Senior Pastor, Robert Dennison, preached this message on April 21, 2024.
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Audio Transcript
111 and 27, 31. It’s the calling of the disciples of Jesus. It’s where they have the great catch of fish. But what we’re going to be focusing on today, what were the characteristics that Jesus saw in the life of these men that were willing to follow him? And not only do we want to look at them, but we want to ask the questions of ourselves.
Are we true disciples of Jesus? Do we reflect the qualities that we see here in the text? Jesus is going to ask them questions, and their responses are going to show us how we should be living as disciples of Jesus. And in this passage, I came up with 18 points. I usually try to aim at three.
My wise wife, who I listened to, said, maybe you shouldn’t try to do all 18 points today.
And I listened to her. So, husbands, it’s often good to listen to what your wives say.
Amen. From anybody. Okay. All right. So then I got.
I had to think about Dave Padley all week because we all know that he likes to do what. And there are how many points to the sermon? 18. Okay, so some of the points are three par, and some are four par, and some are five par. So on a golf course, the distance you have to hit the ball from the tee to the cup, the further it is, it’s rated higher.
Higher. So it is. When we’re looking at how we’re supposed to be disciples of Christ, some things are like three par. They seem easy, and some things seem like five par. Now, if you play golf like me, a five par is really a 10 par.
And the people that I play would just stop at nine. Pastor Robert, don’t keep hitting the ball. We need to move on. We’re not going to do all 18 today. I plan on us doing half of the course or less.
8. We only got through four in the first service because they listened really slow. Okay, so if you listen slow, we’ll get past four. If you listen a little faster, we might get through a little bit more. If you don’t know anything about golf, just look for a man around you and they’ll explain it after church and you’ll understand what I’m saying.
Luke, chapter five. We’ve been reading in verse one, 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 and were washing their nets.
He got into one of the boats, which belonged to Simon, who will later become Peter, and asked him to put out a little from the land. Then he sat down and was teaching the crowds from the boat. 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 net 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. When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus knees and said, go away from me, because I am 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 will be catching people. Then they brought the boats to land, left everything, and followed him. Then we go to verse 27 near the end of the chapter.
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, as we look at your word today, help us not just to see the story, Father, of what happened on this day, but to see how it applies to our lives. What you desire in us to be your true disciples and Father, where we need to make changes, we ask that you would encourage us to do that and you would empower us by your spirit that we might be more like your Son. And in his name we pray. Amen. What is a disciple?
What was it that Jesus was looking for in these men when he asked them to do things? Let’s start out with a definition of what a disciple is. And this is from a theological word book, so it should be pretty accurate. It says, a disciple is someone who devotes oneself to a teacher to learn from and become more like them. In this sentence, it’s a three step process.
First, there’s a choice to follow someone, but then there’s also a choice to learn more about the person. And learning requires study, it requires energy, it requires labor. But it’s not just a choice. And it’s not just wanting to learn about Jesus Christ that makes us a true disciple. But the ultimate thing is that number three, they want to become more like them, more like the person they’re following.
There’s a choice, there’s effort put into it, and there’s an outcome that you’re going to be more like Jesus. Those three parts are all about what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. For the Christian, this refers to the process of learning the teachings of Jesus, following after his example, in obedience through the power of the Holy Spirit. Discipleship not only involves the process of becoming a disciple, but of then making other disciples through teaching and evangelism.
You need to ask yourself, as you go through each of these points, do you look like a disciple of Jesus today? If you don’t fit the character, if you don’t fit the qualities, if none of this is part of your life, you need to stop and ask yourself a question. Maybe you’ve missed out on something along the way and you only think that you’re a Christian. There could be some among us today that are intentional imposters because Paul warned about the wolves that would come into the church and they would claim to be disciples, but they were not. Or it could be.
Third, you’ve just never made a decision to follow Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. But it’s a time to examine our lives today. Here’s if we go to Matthew 28, 1920, we read the Great Commission that expresses this. Jesus said, go, therefore, and make 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.
There’s a process here. Someone becomes a disciple, then they get back baptized. Then they receive the commands of Jesus Christ. But they don’t just have it intellectually. Then it says that they obey everything.
Not some things, but everything that Jesus teaches in his Word. And then they go out and make more disciples following Jesus, being a Christian, being a disciple, results in all of these things. The first characteristic that I want you to see today is that true disciples of Jesus desire to be close to Jesus. True disciples of Jesus have a desire to be close to Jesus. It tells us, as the crowd was pressing in on Jesus to hear God’s word, he was standing by Lake Gennesarett if we’re following along with Luke’s narrative, they’ve already seen Jesus cast out demons.
They’ve heard him preach, they have seen him heal people of sickness and disease. And all of this stuff didn’t make them feel repulsive to Him. They were wanting to get close. They were wanting to know him better. They were wanting to hear what he had to say.
They wanted to see what he wanted to do. It’s just a natural desire of followers of Jesus Christ that they desire to be close to him as much as possible. Once again, they’d heard his teaching, they’d seen him cast out demons, they had seen him heal the sick, but they weren’t bored with any of that. They wanted more.
Psalm 105, 3, 4. In the old Testament, we have the same characteristics of followers of the Lord. Let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.
Seek the Lord and His strength. Seek his face always. In Scripture, whenever you see something said over and over again, that’s the main point here. The main point is that people that want to know God better do what they are constantly seeking after Him. And it gets really intimate here because it says they’re also seeking his face always.
Now we all know how important is when you talk to people, there’s. There’s more to language than what we just hear. What else do we watch? We watch body language and we watch people’s faces.
True followers of Jesus desire to be close to him so that they can see him face to face. A person’s eyes, a person’s mouth. However they do, when you’re close at a table, you can see this and you understand what is really being expressed by them. And so it is with Jesus Christ. We desire to be close to Him.
If we’re as one of his followers, it’s not from a distance.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon puts it this way. To seek his face is to desire his presence, his smile, and his favor. You’re close enough to know when he’s winking at you. You are close enough to him that when he smiles at you, that you feel joyful with that smile.
This seeking must never cease. We can’t just seek him for a little bit and then go our way, because the more we know, the more we must seek to know. He seeks spiritual worshipers, and spiritual worshipers seek Him. They are therefore sure to meet face to face before long. When you see a new baby for the first time, you see.
You look them over and you see all these wonderful things about them. And then the next day, you look at them and you see more wonderful things. And every day, you keep looking at your children over and over because you want to understand them more and more and know more and more about them. That’s what our relationship with the Lord is supposed to be like. And you have to be close to him to pick up on all those nuances and all the things that make him wonderful and dear.
But not only do true disciples desire to be close to Jesus, but they desire to hear God’s Word. Again, we go back to verse one. As the crowd was pressing in on Jesus, they were doing it to hear God’s Word. And yes, Peter was there working. James and John, they were there working.
But they were all clean close to Jesus. They were all wanting to hear what he has to say. And the words of Jesus are written down in the New Testament. But not just there, but all of Scripture are the words of God. We can hear God’s Word today by reading it, by studying it, by being in God’s Word.
True disciples of Jesus have this desire to hear more and more from the Lord. Let’s go back to job. In Job 23:12, I read, I have not departed from the commands from his lips. I have treasured the words from his mouth more than my daily food. Job said, I’ve not departed from God’s Word.
I am continually there with it. But not only is he with it, but he’s actually treasuring God’s words. He sees the great value in them. They are important to him. They’re more important to him than money.
Because what does he compare it to? His daily food? How many of you like to eat?
How many of you miss one meal? You notice it. Two meals, three meals. I mean, you just desire to eat. You want to eat.
And if you don’t eat, you get weak, you get sick, you get grumpy, you get depressed. All of these things start to happen. And Job said more important to him than food was to read, what to read and to know God’s Word. Job is saying, if I have a choice to give up three meals a day or to give up God’s Word, what was he willing to give up? He was willing to give up God’s Word.
Because true disciples of Jesus desire to hear God’s word. First Peter 2. Two, like newborn infants, desire the pure milk of the Word so that by it you may grow up into your salvation. We have a grown man, and he likes to eat. But who else likes to eat?
Here in First Peter 2, a newborn baby. And if you don’t feed a baby, they just lie there and say nothing, right? They what? They cry. And if you wait too long because you’re in the bathroom or you’re washing the dishes, they.
They just do what? They cry louder and louder. That is supposed to be the type of desire that we have for God’s Word. If we’re not getting it, we’re going to be screaming and yelling, please give me more of God’s Word. True disciples of Jesus desire to hear God’s word.
Psalm 119. Look at three verses here. Last year, if you were on our Bible reading plan, you read through Psalm 119 a lot of times. It’s the longest chapter in the Bible and it’s all about God’s word.
Psalm 119, 103. How sweet your Word is to my taste. Sweeter than honey in my mouth. I like that verse. Job, he was a meat and potatoes man.
But the psalmist here is after my heart. He’s going for the dessert, okay? God’s Word is like meat and potatoes. It fills us, it satisfies us, but it’s extra special because it’s sweeter than honey. Psalm 119, verse 105 says, you, word is a lamp for my feet and a light on my path.
It helps us to see where we are going. It helps us to avoid things that we don’t like to step on. My kids like to play with Legos. And at nighttime when I woke up, if I didn’t have a light, I would often step on something this big. If you’ve ever stepped on a Lego in the dark, it’s excruciating.
What pain. Because you need light. And God’s Word does that for us. It helps us to make our steps right. Right.
We understand the importance of having it all the time. Verse 111. I have your decrees as a heritage forever. Indeed, they are the joy of my heart. When we’re sad, God’s Word brings us joy.
When we are discouraged, God’s joy Word brings us encouragement. When we’re depressed, God’s Word lifts us up. And as true disciples of Jesus, we desire to hear God’s Word because we understand the importance of what it does for us when we have these inner deep needs.
True disciples want to be near Jesus. They desire to hear God’s Word. The next thing here is they let Jesus use what they have. Verse 2. He saw two boats at the edge of the lake.
The fishermen had left them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats which belonged to Simon, and he asked him to put out a little from the land. So imagine you’re at Walmart and you come out and a stranger is getting into your car.
Are you going to be shocked? Are you going to approach them? Are you going to say something? Are you going to yell at them? We don’t see that all here in the text.
Now, I don’t think Jesus was a stranger to them. Like I said, they’ve already seen his miracles, They’ve heard his teachings, They’ve seen him heal and cast out demons. So they knew Him.
But even if Matt Jesse was getting into your car when you were down here at the pig, wouldn’t you stop and wonder, matt, what are you doing getting into my car? They didn’t do that. They just let Jesus use what they had. And we see this throughout Scripture that God asks people to give up what they have. And sometimes it’s something so small and insignificant we say, well, God could never use.
That’s not that important. So I’m just not going to give it to him. That’s on one extreme. The other extreme is, well, that’s so big and important to me. I’m not going to let God use that.
Either way is being disobedient. True disciples of Jesus let Jesus use what they have. And the reason for that is found in Deuteronomy 10:14, where we read the heavens, indeed the highest heavens, belong to the Lord your God, as does the earth and everything in it. Everything in it. Who did those two boats belong to?
The Lord. Psalm 24:1. The earth and everything in it, the world and its inhabitants, belong to the Lord. True disciples of Jesus recognize that God owns everything, and everything that we have is at his disposal. We’re also told in Scripture that we’re supposed to give regularly to the Lord.
That’s where we get the teaching about giving a tenth of your earnings. God doesn’t say, give me 100% because it all belongs to me. He says, just give me back enough to show that you recognize that it all belongs to me. I’m not asking for all of it, but do give some of it back. We should have no problem giving to God what we have because it shows our understanding that all things belong to him.
And we should give offerings to the Lord in acknowledgment that all that we have belongs to Him. True disciples of Jesus let Jesus use what they have. And they’re always offering up what they have to him to be used. Let’s go back in the Old Testament to a story about this. I’ll be reading from First Kings 17.
I’ve only got two verses up here, but I’m going to start reading in verse 8 so you can hear the whole story.
The word of the Lord came to him.
This is Elijah. Get up, go to Zarephath, that belongs to Sidon, and stay there. There’s a famine in the land. There hasn’t been any rain because the people of God have been disobedient. They have a wicked queen, Jezebel, and her husband, Jezebel was from Sidon.
And here the prophet of God is being told, go to the wicked queen’s hometown. And God says this, look, I have commanded a woman who is a widow to provide for you there. That’s important to remember that God has already commanded this widow to be obedient to him. So Elijah got up and went to Zarephath. And when he arrived at the city gate, there was a widow gathering wood.
Elijah called to her and said, please bring me a little water and a cup and let me drink. As she went to get it, he called to her and said, please bring me a piece of bread in your hand.
But she shared this sad story. As the Lord your God lives. I don’t have anything baked, only a handful of flour in the jar and a bit of oil in the jug. Just a quarter cup of flour and maybe a teaspoon of oil. Just now I am gathering a couple of sticks in order to go and prepare what definitely was not a full meal for myself and my son so that we can eat it, and that will be the last we will die.
Then Elijah said to her, don’t be afraid. Go and do as you have said. But first make me a small loaf from it and bring it out to me. Afterward, you may make some for yourself and your son. For this is what the Lord God of Israel.
The flour jar will not become empty and the oil jug will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the surface of the land. So she proceeded to do according to the word of Elijah. And then the woman, Elijah and her household ate for many days. The flour jar did not become empty and the oil jug did not run dry. According to the word of the Lord.
He had spoken through Elijah. We don’t have to have a lot, but God can use the little that we do have when we’re willing to give that to him. John 6, 8, 9. A New Testament example. Jesus is needing to feed the 5,000 that are hungry.
And one of his disciples, Andrew Simon Peter’s brother said to him, there’s a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they for? So many. You know how the story goes. The boy offered to the Lord what he had, and Jesus was able to use it to feed the 5,000 and have plenty of food left over.
True disciples of Jesus let Jesus use what they have. The next thing I want you to see is that true disciples of Jesus let Jesus interrupt what they are doing. Again, we go back to the text in Luke. He saw two boats at the edge of the lake. The fishermen had left them and were washing their nets.
And he got into one of the boats, which belonged to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from the land. They’d been fishing all night, and it was a discouraging night because they didn’t catch anything. Now they’re washing their nets. You can’t just go home. You have to make sure the nets are clean and they have to be placed out so they can be dry because they don’t want them to rot.
They may be repairing holes in them, whatever they’re doing, but as they’re finishing up the day’s work, they’re looking forward to going home. So you know what it’s like. You work 8 hours, 10 hours, 12 hours, and at the end of the day, you’re looking forward to going home and what, Just chilling, sitting down. Now, if you’re a farmer, I hear that doesn’t happen, right? But the rest of us, we like to go home and just sit down and rest.
So here you have Peter. And Jesus is asking them to put out from the land. But he doesn’t ask any questions. He doesn’t say, look, my wife has dinner on the table, I need to get home. He doesn’t say, my kids got a ball game, I’ve got to get home.
He doesn’t say, look, I’ve been working all day long. Why are you asking me to do something else? Instead, Jesus just says, put your boat out. And Simon allowed Jesus to interrupt not only what he was doing right there, but basically the. The next hour, the next two hours, however long.
He didn’t know. Simon didn’t complain. He didn’t question. He just put out from the land. True disciples of Jesus let Jesus interrupt what they are doing.
We go over to verse 27, a similar situation. 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. Levi who is Matthew?
He’s sitting at the tax office. He’s got coins. They don’t have any bills, but he’s got money around him on this table. He’s got his abacus, he’s got all this ledgers. He’s having to keep up with what people are paying.
There are people in line that are paying their taxes. He’s doing all of this for Rome. And Jesus walks up and says, follow me. And Matthew says, well, let me take half an hour to count my money and put it in the safe. And I need 15 minutes to close the ledger books.
And I’ve got to take the last people that are in line here. He doesn’t do that. What does it say? He left everything behind and he got up and he began to follow Jesus. True disciples of Jesus, if he interrupts what our plans are, what our life is, what we’re doing, whether it’s thinking about today or tomorrow or next year or the rest of our life, we’re willing to let God interrupt that.
Matthew 16, 24, 26.
Jesus said to his disciples, if anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life because of me will find it. For what will it benefit someone if he gains the whole world yet loses his life? Or what will anyone give in exchange for his life?
What I want us to see here is that becoming a follower of Jesus Christ, it means that we deny ourselves whatever our plans are for our life. We allow Jesus to interrupt those plans. What Jesus wants is more important than what we’re doing now or what we’re planning to do anytime in the future. As disciples of Christ, then we’re willing to stop what we’re doing and take up whatever burden it is he’s placing on us. And we are willing to immediately follow him.
And Jesus tells us that we have this choice here about our life, about our plans, about everything that we are, everything we do, everything we want to accomplish, everything we want to enjoy, and everything we desire, if we hold onto those things, we’re going to lose what’s most important, which is eternal life. But he says if we’re willing to let our lives be interrupted and give all of these things up, he says that is the true way to have the life that really means we’re exchanging a temporal life for an eternal life that’s going to last forever. When Jesus is our master, we give him the right to interrupt our lives. All that we are, all that we do all that we want to accomplish, all that we enjoy and all that we desire. It’s the only way to have life, is to be willing to give your life away to Him.
True disciples of Jesus allow him to interrupt our plans, whether they’re short range or long range, our activities, whether it’s immediate or tomorrow or the next day, that we might serve him and follow him.
Are you a disciple of Christ? Does your life emulate the things that we’ve talked about today? If it doesn’t, you need to ask God to show you what’s wrong and let him lead you to be a true follower of Him. May we pray? Heavenly Father, we thank you.
Thank you that you want to have a relationship with us, one that is close and personal, one that gives us joy, Father, and meaning, and most importantly, an eternal relationship with you. Let us examine our hearts, Father, today. And if there are any among us that do not know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior or are not following him like they should, that you would impress that upon their hearts. In Jesus name we pray.