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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

John Shin

Lower Your Net

Heavenly Father, Lord, I thank you so much for this opportunity to worship here with my brothers and sisters at Advent Hope and for those who may be listening to the recording.

Lord, I pray for your Holy Spirit now to fill this room, to anoint my lips, and may your message come across clear.

All these things we pray in Jesus' name, amen.

I thought long and hard about what message I should share with you all.

The obvious message was giving you an update of how the Lord has been working in my life at the Mayo Clinic.

And I had a lot of things that I wanted to discuss and share, and I've heard from a lot of people telling me, I can't wait to hear an update of your testimony.

I can't wait to hear how the Lord has been working in your life there.

And what I'm going to share with you today is a message the Lord put on my heart instead.

So if you want to hear an update of my testimony, you'll have to bring me back, preferably in the winter months.

But my sermon title today is called Lower Your Net, and it's going to become abundantly clear why I've titled it such.

But I want to begin by asking you some questions.

Have you ever compared your life to the lives of characters you read about in the Bible?

Maybe in particular the disciples of Christ?

Have you ever wondered why, if you read the book of Acts, why your religious experience might seem tame compared to the things that you read there.

How many of you like missionary stories or testimonies?

And anyone who's not raising their hand is actually lying.

Everyone loves testimonies and missionary stories.

Well, because they're inspiring, but I think we're also drawn to them for the same reason why we're drawn to thrilling movies, because it helps you escape the relative ordinariness of your life.

Why is it that you read about these amazing things in scripture and yet when you return to your own spiritual experience, you feel a disconnect between what's possible and what's experiential.

So here's an important question for you all.

Do you truly believe that God can use the church today as powerfully as he did in the time of Acts?

Do you truly believe that with all your heart?

Okay, and it's not just a theoretical assent, it's I believe it in the core of my being.

So if you said yes, here's a harder question.

Do you then believe that God can use you personally as powerfully as He used the disciples?

If you said yes to that question, here's the hardest question of all.

And if you're like me, and you're forced to say no, then the question we need to ask ourselves is why?

Because we admit that there's untapped potential within the church and in our lives.

So then, how do we unlimit God in his use of us?

How do we allow Him to bridge that gap for us between what is and what could be?

If you look at the early Christian church and compare it to our church today, what differences do you think account for the difference in results?

You think about what they did in the Book of Acts, and you think of that as, hey, that's the former reign.

And we agree that our church as a whole is headed there.

But what things in the early Christian church distinguish them from our church today?

And as you mull this over, you may come up with a lot of different answers, but I would submit to you that it can all be summed up by this.

It all boils down to a difference in faith.

And for the rest of my talk, I'm going to use the words faith and belief synonymously, because I think they're 1 and the same thing.

So maybe you're like me, and you find yourself saying, well, John, if I had the privilege of walking and talking with Christ for 3 and a half years, and I witnessed the things that he did, then it would be easy for me to have the kind of faith the disciples had and do what they did, right?

But if you're also like me, you might find yourself thinking in the back of your mind that you know what, as easy and tempting as it is to use that as an excuse, you know in the back of your mind that that's not the whole picture, that there is a grain of accountability in there somewhere where we have fallen short in allowing God to use us.

The Bible tells us that faith is a gift from God.

Romans 12, 3 says, for I say through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly as God has dealt to each 1 a measure of faith.

However, does that mean because God has dealt to each 1 of us a measure of faith, does that mean then that whatever faith we have is God's responsibility and that Our lack of faith is actually whatever he's given us.

And so it's his fault if we don't have more faith than what we currently do, because it's a gift from God.

Or do we have a role to play in the development of our faith?

Where does God's responsibility for our faith end and ours begin?

So to answer these important questions, I want to focus on 1 story in particular, and it's the encounter when Jesus calls Peter to become his disciple.

And to look at that, let's turn to Luke chapter 5.

And my entire message today is going to be based on this 1 encounter.

So please turn with me to Luke 5, 1 through 11.

Okay, so it says, "'So it was, as the multitude pressed about him "'to hear the word of God, "'that he stood by the lake of Gennesaret "'and saw 2 boats standing by the lake, "'but the fishermen had gone from them and were washing their nets.

Then he got into 1 of the boats, which was Simon's, and asked him to put out a little from the land.

And he sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat.

When he had stopped speaking, he said to Simon, launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.

But Simon answered and said to him, Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing.

Nevertheless, at your word, I will let down the net.

And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish and their net was breaking.

So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them.

And they came and filled both the boats so that they began to sink.

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

For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish which they had taken.

And so also were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon.

And Jesus said to Simon, do not be afraid, From now on you will catch men.

So when they had brought their boats to land, they forsook all and followed him.

I like this account because unlike the versions portrayed in Matthew and Mark, This 1 gives us a fuller story of what Peter's call look like.

Because note that when Jesus first calls Peter, he gives Peter evidence of why he is worthy to be followed.

Unlike the versions in Matthew and Mark, Jesus isn't just casually walking by the seaside and he sees some fishermen and he says, hey, come follow me, and they drop everything they're doing and they come follow him.

Jesus gives Peter reasons why he's worthy to be followed.

Jesus spends the afternoon teaching from Peter's boat, and as Peter listens to the words of Christ, his heart burns with faith.

And then Jesus provides the miracle of the fish, and then Peter prostrates himself and says, I am unworthy, and Jesus says, come follow me.

So in our lives, what that tells me is that whenever Jesus calls us to follow him and asks us to take a step of faith, he gives us good reasons to do it.

You might say, well, if God provided me with a miracle, a fish like Peter, then sure I would follow him.

But note that the text here implies that it wasn't the miracle of the fish that convinced Simon Peter to follow Jesus, but rather it was the words that Christ spoke that filled Peter with enough faith to initially lower his net, despite his misgivings, and then witness the miracle, which then ultimately led to him following Christ.

He already had faith in Christ before he saw the miracle of fish.

So God will give you evidence that will speak to your heart and build your faith in his trustworthiness.

Steps to Christ, page 105 says, God never asks us to believe without giving sufficient evidence upon which to base our faith.

His existence, his character, the truthfulness of his word are all established by testimony that appeals to our reason.

And this testimony is abundant, yet God has never removed the possibility of doubt.

Our faith must rest upon evidence, not demonstration.

Those who wish to doubt will have opportunity, while those who really desire to know the truth will find plenty of evidence on which to rest their faith.

What is the difference between a faith that rests on evidence and a faith that rests on demonstration?

Well, to me, a faith that rests on demonstration says, I'll believe it when I see it.

A faith that rests on evidence says, based on what I see, I believe it.

Last year around this time, We were giving swimming lessons to my 2 girls.

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Lower Your Net

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