A Church Growth Strategy

Luke 5:1-11

Transcript

Six years ago, like I mentioned earlier this morning, I sat down with a lot of church strategists. There's a lot of things going on, a lot of programs, a lot of retreats you can attend that are going to help train you towards how to grow your church. And I remember sitting in one of these strategy classes and one of the first things I heard was something so foreign to me that I couldn't believe what I was hearing. They told me that seven seconds, by the time somebody drives in on your campus, within seven seconds they determine whether or not they're going to come back for a second visit. So our strategy is all around the first seven seconds that they drive up.
So we need a parking lot ministry. We need to welcome them as soon as they enter into the thing. We need to have coffee and donuts and all these other things. This is what they promoted as a church growing strategy. And I was like, I don't think I've ever made a decision in seven seconds, so I don't know that this is true.
And I was. I'm a skeptic. So I was very skeptical of that wisdom. Well, then I heard other things like we need to position the church and how the worship is and how the church is structured and what we display to be very inviting, to be very welcoming. We want the people to feel as comfortable as possible.
And I began to question. I said, who is the church ultimately for? Is it for the lost or is it for the saved? Do we let go of our worship practices in order to fill the pews with people who do not know yet how or if they are going to worship God yet they are not saved? Do we orient our whole structure and our whole program towards them?
Or is church for the saved and we orient our lives and why we come together for the worship of God? These are questions that I begin to think through. I also remember a time early on when I first began ministry. I was a youth pastor, and every week we would talk among the staff and the leadership how people don't feel comfortable when they feel the spirit working in them to come down to the altar. And so all of us staff had to fake coming down to the altar to pray.
And I had a real problem with this. But I was young and dumb in ministry, and this is my pastor. And so we did that. And so there was this appeal to appearance that how we posture ourselves will lead people to truly be saved. And as I've processed all this, as I review all these church growth strategies, there's even one now where you'll see these campaigns that the churches do, they have certain sermon series that are meant to really appeal to everybody so that they might come and listen and that it's all about numbers.
And I just have to confess to you, I'm just not a numbers guy. I've always told myself in ministry, whether there's one person in the pew or, or whether there's 5 million, I am not going to change what I believe. The scriptures speak to what we are ought to be doing when we gather together. And so I don't change that. It doesn't bother me if there's pews not filled or if all of them are filled because I don't grow the church.
There's nothing that I can necessarily do or think of to do to fill in the seats other than this, to copy the ways of the world. If you guys would really like the pews to be filled, I can do that by next week. But it will have nothing to do with what we will see today that Jesus does. It'll involve a lot of money, a lot of entertainment and a lot of appealing to the world. We fill stadiums around football and everything else.
I can fill a room, I think I can do that. But it won't be around the ways that we ought to be leading the church in. So that's what today's strategy is. As much as we would like to develop a really nice program to grow our church, as much as we would like the tangible tasks to be given to us, that says if we do these five things, you're going to fill your pews. That is not the motivating factor for me.
God is the one who grows his church. Right. I cannot make you respond to God's word, but the Spirit makes you respond to God's word. You could not have stopped me with the bulldozer. When the Spirit grabbed my heart and he carried me to the feet of Jesus to lay my life down.
I have seen this on missionary trips when we're proclaiming the Gospel. The people who really that gospel took root in their hearts went around knocking on all their neighbors doors and bringing them to the next Bible study. That is authentic Christianity. That is I believe and this is why you'll see how I end the service is there's a brief invitation in my sermon, but I let the Spirit move. I don't try to conjure movement from you guys.
I say spirit, lead them. You need to repent, then repent. You need to believe, then believe. You need to pray, then pray. You need to stand.
You Stand. You need to sit. You sit. I don't conjure up your actions. The Spirit will move where he pleases.
And as people respond, they respond according to the Spirit. And I don't want to appeal in any way or touch that movement. And that's just me. That's how I do things. But our modern day church strategies aren't going to change with technology, right?
They're not going to change with the new great way to grow your church. I believe that since God grows his church, then he's going to do it his way. And that's what happens in our Gospel lesson. What you see in our Gospel lesson today, and what we're going to dive into here just for the next few minutes, is how Jesus literally begins building his kingdom and growing his church. And it begins with Peter.
And then at the same time as he's growing his church himself, demonstrating and declaring how he grows his church, he's also teaching Peter how he is, how he ought to be doing it, because we know what happens to Peter. He becomes the leader of all the apostles and to lead the early church into its movement. And I believe it begins and we see it forming and taking shape in Peter's life, even right here. So without further ado, let's get into our Gospel lesson and let us be taught how it is that Jesus grows his church. And by the end, hopefully we will have some biblical principles and to gauge whether or not we're practicing these things that Jesus is teaching us.
First, we begin with growing the church by the Word of God. The Word of God is the centerpiece. It's the thing that we ought to center everything we do around, right? Look at verses one through three. This is Luke, chapter five.
Now, it happened that while the crowd was pressing around him and listening to the Word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret and he saw two boats lying at the edge of the lake. But the fishermen had gotten out of them and were washing their nets. And he got into one of the boats, which was Simon's, and asked him to put out a little way from the land. And he sat down and began teaching the people from the boat. We see Jesus right here.
What happens when he is going about? He's displaying his glory, his messiahship, by healing people, declaring that the kingdom of God is at hand. And people are coming close to him, pushing in on him to hear what he is saying to them. What is the biggest motivating factor for people to come to Jesus? It's that they hear truth in A world of lies.
They're drawn to it. I had one wise pastor tell me one time that if you want to grow the church, then sinners come to hear the Word and believers come to worship. And so when you begin to orient the church lifestyle, understanding that at its premise that it is the word of God that that is going to attract people, then, then you can begin to understand how it is that people will come into the church. It has to be centered and founded on the Word of God. And Jesus displays this for us.
He makes sure that he positions himself in amongst the crowd that's there to listen to him so that they can hear him. And he gets into one of the boats, which happens to be Simon's. He's very intentional, by the way. He's intentionally getting into Simon's boat. And he asked Simon to push just a little bit, just into the shadow so that he can echo his voice on the riverbanks, on the lake banks.
And he teaches them God's Word. And people are astonished. So we have to first begin to see that Jesus will grow his church on the foundation of God's Word. That's never going to change. We cannot alter God's Word.
We cannot say that something else is going to be more effective than God's Word. We can. We need to echo what Paul says is, I'm not ashamed of the Gospel, for it's the very means unto salvation. We have to believe that the Word of God is first and foremost the only thing that will bring people to salvation. It'll be the only thing, therefore, that will grow our church.
When we center on and make our foundation of the church the Word of God, it means it needs to be important to us. It needs to be that we need to get into it. The Word of God needs to get into us as much as it needs to get into the rest of the world. Because it's transformational. It's effective.
Not whether or not we have coffee or donuts, not whether or not we have seven seconds to get people to come back again. People are already hurting. People are already far out. As the Lord makes known to Isaiah. They're devastated.
They're in a position that they're looking for truth and they're trying to find it. And oftentimes they're just eating the false truth that's out there that the world is propagating. But you know who has the only means of true truth? The church. The church has the keys to the truth.
We're the ones that have it, and we're the Ones that are called to give it. And it's effective for ourselves, and it's effective for them. So we first and foremost have to begin building the church founded on the word of God. But not only that, to build the church, we're going to have to go out. Look at verse four with me.
When he had finished speaking, that is Jesus. When he had finished speaking, he turns to Simon. He said to Simon, put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch. Now, what's interesting is Jesus goes from a public ministry scene to now he's turning his attention on Peter. He says, peter, I want you to go out deeper.
I want you to go out deeper and let down your nets. Now, this is very uncommon for the fishermen. They usually fish in shallow waters. Peter had already been fishing all night, so now it's daytime. Pay attention to that key fact.
So it's daytime, and Jesus invites Peter to go out deeper. Now, if you were to. If you were paying attention when we were reading our lectionary readings, you will see that God told Isaiah that there is going to be deep places, that these people will be devastated. And now he's calling Peter to go out to the deep. And what's taking place here is something that, as I was thinking about this this week, I think is best explained in Mr.
Miyagi and the Karate Kid. I don't know if you've ever watched that movie, but I remember growing up and watching the karate kid, and Mr. Miyagi does something so amazing that I think a good teacher is always compared to Mr. Miyagi. In my opinion.
Mr. Miyagi took a kid who wanted to know karate and didn't take him to a dojo, didn't take him, and practice karate moves. He says, send the floor, paint the fence, wax on and wax off. And Daniel LaRusso is like, I'm not trying to, like, take care of your fence and your property here. I'm not a carpenter.
I want to learn karate because I got bullies at school that I want to beat up. And Mr. Miyagi's like, send the floor. You know, he's just telling them. And Daniel LaRusso is getting frustrated.
Finally gets so frustrated, and he's like, I don't think I'm learning karate at all here, Mr. Miyagi. And so Mr. Miyagi, like, takes a toothpick, pulls out the food out of his teeth, and he says, all right, Daniel San, show me wax on, wax off. And he goes, aye, aye.
And it starts fighting. And then Daniel's like, oh, I actually know how to defend myself in karate, right? While Mr. Miyagi was teaching Daniel LaRusso something else to kind of discipline his life for the practice of karate. So Jesus is giving Peter a lesson and acting like Mr.
Miyagi. Hey, Peter, I want you to listen to me and. And we're gonna go fishing tonight. But in this fishing scene and all the commands that Jesus tells Peter, he's also learning how it is to grow the church. And so instead of wax on and paint the fence and sand the floor, Jesus says, go out deep.
Drop your nets. And Peter doubts, but he's compliant. Right? But Jesus is teaching them the first thing I want you to understand that you just can't stay here. You gotta go deep.
You gotta go to places that you're unfamiliar with. And guess what? When Peter, in the Book of Acts, he starts going out of Jerusalem, he starts going out into the streets. He starts grabbing the devastated into the deep places where nobody wants to travel and nobody wants to go. And he finds a net full of people that begin the church.
But not only are we. Does growing the church involve building the foundation on the word of God and going out, but it also requires teamwork, which happens in community. Look at verses 5 and 7. Simon answered and said, master, we work hard all night and caught nothing, but I will do as you say and let down the nets. And when they had done this, they enclosed a great quantity of fish and their nets began to break.
So they signaled to their partners in the other boat for them to come and help them, and they came and filled both of the boats so that they began to sink. What we learn here about how Jesus is teaching Peter to grow the church is that he is not ever meant to do it alone. Number one. We are told that Peter went out fishing all night and caught nothing. But now during the day, he's caught more than he's ever probably caught in his whole entire life.
What's the difference? The nighttime, there was no Jesus. The daytime, there is a Jesus. Which first tells us the community that we need to keep if we're to grow the church, is that you're not meant to do it by yourself. And you're not even meant to do it in your own strength and with your own knowledge.
You might be an expert fisherman, but without Christ, you're going to catch nothing in the darkness of night. But Jesus, he likes to do things during the day because day represents sunshine, light, and radiance of which he is. And so he's gonna call you to the day. He's gonna call you to work during the day and he's gonna call you to go deep, and he's gonna call you to drop all your nets, and he's gonna call you to trust in him and be with him. In order to grow his church, you gotta tag team along with Jesus.
He builds his church and he's inviting us into his work. That's a partnership. That's teamwork. But not only that, Jesus gets others involved. That even though he's teaching Peter, how can Peter bring in such this great catch into the church?
Right. If we're going with the analogy, he has to signal to people to come help him. You can't do it alone. You shouldn't be doing it alone. You should be partnering.
Matter of fact, Jesus in just a couple of chapters will send out the disciples for their first trial run of growing the church by twos. But this is why I will always tell you it is never good to be alone. One, because I know the devil would like to get you alone and off to the side. But two, it's because Jesus always likes things done with community. Jesus has always experienced community.
The Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. He knows not what it's like to not be in community except for one time on the cross bearing all your all sins in mind, he takes him on. The Father turns his face away and he says for the first time, in his first time experiencing my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus took on the separation from his own dad so that you can experience connection with him. Because Christianity and Jesus, God himself is all about community.
It never means for you to go in alone. So how we grow our church is together with Jesus making sure that none of us are alone, making sure we keep tabs on everybody so they don't, they're not being pulled away by Satan. Over here, we're like, no, no, no, no, no, come with me. Or maybe somebody's scared and doesn't know how to proclaim the gospel. Well, guess what?
Partner with somebody who has a lot of wisdom and experience in doing that and go together, begin to do that together. It's a lot easier to go and proclaim Jesus when you are supported by team workers and laborers. So we have to begin with the word of God. We have to be willing to go out to the deep places that we're unfamiliar with. We have to involve community.
We have to be all about Jesus and do it together, right?
And then this one, this one's a big one. Growing the church Involves worship. True, authentic, genuine worship that exposes us to the presence of God. Look at verses 8 through 10. When Simon and Peter saw that all that had happened, he fell down at Jesus feet saying, go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinner.
For amazement had seized him and all his companions because of the catch of fish which they had taken. And so also were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Now, sometimes this gets lost to us, this action, and sometimes the words fall on us because it comes from a different language. But the fact that Jesus, that Peter saw all that was taking place and he fell down. The word fell down is actually when waves clap against or splash against or violently press against the bank and rock.
You go from standing to face. Planting into the ground is the gesture of the verb he fell down. What amazement. And what I find most interesting is that amazed at this greatest catch he has ever caught. He doesn't say, jesus, you're amazing, so wonderful.
He doesn't say that. Right, Jesus, this is so great. Let's party it up. I mean, positive stuff here. No, he doesn't say that either.
He experienced and saw who Jesus truly was in what he just accomplished. They all were amazed, we are told. And that amazement is something that's astonishing looking and beholding, something you've never truly seen before. What is it that they saw? They saw more than just a bunch of fish filling the pews.
They saw and felt the very presence of the living God. And this is important because you're given a clue that what truly happens is in a church where you encounter the presence of God isn't a roaring rushing of yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It is actually falling on your face, bowing down in worship and declaring who you are, a sinner. All throughout Scripture, the presence of God bears a weight of his glory and his holiness. And you read as you read through the scriptures, you'll find then when God shows up, people tremble.
The fear of God is upon them. You think about Adam. The moment sin entered the world, Adam tried to cover himself. Then he heard God coming and he hid himself from God. That's interesting.
The presence of God coming. Adam wants to hide now because of sin. We just read about Isaiah, who encounters and sees the Lord. And what is the first thing out of his mouth when he experiences the holiness and the glory of God? I am a man of unclean lips.
He confesses his unworthiness. And here we're given Peter another example of a time when Peter experiences and sees God, the Lord Jesus, for who he truly is from what he's done. And what's the first thing that Peter says? Is he high fiving his fishing buddies? Is he saying, oh, look at this great catch, I can't wait to turn this into money.
He says, get away from me, Jesus. I'm a sinner. And you know what's big and telling and why? This kind of confronts the reality of church growth strategies and says, make people comfortable. Because if you make them comfortable, then they're not gonna be aware of their sin.
And if they're not aware of their sin, they're never gonna see their need for Jesus. What Jesus did for Peter didn't spur him on to excitement. It spurred him to realize, I'm a sinner, but at the same time realizes, but you're my Savior. This is why we have to do. The gospel is kind of a hard thing.
It's not a comforting thing. It shakes us, it puts the fear of God in us because we see what sin actually does for us. Nothing good. It separates us, makes us want to hide, it makes us want to cower because there's a good and holy God.
As I reflected upon this, I thought about my own life, the times that, as a lot of people would say, I got the fear of God put in me. That main agent that the fear of God came, even though he didn't intend it, was my dad. My dad put the fear of God in me and I walked on eggshells around him. And yeah, there probably could have been a way, a better way that he might have approached it, but I am actually as a grown man now, thankful that he put the fear of God in me. Because that's a small glimpse of what it will be when you are confronted with the face of God.
When you come into the holiness of God and there is no Jesus on your side, you will be consumed by an all consuming fire. But when Jesus is there, you will not be burned up. You will be like that bush that Moses saw, a fire being consuming you. But yet you're not burned up. You're being made holy yourself.
The holiness of God. The presence of God is genuinely what needs to be in the church if you want to see it grow. And we're promised this. The presence of God is promised to all of us right here, right now, where two or more are gathered and we're all coming together to worship. God has promised my presence in a very specific and particular way will be there when you sing praises to me.
I will be enthroned upon them so you can encounter God's presence because he's everywhere. But he specifically tells us in the Scriptures that he will be here among his people every time they gather. So if you want to experience the presence of God, you know it's going to be where his people gather. And when we gather, this is why we confess sin every Sunday, because we believe that God's presence is here. And when we encounter God's presence, the first thing we need to deal with is our sin.
So that for the rest of the service, now that sin is out of the way, by the blood of Jesus, we can commune and fellowship truly with him. And that's what everybody will long for. When they walk into a church, they want to encounter the presence of God. But when they do that, they're going to be confronted with their own sin. And we need to provide them an opportunity to hear the Word, to hear how they could be rid of that sin and have fellowship with the one true God.
And this is what Jesus does. In verse 10 and 11, Jesus comforts Peter, who had just told him, get away from me, Jesus, I am a sinner. He says in verse 10b. And Jesus said to Simon, do not fear. From now on, you will be catching men.
When they had brought their nets, when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him. Jesus doesn't just leave Peter in that state of worship where he's on his face saying, I'm a sinner. Jesus comforts him and says, fear not.
What that means, what that comfort means is that Jesus is the one who, in the midst of fear, God is to be feared. But you don't have to fear because I'm here. As a matter of fact, you're no longer a sinner. You're not even a fisher. But you're gonna be a fisherman, a fisher of men.
And I'm going to use you to build my church. Because my church is gonna be made of other sinners. And you can't go out there expecting to lead other sinners by way of the gospel to me unless you know that you yourself are a sinner. And that's where it begins. We build our church with those who the world has outcast, who hasn't lived by the world's standards, who hasn't lived by my standards.
We go to those who desperately need a Savior. And that's how we build our church.
And so it's these principles, it's these actions. It's what Jesus, I believe, is demonstrating and sharing with us by way of the gospel, of how he grows his Church. And it doesn't change the more modern we get. It's the same things I believe. I believe that if we genuinely and authentically commit ourselves, church to these principles and figure out how it is that we live these out among our community, then maybe we can see sinners just like us experience the salvation that we too have experienced and can begin living that resurrection life that all of us really desperately desire.
But maybe we're not good at it. Maybe we haven't done a good job of this. Maybe you're saying, like, I really probably should start doing that, man. I've done a really bad job of this. I don't know how to do that.
Well, the last thing I'll have to share with you is what happens with Peter. Peter doesn't do a good job either. Peter actually goes so far as to deny Jesus in his life. And after he denies Jesus and he sees Jesus die and Jesus is resurrected from the dead, Peter decides to go back to his former vocation and say, I'm going fishing. And because of his influence over the apostles, they follow him.
And they're all fishing at the lake of Tiberias. In John, chapter 21, read records what happens. And when you begin to read this encounter with Jesus on this end of Peter, it shadows and looks just like this encounter that we read today. Jesus is on the shore. They went out to the shallow water to start fishing.
And Jesus is on the shore. And they didn't know it was Jesus. And Jesus says, let down your nets on the right side. And they've been fishing all night, John tells us, and they've caught nothing. And Jesus shows up, hey, put your nets on the.
On the right side. It's morning time, typical of Jesus. And they put their nets on the right side. And they bring in more than they can pull in. They bring up more than they could pull in.
And John looks at Peter because something's familiar. We've been here before. That's Jesus. And Peter dives off the boat and runs to Jesus. And Jesus has a fire, a coal fire.
Why a coal fire? Because Peter, when he denied Jesus, was warming his hands by a coal fire. So Jesus replicates the scene. He says, I called you when you were fishermen to go and catch men. Now, now you've denied me.
And now you're not living into what I've called you to do. So let's have a bit of breakfast and talk about this. And they eat some of the fish that they caught. And Jesus says, do you love me? Peter says, yeah.
Jesus says, do you love me? Peter says, lord, you know that I love you. Jesus says, do you love me? Now Peter's offended cause Jesus doesn't believe that he loves him based on his actions.
Why doesn't Jesus know that I love him? He says, shepherd my sheep. And then from that point on, the pages turn. Jesus ascends to the Father. And on the day of Pentecost, Peter is not some kind of timid, sitting in the back, getting it wrong type of guy.
He's bold and he proclaims Jesus and adds 3,000 people to the church by proclaiming Jesus that day, Jesus transformed him. Even when Peter failed. Jesus says, do you love me? Demonstrate your love for me by going and getting more people like you and bringing them to me. That's how we grow the church.
It's all about Jesus. It's partnering with him and what he wants to accomplish, he will accomplish it. And he's inviting us to join him. Let's pray.
Jesus, we thank you so much for an example of how it is that you call us to grow your church. We thank you so much that you have demonstrated and declared to us how it is that we can do this with your help and alongside of you and with each other. We pray that we would experience your presence here in this place that we'd be confronted with our sins so that we can offload it by your blood and that we could be poured into with your Holy Spirit to empower us in our new lives that we live for you, loving you and tending to your sheep. We know that you have commissioned us and charged us to go out into the deep places of the world and to declare your word. Give us boldness and assurance to do this.
And when we fail, may you present yourself to us once again and remind us of the love you have for us and the calling to which you have called us. And we do this all for you, not for ourselves, because we love you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.