The Net

Good morning, you can sit if you’d like and join me in prayer. Creator God, we give you thanks for all you have provided us, the good green earth, the crisp clear waters, the bright clean air. You have made everything for us and all of creation.

Guide us in this time of worship to have full and grateful hearts, to be generous in remembering all you have done for us and given to us. May we give back of what we have received in word, service and deed. May we be good stewards of all you’ve given us and be filled in this space with your holy presence.

Gentle shepherd, we confess we have gone astray. We have followed the hired hands, we have listened to the silver tongues that have promised us wealth and power. We have ignored the needs of our fellow sheep and certainly the sheep that know your voice in far off places.

Call us back from the paths that lead to ruin. Call us back to your green pastures and still waters. Journey with us in the valley of the shadow of death, steering us away from the dead ends of this world’s many paths and instead into the way that leads to life in you.

Loving one, we know that your promise of resurrection is always around us, in the leaves and seeds falling to death and bulbs and shoots sprouting into life. You give us this awe-inspiring earth and entrusted it to our care. Remind us to put your love first and foremost, a love that seeks to bless and build and create rather than break down and destroy.

Call us into accountability for care of your beautiful earth and for all our neighbors including all the creatures and plants of the wondrous earth world. Help us to pause now and then in amazement of all you have made and all you continue to do and lead us in ways to participate in care of your creation. For you are our creator, redeemer, and sustainer.

And if you’d like to join me now in the prayer that Jesus taught us. Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

And give us this day our daily bread as we forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Amen. Good morning. For some reason the heat didn’t kick on this morning.

I don’t know what they have going on down there if they shut the pilot light off. What kind of furnace we have going. But so that the actual truth of it is the cooler it is the more apt you are to stay awake while I preach.

So we’re going to run with that. What I would like to do today is start off with a psychological exam. Does that make you feel pretty good? Are you awake and alert enough to walk through this exam with us? Okay we’re going to look at pictures and you’re going to tell me the first thing that comes to your mind.

And we’ll determine at the end what we need to do with you. Okay. Okay.

Let’s look at this first one. What do you see here? Pickleball. No it’s tennis.

Okay. All right. Tennis net.

And let’s look at this next one. What is this? What do you see? Bless you. What? Bridge.

Bridge over troubled water. Is that what you just said? Okay. All right.

Let’s go to another one. Ah. Basketball.

Okay good. Okay keep going. What’s this? Spider web.

Anybody creeped out? Okay good. There’s no spider on it. Okay let’s go to the next one.

What’s this? Volleyball. There you go. Got to think a little bit on that one.

Okay what’s this one? It looks like a soccer net at first but I think it’s just a net to keep people from falling into the great abyss. Okay last one. Trampoline.

Okay let’s go back to the beginning of the pictures. What do these all have in common? They’re all nets. Now if you are now if you’re seeing nets in every picture we have two choices.

One of them is that you are clinically insane. And the second one is that you love Jesus so much that you just see nets wherever you go. Now if we go back to the beginning of the pictures and we look at each one of them what is the what is a tennis net? What’s the point of a tennis net? How does that help the game of tennis? Everybody has their side.

What else? They’ve got to get the ball over the net. Good. If you do not get the ball over the net you see it’s not all bad because in tennis if you do not get the ball over the net you stick with love.

So see. Okay let’s go to the next one. What is the point of the net in this picture? Safety.

Hold you up. Help you get from one place to the other. Okay let’s go to the next one.

What is the point of the net in this picture? What is it hanging on? Does anybody know the official term of what it’s hanging on? Rim. The rim. Okay and what does the net do? Yeah the ball has to go through the net to score.

It also softens the impact of when the ball hits the rim. If you grew up on playgrounds like I did and there was no net on the basketball when you hit that rim it doesn’t softly slide in. Okay let’s go to the next one.

Spider web. What is the point of this net? To catch for food. Okay let’s move on.

Volleyball net. What’s the point of this? To give you whiplash when you’re running as fast as you can. That’s what happened to my brother in high school when the volleyball nets were up during basketball practice.

Okay next one. This net. Safety.

Okay and the last one. What is the net here for? Yeah it’s kind of a net where you bounce too but the net around it is to keep when we we enjoy having a net on our trampoline. Let’s just say that.

It’s prevented a few dangerous injuries and some broken bones I saw on friends when I was a kid. The nets have a lot going on in our and they are connected really tightly with our lesson today on resurrection. As we continue through the book of John we are looking in John 21.

John 21 is often known as the epilogue which is a kind of a cool thing because it looks like at the end of John 20 he finishes this book up but there’s an epilogue that comes along and he adds this for some reason and I’ll give you one of the reasons in the next couple of weeks that some people think this was added but what we were dealing with this is that remember this is the third appearance of Jesus after the resurrection that John shares with us and what are the disciples when we last left off what were the disciples doing fishing they went fishing and remember they they fished all night darkness and they caught nothing and then in the morning sunrise Jesus showed up on the shore and then what happened they had a great catch so it’s the light and the darkness and then the other big thing that is important Jesus what does he tell them to do cast the net out on the right side biblically and in those days right meant Jesus would say this the next time you see me you will see me the son of man sitting at the right hand of the power of God the right if someone was if you’re someone’s right hand person it’s the power it’s the strength and when Jesus shows up and they’re doing nothing all of a sudden he says throw it in on the right side not that the left side is bad or that being left-handed is bad as my left-handed friends often like to remind me but when the right side if someone said Jesus said to the disciples you will sit on my right and left but symbolically the right side historically meant power and that power is going to be very important as we move into what happened after peter belly flopped into the sea and the other disciples gathered the fish and rode the boat back in will you stand as you are able we’re going to continue with john 21 and go from 9 through 14 when they got out on the land they saw a charcoal fire in place with fish laid out on it and bread Jesus said to them bring some of the fish that you have just caught so Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore full of large fifth fish 153 of them and although there were so many the net was not torn Jesus said to them come and have breakfast now none of the disciples dared to ask him who are you they knew it was the Lord Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them and so with the fish this was now the third time that Jesus was revealed to the disciples after he was raised from the dead the word of God inspired by God for the people of God thanks be to God amen you may be seated now there’s a lot of things Jesus is throwing in here that John is trying to point out to us to make sure we understand what’s going on keep in the back of your minds that Jesus said throw the net on the right side and that is symbolic of the power of God and Jesus being the power of God when the disciples came ashore there are several things going on and we’re going to unravel some of these layers in the next few weeks as we work through this and this says when they got out on the land they saw a charcoal fire in place with fish laid out on it now three significant things in this one verse first of all in the New Testament specifically in the book of John how many times was a charcoal fire mentioned specifically it’s tricky because it’s charcoal not just fire but a charcoal fire the only other time it occurred is in John 18 where it says Peter said now the servants and officers had made a charcoal fire because it was cold because the Korean church had no heat and they were standing and warming themselves Peter was also with them standing and warming himself and denying Jesus okay next charcoal fire Peter sees there’s Jesus and we’re going to talk about a cool opportunity for Peter with that next week now it says when they got to land they saw a charcoal fire in place and fish laid out on it and bread so if you think of fish and bread or fish and loaves what does that remind you of feeding the 5,000 that John talks about that in John 6 where it says they just had five loaves and two fish and they fed 5,000 people so it’s reminding them in which we need the Bible to remind us of so much we need one another to remind us of so much and we need to remind the world about the power of God about the miraculous nature of Jesus Christ who can take two fish five loaves feed 5,000 people and it’s kind of interesting in in the in John’s account of this so it says when they had eaten their fill he told the disciples gather up the leftover fragments and so that nothing may be lost and they gathered then up and filled 12 baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who were eaten so Jesus not only fed the crowds from very little from the little that the people the little that it was a kid a kid they found with this stuff and and they were able to Jesus was not only do this miraculously but they had more than enough does that make sense all those leftovers they had more than they could handle they were so hungry and the disciples were going let them go and through a child they were able to feed them and they had more than enough this is getting at John reminding the reader Jesus showing these things to remind them of the power of God and of Jesus miraculous things that he can do so we go on here and Jesus said to them bring some of the fish you have just caught now somehow Jesus already had bread and fish but he asked them to bring some of the fish they had caught too because he was multiplying the fish with what they were doing all right are you with me on that Jesus had some fish but they needed more fish to reach out and he said bring some of the fish that you have caught now what’s interesting is remember after Simon Peter flopped into the water well it’s just threw himself into the water which could mean a graceful swan dive but it doesn’t sound like that and then they he came ashore and the disciples got to the pulled the great hall in and wrote ashore about the same time and remember it said it took all of them to pull those fish into the boat and then Jesus asked for fish so Simon Peter went over and grabbed that net all by himself and drug it over there which might be why in a lot of movies they depict Simon Peter is someone big and strong because he hauled the whole load and it says there were 153 of those fish now scholars over time have put together these elaborate things to figure out what the 153 is even Augustine St. Augustine came up with something that I don’t even remember it was this symbolism that had to do with adding all the digits up to 17 and then figuring the spread of that goes to 150 and it’s like okay 153 for us today let’s just say that means a big catch a big catch a big thing I I don’t know how many of you have ever fished in your life have you ever gone fishing I think that’s almost ever gone fishing not gonna ask if you caught fish I we had when I grew up we had a couple of farms one was the one the farm my dad grew up on and one was the farm my grandpa was raised on and one of them had two ponds and they would stock them with catfish one time we caught a bass but I don’t know where that came from but we would stock them and we would go out and fish and sometimes we would camp and and we would we would fish and then we would sleep in the tent and my mom explains the story like this she said that I got mad at my brother can you believe that would ever happen and I picked my lawn chair up and I went over and I sat by myself away from everyone and I was mad and I took my fishing pole and I cast it out into the pond and the folding chair collapsed and I went face first into the pond and although I was already mad and embarrassed everybody was laughing at me so fishing can be an adventure now you don’t have to be a fisherman to be a disciple but remember when Jesus talked to them he said throw your net out into the right side of the why were they fishing with nets does anybody know what’s what’s the point of why a commercial yes get a bigger load there you go if I am using we call it the Bruce Bass fishing pole and we cast it out how many fish am I going to get at a time one really you have that’s another story work that into your testimony that’ll be awesome um you throw this out there and you catch one fish and you work and you get that fish in and uh we have a picture which I could not find but it was the first fish Christopher ever caught and he’s standing there smiling looking at holding the fish and it was about this big and you know what do you do if the fish isn’t big enough when you catch it you throw it back so instead of that but you know it’s a weapon when you bring the fish in on a boat you may use the net to draw it in and we saw all the uses of things there now see this net has small holes but what if you were if you were using a net like they were using the holes might not be this small now a lot of things could slip through those holes so why not use something solid instead of a net to draw in there so you could gather everything too heavy what else the extra stuff okay the the small the things that were too small that you didn’t need at that point in time um keep that in mind of those fish that you might not need the point of the holes is so you the net is light even with water and you have the strength to pull it in um also as Jesus has this scene and John is explaining it we go back to Matthew four where Jesus calls the disciples and we’ll talk more about that in a couple weeks but in eighteen he said it says while he was walking by the Sea of Galilee he saw two brothers in Matthew 4 18 Simon who is called Peter and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea for they were fishermen now a fisherman catches fish and then sells them they make a living on that now Jesus goes on to say and he said to him follow me and I will make you fishers of men now when you fish for fish and you fish for people Jesus was saying hey you guys are good at fishing I’m gonna make you good at some other kind of fishing where you can fish for people he can take that with every one of us with our gifts and our skills and what we have and how can we use that it might not be fishing but how can we use that for God’s glory how can we use that to reach people with the gospel of Jesus Christ he took what they had and said hey you catch fish I want to help you catch people and so here they were after the resurrection still fishing for fish and Jesus is using that all to build them and guide them and continue teaching them Jesus said to them come and have breakfast now none of the disciples dared ask him who are you they knew it was the Lord Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them and so with the fish and this was the third time he was revealed okay I I will admit something to you aside from uh being thrown into the pond by a lawn chair what do you think my least favorite part of fishing is any guesses waiting no that’s not my least favorite part I it probably is yours but what is bait I don’t mind baiting the hook cleaning the fish why do I not like cleaning the fish because my hands then smell like fish for days we tried all these things like toothpaste and different things that you could put on your hands but it eventually you just had that skin just had to wear off because that fish just stayed with you forever and it it’s a challenge that cleaning the fish but for the fisherman one thing that was a challenge is if we go back to Matthew we see in Matthew 4 that after Peter after Jesus saw Peter and Andrew he said and going from there he saw two other brothers James the son of Zebedee and John and his brother in a boat with Zebedee their father and Zebedee James and John were mending their nets and he called them they were mending their nets when you have a net you can’t I mean maybe it’s easier today but you couldn’t just go buy another net and when when the net gets a hole in it you got to fix it you got to patch it you got to make it work again because the weight of the fish eventually pulls and pulls and pulls and breaks those nets apart so fishing even though they may have enjoyed fishing another tedious part would be mending those nets getting those holes because if the holes are too big then you lose even the fish you want to keep you could lose everything and they just keep tearing and tearing and tearing further now Jesus came along and he said throw the nets on the right side of the boat and right side of the boat represents what power the power of who the power of God and Jesus represented the power of God and there are 153 nets and John who we just saw was a professional fisherman used a net knew he had to mend nets when they would rip and tear and you had to take care of your own equipment in order to do what you want to do for a living said there were 153 fish and Peter dragged those things in but the net did not tear now thinking about how the net did not tear John is actually telling us the net should have torn but it was reinforced by the power of God to carry those fish in and I started thinking about that that if the fish were people and they were called to fish for people and now we’re talking about not just fishing for fish and catching dinner we’re talking about fishing for people and the net bringing them in and what would the purpose of the net be the net would be to bring them to safety and to love and to peace and to knowing Jesus Christ so when I was thinking about that I’m thinking the net is actually like the church it is the ministry of the church that brings people in that fishes for people and if the church is not meticulously mended then it rips a little bit and it rips a little more.