Life-Coach
How many of you are going to hang out at my place later to watch the Super Bowl game? It should be an interesting game today. To many, it is interesting to watch the best offense team (Raiders) play against the best defense team (Buccaneers). To me, I found it interesting because the head coach Jon Gruden was able to take the Bucs to their FIRST-EVER Super Bowl game in just after one year coaching them. Not only that, he was also the head coach for the Raiders in the previous years too! What a feast: one coach who lead both teams to the Super Bowl! He must be one “crazie” good coach, don’t you think? To top it off, he accomplished all that as the youngest head coach in the NFL, just barely 38 years old!
Which do you think is more important: the coach, or the players? Regardless what side are you on, you would have to agree, that a good coach make the difference!
Alabama coach Bear Bryant said this about his role:
"There are several kinds of football players.
There are those who have it and know it,
those who have it and don't know it,
those who haven't got it and know it,
and those who haven't got it and don't know it.
[We made] those who haven't got it and don't know it [to] win us more games than anybody."
I think we need to these coaches in other areas of our life too, especially when most of us “don’t have it” and “don’t know it”! When it comes to girls, guys like me only know how scratch our head “It’s complicated!” or “Hi, what’s your sign!” - wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a date-coach to help you find a girlfriend? No, don’t enlist your friend as a coach, he couldn’t find a girlfriend himself! Or how about a fashion coach, who helps you to look your best! Man, without my personal fashion coach, [my wife] Jenney Ho, I would wear a blue shirt with a blue pant, because “it matches”. Or how about go buying a car with a car-buying-coach, who could help you get the best car, at the best price, and not getting ripped off by the dealers. Or how about an emotional-coach, who helps you manage that anger, let go of that hurt, and confronts that envy. Better yet, we need a LIFE-COACH who can make a difference in our life, even if our life was classified as “haven’t got it and don’t know it”.
The good news is we have that LIFE-COACH for our life!
You may have not noticed it, but Pastor Son had set a theme for this month. He started teaching the first week with the theme of “God is Our Refuge”; then last week Pastor Truong taught on “God is Our Riches”; and I was asked to teach on “God is Our Life” for this week. But the topic was too big, so I narrow it down a bit with the subtitle “Jesus Show Us How”. Let’s turn with me to “the text for this week” in Mark 1:14-20
[Read in Mark 1:14-20]
At first glance, this is a familiar scene: Jesus was walking on the beach, he saw Peter and Andrew, John and James, he called them and they followed him, became his disciple. But let’s translate it into our everyday life: You are helping our the family business at the swap meet, making these plastic plants; some stranger walks by and said, “Follow me, I will show you how to plant people!” What’s your reaction? “Yeah, right!” That would be my reaction.
How could the disciples just simply follow Jesus in such a way? Was they really bored with their jobs? Was they hypnotized by Jesus? Did Jesus walked around with a glowing hallow on his head? The Bible actually left us a few clues here.
First, in v. 14 & 15 it said that: After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!”
As you see, before meeting these fishermen, Jesus was preaching in this region. In short, he’s not “some stranger” but actually he was already a public figure, everyone is familiar with the respectable Rabbi Jesus, just like we would be familiar with Pastor Thach today. Sure, some of you may not know him personally, never speak to him, may be you just heard one or two sermons from him when he came around and visit us. But he’s no stranger to you.
The second clue there was the first few words: After John was put in prison – and so, what happened before John was put in prison? The gospel of Mark didn’t tell us much here; just a few verses about Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist. But the other gospels gave us more info. Let’s take a look at John 1:35-42
[Read John 1:35-42]
As you see here, not only they knew Jesus as a public figure, but also they knew him personally before this meeting on the beach meeting. Andrew even hung out with Jesus while he was a disciple of John the Baptist, after talking to Jesus for a whole night [the Bible didn’t specifically say they talked in verses 39-40, but what else did they do at night anyway since they have no TV at that time! After the conversation,] he was so impressed and introduced Peter to Jesus right the next day. Not only just Peter and Andrew had already known Jesus personally, we have many reasons to believe that the other disciple who was mentioned in verse 40 was John, the author of the book. By the time Jesus called the fishermen in Galilee, most of them already knew Jesus personally.
So, why didn’t Mark say so? It was traditionally believed that Mark was a disciple of Peter, and wrote the book based on information from Peter. Therefore you can detect a peculiar downplay of Peter in the text because Peter didn’t want to talk about himself much. There were no mention about Peter walking on water with Jesus, about He would use Peter in building the church, about Peter’s swordfight to defend Jesus at His arrest, etc. etc. (if you are intrigued by this stuff, make sure you sign up for the weeklong Mark study camp this summer with our group).
What is my point, after telling you all that? The first point I want to make is that LIFE IS A PROCESS. Even though Mark gave us an abbreviated version of what had happened here, the text left enough residue of the process through these following four keywords: REPENT, BELIEVE (in verse 15), FOLLOW in verse 17 and BECOME also in verse 17 (The NIV version we used translated “I will make you fishers of men”, but other version translated “I will make you become fishers of men”, I checked and the original Greek language included the word genesthai, becoming).
The Christian Life started out with Repentance. Repentance happened when we acknowledge our sinful condition before God, not only what we do, but who we are, and desire to turn away from sin.
Then come Believe! We believe in God: God love us and take up the consequence of our sin for us on the cross; God forgive us and grant us eternal life to be with Him forever.
But then we also need to Follow! We need to adhere to His guidance and instruction, listen and obey Him as we continue our life now on earth. This is the crucial point that many of us miss.
Here’s an analogy: The Buccaneers recognized that they didn’t do to well, and wanted to turn-around from where they were. That’s Repentance. They knew about Jon Gruden, they have faith that he could do the job, so they express that faith by hired him at the cost of 8 millions dollars and 4 first-draft-picks. That’s Believe. But is that enough to make the Buccaneers become Super Bowl championship contenders? NO! They will have to FOLLOW his instruction, put them in practice.
When we repented and believed in God, some call it “Saved”, or “Born-again.” It means that we are babies in Christ. But does God want us to stay babies in Christ forever? No! He wants us to grow into maturity. That’s why Christ invited us to FOLLOW Him and BECOME his disciples. Without FOLLOWING, there is no BECOMING
Today is also the “Hoi Dong Thuong Nien” (Annual Conference) of our church, an annual Sunday set apart to evaluate our progress as a church. If you have a packet, you can see that it also contains the vision document for our English Speaking Ministry. In there, you will see that our leadership team also committed to the same idea that Life is a process, and we are supposed to grow and become a matured disciple of Christ. We used that guideline to make sure that every program and activity we do would help people grow a bit closer to full maturity, and become more like Jesus in our own life.
Life not only awaited us in heaven, but Life should be experienced now! In short, life is in the practice! Jesus not only came and died to reserve a seat in heaven for us, but He also live so that we can watch His life and follow his coaching as we live our life here on earth.
Let’s take a look at a few practical pointers He taught us here about how to follow Him.
The first observation here is that Jesus gave instruction, and that you must leave in order to follow. In the text, we see Jesus instructed them to “Come”, and we see Peter and Andrew left their nets; James and John left their father to follow him. But does this means that we should quit our job, and abandon our family to follow Jesus? Of course not! Jesus himself held down a job and supported his parents for most of His life as a model for us to follow here.
What Mark wanted to communicate for us here is that Jesus’ instruction must be the ultimate priority in a disciple’s life.
* To follow Jesus meant that we would follow his instruction in regard to the our material possessions, no matter if all you have was a few small nets or if you own quite a few fleets of fishing boats.
* To follow Jesus meant that we would follow his instruction in our daily actions, whether your net is OK and you have no problem living your life or your nets is broken and you are still mending it back.
* To follow Jesus meant that we would follow his instruction in all of our relationship, with parents and siblings, with strangers and friends, with boyfriends/girlfriends as well as your ex, with bosses and hired hands.
As a life-coach, Jesus always gives instructions. But if we cannot leave other stuffs of our life as secondary in importance, then we cannot follow Jesus as the first order of importance, and we simply cannot experience Life the way God intended for us to have.
Another point to ponder is “following” implied a sense of constant movement. If you don’t know how to get to my house afterward for the Super Bowl party, you would ask, “Hey, Bumble can I follow your car?” It meant that my car will be on the move, and your car will have to stay close. I turn right, you turn right; I got on the freeway, you got on the freeway. If I drive at 55 MPH, you cannot follow at 5 MPH. Doing so and you will get lost.
Following have to be a constant action, a recent action! Are you following God constantly and recently? Or you only got started following God 5 years ago, 1 year ago, last Winter Camp or last Summer Camp. But what about last week?
Jesus said in John 10 that He is a good shepherd, that He came for the sheep to have life and have life to the fullest. But that only happened if the sheep follow the shepherd, “to come in and go out, and find pasture”! What will happen if a sheep don’t want to leave and follow the shepherd? The distance between the sheep and shepherd will get greater and greater, it will be harder and harder to see the shepherd, to hear his voice, to find food and shelter, and eventually the sheep will be lost. Have you ever wondered why God promise us life and life abundantly, but it seems like our life is far from abundant blessing and more or less mediocrity at best? Most of the time, it is because we are refusing to leave and not following the shepherd.
The shepherd and sheep-flock imagery helps me to discover another aspect of the practical Christian life: Life is connecting with the community. Notice that when Jesus called these guys, he called a group of friends who already knew each other to be his disciples. As a life-coach, Jesus coached the whole team and he is not a personal-trainer.
You usually don’t see a solo Christian in the Bible portrayed. To be a Christian is to be in a Christ-centered community.
Do you remember the story of Peter walking on water? All the disciples was rowing against the wind in the storm... [telling the story] ...
Of the whole group, only one guy know the triumph of walking on water, only one guy actually acknowledge the defeat of falling down, only one guy call out for help, and only one guy get rescue. But did the other guys encounter God through that experience of the one guy? YES! Did the other guys have greater faith afterward? YES! Was it benefit to be connected in the community? YES!
This is the reason why every week we came up here and making announcement about what’s going on in the Saturday Fellowship meetings. We could have only announce it during the Saturday meetings and save time on Sunday, but we really want to encourage you to get connected to a fellowship group, whether it’s Saturday night, Friday night, Wednesday night, at this church or some other church.
The main idea is that you need to be in a small group setting, to learn from God with other, to be involved deeply in each other’s lives, so that as each person experience God individually, the benefits will spread around to all other witnesses in that community.
Not only that, but the community is the instrument Jesus often used to coach us some more in our life.
When I am following Christ in a community of other disciples who are also committed to follow Christ, the community helps me to grow in the same direction with them. You see, as I share my life process with others, they know me more in various aspects of my life: school, work, family, relationship, hope and dreams, struggles and defeats. It is as if they were a 360-degree mirror around me. As the community observed my Christian life in progress, they love me and support me, but also offer course-correction, feedback, and help me to be more like Christ, because the whole community is committed to follow Jesus and to be like him.
Get connected! Step out of your comfort zone a bit here, just like Peter and Andrew, they have no clue what awaited them when they decided to follow Jesus! I am sure that God will reward your steps of faith to connect to the community, just as he had rewarded them!
Last point: Life is Reproducing. Jesus didn’t call the disciples over just to hang out with him. What’s the point of following Him, of practicing what He taught, of connecting with other believers? Jesus said, “I will make you become fishers of men!” Jesus wants his disciples to reproduce other disciples.
Here is the final product of his disciple-making process. If we follow Jesus, at some point we will BECOME fishers of men. We will be transformed from just knowing how to fish for fish, to knowing how to fish for people; from concern about the temporal to concern about the eternal; from receiving life to reproducing life; from a citizen of the Kingdom of God to a co-heirs with Christ in that Kingdom.
Since Jesus had already painted a line starting with fishing for fish and ending with fishing for people, I would like to offer a few observations along the same line.
* Real fishermen need certain physical skills to fish. What spiritual skills do we need to fish for people?
* Real fishermen know where to cast their net. Do we know where should we go to fish for people?
* Real fishermen know the fish real well, what time they are out, what attracted them, what scare them. How well do we know the people we want to fish?
* In Jesus time, fishermen used net to fish. In our time, what tools should we used to fish for people?
* Real fisherman has a box to keep the fish they catch. Is our group prepared and ready to keep the people we fish?
* Should a fisherman be called real fisherman if he never cares to fish? What about a Christian if who never cares to live a Christian life?
* Peter and Andrew fished as a matter of survival, to make a living and feed their family. Do we fish for people as a matter of survival, or is it just an optional hobby?
If you have been following Jesus, are you getting closer to graduation and become who He wanted you to be, a fisher of man yet? If not, would you seriously pursue the answers for the above questions. They are the real life questions that any real fisher of man must answer. I would also challenge you to go out to where the people are this week, at our Tet festival. Our church had a booth there. If you are ready to use the evangelism tracts there to fish for people, that’s great! If you want to learn how to fish for people, come out there and learn it hands-on! If you just want to understand the people more, and come up with a better way to reach them, come out there also, we can pray and observe the crowd together.
Finally, let us remember who is the initiator? It’s Jesus! He will accomplish His work! He didn’t say: “Come, follow me and learn to be a fishers of men!” But he said,
“Come, just follow me,
(I gave you instructions,
you put in practice.
I will place you in a community,
you respond and care for one another.
Little by little, day by day, week in, week out.
My spirit will be at work in you.
Little by little, day by day, week in, week out.
Spiritual growth will take place in you.
It is I who do the work.)
It is I who will make you BECOME fishers of men.”
So, as you watched the Super Bowl this afternoon, remember that success didn’t take place over night! Life is a process, and God had sent Jesus the super life-coach to be with you along the way, to guide and to correct, so that you will become a life-coach to other people as well.
Which do you think is more important: the coach, or the players? Regardless what side are you on, you would have to agree, that a good coach make the difference!
Alabama coach Bear Bryant said this about his role:
"There are several kinds of football players.
There are those who have it and know it,
those who have it and don't know it,
those who haven't got it and know it,
and those who haven't got it and don't know it.
[We made] those who haven't got it and don't know it [to] win us more games than anybody."
I think we need to these coaches in other areas of our life too, especially when most of us “don’t have it” and “don’t know it”! When it comes to girls, guys like me only know how scratch our head “It’s complicated!” or “Hi, what’s your sign!” - wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a date-coach to help you find a girlfriend? No, don’t enlist your friend as a coach, he couldn’t find a girlfriend himself! Or how about a fashion coach, who helps you to look your best! Man, without my personal fashion coach, [my wife] Jenney Ho, I would wear a blue shirt with a blue pant, because “it matches”. Or how about go buying a car with a car-buying-coach, who could help you get the best car, at the best price, and not getting ripped off by the dealers. Or how about an emotional-coach, who helps you manage that anger, let go of that hurt, and confronts that envy. Better yet, we need a LIFE-COACH who can make a difference in our life, even if our life was classified as “haven’t got it and don’t know it”.
The good news is we have that LIFE-COACH for our life!
You may have not noticed it, but Pastor Son had set a theme for this month. He started teaching the first week with the theme of “God is Our Refuge”; then last week Pastor Truong taught on “God is Our Riches”; and I was asked to teach on “God is Our Life” for this week. But the topic was too big, so I narrow it down a bit with the subtitle “Jesus Show Us How”. Let’s turn with me to “the text for this week” in Mark 1:14-20
[Read in Mark 1:14-20]
At first glance, this is a familiar scene: Jesus was walking on the beach, he saw Peter and Andrew, John and James, he called them and they followed him, became his disciple. But let’s translate it into our everyday life: You are helping our the family business at the swap meet, making these plastic plants; some stranger walks by and said, “Follow me, I will show you how to plant people!” What’s your reaction? “Yeah, right!” That would be my reaction.
How could the disciples just simply follow Jesus in such a way? Was they really bored with their jobs? Was they hypnotized by Jesus? Did Jesus walked around with a glowing hallow on his head? The Bible actually left us a few clues here.
First, in v. 14 & 15 it said that: After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!”
As you see, before meeting these fishermen, Jesus was preaching in this region. In short, he’s not “some stranger” but actually he was already a public figure, everyone is familiar with the respectable Rabbi Jesus, just like we would be familiar with Pastor Thach today. Sure, some of you may not know him personally, never speak to him, may be you just heard one or two sermons from him when he came around and visit us. But he’s no stranger to you.
The second clue there was the first few words: After John was put in prison – and so, what happened before John was put in prison? The gospel of Mark didn’t tell us much here; just a few verses about Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist. But the other gospels gave us more info. Let’s take a look at John 1:35-42
[Read John 1:35-42]
As you see here, not only they knew Jesus as a public figure, but also they knew him personally before this meeting on the beach meeting. Andrew even hung out with Jesus while he was a disciple of John the Baptist, after talking to Jesus for a whole night [the Bible didn’t specifically say they talked in verses 39-40, but what else did they do at night anyway since they have no TV at that time! After the conversation,] he was so impressed and introduced Peter to Jesus right the next day. Not only just Peter and Andrew had already known Jesus personally, we have many reasons to believe that the other disciple who was mentioned in verse 40 was John, the author of the book. By the time Jesus called the fishermen in Galilee, most of them already knew Jesus personally.
So, why didn’t Mark say so? It was traditionally believed that Mark was a disciple of Peter, and wrote the book based on information from Peter. Therefore you can detect a peculiar downplay of Peter in the text because Peter didn’t want to talk about himself much. There were no mention about Peter walking on water with Jesus, about He would use Peter in building the church, about Peter’s swordfight to defend Jesus at His arrest, etc. etc. (if you are intrigued by this stuff, make sure you sign up for the weeklong Mark study camp this summer with our group).
What is my point, after telling you all that? The first point I want to make is that LIFE IS A PROCESS. Even though Mark gave us an abbreviated version of what had happened here, the text left enough residue of the process through these following four keywords: REPENT, BELIEVE (in verse 15), FOLLOW in verse 17 and BECOME also in verse 17 (The NIV version we used translated “I will make you fishers of men”, but other version translated “I will make you become fishers of men”, I checked and the original Greek language included the word genesthai, becoming).
The Christian Life started out with Repentance. Repentance happened when we acknowledge our sinful condition before God, not only what we do, but who we are, and desire to turn away from sin.
Then come Believe! We believe in God: God love us and take up the consequence of our sin for us on the cross; God forgive us and grant us eternal life to be with Him forever.
But then we also need to Follow! We need to adhere to His guidance and instruction, listen and obey Him as we continue our life now on earth. This is the crucial point that many of us miss.
Here’s an analogy: The Buccaneers recognized that they didn’t do to well, and wanted to turn-around from where they were. That’s Repentance. They knew about Jon Gruden, they have faith that he could do the job, so they express that faith by hired him at the cost of 8 millions dollars and 4 first-draft-picks. That’s Believe. But is that enough to make the Buccaneers become Super Bowl championship contenders? NO! They will have to FOLLOW his instruction, put them in practice.
When we repented and believed in God, some call it “Saved”, or “Born-again.” It means that we are babies in Christ. But does God want us to stay babies in Christ forever? No! He wants us to grow into maturity. That’s why Christ invited us to FOLLOW Him and BECOME his disciples. Without FOLLOWING, there is no BECOMING
Today is also the “Hoi Dong Thuong Nien” (Annual Conference) of our church, an annual Sunday set apart to evaluate our progress as a church. If you have a packet, you can see that it also contains the vision document for our English Speaking Ministry. In there, you will see that our leadership team also committed to the same idea that Life is a process, and we are supposed to grow and become a matured disciple of Christ. We used that guideline to make sure that every program and activity we do would help people grow a bit closer to full maturity, and become more like Jesus in our own life.
Life not only awaited us in heaven, but Life should be experienced now! In short, life is in the practice! Jesus not only came and died to reserve a seat in heaven for us, but He also live so that we can watch His life and follow his coaching as we live our life here on earth.
Let’s take a look at a few practical pointers He taught us here about how to follow Him.
The first observation here is that Jesus gave instruction, and that you must leave in order to follow. In the text, we see Jesus instructed them to “Come”, and we see Peter and Andrew left their nets; James and John left their father to follow him. But does this means that we should quit our job, and abandon our family to follow Jesus? Of course not! Jesus himself held down a job and supported his parents for most of His life as a model for us to follow here.
What Mark wanted to communicate for us here is that Jesus’ instruction must be the ultimate priority in a disciple’s life.
* To follow Jesus meant that we would follow his instruction in regard to the our material possessions, no matter if all you have was a few small nets or if you own quite a few fleets of fishing boats.
* To follow Jesus meant that we would follow his instruction in our daily actions, whether your net is OK and you have no problem living your life or your nets is broken and you are still mending it back.
* To follow Jesus meant that we would follow his instruction in all of our relationship, with parents and siblings, with strangers and friends, with boyfriends/girlfriends as well as your ex, with bosses and hired hands.
As a life-coach, Jesus always gives instructions. But if we cannot leave other stuffs of our life as secondary in importance, then we cannot follow Jesus as the first order of importance, and we simply cannot experience Life the way God intended for us to have.
Another point to ponder is “following” implied a sense of constant movement. If you don’t know how to get to my house afterward for the Super Bowl party, you would ask, “Hey, Bumble can I follow your car?” It meant that my car will be on the move, and your car will have to stay close. I turn right, you turn right; I got on the freeway, you got on the freeway. If I drive at 55 MPH, you cannot follow at 5 MPH. Doing so and you will get lost.
Following have to be a constant action, a recent action! Are you following God constantly and recently? Or you only got started following God 5 years ago, 1 year ago, last Winter Camp or last Summer Camp. But what about last week?
Jesus said in John 10 that He is a good shepherd, that He came for the sheep to have life and have life to the fullest. But that only happened if the sheep follow the shepherd, “to come in and go out, and find pasture”! What will happen if a sheep don’t want to leave and follow the shepherd? The distance between the sheep and shepherd will get greater and greater, it will be harder and harder to see the shepherd, to hear his voice, to find food and shelter, and eventually the sheep will be lost. Have you ever wondered why God promise us life and life abundantly, but it seems like our life is far from abundant blessing and more or less mediocrity at best? Most of the time, it is because we are refusing to leave and not following the shepherd.
The shepherd and sheep-flock imagery helps me to discover another aspect of the practical Christian life: Life is connecting with the community. Notice that when Jesus called these guys, he called a group of friends who already knew each other to be his disciples. As a life-coach, Jesus coached the whole team and he is not a personal-trainer.
You usually don’t see a solo Christian in the Bible portrayed. To be a Christian is to be in a Christ-centered community.
Do you remember the story of Peter walking on water? All the disciples was rowing against the wind in the storm... [telling the story] ...
Of the whole group, only one guy know the triumph of walking on water, only one guy actually acknowledge the defeat of falling down, only one guy call out for help, and only one guy get rescue. But did the other guys encounter God through that experience of the one guy? YES! Did the other guys have greater faith afterward? YES! Was it benefit to be connected in the community? YES!
This is the reason why every week we came up here and making announcement about what’s going on in the Saturday Fellowship meetings. We could have only announce it during the Saturday meetings and save time on Sunday, but we really want to encourage you to get connected to a fellowship group, whether it’s Saturday night, Friday night, Wednesday night, at this church or some other church.
The main idea is that you need to be in a small group setting, to learn from God with other, to be involved deeply in each other’s lives, so that as each person experience God individually, the benefits will spread around to all other witnesses in that community.
Not only that, but the community is the instrument Jesus often used to coach us some more in our life.
When I am following Christ in a community of other disciples who are also committed to follow Christ, the community helps me to grow in the same direction with them. You see, as I share my life process with others, they know me more in various aspects of my life: school, work, family, relationship, hope and dreams, struggles and defeats. It is as if they were a 360-degree mirror around me. As the community observed my Christian life in progress, they love me and support me, but also offer course-correction, feedback, and help me to be more like Christ, because the whole community is committed to follow Jesus and to be like him.
Get connected! Step out of your comfort zone a bit here, just like Peter and Andrew, they have no clue what awaited them when they decided to follow Jesus! I am sure that God will reward your steps of faith to connect to the community, just as he had rewarded them!
Last point: Life is Reproducing. Jesus didn’t call the disciples over just to hang out with him. What’s the point of following Him, of practicing what He taught, of connecting with other believers? Jesus said, “I will make you become fishers of men!” Jesus wants his disciples to reproduce other disciples.
Here is the final product of his disciple-making process. If we follow Jesus, at some point we will BECOME fishers of men. We will be transformed from just knowing how to fish for fish, to knowing how to fish for people; from concern about the temporal to concern about the eternal; from receiving life to reproducing life; from a citizen of the Kingdom of God to a co-heirs with Christ in that Kingdom.
Since Jesus had already painted a line starting with fishing for fish and ending with fishing for people, I would like to offer a few observations along the same line.
* Real fishermen need certain physical skills to fish. What spiritual skills do we need to fish for people?
* Real fishermen know where to cast their net. Do we know where should we go to fish for people?
* Real fishermen know the fish real well, what time they are out, what attracted them, what scare them. How well do we know the people we want to fish?
* In Jesus time, fishermen used net to fish. In our time, what tools should we used to fish for people?
* Real fisherman has a box to keep the fish they catch. Is our group prepared and ready to keep the people we fish?
* Should a fisherman be called real fisherman if he never cares to fish? What about a Christian if who never cares to live a Christian life?
* Peter and Andrew fished as a matter of survival, to make a living and feed their family. Do we fish for people as a matter of survival, or is it just an optional hobby?
If you have been following Jesus, are you getting closer to graduation and become who He wanted you to be, a fisher of man yet? If not, would you seriously pursue the answers for the above questions. They are the real life questions that any real fisher of man must answer. I would also challenge you to go out to where the people are this week, at our Tet festival. Our church had a booth there. If you are ready to use the evangelism tracts there to fish for people, that’s great! If you want to learn how to fish for people, come out there and learn it hands-on! If you just want to understand the people more, and come up with a better way to reach them, come out there also, we can pray and observe the crowd together.
Finally, let us remember who is the initiator? It’s Jesus! He will accomplish His work! He didn’t say: “Come, follow me and learn to be a fishers of men!” But he said,
“Come, just follow me,
(I gave you instructions,
you put in practice.
I will place you in a community,
you respond and care for one another.
Little by little, day by day, week in, week out.
My spirit will be at work in you.
Little by little, day by day, week in, week out.
Spiritual growth will take place in you.
It is I who do the work.)
It is I who will make you BECOME fishers of men.”
So, as you watched the Super Bowl this afternoon, remember that success didn’t take place over night! Life is a process, and God had sent Jesus the super life-coach to be with you along the way, to guide and to correct, so that you will become a life-coach to other people as well.
posted by mar13 at
10:34 AM
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