Jesus Meets Us Where We Are

Josh Stephens: Happy Monday and welcome to LCU.
Welcome our Chap Day people.
I've decided there are two kinds of people in this world,
those that fish and those that don't.
I am of those that don't,
but I like fishing.
When I was growing up,
some of you, you younger
people, you don't understand this,
but you older people,
you'll feel this.
There was a rerun
I'm not old enough to have watched it live. Dave was.
But when I was growing up, it was a rerun.
And it started and you saw this son come out with his father at the opening.
And the tune was a
whistle.
And it went.
Anybody know that?
Yeah.
It's the Andy Griffith show.
If you had good
parents, they showed you that.
And as a young person,
I wanted to like fishing.
When I was about
or six, I stayed away from six and seven.
When I was five or six,
I went fishing with my dad
and we were in New Mexico.
We were close to Ruidoso and dad said, do you want to go fish? I said,
sure.
I'd love to go fish.
And so we went out there for 11 hours.
I sat with my dad while he
fished. Do you know,
like in five-year-old time, what 11 hours is?
It's like dog years.
Like,
You know, it's like,
it was a long time.
And I got home and I asked my brother and we got back to the hotel.
I asked my brother and my mom,
like,
what'd y'all do?
And my brother, John was like, oh, we went swimming.
And then mom took me to go get ice cream.
What'd you do?
I was like, I sat by dad.
Well, yeah, but what'd you do while you sat by dad?
Nothing.
That's what you do when you fish.
You don't do anything.
And some of you are like,
Josh, there's so much more than that.
And I believe that.
primarily because there's two stories that I'm drawn to in the Gospels,
where fishing is an
important part of it.
And so when you go to Luke 5,
it's really cool. There's this story about Jesus
calling his first disciples.
And you know what they were doing?
That hit the ground. I'm glad.
They're fishing.
This is what it says.
One day as Jesus was standing by the lake of Gennesaret,
the people were crowding around him
and listening to the word of God.
He saw at the water's edge, two boats left there by the fishermen
who were washing their nets.
He got into one of the boats,
the one belonging to Simon and asked
him to put it out a little from shore.
Then he sat down and he taught the people from that boat.
He said to Simon,
you know what? Let's go out.
Let's go to deep water and let your nets down
and see what they catch.
Simon answered,
Master,
we've been working hard all day and all night,
haven't caught anything,
but because you say so,
I'll let down my nets.
When they had gone out, they were done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their
nets began to break.
So he signaled their partners,
we'll learn later,
partners are James and John,
Signaled their partners to come and help.
And they came and they filled their boats.
And it was so much so that both boats began to sink.
When Simon saw this, he fell to his knees and said,
Go away from me, Lord.
I'm a sinful man.
For he and all his companions were astonished at the great catch of fish they had taken.
So were James and John, the son of Zebedee, Simon's partners.
And Jesus said to him,
don't be afraid.
From now on,
you'll fish for men.
So they pulled their boats on shore and they left and they followed him.
This moment happens.
Do you remember how it started?
Did Simon invite Jesus onto the boat?
Mm-mm.
Jesus asked,
hey,
can I get on the boat?
Can we get out a little way so I can teach?
And Simon said, sure.
Jesus met them where they were.
He saw them.
He knew them.
He had something planned for them.
So he goes out to where they are and he says,
hey,
can I get on the boat? They go out in the boat.
He finishes teaching.
And then I love the story because he says, hey, won't you cast your net down?
And Simon Peter is like, man, we've been doing this a long time. Have you ever had someone
Like when you're in the middle of working out and they walk over and they're like, hey,
your form's not right.
Like how do you look at that person?
Like your face isn't right,
okay?
Like you don't like it.
But Simon says,
Lord, because it's you,
we'll do this.
So he throws the net over and there's so many fish.
And again,
so many fish that what happens?
The net actually breaks.
Starts to break.
So he gets his friends over there and they load all this fish onto the boat.
And then I love the visual of Peter falling before him and saying, man, we're not worthy.
I'm a sinful person.
I don't deserve you.
Well,
Peter isn't the one that went to Jesus.
Jesus came to Peter.
And Jesus says, guess what?
You're going to do something far greater.
You're not going to fish for fish.
You're going to fish for men.
And they pull the boats on the shore.
They clean the nets.
They pull them all up.
They put them away.
And those guys leave their livelihood.
Some of them leave their families.
And they go to follow Jesus.
Because Jesus is a man who meets us where we are.
And if you know and have read the Gospels,
they saw a lot.
They saw people risen from the dead.
They saw those who were blind become to see.
They got judged.
They got persecuted.
They saw all these things.
But you know who was faithful to them?
Jesus.
And in Luke 21,
you see another part of the story.
Because in Luke,
not excuse me, Luke 21, John 21,
a lot of bad stuff has happened.
And Jesus has been put on trial for stuff that doesn't have anything to do with him.
And Jesus gets murdered and he's buried and he's raised.
And at this point in John 21,
we even know that people have seen Jesus resurrected.
But I want you to hear.
I'm good.
I want you to hear what Jesus said.
It says, after Jesus appeared again to his disciples by the Sea of Galilee,
it happened this way.
Simon Peter,
Thomas,
also known as Didymus,
we know him as the doubter,
Nathaniel from Canaan in Galilee,
the sons of Zebedee,
so John and James.
And two other disciples were there.
I'm going out to fish,
Simon Peter said.
And they said, well, hey,
we'll go with you.
So they went out and got into the boat.
But that night,
they caught nothing.
sounds familiar.
Early in the morning,
Jesus stood on the shore,
but the disciples didn't really
realize that it was Jesus.
So Jesus called out to them, friends,
have you any fish?
No,
they answered.
He said, throw your nets on the right side of the boat and you'll find some.
And when they did,
they were unable to haul the net in because there were such a large number of fish.
Then the disciple whom Jesus loves, so John,
looks at Peter and he says,
it's the Lord.
As soon as Simon Peter hears this, he does a very Simon Peter thing.
Like he's very reactionary.
So apparently he had taken off a garment.
He puts that outer garment back on and he jumps into the water.
And the other disciples followed him in the boat,
towing the net full of fish,
for they're
not far away.
They're about a hundred yards off.
When they landed,
they saw a fire burning.
with coals, and there were already fish on it,
and there was some bread.
Jesus said to them,
bring some of the fish you've caught.
So Simon Peter climbed back into the boat,
dragged the net ashore.
It was full of large fish,
153.
But even so,
with so many of them,
the net was not torn.
It's a little difference in the story.
Jesus said to them,
come and have
breakfast.
None of the disciples dared ask him, who are you?
They knew it was Jesus.
Jesus came,
he took the bread and gave it to him and did the same with the fish.
This is now the third time
Jesus appeared to the disciples after he had been raised.
You see the differences there?
did they invite Jesus out?
No.
Jesus met them where they were again.
And that's a big deal.
Because in the story in Luke 5,
they had left everything to follow Jesus.
Do you know how it had to have felt for them to watch him beat,
to watch him spat upon,
to watch him judge,
to watch him die on the cross,
to be there when the body was put in
to that tomb. Do you know how that had to tear them up?
And then they heard about the empty tomb. They ran to the empty tomb.
They saw a risen savior.
And then Jesus went away. And what did they do? They went back to what was
normal.
Let's go fish.
Peter says, come on, we're going to go fish.
Jesus met them there.
But the difference from the first story,
the net didn't tear
because things were different.
I love the fact that they get on shore,
the fire's going,
there's bread,
there's already fish on the fire. Did Jesus need their fish?
No.
But I think Jesus
invited them to bring their fish, because guess what?
The time was coming when he was going to depart for good.
He was going to go be at the right hand of the Father.
And they were the ones who were going to go fish for believers,
for men.
Those incidents and everything that happened in between
changed the trajectory of the world.
2,000 years later,
we're still talking about the risen Christ,
Jesus of Nazareth.
we're still talking about his disciples
we know that they went out
to share a kingdom message
all because
Jesus met them where they were
2026 is very different
it's a very different time
from the world they grew up in
but you know what
there's still hurt
there's still people that are lost
there's still people that are seeking
and last I checked,
every one of us needs a savior.
And I love it because he comes to us every day.
I told a friend the other day
who was struggling with their faith journey.
It's like, it's not like there's one door in front of you
and you're just hoping God's on the other side.
There's a thousand doors in front of you
and God is right next to you saying,
whichever door you pick,
I'm gonna walk with you in that door.
if you're searching there are lots of people at this school that want to talk about jesus
there are no stones there's no judgment our god is big enough for those that believe our god is
big enough for those that are struggling with doubt that's okay he is a faithful god he sent
his son he didn't grab us and bring us to the sun he sent his son to call us to redeem us to reclaim
us and let us know that we're loved in his own.
What a blessing that is.
If you're looking for
Jesus,
look around.
He's around you.
Let's pray and we'll get out of here.
God, we love you and
we thank you for your love for us.
And Father, I pray that in some way we're all fishermen,
that we are all sharing the story of Jesus,
not for our own glory to see how many people we can
attract or draw in because really it has nothing to do with us and it has everything to do with you.
It has everything to do with your faithfulness.
Christ, I'm thankful that you meet us where we are.
In our brokenness, in our sin, in our messed
up world,
you meet us in those moments.
And there's no judgment.
There's love.
And there's a call to
something better.
You don't let us stay broken.
You call us into something greater.
For those that are in here that feel that, let them celebrate that. For those that don't,
my prayer, Holy Spirit,
today that you'll move in weird and awesome ways,
probably ways that we can't even explain in human terms,
to remind each person in this room that
they're not alone.
You see them,
you love them,
and you are beside them.
thank you for loving us first thank you for sending jesus our savior we love you in christ's
name we pray amen if you're here with shat day sit tight everyone else you have an awesome monday
you're dismissed
Next.