Networking | Student Pastor Zach Hammond

stand to your feet we want to go to the lord's the word of the lord this evening honored to be able to stand behind this pulpit as as i am anytime but this evening um i got a phone call from pastor and said that he would request that i speak tonight so i'm gonna do my best to be instant in season tonight so we're gonna go to luke chapter five and verse number two luke chapter five and verse number two honor pastor and sister carpenter thankful he was able to be there with his mother this afternoon and we will continue to keep them in our prayers that god will do what god does right that he comforts us he gives us uh peace when we don't understand right that's the great thing about peace is it outruns our understanding and i'm just thankful for times like this where we can cling to the hope of who god is amen i give honor to pastor and sister erickson and all our our staff and brother nolan sister flannery give honor to my wife and and both my boys beckham's about to turn five this next coming monday and uh so um they're all they're all growing up and i guess that means i'm getting older too and uh god's good amen you know i feel uh compelled this evening that we just after a pastor's message this morning it's just it's nice to be able to come in the house of god right we're just getting ready it's god's coming back i feel like every time we come together we're just we just need to check the oil and the lamps right and make sure that we're ready to go at any time because i believe that god has given us all the signs we need to see everything that he's given us to be able to look at i believe it's pretty evident that god is preparing the church luke chapter five and verse number two i've always been taught my whole life growing up around preachers fifth and sixth generation on both sides you preach a better life a sermon with your life than with your lips and uh you know the container flavors the content i pray that my words this evening are a reflection of my life that god has done so much for me and i would be lost hopeless without purpose without god jesus had a thing for using boats as a pulpit to minister to people and i would like to tell you a story here in luke chapter 5 where he takes two ships standing by the lake but the fishermen were going out of them and they were washing their nets and he entered into one of the ships which was simon's and he prayed him that he would thrust out a little from land and he sat down and taught the people out of the ship now when he had left speaking and said unto simon lotch out into the deep and let down your nets for a drop and simon answering said unto master we have toiled all the night and we've taken nothing nevertheless at thy word you know the story i'll let down the net when they had had this done they enclosed a great multitude of fish and their net break somebody saying their net break they beckoned under their partners which ran other ships and they would come and help them and they came and they filled both the ships that they began to sink and simon peter saw it he fell down at jesus knees saying depart from me for i am a sinful man o lord for he was astonished in all that were with him and the draw to fish that they had taken and so was james and john the sums of sons of zebedee which were partners with simon and jesus said unto simon fear not from henceforth you shall catch men and when they had brought their ships to land they forsook all and followed him now turn to the gospel of john chapter 21 and i'll move quickly through this john chapter 21 verse number two they were together now we see we're at the end of the gospel you can see this story recorded at the beginning and end of matthew mark luke and john they were together simon peter thomas called didymus and nathanael of canaan galilee and the sons of zebedee and the two other of his disciples simon peter said to them i'm going to go fishing and he said unto them we also will go with you simon they went forth and entered into a ship immediately that they had caught nothing sound familiar but when the morning was come jesus stood on the shore but the disciples knew not who it was and then jesus said unto them children have you any meat and they answered him no and he said unto them cast the ned on the right side of the ship and you shall find they cast therefore and now they were able to draw in for the multitude of fish therefore the disciples disciple whom jesus loves saith unto peter it is the lord now when simon peter heard that it was the lord he gird his fisherman's clothed unto him for he was naked and he cast himself into the sea and the other disciples came in a little ship for they were not far from land they were about 200 cubits dragging the net with fishes as soon then as soon then as they were come to land they saw the fire of coals there and the fish laid there on and bread jesus said unto them bring of the fish now which you've caught simon peter went up and drew the net to the land of great fishes and a hundred and fifty and three for all that were there so many yet was not the net broken and jesus said unto them come and die i want to preach to you for just a few moments this evening on net working net working once you lay your bibles down let's lift our hands to heaven ask that god would speak to us lord we come tonight god seeing all the signs of the times seeing your move with your spirit tonight god seeing souls already this evening begin to speak in other tongues as the spirit of god gives the utterance god we've seen the evidence of your presence god and we asked tonight god that you would move on every heart you would move on every mind as we take your word and we investigate our lives and we look god from head to toe god from every word deed every action god and we're able to look god tonight and say god i just want to please you god i just want to hear you say well done oh god tonight speak to us god for we are your people and we want to hear your word tonight in the mighty name of jesus we pray and everybody shout amen amen you can be seated this evening net working from the start of it all to the end of it all we see the process of the disciples begin in galilee and go to ending at galilee the word galilee actually means to come full circle it was home for the disciples one major thing that sticks out in these two stories that seem to be very very similar as in one we see that the scripture lets us know that their nets broke even one gospel records as jesus calls the disciples they were mending the nets as they recorded in luke chapter five in the opening story but when you look at the almost exact story you maybe could even trace or we know we were in galilee we know we were on the same sea perhaps you could go and pinpoint them within a certain maybe even a few feet maybe a few miles of where the first story took place it's no coincidence that when peter heard those words cast on the other side and they begin to pull in fish maybe that they haven't fished at all since the last time they fished when jesus called them and told them to launch out to the deep and they weren't able to handle the catch but we see here same water same people same toiled all night no success for their work their nets were not successful but then jesus walks up on the scene and all of a sudden we see some success but we see here that in in the way that these these passages are written in matthew mark luke and john we see that's important here we see three pictures painted in john chapter 1 21 he talks about fishermen shepherds and disciples fishermen he teaches the concept of obedience obeying god with the shepherds he teaches the concept of loving god love him and the disciples he starts talking about the concept of following jesus but i am intrigued in this concept and how many things line up when we begin to talk about where jesus says i'm gonna make you fishers of men you know fishermen were brave dedicated not known for quitting they knew how to work they were skilled and using their equipment and it's recorded that possibly seven of the twelve disciples were fishermen perhaps they had some attributes that we this evening could take note of it takes a great deal of faith to fish you can't always see what you're working with it takes a great deal of faith to cast into the waters not knowing if there's anything there or not but they knew how to work together using a net they had worked together with patience and persistence and i just here to tell you you know i'm i enjoy fishing and hunting and doing those things outside grew up doing a lot of those things but i'm the kind that i like to go catching and i like to go killing i don't really i'm not i'm not much for the the uh when i go fishing it ain't gonna take me long i ain't catching nothing i'm going to the house so you toil all night with me you you're not going to toil too into the night i'm going to be ready to sell the nets and move on to something a little more productive i'm just not the most patient person but they uh it i believe there's some things here that we can learn from the fishermen the key to their nets working in both occasions was being in the will of god doing it god's way so we see here that he calls them back to galilee where it all started and it's almost a sense of where he points out that the nets broke in the first and then he points out that the next the nets didn't break in the last it's like he almost like in this process of them following him that he fixes their nets both stories toiled all night it teaches us that apart from him we can do nothing there's no success when he's not in it we say it all the times i can do all things through christ which gives me strength we say that in the sense to encourage ourselves but how many times do we say it on the flip side where we ought to convict ourselves right how many times are we trying to do some things without him how many times are we trying to navigate certain aspects of our life without taking him into consideration that i can do all things through him but really look at our lives this evening let's say some of us are working but perhaps we have limited success we have consistent burnout we seem to come back around to the same old issue it just maybe spreads out from it was weeks and now it's months and perhaps it's years but we seem to circle back around to the same old problem we need constantly a reset we need a start over you feel like you've toiled all night in life perhaps you've been fighting the same issues maybe since you were a teenager maybe since you were in middle school college student you feel like you've just been casting but there's no success and i can't catch a break i can't really get through i can't really find my purpose i can't really find what i'm made to do your nets seem to break broken nets can stem from multiple things first and foremost we've established that apart from him we can do nothing so if you're trying to live life without god you're not going to get anywhere amen i don't know about you but i'm a testimony to looking at my life the worst seasons of my life i've ever been through is when i tried to do something without god is there anybody that's ever tried to do anything without jesus and you look back and say oh hindsight is 20 20. hi well i know we don't want to mention 20 20. but hindsight is one of those things where it's so much easier to see right once you you know you've tried it on your own you know i've i i've talked to the kids before we we we like to play the game of hot potato as a kid with our lives right we throw it into god's hand when it gets hot and we like to take it back and we'll toss it over to this one toss it over that we'll toss it to a boyfriend we'll toss it to a girlfriend we'll toss it to a new job we'll toss it to a new career we'll toss it to another degree we'll toss it to another five dollars an hour but ultimately until we put it in god's hand it's never going to mold and shape out like it's supposed to right because all things are possible through him but apart from him i can do nothing there's a couple other reasons busy is not always better i could put two people you know i'm not very seasoned 31 years old but i feel like in my life i can put people in two categories either you are trying to make the dollar or you've made the dollar and realized that you've worked so hard making the dollar you didn't make a difference people that are seasoned retired look back and maybe and i've seen it play out and i know it's not all cases but perhaps somebody chose to make that extra few dollars an hour and sacrifice their kids maybe you chose to work those extra shifts and you sacrificed some of the most important things in your life but we feel like that we're being productive because we're being busy if we're honest are our new year's resolutions new resolution are they last year's resolutions right because we feel like we're just starting over i don't believe it's god's will for us to start all over i believe it's god's will for a new season you know something fresh that we can build on the foundation of who he is i read the other day where the denominations that struggle the most and consistency and and being able to uh to move forward are the denominations that never ever ever question their foundation if we really look at it from acts chapter 2 the birth of the church all these other things have branched out and we still see new religions pop up daily it seems like because people decide to question the foundation god's plan for us is not to get to january 1 and feel like that we didn't accomplish anything in 2020 but we learned some things right and we're going to do some greater things in 2021 because i i believe that we can be busy but we can be productive as long as we're doing it in the will and the way of god number two would be serving without submission how many people god's called us to be a part of the church called us to be cast in a net called you to be fishers of men but you don't like casting a net because you can't do this by yourself right you're too many problems of your own to yoke up with somebody else so instead of casting a net we decided to get out of rod and reel right i know pastor says this i know the word of god says this but let me let me try it this way i feel like there's some things that i can accomplish that nobody's ever accomplished before i can do this i can do that i i think it's one of the main things that we we see that true success only comes through true submission so we begin to to to try to do things on our own i i'm willing to serve but i i've got something to say about every little thing and i i i'm being completely honest with you this evening some people they'll never receive gratitude for serving because they want to complain about what they're doing here for they get pity long before they get gratitude if you're in the middle of doing something well i'm serving god i'm i'm doing this for the kingdom but man i really wish i was doing i really you know we we we complain about what we're doing if living for god is a burden you're never going to be you're always going to get the pity from people rather than thankfulness from somebody serving without submission maybe we're driven without direction where are you fishing at scripture says where there's no vision the people perish and we often times refer and we hear that at conferences talking to pastor and leaders but we've got to be willing to follow the directions of god of the man of god we're all willing to work but whose kingdom we have a group of people who i feel are deceived in this time that we're living in that their kingdom is god's kingdom driven with no direction passion without purpose but let us not be more passionate about the things of this world than the things of god because we see here that in the story that we've highlighted this evening in both instances the distance between our success and our failure was just the word of the savior and the width of the ship the word of the savior and the width of the ship can you imagine looking at people's lives from a perception of a godly point of view and you probably and you don't don't think of them don't point at nobody right now but you know people that are fishing on the wrong side of the boat right you know people they're like man if they would just do what god told them to do right everybody knows at some point tonight i'm probably going to make a point you're going to think of somebody else in the room other than you right yeah see they're fishing over here like man if you would just listen to god he said throw it over there he said launch out into the deep why don't you just listen what the man of god's saying there's times where i've set and i know people aren't right with god and pastor begins to preach and he begins to preach the convicting power of god and i'm just hoping that the mercy of god that is described in the word of god will draw somebody to an altar of repentance you just want to say hey would you just try what god said but think about it it's not just the voice of god but we're talking about a boat that couldn't have been much wider than this stage i mean it may not even been that wide it may have been as wide as this row here and your success may be only 20 foot to the left it may be only a 15 or 20 foot over here and you're talking about it looks like the same water it's got to be the same fish last time i i checked those fish weren't swapping ponds my success can't be that far right but he said just throw it over here with it's the same water it's the same boat you can't tell me 20 foot's going to make a difference and how it sounds with god because we seem to have it all figured out right we've read the bible before i've seen this happen before i've prayed that prayer before i've tried the whole fasting in january thing before but nevertheless all the things that we could check off in our mind that seemed to be an excuse of why we shouldn't cast it over there you know it was a known fact that you only catch if you went there today the sea of galilee you only catch fish at night in shallow water makes sense right it's like building a boat out of gopher wood and gopher wood's the only wood we know of it don't float sinks he says launch out to the deep in the morning cast your net on that side he's going to go against everything you've ever been taught anything that's rational in your mind as a that your human logic all those things that seem to make sense you're telling me it's just just what's the difference in this side and that side what's the what's the difference in this god but nevertheless i'll go against the training i'll go against the culture i'll go against even my experience and at your word we understand tonight that when jesus gives orders we may be much closer tonight to our success than we realize when you will get your directions from the right place and you can rely on the word of god we will see his kingdom come and his will done there's somebody in this room tonight that the lord has been telling you to do something for some time now but putting it off until tomorrow putting it off until the next service instead of replying nevertheless god i've tried an altar before i've tried that before we see so many that are looking for a convenient season for christ and christianity i'm just here to tell you ain't gonna get no more popular than it is right now god's trying to get you to hear his call and the devil consistently tells you you're not worthy you're not able you're not capable but i just truly believe tonight if somebody can see uh the the the little concept here we find at the beginning and the end of the gospels that you can just see how powerful his purpose is in our lives i love this little story because peter you know he's he plunges into the water and swims to jesus you know you probably would too if you just denied him and cussed him that was the last time he saw him so he plunges in but we see there that john the beloved he's the first to recognize jesus because he leaned his head on his chest at the table he stood and got down on his knees at the cross and watched him suffer he's the first to recognize him because he experienced him on the cross perhaps he maybe even could tell some of the things that he saw because he saw him through some things i think that would even tell us some things this evening when you've been through some things with jesus it's much more easier to recognize him when you've been through some trials you've been through some fires you've been through some some trough and trying times it's much easier to recognize jesus but he he had been through some stuff in there they're here same waters and toying with these nets and they've got them now full of fish full of fish and the scripture says yet was not the net broke and i believe tonight that god in a different way wants to give somebody that moment tonight that you feel like all of a sudden that you're doing something that has purpose that there's not some hole there's not some problem there's not some circle a merry-go-round of of life that we're living i believe that they they went from the calling moment of mending their nets where their nets did not break and jesus takes care we see as they come there and he's replayed this this story of the beginning of the gospel where he called them to now they come in with droughts of fish and their net don't break and he takes care of their physical need before he takes care of their spiritual need and it's an excellent example that god gives us as jesus cares for his people it's how we get our networking so begin to care about what god cares about he says you're not going to be fishers like you know as fishermen but you're going to be fishers of men 37 times in scriptures throughout the old testament we see the net is referred to as something we would see as a trap psalms chapter 35 and verse number one the psalm of david david here is his is he's fighting a battle against song against saul and he writes this psalm and he says plead my calls o lord with them that strive with me fight against them that fight against me o god take hold shield and buckler and stand up and mine help draw out also the spear and stop the way against them that persecute me say unto my soul i am thy salvation let them be confounded and put to shame that seek after my soul let them be turned back and brought to confusion and devise my hurt let them be a shaft before the wind and let the angel of the lord chase them let their way be dark and slippery and let the angel of the lord persecute them for without cause they have hid for them their net in a pit which without cause they have digged for my soul let destruction come upon him unawares and let his net that was hid catch himself into the very destruction let him fall and my soul be joyful in the lord it shall rejoice in his salvation so in other words this concept and we see it in a few different passages passages of let the net that he set catch himself and this concept in original text it's this unique prayer that david has and we see this con this concept transpired through scripture and even the same context in the new testament we see referred to the net and it gives us this this concept is so interesting it's almost uh if i could describe it to you it takes you to that passage where it says if the devil had known he wouldn't have crucified him right if o haman would have known that when he was building those gallows that he was going to be the one hanging on them i i don't think haman would have been so quick to build i don't think the devil about four days later would have been so out to put jesus christ on a cross and think that it was settled and it was done it's the same kind of concept of throwing out a net we we see here that this this net it's it's it's set out to be a snare but then we are the ones to be caught in it so look at this concept think about this with me matthew 16 and 24. he said i want to make you remember he says fishers of men then said jesus unto his disciples if any man will come after me let him deny himself take up his cross his cross i thought it was your cross his cross and follow me i thought jesus was the one that died on the cross for whosoever will save his life shall lose it and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it for what is a man profited if he gained the whole world and lose his own soul or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul for the son of man shall come in the glory of his father with his angels and then shall reward every man according to his works verily i say unto you there be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the son of man coming in his kingdom so take up your cross take up my cross you know the cross is not only good at reminding us of what god did for us but the cross is a good indicator to my neighbor of what god's done for me look at this with me this same concept this same god logic that we see that what we do not share will ultimately become our snare do you see that with me what i don't when i don't use the cross when i don't use the same thing that caught me to catch somebody else ultimately it entangles me and it frustrates me that's the concept when he says he's using a net i'm gonna there's there's obviously some attributes of a fisherman that we can learn from but the greatest thing we can learn from from the beginning of the gospel to the end of the gospel is that we started with a net that didn't work it'd pull up some fish it would pull up some success but by the time i tried to get it in the boat everything was falling out of it and it seemed like that my finances were good but there was just a hole somewhere in the net it seemed like some months was good but there was just a hole in the net there was no consistency to this christianity thing that i was trying to take this cross but this just it got uncomfortable right so when i don't share it i get frustrated with it i believe that the greatest reason people give up living on god living for god is that they don't understand that the same net that caught me is supposed to be used to catch somebody else where did he carry the cross the scripture says that he took it through the marketplace just like he called the disciples i'm not going to change what you're doing i'm going to change what you're catching god's not asking you to in order to win people just stop doing everything and just go teach bible studies and just know god's called you to wherever you're at right now god's called you to be the one that's in the hospital halls god's called you to be the one that's in wherever your little cell or your office is young person he's called you to your class for such a time as this you know i often times i've had a conversation with some some guys my age and we we've got kids that are all under the age of five we begin to think oh god what are we doing having kids in an age like today what am i doing having a kid in the middle middle of a pandemic middle of things that are going on this world the things that i had to face god knows the things they're going to have to face but i chose this week and god spoke to me start talking talking a little bit differently if god let him be born in a dispensation if god let him be born in this time that i refuse to be one that's going to stand back i want to raise up a david that was able to slow slow goliath right i want to raise up somebody that's able to accomplish something if he put him on this earth for such a time if we're here tonight if i'm still breathing god's heir if i've given god's given me another day he's given me an opportunity god forbid we stand back and look at what's going on the news and look at what's going on around us and say oh poor old pitiful us having to live during this time think about paul you think paul had the support of the government god forbid we believe so strongly that god's coming back i could tell you one thing tonight we we want to be successful when the trumpet sounds we want to hear well done we better have somebody with us what caught me is not only what's going to keep me it's what's going to satisfy me say i i just feel like i can't get anywhere in this thing with god what good is the power of the holy ghost inside of us if we don't use it it's not all about speaking in tongues it's as much about speaking love and speaking the word of god into somebody else's it's as much about telling your testimony as it is speaking in another language because i believe with all my heart that you have to walk through the plan of salvation through repentance baptism in the name of jesus christ for the remission of sins and receive the gift of the holy ghost by the evidence of speaking in other tongues in order to to to have salvation but i also believe that that's not just the one thing that you have to do i have a hard time believing that anybody's going to stand before god and never want a soul and hear well done i'm sorry but i don't see it in my bible i i don't see it anywhere where we we we see so many times we we we we're worried about the things that are happening we've got we've got prophets everywhere that are they're trying to figure out what's going on look at the signs of the time and what's the president going to do what's going to happen here yes we can pray but if we really want to do something that's effective find somebody brother art schnitzer you've taught us so many times go teach them a bible study tell them what god's done for you show somebody what god can do to change your life that god brought me out of darkness god picked me up by the side that one called me can catch somebody else you won't make it long in the church until you start using your net you'll just go back to fishing my net's not working i i don't see what god's done you think look at peter he said i'm just going to go fishing he said i thought he was going to make me a fisherman and here he is they killed him you may be listening perhaps to the wrong voice you may be fishing on the wrong side of the boat but i'd ask you to do this this evening it's not always going to be 100 successful but could we always just be fishing for people if there's anything we could go back to and focus on i love with all my heart i i i think brother evan valentine he has a tesla one of the coolest things in the world i watched a thing the other day where they pressed the button that thing was out in the parking lot and come up and pick somebody up in front of a restaurant that's awesome scary but awesome who wouldn't want to drive a tesla a thing drives itself no gas right got all the perks you know it's just an interesting vehicle but i think if we could just get back to the basics if driving an old ford with four wheels and a motor will get me to heaven i love great music i love sound brother darren brother andy all that i i drive pastor crazy always we need to do this we need to do that we need the best of this we need the best of that i believe god deserves it i believe god deserves it but i also believe that none of this is any good if we're not fishing for men we can have the best music we have the best audio video we can have the best online presence but have a hole in our net if it's not about people and i believe tonight with all my heart that matthew 6 mark chapter 16 and verse number 15 if there's a heartbeat inside of me tonight he said to go into them go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature you are the light of the world matthew 5 14 a city that's set up on a hill that cannot be hid neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel god forbid and put on a candle stick and it had given light unto them that are all in the house and let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father which is in heaven it seems bogus the light of light and then to cover it up just as much as it would be frustrating the grace of god that he cover you and save you for it just to stop with you in closing i set i give honor to my mother and father tonight who sit possibly watching this as they sit with my grandfather and grandmother my grandfather is a preacher of the gospel he's an amazing testimony which he used to win people all over that county city no education dropped out of school in middle school can't read brother schnitzer the only way he studied for his sermons my grandmother would read for him when he preached he'd have somebody sit over and read for him and he preached one thing his story he preached faith watched him lay hands on people bones sticking out of arms go back in riding around in a little lincoln town car i've seen more miracles signs and wonders with him and i think i'll probably ever experience in my life but he lays in a house tonight can't see recovering from a broken hip and i sat at the foot of his bed about a week and a half two weeks ago and he said i feel like i got any purpose my grandmother sits beside him both in their their 80s she's got eat up with dementia can't remember if that's her husband laying next to her sometimes or not you wonder what's god's doing but he pricked my heart so strongly as i had a conversation with him he said brother tyler he said i feel so purposeless he said if i could just call somebody and tell them to get to the house of god if i could just tell some at least invite somebody to church he said i know i can't see i know i can't really you know gather my thoughts i couldn't it wouldn't dare try to get in the pulpit and preach or sing like i used to but if i could just invite somebody to church i could feel some purpose oh and it pricked me so strong in my heart to think when it all comes back and the books closed i can't take anything else with me but you i can't take anybody else with me but some i can't think anything but somebody else look at this with me i i was reading this a while back and i will give complete props to brother nash and him and i having a conversation about this scripture but i believe it closes this sermon so well and i believe god's gonna just come into this place here in a moment and confirm his word with a move matthew 11 and verse number 30 says for my yoke is easy it's easy to be caught it's easy to yoke up with jesus think about it you'd be crazy not to yoke up with jesus he's a solution to every problem he's the comfort he's the hope in the midst of everything that's fallen apart when everything else is inconsistent he's consistent he's got every attribute everything we need and we've got plenty of people that are willing to yoke up with jesus i've got plenty of people that are willing to fall on their face before god we've got plenty of people that we've seen in my life that's been willing to get in the waters of baptism and take on his name churches all over the nation that have yoked up with jesus but our fear is that they've yoked up and they've still got a hole in their net because he says for my yoke is easy and how many people missed the second half where he says but my burden is light i don't care how big the building is i don't care how many people tune in how many people sit perhaps even on the pew how many people will gather around the throne and hear well done from first apostolic church that's what it's all about right we could we could pack out thompson bowling arena we could start having multiple services at the largest venue in this area but it all comes down to one thing are you ready to meet him and the qualifications from the word of god and being ready to meet him is that you got somebody with you that's his purpose that's his plan he says my yoke is easy but my burden is light it's not very heavy yoking up is easy he said it's not very heavy but he didn't say there wasn't anything he said that my burden is light he did say there wasn't a burden brother joel but he said there is one that's not very heavy and i believe with all my heart that that light there doesn't mean in terms just of weight but my burden is light a city set up on a hill that cannot be hid if you're going to yoke up with me there's something that yokes up with you and that is when you yoke up with jesus you've been to you begin to care about what jesus cares about when i truly have yoked myself up with the savior the one who died from he i can't yoke up with him without carrying a burden for the lost i want you to stand your feet the only debt we truly owe this evening is the gospel to our neighbor there's somebody in this room tonight and i'm asking that you'd begin to pray if you've got the holy ghost if you've seen the effects of your testimony on somebody else's life i wish you'd pray for a moment but i believe there's some people here this evening that simply you just you're in the first part of the story you're the disciples in the beginning of the gospel and you just feel like you've toiled all night but i'm not accomplishing anything i i've got some people here tonight the lord speaking to you i i feel like that i'm not accomplishing anything in life and i just keep going in circles i'm just spinning the wheels and life just keeps so mundane and so frustrating and i'd like to open these altars to you first and foremost to just say hey would you try jesus would you cast your nets on the other side of the boat tonight oh for there's an altar of repentance and there's a there's a new life for you in this new year that says i i don't want you to live life without purpose without meaning but for those that you've got it i want to challenge you to share it some of you've got an old rod and reel in your hand and i'm asking you to with me with the church body tonight grab a hold of this net with the same thing that caught us the same reason that we're sitting here on a pew and we've got some dignity about us and we've put on our best and we've come to the house of god tonight i'm asking you to tell your story i'm asking you to tell your testimony i'm asking you to just focus on what god's focus on because what brought us in to the kingdom of god is what's going to bring us in to the pearly gates and i am who i am because god reached down and turned a drug addict into a disciple he turned a messed up situation and gave somebody purpose he gave us power and he freed us from sin so that he could use that toiling all night story to reach somebody else i'm here to tell you that in these last days we've got to get our nets working the greatest thing we'll accomplish together is a unified body is to stand out and throw out a net a lifeline to somebody are you willing to share the gospel are you willing to share the gospel of jesus christ i wish everybody look up here for just a moment before we open these altars to everybody are you going to heaven huh you're going to heaven you can't confidently say that i would pray that you'd already been in these altars tonight if you're going to heaven who are you taking with you could you close your eyes for a moment just think of somebody that's not here that you know is not ready that you have the ability to minister to them that you could take with you to heaven now if you'd open your eyes look up here and i know you could say i don't want to be gloom and doom or whatever but this is just the reality of it am i going to hell nobody's planning on going right it's not the goal of anybody in here i'd say that's why you're here at church tonight right there's very few people i've ever had a conversation with that's planned on going to a place of torment but here's the reality of human life that just as much as you could say are you going to heaven who are you taking with you influence is powerful so we get asked the same question tonight if you're not ready who are you taking with you dad if you're not ready who are you taking with you mom if you're not ready college student who are you influencing because they're following you whether you're following christ or not so i don't know about you but i want to be a fisher of men i want to be fishing with purpose with a net that don't have any holes in it don't have any pride in it don't have any shame in it don't have any i have any hiccups i i want to take somebody to heaven because i believe that's what's going to be the the the reason i hear please hear me this evening the reason i hear well done will be what i did in the classroom where i carried the cross through the marketplace where i walked through the place where god's called me to because he didn't tell me that i was going to be doing anything different he just said i'd be catching something of purpose as you close your eyes and lift your hands i wish you'd received the word of the lord tonight please don't hear it from my voice scattered comments but i pray that you'd hear the call of god on your life to say god i got to get back to what i know is the heartbeat the heartbeat of god you've got a job because he caught you you've got a cross because he died on him for you the same mercy the same love the same peace that he he placed upon you and he cast his care cast his love upon you oh i wish that we could catch the the burden tonight that we could leave here with it pounding in our chest souls soul souls god i gotta share come on tonight if nothing else i wish you'd come down around this front and i wish you'd get a burden in your heart for somebody else i come to this altar all the time and pray about my own problems pray about my own dilemmas but could we pray god lay some soul upon my heart god open up a door at my workplace god open up a door with that family member god in 2021 i just want to win a soul god i just want to win a song oh god keep us up at night god shake our lives god stir us in the very fiber of our being god god that my heart breaks for what breaks yours god my life shakes for what shakespeare your kingdom come god your will be done god your kingdom come your will be done oh i believe god's doing something in this place right now you realize how quick that oh how quick that we could affect blood county how quick we could affect our community revival revival starts with us first apostolic church oh there's people that are hungry there's people that need what you've got oh god you'll keep them on my chin god your kingdom god not my kingdom come on students catch a burden come on if you can get this early it'll be easy to serve god it's going to be easy to serve god when you have that purpose that satisfaction of seeing god change lives just like he changed my god god turned it around it changed god turn calling on you feel like you've toiled all night come on you feel like you god can do something for you tonight god can put something on you tonight god can fill you with the power of the holy ghost tonight come on god turn it around i ask would you just try jesus tonight when did this try something oh is is god is right now is is is is he is is he is come on if nothing else could we create an atmosphere for these three or four that are praying let god turn it around for them there's some students up here casting it on the other side it's giving god a try come on you've tried everything else come on church the name of jesus you can see one thing with me before we close this evening and those that are praying can continue to pray [name redacted] you care to come here and help me for a second [name redacted] a senior at apostolic christian academy he's a good boy 17 years old i just use him in as an example tonight because i know his life seeing the process things he's went through here's the most powerful thing about being a fisher of men being a cross carrier that i think we could grasp and i've heard it preached my whole life that you are unique you are special you are called nobody else has got your dna i've heard it preached that i am special to god i am unique to god and i believe every single word that's ever been preached from this pulpit from any pulpit in that manner but i believe what's so unique about each and every one of us is that me and [name redacted] are not the same not only is he a little better looking than me but he's been through some things that i've never been through which means brother step he can cast a net he can cast a net i can't cast just like my cross won't fit him my consecration that i mount up unto every day and i need to kill this flesh you can't have my cross don't you compare to my cross because my cross might not kill you that cross hanging around your neck or hanging around the mirror it may connect you to what it is but you better get on one if we're going to get our flesh under subjection but my cross isn't the same that's what caught me that's what took me and that's what brought me into salvation put me in a baptismal pool filled me with the baptism of the holy ghost my cross sitting the same there my net's not this he can catch people i can't catch and if there's anything that we need to grab hold of tonight that makes you more important to god to the people around you is he's given you a net to catch somebody that maybe nobody else can catch there's people in your life that are waiting on you i believe with my whole heart the challenge that i'd like to issue for this year and i don't want you to raise your hand if you think it's impossible maybe you need more training maybe you want to find myself by the erickson brother brother brother jacob anybody brother a youth leader and you get more training but how many would set out and set a new year resolution with me say i just want to win one soul in 2021 one soul i believe that no matter what our part is in the church whether it's from the parking lot to the pulpit i believe every person could commit to winning one soul not per family i think every person no matter your age can call somebody can tell them can tell them i received the holy ghost on a sunday night in 2021 and the same holy ghost that he gave you he wants to give somebody i'll say man if you receive that why don't you lift your hands up to the lord i believe god's going to do some great things this year come on if you believe it with me i believe that there's a harvest of salts i believe that there's a great harvest of souls that's coming not because they just walked up in here but because you invited them they work with you they are a part of your family they're one of your co-workers they're one of your classmates i believe god's gonna shake up this place with new souls because somebody got active fishing oh i believe it tonight in the name of jesus if you believe that with confirmation why don't you clap your hands to the lord tonight god we thank you for your word