Untitled Sermon

Luke 5:8 ESV

But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”

Peter witnessed a miracle of Jesus and realized that He was in the presence of God.

A man who truly was Yahweh, the God of Israel, the God that Peter, a Jewish man, grew up worshipping.

In this moment, Peter’s reaction is to realize the sobering reality that he is a crippled sinner before a holy God.

Seeing externally God Himself in front of him, he is forced to look internally and see his own insufficiency.

The only sane reaction to realizing just how broken and insufficient you are compared to God is to want to get as far away from Him as possible; to shrink into our own sin and become invisible.

Our natural state in our sin is to run from God and be apart from Him.

The Gospel is that we do not have to ask for the Lord to depart from us.

The Gospel is that the Lord comes near to us and changes our hearts to want Him.

It is this heart change that makes Peter, the man begging Jesus to depart from him to be the same man of John 21:7-8

John 21:7–8 ESV

That disciple whom Jesus loved therefore said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he was stripped for work, and threw himself into the sea. The other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, but about a hundred yards off.

In our natural state we see ourselves sinners, wanting to shrink away from the Lord.

But the Gospel, the good news, is that we are not stuck there.

Jesus Christ came, lived, died, rose again, and ascended that I, a desperately and wickedly sinful man, may know Him and love Him and treasure Him forever.

Rather than say with Peter, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man,” I can sing, in spite of my sin, with Charitie Lee Smith;

“My name is graven on His hands; my name is written on His heart; I know that while in Heaven He stands, no tongue can bid me thence depart.”