From Empty Hearts to Full Nets [Part 1]

The command of God is full of the promise of God. Jesus would say things to people like a man who had an arthritic condition in his hand and was disabled in that hand, and he'd say, stretch forth your hand.

The man couldn't stretch forth his hand, but when Jesus said, stretch forth your hand, he was able to stretch forth his hand. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series Life of Peter as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire broadcast, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. So as you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you this special offer available today. Contact us at Pastor Alan dot org. That's Pastor Alan dot org or call 877-544-4860. More on this later in the program. But now let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. You ready for some good news? When Jesus gives you a command, it's a gift because a promise of its fulfillment is in the command.

The elderly man lay dying in his bed at home. He lived a long, long, full life and he was growing weaker by the hour and he knew it and the family knew it. And there he was with very little energy. He smelled the most beautiful aroma wafting back into the bedroom, his favorite, the smell of his wife's homemade chocolate chip cookies. And he thought, oh, there's my beloved after all these years is sort of one last gesture of her love. She's baked some chocolate chip cookies.

If only I could make it out there and have one of them. He lied there just smelling this aroma until finally something in him. He just realized he could just muster up maybe just enough strength to crawl towards the kitchen to get one of those cookies. And he strains out of bed. He crawls to the kitchen and there behold, all over the counter, hundreds of warm chocolate chip cookies. He stretches out his hand and he reaches towards one of the cookies when all of a sudden, slap!

He realized his wrist had been slapped and he looks up and there's his wife holding a spatula saying, stay out of those, they're for the funeral. A lot of people think that that's sort of the way God is, that He puts all these enticing, beautiful things in front of you just waiting to slap you back, you know. As if somehow that what Christianity is about and what being a religious person is about is about restraining yourself from all these things that otherwise would be desires of your heart. And what happens is that if you come to Christ and you start understanding the gospel, you start understanding that's not what it's about at all.

That it's not about you following certain rules. It's not about God being eager to punish you and you realize that Jesus came to save, not to condemn. And if you go deeper into understanding the new covenant of grace, then you start understanding that we do not live under a covenant of law wherein we are trying to earn God's pleasure or favor. But you start understanding that we live under a covenant of grace. And what that means is that God came and did for us what we couldn't do for ourselves.

And Jesus lived the righteous life that we couldn't live. And so what God did through the cross of Jesus Christ was He took your sin and mine and He imputed it or reckoned it or treated Jesus as if He had committed those sins. And for anyone who trusts in Jesus, the righteousness of Jesus is imputed, is reckoned to you, it is God treating you as if you had lived the righteous life of Jesus. And if you get this and you start getting the gospel, then it causes a tremendous not only sense of peace about the forgiveness that you've experienced, but a tremendous joy. And so that's what every single week I want to proclaim to you is the message of the saving mercies of God in Jesus Christ. That's what the gospel is all about.

And so that's what we preach. And when you preach grace and when you talk about grace and when you talk about being under grace rather than under the law, there are always going to be people and there'll be some here today that are either really skeptical or at least a little bit confused because you just say, are you saying that there are no more rules? Are you saying that there's nothing that God is asking me to do?

Are there no more commands? Is there not something that Jesus has to say to me about how I should live my life? And the answer to all those questions is yes, God has commands for you.

And yes, Jesus is here today. And there's some very specific things that he would be saying to you about what you're to do with your life. And yes, your obedience absolutely matters. But in the New Covenant, something has shifted.

Instead of your obedience being about you finding favor with God, your obedience comes because you found favor with God. And today we're going to continue in our study of Peter and look at three commands that Jesus gives to Peter early in Peter's disciple relationship with Jesus. And I think it will illustrate to you what we mean by the commands of Jesus from a New Covenant perspective. And what's beautiful about this text is I think these are not just things Jesus is saying to Peter.

I think he's saying them to us. And so I want to invite you to Luke Chapter 5 for one of the early stories as Peter's young disciple being called by Jesus and called to follow him. And it's a miraculous account that later and later in the message, I'm going to turn you there quickly to show you a very similar story that takes place after Jesus's resurrection.

And we're going to see how much Peter has changed. But this is Luke, it's Chapter 5 and we're at verse 1. Luke 5, verse 1. On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and washing their nets.

Gennesaret is another term for a portion of the Galilean lake, the Sea of Galilee. So they're there and the fishermen had gone out and they were just washing their nets. In verse 3, getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, that's our Peter, he asked him to put out a little from the land and he sat down and taught the people from the boat. So what Jesus is doing here is just it's a very good means of communicating to a large crowd because over water sound travels nicely and he's able to just sit in the boat and just teach the people this way. So that's really what it was about, a practical use of that boat.

Verse 4. And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. And Simon answered, Master, we toiled all night and took nothing, but at your word I'll let down the nets. And when they'd done this, they enclosed a large number of fish and their nets were breaking. They signaled to their partners and the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so they began to sink. But 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 that they'd taken. And so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, Do not be afraid, from now on you'll be catching men.

And when they brought their boats to land, they left everything and they followed him. 1 John 5, verse 3 is a precious summary of pretty much everything I want to say today. John writes, This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. It was years ago that a friend and mentor, Dudley Hall, in a teaching, said something that really changed my whole understanding of the commands of God, when he said, The command of God is full of the promise of God. So Jesus would say things to people like a man who had an arthritic condition in his hand and was disabled in that hand and he'd say, Stretch forth your hand.

The man couldn't stretch forth his hand. But when Jesus said, Stretch forth your hand, he was able to stretch forth his hand. Jesus went once to the tomb of a dead man and said, Lazarus, come out.

Dead people can't come out of tombs. But when Jesus issues the command, he's able to come out. If Jesus breathed on his disciples and said, Receive the Holy Spirit, they were able to be filled with the presence of God, which they could not do on their own. If Jesus said, Be healed, then you are healed. So if Jesus says, Love your neighbor, he's telling you to do something that is impossible to do, to love your neighbor as yourself.

I can't do it. But if he tells you to do it, that in that command is the very power of the promise being fulfilled. It is a revolutionary way to understand how we live in relationship to God and our obedience absolutely matters at every point. But our salvation is not relying upon our obedience as it was in an old covenant.

That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Ever feel like the pressure is always on? Do you find it hard to say no, worried that you'll disappoint someone? The Bible tells us only one thing about Adam and Eve's relationship in paradise. They were naked and felt no shame. But as soon as sin entered the world, they became anxious, plagued with a gnawing question. What must I do to be accepted?

There is only one solution. The grace of God that lifts our shame. In a new six-week video masterclass, Pastor Alan exposes the dynamics of shame and shows the path to freedom. Whether as an individual or in a small group, the video series is sure to bring healing and hope. When you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries this month, we'll send you the digital masterclass videos and study guides as our way of saying thanks for your partnership.

In a world so quick to say shame on you, it's time to let God's grace take the shame off you. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues.

Here once again is Alan Wright. In an old covenant, God said to Moses to tell the people that if you will obey me and fully keep all these commands that I give you today, then you will be my treasured people, a holy nation of priests, and you'll be blessed and you'll be given a promised land. But if you do not obey, then you place yourself into God's displeasure and you put yourself under curse and you are far from God. And so the blessing of God in the old covenant was in that sense dependent upon the obedience of the people. The law was a gift from God because it was part of God's revelation to them about how they should live and about who God really is. But the problem was that people could not keep the law. They said they were going to keep the law.

We will do everything the Lord has said. That's what the people of God said. But they couldn't. They were quick to be fearful. They were quick to be idolatrous.

They were quick to disobey. And so it is that every one of us can understand that. And when you come into the New Testament and you start reading the exhortations of the New Testament and you realize that the commands of Jesus, if you think of keeping them yourself, they are so hard. How can you understand how is it that we are already blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ having nothing to do with our own righteousness and yet at the same time our obedience matters in every way. And it is a revolutionary thought to change your way of thinking and see that the commands of God are not burdensome. And God has some commands for you today that are life-giving, are life-changing. And as you hear them and your heart hears them, there is the empowerment of God to do the very thing that God says. And so we come to this marvelous story of Peter and his fishermen buddies that fish all night long and they toil, they produce nothing, and they're their empty boats there on the shore tired and exhausted washing their nets.

And Jesus is once again being pressed in by this huge crowd as was customary everywhere he went. Looking for an effective way to teach, he goes to get into one of the boats and the boat that he chooses to get into is Simon Peter's boat. To be chosen by God is to say that you are chosen to be used by God. And this is a wonderful picture of chosenness. There's an empty boat and Jesus goes and he gets into it. It's the blessing of being chosen for service, of being chosen to be used by Jesus himself. And I like the fact that text says Jesus got down into the boat.

I linger on that this week and several times have seen the image of Jesus. The text says he got down into the boat. He just went into that empty unproductive boat. He got into it. And I just keep hearing the Lord saying to all of us in one way or another, whatever that place is in you that is most empty and unproductive, that part of you that maybe even right now you despise, that part of you that you feel like has got you most frustrated, that part of you that you might most want to shut Jesus out of, he wants to come and get down into it. He is essentially coming to Peter and saying, I want to get into and use the most valuable thing that you have.

And that was his boat. And it's a tricky thing in life when it comes to sharing whatever is most valuable to you. If there's something that's not very valuable to you, it's easy to share. If there's something that's very valuable, it's very difficult to share. I don't know why it jumped into my mind.

I was thinking about what are the valuable things that points in my life. I just had a hard time sharing. And to some of you this would be quite a revelation to picture me in this, but when I was in college I had a motorcycle. I had a little motorcycle.

I did. And then I got married and I wasn't allowed to have a motorcycle anymore. It's just, I don't know, you get married, you have kids, you can't afford to die in the same way. And so you just have to eliminate some of the risks out of your life, you know. And what I did was it came in very handy as a student in Chapel Hill where there are no parking places whatsoever. And I'd ride my little motorcycle around. And I just remember whatever reason, it wasn't that expensive or whatever, but it's just, I remember my roommate first asked if he could borrow my motorcycle. And I just didn't want to.

But I had to get over it. Eventually I was just like, okay, you can use my motorcycle, but nobody else can use my motorcycle. Why do you ever feel that way? Is there something that you don't want to share? It's bottom line is this, I'm afraid that when you bring it back it won't be as good as it was when I gave it to you.

Isn't that the bottom line? If there's something that you have that you don't want someone to use, it's because you're afraid it might get returned to you in worse shape than how you gave it. If there's something in your life that you don't want for Jesus to use, it must be you think that He's going to return it to you in worse shape than when He takes it.

That's the way we are. So in the first place, Jesus is saying, I want to take the most treasured thing in your life, Peter, and use it. But it's also, to me, symbolically rich in this way. It's the emptiest thing He has.

It's the most unproductive. He has been toiling all night. The boat is symbolically empty. It's a boat should have fish in it, but it's empty.

And they're washing their nets. So Jesus likes to use the most treasured thing in your life. And I'll tell you for sure, He likes to use the emptiest thing in your life. And I've seen it over and over in my own life and in countless, countless other disciples. It's at the emptiest times of your life when you've been least successful and you're most needy that God comes and fills your life.

Haven't you seen that? It must be because blessed are those that hunger and thirst, for they will be filled. There's not one thing you can do to earn God's love. Not one thing.

He already loves you perfectly. To be loved perfectly means you can't add to God's love and you can't take away from it. Nothing that you do, nothing, whether for good or for bad, can add to or diminish the love of God for you and Jesus Christ.

Nothing. And we live in that and we drink that in and we breathe that in. So if nothing can change that and God is already utterly 100% for you at every point, the only real thing that changes is the way in which I hunger and I thirst for Him. And these fishermen, had they been successful and had a boatload of fish, they might still have been at sea catching, they might still have been on the land busy with their fish, but instead ironically this boat was far more valuable empty than it ever could have been full, for the Lord of the universe had use of it. And Peter, devoid of productivity and tired and frustrated, let Jesus use his boat. And when Jesus asked to use the boat, or He didn't even so much ask, He just got in the boat and He gave a command.

Take me out a little bit from the shore. Peter doesn't realize what's going to happen and there's no earth-shattering faith from Peter here. He just obeys.

He's not even expecting a miracle in return. He just says yes when Jesus says, I have need of your boat. And mark this well because there is an aspect to obedience in the Christian life where there are many times Jesus just tells you to do something and you really have no real idea why He's telling you to do that.

And yet in love of God there is obedience and in a revolutionary new way of understanding the exhortations and commands of God in the covenant of grace, what you realize is that if God's giving you a command, it's going to be for your good. So that's the first command. Just let me out here in the boat.

I'm going to teach. And then the second command is this. Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. It's not put out into the deep and try to catch some fish. It's put out into the deep and catch a bunch of fish.

The command is go deep and catch a bunch. Alan Wright. And sometimes it seems a little far-fetched, but when it's God directing, you know you can trust Him. And we're going to learn more about this from empty hearts to full nets in the conclusion of this message in our next program.

Stick with us right now, though. Alan's back here in the studio with more on this additional insight for your life and a final word. Ever feel like the pressure is always on?

Do you find it hard to say no, worried that you'll disappoint someone? The Bible tells us only one thing about Adam and Eve's relationship in paradise. They were naked and felt no shame. But as soon as sin entered the world, they became anxious, plagued with a gnawing question. What must I do to be accepted? There is only one solution, the grace of God that lifts our shame. In a new six-week video masterclass, Pastor Alan exposes the dynamics of shame and shows the path to freedom. Whether as an individual or in a small group, the video series is sure to bring healing and hope. When you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries this month, we'll send you the digital masterclass videos and study guides. As our way of saying thanks for your partnership.

In a world so quick to say shame on you, it's time to let God's grace take the shame off you. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. So Alan, yeah, I feel like God is leading me in a direction that feels crazy and certainly compared to the world standards, it is. It's an absolute bizarre thing. So how did Peter find security in this? How did he find the boldness to follow Jesus in some crazy ways? Well, I think it's almost like with Peter.

He's like, okay, I'll let down the nets, but I mean, this is the most foolish thing I've ever done. And I just think that so often when you just go ahead and take Jesus at his word and take a step of obedience upon his command, what you find out is that the commands of God are not burdensome, they are gifts. And that's what we're learning today is that God's promise is all wrapped up in his command. In fact, if you really can understand grace and get hold of the gospel, what you realize is that one of the greatest gifts you could ever get is a command from God. So instead of fearing a life of pharisaical legalism, what we can learn in the gospel of grace is that, yeah, we are set free. We don't live under a law. But when God tells us to do something, wow, opportunity ahead. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.