My dad’s from Minnesota. Does anyone here know what Minnesota is known for? Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes. Just about everyone in Minnesota fishes. Now, my dad once told me the story about a peculiar fisherman from Minnesota. You see, this fisherman was very well prepared. He knew how to fish. He had everything you need to be a good fisherman. He had poles, nets, bait, and even a really nice boat, but this fisherman had a problem. You see, for all his preparation he never caught anything. Not one fish. Not one, not ever. And you know why he never caught a fish? What do you think? The answers easy: He never went fishing. He had all the knowledge and all the equipment, but he never got into the boat, he never left the dock. Today on this anniversary Sunday, we are going to talk about fishing. Because God wants us to thank him for the blessings of the past by going fishing, but as we see in our text for this morning, not for fish, but for men. God wants us to go fishing for basically two reasons: because he has prepared us to go and because he has called us to go fishing.
I. Because God has prepared us
In text for this morning we see Jesus at the very beginning of his ministry. He has just spent 40 days in the wilderness being tempted by the devil. The news on the street is that John the Baptist, who had baptized him only a few weeks earlier had been thrown in jail. So Jesus travels up to the land where he grew up, Galilee, and begins to preach, "the good news of God." The good news of God. It was kind of like those newspaper boys in the olden days, yelling from the corner of the street, "Extra, Extra read all about it…"
And that’s basically what Jesus did. He went into Galilee proclaiming this good news. He yelled out, "the time has come, the kingdom of God is near." The time has come. Every event of the past, everything that would happen in the future meet at this point in history. We can literally say that this was history’s defining moment. Jesus had come to fulfill the prophecies of the Old Testament. He had come to bring the Kingdom of God, that is he came to rule in peoples hearts. That’s what the Kingdom of God is: that God rules in peoples hearts.
But before he could reign in their hearts, they had to first see their need for him, and so Jesus used one simple word. He said, "repent." Repent, one little word that literally brings men to their knees. For with this word, men were shown the mirror of the law, the law that they knew all to well, the law of Moses, the Ten Commandments. In this law they could see that they hadn’t even kept one of God’s commandments perfectly as he demands. In this law they saw the punishment they deserved, the eternal suffering and anguish of hell. All in one little word, "repent." With this one word, Jesus showed them that they needed a Savior, that they needed him.
But he didn’t stop there. He told them, "believe the good news." And what was this good news? It was the good news that God had come to earth, it was the good news that the Savior so long awaited, the Savior that they so desperately needed had come to suffer and die for their sins. "Extra, extra read all about, God is here to save us!"
And this was the message that these first disciples heard. Peter and his brother Andrew, James and his brother John: they had been disciples of John the Baptist. John had told them that Jesus was the "lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." And with this message, Jesus started to prepare them, to prepare them for fishing. And during the rest of his life here on this earth Jesus continued to prepare them. He taught them, he allowed them to see miracles, he even promised them his Holy Spirit to empower them. These guys were well prepared for fishing…
But you know, God really has called us in the same way. He calls to us through his Word, "the time has come the kingdom of God is near." Today is the day of our Salvation. Today, right this moment God calls to us to tell us that he has come and now reigns forever in heaven and in the hearts of all those who believe in him. And so, just as Jesus called to those Galileans two thousand years ago, so he now calls to us:
"Repent." That one little word that brings each and everyone of us to our knees, for it forces us to look into the mirror of the Law in which we see that we haven’t kept even one of God’s commandments. Kids, how many times do you not listen to your parents? You go where they tell you not and do what they tell not to do. But hey, as adults, we aren’t any better. We lie, we get angry, we gossip, we have lustful thoughts… When we look in the mirror of God’s Law we see that we are ugly and deformed sinners who deserve God’s eternal punishment in hell. That one little word "repent" reminds us of our need for a Savior.
But, Jesus announces the good news to us in his word, "Extra, Extra read all about it." We can read all about it…All about how the holy and all-powerful God came to this world as a man to suffer in our place and to die for our sins. We have the good news that each and every one of our sins is forgiven because of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.
And so in this way God has prepared us for fishing. He started this preparation in our baptism, when he called us to faith and he has continued to prepare us through his Word, in catechism classes, Bible Studies, even here every Sunday in our worship services, God prepares us for fishing. Our Savior’s Lutheran Church has been here for twenty years as a fishing school, among other things.
So we are prepared, just like that fisherman from Minnesota. God has trained us and continues to train us through his Word and he also give us the equipment that we need right here in the Bible. All we need is right here. It’s the same message that Jesus preached to the Galileans, "Repent and believe the Good News." But you know, we aren’t going to "catch" anything if we don’t go. And so God invites us to go fishing…
II. Because God has called us to go
Every year come January, my dad goes ice fishing up in the northern part of Michigan with a bunch of men from his congregation. Now I remember at Christmas time when I was 12 years old, he pulled me aside and invited me to go along with the men to go ice fishing. And wow! I couldn’t believe it I was going to be man. I was going to go up North with the men. I was excited.
Well, we see the same response from the first disciples. Mark tells us that they left their boats and nets behind to follow Jesus. Jesus invited them to go fishing and through the faith worked in their hearts by the Holy Spirit, they were excited. They left behind their boats, they left behind their nets, James and John even left behind their very own father to follow Jesus immediately. And so they followed Jesus for three years, three years of ups and downs, three years of learning. And when Jesus sent them out, they went out to preach to the whole world…
And let me tell, the fishing wasn’t always easy. Most people didn’t listen to them. The government persecuted them. They were thrown in prison. And we learn from tradition that all except John were executed for being fishers of men…
My friends, Jesus has invited you to go fishing. How are you going to react? Excitement. Joy. "I can’t believe I get to tell people about Jesus." Or is it something like, "I’ve got other things to do." "I don’t know what to say." "We won’t catch anything anyway, nobody will listen." "It’s better if somebody else does it." Those excuses didn’t work for Moses when God called him to service and there not going to work for you, because God has called you to be fisherman. It’s not just the job of the Pastor Dobberstein. God calls to each and every one of us in Matthew 28:19 "Go and make disciples of all nations." But what a privilege, when we see the love that he has showered upon each of us individually, the years of blessings that he has given to your church and to our synod–when we see that amazing grace, we will just want to share that good news with others.
And there are so many opportunities. You don’t have to go foreign countries as a missionary to find people who don’t believe in Jesus. We all have neighbors, friends and family members, all these people who live around the church who don’t know Jesus and are therefore going to hell. It’s time to go fishing. How many people at work even know that you’re a Christian? It’s time to go fishing. I know it’s not easy. I know that it’s uncomfortable. I know they may laugh at you. But our Savior is calling and he even promises you that he will do all the real work. The results are in his hands…
My friends, we have an incredible gift. God gives us heaven free of charge and now invites us to share that gift with others. He prepares us for fishing and gives us everything we need to be good fisherman through his Word, and now he invites us to go. If you don’t know what to say, ask Pastor Dobberstein to teach you. Trust me, you won’t be bothering him, you’ll probably even make his day. Ask him to teach you how to share the good news of salvation with others. After twenty years of seeing God’s grace in your church and in your lives, don’t be like that fisherman from Minnesota left standing on the dock. No, let’s go fishing. AMEN
