We're glad to have you, and each of you here tonight, if you're joining us on the way of Facebook, we're glad to have you, or the YouTube channel, or on our app, or through sermon audio, however you're listening to this, we welcome you tonight to our Life of Messiah study. We're going to be in John chapter 21, and what I'm planning on doing tonight is finishing last week's, because I didn't get finished with last week's lesson, because we stopped and discussed some things. had a great discussion last week. And I hope that tonight is no different because this is certainly very much to real life, real life living. I entitled tonight's Bible study the Mega Fish Catch, or How to Catch Mega Fish. And so I'm sure all the fishermen people will want to tune in. Remember, we are looking at Jesus' post-resurrection appearances, and the order in which they occur, using all four gospel accounts, and we are up to his seventh appearance, and his seventh appearance is to the seven fishermen apostles. So the apostles who were fishermen, there were seven of them, and Peter being, as typical, the leader, and remember Peter said, you know, we're in Galilee, where Jesus told us to be, and he said, I'm gonna go back fishing to provide for my family, and they went with him, and you remember they fished all night, didn't catch anything and early in the morning it's a little dark some stranger on the shore says hey cast the net on the other side and you'll catch stuff and they do it and they catch enough fish that they can't even hardly contain it and John recognizes it's the Lord because Jesus had done this early when he called them to full-time discipleship in Luke chapter 5. And when John tells Peter, hey, it's the Lord, Peter jumps in the water and swims about 100 yards to the shore to be reunited with Jesus. And last week, we spent a lot of time looking at the idea of provision, that even though they caught all those fish, when they got to the shore, Jesus already had the bread and the fish already cooking. And the point was is that God doesn't need your resources to provide for you. God doesn't need that. That God can provide outside of you. And we discussed the issue, how did Jesus get the fish? We don't know for certain whether he went fishing himself or whether he created a fish or whether he called the fish to shore and said, hey, come here. Yeah, you're pretty good. You'll do. we don't know we just know that the point is is that God provides not you and me and we looked at the idea of the promise of God's provision as found in Matthew 6 where Jesus said you know think not for what you'll eat or what you'll drink you know that the Lord knows the number of hairs on your head and he cares for you and and then we looked at the counter argument And I like to do that, and we looked at Psalm 37, where the psalmist wrote that he had not seen the righteous God's people, you know, begging bread. And then I asked you the question, don't we see people even today, aren't there believers around the world that are starving? And how do you square those two things? Because the critic's going to ask you, and I think it's a fair question to ask. And we discovered that I think the biblical principle is that for the believer that Jesus is our bread of life. And though I do not understand it, and I've never personally experienced it to that level, I have read and I have met people who have endured those things and through faith they have made it through whether God called them home or whether God miraculously provided for them. And so, you know, the key thing there is a spiritual provision. And then we looked at Paul saying in Philippians 4 that he could do all things through Christ and the context was whether I'm hungry or whether I'm full. Whether, you know, on this I've learned to be content. So we looked basically, as we left last week, at the idea that it's our responsibility to do what we can, just as these fishermen were out doing what they can, and then it's to trust God. So we're going to pick things up there tonight in verses John chapter 21 and verse number 10. So let's pick it up in verse 9. As soon as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon and bred. And Jesus saith unto them, bring of the fish which ye have now caught. Simon Peter went up and drew the net to the land, to land full of great fishes, a hundred and fifty and three. And for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken." So we're told here that Jesus tells Peter to go help carry in or drag in the rest of the fish. And he tells him in verse 10, bring of the fish which you have now caught. Now there's discussion and debate on the commentaries of was Jesus asking Peter to bring the fish so they would have more fish to cook? You know, now some people hold that view. I tend to not think that. I think personally that when we see, when Peter recognizes it's the Lord on the shore, he knows there's this huge catch of fish, right? But what does he do? What becomes his greater priority? He jumps overboard and goes to the Lord. Anybody who's full of money, and if materialism and money is your final goal, when you are put right in front of the biggest financial boom you've had in who knows how long, or do you develop a closer presence with Christ, which one is your immediate reaction? I know it's for... I've been through some times where I'm telling you, I'm staying in the boat with the fish. in the sense of, I don't want these fish to get away. Because don't misunderstand that these fish represented financial gain. They represented, yeah, they could eat some of them. But I'm sure that James and John, their family was in the fishing business. They knew where the wholesalers were. They knew how to turn these fish into money, where the markets were that they could get paid. And so I think Peter says, you know what? Right now, I'm so focused on my relation with Christ that I forget the fish. Now, Jesus doesn't castigate the other fishermen for leaving, now does he? Or for staying there. They stayed in the boat. Matter of fact, after Peter swam, now bear in mind, he got all wet now, and he's on the shore, and I don't know if Jesus gave that big hug and everything. Now Jesus must be, you know, I don't know if Jesus said, listen, go dry off, get a towel before you give me a hug. I don't know. But he sends Peter back to go help the other disciples finish the job that they were doing. You know, when we talked last week about God's provision, which it is essential to understand that no matter where you're at, God is the provider. And when you see that truth, it's very liberating, but I don't want to say that to the degree that we're disrespecting work. You know, these guys were out there all night, and they toiled all night, and they caught nothing. And sometimes to be a good fisherman, there are going to be nights that you toil all the time and get nothing. I can tell you in the ministry and anything worthwhile doing that there are times, and trust me, if you don't believe me, you ask Brother Matt or some of the guys on the men's leadership team, I get really discouraged when we go out and we hand out tracks and we go door to door and we canvas and we do things downtown. And sometimes it's like, what are we doing? We've been fishing all night and catch nothing. And then all of a sudden something comes along and God gives us some direction and all of a sudden people are coming in that we didn't do anything for. And so Jesus doesn't disrespect the fish. I found it interesting when Peter jumped overboard and headed to the Lord, maybe in his mind he said, you know what? I'm leaving these fish behind so much for the fish. But Jesus says, uh-uh, Peter, I'm glad that I'm your priority, but now go back and help drag these 153 fish to shore. He doesn't say, okay, guys, let them go because you're not gonna catch fish anymore, you're catching men. So forget those fish. He doesn't say, you know, leave them there or let them go. He tells them to bring them in. Don't waste the work, the energy you have done. There's nothing wrong with what you've done. Just don't misunderstand the fundamental foundational principle that God is our provider. But he doesn't disrespect hard work. Matter of fact, he respects it. And so Peter goes back. Matter of fact, it says in verse number 11, so Peter went up and drew the net to land full of great fishes. The Greek word there for great is megas. That's where in our title we got mega. Now, megas in the Greek can mean large in size or large in number, and it's determined by context. And here, because we are given this large number, we know that he's talking about this was a large number of fish for the size of that net. And it's interesting that, matter of fact, that John, in his precision here, tells us exactly how many fish are in the net. Now, how does John know there's that many fish in the net? He counted them. Sometimes I ask really profound questions, and I just want to keep you online. How do you think he knew that? Well, my guess is that they went through the one, and two, and three. They counted them. Just like, you know, if you're into sales, I used to be a sales rep, you know, I kept track of my sales. I knew what was going on there, and these guys knew, and there was 153 of them. Now, why does God tell us there's 153 fish? Isn't that interesting? I mean, it seems like some way it's an arbitrary fact, but then you have to ask the question, does God give arbitrary facts? Anybody? There were 153 fish. Brock's being profound again. I can't disagree with that. There's 153. It's hard. It's amazing. If you go read the commentaries, which I do because that's what you guys pay me to do, it's interesting how many people want to try to put some spiritual application into the fact there's 153 fish. For example, And this depends on what era of time the writer, you know, through the last several hundred years, who you want to listen to. But some people think that at that time, on the globe, there were 153 different languages. So it pictures that the gospel would reach every language. Do you think that? What do you think about that? How in the world would they know there's 153? How would you ever know at any given point in time how many languages there are? I mean, in America right now, if you're watching and you live in Chicago or you live in New York and you come down here, that's a little bit different language. I'm sure Gabe, well, Gabe's a local. He's not really a New York boy. He'd be married to a New York girl. But you go out to some of the inner cities and I can't understand what they're talking about. So how in the world would you know there's 153 languages at any given time? So, you know, I think that's funny. Somebody else, another writer, was adamant that the reason we're told 153, because at that time, in the global perspective, there was 153 different races or tribes of men. So it pictured that there was 153 different types of whatever we are. You got the, I don't know if you want to look at it, racially, white, brown, red, whatever. And there was 153 different types. And I'm thinking, again, how would you ever really know that? And on what basis could you say that? Other people think that it was 153 different fish. And this one has, I don't know if it's more credibility, because I don't think it has any. But some people felt like the fact was that there was 153 different types of fish found in the Sea of Galilee. And in the net, God made sure that they caught one of every kind of species. Intelligent people writing commentaries put this in there. I'm always saying, hey, think before you write, think before you write, you know, and that this is God's demonstration that you can catch them all, you know, okay, and make a spiritual application. But I tell you, take it. Of more modern times, and when I say more modern, in the last 40 or 50 years, there was one person, one writer that felt like the reason it was 153, because apparently at one point in time, Now, I could not individually verify this, but if you want to do the research and figure it out, okay. But he said that at one point in time there were 153 member nations in the United Nations. So there's 153 members in the United Nations, which typify the whole world, and so it's a picture that the gospel is going to reach the whole world. Now, I'm just sitting there going, do you really think that John and Jesus have the United Nations in view when they're catching these fish? And yet people write this down. Now, sometimes I think God gives us numbers, because unlike, to me, fake religious books that throw out generalities, The scripture is not afraid, both Old and New Testament, to make specific claims. This is one of the reasons it sets the Bible apart from any other quote-unquote holy book, be it the Book of Mormon, be it the Quran, you pick your one. With the Word of God in the Old Testament, when it says there was a city in such and such a place, you can mark it down, there was a city in such and such a place, and over and over and over, archaeologically, verifies the authority of the Word of God. Anytime I so much so in my humble opinion. I know it's just I'm a pastor and all that but in my humble opinion when science or Archaeology says well the Bible's wrong here because it says this and we now know that this isn't true I want to go okay Let's back up the bus Who has to change their story about every five years and rewrite textbooks and who writes at one time and is done? Oh You know, the Bible has been proven when men have said, well, you know, there was no such city as Nineveh, which for a long time was a widely held position. Oh, that city, the Bible talks about how big it was in its square miles. It could have never really been that big. Well, hold your horses. Now we know it was that big. So the Bible gives us specific information. I think to some degree that's it. But like always, when it comes to scripture, I think you just read the Bible, just read it, people. Just finish the verse and consider the context of what he's saying. In verse 11, it says, they drew the net to land full of great fishes, a lot of fishes, 153. And for all there were so many, he said there was a lot of them, 153. Now he's about to tell you why, why that matters. Yet was not the net broken. The point of giving that large number is to say that even though the number was larger than that net was designed for, the weight it was signified to carry, the net didn't break. Now I think you can make a lot of legitimate spiritual application there. Aren't you glad that the net of God's love is always big enough for one more? that God's net of the gospel of Jesus Christ is big enough to contain all those who will freely choose to receive the free gift of eternal life. It's a tremendous truth, and I don't think you should read on it anymore. Matter of fact, when I was doing a study, one guy that I found an interesting quote was Warren Wiersbe. I mentioned him, I think, last week as well. But he, in his commentary on this section, he said this about being a fisher of men, that it was, this was not a phrase that was probably invented by Jesus or the scriptures. It had been used for years by the Greeks and the Roman teachers to be a fisher of men in that day, meant to seek, to persuade men of, and to catch them with a certain truth. And so he goes on to say, a fisherman catches living fish, but when he catches them, they die. A Christian witness seeks to catch dead fish, because you and I are dead in our trespasses and sins, we're separated from God, and when he catches them, they are made alive. Isn't that fascinating? You know, you and I are catchers of fishers of men, and all of us, apart from Christ, are dead in our trespasses and sins, but when we are used of God to show them a truth that God loves you, God died for you, he offers you forgiveness and eternal life, if you'll simply believe him for it, when people do that, they go from being a dead fish to a living fish. And so fishing and 153 fish, I think it's just a demonstration that there were a lot of them, but the net wasn't broken. All right, let's go on in one more thing I want to cover with you tonight, and we're probably going to be done early. Mark this down. Verse number 12, Jesus saith unto them, Come and dine. And none of the disciples durst ask him, Who art thou? Knowing that it was the Lord. Jesus then cometh, and taketh the bread, and giveth them, and fish likewise. So Jesus invites them to eat. Nothing like fellowship and a good meal. Remember we found it when the last, I think, was it the fifth appearance or sixth appearance where Jesus walks on the Emmaus road with two disciples, and when they get to the end of the place where they were going at Emmaus, which by the way, another place you realize, did you read on the news recently? They just found, they're pretty sure they found Emmaus. pretty sure they found it. Once again, for a long time, people said, oh, we don't know this. We're not certain this village ever existed. Wrong-o. You can do a Google search and find the story. I think it was on Fox News and some other different kind of places. They're fairly certain they found the Emmaus village. And I read into it, and it seemed pretty legit. But nonetheless, when those two guys got back to Emmaus, Jesus had a meal with them. And that's when they came to know him. And it's all throughout scripture, from the very beginning, in the Garden of Eden, what got mankind in trouble? Food. They were in perfect fellowship with God, and a bad meal started a whole bunch of bad things. That's why there's something about... And you look around humanity in culture after culture, Like I watch this fishing show everybody like watching Jeremy Wade What's the name of the show Matt you I know you watch it Jeremy Wade River Monsters, thank you. I hear he's on Discovery now. New contract, probably making more money. But it's amazing when he goes trying to find these fishing in these remote jungles that how often, before the locals will allow him to fish in their protected waters, he has to sit down and have a meal or eat something and sometimes he'll eat stuff and I'm going, ooh. And I know some missionaries, my brother Matt shared with me some stories of some things that are... Pray for our missionaries. But food and relationship. Food and relationship. You know, even in our families, don't you think that it is a bad thing the way our culture has gotten so busy that family meals are less and less of a thing? You know, I remember when us older people, I remember most nights of the week, there was a family meal and everybody came together. Now it's like herding cats, you know, we're going, we're going, we're going, and they got all these things to do. And even in your marriage, you know, a couple that can't enjoy a meal together ought to be a warning sign. I'm not talking about and Jenny and I sometimes have to make sure we Do you have to do the thing where you sit down have a meal together and you say okay you pull out your phone? I'll pull out mine. We both slide them to the middle of the table You know now you leave them face up in case the grandchild calls or the grandchild calls you you answer that call, but everybody else no and and you say we're gonna have a meal together where we're gonna communicate and You know, I'm telling you, there's something to that, which is why I personally believe, and when you read in the end of the book of Revelation, when we get to the new heaven and the new earth, God made us for food, and us for food and food for us. And I don't know about you, well I do know about you. I do know about Don Taylor, I do know about Michael Bryant, I do know about most you guys. I've seen you eat in the fellowship hall. So I do know you like to eat. And I think that's a God-given thing. It's just that now our systems are all broken and some of us look at advertisements for chocolate and we gain weight. Others of us, bless our lovely hearts, we can eat whatever we want over and over and over again and say, hey, I lost five pounds, and then your spouse wants to kill you. So I don't know which one of those metabolisms you have, but we're a little broken in this thing. And Jesus says, I want you to come in, you've done all this work, but let's have a time of fellowship and a good meal. I love the way that Jesus takes care of them physically before he's about to deal with Peter spiritually. It's a wonderful principle. That's why here at our church, we've operated on that principle. We run our Iwana program. We're one of the very few places that doesn't charge for Iwana, which is a costly program. But, you know, I don't want kids to not be able to do it. And I got tired of saying, well, the church families have to pay, but visitors don't and whatever. I just figure if If our church wants to have a WANA, you people will put money in the offering plate or on the app. You'll give the money to underwrite the cost and we'll have it. If we don't believe in the vision of it, we won't have it. And it really is that simple. And God's made a way and we've always had it. Now, we do have a rule if a kid is irresponsible and keeps losing their book, then we start charging you, you know. But meet physical needs before you get to spiritual needs. And I think that's a wonderful principle to this very day. Now, one of the things I found interesting in this verse, because I read this stuff and I'm asking myself questions. Verse number 12, to me, was a confusing verse, and only a few commentaries even wanted to try to decipher what this is or what's going on here. Jesus invites them to come and dine. All right, let's have this meal together. And then it says, And none of the disciples durst ask him, Who art thou? But then notice the last line, Knowing that it was the Lord. Do you see a little bit of a contradiction there? How do you say, Who are you, but I know who you are? I'm going, these are some confused disciples. Now, we know that it was early in the morning, a little dark, and he was on the shore, and they didn't recognize, and the scripture tells us that earlier on. But now we're talking they're right up close and personal. You know, how in the world do they not know who he is? So why do they say this question, who art thou? Why is that going around in their brain? Anybody got any thoughts on how do we synthesize All right, he looked different. Maybe his post-appearance. Is this the first time they'd seen the post-appearance of Christ in our seven appearances? It's not. I thought about that one, but unless Jesus decided to look differently the second time they saw him than he did the first time, which might be possible. Anybody else? I have no idea. Yeah, Ben? Could it be that Jesus was more or less available to the hood because they're fishies? They're not the only boat there. Okay, well, they did the garb they wore that day. Maybe he had a head cover on that they didn't get a good look at his face, other than the fact that, well, I would think of all these reasons how I could explain it, but then I kept coming back to the last phrase, knowing that it was the Lord. You know, every time I come up with an excuse thinking, okay, how can I explain logically that they didn't know it was him? But then I had to read the rest of the verse and say, but they did know it was him. So I'm going, how does this work? I don't know, there's some folks online that made, you know, different commentators that I read books that I have that made differing types of guesses on it. I'm going to give you one that I personally, it's just my personal opinion here. Again, I don't want to take this too far, but I think it explains why they're reacting the way that they're reacting. When they first came to shore, back in verses 8 and 9, verse 9 says, and as soon as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon and bred. One of the guys that I was studying, one of the older guys who was it, from yesteryear, pointed out, and I went and looked at it in the Greek, that when it says there was a fish on the fire, it's in the singular. There was a fish. Now, you can take fish sometimes as a generality, as a plurality, you know, I call it fish, or here's a fish. And so I think there's some wiggle room there, but it also could be singular. Now, when Jesus says, come and dine, and there's seven husky muscular fishermen, You know, there's seven, I want to pick a nice strong guy here, but I can't find any. Just kidding. Emery, there's seven Emerys there, right? If I invited you over, and I had seven of you guys, I had Matt and Ben and DT, I had seven of you guys, Joe, Nolan, big guy, you know, and you come over to my house, and I said, we're going to have this nice meal. Let's go out in my patio, I got my grill, and I lift up the lid, and there's one hamburger. And you can smell it, and it's looking good, you know. And it'd be a good fight, wouldn't it? Yes, there would. We'd find out who was the biggest after all, yes. Or who had the quickest draw. That would be Caleb Downing. But I think you'd all be looking at me like, hey, is anybody thinking what I'm thinking? Who is this guy? Who does he think he is? He invited seven of us over here, and he's got one fish? He's got one burger? But then they said, but we know it's the Lord. I think they were still in awe of the resurrected Christ. And this is my personal, after studying this this week, my personal opinion. They come up on this fire with seven guys plus Jesus. And yes, he said, bring the fish to shore. Some people say, well, they brought the fish to shore and Jesus said that so they would have more fish to eat. I don't think the context would push that. I think you could maybe go with that agenda, but I'm going to stick with Jesus was providing for them and was making this lesson and wanted them to have the fish to go sell, to make money, to meet their needs. And so they come up and here's one fish. And humanly, you would look at that and say, there is no way that one fish and one loaf of bread is going to feed seven hungry men. But is that true? Had Jesus done something like this before? You think they might have went back when the little boy walks up with his little lunch and 5,000 people and says, here's my fishes and my loaves of bread. And one of the disciples said, but what are these among so many? And probably John, probably the apostle John was going, I know who this is. Who is this? But I know who it is. We've seen this before. And it's my humble opinion that they sat around there and Jesus just kept feeding them until they could eat any more fish. And then they took their 153 fish, every single one of them, down to the local market later that day, and cha-ching, cha-ching, and paid bills or whatever they needed to do. God respected the work of the mecca fish that they caught, but God reiterated, I can take care of you. And I know there's some of you watching online, some of you here tonight, have had times and seasons of your life where you go to your cabinet, you go to your refrigerator, and there's one fish. And this is one that I can't tell you, I have been there. Where I literally did not know how we were going to provide a meal for my wife and our two kids Allison was what preteen 11 12 13 Caleb was 10. He could eat a lot. I didn't know. But what I did know. was that God had called me and Jenny to go help Brother Locke start a church outside of Nashville. And we were doing what God called us to do. And we were dealing with a lot of hurt and disappointment from our past ministry. And we were going through a lot of difficulties. And yet, we just got back out there and started trying to work in the fields that were white in the harvest and bring folks in and help this church get off the ground. And somehow, God took one fish. and just kept feeding us. You know, I tell folks that era of our lives was when I thought about where the Lord's Prayer became very relevant to me, very personal, because when earlier we mentioned in this, in our Bible study here last week about when Jesus had just got in Matthew chapter six, where Jesus said, you know, take no thought we shall eat or what you shall drink. And don't worry about, you know, the clothes you have because your father in heaven knows you have needed these things, but seek ye first the kingdom of God. Never forget that a few verses before he's giving that admonition in Matthew chapter six, he lays out what we call the Lord's prayer. In Matthew chapter six, in verse number, what is it? Verse number nine, he said, for after this manner, therefore pray ye our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. So the first thing when he introduces prayer is to remember who God is. He's holy. He's hallowed. He's not some arbitrary ghost or some, I don't know, people think God is today. He's holy. And so prayer always ought to start with a recognition of who God is, which reminds me that I'm not him. And then he goes in the second part of the prayer is, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is into heaven. Okay, God, you are God. My responsibility is to do what you've asked me to do. To ask God, God, what is your will for me? Now, we know in the scripture there's some principles that Christians are to abide by, but I also believe that God has something for you individually, whether you're watching here tonight or you're here in person. You know, what does God want you to do? What are you to be about? And sometimes that isn't as easy as it might seem. Sometimes you've got to labor hard to figure that out, and you've got to study God's Word, and you've got to do right today what you know is right and trust that God's going to show you where you're supposed to be tomorrow. But submit yourself and say, okay, God, I don't really like where I am right now, or I don't understand where I am right now, but I know right now I need to, if you have a job, I'm going to go do my job. I'm going to do what I know to do today, and I'm trusting that your will be done. Then notice the third thing. The next thing he says, after knowing God is who he is and be submitted to his will, now he's going to go to our life, give us this day our daily bread. You know, the scripture says in a couple places, let us have food and raiment to be content. And I know as Americans, we have been blessed in a way. I know Brother Mike's been on the mission field all over the place. I'm sure others have been in places. You watch on TV, people live in places where they go to a grocery store and the shelves are all bare. In America, we have no sense of that. You know, right now, I'm on a little rant, so forgive me, this is my little rant. You know, I'm tired of processed foods always being so negative. If it was not for the invention of processed foods like cornflakes, it was one of the greatest inventions that we could feed people, we could feed them and have an extended amount of time to keep this food up. which now has allowed us, knowing we have this storehouse, now we can go back to the original and say, I want to just have fresh-cut garden stuff. Both are fine. I'm just saying, let's not forget the blessing of preserved food. Most people around the world, they just want to know today they're going to have something to eat. And when you get down to only having one fish, sometimes your prayer is, Lord, give us this day our daily bread. And I know that in most Americans, that's a rare thing to see. But don't take for granted what God's done for you. You see, there's praise, there's submission, and then there's provision. I don't know where you're at tonight. I hope that you're doing well. But God respects the work you're doing. If you're working hard, working all night like these disciples did, God respects that. but never forget that God alone is a source of our provision. Amen. No matter what you got, you give your one fish to God and you pray, God, give us this day our daily bread. Well, let's pray and we'll be dismissed. Lord, thank you so much for the teaching of your word tonight. It's been good to be reminded again of your provision. Lord, I've seen how you've taken miraculously the little that we have and you've multiplied it. And Lord, we know you said little is much when you are in it. So Lord, I pray that you'd bless each person that's listening tonight, whether online, whether here, the particular situation in their life. Lord, I pray if they're struggling, knowing what your will is for them, that you'd give them clarity of it, help them to be persistent in their pursuit of you in their life. Thank you again for this time in Jesus' name. Amen and amen.