Fishers of Men Revisited

[00:00:00] Well, good to see everyone again tonight. Let's take our Bible and go back to Matthew, chapter four, if you would. [00:00:08] We want to look at Matthew chapter four, and I want to just look at one verse. And we covered it this morning. [00:00:18] Let's read verses 18 and 19, but we'll just pause in verse number 19. The Bible says in Matthew 418, and Jesus walking by the sea of Galilee saw two men, Simon called Peter and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishers. And he saith unto them, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. [00:00:41] Now, of course, we covered the idea of following the Lord and the Lord's call to follow him this morning. [00:00:48] And just as a lesson, I keep a record of all the messages that I preach. I've been doing that pretty much since we came back from Cambodia, and I find it helpful. So I don't repeat myself because I'm terribly forgetful to begin with. And I will forget what I preach. Because just like when you're reading your Bible and you come across something and it's almost like you forget that you read it and you have read it, and you forget you read it, and it's, like, new to you, that's kind of the way it is with a text of scripture. [00:01:22] So, as it turns out, after I had prepared this whole message and written out mostly notes from scratch, and I was done, I printed it right here. I printed it. And then I looked back at my record and I saw that I had preached a message on the same topic on March 31, 2024. [00:01:46] Seven months ago. [00:01:49] No. And this. And this is the point I'm making. This is the point I'm making, is that some of the material overlaps because you are dealing with the same scripture. But it is actually, some of it is actually original. Like, at least original to me. And so I guess the lesson I learned from that, besides the fact of being a little embarrassed that we had just covered this topic in the march, but just the. The knowledge that you can go at a scripture and you can come back to it later and look at the same scripture, and the Lord will show you different things, new things, things to teach you. And so this is living proof of that. I hope it's a help to you. It was a help to me. So we want to look at fissures of men, because that's obviously the context of this and the main theme here in verse number 19. So let's pray, and then we'll look at a few, a few aspects of this in verse 19. Our father, thank you for the chance to meet together once again. Thank you for your people being here and those listening in. Thank you for the work of the Lord Jesus Christ in us. Thank you that you are good to us, you sustain us and that you keep us. And, lord, we just, we do not understand the operation of your hands in our lives. But we know that you are working in us, Lord, because you said, he that hath begun a good work in you will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ. And so we, we are glad of that because we know not what to do with ourselves and we know that we need you to work in us. So, Lord, help your people tonight. Please help us to see these things clearly and to consider them and respond to them in Jesus name. Amen. [00:03:30] So you see in verse number 19 that Jesus said unto his disciples, he saith unto them, well, these are the new disciples, of course. He said, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. Now this is in the New Testament. [00:03:46] The fish is the fish. The sea of Galilee. You know, we saw this morning about Galilee, right? Naphtali and Zebulun. And the prophecy in Isaiah nine related to that section of. So there's a whole prophetic theme related to the sea of Galilee, related to water, related to ships, related to, of course, fish. You think of the feeding of the 5000 had five loaves and two fishes, right? [00:04:18] And even after the Lord's resurrection, you find Simon Peter and the others. He said, I go a fishing and they go fishing. And, you know, there's all kinds of illustrations Jesus taught from a boat, a fishing boat on the sea of Galilee. And they just go on and on. Even the greek letters for the word fish historically became an acronym for which essentially means Jesus Christ, the son of God. I'm not going to show that to you. But the greek words for fish were used historically, not in scripture, but historically to refer to who Jesus was. So there is a direct connection with fishing and water and things like that in the New Testament with the Lord Jesus. And that is not by accident. It's actually, it's prophetic. It's prophetic as we saw this morning. [00:05:09] And so it's no wonder then that the Lord uses this analogy to refer to what he will do in us and in his disciples when his disciples respond to the call that he gives to them to follow him. [00:05:30] But I want you to notice something to begin, which is in verse number 19, he says, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. So I raise the question to you. You know, Peter and John or Peter and James. I'm sorry. I'll get it right. [00:05:44] Peter and Andrew. Peter and Andrew. [00:05:48] Prior to this call, the question I want to pose to you is this, knowing what Jesus said in verse 19, were Peter and Andrew Fishers of men before jesus called them? [00:06:03] No, they were fishers of fish, but they were not fishers of men. Fishing for men was something foreign to them. [00:06:11] And as I was thinking, meditating on this passage and what this says, I thought about the past. [00:06:18] The disciples, all the disciples, all disciples of Christ who answer the call to fish, to follow Jesus, and therefore fish for men. [00:06:29] All of us are by nature people who are not fishers of men. [00:06:38] That's where these disciples were prior to this call. [00:06:42] To be a person who is not a fisher of men is a person who is unconcerned, mostly unconcerned, with those around them. And that's. Listen, that is natural, is it not? It is natural. What is natural in humanity. And this is not bad, necessarily, but it is a natural part of human nature to be concerned with myself first. Naturally. That's what we're concerned with first. And then. And then we're also concerned with those in our immediate circle. But outside of that, as we might say, all the other fish in the sea. [00:07:22] To not have great concern. [00:07:24] To not have great concern. [00:07:27] I would dare argue that the concern that we have seen for the people in western North Carolina is actually kind of a downstream byproduct of Christianity and the influence of the truths of scripture that tell us there should be a concern for people that are suffering. Right? That is a. Listen, that is a christian thing. And when you live in a nation where there is not a christian influence, you would be surprised how cold and calloused people can be toward the well being of others. So it is natural, just like these men. Jesus said, I will make you fishers of men before this point. They were not. [00:08:11] They had, of course, concern for themselves and were not. And this is specifically, of course, in verse 19, is speaking not of normal concern in human matters. But this is concern over spiritual matters. We understand that. Right? The emphasis here is on spiritual things. Fishing for men is a spiritual matter. [00:08:30] I mean, how many of us, before we knew Jesus were concerned at all for anyone's spiritual condition? The answer is nobody. We weren't even all that concerned with our own spiritual condition. [00:08:44] Right? [00:08:45] You know what? Even as a believer, it is perfectly natural and normal for you and for me to automatically revert back to being concerned only with me and mine. [00:09:02] I have that tendency. And you have that tendency because that's our default. That's our nature. [00:09:09] That's our nature. [00:09:11] Look, if you would take a peek at Luke chapter nine, I want to show you this. [00:09:17] Luke nine. [00:09:21] If you were in Sunday school, you'll remember this in my class. Of course, you young people like Matthias and Sabrina won't remember this because you weren't here. And Seth and Robert, Luke 951. The Bible says this, and it came to pass when the time was come that he should be received up. He steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem and sent messengers before his face. And they came and entered into a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him. And they did not receive him because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem. And when his disciples, James and John, saw this, they said, lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, even as Elias did. [00:10:07] Were James and John concerned with the spiritual well being of these Samaritan rejectors? No. [00:10:16] And they were following Jesus. I'll just say this. Probably the work that Jesus is doing was not yet quite complete in James and John. Right? Just like it's not complete in us. [00:10:29] They were not concerned, most positively not concerned. They just with the spiritual well being of these people. If the Lord had allowed them to do this, those people would have all perished. And Jesus says, the son of man has not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. Is Jesus concerned with their spiritual well being? Of course. That's why he says that they just thought, well, they didn't want you destroy them. [00:11:00] It's like man. [00:11:02] But you know what? [00:11:04] That's natural. [00:11:07] That's natural. [00:11:10] And here's the thing. [00:11:16] As a believer, number one, and as someone who has said, yes, I will follow you, Lord, like we talked about this morning, if you take your hands off the wheel and you just kind of let go, you and I, we will revert back to this tendency of not being concerned with the spiritual well being of others. [00:11:42] It's just the way we are. [00:11:45] So if we're going to be concerned with whether someone's going to heaven or hell, whether they know God or not, we are going to have to take some intentional action to put that before our minds, right? Because naturally we won't. [00:12:07] And I'm sure, listen, as a believer, you care. It is, I would say, even natural for us to think about, you know, as soon as we get saved, as soon as we trust in Jesus, we think immediately of the people closest to us because they're closest to us, but outside of that, the broader sea of fish, that's just not the way we are. I mean, would you. Can I just get an amen? We are generally self centered people. I'm not talking about you more than another. I'm just talking about all of us. This is our natural tendency. That's why the Lord constantly reminds us of our. [00:12:44] That we need to, you know, serve others and care for others and pray for others and that kind of thing, because we naturally are not that way. So let me ask you a question. [00:12:54] Do. [00:12:55] Do you have a concern not just for the physical well being of others, but do you have a genuine concern for the spiritual well being of others? [00:13:12] Is that a concern that you have? We should have it, right? We should have it because, remember, we don't have any other information. We do know this. Our Lord is concerned with whether they're on the road that goes to heaven or whether they're on the road that goes to hell. He cares. Whether they know God and are in his fold or whether they're outside of the fold, he cares. He does care. And if for no other reason, we should care. [00:13:41] But if we are going to care, we're going to have to intentionally consider our Lord and his mission. [00:13:49] Second thing I want you to see back in Matthew four, he says, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. Notice that our Lord can make us fishers of men, because our Lord is first himself a fisher of men. [00:14:15] So when the Lord says, I will make you fishers of men, what he is actually doing, he is imparting to us part of himself, right. His own care and concern for those who are lost. Luke 1910. For the son of man has come. What does it say? You can finish it. To seek and to save that which is lost. That is his mission, right? His mission. The Lord Jesus, his mission was to care for, for those who are spiritually dead, for those who are wayward, wandering in sin, away from God, who do not know God and really do not want God. That was his mission. And of course, that mission was fulfilled in the most obvious and in the most important way. When he went to the cross, that was the ultimate expression, right? Of his care for the spiritual well being of mankind, and therefore of us, and of every man, woman, boy and girl in the world. For he tasted death for every man. [00:15:24] So when Jesus, knowing that this is Christ's primary mission, look back at the verse 19, if you would, when he says, follow me. We looked at that this morning, and there's a lot that goes into that. Follow me. And there are many, many more things that I could have said this morning, of course. [00:15:39] But the thing that actually, the thing that is most focused upon in this passage and in verse 19, in following Jesus is what it is Christ's primary mission as it relates to the world. He says, follow me, and by following him, we do as he does, which is we fish for men. [00:16:04] That's what the verse says. So I can say this, and we can draw this truth out of this passage, which is this? [00:16:13] To be a follower of Jesus Christ is to be a fisher of men. [00:16:22] It is not possible to say yes to that call. To follow Christ. [00:16:30] It is not possible to say yes and still remain unconcerned with the spiritual well being of others. [00:16:37] Those two things are incompatible. For to follow Christ is to become a Fisher of men. Now, of course, this is a. I would say this is a process, as we saw, proof positive already, right? This is a process for us. But listen, if the Lord is working in us, and he is, we'll see that in a minute. If he's working in us, that means we're. We're growing closer and closer and closer to this thing because he's working in us. [00:17:08] And this is just one more way that God, as Romans says, he conforms us to the image of his son. This is one more aspect of that conformity to the image of the Son of God, to be patterned in his image. As we become more like Christ in our growth, he will make us more and more concerned with the spiritual well being of others. This is why. Listen. This is why, when the Lord calls someone to go to the mission field and that. Listen, being a fisher of men is not just the mission field. That's one part of it, right? [00:17:49] But you can see when the Lord calls someone to go the mission field, listen, that is directly connected to their spiritual growth and is directly connected to their own being, made more like Christ. Because the Lord is imparting this concern for the lost, those that do not know God, he is imparting that part of him to them. [00:18:14] He is making them a fisher of men. And so at some point, you know, for some, not everyone, but for some, the Lord knocks on their door and says, okay, I got something. I got something specific that I have for you to do in a different place. [00:18:31] And the reason they say yes is because of that work of God in their life, to make them a fisher of men. [00:18:41] So it's not possible. [00:18:45] It's not possible to follow Christ without this being the result. [00:18:50] And listen, if we're following, this is a test for us. It's a test for you and a test for me. If I'm walking with God as I draw near to the Lord and as I follow the steps of Christ like we saw this morning. So my concern for the lost and those that do not know God, who are perishing, will increase with that. [00:19:12] They go together. [00:19:15] Third thing I want you to see is this back in. We're just looking at verse 19 tonight, so you don't have to turn very far. [00:19:23] The work of Jesus in us makes us fishers of men. Notice he says, I will make you fishers of men. And I know I emphasize this a lot here in church, but so much of the christian experience, if you want to call it that, is not us striving and trying and sweating and toiling. [00:19:45] So much of it is God working in us. [00:19:50] The Lord's doing it. And that's what, in this case, you know, you might look. You might look at yourself. I might look at myself and say. And feel a sense of lack, right? Like, I don't. If we're honest, we might look at ourselves and we might say, you know, I just don't care about people's spiritual welfare all that much. Definitely not. Not as I should. We can think that, right? And if that's true, we ought to be bothered and burdened by that. But even the very burden of that, that it's lacking is an evidence that God is working in you. But here's the thing. We can take that lack and we can say, Lord, I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm broken in this. In this matter. I'm broken in this area. And we can take it to the Lord. And the Lord will say, I will make you fishers of men. I am going to work in you. But the first step is for us to come to God and say, lord, I'm deficient. [00:20:46] I'm deficient. I don't know why, but I am not all that concerned with those who do not know God. [00:20:53] I'm deficient. [00:20:55] But we can rest in the fact that the work of Jesus, not our own work, is what makes us fishers of men. We can rest in the fact that he is doing it in us. And that Jesus makes us fishers of men, not ourselves. [00:21:13] So his work in us is what makes us both care for and excuse me and seek after people who do not know God. [00:21:26] It is a natural product of God's work in us. [00:21:33] So in that way, it's a gauge of our spiritual condition as a believer now, as a disciple of Christ. [00:21:42] You know, when we, and I know all of us have gone through ups and downs, right, in our spiritual walk, gone through times, maybe there's times when we've backslidden. And by that we mean just, you know, haven't been following the Lord like we should and got into some sin or been wayward and come back to the Lord. So it kind of waxes and wanes like that. [00:22:04] But listen, there are a few marks that become obvious very quickly when we are slipping in our walk with God, right? There's a few marks. [00:22:19] Probably one of the first marks, personally, is when our private prayer life starts to go away, because that's personal, that's private. Nobody sees it. There's no accountability to speak up for that. That's usually one of the first personal indications that we're slipping. [00:22:38] And then the Bible reading starts to go away. In other words, the private disciplines, right. [00:22:43] Start to start to fade. [00:22:46] And then eventually, eventually it starts to affect our public life. That is how we interact with others. And often it'll show by, whereas before we were faithful and excited to be among God's people at church, that starts to slip and we start to become absent for no reason at all, no good reason at all. That's a mark that we're spiritually slipping. But let me tell you one other mark, probably, I would say the very first thing when we start to slip is our concern for those who do not know God evaporates almost immediately, because that's directly part of our discipleship, our following of the Lord. [00:23:39] Look at one Thessalonians real quick, if you would. [00:23:47] First Thessalonians, chapter one. [00:23:53] I want to show you this because interesting happened to come across this just kind of by chance. [00:24:04] First Thessalonians, chapter one, verse two. [00:24:15] Paul is writing to the thessalonian church. He says this, we give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor, of love and patience, of hope, in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our father knowing. Brethren, beloved, your election of God for our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Ghost and in much assurance as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sakes. And notice this. Ye became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction with joy of the Holy Ghost. Notice that Jesus said, follow me. Notice they're followers of Paul and followers of who? [00:25:00] The Lord. So you could say they said yes, right? You could say that they said yes to the Lord's call to follow him. Now look what happens. [00:25:10] So that now, as a direct result of them following the Lord. That's what the words so that mean. So that ye were ensamples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. Well, that's great. They're an example. What way do they set an example to other believers in other places? [00:25:28] For from you sounded out the word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to godward is spread abroad. So that we need not to speak anything. Notice that they became followers of the Lord. And listen now, in the context of the verse, following the grammar of the, of the verse. The result of that was the fact that they sounded out the word of the Lord. They became fishers of men. They all of a sudden were concerned with the spiritual welfare of others, whereas before they weren't. And as a result of that concern, they began to tell other people about Jesus. [00:26:14] See, directly connect. And this is a New Testament church. [00:26:18] Now, if you would go back to Matthew five, and we'll wrap it up here. [00:26:26] I'm sorry, Matthew four. I said five. [00:26:36] In these four or five verses here, how many people do you see that are called. [00:26:46] How many people do you see that are called in verse 18, who is called Peter and Andrew. All right. And then you go a few verses down, who's called? [00:26:56] James and John. [00:27:04] That's right. [00:27:05] Now, that's interesting, because we've seen the principle. [00:27:10] Well, I can just come down here. We've seen the principle that when the Lord to be, to answer the call, to follow the Lord, to be a follower of Jesus is to be a fisher of men, because he makes you that. So every one of his disciples. And what we didn't have time to cover this morning, but over and over, over and over, Matthew and various, Nathaniel, various other disciples, Jesus always says the same thing, follow me, follow me, follow me, follow me. And for everyone that Jesus said, follow me, he was going to make that person, someone who was concerned with those that do not know God, he was going to do that because that's what he does now. [00:27:53] So here's what I can say. This is that not only is the Lord making, if you say, yes, Lord, I will follow you, not only is the Lord making you a fisher of men, but every other of his disciples, he's doing the same thing. [00:28:12] So now, whereas before you had a single fisherman. [00:28:17] Now, you have a group of them. So he is making us together, we say, as our church, right? Fishers of men, corporately together. [00:28:30] Now, in scripture, there are basically three kinds of fishing. When you think of fishing, you think of, you know, rod and reel. How many of you like to fish? A couple people Sam knows. Sam does. You like to fish, you think of rod and reel, right? And that's in the scripture. You remember the story where they asked Jesus if he was going to pay taxes, and Jesus told Peter to go cast a hook into the sea and pull up the first fish, and there was a piece of money in his mouth. Remember that? So that's called angling. [00:29:00] And so there's one type of fishing where you fish for one fish at a time, and then you have netfishing and net fishing. There's two types. There's net fishing. That's individual net fishing, which is what this is I want to show you. I took this video in Cambodia. So these people. I'm not sure if these are cambodian or vietnamese people, because there's vietnamese people that live on river boats. Their house is on a boat. It floats on the river, and I can't remember if. I think they're speaking cambodian, but I can't remember. But anyway, I asked him if it would be okay if we come out on their boat and to video them net fishing. But this is individual net fishing, and I want to show you the video just in case you've never seen it. Okay. [00:29:46] Got the sound up, brother Phil. Okay, hang on a second. [00:29:59] Let me go back to the beginning. [00:30:04] Oh, God. [00:30:23] And there's one more. It. [00:30:51] How many of you. This is the first time you've seen something like that. You didn't. [00:30:56] So here's the thing. [00:30:59] What they do is. And this method hasn't changed in thousands of years. This is the very same thing they were using in the Bible times. In no way different. The net they have, in this case, they have a round net, and they put weights on the edges. They put pieces of chain on the edges so it's weighted. And so when they throw it, it spreads out and fans out into a circle. And when it lands on the surface of the water, it sinks straight down. Right. And the string that he's holding is attached to the center of the net. So when he pulls on the string, after it sinks to the bottom, he pulls on the string. It draws the chain along the bottom. And any fish that are caught in the net, as the chain comes together, he pulls that up, and they're. They're entangled in the net, and that's how it works. They've been doing that forever. [00:31:47] But that's individual net fishing. Okay, but what do we have here? Look at verse 18. Somebody look at verse number 18. [00:31:57] Brother Ari, can you read verse number 18 for us? [00:32:01] And Jesus walking by the sea of Galilee saw two brothers. Simon called Peter and Andrew. [00:32:08] Cast them. Imagine. [00:32:10] Okay, you had Simon, Peter. You had Peter and Andrew, right? [00:32:16] How many people is that? Two. [00:32:20] How many nets are they casting? [00:32:22] One. [00:32:24] So this is not this. This is single man work net fishing, but individual net fishing. [00:32:30] But that's not what you have here. [00:32:33] You have two men, at least two men. There could be other men, but two men are mentioned. So it's at least. So this is what, this is what's called. I mean, what I'm calling group net fishing. And this was the thing. [00:32:45] In group net fishing, they would take a much larger net and sometimes even between ships, between boats, and they would spread the net out just like basically similar to this, but over a huge area in the. And in Cambodia, they did this, too. I think I had pictures. But you remember that every year they had a certain time of year they did it, and huge nets, they would connect with the ships and they would drop it down, and they would do essentially the same thing, but they could only do that together. [00:33:17] And this is the kind of fishing that you most often see in the New Testament, in the gospels, is this group fishing? You know why? Because you have a bunch of individuals who are fishermen. [00:33:32] That's what you got. [00:33:34] And you know what? Every one of us who has said yes to the Lord Jesus, the Lord individually, is working in each one of us, myself, and each one of you, to make you a person who is concerned with the lost. [00:33:47] And then he puts us together to go fishing together with each other. [00:33:58] And, you know, what. What role do we have? Well, obviously we have, and this is important, that our church has opportunities provided for you, those of you that want to go out and go out and share the gospel with people on Saturdays and on other times, special days, like what brother David is holding November 9 and other opportunities like Terabella, that's another opportunity. There's different ways and different means and all of that, but they're opportunities where we can do the same thing together, right? Even though we're doing it by ourself, like, you know, the angling, the real fishing, or casting a net alone, and that's good, and that's fine, but then we can also do it together. [00:34:44] And then, you know, sometimes we. We're witnessing to someone. You've seen this brother David. He's been very faithful to witness to people. And many of those people have come to our church. And you know, what role we have as fellow fishermen. Holding our part of the net is when they come in, we make sure that they feel welcome. We let them know that we've been praying for them. We let them know that we care. We let them know, you know, we're in this. [00:35:07] We want them to know that they. That we have a caring concern for where they are with goddess, right? That's something you and I can do as those people come and visit, trying to figure out who we are, if we're some bunch of freak cultish people, or if we're people who are sane or whatever the case might be. [00:35:28] And then we also have opportunity with one another to pray for the people whose names and I could call them out. Think about it. Think about these names. [00:35:39] Mandy's husband, Lee Terry. [00:35:43] Matthew Wood, Savannah. [00:35:46] There's Jose, Mike and Deborah. [00:35:56] I mean, I know there's others, and I could name my own dad, my brother and Ken, brother Mark's brother. [00:36:05] All these names. That's one way we can invest in showing a concern for people's soul and as a group, helping to get those people to the Lord. Fishing together. Fishing together. You see, the Lord doesn't want us fishing all by ourselves all the time. [00:36:25] He wants us as a group who are all individuals, that the Lord has worked in us to make us fishers of men. He wants us to fish together, put our net together, and fish for people out of a concern for their soul, whether they know God or not. [00:36:40] You know, even the missionaries we support, that's not directly fishing for men, but it comes from what? A concern for people's spiritual well being in other places. [00:36:50] We are fishing with them, right? They're in another lake, they're in another ocean or whatever, but we are fishing with them. That's what we're supposed to be doing. This is what. This is what the Lord is working in us. [00:37:02] So I just want to ask you, well, first of all, do you have a concern for the spiritual well being of others? Honestly, do we have that as an individual? Do you have that? But secondly, just ask yourself, am I involved in fishing for men like the Lord wants me to be? [00:37:24] Am I involved? [00:37:27] And I readily admit that doesn't look the same for every person that looks different for different people because every one of us has a different set of circumstances in our life. But that's not the point? The point is, are you and am I involved in fishing for men in the way that the Lord wants me as an individual to be? [00:37:48] And if that's lacking, I just want to encourage you. Respond and listen. Just yield and say yes to what the Lord is working in you. [00:38:00] Right. Because he's doing it. [00:38:03] Let's pray together.