Intown Community Church Sermons
Follow Me: Are You Ready for Jesus' Calling?
- It's a real joy to be here, thank you, Steve. And thank you, Pastor Luke, for really choking me up with all that worship wherever you meant. I'll pay you back for that later. It's a joy to be among God's people and to open God's word and I understand we're gonna make reading scripture a distinct part. So, Donald, would you read scripture? The passage is Luke chapter five versus one through 11, which I'll be preaching from here in a moment. So, if you would, give your attention to the reading of God's word. And in case, Senator, what about this person did not know that you're the word of God? - Geneserate, and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, he asked him to put out a little from the land, and he sat down and taught the people from the boat. And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch." And Simon answered, "Master, we toiled all night and took nothing, but at your word, I will let down the nets." And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish and their nets were breaking. They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken. And so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid. From now on, you will be catching men." And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him. This is the word of the Lord. - Hey, Father, thank you so much that you were here with us as we've been reminded this morning. Thank you for being everything that we could ever want and word desire for filling us with your spirit, for your word that you've revealed to us and passed down through generations. We thank you, Father, for the people that have gone before us, those that are gathered in heaven. We pray, Father, that you would continue that end gathering today as we look at your word. We ask, Father, that you would find our hearts, the words of our heart and the meditations of our minds to be an acceptable sacrifice to you. And Lord, we pray, we pray for the sins of the preacher that you would forgive them for they are many. We would see Jesus. We really want to see Jesus. And we pray that in his name. Amen. So all of us are following someone or something. Every one of us, whether it's a follower on social media or literally someone you're following in Atlanta traffic, we all know about that, right? You're always following somebody, everybody is. So the question is, where are they taking you? Where are you going? I asked that question of everybody here, whether you could be here, you could be watching online. This could be the first time you've ever heard a sermon in a Christian church. You may be wondering, or you may not even be sure that you think Jesus is a real person. But we're gonna talk today about Jesus' command to his followers to follow him. And I think it's appropriate for everyone to ask that question, to kind of investigate, what is it that I'm following, where is it taking me, and how is it changing my life? One thing that I do follow often on are TED Talks. Anybody in here ever heard of TED Talk before? Yep, trying to get you guys to be with me. The fun of the fair has now moved in here. And if you're munching your popcorn, I totally understand. TED Talks are often insightful and oftentimes funny. One that really struck me is actually about following. It's called First Follower. How to start a movement? Derek Severs, or Sivers, is the speaker. And in that TED Talk, he uses an illustration of a bunch of young people at a music festival and how one person is a leader of a movement and how critical it is the first follower. Now, I am not gonna demonstrate for you what was going on at the music festival, but just to give you the scenario, there's a group of people who have zoomed in their camera on one guy who's dancing like an idiot. I mean, he looks really foolish. He's all off by himself in a grassy area. And everyone's kind of chuckling at him. And the person makes the point when you're a leader, sometimes you, it's lonely out there. You have to face some criticism. And then all of a sudden, one other guy rushes out there and begins dancing like a fool like him. And all of a sudden, it's a different dynamic. He has a first follower. And this first follower is acknowledged by the leader. And then they begin to dance together. And then the first follower begins to invite his friends. And the next thing you know, within a three minute time period in this video, it goes from one person dancing like a fool to hundreds dancing like a fool. So we're all following someone. We all wanna be a part of the movement of Jesus, at least those of us that follow Jesus. So how is his, how are we following him? And how does that change who we are and what we're doing? If you would look at the text with me, I'm gonna read through this bit by bit and just draw some applications for us about what it means for us to follow Jesus. Look at verses one through three. It tells us, challenges us a little bit about what it means to follow Jesus specifically. First one says on one occasion, while the crowd was passing in on him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Ganesirah, which is the Sea of Galilee. And he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, now Simon was literally one of Jesus' first followers. He asked him to put out a little from the land and he sat down and taught the people from the boat. Now, what does this teach us about following Jesus? If you wanna do a quick look back at John chapter one, you see that when Jesus had first followers, he initially called them by saying to them, just come and see, that was the initial request. Come and see, and then he asked them to follow me. And then this story that we're looking at today, it follows along not long after that, but certainly after they had begun to follow Jesus in a more serious way. And how do we know that? Because these followers of Jesus who were hungry and searching for truth and doubting what they'd been told and were very curious, they reorganized their lives to follow Jesus, who Jesus was and what he was doing reordered their lives. They rearranged their work schedule to prioritize time with Jesus. They rearranged the way that they did business so that they could actually listen to Jesus while he was teaching. They made themselves available to Jesus priorities, not making Jesus fit into their priorities. A couple of three weeks ago, my wife and I had a deck installed on the back of her house. It was way overdue. And we hired a couple of guys, James and Daniel, they're both local firefighters. And James and Daniel, on several of the days that they showed up, they came after doing a 24-hour shift and basically being up all night at the station. They caught a couple hours of sleep and they wrapped our house by 9 a.m. to build a deck in the hot August Atlanta heat. Why would they do that? Why would they do that? They had different priorities. They had things that were more valuable to them than sleep or what was easy. They were committed to something. They reorganized their lives to follow Jesus. And so I asked you, I forgot the clicker, they reorganized their life around something that was important to them, providing for their family. Now for us, what are we doing to reorganize our life around Jesus? What about you and me? What's so important to us? Oh, you guys did it for me, thank you. All right, I'm gonna put this down, this is really disorienting, so thank you very much for handling that for me. What do we do to reorganize our lives to follow Jesus? It's a great question. Look at verse four and five. When Jesus had finished speaking, he said to Simon, put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. And Simon answered, "Master, we've toiled all night and took nothing." Now, in my spirit induced imagination, I'm pretty sure there was a long pause right there. 'Cause what does Jesus know about fishing? He's a carpenter, he's a stone mason. Why is he giving them advice? And I'm, again, this is my imagination. I'm thinking Peter might've been thinking in his head. Seriously? I've been up all night. I've already reorganized my life. According to your priorities and your time schedule, I've been up all night, I've caught nothing, the crews, we cleaned up, we're ready to go home. This is gonna be a waste of my time and a waste of my money and the crew is gonna be upset and all these other fishermen that see me, they're gonna think, I'm crazy. The potential for embarrassment was significant. Here's the thing about following Jesus. You don't have to agree with everything that Jesus tells you to do. You can battle, doubt, and trust in Jesus at the same time. Pastor Steve talked about that last week, right? It's not wrong if you don't completely sync up with everything that Jesus says to do in order to follow him. It's not wrong to feel attention or have conflicting feelings about Jesus. But in the end, this didn't stop there. Master, we 12 all night and took nothing. But at your word, I will let down the nets. This is the second thing that I want you to notice is that the disciples responded obediently to Jesus' instructions even when it was inconvenient, was gonna cost the money, it was potentially embarrassing. And in many cases, followers of Jesus simply have to choose. To obey what Jesus says. It's like that throughout the story of the Bible. Abraham had to choose to obey when his son Isaac, when God told him to go sacrifice his son Isaac. That's crazy. Job had to obey when he'd lost all of his children and all of his wealth and his health. Daniel had to obey at the threat of lions, Shadrach, Neschach and Abednego had to obey rather than bend the knee. This brings us just to a realization that the things that Jesus asked us to do sometimes can have the potential to ruin us. So let me ask you this question. What do you choose when you have doubts about Jesus' commands and instructions? Do you lean into what you know and what your experiences taught you or do you lean into his wisdom and what he says to do? Let's look at what happened in verse six. And when they'd done this, when they'd obeyed, they'd closed a large number of fish and their nets were breaking. They signaled to their partners in the other boat 'cause they were way out in the deep to come and help them. And that boat came and they filled both boats so that they were beginning to sink. And they look at verse nine. And he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken. And so were James and John, other first followers of Jesus who were partners with Simon. They had an amazing experience when they obeyed Jesus. It's not the first time they followed Jesus, but in the progress of them being disciples, there was a point at which something happened that really turned Simon Peter's heart upside down. Now, these followers, they've seen Jesus do other miracles. They were there when he turned water into wine, how he escaped an angry crowd in Nazareth. He healed a man with a demon possession. He'd even healed other people and Peter's mother-in-law. But this was different. Have you ever won a big prize that was totally unexpected? Now, I'm gonna make an analogy here, bear with me. It's like winning the lottery. Okay, now please don't send Pastor Jimmy a long single space email about what a rotten illustration that was. Spare him the trouble, but it's like that. They did something really small in comparison. And they had this enormous catch of fish. It was a miraculous catch of fish. Jesus had directed them. Jesus had directed the fish into the net. I don't know exactly how it happened. And if I were them, I would have responded like I'd won the lottery that I'd ever played. I would think I'm rich. Look at all these fish we can sell. We might be able to get another boat. We might be able to take other people, go out and Jesus can go with us and we're gonna make bank. This is gonna be great, but that is not at all what happened with Peter. The miracle confronted him right where he lived and worked. It ruined him. It ruined his identity. His own identity that he had constructed for himself. It ruined him in the sense that his ability was shaken. His identity was shaken. His drive to provide for himself and his family was shaken. It hit him quite frankly in the wallet, which we all keep right close to our heart. This picked Peter up metaphorically and shook him to the point that he was trembling with fear. It turned out in Peter's experience in that moment, as things were unfolding, that Jesus was more than a teacher. He was more than a rabbi. He was worthy of worship. And Peter sees Jesus for who he is. He sees Jesus for who he is. And at the same time as that happens, he feels deeply his own sense of shame and unworthiness and he is undone. He's repulsed and drawn to Jesus at the same time. He begins to kind of babble. He's not even making sense. He says to Jesus who's in a boat, depart from me. As if, what does he think Jesus is gonna do? Just lift off into the air? I don't know. His whole understanding of who Jesus is has been turned upside down. He sees with awe and fear that he's not making sense. He's feeling unworthy. He is undone and Jesus' presence is convicting. It's convicting of who Jesus really is and who Peter really is, who we are. He says, "I am a sinful man, O Lord." At that point, it was no longer possible to not respond. And Peter did the only thing that he could do. He repented. He repented when he was confronted with Jesus' rightful identity. Do you see that? Do you feel that in the idea of being a disciple? Do you have the sense of who Jesus really is and who you really are before him? How do you know if you're following Jesus? How do you know if you're repenting? How do you know if you see Jesus' rightful identity? Well, there's a reaction of worship and fear and awe and trembling and reverence. What there is not is grumbling and scoffing and hatred and selfish pushback. Being a disciple of Jesus means that we have a moment or many moments throughout our lives when we see our own shame. When we feel the anxiety and the struggle that we are unable to resolve on our own, the heaviest burdens that we cannot bear ourselves and then we turn to Jesus and we see him for who he is, the second person of the Trinity, come to earth to live the life that we should have to die the death that we deserved and then to be raised again on the third day. So these first followers of Jesus, they were reorganizing their life. They responded with obedience. They were pented when confronted with Jesus' rightful identity. I just want to pause and note for some of you that maybe walking in a sense of shame and anxiety, maybe you've walked in it for a long time, maybe you're battling it even today, maybe you're struggling, maybe you feel captive to anxiety and fear. I want you to notice that Jesus attends to Peter. The next thing that happens in verse 10 in the second half, Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid." In essence, he's saying, "I've got this. "Have courage, Peter. "Have faith in me. "Peter's undone. "He's trembling in fear. "I imagine that Jesus would have put his hand on his shoulder. "I imagine that Peter was looking down. "I mean, when you're ashamed, "you do nothing but look down." And Peter's looking down into the bottom of a stinky fishing boat. And Jesus lifts his head up and says, "Do not be afraid." Jesus comforts those that are struggling with sin and shame and anxiety. He does something about it. But I also want you to note that in the same sentence, what Jesus does not say to Peter. He does not say, "Now, Peter, we're going to take the boat back "and you can go home and you can work on this for a few years "or a few decades until you get it all worked out on your own. "And then maybe I'll swing back by and pick you up "and take you on as a disciple." Listen to what Jesus says. Jesus was kind, but he was also, he had somewhere to go. And he invited Peter. The next words out of his mouth are, "From now on, "you will be catching men. "From now on, you are a disciple making disciples." In that moment where Simon Peter's view changed and he was shook, God calls him to be a disciple and make disciples in the same sentence. He says it directly to Peter, specifically to him, "Your life is mine, your assets are mine. "You belong to me and I've got you. "What you were in the past doesn't matter. "From now on, you will be catching men." Now that's kind of a curious statement, catching men. What does that mean? Well, it's a huge contrast. Because Peter had been catching fish in order to kill them or sell them in order to just have a life. And Jesus is saying, "Oh no, from now on, "you're gonna catch men. "You're not gonna be involved in the business "that just causes you to subsist "and for other people to be fed "and for you to survive by eating the fish. "You're going to be a part of a movement of life. "You're gonna be a part of the rescue mission." And Jesus invites us, like he invites Peter, into his task that the Father has given him. It's an invitation. It's an invitation with enormous consequences. Yes, the consequence, I mean, the invitation is made to flawed people. Yes, Peter did not perform perfectly as a disciple from that point on, but he's with Jesus. So verse 11, look at what they did. And when they brought the boats to land, or another translation said, they ran the boats into land and they left everything and followed him. They left everything. This rich cash of the lottery winnings that they'd just come to get. They left their boats, their capital, their investments. They left their family and they followed Jesus. Why? Because Jesus is worth following. Because Jesus is worthy of everything. Jesus was inviting Peter to act on what he knew about Jesus and to be invited into the mission of Jesus, which is making other disciples catching men. And they said yes. Emphatically, they ran their boats into the ground and they left everything and followed Jesus. It's a funny thing about saying yes. I said yes to Elizabeth, my wife, 37 years ago, down the street at Westminster Presbyterian, I said yes to her and in saying yes to her, I said no to millions. I mean, that wasn't a long line, but you know, my yes has built in no to millions. And when she said yes to me, she was saying no to millions. And when you say yes to Jesus, you're saying no to millions of other things. You're saying no to other gods, to other teachers, to other rabbis, to other aspirations and goals and comfort and ease. You are saying yes to Jesus who, and he is totally and absolutely worth it. He's telling us to say yes to following him. So I want to circle back to the first question. Who are you following? Where are they taking you? How is it changing you? You say yes to Jesus, are you following Jesus? Where is Jesus taking you? Well, Jesus is taking you somewhere very specific, but he's not going to make you go somewhere. Let me say it this way. There's one place where he's not gonna ask you to follow him. That one place is to the cross. Jesus is not gonna ask you to save yourself. He's already saved you. There's one place you cannot go. He's already been to death. He's conquered death, he's conquered sin, and he's come back. And now we have the rest of our lives to run after him. To run after the one who is cheering us from heaven even now, interceding for us at the right hand of God. You have a race to run as a disciple who's making disciples. Jesus endured the cross despising the shame so that he could cheer you on in this race. So, what do you need to rearrange in your life? How do you need to respond obediently to something that Jesus is specifically asking of you? In what way do you need to repent and turn, focus on Jesus, and in what way do you need to run after him? Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for your word. Your word that teaches us, for your spirit that convicts us. I pray, Father, for all of us in the room, myself included, and those who are listening somewhere else, that we would respond as your first followers did, that we would be faithful to follow after you in the grace and in the faith that you have given us through Jesus. We commit ourselves to you in a new way and in a fresh way. Many of us in this room have followed you for decades, some of us for only months and some are still considering it. Would you work in our hearts? Would you prompt us to say yes to you over and over and over again? For you are worthy. You are worthy. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.