Episode 293: Jesus Transforms Us

Welcome, welcome. Good to see you all today. My name is Justin. I'm one of the pastors here of

our church. And if you have a Bible, you can grab it now. We're going to continue worshiping God

together by opening his word together. And so we're going to be in Luke chapter 14 today. Luke

Luke 14 · chapter mention Luke 14 · chapter mention

chapter 14. If you're using one of those Bibles under the chairs in front of you, Luke 14 will be

around page 927. And as you're turning there, I just want to highlight a couple things that are

going on in the life of our church this month, just want to make sure that you're aware of. And the

first is that two weeks from today, we're going to be celebrating a baptism Sunday. All right, we have

someone in our church who's going to be baptized. And what happens is after third service, we take a

little bit of time to get lunch, to make our way down to Nimitz Beach, but we'll have a tent set up,

we'll have our road signs out, and we'll all gather up. We'll hear the story of how God brought

somebody from death to life and how Jesus rescued them. And then we'll walk down to the water and

see that depicted in this act of baptism. And so it's one of the most exciting things we do as a

church because of what it represents. And so Jesus commanded all of his followers to be baptized.

And so if that's something that you've never done and you would like to obey Jesus in that way,

we'd love to talk to you more about that. Jesus said that this confirms and nourishes our faith.

and so if you would like to be baptized on the 21st two weeks from today shoot us an email at

the top left of that info card and say I'd like some info on baptism and we can send you our

baptism info packet and we can work toward getting you baptized on the 21st we'd love that that'd be

awesome. Second thing on the 27th that next Saturday we have an all harbor church praise

and prayer night. We do maybe one or two of these a year where all four of our harbor churches get

together at Harbor Honolulu and we spend the night singing. We'll sing eight to ten songs just

praising God together, but we'll also confess our dependence on God through lots of time in prayer.

Specifically on that night, we're going to be praying for God's mission in the world, for our

communities where all of our Harbor churches are. Kapolei and West Oahu, Waipahu, the North Shore,

and Honolulu. We'll be praying that the gospel would go out powerfully in those places through

us, God's church. But we're also going to be praying for where he has us partnered around the

world, for Vietnam, the Philippines, and Japan. We'll be praying for those countries, those pastors

and church planters that we support, and asking the exact same thing. And so it's going to be a

night of prayerful dependence on God for what he's doing in the nations. And so, man, we would love

for you to join us. There is child care provided. You just have to sign up for it online. So you can

find that on our mobile app under the events or on our website. Make sure you sign up if you want

use the child care. So we have enough child care workers and snacks. Worst thing ever, kid would

show up and there's not enough animal crackers. So let's make sure we get enough. Sign up if you're

going to use the child care. All right, cool. It's going to be a party. It's going to be a great party.

And I don't know what your thoughts are about parties, but you know, I think our thoughts and

our feelings about partying and going to parties change over time. Like when I was younger, this

looked great. This looked like a fantastic party that I would want to be at. Like, I mean, turn it

up loud, make it as loud as possible. I would want it to go late. You know, when I was younger,

it's not a party unless you have to spend a whole day recovering. But now that I'm in my early 30s,

it's totally different, right? It's just a totally different thing. Like a couple years ago, I turned

to my wife and I said, man, we haven't had a party at our house for a while, so let's throw a party.

So we invited a bunch of our friends to come over for a Christmas party. Well, somebody showed up at

our house. It was actually one of our friends who was invited, but I think had forgotten. And so they

just dropped in on this house party that we were having. And they literally came to our door,

poked their head inside and saw me and said, oh, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt your meeting.

And I was like, meeting? This is a party. Like, what are you talking about? And that's when I

realized I party differently now. Like my views on partying has just changed. If you invite me over

to your house and you bring out sparkling water, I'll be like, oh, I didn't know this was a party.

I wish you would have told me. I would have worn different shoes or something. That's a party,

right? The bar is really low. And so I don't know where you're at with partying in your life,

but I do know this. In Luke 14, Jesus was at a party, and he was at a party with some super

religious people, like the religious elite of his day, which means that it was a really lame party.

That was more like a meeting, all right? And so he's at this party, and Jesus does some things to

make it really awkward. But the things he does, the things he says at this party are super important

for us today. So that's what we're going to look at in Luke 14, the party that Jesus goes to with

religious people and what that means for us right now. So let's pray and then we'll see what happened

at this party. And so Father, we pray that your word would come to bear on us today.

You've said that your word is timeless and it is for us.

And so we pray that we would be able to apply it rightly to our lives and to this world.

You've said that when the Spirit applies your word, that it is sharp and powerful.

And so we pray that it would be sharp and powerful for us today.

Open our eyes to how you are at work in our lives and in the world.

We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

All right, so here's one thing Jesus has already said to make it super awkward.

In verse 12, he turned to the host of the party and he said,

when you give a party, when you give a lunch or a dinner,

don't invite your friends, your brothers, sisters, your relatives, your rich neighbors,

because they might invite you back and you'd be repaid.

Jesus turned to the host of this dinner party and he said this,

all these other people here, you shouldn't have invited them.

These shouldn't be your guests.

You threw this party for yourself.

You threw this party so that these people would be in,

They would be in your debt and they would pay you back by inviting you to their own parties or do nice things for you.

And so it probably felt pretty awkward in the room.

And so this guy in verse 15, look what he does.

One of the people who reclined at the table heard these things and said to Jesus,

blessed is the one who will eat bread in the kingdom of God.

So this random guy just blurts out.

He kind of looks at all of his friends around and he says, man, we are so blessed.

We're going to party with God forever.

blessed. We're just blessed people, right? Maybe he was trying to cut through the awkwardness or

change the topic, but he just wanted to highlight like, man, it's kind of like that Paul Rudd,

like, look at us, look at us. We're here. Here we are. And we're going to be with God forever

at his party. And here's how Jesus responds to that. He responds with a story. A man was giving

a large banquet and invited many. At the time of the banquet, he sent his servant to tell those who

were invited, come because everything is now ready. And so look, since Jesus is responding directly

to this man's comment, he's likening God to the master in his story, right? The guy said, man,

we're so blessed. We're going to party with God forever. And Jesus said, let me tell you a story.

There was a master who threw a party. And so listen, that's important because that's what Jesus

thinks about God. That's how Jesus views God. He says, you're right. God is throwing a party.

You got that totally right. God is absolutely throwing a party. It's not a small party,

a large party where many are invited. He sent out a save the date. He sent out this invitation.

Many have responded and he's been preparing this party for a while. But when the invitation is

finally ready, when the food is finally ready, he sends his servant back out to say, let's go. It's

time to party. The party is happening right now. And why does he need that time in between the

save the date and the party? Because he's preparing. It's going to be epic. This is going to be an

amazing party. And here's my first question for us today. Is that your view of God?

Is that your view of God?

One theologian A.W. Tozer said that the most important thing about each of us

is what comes into our minds when we think about God.

The most important thing about you is what comes into your mind when you think about God

because that determines how you view your faith, how you view how to live in God's world.

It determines pretty much everything.

And I think for a lot of us, when we think about God,

the picture that comes into our minds is he's kind of like our elementary or middle school principal.

like he's kind of up there looking like roaming the halls trying to figure out how we're breaking

the rules how to put us in detention how to get us in trouble like God is just this holy authority

figure that's just looking to be angry at us that's a lot of people what comes into a lot of

people's mind when they think about God but what came into Jesus's mind said God is is the one

who's throwing the party he's preparing this epic banquet with all this food and he's inviting us

into it. That's the picture we get all over the Bible, that God's people are a people who party

with God and there's lots of food there. That's the picture we get in Revelation at the end of it all

when the new heavens and the new earth that God creates, we're going to be partying with him

around a table, the marriage supper of the lamb. And so that's super exciting that that's who God

is. He's the God of the party. But look at verse 18. But without exception, they all began to make

excuses. The first one said to him, ah, I bought a field and I must go out and see it. I ask you to

excuse me. Another said, ah, I bought five yoke of oxen and I'm going to go try them out. I ask that

you excuse me. And another said, I just got married, therefore I'm unable to come. He doesn't even ask

to be excused. He's like, dude, I just got married. I'm not making it. I'm not going to be there.

Like, you know, excuses. All these people who accepted the first save the date because now

they're told it's time, you said you were coming, come into the party, they're making excuses and

they're not going. In this culture, if you accepted a save the date, you were expected to show up

because the host had to prepare all the food and it had to be eaten that night. You couldn't freeze

it. If it didn't get eaten, it just got wasted. And so it would have been embarrassing for the host

who prepared this epic party. And so these people who said yes to the save the date that are backing

at the last minute, they're flakers. They're flaking out. They feel like they've got better

things to do than party with God. One guy says he bought a field without seeing it. Another guy has

these oxen, this heavy machinery for his job that he hasn't tested out. Another guy gets married all

of a sudden. And man, I think these are just super silly, lame excuses. They're just lame excuses,

right? Who would ever buy a house without seeing it? And if you did, you can wait another day

right? Who would purchase heavy machinery for your job without testing it to know if it'll

work? Would you not want to bring your spouse to the most epic party ever thrown? These are super

lame excuses and it just shows us that we make super lame excuses as well.

We let super silly things get in the way of us partying with God. We let our possessions rule us

like the guy who bought the house.

We become more concerned with getting more stuff

and maintaining the stuff that we have

than we are with spending time with God.

We give all kinds of time, effort, and sacrifice

to our jobs, our careers, like the guy with the oxen.

Maybe we just give God the scraps

if we have any time left over.

But man, if something comes up at work

that conflicts with church or with God,

man, I'm doing that.

I'm doing my job.

I'm doing my career

because that takes priority.

We give all kinds of investment into relationship,

even good relationships with our spouses,

but we can even let those take priority

over our relationship with God.

And what Jesus is saying is this,

if you're looking for an excuse to not party with God,

you're gonna find one.

If you're looking for an excuse to not be in God's party,

you're gonna find one

because each of us is either gonna go all in with Jesus

or we're going to go all in with something else in life.

Our passion, our pursuits, our possessions, our relationships.

These guys here in this story,

they probably thought they were good

because they accepted the save the date, right?

Anybody ever done that?

Like you're invited to something that's going to happen

in like three months, you get a save the date.

And so you respond, you RSVP like, yeah, I'll be there.

But you know good and well,

like when the time comes, week of, I'm backing out.

Like, right?

Anybody ever done that before?

liars. All right. Like we've all, we've all done, we've all seen something on the calendar. Like,

yeah, I'll want to do that in three months. But then the time comes and I'm like, I never wanted

to do that. I'm backing out. Right. And I think that shows us a lot of these guys heart. The

invitation went out from God, be my people, come into my party. And they're like, ah, cool. Yeah,

yeah, yeah. Um, I think we'll accept that save the date because nothing's required of me for the

save the date. So yeah, yeah, I'm in. But what it actually shows is this. They never actually

intended to come to the party. Their hearts were never in it. They never really wanted to be a part

of this party. And, you know, sometimes we use a term for Christians like this. We say that, man,

there's a lot of nominal Christians, a lot of people who call themselves Christians who say,

well, I've punched my ticket to heaven. I've said, yeah, I want it. But I don't know. I haven't lived

my life or follow Jesus at all and I'm just kind of going through the motions and when the time

actually comes to get serious, I don't know. I don't know. That's what these people are who've

accepted the save the date. They never really intended to come into the party and Jesus is

teaching us that following him isn't about just accepting the save the date. It's not just a

one-time decision. We make it some camp or a prayer. We pray in our bed one night when we're a kid,

but it's a lifetime pursuit that involves all of who we are.

And so verse 21,

the servant came back and reported these things to his master.

Then in anger, the master of the house told his servant,

go out quickly into the streets and the alleys of the city

and bring in here the poor, the maimed, the blind, the lame.

Master, the servant said,

what you ordered has been done and there's still room.

Then the master told the servant,

go out into the highways and hedges and make them come in so that my house may be filled.

For I tell you, not one of those people who are invited will enjoy my banquet.

Jesus is showing us who the people are who are actually going to be in God's party.

It's the poor.

The people who know that they're bankrupt and they have nothing to offer God.

It's the maimed.

The people who know that they're on death's doorstep.

They're dead because of their sin.

The blind, those who know that they don't have life figured out,

they're not seeing the world correctly, and they need God to open their eyes.

The lame, the ones that know they have no power to come to God on their own,

and they need to be carried to God.

Those are the ones who are in the party.

Those are the ones.

Jesus is teaching us that we will never come to God's feast

until we will see that we're in this group of people.

Because the guy who made the comment in verse 15,

He looked around at his friends and he looked around at a bunch of people who had their lives put together.

They were the religious elite of the day.

They were the impressive people.

Okay.

Those are the people that Jesus is talking about.

Like, oh, you bought a house without seeing it.

You're that rich.

Right.

You bought five oxen on a whim without even testing them out.

You've got all these relationships.

You're just getting married left and right.

Right.

These are the people you'd look at in the world.

And man, you're impressive.

You've got life figured out.

And those people are like, yeah, God should want me in his party.

That's what that guy thought.

And Jesus says, no, you've invested in all this other stuff.

You've invested in your possessions, your pursuits, and your relationships.

But it's all actually kept you far from God.

Because when the time came to actually party, they're the ones that flaked out.

Jesus is saying that the only way to be at God's party is to first see ourselves rightly,

to see that nothing earns us a seat at the table.

God isn't combing this earth looking for impressive people.

He's looking for people who will accept his invitation.

It would have actually been a scandalous thing for this master, this host,

to call a party and invite these people into his home.

It would ruin his reputation in the community to associate with these people.

And the poor, the maimed, the blind, the lame, they know that.

They know that.

Which is why the master tells his servant, you're going to have to go out and make them come in.

The word there is compel them, beg them.

They're going to know they don't deserve to be at this party, that they're not worthy of the invitation.

The news is going to be too good for them to believe.

So beg them to come in.

Maybe that's the place you're in.

Maybe you're in the place where you're like, man, I don't know.

If God is really out there and he's preparing a big party and he's inviting people to it,

there's no way he's going to want me there.

There's no way.

I'm too broken.

I'm too sinful.

I've run too far away from him.

I've ignored him for too long.

I've kept him on the back burner of my life.

I'm too broken.

There's no way God wants to party with me.

Listen, if you are in that space this morning, that is a really good space to be.

because it was all the people who were out there broken,

even the people in the hedges and highways who were hiding,

who end up in the party with God.

Who doesn't end up there?

The ones who think they deserve it.

The religious elite, the ones who hear the good news of Jesus

and they say, yeah, yeah, that is for me.

Yeah, of course God would want me in his party.

God's throwing a party.

Yeah, of course the invitation would come to me.

I deserve to be there.

I've been good.

I've lived morally.

I've been impressive in this world.

Yeah, I should be at a party if God's throwing it.

That's a really dangerous place to be.

Because the people who think they deserve it and think they've earned it,

Jesus says when the time comes,

you're going to make excuses and you're not going to be there.

But the people who know it's only by the grace of the master,

it's only by the master compelling them to come in and saying,

I have this space for you and the news is too good to be true.

Those are the people who are in the party at the end.

And so listen, if you feel like today you're too far away from God to ever come back to him,

know this, we see here that God is begging you to come.

He wants you in his presence.

He wants you at his party.

He wants to serve and bless you and he's begging you to accept his invitation.

And when you do, when you accept God's invitation, we call that salvation.

It's like a rebirth, like being born again.

It's new life with God.

And it's all made possible by the life, the death, the resurrection of Jesus.

Without Jesus, we have no way into the party.

But with Jesus, we have full access into God's party.

When you believe in Jesus, when you trust what he did for you and come into God's party,

You're no longer just an invited guest.

God, through Jesus, serves you, blesses you,

and transforms you to be who you are always supposed to be.

God transforms us to be Jesus' followers,

his disciples, his servants in this world.

Did you notice that character in Jesus' story?

The master always sends the servant to get the other guests.

How did that servant get there?

How does anyone get into the master's house?

Well, they respond to the good news that they can come in,

and they come in broken, hurting, sinful.

And what does God do?

He gives you new life.

He restores you, and he empowers you to go out and serve him in this world.

That's what he's doing with the servant.

He's saying, you now go and bring others in.

You see, when you accept God's invitation to be a part of his family,

a part of the party he's throwing,

he's going to give you a new purpose in this world,

a new mission, a new life.

You're gonna look at every relationship

and every opportunity differently.

The master tells the serpent,

go and bring others into my party.

And that's what God is doing in our lives.

He's transforming us.

He's changing us.

This lifelong process of transformation

where he's creating us to be more beautiful people

than we could ever imagine.

And Jesus goes on here in this passage

to show us three ways that we experience that.

Three ways that we experience God's transforming power

in our lives once we've accepted

his invitation of salvation.

And now here's why this is important, guys,

because the servant here is contrasted

with the people who saved the date, right?

They were both invited into the master's house

to wait until the day of the party.

The servant just comes in.

He says, I'm a part of it.

I'm in the master's house.

He said, I'm a part of this.

I'm being transformed by the master.

I'm now serving the master.

We're getting ready for the party.

The others say, okay, yeah, yeah, save the date,

but we're gonna still pursue our own things in this world.

And what's happened is the one who came in

and said, I'm all in right now,

he has experienced the transforming work of God in his life.

And the others who pursued all their other passions in life have not.

And so here's what Jesus wants us to see.

He wants us to see how we experience God's transforming power in our lives

as we wait on the party he's throwing.

And so look at verse 25.

Here's the first way.

Now great crowds were traveling with Jesus, so he turned and said to them,

If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother,

wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life,

he cannot be my disciple.

He cannot be a servant in my house waiting on the party unless this.

Now, when you read those words, maybe your eyebrow goes up and you think, what?

This doesn't sound like Jesus.

This doesn't sound like anything I want to be a part of.

What's he saying here?

Hate your family?

Hate the people you should love the most?

Hate yourself?

What is Jesus doing here?

Well, when Jesus turns to the crowds and speaks to them, a lot of times he uses a speaking

device called hyperbole. Hyperbole is a way of speech that is super aggressive, and it's aggressive

to prove a point, all right? I speak in hyperbole all the time, and it may be my wife's least

favorite thing about me, is that I'm always just going way over the top to prove my points. So

here's an example of hyperbole. If I remember this right, one time I was on the couch with my wife,

and I don't remember the exact words I said,

but I said something like this.

I think I turned to her and I said,

I'm gonna gouge my eyeballs out

if I have to watch one more episode of PJ Masks.

All right, I can't do it.

I'm out, all right?

Now, did my wife turn to me

and like look for the instruments

that I'm gonna use to rip the eyeballs out of my face?

No, she knew that I wasn't speaking literally.

She knew that I was using hyperbole

because I was saying it that way

to communicate what I was feeling.

What was I actually saying? I'm not watching this show anymore. I can't do it. I've had this theme

song in my head for six months. I'm losing sleep because I just play it in my head in my bed.

I can't watch PJ Masks anymore is what I was saying. I was using hyperbole. I was being kind

of dramatic to prove a point. It's kind of like the message of all those shirts and mugs that say

world's greatest dad, world's number one grandma, lies. Those aren't true. There's no rating system.

If your kid or grandkid ever gave you that, I hate to burst your bubble. It's not true.

But you know what that mug or what that shirt is communicating, right? I love you. I think you're

great. Or I only had $7 to get you a Christmas gift and this is what I could get. You know,

One of those two things.

But hyperbole is an aggressive way of saying something to prove a point that we want to make.

Jesus is using hyperbole here.

He's saying, if you're going to come into my house, if you're going to be my servant, my follower,

you have to hate those who are closest to you.

Now, we know it's hyperbole because Jesus definitely doesn't want us to hate people.

He commands us in other places to love our spouse, our kids, our neighbors, even love our enemies.

He's not contradicting himself.

He's using hyperbole, and here's what it means.

It means that your new love for Jesus,

once you come into his family,

accept the invitation to his party,

and start preparing for it,

your new love for Jesus is so aggressive,

it's so white hot, so powerful, so intense,

and so apparent to other people

that when they see your love for Jesus,

your love for everything else in this world looks like hate.

by comparison when your friends start to talk to you about jesus your face lights up and your eyes

get big and you get excited and your voice escalates and maybe sports used to do that for you

or or buying new houses or making money or whatever but once you become a follower of jesus it's jesus

that excites you.

So here's what Jesus is saying first.

The first way we experience God's transforming power,

man, go all in loving Jesus.

Go all in with your love for Jesus.

Now here's what I don't believe this means.

Our takeaway from this is not,

let's go find the other stuff we're passionate about

and try to love it less.

God doesn't want us to love his gifts less.

He wants us to love him more.

It's like when I started dating my now wife.

I didn't start dating Hee Jung and say,

okay, I think I could marry this girl.

And so the step I need to take

is to go to all the other women in my life

and tell them that I love them less

and start being mean to them.

I think I did that just naturally,

but that's not the goal.

The goal isn't to love other things less.

The goal is to grow in our love for the one thing that matters most.

And so in my dating relationship with my wife, what did I do?

I didn't love other people less.

I put myself in positions where I would grow in my love for her.

I started spending more and more time with her.

I started talking to her into late, late hours of the night.

I started to invest time and sacrifice and money.

I was living down in Ocean Point and she was in Hawaii Kai.

And sometimes I would drive to see her and meet her on a work night.

All right?

I look back at that now and I'm like, that had to be love.

No other explanation.

And that's what it looks like for us to go all in in loving Jesus.

We put ourselves in spaces and places where we are going to grow in our love for him.

We prioritize showing up to church.

This is a party.

This is a rehearsal for the party God is throwing forever.

It's the smallest fraction percentage of what that party will look like.

But we all know that the dress rehearsal at a wedding, if you've been in one,

is far less glorious than the actual wedding itself.

But coming and gathering and showing up to the gathered church,

the gathered rehearsal of the party is putting us in a space and place

where we grow in our love for Jesus as we unite our voices,

as we come under the authority of God's word together,

as we love each other and encourage each other.

That's why in Hebrews, the writer of Hebrews says

that we don't neglect gathering together

and showing up for each other

until the day that Jesus returns.

We don't neglect it.

Why?

Because this is where we grow in our love for Jesus

together and with each other.

We commit to our community groups,

to the men's, women's things that are going on.

We commit to showing up and reading our Bibles on our own.

We commit to serving when opportunities come up.

You see, Jesus is saying this hyperbole to get us to ask this question.

Is there any place where you've been holding out?

Is there any place where you have not been showing up,

but you know you've been investing more of your time, your energy,

more of your love in some other area of life?

Jesus is saying when the world looks at us,

they should see such a white hot love for Jesus

that it influences the places and spaces we prioritize.

The things we prioritize showing up for.

The people we prioritize loving with all that we have.

And so how are you going to experience the transforming power of Jesus

as you go all in loving Jesus?

Here's the next one.

Look at verse 27.

Whoever doesn't bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

For which of you wanting to build a tower doesn't first sit down and calculate the cost

if he has enough to complete it.

Otherwise, after he's laid the foundation

and cannot finish it,

all the onlookers will ridicule him saying,

this man started to build and wasn't able to finish

or what king going to war against another king

won't first sit down and decide

if he's able with 10,000 to oppose the one

who comes against him with 20,000.

If not, while the other is still far off,

he sends a delegation to ask for terms of peace.

In the same way, therefore,

every one of you who does not renounce all his possessions

cannot be my disciple.

Okay, another really intense thing Jesus says.

He starts out this section by saying,

if you're gonna be my disciple, my servant,

you gotta pick up your own cross and carry it.

And he finishes this section by saying,

if you're gonna be my servant, my disciple,

you have to renounce all of your possessions.

Huh, what's that mean?

But here's what Jesus is saying.

Jesus is saying, if you wanna follow me,

be ready to go all in and sacrifice.

Be ready to go all in and sacrifice.

But now, before we get to how we sacrifice, let's think for just a second about how God sacrificed for us.

We can't overstate the sacrifice that Jesus made for us on the cross.

Jesus was tried, convicted, and then forced to carry the thing that would kill him to the place that it would kill him.

He was stripped naked, nailed to the cross, pulled up to hang there so that people could laugh at him, mock him.

He was bleeding. He had his bladder and his bowels emptied. He cried out. And then he took all of

your and my sin, failure, and brokenness on himself in the most epic, amazing, beautiful

moment of sacrifice so that you and I could party with God forever. Jesus knew that it was the only

way you and I could experience true, lasting forgiveness of all of our brokenness and rebellion

and sin. And Jesus said, if that's the way, then that's the sacrifice I'm going to make. And a lot

of times I look at my own life and I think about how Jesus who sacrificed all for me, Jesus who went

all in for me, how does he look at the sacrifice I'm making for him with my life?

Am I going all in with Jesus or am I giving Jesus my scraps?

Jesus didn't give me his scraps. He gave me all of himself. And then Romans 12, 1, it says this,

just as God has served us, he's called us to be living sacrifices here in this world for him.

He said, as I've given you everything and poured out all of myself into you, so give your whole life

back to me. He says, take up your cross, take, to willingly take it. He's not forcing it on us.

He wants us to make a willing decision to sacrifice in his name.

And he says, take your own cross.

Your sacrifice might look different from someone else's.

How you go all in pursuing Jesus and living a sacrificial life in his service is going to be unique.

Don't compare your cross with other people's cross.

But just ask God, what is the cross you're calling me to pick up?

How are you calling me to sacrifice for you in this world?

What you and I might have to do is what Jesus is talking about in these verses.

He talks about a builder who sits down and plans for the sacrifice of building the tower.

He talks about a king who sits down and plans for the sacrifice of going to war.

And it might be that a lot of us just haven't sat down and actually said,

how am I going to live a life of living sacrifice to God?

I think that's something that a lot of us think that we're just going to kind of stumble into.

Well, I've given my save the date.

I've said I'll be there.

and then the rest of my life I'm just going to kind of have to figure out how I follow God and what that looks like.

And I think what Jesus is telling us is that no, be more intentional.

Sit down and plan. Sit down and plan how you're going to sacrifice your finances.

God tells us to go all in and sacrifice our whole lives and that includes every way he's blessed us so that includes our money.

I think a lot of people don't give and sacrifice of their finances to worship God in that way because they don't plan to.

They think, well, it'll happen one day once I'm stable enough, once there's enough gravy on top

and there's excess. But listen, we don't do what we don't plan to do.

So a lot of us might just have to sit down and plan. If the washing machine broke down

and stopped working, but we didn't have money for it, we'd sit down and make a plan. Okay,

here's how we're going to have to sacrifice. I'm not going to go get six Starbucks drinks a week.

I'm going to sacrifice for a while so that we can get the new washing machine.

I think what God is saying here is let's sit down and prioritize what's important.

How are we going to put our living sacrifice to God as a priority

where we say this is first and we'll figure out the rest?

We do that with our finances.

We do that with our time.

How are we going to invest our time and energy?

We do that with people who are the people that we are going to sacrificially love

so much that it hurts us.

When we go all in with living lives of sacrifice,

We're going to watch and see how God transforms us to powerfully serve others

and to be content in his love and care for us, even when we're sacrificing.

We experience God's transforming power when we go all in sacrificing for Jesus.

And now last one, verse 34, real quick.

Now, salt is good, but if salt should lose its taste, how will it be made salty?

It isn't fit for the soil or the manure pile.

They throw it out.

Let anyone who has ears to hear, let him listen.

I'm gonna unpack this quickly,

but here's what Jesus is saying.

Salt does all kinds of things.

It preserves, purifies, flavors, corrodes.

No matter what it touches, it changes that thing.

It influences it.

And that's how Jesus wants us to live.

The third way we experience God's transforming power

is that we go all in with our influence.

God has given you your family, your friends,

your neighborhood, your workplace.

God has given you spheres of influence in your life.

And he said, go and influence those places for Jesus.

That's what we see the master telling the servant to do.

Go out and bring more people into the party.

And you and I now as followers of Jesus,

if we're gonna go all in with him,

we have to recognize that Jesus has given us a new mission,

a new purpose.

Your job is not a dead end job.

your job is your mission field

your family is not hopeless

your family has you in it

God has given us

incredible eternal purpose

to go out and tell others

that there's a party

that they're invited into

to compel them to come in

we can literally influence people

into God's kingdom

as we speak to them about Jesus

as we show them the love of Jesus.

We experience God's transforming power

as we influence others to come into his party.

Listen, guys, this is what it looks like

to go all in with Jesus.

We go all in loving him, sacrificing for him,

influencing others for him.

But we do it because he went all in first with us.

He gave us his whole life.

He loved us to death, this meal that we're about to take.

And because he gave his all to us,

When we are filled up with his grace and mercy, it spills out into us going all in with him.

And we experience the transforming power so that when he returns to bring us into his party forever, we're ready.

But to not go all in with Jesus, to instead say, I'm going to go after my houses and my fields and my relationships,

could mean that when the day comes when Jesus returns and is ready to party,

that you're not ready.

It might mean that your heart was never in it in the first place.

And so at Harbor, we're getting ready to do something that we've never done before.

We're getting ready to embark on a two-year journey where we take this really seriously.

We're getting ready to embark on a two-year journey

where we're going to ask all of our covenant members and regular attenders to go all in.

In two weeks, we're launching a new sermon series called Until the Day.

And that sermon series is built on the verse in Philippians 1.6 that says this,

that the good work that God has started in you and me,

the good work of inviting us into the party and making the way for us to be in the party,

Jesus is going to bring it to completion until the day he returns.

That's what Philippians 1.6 says.

So here's what Philippians 1.6 means, that God is at work in those that he's saving.

He's at work in our lives to grow us, to help us take next steps in all the ways that we need to

grow to be ready for the party. And so we're going to go through a whole sermon series and we're going

to look at six areas that we believe that every disciple of Jesus should be growing in. And we're

going to ask everyone at the end of it on November 9th to commit. To commit and say over the next two

years, I am going to go hard after this next step or these two next steps. I'm going to go hard after

getting ready for the party.

I'm gonna renounce pursuing these other things

and giving my life to them,

but I'm gonna go hard after following Jesus,

harder than I've ever gone.

And we're gonna see what God does

and how he meets us over the next two years.

We have planned a party, a one-year party

in November of 2026 to just gather up

and celebrate what God's done in a year.

And then we'll throw another party at the end of two years.

But you're gonna start hearing this language

over and over at our church.

What's your next step until the day?

we want to take this seriously

God says he's throwing a party for us

and he wants us to be ready

he says those who are ready

those who are experiencing my transforming power

by going all in with me

they will be ready when the day comes

and so may we not be like the people

who are giving our hearts to other things

but may we be a people

who are going all in with Jesus

because he went all in with us

let's pray together