Leaving It All Behind

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, and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. 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. And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. 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. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, 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.” And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.

Introduction:

What does it cost to follow Jesus? If you are a follower of Christ, when you heard and believed the gospel, what did you have to leave behind in order to follow after Jesus?

Most of us don't understand this on the same level as Pastor Afshin Ziafat, who pastors in Frisco, Texas. Afshin grew up in a devout muslim family. When he was a student, he had multiple encounters with Christians who shared Christ with him. Eventually, he surrendered to Christ at an evangelistic crusade. Here's how Ziafat recounts what happened next:

>I made my commitment to Christ public at that evangelistic crusade, but driving home from the event is when it hit me: “What am I going to tell my family? What am I going to tell my father?” My father had always been the most important person in my life, the guy I’d always looked up to. I’m ashamed to say that I decided to hide my newfound faith from him and the rest of my family. I would sneak out to go to church, intercept mail from the church I was attending, and hide my Bible.

Finally, one day my dad found out. He’d seen my Bible, and he’d also seen other evidences in my life. He sat me down and said, “Son, what’s going on? There’s something different about you.” I said, “Dad, I’m a Christian.” He said, “No, you’re not, young man. you’re a Muslim and you’ll always be a Muslim.” I said, “Dad, the Bible says that if I trust in Christ alone for my salvation, then I’m a Christian — and I do.” My dad said, “Afshin, if you’re going to be a Christian, then you can no longer be my son.”

Everything in my flesh wanted to say, “Forget it. I’ll be a Muslim.” I didn’t want to lose the relationship with my dad. So even I was surprised when I opened my mouth and said, “Dad, if I have to choose between you and Jesus, then I choose Jesus. And if I have to choose between my earthly father and my heavenly Father, then I choose my heavenly Father.” My father disowned me on the spot.<

The choice to follow Jesus is a choice to follow Him apart from anyone or anything else in your life. That doesn't mean you will lose your family to follow Jesus. You might. But you will be leaving everything else, that doesn't help you follow Jesus.

This morning, in Luke 5 we encounter some fishermen who had their entire life trajectory changed by meeting Jesus. Meeting Jesus radically changed their lives. As we look into this passage I want you to see Jesus operating on mission, once again displaying his identity, and how He reorients the lives of His followers.

I. Jesus is operating on mission.

Jesus continued preaching the Word of God displaying his orientation around His mission. He’s standing by the lake of Gennesaret which is just another name for the Sea of Galilee. There are some boats there so He gets into the one that belonged to Simon. He sits and teaches from the boat. This would have been a very practical way for Him to be heard when there was such a group of people about. His voice would carry over the water and the people would better be able to hear His teaching.

Did you notice in verse 5 as the people were pressing in on Him that they were eager to hear the Word of God. This is key because it is the beginning of being a disciple of Jesus. You start out on the path of following Jesus by hearing what Jesus has said. It starts with the Word of God. This means you need to study the Bible. You need to spend time in the Word of God by yourself and with other people. You need to hear good, gospel centered, faithful, Spirit-filled preaching every week as part of a local church.

Romans 10:17 ESV

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

A disciple first listens to Jesus. Someone who doesn't want to listen to Jesus is most likely not a disciple. That's a big statement. As we continue on in this passage you're going to see that once we are confronted with the truth of who Jesus is, for someone who follows Jesus, there's only one response.

It’s also very dangerous to simply listen all the time and never actually become a disciple of Jesus. In fact, in some way, if you’re not willing to become a disciple, it’s actually better to not come to church because we know that we WILL be held accountable for what we hear.

II. Jesus displays to the fishermen that He is the Holy One of God.

When Jesus is finished teaching from the boat, He tells Simon to put out for a fishing trip. The fishermen had been out all night fishing as was their custom. In this body of water the fish would be closer to the surface at night so that's when they would take the boats out to fish. As it stood, they had not caught anything the night before and had washed their nets and assuredly left them drying in the sunlight. Here Jesus tells them to go fishing in what would have been the worst time of the day to fish. A seasoned fisherman knew this. And yet, Peter's response to Jesus was to obey. He listened to what Jesus had said. He even uses the title "Master" for Jesus. That’s a title for respectful submission.

He puts out into the water and they cast their nets. They catch such a large amount of fish that the nets were breaking. They signal their partners in the other boat and even with their help there were so many fish that the boats started to sink.

And Peter’s reaction is pretty wild. This catch would have made a big difference in their lives. They were fishermen by trade and needed the money to take care of their families. And yet, Peter’s reaction to this miracle of Jesus didn’t have anything to do with that. Look at verse 8.

Luke 5:8 ESV

But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”

He fell to his knees before Jesus. Seeing Jesus do something that Peter knew only God could do caused Peter to have an immediate and acute understanding of his own sinfulness and uncleanness before a Holy God. Listen to what R.C. Sproul wrote about this in his book “The Holiness of God.”

"We notice that Jesus did not lecture Peter about his sins. There was no rebuke, no word of judgment. All Jesus did was to show Peter how to catch fish. But when the Holy is manifest, no words are need to express it. Peter got the message that was impossible to miss. The transcendent standard of all righteousness and all purity blazed before his eyes. Like Isaiah before him, Peter was undone."

When Sproul says it’s like Isaiah, he’s referring to Isaiah 6:1-5 where it says:

————

Isaiah 6:1–5 ESV

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

This is what we see in Peter’s response. God in the flesh is in his boat… right in front of him. Notice that he doesn’t refer to Jesus as Master this time but Lord. He realized his sin in light of God’s presence. Every disciple must come to the point of repentance. We must acknowledge our sin before God and run to Jesus to deal with our sin.

So a disciple first listens to Jesus, then they recognize their own sinfulness in the presence of God, and then you leave everything to follow Him. And that's what happens here. Jesus reorients the lives of the disciples.

III. Jesus reorients the lives of disciples.

Jesus's response to Peter is somewhat unexpected.

As Sproul pointed out for us, He doesn't trash him for how sinful he is.

Too many think they aren’t good enough for Jesus and when they realize who He is they want Him to stay away. That’s a problem. It’s like sending away the only doctor who can fix what is making you sick.

Owen Strachan quote:

>"We live in a world where children die, marriages struggle, friends disappear, men destroy their ministries, illnesses don't heal, grief doesn't lift, oppressors don't apologize, and pain doesn't diminish.

Yet Jesus stands before us, arms open wide, full of grace, full of mercy. The Good Shepherd is not tired of us or annoyed by us; the Good Shepherd is not frustrated with our persistent weakness and our regular failure. The Good Shepherd has come to earth, flown in from the upper heavens if you will, for just this mission of mercy. He has come to give himself on the cross for us. He has come to bind up the broken, to heal the pain-stricken, to comfort the anxious, to give rest to the sleepless, to relieve those who grieve on the edge of giving up.

The Good Shepherd is with us, here, in the trenches, in the pit, in the valley, in the wilderness, in the darkness, and he is never leaving."<

Jesus takes these fishermen of whom, we see Simon understanding the level of his sinfulness and who Jesus is. And he radically changes their life’s mission. This is a total career change. They would still be fishermen but the target of their fishing was to be people from now on.

When you follow Jesus, you get a new mission, new goals, and new desires.

Following Jesus also means walking away from something else. Following Jesus involves your whole life. It is not something you can just compartmentalize.

In fact, leaving everything is the only proper response to an encounter with Jesus. You recognize His identity and authority as Peter did, you recognize your own sinfulness in view of Holy God, and you leave everything else to follow Jesus because you understand Him as worthy of that. He’s the only one worth of that kind of loyalty and submission.

A disciple will leave everything to follow Jesus. And these men got a complete life reorientation. Not only does Jesus change their career path but He changes what it will mean for them to fish. Instead of casting nets to capture fish and lead them to their death, they would now be putting out the net of the gospel and trying to rescue the spiritually dead and show them how to have true life in Jesus. From life taking to life giving.

And just like Peter, we should stand in awe at how amazing it is that the Son of God would chose such sinful people to follow Him. It should fill us with amazement that Jesus uses sinful people to accomplish His mission. That’s the only kind of people there are!

How incredible. It's subversive and backwards of what the world says.

He doesn't look for perfect people... he takes sinful people and cleans them up and sets them on mission...

J.D. Greear - "The gospel came to you because it was on its way to someone else."

Do you remember the story of Afshin Ziafat from the beginning of my sermon?

He wrote this about what happened:

>I had to lose my father to follow Christ. But I learned firsthand that when you lose your life, you find it. God gave me a roommate in college who was also a former Muslim and was also disowned by his father. After college, God led me to seminary. He provided a businessman in Dallas who paid for my entire seminary degree and a church internship, which eventually led to a position as a college pastor. God gave me a fifteen-year speaking ministry where I traveled all over the United States, preached the gospel, and saw Muslims come to faith in Christ.

I have partnered with a ministry that reaches into Iran with the gospel, and have had the privilege of training and equipping Iranian pastors, helping to spread the gospel in the same nation from which my family came. I now pastor a church in Frisco, Texas, where I get to weekly remind our people to count the cost of following Christ. As a result, we have grown, planted three churches, and sent out several missionaries around the world. Finally, I am thrilled to say that my relationship with my dad has been restored, and I continue to pray for his salvation daily.<

>I’m passionate for people to know that there’s a cost to following Jesus. What is it costing you to follow him? It might be that the thing you’re holding onto is the thing that’s keeping you from living for his glory. For me, it was my dad. For you, it might be something else.

There is a huge difference between being a follower of Christ and merely giving mental assent to the truths about Jesus. The call of Christ isn’t simply “Believe the right things about me” but “Follow me.” And following Jesus is defined by losing your life. It is laying down your dreams, your pursuits, your idols to grab ahold of the greatest treasure in life: Jesus. When we lose our lives, God will leverage our lives for his glory and for others to know Jesus. There is no greater joy and fulfillment in life than this.<

So what do I want you to see today? I want you to see Jesus. The King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The King of the universe who put on flesh and lived a perfect life as all man and all God in your place because you couldn’t. He gave His life in in your place on the cross to pay the sacrifice that your sin required. In doing so, He gives you His right standing before God and gives you eternal life. He calls you to follow Him. Leave everything and follow Him. And those who follow Him, get a mission. You are now a fisher of men. So see Jesus, fall down before Him, leave everything and follow Him on His mission to see those around us come to know Him and have their lives reoriented around Him. He’s what matters most. He’s the great treasure! What could you hold back from Him?

Let’s pray.

Pray.

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