The Joshua Victor Theory

  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Looking around I see that you are all land-dwellers…no fish here…but in the Gospel Jesus invites us to imagine catching fish out of the water. Jesus called His disciples “fishers of men.” Enter Jesus’ metaphor for a minute; imagine ourselves as fish happily swimming in our familiar home, an ocean or lake, like the Sea of Galilee. If we put the Sea of Galilee here on Maui, I estimate it would stretch roughly from the base of West Maui mountains up to Makawao, and from Kahului Harbor to Maalaea Harbor—13 miles by 8 miles. Small, but big enough to get caught in a storm. Imagine happily swimming in your watery home when a net encircles you and pulls you out of the water. Panic fills your gills as you gasp and gawk at the frightening fisherman looming over you! I’m dead meat! This guy’s gonna make poke outta me! Peter tasted this fear once or twice in his fishing boat on the Sea of Galilee, looking up at Jesus....

Sermon Outline: ·          Romans opens by talking about “time.” “Besides this, you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand.” What kind of time is he talking about? This is the time of year, when we especially feel we don’t have enough of it. Ordinary time, measured in minutes, days, hours, years. Shopping, cleaning, preparing for the holidays, we become even more frantic about the shortness of our time. But the New Testament speaks of a second kind of time—what Paul means when he says, “you know the time.” It’s not a question of looking at your watch/ordinary time. The NT calls it kairos . Due time, the time of fulfillment, or God’s timing . God appoints a time for all things, and when the time is right, He carries out His intentions. His timing runs on a totally different scale than we measure by—because God is ou...