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Transcription
The speaker emphasizes the importance of welcoming all people, regardless of their background or past, to Elevate, a church in Mobile, Alabama. They discuss the concept of vision and how it helps us stay focused and purposeful in our lives. The speaker also talks about the church's mission to build a community of authentic followers of Jesus Christ through seeking God, serving others, and sharing the gospel. They emphasize the command Jesus gave to make disciples and the need for a culture of evangelism in the church. He wants his house full, and I promise you this, he does not care about their station in this life. It doesn't matter if they were found under a rock without two pennies to rub together. He doesn't care if they're found in prison with a rap sheet longer than your forearm. Those people are eligible too. He's saying, go get them. Go invite them. It doesn't matter if they were found in the deepest, darkest addiction and sin. He's saying, go get them. 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 that it inspires you to be a fully devoted, authentic follower of Jesus Christ. Enjoy the message, and welcome to Elevate. We're continuing in Write the Vision, and we've been in this scripture in Habakkuk 2-2 that says this, Write the vision, make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. God told Habakkuk, before he was about to give him some instruction and some answers to some things he was questioning, he was about to give it to him, but he said, make sure you write it down so that he may run who reads it, so that it can get into the hearts and the minds of people. Listen, what I'm about to tell you, make sure people can read it. Make sure they know what it is, so that it will shape their perspective and give them a track to run on. Because that's vision, right? Write the vision down. Vision makes us laser focused. If you have no vision, if you have no goal, if you have no plan, you just kind of meander and wander, like I do every time I get behind the wheel of my car. Unless I put on the GPS, then I know exactly where I'm going. So we're going to continue to review the vision that God has given us here at Authentic Life Church. The vision of who we are and who God is making us to be as a church. Because Authentic Life Church, it's more than just a name, right? We changed it, we became Authentic Life Church. But it's more than just to say, hey, we've got a new name, look at us. It's more than just a branding idea, something to work with. We like the color green, so let's put that out there. And it's more than that. It's an identity shift. It's who we are, it's who God is making us to be. It's an intentional focus on how we build disciples. And so what does it mean to live an authentic life for Christ? Well, we've said all along, right, authentic means real and genuine and not counterfeit. In other words, to be an authentic follower of Christ is truly to be the real deal. To be a follower of Christ the way He said that we ought to follow Him. And we've said that there have been two areas that we've been talking about, right? Biblically authentic discipleship and then the idea of authentic identity. That kind of paints everything that we've been discussing over these last four weeks. The first one, biblically authentic discipleship. Just a quick review, right, is that we are biblically authentic in our discipleship when we follow Jesus the way that He said we are to follow Him. We can't make up our own way of following Jesus. We can't just say, well, I'm a follower of Christ, but this is who I am. There is a particular way that Jesus said you ought to follow Him. And He tells us in Matthew 16, 24 and 25, He says, Then Jesus said to His disciples, whoever wants to be My disciple must... Right? We stop because He says, I've got to do something here. This is what I've got to do. Let me listen here. Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow Me. What that means is your life is not yours anymore. It means that you lay it down for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's what it means, truly, to deny myself, to take up my cross, to die to who I am, my wants, my desires, all those things that are just naturally within my human nature and be willing to die to those things in order for Christ to live through me. Amen? That's biblically authentic discipleship. But the other thing is authentic identity. Right? So He tells us, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Him. That's great, but there's also this idea that every single one of us has been placed on the earth with a very specific purpose. He says that He's prepared good works in advance for each and every one of us to do. Look what Paul says in Philippians 3. He says, Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Paul knew that there was a reason that Christ saved him. There was a purpose. There was a plan. There was something for him to accomplish for Christ on this earth. And he's not the only one. There's a reason why Christ Jesus has taken a hold of you. And when we can find what that thing is, and we can begin to lay down our lives and follow Christ and become what He has planned for us to be before the foundations of the earth, that's when we're truly walking in our authentic identity. Your identity is not how you were raised. Your identity is not the trauma that happened in your life. Your identity is not found in your relationship in a man or a woman. Your identity is not how much money you have or your career or anything like that. It's not where you find your identity. That's all the stuff that was before Christ. That's what defined you before Christ. But once you come into Christ, He begins to define you. There is a true, authentic identity that He wants you to walk in, like the matrix, right? Take the red pill. Alright. So we say that we're going to be authentic. And first of all, the mission statement of the church is this. Authentic Life Church exists to build a community of fully devoted, authentic followers of Jesus Christ. Let me tell you this. I'm not going to stop. We're not going to keep doing the things that we do. We're not going to keep offering you opportunities to grow in Christ until this church is a community of fully devoted, authentic followers of Jesus Christ. And many of you are. And many of you are on your way. And many of you have just started. But we will continue in doing this. Because this is what God has called us to be as a church. And so we said we would do this by following these three authentic attributes, right? That we seek God, that saves people, serves people, and that saves people, saves people. And we use the term saved people. We are saved people. We are not just people that made a good decision one day. We're not just people that like church and like church music and like one another. That's not just what we are. We are saved people, saved from the eternal consequences of sin, which is to be separated from God for all of eternity. We're saved from that. We're saved from being objects of the wrath of God against evil and against sin. We are saved from living a life that holds us captive to sin. We're saved from it. That's who we are. We've been rescued by the blood of Jesus. That demands a response. You've been rescued by the blood of Jesus. This is the gospel. What we've just explained, right? That's the gospel. Jesus paid it all. All to Him I owe. Jesus paid it all. That demands a response. Now we've been in this. We've done saved people seek God. Two weeks ago before our mission service, we did saved people serve people. And I just want to remind you of that particular one that we did real quick. Because we said that the term to serve that is in the Bible means kicking up dust. That serving is an active thing. Your service to God is not coming to church on Sunday. That's not your service to God. I'm sorry to tell you. This isn't serving God. You're receiving the meat of the Word today so that you can get up and get out of here and go serve God. Right? It's very active because there's nothing passive about Christianity. There never should be anything passive about it. And we're to be stewards of what God has given us and use it to serve others. God has given you gifts and talents and a personality and things that can be used to serve Him. And He wants you to serve Him but to serve others around you. He wants you to serve people. That's what He did. That's what He modeled for us. Amen? And so today we're going to look at this third one here. Save people. Save people. You know, we need a culture of evangelism in this church. We really, really do. We can't continue with just a few core people that say, I want to make it important to go out as a church and to try to reach the lost. We can't do that. We need a culture in this church. And this is the most neglected area by most of following Christ. It's in this area of winning the lost. Most people don't act and actively work toward making disciples. Most people don't. I'm just going to say that. But we know it's what Jesus wants. So we're going to start with the command that Jesus gave us to make disciples. This should be familiar to all of you. Matthew 28, 19 and 20 says this. 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've given you and be sure of this. I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Can I tell you something? Can I tell you something? This is one of the last words that came out of Jesus' mouth before he left us to come back one day. And I just want to say that this is a non-negotiable for being a fully devoted, authentic follower of Christ. I'm not saying you can't be saved. I'm just saying if you want to be a fully devoted, authentic follower of Christ, this has to be part of your motivation. Jesus gave a command to all of his followers and he said make disciples. It's not my idea. It's not a church growth strategy. It's not why we do it. It's not why we do things like our prayer outreach. It's not a church growth strategy. People may come. They might not. It's an act of obedience because Jesus told us to do this. It's not for the evangelistically gifted. Most of us aren't. It's just a command of Jesus, period, that we make disciples. Real believers make disciples or they at least try to. They're at least part of that process. And I hope today I hope today that I make you a little bit uncomfortable. No, I hope that you're convicted into action today. I really do. If you're joining us from home, I pray that you're convicted to action today. That's what the Word of God ought to do, right? Is convict us to action. Because we're in a battle right now for this generation. We are in the middle of a... There are radical agendas. There are organized assaults that are aimed at this generation to delete Christian values from our culture, to erase God as a real and powerful and loving being. There is a mission to silence Christian voices and to relegate believers to the realm of the dim-witted, non-thinking people who believe in fairy tales and fantasies. I'm telling you, you hear it more and more and more. That's the battle that we're in. And we cannot stand by and watch and not do anything about it. Because all of those voices that you're hearing, but at least you're going, yeah, that's not really right, that's not really true. Everyone else is hearing those voices too, and they're saying, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. We've got work to do. We've got work to do to reach this generation. And so, we've got to be about the Father's business. So let's read. Our main text today is going to be in Luke chapter 14, verses 15 to 24. It says this, 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. Jesus replied with this story. Jesus always had a story. He always had a parable. Jesus wasn't spouting off hard to understand theology. Jesus taught by telling good stories that helped people remember the principles that he was teaching. He said 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've just bought a field, and I 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. I understand that one. 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 and the crippled and the blind and the lame. After the servant had done this, he reported, There's still room for more. So his master said, Go out of 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. The man in this parable represents God, the one sending out the invitation to his banquet. He wants people to gather with him and to be with him. And as we look to apply this parable to us today, we have to ask the question, What banquet is he talking about? Well, we find out what banquet he was talking about here in Revelation 19. He says, 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. For 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. There is a great banquet that awaits us. The banquet that will celebrate the joining of Christ with His bride. The church. We are His bride. And He said, I'm going. I'm going to prepare a place for you. That means that He was leaving His bride-to-be, His fiancée. I never put it in those terms, but we're Christ's fiancée. But He was leaving to go get a place ready in His Father's house. And then when He returns, He'll bring us to live with Him in His Father's house. And there will be a huge party when we all get there. I don't know what's going to be at that banquet, but I'm betting at least Chick-fil-A will be there. But in this parable, the invitation to the celebration is going out. This invitation, it goes out, and what it tells us is that He sends many invitations. Right? In the beginning it says, A man prepared a great feast and sent out many invitations. The invitations have gone out. Our invitation that we extend, as we go out and we invite those others to come and join us for the banquet that we're all going to enjoy one day, right? Our invitation is to whoever will. Whosoever will. John 3.16 says it very simple, For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that 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 socioeconomic demographic. It's not just for the rich. It's not just for the poor. It's not for the talented and just for the influential. It's not just for the Baptist or the Pentecostal or the Calvinist or the Armenian or the Catholic. It's not just for Americans. It's to whoever believes. It's a broad net. It's whoever. But we see in this parable that Jesus told that many who have been invited will decline the invitation. People who have personally received an invitation. People that have grown up in church and have known the truth. People that have walked out on God at one point just chose to walk away from the invitation that was given to them. Many will decline it. And all kinds of excuses. Jesus gives us three. I bought a field and I must inspect it. Lame. This guy bought some real estate and had to go look at it. This guy was so enamored with his earthly accomplishments. So taken by this nice new field. What are you going to look at in a field? I don't know. But it's easy for people to decline the invitation in order to focus on worldly success. We see it every day. We feel that temptation at times. Even ourselves to be pulled into that area away from God's plan for our lives and towards money. We understand it's easy to decline that invitation. But the second guy said I bought five pairs of oxen and I want to try them out. He's like, yep, got a new car. I need to go for a joyride. That's what this guy is saying. I'm more interested in pleasure. I'm more interested in pleasure than accepting the invitation. And that's where we are as a culture. This is the culture that we are intersecting with. A culture that the order of the day is to do what you want and do whatever feels good and to follow your truth and whatever you feel, however you want to identify, whatever it is that makes you feel good, just go ahead and do that thing. That's the culture that we are colliding with each and every day. There are people who are declining the invitation because pleasure is more important than eternity. The third one said, I just got married. He says, oh, I can't come. Classic, right? Blame the wife, blame the husband. I can't follow Christ because my spouse did this and my spouse does that and he won't take me to church and she thinks I'm crazy. You know, there's always somebody to blame. You can blame the church. You can blame somebody that offended you. There's always an excuse why people don't want to come into a relationship with God, whatever they think it is. And you'll find those everywhere that you go. People are declining the invitation because they have an excuse. It's my wife's fault. It's my husband's fault. It was that church that I went to 43 years ago and somebody said something to me. Whatever it is, but those are the people that you are going to be encountering. There are people all over this region of the country that are examples of this. They've received the invitation, but they haven't accepted it. Those people might be your children. They may be your friends and your family. These are people that maybe you used to go to church with at one time. People you used to worship with. And they have chosen to decline the invitation. I've got some wild oats to sow. Or I tried the church thing and I want to try and see what else the world has to offer me. Or this one. Church people are hypocrites. Or I was offended in church, so I reject God and His Word. People are declining the invitation all over the place. And if you've ever been in a conversation with somebody and you've tried to show your face even once, you've heard these things. You know why people are declining the invitation. And these people need to be reached. We cannot give up on them. You can't give up on your kids. You can't give up on your mom, your dad, your aunt. You can't give up on your friend, your neighbor. You can't give up on them. But in this particular parable, the man throwing the banquet doesn't ask the servant to go back and beg the original people that he invited to come to his banquet. He doesn't. They know where the party is. They know what time. They know what to wear. They know where I live. How to get here. It's up to them. But there's still a whole bunch of people out there who have yet to receive an invitation. And so we're going to go and invite those people. So what are you saying? So verse 21, it says, 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. Where did he send his servants? To the streets and the alleys. Who did he invite? The poor, the down and out, the sick, the crippled. Basically what he was saying is, I want you to invite the people that will really appreciate what it is that I am offering. The ones who are not so drunk on their success and their possessions and their love for pleasure and of the trappings of this world. Invite the poor in spirit. Invite the ones that really realize that they need me. I'm going to tell you there's people all around you that fit this bill. There's people all around you that they're struggling. They're hurting. They're looking for hope. They're looking for a lifeline. And all it takes is to extend the invitation to them. And I want you to see that the master told him to go quickly into the streets. Now understand this, in the context of this parable, Jesus is talking to Jews. He's talking to Israel. The original invitees in this parable, they would have understood. The original people that were invited were the Jews. The people of God. But many of the Jews were rejecting Jesus Christ as the son of God. They rejected him. So he said, fine, we'll go out and we'll get the Gentiles. We'll go out and get everybody that you guys want to reject. That's fine. We'll go out and get everybody. Gentiles. Gentiles that are people that are non-Jewish. People that are living in other nations, on other continents. The ones that aren't necessarily in your backyard. The ones that maybe don't sit next to you in church. They're the ones that you don't know. The ones that have no concept of God. You say, we're going to go invite those people. The ones that have never heard the good news before. But look what happens next. Verse 22, he says, after the servant had done this, he reported, there's still room for more. So all these people declined the invitation. He says, fine, go to the streets. Go to the alleys. Go to the place where the poor, and the crippled, and the sick, and the hurting, and the down and out. Go get those people. And they go, and they get those people, and they all come. And he says, wait, there's plenty of room. There's room for more. Can I tell you something? There's never going to be a cut off. God is never going to go, alright, that's it. Heaven is full. It's never going to come to that place. That means as long as we have breath, the invitation has to keep going out. It has to keep going out. It can't stop. So the next verse, verse 23, so his master said, there's 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. This raises the stakes. We've heard it preached. We've all understood that we all have a particular sphere of influence, and you're supposed to do your best to make disciples of those people. But he tells us that we need to do more than that. Go to the country lanes. Go to the hedges. Find anyone that will accept your invitation. Why? So that the house will be full. Do you hear this guy, the owner of this house? He's saying, I have prepared this for many, many, many, many people, and there's not enough here yet. You wonder why Jesus hasn't come back yet? There's still some invitations to be accepted. He's going, come on, just hold off just a little bit longer, and get more people in my house. Get more people in my house. He wants his house full. And I promise you this, he does not care about their station in this life. It doesn't matter if they were found under a rock without two pennies to rub together. That's not who he's calling. He doesn't care if they're found in prison with a rap sheet longer than your forearm. Those people are eligible too. He's saying, go get them. Go invite them. It doesn't matter if they were found in the deepest, darkest addiction and sin. He's saying, go get them. The worst of the worst. But here's the thing, everybody's going to have a mansion. It doesn't matter if you came from nothing and you never had two dimes to rub together your whole life. When you get to heaven, you're going to have a mansion. Everybody, everybody gets one. We're all going to have glorified bodies. This dad bod is going away. It's going to be glorified. We're all going to wear robes of white and spend eternity in the presence of the King of Kings. Nobody is outside the qualifications for entrance to the feast. They just have to accept the invitation. And it's our job to extend the invite. It's our job to do it because he wants his house full. I'm not talking about this house. Boy, I'd love to see this house full again. But ultimately, I want to see his house full. And we're part of that. It doesn't matter how many of us are in this room together all at once right now. Those names on those walls out there represent thousands of souls that are being saved around the world because of your giving and towards missions. He wants his house full. Now let's go back to the Great Commission. Because he says, 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've given you. Be sure of this. I'm with you always, even to the end of the age. You know, it's not just a good idea to put the invitation out there. He's not just giving you a good idea. It's a command. It's a command that Jesus gave. In fact, it's the very last command that Jesus gave. He said, because you are my disciple, because you are following me, it's your job now to make other disciples. See, Jesus was calling people to follow him while he was on the earth. He was doing that work. And then he put it in our hands. He passed the baton on to us and said, Now it's your turn to recruit people that will follow me. Our goal is not to get them to just to say a prayer. Our goal is not to just get them into a place where they make an emotional decision and just leave it at that. The goal is to make disciples, to help people, to walk them through what it means to follow Jesus Christ, to teach them how to obey all the commands of Jesus. We send the invitation. When they accept the invitation, we come alongside of them and we say, Come on, let's do this thing together. 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 Chestnut. Thanks again for listening, and God bless you.
