Luke 5:1-11 - Fishing for Fishermen

How many of you have been fishing before? Or is that not really your thing? Going out super early in the morning, putting worms on hooks, and spending hours sitting there constantly hoping for a bite that never comes?

If you’ve been checking out these stories regularly, you’ll know that I’m a city kid. So you might think that I’m not really into fishing. But honestly, even though I don’t get to do it that often, I actually kind of like it. Life’s always super busy, so it’s nice when you get a chance to slow down and just try to catch a fish for a bit.

I bring all this up because starting today, we’re going to be learning about the Bible’s favourite fisherman for a few weeks. That’s right, we’re talking about Peter!

Now Peter didn’t go fishing once every few years like I do. Fishing was his job! He went fishing for large chunks of the day, every day. And he probably didn’t use a fishing rod either. It would take way too long to catch all those fish if he did. Instead, Peter used nets, kind of like professional fishermen still use today. The hope was that the fish would swim into these nets so that they could catch lots of fish all at once.

Now I’m sure there were some days were Peter did really well as a fisherman. He and his fishermen buddies would throw their nets into the water and, for whatever reason, the fish would come swimming in really quickly.

That wasn’t happening this day though. Nope, Peter had been fishing all day and hadn’t caught anything. Nothing. Not one single fish. So you can imagine he and his buddies were feeling pretty discouraged. They rowed back to shore at the end of the day with not a fish to show for all their work and then they’d still have to clean the nets off!

Peter was just finishing that up when he noticed a man walking towards him. The man looked sort of familiar. Oh, that’s right! thought Peter. This is that Jesus guy. Peter mainly fished on the Sea of Galilee. He’d seen Jesus talking to people off and on over the last month, but because he was always out fishing, Peter had never really gotten the chance to hear what Jesus was saying. But now Jesus was coming to see him! I imagine their conversation went something like this:

“Hello,” Jesus said.

“Hi there,” Peter said back. It was then that Peter noticed a whole bunch of people following behind Jesus.

“Can you do me a favour?” Jesus asked. “These people want to hear me speak, but they won’t all be able to hear me if I stay on land. Can you take me out in your boat for a while so that I can preach to them?”

Peter looked down at his nets. He’d just finished cleaning them. And even though they hadn’t caught anything that day, Peter was still pretty tired. But Peter knew if he didn’t do anything, he was going to be letting Jesus down. And for some reason he couldn’t quite figure out, he didn’t want to let Jesus down.

So, after a short pause, Peter said, “Sure, I can take you out for a bit.”

Jesus simply smiled and leaped over the side of the boat. He took a seat while Peter rowed out a little ways into the water. Then Jesus stood up and started to teach.

Now the Bible doesn’t tell us exactly what Jesus said that day. But we do know that whenever Jesus taught, people were amazed. And I can imagine that as Peter sat there in the boat, thinking about the rotten day he’d had and the fish he hadn’t caught, he started listening to Jesus. And as he did, Peter thought less and less about fish and more and more about what Jesus was saying.

It was amazing! Peter considered himself a pretty good Jew. Sure, he didn’t obey the Law all the time, but he did his best. But Jesus was talking about things that Peter had never heard before. Jesus was saying that people had broken relationships with God and no amount of sacrifices or following rules was going to fix that. The only way to get right with God was to believe in Jesus.

Now Peter didn’t understand all of what Jesus said. In fact, he didn’t understand most of it. But we can be pretty sure of one thing: what Peter did understand was that there was something different about Jesus. And if what Jesus was saying was right, then all those wrong things that Peter had done had separated him from God. And maybe, just maybe, Jesus had the answer to fix that.

Of course, we know something now that Peter didn’t. Jesus didn’t just have the answer to fix our separation from God – Jesus is the answer! When Jesus died and rose again, he made it possible to fix our broken relationships with God. And just like Jesus probably said that day out on Peter’s boat, all we have to do to have our relationships with God fixed is believe in Jesus.

But Peter didn’t know this yet. In fact, Jesus hadn’t even died yet! All Peter knew right now was that Jesus was this amazing teacher who showed Peter that he still had some issues to work out with God.

Anyways, Jesus eventually finished speaking and sat back down in the boat. Peter grabbed the oars and was about ready to row back to shore when Jesus said, “Go out into deep water. Let down the nets so you can catch some fish” (Luke 5:4, NIrV).   

What? Peter thought to himself. This guy’s just been talking all day about relationships with God and the kingdom of heaven, and now he wants to tell me how to fish?

But then Peter remembered all the stuff he heard. So he said to Jesus, “Well, we’ve been fishing all day and night and haven’t caught anything… But because you say so, I’ll try the nets one more time.”

So Peter rowed away from shore towards the deeper water. There were a couple of other boats out there, including one with Peter’s friends James and John. They’d been fishing for a few hours now, but it didn’t look like they’d caught much either. James and John looked kind of confused when they saw that Peter had taken Jesus with him, but they just shrugged and kept fishing.

Peter picked up the freshly cleaned nets and threw them into the water. He didn’t know how long he was supposed to keep the nets in the water. Actually, all he could think about at first was that he was going to have to clean these nets again.

He didn’t think that for long, though. Out of nowhere, Peter saw the net sink deep into the water while the boat suddenly changed direction. Peter would’ve fallen into the water if Jesus hadn’t grabbed the back of his clothes! Shocked, Peter rushed over to the side of the boat. There were tons of fish in the net already, and more seemed to be swimming in!

Where did all these come from? Peter thought as he frantically waved at James and John to come help him. The two hurried over. They could see that the nets were starting to break because of how many fish there were. So they jumped into Peter’s boat and helped him pull the nets in.

It took some time, and a lot of pulling, but they finally got the nets inside the boat. And as all the fish started flopping around on the deck, Peter, James, and John could tell that the boat was too full. They were starting to sink!

James and John thought that Peter looked exhausted, so they started rowing Peter’s boat back to shore, signalling the other people from their boat to meet them there. But it wasn’t that Peter was exhausted. In fact, Peter didn’t really know what he was feeling. But probably the best word to describe it was terror.

Jesus had been right about the fish. Not just right, but He had just given Peter one of the best fishing days he’d ever had! But if Jesus was right about this, was He right about Peter’s broken relationship with God too?

Tears came to his eyes as Jesus looked at him. Peter couldn’t stand it anymore. He fell to his knees and turned his face away. He couldn’t bear to look at Jesus anymore. “Please,” he said quietly. “Go away from me, Lord! I am a sinful man” (Luke 5:9).

It’s like Peter was saying to Jesus: “I know there’s something different about you. I know that you’re right with God and I’m not. And because of all those bad things I’ve done, I don’t deserve to be in your presence.”

But Jesus – He only smiled. Then he took Peter’s face in His hands and turned it towards Him. “Do not be afraid, Peter,” Jesus said back. “From now on you will fish for people.” And with that, Peter burst into tears and hugged Jesus tightly. But after a minute or so, he wiped his face, took a deep breath, and started to smile.

In that moment, Peter knew that his life had changed forever. He wouldn’t spend all day out on a lake fishing anymore. Instead, he’d be following Jesus. Peter would go where Jesus went, stay where Jesus stayed, and listen to Jesus teach others about how to fix their relationships with God. Not only that, but Jesus would eventually send Peter out to talk to others about God too!

It’s funny, because we often focus in this story on how Jesus told Peter that he would fish for people. But in some ways, that’s exactly what Jesus did here too. Jesus was fishing for people like Peter – people that would believe in Him and follow Him, so that He could get those people ready to fish for other people!

And I think that’s what we should take away from today’s story too: Jesus fishes us in so we can fish in others. Jesus is constantly fishing for us – He wants us to learn about Him and to know Him. He wants us to believe in Him so He can fix our broken relationships with God. And when that happens, then we can go out and tell others about Jesus. We can go out fishing for others so that they can learn about and know Jesus too!

So if you don’t already believe in Jesus, know that He’s fishing for you and that believing in Him will change your life for the better. And if you do believe in Jesus, get your nets ready. You never know where Jesus might send you to fish for others!

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That's all for today! We'll be continuing with Peter next week, but just a head's up. I'm gone all weekend, so this week's Second Sunday Switch-Up will have to be pushed back to next weekend. No, Third Sunday Switch-Up might not have the same ring to it, but I'm sure we'll all survive! 

~Brentagious