisions, or by your desires, or by the life that you lived before you met Him. That's not the real you. The real you is the blueprint that God drew up before the foundations of the earth for you. And it's our job to discover what those instructions are so that we can become exactly who God created us to be. That is your authentic identity. And we're looking towards being that authentic, living that authentic life that Jesus called us to. Paul said this in Philippians 3, he said, not that I have already obtained all this, or have arrived already at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. There's a reason Jesus saved you, set you free, took all your sins away. Right? There's a reason He did that. And it's our job to take hold of that for which Jesus took hold of us. Authentic identity. Everybody say it. Authentic identity. Amen. So we've said this, authentic life church exists to build a community of fully devoted, authentic followers of Jesus Christ. Authentic life church exists to build a community of fully devoted, authentic followers of Jesus Christ. And we do this by teaching that these are the ways in which we engage with our salvation, in which we engage with the body of Christ, in which we engage with our Father, and through these three what we're calling life steps. Number one, save people. Seek God. And we talked about this two weeks ago. What does this mean? Save people. Seek God. It means that I'm going to seek after His will paramount in my life. I'm going to do that through reading His Word. I'm going to do that through prayer. I'm going to do that through worship. I'm going to do that through coming to be with the body of Christ and being taught the Word of God. I'm going to seek God's will and how to follow Him because I want to be a fully devoted, authentic follower of Jesus Christ. Last week we talked about how saved people serve people. That it's not just about us anymore. But we talked about that word in Greek that means to serve. I can't pronounce it. What is it? Diakoneo, right? And it literally means kicking up dust. That we are to be active. We are to be very, very active. Not just a little active, but in serving other people. We are to be so active that there is a cloud of dust everywhere that we go because we are so busy serving other people, getting outside of myself and sharing the love of Jesus Christ with those around me. He has gifted each and every one of us with something. His grace has gifted us with something that we can use to serve other people. It's in our job to get active in doing the good works that he prepared in advance for us to do. And so we're going to get on with our third set today and talk about saved people. Saved people. And before we do, I want to remind you if you have not put your name up on that banner that says I am fully devoted to Jesus, I want to invite you to do that because we're going to move that. After this week, we're going to move that into the hallway. Not that you can't get your name up there later, but we just want to have everybody's name on there. If you go over to this table over here, you can find this commitment card. It spells out in short form the entire vision that we've been laying out to you, all the scriptures and things that we have shared. And you can take this home so you can always see this vision and what it is that means to be a fully devoted, authentic follower of Jesus Christ. And then take this sticker. There's stickers on there and markers. Put your name on there or your family's name and stick it up on that banner. And this is our statement together that we are together. We are fully devoted to Jesus. Amen. So if you've not had a chance to do that, make sure that you do it. So today we're talking about saved people, save people. We need to create within our church and the body of Christ needs to create all across the churches in America and across the world, a culture of evangelism, a culture of evangelism. We need it, guys. We absolutely have to have it. This area of saved people, save people, this is the most neglected aspect of what it means to follow Christ. Most people are good with seeking God, with worshiping and prayer and reading the Word and being taught and trying to do those things that we know please God. Many of us are okay with serving and doing and giving to others and being a disciple that way. But most people don't actively work towards making other disciples. But we do know that this is what Jesus wants. Jesus said in Matthew 28, verses 19 and 20, this is the command right here. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you and be sure of this, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. And so I want to start this discussion today with this statement as being the non-negotiable for being a fully devoted, authentic follower of Jesus Christ. Jesus gave His disciples a command. And the command was to make disciples. Now listen, that's not my idea. That's not the other pastor or the other church's idea that you used to go to. This is not a church growth strategy. Right? This is a command of Jesus. It's not just for the evangelistically gifted. It is a command of Jesus for all disciples that they would make other disciples. Real believers, authentic believers, make disciples, or they at least try. They at least go for it. And they share their faith and they try to bring folks into the fold, into the family of God. And listen, I hope that you feel uncomfortable today. I hope that you are convicted today into action. Amen? Because we're in a battle. We're in a battle for this generation right now. There are radical agendas, organized assaults that are aimed at this generation to delete Christian values from our culture. To erase God as a real, powerful, loving being. There is a mission to silence the voice of the church and the voice of Christians and to relegate believers to the realm of dim-witted, non-thinking people who believe in fairy tales and fantasies. That's the narrative that is being spun to our generation right now. That if you have faith in Jesus Christ, if you believe the Bible, then you're stupid. I'm just putting it right out there. Because if you don't believe in science, they have to make this distinction. You either believe in science or you believe in God, as though you can't believe in both. Science is real. I've done lab experiments in high school. We can believe in science as well. But this is the battle that we're in, folks. And we cannot stand by and watch and not do anything about it. We must be about the Father's business. And so I'm going to ask you, if you have your Bible or your device, to turn to Luke chapter 14. We're going to read a parable that Jesus told that I believe illustrates this very well for us. It begins in verse 14. Hearing this, a man sitting at the table with Jesus exclaimed, What a blessing it will be to attend a banquet in the kingdom of God. And Jesus replied with this story. A man prepared a great feast and sent out many invitations. When the banquet was ready, he sent his servant to tell the guests, Come, the banquet is ready. But they all began making excuses. One said, I have just bought a field and must inspect it. Please excuse me. Another said, I've just bought five pairs of oxen and I want to try them out. Please excuse me. Another said, I just got married, so I can't come. The servant returned and told his master what they had said. His master was furious and said, Go quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and invite the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame. After the servant had done this, he reported, There is still room for more. So his master said, Go out into the country lanes and behind the hedges and urge anyone you find to come so that the house will be full. For none of those I first invited will get even the smallest taste of my banquet. So today we're going to talk about people that sign up for stuff and then don't show up. No, I'm just kidding. But the master, the man in this parable, this is God. In this parable, Jesus was referring to his master, to his father. This is God, and he is sending out an invitation to his feast, to his banquet. And as we look to apply this parable that Jesus told 2,000 years ago and apply it to us today, well, what's he talking about? What banquet? What feast? What feast is he talking about? Well, it's this. In Revelation chapter 19, he says, Then I heard again, beginning in verse 6, Then I heard again what sounded like the shout of a vast crowd or the roar of mighty ocean waves or the crash of loud thunder. Praise the Lord! For the Lord our God, the Almighty reigns. Let us be glad and rejoice, and let us give honor to Him, for the time has come for the wedding feast of the Lamb, and His bride has prepared herself. She has been given the finest of pure white linen to wear, for the fine linen represents the good deeds of God's holy people. And the angel said to me, Write this, Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding feast of the Lamb. And he added, These are true words that come from God. Listen, there is a banquet, a feast, a party that awaits us when we join together for eternity with Jesus Christ as His bride. And he calls us His bride because he said, I go to prepare a place for you. And this means, in those days, right, the husband that was to be married would say, Alright, hang out here. I'm going to go and prepare a place so I'll come back and get you when I'm done and we're going to come together and we're going to live in my Father's house. And so before Jesus went away, He said, I'm going away to prepare a place for you. And according to this wedding tradition, He is coming back for His bride. And He's going to bring His bride to come and to live with Him in His Father's house. But when we get there, Have you ever been to a wedding where there was no party afterwards? There's always a party. And that's what we're invited to. We're invited to this wedding party, this reception, this wedding feast, when we finally get to spend eternity with Jesus Christ. And so in this parable, this invitation is going out to the banquet. The invitation to the celebration goes out. Now here it says that He sent out many invitations. It doesn't mean that everybody got an invitation, but He sent out many invitations. However, for us, for us, the invitation goes out to whoever will. To whosoever it wants to come, the invitation is there for you. Look what it says in the most quoted and familiar verse in all of the Bible. John 3.16 For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever... Somebody say whoever. In the Greek, you know what that word whoever means? Whoever. It means whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. It is a whoever invitation. It's not just for you and your family. It's not just for a certain socio-economic demographic. It's not just for the rich. It's not just for the poor. It's not just for the talented and the influential. It's not just for the Baptist or the Pentecostal or the Calvinist or the Arminian or the Catholic. It's not just for Americans. It's for whoever will believe. Whoever. It is a broad net that has been cast. And we just have to respond to the invitation. Now in this parable, many will decline the invitation. The invitations went out. People that personally received an invitation. For us today, these are people that grew up in church. These are people that know the truth. People that have walked with God at one point and have chosen to live life on their own terms and are no longer walking with God and following Him and seeking Him. And we see in this parable that there was all kinds of excuses for those that were invited that chose not to come. The first guy says, I bought a field and I must inspect it. Lame. This guy bought some real estate and now he had to go look at it. This was a guy that was enamored with his earthly accomplishments. Somebody was enamored with the things that he could accumulate in this world. And it's easy to decline the invitation in order to focus on our worldly success. There are those that have been invited that know the truth and have chosen to follow worldly success. The second guy said, I bought five pairs of oxen and I want to try them out. Now for us today, I haven't bought any oxen. I don't know if you have any oxen in your fleet. But for us today, it's like I got a new car and I've got to go for a joyride. I've got to go check that thing out. I'm so excited about my new car. I'm more interested in pleasure than I am in accepting the invitation at the Master's house. And that's where we are in our culture today that we are more interested in what we want and what feels good and how we can have pleasure. There are many that are choosing to decline the invitation so that they can go after pleasure. They can follow their truth. They can follow whatever it is that their little heart desires. The third one said, I just got married, so I can't come. Now of all the three, I think I can understand this one the most. This is classic, right? Blame the wife. Blame the husband. Right? I can't follow Christ because my wife did this. Or my husband does that. Or he won't take me to church. Or she thinks I'm crazy. That's all the guy said. Amen. But there's always somebody to blame for why we won't follow Christ, right? The church. You know, they did something. Or someone offended me one time when I came to church. Or I heard that all they care about is your money. Right? So I'm not going to church. Or whatever. There's always an excuse. Now listen, there are people all over this region of the country, right? We are in the buckle of the Bible belt down here. There are people that are examples of this right here. Everybody down here knows the Gospel. Everybody down here knows what's right. Most people down here grew up in church. Mama drug them to church. Grandma drug them to church. And they have received the invitation. And these people could be your own children. They could be your friends and your family. They could be people you used to go to church with. People you used to worship alongside of. And they have chosen to decline the invitation. Right? I've got some wild oats to sow. I've done the church thing. Now I want to see what the world has to offer. Or church people are just a bunch of hypocrites. So I'm just going to reject God and His Word. Now these people need to be reached. These people that have received the invitation, we can't give up on those people. They know the truth and they just choose to not walk in it. But in this parable, the man throwing the banquet doesn't ask the servant to go back and beg the original people that he invited. He didn't say, We'll go back to them and just say, Please come to the banquet. No, they know where the party is. They received an invitation. They know what time it is. They know what to wear. They know how to get there. It's up to them. But there's a whole bunch of other people that have yet to receive their invitation. There's a whole bunch of other people that I would love to see come to my feast. I just didn't have a chance to invite them. And so the servant returned. In verse 21, the servant returned and told his master what they had said. And his master was furious and said, Go quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and invite the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame. Where did he send the servants? Into the streets. He sent the servants into the alleyways. Who did he invite? The poor, the down and out, the sick, the crippled people. Basically what he said was this. I want you to invite the people that will really appreciate what I'm offering. The ones that aren't so drunk on their success and their possessions and the trappings of this world. Go out and invite the poor in spirits. The ones that realize that they need me. Go and invite those people. Now let me tell you something. There's people all around you that fit that bill. People that have been broken down by life. People that didn't know any better and just walked into a life that is just absolutely destroying them. Maybe they're caught up in addictions. Maybe they've made some really poor decisions and sin has just ravaged their life. Maybe they're poor. Maybe they're sick. Maybe they're crippled. Maybe they're just beat down because they've been following their own way and it's been a life that has not panned out the way that they had hoped. These people are struggling. They're hurting. They're looking for hope. They're looking for a lifeline and all it takes is somebody to extend an invitation to them and say, why don't you come? Come to the feast. Come to the banquet. Come. Let me show you a better way. And I want you to see that the Master told him to go quickly into the streets. Understand this. In the context of this parable, Jesus is talking to Jewish people and the original people that the Master invited are the Jews, right? It was the nation of Israel and He offered them the invitation and many of those people of Israel were rejecting Him and they were rejecting His Son that He sent and they're saying, no, this is not the Messiah. No, this is not the Son of God. We would rather kill Him. We would rather continue in our puffed up pompous way of going about living our lives. And so He's now sending the invitation to the Gentiles. That's what Jesus is really saying to His Jewish audience that God is now extending His invitation for salvation beyond the Jews and now He's extending it to the Gentiles. The Gentiles are non-Jewish people. They're living in other nations. They're living on other continents. They aren't the ones in their backyard. They are not the ones that you sit next to in church. They are not the ones that you've been growing up with your whole life. But these are the ones that you don't know. These are the ones that have no concept of God. The ones that never heard the good news. For a Jewish person, they were God's people. The Gentiles served other gods. They never knew the good news of Jesus. They never knew the good news of God. The one true God that loves them. They never knew. And Jesus was extending the invitation to those that didn't know. Listen, it's easy for us to kind of just be in this little bubble of church here. And then when we see somebody starting to maybe make some mistakes, we pull them back in and we call that evangelism or whatever. I don't know, but this is telling us we've got to get out to the streets. We've got to get out to where people have not heard the good news. We've got to get out to those people that are so broken down and beat down by life and sin that they're just looking up, looking for a way out. The ones that will appreciate the invitation. But look what happens next. In verse 22, after the sermon had done this, he reported, there's still room for more. Hear me. There's never going to be a cutoff. There's never going to be a cutoff. God is never going to say, alright, that's enough. No, there's no more room. Heaven's only so big. He is never going to utter those words. And that means that as long as we have breath, the invitation has to keep going out. It has to keep going. Don't be afraid. Like, I've been invited to parties before and have been like, hey, can I invite somebody? Like, yeah, go ahead and invite some people. And then you get a little afraid. You're like, well, I don't want to invite too many people because I don't want to, you know, I don't want to overstay my welcome or maybe there's not going to be enough food and I'm not going to be able to fill my belly when I go to this party, right? But no, it's not like that. In the Kingdom of Heaven, keep on extending the invitation to whoever will say yes to it. Whoever will. Verse 23, So as Master said, go out into the country lanes and behind the hedges and urge anyone you find to come so that the house will be full. So that His house may be full. And this raises the stakes because He says go into the country lanes. Right now it's like there's the streets and there's the alleys. But now He's like, now I want you to get out a little further. You might have to get in your car now and go drive to the country lanes. We're talking about going to like Citronelle. And inviting people. But He says go to the country lanes and behind the hedges. Like look for people that are hiding behind the hedges. Like go out and find these people. But it raises the stakes because we've all heard it preached and we've all understood that we have this particular sphere of influence. Right? We've got our friends. We've got our family. We've got our co-workers. And we've got the other mothers at the baseball game, you know, for our kids' baseball team. Right? That's our sphere of influence. And yes, we need to be active within that sphere of influence. And we're supposed to make disciples of those people. But this tells us that we need to be doing more than that. That we need to be getting out and going into the country lanes and going behind the hedges and finding anyone that will accept our invitation to come into relationship with Jesus Christ. Why? So that my house may be full. Thank you for listening to Elevate. We hope this message encouraged, inspired and challenged you. Authentic Life Church is located at 3750 Michael Boulevard in Mobile, Alabama. Visit our website, AuthenticLife.tv for more information about Authentic Life Church, to find out what we have going on, or to make a donation. You can also find us on Facebook. We'd love for you to join us on Sundays at 10 a.m. for our weekend service. We have excellent children's, nursery and youth programs, so bring the family. For Pastor John DiQuatro, I'm Scott Chesnut. Thanks again for listening, and God bless you.
