Follow Me (Luke 5:1-10. 9:23-26)
Good morning, and happy New Year! Please turn in your Bibles to Luke 5.
We are beginning a new series this morning called “Discipled.” There’s a lot going on with Glynwood right now around the idea of being discipled. Man Church begins tonight, and dozens of men are going to be studying the Word together on Sundays and Wednesday nights in small groups. There are D-groups, ladies’ Bible studies, people reading the Bible through together again this year. And all of it is connected to this idea of being a disciple.
And it makes sense. Last year was all about learning what the Bible says. Lots of you posted messages this week or told me personally how much of an impact reading the Bible all the way through had made in your life last year. And I hope that is a journey you will take over and over again.
But now that you’ve expanded your knowledge of what the Bible says, what are you going to do about it? That’s what it means to be discipled. This month, we are going to take a deep dive into what it means to be a disciple. So we will start with Jesus calling his first disciples. This is Luke 5, starting with verse 1. Please stand to honor the reading of God’s Word:
On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, 2 and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. 3 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. 4 And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” 5 And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” 6 And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. 7 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. 8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” 9 For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, 10 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.”[a]
This is God’s Word. Let’s thank God for it. Pray with me [Pray}
Let me ask you something: What is something you learned by watching someone else do it? Maybe it was a family recipe that was passed down to you. But chances are it wasn’t just handed to you. Before you ever saw it in writing, you were probably at your mother’s side, watching her, helping her, learning from her, and finally doing it yourself.
My grandma Dorothy made the best gumbo in the world. She was a Louisianian through and through. And as she got near the end of her life, my mom actually recorded her while she made a pot of gumbo. Then she wrote literally everything down that Grandma Dorothy said or did—even the swear words!
My mom watched Grandma Dorothy make gumbo
Then she helped.
Then she did.
Then she passed it on to her children.
My mom was a gumbo disciple.
What about fishing? Fishing is another one of those things you learn by watching, helping, and doing. Your dad didn’t say “Go down to the lake and catch some fish.” What would have happened if he had? No. You learned how to fish because your dad took you fishing. He taught you how to tie the hook on the line. How to bait the hook. How to cast. Later he might have taught you about different lures and bait for different fish. How to know the best places and seasons, and even what kind of clothes to wear.
For many of you, it became a lifelong joy. You’ve kept on learning. You dreamed of the day you would have kids of your own so you could teach them how to fish.
You watched, you helped, you did, you kept learning, and you passed what you knew on to someone else. You were (or are) a fishing disciple.
And that is the basic definition and process of disciple. It’s both a noun—"I am a disciple;” and a verb: “I am being discipled. Or, “She discipled me.”
A disciple is a learner who follows a teacher. And discipling is the process of teaching, modeling, training, demonstrating, and ultimately passing on what you have learned to someone else.
Think about what a disciple is, and also what a disciple is not:
• A disciple is an imitator, not just a student.
We just read about Jesus calling Peter. And as Peter spent the next three years or so doing life with Jesus, he learned more and more that Jesus came to earth to suffer and die. What’s more, he was calling his disciples to suffer, and in many cases die for Him. A few decades later, Peter wrote,
21 For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. that Christ left us an example so that we would follow in his steps.
Did you know that when Peter was sentenced to be crucified, he asked to be hung upside down, because he didn’t consider himself worthy to die the same way Jesus did? He understood that a disciple wasn’t just a student. He was an imitator. (1 Peter 2:21)
• A Disciple is A doer, not just a learner.
Notice in Luke 5 that when Jesus called Peter, he asked him to take action even before he heard a word Jesus said. Look again at verse 3:
3 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.
Can you imagine that going down at the boat ramp? You’ve backed your truck down the ramp, you’re getting ready to launch, and you turn around and there’s some rando sitting in your boat. And he says, Hey, I’ve got all these people I’ve been trying to teach. Why don’t you put out about ten yards or so so I can teach them. There’s no indication in this text that Peter had any idea who Jesus was. But he does it. He was a doer even before he was a learner. We tend to get that backwards.
Another one of Jesus’ first disciples was a tax collector named Matthew. Skip down to verse 27 in this same chapter. Jesus saw Matthew sitting at his tax collector’s booth. Jesus says “Follow me,” and Matthew (called Levi here) left everything and followed him.
Notice that the very first thing Matthew does is throw a party for all of his tax collector friends so they can meet Jesus too. Matthew didn’t wait until he had completed a twelve-week training course before he put what he had been learning into practice. From day one, he was both a doer and a learner. And when Matthew recorded Jesus’. Sermon on the Mount, he included this line:
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Number three, a disciple is a…
• A producer, not just a consumer John 15:16
After Jesus finished speaking to the crowd that was gathered on the seashore, he looked at Peter, James, and John and said, let’s go a little deeper, and then put your nets out. And when they did, they caught so many fish their boats started to capsize.
Now, if the story stopped there, the lesson would be, “If you give Jesus just a little of your time and resources, He will bless you to overflowing.” The disciples could have said, “Wow—we are going to be rich when we sell all these fish. We will be set for life!”
This is a consumer mindset for church. You know what I hear most often when people leave one church to go to another is, “Well, we never went very deep in the Bible. I’m looking for a place where I can be fed.” And I get that. You’ve known me long enough to know how I love getting deep in the Word. So I look at verse 4 as a model for intense Bible study: Go deep, let down your net, and haul in a net full of insight and inspiration and information.
But for what purpose? Are you being fed to get fat or fed to get fueled? Jesus didn’t say “Follow me and I will make you Bible scholars,” or “Follow me and I will make you unbeatable on Bible Jeopardy.” He says, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people!”
It is so interesting to me that three out of four men named in Luke 5 went on to write books that are in the New Testament today. We have the gospel of Matthew. We have the gospel of John. We have two letters from Peter and three letters from John, who also wrote the book of Revelation. They didn’t go deep to get fed. They learned how to fish for people. John wrote in his gospel that one of the ways we prove ourselves to be disciples is to bear fruit. Listen—if an orange tree puts its roots deep into the ground, what is it going to produce? Oranges. If an apple tree goes deep, what does it produce? If a Dollar Tree goes deep, what does it produce (okay, that one doesn’t work).
And if a disciple goes deep, what does it produce? Disciples! We need to stop signing up for Bible studies just so we can go deeper into Scripture for the sake of going deep. Listen—Jesus never takes us deep without taking us wide. Don’t just be a consumer. Be a producer. Bear fruit!
The Call of the Disciple (Luke 5:1-10; Pew Bible p. 808)
• Obey and Confess (v. 5-8)
• Believe and Become (v. 9-10)
• Forsake and Follow (v. 11)
The Sacrifice of the Disciple (Luke 9:23-26; Pew Bible p. 814)
• Deny and Die Daily
