Go Fish---We were all fish once July 8, 2012 Did your parents try to make you be something? I m sure they tried to make you behave, make you responsible, make you listen, make you respectful. But did they try to make you be something or become something? I was excited when I found out Ashley and I were going to be parents. I d had my kid s names picked out for years. I was sure I was going to have two boys. As the pregnancy progressed doctors weren t able to tell what we were going to have and I told people that I d be as thrilled if we were blessed with a girl. Almost 16 ½ years ago now we were blessed with Savannah. Being a lover of sports I had hoped that my kids would be sport-minded. I loved basketball, soccer, golf. If it had a ball involved I was interested. I had also learned over the years that it was a big advantage if you could be left-handed. And if you were a girl who was left-handed or kicked with your left foot it was even better. I m guessing you know where I m going with this. Yep I tried to make Savannah left handed. When she started coloring I d try to get her to use her left hand. When we d play ball in the backyard I tried to get her to kick with her left foot or throw with her left hand. Unfortunately my attempts to make her a leftie didn t work out. I did succeed at making Olivia a leftie but only in her writing. She throws and kicks right handed and apparently it doesn t matter if your left handed or right handed when you are a dancer. When Jesus invited the first four guys to follow him he makes his agenda for them clear right up front. He says I want you to follow me and when you follow me I'm going to make you into something. Now if Jesus were to say I m going to make you in to something--- most of us would probably think he s going to make us more spiritual. Sounds reasonable coming from the Son of God wouldn t it? Or maybe he s going to make us more disciplined. Don t know about you but I could use that in my life. Or maybe he s going to make us smarter---the Lord knows I could use help with that. Maybe we d think if we were following him he d make us a better husband, a better wife, a better kid---maybe make us richer or more organized. There are all kinds of things I'm thinking that if I'm following Jesus he would make me. And when he calls these first four guys to follow him he says I want you to follow me and when you follow me I'm going to make you, and I bet what he told them really confused them. Because after all this was not what they were interested in and yet when we look at the story this morning were going to see that they chose to follow him anyway. And over the next few weeks as we go through this series Go Fish were going to discover that his agenda for them, is also the agenda that he has for you and for me.
If you have your Bible, iphone, ipad, or whatever you use to stay awake during Doc s sermons with you, turn to the book of Mark. Mark 1:14 Our scripture this morning takes place after Jesus has just spent 40 days in the desert being tempted by Satan. Vs 14: After John, this is John the Baptist, who just a few weeks before had baptized Jesus. After John was put in prison, Mark says, Jesus went into Galilee proclaiming the good news of God. Vs 15 tells us what he is proclaiming: The time has come, he said. The Kingdom of God is near. This would have been welcomed news to the Jewish people. They had been waiting for the kingdom of God. They had been waiting a long time. Hundreds, even thousands of years they had been waiting on this kingdom that was going to be set up that would put them in power. Only problem is their idea of the Kingdom of God and what Jesus was actually proclaiming were two different things. And then Jesus says: Repent and believe the good news. Repentance in the OT was what people did so that they could prepare for God to do something. God would tell them if you ll repent then I ll do this or if you ll repent I ll come to the land. And I believe that Jesus is using the word in a similar fashion here. God was about to do something in the land and he wanted to have their undivided attention. God wanted them to be focused in on him because he didn t want them to miss what he was about to do thru his Son. He wanted the people to be in sync with him so they didn t miss out on the big thing that was about to occur. Recently the International Space Station was going to be orbiting earth. It does it daily and it does so 16 times each day. It travels at 17,000 mph. The big deal with the ISS is that it s going to be close enough to the earth that you ll be able to see it with the naked eye. Well you ll see this bright light traveling at a blistering pace across the night sky. Apparently you could get on the internet and you could track the daily travel of the ISS so that you would know exactly when it was going to be in your area. And then you could head outside, find a dark location, and then wait for this ball of light to flash across the sky. Did any of you see it? Well I didn t. We thought we saw it one night but Scott Chalk informed me it was a crop duster flying over Happy Jacks. But I missed it. I missed this unique opportunity because I forgot to check the daily flight pattern to know when it would be across our sky.
And Jesus is saying to these folk God is about to do something huge and in order for you to be a part of it and to not miss out on it you ve got to get yourself ready. You need to be prepared and you need to be looking for it. Verse 16---let s see how this story begins to unfold. As Jesus walked beside the sea of Galilee he saw Simon who would later be named Peter. He saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the Lake. And then for all of those who are kind of slow--- Mark writes for they were fishermen. Oh that s why they were casting their nets into the lake. Here s your sign. Look at what Jesus says---he says come and follow me and I will make you more.. spiritual. I will make you more disciplined. I will make you a better person. I will make you honest. I will make you holy. None of that---was it? He says guys I want you to follow me, and when you do I m going to make you into something that you may not understand at first. You may not even comprehend what I'm getting ready to tell you. You may not have any interest in this but I'm going to make you into something you currently are not. I'm going to make you---did you get that---jesus says he is going to make them a fisher of men. Vs. 18: Mark tells us at once they left their nets and followed him. First glance that looks a little irresponsible. My guess is this was a family owned business. Simon and Andrew s dad had probably been a fisherman, and their granddaddy before him. Jonah s probably had thoughts about retiring and then the boys would be able to carry on the family business. But Simon and Andrew turn to him and say: We re out of here dad. Got to go. We re going with the preacher man. Just doesn t seem responsible does it? Vs 19: says when he had gone a little farther he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John who both were preparing their nets. Sort of surprised that Mark didn t add because they were fishermen. VS. 20 we read: Without delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and they followed him. Can you imagine the looks on the faces of Zebedee, the hired men and the others who may have been standing along the shore line that day? 4 of the best fishermen around and just like that they re gone. I don't think they had a clue what Jesus meant when he said I'll make you fishers of men. They may not have even heard him. And yet they followed him. You know what the amazing thing is----a few chapters later and by the end of the New Testament, Peter and Andrew, James and John had become just that----they had become fishers of men. They had learned to fish for men.
They became men who took the message they heard Jesus preach and they began to share it. With unique personalities they were able to influence different segments of the population. And God used these four men to relay that message to a completely different generation of people. They became the first to understand that it wasn t enough just to follow Jesus. They realized they also had to fish which in turn led to a generation of people who understood it wasn't enough to follow but that to follow was to fish and those followers became fishers of men who shared with other people who understood that to follow was to fish -- who shared it with another group---who shared it with another group and now here we are half way around the world over 2000 years later celebrating and living for and worshiping a Jewish Carpenter. And we are doing so not because people followed Jesus but because a group of people understood that to follow meant you also had to fish. And Jesus accomplished in their life exactly what he promised them even though they had no clue what he meant when he said I'm going to make you a fisher of men. And this didn t just happen in the lives of these four guys. There was a tax collector (Matt. 9:9) who became a fisher of men. There were some blind men (Matt.19:29) who became fishers of men. There was a woman who'd been married 5 times who became a fisher of men. There was a guy full of demons (Mark 5:20) that Jesus cast out who went back to his home town who became a fisher of men. And all throughout the New Testament we discover that there's a correlation between following Jesus and being a fisher of men. And these guys were terrible at it in the beginning. When you read the gospels you see that there are all kinds of funny stories. They thought they knew what they were doing and they really didn t. They screwed up and they messed up and Jesus always had to reel them back in (no pun intended). There was the time (Lk. 18:15) where the disciples came in and all of these children were around Jesus. They begin fussing at those who had brought them in--probably scared the little kids to death. They begin to run the people and their kids off. You know Jesus had to be sitting there going guys what are you doing? You just ran off my illustration. I was about to illustrate what faith looks like and you just scared off my visual aid. Can t you see them---heads bowed uh sorry Jesus----hey, bring the children back---jesus needs them. And then there's the time that (Mk. 10:35) James and John come to Jesus and ask if they can have the privilege of sitting at the right and left hand of Jesus when he returns. Those were prominent seats of authority in the kingdom. I call front seat! Can t you hear them? It s amazing they ask for those positions but it s even more astonishing to me that when they come to Jesus ---their first statement is We want you to do for us whatever we ask. Jesus lets them ask but I wonder if he s thinking really? Really?
Have you knuckleheads not been paying attention to anything that I ve been saying? Dad can we start this process over? One time they go to cast out a demon and the demon won't budge. They come back to Jesus and they say---the demon won't budge. Jesus' asks them did you pray? Pray? Did you pray? I thought you were going to pray? So Jesus reminds them you ve got to pray. So throughout the whole story these guys struggle to get it but by the end of the story these four fishermen, a tax collector, blind guys and a whole bunch of people from all different walks of life all begin to get it and become not just followers of Jesus but followers who fish for men. Now when Jesus called me to follow him and he called you to follow him it wasn't simply to make us more disciplined or more holy or a better person or a better husband or father or mother or sister or brother, or a better giver and all that stuff. Jesus goal isn't just for us to follow him so we can become a better person. His goal is that we follow Him and do in the lives of others what someone has done in our life that explains why we re sitting here today as follower of Jesus Christ Now I m guessing that when we became a Christian none of us signed up for that did we? Who of us really became a Christian so we could become a fisher of men? When you stop and think about it the majority of us became a Christian because we had very selfish motives. I remember being taught as a young child that God is love and that Jesus loved everybody and that was some cool stuff. Red and Yellow, Black and White, they are precious in his sight. But the thing I remember most was learning that one day all of us were going to die and that when you do you either went to heaven or to West Virginia. I m kidding. You either went to heaven or to hell. Now Heaven was a good place to go. I remember that song we used to sing: Heaven is a wonderful place, filled with glory and grace. I m gonna see my saviors face cause Heaven is a wonderful place I wanna go there. Heaven was a good place to go and Hell was a bad place to go. And if you become a Christian you get to go up there and not down there. Isn t that why many of you became a Christian? Purely selfish motives---right? For some of you here this morning maybe you became a Christian because your marriage was falling apart and you knew you needed help. Maybe you were struggling financially and everything around you was crumbling or maybe you had an addiction you were struggling with---something was going on in your life and you knew you needed something. Who knows maybe things were going great for you but there was still an emptiness, a void and you needed something and so you became a Christian because you needed God to help fill that void. And once you became a Christian and you got on the stringer so to speak you began to realize that hey while I'm following you God there are some other things that I need for
you to do. And so for the most part when we pray isn't it that gimme gimme, bless me bless me, protect me, protect me thing that we often pray? Our prayers are like that song the Mayberry Choir sings every Christmas. Give me this, Give me that, bless me lord I pray. And God help this to work out and help that work out and get me a job---get me a better job---i ll take even a better job or fix my marriage or get me a marriage, or get me a better marriage, or how about another marriage, or get me a boyfriend or get rid of that boyfriend. Help this lottery ticket be the one cause if it is I ll give you your 10%. Please help me help me---and a lot of our prayers are that way aren t they? And God is so patient and often He ll answer those prayers and he interacts with us on a daily basis. In reality we like being a Christian don t we? I know I do. We re a lot like Peter, Andrew, James and John--- we started following Jesus not because we wanted to become a fisherman--- we follow Jesus because of what he did for us or what he did to us or what he promised us. Mark s version of this story doesn t give us the detail that Luke shares in his account. Mark s version at first glance seems a bit unrealistic. Some guy comes up whom you ve never met before and says follow me. And these guys drop everything and take off. See you dad. We re out of here. It just doesn't make any sense. But Luke provides us some additional information that Mark doesn't. This invitation from Jesus happened right after the deal where they had been fishing all night. Do you remember that story? (Luke 5) They had been fishing all night and Jesus comes to them and says let's go fishing. Most believe it was somewhere between 11am and Noon when this story takes place. These guys are probably thinking to themselves, Who is this guy? It's 11am and you want to go fishing. Carpenter---what does he know about fishing? But Jesus says Come on go fishing with me and I guess Peter was feeling a little guilty cause he just heard a free sermon and so he says okay since you say so. So they go fishing and the Scripture tells us that they had so many fish they can't get them in the boat. Matter of fact they had to call to John the son of Zebedee who comes rushing over with his boat----fills his boat up so much that the boat starts to sink. An unbelievable thing has just happened and once things settle down Jesus says don t be afraid---from now on you will catch men. And they pull back on to the shore left everything and followed him. What else are they going to do? What would you have done? Would you have stayed there and cleaned fish? Jonah and Zebedee are probably standing on the shore going follow him. Don t worry about the fish---we ll take care of the fish. He says he's going to make you into fishers of men---i don't know what that means but you just follow the guy who filled our boat. Apparently he knows more about fishing than we do so you go with him. We ll be ok. It will all workout. You go ahead.
They didn t follow Jesus because they wanted to be fishers of men---they followed Jesus because of what they saw. They followed Jesus because of what they experienced. They followed Jesus because of what he did for them. Sound familiar to your story? Jesus says to them---okay that's a good start, but let me warn you, if you follow me long enough I'm going to lead you beyond what have you done for me lately. He says, I'm going to take all the stuff that happens between birth and death and I'm going to use it to bring eternal value to your life and the lives of others whom you come in contact with during this journey called life. Because this isn't just about bless me and protect me and give me and provide me and get me through all of this stuff. All of that stuff, most of which is temporary, has an eternal value if we will allow Jesus to make us a fisher of men. When you stop and think about it---isn't it true that most everything we pray for is all about this life? It's all about between birth and death. Marriage is important and we pray that God will bless our marriage but our marriage is coming to an end one day because one of us is going to die. We pray God protect my children but one day that relationship between us and our children is going to end because one day one of you is going to die. God help me with my finances but one day your financial world to come to an end. God bless me with this or that, but this or that will break down one day and be of no value or maybe we ll be gone before we re able to enjoy those things we wanted so badly. The things that we have so much passion about and pray so hard about and say oh God please please please----all that stuff is important but it's only important in the context of birth to death. None of it has eternal value on its own merit---it's all about now in this life and God is concerned about those things and Jesus makes that very clear but here's the promise that I want you here today as we kick off the series----our heavenly father has the potential to take all that stuff that we re so concerned about and give it eternal value if we allow him to make us a fisher of men. God has the ability to take all of that stuff and shape it in such a way that you and I are perfectly positioned because of where you are and who you are to be the preeminent fisher of men on someone s behalf. God can perfectly position you to impact another person and their faith in Christ because of what you have experienced-- your successes, your failures, your highs, your lows, your age, your finances, all of that stuff--- God says, I will bring eternal value to all of that, not simply within the context of this life, but I'm going to use all of that stuff to shape you and form you and I'm going to perfectly position you in someone else's life. And if you'll follow me you will become a fisher of men and women. And I will use your job, your marriage, your lack of a marriage, your singleness, your children, the fact that you can t have children, your divorce, the fact that you tried and failed, your debt, your
bankruptcy, your wealth, all of that stuff that consumed your thinking I will use that to work myself into someone else's life if you ll follow me. Because followers eventually fish, if they are really following. Some of you may be thinking now wait a minute Jon I can t do that. It may be easy for you to do it because you re a preacher and you ve got training and you went to Bible College. You know what I often think---i often think it would be easier for you to do it and that you would be a better fisher. Because when I talk people expect me talk about Jesus. There goes Jon again---talking about Jesus. Doesn t he have anything else to talk about? We stopped at my sister s home in North Carolina last week on our way to the beach. She called me a few nights before to confirm we were coming. We talked about our arrival and what we were going to have for dinner. She got to telling me about one of her friends whom she had invited over to have dinner with us on Friday, who when she heard I was a preacher commented---well I won t be able to drink a beer if he s there. To which my sister replied oh it s ok---he s a cool preacher. I often think it s a huge disadvantage while you think it s an advantage. Sometimes it s difficult to look at ourselves and think that we have any potential to be a fisher of men. Moses didn t think he could speak well---you struggle with that? Jonah didn t like the people God wanted him to witness to you struggle with that? Sometimes we think our stories are not good enough. We haven t lived enough of a wretched life to make our story meaningful and powerful. We always think someone else has a better story or can say it more eloquently. That people will listen to them because of who they are and where they come from. Do you remember what Jesus said to Peter, Andrew, James and John? He said Come follow me and I will make you fishers of men. Did you hear that? Make you. In other words you re not going to come into this understanding what it s all about. Of course you re going to have problems, of course you're going to do it wrong, of course you're going to make mistakes. We re not talking about a method or a methodology, we re talking about a process and if you follow me Jesus says --- if you ll follow me I want to take what is temporary in your life and make it into something that can have an eternal difference for someone else. Because you are and will continue to be perfectly positioned in your neighborhood, in your job, in your school, on your team, in your sphere of influence to fish. That is to take through your own personality this life changing message and there s somebody who will listen to you who won't listen to me and there s somebody whose life you can impact that the person to your left or to your right will never be able to touch. Ponder for just a moment about the person that God used to bring you faith in Jesus Christ. If you became a Christian as a child think about the person that once you hit 15, 18, maybe early 20 s or 30 that brought you back. Think about the person or the group
of people that God strategically used to bring you to faith in Christ. Let me give you three things about that scenario: 1) You had probably already heard the message---the message wasn t new to us. Very few of us have lived a life where we didn t hear about Jesus Christ till we were in adulthood. There may be a few but for most of us the message of Christ wasn t new. 2) So the message combined with the messenger --- something about that person, about their past, about what was going on, something about their story, about their personality, about their achievement, something about that person combined with the message combined with 3) our current circumstances made them a prime candidate to be a fisher of men that got you and I interested and reeled us in to a relationship with our heavenly father. The message and the messenger combined with the unique set of circumstances in our life and we get it. When I think about the person that reeled me in as a teenager it wasn't the message that he shared. I knew the message. I had grown up in the church. I was there every time the doors opened. Spent week after week at church camp. Traveled around the country competing in Bible Bowl. It was the message and the messenger, my youth minister Doug Hardman, that intersected with my life at a critical time and God used him to reel me back in. Very easily could I have followed a different path in this thing called life but because of the message combined with the messenger and where I was at that moment in time an eternal difference was made for me. You--- whether you view it or not, whether you see it or not, whether you're ready to accept it or not--- you have been and will continue to be perfectly positioned by God, because of who you are and the experiences that you have had, to be the person that God wants to use to be a fisher of men or a fisher of women in somebody s life. Jesus didn t just call us to be followers. He called us to be followers who would fish. And if we aren t thinking in those terms then we miss out on those unique opportunities. We miss out on those once in a lifetime chances. We miss out on the ISS racing overhead, which may have only been there for a few seconds, but at least we could say we saw it going by. I d like to give you a homework assignment. I know schools out and if you re like me you didn t like doing homework when you were in school much less during the summertime but this will only take maybe 10 or 15 minutes. It s really simple. This week I d like you to walk up to 10 people and say I love you and God loves you. Ok? No just kidding. Here it is for real. Probably 10 minutes. And the purpose of the homework is to remind you of two things: 1) you were once a fish yourself. You were. I was. We were all once fish. 2) to remind us of the incredible gratitude that we have for the person that led us into a relationship with Christ.
I want to encourage you to sit down and write them a letter. You don t have to send it to them unless you want. For some of you---you may not be able to send it. You may not know where they are living or they may have already passed away. Hopefully this letter will remind you that someone was fishing when you got caught. Hopefully it will remind you that someone was bold enough to share with you about what Jesus had done in their life. That someone had enough courage to invite you to come and worship and experience the greatness of Jesus. That someone s life experience---combined with the message of Christ---intersected with your circumstances and God used it in an incredible way and look where you are today. Because a follower of Jesus knew that it was important for them not just to follow but also to fish. And who knows maybe one day you ll receive a letter from someone thanking you for the fact that you were fishing the day they got caught. If you re here this morning and you re not a Christian and you re not sure what you think about God and his son Jesus and this whole idea of following someone that s ok. I m just glad you came this morning and I hope that you ll come back again and worship with us. But one thing I do want you to know and that is this---today you re surrounded by a lot of people who are just like you. The only difference is---we don t think we are better, we just know we are better off than we used to be because we have met our heavenly father through his son Jesus Christ. We are glad somebody fished and we are glad that somebody helped us get caught. And we want nothing more than that for you as well. -