What Kind of Fish Are You?
August 8, 2021 · 2:04:30 · Watch on YouTube ↗
These notes - summary, key points, and highlighted thoughts - were generated by AI from the recording and are not the preacher’s exact words.
Summary
This outreach service was centered on the Holy Spirit. The congregation was reminded that the Spirit gives many gifts, not only tongues, and that all we have to do is keep asking and stay available as vessels God can fill and use. Several members shared testimonies - a ten-year-old who received the gift of tongues at camp, a postal worker who watched God open one impossible door after another while he stayed faithful in small things, and others who saw the Spirit lead them to share Christ in ordinary, everyday places.
Guest preacher Roy Denton built his message around fishing. Drawing on Jesus' call to make His disciples fishers of men, he described five kinds of fish often found in the church: the catfish that feeds on junk from the bottom, the big-mouth bass that gossips and tears people down, the flounder that only sees one side of every story, the puffer that blows up in anger over everything, and the salmon that swims against the current.
The salmon, he said, is what God calls us to be - a believer who goes against the flow of the culture and lays down his own life so that others can find new life in Christ. His wife Cheryl added that the most important spiritual moments often happen on ordinary days, and that without Jesus even the comfortable and well-dressed are still lost. The service closed with an altar call to be filled afresh with the Spirit and to live as witnesses wherever God places us.
Key Points
- The Holy Spirit gives many gifts, not just tongues; keep asking and stay available, and He will give.
- You are what you eat - feed on what is true and pure (Philippians 4:8), not on the junk this world serves up.
- Guard your tongue: be quick to listen, slow to speak, and never tear another person down.
- Always remember there is another side to the story; God blesses peacemakers who listen before they judge.
- Do not blow up over every offense - love your enemies and do good even to those who hurt you.
- Be a salmon: swim against the culture and lay down your own life so others can be born again.
- Faithfulness in small things opens doors you never imagined; God is working even when you cannot see it.
Devotional
Today the Spirit asks a quiet question: what kind of fish am I? It is easy to drift with the current, feeding on whatever the world puts in front of me and speaking carelessly about others. But God invites me to swim upstream - to feed on what is good, to bridle my tongue, to stay calm when I am wronged, and to lay down my own comfort so someone else can find life. On this ordinary day, may I make myself an available vessel that He can fill and use.
You are what you eat - if you feed on the junk of this world, you will act like the junk.
God gave us the Spirit so we can swim against the current of a culture moving the wrong way.
Much of my walk with Jesus has happened on ordinary days.
