Jesus Makes Fishers of Men

[00:00:00] Praise the Lord for that. Let's go to Matthew, chapter four and mark, chapter one. [00:00:05] Matthew, chapter four and mark, chapter one. [00:00:12] We will read two passages. [00:00:15] They're brief passages. [00:00:17] Matthew four and mark one. [00:00:30] Matthew four, verse. [00:00:32] We're going to drop down to verse number, verse number 18. [00:00:40] Matthew, chapter four, verse 18. The Bible says, and Jesus walking by the sea of Galilee saw two brethren, Simon called Peter and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishers. [00:01:00] And he saith unto them, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. [00:01:06] And they straightway left their nets and followed him. [00:01:11] And going on from thence he saw other two men, James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, in a ship with Zebedee, their father, mending their nets. And he called them, and they immediately left the ship and their father and followed him. [00:01:29] All right, now turn over to Mark, chapter one. [00:01:37] What's interesting about these four people that are mentioned? You have James and John and Peter and Andrew, and that's four of the twelve disciples. Now, if I got my math right, that's one third. [00:01:52] Those four men. Of course, James and John were brothers, and Peter and Andrew were brothers. And there was another set of brothers, I believe, in the set of the disciples. So you have three sets of brothers. That's half right. And these two sets we're reading about are partners in this business. So it's no wonder that the early symbol for Christianity during the period of persecution was the fish. Was the fish. And because it's a third of the disciples were occupied. Their job was fishermen. And so let's go to mark, chapter one, verse 16. [00:02:36] The reason I pointed that out real quick is to remind all of us of what the Lord did with a group of twelve. [00:02:48] But remember the group of twelve, of that twelve, a third of that twelve were closely related. In other words, they weren't all separate people spread about. Now, there was some of that later, but these people were reaching one another, you know, there was a domino effect. [00:03:08] And the Lord used these people and their families and their associations to do great things, you know, by his power. [00:03:18] Verse 16 of Mark, chapter one says this. Now, as he walked by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishers. And Jesus said unto them, come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. [00:03:38] And straightway they forsook their nets and followed him. And when he had gone a little further thence, he saw James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, who also were in the ship mending their nets, and straightway he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the ship with the hired servants and went after him. [00:03:58] All right, let's pray together. [00:04:00] Our father, thank you for the chance to be here today, to be at church, to be around your people, to fellowship together, to hear the word of God together. Thank you, Lord, for those that have put time and effort into singing and to lifting up the voice of praise, that we might set our hearts and focus our hearts on the things of the Lord, the spiritual truths and realities that. That bring us joy and hope and strengthen our faith. Thank you for those things. Thank you for the visitors that have been here today. And I pray that you would really bless them and give them what they need, whatever it is, Lord, because you alone know the hearts of all men as we look at these truths here, Lord, you know that I myself, of everyone in here, needs these things as much as any other person does. And so we pray that. I pray that these truths would be just perfectly clear and that you would guide me to know what to say to help your people that are here tonight, that they would go away having received what they need. [00:05:04] So, Lord, we just entrust this service to you. We ask the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and your work and your will would be glorified among us here tonight. In Jesus name, amen. [00:05:21] We all are familiar with the concept of being a fisher of men. You know, you think of the idea of being a Fisherman. Fisherman. Fisherman. A person who fishes. [00:05:34] And this is the primary way that God ordained now in the New testament, at least from the times of Christ, that the Lord Jesus Christ ordained to propagate the faith of Christ. Have you ever thought about that? [00:05:53] The manner in which the Lord chose to spread the gospel and to spread the truth of Christ and the knowledge of the savior was by evangelism. Now, what's interesting about that word, evangelism, you all know, if you're from this church, you know, I'm a word nerd. [00:06:13] But even the very word evangelism. Now just pause here and just take a minute and just look at this word for me. You have the word gospel. Gospel. The word gospel. That word just simply divided up means. It comes from the word that means good news. That's all it means. Good spell. What spells? A group of words? Good news. Well, that word is translated from a word that obviously means good news. But did you know that that's the noun. The noun is the gospel. And we studied about that this morning. Right. How? That Christ died for our sins. What are the four points? You know, this. We're not 4.4 point gospels, but this is the four points in one corinthians, right? That what? [00:06:56] Come on. No, don't go silent on me now. That Christ died for our sins according to the scripture, that he was buried, that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures, and that he was seen. Exactly. He was witnessed, witnessed. Exactly. So those are the four points of the gospel. [00:07:21] But that's the noun. That's what the gospel is. Did you know what happened is the writers, by God, inspiring them and telling them what to write, they took the word, the noun gospel, and they turned it into a verb. [00:07:36] Like you would say. Let me give you an example. You would say, like you have a baby. You know, the way you treat a baby, right? You know, what do you call, what do you call it when someone is speaking to an adult and treats them in that way? You say they are babying, babying that person. So what we've done is we've taken the noun baby and we've turned it into a verb. Well, that's what we've done with the word gospel. [00:08:05] The word gospel, we know that's a noun, but the word that we get, the word evangelism, evangelize, is just taking the word gospel, and it's turning into a verb and saying, we're gonna gospel somebody. We're gonna tell them the gospel. That's what the word means. [00:08:21] It means that when you see the word, preach the gospel in English. That's three words. But actually it's one verb. [00:08:30] It's translated from one verb, and that's the verb form of the word gospel. Now, why is that? Why do I bring that up? Other than the fact that it's of interest to me? [00:08:42] This is the means that God has ordained to get the gospel to other people. In other words, he intended on. On his people to take that gospel, the noun and to gospel everybody else. Now, why is that? That seems very obvious to all of us. But what you have to remember that primarily other religions do not have that means of disseminating their teaching. Did you know that, for instance, in Buddhism and in many, many religions, their faith is spread by their descendants? In other words, the mom and dad or grandparents and their ancestors have held to a certain belief system and a certain worldview, and then they pass that on and require that their children and grandchildren and so on continue the practices. Now, here's compared to this morning, and, you know, call that to mind. But in that situation, it is not so important whether the person actually believes everything that they are taught. It is not so important whether that system is really and factually true, like we learned this morning. What matters is that the procedures and the liturgy and the rituals and the holidays and all of those things are carried on. And thus the outward form of the religion is carried on from generation to generation to generation. And in the case, and that's the way that most religions are propagated, Judaism is like that. Now, we know there's a different level with Judaism because it was the true God and he was working in the hearts of people, and he had an ultimate plan that even the jewish people would be. Would, through the new covenant, would be born again. Right? So we know all that's involved. But even primarily, Judaism was passed down by their descendants. That's why Moses was. God told Moses to tell the people of Israel that they were to teach the law to their children and so on. Okay, Islam is a little bit different, because Islam has not only done it in that way, but Islam has propagated its religion by means of the sword. Historically, they have taken over and required conversion of pagans on pain of death. [00:11:07] Or even for Christians, they made life difficult for Christians and Jews because they had a tax. What was the name of the tax? Somebody tell me the name of the tax. Brother Mark probably knows. I can't remember the name of it. Anyway, there's a tax for the people of the book. That's what they call Jews and Christians. [00:11:26] That allowed them to remain among the people who practice Islam without being required to convert. [00:11:38] But even that is a form of oppression. But see, that's. This is the way that most religions have propagated through the world. [00:11:47] Catholicism is this way as well. This is the way it's primarily propagated. How do I know? Because I have family that we were raised. I was raised Catholic. The question was not whether I believed that the wafer and the wine actually turned into the literal body and blood of Jesus. That wasn't the question. It was just a matter of keeping. [00:12:09] Keeping the holidays, keeping the rituals, keeping the liturgy. [00:12:13] This is not the way it is with Jesus. [00:12:18] This is not the way it is. The Lord has ordained that every person, every one of us who has believed in Christ tell other people, no force, no sword, no pressure. Well, except biblical pressure, no coercion. But just by as second corinthians as. By manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves and then our message to every man's conscience in the sight of God, giving them what the Bible says, urging them to believe it for their eternity is at stake, right? [00:12:54] And then leaving it with them, praying for them. [00:12:59] And this is where, notice that both in Matthew and in Mark, Matthew, chapter four. What's the big event in Matthew four? They're, to all of our bible scholars, the temptation of Christ. Notice that this conversation with Peter and with James and John in Matthew four happens immediately after that. He is just now. The Lord is just now calling his disciples. I mean, this is the very beginning of it all. And in mark, chapter one, notice it is chapter one. In fact, my Bible, right before we get to verse 16, where we read verse 14 and 15, has a heading above it in my Bible, and it says, jesus begins his ministry. This is at the very beginning of the ministry of Christ. And from the beginning, the Lord says, I have a new way to propagate the truth. [00:13:46] It is not the way that has always been done. It is different. You know what? It is risky. [00:13:53] Historically, this manner of propagating the truth and the word of God has been very risky, dangerous even at times to the people who were propagating it. [00:14:05] And that is the method of evangelism. [00:14:09] Now let's look at chapter one of Mark, verse 16. As they were walking, as they walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishers. What does that mean? They were fishers, these men. This was their occupation. [00:14:31] This was their occupation. They had been trained. They probably got it from their father because that was a jewish custom, right? To be trained in the trade. This is their trade. And I want to tell you something. Being trained in a trade is a virtuous thing. It is good. Does anybody know Brother Wallace's trade? [00:14:49] Has anybody talked to him about that? Brother Wallace had a trade back when he worked, right? He still has. He could still do it if he had to. Just have to get updated on the code, right? [00:14:58] He was a electrician. Exactly. Brother Wallace has a trade. Brother Ari has a trade. For good or for ill, right? He could unlock any locks that you throw at him. [00:15:10] He loves cars the best, though, especially the newer ones. [00:15:14] I'm just. I'm being facetious. Brother Ari's a locksmith. He has a trade. Trades are good things. In fact, to be honest with you, you know, being in ministry, you know, I've been. You know, I've been trying to serve God in ministry since. Since almost the time I got saved when I was a teenager. [00:15:34] And so basically I went to the Marine Corps and came immediately back from my training and went straight into Bible college. [00:15:42] And so the trade that I have is basically the Bible. Okay, you know what? Sometimes I feel self conscious about that, just being honest with you. [00:15:51] And I've worked here and there. I've done gutters and I was a bug man. And, you know, I've done different things like that. And I can, you know, Brother Ari has encouraged me to get a set of tools. And so I've been working on getting some tools, trying to do some things, but, you know, that's, as I say, jack of all trades, master of none. And that's pretty much me. [00:16:07] And sometimes I feel a little bit self conscious about that because I'm not a master of here I am 42 years old, and I'm not a master of any particular trade. I feel like I should be. I feel like I should be. [00:16:20] So I say I highly commend people that have put their life into nursing and into. Into, you know, brother David is skilled in the area of it. You know, I highly value that. Even my son Josh, he's in school right now and sister Priscilla's in school, or going to be anyway. And trying to move up, trying to learn a trade, that is a good thing. It is good, and it is right, and it keeps you out of trouble and it supplies your needs for your family. It is good. [00:16:52] Peter and John and James and Andrew, they had a trade. [00:16:57] Their trade was fishing. Now, that means they were invested. You know, those nets and those boats, those boats were not cheap, handmade boats to catch fish. Those were not cheap. Maybe they rented, I have no idea. But they were invested in this work. It is something they had learned from the time that they were little. Probably they had learned how to do it. That's why they were incredulous there in the book of John or Book of Luke, rather, when the Lord than says, cast your nets on the other side of the ship, and they say, lord, we've been all night, we've been doing this. And we. Man, they were whispering under their breath, we know what we're doing. [00:17:33] It was common to fish at night, right? [00:17:35] And the Lord says, let down your nets for a draught. And they let down their nets and the net was full and broke and all that. So, you know, all these things. [00:17:45] And they knew how to fish. [00:17:47] They had put money and they had put time and they had put skill and had learned how to do it well. Now, this is not the fishing that you and I are familiar with. This is net fishing. And this is not even the net fishing that you might be thinking where you cambodia had this kind of stuff, and I wish I could explain it. You know, where they take the net, and they have the outside of the net. It's a round net, and the outside of the net has little chain links attached to it, so it's weighted, and so they grab up. They grab the net up. [00:18:22] They grab the net up in a certain way, and it's a skill. And they stand on the edge of their boat, and they throw the net out, and it spins. And when it spins, it widens out because it's weighted. And then it lands on the surface of the water, and the weights on the edges causes it to sink immediately to the bottom. [00:18:41] Well, when it does that, it entraps fish. So what they do is they have a string that's tied to the very center of the net, and they pull it up slowly. And when they pull it up slowly, the chain drags along the bottom until it closes like that, just by physics. And then they pull it up. And what's happened is all the fish are caught in the net, but that's not the kind of. I went through all that, but that's not the kind of fishing they're doing here. They're doing big fish. This is industrial fishing. [00:19:09] In other words, they have a net tied between the ships that they are dropping down like groups of men and then dragging the net into a huge circle. [00:19:20] They're not doing this to eat. They're doing this to sell. [00:19:23] This is their business. This is how they're paying their rent or keeping the lights on. [00:19:30] Y'all catch that in a minute. [00:19:36] Now. I'm going to come back to that in just a minute, so just hang tight. [00:19:39] Verse 17. [00:19:43] And Jesus said unto them, come ye after me. [00:19:49] You know, there is. [00:19:52] I know. It gets. It gets so. It gets so trite and repetitive to talk about Jesus as our example. And our church knows that. I've been talking about that a lot. I don't know why, but our Lord is our ultimate example. [00:20:09] You know, the world. I mean, there was a time in the nineties, brother Dreier probably remembers those silly bracelets, and what would jesus do? And nobody that wore them ever did what Jesus, but anyway, always annoyed me. You know, I wasn't even a believer then. That always got on my nerves. [00:20:30] But the Lord is our example, and in almost any christian virtue, you can look to him, and you can find the way to do it the way it's supposed to be done. [00:20:40] And sometimes that's not the way that this christian culture in which we live and interact thinks sometimes it's counter to that christian culture, right? Sometimes it is. The Lord's not towing our line. We're supposed to be towing his line. [00:21:03] And this is where the Lord is an example. Notice what he says, come ye after me. You know, other times the Lord says, even in verse 18 he says, or, I'm sorry, verse number, verse 20 says, he called them. I think in Matthew it says, he said, follow me. And they followed him. But what does it mean to follow the Lord? It means you imitate him, you do what he does. But when you do what he does, that tells me that the Lord is already doing the thing that we're mimicking him in doing. Right? To follow the Lord, come after him means that he is walking in front of us doing that thing and saying, hey, I'm doing it. Watch me and do. Aren't you glad? The Lord did not just tell us to do stuff, but he showed us to do stuff. [00:21:58] The Lord himself was a fisher of men. [00:22:04] And we know that because he said that by following him, he would make us to become fishers of men. [00:22:11] He's doing it. He is our example in this. Hold your place here. We'll come back here in just a second. Go to John, chapter four. [00:22:24] John four. [00:22:31] I can't think of a more fitting example of the Lord being a fisher of men. [00:22:38] In this case, women. Woman. [00:22:42] Then the meeting with the lady, the woman of Samaria, verse number five says, then cometh he, John four five. To a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar. Near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. And now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, notice he's tired. [00:23:06] We all know what that's like. [00:23:08] Sat thus on the well. And it was about the 6th hour, which is about noon. [00:23:13] There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus saith unto her, give me to drink. [00:23:19] For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat. Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, how is it that thou, being a jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Now notice what Jesus says in verse ten. [00:23:34] And this tells us something about what Jesus is thinking. [00:23:37] Jesus answered and said unto her, if thou knewest the gift of God and who it is that saith to thee, give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. Let me ask you a question. [00:23:49] When Jesus said, give me to drink, do you think he was concerned about his thirst? [00:23:58] He wasn't. [00:23:59] He wasn't asking her for a drink because he was concerned about his thirst. [00:24:05] He was concerned about this woman. How do you know? Because verse ten, in verse ten, the Lord brings up the subject of eternal life. [00:24:15] In other words, from the moment the Lord. Now we know the Lord being omniscient, he sat on the well. He knew this woman was coming. He knew all about her. And that's shown in John, chapter four. But he's sitting on the well, and he's waiting. But he's thinking about her. [00:24:31] He's thinking about her spiritual condition, if I can say it to you like this, he is conscious of where she's at, of what her condition is and what her spiritual needs are. [00:24:49] He is conscious. [00:24:52] He's not occupied with other things when she's there. And the Bible says he was weary and he probably was thirsty. In flesh, he probably was. [00:25:01] But notice the consciousness of the Lord. He is aware that this woman is here. She's a sinful woman. [00:25:11] Sin has wrecked her life. She's apparently an outcast, which is why she's drawing water in the middle of the day. [00:25:19] But Jesus is there. [00:25:22] He has a purpose. [00:25:24] He wants to introduce himself to her, and he does. [00:25:28] He is, you might say, soul conscious. [00:25:32] Or you could say it in another way. [00:25:35] He's fishing. [00:25:37] See that? He's fishing. [00:25:43] Now go back to mark and hold your place there. And I'm just going to remind you of what Matthew 14 says, or chapter four, rather, just. You don't have to go there. But just as a reminder, because it says it a little bit differently. And I just want to make sure we get it. [00:26:06] Matthew 418 or verse 19, says this, and he saith unto them, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. Notice that. [00:26:18] I will make you fishers of men. Here it says, I will make you to become fishers of men. [00:26:25] That tells us that following the Lord number one, we see the Lord is ever our example. He was always fishing. He was always conscious of the condition of people's souls. [00:26:44] It was always in his mind. And you see one kind of glimpse of that in John four. But he was always looking for an angle by which he might introduce the truth to them. [00:26:58] Soul conscious, it was on his mind. [00:27:03] And it says here, if we're gonna follow jesus in this way, to follow him means that we will also mimic what he does. [00:27:15] We will be soul conscious. And it is not possible to follow the Lord Jesus Christ without fishing for men. For he said, I will make you fishers of men. [00:27:28] So this idea that we're following the Lord and we are not concerned with the spiritual condition of people around us is foreign to the Bible, because the Lord says, if you follow me, this is what's going to happen. To follow him is to be this way. And I think to myself, how many times have I gone into Starbucks and not been thinking about that? [00:27:57] That's not the way the Lord was. [00:28:00] No, he was thinking about it. [00:28:03] Fishing was on his mind. Amen. [00:28:09] To follow the Lord Jesus is to be a fisher of men. [00:28:13] And this is what Christ does in us. Now, we know we're imperfect, but what I'm saying is, if you and I are following God and following the Lord, and we love him, and we're in his word, faithfully, and we're in prayer and we're walking with him, listen, aren't you glad it's not up to us to grow like we don't know what we're doing? We're just stumbling from day to day, are we not? We're just trying to. We're just. We're just trying to do the. Do the things the Lord told us to do. And we find great difficulty doing it sometimes, don't we? [00:28:44] But the Lord works in us by his spirit to conform us into the image of Christ, which is what it means to follow him, right? And so over time, he works in us to make us mimic these, these things that we don't even know what he's doing, but he's doing it by his spirit who's in us. If you're a child of God. And over time, he develops a soul consciousness in us to where we care, and we are conscious and aware of people around us that, and we're thinking even about their spiritual condition, this is something God works in us. [00:29:20] You know, one of the biggest reasons we're not soul conscious, I'm going to be honest with you, is because we're not walking close to God. [00:29:31] That's me. That's me. That's me as much as anybody. [00:29:35] Because when we are, all of a sudden, those spiritual matters that are of eternal importance are in the front of our mind, that is the direct result of God working in us each day as we walk with him. The direct result, and I would dare say, if you are honest with yourself and you consider your walk with God, you would probably find that correlation as well. [00:30:01] When are you most concerned in thinking about those around you? Are they saved? Do they know God, how can I talk to them? What can I say when you are you most concerned with that? [00:30:12] Right? [00:30:17] I remember when I got saved, the night that I got saved, the 4 august 1999. [00:30:24] And I knelt down in a kitchen of a camp in Cleveland, South Carolina. [00:30:33] At that camp, I was back there by myself and I knelt down and I called upon Christ to save me, asked him to save me, and he did. And I stood up, it was dark, and I walked out into the room where the other campers were in the cafeteria. [00:30:51] And I'm just be honest with you, stuff just started coming out of my mouth that I had not planned to say, to tell them what had just happened to me and what led me to the point where I saw that I needed to be saved. Even though I'd been going to church, you know, I didn't, I couldn't have been any newer. I had been saved precisely 1 minute. [00:31:26] I mean, I didn't know anything. [00:31:29] But what was the lord working? He just took control of that situation. But what was the result? Well, he was, he was fishing. [00:31:37] He was wanting other people to know the gospel and call other people to trust in Jesus. And that's what happened. [00:31:46] The third thing I want you to see is in verse 17. It says this, and Jesus said unto them, come ye after me and I will make you to become fishers of men. [00:31:58] Now, we know these men had a trade. [00:32:02] They spent most of their life learning this skill, practicing it, perfecting it. You know, most of us, if we do one trade in our whole life, that's all we got time for, and then we die, right? Or get old. So you got one chance. If you're a young person and you're looking at what you should do in your life, you got one chance to find out what you're going to do. Make it good and put your heart into it and learn it and master it. Don't be bouncing around living with mom and dad forever, you know, just, you know, just mooching off everybody else. No, set your direction. Get something done. Learn a skill, learn a trade, get it done. That's what these men did. But, but they were already fishers, right? In the worldly sense, in the earthly sense. [00:32:58] But Jesus did not say, now in Luke, in Luke 510, I believe it is, he says, from henceforth thou shalt catch men. After the issue with, he told them to let down the nets, he said, from henceforth thou shalt catch men. And we know that being a fisher of men involves fishing, the activity of fishing. But this is not what Jesus said. Jesus did not say, come, follow me, and I will teach you how to fish for men. No, no, no. Because what is emphasized here is not the activity of telling people about Jesus is not the activity of spreading the gospel, but becoming a fisher of man, of men. Do you understand? And there's a key difference between being involved in the activity and being that thing. [00:33:46] Like, I know how to change the oil on a car. I mean, if I had to, I prefer not to, but if I had to, I could change the brakes and a few other things on a car. But I am not a mechanic. [00:34:00] You know, my daughters have. Have practiced, have been engaged in the for profit activity of babysitting over the years. Right? That doesn't make them a mother. [00:34:12] To be a mother is a transformative identity. [00:34:16] To be a mechanic, someone who has given their whole life to this trade, and they work at it and they perfect it, and they buy all the manuals, and they have all the software, and they have all the licenses for all the computer things that you have to have. They're fully invested. [00:34:31] When the Lord says, I will make you to become fishers of men, he is looking for a total transformation. He's not looking for us to just go out on evangelism. No, no, no. He's looking for a total transformation of who we are. And this is what the Lord has been working on me recently about. It's not just about. Listen, our church has evangelism, and I am glad that you guys participate, and I am glad for that when we've given out thousands of gospel tracts. And, you know, I told you not too long ago, the amount of houses in berea whose doors we've knocked on and tracks are, and gospel information, literature is in their houses. And I thank the Lord for that. But we have to go beyond fishing to becoming fishers of men. [00:35:17] Brother Ari, as I said, is a locksmith right? [00:35:21] Now. There are other things Brother Ari would prefer to be besides a locksmith sometimes, right? [00:35:28] But even above that, above that, the Lord wants us to be totally transformed to where we are not just involved in the activity of getting the gospel out, but we are actually fishers, fishermen. It is our spiritual trade. It is our career. [00:35:53] In other words, we are constantly so conscious, constantly thinking and aware of where and wondering where people are with God, whether they're saved, whether they're lost. How can I get the gospel to them? How can I get them to come to church? How can I care for them? I should be praying for them. This is what it means to not just because even when you're not engaged in the activity of evangelism, you're still a fisherman. It's in your blood, as they say. Right? [00:36:26] This is a transformative thing. The Lord says, I will make you to become fishers of men. That's different than just fishing. [00:36:39] Wouldn't it be great if we could all be so, we could all be transformed into fishers of men to such a degree that we became skilled, we put forth effort, and we were fully invested in it, like these men were with their trade. That's the comparison. [00:37:02] The last thing I want you to see is this. Verse 17. [00:37:08] Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. It's not up to us. [00:37:16] We can't change ourselves. Can the leopard change his spots? No, but the leopard can't change his spot. But God can certainly change his spots, and I can't, you know, I can't make myself a fisher of man. But when the Lord started stirring in my heart about this truth, you know what I did? [00:37:36] I just went to God in prayer. I said, lord, I know I'm doing evangelism, but it's got to be more than that. [00:37:45] I've got to be different. [00:37:48] I've got to be transformed. I've got to be conscious and caring about people and thinking about how I might reach them. [00:37:57] And so I just went to God knowing I have no power whatsoever to effect change in my own life. And I trusted him, and I tried to trust him, and I called out to him to make me to become. Do you see? It's him. It's his power. It's how he does it, not us. [00:38:18] God is the one that gives us that burden for the lost. [00:38:23] God is the one that puts the desire in us to tell them of Jesus. God is the one who makes us conscious of their presence, the presence of their soul, the reality of their eternity. This is just. Listen. This is just a byproduct of walking in the spirit. That's all it is. [00:38:45] So we should examine our hearts and try our reins to see if we are cold and indifferent. Maybe that's not the right word. Maybe unaware, unconscious of where people are with God? [00:39:08] I don't think that. [00:39:11] I think everyone in this room knows that if you were with Jesus and you walked with him literally on the earth, like Peter and James and John, what you would find is you would find a man who is God in the flesh, who really did think about people's souls. [00:39:33] That's what you would find. You would find a person who was concerned about where people stood with him and was waiting for and looking for the opportunity to tell them the truth, to tell them that he was the savior. [00:39:52] That's what you would find. [00:39:54] What a great example to us. [00:39:57] What a great example to us. Us to allow spiritual truths and realities to be at the front of our mind at all times as we interact with people. [00:40:11] And that, you know, that goes. I know we're talking about people that do not know the Lord, do not know God. Right. Fishers of men. But even as it is with people around us that we know that are already believers, and how we can minister to them and how we can be conscious of their needs, it's the same truth, just a different context. [00:40:33] I pray the Lord makes us into those kinds of people, gives us a spiritual career, a spiritual trade. Let's pray.