Now the dinner scenes in the movies were shot in the hall of Oxford’s King’s College. But many of the colleges at Oxford have similar rooms. The beams might be two feet square and forty-five feet long.

One of the last of the Oxford colleges to be established was the appropriately named New College. It was built in the mid to late 1300s. That’s pretty new by Oxford standards. But it would be on the older side around here.

According to a story, repairmen investigating the New College dining hall beams in the 1800s found that they had become infested by deathwatch beetles. The problem was reported to the College Council, who met in some dismay, because where would they get beams of that caliber nowadays?

One of the Junior Fellows stuck his neck out and suggested that there might be on College lands some oak. These colleges are endowed with pieces of land scattered across the country. So they called in the College Forester, who had not been near the college itself for some years and asked him about oaks.

He said, “We were wondering when you’d be asking.”

He said that when the College was founded, a grove of oaks had been planted in Buckinghamshire to replace the beams in the dining hall when they became beetly after 500 years because oak beams always become beetly in the end. This plan had been passed down from one Forester to the next. “You don’t cut them oaks. Them’s for the College Hall.” Five hundred years later, the trees were ready and waiting.

I don’t know if that’s a true story. The web site for New College calls it a “hoary tale” and nonsense. I thing they’re just embarrassed that they didn’t replant the acorns when they cut down the trees in 1862.

It should be true. It is such a wonderful example of thinking ahead. It’s a great example of the kind of advance planning Jesus commends in Luke 14.

Right now we are talking about planning for the future – not the five hundred year’s from now future but the year or two from now future. Specifically, we are looking at the opportunity we have to move toward the construction of our sanctuary.

The need for this has been well covered in letters, special events and by our speakers last Sunday. Therefore, rather than talk about facts and figures I would like to share some insights from Jesus that teach us the basis for our stewardship decisions.

Luke 14:27-35

Jesus is very direct in this passage. He tells two parables about choice. First is the Parable of the Uncompleted Tower – a parable about planning ahead.

In Jesus' day a tower was built in a field to guard against those who would loot and pillage Jesus says, if someone starts to build a tower and has to stop work, they will be laughed at for their failure to calculate the cost.

Jesus tells us to stop and carefully consider what it means to be His disciples -- to count the cost.

Luke tells us that great crowds are traveling with Jesus. People mob Him wherever He goes. They jam the streets. They climb trees to see Him over the garden of heads. They drop sick people through ceilings to get through to Him. Everywhere He goes, He makes news.

But when Jesus begins to teach, He scans the crowd for someone who will take Him seriously as more than a wonder worker or a miracle man. He is searching eyes and searching hearts for those who want something more than a guarantee of their next meal or the promise of a day's entertainment.

So, Jesus issues a call for higher commitment. He speaks hard words about choosing. These are difficult words. They are demanding words. And that's exactly what Jesus intends. He wants to separate the looky loos from the serious buyers, the spectators from the contenders, the casual from the committed.

So Jesus tells us to count the cost of following Him. He warns us to consider if we are able to pay the price of true discipleship.

Over the past few months I have read a lot of application for this congregation into this parable of the uncompleted tower. I have brooded on this parable and its warning. I have looked at the cost of building, and I have looked at our income, and I have wondered what will happen.

I confess that those thoughts are both unhealthy and unnecessary. They grow out of my sinful desire to have resources stockpiled and guaranteed so I don't have to trust God quite so much. I have needed to learn again the lessons of scripture -- that God sometimes calls us to step out in faith before He will act.

In 2 Timothy 4:2, Paul uses an interesting phrase -- "that we are to be "ready in season and out of season.” In other words, actions of faith do not always have to be in season. If we make decisions only on the basis of charts and economic indicators, then we are doing nothing that the rest of the world could not do equally well. If that is all our faith consists of, then the world has every right to repudiate us because we are not the faithful church of Jesus Christ. If we knew were every dollar for this project was going to come from, then we would be doing nothing that requires faith. We would have attempted too little for God.

I know that God will provide the resources. In fact, He has already provided what we need and more. We have grown well over the past few years. Moorpark has the highest median household income in the County. We haven't been irresponsible in what we have built. We have squeezed each nickel ‘til the buffalo barked. We do have the resources as a congregation to finish the tower. The question is, what will we choose to do?

A while back I shared a cartoon where a man comes out of church, shakes the pastor's hand and says: “I'm glad you said ‘I don't know where we're going to get the money for the new building.' For a while there, I was afraid you thought you were going to get it from us.” Well, guess what! I know where we're going to have to get the money for our shared ministry to continue to grow in strength.

Here at Moorpark Presbyterian we practice what is called a faith budget. But faith budget does not mean "faith in God-- that somehow He'll provide. Faith budget means faith in you as God's people -- that He will provide through you as a joyful outgrowth of your love and commitment to your Lord.

We don't have any wealthy persons in our congregation to make up a deficit for even one month in meeting our obligations. This church does not have one penny of endowment or bequests. The spiritual vitality of Moorpark Presbyterian Church is made up of people like you and me who love Jesus Christ, who take the biblical challenge to give and serve seriously, and are finding the total enrichment of life which comes when this giving follows God's call.

This building fund is a three year commitment over and above the operating budget.

What do you believe God can do in your life in the next three years? Do you have a certificate of deposit that will mature in this period of time? Maybe Christ is asking you to share it in the work of His kingdom. Do you have some stocks that could do better in serving Christ than they are doing now in the stock market? Maybe you can give a helpful upfront gift this spring and then make a pledge over the remaining three years. The possibilities are endless. All it takes is creativity, a willing heart, an open hand, and confidence in God's faithfulness.

We are a people involved in a strategy. It is a strategy for others. Our strategy must not be reduced to a painful process of paying for a building. The strategy is to be a Christ-centered church dedicated to leading men, women, and children to personal faith in Jesus Christ, building them up in their faith, and deploying ourselves in servant ministries to others.

We have certainly been aware of the hand of God moving in and through us in the past. I am excited as we see another opportunity to respond. Psalm 127 states that it is the Lord who must build the house. And the Lord will build the house through the sacrificial, loving gifts of His people.

As we are now in the midst of our building fund campaign, do you have a vision to grow towards wholeness in Jesus Christ in intellectual physical, spiritual, and social balance? Is that vision larger than your own individual life? Are you willing for your church to break beyond the boundaries of a maintenance ministry, to implement corporately the growth of which we've talked about individually?

Does Jesus Christ really make a difference in your life enough so that you want to share Him with others? Do you really believe that He is “the way, the truth, and the life.” Will you make room?

The building program in which we are now involved is absolutely essential to carry out the vision God has given us. We simply don't have the facilities needed to house a growing church family and a growing program

We also want our ministry to have integrity. I've known churches that have become "bricks and mortar poor.” They owe so much money and are paying such high interest that they can't maintain the essential quality of local program. Or if they do carry on locally, they aren't doing the job Christ tells us to do in world missions. Your church has an annual budget this year of about $470,000. In the course of this year, you will give approximately 15% of that to missions beyond our own local congregation. That's exciting. We can't mortgage these ministries to build a building. And it would be pointless to pledge to the building fund by reducing our giving to the operating budget.

In this room, in the two services we'll have this morning, are the people who have the financial resources to build the physical plant needed to house the growing family of God here at Moorpark Presbyterian. But without sacrificial giving this building program will not happen. The question is not whether or not we have the resources. The question is whether or not we are willing to invest the resources that God has given to each of us to make this happen. If you give without sacrifice, you as a person will remain just the way you are, and so will your church.

So Jesus tells the first parable, The Uncompleted Tower, about the need to count the cost. Then Jesus tells the second parable of the Warring King. This is similar to the first parable but with an important difference.

You see, the builder of the tower is free to build or not build as he chooses. But the king is being invaded. He is not free to do nothing. He must respond.

In the first parable Jesus asks: "Can you afford to follow Me?

Now, in this second Jesus He asks "Can you afford to not follow Me? Can you resist my claims? Can you afford to build your life on anything else but My word? Have you also counted that cost? Do you have what it takes to stand on your own when the storm comes? Or should you make peace with God right now and follow Me?

Once again, Jesus is very direct. He is not, of course, trying to discourage discipleship. But He is warning against half-hearted allegiance in order that we can know the joy of the real thing. We are to count the cost and give ourselves away for His sake so that we can experience the joy and the exhilaration of full-blooded discipleship.

Jesus tells us to sit down to choose. And then He also tells us to stand up and act. He tells us in verse 27 to “take up our cross and follow after Him.”

What does it mean to take up your cross?

Contrary to popular usage, bearing your cross has nothing to with having your mother-in-law move in or in having neighbor kids who are "just a cross I have to bear." When a Jew saw a person in the street with a cross on his shoulder, he knew what was going to happen. He knew that that person was on his way to die.

That is what it means to bear our cross -- to say farewell to our own lives -- to turn ourselves over lock, stock and barrel to Jesus.

Jesus then says in verse 33 that taking up our cross partly means a new attitude toward money and what it can buy. "So, therefore, no one of you can be my disciple who does not say farewell to all his own possessions.'

Here Jesus calls us to a new attitude toward what we used to call "ours. He is saying that we must stop calling it our own. Money may still be in our pockets or drawing interest in an account that bears our name. But it is no longer our money. It is God's money and we are his stewards for its proper use. God says that “10% off the top is mine.” That’s the biblical standard. We may be given the use of things but Jesus says we must no longer claim them as our own.

God doesn’t despise riches. In fact, He gives them to us. What he despises is the misuse of them. He rewards stewardship.

Your congregational leadership has carefully calculated the cost of this building effort. That’s part of our responsibility to you. We hope you will give equal consideration of how God can work in your life.

Every time a person enters into a building project, they get competitive bids. Have you considered the competitive bids on your life and how they will stack up for eternity? The rewards of the Christian life all lie on the further side of the half-way line. Jesus wants us to cross the line because He is looking for disciples --not tourists.

I know who the people are who feel the most convicted by this challenge. It's those who already give generously. In many churches, one fifth of the congregation accounts for four fifths of the giving. This is not because these people have greater financial resources. They probably don't. It's because they are farther along in this crucial part of the discovery of God and the discovery of themselves.

God has always wanted our lives and not our money. The prophet Micah asks the rhetorical questions, "What shall I bring to the Lord, the God of heaven, when I come to worship Him? Shall I bring the best calves to burn as offerings to him? Will the Lord be pleased if I bring Him hundreds of sheep or endless streams of olive oil? Shall I offer Him my first born child to pay for my sins? No, the Lord has told us what is good. What He requires of us is this: to do what is just, to show constant love, and to live in humble fellowship with our God.”

God does not want your money without having you. But if He has you, He will also have your money and your time and your talents. It could be said fancier but I don't think it could be said more plainly.

During his presidency, Abraham Lincoln regularly attended worship services at New York Avenue Presbyterian church in Washington D.C. The pastor was Dr. Phineas Gurley, an articulate and impressive preacher.

Walking back to the White House from church, an aide asked President Lincoln about Dr. Gurley's sermon. The President replied in fragmented phrases: “The content was excellent -- he delivered it with eloquence -- he had put work into the message. …”

“Then you thought it was a great sermon?” asked the aide. “No,” replied the President. “Dr. Gurley forgot the most important ingredient. He forgot to ask us to do something great.”

Well, as you consider your pledge this week, I'm asking you to do something great for the kingdom, something great for Christ, and something great for yourself. Invest in eternity as God calls you.

I believe that God has opened a door for us in this East County and that no one will be able to shut it. However, we have the choice to walk through the door or to pull back from it. Jesus is calling us to walk through it.