WHERE ARE ALL THE FISH?

John 21:3-6

“I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.”  So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.”
Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus.
He called out to them, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?”
“No,” they answered.
He said, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.”  When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish.

After the resurrection of Jesus, Peter and six other disciples were in Galilee on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.  They were expecting to meet Jesus at some point because he had said they would find him there.  Peter decided to go fishing and the others went along.  Some of these guys were professional fishermen.  They had been catching fish on the Sea of Galilee since they were children.  They fully expected to catch fish but they worked all night and caught nothing.

As dawn began to break a man stood on the shore and shouted out to the boat asking about their catch.  When they reported their failure to catch even one fish the man told them to cast the net on the other side of the boat and they would catch some fish.  What amazes me is that Peter and the other fishermen agreed to do this before they recognized the man was Jesus.  Why should they do what some guy on the shore told them to do?  They knew what they were doing!  We know the rest of the story.  They caught so many fish that they couldn’t bring the net into the boat and John recognized that the man was Jesus.

This got me thinking.  In Matthew 4:18-20 Jesus called Peter and Andrew to follow him saying, “I will make you fishers of men.”  They followed Jesus for about three years but had not gained much of a following.  Jesus had been crucified and then he rose from the dead and appeared to them.  They went up to Galilee to wait for him but they probably didn’t have a good idea of what they were supposed to do.  They had been filled with terror when Jesus was put to death and then filled with joy when he rose again.  Now they were just waiting and were probably wondering what would happen next.  At least fishing was something they knew how to do!  But they caught no fish.

They had probably had bad nights on the lake before.  This wasn’t the first time they had worked all night and returned with empty nets.  The astonishing thing was that Jesus filled their nets for them!  All of their knowledgeable efforts were fruitless.  All they had to do was obey Jesus.

I’m a pastor.  I’ve been a pastor for a lot of years.  I know pasturing pretty well by now.  I’ve been in Shafter for almost 3 ½ years.  Our purpose here is to reach people with the gospel and lead them to faith in Jesus.  In other words, we’re fishers of men.  Our nets aren’t empty, but they sure aren’t as full as I would like them to be!  What to do?  Read more books on church growth?  Do more advertising?  Attend seminars on reaching postmodern America?  Work harder?  This is what I think God wants me to hear from this passage:  “I know where all the fish are.  You just keep doing what I called you to do.  Be faithful and obey and keep throwing the nets where I tell you to throw them!”

WAITING FOR THE KING

2 Samuel 19:24-30

²⁴ Mephibosheth, Saul’s grandson, also went down to meet the king. He had not taken care of his feet or trimmed his mustache or washed his clothes from the day the king left until the day he returned safely. ²⁵ When he came from Jerusalem to meet the king, the king asked him, “Why didn’t you go with me, Mephibosheth?”

²⁶ He said, “My lord the king, since I your servant am lame, I said, ‘I will have my donkey saddled and will ride on it, so I can go with the king.’ But Ziba my servant betrayed me. ²⁷ And he has slandered your servant to my lord the king. My lord the king is like an angel of God; so do whatever pleases you. ²⁸ All my grandfather’s descendants deserved nothing but death from my lord the king, but you gave your servant a place among those who eat at your table. So what right do I have to make any more appeals to the king?”

²⁹ The king said to him, “Why say more? I order you and Ziba to divide the fields.” ³⁰ Mephibosheth said to the king, “Let him take everything, now that my lord the king has arrived home safely.”

            Several chapters earlier King David was fleeing Jerusalem because his son, Absalom, was coming to the city to overthrow his father.  In 2 Samuel 15 and 16 David and his people had crossed the valley and reached the summit of the Mount of Olives.  There he was met by King Saul’s old servant, Ziba.  Ziba also served as steward for Saul’s grandson, Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan.  Mephibosheth was crippled in both feet and in honor of his friendship with Jonathan, David had treated him well even though he may have had some claim to the throne.  When David met Ziba he asked about the whereabouts of Mephibosheth.  Ziba reported that he chose to stay in Jerusalem in the hope that the men of Israel would give him back his grandfather’s throne.  Upon hearing this, David gave all of Mephibosheth’s lands to Ziba.

            When we come to chapter 19 David is at the Jordan River, preparing to cross back over to Jerusalem after Absalom had been defeated.  It is there, on the east side of the Jordan, that Mephibosheth came to David.  What a sight he must have been!  The text says he had not done anything to care for his crippled feet since David fled Jerusalem.  He had not shaved.  He hadn’t even washed his clothes!  Can you picture this scene?  He looked and smelled like a mess!  Yet he went out to meet his king.

            David must have wondered at Mephibosheth’s approach.  After all he had done for him, according to Ziba, Mephibosheth had betrayed him and made a bid for his throne!  When David inquired as to why Mephibosheth had not gone with him he discovered that it was Ziba who had lied to David.  Ziba had betrayed Mephibosheth and had enriched himself with his lies.

            But what really strikes me is the attitude of Mephibosheth.  Look at what he says in verses 27 and 28, “My lord the king is like an angel of God; so do whatever pleases you. ²⁸ All my grandfather’s descendants deserved nothing but death from my lord the king, but you gave your servant a place among those who eat at your table. So what right do I have to make any more appeals to the king?”  After David returns his lands to him Mephibosheth shows his true character, “Let him take everything, now that my lord the king has arrived home safely.”

            Mephibosheth had been devastated when his king left Jerusalem.  He grieved and mourned throughout the king’s absence.  He only longed for David to return to Jerusalem.  He was not interested in his own condition or his own comfort.  He only cared for his king and looked for his return.  He recognized David's grace and mercy.  He took the position of a servant and demanded no rights and made no appeals.  He simply rejoiced that his king had returned.

            I heard the whisper of the Spirit when I read these verses, “Do you long for the return of your King like Mephibosheth did?  Or have you become comfortable with the way things are?  Are you praying for his return or are you too busy taking care of yourself?  Are you satisfied with the world as it is or are you passionate about praying ‘thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven?’  Shouldn’t Mephibosheth be your example in looking for your King’s return?”

            Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus.

PRACTICAL ATHEISM

            I’m following up on my last post.  In James 4:13-17 he warns Christian businessmen that they are conducting their lives and their businesses as if God had no part in them.  They made their business plans as if nothing could ever happen to disrupt them.

            These professing Christian businessmen had a purpose.  It was to “carry on business and make money.”  There was no question in their minds that they would have the money and the product and the clientele to make a killing in business.  The Greek word for “make money” carries the idea of a passionate love of profit.  These men were greedy for gain.  Yet James’ point is still not the condemnation of planning to make a profit.  It was planning without a concern or interest in the will of God.  They presumed their plan was just fine with God!  They presumed God would not interfere with their moneymaking plans!  Their sin was that they carried on their business and loved their lives in such a way that God was simply left out!  This is nothing less than practical atheism!

            We discover the bottom line in verse sixteen.  James writes, “As it is, you boast and brag.  All such boasting is evil.”  These men left God out of their lives and yet they boasted about their plans as if they were self-made men!  They did not give God any credit for their success in business!  How easy it is for us to forget God when everything is going according to our plans!  Moses warned the Israelites about the danger of such sin just before they entered the land of Canaan.  “When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the LORD your God for the good land he has given you.  Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day.  You may say to yourself, ‘My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.’  But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today” (Deuteronomy 8:10, 11, 17, 18).

            We need to be careful not to sin by condemning these men without giving thought to the way we live our own lives!  Like them, we live in a society that carries on all of its daily business and activities without any awareness of God.  In our culture we live as practical atheists too!  We Christians live in constant risk of being influenced by such godlessness.  Professing Christians can get caught up in this spirit of independence from God and self-dependence and begin living without God on a day-to-day and hourly basis!  People choose churches and leave churches without thinking about what God would want.  They choose colleges or decide not to go to college all on their own.  They choose a spouse and have children without giving a moment’s consideration to what God wants them to do.  They choose jobs and buy houses and sell houses and move away according to their own desires.  They buy boats and cottages and condos and cars and motor homes and all kinds of toys without ever asking God if they should.  They do business and buy and sell stocks and change jobs for more pay without thinking whether God wants them to do these things.  People live their lives every day and never even ask God what he wants!  This is practical atheism!  It’s amazing to listen to the things people say.  “God wants me to be happy.”  “God wants me to make more money.”  “God wants me to have a healthy self-esteem.”  Where do we get this stuff?  It all comes from our culture and our presumption!

PRESUMING TOMORROW WILL COME

            I’ve been wondering if anyone noticed my failure to discipline myself enough to keep up with my blog.  It’s been four months of sloth!  Finally, a dear friend who is going through a most difficult time in her life asked me if I had quit with Window Reflections.  I guess that’s what I needed.  Time will tell if I can find enough to write about but I’m willing to give it a shot.

            I’ve been preaching through James and last week we came to James 4:13-17.  It was a very good reminder for me and the way I look at the ministry with which God has charged me.  “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’  Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.  What is your life?  You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.  Instead you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will we will live and do this or that.’”

            James is speaking to a specific group of businessmen, the group he identifies when he says, “…you who say…”  We have to recognize that the Bible never condemns business or hard work or honest initiative or even profit making.  James is not condemning businessmen in general.  He addresses the arrogant businessmen who are acting as if nothing could ever interfere with their excellent plans to go and make a lot of money!

            What these men were doing was looking into the future and making specific plans about what they were going to do with their businesses to make money.  It never even entered their minds that something might happen to prevent them from working out their plans.  I remember when I was a child I used to look forward to going on our family vacation.  It never even occurred to me that something might come up that would mess up our plans.  But these men were not children!  They should have known they were not in control of their future!  They completely disregarded God’s plans for their futures and acted as if they were in control.  This is called presumption!  They were like so many of us today.  They simply presumed that tomorrow would come and it would be just like any other day!

            These men had laid out their plans.  They had identified a target area in which to do business and they had determined that they could succeed and make enough money in a year.  Can you identify with this kind of life planning?  I certainly can!  I was like so many other young people who laid out their “life plans.”  Mine looked like this:  go to college and grad school, meet and marry a wife, go to the mission field in South America, become a famous Bible translator, and come back to the States and humbly travel around speaking about my experiences.  We can almost picture these men studying maps with the latest population information and demographics.  We can see them pinpointing the perfect location to set up shop.  And we can hear them finally coming to the conclusion that this can all be done in a year!  James does not condemn their planning.  He condemns their presumption!  He condemns them for acting as if their plans carried the ultimate authority and could not be upset!  James wants his readers to remember they cannot count on tomorrow!  They don’t know if they will be alive tomorrow.  They don’t know if their house will be standing tomorrow!  They don’t even know that their city will be there tomorrow.  What if they had planned to go to Italy, to a city called Pompeii?  When the people of Pompeii went to sleep the night before the volcano’s eruption they had no idea it would be their last night on earth!  Or in our own day, what about those poor folks in Sendai, Japan who were shaken by an earthquake in the afternoon and then struck by a devastating tsunami fifteen minutes later?  When they woke up that morning they had all kinds of plans for their lives!  Before dinner time that day their city was gone!  It appears the businessmen to whom James was writing never took into account the possibility of natural disasters, sickness, or death!  It is this pride and presumption James condemned!

CHOOSING GOD'S WAY

Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant, cutting off his right ear.  (The servant’s name was Malchus.)  Jesus commanded Peter, “Put your sword away!  Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?”  John 18:10, 11

Peter meant well.  He had told Jesus in the upper room that he was willing to die for him.  This seemed to him to be the moment.  Jesus and the disciples were confronted by a “detachment of soldiers and some officials…They were carrying torches, lanterns and weapons” (John 18:3).  Who knows what Peter was thinking?  Did he think he could kill all the soldiers with his sword?  Was he just buying time in the hope that Jesus could escape?  Or was he laying down his life for Jesus?  He thought he was doing the right thing and he must have been stung when Jesus told him to put his sword away!

And the way Jesus said it must have hurt too!  “Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?”  It sounds like, “Peter!  Do you want me to go against the Father’s will for me?”  Jesus was completely aware of what was happening and that it was God’s plan.  Peter was not as well informed.  How did Jesus know beyond doubt that God’s will was being done?  Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father (John 13:1).  Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God (John 13:3).  Father, the time has come.  Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you (John 17:1).  We cannot forget that Jesus had just finished struggling in prayer in Gethsemane.  And last but not least, when the people who had come to arrest him in the garden said they were looking for Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus knocked them all to the ground with the words, I am he (John 18:6).  Jesus walked so closely with the Father that he knew his plan and he embraced it.  Even though Peter meant well, he did not have that same insight into God’s plan!

This reminds me so much of how my late wife, Roz, used to speak to some people.  She battled recurring brain tumors for nearly twenty years.  She had many surgeries and progressively lost more and more of what doctors call “quality of life.”  Roz spent a lot of time reading her Bible and praying.  In the last several years of her life she came to understand that it was not God’s will to heal her and give her health back to her.  As she spent time with God she understood that what really mattered was the process he was taking her through.  The important thing was how she walked with him through the entire experience.  There were many people who meant well.  Frequently people would come up to her to tell her they were praying for her.  Roz always expressed appreciation for their prayers.  But there were always some people who would say something like, “I’m claiming healing for you!  I’m rebuking Satan and his demons so you will be healed!”  Roz spoke to them like Jesus spoke to Peter.  She would say something like, “Oh no!  Don’t do that!  God is working in a special way in my life!  I want to walk in the way he has prepared for me!”

Jesus’ words to Peter always remind me how important it is for us to be in close relationship to God.  How important it is for us to spend time listening and waiting on God so we might have insight into what he is doing!  Perhaps then we might not fight so much against the special things he brings into our lives!



Simon of Cyrene



One of the most interesting characters in the account of the crucifixion is Simon of Cyrene.  Cyrene was in North Africa, in what is modern day Libya.  It was over eight hundred miles from Jerusalem.  Simon had come to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage to celebrate Passover.  Perhaps he had worked very hard to save up the money he needed to make this journey.  It might have been a once-in-a-lifetime trip for him.  It could have been the highlight of his life to travel to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover with his Jewish brethren.  Mark says Simon was just coming into the city from the country.  It was very likely that he had never heard of Jesus and didn’t know what was going on in Jerusalem that morning.  Perhaps he had no interest in Jesus whatsoever!  He was just passing by.  Yet, as he tried to make his way through the crowd a Roman soldier seized him and shouted at him over the din of the people, “You there!  This man can carry his cross no farther!  You carry it for him!”

            Try to picture this situation!  Simon had been traveling in a dusty caravan for weeks.  He had probably stayed overnight in an inn not very far from Jerusalem.  When he got up that day he washed himself and probably put on his best clothes, maybe even new clothes, so he would look his best when he arrived at the temple later that morning.  He was so excited to see the great city and to lay his eyes on the magnificent temple!  The noise was confusing.  He didn’t hear happy, celebrating voices.  Instead he heard angry shouting and mocking and he saw a procession of condemned men approaching his position.  Suddenly he felt himself being jerked out of the crowd by a Roman soldier.  He saw a bloodied and beaten man struggling with a cross.  Two soldiers lifted the cross from the man and laid it upon Simon’s own shoulders and before he knew it, Simon was trudging with the cross toward the place of execution.  I doubt he knew at that moment that his name would go down in history and people would still be talking about him two thousand years later!

            Jesus had said, “Anyone who wants to follow me must deny himself and take up his cross” (Luke 9:23).  All of Jesus’ disciples had enthusiastically vowed that they were able to drink from the same cup as Jesus.  They had promised to stay with him even if it meant death.  But where were they now?  They had all disappeared!  Not one of them was nearby to help Jesus.  There was no friend in the crowd to carry the cross so a stranger was drafted to do it!  Jesus calls on his followers to be cross bearers.  When it comes to carrying the cross of Jesus we must be more like Simon than the disciples! 

GOD'S VIEW OF OUR SIN



2 Samuel 12  David and Nathan

2 Samuel 11 gives us the story of David’s adultery with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, one of David’s soldiers who was away fighting with the army at the time.  When Bathsheba turned up pregnant, David sent to the army to have Uriah brought home so the adultery might be covered up.  To David’s chagrin, Uriah was a loyal soldier who would not consider enjoying the privileges of home while his comrades were in battle.  Uriah would not sleep with his wife so David’s sin would eventually be discovered.  Desperate, David arranged to have Uriah betrayed on the battlefield and Uriah was killed.  David took quickly took Bathsheba as his wife and surely David thought he had gotten away with his treachery.

In 2 Samuel 12 David is confronted by Nathan the prophet who points the finger at the king and reveals his sin.  The conversation that goes on between the prophet and the king is powerful and emotional.  But the thing that strikes me is the strong emphasis that is put on the fact that in killing Uriah and taking Bathsheba for himself David had sinned against God!  Undoubtedly he sinned against both Uriah and Bathsheba but when you read the chapter you see that the clear emphasis is place on his sin against God.  Notice these passages:

12:9  “Why did you despise the word of the LORD by doing what is evil in his eyes?”

12:10  The Lord says, “Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me…”

12:13  David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.”

12:14  Nathan says to David, “By doing this you have made the enemies of the LORD show utter contempt.”

David had seduced Bathsheba into committing adultery.  He had destroyed her marriage to Uriah.  He plotted against Uriah and finally had him killed.  But the thing that stands out above these other things is that David disobeyed God’s word!

This is extremely personal between David and God!  It’s not just that David broke the rules.  He considered the word of God to be insignificant!  He caused God to appear insignificant in the eyes of his enemies who hated him.

What a weak view of sin we have in our American Christian culture!  We really do act as if sin is merely the breaking of rules or the failure to be good.  We see sin as something that is all about us.  Our failure.  Our shame.  Our disobedience.  But sin is so much more than that.  Sin is a personal affront to God and a disregard of his word and his holiness!  As we see things, focus is laid almost solely on the person we hurt when we sin.  God and his word are just left out of it!  It should be just the other way around.  Yes, apologies are necessary when we’ve hurt others with our sin but God is the one we have infinitely offended!

Perhaps if we looked at our sin in this light we might be less likely to treat it so lightly!