Text: Luke 5:1–11
Theme: Jesus nets a sinner
Other Lessons: Isaiah 6:1–8 (9–13); Psalm 138; 1 Corinthians 14:12b–20
A. In the Name of the Father…Amen.
B. The Epistle reading serves as our sermon text for this morning.
C. Grace, mercy, and peace be yours from God the heavenly Father through
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
D. Memory verses!
Luke 5:8–11 (NASB95)
8 But when Simon Peter saw that, he fell down at Jesus’ feet, saying, “Go
away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!”
9 For amazement had seized him and all his companions because of the catch
of fish which they had taken;
10 and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with
Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not fear, from now on you will be
catching men.”
11 When they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and
followed Him.
This is the Word of the Lord.
E. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, let us pray:
LSB 902:1-2 Lord Jesus Christ, Be Present Now
1 Lord Jesus Christ, be present now;
Our hearts in true devotion bow.
Your Spirit send with light divine,
And let Your truth within us shine.
2 Unseal our lips to sing Your praise
In endless hymns through all our days.
Increase our faith and light our minds;
And set us free from doubt that blinds.
Introduction
A. A pastor gets a phone call from a woman who had been recently mauled by
her neighbor’s dogs.
1. She wasn’t a member of his congregation or a Christian, but he agreed to
meet her and talk about her ordeal.
2. She limped into his office with jagged stitches on her face and bandages
on both arms and legs.
3. “It’s karma,” she said.
4. “I’ve done some terrible things in my life, and now I have to pay the
price.”
5. Sadly, she was convinced karma wasn’t finished with her yet.
6. Her sins were far worse than the punishment of a few dozen dog bites.
B. It was an average busy morning for the young father—getting his daughter
dressed and fed so he could drop her off at school and head to work.
1. But he heard something strange when he turned on the radio for the
traffic report.
2. An airplane had just crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade
Center in New York.
3. After he dropped off his daughter at school, he heard that a second
plane had crashed into the other tower and that our country was under
attack.
4. He turned around and got back home just in time to see, on live TV,
first one and then the other tower collapse in a great heap.
5. For the very first time in his life, the young man got down on his
knees, clasped his hands together, and cried out: “Oh, God, please help
us.”
6. But then, remembering all the bad things he’d done in his life, he
stopped praying and began to weep.
7. No one had ever told him about Jesus.
C. This was a moment for a fisher of men to tell these people that Jesus
came to save sinners, like himself and St. Peter (Lk 5:8–10).
A. Where can a sinner turn for help from a guilty conscience?
A. It turns out this poor woman in the first illustration was not looking
for a Christian pastor but a religious guru to give her a list of things to
do that might soothe God’s anger.
1. What else could she do but wait in fear for the hammer to fall again?
B. She is an extreme example of a malady that is all too common:
1. living in the world with a guilty conscience.
2. You don’t have to be a religious person to have this debilitating
disease.
3. No one needs the Ten Commandments to know things like lying, cheating,
stealing, and hurting other people are wrong:
a. and that you deserve to be punished for doing them.
4. A guilty conscience is all about living in fear:
a. fear of losing the respect of others,
b. of losing your spouse,
c. or job.
d. It’s the terrifying prospect of seeing your face on a YouTube video with
thousands of comments underneath:
1. all condemning you for the secret you’re so desperate to hide.
2. The worst thing is the isolation.
3. You can’t have a genuine relationship with the people around you or with
God.
4. Even when the dogs are biting, you can’t cry out to God for help,
because His job is to make sure you pay for your sins.
C. It’s like being on a raft all by yourself in the middle of the ocean.
1. The sun is beating down on you, and there’s no land in sight and no one
to call for help.
2. You spend your days waiting for the next big wave or storm to dump you
out of the boat into the deep water where the hungry sharks are waiting.
D. Where can a sinner go for help when all they think about is how God only
exists to even the score?
1. There are far more people living this way than we realize.
2. They’ve grown used to it as a way of life.
3. But it’s a sad life of fear and isolation:
a. waiting for the day when karma will catch up.
B. The problem is worse than most people think.
A. People with a guilty conscience understand God is good and that they are
not good, because they’ve done bad things.
1. Most people think that we’re called sinners because we sin.
2. But God says we sin because we are sinners.
3. And that is far worse.
B. Nelson Mandela (social rights activist, politician, and philanthropist)
is quoted as saying:
1. “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin,
or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they
can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more
naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”
2. This sounds all nice and hopeful, doesn’t it?
3. But is it really as easy as saying “stop hating” and “start loving”?
4. The Bible says the opposite is true.
5. The Ten Commandments teach people to stop hating and start loving, but
God says the Law can only reveal the disease and cannot cure it.
6. Our fallen human nature is incapable of loving God or loving one another
as we should.
7. By nature, we love ourselves:
a. and our charity for others extends only until it gets in the way of
loving ourselves, even if loving ourselves just means giving ourselves a
good feeling for being so generous.
C. People who try to become right with God by following the Law are
fighting a losing battle against the symptoms without seeking the cure for
the disease.
1. Where does it leave people who try and try to stop doing the things that
make them feel guilty:
a. only to discover that the harder they try, the more they’re drawn to do
those very things?
b. If you had a fruit tree that kept producing sour, rotten fruit,
eventually you’d decide there’s something wrong with the tree.
D. The problem is not just that we’ve done bad things;
1. it’s far worse than that.
2. God is light, and we are darkness.
3. God is fire, and we are ice.
4. In our fallen human nature, we are incompatible with God, and there’s
nothing we can do about it.
5. That’s why, as soon as Peter realized who was on his fishing boat, he
fell on his knees and begged Jesus to go away:
Luke 5:8 (NASB95)
8 But when Simon Peter saw that, he fell down at Jesus’ feet, saying, “Go
away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!”
E. Most people believe the problem of sin is as easy to solve as teaching
people to “stop hating” and “start loving.”
1. They are sadly mistaken.
2. Unlike most people, Peter understood the problem was far worse.
3. We sin because we are sinners.
C. But when Jesus caught a sinner in His net, it lifted the burden of guilt.
A. Peter was afraid because he realized behind the human flesh of the rabbi
Jesus burned the terrifying glory of God.
1. What he didn’t realize was that God took on human flesh to cure the
debilitating disease of sin.
2. In Jesus, God Calls Terrified Sinners into His Wonderful Net.
B. Peter was a fisherman who’d had a terrible night of fishing.
1. Over and over, he’d cast his nets into the deep, dark water, only to
pull them up empty.
2. The next morning, he was on the shore cleaning his nets when Jesus asked
to use his boat for a pulpit.
3. Peter had a front-row seat at church that morning, listening to the word
of God from the mouth of the famous rabbi.
4. When the sermon was over, the preacher told the fisherman:
Luke 5:4 (NASB95)
4 When He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, “Put out into the deep
water and let down your nets for a catch.”
E. Peter’s response?:
Luke 5:5 (NASB95)
5 Simon answered and said, “Master, we worked hard all night and caught
nothing, but I will do as You say and let down the nets.”
F. It is as if Peter said to Jesus:
1. “I’ll do it.
2. But I think you should leave the fishing to me.
3. I guarantee you there are no fish out there.”
C. That’s when it happened.
1. No sooner had those nets hit the water that they were filled to the
breaking point with fish:
a. so many fish they had to call their partners in the other boat for help;
b. so many fish that both of those boats were sinking from the weight of
them.
c. You would think Peter would beg Jesus to go fishing with him every day.
d. But Peter didn’t see dollar signs when he looked at all those fish.
e. He saw danger.
f. It was far worse for him than seeing your darkest secret exposed on
YouTube.
g. Holy God was with him in the boat!
h. Peter fell down on the deck with those flopping fish and begged:
Luke 5:8 (NASB95)
8 But when Simon Peter saw that, he fell down at Jesus’ feet, saying, “Go
away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!”
D. Like those fish out of water, Peter was waiting to die, and in a way,
the old sinful Peter did die.
1. But then God breathed new life into him with a word:
Luke 5:10 (NASB95)
10 and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with
Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not fear, from now on you will be
catching men.”
B. By that powerful word, God lifted the burdens of guilt and sin from
Peter’s shoulders.
C. Peter was no longer afraid of God’s presence.
D. He longed to be as near to God as he could.
E. He left everything behind to follow Jesus.
E. Jesus went fishing for men that day.
1. He cast the net of His powerful word into the deep water of this world
and pulled a terrified sinner up onto the boat.
2. What a wonderful thing to be caught up in Jesus’ net!
F. Peter was afraid when he realized who was on the boat with him.
1. What he didn’t realize was why Jesus stepped onto his boat.
2. God had come to cure him of the disease of guilt and sin.
3. His fear melted away when he heard the word of Jesus.
D. Then Jesus called Peter to catch you too!
A. Jesus said to him, “From now on you will be catching men.”
1. Like the prophet Isaiah in our Old Testament Reading, God sanctified the
lips of Peter and the other apostles to preach His powerful, holy Word.
2. From the boat that is the church, Peter cast the net of the Gospel into
the deep water, and God pulled billions of human beings onto the deck.
B. The Good News Peter preached is that God sent his glorious Son to take
on human flesh so that he could take human sins onto Himself:
1. your sins,
2. and Peter’s sins,
3. and the sins of the whole world
4. take them with Him and die on a cross,
5. and on the third day rise again.
6. Jesus absorbed every bit of God’s anger the moment He died.
7. Not only that, but when God baptized you into Jesus’ death, the old
sinful you also died, and a new person arose.
8. The only cure for the disease of sin is death and resurrection:
a. and that is exactly what Jesus gave to you in Baptism.
b. Cured of the disease, you can confidently call on God in every situation.
c. It doesn’t mean you won’t struggle with your old sinful nature;
d. it means the new you will seek God’s help when you do struggle.
e. The deck of the boat that is the church is where you find that help.
C. Oh, what a wonderful thing to have been caught in Jesus’ net!
1. God has taken the heavy burden of guilt and fear from your shoulders and
given you new life.
2. Instead of running away from God, you now long to be as close to Him as
you can.
D. Jesus said to Peter, “From now on you will be catching men.”
1. This text has “pictures”, snapshots of what the Church is all about:
a. Boat: the “cargo” are the members of the church.
b. Lake: the world, where the “fish” (those needing to be saved are
located).
c. The deep: where those who are so far away from the fisherman they think
they can’t be caught.
d. The net: The Word of God (the Gospel) by which we are all saved:
1. The good fish: those who receive the Word, believe it and are saved.
2. The bad fish; those who receive that same Word, reject it, and are
thrown away (condemned to die).
e. The fish: All people, regardless of race, language, tribe, or
nation–all to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.
E. And now we also have a net to cast for desperate sinners.
A. And now Jesus has put the net into our hands.
1. Peter said it this way:
1 Peter 2:9 (NASB95)
9 But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE
FOR God’s OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him
who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;
A. Like Isaiah,
B. like the apostles,
C. God has sanctified your lips to speak His powerful, holy Word to
suffering sinners.
Conclusion
A. One has to wonder how many people are out there living with the terrible
disease of a guilty conscience.
1. How many are living in fear of being discovered, waiting for karma to
catch up?
2. How many don’t know that God loves them and wants to help them?
3. We will never know unless we cast the net.
B. We have the cure in our hands.
1. God sanctified our lips to speak His powerful, holy Word to suffering
sinners.
2. There is still room on the boat.
3. In order to speak that Word, we have to know it and study it.
4. If we say we are “of” the Word, then we better be “in” it, whether that
be pastor or laity.
C. Perhaps, as you look around church and community, you may think:
1. Pastor, the water around here has been all fished out.
2. We’ve thrown out our nets and drawn up nothing for a long time now.
3. You know what Jesus would say, don’t you?
a. Keep fishing! Amen.
D. Let us pray:
LSB 902:3-4 Lord Jesus Christ, Be Present Now
3 Then shall we join the hosts that cry,
“O holy, holy Lord Most High!”
And in the light of that blest place
We then shall see You face to face.
D 4 All glory to the Father, Son,
And Holy Spirit, Three in One!
To You, O blessèd Trinity,
Be praise throughout eternity!
Text: Public domain
E. Philippians 4:7 (NASB95)
7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your
hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
F. Come Lord Jesus, come quickly.
All of us are waiting and none of us will be disappointed.
The Lord continue to bless us,
shine His face on us,
be gracious to us,
that He lift His countenance upon us,
and give us His peace.
G. In the Name of the Father…Amen.