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Audio of Pastor Darren's message from 2-16-25, "Setting Course: Getting Outside Our Walls."

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Audio of Pastor Darren's message on 2/9/25: "Setting Course; Leave Everything and Follow."

We have been working on our theme. Setting course for a better life. And we've spent some weeks talking about what that better life is. You know, trying to just define that for ourselves. So that we have some sense of what we are trying to offer. For a couple of weeks now, I'm gonna focus on setting course.

Alright, how do we, how do we start moving in that direction? And actually, we've got a passage here where, to a certain degree, it's the beginning of Peter's setting course. So, part of what we'll be talking about is what does it mean for him, but also, what does it mean for us? So, you've got Jesus. Meaning Peter, the fisherman.

He is teaching, lots of people are gathering. So many in fact that he feels like he needs to get a little bit of distance. He asks Peter the fisherman to, uh, take him out on the boat, so that he can, uh, have, you know, just a little bit of distance. He doesn't have to worry so much about, uh, people getting too close.

More people can hear. And yes, it does turn out to be that. Peter, that Peter that we know of, that all the stories that surround him, the most loyal, uh, uh, disciple, despite his actions around the Easter, uh, but also the rock, uh, it is that Peter indeed. And what we know is that something miraculous happens.

Jesus tells him, after the teaching, to go fish in a different place. So Peter lets him know, he says, you know, Jesus, we, we've been, we've been fishing already here. We haven't caught anything. And now you're asking us to, to switch over. Now, to me, I think it's worth kind of jumping out of the story for a second to just ask ourselves about fishing.

Because, you know, you think about fishing today, it really is more of a, of a hobby, right? It's a relaxation thing. There aren't that many people who are fishing commercially, right? So, uh, um, when you're talking about, uh, Fishing. I know, for me, I think of my fishing trip I go on every summer up to Bishop.

I'm not a fisherman. I like to hike, but the rest of my buddies, they're all fishermen, so I'm in amongst all those people and all those smells. Right? And, and what I recognized right away was, we don't need the fish that they're gonna catch. You know, most of the time they do pretty good, but we don't need that fish.

Right? I, I know. That my buddy Jeremy's always gonna show up with a bunch of steaks and a bunch of carne asada, and if nobody catch nothing We're gonna be eaten well because that's just the way this group works if they're gonna be talking about fishing or fishing success It's about the competitiveness.

You know how many did you get how many did you get that kind of thing so for Peter? This is probably not true Right, for Peter, he is working, this is his income, this is his livelihood. He fishes at night, as he says. They fish at night so that then that morning they can take the fish that they've caught, and they can take it over and deliver it in to get sold, so he can make some money for his livelihood, hopefully catch a little sleep later that day, and then the next night kind of do the same thing.

A day's catch would be quite critical. Right? A skunk day, as the fishermen will call it, would threaten the livelihood. I wonder if, you know, we again could step out of the story for a second just to think about that. The anxiety of that. The vulnerability of that. I mean, have you ever been that person in that predicament?

Not knowing the answers to questions about life that you feel like you need to know to be able to make sure you have all you need to provide for yourself, for those who are counting on yo

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