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September 2, 2026 | Ozzy Wei guides listeners through Luke 5:1-11, where Jesus calls his first disciples. He explores three key truths about following Jesus: it is uncomfortable, requires humility, and will cost everything, challenging believers to count the cost and fully surrender to God.
Various midweek classes on wednesday nights
Hey, let's throw it to the tables here. Today, we're gonna be in Luke 5, verses 1 through 11. So if you have your Bibles or your phone, go ahead and flip there. I want everyone at their tables to read this passage out loud together and then discuss which verse stands out to you and why. Now, before you do that, I wanna let you know that when I read my Bible in the morning, when I'm spending personal time with the Lord, I always find that no matter how much I read, there is usually one thing that jumps out to me. It could be a word, it could be a verse, it could be a theme, and our minds are usually only able to handle one thing. And so you might find that people at your table see different things in the passage than you, or you might find that everyone is seeing the same thing, and that's a good thing too. So as you read Luke 5, verses 1 through 11, just have an open mind, open up your eyes to see what jumps out to me, and then discuss that. All right, guys, let's go ahead and wrap up those conversations, and let's walk through this passage together. Hey, I hope that was helpful for you guys. Even though when you spend some time with the Lord, you're opening up his word, and you're wanting to see what he has to say to you, it's always a good exercise just to ask questions about the text. And so that's exactly what we just did, and you were able to hear some different perspectives and hopefully gain more out of the passage. So let's continue on here, and let's walk through this together. If I had to give this lesson a title, I would say it is a life-changing exchange, a life-changing exchange. We're all very fascinated by exchanges. Think about the popular TV show, Pawn Stars. Y'all seen Pawn Stars? All right, where the essence of the show is price negotiations, getting the best deals out of it. When we travel internationally, we're very interested in how much the US currency is worth in other countries. How worth it is the cash that we have when we travel? When we consider job offers, we're thinking about compensation, we're thinking about benefits packages, and we're comparing them to other opportunities, going, which one is actually worth it? Which one should I take? And so we wanna know, in a lot of different ways, whether something is worth it. And that's what's happening here when Jesus is calling his first disciples. We're very fascinated by exchanges, and there's an exchange that takes place. Simon received an invitation to trade in his life. This was an offer given to him, and he chose to give it up for a new one. And this new one was the one that Jesus had for him. Okay, so when we look at this exchange, we can learn three truths about following Jesus. Three truths about following Jesus. Just like you'd wanna count the cost of something at the grocery store, just like you'd wanna weigh the two decisions that you're faced with, which one's better, Jesus, in a way, gives his first disciples a price tag. This is what it's gonna look like following me. And the same is true when we're studying the word. Jesus gives us three truths about following him. So the first truth about following Jesus is that it's uncomfortable. Just gotta say it. This is the price tag. I'm telling you the cost of following Jesus, okay? So I'm being honest with you, being honest with scripture. Following Jesus is uncomfortable. We get this in verses four through six. When Jesus had finished speaking, he said to Simon, put out into 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. When they did this, they caught a great number of fish and their nets began to tear. At this time, it was widely known that fishermen were supposed to fish at night and in shallow waters, okay? They were supposed to be fishing at night in shallow waters. Jesus goes to the opposite extreme. He says, let's fish in the deep end during the day. So this is going against what these fishermen knew. And after all, Jesus is a carpenter, right? He doesn't do fishing for a trade. And so he's telling this group of fishermen how to do their jobs, right? Pretty ridiculous. To point out how ridiculous this is, I thought of the movie, The Odyssey. Any of you seen The Odyssey so far? All right, so this is Odysseus and this is a picture of him plucking his bow before hunting his prey. Because his reasoning was, I want to give my prey a fair shot. Now, the friends that I have that hunt, I don't know of any of them that do this, okay? So this is pretty ridiculous. Or imagine driving with your high beams on down I-40 during the day when it's sunny, okay? Just as ridiculous as that is and as this is, this is a ridiculous request, these fishermen. Why should I be fishing in the deep end during the day? But Jesus knew what he was doing. Jesus knew what he was doing. God knows what he's doing even when we don't understand it. We need to understand that God is outside of our full understanding. There are attributes he has revealed. He's revealed himself to us through his word, but we're not gonna fully get it and that's okay. Some of us look at our circumstances and because we don't fully understand it, think something's wrong. Sometimes God is just up to something greater that we don't understand in the moment. So Simon responds to this ridiculous request and he says, Jesus, we've tried all night, like we're supposed to. I imagine him saying it that way. Like we're supposed to and we haven't caught a thing. But if you say so, during the day and in the deep end, then I'll cast the net. So Simon obeys even when it didn't make sense to him. This carpenter who's telling them wrong instructions about fishing, Simon still obeys him. He casts the net and he catches the catch of his lifetime. You and I like things to be explained. When something's explained, we feel a lot better about it. Why did I lose this? Why is my body aching? Some of us still don't understand why our bodies are aching. Why did that person decide to do what they did? Life is just a lot more comfortable when we have explanations, but God's involvement can't always be explained. And some of us in the room, when we look at our life circumstances right now, are walking in that. I don't know what God is doing. I want you to know tonight that God is still up to something. He's working even when you don't see it or feel it. For the past 200 years, we have elevated our reasoning, human reasoning, above everything else. Some of you guys might know this as the enlightenment. In a sense, science has become the God. All right, if science can explain it, then we've conquered it. It's not miraculous, nor is it God, because we have the explanation. We've scientifically proven it. But when you follow Jesus, the journey is not always going to make sense. It's not always gonna make sense. Simon had the explanation. If I keep fishing in shallow waters at night, I'll eventually catch. But he wouldn't have experienced God's power if he disobeyed. He had to obey even though he disagreed. Even though it made him uncomfortable, he was faced with a choice. Would he obey God? So you know a little bit more about me. I wouldn't be at Bellevue today if I wanted to stay comfortable. In fact, while I was in Virginia, I was thinking to myself, I'm pretty comfortable right now. All my friends are here. I have a church that I wanna be with for a long time. I'm close to home. There's no need to complicate things. But there was a still small voice that was giving me peace about moving to Memphis. Now Memphis, Tennessee, you talk about uncomfortable, right? I am in safe Virginia near the DC area, right? Things are going very well. And so why would I go to Memphis? Why would I make things more uncomfortable? But through prayer and counsel and conversations, the Lord was telling me to move out here. And I listened even when it was uncomfortable. But I've seen why God was speaking to me then. I've seen that listening to God, even though it's uncomfortable, is worth it. And I would rather be uncomfortable with God than comfortable without Him. And that's the same challenge to everyone in this room. Would I exchange my comfort for my calling? That's the question I had to wrestle with. I followed God into the uncomfortable and God invites us into the uncomfortable with Him every day. Hebrews 11, six says, without faith, it is impossible to please God. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. We live in an age of comfort. Everything is about being comfortable. We want a stable life with a stable job, stable housing, stable mental state, a stable emotional state, you name it. Now I'm not saying God wants your discomfort. I'm not saying God is sending you discomfort all the time, but what if God uses your discomfort so that He can give you breakthrough? What if that's what God wants to do with your discomfort? God uses our discomfort to grow our faith. Discomfort is not always bad. God uses discomfort so we will have to rely on Him. You gain muscle when you put stress on your body. Diamonds are refined by fire and God wants to strengthen our faith through what is uncomfortable to us.
And so, if God wants to stretch your faith, the question is, would you obey Him? So, I want to throw it to your tables now, and I want you to discuss these two questions. On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being comfortable, 10 being very uncomfortable. 1 being comfortable, 10 being very uncomfortable. How comfortable would you say you are right now? In your life stage, where you think God has you, where would you say you are? And could there be something that God is leading you to do, even if it's uncomfortable to you? Take a few minutes, and we'll continue on this passage. All right, so, describing the price tag of following Jesus, right? We see that the first point that we're supposed to gather, that following Jesus is uncomfortable. Here's the second part. Following Jesus requires humbling yourself. That's not very fun to say, but it's true. When you follow anybody, you have to put yourself under them, right? That's true at the workplace, that's true at school, it's true in all parts of life, right? And the same is true with Jesus. Following Jesus requires humbling yourself. Verse 8, when Simon Peter saw this, the miraculous catch, he fell at Jesus' knees and said, go away from me, because I am a sinful man, Lord. Go away from me, because I am a sinful man, Lord. So Simon's response is not the reaction you'd expect. Like, if someone were to come into your workplace and kind of show you up, did a better job, then you probably won't bow down at their knees and repent, right? That's not your first response. But Simon falls to Jesus' knees because he realized how sinful he was. He was in the presence of God, and he was humbled. This reaction is only true if somebody has experienced God. Here's some other verses. The prophet Isaiah says, woe is me, for I am ruined, because I'm a man of unclean lips, and live among a people of unclean lips, and because my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of armies. So Isaiah was humbled as he had his experience in sight. Luke 18, but the tax collector standing far off would not even raise his eyes to heaven, but kept striking his chest and saying, God have mercy on me, a sinner. When you stand before God, when you experience Him, all you have is humbling yourself, humility. That's the only response. God is so big, and we are so small. That's the natural reaction. That's the same one that Simon Peter had. Now I need to point out here, I need to emphasize this, the Bible teaches that Jesus is God. Jesus is God. Jesus is not less than God. Simon Peter experienced God. This is important because there are teachings in our cultures, there are other religions that teach that Jesus is not to be worshiped. Two religions that come to my mind are Jehovah's Witnesses and Muslims. But if Jesus is not God, we would not have a perfect sacrifice for our sins. He needed to be fully God and fully man to be the perfect sacrifice for our sins. So as Christians, we need to defend this point. So here's some scriptures. John 1.1, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. So pretty simple, we're going to creation, in the beginning, the Word existed, the Word was with God, and the Word was also God. I don't understand how that works, because we're human, but that's part of what we're gonna call the Trinity. The Word was with God, but the Word Himself was also God. Thirteen verses later in John 1, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed His glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. So this Word, which is God, became flesh. So if you do the math, Jesus is God in the flesh. They aren't less than each other, they're one in the same but in two different forms. Hebrews 1, the Son is the radiance of God's glory in the exact expression of His nature, sustaining all things by His powerful Word. You want to know what God is like? Look at Jesus. Jesus is not less than God, Jesus is God. We have to defend that point as Christians. God is triune, when I say triune, three in one, He's revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we call it the Trinity. We can't wrap our minds around this, but that doesn't mean the Trinity doesn't exist. Just because we don't understand something fully doesn't mean it doesn't exist, right? A God understood is no God at all. Simon Peter bowed before God, not someone less than God. He realized how sinful he was. And sin is anything that we've done that falls short of God's standard, we've all done that. The Bible says we're all sinners. Simon Peter was humbled before Jesus, but Jesus was going to use this humility to turn Simon's life around. Simon is at a point now where he can be used by Jesus. There's more to the story. It's been said that humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking about yourself less. Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking about yourself less. Having been humbled, Simon's eyes were now fixed on Jesus, ready to do what Jesus wanted him to do. Now in our own lives, how does this play out? Sometimes God wants to move in and through your life, but we are very tight-fisted with how it's gonna go. When you trust God, that means you trust His ways and His timing. And so there could be some strong prayer warriors in the room, or lots of prayers thrown up to God asking Him to move, asking Him to speak, and what's kind of clouding out that voice is because you're just so tight-fisted with where you currently are. Not open-minded to how God might want to do things differently. So when I say you have to humble yourself, when Jesus requires humility, that is taking what you think is your leadership and giving it to Jesus. You're saying, Jesus, I'm second to you. You call the shots on my life. You gave me this life in the first place, so I'm gonna humble myself. I'm gonna give you my job, I'm gonna give you my family, give you my neighborhood, and I'm gonna allow you to call the shots in my life. Following Jesus requires humility. Luke 14 11, for everyone who exalts themselves will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted. Offer yourself to God as you are to be used by Him. You need to exchange your high view of self for a right view, and that's a sinner in need of a Savior. Right? God's the one that's given you this life. He's the one that's given us second chances through Jesus. And it wouldn't be love if we didn't have that choice to turn to Him. If you have kids, you don't want nothing more than your kids to choose you back. Right? In the same way, our Father wants us to choose Him, and sometimes we just need to release our grip on our lives. Following Jesus requires humbling yourself. So let's discuss these two questions. Is there a part of your life you are not surrendering to God? And what would it look like for you to be open-handed with that? All right, take a few minutes and then we'll finish out our passage. All right guys, let's go ahead and wrap up those discussions. Let's wrap up the discussions, let's finish this passage out. I know that some of these questions, and giving you six minutes to talk with eight people at your table is not really in your favor, but hopefully these questions at least get you thinking about how you can apply God's Word into your own life. All right? So we've covered two parts of this price tag that we've been talking about. Following Jesus is uncomfortable. Following Jesus also requires you to humble yourself. And lastly, in case you're not in the know, following Jesus will cost you everything. All right? If you haven't been with me for the first two points, hopefully you're on board now. Okay? Following Jesus will cost you everything. I'm telling you the cost, just like you would want to know the cost when you went into a store and you're walking out with an item. How much does this cost? Okay, we're studying Jesus's life and we're saying this is how much it costs. Verses 10 and 11. 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. So now that Simon's been humbled, Jesus calls out his fear. But notice how he doesn't point his finger at Simon like, I got you. Like, kind of like we would if we showed somebody up. Jesus doesn't do that. Jesus instead changes Simon's perspective. He gives Simon perspective. If you want to know what God is doing in your life, sometimes it's not your circumstances that need to change. Sometimes it's your perspective. Sometimes you don't need a new situation, you just need to look at your own situation differently. Simon was a fisherman, but now he was gonna be a fisher of men. Jesus called him away from his day job and said, you're gonna do this spiritually. You're gonna be fisher of men. Maybe you're a nurse and you're enjoying your job, but you also are gonna help nurse other people spiritually in the body of Christ. Maybe you're a teacher in the school system, and you're not just gonna teach in the school system, you're not gonna teach other people about Jesus. Sometimes it's not the job that's the problem, but maybe the perspective that needs to change. So how can you take what you're currently doing and shift your purpose?
so that you're living for God's glory? That's the question you should be asking yourself. How can you take what you're currently doing and shift your purpose so that you're living for God's glory? When Jesus invites you to follow Him, you're exchanging your life, all of it, to gain something better, and that's the life God wants for you. Jim Elliot says, He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. Everything we have on this side of eternity is temporary. Our jobs, our houses, our cars, our dreams, all of it's temporary. There are good things, and God created good things for us to enjoy, but they make bad gods. We're supposed to take what God has entrusted to us, like our jobs, our neighborhoods, our friendships, our family. Take what He's given to us and glorify Him through those things. Simon Peter and the fishermen had just made the biggest catch of their lives, and now they're leaving it all to follow Jesus, and they're showing us that no blessing in this world can replace knowing your purpose in life, and that's to worship God and make Him known. Matthew 16, 25, For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will find it. By choosing to follow Jesus, you're not taking a risk. In fact, you're actually giving your life back to the one who gave it to you in the first place, the one who actually knows what to do with your life. So rather than just trying to figure it out on your own, count the cost and give your life into the Lord's hand and allow Him to start working in and through your life. So we've talked about uncomfortable situations, and my name tag has fallen, all right? What if the uncomfortable situation you're in is how you will experience breakthrough? Ask yourself that. There are some uncomfortable situations in the room right now. There's a lot of uncertainty. There's a lot of doubt, a lot of frustration. But what if instead of just getting out of that was the very means by which God wanted to work in and through your life? What if this was a training ground for something bigger God had for you? The story's not over. There's not a period after this sentence, okay? There's more to the story. What if the uncomfortable situation you're in is how you will experience breakthrough? And here's where I want to close. Simon and his friends left everything to follow Jesus, and you can only imagine how uncomfortable that was. If living a comfortable life is your thing, following Jesus is not it. But the thing is, not following Jesus is also uncomfortable, because you're not living your purpose in life. And so following Jesus is uncomfortable, but you have the peace that you are living in your life purpose. I want you all to see this picture, because as Jesus spoke to fishermen, and we see this illustration of Simon leaving his net. Everybody here has a net. Now, for some people, that is the very first decision to follow Christ. Like, you have not ever let go of your net. And the call to action for you is to count the cost to follow Jesus and give your life to Him tonight. It's the difference between eternity away from God and eternity with Him. Now, for the majority of us Christians in the room, some of us have dropped our nets, but we're still thinking about it. It's still haunting us. Or some of us have gone back to pick it up. It could be unforgiveness. It could be doubt. It could be fear, financial goals, distractions like our phones. Anything that prevents us from being all in with Jesus is that net. And some of us are holding on to something. And the call to follow Jesus is to let that go. Let that go and follow Jesus. It will cost you everything, but in exchange, you're not going to you're not just losing it. You're getting the life God wants you to have. A life filled with purpose, a life lived for His glory. This is a life-changing exchange, but it's worth it. Let me pray for us.