04-10-16 – John 21:1-14

Turning Point Wesleyan Church

Pastor Dan

John 21:1-14 (NLT)

“Later, Jesus appeared again to the disciples beside the Sea of Galilee. This is how it happened. Several of the disciples were there—Simon Peter, Thomas (nicknamed the Twin), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee (James and John), and two other disciples.

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.

At dawn Jesus was standing on the beach, but the disciples couldn’t see who he was. He called out, “Fellows, have you caught any fish?”

“No,” they replied.

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.

Then the disciple Jesus loved (which is John) 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. The others stayed with the boat and pulled the loaded net to the shore, for they were only about a hundred yards from shore.

When they got there, they found breakfast waiting for them—fish cooking over a charcoal fire, and some bread.

“Bring some of the fish you’ve just caught,” Jesus said. So Simon Peter went aboard and dragged the net to the shore. There were 153 large fish, and yet the net hadn’t torn.

“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. Then Jesus served them the bread and the fish. This was the third time Jesus had appeared to his disciples since he had been raised from the dead.”

I used to be the Postmaster in Herington. All though Herington is a rather small office, having 12 employees to lead and manage, I have also had the opportunities to lead some larger offices such as Abilene, McPherson, Newton and Dodge City.   

One day, I was in a meeting with my boss and other postmasters when I said to him, "You know, it doesn’t matter where you work, there is one thing that I have discovered that is a constant about being a leader? 50% of the work in leading people is repeating the instructions or directions."

My boss kind of straightened up and then said to me, “What did you say?"

I repeated, "50% of the work in leading others is repeating directions."

The laughter of my fellow postmasters helped me catch onto the joke, and then I laughed with them.

Just by bringing this idea or conclusion to your mind, I believe everyone would have to agree that instructions, directions, or orders, which are given, have to be repeated multiple times before they sink in far enough for them to be carried out to their fullest meaning.

Have you ever experience anything different? It seems that even on the simplest tasks, “taking the trash out after supper”, needs or requires a second or more reminder.

I am not sure why but it just seems to always work that way.

It is as if our mind only hears every 3^rd or 4^th word and we assume we know what the rest of the instructions were.
But as humans, even when we are in charge of others, and maybe even more important to all when we are in charge of others, we must also understand that telling others what to do or how to do things or what not to do, those type of instructions are not the ONLY message we or they need to hear!

In order to survive, and do well and not only to do the job but to actually thrive in doing it very well, we all need to hear some very important and supported words.

And these words can be delivered in a variety of ways.

·        “You matter to me.”

·        “I value you and your work.”

·        “You are important to me.”

·        “You are doing a great Job.”

·        And of course, to the right person and in the right setting, some version of “I love you” is also required.

And we need to hear and feel those type of words and their meanings more often than just once a year, month, or week or so.

For some of us, who have weathered the hurts of living through a broken relationship, being wronged, when we again feel feelings of becoming intimate and having feelings grow back up in us can be very difficult to handle. Expressing and saying the words "I love you” after a hurtful relationship can be very difficult. Especially during the first time of feeling those type of feelings or saying those words again. It can be very frightening to deal with.

And talking about living through a broken loving relationship, what do most people do to cope with the emotions which come with or even from that?

Most of us pull back, withdraw from and do something that is comfortable and known to us.

·        We may dress in our old sweats and soft slippers and lay on the couch.

·        Many of us break out the comfort food, bag of chips, ice cream, and a bag of cookies.

·        We sit in our comfortable chair, cover ourselves with our favorite pillows and blankets.

·        We turn on TV and watch a movie, or listen to music or read a book or just stare outside the window.

What do you do when your life seems to fall apart?

And what did the disciples do when their lives seem to no longer make sense?

·        Jesus was arrested.

·        Jesus is crucified.

·        Jesus rose from the dead

·        We see Him once in a while but He is now away most of the time.

·        We are now alone.

·        What do we do –

·        What should we do now?

We read that they went fishing.

What was their objective of going out fishing that night?

The answer to that is simple.

·        Most of the disciples were originally fishermen.

·        That was their occupation,

·        Their job,

·        Their way of life before Jesus called them to follow him.

·        They understood fishing.

Let's look back at a similar story within the Book of Luke, Chapter Five and beginning in verse 1.

Jesus is preaching and teaching by a lake when He joins a group of fishermen in their boats. After a disappointing night of fishing, the men were heading back to shore. But Jesus challenged them to head into deeper water and try again.

They obeyed, and caught so many fish that their nets burst. These simple fishermen became Jesus' first disciples.

Over the next three years, these fishermen saw Jesus:

·        Preaching,    

·        Teaching,

·        Perform miracles,

·        And they watched Jesus turn the established order of life upside down and almost totally inside out.

Imagine their sorrow when, at the height of Jesus’ ministry, that Jesus was arrested and then crucified.

What are they going to do now?

Then, just as they were giving into their fear and confusion, Jesus appears to them, undeniably alive and full of power, and announces that he has conquered death!

So, after this amazing turn of events, why are the disciples out fishing once again?

WHEN OUR WORLD-VIEW HAS BEEN TURNED UPSIDE-DOWN, OUR FIRST REACTION IS TO RETREAT INTO OUR COMFORT ZONE.

It is not unusual under such circumstances to want to return to the familiar grounds.

Maybe the disciples needed time to clear their heads.

·        The soothing rocking of the boat,

·        The sparkles of the sea water,

·        The rough feel of the nets in their hands

·        --these things were comforting to Simon Peter as well as to the other fishermen.

And they needed this time in their comfort zone to sort out their thoughts and their emotions.

·        But how tempting is it to stay in that comfort zone.

·        To stay in that boat?

·        To stay on that couch?

·        To leave the shades pulled down and to be alone?

·        To shut out the world and our responsibilities?

The most tiring exercise which we can try to do within the world is carrying our yesterdays around on your backs.

That is exactly what the disciples were struggling with: carrying their yesterdays around with them on their backs.

·        Each one had their own doubts of Jesus and of His Words.

·        Each one had given up hope after Christ's crucifixion.

·        And Simon Peter had to deal with the biggest burden of all: His Guilt - he denied Jesus three times when Jesus needed his support the most.

So he and his friends had retreated to their comfort zone.

But Jesus was not going to allow them to stay out there for long.

BECAUSE JESUS' CALL TO US

IS ALWAYS A CALL FOR US

TO LEAVE OUR COMFORT ZONE.

That is the second thing which we need to gather from these passages.

Jesus always calls us from our comfort zone to a life with Him.

It's like those inspirational sayings which we find all over the place. Sayings like:

·        “No Pain, No Gain”.

·        And “When the going gets tough, the tough get going”.

·        “The beatings will continue until morale improves”.

·        “Hang in there, retirement is only 30 Years away!”

·        “When the going gets tough, the tough take a coffee break.”

·        And “Aim Low, Reach Your Goals, and Avoid All Disappointment”. 

Many people live their lives according to that last slogan: "Aim Low - Reach Your Goals – And Avoid All Disappointment."

But when Jesus calls us, it is to:

·        Head out into deep waters.

·        To get out of our comfort zone.

·        To let down our nets on the other side of the boat. Like we have never done or even thought of doing that before.

·        And To trust that He is leading us into something greater than the life we used to know.

It is so easy to get caught up in trivial understandings of scripture and miss the Big Point.

·        Take a look at John 21:11: "Simon Peter climbed aboard and dragged the net ashore. It was full of fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn."

·        Now why did God put in His Bible that there were 153 fish?

·        Have you ever wondered about that? No? Maybe yes?

·        Cyril of Alexandria in the 5th century said that the 100 represented the fullness of the gentiles, the 50 symbolized the remnant of Israel and the three of course was there for the Trinity.

·        Augustine's theory (also from the 5th century) was a little more complicated. He said, there are 10 commandments and 7 is the perfect number of grace and that's 17 right? Now if you add all the numbers from 1 to 17 together, you know 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 all the way up to 17 you'll get 153. And not only that but if you were to arrange them with 17 fish in the first row, and 16 in the next row, and 15 in the next row, all the way down to a row of 1 you get a perfect triangle which of course symbolizes the Trinity.

·        Jerome, (he also lived in the 5th century), suggested that there were 153 different types of fish in the sea and it was symbolic of the church reaching all the people in the world.

·        Who knows?

·        But what if. And here is a crazy thought. What if God put in His Bible that there were 153 fish in the net because there were simply 153 fish in the net?  

·        Or maybe, this is something for Christ to know now and for Him to point it out later as He did with so many scriptures from the Old Testament which pointed out who He was.

·        You see, sometimes we can get so caught up in the really trivial stuff. Stuff that really truly doesn’t help your or someone else’s conversion and we miss out on the point that God was making which was, “That we need to be obedient and submissive to Christ, Today.”

Here is a Golden Statement:

You don't achieve anything significant in life without leaving your comfort zone, without stretching toward Godly goals, without giving it your all.

THIS IS SAYING THAT AFTER AN ENCOUNTER WITH CHRIST, After you have accepted Him as your Lord and Savior, YOU CAN NOT JUST GO BACK TO YOUR OLD WAY OF LIFE.

That's why so many of us here are Not finding Joy, the Lord’s Joy, True Joy, True Happiness within our walk with Christ.

Did you hear that?

That's why so many of us here are Not finding True Joy, True Happiness and True and Total Peace.

We are trying to live the same way of life we lived before we became conscious, aware, and mindful of his work in our lives. And it can't be done.

When you give your heart to Christ, He calls you to seek out new ways in which to live out Christ's message.

We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned on living before, so we can have the life that is waiting for us.

It will be the same for us just as it was for Jesus' disciples, it will take some time to learn this lesson.

And now, we also have to learn another lesson as well.

There is the life which we have designed or plotted out for ourselves, and then there is the life that Jesus is calling us to.

And it is so important to note that:

·        As the disciples drift along on the sea

·        Drifting in the dark at night,

·        Catching nothing,

·        Really expecting nothing,

·        It was at this moment when Jesus appears to them again.

This is the disciples' Golden Hour, even if they did not realize it.

This is the hour when God’s Plan and their Free Will joined together and it changed their lives forever.

This was the time, the hour when everything would begin to fall into place for the disciples.

·        Jesus appears to them

·        And He challenges them to do as they normally would not do,

·        He challenges them to throw their nets on the other side of the boat—

·        And the harvest of fish which awaits them is beyond their wildest dreams.

Throughout the Bible there is one theme which you can always count upon and that is ‘God’s Blessings follow our obedience to Him’.

·        First is our Obedience and Submission

·        Then comes God’s Blessings

The disciples obeyed without hesitation, and suddenly they catch a more than boatload of fish.

WITHIN THIS MOMENT, JESUS WAS ‘RE-CALLING’ HIS DISCIPLES.

He was re-commissioning them to go out with renewed commitment and to spread the good news to all.

It is decision time for these rugged fishermen.

In 1Kings 19:11-13, we see Elijah finding out how God talks to us.

“So He (meaning God) said, "Go forth and stand on the mountain before the LORD." And behold, the LORD was passing by!

·        And a great and strong wind was rending the mountains and breaking in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind.

·        And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake.

·        After the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire;

·        And after the fire a sound of a gentle blowing. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. And behold, a voice came to him and said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?”

Our Real Life with God is not like the Hollywood movies. Music just doesn’t magically start when there is a fight scene or a love scene or a time when a decision needs to be made.

Our destiny with God is made in the silent times through Faith.

And that is where the disciples are.

They are on the edge of returning to their old ways of life. Fishing for a way of life and that is when God calls them into a time which they need to make a decision.

·        Will they return to fishing?

·        Or will they commit themselves to be "fishers of men?"

And by how the disciples respond, they have made their decision.

·        They are full of Joy.

·        They don’t even question Christ but they Obey.

·        They begin to row toward shore to great Jesus.

·        Simon Peter doesn't even wait for the boat; he jumps into the water and swims to meet Christ.

This is it!

From this time forward, there would be no turning back for these disciples.

No longer would they be fishermen--but now they would be fishers of men.

OK, we have now looked at this Bible passage from the perspective of the disciples.

·        So let us look at it from the prospective of the fish. Because that's who we are. That's right, we are the fish.

·        The nets represent the unity of the disciples and of God’s Church.

·        And the fish represent all the souls who will be brought to salvation by the witness of the disciples.

·        And this includes you and me.

·        Think about it some. If these disciples had stayed in their comfort zone, you and I would never have heard of the Gospel.

·        We are their harvest, their catch, their reward for leaving their boats, leaving what they knew, stepping out into faith and to teach and preach and lead others to Christ.

·        Are you satisfied to stay in your comfort zone? By being in your comfort zone, who do you minister to? Only yourself.

·        But there is a more satisfying life awaiting you if you are willing to seek something greater.

·        To be his disciple, to be his follower, to seek to turn the world right-side-up to his glory.

·        “And after the fire a sound of a gentle blowing. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. And behold, a voice came to him and said, "What are you doing here?”

God is re-commissioning you to go out with renewed commitment and to spread the Good News to all.

·        It is your decision time.

·        What is your answer to God?