Luke 5:1-11
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, and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. 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. And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. 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. 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.
Grace, mercy and peace to you from God, our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus, Christ. Amen, today's story is a familiar one. It's one of the ones that they often do in Sunday school, right? It's because it's so dramatic. You get the disciples and the boat and right after Jesus is done teaching, they do this miraculous catch of fish, and then we get that line that we all know, I will make you fishers of men, though that's from a different gospel. In this one, it says, Do not be afraid. From now on, you will be catching men, fortunately, not with a hook right now, Jesus does this with Peter, James and John, three of his first disciples later to be called apostles and the first leaders and pastors of the church. And every year, you will often get a sermon that is all about the church's job to go out and catch people. We go out as with the gospel, with the Word of God, to share the message of Jesus Christ, and to gather people into his church. And today, you're going to get one of those again, but this time, what I would like to do today is be encouraging and help you take the pressure off, because the job of catching fish or catching men in this story is not Peters, James or John, but Jesus's he's the one who does it. And I think many of us, when we talk about outreach or evangelism, we feel a lot of pressure. The pastor stands up in front of you and says, it is your job to go out and share the gospel and bring people into the church. They'll say things like, Go and make disciples of all nations, and you gotta do it. And I bet you feel some pressure because of that. You get worried about it. You think to yourself, I need to do this right, or else the people in my life will not follow Jesus. You think things like, what if I mess it up? What if I don't know the right words to say? What if my church just isn't the perfect church to invite them to, maybe they will. They will come in contact with me, and it will be so bad They'll never believe in Jesus again, and it will be all my fault. Ever felt that way? I bet you have, because sometimes preachers make it sound like it's all on you. So today I'd like to ask, what does it take to be a fearful fisherman or a confident caster like that fearful fisherman or confident caster. The fearful fishermen think that the work of evangelism and outreach is all on us. The Confident caster believes in the promise that Jesus does the work, that he's the one who grows the church and gathers people into the faith. And there are three areas where this is important. So we're going to get started with the first question, Who is the one we depend on to get this work done, who does the work for the fearful fishermen? We say it is all on me. In our story, we see Peter and James and John and their workers. They go out and they fish all night. They tell Jesus, and they catch nothing. These people are doing their business. This is not going out on a Sunday afternoon saying I'm going to go fish and cast my rod out. Haven't been fishing in months, but I'm going to just so go see what happens. Maybe bring a book, and if I catch a fish, that's nice. They've been doing this. This is their business. They know what they're doing, and they go out and they catch nothing. All of their hard work, all of their skill, all of their effort, doesn't mean anything. You. But as soon as Jesus says his word, the nets are filled, so much so that the boats start to sink, not just one, but two, and the reaction of the fearful fishermen is, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man. See, Peter knows that he's in the presence of Christ, and what does he worry about? He worries about himself. He says, I'm not good enough to be around you. I'm not good enough for this leave me, or your judgment will come down on me. And I think this is sometimes what we think about when we are brought into into the world of evangelism, we think about ourselves. I'm not good enough. I might mess it up. I'm not like the pastor. He knows the whole Bible, right? He can quote every single verse no matter what you ask him a question. He's got it all down. He should be the one who's doing it. I can't do it. And then, you know what? The pastor thinks, I can't do it. I just don't know enough like I can't go into every situation, especially here, where there are all of these people who speak different languages and different backgrounds, and there's Muslims and all sorts of different things I've never dealt with before. I might get it wrong. I might not say it right. I might not have the right thing for the right moment that will get that person. We feel we fear failure. We become fearful fishermen, but we are confident casters when we realize that it's not about us. We're actually not the ones doing the work Jesus is in our story. The thing that changes the empty nets to the full nets is not Peter's skill or his ability. It's Christ's word. Peter says, Master, we have toiled all night and took nothing but at your word, I will let down the net. The thing that changes everything is the command that Jesus gives the message of His Word. Jesus speaks and the nets are filled. It has nothing to do with Peter, nothing to do with his skill, nothing to do with his holiness or his planning or his activity or saying the right words over the waters or anything like that. It is only what Jesus does His power and His Word, and even when Peter says, Get away. I'm not good enough for this. Jesus, you're the Lord and I'm a sinful man. Jesus kind of ignores that. He doesn't go to Peter and say, Peter, you're better than you think. Just be confident, go out there and do it right. He doesn't say, you're a great speaker, Peter. I see it in you. You know, all we need is a little training, three years of of Jesus school, and you're going to be an amazing evangelist. He says, Do not be afraid. From now on, you will be catching men. That's it. Just don't be afraid. And why can Peter be a confident pastor, because he's not doing the work. The Word of Christ is what gathers guides and leads the church. It's the same thing that brings you here, the working of the Holy Spirit. Through the word of Christ, you don't come here because your pastor is perfect. You don't come here because your church is perfect. You come here because the word of God goes to you and fills you with the Holy Spirit, which means we can take a breath, right? What a relief. It's not about you. It's not your perfection or your skill. Jesus does the work the Holy Spirit works through His word to bring people to the Gospel. And when we speak God's word, no matter how skilled. Fully or not, the results are not on you. The results. That's Jesus' job, and he promises always to work through the power of His word, no matter what the second question. I'd like to look at is the question, how do we gather? First, we said, who does the work? Now we're going to talk about how, for the fearful fishermen, we focus on ourselves and on their church. We say programs are the things that bring people in. That is we have to be so shiny and perfect and wonderful that when there is a program, everybody's going to love it so much that they will want to come back the disciples were good at their jobs, Peter, James and John. They made their living catching fish, and yet, when Jesus went out to go preach, they had caught nothing all night long. That's when you catch fish, not in the middle of the day after Jesus has been teaching all day long, they'd done the human skill thing. They were at the top of their game, but with all their strategies, all their know how it failed and many churches we think, like to think that it is all on our program. If we don't have the most amazing whatever, people will not come. If our youth group isn't the most amazing youth group in the area, no way. If we don't have the best food at our soup and suppers, we do actually have great food, but if it's not the best, nobody's going to come. If our programming isn't just outstanding and amazing. Simply, everyone will look at us and be like, there is nothing good here, kind of what we think right? And what that means is we end up doing nothing. We sit and think, if I can't do it exactly right, maybe I won't try it all, and then we're afraid of experimenting, afraid of failing. But that's thinking about us as the ones who do the work. Confident casters realize that God's word is what changes hearts and not our program, our efforts and plans, everything that we do is all about getting the message of the gospel into the ears of anybody who needs to hear it. And as long as the word is at work, God is doing his thing as long as the gospel is being spoken to people who need to hear it, Christ is at work in their hearts. And then it's not on us, it's on him, because that was the difference. The word went out, and then the nets became full. They enclosed a large number of fish, so much, so much that two boats began to sink. Now we can't take this, this this miracle, and say every time we speak the word of God, someone's going to fall down on their knees and be like, Yay, Jesus. We know it's not that's not how it works. But we know it wasn't about the skill of the fishermen or the most amazing marketing plan that caught the fish. It was about Christ. So we don't need to compete with the rest of the world. We don't need to compete with the Super Bowl. We don't need to compete with the church down the street. What we're doing is sharing the Word of God, and as long as that is going out, it means God is working through us. But I think even more importantly, what it means is that we have the freedom to try something that might crash and burn, and if it does, that's okay. You. We don't have to worry about failure, because really, the one who succeeds is Christ. We can get out and just do stuff, because Christ, through His word, is the one who gathers people. Think about it, when Peter tossed the net into the water and caught the miraculous fish. Was it? Because the net was amazing? Did he add sparkles to it? Make the best net ever, like neon lights, all that stuff? Nope. It was the same net he threw in and caught nothing. Was it the boat that was extra special? I mean, did he glam it up? Maybe put some nice speakers on it, get the bass thumping? And that's what got the fish in. Of course, not what really got it going. It was at your word I will throw in the next. We trust in Christ and we know that His Word works. The third question I'd like to ask is, what do we call people to when we are fearful fishermen or confident casters? What are we asking them to do? Fearful fishermen again, focus on ourselves. We say, join our organization, because we have an amazing org chart, and our vision statement is out of this world. Hey, we might have a great org chart. We might have an interesting mission statement, which we are working on, but that's not what we call them to. When Jesus came to Peter, he didn't ask him to join a vision or a mission. He said, Follow me, and that's what they did. Fearful fishermen focus in on making sure that we are worth joining. And sometimes what that means is, when a church is growing, then all of a sudden, the congregation thinks we have the special sauce even better than that, secret sauce on the Big Mac, way better than that. And if everybody just did it like us, every church would grow everywhere and they think it's all about how they plan and work and do but even worse, even more difficult, is when the congregation that isn't growing, that's maybe struggling a little bit, and they think it must be because we're not good enough. We're just not doing the right program. We're just not doing the right thing, all we need to do is find that one simple trick that you see on every article, clickbait article on the internet, that one simple trick to switch our congregation into a good one, and then people will Join and a church that focuses on institutional growth, a church that focuses on our organization, is a church that's calling peoples to something other than the gospel, other than to Christ. Confident casters say not join us. They say, follow Jesus. This is what Jesus does with Peter. He says, Do not be afraid. From now on, you will be catching men. And what do they do? They don't go off to school, they say. And when they had brought their boat to land, they left everything and followed him. We in the church call people follow Christ. That is always our goal, and the power of that means that it can be better than our organization, because there will always be flaws. The power of Christ means that it's more than our plans and our purpose and our mission statement and all of these things. It's focusing on following our Savior, because we're not building our empire. We're building the kingdom of Christ by His power. And our goal is not to grow the offering or to build up the number our attendance number, but to create faithful Christians through the word of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit for the rest of their lives. I'm going to close out with a bit of a story we've been. Doing a number of new things that we've been trying in our congregation. And I think one of the ones that is most like what we're doing, what I've been talking about, is what Kathleen has been doing in the park lately. You go into your bulletin, you can see afternoon blast. What she's been doing is she's been going out to a couple of different parks and basically doing like a Sunday School in the park. It's pretty cool, I think. And she goes out there and anybody who's around, she invites them over to hear the Word of God. And what happens every time, sorry, we can't we're Muslims. She goes, Okay, that's fine. And she goes over and plays games. And they're like, ooh, games. Now, if we were worried about it, and we were, we were fearful fishermen, we might say, Oh, they're Muslims. They're not they're never going to listen. They're never going to we, we're going to go try something else. But because we trust the word of God, does it. They come on over, they play the games, and she reads them a story about Jesus, and then we let him do the work. We don't need to see immediate results. We don't need to see children falling on their knees and saying, now I'm a Christian. We trust the Holy Spirit, which means this amazing outreach that she is doing, and the volunteers who are working with her, we can just trust that the word is doing its thing, and we can keep at it. And as the numbers grow which they are in the afternoon blast, we can think the word of God is doing its work, because it's not about us, about our power. It's about Christ, and that is the difference between being fearful fishermen and confident casters. Fearful fishermen think it's all on us. Confident casters think Jesus does the way in His name. Amen.
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