Your Powerful, Personal Freedom

July 4, 2004

The Rev. Dr. Anthony J. Godlefski, Pastor

Montgomery United Methodist Church

Psalm 138

Luke 10: 1-11; 16-20

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, good morning! I would like to share with you one further reading from the Holy Scripture. We looked at this a few weeks ago, but I want to look at a different part of it today. So let me read to you from the fifth chapter of the gospel according to St. Luke:

One day, Jesus was standing on the shore of Lake Gennesaret, while the people pushed their way up to Him to listen to the word of God.  Jesus saw two boats pulled up on the beach. The fishermen had left them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats. It belonged to Simon, and Jesus asked Him to push out a little from shore. Jesus sat in the boat and taught the crowd.

When He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, “Put out further to the deep, and you and your partners let down your nets for a catch.”

“Master,” Simon answered, “We worked hard all night and caught nothing. But if You say so, we will let down the nets.”

They let them down and caught such a large number of fish that the nets began to break. So they motioned to their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full of fish that the boats were about to sink.

When Simon Peter saw what had happened, he fell on his knees before Jesus and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” He and the others with him were all amazed at the large number of fish they had caught. The same was true with Simon’s partners James and John, the sons of Zebedee.

Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” They pulled their boats up on the beach, left everything, and followed Jesus.

The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Happy Fourth of July! It’s Fourth of July weekend, and I’m so glad to see you all here so that we could worship God together today. Amen!

Flags are flying all around the U.S., proclaiming this great nation of ours, and we should be thankful to Almighty God, thankful for this land founded on religious principles, founded on belief in God, one nation under God, indeed.

I want to talk with you today about one precious freedom you have, your powerful personal freedom. Friend, it is the freedom of choice, the most powerful freedom that you have. You have the freedom of choice, when it comes to attitude, when it comes to action, and when it comes to faith.

The reason I wanted to share this gospel with you one more time is because the disciples exercised the freedom of attitude, the freedom of choice. Simon said, “Master, we worked hard all night long and caught nothing, but if You say so, we will let down the nets.” He chose to let down the net. And when Jesus said “Come and follow me,” the disciples chose to leave all the old things behind, their nets and their boats, and follow Jesus.

I’m here to tell you today, my friends, that you have that kind of freedom. You have the freedom to choose. I got an email this past week from one of you. This story just stayed with me and repeated itself in my heart, and I feel that’s the tug of the Holy Spirit, and I want to share that story with you today.

Now, like a lot of internet stories, I’m not sure whether it’s factual or not. But I tell you this – it may not be factual, but it’s actual. It has the ring of truth about it. So let me share it with you:

It seems there was a man named Jerry. Jerry was in the restaurant business. He would manage restaurants. He had the most positive attitude there could be. Whenever there was a problem with one of the staff members, Jerry would go in and talk to him and help him solve that problem in a positive way. Whenever they had a personal problem, they would come to Jerry, and Jerry would talk to them and point out the positive side of the situation.

Sometimes when Jerry would leave one restaurant to become the manager of another, waiters and waitresses would just follow, because he was so good to work with, because of his positive attitude.

One day, a friend went to Jerry and said, “Jerry, what’s your secret? How do you this? How do you manage to maintain a positive attitude all the time?”

Jerry said, “You’re not going to believe it when I tell you, it’s so simple.”

The friend said, “Tell me, tell me.”

Jerry said, “Every morning when I get up, I have to make a choice. Am I going to be in a good mood today, or am I going to be in a bad mood? I choose to be in a good mood, and it stays with me all day long.”

His friend said, “It can’t be that simple. Life can’t be that simple. You can’t make a choice like that, that simply.”

And Jerry responded, “Yes, I can.”

Yes, it is that simple. All of us are free to make that choice, everyday. Am I going to be in a good mood today, or am I going to be in a bad mood? I choose a good mood. It’s amazing.

Jerry got his own restaurant, and he was doing well. But one day he made a very bad mistake. It was in a bit of a rough neighborhood, and he left the back door open. He was closing up for the evening, and robbers came in. They made him open the safe, but Jerry was so nervous that his hand kept shaking and it fell off the dial, and he couldn’t open the safe. Jerry was beaten and shot. Paramedics got there and rushed him to the hospital. His friend heard about it a few days later. Jerry was still alive. He went to visit Jerry.

“Jerry, how are you?” his friend asked.

“Fantastic. If I were any happier, I’d be twins.”

And the friend said, “How can you say this? How can you be here in the hospital, after this terrible thing has happened, and feel this way?”

He said, “Well, for one thing, I learned something. I learned that it was not a good idea to leave that back door open. And the other thing I learned was this: the paramedics took me to the hospital and said I’d be okay, but when I got to the hospital and saw the look on the doctors’ and nurses’ faces in the emergency room, their looks didn’t say the same thing. I prayed about it, and I had to make a choice. I had to make a choice between living and dying. I chose to live. The doctors and nurses said to me, ‘Are you allergic to anything?’ And I said to them, ‘Yes, bullets. Please operate on me as though I were going to live.’”

And they did, and he lived. And he said to his friend, “Do you want to see my scars?”

And his friend said, “No, thank you.”

Each day, you and I have to make a choice. Are we going to look at things well or are we going to look at things badly? Are we going to be a victim or a victor? Choose life. Choose yes. Choose a positive attitude, because your attitude choice is the most important choice you have day-to-day.

You can choose your attitude, and you can choose your action. Friend, you can’t do everything, but you can do something. You can beat yourself up for everything you can’t do, or you can say, “I’ll do this one thing and I will do it well, with all my might.” You can choose your action. Choose well.

And you can choose your faith. The disciples at the lake of Galilee didn’t say, “I’m going to check with my fisherman friends and see if they’re going with Jesus, too. I’m going to check out what the future looks like with this man.” They didn’t say that. They left their nets; they left their boats. They followed Jesus. You and I need to, too, because that’s abundant living. You can choose your attitude; you can choose your actions. You can choose your faith.

And so friends, I invite us all today to choose the positive option, to choose well, to choose the positive attitude. And we will be living triumphantly the abundant life in Christ.

God loves you. I do, too. Have a blessed week. Amen.