“Fishers of people”

These are some incredible words from Jesus here in Luke 5:10 – Jesus says to his disciples, ‘from now on you will fish for people.’ 

I love the image here. Not fishing for fish, but fishing for people. In the King James Version of the bible we read ‘fishers of men’ – sounds a bit like the title of a Sylvester Stallone or a Steven Seagal action movie to me: ‘Fisher of Men’ – pretty serious title, pretty serious job description!

Personally I’m no good at fishing, it’s not a strong suit in my family, but there’s comfort for all those who are no good at fishing in these words: go and fish for something else!

If you ARE good at fishing then maybe it hits you a bit differently – maybe it’s like Jesus says to use some of those skills you use when you’re reeling in huge hauls of fish when you’re fishing for people…

This is such a big image, such a big metaphor from Jesus, in such few words isn’t it. There’s so much we can pull out of what Jesus says here and apply to our own lives.

I have to say thank you to the school staff here, in our bible study time we have a bit of chat about God’s word together and there is a lot of depth and meaning that comes out of those chats – definitely for me, I hope so for the staff too! 

There were at least three great points made this week: 2 notes about fishing, and one note about verse 11, where what happens? The disciples Jesus has just called DROP EVERYTHING AND FOLLOW HIM. Incredible stuff.

So let’s take a look at those three points to help us understand what Jesus is calling us to in these words.

• Point 1, first note about fishing: it takes PATIENCE. You might be there for a while.
• Point 2, second note about fishing: there can be sharks out there! The ocean is full of a lot of things, you don’t always know what’s going to be on the end of the line.
• Point 3, about verse 11: how could these guys just drop everything and follow Jesus? Because they encountered Jesus.

So Point 1, first note about fishing: it takes patience.

Of course, anyone who’s ever had a go at fishing knows it’s a slow game, a long game – it takes patience. Life is like this too, it’s a slow, long game at times. We need patience to be able to wait for things, whether it’s standing in line to order a coffee, waiting in the cue to buy groceries, sitting in traffic on the highway. Or bigger life things, like waiting for a big opportunity at work, saving money for a dream holiday, waiting for the right person to come along in our lives, waiting for someone we love to hear and to know the good news of Jesus. Many of us will have waited for things like these at some point! A lot of life involves waiting, it involves patience. 

We can look to our first reading from Isaiah today to see a bit more about patience: look at the prophecy, the vision of the future, God gives to Isaiah (6:1-11) > God gives Isaiah a bit of a strange message for the people first-up: make their ears dull and close their eyes, so they CAN’T see or hear, and then God says cities will be ruined, houses will be deserted, the land will be laid waste.

Wait what? WHAT is that all about?

And Isaiah’s response is, ‘for how long Lord?’ There will be waiting and patience involved here! 

There is a real slow-down message in this vision from God, a test for the people, serious challenges to go through. But there’s also hope, right at the end where God says there will be one stump leftover, from where something (someone) new will come > this someone is Jesus, who will come to save the world from sin, death and the devil. So the people have to wait for him, they need patience on that journey.

The need for patience is also a reminder that we’re on God’s time, not our own. He is our creator, he gives us life and sustains us in life, and he welcomes us to live with him forever when the time comes. So this patience and waiting is not just for Old Testament people, it’s for us too as we wait for the day when Jesus comes again.

We know the saying, ‘good things come to those who wait,’ and we’ve got the biblical version in Lamentations 3:25: ‘The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him… It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.’

Notice it doesn’t say it’s easy to wait for the Lord, it doesn’t say there won’t be bad things that come along as well. We can draw out a key point here that God is good, and there are many people who have lived a life with Jesus – through all sorts of trials and tribulations – who can shed some light on that for us.

Onto point 2, second note about fishing: you don’t always know what’s on the other end!

When you go fishing and you do feel something tugging on your line, it could be a fish you’re trying to catch. Or it could be something you don’t want to catch – like a shark or like some seaweed or some rubbish – you don’t know unless you’re supremely experienced and can judge it by feel, or until you can see it with your own eyes as you reel it in.

There are different ways we can approach this.

Jesus says his disciples are fishers of people, so how should they approach this simple truth about fishing, that they won’t always know what’s on the other end? 

What would you do? How would you handle this?

This applies to us too. We are all called into this way of life as Jesus’ followers, as God’s people, as Christian people. Called to be fishers of people. How did we get assigned this task? Maybe you hate the idea of fishing, or you’ve never done it – how are you going to know how to respond to this call? How does anyone know how to respond to this weird, strange, profound call on our lives to ‘fish for people?’

In our second reading today Paul gives us a good clue, the whole answer really (1 Cor 15:2). He says to hold firmly to God’s word, because by his word you are saved.

We’re not saved by how good we are at fishing for fish, or fishing for people, or how many we catch or reel in > this is not about facts and figures, our performance. Just like the disciples, we don’t get this job because we’re good at it, because we’re qualified for it. We get this job, this call, this purpose, because God gives it to us and he will go with us on the journey > “follow me,” Jesus says. Come with me, be with me, I’ll show you the way. It’s not like we have to stress about suddenly learning how to fish or suddenly knowing all the right words to say or any of that – trust in me Jesus says, I will be with you.

And this leads us to our third and final point today, verse 11: encountering Jesus.

How would you have responded in this situation??

You’re a fisherman, you’re trying to do your job, Jesus has just shown you he can make fish go into your net without lifting a finger while you toiled away all night. Thanks for that Jesus! 

But then Jesus says the line, “don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people,” and they drop everything and follow him. Amazing.

What would compel them to do that… If Jesus asked you to drop everything and follow him would you be able to?? This is hard, extremely hard for us. We don’t want to drop everything, we care about what we have, we’ve worked for it, we have people we care about, roles and responsibilities to fulfil…

I don’t think we can fully understand what the disciples went through personally here, but we can try to understand what Jesus words mean for us here today, what he means when he says, “don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.”

The ‘don’t be afraid’ part is reassurance, comfort, relief that we are not in control, and we don’t have to be! It’s not up to us and any super-human efforts we might try to put in. It’s about trusting in Jesus, and he calls us into something completely new, different, really it’s transforming and life-changing here: becoming fishers of people.

And this isn’t just about our response, what we’re going to do from here. Jesus is the ‘ultimate fisher,’ this idea’s been on my mind this week > he’s the ‘ultimate fisher,’ and he calls us to join him in fishing for people.

He has fished us out of sin, he has rescued us from murky waters, he has come to where we are because he loves us and cares for us and wants to give us something no one else can give > NEW LIFE. A new life, not the same life we already had, but new life which is life as a child of God. In case you haven’t noticed here, this is a big deal! This is serious, life-changing stuff. Once Jesus shows up we won’t be the same.

Once we get the call, our life is changed. Some of us might have a ‘conversion’ story, where we went from not being a Christian to believing in Jesus, some of us have been lucky enough to have always had faith in our lives. We all have different backgrounds and our own stories, but whoever we are and wherever we’re coming from this is a daily renewal thing for us – this life-changing is not just a one time thing, it’s not just like we’re baptized and now we’re good.

We are ‘fished out’ of sin and death by Jesus’ death, but then we are called daily to continue to die to sin as we live in him. As we go on in life we need to continue to receive this new life – that’s why we do church, that’s why we come together, that’s why we worship in community, that’s why we keep on turning to God’s Word.

Because we’re only human. We still need God’s help in this life, because if we receive this good news and we receive Jesus into our hearts, as flawed people we continue to throw it all away. We continue to sin, this is the worst thing about being human! We get in our own way, we put our own interests ahead of what God says, we try to decide who we are when we could be resting in the free gift of God’s love for us, who he says we are > loved children of God.

To encounter Jesus is to have your life changed. It’s not always easy to explain that, how that impacts us, but God’s Word can help us make some sense of it: Jesus comes to us, we are changed because of his sacrifice on the cross for us, because he’s taken away the punishment we deserve by dying in our place. To live in faith and hope and trust in Jesus is to take him at his word, to let him be in charge, to receive the offer to rest in him, to be loved, cared for, encouraged and even inspired by him in a whole new life, a whole new deal where we get to be fishers of people, with Jesus alongside us as the one who fished for us. 

So there’s heaps in there today, becoming a fisher of people. It’s an ongoing journey that we get to do side by side with Jesus. 

Jesus gives us the Holy Spirit to be among us, to be our helper, to restore and encourage and carry us through the challenges that may come in this life, with the hope of our security and safety in Jesus through it all.

So we pray for God’s help on this journey, whatever stage we might be on, whatever history we might have. He comes to us new each time we gather in worship, he’s seeking a relationship with you, he wants to know you and care for you. And he does that whether we know it or not too! The Holy Spirit is at work, even when we don’t know it or see it, the Holy Spirit is at work in us and around us and through us. In our church, in our school, in our community. 

Thanks be to God that he’s come for us, he’s there for us, he hears us and he has a place for us. 

Let’s take a moment to thank him and ask for his help as we pray.

Lord you are the ultimate fisher, the ultimate fisher of people who calls us to be fishers of people with you. And you continue to fish us out of trouble Lord, we thank you for coming for us – when we need it, when we think we don’t need it too – you are the one who saves, who loves, who has given your life for all people. We pray your Spirit would be moving in our community, leading us and carrying us as do life together. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.