Know Futility, Know God — Luke 5

0:00 Let's pray. Dear Lord, just wanna come to you. Just thank you that you are so holy. Thank you that you give us meaning in life. And we just pray that you would bless us, pray that you would speak, and I pray that if I'm in my weakness, I don't speak your word that that would be forgotten, that you would still reveal yourself to us.

0:34 And I pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen. So today, I'm gonna be speaking on Luke five one through 11. That is the passage that I am to speak on, and we're going to study together. And, therefore, I'm going to have you turn to Ecclesiastes chapter one.

1:04 Makes perfect sense, At least if you know me. So Ecclesiastes chapter one. And for the person recording this, you wanna take notes. The title of this message is no god, no futility. N o w, no god.

1:35 Yeah. I think that's what it would be. I had another idea too, but that works. And no god, no futility. Or maybe meaning under the sun, s o n.

1:50 I don't know. You choose. So Ecclesiastes chapter one. These are the words of the teacher, king David's son, who ruled in Jerusalem. That's king Suleiman or Solomon, the wisest person ever ever...

2:14 That ever lived, and he's gonna tell us something important at the start of this or at least important to him. Everything is meaningless, says the teacher. Everything is vanity, says the teacher in another translation. Completely meaningless. What do people get for all their hard work under the sun?

2:41 I'll just stop there. King Solomon was a wise man, and he recognized that as we work hard, as we do all the things of life, as we interact with people, and on this earth. Under the sun would be equivalent to on this earth. Okay? In in this earth, when we do these things in our flesh, there is a vacuum of meaning if that's all that we do.

3:23 Taken by themselves, our labors and everything, They lack meaning, and therein lies the rub. That is one part or connected to our big issue, the big issue of being human on this earth. Let me go to Luke five. I have it printed out. You guys wanna turn there.

3:52 We'll read it together. I'm reading the NLT. One day as Jesus was preaching on the shore of the Sea Of Galilee, great crowds pressed onto... On him to listen to the word of God. He noticed two empty boats at the water's edge, for the fishermen had left them and were washing their nets.

4:20 Stepping into one of the boats, Jesus asked Simon, its owner, to push it out into the water. So he sat in the boat and taught the crowds from there. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, now go out where it is deeper and let your nets... Let down your nets to catch some fish. Master, Simon replied, we worked hard all last night and didn't catch a thing.

4:45 But if you say so, I'll let my nets down again. Other translations, by the way, say, I'll let the net down again, not nets. And he said nets first. And this time their nets were so full, again, other translations say their net was so full the second time, Jesus said nets, were so full of fish, they began to tear. A shout for help brought their partners in the other boat, and soon both boats were filled with fish on the verge of sinking.

5:18 When when Simon Peter realized what had happened, he fell to his knees before Jesus and said, oh, Lord, please leave me. I'm such a sinful man. For he was awestruck by the number of fish they had caught as were the others with him. His partners, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, were also amazed. Jesus replied to Simon, don't be afraid.

5:43 From now on, you'll be fishing for people. And soon, as soon as they landed, they left everything. The New King James version says, they forsook all and followed Jesus. I'll start by saying that, as I talk about this passage, just a little context. We have some context already here from John.

6:15 He talked about John who spoke last week he talked about Galilee as a region, where they were, the fact that it was, what, the size of Connecticut, one eighth the size of Ohio. I'm told that the people, the Josephus, which some scholars later say that he probably overestimated things a little bit, claimed that there were, I think, around possibly as much as 800,000. I heard one person say that Josephus... I didn't read Josephus, but said there was as much as 2,000,000 around the... In in the Galilee region.

6:54 So there was... In that general region for which the Sea Of Galilee was named that they were at, there were... There's a good population for the time, you know, for a kind of somewhat... What was considered a... It's considered to be a backwards and rural area.

7:14 You... There were... You see elsewhere in where Galilee itself was kinda referred to, like, as the... You almost got the sense that they were the Jewish rednecks, if you will. They...

7:29 Their voice... They were kinda backwards compared to the more cosmopolitan types in the city. And the... And and and their their speech showed showed to be true. You know?

7:42 They they... You could tell when a Galilean spoke per, you know, weren't you with weren't you with Jesus? You're... You sound like a Galilean. You know?

7:54 That... That's what... Talking about Peter here, that was said of him. Right? So just a little background.

8:01 So they're in the Sea Of Galilee, and Jesus has been ministering in this area. And he and it says he was preaching on the shore. So he came to the shore and it says great crowds pressed in on him. Now if you go to the previous passage, you see that even when Jesus would go out to remote places, isolated places, and he did this, you see both immediately after this passage and then before this passage, it says he went to a remote place. People would come and find him.

8:43 He was a sensation, and I guess people would look around for him, and then they'd go and tell everybody else when they finally found him, and they just flock flock to where he was at. And so here he was. This was happening, and it says one day Jesus was preaching on the shore. And just happens to be that there were two boats there, two empty boats on the water's edge. Now they were empty because there were fishermen.

9:17 And it wasn't just any fishermen, it was Simon. And then you see later, the people that were with him, his partners who also had boats, James and John, the sons of Zebedee. We know these people. Right? And it...

9:30 The way that it reads here is that, hey. You know, it just kinda happened. Obviously, we know that there's no accidents with God, but we know these people because we've heard about them in earlier times. Okay? And you can actually go to John one.

10:12 First meeting. You see John John the Baptist... Jesus is introduced as the word. You see John the Baptist introduces Jesus, first foreshadowing, then actually baptizing him, then telling his... The people that were following him at the time about him.

10:34 And that's where you see mention of this group of fishermen who, at this point in time, seem to be, like, kinda going after him a little bit. They're they're they're like, hey. They're introducing their friends to him, and and in verse 38 of John one, it says, they replied... Jesus looked around and saw them following. What do you want?

11:06 He asked them. They replied, Rabbi, which means teacher. Where are you staying? Come and see, he said. It was about 04:00 in the afternoon when they went with him to the place where he was staying, and they remained with him the rest of the day.

11:20 Andrew, Simon Peter's brothers, was one of these men who heard what John said, then follow Jesus. Andrew went to find his brother Simon and told him, we have found the Messiah, which means Jesus Christ. Andrew brought Simon to meet Jesus. Looking intently at Simon, Jesus said, your name is Simon, son of John, but you will be called Cephas, which means Peter. And I thought that was rock, the rock.

11:45 Right? And that Peter means rock. And so, really, the first the first meeting, I believe, is early in Jesus' ministry. And I haven't carefully studied the exact time layout of all the gospels and every event, But I believe, based on some inference, that this is like well into the ministry now, that this is well into the ministry now at this point in time of the three years that Jesus actually ministered publicly. And and so at that point in time, Jesus has this interaction.

12:28 They know each other. And it even says that they they wanted to follow him at that point in time. But now Jesus comes here, and it appears they're working a secular job. These these fishermen, they aren't following him. The crowd's following him, but they are not following him.

12:47 There's probably a lot you could take from that. I'm not going to try to take too much, but I think it's a point. Like, there's this point where they follow him and there's kind of a journey. It doesn't... We don't know.

13:00 I don't know that they were hanging out all this time or not. I don't believe they were. Seems they had some interest. They probably would come and check him out when he was nearby, maybe travel to see him when they could. That's my assumption.

13:15 But we come now to this passage here and the way it says it is, hey, there's these two boats and there's this fisherman. It doesn't even really introduce them. What you do see is that Simon does say in verse five, says, Master. So you know that Simon is regarding Jesus in that way. And again, that doesn't mean that...

13:45 Doesn't imply the level of following at that time other than he regarded him as master. So the interesting thing is there's... We don't know how many people were there. It says there was a crowd. Okay?

14:05 In fact, he sat in the boat and taught the crowds with an s. The... There was a kind of practical use of the boat because you push out, and my understanding is that there was a lot of national... Natural amphitheaters in this area. So there was a practical use to allow Jesus to minister to the people.

14:29 He got out on the boat, and Peter certainly acquiesced. It didn't suggest in any way that he wasn't more than willing to allow them to do that... Allow Jesus to do that. Probably got on the boat with him, and in some sense, he interrupted what he was doing. We'll talk about the nets in a minute, but he was he was he was wash...

14:56 They were washing their nets, and there's there's some meaning to that. So they stepped out into these boats. There was a crowd somewhere probably, my guess, I heard someone say, one one commentator say it could have been as much as 20,000 people. We know that he spoke to crowds in other environments that were probably as much as 12,000 people. Okay?

15:20 Like the... Some of the the parable of the loaves. If you just look at how many men there were, then extrapolate that to women and children. Could could have been a lot of people, many thousands. And it could have been, who knows, maybe as little as a thousand.

15:39 But it was a crowd and it was pressing in. He stepped back and was able to use this boat to minister. This was a boat that Simon owned. It was a commercial endeavor. And Simon willingly offered it to the Lord who asked for it.

15:58 And and the word was able to go out to the crowds. It's a good thing. If you also notice, Simon, we we learn later, Simon mentions when he... When Jesus asks asks... Asked him to...

16:50 Right? You know, if you if you work at a restaurant and even if it's a bad day, you still gotta close-up at the end of the day. You know? If you, I think of, like... I've seen other people have futility in their work.

17:09 I've seen businesses fail, for instance. And at the end of the day, when the business fails, Uncle Sam still wants paid. The people that were left having given you money without service at the end of the day still want paid. I know someone locally that's getting sued criminally and getting pursued by the IRS and, you know, has all these other things. Business failed, Didn't have any money.

17:32 What happened? And they had obligations, things to clean up after things didn't work out so well. Slightly different example, but I'm trying to bring it into the trying to bring it into the... The the the for them was, wow. This didn't work out so well.

17:57 And the nets themselves, apparently, they didn't have, like, modern day fibers. Like, we have real cool designer fabrics and stuff like that that... And fibers that we can make nets, they're super strong, and they're resilient, and you don't have to clean them much. Well, there was just organic fibers and if you didn't stretch it out, they would... And clean off all of the gunk, the nets would rot and they would also stiffen to the point where they couldn't be used again.

18:26 So you try to use them again, they break down. And so this was an important thing for them that they had to do. And Jesus said, let out the boat. You know? You can imagine at the end of a end of a long day, it hasn't worked out so well.

18:48 She just said, hey. Can I have a little help here? Could you use what you got right now and and help me out here? I'm I'm... I got...

19:00 I I I have some ministry I'm gonna do. Maybe you can help me. And and so just like in many other parables, you have, like, the parable of the loaves was that the three... Two fish and three loaves... Three...

19:11 I don't know. Just a little bit this kid had... That this person had, he gave it, and then Jesus used that to minister to the whole group. And so he had a boat that wasn't working out so well for commercial endeavor. He used it for the spiritual endeavor.

19:26 And sometimes the Lord asks asks that of us. You know? Hey. You know, things are a little rough right now. Would you help me out?

19:33 We'll go... We'll do this together. You can help me out. I'll what you have. And so even though he he had to kinda do this, he stopped what he was doing, and he went and helped the Lord.

19:48 And so when Lord had finished teaching or speaking, he said to Simon, Simon seemed to be right there, you know. And he said, now go out where it is deeper and let down your nets to catch some fish. So they kept it pretty shallow. They're pretty close. They just need to push off a little bit, and then the voice could kinda bounce off the waves and hit the people in the way that was gonna be helpful.

20:15 They could hear. But now it was time to go deeper. And, of course, as we said, he's... He says, master, Simon replied. He starts off with master, but then things changed slightly.

20:34 We worked hard all last night and didn't catch a thing As Jesus doesn't know. You know, like, I mean, he's knew about the woman, the water, and the well. He knew about the futile... Futile knight, the the knight of futility that they had just had. Yes.

20:58 He came with a large crowd, but it's almost like he came just for Peter. Okay? Because not a lot is actually said. There's only a few moments that actually say... It says it says, the crowd's pressed in, then it says, he he taught the crowd.

21:16 We don't know what he taught about. There was possibly many thousands of people, but most of his passage is actually about Peter and his interaction with them. He says, we worked hard all last night and didn't catch a thing, But if you say so, I'll let the nets down again. You know? And I think in in many regards, I think that sometimes when God approaches us, it's it's very tempting to forget that he actually knows all about us.

21:49 And and Peter, he did obey, but I wouldn't say he obeyed in faith. It almost seems as if he obeyed just to kinda show the law... I mean, like, just out of kinda deference to the fact that he was there and... I mean I mean, he was told that he was the son of God, you know, by John, maybe a couple of years previous, but he was already back at his job. You know?

22:24 And and that is... Perhaps even that's a kind of the way faith works sometimes. There's a journey. You know, we see glimpses of who God is. He reveals himself to us in in whatever way that he does.

22:35 And then it maybe doesn't hit our heart quite what... How it needs to. And so we find ourselves back working a purely secular profession just for the money, just to survive. And we find it perhaps, again, we find a little bit of futility in what we're doing. And so here Peter is and he's saying these things, you know, if he could have only hurt himself.

22:59 I'm sure he thought about those things he said later. In fact, I know he did. He said, we worked hard all last night and did catch a thing, but if you say so, I'll let my notes... Nets down... My nets down again and again.

23:17 Jesus said, let out your nets is my understanding, and I believe this is more of a modern translation and perhaps some details lost here. And and this time, their nets were so full of fish they began to tear. And the and and I believe that it actually is their net. Like, he partially obeyed. Okay?

24:05 Or their net begins to tear. You wonder if they had pulled out their nets. They had acted with faith. You wondered if he had said, you know what? Hey, John.

24:13 You come too. Why did he have to call afterwards? After he saw what God's done. Then he was like, oh, let's go. No.

24:21 Let's let's let's, you know, think Jesus said it best. He said, blessed are you if you believe having not seen. What you saw was some lack of belief. He had been told by John the Baptist himself. They had been told.

24:49 You know, they had been... They had seen him. They had even seen him act prophetically in in in John chapter one when he when he actually mentioned having seen Nathaniel himself under the tree, talking to him directly. You know? They knew some things.

25:06 They had evidence, but there definitely was an issue of faith at that point in time. And so their nets began to tear. A shout for help brought their partners in the other boat, and soon both boats were filled with fish and on the verge of sinking. And that's how... And and at that point in time, they're still in the deep waters.

25:41 Right? They're calling. My understanding... Let me look here. The...

25:50 It doesn't actually say how far they were out. In the next passage, which I don't think we'll end up getting to, but I'll reference at least, you see that I calculated I calculated based on what was said, how far they were out on the second catch after Jesus had died and come back. And and and Peter says, I I go fishing. So sure enough, he had he had been through at that point in time. We'll come back.

26:24 I apologize. I'm jumping around. He had been through a good amount of time with Jesus after being called in this passage here. And then Jesus... Learning directly in an intimate group with Jesus as a group of 12 and doing other ministries.

26:48 And then Jesus dies and then you see, again, a kind of a confusion among the disciples. And I believe there were seven fishermen, multiple of them joined Peter when he said, I go fishing. That's the King James terminology. I'm going fishing. I'm going go right back at the end.

27:10 You know, hey, this... I don't know what's up. Like, I don't understand what's coming... I'm so confused about Jesus. I don't know what to do.

27:16 I'm just going to default right back to the old ways. You could call it the old ways of futility. Certainly, in this case, it was the case because where did they go? They went out fishing, and again, all night, no fish. And and of course, it's a it's a different sort of meeting because in in this meeting, in this passage here, five one through 11, that's where Jesus that's where Jesus himself calls him to be a disciple.

27:44 Before they had kind of said, hey, yeah, we'd like to follow you. Well, it doesn't look like that actually happened. Now Jesus is saying, in my passage, the headings I've seen mostly say the first disciples on this passage. Basically, like this is the first calling where they actually came away. And and...

28:04 But, again, you see a kind of confusion and a sense of, we thought, we we trusted, we believed, and now all that seems to be in question, and I'm gonna go efficient. I'm gonna go back. And again, God meets him right there. Same thing happens. And I tell all that to say, I think they were about two swimming pools away based on my calculation because they actually give the number of of meters or feet in the Bible that they were away on that time.

28:39 They were about two swimming pools away. And that's when Peter jumps out. He he literally swims all the way back. He says, this is Jesus. You know?

28:49 Here, I don't believe he does this. They actually bring the boats back. He doesn't jump out at that point in time. The second time, he knew. You know?

28:59 At least it took John to to mention it. They were so busy catching the fish the second time. John mentioned it. John was much... Was more spiritually perceptive.

29:07 Jesus was an... Peter was an action taker. You know? So when John got the perception, he said, that's Jesus. Peter's like, well, guess so.

29:18 Sure seems like him. That's the mark of Jesus doing miracles like that, approaching us in this way, showing us belief, teaching us about Him. So He takes that action and the second time swims all the way back and that's where there's the conversation which we may or may not get to. So I'm going go back to this passage, Luke five:one-eleven. There...

30:05 Place yourself in that same position. For he was awestruck. It says... So he's saying this. He's fallen down in in complete and utter worship, and all he can say is, oh, Lord, please leave me.

30:20 It's an odd thing to say you might think for worship, please leave me. But, he was struck by his own. When he saw the wonder, and for him, it was a huge juxtaposition, the complete difference between his night of futility and his inability to command the elements. He could not command the elements. That that was a reality to him.

30:45 He couldn't change how things worked out. He could work really, really hard. And in many senses, you know, I think of like... Because anybody watched that show Dirty Jobs by Mike Rowe? And Mike Rowe, by the way, I figured I wouldn't follow the normal.

31:07 There's there's a tradition among WBF. You can always identify the speaker by who's dressed the best. Well, I thought, well, I feel a little more like a hardworking man, a lumberjack or something with the nice nice, you know, fleece lined flannel, brown pants. I feel like a working man. Was a dirty job.

31:30 I mean, it was a hard job. And and you can imagine, they did this all night. As it's getting dusk, you're preparing, you're smelling the sea, or you you you have a... You can... You don't do this for no reason at all.

31:49 You have a purpose in mind when you go out. If you're gonna sacrifice a whole night of sleep, I don't know if anybody else has done that like... Maybe some of you... Is there any students out here who have spent the whole night studying for a test? I thought it was crazy when I heard my my boss would spend the whole night working, and that was until I owned the company myself.

32:10 And I don't know. A few of you guys who have been up there, you know, it worked the whole night. That's rough. That is rough, rough, rough, and that's miserable. And you don't do it for no reason at all.

32:21 You do it because you expect something to come of it. And you imagine at... With him preparing and him and his group, and they're getting things ready. They're getting the boats ready, stocking stuff in, rolling up the nets, you know, dropping them in. They're...

32:44 Got some bait or whatever it is they use. They stick it out in the water. The chum is that... Is that what they call it? Chum?

32:49 They're getting stuff ready. And they they... They're going, and then they're pushing those big boats. They gotta be... I'm thinking 20, 30 feet, you know, in order to catch these fish and go all night.

32:59 Who knows? But anything they built back then with all the wood and and, you know, waterlogged and all that was gonna gonna be heavy. You can imagine them just putting their their shoulders into it, getting that into the water, doing everything, and they're going to go fishing. And after all that, hour after hour, they're throwing their nets out. They're doing what they're supposed to do.

33:23 They get nothing. And that's where they find themselves now, in futility. When things are futile, it's the same thing as kind of like vanity we talked about. There's no meaning. When you work and you get nothing from it, well, you you wanted to get something from your work.

33:39 You thought you were gonna get something. You thought that it was gonna pay off, and it didn't. Right? And suddenly the reality hits you. Like, I can work really, really hard.

33:56 I can sacrifice my sleep. I can put together an enterprise, and all of it can come to nothing if the fish don't bite or if the fish don't swim into my net and they don't smell my bait and do all the stuff that I know how to do. And yet, in a moment in a moment, Jesus just says, yeah, throw your net on the other side. All the fish swim in the net. He didn't even...

34:27 He didn't say bait it. He didn't say, you know, wait a little bit and put this. He didn't say go in and... You know, he just... And and the lesson here is not like...

34:42 I think this passage is one of the key passages in many much preaching about... There's there's a whole line of preaching, we would call it the prosperity gospel. Right? And and there is this idea somehow that if I just do what God says, if I just cast the net out again, just be faithful enough, he will be obligated to give me a bounty, a net full of fish physically so that I can make lots of money. And, indeed, like, think perhaps perhaps there's some truth that sometimes when you work hard, you do get paid off.

35:34 That's the reason you do it. Right? You know? So, hey. You if if you go to any of the parking lots of churches that preach that, you'll probably see a lot of fancy cars.

35:44 Could be could be partially debt financed, could be all paid in cash. I don't know. But this is not what that passage is teaching. Okay? And we know that that's not the gospel.

35:56 That's not how we get saved. Because the first thing we see here... What does Peter... How does Peter respond? Well, here's how he doesn't respond.

36:09 He says, Jesus. Wow. You're the best business partner ever. You know? I mean, if every time I throw it out for you, you bring all these things back, we can create...

36:22 Man. You like, you can... Like... And I honestly think Peter, he's an entrepreneur. He seems to be.

36:28 You know? He's that... In the disc disc thing, you call him a d. You know? He's that go getter.

36:34 And us go getters, we have plans. We have a big vision of what is possible. Oftentimes, not so much of an idea of the how to do it because we're not good at that. But I guess you're gonna do it anyways. You know, they're not smart enough to know they probably shouldn't.

37:06 Right? He'd already worked really, really hard. So the point wasn't that if you work harder, you'll make more money. The point was was that I am God, and I command the universe. And you notice his response after that.

37:24 You know? His point wasn't even, by the way, Christ's point wasn't that I am holy, but he got to there real quickly. You know? So so so all all Peter saw was something... Was that, wow.

37:38 I went out there and threw this out. I wasn't even doing it in faith. I wasn't even doing it right. And even in spite of that, all these fish came out of nowhere and the and and the real... We somewhat often forget.

37:57 Like, for us, our natural bent is to look inward and look at what we can do because that really is all we can control. Right? Kind of. You know? Like, in terms of actions, all I can do is act.

38:07 And so all in our experience is from a single point looking out. And so we naturally are thinking about what we do and who we are and all this, and we just forget everything outside there that God controlled to bring to us. You know? Everything we have is from him, and yet all we say is I worked for it. I made it.

38:27 And why should I thank the lord? You know? And that's our natural bent. If you have kids, you know that that's true, but they just reflect me in my same way. I don't give thanks like I should.

38:44 And so Peter comes back, and you can only... You can almost imagine, you know, after the initial shock of pulling everything in and then he's bringing it back and he's starting to think as they're rolling back. And he's like... There's this thing that happens when you're trying to make sense of something. Your eyes start going...

39:03 Like go back and forth, and you're really just kind of rolling back. You're searching for anything to match up. Why does this work this way? What is happening? Shaking his head.

39:15 It says everybody was amazed. Right? I mean, obviously. Peter's trying to make sense of this. And though I said John is the one that had seemed to have spiritual insight oftentimes, Peter here had had...

39:29 He he is truly touched to his heart because he sees he sees the difference in real physical form. He sees the futility of his labor by himself and he sees what happens when God gets involved and the fact that fruit came out of it. Something happened and that God himself is commanding all of these elements. He's commanding them and he's overwhelmed by who God is. And then he says, oh Lord, please leave me.

40:04 I'm such a sinful man. And you understand that what he has seen is he has seen the holiness of God. It didn't start with that. But I believe that when we when we see any single attribute of who who God is, that it leads us to the other attributes. And it always leads, it seems, to holiness, to understanding of who he is.

40:27 And when we experience, when we see, when we start to perceive the smallest bit of his holiness that's even possible, what do we realize about ourselves? We always come to that conclusion. It will always happen that I am such a sinful man. It's interesting because we did in the in in the remembrance service of Christ, that was kind of a theme, Christ's holiness and our sin. I had passages to go through.

41:05 I had a whole list of all the passages, like, where come in God's presence, and suddenly we... Like, people came in God's presence, and they suddenly realized that they were indeed sinful. And one of the interesting things is about sin, for instance. A lot of us, well, I've heard people complain about Christians that they're judgmental. They have a problem with also a a god that...

41:44 Like like, what does god care about sin? Right? Why is that important? By the way, very judgmental. I mean, very very, reasonable and perhaps true.

41:56 Christians can be really judgmental. You know? And it's not my job to look down on anybody because they were made in the image of God, and they... If they haven't taken up Christ's mercy in the same way that Peter did, which we'll talk about more, they can. Right?

42:19 And so, certainly, they have been recipients of an invitation if they haven't accepted God's mercy already. And for us to look down on a fellow human being in any way is unacceptable because we have no basis for that. We don't have the basis to look down on any other person. We are recipients of his grace. And the one person that could've looked down on us chose not to.

42:50 Christ looked down on Peter physically. Peter was on his knees. Right? And in this case, it doesn't say he didn't physically say get up like they do in some other passages. What he said was, don't be afraid.

43:16 When we come to the Lord... Or in this case, when the Lord came to him. Okay? There was a thousand people, perhaps 20,000. And yet the Lord turned away from them and looked back at Peter.

43:33 He looked back in the futility and the things that were working for them. And this is true. Like, in real life, there is so much futility. Solomon preached it. He said, under the sun, on this earth, it is futile.

43:50 And here, Peter was living it. And you don't really get the gospel from Solomon because he's talking physically. You know, he's given us kind of a spiritual truth about something physical. Right? And so there's...

44:22 You don't gonna need to stay on your knees now. From now on, you'll be fishing for people. I don't know. I mean, I guess, in that regard, definitely doesn't say anything about, hey. From now on, we're going to open up a fishing factory, and we're gonna buy 20 boats, and all of them are gonna get Holy Spirit fishing catches of real fish.

44:48 No. The... There's an there's an element here of... Well, there was an elevation here. He didn't just elevate him, but he elevated his work.

45:05 He gave him new meaning. Okay? You're not gonna be... Not only... Like, you don't have to worry about futile work, which oftentimes doesn't pay off.

45:17 Instead, I'm going to take you and you're not just going to be fishing, you're still going be fishing. You're going be fishing for men. And not only that, it's not just going to be to take care of your family and stuff like that. There's obviously value in that, but the meaning here is that you are going to be fishing for men on behalf of me. I'm going to bring them to you, but you're gonna be fishing for me.

45:45 And there's gonna be value here for you, and there's gonna be meaning, and you're gonna do it in my joy. It doesn't say all that, but I'm at it. But but this is a wonderful thing. We know John three sixteen. And I'm reading in the version.

46:30 Most people probably don't know, but but for this is how God loved the world. He gave his one and only son that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. And so this verse talks about everyone. It's the crowd. We know that it was not cheaply that Jesus was able to approach and have a real relationship with the people, with with with one person specifically, Peter.

47:02 It wasn't cheaply that Peter that he could simply say, get up and now we're going to have a relationship. We're going to work together fishing for men. It's not cheap... Cheaply that he was able to do that. Christ had to die.

47:18 He had to suffer for our sins so that all, not just the crowds though, but you could be saved. There there was a there's a parable I heard. I think that it was... It's about a church rebuilding in 1666, and it was told by the chief architect that was managing that building. And I've heard it a number of times.

48:09 It was always told by people that did not believe in God. But it's distinctly meaningful and distinctly meaningful. And it went like this. This chief architect, Christopher Wren, came upon three different stonemasons, and they were working on this huge project after the the London fire at the time that had destroyed nearly the whole city. And they're working to build a cathedral, and he's...

48:44 He asked... He saw three of the men. One of the men said... He said, hey. Why are you why are you building this?

48:53 One of the men said, I'm doing this so that I could feed my family, And he was the lowest performer. And the second one... I had it written down, but I can't find it on my phone. Second one said, hey. I am doing this...

49:11 And he was the middle performer. He said, I am doing this, and I forgot the reason he gave. And the and the third one said, I am doing this as a testament unto my god to great... Build a great the... Cathedral as a as a form of worship unto him.

49:30 The the funny thing is is that this is told by so many secular people. It's about meaning. It's about, hey. It makes a big difference. The the meaning that you have when you do your work, why you do your work, it's a whole lot of difference...

49:46 It's a whole big difference both in terms of your experience of doing it as well as how well you do it, and also other people experience of you doing it. Right? And this is an argument I believe. I believe that, you know, the the meaning about God here... The the...

50:08 We we believe it to be true. People that don't even believe in God believe it to be true even though it's explicitly about God. And yet most of them will strip the meaning away. They just can't see it. They say, well, there.

50:19 There you go. It makes sense to be meaningful about what you do and have a purpose. Right? They can at least acknowledge that. And I believe that this story actually is meaningful because it says, yes, it's important to be meaningful.

50:36 And the meaning, God has somehow put it in our hearts so that our higher... Highest purpose will always be about him. If we don't find meaning in him, then it's meaningless. I mean, even among reasonable purposes such as taking care of your family, there's still futility and vanity in that, right, under the sun, just physically speaking. That God elevates us.

51:01 And so it even seems to be like this somewhat secular parable seems to point to something deep in our heart about the way He made us. That we need Him, we need the hole to be filled, we need the thirst to be quenched. And our... And and it's only when we do work in his name, when we fully identify him, when we experience the joy and intimacy of knowing him that suddenly everything starts to make sense. I think we see that in Matthew 22 where he gives the most...

52:00 And yet yet we can't do that in and of ourselves. He says everything else is fulfilled. The whole law, everything that is good to do that we can't figure out how to do, it's fulfilled, yet we can't even do that because there's sin. Peter had to kneel down and say, I'm a sinful man. And when he did, Jesus brought him back up.

52:29 And, of course, then he says, okay. Well, what are we gonna be about? We're gonna be about... Got that vertical relationship right, the horizontal that, again, is like unto it. Love your neighbor as yourself.

52:40 Now the ultimate meaning also is fulfilled. Now we're gonna go and love our neighbor as ourselves. We're gonna go and seek to share the good news. We're gonna seek to bring them in. Right?

52:53 That's the ultimate purpose. That's the two. Right? I would also say, as an aside, that taking care of sin doesn't just help us relate with God, but in that same fact, it helps us relate with man. I think of, and this is kind of one last point.

53:11 I think that we need intimacy. We seek after it. It always has to come through God first. But the degree that sin is in our heart, it keeps us from getting close to our brothers and sisters, our our wives, our spouses, our our children. The...

53:35 I've been married coming on twenty years. Many of you met much longer. And, I work hard on it. Right? My wife and I, I think we've missed five dates, weekly dates in the last six years.

53:49 You can clap for me if you like. You don't have to. This is okay. Keep me humble. I thought I was doing pretty good until my brother-in-law shared with me.

53:59 I won't say which one. He said, every morning, we spend an hour and a half talking, my wife and I. Right? The truth is, I really stink at dates. My wife just told me that a month ago.

54:13 It's hard. It's hard to come close. Even people that have been working on it a long time. And I remember when we first really got back into it, and it's by God's blessing that he kinda convicted me and helped me. You know?

54:26 It takes a while to take that knowledge and turn it into action, and he convicted me. Hey. You need to be doing this. And it was always an excuse not to. But but I remember when we first started doing this, man, what are we talking about?

54:41 What are we... How do we get closer? Right? But even so, even we... I've worked hard at it, and and god has has has blessed not to boast just to say, hey.

54:51 There's there's a light. You know, god can help. And I would say there's still a little bit more room to go. You know? Like, there's still a part of me that is scared to come close to another individual because to come close is to be vulnerable.

55:12 And when I don't want to get hurt, in other words, I'm I'm willing to I'm not willing to crucify the flesh. You know what I'm saying? Like, she's a sinful person. I'm more sinful than she is too. We both are.

55:25 Okay? When I come close to her and she's gonna let me close, she's gotta... She's... She knows that I'm sinful. She's gonna get hurt.

55:34 And and so I would say, we are going to hurt each other. And the... And when I surrender to the Lord first and find safety in him, then I can also give up the the trauma, if you will. Really, I I would say it's the the the effect of sin in my heart that lodges into me. I can give that up, And and he's healed me in a long way.

56:04 I've come closer because the Lord's healed my heart. He's he's freed me of shame. And I believe as we worship, he he does that. He shows us who we are, and then we can submit it to him, and he he makes us stand up. But then by the same token, as he continues to do that, he allows us to move clues to all the people in our lives that may hurt us.

56:23 Right? Because, in a number of levels, he helps us. He allows us to be more intimate. He helps us with the... With that sense of shame coming close, the fear of of truly being intimate, of being vulnerable.

56:56 We just thank you how you approach us. You give us meaning in life, and you and you handle the issues of our heart. You bring us close to you, and, Lord, we just wanna love you. We wanna accept you. We wanna say, yes, we're sinners and then accept your mercy and grace.

57:11 We just pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen. Yeah.