Luke 5 begins with Jesus preaching to the multitude on the
north shore of the Sea of Galilee near Capernaum. He has been healing the sick,
giving sight to the blind, causing the lame to walk, feeding the hungry,
casting out demons, in the surrounding region of Galilee. On this occasion, Jesus
is preaching to the multitude that is pressing upon Him. He sees two boats nearby,
one of which is Simon Peter’s, so He gets into it and goes out a little way
from the shore and continues His message (vv. 1-3).
Now in verse 4-5, after Jesus finished speaking, He said
to Simon, "Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a
catch." But Simon answered and said to Him, "Master, we have toiled
all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the
net." And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and
their net was breaking.” There are several things we want to look at in
this passage today as we think about discipleship. At this point, Jesus is specifically
calling Peter, Andrew, James and John to discipleship, to follow Him.
Please imagine and picture this scene as Jesus is in the
boat with Simon and tells him to “launch out into the deep and continue fishing.”
Peter had just finished washing his nets and he is tired from already fishing
all night. Peter must have been surprised when Jesus took command of the ship
and its crew. After all, Jesus was a carpenter by trade (Mark 6:3), and what do
carpenters know about fishing? It was a well-known fact that, in the Sea of
Galilee, you caught fish at night in the shallow water, not in the daytime in
the deep water. What Jesus asked Peter to do was contrary to all of his
training and experience.
The first lesson we need to learn from this passage is
probably not to have a “but” in our response to the call of Jesus like Peter
did. “But Simon answered and said to Him….”. We immediately begin making
excuses when Jesus speaks to us about doing something we are sure we know more
about than He does. I think about the story Jesus told in Luke 14:15-24 about the
master inviting people to a supper and they began to make excuses. The first said,
“I can’t come because I bought a piece of land and I need to go see it”. The second
said, “I have bought some oxen, and I need to go and try them out”. And the third
said, “I have married a wife, and I cannot come.” “I would come, but, but, but….”.
By the way, the only one that had a decent reason was the third one. I’m afraid
they are good examples of us when Jesus is calling us to discipleship. We need
to get the “but” out of our answers to Jesus requests or commands.
The second lesson: Then Peter said, “I have already worked hard
all night and caught nothing”. Peter acknowledged his failure. He confessed his
failure. If we are going to be true and faithful followers of Jesus Christ, we
must acknowledge our failures and our weaknesses. I’ll never forget the title
of a great message I heard years ago, “Failure Plus Failure, Plus Failure, Plus
Failure, Plus Failure, Equals Success”. Success in the ministry and in our
lives comes when we finally come to the end of ourselves and we totally trust
the Lord for everything (Proverbs 3:5-6). This is what the Lord is doing here
as He is training and teaching His disciples.
One last lesson today: Jesus has been preaching and
ministering to the multitudes, but now He keys in and focuses on a handful of
men. The lesson we need to learn here is this. We can minister to the multitudes,
to anyone and everyone we might cross paths with, but we can only disciple a
few. If we think we can disciple everybody and turn everyone into a disciple of
Jesus, we are going to be sorely disappointed and probably burn out. But if we
take our time to disciple a few and teach them to daily follow Jesus by faith,
we can turn the world upside down!
Today, if you feel like you are a failure and are saying I
can’t, that is when Jesus says, “I can, follow Me”.
God bless!
