Sermon

Using Your Net

Theme

Stewardship and evangelism

Object

Fishing Gear and a net – We happened to have a boat in the sanctuary the day I presented this.

Scripture

Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will catch men.” So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him. Luke 5:11

Can anyone tell me why I have fishing gear with me in church today? No, well it’s to remind me of a Bible story. Several of the disciples were out fishing and not having much luck when Jesus told them to go further out into deeper waters and let their nets down again. They did this and were amazed at the number of fish they caught. In fact there were so many fish they had to call others to help them bring them all in. Then Jesus told them to leave their boats and follow Him, He would make them “Fishers of Men”.

What does it mean to be fishers of men? How can you catch men? Let me see how many I can catch, (Call on child) Did you know that Jesus loves you? I caught you! (Call on another child) Did you know that we have Sunday school at our church for all ages? I caught you! (Call on third child) Did you know our church has a _________ program? I caught you too!

How did I catch all these people? God has given us a wonderful net, our church. We can invite people to worship service, Sunday school, and other activities that our church has. But just like this net, it takes a lot of people to help haul in the catch. Our church needs people to help keep our “net” strong. We need volunteers to help run the programs, people who pray for our church, our leaders and our programs, we need those who tithe and give financially to the church to pay for all the wonderful programs. You can see it takes many kinds of fishermen to keep our net strong so we can haul in lots of “fish”. Just like the disciples Jesus has made us “Fishers of Men”.