20250223 Luke 5:1-11; 27-32; 6:12-16 Jesus Calls

Before I was a Christian, to convince me that Christianity was true, a friend told me about the rapid growth of early Christianity. I found it challenging as an unbeliever. I had no way for me to explain it away. In the beginning of the first century, there were no Christians. By AD 100, there were 25000 Christians. It is an estimated 40% growth rate per decade from 120 around 30 AD.

This is amazing in the first century context. There was no state sponsorship, no centralized organization or mass communication tools. This movement began by eyewitnesses with the claims of Jesus death and resurrection. My friend suggested that for a movement to grow so fast, the claims must have been true. This was my challenge. Apart from the death and resurrection of Jesus, how do we explain the Christian movement?

Today, if we include all those who call themselves Christian, the number of Christians reaches 2.3 billion people. This is the largest movement the world has ever known. Our text teaches of Jesus calling his first disciples to follow him.

We see that (1) Jesus calls with authority. (2) Jesus calls sinners. (3) Jesus calls people to call people. (4) Jesus calls us to leave everything to follow him.

First, Jesus calls with authority in Luke 5:1.

Luke 5:1

In Luke 5:1-11, Jesus is standing by a lake, and we read in Luke 5:1 that the crowd is pressing on Him “to hear the word of God.”

Application

The text teaches us that the words of Jesus are the words of God.

The text reveals a sense of urgency. People wanted to hear from God, so they are pressing on Jesus, because his words are God’s words. When Jesus calls people to repent from their sins and follow him, this is not a suggestion. It is a command from God himself. We must follow Jesus because his words are God’s words.

Typically, people want to hear from God. When a Christian conference offers workshops, if they have one on knowing God’s will for your life, it will draw the most people. There is confusion about the call of God or hearing from God. People want an exciting personal revelation from God to have certainty on the specifics of what they have to be doing.

Our text teaches that to hear the Word of God, people were pressing on Jesus. Heb 1:1 teaches that in former times, God spoke through his prophets, “but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.” This means that the words of Jesus are the words of God. If we want to hear the words of God, we can read the words of Jesus. This does not mean that we will not at times sense subjectively God calling us to do particular things. It does mean that generally, we want the words of Jesus.

For us today, we hear God’s word in the Bible. In John 16:26, Jesus tells his disciples that the Holy Spirit will bring to their remembrance what he taught them. This is how they wrote the Gospels accurately. We can be confident in the Gospels. In 2 Tim 3:16, Paul writes that the content of our Bible are the very words of God. Jesus possesses the authority to call us to follow him.

We apply the teaching that Jesus calls us with authority by treasuring the Bible in our lives. The most sure way of living according to God's will is by saturating our minds with Scripture. We must do this in a community committed to saturating their minds with the words of Jesus. When our minds are full of Scripture, we become attuned to the work of God, we are more sensitive to the Spirit’s guiding.

This is how it can work itself out. We understand how the Bible fits together. We are captivated by the picture of idyllic Eden. We practice and promote behavior that points to the harmony of Eden. We are horrified by our sin. We marvel at God’s saving grace in Christ. We anticipate with great hope the restoration of all things in New Creation. God’s story becomes our internal road map that shapes our lives so that doing God’s will becomes second nature. 

This is the first point about Jesus’ calls with authority. He has authority because his words are God’s words. Jesus’ words are found in the Bible, so we treasure the Bible.

Second, we see that Jesus Calls Sinners in Luke 5:8, 27-32.

In Luke 5:3, Jesus tells Simon who is apostle Peter, let his net down for a catch. Peter says “Master” we’ve been trying all night. But I will do as you say (Lk 5:5). We read in Luke 5:6-7 that so many fish fill the nets that the boats start to sink.

Luke 5:8, 27-32

Peter falls at Jesus’ needs and says, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” Becoming aware of God’s presence stirs up in us a sense of unworthiness in him. When we arrange our worship services, we begin with a call to worship, and songs that celebrate God’s being, his character, and his work. These serve to stir up a response in us, “I am unworthy of this.” We then confess our sins. Peter confesses that he is a sinner and unworthy of being in the presence of Jesus. These confessions of sin and unworthiness occur four other times in Luke (Lk 7:37-50; 15:18, 21; 18:9-13; 19:1-10). Each teach that these confessions are the means to God’s acceptance. Jesus does indeed call with authority as God, and he calls sinners to himself.

In Luke 5:27-32, Jesus calls another sinner to follow him. He calls Levi, this is Matthew the tax collector, to follow him. According to Lk 5:30 tax collectors was almost an equivalent to calling someone a sinner. Jesus confirms in Luke 5:31-32 that he came for sinners. He says, “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

Application

After hearing the gospel, some people respond this way. "I am too much of a sinner to be a Christian." Or, "God could never love someone like me." This may sound noble or humble but it is in fact a sign of completely misunderstanding the gospel. Recognizing our sin qualifies us to be Christian, it is not the thing that disqualifies you. Jesus came for sinners.

Illustration – Jesus wants the rose…

Matt Chandler is a famous preacher in Texas. He talks about his group of Christian friends who were witnessing to a single mother. She had been in and out of toxic relationships. One day, they take her to a church event, and he describes how bad it was.

The speaker was talking about sexual purity. The way he gets his point across is by taking a beautiful rose, and telling everyone to pass it around. He kept talking about sexual purity as the rose passed around. The analogy is that the rose that is passed around is the promiscuous woman. The rose gets damaged as it is passed around. The preach argument is avoid promiscuity or you will be unworthy of love. The preacher raises the damage rose and says, “Who would want this?”

At this point Matt Chandler is boiling with anger inside. They had brought their friend who had been promiscuous to show her the love of God towards sinners. So, Matt Chandler wants to yell at this preacher, "Jesus wants the rose!" Jesus calls sinners to himself. He calls you, he calls me, and he calls our enemies to repent and experience the forgiveness of sins.

Third point is that Jesus Calls people to call other people to follow him in Luke 5:10

Luke 5:10

He tells the fishermen in Lk 5:10, do not be afraid, from now on you will be catching men.[i] Those he calls, will catch those who are spiritually separated from God.

Application

If we did a survey of most Christians, there would be a lot of guilt. Everyone would say that they need to pray more, and witness more. If asked how they should witness more, it may go like this. They should share the gospel with unbelieving family members, colleagues, classmates, and strangers on the street. I do not want to discourage this if you have opportunities. But we are called to actually catch fish.

What do you think of the following approaches? I remember a gentleman who almost got fired, because in the signature of his work email, he had a gospel presentation. Another friend, if you reached his answering machine, instead of saying, you have reached…. so and so, he had a passionate warning that people who did not believe in Jesus would go to hell. I knew another family who was proud of their six-year-old who had gotten in trouble at school for telling the other kids that they had to believe in Jesus or go to hell. These three examples all come from a place of extreme sincerity. But the fruit of this “faithfulness” seems to leading to trouble at work and school, being disliked as a family and no one coming to faith. If you feel led to do something to catch people, I do not want to tell you what you can do and cannot do.

But for those who are feeling guilty about not doing enough, I want to encourage you as well. When we went through Acts, we kept coming back to Acts 2:41-47. The Lord grows his church when people are devoted to him and to one another. When we contribute to the health of the church, we contribute to a context in which God grows his church.

Whether we cultivate friendship, pay attention to first time visitors, any attempt to promote the health of a church community is indirectly part of catching men, women, and children. Our hope is that they get caught in the web of what we hope is a gospel preaching church.

The following are more ways to catch fish. Parents who are intentional about embodying God’s grace in their parenting and teaching their children to follow Jesus, are fishers of men. If you are friendly, trustworthy, and have a good reputation at work, school, among friends, if people know you are a Christian, you are a fisher of men. If you hide the fact that you are a Christians, don’t. Make sure people know you are a Christian. But just because you are not doing the most extravagant witnessing that draws the most attention in the short terms I do not think you need to be feeling guilty. God uses faithful church membership to grow his church around the world.

The Fourth point is that Jesus Calls us to leave everything and follow him (Lk 5:11, 28).

Luke 5:11

Lk 5:11 reads that, “they left everything and followed him.” In Lk 5:28, we read the similar words about Matthew, “leaving everything, he rose and followed him.”

Application - Giving things up for Jesus

These words stress that Jesus must be our all in all and not a part of our lives. Giving up everything will look different for different people at different phases of life.

I find that those who become Christians later in life, who did not grow up in Christians homes, need to give up the ways they were raised to follow Jesus. Unfortunately, this is often true in Christian homes as well.

Some people are called to full time ministry, they may have to give up a previous investment of time in studies. Some people are called to leave their hometown to serve somewhere else. For some, giving up everything to follow Jesus means break up a romantic relationship.

I’ve seen people give up much for Jesus. I remember when I was in Seminary, a young Dutch Man, who had graduated from one of the best business school in Amsterdam, decided that he wanted to dedicate his life to full time ministry. He could have been making a lot of money, yet he chose to drive an old car, because for him serving Jesus in this way as way more precious than all the money in the World.

We need to give up everything to follow Jesus. Jesus does not mean you have to all being fulltime Bible students, be missionaries, and preachers. For some yes. For the most part this means giving up everything that hinders your relationship with Jesus. For most of us, our phones hinder our relationship with Jesus.

In a room this size, I assume that some may change jobs for the sake of following Jesus. We need to leave anything to start following Jesus and then everything that hinders our relationship with Jesus. 

Conclusion

In our text, Jesus calls his first disciples. 70 years later there are 25 000 Christians. Now, in this room God has called us to follow him. He has done that in Brussels, in the US, in Ukraine, in France, in Italy, Germany. We get to see the result of God calling people to himself, every Sunday.

Jesus has the authority, the right to call us to follow him. He calls us even though we are sinners. He gives us a mission to be part of the growth of his church. He calls us to give up everything for him. When we answer his call we find that we gained everything we could have ever wanted. These are peace with God, joy in the Holy Spirit, a global church family, and hope of Eternal life.

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[i] They will go from catching fish to catching men. W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew (London; New York: T&T Clark International, 2004), 398. This is probably an allusion to Jeremiah 16:16. The Lord speaking through Jeremiah is saying that He was going to be known for something greater than the Exodus from Egypt. The Lord was going to bring the Exiles back from Babylon and into the Promised Land. ESV Study Bible p.1513. Jer 16:16 reads “Behold, I am sending for many fishers, declares the LORD, and they shall catch them. And afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks. Jeremiah referred to a physical return from exile. Jesus refers to spiritual exile.