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Bible preaching from the pulpit of Choice Hills Baptist Church in Greenville, South Carolina
All right, tonight, back to the gospel of Luke chapter five.
Luke chapter number five.
And again, good to be with you tonight.
Looking forward to all of our nights together.
Thank you for praying for my mom.
She did get home.
I kind of said hey to her and left,
but I'll see her in a little while.
We're staying with her tonight, but I appreciate your
prayers for my mom.
Luke 5, last night I kind of just shared
with you that I'm still not sure if the
Lord's going to let us stay in the Gospels
every night, but every night we're going to look
at some aspect of Jesus, and I love the
real-time, real-life stories in the Gospels, like last night.
I mean, it's Jesus on planet earth in a
very precarious moment in his life where he takes
time and it obviously fit in the providence and
it made it into the book that we have
that he spent time walking with two men.
One of the emphasis of the angels and Jesus
to those two men that they were to believe his words.
The angel said it, Jesus said it.
So I guess that's kind of the emphasis of
last night's message.
I did say something about, you know, Jesus,
his aspect, he'll show up.
And what I'm saying is he'll do everything he
said he's going to do.
Even if you're in a situation or a scenario,
it doesn't look like he's showing up.
Or maybe the story I told you of the
couple in my church, it looks like their whole
world fell apart.
How does this work for good?
You can always trust His Word.
And I'm not telling you as a 66-year -old
man that's been preaching for a few years has
got all that figured out and never sits contemplating
in a chair in the dark wondering how in
the world this fits.
But if I've learned anything, I've learned that,
that you can trust His Word.
But you will not get that one night in a revival.
You might get reminded of that one night in
a revival, but you will get that with moments
in His presence.
The church will supplement that.
I have two girls.
I was talking to one of the brothers before church.
I don't know how many times I've shared things
with them, devotions and whatever.
But they've got to have time with their Savior.
Right?
I don't want to get everything from God through
the conduit of a man.
I want to get it straight from Him.
And I believe that the God that did what
He did through Jesus on that seven mile trek
with those two guys and ate in their home
or Cleopas and his wife, whoever it was, doesn't matter.
He'll do that for you.
He'll do that for me.
So tonight, I want us to look in Luke
5 at another real life, real time story where
you have at least a calling of four of his disciples.
We know from another narrative in Mark that it's
Peter, James, John, and Andrew.
And they're all professional fishermen.
James and John, although later on we kind of
learn about them, they might have had some money.
I don't know.
Zebedee might have had a fishing business.
I don't know.
They might have been a little more prominent than
Peter and Andrew.
They might have been the small fishing group.
So they're all fishermen.
We know from the order of the Gospels that
they knew Jesus.
I can't definitively again, I don't know when they
got saved, maybe before this, maybe during this.
Peter makes some really stark different statements,
master in one verse, Lord in another verse.
So I don't know, maybe Peter got saved and
called all in this one story.
I don't know, but all of these men knew
Jesus, came to know Jesus, and became followers of Jesus.
But I want us again to look at four
men in a real-life situation and what Jesus
says and does in this real-life situation that
changes their life forever.
And here's the thing that I want us to
think about with Jesus, but it also melts kind
of into these four meanings, well, and to us,
following Jesus.
And when I say following Jesus, that's the biggest
thing Jesus told people to do.
And I'm not saying, you know, I'm not saying
you shouldn't pray a prayer to get saved.
I'm not saying that.
I'm just telling you, Jesus said,
follow me.
Following is a daily routine.
Following is a constant intentional plan.
I remember in my early days, pastor at Tabernacle,
the guy that came through preaching was S .M.
Lockeridge.
I can't remember his last name.
His first name was Shadrach Meshach.
That's what S .M.
stood for.
He was a black guy.
He could preach.
So after the service was over, I went to
ask him just some things.
I was a young guy sitting at Tabernacle just getting started.
I was like, whatever, 17, 18 years old.
And man, I just thought, man, this is great.
I need something from him.
I need to talk to this man.
So I was looking for something really big or
deep or whatever.
I don't know why I thought that at 18,
but whatever.
Goofy, I guess.
I'm still not quite, I'm still goofy, but just
not quite as goofy.
But here's what he told me,
Pastor. And I was a little bothered by it.
I thought he just blew me off.
You know, who's this young guy, this student?
He said, Brother Roberts, get up every morning.
Find him.
Follow him.
And I did.
I thought that was, I was looking for like,
get up at four and pray for two hours
and study the word of God for an hour.
And it was just simple.
It took me a while to figure out there
was a whole lot, what that man said.
So I want us to think tonight about following.
Can I tell you something that kind of stinks
a little bit to last night's thought?
You ain't gonna follow nobody you don't believe.
These guys followed him to their deaths.
They didn't follow him to attend church.
They followed them to die.
Right?
Their belief level was really deep.
So let's dive into this passage and we'll just
look, we'll just look as we go through it
and then I'll have three little things at the
end of the message last night, like last night
first to think about.
First three verses, I'm just going to call this Jesus teaches.
Now again, these men already know him.
He's already been to Peter's house,
already healed his mom-in -law.
So I mean, they've had a relationship and maybe
he got saved in.
Crowds are assembling, that's not unusual.
Peter and those guys have been doing what they
do every night.
Fish all night.
Sell their fish.
Go home to sleep and repeat the process.
And so they're in the process of that and
the crowds are doing what they've been doing all the time.
They just follow Jesus around like this big long
snake of people.
You know, what's he going to say this time?
Who's he going to heal?
And the majority of those people we find out
in John 6 were just following him for the
show and the food.
You know, you've got a nice show and you've
got free food.
And many of them just, you know, they left.
So first three verses.
It came to pass that as the people pressed
upon him to hear the word of God,
he stood by the lake of Gennesaret and saw
two ships standing by the lake.
But the fishermen were gone out of them and
were washing their nets.
And so Jesus, he entered into one of the
ships, which was Simon.
So he goes to Peter's ship and prayed him
that he would thrust out a
little bit just in these first three verses that
we're going to get more of the scenario,
what happens, the back story, because Peter's going to
have to tell him when he asks him to
do what he asks him to do in verse
4, which is probably the last thing that he
wanted to do was go fishing again at this moment.
So they're in the process, it tells us in
verse 2 of washing their nets.
They're gone out, all the fishermen, so they're referring
maybe to both ships and all four of these
individuals have had this night of nothing and they're
just doing the net cleaning.
The fishing that they did was really heavyweight fishing.
I mean, they were like 100 pounds of ropes
and stuff and they would sling them in semicircles
and pull them in and sling them and pull
them and sling them and pull them and sling
them and pull them.
And then when they got back in, they would
do what they were doing when Jesus just asked
Peter, and I don't know what Peter was doing.
Maybe he was still doing on the ship while
Jesus sat on the ship as he was cast
off a little way from the land, or maybe
he was was on the land on the dock.
I don't know what Peter was doing other than
they continued the process of doing what they did
to clean the nets, roll the nets.
They said they would kind of roll them up
and let them dry so they wouldn't mold or
whatever to protect them because you just didn't want
to buy new.
So you get it.
What they did was hard work and when they
came back there was more work to be done
and they're in the process of that.
When Jesus just asked Peter, would you mind letting
me kind of use your boat and I'm just
going to cast it off just a little bit
and I'm just going to talk.
We don't know anything about what he talks about
or we don't know how long he talked.
Now, I'm just going to be honest with you.
Jesus could go for a while,
right?
It was like 30minutes sometimes.
Sometimes it would be hours,
you know.
So I don't know how long he talked,
but it doesn't really matter.
It doesn't feed anything into the story.
So you get where we are.
You got four men that know Jesus.
Maybe they're saved.
Maybe they're followers at a distance.
They're about to become followers in totality.
And I do not mean that they left their nets.
Everybody, in a sense, leaves their nets.
No matter what job you do, the most important
thing you do is the same thing they did.
They were fishers of men.
That's it.
They did it differently.
We're not all the Apostle Paul.
We don't all leave this country and go establish
a church somewhere.
But in the same sense, no matter what our
eight to four is, this is our calling.
And nothing else on the planet ever infringes on this.
This is not the tag to my life.
It is my life.
We were talking earlier about my oldest girl.
She's a nurse.
And she's been a nurse with Prisma now 25,
26.
I can't keep up with long time.
She's an ER nurse, trauma bay.
She loves it.
She loves all the stuff.
I don't see how she deals with that.
She didn't get it from me or my mama.
But I don't know how many times she's had the opportunity.
One was a 40-year -old man, traveling salesman.
Car wreck on 85.
She's had to call the wife.
She lives down towards Atlanta.
She ain't gonna make it.
Charity knows she ain't gonna make it.
She knows the bleed that he has, he ain't gonna live.
So she gets to share Jesus.
Now if it gets around, she might lose her
job every once in a while, but I have reminded her.
She's there to heal the sick.
Yeah, she's there to make sure they get the
right meds, but any opportunity she gets to do
what she's called to do, you step in.
If you lose your job, I promise you,
God will have you another one quick.
Because that's our calling.
Everybody leaves the nets.
When you have an encounter with Jesus, you do.
You can go to church and never leave your nets.
I want to remind you of something too.
Peter and none of these guys respond to the message.
Isn't that kind of weird?
You'd think when Jesus preached, everybody would flock the altars,
right?
No movement.
He's just cleaning the nets, maybe thinking,
when's he going to be done?
I'd really like to go home and go to bed.
I got to fish again tonight.
So you get it.
Four men, they know Jesus might be saved.
I tend to think they are already.
That's just my opinion.
And he's talking,
preaching his message.
It tells us he preached the kingdom of God, verse 43.
So that was kind of his thing.
He went to cities and he preached the kingdom.
Verse four.
So there's the Jesus teaching.
Here's Jesus makes a request and makes a promise.
The request is simple.
Launch out into the deep and let down your
nets for a drop.
So the request is I need you to take your boats.
And I think he was asking for all of them.
Because he says nets plural.
So I don't think he was just asking for Peter's boat.
Don't you think the Lord already knew he was
going to fill up two ships?
Right?
I don't think, you know, I think he was already knowing.
You're going to need two ships for what's about to happen.
Can I just tell you a little secret that's
kind of like a side possible truth in this passage?
God knows way more what's going to happen if
you'll just follow him.
It's way bigger than you think.
Right?
It's way bigger.
And the reason we can't think like that,
and this is not like 1-800 like super faith.
I'm not talking about some kind of charismatic thing here.
I'm just telling you what God plans on doing
through you is way bigger than you can imagine
because it never depends on you.
It depends on him.
It depends on who's in the boat.
It depends on who's making the promise.
And he tells them a drought.
If you'll launch out, let down,
I will produce a drought.
But here's key.
Peter's got to hoist that and get that boat out there.
Right?
So he's got a decision to make.
He's got a choice to make.
So he's got to do this.
Peter can't help it.
And neither can we.
I don't know how many times I have given
the Lord information about what I'm going through in
my life when he's leading me to do something.
I need to fill in the blanks just to
make sure he understands.
I've even done a little bit of that over
the last couple of weeks with my mom.
I like being vulnerable and human.
I quit hiding my mess.
I'm 66.
I'm too old to hide anymore.
You see, my life's about to change a little.
I already changed a little bit with my wife,
her situation.
Her dad passed away and her mom lived with
us for about two and a half, three years.
You get to wondering, God, the timing.
Now, how are we going to navigate this?
I got meetings to preach.
I got places to go.
That stuff do.
I'm just reminding you that what Peter's about to
do, we do all the time.
Can I just say this was not the right
time to go fishing?
They don't fish at night because they don't want to sleep.
They fish at night because that's the time you catch fish.
And you can clean them and get them prepared,
sell them, sleep, and do it again.
So fishing during the day is what I've read
was not the time.
Too hot, it never goes the deep.
And I'm just reminding you, these guys are professionals.
They know where the hot spots are.
All good fishermen know where the hot spots are.
They know where somebody in that neighborhood threw all
their Christmas trees and there's fish all in them Christmas trees.
Or they put the Christmas trees in there and
that's why they go back.
Whatever.
These guys knew the spots.
So here's Jesus wanting to go fishing.
At the wrong time of day in the wrong place.
And it's the last thing they want to do
because of what he says.
Simon answering, Master, we have toiled all the night
and have taken nothing.
I just need you to understand.
Now apparently he's already decided I'm going to take
at least my boat and my net.
But I just need to let you know that
here's what I've already done.
And we've got nothing.
We've got nothing to show for it.
But I will at your word let down the net.
Now, I want you to think about this just a minute.
I don't want to overdo it.
It's obedience, but it's kind of weak obedience.
Now, you know the reason I like that?
Because that sounds just like me.
I wish I could tell you, you know,
I was just this mountain of faith.
I remember in my first church,
I'd went there, first church, it was 1979, October,
November of 1979, took this church, had six adults in it.
You know, so I had to work a part-time
job, still in Tabernacle, at the time, third-year Tabernacle.
And we wasn't growing too fast, you know.
People would come to church, and there'd be me
and my wife, and there's like two couples,
and I think there was maybe two kids,
and people would visit the church, and they'd tell
me, y'all don't even have a choir.
And I'm thinking, tell me something I don't know.
I know we don't have a choir.
I'm here every Sunday.
Right?
Then they'd say, you ain't got no kids.
Ah, I hadn't noticed.
Right?
You know, I'm up here.
I wanted to tell them sometimes, well, if y'all
would join, we'd have two more.
Right?
Well, our finances weren't good either.
The first church I ever pastored for the first
13months we operated in the red.
Every month.
And God was just in just miraculous ways just
feeding our faith.
But I wish I could tell you when the
oil furnace went out, I wish I could tell
you I looked at my two deacons.
One was 60, one was 40, and I had
just fresh turned 20.
I wish I could have said, brethren,
we're just going to stand for Jesus and we're
going to trust Him and God's going to take
care of this.
I wish I could tell you I said that.
But I was sweating just like they were.
What are we going to do?
Whatever amount of faith you got, believe Him with it.
Whatever step, even if it's just like maybe a
half step, go for it.
Go for it.
If you ever make a step and wish you'd
taken a bigger one like they might have been,
they might have lost some fish because they didn't
take both nets and both ships.
Don't ever let that keep you from trying it again.
Your faith will never be perfect because you ain't perfect.
But God responds to faith.
When they did what they did, God did what he does.
That's what God will do.
God don't respond to you because you're great and
you're perfect and you get it right every time.
He responds when you respond as weak as it is.
Hallelujah for a God that will do that.
Because I wish I could tell you 66,
I've done figured all this out and now I
am a mountain of faith.
I wish I could tell you that.
But I'm still growing.
I'm still grabbing.
Right?
So he tells him,
and, you know,
we're going to let down a net.
I love six and seven, and when they had
this done,
the minute they did,
they enclosed a great multitude of fishes.
And their net break, and they beckoned.
Now they're gonna get the other nets and the
other ship involved and they came and filled both
the ships so that they began to sink.
You know, what God, Jesus did in this passage is overwhelming.
It's way more than a thank you for the boat,
right?
There's more going on here.
You know,
Jesus in this passage, and we'll get to verse
8, because verses 8 through 10 is the real
punch in this passage.
But before we get there, Jesus is getting up
in their business.
Can I tell y'all something?
Jesus knows all earthly stuff.
Jesus knows fishing.
You think these four, because they've been fishing for
30 years on the Lake Genesaret,
you think they knew where the fish were?
Mm-mm.
God who made them does.
Do you think God knows you?
Think your mama knows you better?
Think your daddy knows you better?
He knows you better.
He made you.
You might have your mama's nose, your daddy's eyes.
But he made you.
You think he gets how you feel?
I'm telling you, Jesus got in their business to
remind them that he doesn't just know the eternal,
he knows them.
He knows fishing.
Here's what he's inviting them into.
The eternal.
See, that's what I don't know.
That's what I'm learning.
I'm learning how to live not by flesh.
not by sight,
not by fear,
but by faith.
Don't you want a little bit of what Noah
had to build a boat for something that never happened?
Well, everybody heckles at you like you're an idiot.
You know, they ain't even a weatherman.
You know, call it for rain.
But he just does it because God told him to.
Or like Abraham who leaves and don't even have
a GPS coordinate at the end of it.
But he just leaves because God said,
go!
Were either one of those guys perfect, by the way?
Do they got some bad chapters?
Do they have a few bad exits?
Yes, they do!
But they had enough faith to take a few
steps in his direction.
Hear me, every step you take following God,
you're going to learn who your God is.
They got a taste of eternal.
They knew in all their life they'd never caught
that many fish.
So now we get to the, my opinion,
the why of this story.
Eight to ten, we'll call this the confession of Peter.
The confession of Peter.
So you got the fish.
You got boats sinking.
I believe this is the objective.
I'm going to say a couple things.
Then we'll dive into these little thoughts here.
Jesus wants you to be overwhelmed with not what
he does but who he is.
It's way bigger, way better because sometimes in life
I don't like what he does.
But if I know who he is I know
he can't do anything wrong.
Sometimes I don't understand what he does and I
might die here and go there before I get
a view of why.
But I can steal when I don't know the why.
I know whom I have believed and I'm persuaded,
right, about who he is.
Jesus did not want them overwhelmed with fish.
He wanted them overwhelmed with him.
And boy, Peter got it.
Right?
Listen, here's what he says.
He fell down at Jesus' knees saying,
depart from me.
He ain't talking about the rest of these guys.
He ain't thinking about nobody but him and who's
in his boat.
For I am a sinful man, O Lord.
Master, verse five.
Lord, verse eight.
He's got a clear view of not the pile
of fish and not a boat that's sinking,
but a God in human form that's in his
boat and he's not confessing a deed done.
He's confessing that he is a sinful man.
Hear me.
You follow Jesus.
You're going to get a clear view of yourself.
As long as I'm kind of measuring myself up
to somebody I think is a little less than
me or whatever,
or kind of measuring my life based on the
last good message or the last whatever.
You're never going to, listen, you stay in close
contact with Jesus, following Jesus,
having a front row seat to who Jesus is.
You have a front row seat of who you are.
And I need that.
You need that.
This right here would fix a lot of squabbles
in a house, in a family, in a church,
between Christians and lost people because lost people do
what lost people do.
You want to get the right perspective?
Learn who's in your boat.
Learn who has chosen to dwell in a clay pot.
Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, in an
earthen vessel, a cheap clay pot is the very
glory of God lives right here.
Peter got it.
I don't even deserve to be in this boat no more.
The fish highlighted who Jesus was.
I love what Jesus does.
Now this ought to help you.
I'm just telling you, it helps me.
Nine just talks about all of them being astonished
about the fishes.
And then he mentions the partners.
And Jesus said unto Simon, you know, you can't but help.
If anybody's been in church any length of time,
in a few more chapters of Peter's life,
he's gonna have another little conversation like this with Jesus.
Remember?
Remember old cocky Peter?
That's after this, by the way.
And that will be a good reason when I
remind you of something a little bit.
Just remember this.
Peter, this is a soul moment in this passage.
He done lost who's with him on the boat.
He's done missed the fish and he's seeing God
and he's seeing himself.
This is an Emmaus Road event right here.
I'm not saying God can't do this in church,
but I'm just telling you, this is a moment
between the Son of God and a man named
Peter and he'd have another one with him later
on and it would be bathed in forgiveness and
let's go start a church together.
But here he looks at Peter and he does
not say, Peter, you are so right.
You are so predispositioned to sin.
Couldn't he say that to all of us tonight?
All I got to do is think about what
my tongue does over about 24 hours or a
couple days, a couple weeks to be reminded how
frail I am.
Fear not.
Let's go catch some men.
What's he do to Peter?
Pushes him back.
No, he invites him in.
I like that.
I think of every time and we ain't got
time for me to tell you my whole story.
Of how many times I've sat in that big
long room on the end of that parsonage in
that big old den.
I'd sit there in the dark after a Sunday
of no more visitors and no people and I'd
sulk and whine and moan and hunt for a geniper tree.
And then God would meet with me the next
morning in my study and say, that's all right, let's go.
Let's go.
That's what he's telling Peter.
I get it.
You get it.
That's why I got in your boat.
That's why I did what you did.
It's never been about the fish.
I just want you to be overwhelmed with me.
And if you keep following me, you'll see more of yourself.
And we'll do great things together.
Because look at what they do.
Verse 11.
They forsook all.
Isn't that crazy?
They left their nets.
They left their families.
Everything changed in their life.
Everything.
Their perspective changed from that moment.
They forsook all and they followed him.
And that was a big deal.
What time is it?
That's not too bad.
Close your Bibles.
I got three things.
Three things.
Following Jesus.
Here's what's gonna happen.
Now again, following Jesus don't mean you go to church.
Now you do.
But boy, we do a whole lot outside this building,
right? About most of our life,
right? Okay.
So you get it.
Following Jesus is intentional.
It's every day.
When you try to map your life out and
follow him, you're going to learn him.
You're going to have a front row seat to him.
I remember a story I heard from my grandpa.
My grandpa died when I was seven.
So I don't remember much.
And my grandpa didn't tell him the story,
but the missionary did.
He went to Mexico.
I didn't even know my grandpa went to Mexico
until the missionary told me.
His last name was Peel.
Norman,
whatever. Not Norman Vincent Peel.
But it was Peel.
That's the wrong Peel.
Wasn't that Peel?
So he told me this story and said,
my papa was down there and they were building this building.
And they don't get much rain, but the wood
structure was up and a storm was coming.
And they didn't want the wood to get wet
because it would maybe damage the wood or whatever.
And they got to missing Papa.
That's where I got my name,
Guy. His name was Guy Kelly.
And Papa had walked around the building and was
on his knees out in the, like the dirt
beyond the building.
And he was just praying.
And Brother Peel looked at me and I'm like
a six, seven year old kid and I'm waiting
like, you know, this is good.
And he said, little guy, I watched God just
stop that storm and move it aside.
Look, I'm not saying you won't learn some God
stories in this building, but you're going to learn
your best God stories is when he's in your
boat and he's asking you to do something and
you're willing to do it even if it's,
and you'll have a front row seat to watch him work.
That's when you'll learn about him, and it won't be secondhand.
It won't be your mama's story.
I tell our people all the time, you need God's stories.
You gotta have them.
Second thing,
when you're following Jesus,
guess what will be regular?
Confessing sin.
Regular.
Soul refreshing comes through regular repentance.
Don't you think about something.
I ain't trying to guilt trip you.
I'm just trying to get you to think about something.
And listen to my question.
In the last, we'll do three days,
okay? We'll do three days.
In the last three days,
have you confessed an identifiable sin?
Name it.
Now, I do pray every once in a while.
There were sacrifices for inadvertent sins.
I do pray every once in a while.
Lord, if I've said something, done something today that
I shouldn't have, bring it to my memory or
forgive me for it or let them bring it
to my memory.
I'd like to get it fixed.
But you do know if you're just kind of
rocking on day after day after day and there's
no identifiable sin you can name, you're either living
without it or you're not aware of it.
Listen, you hang out with him,
you're gonna see you.
But what I like about him is he won't shun you.
He'll just say, just confess it and let's move on.
Let's keep going.
He don't hold no grudges.
He won't hold it over your head.
He won't remind you of it.
Like other believers will.
I remember six years ago when you said something
to fellowship,
Paul. God won't do that to you.
He will be done and gone and you can
just keep right on moving like it never happened.
But you'll be confessing sin when you follow Christ.
The last thing, and this is my favorite one.
You stay close to Jesus, I promise you,
you won't hang on to nothing that comes between
you and him.
There ain't no job.
There ain't no amount of money.
There ain't no sin.
There's nobody that you won't forsake for him.
When you follow him and you know who's in
your boat and you know who will allow you
a sinful man, saved by the grace of God,
forgiven, justified,
just like I have no sin.
But listen, I'm not completely, totally righteous just yet.
I got issues, but God will just say,
come on, let's go do work.
Let's go do ministry together.
You won't let nothing.
You'll give up everything.
You'll forsake everything to follow him, to stay close to him.
Heads are bowed, eyes are closed.
Pastor, you come.
Close as you see fit.