God's Recall

Peter Had Denied Knowing the Lord and Had Seen Christ Crucified. The One to Whom Jesus Had Said “Flesh and Blood Has Not Revealed this to You, but My Father Which Is in Heaven . . . and on this Rock I Will Build My Church,” Had Been Through an Experience of Spiritual Crushing and Humiliation. And Though He Had Walked with the Lord and Seen Him after His Resurrection, Though He Had Been Breathed upon by the Baptizer in the Holy Ghost, Though He Had Watched as the Doubt-filled Thomas Thrust His Finger into the Nail-prints of Christ’s Hands, Peter Was Still Uncertain about the Call to Catch Men. He Had Been Called to Discipleship after Loaning His Boat to Be the Master’s Pulpit and Had Been Rewarded with a Great Catch (That He Was Not Able to Bring in Himself after Laboring All Night).

But Now Peter Was a Few Years from That Original Word “Follow Me and I Will Make You Fishers of Men.” Time and Spiritual Failure Made the Memory of His Calling Painful Instead of Joyous. Now it Seemed like a Reminder of What He Could Have Been Instead of a Promise of What He Shall Be. But When You’ve Failed the Call, God Makes a Recall. By Recall I Do Not Mean That God Takes Away the Call for the Gifts and the Callings of God Are Without Repentance. By Recall I Mean That He Shows up Again.

In the Darkness of Your Failure, You Fail to Realize That When He First Called You, He Knew You Weren’t Perfected and That You Would Need Him to Have More Grace. What Would You Be If You Never Failed the God Who Alone Never Fails? Proud! God Ordains Even Your Failure as a Part of His Redeeming Work to Bring Humility So That You Know That the Excellency of the Power Is of God. He Gives More Grace, God Resists the Proud but Gives Grace to the Humble.

Peter Had Been Cocky. He Had Argued over Who Would Be the Greatest. He Had Vowed to Die with the Lord and (After Sleeping in the Garden Instead of Showing Real Spiritual Power in Prayer) He Pulled out His Sword and Took the Ear off of an Enemy. So That on the Way to the Cross, the Lord Was Still Healing and Rebuking to Clean up Peter’s Mess.

But Now Peter Throws in the Towel on His Call to Fish Men and Returns to His Previous Lifestyle, Livelihood, and Vocation. When He Said I Go a Fishing, it Was Not a Vacation of Relaxation but it Was a Return to the Hard Life of Laboring All Night and Catching Nothing. Yet as the Lord Allow His Labor to Be Fruitless Without the Word Before His Call, So it Would Be Before His Recall. Hard Labor (And Lots of It) Without God’s Blessing Does Not Bring Provision. Yet When You Listen to the Lord, Provision Can Come from Waters You Thought Were Empty.

4 * WHEN MORNING CAME (THEY LABORED FOR NOUGHT ALL NIGHT)

∙ WEEPING MAY ENDURE FOR THE NIGHT, BUT JOY COMES IN THE MORNING

∙ JESUS STOOD, BUT THE DISCIPLES KNEW NOT — HE WAS THERE EVEN THOUGH THEY DID NOT KNOW — WE WALK BY FAITH AND NOT BY SIGHT

5 * HAVE YOU ANY MEAT? — SOMETHING TO EAT WITH BREAD?

∙ HE KNEW THE ANSWER TO THE QUESTION HE ASKED

∙ WHY DID HE ASK? — FOR THEIR BENEFIT — WHAT ARE YOU WORKING FOR? YOU ARE NOT ATTAINING IT.

∙ ISAIAH 55:2 WHEREFORE DO YE SPEND MONEY FOR THAT WHICH IS NOT BREAD? AND YOUR LABOUR FOR THAT WHICH SATISFIETH NOT? HEARKEN DILIGENTLY UNTO ME, AND EAT YE THAT WHICH IS GOOD, AND LET YOUR SOUL DELIGHT ITSELF IN FATNESS.

6 * CAST ON THE RIGHT SIDE — AS OPPOSED TO THE WRONG SIDE

∙ IT WAS MUCH MORE DIFFICULT BECAUSE OF THE DESIGN OF THE SHIP TO CAST ON THE RIGHT SIDE, AND BESIDES ARE THERE THAT MANY MORE FISH 20 FEET TO THE RIGHT? IT IS MORE TROUBLE THAN IT IS WORTH (NOT!)

∙ THERE’S MORE ON GOD’S SIDE — IF GOD BE FOR US, WHO CARES WHO IS AGAINST US

∙ MORE THAN THEY EXPECTED TO RECEIVE

∙ THE FISH WERE THERE BECAUSE CHRIST SPOKE IT SO 7 * JOHN “IT IS JESUS” — HE RECOGNIZED THE MASTER BECAUSE OF THE REPEAT MIRACLE — THERE IS ONLY ONE I KNOW WHO DOES THAT — CAN’T NOBODY DO ME LIKE JESUS

∙ PETER, STILL PASSIONATE AND IMPULSIVE, JUMPS INTO THE SEA AND SWIMS 134 YARDS TO GET TO JESUS (LET THE OTHERS TAKE CARE OF THE BUSINESS, BOAT AND THE FISH, I’M GOING AFTER GOD)

∙ O, I WANT TO SEE HIM, SHEW ME THY GLORY, I NEED THEE — INSATIABLE HUNGER