Habit of Following Jesus

Intro

I feel that the last Sunday of the year and the first Sunday of the new year can go in many different directions. I listened to your worship service from last Sunday. For me the Holy Spirit confirmed I was preaching on what He had given me. Derrin preached from the Prologue to the book of John and this morning we are going to spend time in the Epilogue of the book of John.

Neither one of us knew what the other was going to preach about or what text was being used but through the Holy Spirit here we are in tandem to what we were both given.

We have just come off celebrating one of the biggest, dare I say the biggest events in history with the birth of our saviour. Perhaps the decorations are still up, there is leftover food still available to eat, the parties with family and friends are still fresh in our minds.

But we come to this period of time where the air gets let out of the balloon if you will. Our kids have to go back to school perhaps tomorrow. Adults have to go back to work if they haven’t already. The decorations will come down and perhaps too soon we get ourselves back into the normal routines of life. We get back to what we know too well.

Its easier that way, right? Sure we took a pause for Christmas. Some of us perhaps did some traveling, we spent time with loved ones and we sure did celebrate Jesus’ birth but so often that is just a blip in time. Think about the amount of time and energy that went into this celebration.

Does anyone feel bad for the turkey at Thanksgiving? I mean you hardly get done eating your Thanksgiving dinner and its time for Christmas. Some have the Christmas decorations up already at Thanksgiving. What if we enjoyed the birth for the same amount of time afterwards as we do getting ready?

We are going to look this morning at how some of the disciples had returned to their normal lives after the death and resurrection of Jesus. Perhaps no different than you and I today in the way we get back to normal after the celebration of Jesus birth.

I want to pose this question to you this morning and ask that you ponder your answer.

What habits do you have that keep you grounded in following Jesus?

Prayer

John 21:1–14 NLT

1 Later, Jesus appeared again to the disciples beside the Sea of Galilee. This is how it happened. 2 Several of the disciples were there—Simon Peter, Thomas (nicknamed the Twin), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples. 3 Simon Peter said, “I’m going fishing.” “We’ll come, too,” they all said. So they went out in the boat, but they caught nothing all night. 4 At dawn Jesus was standing on the beach, but the disciples couldn’t see who he was. 5 He called out, “Fellows, have you caught any fish?” “No,” they replied. 6 Then he said, “Throw out your net on the right-hand side of the boat, and you’ll get some!” So they did, and they couldn’t haul in the net because there were so many fish in it. 7 Then the disciple Jesus loved said to Peter, “It’s the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his tunic (for he had stripped for work), jumped into the water, and headed to shore. 8 The others stayed with the boat and pulled the loaded net to the shore, for they were only about a hundred yards from shore. 9 When they got there, they found breakfast waiting for them—fish cooking over a charcoal fire, and some bread. 10 “Bring some of the fish you’ve just caught,” Jesus said. 11 So Simon Peter went aboard and dragged the net to the shore. There were 153 large fish, and yet the net hadn’t torn. 12 “Now come and have some breakfast!” Jesus said. None of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord. 13 Then Jesus served them the bread and the fish. 14 This was the third time Jesus had appeared to his disciples since he had been raised from the dead.

I am going to go back a couple weeks when I heard Pastor Scott talk about the GOAT of basketball and Michael Jordan. I have to admit I chuckled at the idea that perhaps there are many who dont know who Michael Jordan was. It sort of makes me feel old since I grew up watching him play basketball and beat the Detroit Pistons too many times. Some here might even think that he is a Nascar race team owner, which he is but did you know that he played baseball in the minor leagues and that he retired from basketball 2 times?

Yes, he actually retired from basket ball after the 1992-93 NBA season and spent 21 months away from basketball trying to earn a spot for himself in the world of baseball. In March of 1995 he announced in a statement “I’m back”. Funny thing is the Chicago Bulls had retired his jersey number 23 just five months earlier and so he had to wear the number 45.

His first game back he scored 19 points and had 6 assists and 6 rebound. In just 4 games later he got back to his greatness where is put up his famous “Double-Nickle” with a 55 point performance. He would later actualy un-retire no just himself but his number 23 jersey, he would spend some time as president of basketball operations for the Washington Wizards and would play another 6 seasons.

For MJ basketball was what he knew and so it was hard for him to step away and leave it alone. He had to come back to what he had known for so many years.

We find that this morning in our disciples. We find them in familiar territory on the shores of Galilee.

The Apostle John doesnt give us an exact time he just says that

John 21:1 “1 Later, Jesus appeared again to the disciples beside the Sea of Galilee. This is how it happened.”

So, somewhere between 8 days and 40 days after the resurrection of Jesus these 7 disciples have already gone back to for some their old habits of fishing.

John says “This is how it happened”. The Greek translation for happened means reveal or make clear and the sense of the word is to cause to become clearly revealed to the mind, the senses, or judgment.

Jesus is appearing to the disciples for the third time in order to reveal to them who He is and what He came to do.

In the area of Galilee lies the fishing towns of Bethsaida and Capernaum both towns were home to some of the leading disciples and Peter being from Bethsaida would have felt right at home. Its the life they knew growing up and so why not.

Simon Peter says “I’m going fishing”.

I’m Going Fishing

For me what makes scripture so compelling is the fact the throughout the entire bible we see God in the Old Testament and Jesus in the New Testament using the ordinary people from ordinary lives with ordinary skills. Can you imagine what the scriptures would have looked like if all the people in the bible worth of the most wealthy, most educated and most highly skilled? You would almost feel like you didnt belong. That’s not the bible we read nor is that the history or future plan of the God we serve today.

The disciples were no different. Most likely they were not smart enough or had not scored high enough in the college entrance exams or ACT tests if you will to go into what at that time would have been Rabbi training, a seminary if you will but not like seminary of today. So, because of that they spent their lives working inside the family business and for many of them that business was fishing.

I have to ask myself why? Am I the only one to ask why? Why are they going back to fishing. Has not Jesus trained them for much more than that. We often say that we have the luxury of knowing the rest of the story but here the disciples already know a lot of the story because they have lived it right alongside Jesus but what brings them back to fishing.

Not only have they spent the last few years with Jesus, fishing in a boat was where Jesus met some of them for the first time.

Mark 1:16–20 “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. 17 Jesus called out to them, “Come, follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people!” 18 And they left their nets at once and followed him. 19 A little farther up the shore Jesus saw Zebedee’s sons, James and John, in a boat repairing their nets. 20 He called them at once, and they also followed him, leaving their father, Zebedee, in the boat with the hired men.”

At least three of the disciples in our story this morning first met Jesus in this same location doing this same thing. Not only that but with much the same results.

I can remember as a child spending many cold Saturdays ice fishing with my dad, uncles and cousins on Muskegon Lake. It seemed I was freezing my hands and toes off for a catch of nothing. Now certainly they were not ice fishing but their results were similar to my results.

Fishing all night, casting nets and retrieving nets for nothing can be pretty tiring physically but also pretty draining mentally. Especially when some guy on the shore has enough nerve to ask if they have caught anything.

Catch Anything?

Maybe we have to give them a little credit since it was dawn so maybe not light enough for them to see who it is that is asking this question. A question that nobody wanted to answer. I am sure that their reply of “no” was more of a grunted sound that sort of resembled no.

Its interesting too that Jesus calls them Fellows. Certainly Jesus knows exactly who they are and so why not say hey Peter. The Greek word for fellows means child, and its a term of endearment not a sarcastic term. One that would have a warm caring or nurturing tone to it.

In response to their no answer Jesus says to throw out their nets on the right-hand side of the boat. We dont have any context to this from the Apostle John but with this type of fishing you would normally have two boats sitting across from each other and they would look for schools of fish and they would put down whats called a trammel net and this net would surround the school of fish and then they would throw out their cast nets and that net would sink down on top of the school of fish and they would be able to sinch the bottom with ropes and catch the fish.

What Jesus is telling them is to throw the cast net on the otherside or the right-hand side in this case of the boat. Independent of the trammel net. There would not be anything keeping any schools of fish on that side.

Now I dont know how many fisherman there are here. I know of at least one besides me, but fishing is a competitive activity. You dont normally tell other fisherman where the fish are biting, am I right? So, for some guy on the shore to ask if youve caught anything and then tell you to fish in an area that doesnt make sense, it could illicit a negative feeling toward that person.

So, I wonder if they follow Jesus’ suggestion just out of spite, like an ok what ever you say mister. Maybe they felt desperate to have some sort of success and so shy not give it a try.

So they try and are surprised by the size of the catch, unable to haul it all in. John wrote “this is how it happened”, this was how Jesus was going to once again reveal himself to his disciples. The disciple that Jesus loved says to Peter “Its the Lord”.

Once that revelation was made Peter does what only Peter does and he thinks only of himself at that moment. Because fishing all night was a physically demanding job Peter had taken some layers of clothing off but he grabs all of that and hops out of the boat and makes a dash for the shore. All while leaving the others to tend to getting the net that is full of fish and dragging the boat back to shore.

John 21:4–8 “4 At dawn Jesus was standing on the beach, but the disciples couldn’t see who he was. 5 He called out, “Fellows, have you caught any fish?” “No,” they replied. 6 Then he said, “Throw out your net on the right-hand side of the boat, and you’ll get some!” So they did, and they couldn’t haul in the net because there were so many fish in it. 7 Then the disciple Jesus loved said to Peter, “It’s the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his tunic (for he had stripped for work), jumped into the water, and headed to shore. 8 The others stayed with the boat and pulled the loaded net to the shore, for they were only about a hundred yards from shore.”

Breakfast Is Served

With Peter already on shore and the others soon to arrive they find Jesus on the shore with breakfast already waiting for them. He has the fire started and the breakfast ready to eat. John says that

John 21:9 “9 When they got there, they found breakfast waiting for them—fish cooking over a charcoal fire, and some bread.”

Jesus has some fish cooked, bread baked over a charcoal fire. He is trying to evoke memories of their past. Certainly one can be reminded of the feeding of the 5000 where with 2 fish and 5 loaves Jesus was able to bless over 5000 people with enough left overs to fill 12 baskets with scraps.

The fact that Jesus has them cooking over a charcoal fire would bring vivid memories to Peter of warming himself while Jesus was arrested and being questioned and beaten.

John 18:18 “18 Because it was cold, the household servants and the guards had made a charcoal fire. They stood around it, warming themselves, and Peter stood with them, warming himself.”

And then Jesus says bring some of the fish you have caught over here. Does anyone else want to ask first how did Jesus get fish to begin with to have them cooked and ready and second why does he need more fish? The thing about this whole story is more of Jesus trying to remind his disciples, he is trying to evoke memories of their past so that it will remind them of who he is and was when he is no longer present with them.

John 21:9–14 “9 When they got there, they found breakfast waiting for them—fish cooking over a charcoal fire, and some bread. 10 “Bring some of the fish you’ve just caught,” Jesus said. 11 So Simon Peter went aboard and dragged the net to the shore. There were 153 large fish, and yet the net hadn’t torn. 12 “Now come and have some breakfast!” Jesus said. None of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord. 13 Then Jesus served them the bread and the fish. 14 This was the third time Jesus had appeared to his disciples since he had been raised from the dead.”

Make Following Jesus your Habit

NLT Intro to John

Jesus says:

“I am the bread of life”

“I am the light of the world”

“I am the gate”

“I am the good shepard”

“I am the resurrection and the life”

“I am the way, the truth and the life”

“I am the true grapevine”