Note: I’m trying to catch up on posting a few weeks’ worth of sermons on here. Sorry for the delay.
Another note: The grammar nut in me realizes that the title of this post and sermon should have been “Whom Are You Following?” That just didn’t flow right when spoken out loud, though. So, the grammar rules were intentionally broken! *gasp!*
Sermon preached at Our Savior on 2/7/10 for the 5th Sunday after Epiphany. Text: Luke 5:1-11
Who Are You Following?
Conventional wisdom tells us that there are two kinds of people in the world: leaders and followers. Either you have the kind of personality where you take command of the situation and people just want to fall in behind you, or you have the personality that leads you to want to fall in behind and follow someone else. Many leadership books have been written covering every field you can think of, telling you how you can be a leader, or be a better leader, in your particular place in life.
And that's all well and good. Leadership skills can be a nice thing. But let's not kid ourselves. We're all followers. We all follow somebody else. The greatest leaders in our world's history, whether it was kings or presidents or generals, they had to follow someone. They had to learn their job and gain experience. Even as they led, the goals they were trying to reach show them following something, whether it's the will of the voting public, or the desire for fame and honor, or even following God.
Which causes us to look at ourselves. Whether your personality type is to be a leader or a follower in the end doesn't really matter. Because all of us are following someone. You could say that we follow a lot of people. We follow our teachers in school. We follow our boss at work. We follow our parents. We might follow our friends. We might follow our hearts, or our wallets. But spiritually speaking, we can only be following one of two people: our Savior or the devil. Either we're living for God and serving him with all we do, or we're living for our sinful self and we're falling for the devil's temptations. So today I want you to look at your life and at your heart. Who are you following?
In our text from Luke's gospel, plenty of people were following Jesus. In fact, in some ways it was too many people. You see, we heard last week about Jesus being rejected by the people in his hometown of Nazareth. But the other towns around Galilee loved him. They couldn't get enough of him. So much so, that Jesus found it hard to even teach them because the crowds were so huge. That's the situation in our text.
"One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, with the people crowding around him and listening to the word of God, he saw at the water's edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets." (Lk. 5:1-2) If you've ever been in a crowd that's all trying to see and listen to one person, you know how hard it can be. You can just picture the scene here. People are so close they're bumping into each other, crowding around to see and hear Jesus teach. He was standing on the shore of the lake which here is called Gennesaret, but that we probably know better as the sea of Galilee. A huge crowd is gathered there on the shore, all trying to elbow their way to hear God's Word that Jesus is teaching better.
I guess we shouldn't be surprised that the Son of God had an ingenious idea. With the boat out in the water a bit, no one could crowd him. His voice probably carried quite well across the open water to the crowd at the shore. Jesus turned this shoreline into his own personal lecture hall, with a fishing boat as his pulpit! Now Jesus was able to teach God's Word to this huge group of people in a more effective way.
But there's one person in this crowd I want us to focus on more closely. It's the fisherman, Simon -- or, as we know him better, Peter. This wasn't Peter's first meeting with Jesus. In the gospel of John we see how Peter's brother Andrew first introduced him to Jesus. (Jn. 1:40-42) And just in the previous chapter of Luke, we hear that Jesus went into Peter's house in Capernaum and actually healed Peter's mother-in-law. (Lk. 4:38-40) Peter knew Jesus, and he had heard Jesus' teaching for a while now.
But Peter gives us a great example of how to follow Jesus already here at the beginning of our text. Peter was a fisherman by trade, and he was there cleaning his nets as the text began. That's when Jesus asked him to take the boat out onto the water a bit. At the point Jesus asked this, Peter must've been awfully tired. We hear later that he'd been fishing all night. (Lk. 5:5) He was also in the middle of the long, tiring task of cleaning his nets. You'd almost understand if Peter had said, "Thanks, but no thanks, Jesus. I'm tired. I just gotta get this done and go get some rest. Can you use one of the other boats?"
But he doesn't! He follows Jesus, despite his fatigue. He follows Jesus into the boat. He's willing to take the time to hear Jesus teach God's Word again as he sits there in the boat with him. It's not that he thinks his job isn't important -- the fact that he'd been working all night shows that -- but he shows how important following Jesus is, he shows that following Jesus doesn't become impossible because of his job. He still follows Jesus and hears his Word.
Are you following Jesus that way? All of you have things that you need to do and like to do outside of church, and that's not a bad thing. We need to work, we need to spend time with our families, those are responsibilities that God gives us. Of course, we also need time to rest from those responsibilities, time to sleep or just time to be doing something that's not work. But Peter shows us that we don't want to let our responsibilities and our fatigue keep us from continuing to follow Jesus. Of course we want that close relationship with our Savior in our lives. Of course we never want to stop hearing his Word.
Right? The truth is, sometimes we stop following Jesus, even just for a little bit. We're tired. We're busy. There's so much to do. Fitting Jesus in isn't always on the list. You know, you work hard all week, you run here and there, and then Sunday is your one day to rest. Is that really so wrong? You know, as long as I go once in a while, that's good enough, right? Or, when we're here in church, we might tell ourselves that we're doing pretty good. But being here physically doesn't mean our minds are here. So we don't pay attention. Our minds wander. And suddenly the service is done and we don't remember any of it.
Then there's studying and hearing God's Word. Sure, we all probably own Bibles, we could read them, but there's so much to do. We have opportunities to attend Bible studies. And I realize that no one can be reading the Bible constantly or make it to every Bible study. But when we look and see that months or years have gone by and we've never cracked our dusty Bible once... Who are you following?
Because when you're not following Jesus, you're following yourself. Your own desires and thoughts have become more important. And when that happens, even for a moment, that's a sin. That's following the devil and his temptations. That's not following Jesus with your whole heart. And that's something we are all guilty of every day.
But here what Jesus has left to teach Peter -- and us -- in our text. "He said to Simon, "Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch." 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." (Lk. 5:4-5) Once the teaching session is over, it seems like Jesus is up for a bit of fishing.
Everything must've been screaming inside Peter that this was a bad idea. He'd been fishing all night and caught nothing. Night was generally thought to be a better time to catch fish, and if they caught nothing then, it certainly didn't seem like they'd get a lot now. Plus, again, they'd been up all night. Peter was tired. He probably wasn't looking forward to fishing more right now. But since Peter had been following Jesus all along, since he'd been listening to his teaching, he's willing to at least humor Jesus' request.
Turns out the Son of God also knows the best fishing places. Because they got a lot. "They caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break." (Lk. 5:6) Peter even had to call his partners over to help him haul it all in. Jesus did not have a lucky guess at this fishing spot. This was not beginner's luck. This was Jesus, the Savior, the true God himself, showing his power over all things by catching a lot of fish for Peter and his partners.
Jesus is just as powerful today. He's still the true son of God. He still has power over all things. And yet we don't always follow him! Yet we often have better things to do! Yet we sometimes doubt that things will really work out the way he says they will! Yet we find his Word boring or out of touch! When we realize that, it's scary! We've been unfaithful, not to some great teaching man, but to a great teaching man who is also the all-powerful true and only God. Is he really going to put up with us? With our sins?
Peter was afraid, too. We hear that when he saw all the fish "he fell on his knees and said, "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!" (Lk. 5:8) Peter recognized he wasn't perfect. He knew he was sinful. He knew he didn't deserve Jesus to be anywhere near him, and neither do we!
But Jesus' words to Peter are also for us: "Don't be afraid." (Lk. 5:10) Don't be afraid; because Jesus has forgiven you. Don't be afraid, because Jesus was perfect when you couldn't be. Don't be afraid; Jesus knows the awful price of sin, because he paid it when he suffered and died for us on the cross. Don't be afraid; death will never catch you, because Jesus destroyed it when he rose again. The Savior that we have followed imperfectly not only forgives us, but he comes to us. He reaches out to us in his Word. He comforts us with his words of love and mercy.
And he tells Peter, "from now on you will catch men." (Lk. 5:10) Now that Jesus has revealed who he really is -- the true powerful God -- and what he really does -- forgive sins -- he now calls Peter into service. He's calling you, too.
Sure, you probably won't drop everything to follow him like Peter and James and John did. Not everyone is called into full-time ministry. But you can still follow Jesus and be a fisher of men in your life now! Being a fisher of men means telling others what Jesus has done. It means testifying to the truth of what God says. It means pointing others to the truth of your Savior.
I know that can be a scary thought. Will someone really listen to me? Will they laugh at me? And while people very well might reject that message of the Savior when it comes from us, let's never doubt what God can do through us. He taught Peter that he can pull a big catch out of nothing. Can't he do the same thing with the people we talk about Jesus to? Those people who you think will never come around, will never turn to God, Jesus can do amazing things with them. The same Savior that pulled a net-load of fishes out of a bad fishing spot can turn sin-hardened hearts into believing hearts. I know that because that's exactly what he's done for all of us.
So, friends, let's follow him. Follow Jesus in his Word and Sacrament, as you fill yourself up again and again with the good news of how he's rescued you. Let's follow him in the mission he's given us. Let's cast our nets into the waters of this sinful world and be amazed and what our Lord can find. Let's put our sins and selfish thoughts behind us, and let's follow the one who didn't let us go, who didn't drive us away, but followed the road to the cross so that we could follow him to eternal life. Trust him. Thank him. Work for him. Follow him.
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