Have you ever gone fishing? Even if you don’t plan on catching anything, there is nothing nicer than sitting in the warmth of the summer sun, watching your line float across the water, and noticing how everything is easy, not rushed, and well, very peaceful, just the way God wanted the world to be in the first place.
I remember going fishing with my cousin Larry as we were growing up in Fairborn, Ohio. There was a place called “Mud Run” that we did our best fishing. It was out behind the old drive-in theater, and we loved to sit on the edge of the bridge and throw our lines in the water below. It didn’t matter too much to us then that we never caught anything, as we sure did enjoy sitting there “going through the motions’.
Today, I want to talk to you about becoming a fisherman. And, I am going to talk to you about making some very hard choices in your life. You can choose to fish, or you can choose to just throw your line in the water. One way will catch fish, and the other way you may enjoy yourself, but you will certainly end up with nothing to show for it.
There are some very important points to remember as you start -
1. GOING FISHING
In MATTHEW 4:19, it says that Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee and He saw Simon and Andrew, two fishermen. Jesus said, “Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
Most of us know that Jesus was a fisher of men, don’t we? And we know that He taught His disciples to also be fishers of men. But, what most of us have never thought about is that the devil is a fisherman, too. And He uses some very deceptive lures, just like the fishermen of this world use.
He is constantly throwing his deceptive lures of temptation in front of us, trying to lure us away from God. And, we have to be very careful, as not all of his temptations are bad things. The devil will use anything he can to keep us from focusing on the Lord, including some very good things.
For example, we all know that going to church and being involved in Christ is a very good thing, but we have to understand that the devil will use something as good as this to keep us away from Jesus. How can he use something this good and Godly against Christ? He can make us so busy in church, doing things for other people and for the church that we just don’t have time to study, pay attention or even worship for ourselves.
When we don’t have time to keep our own hearts safeguarded, we start slipping away; inch-by-inch-by-inch. It is very imperceptible at first, and we don’t even realize it is happening, but over a small period of time, we fidn that we have simply left Jesus behind.
We all know that Jesus was a fisher of men, don’t we? Did you know that we are also fishers of men? Your job as a Christian is to go out evangelizing and discipling other people into Christ. In MATTHEW 28:19-20, Jesus gave us our marching orders and He wants us to do what He has already told us to do. We are to go out and make new disciples.
Now, in all truthfulness, most of us go and just sit on the bridge as my cousin and I used to do, going through the motions, but having no desire or intentions of really catching any fish.
I understand that most people have never been taught enough to be able to be effective disciples for other people. Before long, however, I will be offering workshops thatwill help us all develop that ability. And, we will find that it isn’t as difficult and scary as we may have thought it was.
We must also realize that Jesus never said, “Here is what I want you to do, but you go do what is comfortable for you to do.” Jesus never said, “I don’t want you to do anything that you find too difficult.”
This may come as a shocker to some of you, but Jesus meant every single word He ever said. And, Jesus expects you to do His bidding, whether you feel comfortable doing it or not. Now, the first thing you must do is start -
2. MAKING YOUR DECISION
A moment ago I mentioned that I will start having workshops pretty soon that will give us the tools we need to properly witness and disciple others. These workshops are geared to give you knowledge while having fun learning.
When the time comes for you to decide to attend these workshops, I encourage you to ask yourself one question: “Do I intend to do what Jesus told me to do?” If you do, you should be willing to do whatever is necessary to get the proper training to do it.
If you do not intend on doing what Jesus wants you to, you might want to start working on your excuse now for not doing it, so that when you face Him on judgment day, you will feel all prepared. Of course it will not do any good then, but it sure might make you feel safe now.
Now, if you are going to be a fisher of men, you probably want to know what kind of lures you are going to be using. You will be using the best lures in existence. They are the kind of lures that involve no hooks and no deceptions. They are the lures of truthfulness, love, and Godliness.
It is much like fishing for crawdads. When fishing for a crawdad, you use a piece of string with some meat attached to the end of it. You lower the meat into the water and when the crawdad grabs hold, you slowly raise it out of the water.
This is how you do it. You prepare the offering by tying the string snugly around the piece of meet, and then you present it to the crawdad by lowering it very slowly and gently into the water. Then you wait while the crawdad makes the choice to take it or not. You must realize that all you can do is "try", but the actual decision comes from the crawdad, not from you.
When fishing for disciples, you also prepare your offering. In other words, you become familiar with what the Word says and means. You don’t need to go through seminary. You only need a working knowledge of the Word of God and able to relay that to someone else who does not have the same knowledge you have. To get this working knowledge, you have to be willing to read the letter that God wrote you. That is the Holy Bible. Read it every day. If you do not have a daily habit established as of yet, I suggest you start with the book of JOHN in the New Testament.
Another way to get that working knowledge is to be in church. Go to Sunday school and learn what the Scripture says. You will be amazed at how much this will develop your knowledge base in a very small period of time. Attend the Sunday morning sermon. You will hear many thoughts and ideas you will want to remember for future use. Go to the mid-week services, too. And be sure to go to the different workshops as they become available.
Make the decision within your heart today to become involved for God’s kingdom. We are on this earth for a relatively short period of time, and when the day comes that we stand before our Father, we want Him to know we tried our best.
In HEBREWS 10:25, it cautions us to "not give up the ’gathering together’ as some have done", but we are told to gather together and encourage one another. The one place you will find more Christians than anywhere else is in your church. Show yourselves as regular attendees, and become actively involved in your church family.
And, while you are in church, pay attention to others as they give you suggestions on how to witness and disciple. Then, just like you would if you were fishing for crawdads, you simply offer God’s Word to the person and let that person make the choice to receive it or not.
Basically, all you do when giving your testimony or when you evangelize, is to relay to someone else what Jesus Christ has done in your heart. You do not preach to them.
That is called planting a seed. You will have planted the seed, but you may or may not be the one to water it. You might not even be the one called to cultivate it. You may never know whether that seed ever sprouted, but the important thing is that God will know that you planted it, and He will surely reward you for doing so.
Christianity is a choice. We present God’s love to the unsaved. If they decide to receive it, we gently help them out of the sea of sin they are destined to drown in, and help them onto the solid rock of Jesus Christ.
MATTHEW 7:13-14 says,
"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."
God wants everyone to enter into His kingdom through the small gate. He knows that without Christians who become fishermen, most people will go through the wide gate, and that gate leads to hell.
In 2 PETER 3:9, it says,
"He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance."
Before we can get to the small gate to enter Heaven, we must first go up the narrow path that leads to the narrow gate. And the only way we can do that is to have the Lord Jesus Christ lead us. See, He will lead us directly to His Father.
Did you know that God is working in your life at this very moment, either leading you down that narrow path, or leading you to that narrow gate? Right this very second, His Son is standing right beside you, wanting desperately to get your full attention and your full devotion. He just wants you to love Him with all of your heart, all of your mind, and all of your soul. He does not want you to hold back anything at all, because He knows that if you do not give Him 100%, you aren’t giving Him anything at all.
Most of us are unaware of how God is constantly working on us, but if we are to become truly effective Christians, we need to start realizing where we are with God on a day-to-day basis. Sometimes, we need to know where we are on an hourly schedule, don’t we?
God has called you into duty, and He is not willing to let you be safe in His love if you refuse to work for Him because you want to be comfortable.
God has a plan. He has a wonderful plan for all of humanity, and you fit right into His plans. He is trying to get us to be fishermen, and in His time, we shall be world-class fishermen - in His perfect timing.
Think about His timing for a moment. This old world has been here for thousands of years. Have you ever wondered why it was that Jesus came at the time He came? I think it was the perfect time that would allow the Gospel to be spread quickly and over a large area.
See, before this time, there were next to no roads to travel on, and there were too many languages to be able to reach large crowds of people. God let the Romans take control over a large area of that part of the world so they could get it ready for Jesus.
Since they were the dominating rulers, they made sure everyone in that region knew their language, and since commerce was so important to them, they made sure that there were many roads that were easily traveled on. This made it possible for the disciples to go just about anywhere in that area and be understood when they talked about Jesus, and the roads enabled them to cover a lot of area in a relatively short period of time.
Had Jesus come later, He would have found a world that is much like ours. A world that is overly focused on what “we” want: a world that is focused on how “easy” we can have it. A world that has all but made the decision to turn their backs on Him and cast Him out – all in the name of “personal desire.” But that goes against what God wants from us.
God wants us to travel, not on the wide and easy road, but on the narrow and more difficult road. He wants us to develop our faith in Him, by being prepared to deal with anything that comes against us.
And to help us do this, God is giving us other Christians like those around you this morning to encourage you, and He gives us the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome those difficulties. But, accepting the small gate is strictly a matter of our choice. We make that decision from our hearts. Which decision are you coming up with this morning?
See, stepping into God’s will is much like jumping into a raging river. The water goes fast and if you jump in, it will carry you away by its power, and it will carry you very swiftly into new territory. When we step into God’s perfect will, we are carried by His awesome power into new territory to accomplish new things, all for His glory.
In MALACHI 3:10, it says that we should bring the tithes into the storehouse, and if we do, our rewards will be so great that we will not have room enough to store them. I can tell you right now, that when you really do that, fully and willingly, you will be absolutely amazed at how truthful God’s promise is.
Whenever I say that, most people immediately think about the money they give. I think it includes our money, but I also think it includes every single thing that makes us … us. I think God wants us to give Him 10% of our devotion, 10% of our love, 10% of our energy, 10% of our time, etc.
Another good way to look at it is God gave us 100% of everything we have, and He wants us to keep 90% of it for ourselves. What a wonderful gift, isn’t it? He gives us 100% of the plan of salvation, and He wants us to keep 90% of it for our own eternity, and He wants us to give 10% of it to others so they can spend eternity with us in Heaven.
In DEUTERONOMY 30:19, we see that God has
".. set life and death before us. He has set blessings and curses before us." And He says, “Now choose life so that you and your children may live.”
It is our choice where we want to go. And, if we are so unfocused that we think we can just not think about it, we will actually have made the choice to go to hell. For every action, there is a reaction, and for every truth, there is a
3. CONSEQUENCE
When I was younger, I went with some friends to Nashville, to visit the Grand Ol’ Opry. I will remember that trip for many reasons. One of those reasons is that there was some awesome singing in the old Ryman Auditorium.
But I also remember that when we walked down the street there were many bars and their doors were all open. There was always someone standing in the doorway telling us to come in and enjoy the good times inside. They were trying to lure customers in with a temptation of enjoyment and sin.
The devil is busy doing the same thing today. He is standing at the path of the wide road telling you that if you travel this road you will have it much easier, and you will not have any difficulties at all.
He is standing before the wide gate, inviting you in, and telling you that you will have the time of your life if you will just enter through it.
PROVERBS 14:12 reads,
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end, it leads to death."
Did you know that every sin and every temptation comes from Satan? There is something you have probably never thought of, but every sin and every temptation is enjoyable to us or at least fills some kind of need we have at the time. If it were not enjoyable, or if it did not fill some kind of need for us, there would be no desire for us to sin, right?
We must never forget that the devil is the father of lies. And, everything he says to us is a lie that that has only one purpose, and that purpose is meant to see us go straight to hell.
On our walk down that street in Nashville, I remember seeing more bars than I ever knew existed. Every block had bar after bar, all trying to get us to go in. As we continued down the street, we saw an old church. There was nobody standing out front trying to get us to go in. There was no music, no lights, and no crowds laughing. That old church just sat silently, almost hidden - like it was dead.
That is the way many churches are today, isn’t it? The world is loud and boisterous as it beckons us to get involved, but the church tends to sit silently, almost trying not to attract any attention at all. It just sits to one side, waiting for that occasional someone to decide to come in and visit, just like a fisherman who leaves his poles at home and just sits in the boat hoping a fish will just jump right in.
We can equate the wide path to a river that is flowing downstream. When the fish are swimming with the current they can swim much faster, using less energy, and their travel is much easier, but when they are swimming upstream, they are swimming against the current and therefore, their travel is much more difficult. They use more energy and go a lot slower.
This might come as a shocker to some of you, but as Christians, we are supposed to go against the current. We are to keep focused on the work of God while the world flies by us very fast, yelling at us,
· Look at all the headway we are making
· You are going the wrong way.
· Why are you struggling so hard when you could just enjoy the ride?”
Do not make the mistake of thinking that the wide path and the narrow path parallel one another, either. They most certainly do not. They go in opposite directions. While we are busy trying to do the work of God, fighting the current of this sinful world, the devil is busy throwing lures of lies and deception in front of us, trying to snare us on his hook.
Those people that have been snared by that hook will fly by, going quickly downstream until one day when they die, they will instantly realize everything they had in life, everything they ever lived for is gone and now they face eternity without God in hell. That is the consequences of living outside God’s truth and will.
I want to paint a picture of the narrow gate. A man once dreamed that he successfully traveled the narrow road and finally got to the narrow gate. He had a large suitcase that was heavy and full, and he lugged that suitcase all the way up the narrow path. It was filled with all of his good works.
He noticed that the gate was not wide enough for the luggage to go in, so he sat his suitcase outside the gate; after all, he thought, his good works got him there and that was good enough.
As he stood there contemplating entering the narrow gate, he realized that the suitcase full of good works was not only useless, it was also offensive to God, because by thinking the good works got him to Heaven, he was saying that the price Jesus paid to get him to Heaven was just not high enough. We can only get to Heaven through what Jesus did for us. It is nice to do good things for others, but by itself, it surely won’t do anything to get you to Heaven.
I am going to tell you something now that will be the most important thing you will ever hear in your life. It may sound inconsequential and it may sound like the same old beating of the drum, but you need to fully realize how important it is to you. Are you ready? Here it is: Jesus is the only way we have of getting to Heaven. There is no other path and no other gate. Jesus is truly our Christ.
We are going to be held to the knowledge of that truth. Too many people have a tendency to put no importance at all on it, or try to conjure up some other way that makes them feel happy about their particular lifestyle, but all that does is try to customize God to our individual wants. The truth of the matter is that we must customize ourselves to God’s wants.
A pastor went to visit one of the women in the congregation one day, and they soon began to talk about the Bible. The woman, trying to impress the pastor, told her six-year old son to get the book that she loved so much. He came back with the Sears catalogue. What do we have in our lives that we spend more time on than God Word? Would we be embarrassed if someone else knew what it was?
There are those that are in the world that say there are many roads to Heaven. Let’s talk about ordinary common sense for a moment.
We are not born with an instant realization that there is a Heaven. That is something that we learn as we grow. Where do we learn it? We learn it from the Bible, don’t we? We learn there is a Heaven, and there is One who in charge of it called God.
Now, explain something to me. If we believe the Bible when it says there is a Heaven, why on earth would we NOT believe the Bible when it says the only way to get there is through a belief in Jesus Christ?
If we believe that part of a dictionary is correct, what sense at all does it make to believe that another part of the same dictionary is false? Likewise, we must either believe that the entire Bible is truth, or that the entire Bible is an elaborate hoax.
There are many churches out there today that do not teach that Jesus is the Son fo the living God and that Jesus is the Messiah. They teach that Jesus was a prophet of His time, a good man, but not much of anything else. That is a false teaching and those that hold on to that will end up in hell, not Heaven. That belief is one of the lures of deception the fisherman from hell throws us, and too many of us get hooked on.
If you believe the Bible is false, or even if parts of it are false, you need to throw the whole thing away. But, if you believe that, please be prepared to accept the consequences of your actions.
Be very careful what you choose to believe. In 1 JOHN 2:22-23, it states –
"Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist – he denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father, also."
One thing I have seen over and over again, and that is those people who have made a choice to believe the false teachings are all pretty good people, but they are all more interested in having it easy and comfortable than they are in living a Godly life.
No matter how many roads people want to say leads to Heaven, the truth is that there is only one road, and that road is Jesus Christ. There is none other.
CONCLUSION
Fishing for Jesus is the call of a lifetime for Christians. That is our primary function on this earth. That is our command from Jesus Christ.
The problem is that most churches have long ago given up fishing for new converts. They have settled into their comfort zones and now only give occasional lip service to seeking new Christians. They will accept any fish that may accidentally jump in their boats, but they have quit casting their lines in trying to look for them.
There is the story of Snoopy sitting by his doghouse, shivering in the cold and snow. Charlie Brown and the gang all go out to cheer Snoopy up. They go to him and laugh and talk to him and just rally around the poor old dog. Then, they all leave and go back inside, leaving the dog just how they found him; cold, shivering, and alone in the snow.
Many of us do the same thing when we go fishing for men. We come on like gangbusters, but that only lasts for a very quick season, then we leave that person to be alone in the cold, not having anything else to hang onto.
When we go fishing for mens’ souls, we must not just pretend to befriend them. We must be willing to love them. We must be willing to love them enough to panic at the thought of them going to hell. We need to love them enough to help them. And, we help them best, not through our friendship, but by our dedication to disciple them. Do you realize that every time you step outside the church door, you are stepping into a rescue mission? Your job, given to you by Jesus Christ Himself, is to search for those who need rescuing - and do what you can to save them!
To do that, we must first understand that the church uses all kinds of words, and some of them tend to scare us off. Did you know that when you start a new job, they will have a small period of time when you first start set aside so they can disciple you? You have never heard of that, have you? Let me say it another way. They will have a period of time where they train you to do that job. That is what discipleship means. It means training. Now, when we go fishing for men, it is imperative that we disciple them, too, or train them in the way and knowledge of the Lord.
We must not only love others enough to reach out, give them the truth and then train them, but we also need to be something most of us are not.
To be able to effectively spread the Gospel, we need to be opportunists. We need to be visionaries and not just see what is, but see what could be. Most of us are what I call “easiers”. That means we tend to take the easy way, not looking for anything that would upset our comfortable normalcy. A rubber band is made to stretch - and so are Christians. We are supposed to stretch away from our comfort zones.
The state of Wyoming once offered a bounty on wolves of $5,000. For each wolf captured alive. Jim and Bob turned into instant bounty hunters, and they began living in the woods, trying to find those wolves.
One morning, Jim awoke with a start to see about 50 wolves surrounding their campsite, all with glaring red eyes and long teeth. He yelled, “Wake up, Bob, we’re rich!”
Most people would have tried to run away, wouldn’t they? Why didn’t Jim and Bob run? They didn’t run because they were truly focused on the mission they were on. When we are on a mission, we handle things differently than when we are not on a mission.
When we are focused on anything that is important to us, we don’t even pay attention to the barriers we have to climb over. We just focus on accomplishing our goal.
Christians would do well to learn from Jim and Bob. You and I need to start seeing the absolute urgency of seeing others come to Jesus Christ.
I want to leave you with this thought: If you are called to go fishing for the Lord, are you going to go fishing, or are you going to refuse? And, if you go, are you going to be content to just sit on the bridge as I did as a child, just throwing your line in and not caring if you catch anything or not?
Or, are you going to go fishing with a passion – a passion for Jesus Christ?
God has brought each one of us to the place we are at this morning, so we can get a glimpse of that narrow gate. The question is: What are we willing to do next? Will we swim downstream because it is easier, or will we decide to swim upstream, working for our Lord?
There are no rewards whatsoever for swimming downstream. There are no rewards at all for being comfortable. No rewards – just consequences.
God is calling you into service this morning, and the very first step in serving Him is for you to listen to Him. Is He calling you this morning? If He is, you need to stand up right now and come up here to acknowledge Him in your life. You need to finally surrender to Him.
As the invitation song is played, stand up right now, and come down here to me. If you need to be baptized or if you want to join this church, I also ask that you come down here as the invitation is being played.
