The Fisherman Series

This past Wednesday marked the beginning of the season of Lent. Many people give something up for Lent. I’m not always sure people understand why they do it. It just seems like the thing to do because that is what others are doing. For some reason this is not something that growing up that my family really ever got into. Many people give up things like sweets, soda(pop), alcohol. This if fine but I want to warn against something if you have decided to give something up for Lent.

Are you doing this for you or are you doing it so that you can draw closer to the Lord? If you are giving something up then what are you replacing it with? Maybe you should be focusing on adding something. Adding more time in scripture. Committing to read scripture every day. I’m just throwing out some food for thought.

During this time of Lent where we begin to prepare ourselves for Christ’s sacrifice on the cross on Good Friday and his resurrection on Easter morning I thought we would take a look at one of his closest followers, Peter.

We are going to look at Peter’s early contact with Jesus and his subsequent decision to follow him. So open your bibles with me this morning to Luke 5:1-11. Put a finger in that passage and then turn over to John 1:35-43. Let’s look at God’s Word together this morning.

Read John 1:35-43 and then Luke 5:1-11

We know that Peter was a fisherman but what else do we know about him? We know that he was an outspoken guy. We know that he was impulsive. He often seemed to put his foot in him mouth. He was Andrew’s brother. He was in business with James and John and their father Zebedee.

We can maybe draw some assumptions about him. Since he was a Jewish male he would have been educated to a certain extent about the Old Testament laws and prophets. He may have been a fairly successful at his business. They were in business with James and John and had at least two boats in their fleet.

At this time in history the Jews were waiting for the Messiah. They knew the prophecies and they had been praying for God to deliver them from Roman oppression. There were different self-proclaimed Messiah’s that had come and gone. John the Baptist was now making quite a noise. People were beginning to pay attention and he had his own disciples that were following him and attending to him.

Andrew must have been one of those who was spending time with John the Baptist. John had witnessed Jesus coming and declared him as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! Andrew was now interested in Jesus and he then went to find his brother Peter and introduced him to Jesus. Jesus was leaving for Galilee and he asked them to follow.

I have concluded a couple of things from this. John did his baptizing in the Jordan River probably more down towards Jerusalem in the region of Judea. When Jesus asked them to follow one of two things happened. When they decided to go with him they moved their fishing operation from the river up to the Sea of Galilee. They all decided that they wanted to keep an eye on Jesus and be around him but at this point they weren’t giving up their livelihood.

Or they lived and fished on the Sea of Galilee and Andrew was following John at this time and either other siblings were taking up the slack or they had hired men to take the place of the boys.

If they decided to move their operation it definitely shoes that they were already beginning to believe that there might be something special happening here. Andrew stated it to Peter when he said we have found the Messiah.

What did you do when you found the Jesus? These guys were pretty excited about it and they went and told their family members about it. Maybe they were just trying to get in on the ground floor first with John as he built up his base of followers and then with Jesus has he began his rise? Maybe they were just so enamored with who Jesus was that they just could keep it inside.

In our small group we were just talking about how we are at an advantage now having the bible and knowing the whole story. We have things explained to us about what it means to follow Jesus. We have Jesus ministry explained to us where they were just left to try to figure things out on the fly.

But on the flip side they had an advantage on us in that they were looking for Jesus or the Messiah. They wanted him to come. They were eagerly searching for him and when offered the chance or that this might be the guy, they were ready to check it out and take it.