Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Have you encountered moments where your capacity and resources are stretched to the limit and then you're asking God to help you, and then a blessing comes in and it actually overwhelms you. Well, we're going to go through a scripture that talks about what it's like to have blessings that almost break you and how to manage those kinds of seasons and what God actually reveals to us when we do get blessed, to the capacity or actually to the limit. Stay tuned.
[00:00:38] God doesn't design us to fit. He designs us to be impactful.
[00:00:46] Hey, welcome to Shifts and Ladders. We're going to jump right into today's teaching. So there are times when we actually ask God to bless us, particularly when we have nothing, when we exhausted all options, when we have reached our limit and we're just saying, look, I am done. We're going to talk about what that looks like, because really those are times when God really reveals himself to us, when we have literally reached zero or in some cases, below zero.
[00:01:24] The scripture for today we're going to talk about is in Luke chapter 5, and Luke is one of the gospels. And I just want to give a little bit of background to Luke. Luke is a physician, so he has a lot of detail in his. In his teachings. Every scripture or every apostle that you find in the scripture had an occupation. So you'll start finding, particularly in this scripture, where a lot of the individuals came from. So Luke chapter five, we're going to start verse one.
[00:01:58] It says, so as a multitude pressed about him and being Jesus to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Gesinrat and saw two boats standing by the lake by the but the fishermen had gone from them and were washing their nets. Then he got into one of the boats, which was Simon's, and asked him to put a little. Put out a little from the land. So he sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat. When he stopped speaking, he said to Simon, launch out into the deep and cast down your nets for a catch. But Simon answered and said to him, master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing. Nevertheless, your word I will let down the net. And when they had done this, they had caught a great number of fish and their nets were breaking. If you're reading, highlight that their nets were breaking. So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And when they came and fished, they came and filled both the boats, so they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus knees, saying, depart from me, o Lord, for I am a sinful man. For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish which they had taken.
[00:03:32] And so also were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who are partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, do not be afraid. From now on, you will catch men. So they. So when they brought their boats to land, they forsook all and followed him.
[00:03:50] There we go. That's a long scripture, right?
[00:03:55] But I want to really. I'm going to highlight a couple of things from the scripture because I think it's important for us to note that sometimes when you are at your limit, Jesus has a way of saying one more thing. He was. Before Steve Jobs did his One more thing in Keynotes, Jesus was the one that said, give it one more try. There's one more thing. And I want to really lock in on this thing that at the time when Jesus was teaching, he borrowed a boat, and the boat was Simon's for the mission of which he had given, or for teaching, for teaching the Word. There weren't just multitudes around.
[00:04:41] Let's imagine with me, if you will, Jesus is on the dock of the bay, and there's people coming around him, and there's multitudes of people that are trying to hear him, and they can't see him. I don't know how tall he was. We don't know that kind of stuff. But I could imagine that it was getting really, really hard for people to hear him and see him. So he says, well, let me get on a boat and happen to be silent. So he uses that boat to teach and preach the word of God, Okay? And in doing so, after he first gave Jesus what he actually uses for compensation for his livelihood, he then Jesus then blesses him and says, you know what? Go to the left. Go back out there and throw your net out there. And he's like.
[00:05:43] And Jesus is like. Or Simon's like, lord, we done did this. Like, I'm tired. We didn't see nothing. But because you said it, I'll do it.
[00:05:55] How many of us have that approach that says, if you said it, I'll do it?
[00:06:01] That level of obedience, okay? And this is the part that I think we really want to lock in on. Jesus sees past our limitations when we are tired. And when we are tired, we usually don't want to push past the discomfort it actually causes us to quit. And Simon was ready to quit. He was done. They were cleaning their nets. They had literally packed it in and said, y'all fellas, we over for the night. This is done. We didn't catch nothing. We worked our butt off. And this is the part that I think is so incredible about this. Usually when fishermen catch, they usually catch at night or they start doing their catching at night because they can't see the net because it's dark. Okay? So particularly that method of a fisherman has timing to it.
[00:06:56] On top of that, it's in the middle of the day. If people are out listening to Jesus, it's not nighttime anymore.
[00:07:05] So that means the conditions are contrary to what their profession has taught them to do. They also had to clean the net because at that point when you. You could clean the net and it could break if you don't get the salt and everything out of it. So they're already done and they're exhausted.
[00:07:27] So literally everything that they should be doing, Jesus says, just go out and do everything you're not supposed to do. So he's. They're tired, they're not. The conditions aren't right, and they're just ready to quit for the day.
[00:07:49] But Jesus has a way of seeing past our limitations and past current circumstances and conditions to still find a way to bless you. I think that's incredible, incredible story. And it gets us excited. It gets me excited because that. That means to me that no matter what happens and no matter what it looks like, God can still find a way to bless me. Okay. So that. That ain't even really what I want to talk about, but I want to at least bring this piece to it, because there are.
[00:08:25] Sometimes a blessing can actually be a burden. And this is what the Bible says. It says, try me now so that bless. Try, test me in this. So if. Sorry, test me. He said that if you open up, he will open up the windows of heaven. This is tithing. He says, I will open up the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing you have not room enough to receive. This is talking about tithing and giving. And God says in the Bible, he says, test me in this. Try me. Because you can't beat God giving. You can't out give God. Because honestly, the best depiction and expression of God in the earth is giving.
[00:09:10] We actually feel the most like God when we give.
[00:09:18] Think about giving a hug, giving gifts, giving. That's what we do. We love seeing the fact that we took something, gave it to someone else, and got to see the excitement on their face. We literally. That is a godlike character. We're made in the image and likeness of God. Therefore we do have characteristics that are from God. And giving is one of them.
[00:09:46] Giving is one of them. No one ever said they got depressed giving.
[00:09:52] I don't think that happens. You don't get depressed giving. You get excited and joyful when you give. You give to your children, you give to your parents. You give to your significant other when you give.
[00:10:10] That's Godlike.
[00:10:12] And sometimes blessings overtake you and they overwhelm you and they have to overflow from you. Okay? So what ends up happening is we have this capacity versus the calling contradiction. Okay? And that means we may not always feel equipped to do what God called us to do. Conditions may not be what we want them to do. But at the end of the day, Jesus did call you to do something.
[00:10:45] And there were some results that you really weren't expecting.
[00:10:50] But the Bible says that they caught a catch that was so big that their nets began to break.
[00:11:05] Now, why would the Bible mention nets?
[00:11:11] It said earlier that the nets were dirty, so they were cleaning the nets. And then when the blessing came, the nets were to a point that they began to break. Okay? I think it's important to notate. This is that sometimes when blessings overwhelm you, your capacity to handle them is limited.
[00:11:36] Sometimes when we ask God, sometimes our brokenness has the ability to not handle the blessings of God.
[00:11:47] Right?
[00:11:48] A blessing from God can actually reveal the fact that we have brokenness.
[00:11:54] It may overwhelm you to the fact that I did not deserve this, that I. What did I do?
[00:12:01] Simon Peter. And this is. That's his real name. Peter is the biblical character that we reference. But Simon, at this point in time, all he did was gave God a boat or Jesus a boat so that he could preach. It might be something small. It's small.
[00:12:21] Yeah, Go ahead. Just take the boat. You know, we're over here cleaning. We're getting ready to pack up. So go ahead.
[00:12:30] While that is such a small detail, it is a big thing because God took what he uses to make his living, gave it to him first. And then Jesus said, go back out there and get you and take another catch.
[00:12:51] Outside of conditions, outside of capacity, time, exhaustion, all that, Jesus still said, go out. And Peter did still go out and do what Jesus told him. And this is a big piece of this. They said the boats were. The catch was so big, they said, hey, I need some help.
[00:13:17] So you have to. And this is another piece of this. You have to have a level of dependence on God and community.
[00:13:26] If Peter had no friends around him, they were like, man, forget this guy.
[00:13:35] The blessing that Simon had actually blessed Every one of his friends that had boats around him, it got so bad that the. The fish got so plentiful that the boats began to sink. Not only did the nets begin to break, but the boat began to sink.
[00:14:00] How much blessing are you capable of handling?
[00:14:07] And do you have the capacity to handle a blessing? How about this? An expectation of massive blessing.
[00:14:17] Do you have that?
[00:14:19] Because Simon didn't at the time. He just went out there and did.
[00:14:23] And it just wasn't revealed to him that this was going to happen.
[00:14:28] But I want to kind of bring back to one piece. The nets began to break.
[00:14:36] The net sometimes represents our.
[00:14:41] Our capacity for relational, spiritual, emotional capacity.
[00:14:51] Okay.
[00:14:53] It really shows how we keep it all together, right? And I find that Jesus signals and signifies that a blessing from him can actually dismantle our ability to have emotional regulation, relational equity, and what we initially thought was a dead end. Jesus can start breaking that apart.
[00:15:26] And this is how I know it happened. Let me open the scripture back up again, because Peter says this. He says, here we go. He says, depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man.
[00:15:44] Depart from me, oh Lord, for I am a sinful man.
[00:15:49] He. Jesus didn't say nothing.
[00:15:53] Jesus didn't ask him a question when he got out the boat.
[00:15:59] Peter gave that information because he knew that he was not able to handle the blessing that he got. He said, I'm not deserving of this kind of blessing, oh Lord, so depart from me. I'm a sinful man. I'm messy, I'm breaking.
[00:16:24] I'm capped out and tired. I don't deserve what you just blessed me with.
[00:16:29] And sometimes the blessing of God reveals to us how broken we really are and how much we really, really, really need a savior that we need someone who can help us and teach us how to keep it all together.
[00:16:52] Now, this is the point when they get to the. To the shore, Jesus then says. He says, you're. You're a fisherman, but I'm going to teach you how to be fishers of men.
[00:17:03] And this is what happens. They leave their nets and they start to follow him.
[00:17:10] People.
[00:17:12] The net represents us trying to hold on to the capacity of blessing that God, in this case Jesus, willfully and lovingly deposited into our brother Simon Peter's lap. And John and James, they were there, too.
[00:17:33] But it just reveals to us the brokenness that we need that we have and the mending that we require that is required for us to grow.
[00:17:45] And he said, leave the net.
[00:17:48] And Jesus said. And Jesus said, follow me. Jesus said, Leave the net. Follow me.
[00:17:54] That, to me, is probably one of the most powerful moments that actually starts the ministry for Simon, Peter, James and John, the brothers of Zebedee.
[00:18:07] So whether you're going through blessing and you're going through trials, debts can break.
[00:18:15] But the rabbi, Jesus Christ himself can teach us how to keep it together. We're going to go to a part two of this because there's another part in scripture that talks about nets again, and it is nets after the times with Jesus. So this is like three years later. Okay? So I want you to subscribe, share, Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube. If you haven't, check this out. You can find under ryan Robinson on YouTube. You'll find this latest podcast there if you're listening on audio right now. But I really believe, and I'm praying that during the season God reveals to you how much we're still in the Lenten season. I forgot we're still in the Lenten season, a couple weeks from Easter.
[00:19:06] And I pray that God shows you and overwhelms you so that you seek after him and not the stuff that he blessed you with. And in fact, he'll show you how to handle what you've been blessed with if you decide to give him what you work on first. So either way, keep it locked and we'll catch you in the next pod. Peace.
