Luke 5:1-11
1. Crowds pressing in, wanting more, eager to hear the message.
2. Jesus steps into a boat – “take me out a bit” and then sits down to teach the crowds.
a. Sea of Galilee – shores sweep up, like amphitheater.
b. When Jesus finishes, tells Peter to head out into deep water for some daytime fishing.
3. Jesus asks Peter to do something contrary to common wisdom …
a. Peter’s a professional fisherman.
b. Partners, boats – good-sized operation.
c. Out all night … not a fish to be had.
d. Now, it’s morning- washing the nets.
e. Linen nets – big nets – fish can’t see them at night, and swim into them.
f. You don’t fish during the day … it doesn’t work!
4. Then Peter says, “Master, if you say so.”
a. I don’t know exactly how he said that.
b. Might it have been said skeptically, “You’re da boss; you’re da man. Whatever you say Captain” … “Aye, aye!”?
c. Peter knows Jesus … important rabbi; famous … “look at the crowds, and he’s in MY boat right now” …
i. Peter doesn’t want to look bad.
ii. So he does what the rabbi wants.
iii. Into deep water they go.
iv. And the catch is huge.
d. More than a boat-load.
e. And these are good-sized boats – one was found buried in the mud, 1986, northwest shore of the Sea of Gallilee … 27 long; 7.5 feet wide – that’s a lot of fish!
5. What’s the point? What we know can mislead us!
a. Experience is a good teacher.
b. But experience becomes routine.
c. Routine becomes the rule.
d. “This is the way we’ve always done it” …
e. The picture is here … the sofa is there … we eat at the same three restaurants, cook the same 5 recipes, drive the same two ways to work … read the same books we’ve read for years.
f. Comfortable, but not very creative.
g. What we know can mislead us!
i. American auto industry, with exception of Ford.
ii. While GM and Chrysler were making cars, Ford was re-engineering itself for the future!
iii. Ford set aside common wisdom … huge risks … smaller profits for the time being, in order to re-make the company and how it made cars.
6. Stories of inventors … doctors … scientists … who lead the way because they see things differently!
7. Faith – sees things differently – faith flies in the face of common wisdom:
a. Love your enemies.
b. Forgive seven times seventy.
c. Go the extra mile.
d. The one who gains the world loses her soul.
e. Defend the cause of widows, orphans and aliens.
f. Sell what you have to buy the pearl of great price.
g. Go out into deep water … some daytime fishing.
8. But the story isn’t about fish, or profits, or inventions … the story goes deeper, into the deepest waters of all!
a. “Go away from me, Lord; I’m not a good man.”
i. Something hits Peter hard.
1. He’s not dancing for the fish.
2. He’s not calculating the profits.
ii. He’s on his knees, asking Jesus to go away!
b. Peter sees the black hole!
i. A crushing sense of unworthiness.
ii. “LORD, what would you want with me?
iii. A man said to me years ago, tears streaming, “Out here, I’m a success; I’ve got it all. But in here, nothing!”
1. Peter sees the dark hole!
2. “Leave me alone, LORD.”
3. Achievements, work, position in the community, the boats Peter owned, the men working for him … family, fame and fortune.
4. It was just Peter now … Peter and God!
9. “Go away, LORD. It’s too painful for me to see me – empty, defective, self-serving – you’ve stripped my cover; you see me for what I am, and I see it, too, Lord. Please, go away, leave me alone!”
10. John Calvin writes:
a. “God’s truth ordains for us to … seek a knowledge which draws us far from all presumption of our own power and strips us of all grounds for glory, to lead us to humility” [1541 edition, trans. Elsie McKee – Chapter 2, p. 47].
b. The “… one who takes a good look at himself according to the rule of God’s judgment will find nothing which can puff up his heart with confidence, and the more deeply he examines himself the more he is cast down until, completely deprived of all hope, he has nothing left by which he can rightly directly his life [p.48].
c. Peter had to see the black hole … we all do, if we want to get anywhere in our walk with Christ.
d. From self-reliance to God-reliance.
e. From hands full to hands empty.
f. From a heart stuffed with the things of this world, to a heart emptied, a heart ready for God!
11. The story ends well:
a. “Don’t be afraid, Peter.”
i. God always speaks to the humbled heart.
ii. To the person on her knees, Jesus comes tenderly.
iii. Don’t be afraid.
iv. I will fill the black hole with light.
v. From now on, you’re mine!
vi. But no longer a life of just fishing.
vii. Now, a life of discipleship.
b. “They left everything, “it says, “and followed him.”
c. The moment of surrender …
d. When we give our lives to Christ.
e. Dear friends, what else is there to do?
f. I ask you this morning, “What else is there to do with your life, but to give it to Christ!”
g. Are you with me on this?
h. I know that you.
i. To God be the glory.
j. Amen and Amen!
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