Sermon Nuggets Fri Jan 9
Theme- The Living Lord
Verses- Luke 5:9-11 For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, 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."
So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.
The Living Lord Enlivens us.
It was earlier in their lives when these fishermen came to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. Luke records a similar fishing instance but with some differences. Jesus was sitting in Simon Peter’s boat teaching the people who were on the shore. They had been fishing all night without catching anything. Jesus tells them to go out again. He was in the boat with them. He tells them this time to cast out in deeper water. As they throw their nets deeper in obedience so many fish are caught they call out for their fishing companions to come out and help gather in the fish.
They were following Jesus as the Messiah, promised of God to come to establish the Kingdom in Israel. After they caught a large number of fish Jesus told them to follow him as He would make them fishers of men. Now, after the resurrection the person of Jesus and the call on their lives was far greater than they understood 3 years earlier. Now it was a kingdom that would begin now and last forever in the hearts of men and women. It would involve earthly and heavenly reign.
He connected fishing with evangelism. Perhaps the lesson He was not in the boat with them this time, but on the shore. His presence and power with them did not require His physical body but spiritual power. Also we cannot evangelize with our own methods and energy it must be done with power and the spirit of God.
God begins his work with those who admit their own inability, their own lack of power, and turn instead to the one true source of power. "I pray...," Paul writes in Ephesians 1:18-19, "that your eyes may be enlightened in order that you may know...his incomparably great power...the working of his mighty strength...."
There are indeed men who testify that in their situations the living Lord encountered their experiences in very definite and sometimes unusual ways.
John Westley was a brilliant student of the languages and of religion. He and his brother and the great American Preacher, George Whitfield were members of the Holy Club in England. But his own soul was heavy. He met Moravian missionaries on a ship who had great confidence that if the boat were to sink they would go to heaven. Wesley did not have this confidence, but admired their faith. This encounter led to his conversion at a small meeting house in Aldersgate on May 24, 1738 when he was reading Luther’s Preface to the Roamsn and 8:45 pm. He was describing his encounter with the living Lord. As he read of the importance of faith in Christ he wrote in his journal. “I felt my heart strangely warmed.” I felt I did trust in Christ. Christ alone for my salvation, an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”
Before that time he was always asking what he could do for God and after that time he asked what God could do for him. He was no longer straining to win God’s favor, God’s favor was bestowed on him and he knew it.
Robin Wainwright, a former Bethel professor, tells of his encounter experience. It was when he was 22 and in personal turmoil. He was in a coffee waiting for his wife to get out of a class when an older bearded gentleman walked into the shop and began talking. He asked some insightful questions about God. Robin talked and he seemed to draw out of him, things that others he never told. The man said, “I see evidences of God working in your life.” He mentioned three or four things and said, “Well I have to go”. Robin sat there in thought, eventually enrolled in Christian school to find out more and accepted Christ in Church History class.
Do you realize that the living Lord encounters people through the Holy Spirit within life circumstances? Sometimes it is through other believers in the most interesting ways where people hear the voice, or read something in a book, or hear a word on the radio or TV that begins to make sense or begin the search. The living Lord is not confined in church buildings. Have you been open to let Jesus encounter you, or resisting any prompting of the Holy Spirit. Prov 8:17 “I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me.” Have you had a Christ Enrichment? Then you qualify for being a fisherman or fisherwoman. Spread the word of the living savior and wait and watch what He chooses to do. He is alive.
Pastor Dale.
