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Sacramento Central SDA Church

Chris Buttery

Casting Your Net

You know, when I was growing up, lots of numerous different friends that would like to go fishing, and I just, to be honest, I just couldn't think about or stand the idea of taking a worm or something like that and putting on a hook and getting the hands dirty.

And casting a line into the water and just sitting there doing absolutely nothing, waiting for something to nibble and bite and in many cases nothing nibbles and nothing bites.

But along the way, somehow I took a little interest in it when I was young.

And I'll tell you that story in just a moment, but 1 particular time, a friend and I went out fishing and we decided we would leave really early in the morning because that's the best time to fish, go when it's dark.

We left early in the morning and we went to a pier, a dock, and there we got our bait and put it on the hook and cast our lines in, and we waited.

Now, to be honest with you, we didn't know where we actually had parked ourselves.

We'd heard about this place and we sat there fishing.

And while we were fishing, we noticed the wave, we noticed the water started to swell a little bit and would come up a little higher up to the dock and we noticed in the distance a light and the light was coming in our direction and the light was getting bigger and bigger and the the water was swelling more and more and we couldn't figure out what was going on.

We said, man, there's something not quite right here right now.

And we waited and we kept our lines in the water and that light got bigger and bigger, the water swelled more and more and we realized that what was coming in was a cargo ship and we had ended up, we ended up parking ourselves on the edge of this cargo dock, fishing with these large mammoth ships coming into port.

And so with those waves swelling and the light coming in closer, we just packed up our stuff and we got out of there.

We just didn't want to stick around to figure out what was going on.

But my interest in fishing started when I was younger.

We lived in the northern territory, northern part of Australia, and that's where you have 2 seasons, hot and hotter.

You have the dry season and you have the wet season.

And friends of mine down the street around the corner would, they like to go fishing.

His dad would take him out and he and his son would go, my friend would go.

1 day he asked me, he said, Chris, why don't you come on out with us?

Worms and grubs and hooks and, okay, I'll go.

And so we went and We went to a place called Buffalo Creek.

And there at Buffalo Creek, they kind of showed me how it all works.

Put the bait on the hook, and then here's how you cast, and here's how you reel, and keep your finger there on the line, and wait for the nibble, and then snatch back and reel in, hopefully you'll have something.

And so this is my first time, I said okay, I would give it a try and so I'm with my friends so this has got to be interesting and more than what I, hopefully is more than what I anticipate is going to be.

It just seemed like a moment and something nibbled and I cranked that thing back and got that thing hooked and brought it in and caught a fish.

Cast the line, out it went, and matter of minutes, another nibble, another bite.

Now you know what to put on the hook and just, so there it is, out it goes, in it goes, out it goes, in it goes, by the end of that day, and we weren't out there but a couple of hours, I caught 12 fish and they were this big I caught 8 do fish and 4 salmon and it was man after that you'd want to go fishing again right experience like that gotta go fishing again Now my friend and his dad wasn't the same way.

Now I don't know if they set me up or just what they did, but in any case, they caught between the both of them, maybe 3 or 4 fish.

And so of course they took me out, so I felt like I had to make sure they took some fish home with them.

And I brought fish home to my mom and she was recently become an Adventist and I guess she was trying to switch a diet and here I'm she trying to go vegetarian I'm bringing fish and you know we scaled it and gutted it and all of that and maybe she scaled it anyway she cooked it and my friends the look on their face I'll never forget it the dad and my friend a look of disappointment How is it we take you out for the first time and you catch?

And we've been doing this for years and we catch just this little bit.

Disappointed fishermen, no doubt about it.

In the Bible there's a story about a disappointed fishermen or several of them in Luke chapter 5 so you please turn there with me to Luke chapter 5 this story occurs and happens on the Sea of Galilee now the Sea of Galilee is there in northern Palestine and this particular sea is a freshwater lake that is fed and that is drained by the Jordan River the sea of Galilee is about 12 miles long and at its widest part it's about 7 miles and it gets in some places to about a hundred and 48 feet deep now the Sea of Galilee something interesting about the Sea of Galilee is that it is 685 feet below the sea level of the Mediterranean Now that's not as interesting as what I'm about to tell you.

That the Sea of Galilee is the lowest sea on the face of the earth.

It's the lowest, right down there, surrounded by mountains and the low altitude makes for this semi-tropical weather.

When you read the Bible and you read the stories of Jesus and the Sea of Galilee, you'll know that the Sea of Galilee was somewhat renowned for these instantaneous storms that would break upon the sea and the storms would cause the water to whip up and the waves to roar and just the position of it and where it's located.

And of course, because of where it's located and because of its semi-tropical nature and it's this feeder for the Jordan River, It was a place for lucrative fishing and people ended up making quite a bit of money.

It was a lucrative business in the days of Jesus.

Apparently, even today there are about 22 different species of fish in the Sea of Galilee.

Not too long ago they ended up having to stop the heavy fishing because of the number of fish that were being taken out of there and so they paused a bit and they've bred again like fish and there's plenty of fish there.

But here on the Sea of Galilee is where the story is and the day was breaking there at that particular place several men we know 4 of them John, James, Andrew and Simon had just come in, into the shore after an unfruitful night of fishing.

It's likely that Jesus had come to this place at this particular time because he wanted to have a little bit of peace and quiet on the beach.

And you would want to as well, especially if after the day had been long, filled with crowds, serving people had been great, you'd want a little quiet time as well.

But like a mighty magnet, Jesus' love drew the people to himself.

And before long, that quiet, unpopulated shoreline was teeming with people.

Pressed on every side Jesus stepped into Simon's boat Simon Peter's boat and asked him to push it out a little bit from the beach.

It was from this vantage point that Jesus could teach those that had come to hear from him the words of life.

Actually, the prophets of old had foretold of moments like this.

You read about it in Isaiah, chapter 9, 1 and 2.

The land of Zebulun and the land of Nephtali, toward the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people which sat in darkness saw a great light and to them which sat in region and shadow of death, to them did light spring up." Of course, talking about the Messiah and his mission and what he would do.

A light that would shine in a dark place.

Prophets of old spoke of these moments after the discourse was over.

Jesus asked Peter to launch out into the sea and to let down his net again.

All night, which is the best time for fishing, he caught nothing.

And it's interesting, it's very likely that he would, and I wouldn't contend with this, but he very likely, perhaps a lot was going through his mind at that time you know he witnessed Jesus treatment of the at the hand of the priests and rulers in Judea just recently and that wasn't pretty and maybe that was a little discouraging to him.

You know, John the Baptist was also languishing in prison at that time and that must have been a little disturbing and John, rather Peter, had just come in from an unsuccessful day of fishing.

This is what he lived on and it wasn't successful and now his own occupation had failed him.

His future seemed empty and perhaps he was just filled with discouragement.

You know, discouragements and disappointments, yeah, life tends to be filled with them, doesn't it?

We face them at work, we face them in church, we face them among family and even friends.

Like sticky spider webs that cling and can't easily be shaken off, discouraging circumstances tend to tend to deal us a blow and that sometimes difficult to deal with.

I tend to think the life would be so much easier if if those around us could understand us and could sympathize with what we're going through but that's not always likely, it would be nice but it's not likely.

Often those closest to us tend to be the ones that disappoint us the most and I ask why and perhaps you've asked why.

And then when we see the humanity of those we've placed on a pedestal, we've been left disappointed and sometimes even discouraged.

Unfortunately, it happens mainly with those we're close to, those that we love, even among our own Christian brothers and sisters.

Now Jesus addressed on 2 occasions how to deal with disappointed expectations, not just anywhere and everywhere, but in the church.

He told actually 2 parables that address this.

The first 1 was the parable of the wheat and the tares.

How to deal with disappointed expectations.

And the other 1 that he told, you can keep your finger in Luke 5 or at least put your bookmark there, but go to Matthew chapter 13.

Jesus talked or spoke another parable regarding this particular issue, how to deal with disappointments in the church.

And he brings this up in the parable of the net.

Now there are 5 lessons we wanna look at here, or we're gonna learn from this particular parable this morning and so we'll be looking at this a little closely Matthew chapter 13 and verses 47 through 50 notice notice what Jesus says Matthew 13 47 through 50 Again the kingdom of heaven is like unto a what friends?

A net that was cast into the sea and gathered of every kind which when it was full they drew to shore and sat down and gathered the good into vessels but cast the bad away so shall it be at the end of the world the angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from among the just and shall cast them into the furnace of fire there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." Now unlike Peter, these particular, in this particular parable, those who cast their net in cast their net in and into the water and It fills up with all kinds and all types of fish.

Now this net is probably better said as a drag net.

It was a drag net which had long weighted ends and then it would be carried outward and then back in to form a circle and then of course in doing so it would trap the fish in there and successfully making a catch and this is what this is the net that Jesus is referring to.

In many cases that's the net that was used at the time of Jesus in these large bodies of water where the net would be cast and then circled around trapping the fish, gathering them in you see.

However, in this parable something interesting occurs.

In verse 48 we read it, which when it was full they drew to shore, sat down and gathered the good into the vessel but cast the what friends?

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Casting Your Net

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