An Illustrated instruction on total dependence
John 21:1-4 ~ Terry Phillips
March 24, 2019
An Illustrated Instruction on Total Dependence
I’ll ask if you would turn with me to John's Gospel once again, and this morning I’d like to read…begin by reading through the first 14 verses of John 21.
“After these things Jesus manifested Himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberius (or the Sea of Galilee.) And He manifested Himself in this way, there were together, Simon Peter, and Thomas, called Didymus and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and to others of His disciples. Simon Peter said to them, I'm going fishing. They said to him, we will also come with you, they went out and got into the boat. That night they caught nothing. But when the day was now breaking Jesus stood on the beach. Yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus therefore said to them, “children you do not have any fish, do you?” they answered Him, “no.” He said to them, cast the net on the right-hand side of the boat and you will find a catch. They cast therefore and then they were not able to haul it in because of the great number of fish. That disciple therefore whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “it is the Lord.” And so when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put his outer garment on, (for he was stripped for work), and threw himself into the sea, but the other disciples came in the little boat, for they were not far from the land, about a hundred yards away, dragging the net full of fish. And so when they got out upon the land they saw a charcoal fire already laid and fish placed on it and bread. Jesus said to them, bring some of the fish which you have now caught. Simon Peter went up and drew the net to land full of large fish, one hundred and fifty-three. And although there were so many the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “come and have breakfast.” None of the disciples ventured to question Him, who are you, knowing that it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave them, and the fish. Likewise, this is now the third time that Jesus was manifested to the disciples after He was raised from the dead.”
As we have seen after the Lord's resurrection…our Lord made Himself known on a number of different occasions. As we saw earlier, these separate appearances encompass a wide variety of settings and circumstances. We know at this point in John's Gospel…we know of a number of the actual appearances that John records for us. We come to this and John says this is the third time that Jesus was manifested to the disciples after He was raised from the dead. We know that He appeared to the disciples on the night of that first day of resurrection, that Sunday evening. We know that He appeared to them eight days later, if you recall, back in chapter 20 verse 26, and now we have this third time. We're not sure of some of the other appearances -- we talked about the appearances of the Lord to Mary Magdalene, to the other women, to Peter, to the men on the road to Emmaus and we know that there are number of other appearances that occurred after that first day. Some of them chronologically, we can't really pin down. In fact, even this one, we’re told, is the third time that He manifested Himself to the disciples, we don't know if there were some other appearances in between. It's not important, but in this portion of God's word, which we often referred to as the epilogue -- if you will -- of John's Gospel. We have a very unique one of the Lord’s appearances, a more lengthy record, if you will, that we are given by the Spirit of God in relation to His other appearances. And this appearance, it seems to me, is very instructive. It is an illustrated instruction from our Lord – that is what we see here. An illustrated instruction, which of course is one of the primary means or methods that Jesus used when He taught. Jesus often used illustrations, didn’t He? And He used simple, direct illustrations, things that were very commonly known, things were familiar to those that He was speaking to. Time and again He used the most basic, most simple realities of life to illustrate some of the most profound spiritual truths. It seems obvious in this passage that Jesus had some very important matters to impart to His followers, we’re not going to, obviously, be looking at the whole of this chapter, but the first section of it this morning.
There are different ways that this portion of God's word has been approached. I remember a number of years ago, someone had given me a book and…I can't remember…I think it might've been one of the first chapters that dealt with this passage. And this author's take away from this passage was that Jesus was demonstrating the playfulness of God. He was sort of playfully toying with the disciples. Hard for me to understand how someone could come up with that kind of an approach, but there are those who do, apparently. A more serious approach to this passage sees the disciples as being in actually a position of disobedience to the Lord, in that they had gone back to their fishing business. The fact that these men were fishermen by trade is well known and it's described for us earlier on in the gospel accounts. I personally find it very difficult to see the passage from that perspective. I do not see the Lord rebuking these men for what they were doing. In fact, I see the Lord actually coming alongside of them and encouraging them in what they were doing. So that…my own… from my perspective as I’ve thought about the passage and looked at it and tried to consider it in the whole context of this gospel and God's words as a whole. It seems to me, most likely, that what these men were doing was what came naturally to them and as a matter of necessity, they had to continue to provide for themselves. One of the things that I think we many times overlook is this period of time. Think about this from the disciple’s perspective, for a moment…from the time of the Lord's crucifixion and almost… within almost immediately…within a couple of days He makes Himself known to them. But from that time until the time that He empowers them, enables them, the time of His ascension and tells them to wait -- He tells them to wait and they wait.
There’s sort of an awkward time for them, it seems, in some respects, wouldn’t you agree? It’s a difficult time. They're not… they are not commissioned by the Lord to go yet, not yet. They will be but not yet, they’re to wait.
It must've been an interesting time for these men. The Lord wasn't with them anymore. He appeared to them a number of times, but it was brief. These were brief encounters with Christ and then He was gone and they were by themselves and they were waiting. What do we do next? What comes next? And we know from the beginning of the acts of the apostles, they’re still thinking in terms of -- maybe this is the time that the Lord will establish His kingdom on this earth. They were thinking that before His ascension. So we don't know all of the things that were going through their minds, but there had to of been a period of time for them to think through and meditate upon, very carefully, all that they had observed, all that Jesus had taught them. We’re told in Luke's gospel that He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. Up until this point in time -- that is the point of His resurrection and His opening their minds -- their understanding of the Scriptures was woefully lacking. Especially in relation to God's Christ. So, there's a period of time here were these men surely would have needed that… they would've needed that opportunity for these convictions and this understanding to really settle in and into their thinking as they talk these things over and consider them together. So, I see these men as simply doing the thing that they knew best. This is the way that they had provided for themselves… for their lives, this is their living. For a number of these men, we’re told, they were commercial fishermen. That's what they did. That's how they survived.
There's this first portion of this appearance to His disciples, I believe, gives to us a very basic lesson. A lesson that we can glean from our Lord in this passage, and it is the oft’ needed emphasis on our total dependence upon the Lord, our total dependence upon the Lord. This is a lesson of inestimable value, is it not? This lesson of our being totally dependent on the Lord. It's as basic a lesson as it gets for you and I as God's children. It's absolutely necessary, even for our healthy state of mind and emotion. It's a matter of fundamental and far-reaching importance. And yet it's a lesson we seem to need to relearn, again, again and again. Have you noticed that? If you’ve walked with the Lord very long at all, you know what I'm talking about. This is not a lesson that you learn, and it’s once and done. You learn it and it seems like-- it's not very long, and you have to re-learn it and you continue to learn and we would trust that as we learn it again and again we learned it in greater depth. Our understanding increases in terms of really grasping what this means. These are words that it seems like many times are easy to come out of our mouth. Do we really understand what this means? A totaldependence upon the Lord.
Why is this so difficult for us to get? Why do we have to keep relearning this? What is our problem? It's the same problem that gets in the way of saving faith – it’s pride, pure and simple. It's the very thing that's at the root of all our sin – it’s pride. The thing about our pride is…that is so difficult, is that it never -- in this life -- It never goes away. It keeps coming back. Do you notice that? I trust that each of us, who have walked with the Lord, have recognized this and there've been moments in which we have been so discouraged by the fact that we…it just keeps coming back. We get to a point where we hate our own pride and yet, it keeps coming back. In this life pride is our ongoing struggle, just when you think it's taken care of, it rears its ugly head with a repulsive vengeance. There it is again… here I am again… tripped up by the same thing.
One of the most dangerous aspects of pride -- it seems to me -- is that so often it creeps by stealth into our heart, into our mind, our way of thinking. It creeps by stealth into a position of prominence in our hearts. It doesn't always come on real suddenly, as though there was a switch. Sometimes it slowly gains traction and we don't notice that it's building up. We may not notice it at all until it erupts, in a very hideous arrogance and all of a sudden, we come face-to-face with it. No one of us is immune to this. No one is so spiritual that they become inoculated against the sin of pride. It is an ever-present affliction.
Now this matter of dependence, total dependence, the concept of helpless dependence is anathema to our pride. This is not a concept that we willingly and quickly embrace. We don't readily warm up to this whole concept of total dependence, so we tend to avoid any and all potential confrontations that expose our genuine… or the depths of our helplessness. Don’t we? We do, let's be honest, it's not something we like to face, something we really would just as soon not have to deal with and have to come to grips with. It’s not a pleasant thing for us. But this morning I want to remind you, and we all need to be reminded together, that Jesus loves us very much. He reallyloves us. Those are just words. We use those words so often in the meaning is not… doesn't go very deep. Jesus really loves us. He really cares for us. He knows how important it is for our well-being and our deepest joy that we not continue in the euphoric delusion of our own self-sufficiency and our blustery independence. Jesus knows that is not in our best interest. We sometimes, I'm sure, get discouraged and sometimes even almost a little angry with the Lord, don’t we? When He confronts us with our pride. Sometimes it's a difficult confrontation, but we need to be reminded of how much He loves us and that He knows where that will go if it's left on its own. He knows the problems that it will cause, He knows the heart ache and the sorrow. So, Jesus confronts the distortion of our minds, by which we continually try to elevate ourselves. He does this again and again -- He does it patiently, He does it faithfully and He does it lovingly.
I want you to notice how Jesus brings this lesson to bear, and upon His disciples again. The first thing I want you to notice is that Jesus reminds us in this interaction with His disciples, He reminds us of the futility of laboring apart from divine enablement. He reminds us of the futility of laboring apart from divine provision. This is a most fundamental reality. And yet it is one we so often ignore. This is a very understandable, a very practical lesson, if you stop and think about it. Here these men are, they've been fishing all night -- and by the way this kind of commercial fishing, you don't sit in an easy chair and throttle up the motor. This is a lot of work… the way they cast these nets into the sea and pull them back in. It was an extremely difficult job. It took a lot of effort and energy. It's not like you and I who go sit on a boat and with our casting reel, cast, you know for a few hours and we don't catch anything and we’re disappointed. These men have extended an enormous amount of energy to fish all night, which would've been usually the best time to catch these fish and to catch nothing. You’re tired, you’re weary, you're worn out, you’re discouraged. It appears that all of that work and for all intents and practical purposes, that work has been done in vain. “They went out, got into the boat and that night they caught nothing.”Those are a simple description though…here of a lot of work, a lot of effort.
It's not difficult for you and I to give lip service to this elementary truth, that is – that we’re totally dependent on the Lord. I don't think any of us would hesitate at all to say, yes, that's true, right? I think we would, but it's very different to incorporate and embrace this truth in our moment to moment living, day-to-day. When we face this and we face that, especially when we face discouragement and maybe even more so, it may be even more difficult to acknowledge this when things are going really well. It's not so easy – we can give lip service to this truth – but it's not so easy to allow it to thoroughly permeate our overall perspective of life. Everything I'm doing, all the time, I'm doing it in this knowledge – that I depend on the Lord. If He doesn't help me, if He doesn't strengthen me, if He doesn't direct me, if He doesn't bless – my labor is in vain. That's not how we tend to think most of the time as we go throughout the day. My tendency is to think, well, I just need to work a little harder. If I apply myself to this, I know what I can get done, I'll get it done. Let's do it! That's the way I would think of it, and that's the way most of us think. This a very precious truth and extraordinarily important and fundamental truth, but with every precious truth comes the danger of distortion, doesn't it? It’s always the case…here’s such a simple and basic truth -- I'm totally dependent on the Lord, but it comes with danger. There's the danger of distorting that simple truth, there is the danger of laboring in our own strength while acknowledging God at those moments when it seems especially necessary or appropriate. How many times have you gone into something and done it in your own strength from beginning to finish and at the end recognize, well, yeah, I need to give God credit. Yeah, God helped me through that… when you gave no thought whatsoever to the Lord helping you in the middle of the job. There may be what I would call or see as a selective dependence upon the Lord, there's that tendency. That's a distortion of this truth. You and I aren't selectively dependent on the Lord, we’re totally dependent on the Lord. We’re always dependent on the Lord, whether we see it, whether we recognize it, whether we acknowledge it openly, or not. That's the truth, and the truth for us in practice very often is a selective dependence or we come to face something and all of the sudden we realize, uh oh, I'm in way over my head. I'm gonna have to trust the Lord for this. That's what we do so often, isn't it? Though for the past two weeks we've barely given a thought to the fact that we need the Lord’s strength from day-to-day, from moment to moment, but now I'm facing something…Oh, we’re going to have to trust the Lord that… that's a big one. That's a tough one.
Selective dependence upon the Lord is nottotal dependence on the Lord. It's not the kind of overall perspective that honors Christ, that draws… intentionally draws upon His provision and enablement. This selective dependence is seen, probably most obviously in the children of Israel, isn’t it? You look at their history, things are going good, God blesses them, they forget God. All of a sudden, they're in trouble, in really big trouble and all of a sudden there crying out to God, we need help… we’re in big trouble. You see that cycle, it goes over and over and over again. If you read through the Old Testament accounts you actually get sick and tired of it, to some extent, don't you? You think to yourself, why don't they learn? Of course you forget the fact that the record covers many, many years… you and I can’t remember from day-to-day or week to week, how do we expect them to have remembered over decades of time. That's what happens. That's a selective dependence.
There's another distortion that we need to be careful of. And that is what I would call a passive dependence.There is the popular tendency today to disdain any concept of genuine and strenuous effort in the Christian life, it often manifests itself as an obsession with the concept of grace almost to the exclusion of any serious exhortation for us to diligently apply ourselves in striving together. Paul tells the saints at Philippi, that he’s trusting, and hoping that they are indeed doing that very thing. He's confident. They’re striving together for the faith of the gospel. Striving is not passive, is it? It’s not easy, it's not simple, it takes effort.“The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, the soul of the diligent is made fat”-- very basic principle, it’s not just a physical issue it’s a spiritual one. The soul,the soul is what's affected. I believe that what God teaches us to cultivate is what maybe I can call an active dependence. To me it seems like this is the kind of total dependence that we are encouraged to cultivate.
I want you to notice with these men…first of all, there is the necessity of initiative. These men are just not sitting on the side of the beach. Think about this a moment. They're not just sitting there lounging in their lawn chairs waiting for the Lord to come and make breakfast for them. They're not on their knees praying and asking God to bring them some fish and some food. There's initiative on their part. Peter says, “I'm going to go fishing.” These other men -- there's only seven of the disciples, by the way, in this group… it’s not all of them -- they say, “we’ll go with you.” We need this activity. We need to get moving. It’s something we need to do. There's initiative.
I also want you to recognize the importance of labor. They labored. They didn't just go out in the boat and sit there with the nets in the boat and hope that maybe some fish would jump in. They worked and they work hard to the point of exhaustion. The importance of labor. There is this importance in our walk with the Lord to apply ourselves diligently. Paul says… he encourages, he exhorts the saints at Philippi, “so then my beloved…” This is Philippians 2:12 – “so then my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”God is at work in my heart so I need to get busy, not in my own strength, but in this reality that God is at work. He who began a good work -- Paul said earlier on in this epistle -- He was convinced that He would bring it to completion. If He began a good work in me, It's Him who is at work, I need to be busy. Paul says in first Timothy, chapter 4 verse 10 – “for it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers.” Here Paul speaks of laboring and striving. This is not a passive dependence, this is an active dependence. There's no place for prideful self-reliance in serving the Lord. But there's also no place for passivity or for spiritual slothfulness. There is a balance in this, there's a constant awareness, where my strength coming from.
I want to just call two passages to your attention in this respect -- this balance. First Corinthians chapter 15 verse 10, a very well-known verse to most of us. Paul is recalling who he is and how we got to be who he is and he says, “but by the grace of God I am what I am”and he goes on, he says, “and His grace toward me did not prove vain but I labored even more than all of them yet not I, but the grace of God with me.”You see that balance? For you and I, in the flesh, that seems like almost an impossible balance, doesn't it? Man, that’s a fine line. And yet it's really not complicated, it’s simple. Paul says, it’s by God's grace that I am who I am, and I'm going to go out and I’m going to do everything I can to serve the Lord, and the whole way… all the way along, I recognize it's His grace. Every ounce of energy I expend it’s by His grace, it’s by His enablement. I'm dependent on Him, I’m totally depending on Him. Colossians chapter 1, Paul makes a somewhat similar statement, Paul says, … and I will begin back in verse 28 of Colossians 1, “And we proclaim Him, that is, Christ admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, that we may present every man complete in Christ. And for this purpose, also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.” Do you and I perceive that the very power of Almighty God is working within us? Not just kind of there, floating listlessly… working mightily! Giving to us, providing for us the enablement to do the work God's given us to do, to serve Him faithfully. To take the initiative, to be willing to strive to put ourselves out, to sacrifice time, energy, even our own emotional well-being at times, our own comforts.
There is also the absolute necessity of a submissive willingness, in this matter of total dependence. Responsiveness to divine direction is crucial. You notice in this passage Jesus calls to them from the shore, and He says, “you don't have any fish, do you?”their answer is very succinic – “No.” No explanations or excuses like many of us make… “no, we don't.” “We don't have any”, and He said to them, “cast the net on the right-hand side of the boat and you will find a catch.”Now this is fascinating to me -- “They cast therefore and then they were not able to haul it in, because of the great number of fish.”What is interesting to me is the fact that there's no response on their part. There's no argument. It says they cast their net in on the other side of the boat, there's absolutely no logical reason why casting the net on one side of the boat would make any difference whatsoever, and in fact, if you recall, in a very similar passage in Luke chapter 5, when this happened, they had caught anything. And Jesus told him to cast their nets again into the water and Peter says, he offers the objection – “we've been fishing for a long time and we haven't caught anything.”The implications is -- why would we throw our net back in? It’d be a total waste of time. Here, there's no argument. And from what we can gather. They don't even know this is the Lord yet. It's possible that John maybe had begun to suspect it. But Jesus spoke with an authority to them, and there's a submissive willingness. I think it's interesting that they don't necessarily know it's Christ. They could have easily said to this person on the beach, “Mind your own business, we’re professionals at this… we know better than to think that casting our net on the other side of boat is going to make any difference.” Many times, you and I, in our lives, God uses other people to give us direction. They may say something to us and it made to us seem like foolishness. But we need to be careful to listen to what they’re saying. Is this from the Lord? And if it is, I need to respond. If this is somebody who's walking close to the Lord and I see a sincerity in them and this is not something that violates God's word, but in fact, it’s something that complements His word, I need to move, I need to respond.
Submissive responsiveness a willingness to respond is absolutely crucial when it comes to total dependence. I'm not totally depending on the Lord… I don't really understand fully the concept of total dependence if I'm unwilling to rely -- that is to invest myself, to take that chance, to take that risk to do whatever it is He's asking me to do. If I'm not willing to do that then I'm not really totally depending on Him, am I? I’m not really totally depending. If I'm not willing to even take any initiative, if I'm not willing to put forth any effort and I'm not willing to follow what God tells me to do, especially things that He brings out to me in His word and He's told us plenty in terms of what we should be doing in regards to the church and in regards to how we are to treat one another… are we doing it? We need to do it. Total reliance upon the Lord is completely bound up, it's bound up very tightly, inextricably woven together with our willingness to obey,to submit, to respond. These men respond and God grants a wonderful provision.
We, you and I have a solemn responsibility to trust the Lord, do we not? To depend on Him and to do His will, to listen to Him, to do everything we do in total dependence and reliance upon Him. That's our responsibility, but it's only God who makes the difference in the end, isn’t it? No matter how hard labor. Maybe a practical thing for you to think about… you and I to think about this morning -- to what extent are you and I really, totally relying upon the Lord on a day by day basis? Let me ask you this question, if I could – try to think back and evaluate, and maybe in the next week, begin to evaluate this – what are the most prominent pronouns in your speech? I? Me? My? Mine? or He? His? Him? What are the most prominent pronouns in your speech? Think about that.
There’s a second thing that I want you to notice in the passage, and that is that in this illustration, Jesus confirms that all good comes from God…. It's almost not necessary to say that, it’s so obvious in its passage. The illustration is so obvious… they work all night. They fish they work hard to catch nothing. Jesus said, cast the net on the other side of the boat and they have a boatload of fish, immediately. This is as basic as it gets. All good comes from God. And yet it is adamantly denied by most of humanity. It is even often forgotten by God's very own children. It is very sad, when you think about it… when I catch myself thinking about some way that good will come to me other than from God. Well, I just need to do this, I need to make that investment. I need to do work a little harder this area or I need to talk to the right person, whatever it may be. It’s not to say that we aren’t do some of those things… but ultimately am I really recognizing, moment by moment…If good has come to me, and if more good comes to me, it will be from God. “Every good and perfect gift cometh down from the Father of lights.”James tells us, James 1:17. Comes from above, from the Father of lights with whom is no variableness -- the shadow of turning. That's were good comes and you can't help but notice the abundance of God's provision. God is not limited when it comes to bestowing good upon us, you and I have all kinds of limitations. Everybody even the most wealthy people in the world have all kinds of limitations. God doesn't have any, and God also knows exactly how much and what we need and when we need it. His timing is perfect. These men needed to work all night and catch nothing so they would get the message… get the picture. This is what you get when you do… when you work the best that you can in your strength and this is what happens when God blessed you. When God provides.
One last thing I want to just point out to you in the passage and that is -- the way that Jesus demonstrates the blessedness of this kind of reliance, the blessedness of Reliant dependence. I think you and I would agree that in our current culture we have a very negative view of those who have become more and more dependent on government and on anything and everybody else they possibly can. We have a negative view of that and we should. It is a kind of demanding dependence, isn't it? It comes from a deep sense of entitlement, I deserve, so I need to be given. Obviously, that's not the kind of dependence that we see in God's word. This is not the kind of dependence God calls us to, the dependence God desires in us is a humble and unpretentious sense of undeserving neediness. My need is great and I don't deserve that it be met. I'm not entitled to the meeting my needs. If my needs are met, it'll be because God is gracious to me. That's the kind of dependence that you and I need to be very, very careful to cultivate.
I want you to notice the Lord’s gracious and loving provision for His hungry and worried followers. They come in they’re dragging… Peter of course is his impetuous self, he can't even wait. He jumps out of the boat, throws his clothes on and gets his things and he's in the water trying to get to the Lord. The rest of them struggle bringing that boat and all of the fish in. “So, when they got”… verse nine says, “and so when they got out upon the land they saw a charcoal fire already laid and fish placed on it, and bread.”Isn't that amazing? All this work that they've been doing and it must've seemed as the day was breaking…what a waste…you know we… we worked hard and I'm sure they'd had that happen before. And then here's the Lord, totally unexpected. He has breakfast ready for them. That must've been some kind of a meal. The Lord had prepared breakfast for them. Unbeknownst to them. Is that not like the Lord to do such… so many unexpected things for us? Think of the unexpected ways that God blesses us and provides for us, but especially when we are trusting Him, we’re really trusting Him.
I also want you to notice something else though, this is extremely important it seems to me. Notice the next verse, the 10th verse, Jesus said to them… so they get out of the boat. They get out on land and they see the Lord has made breakfast for them. There's fish on a fire and there's bread, but Jesus says to them, “bring some of the fish which you have now caught.”This is an important detail it wouldn't have needed to be included…from our perspective, maybe if we really were thinking about it, but it’s very important. Our Lord graciously allows them to have a part in the accomplishing of His good and perfect pleasure. This is God's way with us. It is one of the things that I think ought to just amaze us. And it ought to thrill us and stimulate us in serving the Lord. God has called us to serve Him and there's a sense in which we, as His children are actually serving with Him. Is that not an amazing thing? There's a very real sense in which we are serving with Him. I want to direct your attention to several passages in this regard, there are others, but just for the sake of time… I direct your attention to the 16th chapter of Romans, one of my favorite chapters, Paul, in the end of his epistle to the saints in Rome…he names a number of people by name. He mentions them in their faithfulness. I just want you to notice the way refers to some of them, verse three, “Greet Prisca and Aquila, My fellow workers in Christ Jesus.”Verse nine, “Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ.” Verse 12, “Greet Tryphaena and Tryphosa, workers in the Lord. Greet Persis, the beloved, who has worked hard in the Lord.”I want you to take that along with what Paul says in first Corinthians, chapter three, verse nine. Notice what he says, “For we are God's fellow workers.”We are God's fellow workers. God allows us to have a part in the furthering of His kingdom, and the accomplishing of His perfect will on this earth. You talk about a blessedness of reliant dependence upon the Lord. To actually be allowed to come alongside God Himself and to work in His field to labor for Him. Is it any wonder that you and I are encouraged there by the apostle Paul, later on in first Corinthians chapter fifteen, verse fifty-eight, “therefore, my beloved brother, be steadfast immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.”We need to have that view of life, of our living in this world. We’re living for Him. He has granted us by a matchless…an extravagant, a super abounding grace, He has granted us the privilege to participate, to participate in His goodness in the accomplishing of His good pleasure.
I want to just close by reminding you this morning to… maybe really encouraging us to think about this a little differently, maybe. Sometimes our whole view of dependence is greatly, greatly influenced by the world around us and on top of that, it’s greatly influenced by our own pride. This isn't something we like to think about. It's not… we really tend to look down on people for being too dependent, don't we? Normally we do. God wants us to be dependent, not on the government, not on each other – although there are times we will need to be dependent in some of those ways – but ultimately and directly dependent upon Him, totally dependent upon Him. That's what He wants from us. That's what you and I need to be cultivating, so that the way we live our lives, everything that we’re doing, we’re depending on Him, we’re trusting Him to do what's right, to do what’s best and to always be a step ahead of us. The disciples had no way of knowing what would be waiting for them on the shore. When they got dome with a hard night of fishing. Nothing to show for it and then at the very end, the Lord provides a catch and He provides breakfast and allows them to actually participate in that provision. Is that not a remarkable thing? What a wonderful thing that God would do that. Depending upon the Lord is crucial, it’s crucial in serving the Lord every, day day-to-day, this is something that you and I need to be aware of… need to be thinking about it.
I’m going to close with just several Psalms. Several verses in the Psalms, I'd like to remind you of. This is a very blessed thing for us to do -- to trust the Lord always, in everything. Psalm twenty-eight, verse seven, “The Lord is my strength and my shield, my heart trusts in Him and I am helped. Therefore, my heart exults.”the thirty-second psalm, and the tenth verse, “Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but he who trusts in the Lord, lovingkindness shall surround him.”Thirty-three… verse twenty-one, and the thirty-third Psalm, “For our heart rejoices in Him because we trust in His holy name.”The fortieth Psalm, and the fourth verse, “How blessed is the man who has made the Lord his trust and is not turned to the proud nor to those who lapse into falsehood.”There is the one truth that you and I need to lay hold of – “how blessed… how blessed is the man who has made the Lord his trust.”Dependence upon the Lord promotes a closeness to the Lord that will become our greatest blessing, our greatest joy. Our greatest good. Let’s bow together in prayer.
I’ll ask if you would turn with me to John's Gospel once again, and this morning I’d like to read…begin by reading through the first 14 verses of John 21.
“After these things Jesus manifested Himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberius (or the Sea of Galilee.) And He manifested Himself in this way, there were together, Simon Peter, and Thomas, called Didymus and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and to others of His disciples. Simon Peter said to them, I'm going fishing. They said to him, we will also come with you, they went out and got into the boat. That night they caught nothing. But when the day was now breaking Jesus stood on the beach. Yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus therefore said to them, “children you do not have any fish, do you?” they answered Him, “no.” He said to them, cast the net on the right-hand side of the boat and you will find a catch. They cast therefore and then they were not able to haul it in because of the great number of fish. That disciple therefore whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “it is the Lord.” And so when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put his outer garment on, (for he was stripped for work), and threw himself into the sea, but the other disciples came in the little boat, for they were not far from the land, about a hundred yards away, dragging the net full of fish. And so when they got out upon the land they saw a charcoal fire already laid and fish placed on it and bread. Jesus said to them, bring some of the fish which you have now caught. Simon Peter went up and drew the net to land full of large fish, one hundred and fifty-three. And although there were so many the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “come and have breakfast.” None of the disciples ventured to question Him, who are you, knowing that it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave them, and the fish. Likewise, this is now the third time that Jesus was manifested to the disciples after He was raised from the dead.”
As we have seen after the Lord's resurrection…our Lord made Himself known on a number of different occasions. As we saw earlier, these separate appearances encompass a wide variety of settings and circumstances. We know at this point in John's Gospel…we know of a number of the actual appearances that John records for us. We come to this and John says this is the third time that Jesus was manifested to the disciples after He was raised from the dead. We know that He appeared to the disciples on the night of that first day of resurrection, that Sunday evening. We know that He appeared to them eight days later, if you recall, back in chapter 20 verse 26, and now we have this third time. We're not sure of some of the other appearances -- we talked about the appearances of the Lord to Mary Magdalene, to the other women, to Peter, to the men on the road to Emmaus and we know that there are number of other appearances that occurred after that first day. Some of them chronologically, we can't really pin down. In fact, even this one, we’re told, is the third time that He manifested Himself to the disciples, we don't know if there were some other appearances in between. It's not important, but in this portion of God's word, which we often referred to as the epilogue -- if you will -- of John's Gospel. We have a very unique one of the Lord’s appearances, a more lengthy record, if you will, that we are given by the Spirit of God in relation to His other appearances. And this appearance, it seems to me, is very instructive. It is an illustrated instruction from our Lord – that is what we see here. An illustrated instruction, which of course is one of the primary means or methods that Jesus used when He taught. Jesus often used illustrations, didn’t He? And He used simple, direct illustrations, things that were very commonly known, things were familiar to those that He was speaking to. Time and again He used the most basic, most simple realities of life to illustrate some of the most profound spiritual truths. It seems obvious in this passage that Jesus had some very important matters to impart to His followers, we’re not going to, obviously, be looking at the whole of this chapter, but the first section of it this morning.
There are different ways that this portion of God's word has been approached. I remember a number of years ago, someone had given me a book and…I can't remember…I think it might've been one of the first chapters that dealt with this passage. And this author's take away from this passage was that Jesus was demonstrating the playfulness of God. He was sort of playfully toying with the disciples. Hard for me to understand how someone could come up with that kind of an approach, but there are those who do, apparently. A more serious approach to this passage sees the disciples as being in actually a position of disobedience to the Lord, in that they had gone back to their fishing business. The fact that these men were fishermen by trade is well known and it's described for us earlier on in the gospel accounts. I personally find it very difficult to see the passage from that perspective. I do not see the Lord rebuking these men for what they were doing. In fact, I see the Lord actually coming alongside of them and encouraging them in what they were doing. So that…my own… from my perspective as I’ve thought about the passage and looked at it and tried to consider it in the whole context of this gospel and God's words as a whole. It seems to me, most likely, that what these men were doing was what came naturally to them and as a matter of necessity, they had to continue to provide for themselves. One of the things that I think we many times overlook is this period of time. Think about this from the disciple’s perspective, for a moment…from the time of the Lord's crucifixion and almost… within almost immediately…within a couple of days He makes Himself known to them. But from that time until the time that He empowers them, enables them, the time of His ascension and tells them to wait -- He tells them to wait and they wait.
There’s sort of an awkward time for them, it seems, in some respects, wouldn’t you agree? It’s a difficult time. They're not… they are not commissioned by the Lord to go yet, not yet. They will be but not yet, they’re to wait.
It must've been an interesting time for these men. The Lord wasn't with them anymore. He appeared to them a number of times, but it was brief. These were brief encounters with Christ and then He was gone and they were by themselves and they were waiting. What do we do next? What comes next? And we know from the beginning of the acts of the apostles, they’re still thinking in terms of -- maybe this is the time that the Lord will establish His kingdom on this earth. They were thinking that before His ascension. So we don't know all of the things that were going through their minds, but there had to of been a period of time for them to think through and meditate upon, very carefully, all that they had observed, all that Jesus had taught them. We’re told in Luke's gospel that He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. Up until this point in time -- that is the point of His resurrection and His opening their minds -- their understanding of the Scriptures was woefully lacking. Especially in relation to God's Christ. So, there's a period of time here were these men surely would have needed that… they would've needed that opportunity for these convictions and this understanding to really settle in and into their thinking as they talk these things over and consider them together. So, I see these men as simply doing the thing that they knew best. This is the way that they had provided for themselves… for their lives, this is their living. For a number of these men, we’re told, they were commercial fishermen. That's what they did. That's how they survived.
There's this first portion of this appearance to His disciples, I believe, gives to us a very basic lesson. A lesson that we can glean from our Lord in this passage, and it is the oft’ needed emphasis on our total dependence upon the Lord, our total dependence upon the Lord. This is a lesson of inestimable value, is it not? This lesson of our being totally dependent on the Lord. It's as basic a lesson as it gets for you and I as God's children. It's absolutely necessary, even for our healthy state of mind and emotion. It's a matter of fundamental and far-reaching importance. And yet it's a lesson we seem to need to relearn, again, again and again. Have you noticed that? If you’ve walked with the Lord very long at all, you know what I'm talking about. This is not a lesson that you learn, and it’s once and done. You learn it and it seems like-- it's not very long, and you have to re-learn it and you continue to learn and we would trust that as we learn it again and again we learned it in greater depth. Our understanding increases in terms of really grasping what this means. These are words that it seems like many times are easy to come out of our mouth. Do we really understand what this means? A totaldependence upon the Lord.
Why is this so difficult for us to get? Why do we have to keep relearning this? What is our problem? It's the same problem that gets in the way of saving faith – it’s pride, pure and simple. It's the very thing that's at the root of all our sin – it’s pride. The thing about our pride is…that is so difficult, is that it never -- in this life -- It never goes away. It keeps coming back. Do you notice that? I trust that each of us, who have walked with the Lord, have recognized this and there've been moments in which we have been so discouraged by the fact that we…it just keeps coming back. We get to a point where we hate our own pride and yet, it keeps coming back. In this life pride is our ongoing struggle, just when you think it's taken care of, it rears its ugly head with a repulsive vengeance. There it is again… here I am again… tripped up by the same thing.
One of the most dangerous aspects of pride -- it seems to me -- is that so often it creeps by stealth into our heart, into our mind, our way of thinking. It creeps by stealth into a position of prominence in our hearts. It doesn't always come on real suddenly, as though there was a switch. Sometimes it slowly gains traction and we don't notice that it's building up. We may not notice it at all until it erupts, in a very hideous arrogance and all of a sudden, we come face-to-face with it. No one of us is immune to this. No one is so spiritual that they become inoculated against the sin of pride. It is an ever-present affliction.
Now this matter of dependence, total dependence, the concept of helpless dependence is anathema to our pride. This is not a concept that we willingly and quickly embrace. We don't readily warm up to this whole concept of total dependence, so we tend to avoid any and all potential confrontations that expose our genuine… or the depths of our helplessness. Don’t we? We do, let's be honest, it's not something we like to face, something we really would just as soon not have to deal with and have to come to grips with. It’s not a pleasant thing for us. But this morning I want to remind you, and we all need to be reminded together, that Jesus loves us very much. He reallyloves us. Those are just words. We use those words so often in the meaning is not… doesn't go very deep. Jesus really loves us. He really cares for us. He knows how important it is for our well-being and our deepest joy that we not continue in the euphoric delusion of our own self-sufficiency and our blustery independence. Jesus knows that is not in our best interest. We sometimes, I'm sure, get discouraged and sometimes even almost a little angry with the Lord, don’t we? When He confronts us with our pride. Sometimes it's a difficult confrontation, but we need to be reminded of how much He loves us and that He knows where that will go if it's left on its own. He knows the problems that it will cause, He knows the heart ache and the sorrow. So, Jesus confronts the distortion of our minds, by which we continually try to elevate ourselves. He does this again and again -- He does it patiently, He does it faithfully and He does it lovingly.
I want you to notice how Jesus brings this lesson to bear, and upon His disciples again. The first thing I want you to notice is that Jesus reminds us in this interaction with His disciples, He reminds us of the futility of laboring apart from divine enablement. He reminds us of the futility of laboring apart from divine provision. This is a most fundamental reality. And yet it is one we so often ignore. This is a very understandable, a very practical lesson, if you stop and think about it. Here these men are, they've been fishing all night -- and by the way this kind of commercial fishing, you don't sit in an easy chair and throttle up the motor. This is a lot of work… the way they cast these nets into the sea and pull them back in. It was an extremely difficult job. It took a lot of effort and energy. It's not like you and I who go sit on a boat and with our casting reel, cast, you know for a few hours and we don't catch anything and we’re disappointed. These men have extended an enormous amount of energy to fish all night, which would've been usually the best time to catch these fish and to catch nothing. You’re tired, you’re weary, you're worn out, you’re discouraged. It appears that all of that work and for all intents and practical purposes, that work has been done in vain. “They went out, got into the boat and that night they caught nothing.”Those are a simple description though…here of a lot of work, a lot of effort.
It's not difficult for you and I to give lip service to this elementary truth, that is – that we’re totally dependent on the Lord. I don't think any of us would hesitate at all to say, yes, that's true, right? I think we would, but it's very different to incorporate and embrace this truth in our moment to moment living, day-to-day. When we face this and we face that, especially when we face discouragement and maybe even more so, it may be even more difficult to acknowledge this when things are going really well. It's not so easy – we can give lip service to this truth – but it's not so easy to allow it to thoroughly permeate our overall perspective of life. Everything I'm doing, all the time, I'm doing it in this knowledge – that I depend on the Lord. If He doesn't help me, if He doesn't strengthen me, if He doesn't direct me, if He doesn't bless – my labor is in vain. That's not how we tend to think most of the time as we go throughout the day. My tendency is to think, well, I just need to work a little harder. If I apply myself to this, I know what I can get done, I'll get it done. Let's do it! That's the way I would think of it, and that's the way most of us think. This a very precious truth and extraordinarily important and fundamental truth, but with every precious truth comes the danger of distortion, doesn't it? It’s always the case…here’s such a simple and basic truth -- I'm totally dependent on the Lord, but it comes with danger. There's the danger of distorting that simple truth, there is the danger of laboring in our own strength while acknowledging God at those moments when it seems especially necessary or appropriate. How many times have you gone into something and done it in your own strength from beginning to finish and at the end recognize, well, yeah, I need to give God credit. Yeah, God helped me through that… when you gave no thought whatsoever to the Lord helping you in the middle of the job. There may be what I would call or see as a selective dependence upon the Lord, there's that tendency. That's a distortion of this truth. You and I aren't selectively dependent on the Lord, we’re totally dependent on the Lord. We’re always dependent on the Lord, whether we see it, whether we recognize it, whether we acknowledge it openly, or not. That's the truth, and the truth for us in practice very often is a selective dependence or we come to face something and all of the sudden we realize, uh oh, I'm in way over my head. I'm gonna have to trust the Lord for this. That's what we do so often, isn't it? Though for the past two weeks we've barely given a thought to the fact that we need the Lord’s strength from day-to-day, from moment to moment, but now I'm facing something…Oh, we’re going to have to trust the Lord that… that's a big one. That's a tough one.
Selective dependence upon the Lord is nottotal dependence on the Lord. It's not the kind of overall perspective that honors Christ, that draws… intentionally draws upon His provision and enablement. This selective dependence is seen, probably most obviously in the children of Israel, isn’t it? You look at their history, things are going good, God blesses them, they forget God. All of a sudden, they're in trouble, in really big trouble and all of a sudden there crying out to God, we need help… we’re in big trouble. You see that cycle, it goes over and over and over again. If you read through the Old Testament accounts you actually get sick and tired of it, to some extent, don't you? You think to yourself, why don't they learn? Of course you forget the fact that the record covers many, many years… you and I can’t remember from day-to-day or week to week, how do we expect them to have remembered over decades of time. That's what happens. That's a selective dependence.
There's another distortion that we need to be careful of. And that is what I would call a passive dependence.There is the popular tendency today to disdain any concept of genuine and strenuous effort in the Christian life, it often manifests itself as an obsession with the concept of grace almost to the exclusion of any serious exhortation for us to diligently apply ourselves in striving together. Paul tells the saints at Philippi, that he’s trusting, and hoping that they are indeed doing that very thing. He's confident. They’re striving together for the faith of the gospel. Striving is not passive, is it? It’s not easy, it's not simple, it takes effort.“The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, the soul of the diligent is made fat”-- very basic principle, it’s not just a physical issue it’s a spiritual one. The soul,the soul is what's affected. I believe that what God teaches us to cultivate is what maybe I can call an active dependence. To me it seems like this is the kind of total dependence that we are encouraged to cultivate.
I want you to notice with these men…first of all, there is the necessity of initiative. These men are just not sitting on the side of the beach. Think about this a moment. They're not just sitting there lounging in their lawn chairs waiting for the Lord to come and make breakfast for them. They're not on their knees praying and asking God to bring them some fish and some food. There's initiative on their part. Peter says, “I'm going to go fishing.” These other men -- there's only seven of the disciples, by the way, in this group… it’s not all of them -- they say, “we’ll go with you.” We need this activity. We need to get moving. It’s something we need to do. There's initiative.
I also want you to recognize the importance of labor. They labored. They didn't just go out in the boat and sit there with the nets in the boat and hope that maybe some fish would jump in. They worked and they work hard to the point of exhaustion. The importance of labor. There is this importance in our walk with the Lord to apply ourselves diligently. Paul says… he encourages, he exhorts the saints at Philippi, “so then my beloved…” This is Philippians 2:12 – “so then my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”God is at work in my heart so I need to get busy, not in my own strength, but in this reality that God is at work. He who began a good work -- Paul said earlier on in this epistle -- He was convinced that He would bring it to completion. If He began a good work in me, It's Him who is at work, I need to be busy. Paul says in first Timothy, chapter 4 verse 10 – “for it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers.” Here Paul speaks of laboring and striving. This is not a passive dependence, this is an active dependence. There's no place for prideful self-reliance in serving the Lord. But there's also no place for passivity or for spiritual slothfulness. There is a balance in this, there's a constant awareness, where my strength coming from.
I want to just call two passages to your attention in this respect -- this balance. First Corinthians chapter 15 verse 10, a very well-known verse to most of us. Paul is recalling who he is and how we got to be who he is and he says, “but by the grace of God I am what I am”and he goes on, he says, “and His grace toward me did not prove vain but I labored even more than all of them yet not I, but the grace of God with me.”You see that balance? For you and I, in the flesh, that seems like almost an impossible balance, doesn't it? Man, that’s a fine line. And yet it's really not complicated, it’s simple. Paul says, it’s by God's grace that I am who I am, and I'm going to go out and I’m going to do everything I can to serve the Lord, and the whole way… all the way along, I recognize it's His grace. Every ounce of energy I expend it’s by His grace, it’s by His enablement. I'm dependent on Him, I’m totally depending on Him. Colossians chapter 1, Paul makes a somewhat similar statement, Paul says, … and I will begin back in verse 28 of Colossians 1, “And we proclaim Him, that is, Christ admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, that we may present every man complete in Christ. And for this purpose, also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.” Do you and I perceive that the very power of Almighty God is working within us? Not just kind of there, floating listlessly… working mightily! Giving to us, providing for us the enablement to do the work God's given us to do, to serve Him faithfully. To take the initiative, to be willing to strive to put ourselves out, to sacrifice time, energy, even our own emotional well-being at times, our own comforts.
There is also the absolute necessity of a submissive willingness, in this matter of total dependence. Responsiveness to divine direction is crucial. You notice in this passage Jesus calls to them from the shore, and He says, “you don't have any fish, do you?”their answer is very succinic – “No.” No explanations or excuses like many of us make… “no, we don't.” “We don't have any”, and He said to them, “cast the net on the right-hand side of the boat and you will find a catch.”Now this is fascinating to me -- “They cast therefore and then they were not able to haul it in, because of the great number of fish.”What is interesting to me is the fact that there's no response on their part. There's no argument. It says they cast their net in on the other side of the boat, there's absolutely no logical reason why casting the net on one side of the boat would make any difference whatsoever, and in fact, if you recall, in a very similar passage in Luke chapter 5, when this happened, they had caught anything. And Jesus told him to cast their nets again into the water and Peter says, he offers the objection – “we've been fishing for a long time and we haven't caught anything.”The implications is -- why would we throw our net back in? It’d be a total waste of time. Here, there's no argument. And from what we can gather. They don't even know this is the Lord yet. It's possible that John maybe had begun to suspect it. But Jesus spoke with an authority to them, and there's a submissive willingness. I think it's interesting that they don't necessarily know it's Christ. They could have easily said to this person on the beach, “Mind your own business, we’re professionals at this… we know better than to think that casting our net on the other side of boat is going to make any difference.” Many times, you and I, in our lives, God uses other people to give us direction. They may say something to us and it made to us seem like foolishness. But we need to be careful to listen to what they’re saying. Is this from the Lord? And if it is, I need to respond. If this is somebody who's walking close to the Lord and I see a sincerity in them and this is not something that violates God's word, but in fact, it’s something that complements His word, I need to move, I need to respond.
Submissive responsiveness a willingness to respond is absolutely crucial when it comes to total dependence. I'm not totally depending on the Lord… I don't really understand fully the concept of total dependence if I'm unwilling to rely -- that is to invest myself, to take that chance, to take that risk to do whatever it is He's asking me to do. If I'm not willing to do that then I'm not really totally depending on Him, am I? I’m not really totally depending. If I'm not willing to even take any initiative, if I'm not willing to put forth any effort and I'm not willing to follow what God tells me to do, especially things that He brings out to me in His word and He's told us plenty in terms of what we should be doing in regards to the church and in regards to how we are to treat one another… are we doing it? We need to do it. Total reliance upon the Lord is completely bound up, it's bound up very tightly, inextricably woven together with our willingness to obey,to submit, to respond. These men respond and God grants a wonderful provision.
We, you and I have a solemn responsibility to trust the Lord, do we not? To depend on Him and to do His will, to listen to Him, to do everything we do in total dependence and reliance upon Him. That's our responsibility, but it's only God who makes the difference in the end, isn’t it? No matter how hard labor. Maybe a practical thing for you to think about… you and I to think about this morning -- to what extent are you and I really, totally relying upon the Lord on a day by day basis? Let me ask you this question, if I could – try to think back and evaluate, and maybe in the next week, begin to evaluate this – what are the most prominent pronouns in your speech? I? Me? My? Mine? or He? His? Him? What are the most prominent pronouns in your speech? Think about that.
There’s a second thing that I want you to notice in the passage, and that is that in this illustration, Jesus confirms that all good comes from God…. It's almost not necessary to say that, it’s so obvious in its passage. The illustration is so obvious… they work all night. They fish they work hard to catch nothing. Jesus said, cast the net on the other side of the boat and they have a boatload of fish, immediately. This is as basic as it gets. All good comes from God. And yet it is adamantly denied by most of humanity. It is even often forgotten by God's very own children. It is very sad, when you think about it… when I catch myself thinking about some way that good will come to me other than from God. Well, I just need to do this, I need to make that investment. I need to do work a little harder this area or I need to talk to the right person, whatever it may be. It’s not to say that we aren’t do some of those things… but ultimately am I really recognizing, moment by moment…If good has come to me, and if more good comes to me, it will be from God. “Every good and perfect gift cometh down from the Father of lights.”James tells us, James 1:17. Comes from above, from the Father of lights with whom is no variableness -- the shadow of turning. That's were good comes and you can't help but notice the abundance of God's provision. God is not limited when it comes to bestowing good upon us, you and I have all kinds of limitations. Everybody even the most wealthy people in the world have all kinds of limitations. God doesn't have any, and God also knows exactly how much and what we need and when we need it. His timing is perfect. These men needed to work all night and catch nothing so they would get the message… get the picture. This is what you get when you do… when you work the best that you can in your strength and this is what happens when God blessed you. When God provides.
One last thing I want to just point out to you in the passage and that is -- the way that Jesus demonstrates the blessedness of this kind of reliance, the blessedness of Reliant dependence. I think you and I would agree that in our current culture we have a very negative view of those who have become more and more dependent on government and on anything and everybody else they possibly can. We have a negative view of that and we should. It is a kind of demanding dependence, isn't it? It comes from a deep sense of entitlement, I deserve, so I need to be given. Obviously, that's not the kind of dependence that we see in God's word. This is not the kind of dependence God calls us to, the dependence God desires in us is a humble and unpretentious sense of undeserving neediness. My need is great and I don't deserve that it be met. I'm not entitled to the meeting my needs. If my needs are met, it'll be because God is gracious to me. That's the kind of dependence that you and I need to be very, very careful to cultivate.
I want you to notice the Lord’s gracious and loving provision for His hungry and worried followers. They come in they’re dragging… Peter of course is his impetuous self, he can't even wait. He jumps out of the boat, throws his clothes on and gets his things and he's in the water trying to get to the Lord. The rest of them struggle bringing that boat and all of the fish in. “So, when they got”… verse nine says, “and so when they got out upon the land they saw a charcoal fire already laid and fish placed on it, and bread.”Isn't that amazing? All this work that they've been doing and it must've seemed as the day was breaking…what a waste…you know we… we worked hard and I'm sure they'd had that happen before. And then here's the Lord, totally unexpected. He has breakfast ready for them. That must've been some kind of a meal. The Lord had prepared breakfast for them. Unbeknownst to them. Is that not like the Lord to do such… so many unexpected things for us? Think of the unexpected ways that God blesses us and provides for us, but especially when we are trusting Him, we’re really trusting Him.
I also want you to notice something else though, this is extremely important it seems to me. Notice the next verse, the 10th verse, Jesus said to them… so they get out of the boat. They get out on land and they see the Lord has made breakfast for them. There's fish on a fire and there's bread, but Jesus says to them, “bring some of the fish which you have now caught.”This is an important detail it wouldn't have needed to be included…from our perspective, maybe if we really were thinking about it, but it’s very important. Our Lord graciously allows them to have a part in the accomplishing of His good and perfect pleasure. This is God's way with us. It is one of the things that I think ought to just amaze us. And it ought to thrill us and stimulate us in serving the Lord. God has called us to serve Him and there's a sense in which we, as His children are actually serving with Him. Is that not an amazing thing? There's a very real sense in which we are serving with Him. I want to direct your attention to several passages in this regard, there are others, but just for the sake of time… I direct your attention to the 16th chapter of Romans, one of my favorite chapters, Paul, in the end of his epistle to the saints in Rome…he names a number of people by name. He mentions them in their faithfulness. I just want you to notice the way refers to some of them, verse three, “Greet Prisca and Aquila, My fellow workers in Christ Jesus.”Verse nine, “Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ.” Verse 12, “Greet Tryphaena and Tryphosa, workers in the Lord. Greet Persis, the beloved, who has worked hard in the Lord.”I want you to take that along with what Paul says in first Corinthians, chapter three, verse nine. Notice what he says, “For we are God's fellow workers.”We are God's fellow workers. God allows us to have a part in the furthering of His kingdom, and the accomplishing of His perfect will on this earth. You talk about a blessedness of reliant dependence upon the Lord. To actually be allowed to come alongside God Himself and to work in His field to labor for Him. Is it any wonder that you and I are encouraged there by the apostle Paul, later on in first Corinthians chapter fifteen, verse fifty-eight, “therefore, my beloved brother, be steadfast immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.”We need to have that view of life, of our living in this world. We’re living for Him. He has granted us by a matchless…an extravagant, a super abounding grace, He has granted us the privilege to participate, to participate in His goodness in the accomplishing of His good pleasure.
I want to just close by reminding you this morning to… maybe really encouraging us to think about this a little differently, maybe. Sometimes our whole view of dependence is greatly, greatly influenced by the world around us and on top of that, it’s greatly influenced by our own pride. This isn't something we like to think about. It's not… we really tend to look down on people for being too dependent, don't we? Normally we do. God wants us to be dependent, not on the government, not on each other – although there are times we will need to be dependent in some of those ways – but ultimately and directly dependent upon Him, totally dependent upon Him. That's what He wants from us. That's what you and I need to be cultivating, so that the way we live our lives, everything that we’re doing, we’re depending on Him, we’re trusting Him to do what's right, to do what’s best and to always be a step ahead of us. The disciples had no way of knowing what would be waiting for them on the shore. When they got dome with a hard night of fishing. Nothing to show for it and then at the very end, the Lord provides a catch and He provides breakfast and allows them to actually participate in that provision. Is that not a remarkable thing? What a wonderful thing that God would do that. Depending upon the Lord is crucial, it’s crucial in serving the Lord every, day day-to-day, this is something that you and I need to be aware of… need to be thinking about it.
I’m going to close with just several Psalms. Several verses in the Psalms, I'd like to remind you of. This is a very blessed thing for us to do -- to trust the Lord always, in everything. Psalm twenty-eight, verse seven, “The Lord is my strength and my shield, my heart trusts in Him and I am helped. Therefore, my heart exults.”the thirty-second psalm, and the tenth verse, “Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but he who trusts in the Lord, lovingkindness shall surround him.”Thirty-three… verse twenty-one, and the thirty-third Psalm, “For our heart rejoices in Him because we trust in His holy name.”The fortieth Psalm, and the fourth verse, “How blessed is the man who has made the Lord his trust and is not turned to the proud nor to those who lapse into falsehood.”There is the one truth that you and I need to lay hold of – “how blessed… how blessed is the man who has made the Lord his trust.”Dependence upon the Lord promotes a closeness to the Lord that will become our greatest blessing, our greatest joy. Our greatest good. Let’s bow together in prayer.
