Today, we had a guest pastor, Ethan Welch, come and speak. He leads Summit Church in Raleigh, and I guess he's friends with Sean. He continued our "Represent" series, and spoke on Luke 5:1-11 and how Simon Peter and his brother left everything they had as soon as Jesus told them to follow him. This passage led to Ethan giving us what he called the Three Markers of a Disciple.
1. "A disciple obeys Jesus no matter the cost or inconvenience." Simon had to have thought Jesus was crazy for telling him to put the net out again when he and his brother had been fishing at the prime time for catching fish and caught nothing, but instead of saying that he said, "Because you say so, I will let down the nets." Jesus was a construction worker, Simon was the one who knew about fishing, yet because Jesus told him to let down the net at a seemingly bad time, he did. He obeyed Jesus even though it meant he'd have to clean his nets all over again because obeying Jesus is more important, and as a reward, he pulled up more fish than two boats could hold.
2. "A disciple recognizes Jesus' holiness and repents of sin." When Simon saw what Jesus had done for them, instead of celebrating, he "fell at Jesus' knees and said, 'Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!'" He realized that he wasn't even worthy of being in Jesus' presence. He didn't treat Jesus as just a friend who had helped him out; he saw how powerful Jesus was and knew how much greater Jesus was than him.
3. "A disciple leaves behind his own mission and takes up Jesus' mission." This one hit me the hardest. Something that Ethan said that I don't think I really realized up until today is that we are ALL in full-time ministry. Jesus' mission is to bring people to God, and as His followers, we have to take up that mission, as well. This is why Jesus tells Simon, "Do not be afraid; from now on, you will catch men." Our duty as Christians is to catch men. As Ethan said, "Theater Church, you should make it next to impossible for anyone to go to hell from Dunn. No one should ever face God at the end of their life and say they'd never heard the Gospel from anyone in Dunn, North Carolina." I immediately thought of my family, Matt, and my other couple friends who aren't Christians and felt extremely convicted to do a better job at sharing the Gospel with all of them, not in a shove-it-down-your-throat kind of way, but in the gentle way that makes them want to come to know the Father that I adore so much.
I can't be the Sundays-only kind of Christian. I don't want to be that kind of Christian. I want His power and grace to influence every second of every day of my life, to come pouring out in every interaction that I have. That's when God will be able to use me to bring people back to Him. Realizing this made me think of a time when Taylor told me, "As good as you know it feels now to know that your story has had an impact on people like me who are already Christians, imagine what you're going to feel when someone says they came to know Jesus because of you." I can't wait for that. I want everyone to feel the sense of love and security that I have surrounding me every day.
That is exactly the reason why I've been praying for God to give me opportunities to help people with my story. I want to help save lives the way people like Taylor and Bruno and Elizabeth and Michal have helped save mine. I spoke with Ethan after the service for a little bit, but we didn't have time to talk long, so he asked me to send him an email with my story because he said he could see the passion in me as I told him the basics. And seeing as he's a pastor in Raleigh, which is basically an hour away, maybe he'll be touched by it the way Sean was and want to do something with it.
Whatever happens, whatever comes out of all of this, I would greatly appreciate it if you would pray with me that I can continue to give all of the credit to God and use this for His glory, not my own, and that I can NOT be a control freak and totally submit to whatever He wants to come out of this. I want to follow him 100%.
"Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." Use me, Lord.
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