John 21:1-11 "I Am Going Fishing"

Reformed Ex-mormon

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Praise to the Sovereign King, hear, hear His people sing,

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Solely and wholly saving His own bride. There where the

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Lamb has died hard, the Christ is crucified, Washed by the blood of that great

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High Priest. Anyway, Hallelujah! That was a blessing to hear those songs.

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I have never heard Hiding in Thee before, so that was a blessing to be able to sing that and to come together and worship to God today.

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So we're going to begin today by starting out with a word of prayer. And we're going to be in John chapter 21, verses 1 -11.

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And we're taking a little bit bigger of a portion of Scripture than what we normally would, as I think that if you were to break this text up, it would be difficult to get the message of what's going on here.

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So we're taking a little bit bigger of a bite than what we normally would, but I would encourage you to please turn to John chapter 21, verses 1 -11.

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So let us begin with a word of prayer. Lord God, we love

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You, we thank You, Lord. God, it has been a privilege to go through this Gospel of John together,

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Lord, as we have seen so clearly Your deity, Your goodness,

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Your supremacy, Your sovereignty, Your love, Lord. We've seen it all, all the way from John chapter 1 to even this chapter,

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Lord. And so God, I would pray that You would continue to help us understand these things as we come here today, Lord. God, I pray that each one of us, that we might be strengthened in You, that we might grow in You, we might know more about You today,

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Lord. And God, I would just pray that You continue to use this building as a place where believers would gather underneath its roof to preach

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Christ crucified to ourselves and to each other, Lord. God, I pray that You would bless the ministries of this church,

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Lord, that it would be for Your glory and that Your name would be proclaimed in a world that rejects and hates

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You, Lord. And God, once again, we want to be doing for Your glory as we tell the world about Your supremacy,

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Lord. And we just say these things in Your holy name, Jesus Christ. Amen. So like I said, we're going to be in John chapter 21, verses 1 through 11.

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And before we read this, maybe we'll give a little bit of context of where we're at, why we're in John chapter 21, what's going on here.

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And I want to read real fast for us in verse 31. Just previously, this comes after Jesus has appeared before the disciples and He has now appeared before Thomas, doubting

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Thomas. And doubting Thomas, Thomas has put his finger into the very nail prints of Jesus, like the other disciples have.

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It's a physical resurrection that Jesus has undergone. And as they have done this, it has validated what

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Christ has been saying previously. And then in verse 31, John records saying this. He says, So just as when

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Jesus appeared to Thomas and Thomas put his finger in the nail prints, his hand into the side, this has been written so that when we read it, we can see

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Christ. We can believe in Him and that we know we have life in His name. So just as how it was validating for Thomas to see

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Christ, so the scriptures are for us. Now, John, writing this gospel, him being inspired,

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I'm not, but him being inspired, he's given us another chapter here. And when we read chapter 20 for us in verse 31, it's seemingly to me that that would have been a fitting place to end the gospel of John.

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But John has purposely recorded for us what he calls a third manifestation of Jesus Christ.

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And the gospel of John has gone out of his way to prove to us over and over and over again, recording things that Christ said and he did to prove something that is so important, that Jesus Christ is

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God, that He's sovereign, that He's all powerful. He has these attributes that no other man can demonstrate.

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He records these things very purposely for us like this. And so when we come to chapter 21, I would encourage you to be like paying a lot of attention to those details, because that is why

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John, I believe, would say that he recorded this additional manifestation of Jesus Christ for us.

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It's something that we need to be seeing in here. And so please pay special attention to that author's purpose in writing this, that the

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Synoptic Gospels have really done recording the events. This has to deal with who Christ is.

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So remember that. So let us read verses 1 through 11 today. They said to him, we will also come with you.

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They went out and got into the boat and that night they caught nothing. But when the day was now breaking,

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Jesus stood on the beach, yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus therefore said to them, children, you do not have any fish, do you?

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They answered him, no. And he said to them, cast the net on the right hand side of the boat and you will find a catch.

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You will catch fish. They say, or they cast therefore, and then they were not able to haul it in because of the great number of fish.

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That disciple therefore, whom Jesus loves, said to Peter, it is the Lord. And so when

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Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put his outer garment on, for he was stripped for work and threw himself into the sea.

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But the other disciples came in the little boat for they were not far from the land, but about 100 yards away, dragging the net full of fish.

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And so when they got out upon the land, they saw a charcoal fire already laid and fish placed on it with bread, placed on it and bread.

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Jesus said to them, bring some of the fish which you have now caught. Simon Peter went up and drew the net to land full of large fish, 153.

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And all together, there were so many, the net was not torn. Let us pray again over this text.

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Lord God, as we have seen in Luke chapter 5, Lord, that we are to be fishermen and men,

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Lord. And so God, this event, whatever has taken place here that's recorded for us,

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Lord, I pray that it would encourage us to be that fishermen and men, Lord. That you would help us take joy in doing things for your service and doing things for your glory,

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Lord. That we would see you in this text, God. Lord, let us just see your sovereignty from verse 1 to 11 and before and after this text,

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Lord, because you are sovereign, even in this chapter, Lord. God, you are our

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Lord and our God. And we say these things in your holy name, Jesus the Christ who has saved us.

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Amen. So, I want to be upfront and honest with you when we read this chapter.

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And verses 1 through 14 specifically, there's a lot of speculation about what's going on in this text from many, many different theologians and commentaries.

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And when I was studying this, I found myself having a difficult time trying to understand what's going on in here.

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There would be some that would write commentaries and talk about how it was sinful for the apostles to go fishing this day.

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I just don't see that there. In fact, you have Jesus telling them to go and cast the net on the right -hand side of the boat so that they can catch fish.

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So, there would be some logical issues with that, right? Who in here likes to go fishing? I like to go fishing.

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I've never caught 153 fish in one go, nor probably have I ever caught 153 fish from day one to today.

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But if we said that fishing was in and of itself sinful, that would be problematic. Yes, that would be very problematic.

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And so, we need to be very careful to not add anything to this word of text and take away something that is not meant to be taken away.

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But there was very much speculation, like I said, about people's opinions of what's going on here, what they think is taking place.

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And so, we'll talk through some of this stuff, and I hope that it helps us and we can come to kind of our own conclusion today using the word of God and not going out of its guardrails for us to come to those conclusions.

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So, once again, as the context is, this is after the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

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He's already appeared and made himself manifest, as John has recorded twice for us in these ways.

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And it doesn't record in here how many days after these events that Peter decides to go fishing.

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So, in verse 1, let us read it. It says, So, it's saying in these next verses, this is how it took place.

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This is how Christ manifested himself for the third time before his disciples.

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And we see that it's at the Sea of Tiberias. Now, this is also the Lake of Tiberias, the

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Sea of Galilee. There's a lot of different names that this body of water can go by. But it is a very large body of water.

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In fact, if you have a map in your Bible, which is always great validating for what we have recorded for us here, you can see it's a pretty large lake, sea is what it would be called.

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It's 33 miles in circumference and from its shoreline today that it's been measured.

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So, it's a very big body of water. And as we have seen, just a little bit more context for us here in Luke chapter 5, that that's the very lake that Simon met

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Jesus. In fact, many of the disciples met Jesus there at that lake. And so, it's very interesting that here

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John has recorded that the very first time that Jesus met some of the disciples is going to be some of the last ways that Jesus sees his disciples as recorded by John.

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So, it's this correlating event here. So, be remembering that, be thinking about that.

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So, he manifested himself in this way. And in verse 2, it says this, And so, we would know that one of the two other of the disciples is the disciple whom

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Jesus loved. And so, there's altogether seven disciples that have been gathered together.

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Seven disciples. These seven, there's a couple additional that have now followed

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Christ that have not been recorded as fishing with Peter in Luke chapter 5. There's many that are recorded that are still going to go fishing with Peter here.

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But in Luke chapter 5, I believe it says, I might be wrong on these numbers, but I think it's five of these same disciples that we see in here were also fishing with Simon in chapter 5 of Luke.

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But regardless of that, there's seven of them here in this text. In verse 3, we see

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Simon Peter, he says in here, This is where that speculation starts to kick in.

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Here you have the risen Jesus Christ and you have Peter who in the last three and a half years have not gone fishing.

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That used to be his way of work. That was his way of earning a wage. He was a fisherman. That was his employment.

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And so, no doubt I would imagine that he probably got joy from fishing as many men and women do.

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So, he says in here, I am going fishing. And here in three and a half years, he has not gone fishing or it's not been recorded for us that he's gone fishing.

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He left his boat and his net and he followed Jesus. Like I said, there's a lot of speculation on why

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Peter wanted to do this. And I want to stray away from trying to come to a firm conclusion on why this was.

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I would say that here in the previous chapter, we just see Jesus say to them, As I have been sent, so I send you.

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Do not be fearful of the world. So, maybe this is Peter saying, I know that the Lord Jesus Christ is going to be leaving us soon because he's been speaking of leaving us and I know

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I have to make a wage to live. And so, maybe I'm going to go fishing. I'm going to get back into doing that because I'm to no longer be scared of the world.

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I'm to go to the world. I'm to be in the world, but not of the world. Maybe that is what's going on in here.

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Once again, we can't come to a strong conclusion because in this text, all that is recorded for us that is

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Peter says, I am going fishing. I am going fishing.

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Maybe he was under a lot of stress after seeing Jesus Christ die and now he's reappeared and now maybe he's wanting to have this relaxing time of going out and thinking of the things of God on the water.

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Maybe that's what's going on here. Or maybe it's just another time of Peter doing his typical

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Peter thing of denying Christ and just continually kind of putting his foot in his mouth.

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Maybe that's what's going on here. It's hard to say. But Peter says, I am going fishing.

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I am going fishing. I am going fishing. We see in here that it's recorded for us that these seven disciples all go fishing with him.

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They all follow him to go fishing. They all get on the boat to gather fish.

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Now, I think we can make a lot of correlations here to Our Own Lives Church that when we go into the world, we're to have fellowship with each other, that the people in this room, if you were to go get on a boat to go fishing,

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I hope that you would look at people in this room and say, I want to have fellowship with these people. I want to include these people in what

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I enjoy doing. I want to include these people in what I'm doing throughout the week. I want to be a family.

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I want to be friends. I want to have fellowship with each other. And so I see that in this text.

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Here's these seven disciples that have fellowship, and it's recorded for us they had a good enough fellowship that they were going to be fishing all night long.

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So they go out and whatever time it was, and they continue fishing through the night.

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It says, we will come fishing with you. We will come also with you. They went out and got into the boat and that night they caught nothing.

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And this is really remarkable because in Luke chapter 5, we see Peter. It says again, they caught nothing.

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So we would look at this and we'd say, I have another fellow fisherman that's about as good as I am catching nothing, right?

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That when Peter has gone out on this boat, that for many hours through the night and with his friends, they have caught no fish.

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No fish have gotten into the net. Not a single one. Now, John records this for us for a specific reason.

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It wouldn't work if John had not recorded that they caught nothing and then they just have

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Jesus come and they cast it to the right side of the boat and have 153 fish. It specifically records in here that they caught nothing.

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No fish whatsoever. And here are these men that are supposed to be fishermen by trade.

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They should know these waters. They should know where the fish are. They should be able to cast their net in it and catch fish.

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They're catching nothing whatsoever. This is why it's so remarkable that here in a little bit, we see that their nets are full to the brim of fish here in a moment.

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Now, if we were to take a snapshot of this individual time with Peter and the disciples casting their net into the water, we talked about this at Bible study, that here is

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Nebuchadnezzar that then has his nature changed and he has to go and eat in the field with cows and other beasts and he's eating along this grass along next to these dung piles, right?

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That here is this man that's being made into a beast, that God has made him there for seven periods of time.

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And if we were just to look at that snapshot, we would say, man, that seems like a terrible thing that's going on right there.

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And if that's all we focused on, we would walk away with it thinking, why is that even taking place? This seems ridiculous.

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But if we have the whole picture and we understand that Nebuchadnezzar was this king that God placed there and this king has looked at his own sovereignty and has said, look,

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I am the king and he looks at his own works and he doesn't acknowledge God, then God humbles him and he does this in a perfect way.

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And then he elevates him to being a believer in himself. If we have that whole picture, we can say every snapshot in there had a purpose.

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Every moment in this guy's life had a purpose and it was leading him to this exclamation of Christ, exclamation of Yahweh.

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It's bringing about this glorious picture. And so likewise, in this middle of the night, if we were to take a snapshot of this, we'd say, man, that stinks.

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That seems like a waste of time. Why are they even out there? That would be super disheartening. I go out hunting and I don't even see one animal and I get in my truck and I leave and I drive home and I'm frustrated.

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No doubt that these disciples, in my opinion, when we read this, no fish they had caught.

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They are going to be frustrated men. They're going to be kind of, why? Why are we even out here,

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Peter? We're wasting our night. That's the snapshot

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I would take away from this if we were just to look at this moment in time. But verse four says this, it says, but when the day break, but when the day was now breaking, so now the sun's starting to come up, it's starting to get light out.

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Jesus stood on the beach, yet the disciples did not know that it was

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Jesus. Once again, there's a lot of speculation behind this. A lot of people would say there was a mist on the water or maybe they still are losing their salvation, which that's not the case in this.

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And they keep on forgetting who Christ looks like. What probably is the fact is it says that the boat was a hundred yards away.

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And so it's just a distance thing. They see a man standing on the beach and they don't see it as Jesus.

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They just see a man there. They just see a man. And so it was a hundred yards away, according to verse eight and verse eight, it says, but the other disciples came in the little boat for they were not far from the land, but about 100 yards away.

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So it most likely is a distance thing that they're just not able to recognize that this is Jesus Christ.

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But we see that Jesus is there on the lakeside, on the beach, on the seaside of this, this body of water.

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And it says that Jesus stood on the beach, yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus therefore said to them, children, you do not have any fish, do you?

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Now let's think about this rationally. Let's say you were on a lakeside for 12 hours, watching a boat cast their net over and over and over again into the waters.

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And you watch and you see this thing take place. Would you think for a moment that they didn't have any fish in their boat?

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I would think that at least you caught a little guy, at least you were out there for some reason. But Jesus says, you don't have any fish in there, do you?

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This is a claim that Jesus Christ knows all things. And he's giving an opportunity to talk with his disciples for them to answer them back.

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This is exactly what we would see that takes place in the garden, that he's walking around in there.

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He calls out to Adam and Eve, where are you? It's a time for them to come forward and talk with God, talk with Jesus.

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God does this all the time throughout both the Old and the New Testament. So he says in here, he says, children, do you not have any fish, do you?

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Now this word children could also mean lad, looking at somebody and saying, hey, you guys over there, tell me what's going on with what you're catching right now.

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Some of the commentaries I was looking at studying this would say that that would be maybe a common way to refer.

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A merchant would reach out to somebody that was in a boat. And so the idea is that maybe these disciples in the boat didn't recognize

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Jesus because of the distance. And they think that he's a merchant that's there early in the morning to get the fish, to sell it here in the soon.

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And so the disciples, therefore, say to him, well, they say, no, we don't have any.

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So Jesus then goes on to say this, he says, and he said to them, cast the net on the right hand side of the boat and you will find a catch.

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This is another claim of him being

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God in flesh. You imagine for a moment you're on the lakeside.

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You see these this boat casting the net all night long. They haven't catched anything, but you've maybe you don't know that they didn't catch anything.

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If you could you say for a fact that you know that they haven't caught anything? No, you couldn't say that. Let's say you you find out that they haven't catched anything.

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Can you then after these 12 or however many hours it's been, look to that exact same boat and say, hey, cast your net on the right side and you'll catch something.

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Do you think that they have not tried this already? They've been throwing nets left and right, no doubt, all night long in frustration and some anger, probably just disappointment.

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Can any of us sit and tell somebody, hey, cast your net on the right hand side and I know you'll catch a fish?

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No, we can't. And so this is a claim that Jesus Christ is omniscient.

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And we'll see here in a moment that he controls the fish. He controls the net.

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He controls the men. He is sovereign in these things. He is sovereign over these people.

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He's sovereign over the fish. And so he says, cast the net on the right hand side of the boat.

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Is there a reason that Jesus Christ said the right hand side over the left hand side?

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Yes, there is. There is. If he wanted to, he could have said the left hand side of the boat. And no doubt, if he wanted to, to make fish, get in the net, he could have.

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But he says the right hand side for a reason. God speaks like this often, often, all throughout the text.

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The book of Psalms, it says, The Lord said unto my Lord, sit at my right hand till I make thine enemies your footstool.

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Jesus says in Matthew chapter 25 verse 33, I believe it is, he says in there, I will separate the sheep from the goats and I'll put the sheep on my right hand and the goats on my left.

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It says that Jesus is standing at the right hand of the

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Father. The right hand has much significance in the scripture as that was the hand of power, the hand of authority, the hand of supremacy.

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And so we see here that Christ tells the disciples, throw the net on the right hand side of the boat.

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I don't think this is a coincidence at all is what I'm getting at in this text. He says cast it on the right hand and you will find a catch.

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You will catch fish. So they therefore and they then they were not able to haul.

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So they they cast therefore. So they cast it on the right hand side of the boat and then they were not able to haul it in because of the great number of fish.

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This is interesting. I want you to pay close attention to the correlations that take place between this event and the event that happened to these same disciples.

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Many of the same disciples three and a half years earlier because it happens very remarkably similar.

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But there's events that take place in here that's different. So we see in here that that according to Luke, it says that Peter, before he casts the net into the water, he first questions him.

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In this text, do you see them questioning him any longer? They just throw it in the water. No doubt, maybe in the back of their mind, they're like, well, the last time somebody told us to throw a net into the water and we actually did it.

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We had a huge amount of fish that we caught, says in verse seven.

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That disciple, therefore, whom Jesus loved. Who is that speaking of?

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John, the author of this gospel here. Once again, he he refers to himself in this humble way of speaking that he doesn't want people know his name.

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He wants people to know that Jesus Christ loves him. What a what a beautiful way to refer to yourself as.

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I don't want you to know I'm John. I want you to know that Jesus Christ loves me. And so John is the first one to recognize that this is

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Jesus Christ. And so he says in here, he says it to Peter and he says, it is the

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Lord. Isn't this remarkable? Just this one phrase of a disciple of Christ that recognizes him quickly, quickly calls out to him as who he is.

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Lord, we see this previously just in the chapter before my Lord and my

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God, Mary at the tomb, my

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Lord, my master. I can't help but think. That when these disciples, once they saw

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Christ ascend to the heavens and they are no longer now presently seeing him face to face, that the day that they died and martyred them, that when they stood before the very throne of God, they looked and they saw the land had been slain for them and they saw

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Jesus Christ. They no doubt exploding in great joy and saying it is the

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Lord. Or in some way called out to him in that manner, because that is how every disciple, when they recognize

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Christ, they call out to him just as John is doing right here. It is the

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Lord. Also, John recognizing in this boat, recognizing at the distance that this is

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Jesus, the Christ, his Lord and his God. Does he keep silent about this?

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No, he turns to be. It's the Lord, Peter. It's the Lord. As Christians, if you believe in Jesus Christ and his death, burial and resurrection, that perfect life that you and I cannot live and him paying the price for you on the cross.

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You will want to tell people it is the Lord. If you recognize

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Jesus Christ as Lord, you will tell people about it. You will tell people about it.

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You'll make sure that it is done. And so he says this to Peter.

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And this is interesting. It is the Lord. And so when Simon Peter heard it was the Lord. So once he hears

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John say it is the Lord, this is very this was recorded to us. Very interestingly, this is the same

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Peter that's questioned him the first time that he was told to put the net in the water.

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This is the same Peter that got out on the water and began to walk and began to sink and was grabbed by Jesus Christ.

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This is the same Peter that does this. And and now we have him know it's

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Jesus. And he then has been stripped for work. So he doesn't have a shirt on. He's he's been working hard through the night and he puts back on the shirt before jumping in the water.

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I think this is interesting. I don't I can't rationalize why

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Peter would do that. Maybe he was embarrassed of being shirtless. So he wanted to put on a shirt to jump to be able to meet

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Jesus Christ. But forever, whatever reason that is, he puts on his outer garment. He then jumps into the water.

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He's not there to wait and he jets it for Jesus Christ. He takes a beeline for Jesus Christ in this way.

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He goes after him once again as disciples of Christ. Should we be going after Christ?

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Yes, absolutely. Now, it's also funny in this text because could they haul this large load of fish says that they were unable to haul it.

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They weren't able to pick it up. So they had to use the boat to haul it into the side of the shore. As the other six disciples sat in the boat.

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What do you think that their thoughts were when they saw Peter jump out? And they knew that they had a lot of work before them.

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Dang it, Peter. We got to get this fish to the store. And there's no doubt in my mind that they were thinking something along those lines.

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Says that the disciple, therefore, whom Jesus loves, said to Peter, it is the Lord. And so when Simon Peter heard that it was the

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Lord, he put on his outer garment on and for he was stripped for the work and threw himself into the sea.

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But the other disciples came in the little boat. So they are in this boat and they they bring the fish in for they were not far from the land, about 100 yards away, dragging the net full of fish.

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So they couldn't lift this large number of fish into their boat and they had to drag it to the seashore.

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They had to drag it to this this beach here. And so when they got out upon the land, they saw a charcoal fire already laid and fish placed upon it and bread.

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Who made this fire? Who received this fish?

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This is the same Jesus Christ that has taken a small amount of food and and fed many multitude of people.

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Here is Jesus Christ and the disciples not catching a single fish. And here he has a fire and fish already there.

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And bread for the disciples. Jesus Christ has prepared a meal for them.

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He's provided for them. He greets them in this way.

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Now, here you have seven fishermen that by trade have been doing this for their life and they couldn't catch a single fish.

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And we're here. We have Jesus Christ. It doesn't say how he got the fish. I that's more speculation. I don't know if Jesus was there with a fishing pole or if him being all powerful could make a fish there on the fire right then and there doesn't say in here.

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But however, Jesus did it. Jesus received himself a fish in some way or another.

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And he puts it on the fire and he has it cooked there for the disciples.

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And it says to them here in verse 10. Jesus said to them, bring some of the fish which you have now caught.

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And Simon Peter went up and drew the net to land full of large fish.

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A hundred and fifty -three and altogether there were so many the net was not torn.

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John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, penned this gospel many years after the event took place.

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Do you think that the number 153 meant a lot to him in that time? Because when a fisherman would get the fish to the seashore in order to count it for the merchants, they would count their catch.

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And so it is significant that John has recorded in here that it was 153.

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It means that they remembered that. Here this whole night, we have not caught a single fish. That's an easy way to count.

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Zero. Zero fish. And now there's 153 in our nets.

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Without Christ, could man do anything? Without God, could man do anything? No. It's by his word that he upholds all things.

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How did the disciples receive the fish? Because God is sovereign over all things.

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In fact, Job chapter 1 verses 22 through 23, it says that the

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Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And it's remarkable. We will not read today because we do not have enough time.

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But in Job chapter 38 through 42, we see in great detail the way that God is sovereign over all his creation.

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He talks about the waters. He talks about the skies. He talks about these beasts.

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He talks about them all. And he says, you tell me where the goat calves at. You tell me these things,

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Job. God does these things and he has supreme authority over them.

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These disciples could not catch a single fish in and of themselves. But God sovereignly placed 153 fish into their nets that day.

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And that's remarkable. He not only provided that which had already been laid upon the fire, but he provided the means for them to be able to catch these fish.

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Now let's look at the correlations that we have here in these two different chapters. Chapter 5 of Luke and chapter 21 of John.

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The correlations that we would see in here that nothing is caught by the disciples in both accounts.

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Now when it's just them, they don't catch anything. In both accounts,

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Jesus commands that the disciples do something with their nets and they do it. And what takes place?

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Fish. That's important. So when we are commanded by God to do something, should we not obey him?

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We should absolutely do those things. Another correlation that we would see in here is that the nets in the first account broke.

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And the net in the second time did not. It's very interesting.

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Be thinking about this in the back of your mind. Why is it that the net broke in the first account and not in the second? In the first account,

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Peter questioned Jesus. In the second account, he throws himself into the water without hesitation it sounds like.

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Maybe a little bit to put on a shirt, but he throws himself in the water to go see Jesus. We see somebody that has been walking along Christ for three and a half years now.

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And we see spiritual growth in this time of the text. He no longer questions Jesus Christ.

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He follows him. He goes after him. And that's important. I hope that you see growth in your own life as you follow

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Jesus Christ. Now, what would be some theological implications? Some symbolism that we could see here that I think that we can make application for theologically in this text.

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Well, I think the first thing that we see in this kind of a text is absolutely that Jesus both provides the fish, the cooked fish.

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And according to Luke chapter 5, 10, he's already made reference to how fish, we are to be fishermen of men in Luke 5, chapter 10.

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That we are to fish after men. Now, think about this for a moment. I want you to think about how many people are under this roof today.

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Think about how many people followed Jesus Christ when he was walking on the earth.

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It's a very small amount of number of peoples. Very small amount of people actually followed

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Jesus Christ when he was physically upon the earth. When did people start having extreme large numbers so that in Hagerman, Idaho today, 2 ,000 years later, we could have a small congregation of people that believe in Jesus Christ.

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When did that catalyst take place? When the apostles went out and shared the gospel message.

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Who had more fish with them at this fireside meal that they had? The apostles brought more fish.

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Who provided the fish? Jesus Christ. Absolutely in both ways.

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But we see that the disciples that followed Christ when he was here on the earth was a small number.

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But we see that the net, that the gospel message going forth from the apostles lips after the ascension of Jesus Christ in Acts, chapter 2.

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Thousands were added to them that day. 153 times fold.

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I don't know what the number is, but 153 compared to what Jesus Christ had laid already on the fire. This is interesting.

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This I think is significant in this text for that reason that we see that who is providing these fish, who is sovereign over these fish in every case?

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God. And here is man that he has put out to do the work that he sends into the world and they gather back a large number of fish.

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Now, I want to be clear in this. When do fish, when do men get saved? Well, it says that we are saved at the cross.

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That's where our penalty is paid. That's where it takes place is at the cross. So Christ in that way has died for the fish.

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He's already secured the fish salvation on the cross. This term for fish, but the small amount of actual fish that followed him in his day was small.

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But today we look around the world and there's Christians everywhere amongst us. That's wonderful.

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I totally see a correlation between this and that. So I think the final application that we can make to this is whether you are fishing, whether you are cooking, whether you stay home, whether you go out, whether you're at work, whether you are at home.

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Whatever it is, do all things unto the glory of God. And how can we do that better today?

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I would encourage you to take special care in noticing how

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God is sovereign over all things, that he provides over all things. And blessed be the name of the

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Lord, whether he gives or whether he takes. If our nets have broken, whether our nets are 153 fish in it, whether our nets are with nothing, glorify

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God today because it is him who is supreme. Let us go ahead and pray over these things.

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Lord God, we thank you so much for this record, Lord. This recording of this third manifestation of you in this gospel of John, Lord.

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God, we are so thankful to be given a duty of being a fisherman of men,

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Lord. And God, I just pray that each one of us might know who you are today, Lord.

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That when we think about the sin that we have committed, we are quick to remember that you, God, became flesh.

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You were born of a virgin. That you lived an absolutely blemish -free, perfect life,

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Lord. That you lived a life that we can't live.

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You died the death for your fish, for your people, Lord. That would profess faith in you, that would love you, that would honor you, that would care for you,

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Lord. That you died on the cross for us. That you were buried and that you rose again,

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Lord. God, as John in this text says, it is the

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Lord. God, let us remember that in our lives today, that we are quick to acknowledge you in all things.

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It is the Lord, God, and that when we are at your feet, Lord, whenever that time might be,

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God, that we would love you and call out to you just as Thomas did, my

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Lord and my God. Just as John did, it is the Lord. Just as Simon did, you are the Christ, the Son of the living

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God. Lord, let us know this gospel, the gospel that we don't bring anything to, the gospel that you have secured for us,

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Lord. The gospel that has saved us, that has won us and purchased us. Lord, we say these things in your holy name,

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Jesus Christ, amen. Brothers and sisters, how about we stand up one final time for today?

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I hope we actually stand up multiple times throughout today, but here right now, let's stand up one more time and sing praise to God today.