INTRO. Many times in life we encounter things that are indeed very hard to handle. We come upon situations daily that we struggle especially in regard to our relationships at work, school in our homes and even here in God’s church family. Often we are placed in situations where we are not in the right condition and frame of mind. We are many times simply not made for certain contests.
ILLUSTRATION: “MEN AREN’T EQUIPED”
MEN AREN’T EQUIPPED
A man and his wife were having some problems at home and were giving each other the silent treatment. The next week, the man realized that he would need his wife to wake him at 5:00 AM for an early morning business flight to Chicago. Not wanting to be the first to break the silence (AND LOSE), he wrote on a piece of paper, "Please wake me at 5:00 AM." The next morning the man woke up, only to discover it was 9:00 AM and that he had missed his flight. Furious, he was about to go and see why his wife hadn’t woken him when he noticed a piece of paper by the bed. The paper said, "It is 5:00 AM. Wake up"
(SOME MEN JUST AREN’T EQUIPPED FOR THESE SORT OF CONTESTS!)
Most importantly we who are especially God’s children best make sure that our heart is truly in the right condition so that we might be better prepared for what Satan tries to throw at us. We must make sure that our heart is up to not only what Satan has for us but for what our Lord has for us in our lives.
If you recall last Sunday we posed a very important question which was “What am I doing with Jesus?” We answered this by concentrating not on leadership but what? FOLLOWERSHIP. We are called not to be a leader but a follower of Jesus. We saw that followerhsip places everything on a relationship with Jesus, demands obedience and at times brings uncertainty.
This morning let’s look at making sure our hearts are prepared for followership.
You and I have all watched leaders fail, and it’s a sad thing. I just want to clue you in on something; leaders rarely fail because they don’t know how to lead. Leaders most always fail because at some point they ceased to see themselves to be followers. Followers of Jesus Christ. That’s why leaders fail. My position is only temporary here at Fork Baptist Church. I’ve got to wake up every morning and say, "What am I going to do with Jesus today?" That’s what I am—a follower who has simply been placed to lead at this church.
I just want to say all of this to try to somehow release you from the bondage of this world’s expectations. "We have to be leaders for God." No, Jesus never called us to be leaders. That is not the terms of the relationship. He called you and me to be a follower. So what are you doing with Jesus today? The answer to that--and I don’t know if your heart’s interested or not; it’s your choice.
When we read the gospels, it’s obvious that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John each have a unique perspective on Jesus’ life. All four of these men were followers of Jesus. Luke records for us a different perspective that we read of Matthew last Sunday. True followership is indeed a matter of the heart. For us to be the followers that Jesus has called each of us to be we must make sure our hearts are in the right condition. The question this morning we must ask ourselves is how is our heart condition. For you see Jesus choose his followers through the quality of their hearts. In today’s passage we see that Jesus looked for five main qualities in the hearts of his disciples as he called them to followership and looks for those same qualities in you and me today as he calls us to not only to become his followers but his disciples as well.
I. JESUS LOOKS FOR AN OPEN HEART VS.1-4
A. We see people wanted to be around him, listening to him as he taught the word of God.
1. They truly had an open heart to what He had to say.
2. Luke 5:1 says “One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, with the people crowding around him and listening to the word of God.
3. The people were literally crowding around him to hear the word from the Lord.
4. They truly had an open heart.
B. It was obvious that they had an open heart because they listened to him teach.
1 Verse three says “Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.”
2. There were so many people that wanted to listen to the word of God that he had to use Peter’s boat in order for everyone to hear him.
3. At the time the people put everything aside and came to where Jesus was and opened their hearts to Him and his teaching.
C. Followership depends on us opening up our hearts to Him and His will for our lives.
1. The door of the human heart can be opened only from the inside.
2. Jesus is looking for us to come just as they are and open our hearts to him.
3. We must decide this on our own.
D. For some of you this morning you need to open your heart of the Christ for the first time.
1. Jesus is standing this very day at your hearts door pleading with you to open and allow him to come in.
2. Revelation 3:20 says. “I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”
3. You may need to respond this morning for the first time in your life to Jesus and open your heart and accept Him as Savior and Lord.
4. You may ask this morning, "How do I do that?"
a. Paul says in Romans 10:9-10, "That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation."
b. All you have to do is believe and confess.
II. JESUS LOOKS FOR A TEACHABLE HEART vs.4-5
A. We see especially in the life of these early disciples a teachable heart.
1. Even when they didn’t understand they still listened and obeyed the commands of the Master.
2. They obeyed Him despite their personal reasons and their surface knowledge of the situation.
3. Luke 5:4 says “When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.”
B. Peter knew that it wasn’t the time or the place for fishing for they were already cleaning up from a night of fishing that brought in no fish, a night of failure.
1. Luke 5:5 says “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.”
2. In essence he was saying “Hey Master, we have fished all night and we caught nothing and we are tired. “
a. He wasn’t afraid to show Jesus his frustration.
b. He wasn’t afraid to show Him his disappointment.
3. Peter yes obeyed, but he was honest with Jesus concerning his frustration that they had finished all night and caught nothing.
4. Even though it didn’t make any sense at all to obey, Peter obeyed because he had a teachable heart.
C. Because Peter had a teachable heart Jesus was able to capture his heart and use peter in a great way for the furtherance of the God’s kingdom.
D. Even when at times God doesn’t make sense we must obey him.
E. Have you ever felt like Peter?
1. After your best efforts, you have come up empty-handed.
2. Not just after one day but after years of trying,you have still come up short, with not much to show for all the effort you have invested.
3. You say as Peter did “Jesus I have tried and tried and nothing seems to be working out.”
4. You say “I have worked hard all night trying to make things etter for my family, my work; my individual lives even my church.
F. Jesus knows and is issuing the same call to you and me as He did to Peter.
1. Get back out there to the deep water, get in over your head and lower your nets one more time.
2. Even though you appear to have failed, try again, risk again, believe again, and work again.
G. What an encouraging word this is to us.
H. Jesus is looking today for people that have a teachable heart.
III. JESUS LOOKS FOR A HUMBLE HEART v.5,8
A. Even though Peter thought Jesus knew very little about fishing he humbled himself, the professional fisherman, and obeyed.
1. Verse 5 Peter says “But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”
2. Peter submitted himself to follow Him faithfully.
3. Peter obeyed him wholeheartedly.
4. He didn’t just talk about obedience he got the nets back out and let them back down.
B. We see in this passage that Peter truly emptied and humbled himself before Jesus.
1. Verse 8 says “he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!”
2. Peter truly had a humble heart before the Lord.
C. Today the Lord is looking for people that will truly humble themselves before Him.
1. Our humility is shown mainly through our obedience to His word and relation to others.
2. The true test of a humble heart is not what we talk but how we walk.
3. Maybe just maybe God is testing us today to see if we will humble ourselves before him and obey his commandments and perfect will.
D. Another important sign of a humble heart is that we fall at his feet and sincerely worship Him.
1. A humble heart recognizes His Lordship and puts self aside.
2. ILLUSTRATION: “HEART OF WORSHIP”
“HEART OF WORSHIP”
There’s a recent song that was written by a young man who lead the worship at church. He was an extremely talented singer, but the preacher there took him aside and told him that he could not lead the singing at church until things changed because he saw that he was more interested in the attention he received than in worshipping the Lord. This young man was angry at first and yet the words of the preacher were true, and he knew it. Six months later he wrote a song and taught it to the church there. The words are these:
Heart of Worship
(words and music by Matt Redman)
When the music fades
All is stripped away
And I simply come
Longing just to bring
Something that’s of worth
That will bless Your heart
I bring you more than a song
For a song in itself
Is not what you have required
You search much deeper within
Through the way things appear
You’re looking into my heart
I’m coming back to the heart of worship
And it’s all about you
It’s all about you, Jesus
I’m sorry Lord for the thing I’ve made it
When it’s all about you
It’s all about you, Jesus
King of endless worth
No one could express
How much you deserve
Though I’m weak and poor
All I have is yours
Every single breath
IV. JESUS LOOKS FOR A CARING HEART VS.6-10
A. It was obvious that Peter and these disciples cared for the welfare of others.
1. Verses 6-8 of our passage says “When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. 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.”
2. It was obvious that they weren’t selfish for they gave away what they could have used for their own livelihood.
3. They thought of others and not just of themselves.
B. These disciples knew that a Heart of followership meant caring for the well-being of others.
1. Jesus said in Verse 10 “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will catch men.”
2. Jesus knew that in order for these disciples to catch men they had to care for others.
C. Church, Jesus is looking for people with a caring heart.
1. People don’t care how much you know till they know how much you care.
2. We must decide with an act of our very will to care for those who are hurting and most important for those who need Jesus.
3. They are all around us we just got to look around us and care.
4. Jesus said in Mathew 9:37 “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.”
5. Jesus calls us to out into the fields that are truly white into harvest for people are hurting and waiting on someone to simply care.
D. As we care for others we will have the awesome privilege of seeing people find new life in Jesus Christ.
V. JESUS LOOKS FOR A TRUSTING HEART V.11
A. Mostly important these disciples were true followers of Christ for they trusted him in factually.
1. Verse 11 says “So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.”
2. Without reservation or questions they simply followed Him.
B. Their followership had no conditions.
1. They simply left everything right then and followed Him.
2. They followed him without reservation.
C. True followership follows the Lord without condition.
1. Isaiah says in Isaiah 6:8 “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"
2. In Luke 9:59 we see Jesus calling two and they placed conditions on their followership.
3. They missed out on becoming part of God’s wonderful plan for their lives all because they put conditions on their followership.
D. Followership begins and ends with Trust.
Conclusion-
We read in the New Testament, especially where Paul said, "Be followers of me even as I am a follower of Jesus." You know, there are people you as well as I know people many at this church that have put skin on followership. People who have open, teachable, humble, caring and trusting hearts. Hang out with them. That’s what you need to do. Find Jesus with skin on Him. The worst thing we can do is settle for hanging out with people who are going to take us in the opposite way from Christ. That is the worst thing we can do. Find Jesus in a friend.
I have to tell you that I am greatly motivated when I am around people who are farther down the road with Jesus than I am.
Jesus is calling, calling us to be Jesus to a friend. That’s yours and my call. We must put skin on followership so that we can really say to people, "This is true leadership; follow me even as I am following Christ." Are you a friend that someone can follow to Jesus? God is calling us to be his perfection in this hurting world.
ILLUSTRATION: “GOD’S PERFECTION”
“GOD’S PERFECTION”
Where is God’s Perfection?
In Brooklyn, New York, Chush is a school that caters to learning disabled children. Some children remain in Chush for their entire school career, while others can be mainstreamed into conventional schools. At a Chush fundraising dinner, the father of a Chush child delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended.
After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he cried out, "Where is the perfection in my son Shaya? Everything God does is done with perfection. But my child cannot understand things as other children do. My child cannot remember facts and figures as other children do. Where is God’s perfection?"
The audience was shocked by the question, pained by the father’s anguish and stilled by the piercing query. " I believe," the father answered, "that when God brings a child like this into the world, the perfection that he seeks is in the way people react to this child."
He then told the following story about his son Shaya:
One afternoon Shaya and his father walked past a park where some boys Shaya knew they were playing baseball. Shaya asked, "Do you think they will let me play? " Shaya’s father knew that his son was not at all athletic and that most boys would not want him on their team. But Shaya’s father understood that if his son was chosen to play it would give him a comfortable sense of belonging. Shaya’s father approached one of the boys in the field and asked if Shaya could play. The boy looked around for guidance from his teammates.
Getting none, he took matters into his own hands and said "We are losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we’ll try to put him up to bat in the ninth inning. "Shaya’s father was ecstatic as Shaya smiled broadly. Shaya was told to put on a glove and go out to play short center field.
In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shaya’s team scored a few runs
but was still behind by three. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shaya’s team scored again and now with two outs and the bases loaded with the potential winning run on base, Shaya was scheduled to be up. Would the team actually let Shaya bat at this juncture and give away their chance to win the game? Surprisingly, Shaya was given the bat. Everyone knew that it was all but impossible because Shaya didn’t even know how to hold the bat properly, let alone hit with it. However as Shaya stepped up to the plate, the pitcher moved a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shaya should at least be able to make contact. The first pitch came in and Shaya swung clumsily and missed. One of Shaya’s teammates came up to Shaya and together the held the bat and faced the pitcher waiting for the next pitch.
The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly
toward Shaya. As the pitch came in, Shaya and his teammate swung at the bat and together they hit a slow ground ball to the pitcher. The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could easily have thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shaya would have been out and that would have ended the game. Instead, the pitcher took the ball and threw it on a high arc to right field, far beyond reach of the first baseman. Everyone started yelling,"Shaya, run to first. Run to first." Never in his life had Shaya run to first. He scampered down the baseline wide-eyed and startled. By the time he reached first base, the right fielder had the ball. He could have thrown the ball to the second baseman who would tag out Shaya, who was still running. But the right fielder understood what the pitcher’s intentions were, so he threw the ball high and far over the third baseman’s head. Everyone yelled, "Run to second, run to second." Shaya ran towards second base as the runners ahead of him deliriously circled the bases towards home. As Shaya reached second base, the opposing short stop ran to him, turned him in the direction of third base and shouted, "Run to third." As Shaya rounded third, the boys from both teams ran behind him screaming, "Shaya run home." Shaya ran home, stepped on home plate and all 18 boys lifted him on their shoulders and made him the hero, as he had just hit a "grand slam" and won the game for his team.
"That day," said the father softly with tears now rolling down his
face, "those 18 boys reached their level of God’s perfection."
So what are you doing with Jesus? Reach God’s perfection by being a follower of Jesus. This morning I hope you’re saying, "I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back."
"God, help us to realize that when You called us to Yourself it was to a following relationship. Teach us, grow us, lift us out of the ditch when we get off the way. But most of all, help us to love You enough to know that we could follow nobody greater or better than You. Thank You that You have not left us alone to ourselves. Lord, what a frightening thought. But You gave us Yourself, and You said, ’Follow Me.’"
