Luke 5:1-11
Jesus Calls His First Disciples
5 One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret,[a] the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. 2 He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. 3 He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.
4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.”
5 Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”
6 When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. 7 So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.
8 When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” 9 For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, 10 and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners.
Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.” 11 So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.
Transcript
(Transcribed by TurboScribe)
Good morning, No no. Thank you, I appreciate that, but you make me blush. I don't like that.
It's good to see you. It's good to be back. Thank you, Alexander.
One day you'll get it right. I think we reached the goal. I think we got a few donations during the week, so I think we hit the thousandth, and I am so, so grateful for that.
Thank you for your grace, the way in which you can care for other people as well. What a wonderful, wonderful place this is. It's always caring and giving and looking out for others.
Let me, let me pray with you. Father, you are so good, and we live from the goodness of God. David got it right when he said, your goodness and your mercy follow me all the days of my life.
We can't get away from it long, even if we try. It keeps on following us. Thank you that we may live in that goodness.
And then this morning again, as we break your word together, our prayer is that we will see Jesus, and only Jesus. Amen. I'm going to talk a little bit about following Jesus today.
Now, now here's the thing. Sometimes I think many of us, and many folks, and even many churches get this wrong, because when we speak about following, all of a sudden it becomes this obligation. I kind of have this chart on the fridge, and it's got these little blocks, and I have to tick these little blocks.
I did this, I did this, I did this, I did this, I'm okay. But if we look at the disciples, the first followers of Jesus, the picture is completely the opposite of that. For them, following Jesus was no obligation, despite the fact that they had to make many sacrifices to do that.
They wanted to follow Jesus, but not out of obligation, but because they wanted an intimate relationship with him, being in his presence, learning from him, not doing something for God, but doing life with God, growing closer, and closer, and closer, and closer to Jesus, and looking more and more like Jesus. How do we do that? How do we get so close in this when we follow Jesus? Well, I'm going to look at a passage, and Alexander just showed me this morning. He has a new programme that every sermon I preach, he's got the text there, and when he hits the button, it shows him exactly how many times I've preached on that same passage.
It's the truth. You can go look there, and I said, well, Alexander, today if you go look for this chapter, you might find it about six, seven, or eight times, only twice. I've preached it way more than that.
This is one of my favourite passages. Have you written this one up as the one for my funeral as well? Luke chapter five. It's one of my favourite, favourite passages.
I just love it. It's such a beautiful moment. One day, as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret.
Now, I think I told you this before, too. Lake of Gennesaret is the Sea of Galilee. It's called Lake of Gennesaret in Hebrew, Yam Kineret.
In Hebrew, Kineret means a harp, and when you look at the Sea of Galilee from above, it looks like a harp, so they call it the Lake of the Harp. That's what Lake Gennesaret means, but it's the Sea of Galilee. One day, as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around him and listening to the Word of God.
He saw at the water's edge two boats left there by the fishermen who were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore, and then he sat down and taught the people from the boat. When it finished speaking, he said to Simon, put out into deep water and let down the nets for a catch.
Simon answered, Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything, but, and there's your biblical but, but because you say so, I will let down the nets. And when they'd done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signalled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.
When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus' knees and said, go away from me, Lord. I'm a cynical man. For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they'd taken, and so were James and John, or actually Jacob, remember I told you, the sons of Zebedee, Simon's partners.
And then Jesus said to Simon, don't be afraid. From now on you will fish for people. And so they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything, and followed them.
Talking about following Jesus, I want us to notice a few things from this passage about following, getting closer to Jesus. First thing, growing closer to Jesus requires us to listen carefully. When I say that, it's not something new, but we also know that from our own relationship.
If we do not listen to each other in our relationship, it will break down. There's no question about that. Maybe one of the best examples of that is what's going on right now between us and our neighbour down south.
When you don't listen, relationships just fall apart, and they can't work, and we grow further and further apart from each other. Same thing with our relationship with Jesus. If we want to follow Jesus and grow closer to him, it starts by listening to him.
But here's the cool thing about listening to Jesus. In that situation of sitting with him, listening to him, it creates this safe space in which I can also ask my questions. Those difficult ones like, Lord, I'm trying so hard to walk with you.
Why I struggle and I stumble? Can I make it? Questions like, I just don't know if I can be with you. I just don't feel safe. Or maybe saying, will you give me time? I just need to listen.
You know what? Going close needs that moment to listen, because here's the cool thing and the amazing thing. That's what prayer is all about. We think often that prayer is me doing a lot of this.
Actually, it's doing a lot of this. And listen. Because we'll talk, and we'll say, and we'll ask, but how many times do we stop, and we're just quiet, and we just sit, and we just listen so that God can answer, so that God can speak back? Because only when I listen and I allow him to speak back into my life can I hear what he's trying to say to me, where he's trying to guide me, where he's trying to take me, so that I can grow in that relationship with him.
Please, take time to listen. Sometimes you don't want to listen, because the things he says are really difficult. Right now, I'm going through a really difficult time thinking of my mother in South Africa alone, because she's really struggling, and she has no one anymore.
I struggle because I had to listen. Lord said, pack it up and go. It's a place called Central, but I need you.
We had to pack up and go. Sometimes we don't want to listen, but in listening, this is how we grow in him, and in your faith, walk with him, and in following. There's a second thing.
So, Jesus preaching, looks around, sees the boats, gets into one of the boats, and he says to Peter, push it out from shore. I'm going to preach. He sits down, and he preaches.
Now, usually, when we look at this, we look at this moment from Jesus' perspective. He's standing there on the shore. The crowd's getting bigger, bigger.
They're pushing him further and further, right up into the water, and then he needs a place to kind of get into. He gets in the boat, so he gets a little bit away, and of course, the water will amplify the voice as it goes out to the people. I don't want to go to that perspective this morning.
I want to go to the different perspective of one of these disciple guys, which by then was not disciples. It was just a bunch of fishermen. Just think for a moment from their perspective.
They were out on those boats the whole night trying to catch fish because that's how they feed their family. That's how they make a living. That's how they feed other people.
They come back disappointed. They didn't catch a single fish, so they get the nets ready because they have to go out again tonight, and hopefully, there will be a catch. I'm sure in their minds, it's like, let's clean these nets.
Let's get them in the boats. Let's just get home, have something to eat, go to bed, and get ready for tonight. That's when Jesus says, get me in the boat, please.
What a talk. Here's the second thing. Number one, growing closer to Jesus requires listening.
Number two, growing closer to Jesus will ask of me to be inconvenienced and uncomfortable often. I know we don't like that because we don't like to be uncomfortable. Our world is set up to be.
Everything needs to be comfortable, except the church. It's always hard. We don't like to be uncomfortable.
We like to be comfortable. Just think about all the inconvenient things Jesus said. Deny yourself.
Take up your cross. Walk with me. Pray for your enemies.
Love your enemies. Think of all the uncomfortable things he asked the disciples to do. Lord, these people are hungry.
Well, you feed them. You want to be a disciple? Sure, leave everything. Follow me.
And when he sends them out for the first time to go speak the gospel on their own, he says, leave everything behind. Don't take anything else. Just go.
See, here's the thing. Following Jesus means that in this world, we will often feel uncomfortable and inconvenienced because of who we are in Christ Jesus as we grow closer and closer to him and look more and more like him. Tell me, did the world like him? Was it convenient? Was it comfortable? As we grow closer, that is what will be part of our life as well.
And even Jesus will confront us, each one of us, with hard things about ourselves, hard truths that we will have to confront in this walk with him. He will often allow us to go into difficult situations that we would choose not to go exactly as he did. He will allow us to meet up with some folks that are difficult and hard and make life hard for them.
But when he calls us to follow him, he never says, come do this easy thing with me. He says, you're going to walk. You're going to carry.
You're going to put me number one in your life. That might not always be comfortable. Are you prepared to do that? See, here's the thing.
Lots of folks jumped in the boat and said, oh yeah, we'll listen. That's pretty cool. But the moment it's inconvenient and it's uncomfortable, they jump ship and they go.
This is the third thing. So he preaches. When he's done, he looks at Peter and he says, let's go fish, buddy.
Go out to the deep part of the lake and let's go catch some fish. Now, remember, I told you this before. When they fish, they fish at night because that's when the fish come closer to the shore where it's nice and warm.
Their nets were shallow water nets. You just think about this when you go to John 21, which is kind of the other part of this, where they go back to fishing, which they shouldn't, and Jesus comes and calls them. When they're fishing there and Peter sees Jesus, he says he jumped out of the boat and he ran to Jesus because they caught fish close to the shore.
That's why Jesus could call to them. They weren't right out there. And he says, go to the deep water.
The nets wouldn't work there because they were just short nets. They should go right under them. They didn't catch in the day.
The fish were way down there. So no wonder Peter was a little apprehensive about this idea of going to catch fish. It was counterintuitive to what he has known all of his life.
This is how it works. This is how we do it. This is not the right thing to go do right now.
I get it. You would have said the same things like Matt. But there was the but moment.
Thinks about it and he thinks okay. But because you say so, we let the nets down. And there's number three.
Growing closer to Jesus means listening. Growing closer to Jesus will ask of me to be inconvenienced or uncomfortable. And number three is growing closer to Jesus and following him means that I will try it Jesus way.
Peter caught fish a gazillion times this way. Never try it this way. Jesus says, go try this.
What happens? Those nets just overflow. Try it. But we've always done it this way.
Try it. But Lord it looks. Try it.
Try it. And when they did, boy we needed more boats than they ever could imagine. See here's the thing.
Jesus doesn't ask of you to leave everything behind. All he asks you is that you will trust him with one thing. Try it this way.
See if he is faithful in what he is called to try. Can I invite you to go fishing with Jesus and try it this way? I can stand here today and I can say I guarantee you when you do that, your life will be filled with such of this abundance that you will not know what to do with that abundance you call it. Even if like this moment it looks completely impossible.
Oh the things that wait to do it with. When you walk into the boardroom and it's heated and people are angry and they're going at each other, why don't you be the kind and the gracious? Why do you need Jesus? When you get into that argument with your husband, with your wife, stop and think for a moment. Why don't you try it? When you feel overwhelmed and you kind of feel like giving up, why don't you try it? Jesus.
One little step at a time. Sometimes it will overwhelm us like it did with Peter. In the moment when Peter realises what has happened in this moment, he says, Lord this is scary.
I don't know if I can handle this. And that's often what we do when he says try it my way. It's like I don't think I can do this.
And we do it and it's like holy, but I don't know if I can do this. I don't know if I can stay so close to you. And that's the moment where Jesus says, Peter, to think this was something you ain't seen nothing yet.
You thought you were just going to catch fish. You will be stunned at what I'm going to let you do because you are going to be the biggest fish that you could ever be because you are going to change lives. You try and push away and all he says is come a little closer.
Come a little closer. Come a little closer. The closer I get, the more and more I look like him.
More and more I do like him. More and more I want to be close because that's God. That's just who he is.
Just think about it. God came so close to us in this world through Jesus. He came.
He came close to messy people, broken people. The thing is we're the ones who kind of run away. Here's my invitation.
What do you think? Should we go fishing? Amen. Take a few moments of quiet prayer. As we walk this world, Lord, thank you that we can do the words of this song that we sang.
May we speak Jesus in our thoughts, in our actions, in our words, in all of our lives. May we come so close to you, Lord, that we become your hands and feet and your lives in this world. Help us every day to listen, to do what you want us to do, and above all, Lord, to do it your way.
Thank you for the grace of this morning. Thank you for the gift of your amazing name. We love you, Lord, with all that is in us as we pray in the name of Jesus.