"It's Never Too Late to Try Again"

Luke 5: 1-11

     Dear Friends in Christ,  

   I’d like to begin my sermon this morning with a little riddle.  And here it is:  If you’re a man who is married, you’ve probably gotten it at some time or another.  What exactly is it?  Obviously that’s a pretty vague riddle so allow me to share a few clues with you.  You can get it at the dinner table.  You can get it while you’re driving in the car.  You can get it when you’re out having a good time with friends.  You can even get it at church.  You know what I’m talking about?  I’m talking about THE LOOK.  The look that your wife shoots your way whenever you do something that you shouldn’t have done.  Maybe it came after you made a less-than-tactful comment in the midst of a conversation.  Maybe it occurred because you weren’t exactly minding your manners at the dinner table. Or maybe it happened because in some totally unintended way you did or said something that left your wife feeling a bit red-faced and embarrassed.  THE LOOK: it can cross a crowded room faster than the speed of light.  It can pierce to the very soul.  And it can leave a man knowing one thing: he’s in big trouble when he gets home.  And in case you’re wondering, yes, I have gotten the look – more times than I care to remember.  So I am speaking from personal experience here.

   Well, there’s another look that I believe we can easily envision in our text for today.  It’s a look that says, “It’s too late.”  You’ve seen that too, haven’t you?  The furrowed brow, the shrugging of the shoulders, the shaking of the head.  Perhaps you’ve seen it in your friend who comes to talk to you about her troubled marriage.  Or maybe you’ve seen it in the father whose prodigal son is wallowing in the pigpen of life and who has yet to come to his senses.  Or maybe you’ve seen it in the hard-working fellow who loses his job when he’s just 5 years shy of retirement.  “It’s too late to save the marriage…too late to rescue my son…too late to start a new career.” 

   And if you were Peter in our text for today, you would have a look on your face that says, “It’s too late to catch any fish.”  Let’s spend some time this morning visiting this familiar story in the life of Jesus and see yet another reason why he truly is what we’ve been calling him in my current sermon series, namely, the One and Only.

   Our text begins with Jesus preaching to a rather sizeable crowd of people along the shore of the Lake of Gennesaret, which was just another name for the Sea of Galilee, a 6 x 13-mile body of water in northern Israel.  This was a very populated area during the time of Christ, with 9 of the seacoast villages boasting populations of 15,000 plus.  And you get the impression that a large number of those people had turned out to hear Jesus that day.  For as he was preaching, the crowd kept pressing in on him until finally Jesus was standing right at the water’s edge.  And it was then that he had an idea. In vv.2-3 of our text we read: “He saw at the water's edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.”

   So when Jesus needed a boat, Peter was happy to give him one.  And as Jesus turned that boat into a pulpit, Peter was content to listen.  But, when Jesus finishes speaking and suggests to Peter that they go on a midmorning fishing expedition, Peter gives him that look that says “It’s too late.”  And you can’t really blame him, can you?  For notice what Peter says to Jesus: "Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything.”  Those are tired words, aren’t they?  Those are frustrated words. 

   For just a few moments, I want you to try to imagine what that night of fruitless fishing must have been like for Peter.  Now the reason they fished at night is because that’s when the fish came to the surface to feed.  So get this picture in your mind: Just as the sun was setting and the pinkish sky was turning dark and becoming dotted with stars, they headed out for the open waters, no doubt like most fishermen do – full of excitement and anticipation for the fish they were hoping to bring home.  And as they reach one of their favorite spots that has yielded its share of catches over the years, they begin to produce the only sound of the night, what author Max Lucado calls in one of his books “the percussion of the trade.”  And that is the sound of the nets being cast.  Swish as the net is tossed; slap as it hits the water; and then silence, as it sinks.  Swish…slap…silence.  And they keep thinking and hoping with every cast there’s going to be that familiar tug as their net engulfs a school of fish.  But it never happens. They try different spots.  They try deep water.  They try shallower water.   Swish…slap…silence.  Swish…slap…silence.  All night long our text says.  That’s a long time, isn’t it?  2 a.m….3 a.m…4 a.m…5 a.m.  Finally about 6 o’clock there’s a shot of gold that pierces the eastern sky as the sun begins to rise.  On a typical day, the sight would be nothing short of inspiring.  But on this particular day, it’s nothing short of tiring because although they’ve worked all night long, they have nothing to show for it. 

    Is it any wonder then that when Jesus asked Peter to go fishing, Peter’s response was less than enthusiastic? "Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything.”  What about you?  Have you ever felt like saying the equivalent of those words, my friends?  Do any of you here today feel like you own some empty nets right now?  Have you spent any sleepless or fishless nights lately?  What have you been trying to catch?  A better marriage?  A better job?  A better relationship with your kids?  A stronger faith?  Relief from your financial problems?  Could it be that God brought you here today so that he might use a nearly 2000-year-old story to say to you: “Let’s not give up yet.  How about if we give it one more try?”  He knows it’s hard.  He understands that your heart is weary.  But that’s why he puts stories like this in the Bible, so you’ll know that as long as he is in the boat with you it’s never too late to try again.

   Apparently Peter understood that because after he offers his half-hearted complaint to Jesus about his night of fruitless fishing, he then says: “But because you say so, I will let down the nets."  Now I don’t detect a lot of passion in Peter’s voice there.  There doesn’t seem to be a lot of enthusiasm.  But I believe there is some faith.  As much as we like to poke fun at Peter for all the times he strikes out, sometimes he really hits a home run.  And this is one of those times.  Listen, my friends, sometimes the greatest faith is evidenced by a dogged decision to simply try again.  You don’t really want to.  You don’t know how you’re going to.  But because Jesus says to, you do. 

   So Peter and his companions head for the deep water, this time with Jesus in the boat.  Now, why the deep water?  Could it be that Jesus could see something that Peter couldn’t see?  Could it be that Jesus was doing with Peter here what you’ve done with your children at an Easter egg hunt?  You know how you hide some of the eggs in places where they’ll be pretty difficult to find.  You do that for the older kids.  But some of the eggs you put right out in the open for the little ones to spot.  But even then sometimes they don’t see them.  So what do you do?  You come up behind them and say, “Look over there.”  And when they finally spot it, they run over there and pick it up and put it in their basket.  Then they look up at you as if to say, “How did you know?”  And you kind of puff out your chest and say, “Well, I just knew.”  Of course, the grown-ups aren’t impressed because they know it’s easy for you to spot those eggs.

   Well, I would suggest to you that finding those fish in the deep water was just as easy for Jesus for remember, he’s God.  So he can see what we can’t.  And sometimes when he says to us, “Let’s try again,” it’s because he can see a wonderful result that we can’t see at the moment, but that will never happen unless we do what he suggests and give it one more try.

   Much to Peter’s credit, that’s exactly what he does.  He takes the net and in spite of the rotten luck they’d had the night before he gives it a toss into the deep water that Jesus has led him to.  And since Luke, the writer of this story, does not tell us exactly what transpired between Peter and Jesus from the time Peter let the net fly to the time it engulfed a school of fish, I’m going to tell you what happened.  At least this is how I envision it.  Peter tosses the net and as it is sinking, Peter looks over his shoulder at Jesus.  And Jesus is just sitting there with his arms crossed like this.  And he’s doing everything he can to keep from breaking out into this huge smile.  He’s loving this moment.  Because here he is with his friends in the boat who are obediently doing what he told them to do.  And he knows that they are just seconds away from an event that they’ll talk about for the rest of their lives.

   So Peter is looking over his shoulder at Jesus with that weary, hopeless, I told you nothing would happen expression on his face when all of a sudden his arms are yanked into the water.  And it takes every ounce of strength he has just to hold on as the net fills with so many fish that Luke tells us it began to break and they had to call for reinforcements to land this massive catch of fish that filled 2 boats so full that the boats began to sink. 

   And as Jesus and Peter and the others find themselves standing knee-deep among these flopping silver treasures, notice what Peter does.  He falls face first among those smelly fish.  But you know what?  It’s not their stink that bothers him.  Rather it’s his stink that he’s worried about as Peter realizes that he is in the presence of something very special and something very holy.  So he says to Jesus: "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!"  Of course, Jesus has no intention of honoring that prayer because whenever he hears a sinful person openly and honestly confess their sins, he doesn’t turn around and walk away.  Rather he first of all forgives that person.  Then you know what he does?  He recruits that person.  Look at what he says to Peter: "Don't be afraid; from now on you will catch men." 

   So Peter learned a lesson that day, didn’t he?  He learned that in spite of his previous failings, it still wasn’t too late.  And I wonder if some of you here today needed to hear that lesson this morning.  Granted, there are times when the right thing to do is to move on, when it’s necessary to make a change.  And if you’re wondering whether that is the case with you, let me close with 2 questions that you might want to ask yourself before you actually make that decision. 

   #1:  Have I given my boat to Christ?  Now understand that your boat is whatever your source of struggle is?  Have I given my marriage to Christ?  Have I given him my job?  Have I given him my health?  Have I given him my heartache?  And I mean really and truly given it to him.  Then the 2^nd question is this: If I have given my boat to Jesus, am I now doing what he says for me to do?  Am I being obedient to him as Peter was?  Am I trusting him as Peter did?  Or am I holding back from him?

   My prayer for all of you here today is that whatever tough situation you may find yourself in right now, you will soon discover what Peter did that special day.  And that is the God-man who spots weary fishermen, who cares enough to enter their boats, who will even turn his back on the adoration and attention of a crowd to solve the frustration of a friend.  Indeed, may you find in Jesus a Savior who whispers this word to the owners of empty nets: “Let’s try again – only this time with me on board.”

     Amen.