Deep water

DEEP WATER:

when faith overcomes raison

So it was, as the multitude pressed about Him to hear the word of God, that He stood by the Lake of Gennesaret, 2 and saw two boats standing by the lake; but the fishermen had gone from them and were washing their nets. 3 Then He got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and asked him to put out a little from the land. And He sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat. 4 When He had stopped speaking, He said to Simon, “Launch out into the deep water 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 5:1-11

Prayer

The title of my preaching today is DEEP WATER.

Please open your Bible to Luke 5. In this passage I feel that the Bible is zooming in on Simon. Not that Simon was the only character in the passage but definitively the main one. Simon was a fisherman. He was not taking his fishing pole to the lake only when the weather was nice but he was fishing for living so we can easily assume and imagined that he had skills. It is not hard for us to believe that Simon knew what he was doing when fishing. Well even though he had skills we know that Simon had just spent all night long fishing and caught nothing. He and his co-workers fishermen, certainly disappointed, were washing their nets getting ready to go home.

From afar, Jesus was walking with the crowd and he saw two boats and stepped in one of them. He stepped in the boat of Simon. Lets pick up the story at verse 3.

Let just pause here just a moment.Verse 5 start with a big but. Without reading the rest of the verse we already know that whatever Simon is about to says it will be in objection to what Jesus has just told him to do. Whatever Jesus has told him, Simon is not agreeing with it.

I may had missed it but what did Jesus told Simon? “launch out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”

Nothing hard, nothing complicated, nothing impossible, nothing weird, nothing scary in this case… And somehow on top of that Simon the fisherman would have beneficiated from it. He would had had a catch… He just spent all night and got nothing. So a catch is always good! :) Still though Simon is not agreeing with it. Why is that? We can read it at the end of the verse “Master, we have toiled all night and we caught nothing.”  Master we went through the entire lake we didn’t skip any corners, we use all the best tools, techniques and science fishing reports, everything in the book 101 best fishermen and we got nothing. “my boys and I worked hard last night and we didn’t catch one fish”. Jesus I’m a fisherman, My pops was a fisherman, my grandpa was a fisherman. I’ve been around fishermen all my life. We did everything we knew and everything we could last night and we didn’t catch one.

And that’s the reason! That’s the reason why Simon doesn’t want to do right away what Jesus has just told him.

Like many of us Simon is to smart.

Simon knows to much about fishing. He knows the big fish, small fish. How they swim, what they eat, when they sleep... He knows everything about fishing. He is the fisherman.

1. Don’t  be smarter than Jesus

When you know too much it will be harder for you to go with what Jesus tells you. Your knowledge will get in the way. Your intellect will get in the way. Your reasoning will get in the way of experiencing what Jesus has for you. And let me tell you, you will not be able to spot it because just like Simon it will make sense to you.

It’s dangerous. It will make you inactive towards what God has told you to do without you noticing it. Your reasoning will make you compromise what Jesus has told you in his word and it will lead you to death. There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death. Pr 14:12

Example of reasoning

• We truly love each other we have been dating since we were in high school. We have been together for 4 years now. We plan to get married in June. We want a beautiful ceremony so to save up some money for our wedding we moved in together.  It may be wrapped in layers of love (or lust lol) but it’s still fornication. Fornicator will not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor 6:9)

• We had such a hard time financially. It seems that everything in my house broke at the same time. I dropped my phone and broke the screen. My computer shut down and ever since I couldn’t turn it on. Our street had to change the sour system. And then we also have to pay the babysitter and swimming class God understands that I can not pay my tithes this time. The tithes belongs to God. Whatever the excuses when we neglect to give it to his house we rob him (Malachi 3:8)

• I don’t come on Sunday anymore because I watch the service online and for me it’s more than enough. I don’t really need a church to live out my faith. I have given up on church (Hebrews 10:25)

• I don’t like to worship. If it was only for me we could stop singing. (John 4:24)

Let me ask you “What are you reasoning about concerning your faith and your christian life?” Is it about the power of God? Can God really heal people? Is it about the Holy Spirit? Can people really speak in tongue? What is it about for you? It’s important for you to find out because the Bible tells us that the way a man think so he is (Pr23:7) You are where you are because of the way you think.

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