On Sunday
we discussed four facets of a winning strategy for the game of life from Peter’s
example in Luke
5:1-11.
Peter’s amazing success followed his
obedience to Christ. We would be wise to
follow his lead and adopt the winning strategy of obedience where we:
- Obey Christ immediately and fully.
What would Peter have missed if he
hadn’t obeyed? What if it was the
miraculous catch of fish that opened Peter’s eyes to what Jesus could empower
him to do, to become? What if he hadn’t
had that experience? I doubt we would be
reading in verse 11 that they left everything to follow Jesus as His disciples. We see in Luke 5 that obedience to God will
open the way for miracles to flow, and it will open the way for us to be
directed by God into places and spaces where we can have a fuller impact for
the Kingdom of God. Peter not only
obeyed immediately, but he also obeyed fully.
He didn’t just get the boat back out and pick the fishing spot he had
always fished or the one he thought could possibly be a good one, but he went
to the spot Jesus had requested. The
deep water.Secondly, Peter utilized the
strategy of pushing past obstacles in order to experience great victory. -
Push past obstacles.
In order to have a winning day,
Peter had to push beyond some personal challenges. He had already fished all night and caught
nothing. Just think about where that
puts a person emotionally. To expend all
that effort and all that time and have nothing to show for it could really
impact your affect. We cannot give in to
despair or defeat. We are called to live
the life of an overcomer, but many times we live life overcome. Romans 8:37 tells me we are more than
conquerors. We have to learn to push
past moments of defeat. Don’t let a
moment become a mountain.Peter also had physical challenges
to overcome. He had to have been tired
after pulling an all-nighter on the lake.
There will be times when our physical bodies place restrictions on us
and we need to take time to rest or heal, and there are other times when we
will need to push past an ache or a pain in order to get out into the deep. A winning strategy will include a tenacity to
push beyond personal and physical challenges.One way we learn to push past
obstacles is to draw strength and gain help from others around us. I see this in Peter’s story. He relied on some other people when he got in
over his head. Peter utilized strategic
partnerships in order to experience and manage a great victory. - Form strategic partnerships.
I don’t know exactly how many people
were with Peter during his all-night fishing expedition, but Matthew’s Gospel
tells us his brother, Andrew, was there, and verse ten of Luke 5 tells us James
and John, the Sons of Zebedee, were there as Peter’s partners. Verse nine also speaks of companions that
were with Peter.I don’t know if Peter had to do some
convincing to get the other folks psyched up to go back out with him into the
deep, but they went with him. It wasn’t
just Peter in the boat. Whoever went
with him had the same emotional and physical challenges to overcome, and they
made the effort to support Peter’s commitment to surrender to the Lordship of
Christ. They didn’t try to talk him out
of going back out.Verses 6 and 7 tells us that Peter’s
partners became very important in that overwhelming and miraculous moment
because they had to signal to their partners to bring the other boat to them in
order to keep their boat from sinking and in order to be able to haul in all of
the fish they caught. Thank God for
Peter’s partners.Your friends, your business
partners, even your family, can make you or break you in many circumstances. Who you surround yourself with, in your inner
circle, needs to be strategic. You need
people in your life who will support your desire to have God as the Master of
your life. Don’t let anyone talk you out
of obeying Jesus. - Put your full trust in Jesus.
No one living in the world for the
things of the world would tell Peter to quick work on the heels of his greatest
business success. But Peter and his
partners saw an opportunity to partner with Someone who could take them where
they had never been and use them beyond what they could ever dream. He saw a different dimension to living, a
deeper reality. He believed that life
with Jesus could be better than life on his own. He believed that a spiritual life with Jesus was
better than his best day at work.This text isn’t about walking away
from worldly success, but it is about desiring to give your all to Jesus and to
respond to His invitation no matter what that invitation requires or where it
leads. It’s about trusting Jesus so
fully that if He asked you to leave it all, you would be able to lay down
whatever, wherever, and whenever to follow Jesus. That attitude is a winning strategy.Winning, for me, is walking so
closely with God thatwhen I hear His instructions, I have
the faith to obey and that when I receive His invitation to a new way to impact
people for the Kingdom that I trust Him enough to follow.
