Jesus as Worthy...of Your Life

Intro

The last few weeks we’ve been in the Gospel of Luke and we’ve been going through the things we can learn about Jesus from this gospel…this account of his life and ministry.

Luke 3…Jesus as the Prophesied One

Luke 4… Jesus as a Man

Which brings us to tonight…and to Luke chapter 5. And I want to start by giving you the title of this message… tonight we are going to be focusing on Jesus as Worthy…now, in this series you’re going to see this title a few times. So consider this Part A....Jesus as Worthy…and our Part A tonight is Jesus as Worthy of Your Life.

Jesus as the one who is worthy of your entire life.

So I want to start our time off, before we dive into scriptures…with a question. Maybe you’ve heard this question before at some point…but that shouldn’t make it any less valuable or worthy of your thought. Because this is a question that begs to be answered…especially when we look at tonight’s message.

So here it is.

If someone were to take you from this chair right now…grab you, bind you, put you in prison for the night, and then present you in trial tomorrow morning...

As you stand before the jury and the judge...Would they find you guilty of being a disciple of Jesus?

Now remember, in order to be found guilty of something, it must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt that you have certainly done it.

And as you’re thinking of if they would find you guilty of being a disciple of Christ…begin asking yourself the question right now…how?

What would they see in your life that would prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you know, love, learn from, and follow Jesus of Nazareth, the son of God, the one who has made you his own?

Because I want to challenge you. Attendance at an event does not prove that you are an active part of what is going on.

Just because you go to a football game and watch it being played, does not make you a football player.

Just because you go to concert to watch your favorite band play, does not make you part of that band.

Some of you attend a catholic school..does that make you catholic?

Or those of you that attend Augie, a Lutheran school…does that make you Lutheran?

No. It does not.

And I say all this because I want to drive home the point in you that if you stand on trial before a jury to prove that you are a follower of Christ, that you have been saved and redeemed by him and now are a child of God....

If you stand on trial to prove this and your greatest source of evidence of following Christ is that you attend church or partake in things that Christians partake in…if that is your greatest source of evidence…it would not be enough to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are indeed a Christian.

Because many a people come to church on Sunday mornings and watch true followers of Christ worship their savior every weekend…and never truly partake in it themselves.

Anybody can open up a bible and read it in their spare time, or even set a daily practice of it…but that takes them no closer to to proving they follow Christ.

You know in college, one of my closest friends was a die hard atheist. He was the president of the atheist society on campus, he attended atheist events put on by famous speakers. He donated money to atheist causes. He absolutely and equivocally and undeniable believed that no God existed.

But, you know what he did almost every morning with his cup of coffee?? He read the bible. Read it to evaluate it, learn it, understand it…and critique its content and arguments.

That man read a bible more than I did in my college years…and I was the leader of one of the Christian organizations.

So let me ask you...did that make him a Christian? Or did it make him a better Christian than I? No.

Because just simply attending Christian events and owning christian things is not enough to prove that you are a Christian.

So what is? What is enough to prove that you are Christian? What is the thing that has to be found in every single Christian…the thing that would most obviously make it known to anybody that you were seriously following Christ?

That’s what we are looking at tonight in Luke 5.

So, we are going to be in two places tonight in Luke 5. Two different instances, two different men, but the exact same response to who Jesus was. And it’s that response that we are going to see makes all the difference.

It’s that response that we are going to be evaluating in our own lives. So let’s look at both of them.

Luke Chapter 5 if you have your bible on you. Our first passage will be at verse 8.

Simon Peter (Gospel of Mark), 1 and 2 Peter, is in this boat. Jesus has commanded him to put down the nets. Peter, after having fished all night and caught nothing, does so…and the nets are filled to bursting with fish all the sudden.

A miracle. That’s what we call those things. Things that defy physics, science, medicine, explanation at all…miracles. That’s what Peter had just seen.

and verse 8 here is his response to having just seen this miracle. Look at it.

Luke 5:8–11 ESV

But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.

And notice the “they”. Simon Peter, James, and John. Three disciples. Three men, with different lives, different backgrounds, different ambitions, thoughts....three men. Left. Everything. and followed Christ.

Before we dive any deeper…jump forward with me a bit. Look at verse 27.

Jesus has gone around doing several more miracles, cleansings…and healings.

Now, we see this man Levi…who we have come to know by another name of his…Matthew (the gospel of Matthew)…we see him, a tax collector (more on that in a moment)...

Luke 5:27–28 ESV

After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, “Follow me.” And leaving everything, he rose and followed him.

Now…before we put all of this together…I want to bring this image of what’s going on in these two passages just a bit further home...

These passages are very short, have simple words, and as such we could tend to not let them impact us fully in understanding the nature of what is going on.

So, this clip I’m about to show is from the first season of the show Chosen. And this is a clip of the very passage we just read…the calling of Matthew.

Check it out.

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So think about what we just read, and what we just saw.

Men…living their lives, going on in a course that would be perfectly normal to much of society...

Fisherman at sea. A tax collector collecting debt. Men, who had something to live for.

And as the roman guard says to Matthew in the clip, there were things to value and to cherish. What does he say to Matthew?

He says you’re crazy. You’re a tax collector. You have money. You have protection from the government. You’ve got riches. Your quality of life is better than anyone around you. Are you just going to leave it all?? And what does Matthew say? Yes.

And I’m here to tell you tonight. That “yes” makes all the difference.

We are reading the gospel of Luke right now right? Well in the gospel of Luke…we just read the account of how the writers of the three other gospels came to follow Jesus.

Matthew, John, and Peter (who was responsible for Mark). Many of you have living proof sitting in your hands right now…bound in leather, glue, pages, or even on the chip of your iphone…you have living proof that these men meant what they said when they said “yes”.

That these men followed Christ.

That these men truly left everything they had to follow someone they didn’t know…but had seen enough to know he was worth it.

Back to the question at the beginning…if these men stood on trial for following Christ, would they be found guilty? The answer is absolutely and resoundingly...Yes. And actually…they were put on trial. Both Peter and Matthew suffered many things, including tragic deaths, because of their sincere following of Christ.

And what you need to see tonight is that these men were not proven to have followed Christ because they attended his crucifixion, or were present for his teachings, or lived alongside other followers, or even read the scriptures he preached....

Just like you can’t be proven a Christian by attending church, coming to Thursday nights, owning a bible, and singing worship music...

No..the only way to evaluate the sincerely of your faith…is to evaluate what you value in life.

And…not just what you value…but more specifically…what you’re willing to lose to follow Christ.

The sincerity of your faith, can be directly measured by the value of what you’re willing to lose.

What were these men willing to lose? What does it say? It says…everything.

These men left everything.

Now, I want to show you what scripture meant by everything…and how that ties in with what I’m saying about the sincerity of your faith being measured by the value of what you’re willing to lose.

If you study the context of these scriptures, as well as the lives of the men that are found in them…you’ll see that they didn’t physically give up everything. Peter we see, still had a wife, and a home. Matthew, right after it says he “left everything” hosted a big party in his own house for Jesus. The apostle Paul still had family members he wrote to, and still owned books, and still operated a business...

So…when scripture says that the followers of Christ left everything to follow him…it’s not referencing a physical status.

What I mean is…these men owned a finite amount of things right? Just like right now…you have a finite amount of money in your checking account. Spend enough…and it’ll be gone. And let’s just say for this sake of my illustration here…that money is all that you own in the entire world.

Jesus comes up to you, tells you to give all the money away, and follow him.

You do it. (good job)

Here’s my question…when did the sincerity of your faith begin? When your checking account finally hit zero? Or when you said yes and began emptying it and giving it all away?

I would say, that the sincerity of your faith began when you said yes. Because what that did, is that it revealed the nature of your heart and love for Christ before a number in a bank account ever did.

Why am I saying all this? How does all this relate?

Here it is.

Those men. When Christ called them…they were not proven to be sincere based on what they were giving up…but the fact that they were willing to give it up.

When scripture says that they left everything, it means that they were willing to drop everything at a moment’s notice to do what Christ had called them to do.

It means that everything they had…became nothing to them…at the thought of who Christ was.

Why?

Because Christ was worthy of their lives.

That’s what Luke is showing us here. That Christ, being who he is, was worthy of these men giving up all they had to follow him.

That’s what you need to see tonight. That Christ is worthy of your life.

Let me ask. Do you act like that?

Have you left everything to follow him? Now, I don’t mean have you quit your school, sold your posessions, and left your family to follow him?

I mean…would you be willing to? Because somebody who has already seen that Christ is worthy of their life…left everything behind a long time ago.

Everything they have right now…is nothing to them compared to getting to follow Christ. Would you be willing to drop where you are at a moment’s notice to follow Christ somewhere where there is no promise of fame, fortune, financial security or well being.

Have you left everything behind…meaning have you laid down what you treasure…in order to treasure Jesus for who he is?

Let’s end where we began.

Back to the trial…the question…if somebody had to prove to a jury that you were indeed a christian…would they be able to point to your life and say…look at this crazy person. They don’t value the things we value. They don’t seek the things we seek. All they seem to care about is following Christ. Whether that be through their career, their home life, or the thoughts of their heart.

Clearly, they treasure Jesus more than anything else, because anything else doesn’t seem to matter as much.

Would that be you?

And if not? Why? What’s holding you back?

A lot of questions tonight…a lot of things for you to think about…and please…think about them. Next week..Luke 6. We cover how exactly to go about treasuring the things that we are supposed to.

That’s the key. That’s what these men did.

Look back at those texts…it says about all of them…and leaving everything. They followed him.

Now, I want to bring clarity to the word “everything” tonight.

Because just left on it’s own…there’s some assumptions that we may make, that aren’t true.

Because when we think of the word “everything”…many of us have this image of these men literally forgetting all they owned, all they had, all relationships they existed…and doing nothing but following Jesus their entire lives..

Which honestly…is a beautiful thought. But it’s not a thought that is completely accurate.

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