John Chapter 21:1-7

Jesus is walking on the water. And then he invites Peter to come walk on the water with him.

What an amazing thing. And you know what, we all go, well yeah, and then Peter sank. Well, Peter walked on the water. Now, I don't think that any of us, I can speak for myself, I've never walked on the water.

I've never done it. But Peter has. But in order for Peter to walk on the water, he had to get out of the boat. He had to quit playing it safe.

Where are you this morning? Are you in the boat playing it safe? Or are you willing, as Jesus invites you to live outside of yourself, to begin this radical adventure with God and step outside the boat? Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is a senior pastor of The Bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina.

In a world filled with so many different distractions, it's easy to get lost in them all. What's important is that we make the most of the time that we have and that we use it for Jesus. Today, Pastor David explains how we can do just that as he continues in the Gospel of John, chapter 21.

Now, here's David McGee with part two of his teaching, Fishers of Men. In chapter 21, we find ourselves with the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus appears to the disciples, and then this chapter kind of wraps the whole thing up, if you will. So John, chapter 21, verse 1, says, After these things, Jesus showed himself again to the disciples at the Sea of Tiberias, and in this way he showed himself. Now, the Sea of Tiberias was also called the Sea of Galilee.

The Sea of Galilee is where 18 of the 33 miracles were performed. At least five of the disciples were from the Sea of Galilee. So this is familiar ground to them.

This is their familiar stomping grounds, if you will. Verse 2, Simon Peter, Thomas, called the twin, Nathanael of Canine Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, who were James and John, and two others of his disciples were together. So you've got seven of them together. Simon Peter said to them, I am going fishing, and they said to him, We are going with you also. They went out and immediately got into the boat, and that night they caught nothing.

But when the morning had now come, Jesus stood on the shore, yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Now, I find it interesting that five, maybe even seven, of these guys were fishermen. It was their living. That's what they did. These weren't some, you know, weekend warrior kind of fishermen. This is what these guys did day in, day out.

And I like what one commentary said. This was the failure of the experts. They were expert fishermen.

They caught nothing. Verse 5, Then Jesus said to them, Children, have you any food? And they answered him, No. Notice what he calls them, children. I think that's really sweet of Jesus, calling children, because God's keeping in mind, they're doing something they're not supposed to be doing. They're supposed to be up on the mountain meeting Jesus, and they're down here fishing. And so, but Jesus, you know, Jesus doesn't stand on the shore and go, Hey, you bunch of backsliders, what are you doing out there? You bunch of ex-disciples? You bunch of artists formerly known as the apostles? No, he doesn't do any of that. You know, he calls them children, children.

I like that. And he asked them, Do you have any food? Did you catch anything? Again, there's a miracle in here that they just say, No. You know, they don't say, Well, we've had a lot of nibbles.

We've had a lot of bites, and we had one in the net, and he got away. But, you know, they said, No. What an embarrassing question. They've been out there. They're professional fishermen. They say, No, I haven't caught anything. Why did he ask them, though? I mean, did Jesus not know that they hadn't caught anything? No, Jesus knew. He wanted them to realize they hadn't caught anything.

Why? Because they were doing it their own way. And Jesus kind of is saying, Hey, how's your way going?

Well, not very well. See, this is the thing, and the Lord wants to teach us to do things in a new way. And some of us, we need to realize that there's parts of our lives that just aren't working.

They're not functioning well. And probably because we're doing it our way, and the nets keep coming up empty, and the Lord would say to you this morning, What have you got? What have you caught?

I don't have anything. Is that your plan? You're going to keep doing it that same way? Understand, I believe that we will, each and every one of us, be asked this question when we get to heaven.

What'd you catch? See, God wants us to realize that our way won't work and that we're dependent upon Him. Because when we try to do things our way, it doesn't work.

Don't be shocked by that. I'm shocked when you try to do something your own way and it works. I'm also shocked when I do something God's way and it fails. Because I have to ask myself, Okay, God, what were you trying to teach me?

Here's the thing, guys. God can give us spiritual goals, but with no human effort, we won't get there. With all the human effort in the world, we cannot accomplish spiritual goals if God doesn't empower us to do that. See, that's what's so significant about somebody getting saved and somebody following the Lord and somebody getting baptized. It's because those things don't happen in the natural. I don't have the power to convert somebody.

So what we see week after week is a very special supernatural thing. But when God gives us spiritual goals and we combine them with human effort, there's nothing that can't be done. There is nothing that can't be done. The life lesson here, Jesus said, Without me, you can do nothing. And with me, there is nothing you can't do. There's nothing you can... Jesus said, Without me, you can do nothing. With me, there is nothing you can't do. Now, obviously, there's some things that you can accomplish, but nothing of real spiritual significance or of lasting importance.

And here's the thing. When you place self at the center of your life, and you may have the forgiveness of your sins, but self still rules your life, well, it's like you're at this phase of your Christian walk. See, I'm forgiven. But God's not really God in your life. You've got self at the center. That's not what God desires for you. You won't find what you want, and you won't find what you need when you do that. Jesus told us that. We may overuse the word destiny at times, but you will never fulfill your God-given destiny while self is at the center of your life.

It won't happen. And God loves you so much that when he's at the center of your life is the only time you find that joy and that peace and that love at his strongest place. I know you won't find true satisfaction just in your workplace or in beer commercials or surfing online.

You're not going to find true satisfaction there. And I've seen people that were scared to death to start serving here. And I watch what happens in their lives. And I see their face, and they say things like, You know what? Man, I was in there, and I was working with the kids, and the God of the universe used me to speak to them, and I've never experienced anything like that. Bingo.

That's a win. See, we've been created by God to join with him in this adventure to serve one another and, through his power, heal a beat-up, broken world. God wants us to trade selfishness for sacrifice and the mundane for meaning and religious ritual for reality. That's what God wants to do in our lives. And yet some of us still want to be spectators.

Christianity is not a spectator sport. Now, perhaps you're sitting here this morning going, Well, I've been here for three months, six months, nine months, a year, two years. Now, I'm not serving, and I kind of get the feeling that you might be talking to me. Let me clear the air.

I am talking to you, okay? So let's, you know, if this is your first Sunday, we ask people to wait while we see them filled with the Holy Spirit, filled with God's Word, and we want to pour into you and love on you. But at a certain time, everybody, as a healthy believer, needs to begin to pour out, or the water gets stagnant. So I want to encourage you in that. And, you know, here's the thing. We're told many places in the Bible we've got to serve one another, that we get to serve one another.

The question is, are you? See, everybody has a choice. You can come to this place, and you can park as close to the doors as you can get, and you can sit in here and have a nice Sunday morning experience, and then go home and be comfortable until next Sunday. That's a choice. Or you can join with other people who've rolled up their sleeves, who are serving God, serving one another. Their life has been changed, and they see people reached through their efforts.

Those are your choices. Comfortable or reaching people. We'll be right back with more from David Magee on Cross the Bridge. Right now, here's a word from Associate Pastor D.A.

Brown. We want to take just a minute to pray for a few cities in our listening audience. Specifically, Gallup, New Mexico, and Las Cruces, Portales, Roswell, Tularosa, and Binghamton, New York, and Oswego. God, we thank You for these listening in these cities right now. We pray that You would pour Your Spirit out on them. Lord, that they would have faith to trust You in what You're wanting to do in their life. We pray if there's people, Father, who have yet to put their trust in You, that today would be the day that they would say yes to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ for them. Lord, we pray for those in leadership positions, that You would anoint them, that You would give them wisdom and discernment.

Lord, that they would look to Your Bible for answers and form their conclusions accordingly. Lord, we pray that You would pour Your Spirit out on these cities. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Thank you, brother. And now, let's get back to David McGee as he continues teaching verse by verse.

First thing, throw your net on the other side of the boat. And perhaps even when I just talked about serving just now, you're like, oh, I don't know. The difference was three feet, and it made all the difference.

I'm telling you, giving up an hour or two or three or four of your life a week can make a huge difference in your life. As you begin to understand, God wants to use you. So they cast this, and then what happens? A multitude of fish. What had they been looking for? Fish. What did Jesus give them?

Fish. Jesus has what you're looking for. It may take some faith.

It may take some risk. But Jesus has what you're looking for. If you're looking for peace, Jesus offers you peace. If you're looking for joy, He offers you joy. If you're looking for forgiveness, He will give you that.

But so many of us continue to look in the wrong direction. Jesus can give you those things in ways that you could never imagine, beyond what you're able to think. Some of us, even as I say that, you're like, well, what do you mean Jesus has what I'm looking for?

Look, I feel strongly enough about it. It's the next life lesson. Jesus has what you're looking for. Now, some of you, even as I say that, some of you may be going, well, what do you mean Jesus has what I'm looking for? Making Jesus a shopkeeper.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Here's the deal, guys. The things that we really want, meaning in life, love, joy, peace, the assurance of forgiveness, a cause to live for something bigger than ourselves, and these things, you find it in Jesus. You don't find it in yourself. And again, while your life revolves around yourself, even if you have your sins forgiven, you're not going to see those things.

When you begin to live this radical revolutionary adventure for God, you're going to see these things. And many of us have looked for these things in a self-centered lifestyle. We've looked for these things chasing whatever, a big house or lots of finances or nice cars and all those things. I got nothing against those things, but when they become the center of your life, man, you're being too cheaply satisfied, and chances are you aren't satisfied.

What will it take? Jesus, and sometimes we don't even know what we're looking for. We think we know what we're looking for. But some of us had to find, we had to actually find what we weren't looking for so we could figure out that we needed to go look for what we weren't looking for. That was real clear, wasn't it? I think y'all knew it, but it's the next life lesson.

No, I'm kidding. I think that's clear, though, because in my instance, being involved in secular music and corporate stuff and thinking, okay, this is what I want, and I came close to that to realize that's not it. That's not it. And some of you may be at that place of disillusionment. Maybe you thought at some point your job was gonna bring you this intense satisfaction and now you're going, you know what?

I don't think it's going to. Maybe you're looking to family life to bring that and you're realizing it's not gonna bring it. Maybe you're looking to your spouse to bring it and you're going, no, that's not it either.

You know why? Because God loves you so much. He wants you to find it at one place that's unchanging, unshifting, solid as a rock. And that's Him.

And He loves you so much that you won't find it in these other things in life. And notice, Jesus didn't say, well, you need to go to the other end of the lake because that's what we often think, isn't it? Well, I gotta make these huge changes. You know, God asked us to take steps. That's what He asked us to do. I mean, how hard was it for the disciples to just throw the net on the other side of the boat?

Wasn't hard at all. And that's what Jesus, Jesus says, look, if you do this, then I'll do that. If you do this, then I'll do that. And so some of you are probably closer than you realize. And again, you can find true peace and joy and satisfaction in Jesus. But you have to follow Him. And it starts with asking Him to forgive you of your sins.

And how simple is that? He doesn't say, now, look, this is what you gotta do. You gotta do this, that, and the other.

And after you do those things for 12 years, then you can begin to follow Me and ask for forgiveness of your sins. I'm so glad He doesn't do that. He says, just come to Me, ask. And look how we've built fences around that, haven't we?

Well, you can't just ask. You gotta do this, you gotta do that, and you gotta do it like this, and you gotta do it like that. And again, how did we take the greatest message that humanity has ever heard and turn it into something twisted that no longer appeals to people? Now, understand, I don't water down the gospel. If you don't ask the Lord to forgive you of your sins, your sins will never be forgiven. And your forgiveness is only available through the atoning death of Jesus on the cross.

I'm not watering it down, but I do wanna keep it simple because we tend to make it overly complicated. So Jesus has what we're looking for if we'll follow Him and discover the reality of Jesus in our lives. And notice the last miracle Jesus has to do with bringing the harvest in, verse seven. Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, it is the Lord.

Oh, I love that. And when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he had removed it and plunged into the sea. I love Peter, man.

Peter is just that all or none gung ho guy, isn't he? And granted, he didn't always get it right, but man, he got it right very often. And look what God did with his life.

Do you understand what had already happened at this point? He'd already denied the Lord three times, but he still wanted to follow Jesus. See, we make assumptions about people that make mistakes, other people, not ourselves. We make assumptions when somebody messes up, oh, well, they don't care anything about Jesus. No, they probably just had a moment of weakness or a moment of struggle, just like Peter.

Peter was not disqualified. As a matter of fact, part of the whole content of this chapter is the restoration of Peter. But he says it is the Lord. Now that disciple whom Jesus loved, who is that? John, exactly.

If you've been with us for very long, you know that. It was John. How do we know that?

John told us, that's right. It's only this gospel that John is referred to as the disciple whom Jesus loved, which you can have fun with that, but at the same time, John knew that Jesus loved him. How did he know that it was the Lord?

Because he knew from what was going on that it wasn't human effort. I so love this verse. You know why? Because every Sunday morning, every Thursday night, I come out here, I see you guys, and so many of you just got the love of Jesus shining out from you. You know, last Sunday, the baptism, we had a number of people get baptized. I'm not sure how many. I guess I should know that. But I just, I don't count.

I mean, and I think that's a good thing. But there was a number of people that got baptized, and most of them were adults, not kids just growing up in the church, not kids that, okay, well, you're of age now. You get baptized. But adults, some of them didn't know the Lord till the last few months. Maybe they knew the Lord, and they had slipped away, and they came back.

And what an awesome thing. And every time we do a baptism, I think, it is the Lord. So Peter jumps out of the boat, goes to see Jesus.

I like that. Peter's always getting out of the boat, isn't he? And, you know, a lake is not generally the time to get out of the boat, but you generally want to get to the dock when you get out of the boat. But, you know, he jumps out of the boat, and it reminds me of the other time he jumped out of the boat. You remember that?

You're probably familiar with the story. Jesus is walking on the water. And then he invites Peter to come walk on the water with him. What an amazing thing.

And you know what? We all go, well, yeah, and then Peter sank. Well, Peter walked on water. Now, I don't think that any of us, I can speak for myself, I've never walked on water.

I've never done it. But Peter has. But in order for Peter to walk on the water, he had to get out of the boat.

He had to quit playing it safe. Where are you this morning? Are you in the boat playing it safe? Or are you willing, as Jesus invites you to live outside of yourself, to begin this radical adventure with God and step outside the boat? I want to live outside the boat. I want that adventure. I've done the other thing. I've lived for myself.

I wasn't satisfied with that. I want to live for God. And yeah, yeah, it might mean I sink every now and again. But it also means I might walk on water. Peter jumps out and goes to Jesus.

We all have that opportunity this morning. You can jump out and run to Jesus. Or you can stay in the boat. Now, I've got to tell you, if you decide to stay in the boat, then this will be a point that we will revisit again and again in the future. Because I love you enough to tell you the truth, to tell you that there's life outside the boat. I know you love your boat.

You feel safe. Maybe you've got a neat boat. Jeff, the guitar player, he's got a folding boat that fits on top of his truck. It's kind of cool. You might have looked at it like, I thought, what is that? He's got a folding boat.

But you know what? He's living his life outside the boat. He's taking the risk. He's following Jesus.

He is on this awesome adventure. And I want to encourage you guys, if you've been with self at the center, man, you're probably finding that you're kind of dissatisfied. Now, maybe you've asked the Lord to forgive you of your sins. Maybe you haven't. And if you have not, I want to give you that opportunity this morning to ask the Lord to forgive you of your sins.

And you know what? When you do it, he does it. When you ask him to forgive you of your sins, he forgives you of your sins.

Just like that. And then he begins to give to you the desire to live for him. Not play it comfortable, but to follow Jesus and to step outside the boat. And you know what I think you'll find?

An incredible joy in serving the Lord no matter what you choose to do. It's time to jump out of the boat and go to Jesus. Pastor David, what you're talking about sounds fairly radical.

Yeah, it does. And I understand that. To be honest, I've never been impressed with church as usual. And ask the world, what do you think the problem with Christianity is?

And they'll tell you, you know what? Too many people not living what they say they believe. And part of living what we say we believe is following Jesus to serve others. Jesus said love one another, serve one another. If you want to gain your life, lose it. If you want to lose your life, try to hold on to it and push yourself at the center. Everybody in here has a choice.

I'm just not speaking to people who haven't yet asked the Lord to forgive you of your sins. I'm speaking to everybody here. You have a decision. The choice is yours. But you know what?

The choice is very clear this morning to everybody in here. And you can no longer say when you get to heaven, Jesus says, what'd you catch? I didn't catch anything. I didn't know I was supposed to be catching anything. Because he'll ask you, well, who is your pastor?

He never told you that you're supposed to be serving and playing a part of the body? I don't want that on me. It's not on me anymore.

It's on you. And you have a choice to make, to follow your own way or to follow Jesus. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking him to help you to live for him. Now, God wants you to pray this prayer so much that he died to give you the opportunity and the ability to ask him to forgive you.

Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me, that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned.

And I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again.

Jesus said he would not turn anybody away who comes to him, and he came for those people who knew they needed forgiveness, those who were sick, not the righteous. So congratulations, friend. You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can visit crossthebridge.com to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ.

Or you can write to Cross the Bridge at P.O. Box 12515, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 27117, and share how God is working in your life. You know, the Bible tells us that the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. But it does cost for us to come and bring that message to you and to others in your neighborhood through radio, through the Internet, and through the mobile technologies that God has gifted us to be able to use. So if you'd like to support this ministry, please go to crossthebridge.com, click on the donate button, and ask God how much he would have you give, either on a one-time basis or a continuing basis each month to help ensure that the teaching of God's Word continues to go out through Cross the Bridge.

Thank you so much. Well, D.A., before we go, there are some ways that we can bless our listeners. Each day you can wake up with encouragement from Pastor David through the Word of God with his email devotional, life lessons to consider, a daily reading plan, and a thought to meditate on throughout your day from the heart of David McGee. Those are terrific, and it's easy and it's free. So, folks, sign up today at crossthebridge.com. Thanks again for listening, and join us next time as David McGee continues teaching verse by verse in the Gospel of John.