Hey, good morning, Elmbrook Church.
It's so wonderful to be with you this morning. I always tell people that my favorite Sunday of the year is Palm Sunday. And my second favorite Sunday of the year is always the Sunday right after Labor Day.
'Cause people are back from their summer vacations. Ministries are revving up, and it feels like the family's back together again. And I am so grateful to be with you here this morning in God's house.
I'm here with my main man and one of my new best friends, Keith Luke. Everybody say, "What's up, Keith?"
Keith, say, "What's up, church?"
"What's up, church?"
Keith is our brand new and absolutely crushing it, adult discipleship director. And he's doing some amazing things as part of our discipleship team.
And Keith is a guy, I think people say they can see Keith coming from a mile away. It's because he's got a certain luster on the top of his head. And he has a certain, well, I told the church in the first service, he doesn't just have a big beard. He doesn't just have a bodacious beard. He has a biblical beard.
Look at this, isn't that a beautiful beard that he has? And so, we talked about this. How long has this work of art been growing, Keith?
He got married, and his wife Lindsay's like, "Okay, that's it. Put away the big razor. Put away everything that might eliminate that. We're just going to let it grow."
So glad to have Keith. Keith's going to share a couple of additional announcements.
Let me share one or two with you to get things going. As you probably already saw, we have booths all through the lobby. These are portals into deeper discovery of your faith in Jesus. And there are opportunities for you to serve at Elmbrook.
We love it that you're here in worship, but we think there's another level you can get to by serving other people and getting involved in a group. So if you want to study or participate in a mission experience, there are wonderful people all through the lobby. They'll be there after the service as well. And they'd love to check in with you and find ways for you to plug in.
Now, a little bit of a retrospective before a look ahead. Retrospective, I would like to ask all of you, if you are willing to participate with us in our feedback survey about our summer worship schedule.
As many of you recall, we went from having our typical 9 and 10:45 services to having a 9 o'clock worship and then kind of a community gathering activity, relationship developing time at 10:10 a.m. And we did not have the service that you are sitting in today.
And we would love your feedback on that. There's a QR code that's on the screen. If you missed it, it's also available in the Elmbrook weekly email that most of you can access as well.
We'd love to just have you fill it up. Give us the truth of your heart because it will help us as we go forward from there.
One last announcement invites you to be back here not just Sunday morning but next Sunday evening at 6 p.m. for our annual church family meeting.
Our church family meeting is an opportunity for us to kind of get the lay of the land as a congregation to talk about what God's doing among us and then also to learn about how we are stewarding as a staff the generous resources that you give to us.
We'll talk about our budget and talk about how God might be using it. So we'd love to have you back here at 6 p.m. next Sunday, and if you have any questions about the meeting, it's up on the website elmbrook.org/cfm, cfm church family meeting, and we'd love to see you there.
Keith. Cool. Keith, are you willing to lead us in a prayer here and some scripture? I'd love to have you do that.
It took a couple of moments for my squinting 22-year-old eyes to adjust to the ancient dimness of the room. But once my vision had resolved the hazy glow inside, I laid eyes on the most magnificent human construction I had ever seen.
And what I beheld in that room back in 2002 remains indelibly painted onto the canvas of my memory. My first steps inside conveyed an otherworldly sense of joy, a sense of vastness and grandeur.
I drew in the majesty of the nave, the central gathering area. Longer than two football fields, shimmering beneath a 150-foot high ceiling, it could easily accommodate gatherings of 20,000 people.
Ornate marble floors and towering decorative pillars surrounded me. Sunlight streamed in through the windows of a soaring 400-foot high dome. The brilliant beams of light basking the chambers, gilded panels, and shimmering arches into haunting, beautiful relief.
As I walked further inside, I saw priceless statues everywhere. Astonishing masterpieces that would have taken Michelangelo and Da Vinci and the other Renaissance geniuses years to complete.
Intricate mosaics depicting biblical scenes splashed across the walls and the floor. Finally, my eyes landed on a grand bronze canopy in the front of the room. An enormous structure marking the tomb of the improbable leader who lived in the city of New York. He lent his name to this building.
A nearby bronze statue of the same man seated on an alabaster throne has seen his right foot worn smooth by the tender touches of countless pilgrims across the centuries. Those believers have come from around the world to this place to worship Jesus and to remember the life of his best known and most outspoken follower.
This cathedral, the millennia-old centerpiece in the heart of Vatican City, is the Basilica of St. Peter. The church there represents an astonishing, impossible-to-predict legacy for a man whose life began as an unremarkable fisherman here.
Far from the power and splendor of Rome, St. Peter was born, Simeon Bartholomew, in a nondescript, 300-person town called Bethsaida. And between this birthplace and a handful of other unremarkable towns along the Galilean shoreline, Capernaum and Chorazin and Magdala, Simeon was a regular blue-collar citizen living out his run-of-the-mill blue-collar days.
Fish to see, sort to catch, men to the nets, sleep it off. Fish, sort, mend, sleep. Fish, sort, mend, sleep. On and on and on and on. Until one day, simple Simeon met the one person capable of upending his blasé career and turning it into the adventure of a lifetime.
This Elmbrook Church Brookfield and this Elmbrook Church Lake Country joining us via live stream, this is how it all began.
John chapter 1, beginning at verse 35. The next day, John the Baptist was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, "Look, the Lamb of God!"
When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, "What do you want?"
And they said, "Rabbi," which means teacher, "where are you staying?"
"Come," he replied, "and you'll see."
So they went and saw where he was staying, and they spent that day with him. It was about four in the afternoon.
Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. And the first thing Andrew did was to find his brother, Simon, and tell him, "We have found the Messiah! That is, the Christ!"
And he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, "You are Simon, son of John. You will be called Cephas," which when translated means Peter.
And then from Luke chapter 5. One day, as Jesus was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around and listening to the word of God.
He saw at the water's edge two boats left there by the fishermen who were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and he asked them to put out a little from shore.
And then he sat down and taught the people from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into deep water and let down the nets for a catch."
Simon answered, "Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything. But because you say so, I'll let down the nets."
And when they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them.
And they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink. And when Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus' knees and said, "Go away from me, Lord. I'm a sinful man."
For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken. And so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon's partners.
And then Jesus said to Simon, "Don't be afraid. From now on, you will fish for people."
So they pulled their nets and their boats upon the shore, left everything, and followed him.
Will you pray with me?
Rabbi Jesus, the very same one who called Peter, may we, your people, hear your voice today. May we find ourselves ready to leave behind that which must be in our past.
May we discover a new identity in your call. And may we join with everything we've got in an eager pursuit of you, who is our Lord, teacher, and our great leader. We pray this in your name. Amen.
On the screen in front of you now are six words. Six words that don't seem like they naturally go together. My challenge for you is to figure out what these six words have in common.
Clue, bully, cloud, dinner, silly, and gossip. Well, I don't blame you if you can't tell what they might have in common.
Let me tell you the story behind the words. Each one of these six words has, over the years, significantly changed in meaning.
The word clue, for example, wasn't originally a sign that helped Sherlock Holmes crack the case. The word clue originally referred to a ball of yarn, the kind that your great Aunt Betty uses to knit her cat scarves, a ball of yarn.
The word bully originally meant a little ball of yarn, a ball of yarn. The word bully originally meant a little ball of yarn, a ball of yarn. The love interest, male or female.
So back in the day, it was a great thing to be bullied. It meant you were getting hit on, and someone was going to invite you to the 4-H square dance.
In days gone by, a cloud was a low mound of dirt. Dinner used to be the first meal of the day, and silly meant solemn and pious, like a nun in a convent.
And gossip? Well, here's one for you. To gossip originally meant to sing in the church choir. Maybe you can track back to see how that word evolved in its meaning.
Over time, definitions can drift. Eventually, things don't mean what they used to mean. Words change, and in many cases, that's okay. But not in all of them.
Now, I wanted to put just a single word on the screen in front of you. While its definitional drift hasn't been as radical, this too is a word whose original meaning has largely been lost to us today.
It's the word discipleship. When you think about the word discipleship, what do you picture in your mind? If I gave you a box of Crayola 64 crayons and asked you to draw a picture of discipleship, what would you illustrate?
Some of us here would picture discipleship kind of like a mission trip. Others might imagine watching a video on Right Now Media and then having a group discussion about it.
A couple of y'all might talk about a backyard cornhole tournament with some Hillsong music Spotify-ing in the background. And all these things are good things. They are all components in the Christian life.
And you might even say that they all attach somehow to discipleship. But they aren't what the Bible means when it uses that word.
Christian fellowship is like discipleship, but it's not identical to discipleship. Evangelism connects to discipleship, but it is not equal to discipleship. Worship is in the same vein as discipleship, but it isn't the same thing as discipleship.
Let's go back to the Bible's original languages. In the Old Testament Hebrew, the word is tal-medim, in the New Testament Greek, the word is methetes.
Both of these words, which are translated into English as disciple, originally meant student, a learner. But learning as a disciple in Bible times is a little bit different from the kind of education that you and I think about today.
And one of the major differences is that today, lots of us want to get an education in order to acquire something. We want to earn a diploma. We want to achieve a certification, to get something we do not currently have.
But to be a disciple in the earliest sense was not to gain something for yourself, but to become something new. You weren't simply trying to add to your resume by learning. You weren't trying to fill out your portfolio.
You weren't trying to fill out your resume by learning. You weren't trying to fill out your portfolio by getting a degree. A disciple became a disciple in order, paradoxically, to become less.
To be less of themselves, less who they used to be, and increasingly to become like their teacher. They needed, they believed, to lose themselves in order to find themselves.
Their aim was not to win a certificate. They needed to be a disciple in order to find themselves. Their aim was not to win a certificate. Their goal was imitation.
And it's this idea that's at the center of discipleship. Our call in life is to follow Jesus so that you and I can become more and more like Jesus.
Over the next 10 months or so, our church is returning to these kinds of fundamental ideas about discipleship. And by doing so, we're going to go back to the ancient tradition of discipleship.
We're going to go back to the ancient tradition of building blocks of Christianity. Because I really believe, church, that you and I could strip away lots of the things that make up our 2024 experience of faith, and we could still be Christians.
You know, we might not need PowerPoint. We might not need to save the whales. We might not need an Ascension Day cantata every year.
I think that a lot of those things could fall away, and we could still be Christians. But if we stop following Jesus, if we give up on discipleship, and I really believe we have surrendered too much.
It was last October that the Council of Elders asked your church staff to really press into the idea of discipleship. Among a list of a number of potential big plans, big projects that we set before them, the elders wisely identified discipleship as job number one.
The most important thing in the life of our church. Putting cotton candy machines in the lobby was number two. But discipleship was number one.
And the elders have great reason to put discipleship out front, because Jesus certainly did. It is the number one task that he gave to you and to me.
Lots of you have probably heard of the Great Commission. Extraordinary, all-encompassing, no expiration date ever vision talk was issued by Jesus before he returned to heaven.
It's recorded for us in Matthew chapter 28. In the presence of the 11 remaining disciples, Jesus spoke these words. He said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and do what, church? Make disciples of all nations.
Baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age."
Jesus says, "Go," or it actually might be better translated, "As you go," in your goings in life, make some disciples.
Now, Jesus says a lot of important things on other topics too. He tells us about his real power in this world. He tells us about his ongoing presence in the future, about sacraments, and about the Trinity.
But the main idea here is that you and I are called to disciple others. And if this great commission comes from Jesus, and if Jesus' word is an everlasting word, then you and I probably better do our best to understand the assignment.
And to help us do this, you and I are going to look together at discipleship in three complementary phases over the next year or so.
This campaign in total is entitled, The Pursuit. And it will play out first this fall in a series of messages called, People in Pursuit.
The second part of our journey, right after Christmas, is called, The Principles of Pursuit. And the final phase, coming right out of Easter, will consider the practices of pursuit.
I mean, did you really expect anything other than three words, which I'll start with the same letter? People, Principles, and Pursuit.
There's so much here. It's going to take us a year to begin to fathom all that Jesus has in store for us.
Now, part of this emphasis includes our discipleship team, headed by Pastor Jen Aiken, and including people like Keith, working on the infrastructure and the materials to allow us to integrate our Sunday teaching themes with our lives outside of our worship centers.
And this is a really, really big deal. It's a long deal. It's a long deal. It's a long deal. It's a long deal. It's a wide deal. It's a far-reaching deal.
And that means that we're going to have to ask for your patience, because we are building this plane as we fly it. We are not coming to you with a finished product.
We are inviting you into doing what few churches dare to try, and that is to attempt a wholesale discovery of something that way too many people take for granted, and therefore fail to fully grasp.
And all of this that we're all talking about, we're all talking about, we're all talking about, up to at Elmbrook, is going to come with as much unlearning as with learning.
What we need to do sort of first is to rinse off all of our inauthentic residues of unbiblical ideas around discipleship, because the definitions really do matter.
See, what I think, church, has kind of happened is that people in Christian congregations today have smudged a little bit. They've blurred the command that Jesus made very clear.
Just picture someday you're standing before Jesus, and Jesus says to you, "I gave you the Great Commission. Did you make disciples?"
If he asked you that, you can't say, "Well, kind of. I picked up some trash by the side of my road. I watched all of the Left Behind movies twice, and I even made a little model of Noah's Ark out of pipe cleaners."
And I think Jesus, if you heard that, would say, "That's great. Thank you. Thanks for doing that. I especially appreciated how you made the little window for the dove to fly out of with the pipe cleaner ark. That's great.
But let me ask you the earlier question again. Did you make any disciples? Well, Jesus, this one day I got really convicted, and I retweeted a quote by Billy Graham.
Thanks. Did you lead anyone to baptism? One day I decided I wanted to sacrifice, so I didn't upgrade my iPhone, even though I was out of the church.
I was out of the church. I was out of the church. Did you teach anyone to obey all of my commandments? Did you really obey the Great Commission I gave you?
See, it's extremely important, Albrecht, to understand what Jesus meant when he talks about making disciples. And here's the thing. It really shouldn't be this difficult for all of us, because it's all recorded right here.
There are 89 chapters of Scripture across four Gospels telling us what it means to disciple people. Mark talks about it. Luke talks about it. John tells us about it.
So it's amazing to me when colleagues in ministry come to me and say, "Hey Tim, do you know any good books on discipleship?" I'm like, "Matthew?"
Right? I'd like to suggest to you, friends, that we know all we need to know about living out the Great Commission by reading and studying and understanding what was happening as Jesus discipled those 12 followers who were closest to Him.
And over the course of the next year, in lots of different ways, we hope to grow in an understanding of what it all means for our lives today.
That being said, I'd like to give you this morning an early summary. Now believe me, if you don't have this memorized by the end of the day, you're going to be fine. We'll talk about it again.
But here is my very short encapsulation of what is an enormous topic. Are you ready? On the screen here, what is discipleship?
Discipleship is the lifelong adventure of pursuing Jesus where He leads you. And it means this. It means accepting Jesus' call into a new community.
It means discovering your true identity in relationship with Him. It means reordering your agenda and priorities to reflect His mission.
It means discovering your true identity in relationship with Him. And it means inviting others to experience the wonders of the kingdom of God.
Again, 89 chapters and four gospels, many of which give us great detail to flesh out these ideas. But that's my first run summary.
Discipleship is the lifelong adventure of pursuing Jesus where He leads you. And today we begin by looking at people in pursuit.
In a couple of weeks, we're going to add to the line of a woman named Mary Magdalene to our study. But today we want to talk mostly about Peter.
You know, in some ways, Simon Peter is low-hanging fruit for this study. There's more information about him in Scripture than there is about any of Jesus' other disciples.
But Peter is also a great character to look at because Peter, I really believe, is the most relatable of any of Jesus' disciples.
When I was a kid, I used to have a VHS tape that I loved to watch. And what is a VHS tape? Well, it's kind of like a book that you put into a VCR.
And, you know, I actually don't even know what VHS stands for, so never mind. It was a video, and this video was called Dazzling Dunks and Basketball Bloopers.
Dazzling Dunks and Basketball Bloopers, a two-part feature. The first half hour, this Dazzling Dunks portion of the video featured clips of some of the best slam dunks of the 1980s.
And on that half, you saw people like Spud Webb and Dominique Wilkins and Tom Chambers and Clyde the Glide Drexler doing 360 dunks and windmill dunks and these awesome alley-oop dunks.
But there was a second half to the video as well. And while not as glamorous, it was equally entertaining.
Because this portion of the video featured a montage of hilarious basketball goof-ups. On this portion of the tape, you watched as sweaty professional athletes missed wide-open layups, shot at the wrong hoop, and like intentionally fouled their own teammates.
Dazzling Dunks and Basketball Bloopers offered you the chance to watch the very first half of the video, and you saw people like Spud Webb and Dominique Wilkins and Tom Chambers and Clyde the Glide Drexler doing 360 dunks and basketball bloopers.
And on that half, the best and the most humbling of all that professional basketball had to offer. It was a chronicle of all the amazing things that I would never be athletic enough to do, and a reel of the kind of goof-ups that made me feel kind of capable when I stepped onto the basketball court.
You know, in many senses, the life of the Apostle Peter is a bit like Dazzling Dunks and Basketball Bloopers. On some days, Peter was the best and the most humbling of all the professional basketball players.
He was a model disciple. He demonstrated remarkable spiritual wisdom. He showed impassioned leadership. He represented inspired faith in Jesus.
But Peter, like the second half of my videotape, had another less glamorous side. He got a lot of things wrong, and in that respect, he's a lot like me and maybe a little bit like you.
Let's meet him for a couple of minutes as we wrap up this morning. Before he was Peter, the man that we read about this morning in John and in Luke was called Simon.
Simon was brother to a man named Andrew and was his partner in the fishing business. In all likelihood, Peter and Andrew's father, whose name was John, would have been a colleague and friend to another local angler named Zebedee, whose two sons were named James and also John.
The next day, Peter and Andrew were in the fishing business. Peter and Andrew were in the fishing business. The name Simon means listener.
And growing up, Simon probably did lots of listening. Like other little boys and girls, Simon grew up studying the Bible. Most kids in Galilee did.
And many of the boys remained in close study of the Torah and the prophets and the Psalms until they were about 15 years of age.
Now today, a lot of 15-year-old boys want to grow up to be athletes or businesspersons or media stars or something like that. But they don't want to grow up to be soldiers.
But in Peter's time, the 15-year-old boys all wanted to be professional Bible scholars. They wanted to become renowned students of the words of Moses and David.
And in order to do so, they needed to first become formal disciples of a rabbi, a teacher, a sage. This right here on the screen, this was the life goal of lots of young men in Galilee in the first century.
But based on what we know of these times, only a tiny fraction of these aspiring young scholars actually were accepted as disciples. Most of them were allowed to learn for a time and at a distance.
But when they formally requested to follow a great teacher, almost all of them were rejected. They were told to return home and join the family church.
So they heard compassionate but firm teachers say to them, "You know, son, you're a good boy. You love the Lord. You've read the scriptures well. But now it is time for you to return back to your acreage, farm the land, hammer the horseshoes, stitch the clothing, or fish the sea.
Because you have not made the grade. You're not good enough. You haven't made the cut. By the time that they were high school sophomores, young men, they were not good enough.
They were not good enough. They were not good enough. They were not good enough. And in places like Bethsaida, for the most part, had given up the dream and joined their parents in that work.
Most scholars believe that this sense of rejection was fresh in the minds of most of Jesus' 12 disciples. But it was probably already far in the past for Simon.
Simon, by the time we meet him, is grown and married. Matthew chapter 17 teaches us that he alone, along with Jesus, is old enough to be required to pay the temple tax.
It's very probable that Peter is significantly older than the other 11 disciples. And what that means is that for Simon, the dream of learning from a great rabbi isn't just over, it was dead and buried over.
He was resigned by this point in his life to his life there on the Sea of Galilee. Bailing, splash over out of the stern, filtering out the tilapia from the less tasty fish, rowing all night, mending his nets all day, on and on and on again.
Sun up and sun down. Sun up and sun down. This was his existence. This, Peter must have thought, this is all there is to life.
Earlier, I put a few words on the screen. Now, can I show you a few words? I'm going to show you a few words. I'm going to show you a number on the screen.
Does anybody know what this number signifies, number 4,000? 4,000 is the average number of weeks that an American lives. We have 4,000 weeks of life.
A couple of years ago, an author called Oliver Berkman wrote a book entitled 4,000 Weeks, Time Management for Mortals. Great way of looking at it.
If you are healthy, and if you are well, you have perhaps 4,000 weeks to live. So let me ask you, are you satisfied with how your weeks are going?
If it continues along the same pattern, will that be enough for you? Or are you wondering if perhaps there might be something more to life than what you're currently experiencing?
Are you okay with the mundane and the repetitive? Or do you deep down desire your life to be more than what you're currently experiencing?
Are you okay with the life to be an adventure? Simon Peter was stuck on repeat. The CD of his life, and now CDs are just as dated as VHS tapes, the CD of his life was skipping the same track over and over and over again.
Simon was not getting anywhere until one day he heard the call of Jesus. We're not exactly sure when Peter met Jesus for the first time. Each of the Gospels gives us a little bit different picture.
But I think that what's described in John 1 definitely preceded what happened in Luke chapter 5. We read both passages this morning.
John chapter 1 suggests that Andrew has a big part in his brother's first encounter with Jesus. Andrew had, for some reason, gotten connected to also, also John.
This John was called the Baptist, who was leading a movement of renewal south in Judea. But when John the Baptist told his followers that Jesus was the one who was going to be the guy they ought to be following, Andrew did the wise thing and began pursuing the carpenter from Galilee instead.
And after spending just one day with him, Andrew went and grabbed his big brother Simon and said, "Bro, you've got to see this. We found him. We've discovered him. We have now seen the Messiah, the hope of our people."
And to hear John, the Gospel writer, this would be also, also, also. Also, John, Jesus looked at Simon and did not waste any time with Andrew's big brother.
There was no, "Hi, how's your family?" There is no, "Hi, what are your hobbies?" There is no, "Will you please give me the rundown on your devotional life?"
Jesus looks at him and says, "All right, you're Simon. I know you. New plan. You are now Cephas. You are Peter. Your name means the rock."
New name. And I got to wonder if Simon's like, "You know, this is all moving a little fast for me, Jesus. You think we can get a cup of coffee and talk about this first?"
Because to rename someone is an incredible claim of authority over them. And to rename someone before you've even shared your Wi-Fi password with them, well, that is an act of never before seen chutzpah.
He just changed Simon's name. Will you please write this down as an important truth to know at the outset of the pursuit? Write this down. Jesus is a change agent.
Jesus has come not to leave you the way that you are. He has come to do something different. We said earlier that part of discipleship is discovering your true identity in Jesus.
And for Simon, this happens within the first five minutes. Jesus is like, "Look, man, who you were is not who you're going to be. Because of me, Simon, you're going to be different. And it's going to start with your name."
Now, for Peter, who, like we said, was probably stuck in the monotony of life, this had to have been something like a breath of fresh air because someone saw something in him other people hadn't.
Possibility, potential, a new vision for his 4,000 weeks. But this does not mean that these kinds of changes in Jesus are always welcome or that they're always easy.
A number of years ago, a friend of mine named Tom shared the story of his conversation with a woodworker. And this woodworker happened to be an expert in carving animals out of tree stumps.
And one time Tom was observing his carpenter friend carving a model of a squirrel standing on a log eating an acorn. And Tom said to him, "Say, how is it that you go about carving a squirrel standing on a log eating an acorn?"
And the friend replied, "Well, Tom, it's simple. You start with a block of wood, and then you take away everything that isn't a squirrel standing on a log eating an acorn."
And I want you to know that if you are interested, if you're really interested in being a disciple, you have to expect that you are going to have some stuff carved away.
Jesus is a change agent, and he wants to put something new in your life. And he wants to put something new into you. But that means first, he's got to take something old out of you.
And he started with Simon's name. Now, trust me, it's definitely appropriate that Simon, who often talked before thinking, would see his name changed away from listening guy.
But it's also powerful that Jesus said to him, "You, sir, you are the rock. You are a foundation stone. I can use you. I can build on you."
What that would have meant to someone who was trapped in a cynical tunnel vision kind of life. It was optimistic. It was forward looking.
Jesus, a change agent, stepped in. And it happened a second way when Peter encountered Jesus at the lake in the story Luke tells us.
Jesus is teaching the crowds there one day when he sees Simon. He says to Simon, "So how was fishing today?"
Now, Peter's probably not in a real good mood at this point. Not real excited about answering this question. He's on no sleep. The nets are empty. Everybody's frustrated.
And his lack of luck on the lake is not what he wanted to be talking about right now. But then watch this. Jesus comes and he actually pushes him a little more.
He says, "Hey, Peter, go back and do it again. But this time, go out into the deep water." And he doesn't say it, but I have to believe that Peter, thinking, "Who do you think you are to tell me how to fish? I've been doing this for 30 years, Jesus. I know where to go. I know what time of day to go. I may not know a lot, Jesus, but I know how to fish this lake."
The other day, I was reading a story about this guy. Who is this guy on the screen right here? Who's that? That's Forrest Gump, right? Played, as we all know, by one of the great actors of the age, Tom Hanks.
And in this interview, Tom Hanks was describing the problem of getting the child actor who was playing young Forrest Gump, his name was Michael Connor Humphreys, to talk the way that Forrest Gump talked.
Humphreys, who was an inexperienced child actor from deep in Mississippi, could not pick up the tempo and the inflection that Tom Hanks was using for adult Forrest.
And the director was all panicked about, he didn't know what to do. And that's when Tom Hanks made a decision.
Tom Hanks decided, this internationally known, expert, world-class actor decided that he would match his voice to the voice of the kid.
That's right. All of those Forrest Gump lines that you know so well, "Life is like a box of chocolates," and "I was running," and "Lieutenant Dan," all those lines are what they are because Tom Hanks decided that he would talk like Michael Connor Humphreys talked.
And those lines live on because an expert humbled himself and became like an amateur. Church, I don't know all that Peter was thinking in that moment, but here's what he says.
He says to Jesus, "Jesus, it's been a rough go of things. Didn't catch anything all night, but because you say so."
And he says, "I don't know all that Peter was thinking in that moment, but because you say so, I'll give it a try."
Church, you need to understand that saying something like that is a great indicator of a growing disciple. In fact, you might want to write this down because this is something disciples say.
Disciples say to Jesus, "Jesus, I don't get it, but I'll still do it." I don't get it, but I'll still do it.
Stop looking at that thing. Sacrifice more of what I have. Admit that I messed up. Forgive her again.
I don't get it, but I'll still do it. I don't get it, but I'll still do it. I may not understand what Jesus is asking me to do, but I will obey him.
And as we read the first result of Peter's, "I don't get it, but I'll still do it," the first result was a catch of fish so massive that it began to sink two boats.
And the even bigger result, the second result, was an experience of authority and power so incredible that it caused Peter to leave the catch of his life and to fall down in the water.
And as we read the first result of Peter's, "I don't get it, but I'll still do it," stop looking at that thing to give you counsel on things you do already understand.
It's about giving him control over the areas of your life that you think you've already got mastered. Jesus will come in and he will break the patterns of your life.
He knows who you are. He sees something in you, and he knows that in order for you to be able to do it, you need to be able to do it.
And he knows that in order for you to experience, you have to step out of your routine. And the reason that your life is the same old story, same old song, is because you have conceded over and over again to the same old script.
And Jesus comes to you today and he says, "It's time for you to get out in the deep water. It's time for you to leave the shore behind. Are you willing to trust me and to put out there far from where you've been comfortable?"
The adventures never happen if you stay only on the shore. They don't wait for you to be in a good mood. They don't wait for you to be well rested after a night of sleep.
They aren't geared to your own preferences. The adventure that is discipleship is about breaking you out of your patterns and calling you to something more.
It's about leaving behind the shallows of your easy-peasy Christianity and actually going deep. It's about putting some things behind you and going off in pursuit of the greatest miracle of your life.
Are you ready now to pursue him with me? Let's go.
Dear Jesus, we thank you today for the story of Peter. A story of a person who felt trapped in the same old, same old. A man who was worn out from the monotony.
A guy who thought that his best chance to be something special, something profound, had passed him by. But then one day, Jesus, you showed up and you shook things up.
And as a result, Peter was never the same. Help us, Lord, to discover our true identity in you and to plunge deeper out of the shallow, easy places to discover the treasure of the adventure of the life you've called us into.
We pray this in your name. Amen.
I don't get it. Jesus, I don't get it. But I'll still do it because I trust in you and I'm allowing my life to be formed in the imitation of the pattern that you set.
And this is a message I believe is not just for you. It's for your friends, especially those people that you know at work, at school, who are stuck in the monotony or so tired of life, who feel hopeless and they need an adventure to break out in their lives.
Will you invite them? Will you invite them to be part of this pursuit with us? Will you invite them to share in the joy of discovering Jesus?
I hope you do. Next Sunday, we're going to be right back and we're going to talk about what it looks like when Peter jumped out of the boat because he saw Jesus walking on water and he said, "I want to do that too."
Friends, I sure hope that prayer is a big part of your life and prayer is an opportunity that we have here at Elmbrook right up in the front at the end of our service for people who would love to join you in that sacred space.
Until we meet again, friends, we take with you this blessing.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. According to his power which is at work within us.
To him be glory in the church in Christ Jesus throughout all generations now and forevermore. Amen.
Go in peace. Go in peace.
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on Sep 12, 2024
