The Gospel of Luke: Settled in Spirit

It's What We Do

August 23, 2020

Jesus gives Simon Peter a new priority and purpose for his life the moment he falls humbly at the feet of Jesus. Fishing used to be Simon Peter’s priority, but Jesus says, “Now, it’s people,” because ultimately, people are what matter most to Jesus. In times of uncertainty, anxiety, and doubt, it’s easy to forget that people matter. Be reminded that more than our position, our politics, or our preferences, people are still the priority.

Aaron Brockett • The Gospel of Luke: Settled in Spirit • Luke 5:1-11

Series: The Gospel of Luke: Settled in Spirit
Message: It's What We Do
Pastor: Aaron Brockett
Bible Passage(s): Luke 5:1-11

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August 23, 2020 Notes
The Gospel of Luke | It’s What We Do
Aaron Brockett | Luke 5:1-11

Can we give it up for Melva and her group? That is not an easy thing to do, to put yourself out there on a video. I am so grateful for all those ladies sharing the relationship they have in their group. That’s really what we want for you as well.

If you are not in a group, we want to encourage you to find one. We would love to help you with this. You can go to the link right here on the screen. We would love to get you connected into a group.

tpcc.org/groups

I want to welcome our entire Traders Point church family, those of you watching online. We’ve got our own team and their family members right here at Northwest. We can make some noise. Let them know, both here live and on the chat.

I’m really grateful that you joined us today. Maybe somebody invited you, maybe somebody shared a link with you and you clicked on it. We’re thrilled you would do that. I just want to encourage you to not watch this service alone.

If you happen to be alone right now, that’s no judgment call. I just want to encourage you to get together with some other people, both today and in the coming weekends. Maybe it’s some friends, a group, or your family.

Maybe host a watch party of some kind, because it’s not just about the content that you personally receive. What makes church so powerful is that mutual encouragement that we all need from one another. So, I want to encourage you to get together with some others.

Today we are continuing on in this message series that we’ve been in now for a few weeks in the Gospel of Luke, called Settled in Spirit.

And, really what we’ve been doing, is just walking through the Gospel of Luke. There are four biographies of Jesus’ life and ministry at the beginning of the New Testament. And, each one of those individuals gave their perspective of who Jesus was for very specific reasons—that we might come to know him better.

So, Matthew writes for a certain group of people through a certain lens. And so, does Mark, John, and Luke. We’ve said this. Luke is the gospel primarily for skeptics.

If you’ve ever had questions, if you’ve ever been struggling to find some hope, if you’ve ever been on the outside looking in wondering if you would be included. If you’ve ever wondered how a good God could allow a bad year like 2020, then Luke is the gospel for you.

He states the purpose of his writing in the first few verses where he says, “I have taken the time to put together a well-ordered account,” so that a friend of his, and we don’t know a lot about him, he is a guy named Theophilus. He said, “Theophilus, I want you to come to be certain of the truth you’ve heard, of who Jesus is.”

And that tells me something about Theophilus. He was troubled. He had an unsettled spirit. He had some questions he didn’t have answers to. He was looking for some hope. He was wondering if he would be included. And Luke says, “I want you to come to believe this truth.”

So, we are in the Gospel of Luke, allowing his words about Jesus to settle our unsettled spirits.

You know, when my wife and I first started dating she wanted to introduce me to her family. She said, “I really want you to meet my grandparents,” and we got together with them. Their names were Hollis and Nina. Actually, Hollis and Nina watch every week. Let’s give a great big shout out to Hollis and Nina. Can we give them a hand?

I love them like my own grandparents. I remember meeting them for the first time. They shared with me their story. They had just gotten married, he had come back from the Korean War, and he built a chicken house in his back yard. That chicken house turned into a business.

That business, some 50 odd years later, turned out to be one of the top egg producers in the nation. And I wanted to learn everything I could from him about leadership and what made him so successful.

I remember sitting down with Hollis one day, and I said, “Hollis, tell me all the things you know about leadership. How did you grow this thing from one chicken house in your back yard to being one of the largest egg producers in the nation?”

I’ll never forget what he said.

He said, “Aaron, to be successful in the egg industry, you’ve got to know a little bit about chickens,” and that makes sense, “you’ve got to know a little bit about eggs, you’ve got to know a little bit about agriculture.”

Then he said, “You’ve got to know a whole lot about people, because people matter.”

People Matter

That had a big impact on me as a young man. That was not what I was expecting him to say. Like, how are you successful in the egg industry? “Because people matter.” But he’s right.

It doesn’t matter who you are or what you do for a living. It doesn’t matter if you own a business or you work for someone who owns the business. It doesn’t matter if you’re a stay-at-home mom or dad, or a teacher or a plumber. Listen. People matter. People matter to God, therefore they ought to matter to you and to me.

Here is the problem with that statement. Can anybody guess it?

People are messy.

Can I get a good amen? People are divisive. People have different opinions and perspectives. People will hurt you. So, it’s really hard to hold onto that truth that people matter, because people can also be the thing in life that can be so painful.

But I want to bring us back to this reality and this truth—that people matter. We need to be reminded of it, both as individuals and as a church, now more than ever because we live in an environment right now in which anxiety is high and morale is low.

We live in an environment right now where we have to be physically distant from each other, so that makes relationship, empathy, and compassion really hard. We end up just communicating via a screen or a keyboard, and we de-humanize one another.

We need to come back to this reality, this truth, that people really do matter. As we come to Luke 5, Jesus is going to reinforce this truth in a really unexpected way. So, if you have a Bible or a Bible app, go turn with me. Or for those online, I’ll put those verses up on a monitor next to me. Starting off in verse 1:

“One day as Jesus was preaching on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, great crowds pressed in on him to listen to the word of God. He noticed two empty boats at the water’s edge, for the fishermen had left them and were washing their nets. Stepping into one of the boats, Jesus asked Simon, its owner, to push it out into the water. So he sat in the boat and taught the crowds from there.”

So, I just want you to get the scene. Jesus is on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and he is teaching. A bunch of people showed up. People in the back were having trouble hearing him. Jesus didn’t have a headset mic like I’ve got on right now. Jesus did the next best thing.

Simon Peter, who he knew, a fisherman, had just come in from the night fishing and his boats were right there. So, he borrows one. He gets into it and says, “Push me out just a little bit.”

Jesus is using the water of the Sea of Galilee as his PA system. And he is beginning to teach the people.

Simon and his fishing business partners had just come in from a long night of fishing, and they had not caught a single thing. Now if you are just fishing for fun, that’s just a real downer. If you are fishing for your livelihood, that is devastating.

Like, this is the equivalent of zero income. This is more than just a downturn in the economy, this is like nothing. They had nothing to show for it. They are in a bad mood. They are washing their nets.

I always get this image in my mind, when I read this passage, of that scene from Forest Gump. Do you remember? Where Forest is out on the shrimping boat with Lieutenant Dan. They are all excited and they pull up the nets. What comes out, there is like a tin can, a shoe, and a toilet seat.

And this is like the image I get. Peter and his buddies are sitting there like, “We got nothing,” and they are washing the nets. And they are in a bad mood. And it says this in verse 4:

“When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, ‘Now go out where it is deeper, and let down your nets to catch some fish.’”

Now, this is kind of unusual. Jesus is preaching a sermon, and all of a sudden he just stops. I don’t know if it’s because he thought it wasn’t a very good sermon. Believe me, I’ve been there before. Lots. I just want to stop and change the subject.

Or, maybe what Jesus had been teaching on he wants to illustrate, and he sees this as a perfect opportunity. He says to Simon, “Why don’t you go out again? Why don’t you get in the boat and go our where it is deeper? And let down the nets, the nets you’ve been cleaning. Get them dirty again.”

And Peter shows his irritation:

“‘Master,’ Simon replied, ‘we worked hard all last night and didn’t catch a thing.’”

Do you catch the exasperation in his voice? He is irritated, tired, and frustrated. They had been working all night long. He is a professional fisherman. He knows what he is doing.

And the Sea of Galilee was chock full of fish. It was one of the top industries in Palestine. And yet, they hadn’t caught anything. Jesus is asking him to dirty his nets again. Now, it was not small task to wash nets. These were large, massive, fishing nets.

I’m sure he was ready just to get them all cleaned up, stored away, and they were going to go to Cracker Barrel or something and get good breakfast before they were going to go home and take it easy for the day. This is the last thing he wanted to do.

To add insult to injury, Jesus was not a professional fisherman. I would imagine that Simon had this internal dialog going on in his mind. “What do you know about fishing? You are a carpenter turned teacher. I don’t come into your shop and tell you how to make a table and chairs.

“Why don’t you just leave the fishing to me, Jesus? I don’t think you know what you are talking about anyway, because right now isn’t a good time of day to catch fish. And everybody knows you don’t catch fish in the deeper end, you catch fish along the shore, Jesus.”

But Simon decides to go ahead and kind of go along with it. Check out what he says next:

“But if you say so, I’ll let the nets down again.”

I’ve got a question for you. When do you break that phrase out? Married couples, when do you break the phrase out, “If you say so.”?

You’re afraid to say. The answer to that is when you’re tired or arguing. It’s when you’re tired of having the conversation. It’s sort of like sarcasm that’s kind of been worked into an insincere agreement.

I’ll give you an example. The two of you get lost. He swears that he’s not lost. He says, “I’m not lost. The reason it is taking us so long to get there is traffic is so bad.” And she says, “If you say so.”

Yeah, that’s where you break that phrase out. Peter is like, “Hey Jesus, we’re not going to catch anything. We’re done for the day. I’m a professional. I know what I am doing. But if you say so, I’m going to go ahead and go out.” He kind of reluctantly trusts Jesus with this. And check out what happens in verse 6:

“And this time their nets were so full of fish they began to tear!” Now, these were heavy, industrial nets. This is what they were made for. These nets didn’t tear. But there is so much fish in them, they begin to tear. “A shout for help brought their partners in the other boat, and soon both boats were filled with fish and on the verge of sinking.”

Once again, these boats are made for fishing. They were heavy duty fishing boats. They don’t sink. But they had caught so many fish, that’s what was happening. Peter’s response to all of this was not necessarily what you’d expect.

“When Simon Peter realized what had happened, he fell to his knees before Jesus and said, ‘Oh, Lord, please leave me—I’m such a sinful man.’ For he was awestruck by the number of fish they had caught, as were the others with him. His partners, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, were also amazed.”

Now, this just isn’t the response you would expect. I thought about that this week as I was studying this. I tried to put myself into Simon’s position. If this would have been me, I think my response would have been one of two things.

I maybe would have tried to play it off a little bit, to protect my pride. I may have said something along the lines of, “Hey Jesus, beginner’s luck,” or “Thanks for the tip, but anybody can get lucky,” or “Hey, you know what? Where we cast out was a pretty popular fishing spot. I was saving that for later. I knew we would catch some fish there.” He could have tried to mask some of that.

Or, he could have gone the other way. He could have been ecstatic, celebrating and so happy. Like, “Jesus, what are you doing next Tuesday? Can you go out with us fishing, because we need another haul like this in order to finish out the quarter well?”

But he doesn’t do any of that. Instead, Simon, he falls to his knees. His first response is to say, “Jesus, leave me. I’m a sinful man.” There is a glimpse of Simon’s heart. There is a glimpse of real humility and authenticity there.

He recognized who he was standing face-to-face with. Jesus wasn’t just another Rabbi. Jesus wasn’t just another carpenter. Jesus was the Son of God, and Simon could see it. And his response, standing in his presence, was humility.

And it’s a beautiful, beautiful picture of this word, and I don’t know how you feel about this word:

Repentance

I don’t know. Repentance oftentimes is kind of a scary word, a churchy word. I don’t know about you, but I’ve spent a lot of my life turned off by the word repentance, because people oftentimes use it as a weapon rather than what it’s meant to be, an invitation. It’s an invitation to actually take a load off.

I remember about 12 years ago I was doing some speaking in Southern California. I always like to take one of my kids or my wife with me when I travel. I took my son, at the time he was five.

We flew into LAX. It had been a long day. He wasn’t used to flying that much. Due to the time change, his body clock was off. We got the rental car and drove about an hour or hour-and-a-half to the hotel.

We get there after dark. He is falling asleep. But we get out of the car. He had a suitcase, a full backpack, like a pillow, a stuffed animal, his Gameboy. I load him up in the parking lot, and he is falling asleep.

I’m like, “Hey buddy, do you need me to carry all your stuff into the hotel room.” He kind of woke up and was like, “No, Daddy, I’ve got it.” Completely self-sufficient—the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

So, I’m like, “Alright.” I lock the car. We’re walking to the hotel room, and he’s following me. I keep looking to check behind me. He’s kind of falling farther and farther back, because he is struggling.

He is trying to carry everything. His suitcase tips over. And he is starting to doze off again. I’m like, “Hey Connor, do you need me to help you with the stuff?”

“No Daddy, I can do it.”

We get to the hotel room, unlock the door, and we walk in. Before he can even get across the room to the bed, he slumps over on the couch and completely falls asleep. Backpack still on, still holding his pillow, got his Gameboy, his suitcase behind him.

And I walked over and one-by-one I took all the stuff he was holding onto, and the backpack that was loading him down, and the suitcase he had been dragging. And I freed him up from all that stuff. I just picked up my little boy and walked him over to the bed.

Can I say that when you see that word repentance—that is what that is an invitation to do? Repentance is an invitation to lay down that load you are carrying, that load of shame you’ve been carrying around for a really, really long time. Those words that people said to you that penetrated into your heart and soul, and it wounded you deeply. That judgement that you feel or that self-condemnation.

When God says, “Repent,” that’s an invitation to lay down that load he doesn’t want you to carry anymore.

Jesus would say it so well in Matthew 11. He would say, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, I am gentle and humble and heart, and I will give you rest for your souls.”

This is what Simon Peter has just experienced. I love Jesus’ response to Simon’s repentance. Look at what he says:

“Jesus replied to Simon, ‘Don’t be afraid!’” Of all the things Jesus could have said to him. He could have said, “It’s about time.” He could have said, “Shame on you.” He could have said, “You need to do some things to get your act together.” No, he says, “Don’t be afraid. I’ve seen your heart. Thank you for laying that down. Don’t be afraid. “From now on you’ll be fishing for people!” He gives him a mission. He gives him a new life direction. “And as soon as they landed, they left everything and followed Jesus.”

I love that so much, because when Jesus sees Simon’s heart and he sees that it’s pure, he see’s that it’s repentant, he says, “Okay, now I’m ready to use you. I’m ready to use you on mission.” And the mission he gave him was, he says, “I want you to fish for people.”

Now, what does this all mean for you and me today? This is part of the Bible study where we look at it and read the text, then say, “What does the text mean?” Now we say, “How do I apply it? What is God saying to me out of this text?”

And this is where you might be saying, “That’s awesome for Simon, but what does this mean for me? Does this mean I’m supposed to go quit my job and go into fulltime vocational ministry? No, that’s not what that means. In fact, I would say for most of you, that’s not what this means. For a few of you, that might be what this means.

I would say this. If you’ve given your life to Jesus, here is the first step of application. It’s a reminder that following Jesus is your priority. Making money is great, it’s not your priority. You can make money and still follow Jesus, but following Jesus is your priority. Having status, nothing wrong with that as long as you’re still following Jesus.

It doesn’t matter what you do, who you are, what you do for a living, if Jesus has captured your heart you will say, “I’m not ashamed of Jesus. I’m not ashamed of following after him. He is my priority.”

Some of you might say, “Aaron, that’s really easy for you to talk about as a pastor, because that’s kind of like what you do for a living. But you need to understand that we’re not allowed to talk about religion at work.”

I would say, “Good. Jesus doesn’t what you to talk about religion at work either.” The reason why is this definition. If you’ve been around here long enough, you’ve heard me say it.

Religion: The effort I give to justify myself to God.

And this, in every way, is toxic, both to your spiritual growth, and to the development of people around you. What Jesus has invited us into is a relationship.

Relationship: The effort Jesus gave to reconcile me back to God.

And that is a complete game changer in every way. And Jesus says to Peter, “I want you to go fish for people with that message.”

Fish for people. What’s that mean? Is Simon supposed to like run around and throw a net over a bunch of people, and like drag them to church? No, that’s not what that means, although that would be kind of funny to see.

No, what he is saying is, “Simon, the fishing industry used to be your priority, now people are. And listen, by the way, you can continue to be a fisherman.” In fact, Simon would later on be a fisherman as well. He would continue to pick up fishing. But it wasn’t the number of fishes he would bring in every day. He recognized that through the fishing industry. People were his priority.

And that’s the application for you and for me. It doesn’t matter who you are, what you do for a living, what your line of work is. It doesn’t matter if you’re a stay-at-home mom or dad. It doesn’t matter if you’re a teacher or a plumber. People are our priority. Why?

People matter

People matter to God. People matter, all kinds of people. And it’s easy to say, “Well yeah, it’s easy to say that when you have a lot in common with those people,” but it’s even those you don’t have a lot in common with. Those are the people who matter too.

Listen. We live in an environment right now where we need to be reminded of this, now more than ever. You see, one of the things about this pandemic that’s so frustrating is that due to physical distancing, it’s also distanced our empathy for other people.

It’s amazing what we’ll say to people through a screen or keyboard, we would never say to their face. Because face-to-face, you have empathy. Face-to-face, you have compassion. Face-to-face, you can say, “We can talk about this.”

But over a keyboard, when anxiety is high and morale is low, we’ll say things we would never say to somebody’s face. And we are just a few short weeks away from a divisive election.

Right now, Traders Point family, people matter. All kinds of people. They matter more than my position. They matter more than my preferences. They certainly matter more than my political convictions. And I’m not saying those things aren’t important. I’m just saying that they should never trump people. People are the most important thing.

You see, in the midst of an environment where we’re living right now, where things are just abnormal and challenging, that’s easy to forget. As a church family, I just want to lead us back to our mission now more than ever.

You see, we will oftentimes say around here that we’ll do anything short of sin to get people to Jesus. I’ve said this from this platform before. I love the Book of Jude, where it says, “Snatch others from the fire.”

It’s this whole idea that I want to be on the front lines. One day, when I go to heaven and I meet Jesus, I want him to say, “You smell like smoke, Brockett because you were so close to people, right on the front lines. These people need my love now more than ever.”

Can I just say that in the midst of crisis and pandemic it’s easy to lose sight of this because we’re tired, weary, and irritated, a lot like some sleepless fishermen on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus had to bring their attention back to what he had died for.

What I want to do, as your pastor, is to humbly bring our attention back to that as well. May I just say, over the last few months, this has been hands-down the most challenging leadership season of my life? And I’m not bemoaning it. I’m actually grateful for it, because I think God is making us better.

I think God is showing us what we have fallen asleep to, some things we needed to be more aware of. I believe the church is going to roar back from this stronger than ever because we are city on a hill, a light that cannot be extinguished.

And now, right now, is the time for us to get stirred up together. To say, “Hey listen, we are not going to let the enemy divide us. We’re not going to let the enemy cause us to be fearful. We’re going to run to the front lines with the love and the hope of Jesus Christ.”

People are hurting right now. We hear all kinds of stats about a virus. But I want to give you some other stats that show you there are people who are hurting in more ways than just a sickness. People are hurting emotionally and mentally.

Calls to the National Mental Health Hotline have increased 1000%

Child abuse reports have decreased 24% in Indiana from April—July of 2020 compared to 2019. That doesn’t mean child abuse has decreased, it means that reports have decreased.

This should be alarming, because everything tells me child abuse has actually increased, but because kids either aren’t in school or church, or other public places, there aren’t eyes on to see it happening to report it. That should be scary.

By the end of June 2020, domestic violence cases were up 16% compared to 2019

Deaths due to domestic violence have increased 86% and they contribute the cause to COVID.

Families First Indiana had a 54% increase in calls regarding suicide between March and June 2020, compared to 2019

Marion County had a 138% increase in calls related to suicide from March 13th to April 18th

National Alliance on Mental Illness HelpLine has seen a 65% increase in calls and emails since March.

And my inbox has been full too, of people reaching out to me, messaging me, angry, fearful, losing hope, addicted, falling back into things they thought they had left in the rearview mirror. People are hurting.

And back in the beginning of this crisis, our team had four underlying principles that were to guide our decision making through crisis.

The Church is essential to our community.

We do not believe the church is a social club, or an extra-curricular activity. We believe we are essential to the spiritual, mental, and even physical needs of people. Most importantly, we’re trying to get people to Jesus. That is what we are trying to do, and that is essential. And I’m really thankful our governor stated that early-on in this crisis.

We will be responsible, but not fearful.

God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, love, and a sound mind.

We will serve our city through this crisis.

And we have. And I want to thank you for that. Guys, your generosity has completely humbled me. And your willingness to step up and say, “We’ll serve,” had been amazing.

So, we’ve served food. We’ve given away masks, donated blood, and we’re reached out to foster families in need. We will continue to meet the needs of our city around us.

We believe crisis always creates opportunity.

Winston Churchill said it best, “Never waste a crisis,” and we haven’t. And it’s amazing. I would say this. What a crisis does is it’s an accelerator. It just accelerates everything.

Our team is on track to start a digital campus. We were sort of trying to innovate all of that. I would say in the last six months we have actually increased all our digital capabilities by probably about six years. We’ve continued to innovate, and we’re not going to backtrack on any of that stuff. Digital has been the front door of our church for the past seven or eight years. All this crisis has done is made that front door bigger.

And I’ve bumped into a lot of people around town who have come up to me and said, “Hey, we’ve never been to your church, but we’ve joined you online, and we can’t wait to come when you open up again.” And I believe God is reaching more and more people through this.

Listen, I’m so thankful for digital, but it is not a replacement for face-to-face. For 2,000 years, one of the defining marks of the church is that it’s gathered. It’s gathered through dark days, and brighter days. It’s gathered through famine, and persecution, and plague.

The church gathers because there is a Holy Spirit kind of power that happens. When you gather with other people, you mutually encourage one another.

And so, those four guiding principles have been there to help us navigate through crisis, and those have also been the four principles that have helped us as we have tried to figure out: What do we do, moving into the fall.

I want you to know. After lots and lots of prayer, discussion, and counsel with experts, we’ve decided on a date. On Sunday, September 20, we are going to re-open our campuses physically—all four of our campuses—for worship services.

And, some of you might be thinking, “Why September 20th? Why not next week?” I’d be like, “I’m right there with you.” But, the reason why September 20th is we need to recruit and get all our team members up to speed. I want this to be a great experience.

A number of you have asked me, “Will it be safe?” Yes, it will be safe. We’ve got our whole plan on tpcc.org/regathering. You can go to that link and check it out. We’ll continue to update it.

I believe we can do this. We can do this. This can be a safe experience, but a great experience, for people who are hurting and people who are far from God and need to know Jesus. We need, the next few weeks, to recruit and train volunteers. When you get the email, when you get the phone call, would you please be willing to say yes? We’ll come back. We’ll get trained. We’re going to make this a great experience for people who have maybe never been on one of our campuses.

Can I also say, there may be a number of you who are not ready to come back physically for a number of reasons? I want you to know we 100 percent get that. We understand it, and we support you.

And that’s why online is not going away, it’s going to continue to get better. I want to encourage you to stay engaged online, stay engaged in your group, until one day when you may be ready to come back.

For the rest of us, can I just say right now, more than ever, we need to be unified behind the name and the person of Jesus Christ. We need to come together to be that city on the hill, to be a light in a dark, dark world.

I am 100 percent confident that on the other side of this we are going to look back and say, “God, we never want to go through that again, but thank you. Thank you for the way you sustained us. Thank you for your work. Thank you for the lives you changed. Thank you for the way you deepened our faith.” I can’t wait for that.

So, lastly, I just want to say that if there is anybody watching on the other side of the screen and saying, “I never knew it wasn’t a religion. I never really knew it was a relationship. I never knew it was like that,” can I just say there is a God who wants to take a load off?

He just wants to take off that baggage you’ve been wearing for so long, and he wants to give you hope and new life through his Son, Jesus. Today, if you would like someone to follow-up with you, just to help you walk through what those next steps are in investigating a relationship with Jesus, we’d love to talk to you.

You can go to this link right here, and somebody would love to follow-up with you:

tpcc.org/Jesus

What I would like to do, I’d like for those in the room and those online to go ahead and stand to your feet. I want to pray over us today, as we bring our time to a close.

Father, we come to you right now. I thank you so much for the Gospel of Luke, the gospel for skeptics. Because there is a skeptic in me, and I’m sure there is a skeptic in most people wondering, “Can we really believe this stuff? Is there really a God like that? Is there really hope?”

And the answer is a resounding yes. So, God, today I pray that if there is somebody ready to give their life to you, we celebrate that with them right now. For the rest of us, maybe bring our eyes back to maybe where we have drifted from during this crisis. That people really do matter.

God, make us fishers of men. That people would be our priority as we seek to live out the grace that you’ve given to us, so that people might be ready to hear the truth you provide.

And we ask this right now in Jesus’ name. Everyone says: Amen.

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