The Rest of Your Life! Luke 5:1-11
Introduction
Two Texans were trying to impress each other with the size of their ranches. One asked the other, “What’s the name of your ranch?” He replied, “The Rocking R, ABC, Flying W Circle C, Bar U, Staple Four, Box D, Rolling M, Rainbow’s End, Silver Spur Ranch.” The questioner was much impressed and exclaimed, “Whew! That’s sure some name! How many head of cattle do you run?” The rancher answered, “Not many. Very few survive the branding.”
Transition
You and I have been branded in a sense; marked; called by God to be disciples of Jesus Christ. Some initiations are more difficult than others. In today’s text we read the account of Peter and James and John, the sons of Zebedee, leaving all to follow after Jesus Christ; to be his disciples; learners of the master of mercy.
The call to follow Jesus was a call to follow Him for the rest of their life. The rest of their lives would be characterized by that calling. Every aspect of the rest of their lives would be affected – consumed – by that calling.
Central Thesis: You and I have received no lesser a calling as disciples of Jesus. You and I have received no lesser a “branding” as followers of Yeshua Meshiak, Jesus the Christ; the long awaited Messiah; savior of the world.
Thesis Statement: The calling to follow Jesus is an all consuming, all encompassing, call which rightly consumes all of and the rest of our lives!
Exposition
Among those whom Jesus called to be His disciples was a tax collector (despised by his countrymen), fishermen (tradesmen who did not poses a particularly high level of education or position in society), a political zealot (a man’s whose chief priorities were on the politics of his day), and common ordinary folk. This is the account of the calling of the first disciples.
In the case of every disciple, as in ours, it is Jesus who beckons ordinary people unto the extraordinary life of following after the master of mercy; God incarnate, the compassion of eternity veiled in human flesh; Jesus our Lord.
In a day when people long to find meaning for their lives, the follower of Jesus Christ needs to have no such longing; our lives are inherently meaningful, if we would allow the light of Christ to shine in us. Our lives have purpose; to bask in and share the incredible love of Christ with the world around us.
The great purpose of the Christian life is rooted in the blessed hope that we have received. This is the very same blessed hope of the disciples after they witnessed the resurrection of Jesus and they were transformed from a band of ordinary people into a band of ordinary people with an extraordinary mission and power.
The same empowerment for the extraordinary life which the disciples lived is available for us. They were ordinary people, used by an amazing God in extraordinary ways. The same can be said of us, if we let go of our reservations, our comforts, and, like the disciples, leave our nets to follow Jesus.
This doesn’t mean that we have to trade in our sneakers, tennis shoes, work boots, or dress shoes for sandals literally. It means that we apply these principals in the “here and now” circumstances of wherever the Lord has placed us.
Consider the example of Peter from this text. The Bible says that after Jesus had spoken to a large crowd which had gathered near the Lake of Gennesaret (that is the Sea of Galilee as it was sometimes called in reference to the fertile area along its northern shores) that He told Peter and his fellow fisherman to cast their nets into the deep water for a catch.
The Bible says that Peter tells Jesus that they had been working all night and not caught any fish. He goes on to say that even though it was not peek fishing conditions and even though he was skeptical about a good catch, he would do it.
In verse 6 it says that “When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break.” (Luke 5:6 NIV)
Principal #1 from Peter’s response to the Lord’s instruction: It is not past experience, our own knowledge or wisdom, or even our combined knowledge or wisdom which produces results in the Christian life; often it is little more than a willingness to try and obedience to the Lord! How many great works of God have gone undone because of the lack of willingness to trust God and try?
Peter didn’t believe that it was worthwhile even to cast the nets. He and his companions had been working all night and they had caught nothing! Yet, he trusted the words of Jesus, tried, and God brought a great catch.
This same principal when applied to our lives holds the key for us, disciples of Jesus, ordinary people, to experience the extraordinary power of God in our lives!
What might we accomplish for God in our lives if we were willing to trust God and try? Who can measure the might of what God can do in the life of His Church and in the life of each one individually, when we let go of failures, disappointments, lean not on our own understanding and try; trusting Him with the results!
This is what the Apostle Paul is saying when he writes, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:10-14 NIV)
We must have a willingness to try; a willingness to try something new for God, something old and tested, something we’ve never heard of, something from His word, we must, we must, be willing to listen to Jesus and try.
He has called ordinary people to do the extraordinary by faith, through His power.
Principal #2 is found in Peter’s response to the Lord’s miracle: “When Simon Peter saw this [all of these fish], he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, ‘Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!" (Luke 5:8 NIV)
While one would expect that Peter would have responded in gratitude, he responds in penitence. Why? Peter and his companions had been fishing all night and they had caught nothing. One might assume that the best response would be, “Thank you Jesus for showing me where the fish were.”
However, there is something far greater at work here in this passage of Scripture. When Jesus first addresses Jesus he says, “Master” in Greek, epistatace, teacher. After this miraculous catch of fish Peter falls to his knees in humility and cries our Lord!, kyurios!, Supreme Lord!
After the miracle Peter recognizes that he is in the presence of deity. Later in the gospel account we will see that Peter is the first to confess Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. Standing in the presence of His God, peter is overwhelmed!
He is as overcome by the majesty of Christ as was the prophet Isaiah in the presence of Yahweh, God. The right response and necessary prerequisite to be used by God is to admit our own inability and sin, so that we can depend on God.
Necessary to total dependence upon God is recognition of His awesome worth and my total and absolute need for His grace, His power, and His leading
How many Christians and the churches that contain them fail to do great things for God for a lack of dependence upon God, which is rooted in an unwillingness to surrender to God?! How many Christians fail to realize the peace of God because they do not have peace with God which comes through repentance?!
Dependence upon God and repentance to God go hand in hand for believers.
Application
God has called ordinary people like us into the extraordinary life of following Jesus. He is calling us to cast our nets into the deep waters of this world so that we might reap a great harvest of souls for the Kingdom of God. The miracle of the great harvest of fish was used for the calling of the first disciples but it also pointed to their ultimate mission and the ultimate mission of the Church.
But you say, “Pastor, I am neither trained nor equipped to do the work of an evangelist. I’m not at all comfortable with that. I don’t feel like God is even leading me to preach to people in my life and certainly not to people on the street.” The Lord has given us all something far greater than the words we say.
People are far more interested in the life we live than the words we say.
“Being an extrovert isn’t essential to evangelism—obedience and love are.” (Rebecca Manley Pippert) The greatest sermon ever preached is the life which one lives. The greatest testimony to the power of God is a transformed life!
Compassion, Mercy, Love, Truth, the fruits of Christian Character which arise from having encountered Jesus not merely as epistatace but as kyurios, not as mere teacher but Lord; these are the things which bear witness to His glory.
Let us cast our nets into the deep waters of this world by casting our nets into the deep waters of faith in Jesus Christ. Let us have the faith to try which is borne humble submission to His will and recognition of His glory.
Then, like the disciples, the rest of our lives, every part of our lives, all of our life, will be a living testimony to His goodness. Amen.
Communion
A large prosperous downtown church had three mission churches under its care that it had started. On the first Sunday of the New Year all the members of the mission churches came to the city church for a combined Communion service. In those mission churches, which were located in the slums of the city, were some outstanding cases of conversions—thieves, burglars, and so on—but all knelt side by side at the Communion rail. On one such occasion the pastor saw a former burglar kneeling beside a judge of the Supreme Court of England—the judge who had sent him to jail where he had served seven years. After his release this burglar had been converted and become a Christian worker. Yet, as they knelt there, the judge and the former convict, neither one seemed to be aware of the other.
After the service, the judge was walking home with the pastor and said to the pastor, “Did you notice who was kneeling beside me at the Communion rail this morning?” The pastor replied, “Yes, but I didn’t know that you noticed.” The two walked along in silence for a few more moments, and then the judge said, “What a miracle of grace.” The pastor nodded in agreement. “Yes, what a marvelous miracle of grace.” Then the judge said “But to whom do you refer?” And the pastor said, “Why, to the conversion of that convict.” The judge said, “But I was not referring to him. I was thinking of myself” The pastor, surprised, replied, “You were thinking of yourself? I don’t understand.”
“Yes,” the judge replied, “it did not cost that burglar much to get converted when he came out of jail. He had nothing but a history of crime behind him, and when he saw Jesus as his Savior he knew there was salvation and hope and joy for him. And he knew how much he needed that help. But look at me. I was taught from earliest infancy to live as a gentleman; that my word was to be my bond; that I was to say my prayers, go to church, take Communion and so on. I went through Oxford, took my degrees, was called to the bar and eventually became a judge. Pastor, nothing but the grace of God could have caused me to admit that I was a sinner on a level with that burglar. It took much more grace to forgive me for all my pride and self-deception, to get me to admit that I was no better in the eyes of God than that convict that I had sent to prison.”
The ground is completely level at the foot of the Cross. All are in need of grace and all are invited to receive it freely through faith in Jesus Christ. Amen.
