Extraordinary Ordinary

How does faith come?

This truth that we know - that Jesus died for the forgiveness of our sins and that we will spend an eternity with Him as a result - is the most important thing that we will come across in our lives. It is our hope that we cling to in moments of despair, it is our comfort when life is uncomfortable, it is our peace in a chaotic world. And it inspires some questions for us when we’re thinking about our faith or the faith of the people around us. Questions like:

How do I instill faith in my kids or my grandkids when they don’t see to connect?

How do we evangelize and get more people to believe?

How can I support the faith of my friends or my family members who are struggling?

How do I get my friends and my family members to believe this incredible thing?

And underlying all of these is a common question that helps answer all of them. Simply put, how does faith come to us? Now, when we ask that question, we might think of our own lives and how we came to faith. For some it would be your parents, you were raised in it. For some it was a youth leader or another Christian or a pastor, you were brought into it. For some you were looking for truth and you found it. But underlying those stories, underlying it all, how does faith come to us?

Clue to the Solution

We get a clue in the way that Jesus approaches Peter in our Gospel reading. Peter had been working all night to catch fish and he was a professional fisherman, don’t forget. He probably tried one side of the boat, then the other, he might’ve moved to try and find a better spot, maybe he tried different ways to bait the fish. But no matter how hard he worked at it, no matter how many tried-and-true strategies he used, he hadn’t caught a thing. I think when we ask these kinds of questions, we feel like Peter might have. We feel like we’ve given it everything we have, we’ve tried every strategy for sharing the Gospel we know of, and still our friends, our family, or the people in our community don’t believe, don’t go to church, don’t trust Jesus’ promises.

Then Jesus tells Peter to put down his nets one more time and that’s gotta be really frustrating for Peter. I imagine he’s thinking “I already tried that,” or “I know my business, what does this guy know about fishing,” or “that’s not going to work at all.” But he does it anyway, out of respect for Jesus. And maybe that’s where you’re at, I’m standing up here and telling you about talking about your faith with these people, about asking them questions and inviting them to do the same, about inviting people to church - I’m standing up here saying that and you might be thinking “I already tried that,” or “I know these people, what does this guy know about my friends or my family or my struggle,” or “that’s not going to work at all.” And those are fair responses to have, and I’m not Jesus. It is my hope that, like Peter, you might give it one more shot out of respect for me.

God’s Part in the Solution

Because we read the last part of the interaction too, we know how it ends - Peter catches an astonishing amount of fish. And here’s the thing, right, catching fish was not an extraordinary thing for Peter. He was a professional fisherman, and it had evidently been a bad day, but he wouldn’t be a professional fisherman unless he was capable of catching fish pretty regularly. He’d be an unemployed guy who spent a lot of time on a boat. And I suspect that it wasn’t the first time someone had given him advice or a tip that helped him catch fish either. Yet, when this happens, he falls at Jesus’ feet and confesses his sins. He changes from calling Jesus “master” which is just a general term of respect to calling Him “Lord” - beginning to recognize Jesus for who He is. He catches some fish and it results in Him believing the Gospel - or at very least taking his first step to doing so. But how? Why? What made that experience into an Extraordinary Ordinary experience?

The work of the Holy Spirit is what. 1 Corinthians 12 tells us that “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit worked in Peter’s life through this fairly ordinary experience to make it into something extraordinary. He brought Peter to faith in Jesus and He brought Peter to confess his sins and He brought Peter to drop everything and follow Jesus. Just like for each of us here today. I don’t know where your faith is as you’re sitting in front of me. You could be rock solid, you could be wavering and really questioning what God is doing and where He is, you could be feeling really skeptical - whatever the case, the Holy Spirit worked in you to bring you to know Jesus, to teach you about His promises for you, to show you His forgiveness. You are not hear by your own efforts or by the work of your parents or by the efficacy of some program, you are here because the Holy Spirit brought you here.

Our Part in the Solution

So we look for the ordinary that the Holy Spirit makes extraordinary. Whether in our lives or in the lives of people around us, we look for the Spirit’s work to create and sustain and strengthen faith. Not only that, but we draw attention to it. We point and we say - “hey, do you see God working there, because He is.” And we do talk to our friends and neighbors about faith, we ask them where they’re at and who they think Jesus is, we invite those conversations. We invite people to church for the second, the third, the thirtieth time. We tell people about what Jesus has already done for them. And it might be frustrating to hear that again when you’re struggling with these questions.

How do I instill faith in my kids or my grandkids when they don’t see to connect?

How do we evangelize and get more people to believe?

How can I support the faith of my friends or my family members who are struggling?

How do I get my friends and my family members to believe this incredible thing?

But the Spirit works, and He will work through you, and you never know when that net is going to come back full to the brim. In Jesus’ name, amen.