Pulling in the Catch (Luke 5:1-11)

Fishing with Jesus

Pulling in the Catch

Luke 5:1-11

August 26th, 2012

Way of Grace Church

I. Ahead of Our Every Step

In the 2011 film Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, we are introduced to a nine-year old boy named Oskar Schell who is coping with the untimely death of his father. You see, the father (played by Tom Hanks) was just one of the thousands of people who lost their lives in one of the World Trade Center towers on September 11th, 2001. But Oskar’s journey takes an interesting turn one day when, in his father’s closet, he discover a small envelope with the word “black” on it. Inside the envelope is a key. Oskar decides “Black” is someone’s name, and so he decides to visit all of the 472 people who are listed in the NYC phonebook under the last name “Black”, to see if they knew his father.

And so as he begins his quest, it seems, at first, as if each person welcomes and engages this odd boy simply because he is a child, a child searching for something that will help him understand his father’s death. But…and this is a ‘spoiler alert’…at the end of the film his mother (played by Sandra Bullock), reveals to Oskar that, early on, she discovered his quest. And once she understood it, she decided to go ahead of him, meeting with each person in advance and explaining how and why they would soon receive a visit from her son.

And I think the reason she reveals this to her son is to remind him that he is not alone on his path of grief; that she loves him; that is she watching over him.

This morning we conclude our study entitled Fishing with Jesus. But don’t let the title throw you. We have NOT been discussing what it means to hang out with Jesus in a rowboat with rod and reel in hand. As most of you know, we’ve been talking about spiritual fishing; about the work of casting the net of the Gospel and seeing men and women, boys and girls, drawn into new life.

II. The Passage: “Their Nets Were Breaking” (5:1-11)

Since we talked in our first lesson about ‘putting out to sea’ with Jesus, and in our second lesson about ‘casting the nets’ with Jesus, it only makes sense that we should conclude our study by talking about ‘pulling in the catch’. Let’s do that very thing this morning by looking together at Luke 5:1-11. As you will see, ‘pulling in the catch’ is a key part of the story we discover here.

A. Setting Up the Scene (5:1-3)

So as usual, before we try to talk about what is significant here for us today, we need to make sure we understand what was written down here long ago. So look with me at Luke 5:1-3…

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.

Now in one sense, these verses simply set up the scene for us. They give us the where (the shore of the Lake of Gennesaret, which is just another name for the Sea of Galilee), these verses give us the who (specifically Jesus and Simon (that’s Peter), and later on in verse 10, James and John), they give us the how (specifically, the how in terms of how Jesus finds himself in a fishing boat), and they give us the why (so Jesus can be heard by the crowd!).

The more difficult questions about this scene arise when we compare this passage with Matthew 4 and Mark 1. Those are passages that we’ve already looked at in this series. And when we think about verses 10 and 11 of this chapter (take a look at those real quickly), we are reminded of what saw in Matthew 4 and Mark 1: Jesus calling fishermen to follow Him and become instead, “fishers of men”.

And so we have to ask, is this simply an expanded version of what we saw in Matthew 4 and Mark 1? Maybe. Or has that initial call already taken place, and this represents a final severing of these men from both their vocation and location? Maybe. Luke 4 does tell us that Jesus has already been to Simon’s house and healed Simon’s mother-in-law, one of the stories we studied last time. And John 1 tells us that Andrew, Simon’s brother, was once a disciple of John the Baptist/Baptizer, and had been directed to Jesus by John. And in John 1, it’s Andrew who introduces Peter to Jesus for the first time.

So while constructing a reasonable timeline is possible, it isn’t exactly clear how all of these pieces fit together. But what is clear is the nature of the One who makes fishermen into “fishers of men”. Look at how the next few verses emphasize that point. Look at verses 4-7.

B. Letting Down the Nets (5:4-7)

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.

Don’t you love the way Peter responds to Jesus here? I think he’s trying to be polite, but also direct about Jesus wading into his own area of expertise. He obviously respects Jesus (calls him “Master”), but really, why is a rabbi giving a fishermen instructions about fishing? I think Peter is saying in essence, “Okay we’ll do it, but don’t expect anything to happen.”

Nightime was the right time to fish on the Sea of Galilee, not during the day. And as Peter indicates here, even at after a long night, they came back empty-handed. But when he obeys Jesus, when he humors Jesus by letting the nets down in the daytime, something amazing happens.

Notice that Luke gives us three bits of information to indicate just how big this catch really was. It was so big that 1) the nets were breaking, 2) it took two teams to pull it in, and 3) both boats began to sink from the amount of fish collected. That's pretty amazing! And as go on to read, the miraculous nature of this catch is not lost on Peter. Look at verses 8-11...

C. Sending Out the ‘Fishermen’ (5:8-11)

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.

Peter's reaction might surprise us at first. We might expect Peter simply to be at a loss for words, or to thank Jesus profusely, or to fall down and worship Jesus. But think about Peter's reaction in light of these Old Testament passages:

Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. And when I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard the voice of one speaking. (Ezekiel 1:28b)...And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:5)...And when Job finally saw God he declared, “...I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:6)

So right there, in front of the knees of Jesus, on top of and surrounded a whole bunch of fish, Peter falls down and declares his own sinfulness because he recognizes that he stands in the presence of God's power. He might not understand exactly who Jesus is at this point, but he knows that has just witnessed God himself at work through this man Jesus. And whenever God's worthiness is revealed like this, our unworthiness as sinners is made crystal clear.

But notice the purpose of Jesus in all this. He is there not simply to convict Peter, but also to comfort him and commission him. “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” “I have not come to judge you Peter, I've come to give you job.” And when they get back to shore, we read in verse 11 that they left everything to follow Jesus, even the biggest catch of their lives.

III. Learning from Breaking Nets and Sinking Boats

So as think about this amazing story we have to ask, “God, what do you want us to learn from this account?” What is the point of this story? What does God want us to learn from the these breaking nets and sinking boats?

Well, I think it's clear that the primary purpose of this story is to communcate the authority of Jesus in calling these men to follow Him. That's certainly the lesson Peter and the other men learned from the whole experience, and that's clear from the fact that they give up everything in order to follow Jesus.

But as we see from verse 10, Jesus himself connects what just happened with the literal catch to what will begin to happen in terms of a spiritual catch: “from now on you will be catching men.”

You may or may not know that the Gospel of Luke is only the first half of a longer work that includes the New Testament book we know as “Acts”. And in that book, in what we might call 'Luke, Part 2', we read about how Peter, in Acts chapter 2, cast the net of the gospel, he declared the message of Jesus, he let down the nets. And verse 41 describes the result: So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. (Acts 2:41)

You see, the miracle of Luke chapter 5 was like a sneak peek at what was to come in Acts chapter 2. And what we need to do is think about what these miraculous catches should teach us about “fishing with Jesus”. Let me suggest three lessons we need to learn:

First of all, we see here that in spite of what we think is best, Jesus remains the Lord of the Catch! What these fishermen needed to understand, and what we need to understand as spiritual fishermen, is that any fish that is pulled in, any catch that is hauled into the boat, any soul that is drawn near, is the result of God's work and not ours. The work of 'pulling in the catch' requires a strength that God alone possesses. As Jesus taught in John 6:44, No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.

And beyond Acts 2, the rest of that book goes on to confirm this same point over and over. In Acts 8, it is God who brings Philip to the Ethiopian eunuch's chariot just as the man is reading about the Messiah in Isaiah 53. It is God who appears to Saul on the road to Damascus (Acts 9). It is God who gives the Gentile Cornelius a vision of his need to hear Peter's preaching, and it is God who gives Peter a vision about the message to preach (Acts 10). And in Acts 13 we read, And when the Gentiles heard this [the gospel], they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed (v. 48). It is God who opens Lydia's heart in Acts 16. It is God who brings the Philippian jailer to his knees through an unsettling earthquake and a unexpected jailbreak in Acts 16. And we could go on!

But what we need to remember is that, like Peter, we are often tempted to make reaching out to others, sharing God’s word with others, more about ourassessment and ourpower, rather than God’s. Peter was pretty sure he had the fish situation in that lake figured out. And he probably would have been right were it not for the radical difference God’s power made in that equation. Peter WAS an expert fisherman, but Jesus IS the Lord of the Catch.

Brothers and sisters, only God can open a closed heart. Only God can bring life into death. Only he can set free what is imprisoned. And therefore it is not up to us to change someone, because that is impossible; just like it was impossible for Peter to catch all those fish. Peter only had one thing to do in obedience to Christ’s command: to let down the nets. And he was faithful to do that. In the same way, God is calling us to be faithful to simply share the gospel; to speak the truth in love. That’s it. The rest is up to God.

Isn’t it a wonderful relief to know that it’s not our responsibility to change someone’s heart?

We want to be as clear as we can, but it doesn’t ultimately depend on our clarity. We want to be as persuasive as we can, but it doesn’t ultimately depend on our persuasiveness. We want to be as complete as we can, but it doesn’t ultimately depend in our exhaustiveness.

When we believe someone is too far gone, or too resistant to the Good News, or we feel like our words just didn’t come out right, or we begin to give up because we’ve spent months or years sharing with someone, we must look to the Lord of the Catch. I like what the writer J.I. Packer said on this subject:

“Some fear that belief in the sovereign grace of God leads to the conclusion that evangelism is pointless, since God will save His elect anyway, whether they hear the gospel or not. This...is a false conclusion based on a false assumption...So far from making evangelism pointless, the sovereignty of God in grace is the one thing that prevents evangelism from being pointless. For it creates the possibility–indeed, the certainty–that evangelism will be fruitful.” (J.I. Packer)

The second thing we learn from Luke 5 is that reverent humility and wholehearted faith should mark us as ‘fishermen’. When Peter understood the power of God at work in Jesus, the very thing God wants us to understand this morning, he was brought to his knees. He was humbled. And when that humility was comforted by the grace of Jesus, it strengthened his faith. The hesitant faith that eventually let down the nets became the wholehearted faith that left those nets (and everything else) behind as he followed Christ.

‘Spiritual fishermen’ should have these same traits. We should not be full ourselves, but full of faith. We should recognize that we stand before God and we are used by God simply on the basis of grace. It was once us in those nets! If you belong to Christ through faith, then you were once pulled in by the Lord of the Catch. And when we keep that fact in mind when we share with others, when we remember what he has done in others, we trust that God will keep us humble and keep us dependant on what He, and only He can do.

As Paul encouraged the Philippians, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, [13] for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (2:12b-13)

The final thing we need to take from this passage is the fact we should always expect to be astonished in light of God’s abundance. These seasoned fishermen had never seen anything like the catch of fish they pulled in that memorable morning. As verse 9 tells us, they were all “astonished” by what happened. In the same way, when we fish with and for Jesus, we need to expect wonderful things from God.

Some might see that as a ‘sure-fire’ recipe for disappointment. But God wants us to cultivate a spirit of faith, and he wants us to see through the eyes of faith. God’s abundance is not simply about numbers. It can also be seen in opportunities to share, in the spiritual interest of friend or co-worker, and in the softening of just one heart! We need to look for all those ways that God wants to astonish us, to say, “Wow! Look at what the Lord of the Catch is doing!”

When we ‘get into the boat’ with Jesus, that is, when we spend meaningful and missional time with those who are not Christians, AND when we ‘cast the nets’ with Jesus, that is, when we share the message of Christ with others, allowing God to use our love, and our lives, and our prayers in connection with that message, when we fish with and for Jesus, we should do so with the confidence that, just like Oskar Schell, someone is going ahead of us to prepare the way. His mother went ahead of him to prepare hearts for the visit of her son. In the same way, we should be encouraged by the fact that God is going ahead of us to prepare hearts for His Son. Only God can bring in a spiritual catch. But isn’t it wonderful that God allows us to be a part of that work, and to have ‘front row seats’ as He performs His miracles? Let’s thank Him this morning and ask Him to encourage our hearts for His work.