Discipleship

We ended our summer with a short trip to the beach. And on the last evening, there were a few jellyfish in the water. And I was just committed to not let that deter me from enjoying the water. So I'm swimming out there. I couldn't convince my kids to come back out. And that's because they were a little wiser than I at the time. I got to enjoy the whole time, didn't get stung. But on my way back in, they were fairly large, and thankfully, one just rubbed up against my swimming trunks here. And I let out a loud, not-so-masculine yelp. I'd like to think I jumped out of the water, because it was that terrifying. But whatever it was, I caused quite a scene. And there was a couple that had just gotten to the beach. And they were sitting there, and they saw me. And the look of terror, what was that? I think it was a jellyfish that rubbed up against me. And she just walked back to her chair. I'm not sure she ever overcame the fear to actually enjoy the water. It's interesting how much fear can influence decisions. Now, that's probably a pretty obvious one. There's something clearly dangerous in the water. You don't want to go into the water. But at the same time, if you're going to go to the beach, there's something dangerous in the water. As we think about our passage, What fears influence you the most? We have fear. Fear of the unknown. Apparently Americans most recently, or maybe until most recently, are most fearful of public speaking. Fear of sharks, snakes. I think we should add ticks to that list. Fear of heights. Being found out a fraud. People may actually find out. Fear of disease, death, or just the good classic fear of missing out. We have fears. We're designed to have a fear. And if we think about fear, we can consider, we're more likely to fight fear or flight, flee fear. Anxiety is when these fears become so compounding, they paralyze us. We can identify unhealthy fear because it paralyzes us. It keeps us from doing what we ought to do. I don't want to argue this morning that fear is a part of your design. I actually think there's a lot of parallel between fear and love. In the same way we can have an unhealthy way of looking at love and that it's just something we fall into, we also can look at love and see it's something we direct. It's something we should order. It's something that should control the way we live. We should want to love what is most lovely and order our lives around it. Fear is the same way. We should be seeking to have the right kind of reverence for what's truly worthy. To put fears in a proper order. Fear is a good and right experience, emotion. I would even go so far as to say it's a volition. We choose at some level what we will fear. So as we think about this, what fears control your choices? Proverbs 1.7 tells us, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Luke 1.50, the magnificat we looked at last Christmas with Mary, she declares His mercy on those who fear Him. And Philippians 2.12, work out your salvation with fear and tremble. As we think about fear, just as David wanted to make sure we understood awful has a sense of awesome, fear has a sense of terror, and fear has a sense of reverence. What do we look up to that has weight to it, that gives us a sense of awe? I wanna say, if you're not a Christian this morning, what makes Christianity so unique is that he who is most fearful is most loving. He who we should be most afraid of shows us the greatest love. That's the great mystery of the gospel. Our message this morning is fear of Christ draws us to follow him closer. The right fear of Christ draws us to follow him closer. We have a fantastic story. We've seen Jesus as the Son of God, declared so by the Father at baptism. We've seen Jesus overcome Satan in the temptation. He is the victor. He's also our model in temptation. We see Jesus open up the Bible, the Old Testament, saying, I am the Messiah. He's an authoritative teacher. He casts out demons with authority. He's a healer. And now he's teaching and a crowd is pressing in. And Jesus' ministry is about teaching the Word of God. I mean, he's at a lake, and there's fishing boats, and so there's something unusual here. He asks Simon, let me get into your boat. Now, as we look at stories, we wanna think, you know, there's one primary tension, and there's a lot of other tensions, and we wanna ask, all right, who are the characters? Okay, the characters of the story, Jesus, the crowd, Simon, who I'm just gonna keep calling Peter, There's fish, they are a character, and James and John. Jesus asked Peter, let me get in the boat so I can project, so there's a better projection there. He's able to kind of control where he's standing and for the whole crowd to hear him. And the thing about this tension that's gonna then escalate, it's Jesus and the crowds they're pressing in. It's Jesus and the fishermen, A carpenter's going to tell them how to actually fish properly. There's fishermen and the fish, they overcome the boat and it's sinking, and there's Peter and Jesus, a confession of sin, an invitation to follow. It's important we get the right tension to understand what the story's about. And here's some clues as you wanna study the Bible. I wanna make sure we help you study the Bible on your own. You look for end stress. What does the end of the story say? You look for the most dialogue. What are the primary words being shared? And what is resolved, finally? What's interesting in most of Jesus' stories is He creates the tension and then resolves it. So here we have a carpenter, the Messiah, the Son of God. He gets into a boat. He teaches them. He says, get out a little further. Cast your nets one more time. They were cleaning their nets. They hadn't caught anything all day. He says, do it one more time. And then what that leads to is Peter recognizing he's the Lord. He bows down. And Jesus says, do not be afraid. We're probably gonna be thinking about that tension right there. Depart from me, for I am a sinner. Jesus says. Do not be afraid. This passage is about discipleship. The awe and reverence that God invites us into, and then the new life of following him. The main point, fear of Christ draws us to follow him closer. The right fear of Christ draws us to follow him closer. And there's four points. First, there's a confession of sin. That's just the simple phrase, depart from me. I am a sinner. This is a confession of sin. Second, there's comfort from Christ. Do not be afraid. Third, there's a commission from Christ. You will catch men. And then there is conformity to Christ. They left everything and followed him. Confession of sin, comfort from Christ, commission from Christ, conformity to Christ. We see this confession of sin. Peter bows down in his boat to someone he's called the master already and says, depart from me, for I am a sinner. This is an unusual response on a fishing expedition. So I assume I don't really fish. It seems to me what doesn't fit the story. Jesus is here teaching, and then all of a sudden decides, I'm gonna tell these guys who have been there all night. Peter says we toiled all night, we caught nothing, and he says go deeper. They fished all night. You're supposed to apparently fish in this lake, the sea in the evening, in the dark. Cast your nets out one more time. Notice Peter's response. Put on to the deep, Jesus says, and let down your nets. And Simon answered, Master, we toiled all night and took nothing, but your word I'll let down the nets. How confident is Peter? Is he just entertaining Jesus? A carpenter telling a fisherman what to do. Now Andrew, Peter's brother, is with him, as we know from Matthew's account. We know from John 2, Andrew, who was hearing John the Baptist say, this is the Lamb of God, Jesus knew Andrew and Peter already. Because Andrew says, brother, we found the Messiah. But here, Jesus is teaching Peter something else. He says, put out the nets one more time. He says, this is not what I would do, but I'll entertain the request. What appears to happen here in the story is the tension ratchets up. Because Jesus is taking the tension away from him and the crowds to him and Peter. He's pinpointed Peter. They've toiled all night. They've put down the nets. And there's so many fish, he can't handle it. He calls out the other boat. That's James and John, other disciples. And when they finally get there, the boat is so overwhelmed with fish, the boat sinks. This is clearly something they've never experienced before. I believe what's happening here is God Almighty, Jesus the creator, says put down your nets, and what happens, he sends every single fish anywhere near these nets to jump into those nets as quickly as possible. He's the creator who controls all these things. And these fishermen, these lifelong fishermen, who are reluctant, all right, now they are astonished. Look at verse nine. These lifeline fishermen, they cannot believe what has happened. This clear miracle from Jesus then leads to this interaction. Simon says, Simon bows down before him and declares, depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. Jesus leads to this confession. Jesus is showing himself to Peter so that he sees this confession. He falls on his knees. This is a posture of worship. You don't just bow down before anyone. He demands, depart from me. This is what we do when we come into the presence of a holy God, not understanding his grace. He goes from calling him Master to calling him Lord. And he explains himself as a sinner. This is what happens when sinners come to the presence of a holy God? What did Adam do when God came walking in the garden when he first sinned? He hid himself in fear? He says, I was afraid? What does Israel do at the base of Mount Sinai? They were told not to go anywhere near it, but yet the thunder and the lightning was so terrifying. They said, let us depart. Isaiah, that we read earlier, woe is me, I am undone. Distance is necessary for sinners in a holy God. Distance is necessary. The natural inclination, the right inclination. Depart from me. We don't know what sin he's overwhelmed with other than just the fact that he's overwhelmed that he's a sinner in the presence of a holy God. We know God truly. We're overwhelmed with a sense of awe. It's amazing how we want to tame Jesus. We really like a domesticated Jesus, one that's a little more comfortable, one more convenient, one that doesn't let us see the sin all over us and inside of us. Why would you go to somewhere like the Grand Canyon or the mountains? The reason we visit places like that is to get a sense of awe. The beauty of visiting something great and grand in God's creation is to not think, oh wow, how great I am. No, it's to feel that sense of wonder and awe. I'm small. When we truly see God, we're overwhelmed with a sense of awe. Not that we're just small, but we're sinners. Believer, we see here, a call to discipleship begins with a right fear. A fear of sin. A right fear that if my sin comes in the presence of a holy, pure, righteous God, I'm in trouble. There's two ways we can live, brothers and sisters. Seeking this all. Open for God to showing us our sin. The psalmist declares, the creation declares the glory of God. The law declares the glory of God. Show me my hidden sin. Let me depart from my sin so that I can see you more or we want to keep away from God so that we can hold tight to sin. This is a right fear. This is a good reverence that Jesus has stirred up within Simon. Peter says, depart from me. I am a sinful man. He recognizes the problem. Now hear God's solution, our second point. Comfort from Christ. Look at the end of verse 10. They're all astonished, they're all amazed. And then Jesus says these simple words. Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. I'm the one who came into your boat. I'm the one who caused this all to happen. I'm the one who lets you see your sin and my glory. And now I'm telling you, do not be afraid. The God who confronts us comforts us. This is the Christian conversion. There's a sense of awe and wonder and fear when we see our sin, and then there's a hearing from God. Do not fear. I forgive you. I've sent my son to die for you. He's risen again so that you can be with me. Fear is our natural response to seeing God. Fear not is His gracious response to our sin. This is the power of the gospel. No fear in the midst of our terrifying sin. No guilt, no shame, no judgment, no punishment. Peter bows down terrified. Then those words soak in. Fear not. What a better resolution. Peter, if he actually got his solution, this is Peter, this is classic Peter, he wants to fix it himself. Depart from me. What is Peter gonna do then? Live his whole life burdened with this fear. He's going to live his whole life distancing himself from God because of the fear of his own sin, and then one day he's going to see God in all of his glory, and he's going to face judgment. No, Jesus has a better solution. Do not fear. I am your God. I will forgive you. 1 John 4, 18 tells us, There's no fear in love, and fear has to do with punishment. Love casts out fear. When we consider and are afraid of the punishment of sin, we look to the gospel because we see the love of God that says, no, there's no more fear. Christ paid it all. Christ has provided the forgiveness we need. This is the transaction that takes place. We go from needing protection from Jesus to being protected in Jesus. We should be afraid of the holy God. The same holy God grants us, do not be afraid. If you're not a Christian here this morning, simple pressing question. Are you afraid of God? Why not? as you're going to see your creator one day. What do you think he's going to say? If there's not a fear of God, what is it about your life that you think is so pleasing? What is it that you think he sees that's just gonna make him so happy with you? I wanna make sure we hear words of comfort, but the most pressing thing is to hear there's a holy and righteous God, and he punishes every sin. There's a right, good fear of Him. And the same God we should be afraid of because of the punishment that awaits every sin of every sinner. The same God, and Jesus Christ says, do not fear. So the way the gospel has worked is God, who would punish us, the Father sent His own Son to become like us in every way. So that the punishment we deserve, He took on Himself on the cross. That's why we focus so much on the cross as Christians. He took the punishment so that he could declare, you're forgiven, do not be afraid. The death we're afraid of, he rose again so he could say, do not be afraid. Your only hope is to believe in Jesus, because God is not pleased with you, but God is pleased with him. And he says, come to me, I will forgive you. If you're a believer, there's two different kinds of problems I wanna wrestle with here. And they both have to do with misplaced fear. The first has to do with the person that has false hope, who doesn't have a true faith in Christ. You should be afraid. And the second is the person who belongs to Christ, but yet keeps living in fear. But the first problem, those who believe they're Christians, but really haven't trusted Christ. Understand the most terrifying words you will hear one day are depart from me. I never knew you. Jesus warns us of that. Depart from me. I never knew you. I ask, have you seen the glory of God that overwhelmed you that there's nothing I can do to make myself right? I can't wash myself enough. I can't cleanse myself enough. There's something wrong with me so bad I can't do anything. I need you, God. And then you saw Christ as the only solution. If you've not experienced that, if you've not gone through that fear and forgiveness, Let me just remind you of this sweet, simple phrase from the song Amazing Grace. It was grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved. The grace of Christ helps us see what we should fear, the holy God, and yet at the same time, the grace of Christ on the cross, giving us his own righteousness and forgiveness. It relieves our true fears. For believers, Grip of the wrong fears. Are we living in fear from which Christ has set us free? Are we afraid of the sin that still dwells within in a way that it paralyzes us from actually confessing it? Are we living in a fear that whatever we do is never good enough? There's two big problems we can run into as Christians. We can believe that God is all love without a cross. That removes the offense of our punishment. Or we believe God, there's all fear with no cross, and that removes the grace. Christian, there has to be this sense of awe, wonder. The call to worship earlier, the call to worship was enter his gates with thanksgiving. That's only because a gracious God invites us in. That's why that call to worship is so important. We're only invited in because he invites us in. We're only invited in because he's made a way for us to be in. We can take for granted God's open arms of invitation because he's so welcoming to all sinners who come confessing sin. I encourage you, if you're gripped with fear, if you're gripped with worry, if you're gripped with a lack of assurance, I encourage you to consider what's called the ordinary means of grace. Why we come together and we read God's word together, we sing it together. Sometimes we just can't bring ourselves to sing God's truth. So what do you need? Somebody to sing over you. Somebody to pray for you. Somebody to open up the Bible and apply the balm of God's word to the ailments of the soul. The Lord's Supper is one of these wonderful reminders No one is worthy of coming to feast with the king. Yet he holds out his pierced hands. He says, all who believe in me, come. None of us are worthy until he declares us, I paid your debt. This is one of the ways in which we should feel the burden of our sin and yet the power of the gospel that says come anyway. Fear not. Peter bows down, depart from me. Jesus says, do not fear. Then notice the next thing he says. Our third point, commission from Christ. He's commissioning Peter here already as a disciple. From now on, you will be catching men. Here's a transformation. You're not gonna be catching fish anymore, you're catching men. I really doubt Peter had a clue what was really going on here. Jesus is gonna keep ratcheting up what discipleship means. He's gonna talk about it in chapter nine, chapter 14. He's gonna talk about counting the cost. He's gonna then give the great commission, go make disciples. But Peter has seen and heard enough to know he has a new job description. A man who's used to spending time with only his brother in a boat is now going to be one of the most important, influential people for all people throughout the world. This is amazing. Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, the Master, the Lord, Peter heard the grace, he heard the instruction. Let me just make something very clear. God's grace always precedes his instruction. You're forgiven, go and sin no more. The Ten Commandments, how do they start? I am the Lord, your God, who delivered you from slavery in Egypt. Therefore, obey. Here, Jesus gives the word of the gospel, I believe, in this story. Do not be afraid, and then gives him a new commission. Grace invites us to know God and then to be with God. Now, let's be very clear. Fishing is not a sin. I thought I might get an amen there, I'm not sure. There we go, all right. He's not telling him to stop doing something that's clearly sinful. He's a fisherman, that's a good vocation. He feeds people. This is good for the society. He's a good fisherman. This is something that's good for him to do. But Jesus says, no, stop, I've got something more important. Me, God. Jesus says there's something more important to do than feeding people. Now, let's put this back in context of last week. Jesus said, I have come to preach the gospel. I have come as anointed one to help the poor. What would be better if Jesus' primary mission is to feed the poor than to actually make more people fishermen? He takes a great fisherman and makes him a disciple maker. Jesus does care about the poor, the hungry, the oppressed, but he's taking a fisherman and he says, I'm going to make you something different. I'm gonna transform you to a disciple maker. Notice Peter has no previous qualifications to do this at all. And as we're gonna watch Peter for the next three years while he's in training to be a disciple, he should fill the class at the end of it. It's amazing how God said, I'm going to call you to myself. I'm going to give you a commission, and I'm going to give you all the instruction you need. I'm going to give you all the teaching you need. I'm going to give you my very own Holy Spirit. What God calls us to, he equips and he empowers. He didn't call Peter because he was a great people person. He called Peter because he was submissive. It was important, the priority of people in Christ's mission. This is what being a Christian is all about. Loving your God, loving the Lord your God with all your heart. Loving yourself, loving other Christians as Christ loved you. You cannot be a disciple of Christ in isolation. You cannot be a disciple of Christ if you're not intentionally seeking to make other disciples. It's part of the job description. Now, of course that means we come and we recognize that I need to be made a disciple, I need to be trained up a disciple, and no one ever graduates from discipleship school. There's no certificate until you die and you hear the Lord say, Lord willing, well done, good and faithful service. We're all training to be disciples and we're supposed to be making other disciples. We have to be about other image bearers. We can also broaden this out. We can simply think as Christians, I need to be being made a disciple. All right, when, how are you doing that? I need to be making other disciples. When, how am I doing that? There's another way we could actually look at this. What kind of disciples are we making? By definition, we're all influencing somebody in some way. How? Is Christ such our priority that we're helping other people make him that priority, or do we have those other priorities? What is it that we're actually making disciples of? What way are we making other people better at something, more enthusiastic about something? Is it Christ? Or something else that may not be sin, but still just good and we value more than Christ. Peter's confessed his sin. Christ has given him the comfort, do not fear. He's given a commission, you will now be a different kind of worker. You're going to be a catcher of men. And then look at the immediate conformity. Verse 11, and when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him. That's pretty significant. If you've been fishing for 10 years and that's your whole livelihood, that might be grandpa's boat you're still using. It might be a family net. Everything they know in terms of security, livelihood, good and order and security, they're going to leave. It's still sitting there. Years later, after they've left, unless somebody's stolen it, they just left it there. They've walked away from everything they know that is good. How did that happen? Go back. Peter bows down in worship and says, oh Lord. He's turned his reverence. He's heard the invitation. You see, the true faith has a show-me aspect to it. That's what James 2 is all about. True faith is seen. True faith is seen in the way we live. How do we understand between James 2, where faith without works is dead, and Romans 4, that it's by faith alone, is what James is simply saying is, if you can't say, look, here's a demonstration of my faith, it might not be real faith. True faith has some kind of demonstration. Here, the faith is seen because they've left everything because that's what Christ called them to do. So important, Peter doesn't fully get it. We know that because Jesus is gonna have to rebuke him over and over again. Peter's willing to leave everything with a simple experience. and we can now look back and see all the things Jesus taught. We can look back and see Christ died for sinners. We can look back and see Christ rose again. We can now know the Holy Spirit indwells us. Is that enough for us to leave anything? Is Christ truly worthy of leaving everything based upon what we know of Christ? We as Christians, we, I was so bad at if-only's. I would follow him if only I had this better circumstance. I'd follow him if only I had more information. I'd follow him if only I didn't have this burden. This is where the future teaching and discipleship, Jesus is gonna confront the very problem of excuse-making, which he challenges this morning. A right reverence of Christ helps us see he's worthy of whatever he asks us. A fear is misplaced when we're afraid of losing something if Jesus puts his finger on it. A great missionary, T.S. Eliot, said, he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. We have a number of people wanting to be missionaries. That's a helpful training right there for you. He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. We're like children holding on so dearly to the mud pie when Jesus comes and says, come and experience my glory. He holds out his hands all day long. We're just holding on obstinately to what we think is truly satisfying. Believer, I ask, what is Christ worth? Jesus will tell us, Luke 14, count the cost. What is he worth? It's good to count the cost. Is he really willing to sacrifice everything? Let's just think about this. If he said, I want you to give it up, Pause for a second, just think. What's it? What is the thing that you would be terrified for Christ to put his finger on? What is it that if he said, follow me, means giving this up? What is it? What would you be afraid he'd ask of you? Or what has he asked of you but you've refused? A few years ago, there was a young man who came to faith As we were walking through the gospel in one of the conversations, it kind of came to the point where I was like, what's keeping you? He understood the gospel. He seemed really wouldn't even want to believe in it. I said, what's keeping you? He said, I want to be able to go to Atlantic City and gamble. I was like, all right, well, okay, we got a gambling problem. I said, do you gamble? No. Why do you want to be able to do that? I just want to have the control and the freedom to do it if I want to. That's when I knew he got it. Christ can say no to anything. We lose that facade of control we think we have of our lives. Praise God, we get to baptize him just a few months later. Believers, sealed by the blood of Christ, we've got busyness, we've got commitments that keep us from the things that are most important. Are we asking what does it cost us? What is it costing us to stay so busy we're not about the things of the kingdom? Here's a few things it's costing you. Crowns in heaven. The opportunity here, well done, good and faithful servant. Actual right now joy in Christ, happily, joyfully serving the right king. We too often treat following Jesus like it's a multiple choice. Everybody familiar with Thomas Jefferson? It's a popular name around here. He's known for wanting to cut the miracles out of the Bible. Why didn't you just throw the whole Bible away? He liked the morals, but he couldn't handle the miracles. I fear we as Christians today, we like the miracles, but we do not like the morals. You don't get to cut God's Word up. As we conclude, Consider Jesus' own parable. We hear Jesus say the kingdom of God is like a man who, he finds a treasure in a field and he sells everything joyfully. He sells everything joyfully so that he can then go purchase that land. Are we joyfully willing to give up everything so that we can joyfully experience the kingdom? Oh, there isn't a thing. All right, here's the ways I'm gonna fix my life. I'm gonna go A, B, C, D, I'm gonna fix this, I'm gonna be a better disciple, and here's what I'm gonna tell you to do. You're gonna get exhausted and frustrated. It has to begin with reverence. It has to begin with seeing Christ, who should be fearful, but yet holds out his hands and says, I love you. and then letting him say, these are the areas that you should work on. If we think we're gonna control what we're gonna fix, we think we're God. No, it begins with looking to Christ. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is the author of The Cost of Discipleship, and he warns the church of cheap grace. Let me just read what he warns us of there. Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance. Baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ. So the danger of cheap grace is that in cheap grace we justify sin, and the sinner is not justified. As we conclude, It's not about taking right now, all right, I'm gonna go back and I wanna fix all these problems in my life. No, it's bowing down in submission. Christ, you're worthy. Christ, show me your glory. Christ, show me your love. Help me see my sin as you see it and help me treat it and deal with it as you would have me to. It's not adding the burden of now here's the five ways to fix yourself. No, it's seeing the God who paid it all. and truly seeing to all we owe him, all to him we owe. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you do not leave us alone in the ignorance of our own sin or trying to guess who you are or what pleases you. Thank you that we can come face to face with you and be overwhelmed with fear and then be overwhelmed with grace. Lord, as we wrestle with the call to fear you and love you, bless us to have the right reverence, to have the right affections, to have the right devotion and desire for you, our God, to live in godliness. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.