The Miraculous Catch of Fish

[0:00] Father, we thank you that you speak to us through your word. And Father, it's your word, not ours. And you have all sorts of different things that you bring into our lives, each of them different through your word.

[0:15] And we invite and give you permission, Father, to bring your word very deeply into our hearts, the command center of our lives, that your word would work its mighty power within us so that we would know how to love you and serve you in our day and in our age and in our context, that we would know how to bring you glory in our families, our friends, our neighborhoods, in our jobs, in our retirement.

[0:45] Father, to the very ends of the earth, including missionaries, Father, bring your word deeply home to us that we might know how to serve you and to live in a way that brings you glory and lifts Jesus high.

[0:56] And all this we ask in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Amen. Please be seated. So we begin a new sermon series today.

[1:08] This is sort of the first Sunday of the summer. In fact, it's so nice that I'm not here all by myself, just me and Andrew. This being a long weekend, always one of the lowest attended services of the year, so it's really good you're here to open God's word on the Lord's Day.

[1:23] And this 10-week sermon series, it's going to be called Real Jesus, Real Miracles. We're going to look at 10 different miracle stories in the Gospels. We're not going to do any of the miracle stories from the Gospel of John because those of you who, this is your church home, you'll know that in the spring, I finished a long series on John.

[1:43] So we're not going to look at any of the John miracles, but we're going to look at a variety of miracles. And this first one that we're looking at, I wish I had a flashy beginning. All I can really do is just share from my heart.

[1:56] I don't talk about this very much, but it's a very, very common thing for ministers that not maybe immediately after the service, but shortly after the service, a couple of hours after the service, we often feel very, very tired and down.

[2:10] And that feeling tired and feeling down can last for at least 24 hours. And scientists, doctors can tell you that to get up like this, standing in front of people and speaking is one of the scariest things for North Americans to do.

[2:24] And that's what I'm doing for you right now. And so you produce adrenaline to do this. And when the body produces adrenaline, then later on, something comes to lower the adrenaline.

[2:34] And that often makes you feel just blah, tired. My poor, long-suffering wife has to put up with me and not being very energetic or lively for the rest of the day and into tomorrow.

[2:46] But this week, I'm used to the fact that often on Mondays, I don't feel very good. And I just tell myself, well, tomorrow's Tuesday. This will go away and tomorrow's Tuesday.

[2:58] But this week on Tuesday, I was still feeling pretty down, actually. And I was walking down Bank Street in Centertown. And I was walking from where our ministry space was to a place where I was going to do some work.

[3:13] And I was pretty down. And I was just praying about it, about how down I was. And it was one of the things, I don't want to make it sound like I'm more mystical than I am. I'm not very mystical.

[3:24] But it was as if the Lord said to me, George, what is it you're preaching on on Sunday? And then as I sort of thought about what I was preaching on on Sunday, this text in Luke, the Lord used the text in a very powerful way just to encourage me.

[3:38] And I wish I could do that for you. I don't know how many of you are discouraged. I was just discouraged a little bit about how hard it is to be a Christian in today's world. How we're the away team in today's world.

[3:52] That's sort of what I was thinking of. You know what the away team means? Just think of those Raptor Golden State Warrior games. And just think of the Golden State Warriors coming into Toronto. Okay. Well, we're the Golden State Warriors playing in Toronto.

[4:07] That's just what it's like now to be a Christian. The world cheers for the other side, not us. Standing ovations for the other side, not for us. And I was just really feeling despondent about it.

[4:20] But this text, as I just thought about it, it really lifted my spirits. Between Somerset and Gladstone, the Lord did a work on my heart as I thought about this text. And I don't know what the Lord's going to do in your hearts today as we look at this text, but let's look at the text.

[4:35] So it's Luke chapter 5, verses 1 to 11. Luke chapter 5, verses 1 to 11. And this is a nature miracle. Excuse me, a nature miracle. And here's how it goes. Luke chapter 5, verses 1 to 11.

[4:50] So just before I start reading this, just a little bit for those of you who don't know some of these things. The guy who's writing this never saw Jesus in the flesh. And he's not Jewish.

[5:03] He was a pagan who sometime after the death and resurrection of Jesus, this pagan doctor, so he was well-educated, he becomes a Christian. We're never told how he goes from being a pagan to being a Christian, but we know that he has gone from being a pagan to being a Christian.

[5:20] And so one of the things that he does, if you go back and you read the beginning of Luke and the beginning of Acts, because he wrote both books as sort of a two-parter, you'll see that what he said is he wanted to go and look up all the eyewitness people.

[5:35] And in a sense, he says, basically, I went and studied and listened to the eyewitnesses. And out of listening to the eyewitnesses and maybe looking at some written documents as well, I've put together a true story of things that really happened to Jesus.

[5:50] And that's what Luke has done. And that's who he is, and that's what he's done. And he does it because he wants this man, Theophilus, to know and understand who Jesus is. So this is part of that process.

[6:02] It's a book, and it's chapter 5. There's a lot of chapters in the book, but this is early on in the book, and it goes like this. On one occasion, verse 1, while the crowd was pressing in on Jesus to hear the word of God, Jesus was standing by the lake of Gennesaret.

[6:18] I can't pronounce that very well. Just pause here for a second. Just a couple of things which are really interesting about this. The first one is this thing when he says, on one occasion. In the original language, it's a bit of a...

[6:31] What he's saying is, this is something that happened. He's saying two things by using this phrase. One of them is, this is something that really happened. If Luke was here and was doing it for you, he'd say, if there was ever an ability to have a time machine, and you folks went in a time machine, and you could program it, you could go back in your time machine, and you could watch this actually happen.

[6:53] So it's a phrase that talks about it actually. It's history. This really happened. The second thing is, he's trying to tell us that he's not giving us a chronological thing. He's...

[7:05] It would be a little bit if you went to a... It's a little bit like... Think about it as you go to a funeral, a memorial service, and somebody gets up to speak about their mom, or whatever, who died.

[7:19] And often, when people at a memorial service, when they get up and talk about their mom, they don't do a strict chronology. They'll tell you this story, then they'll tell you this story, then they'll tell you this story, and then they'll tell you this story, and some of them go on way too long.

[7:32] But afterwards, they might not... If you actually said, sorry, did those stories all happen in that order? They said, no, no, no, no. They didn't happen in that order. I just thought they were all interesting stories. I told them in a certain order for your interest, but I wasn't actually telling you the chronology.

[7:44] And what Luke says, when he says on one occasion, he's telling you the same thing. He's saying, I'm going to tell you a true story, but it doesn't necessarily just immediately follow after the last bit that I told you. Luke does this all the way through his gospel.

[7:56] And it drives 2019 Christians nuts, because one of the things that we like, that they didn't really care about, was chronology. We love chronologies.

[8:08] We love it if there's a blog or a tweet or something which can show a timeline. You hear something happen in the news, some shootings or something. We love things like that, all the timeline.

[8:19] Luke didn't care about that. He's telling you about Jesus. He's in a sense, well, he's just telling you about Jesus. And the stories are all true, but they're not necessarily in a chronology. Drives people like us nuts.

[8:30] The other thing is, just two other things about this story to take a long thing. It's very interesting. Look again at what it says here. They press in on him to hear the word of God. There's a lot of important Bible doctrine, which is just sort of, it peaks its head up every once in a while.

[8:49] And if you're not paying attention, you don't notice that it's just peaked its head up and then went underneath. And if you add up all the times it peaks up, you realize that it's a really important doctrine, but it's just a doctrine that peaks up.

[9:01] And what Luke is saying here is, when you heard Jesus speak, you were hearing God speak. That's what Luke is saying. If you had been there that day, and what people understood is that when they're listening to Jesus, they're hearing God speak.

[9:17] It's a huge claim, but it just peaks itself up, goes back underneath. And this all happens, the Gennesaret, it's another name for Galilee. So verse two, that's just how it begins.

[9:28] And now the story goes in. Verse two, and Jesus saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, Jesus asked him to put out a little from the land.

[9:43] And then Jesus sat down and taught the people from the boat. And just sort of pause here for a second. Simon is better known to most people as Peter. Jesus changes Peter's name later on in the story, but originally his name was Simon, a common Jewish name.

[9:58] And Simon is a commercial fisherman. So he's not just a guy going out there, casting a line, hoping to catch some fish so he can have some fish for breakfast. He's a commercial fisherman.

[10:09] In those days, commercial fishermen worked all night so that in the morning, the fish would be fresh that they could sell at the market to make a living. So Simon's a commercial fisherman. He would have been fishing with a net, not a line and a lure.

[10:23] And that's what he's been doing all night. And they're washing their nets. Their work day is over, so to speak. They're preparing to go home. And Jesus asked if they could just move out a little bit so he has a bit of distance to speak.

[10:34] Verse 4. And when he had finished speaking, that's Jesus, he said to Simon, put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. And Simon answered, Master, we toiled all night and took nothing.

[10:49] But at your word, I will let down the nets. And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish and their nets were breaking. They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them.

[11:05] And they came and filled both the boats so that they began to sink. Now just sort of pause here for a second. It's not as obvious in English. It's obvious if you think about it in a second when you see what Peter's going to say in a moment, what Simon's going to say in a moment.

[11:20] But the image here is as if the fish are swimming into the net. It's as if, you know, if you had Polaroid sunglasses and you could be looking at the water, it's as if you could see a fish coming from over there to get into the net.

[11:38] And another fish from over there coming to get into the net. And another fish from over there coming to get into the net. And these fishermen, they put down their net, they try to bring them back, and the fish are still swimming into the net.

[11:49] And they're swimming into the net and swimming into the net and they're jumping into the net and they're trying to pull the net into the boat and the fish are still coming and they call for the other boat. And the other boat comes and starts to try to help them and maybe they're also throwing in their net at first because they don't really know what they're doing.

[12:02] But the fish are going into that and the fish are going into that and that's the image which is going on. It's shocking. It's shocking to these fishermen.

[12:14] And we see that in terms of how Peter reacts. It's a very, very, very powerful graphic image. So you have to, you know, you just imagine they're bringing these nets into this flat-bottom boat and as they're bringing them in, the fish are flopping around and Jesus is in the boat with the fish all flopping around and the fish swimming to get into the net to get into the boat.

[12:38] And Simon is seeing this net. It's just pulling the whole boat over and there are fish flopping all over the place. And what does Peter do?

[12:49] Look at verse 8. But when Peter, Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees. So if you're the type of person who likes to picture things, you picture Peter might even be kneeling on a couple of fish.

[13:03] They'd squish a way out of him, but he just kneels right now in the midst of all those fish flopping around. And he just goes on his knees.

[13:17] He falls down and he says to Jesus, verse 8, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken.

[13:34] And so also were James and John, son of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. They're just completely and utterly shocked.

[13:48] We're going to talk in a moment about Peter's puzzling reply. Why? Like, why is it that Peter says something like, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man? That's a very puzzling thing to say if you think about it.

[13:59] Like, it's not something that we think a Canadian would say if that same thing was happening to us. Not the average Canadian. At least we don't think that's how a Canadian would respond. And so what does Jesus say?

[14:11] Does Jesus say, Come on, Peter, get up. Come on, get up. Come on, I'm just a guy. Get up, you know? He doesn't say something like that. What does Jesus say? Says the last part of verse 10.

[14:24] And Jesus said to Simon, Do not be afraid. From now on, you will be catching men. And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed Jesus.

[14:37] And just that little thing that Jesus says, Do not be afraid. From now on, you will be catching men. In the original language, that word catching is a very rare word in the New Testament. It's only used two times.

[14:48] And the significance of the word is it means catching alive. Not catching to kill, but catching alive. And it only occurs one other time in the New Testament.

[15:02] So he says, Do not be afraid. From now on, you will be catching men. And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him. Now what to think about this.

[15:15] You know, when I was a kid, I loved comic books. And where we grew up, I mean, not only did I get my allowance, but where we grew up, they were building developments all around.

[15:29] And my friends and I would go after the working day was over. And we'd go and find Coke bottles because back then when you wanted to drink pop, it had to be in a bottle. They didn't have cans.

[15:41] That's how old I am. I was a kid when they invented cans, actually. That's how old I am. The wheel was just a couple of weeks before I was born. Fire the day after I was born.

[15:52] But they still had to drink Coke and stuff like that in bottles. And so me and my friends, we would go and go around the work sites looking for a bottle so we could take them to a store, collect the deposit because they were deposit, two cents to bring a bottle back.

[16:09] And I won't bore you about how much you could get for two cents in those days. Ask me after the service. But for six bottles, I could buy a comic book. And that's the main thing I did.

[16:20] And Silver Surfer, the X-Men, believe it or not, my top favorite comic book character was the Black Panther. But I also really liked Spider-Man, the X-Men, and the Silver Surfer.

[16:34] And I loved comic books. And when I went to university, and actually when I was in high school as well, if we were to have, if I was to have read a text like this to my non-Christian friends, we'd get into a big argument about how a miracle could possibly happen because that used to be a big thing for lots of people.

[16:52] But I have a feeling that if I read this to my barista friends who are non-Christians, not a single one of them would ask the question about how a miracle could happen because we're used to Harry Potter. We're used to the fact that Dr. X can just freeze everybody.

[17:06] He could freeze. It wouldn't be beyond belief that Dr. X could just make fish to go into a particular net. Aquaman can control fish.

[17:18] Wonder Woman can control animals. In Star Wars, Luke Skywalker could probably get fish to do things. He can do that to the bad guys. And so when I was in university, something like this miracle story would be a problem, but it's not a problem often for people today.

[17:36] They just look at it and say, well, that's a pretty cool thing. But here's the thing to try to make it a little bit less cool, to look at the story because it's not just an early Marvel comic book.

[17:47] I know Aquaman and Wonder Woman were DC. It's not an early comic book. It's something very different that's going on here. If you could put up the first point, Andrew, that would be very helpful. This is a true story about Jesus and a real miracle.

[18:01] This is a true story about Jesus and a real miracle. Now, some of you might say, like I'm sure if I was to say this to some of my barista friends and others that I've met in coffee shops, that I can well picture some of them would just mock me openly and say that this is all just invented.

[18:19] In fact, George, your comic book analogy is perfect. It's just as real as Dr. X is real or Wolverine is real. Wouldn't it be cool if Wolverine was real?

[18:29] But that's an aside. He's my favorite guy. Anyway, amongst those superheroes. That says something about my personality that he would be my favorite.

[18:39] But, you know, lots of people would still just say, George, a story like this, it's not a true story and it's not a real miracle.

[18:50] And just because it's in the Bible, are you saying that just because it's in the Bible that we should believe it? And I'm saying yes and no to that. Yes and no. For Christians, yes.

[19:03] For Christians, yes. If it's in the Bible, we believe it. That's what Christians are supposed to do. Jesus believed the Bible and we should believe him.

[19:13] But for non-Christians, no, I'm not obviously saying that, that just because it's in the Bible you have to believe it. But, but, but, at least let me have a conversation with you about what the Bible is claiming.

[19:29] Because beyond the fact that it's a Bible, this is something that was probably written before the year 70 by a pagan who was a doctor who became a Christian.

[19:43] And he probably became a Christian because whether directly through him talking to eyewitnesses or somebody who was telling him what eyewitnesses said, he heard about Jesus and Jesus' death on the cross and his resurrection.

[19:56] And as a result of hearing about Jesus, he left being a pagan, broke with his culture to become a Christian, and Luke is claiming that this actually happened.

[20:11] Now, you might say that he's lying. That's fine. We can have a conversation around that. But let's at least just grant him what he's making the claim of. And the claim is that what I just read to you is a true story about a man named Jesus performing a real miracle.

[20:31] It's not a myth. It's not a comic book. It's not a fantasy. It's not a moral tale. Luke is claiming that it happened in space and time. And what he's claiming is that Jesus willed the fish into the net.

[20:49] He didn't pray to God that God would hear his prayer and act. Jesus willed the fish into the net. And the evidence that Luke gives is that it's not a natural process.

[21:02] It shocked people who'd been making their living fishing for years and years and years who grew up by the Sea of Galilee. It shocked them. That it's not a natural occurrence that fish would come swimming into the net to be caught.

[21:20] It shocked them. And that's what Luke is claiming. He's claiming that it's not a natural process, that it's something that natural processes can't account for.

[21:36] Now here there's a bit of an aside. You know, it's really interesting that superheroes and Harry Potter are so popular in our day and age. Like it really is.

[21:49] I think it shows something about what we want in our culture. I have a, I was talking to a person the other day and I don't know how it came up.

[22:01] It came up about human origins and evolution. And people who aren't Christians, they often like to bring up evolution with me because they think I'm going to become very red in the face and embarrassed and start to go like this and try to change the topic.

[22:21] But amongst other things what I said to her was I said this. I said, how is it that you believe she's really big in social justice? Really, really, really, really big in social justice?

[22:32] I said, how is it that you believe that everything that came to be is a result of the strong eating the weak but you think that we should love one another? If that's in fact the story about how all things came to be that the strong eat the weak and the weak die and the strong live, if that's actually how all things came to be, how on earth could you believe that it's important that you love one another?

[22:57] That doesn't fit at all. And I think what we're seeing in our culture is this. On one hand, there's still a very strong belief in science that everything is a result of cause and effect and that evolution is true.

[23:10] It must be true because our high school science teachers taught us that it's true and many of the biology teachers in university, if you've taken any biology, and it's definitely the case. I think I told you a couple of weeks ago how, this is about a year ago, a CBC cameraman stopped me on a glorious summer day when I was out for a run along the canal and there'd been some study that middle-aged guys like me who ran were less likely to have some type of health problem and he asked me if I'd heard of the study and I said I hadn't heard and I paused and said but that makes sense because God probably designed us in such a way that if you do something like exercise it's going to mean other bad things don't happen and it was, it was a deer in a headlight moment for him because I think the last thing he'd ever met was somebody who talked about God creating human beings in all other life and he went blah, blah, blah, blah and then he tried to get me to backtrack and I said no, no, no, no, I'm not just saying it's a result of evolution I think God designed us in such a way so that if we do things that are healthy it has other, anyway, I'm sure I didn't make the clip on it but in our culture on one hand we want to believe that it's all a result of just of time and chance and naturalistic laws but on the other hand there's something within us that rebels against it because the fact of the matter is is that in comic books

[24:24] Dr. X is obviously a fantasy Wonder Woman is a fantasy Wolverine is a fantasy people who have these supernatural type powers and these unbelievable powers there's a fantasy yet on what so we I think our culture there's this double motion that's going on on one hand we believe in evolution and we believe in science on the other hand we believe in we want to believe in something like a Harry Potter universe and we want to believe in something like a Luke Skywalker world where there's something beyond just the physical and the material we want to believe in something like Dr. X but these are like two separate realities that don't connect at all but in the Bible they do in the Bible they do the Bible they do in a very very powerful way and and only the Bible communicates this in a way that actually makes sense because you see at the end of the day the Bible says that all things came to be it's not not because of a what matter and energy and laws of motion and laws of nature but a who that our world depends upon something outside of the world for our world to exist our world depends upon something outside of the world for our world to exist and that's what we see so powerfully here in the story can you put up the next point

[26:04] Andrew the creator has invaded his creation to begin to set things right and liberate his fallen image bearers the creator has invaded his creation to begin to set things right and liberate his fallen image bearers the reason that science developed in a Christian world view it isn't that before Christianity there wasn't cleverness and it wasn't it's not that outside of like in Islam and Buddhism and Hinduism and Confucianism cultures they didn't invent individual things but science is something more than just being able to be clever and invent particular things at the heart of the heart of what why it was that Christianity ended up rooting that which we call science is because that Christianity believed in a sense that a designer created all things and if a designer created all things then we in a sense could reverse engineer what he did to figure out how things work and it really is in the context of that belief you see in animism things can just happen in paganism things can just happen you can't trust that there's any type of order in reality because a god might just decide to do this or that in animism it might be that you angered the plant or you angered this or you angered that and that's why you get sick there's no type of order ultimately it's chaotic and in

[27:49] Buddhism and Hinduism in a sense all things are one to believe that things are different is an illusion and so why do you try to figure out how an illusion works that's an illusion it's an illusion to pursue that and even in Islam it's not so much that they have a doctrine of creation it's just that god does this and god does this and god does this it's almost like a pagan god but made big with no other gods but only in Christianity is there this sense that god has created all things he designed this world to be our home for us to fit here and he designed this world not only for us to fit here but for us to tend the garden to care for the world which implies that there's ways for us to care for the world to figure out how the world works and god is not just a god who made things and then he sort of forgot about it and it's just sort of running and on no no that god is they look at this story and how

[28:50] Jesus can the same god who just said out of nothing let there be light and let just there to be fish to exist let there to be birds to exist the same god the same creator who has made all things and sustains all things he comes and enters this story and the same god who can say let there be fish can say let the fish go to that net there's no contradiction to that it's the creator he's entered the story and we understand at a very very deep level that on one hand this world really does feel sometimes like it is our home when you have a day when the temperature is perfect and you've had a really nice meal and you're with your friends and you're just you don't feel healthy because health is natural you don't feel pain you don't feel unhealthy and you feel at one and the sunset is beautiful and the city is beautiful and everything is beautiful and you just this feels like home the other hand when we look in the newspaper or go online and we see the terrible evil things that are done in this world we realize that on one level sometimes we feel like this is at our home on the other hand it feels at times as if the world is not right and only the Christian faith makes those two experiences comprehensible and understandable

[30:10] God made this world as our home and we human beings have rebelled against it and brought evil and destruction and disorder into this world and when we see this story it isn't just a few things on a creed the communication that there is a creator who entered his creation and reveals that he is the creator by doing this remarkable thing that only the creator can do which is just to order the fish around merely by his will the creator himself has invaded his creation and we fallen human beings often feel threatened by the invasion of the creator because we feel as if this is mine and so it is in our culture when God draws close we worry about his commands around sexuality and his commands around money and his commands around forgiveness and his commands around gentleness and his commands around compassion and his commands around mercy and his commands around identity and sometimes we feel these things as a threat as if this kingdom is ours but this story reveals that the creator is entering his creation to set things right we human beings in

[31:41] Canada basically always think that I'm the judge I'm the emperor and God whatever God pretends to be he's on trial and the fact of the matter is things are looking very bad for God it looks as if he's just going to be condemned to being a bad God a bad idea a bad thing he's threatening he threatens my sense of identity he threatens what I want to do with my money what I want to do with my time what I want to do with my sexuality my time my money my sexuality and he threatens that but this story is saying that what we're seeing here in Luke is more like D-Day and we have fallen prey to the propaganda as if Nazi rule is natural and will be forever but the king himself the creator himself has come into his creation to begin to set all things right all things right there's another thing which is really important in terms of how he sets all things right when you come to read the end of the story if later on maybe as part of your project for the summary you decide you're just going to sit down and every day read a couple of chapters of

[33:05] Luke and you're going to read it all right from chapter one and you're going to read it all the way and you're going to come eventually to Luke chapter 22 and 23 where Jesus is caught and then he dies on the cross and the resurrection one of the things we need to do is we have to realize that what Luke is doing is he's asking you to remember everything in the story when it comes to that time of the crucifixion because if you remember you have to ask yourself how is one who can cause the fish to come from all over the lake to jump into the net how can one like that die upon the cross and who is dying upon the cross and what on earth is going on if Jesus is dying on a cross and Luke is setting it up through story not through doctrine that the creator has invaded his own creation to begin to set things right and the pinnacle and the linchpin and the foundation of him setting things right is the creator dies for his rebellious creature the creator dies in the place of his rebellious creature is key to him setting things right the one who controls nature dies on the cross

[34:43] Peter says depart from me for I'm a sinful man and Jesus doesn't say yes you disgust me you are sinful I hate you no he says in such a way that Peter knows that it's proper that he follows him he says he says you are going to be catching men catching men in such a way that they live that they are delivered and live Peter knows he has to follow him just two final things very briefly enclosed if you could put up the third point to follow Jesus means doing what he tells you to do and also to pardon me I had to bring in something from the old book of common prayer do your meat right and bound in duty old

[35:49] English that's what's that's one of the things which is so powerfully but by the way you know the thing that encouraged me this week is this I'm the away team and I wish I had more fruitfulness in my evangelism than I do but at the end of the day the creator has invaded his creation and the one who creates and sustains all that is around me has asked me unworthy as I am to follow him and to proclaim who he is to his glory and the Lord brings the fish that's what encouraged me the creator of all things invaded this world and died for me and he asks me to follow him encourage me and in this story you see this wonderful thing on one hand you see this element of discipleship which is if Jesus tells us to do something we have to do it now

[36:52] I'm not saying that we do it I'm not saying we do it with a smile because a lot of times really you mean I can't I have to do this I can't do this with my sexuality I have to do this really this is wrong everybody around me says it's right really you know we can have these conversations with God but at the end of the day a person who follows Jesus means that you follow Jesus and that involves first of all you do what he says but the second thing is Jesus never actually says in this story follow me does he but Peter knowing Jesus realizes that it is his meat right and bound and duty some things follow naturally from knowing Jesus that's what meat right and bound and duty later on the communion I think we don't use the old language of it's meat right and our bound and duty I think it's right and fitting and our true duty to do this it's language that describes how in a created world there are certain things that just are natural that just follow and so the natural thing that follows from

[37:53] Jesus and from this miracle that Peter just understands not as a result of a command it fits it's right it's the appropriate thing that if the creator of all things has entered his creation to begin to make things right and he's come on your boat and done this miracle that the meat right and bound and duty thing that you do is you follow him meat right and bound and duty it's fitting it's right it's a good duty can you put up the last point Andrew I talked about this a little bit in my blog knowing Jesus leads me to leave every idol behind and follow him you know the thing about literally leaving all of your net and all the fish sometimes that literally means what it will be to be a Christian if you when next time we have Aaron I me and his ministry to the Jewish people give your life to

[38:56] Jesus it will mean you are disowned and you don't have a place to live and one of the things that Christians have to do in a place like Israel is actually come up with hospitality and houses so that when the ultra Orthodox give their lives to Jesus they actually have a place to live in Iran if a person becomes a Christian it becomes known in parts of and it might be in our day and age that we will lose promotions or some other types of things when people discover that we've given our lives to Jesus and that he is our Savior and Lord and we have to be prepared for that but more important the overall teaching of the thing is what is an idol an idol is a false god and a false god will give you a sense of purpose a sense of direction a sense of identity a set of rules and the main task of discipleship is that the one who gives us our direction the one that gives us meaning the one that tells us how to live the one that gives us purpose true north all of that becomes

[40:08] Jesus and if it's Jesus it means all the other idols that we have all of the ways whether it's power or being a Canadian or a Canadian understanding of this or that or whatever that gives us meaning and direction and sense and purpose and all of that these we have to set behind us and die to it when we follow Jesus because there is only one God and only one Savior and Luke is communicating that the creator of all things himself is the one who dies upon the cross because he loves you and to be gripped with who Jesus is that the creator has invaded his creation to begin to set all things right and we know that one day he will return and when he returns all this world will come to an end and all idols will be unmasked and come to an end and this in between time will come to an end and all who are alive will be judged and those in

[41:20] Christ will be Christ's with resurrection bodies in a resurrection world to live with him and each other forever please stand just bow our heads in prayer father we thank you for the sound of children in the other room we know it's a bit distracting but it's so nice to be distracted by children in church rather than being in a dead place without the sound of children so father we thank you for every child who is here we ask that through our witness and our prayers and the ministry of the Sunday school and youth group and other ministries that each of those children will come to know Jesus as their

[42:21] Savior and their Lord and father I ask for myself and for all of us here that you would bring the word of Jesus and this miraculous catch of fish deep into our hearts and father this profound good news that out of love for us you the creator of all things would enter your creation and take on flesh like we have but that you would come to set things right preeminently by dying on the cross for us you our creator die for me such love father grip us with these truths that we might know what it means to follow Jesus to listen to his commands and desire to obey them and to know the wonderful freeing joy of doing that which is our meet right and bound in duty what you've made us for father all these things we ask in the name of

[43:21] Jesus and all God's people said amen