Fishers of Men - All Together Service

[0:00] This is a sermon from King's Church West, William. Jesus called together a band of twelve disciples.

[0:38] But do you know the first four of these people who he called to follow him, do you know what their job was? Yes, Josh. They were fishermen. That's right. Did you say they were fishes?

[0:49] They weren't fishes. They were fishermen. You did say fishermen. Good man. Right, so they were fishermen. Their names were two, in fact, there were two sets of brothers, Simon and Andrew and James and John.

[1:00] And he called them to follow him. Now, I'm going to stand over here. Now, the reason I think that Jesus chose some fishermen to be his disciples, I think it's because he knew that he had some really hard work for them.

[1:14] And fishing, being a professional fisherman is really hard work. You're out in the wet and the cold and it's dirty and it's grimy. But also, did you know that fishing is really, really dangerous?

[1:27] I'm not talking about standing by the side of a river and putting your rod in. Sorry, Davey. I know, I know, I don't mean to put you down there. Going out to sea in a boat is really dangerous.

[1:37] In fact, did you know it is the most dangerous job that you can do, even today? It's more dangerous than being a soldier, being a fireman, a policeman, that guy that feeds the tigers in the zoo.

[1:52] More dangerous than all those jobs. More people lose their lives deep sea fishing than any other occupation. And so I thought, for this little talk, I thought it was only right that I get myself dressed up as a real fisherman.

[2:06] So I'm going to put on my waders here. Forgive me, I've got my waders. And I'm going to need a little bit of a hand from somebody just to get the back bit on. Davey's going to give us a hand.

[2:17] Thanks, Davey. Here we go. You might have guessed they're actually Davey's waders. Thank you. Thank you, brother. That's very kind of you. Cheers. Okay, so we've got this. I've also got a fishing rod.

[2:33] Yeah, I've got a fishing rod. And of course, my costume will not be complete without a hat. Okay? So is everybody... Now, any fisherman knows that if you want to be successful, what have you got to have on the end of your hook?

[2:51] What do you need? Callum. What do you need? What they like to eat. Sometimes that's called... Does anybody know the word for that, Daniel? It's bait.

[3:02] That's right. And so Jesus promised these disciples that they wouldn't just be fishermen. He said that they would be fishers of men or fishers of people.

[3:13] He said, the message that I'm going to give you is going to attract people to you. But of course, if you want to be a fisherman, you've got to have the right bait on the end of your hook. So if we want to attract people to the Christian message, we've got to have the right bait on the end of the hook, haven't we?

[3:30] So I'm going to let my... I've got three volunteers at the frontier. Callum, Finn, and Daniel. And they've all got some bait for me. So I'm going to let down my hook. Let's see if this works.

[3:41] Thank you, David. Can you tell this isn't what I do in my spare time? Are we good? There we go.

[3:53] Okay. Are you going to help me? Okay. So we're going to go down to Callum first. Can I pull it across? That's right, Callum. So you've got to hook on your... You've got to hook on our bait for me. Just shove it...

[4:03] You should be able to just hook it on, yeah? So what have we got here, guys? We've got... We've got... Can everybody see that? We've got forgiveness. Oops. Yeah, can you see it? So one of the things that the Christian message offers to people is forgiveness.

[4:22] Because Jesus died on the cross in order that people might receive forgiveness of sins. You see, it says in the Bible there could be no forgiveness without a sacrifice.

[4:34] And so Jesus volunteered to be that sacrifice so that we would receive forgiveness. Okay. Now, here we go. Now we're in business. Oh, okay. Right. Finn, what's our next bit of bait?

[4:46] Can you get that on the hook? You just watch your fingers there, pal? Okay. Let's see what we've got. All right. Well, hold your horses. Hold your horses. Hold your squad. Just... You just need to just put it on.

[4:56] You might need a bit... Lauren, can you give him just a wee hand there just to... Just to get it on the hook there. Are we good? Are we on? Okay, right.

[5:08] Okay. We're going to go back up the way. Okay. Okay. Can everybody see? Can everybody see that? One of the promises that Jesus gives us is that of a better life.

[5:21] Now, when I say a better life, it kind of does depend what you mean by a better life. I don't necessarily mean that you'll have more money or more friends or anything like that.

[5:34] You see, even those three disciples, those four disciples, sorry, three of them actually lost their lives telling the people about Jesus. And the fourth one, John, was exiled from his homeland.

[5:46] He was sent away because they didn't like the message they had about Jesus. So when I talk about a better life, I'm talking about something slightly different. I'm talking about having true meaning or significance in your life.

[5:58] You see, the thing is, those four guys, they could have just kept on being fishermen. They could have raised their families and lived a good life. And as far as it goes, that would have been fine.

[6:10] But Jesus was offering them more than that. He was offering them a chance to be part of a new kingdom that he was bringing into the world that would give us forgiveness, that would give us something else.

[6:26] Let's find our third bit of bait. Right, I think this is Daniel's one. Now see if you can get this on the hook, buddy. Can you get that one on the hook? Can you get it on? Now the other way around. Other way around, Dan. Down the other way around, mate. Oh, try again.

[6:37] Okay. Okay. Go on, get it on. That's it. So just see if we can get it over the hook. Just tear it. That's it. So just tear through it. Yeah? Yeah? Yeah? We're almost there.

[6:53] Oh yeah, here we go. Okay. So it's the third bit of bait that Jesus gave them to put on the hook. What is it? Eternal life. That is the promise that Jesus gave.

[7:05] Because you see, Jesus' kingdom is different to any other kingdom that existed before or since or will in fact ever exist again. It is a kingdom that will have no end.

[7:16] And as we, as followers of Jesus, we get to be part of that. And we get to receive the gift and the promise of eternal life. Now if you're really smart, you might be thinking, well hang on a second.

[7:32] That is all well and good. But if you go fishing, the bait that goes on the hook, it's really, it's actually kind of a lie. It's not really tasty food that fish like to eat.

[7:45] It's just pretending to be, isn't it? It's a trick. But you see, this is different. This isn't a trick. And here's the reason why. Because Jesus wasn't just saying these things.

[7:59] Jesus really did go to the cross for us to receive forgiveness of sins. He really did come to bring a better kingdom. And he really did rise again into eternal life.

[8:14] So all the promises that are on that fishing rod that he gave to those first four disciples, all the other disciples, and he gives to us today are faithful and true.

[8:27] And what that means isn't just that those first disciples can be fishers of men, but me and you, we can also be fishers of men, fishers of people, and give out their promise of eternal life to all mankind.

[8:43] Does that sound good? Amen. Well, listen, what I'd love us to do is I'd love us just to really quickly make a prayer in our hearts. I want to take two kinds of prayer. One, the first kind of prayer is to Jesus to say, Lord, I want to be a fisher of men.

[9:01] I want to be a fisher of people. I want to be someone that you can use to take the amazing message of eternal life into all the world. And the second prayer is this.

[9:13] I want to receive that eternal life. There may be some of us who haven't quite taken the bait just yet. Maybe you haven't, and you know in your heart you haven't yet received forgiveness of sins.

[9:23] You haven't yet received that promise of a meaningful, significant life. And you know that if you died right now, you wouldn't receive eternal life.

[9:33] Well, I want to let you pray that prayer today. So if it's okay, what we'll do is we'll all just close our eyes. I'll pray a prayer. And if you want to pray along with me, you can pray a prayer. Does that sound okay? Lord Jesus, I want to thank you that you have promised that if we follow you, you will make us fishers of people.

[9:49] That we have an amazing message that can go out to our friends, our neighbors, our family, even our enemies, even the people that we don't like and who don't like us. There's an amazing message of forgiveness of a significant life, of eternal life.

[10:05] Lord, I pray you'd help us to take that message to all those around us so that many people might receive those amazing promises. And Lord, maybe I need to receive that forgiveness today.

[10:18] Maybe there's somebody here who hasn't received that forgiveness and they know that they need it. Well, Lord, I want to put my trust in you. I want to say that I'm sorry for the things that I've done, knowing that you've given us the promise of forgiveness and eternal life.

[10:34] Put our trust in you and we pledge to follow you in everything that we do forever. Amen. Amen.