Something Greater Awaits

· God is calling us to greater things. Why settle for mediocrity when we can do better?

· We procrastinate. Resolutions are just another form of procrastination.

· Procrastination is another form of fear

Luke 5 New International Version (NIV)

Jesus Calls His First Disciples

5 One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret,^[^a^] the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. ²He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. ³He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.

⁴When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.”

⁵Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”

⁶When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. ⁷So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.

⁸When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” ⁹For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, ¹⁰and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners.

Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.”¹¹So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.

It’s a new year. It’s nice because it can feel like a blank slate. We have 360 some odd days to fill with activities, accomplishments, failures, etc. Some of you have goals you want to accomplish this year and then some of you don’t. I saw this meme on Facebook around Christmas time that says: “I hate it when people ask me if I’m ready for Christmas. No, Susan, I’m not even ready for today.” Maybe this applies to some of you for the New Year. Maybe you haven’t really planned it out. Maybe you are simply just coasting along, and hoping for the best. If you look at social media at all and have enough people on your social media, you will see a plethora of posts talking about goals set and resolutions made for the new year. It is the beginning of a New Year and a lot of you have probably made resolutions. You’ve made resolutions for everything from losing weight to saving money to getting up earlier. The question I have to ask you is how is that working out for you?

Unfortunately, most of those resolutions and goals fall by the wayside. If you’ve already relented on your resolution, you can take comfort in the fact that you’re not alone. New Year’s resolutions are infamously difficult to stick with long-term and more than half of us give up on our resolutions long before January 31^st. Why do we do this to ourselves? It only ends in guilt.

I think the reason we make goals for the new year and set resolutions is because we know that we can do better. I think it is part of that divine spark in us that is calling us to something bigger. In the Scripture we read a few minutes ago, we see Jesus telling Simon Peter to put out into deep water and to let the nets down. Simon Peter responded with something like: “Well, we already tried that, but okay, since it’s you, I’ll try again.” Not only did they catch so many fish that their boats started to sink, but Jesus was saying that they were going to fish for more than just fish—they were going to fish for people!

Why settle for mediocrity when we can do better? We’ve all heard that saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” We can apply that everywhere from our toasters to our spiritual lives. If my current prayer life is working for me, why should I change? I’m going to church every Sunday. For the most part, I listen (or at least pretend to listen) to the message. I participate. I leave feeling pretty good about my life overall. Sounds good, right? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it… But what if it is broken and we just don’t have the insight to see that it is broken? What if God is calling us to more and through God, we would be able to do so much more if we didn’t have the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” attitude?

There are no perfect systems or ways of doing things. There are only improvements we make over time. God is calling us to do this with our spiritual lives—with our relationship with God—our relationship with ourselves—and our relationship with others. As the church, we are called to be in all of these relationships as we are called to make disciples.

But it is easier for us to settle for what we have right here and right now. It is easier for us to settle into the mundane—it is easier to settle for mediocrity. It’s easier to say, “I kind of know God” or “I have been baptized; got my ticket punched—just have to wait for heaven now.” It is easier for us as a church to say, “Well, the pews are almost full.”

And I believe that we really do want to do better. But we procrastinate. If we set New Year’s resolutions, we are buying into the false belief that delaying the start date of whatever it is we’re trying to accomplish will somehow help us. I love these cartoons by Nathan Pyle. It is about aliens living life. In this cartoon, one of the aliens basically says “I’m going to become a better person.” His friend asks, “When?” He responds, “In a few days.” His friend asks, “On the day we traditionally become better people?” “Yes—but until then, I’ll probably get worse so I look even better when I actually try to be better!” Don’t we do that?

Say you set a time for a diet. Meanwhile, you have all this sweet stuff in your house. Well, it has to go somewhere… Wouldn’t want to waste it, right? Have to get all of that stuff out of the house somewhere. And the diet doesn’t start until tomorrow… but then tomorrow never really seems to get here. Setting times in the future for us to focus on our relationships with God, ourselves, and others is just like that. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying that goes, “Why put off until tomorrow what you can do today?” But then sometimes when it comes to things in our faith, we flip it. “Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?” The goals we fail to set and stick to today become the baggage we carry with us into the future. But the goals we set today and stick with become the reward we have in the future.

Goal setting and keeping take intentionality. It takes living intentionally to accomplish anything. Most of the time, we are so unsuccessful with our New Year’s resolutions because we don’t have a clear plan to work toward them. What if we intentionally set time aside every day to pray or read Scripture so that every day we are worshiping instead of only on Sunday? What if we spoke with friends of family about what we read and about what we prayed about so we could intentionally share it with others? About halfway through the week, you could look at the Luke 5 passage again that we read this morning to see if you see something different when you read it—see how the Scripture speaks to you. What is holding us back from doing that?

There might be something deeper to our procrastination. Oftentimes, we blame one another or ourselves for procrastinating—and we call it laziness. But I believe it goes deeper than laziness. I think it permeates our souls. I believe that the core reason for procrastination on most things is the fear that we won’t get it right—the fear that we won’t be good enough—or even the fear of the unknown. What if we go deeper with God? I think some of us have the fear of what will happen if we get closer to God. It seems like the closer one draws to the divine, the more likely they are to hear God’s call on their own lives. In C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, Mr. Beaver is talking with Susan about the lion, Aslan, who it was prophecied would come to free Narnia from the control of the witch. Susan asks of Aslan, “Is he quite safe?” Mr. Beaver responds with this perfect quote: “Safe? Who said anything about safe? Of course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

Sometimes, we don’t want to be called out of our hidey-holes. We like our comfort zones. Lots of people like the same comfortable pew they sit in every week and the same comfortable worship service and then to go back to their same comfortable homes. But what if God is calling us to more? What if God is telling us right now to lower our nets into the water? What if God is telling us that we are made for so much more than where we are right now? What if something greater awaits? I have many favorite quotes and this is one of them, “If it excites you and scares you at the same time, it probably means you should do it.”

I challenge you this week to look deeply at your life and your walk with God. Spend time in prayer. Ask God if He is calling you to something greater. If so, don’t be afraid. Don’t procrastinate. If God is calling you to greater things, you might be tempted to be afraid, because of course he isn’t safe. But one thing I can assure you, God is good. Amen.

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