This is indeed the last in the course series and we started
this back in September and we're going to finish this off.
I was like, I am going to finish this off this year.
And so we're going to do 3 hallmarks in one.
We'll come to that in a moment, but next week we have a special
Christmas service and we have both the Saint Albans site and
the Hatfield site together here. And AJ and Jenner and the team
are going to be leading that and I'd really encourage you to come
along. It's going to be a wonderful
time as we celebrate this Christmas season together.
And so Verso St. Albans and Verso Hatfield will
be here together and of course Verso the Mount will be meeting
where they are at the mount and yeah, do come along to that.
It's going to be very exciting. As I mentioned last week, we
start Alpha in January across all three of our sites and at
Verso St. Albans we start I believe it's
January the 15th, but we are building up team as we speak.
So if you would like to serve on Alpha then you should be signing
up Andrew and Joanne Mills, the wonderful Andrew and Joanne
Mills are going to be here in between the services.
They're coming to the 11:30, but you'll find them by the
doughnuts and if you would like a doughnut then you have to sign
up for Alpha. That's the new rule.
I'm just saying why not? But no, Alpha is an amazing 10
week course and we're specifically looking for anybody
as well who is a, what is it Level 3 cooking certificate
thing for the kitchen team. So if you like being in the
kitchen and if you are able to do that, why don't you to say,
hey I'm around, I'd love to to serve so and do do that.
Alpha is a fantastic, a fantastic course.
Really excited that we get to run this across all three of our
sites in January. OK, well, let's kick off with
the finale of the call. And we have been looking at the
call of the disciples and specifically looking at the
story in Luke chapter 51 to 11 where Jesus calls Simon Peter
into the boat. And as way of a mini overview,
in case you missed any of this, there's three calls within that
story. The call to be with Jesus first
because we're called to someone before something.
The call to walk with Jesus, that's to be in the boat, and
that's than the call to fulfill the Great Commission.
So those are really the three calls we've been unpacking.
And as it relates to the Great Commission, which is we have all
been called to make disciples of every nation baptized in the
name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that is something that
we are all called to do. And what I loved about Claire,
who spoke a few weeks ago, a couple of weeks ago, she
unpacked some different language for us, essentially saying the
same thing, which is we're called to Christ.
And from that place he then commissions us to do the stuff.
And I really like that way of thinking about it, which is that
our our stuff comes out of our relationship with Jesus.
And often times we we get so busy into doing the stuff, it
gets higgledy, piggledy, and the other way round.
And for some of us, we think that we earn his love by doing
stuff for him. And all of a sudden we we start
manufacturing works when Jesus calls us to bear fruit.
And they're very different things.
So we've been looking at within this story there I said there
are 10 hallmarks of the call to fulfil the Great Commission.
And as way of a recap, let's look at the seven that we got up
to. They're on the screen.
If you can see that God calls us at the point where we feel weak
and tired that we see that in this story #2, it will require
us to go deeper than we did before.
You know Jesus says to Simon Peter, go out into the deep #3
It doesn't always seem to make sense to us when Jesus asked
Simon Peter to put the Nets out in the day and he said, but hold
on a minute, We fish at night, we're professional fishermen,
and how often is it true in our lives that God calls us to
something that in the natural doesn't seem to make sense #4?
It requires obedience to His word.
We get to this nevertheless Moment.
Simon said. Well, listen, even though I'm a
professional fisherman, nevertheless I'll do what you
say and that nevertheless that obedience to His word is a
doorway into his blessings. Where we see #5 there is
blessing in the call. We saw that the amount of fish
they caught, number six, the call comes with others that he
wasn't called to do it on his own.
And #7 he reveals himself to us and we respond in worship to
him. There was this revelation that
Simon Peter had that this was Jesus and he got on his knees
and says get away from me. I'm an unholy guy, says do not
be afraid. Stand.
And so last week, Eduardo, our worship pastor, and myself, we
unpacked what it looks like in our lives to worship God.
And so for those of you who are good at maths, that leaves us
three to get through today. So lock the doors.
We're not leaving here until we get through these.
So I think an hour a call mark will be fine.
I'm just kidding. Why don't we look at Hallmark
#8? And in order to do so, let's
look at verse 9 together of our story that we've been diving
into and we read in verse eight. Would help if I got the right
chapter. There we go, right?
But when Simon Peter saw it, this was the amount of fish he
fell down at Jesus knees. And this is where we're catching
up from last week, saying depart from me.
For I'm a sinful man, O Lord, for he and all who were with him
were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, for he and
all who were with him were astonished.
And this brings us to Hallmark #8, which is simply this it's
purpose. The course purpose is to lead
others, to bring glory to God. Now this might sound a bit like,
well, obviously Mark, but let's just think about this.
You see, the Great Commission is not about making us look great.
Look what I did for so and so look how I showed hospitality.
Look how I was able to bless people with this, that and the
other. I expect applaud applauds.
Applauds, Is that a word? I don't know, Who knows?
You see, the the moment here is that Simon Peter's friends
didn't say, wow, Simon, you're an amazing fisherman.
We've never been able to catch fish during the day.
But here you are and you've caught all this fish.
This is not what happened in the story.
You see the signs and the wonders are signs pointing to
Jesus and wonders about him. This wasn't about Simon Peter.
You see, Simon Peter was the one that threw their net over, but
the glory was given to Jesus Christ.
And you see, this hallmark is really important because I think
it scratches at something in our humanity, our fallen nature,
where we really expect the glory to come to us, if we're really
honest. Now I know this is a safe place,
so I'll be honest with you guys. There are moments I'm like,
well, hold on, They should say thank you, like they should
realise what I've done, you know, like I expect some, some
more gratitude, some more this than the other.
I know none of you are like that.
Obviously you're all very holy people.
But you see in this moment, Simon Peter didn't say, well,
hold on a minute guys, I threw the net over.
He was on his knees with the others in astonishment.
And you see the point of the call.
When we fulfil the Great Commission, When we go, when we
preach Christ in Word and deed, when we go and love on somebody
with a meal, when we go and check on our neighbours and see
if they're OK and we pray for them.
When we lead someone to Christ, when we do all of these things,
when we pray for someone who's sick, our heart should be that
they say, wow, isn't Jesus amazing?
Because, you see, the point of the call is it's all about
Jesus. It's not actually about us.
And I know that offends us, really.
You know, John Wimber, the founder of The Vineyard, used to
say that God offends the mind to reveal the heart.
It's a good phrase. We hear something.
Oh, I don't know if I like that. Well, let's just have a look at
where your heart's at with that, then, shall we?
What do you mean it's not about me?
Oh, you mean I need to work on humility?
Why hashtag? You can't work on humility.
You just get on your knees and you'll worship Christ.
You work on humility. It's called false humility.
And it's just a piece of pride, really.
And so the point is this. On Hallmark #8.
And I'm, I'm only going to touch on this briefly now and move on
because we've got two others. Is this when you do something,
pray, Lord, I just asked that in this moment you would reveal
yourself to them and they would be astonished at what you've
done through me. That should be our prayer.
And that's your list of prayers as you go and fulfill the Great
Commission, because that is Hallmark #8.
And we're going to move on to #9.
And it is this. We move on in the story.
Isn't it amazing? In this very short story, all
these hallmarks exist. God's word is just so amazing.
You know, what's his name? Very famous.
Preacher and pastor. I've had a blank.
Nevermind. He said this.
Soak in the word. Soak in the word.
I've said this before. He said soak in the word.
You know, often we're so used to just skimming through it or read
in and go, OK, the more you soak.
We've been soaking in this word for three months and God has
revealed so much truth. And there's been a thread that
has weaved itself through this story and weaves itself
throughout the rest of Scripture as well as we poured in other
parts of the of the Word. And so as we as we soak in His
scripture, I want to just give you this tip.
Get one verse or two verses or a section and say I'm going to
just soak in this for one week. Don't, don't move on.
I know we have daily readings and they're good and I don't
need to stop doing that. If you do that, in addition to
that, why don't you just pick a segment of Scripture and say
right, I'm going to soak in this for one week, see what God does.
Ask the question, what have you got in this for me, Lord?
And there's another story of a of a professor when he was
teaching his students theology. And he would say, right, I need
to sit down and in silence we're going to spend an hour.
And I want you to come up with, you know, three things that you
can find from this scripture. And after about, you know, 5-10
minutes and after the hour, I said right now I want you to do
another hour and I want you to come up with 10 and 50.
And the point he was trying to teach his students was that the
more you soak in his word, the more that God reveals himself in
that word. We're so used to snacking on
content. You see, social media is
rewiring our brains to only be able to scroll.
Snack, scroll snack, scroll, scroll, snack.
And scientists will tell you that it's actually rewiring our
brains. And we have a whole generation
coming up who have an inability to focus on something for a long
period of time. Listen, technology is neutral,
but the devil knows how to use it for his own purposes.
We've got to be wise and stop snacking and get down into the
word and the meat of the Lord's word here in the Bible.
Anyway, that wasn't in my notes. You get that one for free.
So bless you. Right.
Where were we? Hallmark #9.
OK, Luke, chapter 5, verse four. And when he had finished
speaking, he said to Simon, put out into the deep and let down
your net for a catch. OK, we've gone backwards
slightly here in the story and this is really you could you
could read this and and and miss this.
He says put out into the deep and let down.
Listen to this. Your Nets for a catch.
Let down your Nets for a catch. Jesus didn't say, hey, I've got
this shiny new net for you. He didn't say, here's some
money, go buy a new net. He said let down your net.
Why? Because Hallmark #9 is this.
He calls us to use the gifts he has already given us.
I love this. Jesus didn't say your net was
just faulty. You've got a really bad net.
No, no, no, no. Use your net.
I've given you that net for a reason.
Let me ask you a question. What net has God-given you?
What metaphorical gifting do you have that you've said?
Well, that's not good enough for that net because it's only made
for fishing at night. And I've looked at that.
I said that in those days they they fished at night because
they didn't have modern day nylon.
They used linen and the the fish would see the linen during the
day. That's why they did that.
And so Jesus is saying use the existing net that I'd given you
in this new context. And for some of us, what we say
is, well, my net isn't good enough for this point here.
Lord, the gifts you've given me. I wish I had their net.
Their net is made of nylon. You're asking me to do this,
that and the other. Why didn't you ask them?
There's a great scripture in one Peter 410.
Let's look at this together. And it says each of you has
received a gift to use to serve others.
Be good servants Of God's various gifts of grace.
Another word is graceless. You know gifts of grace, Gifts
to empower each of us to serve others.
God's grace, I've said this before, doesn't cover up bad
living. That's how we normally use
grace. Well, God's grace is sufficient
for you. You go on sinning.
It's fine. God's grace is enough.
God's grace isn't there to carry to cover over bad living.
God's grace is there to empower right living.
When Paul said you're, you know, Lord.
The Lord had said to Paul, my grace is sufficient for you.
What he was saying is, is that my empowerment for you is
sufficient to walk through your trials and troubles and fulfil
the core that I've laid on your life.
That's what we talk about when we talk about God's grace.
It is that he gives us that which we do not deserve, and
mercy is holding back that which we do.
I'll say that again, God's mercy is holding back from us what we
deserve. And God's grace has given us
that which we don't deserve. And so you have been given gifts
of grace in its various forms. And we looked at this a few
weeks ago when we looked at one of the hallmarks that we've all
been created uniquely and differently to fulfil a unique
purpose, that we should swim in our own lane.
Don't look at your neighbour next to you and say, oh man, I
wish I was like them, that gifts are amazing.
Ask yourself this question this morning.
What net do you have now? For some of you, it's a gift of
hospitality. For some of you, it's you can
do. You have a spirit of
discernment. You just, you know, you hear
people and you can see beyond the flesh, so to speak.
You can see what's going on in the spirit.
For some of you, it's wisdom. God's given you this.
You just seem to. In these moments, God gives you
this, this wisdom to be able to help people.
Maybe it's a gift of empathy, like you're really empathetic
towards people. Maybe it's a gift of of, of of
being an intercessory prayer. Maybe you you get on your
whatever that gift is, what is your gift?
That? Maybe it's administration.
What is the gift that God has given you?
And I think for some of you, it's like the net has been
bundled up in the corner of the boat and you look at it with
almost disdain and say, well, I can't use that net.
I tried once and I caught nothing.
This appointment can often stop us from responding to the call
because what we really want from Jesus, if we're honest, is a new
net. If we're really honest, we don't
even like the net God's given us because we don't think it's fit
for purpose. It's made of linen, Lord.
And you want me to fish in during the day?
I don't think so. What net has Jesus given you and
what Nets is God asking you to pick up and throw out for his
glory? We're going to have a time of
ministry later and and I'm going to really be praying God would
be open. I think for some of your eyes
are already open and the Holy Spirit is is opening your eyes
to what those Nets are in your life.
What about that little boy in the scriptures You know we've
got the five feeding of the 5000.
Talk about feeling of inadequacy.
Jesus said to the disciples, hey we got to feed these people and
the sub was like, well, there's no shops open at the moment.
There's no shops anyway. What are we going to do?
Well then there's boy, I've got some loads and fishes.
Excuse me, have you seen how many people there are?
You think these poultry, small amount of loads of fishes, are
going to do the job. But you see, what happened was
there was an act of faith, an offering of what was in his hand
and what did God do? He took that and multiplied it.
Not only did he multiply it, there was leftovers, 12
sackfuls. And so we look at our net and
say it's not adequate. We look at the smallness in our
hands. See, God's not looking for your
capability. He's looking for your
availability. He's not looking for you to come
up with the resources. He's looking for you to offer
what you have in your hand, and he'll just magnify it and he'll
multiply it for his glory. Why were they astonished?
Because Jesus did something extraordinary.
They caught fish during the day. Have you ever figured that maybe
God wants to take your net that you might not think is adequate
and do something supernatural so that people will say that's
amazing, but that goes back to Hallmark number 87, which is 8.
I don't know. His purpose is lead to others to
bring glory to him. If that's our mindset.
You see, I want to be a fool for Christ.
I'll give it a go. I don't care if I fall fat on my
face. It's fine.
But listen, if your goals are not big enough, so big that if
Jesus doesn't turn up, you'll fall flat on your face.
Face. Then what kind of goals have you
got? Where are we?
Someone tell me which Hallmark we're up to.
Thank you. Right.
Good. OK, that brings us to Hallmark
number. Hey, we're ten.
Oh, thank you, Jesus. All right, here we go.
John, chapter 5. It's verse 10 to 11.
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. You're not going to be surprised
by this, but it is this all Mark #10.
Sometimes we'll have to leave it all, sometimes we will have to
leave it all. You know the writer to Hebrews
has said in chapter 13. Well, he didn't say in chapter
13. They made it chapter 13 after
he'd written it. But you get my point.
Hebrews 1316 says do not neglect to do good and to share what you
have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.
I know in my own life in Steph and and and my life and our
family, there have been seasons where God has called us to leave
everything. I've talked to before about
dangerous prayers, prayers to pray that are very dangerous.
One of them is like, Lord, do with me what you will.
Take me anywhere. I'll do anything.
Don't pray that if you don't mean it.
Steph and I prayed that, and we meant it.
After we got married and within a short space of time he sent us
off to Australia and we left everything, family and and all
those things. And we just heard that call and
it was a bit scary. But by the grace of God, he, he
made it easy for us to do so. And then many times where I left
companies and started other ones, there's there's been a
sense of leaving something. And even most recently next year
is my sixth year as a senior pastor of this church and what a
privilege it is to be so. But that call came to leave the
previous company I founded and I left that behind.
And we left that world and came into this world.
And for some of you here, you know that God is calling you to
leave something. For some of you here, you know
God is calling you to leave your job.
You're just too fearful to make that step.
And I don't want to make the light of of that process.
I'm not saying it should be easy.
I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is, is that in
that place of seeming difficulty that's when God shows up, when
we walk in faith, not by sight. For some of you, I believe that
God has called you to the nations in this place.
And God has said, I need you to leave this country.
I've got something lined up for you.
But you're just there is something I can't do that Lord
and God is patiently just waiting for you to say yes to
that call. I as I was researching as a
studying for for this talk, I came across a remarkable lady
called Karen Watson who was a missionary.
Let me just read this to you. In 2003, there was a lady called
Karen Watson who lived in California and she left her job.
She was working in the Prison service and joined the Southern
Baptist International Mission Board as a Humanitarian Aid
Coordinator in Iraq. Now, as the United States and
Iraq edged into war, she worked in refugee camps in Jordan and
Kuwait, living out of a suitcase, never having a
permanent home. When the war wound down, she
moved into Iraq, coordinating efforts to distribute 3,000,000
lbs of food, set up water purification systems and and
helping the Iraqi people build their lives again.
One year later, after she started on March the 15th, 2004,
while investigating sites for future humanitarian relief
efforts with four other aid workers, she and three of her
colleagues died from a rocket propelled grenade and gunfire
attack while driving through the city of Mosul.
She had one year, but she left everything and before she died,
this is what she wrote. She wrote this about the
missionary heart. The missionary heart, she says,
is to care more than some think is wise, risk more than some
think is safe, dream more than some think is practical, expect
more than some think is possible.
I was called not to comfort or success, but to obedience.
There is no joy outside of knowing Jesus and serving him.
Wow. I think as we end this series,
this is rather the perfect quote to end on.
Because when I read this and I heard about her story and the
sacrifice she made, it struck me to say, what am I really living
for? Am I living for the Great
Commission? Am I living to make Jesus known
and make him famous, or am I living here for comfort?
We've been singing about joy, and it strikes me that she said
there is no joy outside of knowing Jesus.
That's what we've been saying, but also this and serving him.
I suspect that and that we can know by the scriptures.
But it was difficult journey for the disciples as they
transitioned from fishing, from men, from fish.
Sorry to men, but I think it's safe to say they experienced
more joy as they served Jesus and gave up everything for him
than they ever did before serving themselves and their
comfort friends. As we arrive at the end of this
series, I want to I want to end where I started.
When I started this, I said the Lord had given me a picture and
pressed upon me the the need for us to think about moving away
from the splash park and into the deep.
That the challenge for us in our Western culture is that we're so
used to the splash park apparatus of fun and the
sprinkles that we get. But rather than say right now, I
need to move on from that into the deep, we ask Jesus for more
apparatus for the splash park. Are you hearing me?
But you see, if you're saying to me, Mark, but I'm a follower of
Jesus, then I'm going to have to say this to you.
Then you're a follower of Jesus into the deep.
You see, discipleship isn't about saying yes to Jesus and
then getting a ticket to heaven. Discipleship is about saying yes
to Jesus receiving the passport that he gives you to access all
areas in his Kingdom and walking it throughout now before we get
to him. But that takes a decision to go
into the deep. That takes a decision to move
away from the metaphorical splash park and dive into the
ocean of faith. Because friends, there is joy in
them. There is joy in that place.
There is astonishment of what Jesus will do.
And as a body of believers here at Versa Vineyard Church as we
embark on our next chapter next year.
Next year represents a deep ocean of opportunity to make
Christ known. And it's not about what are the
staff and what is the pastor going to do next year.
It's about what are we all going to collectively do outside of
these four walls next year. To make Christ known relies on
each one of us to say yes to the core.
To go in the deep with that letter stand as I pray.
Thank you.