Matthew 4:18-22 - The Mission Is Fishin'

Matthew 4:18-22   Pastor Joe Fricke    Mission Festival McFarland

Alleluia! The Son of Man came to seek and save the lost. Alleluia!

As Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the sea, since they were fishermen. 19 He said to them, “Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” 20 They immediately left their nets and followed him. 21 Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets. Jesus called them. 22 Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.

In our text today Jesus calls some of his disciples to follow him and become fishers of men.  I like to go fishing. The more I learn about fishing, I am convinced that this is not just a clever way of inviting the disciples who were fishermen to follow Jesus. The parallels between fishing for people and fishing for fish are plenty.

Like the disciples we too have been called to follow Jesus and “Fish for people”.  

Today we are going to tie the two together and we will remember that…The Mission is Fishin’

I am going to tell you a TRUE fish story today to help us understand how to share the Gospel with others. This takes place on the Snake River in Nebraska. A guy from my church managed the property of a Sportsman’s club – he ran the restaurant, maintained the cabins and took reservations.  As a benefit the Club allowed him to invite guests to fish their section of the river.  I had an open invitation.

Mr. Blatt announced that he was going to retire so I had about 2 months to fish.  I made arrangements to go, but Mr. Blatt forgot to leave me a permission card.  We went caught a couple of fish and on the way out and gentleman stopped us and asked to see our membership cards. I explained that I was an invited guest of Mr. Blatt to which he replied, “Then I’ll need to see your driver’s license.” It was odd but I quickly forgot about it.

The next day four guys from church were working on the garage and the game warden shows up and asked for Joe Fricke – I was nervous. After telling him the situation – Mr. Blatt forgot to leave a “guest card” – Frank Miller – the game warden told me he had to issue a ticket. I wasn’t worried about the ticket but - I was sweating – the headlines – Blacky needed to pay right then or go to jail.  We  were having a special service the next day, and I breful thourhg about inviting him but didn’t.

I didn’t know it at the time, but the fish had come to me. The fish were where I was!

Fishing Lesson #1. You have to be where the fish are.  We don’t put the worm on the beach and expect the fish to jump out of the water.  We can’t expect those who are by nature spiritually dead and hostile to God to want to come to church.  We must go fishing for them outside of the church walls.

Where do we go? We tend to go “up north” for the great fishing. Sometimes we think – there are no fish here McFarland is only 10,000 people.  We need to go to the exotic places - where the people are – big cities, Texas, California, the coasts where the WELS is not.

But there are fish all around us. Did you know that there is world class fishing for sauger and walleye are the Rock River and Koshkonong. The same is true fishing for people.  Some of the est fishing for people is right here in our back yard.  We don’t think of it that way – no trip needs to be made – we are where we need to be.

In Dane county/McFarland on average are 65% unchurched – typical for Wisconsin. That’s 6,500 people, fish who are doomed to death and fry in hell – a place of eternal torment and fire.

They are all around us. Who do you know? FRAN’s - They need us to go fishing for them - for their own good – they need Jesus. Sometimes they come to us – like Frank did….but keep this in mind.  Frank did not come to our special service the next day.  In fact he didn’t come for quite a while. 

I also leaned Fishing Lesson #2 that day – what do we tell the kids when we are fishing? Always be ready. You don’t know when you are going to get the chance. Even when you have more pressing things on your mind – like a ticket and a headline. 

I was not expecting to have a chance to share the Gospel that day – and I didn’t.  I was not ready for it. All I did was get out a lame invitation to our Special service that by nature he didn’t care about and did want.

Even as a pastor, I have found it’s really easy to NOT share the Gospel. “Not the time of place – Pastor.” “Akward” “Rude?” Frank thinking…is he trying to manipulate me? The power dynamic?

There are others…Don’t know what to say, what if I mess up and say the wrong thing. What if I lose my friend and it turns into a fight? What’s your reason?

We fear the law part of the conversation. People don’t like to hear it – often we don’t.  We don’t like to hear we are evil awful people.  But it’s true.  And you know – or you wouldn’t be here – we NEED to hear it. Because if they don’t think they need Jesus, there is no reason to listen. The Holy Spirit works through law. . 

But then we get to follow up with GRACE! God’s undeserved love for sinners.  For ALL sinners. You, me and all those outside the Church destined for the deep fryer of hell. 

We have the “no strings attached” unconditional Gospel to share. Our Savior did all the work.  We need righteousness to get into heaven – moral righteousness – perfect righteousness. Not political righteousness. Not the righteousness of love that ignores sin and its consequences. Not righteousness in “I work hard, love my family, and do the best I can with what I got.” – that’s good enough. That we can invent on our own.

We need a righteousness that is outside of us. Romans 3:21-22, “But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness is given through faith in[h] Jesus Christ to all who believe.” We need a righteousness we cannot produce. Righteousness from God to me. A righteousness we can’t figure out – it has to be revealed to us. A righteousness that is ours through faith. 

The righteousness won for us and given to us by Jesus.  Romans 3:24-25, “…and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement,[i] through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith.” By his death he suffered in our place. His death paid the price for our sins. His death was hell suffered in our place. His blood has washed all our sins away.  It is finished! Completed! Done for us.

Through faith in Jesus we have complete forgiveness and eternal life.  Not earned. Not a reward for goodness. Not won by a sincere heart. Given freely by his grace.  That also means eternal life is ours right now!

With that in mind, do you see what our job is?  We don’t have to convince or convert the fish. We don’t have to entice them.  We have the bait that has the power of dynamite – the Gospel.  Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.”  All this was done by Jesus for us. It was accomplished and finished years ago.  Our wok is to simply tell people what Jesus has already done.  It works!

This is the mission – to go fishin’.

Fast forward to Easter Sunday. I have blown 2 chances to share the Gospel. I put out the invitation, but no talk of Jesus yet.  People are filing in. I go up front to put on my robe, step out to start the service and I notice Frank and his fiancé Dana sitting in the last row behind my wife and kids.  I didn’t see that coming.

On the way out, I thanked them for coming and asked if I could stop over to visit them. They agreed. Wednesday night at 6pm.  Their place.

Here is who I met.  Two people who were good people. Both game wardens – jobs to serve and protect us - serving society for good.  Appeared to be the kind of people you would expect to go to heaven – who believed they were going to heaven – had no idea how they were going to heaven. “Why should God let you into heaven?” We were just raised to believe that when you die you go to heaven.” They had no idea. 

We discuss sin – they know it – they both work in law enforcement  - but they also recognize they are guilty of it. The fish pull back a bit. They hesitate.  They have lived their life thinking they were “good people”/. That their “goodness” qualifies them for eternal life.  But they also admit and understand they are nowhere near the perfection God requires for eternal life. 

We don’t stop there.  After the law has gently landed, we twitch with the gospel. There is good news! There is one who can provide the perfection they need – the holiness – the righteousness they need for heaven. And…. It comes at no cost to them, but great cost to Jesus.

Perfect Jesus – who never sinned put himself in our place.  He took all our sins on himself and stepped into our place to be punished for our sins.  He suffered hell for us so we don’ have to. He went to his death in our place, so we don’t have to.  His dead body was placed in a tomb for 3 days and then….he took back his life – he rose from the dead.  Sin did not stick to him and thus does not stick to us. Death cannot hold him and will not hold us forever. The result for us is eternal life not frying in the unbearable heat of hell.   

I got to offer this free gift of eternal life to them – just come and learn more.

Invite them to Adult catechism class – BIC and they agreed to come. The Sunday after Christmas they were both confirmed. The Lord blessed Blacky and me with more than a nice catch of fish – we also caught two souls that day on the Snake River. 

But when fishing for people we want them all from the finest tasting fish to the ugliest scavengers.  Our Lord says so in 1 Timothy 1:3-4, “This is good and pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” We get to go find them. 

Fishing for people lesson #1. We also go fishing for he sake of the fish, not for me.  A fisherman gets enjoyment out of fishing and catching fish but the sport is primarily centered on the fisherman.  In this case we go fishing for people for their sake.  We don’t want them to have to spend eternity in hell. 

The Lord uses our fishing trips to bless us and others too. You see, if I recall correctly, Frank and Dana ha ve4 boys. All of them went to our Lutheran School. Frank served on the School Board. They still live there and still attend church. They still love there Savior and we will see them in heaven.   

The Mission is Fishin’ You have permission to go fishing.  The fish are all around us. 65% of the people you pass by every day don’t call Jesus their Savior. Always be ready to tell people about Jesus.  It can happen at the most unlikely time – all we have to do is get the Gospel in the water and let God do his work.

People around us are looking for righteousness – but finding it in themselves – what they have done and what they think – even which football team they cheer for. They want eternal life – but they are trying hard to earn it – and believe they qualify when they don’t.  People want their sinful past removed – and are busy trying to clear their record.  It can’t be done.

Only Jesus can do that – and he has! He has declared us not guilty of sin. He has given us his righteousness – as a gift – with no strings attached. Toss out the Gospel message and let’s see what we can catch! Amen.