Fishing For Jesus

Good morning. I want to start by asking you something. How many of you have ever been fishing before?

Well I have. I enjoy getting out in the sun on the lake. It’s nice. But you know what I really enjoy doing when I go fishing? Actually catching fish.

Wednesday night we talked about a time when the disciples were out fishing and they had fished all night and they had not caught a single fish. That has definitely happened to me. But when Jesus spoke to them he told them to cast their net out on the side of the boat. Now they had probably already done that but they did it anyway. And when they did they caught 153 fish. I don’t think I have caught that many in my lifetime. But one time my daughter and I went fishing in one of the lakes near our home and we did catch 32 fish. But you know what the funny thing was? We were using some honey baked ham on the hook and we counted that we caught the same fish about 17 times.

I have some things here that we take with us when we go fishing. See if you recognize any of these. This is a tackle box.

• Rod and reel. The disciples didn’t use these. They used a net. But we use them now.

• Chain ….Float….Weight

Al of these things are important when we go fishing. Well Jesus knew that many of the people he would have as his early disciples would be fishermen because it is one of the main ways people made money in that part of the world. So he went out to get his disciples and this is what he said, “follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” They had been catching fish and now they would catch men. There is one thing I left out when we were talking about the tackle box. We have a fishing pole, the line, a float on the end. We need at least one more thing. A hook. A lure.

Just as we want to catch fish when we go fishing, when we talk to other people we want them to know the Lord like we do. So we learn to say things that will help get them to Jesus. We want to speak with kindness. We want them to see Jesus in us. We want to share what we have. One of the ways we can do that is to talk to other people at school and your friends in your neighborhood about Jesus. And invite them to church with you. I want to challenge you guys to do that this week. OK. Jesus wants it to be fishers of men too.