You Gonna Fish?

Adapted from a Jeff Strite sermonhttp://www.sermoncentral.com/print_friendly.asp?SermonID=114728

Luke 5:1 ESV On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word

of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, 2 and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them

and were washing their nets. 3 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 and taught the people from the boat.

4 And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch." 5 And Simon answered, "Master, we toiled all night and took nothing!

But at your word I will let down the nets." 6 And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. 7

They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them.

And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. 8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees,

saying, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." 9 For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, 10 and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners

with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men." 11 And when they had brought their

boats to land, they left everything and followed him.

There’s an old joke about two fishermen out in a boat. The day was calm and the lake was

isolated enough that they were the only fishermen there. The first man baited his hook, threw it into the water and watched the bobber

bob on the waves. Suddenly there was a terrific explosion just a couple feet off the

portside of the boat. In a few moments dead fish were floating to the surface and his

companion was frantically scooping them in with a net.

He was about to ask his friend what had happened, when he saw his friend light a piece

of dynamite and throw it into the water… followed by another terrible explosion.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he shouted.“Fishing” the guy replied.

“But you can’t do that… that’s illegal.”At this point, his friend lit another stick of

dynamite threw into his lap and said: Hey, you gonna talk, or you gonna fish?”

It’s probably only been a few weeks since Jesus first met Peter.

The Gospel of John tells us that Peter had first been introduced to Jesus by his brother

Andrew.

In the previous chapter of Luke (Luke 4:38) Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law.

As I examined these pieces of information, I realized something I’d never seen before. Up

until this time (in Luke 5) Peter has been a “part timer”.

He “knew” Jesus - probably had spent some time with Him – but Peter’s relationship with

Christ was casual and uncommitted.He was kind of like a laid back church-goer.

I can picture him listening to Jesus for a while and then going back to work.

If he needed Jesus for anything special, he’d give Him a call.

And if Jesus had need of anything from him, he was more than happy to oblige. Kind of like on

this day at the lake.

Peter and his friends have been out fishing all night, and now they’re up on the shore

cleaning their nets.

It’s been a rough night - they’ve worked hard - but they haven’t caught a blessed thing but

then Jesus along comes and things get interesting real quick.

A crowd has gathered to hear Jesus speak and as Jesus preaches, it becomes obvious that the gathering multitude is going to get too big for Him to speak to properly from the shore.

So, Jesus gets into Simon’s boat and asks him to put out into the water a little.

And of course, Peter’s more than happy to oblige.

Jesus preaches some more… and then the crowds go home. It’s now about midday. Jesus

turns to Peter and says – take your boat out into deep water and let down your net.

Now, there’s all kinds of reasons Peter could have given for not doing this:

First – Jesus isn’t a fisherman. He’s a just a preacher. He’s a nice guy, but when it comes to fishing, Jesus should leave the heavy lifting to

guys like Peter and his friends.

Secondly, it’s the wrong time of the day for fishing… it’s too hot. And besides, Peter and

his friends are tired… they’ve been out all night.

But Peter doesn’t belittle or make fun of Jesus over this infringement on his time. I mean,

Jesus isn’t the kind of friend you make fun of. So, Peter just says… “Look I’m tired, I’ve been out all night. Nevertheless, because you have

asked me to… (sigh) I’ll do it”

He puts out to deep water… lets down his net… and he can’t hardly get it back up!!!

There’s so many fish in the net that the net began to break.

Peter calls the other men in the boat to help, but they can’t handle the nets by themselves… so they call to the other boat that’s on shore to

come out.Even between them they have problems

because the fish they bring on board nearly swamps both of their boats.

Peter and his friends are all astonished by the amount of fish they’ve hauled in.

Peter falls on his knees and declares himself to be a sinner… and they all decide to leave their

boats and follow Jesus.They went from talking about Jesus…

to fishing with Him.So, are you gonna talk…

or you gonna fish?

Essentially that’s the question Jesus put to Peter, Andrew, James and John.

Jesus knew how they viewed Him.He knew that they regarded Him as a pleasant

diversion in their lives.They were “comfortable” with Him.

They had probably EVEN spent a little time – kind of like a little Bible study while cleaning

their nets – discussing His teachings and what they liked about Him.

But up until that day… it had been all talk. On this day, Jesus called them to action.

Jesus challenged them to a different kind of fishing than they’d ever done before.

And when the day was done they had to answer that question:

Are you gonna talk… or you gonna fish?

Over the past 12 years our nets have not been as full as they should have been. Baptisms and transfers of people who wanted to worship with

our congregation dropped off. Can you remember in 2004 when it seemed we were

headed to the creek quite regular to immerse a new believer into Christ?

My records show our nets were empty till 2007 when 2 received forgiveness of their sins being

baptized into Christ.It was 6 years later in 2013 when our latest baptism occurred. It’s time to go into deeper

waters and let down our nets.

Since the last 2 Sundays of September 2015 & all of 2016 our sermons have essentially

involved the purpose of the church, Evangelism.

We’ve spent over a year on equipping God’s people for service.

Overcoming Obstacles was the theme of 20 sermons taken from 1 Corinthians.

Here are some sermon titles from 2016:“My Part In The Body,”

“Respecting God's Order of Things,” “Consider Your Service,”

“Getting With God's Program of Telling Others,”“Communicating Christ Effectively,”

“Finding Lost Passion For Lost People”Is your heart in growing the Kingdom of Christ?

Matthew 6:21 ESV For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

We surely know WHO we are and WHY we exist as a church.

Our focus should be on our primary mission: Fishing for men.

The focus of the church should always be to be fishers of men.

A church exists to bring people to Jesus and to expose them to His love and mercy.

When it comes to the question:Are you gonna talk or are you gonna fish?

Have any of us worked really hard to put our nets in the water?

When we do, we’ll been doing what Christ called us to do…

catch people for Jesus.

Now, Peter and his friends only knew one way to fish.

In our culture, you can go fly fishing, fish with a cane pole, you can shoot them with a bow and arrow, or as on “Mythbusters” episode 91, you

can shoot fish in a barrel. In fact you don’t have to hit it, the pressure shock wave from a

bullet being fired into a barrel is enough to kill a fish.

But these men fished by putting out in their boats, and putting their nets down into the

water. They only knew one way to do it.

When we fish for Jesus, there’s only one basic way we can do it.

We talk to people.We expose them Jesus and this church.

Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t get a little creative about it.

D.L. Moody tells of a wealthy London banker who loved Jesus deeply but couldn’t tell others

about his faith in a way that he felt was convincing.

Sensing that he was not effective in that way, he instead hired hansoms on days of a Revival

and then sent the driver in while he held the reins of the horse.

The problem for many Christians is that we can forget why we exist.

As important as worshipping on Sunday morning and going to Sunday School and Bible study can be, if we forget our primary objective

we fail in what Jesus has called us to do.

Paul Harvey once noted that Christians too often forget that they are supposed to be

fishers of men… not keepers of the aquarium. Not that keeping the aquarium is a bad idea.

You don’t want the fish to die! But keeping the aquarium is secondary to catching fish to begin with. That means that our primary objective is

trying to win people to Jesus.To seriously commit ourselves to bringing

people to Jesus/ Church/ S.S/ B.StudyOtherwise we still just talking… not fishing.

Does that mean that IF I haven’t won anybody to Christ or brought them to church/ Bible

Study I’ve failed?What if you invite and invite, and talk and talk, and you still don’t win anybody to Christ or get

anybody to come to church? No… Jesus didn’t tell Peter to catch fish… He told him to let down his net. Jesus was asking Peter to go fishing with Him… and then Jesus

supplied the fish.

Going fishing by yourself is not nearly as satisfying as fishing with another.

Especially if it’s with loved one or a dear friend and they love to fish.

And you know, if you never catch a fish you will still be happy, because of who you’re fishing

with.As a teenager you were likely to find me with my twin from another mother, Rocky, wading

up & down the creeks fishing.

I haven’t gone fishing in years, but, if Jesus asked me to go I’d beg, buy or borrow the best equipment I could find and I’d be down there at the crack of dawn. Why? Because I’d be doing

something Jesus wanted to do.The thing about introducing people to Jesus is

that Jesus is only concerned with our obedience, He will do the heavy lifting.

When Peter put his net down in the deep part of the lake he’d been fishing ALL night and

hadn’t caught a thing and so he wasn’t expecting to catch anything now.

BUT BECAUSE Jesus asked him to… he cast his net into the water.

He was merely OBEYING Jesus but he was obeying because he loved Jesus.

John 14:15 ESV "If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Now, there’s a couple more things I want to focus on this morning.

The first is this: Something happened to Peter that changed him.

There was something about this specific experience that turned him from being merely a casual acquaintance of Christ’s… to being

avid follower.

What was it, then? What was it that so dramatically altered his relationship with

Jesus?Was it when Andrew first introduced Peter to

Jesus?No, even after that Peter was still just a casual

follower.Was it when Peter let Jesus use his boat to

preach out of?No, that was a nice thing to do – that’s what

one friend would do for another.

What changed Peter’s life was when he decided to obey Jesus.

It was when he knew what Jesus wanted him to do… and he did it.

Granted, he did it unwillingly, it didn’t make any sense, in fact, it defied all common sense.You can almost hear him sigh as he says:

“Nevertheless, because you ask.”

The old hymn is true: “Trust and Obey, for there’s other way, to be happy in Jesus but to

trust and obey.”Peter obeyed. It didn’t make any sense… but he obeyed anyway and Jesus rewarded him big time. And this became the first of many

experiences Peter had with Jesus.

But something even more significant happened that day.

Something more significant than Peter obeying Jesus and catching a boatload of fish.

Something so significant that it caught the attention even of his friends.

Peter changed how he thought about himself.

You see… up until this time… having a net full of fish was Peter’s life’s goal.

It was how he measured his happiness.

It was how he knew he was successful.

His whole life was centered around his boat and his time on the water.

But now, he’s got a net full of fish, and he realizes that this isn’t what will make him

happy.

He and his friends pull in the biggest haul of fish they’ve ever had in their whole lives and Peter falls to his knees at the feet of Jesus… then leaves his nets to follow Jesus forever.

Why? Because it was at that moment he realized how empty his life had been.

He declares himself to be a sinner because he realizes how wasted his life has been.

And he realizes how empty it would be without Jesus.

Peter decided – at that moment – that he can’t live without Jesus in his life.

He decided that his life would lack meaning if Jesus weren’t the center of what he did.He decided to go beyond just a casual

relationship with Christ – to a life consuming one.

All because he made one crucial decision. So the question for you this morning is this:

What have you decided?

Have you decided to make it your goal to be fishers of men.

Have you decided you’re going to do whatever you can to create an atmosphere here where

people will feel welcome.

Some haven’t made that decision yet.Some have loved Jesus… but haven’t decided

to go fishing yet.

Just like Peter, you can change your life by one decision… obey Jesus.

Go out into deep water, let down your net, and talk to someone about your Lord.

Then see what God does in your life.