Take your Bibles with me and turn to Luke 5. Luke 5.

We are going to talk about something today that I know many of our men and even some of our ladies really love: fishing.

How many of you have fished before? How many of you like to fish?

I'm going to tell you - Noah - not a fan of fishing. Every now and then he'll start talking about how he doesn't understand why so many people like to fish.

I'm sort of on the fence. I love the water. I LOVE the water. I come from sea people. My dad's parents lived almost their whole life less than 50 yards from the Atlantic Ocean. They literally lived across the street from the ocean. My mom's mother grew up on a tiny little archepelego surrounded by the ocean called Nahant.

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My mom's dad wasn't from Massachusetts. He was midwestern. But he was literally born in a lighthouse on Lake Michigan and grew up right next to the lake. He met my grandmother in the navy.

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I love the water. So I understand why people love fishing so much.

Our story today may be the most famous fishing story ever told and it's about the greatest fisherman who ever lived: our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let's read Luke 5:1-11 this morning.

[!bible] Luke 5:1-11 - KJV

1. And it came to pass, that, as the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennesaret,
2. And saw two ships standing by the lake: but the fishermen were gone out of them, and were washing their nets.
3. And he entered into one of the ships, which was Simon’s, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land. And he sat down, and taught the people out of the ship.
4. Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.
5. And Simon answering said unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net.
6. And when they had this done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net brake.
7. And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink.
8. When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.
9. For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken:
10. And so was also James, and John, the sons of Zebedee, which were partners with Simon. And Jesus said unto Simon, Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men.
11. And when they had brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed him.

I want you to think about fishing from the point of view of a fish for a second. You are going about your life. You are doing your thing.

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All of a sudden you see some food. No big deal. You eat all the time. You go to eat this food and take a big bite and uh oh - something weird is in that food. They put knives in the food! Who does that!

Now you are hooked and being pulled against your will, suddenly, you are out of the water in this completely foreign environment where you cannot survive. You find yourself flopping around on a boat somewhere, trying desperately to get back in the water - swearing you will never eat another grub for the rest of your life. And after a minute or two of struggle, you die.

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For a fish, fishing is getting pulled from life to death. In our text today, we see Jesus "fishing for men."

In parallel passages in Matthew and Mark, Jesus said "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." (Matthew 4:19, Mark 1:17). Our little kids sing about this:

I will make you fishers of men
Fishers of men, Fishers of men
I will make you fishers of men
If you follow me...

What does it mean to "fish for men?" I mean, if being caught by Jesus was like being caught by Brother Dick, that would be terrible.

Fishing for fish is taking them out of life and bringing them to death, but when Jesus catches us, He catches us out of death and brings us to life.

There are three movements in our text today I want to preach through:

• The text starts with Jesus fishing for men
• Then Jesus moves on to fishing for fishers
• Then Jesus calls them to a life of fishing for men

In the beginning of our text today we see

1. Jesus fishing for men

Verse 1 tells us that Jesus was by the lake of Gennesaret (which is just another name for the sea of Galilee) and he's being pressed upon by a great crowd of people.

Now, that shouldn't surprise us. At the end of chapter 4 Jesus was healing everyone. So it shouldn't surprise us that people are flocking to Him.

What surprises us is why they are flocking to Him. Not to be healed, but to "hear the word of God."

Jesus has His back to the lake, and they are all sitting around the shore, maybe sitting on a little beach, listening to Him preach and explain the word of God.

This is significant. Jesus could heal their temporal bodies. He had that power. But Jesus had something more powerful than that - He could heal their eternal souls and He did that with the Word of God.

These men and women were swimming in death. They were dead men walking. And then they encountered Jesus and the word of God and came alive.

This is the testimony of every Christian who has ever lived. We were dead in our trespasses and sins. We were God's enemies. But then we encountered God through the word of God and we came alive.

We were caught by the great fisher of men, but we weren't pulled out of life to death, we were pulled out of death to life.

We were born again...

[!bible] 1 Peter 1:23 - KJV 23. Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

Or as James says it:

[!bible] James 1:18 - KJV 18. Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

You know, I find it interesting that in John 6, when people were starting to abandon Jesus and He turned to His disciples and asked "will you abandon me to?" That Peter chimed in and said:

[!bible] John 6:68 - KJV 68. Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.

Notice, he didn't say "where else are we going to go? you can heal leprosy" or "where else are we going to go? you can tell me exactly the fish to catch that has money to pay my taxes." Peter said "where else are we going to go? You have the words of eternal life!"

So what was Jesus doing there by the sea of Galilee? He was preaching the words of eternal life. He was fishing for men, and when they got ahold of His words, they were made alive.

And I want to tell you today, you can be made alive too by the word of God. The word of God is still the words of eternal life.

Jesus is forever fishing for men, catching them with the word of God, and bringing them to life.

A few weeks ago I was reading the testimony of a man who lives in a very closed muslim country. This man had never heard of Jesus. He had never met a Christian. But he felt a voice telling him "Find the Bible and find Jesus." This man said he didn't know what a Bible or Jesus was - the Bible could have been a place, Jesus could have been a kind of animal. But he wanted to know.

He found a Bible in all places in a muslim book store, off to itself. He started reading it and read it through several times before he understood who Jesus was and now he's led many others to Christ.

A dear friend of mine was at his wits end. He was going through an ugly divorce and he was considering suicide. He was walking through the airport and saw a piece of paper in a phone booth (remember those?) picked it up and it was a gospel tract - he read the gospel for the first time and trusted Christ. He became one of the most vibrant Christians I ever met and had a big influence on me as a teenager and in college.

I was recently reading about a woman who hated Christianity and wanted to write a book about all that is wrong with it. But she realized she had never read the Bible. She didn't think that was very academically fair, so she started reading a Bible and finding someone who could explain it to her. Now she is a devoted Christian.

We could tell these stories all day - because this is the story of every believer - we were all caught from death to life by Christ and transformed by the power of the word of God.

So Jesus is preaching the word by the lake and a great crowd is listening. Jesus needs a better place to preach from. He looks over and sees two fishing boats and the fisherman are on the boats, cleaning and laying out their nets.

So Jesus asks one of the fishermen - Peter - if He can use his boat as a kind of floating platform. Peter does this and Jesus teaches the people from the boat.

While he's doing this, the fisherman are still there, they are still cleaning their nets. Probably listening while they work.

Now, let's clear something up here about these fishermen. This wasn't a hobby for them. It was big business.

Just in these verses we can see that Peter's business had at least two boats. (These boats would be about 7 feet wide and almost 30 feet long - they could not have been cheap.) They have partners. They have hired servants.

The nets they would have thrown would have been almost 100 feet long. This is not two old timers sitting in a little Pelican boat with a tackle box and a Shakespeare rod. This is closer to what you would see on deadliest catch - these are professionals. Fishing is their life.

And at this point in the story, it kind of moves from Jesus fishing for men to...

2. Jesus fishing for fishers

These men apparently work while Jesus teaches. They had to clean their nets and lay them out to dry or they would rot and break. It was a lot of work. Something they had probably done thousands of times before.

At some point, Jesus finishes his message and he turns to Peter with what must have seemed like a ridiculous request. He says:

Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a draught. (Draught just means a catch.)

Now this is a ridiculous request for several reasons:

• First, and most obviously, these men have just spent all of this time cleaning and drying their net. They have already put it away. If they throw the net in the water, they are going to have to do that all over again.
• Second, Galilean fisherman didn't fish in the deep water, they fished in the shallow water.
• Third, Galilean fisherman fished at night or the early morning, not in the middle of the day.
• Fourth, Jesus wasn't a fisherman, and they were pros.
• Finally, they had already tried catching fish and hadn't caught a thing all night.

Listen, this would be like me going up to Brad Underwood (The Illini head coach) after a game and saying "You know, I don't play basketball, I don't really know anything about basketball, but if you follow my plan, I guarantee you will win every game this season" and then telling him to have the players only use granny shots or something.

Everything in Peter probably wanted to tell Jesus "no way, absolutely not. You handle the preaching, I'll handle the fishing."

But Peter didn't. He said "Master, we have toiled all night and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net."

Now why would Peter do that? Well, Peter and Jesus probably knew each other pretty well at this point. We know from chapter 4 that Jesus had already healed Peter's mother in law. But if you look at other books of the Bible Peter had most likely already gone on a trip with Jesus.

Peter was already a believer and he was living by the word of God.

Listen, when God tells you to do something, when God leads you to do something through His word - you should say like Peter "I know this doesn't make sense, but nevertheless, at your word, I will obey."

Look what happened when Peter obeyed. Not only did they catch fish, but they caught so many fish that the nets broke. They had to call more boats to help and those boats were sinking because of the fish.

Peter had fished that same lake thousands of time and he had never seen a catch that was anything like that.

And immediately, Peter knew that Jesus wasn't just a teacher, He wasn't just a healer, He was God.

Look at verse 8 again:

[!bible] Luke 5:8 - KJV 8. When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.

This might seem strange - but this is what happens when a person realizes they are in the presence of God.

When Isaiah saw God in Isaiah 6, He was undone and knew just how sinful He was, and said "Woe is me."

The presence of God is like a light that shows us how sinful we really are, and that isn't pleasant.

But here is what I think happened here: Jesus caught Peter. Jesus had Peter. All of him.

When we realize how sinful we are and we get a vision for how good God is, He's got us in the net, He's got us on the line.

And that moves us to the third part of this story. We've seen how Jesus was fishing for men and specifically fishing for fishers.

Now let's talk about...

3. Jesus calling fishers to fish for men

In the second half of verse 10 it says:

[!bible] Luke 5:10 - KJV ...And Jesus said unto Simon, Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men.

This is what God calls us to do - to be fishers of men. Peter was to do what Jesus was doing.

And how would He learn? We'll Peter, the master fisherman, entered into an apprenticeship with Jesus. He forsook all, and followed Him.

Wherever Jesus went, Peter was going to go. Whatever Jesus did, Peter was going to do. Peter at this point leaves his thriving fishing business behind and starts training to be a full-time men fisher - because he wanted to be with Jesus.

And listen, as we follow Jesus, we too will become fishers of men. As we study about Him in His word, His heart will become our heart. As we learn from Him "who has the words of life" we will want others to know of Him too.

We have been given this command - this commission - to fish for men.

[!bible] Mark 16:15 - KJV 15. And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.

Again, we aren't pulling people out of life and into death. We are bringing people the words of life.

So as I wrap this up this morning I think there are a few places you could find yourself in this story:

• First, you could be one who has not yet been caught by Jesus.
• Second, you could be a follower of Jesus who still needs to launch out into the deep and follow Him more closely.
• Third, you could be one who knows you have been called to fish for men.