Luke 5:1-11 * February 7, 2010 * Epiphany 5 * Pastor Leyrer

Dear Friends in Christ,

Individually they all had names (many of which continue to be popular today), but we know them best collectively. We refer to them as the Twelve Disciples, or sometimes, the Twelve Apostles, or sometimes just “The Twelve.”

From everything we know and are told in the Bible each of them could most accurately be described as being extraordinarily average. Some of them made their living as professional fishermen; one was a tax collector; another was a political activist. The background of a good half of them we’re simply not told.

They are important and their names live on not because of who they were, but because of whose they were. They were the handpicked and chosen followers of Jesus Christ.

If you followed along in your pew Bible you would have noticed the little heading that introduced this reading is: “The Calling of the First Disciples.” Actually the Gospels give us several different accounts of Jesus gathering the Twelve, which suggests the calling of the disciples was a somewhat gradual and perhaps even intermittent process that took place over a certain period of time. In other words, it didn’t happen all at once.

The same could be said about the disciples’ spiritual growth and understanding. At the time of their calling the disciples were far from finished products. Jesus continued to instruct and teach and guide and spend time with them throughout his earthly ministry, and even after His resurrection.

Even with such attention, the results were mixed. At times the disciples showed great faith and spiritual resolve. At other times they showed an inability to understand what Jesus was teaching them and an almost uncanny capacity for spiritual dullness. Sometimes they were strong; other times they were weak.

Sound like anyone you know? The disciples were a lot like us. That’s why we can relate to them. And the fact that Jesus never gave up on them is a great encouragement.

In many ways our text for today is a sort of spiritual travelogue. It revolves around one particular disciple, Peter, and the path he traveled to a deeper discipleship with Jesus. But it was not unique to Peter. It is a path every disciple of Christ follows, including us. On the basis of this Word of God let’s talk about three particular

ELEMENTS OF A DEEPENING DISCIPLESHIP

1. Trust

2. Understanding

3. Service

The opening verses of our text take us to the shore of the Lake of Gennesaret, which is another name for the Sea of Galilee. There Jesus is preaching. A large crowd has gathered around Him; so large that some may miss out on hearing what He has to say.

To prevent this from happening, Jesus found a boat and got into it. It happened to belong to Peter, who willingly launched it out into the water according to Jesus’ request. From this offshore position Jesus continued to dispense the Word of God to the people.

His preaching was followed up with a very striking object lesson. When he had 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 because you say so, I will let down the nets.”

Peter’s referral to Jesus as Master indicates he understood and believed Him to be the Son of God. Yet Peter’s reply indicates a battle was going on inside of him. It was the classic battle between faith and doubt, between trust and uncertainty. As a fisherman, every fiber in his body is telling him this fishing strategy didn’t make sense (something Peter felt compelled to let Jesus know). But as a believer, his conscience tells him to put reason aside; to simply trust and obey.

In the end, faith – even with some misgivings – wins out.

When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. 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. In an unable-to-be-mistaken way, Jesus puts to rest any questions about His divine wisdom and power. The lesson is obviously not lost on Peter. We see his discipleship solidifying as he comes to a deeper understanding of who Jesus is.

When Simon Peter saw this he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” for he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, and so were James and John, the Sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners.

At that moment Peter is confronted with the holiness of God and experiences his own personal epiphany. Falling in front of the sinless Son of God in a spirit of reverence and devotion, Peter is keenly aware of his own unworthiness and sinfulness. That’s why he asks Jesus to go away. Peter is thinking, “I really don’t belong here.”

But Jesus doesn’t go away. He does just the opposite. He calls Peter to be His own and gives him a special commissioning. And the deepening discipleship continues. Trust and understanding break into a life of willing service. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid. From now on you will catch men.” So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.

A “fisher of men” is exactly what Peter became. Along with the other disciples, Peter now had a purpose in life: to spread the net of the Gospel message of Jesus Christ and enlarge the Kingdom of God. What our church banner depicts, Peter and the other disciples (with the exception of Judas) exemplified.

Like every believer on this side of heaven, he had his ups and downs along the way. But when all was said and done Peter stood firm in his love, devotion and discipleship to His Savior. Church history tells us that after years of mission work he willingly died a martyr’s death for the cause of Christ.

There is much in Peter’s spiritual journey that we parallel and instructive to our own. Let’s take a look at the various stages he went through, and how he progressed.

Our text started with Peter being wrestling with doubt about God’s wisdom and power in a given situation. He knew Jesus was God, but he also knew that based on his own experience and way of thinking the direction Jesus was heading didn’t seem to make much sense.

Ever been there? I suspect most of us have. I suspect most of us can think of times in our lives when the direction God seemed to be leading us – especially if it involved personal or financial or employment or health difficulties or setbacks – didn’t square with what we thought was the way to go.

So it gets down to a trust issue. Who do we trust? Who knows better what we need? Let me give you a real life modern day rendition of what Peter went through…

Years ago I had a conversation with a colonel in the Air Force who, in his earlier years, had flown fighter jets. He told the story of how one day he was on a mission and the weather turned bad on him. Suddenly it was like flying through pea soup and he couldn’t see a thing. And while he personally became more and more disoriented, he did what he’d been trained to do in those situations: he flew by his instruments.

The problem was that he knew a banking maneuver was coming up which, if not executed properly, would result in crashing the plane. As a highly trained fighter pilot who had logged thousands of hours of flight time he had developed some very finely-tuned instincts. Everything within him told him to bank left. But the instrument panel told him to bank right. And he didn’t have much time to make a decision.

What would you do? Do you trust your instincts or do you trust the instruments? I can tell you what the colonel did. He trusted the instruments. Had he not, he wouldn’t have been around to tell the story.

The point of this illustration is that instruments trump instincts. In Peter’s case and in our case as Christians, the instruments of God are His Word and His promises and His love and the fact that as God He knows what is best for His children.

So we trust Him. And the more we understand Him the deeper our trust in Him grows.

That’s what we saw in Peter. Peter understood who Jesus was – the almighty, sinless Son of God – and he also understood who he was – a sinful human being. But the most important understanding Peter came to was that Jesus did not come to rub Peter’s sin in his face or to banish him as one who did not belong or was unloved. Remember, Jesus disregarded Peter’s request that He “go away” from a sinner like him.

Rather, Jesus came to forgive sinners like Peter and us. Or as is written in John 3:17: “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

And while at this particular moment in his life Peter didn’t fully know how this would all come about, we do. We know how after 33 years of sinless living as mankind’s perfect substitute Jesus would willingly and voluntarily place Himself on a cross. There He offered His life as the just payment not for His sins, but for ours. And when He said “It is finished,” He meant it. Everything necessary for our eternal salvation has been completed. And we are in a right relationship with God now and forever.

Such understanding leads to a life of willing service. Jesus told Peter He’d make him a fisher of men, meaning He’d involve him in kingdom work. The same is true for all Jesus’ followers, including us. Jesus involves us in His work and makes all of us – not just pastors or missionaries or evangelists – fishers of men.

And it’s a role we willingly take upon ourselves, especially when we remember that effective Christian witnessing is not necessarily found in trying to master Scriptural truths which can than be recited to others. Rather it is in letting Scriptural truths master us, which we gladly live out before a watching world and will gladly share with others as the Lord allows the opportunities to present themselves.

Earlier we said they are best known as a group. In the next chapter of Luke we are given their individual names: ¹⁴Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew (also known as Nathaniel), ¹⁵Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, ¹⁶Judas son of James (also known as Thaddeus), and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. (Later replaced by Matthias).

Jesus called them to be His own and they grew in their trust, understanding and service to Him as their Lord and Savior.

Each of our names could be added to that list. Through the work of the Holy Spirit God has called us to be His modern day disciples. As with the Twelve, may we, under God’s grace and guidance, always be moving down the path of an ever deepening discipleship. Amen.