Marks of a Disciple

INTRODUCTION

Good morning! My name is David Sorn, and I’m the Lead Pastor here.

Welcome to 2026!

Speaking of the New Year, on the way in today, I hope you saw our new notebooks for this year.

We want you to bring this to church with you every week and take notes on the Bible passages you learn about.

If you already got a system, great!

But if not, try using this!

Plenty of studies prove that taking notes improves retention greatly!

THEY DO WHAT THE MASTER SAYS

Let’s get to our passage for this morning.

Luke 5:1-11

Page 702

We are starting a new 5-week series this morning where we are going to study Luke chapter 5

This is a chapter in the Bible that I know will be really helpful to our church in the unique season we are in.

(Luke 5:1-11) – NIV

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. 2 He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. 3 He 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.
4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.”
5 Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”
6 When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. 7 So 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.
8 When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” 9 For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, 10 and 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.” 11 So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.

(Risk the Pursuit)

This is a great passage on what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.

And when we say disciple, we mean a follower, someone who obeys Jesus’ teachings tries to live like Him.

So today I want to cover 3 marks (from Luke 5) of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus

Here is the first one for you to write down in your new notebook!

MARKS OF A DISCIPLE:

#1: Disciples do what the Master says

So think about this:

Jesus is teaching a large crowd, and after he finishes teaching, he asks Peter to put his boat out into deep water and let his nets down for a catch.

Even though Peter had just fished all night and caught nothing.

But look at verse 5 again…because it’s powerful.

This is right after Jesus told them to put out into deep water and let down their nets.

5 Simon answered, “Master

Master!

This is a Greek word that meant Master, Commander, Leader

Peter is already starting to get who Jesus is.

In fact, in the chapter before, Jesus had healed Peter’s mother-in-law.

But keep reading because what Peter is going to say next is even more important.

5 Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so (EVERYBODY SAY: ‘BECAUSE YOU SAY SO”….I will let down the nets.”

That right there is a true mark of a disciple.

Disciples do what the master says.

The true Christian can say to their Father in Heaven: “Because YOU say so… I’ll do it”

Even if it makes no sense to me.

Even if I don’t want to do it

And I doubt Peter wanted to after fishing all night

And I doubt it made any sense to Him.

Because the best fishing was at night in the shallow water…and this carpenter just told him to go out during the day in the deep water…

But it doesn’t matter.

If the Master tells you to go, you go.

So what has God been telling you to do…that you’re hesitating on because it sounds hard…or uncomfortable.

Do you trust Him?

Is He good?

Does He keep His promises?

Then even if it’s hard, or confusing, or scary…

…I want you to look at Him this week and say, “Lord, because You say so…I’ll put my nets down…I’ll go.

That’s a mark of a true disciple.

THEY SEE THEIR SIN AND HIS GREATNESS

This leads us to the second mark of a disciple

MARKS OF A DISCIPLE:

#1: Disciples do what the master says

#2: Disciples see their sin and God’s greatness

Look at verse 8 again.

This is a really important verse

8 When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” 

I think most of us as modern American Christians would expect Peter, after seeing this miraculous catch, to say, “Wow God! You must really love me!”

But Peter doesn’t say that. He shockingly says, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!”

Why does he say that?

It’s because the closer you get to the real God, the more sinful you will feel.

Let me explain it this way.

We got a dog this year, for the first time ever.

(Marshmellow Photo)

It’s a white golden retriever.

His name is Marshmellow.

And he’s all right. 😊

But as of like a week ago, he just started shedding A TON.

And it’s like, buddy, it’s negative 5 out, why are you shedding?

And over Christmas break, I was cleaning my house some, and I was looking around, and I thought, “It looks pretty clean,”

But just then, the sun came out from behind the clouds, and it’s shining bright in my living room…and all of a sudden you could just seen an insane amount DUST in the air…

…combined now with floating dog hair EVERYWHERE

And then you think, “WOW! Am I seriously breathing that in every day?”

It’s there of course, but you don’t see it until the light shines on it.

And it’s the same with God, the more you walk in His light, the more of your sin you will see

MARKS OF A DISCIPLE:

#1: Disciples do what the master says

#2: Disciples see their sin and God’s greatness

And really two things should happen the closer you walk with God…

1) You see more of your sin

2) You see more of His greatness

True disciples experience both of those things.

And then they let His greatness change their sin.

And notice…when Peter blurts out how sinful he is…

…Jesus doesn’t say, “Well, if that’s how sinful you are, then get out of the boat…I can’t use you…somebody else want to be one of the 12 disciples?!”

No, the very next thing we read is Jesus calling that great sinner into a life of walking with Him.

Because even great sinners can become disciples of Christ.

THEY SACRIFICE TO MAKE MORE DISCIPLES

Look at the middle of verse 10 now… (right where it says “Then Jesus said”)

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

So Jesus calls these sinful fishermen to leave everything behind and follow Him as His disciples.

And what is their quintessential purpose as disciples? The main hallmark of their calling?

To fish for people.

To help others become disciples too.

And this is the third mark of a disciple we read about in Luke 5.

MARKS OF A DISCIPLE:

#1: Disciples do what the master says

#2: Disciples see their sin and God’s greatness

#3: Disciples sacrifice to make more disciples

If you’re not making disciples, you’ve literally missed the #1 task of being a disciple of Jesus.

And it IS a sacrifice to make disciples.

These fishermen left it all (including the best catch they’d ever gotten in their life)

Jesus was that important.

And I think we’ve lost this idea of sacrifice in our modern-day version of Christianity.

Nowadays, Jesus ends up getting mostly our leftovers.

We go to church on the weekends…except on the weekends when we have a travel sports tournament.

We get up and do quiet time with Him…but only on the mornings we weren’t up late the night before.

But read the New Testament afresh again.

Following Jesus is a sacrifice…not just a walk of convenience.

Leading others to Christ is a sacrifice.

But let’s be careful to think well through the word SACRIFICE

Because for too many Christians sacrifice only means, “I’ll give up a good thing (sports, leisure, sleep) and do this hard thing for God because I’m supposed to”

But that’s not really the word sacrifice means.

To sacrifice literally means to give up something for the sake of something better!

So an athlete sacrifices their free time to practice because of the reward of one day getting a scholarship

We financially sacrifice and save our money (even though we don’t to!) because of the future reward of one day having enough for a down payment on a house.

That’s what sacrifice means.

And the same principle of giving up something for the sake of something better applies to your spiritual life.

So how is Peter able to sacrifice his fishing business (and leave it behind) to follow Jesus?

Did he guilt himself to it?

NO!

He just saw a God Himself blow his mind with the miraculous catch, and so his HEART now wants God more than anything else (even His business)

SO he’ll sacrifice for this big God!

But listen to me, you’ll never sacrifice for a small God

And for some of you, your “god” is too small, so you’ll never really do much for Him.

But for the real God, when you experience Him…you’ll sacrifice.

So how do you need to sacrifice for God to start making more disciples?

Maybe it’s time to finally commit to starting a Bible study at your work

Maybe it’s time to invite your neighbors over for dinner who don’t know Christ

For others of you, God may be calling you to sacrifice to go and help start a new Renovation Church location in Shoreview

As most of you know we are growing so fast here that if we do nothing, we’re on pace to run out of room (even in this expanded building) in just 18-24 months

And so back in September, I shared with you our future plans …and firstly, I said there were 5 things we were not going to do:

WHAT WE’RE NOT GOING TO DO:

#1: Add on to our building here

#2: Build a bigger building somewhere else

#3: Start a video venue site

#4: I go preach at other locations too

#5: Start more autonomous church plants

And we said:

1) We can’t add on to our building here

We are landlocked and have used the vast majority of our property.

2) We’re not going to build a bigger building somewhere else and move there

We JUST did the Grand Opening of this expansion a little over a year ago, and aren’t ready to abandon it

3) We’re not going to start a Video Venue site where you watch me on video at a different site.

It’s not us. It’s a single point of failure. And I just think in our growing technological world of AI, we need REAL pastors who know us and speak directly to us.

4) We’re not going to do the thing where I go and preach at other locations.

We’re already past that

5) We’re not going to plant more autonomous church plants…AS a way to solve our growth problem

It’s not that we will completely stop planting other churches, but because we can only send about 30 people at a time to a church plant, that doesn’t help us.

We grow by 30 people ever 14 days.

So, we said we’re going to start new locations of Renovation Church.

And each new location will carry the culture, DNA, and the ministry programs of Renovation Church, but will be led by a live pastor at that location, who will also preach live.

That means each Renovation Church location will have

EACH RENOVATION CHURCH LOCATION WILL HAVE:

1. Bible Teaching

2. Weekly Gospel Invitations

3. 1-on-1 Discipleship of New Believers

4. House Church

So each new location will have:

1) Bible Teaching

They will teach verse-by-verse as we do here (for most of the year, they’ll teach the exact same passage)

2) Weekly Gospel Invitations

It’s Deepvangelistic as we call our church.

3) 1-on-1 Discipleship of new believers

4) House Church

Just like we do House Church.

Many other things, like Renovation U will be the same as well

And we want them to carry our CULTURE with them as well…

…think like “pick up an oar, pray the impossible, our passion for feedback, excellence, and systems”

All of those things will be present as well.

All of our locations will be united under one church, one board, one financial structure.

But each location will have some autonomy to contextualize their worship, youth ministry and outreach to the city they are in.

And so Pastor Matt Martinez will be leading a launch team out of here to help start our second location in Shoreview

As you came in this morning, you perhaps saw those Shoreview booklets on your chair, and I want you to open up to pages 9 & 10 if you would now

I want to walk you through what we’re asking, and what’s going to be happening here the next couple of weeks and also couple of months.

And so if you look at the left-hand, white column on page 9, you’ll see the key dates.

2 weeks from today (January 18th) is what we’re calling Commitment Sunday

And on that day, we’re going to ask people to make an official commitment to join our Shoreview Launch team by turning in a Commitment Card (which is attached to your booklet) that Sunday morning.

And you would be committing to go to the Shoreview location (to serve, give, be in a House Church there…be all in) for 12 months.

And then hopefully continue on there, BUT if after 12 months, it doesn’t work out, then just come back here. It’s the same church. We’re all one family.

Our goal is to send over 200 people from this location to our new location in Shoreview.

You can also see on here that starting on Tuesday February 3rd, the Shoreview Launch Team will meet here on a few Tuesdays in February to start training and meeting each other

As one of the great advantages of these new locations is you get all of the culture of Renovation Church still, but in a smaller setting.

And then the Shoreview Launch Team will start practice services at Turtle Lake Elementary on March 8th, and the Grand Opening will be on March 29th.

And we’re asking everyone to pray about joining this launch team…IF…you live South of this building…or South of 125th Ave.

And the reason we’re saying “South” is because our 3rd location (Blaine is #1, Shoreview is #2),…

…and that 3rd location will be North of here and launching in the Fall.

So we’ll be asking for commitments to that location this summer already.

So we don’t want to send 400 people to Shoreview and then 50 to the north location.

We want it to be as equal as possible.

So if you live North, just wait.

In fact, our Location Pastor for that location starts in the office a week from Tuesday already, and you’ll get to meet him in just a few weeks!

It’s going to come fast.

But I want you to highly consider this and pray about it over these next two weeks before Commitment Sunday on the 18th

And it may be that God is asking you to stay here, and that’s okay.

But if he’s asking you to stay here, I can guarantee the Holy Spirit is not telling you to stay here as a consumer.

As we send hundreds of our volunteers out of here, we have to replace them.

And so if you’re staying, it’s time to step up.

And for those of you praying about going.

MARKS OF A DISCIPLE:

#1: Disciples do what the master says

#2: Disciples see their sin and His greatness

#3: Disciples sacrifice to make more disciples

… a true mark of a disciple is that they sacrifice to make more disciples

And in many ways this will be a sacrifice.

You’ll lose some connections you have here…some of the conveniences of this building…of what we have here.

Being in a school isn’t easy…trust me I know.

But we’re also not asking you to be a missionary to Iran

This is not a sacrifice that will break you.

It even has an optional off-ramp at 12 months.

And also, I think sometimes think we forget that sacrifice…that chasing after purpose & mission…sacrifice is actually how must of us grow.

I actually read something about lobsters the other day…that I think oddly applies to this

I learned that from time to time, lobsters have to actually leave their shells in order to keep growing

If they don’t abandon their old hard restrictive shell, their shell would eventually would become their prison…they would be stuck…unable to move.

The tricky part for the lobster is the brief period of time between when the old shell is discarded, and the new one is forming (and is quite soft at first)

During that terribly vulnerable period, they are at huge risk of predators without any real protection.

And I bet that old shell looks good!

But if they don’t leave the old shell behind, they can’t grow!

And in many ways, we’re not very different.

We’re afraid of change…or pursuing Jesus to somewhere else.

But I urge you to Risk the Pursuit…that’s the theme of this chapter in Luke.

To Risk the Pursuit of Jesus, because in many ways, it’s the fastest way to really grow.

To drop your shell…drop your nets and go.

And of course, we don’t ultimately do it for ourselves.

We do it for God…our Master.

And we do it for the lost.

Because there are lost people all over the Metro…not just in Blaine.

Listen, God is doing something in our midst, amen?

Honestly, most of us haven’t ever had a front row seat to watching hundreds of people a year come to Christ before.

But look at me, if all this ends up being for you…is a seat…and we all just sit back and watch…then this movement God has brought us will end.

It might take a year or so to end…but it will end.

But if we step out of our seat…and we take up the call…

And hundreds of people are sent out of this place…to Shoreview. And then we send hundreds more to the north…and then to the East…to the West.

And if we can send masses of people from here… to different cities around the metro.

And then…those locations with us…can start sending their people to different cities…

…to teach the Bible again…

…to get people in house churches…in Christian community again..

…to preach the Gospel again…

Then there is no telling what God will do in this state.

But it starts today.

And it starts with disciples who will say, “Because YOU say so Lord…I will go”

So start praying and asking Him what He wants you to do

Let me pray