Luke 5 1-11 Radio 2006
Epiphany 5
Radio Sermon – WTMJ
Luke 5:1-11
“Failure, Success and Beyond”
Introduction: Grace, (that is God’s undeserved favor), and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
This story about Peter reminds me of a day when I too went fishing. When I was young my dad took me on a special fishing trip. The salmon were running on the Manistee River in Michigan. It was during the early morning hours that we took our place among the other fisherman lined up along the banks of the river. It was a beautiful day. There was a hint of sunlight coming up out of the east and a cool autumn breeze nipping at our cheeks. It wasn’t long and the fisherman around us began to catch fish. My expectations were high. I worked harder and harder with every cast. Yes, fish were being caught, but not us—not by me. We didn’t have the right bait so we went to the store to get it right. Then back we went, and low and behold it worked. It wasn’t long before I had a huge salmon on my line, racing from one part of the river to another cutting through the water with its powerful tail. Then, just like that, my line snapped. Snap! And my heart dropped, and a pit of emptiness and failure began to form within my stomach. As the day was ending with the sun racing down towards the horizon I tried and tried again. Finally another fish was on my line. I fought this fish with more care trying to use the right amount of drag but then the unimaginable happened. The hook popped out of the fish’s mouth, the hook bent straight by the force of the fish. Then it was time to go home, discouraged and frustrated, and empty-handed. I have fished for (or tried to fish for) salmon a couple of times since then with similar results. When I think about salmon fishing I still have a pit in my stomach.
Resignation, surrender, apathy, these are all feelings that we have deeply felt when faced with our failures. Whether we want to or not, there comes a time when we must accept our failure and surrender to the knowledge that we have given our all, done our best, and it simply wasn’t good enough. Finally we may even throw up our hands as if we don’t care, even though we do. All these feelings are magnified even more when we have tried our very best. It is one thing to give a half-hearted attempt at something and then to fail. It is totally another thing when we have planned for something, strived for something, worked harder for something than we have ever worked before, and come up short.
Our Bible lesson today reflects for us a wide range of human thoughts and emotions. It takes us from failure, to success, and beyond. It is the story of a common fisherman named Peter, an all-too-regular guy that was doing what we all must do to make a living—to provide food on the table and a place to lay his head. He was struggling to make ends meet and simply pay the bills. So he worked as a fisherman working and sweating in the long hours of the night. That particular night he and his friends, having done everything they knew how to do, came up empty-handed. Their nets were empty. So, they found themselves on shore, still working by repairing their nets, yet with no reward. There was no paycheck at the end of that long day. Peter had tried hard, perhaps the best he could, and yet he failed.
Peter story doesn’t end with failure. It ends with success. We are told that Jesus was on the shoreline that very morning when Peter was mending his nets after the long night of fishing. Jesus was teaching the people that had gathered to hear Him. Then Jesus stopped and directed His attention to Peter, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Peter responds, “Master, we toiled all night and caught nothing.” But then Peter says, “But at Your Word I will let down the nets.” And when they had done this, they caught a large number of fish, so many that their nets were breaking. Peter signaled to his fellow fisherman to come over and help but the fish filled up both boats so that they began to sink. In one moment Peter was wallowing in the failure of his own hard work. In the next moment he is standing in the midst of success, even if it is a pile of stinking fish. But he was faced with a very serious question, whose success was it?
Most of us understand Peter’s joy. All of us have succeeded in something. Even if our lives are filled with failure, we have known some aspect of success that has brought us some joy. It may have been as simple as a kind word from a person telling us that we have done a good job. It may have been as simple as the satisfaction of a meal well prepared and received with joy. Sometimes we even experience the joy of great success, like scoring the final touchdown as the final seconds of the time clock tick down to the game’s conclusion. But Peter experiences a different kind of success. His success reminds me of the joy that a young child finds as his father lifts him up, and places him on his shoulders to throw a basketball into a basket when his legs are too short reach it on his own. His joy of success is the kind that a young child finds with her mother as she guides her to safely prepare a home cooked meal.
Peter is overwhelmed by the catch of fish. He has received more than he needed to support himself and his family. Whose success was it? More than this why was it given to him, on that day?
Jesus was teaching Peter, and us, through the telling of this story, that God indeed knows our failures and wants us to know the joy of success. More importantly, He wants us to know where true satisfaction is found. Jesus didn’t just come to earth to teach us lessons about life. He certainly didn’t come so that we could have great success in this life, found in Peter’s case in a boat load of fish. This miracle of Jesus was granted to Peter so that he, and we, could know that Jesus is revealed to be the Son of God, the Savior of the world. It is only by knowing Him and believing in Him that we can be saved from ultimate failure and can find the true success that satisfies the soul forever. Peter understood this. Confronted by Jesus, His Word, and this miracle he knew that he was not in the presence of just anther man, but he was in the presence of God.
Peter knew that without the Lord's blessing, no matter how hard he tried, he would fail. It is God alone that blesses us. Peter fished all night but caught nothing, but at the Word of the Lord Jesus Christ, blessings came. At the Word of the Lord, Peter’s nets were filled, and Peter himself was caught.
Peter considered his sinful condition. Peter fell down before Jesus and said: “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” It is a frank and honest confession of sin and sinfulness. This is the reaction of a sinner when confronted by the presence of a holy and perfect God. Once standing in the success of a pile of fish he now falls on his knees, and the feelings of resignation, apathy and failure return. He understands his failure to live up to the perfect standards that God requires. No matter what he has done in his life, both good and bad, it gives him no standing before God. This is our condition before God also, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
What is sin though? What was Peter guilty of? Sin can be understood in two ways. First it is the failure to love God. It is the failure to recognize that He has created us and wants to have a relationship with us. It is a failure to listen to His Word, given to us through the prophets, apostles and our Lord Jesus Christ. How many times in our lives have we neglected the things of God, failed to go to church, listen to His Word? Perhaps many more times than we would like to admit. Sin is more than that. It is the failure to live according to His Word. That is the failure to love other people as ourselves. It is the failure to love even our enemies. Peter was guilty, as we all are. As the people gather to hear Jesus teach, what was Peter doing? He just kept tending to his nets. He didn’t stop. He kept going about his business without to regard to the Lord, not even stopping to listen to Him. This doesn’t stop Jesus. The Lord directs His attention to Peter, and Peter is terrified. He would run and hide if he could. This is a normal reaction, wanting to run and hide. It is like when a child does something wrong, they don’t run to the comfort of their parents’ arms but rather run and hide from the punishment that they know must soon to come.
Jesus does not deny that Peter is a sinner. But Jesus doesn’t want Peter to run and hide. Rather Jesus wants to raise him back to his feet with His forgiving love. At times we all want to run and hide from God. At times we all feel terror at the punishment that we deserve. But God wants us to understand that Jesus was sent into the world to take our punishment and failure upon His own shoulders at the cross. In turn, God embraces us with His love through faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior. Martin Luther wrote, “The more you feel that you are a sinner, and the more you want to run away from God, just so much more you should press forward to Him.” By faith in Jesus Christ we come to Him understanding that He came for us.
Despite his sin Peter was caught in the net of God’s grace. Jesus did not come into the world to condemn Peter; He came to save him from his sin. He came to give him eternal life, to satisfy his soul with the treasures of heaven that are freely offered through the forgiveness of sins. “God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified (declared not guilty) by his blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the God’s punishment.”
So our Lord Jesus speaks these comforting words to Peter, “Fear not” or “Quit being afraid.” What does this mean? It means that Jesus understood, loved and forgave Peter. God understand, loves and forgives us for the sake of Jesus Christ. God removes the fear of the sinner by forgiving his sin. Just as forgiveness takes away guilt, fear disappears. All fear is removed as we remember the cross of Jesus Christ where sin and its guilt have been done away with once and for all. Such fear ends in the death and resurrection of Jesus. That's what Jesus did for Peter, the disciples and for us.
Jesus called Peter to follow Him that day, to be a disciple, to understand that the successes of this life are nothing compared to what God wants to give us through Jesus Christ. Believe in Him. Follow Him. Confess your sin and hear His Word of forgiveness. Jesus said, “Fear not, for I have come to seek and save that which was lost. That is you and me. Amen!
