Just Walk Across the Room
Grander Vision Living
(Week 4)
Luke 5:1-11
Please Note: This sermon
was adapted and used with permission from the “Just Walk Across
the Room Four-Week Experience” by Bill Hybels, produced by Willow
Creek and Zondervan Publishing who maintain all copyrights
The actual wording of this sermon is original, except where noted, and
draws on the points and ideas from Hybels’ transcript.
Introduction
We are on week four of a four-week sermon and Sunday School series
learning together how to “just walk across rooms.” We
have been learning together how to step out of our relational comfort
zones to walk across rooms, yards, offices, school hallways, wherever
God strategically places us, in order to connect with new people to be
used of God to plant one small seed of the gospel.
Now if you’ve been participating in this series and practicing
the principles and methods being presented these past three weeks, then
you are now fully equipped to be used of God to connect with others in
ways that can impact lives for eternity! No more excuses
accepted!
The only piece missing now is for all of us to capture a grander vision
for our life and the lives of those still caught in darkness.
Becoming impassioned by such a vision is the topic of today’s
sermon.
Let us pray…
Scripture reading…
*****
When I first moved to Alaska, I worked for a summer doing commercial
fishing with my brother-in-law. It didn’t take long to
realize that fishing was not my calling! I was a spoiled city boy
use to working 7 hours a day with my dad. Now I found myself
working with a bunch of crazy, rough, smelly, risk taking, pirate kind
of guys who lived to fish. This wasn’t their job.
Fishing was their life!
And when it was time to fish…you fished. When the fish
were running and the window was opened by fish and game to the
fishermen to fish, you fished, non stop the whole open window of time
whether it was 10 hours or 24 hours straight!
And we’re not talking sitting on a river bank leisurely hoping
for an occasional bite. This is out on the high seas with water
so cold they give a healthy man ten minutes to live if you fall
in. Hundreds of large fishing boats racing up and down a narrow
inlet of water all chasing after the same schools of Salmon or
Halibut. Letting out hundreds of miles of net or bottom fishing
line as fast as you can.
It was intense, dangerous, and exhausting, and these guys lived for the
Adeline rush and the thrill of the catch!
To me it was just plain nuts! I realize now that, like Simon
Peter, God was preparing me to be a fisher of men of women, not Halibut
and Salmon. And I did learn some valuable lessons on how to fish
for men and women from that very short career as a fisherman. The
same lessons that we learn from our Bible passage this morning.
When we examine the character of Peter throughout the New Testament, we
encounter him very much like some of the commercial fishermen I met in
Alaska. A bit gruff and a bit rough around the edges. Hard
working, spontaneous, strongly competitive, and fiercely independent.
So when this Christ, this rabbi, this teacher comes along and started
to give Peter and his gang some fishing tips, their initial reaction
was skepticism, perhaps even a bit of arrogance.
What did Simon say at first, “Master, we’ve been fishing
hard day and night and haven’t even caught a minnow.”
In other words, “Master, look, you’re a great teacher and
all, but we’re the professional fishermen here, how can you
presume to give us advice on fishing.”
However, by this time, Simon Peter must have heard enough about
Jesus’ reputation to also say in his heart something like,
“Well I have heard some pretty amazing things about this Jesus,
miracles and stuff. And we sure could use some fish to
sell. Ok, I’ll humor him give it a try, what can it
hurt.” So Simon says, “OK Lord, if you say so, well
try it your way.” Sure enough, they hauled in a catch so
huge their nets began to break!
So what was Jesus up to in granting this miracle harvest? Well
our Bible story goes on to reveal what Christ was up to in
Peter’s life. Christ told him, “Simon, come follow
me, I’m going to make you into a fisher of men and
women.” Christ was calling Simon Peter to grander vision
living.
Christ was calling Peter, as He still calls each of us, to live a life
that serves a higher purpose than just personal success and
happiness. To live a life that doesn’t just make a living,
but connects others to eternal life.
So much of living a life that matters, of living a life that is truly
satisfying, of living a life that pleases God all comes down to keeping
the right perspective and the right priorities.
In just trying to make it through another day, raise our kids, make
ends meet, get through seasons of trial, keep all the plates in our
life spinning instead of crashing all around us, it’s just so
easy to live under the tyranny of the urgent.
It’s just so easy to live in the “O I’ll get to those
more important matters someday soon.” Only the
“someday day soon” keeps getting consumed by the
“overwhelming now!”
Most Americans are so busy that they allow years of their life to be
robbed of what is most important by what is most pressing.
Friends, Christ keeps calling us to reject such a lifestyle, to put off
this yoke of busyness and the never-ending pursuit of worldly
happiness, and take on His yoke of kingdom priorities.
Christ calls us to live a life that focuses on what really matters the
most. What is the most important thing in life?
People. And what is the most important activity in life?
Connecting lost people who are hell bound to a saving relationship with
Christ. What is the one thing you can take with you into
eternity? Relationships!
So we’re talking today about living grander vision lives.
Lives caught up in making a difference for eternity. And to live
such lives we must have the right priorities. And the most
important priority we can have is putting people first.
Living a Grander Vision life means
that: Your priority is people
Now, this is a key point. Living grander vision lives does not
mean that everyone of you should become full time pastors or
evangelists. It means that you reframe your position and place in
life from a missional perspective. God could have chosen to call
me to be a fisher of men and women while keeping me an actual
fishermen. God knows that crowd needed a missionary in their
midst!
Grander vision living is all about living life as a partner with our
triune God in their missionary work wherever God has planted you.
No matter what your place and stage is in life right now, make people a
priority; all people, but especially unsaved people!
A true Christ-follower will be deeply concerned about the same people
for whom Christ is deeply concerned, namely the lost, those still not
connected in a saving relationship with Christ. You simply cannot
call yourself a Christian and not feel deep compassion for the lost.
To be a Christian is to be filled with the Holy Spirit and learning how
to be like Christ. To be like Christ above any other description
is to be someone who loves lost people and therefore seeks to save lost
people. This is the heartbeat of the Father, Son, &
Spirit. I just don’t know how one can claim to be in
Christ, and not feel deep compassion toward the hurting and the lost!
On the other hand, when we respond to this deep compassion for the lost
and hurting, placed within us by the Holy Spirit, then we will be
making connection with people whose lives are often offensive.
Some of the people we reach out to in order to plant seeds of the
gospel will be living fairly moral lives, and so at least on the
surface, their lifestyle and character might not appear much different
from ours.
But often the people who Christ invites us to reach out to are engaed
in behaviors, attitudes, or lifestyles that we find at least troubling
and sometimes deeply offensive. This reality leads to our second
observation about what is required to live a grander vision life, to
live as a missional Christ-follower.
Living a Grander Vision life means
that: Your Focus is on the potential in people
What potential? The potential of who a person could be once
Christ gets a hold of his or her life! When Christ was taking His
walk across the room on planet Earth, He did so always holding out a
vision of who others could be, not who they were when he first meet
them. Indeed, what keeps our Triune God patiently and
relentlessly pouring grace toward the whole human race is their vision
for who we will be once the kingdom of God is fulfilled and we are all
co-rulers with Christ of the universe!
• Christ saw
past a shy 14-year old girl and saw the mother of Jesus
• Christ saw past a man possessed with a legion
of demons and saw a missionary to a town he would not get to visit
• Christ saw past a gruff, foul-mouthed,
arrogant fisherman and saw an apostle who would be the very pillar of
the Church Christ was birthing
• Christ saw past a corrupt and traitorous tax
collector and saw an apostle who would be used to write the very Word
of God in a gospel
• Christ saw past the intellectual arrogance of
Nicodemus to see a man who would become his missionary to the Pharisees
• Christ saw past a non-Jewish, promiscuous
women’s lifestyle to see a daughter of God who would be used to
bring a whole town to faith
• And one day, Christ and young daughter of God
named Kelly saw past the perverted, arrogant, addicted, confused
lifestyle of this young man and saw a minister of the gospel!
And aren’t you glad Christ once saw and continues to see past
your ugliness to continually call you to be who your really are as a
child of God, to live a grader vision life!?
You know, it’s usually the wildest kid in youth group that ends
up being a strong Christian leader! It’s usually the most
sinful of people that end up being the most passionate
Christians! It’s usually the one who puts up the strongest
resistance to the gospel that is the closet to accepting the gospel!
So let’s allow the love of Christ in us to empower us to always
look past a person’s sin to see the saint. Have a vision
for who a person can be once Christ gets a hold of his or her life, and
then move into the mess and mystery of their life to pour grace and
invite to the gospel!
In addition to the three principles of what is required to live a
“grander vision” life, I want to present you three important fishing lessons
I learned from my very brief career as a commercial fishermen, and that
we discover in our Bible passage this morning.
The first lesson in this:
To be
successful as fishing, you have to have to have the right fishing gear
and keep that gear in top working order.
As hired deck hand, the majority of my job consisted of tending the
gear; hours after hours of stringing net, cleaning the boat, preparing
bait. And of course, the fishermen and fisher women were never
content with their boats. O no, you always had to be working
toward getting a bigger and faster boat!
For us to become increasingly more fruitful in fishing for people, we
too must have the right gear. That is why we have spent four
weeks learning together this model of relational evangelism. It
is one of the most effective models for our time.
But for us to become ever better fishers of people, we too must keep
our gear in top working order. And the only way to do that is
through practice! So let’s all make a commitment to put
into practice what we’ve been learning about how to walk across
rooms, yards, neighborhoods, offices, school hallways, wherever
to connect with hurting, lost people and point them to Christ.
Start Small … but Start!
The second fishing lesson is this:
When it is time to fish you fish!
When the fish are biting you fish. You don’t sleep.
You barely eat. You don’t keep working on your gear.
You don’t go to fishing seminars! You don’t sit in
fishing committees planning how to fish. You fish!
Christ admonishes us in John 4, “Do
not say that in about four months it will be time to harvest? I'm
telling you to open your eyes and take a good look at what's right in
front of you. The fields are ripe. It's harvest
time!”
The fields are ripe in Dubuque. It’s harvest time!
It’s time to fish.
But our third fishing lesson is this:
we need to know where to fish,
which also leads to our last principle of
Grander Vision living:
We must always remember that this calling to walk across rooms cannot
be done in our own power! All ministry activity, and certainly
evangelism, must be done in participation with Christ in the power of
the Holy Spirit!
Living a Grander Vision life means
that: Your power is in participating with Christ
Salvation is an act of God from start to finish. God
doesn’t need us to save anyone. God invites us to
participate with Him in the process, not because He needs us, but
because God wants us to join in on the fun!
I noticed an interesting dynamic among the fishermen in Alaska.
As fiercely independent and as highly competitive as they were, they
still formed small groups who networked together when the actual
fishing was going on. You see, they never knew where exactly the
schools of fish were located, and the Cook Inlet area where they were
fishing was huge. By networking together and communicating via
radio, they could spread out and cover more area. When one found
a hot spot, he could inform the others in that small group and share
the harvest. You see, as every fisherman or fisherwoman knows, to
be successful you got to know where to fish!
Simon Peter and his fishing crew had been out fishing hard all night
and hadn’t even caught a minnow! Christ hopped in the boat
and said, “I’ll show you where to fish,” and the haul
of fish was so great it began to break their nets!
Saints of Third, we’ve been fishing hard for a long time and have
caught just a few fish. It’s time we let Jesus hop in our
boats! When Christ shows us where and how to fish, we’ll
haul in a catch so large our nets will break!
How do we get into the boat with Jesus? Three primary ways to get
fishing:
• We all commit
to taking more “walks across rooms”
• We all commit to fully supporting our Alpha
groups by extending invitation, making meals, offering childcare, etc
• We pray a whole lot!
For a while, we were doing well in increasing our quantity and quality
of prayer. Then the summer came along and we got scattered.
It’s time to regroup in intentional, intense, fervent prayer
gatherings!
So here’s the “praying for the harvest” prayer plan:
• Each person
should continue to be faithful in the commitment to pray for at least
five minutes a day specifically for God’s empowerment for the
members, leadership, & ministries of Third Church
• All current prayer groups, choirs, and
ministry teams (aka committees) should renew their commitment to
praying for at least 10 minutes in every meeting
• Everyone should figure out a plan for
gathering with a few others from this congregation on a regularly
scheduled basis somewhere to pray for God’s empowerment for the
members, leadership, & ministries of Third Church
• To the degree possible, at whatever cost,
everyone should commit to regular participation in one of our prayer
gatherings here at the church. Starting now, these include:
o Every Sunday before
the service from 9:00-9:15 in the Conference Room
o Every Wednesday from 11:30-noon in the sanctuary
o Every first Sunday from 5:15-6:00 in the sanctuary
Let us pray…