Who Caught the Fish?

Jeremy MacDonald · Tidal Church Moncton · November 20, 2022 · INdependence series

Jeremy MacDonald explores John 21 and the miraculous catch of fish, asking who really caught them. Trusting Jesus leads us into mission, and He invites us to share in His work by inviting a neighbour or serving with kids.

More from Jeremy MacDonald · The INdependence series

Topics: Faith, Mission & Outreach, Discipleship

Transcript

[0:02] So I get this text from my buddies: "Do you want to go fishing?" Which is a wonderful invitation. Now, we're all young dads with young kids at home. And so we do the responsible thing and we talk to our wives, and sort of the details, promises are made, exchanges for after, like, "Hey, would you do this, and, you know, maybe you'll do that?" And then we set the date. It's gonna be exciting. We're gonna go fishing. Now, there's a few things you need to know about this story in order for the context to kind of make sense to how this is all going to play out. Okay, so just a few things, a few details to clean up, and then we'll continue on. So number one: I have never been fishing, never before in my life. 35-year-old man, never been fishing. This is the first time, okay. Number two: None of my friends are experts. They give the good college try and watched a lot of YouTube videos, and, you know, honestly have a little bit of experience, but they're not experts.

[0:56] Love them. It's wonderful. Number three, important note: that day, it looked like this. So, ice fishing is there's a difference. Apparently, I don't know if it's different tools. It's a little bit of a different experience, but it was ice fishing that day. Now, the thing about ice fishing, which I learned and discovered, which is kind of fun, again, never having been fishing and didn't actually even YouTube it ahead of time. So it's kind of just out on a limb. So ice fishing, you go out in the wintertime, it was February, and you find a body of water. I don't know if it has to be a river or it could be a lake. I have no idea, but I think we were on a river, and you shovel out all the snow because the snow's on the river, on the ice, and then you bore into the ice and then you can drop a line and you can fish for whatever's underneath. And I don't really know what's underneath, but there's some fish, and the ones that we were going for that day were called smelt. They're small, but, you know, they're fish, and we're going fishing. So hey, that's cool. Now, the thing about ice fishing is that when you go, it is still the wintertime. And so the expectation is that once you get out there, you know, you might need to have some type of shelter around you. And so what happened?

[2:04] Here's all my buddies, and my contribution to the whole event was bringing the shovels, which I thought was really helpful, and we did indeed use them because it was very snowy. So we got out into the water area where everything is frozen, we start digging down, and we discover that as you dig deeper into the snow on top of whatever this river was, it turns to just another layer of water on top of the ice, which is a little bit concerning, as you're digging into, like, a river, and then you discover water when you were kind of expecting ice. In fact, Mark Street, who was part of the crew, he was so nervous heading into this, he spent the whole night YouTubing how to escape if you fell through the ice. Legitimately brought screwdrivers to be able to dig himself out, which we were super grateful for. Didn't end up using, and we discovered actually that the water was about a foot and a half, so we were safe, but grateful for his concern nonetheless.

[2:57] So we get on to the ice, and we're, you know, we're shoveling off, and we're trying to figure out how are we going to bore the hole, and how does this work, and all this kind of stuff. And then we see there's a hut. Somebody has come before us and has built a structure and clearly had a better plan, and there is a space. In fact, when we got inside, it looked like this. Way nicer. Like, it was all set up. There was, like, a heater, and I think they went power, and it looked amazing. Anyways, the guy said that we knew the guy who owned it, would be fine, and apparently permission was given, so I was all in. It's fine. It was my first time. I don't know. I'm not in charge, but we're there, and we're gonna do some ice fishing, so we get sitting. This is me. Somebody hands me a rod, which is wonderful. I asked, "What do I do with it?" They say, "You put some of the, you know, the, I don't know, on it, and then you put the thing in the water, and then you're gonna catch a fish."

[3:44] And so I do it. There's different holes, and I put it in, and then I feel something tugging at the line. And so then I, you know, I pull it up, and I caught a fish. There's amazing. Yeah, thank you. Oh, you guys are so kind, wonderful, much kinder than my friends. I was so excited, first time, and then I said, "What do I do with it?" And they said, "Well, you take it off and you put it in the bucket. The bucket's right here." And I said, "That's a terrible idea." Like, it's kind of slimy, and it's a hook, and it's in its mouth. Like, I don't want to put my hands in its mouth. So I think it was Mark that actually took the fish off the hook and put it in the bucket. I said, "That's great. Thanks, guys. I'll see you later," because I caught the fish. That was the thing I was there for, and I was done. It was good. Stayed for a few more minutes, but then I did leave, and I thought that was wonderful. I caught a fish. They stuck around, they caught a few more, and unfortunately, the cool thing is, once you catch fish, you can cook them. And so Mark Street took them, and I think it was either Barb Campbell or Ruby Bane that actually did, with the smelts, whatever you're supposed to do to turn them into, you know, edible food. And then his wife Sarah brought it over to our house the next day, and I got to show my wife the incredible fish that I had caught, on the best fisherman ever, and providing for my family here. "Take a bite of this." It was so great.

[4:59] Now, let's just be a little bit cautious about all this story though, right? Because I get excited about it because it was so much fun. But there is the bigger question that's kind of at play, and it's an important question that I think we all should wrestle with in instances in our lives that are like this, and that's simply this: Who caught the fish? Who caught the fish? Because it was kind of me. I mean, if we're honest. But also, if I'm honest, it's a little bit more complicated than that, right? Like, there was a lot of steps involved. There's a lot of things. In fact, I was fairly dependent on a few other factors, and so to be a little bit overconfident, which I can be, about the whole experience in that moment, as we're feasting on the fish and my wife Shawn tells, looking at me, and she's like, "You understand you're not quite a fisherman yet." Like, this isn't something you should claim as an identity.

[5:49] The reason is because I'm dependent on all sorts of things. Let me show you. I'm depending on someone who extended the invitation. I needed somebody to bring the tools because I had none of that stuff. I didn't even know what we're supposed to use. I mean, I was dependent on someone teaching me what to do. I was depending on someone actually handling the fish and then cooking the fish and dealing with the fish and then bringing me the fish once it was cooked. Who caught the fish? It's a good question. And if you remember that story from this morning, I want you to tie it to something, because "Who caught the fish?" is a beautiful question about my favorite passage of Scripture that I'm gonna read to you in just a few moments, because "Who caught the fish?" brings up all sorts of questions about what's actually happening in the story and who's actually in charge and who actually we should trust and believe in. But before we get there, when we start reading Christian scriptures, the important thing to note is that we can do all sorts of different things with them. And so if you're here and you're a Jesus follower, you've signed up, like, you do the church thing because this is something you've committed your life to, you kind of get this. We open the scriptures, and this is what we do. We read them together and we study them. But if you're new, maybe you're new to faith or you still have a lot of doubts or concerns, you're watching this, somebody sent it to you, you have no idea who this guy is, and the stories that he's telling, it's a little bit funny, a little bit handsome. But, you know, other than that, you don't know, that's okay.

[7:13] What happens here is that typically at churches like ours, we take these ancient scriptures and we open them up, and you can do a number of different things with them, but we have so much hope and trust and faith in these words that are written that we think doing things with them is actually really helpful. We discover things about ourselves and about our world. And so, things that you can do with the Christian scriptures, in case you didn't know, again, if you're new, if you're still doubting and questioning, even if you don't believe everything that we believe, that's totally fine. You can still do these kinds of things. You take the Christian scriptures and you can actually meditate on them. So if you have a meditation practice, there's actually a very ancient idea with the Jews that they would take their scriptures, the Old Testament, and they would mull them over and they would meditate on them, and they would walk with them and let them sit inside of their minds as they would let the Scriptures themselves actually shape and reform them. And so meditating on Scriptures is something that you can do. You can also memorize Scripture.

[8:07] And so my son is a student here at Moncton Christian Academy, and it's insane the amount of Scripture that he's memorizing as this team of teachers, as they instill this faith in him, and he gets a chance to really let that dig deep into his soul and be able to recall that. And so memorizing Scriptures is something that you can certainly do with it. You can also just read it from what it is and kind of flip through and try to get through the different sections, and maybe you read them in a big bulk or you take time, you know, each day to read. You can certainly do that. You can also pray it. You can pray the Scriptures. We had a series here a number of months ago about powerful prayers from Scripture. And so you can use this Christian Scriptures. You can pray. This isn't an exhaustive list. It's just to give you an idea. But the thing we want to do today is we actually want to interpret it. We want to take a section of Scripture and we want to interpret.

[8:54] What is the Scripture actually saying? And so we're going to go in a second to John 21, but when we do and when we read the Scripture, in case you didn't know, in case this is something that's new or you're trying to sort through a few different things as we process. The particular narrative that we're going to read, we're going to try to wonder a little bit about what the author is actually saying. What is the author actually saying? So in this instance, as we read the Gospel of John, John is the author of this particular account. The account is a Gospel. So it's what it is, is a study of the life of Jesus, giving a biography of His life here on earth. John was a person that knew. He was the firsthand witness account to it all. And so for John, he's gonna write down stories about Jesus, and he's gonna have reasons for that. And so we're trying to understand what he's saying. It's a little bit difficult sometimes because John lived 2000 years ago, his context was so much different than ours, the things that he knew and the things that he believed and the way that he lived his life would be very different than us here today. He's on the other side of the world thousands of years ago. So what we want to know is what he's saying, we also want to know a little bit more about why he's saying it, the author in this case, again, John. Why would he spend time?

[10:02] And honestly, it was a little bit costly even to kind of write things down in those days. Why would he spend time and effort and money and energy trying to tell this story? What's the purpose of it? And then lastly, and this is oftentimes, again, the thing that we want to get to for today, is not just do a history lesson, but actually what does it mean for us. If we read this account, does it change anything about how our lives are going to be lived today or this week or next month? It's kind of the journey that we want to take as interpreters. Now, the great part about John's Gospel, he actually tells us as an author his purpose for writing out the entire narrative. So the entire Gospel of John, towards the end, he kind of gives this explanation and tries to talk about it. So I want to show you because this is helpful. This isn't necessarily the section we're studying, but we just want to know, again, its purpose. He says, "These are written, these things, these stories, these accounts, they're written so that you may believe." The purpose that John is writing for is that you, whoever's reading this, that you might believe that Jesus is the Messiah.

[11:04] That's a really specific thing that he's writing for. He's gonna tell these stories, and he's gonna make sure that you understand so that you might believe. And for you, if you're not quite sure yet that Jesus is the Messiah, hey, maybe today as you read and you hear the account that John is writing to us, you might believe that Jesus is the Messiah. Not only that, He's the Son of God. Sorry, let's go back. And that by believing that you may have life in His name. So for those that actually still believe, yeah, Jesus is who He said He was, He is the Messiah, that has profound implications not just on our head knowledge, but on our hearts and our lives, that our lives would be different because of our belief in Him. Okay, so that's the context. That's John telling the story. Now we're going to read another fishing story.

[11:51] that maybe it's a little bit similar. All right. So John 21:1. "Later." Later is important to note because later means that there's some things beforehand. This is at the end of John's gospel account. So we've already had all of the life of Jesus. If you've read through the Gospel of John at this point, you've already read about His death, burial, and His resurrection. John's actually explained that Jesus has appeared to His disciples a couple other times already, and this is going to be the third time that Jesus is going to show up. And so with that in mind, coming towards the end of his gospel account, "Jesus appeared again to the disciples beside the sea." "Appeared" is important because when John says this word "appeared again," recognizing that John wasn't writing in English at the time. He would have been writing in Greek. John's communicating something about how Jesus showed up. See, Jesus was a resurrected person. And so it seemed like He didn't necessarily operate in the same type of sphere. He was still a physical body. You can still be touched, but it seemed like He would, like, disappear or like move through walls or like show up.

[12:52] And then John actually uses the same word "appeared" earlier in his gospel account that could showcase that maybe when he says that Jesus appeared, John's actually telling us something important about what he's going to mean when he says that Jesus is actually showing Himself, not maybe just in a physical nature but in a different nature. And what we do here sometimes as studiers of the Scriptures is that we could use different tools to try to dig into when this word maybe was used in different places, or what the context means, or what this word could mean in other places. And kind of the example is when my son comes home and he's like, "Dad, what does that guy mean when he said his truck was really wicked?" You're like, "Oh, wicked has a number of different meanings." You know, you kind of get it. Wicked can be bad obviously, but when a guy says like, "Bro, my truck is so wicked," right, it means that maybe his truck is actually really good and cool and he loves it. And so words have meanings and context, and you have to see how do people use that word, and when do they use it. And if you've learned a second language, you especially know you're trying to tie in people's uses of words to the different context to understand that range of meaning.

[14:00] And so John at the very beginning of his gospel account, John 2, he says this using that same word. He says, "This miraculous sign at Cana in Galilee was the first time that Jesus revealed," this is the word "revealed," "His glory." So translated differently in this context. This is "revealed" instead of "appeared," but "revealed His glory." So it wasn't just that He was appearing physically, but He was showcasing something specific. He was showcasing something about Himself. He was showcasing a little bit about His character and maybe even His mission here on earth, His glory. There's a lot to that. We're not going to spend a lot of time on that, but the idea being that for John, Jesus appearing might be more than just Him showing up, that He was wanting to show the disciples something, and John wanted us to know about it. Okay, so we keep going, the fishing story. Let's go back to it.

[14:46] "This is how it happened. Several of the disciples were there: Simon Peter was one." We're going to remember Simon Peter. That's why it's in yellow. It's important. It's not just there for effect. It's to remember Simon Peter was there. "Thomas, nicknamed the Twin." I don't know why that's included, but it's kind of interesting. Sometimes you kind of wonder, why do people write these kinds of things in the Scriptures? I think it's just because it's true. If you talk to John, I'm guessing on the next side of eternity, we're going to have a conversation. We're like, "Why did you put it?" He's like, "I don't know. We just called him the Twin, so I just put it in. That's how people would have known him." And because John was writing to people that would have known Thomas, so it would have made sense in those days. It's just who was there. "Nathanael from Cana in Galilee was there, the sons of Zebedee." I don't know if that's why they were called that, or they're just people knew them as the sons of Zebedee. Also going to be important. So remember, sons of Zebedee. "And two other disciples," who I guess weren't notable enough to get their names included. I don't know, whatever. Next up, Simon Peter says, "I'm going fishing," which isn't an unnatural thing to do because Simon Peter was actually trained as a fisherman.

[15:43] He had that as a skill, and they were in a place they were kind of waiting for Jesus to give them further instructions at this point in the Gospel. They were where they should be, and they were probably hungry, and so He had the skills, and, you know, He said, "Let's go fishing." It made sense. "We'll come with you," they all said. And I don't think they were married, so they didn't have to check with their wives. Look at that. So they went out into the boat, but they caught nothing all night, which is a little bit odd. For trained fishermen, a little bit odd. Spend all night long, absolutely nothing, not even, I don't know, what a small fish is, but not even a small fish. Okay, now all night long. They're now at dawn, at dawn. Jesus says, "Let's go." This next one: Jesus was standing on the beach. The disciples couldn't see who He was, even though they were kind of, you know, there, watching for Jesus, but they couldn't necessarily see. And I mean, people around, so like it could have been anybody, could have been some random guy. They couldn't see who He was. Jesus calls out, "Fellows, have you caught any fish?"

[16:44] Which of course is kind of funny for Jesus, because He knows they haven't caught any fish, but He wants to do something special with them, right? We're gonna see that in just a second. So they say, of course, just answering the question, "No," they replied. And then Jesus says, "Throw out your net on the right hand side of the boat, and you will get some. Throw out your net on the right hand side of the boat, and you will get some." Now in that moment, for those disciples, all of a sudden bells start going off in their mind. Like, they know something is about to happen. And for a lot of the first century readers, they're gonna read this and immediately, at this point in the narrative, they're like, "It's gonna be so cool." And honestly, the first, I don't know how many times I would have read this growing up, I wouldn't have caught all of this. I want to show you something that I think is absolutely fascinating, that makes John 21 my favorite part of the entire Christian Scriptures.

[17:38] In that moment, the disciples and the early readers would have immediately remembered where it all started. Because back in the very beginning, when Jesus was calling disciples, He did something absolutely miraculous that sparked the interest of these men. And in a different Gospel account, which, so as John's writing this, John's likely a Gospel writer that's writing towards the end of his life. So it's likely that even as he's handing out his Gospel account to other people, they've already heard a ton of the stories. They've read the other Gospel accounts, you know, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and so they kind of have caught wind of the stories about how Jesus inspired a group of men to come along for the journey and become His disciples. And so if we go all the way back to the very beginning, Luke, in Luke's Gospel account, we read a story that's gonna be very, very familiar, and this is kind of the fun part. So let's take a look.

[18:29] So in Luke 5, "When He had finished speaking," and Jesus was the one speaking, so He was at the very beginning of His ministry, crowds started gathering when He was talking because He was inspiring, He was interesting. He spoke with authority. And so as people were kind of gathering around, what He did is He saddled up next to this fisherman Simon, and He said, "There's so many people here. Could I jump in your boat? Because you've got a boat for fishing, and would you take me out into the water, and the acoustics will help my voice travel, and I can speak to everybody on the land from your boat. It'll be easier for me to teach." And so Simon says, "Absolutely." At that, and in those days, Jesus being a rabbi had an element of authority in that culture. So for Simon, seeing Him, of course, would want to defer to that authority. Take Jesus out. Jesus does the teaching, and "after He had finished speaking, He says to Simon, 'Now go where it's deeper and let down your nets to catch some fish.'" Simon's got the boat. He's got the nets. Everything's there.

[19:20] Obviously, this is what he does for work. And so Jesus says, "Why don't you go?" But the context, the context is interesting. "Master," Simon replied, because Jesus is a rabbi, is a teacher, "we worked hard all last night and didn't catch a thing." We were out all last night and didn't catch a thing. Same story. These guys going out as instrument, an odd occurrence, not catching anything, and yet... Here we go. But if You say so, I'll let the nets down again. Now, I don't, again, understand a lot about fishing. Some people might say in this setting, it's actually a pretty long shot that you would be able to catch anything, or catch anything of meaning, in this kind of setting, you know, just throwing out for one shot. Like, probably not going to do much, but deferring to the authority of Jesus.

[20:07] This guy Simon, I don't know. Let's give it a shot. So this time he throws the nets down, and that's where it was full of fish, so full they began to tear. So here's this guy, he's like, I've got this guy in my boat. He gives me this weird, like, "Hey, just throw the nets out," and all of a sudden there's so many fish. Then the nets are beginning to tear. This is absolutely insane. So we read on, and it says, when Simon Peter realized what had happened, he immediately fell to his knees before Jesus and he said, "Oh Lord, please leave me, I'm such a sinful man." Like, this is an instance that is so miraculous. It would cause somebody to react in this way. Like, you kind of think if it was something that was just kind of natural or made sense, you wouldn't be shocked or surprised. And so here's Simon. He's like, "Whoa! This guy is legit." Like, what is happening here? So he continues on. The reason for all this, he the reason he was awestruck was because of the number of fish. Like, this is a practical miracle happening right in his own hands. They had caught, as were the others with him, and they were awestruck. And so what happened? His partners, James and John, the sons of Zebedee. Ah, I told you they're coming. That's fun. So, you know, them, they were all so amazed. They were all right there.

[21:17] Now Jesus replies to Simon, "Don't be afraid," which is something that Jesus actually says a lot throughout the Gospels. We're not going to talk a lot about it, but always interesting. "From now on you'll be fishing for people." And if you grew up in church world, you know, sometimes there's, like, songs and that kind of stuff, you know, "Fishers of Men." There's this invitation where they were fishing for fish, and all of a sudden now you're gonna fish for people. It's a bit of a metaphor that Jesus would have used with them. And as soon as they landed, they left, they left everything and they followed Jesus and became His disciples. There's this miraculous kind of thing, this practical miracle in their own hands of all of these fish, and all of a sudden they realize who this person is, this Jesus that is in front of them, is now worth giving up everything and to follow after Him. That's the context. So, of course, the disciples in that moment in our John passage, they have that memory. It is a core memory. Like, they know it, and for all of the people reading that in the first century, if you, you know, memorize, and as many of them might have, these letters, you would have known, "Oh, this was the beginning. This is the beginning of the call on Peter's life, the sons of Zebedee's life." And now Jesus at the end is doing this special thing, or perhaps He's trying to show them something, to remind them something about who He is and what He's calling them to. Let's go back to John. Let's go back to John.

[22:47] He says, "Throw out your net on the right side of the boat and you'll get some fish." So they did, and again they couldn't haul the net in because there were so many fish in it. The disciple whom Jesus loved, who would have been John, said to Peter, "It's the Lord." It's Him. Remember, it's the Lord. It's the One that we follow, that we've committed our lives to. It's the One that has taught us for these last three years. It's Him again. Look at this. This is such a great day, and it's such a great reminder of what's going on. When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his tunic (he'd taken it off for work), jumped into the water, headed to the shore. The other stayed with the boat, being responsible, and pulled the loaded net into shore, for they were only about 100 yards from shore. Why do they say about 100 yards? It's just what it was. They were Just telling the story, and this is how they told it because it was legitimate.

[23:36] And then continuing on: "When they got there, they found breakfast waiting for them: fish cooking over a charcoal fire," which is the only way to barbecue, just for reference's sake, charcoal fire. Thank you. "And some bread. Bring some of the fish you've just caught." This is Jesus talking. "Bring some of the fish that you've just caught." I mean, He's saying it with a smirk, right? Like, they spent all night fishing and got nothing, and all of a sudden Jesus shows up. They get a massive net and Jesus brings guys, "Bring some of the fish that you guys caught." Like, good job, way to go. You're so good at that fishing thing, aren't you? No, but in all honesty, like, this is a weird kind of thing, like Jesus. Jesus, man, He's been able to cater events with, like, 5,000 people. Like, He can do it on His own, and yet for some reason He puts He puts the disciples in the action chair of being the ones to have a role to play.

[24:35] To be a part of the story, and at least in a significant enough way that He could say, honestly, "Yeah, bring some of the fish that you just caught." So Simon Peter went aboard and dragged the net to the shore, and there were 153 large fish, and yet the net hadn't torn. So the question, same question from my story: who caught the fish? Who caught the fish? I mean, it's kind of the disciples. I mean, Jesus says it's the disciples. But I mean, honestly, they were dependent on a lot of other factors, like they got a chance to be a part of this kind of miracle that Jesus wanted to do. He wanted to do in their own hands, and yet they were dependent on His strength through and through. They were dependent on Him bringing the fish to them. They were dependent on Him being able to show up in that kind of miraculous, miraculous kind of way.

[25:28] So as we read this kind of story, as we get a chance to kind of unpack, okay, this is John telling us about this particular instance. Like, this is a human being who lived it and saw it and wanted to make sure that for generations this story would be told. We have to ask ourselves the question, this is the big question: what was the author, what is the author actually saying? What is John trying to communicate to his audience and to us? And what does that actually What does that actually mean? So I think there's a few things going on here that I want to draw out, and then I think it actually inspires us to some pretty specific action, actually. Because when we read this kind of narrative, when we read this kind of story, we recognize that a few different things. Number one: trust in Jesus.

[26:14] Trust in Jesus is never misplaced, not even in the most practical sense. And for the disciples to be able to see that at the beginning of the ministry and at the end of the ministry was really, really helpful, because Jesus asks this and calls us to do some things that sometimes can seem like it doesn't make sense. Throw the nets out after all night, Jesus? I mean, we just brought them in. Like, we folded them how you're supposed to fold them so they don't get, you know, knotted up, and you're gonna do it again? We're not going to catch anything. But trust in Jesus is not misplaced, even in the most practical sense. The disciples needed to be reminded of that because the things Jesus had asked them to do going forward would end up costing them greatly, and yet that trust is never, ever misplaced. Secondly, very important, Jesus is more interested in intimacy than efficiency.

[27:03] Obviously, if it was just about the amount of fish, Jesus could have brought the fish. Like, they would have, I don't know, flown, or He could have teleported them. Like, I don't know what Jesus's powers were in that moment. But but the fact that He involved the disciples in both of those instances, it's clear for some reason the God of the universe, as much as He's gonna call us all to something important, He's not going to solely be the one that makes fruitfulness happen. Like, on His own. Like, He actually lets us be a part of it in weird and wonderful ways. And if you've been a Christian for any length of time, maybe you've had these kinds of experiences where for some reason God placed you into somebody's life, and you prayed with them at some point, or maybe you had a conversation with them or got to help them out, and, like, you were just in the right place at the right time, and, like, the Spirit gave you wisdom, and you're like, "I don't know, I said something, and I don't know what I said, but all of a sudden it made a difference in somebody's life."

[27:56] You're like, "What is that?" Well, that's the power of God at work in us as Jesus followers, that He uses us even though He doesn't need to, but He constantly uses us to do His will in this world. And so when people in our world today, they're like, "Where is God?" Well, the answer technically is, well, God is at work through all of the people here at Tidal Wesleyan, and He's inviting us and prompting us and getting us to do the things that He wants to do in this world so that this world would know that there is a God who loves them dearly. So that's great.

[28:42] But that's a work order, right? And this is important thing number three: the fish are indeed there to be had. The fish are indeed there to be had. It's this metaphor that is used in Scripture that actually is kind of referencing this idea of a harvest metaphor. It's used often, and even when we go back to Luke, like, let's look at that Luke passage again, you know, "You're going to be fishing for people." This is the invitation that Jesus gives to those that put their trust and faith in Him. So the invitation is, okay, you put your trust in Jesus, and all of a sudden you're now responsible for specific actions to actually carry the message of Jesus to the world. It's a work order, and the fish are there to be had. That's the whole That's the concept of the idea. Gosh, they're they're ready. And Jesus has called us, and He wants us to do it, and He's gonna do all of the things that He does so that when we show up and offer our meager little bit in the fishing journey, that we'll be able to celebrate His works in incredible ways.

[29:40] But if we use this metaphor of fishing for people and in other parts of the Gospel, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few," is, again, Jesus explaining that to take my message, Jesus would say, to the world is going to require action on my followers' parts. The question is this: what's your responsibility when it comes to the spread of that message? You see, for the disciples in that moment as they were gearing up with that miraculous show of the fish, they were being reminded of what they were then to go and to do. And for them, they would go on to start the church, to spread the message, and for it to change the world. And that's no different for what God has called us to do in our day and age. And our responsibility is heavy, and when we see these things, that Jesus shows up and does miraculous things in our world, it's this reminder that, yeah, that's actually what we're here for.

[30:36] And to put it maybe in a more concrete kind of way, that trust in Jesus, which a lot of you, a lot of us have, the trust in Jesus and who He is results in missional action. That if we fully believe that Jesus is who He said He is, that our lives would become marked by missional action, or maybe in this way: the closer you get to God, the more He'll send you out, right? The closer you get to God, the more He's gonna send you out and put you into people's lives that need to hear about Him in real ways. This is terrifying because It also means the reverse, like for some of us that are like, yeah, I believe in Jesus and like like I'm following Him and I feel like I'm like tuned into Him and His Spirit. But then if we ask ourselves the question, how often have we been sent out lately? Or like, oh shoot, like I don't know, like it's just kind of me and Jesus in the morning, and we're having a good quiet time and it's great. But like other people like, I don't know.

[31:36] And honestly, that can be a bit of a reminder to marker that maybe we haven't actually fallen so deeply in love and trust with Jesus as we think we might be. Because as we grow closer to God, He will shift and change our hearts to be the same as His. Put it a little bit differently, maybe: the deepest discipleship equals the most contagious evangelism. Like the people that really trust, and this is all through Scripture, right? Like the people that trusted the most in Jesus were the most contagious with the message to the world. And so we talk about it like this. This is what we talked about, if you've been here, and if you haven't been, like, this is not, sorry. This is a message a little bit for insiders. And so you're kind of getting, like, the inside family conversation. But please stick around because we want you to continue to learn about this Jesus and the different city you're making your life, but we end our services, and so if you've been around you've heard this: we end our services talking about God's love in us to the world.

[32:34] Like, God's love in us is for a purpose, actually, right? It's for us to take it to the world. So the big question, let's ask it, is what's your responsibility when it comes to the spread of the gospel? It's pretty big. It's pretty important. And oddly enough, Jesus depends on His followers stepping up and doing this work. So I want to offer you today, as we wrestle with that, and you can take that home. You can meditate on John 21. You can read that. That's great. But I want to suggest maybe a couple of ways. This is not exhaustive. It's not the only thing that you could do. You could disagree with me, that's totally fine. But I want to offer you two ideas as you think about what is our responsibility when it comes to the spread of the gospel.

[33:20] I want to suggest two possible ways for us as a community, even here today, here in November, you know, heading into this next season. What could this look like? If we were, as the disciples, hearing the message of Jesus, recognizing His call in our lives, putting trust in Him, seeing the miraculous things that He does. And then this call to take and to be missional into our communities, what would that look like? So in your seat pockets there, I want you to grab this blue card, and everybody should grab it just right now. Yeah, it's like legitimately right now. If you're online, they're gonna link it for you, which will be wonderful. So yeah, just grab it, wave it at me so that you know, and I can see. The lights are up. This is why we keep the lights up, so that I can understand that you're actually doing it. Thank you so much. You guys are so nice. Okay, so you've got the card. Now, the purpose of this card is all sorts of different things. You can use this to communicate with the staff team here if you've got questions, you got concerns, or if you're interested in different things.

[34:11] For today, I want to suggest that there's just two responses that I invite you to do on this card. And then on your way out today, our ushers at every exit, they've got a little green basket, and you take the card, you just drop it in, and it magically shows up in our staff team's offices, and we get a chance to see them. Okay, two responses. Number one: that this Christmas season we would take seriously our responsibility for the spread of the gospel in a really practical way, and the practical way is simply to extend an invitation to somebody. To extend an invitation to somebody. There's lots of ways to carry this responsibility for spreading the gospel. Simple one-step way is to extend an invitation to somebody.

[34:56] Who's that somebody? I don't know. You're gonna have to think and pray about it. But there's somebody in your life that, you know, it's a real person. Maybe you work with them, they're across the road from you, maybe they're somebody that you text with regularly. I don't know, but there's somebody that needs, this Christmas season, to hear about the hope of Jesus. And maybe they've heard about it before, but, like, they need to hear it at this season. And so your invitation is going to be really simple. It's gonna be, "Hey, I've got this tradition at Christmas time. I don't know if you've got it, where we go to Moncton Wesleyan on Christmas Eve. I would love to sit with you at one of our Christmas Eve services. Would you love to come with me?" And over the next couple of weeks, we're going to be giving you, actually, we'll have some tools, some actual invitations that you can use to extend that invitation. So this commitment is simply to say, would you extend an invitation to somebody for the Christmas season?

[35:44] The best part is when they're like, "I'm busy on Christmas Eve," you say, "That's no problem. We actually meet every Sunday between now and then, and we would, I would love to sit with you at church. It's a great way to get in the Christmas spirit." Honestly, that's the line you should use: it's a great way to get in the Christmas spirit. People are worried and wondering this season, being the first season extended from the pandemic, can we have a Christmas that feels a little bit more normal, maybe? And so they're looking for a tradition or a way to be in the Christmas spirit. You're gonna extend that invitation. That's step one. Number one, or option number one, if you choose that one, this is what I want you to do. I just want you to write "invitation" on the card. I want you to put your name. And the reason for that is we want to pray for you and for your invitation as it goes out, because I think, in the same way as the disciples casting that net, that you will be shocked and surprised at what God would do through you with a simple invitation. But we all want to be praying for you. You don't have to put the name of the person you're inviting. You don't have to put any other details. You just put your name, say, "I'm gonna invite somebody this season," put it on the card, and you're gonna, as you leave, we'll take it, and we will pray for you heading into this Christmas season. That's number one.

[36:50] Number two, you're like, "Mmm, like, I'm an introvert, like, that's a big jump." I get that. There's a group of people already gathered that would love for you to tell them about Jesus every single week, and they're just across the hall. They're a little bit smaller. Some of them are smellier, but they are beautiful people. Some of them are my children as well, and they can be the smelliest. But honestly, we have a group of kids, hundreds of kids, that gather here each and every week, and I know from having kids in this ministry that, as much as my wife and I hope and pray and want to show our kids what it means to follow Jesus, I am deeply dependent and hopeful that, as they come and they see a community, people surround them and love them and care about them and pray for them, that this place would be an incredible marker for their faith journey as well. I know for me personally, growing up in this church, it was, as much as I loved my parents, it was the leaders and the children's ministry leaders and the youth leaders that poured into my faith journey that led to me being able to follow Jesus in my adult years.

[37:52] And so if you're here today and you have got a level of faith and you'd be willing to go through a bit of a process, you can't just wander over and hang with kids. There's some safety things we do, but we actually have more kids and more kids coming than, honestly, we've had in a very long time, and so we need some more folks to say, "I would love to be a part of spreading the gospel even to these kids." And so if that's you today, just put "kids" on here, put your name, and you have to add some level of contact info, because we would love to have a conversation with you about how you in the new year. Not now. You got a busy Christmas season, that's fine. Sometime in the new year, you can become a part of spreading the gospel to a group of kids that are already waiting for you, and they're pretty stinking cute.

[38:40] Now, those are two ideas. Who caught the fish? I think the great news is that it gets to be us. And we get to share that story, and wherever you're out in your journey, whatever, you know, life looks like for you these days, it's so wonderful to see God use you in a practical way in people's lives. And so I would hope and pray that as we read the Scriptures, we be so inspired by this Jesus that invites us to trust in Him, but then ends the result of that, sends us out, and that we would get to see miracles happen because we show up, and it's all because of His strength, and yet we get to be a part of it. It's the most significant, incredible thing, and I would hope that you would get to experience that over this next year.

[39:25] So let me pray for us as we go from here. Heavenly Father, it's so exciting to know that You care more deeply about intimacy with us than just the efficiency of having people follow after You, that You allow us to be part of people's journeys, and it's messy, it's difficult, it's cumbersome. It takes some time. And yet it's so life-giving. And Father, I'm grateful for the people that would give of their time, effort, and energy to extend an invite to my family to come to church. God, I know the people that spent time investing into my own journey so that I could follow Jesus as an adult, and their effort, my God, was not in vain. It was so valuable. And so Father, I pray that for each and every one of us, if we choose to put our trust and faith in You, that You would inspire us and remind us that that's a call to step out as the disciples did and to bring Your message of hope to the world.

[40:24] And as we head into this Christmas season, we pray that our city would know about You, and Your city is going to know about You because of our and the people that You put in our paths, so that we can share that incredible good news. And so, Father, I pray that You would make this message real for us. Only You can stir our hearts, and I pray that as we contemplate the ways that we can take action out of this wonderful section of Scripture, that we would be honest enough to say that we've got to do this, He's got to step up, and You would strengthen and give us the courage to do these things. Heavenly Father, I pray these things in the matchless name of Jesus.

[41:09] Amen.