Peter

A sermon I heard today...

Luke 5
[1] While the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennes'aret.
[2] And he saw two boats by the lake; but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets.
[3] Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat.
[4] And when he had ceased speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch."
[5] And Simon answered, "Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets."
[6] And when they had done this, they enclosed a great shoal of fish; and as their nets were breaking,
[7] they beckoned to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink.
[8] But 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 catch of fish which they had taken;
[10] and so also were James and John, sons of Zeb'edee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid; henceforth you will be catching men."
[11] And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.

Knowing
Experiencing
Surrendering
Leaving/Following

These were the 4 stages Peter went through in this passage.

When Peter got to know Jesus initially, he called Him "Master", but still showed his disbelief at his command, "Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets." which probably means "just because you're a master, so I'll follow your instructions, but you know I'm the expert in fishing here, we won't get anything, I assure you."

Then when he did what Jesus told him to do, he got to experience Jesus' power, if he didn't obey, he would never experience this.

After the experience, he called Jesus "Lord", acknowledging Jesus as the one with power over him, surrendering to the Lord Himself. However, Peter also knew about his own sins, and he was afraid that he was not worthy to serve God. Not afraid of difficulty in making a living (unlike us), because he saw the abundance of Jesus' supply.

And then Peter left his fishing nets to follow Jesus.

(Imagine what would happen if this story was found in the Chinese folklore... the ending of the story might be "Peter and his family thanked Jesus and recognised He was a god with supernatural powers and so they built a "Sea God" Temple where they worshipped Him and prayed for nets full of fish." Only if we imagine things like this, then we get to realise how different our religion is, to all the others traditional "religions". =P)