Catching Humans Alive - a podcast by Rev. W. Reid Hankins

Sermon preached on Luke 5:1-11 by Rev. W. Reid Hankins during the Morning Worship Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 08/29/2021 in Novato, CA.















Sermon Manuscript







Last week’s passage emphasized that Jesus needed to keep on teaching and preaching and bringing his message throughout Israel.  Here we see him continue to be about that ministry of the word as a crow gathers around him on one occasion when he was near the lake of Gennesaret, also known as the Sea of Galilee.  The crown had come to Jesus to hear God’s word.  But they were now pressing in on Jesus.  I could imagine he could have been crushed by such an eager crowd coming to him.  But Jesus wanted to teach this large group that was hungry for God’s word.  So, Jesus gets Simon Peter to take him out in his boat just a little way off the coast.  From there, Jesus is able to safely and effectively communicate to the crowd.  From there, Jesus can fulfill his purpose to teach these many people as God had given him to do.  So then, as we study today’s passage we too will be learning from Jesus.  And we’ll see themes of discipleship and evangelism come forth from this teaching.







In our first point for today, let us consider first this miracle of a great catch of fish.  I’ve already set the context for our story.  And so, after Jesus finished teaching the people from the boat, he directed Peter to take the boat out to deeper waters and cast the nets down for a catch of fish.  Note the background here in verse 2.  There had been two boats on the short, Jesus was now on one of them.  But when we saw the two boats it was clear that they were done with fishing for the day.  When Jesus arrived the fisherman were busy cleaning the nets, which is what you do at the end when you are done fishing.  We learn in verse 4 that in fact Peter, and James, and John, and probably some other hired hands, had been out all night fishing.  They had worked hard, and as professional fisherman they surely knew their craft, but they had sadly caught nothing.  I’m sure now, after a long night of being skunked in their fishing, then Jesus talking surely long to the crowds, they were tired and ready to be done and go home.  But Jesus then directs Peter to go back out for another run on the fish.







Peter at first seems to complain a bit.  “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing!”  We can appreciate that.  He’s the professional fisherman.  He’s the one who worked all night and caught nothing.  He’s the one who knows the conditions for when it is best to catch fish.  Surely by now it is well into the day and surely the worst time to try to catch fish.  We can appreciate his immediate retort.  But then you have to appreciate his next words, expressing some sort of sort of respect and deference to Jesus as the master and teacher.  He says, “But at your word I will let down the nets.”  I imagine Peter basically meaning something like, “For anyone else Jesus, I wouldn’t bother to do this, but for you, I will do it.”







So then they bring the boat out deeper and they let down the nets, and praise be to God there is a humongous catch!  Verse 6 says it was so big that the nets started to break!  That’s when they signal back to the short to get their other boat to come help them with the big catch.  But even then, when the other boat comes and helps, it says that the boats are both so full that they are starting to sink.  To clarify, given the details here, this probably doesn’t mean that they are all going to sink and drown because the boats are overfilled.  But rather that the boats are so filled to maximum capacity that the boats have sunk down dr...

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