Good morning! Welcome to The Edge. My name is Brandi and I want to thank you for tuning in and sharing some of your time with us this morning. We want you to know that no matter where you are on your faith journey, whether you've been on this path for years, or if you're just kind of “checking this out,” we want you to know that you are welcome here. You are welcome to explore your faith and deepen your faith here. We're just glad that you've joined us.
I am confident that God wants to speak with you this morning, and I hope you're ready because through his word and by his spirit, there is a message just for you. So as a church, we have been currently talking through a collection of parables that Jesus told, and parables are simply short stories that he used to help us understand spiritual lessons or moral lessons.
We're currently walking through the parables that Jesus gave to help us understand his kingdom. And so today we're going to be looking at a parable from Matthew. It was the last one in this particular series about his kingdom. And it's called The Parable of the Net found in Matthew 13:47-52. It contains striking parallels to an earlier parable that he told called, The Parable of the Wheat and Tares. So if you've been tracking with us for a few weeks, maybe you had the chance to watch that message on the wheat and tares. These two kind of go hand in hand. If you recall, The Parable of the Wheat and Tares was a hard one for the disciples and the audience to grasp, because it was a parable that talked about the evil that coexists with the good and this world, and why it's allowed to be that way, at least for a time.
So if the prevalence of evil in this world is something that just trips you up and it's hard for you, just like it is for me. If you didn't get a chance to listen to that message, I would encourage you at some point this week to go back and check that one out because these two kind of go hand in hand and it'll help you understand today's message a little better. Because living in a world with evil and darkness is hard and we all have to face it at some point in time. In fact, without faith in God's goodness and his righteous judgment and his sovereignty, when we saw the aspects of evil in the world, we would either have to bury our head in the sand and live in denial, or we would stare at it and our hearts would sink in despair. And Jesus doesn't want that. He wants us to have his perspective. And I wonder if that might be why he kind of circled back around and he concluded these talks with The Parable of the Net, because it talks about exactly that — the eternal judgment that is coming at the end of this age, where there will no longer be any evil that exists in his kingdom or in his rain. Except this time when he told the parable, he moved from giving examples of land and farming to examples of a sea. So it's almost like when he was talking to that agrarian culture, it's kind of like, well, you were either kind of a man of the land or a man of the sea. So he kind of gave both examples, which I really like. And another reason I like it is because when you really think about his audience at this point in time, it was mainly his disciples. When you really remember how he called those initial disciples, he really called them right out of their field of being fishermen. That's what they were by trade. In fact, as the story is told, Jesus is walking along the shoreline and he sees those very first disciples and they're literally on the job. It says that when he called them that they immediately left the boat and even put down their nets, which will be significant and they came to follow Jesus because he was calling them to sort of apprentice after him and learn to become fishers of men. And so those are the people that he's talking to as he's helping them understand the kingdom of heaven. And here's what he says. You can follow along with me:
Matthew 13:47-52
The Parable of the Net
47 “Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. 48 When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. 49 This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous 50 and throw them into the fiery [blazing] furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
51 “Have you understood all these things?” Jesus asked.
“Yes,” they replied.
52 He said to them, “Therefore every teacher of the law who has been instructed about the kingdom of heaven [become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven] is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.”
Remember the people that were basically sitting at his feet, learning to be teachers of the law, they already carried that old law with them. And Jesus was telling them, don't throw out what's old. Like the owner of a house, keep what's old, like an antique — cherish it, don't throw it out — because Jesus said, I came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. But when he instructs them to accept new treasures into the storehouse, he's really referring to himself because he was teaching a new way that would go perfectly with the old. And so he's basically saying, accept me and all the things that I'm getting ready to show you.
One of the things that I personally love about the Bible is all the symbolism that's all throughout it and this parable uses quite a bit of that symbolism. For example, when he talks about the lake, oftentimes when we see stories that involve a lake in the Bible, there is heavy indication that the lake is referring to the dark world and all the perils in it. In this particular one, the net is referring to the gospel message. And it's so cool to think about this, this gospel message going out into the dark world.
Scripture says he came down into darkness. And so that's the picture that we get, except this kind of net is more translated to mean a drag net. It's very different than the kind of net that the fishermen that were called to be disciples had put down in their boats. Those kinds of nets were casting nets. And so an individual would use a casting net, maybe similar to a fishing pole. In fact, it's funny because I actually happened to be able to picture this really well because I grew up in the country. And so on the weekends I got dragged along with my brother and dad and I had to kind of entertain myself on the sides of creeks and ponds while they fished, just praying that they would eventually get a fish so that we could go home.
But every now and again, my dad would say to us, “Put on your boots, because today we're going seining.” Some of you might wonder, what is seining? Seining is where two people get on either side of this large net; maybe you could picture a volleyball net, except it's heavier and the net is tightly woven. Then there'll be two poles, one on either side and so you'll line people up to carry these big poles and you will literally trudge through the edges of a creek or body of water. If your net is strong enough and it's wide enough, you walk upstream and you will literally gather all of the contents that are coming downstream.
Of course, eventually the net will get full and it will be too heavy to drag. And so then you'll pull it up onto the land and you'll see what you got. That's a very different style than baiting a particular hook for a certain kind of fish that you're hoping to get. This kind of net is going to collect everything, good and bad, and litter and junk and crawdads and turtles and everything that you could imagine. But it's also going to make sure that it doesn't miss any of those contents in that body of water.
What Jesus is trying to show is that his message is much more like that dragnet, when it goes out into the whole world. He's not trying to bait his message to only a selective few. His message is not for the well-behaved or the churched or a certain political party or a certain economic status or a certain race or a certain gender. All mankind is made in God's image. He created each and every one of us and his idea is that his saving message would go out to everyone. It’s his desire that none would perish and all, like they gather up this net, that all would be gathered back to him. It really is just a beautiful picture. But then of course, we have that kind of daunting message there at the end of the parable, that the bad fish will be separated and thrown into the fiery furnace forever and of course, Jesus is referring to the eternal flames of hell.
Now this is a very scary prospect, especially if you imagine that you are maybe a bad fish. So then the question is, what is a bad fish? And also is this hell even literal? And trust me, there's lots of popular theories out there that hell is not actually literal. But to that, I would say this, there is no one in the Bible that talks about literal hell in a more literal, descriptive and even fearful way than Jesus himself. And that's who we're basing this faith on.
I suppose the reason he talked about it this way is because he knows good and well what he came to save us from. And, you know, when we really understand that and our way to be saved, well then that is indeed good news. But let's go back to the question. Am I a bad fish? Is that where I'm going? Or would he consider me a good fish? And really that can get pretty dicey if we start asking it that way, because the word that Jesus used was wicked or in some translations evil. And if you're like me, I would kind of see that word when I'm reading scripture and I think — I don't think I'm really wicked. I don't think I'm actually evil, right? I mean, most of us don't see ourselves as wicked or evil. But what does that mean?
Well, the actual word really means guilty. To that, we have to ask, guilty of what? See, the word wicked often times throughout scripture is coupled with the word unbelieving — a wicked and an unbelieving generation. Who are we supposed to believe in? And what are we guilty from?
Wicked are those who do not believe in Jesus to be the one that saves them from the guilt of their sin. But even though it's hard to identify ourselves as wicked or evil, if we're really honest, it's kind of hard to identify ourselves with the ones that are going to heaven, too. Right? Because he calls that heaven is for the righteous. And if you're like me, you're probably thinking — I think, I hope, I'm kind of good, but I don't know about righteous. I don't know if I'm a saint. That's more like for the Mother Teresas probably. I don't think most of us would identify ourselves as righteous. But what does righteous mean?
Well, righteous means innocent. So wicked is guilty and righteous is innocent and here's the thing, if we start trying to identify if we are wicked or we are righteous, first of all, that's putting ourselves in the place of the judge. Which we learned about through the wheat and the tares we are instructed that we can not judge ourselves and nor can we judge others. God himself is the judge and he will judge righteously.
So this whole wicked and this whole righteous thing, it gets tricky because most of us probably fall in a category a little bit more like this: “Well, I don't think I'm wicked. I don’t think I'm righteous. Where do we get to go? And how are we going to be separated if we're mainly trying to be good and nice, except for occasional tantrums or fits of selfishness when we're hungry or tired or stressed? Right? Most of us kind of fall in that category. So where do those fish go — the occasional slip-ups when you're stressed fish. Where do they go?”
Here's the problem with that kind of reasoning. The problem with that kind of reasoning is we are not the ones that get to define wickedness or righteousness. Because we are not righteous in and of ourselves. In fact, if we thought ourselves righteous, listen to this, no one is righteous. No one. Not one person, apart from God.
The Bible says that everyone has sinned, meaning guilty or wicked. Everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Well, so then there's a problem. Then that means we're all bad fish? We're all going to the eternal flames? Ouch. But then here's the great news.
2 Corinthians 5:21
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us. So that in him, we get to become the righteousness of God.
Wow. I really hope you're getting this because see, we have all kinds of different ways of separating people in our world, don't we? I mean, there's a whole system of separation:
We'll separate the Democrats from the Republicans.
We'll separate people by neighborhoods.
We’ll separate people by where they grew up.
We'll separate male from female.
We’ll separate hierarchies in employment.
We'll separate rich from poor.
We’ll separate by genders and race.
We will separate in all kinds of different ways, but in eternal separation, God is not going to separate by any of those means. God is going to separate the wicked from the righteous — those who have received Jesus and the forgiveness of our sins through him. Those are the righteous of God. And where the righteous will dwell there will be no hint of wickedness ever again.
So I just want to pause right there for a second and say, if you have received this free gift of salvation — if you have received the good news of Jesus Christ — then rejoice.
Rejoice, because your name has been written in heaven for all eternity. Rejoice, because even in the meantime, before we get there, rejoice because we have purpose. We have a mission. And that mission is the same mission that he gave those very first disciples. Our mission is also to be fishers of men.
Of course, I don't mean fishermen by trade. In fact, I don't even think Jesus was asking them to give up their day job necessarily — we still see evidence, even after that, that they still fished. You have to eat right? But what Jesus was asking them when he asked them to be fishers of men was to have a purpose and a drive and a passion and a priority that was bigger than even their employment — that was bigger than anything else they did. He was asking them to have a mission for the souls of man, because that is what is God's heartbeat.
So in essence, we are — every single one of us — supposed to be a part of that thread, of that netting that goes out into the dark world and gathers God's people back to his heart with the good news — the gospel. And if that is our mission, then our lives will never be lived in vain.
I hope that you just feel a restored sense of joy for the good news. And if there is any confusion and you're not sure where you stand with Jesus or even what this message is, I really encourage you to reach out to any of us. I would love to talk with you and pray with you about that because today could be your day to receive Jesus for the first time.
I'm going to give you just a few questions for you to consider and talk about in your house churches. Even if you're just quarantining with your family, this can be a great conversation for your family. And if you're all by yourself, maybe use this as journal prompts, or maybe you could talk about this with someone else throughout the week.
So the first question is this: How do you personally tend to respond to the evil in the world? Why do you think that you respond that way? Maybe you respond in denial, like hear no evil, see no evil. Maybe you respond by feeling despairing and feeling paralyzed and hopeless by it. But how do you feel when you see evil in the world and why?
Second question is this: How do you feel when you think of the eternal separation between good and evil? And can you come up with a Bible verse that either confirms that feeling or confronts that feeling? Feelings are valid, but as Christians, we want to make sure that our feelings are being informed by the truth. So maybe find a scripture that can back that feeling up or confront it and shift it in a different way.
And then the third question is this: To become fishers of men is to be about spreading the good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ. How can you make this more of a practical priority in your everyday life? To get even more specific, is there someone in your life right now that you know that you could tell the good news of the gospel message of Jesus Christ?
I hope these questions will help you begin to digest and meditate on the word. That really is our heart for you and that is God's heart for you. His word is not meant to just be read and move on to give us knowledge. It is meant to feast on, to nourish us and that we live from that place. And I hope these questions help you do just that. Thank you and have an awesome rest of your day.