Called to Discipleship

Part of what I like to do is make an introduction of myself, tell you a little bit about who I am and what God has done in my life.

And so let me just start out and give you just a short history.

I grew up in Nebraska, in Omaha, and still, even though I I live in Texas, and I'm really Texan by heart now.

I've been here for 27 years.

I still root for the Cornhuskers.

I saw one hand back there.

That's yeah, come on.

I love Texas.

I love being in Texas.

Uh God's, I tell people, used to tell people all the time in Amarillo, I got here as quick as I could.

And uh God just sovereignly moved us.

I graduated from the University of Nebraska with a degree in accounting and went to work for my dad.

My dad and some business partners had a wholesale distribution uh operation that had warehouse locations from Montana to Lubbock, mostly in the Midwest.

And uh I went to work for them and took business transfers uh kind of in a training program for what I thought would bring me back to Omaha to our corporate offices and uh to head up the company uh for my dad.

I I had all kinds of desires to be a member of the Young President's Club and things like that and operating.

And not long after we arrived in Amarillo, which was in 1977, we became involved in a Sunday school class at a church and a and a Bible study that met out of the Sunday school class.

And uh nine months after moving to Amarillo, that Bible study came together with two other Bible studies to start a church.

And that church was named Trinity Fellowship.

We were so excited, thinking that we were just going to be there a couple of years, and that God had enabled us while we were there to be a part of uh planting uh such an alive work.

And uh four years uh after the church started, they approached me about coming, leaving business, coming on staff as business administrator, and I uh I wrestled through that process and decided, well, I'm you know, kind of like the Peace Corps.

I could go and give a couple years of my life and then I'll go back to business.

And that was 22 years ago.

And uh God uh kind of snuck up on my life, and a call, uh vocational call to ministry, uh was a part of that.

But I do remember one thing.

When I was 16, I committed my heart to the Lord, and uh I it was at a Youth for Christ rally, and there was a guy that gave his testimony at the rally, and it was the first time I'd grown up in church.

My parents were Presbyterian, I grew up in the Presbyterian church, I'd been through communicates class, uh, I could say the Apostles' Creed, I knew the Lord's Prayer.

Uh I I knew religious stuff, and I'd never been involved in an altar call.

Never heard that Jesus Christ had a personal interest in my life.

And uh that night at the Youth for Christ rally, this guy shared that Jesus loved you so much, loved me so much, that he gave his heart so that I could have a relationship, a personal relationship with God.

And I thought, wow, that's awesome.

And so he invited.

If you want to know more about it, come on down.

I was there with uh a date with my girlfriend who now is my wife, and uh it was our second date, and I thought, you know, I don't care if she thinks I'm weird, I'm going down to find out about this.

And I gave my heart to the Lord that night.

When I did, the man that prayed for me, he was an older man, you know, at that time seemed really old.

He's probably about my age now, but he was really old then.

And uh he said, Son, as I pray for you now, you're you're receiving Christ a gift of salvation, but you're dedicating your life to follow him for the rest of your life, right?

And I said, Yes, sir.

And he said, That means whatever he asks you to do, you'll do, right?

And I said, Yes, sir.

And he said, that's part of the package that comes with salvation, is you step in to be a disciple of Jesus Christ as you receive the gift of salvation.

I thought, okay.

I didn't realize fully what I was saying when I when I said okay, but I said, okay, I believe that, I'll receive that, I'll do that, and he prayed with me.

And that's what I want to talk to you about this morning.

The title of this message is The Call to Discipleship.

You know, if we look in the Gospels, the Gospels uh record the account of Jesus' life and death and ministry while he was on earth.

And when you look, it really the interchange that Jesus had with people as he was on earth could really be divided into two categories.

Jesus gave out of his life to minister to people, and he's still doing that today.

If you have a need today, Jesus will minister to the needs of your life.

Whether or not you have received him or you ever receive him, his provision and ministry is available for your life today.

But in the same manner or in a secondary manner, Jesus called people to his life through a process of discipleship.

And so, while on the one hand, he makes available ministry to people with no demands.

It's a free gift, just like salvation is.

On the other hand, he calls people into a deeper relationship, into an intimate relationship with him through a process called discipleship.

The dictionary defines a disciple as this: one who embraces and assists in spreading the teaching of another.

Here's a better, a better definition, secondary definition.

An active adherent.

Today you may be here and you have committed your life to Christ.

You've invited him, you've received by grace that salvation gift into your life, but maybe you've never heard the fact that Jesus Christ wants to be your discipler.

He's calling you into a deeper personal relationship that involves a discipling process, a personal, obedient, following, purposeful life that follows after him.

Salvation and discipleship, are they the same terms?

Are they synonymous terms?

And the answer to that is no.

Salvation you receive as a gift by grace, as Pastor Robert's been saying these last few weeks.

Not by works of righteousness, which we've done, but according to his mercy, he's saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost.

That's what Titus 3.5 tells us.

Discipleship, salvation relates to our standing in God.

We're free.

It's a free gift.

We're made righteous, not because of anything that we've done, but because of the grace that He's provided to us.

Discipleship relates to our stand for God.

When we become disciples of Jesus Christ, our life changes.

Our direction sometimes changes.

God is working in all of our lives to accomplish three things today.

As you listen to this message, and one of the reasons I think that this message is so important, I challenge you, listen with spiritual ears today, is because I believe God is doing one of these three things in all of our lives.

He's calling us to be a disciple.

If you've never heard that message, this is the first time God is at work in your life to say, won't you step in to the process of being a disciple of mine?

Won't you allow me to unfold a greater purpose for your life?

Don't just casually follow along with the religious flow of things, but let me enter into your life in a personal way and you become my disciple.

The second thing is he's trying to train each of us as a disciple.

Now, some of that training involves working in the third area, and that is confronting our attitudes, our behavior, our actions, so that we conform, that we represent a disciple of his.

So one of those three things is taking place today, and for us to fully understand the circumstances of our life, we have to understand God's passionate work related to discipleship.

One of the commands that Jesus gave to his followers before he left the earth was to go, Matthew 28, and make disciples.

God is interested in you becoming a disciple.

I remember growing up when I was about eight or nine years old, when my mom would go to the post office or to a bank or something like that, there was a poster that was there.

It had a picture of Uncle Sam.

Do you all anyone remember this?

And with a big finger, he was like this, he was pointing.

And when I I didn't like to look at the poster because it was so intimidating.

But it was like the the finger just 3D jumped out of this poster right at your face, and the underneath it it said, Uncle Sam wants you.

Now, in a more loving, not an intimidating way.

That's God's statement to you today.

God wants you.

Not only is he available to minister to the needs of your life, regardless of where you are today, but even before that, even beyond that, he wants you.

He wants you, the giftings of your life, your talents and abilities, your sphere of influence.

He wants you to be his disciple.

That's what I want to talk to you about today.

I want to point out my purpose in this whole message is to point out to you that God has a call on your life.

It's a call to discipleship.

And you can step into it.

He's working through the circumstances of your life.

If we understand this, we'll see the circumstances of our life in a little different way.

And to prove this, or maybe to point this out, I want to take an account.

I want to read to you an account of when Jesus called some men to be his disciples, because I think there's some things that took place there that I've noticed have taken place multiple times in my life and maybe taken place in your life as well.

If you brought your Bible, you can turn with me to Luke chapter 5, or it'll come up on the screens if you just want to follow up there.

Luke 5 · chapter mention

Luke chapter 5 and verse 1.

Luke 5 · chapter mention

So it was as the multitude pressed about him to hear the word of God that he stood by the lake of Gennesaret.

Now let me just pause a minute here and kind of set the stage.

Jesus' earthly ministry has begun.

He's been ministering in the cities around Galilee, around the Sea of Galilee.

That's the Genneseret.

The lake of Gennesaret is another term for the Sea of Galilee.

He's been ministering there in the synagogues and the cities around there, and he's been doing miracles.

And so his fame has been extended.

People are starting to notice there's something going on.

There's a guy that's teaching with authority.

There's a guy that has the capability of doing miracles.

Okay?

And so people are following him.

And actually, one passage records that they don't want him to leave the area.

And so, because of that, they're close, they're sticking with him real close, so that they don't lose him before their miracle comes to fruition.

So this morning he comes, he'd he'd been gotten up early, uh, gotten away, and the crowd started pressing in around him, and he was around the sea of Galilee.

And he saw two boats, verse 2, 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 to the deep and let down your nets for a catch.

And 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 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 brought their boats to the land, they forsook all and followed him.

Father, we just dedicate this time into your hands, and we're asking you, Holy Spirit, to personalize the words that are spoken today to the needs of our heart.

God, you be the ministering agent today.

Hear with our ears.

Open our eyes that we might see spiritual things today and embrace what you would have for our life.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

I believe that this account, that day, when Jesus got up to head out, his primary purpose was not to preach and teach to a multitude of people.

He was on a mission that day.

His mission was to call some men to be his disciples.

It just so happened that the ministry need that took place out of the flow of his life demanded that he stop and give attention.

And so, as I see it, he's making his way to an encounter with Simon, who we know as Peter.

This is the Peter who walked on water when he stepped out of the boat.

This is the Peter who denied Christ.

This is the impetuous Peter who was passionate in the things that he did.

His brother Andrew and their partners in a fishing business, James and John, with their father.

So he was on a mission to go and have an encounter with them and call them into discipleship, but the crowd came along and kind of messed up his plan.

So being Jesus, like Jesus is, he went ahead and ministered to the crowd, and when he got to the boat, when he got close to where the encounter was to have taken place, he saw the boat standing there and he stepped into the boat.

Now imagine with me, if you would, just a minute, what's taken place in Simon and Andrew's position.

If you are a disciple, if you are a believer today and you're in the process of being discipled, let me say it's not an event.

It begins with an encounter with God that happens over and over and over again.

You may have already had an encounter with God.

Think, oh good, I'm glad that's over with.

And a few months or a few years have gone by, and now there's another wrestling taking place in your life, and you think, what is up?

I can tell you what's up.

God is wanting to have an interchange, an alive, vibrant, active interchange in your life.

So he's conspired circumstances to brush by your life, to call you into a deeper relationship with him, and he steps in to the boat of your life.

Simon, I can just see him.

He's over there going, Andrew.

Look, look.

He got in the boat.

Man, no, don't look.

Just keep men in the net.

He's over there.

He's teaching the people, don't just pretend like we don't even see him.

It's okay.

James John, shh, just go take care of business.

You see, sometimes when God begins to do a work in our life, we want to ignore the fact that he's making some kind of demand, that his presence is active in our life, that there might be something that God is doing.

I have a feeling that's what took place with them.

And so Jesus just goes ahead and ministers to the crowd, takes care of their need, and when he's done, he turns to his original purpose, which was to call these men into discipleship.

Now, there's another thing that's not reflected in this passage.

You have to read it in other accounts to find out.

Simon and Andrew were disciples of John the Baptist.

They were religious guys.

They were looking for the Messiah to come.

There was an interest in their heart and life.

And so Jesus, because of their interest, they must have been searching.

So Jesus just arranges to slide by their life with an encounter, to step into their boat so that they have to deal with him.

And they're off on the side going, can you believe?

I tell you what, you know, he's in our boat now.

What's going to happen next?

And he says, Hey Simon, why don't you launch out into the deep and see if you can catch some fish?

When Jesus steps in to the events of our life, it comes with a request at times that seems kind of insensitive, some sometimes funny, sometimes like Jesus, I'm the fisherman, you're the preacher, I'll catch the fish, you catch the people.

At your bidding, Lord, we'll let down the nets.

Let me just insert in here how this fits for me.

Most recently, a most recent example of the way God stepped into my life happened in the change that took place just two months ago for Jan and I.

We were in Amarillo, happy, satisfied.

We had been there ministering in some capacity, either a lay capacity or a vocational ministry for 27 years.

The church was going great.

We had just built a brand new house on a golf course.

It was kind of our, you know, retirement, go-to-be with Jesus home.

You know how that is?

Our life was kind of settled and planned.

It was perfect.

Our friends were wonderful.

The ministry was wonderful.

As we looked to 2004, uh the church was about to launch off into the biggest capital campaign that we had ever undertaken.

I was going to take a lead role as a part of that capital campaign.

I mean, there was challenge, there was excitement, there was a sense of God, thank you for blessing us.

And then God steps into our boat.

Jimmy and Robert have a conversation, and it's a conversation about me becoming a part of what God was doing here in the Metroplex through Gateway.

And Jimmy calls me and says, Hey, Robert and I talked about you, and I said, Really?

And he said, Yeah.

And he said, You want me to tell you what we talked about?

And I said, Yeah.

And so then he unfolds that the fact that they talked about a change involving my life, and would I be willing to pray about it?

I thought, well, yeah, I'll pray about it.

The short result of the story is I prayed about it.

A process of a week took place where the Gateway elders prayed, our Trinity elders prayed, our our executive team at the church prayed, and it resulted in a process of confirming steps that led to this move in our life.

I don't know what your situation is today, but I can tell you, God is either in your boat, coming alongside your boat, or he's getting ready to encounter your life.

Why?

Why?

Because he loves you.

Because he has a purpose for your life, because he cares enough.

So that his planned interchange, his love is to conspire circumstances to come alongside your life in a way to step into it and say, hey, why don't you let me do something with your life?

Why don't you let me do something for your life?

Why don't you launch out and make a catch?

God, I've been working all this time to try and do that.

We worked all night.

God, we're tired.

We just are finished in repairing our nets.

But okay.

Okay, we'll try.

A call to discipleship begins with an encounter with God.

Every disciple, maybe you're in that encounter, and I can just tell you, every disciple that I know, every every time I have one of these encounters with God, there's something that goes off on me, and it's a little bit like, what now, God?

What's the next thing?

There's a progressive nature to a developing relationship with God.

Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about.

A few years ago, uh God began to work in my heart uh related to worship.

I I'm uh I'm uh I've I've been stove up with my emotions.

It's been difficult for me.

Maybe some of you are like this.

When when I first started experiencing worship, you know, I I do this.

I I was afraid to raise my hands or do anything expressive for fear that somebody might look.

And uh so I I began to see it in the word, see that you know their expressive worship was a part of uh the the worship that David described in the Psalms, and so uh I started raising my hand.

And I just knew the first time I got it above my shoulder, there was going to be some kind of a buzzer or uh, you know, some kind everyone in the place was gonna know and swing around to look at me with my hands up.

Well, I kind of got free of that and think, you know, that's not bad.

I can do that, I can shut my eyes, I don't care if anybody's looking, I can raise my hands, everything's fine.

And then dancing kind of came along.

So I think, well, you know, God, I'm just not a dancer.

I never danced in high school.

I just, I'm not good at dancing, I don't have very good rhythm, you know, you know, and God said, Will you dance for me?

I said, uh, you know, I'm just no good.

So he starts wrestling with me about this process of dancing.

So finally I thought, oh, okay, maybe I can.

And about the time I get free to start doing this, there's people doing this.

And I think, no, I'm not doing that.

It's enough, is enough.

I'm not pogoing.

I'll dance, I'll do the Christian aerobic thing, but I'm but I'm I'm not doing anymore.

But there's this tugging in my heart.

You see, there's a fear I have, I assume, because I think I'm a normal person, if God's tugging on your life, you're going, where's this going to end, really?

I mean, you know, maybe he's tugging on you to deal with issues in your finances, and you think, you know, if I give him my finances, I mean, you know, I write him a check today, he's gonna want one again next week.

Or in two weeks, you know.

I I I this radical stuff, it just gets too carried away.

So one day I was dealing with this whole issue of dancing, and I was out on the golf course, and I uh we were on a par three hole, and I hit a shot to the green.

I was a long ways away from the hole, uh 35 or 40-foot putt.

And I I stepped up over the putt, lined it up, and I stroked the putt, and it just, I mean, miraculously, and literally, it was miraculous.

It snaked its way to the hole and went in, and I went, yes! And and just as I did that, I mean, I that fast, when I came down, there was just this little thought in my heart, said, Oh, sure, you'll jump for a putt, but you won't jump for me.

Okay, God, I'll pogo for you.

You see, I don't know what God is saying in your life.

I just know this.

He's working to call disciples.

And a part of that discipleship, if there's a fear that if you give in to this, it's going to be more radical, I'll tell you, it's gonna be more radical.

It's gonna be more radical because it's a growing relationship of love with a living, dynamic, vibrant Savior.

And he wants more.

He wants more of our life.

He wants more of our understanding and commitment.

It's a relationship that he's calling us into.

And you don't have to do it because somebody else is doing it.

All I'm saying is he's gonna step into your boat.

The point of this whole thing is stop moving your boat.

He's not gonna go away if you move your boat.

He's not gonna go away if you if you turn your back and talk off to the side.

He's pursuing you to be a disciple, and he wants to get in your boat.

So let him get in, and when he gets in and he's done revealing himself, then do what he says.

Follow after him.

It will be the best thing that you can possibly do with your life.

You see, going back to our ministry situation, the request, as I started thinking about, God, do I leave 27 years of ministry and friendships and kind of a comfortable situation, happy, blessed?

Do I leave this?

Is this really what you would ask me to do?

Sometimes when God steps into our boat, he asks us to do things that don't logically make sense.

My logic can't comprehend it.

And so what I do is I fall back to the reality that God is a good God.

He takes care of us.

He asks us to do things, but when he asks us to do things, there's his provision, his resource and protection on the other side.

And so I step in and I say, God, I'll I'll I'll embrace the encounter with you.

I'll embrace your work.

Nevertheless, God, it doesn't make sense to me, but I'll do as you say.

And just as soon as you do, just as soon as you do, the bolt gets filled.

The fish that flood in, the provision of God, the work of God, and the will of God floods into your life, and you go, Oh my gosh.

This is the second thing that's revealed in this story.

It's in verse 4.

The call to discipleship reveals us to us.

When he was done speaking, he said to Simon, Launch out into the deep and let your nets down for a catch.

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 their boats so that they began to sink.

When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me, I am a sinful man.

When God begins to work, it reveals we may think we're okay.

We may think we've got things right, that we're doing things right.

And when God begins to work in our life, we realize we're not as okay as we thought we were.

A number of years ago, before I left business to come into ministry, I this is still a kind of a quality of my life.

I'm an organized guy.

I'm rudded.

That's probably a better way to say it.

I'm rudded.

I like to go to the same restaurants.

I like to wake up at the same time.

I like routines.

And when I was in business, and to a great degree even today, I'm a goal-setting person.

I want to know what we're going to accomplish and when it needs to be accomplished and how it's going to be accomplished.

And when I was in business, I was much more rigid in my goal setting than I am today.

When I moved to Amarillo, I took over a territory, and uh they told me it'd take three years to build the territory to the point that it would support me on commission.

And I thought, nah, I can do better than that.

So I set a goal for myself with a certain monthly dollar amount of sales, and I broke that monthly dollar amount of sales into a weekly amount, into a daily amount, into an hourly amount, and I began to make my calls.

One evening, we were going to Bible study, and that's the Bible study we went to every week, and there was a guy there that wasn't a guy, I liked him personally, but he wasn't a guy that I respected the greatest.

I mean, he just, he, to me, he wasn't a success.

And so when the Bible study started that night, the leader of the Bible study says, Does anybody have anything that they want to share before we get started?

And this guy raises his hand.

And uh he says, Yeah, you know, I was I was thinking this week, I was meditating on the word, and I feel like what the Lord said to me is that we as followers of Jesus, that we should have no other goal than to be conformed to the image of Christ.

And I mean, I'm I'm seated in the circle, there's about 20 people there, and every buzzer in my heart is going on, eh, eh, you know, nerd, nerd, doesn't know what he's talking about, never gonna mount to anything, failure, failure.

And I'm I'm quickly in my mind, I'm racing to think of things that how can a ship without a rudder?

You gotta have goals, you've got to be working to accomplish things.

And this guy, you know, waxed eloquent about how that all we need to do is pursue Jesus, and it just seemed so ethereal to me.

So I just sat back very calmly.

If you were in the group that night, you probably wouldn't have known what was taking place.

But when I got in the car, I said to Jan, what did you think of uh what this guy said tonight?

And she said, Well, you know, I think it had a good point.

I said, I thought it was stupid.

I I tell you, that guy doesn't know anything.

I wouldn't listen to one thing he has to say.

I just went off on her.

And uh little did I know that God was stepping at that point into my boat.

He was revealing something to me about me that I didn't know.

I thought my goals were accomplishing his purposes.

I uh after all, I set my goal, and then I said, God, would you please bless this?

Would you, I'm lifting this up to you, God, and I'll work to make it happen, but would you do it?

And one day, after I had had this really debate, and it just kind of irritated me.

I kept working on me all during the next week, and there's maybe a couple of week time frame, and one morning I was in my quiet time and I was reading through Ephesians, and I came to Ephesians 3.20.

Now unto him who's able to do exceeding, abundantly, above all that you could ask or think according to his riches in Christ Jesus.

I went, whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.

What did that say?

And I reread that passage in light of the thing I had been wrestling about with this guy.

And just very gently the Lord said to me, Tom, your goals will accomplish great things.

But I have a I have a better way for you.

If you'll trust me, I'll show you a better way.

And I said, But God, I I don't understand.

I can't just throw out everything, can I?

Do you this process of wrestling in my heart?

And he said, No, no.

We had a saying in our business, most guys, if you're in in sales, you'll you'll understand this or some version of this.

We planned our work and worked our plan.

So God that morning said to me, Go ahead and plan your work.

Go ahead and work your plan, but just stop tallying your invoices.

Stop this uh this uh struggle in your heart.

See, what I would do is I'd go and call on somebody, and if I spent 30 minutes making a presentation and it didn't result in a in a closed sale, I'd be going, Golly, you know, I'm behind now.

I've got to sell twice as much in the next 30 minutes to make up for this.

You know, and I viewed people as an end to a means and a result that was trying to be accomplished.

I didn't realize any of this.

I didn't know what was in my heart.

But God began to work on me, and when he did, when he stepped into my life, he revealed something to me about me, and I thought, whoa.

True to form, I had I was graphing my sales by month, plotting them on a chart, showing them how I was moving in just three months up toward my commission goal line, and uh uh I remember shading in the month that God began to do this work in me, and I wrote on the top of my graph of that month.

First month with no goals.

And I really thought, when I as I wrestled through this, I thought, this is crazy.

My sales are probably gonna go to zero.

I mean, God, how can okay, God?

I'm trusting in you.

If my family doesn't eat this month, it's your fault.

So I didn't total my invoices, I didn't worry about a sale, I just worked my plan, planned my work, called on people, and you know what happened?

I had more ministry opportunities that month than I'd ever had in my whole business career.

People who I'd been calling on for years asked me to pray with them, never before asked me to pray with them.

Opened up situations that they were dealing with, that I had opportunity to bring a word related to God's provision for their life like I'd never seen before.

And I got to the end of the month and I thought, well, here's a real test.

I mean, is it is God's word really true?

My sales that month were double any month previous to that.

I got a letter from one of my dad's partners who was the president of the company saying, Congratulations, you had a marvelous month.

I'm sure you're doing awesome things in order to produce this.

And I'm thinking, yeah, right.

God did it for me.

You see, when God steps into our boat, he's gonna reveal something.

He's there's gonna be a catalyst to change.

He's gonna reveal something to us about us.

And it may be that the response is we drop to our knees and we say, God, depart from me.

I'm I'm wicked, Lord.

I don't deserve to be around you.

I see this thing in me, and I just don't want you to be around.

I know I'm disqualified.

Can I say to you today?

God knew, Jesus knew what was in Peter's heart before Peter ever knew it.

God knows what's in your heart today.

As you step in, as you respond, as there becomes a catalyst for revealing what's in our heart to us, it's no surprise to God, and it doesn't disqualify.

The greatest thing in this passage that Jesus said to Peter, he said, Don't be afraid.

Peter drops to his knees and says, Depart from me, I'm wicked.

And Jesus says, Don't be afraid, Peter.

I'm not going to reject you, Peter.

Don't be afraid, Peter.

I'm not going to turn away from you.

You're not disqualified, Peter.

For now, you'll be a fisher of men.

I have a purpose for your life, Peter.

I've revealed something in your heart to show you something about yourself so that I can use you in a greater way.

That's the work of discipleship.

A calling to us to say, I got a bigger plan.

And here's the point of this whole thing.

When we see something about us, it's to point to us that the only way to fulfill our destiny, the only way to achieve God's purposes, is through discipleship.

A call of God's planned purposes in our life to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

If you're struggling today and you say, Man, I just don't have a purpose.

I don't know what I should do in God.

Maybe you ought to look around.

Maybe Jesus is brushing by the circumstances of your life, ready to step into your boat, and he'll reveal the purpose, the destiny that he has for you.

But no longer will it be about serving some goal or purpose or plan that you have for your own life.

Maybe it'll be about something that He wants to do for you and that He's planned all along.

He's just been waiting for you to say, At your word, Lord, I'll launch off into the deep and throw out my nets where I hadn't seen before.

The third thing that's revealed in this passage is the call to discipleship captivates our heart.

The very end of this passage it says, So when they had brought their boats to the land, they forsook all and followed him.

Here's the question I have for each of us.

What pursuit is worth the consumption of your life?

Is it your business?

Is it a hobby?

Is it your kids?

Is it health?

You're pursuing something today.

Hopefully it's Jesus Christ.

If it's not that, I hope that this message will shake you, challenge you to say, wait a minute, I'm pursuing the wrong thing.

I've been stiff-arming God, and I need to allow God to step into the circumstances of my life and make a response to Him.

But the question that comes with this is what is it that's captivated your heart?

What are you consuming your life on today?

When we get a picture of God's love for us, when we understand the nature of his care for our life, it will absolutely, radically capture our heart.

And we'll say, God, nothing, nothing I could give to you will even compare with the things that I have received from you.

In a practical sense, in a spiritual sense.

Let me just give you one example of this.

When I left business, part of the decision to leave business, it was a wrestling in my heart with the fact that I was giving up some things that I probably never see again.

The perks that come with a business life.

I'd never be a member of the country club, I'd never have corporate aircraft, I'd never have a big six-figure salary, I'd never live in a big house.

And I kind of nobly thought, well, I'll give it up for you, God, for a couple years.

One day, several years after I uh had left business, I was driving down the street, and uh I was just thinking about how blessed my life was.

I didn't have everything that I thought I was gonna give up.

But I had something greater.

I had a feel that I would describe.

It was just, I was content, I was happy, I had everything, literally, everything, it maybe not physically, but the the impact of what I thought those physical things would supply, I had everything.

And a lot of the things I I had.

I was driving a uh a sob uh sports car at that time uh in one of my first midlife crises.

I I was a member of the the the country club.

We had a house that I if you had asked me when I stepped into ministry if I I I would ever have a house that nice, I would have said probably not.

And God said to me that day, You can't outgive me, Tom.

You can't you you can't respond in obedience to me to give up something without me supplying something that will be equally satisfying in your life.

Maybe you're wrestling today and you're wrestling with something that God's asking you to give up.

The call to discipleship is a call that works to captivate our heart.

And when when our heart is captivated, there's no sacrifice that's too great.

There's no sacrifice that we look back on and say, I really messed up.

I guess I can say in honesty, if we make a decision that is out of our out of the pressure that we feel to please someone else, and it's not in response to God, we can we can live with all kinds of regrets, even if they're if the intention is spiritual.

I'm not suggesting to you today that you drum up some good religious decision that you need to make so that you can feel good about being a disciple of God.

I'm saying I think God's impacting every one of our lives.

If we'll simply look, if we'll look and see where he's passed by and the fact and acknowledge the fact that he may be stepping in to the circumstances of our life, and if he does, he'll be asking us something, he'll be revealing something about our heart, and if we'll we'll make the right response, if it's a response of sacrifice, it will capture our heart, and the sacrifice will seem insignificant once it's been made.

Let me go back to the story just a minute and put it in context.

These guys are fishermen.

Their livelihood is catching fish.

Probably they've never caught as many fish as they caught that night.

That day.

I don't know how many fish it would take to sink a boat, but I'll tell you this.

Well, our family has a boat.

We don't fish, we use it for water skiing.

But a few years ago, we were uh at a lake outside of Amarillo, and it was a church event, and there were a whole bunch of people there, and we were taking people from the dock to a place uh to kind of gather everybody at.

And so we our our boat will uh will accommodate eleven, and we had about sixteen in the boat.

And we were riding kind of low in the water.

We weren't in danger of sinking, but we were riding low.

I don't know how many people it would have taken to load the boat to where the boat would have made me feel or would have literally been sinking, but we were a long way from there.

However, the shore patrol didn't agree.

I got stopped that day and was given a nice ticket for.

overloading my boat.

But my that's not my point.

My point is their boats were filled with fish to the point that they thought it was sinking and they called for help and filled another boat and they thought it was sinking.

And then they took the time to get their boat to the shore.

There's a process.

I'm telling you today, if God, if you will allow him to capture your heart, he will follow a process.

It's not going to be a religious process.

It's not going to be a process that makes you feel guilty or that you have to conjure up something in order to please God.

All you'll have to do is obey.

And when you obey, the response that God makes will be worth the sacrifice in your life.

I don't know.

The scripture doesn't record, but I would be willing to bet that the catch that they made that day paid off their business debts, gave them some income to operate from so that they could, at least James and John, could leave their father and the the hired hands in the fishing business and not feel guilty.

God prepared a way for them to make a radical response from a captured heart.

And he'll do that for you and me.

The whole question is will we will we be his disciple?

Will we step in?

Will we answer the call to discipleship today?

Bow your heads with me if you wouldn't I want to ask you some questions just in a private moment as we close.

The whole thrust of this message is simply to say have you ever heard that God wants you to be his disciple?

If you haven't you can make that decision today if if you're if you've never even been introduced to Jesus Christ, you can make a commitment of your life.

You can receive the gift of salvation and take the first step into discipleship.

Maybe you've heard that Jesus is a disciple maker but somehow the focus of your life has become turned in another way and you just need simply need to make a response today that says God I I've been keeping you out of my boat but I I'm letting you step in today and I'm going to obey whatever you say or maybe even more than that you're in a quandary today you've got a circumstance in your life and you feel like God's asking you to do something you don't know what to do.

Can I just put you at ease and say just relax.

Relax.

God's got it in control.

God's calling you the work that he's calling you to do is a work that's going to be a good result and all you have to do is obey.

Don't make anything happen.

Just obey.

As I pray why don't you make the response that the Holy Spirit's leading you to make in your life today.

Father I pray for every person God who needs your touch today.

I pray God for those that need to make decisions that seem like a huge sacrifice.

God put peace in their heart today so that they can obediently respond to you.

God reveal your love.

The motive for your call to discipleship is your love for us.

Reveal it to every person in this place today.

And God we might follow you with all of our heart and step into that place, God that you have for us.

And Lord we'll give you all the praise in Jesus' name.

Amen