We have been in our series of the call and we have explored
what it means to be called by God.
And I hope by now it is very clear that before we are called
to something, we are called to. Oh, I like the way you can do
that with the mic. That's good.
Before we are called to something, we are called to.
That's it. You see, what we do is not our
priority. It comes out of flows from who
we are in Christ Jesus and I keep reminded us every every
Sunday. But you see, we battle against a
culture that says what do you do.
We battle against a culture that says you are defined by what you
do. You are defined.
Your identity is rooted in what you do.
But as we read in the scriptures, what we actually
find is that who we are. Our identity is not rooted in
what we do. It's rooted in who we are with,
and that is Jesus. Because if we don't operate out
of a right identity and knowledge that we are sons and
daughters of the Most High, that we are called a royal
priesthood, that we are His, and that no matter what we can do,
we can never be separated from His love.
When we operate out of that place, we operate in an also
different way than we operate out of a place of striving for
identity and what we what we're going to do in the moment is
read again the the scriptures that we've been looking out for
this series, which is when Jesus called the first disciples.
And what is very evident in this as we read it is the
progression. First that Jesus was in the boat
with Simon Peter, first Simon Peter was with Jesus.
And I love that intimacy. I love the fact that Jesus
didn't stand on some high mountain and say, oh, you Simon
Peter, get into your boat. Jesus got into the boat with
him. And that is the the, the, the
pursuit of God, that it out out of his love for us, out of his
desire to be with us. And we see that first.
And then what do we see is we looked at this the past couple
of weeks. It is that called to be separate
from the world and consecrated to him.
And we see that in the story as Jesus.
They push out a little from the multitude.
That is a picture of the separation, that God is calling
us out of the world and to him. And so you've got being with
Jesus, then being like Jesus, which is the holiness.
And then after you've done all of that, then you get to do the
stuff. Even in church circles, we
forget the first two bits, don't we?
We rushed to the doing. We rushed to the doing when we
should rush to the being. And so we over the next three
weeks are going to transition and look at the 10 hallmarks of
the call of God on our lives for the doing bit 10 hallmarks.
And we're going to unpack that together over the next two to
three weeks. But before we do that, why don't
we just revisit this scripture? You can find it in Luke chapter
51 to 11:00. If you're in the room, it will
be on the screen and if you're online, welcome again.
It's great to have you with us. It will be on your device as
well. It is Luke 51 to 11.
On one occasion, while the crowd were pressing in on him, this is
Jesus to hear the word of God. He was standing by the Lake of
Gnessrats, which is also the Sea of Galilee, and he saw two boats
by the lake. But the fishermen had gone out
of them and were washing their Nets.
Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's.
He asked him to put out a little from the land.
You see Jesus gets into the boat with with Simon Peter 1st, and
then whilst they're together they push out from the land,
from the multitude. And he sat down and taught the
people from the boat, and when he had finished speaking, he
said to Simon, put out into the deep and let down your Nets for
a catch. This is to the doing bit.
And Simon answered, Master, we toiled all night and took
nothing. But you know at your word I will
let down the Nets. And then when they had done this
thing, closed a large number of fish, and their Nets were
breaking. They signaled to their partners
in the other boats 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's knees,
saying, Depart from me. For I am a sinful man, O Lord.
And we looked last week, didn't we, That it is the revelation of
who God is and his glory. It is the realization of His
magnificence. It is the appreciation of his
goodness and power that causes us to recognize who we are, and
we therefore walk in the holy, healthy fear of the Lord.
And if you miss that, I'd encourage you to get that talk
from last week. For he and all who are with him
were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken.
And so also with James and John, sons of Zebedee, who are
partners with Simon. And and Jesus said to Simon, do
not be afraid. From now on you will be catching
men. And when they had brought their
boats to land, they left everything and followed him.
Thank you for your word, Lord. So we're going to look then.
Actually, before I say that, you know what I love about
scripture, and I'm sure you love it too, is that there is so many
aspects and angles, if you like, in depth to his word.
You know, Charles Spurgeon, the great Victorian preacher, used
to tell his students that you need to soak in the word.
I love that. He likes a nice soak in the
bath. Yeah, me too.
Really. Yeah.
Get some candles. What?
Yeah, I like some candles. Get some bubble bath, whatever
it might be, and soak. And that's what we call to do
with the scriptures. We never soak in the scriptures,
really. We might tap into it, but it's
as you soak into it that it soaks into you and you see the
depth. And Can you believe that in just
that short story, there are 10 hallmarks at least of the call
of God in our lives. And that's what we're going to
uncover. Just some general observations
before we look at these. And I'm going to attempt to do 3
this morning and then we'll see how we go over the next couple
of weeks. First off to say this, this is
not an exhaustive list. Okay this is not an exhaustive
is God the hallmarks of God's calling our lives a myriad, but
I just want to give you 10 that are helpful.
The 2nd observation is this is that when we come to God's
Kingdom principles, they seem as if they are a paradox.
OK? And we often say, don't we, that
this is God's Kingdom is the upside down Kingdom.
I kind of like that, but I kind of don't.
I'll tell you why I don't like that phrase.
We are in the upside down Kingdom world now as a result of
the full God's Kingdom was never upside down.
It was the right way round. Do you know what I mean?
So that's why when we hear things like, you know, die once
you die to yourself, then you will truly live.
What? That's a bit crazy.
You heard that one. Or those that are last will be
first. That doesn't make sense.
Bless your enemy. Pray for them.
What? And so the principles that we're
going to look at are those kind of really those seemingly
paradoxical principles that the world.
And when I use the phrase the world, I mean the the structures
and the religion of this world that are contrary to God's
truth. It may seem strange to us.
So those are our observations. And with that, we're going to
start on the first one, and it is this pause for dramatic
effect #1. God calls us at the point where
we feel weak and tired. God often calls us at the point
of which we feel weak and tired. What do we read in this story?
Well, Simon and the rest of his buddies were out all night
fishing because that's what professional fishermen did,
because that would be when you get all of the fish, the most
amount of fish you would go out at night.
And in fact, if you were recording the scriptures here in
the story, I read it, he said we toiled all night, toiling is
back breaking work and here they are.
You can just imagine them. Oh, they've just finished their
toiling. I thought, Oh well, we didn't
catch anything. But you know what?
I'm going home to have a shower freshen up, you know, might get
a latte or a Longo or something and just chillax.
So because I am wack toe, wow, I should have been a poet.
That was very impressive. What am I?
And so all of a sudden in this tired, exhausted, toil field
state, Jesus comes along great time in Jesus and says, come on,
let's go. We've got some things to do
essentially. And you can imagine in this
story, she's like, right, let's go into the deep and put your
Nets out. And Simon is like, I am so
tired, please, we toiled all night.
I'm exhausted. The last thing I want to do is
do. Quite frankly, I feel weak.
I don't actually feel like a very good fisherman, quite
frankly, because I didn't catch anything last night.
I feel insecure. I'm just not sure I'm cut out
for this fisherman thing anyway. And you see, what is true in our
lives is often times when Jesus comes to call us to walk in the
Great Commission. The what do I mean by the
Commission? It's the extending His Kingdom
to make Christ known in whatever sphere that you are in.
Wherever God places you, you are cool to make disciples and that
might be that God puts a prompting to go and speak to
that person by the water caller and say, how are you doing?
Can I pray for you that might be to knock on your neighbor's door
and say, you know what? I I know it's been a really
tough time. I've made this cake for you.
I've made dinner for you. These are those doing things
that God will often come to us when we are tired and we're weak
and we're like, oh seriously, you should have seen the last
cake I baked. Lord, it was a terrible and I'm
tired. And we read in the scriptures
that this is a very common way in which God operates.
In fact, I love the The story is in Mark Six.
We haven't got time to look at it now.
We haven't got time. Lock the doors.
I'm preaching for a very long time.
I've decided, so don't let the people out.
No, I'm joking. The the oftentimes when Jesus
will send out the disciples he does so when they've just
they're really tired. In fact the feeding of the the
4000, they had just come back from a ministry trip when God
had sent them out and they come back and Jesus says, let me go
and take you to a place where we can rest and get some food.
And all of a sudden the multitude come and he's like,
right. OK I'm going to speak to these
people and then he turns around to disciple say right, go feed
them And like you joking me, I need some food.
I've just been on a ministry trip.
I'm really tired. Don't ask me to do that stuff.
And what else do we see it? Weakness and tiredness.
When when God said to Moses, go and speak to Pharaoh and what
does Moses say? I'm not good enough.
I have speech issues, I'm tired and I'm weak.
Please send someone else, he said.
How many of you? You don't put your hands up, he
said. Please send someone else.
God. Someone else can knock on that
door when God called Gideon. We know the story of Gideon,
don't we? I mean Gideon was the weakest
member of the smallest clan in the in the least significant
tried doing a job that meant he was hidden from most and yet God
chose him in a place of weakness to go and defeat the
Philistines. What?
That does not make sense. What about David?
Samuel is going to appoint Anoint the next king and he goes
to Jesse, David's father says Right line up your sons can
imagine right the tool down to. No, Not that one.
Not that one. Not that one.
Is this it? Anybody else?
Well, you know, there's little David.
He's just sorting out the sheep. He's a shepherd boy.
Bring him over. That's the one.
What? He's the smallest.
He's the weakest. I know I've called him.
And you see, a hallmark of the call of God is often He will
come to us when we feel like David, when we feel like a
Gideon, when we feel like a Moses.
Now, have you ever wondered why that's the case?
I'm glad you said yes. Me too.
Why? Lord?
Listen, if I was God and I say this with great respect, if I
was God, I would pick you when you're in your strongest.
Yeah. How are you feeling?
I'm feeling really great. Fantastic.
Come with me. It looks like you've just been
into the gym. You must be strong.
Come with me. Looks like you've had a really
good night's sleep. Come with me.
But that's not what God does. Why?
I'm glad you asked. I'm going to give you 2 reasons
why God calls us when we are weak.
You're going to love it, #1. God's glory is revealed through
our weakness. God's glory is revealed through
our weakness. God's divine and perfect plan is
to reveal His glory. Did you know that?
And when I say reveal his glory, what I mean is, is that the
fullness of God's magnificence, his goodness, the truth of who
he is, his loving kindness, the the myriad aspects of his holy
nature is revealed and shown to all.
That is what it means when he reveals His glory.
And I know over 30 verses in the Bible which is very specific
that talks about the divine purposes of God are to reveal
his glory. Let's look at some of them.
You're I'm sure you'll know this one.
Psalm 19, One to four, The heavens declare the glory of God
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Whenever you get a an opportunity when the sky is
clear, just look up at those stars.
Look up at those stars and your spirit will hear the declaration
of the glory of God. There is no speech nor are their
words whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all
the earth and their words the end of the world creation.
I mean Jesus when he's going to Jerusalem, said Listen if if
they didn't shout Holy, Holy, holy Hosanna on the highest, the
rocks would have done it because all creation points to the glory
of God. What about this?
Isaiah 43. Six or seven bring my sons from
afar. This is God speaking and my
daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by
my name. Are you ready for this whom I
created for my glory? Excuse me, Lord, I thought you
created me for my own glory. Nope.
But surely you created me so I can live my best life.
Well, you know I want you to be blessed, but that's not why I
created you. There's nothing like realigning
the truth. The God divine plan is to reveal
his glory, to put us in our rightful place as worshippers of
him. Now maybe when I speak to this,
you're thinking, Mark, that sounds like a very narcissistic
God. I mean, let's just say it,
right? What kind of God is that?
That just wants to reveal his glory?
He must be 1 egotistical maniac and that.
I've had conversations with people that have been along
those lines. I want to defer to John Piper, a
quote from him. He's a well known theologian and
pastor. And he says this no matter how
deep we probe into the motives of God, we will never arrive at
a layer which is not love. Shall I say that again, no
matter how deep we probe into the motives of God, we will
never arrive at a layer which is not love.
And so God's motivation, his divine will to reveal his glory
comes out of his nature, which is love.
But the But why is that the case?
There's more to it. Let's drill down into that a
little bit more. Why is it love that he is
revealing his glory? Because we need to understand
the relationship between the glory of God and our deepest
need. And this is where we get into
the crux of it. We need to understand there is a
linkage, a relationship between the revelation of God's glory
and the fulfillment of our deepest need.
To quote John Piper one more time, he says this God's glory
and our happiness at never are never at odds.
His pursuit of His own fame, the revelation of his glory, is a
full commitment to our deepest joy.
Are we? Are we understanding this?
You see, we have been created to feel fulfillment and joy when we
bask in His glory. We have been created to worship
a God who reveals himself to us. And so rather than look at this
as some narcissistic God that's picking us in our weakest
moments so that he can reveal his glory through us, we should
see it through the lens of truth.
Which is this. When he reveals his glory to us
in those moments where our barriers fall down and we
acknowledge our need to him, then we experience joy, and then
we are fulfilled. But you see, the world will tell
you something different. When you're strong, you're
independent. When you can do it on your own,
you don't need anyone else. We haven't been created to be
independent, we've been created to be dependent on God.
And it's when that linkage is broken and we seek a life of
independence that things start breaking in our world.
The moment you go against the manufacturer's manual and start
putting petrol in a car when it's designed to have diesel,
you will see what happens eventually.
Initially, it'll be like, well, this is fine.
I told you car manufacture. It would be fine 30 miles down
the road. Oh, OK, fair point.
And that's like us with Jesus and you know, isn't it?
I don't need you. God.
And the next day, see it's all fine.
Next day it's all fine. Oh, start.
Things are starting to fall apart a bit.
And so here it is. The God is choosing to reveal
his glory through our weakness. That is why.
Well, me to say, well, that wasn't me, that was God.
I'm sure you can recall times in your life right now where God's
called you to do something and you've been weak and you
thought, I can't do this and you've done it and it's been a
blessing to someone. And you said, wow, God, thank
you. You've revealed his glory.
He has revealed his glory through you in that moment.
And I think, I think that this speaks to we talked about the
God is calling us into the deep, away from the splash park and
into the deep waters. I think when we allow ourselves
to surrender, we get to where Moses got to.
Moses has seen God move them out of Egypt.
They had seen the parting of the of the of the Red Sea.
And do you know what Moses asked him?
The thing he wanted he said in the Exodus 3318.
Now show me your glory. Just show me your glory.
I've seen the things you've done, but I want to see your
glory. Can I ask?
And I'm asking myself this first, How often have I just sat
there and said, God, show me your glory, Show me your glory.
Show me your magnificence. Show me your kindness.
Show me your splendor. Show me your awesomeness.
Show me your magnificence. Show me your glory, God, because
that should be the desire of our heart as we respond to the the
waterfall, the deep calling unto deep.
And I want to say this to you, if if you are here in the
spirit, say right. I want you to do this, that and
the other, whatever it might be. And you say, but I am weak.
How can I suggest to you that you're being called in that
moment? That weakness is not an excuse
and it is not a reason to think that.
Surely I can't be hearing God because God would only call me
when I'm strong. That is not the way it works.
Lastly, we're only going to get to one of the hallmarks today,
so we're in for a long few weeks.
Thank you Sally. Why else does he call us when we
are weak? One more reason, we are made
perfect, perfect in our weakness, the apostle Paul says
in two Corinthians 12/9. He says, and this is Paul.
He was complaining to God and said she said, look would you
remove this thorn out of my flesh?
And I, I, I'm, I'm rather happy that we don't know what the
thorn is, because it means that we can apply to all, all of our
lives. We all have thorns.
We all have those things in our lives that say, Lord God, would
you help me? I feel helpless about this
thorn. Thorn.
I feel weak in the face of this thorn.
And what what does God say to Paul?
My grace, Paul is sufficient for you.
For my power is made perfect in your weakness.
And then Paul says, therefore I'm going to boast all more
gladly my weakness. Because when I'm weak I am
strong. And the New Living Translation
puts it this way. My grace is all you need.
My power works best in weakness and grace.
We have a sometimes a wrong view of grace.
We think grace is there to cover up bad living.
Oh well, God's a go to grace, carry on sinning.
But actually grace is there to empower right living.
Grace is an empowerment. In spite of our difficulties to
walk in that which God has called us to, that is His grace.
It's something we receive that we should not receive.
We we we can't do anything for it.
Mercy is what God holds back. Grace is what He gives us.
And why is God's power made perfect and our weakness?
Because when we are weak, our walls of pride and self-reliance
can't stand. Pride is fueled by our natural
strength. Because what what strength does,
it can often inform the lie that I don't need God, I've got this
on my own. That's the subtlety of pride.
But you see, when we are weak, there is a realization that we
need him and his power, that in fact we can't do it on our own.
And it's in that place that God then moves.
I'm sure you all know that scripture, God opposes the
proud, but gives what grace to the what is humility?
It's not a false humility that says I'm lower than the low and
you're amazing. That's false humility.
Humility is recognizing that he is God and we are His.
That's simply humility. And so when we get to that place
of humility, of recognizing that we are weak, blessed are the
poor in spirit. What does that mean?
It doesn't mean that you've got no money in your bank account.
It means that you recognize that you are empty and that you need
the power of Christ in your life.
Blessed are the poor in spirit. You are blessed when you come
humbly to Him and say, I am weak and I need you.
And so God can work through us. Therefore with His power, His
grace, when He calls us in that place of our humility, that
weakness brings. Do you hear that?
And humility is a choice. Humility is a choice that we
walk in. And so as I invite the band up,
I want to just summarize. We often think that we should be
called by God too. Extend his Kingdom to pray for
someone that needs prayer to, to to look after someone's kids
when they're in despair, to be bold and courageous and say no.
I think God says this. We often think that God will
call us to do those things when we are feeling wide awake and
strong and capable. But I think what you've seen by
this story is that the opposite is true.
God will call us in a place of potential despondency, of
questioning our own ability, and a place of tiredness and
weakness. But it is in that place, you
see, that God moves. It is in that place of weakness
that He reveals who He is and His glory.
It is in that place of weakness that his power comes through us.
As we walk in the cool that God has for us.
Let us stand church as I pray. Thank you, Jesus.