These Illustrations are based on Matthew 4:12-23
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Sermon Opener - The Powerful Moments That Change Your Life Forever - Matthew 4:12-23

I am a collector of lists. I want to share with you this morning my favorite list of all time. It’s a list of answers given by English school children on their religion exams.

Noah’s wife was called Joan of the Ark.

A myth is a female moth.

Sometimes it is difficult to hear in church because the agnostics are so terrible.

The Pope lives in a vacuum.

The Fifth Commandment is “Humor your father and mother.”

This is my favorite of all:

Lot’s wife was a pillar of salt by day and a ball of fire by night.

The point is: right answers are important, but have you thought about this – so are right questions! So the right question I want to raise with you today is this: How long has it been since you had a powerful moment that changed your life forever?

The New Testament was written originally in common Greek and the Greeks had several different words for our one word love.

Agape = unconditional love

Eros = erotic… bargaining love (I’ll do this for you if you do that for me, which, if you think about it, is not really love at all)

Phileo = philanthropic, brotherly, sisterly, or humanitarian love

Storge = family love.

New Testament Greek also had two words for time – chronos and kairos. Chronos, which give us our word chronology, is tick-tock time. Each second is exactly like the one that preceded and the one that follows it. It is boring time, humdrum time, drudgery time, meaningless time, empty time. Let me paint the picture of chronos time.

Imagine a convict in a prison cell; a lawyer with insomnia, who hears the unrelenting incessant ticking of a clock; an office worker who hates his job and can’t wait for 5:00 to come so he can get out of there; a college student in a 3-hour biology lab (right after lunch) all experience chronos time. Chronos time is empty time; it is a void that must be filled. It is time we must “put in” or endure. It’s what we are talking about when, of all things, we talk about “killing” time. So, chronos equals tick-tock time, humdrum time, boring time, and routine time.

Thank God, there is another kind of time…

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The Art of Following - Matthew 4:12-23

If you’re my age or older you may remember Homer and Jethro.

They were a comedy team who specialized in country music parodies and satire. They were sometimes referred to as “the thinking man’s hillbillies.”

One of their routines went like this:

HOMER: Jethro, if you was to win the Irish sweepstakes for two million dollars, would you give me half?

JETHRO: Why, Homer, you’re my best and closest friend. You know I would.

HOMER: I do know you would. That’s what friendship is all about.

HOMER: Jethro, if you had two big luxurious houses like those ones in the Beverly Hills and I was livin’ yonder under the bridge without no home, would you give me one of your big luxurious houses?

JETHRO: Homer, you’re my best and closest friend. You know I would.

HOMER: Yessir, we’re best friends. Didn’t I know you’d say that.

HOMER: Jethro, if you had two prize winnin’ Holstein cows and I had nary one, would you give me one of your cows?

JETHRO: Homer, you wouldn’t even have to ask. You’re my closest friend and you know I would.

HOMER: Jethro, if you had two really great huntin’ dogs...

JETHRO: Hold on a minute, Homer. I got two huntin’ dogs.

Homer and Jethro knew that charity is easy to idealize but hard to practice.

I saw a routine like that played out in the area of theology and religion when I was in seminary. The professor was lecturing on the gospel of Luke and he had come to the third chapter where we find John the Baptist’s sermon to the people of Jerusalem.

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Trying Something New

After falling twice in the 1988 Olympic speed-skating races Dan Jansen sought out sports psychologist Dr. Jim Loehr, who helped him find a new balance between his sport and his life. He also helped Jansen learn to focus on the mental aspects of skating Peter Mueller became his coach, putting him through workouts that Dan has since described as the “toughest I have ever known.” By the time the 1994 Olympics arrived, Jansen had more confidence than ever. He had set a five-hundred-meter world record just two months earlier. The Olympic title in that event seemed to belong to him.

Unfortunately, Jansen fell during the five-hundred-meter race. He was disappointed and shaken. But, Dr. Loeher immediately advised him to start preparing for the one-thousand-meter race. He said, the five-hundred-meter race is gone. Put it behind you.” However the thousand-meter race was Jansen’s weakest event. But, there was no other chance for him to receive a medal. Jansen won the one-thousand-meter race and did it in record time. Since Jansen had followed the wisdom of his coach, he had put his failure behind him and tried something new.

We can play it safe and remain secure in what we know. Like the fishermen, our lives will remain in the darkness until we are willing to follow and move in a new direction. Jesus called the disciples to something that would not only give purpose and meaning to their lives, he called them to a vocation that would change the world. They followed, and from then on their lives would never be the same.

Keith Wagner, Ice Fishing, Anyone?

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Working for Christ

Christianity began as a working man's religion. No, that is not the gospel according to Marx; it is the Gospel According to Matthew. Matthew tells us that immediately after Jesus began a public preaching ministry, he took four fishermen as his apprentices. He was walking by the Sea of Galilee and spied Andrew and Peter casting their nets. He called them to follow him, promising to make them fishers of men. In Matthew's Gospel, then, linked tightly together are Jesus' ringing pronouncement, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," and his invitation to the fishermen, "Follow me."

You and I, who believe in Jesus Christ and count ourselves his disciples, are not to follow a trade or profession as though it were the Holy Grail. We are to follow Jesus. Work is to take a secondary role in our lives. If Christ is truly our Master, then work cannot be equally important. We may be engaged in work, but never married to it. And whenever we are pressed or tempted to make work supreme, we are to recall the story of the four fishermen. We are to remember how they left their nets and their boats to go and be with Jesus, to do what he would have them do.

John C. Purdy, The Call to Adventure

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Follow Me…

"Follow me, and I will make you fishers," said Jesus. Fishing takes practice, preparation, discipline. One must learn how to best throw the net, how to make the mouth of the net come open too. I can throw the actual cast net a long way, but I can't always make the net come open so that it will actually form a circle around the fish. One must learn how to cast the line on a rod. Again, some folks can cast a long way, but their accuracy is awful. There may be fish on the right, but they know only how to cast the line to the left. There may be fish on the left, but they keep casting to the right. Casting, like discipleship, is an acquired habit. It rewards practice.

Fishing is noticing the weather, watching the wind and the clouds. Fishing, like the gospel, dear friends, like the gospel, fishing is always practiced in context. It does no good to sit at one lake and wish I was on some other lake. It does no good to stand at the ocean and wish the weather were different. On that day, in that place, I fish in context according to what the conditions are.

So it is with the proclamation and the living out of the Christian gospel. It does little good wishing that we were somewhere else, in a different time or in a different country perhaps. Our context is this time and this place. Know where the wind blows. Watch the clouds.

Samuel G. Candler, Follow Me and I Will Make You Go Fishing

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A Job vs. A Ministry

Someone has said there is a huge difference between having a job at church and having a ministry at church.

... If you are doing it because no one else will, it's a job. If you are doing it to serve the Lord, it's a ministry.

... If you're doing it just well enough to get by, it's a job. If you're doing it to the best of your ability, it's a ministry.

... If you'll do it only so long as it doesn't interfere with other activities, it's a job. If you're committed to staying with it even when it means letting go of other things, it's a ministry.

... It's hard to get excited about a job. It's almost impossible not to get excited about a ministry.

An average church is filled with people doing jobs. A great church is filled with people involved in ministry.

Mickey Anders, The Beginning of Ministry

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The Angle of Grace

Being a Christian is about taking a particular angle towards life. It is the angle of grace. Each of us-every one of us-perceives reality and the world in a different way; yes, but Jesus teaches us to see the world from the angle of grace. Wouldn't our Christianity be richer if we accepted angles more easily? Wouldn't our Christianity be more beautiful if we bent toward the angle of grace?

Samuel G. Candler, Follow Me, and I Will Make You Go Fishing

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A Problem of Presentation

Jesus came preaching that "the kingdom of heaven is at hand." What was there about that kingdom that got these fishermen so excited? And why are we not just as excited? Maybe we don't understand what the kingdom is. Or maybe it just hasn't been presented very well.

It reminds me of a woman who read somewhere that dogs were healthier if fed a tablespoon of cod liver oil each day. So each day she followed the same routine. She chased her dog until she caught it, wrestled it down, and managed to force the fishy remedy down the dog's throat.

Until one day when, in the middle of this grueling medical effort, the bottle was kicked over. With a sigh, she loosed her grip on the dog so she could wipe up the mess. To her surprise the dog trotted over to the puddle and begin lapping up what had been spilled. THE DOG LOVED COD LIVER OIL. It was just the owner's method of application the dog objected to.

Sometimes I think something like that has happened to the good news of the Kingdom of God. It has been so poorly presented to us that we have never been captured by its attractiveness and its power.

King Duncan, Collected Sermons,www.Sermons.com

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Essential Personnel

Even if we live where it rarely snows, the phrase is a familiar one. When budget talks collapse and the government shuts down, this is the phrase that is trotted out. When the earth suddenly moves under the people of California, often a certain group of people are called out while the rest are told to stay at home. When tornadoes blow through the Southwest and disrupt everything in their course, only certain people should risk the dangers involved. These are maintenance people, road crews, ambulance drivers, fire fighters, electric and gas company workers, truck drivers, and a whole host of service people who are taken for granted when things are running smoothly. We call them "essential personnel."

Think about that phrase. Think about what it means to be essential personnel. Then, if you want to be humbled, think about what it is like to be non-essential personnel. Consider the fact that the world can go on without some of us. The good news is that in the church we are all, or at least all can be, essential personnel. We are called to be a special group of people and to do some important things.

William B. Kincaid, III, And Then Came The Angel, CSS Publishing Company, Inc.

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Turning Toward the Light

A little boy named Bobby entered his first science fair in second grade. Because his Mom has a green thumb, they decided to experiment with the growth of plants. He took two small green plants and placed one on a sunny windowsill and the other in a cardboard box. After a couple of weeks, Bobby checked on the two plants. The one on the windowsill had grown a couple of inches and had vibrant green leaves. The one in the box had actually grown a bit, but it had lost all of its green color, becoming almost white and its leaves drooping. Thinking that the plant might die, Bobby cut a hole in one side of the box, like this, and set the box, with the plant inside, by the windowsill … with the hole facing toward the incoming light. Well you know what happened … but Bobby was so excited by this discovery! Yes, over the course of a few weeks, the plant began to grow out through the hole! And, a couple of weeks later, it turned to grow up toward the light and even blossomed! The plant that had been in gloomy darkness … and was all but dead … had seen a great light, it turned toward that light and blossomed!

Well, Matthew wrote … after the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus Christ … and therefore with the full realization of who this man of God was … he wrote that the Light had certainly dawned on the people by the sea, the kingdom of heaven had definitely come near; it had dawned and come near in the person of Jesus Christ … in the personified love and power of God that makes people … different … alive!

Robert K. Schneider, Follow the Maker. Adapted by Brett Blair,www.Sermons.com

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Jesus Calls the Common Man

In May 1855, an eighteen-year-old boy went to the deacons of the church in Boston. He had been raised in a Unitarian church, in almost total ignorance of the gospel, but when he had moved to Boston to make his fortune, he began to attend a Bible-preaching church. Then, in April of 1855, his Sunday school teacher had come into the store where he was working and simply and persuasively shared the Gospel and urged the young man to trust in the Lord Jesus. He did, and now he was applying to join the church. One fact quickly became obvious. This young man was almost totally ignorant of biblical truth. One of the deacons asked him, "Son, what has Christ done for us all--for you----which entitles him to our love?” His response was, "I don't know. I think Christ has done a great deal for us, but I don't think of anything in particular that I know of."

Hardly an impressive start. Years later his Sunday school teacher said of him: "I can truly say that I have seen few persons whose minds were spiritually darker than was his when he came into my Sunday school class. I think the committee of the church seldom met an applicant for membership who seemed more unlikely ever to become a Christian of clear and decided views of gospel truth, still less to fill any space of public or extended usefulness." Nothing happened very quickly to change their minds. The deacons decided to put him on a year-long instruction program to teach him basic Christian truths. Perhaps they wanted to work on some of his other rough spots as well. Not only was he ignorant of spiritual truths, he was only barely literate, and his spoken grammar was atrocious. The year-long probation did not help very much. At his second interview, there was only a minimal improvement in the quality of his answers, but since it was obvious that he was a sincere and committed (if ignorant) Christian, they accepted him as a church member.

Over the next years, many people looked at that young man and were convinced that God would never use a person like that. And in doing so they wrote off Dwight L. Moody. But God did not. By God's infinite grace and persevering love, Moody was transformed into one of the most effective servants of God in church history, a man whose impact is still with us today.

Gary Inrig, Hearts of Iron, Feet of Clay.

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ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS NOT IN OUR EMAIL
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The Lonesome George Church – Matthew 4:12-23 by Leonard Sweet

Our text this morning (Matthew 4:12-23) makes crystal clear what it means to be a “Christian.” A Christian is a “disciple” or “follower” (mathetes) of Jesus. Our fundamental identity is not a “leader” but a “follower” or “companion” of Christ.

Anyone here NOT been to a conference on leadership? Anyone here EVER been to a conference on “followership?” Or how about a conference simply on how to be a better disciple? Isn’t it very interesting how we are more interested in Jesus’ category of “Leader” than in our category of “follower?” If we lead at all, we lead from behind. When is the last time we played “Follow the Leader?”

The question of discipleship has come crashing down on what has been arguably the most influential church in the world the past 30 years: Willow Creek Community Church. After a multi-year qualitative study of its ministry as well as 30 other churches, Greg Hawkins, executive pastor of Willow Creek, recently released their findings in a book Reveal: Where Are You? (2007). What was the conclusion of this study?

The one thing Willow Creek and these other churches thought they were doing they weren’t: making stronger disciples.

When the most imitated church in the world and one of the most financially successful churches in the world issues a public apology and admits a big “Oops!” or “We’ve gone down the wrong track” . . . . maybe it’s time to look at this text more carefully and what it means to be a “disciple.”

According to our text this morning, what do disciples do? Two things. First, disciples follow a leader (Jesus). Second, disciples make more disciples. They reproduce. Disciples live and love in such a way that others want to join them in the journey of reproducing Jesus in the world.

Not to be able to reproduce is the worst crisis any species can have----whether that species be a panda bear, a passenger pigeon, a particular church, or a whole denomination (many of whom have gone in my lifetime from mainline to oldline to sideline to offline to flatline). Which makes the reproduction crisis of the church today of such enormous importance.

Here is an image for our crisis: “Lonesome George.”

Here is an introduction to the story of “Lonesome George.” No, not the comedian Lonesome George Gobel (1919-1991), whose mantra was “I’ll be a dirty bird.” But another Lonesome George (you can Google many great images of “Lonesome George”), an 80-year-old, 200 pound bachelor–-a giant turtle.

The story begins almost 200 years ago (by the way, 200 years is about the life expectancy of “Lonesome George”) with someone you may have heard of: Charles Darwin. Perhaps no one in history has been used to support more contradictory theories and agendas than the British naturalist Charles Darwin. As George Bernard Shaw put it, “he had the luck to please everybody who had an axe to grind.”

The two place-names most associated with Darwin are “Beagle” and “Galapagos.” “Beagle” was the ship on which Darwin worked and wrote, the home office (“hoffice,” if you will) of his scientific labors. Ecuador’s “Galapagos Islands” were his laboratory.

The “Beagle” met the “Galapagos” in the autumn of 1835, when Darwin landed on these amazing islands and soon discovered that these far-flung rocks were home to hundreds of “endemic beings”--species found nowhere else in the world.

But despite, or perhaps because of, their middle-of-nowhere status, the Galapagos had already been ravaged by whalers, explorers, and sea-going ships of all sorts. Since the days of Captain Cook, tired and hungry sailors had found the islands--their waters, shorelines, and rocky interiors--a paradise-pantry, offering plentiful resources to restock the dwindling stores aboard the roaming ships….

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Bridge Building Belongs to You and Me

There were two unmarried sisters who had such a bitter fight that they stopped speaking to each other. Unable or unwilling to leave their small home, they continued to use the same rooms and sleep in the same bedroom. A chalk line divided the sleeping area into two halves. The chalk divided rooms so that both sisters could come and go and get her own meals without trespassing on their sister's space. In the black of night, each could hear the breathing and snoring of the foe. For years they coexisted in grinding silence. Neither was willing to take the first step to reconciliation.

Then one night one sister got up to go to the bathroom and fell, breaking her hip. The other sister awakened by the fall and the scream of pain jumped out of bed crossed the chalk line and came to her sister's side. After a few typical sister jabs at why she would do such a foolish thing as trip on her own feet, the sister held her foe of the past few years until the paramedics came and carried her to the hospital with her sister at her side. In those moments of darkness came the truth and power of love and light. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall told this story with these words. "The legal system can force open doors, and sometimes even knock down walls, but it cannot build bridges. That job belongs to you and me."

Source Unknown

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Fishers of Men (Witnessing)

Most of our witnessing is likely to happen in passing moments of conversation--those occasions when we show, in relatively minor ways, who we are and to whom we belong. I think of a suburban woman who was playing tennis with her good but quite secular friends. In a conversation break between sets she began referring to something she had read that morning. It would have been easy to say, "I read something this morning." Instead, with no attempt at piosity, she simply introduced one word: "In my devotional reading this morning." It was not a major soul-winning engagement. It was, however, a true sowing of seed. By a word, she had opened the door for some further conversation.

Perhaps our greatest problem in becoming Christ’s fishermen is that we are not enough in earnest to grasp the opportunities that come to us; or we are so possessed of the idea that we must say something dramatic and far-reaching that we fail to say the small, immediate and potentially significant thing. To put it in the language of our lesson for the day, most of us really don’t act as if we even have a call to "fish." We’re out in the waters of human need every day, but we don’t seem to know it.

The issue is not that we should become more aggressive about sharing our faith. It is that we should be more sensitive to the needs of the world around us, and more sensitive to the subtle prodding of the Holy Spirit. The two sensitivities are wonderfully intertwined. To be sensitive to the Holy Spirit must mean that we will be more sensitive to people and their pain; to be more sensitive to people ought to make us more open to God and his purposes.

J. Ellsworth Kalas, Reading the Signs, From Empty Nets to Full Lives, CSS Publishing Company

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The Meaning of Repent

The first and simplest meaning of repent is to apologize. In a movie about Beethoven, there's a scene in which he becomes furious at his landlady about some little thing, screaming and throwing things, and practically terrorizing her. Later he told her he was sorry. It was a touching moment and you could see that the woman was almost moved to tears. Then he gave her 2 tickets to the concert at which his new symphony was to be performed for the first time, to which she replied, "Mr. Beethoven, you're not half bad when you have a civil tongue in your head."

Finley Schaef, Repent! The Kingdom of Heaven Is at Hand

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Follow Me

There was a field covered with freshly fallen snow. A father and a son enter the field. As they walk across the field, you notice that the father pays no particular attention to where he is going, but his son, on the other hand, follows directly behind, making a special effort to step in his father’s footprints. After the two have crossed the field, you notice that there is only one set of tracks visible in the field, although two had walked across it. The Christian life is that way. In our daily walk we ought to be following Christ's example. Whether in times of suffering, sorrow or need, whether in times of health, joy, or abundance--if someone were to observe the snow-covered fields of your life, would there be one set of tracks, those of Christ? Or would there be two sets, one belonging to Christ and the other distinctly yours?

Michael Green, Illustrations for Biblical Preaching, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993, p.53. Adapted

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Dreaming to a New Future

In 1904 a man from Milwaukee took a neighbor girl, Bessie Cary to a picnic on an island in Lake Michigan. After a while Bessie got a craving for a cool, refreshing dish of ice cream. Ole (that was his name) rowed 2 ½ miles back to the mainland to get some. Unfortunately, the summer heat melted the ice cream into a globby mess by the time Ole made his return trip.

The embarrassing incident prompted the young mechanic to look for a more efficient means of propelling a small boat. Five years later, Ole Evinrude, patented his revolutionary outboard motor and formed the Evinrude Motor Company. Before long the company was swamped with orders for the little one-cylinder engine. Although most of the success can be credited to Ole, Bessie Cary, soon there after, Bessie Evinrude, was responsible for the management of the business.

Perhaps the Church has become a lower priority in society because it has ceased to dream. By leaving the past and venturing into the future the Church can still make a difference.

Keith Wagner, Go Fish!

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One Unknown

At the end of Albert Schweitzer's book "The Quest for the Historical Jesus" Schweitzer writes these words:

He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeside. He came to those who knew Him not. He speaks to us the same word: "Follow thou me!" and sets us to the tasks which He has to fulfill for our time. He commands, and to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, he will reveal Himself in the toil, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He is.

Staff, www.Sermons.com

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Commentary

Jesus lived three years with his disciples. They went everywhere together and did everything together. They ate, slept, and breathed the life of Jesus and yet it was difficult for them to make the transition in their minds from a Messiah who would be a mighty King of Jews to a Messiah that would die for the sins of mankind. But Jesus never wavered in his mission. Throughout his entire ministry among the people and his training of the disciples he held in his heart this hope: That Peter along with the rest of his disciples would lose their earthly ambitions and become feeders of sheep--fishers of men.

The very first words of Jesus when he and Peter met at the waters was, "Follow me, and I will make you a fisher of men." His very last words to Peter, again down at the waters of the Sea of Galilee, and after his resurrection, were, "Feed my sheep, Follow me."

Brett Blair, www.Sermons.com

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God Reigns

Archbishop William Temple wrote in 1930:

While we deliberate, God reigns; when we decide wisely, God reigns; when we decide foolishly, God reigns; when we serve God in humble loyalty, God reigns; when we serve God self-assertively, God reigns; when we rebel and seek to withhold our service, God reigns -- the Alpha and the Omega, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

Archbishop William Temple. Quoted in "Context," February 1, 1992.

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A Great Light

A few years ago a story came out in the news about two men living in Lincoln, Nebraska.

One of them, a man named Larry Trapp, was, you might say, walking in darkness. It might be more accurate to say that he was sitting in darkness, for he was wheel-chair bound, and diagnosed with a fatal disease. The darkness he was in (or that was in him) was not caused by his disease, but was the result of hatred. Larry was a Grand Dragon in the Nebraska Ku Klux Klan.

The unfortunate focus of his hatred, the other man, happened to be a Jewish cantor named Michael Weisser. Larry harassed Michael with threatening phone calls and a barrage of hate mail. His goal was to get him out of the community.

Michael decided to take a bold approach; to confront his tormentor. He decided to call Larry on the telephone.

"I just kept leaving messages on his answering machine," says Michael, "until finally one day, Larry Trapp, in a fit of anger, picked up the phone. 'What do you want?' he said. 'You're harassing me! My phone's got a tap on it.'

"I was real quiet and calm" says Michael. "I said I knew he had a hard time getting around and thought he might need a ride to the grocery store.

He just got completely quiet, and all the anger went out of his voice, and he said, 'I've got that taken care of, but thanks for asking.'"

The remarkable end of the story is that the two men eventually became friends. The Weissers, this Jewish couple, would have Larry, former grand dragon in the KKK, over for dinner. Amazing! Someone who was so full of hate.

Eventually, Larry decided to devote the time he had left to freeing others from the destructive power of hatred and bigotry.

And the people of Lincoln, Nebraska, and other places saw a great light, the light generated by a sudden reversal, a change of heart, which in turn was caused by someone reaching out, not responding in kind.

Both love, when it is practiced, and hatred, when it is destroyed, give off a great light.

Philip S. Windsor, "This Little Light of Mine” Story taken from: Time, 2/17/92, as quoted in Word & Witness 1/21/96

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They Cast Their Nets in Galilee

A poem of repentance and discipleship:

They cast their nets in Galilee,
just off the hills of brown;
Such happy simple fisherfolk,
before the Lord came down,
Before the Lord came down.
Contented, peaceful fishermen,
before they ever knew
The peace of God that filled their hearts
Brimful, and broke them too,
brimful and broke them too.

Young John, who trimmed the flapping sail,
Homeless in Patmos died.
Peter, who hauled the teeming net,
Head down was crucified,
head down was crucified.
The peace of God is no peace,
but strife closed in the sod.
Yet, let us pray for but one thing:
The marvelous peace of God,
the marvelous peace of God.

William A. Pierce

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The Worst Thing Is, He's Right

William Willimon tells about going with his wife to the funeral of a friend, which was held in a little country church out in the backwoods. The minister took advantage of the occasion to berate those who had come: "You people need to decide for Jesus now. This dear, departed brother is safe because he had chosen Christ. Now is the time! Repent before it is too late!" After the service, Willimon said, "Can you get over that guy, taking advantage of having all of us there to beat us over the head about how it is important to make a decision right now."

"Yes," replied his wife, "and the worst thing about it is - he is right."

Staff

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Go Fish

"Do you have any sevens?" "No. Go fish!" I remember playing that card game as a child - it consumed long hours on dull, rainy days. It didn't take much intellect but it chased away the boredom. "Go fish!" That's what Jesus said to his first disciples - only he wasn't playing games. He was serious. There at the very beginning of his ministry when he started recruiting his helpers, he called out to Peter and Andrew and said, "Come, follow me." Then he said, "I will make you fish for people." They already knew how to catch fish - that was their profession - but he called them to learn to bring in people. "Go fish!" he said and they did.

James L. Collier, Go Fish!

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Have You Caught Any People for Christ

Have you been fishing lately? Have you caught any people for Jesus? If you are a typical Presbyterian (or Methodist or Lutheran or mainline Christian of any sort) the answer probably is a shrug of the shoulders and a bewildered look. "He can't be serious, can he?" A few years ago there were some statistics floating around in church circles. If you take a middle aged church member who has attended church regularly most of his/her life, by the age of fifty they would have listened to 1760 sermons, sung 5280 hymns, placed money in the offering plate about 1500 times and never introduced another person to Jesus Christ. True - most of us, if asked, can't remember ever talking to a non-believer about our faith. We just don't do that sort of thing. We haven't done much fishing.

James L. Collier, Go Fish!

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He Took Me Fishing

One of the fondest memories I have of my Grandpa Anderson, was when he took me fishing with him on the St. Lawrence River. I was probably only 6 or 7 the first year I went with him. We’d get up early in the morning before it was light, and motor out in our little boat to one of his favorite places. He’d rig up his poles with practiced hands, and deftly get his lines ready, and then he’d guide me ever so patiently, and carefully, through the steps to preparing my own line. Then as we sat there in the shell pink dawn, quiet, and still, he’d murmur his observations to me - " Now put your hand right here - do you feel that gentle movement? That’s a fish tasting the bait so I wait, and wait, and now!" Then he’d set the hook and the line would start whirring off the reel, and he’d wheedle that fish into the boat.

I believe that Christ invites us to become disciples in similar fashion. Christ invites us to join him on a learning journey - to follow and learn the ways of the Spirit. Christ invites people to undertake a gentle journey towards growth and transformation. Christ invites everyone to leave their nets, and to turn around, and follow.

Edmund L. Hoener, Jr., Making Light Work

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Losing the Light

There is a new family of LEGO products that provide us with an excellent illustration of sensing, responding, and following a stimulus in response to a preconditioning set of instructions. Until recently, I thought LEGOs were simply a set of snap together plastic components capable of becoming inert replicas of cars, planes, building…you know, regular stuff. Well, have you all seen what LEGO is marketing now? The company has developed LEGO Mindstorms Robots that you put together and program via the computer. When you download the program to the robot, it then uses sensors to carry out a program that makes the robot interact with the environment. One robot that particularly intrigues me is the one that uses a light sensor to follow a flashlight around in a dark room. They program the robot, turn off all of the lights in the room, and then move the flashlight around the room. The robot follows! Except, every once in awhile the robot “loses” the light. And when it does, the robot just keeps going whichever direction it was going until it runs into a wall. When that happens you have to go find it and use the flashlight to begin to guide it again.

It's not a perfect analogy, but it does remind me of my own struggles with following Jesus. There are times that I am like that robot - I “lose” the light and head off into the darkness. Eventually, I find myself pounding my head against the wall (figuratively, at least), wondering where the light went. When that happens, I have to remember to stop, to “repent,” to turn around and focus on the light of God – for that is the only way I am going to get out of the darkness and back heading in the right direction.

Jef Olson

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A Moment of Decision

In his commentary William Barclay notes the significance of Jesus' move from Nazareth to Capernaum. He says,

“There was a kind of symbolic finality in that move. In that moment Jesus left his home never again to return to live in it. It is as if he shut the door that lay behind him before he opened the door that stood in front of him. It was the clean cut between the old and the new. One chapter was ended and another had begun. Into life there come these moments of decision. It is always better to meet them with an even surgical cut than to vacillate undecided between two courses of action.”

William Barclay

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Where the Scary Things Live

For most of us, becoming adults hasn’t necessarily cured us of our fear of the dark. Oh, we may have switched to waterbeds that nothing could possibly get underneath. And our closets may be a little bigger (although still not big enough) and they’re filled with business suits or work clothes instead of building blocks and athletic gear. But at night, when the lights are out and the children are safely tucked into bed to wrestle with THEIR fears, our own monsters come to life and torment us yet again.

Am I a caring husband? Am I a loving wife? Do I really try to understand my spouse’s point of view? Are we raising our children the right way? What about my parents? Am I doing all I can to make their later years as pleasant as they made my early years? Can I be sure my children aren’t experimenting with drugs? When will I ever be able to slow down? Why doesn’t someone invent a magic pill that will make all these excess pounds I’m carrying around disappear overnight, never to return again? Why do I never seem to be satisfied anymore? Where is God in the middle of all this chaos in my life?

Yes, in the light of day we function pretty well through this messy maze of life – paying bills, getting family schedules coordinated, even managing once in a while to eat those high-fiber, low-fat meals our doctors tell us we’re supposed to eat. And the fear of our unknowns, the scary stuff, is kept safely at arm’s length, barricaded securely behind our busy work schedules and microwave dinners.

But when our world slows down a little, when darkness falls, the fears creep in. No they don’t – they RUSH into our lives, our hearts, our minds, our very souls, and the torture begins once again. Does it always have to be that way?

Quoting the prophet Isaiah, Jesus said, "The people who lived in darkness have seen a great light, and to those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned." And there’s something inside us that wants to believe that if anything in this life is true, THIS is! Something inside us wants to believe that this is the only hope worth hanging on to, that here is a way out of the fearful mess we’ve made of our lives. Somewhere, sometime, we believe that WE have seen that light. We remember seeing it, once upon a time, a long time ago. If only we could find it again – or if IT could find US – then maybe the darkness wouldn’t be quite so threatening and ominous.

Johnny Dean, Where The Scary Things Live

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Joy Is Not the Opposite of Faith

After a service of ordination to the Christian ministry, a sad-faced woman came up to the newly-ordained pastor and said, "It's a grand thing you are doing as a young man - giving up the joys of life to serve the Lord." That woman's attitude reflects a commonly held belief that to be serious about our faith means that we expect all joy to be taken out of living. For many, Christianity appears to be a depressing faith, with unwelcome disciplines, that cramps our lifestyle and crushes our spirits.

In a recent Doonesbury cartoon, an officer is standing by the bedside of a Navy sailor who is in sick bay aboard a cruiser. The officer says, "We've got you scheduled for surgery at four bells tomorrow! Your surgeon will be Commander Torres." As he leaves the officer says, "Well, take care, sport. I'll see you tonight during rounds." The sailor is puzzled and says to the officer, "What exactly do you do here?" The officer replies, "I'm ship's morale officer." And wide-eyed, the sailor says, "You mean, a ... a chaplain?" And the officer replies, "No. No. I really do cheer people up!"

How sad that this word joy which Isaiah uses so many times in our text for today is so often thought to be the very opposite of faith! What a commentary that is on we Christians who seem to be saints with sour faces - people who talk about rejoicing before the Lord but who give little evidence of that joy in our living. When you turn to the pages of the Bible, you find that word joy or its variants being used more than 350 times in the scriptures. Isaiah speaks here of a new beginning in the history of Israel. The prophet foresees a time of light and peace after the terrible suffering Isaiah has endured in the long and oppressive reign of Tiglath-Pileser.

Robert A. Beringer, Something's Coming...Something Great, CSS Publishing Company.

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Repent! A Whole New World Is Headed Straight at You!

"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near!" That is what Jesus says (plagiarizing his cousin John) in Matthew 4:17. In his wonderful commentary on Matthew, Frederick Dale Bruner paraphrases this, "Move, because here comes the whole new world of God!" The verb translated as "is near" is the same word Jesus uses later in Matthew when he sees Judas in Gethsemane and says, "Here comes my betrayer." So when Jesus says in verse 17 that the kingdom of heaven "is near," he means it's coming straight at you! If you're crossing a street and see a garbage truck barreling down on you, you may well say, "Hey, look out!" (or words to that effect). Jesus' words have that same urgency. "Look out! Move! A whole new world is headed straight at you!"

As Bruner says, every word that comes from Jesus is nuclear. These words are urgent and the implications of this kingdom's approach are immediate. If someone yells "Watch out!" when you're crossing a street but then you just stand there, something is going to happen to you and it's probably not going to be good. Jesus' point is the same: you can't hear him tell you that the kingdom is approaching and then just stand there like a statue with your hands in your pockets. You need to repent, literally to turn around, so that you're ready to embrace this kingdom, so that you can hop onto the kingdom instead of getting crushed by it as it rolls right over you.

Scott E. Hoezee, Comments and Observations

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The Kingdom Can Come Anywhere

If you are going to try to establish yourself as a public figure, you try to nudge your way into the limelight, not out of it. Today if you are an author and get the chance to plug your book by having Matt Lauer interview you on the “Today” show, you snap up the opportunity! If Oprah Winfrey wants to make your novel one of her Book Club titles, you are only too glad because every book Oprah puts onto her list appears on also the New York Times bestseller list soon thereafter. So what would we think of an author who turned down the “Today” interview and the Oprah Book Club offer in favor of driving over to Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, to be interviewed by a reporter for the Broken Arrow Gazette? We'd say he was out-of-touch! That's not how you sell a lot of books.

To the minds of his contemporaries, Jesus messed up, too, by giving up the potential spotlight of Jerusalem in favor of Capernaum way out in the backwaters of Palestine. Even Matthew feels the need to muster a biblical heavyweight like Isaiah to show that Jesus did not go wrong when he went north but instead Jesus went north to fulfill a prophecy. But the point is that it is only after Jesus had put a lot of miles between himself and Jerusalem that he announced the advent of the kingdom. Maybe it was Jesus' way of saying that the kingdom of God is not tied down to a single location, and certainly it cannot be restricted to the spots on the map we deem important. The kingdom can come, and does come, most anywhere and everywhere.

Scott E. Hoezee, Comments and Observations

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Fishing Takes Practice

Ernest Hemingway loved fishing as much as he loved writing. He would never have been a great writer had he not fished, and he would never have been a great fisherman had he not written. Maybe his great work "The Old Man and the Sea" is so powerful because it is at one time so dramatically simple and also so dramatically deep. But "The Old Man and The Sea" is only one of Hemingway's great stories about fishing. His favorite saying apparently was this-something he learned while fishing and writing: Il faut (d'abord) durer. "It is necessary, above all else, to endure. It is necessary to endure," he said.

Yes, fishing remains one of the great models of Jesus for the kingdom of God. Maybe our age and culture are in danger of losing the image because we no longer go fishing - just like we no longer herd sheep and know what a shepherd is. We no longer plant seed in the ground and know what growth is. We no longer draw water from wells and know what living water is.

Fishing also teaches us about discipline. "Follow me, and I will make you fishers," said Jesus. Fishing takes practice, preparation, discipline. One must learn how to best throw the net, how to make the mouth of the net come open too. I can throw the actual cast net a long way, but I can't always make the net come open so that it will actually form a circle around the fish. One must learn how to cast the line on a rod. Again, some folks can cast a long way, but their accuracy is awful. There may be fish on the right, but they know only how to cast the line to the left. There may be fish on the left, but they keep casting to the right. Casting, like discipleship, is an acquired habit. It rewards practice.

Samuel G. Candler, Follow Me, and I Will Make You Go Fishing
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The Evidence of Life Is Growth

A disciple is one who studies with a great teacher. It is implied that those who follow Jesus need to grow. We do not blossom overnight into mature spiritual giants. As Dr. Dwayne Dyer said in his book, Your Erroneous Zones, "How do you distinguish between a flower that is alive and one that is dead? The one that is growing is alive. The only evidence of life is growth." So it is with the life of the spirit.

One prominent evangelist has complained that despite the burgeoning statistics, the church today is not growing. It is merely getting fat. That is, persons are coming into the church but they are remaining spiritual babes. They are not growing. "We are simply multiplying spiritual babies," he charges. To be alive is to grow. Peter encourages us "to grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 3: 18).

King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com

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Francis of Assisi

People in the western tradition have long known about Francis of Assisi. He turned from a life of luxury to one of voluntary poverty with the intention of sharing his possessions with the poor. He became an example to his fellow townspeople of the biblical assurance that God can provide.

Francis attracted others to his way of life and began the Order of Mendicant Friars. A sister order was established by Clare, to whom Francis was both friend and mentor. In the hymn of praise attributed to Francis, God is exalted for creating all of the elements of the world of which, according to Francis, humans are only one part. Francis placed people in
the perspective of God's whole creation and asserted a relationship of kinship among all the elements. The example of his impoverished life drew others to him, and increased the numbers of the Franciscan Order. His began the first of the monastic groups to develop a spiritual life – a life lived as much in the world as it was in the withdrawn quite life.

Joe E. Pennell, From Anticipation to Transfiguration, CSS Publishing Company

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The World’s Only Hope

G. Ray Jordon, Methodist preacher from North Carolina and teacher of preachers at Emory University, wrote years ago, "The hope of civilization is that we shall be able to produce enough Christlike men to save it." That is the world's only hope. It was when Jesus first walked along the Sea of Galilee. It still is today.

Thomas A. Pilgrim, The Man From Galilee, CSS Publishing Company, Inc

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Invitation from a Jogger

Tom and Stuart McLean had been with their father in his growing business for three years. Their father was an electronic genius and had developed some exotic products that fit a very narrow customer need in the industry. When Stuart graduated from M.I.T. with a degree in engineering, he had accepted his father's offer to come into the company as his older brother had done two years before. In three short years the father and his two sons were the chief cogs in the business.

While Tom and Stuart enjoyed working with their father, their work didn't give them much physical exercise, so they put on their jogging shoes in order to get back into the physical shape they both enjoyed in college. After gradually getting into shape, they settled into a jogging routine, and eventually covered three miles per day. By the sixth month of their regular jogging they began to recognize other joggers on the trail, occasionally nodding to them or greeting them with a smile.

One day as they neared the end of their three miles, an African-American jogger joined them. He said very little other than a greeting, but joined them again during the following week. On one of those days he sat with them in the locker room of their club and chatted with them after they all finished their showers. "How would you like to join me in a project I'm thinking of starting?" he asked during their chat.

"What do you have in mind?" Stuart asked.

"I came from the bad side of town," he started to explain, "and I'm going to go back there and set up programs for the kids. I was lucky, because I got an athletic scholarship to go to college, but most of those poor kids have got nothing to look forward to," he continued.

"Well, that's all well and good," Tom commented, "but what are you going to do? And ... and this kind of thing usually takes money ..." The man went on to explain his plan and what it would do for the young people in the poor neighborhood from which he had come.

"But who's sponsoring you?" Stuart asked, not wanting to demean what the man was proposing, but at the same time knowing it takes money to do things like this.

"No one is sponsoring me," the man replied. "The need is so great, I can't help believing that somehow we'll make it. I'm quitting my job to get into this project ... how would you guys like to join me?" The three of them were dressed by now and the brothers said parting words to the other man and headed for home.

On the way home Tom said, "Craziest thing I ever heard of," not quite convincingly.

"Yeah, perhaps so," Stuart agreed. "You know, we were raised in a pretty privileged home and don't really know what poverty means."

"So?" Tom replied. "What are you driving at?"

"Let's help him," Stuart challenged.

"Are you crazy, too?!" Tom accused.

But they talked about it, and sat in the driveway giving it more thought before entering the house. Their dad was watching the 6:00 news. "Dad," Tom stuttered, "Stuart and I are leaving the company."

"What did you say?" their dad asked, not quite believing what he had heard.

"It's a long story," Stuart began.

Merle G. Franke, Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit Cycle A, CSS Publishing Company, Inc.