Grace Chapel Bible Ministries
worship call 1127 The Lord will Provide - 2024/08/08
[MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] Welcome to Worship Call with Bible teacher Buzz Lullbeck. Buzz is the pastor of Grace Chapel, Bible Ministries, located in Duncan, South Carolina. This ministry is dedicated to the verse by verse teaching of God's Word and discipleship programs aimed at strengthening the faith of God's people. Now, here's today's message. After these things, he manifests himself again to the disciples on the Sea of Tiberius, and he manifests himself in this way, Simon Peter and Thomas, called Didymus, and this Danielian of Cana in Galilee, and the son of Zebedee. And two others of his disciples were together. Simon Peter said to them, "I'm going fishing." They said to him, "We will also come with you." And they went out and got into the boat. And that night, they caught nothing. But when the day was now breaking, Jesus stood on the beach. Yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. So Jesus said to them, "Children, if you do not have any fish, do you?" And they answered him, "No." And he said to them, "Cashing that on the right side of the boat, and you will find a catch." So they cast them, and they were not able to haul it all in because of the great number of fish. Therefore, the disciples from Jesus' love said to Peter, "It is the Lord." So when Simon Peter heard that, it was the Lord. He put his outer garment on, for he was stripped for work, and threw himself into the sea. This is the Word of the Lord. And this is the fifth day of the week, and God's created order, the eighth day of the eighth month. Two thousand twenty-fourth year of our Lord, and this is another fine day in the Lord. Father in heaven, thank you for this wonderful narrative here. This historical account, we could imagine, we could imagine just the sight of the early morning, and as the day was just breaking, and the fishermen coming to the sea, and so much imagery here, and then the compassion and the teaching. And this heavenly Father, this is so wrapped up, so much here, and it's all wrapped up in your love, and the Spirit's love to teach it to us. Open up our hearts this morning for the study of your word, Christ's name, we pray. Amen. And yes, it is a wonderful and exciting narrative here, and I really love it. Alright, let's do something here, and really enjoy it here. So where do we start here? So this is the final chapter of John, and it tells us about the reinstatement of Peter. Peter's down on himself, and we'll go see that, and after we see that he denies Christ three times, and by the time we're done with it, we'll see that he has the opportunity three times to reverse what he has done, and reinstate him back into the ministry that Jesus was, in Jesus' ministry for him. Peter had time to ponder. He had time to ponder that grace incident, when after three days of dread, and doom, and gloom, and fear, and discouragement, and everything else, and here was Jesus. And at the first point, it had to be a wondrous time, absolutely great, and then he begins to thank you, and Jesus said that it was going to happen, I was going to die, and three days later, and it did happen, and all of a sudden, all of a sudden, that doubt, and that gloom, and that doom starts creeping back in, but I didn't believe him. I denied him. Exactly what he said, I would deny him three times. What an idiot, what a fool I have been. So the reality is that Peter's lack of faith continues to be evident. His failure continues to be evident. You see, it takes some faith when we sin and when we come to fail, to confess our sins, because that's a promise. When we confess our sins, he is faithful, and just forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But then faith has to continue on, there was faith that brought us into receiving that promise, even in our carnality, and knowing that God is faithful to forgive us, and to let go. And Peter, as yet, was able to let go of his own failure, his self-abasement, looking down upon himself, looking down upon his own failure, self-pity, defeatism, all overlooked that the Lord had a plan for his life. See, arrogance can be a locking view of self, and arrogance can be a lowly view of self. But whatever form of arrogance that we're basking in, its eyes off God, and its eyes off Christ, and its eyes upon ourselves. And so in this, and when we do that, Peter did it, and when we do it, we overlook that God has a plan for our lives. That we need, that doubt of forgiveness, that doubt of the goodness of God, that's all that is, and it's sinned. So even though Peter had denied Christ, he still denied Christ. In his defeatism, he is still denied Christ. And he said, and here, how many of us as Christians are without fault, and have great failure even in our Christian lives? How many of us throughout our lives have rejected Christ to walk in sin, to walk in our carnality? Are we saying that our failures are greater than God's forgiveness and God's goodness? Are we so down upon ourselves? What does Paul tell us to do? He says this one thing I do, I forget what lies in the past. That includes his failures. That includes successes, that includes his failures. That includes everything that was him before. I forget what lies in the past, and I press on to the objective that lies before me. So in his discouragement, Peter goes back to what he best knows, what does Peter best know? What was he called out from, fishing for fish? And Peter had made up his mind that he has been disqualified to serve the Lord. Jesus didn't disqualify him. He disqualified himself. Here's another question for us. It's more than how many times have we disqualified ourselves. Jesus didn't stop. We're still in God's plan, despite our failure. Again, point of darkness, I should have put it up here for you, that our failures do not supersede God's plan for our lives. That we could set aside our own discouragement, our pain, our own suffering, our own failures, and press on to the objective that lies before us. John 21-3, Simon Peter said to them, "I am going fishing." They said to them, "We will also come with you." They went out, got into a boat, and that night they caught nothing. So he said, "I'm going fishing." This shows this discouragement. It also shows this influence as a leader. It shows this influence as for those that he had a... Peter had a propensity, I guess, lost word for it. The propensity for leadership, and they followed him. The willingness of disciples to follow Peter demonstrated Peter's leadership, his influence over them. So fishing was normally done at night, and some people have reported that fish are more easily caught at night. You fish at night. You fish all night, and so you're probably relating to this. I remember a time that our two families went fishing all night. Remember that? We all slept in that little tent early in the morning, and it wasn't until early in the morning that we called... I think early in the morning that we finally called one fish a bass. I remember little bells on there, but anyway, going down memory lane. Some people reported either, so they report that you can catch fish easily at night on the sea of Galilee. So the fishermen would go out night, and they would fish at night, and then they'd catch it, and they'd bring it in, and they'd be fresh fish, and they could sell that fish on the market. And Jewish tradition recognized that God is sovereign over the fish. He's the creator of the fish. And by God's hand, he blesses the work of the fisherman's hand to bring the fish in for a catch. But that night they didn't catch anything. They didn't catch a one. So now I want to fish. Now, fishing was taken place at night, in this case. This is what strikes me. John talks about darkness. John talked about Nicodemus coming to Jesus at night. Certainly, probably with less than good intentions, let's just say. Jesus himself was in the darkness when he paid for our sins. John also expresses in 1 John that we are not to walk in darkness. And that darkness is in ponality. The women, when they came to the grave, they were sad, and they were still in their grieving state. And they didn't know of Jesus' resurrection yet. And then, so it was at darkness state. Nothing's really good at darkness in John's view. So here's the disciples. They're fishing at darkness. I just got the imagery at this point that darkness and their work, they're fishing for fish in the dark. That's what they do by custom and by practice. But what did Jesus say to them in Matthew? He says, "I'm going to make you fishers of men." Not a fish. That plan hadn't changed. And when you're fishing for men, that is work of the day. John 9/4 and 5. "We must work the works of him who sent me. As long as it is day, night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world." So they went out and got into the boat, and that night they caught nothing. The Lord did not give them success. There was no success. And listen, the Lord opens doors that cannot be closed. And He closes doors that cannot be opened. He guides and He blesses the work of the hands. But in this case, He didn't bless them. And I thank God that I did not find success in the things that I want to find success in. I thank God, and normally we look back on our lives and we see that how God has His hand was in things. Guiding our way, even though we didn't recognize them there, and there's many things that I want to be good at. There's many things I want to be successful at. But doors were closed. And to this day, I thank God for it, because here I have a ministry. Now listen, and I found my niche in life, which is the ministry in serving God and teaching. Listen, no, the congregation, we're not flooded. People are not knocking down our doors to get in. I don't have two or three church services to accommodate everybody. So I don't have a mega church. People aren't busted down into church or pastors' church committees. They aren't knocking down my doors to see if I come teach at their church and preach at their church. But what I do have, and what I am a part of, is those few people who are very much dedicated. A wife and a family who's dedicated to listening God's Word. What I do have is the seriousness of God's Word and learning and teaching it. And if I died today, it would be a great success. And any one of those things in the past could have deterred this. I would not want to do anything. I have no ambitions to do anything else. But to continue on with what we're doing and what we've found to do, Beck and I do the rest of our lives. So if I died today, I'd feel as though my life was not lived in vain. And I say amen to that. So I thank God for the doors that have been closed. So with that, let's do some points of doctrine here. Okay, number one, God closes doors that cannot be opened in order to direct our paths. I may want to so much do this one thing, but if you recognize in your life, if you're a believer and you're in God's plan and you know you are and you press a forward and you've grown to, you've grown, we all can look back as Christians to say, I see where God closed this door. I may have not liked it then. I may want so much to pull the doors up. The one of the big lies, I told the kids about this sort of graduation as a, you know, in telling them about this in church. One of the biggest lies is that you can do anything that you put your mind to. Though you can't. If God closes the door, no matter how much you want to do something, that door is not going to open. Then you got number, you got point number two here. God opens doors that cannot be closed. He opens doors that cannot be closed when he opens up the opportunity. There's no way to close those doors. And he does these things to direct our paths. And then arrogance gets in a way to recognize God's hand in guiding our paths. And following God's will. And that once again, arrogance is the lofty view of self. So Peter and the boys failed to catch a thing that night. Something else Peter can salt about. John 21 4. But when the day was now breaking, Jesus stood on the beach. Yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Now, why didn't they recognize him? First of all, any number of reasons I don't know and I don't, I'm not thought bad on this. It was breaking dead, so it was still dark. It was still, it was just getting light. All right. Of course they probably couldn't recognize him on the beach. They, they were tired. So they were weary of working all night. That also affects the vision. And so there could be any number of factors. But it also could be the fact that Jesus, just like he did with the men on the road to a man, has veiled himself to, to their image. And I might, I might lean a little bit more on that because even though Jesus was speaking to them, they didn't know it was him yet. So in this case, like in Luke 24, that he said to the men over here, he, or in that passage, he said, "But their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. So the Lord will, the Lord will blind us to blind men to who he is." And John 21 5, he goes on. John 21 5, so Jesus said to them, "Children, you do not have any fish do you?" And they answered, "No." Okay. First of all, let's look at Pydian. Pydian comes at the term of affection. Pydian is child offspring son, respectfully. I call my, I call my grandchildren son, you know, and my grandson's. I call him son. My granddaughter's. It's a term of affection, a person of any age for whom there is a special relationship of endearment and association. My child, my dear, my friend, my dear man, such as this lad. And so Pydian is a term of affection. So he says to them, children, rhetorical question, he knows that they don't have fish. He doesn't have to examine. He's the one that steered the fish away from the net to begin with. The Creator God. He knows very well that the nets were here and the Lord says for the fish to go that way. He redirected the fish. So he knows they didn't catch anything. But here's something else to look at. He goes, "You do not have any fish. Let's look at that word fish here." And I'm going to try to pronounce this. And it's the fish's prospectian. Prospectian. And it means the flesh of fish as food. So he's not asking really for fish. He's asking about food. And it normally refers to some type of relish eaten with bread. So literally, what's Jesus asking here? He's really asking the fact that you don't have anything to eat, do you? Remember he's already asked them one time. If you've got anything to eat, but here it is. He's a specific food fish with bread. And so he's asking them, he's asked them if they have anything to eat. Now the fish itself, when it comes to fish. It's a different word. And that word, if we find in Mark 710. And that word here, fish, is ex-thouce. And ex-thouce, here it is. And it means a regular fish, a certain kind of fish or whatever. This means fish. In a sense, and this word, possibly in, is the only place that this word is found. But it is the specific, like, relish and fish on bread. So, in a sense, he's asking if you've got something to eat. You've got some breakfast. You've got something that we can eat here. And so obviously, they had nothing to provide for them. They were to provide. No, we didn't catch anything last night. We don't have anything to eat. So, if this is a question, then obviously they had nothing to offer the man to eat. But this man will provide for them. They don't have anything to offer. But the man on the beach has something to offer them. John 21-6. And he said to them, "Catch your nets on the right side of the boat, and you will find a catch." So, the cats in the neighborhood are not able to haul it in because of the number of fish. This had happened before, hasn't it? This was happened before. You remember back when Jesus, the same incident, and there are repeated incidences in our lives, which serves as a bookmark to how God's hand was in something before that we can remember again. So, Peter immediately could start thinking women, deja vu. This has happened before. And so, they can't pull the fish in. Remember, before that they pulled in so many fish that the boats began to sink. And so, they have their catch. This brings us a couple different things here. First of all, Christians do not follow a dead martyr. How much can Allah provide for his people? How much can Confucius, a Buddha, or a pagan gods, and how much do they provide for their people? And Jesus, we do not worship a dead martyr. We do not worship the man who died 2,000 years ago on the cross, and that was it. No, we worship a one who had died, who was buried, who rose again, who now sits at the right hand of father. We worship a living God, and he provides. He is our logistic officer. Regardless of what we're going through in life, no matter how the history is going, that we can trust in the Lord to provide for our every need, Philippians 4, 19. And my God will supply all your needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. And 2 Corinthians 9, 8, and God is able to make all grace abound to you. So that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance of every good deed. And Ephesians 3, 20. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we can ask or think according to the power that works within us. So it is the Lord Jesus Christ who he's not a dead martyr, but he is a very living, resurrected Christ in his hyper-stake. He is sitting at the right hand of the father, and he provides for our needs. So it is that moment that their eyes were opened. And there's many times in our watch, even in our carnality. Even when we are full of doubt and things, and we think all are lost. There are times, even in our doubt, that the Lord will provide for us. And even while we are in our carnality, he provides for us. And it is often his grace. And God doesn't work like the human being. Like others, we might deny other people, and they'll say the heck with you. You know, the heck with you. You made your bed, now sleep in it, and you go on, not God. He holds on. He holds on seeking, and his grace continues to abound in us. Given us the opportunity to open our eyes, to recognize what a wretched person I am, and how great God is. All in order that I may turn back and repent, God doesn't, he doesn't wish any of us to perish. So how many times, in our own unbelief, has our own eyes been opened to the grace of God, even while we were in carnality. Recognizing that I, nonetheless, how much I failed. And despite that, the grace of God provided. So here it is, in their doubt. And I'm going fish, and all this, Peter says, I'm going fishing. And the disciples went with him, and the Lord has given up on me, and all that. Because I am just a great fell. He comes back, and the Lord says, "Let me provide for you." Peter, back then, you failed back then, you failed again. But Peter, I still got a plan for you. And for us as well, how many times have we failed? How many times have we disqualified ourselves for service to God? Just think about the grace of God that he continues to provide for you, and for this reason. That God is a good God, and that he still has a plan for us. Father, in heaven, thank you for this opportunity to fellowship in your just form. Thank you for this opportunity to fellowship, the way to reach out. We pray this morning for Dustin and his family. We pray, Heavenly Father, as this is a time of sadness for them, that you lift up their hearts. I pray, Heavenly Father, at the memorial service that's coming up next week, that there will be the gospel message that will ring out and touch people's lives, and tell them, Heavenly Father, that there is a hope in the Son who died for them. And I ask, Heavenly Father, that you come to the hearts with this message of those who are with them. So we pray, Heavenly Father, as we continue on to live this life and to press forward. Thank you, Heavenly Father, your grace, your mercy, your kindness, and Christ name your amen. All right. Until tomorrow, stay motivated in the Lord, keep your armor on, keep fighting a good fight of faith. Lord, will this bird die right after your penny? I'll be back here in the A.M. Hold it.org. God, let's do the whole thing. Thank you for joining us. You can hear this message again, as well as previous lessons, and get notes by visiting us online at www.gchapel.org. [ Silence ] [ Silence ]