Called into Deeper Waters
Series: Encountering Jesus (through the Gospel of Luke)
Brad Bailey – February 10, 2019
Intro
Do you know what Jesus seemed to confront more than any other aspect of human nature?
Religion. Religion can be the greatest barrier to actual relationship with God.
Now the word “religion” can speak of something which is truly divine…good and true…but it can also speak of something of the merely human means of relating to the divine… means which are contrived in self-serving ways. [1a]
Jesus comes to a world in in which men have tried to contain God as the mere object of their own understanding… in which we speak of God as an object bound within our own comfort and control.
We can create a form of acknowledging God in which we are actually still the center…in which we are hiding behind the appearance… and never facing the reality.
We speak today of not being into organized religion… but so often what is then believed is that which is simply one’s own version … a god of our own making.
We speak of religion having “it’s place”… as long as it is kept in that place… as if God is bound to the religious compartment of life.
Such religion will keep us from the true life with God.
Such religion is not only shallow and safe… it will never be life giving.
Such religion is what Jesus comes to call us out of.
That is what Jesus does…when he calls us… he pierces the human centered forms of being religious.
Today we encounter that call….as we continue in our series this morning. Encountering Jesus through the Gospel of Luke.
Luke who was a doctor...and became a traveling companion to the apostle Paul… has gathered a living testimony of Christ. As we journey together …past couple weeks we encountered that start of Christ’s public ministry… and today we continue in what is referenced as the fifth chapter. [1b]
Luke 5:1-3
One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, with the people 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.
The setting is the Sea of Gennesaret …more commonly referred to as the Sea of Galilee. (Second largest body of water in Israel… 64 square miles.)
It’s early in the morning. The fishermen have returned from the pre-dawn fishing…and are mending their nets.
Crowds are following Jesus…and want to hear him so much they are pressing in along the shoreline.
It may be hard today to imagine people pressing in because they wanted to hear God’s Word. Today our lives are so full of words…words in every form and format… that we lose a sense of having any sense of what actually matters….what is meaningful.
You may recall that he is not sharing religious ideas… opinions…he is speaking with a level of truth…and grace… unknown in this world.
The crowd pressed in so tight… that it probably became hard to hear him. So he sees a couple boats and decides to use one to gain a better position to keep sharing with the people. If he can get a little distance from them and speak up, more of them will be able to hear Him plainly.
So he gets into the boat belongs to Simon. Now, that may seem a bit presumptuous – but Simon was no stranger. Simon’s brother, Andrew had already connected Simon and Jesus… and Jesus spoken prophetically over his life. [1c]
So, Simon knew Jesus. He’d already been stirred by Jesus… and become a local host and helper.
In fact, just prior to this, as we read last week, Jesus had healed Simon’s mother-in-law the previous day (Luke 4:38-39).
But at this point… we could identify Simon as…
• A fan…but not a follower.
• An enthusiast but not an enlisted.
• A patron but not a partner.
As for his religious life… Jesus was unlike anything he had known…but it was still confined to his religious life.
After all… Peter was a fishermen. Religion had an important place…but his identity was in the work of fishing. Now Jesus had begun to mess with Simon. Simon thought only the religious priesthood and teachers were included in God’s priority…but Jesus seemed interested in a man like him… a fishermen. Jesus wasn’t only not being confined to the most religious circles…he seemed to be confronting them. Jesus had been revealing the reality of God to people like Simon.
SO as he sat there with mending his nets while Jesus taught from his boat …he likely was again inspired by what Jesus spoke from his boat that day.
Finally, the crowd goes home - and Peter is ready to call it a day.
But then Jesus isn’t.
Luke continues…
Luke 5:4-5
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."
Jesus’ call for Simon to launch out into deeper water provides a great picture of what he is doing in Simon’s life. Jesus is going to take Simon Peter to deeper, more personal commitment to Himself.
He’s been a faithful fan… a helper. He’s given him the religious compartment of his life in a way he likely never had before.
But it is still the safe zone of the shallow waters.
I want to help us get inside this exchange between Jesus and Simon. (…who is also known as Simon Peter or Peter in due time.)
Fishing is hard work. It’s one thing to fish on the weekends. It’s something else to fish every day for a living. Peter, Andrew, James and John fished on the Sea of Galilee year round. They either sold their fish locally or the fish were salt-cured and sold to traveling ships. You wouldn’t get rich that way, but a hardworking man could take care of his family.
And they’d been fishing ALL NIGHT and not caught a thing.
Now it is morning and Peter and the others are tired, exhausted, dejected, and probably in a lousy mood. Now they are busy mending the nets. This was long tedious work… made more difficult by the frustration of knowing they caught nothing the night before...but it had to be done so they’d be ready to go out the next day.
When (Jesus) had finished speaking, he said to Simon,
"Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch." Luke 5:4
Now I don’t know much about fishing… but I do know that most men don’t like being given directions. But even beyond that… this was the one thing that his entire life had been about… the one thing he knows best…the thing he finds his identity in… his pride in.
So after a bad night….what would you feel if one who was a carpenter by trade…now rising as a religious figure…rabbi deemed Messiah who is a rabbi and former one who had been a carpenter tells you what you should do?
Peter is a professional fisherman.
And Peter knows two things:
1) This is the wrong time of day to fish.
2) And this is the wrong part of the lake to do any fishing.
You can almost hear Peter….not quite saying out loud, but he is thinking it… ‘Look, Jesus, I'm a fisherman. You have been a carpenter. Now you’ve become a religious leader. Leave the fishing to me.’
“I just got done cleaning these nets. If I throw them into the water, I’ll have to take them back to shore and do it all over again.
This Jesus isn’t like anyone else – but He’s no fisherman.”
And so Peter tries to reason with Jesus.
And you can almost hear the frustration in his voice: "Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything.”
You can see him look hopefully to Jesus, expecting Jesus to say “Oh, never mind… don’t worry about it.”
But Jesus doesn’t say anything. He just looks at Peter. It’s a defining moment. He referred to him as “master”… one he would follow. So what will he do?
It’s “DTR” moment… a “define the relationship” moment.
Peter sighs. “Ok, because you say so, I will let down the nets." (Luke 5:5) And with a shrug of respect mixed with resignation Peter allows Jesus to transcend the now religious space….and influence the life he ruled over.
While every calling is personal…I believe there are some common qualities…and the first is that…
Jesus’ calling pierces our false sources of identity and comfortable “religious compartments.”
As noted earlier…there is a long tradition trying to define religion as a distinct part of one’s life….a segment…a compartment which can be respected if we keep it separate from the rest of our lives.
We have formed an idea that we can create a respectable place for religion….but find our real identity in what we control in this world.
When we consider our relationship with God…we may feel we have honored the compartment. He has a place there.
We can even try to be helpful like Peter.
But the reality is that our primary identity is in our own roles and accomplishments… in what we control. That’s our comfort zone.
The problem is that God does not live in the compartment of our own making. As long as we try to make God the God of our religious compartment… we will never really know God.
God is not the god of religion… he is the God of life.
Jesus seems to be saying: “Peter you are a gift to managing fishing but you are not the source or sovereign.” He may say to me, “Brad…you may be a gift in leading my church… but you are not the source and sovereign of it.” In a similar way….
You may be a gift in education… health and wellness… creativity and the arts… managing money…but you are not the ultimate source and control of it.
Jesus’ calling transcends our comfortable “religious compartments” …and pierces our central sources of identity.
And when we realize that God is God of all…we may initially feel smaller…but life becomes bigger.
Luke continues…
Luke 5:6-10
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.
Peter seems to have set out with a sigh… with resignation.
This isn’t a religious sphere… it’s not the synagogue…it’s the sea of Galilee.
But what happens… changes his life. Suddenly their nets are filled with fish.
In fact “they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break.”
The nets were so heavy that Peter had to call for the other boat to come out and help them bring the fish in.
This had never happened before…they’d caught the fish in a place and time they never should have gotten any at all.
Peter suddenly realizes Jesus is not a mere religious teacher. He’d heard the crowds shout at Jesus: "You are the Son of God!" But now… he’s begun to believe it.
And it scares him.
When Simon Peter saw the fish overflowing… “he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”
Here’s the second common thing the calling of Jesus does…
Jesus’ calling brings the intimacy of piercing our pretentiousness…as we stand before the presence of his shear goodness and grace.
When he calls Jesus, “Lord” it is an entirely different word than used previously in verse five, …he uses the word (kurios) which is reserved by the Jews as a description of GOD.
When you really encounter the living God, you know that He is not the God that you have fashioned in your mind. He is something altogether on a different order of magnitude, and especially the holiness of His being becomes transparently clear to you.
C.S. Lewis says: “Some people talk as if meeting the gaze of absolute goodness would be fun. They need to think again.”
(Book I, ch. 5)
It’s not fun…but it is the opportunity to become free to be who we are.
Peter was not really trying to get rid of Jesus; he was simply overcome with a sense of himself before God. When we are truly before God…we face ourselves like never before…and it’s something we have tried to avoid.
But as our experience deepens, and we gain the knowledge that only in Him can we experience the forgiveness of our sins, then a consciousness of our sin drives us to him. [2]
Luke concludes…
Luke 5:11
Then Jesus said to Simon, "Don't be afraid; from now on you will catch men." 11 So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.
I find that last statement as dramatic…and defining as any words in all the Scriptures.
So they pulled their boats to shore and by every indication they turned their backs on the biggest catch of their lives and followed him.
The word “followed” is a word which signifies the deepest inward attachment.
“The response of leaving everything, …may lead us to wonder of everyone is to leave their vocations to serve Jesus?
It can be noted that Simon Peter and some of these fishermen were being called to follow as semi-formal followers in the tradition of training under a rabbi…in which one left much of their common life for at least a season. While Jesus did not call everyone to leave daily family and work to join his group of twelve disciples, he did continue to call all to “follow him”… to be willing to make all other things secondary… to lose our lives in terms of defining our own identities, purpose, and priorities. [3]
Jesus’ calling redefines life with Divine purpose.
Jesus raises their lives into a new dimension of purpose.
Fishers of men. [4]
It is a call to join the redemption of the world.
Sometimes terms that get developed actually create false categories and understanding…and one of those is the word: “missionary.”
Special people who go to radical places. The world has been changed by such people. They would probably be better spoken of as pioneers. The move good news into new cultures and languages.
The idea of a “missionary” is never understood as a distinct role in mind of Jesus or anywhere in the Bible.
Because …
> Life is a mission.
Now some may fear what that means. Nowhere does Jesus tell us to go yell at people about things they don’t really understand. Nowhere does the call to become “fishers of men tell us to go forward emails to people. It doesn’t tell us to become self-righteous and superior to people. In fact, Jesus comes to bring an end to that which allows religion to become a basis for self-righteousness and superiority.
The life of Jesus simply spreads through the lives of those it effects and calls.
It begins within us… begins to form a new work in us… and is naturally shared with others.
It’s the difference many of us feel between when we just get up and go to work and try to take care of life’s business… and when we really sense that God is at work… and drawing us into what he is doing around us.
His voice calls us into his purpose…his mission. Like these first disciples we are awakened by his life at work.
It is a call to join in the redemption of the whole created order.
In this sense, Jesus so radically redefined their lives. Fishermen… farmers… merchants and business people… each had been invited to follow him and he defined that it was a joining into the very rescuing of the entire created world by God. It was going to cost them everything. It made joining the US military look mild in it’s calling. It became a constant experience of Jesus drawing them into what the Father was doing… and learning how to participate.
It’s not that he only sees us as workers. Rather it’s like a father… saying welcome home… you belong…and part of our special relationship is being part of the family business… joining the father in what he is doing.
Personal testimony
Sometimes people ask: when did you know you wanted to be a pastor?
I find this a very secondary question. Being in “full time ministry” is really just what made sense of various elements. The real change came with the very initial call of Jesus.
I heard about God… and of his living and loving act towards me.
It beckoned with truth…but also infused life with purpose.
“If this is true…there is worth giving my whole life to.”
I never seen humanity the same again. Something is at work in this world…and I get to be a part of it. Jesus never called people to simply be saved from something…but to something. He redefines every life with Divine purpose.
Closing:
That day Peter lost his religion…and found a relationship with God that would last forever.
This morning God is coming to you, he is calling you by name.
You know that he wants you for a larger destiny.
And like Simon… we may think…
It doesn’t fit what we know. The best fishing on the Sea of Galilee was at night close to shore. But Jesus had asked him to launch out into the deep in the middle of the day.
It’s really doesn’t fit in the circumstances. We already fished all night…and have cleaned the nets. It’s really an inconvenient call to follow.
It won’t seem normal to others in our life.
Other would naturally think: “You have you nets all cleaned and stored. If you go back out you will have to do it all over again, for nothing. I know you think this guy may be the Messiah… but don’t get fanatical about it?”
Perhaps that is what you sense from your family or friends.
Is Jesus calling you into the deeper waters of relationship?
Maybe you realize you have been hanging in the shallow waters of your religious comfort and compartment.
Jesus is calling you to know God… as God.
Resources: While this sermon is generally developed from my own sense of this text, I have valued looking at what others have noted, particularly from some who also taught through the whole of the Gospel of Luke, and have drawn elements of ideas or articulation from them. In particular: Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III (“How Jesus Makes Disciples”); John Hamby “A New And Higher Calling”; Jeff Strite “Let’s Go Fishing”
Notes:
1a. Regarding religion:
"If you can once get him to the point of thinking that 'religion is all very well up to a point,' you can feel quite happy about his soul. A moderated religion is as good for us as no religion at all- and more amusing" C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters (43).
"Of all the bad men, religious bad men are the worst." - C.S. Lewis’: “Reflections on the Psalms” (1964)
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” ? C.S. Lewis
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”? - G.K. Chesterton (From What’s Wrong with the World, Part I, Chapter 5)
1b. This is depicted in “The Jesus Film” from which a clip is available at: https://www.bible.com/videos/12-jesus-miracle-catch-of-fish-from-jesus-film-project
1c. Each of the Gospel accounts speaks of how Jesus called the disciples. It appears that this calling came in some degree of stages…although likely all in a short period of time. He met with them the first time in Jerusalem. See John 1:35-42. It appears that he may not have formally called them as disciples at that time. Matthew notes a brief call to “follow” that may have come before the longer Luke 5 account or have been a brief version of it. (Matthew 4:18-19) If initial, it appears they go with Him briefly at this time and then return to fishing. The third time that He calls them, it is to leave all and join as disciples on mission…as described here in Luke 5:1-11.
In the gospel of John we’re told that Peter’s brother Andrew:
“…found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ). He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “So you are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter).” John 1:40-42 ESV
So it may have been that this is the Lord’s second call to these disciples, Jesus had previously called the four fisherman (Andrew, Peter, James and John) to follow Him and they had traveled with Him in Capernaum and Galilee (Mark 1: 21-39), but then they had returned to their fishing business. The time for a deeper level of commitment and involvement had come.
It’s interesting that the core of the twelve which Jesus chose to be his disciples are fishermen. It’s clear that he didn’t go to an executive search firm or visit the placement office at the local college. He started by calling men with dirt under their fingernails, blue-collar types, men without much education, men who knew about hard work and the value of perseverance. It would suggest that Jesus may have known that sometimes the most formal of human education will need a re-education. He began with those who had good foundations, as any Jewish lives had in their younger years, but they were not as bound to the traditions of the religious leaders. They could receive truth more easily than others. And as fishermen… they had developed the patience and perseverance that would like in the calling to change the world.
2. As John Hamby notes: “Peter’s reaction is what we often see in the Bible as man’s reaction to face-to-face confrontation with God. When the prophet Isaiah “… saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up” he declared, “Woe is me, for I am undone!” (Isaiah 6:1, 5). Job had much the same experience; “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye sees You. (6) Therefore I abhor ( despise) myself, And repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:5-6). And John would write of his experience in Revelation 1: 17, “And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead….”
I find an especially notable parallel to Isaiah’s vision which also begins with seeing more clearly the power of God…and leads to accepting the role of being sent.
Isaiah 6:1-8 (NIV) ?In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory." 4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. 5 "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty." 6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for." 8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"
3. It can be noted that Simon Peter and some of these fishermen were being called to follow as semi-formal followers in the tradition of training under a rabbi…in which one left much of their common life for at least a season. While Jesus did not call everyone to leave daily family and work to join his group of twelve disciples, he did continue to call all to “follow him”… to be willing to make all other things secondary… to lose our lives in terms of defining our own identities, purpose, and priorities. Consider how Jesus spoke of the underlying “leaving” to all who follow.
Luke 9:23-25 (NIV) – “Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. 25 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?”
1 John 2:15 (NIV) - “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”
As Kranthi Kumar Medida states: “This is the way we can leave everything without literally doing that. This means that in our hearts we are not attached to anything in this world. This we do because in Jesus we have found the one who is more desirable, more real, more meaningful, more purposeful, and more enjoyable than this world and everything in it. The world is temporary, but Jesus is eternal. The world is deceitful, but Jesus is faithful. The world is sinful, but Jesus is holy. The world is sorrowful, but Jesus is the source of joy.”
4. The Greek has the idea of catching men alive. Peter will cast the gospel net and catch men for the Savior. And not just in small groups. On the day of Pentecost 3000 men will respond to his powerful gospel sermon (Acts 2).
