Luke 14:23 | Till Every Seat is Filled

I do want us to talk about the thing that does unite us all together.

I knew with baptism weekend happening this week that I was going to push

pause on our 1 Corinthians series.

I didn't know necessarily during that stretch that I would be

making the same announcement.

But it just so happened that as I was thinking about it this week, the Lord

impressed upon me this reality that the thing that unites every faithful

Christian, no matter where they find themselves, in every faithful church

that names the name of Jesus, that's what we're here to talk about this morning.

It's the mission of the church.

It's the mission of every Christian.

It's the task that God has entrusted to us and says, "This

is what I want you to be doing."

And so we're gonna be looking at that from Luke chapter 14.

Luke 14 · chapter mention

So if you've got your Bibles, you can turn to Luke chapter 14.

Luke 14 · chapter mention

And as you get there, I, I was looking this week, and I was

listening to a podcast actually that was talking about the rise

in more specialized AI assistants.

And so you've got, um, I think ChatGPT is coming out with Dots, and then you've--

Anthropic's gonna come out with their own.

You've got Grok Bot, and then there's also Meta, which is Facebook.

They've got Muse.

And this podcast was talking about a, a, a situation with Muse, this assistant,

and, and if you think what is an assistant is there to do, an assistant

is somebody that you expect to assist you in a way that's helpful, and usually

that involves doing things that you're asking them to do and not going rogue.

Well, one of the things that Muse can do is Muse can actually access your Facebook

account and control your Facebook account and control your Facebook Messenger.

And so somebody was using Muse early on in its release and decided to say,

"Muse, will you list this item for sale for me on Facebook Marketplace?"

Muse said, "Check.

I've got it."

And so Muse, this AI assistant, listed the item for sale on Facebook

Marketplace, but it didn't stop there.

It then began to converse via Facebook Messenger with all of

the people that were interested in the item that was being sold.

And so it finally got down to this one person that was genuinely interested in

the item and wanted to purchase it, and so Muse, on behalf of the seller, but

without telling the seller, communicated to the buyer and said, "Sounds great.

Here's the address where the seller lives."

So the buyer said, "This is fantastic.

I'm gonna get this item."

So the buyer set up a time to go and meet this person, not realizing that

this was not the person, but an AI assistant that they were talking to the

whole time, and the seller had no clue that these conversations were going on.

So this buyer shows up at the person's house at the agreed-upon time between

it and the chatbot, and they messaged the person on Facebook, "Hey, I'm here."

Well, if that wasn't bad enough, Muse intercepted that message and

responded to the buyer, "Great.

I'll be down in ten minutes

Well, you can imagine ten minutes came, ten minutes went, an hour, nothing.

So what did the buyer do?

Well, the buyer took off, stormed off, and left a nasty review on the

seller's account, and it just turned into a, a, a complete disaster, right?

You don't expect an assistant to do things like that.

You don't expect a, a- an assistant to go rogue.

You want good communication, and you want your assistant to do the things

that you're asking your assistant to do At Compass Bible Church,

we've got two fantastic assistants, Kelly Smith and Allie Trinidad.

They're great at doing what they do.

They help us with so many different things, and when they're asked

to do something, they're, they're on it, and they're gonna do it.

And I can trust when I ask Kelly to get something done,

Kelly's not gonna go rogue.

She's not gonna go do something totally different, and I'm gonna find

out a week later, "What in the world?

How did this happen?"

"Oh, well, I just decided to go and, and do my own thing."

She does the things that she's been asked to do.

We are not assistants of Jesus.

In fact, the stakes are much higher for us.

I- if an assistant is expected to do what they've been asked to do, a

servant or a slave, man, there's an absolute imperative obligation to

do what you've been tasked to do.

And when we get into this parable that Jesus is gonna tell here in Luke chapter

Luke 14 · chapter mention

14, you and I, we are the servants.

Jesus is the Lord.

He's the master.

He's the one that is giving the order, giving the command.

A- a- and we're not to take that command and take that order and go

rogue and do what we wanna do with it.

But like a good servant, like a faithful servant, like a faithful slave, we should

look back at our master and say, "On it.

I'm on it."

And a major command that we've been given by our master, as we'll see in our text,

is that he wants us to reach the lost because he intends to make sure that

every last seat in heaven gets filled.

That's what Jesus wants.

He wants to make sure that every last seat in heaven gets filled.

So take your Bibles to Luke 14 and pick up with me in verse 15

as we get into our parable here.

It says this: "When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these

things, he said to him," to Jesus, that is, " 'Blessed is everyone who

will eat bread in the kingdom of God.'

Verse 16, "But he," Jesus, "said back to him, 'A man once gave a

great banquet and invited many.

And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to

those who had been invited, 'Come, for everything is now ready.'

But they all alike began to make excuses.

The first said to him, 'I've bought a field.

I must go out and see it.

Please have me excused.'

And another said, 'Well, I've bought five yokes of oxen.

I go to examine them.

Please have me excused.'

And another said, 'I have married a wife, therefore I cannot come.'

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

Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, 'Go out

quickly to the streets and the lanes of the city and bring in the poor and the

crippled and the blind and the lame.'

And the servant said, 'Sir, what you commanded has been

done and there's still room.'

And the master said to the servant, 'Go out to the highways and the

hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled.'

" Okay.

Context.

What's happening in Luke chapter 14?

Luke 14 · chapter mention

Jesus is at dinner in the home of one of the rulers of the Pharisees.

So this is an important man.

He's one of the leaders of the Jews, and he's asked Jesus to

come to dinner at his house.

And so Jesus is there, and there are others clearly there at this

dinner as well, probably also religious leaders among the Jews.

And so Jesus is there, and, and they are looking at this point to, to, to try to

figure out still what is Jesus all about, and they're also trying to trip him up.

And so at the very beginning of Luke chapter 14, what happens?

Luke 14 · chapter mention

Well, there's a man with what's called dropsy.

We're not exactly sure what that is, but he's there nearby at this banquet, and I'm

sure the Pharisees aren't quickly shooing him out because they're suspecting maybe

Jesus is gonna do exactly what Jesus does.

Because Jesus goes on the offensive here in Luke chapter 14, and he starts by

Luke 14 · chapter mention

beginning to confront their hypocrisy.

See, this was the Sabbath, and so the, the Old Testament law said that it

was not, it was not according to the law to, to do work on the Sabbath.

And so the Pharisees had said, "Well, to heal is to do work on the Sabbath."

And so when Jesus sees the man with dropsy there, the Pharisees are

watching Jesus, and they're thinking to themselves, "Is he gonna break our law?"

Well, Jesus goes on the offensive and calls them out 'cause he knows

what's going on in their hearts, and he says, "Which of you, if you had

a child or one of your own animals or beasts of burden wouldn't help

them, even if it was the Sabbath?"

So he's saying, "You're okay helping some people, but just not everybody.

You've got hard hearts."

So he's going on the offensive there against them with this opening.

Uh, but then after that, he, he then goes in to tell a, a parable to them

about being careful not when you show up at a dinner, like the one that he

was at, to take the seat of honor.

You can imagine whoever it was that had walked in and sat down in the

seat of honor may have been squirming in his chair a little bit or at

his place at the table as they were reclining a little bit, going, "Oof."

He says, "Instead, you should choose the lowest one so that you can be promoted."

See, Jesus is confronting the p- hypocrisy and the, the pridefulness of these

Pharisees, their self-righteousness.

And then he goes on and he warns them, the, the, the host of the party, a-

against just inviting the people that promote who they are, that build them

up, the people that can repay them, and not the other people, the people

that are needy, the people that they might do well to care for themselves

with what God has given to them.

And so he's confronting them with that, and then finally, he gets to the parable

that he's gonna tell that's our text.

And, and what pr- prompts the parable that he tells here is this statement that

seems at first to be pretty innocuous.

This man who's there at the party as well with Jesus says, "Blessed is everyone who

will eat bread in the Kingdom of God."

Again, that, that seems like a, a statement where we would say yes.

Yes.

Blessed are those, happy are those that are gonna be in the kingdom

of God and, and eating bread there, dining, fellowshipping, having the f-

the, the great wedding feast, right?

We might say even as the church today.

But what was happening, what was underneath this, and what was implied

by this i- in the, the, the Hebrew, in, in, in the, the Jewish culture,

was this man was implying and assuming that he's gonna be one of them.

And so it would be like us saying, "Isn't it gonna be great when

we're in heaven with Jesus?"

And so Jesus then responds to that statement with this parable, and

the point that Jesus is gonna make in this parable is, yes, it's gonna

be great when we're in heaven, but the issue is who's gonna be there.

Who's really gonna be in the kingdom?

Who's going to be eating the bread?

The answer He's gonna give is it's gonna be those that really actually

in the end accept the invitation.

It's gonna be those that accept the invitation.

And then He tells a parable to unpack who it is that's gonna accept the invitation.

And so He begins here in the s- first part of the parable with the, the

story of the, the party, the banquet.

A massive party is thrown by this master, and he plans for it, and he

prepares, and he readies everything.

And just like you, he wants people to show up.

When you throw a party, when you've got a backyard barbecue or you've got something

going on, you're thinking to yourself, "I, I want a, I want a full house.

I want people here.

I want people to, to respond to my invitation.

I want people to be here at the party."

Well, it was the same thing then.

So he sent his servants out to invite the people that you

would assume would show up.

And so the servant goes out and he invites some people and, and we get these three

responses that are actually excuses as to why these people can't make the party.

First guy says, "Well, I've just bought a field, and I, I have to go check it out.

I have to go make sure that it's, it's a good field, that I can plant in it.

I have to go make sure that there's not a bunch of rocks in

it, so please have me excused."

He goes to the next person.

The next person says, "Well, you know what?

Actually, I just bought five yoke of oxen, and I need to

make sure I didn't get scammed.

So I need to go investigate.

I need to go check them out.

I need to make sure that they're in good working order so that

I, I can make sure that, that I didn't get ripped off by this.

So please, please have me excused."

And then he goes to the third, and the third doesn't even ask for an excuse.

He just says, "I, I just got married.

Sorry, won't be there."

Well, the servant is gonna come back to the master and report this, and the master

is gonna respond, a-and you may have remembered it from the parable, in anger.

Why would he respond angrily?

I mean, I'm sure you've had people when you've invited someone to

come to your house who have said, "Thank you, but I, I can't make it."

Well, the reason is, is because these excuses are pretty lousy excuses.

What was actually happening was these people were not just rejecting the

invitation, but they were rejecting the one that sent the invitation.

They were saying, "I-I've got something better to do than be with you."

The master was saying, "I want you to come to be with me.

I want you to, to come and fellowship with me.

I want you to come in and enjoy my presence, and be in my presence, and

enjoy my company, and enjoy all the blessings that I have provided for you."

And they looked at him and they said, "Thanks, but no thanks."

They spurned his offer.

They spurned his invitation.

See, this first group in the parable, what they represent is

the Jewish leaders of Jesus' day.

They were the ones that you would expect would be all ready

for the coming of the Messiah.

They would be the ones that you would expect would respond to the invitation

of God, and yet they were the ones that spurned the coming of the Messiah.

They were the ones that rejected Christ, and even would eventually see to the

fact that he would be nailed to a cross as an abject display of humiliation,

dying like a criminal between two thieves This is that first group.

And so the, the master becomes angry, and he looks at his servants and says,

"Well, I want my house to be full."

So he says, "I want you to go back, but this time I want you to

go to a different group of people.

Go to the poor, go to the lame, go to the beggar, go to the needy.

Go get them and bring them in, because my feast is ready,

and my house will be full."

And so the servant goes out to these individuals, and

they respond and they come in.

But there's something else going on here that, again, Jesus is, is saying

that would've been picked up on by this crowd because this is the Pharisees.

These are the experts.

They knew the Old Testament.

And so they would've heard echoing in the background as Jesus says, "Hey, I want

you to go to the needy, I want you to go to the poor, I want you to go to these

people," they would've gone in their minds perhaps to a passage like Isaiah 61:1-2.

Isaiah 61:1–2

Isaiah 61:1-2, there it says this: "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon

Isaiah 61:1–2

me, because the Lord has anointed me."

In fact, Jesus claims this passage for himself.

But notice this: "The, the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the

Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor and to bind up the

broken-hearted and to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of

the prison to those who are bound.

To proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our

God, and to comfort all who mourn."

See, Jesus tells the servants, "Hey, I, I want you to go out to the poor, and the

crippled, and the blind, and the lame."

In fact, in more than one place in the Old Testament prophets, the Messiah is

the one that is going to come for those to give sight to the blind, hearing to

the deaf, cause the lame to leap for joy, bring the year of the Lord's favor.

And so Jesus is saying, "Hey, there are going to be those that do respond.

There are gonna be those that do accept the invitation."

But still the servants come back and they say, "Well, they, they accepted

and we brought them, and they're here at the table, but there's still room."

And so the master responds to the servants and says what is our text here in verse

23, "Okay, well go out to the highways and the hedges and compel people to

come in, that my house may be filled."

Go out to the highways and the hedges and compel people to come

in, that my house may be filled.

Again, what is the mission of the church?

The mission of the church is to go out and see that every seat

in heaven is gonna get filled.

That's what we're here to do, and that's what the master sends

the servants then out to do.

The, the, the party can't start until the house is full.

And there are some that are seated, there are some that are

there, but there's more room.

And so the master says, "Go.

Go to the highways and the hedges," and he says to, "Compel them to come in."

This word compel is the one that jumped off the page at me this week.

It, it doesn't mean to force by compulsion, but rather the idea

is urge them and persuade them and convince them to come into the party.

The highways and the hedges.

This would have been the place of the, the traveler.

This would have been the, the place of the, the vagabond,

the one that's just passing by.

They certainly would not have been waiting for an invitation to the master's banquet.

In fact, they wouldn't have even known who the master is, which

is why this group of servants has said, "You have to go compel them.

You have to go convince them.

You want to be at this party.

He throws a shindig like, shindig like you've never seen before.

His food is amazing.

You wanna be here.

You should come with us.

There's room for you at the table."

Compel them.

Why?

Because, again, the master wanted every seat filled.

This week we've only got one point.

One point.

A- a- and this one point is going back to that idea of what is it that

unites every believer, every church?

What is the mission of every faithful Christian?

What are we here to do?

The point is this: I want you to do what you can to fill heaven's seats.

I want you to do what you can to fill heaven's seats.

That's our mission.

That's our task.

That's the most important thing as Christians that we can be doing between

now and the time that Christ comes back or calls us home, to do what we can.

In saying that, hear me n- say as well, I know you can't save

anyone, and neither can I.

But you can do something to be faithful so that as you proclaim the saving message of

the gospel of Jesus, God can save people.

And so that's how we can do everything that we can to fill heaven's seats.

And what we wanna do is we wanna compel people to come in because,

again, the master wants a full house.

God wants a full house.

He's going to get his full house.

But the question is, are you gonna participate in that?

Romans 11:25 references that there's gonna be a time when the

Romans 11:25

fullness of the Gentiles has come in, meaning where the final person

to get saved is gonna get saved.

And when that day happens, that's when Christ comes back for His bride.

It could happen this week.

You might have the privilege of sharing the gospel with that final

person that gets saved, and then the trumpets shall resound, and we will

be caught up together with the Lord.

That day is coming, and, and so we should want to, to get to the party.

We should want the party to start.

We should want the banquet to commence.

And if the banquet's gonna commence, then we wanna see that every seat is filled.

Peter says that we can hasten the coming day of the Lord.

You know how you can hasten the coming day of the Lord?

By sharing the gospel.

The more people that you share the gospel with, that's how you have a say in the

timing of the coming day of the Lord.

Because the more people get saved, the less seats there are at the

table until finally the last one's filled, and then Jesus comes

back, and then the party starts.

Then we go to be with him.

And so we have a job, and that is to see that every seat is filled.

And, and, and to do that, we want to compel people to come in.

It, it's a word that means to press, to urge, to insist.

Again, not by force.

This is not going out with rope and, and, and gags and binding

people and just dragging them in whether they want to or not.

"You're coming with me to church, and you might arrest

me afterwards, but it's okay."

No, that's not it.

Remember, the master, he is rejected, and he doesn't force anyone against

their will to come into the party.

That's not what he's in the business of doing.

Rather, he's gonna send people and continue to send his people

out there with the invitation.

The question is, those who respond to the invitation, who is that going to be?

And so for you and I, we have to go out, and we have to compel.

So it's not by force, but it's also not dispassionate, right?

It's, it's not just a general invitation.

Do you…

When you were in college maybe, did you…

On the bulletin board, they would have those pieces of paper that's

like, "Free guitar lessons," and there were, like, tabs that you could rip

off on the bottom of that, right?

That's, that's not compelling us to do anything.

"Free entrance into heaven.

Take this, you know, tab of paper and call me."

Or driving by billboards.

When my wife and I went to, to Arkansas a couple weeks ago, we were driving through.

And, and in Arkansas, there were so many billboards that were like, "You

need Jesus," and then a phone number.

I'm always curious.

Like, do those work?

They must because people put them up.

But that's, that's not necessarily compelling.

What else isn't compelling?

Well, it's also not compelling for me to go out there with an invitation

to a party that I know is gonna be awesome and be like, "Hey, you

probably have something better to do.

I…

You…

You're…

I know you're really busy.

I…

You, you may not even wanna come to this thing, but if you did, I just

wanna let you know that m- this master of mine is throwing a party.

It's supposed to be pretty great.

He asked me to invite you, but I, I totally get it if

you don't wanna be there."

That's not compelling anyone, right?

To compel is to persuade, is to insist.

And so the first subpoint…

I, I said one point, but I have two subpoints, so maybe

I've got three points still.

The first subpoint is this.

If you're gonna compel someone, then you need to be specific with the invitation.

Be specific, meaning go to people, right?

Sometimes we'll, we'll take an invite to a church event or something like

that, and we'll put it up on, on Facebook, or we'll do what we're gonna

do during outreach week, which is to go out with 10,000 invitations and

pass out 10,000 church invitations during outreach week to our community.

A- and we take those, and we put them on the door of, of the people's homes,

and sometimes we'll have a commu- conversation with somebody, but, but a

lot of times it's just leaving it there.

A- and then we're gonna move on and, and we're gonna go to the next house.

Or the Prosper Harvest Fair that's coming up on the 17th, that's next Saturday.

Uh, we're gonna be there.

We're, we'll have some conversations generally with people that are there.

And God can use all of that.

He can absolutely use all of those things to save people.

But there's a difference, and, and, and I think the normative way that we need

to go about pursuing people to compel them to come in is by pursuing the

individual with the gospel of Jesus.

To be specific, to think about the person, and not just to scattershot it out there.

In the Great Commission, Jesus said this, "I want you to

therefore go and make," what?

"Disciples of all nations."

Jesus doesn't say, "Go make converts."

Is a disciple a convert?

Yes.

But a disciple's more than a convert, isn't he or she?

He doesn't say, "Go add notches to the belt of salvation that

you've got around your waist."

No, he wants there to be an intentional pursuit of the individual.

It's I'm gonna compel you not just to get saved and then say, "See you later,"

but I wanna compel you to get saved, and then I wanna bring you into the

master's house, and I wanna sit you at the master's table, and I wanna sit next

to you and tell you all about my master.

I wanna help you come to know him.

I wanna help you follow him.

I wanna, I wanna walk with you through this So compelling

is going to the individual.

It's, it's not just saying, "Well, I, I posted about the

church event on Facebook."

That's great.

Do that.

But understand there's a difference between that and what Jesus is asking the

servants, asking us to do as His faithful followers to compel people to come in.

So we wouldn't…

We need to be specific, but the second thing is, if we're gonna be on

the, on mission and, and compelling people and doing our best to, to

fill up every seat, we need to be persuasive with the invitation.

Compel them, right?

Persuade, convince.

One of the reasons, again, this third group needed to be persuaded is they

would not have known the master.

And so the, the servants are going to the highways, and the byways, and the

edges, a- a- and, and, and they're getting there, and these are, are

people just passing through town.

And so they wouldn't have known the master, so the, the servants

were gonna have to persuade these people why it's worth their time

to come into the master's house.

And then there would've been others that would've thought,

"Well, I'm not even worthy of that.

I'm just…

I, I'm not dressed for the occasion.

I'm, I'm just a passerby."

And they would've needed to be persuaded to come into the house.

And so this is our work.

This is our job is to be persuasive with the invitation.

And so this is why having a, a good gospel presentation, way to present the gospel,

share the gospel, something like that in your back pocket is, is so helpful.

At our church, we often talk about the umbrella method.

If you've been through our Partners One-on-One Discipleship program,

which if not, we would love for you to, to go through that with us,

uh, we share the umbrella method.

It's a way to share the gospel, and it's a visually compelling way to

share the gospel that gives people a picture of God's wrath and Jesus

as the, the shelter from God's wrath and what salvation is all about.

It's really well done.

There's other methods that are out there as well.

Evangelism Explosion, some of you have taken courses from them or you've gone

through that, and the, the question to sit down with somebody that I think

can be so helpful in the midst of a, a culture like ours with cultural

Christianity around, the question to say, "If you were to die today and

stand before Jesus, and God were to say, 'Why should I let you into my heaven?'

what would you say?"

Man, that's a great diagnostic question to share the gospel, to reveal what

people are really trusting in there.

Way of the Master with Living Waters, that's a- another great resource where

you can find gospel presentations there.

There's another one that I just came across this week that I hadn't encountered

before called The Three Circles.

I thought that one was pretty good too.

Whatever it is, own one.

Have one that you feel comfortable pulling out and using to share the gospel

with people that you're gonna have an opportunity to specifically- Pursue and

try to compel to come into the banquet.

These QR codes are on the back of your note sh- note sheet, so if you didn't

grab one, you can grab a bulletin in the back there on your way out perhaps.

Uh, th- these QR codes will, will take you to each of these

three presentations there.

Um, the umbrella method is a, a great one because that You- YouTube

video there, it's really well done.

It's, it's like a chalkboard kinda animation there.

And you can…

Even if you don't feel comfortable doing it yourself, you can sit

down with somebody and say, "Hey, will you watch this video with me?"

It's like a four or five-minute video.

You watch it, and then afterwards, "Hey, what questions do you have?

What, what does that bring to mind?"

And you can have this conversation.

Compel people to come in.

But have some sort of a resource.

At the same time, I don't want you to think that this is the silver

bullet to compelling people, right?

The, the presentation isn't the same as compelling.

I can deliver a presentation in a very dry and, and stoic manner.

I can deliver a presentation in a frustrated tone.

I can just text you a presentation and be like, "Hey, you should

check this out sometime."

That's not very compelling.

What's gonna compel is when people begin to understand that you love

them, and they hear that in your voice, and they can tell that in your tone.

That you're just not a, a number.

You're just not a warm body in a chair, but I care about you.

I care about your soul, and so I want you to come in to the banquet.

Church, we all need to see this as our responsibility.

Sometimes as, as Christians, w- we can kind of excuse ourselves, not from the,

the banquet, but from the service of the Lord by saying things like, "Well,

I, I don't have the gift of evangelism.

Other people do."

Or we can say, "Well, I'm not, I'm not really great with my words as

much as this person is over here."

But the Great Commission, my conviction is, takes all of us and places all of

us under the charge to go out with the gospel and to share the gospel of Jesus

The Great Commission is go and make disciples, right?

That's the command, make disciples.

Teaching them to obey all that I have, what?

Commanded you.

Teaching them, so teaching the disciples to obey everything

Jesus commanded, including what?

Make disciples.

So all of us, as disciples, are called to make disciples.

All of us need to be involved in this, and some are gonna be involved

for more, uh, more than others.

And, and yes, that's true, but all of us need to be involved in it.

So I just wanna encourage you, I just wanna challenge you to, to be praying

for those opportunities, praying that God will give you opportunities

to compel people to come in.

This past Friday morning, I got to, to play golf with one of you.

Um, and i- it's always fun, four hours of discipleship where the

person you're discipling can't escape.

They can't go anywhere.

No, but we had a great time.

A- and, and when we got there, we got paired up with another twosome.

So if you're not familiar with golf, usually you can play in

groups of two or groups of four.

W- we were playing in a group of four.

We didn't know these two other guys that were gonna be playing with us.

So we get to the first tee, and we are, are waiting to tee off,

and the profanities have already started from these other guys.

As a pastor, I always smile when that happens, which sounds weird,

but I j- I know what's coming.

I've played enough with, with enough times.

So he looks at…

Uh, this guy looks at us, and he's like, "Are you guys, you

know, just skipping work today?"

And the guy that I was playing with, uh, from here, he, he kinda said, "No, this

is what, what's going on," or whatever.

And then I looked at him, I was like, "I'm actually his pastor."

And the guy was like, "Oh, pardon my French."

Literally the first thing that he said to me right after that.

"Pardon my French.

I'll clean up my, my language."

I was like, "That's okay, I appreciate that."

We- we're playing the round, and as we're playing the round, I'm just thinking to

myself, "Okay, God, you've brought these two guys into our lives today, and they

need to be compelled to come into that."

And so I, I spent time just, "Okay, Lord, I need the boldness to be able

to do this, and I need the right timing, and I need the right tact, and

I need the right way to approach it."

So we finally got to, I think about hole 13.

We had about five holes left, and I get up on the tee box.

We were waiting to tee off 'cause there were another group in front of us.

And, and I thought, "Okay, Lord, this is the time."

So I just…

I looked at these guys, I said, "Okay, you've been playing golf

with the pastor for 13 holes.

You know I've got to talk to you about something, don't you?"

And they kind of smiled, and they said, "Oh, okay, yeah."

And I just…

I said, "Do you guys go to church anywhere?"

And the one guy, the pardon-my-French guy, he said, uh, he said, "No, no, I don't."

And the other guy said, uh, "I'm a Buddhist."

Oh, okay.

Well, what that did for the rest of the round is for me and the guy

that from here that I was playing with, w- we had a task at hand.

Our task was, "Hey, we gotta try to compel these guys to come in."

And I'd love to stand here this morning and tell you, "And

they're here right now today.

Praise the Lord."

I can't.

But I can tell you that, that we took that moment.

And, and I'm not patting myself on the back here, I'm just saying

the Spirit prompting us, right?

The Spirit kicking me in the rear end saying, "Hey, this

is what you're here to do.

You can't stand and preach to your church about how they need

to do it if you're not gonna do it

Right?

God's spirit presented an opportunity, which I had been praying for,

not knowing it was gonna be that one, but I'd been praying for it.

He gave the opportunity, and it was about pursuing the opportunity in that moment

Again, this is the mission of every, every church, every Christian, no

matter where you find yourself.

This is what we're here to do.

This is what unites us all.

This is what's the same across denominations and everything else.

If we name the name of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior

faithfully, this is the thing.

And so this week I wanna encourage you to do three things.

I have one point, two sub-points, and three Ps, okay?

I don't know where that fits.

It's very Baptist, I think.

First thing I wanna challenge you to do this week every single day

is I want you to pray every day.

Pray for opportunities to compel people to come in.

Every morning you get up, make this part of your life.

Pray for opportunities To compel people to come into the

banquet, to share the gospel.

Pray specifically for people by name.

If you know people in your life and you're thinking to yourself, "Man, I,

this is who I would need to share the gospel with, and I just haven't had

an opportunity yet to do it," pray.

"God, give me an opportunity with Bob, with Suzy, with Dan.

Give me an opportunity to share the gospel with these people."

Pray for those opportunities.

And you know what y'all?

God's gonna answer that prayer.

You say, "How do you know?"

Because God wants his house full, and he's given us the job of

going out with the invitations.

So if you start praying, the opportunities are gonna come.

God's not gonna hear you praying for opportunities to share the

gospel and be like, "Oh, really?"

He's gonna be like, "Okay, buckle up."

Which is what leads me to the second P, pursue.

If you're going to pray, don't pray if you're not gonna do number two.

If you're gonna pray for these opportunities, I also

want you to pursue them.

For example, if you're gonna pray, "Lord, my neighbor across the

street, they need to hear the gospel.

I'm praying for opportunities to share the gospel with them."

But every single time you get home, you hit the garage door button in your car,

you pull your car in the garage, you hit the garage door button, and it shuts

before you get out of your car so you don't have to talk to anybody, you're

not pursuing the opportunities, right?

Or if you're praying, "God, the barista at Starbucks knows my name and I know my

barista's name, but I want her to know your name," and then you don't go get

coffee this week, you're not pursuing.

So there you go.

Ladies, you can tell your husbands, "Pastor PJ said I need

a greater coffee budget this week.

It's for Jesus."

If you're sharing the gospel, it is.

In other words, make yourself available.

Put yourself in the way of other unbelievers who need

to hear the gospel, right?

Pray for those opportunities, pursue those opportunities, and then finally, this is

the most important piece of all: proclaim.

Proclaim.

Share the gospel.

Be bold and, and share the gospel.

St.

Francis of Assisi got a bad rap when people said of, that he said,

incorrectly, "Share the gospel," or, "Preach the gospel at all times.

When necessary, use words."

When is it necessary to use words?

All times.

All times.

You can't preach the gospel without words.

You can't do it.

Nobody is in heaven because you were a nice person to them.

Nobody's going from hell to heaven because you had them over for dinner

and you developed a relationship with them and you let them borrow your tools

Nobody's in heaven because you're not an, a, a mean person

But there can be people who are gonna be in heaven because you are gonna

open your mouth, and you're gonna proclaim the life-saving message of

the gospel of Jesus Christ to them.

And God is gonna give them eyes to see and ears to hear, hearts to

respond in faith and repentance.

And so pray, pursue, proclaim

Baptisms were awesome today.

I wanted to keep going.

I want more.

And so here's what I want us to do.

I want us to be faithful with this.

This is what we're here to do as a church.

This is who we are.

This is what, what our mission is gonna be no matter what.

It's never gonna change.

This is our task, to do all we can to fill up every seat in heaven.

Let's pray.

Father, that is the task that you've entrusted to us as the

church, as your bride, as your mouthpiece, as your ambassadors.

God, we pray that we would be faithful to that task.

Lord, I, I pray that you would give us opportunities this week, each and

every single one of us in this room.

I pray that you'd present us with occasions to be able

to point people to Christ.

Pray that you would give us reason, Lord, to be outside or to be at the coffee shop

or to be at the grocery store and to have the conviction and the boldness to say,

"I'm, I'm gonna say something this time."

God, bring even unexpected encounters, like I had on the

golf course this past week.

Bring them across our paths so that we have occasion to say, "This

person needs to be told about Jesus

God, you delight to save people.

Your word clearly says that that is your desire, that not anyone should perish,

but that all should reach eternal life

Lord, you are gonna fill up every seat in heaven eventually.

We wanna be faithful to help in that process through going with the message,

going with the gospel, seeking the salvation of those who need to hear

the good news that was testified to in the baptism tank earlier today.

God, we thank you for the privilege of being your

servants to carry out this task.

We thank you for your church, and we pray that you continue to

build it, Lord, for your glory.

In Jesus' name, amen.