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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Good morning, St. Paul Lutheran Church. It's Sunday. Drive to church. It's Pastor Wolfmuller. It's July 5th, year of our Lord 2026. Fifth Sunday after Trinity Sunday. The Sunday of the miraculous Draught of fish is what we call it, the Sunday of the casting out Peter's fear. It's a beautiful, beautiful Sunday. Let's pray.
[00:00:23] Oh God, you have prepared for those who love you. Good things that surpass all understanding pour into our hearts such love toward you that we, loving you above all things, may obtain your promises which exceed all that we can desire. Through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
[00:00:43] Amen. Beautiful text today, starting with Psalm 16, which is one of my favorites. I want to read you the whole thing, although I've got the new King James open, so it'll be slightly different in the hymnal this morning. But these last verses are great. I lean on Psalm 16 a lot when I'm visiting folks. Preserve me, O God, for in you I put my trust. O my soul. You have said to the Lord, you are my Lord, My goodness is nothing apart from you.
[00:01:13] As for the saints who are on the earth, they are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight. Their sorrows shall be multiplied who hasten after another God. Their drink offerings of blood I will not offer nor take their names on my lips. O Lord, you are the portion of my inheritance and my cup. You maintain my lot. The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places. I have a good inheritance.
[00:01:36] I will bless the Lord who has given me counsel.
[00:01:40] How about that?
[00:01:42] My heart instructs me in the night seasons. I've set the Lord always before me. Because he's at my right hand. I shall not be moved. Now here's where it gets good. The last three verses.
[00:01:51] Therefore my heart is glad, my glory rejoices. My flesh also will rest in hope.
[00:01:58] For you will not leave my soul in Sheol, nor will you allow your Holy One to see corruption.
[00:02:05] You will show me the path of life.
[00:02:07] In your presence is fullness of joy.
[00:02:11] At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
[00:02:15] That second to last verse. You will not allow your Holy One to see corruption.
[00:02:21] Peter quotes in his Pentecost sermon in Acts chapter two, and he uses it to make the point that the body of Jesus did not degrade when it was laid in the tomb.
[00:02:32] It's an interesting thing for us to think about because the divinity was joined to the humanity.
[00:02:38] Jesus body didn't corrupt like a normal body would, but it's also for us.
[00:02:46] I mean, he will lead us also in the paths of life in his presence is, how does it say it here? In your presence is fullness of joy.
[00:02:56] At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
[00:02:59] I mean, that's not a small thing.
[00:03:02] We're headed towards life and that, you know, we, we should not forget that we're going to die and go to heaven.
[00:03:12] We should not forget that.
[00:03:14] We should every now and again try to remember. I mean, because we all got to die and maybe it's important to remember that, that we have to die, but we get to die and go to heaven.
[00:03:26] That's a pretty big comfort.
[00:03:30] The Old Testament reading is 1 Kings 19.
[00:03:32] This is deep into the prophetic ministry of Elijah. In fact, it's going to be the calling of Elisha.
[00:03:39] And that's probably why this passage comes up, because Jesus is going to call the disciples in the Luke passage. And so we have now that prefaced by Elijah. I want you to note a couple of things. So first is that the date it says on the bulletin, 560 BC is right, I think, for the publication of First Kings, but wrong for the events.
[00:04:04] So when we have those dates on there, we in the Old Testament especially and the New Testament, we normally have the written dates or the published dates, but these events happened long, long before that. So when we're just remember that the ministry of Elijah and Elisha, these two, in some ways, first of the prophets. They were prophets of the Northern kingdom. Now just to think about this, this will kind of set us chronologically in the right spot. Remember that King David was.
[00:04:36] He becomes king in 1010 B.C. easy to remember. Just got to remember one number, then one and then put a zero after it and then put it there again and then another zero, easy 10, 10, David is king. And remember that, that really is helpful because we can figure out all the other kings because Saul was king for 40 years, so he was 1050 to 1010. Then David was king for 40 years, 1010 to 9 79, 71. But anyway, and then Solomon is king for 40 years 971 to 931.
[00:05:06] And Solomon built the temple. So we can put the building of the temple right around what, 966, something like that. And the division of the kingdoms happens after Solomon dies. And we got Jeroboam and Rehoboam.
[00:05:18] So that's going to set the north and the south against each other in that civil war, 930 B.C. and that exists until the north is destroyed by the Assyrians. 722 B.C. okay, that's a lot of numbers. But here's the two that I want you to remember.
[00:05:35] 10, 10 and 7 22.
[00:05:38] So if you get those two kind of pegged numbers, we're going to be able to get the chronology right. And so Elijah and Elisha, their ministry is in the north. That means it has to be sometime after 9:30 and sometimes before 7:22. And that actually narrows us down pretty good. We can get even more specific, though, because Ahab's reign in Israel was 974to, sorry, 874to 853.
[00:06:03] And so these events are probably happen. Happening right around there, 8:57 or so. Remember, it was the contest.
[00:06:11] Elijah goes and he has this crazy contest with all these BAAL prophets. Why all these BAAL prophets are hanging around Israel? It's just gross.
[00:06:22] And there they are trying to get BAAL to. To consume this sacrifice. They're cutting themselves and dancing all over, and it doesn't work. And then the Lord whoosh from. From heaven destroys this sacrifice.
[00:06:37] And then Elijah has all these BAAL prophets.
[00:06:42] It's capital punishment for them. They're put to death, executed.
[00:06:46] And then Elijah, who's being pursued by Jezebel, who loves all these BAAL prophets because she's just this crazy BAAL princess.
[00:06:54] He's. She's chasing her out. So he runs into the wilderness and he just falls apart. He's despairing.
[00:07:00] So the Lord feeds him, he strengthens him, and he says, all right, go stand out here.
[00:07:06] And the vicar has figured out that the place where he goes, the mountain of the Lord, there is Mount Sinai.
[00:07:16] I can't remember that in the text. And I didn't track down how he figured that out, but that's cool.
[00:07:23] And what we would expect then is what the Lord does on Mount Sinai is set things on fire. I mean, that's the burning bush. That's when the people of Israel are on Mount Sinai. And God's given them the Ten Commandments. The whole thing's on fire.
[00:07:36] But no, in fact, the Lord passes by a great strong wind, tore the mountains and broke the rocks. But the Lord wasn't in the wind. And the earthquake. And the Lord's not in the earthquake. And then a fire, but the Lord's not in the fire.
[00:07:51] And then the whisper.
[00:07:54] And the Lord comes to Elijah in the whisper.
[00:08:00] It's a beautiful text. It's for the vicar to preach to you guys about in a few minutes, so I won't say too much more. But then he leaves There the Lord gives instructions to Elijah, and he says, now you need to go find Elisha. So he goes and finds him and he calls him and.
[00:08:20] And Elisha goes and. And becomes the disciple of Elijah.
[00:08:26] It's convenient that their names are so different. Makes it easy to get it straight.
[00:08:30] Elijah first, Elisha second.
[00:08:35] Beautiful. Okay, first Peter, 3, 8, 15 is the epistle lesson.
[00:08:42] Finally. It. Finally. But it's kind of right in the middle of the letter, so it's. It's sort of the first finally that Peter's going to write. All of you have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, humble mind.
[00:08:53] Don't repay evil for evil, reviling for reviling.
[00:08:57] On the contrary, bless. You were called to bless and get a blessing.
[00:09:02] And then he quotes the psalm, Whoever desires to see love of life, see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit.
[00:09:11] Let him turn away from evil and do good.
[00:09:13] Let him seek peace and pursue it. The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer.
[00:09:21] Have no fear of them in your hearts. Ooh, this is verse. Verse 15 is really good.
[00:09:28] I mean, it's all good.
[00:09:29] But this is a famous verse. In your hearts, set apart Christ, the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.
[00:09:45] So Peter says, look, you need to bless and not curse, you need to love and not hate, and you need to be ready to give a reason for your hope.
[00:09:55] This verse is the key verse for apologetics that is the art and science of defending the faith. But it's interesting that Peter doesn't say to be ready to give a reason for the faith that is in you, for the doctrine that's in you, for the teaching that's in you. He says, you need to be ready to give a defense for the hope that's in you.
[00:10:17] Now, I wonder sometimes if people even know we have hope in us so that we have to defend it.
[00:10:26] But this is the idea of the Christian, is that Peter says we should be walking around so blue, buoyed with hope, so lifted up with joyful expectation of that life to come, that people would ask us for a defense of it.
[00:10:46] Come on, heaven, come on, eternal life, Come on, the resurrection.
[00:10:56] I guess it's like we said in the psalm, we got to think about this, that we're going to live forever. And maybe it's slightly obnoxious when people realize that we know we're going to live forever. They're like, what are you on about living forever? Well, Christ Jesus died for our sins to win for us a place in eternal life.
[00:11:19] And he rose from the dead to make a way through death.
[00:11:23] And he's coming back on the last day to make all things new. That's why we have hope.
[00:11:31] The gospel round things out here. Luke chapter 5, verses 1 to 11 is the calling of Simon. Remember, Jesus is going by Lake Gennesaret. That's Sea of Galilee. This Lake Gennesaret, it's called the Sea of Tiberias. It's called the Sea of Galilee. It's got like five different names.
[00:11:53] It must have been full of fish too. It's not that big. It's what, five miles across and 15 miles tall, north to south. So we call it a sea. But really here it says lake. And that's probably. It's probably more like a lake. I wonder how big Lake Travis is.
[00:12:10] Well, since you asked, I did the research.
[00:12:12] I guess I asked myself, here's. This is interesting. The Sea of Galley is a bigger body of water. It's 64 square miles compared to Lake Travis's 30 square miles.
[00:12:24] So Galilee is more than twice the area of Travis.
[00:12:28] But here's interesting. Lake Travis, since it's long and skinny, stretches 65 miles from Mansfield Dam to up in Burnett County. But it's only four to four and a half miles across at its widest.
[00:12:40] The Sea of Galilee is much more compact and oval. It's about 13 miles long and 7 to 8 miles wide, but it fills out the whole oval.
[00:12:50] This is interesting. Lake Travis, because it's long and skinny, has a 271 miles of shoreline.
[00:12:57] Galilee's shoreline is 33 miles.
[00:13:01] Yup.
[00:13:05] Lake Travis is 210ft at the deepest. Galilee is about 157ft deep in the where it's deepest.
[00:13:15] Anyway, there you go.
[00:13:17] So it's sea, but it must have been full of fish because there's always were fishing in it. And so that's what Peter's job was. And he worked with James and John and Zebedee, their father.
[00:13:31] Remember that this calling of the disciples is the second calling that Jesus had already been working. Peter and James and John were already at the wedding at Cana. They were already involved in Jesus. They had followed him to Jerusalem and when he had talked to Nicodemus and all this sort of stuff. So then he had sent them back. And now this is the second and full time calling.
[00:13:56] So Jesus is.
[00:13:59] The guys have finished fishing for the night and he Gets in the boat and he pushes off and he starts to speak. And they're all sitting around the shore. Pretty cool.
[00:14:08] And then after he. He taught, he tells Peter, hey, let's throw out the nets. Go into the deep and throw out the nets.
[00:14:17] Peter, Master, we toiled all night, caught nothing. But at your word, I'll let down the nets. And they did it. And they enclose this large number of fish. And the nets are breaking, and they signal the partners and they come and get them. And the boats are about to sink.
[00:14:32] And here's the drama. Peter sees it, and he knows immediately this is not normal. These. This does not happen. This. This one is the Lord of land and sea, and he's caused this miracle to take place.
[00:14:47] And he recog. He knows immediately now what it means. Oh, man, I'm in trouble because he is God and holy and good, and I am not. And he falls at his knees and says, depart from me. I'm a sinful man. O Lord.
[00:14:59] They're all so astonished.
[00:15:02] And Jesus looks at Peter and says, do not be afraid.
[00:15:06] From now on, you'll be catching men.
[00:15:09] There's so many things that happen there. And this is such a comforting text for pastors especially, but for all Christians but man.
[00:15:18] So first, Peter's absolved. Don't be afraid. My holiness is not here to destroy you, but to bless you.
[00:15:26] I'm not here to finish you.
[00:15:30] I'm here to get you started.
[00:15:33] I'm not here to condemn you. I'm here to save you.
[00:15:37] And then I'll make you fishers of men. I'm giving you a new calling, a new job. Not only are you going to be okay with me, you're actually going to work for me.
[00:15:47] It's an amazing thing.
[00:15:50] We, you know, pastor. The basic idea of a pastor is a shepherd. In fact, in the Greek, there's just one word, poimein, and it means shepherd or pastor. It's the same word, the same exact word. There's not a single syllable of difference between the two words. You just got to figure out from the context if it's talking about a people shepherd or a sheep pastor. I mean, it's the exact same. And you would think that the Lord would call shepherds, but he doesn't. He calls fishermen.
[00:16:25] And in a way, there's really two different works that happen in the church. The first is that casting out the net, sending it out there, gathering people in. And then the second is the caring for them once they're there.
[00:16:38] That's the pastor part. God Be praised.
[00:16:41] He does both.
[00:16:44] And Peter does. He follows Jesus all the way to the end. I think of this a lot, about how Jesus must have known what this meant.
[00:16:57] I think we've talked about this. That, like, in my imagination, Jesus is looking at Peter there on the other side of the boat, and he's finished teaching.
[00:17:11] And he thinks, all right, I'm going to call Peter to be my disciple.
[00:17:15] And he sees Peter.
[00:17:18] He sees Peter doubting him.
[00:17:21] He sees Peter, far be it from you trying to stop him. He sees Peter that night of the arrest, betraying him, running away.
[00:17:33] He sees Peter maybe not far from this place being restored.
[00:17:38] And then he sees Peter preaching at Pentecost. And he sees Peter traveling around and writing letters. And he sees Peter getting arrested and taken over to prison in Rome. And then he sees Peter refusing to be crucified the right way up, but being crucified upside down.
[00:17:59] And Jesus knows what he's calling him to, and it would be hard for Peter to know.
[00:18:06] But I think that if you told Peter, like, hey, Peter, this is what's going to happen.
[00:18:11] He still leaves those nets.
[00:18:21] He still leaves those nets.
[00:18:24] He takes up his cross to follow Jesus.
[00:18:27] We all do.
[00:18:31] All right, that's Sunday. Drive home. I'm gonna miss you guys this weekend. Next week, say a quick prayer for us. If you think about it, we're gonna be traveling around in Europe. I'll be back on the 19th for Vicar's Farewell Sunday. That's boy. So you got two weeks with the vicar now, so make sure you squeeze all the juice out of him that you can get, like an orange, so we can rejoice. And in the last few days that we've got with the vicar here in his service, and we'll see you in a couple weeks. We'll try to keep in touch. So I don't know what the Sunday Drive to Church podcast will look like in the next couple of weeks, but tune in. I'll try to send an email if we get it out. And if I can get one shot off from France, we're going to go to church with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Strasbourg there. But if I can get something put up here for you guys, I'll try to do that, too. So thanks so much. God's peace be with you.