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"Jesus' Odd Guidance"

Messages from Sunday mornings

 

Jesus' Odd Activities

 

Introduction

•  Jesus seems to do odd things – to bring a touch of heaven
•  We seem to live in a mad world at times:
  • e.g. a 70 year old who offered to take his neighbour's refuse to the tip in bags but was refuse entry because they weren't his and he was not a registered ‘waste transporter'!
  • e.g. the vicar who recently had to complain he felt redundant at modern funerals because of their secular content!
  • e.g. The Evening Standard reporting on a youth from south London who had ‘graduated' from Feltham Young Offenders Institute who likened life to a video game and said if you died early it's just that you're not very good at playing the game!
  • e.g. the advertisement for an event – Live Music and Tarot readings – proceeds to the church!
• They're all things that make modern living seem a bit bizarre.

 

Readings : Lk 5:1-11 & Jn 21:1-14

 

The Strangeness of Jesus' guidance

•  two stories about catching fish after catching nothing
•  heavenly, daytime intervention, i.e. in the course of ordinary everyday events
•  they made no sense – there were no fish so why do what Jesus said?
•  Jesus is connecting them with a different reality – something from a heavenly perspective
•  possible excuse the disciples could have made not to do it – it doesn't make sense!
•  Jesus takes the familiar and challenges us to do it in a different way
•  he was introducing Peter to heaven's ability to catch fish so he would realise heaven's ability to catch men
•  God has a way of thinking we haven't got.

 

A Human Example

•  In 1975 a young northerner looked for a job was sent to Southend
•  he expected it to be short-term and go back north
•  40 years later he is still here
•  human thinking thought one thing, God had different ideas.

 

The Example of Isaac – Gen 26:19-24

•  water was a primary need for survival
•  Rehoboth was in a barren place
•  God moved Isaac to a barren place to receive essential provision
•  God doesn't always do what seems sensible, but He does what He does to bless us
•  Faith often seems ‘plain daft' - but it always brings blessing.
•  Warning: we do daft things and they can lead us astray so we then need grace for forgiveness and fellowship for restoring – that is different.

 

Recap: This is about:

1. Faith

•  fear of failure could have stopped the disciples but they overcame it, responded and saw blessing

2. Obedience & Revelation

•  when we obey and Jesus does it, we realise who he is.

3. Obedience means blessing

•  when we respond heaven can touch earth and brings about a transformation in us

4. Blessing brings encouragement

•  when we have stepped out at Jesus' bidding and God has blessed us, that encourages us to go further with him.

 

And so?

•  Simon had a calling to become a fisher of men
•  We similarly have a calling to express the life we have in Jesus – to others!
•  Faith may mean we respond when God asks us to do apparently strange things and this releases the blessing of God.