Skip to content Changed for the Purpose of Jesus - Jesus Encounter, Part 1 Jul 9 · 51 min ...more
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Empowering multimedia ministry for bold Christian living: Weekend Messages, Deep End Podcast, Deep Dive Bible Study. Tim Hatch, Lead Pastor, Waters Church, 26 years of pastoral ministry, book author.
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0:00 Are you ready to get started with Jesus encounter? Okay. The title of my message, changed for the purpose of Jesus.0:11 Luke chapter 5, changed for the purpose of Jesus. 3 words in that title that are really catch words in our culture and I want you to say the title. I want you to0:23 emphasize 3 words in the title of this message, change and purpose and Jesus. Those 3 words. Alright. Can you do that with me? On the count of 3, 1, 2, 3. Change for the purpose of Jesus. 3 words0:35 that I know a lot of people love. We love the idea of change. It's why we try New Year's resolutions because we wanna change. How many know you need to change? Anybody here? I need to0:47 change something about my life. Yeah. If you don't got your hand up, you are a sociopath. Just letting you know that you and the serial killers are in the same camp. Just letting you know right now. Okay?0:59 Change is a universal desire. We wanna change. There are things that I need to change, things that you need to change. And change is is good. I like change. I don't know. Some people get freaked out by change but I like1:10 change. So I've ran across some surveys. All 3 of these surveys I'm gonna share with you actually back up the title of the message. A recent survey done through 27 countries, 21000 people1:22 were asked in the survey, what do you want? 71 percent said, I want my life to change after COVID. I don't want my life to go back to what1:34 it was before COVID. I want change. So people want change. This is good. Yes. This is good. Because if you look at the world I'm1:46 looking at, I always say, it is seriously messed up. People need to change. And I do too. Purpose. The largest generation in America right now is the millennial1:57 generation. All the millennials in the house said, hey. Your voices are getting deeper. You're getting older. So good. That's wonderful. You're the largest2:09 generation in the history of our country. I don't know if you know that. And you are the biggest swath of the population. Good news. 72 percent no,2:21 sorry sorry, 75 percent of millennials, 3 out of 4 say that the most important thing they want in life is purpose. They will take a pay cut2:32 if the job gives them a sense of purpose. Isn't that amazing? So so a lot of people, almost 71 percent want change worldwide. 75 percent of the largest generation2:44 in our country's history want purpose. What about Jesus? Surely, I am going to tell you that there's bad news about the Jesus deal. Wrong. There's good news about the Jesus deal. I2:56 ran across a survey that was done in January of 20 23. This is as recent as it gets. 77 percent of high school students want to3:08 know more about Jesus Christ. 77. If you are a teenager at Waters Church, can I tell you3:20 that the harvest is ripe? There are kids in your school wanna know about now they don't want religion and I know that. That's like a common theme. I don't want religion. Well, I wanna know about Jesus. Well, Jesus isn't3:31 about religion. Right? It's about relationship with God through faith in him. But this is an amazing thing. Even and I know that the numbers were higher for believing high schoolers, but even amongst3:42 unbelieving non Christian high school students in our country, the number was over 50 percent, wanna know more about Jesus.3:54 So here's the question. Who's gonna tell them? We are. We are. The the thing where Jesus4:05 shows up and blinds people and throws them to the ground, it didn't happen very often. Most of the time, it happens when 1 person opens their mouth4:17 and tells another person about Jesus. And that's what our text is about today. That's what Luke chapter 5 is about today. And I want you to stand with me to read God's word if you don't mind. From Luke chapter 54:29 is a familiar story and we're gonna look at Peter's encounter with Jesus. Chapter 5 verse 1. On 1 occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to what?4:41 Hear the word of God. People in Luke chapter 5 wanted to hear from Jesus. Isn't that amazing? 77 percent of high schoolers wanna hear about4:53 Jesus. Well, it's nothing new. There's something about this Jesus people want to know. And so it says, they are pressing in. They are crowding him out. So he5:05 was standing by the lake Gennesaret. And that is another way to call it the name, it's another name for the Sea of Galilee. Mark and Matthew call it the Sea of Galilee. Luke calls it Lake5:17 Gennesaret because it's technically a lake. Luke is a doctor and he cares about details. So it's not a sea, it's a lake and it's a lake here, Gennesaret. And he saw 2 boats by the lake but the fishermen had gone out of5:28 them and were washing their nets. Getting into 1 of the boats, which was Simon's, and he will become Peter, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat. And when he5:40 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've toiled all night and took5:51 nothing but at your word. Oh, you can experience a lot of good things from God if you start telling him that. But at your word, I6:03 will let down the nets. And when he had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and the nets were breaking. They signaled to their partners in the6:15 other boat to come and help them, and they came filled both boats with fish so that they began to sink. And when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees and said, depart from me for I6:27 am a sinful man, o Lord. For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken. And so also were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to6:38 Simon, do not be afraid. From now on, you will be catching men. You're gonna go and tell those 77 percent. You're gonna tell those 726:50 percent, 75 percent of people in our country that are looking for what we've got. You're gonna do it. You're gonna tell them about me. And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.7:03 This is God's word. Let's pray together. Heavenly father, I pray that your word will speak to our hearts, take root in our minds, and7:15 transform and renew our lives. Help us to see that the harvest is indeed white. People need and they want7:27 you. Help us to be ready to give them you. May the words of my mouth, the meditation of all of our hearts be pleasing in your sight and help us to see Jesus. In his mighty name7:39 we prayed everybody said? Amen. Amen. God bless you. Have a seat. So I've never liked this passage before. Behind the scenes on7:50 pastors, there are there are some passages we don't like to preach. This was 1 of them for me. And the reason why is because I always preach it wrong. I've preached this passage8:02 before but I missed it. If you have been here long enough to have heard me preach this passage before, I apologize. Today, I'm excited to preach this passage because I think I got it. I really8:14 do. I'm excited to give you what God gave me through this passage today. Because here's the thing about the Bible, and what you wanna do when you read the Bible yourself is actually a very good principle of Bible8:25 study, is that after you're done reading whatever portion of the bible you've read, stop and say, what's the point? Don't just read the bible,8:37 examine it. Ask yourself questions. Questions lead to answers. Answers lead to better living. So when you read a portion of bible, a chapter, a verse,8:49 a passage, a pericope, you ask what's the what? Point. The question for this passage is what's the point? And this passage9:01 has a lot of opportunity for people to miss the point. You understand that the bible can be twisted and manipulated to hurt people. Most times it's9:13 twisted for 2 reasons. Number 1, for a man to gather a large crowd around himself and tell people what they wanna hear. That's manipulating the bible. Secondly and usually hand in hand with that is9:25 using the bible to teach people how to get rich because everybody wants to get rich. And if ever there was a proof text for how to get rich false preaching is this9:36 1. All you gotta do is listen to Jesus and your nets will be overflowing and your boats will be filled with fish. Just a little bit of obedience will lead to abundance. Woah. Is that the9:48 point of this passage? No. The point of this passage is not how to get rich or how to catch fish. The point of this passage could also be misled to make you believe that that this is just about miraculous10:00 things and if you're not experiencing the miraculous, you haven't experienced Jesus and so you're missing it. Jesus is about miracles and so search for miracles, aim for miracles and you will be blessed and that's not10:10 the point of this passage is it? And another conclusion we could come to about this passage is that this passage is about leaving everything because that's what the disciples do. Leave10:22 everything and follow Jesus. No. Get rid of all your possessions, get rid of your car, your house, everything, and just follow you, trust God. Live an aesthetic lifestyle. That's the point of the passage. And guess what?10:33 And good news Americans, that's not the point of the passage. I said good news Americans because we love our stuff. That's not what this passage is about. But what is it about?10:46 What's the point? Well, here's a pro tip for bible study. Little little heads up. Whenever you're reading a passage of the bible, the point of that passage10:58 is directly tied to the point of the book in which the passage is. So the bible is not 1 book. The bible is 66 books. 39 in the old11:09 testament, 27 in the new testament. They all have a point. The point of Luke's gospel is different, slightly different than Matthew's gospel or John's gospel. The point11:21 of Romans is different than the point of Job. And I understand, they're all tied to the big point that God has sent Jesus Christ his son to save the world. But they're11:33 all got little specific points. And so the point of this passage is tied to the ultimate point of Luke's gospel. That's where we are. We're in Luke's gospel. So so you got that? Track it with that?11:46 So the to understand the point of this passage, we gotta understand the point of Luke's gospel. And what is Luke's gospel? Write this down. Luke's gospel is a gospel for Gentiles. Matthew was written for11:58 Jews. The reason why we know that is because on the first page of Matthew's gospel, the first words are the gospel of the genealogy of the Jesus Christ, the son Abraham, the son of David. You don't get more Jewish12:09 than mentioning Abraham and David in the first line of your book. Mark's gospel is written to Romans. Luke's gospel is written to all the other nations. Couple12:21 of heads up on why I know that. Luke's Matthew's genealogy, the lineage of Jesus goes back to Abraham. Luke's genealogy from Jesus' line goes all the way back12:33 to Adam. He's got other nations in mind. Another key point here. Jesus in Luke chapter 4 goes back home.12:45 He's been doing some miracles in Capernaum. He goes back home. He attends Sabbath synagogue Sabbath on on in a he attends Sabbath in the synagogue. And as they did every week,12:57 they handed people scrolls to read. Jesus comes to the Sabbath in his hometown, Nazareth. They hand him the the scroll of Isaiah. He unrolls it. He reads from Isaiah's prophecy. It says, the spirit of the Lord is13:09 upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the nations and and and and bind set the captives free and open blind eyes. And then he rolls up the scroll, and he hands it back to the attendants, and he sits13:19 back down in the synagogue. And then he says this, today this scripture has been fulfilled in your midst. And everybody's like, woah. And if you read the text, it says13:31 and they started to think, wait a second. Is Joseph's son. And they know that Joseph comes from David's family. And God promised that God's Messiah who would save the Jews would come from David's line. And so could it be13:42 that Jesus Christ is the true Messiah that is sent to save us? And then Jesus kinda like pours cold water on their stip on their postulation. It's a strange13:54 passage. He says, doubtful you will quote this proverb for me. A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown. In other words, I'll get respect everywhere, not just here. And then he says, in the days14:06 of Elijah, remember that the prophet wasn't sent to any 1 of the widows of Israel. He was sent to a widow in Zarephath and Sidon where Jezebel was from. And14:18 then he says, and remember that Elisha wasn't sent to any of the lepers of Israel, but he was sent to a leper named Naaman who was a general in the Syrian army who had defeated Israel. In other words,14:30 I'm not just here to save Israel, I'm here to save all nations. And man, if there was a way to tick off first century Jews, it was that. Because14:42 they had been subjugated to the Romans for over 200 years by this time. Before the Romans, the Greeks subjugated them. Before the Greeks, the Medes. Before the Medes, the Persians. Before the Persians, the14:53 Babylonians, and a host of countries before that had subjugated and abused and used the Jews. And so they longed for God's salvation and God's Messiah to come and set them free from the15:05 occupying force politically that had controlled their life. And Jesus shows up and says, here I am. I'm the Messiah, but I'm not here to save you politically, I'm here to save you15:16 spiritually. I'm here to save not just Israel, I'm here to save all nations so that anybody from anywhere can know the father.15:30 Luke's Luke's message is God's salvation is for all nations. In fact, just back up 1 verse into Luke chapter 4 and you'll see it the last 2 verses. Verse 42 it says, and all the people saw them and came to15:42 him and would have kept him from leaving them. But he said to them, I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to where? To where? Other towns as well for I was15:53 sent for this purpose. Hey. Why does Waters Church start new churches? Why do we go to new states? Because we're following the example of our savior Jesus. We're not16:05 here just to create 1 big church in 1 town in America. We wanna see America saved. But we can't expect America to come here, we gotta go there. That's why we're doing16:17 what we're doing as a church because this is the heart of God and the point of this passage is tied to the point of Luke's gospel. That God wants you to encounter16:29 him, Jesus, so that you can live in the purpose of God. And the purpose of God is to save your friends and neighbors with the gospel of Jesus Christ.16:41 High school students, 77 percent of your friends wanna know about Jesus. Millennials, 75 percent of your co generational cohorts16:53 want purpose. Where do you find purpose? Butting the 1 who made you. And 71 percent worldwide want change, and who can change anybody? We can't change ourselves. God changes us through Jesus.17:05 So let's take a look at the passage in verse 1. It says, on a on 1 occasion, again, the crowd pressing in on him to hear the word of God. And he was standing on the sea on the lake by the lake of Gal by the lake of17:15 Genesaret. And so he makes some calculations in his mind. And in verse 2, it says this, he saw 2 boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. And so17:26 Jesus is God. He's God the son. It the scripture says that all things were created by him and for him. And so he understands the physics17:38 of audio. He knows that if he goes out into the waters, water will carry audio further than land, and he's got a big crowd who wants to hear him. So he says it17:50 says this, that he gets into Simon's boat, and he asked them to put out a little from the land, and he sat down and taught the people from the boat. Now this is interesting because you think he just kinda comes upon17:59 Simon and opposes himself upon him, but that's not true. If you go back to Luke chapter 4, Jesus had just been in Simon's house where Simon's mother-in-law was sick with a fever. And18:10 Jesus heals Simon's mother-in-law, which some theologians believe that's why Simon Peter would later deny Jesus.18:25 Terrible joke. It fell flat in the first service, it fell flat in this service, I'm abandoning it forever. That's not true. That's not at all accurate. Anyway, he healed Simon's mother-in-law. So Simon18:37 knows that this guy has miraculous powers in him, in his person. So Simon is willing. Jesus has put out a little from the deep. Put out18:49 put out a little from the water. And he preaches all day. Now understand this, that in those days, Jesus preached all day.19:01 8 hours to 10 hours a day. That was in the days when people had what we used to call an attention span. Before the days of TikTok.19:13 Now I'm thankful that I don't have to preach 8 hours because that would exhaust me. So thank God you don't have a long attention span. But Jesus and those people, they did. So he preached 8 hours and at the end19:25 of the day, verse 4 says, when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, put out into the what? Put out into the what? It's on the screen right there if you just Anybody speak English? Read.19:37 Write. Okay. So put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. And Simon answers in verse 5, master we've toiled all night19:56 Simon and took nothing. Let's stop there for a second. What has Peter been doing for the last 8 to 10 hours? He's been holding that boat. Anybody ever been on a boat? Unless you have a trolling motor,20:08 that boat's gonna float somewhere else. So he's in Peter's boat. Peter has put the boat out into the water, just a little ways in shallow water. And he's been holding that20:20 boat for 8 hours while Jesus preached and teached, taught the people. And then and then this is another factoid about fishing20:32 in those days on that sea. And this still happens today on that sea. I've been there. Fishermen would fish all night because the fish would come to the surface at night20:44 when the water was cool. And in the daytime when it was hot, they would go down into underneath the rocks and to the springs that fed the sea where there was freshly20:55 oxygenated water where they would thrive. So you fished at night because the fish were up on the near the surface of the water. You did not fish during the day. What you did during the day, however, was you would lay out21:06 your nets and you would mend them and wash them and put them back together again because the night of fishing was rough on those nets. And if you didn't dry them, they would develop dry rot, and they would be broken21:18 and ripped. And so Peter has lost all day trying to fix up his nets for the knights cast because he'd been listening to Jesus all day. And then Jesus has the21:30 audacity to say, I know you haven't been able to clean or mend your nets or dry them but put out to water into the deep and take up a fishing expedition in the middle of the day.21:42 After you spent last night catching nothing. I have been fishing. And I wanna say to all the people who would ever21:54 want to invite me fishing, don't do it. The fish see me coming and they go somewhere else. I've never caught fish, never been good at it.22:06 Fair warning. But if you're a hobby fisherman, not fish, not catching anything is fine. What does the old adage say? A bad day at fishing is better than a good day at work.22:18 Right? But if you're a commercial fisherman, not catching something 1 night is a tragedy. And Jesus has just interrupted Peter's life, hasn't22:29 he? For 8 hours, holding that boat by the shore. And then he says, now I want you to go fishing now. I imagine Peter had every right to say no. And he even expresses it. We toiled all night. We took nothing. And22:41 you want me to take my nets out, which are not even mended, and put it into water in the middle of the day when the fish are down in the deep? He's got all the reasoning. And he could've said this to Jesus. He could've22:50 said, hey, Jesus. I know who you are. You are a carpenter. I am a fisherman. Stay in your lane. Like leave that to me. I'll do that. You do your thing. I'll do my thing.23:02 Thank you for the word but I'll do my own thing. No. And here's the point that I wanna make. You don't have to write anything down but it's the point you should understand. Jesus never interrupts your life without23:14 intending to bless you. Jesus never comes and knocks on the door of your heart without intending to do something good for you.23:25 And if somebody bugged you to come to church and you finally gave in and you're sitting here thinking, okay, good. I can get this over with. I got news for you. You're not getting anything over with. God's just getting23:37 started with your life. That's what this is about. And so Peter, Simon at this point, we've toyed23:49 all night, took nothing. But at your word, at your word I'll let down the nets. First first thing he asked Peter, put out a little. Second thing he asked Peter, put out24:01 into the deep. I wanna talk to you about going deeper with God because this is what I want you to write down. An encounter with Jesus is a challenge to go deeper.24:12 Go deeper with God. Go deeper than you are right now. I don't know where you are in your walk with Jesus, but24:24 I'm telling you that the miracles happen in the deep places. Some of you have been waiting in the waters of the shallow end of the pool, wondering why your life is not changing.24:37 I got so inspired by Chris's phenomenal sermon illustration 2 weeks ago. I thought, I gotta bring out my own props and do my own thing again. So Chris, bring that out for me because this is a picture for you of where a24:48 lot of Christians are right now in their life with Jesus. They're in the kiddie pool. They're in the shallows just dipping their25:00 toes into the waters of of Jesus in the gospel. And you know what? The kiddie pool is appropriate for some people. That that looks25:12 totally normal. I mean if it was alive. Totally normal for a a child to come to the kiddie pool. And by the way, everybody who's ever been saved, you're called a25:24 child. It's called a new birth and when you first get saved, this is who you are. And when you're first saved, it is totally cool for you to hang in the shallow end of the pool.25:37 But you know when it gets weird? It's when you're a grown up Christian and you're still sitting in25:49 the kiddie pool. This looks weird. I know some of you wanna whip out your phones and take pictures right now. Fine. But26:01 if you put it on social, you better put a link to the whole message so that people don't think I'm a fruitcake. This is where a lot of Christians are though. God26:12 has asked you to go to the deep end of the pool. And you've been sitting here and frankly in the courts of heaven, you look weird.26:25 Moses is up there saying, move. Don't you realize that I delivered a nation from slavery with a staff? David's up there saying, don't you know that I ran out26:37 to the battle to face Goliath? Daniel's up there. Don't you understand they threw me in a lion's den? I mean, at some point, if you wanna experience God in a supernatural way, you gotta get26:49 out of the safe places and get into the deep places where God really puts you on notice and gets you to trust him and not yourself.27:00 This is this is what where where where you encounter Jesus. And some of you, you take it even to a high level. You're not even in the pool yet. Chris, bring me out that second thing. Your plane is super. Your plane is27:12 super safe. This this what you're doing right now. You're coming to watch your I'm just here visiting.27:24 I'm not sure I wanna get in yet. Some of you this is my son. Know I know that God tells me to get baptized if I believe on Jesus but I wanna pray about it for a few more years.27:37 Are you serious? You never pray about what God tells you to do. Some of you are like, well, I try to give God some money but the tithe is out of the question. You're in the kiddie pool.27:50 You're playing it safe with God. And if there's 1 thing that I have hated since COVID started, it's the word safe. Because there's no such thing as safe. There's no such it's an28:02 illusion of safety. This looks ridiculous. There's an illusion of safety. But at some point, you gotta throw in and you gotta jump in and take chances in life and most importantly, take28:13 chances with Jesus. Some of you listen to me. Stop tipping God and start tithing. Tithe means28:25 1 tenth. Quick story for you from me. My wife and I have been trying to sell a house. We got no bites for 2 months. None. 0 in this market.28:37 I did some examination of my finances. Said something's not right. I'm out of I'm misaligned. I did some financial some financial investigation into my life, and I said, I realized that I I wasn't at the tithe. I was28:48 below it. And as I said, Lord, I'm so sorry. I repented and immediately changed the figure. We're gonna bring 10 percent to God's house of what comes into our house. And I did it. And the do you know? The29:00 Thursday that I gave the 10 percent for the first time, and I don't know, maybe a couple months because I didn't realize where I was financially, got a call from the realtor the next day.29:11 House is sold in Jesus' name. That's how God can operate in your life. When you get out of the shallow and you get into the deep.29:24 But this is just a theory until you realize what it really looks like in your life. What does it really look like to get into the deep? 3 points and then we're done. Number 1, I gotta abandon what I think or know29:36 and trust in God. Some of you, the hurdle in your life is not what other people are doing to you, it's what you think about what you should be doing.29:48 It's about what you know. It's about And here's for some of you, older Christians. Listen, I know I talk to the young Christians a lot. I talk to the30:00 younger generation a lot because let's face it, I got a lot more time left with them than you. But let me talk to the older Christians for a second. Do you know what your hurdle is in life?30:12 Your experience. You keep measuring everything about where you are with where you've been. You keep looking back at what God did in your twenties. You look30:24 back at what God did in your first couple years of salvation. I got I've got a guy I know I I don't even know if he's in the faith anymore. But every time I talked to him, the only time he talked about what God was doing30:34 in his life was when he was first saved. And I was always like, has God done anything recently? See you can get so tied up30:46 into where you came from, you are not looking at what God is leading you to. You gotta abandon that. You gotta let go of that. Some of you, it's good experiences. Some of you, it's bad experiences. I've been30:58 divorced, pastor. Oh, I went to a church and they hurt me, pastor. That's that's the inner tube Christians in the house. That's that's why you're here with you you haven't even put it on yet. You're just carrying it31:08 here. You're like, I'm not sure I wanna come here because I've heard bad things. If you read our Google reviews, man, you'll get plenty of opportunity to jet. I'm telling you right now. In fact, if you love Waters31:20 Church, could you go on Google and leave us a positive because there's like only haters there. Okay. But anyway, the reason why they hate us is because we tell the truth.31:37 Jesus Jesus said you hate me because you I bear because I bear witness to the truth. The last series I did, anybody remember? It was on pride31:48 in June. We had people leave, get up and walk out. Was like, yes. They walked out on Jesus, let them walk out on me.32:01 You go back on our YouTube page, you know the most watched videos in the last year were those 2 messages on pride. What does that tell you? People are hungry for the truth even32:12 when some people hate it. This is where some of you are though. I don't know if I can trust you pastor. Talk about this big expensive vacation you just went on.32:24 Now you're talking about tithing. I don't know if I can trust this church. Pastor's not wearing a collar. Got this modern32:36 music. Where's the old hymns? Where's the organ? Where's the uncomfortable pews? Doesn't look like a church, where's the32:48 steeple? The church is not a building friend, the church is the people of God who love Jesus. You gotta get out of the shallow33:01 end of the pool. And you'll never get out of the shallow end of the pool if you still follow what you think, what you know and what you've experienced. It's a hurdle for some of you.33:13 The book in the bible that is what we call the source of wisdom. Anybody know what name it is? Proverbs. Proverbs. Book of wisdom, right? Do you know what Proverbs regularly does though?33:26 It tells us the way to get wise is to consider yourself a fool. The only people who get wise are the people who realize they33:37 aren't wise. Are you following this? So let me give you some examples from Proverbs because it's there in your notes. Proverbs 12 15, the way of the fool is right in his own eyes. Well, this is what I'm33:49 gonna do. I'm gonna do it because I know Fool. A wise man, what? But at your word,34:02 I'll let down the nets. Proverbs 18 2. A fool takes no pleasure in understanding but only in posting to Facebook. That's the modern translation.34:15 Proverbs 28 26, whoever trusts in his own mind. Hello, Americans. I know because34:26 I went to school and I went to college and Your degree means nothing in the courts of heaven. God bless you if you can use it and34:38 leverage it into a great occupation, and and I I don't fault you for that. And there is something to knowledge and growing and wisdom and education, but but there is worldly wisdom and then there's heavenly wisdom.34:50 Whoever trusts in his own mind is full. And I like this because people say, well, I'm just gonna trust my heart. I'm just gonna I'm gonna follow my heart. You've never read what the bible says about your heart.35:02 Jeremiah 17 verse 9, 1 of my favorite verses. It says, the heart is desperately wicked and beyond cure. Who can understand it?35:14 How's that heart working out for you? It's a deceiver, it's a liar. My heart, my mind lie to me on a regular basis. Now you say, well pastor, I'm confused. Who should I listen35:26 to? God. Well, how do I listen to God? He's given you everything you need to know. How to live blessed,35:38 how to walk not stressed, how to work, how to succeed, how to raise your kids. It's all in here. It's not like he's been hiding it somewhere. Work35:50 it, trust it, listen to it. Take the steps of faith that God asked you to take. Get into the deep end of the pool. The bible says in in Roman in first Corinthians 8,36:02 it says, we all know that knowledge we all know that we all possess knowledge but knowledge puffs up. Love builds up. Then he says if anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know36:14 as he ought to know. I don't know what I need to know. This is where we get humility from. I still got learning to do. I've been pastoring for 25 plus36:25 years. I still got something to learn. I'm still growing in Christ. Are you? Gotta get into the deep end of the pool. We always love Proverbs 3 5 and 6. 0, this is36:37 1 of our favorite coffee cup verses. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your paths. But you know what? I find most often is the36:46 problem with this verse is that most Christians only come to this verse when all of their best options have dried up already. The verse is not saying trust in the36:58 Lord after your heart. It doesn't say trust in the Lord when you've tried everything that you think works and it didn't work. It's saying trust37:10 in the Lord when you have the opportunity to go with what you think is right. And until what you think is right, to stick it and follow him. Then your paths37:22 become straight. Write this down so I know you're getting 0.1. Going deeper means trusting God in the areas where I currently believe I'm right.37:33 That's what it means to get into the deep end of the pool. Some people think that deepness is just oh, Greek words, Hebrew words. Finding bible37:45 codes, secret messages. Did the bible in the Hebrew language predict Hitler? That's not deep. That's just a jaunt. No, no,37:57 deepness is when we stop letting this and this call the shots and let God be God. At your word,38:09 I will let down my nets. Number 2, going deeper means abasing our best concept of ourselves. Now we're gonna get to my favorite part of this passage. It's my favorite part.38:20 Abasement. That means humility. In fact, the definition I think there is in your notes. It is to reduce or lower as in rank, office, reputation, and estimation. So38:32 lower your rank before God. Lower your estimation of self in the eyes and presence of Jesus. Look at what happens to Peter.38:44 Everybody sees the catch of fish. Everybody sees the boat sinking. Everybody sees that Jesus' word works. But Peter has a particularly powerful encounter. In38:56 verse 8 it says, he fell down at Jesus' knees and said, depart from me for I'm a sinful man, oh Lord. I39:08 hear the testimony of many people and I think, I don't know if you're saved. I don't know if you've actually received Christ yet because this is39:20 not some self actualization program. Hear me very clearly. If you hear nothing else this weekend, hear this. Jesus did not come to improve yourShow more
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