Tony Evans on Sunday Service 46:24

And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him. And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Mark 1, 10 and 11. Lord, when you were born, you took on the likeness of sinful flesh and for thirty years lived in obscurity before you began your ministry.

When the time came to start your Father's work, you sanctified your flesh by submitting in obedience to water baptism. When you submitted to being born of water, God smiled from heaven and sent His Holy Spirit in the form of a dove to announce to the world His pleasure with you. I pray the Holy Spirit will empower me and smile on me with pleasure as I seek to be obedient to your plan for my life.

Cleanse me of all sin and purify my life so I can be close to you. Amen. Thank you for listening to today's daily prayer. For more inspiration and an incredible message from our feature pastor, stay tuned to Pray.com's Sunday service.

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to let them know that there was a United Fund Drive and he wanted all of his employees to participate in the fund drive. He wanted 100% participation. One of the employees let his supervisor know he was not going to participate. He did not want to participate in this fund drive. He was not going to participate. The word got back to the owner of the company that there was this one employee who

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Today I want to explain as best I can why God wants to bless you. Why God wants to bless you. Now we know everybody wants to be blessed. Everybody wants to be blessed. It is the in Christian word. I want my blessing. How you doing today? I'm blessed. It's the in thing to say. I'm looking for my blessing. And they could mean a multitude, a plethora of things by that statement. I want to be blessed.

They may want a financial blessing or relational blessing, career blessing, blessing of a new house, new car, new clothes. It could be a whole assembly of things, but everybody wants to be blessed. And that's not bad. That's not wrong. The Bible talks about the blessings that God gives. But what we often don't hear is God's side of the blessing. Now, we know our side. The word blessed means to dispense favor personally.

or goodness. So to be blessed is to receive from God his favor and good things at his hand. That's what we want. We want the favor of God and we want good things coming our way from the hand of God. That's our side because that's what we want. But I want to look at it just a little differently this morning and I want to try to answer the question why God would want to do it.

Now we know why we want it. Because it makes life better. It makes life easier. It makes us happier. It gives us joy. There is the human benefit of having been blessed. But I want to answer the question, why God wants to do it in the first place? Because if we can ever connect the what with the why,

Perhaps we will understand this concept of blessing a little bit better. In the well-known story of Peter and the capturing of fish, Jesus has come to the Sea of Galilee, also called the Lake of Gennesaret. He sees two boats, verse 2, lying on the edge of the lake. The fishermen had gotten out of them and were washing their nets. Jesus gets into the boat, which was Simon's, Peter's, Simon Peter's.

And asked him to pull out a little way from the land. He sat down and began to teach the people from the boat. So we basically have a Bible study. Jesus calls for a Bible study. And he pushes the boat out from the shore where it had been docked. The fishermen had come in from their work. To create a distance so that he could speak, teach, preach, sermonize. So that he could preach.

Give spiritual truth to the people from the boat. So he's preaching his sermon and the people are listening to the greatest preacher and the greatest teacher who has ever existed, Jesus Christ, the son of the living God. Now the sermon is over. The service has ended. It is time for the benediction to be given. And Jesus, when he had finished speaking, verse 4,

said to Simon Peter, put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. Push out into the deep, let down your nets for a catch. Now follow me here. We have started with a generic sermon to the multitudes from the boat. We have now gone from a sermon to everybody to an instruction to somebody.

We've gone from a message to the masses, to a message to the individual. We've gone from something everybody hears to something only one person hears, Peter. It's one thing to come to church and hear a generic message for everybody. Whatever you're hearing right now, your neighbor is hearing right now.

And their neighbor is hearing right now because there's only one sermon being preached to however many people have gathered here this morning. It's a whole nother ballgame for the sermon to be over for everybody. And you get a message with your name on it. It's the difference between hearing the word of God preached to all and a word from God spoken to you. It takes me forever.

12 to 15 hours to prepare a sermon for everybody. I'm under no delusion that after this 12 to 15 hour preparation and 45 minute message, that by Tuesday of this week, 95% of it will have been forgotten. I am not, I'm not, in fact, I can't think about it too long because...

It's frustrating because that's what happens week after week. We hear a sermon, you may even buy a tape that you may or may not listen to. And that's after 15 hours. But let me tell you what sermons you won't forget. And that's the one that has your name on it. Now you may forget the general one that had y'all's name on it. I've talked to everybody, but I have a specific thing for you. I want you, Peter, Simon, to push out from the bank

And I want you to go into the deep and I want you to make a great catch. Now, let me tell you about this specific message, this applied sermon. He tells them where to go into the deep, what to do, cast out your net and what to expect a great catch. He gives him a very specific message. I don't know what his general sermon was, but his specific message had Peter's name on it.

He was called by name. It's like the difference between a person after a service saying, good service pastor, and the person who comes and says, you were talking to me. Same message, but one heard their name, didn't just hear the message. See, when you come to church, don't just come for the word of God. Come for a word from God so that he calls you by name through what's being said. And you know he was talking to you, not just to us.

He tells Peter, push out from the bank, go to the deep, cast down the net, expect a blessing, a great catch. Peter has a response to this instruction. Peter's response is, Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing. Master, let me explain something. We have been out here all night long. We, Lionel Richie, all night long. We have been out here night long.

And we have caught nothing. Simon Peter is part of a business, the Zebedee Fishing Corporation. Now you laugh, but that's what verse 10 tells us. Verse 10 says, and also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. This is a company business. They fish for a living.

This is a business venture that has partners that makes a profit and they know fishing. Jesus is a carpenter. He makes furniture.

He grew up making furniture with his father. He makes tables and chairs and he makes bedposts and anything having to do with carving and shaving wood. That's what Jesus had done for a living up until he was 30 years old. So we've got a carpenter trying to tell a professional fisherman when and where to catch fish. So Peter wants to set him straight. He wants to explain something. Jesus.

going to your woodshop trying to tell you how to carpenter let me explain how we fish on the sea of Galilee you see on the sea of Galilee fishermen with net fish at night not in the day that's why he says we've been out all night

Because that's when you fish with nets on the Sea of Galilee. You do not fish in the daytime with a net. Now, if you take a line out there, that's something because you're trying to catch one fish. But if you're trying to get a whole school of fish because you're trying to catch them in a net, you have

to do that at night and let me tell you something else you have to do it near the shore where they gather because way out into the deep they don't gather that way high enough to the surface for you to put out a net to catch a great catch because

Because it's daytime and they are too deep way out in the deep. You got to get them at night when they've come closer to shore, when they've gathered together in schools in order to get a great catch. So what Jesus asked Peter to do goes against the rhyme and reason of Peter's reality. Peter has been doing this for years. His company has been in business for years. And you don't run a successful business if you're not catching fish.

So he goes about to explain to Jesus Christ how you fish in the Sea of Galilee and Jesus how we fish and what you said don't match. What you're talking about, our reality is not the same. Please let me explain something as I try to answer this question why God wants to bless you. In fact, I'm going to give you even a bigger hint. I'm going to tell you when you can know a big blessing is on the horizon.

The two ways you can know when there's something special on the horizon. Now, I'm not talking about regular stuff. The regular stuff we appreciate, but it's regular, so we get used to it.

You know, we thank God for the air we breathe. We thank him, you know, he woke us up this morning and sent us on our way. We thank him, you know, our bed wasn't our cooling board. And, you know, we thank him for the regular and the regular is very good. I mean, in fact, we only tend to thank him for the regular when something goes wrong with the regular. When we can't breathe, when we are sick, when the regular has been interfered with, then God becomes important.

But for the regular stuff he does, we recognize it and we pay homage to it, but it doesn't really zing. It's not what we call a zinger. How do you know when God is ready to do something unique, out of the ordinary, not regular, a sense of special favor or goodness? Number one, he allows all your efforts to be unsuccessful. We have worked all night and have caught nothing.

You have done everything you're supposed to do, everything you know to do, and you have gone over time doing it. We have worked all night. Other nights have not been a problem. Last night was a big problem because we worked all night when you're supposed to work, where you're supposed to work, and nothing is panning out. Now, it feels bad when you've exerted yourself and it's not working out.

It feels bad when you've done everything you can and all you've got to show for it is zero. It feels bad when you've gone job hunting and everybody has turned you down. It feels bad when you've worked the numbers and none of them are working out. It feels bad when all night long you have gone over and over. You've tried and you've tried and it's not working. While it may feel bad, but I'd like to suggest to you it's not a bad spot to be in.

Now let me tell you the second way you know you're in the vicinity of something special. One is God is not allowing anything you do to work yet what he asked you to do doesn't make sense. Go out into the deep for a great catch. You don't go out in the daytime to the deep water to catch a great catch with a net. Here it is. What Jesus asked Peter to do contradicted his experience.

contradicted his knowledge, contradicted his history, contradicted his background. Let me use another word. Contradicted his instincts. What Peter knew, and he really knew it, he knew when to fish. What Peter knew contradicted what God said. What God said and what Peter knew were not on the same page. He goes about to instruct Jesus on why his word won't work.

Because we've been out all night when you're supposed to be. And they're not biting. Have you ever done that? Now, I know you do it real spiritual, even like Peter. He said, Master, I'm going to respect you and all, but you don't know fishing. Go back to carpentry. You don't know fishing. Master, I'm going to respect you and all, but you don't know this area. We say it all the time when God says something and we put up the word but.

See, we throw in the word but. We're saying, yeah, but my reality, my situation, my circumstance, but. Let me say a word about your instincts and mine. All of our instincts are flawed. They're flawed. You and I are distorted. You know, like you're going to a 3D movie, you need those glasses because without the glasses, you don't see clearly. You need something to clear up the distortion. The fact that you were raised this way, this was your background, history, experience,

personality, all those things, all those things are real. I'm not denouncing any of them. I'm saying all of them are distorted. They've been distorted by sin, your sin or the sin of somebody else's. They've been distorted because of lack of information. How many times did we think something was one way? We got a little bit more information. We said, oh, so we operated on what we had, but it was distorted because what we had didn't bring everything else into account. So you have to understand that

That because you and I have distortion in our lives, our minds, our souls, our souls are distorted, which is your emotions, your mind, and your will. Those things have all been affected negatively so they can never be fully trusted. Now, you do not ignore them. Don't misunderstand me. But you can never fully rest in them in and of themselves. You need a pair of glasses because distortion has occurred.

In Peter's mind, his history, background, and knowledge had given him enough to be able to tell the son of the living God he was misinformed with his instructions. Jesus, you don't know this field. I know this field. You stick the preacher, let me take care of fish. He gives him this instruction. But out of respect, Peter says, but because you asked me to, I'm going to go ahead and do it. I'm going to show you I know what I'm talking about.

I'm going to give you some respect, master. But my point was, we're going to get to that in a moment. My point was, one of the ways you know God wants to do something special is he doesn't let what you're doing work through the natural process that you're used to. And the second way is he asks you to do something that does not make sense to your background, history, instincts, emotions. It does not rhyme or reason. Remember Martha and Mary, when Lazarus was dead, Jesus comes and he tells Martha, remove the stone. He says, remove the stone. You know what Martha said?

He been dead four days and he stinks. He been dead four days. He didn't ask her for a discussion in mortuary science. He says he's been dead four days and he stinks. In other words, what you just asked to do, remove the tomb off of the stone, doesn't make sense, Jesus. Guess what Jesus said to her? And didn't I say to you, didn't I say to you, until you believe, you won't see. See, Martha was from Missouri. Martha said, if I see, I'll believe. Jesus said, but didn't I tell you, you won't see till you believe.

And you don't know you believe till you move the stone. You don't believe because you're getting in the believing mode right now. Your belief must be moving the stone. That ridiculous thing I just asked you to do that did not make logical sense to your history, background, emotions, thoughts, instincts. So he pushes out into the deep. What I'm talking to you about is why God wants to bless you. Stay with me here. When they had done this,

Notice that when they had done this, not when they had a meeting to discuss it. When they had done this, they enclosed a great quantity of fish and their nets began to break. You know how many fish it takes to break a fisherman's net? Do you understand? They use these nets. They've caught as many fish as the nets can hold. So can you imagine not only the amount of fish, but the size of these babies?

Because the fish are going to break net because of their weight. You got so much fish that what they're naturally to handle them couldn't hold them. It says their nets began to break. Verse 7, so they signaled to their partners in the other boat. So this is a big company. They got Peter, James, and John, and then they got other partners.

So they signaled to their partners in the other boat for them to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats so that the boats began to sink. I think if Paul were here, Paul would say exceedingly abundantly above what you asked or ever thought was going to happen. Or in the words of Delphonics, did not blow your mind this time. Did not, did not do something beyond what you were expecting.

But they only got to see God blow their minds when they were doing something that based on their instincts seemed ridiculous. It says nets are breaking and ships are sinking. Now I'd call that a blessing. The first reason why God wants to bless you is to let you know he knows more than you. We either think God doesn't know or he only knows a little bit more than we know.

And the way I know we think that is we always will counteract what he says by what we think. So Jesus asked them to do something that goes beyond their instincts and then shows them, I know where the fish are. I know how to get to them. And where they are and how you get to them, you would have never thought of. You would have never thought of this because your experience says this.

At night, in the shallow, my knowledge says them babies are sitting out there waiting on you to do what I said. And you won't get the catch until you do it. Meeting on and having a meeting about it won't give you the catch. Praying about it won't give you the catch. Prayer is important, but it can't replace following through. God wants you to know something about him, and he wants you to know that he knows something.

And in order to let you know he knows, he puts you in a situation where your knowledge is not working, fished all night, and where he asks you to do something that doesn't seem consistent with what you think you know. He contradicts your natural reasoning. Because now when you discover he knows what he knows, and I don't know as much as I thought I knew, he has made himself more trustworthy to you. So you can trust him for something else because of what he just showed you that he really knows.

That you didn't think he knew because you were the expert in the field. It was your field, fishing. He wants to show you that he knows so that you can trust him more. It's like the man who fell over the ravine and he caught a branch before he fell to his death. And he screamed, help, somebody up there, help. And a voice came out of heaven. You called. Save me, save me. The voice said, well, do you believe that I can save you? He said, yes, yes. Do you believe that I want to save you?

Absolutely. Save me. Save you. Do you believe I will save you? Yes. The voice said, let go. The man said, is there anybody else up there? Because sometimes when God seems like he's requesting the ridiculous, because it goes against our natural bent, our personality, history, background, education, training, instincts. No, you know what he's doing? He's setting you up for something supernatural. And that's why he's not let you catch anything.

Nothing's working that you're trying. Verse 8, when Simon Peter saw what happened, fish breaking nets and sinking boats, go down at Jesus' feet saying, go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man. Now what made him tell God, Jesus, go away from me? What made him say how sinful he was? Verse 9, for amazement had seized him.

So what amazed him? The blessing. The blessing so blew his mind and the minds of his companions at the catch of the fish which had been taken. He was so overwhelmed with the blessing that he says, depart from me, I am a sinful man. Let me explain why God wants to bless you. He wants to bless you so you can discover that he knows what he knows.

And he wants to bless you so that you can come to the realization that in his presence, you are a sinful man. He wants you to understand his righteousness, his holiness, his purity matched against your sin by your blessing. See, most people look at their blessing as a confirmation of how good they are. I must have been real good to be blessed like this. That's not what Peter said. Peter said, I must be real sinful.

To be blessed like this. I must be real sinful. Now what was his sin? I don't see where he did any great sin. Oh he did. He said Jesus you don't know what you're talking about. We fished all night. That's a sin. When you tell God he doesn't know what he's talking about. That's not like a compliment. That's a sin. You don't know what you're talking about. But we're going to placate you. We're going to give you a little religious stuff. We're going to just row out there.

It says he was amazed. Why was he amazed? He was amazed because he didn't think nothing was going to happen. At least nothing like that. Not just breaking nets and sinking boats. You know, God really does want us to know how different he is than us. Listen, whenever in the Bible people really came face to face with God, who had a heart for God, they saw their sinfulness. They saw their sinfulness. Isaiah said, woe is me. I am undone.

See, when God manifests his goodness to you, we're talking about a blessing there. We're talking about a great catch of fish. It's not to show you how great you are. It's to show you how different you are than he is. That the sin of even questioning his word because it didn't fit our intuition and our instincts. History, background, no experience. It says Peter was seized. He was enraptured. He was caught. He said, depart from me.

I am not worthy to be in the same vicinity as you because now I know who I'm dealing with. I'm not dealing with just a polite God. See, there may be some folk in here who came to church today to meet a polite God, just somebody, a nice deity. And you don't understand that we're not even in the same ballgame. My ways are not your ways. My thoughts are not your thoughts. As high as the heavens are above the earth, that's how different I am.

And I will even show you that by blessing you. By blessing you. So one reason God blesses you is to let you see how much he really knows. He really does know what he's doing. Even when it doesn't make sense. Second reason he blesses you is so that you can see that he and you are different. He's different than us. And his purity reigns which reveals our impurity. I am a sinful man. Depart from me. Now watch this. This is sweet. Verse 10.

And so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, do not fear. From now on, you will be catching men. When they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him. Okay, watch this now. This is sweet. It said, do not fear, because they're up there trembling. They said, who is this? They did this another time when he calmed the seas. They said, what manner of man is this that even the winds and the sea obeyed?

Who are we dealing with here? Do you understand who you're dealing with? With Jesus Christ? We're not just talking about a great man. In fact, to call Jesus a great man is to insult him. That's an insult. Jesus, you're great. People do all these respectful things to Jesus Christ and think he feels good about it. You just devalued him.

He is the son of the living eternal God. He's not just a great man and a nice example. He is that, but to put a period there, you've insulted him. What manner of man is this? I don't even deserve to be in the same space. Depart from me. He said, but then he calmed them down because they're shaking. They ain't never seen a cat like this in their life. He calms them down and says, it's okay because from now on, you're going to be fishers of men. The third reason God blessed them and the third reason he blesses you

He blesses. So number one, you get to know that he really does know. Number two, you get to see who you are in the faith of who he is. But number three, the reason that God blesses you is so you can be a blessing to somebody else. I'm going to make you a spiritual blessing to others. I'll make you fishes of men. Remember the definition of a blessing?

We gave it a numbers of times. Here it is. The blessing is enjoying, experiencing and transferring the goodness of God in your life. If there is no transference, you prostituted the blessing. And that's the problem with this emphasis on blessing today. The problem is not that there's an emphasis on blessing is they define it only in terms of what I get.

God bless me with a new house, bless me with a new car, bless me with more money, bless me, bless me, bless me, bless me. Nothing wrong with God blessing you with that. But God's blessings are always designed to have a transfer element. And if there is no transfer element, then what you have done is prostituted the term. God told Abraham, I'm going to bless you so that through you, all the nations of the earth will be blessed.

That's why one of the greatest prayers you need to pray when you ask God to bless you, which is a legitimate prayer to ask God to bring his favor and goodness upon you is to let him know how you're going to use it also as a mechanism of transfer. How you're going to be a blessing while you're receiving one. He says, I'm going to make you fishers of men. Now watch this now. Jesus knows more about Peter's occupation than Peter who's been working in occupation all of his life.

Jesus has never been a fisherman, yet he knows more about where fish are hanging out than Peter does. And now he says, I'm going to use your occupation, because you know how to catch stuff, and I'm going to let you do what you did with fish with people. He uses his natural vocation as an opportunity for ministry. I'm going to make you a minister, because you're going to be catching men like you caught fish. Now watch this now. It says in verse 11,

If it wasn't so serious, it'd be funny. He says in verse 11, and they left everything and followed him. Now, can I be just raw honest with you? I'm not sure that would have been my, I'm not sure I would have rolled like that. You know, in my carnality, in my flesh, I think if I had nets of fish that were breaking the net, boats that were sinking, because Jesus knows where the fish are,

have offered him a percentage of the company. I would have told Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, you can have what percent of the company you want. How much of the Zebedee Fishing Corporation do you want to have? And you don't have to work that hard. You don't have to work hard. When we come to work in the morning, just tell us where the fish are. That's all you got to do, G-Man. Just tell us where the fish are.

I would have made that a monster presentation to Jesus. Look, Jesus would say, follow me. I would say, Jesus, you follow me. Because we can build something here. I can use you.

I can use you to build my company. I can use you to build my wardrobe. I can use you to build my transportation. I can use you to build my future. I can use you to build my retirement. And that's what's going on under the name of blessing today. People want to go and use Jesus. The net's full, the net's breaking, and the ship's sinking.

But Jesus flips the script. Jesus said, I blessed you so much so you would follow me, not so I would follow you. The reason why Jesus blesses you is so that you can succumb to his lordship, so that you will follow him to the next step he has for you. You know what I would have been doing in my flesh and in my carnality? I would have been discussing my condo on the Galilee.

It's time for me to build a second home on the Galilee. All this fish, biggest catch of my life.

I would have been discussing 401s and 403Bs and I would have been discussing investments and CDs and mutual funds and I would have been discussing all of the new opportunities that had come to me personally because I had the biggest catch of my life. But verse 11 says, they were so impressed not with the catch, not with the blessing, but they were impressed with the blesser. They were so blown away.

With Jesus Christ that Jesus said, follow me. And they said, let's go. And they left everything. My question, has God's blessing caused you to follow him? Or are you spending so much time counting fish? How many fish did God give me today? God sure been good to me today. Are you spending so much time counting fish that you've forgotten the one who knew where they were located? Now, I do have a question. Can I ask a question?

i got a question i got a question in closing i because this bothers me this this this one bothers me what about all them fish see see this bothers me this bothers me because i'm struggling with this because they they got the biggest catch of their lives and they left everything to follow him did he bless the fish for him to throw the fish away i mean they left everything what about all these fish well the way fishermen make their money

Is they catch fish, sell it to market, get the money, go fishing again. The Bible says that the disciples went around with Jesus with a bag of money. That they carried the money. See, Peter is married. Peter has a wife, the Bible says. So Peter has a family to support. The question is, am I going to feed my family? His mother-in-law lived with him, the Bible says. Am I going to take care of my family, my mother, pay my house, and follow Jesus? How am I going to do that?

May I use some sanctified imagination? May I suggest to you that God blesses you in order to provide for you the mechanism so he can use you for his purposes, his purposes by means of his blessing. That they were able to have a bag of money because there was a hoisting of fish.

There was the biggest bonanza because God was getting ready to use them for the biggest ministry. So they were able to start out with a bag because while they left the fish behind, they did not leave behind the sale of the fish so that they were able to carry on their ministry and pay their bills and still serve the Lord.

God is not asking you serve me and not pay your bills. Serve me and not take care of your responsibilities. Serve me and not be able to feed your family. But I'm going to bless you so you can serve me. I'm going to bless you not so that you have less time for me. I'm going to bless you so you have

more time for me. I'm not going to bless you so you can't pray. I'm going to bless you so now you know the power of prayer. I'm not going to bless you so that you can't spend time in the word. I'm going to bless you because you know when you spend time in the word you're going to get a word that's going to bring a greater blessing. I'm going to bless you so you can follow me. So God wants to bless you but he wants to bless you for more than the blessing. He wants to bless you so you see how much he knows versus what you know.

how holy he is versus how sinful we are. He wants to bless you so that you can be a blessing as you follow him. The podcast, The Bible in a Year with Jack Graham, is a moving and inspiring biblical audio experience that will help you master wisdom from the world's greatest book. In each episode, you'll learn to apply biblical principles to everyday life.

Each cinematic episode is a journey through the Bible's most profound stories that will strengthen your appreciation of the Word and inspire you to keep learning. Listen to The Bible in a Year with Jack Graham on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. ♪

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