SPEAKER_01: Did you know if you invested$1,000 in Apple stock in 1997, it would be worth over a million dollars today?
SPEAKER_01: Did you know?
SPEAKER_01: If you bought a house in San Diego County in 2009, you'd look like Warren Buffett in 2026.
SPEAKER_01: Did you know if you kept those Legos as a child and never opened them up, they'd be worth 30 times the amount that you bought for them.
SPEAKER_01: Have I made you feel bad yet?
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to church.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes the smallest actions yield the biggest impact.
SPEAKER_01: When has that been true in your life?
SPEAKER_01: A friend got you Starbucks before you start work, and the impact is everyone else around you gets a happy person.
SPEAKER_01: For you, is it someone decided to watch your kids and you got a moment of a date night and you got to connect with your spouse maybe for the first time in a long time?
SPEAKER_01: Was it that moment where someone believed in you before you even believed in yourself?
SPEAKER_01: Small action, big impact.
SPEAKER_01: Scientists have researched why this phenomenon is true.
SPEAKER_01: We can look at somebody else and notice their impact on our lives.
SPEAKER_01: But it's very difficult for us to look at some small action that we do and actually think it affects somebody else.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, scientists say there's a reason because of this.
SPEAKER_01: There's a reason because when you serve someone, you write them a letter, you encourage them, you send them that text, you're thinking about them.
SPEAKER_01: You're oftentimes thinking about how does this come across?
SPEAKER_01: Is this weird?
SPEAKER_01: Like it does this, like is this a social norm?
SPEAKER_01: Am I breaking something?
SPEAKER_01: And and the other person, they're receiving it, they're feeling the things that you said.
SPEAKER_01: So it's hard for us.
SPEAKER_01: A small action leads to a big return.
SPEAKER_01: It's hard for us to see it because we're so often thinking about ourselves, which makes sense.
SPEAKER_01: Today, this is why I want to investigate a question with you.
SPEAKER_01: The question is this how could something as small as an invitation actually change someone?
SPEAKER_01: In fact, if you're taking notes, uh, I want to give you three ways that one word, a table, can actually impact your thoughts on this.
SPEAKER_01: So as you're taking notes, if you're wondering, man, what God's doing in this room, I want to remember what it is tomorrow on Monday when I'm at work stressed.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we give you the notes to be able to process all the things that God might be doing in the next couple of minutes together.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, as we jump in, we're in our series at the table.
SPEAKER_01: We are pulling up a chair to see the life that Jesus is inviting us into.
SPEAKER_01: If it's your first time, I'm so glad you are here.
SPEAKER_01: I met so many of you before service, and please let us give you the free, mysterious bake good that we made this morning to you at Create Corner.
SPEAKER_01: We are a Bible-believing, Bible preaching church, and today we'll be in the Gospel of Luke, investigating a passage that we've been in in this entire series.
SPEAKER_01: Now, bear with me, because it's a little bit long, but I do believe that you get the whole scope and sequence of the idea will help tremendously as we continue in this sermon.
SPEAKER_01: It says this in Luke 5.
SPEAKER_01: After this, Jesus went out and he saw a man named Levi at his work collecting taxes.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says, Come along with me.
SPEAKER_01: And he did.
SPEAKER_01: He walked away from everything and went with him.
SPEAKER_01: Levi gave a large dinner at his home for Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody was there, taxmen, other disreputable characters as guests at the dinner, and the Pharisees and the religious scholars came to his disciples, greatly offended.
SPEAKER_01: What is he doing?
SPEAKER_01: Eating, drinking, with misfits and sinners.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus heard about it and spoke up.
SPEAKER_01: Who needs a doctor?
SPEAKER_01: The healthy or the sick?
SPEAKER_01: I'm here inviting outsiders, not insiders.
SPEAKER_01: An invitation to a changed life, changed inside and out.
SPEAKER_01: What does a table do?
SPEAKER_01: You can write this down.
SPEAKER_01: The first thing a table does, the table comes to you.
SPEAKER_01: The table comes to you.
SPEAKER_01: Tables, they're everywhere in scripture.
SPEAKER_01: In Isaiah, it represents a feast.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus ate with outsiders at a table.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, this picture that we have of the Passover, this is the night before Jesus died, and he's with his disciples at a table.
SPEAKER_01: They say when God makes all things new, that it will be like a wedding supper.
SPEAKER_01: They even say in heaven, there'll be like all of us around a table.
SPEAKER_01: Every generation, every race, every economic status, every political bent, all around the same table.
SPEAKER_01: The table matters in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: And anytime I say table, here's what I really mean: proximity to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: You get close to the table, and you get close to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And what do we have here?
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says a disreputable character, Levi.
SPEAKER_01: He is known as a scammer in 2026.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know about you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not hanging out with any scammers, right?
SPEAKER_01: Like those aren't my friends.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is not disreputable.
SPEAKER_01: He is respected.
SPEAKER_01: This guy goes up to the guy who's not respected, a table.
SPEAKER_01: He brings the table to Levi.
SPEAKER_01: Levi was literally at a tax booth.
SPEAKER_01: What is he doing?
SPEAKER_01: Taxes.
SPEAKER_01: He's scamming people.
SPEAKER_01: He's taking.
SPEAKER_01: I want something from you.
SPEAKER_01: Do you know a friend who takes more than they give?
SPEAKER_01: This is Levi.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus meets him there.
SPEAKER_01: And anytime the table comes to you, anytime you're close with Jesus, you can't help but leave unchanged.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus goes to Levi, and Levi puts everything aside and he follows Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And then all of a sudden, he opens up his table to the other disreputable characters so they could be close with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Did you notice what just happened?
SPEAKER_01: The taker turned into a giver.
SPEAKER_01: The guy who's always looking, what's out?
SPEAKER_01: What is it for me?
SPEAKER_01: Turn into the person of generosity, Levi.
SPEAKER_01: It's you can't be close to Jesus and leave unchanged.
SPEAKER_01: Do you remember the first time you felt the presence of Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: Was it a moment before work and you're in your car crying because you're overwhelmed and you felt the presence of God and his peace?
SPEAKER_01: Was it a moment in powerful worship where the first time you lift up your hands and you felt the presence of God and his power come upon you?
SPEAKER_01: Was it a moment in bed with your spouse before you go to bed and you're talking and you're praying?
SPEAKER_01: And when was a moment that you first felt the presence of God?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe that's been happening right here in this room.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm guessing you'd probably say the same thing.
SPEAKER_01: You weren't the same after that moment.
SPEAKER_01: Whether you're an atheist in the room, whether you're a Christian, whether you've been a Christian for 20 years, here's what I've known about my faith is that I never want to forget the moment where Jesus arrived to me for the first time because it changed everything.
SPEAKER_01: So the table, it comes to you.
SPEAKER_01: What a beautiful thing it is.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the second thing that a table does.
SPEAKER_01: A table goes with you.
SPEAKER_01: Do we have any historians in the room, like history buffs?
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Like you love World War II or, you know, one of those.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, we've got a couple.
SPEAKER_01: Uh have you ever heard of campaign furniture?
SPEAKER_01: Campaign furniture.
SPEAKER_01: About 150 years ago, uh, the British were fighting all over the world, and they felt the need for their soldiers to feel at home.
SPEAKER_01: So they took all the furniture that was once stationary with a bunch of engineers, they found a way to make it portable.
SPEAKER_01: So all the dining tables and the uh the chairs, they were able to take off the legs and actually uh put it in uh a way that the where it could actually be transported to all the places around the earth.
SPEAKER_01: You know why?
SPEAKER_01: Uh war is probably a little foreign.
SPEAKER_01: You're on foreign soil, you're you're nervous, you don't know if you might die.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, you need a little bit of your creature comforts, and the idea behind it was that if I get like a table that reminds me of eating with my mom when I was 16 years old, I'll be comforted in the midst of an unknown territory.
SPEAKER_01: The British actually got a little too excited, and they made so much that one uh soldier actually wrote a letter to another soldier 200 years ago, and it's and he said the line was about 18 miles long.
SPEAKER_01: They just loved to put furniture everywhere they went.
SPEAKER_01: But why?
SPEAKER_01: Because it brought comfort.
SPEAKER_01: And let me just say this some of you think that being close to Jesus, this table, happens here on a Sunday morning and only here.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, I'm so excited to encounter Jesus at 11 a.m.
SPEAKER_01: on August 30th.
SPEAKER_01: As long as it ends at 12 p.m., I love it.
SPEAKER_01: And then when I leave, I'm excited for next week.
SPEAKER_01: But until then, the table is not even close to me.
SPEAKER_01: What if, this is for somebody in the room, what if the moment the reason you're here is to realize that the table, it goes with you.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, Jesus would say, you are the legs to the table.
SPEAKER_01: Like you walk out here and you are the table.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, the church, beautiful building, earth wrong.
SPEAKER_01: The church, beautiful people.
SPEAKER_01: That's what the church is.
SPEAKER_01: So when we're done being the church in here, do you know what we're gonna do?
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna be the church out there.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we're gonna do.
SPEAKER_01: This table has legs, it's beautiful.
SPEAKER_01: Let's stay in here.
SPEAKER_01: This is the table of the presence of God, and you're encountering him, and you'll cry, and you'll talk, and you'll write notes, and God will inspire you.
SPEAKER_01: That's my hope for this.
SPEAKER_01: We designed everything for that moment of encounter with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And my prayer is that you leave here and you can still encounter Jesus Monday morning when you're stressed before work.
SPEAKER_01: At lunchtime, when you don't want to go to the next class.
SPEAKER_01: The table, it doesn't stay in a church building, it goes with you.
SPEAKER_01: And this might be the part of the sermon.
SPEAKER_01: Jake, I know where you're going with this.
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna say, now you get to be the table, you get to be Jesus for your friends.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: That's what you probably think I'm gonna say next, right?
SPEAKER_01: That's a logical conclusion to what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_01: That's not what I want to say.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, you can be Jesus to your friends, you can be the table, all those things, yes.
SPEAKER_01: But I want to read you a verse that's wrecked my life for the past three days.
SPEAKER_01: This was in my sermon three days ago.
SPEAKER_01: And as soon as I heard it from a local theologian, I was like, I gotta, I gotta, this is it.
SPEAKER_01: It says this, Ephesians 1.19, the immeasurable greatness of God's power made available to you through faith.
SPEAKER_01: Whoa, wait.
SPEAKER_01: The immeasurable greatness of God's power is made available to you through faith.
SPEAKER_01: Like, I just want you to actually think about what this could mean for you.
SPEAKER_01: Like, right now.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, can we read this together?
SPEAKER_01: All right, one more time.
SPEAKER_01: One more time.
SPEAKER_01: All right, 3, 2, 1.
SPEAKER_01: The immeasurable greatness of God's power made available to you through faith.
SPEAKER_01: Do you know what immeasurable means?
SPEAKER_01: Shockingly, without measure.
SPEAKER_01: There's no limit to your power with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, a king, when he sends his people out on a mission, he gives them all authority of the king.
SPEAKER_01: So 2000 years ago, when a king sent them out to do a task, when they're with the people, they get to enact any power that the king has because they are the king in that moment.
SPEAKER_01: What am I saying here?
SPEAKER_01: When Jesus rose from the grave before he left, he made sure that you know you have that same power.
SPEAKER_01: Whoa, now this can't, okay.
SPEAKER_01: The same power that rose Jesus from the grave isn't me.
SPEAKER_01: This is an immeasurable amount of power.
SPEAKER_01: Does this mean when my marriage is on the rocks, that God will give me the peace I need and the clarity to have a conversation?
SPEAKER_01: No, this can't mean that when I'm studying for a test at 12 a.m.
SPEAKER_01: and there's no way I'm gonna, like God will give me the knowledge that I that there's no, this is what it means that when you are, the table goes with you, you have all access and authority to the power of our king.
SPEAKER_01: My question for you is where do you need it today?
SPEAKER_01: Where do you feel hopeless?
SPEAKER_01: Where do you feel like it's impossible?
SPEAKER_01: What relationship is not going anywhere?
SPEAKER_01: Where's your vocation at?
SPEAKER_01: Where's your money at?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus would say, dude, the immeasurable power.
SPEAKER_01: And it's made available through faith.
SPEAKER_01: If you believe, you receive.
SPEAKER_01: This is what Jesus is saying.
SPEAKER_01: It's like a gift.
SPEAKER_01: It's crazy.
SPEAKER_01: If you just believe, you receive.
SPEAKER_01: So, yes, the table, it comes to you, and then the table, it goes with you.
SPEAKER_01: Levi, he took all of his friends, he took all of his family, and he brought it to his house, and he had all the power of Jesus with these disreputable characters to transform their lives.
SPEAKER_01: Here's a third one as we end today.
SPEAKER_01: The table, it expands through you.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what it says.
SPEAKER_01: When Jesus rose from the grave before he ascended into heaven, he made this declarative sentence to you and to me.
SPEAKER_01: And any church that's a Bible-believing, Bible-preaching church will say this is one of the cornerstone passages, and it's this all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
SPEAKER_01: So now go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all that I've commanded you.
SPEAKER_01: And behold, I am with you.
SPEAKER_01: The table goes with you to the end of the age.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, you're thinking I'm gonna play?
SPEAKER_01: No, I'm just gonna take the chair.
SPEAKER_01: What do you notice about this chair?
SPEAKER_01: Who do you imagine what this chair is for?
SPEAKER_01: Are you imagining the new friend that you just met at college who's not here, who's struggling and homesick?
SPEAKER_01: Are you imagining the coworker who just can't get it right and just feels overwhelmed?
SPEAKER_01: Are you imagining your spouse or a sibling that you love so much that's just in a deep depression?
SPEAKER_01: Who do you imagine is sitting in that chair?
SPEAKER_01: The table expands through you.
SPEAKER_01: Do you know who what I imagine?
SPEAKER_01: I have a specific number in my mind, actually.
SPEAKER_01: The number is 512,000 people.
SPEAKER_01: Did you know that in a 15 to 20 minute radius of our church, which most of you are probably within, there's 512,000 people.
SPEAKER_01: It's interesting because our church, growing very fast, right now, might not be the same next week, is about 500 people that would come on any given month to our church, would call Create Church Home.
SPEAKER_01: Scientists would say that in a city such as San Diego, that uh you would come into contact with about 1,000 people in any given week.
SPEAKER_01: They call them touch points.
SPEAKER_01: You would have 1,000 touch points.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not a mathematician, but let me do a little bit of math for you.
SPEAKER_01: There's 500 people at our church, and there's a thousand touch points that each of us have.
SPEAKER_01: It's almost like it equals around 512,000 people.
SPEAKER_01: It's almost like that everything this neighborhood needs is in this room right now.
SPEAKER_01: You're like, Jake, this is great.
SPEAKER_01: But I'm not inviting those thousand people to church.
SPEAKER_01: Believe me.
SPEAKER_01: Is there one though?
SPEAKER_01: Like just one?
SPEAKER_01: Levi was the one to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, it says that Jesus left the 99 for the one.
SPEAKER_01: Who's just the one?
SPEAKER_01: The one that you're just, your heart breaks for them and it aches for them because you know what they could have, but they don't have it.
SPEAKER_01: The community, a relationship with Jesus, encounter, you know, like there's a burden in your heart for somebody today.
SPEAKER_01: I hope there is.
SPEAKER_01: If you're living and breathing, whether you're a Christian or not, there's a burden for someone that you love today.
SPEAKER_01: Who's in that chair?
SPEAKER_01: Is there one?
SPEAKER_01: I want to tell you, show you a story of two people who are one day the Levi.
SPEAKER_01: Take a look at the screen, and we'll show you what this looks like.
SPEAKER_01: Levi, before he opens up his table to his friends and a family that he loves so much, he left everything behind and followed Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And today, I mean, I'm so excited that you will witness before your very eyes the people who made that decision, and it's gonna be scary for them because they're in front of a lot of people that they love, but they're gonna make a public declaration.
SPEAKER_01: My old life leaving it behind, and I'm coming out and I'm following you.
SPEAKER_01: So, right now, if you are someone who's going to get baptized or making that decision right now, just like people in the early church, I would ask you to go ahead and rise and you can go to the back of the room.
SPEAKER_01: Let's give it up for them as they get ready.
SPEAKER_01: This is your chance.
SPEAKER_01: Anyone can get up in this moment.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm grateful for Jen and Therese, in fact.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, in part because Jen, the one to the right, uh, is my pediatrician for my kid.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm glad that someone invited her.
SPEAKER_01: Uh and and and Therese, uh, she basically leads our entire kids ministry with a couple of people.
SPEAKER_01: She's a she's a she's a nurse.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, we got nurses and doctors leading your kids.
SPEAKER_01: You're in good hands.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm glad they're I'm glad they're here.
SPEAKER_01: I wonder what Key, Jen's husband, or the college friend of Therese would say 20 years ago of how much work it was to invite them.
SPEAKER_01: It's it's almost like something small can turn into a big impact without you even understanding it.
SPEAKER_01: This is the story of Jen and Therese.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to today invite you into an all-skate 100% participation initiative that we are doing as a church.
SPEAKER_01: And it's called At the Table.
SPEAKER_01: Our dream is this one person, one prayer, and one invite.
SPEAKER_01: This goes back to uh this this moment in Luke, or at the end, Jesus, word for word, says this.
SPEAKER_01: I'm here inviting outsiders and not insiders, an invitation to a changed life, changed inside and out.
SPEAKER_01: This past week I set my alarm at 5.32 p.m.
SPEAKER_01: Not to wake up, but in general at 5.32 p.m.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: So I could say that verse out loud and pray for my one.
SPEAKER_01: Do you know what happened?
SPEAKER_01: Started on Monday.
SPEAKER_01: Every day, God softened my heart for the person, and every day I felt God was giving me more and more ideas of what it means to love that person.
SPEAKER_01: It's crazy that if you just remind yourself every once in a while of burdening your heart for somebody else in a world where it's all about me, it really actually changes me, not even the other person.
SPEAKER_01: It was crazy.
SPEAKER_01: Would you set your alarm at 5.32 p.m.?
SPEAKER_01: Like maybe you want to get out your phone right now.
SPEAKER_01: Clock, 5.32 p.m.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna remind myself what it looks like to think of somebody else.
SPEAKER_01: And then one day there could be a story like Jen or Terese that was because of your invite.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, what you'll see in this baptism moment is you'll see a lot of tears.
SPEAKER_01: That's what you'll see in a moment.
SPEAKER_01: You know who those tears are mostly gonna be from?
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be from the person making the decision, but most of the tears will be for the people who invited them to this moment.
SPEAKER_01: Most of the tears that you'll see, I want you just to notice the people beside the people around, and what you'll see is they've been praying for this moment for years for the person that is getting baptized.
SPEAKER_01: So today, would you consider being that person?
SPEAKER_01: And here's what I promise you this is a guarantee that when that person gets baptized because of your invite, when that person serves for the first time, when that person is alive with the life of Jesus, and with tears in their eyes, they come up to you and say, Thank you, your life will never be the same.
SPEAKER_01: That's a guarantee.
SPEAKER_01: One prayer, one person, one invite.
SPEAKER_01: So as they come up to get baptized, leaving the old world behind, coming new to what we have, here's what I would love to do in this moment.
SPEAKER_01: They're making this decision, but it's also a decision for us to accept them into our community.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, you can make a personal decision anywhere, but you can't get baptized anywhere.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, the baptism is supposed to be in your local church.
SPEAKER_01: You know why?
SPEAKER_01: Two things.
SPEAKER_01: First, for your community to accept you, and second, for you to hold them accountable to this new life in faith.
SPEAKER_01: This is what a community does.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna try something very new.
SPEAKER_01: We've actually never done before at Create Church, uh, because one of my good friends here at our church suggested this, and I love the idea.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna try it here.
SPEAKER_01: Where uh they're gonna come up and get baptized, but before they go under the water, I wanna ask you a question.
SPEAKER_01: Do you accept them?
SPEAKER_01: And I really hope that you say yes for their sake.
SPEAKER_01: But it's important for you to realize this is not a monologue, this is a dialogue happening as it says, disciple them, as they belong to a local family of faith.
SPEAKER_01: So, in a moment, we're gonna sing this song.
SPEAKER_01: Would you actually stand with me as a moment of uh saying yes to them, affirming this decision?
SPEAKER_01: And with every person, I will ask you that wild question will you accept them into our community?
SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna invite the first person to come up as we sing today.