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"A
(Kingdom) Business Plan" August
17, 2003 The Rev. Dr. John Ward [first part missing from tape] promises we made to you as a
congregation and as the pastoral leadership is to make sure that we focus on
stewardship at least once a month. And
so we're going to do that this morning with regard to the sermon even though as
you think about the passage itself, it can come off as one of the least likely
stewardship passages. In fact, you
won't read stewardship into it in the beginning, but as I began to exegete the
passage and work with it, I saw the connection for us in terms of what it means
as the foundation for, as John O'Keefe said, obedience, and what it means for us
to begin to leave a legacy. As
we're organizing for the stewardship campaign that actually comes in
October-November, we have gathered people around us from our session and
interested parties to talk about what that means. We've been talking about leaving a legacy and finding us
faithful for generations not only behind us and thanking them, but also going
ahead of us as well. I read about a particular Swiss watch. I cannot pronounce it--I'm not even going to try it--but it's
quality is so great that they have the advertisement on TV that you never
actually own this watch, you just keep it for the next generation.
In a sense, that's what we've been given as Faith Presbyterian Church.
Quite often I think we forget that.
We're very thankful for those that have gone before us in the faith, to
establish the ministry that we have. It's
115-plus years. But at the same
time, friends, we're also called to know that this is not just about us being
thankful for what they've done for us so that you and I have a church and a
ministry, but it's also about the generations that go on ahead of us. I heard it once from an old Native American proverb, "We don't
inherit the land from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children."
I think that's a wonderful understanding with regard to stewardship of
our natural resources. Doesn't that
make sense to you? It does to me. Well, in the same way, with regard to all resources God has given
to us, we must become stewards, not only thankfully for those that have passed
what they've owned on to us, but also what we own on to others.
And we're going to read a little bit about how Jesus made fishers of men
out of fishers of fish. And we're going to turn now to the gospel of Luke and we're
going to begin the passage proper on chapter 5, verse 1. And that's page 62 in the New Testament section.
This is a passage, by the way, that came to me because in verse 5 where
it says, "Because you say so we will let down our nets," That 's
actually a key verse for an upcoming Cursillo ministry in November.
And you've heard about Cursillo. We
have many people who are a part of that, and that was the chosen verse for the
one in November. I'm going to be
helping out with that one, and that led me to understand obedience.
And as John and I were talking about what songs to sing and as we were
talking about stewardship, that led me to this passage.
As I was reading it, I thought it would be a perfect one for this
morning. So let's begin at verse 1
of chapter 5: Once while Jesus was standing beside the Lake of Gennesaret, and
the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he saw two boats there
at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing
their nets. He got into one of the
boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from
the shore. Then he sat down and
taught the crowds from the boat. When
he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into the deep water
and let down your nets for a catch." Simon
answered, "Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing.
Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets."
When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were
beginning to break. They signaled
their partners in the other boat to come and help them.
And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink.
But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying,
"Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!"
For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that
they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were
partners with Simon. Then Jesus
said to Simon, "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching
people." When they had brought
their boats to the shore, they left everything and followed him.
This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. This is an exciting and outstanding encounter between Simon, who
has been yet to be named Peter, and yet truly beginning to understand who this
Person is who he called Lord. Peter
will be named and confess Jesus as the Christ a few chapters down here in the
gospel stories. But right here
Simon (and because we know him as Peter and because Luke knew him as Peter and
entered that name in here towards the last part of this section) we'll
intersperse between "Simon" and "Peter" as we talk about
him. But this is not Simon's first
encounter with Jesus. It's
officially, in Luke's gospel, his second. And
I'd like you to just look it over in the other column there, the left-hand
column in verse 38 on the same page where it says "Healing at Simon's
house" in the subheading of our pew Bibles.
You'll see that this is where the first encounter between Jesus and Simon
occurs. After leaving the synagogue--and Jesus is teaching and He's doing
His healing ministry--he entered Simon's house. Now Simon's mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever and
they asked him about her. He stood
over her and rebuked the fever and it left her.
Immediately she got up and began to serve them. A wonderful miracle of healing which Simon saw and was a witness
with regard to his mother-in-law. Jesus
is continuing to do this kind of ministry in the area.
He is teaching and He is healing. He
is casting out demons. In fact, if
you were to look down in verse 41 of that same section, it says this.
I always think it's important for us to remember, especially if we ever
have doubts about who Christ is. The
demons never had any doubts about who Christ was. In verse 41: "Demons
also came out of many shouting, 'You are the Son of God,' but he rebuked them
and would not allow them to speak because they knew that he was the
Messiah." Of course, as we know, Jesus wanted to make sure that He was
understood as the suffering and sacrificial Messiah, which is why quite often
when people finally acknowledged Him as Lord and Savior He said, "Wait, and
do not tell anybody" because the Son of Man had to be glorified and His
glory included His sacrificial death on the cross.
But even the demons identified who He was right away.
Now Simon got a chance to see this Master--and that's how he
addresses Jesus when we first hear him talking--not only teaching the good news
but also doing healing miracles. And
now comes the story that we just came into as well. And so Jesus is teaching, and of course the crowds are
pressing upon Him and so He needs a little breathing room. He sees two boats by the sea called either "Gennesaret"
or "Galilee" (it's the same sea or lake, as we know).
He sees these two boats. He's
probably familiar with at least Simon's being in one boat because Simon was a
fisherman. He was in his house. He
would have likely said, you know, in conversation, "What do you do for a
living?" just like we do today and He would have noticed that those boats
weren't just two boats, but they were at least one of those belonging to Simon.
So He asks him to let out a little bit so He can teach.
And when He's done teaching, He provides another miracle, this one
directed to Simon, but not only to Simon, but to the others around him.
And here's what happens. He
says, "Go out and throw your nets out on this side of the boat."
Now, Peter (Simon) does a great thing here. First of all, he is confronted by Jesus in the beginning, and
as it says in the Scripture, they were washing their nets after a long night's
fishing disaster. The partnership
of Simon and his brother Andrew, and James, and John, went out, cast their nets
out. This is their livelihood, this
is how they make their living, this is how they put food on the table.
And they had cast their nets out and they had come up short.
So they came back into shore and were washing their nets.
Jesus asked them to borrow the boat to teach, and so He does, but then He
says, "I want you all to go out again and put the net where I tell
you." Now, friends, that's a little like a pastor telling a CEO how to
run his business. And that's
exactly the feeling you get when you think of what Simon says, "Master,
we've been out all night and we didn't get a thing."
But then there's this moment where, when Peter could have done a couple
of things, he chooses to obey (probably because he already saw something very
strongly evident about the nature of this Jesus). Specifically, he heard the teaching and he saw his
mother-in-law healed in his very home. For
that reason, he says, "Because you say so, we will let down the nets."
It was an act of obedience by Simon, not yet knowing who was with him,
but knowing enough about Him that He was special, and so he did.
And then comes this nature-miracle that is much more than that because it
is a symbol of the Kingdom of heaven and what God will be doing through those
who follow Him. Jesus reaches right
into the livelihood and the nature of Simon and allows fish, upon fish, upon
fish to be caught. So much so that
Simon Peter, as he's pulling in the nets, realizes something's up. Here they are, pulling in the nets--likely he and Andrew (it
says "they" in the Scripture and we know, of course, that Andrew was
the first to meet Jesus and introduce Him to Simon, and we read about that in
John's gospel). And so here's Peter going, "Oh, my gosh!
Oh, my gosh! Oh, my gosh! Oh,
my gosh! Andrew, get over here!
We're in trouble!" because the boat is beginning to sink.
And so he signals over to his fishing partners, "John!
James! Get over here!
We've got to show you this! Help
us out!" And they continue to pull in the nets and they're going,
"Oh, my gosh! Oh, my
gosh!" and it just gets bigger and bigger.
And now they're getting scared. First
it was the catch of their life. I
could imagine--I don't know, perhaps you wouldn't be thinking this way, but I'll
admit that if I saw this, and saw this, I would be beginning to first think,
"Well, OK, it's investment time! OK,
it's time for a new home! OK, it's
time for the new car! I've already
got college paid for the next set of kids" and I'd just be thinking through
that. "Oh, my gosh!
This is great! This is
great!" And all of a sudden,
though, there's a threat happening. It
is so miraculous that the livelihood is beginning to sink.
The boats, the very vessels that make Peter, and Andrew, and James, and
John fishermen--that important implement of their life is beginning to sink.
And now he's going, "Oh, my God! Oh, my God!" And
he turns to Jesus and he addresses Him not as Savior just yet.
Not as the Messiah. Not as
the Christ. Again, that comes in a couple chapters. But he does call Him "Lord." And he changes from "Master," which is that title
of respect that he gave to Jesus, One who was indeed a miracle worker and a
teacher, a rabbi, one worthy of respect. But
now he calls Him "Lord" because he sees Christ, at least at this
point, as God's messenger and something greater than just a great catch of fish.
And so he gets down on his knees and he says, "Lord, Lord, depart
from me, for I am a sinner!" All
of a sudden, what becomes the great catch of his life moves into the great
catching. The great catching of
Simon for the Kingdom business of God. For
there is a business plan here, and it's Christ's business plan. Now, let me talk a little bit about stewardship and where I got the
stewardship sense from this. Stewardship
is about discipleship, I think, first and foremost.
Stewardship is not first about fundraising.
It is about faith-raising. Stewardship
is not first about fundraising; it is about faith-raising.
And stewardship is ultimately a call for each of us to obedience. To obedience. You've
heard me say that before. You've
heard that sung by John O'Keefe before. It's
a word we haven't heard much lately. Well,
let's see--not in our recent past, but I'm hearing it come up again:
Obedience. Something that's
not specifically about me, but about being somebody else. In his book The Purpose-Driven Life that Rick Warren
wrote--it's a wonderful book. There
was a class that Elma Hammersma led recently.
I know some of our men's groups are following this book and some women's
groups as well. Some follow-ups
from Elma's class. Again, this is
going to be taught again this Fall in Adult Nurture classes. I'm beginning to see a trend now moving back towards what
obedience means for us in our century and I was just caught by the opening words
of Rick Warren's book. Now this is The
Purpose-Driven Life. It's
helping you understand your purpose in life.
But here's where it begins. And
Rick Warren says this in his opening line of his book:
"It's not about you. It's
not about you. The purpose of your
life is far greater than your own personal fulfillment."
I can just see Simon in the beginning thinking, "Oh, this is about
me. This is about me."
And then, as the fish began to just become so immense that he couldn't
help himself, he knew it was about something greater and he saw then the Master,
Jesus, as God's emissary and called Him "Lord." The purpose of your life is far greater than your
own personal fulfillment, your peace of mind, or even your happiness.
It's far greater than your family, your career, or even your wildest
dreams and ambitions. If you want to know why you're placed on this planet, you
must begin with God. You were born
by His purpose and for His purpose. The beginning of stewardship, then, is the beginning of
discipleship and it's the beginning of obedience. When we think of stewardship, it must be a radical obedience
to a radical encounter with the living God.
And that's exactly what Simon had. He
was obedient because he had a radical encounter with the living God in Jesus
Christ. And what seemed to him to
be a wonderful nature-miracle became something even greater, so great that it
scared him. You see, stewardship is
the proper use of our resources that God gives to us, and the resource that we
see here is Jesus, who guided Peter away from the hope and hunt for commercial
success and He claimed Peter for the Kingdom.
And Jesus made Peter a steward of the Kingdom in all of his life, in all
of what Peter owned. And so has
Jesus made you and me stewards of God's Kingdom and His business plan. Now let's go back to that wonderful scene again where Peter is
confronted by Jesus. What does
Jesus say to Peter? He says,
"Do not be afraid." Just
as the angels had to say that when the shepherds encountered them at the
beginning of the gospels where the angels proclaimed that Jesus will be born. Just as any show of angels--in fact, Gabriel to Mary and also
the angel to Zechariah in all of the beginning gospels. The first thing the angels have to say is, "Do not be
afraid," because something wholly other is in the midst of the person who
is afraid, and this is what Peter is seeing.
Peter responds appropriately to what just happened in this miracle
situation. He could have done a couple of things instead.
One of the things he could have done is he could have made excuses for
being trumped by a rabbi, OK? Here
was a fisherman who was trumped by a teacher.
Like I said before, kind of like a pastor telling a CEO how to do his
business. And so here are these fishermen who had been out all night
and then they come back in. Jesus
said, "Well, cast your nets over here," and Peter said, "Aw, OK,
we'll do it. You saved my
mother-in-law, so I owe you something so I'm going to head over here and do
it." And then this miraculous
catch comes in and Peter sees something very great, and very wholly other, and
very God-like. He didn't do what maybe you and I would be tempted to do, and
that's make excuses for being trumped by somebody who shouldn't have known what
he was doing. "Well, yeah, of
course it would have been on the other side of the lake because we were fishing
on this side, so very good." Peter
didn't do that. He didn't make
excuses. The second thing he could have done was this.
He could have said, "Jesus! This
is wonderful! Stay with me--be my fishing guide. We'll make a million off of this thing. I'll be the brawn, you be the brain. I'll get the boats going, I'll get the nets going, I'll get
the personnel going, you just tell us where to lay down our nets."
You see, if we think about normal understanding of success and business
and probably even stewardship, maybe we would think that this is one of the most
inefficient passages about stewardship, because think of what could have
happened. You see, Jesus and Peter
could have gone into business. They
could have raised a lot of money and that's what they could have done the rest
of their time. Sometimes I think we
get caught up in the success of stewardship thinking it's all about money and
all about resources. And this would
be a financial disaster for people who were looking to make a buck because what
did Peter, and John, and James do once this happened? What does it say that they did?
Right after Jesus says, "I will make you a fisher of people?"
This is our last verse. "When they had brought their boats to shore
they left . . ." What? What does
it say? " . . . they left
everything and followed him." They left those resources behind.
Why? Because those weren't
the resources that were important. Jesus
had just claimed Peter, John, and James, likely Andrew, as now stewards of the
Kingdom of God, stewards who would make a greater impact than just making some
money for themselves. Friends, they
didn't stand by even long enough to sell all their fish and fund their
missionary endeavor with Jesus. See,
they didn't sell everything, make sure the whole family had all they needed and
have some money in their own pockets. They
left everything behind on that shore because something greater than just a
wonderful business catch had been made. They
left because Christ had called them and because they knew it was something
greater than just a venture of capital. It was the claiming for the Kingdom of God, and they saw that
and they followed Him. That's the
radical obedience that Christ is calling you and me to. And if we understand that call to Christ and if we follow Him, then
anything we do will begin to make sense and fall into place.
I don't think we can be good stewards.
I don't think we can give properly, because any time we give without
understanding who Christ is for us, as the risen Lord, as the Lord of our life,
unless we have a radical encounter with Jesus Christ, everything we do for God
will hurt us, will bother us. We'll
think of it as giving our extras to God, not our whole lives to Him.
When we have that radical encounter through the Holy Spirit, we are
obedient to God in Christ. We will
follow Him anywhere. We will leave
behind what the world would think would be a waste to follow God. And to be truly stewards of the resources that He gave to us.
These are the resources that we're talking about in our understanding of
stewardship. It doesn't start with
money. It starts with Christ's call
to you and to me. Because He has a
business plan in mind. It's a
Kingdom business plan and it includes you and me.
And He's calling us to leave everything behind because what He gives us
is even greater. And He promises us to be stewards--stewards of our lives,
stewards of everything that God has given to us. What are we going to do with the resources God has given to us?
Not only our financial resources. Our
vocational resources as well. Our
relationship resources with those we love.
Our resource as Faith Presbyterian Church.
What are we going to do with that? If
you are a mentor to somebody, whether you're a teacher, or a neighbor who's like
a big brother or a big sister, or if you have children, that is also your
stewardship. How are you going to
be good stewards of what God has given to you as you honor and bless Him through
the things that He's given to you? Stewardship
is all about this, and it's all about being obedient to what God calls us to do. Jesus not only made Peter and James and John and Andrew fishers of
people. But God is calling us to do
that same thing with the resources He has given to us.
I pray for you the radical relationship that is offered to you through
calling Jesus Christ your Lord. And
Jesus says then to you, "Do not be afraid."
Look what Jesus did with Simon. He
reached right into his very livelihood. He
gave him an outstanding gift of grace, so big, though, it was overwhelming to
show the love that He had for him. And
then He pulled him on to something greater.
He didn't leave him there. Christ won't leave us anywhere, either. He meets us where we need Him most. He gives us great graces.
And then He moves us into ministry, and there we become stewards.
Let us pray together. Heavenly Lord, this outstanding passage, this wonderful miracle
that we see--Lord, we can just feel just how immense it was for Simon as he
first began to reel in those fish, needed help, and then began to become afraid
because something greater than just a fishing guide was in his midst.
It was you in Christ Jesus. Lord,
you are here as well, in the Holy Spirit. And
we also see you as clearly. In
Christ's name we pray. And all
God's people said, "Amen." Rev. Dr. John Ward Associate Pastor for Discipleship Faith Presbyterian Church Minnetonka, Minnesota [Transcribed from an audiotape of the
worship service on August 17, 2003.] |
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