Well tonight we kick off our fall vision series. We do this every single year

if you're new to Bridgetown. We take a few weeks in the fall as kind of feels

like a new year a little bit and the climate of our city to just recenter on

what exactly we mean by practicing the way of Jesus together in Portland.

Have you ever turned down an invitation and then later regretted it or

miss an opportunity and later kind of kicked yourself for it? What was I thinking?

Because in the moment the cost was just a little bit too high. Life as we all know

is full of invitations. Take a job in another city to marry this person which

means not another person to go here to go there to start a business to stick it

out in your job whatever to end a relationship to start one whatever it is.

So the experience of receiving an invitation that comes at a high cost and

having to make a decision either yes or no is familiar to the human condition.

And as we all know it's especially hard when those decisions have the

potential to shape the trajectory of our life for decades to come or longer.

Now we just read two invitations of Jesus. The first was a general invitation

whoever wants to be my disciple come after me follow me. The second was a very

specific invitation to a wealthy young aristocrat. Sell everything you have, give it

to the poor and then come and follow me. Now in a little bit I want to circle back

to both invitations but for now notice that what the two invitations have in

common they are not invitations to rearrange the mental furniture in the

house of our mind and go to heaven when we die and in the meantime enjoy living

in Portland and just I don't know be nice which is what a lot of people think it

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