The Real Meaning of Discipleship, Part 1 | An Ancient Picture of Discipleship

Luke 5:1-11

In chapter 4, Luke showed us how, early in Jesus’ ministry, there were attempts to oppose and distract Jesus from his mission. The devil tried to tempt him, the people of Nazareth tried to kill him, the people of Capernaum, they tried to keep him all to themselves. But Jesus resisted temptation, he escaped from harm, he stayed focused on his priority to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom of God to other cities as well. He left Capernaum as we read in Luke 4:44, “And he was preaching in the synagogues of Judea.”

Now, when we come into chapter 5, Jesus has come back to Capernaum. An unspecified amount of time that’s passed by, perhaps a few weeks or so, we don’t really know, but during that time he was preaching; he was engaged in an itinerant ministry, traveling from city to city in Galilee, preaching the Kingdom and then demonstrating the power of the Kingdom not only through his preached word but through divine healing. Very early on in his ministry, Jesus was even thinking about the continuation of his ministry. He intended to perpetuate the preaching of the Gospel into the future, and so he chose disciples. That’s what we’re going to see is this calling of these first disciples.

Jesus had already called his first four disciples, he called Simon and Andrew and James and John, two sets of brothers. Those four men were present at the synagogue in Capernaum. They had been John’s disciples, and then at John’s urging as he pointed them to the Christ, they left John to follow Jesus. They were there from the very beginning.

So they were there with Jesus when he turned water into wine. They were there with him at the very first temple clearing, when he walked into the temple courtyard and cleared out all the money-changers and those who were buying and selling. They were with him during his brief but his fruitful ministry in Samaria, when he started that whole outreach and that fruitful evangelism, it started with one sinful Samaritan woman, then it spread to the entire town. Then, before returning to Capernaum, which is recorded at the end of John 4, that section Jesus had healed an official’s son there. He wasn’t even present in Capernaum when he healed the son, he just gave the command and it was done.

These four disciples, Andrew and Simon, James and John, they had already seen a lot. They had seen great power; they had heard amazing, unparalleled teaching. When Jesus came to Capernaum, he started by recruiting them into discipleship. As we mentioned a couple of weeks ago, that’s recorded in Matthew, chapter 4 and Mark, chapter 1. He recruited them first, there, to discipleship. Then they were at the synagogue as we read in Luke, chapter 4, they were there to hear him teach. They watched him cast out a demon. They went to Simon’s house, and they watched him heal Peter’s mother-in-law of that severe fever. Then they saw how he healed all the sick and the infirm in Capernaum later that evening; he healed them well late into the night, touching each one of them.

So when Jesus left Capernaum, we find out here that his disciples stayed behind. They went back to their commercial fishing business. Now, he’s back. Luke chapter 5:1-11, he’s going to call them into permanent discipleship. At this point in the narrative, the focus is going to be on Simon Peter, he features in this narrative, but also on James and John, who show up at the end. We might assume that this includes Andrew as well. Later in the chapter, Jesus is going to call the tax collector, Levi. That whole calling and everything around that, surrounding that event, occupies the rest of the chapter. We know Levi is Matthew, he’s the writer of the gospel of Matthew. Then, in Luke 6:12-16, this section, this sub-section is going to end when Jesus calls and commissions the Twelve, the ones he called and commissioned and chose as his official apostles. At that point, the period of recruitment is over; he’s got his team, and then we get into the Sermon on the Mount.

It starts with the calling of Simon Peter, James and John and the way Jesus calls them here helps us to see and understand, like they needed to see and understand, the real meaning of discipleship. Real discipleship means, point number one, that we listen whenever Jesus teaches. We listen whenever Jesus teaches. This is where all real discipleship begins, right? It begins with what he says, it begins with the initiation of his teaching. We have got to listen carefully whenever Jesus is teaching. Take a look at Luke 5:1-3, “On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat.” Stop there.

Luke has written this and set the scene for what follows, and we see, just from those verses, just from the setting, how important it is to listen to Jesus’ teaching and preaching, that is the key to discipleship. Jesus prioritized preaching to the people, teaching his disciples. So we know that if it was valuable to the master, it must be a fundamental aspect of discipleship. Jesus preached in Nazareth. He preached in Capernaum. He left Capernaum to keep on preaching and here we see him again. What is he doing? He’s preaching.

Remember the warning from J. C. Ryle “Beware of despising preaching.” Never, never denigrate preaching! Never de-prioritize preaching, never demean it, never diminish it, never back-burner it. Preaching is God’s means, his God ordained means of saving and sanctifying his people. After all, how will they hear without what? Without a preacher, right? When we preach God’s Word, we are explaining the meaning of the Scripture. We are conveying truth to the minds and the hearts of people.

We’re taking God’s Word, and we’re confronting people with the Word of God in their own spirit. The Spirit of God connects with the person, his spirit, her spirit, that is how the Spirit awakens faith. That is how the Spirit awakens desire for virtue. That’s how the Spirit motivates us towards obedience. “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.” So, if a person is not exposed to sound teaching, that person is cut off from this means of divine grace, which is the fundamental means of divine grace, because it’s the ministry of the Holy Spirit himself.

It’s the Word preached, that the Holy Spirit uses to regenerate. It’s the Word preached, that the Holy Spirit uses to give new life, to cause people to be born again, to awaken faith in a dead sinner who comes to life. As Peter wrote in 1 Peter 1:23, “You have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through,” What? “the living and abiding word of God.”

How does that Word come but through preaching? When a sinner is born again by the regenerating ministry of the Spirit, that person takes his first breath, which is repentance from dead works and faith in Jesus Christ. And on the basis of that faith, the saving work of God is set in motion. God imputes the sinner’s sin to Christ, imputes the Savior’s righteousness to that believing sinner, and on the basis of that faith, God justifies the sinner. God declares him righteous on the basis of faith. His sin completely atoned for, gone. All the wrath of God, the holy God, is satisfied, propitiated, and removed.

His sin has been completely atoned for by the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and then full and final redemption is secured, not just for the moment, but eternally by the perfect righteousness of the life of Jesus Christ and his obedience to God. United to him, we have no fear. United to him, we have no fear of divine wrath, no fear of judgment, “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1, right? Every sin is forgiven, all wrath is satisfied, every slander is diffused, every accusation is silenced. No doubt can stand against the perfection of God’s saving work. The conscience of the redeemed sinner can become what God intended, forever at rest. And all that saving activity is because the Word is preached.

That’s why Peter wrote in 1 Peter 2:2, encouraging us to continue receiving the preached Word, because it not only saves but it sanctifies. He wrote this, “So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.” That’s the prerequisite for what comes next. “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.” We assume that to be true, that you have tasted that the Lord is good, and if you have, will long for more of that, long for more of the preached Word.

Just as the Word is powerful to raise dead sinners from the dead, it’s powerful to sanctify redeemed sinners as well. If it can do the most profound work, it can do every other work as well. The Word renews the mind; the Word transforms the life. It causes that redeemed life to bring glory and honor and praise to God because of the saving work of Jesus Christ. No wonder Jesus spent so much effort to preach the good news of the Kingdom of God, right?

Notice, Luke 5:1 that the people leaned in close to hear it. The crowd was pressing in on him to hear the Word of God. The term used there, it refers to kind of a crushing force of, of a swollen crowd. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in another country where they don’t honor the personal space that we like as Americans, especially out here West. You know Daniel Boone, you know why he left the East, he said he needed more elbow room. I get it, I’ve gone to places on the East Coast, and I am Colorado in my veins. I love open spaces. I love to see forever. You go out there and you’re shrouded and covered by trees.

But there’s this crushing force surrounding Jesus, this swollen crowd, and they’re all trying to lean in and hear him preach God’s Word. So just picture the scene here. Jesus has returned to Capernaum. Just a few weeks before, he had virtually eradicated all sickness and all disease in a single night. He drove out all the demons, now he’s back, and people are really excited to hear him preach and teach. He walked through the town preaching, and people are gathering, people are following; they’re getting in, pressing closer and closer.

But depending on where they’re positioned in relation to his preaching, in relation to his mouth and the sound of his voice, quite a few of them are having a hard time hearing him. His voice projects out in front of him, like any other human being, so it’s only those directly in front of him who can hear him really well. People at the side, they’re having a hard time hearing him; people in back, they can’t hear anything.

So they keep pressing forward; they keep surrounding him. They’re forcefully pressing around him. So Jesus finally has been backed up to the water’s edge; his feet are getting wet in Lake Gennesaret, that’s just another name for the Sea of Galilee, and Jesus, here, has an idea. In fact, it may very well be that he headed for the lake as he feels the crowd pressing in because he knew what to do to allow this massive crowd to hear his preaching.

As he looked around, Jesus saw some providential provision. He saw boats, he saw water, behind him he saw the land. The boats enable him to put a little distance between himself and the crowd, provide a suitable platform for teaching. The physics of sound waves over the water would act as an amplifier to project his voice to people sitting on the shore. The land, that would act as an amphitheater so people could sit comfortably on the shore and listen to him. If you spend any time in the water fishing, boating, whatever, perhaps you’ve noticed how well sound carries over the water. Temperature variations over a body of water affect the way sound waves travel.

The air nearest to the surface of any open body of water is, it’s cooler than the air that’s slightly above it, which means that it has an effect on the sound waves, the ones closest to the surface travel more slowly than the sound waves further from the surface. So the sound waves actually go farther across the surface of the water than they do over any other surface. So be careful what kinds of fishing stories you tell out on the lake because everyone on the shore is listening to you.

When Jesus sat in the boat teaching, the sound waves of his voice, they were shaped and directed by the effect of the temperature on the water. Less of his voice was lost in the air above him; more of it was projected toward the people on the shore, and Jesus knew that. As the Creator, he designed the water. He designed the temperature, the sound waves, and all the physics in between. He designed the auditory nerves. He knew the laws of physics, the mechanics of listening, because he created all that. So he used those elements of his surroundings to amplify his preaching. Problem solved.

That problem was solved, anyway, as verse 4 says, he was able to finish speaking to the people. The crowd heard the full force of his preaching, they learned more and more and more about the Kingdom of God. But now, there’s another problem that Jesus needed to address. This passage is about calling disciples to discipleship, right? The crowd had been following him around all morning, pressing in close to hear his preaching, but where were his chosen disciples? What were they doing? Those men had been out fishing the night before. They were up all night. It’s hard to listen to sermons when you’ve been up all night, right?

They’d been out fishing the night before. When Jesus comes by, they are out of their boats, they’re sitting at the shore. They’re washing out their nets. They were there to see the scene unfolding, and in the providence of God, their empty boats provided a ready platform for Jesus’ preaching. But those boats would also become an object lesson, to learn the real meaning of discipleship.

As we said earlier, Jesus had already called these men to discipleship, Matthew 4:18-22 and Mark 1:16-20. That first call to discipleship had come before all the things we read about in Nazareth and Capernaum in Luke chapter 4. Back then, Jesus had again been walking by the Sea of Galilee. He saw Simon Peter and Andrew, his brother, and they were casting a net into the sea, and he said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” Matthew and Mark, both tell us that immediately they left their nets and followed him.

And right after that, Jesus continued walking by the shore, and that’s where he saw James and his brother, John, the two sons of Zebedee. They were well-known, and they were in the boats mending their nets and Jesus called them as well, and they left immediately, as well. They left their nets, they left the boat, they left their father with the hired men, and they followed him, too. They all followed immediately, but they didn’t all follow completely, did they? There was an initial surge of excitement, but they hadn’t continued to follow.

When Jesus left Capernaum on his preaching tour, these men stayed behind. Jesus’ disciples returned to their fishing business, and when Jesus returned, that’s where he found them, washing out their nets after a long, and by-the-way, a fruitless night of fishing. Don’t miss the contrast here between the chosen and called disciples, and the crowds. What were the crowds doing in verse 1? They are pressing in on him, they’re trying to hear the Word of God. What are the disciples doing? They were working, they are washing the gunk out of their nets.

Nothing wrong with working for a living. It’s a noble thing to do, to work for a living. It’s a good and godly thing to do to provide for your family, that’s what they’re doing. But when Jesus is preaching, you need to recognize, that is the priority, set aside the nets or whatever it is that God has given you for work and partake of the ministry of the Word.

Again, for these fishermen, nothing wrong with working for a living, but Jesus had personally selected them for discipleship. He’d chosen them to follow him around, literally, that’s what discipleship was. He wanted them to learn personally from him, to learn intimately from him as he carried out his Messianic ministry. That was the problem that he needed to address with them.

Now, to be fair, it’s possible that these men didn’t know that Jesus was back in town, perhaps he had returned to Capernaum late in the previous night. That very morning, the timing of his return had caught them off-guard, perhaps. But consider this, if they’d been following Jesus around, which is what he intended all along, they wouldn’t have been in the position of washing their nets when he was preaching, would they? They would have been with him, at his side. His return would not have caught them off-guard at all. They would have been listening to every word, just like the crowds were trying to do.

Folks, all that to say, don’t ever take preaching for granted. Don’t ever think, ah, I’ve heard this stuff before, it’s just the Gospel again. It’s just more stuff about Jesus and salvation, and growing in Christ, and the Kingdom of God, and his great sovereignty over all affairs, and the fact that he can take care of every need, and I need not worry about anything or be anxious. I need to love, and love him, and love others. I don’t need to know more about that.

Listen, real discipleship means we are listening whenever Jesus is speaking, whenever his Word is proclaimed. And listen, this church is working very hard to make sure to get God’s Word into you, not just on Sunday mornings in a one-time event, but all through the week. We love you. We want you to hear Jesus teach. When this church makes preaching and teaching available to you, beloved, you need it. You need it. Prioritize learning the truth. Avail yourself of the teaching because real discipleship is about listening carefully, learning to understand and obey the Word of Christ.

Well, it looks like these disciples needed a little lesson in the real meaning of discipleship. They needed that lesson, but they needed a second lesson, as well, which is called point two in our outline, a little lesson called: Do whatever Jesus says. Do whatever he says. Take a look at verse 4, “When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, ‘Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.'” Stop there. We need to understand a few things about fishing on the Sea of Galilee to see the significance of what’s going on here.