Luke 5:1-11
Let’s hear God’s word together,
this from Luke’s gospel, chapter five, beginning at verse one.
And it says, on one occasion, while the crowd was pressing
in on him, to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake
of Gennesaret, and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen
had gone out of them, and they were washing their nets. Getting
into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, he asked him to
put out a little from the land, and he sat down and taught the
people from the boat. And when he had finished speaking,
he said to Simon, put out into the deep and let down your nets
for a catch. And Simon answered, master, we
toiled all night and took nothing, but at your word, I will let
down the nets. And when they had done this,
they enclosed a large number of fish and their nets were breaking. They signaled to their partners
and the other boat to come and help them. And they came and
filled both the boats so that they began to sink. But when
Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees saying, depart
from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. For he and all who were
with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken. And so also were James and John,
the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus
said to Simon, do not be afraid, from now on you will be catching
men. And when they had brought their boats to land, they left
everything and followed him. Let us pray together. Our Lord,
we give you thanks that in your word, you show us how wonderful
Jesus is. And in this passage, we want
to see very clearly who he is and what his kingdom is all about
so that we can be part of your kingdom and do the ministry that
you have for us. Help us to see, hear, believe,
and most importantly, to leave this place today ready to go
and do that which you ask. And we pray it all in the name
of Christ Jesus, our savior. Amen. My sister and her family
live in Wilmington. And as most of you probably know,
lots of movies are made there. And several years ago, Hugh Grant,
whom I think all the women in the church will know, was in
Harris Teeter. And my sister was too nervous
to go speak to Hugh Grant, as probably most ladies would be.
So she put her then probably 13-year-old boy up to it. He
goes up to Hugh Grant and says, my mother Yes, the idiot over
there blushing and hiding would like to get a picture with you.
And so he came over and got the picture. But we very often bump
into these paparazzi type moments, don’t we? Somebody of star fame
is in the building and we’re starstruck. We want to be near
them. We want to hear every word they say. We would love it even
if they just read the phone book. We would be happy to hear it.
And so sometimes we see this business of being starstruck.
We see this business of a popular person and everybody wants to
be near them. Well, Jesus has become. sort
of a person of fame in Galilee. He’s become a person of fame
and people are starstruck by him. They want to hear every
word that proceeds from out of his mouth. And we have to stop
there and say, not everybody wants to hear every word out
of his mouth in a saving way, in a growth in grace way, in
a godly way. Some simply want to hear his
voice because they’ve seen him speak and heal. They have heard
him speak. And it’s been amazing and wonderful
words of wisdom that no one has ever spoken in their hearing
before. But nevertheless, Jesus finds himself by the Sea of Galilee. He finds himself on the beautiful
lakeshore of Galilee, where a group of fishermen who have been out
all night are cleaning up. They’re mending their nets. They’re
readying their boat and their nets and their equipment for
the next night. They’ve fished all night and
have caught nothing. They fished all night and have
nothing to show for it. You can imagine some of you in
the room are self-employed, and you know what it is to work and
make no money. You know what it is to work and
to not make enough money. Maybe it’s enough money to pay
the overhead, but it’s not enough to bring some home for the family. Well, that’s what Peter and James
and John had faced. They took out their boats, They
had cast out their nets. They fished all night. They worked
hard and they caught nothing. And so there they are by the
seashore. They are mending their nets and preparing for the next
night. No doubt they will go home and
sleep. No doubt they will go home and
rest to be ready for the next moment of work. But here Jesus
is on this beautiful seashore setting. Now, Galilee is a wonderful,
beautiful place. It’s a lush land. It’s a place
where today there are lots of vineyards, lots of olives are
grown. In fact, if you run in enough circles, you can see advertisements
for timeshares on the Sea of Galilee. That’s a thing now.
You can go and stay there. You can live in a farming community
called a kibbutz, a working farm. You can go there and enjoy the
blessings of nature, the fruit of the harvest. And this is where
Jesus lands in his ministry this particular day. He is on the
seashore. These men are in the background
and the crowds are pressing in on Jesus and Jesus needing a
little space, Jesus needing a place to preach. He asked Peter, put
your boat out a little ways. And Jesus then preaches to the
crowds from the boat. Well, I want us to understand
a couple of things from this passage today. I want us to understand
what it means for us to be a true disciple of Christ. Now, some
of you are already thinking about your 2019 New Year’s resolutions.
Some of you are already thinking, what can I do better in the new
year? Some of you are thinking about maybe your stewardship
to the church. Some of you are thinking about
your time and your energy and your gifts, even your financial
resources as the church needs them. This is a good sermon for
you. Whether you’re thinking about
the new year or how you will participate in the life of the
church, this is a message for you. And this is the question
that this passage really asks us. Do you want to be useful
to the kingdom of Christ? We all would say, yes. Do I want
to be useful to the kingdom of Christ? Of course I do. I mean,
certainly we don’t want to be unuseful to the kingdom of Christ. Well, this passage gives us four
things to consider about our usefulness to the kingdom of
Christ. And the first comes in verses
one through three. And it’s simply this. Be available. It’s pretty simple, isn’t it?
Be available. Verses one through three tell
us about Jesus needing a place from which to preach. And he
finds it in Peter’s boat. There’s a book out now called
Crazy Busy. It’s written by one of our fellow
Reformed Presbyterian ministers. It’s called Crazy Busy, and you
don’t even really need to read the book to understand what it’s
about. We’re crazy busy, and we need
to be uncrazy. busy. Some of you have told me
in the recent years that you have retired that you are busier
in retirement than you were when you worked. There’s the grandkids
to take care of. There’s financial obligations. There’s errands to run. There’s
aging parents to take care of. The things that you have been
putting off while you worked are now on the front burner. We are crazy busy, as it were. We are unavailable. And very
often, we set up boundaries And sometimes those boundaries are
because we’re poor time managers. Sometimes it’s because we know
what we can and can’t do. But friends, we need to make
sure that we are available for the work of the church. We need
to be sure that we are available to be useful to the kingdom of
God. Have you ever thought about what the story in the gospels
would be like if that little boy hadn’t given to Jesus his
loaves and fishes? Or what would it be like if We
never gave the resources to send the good men’s to Wales. Or what
would it be like? What would be the end result
if thus and such didn’t happen because our time or our money
or our kingdom efforts weren’t available to almighty God? And
so we see in verses one through three that Peter. was simply
available. We’re all called, and it comes
in different stages of life and different positions of life,
and it comes in different ways, but we’re all called in some
way, shape, or form to give to God of our time, our talents,
and our treasure. It’s for the kingdom of God.
It’s for the glory of Christ. And one of the things we see
here that Peter is doing that we can ourselves do is we can
make the ministry of the word available to others. You see
what’s taking place here. Peter’s tired. He’s worn out.
He’s exhausted. He has every excuse in the book and he could
say, no master, I’m going home to bed. Peter put out a little
ways. I need your boat. I need a pulpit. I need a place to minister. And so dear friends, we must
remember that sometimes, sometimes it’s in our least convenient
moments. We’re called on. We’re called on to make the ministry
of the word possible so that others may hear. and believe
and be strengthened just as we are. I think about the many wonderful
ministries that we have in the life of our church, and they
would not be possible if it weren’t for many of you. Giving of your
time, giving of your treasures to make Cat Kids possible, or
Table Talk possible, or Adult Sunday School possible, or a
Ladies Bible Study, a men’s group, you name it. It may not be possible
if it weren’t for the resources of Christians. And so here we
find Peter, worn out and weary, exhausted after a night of fishing. He’s mending his nets and Jesus
needs a pulpit and he puts out a little ways and Jesus is able
to preach. You know, Peter had had a useless
night of work, produced nothing. but now he is useful to the master. Let me encourage you to find
your spot in God’s kingdom. There are plenty of spots where
you are needed. Your hands and your feet, your
time, your talents, your encouragement, your resources are needed for
the kingdom of God. Very often we say, well, I’m
too busy, someone else will do it. But ask the Lord, pray to
the Lord and say, give me a place. Give me a place where I might
work. for your kingdom, for I am available. That’s the first thing
I want us to see from this passage. The second thing we see in verses
four and five is Peter’s faith. He’s first available, but now
we see a picture of his faith. In verse four, Jesus says, when
he had finished speaking, so after he had used Peter’s boat
as a pulpit, he said to Simon, put out into the deep and let
down your nets for a catch. Simon Peter answered, Master,
we toiled all night. We took nothing. But at your
word, I will let down the nets. You’ve heard the saying before.
So and so is so. What is it? They are so heavenly
minded. They are no earthly good. And
the converse could be said, the opposite could be said, someone
is so earthly minded, they’re of no heavenly good. One of the
things I think we have seen in these first four and a half chapters
of Luke is this, when a person has eyes to see the work of the
kingdom, when they have eyes of faith, God can use them in
amazing ways to make his blessings known as far as the curse is
found. And Peter here has eyes. Now,
Peter gets a strange request. I mean, Peter, if it were me,
would have said, Jesus, you stick to preaching. I’ll stick to fishing.
That’s your place over there. You’re the king of the kingdom.
And I’m the fisherman. You, you stay in your corral
as it were, and I’ll stay in mine. You know, we’re self-sufficient.
We’re, logical people. We’re smart people. We, we, we
got it all figured out, right? We, we, we know, we know how
to do our job. We know how to do our day. We
know how to manage our resources and we know how to live very
self sufficiently. And here’s Jesus coming into
Peter’s life. It was probably no different.
And he says, first of all, I’m going to tell you how to do your
job. We don’t like that. We’re going to put out for fishing
and we’re going to do it not in the night when the fish are
actually Maybe swimming closer to the surface, the water’s cooler,
the sun’s not shining, the shadows aren’t there. Some of you know
a little bit more about that than I do. But midday is not
the time to fish. Otherwise, we would have heard
a Bible story that says when Peter and them finished fishing
during the day, it was evening time and they were mending their
nets. No, he’s told him to put out at the exact opposite time
when fish are caught. And then he tells them to put
out into the deep. If you know anything about the Sea of Galilee,
it has these these shelves where the fish maybe live in the shallows
of shallow areas because of these shoals. But Jesus says, don’t
fish there, put out into the deep. And remember, it’s midday.
And Peter says, Master, we toiled all night. We didn’t catch a
thing. But at your word. Because you
say so, master, because you say so, creator, because you say
so, I will do what you ask. And he apparently orders his
men to let down the nets. Friends, do you have a living
faith like Peter? Do you have a living faith like Peter that
says, I have eyes to see the kingdom? I come to church and
I don’t see the color of the carpet. I don’t see the scratches
on the pews. I don’t see that the grass wasn’t cut just right.
I don’t see that the coffee was weak or strong or, or the trash
can was full. You know, we, we, we see those
things sometimes, don’t we? I come and I see faces. I come
and I see a covenant child listening. I come and I hear God’s people
singing praises and on and on you could go and you could, you
can either list worldly things that really don’t matter. Or
you can list the heavenly things because you have a living faith
that sees the kingdom. And so we begin to look at church
very differently when we have eyes like Peter, eyes of living
faith, and when we are serving, when we are giving to our God,
because our eyes of faith make our time available. Do you have a living faith? Notice
that Peter was being watched. I mean, this was a crowd, this
was the paparazzi, this was the masses who had followed Jesus
everywhere he went, through the countryside, there went this
crowd. And there were Peter and James and John in the background.
There was the use of the boat. There was about to be this miraculous
catch of fish. People were watching. Friends,
others are watching you. They’re watching whether you’re
here on Sundays or not. They’re watching whether you have an
open Bible or not. They’re watching whether you sing hymns or not.
They’re watching on Sunday evenings, whether we pray or not. They’re
watching how you get through cancer, how you get through hardship.
You see, life as a Christian has lived in community and everybody’s
watching everybody because we learn from everyone. as well
as are encouraged by others. And so Peter gives us a wonderful
example of living faith. You know, John Piper wrote this
book years ago called Don’t Waste Your Cancer. And it’s turned
into this little phrase that a lot of people use, don’t waste
your whatever, whatever your hardship. And you might could
say of Peter, don’t waste your empty nets. And so how does Peter
not waste his empty nets? He’s a man of faith. He lends
his boat. And the word is preached to the
crowds. He shows others his faith as he goes with the Savior into
the deep. And because Jesus says so, he
lets down his net. Friends, sometimes, no, really
all the time, because Jesus says so is all we’ve got. Because Jesus says so is the
only thing we have to hang onto his promises, his character and
his goodness. Oh, sometimes we think we can
see, but unless we see like Peter with eyes of faith, we cannot
really see. And so this is a call for us
to trust and obey. Well, there’s a third thing in
this passage and it’s simply this, it’s worship. Peter is
available, Peter has faith, but there’s also worship. And that’s
a mark of a disciple. And we find it in verses six
through the beginning of verse 10. Verse six tells us when they
had done this, that is put their nets down in the deep, they enclosed
a large number of fish. Their nets were breaking. They
signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help
them, and they came and filled both the boats so that they began
to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it,
he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, depart from me, for I
am a sinful man, O Lord. For he and all who were with
him were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken. So also
were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners
with Simon. Friends, every single day we
live in a world that is battling for our allegiance. It’s battling
for our allegiance. Will you love God? Will you worship
God? Will you love and worship and
serve the world? It’s a battle for our allegiance
that comes every day. The question is, who’s going
to win? Whose voice will be the loudest? And in a wonderful way,
in a way that Peter probably never, ever forgot. I mean, even
in his old age, can’t you imagine this fishing story? But it was
a story of faith. It is a story of worship. You know, we very often miss
the work of God. We have to understand he is at
work in the world. He’s at work in the world in creation. He’s
at work in the world in the mundane moments of every day. He’s at
work in the world in our moments of gathered worship. He’s at
work in the world in the new creation as he’s making all things
new. And here we see Jesus being generous. I mean, how much more of a boost
could a man get than to fish all night and have nothing and
then to fish all afternoon and to about have your boat sink? And sometimes, dear brothers
and sisters, we begin to not like God when times are lean.
And some of you may have walked into this Thanksgiving season
saying, I don’t know if I have anything to be thankful for.
This has been a rough one. And Jesus here is showing Peter
how he is not only the Lord of heaven and earth, but he is the
Lord of new creation. He’s saying, Peter, I can make
your work rewarding because I’m the Lord of creation. And so
Peter begins to see because of this weight of glory, because
of this reality of Christ divinity and lordship and holiness, he
begins to see who Jesus really is. And notice in his worship,
what it leads to. It leads to repentance. Don’t
you see a little echo of this from Isaiah chapter six, where
Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up his train, filled the
temple, the temple shook, the thresholds were shaking and Isaiah
was called to a ministry to preach to a people that wouldn’t see,
hear, believe, understand. And he bumps into the reality
of the holiness of God. And what does he say? Whoop-dee-doo,
this is great fun. Can I have your autograph? And
he says, whoa, whoa, and to me, I’m a man of unclean lips. The same of John when he was
on the Isle of Patmos, when he ran into the risen savior in
a vision, he fell on his face as though dead. And you see the response of Peter
here. He realized the reality of the
glory of Christ. And he says to Jesus, depart
from me, for I am a sinful man. We need a little reverence and
awe in our worship, don’t we? We come out of the world and
we slide into church and we come very often unprepared. And we
come very often unprepared to meet a holy God who meets with
unholy sinners. And maybe it’s the case for you,
you come in here week after week, and the only time you bump into
the reality of God and you bump into the reality of your sinfulness
is in corporate worship. And that’s a good thing. But
we need that to happen often, do we not? To realize God is
God and I am not. He is great and holy. I am sinful. And the only way to bridge that
gap between God and me is through one who would pay for my sins,
through one who would be holy for me. And Peter has now met
him and worshiped him. and even confessed his sin before
him. Friends, this is a posture, this
is an attitude, this is an exchange, a relationship that we ought
to have as we read our Bibles daily, as we come to corporate
worship weekly, we ought to bump into the majestic God of glory
and say, oh, I’m a sinner, depart from me. Do you remember the
story Jesus tells about being in the, he’s in the temple and
there’s one man who’s all the way at the altar And he stands
in front of the altar and says, oh, I thank God I’m not like
sinners. And I’ve done all these wonderful
things. There’s a man as far away from the altar and the temple
as you can get. And he is beating his chest saying, God be merciful
to me, a sinner. You see the gospels teach us
about our worship, but really our attitude in worship. So we
find in our passage, an example of Peter being available. He
has faith, there’s worship, and that worship does include repentance.
And the last thing I want us to consider is this idea of Peter
following Jesus, a disciple follows Jesus. And we find that at the
very end of verse 10, and then in 11, he says, and when they had brought
Or no, it starts out saying, do not be afraid. This is Jesus
to Simon. Do not be afraid. From now on, you’ll be catching
men. And when they brought their boats to land, they left everything
and they followed him. They followed Jesus. You know,
a lot of life is simply follow through, isn’t it? I mean, you
get a kid and you’re on the hook, what, for the next 18 years?
And then it turns into 25 years. And some of you are saying it
doesn’t seem to end. You have a marriage and it’s
I do and honeymoon, but marriage is hard work. And on and on we
could go through examples in life where if you engage in some
serious relationship, some serious endeavor, it’s gonna take a lot
of follow through. And where we find hardship in
life is when we don’t follow through. We don’t follow through
in marriage, we don’t follow through with our children, or
we think it’d be grand and glorious to get a dog, but we don’t train
it, or whatever the thing you could list would be. And friends,
it can be the same way. We all love the idea of following
Jesus until it comes to going out the door. really following
him. And we have a wonderful example
here in Peter, James, and John and others who leave everything
behind to follow Jesus. They leave it all behind. They
walk away from all worldly possessions. They walk away from it all and
they follow Jesus. Now, how does that happen? Is
that simply an intellectual decision where it says, I’m going to stop
working at the bank today and I’m going to follow Jesus. I’m
going to stop being a school teacher and I’m going to follow
Jesus. That’s not how it works. And this is an extraordinary
calling for them to be disciples and then some to be apostles. And we need to understand that
we can follow Jesus in our everyday life and serve him very well
in those situations. But these were men who were astonished
at the revelation of Jesus. Their boats were sinking full
of fish. They were astonished. They were
undone. They were As the passage tells us, afraid. And so what
does Jesus tell Peter? He says, do not be afraid from
now on. You will be catching men. And
if you read the passage, literally, it simply says something like
this. You will be catching men alive. You will be catching men
for eternity. You will be saving souls so that
they live not only in this life, but they live in the life that
is to come. And so we see. the disciples
and their first calling from Jesus, we see them beginning
to follow and to serve the Lord. So what does this say to us?
What does this say about our availability? What does this
say to us about our faith? What does this say to us about
our worship? What does this say to us about our following Jesus? So I want you to think for just
a moment about your own life, the life of this church and the
upcoming year. Could it be said of you that you’re available? My funds are available. My time
is available to the Lord. Whatever he says, I’ll give whatever
he asked for. I’ll put it to use. What about
our faith? Do we have eyes to see the kingdom?
Do we see the Lord at work in our midst? Do we see faces? Do
we see souls? Do we regularly experience worship?
and the all-inspiring view of God that leads us to confess
our sin, but also leads us to follow him. You know, some of
you right now are, you’re all in. Your faith, your availability,
your worship, your following Christ is amazing. Some of you,
some of you want in. Some of you want a place to serve
and come find us. We’ll put you to work, no doubt
about that. But some of us need in. Some
of us are sitting on the sidelines. Some of us are saying, my time
has passed. I can’t do, but there’s something for everyone. And so
let me encourage you. Don’t ever think that God has
put you on a shelf. Don’t ever think you’re too old
or too past a moment in time to do something. God can use
every one of us at every stage and age in life and the marks
of a disciple. availability, faith, worship,
following. And we simply say as God’s disciples
at your word, master, I’ll do whatever you ask. Let’s pray
together. Our Lord and God, we give you
thanks that in Christ Jesus, we are new creations. The old
is gone, the new has come and you have saved us to do good
works prepared for us before the world began. And we do ask
and pray that you would find a place for each of us to live
by faith, to live in worship, to be available and to follow
you and to follow you wherever you go in order that the nations
may be glad and that men and women and boys and girls, not
only in this congregation, but in the world around may hear
of Christ and follow Him as well. Lord, make us useful to You,
the Master, we pray in His name, Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.