Grace
Map
Worship
Ministry
Gospel
Staff
Audio/Video
Prayer Update
Teaching
Testimony
Church 0428-30-1604
Fax 0428-30-1571
Home

Tune in to Grace Radio 24 hours a day!

 

Luke 5 "Unimpressive Resumes"

So it was, as the multitude pressed about Him to hear the word of God, that He stood by the Lake of Gennesaret, and saw two boats standing by the lake; but the fishermen had gone from them and were washing their nets. Then He got into one of the boats, which was Simon's and asked him to put out a little from the land. And He sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat. When He had stopped speaking, He said to Simon, "Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch." But Simon answered and said to Him, "Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net." And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking. So 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. 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 which they had taken; and so also were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. and Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid. From now on you will catch men." So when they had brought their boats to land, they forsook all and followed Him. (Luke 5:1-11)

In this chapter of the gospel of Luke, Jesus starts to call disciples to Himself. He begins to pick the men who would lead the church after Him. I used to work for a company managing their foreign employees. One of my duties was recruiting new teachers, so I would look at hundreds of resumes, selecting out the best qualified people for the job. From this point of view, Jesus' approach is very difficult to understand. He is recruiting men for the most important positions of all time, and yet the men He picks are most unqualified for the job. Look at Simon, who Jesus would later call Peter.
Up to this point, all we know about Simon Peter is that he was a fisherman whose brother Andrew followed John the Baptist. Jesus had stayed the night at Simon's house and had healed his mother-in-law of a fever, but Simon had not made any commitment to follow Christ yet. Simon was a man who had heard about Jesus through people close to him, knew firsthand about the power of Jesus, but still did not know if all of this had anything to do with him.
What does Jesus do? Jesus is walking along the coast of the sea of Galilee with a large number of people following along behind Him. Everyone wants to get close to Him. So Jesus hops into a boat, that happens to be Simon Peter's, and asks him to put out a little way from the land so that He could teach the people without being jostled by the crowd. Imagine Jesus sitting in the boat, explaining the good news to the people, that God loves them and will accept them if the repent and seek Him. And while Jesus is teaching, Simon Peter is there, keeping the boat steady. Look with me at Acts chapter 2, where this same Simon Peter is speaking in front of a huge crowd, saying "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call." And that day about 3,000 people did what he said. Did Jesus ask Peter to preach that day in the boat? No. All Jesus asked was that Simon Peter keep the boat steady for Him.
I believe that Jesus has great things planned for you as well, by the power of the Holy Spirit. He, "is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us" (Eph 3:20) But He starts small. Jesus starts with the little things that we can understand. He never asks us to do that which is too much for us. Jesus never puts on us a load that we cannot bear. I became a Christian when I was 15 years old and was called to be a missionary the next year. Since then I knew that I would be a missionary in Japan but many times I told people around me that I did not have the gift to be a pastor. I told my mother and father and my wife that I would not be a pastor. I looked at the pastors I knew and I just knew that I could not handle it. I was afraid. But like many things it is a job that I have grown into. We bought a ski suit for Keita last year. It is a very colorful jumpsuit with a zipper up the middle. But when we bought it, we could probably put 2 Keitas in it. When it arrived in the mail I looked at my wife like she was crazy. "This is way too big for him!" I said, "What were you thinking?" But my wife got the bigger size on purpose. You see the clever designer of this ski suit, made it with snaps about half way up the knees and arms, so that the legs and sleeves can be folded up. The first year, Keita was swimming in it, but this year He barely fits into it at all! It looks like we will have to get him a new ski suit for next year. Like me, we often forget about growth. Things that look impossible for us this year, are not that unreachable next year.
The next job that Jesus asked Simon Peter to do was a little bigger, but nothing new to Simon. Jesus said to him, "Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch." But, Simon had been fishing this sea for years and he knew that the best time to fish was at night. In fact they had been fishing all night and they hadn't caught a thing. But Simon also knew that there was something special about this man in the boat with him. So he decided to give it a try and let down the nets one more time. I can picture Peter letting down the net into the sea, letting it drag behind the boat a bit and then turning the crank the opposite direction, saying to Jesus as he did so, "See I told you so, there are ...no ... fish ... Hey! Andrew! Come and help me with all these fish!"
Don't expect Jesus to ask you to do something new and exciting all at once. Don't be afraid that if you receive Jesus into your heart that He is going to call you to be like Mother Theresa or to be a pastor of a church. But don't underestimate Him either. Usually Jesus asks us to do something that we know very well. In fact we know it so well that we are just sure that what Jesus is asking us to won't succeed. And then just as we are expecting to see failure, the grace of God brings along success that is far greater than anything that we might of imagined. These are the treasures of hidden places, treasures that are there all along but that we have never realized. We believe that each and every Christian is blessed with gifts from God. You might think that your gift is not very spiritual, not very important. You might think that compared to someone else your gift is second rate. But Jesus has given this gift to you with His plan in mind, and in the fullness of that plan the results of that gift will far exceed anything that you could have imagined. By the time Peter finished hauling in his nets, there were so many fish that both of the boats were beginning to sink. And the reality of the event was beginning to sink in to Simon Peter. He looked at Jesus and fell down at His knees and said, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" But Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid. From now on you will catch men." Jesus was looking for a man with a certain kind of gift, the talent for catching fish, that strange mix of diligence and boldness, patience and willingness to look foolish. In Simon Peter, Jesus found the man in whom He could grow this talent into the spiritual gift of evangelism. In this fisherman Jesus picked the man who would grow into the task of leading the church in its first few years.

After these things He went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, "Follow Me." So he left all, rose up, and followed Him. Then Levi gave HIm a great feast in his own house. And there were a great number of tax colllectors and others who sat down with them. And their scribes and the Pharisees complained against His disciples, saying. "Why do You eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?" Jesus answered and said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." then they said to Him, "Why do the disciples of John fast often and make prayers, and likewise those of the Pharisees, but Yours eat and drink?" And He said to them, "Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them; then they well fast in those days." Then He spoke a parable to them: "No one puts a piece from a new garment on an old one; otherwise the new makes a tear, and also the piece that was taken out of the new does not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and the wineskins will be ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins, and both are preserved. And no one, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new; for he says, 'The old is better.' (Luke 5:27-39)

Levi, was a tax collector like Zachaeus that we talked about last week. Tax collectors were known to be men who did not have morals, didn't scruple to cheat their own countrymen, and loved money more than they loved or feared God. But when Jesus came by asked Levi to follow Him, Levi left the tax office, rose up and followed. Amazing? Not to those who have seen what God has done. I was surprised at first when I walked into the church up in the mountains behind my home town in Oregon. In that church there were people who were not dressed the way that church going people dressed. Some were wearing motorcycle gang leather jackets and some of the women wore tie-died hippy dresses. But although their exteriors were unchanged, their hearts were totally different. You see before they met Jesus these people were growing marijuana up in the mountains and spending their time getting high. But now they were filled with something much better, the new wine of the Holy Spirit. If you see what God can do, it is not surprising that those who look the hardest on the outside can come to Christ the quickest. Because these are the ones who know how empty they really are. When my wife and I went to Guam a few years back, we visited one of the beaches and played there with Keita for most of a day. We had driven a rental car to this out of the way beach where we were the only people around. It was great. But as we were getting ready to go a man drove up in a beat up pick-up. He was a big American, beard and tattoos on his arms and I could just tell by the look of him that he was a hard case. My first reaction was to tell Rie and Keita to hurry up and get in the car. But the guy got out of his car and started walking down the beach. We wanted to get one last picture before leaving the beach and so I tried to pose Rie and Keita next to a palm tree, but before I snapped the picture a voice came from behind me, offering to take the picture for us. I practically jumped as I looked around at this big rough man behind me. He took the picture and I almost expected him to steal the camera. But instead we started talking and he told me how Jesus had changed his life. How just a few years ago he had been chained to alcohol and his anger had been uncontrolable, but now the empty places in his heart had been filled and the past was behind him.
When Levi saw Jesus he knew that he had found what he had been looking for. And like Simon Peter, the first task that Jesus gave Levi fit who he was perfectly. You see Levi gave a great feast in his own house for all of his tax collector friends so that they could meet Jesus as well. But the religious people, the Pharisees and scribes started complaining about Jesus, saying "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?" To those who thought they knew what religion was all about, Jesus was out to lunch. He was doing everything all wrong. Religion is for serious people who go to quiet temples to pray and meditate and discuss sacred books with learned scholars. But here was Jesus laughing and talking and eating and drinking and having a great time. Jesus said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." They Pharisees came back with words to the effect of "But every body else does it a different way" Our disciples, the disciples of John, they all fast and pray and are religious in a quiet respectable way. But you see with Jesus everything is different, the rules are all changed, because we are no longer just playing religious games, we are face to face with God.
Jesus told a parable about putting new wine into new vessels. He reminded them of what everybody of that time knew already. If you put new wine into an old wineskin the old skin will burst. Folks, we quickly become hard like the old wineskin. The reason that the new wineskin can take the new wine is because it is flexible. As the new wine changes the wineskin can expand and contract as well. But the old wineskin has hardened and cannot expand with the new wine. It is not adaptable to change. If we want the new wine of the Holy Spirit moving in our church. If we want to be with Jesus, reaching out to the lost, reaching out to the ones who need His healing, then we need to be soft, pliable, flexible. We need to be able to jump up when Jesus says "Follow Me". Jesus added, "No one, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new; for he says, 'The old is better.' When I look at our church there are some things that would make me agree that the old is better. We are a new church. We have only been around in Tokyo for 6 years. And if you have been to another church you might think pretty quickly that the old is better. They have their own church buildings, so they can have Sunday school in classrooms, they have offices and staff rooms and facilities. They have veteran staff and organizations, camping facilities and seminaries for training pastors. There are a lot of great things that come with time and organization. In comparison we wander from rented facility to rented facility, everytime we do something we have to start from scratch, and if something happens there is no safety net, no large bank account for a rainy day. It is easier to think that the old is better. But folks, the old is not where the Spirit is moving. It is too hard, too stiff, too set in its ways to change. We are in the wonderful position right now of being new wineskins, ready to change with the new wine.