Caught In God’s Net - [Luke 5:1-11]

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The war was going on and I thought certainly I'll have to be serving in the military over at Vietnam.
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Thankfully, the Vietnam War ended in April 30th, 1975, but I still remember shortly after that going to the post office and signing up for selective service to make sure that I was in part of the process, so if there was another war that I would have my name there to be drafted and or what we call conscripted.
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It's an interesting topic. How do you fill an army? Whether you're Rome or Sparta or Babylon, there's a battle and you need men to serve and to fight.
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How do you get those men? And so you draft them, you call them, you conscript them. I found some interesting conscription facts, not overseas but here in America.
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May 8th, 1792, George Washington, the commander of the Continental Army, signed the
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National Conscription Act and here's what it said, every able -bodied white male citizen of the age of 18 years and under the age of 45 be enrolled in the militia.
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Every citizen so enrolled shall within six months thereafter provide himself with a good musket, a sufficient bayonet and belt and not less than 24 cartridges.
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1812 war, how do they get people to serve in that war? Well you would get for 13 months service a $16 cash bonus when you signed up and then, this is more attractive to me, a 160 acre tract of land after you've completed your service.
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Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation and two months later signed the Enrollment Act of Conscription and you would have to sign up.
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A lot of violence happened around then and so if you gave $300 or you hired a substitute, you didn't have to go into the
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Civil War. World War II, 50 million men registered for the draft and many of them received the letter that started with greetings.
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To serve in the army you had to be at least 5 foot tall, you couldn't be larger than 6 '6 for the
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World War II. You had to weigh at least 105 pounds, have correctable vision and possess at least half your teeth.
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They had different classifications. 1A, you were fit for service. 1AO, you were a conscientious objector and you would have a non -combative role and the other one
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I thought was interesting was IVF and you were physically or morally unfit and you didn't have to serve.
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Of course in Vietnam there were deferments if you were a college student and 100 ,000 men did not want to go.
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25 ,000 indictments for those that did not serve and then in 1974, President Ford and then
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President Carter gave amnesty. Drafted into the army, conscripted to serve.
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My question today is pretty simple. How does the Lord draft people into his army?
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How does he call them? How does he conscript them? Back in the
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Bible and even today. Take your Bibles and turn to the Gospel of Jesus according to Luke and we're going to look at God's sovereignty over people.
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It's one thing to say God is sovereign over the weather, He is. He's sovereign over the moon,
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He is. He's sovereign over when you were born, He is. He's sovereign over your parents.
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He's sovereign over what age you'd be born. He's sovereign over all those things but it's another thing to really settle that question in your heart of hearts.
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God is sovereign over me and what are the implications of that? God is sovereign over me.
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He rules me. He's my Lord. He's my master and I'm conscripted as a
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Christian into his army and what are the implications? And so this whole section, Luke 5, which we start today, and Luke 6,
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Luke arranges things sometimes a little bit out of chronological order because he's trying to show you whether God calls
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Simon, James and John, whether he calls Levi or whether he calls the twelve, that he is sovereign over people.
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And so we're working through the Gospel of Jesus according to Luke and we've seen all kinds of wonderful things so far, have we not?
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In this Gospel that is written so that you have certainty that Jesus is the Christ and that certainty is for unbelievers who might read it and say,
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I don't know, there's a lot of competing messiahs out there, how can this one be really the one? But it's also good for us as Christians because we struggle in life and there are trials and there's suffering and there are difficulties and sometimes we say, does he care?
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Does he love me? Is he really the God in Scripture? So this is good for both believer and unbeliever and what
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Luke has been doing so far is he's been trying to prove to you this is the Messiah from his virgin conception, from his genealogy, from the
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Father saying, this is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. One event after another after another showing that Jesus is in fact
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God. Highlighted maybe when Jesus walks into the synagogue of Nazareth, remember?
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And he opens up the scroll and he reads Isaiah 61 and he says, I'm that God. So today we're going to look at Luke chapter 5 verses 1 through 11 and we're going to answer the question, how does
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God call people? How does he call people to himself for salvation and how does he call people to himself for service and ministry?
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The sovereign God calls people and this is really what we'll see in this passage is a template for what he does.
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This template for sovereign calling of people and I'll just give you a hint what happens in the passage.
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I'll say it ahead of time. God shows himself for who he is and what he's done.
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The people respond with fear, right? If you realize how holy God is, you'll know how sinful you are.
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Then God reassures them and then he calls them into ministry. He calls them into service.
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So God shows himself, there's a human response, there's a divine assurance and then the divine call.
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So those are the four we'll see today. The revealing of the sovereign authority, the response to sovereign authority, the reassurance of sovereign authority and the reaction or the responsibility or the commission because of sovereign authority.
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Luke chapter 5 verses 1 through 11, God is sovereign over people including you and he calls them.
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How does he call them? Well the template number one is he reveals himself. He reveals himself verses 1 through 7.
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He shows that he's holy, sovereign, having authority. Remember the refrain in Luke, the word authority, authority, authority.
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He's got authority over demons, he's got authority over sickness, he's got authority over everything. We're going to see he has authority over people in verses 1 through 7.
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Very familiar story. If you're a fisherman, you're going to like this story. How many people love to fish by the way?
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Not that many. I think fishing is on the way out. I don't fish much but I always tell
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Amos we're going to go fishing, my little grandson. We're going fishing. I don't know why grandpas like to fish with their grandsons but I'm going to do it.
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We're going fishing together, Amos and I, and we can just sit and talk about stuff and skip stones and who knows what.
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The revealing of the Messiah's sovereign authority verses 1 through 7. This is the fish story but it's
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Peter is the one who really gets caught. Before I read anything in verses 1 through 7, don't forget dear congregation that Luke is writing not just that you know some of these facts, not just writing so that you'll say now
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I have a good way to pass a test if I go to seminary for what the gospel of Luke is about.
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You're seeing these people like Simon responding to who
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Jesus is because Luke wants the same for you. Luke is wanting you to see who
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Jesus is. He's wanting you to respond like Peter. He's wanting you to say that's exactly right.
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Only the God -man could do this and only someone like this would I yield my life to by faith and bow the knee with total allegiance.
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The highlight here if you look at the original language, the key is about the miraculous catch of fish and so let's work our way up there.
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Verse 1 of Luke 5. On one occasion while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, talking about Jesus, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret and he saw two boats by the lake but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets.
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Getting into one of the boats which was Simon's, he asked him to put out a little from the land and he sat down, taught the people from the boat.
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And so for those of you that have been to the Sea of Galilee, you realize it's this beautiful place called many different names.
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It could be called the Sea of Galilee, it could be called the Sea of Tiberias, and here it's called the
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Lake of Gennesaret. And it's beautiful. There's all kinds of fishing boats there even today.
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Back in the day, Josephus, the Jewish writer, said there were probably 300 fishing boats on the Sea of Galilee.
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Lots of different kinds of fish. They say about 20 different kinds of fish and you can imagine if you'd like to make a living, fishing would be a good way to do it.
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Even Mark Twain, when he went to the Sea of Galilee in 1867, said in the starlight,
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Galilee has no boundaries but the broad compass of the heavens and is a theater met for great events, met for the birth of a religion able to save the world, and met for the stately figure
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Jesus appointed to stand upon its stage and proclaim its high decrees. And Jesus is there.
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Remember what he's been doing? He's been healing, he's been teaching, he teaches as one who has authority, and now they're pressing in.
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They want to hear Jesus. They want to get close to him. Maybe some to be healed, but many to hear the word of God.
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That's what it says in our passage. They're pressing in. The word is, they're like lying upon him. And so you can imagine if the sea is behind me, the
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Sea of Galilee, this 13 mile long by six mile wide lake that's lower than sea level, that has kind of a
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Jordan River current going through it, because the Jordan, then the Sea of Galilee, then the Jordan works out that way.
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The crowd keeps coming. They're like lying upon him, and he keeps backing up, and he keeps backing up closer and closer to the water.
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That's the idea. They're pressing in on him. It's the same language when the people were pressing Pilate, crucify him, crucify him, crucify him.
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Here, but they're literally pressing upon him. I'm glad they want to hear the word of God.
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And here Jesus is going to tell them many things. I love it when
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Jesus said in John 12, for I did not speak of my own initiative, but the Father himself who sent me has given me a commandment as what to say and what to speak.
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I know that his commandment is eternal life. Therefore, the things I speak, I speak just as the Father has told me.
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And so when you hear that he's speaking the word of God, he's literally speaking the word of God from God. They know they needed the word.
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And there's how many boats by the lake? Verse two. Well, why would they say two boats?
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There are probably a lot of boats here. There's two boats here. Nobody in them.
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Why? Because the fishermen are washing. And what does
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Jesus do? He gets in one of the boats. One guy said
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Jesus finds a floating pulpit. I've had the same pulpit for now, 27 years.
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Not too bad, but it's not a floating pulpit. That's for sure. J. Vernon McGee said every pulpit is a fishing boat, a place to give out the word of God and attempt to catch fish.
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There's two boats, but in the sovereignty of God, in the providence of God, he wants Peter's boat.
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This will change Peter's life for the rest of his life. Sovereignly choosing Peter's boat. There's two boats.
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I don't think I want you to miss that. In the sovereignty of God, there's a passage. And there's been people out fishing, and they didn't catch anything.
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And so you have to clean the nets. Now, there's different ways that you could fish, the way I would fish when
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I was a kid. You just have a hook, and you have a weight, and you have, when you're 12, a bobber, right?
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That's not how they fished. They had kind of a throwing net in shallow water, or they had kind of a larger net, kind of a trammel net, if you know about fishing, or a gill net.
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And then you could run it between boats, and you would go out in the lake, and you would run it between the two boats, and you would catch fish that way.
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And those things are valuable, and they get stuff caught in them, not just fish. And after you're done, you have to start cleaning them out.
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And that's exactly what they were doing. Verse 4, and when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, so he's preaching, and he said, put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.
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I think this is a time for practical application of the sermon. We're not told what
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Jesus said, but I think what now is going to happen is going to be practical application time, application for the sermon.
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Here's a quiz, Peter. Did you get what I was talking about? Some people call this a Petrine Pop Test. Let down your nets.
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Now, I don't know, Peter could have probably said, you're the carpenter, I'm the fisherman.
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We worked hard. We've already cleaned the nets.
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There's a lot of people around here, crowds, and probably scared the fish away. But you don't use these nets in the middle of the day when the people can see the nets.
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Well, people couldn't see the nets if they were swimming underwater either. When the fish see the nets, they swim away. You do this at night.
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You don't do this in the day. Everything's wrong here. But Peter, trust the
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Lord. And he says in verse five, Master, we toiled all night and took nothing.
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But at your word, I will let down the nets. Luke is the only one that uses the word master.
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Rabbi and teacher are used by the other gospel accounts. Why does it say master here? Well, Luke has written to Gentile people, and Gentile people might not know exactly what the rabbi was.
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And so they do know what a master is. A master is a foreman. A master is a supervisor. A master is a boss. Master is one who has authority.
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So Luke here records Simon saying, Master, we toiled all night and caught nothing.
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You're the one who set over us. You're the one in charge. We'll do what you say. But just to let you know, we were out there all night and we didn't catch one thing.
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We labored and labored. The word is sweat, toil, exhaustion. We are exhausted. We fished all night.
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Verse six. What does the text say? And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish and their nets were breaking.
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They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats so that they both began to sink.
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The point is there was a lot of fish. Well, that's true. But the point is
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Jesus is sovereign over everything, including fish, including people.
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Listen to Psalm 8. You have given to him dominion over the works of your hands and put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen and also the beast of the field, the birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
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Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. So what happens in the
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Bible regularly with Moses, Elijah, the apostles and Jesus? There's a word spoken and you know the word is true because there's a sign to back it up.
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The signs point to the word being true. So signs and wonders and miracles like this confirm who
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Jesus is and confirm his word. You authenticate the message and the messenger.
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And so Jesus wants to prove that he is in fact the God -man, the teacher from God. And so here we have all these fish that are caught.
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It's a miracle. I like it when one writer said, Jesus does not assert his lordship at Peter's weakest point, but at his strongest.
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Professional fisherman. Jesus does not wait for an appropriate mood. Have you ever done that?
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Trying to talk to somebody and maybe your spouse or something. You're like, you want to ask them something or tell them something. You're waiting for a good mood to kind of,
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I know you don't do that, but I do it all the time. Here's the Lord Jesus.
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He's Lord over everything. He's Lord over the demons. He's Lord over Satan. He's Lord over Peter. Peter's mother -in -law's sickness.
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He's Lord over people. He's Lord over the seas. I think he's Lord over everything. Master will do whatever you want.
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And they're all the fish. Okay. I have to say this to make sure we don't forget toward the end.
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With Peter, by himself, no fish. With the
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Lord, Peter, fish. We're going to talk about fishers of men pretty soon, and you should get this picture in your mind.
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It's the exact same thing when it comes to Peter and his ministry. Without the Lord, without him,
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I can do nothing. Ministry catching men, nothing without the Lord's help. Ministry with the
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Lord Jesus, catching men. Peter's first sermon in Pentecost, how many little fishes did he catch?
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3 ,000 men fish he caught. See the picture here?
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See what's going on? As you read the Bible, you're thinking, that's exactly right. Well, how does
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God commission a man? He shows him himself. Then there's a response.
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The revealing of the Messiah's sovereign authority. And now here's the response to the sovereign authority of the
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Messiah. Verses 8 and 9. If you see God for who He is, how do you respond? Ask Ezekiel in chapters 1, 2, and 3.
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Ask Daniel in Daniel chapter 10. Ask Paul on the road to Damascus in Acts chapter 9.
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Ask Gideon. Ask Peter. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees saying,
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I'm such an awful fisherman. Is that what he said? Depart from me for I'm a sinful man.
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Not O master, not O boss, not O one who set over me, not an overseer, but O Lord.
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And he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of the fish that they had taken. He falls down.
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Think about it. Just process this in your mind. You've got two boats and they're pretty big boats. Don't think kayak.
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Don't think canoe. If you've been to Israel in the Sea of Galilee now, they found a boat that's 2 ,000 years old.
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They've unearthed it and they've kind of put it back together. And you can see how big it is. That's a huge boat filled with fish.
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There's another huge boat filled with fish. And Peter's in one of them. He understands, I have the God of the universe in my boat, the
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Holy One, the transcendent One, the creator of the universe, the creator of me. And he falls down.
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I can't prove it, but I certainly can. It's not a stretch in the middle of all the fish. It's not like you put the fish over to the side in a little bait box, a little springer, something like that.
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No, he's falling down. The text literally is at his knees, at Jesus' knees, and the ESV does a good job there.
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And he's like, get away from me. I'm sinful man. And what does he say? Oh, master?
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No, oh, Lord. Now, in the Old Testament, when you want to use the name of God, it's
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Yahweh. That's the personal name of God. And when you want to translate
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Yahweh into the Greek New Testament, you translate it into kurios, which is,
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Lord, you are God. You're not just sovereign. You're not just a master.
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You are God. God is in my boat. Who else could redirect all the fish of the sea?
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And if you're God, that means I know who you are. And that means I know who I am. And this is the key to all of Christianity, essentially, is you know who
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God is, and you know who you are. That's how John Calvin started off his famous institutes. The knowledge of God and the knowledge of you.
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And when you know who God is, you know who you are. And you're like the tax collector standing far away,
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Peter, unwilling to lift up his eyes, beating his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me. The sinner.
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They were amazed by this. Jesus isn't anybody. He's the Holy One of God.
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Jesus isn't just a good teacher. And when Adam first sinned because he recognized how holy
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God was, he tried to hide himself. Israel under Sinai said, let not
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God speak with us, lest we doubt the supernatural work of God, because Jesus is a supernatural one.
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Luke is wanting you to understand. Peter sees that it's Jesus, the
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God man in his boat. Do you see it? This is not just a report. This is he's wanting you to read and interact with it.
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This reminds me of Joshua, who was by Jericho in Joshua chapter five.
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He lifted up his eyes and looked and behold, a man was standing before him with this drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went up and said to him, are you for us or for our adversaries?
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He doesn't answer the question. He said, no, but I'm the commander of the army of the Lord now have come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshipped and said, what does my
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Lord say to the servant of his? And the commander of the Lord's army said to Joshua, take off your sandals from your feet for the place where you are standing is holy.
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And Joshua did so. Joshua started off as the general of the army, and now he's lieutenant general, because the real general of the army, the pre -incarnate
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Jesus shows up and there's amazement and there's wonder. And so this happens regularly in Scripture.
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God shows himself, you realize who he is, and then you respond with fear.
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Well, does it end there? We've seen the template of God calling people. He reveals himself.
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There's a response. And now here comes the reassurance, the reassurance of the
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Messiah's sovereign authority. Verse 10a. And so also were
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James and John, sons of Zebedee, who are partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, do not be afraid.
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Verse nine, get away from me. Verse 10, prayer not answered.
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Do you see it? Go away from me. There's some prayers aren't going to be answered, including this one.
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Jesus isn't going to go away. And he says, don't be afraid. Now think about it.
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Is there a reason to be afraid? Yes. Is that a good response?
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Yes. We have the transcendent God, the holy one of Israel. There is a reason to be afraid.
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But God isn't a God of holiness, righteousness, justice only.
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He is all those things. But we know because we've already seen Jesus tenderly at Simon's house with his mother -in -law healing.
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We've seen Jesus kindly and gently dealing with the people who are riddled with demons. And so God is holy and transcendent.
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That is true. But he's also a God of love and a God of goodness and a God of kindness. And he says, don't be afraid.
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If you've seen who God is in his holiness and you've realized the depths of your sin, you're no longer comparing yourself to other people.
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You realize before God, he sees me. He knows me. He knows everything about me, even before I talk.
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And you respond with, that's frightening to know that anybody would know me like that, let alone God. And I have to report to him on judgment day.
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But then God says, don't worry. Don't be afraid. I mean, Jesus was sent to save people. Wasn't that true? In Luke chapter 19, to seek and save the lost.
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Jesus is one to be the mediator, to step between God, as it were, put his hand on God, the father, and put his hand on us and to be the arbiter or the umpire or the mediator between God and man, the man,
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Christ Jesus. He's come to save. He's come to rescue. And so he says, don't be afraid. I've come for you.
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What do you think Peter's response would be to that? What's the reaction when you see God, you recognize who you are and you're reassured by God.
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Well, we see the fourth part of the template and that is the commissioning or the responsibility in verses 10,
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B and 11. Jesus said to Simon, don't be afraid from now on you'll be catching men.
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And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him. You're going to be catching men.
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You're going to be fishers of men. You're going to be catching men. Why wouldn't men need to be caught?
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You know, unbelievers are caught by Satan to do his will. That's exactly the same language in second
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Timothy chapter two, that they, the unbelievers may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil.
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Having been held captive alive by capture to do his will. And now
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Jesus is sending Peter to do a rescue mission. Did not
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Jesus say in Luke chapter four, that he's come to preach the gospel to the poor. And he sent me to proclaim release to the captives.
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Yes. And what did they do?
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They had so much fish. This is going to last a long time. And so they went to the market to sell all the fish. I mean, the two boats were overflowing with fish.
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He's left it all. It's walked away here. This friends of sinners, this friend of sinners has caught me.
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And now he's commissioned me. Do you know, dear congregation, can't you see it?
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This is exactly what happened in your life. If you're a Christian, by looking at the scriptures, by hearing a sermon, by listening to something online, you began to say,
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Jesus is more than a man. He's a man, but he's more than man. He's the God man.
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And this God man is the creator of the universe. And he knows me and he's made me. And I understand how holy is because I see his law.
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And I realize I've fallen short of the law and I'm a sinner and I'm convicted. And I know he's the
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God man and I'm afraid. And then haven't you received the comforting balm of assurance that whoever comes to me,
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I'll never cast out. God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son. Haven't you then got that assurance that if you're trusting in Christ Jesus, you have a mediator and you'll be saved to the very end?
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Of course. And if that's the case, and it is the case, if you're a Christian, what's your response?
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What's the response to the commission? What's your response? Just I'm glad I've got myself saved and I've got my hell insurance.
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And now I need to go live my life. That can't be the response. The response is God's sovereign over you.
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He showed himself to you. Not everybody. He's shown himself this way, particularly. And now you respond with fear.
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And then there's reassurance. You're his child. You'll always be his child. He demonstrates his love toward us that while we were sinners,
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Christ died for us. And then you say, but I'm not going to serve him. I'm not going to go.
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That's not the right response. And for many of you, I watch you in your lives and you think I will do anything for the
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Lord out of gratitude. This is the guilt, grace, gratitude paradigm. Guilty in an
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Adam, graced in Christ Jesus, the last Adam. And now out of gratitude, you send me anywhere.
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I'll go anywhere. You're sovereign over me. You're the holy one. You could have sent me to perdition, but you didn't.
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It doesn't mean you have to go be a pastor or a pastor's wife. It doesn't mean you have to go be a missionary or a missionary's wife.
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Although we probably should have more of those here in the congregation. But it does mean I will use my life as a mother, as a brother, as a sister, as a father, working in secular world, as an offering to you.
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And you say, well, I'm struggling with that part. Then go back to the first part of how God is and how holy he is and work your way through this template again.
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Some of the most famous passages in all the Bible certainly are Genesis 1 and 2, chapter 3, the fall, chapter 11, the tower of Babel, the
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Abrahamic covenant in chapters 12 and 15 and 17 and 21, certainly the
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Passover in chapter 12 of Exodus. But what about this?
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You see it in the life of Peter. I hope you see it in your own life. How about this one?
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In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on the throne high and lifted up and the train of his robe filled the temple and above him stood the seraphim.
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Each had six wings with two. He covered his face with two. He covered his feet with two.
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He flew and one called to another and said, holy, holy, holy is the
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Lord God of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. And the foundations of the threshold shook with the voice of him who called the house was filled with smoke.
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And I said, woe is me. I'm like Peter. Depart from me. I'm lost.
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I'm a man of unclean lips. And I do all in the midst of a people of unclean lips. From my eyes have seen the King, the
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Lord of hosts. Do you see it? God shows himself to Isaiah. Isaiah realizes who he is.
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What do you think's coming next? Judgment? Here comes the death angel. And one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken from the tongs of the altar and then obliterated me.
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And he touched my mouth and said, behold, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away and your sin forgiven.
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Do you see it? He shows himself. You respond with fear. Here comes the assurance.
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What do you think is next? If you've been saved by grace and grace alone, you have a heaven for your home.
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Jesus is your savior. Forgiveness of sins. A sovereign God who works everything together for your good on earth.
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How do you respond? Just leave that alone. Christianity. Leave the commission alone.
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Leave evangelism alone. Leave ministry in the church alone. I don't want any of that. Of course not.
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What was Isaiah's response? I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us?
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And then I said, here I am. Send me. This is the paradigm for how
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God calls people. I'm going to make you fishers of men, Matthew says.
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When you fish and let your catch and release, I never could figure those people out. I guess they just don't like cleaning fish.
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You catch a fish, it's alive, and then you kill it and eat it. Well, now you're going to go fish after people and they're dead spiritually, and through the gospel, they become alive.
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I don't know if you realize this, but when you study the Old Testament, fishing metaphors are all about judgment.
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Fishing figures of speech are about judgment. Whether it's Habakkuk or Jeremiah or Ezekiel 29, which
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I'll read now, I shall put hooks in your jaws and shall make the fish of your rivers cling to your scales.
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And I shall bring you up out of the midst of your rivers and all the fish of your rivers will cling to your scales. And I will abandon you to the wilderness, you and all the fish of your rivers.
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You will fall on the open field and will not be brought together or gathered. I've given you for food to the beast of the earth and the birds of the sky.
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Judgment, judgment, judgment, when it talks about nations and fishing and hooks and snares.
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And now what does Jesus do because of the work and personal of the Lord Jesus? This is a way not to be judged, but to avoid judgment.
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Like I said at the beginning, I'd like to start fishing with Amos. I used to do a lot of fishing when
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I was a kid, but we got kind of bored with fishing, so we'd do different things and we would sometimes hook up to Gavin's Point Dam on the
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Missouri River and we would snag paddlefish. Paddlefish don't eat bait, they just kind of open their mouth and kind of just get the moss and other little particles.
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And so you have to put a big treble hook with a big weight, short rod, and you let the hook go all the way to the bottom and you just yank like this and then you hit it and reel it in.
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Sometimes we would put a Zebco 808 reel on a bow and we'd tie it to an arrow and then you would shoot fish with an arrow because that was easier than just throwing something in a line.
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Here now we're fishing for men though. We're fishing for men. You're fishing for men.
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Stephen Wright said, there's a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore looking like an idiot. A Boston comedian.
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How do we fish? You ever think about it? How do we fish for men? Not just the disciples are called to fish for men, we're all called to fish for men.
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And by the way, you've seen the holiness of God, you've responded, and now you're thinking, okay, I've been reassured, so what's my responsibility in life?
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To be a hard worker, to love God, love neighbor, certainly, but to be an evangelist. You say, well,
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I don't have a fishing license to be a good evangelist. Really? Jesus said, all authority has been given to me in earth and heaven.
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Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
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Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.
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You don't need a license, you just need a command. We'll say, oh, I'm usually not led to evangelize.
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Really? The illustration I always use is, Kim and I would say to the kids, they're 10 years old, five minute room pickup, five minutes, then we have people coming over, and you walk back in the room five minutes later, excuse me,
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I don't see one toy picked up. Daddy and mommy, we weren't led. Your laugh is one of conviction.
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Well, I don't have a license. Here's a good question when you think about fishing for men and evangelizing. What kind of bait do you use?
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My worst bait that we would use is, like, we'd have to use salamanders that were alive or crawdads that were alive, and you have to take that hook and jam it into this creature, you know, that has a living soul.
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I mean, I like, like, rotten chicken liver better. I just didn't like the smell, but it was easier to hook.
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We have been taught, and so just to remind you, dear fisher men and women, the wrong bait is, come to Jesus and everything will be better.
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Come to the Lord Jesus, your marriage will be fixed. Come to Lord Jesus, your children will all fall in line.
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Come to the Lord Jesus, you'll be physically healed, financially healed. Sometimes it's the exact opposite, because sometimes the sword of judgment splits families.
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It doesn't bring them together. We evangelize because we want God's glory shown and his honor.
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Therefore, we evangelize the way we're taught to, because the sovereign authority Jesus has said, this is how you evangelize.
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You give people the law of God to show them that they need a Savior, and then you talk about the Savior, the Lord Jesus, the
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Messiah, truly God, truly man, who lived on this earth as a perfect man, obeying God and everything, dying on the cross for sinners sins, and being raised from the dead.
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And the response to that good news is, dear unbeliever, believe, trust.
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I think the other thing that you have to do, and this is one that's difficult, but Lord can help us. If you're going to fish, you have to love to fish.
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If you're going to evangelize, you're going to have to love people, because they're very difficult to deal with. Gary Appel said, give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
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Teach a man to fish and you get rid of him on weekends. Fishermen love to fish.
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That's all they talk about is fishing, fishing, fishing. I know there are several of you that when I talk to you, you regularly tell me about your evangelistic outreach.
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Maybe it's lunch at work. Maybe it's down in the commons, other place. And I can tell you just love to fish.
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What a joy it is to go tell people about the Lord, because I don't have to tell any weird fish stories.
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I don't have to, after I evangelize, say, well, you know what, I didn't lead them to the Lord, and I'm just a failure.
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I don't have to brag about something that I did or anything else. I just have to say, by God's grace, I got to tell somebody about who
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He is, about His holiness and His law. And I didn't close the deal, because there's no deal to be closed.
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I just told them about Jesus, and I entreated them, and I begged them to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. We don't need to put tick marks in our
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Bible saying these are all the big fish that we caught. The text is clear.
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Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might.
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Let not a rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts, boast of this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the
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Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness on earth, for I delight in these things, declares the
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Lord. My guess is, sometime this week, you're going to have a perfect opportunity to evangelize someone, to tell them the good news.
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How do I know that? Because oftentimes, when you read the scripture, then the Lord gives you an opportunity to do something about it.
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And so when that opportunity comes, may you put a smile on your face and talk about the
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Lord Jesus. This was not the first time, excuse me, this was not the last time, where Jesus was going to reroute all the fish.
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Does this sound familiar to you? When it comes to the Lord Jesus? He's been crucified.
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He's been raised. Simon Peter doesn't know what to do, and he said,
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I'm going fishing. They said to him, we'll go with you. And they got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.
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Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore. Yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, children, do you have any fish?
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They answered him, no. Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you'll find some. So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because of the quantity of fish.
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That disciple, whom Jesus loved, therefore said to Peter, it is the
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Lord. And when Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he was stripped for his work, threw himself into the sea, and the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from land, but about a hundred yards.
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Jesus is sovereign over the sea, and he can see into the sea and reroute fish, and he can see into the hearts of people like Peter, like James, like John, like you, and like me.
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And in light of that, my final question is this. That'll do.
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I love that sound. Is there any thing that you wouldn't do for the
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Lord, knowing that he saved you? Pray.
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Thank you, Father, for this word. I stand convicted with these dear saints. Would you help our faith to increase?
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Would you help our thankful hearts to increase? Would you help our complaining spirits to be silent?
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And I pray, Lord, that you would raise up such an army of men and women in this church that we'd affect the globe.
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And in your sovereignty, if it's not the globe, it would be West Boylston and Lemonster and Fitchburg and other places.