Luke 5:1-11
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Intro
Hey y’all, y’all good everyone alright? How was break? Everyone good?
Does anyone know the name George Muller? Prob not a lot of you, George was born in Prussia, which is now Germany thanks to WWI, in 1805. George moved to England where he became a pastor at a church in Bristol. He pastored there for 60 years, which normally that would be what you might be known for, but that i not what George is known for. George is known for the orphanage that he built.
And not only the orphanage that he built, but the way he went about it.
So normally if you a re a non profit, you are going to need money, so you ask for money, people can make donations. FBC Gray is classified as a non-profit, we don’t make money, but rely on giving.
George though, didn’t. He intentionally never asked for resources, he never wrote letter to donors, he never tried to have a giving campaign, nothing. All he did was pray, he prayed and asked the Lord to provide. I promise I’m not making this up, you can read about this.
But do you know why George started the orphanage? It wasn’t just to take care of the orphans, he wrote in his journal what his goal was in starting out.
The first and primary object of the work was that God might be magnified by the fact, that the orphans under my care are provided with all they need, only by prayer and faith without anyone being asked by me or my fellow-laborers whereby it may be seen, that God is faithful still, and hears prayer still.
Literally there are stories though out his ministry that are them sitting at an empty table, not sure what they are going to eat and a food cart breaks down outside the orphanage, they get to have whats on the food cart. It is pretty wild.
George Muller is a really interesting guy to read about. But George trusted the Lord to provide.
So we are going to be looking at a story that deals with some of these things, but I wanted to tell you about George because his story should remind us that God is who he says he is, and that we need to rely and trust in the Lord.
He truly followed the Lord, followed Christ in all that he did.
So that is where we are going to be tonight, looking at another story in the life of Jesus. Looking at one of the most important figures in Christian History, Simon, aka Peter. How did Peter come to follow Christ?
Context
So tonight we are going to be in Luke 5:1-11, looking at the calling of Peter, or the Calling of Simon as Luke calls him.
So Luke 5:1-11. let me give you a little but of context, to what is going on here while you’re flipping to over to Luke.
Does anyone need a bible? If you need a bible? Go ahead and throw a hand up and we can get you one. Anyone need one? if you don’t have one at home, go ahead and take that bible with you.
So Luke 5, let me set the scene for what is going on.
Jesus is going around a preaching in different places, healing people, preaching in different synagogues, and people are starting to pay attention. People are starting to realize that this is the word of God. That Jesus is something else.
Crowds were starting to follow Jesus around, and this time that we are about to look at they had gotten him next to a lake, or sea. Now this text calls this the lake of Gennesaret, but this is just the sea of galilee by a differnt name. Thats one of the things about scripture is that sometimes things and people have two different names, one for what it is known as across the region and one is what the locals call it. It’s like if you have a nickname. Like people called bubba, that is 9/10 times not their given name. Bubba might actually be a Robert of something like that.
But that is where they are at, this lake this sea, and Jesus is teaching and Jesus is trying to Not get taken over by the crowd, so he sees some fisherman and asks if he can use their boat so he can teach from it.
And so that brings us to this scene we are about to see take place here in scripture.
So Let’s read Luke 5:1-11, but before we do that, Let’s pray for our time in the word tonight,
pray
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, 2 and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. 3 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. 4 And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” 5 And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” 6 And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. 7 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. 8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” 9 For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, 10 and so also were James and John, 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.” 11 And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.
Following Christ starts by hearing
Okay, so, what is going on here? What are we looking at?
This is an interaction between Simon, aka Peter, and Jesus. At first we see Jesus teaching to a crowd, but Luke doesn’t tell us what Christ had said, instead we see Luke key in on Jesus focusing on one person.
SO who is this one person? There are other people in the scene but Jesus is only talking to One person, Simon Peter.
So who is Simon? Who is the Simon Peter guy?
Simon is a fisherman, he works all day trying to catch fish that he would then take to the market and sell.
Fishing was a super hard job. They actually found a fishing boat that dates back to around 40 AD in the Sea of Galilee, this would have been about the same kind, and it was 25 feet long, and about 7 1/2 feet wide, and 4 feet deep, not a very big boat, one or two person boat.
You would cast a net out then pull it up, hopefully with some fish in it.
Fishermen were usually not highly regarded members of society, known for being hard men, kinda crusty dudes. You wouldn’t want to fight a fisherman, they were strong dudes.
From what we can see in rest of scripture, Peter is a very black and white guy, very matter of fact. Kind of brash. Bold guy.
And so this was who Jesus is talking to in this passage, this low society, brash, hard, fisherman named Simon.
SO this is the scene, Jesus, this guy who has this giant crowd with him, listening to every word he says, teaching all of these amazing things, talking to a lowly fishermen.
This is the God of the Universe talking to a fishermen. The God of the universe talking to someone who was an after thought to the rest of the town, rest of the state, rest of the world.
And what does he say? Jesus asks if he can borrow his boat, and Simon lets him. Simon gives Him a place to teach so that he can address the crowd and not be taken over by the crowd.
All the while Simon get’s to listen to what Jesus is teaching. Hearing the word of God. Here God speak the word of God.
So what should we see from this?
Following Christ Starts by hearing. If you are writing things down, write that down. Following Christ starts by hearing.
Simon had sat there and listened to everything Jesus had said. Simon doesn’t know it yet, but he is going to be called, because he first heard. Christ is working in Him way before Simon realizes what is going on. Christ is at work in Simon before Simon is able to be in Christ.
Christ has come to him before Simon came to Christ.
Following Christ continues through trusting
So let’s keep going.
After Jesus get’s done preaching, he looks at Simon, who had probably just finished cleaning up their nets from the long night of being on the water, and apparently not catching much.
Jesus looks at Simon and says, hey put out over there in the deeper water. Get off the shore, and get out in to the deep water and put your nets out there.
And Simon kinda looks perplexed at Jesus and says,
“look we just came from over there, we didn’t take anything.”
But he also says, “but I just heard what all you just said, so I’ll give it a try.”
So Simon get’s his boat out there and let’s the net down and he catches more fish than he’s ever caught in his life.
Anyone still watching the chosen? We haven’t watched it since last year, but we did watch this episode of it, and I like how they did this scene, Peter lets his net out and immediately it is full of fish, and his boat actually starts to sink, his brothers have to come and rescue his boat and they split the fish and all that stuff. They did a good job show the amount of fish.
So let me ask you, what would You have done?
If you are in Simon‘s sandals what would you have done?
Simon hesitates for a second, but he does follow through.
Has that ever been any of you before? Where the Lord has told you, hey you should do this, and you’re like “hmmmmm, idk Jesus, idk if that‘s gonna work?”
That ever been you?
I know it has been me. It was Simon here in this story. So what do we take from this?
Trust. If we are going to be a follow of Christ it means we have to trust in Christ.
Even when things may not actually make sense to us in the moment, we have to trust that Christ is in control. Following Christ continues through trusting Christ, so if you‘re writing things down, write that down, Following Christ continues through trusting Christ.
There will be plenty of times when we do not understand what Christ is doing in our lives, but we still need to hold fast and trust in him.
So y’all know I like to smoke bbq, imagine the first guy to ever do that. You know it is probably a really good story of told you so,
Like if you try to cook these cuts of meat any other way than smoking them on low and slow heat they‘re not gonna be good.
The first people to do this in America was slaves. The Slave owner would give the tough cuts of meat to the slaves thinking that it was useless but they would take this meat and create something beautify out of it. These slaves had figured out how to take tough cuts of meat and make them tender and awesome.
Told so, but the first guy had to have some trust that this was going to work, cause it’s a long process. But it works, it doesn’t seem like it should work, take meat that is super tough and then cook it a low temp. That doesn‘t sound like it should work but when you eat it you know it works.
Kinda funny one of the most enduring things of the old south is the food culture and most of that was not given to us by Slave owners but by the slaves themselves. Just a funny thought. From the least of these.
But that is what is happening with Simon, he trusts this guy that he does not know is lord yet, and what happens is something he has never seen in his life.
Following Christ means total surrender.
So let’s keep going, look at this last bit here, I want to read it again just so that it is fresh and we see exactly what is said in the passage. So read this last bit her
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, 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.
This is the moment that Simon realizes who Jesus is, that he is not just a good rabbi, or a smart teacher or even a compelling speaker, but is actually God. Is the Messiah. James and John are also both there to see this and they are just as astonished as Simon.
And Jesus responds to them, first “do not be afraid”
Like this woulD have probably freaked them out a little bit, these guys knew what it took to fish, they were fishermen, they knew how fish operated and this is not at all what fish do, they knew that something was going in here.
And Jesus is really nonchalant about it, he is just like, yeah if you think that was hard, you are now going to fish for men. I am going to throw you out like a net and draw the world unto me.
And the thing that should stick with us is, they left their boats and followed him.
They docked the boats and left everything and followed him. This should tell us that following Christ means total surrender, if you writing things down, write that down, following Christ means total surrender.
Giving up the life you may have thought you wanted and following after Christ. Giving your will over to the will of Christ.
P2Christ
So what should why does this matter? What is the point of this?
SO at the beginning of this series on the Life of Jesus I asked you a weird question, did Jesus Preach Pauls gospel.
One of the things that popped in my head while reading this is Romans 10:14-17
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
This passage from Roman’s almost mirrors this passage, They cannot surrender to what they have not trusted, they cannot trust who they have not heard?
How will they hear? How will they trust? How will they surrender?
SO if you are a follower of Christ, this passage is asking you what Paul asks in Roman’s 10, how are they doing to know who Christ is if they have not been told? Faith comes through the hear of God’s word, how are they going to hear?
Luke answers this in the words of Jesus, you will be catching men. Instead of fish, you are going to join me in drawing the world to Christ.
How will they hear? You need to tell them? In who are they going to believe? You need to show them.
That thought can be daunting for some of us, but this is what Jesus is asking us to do, to get off the shore of safety and trust him. We need to go put our nets our where the fish are.
If we are trusting him, we need to be following him. This could take us to places that are uncomfortable, this could take us to places that are painful. But we need to rely that Christ is better that anything and that we are his chosen instrument to draw the world unto Him.
So if you are follower of Christ, this text is calling you join in the mission of drawing the world to Him. Think about who is in your circle that needs to hear about Jesus. How will they know if we don‘t tell them.
If you are not a follower of Christ or you do not know what your believe. This text is calling you to hear Him for the first time. Christ is calling and Christ is here, Christ is wanting you to know Him. There is nothing that you have done, no sin committed that Christ cannot over come. Christ Came to this world took and lived the life we could not live ad died the death we should have died in our place. If you have any questions about what it means to follow Christ, what that looks like or if you want to become a follower of Christ, come talk to me, talk to one of the adults talk to a friend. Talk to someone. Tomorrow could be too late and eternity too long to know hear Christ for the first time. Come see Christ as Lord, Cone see Christ as King
Y’all pray with me.
Pray