Week 21 ———  A Miraculous Catch of Fish
Luke 5:1-11

Luke 5:1-11   On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret¹, and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets.  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. And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word, I will let down the nets.” And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking.  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.  But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”  For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.”  And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.

Because we don’t read the gospels chronologically, we often miss that this particular miracle of the massive catch of fish happened twice.  And it was no accident that the setting of these two miracles was the same.  In the story we read just now, Jesus asked the four fishermen who had been with him on and off for several months to go all in.  He asked them to leave their boats and become full-time disciples.  The other occasion for this miracle is in John 21.  Jesus has been resurrected, and he is to meet them in Galilee.

So, the disciples have seen Jesus several times since his resurrection.  He told them to go to the Galilee to meet him.  They are waiting around, and Peter decides it is time to go fishing.  I have heard people say Peter is returning to his old business.  He was a disciple, but now that has changed.  He saw himself as a colossal failure as a disciple.  The worst thing a disciple could do is betray their rabbi.  And he did three times. It is not a stretch to think Peter is returning to being a fisherman.  Or maybe he is just fishing while he is waiting on Jesus.  But like our other story in Luke, they catch nothing all night.  Then Jesus showed up, and there was a miraculous catch of fish.  By the way, isn’t it a coincidence that these professional fishermen had a bad night in both stories?  Not a single fish.  Who do you think kept their nets empty all night so He could miraculously fill it the next day?  Maybe there is a lesson for us there.  The next time you find yourself having an incredibly unproductive day, it might be Jesus prepping you for a miracle.  But you know what happens next.  Jesus forgives Peter and has him recommit to do the work of a disciple, or now an apostle. 

So you have these two stories of miraculous catches of fish, and both are followed by Jesus’ call to these men to be fishers of men.  The next time one of you catches a whole lot of fish, you had better listen up.  God may be calling.

But what I want to talk about is the miracle.  God is at work in so many ways: the birth of a baby, the wondrous workings of our complex bodies, and the incredible immense universe we live in.  But some things happen constantly, so we often begin to think of them as ordinary.   Do not forget that God is at work in all of it. There is nothing ordinary about the birth of a baby.  Every baby is a gift straight from God.  We shouldn’t take these everyday works of God for granted.

But God acts in extraordinary ways also.  The Bible calls these “signs and wonders”.  They are signs in that they point to something.  When you read about a sign or miracle in the Bible, you should always ask what the sign is meant to highlight or reveal.   What is the message of the miraculous catches of fish on these two occasions?  Both times, Jesus is inviting Peter and the disciples to join the work of fishing for men.  The catch of fish lets them know that he will be the power behind their efforts.  On their own, without him, they can’t even be successful as fishers of fish. What they will accomplish in their ministry will not be due to their abilities. It is God who will provide the catch.  And with these miracles, they can never forget this lesson— boy, does Jesus know how to teach a point!

You can read the Bible and get the idea that God “used to do miracles all the time.”  But the miracles in the Bible are primarily centered around certain people or times (Moses and the Exodus, Joshua, Elijah and Elisha, Jesus and his apostles.)  There are hundreds of years between times of miracles.  These disciples of Jesus saw a lot of miracles.  But what of the hundreds of thousands of other people living in the world in Jesus’ day?   In perhaps the largest-viewed miracle, over 5 thousand were fed with five loaves and two fish.  But there were (according to the Museum of Natural History) 170 million people living in Jesus’ day.  That’s only 0.006% of people who saw a miracle.   Only a tiny percentage of people living in the days of Jesus saw a miracle.   Why?  They weren’t where Jesus was.  They weren’t following Jesus.  You see, the closer you follow Jesus, the more miracles you will see.  Want to see more miracles?  Follow Jesus closely.

I want to be careful about not calling everything a miracle (A parking spot opened right in front of the store for me. “It’s a miracle.”)   I also want to be careful not to dismiss miracles, seeking to explain everything away as a scientific occurrence or as coincidence, for I know miracles still happen.  I find no evidence in scripture that God drew a line in time and stopped doing what he had always done.  Instead, I see more and more miracles after Jesus comes, all through the New Testament.  And I have seen signs and wonders more than a few times with my own eyes.  I’ll tell you a few of my stories today.

My wife was on a committee with some ministers in our county to see if there was a homeless problem that we could help with.    Some people told us there were no homeless people in Marshall County.  They didn’t see them on the streets with signs.  So they did some research and found there was indeed a large number of homeless, including many children in our schools who did not have homes.  So, about ten people met around a table one night and decided we had to do something about it.  We were about six weeks away from cold weather hitting, and we felt we needed some plan to help those without homes before the cold weather arrived.  But how could these few make the need known, raise money, and assemble a program to house the homeless in 6 weeks?  Someone said it would take a miracle to do that.  But we had prayed and asked God to break our hearts with the things that broke his heart.  So we jumped in.   6 weeks later, we organized ten churches, had a benefit that raised $30,000, and started housing people in an emergency cold weather shelter.  Was that a miracle, or just people responding quickly to a need?  You decide.  That ministry began with ten people and no money 12 years ago, and this year, we own two buildings that can house 40 people with over 30 acres of land (with no debt). It has served hundreds of people yearly and changed hundreds of lives.  Last year, it provided shelter and fed our neighbors without homes with the equivalent of over $750,000 in services.  Lives have been put back together, and people have come to Jesus.  God is doing a great thing.  Would you call this a miracle?  Or would you call it God just doing what God does through his people?  I’ll let you decide.

Let me tell you about a mission hospital in Ghana, Africa, where we have worked.  Our friends were big supporters of the ministry in the hospital.  Every year, they would gather supplies to support the missionaries.  They would spend months filling a large shipping container with donated bed linens, bandages, and other supplies.  They packed the container in February, and there was a little space left.  A local hospital had a baby incubator they were willing to donate so they went to pick it up.   When they arrived to pick up the incubator, there was a box of other old medical equipment.  The hospital said they were welcome to it.  It was all used and outdated, but they would throw it out if the mission couldn’t use it.  They had room in the truck, so they took it.  And there was enough room in the shipping container, so they threw the box in.   It takes months for a shipping container to be shipped from Cartersville, Georgia, to Nalerigu, Ghana.  Amazingly, it arrived in Ghana at the same time we did that summer.  So, our friends who had packed the container in February got to unload it in June.  The first thing off the container was that box of medical junk they threw on at the last minute.  They told my friend Tommy to carry the box to the supply room and that they would sort it out later.

Now, while my friends were unloading the shipping container, I had finished rounds in the Pediatric ward and was about to start seeing patients in the walk-in clinic.  I had just met an OB/GYN surgeon who had come in that week to work with the resident missionary doctors.  He was there to teach them a new procedure to help women who were having bladder problems after having difficult deliveries.  It was a common problem there where many women deliver babies outside the hospital.  They had 35 women set up to have that surgery that week while the visiting surgeon was there so he could give the missionary doctors good experience in the procedure while he helped refine their skills. He brought his equipment to do the procedures, including a special endoscope and planned to leave it with them when he returned home.  But his endoscope was damaged during the trip.  The light was broken, making it unusable.  They had searched for something they could use to replace it, but it was a specialized device.  Nothing else would work.  He was frustrated because now, they could not help those 35 women that week, and he would not be able to teach the procedure to the doctors there to help others.  He was walking back to help see patients in the clinic since they would have to cancel the surgeries. That is when he passed my friend Tommy in the hall carrying the box of junk.

He stopped Tommy.  “Hey, what’s in that box?” he asked.  “Just some medical junk,” Tommy replied.  He asked to take a look.  Guess what was in the top of the box.  The same brand of endoscope our surgeon had.  It’s not the same device he used, but one made by the same company.  Do you think there was any possibility the light would fit his broken device?  Of course, it did.  He could do the surgeries that had been arranged and train the local doctors to help countless more women.  Was that a miracle or a coincidence?  The very light device he needed just happened to be placed in a box of junk that would have been thrown away, but there just happened to be enough room in a shipping container that was packed in February, that just happened to arrive five months later at the same time as the surgeon whose device happened to get broken.  And they just happened to pass in the hall that day.  Was it a miracle, or was it God just doing God things?  It enabled the healing of many people and brought praise to Yehovah, so call it a sign, a wonder, or a miracle.  Every time I think about this story, I think about how good God is.

Look back at Peter’s reaction in our first story in Luke.

Luke 5:8-9  But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”  For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon.

   He reminds me of Isaiah, when he was in the temple and got a vision of God.  He falls down and exclaims, “Woe is me, for I am lost.  I am a man of unclean lips…”³  There is no other appropriate reaction when you see God move.   The ESV says they were “astonished.”   The NASB gives a more thorough translation of the Greek:  “For amazement had seized him and all his companions because of the catch of fish which they had taken.”   The Greek for ‘seized’ is  ‘periecho’ which means ‘wrapped up in’, ‘gripped by’, or ‘surrounded by’ amazement.  Seeing God act is overwhelming, and you are ‘wrapped up in emotion.’

Some other day, I will tell you other stories, of prayed-for rain that ended a drought, of a hole that opened in the sky to allow an evangelistic gathering to take place in Mexico, of a miracle spark plug in a cardboard box, and of an empty plastic pharmacy bin in Guatemala that kept supplying medicine for children for days of clinics.   And then there are the medical miracles I have seen.  Stage 4 cancer in a child that disappeared with no treatment (other than prayer), children born with large portions of their brain missing that should have died after birth, running down the hall years later shouting my name and giving me a hug.   I have not seen the dead raised to life.  Oh, I have seen people who flatlined their EKG come back.  But more impressively, I have seen the spiritually dead brought back to life.  I will never forget the night we left the house at 2 am to go pick up a young man who was determined to commit suicide.  He had a long road through returning to Jesus, defeating his drug addictions, working his way out of homelessness, and regaining custody of his young son.  Seeing him now, he is very successful in his job, happily married and raising his boy, owns his own home, is active in his church, and volunteers in the homeless ministry.  He is a picture of redemption and grace, God’s goodness.  Is that a miracle, or is it just what God does?

You will never see a miracle if you don’t throw out your net.  It made no sense for those disciples to fish when they had gone all night with nothing.  Galilean fishermen did not fish in the daytime.  They didn’t have the transparent plastic nets we have today.  They used linen nets.  They fished at night because, in the dark, the fish couldn’t see the nets.  In the daytime, they had no chance of catching fish.  Jesus asked them to do something impossible.  They could have thought Jesus was joking.  They could have said, “Jesus is a nice guy, but he’s no fisherman.”   But they said, “At your word, I will.”  What are you willing to try for Jesus?  Maybe you would be willing to try something easy.  Jesus might ask you to call a friend to encourage them.  Maybe you would be willing to do that.  Or perhaps He will ask you to do something harder.  Maybe he will ask you to talk to a stranger. Perhaps he will ask you to speak to a neighbor you’ve never met.  Maybe he will ask you to talk to a homeless person.  Maybe he will ask you to get them help.  Maybe he will ask you to bring them home to live in your house for a while.  (If this sounds wild to you, clearly, none of you have ever been married to my dear wife.  Yeah, it happened more than a few times.)   Maybe God will ask you to do something you think is pointless, difficult, or impossible.

Perhaps we don’t see miracles because we aren’t willing to throw out the net.  We live lives of relative calm.   Calm and peaceful lives.  That is what everybody wants, right?    Let me tell you one more story.  I love reading missionary biographies, and one reason is that you keep running into stories of miracles. This is one of my favorites. The Story of John G. Paton Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals.  Paton felt called to the South Sea Islands, where, in the 1800s, no one wanted to go. Today, these islands are highly sought-after vacation spots: Tahiti, Fiji, and Vanuatu.  But in John Paton’s day, the natives were all cannibals.  Talk about going into the deep waters.

He eventually established preaching outposts on several of the tiny islands there and other missionaries joined him there.  He tells of a time when he was seeking to replace the small sailing boat missionaries used to travel between the islands and distribute food and supplies.       

“The Missionaries on the spot had long felt this, and had loudly and earnestly pled for a new and larger Vessel, or a Vessel with Steam Auxiliary power, or some arrangement whereby the work of God on these Islands might be overtaken, without unnecessary exposure of life, and without the dreaded perils that accrue to a small sailing boat from deadly calms and from treacherous gales.”⁴

That phrase struck me – “deadly calms” and “treacherous gales.”   Now, I can certainly understand “treacherous gales,” but what about the “deadly calm”?  I’m not a sailor, so I didn’t realize what was deadly about the calm.  A sailboat, dependent on the wind for propulsion, becomes “dead in the water” when the wind is calm.  It falls victim to the mercy of the waves and may capsize, or you may be stuck in the middle of the ocean for days.  I think I need to learn to recognize the danger of the “deadly calm” in my life.  In my effort to control my schedule tightly, I may keep my life too calm.  Now, I am not talking about not being busy, for I am guilty of over-committing myself and leaving no empty space on the calendar. Instead, I am talking about only planning activities and projects that fall within my comfort zone.  I am only attempting things I know I can do.  When I read the Bible, I see that God continually calls people to leave their comfort zones and go places they have never been before —Abraham to “the land I will show you,” Israel to the promised land, or the disciples to Samaria.  God continually calls people to do things they have no experience with — Noah building an ark, Moses leading a people, or fishermen becoming preachers. God constantly calls people to do impossible or very unlikely things — conquering giants, fishing in the daytime, or walking on water.  If we choose to remain in our ‘calm’ lives, then we choose a life of disobedience, a life of missed opportunities, a life that is less than the abundant life Jesus promised each of us.

Jesus asked these fishermen to leave the shallow water and go out into the deep.  We won’t see miracles if we are fishing in the kiddie pool.  It is through experiencing God that our faith grows.  If we never put ourselves in situations where we must depend on Him, then we will never see His power come through.   I have most experienced this on medical mission trips to other countries. In my medical practice in Alabama, I am very careful only to see patients for whom I have the proper training and experience to help.  If someone would be better served seeing a surgeon or a psychiatrist, I refer them there.  I carefully control my schedule. That is good practice for a doctor.   But many times on these trips, I have found myself in situations where I had absolutely no control over the situation, as helpless as a boat with no oars. I have seen authorities confiscate all of our medicine at the border, leaving us without any means to treat the patients.   I have seen a large evangelistic event threatened to cancel in a storm.  I have faced medical situations that required my actions but were way beyond anything I had ever been trained to do.   But in these (and many other) situations, I saw God take charge and make things happen.  He miraculously provided; He swept back the clouds; He enabled me through His power.  Praise His name!  Through these experiences, my faith grew in leaps and bounds.   Where would my faith be if I had not left the ‘deadly calm’? 

God is still in the miracle business today — only if we allow him to be.  Jesus was rejected at Nazareth.  Mark tells us Jesus was shocked at their unbelief and relates a very sad scripture:  “And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them” (Mark 6:5).    Jesus wanted to heal more and perform more miracles. But they were not interested because they had no faith in him.  We can be the limiting factor that keeps God from doing the good works He wants to do.

What about you?  I don’t know if you call these things that I’ve talked about miracles or not.  But I know God is still doing God things.  Things only God can do.  Do you want to see God do these kinds of things?

First, you must be a follower of Jesus.   You have to be with Jesus to see what Jesus does.  You have to have a relationship with God to have your eyes opened to see the wonders of the spiritual world.  Second, you must be willing to go where he asks you.   You must be willing to leave the shallow waters and go out into the deep, leaving the deadly calm of your neat, scheduled existence.  You must be willing to leave your comfort zone.  Finally, you must be willing to do what he asks you to do.  You must be willing to throw out the net.   It doesn’t matter if you’ve been throwing it all night with no results.  It doesn’t matter if it seems impossible.  Just be obedient.  If we only attempt to do things we can without divine help, then we don’t need God.  We must attempt God-sized tasks to leave room for God to do God things. 

1. That is the Sea of Galilee.
2. Again, the Sea of Galilee.
3. Isaiah 6:5.
4. The Story of John G. Paton Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals.  Paton, John Gibson and Paton, James.  Kindle Edition loc 2330.