The Cost of Discipleship - World

In this message, the focus is the cost and calling of true discipleship as seen through four areas of the Christian life: worship, the Word of God, the work of ministry, and world missions.

The central emphasis is the mission of God and how it shapes every part of a believer’s life. True discipleship is not partial or compartmentalized—it touches everything.

Drawing from passages like John 3:16–17, Matthew 28:19, Acts 1:8, Luke 14, and others, the message highlights four key realities of the mission of Christ:

•  It is for WHOEVER—every person, regardless of background. 
•  It is for WHEREVER—all nations and every place in the world. 
•  It is for WHENEVER—present in the everyday rhythms of life. 
•  It is for WHATEVER—pervading every detail of a believer’s activity. 

The sermon challenges listeners to evaluate whether they truly follow Christ by loving what He loves and embracing the cost of discipleship. It warns against building personal kingdoms and instead calls believers to participate in God’s global mission: seeing every moment, relationship, and opportunity as part of the work of the gospel.

Thanks for listening to the Living Faith St. Louis podcast. This episode is part of our weekly sermon ministry from Pastor Blade Sbisa, with occasional guest speakers and special series.
 For more information, visit the LFSTL website.

Transcript

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Discipleship is that lifelong transfer of getting your spiritual maturity in Christ into another believer. It's not a classroom or program or some lesson book. And then yet, while it's not those things, somehow the church has to find a way to systematically and in an orderly manner invite people into a process of learning the Word of God. And that tension between discipleship not being a program and also kind of needing to be one so that doctrine can be transferred is difficult to talk about. And so I just want to encourage this little group here. And I want to encourage you with this. In the last two weeks, I've had a commitment from Sean to meet up with me. For those of you that know Sean, who's been really faithful in our Bible study since July and in services, I've had I've got a commitment from Sean to meet with me on a bi-weekly basis to study the Bible and learn Bible doctrine. I'm really looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to him learning from the life that I have in Jesus because of what's been invested in me by coming to service and by hanging out with us before Bible study and watching me raise my kids and meeting up with him for Indian food and Mexican food and going down the street and talking to him about what he does on the weekends. And like I want to share life with this guy and invest everything that I know about the Lord in him. And I just want to encourage you that he's committed to doing that with me. And I'm just so grateful. I was going to give him a hard time if he was here this morning, but maybe he'll he'll listen to this recording and just know. I I want this guy to know that I love him because Christ loves him. I want him to know that I'm willing to spend myself and be spent for him to help him know that God has a great purpose for his life and a plan to use him mightily for the kingdom of God. And so anyway, I get to encourage you all with that. In addition to that, I had a guy who came to our very first Bible study a year ago when we trusted the Lord to start a church, who never showed up to another Bible study, who ended up coming to our single de mayo taco Tuesday night, who also committed to me this week to meet up with me every Tuesday to begin learning the foundational things of the Word of God. His name's Isaac. And so please please pray for Isaac. I've got two guys that God's given me to begin investing my life into. And I'm just so thankful that the Lord's given that so quickly and that I get that privilege. And so with the praise of that is also me just begging for your prayer and your supplication, your intercession on behalf of these men on myself that God would protect them and protect me in the process of us taking on this work. I mean, it's an exciting thing. There's nothing better in the Christian life than beginning to invest what God's given you into another person. Alright, so there's kind of the gist. Okay, discipleship, what is it? It's not a program, but at some point we've got to begin finding ways to transfer biblical teaching and doctrine into the lives of people so that they can be strong and that the effort of the church can continue to grow and be stronger and stronger as the whole body is equipped, edified, strengthened, and they're bound together, serving Christ with one another. And so, yes, but you know, meeting up one-on-one is a way to do discipleship. Sunday mornings is a small aspect of discipleship. Bible study is discipleship, or can be if we utilize it that way. All aspects of our life can be discipleship. And so I'm just I'm bittersweet about closing this topic because I think it is the most important thing that the church can talk about today. Uh not showing up and just holding services, but truly living the Christian life that God wants us to live. And so we're closing our time this morning, as you can see on the screen, talking about the cost of discipleship and particularly the cost of us giving our lives to the mission throughout the world. And so, just by way of review, if I can uh remind you of kind of where we've been and where we're going, um, I want to just give you a fourth category this morning in talking about the world that's a series of three others. Okay, so we began this conversation of talking about the cost of discipleship by talking about what is it going to mean for me to count the cost of living a life of worship before the Lord? And these were the main points I gave you that ultimately worshiping the Lord and counting the cost of worship has to be more than nothing. I mean, just think about the idea of worship in general, right? It means to ascribe God value or worth. Well, we looked at David's life and we saw, you know, in type, in principle, this idea that we cannot worship if it isn't gonna cost us anything. And so David even tells a man that who's willing to give up his land for the temple site, and David's like, I'm not gonna buy this land for little because the Lord is worth much. And so we went through and we began to see in the Word of God that worshiping the Lord is gonna cost us, yes, more than nothing, but it can cost us anything that we're willing to give that's valuable to us, to God. But we saw the first mention of worship in Genesis 22, and we saw it in Abraham's life that he shows us that worship is not only about giving things of value, but things that are most precious to us. And God actually begins to help us understand worship by talking to us about giving up the thing that's most precious to us. And so the question I was asking was, well, what's that thing to us? What's the thing that is most precious in our life? Okay, but more than that, it's gonna cost us everything. That was the first kind of area that we have to consider when counting the cost of discipleship. The second was the cost of beginning to learn the Word of God. And so every disciple, as they move forward in their relationship with the Lord, they're gonna have to, at some point, begin worshiping the Lord. And then the second thing that they need to be established in is not just a genuine heart to worship the Lord with everything they got. They've got to begin counting the cost of what it's gonna mean to grow in the wisdom of God's word. The word of God. They have to have a handle on God's word. They have to study the word of God and learn how to rightly divide it. And so we invite people into Bible study, and we invite people into a deeper understanding of the Word of God, and we learn that the price of wisdom is gonna cost us a lot, isn't it? It's gonna cost us our time and our energy, and we learn that with much study is much weariness to the flesh, and it's gonna cost us our temptation to always fill our life with noise. We're gonna have to actually get quiet before the Lord and study to show ourselves quiet. And we're gonna have to labor in the Word. That's how the Bible actually describes studying the Word of God. And so you can see on the screen the points that we walked through. We we need to be established in the Word of God, to be equipped for the work of God, so that we can engage in ministry service, so that ultimately the body of Christ can be edified as we learn the Word of God according to the Scriptures, so that we can love one another according to the way that God wants us to. And then living out the Word. It's not just enough to know it. We want to help younger believers not only know things about the Bible, but we want to help them be established in a life that's exemplifying the truth of the word, such that it's emanating from everything that they are. When they speak, when they love, when they're in their marriage, when they're in the classroom, when they're raising kids, when they're on the street, when they're in the grocery store, when they're driving in traffic, their life is emanating qualities that are reflective of Christ. And we obviously are ever growing in these things. The cost of discipleship is not a prerequisite to be a great Christian, it's a fair warning as an invitation is made to surrendering your life to Jesus. It's saying, hey, if you're gonna follow Christ, it's gonna cost you everything. It's gonna cost you your worship, it's gonna cost you your time and your and your attention and studying God's word, but also you're gonna have to begin counting the cost of what it means to give yourself to the work of the ministry. The work of the ministry. Well, how how does the work of the ministry get done? It gets done through the context of the local church. Jesus Christ is not here, but we are his body, and he has given us his spirit, and as the body of Christ comes together, a local assembly joins themselves and yields to the Spirit, God is able to use his spirit to produce some great spiritual fruit through the body of Christ. The hands, the feet, the eyes, the mouth, on and on, the heart. We need some hearts in this room. We need some people who are willing to speak on behalf of Christ, to do the work of an evangelist. We need some people who are just hands, and they're saying, Yeah, God has uniquely gifted me to just serve, and I love that, and he's made me for that, and I want to be, you know, joined in to this body. And so we talked about the cost of what it means to prepare for the work of the ministry, to participate in the work of the ministry, to perfect one another, as we join ourselves to one one another, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, and then propagating that work through the world. And our last point last week was that we have to count the cost of propagating the work of God as we look across cultural barriers for the mission. For the mission. Now we're not here yet, but you can fill it in if you want. The focus that we're looking at this morning is now what is it going to cost me to give my life to the mission in the context of God's desire for it to go all throughout the world? All through the world. A disciple, as they consider what God has called them to in surrendering their life, need four areas that they're established in the worship of God, the word of God, the work of God, and a heart for the world. And the heart for the world begins right in your home, and then your neighborhood, and the city, the metro, the state, the nation, the world. Right? The world isn't just the nations, yes, the nations, but we have to understand the mission and the context of getting out of this building. Okay, so the the disciple, and that third main area that they need to be established in, they've got to be established in the context or the thing that God's using to minister in this time. And that is the local church, the body of Christ. Somebody can't be a Rambo Christian and just go worship God out in nature and do their own thing. They've got to be bound to a group of people so that God can produce his qualities in them as they're given plenty of opportunities to humble themselves before their brothers and sisters in Christ. I mean, you want to get the image of Christ perfected in you, just get into relationships with other people who are broken, and God will give you plenty of opportunity to forgive, to forbear, to show compassion, to show mercy, to teach, to edify, to strengthen, to grow. On and on. You get the point. You go try to do the isolated Christian life thing, and we've seen plenty of people try to do this, and you forfeit all of the relationships God wants you to have to uniquely learn what it means to love little kids. Love people that don't look like you, love people that are at a different stage of life than you, whether they be older or whether they be younger, right? There's always that generational barrier that's difficult. That's why, like, a campus college ministry Bible study isn't the mission of God. It's an outreach program to try to reach people, but the mission program of God is the local church binding themselves together in love. A campus ministry is just a bunch of people who like the same things, who are in the same season of life, who have fun together, and they've found community and they agree that we should study the Bible together. But that's not the local church. God wants the church to be a group of people who don't look anything like each other and are somehow bound by that mysterious, wonderful, peculiar work of the Holy Spirit. And so the world, the world mission. Well, the world mission is not missionaries, we're the missionaries. And we happen to actually be in the uttermost right now, as those things were declared in Acts 1. We're going to consider some of these things this morning. The key question we should be asking ourselves is Am I a true disciple or a disciple indeed? And if that is true, do I follow God by loving the same things that He loves? Or am I yet learning to do so? And I would think that's a yes and for all of us. We are following God, trying to learn and give our lives to things that He loves as well. So what does God love? I think that's an important question to ask. You know, John 3 16 and verses 16 through 17, it says, For God so loved the world. There's one thing. For God so loved the world. How could you begin to understand God or worship God if you don't care for the things that he cares about? Well, the Bible says, He loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth him should not perish but have everlasting life. God loved the world immensely, and so if I'm going to live a life that's honoring and pleasing to God, I should trust him to love to the same extent the same things that he does. I'm submitting to you one thing this morning that God loves the world. He loves many other things. He loves his word, he loves his son, he loves righteousness, he loves holiness, he loves the fear of the Lord, he he hates certain things. We ought to hate the things that God hates. But this morning, just one thing, one simple thing, one thing I think everyone in this room, as I know all of you, that you desire to love as well, the world. You know, sometimes I get overwhelmed uh looking at photos of different nations, or I get overwhelmed like staring at a globe for a while. I've got a globe that was left by the the pastor prior, James Hoffman, on the desk back here. And uh sometimes I'll just look at that thing, I'll think about just the the the unreasonable amount of people to begin processing who don't know Christ. And I think of it just about my desire for God to use my life and our little ministry to have some great impact in the world. At the end of the day, whether you're part of a huge church or you're part of a small church, you have the same responsibility before the Lord. Step forward in faith, believe God for bigger things than you can in the flesh, and let Him close the gap on all of that. I mean, it doesn't matter how big of a ministry you're part of, at the end of the day, God has to show up to do some supernatural thing if we want to stand before the judgment seat of Christ rich. Otherwise, we're gonna stand before God and give an account for the pro the fruit that was produced from a life of striving. And I just don't want that. I know you don't want that. The disciple of Jesus understands that the mission is to every person no matter their background. No matter where they're from, no matter their social background, their economic status, no matter the family they come from, no matter the tribe they come from, no matter their language or their tongue, no mat no matter no matter. It does not matter. It does not matter what they've done, it does not matter what they've said, how rude they are, how wonderful of it does not matter. God loves every single person in this world, and we ought to beg God to give us capacity to love like him. I just feel so cold and apathetic to the gospel ministry sometimes, in light of what Christ has done for this same group of people. The point here is that God is asking us to go to whoever. Now, at first, when Jesus begins to lead in the Gospels, and we read the account of the Gospels, we see that the gospel of the kingdom wasn't intended to go to the Gentiles and the Samaritans. Now that may be a strange thought to most Christians in the world. I thought Jesus was wanting his message to go to everyone. No, actually not. Matthew chapter 10, in verses 5 through 6, it says, These twelve Jesus sent forth and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, into any city of the Samaritans, enter ye not, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The Bible says that Jesus was the minister to the circumcision. His ministry was distinctly to the Jews. And God did that for a reason, because he desired the Jewish nation to take hold of Jesus as their Messiah and begin to be a light to the nation. Sadly, though, they they forfeited that calling, and God blinded them for a season to only restore it yet in the future. So upon Israel's rejection of that kingdom invitation, God says, Okay, fine, I'll turn to the Gentiles. This is the book of Acts, as he ushers in a mystery of the church, and then upon his death and resurrection, his command is preach the gospel to every creature. Mark chapter 16 and verse 15, and he said unto them, Go ye into all the world. Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. We find a very similar command in Acts chapter 1 and verse 8, which we'll read here in a little bit. Now, as we count that cost in our life, the cost of taking the message of the gospel and discipleship to the whole world, we have to begin to evaluate what God meant when he said all the world. That's a significant question. Why? Well, because it means that no one is excluded, overlooked, avoided, or even prioritized, given special favor. There aren't any groups in the world that we ought to think, well, this group needs it a little bit more. No. Perceptually, it may seem that way. It may seem that the Middle East needs more of the Lord Jesus. And yes, amen to that. A hundred percent. You know who also needs Jesus? This group of Hispanic guys that sit right across our parking lot who are drunk pretty often in the backyard. You know who needs the gospel? Some college student at Washu who's been entertaining taking their life. You know who needs the gospel? Your coworker who you're really frustrated with. You know who needs the gospel? The family member you've prayed for a hundred times. You know who's able to move and and press and continue to show light to, to open the their blinded eyes, the Holy Spirit. And so we beg God for these opportunities and for Him to work behind the scenes in the places that we can't get to. This is why we need the Word of Reconciliation to do the work of reconciliation, because Hebrews chapter 4 says it gets in to places we can't get, dividing asunder even the thoughts and the intents of people's heart. So we begin having conversations about the Word of God in the Bible, and the Bible, by work of the Holy Spirit, finds its ways into the deep places of people's imaginations, their memories, the things they long for, and it begins to deal with them according to an intimacy that we can't produce. I don't know about you, but considering the cost of reaching all of the world is pretty intimidating because there are some pretty scary people in the world, like for real, even in this city. I think about areas of this city that many of us would be terrified to enter into and begin preaching the gospel because we would be worried. The Bible says that God loves those people to the extent that he has given himself for them and willing to to actually ruin his body so that they could have life. I mean, just take the Apostle Paul's life. Imagine ministering to the Apostle Paul when he was breathing out threatenings against the early church. This is what Paul says in 1 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 12. He says, I think Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry, who was before a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious. But I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of the Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. That's what we need for this world. The grace of the Lord, exceeding abundant with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Verse 15, this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation. I think there's three times that Paul tells his son in the faith that this is a faithful saying. This is the first. And Paul has set forth this pattern. Verse 16, how be it for this cause I obtained mercy that in me first, Christ Jesus, showed forth all long suffering for a pattern to them that should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting. So it's true, Jesus set the model for us and entering into this world and giving himself for the world, but then Jesus showed up to Paul, gave him mercy, enabled him for the ministry, put him in the ministry, and now Paul is set for our pattern, and so we follow Paul, as Paul follows Christ. And so therefore I follow Christ because I follow Paul. Luke 14 and verses 13 through 17. I called you to the passage. Let's look at it together. Luke 14 and verses 13 through 17. It says, But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maim, the lame, the blind, and thou shalt be blessed, for they cannot recompense thee, for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just. And when one of them that sat at meet with him heard these things, he said unto him, Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God. Then he saith unto him unto him, A certain man made a great supper and bade many, and sent his servant at the supper at supper time to say to them that were bidden, come, for all things are now and ready. Now there's a unique context here in Luke 14, but what I want to call your attention to is verse 13 initially, and that is this invitation to the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind. Now, prior to this in the text, we find this invitation being brought in verse 12, like they're told, don't bring it to your family and all of those that are going to receive you and ask, you know, can I pay you back for this meal? No, and in counting the cost, you you realize that in reaching the world, you just spend. No recompense in this life for investment. And this leads us to a very similar point to the first, but our but our second key point for study, uh, in a simple one this morning, and that is uh ultimately that the mission, and counting the cost of the mission, will require us to consider that it is to every place throughout the world. So it's not just every person, no matter their background, it's every place throughout the whole world. And the emphasis here that I want to make is that oftentimes we contextualize missionary work to international context. Like when we think about being a missionary or supporting a missionary or doing the mission, many Christians view that as something that's not very, very near to their life. It feels like something they're able to kind of have a part in if they give some money to. Or if they spend some time praying for that prayer list that comes through some bulletin or monthly newsletter they get about the missionaries they support. And I'm just really hopeful that as the Lord allows to grow as a church and get established, that we would be a people who greatly and sacrificially support missionaries on the field. I mean, personally, Gabby and I do that already. But as a church, we would all collectively say, yes, we're going to support the work of discipleship all throughout the world, but we're also going to make sure that that conviction is tempered with an understanding that the mission is right in front of us as well. As soon as I walk out this door, the mission is before me. What I do with my meditation in the sermon as I preach or as you listen to it pertains to the mission. It all pertains to the mission. We can't set it as a different category in the Christian life. My life as a Christian means I'm on mission, or at least it should mean that. Again, the second key point is every place. Every place. Think about the physical places you go. It's not that random country that you barely know anything about that you might show up to once in your life to see the work for a week and eat good food and learn about culture. That's great. Do that. It's really important to learn about a new place and learn what God's doing all throughout the world. But what about your life? Think about the immediate reality of your life. Where are the places you go? Where are the places you spend time? That is the field that God's given you. You are a missionary there. Trust the Lord for the souls all around you. You say, I'm at home all the time. I'm a designer. I sit in my computer and I don't really get a chance to talk to people. Well, I could make the same excuse. I'm a pastor. I I'm here and I got stuff to take care of on the building, and I know I'm in a unique context, but even when I was a home builder full-time, it's like, how do I see the thing that God's given me as the field? It's like, okay, Lord, I know most of the subcontractors that we work with are at a way different place and stage in life as me, but Lord, help me minister to these guys who want nothing to do with the gospel, who mock your name all the time, who mock me as a Christian. Lord, give me opportunity. And you know what? The times I beg God for that, sure enough, he gives them. I mean, you know, if you you if you pray for opportunities to preach the gospel, sure enough. God gives those. He gives them. We are ambassadors, as 2 Corinthians chapter 5 says. God has reconciled the world to himself. Verse 19. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ. As though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's head be reconciled to God. I just want you to see once again the way that the Bible uses the word world. To wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. As we continue in Luke 14, in verses 18 through 24, it says, And they all, with one consent, began to make excuse. Began to make excuse. Okay, so we we had that initial section in Luke 14 and verses 13 through 17 about this feast and this call to the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind, and it says that of these that heard the bidding and the call to be a part of this feast, that all, with one consent and agreance, began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it. I pray thee, have me excused. Excuse me from the mission of going to reach the world, because I just bought a piece of land, and I need to go look at it. Another made an excuse in verse 19 and said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them, and I pray thee, have me excused. In verse twenty, and another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. Here's a list of three. There are many other things in life that we can use as excuses to get off mission. Good things. Isn't marriage a good thing? It's a good thing. A man that's found a wife has obtained the favor of the Lord. It's a good thing. God loves marriage. It's the first institution that we see in the scriptures. I mean, God's designed this thing to be a reflection of Christ according to Ephesians 5. It's a great thing. But not if it's at the expense of the mission. Think buying a piece of ground is a bad thing? No, probably not. Probably not at all. Going to look at it so that you're not on mission, though? That might that might be an issue. It's an excuse. Verse 21. So that the servant came and showed his Lord these things. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring hither the poor and the maimed and the halt and the blind. Verse 22. And the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room. There's room, there's more people to be reached, there's more places to go. It's not just the poor and the maimed and the whole, right? The command here in Luke 14 is go into the various places where you haven't gone yet. There's room still at the table for the Lord. God is long-suffering, not willing that any should perish. In other words, if everyone who was ever going to come to Christ was already saved, there would be no reason for the church to exist. We'd already be caught up. This dispensation would be over, and God would move on to the next stage in human history. But there's time, and God set the church in this world to be a light to this world, to preach the gospel, to care for people, to raise them up in the Lord, to see more souls saved. And he is suffering right now that we might be part of that mission. Sadly, the church is going to fail at that task because many make excuse. Verse 23 the Lord said unto his servant, Go out into the highways and the hedges and compel them to come in. Convince people to come in to this supper, to partake, that the house may be filled. Verse 24, for I say unto you that none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper. That is, those that were distracted with the affairs of this life, addicting themselves to the temporal things rather than that which is heavenly and everlasting. Matthew twenty-eight and verses nineteen. That's a place. That is a place. Eventually God wants us to reach all nations. And so we get a part in that as we go and maybe raise people up for them to be sent out, or we partner with those that are already on the field. From day one of this church, no matter how small small we are, I want us to be a church committed to praying for and supporting other like-minded works all throughout the world. Starting here in St. Louis, but then onward. We've got to trust God for that work. No matter how limited our resources, I want to be like that widow with two mites saying, we're going to abandon all for the mission and just see what God does with it. I really want that. I want to be wise, I want to steward the things that God's given well, but I want to be sacrificial and just see if God would allow us to be a Macedonian church in a Laodicean age and just use the little resources that we have to make some magnificent impact on the kingdom of God. That just gets me excited. It makes me not worried about what I have, but what I'm willing to give. Acts chapter one and verses six through eight, it says, When they therefore were come together, they asked him, saying, Lord, will thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or seasons which the Father hath put in his own power, but ye shall receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, a place, and in Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. Initially, the the cost of discipleship to the world is going to be in your Jerusalem. Where are you from? Where's your home base? Where are all those people who think like you, talk like you, sound like you, look like you, and then to all of Judea. You know, for me, uh Judea and Samaria are or St. Louis in some at some level. Like I was part of a a Jerusalem church in the heart of Kansas City. God then sent me out to be a part of a Judean church and and kind of the burbs of Kansas City, and now I I feel like I'm kind of in Samaria, and I'm not saying St. Louis are Samaritans. I I for real, that's not an insult. But I I really felt the Lord saying, you must needs go through Samaria. Hey, stop entertaining being a missionary to the nations. Missouri needs a missionary. You got to go to this city that's blighted and that's had the highest murder rates for the last decade, and that's socially and racially just completely messed up. And you gotta go to this place where there's nobody upholding and raising up the word of God saying, God's preserved his word and we can trust it. You've got to go and make disciples in a place where there's a vacuum of spiritual life being sucked out of people as they're turned to philosophy and intellectualism. You gotta go and stand in the gap on behalf of this people. God wants us to do that in our life. That's my context. That's where God had me. But what about you? What about your family? What about the immediate neighborhood that you're in? Like for me, I've got to reach these homes around here. There's a series of homes up the street, right behind our house, that I have not knocked on, you know, their doors and asked them if they'd be willing to hear the gospel message. I'm responsible for that. God's placed me in this field to do that work. And if he moves me on at some later point, because he's closed the door, fine. But right now I'm here. Right now, you're in your workplace. You're in the home that you're in, the place that you're in, to be used of God right there. Whether it be in school or school and work and whatever odd season that is, or whether it be with your family, you guys get the point. Maybe it's your grandchildren. Maybe it's your brothers or sisters, maybe it's some neighbor that you've had a relationship with that you could press one more time with the gospel. Every place. I think sometimes we just so oversensationalize the mission and decontextualize the mission that we don't realize that it is ever before us. And that's what I actually want to talk to you about is this fact that we need to realize the mission is not some event. But, in our third key point, the study, and considering Acts chapter 1 and their question about God restoring the kingdom again to Israel, and him saying, Well, it's not time for you to know when God's going to set up his earthly kingdom. So you just need to get to work because the missions before you, it's ever present. It's ever present in the going of our day-to-day life. Whenever. The mission isn't an outreach program. You know, on the bulletin this morning, there's a column in a calendar that says, as a church, we're going to do outreach on Saturday, June 13th, 14th, whatever that date is. The mission can be during that time, but the mission is also everything that is not on that calendar. It's this little group saying, I'm going to get uncomfortable and I I'm just going to ask God to give me boldness that I don't have. And confidence in his spirit. You know, I don't really have. I'm kind of afraid to share my faith with other people. I'm kind of doubtful regarding God actually using me and his mission. It's going to take this group saying, Yeah, I'm actually the solution in this messed up environment that I'm in. It's ever present. And so even when we shut off and we're not doing an evangelistic campaign or an evangelistic outreach, or I'm not on wash you, even in the silence of my heart, I need to be meditating on God's word. I need to be praying. I need to be managing my entertainments and my schedule and my downtime to make sure that I am focused on the mission, such that my whole life is oriented to getting the mission done. Maybe when I'm on my couch, I'm not looking at a YouTube video learning some unique carpentry skill. But I'm texting somebody. I'm on my phone to text somebody that I've met to say, hey, would you be willing to meet up again? Or hey, I love you. Like I yesterday I realized, like, man, I, you know, I'm going to preach on this. I better actually agree and live a life reflective of this. How about I just start reaching out to some people and saying, hey, I miss you, I love you, I'm thankful for you, how you're doing. And, you know, instead of scrolling, social media, whatever it might be, just stuff that distracts us. The mission is perpetual, it's ever persistent, and it's not periodic. It's not something we shut off and on in the church. A local church doesn't have an evangelistic ministry. That doesn't make any sense. You're the evangelistic ministry of the church. We do we hit the streets on Saturday. Great, you hit the streets on Saturday. Just make sure we have to make sure at this church we never view evangelism as something we have on a calendar or something that we do for a few hours occasionally when a team comes in. But but evangelism is my life. God has set me in this place in this world with the people that I have in my life to be a witness to them. If I don't have any people in my life, I need to ask God where he might send me so that I can be used effectively in reaching souls. Luke 14, 27 through 30, as we just continue reading the context of Luke 14, this is where we find this concept of counting the cost of following the Lord. It says, And whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you intending to build a tower sitteth not down first and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it. Lest happily, after he had laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build and was not able to finish it. Was not able to finish it. One of the things that you and I are gonna have to count is the cost of not only the mission today, like what it's gonna cost me as it's ever present in my life, but what it's gonna cost me to finish my course well for my whole life, realizing that the mission is ever present tomorrow and the next day. Until God takes the church out, my whole life is gonna have this invitation be on mission, evangelize, go reach people, and I've got to carry that burden and count my life not dear to myself. Acts 20 and verses 24 through 26. This is what Paul was able to declare with confidence at the end of his life, but none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy. I mean, I think Acts 20 is a great cross-reference to Luke 14. A man who does not sit down first to count the cost of building that tower to see if he is sufficient to finish it. Well, we look at Paul as a pattern for our life, and we see that he was counting the right things to be true, and not counting his life dear to himself, that he might finish that course, that tower, with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus to testify of the grace of God. And now, behold, I know that ye all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, shall see my face no more. Wherefore I take you record to this day that I am pure from the blood of all men. I'm pure from the blood of the world. I'm pure because I've given my life to the work of evangelism and the ministry. I didn't count this life purposed for me. I didn't go building a tower or a kingdom unto myself. No, I built a tower. I built a tower for the Lord. I lived a course that was reflective of his work in my life. It wasn't about me or what I could get or what I could build or what I could have or what I could obtain just to see it all burned up. I counted my life not dear to myself. I fought a good fight. I finished my course with joy. The question is now, how do we get to the point in our life where we declare plainly, I have finished my course with joy? The reality is, all we can do is worry about today. Even though the mission is tomorrow, if God doesn't take us out, thinking about tomorrow doesn't help me with that. I've got to be on mission today. And as I do the mission before me, right before me today, I just agree with God that I'm going to be on mission today, then sure enough, God leads me into the next day on mission, not procrastinating, and he directs the ship accordingly. And oh, there you have it. I'm in the place that I need to be tomorrow because I did what I needed to today. There's plenty of things that we can worry about today. There's enough today. Enough evils today. Sufficient for today. That I don't need to be thinking about tomorrow. I should plan, I should be a good steward of my time, but all I have is today to be on mission. I've got to go through life realizing that I have to finish my course well, and that's going to cost me something as I consider it up front, especially as a young man, just looking ahead, saying, okay, if God tarries his coming and he doesn't return, I've got a family, I just showed up in St. Louis, what would it look like like for my life to never stop being on mission for the next, I don't know, 50, 60 years, whatever God gives me, ten years. If I only live five years, what is my life gonna look like? If I only, if God only gives me a year, if tomorrow I find out I have some horrible cancer diagnosis and I've only got a year to live, what's my life gonna look like? I've got to use it. I've got to steward that for the Lord and his glory. And I've got today to get on mission. Otherwise, I'm just gonna keep pushing it off. We looked at Matthew 28 and saw that the gospel and the work of the Lord is to go to all nations, but I want you to also see the first part of Matthew 28 that says, Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. I want to just call out something to you, and that is that Matthew 28 does not say, Therefore go ye. Therefore, go ye. It says, Go ye therefore. And that's important because right before this, in verse 17, we find that all authority has been given to the Lord Jesus Christ upon him rising from the dead, and he says right after this, in 19, go ye go ye, therefore, on the basis of that. In other words, in your going, as you go, go ye, therefore based on that, as you go to the store, as you go to your workplace, as you go out, do it on the basis of these things, versus you've been given all authority now on the basis of that, go. There's a difference. One positions evangelism in the ministry as an event that you go do based on the authority God's given. The other is, hey, as you go out, as you're going, therefore do it this way. And I think that language is significant enough to at least call your attention to. It is significant enough to think that this phrase is teaching us the importance of not making evangelism an outreach program or a mission event, but something we do as we go, teaching all nations, baptizing them. It's in our life. It is to all people, in all places, for all time, and that means presently. Meaning, even when I'm not actively pursuing ministry opportunities, they are ever waiting for me to engage in if I'm willing. And so the mission isn't about traveling somewhere in the world, hosting a campaign or a gospel rally. It is living a life of boldness and authenticity, sharing your faith as you go, as you have opportunity. And when you don't, once again, let me just challenge you. If you don't have opportunity as you go, you've got to say, God, give me opportunity, or I'm gonna go and preach for you. You should you should also think about the work of evangelism, but you can't isolate the mission to just something that you do in a little window in your schedule. And so it's not just time-based, though. I want you to see that that the cost of reaching the world is is ever pervading. It's like that odor that fills a room and finds its way into every little crease and crack and and nanny uh and uh what is that, nanny? Crack and you guys know. Crack and you guys there's a word there. Why why am I losing my mind? No? No. Mark knows it. Mark knows it. Pervading, ever consuming, in every place, to every point, to every thought, to every intention, to every quality. God's mission has to fill up everything that we are and do. The disciple indeed isn't distracted by their own agenda or trying to build a tower for themselves. No, this is a tower that looks to the event horizon to project the fruit and the garden to protect the house and the family. It's a tower being built for the mission. The New Testament tells us, as we learned in the book of Ezra, that we are the household of God. The illustration here, by way of contrast, is the Tower of Babel. You begin studying towers in the Bible, you would find a group of people who were told to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, but rather than doing that, they say, No, we're going to build the towers whose top will reach unto heaven, lest we be scattered. Genesis chapter 11 and verse 4, it says, And they said, Go to, let us build a city and a tower whose top may reach into heaven, and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the earth. You think, Well, that kind of seems like a good thing. You know, a big group of people coming together and and and and reaching reaching heaven. Isn't that what we're supposed to do? No, far from it. The very opposite of what we're supposed to do. Genesis 9 in verse 1, God blessed Noah and his sons and said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. And this is the response in Genesis 11 of the people. They say one to another, Go to, let us make brick and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone and slime, had they for mortar. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city, and a tower, towers who top may reach unto heaven, and let us make a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the earth. We want to do the exact opposite of what God told us to do. We want to build a tower for ourselves, and God forbid the church ever does that, and so many churches do. Some big kingdom. They keep growing and growing, they have some mega church, and they just have all these resources, and it's bigger and bigger, it's better. It makes them just enjoy them. It's like, where's the sacrifice in that? And you know, a lot of really big churches, having a big church isn't the issue. Having a big church that's consuming those things upon their lust is the issue. And oh, by the way, having a group of ten people, five people who say, you know what? The church we have here is is awesome and content, and we like doing things our way, and and we're just gonna build this little thing for us. And isn't this awesome? Aren't we great? God's like, No, you you gotta turn your eyes off of yourself. You gotta turn your eyes off yourself. Genesis 11 and verse 6, it goes on, it says, And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have one language, and this they began to do, and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Again, ever pervading. The mission reaching every imagination we have about building a kingdom or a life for ourselves, that we could get what we want. Verse 7, it says, Go to let us now, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from hence upon the face of the earth, and they left off to build the city. God told them to be fruitful and multiply. They say, No, we're gonna build a tower so that we don't do that, and we don't scatter, we don't want to scatter, we want to build some kingdom for ourselves. God says, Fine, I'll scatter you. That is a very similar story that ends up unfolding in the early church. Acts chapter 1 and verse 8, God says, Go take the gospel message from Jerusalem to Judea, to Samaria, to the uttermost parts of the world. And then sure enough, the early church doesn't do that. And by Acts chapter 8, because of persecution, God scatters that group all throughout the world. And so be the first. Obey God. Take the mission that He's given and run with it. You know, if if we don't, if we don't get on mission here, the reality is God will take all of us and our unique stories, and He's going to scatter us. That's what happens if we don't continue to be on mission. And so God restores all of this. In Acts chapter 2, what we find is the thing that he tore apart in Genesis 11 and scattering this group of one language all through the world. By giving of his spirit, he actually lets every man understand speech in their own language. And so by work of the Holy Spirit, he restores this invitation for something to be built again. But it's not a tower that man's building, it's a tower that God's building. It's that heavenly house. And we get to partake in that work of building that tower. It reminds me of Moses, who didn't esteem the riches that were in Egypt, treasures to be grabbed onto and taken and used for his own life. But rather, he esteemed the reproach of Christ greater than the riches in Egypt. You and I have to esteem the mission of God greater than anything that we can get in this world. Anything greater we can get in this world. And the way that we build the tower that God's called us to build is by going out and gathering costly stones. Costly stones. If you're to do a word study on costly, if you remember, our cost of discipleship series has come and formed out of word studies pertaining to ideas about purchasing, counting, reckoning, reconciling, reconpense, costly, purchase, price. If you just do a bunch of word studies on that idea of finance or economy, you're gonna find that they kind of break into these four categories of worship. You know, the word of God, the work of God, and the world of God. And here and in 1 Kings 5, we learn about that temple ministry and the building project that God's put before Israel and the type that's then reconsidered in the New Testament in the church, and we see the stones that made up that temple in the physical Old Testament temple described as costly, costly stones. Now we are lively stones, as 1 Peter says. But 1 Kings chapter 5 and verse 19 says, And the king commanded, and they brought great stones, costly stones, and hewn stones, to lay the foundation of the house. Two chapters later in verses nine through eleven it says, And all these were costly stones, according to the measure of hewn stones, saws with sawed with saws, within and without, even from the foundation under the the copying, and so on, the outside toward the great court, and the foundation was of costly stones, even great stones, stones of ten cubits, and stones of eight cubits, and above were costly stones after the measure of the hewn stones of cedar. My only point to you here is that in the Old Testament, when you think about the physical temple, the way that that temple was going to build be built was through costly stones, which were then copied. And in the New Testament, that that's from verse 9, just to call your attention to the text of 1 Kings chapter 7, even the foundation under the copying. And so too in the New Testament, there are some costly stones that make up God's spiritual household in the heavens, and those costly stones are to be copied. They're to be copied. I just want to give you some concluding thoughts here as we close our time this morning, and that is to become a true disciple, as you see on your handout, to become a true disciple of the Lord, to worship, to grow in the Word, to serve in the Word, to go out through the world. It's gonna cost us everything. And we should consider that invitation a reasonable service and a great privilege. When you think about the mission of God, it just seems so overwhelming and so big, so hard to get our heads around. And we say something like, you know, it's gonna cost us everything, and we we think, man, I don't that just sounds discouraging. It's gonna cost me everything. Yes, it it is, and and that should be a reasonable thought to you, considering what Christ has done, as Romans chapter 12 and verse 2 says. It's our reasonable service to lay down our life, a living sacrifice. But not only reasonable, I'm trying to convince you in the closing of this series that the counting the cost of discipleship, as Paul said at the end of his life and finishing his cour course, was a great joy. It's a great privilege to give up everything for God. Because in giving up everything, as Paul said in Philippians chapter three, and counting all things loss, or but as dung for the excellency of Christ, you know what he gets? The prize of his high calling in Christ Jesus. And that's a better thing. He gets the wisdom of God, that's a better thing. He gets the church of God, and the charity that comes with a group of people humbling themselves, being bound together by those those cords of love. That's a better thing than anything this world can give you. And he gets to be invited into the mission to partner with the Holy Spirit to go into places he would never get to go to otherwise and see God move and lives of people in a supernatural way. There's no greater thing in life. There's no house, car, career, piece of apparel, piece of jewelry, investment you can make, buy, create, build. No art project, no there's nothing. I mean, there's there's nothing in this world better than partnering with God and fellowshipping with Him in a life on mission. It's just so rewarding. It's hard, it's difficult, it's filled with suffering and pain sometimes, but it's worth it, isn't it? For those of you that have been able to see God move in your life or used you in some way to minister to someone, and you see somebody's eyes open up and they get excited about the Word of God, there is nothing better than that. It fills your soul and satisfies your soul in a way that is unfamiliar and yet rewarding. And I think what's even more glorious about the promises of God's Word is that there are invisible things that God's doing now that He's going to manifest in the time to come that we haven't seen yet, that will help put everything so far in contrast from the suffering of this world that we wouldn't even compare it to the glory that will be revealed in us. It's going to be awesome if we're willing to purchase those costly stones. Let's pray. Father, we love you and thank you for your word.