Risk 2

RISK

A New Year Challenge

"The Risk of Obedience"

Luke 5:1-4 "So it was, as the multitude pressed about Him to hear the word of God, that He stood by the Lake of Gennesaret, 2 and saw two boats standing by the lake; but the fishermen had gone from them and were washing their nets. 3 Then He got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and asked him to put out a little from the land. And He sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat.

4 When He had stopped speaking, He said to Simon, “Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.”

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I have called this series "RISK" because a walk of faith always involves a "risk factor."

I don't mean irresponsible risk, or foolish risk, or presumptuous risk....

I mean the kind of risk that we face when following Jesus requires letting go of security blankets, leaving what is familiar, stepping into the unknown, and walking on the Word!

Last time we talked about the risk of VULNERABILITY, how our faith walk really begins with becoming vulnerable with the Lord and trusting Him with our all...

We illustrated VULNERABILITY by the way Peter allowed Jesus into his boat, which represented letting Him into his life.

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This time I want to talk about the risk of OBEDIENCE, which is illustrated with Peter's obedience to the Word of the Lord AFTER letting Him into his boat.

When we look at the life of Simon Peter, there are several times when Jesus required OBEDIENCE of him when it carried significant risk...

In the story we just read, Jesus commanded Peter to launch BACK out into the deep when he had just been there and caught nothing--it was the risk of looking foolish.

Then later we all know the story of Jesus commanding Peter to step out of the boat and walk on the water-----which contained the risk of sinking into the depths of a hungry sea.

And later in the Book of Acts we see the Lord giving Peter a vision where he commanded him to carry the gospel to the despised Gentile community----which carried the risk of being ostracized by his own people.

In all of these cases, Peter dealt with the risk of OBEDIENCE.

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And Peter's not alone....

Every great personality of the Bible dealt with the risk involved in obeying the Word of the Lord...

MOSES embraced the risk of obedience when he walked straight into the lion's den of Egypt and commanded Pharaoh to "let my people go."

GIDEON embraced the risk of obedience when he confronted an innumerable army of Midianites with only 300 soldiers of his own.

ABRAHAM embraced the risk of obedience when he laid his only son Isaac on that makeshift altar atop the mountain and would have taken his life had the angel not stopped him!

NOAH certainly embraced the risk of obedience when he obeyed God and gave 120 years of his life to build an ark when as yet not a drop of rain had fallen, nor was there any water to float it in.

He incurred ridicule, mocking, social ostracism, and loneliness in his obedience.

Believe me, Noah was not among the invited to the social events of his day----he was seen as the crazy old man down the road everyone joked about. That hurt!

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Now, I want to point out 3 things involved with taking the RISK OF OBEDIENCE to the Lord.

When it doesn't make sense

Jesus's command made no sense to Peter.

It flew in the face of everything he'd known as a fisherman, which was---if the fish weren't biting all night long, they're not going to be biting now!

Peter had to deal with the protests of his own mind in order to take the RISK OF OBEDIENCE.

And We deal with this all the time in the Christian walk.

For instance, when the Lord says "Bless those that curse you. Do good to those who hate you. Pray for those who wrong you and persecute you."

That makes NO SENSE to the natural mind!

Yet when we obey, the miraculous is released.

Or how about the command to forgive when to forgive seems totally out of place, totally unfair, and seems to let the offender off the hook!

Many of the commands of Jesus don't jive with our natural thinking....yet it's the Word of the Lord!

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And the risk of Obedience also involves situations....

When it is humbling

There are times when being obedient looks FOOLISH to others, and even to ourselves---and we have to swallow our pride in order to obey.

It was certainly so with Peter here....everyone knew he'd been out all night and caught nothing...

And now, here he is, going back out there to the same place to let down his net yet again...

To him and to his fellow fishermen it looked foolish, even embarrassing.

There is no question in my mind that it was a humbling thing to Peter to get back into the boat, shove off from shore, and row way back out to the deep again.

Everyone on shore was watching, including James and John, his business associates.

With every row of the oar, Peter had to swallow his pride.

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FACT: Most of the times that God has ever told me to step out and take the risk of obedience it required humbling myself.

I always had to put aside the fear of what others thought in order to obey...

And there are times when being obedient is not only humbling, but can even be a bit SCARY.

If you think it wasn't scary for Peter to step out of the boat into the raging sea to walk on the water, ask him when you get to heaven!

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ILLUS: When the Lord directed us to get this building, it seemed daunting.

It was a mess that I knew would require large sums of money to renovate.

It was definitely a bit unnerving to sign on the dotted line and commit ourselves to what it would take to get it where it needed to be.

We had no guarantees, no backers, no co-signers, nothing but the Word of the Lord to do it...

There was certainly a RISK FACTOR involved!

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And when I first ventured into public speaking, it was very SCARY for me because I suffered from terrible stage fright...

My heart would pound, my hands and legs would shake, my hands would sweat, my mouth would dry up....

Yet Jesus said, "Preach my Word!"

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We take the risk of obedience when it doesn't make sense, when it is humbling and even a bit scary.......and,

When it requires faith in His Word alone

Notice Peter's response to Jesus: "Nevertheless, AT YOUR WORD I will let down the net."

That "nevertheless" was the turning point in Peter's life.

It was a life-changing "nevertheless" when he decided to obey in spite of the obstacles in his mind!

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And there must be the same "nevertheless" in our own lives if we want to see the miraculous take place.

"Nevertheless" AT YOUR WORD I will let down the net."

In spite of my own thoughts, in spite of what others say, in spite of the risk.....I will obey....

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When you think about it, the entire Christian life begins and ends with obeying the word of God....

We enter the gates of Christianity by saying, "Nevertheless, At Your Word."

His Word informs us that we are sinners in need of a Savior...

His Word commands us to repent and be born again...

And when we obey His Word, we experience the miraculous...

Throughout life His Word comes to us in a variety of commands, exhortations, instructions, counsel....and we respond by saying, "At Your Word" I will do this or that.

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Now, let me share a quick O.T. Story with you that illustrates this better than most...

There was a man in the days of Elisha the Prophet named Naaman.

Naaman was the captain of Syria's army....he was powerful, famous, rich, and seemed to have it all...

If Naaman lived today he'd be on the cover of magazines and would be among the top ten most admired people in America.

But Naaman had a nasty secret---he was a leper.

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In one of his conquests he had brought home a little Jewish slave girl who learned of his leprosy and strongly urged Naaman's wife to seek out the great Prophet Elisha for Naaman's healing.

Naaman learned of this and immediately received permission from the king of Syria to seek out Elisha.

Now remember, the 3 things we deal with regarding the risk of obedience are 1.) when it doesn't make sense 2.) when its humbling 3.) when we must step out on God's Word alone.

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When Naaman got to Elisha's house, he already had in his mind how the Prophet would heal him...

He says in 2 Kings 5: 11, "Indeed, I said to myself, 'He will surely come out to me, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God and wave his hand over the leprous spot and heal the leprosy.'"

And his own presumptions almost kept him from a miracle.

This kind of dramatic hand waving and crying out to God is what would have made sense to Naaman.

But Elisha told him to do something that made no sense at all...

“Go and immerse yourself seven times in the Jordan; and your skin will be restored and you will be healed.” (5:10)

Because it didn't make sense, His mind protested and he came within a hair's breadth of walking away...

So CHECK ONE--the Word of the Lord made no sense to his natural mind.

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Then next we see that Naaman had a second issue with God's Word to him----he didn't like the river Elisha sent him to, which was the Jordan.

He didn't feel the Jordan was good enough for him....he wanted to go to a river of his own choosing, one of the more "respectable" rivers in his own homeland.

The rivers he mentions were more beautiful, more pleasing to the senses, while the Jordan was lowly and sort of "other Side of the tracks" in Naaman's eyes.

So CHECK TWO---the Word of the Lord was humbling to Naaman....to embrace the risk of obedience, he had to humble himself to go to the lowly, less respectable Jordan.

It's impossible at this juncture to not think of the Cross of Christ....how many people don't go to the Cross because it's not as "respectable" as New Age, or some "Self-Help" solution.

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And then last, CHECK 3, we see that Naaman finally said, "Nevertheless," AT YOUR WORD I will go to the Jordan..."

With a large entourage of onlookers, the great military General laid his armor down, humbled himself, stood on God's Word alone, and waded into the muddy Jordan.

One dip, two dips, three dips....

Each time he went down his pride was stripped away...

Four dips, five, six...

With bated breath the onlookers waited to see what would happen when he went down for the seventh time...

The Bible says that at the seventh dip, "According to the saying of the man of God....his flesh was restored."

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The Risk of Obedience is always rewarded with a move of God!

What is God asking you to do that may not make sense to your natural mind,

Or that might require humbling yourself,

Or That necessitates standing on His Word alone?

In 2016, let's take the Risk of Obedience together and catch a net-breaking, boat sinking harvest!