Fishers of Men

Welcome!

Great to see new faces, great to see old faces

2023 Recap

2024 Plans

Mark

How old do you think Mark is?

Not like today… He’s like 2000 years old today...

How old do you think Mark is when the narrative of the Gospel of Mark takes place?

He was quite possibly a kid

Mark 14:51–52 (ESV)

And a young man followed him, with nothing but a linen cloth about his body. And they seized him, but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked.

Go ahead, get the giggles out!

This young man could, quite possibly, have been Mark himself

The word Neaniskos in the Greek means youth.

Mark may have snuck out in his pajamas to witness these events, and had to run home buck naked when the guards almost caught him!

Mark 1:16–20 (ESV)

Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” And immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets. And immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him.

How old do you think these disciples are here?

While we don’t have definitive answers, modern scholarship on the subject suggests that the disciples would have been somewhere between 13-30

Peter, who was married, is often thought of as one of the oldest

And John, who we think was still alive near the turn of the first century (90 AD), was maybe one of the youngest

It was Hebrew tradition for young men to begin their religious training around age 5

and then around age 13, if they were intelligent and interested enough, they would become disciples of a rabbi who would continue their training

think Star Wars

So what might we infer about these first four disciples from the fact that they are employed as fishermen?

They weren’t nerds!

They probably weren’t chosen to train under rabbis...

But Jesus still chooses them...

Why do you think that Jesus would want young fishermen?

Because God doesn’t care what the world thinks of your qualifications

God delights in taking the people you least expect to be his disciples, and turning them into spiritual juggernauts!

Each of you can begin this process of becoming a disciple now!

Each of you has been designed by God for the purpose of serving his great plan for humanity

Each of you has a part to play, each of you has a great destiny

This doesn’t mean you’re all called to be rich, famous, etc.

It means that your life has eternal value and that you are made to help others see that value in themselves!

It doesn’t matter if the world says you’re too young

It doesn’t matter if the world thinks you’re not qualified

God CAN and WILL use you if put your faith in him!

Night 2:

Alright, so last night we talked about how young Jesus’ disciples were when he called them.

Last night we talked about God’s supernatural ability to take the people that the world sees as unqualified and turn them into spiritual powerhouses for his great plan for creation

My question tonight is.... Does that mean that you become perfect when you become a disciple of Christ?

The process is supernatural right? Shouldn’t that mean that we become like super-righteous super Christians who don’t make huge mistakes anymore?

Mark 14:66–72 (ESV)

And as Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant girls of the high priest came, and seeing Peter warming himself, she looked at him and said, “You also were with the Nazarene, Jesus.” But he denied it, saying, “I neither know nor understand what you mean.” And he went out into the gateway and the rooster crowed. And the servant girl saw him and began again to say to the bystanders, “This man is one of them.” But again he denied it. And after a little while the bystanders again said to Peter, “Certainly you are one of them, for you are a Galilean.” But he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, “I do not know this man of whom you speak.” And immediately the rooster crowed a second time. And Peter remembered how Jesus had said to him, “Before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.” And he broke down and wept.

So clearly this is a huge mess up on Peter’s part

Jesus called Peter up from a life as a fisherman and equipped him to be a Spiritual leader

Peter is perhaps one of the first people to publically confess that Jesus is the Messiah

Peter shows great (if short-lived) Faith at various points in our narrative

Peter straight up takes a sword to a dude in the garden of Gethsemane...

And then he denies Jesus three times when a little girl and some strangers recognize him as a disciple...

Clearly this is a big mistake on Peter’s part, but it’s one that he immediately recognizes

.... So clearly, Peter will never make a mistake like this again, right?!

Right?!?

Peter actually doesn’t, as far as we read, deny Christ again in the narrative of scripture.

He argues with him, but he doesn’t actually deny his relationship to Jesus himself.

BUT...

We do see Peter later backpedal on his relationship with some Christians

some parts of the body of Christ

Acts 10:34–35 (ESV)

So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.

In this scene in Acts, Peter is giving the Gospel to a house full of Gentiles, which basically means non-Jew

At this point in the Bible Story, Christianity had primarily consisted of Jews converting to Christianity because they realized that Jesus really was the messiah and that he had been the one of whom all scripture had spoken

But Peter in this scene is realizing that God’s plan involved everyone who was willing to put their faith in Jesus.

Peter is realizing that it doesn’t matter what race or culture a person comes from

It doesn’t matter if he thinks they’re pure or impure

It doesn’t matter if they’re super-scripturally literate and intelligent

All that matters to God is that they put their faith in him!

BUT....

Peter

Peter is really firing on all cylinders in this scene in scripture,

He’s doing a great job of living out the plan that God has for him

And he’s doing a great job of loving his neighbors the way that Jesus had taught him

AND HE’S OBVIOUSLY NOT GOING TO MESS UP ANYMORE, right?!

Let’s turn to Galatians...

Galatians 2:11–14 (ESV)

But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

Yeesh, Pete...

So we see Peter, as much of a foundational figure as he is in the early church, is still very prone to the same sort of failure that we saw earlier in our scene from the Gospel of Mark.

But God still used Peter to do great things!

I want you guys to realize that God doesn’t expect you to become perfect to be his disciples.

Jesus chose his disciples knowing that they weren’t perfect!

Jesus doesn’t need you to be perfect before you start serving him and giving the Gospel to the people around you

In fact, God’s glory is made that much more apparent when he takes broken vessels like you and me and uses us to tote living water to the hurting, the sick, the lost, and the deceived people that we interact with out in the world!

Guys, we can (together) do amazing things in our community to help people know how much God loves them and to let them know that he has a great purpose for them.

As we look forward to 2024, I want to invite you guys throw aside your nets like we saw Jesus’ disciples do at the beginning of the Gospel of Mark.

Forget about the worldly things that occupy you and the things that you think are going to fulfill and sustain you...

And let’s go fishing for people in the world around us!