Thursday October 17
Experiencing Failure Before Success
Luke 5:4-11
4 When He had stopped speaking, He said to Simon, "Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch." 5 But Simon answered and said to Him, "Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net." 6 And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking. 7 So they signaled 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 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 and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish which they had taken; 10 and so also were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid. From now on you will catch men." 11 So when they had brought their boats to land, they forsook all and followed Him.
Luke 5 begins with Jesus preaching to the multitude on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee near Capernaum. He has been healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, causing the lame to walk, feeding the hungry, casting out demons, in the surrounding region of Galilee. On this occasion, Jesus is preaching to the multitude that is pressing upon Him. He sees two boats nearby, one of which is Simon Peter’s, so He gets into it and goes out a little way from the shore and continues His message (vv. 1-3).
Now in verse 4-5, after Jesus finished speaking, He said to Simon, "Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch." But Simon answered and said to Him, "Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net." And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking.” There are several things we want to look at in this passage today as we think about discipleship. At this point, Jesus is specifically calling Peter, Andrew, James and John to discipleship, to follow Him.
Please imagine and picture this scene as Jesus is in the boat with Simon and tells him to “launch out into the deep and continue fishing.” Peter had just finished washing his nets and he is tired from already fishing all night. Peter must have been surprised when Jesus took command of the ship and its crew. After all, Jesus was a carpenter by trade (Mark 6:3), and what do carpenters know about fishing? It was a well-known fact that, in the Sea of Galilee, you caught fish at night in the shallow water, not in the daytime in the deep water. What Jesus asked Peter to do was contrary to all of his training and experience.
The first lesson we need to learn from this passage is probably not to have a “but” in our response to the call of Jesus like Peter did. “But Simon answered and said to Him….”. We immediately begin making excuses when Jesus speaks to us about doing something we are sure we know more about than He does. I think about the story Jesus told in Luke 14:15-24 about the master inviting people to a supper and they began to make excuses. The first said, “I can’t come because I bought a piece of land and I need to go see it”. The second said, “I have bought some oxen, and I need to go and try them out”. And the third said, “I have married a wife, and I cannot come.” “I would come, but, but, but….”. By the way, the only one that had a decent reason was the third one. I’m afraid they are good examples of us when Jesus is calling us to discipleship. We need to get the “but” out of our answers to Jesus requests or commands.
The second lesson: Then Peter said, “I have already worked hard all night and caught nothing”. Peter acknowledged his failure. He confessed his failure. If we are going to be true and faithful followers of Jesus Christ, we must acknowledge our failures and our weaknesses. I’ll never forget the title of a great message I heard years ago, “Failure Plus Failure, Plus Failure, Plus Failure, Plus Failure, Equals Success”. Success in the ministry and in our lives comes when we finally come to the end of ourselves and we totally trust the Lord for everything (Proverbs 3:5-6). This is what the Lord is doing here as He is training and teaching His disciples.
One last lesson today: Jesus has been preaching and ministering to the multitudes, but now He keys in and focuses on a handful of men. The lesson we need to learn here is this. We can minister to the multitudes, to anyone and everyone we might cross paths with, but we can only disciple a few. If we think we can disciple everybody and turn everyone into a disciple of Jesus, we are going to be sorely disappointed and probably burn out. But if we take our time to disciple a few and teach them to daily follow Jesus by faith, we can turn the world upside down!
Today, if you feel like you are a failure and are saying I can’t, that is when Jesus says, “I can, follow Me”.
God bless!
Comments