Master of the Wind

It was a dark and stormy night.  I’ve always wanted to start a story like that. 

The wind howled blowing the top off the breakers before they crashed back into the troughs below. The darkness was broken by momentary streaks of light as the clouds raced across the face of the full moon. Could it be? Yes it was hard to believe but there was a boat there. In the middle of this tremendous storm was a little open boat, barely afloat. Hard to believe but there it was. And if we were able to zoom in on that hardy little fishing boat we would discover that it was occupied by thirteen men, twelve fighting for their lives and one sound asleep. And you’d have to ask yourself, how in the world did experienced fisherman who had fished this area all their lives get themselves into this mess?

Well the story is found in Mark chapter 4. It had been a long day for Jesus and the disciples. Christ had just finished preaching the Sermon on the Mount, had cleansed a leper, and healed the centurion’s servant.

Peter’s mother in law had been healed and Christ had touched and healed many others. The multitudes had gathered around and evening was coming so he decided it was time to have a break and so the thirteen of them got into a boat which was probably either Peter’s or James’ and headed across the sea of Galilee. And then we read in Mark 4:36-37 So they took Jesus in the boat and started out, leaving the crowds behind (although other boats followed). But soon a fierce storm came up. High waves were breaking into the boat, and it began to fill with water.

In the Sea of Galilee it could happen just that quickly, because of the funnel shape of the valley and the shallow depth of Galilee a relatively calm sea could be swept into a deadly cauldron which would explain Matthew's words “a terrible storm suddenly struck”.   Listen to how Luke describes the scene in Luke 8:23 As they sailed across, Jesus settled down for a nap. But soon a fierce storm came down on the lake. The boat was filling with water, and they were in real danger.

Sometimes I find myself identifying more and more with the apostles. I spent three years at sea and saw some dozy storms during that time. The smallest vessel I served on was a a hundred and twenty foot tug? and the largest was a six hundred and thirty foot oil tanker.

And during that time there were two or three times that although I wouldn’t say I was afraid I was a mite concerned.

So there they were, thirteen men in an open boat, twelve terrified and one is asleep. Now he’s not just resting, not just dozing, not just taking a nap, this dude is sound asleep. Now if you’ve never tried to sleep on a boat in a storm you don’t know what you’re missing.

You can pick one of two position to sleep in, either your bunk will be fore and aft that is your head will point toward the bow, that’s the pointy end. And if your bunk is like that your entire night is spent with your head pushed up against the wall and then your feet, you wake up six inches shorter then when you went to bed.

The other way you can sleep is thwart ships that is sideways and if that is the way your bunk is situated then you spend the entire night trying not to roll out on the deck.

Whichever way you sleep you are like a coiled spring and you wake up in the morning with sore elbows and knees from bracing yourself. And so that is the situation that Christ was sleeping in compounded by the fact that it was an open boat and so Christ must have been wet as well as uncomfortable. And so we read in Mark 4:38 Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. The disciples woke him up, shouting, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re going to drown?”

Now I don’t know why they woke him up. But it reminds me of a story about a fellow who was being interviewed for a job as a truck driver and the boss asked him, “what if you had to drive from here to Toronto, pick up a load and drive back?” “Well that’s easy” came the reply “my brother’s a truck driver too so I’d take him, one of us could drive and the other one could sleep.” “Ok, then” said the boss “what would happen if you were coming down a long steep grade in your truck, and your brakes suddenly failed?” “Well I’d wake up my brother” “why in the world would you wake up your brother?” “Because he’s never seen a real good accident before.” Maybe they woke Christ up because he had never seen a sea disaster before.

Well,  Jesus woke up rubbed the sleep from his eyes and said Mark 4:40 Then he asked them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

Now it doesn’t tell us what the answer was but knowing Peter the way we do I would suspect that his reply was something like “Oh no particular reason, but while you were getting your beauty sleep we were in the process of sinking. You think maybe we’ve put all this water in here to wash the hull down. Boy sometimes carpenters ask some really dumb questions”

And in Mark 4:39 When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the water, “Silence! Be still!” Suddenly the wind stopped, and there was a great calm.

Now some people would have adopted a prayer voice, that’s an octave lower than a regular voice, and used all kinds of fancy and pious words, kind of sounding like “In the name and power of God the everlasting father, eternal creator, master of the universe I rebuke thee and charge thee to cease and detest your loud and boisterous blowing.”

But he Bible tells us that Jesus just said “Silence, be still”.  And it worked and Mark wrote that the sea became completely calm.

The bible doesn’t say that the wind died down gradually, or the storm slowly went away it says that the sea was completely calm. But under natural laws it doesn’t work that way, because even if the wind stopped blowing it would take a while for the sea to calm down. Unless of course you are able to step outside of natural laws.

At this point the apostles still didn’t have a complete grasp on who Jesus was. I mean healing the sick is one thing but this is a horse of a completely different colour, this is a whole new ball game. This guy can control nature, wow. He truly is master of the wind.

Now the story ends here but I think I know what happened, I think Jesus went back to bed and the fellas stayed up for the rest of the trip and talked about what they had seen happen. But listen up, Jesus is more than simply master of the wind, he isn’t just master of the universe he can be master of your soul.

1) He Is Master of Our Yesterdays. You realize of course that everything that has happened in your life up to this moment on January 26^th is gone. You can’t redo it, you can’t undo it, and if it hasn’t been done you can’t do it yesterday. You have absolutely no control over the events that have already happened, none.

You may regret it, you may wish to change it or do it differently but you are out of luck. Now the worst part is that for each of us the past is occupied by our youth, and I have become convinced that if you are going to do anything really dumb you are going to do it well you are young.

The vast majority of abortions are performed on woman between the ages of 18 and 24. Most impaired driving charges are laid against those under 25; the majority of traffic accidents involve at least one driver under the age of twenty five. Those who move into a life of crime usually start in their late teens. You ever wonder why that is? I think I have the answer, you see if everybody is like me your mind doesn’t fully engage until you are somewhere in your twenties, as a matter of fact even now mine keeps kicking in and out.

It would seem that those in the public eye are discovering more and more that the past can come back and haunt them, and I’m sure that most of us have things in our past that we regret. And nobody should be judged based on their worst moment.  We may not be able to control the past but Jesus Christ can.

Yesterday is gone, and what’s happened yesterday is done.  The sins you have committed in the past, will never, ever, never be held against you by Jesus Christ because if you have asked him to forgive you he has promised that he will in Acts 3:19 Now repent of your sins and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped away. 

Now if'n a Holy and righteous God can wipe away your sins the least you can do is to allow them to be wiped away.   Your sins have been forgiven, they are gone.  God has forgiven you now you need to forgive you. 

If God has forgiven you and wiped out your sins that means that you need to leave the mistakes of the past behind as well Les Brown wrote “If you are carrying strong feelings about something that happened in your past, they may hinder your ability to live in the present.”  

The Master of the Wind is also the Master of our yesterdays and only he has the power to erase the mistakes of the past and eliminate the guilt for past mistakes.

But more then simply the Master of the Past Jesus is also 2) He is The Master of Our Todays. The biggest single barrier to Denn Guptill becoming a Christian was that life style that was expected of me. I was brought up a Baptist, not a good Baptist but that’s a different story.  I knew all the don’ts and won’ts and can’ts and musts that went along with professing Christ as Saviour.

I knew that I couldn’t live the life that I ought to live, and I still can’t, but the thing is I don’t have to. Denn Guptill hasn’t got what it takes to lead the “Christian life”.  But Jesus Christ has bucketfuls of what it takes, and he’s giving it away.

How often as pastor have I heard people say “I can’t” “I can’t do that” or “I can’t stop doing this”.  Of course you can’t but have you every stopped to ask the master of today to help you? Have you laid your pride at the feet of Jesus and said “Lord I don’t have the strength to accomplish what you have set before me, help me please”

But that isn’t the only part of today which he is master of. Jesus is adequate for whatever befalls you. Whatever you come up against, all your suffering, all your grief, all your disappointments. There isn’t one area in your life that Jesus can’t touch us and guide us and help us. 

But we are taught to be self-sufficient, and we become convinced that we have to do it all by ourselves.

Robert Louis Stevenson said “anyone can carry his burden, however hard, until nightfall. Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day. Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, until the sun goes down. And this is all that life really means.” 

And if that was true, we would all be skinny, sober and pleasant.  It’s not that I don’t believe we can do it, I just don’t believe we can do it by ourselves.  And we want to, it’s like when kids hit about two years of age they are adamant, “I do it myself” they want to get dressed by themselves and brush their hair, and clean their teeth and shampoo their hair all by themselves. Of course that phase usually passes very quickly, and then it’s back to parents doing it all.

But we can’t always get through that day, because the burden is too heavy

I wonder though if we are trying to prove to God that we are all grown up and he doesn’t have to help? I wonder if we are trying to demonstrate our independence? The only problem being is that Christians aren’t supposed to be independent, they are supposed to lean on Jesus. I remember when Stephen was about three years old and he was really sick with the flu and we were praying with him at bedtime and he looked up and said “Can Jesus take my sick away?”

Well the truth is this, Jesus can take the sick away, no matter where the sick is, no matter how bad the sick is, or what the sick is because Jesus is in the taking away sick business.  And if he doesn’t take away our sick he promises to be there with us through it. 

Maybe it’s financial problems, or spiritual problems, or emotional problems or personal problems, or physical problems. Jesus is adequate.  That doesn't mean that when we pray that Jesus will take the sick away that we don't take our medicine, sometimes that's how he takes the sick away.  And when we pray that our finances will get straightened out, sometimes he gives us a second job.  And just because you pray that you will have a good marriage doesn't mean that you don't have to work at making your marriage good.

Contrary to popular opinion "God helps those who help themselves is not in the bible."  But the reality is that God helps those who help themselves.  He gives us the ability, the wisdom and the strength, and he also helps when we need a little extra help.

“Yes, but, pastor”, uh-huh, no yes buts, and no yeah buts, and no no buts, and no but buts. Jesus Christ is adequate because Jesus Christ is the master of the present he is the master of today.

3) He Is The Master Of Our Tomorrows

I am a dreamer.  I love looking ahead to the future and sometimes spend way too much time there.  But the reality is that none of us know what tomorrow will bring, as Yogi Berra said “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”

Jesus Christ does two things with the future, first he relieves the worries of tomorrow and secondly he retrieves the dreams of tomorrow.  

People tell me all the time that they don't want to worry.  None of us want to worry, do we? Sure we do, I mean it’s like people who smoke and say, “I’d really like to quit” no you don’t if you wanted to quit you’d quit. You might want to quit so people will stop annoying you, or you might want to quit because of the expense but until you want to quit for you, you won’t. If the truth was known those of us who worry do it because we enjoy it.   Clive James said “stop worrying -- nobody gets out of this world alive.”  And not only that but it is in direct contradiction to what Jesus said in

Matthew 6:34 “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

Jesus has everything under control, everything. Our work, our families, our finances. Jesus is just as adequate for tomorrow as he is for today. I have to give him Cornerstone every once and a while and say “Hey it’s your church you worry about it.”

But Jesus owning the future doesn't just mean giving him the negative things.  "Here Jesus, here is my tomorrow bag, it's full of worry and concerns."  Not it’s also Jesus who gives us our dreams for tomorrow and he wants to be part of them. We need to concentrate on today but it’s gonna end at midnight and what then? What are your plans for tomorrow, for next week, for next month for next year, for five years from now? Where will your career be? Where will your spiritual life be? Belva Davis made this statement “Don’t be afraid of the space between your dreams and reality. If you can dream it, you can make it so.”

I don't meant unrealistic dreams, "Someday I'm going to win the lottery and never have to work again dreams."  And I wish I had a unicorn I could keep in my backyard, that's not even realistic, you're not allowed to keep unicorns in Kingswood.

There were times when Cornerstone was struggling along in rented facilities with fifty people that I would dream of some unknown mysterious benefactor coming along and giving us a million dollars to build a church, but that wasn't a dream that was wishful thinking.  Funny story though, back in the day a gentlemen who was attending the Church, he doesn't attend now so don't try to figure it out, discovered that his company was meeting in Las Vegas.  Before he left he came and told me about a slot machine that had a 2 million dollar payout in the hotel he was staying in.  And he pulled out an American quarter and said "This is going to build our church".  He went to Vegas and I started building churches in my head.  I know, it would have been the devil's money, sure but I figure the devil has had it long enough, and no I don't condone gambling in any way shape or form.  After he had been gone for a couple of days his wife called me and said, "John just called from Vegas, he said not to order the carpet he's already down fifty bucks."

But one day God did give me a dream, a dream not only of the building that we would have but how we would be able to  make the dream a reality.

If you have no dreams, if you don’t care about tomorrow why do you get up in the morning?  If your only goal is to get from here to bedtime and then do the same tomorrow, you’re not living you’re already dead and just haven’t got enough sense to lie down. That isn’t what Jesus promised in John 10:10 The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.

Is he the master of your yesterdays? Is he the master of  today? Is he the master of your tomorrows? He can be all you have to do is to ask.

A Day at the Beach, Because you Say So

Have you ever been tired?  I mean, dead beat tired?  They had fished all night and caught nothing, nada, zip and they were exhausted, but there was still work to do.  The nets had to be washed to get the seaweed and guck out and everything had to be put away before they could go home and go to bed.  Bed!  What a magical, mystical, wonderful word.

Right then, I’m sure the promise of sleep was the highest thing on their list of priorities. As they washed and tended the nets their friend Jesus showed up and began to preach to a few people.  And it was always the same, the few people became a few more and a few more and finally there was a whole crowd listening to the carpenter.  And as the crowd pushed forward to hear the words of Christ he kept backing up until he was at the very edge of the beach, and then it was as if he had just noticed the fisherman, and as Peter and his partners begin to load the net back into their boats Jesus yelled,  “Hey Pete can I use the boat for a few minutes?” 

This is week two of our “A Day at the Beach” series.  Through January and into February we are focusing on the events in Jesus life that happened in and around the Sea of Galilee.   Which as we explained last week wasn’t even a sea it was just a good sized lake.  And maybe you are thinking “Well why did they call it a sea?”  Because.  And why would we call it a lake?  In Newfoundland they would call it Galilee Pond. 

But what is interesting that Luke doesn’t call it the Sea of Galilee, and yes I know that in our reading this morning from the New Living Translation it appears that Luke does exactly that.  Actually if you were following along in your Bibles, you would have noticed an asterisk,  Luke 5:1 One day as Jesus was preaching on the shore of the Sea of Galilee*, great crowds pressed in on him to listen to the word of God.   And down at the bottom of the page it would have said something like *“Greek: Lake Gennesaret, another name of the Sea of Galilee.”

If you were using other translations it would read something like, Luke 5:1 (NIV)  One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, with the people crowding around him and listening to the word of God,

If I’m clear on this, the original name was Lake Gennesaret, and that gradually morphed into the Sea of Galilee because it was situated in Galilee and eventually when the Roman city of Tiberius became more prominent people starting calling it Lake Tiberius.  

Story is told of a very boastful lady who visited the Holy Land and when she came back she told her pastor “We visited both the sea of Galilee and Lake Gennesaret.”  Her pastor corrected her by saying “Actually Galilee and Gennesaret are synonymous.” To which the lady replied, “Oh I know that but I found the Sea of Galilee to be just a little more synonymous.”   Luke was most likely the more formally educated of the gospel writers and whenever he refers to the body of water it is by its older name.

But really that is neither here nor there. So let’s go back to the story.  Jesus shows up once again on the beach that was Simon Peter’s home port, so to speak. Remember last week, I spoke about Jesus’ initial call to Peter, Jesus met him on the beach and invited Peter to follow him. 

This time there is a crowd following Jesus and he begins to preach.  All the while Peter is washing his nets in preparation for stowing them for the day.  And as the crowd pushes in against Jesus while he is preaching he notices that there are two empty boats on the shore and he asks Peter if he can borrow his to preach from. 

I’m not sure that having his boat used as a floating pulpit was nearly as high on Peter’s priority list as getting a little sleep was.  I remember what it was like to fish all night, and want nothing more than to go to bed, but friends have to do what friends have to do. 

So Peter pushed the boat out a little bit, threw out the anchor and no doubt laid his head down on the drying nets to get a little bit of shut eye.  And as he drifted off in the gradually warming sun Christ’s words became a drone in the back ground, until he heard, “ Peter, hey Peter,” and it’s in Luke 5: that we can read the unusual request that Jesus made to Peter,  Luke 5:4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Now go out where it is deeper, and let down your nets to catch some fish.”

Jesus turned a fishing boat into a pulpit, and now he was turning the pulpit into a fishing boat.  And when I read this I realized first that “Every pulpit should be a fishing boat”.  There should always be a clear call from the pulpit for people to begin a relationship with Christ.  And the second thing I realized is that “Every fishing boat should be a pulpit.”  That is to say that our actions and words should always point people to Christ and wherever and whatever your fishing boat might be that you will point people to a relationship with Christ.    Wow, I could almost stop now and call it a sermon.  But I won’t. 

So you get the picture, Peter has been fishing all night, Jesus comes along and asks to borrow his boat, and Peter agrees.  Up to this point Jesus hasn’t been asking a lot from Peter, all Peter has to do is watch and listen.  He is just an observer in the game, and maybe he could have been home in bed, but listening to Jesus preach wasn’t overly demanding. 

Kind of like coming to church.  And lot of folks think that all that is required is to watch and listen.  I mean they could be home in bed, but church is overly demanding.  But this becomes a game changer.

Now, Jesus is asking Peter to go from being an observer to being a participant. And there will come a time, if you are following Jesus, that Jesus will call you from being an observer to being a participant, to get some skin in the game so to speak.  And listen to Peter’s reply,  Luke 5:5 “Master,” Simon replied, “we worked hard all last night and didn’t catch a thing. But if you say so, I’ll let the nets down again.”

Listen to it again: Luke 5:5 “Master,” Simon replied, “we worked hard all last night and didn’t catch a thing. But if you say so, I’ll let the nets down again.”  Did you catch that?  Peter wasn’t going to do it because he wanted to, he wasn’t doing it because it made sense, he was doing it because Jesus asked him to do it.  

And there was so much wrapped up in those five words.  Because if we stop and think about it Peter was actually saying,  1) Because You Say So I Will Put Aside Past Experiences  The reason that Peter was cleaning his nets was because they had already been fishing, when fishing was supposed to be done, at night.

Peter knew from past experience that when the hot sun came out that the fish normally went deeper in Galilee to escape the heat.  That it was only in the cool of the evening that the fish came back to the surface to feed.  And with the type of fishing that they were doing it was no good to cast your net on the surface when the fish weren’t there. 

When I was fishing with Dad we started as a midwater trawler, and when we were trawling we could do that during the day, the net went deep.  But then we had the boat re-configured as a herring seiner and after that most of our fishing was done at night, when the fish were closer to the surface. 

Peter didn’t fish at night because he preferred fishing at night, he fished at night because that’s when you could catch the most fish.  Apparently there were times that they would fish from the shore during the day, we read one of those accounts last week from Mark’s gospel.  Remember Mark 1:16 One day as Jesus was walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew throwing a net into the water, for they fished for a living.  But from the other accounts that we read it seems as if when they were fishing from the boat in deeper water that it happened after the sun went down. 

Sometimes our biggest challenge to doing what God is asking us to do is our past experience.  We tried that or something similar to that and the results weren’t favorable, so we aren’t going to do it again.  Kind of like the old statement “Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.”

Sometimes God asks us to do something we have absolutely no experience at, throughout the bible we see all kinds of examples of that, Noah was asked to build a really big boat.  He didn’t even know what a boat was, he had never seen a boat, and didn’t live close enough to a body of water to float a really big boat.  Abraham was asked to sacrifice the son he had waited so long for, Moses was told to walk into the Red Sea, Joshua was asked to march the people of Israel around Jericho and then blow their horns.  David was told to take a little sling and annoy a really big giant with it. 

And Peter was asked to set his nets in the middle of the day.  And because Jesus asked him to, Peter did it. 

How often are we guilty of not doing what we are supposed to be doing using the same old excuses?  You know the ones through the years I’ve heard them in churches and I’ve been guilty of using them:   1) We’ve never done that before, 2) we always do it this way, 3) We tried that once but it didn’t work.

And it’s tough to break out of the routine, even when the routine isn’t working.  I’ve talked to Pastor’s and churches that keep doing the same thing year after year and getting the same dimal results, maybe you’ve seen the same thing in businesses or families.  It’s easier to keep doing what doesn’t work than to take a chance on something new, maybe we need to listen to  Dakota tribal wisdom passed from generation to generation that tells us, “If you find yourself riding a dead horse, get off.” It won’t do any good to reflect on all the great times you had riding the horse when it was still alive, if the horse is dead we need to get off.

The flip side of that coin is when you tried something once and it didn’t work so you vow you will never do it again,   Mark Twain tells us, “If a cat sits on a hot radiator it will never sit on a hot radiator again, but then again he’ll never sit on a cold radiator either.”

So, when God calls you to obedience are you willing to set aside your past experience?  But it has to go beyond that.  Peter had to be willing to say 2) Because you say so I will set aside personal pride.

How hard is it to take advise from someone who really isn’t experienced at what you do?  I would find it difficult to take preaching instruction from someone who wasn’t a public speaker, well actually I find it hard to take preaching instruction from anyone, but that is a different story. 

And it would be so easy for Peter to say “Excuse me pal, but why don’t you go back to your saw horse?”  Jesus wasn’t a fisherman, he was a carpenter turned preacher, what did he know about fishing? 

It was Simon Ford, the owner of the Grand Union hotel in NY city “There’s nothing to running a hotel, you don’t have to know what to do, all you do is open the doors and all of your guests will tell you what to do.”  And sometimes it seems that we go through life with people telling us what to do and into Peter’s life comes Jesus who wants him to do what just doesn’t make sense. 

There was a crowd of people gathered that day, and I would suspect that some of them were either fishermen or knew fishermen.  I wonder what they thought of Peter’s mid-morning fishing expedition.  “Hey Peter, what are you doing?”  “I think you should have gone to bed, the hot sun has made you crazy.” 

You ever feel like  saying “God if I do that, then people will question my sanity.”?  That’s probably what Noah thought when God asked him to build an ark, probably what David thought when he took on Goliath with a few stones and a sling shot.  Maybe what Solomon thought when he was called to build the temple, or what Gideon thought when we was called to take on an army with 300 men. 

Are you willing to tell God, I will do what you want regardless of what people say?  But there was a very practical reason why Peter could have said no, but he was willing to say. . .  3) Because You Say so I Will Put Aside my Own Weariness.  I would suspect that Peter was tired.  Remember what he told Jesus?  We worked hard all night.  A long night fishing, then there was cleaning the net, and when he should have gone home he pushes his boat out so Jesus can use it to preach from.  Peter must have been whipped. 

In 2014 we think we have a market on being tired.  But Denn you don’t understand, we have busy life, there so much stress in our lives, so many things we have to do with the kids and then God wants me to do what?

I’m sure Peter was thinking not just about how tired he was but the other stuff he still had to do when he got home. 

One of the great promises that Jesus made is found in Matthew 11:28 Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”  I bet there are all kinds of reasons why we are tired and very few of them come from what God asks us to do.   It might well be that it seems difficult to fit what God wants us to do on the pile, but what if it’s the pile that’s wrong?  Could it be a matter of priorities?  Maybe instead of shelving what God wants us to do, we need to see what is eating into that time. 

When we don’t have time to spend with God is it because we’ve spent that time somewhere else?  Maybe if  God asked to be friends on Facebook, or was on primetime TV, or could sit next to us in a cold hockey rink or a warm beach.  Just saying.

It’s easy to quote Jesus telling us that he will give us rest, but let’s not forget the rest of what Jesus was saying.  Matthew 11:29-30 Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”  Jesus knew that Peter was tired but there was still more for Peter to do. 

The interesting thing here is that for Peter, when he put aside his weariness he was rewarded.  Let’s go back to the story.  You remember we left off in Luke 5:5 “Master,” Simon replied, “we worked hard all last night and didn’t catch a thing. But if you say so, I’ll let the nets down again.”   So let’s pick up there, Luke 5:6-7 And this time their nets were so full of fish they began to tear! A shout for help brought their partners in the other boat, and soon both boats were filled with fish and on the verge of sinking.   There could be an entire sermon preached on how tired we are from chasing nothing, when God offers to reward us with everything, but that is another day. 

Don’t miss out on what God has for you simply because it seems like it would be too much work.  It was Football Coach Vince Lombardi who said “Fatigue makes cowards of us all.”  Are you able to put aside your personal weariness to be obedient?

But ultimately it all comes down to Peter saying 4) Because You Say so I Will Obey  That’s really the bottom line. Are we willing to tell God: “Even when I would rather be doing something else I will obey?”  In the long run it would save us a lot of grief.

We’ve said before, God doesn’t ask us to do some things and not do other things to be a spoil sport.  He does it for our good and our benefit.  At the end of the day Peter casting his net into the water benefited Peter.  He couldn’t see it before it happened and it wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t done it. 

And perhaps this was when Jesus realized that Peter was the one who would go on to lead the church that would change the world, after all it goes right along with what Jesus said in  Luke 16:10 “If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities.

And ultimately our obedience to God and his word is the litmus test to how we really feel about Him.   Which is why we read in  John 14:23 Jesus replied, “All who love me will do what I say. My Father will love them, and we will come and make our home with each of them. And then we read in John 15:10 Jesus said “When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.”   Seems to be a recurring theme.

There is a story told about Arthur Wellesley, whom many of you would know as the Duke of Wellington, the British General who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo.  It seems that going into battle that Wellington ordered his officers to do something to which one of his officers objected and told him that would be impossible.  To which Wellington replied saying “You go ahead and do it, because I don’t give impossible commands.”

The truth is that God calls people all the time to do the impossible and that’s the adventure because anyone can do the possible.  Because the promise of God when he calls us to the do the impossible if found in Mark 10:27 Jesus looked at them intently and said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But not with God. Everything is possible with God.”

What is God calling you to do this morning.  Are you willing to respond by saying “Because you say so, I will obey”?

 

A Day at the Beach: the Beginning

This time of year it’s easy for our minds to drift to warmer climes and the beach.  If you close your eyes you can almost envision the turquoise water, the white sand and a palm tree that you can lean back on.   I love being close to the water.  Maybe it’s the fact that my family all came from a small island and that is where I spent a part of almost every summer growing up, never far from water.  When we lived in Australia we weren’t far from the shore and as often as we could we headed for the beach.  Angela loves her kayak, but for me I’m usually content to sit by the water and read and listen to the sound of the waves.  Whenever I travel overseas I try to find a beach at some point, even if it’s just to take a walk and smell the salt in the air.  The other day I realized that I have walked on beaches in more than a dozen countries in five continents.   For some of you there is a beach in your near future, as you head south for a week or two to escape winter.  For other’s it’s a little further away and will happen come summer at Dollar lake and Grand lake and Kearney Lake and Shediac or Cavendish. 

So for the next few weeks we invite you to join us at the Beach. 

As you read through the Jesus story you discover how much of it happened around the water and on the water.  If we pull up one of our trusty maps we discover that much of Jesus’ ministry was focused on this area here.  What we often refer to as the “Sea of Galilee” but it wasn’t really a sea, it was just a lake.  But it was their lake.  It didn’t matter if you referred to it as the Sea of Galilee, or the Lake of Galilee or one of the several other names it has gone by through the centuries it was a focal point for the people who lived in that area.  There are only 3 lakes in Israel.  3, compare that with Canada that has over three million lakes, Canada has 60% of the lakes in the world.  But Israel only has 3 lakes, the largest is the Dead Sea and it’s a salt lake so there is no commercial value to it.  Then there is Hula Lake which is only 10 foot deep and then there is Galilee which is 20 km long and 13 km wide and 43 metres deep.  To put that in perspective it is 9 times larger than Grand Lake but you could put five Galilees in Bras d'Or Lake. 

The Jewish Historian Josephus, who was born around the time of Christ’s death, claimed that there were 9 good size communities surrounding the lake and over 230 fishing boats worked the waters in his day.  Compare that with today, Tiberias is the only city left. 

But back to our story.  If you’ve been reading the gospels, Jesus has been born, has been baptized by John the Baptist and been tempted in the wilderness.  But his ministry hasn’t really begun, there have been no records of miracles, the crowds aren’t flocking to hear his words he hasn’t started upsetting the religious leaders of the day.   After all, up until now he has just been a solitary voice attracting very little attention with his teaching.  And this incident is pivotal in the history of what would become the Christian church, which would eventually change the world.  And it all started one day at the beach.

I don’t think we could ever over state how important what happened on the beach that day would be, not only to Peter and Andrew and Zebedee’s boys but to the world as a whole. 

(Ted Talk Video on Leadership)

This was the day that the movement began. The day that a lone leader attracted his first follower.   So what is it that we can learn from this Day at the Beach?

Mark 1:16 One day as Jesus was walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, . . . 

It Started on an Ordinary Day  So often we want to make those significant days different than all the others.  The sun was shining brighter, the birds were singing louder, there was a sense about the day that made it different than all other days.  But this was just an ordinary day.  Jesus it seemed was doing something that he had often done, he was walking along the shores of the Sea of Galilee.  Jesus meets us in life, sometimes on Sundays, sometimes on Monday through Saturday. 

If you had of talked to Peter that morning and asked him what his plans were for the day I'm sure that he would have talked about going to work just like he did every day.  Maybe he had special plans for what he would do at work that day.  We know that on that day he was fishing from the shore, even though from other accounts we know that he owned a boat.  Maybe he had heard that the fish were close to land and he could avoid the extra work of preparing and launching his boat.   And perhaps he would tell you what he had planned after the fishing was done, maybe he would take his wife for a walk or putter around the house.     

But I'm pretty sure that his plans didn't include meeting the Messiah, the Son of God and having his life turned upside down.

The day that I became a Christ Follower is one I will always remember, on September 2 1979 I experienced the grace of God, my sins were forgiven and I was made new.  It was a life changing experience and it is a day that I will never forget.  But it started out as just an ordinary day.  We had been fishing on the Gaspe coast and because of quota issues we decided to take a few days off and return to Saint John, so we tied up the boat and went home.  I had nothing planned for that Sunday and so I decided to satisfy my best friend and attend church with him that evening.  Just an ordinary day. 

And then it changed, because on that ordinary day I meet the creator of the universe.

The New Testament is full of stories of how people encountered Jesus, and they all started as ordinary days.

Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 6:2 For God says, “At just the right time, I heard you. On the day of salvation, I helped you.” Indeed, the “right time” is now. Today is the day of salvation.  When is the day of Salvation.

We can wait for special days for special things to happen, or we can realize that today can be that special day.  Because ultimately you will choose whether the day will stay ordinary or become special.  Peter met Jesus on the beach, but he chose to allow that meeting to change his life.  He allowed it to go beyond a nod and a smile. 

But Jesus didn’t just go for a walk that day, let’s go back to the story. 

Mark 1:16 One day as Jesus was walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew throwing a net into the water, for they fished for a living.  It Started With Ordinary People  Now I don’t know about you, but if I was God and was looking around for someone who would lead a movement that would change the world I don’t think I would have picked Peter. 

Seriously? Peter?  Peter who had problems with his temper, Peter who had a tendency to shoot off his mouth, Peter who waffled in his faith.  It’s just that Peter seems so much like us.  God has a habit of using ordinary people.  Moses, Gideon, David, Daniel, Peter.  Just ordinary people, but people who God chose to use and people who chose to allow God to use them. 

We look at Peter and see the ordinary, God looks at Peter and sees a world changer. 

There is a story told in the Old Testament of when Samuel the Prophet was given the task of selecting the second King of Israel.  Maybe you know the story, God directs him to go to a little obscure town called Bethlehem and to meet a man named Jesse who had a number of sons.  One of whom would be chosen to be the future king. 

The bible tells us that when Samuel met Jesse’s sons he was immediately impressed with Eliab, and then we read God’s response to Samuel’s suggestion.   1 Samuel 16:7 But the LORD said to Samuel, “Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The LORD doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”

And that is why we know the son of a dairy farmer from North Carolina as Billy Graham, the daughter of a Albanian business man as Mother Theresa and a preacher’s kid from Georgia as Martin Luther King Jr.  All just ordinary men and women.

Don’t ever sell yourself short, God has a wonderful plan for your life, and if you think “Well, I’m just ordinary”  that’s good because that’s who God normally uses.  If he was able to use a  fisherman he met on a beach to start a movement, think of what he would be able to do with you?

And so the story continues; Mark 1:17 Jesus called out to them, “Come, follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people!”  If up to this point everything had been ordinary now it would change.  It Led to an Extra-Ordinary Request  We don’t know all of the conversation but we know some of it.  Jesus sees the guys and invites them to follow him but there is more than simply the invitation to follow Jesus he invites them to join in on the adventure.  To bring others with them.  And it’s the same invitation today, to follow Jesus.  But the invitation is not simply to follow Jesus, it’s never that simple, he still calls us to participate in the adventure. 

And with Peter, Jesus does what he does so well, he lifts an analogy from everyday life that Peter would understand and uses it in his invitation.  He doesn’t challenge Peter using agriculture terms or monetary terms, instead he invites him to join him in doing what Peter is already comfortable with, fishing. 

And some people are content to follow Jesus from a distance, but that isn’t what he’s calling people to do, because you can’t follow Jesus without obeying his teaching.    

The invitation comes in two parts, first follow, and then do.  The invitation was not to simply follow and it still isn’t. 

There are those who would say they follow Jesus, they read about him, they know how he was born and how he died, they might have pictures on their walls of Jesus.  But they don’t have a relationship with him.  That’s not following Jesus, that’s stalking Jesus.

Every once in a while in the news you hear about a celebrity being stalked and they describe how the person who is stalking them becomes fixated with them.  They collect all kind of information about their personal lives, they read everything they can get hands on about the celebrity, they collect pictures of them, they talk as if they know them, but there is no relationship there.  That’s just creepy.   

If you follow Jesus then ultimately you have to have a relationship with Jesus and if you have a relationship with Jesus then it’s defined in the terms that Jesus revealed to Peter and his friends in  John 14:21 Those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me. And because they love me, my Father will love them. And I will love them and reveal myself to each of them.”   Jesus invited Peter to follow him, but more than that he invited him to obey him.  To not just hear what Jesus said but to actually implement it in his daily life. 

And it wasn’t just a little request, this was an over the top, outside the box, extraordinary request.  We don’t know about all of the disciples, but we do know that Peter had a boat, and a job, he had a wife, and a house and a mother-in-law who lived with them. 

But what Jesus offered to Peter was so much more than Peter could ever imagine, he would go places and do things that all hinged on the invitation.  And that was what it was, an invitation.      An invitation to follow Jesus and to change the world.  And Peter could have said ok, or he could have gone back to fishing, and that would have been his choice. 

So listen to what happened,  Mark 1:18 And they left their nets at once and followed him.

It Finished With an Extraordinary Decision    The miracle of Christ’s call to Peter is that it obtained extraordinary results from plain old ordinary people.

When I was working on my message the thought came to me that Jesus interrupted Peter’s life.  But Peter’s life wasn’t just a life interrupted it was a life dramatically and radically changed.  If I’m working in my office and someone interrupts me, when they are done interrupting me I go back to work.  Jesus never intended to simply interrupt our lives, that’s why he told us in Luke 9:23 Then he said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross daily, and follow me.”   He was saying “If you follow me your lives will never be the same”.  Which is why Paul wrote in  2 Corinthians 5:17 This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!   

And you might be thinking:  That’s bizarre, a dude walking along the beach and see four guys fishing, asks them to leave everything and follow him and they do.  But we are only seeing a part of the story, the part told by Mark. 

In John’s account we get a little more detail.  The day after Jesus was baptized, John the Baptist is standing on the side of the river chatting with a couple of his followers and Jesus walks by.  John nods at Jesus and tells the other two guys, “Behold the lamb of God.”  And immediately we are told the two guys go over and strike up a conversation with Jesus.  If we pick up the story in John 1:40-42 Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of these men who heard what John said and then followed Jesus. Andrew went to find his brother, Simon, and told him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means “Christ”). Then Andrew brought Simon to meet Jesus.

If you continue on in the story you discover that this is when Jesus told Simon, “Your name is Simon, but you will be called Peter.”  And that might not seem like much to us except the name Peter means “rock” in the Greek, and eventually you recall Jesus told Peter in Matthew 16:18 Now I say to you that you are Peter (which means ‘rock’), and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it.

That day at the beach wasn’t some chance meeting between Jesus, Peter and Andrew.  We don’t know what was covered in the previous discussion or even whether or not there had been other meetings and conversations before Jesus went for his walk that day.  What we do know is that Peter was ready at that moment to make a decision. 

If I told you the story of my decision to follow Christ it would seem as if on September 2^nd 1979 I went to church and suddenly my life was changed I quit the fishing boat and went to Bible College.  And that is true, it  happened just that quick and just that radically.  But that only tells part of the story.  The rest of the story is that for a year my best friend had been telling me about Jesus, for a year my best friend had been living out his new “Jesus” life in front of me, and for a year my best friend had a pile of people at Bethany Bible College praying for me.   

Long before I had a conversation with Jesus about following him I had conversations with him about what that would mean.

And that is how it happens for many people, the “instantaneous conversion” is usually the end result of a series of events that have been happening.  Like the overnight success that was ten years in the making. 

But it didn’t end with that decision, I’m not even sure that Peter knew what he was getting into, as we follow the story through Peter keeps making exciting discoveries about the Jesus that he has chosen to follow.   Jesus’ call to Peter was to join him on a journey, and the invitation is the same today.  When we follow someone it suggests movement.   Jesus may have met Peter where he was at but he didn’t leave him there. 

Did Peter follow Christ and never look back? Nope, and that’s what makes it so exciting, Peter wasn’t perfect and there were times he let Jesus down and times he blew it, but Jesus never gave up on Peter.  Next week we are going to Luke chapter 5 and we find Peter fishing again.  But there is Jesus saying “Come on Peter, you know there is more for you then a fishing boat.  Come on and follow me.”

And again Peter puts down his nets and follows Jesus, and because he did it wasn’t just his future and his life that was changed it was the world that was changed.

I wish I could say that from the day that I decided to follow Jesus that I always did a stellar job, but there were times that I wasn’t obedient and there were times that I probably embarrassed Jesus and there were times that if I was Jesus dealing with Denn I would have thrown up my hands and walked away.  But that isn’t grace and grace is what Jesus offers. 

If you have never accepted the challenge to follow Jesus then you need to.  He is still calling people to follow him, and by follow him he means to accept his teachings and obey him. 

Or maybe you chose to follow Jesus but now you find yourself back at the fishing net pursuing your old life and its agenda.  But Jesus still wants all of you, and he’s still offering you all of him.