Text: John 21:1-14(15-19)<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is the Lord\u201d<\/p>\n
Grace,
\nmercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior,
\nJesus Christ, amen. The text for the
\nsermon this morning comes from the Gospel which was read earlier.<\/p>\n
Just before Lent began a couple
\nmonths back, we heard the account of a miraculous catch of fish in Luke 5. Jesus was teaching along the shoreline in Galilee,
\nand the crowds were pressing Him right into the water; so He asked Peter, the
\nconveniently nearby fisherman, to take Him out in the boat. Peter was weary from a night of not catching
\nfish, but he consented anyway. Jesus
\ntaught for a while, and then instructed Peter to row back out into the deep
\nwater and throw the nets in again. Despite the illogic of the instruction, Peter did so-and ended up with a
\nnet-full of fish. <\/p>\n
Do you remember Peter’s reaction Once again It has been Simon As the seven are prone to do, they This Apart from What does Our lives The In order to We too are Where does God give forgiveness? In His means of grace. Wherever His Gospel is preached and His Sacraments In the resurrected Savior\u2019s The resurrected Christ brings about Through the resurrection, Christ You see, Christ is risen from the Now the peace of God which passes Text: John 21:1-14(15-19) \u201cIt is the Lord\u201d Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen. The text for the sermon this morning comes from the Gospel which was read earlier. Just before Lent began a couple months back, we heard […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[116,9016],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=74"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=74"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=74"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=74"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nwhen he saw the nets were filled? He
\nturned to Jesus, terrified, and declared, \u201cDepart
\nfrom me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!\u201d<\/em> Peter wanted to be far away from Jesus: He had a glimpse of how sinful
\nhe was and how holy Jesus was, and the glimpse of it was terrifying. Peter knew he was a sinner who deserved
\njudgment, and he was fearful that Christ had come to judge.<\/p>\n
\nthis morning, our text in this season of Easter focuses not on Christ\u2019s death,
\nbut on His resurrected appearances to His disciples and other followers. Blessed assurance was one result of our
\nLord\u2019s resurrection appearance to His followers. Christ\u2019s appearances assured His followers
\nthat death is not a closed door but an open door leading to a life far greater
\nthan we could possibly imagine in this life. Even St. Paul proclaimed that \u201cno eye has seen, nor ear
\nheard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love
\nhim.\u201d<\/em> The resurrection appearances of
\nChrist gave His followers the wonderful assurance that in the moment we die, in
\nthat very moment, we begin to truly live. Death frees us so that we experience the fulfillment of life in and with
\nChrist.<\/p>\n
\nthree weeks since the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus
\nChrist. To date, Jesus has appeared
\nbefore His disciples twice. Both times
\nHe appeared, we find the disciples cowering in a locked room for fear of what
\nhappened to Jesus might indeed happen to them as well. It seems that the heat is off of the
\ndisciples. Now, they have gone their
\nways and returned to their former occupation: fishermen.<\/p>\n
\nPeter, Thomas, Nathanael, the sons of Zebedee and two other disciples were all
\ntogether. Where the others were, John
\ndoesn\u2019t tell us. Of the seven disciples
\nwho are present, two stand out the most: Thomas and Peter. The last time we saw Thomas, he refused to
\nbelieve that Christ was raised unless he saw Him and touched His wounds. Simon Peter, the spokesmen for the disciples,
\nwas also present. And lest we forget
\nabout Simon Peter, he denied Christ not once, not twice, but three times; a
\nprime leader and spokesmen.<\/p>\n
\ngo fishing. Maybe after all that has
\ngone recently, fishing might help to take the mind off of everything. After being on the water all night, they come
\nback ashore with nothing to show for it. Imagine James and John, the sons of Zebedee. Just over three years prior to this, they
\nwere in their boats catching fish. Had
\nthree years made them that rusty? Were
\nthe fish just not biting? When Jesus
\ncalled to them from the shore, \u201cChildren,
\ndo you have any fish?\u201d<\/em>, you could sense the disappointment in their
\nvoice. You never wanted to come back to
\nland and say that you caught nothing, especially after being out all
\nnight. But again, the net is full – big
\nfish this time, but even so the net doesn’t burst. It’s another miracle; and it’s not because
\nthey fished on the other side of the boat. It’s because the One on the shore spoke His Word and declared to them that they would find fish there. Immediately after the disciples listened to
\nwords of Jesus and followed His instruction, the boat became full of fish. The life of a Christian is no different. Once the Holy Spirit works faith in you, the
\nmiracle happens \u2013 salvation.<\/p>\n
\nincident of Jesus and the disciples shows to us the importance of being in
\nChrist.<\/p>\n
\nChrist\u2019s command to cast their nets into the sea again, they caught
\nnothing. Try as they might, they could
\nnot catch any fish. But when Christ
\nspoke to them, they were not able to bring in all the fish which they had
\ncaught. Apart from Christ, we are unable
\nto achieve eternal life. There is
\nnothing that we can say or do to earn eternal life. Only when we are in Christ are we able to
\nreceive eternal life; not because of what we have done, but because of what
\nChrist has done to us and for us.<\/p>\n
\nall of this have to do with us? This
\njust sounds like a story of a bunch of fishermen who couldn\u2019t catch
\nanything. On the contrary, this has
\nquite a bit to do with us.<\/p>\n
\noutside of Christ are nothing, for there is no life outside of Christ. One might try to argue that they have a very
\ngood life outside of Christ. They have a
\nnice home, several nice cars; in short, the works. Jesus didn\u2019t help them get all of this, they
\ndid it themselves. <\/p>\n
\npsalmist writes: \u201cI lift up my eyes to
\nthe hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.\u201d<\/em> All good things come from the Lord. All of our earthly blessings come from the
\nhand of God, not from our own doing. The
\ndisciples found this to be true when they went fishing.<\/p>\n
\nexperience success on the water, the disciples had to rely on the Lord instead
\nof relying on themselves. They had to
\nsubject their will to the will of the Savior. Instead of being self-directed, they heeded the words of Christ. It was then that Christ resurrected them from
\ntheir failures.<\/p>\n
\nresurrected from death and into life when we focus not on what it is that we
\ncan do for ourselves, but what Christ did for us \u2013 became death for us. He became death for us when He came into this
\nworld in the form of a baby. He grew up
\nso that He could die for your sins. His
\ndeath gave to you and to I the keys to heaven in the form of forgiveness of
\nsins, life and salvation.<\/p>\n
\nadministered accordingly, Jesus is there to forgive. The hymn, \u201cSalvation unto Us Has Come\u201d tells
\nus quite a bit in just the first two lines: \u201cSalvation unto us has come by
\nGod\u2019s free grace and favor.\u201d It has
\nnothing to do with us. It can\u2019t have
\nanything to do with us. If it had
\nanything to do with us, then it would mean nothing.<\/p>\n
\nappearance by the shore, we see Him bringing the resurrection to a broken
\nrelationship. The result was
\nreconciliation. Peter had denied Christ. Yet when Peter heard that it was Christ,
\nwithout hesitation Peter leaped for the shore, for forgiveness came from
\nChrist.<\/p>\n
\nhealing to our broken relationship, broken when death entered into
\ncreation. Christ\u2019s death purged death from
\ncreation and His resurrection bridges the gap between death and the new
\ncreation that is in Him.<\/p>\n
\nbrings new life \u2013 new life to Himself, but also new life to those that are in
\nHim. This life is passing away. From it shall come a new heaven and a new
\nearth. We too will pass from a life of
\nsin and death to a life where sin and death have been defeated by Christ\u2019s
\ndeath and resurrection. All of this is
\nevident by Christ\u2019s resurrection appearances. These resurrection appearances give us the blessed assurance that death
\nis swallowed up by eternal life. If that
\nwere not the case, Christ would still be dead, death would have overcome us and
\nwe would spend many years lying in a box in the ground.<\/p>\n
\ndead. And He who died to restore us to
\nHimself didn’t rise again to abandon us. Despite our sinful reluctance to come into His
\npresence for forgiveness, He still comes anyway. Thus we give thanks to the Lord for His
\ncoming, for His patience, and for His most persistent mercy. And thankful for His persistence, we rejoice
\nto confess our sins and draw near to Him. For here, by His means of grace, the present,
\nrisen Lord declares that you are forgiven for all of your sins in the name of
\nthe Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.<\/p>\n
\nall understanding, keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ
\nJesus. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"