God is Calling us to Fish

Title: God is Calling us to Fish By Pastor Lohn Johnson
Text:  Mark 1:14-20 14  Jesus came into Galilee, …  saying, “ … the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel."  16 Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.  17 And Jesus said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men."   INTRODUCTION: My dear friends in Christ, to me the movie Bruce Almighty is a modern day parable.  It’s totally unrealistic, but some of the scenes are great teachable moments.  One scene God calls Bruce.  But Bruce is reluctant.  Maybe a little like Jonah.  The movie captures the insistence of God’s call.  But we’ve got to ask to what did God call Bruce?  The movie shows that it was to answer his objection about how God was running things.  That’s not real.  God is not answerable to us. That’s not a good picture of God.  But it can illustrate the message of our text.  We are not called to what the movie god calls Bruce.  The calls in our text were to the Kingdom of God which was at hand and the calling message said “repent and believe the Gospel.”
I. So here we see that the call is by the Gospel to the Kingdom of God.
	A. So the call is by Gospel.  But what is this Gospel?
		1. (What it is not)  What do you think of this?: [Video Mighty Smiter]  Now I would have smote Bruce, and he deserved smiting.  But we all deserve the same.  But God did not smite.  God, the mighty smiter, chose to smite someone else, not us, not Bruce.  That’s the core idea of the Gospel.
		2. And notice that Mark does not define the Gospel in our text.  We’re supposed to know what he means.  And to know what he means the people of Mark’s day would have immediately turned to Isaiah 52.  That’s where the word appears – that’s where it is defined.
			a. Isaiah speaks God’s words: Isaiah 52:6-7  Therefore in that day they shall know that it is I who speak; here am I."  7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, …, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, "Your God reigns." So Isaiah tells us God is coming-bringing the Good News, the Gospel.   b. Then Isaiah tells us what God will do.  Isaiah 52:13  “13 Behold, my servant shall…be high and lifted up,...” Where else is God’s servant lifted up but on the cross.    c. Isaiah under God’s direction even describes what happened on the cross. 53:  4 Surely he has borne our grief and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted…. 7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth;….  10 Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for sin,
		3. God had sent Jesus to fight and defeat that which causes our problems, that which had decimated us, that which has separated us from God, our sin.  God would smite his own Son instead of Bruce, instead of us.
	B. Now in this text Jesus was going into the battle.  He had been empowered by the Spirit in His baptism.  He had just come from defeating the devil in the wilderness.  He was beginning the mission to fulfill that “Gospel.’ He came to establish His Father’s kingdom through that Gospel.  But the Kingdom he would fight for and bring about was different than any other.
		1. The Kingdom of God was not a physical Kingdom, at least not yet.  Not some earthly Camelot; not some ideal dream earthly kingdom.  This Kingdom was to be a spiritual kingdom, first.  A Kingdom of allegiance to a new King.  A King who rules beyond this world yet in this world.  The King is Jesus.
			a. This was to be a Kingdom of now -- a kingdom of blessings.  Blessings not necessarily of material wealth and earthly power, but definitely including blessings of knowing God, of forgiveness and love given freely from God.   b. This was to be a kingdom of eternity.  It offers eternal life with God.
		2. And how could such a Kingdom be near?  Jesus shows that God is taking decisive action in mankind's history to bring about this Kingdom.  It is near because Jesus has come.  Jesus is bringing it about.
			a. And to bring it about Jesus lived a perfect life, a life without sin in the place of sinful men.    b. And as Isaiah had described it: Jesus was taken by sinful men and mocked, beaten and nailed to a cross to die.  While Jesus hung on that cross God smote Jesus for the entire load of sin of mankind.  Jesus died, abandoned by God.  He suffered Hell in the place of men.  He fought our battle and it looked like He lost.   c. But on the third day after His death, He rose from the dead – He was victorious for us.
II. But then we’ve got to ask “How does one become a citizen of the Kingdom?”  It’s simpler than we think: God calls us into that Kingdom with the Gospel.
	A. In our text Jesus is looking for soldiers for His Kingdom.  Here we see Jesus walking through a crowd – that area near the “Sea” of Galilee was crowded.  He intentionally picked four men.
		1. Jesus simply calls them by saying, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.”
			a. The four disciples in our text, Peter, Andrew, James and John are called by the Gospel.  They are called by Jesus' words, called by His message.  Jesus' words penetrated their minds and hearts and worked faith in them.  They became citizens of God's kingdom because of the faith that was created in them.    b. Their hearts were transformed, their allegiance was changed.  Instead of placing first importance on possessions, job and even family, God became of first importance.  The four disciples showed this when they dropped all and followed Jesus.  He gave them salvation because they were brought to believe the Gospel: the Gospel that God forgives them for the sake of Jesus.
			2. And later Peter and Andrew, James and John were to become apostles, ones sent with Jesus’ authority to proclaim the Gospel to the ends of the earth.
			a. Jesus was weaving His own net, the dragnet of God’s kingdom that is cast to the ends of the earth and literally hauls everything ashore to be sorted out at the Last Day. Jesus was going to die and rise, and Peter and Andrew, James and John were going to follow Him, to be eyewitnesses of what He was doing, and to be sent by Him as His authorized representatives, the Twelve, the foundational pillars of His church and His holy ministry.   b. Simon and Andrew, James and John would have later understood it this way...to be a fisherman, you have to be in a boat.  The fish were out in the deep water.  To get at them you had to get into the boat.  The boat is Jesus’ church.  The boat is where the baptized who regularly, in faith, come to hear the words of Christ and receive His body and blood in the Sacrament--these are Jesus’ followers.  These are the ones who are in the boat.
	B. We’re called too.   Jesus’ net has come to us.
		1. We are as fish caught in the dragnet of the kingdom of God, a net woven out of Jesus’ own death and resurrection, and net in which we die in order to live.
			a. All fish struggle to get out of nets. And rightly so. The net means their death and doom. Our sinful self always goes with a struggle. Our sinful self doesn’t want to be netted, he wants to be “free” meaning enslaved to Sin and Self. But the believer in you knows that this is a Gospel net, a good news net, that leads not only to death but also to resurrection and life. Jonah illustrated it with his life. Jesus did it with His.  We have to die to our old life of selfishness, sin and are risen to a new life and be placed in Jesus’ boat, the church.   b. To be baptized to is have the call to discipleship spoken to us. “Follow me,” Jesus said to you in your Baptism. And there in the water you were caught in the net of God’s kingdom, caught by a love that will not let you go, caught in a death that means freedom and life.  And we are caught and placed in Jesus’ boat.
		2. And Jesus’ boat is no cruise ship.  It’s a fishing boat.  On a fishing boat everyone works.  There are many and various tasks to do, and not everyone does the same task, but everyone on the boat works in some way.  And so in Jesus’ boat--here in the church --there are many ways to serve.  And not all of us do the same task, but everyone works, everyone serves.
			a. It’s automatic.  When one follows Jesus, one will serve. If you are regularly hearing Jesus’ words; if you are always coming up for His Sacrament, Jesus will be at work in you and through you.    b. The best givers in any congregation are not those with the most money, but those who love to follow Jesus.  The best workers are not those who have the most time on their hands, but those who love to follow Jesus.  “Follow Me,” says Jesus.  That must come first to be a giver, a server, a fisher of men.
		3. So, my fellow fishers of men, how’s fishing?  Don’t lie. Be honest.  It’s frustrating, isn’t it?  The work, at times, can seem pointless.
			a.  “Why do I never seem to get results?”  We follow, we work, we serve...where is the reward for all this effort?  “I have invited my loved one, my friend, but they always have an excuse.  Why can’t I catch that fish?”  “I do serve in Jesus’ church, and no one seems to notice.  I’m not much appreciated.”   b. But we’re frustrated because we’ve turned it around and put an “I” in there. Friends, Jesus calls us to be fishers of men, not catchers of men.  We do the fishing...He does the catching. Like Philip, who we saw last week we say, “Come and see” --See Jesus.    c. In whatever way you serve--hanging up a banner here in church, counting money, singing in the choir, singing from the pew, bringing your children to church with you, living your Christian faith at school, being a Christian example at work--God does not require us to get results; He requires us to be faithful.  Fishing is no easy task.  A fisherman can sit in his boat all day and get only a few nibbles.  Fishing in Jesus’ boat also takes patience.  It takes simple trust in His promises.  He promises to provide the results--the results He wants--in His own time.
CONCLUSION: Bruce was called by the movie’s god.  We are called by the Gospel – called by the news that God smote Jesus instead of us.  That gospel is like a net.  It captures fish, and drags them into the Kingdom, a Kingdom where Jesus reigns now and for eternity.    Peter, Andrew, James and John would have seen the nets dragging the fish into the boat, the church (often tied to the Kingdom of God).  The Church is a working boat.  In that boat we follow Jesus.  In that boat we serve as we have been served.  Now we live a new life dedicated to our Savior.   In that boat we are fishers of men, a sometimes frustrating job, especially when we look at ourselves, at our results.  But we are called to look to Jesus, to be faithful.  He will provide.  Amen.

Skeptical? Come and See

Skeptical? Come and See By Pastor Lohn Johnson Text:  John 1:46-49 John 1: 46 Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see."  47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, "Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!"  48 Nathanael said to him, "How do you know me?" Jesus answered him, "Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you."  49 Nathanael answered him, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God! INTRODUCTION: My dear friends in Christ,  [Video: O Brother Where Are Thou]  I kind of identify with George Clooney’s character in this clip.  He is a skeptic –skeptical of the prediction of the old blind man.  I tend to be a rather skeptical person, too. If you want to convince me of something, a logical argument with charts and graphs will go a lot further than an emotional narrative with a complicated plot line. I tend to look at things analytically and scientifically; I appreciate hard data and sound analysis. I tend to think that when things go “bump” in the night, they are more likely to be the result of bad plumbing, a small earthquake, or a loose floor board than anything remotely supernatural.
I. I think I come by this honestly. All those years in the chemistry classroom shape how you think, and I was thinking that way long before I chose chemistry as my major in college. I think God just wires people that way when He doles out our “reason and all our senses.”
	A. There is such a thing as healthy skepticism.
			1. It guards against superstition and generally wards off strange ideas and mistaken notions in addition to a lot of bad religious ideas. Skeptics are like the control rods in a nuclear reactor, cooling down the fevered pitch of enthusiasm with some cool analysis.
			2. But man does not live by hard evidence alone. While it’s true that our technologies rely on hard data, and our courts rely on hard evidence, and when I make a decision as to whether it is safe to cross the street or not I do not simply close my eyes and pray, nevertheless some of the most important things in life are held without hard evidence in hand.
					a. Things like beauty, justice, mercy, and love go far beyond our measurements, charts and graphs. If I try to understand why a piece of music is beautiful by analyzing the wave forms of the sounds, I will no longer have the music in all its beauty. b. Higher still is eternity and heaven, the angels and archangels. The Bible can only deliver in pictures that only faintly sketch the outlines of these things. When Isaiah saw the Lord on His throne, he could not describe the Lord in His glory, for “no one may look on God and live.”
		B. But There is something that happens, though, when Sin gets into that act.
			1. Sin turns healthy skepticism into a deeply hardened cynicism. It stunts the imagination and blinds us to the “things that are above.” 2. Skepticism fueled by Sin simply becomes unbelief and atheism, a blanket denial that there a god at all or that there is anything above and beyond this natural world. Sadly this is where most of the world comes down today.
II. When I think of skeptic, I think of Nathanael. But he hasn’t gone too far with it yet.
			A. Nathanael is the skeptical one in our text. “Nazareth, you say. Ha! Ha! Nazareth. That’s a good one! Can anything good come from there?”
							1. Nazareth, hardly the place one would expect the messiah to come from. Nazareth was a nothing town way up in the north country, a garrison town watching over the northern highlands. Nazareth is never mentioned in Moses or the Prophets. Bethlehem is, but not Nazareth. 2. Besides, Nazareth has a reputation, what with all those soldiers hanging around in the middle of nowhere. Honestly, can anything good come from Nazareth?
			B. I love Phillip’s answer to Nathanael’s skepticism.  He says: “Come and see. Never mind your preconceived notions, your prejudices, your skepticism. Just come and see for yourself.”
				1.  And I absolutely love Jesus’ initial encounter with Nathanael. Before they even shake hands and are introduced, Jesus says with tongue fully planted in cheek, “Why look. Here is a true Israelite in whom there is no guile. This one tells it exactly as it is.”  2. This catches Nathanael off guard. Jesus seems to know him, and yet they’ve never met. “How do you know me?” Nathanael asks. “I saw you under the fig tree before Phillip called you.” Now that doesn’t seem like much, but it sure impressed Nathanael, so we have to assume we’re missing a few details.
							a. Some scholars think that Nathanael may have been reading Torah under the fig tree, which people were wont to do at that time, so that he encountered Christ in the Torah. b. It may be as simple as there was no one around when Nathanael was having his little fig tree moment, and now Jesus claims to have seen him. c. Whatever it was, those words of Jesus cut through Nathanael’s skepticism and drew his confession: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.” He saw and heard and believed.
III. Then Jesus hints at much more to come. “You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. That was nothing, Nathanael. You haven’t seen anything yet. You will see heaven open and the angels of god ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
		A. Jesus identifies Himself with, of all things, the ladder in Jacob’s dream.
			1. A ladder connecting heaven with earth on which the angels ascend and descend.
						a. It’s not a ladder of our ascent to God but of God’s descent to us. “He came down from heaven” to be Immanuel, God with us, to die for us, to conquer Sin and Death for us, to rise for us, to bring us to His Father and to be the sole Mediator between God and Man. Oh, Nathanael, greater things than these you will see. b. So what did Jesus mean? It wasn’t that Nathanael would see a ladder; rather, he’d see Jesus. Jesus was the connection between heaven and earth. The Savior didn’t want Nathanael trusting only in things like Him seeing people under fig trees.
			2. Jesus is speaking of something else that Nathanael will see: He's speaking of when heaven will be opened for Nathanael. He's speaking of the cross.
					a. The gates of heaven have been closed to man since the Fall of man into sin, and sinners have been shut out because of their sin. There is only one way for those gates to be flung wide open again: A perfect sacrifice must be made. And Jesus has come to make the perfect sacrifice. b. So Nathanael sees Jacob's ladder, but it isn't quite as impressive as it was in Jacob's dream. It has one rung; and when the Savior places His hands upon it, man drives nails through His palms to keep Him there.
		B. But even before those greater things the skeptic becomes the believer, all because he came and saw Jesus.
			1. That’s really what “evangelism” is all about. The invitation to “come and see.”
					a. You’ll note that Phillip didn’t even get all of his i’s dotted and t’s crossed about Jesus. But it was sufficient. A simple invitation from a good friend. “Come and see.” b. And what you will see and hear are greater things than can be seen and heard anywhere else. People reborn and renewed in Christ. Sins forgiven. Sinners justified. Men and women made right with God.
			2. Nathanael is historically identified with Bartholomew, among the least known of the disciples. History and church tradition tell us the Nathanael brought the Gospel to India and to Armenia. He is revered as the patron saint of the Armenian church to this day. The most enduring legend about his martyrdom is that he was skinned alive. One thing is certain. He now sees greater things than he ever saw that day under the fig tree.
IV. And Skeptics wonder today, “Can anything good come out of the church?” The church’s reputation isn’t always very good. There is word on the street of corruption, immorality, hypocrisy. There are skeptics today who wonder whether any of it is even true or is it all just a bunch of silly wishful thinking. “Can anything good come out of the church?”
		A. We are sinners, you and I.  Nothing good dwells in our flesh.  Rather, we are filled with unholy thoughts.  Our mouths are filled with deceit and lies, with cursing and angry words; our hearts with malice and envy, with jealousy and hatred, with lust and pride.  Can anything good come out of such sinful people as we are?
			1. Absolutely yes!  Jesus comes out of you just as He came out of Nathanael.  He became a witness of the Risen Savior.  He was martyred for confessing his faith in Jesus.  He who came out of Nazareth also, in time, came out of Nathanael as he lived for the rest of his life, a servant of Jesus.   2. That’s why Jesus came out of Nazareth in the first place.  He came out for you, friend.  He came out to live a holy life and give it to you in your baptism.  He came out to be led to a lonely cross and die there for you.  He came out of Nazareth so that here in Lexington Jesus comes to you in Word and Sacrament and gives you faith, forgiveness, and eternal life.  Jesus came out of Nazareth so that He can today come out of you; so that His name is on your lips; so that His peace is in your heart.
		B. That same Messiah, each and every Sunday morning, comes out of Good Shepherd.  We may not have huge crowds gather here.  We may not be very impressive to the world.  Your Champion—He who fought the battle against sin, death, and hell for you, and won—comes out of this very place in the preaching and teaching of His Word and the giving of His Sacraments.
			1. “Can anything good come out of Good Shepherd?”  “Come and see.”  Bring your children to Holy Baptism; bring them with you to church faithfully, and just watch as Jesus gives them faith and nurtures them into wonderful Christian people. 2.  “Can anything good come out of Lexington?”  “Come and see.”  Come and hear the words of your Savior week after week.  Come to Bible Class and be immersed in the teaching of the Holy Spirit.  Come up to God’s altar faithfully to receive the Lord’s body and blood—and see your life empowered by the Word of God.  See God at work in you and through you.  See your confidence, and joy, and peace, and hope, and faith grow like never before.  “Can anything good come out of Good Shepherd?”  “Come and see.”
CONCLUSION: Come and see. Come and hear. Hear what God in Christ has done and is doing. Invite your friends to do the same. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.   Amen help continue "bringing jesus to heart and home and community" make a donation to good shepherd lutheran church at:    GSLC Donation Page