People Fishing
People Fishing
8/31/2002 and 9/1/2002
Luke 5
5 One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, a (Galilee)with the people crowding around him and listening to the word of God, 2 he saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. 3 He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.
4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down b the nets for a catch.”
5 Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”
6 When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. 7 So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.
8 When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” 9 For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, 10 and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners.
Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will catch men.”
-Jesus was talking to fishermen and He compared what they did to what He was going to teach them to do-FISH FOR AND CATCH MEN
-I heard this week that 2/3 of all churches in America are flatlined or declining.
-That is hard to swallow when Jesus said to go into all the world and tell everyone the good news.
INSERT-WHY WE MUST GROW
-We are in a season where personally and church wide I believe God is adjusting us to reach people.
-Jesus died for the world and He said that He would make us to be fishers of men.
-I want to focus on HOW TO DO IT.
-We recently went fishing in Canada and I noticed the difference between the hard-core fishermen and myself.
-With a good fisherman, he experiments, adjusts bait, depth, and everything else.
-With me I can get caught up with casting and riding in the boat.
-I catch an occasional fish while others catch lost of fish.
-That makes sense, if you want to catch fish you adjust where you are fishing and your bait.
-Think about that with reaching your friends and family.
-Do we just keep doing the same thing or do we adapt.
-Not everyone bites the same bait.
BIBLE EXAMPLES
-There are two types of people in the world:
THOSE YOU KNOW
THOSE YOU DON’T KNOW
-There are also two types of evangelism:
PLANNED
UNPLANNED
-I want to look at some examples in Scripture and see how they relate to your life.
1. RELATIONAL EVANGELISM
John 1
35 The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. 36 When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!”
37 When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. 38 Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?”
They said, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?”
39 “Come,” he replied, “and you will see.”
So they went and saw where he was staying, and spent that day with him. It was about the tenth hour.
40 Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. 41 The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). 42 And he brought him to Jesus.
Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas” (which, when translated, is Peter a).
Jesus Calls Philip and Nathanael
43 The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, “Follow me.”
44 Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. 45 Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”
46 “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked.
“Come and see,” said Philip.
-This is an example of someone meeting Jesus and then telling the people they care about.
-Of course you want those you love to know what you know.
Acts 10
The next day Peter started out with them, and some of the brothers from Joppa went along. 24 The following day he arrived in Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends.
-He did what you would do, tell the people you love about Jesus.
-Most people come to the Lord by people they love and trust telling them.
-Relational evangelism is the most effective long term way to change an area.
2. MINISTRY TO THE RELIGIOUS
John 3
3 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
3 In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again. a”
4 “How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!”
5 Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit b gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You c must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
9 “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.
10 “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things?
-If you live in a breadbox, that doesn’t make you a loaf of bread.
-In the same way, many people are cultural Christians but aren’t really saved.
-Some of the hardest people to reach are your friends who go to church.
-Joe grew up in a church where he said he never heard how to be saved.
-Jesus is talking to a very religious man and he didn’t know the SIMPLE TRUTH.
-Have a simple message about a changed life.
-Don’t talk to people about church and religion and stuff like that.
-Tell them about a relationship with Jesus.
-It is worth noting that the ministry and miracles of Jesus got the attention of Nicodemus.
-There has to be a real life testimony of a godly lifestyle and a changed life.
-You have to earn the right to be heard. It may take years.
1 Peter 3
15 But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, 16 keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.
-You have to change your bait for these guys. They don’t respond to the same things. They think they got it together.
3. DIVINE APPOINTMENTS
John 4
4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. a)
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
-Jesus encountered this woman and used the opportunity.
-This woman was a Samaritan, they were outcasts. She was a woman, the culture didn’t think too highly of women. She was coming at noon in the heat of the day because she was promiscuous and probably didn’t fit well with the women who usually came at sundown to get water.
-Yet Jesus valued her.
-This is the guy walking up to me at the car wash or the lady crying in the store.
-Always be ready.
Acts 8
26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” 27 So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian a eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, 28 and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah the prophet. 29 The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”
30 Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked.
31 “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
32 The eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture:
“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
and as a lamb before the shearer is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
33 In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
Who can speak of his descendants?
For his life was taken from the earth.” b
34 The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” 35 Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.
36 As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. Why shouldn’t I be baptized?” c 38 And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him.
-This is just a lifestyle of “WHO KNOWS WHERE GOD WILL LEAD ME TODAY.
4. POWER EVANGELISM
-Something we see here and in Acts 8 as well is “POWER EVANGELISM.”
-This is healing and gifts of the Spirit drawing people to the gospel.
-Someone said that healings and miracles are the dinner bell for the gospel.
-Jesus healed people even if they didn’t have all of their ducks in a row.
Acts 8
4 Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. 5 Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Christ a there. 6 When the crowds heard Philip and saw the miraculous signs he did, they all paid close attention to what he said. 7 With shrieks, evil b spirits came out of many, and many paralytics and cripples were healed. 8 So there was great joy in that city.
-Step out in faith and give God a chance to work.
-Richard Foster’s testimony of healing was great.
-Jesus told this woman her whole life. She told everybody.
John 4
16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
17 “I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.
28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ a?”
-You have Jesus’ power if you have Jesus and the Spirit of Jesus.
-Signs follow believers.
5. TESTIMONY EVANGELISM
-This is where you share your story.
John 9
13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. 14 Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath. 15 Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. “He put mud on my eyes,” the man replied, “and I washed, and now I see.”
16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.”
But others asked, “How can a sinner do such miraculous signs?” So they were divided.
17 Finally they turned again to the blind man, “What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened.”
The man replied, “He is a prophet.”
18 The Jews still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man’s parents. 19 “Is this your son?” they asked. “Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?”
20 “We know he is our son,” the parents answered, “and we know he was born blind. 21 But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don’t know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for himself.” 22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for already the Jews had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Christ a would be put out of the synagogue. 23 That was why his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”
24 A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. “Give glory to God, b” they said. “We know this man is a sinner.”
25 He replied, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”
26 Then they asked him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”
27 He answered, “I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?”
28 Then they hurled insults at him and said, “You are this fellow’s disciple! We are disciples of Moses! 29 We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don’t even know where he comes from.”
30 The man answered, “Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does his will. 32 Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”
34 To this they replied, “You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!” And they threw him out.
-This man offered no explanation.
-He simply told what had happened to him.
-Are you catching anything?
-Are you using the right bait?
Story of drowned son