Some “preaching” notes

Posted: 26th December 2009 by Bo in Jesus Stuff, Ministry
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Here’s my “notes” for my communion thought I will be giving at one of our Student Ministry services -

One day Jesus was preaching to a huge crowd.  The crowd was pressing in on Him to listen to Him.  Here’s where the story picks up:

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[a] 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.”

“Because you say so, I will let down the nets.”  You see, Simon was committed to Jesus even when it didn’t make any sense to him.  From that story, here’s my question for you – How committed are you to Jesus?  It’s not good enough to simply know about Jesus.  We must truly know Jesus and be committed to Him.

Our commitment to Jesus must come before anything else in our own lives.

We often say, “God, I will commit to you as long as I don’t have to actually do anything.”  We make excuses like,

  • I’ll commit to you Jesus as long as I don’t have to tell others about you.
  • I’ll commit to you Jesus as long as I don’t have to serve others
  • I’ll commit to you Jesus as long as I don’t have to show your love to others.

You see, our commitment always requires some type of sacrifice on our part.  We either choose to commit to Jesus and deny ourselves, or we make the decision to leave Jesus out of the picture and live our lives from our own desires and selfishness.

Our hearts must be open to Jesus even when we face tough situations, fear, worry, or even when we simply are confused and don’t know what to do.  It’s easy for us to be committed to Jesus when our lives are going good, but our true commitment comes out when we face the unknown and unexpected in our lives.

I don’t know where all of you are in your commitment to Jesus, but what I can tell you is that He sacrificed everything so He could show the world He is committed to you.