Lon Solomon Ministries
People Jesus Met Part 4
[APPLAUSE] Thank you, guys. Hey, thank you. Well, you know we have people watching all around the world on our internet campus. We have our friends out at Loudon watching us at our Loudon campus. So can we say good morning to everybody? Ready, one, two, three? Good morning, everybody. It's great to have you with us. Hey, you know, when I say the words open air evangelism, I wonder what image pops into your mind. Well, I would suspect for most of us, we would immediately think of Billy Graham. With stadiums full of people in the outdoors, people flocking down the stadium miles and onto the field to pray and ask Christ in their life at the end of his message. But you know it might surprise some of us to know that Billy Graham is actually not the father of modern open air evangelism. Actually, that distinction belongs to another gentleman, a fellow named George Whitfield. Whitfield was an ordained minister in the Church of England. And in 1739, Whitfield went to Bristol, England to ask permission from the churches there to use the church buildings for evangelistic meetings with the coal miners of Bristol. The coal miners of Bristol were considered the scum of English society at the time. They were vicious, they were violent. They lived in ghettos that nobody in their right mind would go into if they didn't live there. And so all the pastors told him no. He couldn't use their buildings. And so George Whitfield in response did something that had never, ever been done by a minister in the Church of England. He went right to the coal mines. And as the coal miners were emptying out of their dingy holes in the ground at the end of the day, he stood on a hill and he began to preach. He began to tell them about Jesus Christ. In the open air, he began to tell them how Jesus had died on the cross to forgive their sins. And before long, he had 10,000 miners standing there in front of him according to his journal. Here's what Whitfield said. He said they were glad to hear of a savior who was a friend of those that the world despised. Soon, Whitfield said, I began to notice white gutters on their cheeks made by tears rolling down faces black with the dust from the coal pits. Hundreds and hundreds of them were moved to a sound and thorough conversion. End of quote. Before long, Whitfield was holding 30 meetings a week with these miners, all in the open air. And his audiences sometimes swell to 50,000 people a week. And finally, quoting Whitfield's journal March 18, 1739, he said, and I quote, no less than 20,000 were present today. Blessed are the eyes that have seen the things I've seen. Crowds of miners and poor people standing in silence, listening to the Word of God, and then singing such that the sound runs from one end of the valley to another end of quote. Now you say, Lon, I didn't come here for a history lesson today. What is the point? Friends, the point is this. George Whitfield was a highly educated man. He was a graduate of Oxford University. He was an ordained Anglican minister, and he was a professional theologian. And yet, George Whitfield did not define himself as a scholar or as a theologian. He didn't define himself even as a clergyman. George Whitfield defined himself as an evangelist, as a fisher for men and women. Now this is what we want to talk about today. We want to talk about defining ourselves today as followers of Jesus Christ in the very same way that George Whitfield defined himself. And remember, we are in a series entitled People Jesus Met. And today in part four, we're going to look as Jesus meets the first disciples, Peter and James and John and Andrew. And we're going to watch as he completely redefines their life, the very purpose for why they're alive into being fishers of men. And then we're going to talk about, well, what differences that make to you and me. So here we go, Mark chapter one, verse 16. As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, remember now that Jesus had been baptized in the Jordan River by John the Baptist. He had gone out into the desert and been tempted 40 days and 40 nights by the devil. And now he has moved his headquarters to the Sea of Galilee, actually to the town of Capernaum. Capernaum was a very small village on the north side of the Sea of Galilee. And it was here in Capernaum that Peter lived and his brother Andrew lived, and James and John lived. Verse 16 continues. As Jesus was walking, he saw Simon Peter and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake for they were fishermen. This is the common profession for people in the time of Jesus that lived around the Sea of Galilee. They were all fishermen. And yet according to Luke chapter five, which tells this very same incident, Peter and Andrew had been out all night and they had caught no fish. And as Jesus comes by in the morning, he tells them to go cast the net out. And Peter says, but we've been fishing all night. We haven't caught a thing. But if you say so, we'll do it. And they caught so many fish when they did it that the nets were breaking. And this was the context. It blew Peter away. It blew Andrew away. This is the context in which Jesus goes on to say, verse 17, "Come," he says to them, "Follow me and I will make you fishers of men." And at once they left their nets and they followed him. And then when Jesus had gone a little farther, he saw James, the son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat preparing their nets. And without delay, Jesus called them also. "Come, follow me, I'll make you fishers of men." And they left their father's Zebedee and they followed him. Friends, here we have the Lord Jesus assembling his very first group of disciples, Peter and Andrew and James and John. And would you please notice that Jesus assembled them around a very specific mission, around a very specific purpose in life. Jesus said that mission and that purpose was for them to become fishers of men and women. Jesus didn't say to them, "Follow me and I will make you theologians." He didn't say, "Follow me and I'll make you Christian counselors." He didn't say, "Follow me and I'll make you small group leaders or choir members." Now, there's not anything wrong with being any of those things. But Jesus said, "Follow me and above all else, I will make you fishers of men and women." Why? Well, friends, because being a fisher of men and women is part of the very warp and woof of what it means to be a true follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, that's as far as we want to go in our passage for today because we want to stop now and we want to ask our most important question. And it's not, so what's up with that? Okay, that's not it. So, you know what it is, so is everybody ready? Here we go, nice and loud. Come on now, one, two, three, yeah. You say lance so what? Say, that's a nice story about Peter and James. But, I mean, what difference does any of that make to my life here in the 21st century? Well, let's make that connection, shall we? Not long ago, I was watching a TV show and the guest interviewee on the show was Joe Gibbs. Now, it wasn't a sports show. I think it was on the Discovery Health Channel or something. I picked it up part way through. So, I wasn't even sure what the show was about. But, I liked Joe Gibbs, so I thought I'd watch for a minute. And, actually, the interviewer was a professor, a psychology professor from Dartmouth University and he asked Joe Gibbs this question. He said, Joe, now that your coaching of the Redskins is over, he said, what is now the defining passion of your life? And Joe Gibbs didn't even hesitate. He immediately said, my eight grandchildren. Interesting. Well, they talked for another minute and then after he was done talking with Joe, the psychologist turned and here's what he said and I quote. He said, I maintain that in order for a person to have a healthy, functional life, they must have a concrete answer to this question, namely, what is the defining passion of your life? End of quote. OK, you know what? I totally respect Joe Gibbs' answer, that the defining passion of his life is his eight grandchildren. But for a moment, let's all of us put family aside and say we can't answer that question with anything related to family, OK? Now, let me ask the question to you. As a follower of Christ here in the 21st century, here's my question, what is the defining passion of your life and of my life? The thing that gives focus and clarity to our entire life, the thing that makes our life into a calling instead of just an existence, what is that thing in your life? Now, you know, many of us would say it's our profession, that it's being a doctor or a lawyer or a dentist or a CEO of a company or whatever. Some of us would say, well, it's my service to my country, being a soldier or an FBI agent or a law enforcement officer or a government worker. Some of us might even say, well, it's my volunteer work at the hospital or the nursing home or whatever. Now, listen, folks, these are all wonderful vocations. And God wants us to do our vocations with excellence, for sure. Colossians 323 says whatever you do, do it heartily as under the Lord, but look here, look here. As followers of Jesus Christ, however, we must never confuse our vocation with the calling that God has specifically laid out for our lives in the Bible. You see, the Bible is clear that as followers of Christ, above our vocations, as doctors, lawyers, dentists, CEOs, government workers, salespeople, you know, even ministers, above all of that, that there is an overriding passion. There is an all-encompassing calling. There is a life-defining passion that God has called every single follower of Jesus to do in the Bible, and that is for us to be evangelists, for us to be missionaries, for us to be fishers of men and women, everywhere we go, with everybody we meet, in everything we do, in every way we can. This is why Jesus said, Acts chapter one, verse eight, to his disciples, and you will be my what? My doctors, no, you will be my dentists, no, you'll be my government workers, no, you will be my what? Say it, my witnesses, this is why, in Mark 16, 15, Jesus said go ye into all the world, and above everything else, above your vocation, this is what I want you to do, preach the gospel. Now you say, lon, okay, God bless you up there, man, you're all spun up, but listen, time out for a second. You know what, I'm not like George Whitfield. I mean, I don't have the kind of spiritual gift of evangelism that he obviously had. Well, you know what, it is true in the Bible. God says there is a spiritual gift of evangelism, and it's true that God does gift certain men and women in an extraordinary way to be evangelists for him. That's true, but friends, listen to me, this does not exempt the rest of us, as followers of Christ, from our duty and our calling to also be outspoken and bold witnesses for Christ. This is why Peter said, first Peter 3.15, always be prepared, Peter said, to give an answer to everyone who asks you about the hope that you have within you, this is not just a verse for George Whitfield, this is not just a verse for Billy Graham, this is not just a verse for vocational missionaries and evangelists, this is a verse for every single follower of Jesus, and hey, did you pick up the urgency here, there is an urgency in this verse, I don't want you to miss, you know, it says, always be prepared, be like a loaded spring, ready to go off, be like a catapult on an aircraft carrier, ready to launch. Peter says, go around every day looking for every open door that God can possibly give you to share Christ, and when God gives you an open door, boom, boom, you're ready, you do it, urgency. You say, well, listen, I hear what you're saying, I do, but honestly, this is not something I'm really good at, you know, I mean, I'm just, this is not what I'm really good at, well, you see friends, that's why I'm here today. I'm here today to give you some suggestions about how to get better. I'm here today to talk biblically and practically to all of us about how we can become better fishermen and women for the Lord Jesus Christ, better evangelists, better missionaries, and here's my logic, follow my logic, my logic is that Jesus didn't pick this imagery of a fisherman by accident, he picked it on purpose, deliberately, and therefore, if we can figure out what makes a good human fisherman or fisherman, all we have to do is take those principles and bring them over, and the very same principles will make us a good spiritual fisherman or fisherman. Does that logic make sense to you? Well, even if it doesn't, I don't care, if it's what we're doing. This is the message, okay, but of course it makes sense. All right, now, so I began thinking, what does it take for us to be of our person to be a good fisherman? And I got three principles, they're all biblical, and I think this will really help us, so here we go. Number one, if you and I wanna be good fishermen and fisher women, number one, principle number one, is we have to be intentional. Hey, nobody accidentally catches fish. I mean, fishermen and women are people who walk out of the house with the deliberate intention, the deliberate commitment that today, I'm going out to catch some fish. They have their rod, they have their reel, they have their bait, they have their tackle box, they have their fishing license, and they have made a deliberate commitment, I'm going to catch some fish. You can't be a good fisherman or fisher woman without this kind of intentionality. And you know, when we look at the great followers of Christ who made a difference in their world, they all had this kind of intentionality. Listen to the Apostle Paul. First Corinthians chapter nine, verse 22. He says, "I have become all things to all people "so that by all possible means I might win, "I might catch some." Now, there is an intentional guy. He said in Colossians chapter four, verse three, pray for us that God will open a door for the gospel so that I may proclaim Christ. Here is a guy who went out every day deliberately intentional about sharing his faith and preaching the gospel with every open door God gave him. As followers of Christ today, I maintain that if we want to be better fishers of men and women for Jesus Christ, we have to have this same kind of intentionality. And to be more specific, we need to be intentional about three specific things. Number one, we need to be intentional about seeing people apart from Jesus Christ the way the Bible says they really are, that they're lost, that they are under God's judgment and that they are headed for eternity in hell. We've got to be intentional about seeing the world like that. Number two, we have to be intentional about getting the skill training we need to be good fisher people. You know, that's why we offer Christianity 301. It does take some skill training to be more effective in sharing your faith. And that's why we have a six week course that'll give you that skill training. And finally, we have to be intentional about walking out of our house every day, spiritually focused on fishing. We've gotta be like one of the spiritual seven dwarfs who walk out of the house every day going high ho, high ho. It's off to fish, I go. Dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, high ho. You understand what I'm saying? You understand the song? You got it. All right, so we ought to walk out the house saying high ho, high ho. It's off to fish, I go. Above everything else I do today. Whether I'm a doctor, a lawyer, a government worker, it doesn't matter whatever else above all of that, I am out to fish for the Lord Jesus Christ today. And folks, listen, this is the first step to being a great fisherman for the Lord Jesus Christ, going out of the house with the intention that this is what we're doing today. Number two, principle number two, what makes a good fisher person? That's a weird word, isn't it? Fisher person. But I want to be careful I don't offend anybody. So can I say fishermen without everybody getting mad? Okay, all right, all right. Thank you for your indulgence. Okay, listen, to be a good fisherman, principle number two, we need to use the right bait. I mean, you'd look at fishermen, they are very careful about making sure they always use good bait. And you know friends, in the same way as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have to be sure that we're offering people the right bait. Now the right bait, let me tell you what it isn't. It is not our church, it is not our youth ministry, it is not our children's ministry, it is not access ministry or any other program of this church, this is not the bait that God gave us to be offering the lost people. You say, well then what is it? Well, Paul tells us, 2 Corinthians 4 verse 5, he says, "For we do not preach ourselves." We don't preach the church, we don't preach the programs of the church, we preach Jesus Christ. That's the bait, friends, because of two reasons. Number one, people can always find imperfections with the church, they can always find imperfections with some program or some preacher, but you can't find an imperfection with the Lord Jesus Christ. And second, because only the Lord Jesus himself can meet the deepest needs of the human heart. Hey, the church can't forgive people's sins, some preacher can't take away people's guilt, only the Lord Jesus can do that, only the Lord Jesus can give people the absolute assurance of eternal life, and only he can transform our earthly lives into something worth living. If you're gonna offer people something, make sure you offer them the right thing, and that is the living Lord Jesus Christ, and what he wants to do in people's lives. You know, I was in Israel, as you know, last week, and we were standing on the Mount of Olives one day and just talking with the group that I was leading, and one young lady was a Jewish believer, and she was telling me about how the night before she had gone down to one of the shops in the hotel, and had started talking to this woman shopkeeper who was obviously, you know, Jewish, and she began sharing her faith that she believed in Jesus, and so the Jewish shopkeeper, the lady said to her, she said, "Did your parents ever try to deprogram you?" And this young lady said, "No." The shopkeeper said, "Well," she said, "If you'd have been my daughter," she said, "I'd have had a deprogramming rabbi on you so fast that a major hit swim." So this girl turned to me, and she said, "Lawn, did your parents ever try to deprogram you?" And I said, "Yeah, actually they did." You know, some of you have heard me tell the story, it happened at my grandmother's funeral years ago, unbeknownst to me, my relatives all invited this deprogramming rabbi to come meet me at the funeral. This is true. And I won't give you the whole story, but we got into a discussion, and he started it. We got into this discussion. He did. I was trying to respect everybody and not get into a fight, but he started it. And so towards the end of the discussion in very animated terms, he said to me, "And I believe that you could have found, in orthodox Judaism, every single thing that you say you found in Jesus Christ." I was like, "Okay, okay, okay, that's enough." And I said to him, "Rabbi, right here, look me right here." He said, "Where'd you learn to do that? Where every man learns to do it from his wife?" Yeah, look at me right here. Okay, well, that's true, isn't it? Yeah, okay. So I said, "Look me right here." I said, "Rabbi, here's the deal." I said, "Can you tell me, absolutely, for sure, that if you were to be killed tonight, leaving this gathering, that you know that when you took your very last breath here on earth, the very next breath you would take beyond the shores of heaven in the presence of Almighty God." He said, "No, I can't." I said, "Rabbi, look here." I said, "I wanna tell you, I know that." I said, "Because of what Jesus Christ did for me on the cross," I said, "So you know what? I don't think you and orthodox Judaism have anything to offer me. I think I've got something to offer you." Well, that pretty well ended the talk. But here's the point. Friends, the point is, isn't it wonderful that the Lord Jesus didn't send us out to fish with crummy bait, huh? He sent us out to fish with the greatest bait in the universe, a relationship with the living, risen Christ, sins forgiven, guilt removed, eternal life guaranteed. Hey, this is great bait the Lord gave us to offer people. So when you go out there, don't offer them inferior bait, like the church or yourself or some preacher or some program. No, no, no, you offer them the living, risen Christ and what He wants to do in people's lives. Principle number three. And finally, wanna be a good fisherman? The number three, we have to be persistent. You know, I used to go out to Hume Lake, Christian camps out in California every year. It's a beautiful lake. And the California Department of the Interior stocks it with trout. And so there are a lot of fishermen that come around there. And so Brendan and I would go out and we'd walk every morning together around the lake and then late in the afternoon, we'd go out, we'd do another walk a couple miles around the lake. And you know the most amazing thing is that when we would take the walk late in the afternoon, I would see the very same people sitting in the very same spot that I saw first thing in the morning still trying to catch fish. They hadn't moved all day. Now, I'm sure you've experienced this if you've ever gone to where people fish. And what does this tell us? You say, Lon, it tells me that these people have no life? That's what it tells me. No, no, no, no, no, that may be true. But that's not what it tells us. What it tells us is that to be a good fisherman, it takes persistence, it takes tenacity. If you're a person who gives up quickly and easily, you are not gonna be a good fisherman. And you know, this is not just true of human fishing. It's true of spiritual fishing as well. I was talking to this young lady, the same Jewish believer, and she asked me, she said, "As any of your family come to Christ." I said, "Yeah, my dad did, my mom did, my brother did." I said, "How about your family?" She said, "No." And I detected real discouragement in her voice. And I said, "You look here, you look at me." I said, "Don't you dare give up on your family." I said, "I prayed for and shared Christ with my dad for seven years with my brother for 15 years and with my mother for 22 years before she came to Christ." I said, "As long as they're breathing, don't you dare give up on any of your relatives." Folks, listen, spiritual fishing takes spiritual persistence. It takes prevailing prayer. It takes bulldogged, tenacity, and more than anything else, it takes the absolute conviction and assurance that there is no person too difficult, there is no heart too hard, and there is no soul too cynical, but that all mighty God can't reach that person. You know, many years ago, 30 years ago, I had a friend who gave me this blue card that we stuck inside of your bulletin, called the 10 Most Wanted card, just like this. And this friend said to me, "What I want you to do is I want you to take the 10 people that you most want to see come to Christ, and I want you to list them on this card, and then I want you to make a commitment before God that you are going to keep praying for them, and you're going to keep sharing with them until one of two things happened. They either come to Christ or they die and leave this earth." That's it. Well, you know, I did that. And the top three names I wrote on the card were my father, my mother, and my brother, and then seven other people. You know what? Over the last 30 years, I've had the blessed privilege of crossing my dad off because he came to Christ, and my mother off because she came to Christ, and my brother off because he came to Christ, and most of those other names off because they came to Christ. Listen, when I put my mother, my father, and my brother on this list, there were not three less likely candidates in the universe to come to Christ than those three people. I put them on there by faith saying, "Lord, I don't know, but here they are, and you know what? God was able." And let me tell you something. There is nobody that you want to see come to Christ that God is not able to reach them for Christ. Friends, we don't give up on people, not as long as they're breathing, we don't give up on people. And you know, many of you, right, where you're sitting, right under this carpet and under this tile, you wrote the names of men and women on this floor. Do you remember doing that, some of you? Huh? Yes? And I'll bet you if we were to pull up this carpet and pull up this tile, which we're not gonna do. But if we were, some of you could take a big old magic marker and I'll bet you you could scratch some names off on that floor 'cause in the years since we did that, they've come to Christ. Well, you know, some of those other folks have not, so let me tell you what to do. You transfer their name onto this card. And my challenge to you, to every one of us, is to covenant with God that you are gonna pray for these people and share with these people respectfully. You're gonna do it, but you're gonna do it boldly and you are not giving up until they either come to Christ or they leave this earth. That's it, why? Because persistence, friends, we cannot be effective spiritual fishermen without persistence. We don't give up, why? Because we have a great God and he can reach anybody. That's why. Now, let me conclude, and let me say to those of you who are watching on the internet, we're gonna put this card on there so you can link to it next week and you can download one just for yourself. But let me just say in closing that a couple years ago on the way to Israel, I was riding next to the sky on the airplane. And so I started sharing Christ with this guy on the airplane. And he got irritated and he turned to me and he said, "You see there," he said, "he said, 'Now, that's the problem "with you, evangelical Christians.'" That's it. I said, "Really? What's the problem?" He said, "The problem is, why can't you guys just believe "what you wanna believe and let the rest of us "in the world believe what we wanna believe? "Why do you always have to try to proselytize "and convert people?" That's your problem. Well, maybe you've had people say those same things to you. May I answer that question? I'm not gonna answer it. The Lord Jesus answered it right here in Mark chapter one. The answer to the question is, why do we do this? Friends, if you don't get anything else today, you make sure you walk out of here with this. Because that beginning with the very first disciples, Jesus made sharing our faith a non-negotiable part, a defining element of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. Hey, listen to me. Swimmers swim and skiers ski and chefs cook and followers of Jesus share Christ. It's just that simple. Amen. Amen. Clap for that. I'll let you do that. (congregation applauding) And this is how Jesus redefined Peter's life when he called him and redefined Andrew's life. He redefined James' life and John's life and Paul's life. And friends, when we come to Christ, this is how Jesus wants to redefined our life so that if we went on a television program and they said to us, what is the defining passion of your life, we would know that answer. It would be on the tip of our tongue. It would be to tell people about Jesus Christ and lead them to a life-changing commitment to him. That is what makes my life a calling and not just in existence. And I hope it'll define yours as well. Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, thank you for reminding us today that above our vocations, which are important, but above whatever vocation it is that we do to earn money and make a living and make a contribution. Lord Jesus, if we're followers of yours, the defining passion of our life needs to be higher than that. It needs to be nobler than that. It needs to be to reach men and women for Jesus Christ and see their lives change for all of eternity. Lord, help us be able to say, this is why we're here on earth. This defines our life and turns our life from an existence into a calling. And may you make us, as Peter said, passionate and urgent about grabbing every opportunity you give us, Lord, because people really are lost and they really are without Christ going to hell. And we need to believe that and Lord, we need to have the urgency that the Bible calls us to, to share our faith. So Lord, change our lives, challenge us today to think about what we're really doing here and what defines us as followers of Jesus. Speak to us deeply from your word today and we pray these things in Jesus' name and what do God's people say? - Amen. - What'd you say? - Amen. - All right. Listen, I hope you have a great week. Let's have fun fishing this week. What do you say? (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]