Follow Me, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. What do you think the purpose of your life is? You think it's just to make lots of money to retire wealthy, have a few kids, play with your grandkids, leave them some money? I'm telling you, Jesus intends for you, not just me, but for you to have a life that impacts eternity. He wants to take the net that you've been fishing with, and he wants to fill it with things of eternal value. Welcome to Summit Life with Pastor J.D. Greer, the pastor at Summit Church in Raleigh, North Carolina.

As always, I'm your host, Molly Vitovich. So let's start the program with a tricky question. What does it really mean to follow Jesus? Is it about studying more, doing more good stuff, going to church? Well, today Pastor J.D. looks at what he feels are the three necessary qualities to be a disciple of Jesus, and he shares what it would look like if all of us committed to fully surrendering control of our lives for the sake of the gospel.

If you missed the first part of this message yesterday, you can catch up online at jdgreer.com. But right now, let's rejoin Pastor J.D. in Luke, chapter five. Let me give you, use this passage to give you three qualities that are necessary for you to be a disciple.

All right, number one, first one's the longest. Number one, awe. Chapter five, verse eight, a sense of awe. In Luke, chapter five, Peter got overwhelmed by a glimpse of Jesus' power.

So overwhelmed, verse eight, that he fell at Jesus' knees and said, Get away from me because I'm a sinful man, Lord. Now that might seem like an odd reaction to you until you really think about it. You see, when you're in the presence of true greatness, you ever notice that your heart is mixed, it's filled with a weird mixture of attraction and repulsion at the same time?

You're not sure if you want to draw close or run away. I mean, think about it. Think about the stories in the Bible that you might remember. God called the Old Testament prophet Isaiah to be his messenger. And what was the first thing he gave to him? Isaiah 6, a glimpse of his glory.

So much so that Isaiah cries out, Woe is me, which means let me be cursed, let me be damned because I'm a man of unspeakable filth and I've got a dirty mouth. When Jesus called the apostle John, Revelation 1, to prepare his church for what was ahead, he gave to John a glimpse of his glory. And so that John, who had been a friend of Jesus' in his earthly life, John was so overwhelmed at what he saw that he fell on his face, just positive that he was going to die. I'll tell you that when God called me, he did it by first giving to me a glimpse of his awesome glory. Just his awesome power, how long eternity was, how terrible it would be to go into eternity as his enemy. And as a teenager, that kept me up late many a night, scared to death of dying and meeting God and being under his judgment. Question is, why does Jesus do this?

Why does he sometimes terrify you before he calls you? Here's the reason, it's because only awe compels obedience. Until God is big to you, you'll never have the strength to obey him.

In fact, for some of you, I would say that's your problem. You don't obey God, you don't seek God, it's not because you're not self-disciplined enough, it's because God is distant to you. He's small, he's almost unreal. When God becomes big to you, when you have a sense of awe over God, then you'll have the strength to obey. That's why I tell you, if you've got an obedience problem this weekend, it begins as an awe problem.

God's just simply not big enough to you. Awe, it's the first quality of the disciple. Now, before we leave this point, I actually feel like I would not be serving you well if I left you here, because this whole discussion of awe doesn't end in Luke 5. You see, the awe that Peter experienced here was not sufficient. Peter, even after seeing Jesus this way, is still going to struggle with pride, he's still going to deny Jesus, after his denial and failure and shame, he's going to flee away from Jesus, and so Jesus repeats this exact same miracle to Peter at the end of Jesus' life.

And it's got a whole different effect. John 21, you stay there in Luke 5, but at the end of the Gospels, right after the cross and the resurrection, after Peter's denied Jesus, Jesus does this whole miracle again. Peter's out fishing again. This time, Jesus appears to him on the shore, and he calls out to Peter, who has again been out fishing all night and caught nothing. He tells him again to cast his net on the other side.

It starts with the exact same problem, y'all. Peter's been fishing all night and caught nothing. In both stories, Peter doesn't initially recognize Jesus. In both stories, Jesus gives the same odd instructions, go out into the deep and put the net out on the other side.

In both stories, the final cast pulls in a miraculous haul. It's the exact same miracle, but there's one humongous distinction. In both stories, Peter has got this really strong reaction to the miracle, but in the first story, our story here in Luke 5, Peter tells Jesus to get away from me.

But in John 21, after seeing the miracle, John 21, let me read it to you. Then Simon Peter tied his outer clothing around him, for he'd taken it off, and he plunged into the sea. Peter jumps out naked, except for his underwear, and swims to Jesus.

Talk about a different reaction. In the first one, Peter felt so unworthy that he just wanted to get away. In the second, he feels so comfortable that he swims back toward Jesus in just his underwear. I mean, listen, I feel comfortable around many of my guy friends, but when I'm willing to run toward one in just my underwear, that's comfortable. What makes the difference?

What makes the difference in these two reactions? This last one happened on the other side of the cross, where Peter had seen just how much Jesus cared for him, and how committed he was to him, even after Peter had sinned. You see, Peter's first reaction makes him think, I've got to live up to Jesus. After the denial, Peter knows, I can't live up to Jesus. Yet Jesus still came for me. If anything, Jesus' love for Peter seemed stronger after Peter's failure than it had before.

Peter had seen, after the cross, how Jesus felt about Peter, even during his failures. You'll see, this glorious Jesus who calls you to follow is not some Navy Seal father who is coming to threaten you. He is a tender father that is coming to comfort you. He loves you just the same when you're wounded as when you struggle. He loves you as much when you fall as when you succeed. Here's my question for you. When you think about how Jesus feels about you right now, what do you think?

When you think about Jesus before you, if he were standing before you in all of his glory, what emotion comes over you? When I was little, my dad took me out fishing, and he always baited the hook for me. He just baited the hook. That one day came where he wanted me to do it on my own. I was 19 years old.

No, I'm kidding. I was like 10 years old or something. But it was like a coming-of-age moment. A lot of guys maybe had this. You have that experience. Remember, the worm is dirty, and it's wiggling, and you're trying to poke it, and you poke it, and it starts writhing, and this gross stuff starts coming out.

It's kind of this feeling of revulsion. That's how we think Jesus is with sinners. But I'm telling you, that's not how he is. Everywhere we see Jesus in the Gospels interacting with broken people, he moves toward them rapidly. When the prodigal son returns from traveling in the far country, the father is waiting and watching and picks up his robe to run to him. When Jesus looks out over a rebellious Jerusalem, he's not filled with seething anger. He breaks down, and he weeps over them. When Jesus hangs on a cross next to a thief whose sin and stupid decisions have ruined his whole life, and that thief utters the slightest prayer for mercy, Jesus, who is barely able to speak himself, what's he do?

He hoists himself up to assure that repentant thief that that very day he's going to welcome him into paradise. When Jesus looks at the lives of those of us who have messed up, messed up our lives with sin, what emotion does he feel? Anger? Disgust? Righteous wrath?

No. His first emotion is compassion. A compassion that makes him draw near. A compassion that makes him weep right alongside of us, of you, in your pain. Now, yes, if you resist him and you shut him out, you will face his wrath, of course, but the point is the first emotion that he feels is mercy and tenderness towards you. Seeing this is what changed Peter's heart. All of Jesus' awesome power in Luke 5 may have commandeered Peter's will, but wonder over Jesus' mercy in John 21 is what captured his heart.

So here's my question. Has your heart had that revelation? Here's your test. When you've messed up, when you feel at your lowest, you're most embarrassed, when you've failed, what does your heart tend to do? Does it run from Jesus, or in that moment, does it pull toward Jesus?

Are you the first Peter or the second Peter? Do you sense Jesus looking at you with the disgust that I had for that worm? Or at best, he's merely tolerating you with this low-grade kind of annoyance. I'm here to tell you this morning, that is not how he feels. What he feels is tenderness, even when you failed him.

What a friend. What a friend we have in Jesus. All what needless pain we bear.

All because we do not carry everything, the good, the bad, our failures, our embarrassments, everything to him in prayer. It's all that compels obedience. Number two. Number two, it's a commitment to multiply.

Let me hit these next two pretty quickly. Verse 10, don't be afraid, Jesus told Simon. From now on, you're going to be catching people. Jesus not only commanded Peter to follow, he commanded him to go. Around the summit, we say that Jesus is like a spiritual tornado.

He never pulls you in without also hurling you back out. If you know Jesus, he's got a plan for you. He wants to take whatever nets, whatever nets, we don't have many professional fishermen in this church, but whatever nets you have, he wants to take them and use them for eternal purposes.

It's an image for you. He wants to take a life of subsistence, a life where you just get up, make money, take care of your kids, leave some to your grandkids and die. He wants to take that life and he wants to fill it with eternal significance, a life of value. What do you think the purpose of your life is? You think it's just to make lots of money, to retire wealthy, have a few kids, play with your grandkids, leave them some money? I'm telling you, Jesus intends for you, not just me, but for you to have a life that impacts eternity. He wants to take the net that you've been fishing with and he wants to fill it with things of eternal value.

You say, well, how could I do that? I've not been to seminary, I'm not a pastor. Neither was Peter.

In fact, Peter was as blue collar as they come. He's just willing to follow Jesus, just willing to follow Jesus and learn from him. All Jesus wants from you is your willingness to follow. Around the Summit Church, we say he doesn't need your ability.

Peter didn't have any of that. What he wants is your availability. In fact, here's how Jesus would explain it a few chapters later in Luke. Luke chapter 12. He says that when we're in that moment where we need to testify, we're in that moment where we need to be, we're in that moment he wants to use us for something eternally significant.

Don't worry in that moment about what you should say. You don't need to have gone to seminary. Seminary's great.

You should go if you have a chance. But you don't need to go there to be a witness. You don't need to go there to be used by God, for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that very hour.

What must be said? What a great promise. The lesson God has taught me over and over again throughout my life is that if I'm just willing to obey, he will do the impossible through me. Obedience often isn't some huge, dramatic event that takes place in my life.

It's just the small, seemingly mundane acts of following Jesus step by step. I was taking an early morning flight about seven years ago. Early morning flight, somewhere, I can't remember where, but you always go through Atlanta if you leave Raleigh, you fly Delta.

In fact, when Jesus raptures us, I'm pretty sure I will route through Atlanta to go up to heaven. But I was going somewhere, and so I get into the gate area at the Raleigh airport, and I see a girl, mid-20s or so, reading a book that was written by an atheist. And I don't know, I know you feel like I probably do this everywhere, I don't everywhere, but I just sense the Holy Spirit in my heart saying, you need to go ask her about that book.

Let me just let her tell you the story, okay? Check this out. So I happened to be coming off a night shift and was traveling to meet some friends, and we were in the RDU airport, and I brought along some reading materials. I'd been exploring religious outlets of all natures. Because you're not a Christian at this point. I was not a Christian at this point. I was very lost. But a gentleman, who happened to be you, was sitting a couple seats down and looked over and tapped me on the shoulder.

And he was just like, huh, interesting choice of titles there. And you asked if I'd been invited to a church, and I said, actually, yeah, I have a great coworker who I love who's a Christian and has invited me numerous times to a church in the area. I don't remember the name, but it's one of those big mega churches.

There's like some mountains in the background of the emblem, I think. But other than that, I don't remember much. And you were like, oh, interesting. Like, well, have you thought about going? And I went on probably a two to three minute rant about mega churches and how awful they are.

At this point, I remember. And you just looked at me pretty expressionless and said, you know, I'm sorry you've had that experience with churches or that impression. And you just said, you know, I encourage you to continue to talk to your friend and others in your life and really make sure you're exploring Christianity as one of your searches here. And I was kind of like, okay, and went on about my life for the next several weeks.

And my friend actually invited me to the summit again. The words resonated with like, well, I encourage you to just try one more time before you make your final call. And so I went. And then they introduced Pastor J.D.

Greer to start the sermon. And you walk out in front. And I have never wanted to be less seen. I definitely had that. I really inserted my foot in my mouth that day. And then what happened after that? Because you didn't become a Christian that weekend. I did not become a Christian that weekend. What had started several years prior was family praying for me, with me, over me and me thinking it was ridiculous.

Started really just softening my heart. It's like that to make you understand and believe in God's pursuit of you. He was looking for you before you were looking for him.

Exactly. And it's so clear to me now looking back that he put so many people in my life along the way that just stepped out of their own comfort zones and approached me when, again, I just was so hurt and broken. They saw past that and they saw that he loved me and they loved on me through that. So one thing I am curious about through the moments of tapping, grumpy-looking me in the morning on the shoulder, I feel like in my day-to-day life sometimes crossing those lines and reaching out to people in that way can be really scary and nerve-wracking. How have you gotten to where you're so comfortable doing that?

Well, I don't know if I would say that. I would say that I understand, I read this thing years ago, that essentially walking with God means that every day you get up and you join Him in what He is already doing. So one of the things I pray in the morning is, God, take me to people that you're already working in so that I can play a part of that. And I'm not sure what it was that, hey, it was probably the book you were reading and it all had something to do with atheism and thought, that's not a good direction to go, so let me ask her about it.

For every one conversation that turns out like this one, there's probably a dozen that don't really go anywhere. But it's an exciting thing to think that the Spirit of God is doing, He is seeking people, and I get a chance to be a small part of that. By the way, the first I heard anything about that story, literally knew anything about it, was when Stacey stood in my kitchen and she was my daughter's small group leader. And on her way out after a small group meeting, she stopped, she said, I need to tell you a story that you probably don't know. And she tells me that story. Now, I know you hear that and you think, well, that's just the life of a pastor and that's just always, that is not true, okay?

In fact, being a pastor in that story actually was a liability, not an asset there. There's a couple of things in that story that she didn't actually reveal. And one of them was, she said, when we got on the plane, she said, I was already a little annoyed, we'd had this conversation. She said, I sat a couple rows behind you. And she said, you're seated next to the guy on the plane. And she said, the entire way to Atlanta, you're telling him about Jesus and sharing your testimony. She said, you know you don't have an inside voice, right?

And I said, yes. She said, so everyone could hear. And so I just had to sit there and listen for 40 minutes as you shared the gospel with him. She said, then when we landed, when we landed at Atlanta, she said, there was only one thing I wanted to do.

And that was to get to Atlanta Bread Company and have my morning bagel. She says, so I put my headphones in and I just went. She says, I walked, I stood in line. She says, I look up, sure enough, you're standing right in front of me in line. She said, but the woman in front of you, she had two kids and her credit card was not functioning or something. So she said, you just volunteered to pick up the check of the person in front of you.

Now, I don't do that everywhere, but in that moment, it was just the Holy Spirit saying, hey, I didn't even know the scroll was behind me. I'm not saying that to brag. I'm just giving you context for what's happening. What I'm trying to tell you is, that morning before I left the house at 0 dark 30, it was like, Lord, I don't know what you're doing out there today, but I know you've called me to be a disciple making disciple and here am I, send me. That same thing is available to you. The same Holy Spirit, I got someone you got. And that Holy Spirit wants to lead you to do something eternally significant if you'll just obey.

It's not about abilities. He's calling fishermen. He's saying, just present your net to me. Let me fill it with eternal value, which leads me to the last quality of a disciple. Total surrender.

Total surrender. Look at verse 11. Verse 11, he says, then they brought their boats to the land. They left everything and they followed him. Y'all, that's a recurring theme in Luke, isn't it, that you've seen?

I'm not gonna spend long on it because we discovered it a few weeks ago. But the requirement to be used by Jesus, the requirement to be a follower of Jesus, is total surrender. You gotta let it all go. And I would say that's where many of you falter. You're religious. You try to do the right thing. Religion is important to you. It's an important part of your life.

But have you ever taken your hands fully off of your life and just said, you just spread out a net before Jesus and just said, this net represents everything that I have in life. I'm just gonna spread it out before you and say, why don't you put in it what you wanna put in it? God, let it represent my talents, my dreams, my hopes, my future. What do you want from it? I'm gonna put it right there on the ground before you. Fill it with what you want.

I promise you, whether you're the most talented in this room or the least talented person listening, I promise you he's gonna fill it with things of eternal significance. Isn't that what you want from life? Don't you want a life that matters? Don't you want a life that makes a difference?

There's more to life than making money and having kids and retiring with a beach house. That's a bold move to put out this net before God. I realize that, but I want you to think of it in light of what you've learned today and how tender and trustworthy Jesus is. Why would you not trust him with the net of your life? Why would you trust Jesus to save your soul and not take care of your needs?

Why would you think that he'd be loving enough to die for your sins, but not loving enough to guide you into green pastures of happiness and besides still waters of fulfillment? This weekend, why not let your nets down as an act of surrender and just say, Jesus, put in it what you want. It's my schedule, my finances, my heart, my relationships, everything is yours.

You ready to do that? A sense of awe, a commitment to multiplication and total surrender. That's what it takes to be a devoted follower of Jesus. You're listening to the in-step teaching series through the gospel of Luke here on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. One of our primary goals around here is to equip everyone who listens to Summit Life with resources to be disciple-making disciples. Pastor J.D., can you remember what created a love for the Word of God in you? You know, Miley, I think I've told you before that I grew up in a church where Scripture memory was, I mean, it was just, it was a thing. We did memorized verses.

I was in a water program, which I was so grateful for. I did Bible quiz when I was in high school. And to be totally frank with you, probably most of the Scripture that I memorized as a kid up through high school was memorized not for all the right motives. Sometimes it was to get the award, to be, you know, trotted out on stage. Sometimes it was to win the Bible quiz thing.

But it got in there. Scripture in your heart never goes to waste. That's why the psalmist says, I've hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Train up a child, Proverbs, in a way that he should go. Teach them Scripture. And when they're old, they won't depart from it because the Holy Spirit can bring to mind, can quicken, can make alive that word of truth planted in your heart that is able to save your soul. There's very few things you could do as profitable as memorize Scripture. So what we did here at Summit Life, something we did last year, we wanted to produce a pack of memory cards, 50 of them, essentially one for every week of the year of 2022 that you could put in your heart. And I can promise you that if you memorize 50 verses of Scripture, just one a week, how you think and how you counteract doubt, despair, darkness, deception will be totally different because of the word that's put in your heart.

So go to jdgrier.com today and reserve your set. Are you one of those people who has to write everything down so that you don't forget? I definitely am. But God knows that we cannot remember or keep His commands without being reminded of them frequently. This is one reason that He told us to renew our minds in the Scriptures daily.

He already wrote down for us what we need to know. We're so excited about this new resource and we'd love to get you your own set of memory verse cards. As our way of saying thank you for your one-time donation of $35 or more or for your monthly commitment as a gospel partner, we'll send you our brand new exclusive resource, the Rejoice Always Scripture Memory Cards, to help you not only remember, but to apply the Word of God in a fresh way this year.

Ask for your set today when you call 866-335-5220 or you can give online at jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Vitovich. Thank you so much for joining us today. Tomorrow, Pastor JD asks us to count the cost of truly following Jesus. Join us Thursday on Summit Life with JD Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries.