WE’RE GOING TO NEED A BIGGER BOAT!
Luke 5:4-7
INTRODUCTION
A. OPENER: THE SIZE OF GOD
1. A boy asked his father, “Dad, what is the size of God?” His father looked up at the sky and saw a plane and asked his son, “What is the size of that plane?” The boy replied, “It is very small. I can hardly see it.”
2. Then the father took the boy to an airport, and as they approached a plane, the dad asked his son, “Now, son, how big is this plane?” The boy replied, “Wow, Dad, it’s huge!”
3. Then the father told him, “God’s size depends on how close you are to Him. The closer you are to Him, the bigger and greater He will be in your life!”
4. My message this morning is “We’re Going To Need A Bigger Boat!” Originally, this was a quote from the movie JAWS when a guy was deep sea fishing and got a huge shark on his line. We’re going to tie it to the scriptures this morning.
B. TEXT
4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” 5 Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.” 6 When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. 7 So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.
C. THESIS
1. Peter, Andrew, James, & John had been out fishing all night. They were professional fishermen, as were their fathers before them, yet with all their experience & knowledge, they had not been able to catch anything – ZERO! They had fished the whole 12 hours of darkness. Over & over they had cast their nets, rowed their boats to enclose fish, and then drawn their nets up, only to find nothing in their nets.
2. When Jesus asked them to go back out in the daytime and fish, it didn’t make any sense to do what hadn’t worked before. But then – they hadn’t had Jesus in their boat before!
3. THE HUMANLY IMPOSSIBLE HAPPENED. A "great" multitude of fishes were caught, so huge that the nets were breaking. They "signaled" their partners. The catch was so great that BOTH SHIPS began to sink. ¼ full, 1/2, 3/4, to the brim. 5-6 tons of fish apiece!
4. Peter's mind screamed, "Impossible!" Such a catch had never been seen on that Lake. "THIS IS GOD!" As he gazed into Jesus’ eyes, he gazed into the eyes of the Holy One of Israel! Suddenly Peter felt unworthy: a sinful man before a holy God. JESUS said "Fear not, from now on You will catch men." Peter's response? "They pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.” When you understand Jesus’ surpassing worth and beauty, all else seems unimportant.
5. “WE’RE GOING TO NEED A BIGGER BOAT,” meaning a bigger FAITH, a bigger GRACE, a bigger VISION, and a bigger OBEDIENCE to accomplish the will of God.
I. WE NEED A BIGGER FAITH to bring in a larger harvest
A. HOW CAN WE GET GREATER FAITH?
1. The disciples asked Jesus, “Increase our faith” Lk. 17:5. Jesus IS the Author & Finisher of our faith (Heb. 12:12). We want to increase the Potency/strength of our Faith; “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you” Mt. 17:20.
2. God’s power is activated according to the proportion of our faith (Mt. 9:29, 21:21). All things are possible with God; nothing is too hard for the Lord. “Therefore I tell you, WHATEVER you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it (past tense), and it will be (future tense) yours” Mk. 11:24. “Faith perceiving as real fact, what is not yet revealed to the senses,” Heb. 11:1, AMP.
3. Great faith has great results, Mt. 8:10; little faith has little results, Mt. 6:30. “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” Rom. 10:17. Peter caught more fish than he’d ever caught in his whole life. Why? Because he had Jesus with him in the boat. When you start working with Jesus, you’re going to need a bigger boat!
B. ILLUSTRATION
1. A cartoon once showed two Eskimos fishing through holes in the ice. One of the Eskimos made a hole about like you’d expect – about the size of a manhole cover.
2. The other had dropped his line in an immense hole that seemed about fifty yards long and was in the shape of a whale! We need to be expecting greater things from God!
II. WE NEED A BIGGER GRACE to bear our trials
A. YOU CAN ENDURE ALL THE TRIALS OF LIFE
1. No matter how big or severe your trial, whatever problems or difficulties come your way -- our God is able to make us overcomers in all of them!
2. Paul was thrown in many prisons, tortured and beaten, and faced death often, yet he could say, "I can do all things…." This was an amazing admission. None of us have faced what he did; if he could say that, so can we!
3. You say, "Yes, but Pastor, I'm not Paul. I don't have that kind of grace." Well, you don't have it today, because you don't need it today. On the day you need extra strength, God will supply it.
4. That's why God said, "As is your day, so shall be your strength." We may:
a. Lose loved ones;
b. Lose our possessions;
c. Face hopeless/ insurmountable situations,
5. But God has said, "My grace IS sufficient for you..." Nothing shall overwhelm us, because "Greater is He that is in you, then he that is in the world." Our God is greater!
B. YOU CAN PERFORM ALL DUTIES
1. Nothing that is placed before you to do shall be impossible for you! If like Moses, you are called to humble the greatest nation on earth, you will be able to do it.
2. If you’re called to witness to a difficult person, you SHALL BE EQUAL TO THE TASK. You say, "I'm not a good
speaker." Neither was Moses, Jeremiah, or Gideon.
3. "Whom God calls, He qualifies." He will make you sufficient for what He calls you to do.
4. Whether you're calling is as Mothers, dads, grandparents, employees, to hold public office, or positions in the church, You can do all things!
C. YOU CAN OVERCOME ALL TEMPTATIONS
1. There are many different kinds of temptations -- outward, mental, emotional. Some are tempted to yield to depression or despair. We all have our weak points -- our Achilles’ heel.
a. I remember the story of the truck driver eating in the diner when three hoodlums on motorcycles came in. One took the truck driver’s hamburger, another drank his coffee, and the third one wolfed down his pie.
b. Quietly, the truck driver got up from the table and left the diner. One of the bikers said, "He's not much of a man, is he?"
c. The waitress replied, "He's not much of a driver either. He just ran his truck over three motorcycles!"
2. There have been times I've been sorely tempted. I feared I would fall, but I found that "All who call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved."
3. The devil may have told you that you have an inherited weakness that is inescapable. No! There is not one Hittite or Jebusite in all the Promised Land you can't drive out!
4. 1 Cor. 10:13, "No temptation has taken you, but such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above what you can bear, but will with the temptation make a way of escape that you may bear up under it." Rom. 5:20, "But where sin abounds, grace does much more abound!"
III. WE NEED A BIGGER VISION to surpass what we’ve done before
A. THE IMPORTANCE OF VISION
1. “Where there’s no vision, the people cast off restraint [perish]; but blessed is he who keeps the law,” Prov. 29:18. Vision is important. Everything great that's been done for God, was done through a vision. It was after God took Abraham outside his tent and showed him the multitude of stars, that "Abram believed the Lord, and He credited it to him as righteousness" (Genesis 15:6).
2. People are looking for something “big enough” to live for, to give themselves to. They’re looking for a greater vision.
3. WE NEED TO LIVE WITH LARGE-SCALE FAITH! An evangelist was holding a revival in West Texas. The last night a well-built man almost seven feet tall came to him and said, “As you can see, I am large. I surround myself with large things. I want this salvation you preached about because it sounds as though it's the biggest thing a man can possess!” He asked for a great gift and God gave him eternal life. We so often live on a small scale of happiness and joy because we fail to realize that God has much more to give us!
B. POWER OF SANCTIFIED IMAGINATION
1. The human imagination can be used for evil or for good. If used properly, it can be God's tool to accomplish exploits.
2. Our mind has three functions: memory, so that we can replay events in the past; consciousness, so that we can process events in the present; and imagination, so that we can pre-play an event in the future.
3. EXAMPLES OF IMAGINATION. The Bible frequently gives examples of how faith and imagination work together to bring victory.
a. DAVID. David used his memories of his victories over the lion and the bear to project his victory over Goliath. David used his imagination to see himself cutting off Goliath's head. By sanctified imagination, he saw the victory and focused his faith on it, giving him the power to accomplish it.
b. JOSEPH. God didn’t give him a vision of the pit, but a palace, with his brothers bowing down to him. By focusing on the palace, he had power to go through the pit.
c. THE LORD JESUS. Although Jesus was headed for the cross and the tomb, they were not the focus of his vision. In the mind of our Lord, he saw, not the cross, but the resurrection, the victory over sin and the redemption mankind. By focusing on these positive future events he had the power to go through the crucifixion. Listen to Hebrews 12:2, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
C. ILLUSTRATION
1. One of the greatest tragedies is for people to live in darkness when they could live in the light… Rose Crawford had been blind for 50 years. Then she had an operation in an Ontario hospital.
2. She said, “I just can’t believe it,” as the doctor lifted the bandages from her eyes. She wept - when for the 1st time in her life she saw a dazzling and beautiful world of form and color greeting her eyes and she could finally see. The amazing thing about her story, however, was that 20 years of her blindness was unnecessary. She didn’t know that surgical techniques had been developed, and that an operation could have restored her vision at the age of 30.
3. The Dr. said, “She just figured there was nothing that could be done for her condition. Much of her life could have been different.” Our lives can be different too if we let Jesus heal our spiritual blindness.
IV. WE NEED A BIGGER OBEDIENCE to accomplish the will of God
Peter caught more fish than he’d ever caught in his life because he obeyed Jesus. Obedience opens the door to blessing! Josh. 1:8, “Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.” Maybe we failed before, but with God’s help, we’ll be successful!
A. WHAT IS OBEDIENCE?
1. It’s the result of surrender. The only type of surrender God accepts is unconditional surrender.
2. It’s the completion of faith. James says that our faith is completed by our obedience. The “state of believing” consists in obeying! To not obey betrays the fact that we don’t believe. Christians are called “children of obedience,” 1 Pet. 1:14.
3. Christ compared His own obedience to ours. “He learned obedience from what he suffered” Heb. 5:8. Think of His sacrificial obedience; He had no place to lay His head. He would not eat because He preferred to do God’s will (John 4:32). Not sleeping but staying awake to pray.
B. OBEYING WHEN IT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE
1. Many times Jesus asked people to do things that didn’t make sense in the natural. At the Wedding of Cana, Jesus told the servants to distribute the jars of water as if they had wine in them. Naaman the leper was ‘cleansed’ by bathing in a muddy creek. Peter got his tax money from a fish. Paul & Silas praised God when they were beaten & imprisoned. Elisha told the thirsty men to dig ditches in the desert. Jehoshaphat sent praisers at the head of the army. Elisha threw salt into a polluted spring to make it have fresh water.
2. But to obey God by faith, especially when it doesn’t make sense, is trusting God, more than yourself. And those who obey God reap a sure reward!
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION: ASK LARGELY
1. Arnold Palmer was playing a golf tournament in Saudi Arabia. The King was so impressed with him that he wanted to give Arnold a gift.
2. Arnold said, “Thank you Sir, but that’s not necessary.” That insulted the King; you don’t say “no” to the King of Arabia. Being told of his error, he wisely reconsidered and said, “I would be glad to receive a new golf club from His Highness – a memento of my time here in Saudi Arabia.”
3. The next day a messenger from the King came to Arnold’s hotel room with the title deed to one of the Golf Clubs in America – a thirty-six-hole golf course, with trees, lakes, and a country club.
4. The King of Heaven also thinks much larger than you are thinking! Ask largely, for the King is not stinting in His gifts!
B. THE CALL
1. What have you stopped dreaming about because it seemed too big to ask God for it? It’s time to ask largely from the Lord. If you could ask something BIG of the Lord, what would you ask for?
2. When you have Jesus in your boat, you can expect the supernatural to happen. What do you need Jesus to do for you?
