Gone Fishing

Opening Prayer

Let’s open with prayer. If you have a prayer concern, just offer it up out loud in this space. It can be a situation, a need, a family member or friend. When I sense we are finished I will close out our prayer.

Set us free, O God, from the bondage of our sins, and give us the liberty of that abundant life which you have made known to us in your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Introduction

We are in the season of the church year called Epiphany, meaning “to appear”. This season celebrates the revelation of Jesus as the Savior of the world. During Epiphany we’re doing a series called The Hope of Glory, and we continue to look at how Jesus revealed his glory, and what this epiphany means for us.

What happens when a person encounters the Divine? This morning we are going to look in parallel at two different people, separated by centuries, who encountered the Divine and how this encounter changed the course of their life. To say that coming into God’s presence is life-changing is an understatement. I’ve called the message Gone Fishing because, in the end, this is where Divine encounter leads. When we come face to face with God we discover a new way to be human, what we were meant to be all along. Ultimately, encountering the Divine changes us into agents of God’s grace.

Divine revelation

Isaiah and Peter share very little in common. Isaiah, with his access to the kings of Israel, likely came from an aristocratic family. He was accustomed to palaces and places of power. Peter was a commercial fisherman. He had never set foot in a palace his entire life, nor would he want to.

And yet even though they are separated by hundreds of years, they share a very similar encounter with God. These encounters start completely differently. Isaiah is likely at the Temple Mount when he has his vision, probably there for a time of worship or prayer. He sees the God of Israel seated on his throne in heaven, but his throne room extends to the Temple on earth. He is surrounded by angelic beings who call out responsively to one another, “Holy, holy, holy.” His moment of Divine revelation was in a context of worship, and we are gripped by what must have been a moment of holy awe as God shows up, filling the Temple and shaking its very foundations.

Peter, on the other hand, is just trying to mind his own business. He’d been fishing all night, frustrated that they had caught nothing, and now all he wanted to do was get his nets cleaned for the next night and go home and rest. And they God showed up, producing another moment of holy awe. But this is different, because it is a Divine encounter that is especially for Peter, a fisherman. Having caught nothing, Jesus presses Peter to try one more time, and he snares so many fish in his net that they begin to break and he has to ask his partners to come help. God showed up for Peter in the form of fishes.

The first lesson from these passages is that God is one who delights to reveal himself. But he does it in ways that are consistent with who we are. Had God shown himself to Peter the same way he showed himself to Isaiah, Peter might not have even known or understood what he was seeing. He would be impressed, but would likely have missed what God was doing. God wants to - and is - revealing himself to you, but it may not be in ways that are flashy. Most often his revelation comes as a still, small voice only detectable to you, only discernable by you, because it is his revelation to you. And the first thing we must ask ourselves is whether we are listening. When God speaks, when he reveals, are my ears open?

Divine holiness

Isaiah and Peter have very similar reactions to encountering the Divine. They are both filled with a sense of their own sin and unworthiness. Upon seeing God in the Temple, Isaiah cries out, “Woe is me! I am lost.” Peter responds in the same way when he says, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man.” When coming face to face with God, both feel the chasm that separates God from them. They know that He is holy, and they are not.

One of the things that happens when God draws near to us is that we are sometimes swamped with our own feelings of unworthiness and inadequacy. In the presence of perfect holiness, we are laid bare as sinners. We aren’t sinners simply because we’ve broken a moral code; we are sinners in that we have fallen far short of what God intended for us when he made us human. We have forsaken our role as image bearers, and we have been deformed into beings that are now, in one sense, anti-human - at least anti-human compared to God’s original intent.

We feel this chasm of separation, but we need to be careful to understand that it is not God who separates from us because of sin; it is we who separate from him. Like our first parents, we want to deal with our sin on our own and hide it from God. But God will have none of that; he draws us out, exposing us, not to shame but to heal. God looks upon us at our worst and declares that he will not condemn but restore. God’s holiness is always redemptive.

Are you carrying a weight of sin? Are you under condemnation from self because of what you’ve done? God is saying to you now “don’t hide”. Instead, draw near in this moment of Divine encounter so that you may have this burden lifted.

Divine grace

Isaiah’s and Peter’s stories lead to a moment of Divine grace. Isaiah graphically sees God remove his guilt as the seraph touches his mouth with a hot coal. He understand that he has now been purified, his sins blotted out. He has been restored to God through his grace. Peter hears instead of sees grace. After confessing himself a sinner, he hears Jesus simply say, “Do not be afraid.”

Both of these men have the gospel applied to their lives. They receive grace and mercy. But more than that, they are liberated from the anti-human forces that have controlled their lives and that have kept them from being and becoming who God made them to be.

The gospel still changes lives. In another reading for this Sunday, Paul reminds the Corinthians the gospel he preached to them:

1 Corinthians 15:3–5 (NRSV)

For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared...

We tend to focus the gospel on the dying for sin bit - which Christ did die because of our sin. But there’s a phrase Paul uses twice we shouldn’t ignore. According to the Scriptures. We are reminded in these phrases that Jesus is fulfilling a bigger story. He is the promise made to the forefathers of blessing for the whole world. The gospel gathers us into a larger story that isn’t just concerned with sin, but with destroying all the work of the devil, defeating death, and culminating in God coming to live with us again. In the gospel, God is healing the world, and us with it.

The gospel holds out to you the forgiveness of all your sin. The cleansing from your past. But it also offers you hope for the future. The gospel of Jesus makes you a true human again.

Divine call

After their revelation of Divine love and grace, God now sets Isaiah and Peter on a new path. God rhetorically asks, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And Isaiah, after meeting God and receiving grace, responds, “Here I am; send me!” Peter is more told than asked, yet we know his acceptance is still voluntary. Jesus simply tells him, “from now on you will be catching people.” Encountering God put Isaiah and Peter’s life on a new track; we could say they have a new vocation. They have now become agents of God’s grace to others.

When we truly have an encounter with God, it puts our life back on track. We are reminded and released back to our original vocation as image-bearers. You were made to be God’s representative. You were made to spread his love and justice. Sin has marred that image-bearing capacity; the gospel has restored it. You now partner with his desire to “catch people”.

I’m not much of an art fan. I don’t know what to do with Picasso. To me, Van Gogh is just weird. But I like Norman Rockwell. He paints things I can understand. One of my favorite of his works is called “Closed for Business” (show pic). Here we see an older man who is closing up shop for the day, declaring that he’s gone on business. But the young boy reveals the kind of business he is out for. I imagine a grandfather taking his grandson fishing. And if you look at their faces, you see utter delight. The boy is delighted to go fishing - and perhaps with the idea of sneaking away, of being caught up in a scheme no one else put he and grandpa know about. The grandfather is delighted as well - delighted to spend the day with his grandson. For whatever his business is, here is his true vocation. In this picture we see that fishing is not drudgery, it is delight.

God has called you to fish for people. This is your vocation - to be his agent of grace to others. To share the hope of the gospel with those who have no hope. To tell them that Jesus has come, not to condemn the world, but to save and heal it. You have a job. That’s how you make money and provide for your needs, but the gospel this morning tells us that that is not the same as your vocation. Peter caught fish. Paul made tents. But after their encounter with Jesus, their vocation became to fish for people. To bring others into relationship with him.

I lead a church for a living. It’s my job, but in light of this passage, this is not my vocation. Just like you, I am to fish for people. Not out of guilt or compulsion, but out of delight, because fishing with the Father is fun. And fishing doesn’t need to be hard. You don’t have to share Four Spiritual Laws or draw the Bridge Illustration. Over the last three weeks we’ve had a plumbing mess at our house. Old cast iron pipes have given up the ghost, and we’ve had two young men in our home off and on for the last 3 weeks. Wednesday they finally were able to finish the job. They had worked very hard, and I felt led to give them a tip. So as they left I handed them some money and one of my contact cards and just told them if there was anything I could ever do for them as a pastor all they had to do was call. I don’t know what kind of impact this made or what will become of it. But maybe my bad pipes were never about my pipes. Maybe instead it was a Divine appointment, an invitation to go fishing with Jesus. (It was a very expensive fishing trip if so, but how much is a soul worth?)

It is Jesus greatest desire that we join him catching people. Matthew 9:37-38 “Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”” Isaiah said, “send me!” Peter followed his Lord, catching fish along the way, until his death in Rome. How will you respond? Let’s be the answer to Jesus prayer. Let a Divine encounter change you into an agent of God’s grace. Amen.

Ministry time...

Communion

Psalm 138:8 “The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands.” The table reminds us that God will never forsake us, but will fulfill all his good purposes for us. His gospel transforms us so that we bear his image and become his people in the world. As we eat the bread and drink the cup, we are reminded that by faith and the Holy Spirit we have been given the very life of Jesus, who does his work to change us from the inside out and makes us agents of God’s grace.

Words of Institution

The Lord’s Prayer

Invitation

This is the table, not of the church, but of the Lord,

It is made ready for those who love God and for those who want to love Him more.

So come, you who have much faith and you who have little;

You who have been here often and you who have not been here long;

You who have tried to follow and you who have failed.  

Come, because it is the Lord who invites you.

It is His will that those who want Him should meet Him here.