THE MAIN IDEA
Jesus makes sinners into witnesses.

JESUS REPURPOSES OUR LIVES
We find Jesus by Lake Gennesaret, aka the Sea of Galilee, teaching the word of God and preaching the good news of the kingdom of God. But it gets so crowded that He gets into Simon Peter’s boat and goes out a little bit so that He can address the whole crowd. What is interesting about this is what the lake and the boat represented to Simon Peter. They represented his life and livelihood, that is, the kingdom of Peter. But Jesus repurposed the lake and the boat in Simon’s kingdom to be a platform for teaching and preaching the good news of the kingdom of God. Whenever we ask what God’s purpose for our life is, we may struggle to find the answer to that question because they are still looking in the kingdom of our own lives. We will never find God’s purpose for life in our own kingdom. We will only find God’s purpose for our life in the kingdom of God. Jesus is inviting us to allow Him to repurpose our lives for the most noble cause there could ever be in this world—to introduce people to Him, Jesus Christ.

JESUS TAKES THE HELM OF OUR LIVES
We fear the prospect of losing control of our lives. The sense of being in charge of our lives is very comforting, but in truth, it’s very deceiving. Whatever control we think we have over our lives comes from God. What is most comforting is knowing that God is in control of our lives. But most Christians refuse to give up the steering wheel to Jesus. And Jesus never forces us to “let go and let God.” But He will remind us that He is always there and that He is a much better pilot than we are. Like Simon, we think that we know better than Jesus, but that is foolish at best. How do we let Jesus take the helm? We pay attention to what Jesus tells us to do, and then we look at the circumstances of our lives, and then we conform the circumstances of our lives to what Jesus tells us to do. If we would let Jesus take control and just did what He tells us to do, the harvest would be beyond our imagination. It might be so great that it would strain our resources and ability to take it all in. But the real lesson is not about the size of the harvest or our ability or disability to deal with it, but about letting Jesus take the helm and trusting Him with the outcome.

JESUS SETS A NEW COURSE FOR OUR LIVES
Peter responds to the miracle in three ways. First, he falls at Jesus’s knees as an act of surrender and worship. Worship is surrender. Second, Peter asks Jesus to depart from him because he comes to a deep awareness of his own sinfulness and unworthiness in the presence of God Almighty in Christ Jesus. But when we, like Peter, come to that understanding, Jesus knows the anxiety that is in our hearts and gently reassures us, “Don’t be afraid.” Third, Peter calls Jesus “Lord.” When Jesus is Lord in our lives, then we are His servants forever. Like Peter, we should be rejected as servants of Christ because of our pride and immaturity and our patronizing attitude. But instead of departing from us and rejecting us, Jesus invites us sinners to go with Him and to be with Him—to be on mission with Him to share the good news of the kingdom of God. To go where He goes. To do what He does. The reason that Jesus accepts us and invites us to be on mission with Him is not because we are worthy. It is because Jesus went to the cross to take away the sin of the world. Jesus turns sinners into witnesses. And what more noble course can there be for our lives than to bear witness to the world that we need Jesus?

DISCUSSION QUESTION
Is Jesus you pilot or co-pilot? Of is He even on the plane? Explain.