Senior Pastor, Robert Dennison, preached this message on May 26, 2024.
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Audio Transcript
We thank Larry and Jill for being here today, and we thank our missions team that work so diligently in keeping up with our missionaries, letting us know what’s going on with them. And I think if you choose to come here, Larry, that you’ll find that you love the church all the time. Okay. We have a great church. I’m very blessed to be here.
Now we’re looking at Luke chapter five today as we continue in this series on the calling of the disciples and are you a true disciple of Jesus? So as we continue with the different characteristics of what a true disciple exhibits in their life, either it’s an encouragement to us that, yes, that’s going on in my life because I’m following Christ, or it’s going to be a challenge to you that, you know, that’s not really happening with me. And if that’s the case, your response to the message today should be, lord, help me in this area to be more of a true disciple of your Son. The Calling of the disciples I’ll begin reading in Luke, chapter five. As the crowd was pressing in on Jesus to hear God’s word, he was standing by Lake Gennesaret.
He saw two boats at the edge of the lake. The fishermen had left them there and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats which belonged to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from the land. Then he sat down and was teaching the crowds from the boat. And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, put out in the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.
Master Simon replied, we’ve worked hard all night long and caught nothing. But if you say so, I’ll let down the nets. And when they did this, they caught a great number of fish and their nets began to tear. So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. They came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.
And when Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus knees and said, go away from me because I’m a sinful man, Lord. For he and all those with him were amazed at the catch of fish they had taken. And so were James and John Zebedee’s sons, who were Simon’s partners. Don’t be afraid, jesus told Simon. From now on you’ll be catching people.
Then they brought the boats to land, left everything, and followed him. Then we go over to verse 27. After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax office. And he said to him, follow me. So leaving Everything behind.
He got up and began to follow him. Then Levi hosted a grand banquet for him at his house. Now there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others who were reclining at the table with them. But the Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to his disciples. Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?
Jesus replied to them, it is not those who are healthy who need a doctor, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. May we pray? Heavenly Father, once again, we thank you for your word that we have everything that we need to know about how to have true faith and a right relationship with you from the start. But you also teach us how to live our lives, that we might grow closer to you day by day, that we might reflect your son more accurately in the world, that others might be drawn to follow him in saving faith.
It’s in his name that we pray. Amen. Just as a matter of review, what is a disciple? By definition, a disciple is someone who devotes oneself to a teacher to learn from and become more like them. It’s not just an interest, it’s a dedication.
I’m choosing to have this relationship with Jesus Christ and then we want to learn from him. But it’s not just intellectual. Our ultimate desire is that. That learning that we have have in our life will become a change in us, that we become more like the Son. For the Christian, this refers to the process of learning the teachings of Jesus and following after his example in obedience through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Discipleship not only involves the process of becoming a disciple, but also of making other disciples through teaching and evangelism. There were 18 points to this sermon and aren’t you glad I didn’t do it all on one Sunday? We’re on Sunday number four, and I’m sorry to say we’re not going to finish today. But let’s read through together what we’ve covered so far about these demonstrations of what it means to be a disciple. Read with me a true disciple of Jesus.
Desire to be close to Jesus. Desire to hear God’s word. Let Jesus use what they have. Let Jesus interrupt what they are doing. Do simple things Jesus asks.
Recognize Jesus as master. Believe Jesus despite personal experience. Worship Jesus. Recognize their sin condition and show repentance for sin. Not just being sorry we talked about that last week, but truly turning and living a different life.
We’re going to start out today with the next one. And it’s the true disciples of Jesus are Amazed by Jesus. In verse nine, it says that he and all those with him were amazed. All they saw was this great catch of fish. But they’re going to see Jesus cast out demons.
They’re going to see Jesus heal diseases and sicknesses that no one has ever seen before. They’re going to see Jesus do miracles, feed the 5,000. All types of things are coming, but they are already amazed with Jesus. You know, we need to live our lives, lives in amazement of Jesus Christ, who He is and who is He. Let’s look at Philippians 2, 9, 11.
Let’s see what God the Father says about His Son. And we should have this same attitude of amazement toward him by what we read here. For this reason, God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above. Above every name. So that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
One day, whether you are a believer or not, you will confess that Jesus is Lord and you will bow to Him. He’s the Creator of the universe. He. He’s sustaining it. He is our Savior.
We need to be continually amazed at how wonderful he is. But what’s even more amazing about it is that this amazing Lord and Savior calls us to be his friends, and he chooses us. Let’s go to John, chapter 15. As I read verses 12 through 16, this is my command. Love one another as I have loved you.
No one has greater love than this to lay down his life for his friends. Jesus said, you are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants anymore, because a servant doesn’t know what his master is doing. I have called you friends because I have made known to you everything I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me, but I chose you.
This makes me remember back to when I first started dating Mary. That’s my wife, in case you’ve not met her. And I think by our second date, I came home and all I could think was, lord, this woman is amazing. And if she can just possibly be my wife, if you will let that happen, please let it happen. I want to do what you want, Lord, but she’s an amazing person.
And then when Mary decided that she wanted me to be her friend, she wanted to marry me. I was overwhelmed. Even more so when we think about the Lord Jesus Christ, what an amazing person he is, that we need to be overwhelmed that he would choose us to be his friend. You can be amazed by his miracles. You can be amazed by his casting out of demons.
You can be amazed by his wisdom. But be amazed by the fact that he chooses us to be our friend. True disciples of Jesus are amazed by Jesus. The next thing that we see is that true disciples of Jesus also seek new followers. For Jesus, this catch a fish, it was just like a demonstration of what was going to happen.
It was an overwhelming number of fish. And he was telling them, you’re not going to catch this many fish, but I am calling you to work with me, that you might catch other men, that you would catch people. The magnitude of what the disciples would do in presenting the gospel and sharing it and passing that on to generation generation, the catch of people has been enormous. True followers of Jesus Christ continue doing that today. And we see that in Matthew 28.
It was some of the last words that Jesus shared with his followers. Go therefore, and make time disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything. I have commanded you and remember, I am with you always to the end of the age. How do we show our love for the Lord Jesus Christ? Jesus tells us that whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is, is the one who loves me.
So this amazing Savior that we have, if we want to love him in return, we’re going to be obedient to his commands. And particularly this one about making disciples of all peoples to the ends of the earth. True disciples of Jesus seek new followers for Jesus because they believe that he deserves more worshipers. True disciples of Jesus next, they respond immediately to Jesus. Let’s go back to verse 11.
Then they brought the boats to land. They left everything and they followed Him.
Doesn’t even say they put the nets away. It doesn’t even say that they took the fish into town to sell them. What did they do? They just. They just left everything behind and they responded to Jesus Christ immediately.
You know, when God invites us to participate with him in his work, we need to join him in whatever that is. Because God’s plan, it’s moving on. It doesn’t ever get halted. There is no detour. There is no surprise.
He says, oh, I need to. To back up and change my mind. Because things have changed. God knows what is happening. His plans are moving on.
And through that whole process, not because he needs us to do things, but he wants us to be involved with Him. So whenever he invites you to be involved in his work, you need to Jump in the car and move forward with him at that point. Because if you don’t, you’re going to miss out on some opportunity. Imagine that day if Jesus had walked and they went into town, they sold their fish, they did whatever, they had their last meal with their family, and then they came back to the place and Jesus was no longer there. When God calls us to do something, we need to respond to him immediately.
And in that same verse, we find the next characteristic, that they willingly leave everything for Jesus. They left their nets, they left their fish, they left their friends. There wasn’t anything that they didn’t leave behind because they were ready to follow Jesus at that point. There shouldn’t be any possession in our life. There shouldn’t be any relationship in our life.
There shouldn’t be any opportunity or goals in our life that keep us from following Jesus Christ. We just need to leave it all behind. We have two parables in Matthew chapter 13 where Jesus talks about this. Two very short parables, but they talk about leaving everything for Jesus and the fact that he gave him. Boom, boom, like this.
He’s just trying to emphasize, be willing to leave everything for me. He tells us in Matthew 13, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure buried in a field that a man found and reburied. Then in his joy, he goes and sells everything he has and buys that field. So here we have a man in today’s time, it would be somebody with a metal detector. And they’ve asked a farmer, can I walk through your field here?
And the farmer says, sure, you’re not going to find anything. So he, he goes along and lo and behold, the metal detector goes off and he digs down and he finds this chest full of Roman gold coins. So he immediately buries the chest because at that point, who does it belong to? It belongs to that farmer. But this man, whether you agree with what he does or not, he goes out and he sells everything he has.
He has to scrape up every bit of money he can buy to come back and buy that fire farm. It’s not because he wants the farm. He wants the what? The treasure. Jesus Christ is the treasure of the kingdom of heaven.
And we should be willing to give up everything in order to have him. Jesus says, then again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls. And when he found one priceless pearl, he. He went and he sold everything that he had. And he did what?
He bought it, gave up his home, gave up his car, gave up everything that he had for this one pearl that was priceless. It’s hard for me to think that I would want a pearl that much. Okay, maybe some of you ladies do. But that’s what Jesus is. And we should be willing to sell everything, leave everything behind that we might obtain him.
True disciples of Jesus next, they follow Jesus without question. And we usually look in the text to see what is in there to make a point. But what I’m wanting you to see is what is not in the text to make my point. Today they brought the boats to land, they left everything and they followed him. What do we not see here?
We don’t see a bunch of questions. You know, if somebody asks you to do something, you’re going to say, well, why? How, how much is it going to cost me? We don’t see the disciples asking that. I think I would have.
I would have said, jesus, why do you want me to follow you? Jesus, how do you want me to follow you? What’s it going to cost me? Am I going to have to pay for my lodging along the way? What are you going to be asking me to do?
I might not want to do what you’re asking me to do. How much of my time is it going to take? How is it going to affect my family? Am I still going to be able to go fishing on the weekends? Am I still going to be able to work in my garden?
And by the way, Jesus, I have a vacation plan. Two months from now, am I going to have time off to do that? They didn’t ask any questions. In the same way, when God asks us to do things, we don’t need to ask him questions. We shouldn’t have to ask him questions.
If God knows you need to do something, if he knows that you need specific information, he is going to share that with you. We can think about that. In parenting, we tell our kids all the time things that they need to do they don’t have to know why, they don’t have to know what, they don’t have to know what it’s going to cost. They just need to be obedient. So how is it that we can confidently and wisely follow Jesus without question?
Well, Scripture gives us a lot of good reasons. Let me just read some off to you and then we’ll look at some verses that support it. You know, only God knows about everything. Before there was anything, only God was there. Before there were time and space and matter, before the world existed, before the heavens, any creatures, any people.
God has all of this knowledge from everything, before anything that we know today. But he also knows everything that’s going to be in the future. And God knows everything that people don’t know. Whatever your doctor doesn’t know, whatever the scientists don’t know, whatever your pastor doesn’t know, whatever the teachers don’t know, whatever your grandparents don’t know, God knows all of those things. He also tells us that whatever his purposes are, they are going to be achieved.
And he tells us this great promise that he has started a work in all of us that is good, and he’s going to make sure that it gets done. So when we take all that into mind, we really don’t have to question God. It’s almost an insult to start to ask Him. Are you sure you thought about this God? What if this happens?
And what if that happens? God already knows. Proverbs 15:3 tells us that the eyes of the Lord are everywhere observing the wicked and the good. In other words, whatever decision I make here today, somehow if it affects someone on the other side of the world, there are people in positions like that. God already knows what is going on here and there and everywhere and how it all works together.
Deuteronomy 29:29 here’s where we see that God knows even the things that we don’t know. The hidden things belong to the Lord our God, but the revealed things belong to us and our children forever so that we may follow all the words of this law. In other words, we have the information that we need to have from God and all the things that he’s hidden from us or that he hasn’t revealed. He has reasons for not revealing that information, and it’s stuff that we don’t need to know. Let’s look at Proverbs 19:21, where we read, many plans are in a person’s heart, but the Lord’s decree will prevail.
You can question God all you want. You can try to get him to change his mind about things. But we know this for certain, what he’s decided he will accomplish and it will happen. We’re much wiser to get on board with him where we know that the project’s going to be successful than to go our own way. Where we have no idea if what we’re doing is going to succeed or come to fruition.
Then we go to Philippians chapter one, verse six, where we read, I am sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. God has a plan for all of us, and he is diligently working out that plan in our life and he’s going to make sure that it is completed. You can go kicking and screaming all the way and be miserable in your life and make everybody else around you miserable. God’s going to accomplish what he wants to accomplish. That’s why we need to follow him, that we need to be true disciples of Him.
Then we can enjoy the friendship as we’re walking with him and hearing what he has to say and seeing what he has to do as opposed to to questioning him and being attached to things in our life. All of that’s going to keep us from benefiting from the personal relationship that he wants to have with each and every one of us. Now, that personal relationship happens only if the Holy Spirit is working in your life. Because there’s no way you can do all of these things that a true disciple of Jesus does. The Holy Spirit has to be working in you and to give you the desire to do those things, to give you the power to do those things and to encourage you to do those things.
So you need the Holy Spirit, but you don’t have the Holy Spirit in your life unless you’ve begun a personal relationship with Jesus Christ at some point in your life. You have to realize that there’s a problem in my life called sin. And Larry was talking about the book today. It’s called the Cure. He calls it the antidote.
Larry, I don’t know what I’m going to do because our gospel presentation is all seized. If I go to gracious antidote, it’s going to mess things up. Okay, so we’re going to stick with cure here. But we all have this sin problem in our life that keeps us from following Jesus Christ. And we need a cure.
We don’t need therapy, we need a cure. And that comes through Jesus Christ being willing to shed his blood on the cross and offer up his body. Because our sin debt was erased. Jesus paid that debt by dying on the cross, but didn’t just pay the debt, but it tells us that his blood covers us so that when God looks at us, he doesn’t even see the sin anymore. You have to realize your need for the cure.
You have to realize that Jesus Christ is the cure. But there has to be a proper response where you say, according to Romans chapter nine, that I believe not only in my head, but in my heart that Jesus Christ died on the cross. He rose from the dead. He’s my Lord and Savior. And there not only know it in your head and in your heart, but then you have to Be willing to profess that publicly to others.
Yes, I am following the Lord Jesus Christ today. So my encouragement to you today is if you don’t have any, any of these examples of being a true disciple of Jesus Christ, maybe it’s because you’ve never come to true faith in Jesus Christ. Maybe you’ve been depending upon something that your parents did or something your parents said to you. Or maybe you’re depending upon coming to church or doing good things. None of that gives you a right to walk with Jesus Christ as your friend and master.
So I would ask you today, please look for one of us that has a name tag. We want to talk to you more about this and we want to pray with you about it. Not that you have to have us there with you at any point. You can just say, lord, I know I’m a sinner and I’m accepting what Jesus Christ did for me on the cross and I’m going to follow you for the rest of my life. But having someone with you there helps to confirm that so they can rejoice with you in it.
Would you bow with me in prayer? Heavenly Father, we thank you that your word gives us guidance on how we’re supposed to live. Let us be encouraged today, Father, by the things that we see in our own life that are examples of truly following you. And Father, we also ask that you would convict our hearts with these things that maybe we’re doing that aren’t showing that we’re true followers for you. And by your Holy Spirit, encourage us in that direction and empower us to walk more closely with you.
In Jesus name we pray. Amen.