Go Fish

SERMON: 2013-04-07--jn2113--go-fish SOURCE DURATION: 00:48:23.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.95 APPROVED: false REASON: The recording begins with an introductory analogy (the card game Fish) and continues through biblical exposition, pastoral application, and concludes with a prayer/commissioning message, all constituting the main sermon content. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:44:31.700-00:48:17.440 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- Question for you this morning, how many of you here are familiar with the card game Fish? A lot of card players I can tell. Fish comes in many variations and by many names around the world but in its most elementary form it's a great game to play with the kids and that's what we used to do when our kids were little and occasionally I suspect grandma still does that with the grandkids. The way that we've always played it is you divide out the cards, five or seven to each player depending on the number of players. The object is to find pairs of numbers, as soon as the cards are dealt you look to see if you have any pairs, you lay them down open face on the table and then you, who's ever turd it is, asks another player for a card that matches one that you have in your hand. And so if I have an eight of something or another I ask if you have an eight and then you must give it to me and if you have one it completes my set, I put it down and I keep on going until the answer is no I don't have it and then the response is go fish. Very good, because then you fish out of the pile another card and as I said the object of the game is to get as many sets as you can and whoever has the most wins the game. Well all of that is by way of introduction this morning because in the story that we have just read together the disciples go fishing and it's a fascinating story because Jesus has now appeared to the disciples already two times. Who remembers what the two times were? The first is on Easter evening when he visits the disciples gather together, who was missing? Thomas, the second time is the following Sunday, this time Thomas is present, now we have this scene here in John chapter 21, seven of the disciples are gathered in Galilee because Jesus has instructed the disciples prior to his death to meet in Galilee because there he will meet them. Now Peter decides to go back to his old trade of fishing because remember he was from this area so his boat would still be here, maybe he rented one I don't know how that worked but he went fishing the other six joined him unfortunately for all their fisherman skills they catch nothing that night. So morning rolls around and they're coming back into shore when they see this man on the beach. Turns out to be Jesus they don't know that right away. He asks the question have you any fish? The implied negative means he already knows they haven't. They answer that they don't he says cast your net on the other side and immediately they have this miraculous catch of fish and not just any number of fish but 153 to be particular and we'll be talking about that number a little bit later on. Then their eyes are open they recognize that it's Jesus they haul the fish ashore they have breakfast with him because he's already got this little fire going and fish and bread from the fire ready to be consumed. So what do you make of a story like that? More importantly for our consideration what kind of lessons can we learn and in the time that we have this morning I want to try to walk you through just a couple of what I think are very practical lessons that come out of this story some of them are sort of incidental to the story but at the end we'll get to the core of what the scripture is trying to teach us in this episode here in John chapter 21 the first lesson that I would draw from this is that in times of uncertainty we tend to default to the familiar let me say that again in times of uncertainty we tend to default to the familiar or to what we know now interestingly enough the text does not tell us why Peter goes fishing and why the others choose to join him we can speculate though fairly safely some people have suggested that well there you're simply bored I mean these are active grown men Jesus has told him to go to Galilee to wait for him hasn't given them a time when he's going to appear this could have been anywhere from hours to days to weeks for all we know and so to fill the time they hop in the boat and they go fishing they go back to what they know plausible explanation is it true I have no clue second suggestion that has been made is that they're trying to supplement their income because you'll remember that up until now following Jesus their needs had been provided out of the common purse that Judas held well that kind of all fell apart over Good Friday and Easter and so some folks have speculated that they needed to resupply their pantry so to speak and they decided to might as well work for a living and catch some fish is that true accurate I haven't a clue still a third suggestion and one that I personally resonate with a little bit is that maybe they were just trying to be distracted because the last period of time for them had been an emotional roller coaster there was the agony of Good Friday there was the ecstasy of Easter and there was the uncertainty of when Jesus was going to show up and certainly the uncertainty of what the future held because they had never been here before now I don't know what happens in your life when it becomes uncertain I know in my life when I become uncertain when emotions get strong and you don't know what to do with them I tend to fall back into the familiar something that is predictable something that is secure something that distracts the mind so that you don't go batty trying to go over the same thing over and over and over is that what they were doing I have no idea all I know is that Peter according to this story still had to meet up with the Lord Jesus and I think if I were Peter waiting to meet up with the Lord Jesus I would be a tad nervous even if they had previously talked about things and perhaps even restored their relationship somewhat there was certainly an awkwardness you can see the eagerness of Peter to try to please Jesus as this story unfolds because he grieved so deeply because he had so badly denied the Lord Jesus in times of uncertainty I think we all have a tendency to want to default back to the familiar back when I was in high school like I once did a major research paper on the decline and fall of the Roman Empire and I discovered that one of the characteristics of the decline and fall of the Empire was that the civilization the population stopped being forward looking because all they saw was darkness ahead of them and instead they began to idealize the past they became nostalgic for what had been second observation that I want to make and lesson I think we might learn from this particular passage is that once we have met Jesus the old no longer satisfies the old no longer satisfies isn't it interesting that as they return to plying their old trade they come up empty-handed the text says in verse 3 that night they caught nothing what other story in the Gospels does that remind you of this morning I'm listening when Jesus called his disciples the story is recorded in Luke chapter 5 Peter James and John those two were the sons of Zebedee in Luke chapter 5 are mending their nets and Jesus comes along and he commandeers Peter's boat because the crowds are pressing in and he he sits in the boat and he teaches the crowd and then when he's done you might recall he says to Peter push out into deeper water and cast out or let down your nets for a catch and Peter's response was master we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything that was we'll see later on that turns around on the command of Jesus but the point is in both of these stories when Jesus is commissioning his disciples it begins with an obvious failure of the old way of life and I want to suggest to you this morning that there is a fairly solid biblical principle here and that is when God is calling you into something new whether for the first time or you know subsequently the old often no longer works and this can take many forms in your life and in my life it can take the form as it did for Jennifer Barrack where all of a sudden you go through an horrific accident and everything you had set your goals for and your mind on all of a sudden is wiped away because your old way of life is no longer a possibility those are unsettling experiences but they can become the doorway as it has for her to something new it can take the form of failure failure in your personal life failure in relationships failure in business don't know how many of you know the story of Colonel Sanders in his Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise he ran a very successful restaurant roadside stop really in the neighborhood of Corbin Kentucky way back when when I 75 came through and bypassed the community and all of a sudden all the traffic that he had counted on dried up and so he ended up selling his restaurant and he hit the road peddling his chicken recipe and that led to the first franchise that was established I believe in Utah and subsequently as the years went by exploded into what is now the Kentucky Fried Chicken or the KFC chain all around the world learned an interesting thing about Kentucky Fried Chicken by the way this past week the younger generation doesn't like bones in their chicken did you know that boneless chicken according to the newspaper article that I read if I remember it collect correctly out sells regular boned chicken four out of five are boneless that doesn't match up with my experience but I'll trust the newspaper report it's nothing to do with what I'm talking about nothing to do with fish but I thought I'd pass that little bit of tidbit information on to you this morning so where was I? Old things end and new things begin sometimes it takes the form of unsettledness a lot of you here have been listening I think of late to talks by Francis Chan anybody here part of those classes Francis Chan founded Crossroads Crossroads church I think it is and with the Lord's help built it up in in a short number of years the very Stephen Church then got to a place where he was just unsettled in his soul and walked away from it all not knowing where he was going or what he was doing went out to Asia for some time and now is back in North America and has a vision to develop a church planting I don't know what the word is almost a franchise but isn't the right word and is very much involved in trying to create a discipleship movement his heart is for God's people to grow up and not just be babies in the faith whatever form it takes when we have been touched by Jesus and know his presence the old is no longer the same and God will sometimes use the pressure that is produced by those kinds of changing situations and circumstances to press us into new growth whether personally or corporately for the coming of his kingdom so lesson number one is that when Jesus is at work in times of uncertainty we tend to default to the familiar since we have met Jesus the old no longer satisfies but thank God third lesson that I think we learn is that God knows how to confirm our calling and that's what's of course really fascinating about each of these fishing stories at the beginning and at the end of Jesus's ministry because what happens in each instance when when the disciples haven't caught anything but Jesus comes along and he says put your net over on the other side well what happens is that immediately the net is filled with fish in Luke's gospel there are so many fish in the net that the net begins to break the boats begin to sink Peter stands in awe and he says get away from me Lord for I am a sinful man he knows that he stands in the presence of Almighty God and then here of course in the John passage the net is filled with 153 not just any fish but big fish and as we'll see in a few moments the net does not break the point however is really clear is it not he is demonstrating his power he is confirming their calling and they're going to change occupation from being fishermen to being fishers of men Luke 5 10 puts it this way Jesus said to Simon don't be afraid from now on you will catch men and then he says in Matthew 4 19 come follow me Jesus said and I will make you fishers of men it was James Kennedy who used to say he's the developer of an evangelism program called evangelism explosion very popular in the 70s and he was very fond of quoting the words of Jesus follow me and I will make you fishers of men he says the very fact our job is to follow God's job he says is to make us fishers of men now a lot of speculation over all the centuries has gone into the fact that John so carefully records that the fish were 153 in number doesn't that strike you as curious why not just like it was a lot of fish or more than a hundred or more than 150 no no it was a hundred and fifty three let me give you quickly four interpretations that have sort of made their way back and forth through all the centuries you can decide for yourself whether you buy into any one of those are none of them number one first interpretation is that it means diddly squat Leon Morris in his classic book on the gospel according to John says fishermen have always loved to preserve the details of unusual catches and he says it's just a big fish story and that may be true the argument is you know the disciples had to either divide all these fish between the seven of them or they were just curious how many there were and somebody chose to count them and that may be true other commentators disagree a commentator by the name of CK Bartlett says the number is significant that is hundred and fifty three is significant as otherwise it would not have been recorded it is he says improbable that it represents the fortuitous but precise recollection of an eyewitness in other words he says no deal they would have never counted them and recorded it accordingly personally I tend to agree with the latter because I think they were so overawed in the presence of Jesus that nobody cared about fish what mattered was the size of the harvest and the fact that it was Jesus who was making it happen so one theory is that it doesn't mean anything a second theory is that the number 153 is actually a code for deeper truth now that has pretty much fallen out of favor in the modern age but was extremely popular in the early centuries of the Christian church and the early church fathers were able to spin some very profound and deep meanings out of the word hundred and fifty three a couple of examples Saint Augustine one of the ancient church fathers declared that it was the triangular number of 17 who knows what a triangular number is I had never heard of it before a triangular number is a number where you add all the digits up to and including it together and you get a triangle a perfect equilateral triangle so the number 17 if you add one and two and three and four all the way along you come to 153 you put them in a triangle and it's a perfect triangle well you say big whoopee-doo well Saint Augustine didn't think it was a big whoopee-doo he made a lot out of it because this is how he interpreted 17 he says is the addition of 10 and 7 10 represents in his thinking the 10 commandments and 7 represents divine grace and here's how he interprets it and I quote it from one of his messages the catch of fish tells us of the salvation of men but man cannot be saved without keeping the 10 commandments but on account of the fall man cannot even keep the commandments without the help of grace and the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit hence the hundred and fifty three fish signify that all the elect are to be saved by the gift of grace seven and the following of the commandments number 10 now that's a condensed version of what he preached in his sermon I read what he preached in his sermon and you should be glad you're living today and not 1500 years ago because if you think I make it complicated sometimes you should listen to the church fathers they were much smarter than you or I so that kind of speculation was rampant in the early days of the church it's not very popular anymore today but the number 153 is also curious because one and qubit one to the power of three five to the power of three and three to the power of three those of you that are good in math add up what that comes to one times one times one is a lot and five times five times five and three times three times three add them all up a hundred and fifty three there's only five numbers in the universe that do that is it significant I haven't a clue but the early church fathers thought it meant a lot so I thought I'd pass that on to you as well for your further edification all right a third interpretation of the hundred and fifty three very popular today is that the hundred and fifty three represents all known species of fish in the ancient world this view was popularized by st. Jerome who lived in the fourth and fifth century and in his commentary on Ezekiel the passage with which we began to service today he makes the comment that the ancient writers believed there were exactly a hundred and fifty three species of fish in the world and the interpretation of that then is that the hundred and fifty three represent making disciples of all nations might well be true makes good sense the problem is the Greek authority that he cited for that figure of a hundred and fifty three has never been substantiated that doesn't mean the ancient world may not have believed that but it certainly was not as widespread an idea as perhaps he made it sound like one more possible interpretation of a hundred and fifty three and this one intrigues me I must tell you if you add up all the individuals in the Gospels who are blessed by a direct encounter with Jesus how many do you think there are a hundred and fifty three isn't that interesting a hundred and fifty three if you want to check it out for yourself I got the whole list here it's a little tricky because some names are changed or people go by different names but I'm told I haven't checked it myself that it's a hundred and fifty three so you see it's kept commentators busy for many centuries trying to figure out what this hundred and fifty three represents but whichever interpretation one might want to lean towards this much is obvious the Lord Jesus calls us to be fishers of men not only that but in becoming fishers of men he has promised to bless us and to prosper our labor and what's significant in that part of the story as I said earlier is the net does not break early in the Gospels the net breaks now the net doesn't break and this much the ancient church fathers are almost unanimous on that the fact that the net does not break points not only to the perseverance of the saints but also to their election that is to say God if he calls you to himself has the power to save you to the uttermost to the final end and that really dovetails with themes of John where he quotes Jesus in John 639 this is the will of him who sent me that I shall lose none of all that he has given me but raise them up at the last day and that again in his high priestly prayer John 1712 while I was with them I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me none has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that scripture would be fulfilled the one doomed to destruction of course was Judas who was called in scripture the son of perdition so really what we have happening here in John chapter 21 with this miraculous catch of fish is Jesus is reinforcing what at the end of Matthew we know to be the great commission he says now that I'm going back to the Father as the Father has sent me so I send you and earlier in John chapter 20 he breathes on them to receive the Holy Spirit and he says the sins that you forgive will be forgiven the sins that you retain will be retained but as the Father has sent me so I send you we've been called to share in the mission of Jesus which is to catch fish so that people can be born again into the kingdom of our God and of his Christ how do we do that by bearing witness to the risen Christ by sharing with family and friends who Jesus is what Jesus has done by inviting them along to Bible studies or church services or to special events last week I had the privilege of sitting in the back there for the big picture with with Elsie Hartwig and Elsie had invited a friend along who had invited two friends along and afterwards the lady and I had a conversation how how she has been on our website doesn't go to church doesn't know very much about the Bible stories listens all the time though interestingly to Christian radio and I invited her back and I pointed her to our website and I said listen if you can make it take in a service live on our webcast and that will give you a feel and a flavor of who it is that we are and what we do and there are so many ways that we can share our hearts in our homes I was thinking the other day you know some of you might well be called to backyard Bible studies with kids in the summer or an after school program or you know the ideas are are limitless because if Jesus calls you he will also equip you and in that regard I want to make two further observations before we wind up this morning and one of them is this whenever we are confronted with a challenge of becoming fishers of men our tendency of course is to say I can't do this I don't know enough about the Bible I don't know how to talk to my neighbor I don't have answers to their questions and on and on we go and then we all be very true because we are who we are but there's an interesting little tidbit in this story that is readily overlooked because what happens when the disciples recognize it is Jesus what is Jesus doing well he is cooking breakfast on the beach and he's got fish and bread ready to go not only that but then he says to them bring me some of the fish that you have caught and I'm assuming that he also wants to grill some additional fish true so what do you make of that well I make two things out of that and you can tell me if you think I'm wrong number one the fish and the bread is reminiscent of the feeding of the five thousand of what was it five loaves two fish or was it the other way around five loaves and two fish right and Jesus multiplies the bread and the fish and he feeds that whole crowd what you have here is sort of a preview of the Lord's Supper where Jesus says to his disciples you're going to get yourself into all kinds of situations and you're going to need my presence and my power but it's going to be there for you when you need it not only that but he says some of the best provision in your life is going to come from the harvest you bring in that is to say how many of us here know that some of the best growing we have done spiritually has been in the context of helping or blessing or leading somebody else in the way of faith isn't that true isn't it true that most of the time we just sit here and get ourselves fed and it better be careful how I put this but it's easy to become fat growth happens when what Christ gives you gets invested in somebody else's life and as you walk with somebody else and as you see the power of God in those people's lives you become aware in a whole fresh new way that Jesus is alive and that Jesus is powerful that's why they recognized him in the catch of the fish when God is at work suddenly your eyes are opened and you know that you are dealing with God you'll never be the same after you watch God using you in somebody else's life but there's a second observation I want to make in this context and that is the fact that we're often what's the word we just don't think people are interested in the gospel and isn't it true sometimes for those of you that have invited people to church or you've invited people to Bible study or a barbecue or a midweek thing you're sort of sitting on pins and needles through the whole service wanting it to go just right and hoping that the person who is with you will not be turned off and will never come back again isn't that true I mean all the thoughts you send out in the direction of those of us who lead worship services in those kind of situations our demands and expectations that are tough to meet I'll let you know I used to worry about that too just for the record but I don't anymore you know why because nobody is ever brought into the kingdom by polished performances clever arguments are wonderful services you know what brings people into the kingdom it's the presence of Jesus and Jesus can speak pardon my language through a donkey's voice if need be Jesus can can take everything that you abhor and still somehow radiate his presence and his power and I've learned over the years to be a strong proponent of election because I know that those whom God has called have something inside that resonates with truth and when they are in the presence of truth they know the reality of the gospel and once that is there they will keep on coming back because God will plant that seed and it will start bearing fruit because it speaks to something deep in their hearts listen to how Jesus puts it here in 1 John 4 verse 6 John says we are from God that's the same John who wrote the gospel according to John by the way this is his letter later on in the Bible and whoever knows God listens to us but whoever is not from God does not listen to us this is how we recognize the spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood whoever is of God recognizes the truth and you can have all kinds of friends you can have all kinds of neighbors and some may or may not at all be interested in the gospel but you won't know that until they find themselves in the presence of the spirit of Jesus and Jesus can reveal himself out of nothing and nowhere to any heart that loves truth because you see I don't know if you've ever noticed a very interesting thing about the post resurrection experiences of Jesus almost nobody recognizes him the first time around have you ever noticed that there's Mary Magdalene in the garden meets the resurrected Christ who does she think he is the gardener you have these two men in Luke chapter 24 on the way to Emmaus Jesus spends the better part of an hour and a half two hours walking with them telling them how the Christ must suffer and die and how that had been predicted by Moses and the prophets absolutely clueless that it was Jesus until he had supper with them and broke bread and then all of a sudden they recognize that this was the resurrected Christ and likewise here in in John chapter 21 you have the seven disciples including John and Peter and James who were the three closest to him they see him on the shore they hear his voice and they do not recognize him and to the argument that it was early morning and the light was dim and therefore they couldn't recognize him that would carry some water except they would have recognized his voice but they didn't and it wasn't until the miraculous catch of fish that all of a sudden their eyes were opened and they knew they were dealing with Jesus who was the first one to catch on John the disciple that Jesus loved Jesus reveals himself to those who love him and to those who hunger for truth and so to the question how do we bring somebody to the Lord how do we cast our net into the fish in a world that is so lost and so perishing the answer is simple we pray for the resurrected and the exalted Lord Jesus to reveal himself to people's hearts for who he is we pray for our own eyes to see where the Lord is working and how it is that he wants us to come alongside him so that little by little step by step bearing witness to the resurrected Christ we can share with him in the harvest because he said the harvest is ready it's white unto harvest but the laborers are few and just to wind us up this morning one short video we've shown it once before it's called an unspoken plea. When is it going to happen? Here I am, there you are, here I am desperate for love, for truth. What are you going to do when you leave this building? Are you going to share with me what you've been learning here today? Or are you just going to bottle it up and pull it out next week for your friends? Now when I say share I'm not talking about every tactic you've used on me in the past, like judging my every move, telling me I'm a bad person, pointing fingers, giving me disgusting looks, and my favorite is when you tell me that I'm lost. I don't even know what that means to be lost. Do you really think judging me is going to make me change? Would it make you change? Now I know I'm a bad person, I've done bad things, but I don't need you to tell me that. What I need is for you to pick me up when I fall down, to be there when I'm broken. Yes, there's something missing in me. There's a void in my heart that I don't know how to fill. You have it. You have that thing that makes you whole. You know that person that I need to know. So I'm watching your every move. I'm watching where you go and what you say and do. Because I'm desperate for something real. I need something genuine to know that there's something more here than this. I mean this can't be it really. And I think you know that. Listen to me. I need you. I need you to be here for me. I need you to walk out right now ready and willing to do whatever it takes. It may not be comfortable. It may not be easy. I need you to show me love. No matter the cost, show me what unconditional love really looks like. Stop telling me about this god of yours and show me who he really is. Honestly, I'll probably resist you. I'll probably argue with you and laugh at you. You know even when you fall, I'll probably call you a hypocrite. But don't give up on me. Please don't give up on me. So I'm going [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:44:31.700; remove through 00:48:23.000] to ask you, when's it [CUT] going to happen? I hear a young child crying. I see tears of unending pain. I've watched as war torn nations treated life with such disdain. My heart grieves to know that these haven't come to understand. That I suffered for their sufferings and died that they might live again. Take my healing to the nations. Bind their broken hearts with this message of my love. That I came to bring light in their darkness and bring joy where once was pain. Take my healing to the nations. Bind their broken hearts with love. For the fields are ready for harvest and the laborers are so few. Countless millions stale that I want to fill, but the task isn't mine to do. I gave you my commandment. Go and preach the tidings of love. For I finish a work on Calvary and their healing's already been done. So take my healing to the nations. Bind their broken hearts with love. Stretch my hand through our creation with this message of my love. That I came to bring light in their darkness and bring joy where once was pain. Take my healing to the nations. Bind their broken hearts with love. So take my healing to the nations. Bind their broken hearts with love. Stretch my hand through our creation with this message of my love. That I came to bring light in their darkness and bring joy where once was pain. So take my healing to the nations. Take my healing to the nations. Take my healing to the nations. Bind their broken hearts with love. [CUT] you [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:48:23.000; resume after this marked segment]