Main Idea: Deep-water faith is obeying God’s leading for the future even when I don’t understand what he is doing in my life today.

Have you ever done anything that you knew was going to be the right thing someday but when you did it didn’t make a lot of sense? This week our daughter Amy begins her last year at Ouachita. Both of our daughters have gone to Ouachita and it has been a wonderful experience for them. Just so you know minister’s children do not go to OBU for free. Because they don’t go for free and because OBU is a private school we knew sending them there was going to be a challenge. We made that decision in 1993. Making that decision was easy, finding a way to fulfill that decision was the hard part. At the time our income was little more than a third of what our income is today. I knew that the only way for us to do what we wanted for the future was to make some hard choices in the present. So we started to save to provide for the goals we had set.

Saving for something that is really worthwhile in the future is never easy. It wasn’t then and it isn’t now. We would tell our girls over and over that the reason we couldn’t do something was because we were on the "budget". It was so funny when they would tell a friend that their Mom and Dad were on the "budget". One of our favorite family stories during this time was taking our girls to the fair in Ft. Smith. We knew we could spend a little on rides and could go out to eat but there was not much left. We rode rides and then stopped at a KFC near the fairgrounds for supper. Now through the years our children have been to some very nice restaurants and today I can tell you that KFC would not be at the top of their dining choices but that night you would have thought we were at a five star restaurant! Over and over they kept thanking us and telling us how good the food was! We still remember that night.

Now the money we saved in those years is long gone but what mattered was that it got us started. It was a decision we made for the future that at the time we couldn’t see the benefits. Last Thursday Kathy got all sad because this was the last time-hopefully-we would be getting one of our children ready to go back to school, I was thinking, as my father said at my brothers last graduation, "Free at last, Free at last".

What about you? Have you ever made a decision that you knew was the right thing to do for the future but seemed really foolish at the time? Some of you have started your career or business like that. It seemed really foolish at the time you did it but you knew you weren’t doing it for the immediate but that you were doing it for the future. Today you can look back on that decision and all the sacrifice to get to where you are and it is worth it. Maybe today as an adult you can look back on a decision you made early in life and it seemed like a ridiculous choice but you knew that it was the right thing for the future. Many of you today are teachers of the various ages of people in our church. You have volunteered for the first time or the twentieth time. You tell yourself you don’t have time and there are other things you could be doing but you say "yes" because you know that it really isn’t about you. You know that it is about God and following his leading for what will come in the future.

What about our church? We have made decisions in the past that seemed really hard but we knew they were not for the moment but for the future. We sensed in the past God leading us to provide the staff not for where we were but for where we wanted to be. We could have played it safe but we didn’t and that has proven to be the right choice. We have chosen to build a new Education Ministry Center at a time when the economy seemed to be really taking a hit. Now as we plan the use of that building and the opportunities it offers we know it was right. We have been without three key staff positions, one for over a year and the others for only a few months. We could have chosen to coast until we had those people to lead out in those areas but we didn’t! Why? Because we are not here to maintain but to achieve all the potential that God has given to us. We continually make decisions to follow God’s leading for the future even when we don’t understand what he is doing today! That my friend is called "deep-water faith" and that is what we are going to talk about this morning.

What is "deep-water faith"? Deep-water faith is obeying God’s leading for the future even when I don’t understand what he is doing today. Now the thing about "deep water faith" is that you don’t know you need it until you have exhausted all of your own abilities and energies. It is when you have done all you have known to do and yet you still hear the leading of God telling you to go farther that the very best is still out in front of you.

Jesus faced a similar situation with the disciples. The event is recorded in Luke 5:1-11. Some believe that this story is just another version of the first call of the disciples recorded in Mark. I believe, though, that Luke is telling not another version of the first calling but a renewing of the first. Remember that when Jesus called his first disciples they were on the shore of the Sea of Galilee throwing a net used for fishing in shallow water into the sea or lake. He tells them to follow him and that by following him he would make them become "fishers of men". In other words they would now be seeking people to follow Christ just as he was ordering them to do. (Mark 1:16-20) What I believe is that overtime, for some reason, these who were called returned to their nets and away from the vision that Jesus gave them. So he comes to them once again to call them away from their past securities to His priorities.

How does he reconnect with them? Luke 5:1-3 tells us that Jesus has been teaching and his teaching is so effective that larger and larger crowds were closing in on the space available. He sees two boats and two crews of fisherman washing nets that are used in deep water fishing. Almost without asking he stepped into a one of the boats and took a seat. He commands the leader of one of the crews named Simon Peter to push out a little from the land so he could teach the ever-present and growing crowd. When he finished teaching the crowd, he was just beginning his instruction with the fisherman. Boats, nets and fish had found their way back into the lives of the men he had called to follow him and they needed to learn some new lessons.

You wonder how they felt after Jesus had stepped into the boat. How many weeks they had been with him we don’t know. They may have been reluctant to see him and knew that he had already turned their life upside down before. They may have tried to blend into the communities around Galilee. They may have avoided seeing him for a few weeks. Now he was back and this time there was nowhere to run.

Jesus communicated his message to them without using words. Listen to how Luke describes it in verses 4-5, "When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Now go out where it is deeper and let down your nets, and you will catch many fish." "Master," Simon replied, "we worked hard all last night and didn't catch a thing. But if you say so, we'll try again." What you and I need to understand is: 1) Jesus was a carpenter, not a fisherman. What could he have possibly known about fishing that they didn’t know? 2) The common practice was that deep-water fishing was done in the night and never in the day. So he is asking them to do something that makes no sense to their understanding of standard fishing procedure. 3) They had been out all night doing what they did best and it was a waste of time. So we can’t really criticize Peter for being reluctant. Yet, in spite of his reluctance, he obeyed. He didn’t agree but he obeyed. When Peter obeyed in spite of his inability to understand the miraculous occurred.

Because of Peter’s obedience the result was overwhelming! Luke 5:6-7 says, "And this time their nets were so full they began to tear! A shout for help brought their partners in the other boat, and soon both boats were filled with fish and on the verge of sinking." It’s hard for me to imagine that much fish. Maybe that’s why Peter’s explosive reaction is so impressive. Listen to what happened in Luke 5:8-10, "When Simon Peter realized what had happened, he fell to his knees before Jesus and said, "Oh, Lord, please leave me—I'm too much of a sinner to be around you." He was awestruck by the size of their catch, as were the others with him." Did you notice something different in Peter’s word? He called Jesus "Master" in verse 5 – that implies obedience. His words in verse 8, though, are different: "Oh, Lord." That says surrender.

Jesus doesn’t leave well enough alone because he moves Peter from obedience to surrender to service. Luke 5:10 says, "Jesus replied to Simon, "Don't be afraid! From now on you'll be fishing for people!" There they are hip deep in flopping, fresh fish and Jesus is not even interested. In fact he uses the fish to point to the service he is calling them to – catching people, which literally means "catching them for life". His heart was not fishing but people. His real message was deep-water faith—trusting completely His ability to lead, care and provide for them.

Did they get the message? Luke 5:11, "…as soon as they landed, they left everything and followed Jesus." Isn’t that amazing? The most miraculous catch any of them had ever seen and they leave it, their lifelong occupation, familiar surroundings, goals, nets, boats, business and families. They are reminded again that people are more important than fish. They had come too far to go back. They could only go forward. Obedience provided the miracle that resulted in surrender and service.

What’s here for us? It’s this: Deep-water faith is obeying God’s leading for the future even when I don’t understand what he is doing today. Isn’t it amazing that Jesus wants to use my involvement to accomplish what I think is impossible. He even takes the ordinary, people just like us to do the incredible. But that won’t happen until we risk obeying him even when we can’t see the bottom. But that’s where the miracles are. It is in the deep that Jesus proves our potential by doing the unbelievable. Those four fishermen would not have bet one single coin on there being that many fish out there. Yet when they obeyed he broke nets and filled boats.

The truth is though that Jesus waits till we obey to surprise us with His best. You see all that the disciples had was the ordinary. It didn’t appear miraculous – until they obeyed. Then they experienced the miracle! When we obey, ordinary things suddenly become holy because they are in his hands. That obedience will at last cause you to let go of your security because you realize his purpose is bigger than what you had ever dreamed. It doesn’t matter if you are standing on the shore of a lake 2000 years ago or a member of First Baptist Church at the corner of Main and Jefferson on Aug. 20, 2006 the life changing vision of Jesus is still the same. He wants all those who follow him to be involved in catching people for him. The water’s deep. The future is uncertain but there are no miracles when you play it safe.

Let me tell you a story about a woman named Karen Bennett. On February 3, 1990, Karen Bennett and five of her friends left the suburbs and moved into an old abandoned nightclub in one of the most dangerous areas of Atlanta. For six months they had conducted church services for children on the streets in inner city Atlanta. They were living out a leading that God had given Karen in her college days. At last, they felt compelled by God to get out into the "deep water" of what they felt God was leading them to do. What you need to understand is that Karen is a single, white female who at that time was twenty-three years old.

Karen and her friends had been working with the children and could see the needs but struggled to see how they could make a lasting impact. They found an old nightclub in the middle of twenty-five inner city projects and asked how much it would cost to rent it. The owner told them $2000 a month. That night they each cleared out checking accounts, savings and "couch money" and it come to a grand total of $52! Karen contacted a few churches but no one was interested. The group met and made the decision that God was leading them to make this commitment and their only choice was to obey. So on a cold February day Karen and her five friends left their apartments in the suburbs and moved into the nightclub.

Understand that the building had no heat, air or water. They went to a Hardee’s to go to the bathroom. Their parents thought they had lost their minds. They wondered if it was God they had heard. Yet they continued to believe. They put all of their paychecks into the building and ministry and made four thousand personal visits a week inviting children to the Saturday services. Over time they won the respect and trust of those parents in the communities.

Today, Karen and her sixteen-member staff minister to over three thousand children every week in multiple services. They have a youth service that draws two hundred teenagers. They started a school that costs a student $20 a month. It has one hundred twenty-five enrolled with five hundred on the waiting list. They have been broken into seventy times, mugged, beaten, ten children and one staff member murdered. What’s her response? "If you decide that what God is asking you to do with your life is just too much on you and is just a little too inconvenient, then you will never see the miracles he has for you." (Visionneering, Andy Stanley, p. 129-132) That is the testimony of obeying God’s leading for the future even when you can’t understand what he’s doing today. It’s deep-water faith.

When Karen and her friends had the critical meeting as to what they were going to do with God’s leading they asked themselves, "Is this what we are going to do? Or was this one of those things that we were just going to talk about until we were forty or fifty years old?" (Visionneering, p.130) That is the place that our obedience comes into play. What is it that you believe God is leading you to do that you know it comes down to the fact that either you obey the leading or is it something you are going to talk about for the next ten years or more? Faith that results in active obedience is deep-water faith. We will not see the miraculous, awesome blessings God has without that faith. It won’t happen for you personally – in that relationship, career, circumstance, problem. It will not happen in our church. There will need to be some obedience in deep water to move forward.

Let me tell you something that I believe with all my heart. I do not believe that God has called us to simply ride out our days and just stay in the safe shallows as a church. I can’t tell you what is out in the deep water. I believe that God in his own way has been and is putting together a team of leaders here that can follow his leading out into the deep water. I can’t wait to see what this year will bring and where we will be one year from today. I don’t know what all of that will look like but what I do ask is this, "Are we going to obey his leading for the future even when we can’t understand all he is doing now or are we going to talk about it year after year?" Deep-water faith is obeying God’s leading for the future even when I don’t understand what he is doing today.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor

First Baptist Church

Jonesboro, Arkansas

btippit@fbcjonesboro.org