The Word from God

[Here's a video of today's 11:00 AM worship service from Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. Below, you'll find the text of today's message.]



Luke 5:1-11

Our Gospel lesson for today begins: “One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God.” (Luke 5:1) A Lutheran Bible commentator of the last century insisted, rightly I think, that the preposition in the last phrase of that verse shouldn’t be translated as “word of God,” but “word from God.” In today’s lesson Jesus, the Word of God made flesh, speaks the Word from God to a crowd of people who, for reasons they may have been unable to articulate, are hungry to hear from God.

Are you hungry to hear the Word from God? Not just on Sunday but every day? 

Or are you so sated and enticed by the junk food of this world–its temporary rewards, entertainments, and distractions–that you don’t have time to listen to the Word that the God we know in Jesus wants to give to you?

Human deafness to God is the greatest pandemic in our world today. I find myself afflicted by this deafness to God more often than I care to admit. And it’s a pandemic of resistance to God’s Word that is far more deadly, eternally so, than we may imagine. We prefer to hear almost anything to hearing the Word from God. This past week on social media, Lutheran theologian Chad Bird shared an observation by a contemporary Roman Catholic cardinal: “The world no longer hears God because it is constantly speaking, at a devastating speed and volume, in order to say nothing.”

But what the Word that God has for us, for the whole world collectively and for each of us individually, is far from nothing. 

In his prayer to the Father on the night of His arrest, Jesus says, “Your Word is truth.” (John 17:17) 

In Old Testament times, the psalmist tells God, “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.” (Psalm 119:105) 

And during Jesus’ ministry, Simon Peter, whose call as an apostle we consider today, tells Jesus: “You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68) 

Truth, guidance, eternal life: These are just a few of the blessings God gives us in His Word. Jesus Christ came into our universe to give us this definitive Word from God. And today, we see that that Word from God brings three major effects to us.

Now, you’re familiar with this incident. Jesus is teaching by the Sea of Galilee, here called the Lake of Gennesaret. It's daylight hours and, because the professional fishermen of Galilee only fish from dusk to dawn, there are two boats on the shore. Jesus climbs into one owned by Simon Peter to continue His teaching. You see, there are a series of craggy inlets around the Sea of Galilee, each forming perfect amphitheaters. This is what allows the large crowd listening to Jesus to hear Him now even though He’s likely speaking in a normal voice. Teaching done, Jesus, tells the professional fisherman Simon Peter, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” (Luke 5:4) Peter knows from years of experience that there will be no catch of fish in the middle of the day. Despite his doubts, Peter paid heed to Jesus’ word because, as Scripture tells us elsewhere, Jesus “taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.” (Matthew 7:29) 

You know what happens next. It’s a miracle at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry with Peter that will later be matched near the end of the resurrected Jesus’ ministry with the apostle (John 21:6): a haul of fish so great that Peter had to call for the boat of James and John to help bring it all in.

It’s here that we see the first effect of the Word from God. The first thing that happens to us when we encounter the Word from God is this: We see God’s sinlessness and we see our sin. 

Peter knows that in Jesus, He is seeing God face to face. Peter tells Jesus, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” (Luke 5:8) 

The Word from God shows all of us how far from God we are, how filled with sin, how unworthy to be in God’s presence, how unloving we are compared to God, how ungracious toward the sins and faults of others. 

I have an idea that’s exactly why so many people avoid listening to God’s Word and try instead to drown it out with the dead and dying things of this world.

But God doesn’t readily give up on us. That’s why Jesus says what He does now to Peter, the very words God has always spoken to those who come into His presence and are both intimidated by His power and overwhelmed by His holy perfection. “Don’t be afraid,” Jesus tells Simon. (Luke 5:10) 

This is the second Word from God we receive from Jesus, "Don't be afraid." 

Jesus is saying: “Yes, Simon; yes, human race; yes, Church, you are sinners and you deserve death and condemnation. There’s a chasm you cannot forge that lies between us. But I am the bridge between God and you. You need not be afraid that your sins will pull you away from My love. You need not fear condemnation.” 

There are many things in this world we might rightly fear: putting God to the test, suffering, causing suffering to others. But we need not be in terror of God. 

God’s Word tells us that, “...there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus…” (Romans 8:1) 

Your sins may convict you, but Jesus, the one to whom you turn in daily repentance and trust, has set you free from sin and death. 

This requires no work or effort on your part. 

You needn’t fear that you’ve failed to take the right steps. (You haven’t and can’t, by the way.) 

You needn’t fear that you’ve not believed enough or done enough. (Again, you haven’t and can’t.) 

On His cross, Jesus has justified, qualified, and sanctified you for life with God, now and always. There, Jesus did all the good, followed all the right steps, taken the perfect path of obedience so that He, though sinless, could absorb all the sin and death of the human race so that we can be set free. 

That’s why Jesus tells Peter, and us, “Don’t be afraid!”

We see a third thing that Jesus’ powerful Word from God does to those who listen to it. Jesus tells Simon Peter, “from now on you will fish for people…” (Luke 5:10) 

After saving us from sin and death in Holy Baptism, creating faith in Christ within us through His Word, and sustaining us on His body and blood in Holy Communion, the third thing the Word from God from Jesus gives us is a whole new life! 

No longer afraid of condemnation, Jesus’ Word gives us a new life, a new reason for living. 

Our mission in life becomes, no less than it became the mission of Simon Peter, to follow Jesus and to fish for people, that is, to share the Word from God so that others can, like us, repent, believe, and have everlasting life with God. Jesus enlists us to share His Word everywhere.

There’s a small group composed of several men from Living Water and another man who’s part of another area congregation. They began meeting together over God’s Word several years ago, at the time we began our discipleship initiative. Even in the pandemic, they found ways to remain connected to God and each other. 

In the past year or so, a friend of two of the men, an unchurched man with no apparent connection to Christ and His Church, learned he had cancer. As the disease grew worse, the two small group members visited their friend, both at the hospital and later, at a hospice care facility. 

At one point, they shared a Christian book, Jesus Calling, with him. Later, during one of their visits, they shared another book, John Eldredge’s All Things New. 

On a subsequent visit, one of the group members asked their friend, “Did you read that book?” 

“Yes,” he said, “I’m counting on it.” 

The group member asked his friend if that meant he was receiving the Word from God that Jesus is Lord and Savior, the One Whose death and resurrection brings the forgiveness of sin and everlasting life with God? “Yes,” their friend said. 

Then they prayed together to declare their Word-given faith in Jesus. Their friend’s mother was there at the time and as the men prayed, she wept tears of joy. 

Three days later, that man died and, I am sure, because of His faith in Jesus and His Word, entered into the everlasting arms of God. 

Friends, Jesus’ Word sets us free to be His agents of grace in the world, to be fishers of people.

The Word from God that comes to us in Jesus is powerful! 

This Word shows us our distance from God and convicts us of our sin and shows us our powerlessness before life and death. 

This word also convinces us that in Jesus Christ, we need not fear condemnation because all who trust in Him have everlasting life with God. 

And this Word gives us an entirely new life, one in which our whole mission, our whole reason for living is changed by our gracious God. We’re empowered to live for the only mission worth living–or dying–for: to be fishers of people, makers of disciples, messengers of God and His love for everyone we meet. 

There is no better way to use the earthly lives God gives to us than that, to be fishers of people! 

May Jesus and His life-giving Word do God’s work in and through us. Amen

AUDIO: The Powerful Word of God!

This is the message from Sunday's worship services with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.

[I'm the pastor of Living Water.]

The Powerful Word of God

[This was shared with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, earlier today.]

Luke 5:1-11

One of the recurring themes in the Bible is the mysterious, life-changing power of the Word of God. The preacher in the New Testament book of Hebrews speaks of this: 

For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account. Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet he did not sin. (Hebrews 4:12-15) 

The Word of God has the power both to lay us open, showing us our sin and limitations, and to give us the new life that God the Son, Jesus, died and rose to make possible for those who believe in Him.

This Word of God, imparted in the Scriptures, the sharing of the Gospel, the fellowship of the Church, and the sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion, creates faith in Christ within us. Not anything we do, only the Word of God. 

This is why the great commission, Jesus’ call to every Christian, to make disciples by sharing the Word of God--the Word of Jesus--is central to who we are as God’s people. Romans 10:13-14 reminds us, 

...'Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’ How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 

Every Christian is called to share the Word, to be a preacher or proclaimer of the Word.

In today’s Gospel lesson, Luke 5:1-11, we see how the Word of God, ultimately Jesus Himself, the Word, God in human flesh, creates faith. 

It takes place back in Capernaum, the setting of last week’s lesson. Take a look at what happens with me now, please.

“One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God.” (Luke 5:1) 

One of the things I’ve learned in doing premarital counseling through the years is that people like hearing the Word of God. 

I’m not talking about the rote recitation of passages of Scripture, though that may sometimes come into play. I’m talking about letting people see the heart of God through our own encounter with God’s Word, including our own personal relationship with Jesus. 

Whether they know it or not, people are hungry for this Word. Peter speaks for others who encounter the Word when he says to Jesus, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68) 

By the Lake of Gennesaret, also known as the Sea of Galilee or the Sea of Tiberias, crowds are hanging on Jesus’ every word. But they’re crowding Jesus, making it hard for everyone to hear.

The lesson goes on: “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.” (Luke 5:2-3) 

On the shore near Capernaum, there is a series of inlets that create natural amphitheaters. Even today, I've read that a person can go out into one of the inlets and, speaking in a normal voice, be heard clearly by people on the shore. Jesus commandeers a boat owned by Simon, the fisherman in whose house He had earlier taught and healed Simon’s mother-in-law and sits down to teach.

Then Luke says: “When he had finished speaking, [Jesus] said to Simon, ‘Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.’” (Luke 15:4) 

Peter was an expert fisherman. He knew that the comb fish, the only large fish that swam in the shoals of these waters, couldn’t be caught in daylight hours. That’s why he and others who fished in this lake went out to do their work at night. 

Now, it’s generally true that only a fool fails to listen to experts. When my mechanic tells me that I need a new part for my car, I usually listen. When my doctor tells me I need a test, I listen. 

Jesus was no expert fisherman, but Simon listened to Jesus anyway. It seems that after hearing and observing Jesus on a few occasions, he’s beginning to think that Jesus is worth listening to and obeying.

Verse 5: “Simon answered, ‘Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.’” 

The word translated as master from the Greek in which Luke wrote his gospel is Ἐπιστάτα (epistata). It can mean things like commander or chief and carries the meaning of someone who has a higher status. Jesus, you’ll remember from last Sunday’s gospel lesson, taught as someone with authority. 

Simon recognizes that authority. But he doesn’t yet seem to fully understand who Jesus is. He understands enough though, to ignore that Jesus is no expert fisherman and simply take Jesus’ word as a command. So the nets are let down.

Verse 6: “When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, ‘Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!’ For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners.”

Listen: Even if you know that because of God’s deathless love for you, Jesus has come to save you from sin and death as a free gift you cannot earn and don’t deserve, encountering Jesus will still always bring with it awe and fear and a sense of the distance between you (or me) and Him. 

• Jesus is perfect; we’re not. 
• Jesus is omnipotent; we’re not. 
• Jesus is eternal; we’re not.
• Jesus is sinless; we’re not. 

No wonder after seeing Jesus command yet another impossible event into being, Simon fell at Jesus’ feet and begged Jesus to go away. Simon knew that as a human being, he had no intrinsic right to stand in Jesus’ presence or even to live.

Don’t you sometimes feel just this way? I know that I do. I read God’s Word or I pray, coming into God’s presence and realize again how unworthy I am of His love or attention or forgiveness I am, how small I am before the Creator of the universe. The Word of God--spoken, enacted, tasted, seen--can do that to us. 

As the preacher in Hebrews reminds us, it can lay us bare before the scrutiny of God and show us that we are wanting, that left to ourselves and our own devices, we are eternally dead in our sins, eternally separated from the God Who loves us and makes us.

But, this same Word can heal us and call us to new life. In Jesus, as that passage from Hebrews about the Word of God I mentioned earlier says, we “have a high priest who is [able] to empathize with our weaknesses,” Who has led a sinless life and died on a cross in order to be able to cover us with His goodness and eternal life. He gives us lives moving in a new direction, an eternal direction, lives infused with His grace and mercy. 

At the end of today’s lesson we read: “Then Jesus said to Simon, ‘Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.’ So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.” (Luke 10b-11)

Friends, the Word of God has come to us again this morning to tell us not to be afraid because Jesus has given us new lives and new missions, new reasons for waking up in the morning and facing the world with hope from Christ. 

No longer do we have to march to the world’s tune; Jesus sets us free to follow Him to life with God. 

No longer do our lives need to be marked by the futility of dying people looking out only for ourselves and our own; grace blows our hearts open to God and to our neighbor. 

Knowing that we are eternally in Christ’s hands, we can concern ourselves with the spiritual and physical needs of our neighbors, including those in our own homes, schools, or places of work.

Simon and the others who left their nets to follow Jesus had no idea what lay ahead. They didn’t yet know the truth that Dietrich Bonhoeffer identified in The Cost of Discipleship: “When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.” 

They didn’t know that the repentance and faith in Jesus that leads to new life which they experienced on the lakeshore that day would be their lifestyle until God raised them to life in eternity. 

The Word of God sets us free to die to concern for ourselves knowing that we have resurrection life with Jesus that cannot be taken from us. 

This Word might also make us willing to commit ourselves to doing things that will bring us little or no apparent benefit, like 

• going to Haiti on mission trips, 
• tutoring at Chevy Chase, 
• participating in Upward Sports, 
• inviting friends to participate in small groups, or 
• constructing a multipurpose facility to welcome the people of our community--the spiritually disconnected, the poor, the poor in spirit, those hungering and thirsting for God's righteousness--to encounter the Word of God, Jesus.

Simon Peter learned (and would have to learn again and again, just like us) that the Word of God, Jesus Himself, gives us new lives, lives with eternal purposes. May we, in the words of The Small Catechism*, always “gladly hear and learn” the Word of God. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

*The Small Catechism is one of the basic statements of the Lutheran Christian understanding of Biblical faith. It appears in The Book of Concord, also known as Concordia.

Why God Doesn't Overwhelm Us

Why does God veil His glory in a crucified Savior? Why doesn’t He just come on strong and overwhelm us like a Super Bowl halftime show?

The simple truth is that we couldn’t handle that kind of revelation of God. Exodus 20, in the Old Testament recounts God giving the Ten Commandments to His people Israel through Moses. It was an event accompanied by stunning signs of God's presence. Just after the giving of the commandments, Exodus says:

When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance, and said to Moses, "You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die." (Exodus 20:18-19)

Human beings in the unveiled presence of God see their distance from God’s holiness, perfection, and power. Instead of overwhelming us, God comes to us in the God-Man Jesus, bringing forgiveness and peace with God to all who believe in Him. It’s Jesus Who makes it possible for us to approach God as our Father and it’s in Jesus’ Name—and not in our own merit or power—that we can come to God in prayer.

Even in Jesus, the suffering servant, though, Peter and others who spent time with Him, saw the almighty, perfect God and their distance from Him. Once, Jesus performed a miraculous sign. Peter was overwhelmed and said, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”

But Jesus never goes away from those who honestly submit to and trust in Him. God is holy and infinitely powerful. But God also loves us. That's why He brings salvation "from below," coming to us as a Servant, rather than from above as a conqueror. It was only as a servant Who dies on a cross that He could take our punishment for sin, conquering sin and death through His servanthood.

The Hunger, the Sign, and the Call

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]

Luke 5:1-11
Today’s Gospel lesson, the scholars tell us, can be divided into three sections. I’ve given the sections names. There’s the hunger, the sign, and the call. I want to talk about each one of those sections with you this morning.

First: the hunger. We see it in the first three verses of the lesson, in which Jesus is by the lake of Gennesaret (another name for the Sea of Galilee), surrounded by crowds wanting to be near Him and to hear Him. They hunger for the Word of God.

At this phase of Jesus’ ministry, we learn, from a few verses at the end of Luke 4, His focus was more on teaching than on giving miraculous signs. He was sharing God’s Word with people. That might not seem very exciting to us. Maybe that’s because our lives and conditions aren’t as desperate as those of the crowds who hungered for God’s Word from Jesus even more desperately than many of us are anticipating a certain football game that’s happening later today.

The longing of these people for the Word of God was as strong of the psalmist who wrote nearly a millennium before Jesus’ birth: “My soul longs, indeed it faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy [or, another translation says, “cry out”] to the living God.”

Often, we go through our lives unaware of our hunger for God. It takes a cataclysmic event for us to realize that, despite all of the things with which we distract ourselves, what we really want and need is God.

The call came to a friend of mine in the middle of the night. It was an old friend he hadn’t seen in years. The friend revealed between sobs that his wife had been diagnosed with cancer. Was there something his pastor friend could say? He wasn’t looking for miracles; just a word from my friend’s experience with God that could help him.

Once I got a similar late-night call from a colleague. “Mark,” he said. “There is something really evil happening in this church. I don’t know what it is. But it’s ugly. People are gossiping about one another. They’re undermining all the good things that God has been doing here. I know that you pray. Would you please pray for us?” That pastor was hungering for the presence and power of God to work in his church.

The crowds that flocked around Jesus hungered for the word of hope, peace, and strength for tough times that only the God we know in Jesus Christ can bring.

God's Word brings us peace, the assurance that God is in our corner.

I’ve learned that when the hunger leads me to God, He always feeds me. Sometimes that’s an insight that leads me to repent for a sin. But even then, the result is the same: the peace of God that, even in the fragmentation and the chaos of life, helps me feel whole. That’s what the crowds hungered for. It’s what we hunger for. We all hunger for the peace of God that assures us of the presence and love of God in our lives.

The next section of our lesson shows us a sign. Jesus tells Simon Peter and the other experienced fishermen with whom he was in business to go out into the deep and let down their nets. Fishermen there always went out trolling for fish at night. They would come back in the mornings after, clean their nets, head home to sleep, and arrive back on shore sometime before dusk to do it all again.

Simon Peter, a professional fisherman, knew that the fish were swimming so far down in the sea that he and the others couldn’t possibly snag any fish if they lowered their nets again. Yet, when Jesus told them to do so, they took their boats out into the deep and lowered their nets just because Jesus said that they should.

When Peter saw that their boats nearly sank from the haul of fish, he fell at Jesus’ knees and gave Jesus worship. Peter became aware of his sins and of his unworthiness to stand in the presence of One so holy and powerful, Someone He would come to know was not just a man, but also God.

Jesus didn’t leave Peter, even when Peter begged Jesus to go away. He won’t leave you either! Christ’s promise is the same for all who, like Peter, dare to trust Him even when it may not make sense to us, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” Never!

Sometimes it’s only when we venture into the deep places of life, trying things for God that we may feel sure that we cannot do, making ourselves of service to others in Jesus’ Name, or submitting ourselves to Him when calamity strikes and we know how helpless we truly are, that you and I are ready to see and trust in Christ.

Against their better judgment, at Jesus’ command, Peter and the other disciples launched out into the deep, saw God do wonderful things through them, and in Jesus, found themselves in the presence of God Himself. God wants us to have the same experience every day!

But, of course, signs don’t point to themselves. When you pass a billboard on Hunter Street after worship today, it’s unlikely that any of them will have a message like, “I’m a sign. Look at me.” Signs point beyond themselves. That will be true any time you and I see signs of God’s presence and activity in our lives. It was certainly true of the sign Jesus gave when he filled the nets of Peter and the other fishermen with an enormous catch.

That brings us to the final section of today’s lesson: the call. When Simon Peter realized Jesus’ greatness, He fell at Jesus’ feet and begged Jesus to to go away. Our lesson says, “Then Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.’ When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.”

Now, that phrase translated in our Gospel lesson “left everything” is, in the original Greek of the New Testament, “aphentes panta.” The first word, in its root form, is a word we’ve talked about several times in sermons and Sunday School classes: aphiemi. Literally, it means release or let go. It’s also one of the commonest New Testament words for forgiveness. When we repent and God forgives us of our sins, we are released from the eternal debt we owe to God. When we forgive others, we release them from guilt and we release ourselves from the imprisonment of self-righteousness.

In our Gospel lesson, Simon Peter, James, and John let go of all things to follow Jesus. At the same time, they were released from their bondage to all things in order to follow Jesus.

I once heard a fellow tell about putting together an elaborate play set for his kids. It took him the better part of a day. The instructions were something like twenty pages long. When he finished, on the last page, he noted additional instructions that advised that moving parts should be lubricated every three weeks and all bolts and screws should be checked and tightened weekly. As the spent father read these parting words, a question crossed his mind: “Did he own this play set or now, with all of the maintenance it supposedly required, did it own him?”

How many things—not just sinful things, but otherwise innocent, good things—have us imprisoned? What do we need to release—let go of—in order to heed the call of Jesus to follow?

Our following won’t likely mean that we will have to become itinerant preachers like Simon, James, and John. But Jesus calls us to follow, too. And while that call will release us from enslavement to sin or ventures of secondary importance, it will also call us to do things we might rather not do sometimes.

In first century Judea where Jesus lived, the sea was a dark, foreboding place, even for fishermen who earned their livelihoods from it. The sea conjured up images of the chaos that the Old Testament book of Genesis says existed before God created the heavens and the earth. There, a churning deadly sea was the stuff to which God gave order and peace and life. To God’s people, the sea was a deadly place full of evil and monsters they called leviathan. When Jesus told Peter--and us, “From now on you will be catching people,” He was really giving us our mission as Christians.

After releasing us from sin and futility, Jesus calls us to go into the deep places of life: the places where people work and play, the places they go for employment counseling and looking for jobs or food, the places where they laugh and mourn, the places where they know success and failure, where they struggle with problems and challenges. And it’s into these places that Christ commissions us to fish our friends, neighbors, and family members out of chaos and place them into the waiting arms of the Savior Who died and rose to give all who believe in Him new life that lasts forever. We’re to be the open arms of God, letting all know about Jesus Christ.

And Jesus wants our nets to be teeming! He wants this sanctuary to be filled each Sunday with people hungry for God's Word. You “will be catching people,” Jesus tells His Church, including our church.

On April 6, 2000, Ricky and Tony Sexton were taken hostage in their own Wytheville, Virginia home. A fugitive couple on a crime spree roared into the Sexton’s driveway as Tony stood outside with her dog. Brandishing pistols, Dennis Lewis and Angela Tanner ordered Tony back into the house.

Once inside, the Sextons did something utterly unexpected: They demonstrated Christ's love to their captors. They listened to Dennis and Angela's problems, served them dinner, read to them from God's Word, and even prayed for them and cried with them. During negotiations with the police, Ricky Sexton refused his own release when Lewis and Tanner suggested that they might end their standoff by committing suicide. But the whole thing came to an unusual end: Before surrendering to police, Angela Tanner left $135 and a note for the Sextons that read: “Thank you for your hospitality. We really appreciate it. I hope [Dennis] gets better. Wish all luck and love. Please accept this. It really is all we have to offer. Love, Angela and Dennis.”

Sometimes we wade into the deep chaos of our fallen world. Sometimes it comes through our front doors, unbidden. But no matter what our circumstances, our call to fish for people for Jesus Christ remains the same. Ricky and Tony Sexton knew that. So do we.

God wants our nets to be full. He wants our church to be full! That can happen when we feed others’ hunger with God’s Word; when we allow ourselves to be signs of Jesus’ presence through our service and our love; and when we go fishing, asking others to join us as we follow Jesus.

From Epiphany to Purpose

[This message was shared during worship celebrations with the people of Friendship Lutheran Church, Amelia, Ohio on February 3 and 4, 2007.]

Luke 5:1-11
Today’s Bible lesson, the scholars tell us, can be divided into three sections. I’ve given them names:

• the hunger,
• the sign,
• the call.

I want to talk about each one with you.

First: the hunger. We see it in the first three verses of the lesson. Read it out loud with me, would you?

Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.

At this phase of Jesus’ ministry, we learn, from a few verses at the end of Luke 4, that His focus was more on teaching than on giving miraculous signs. He was sharing God’s Word with people. That might not seem very exciting to us. Maybe that’s because our lives and conditions aren’t as desperate as those of the crowds who hungered for God’s Word from Jesus even more desperately than many of us are anticipating a certain football game that’s happening this weekend.

Sometimes, it takes a cataclysmic event for us to realize that we hunger for God.

The call came to a pastor friend of mine in the middle of the night. It was an old friend he hadn’t seen in years. The friend revealed between sobs that his wife had been diagnosed with cancer. The prognosis wasn’t good. Was there something his pastor friend could say? He wasn’t looking for miracles. Just a word from God that could help him.

Once I got a call from a colleague. “Mark,” he said. “There is something really evil happening in this church. I don’t know what it is. But it’s ugly. People are gossiping about one another. They’re undermining all the good things that God has been doing here. I know that you pray. Would you please pray for us?” That pastor was hungering for the presence and power of God to work in his church.

The crowds that flocked around Jesus hungered for the word of hope, of peace, of strength for tough times that only the God we know in Jesus Christ can bring.

I’ve found that stress has, at three different junctures of my life, afflicted me in major ways. My body reacted so badly during one of these episodes twenty-two years ago, that I was taken to a hospital emergency room with a suspected heart attack. It came at a time when there were eleven people from the congregation I then served in various hospitals from Fort Wayne, Indiana to Ann Arbor, Michigan. My wife also just had our second child. But, believing that I was super-pastor, I agreed to visit a man from another parish who was in the Cardiac Care Unit of a hospital in Toledo.

While visiting that man, I became hot and weak. My face turned red. The nurses in the CCU told me they feared I was having a heart attack. I thought, "Then it's good I'm in the cardiac unit." But they threw me onto a gurney and took me down to the ER. There, they gave me an antihistamine, a medicine that always hits me like a tranquilizer dart. Then, they gave me a shot of adrenaline. Then, shaking all over, they told me, "Okay, Mr. Daniels, you can drive the forty miles back home." It was all caused by stress!

But each time stress has overtaken me, the cure has been the same: I call on God and to remember Jesus’ promise: “I am with you always, even to the close of the age.”

Or I remember the fantastic words of the joy-filled twenty-third Psalm:

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;
he restores my soul.
He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil;
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff— they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.

God's Word brings us peace, the assurance that God is in our corner.

I’ve learned that when the hunger leads me to God, He always feeds me blessings. Sometimes that’s an insight that leads me to repent for a sin. But even then, the result is the same: the peace of God that, even in the fragmentation and the chaos of life, helps me feel whole. That’s what the crowds hungered for. That’s what we hunger for.

The next section of our lesson shows us a sign. Would you read the next few verses with me?

When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”

Peter, a professional fisherman, knew that the fish were swimming so far down in the sea that he and the others couldn’t possibly snag any fish if they lowered their nets again. Yet they did lower them because Jesus said that they should.

When Peter saw that their boats nearly sank from the haul of fish, he fell at Jesus’ knees and gave Jesus worship. Peter became aware of his sins and of his unworthiness to stand in the presence of God. But Jesus didn’t leave Peter, even when he begged Jesus to go away. He won’t leave you either!

Sometimes it’s only when we venture into the deep, trying things for God that we may feel sure that we can’t do, making ourselves of service to others in Jesus’ Name, that we really see Christ.

I love being in the community and hearing reports about the good things that the people of Friendship do. It happened again on Friday. I was talking with the director of the West Clermont Unit of our Clermont County Boys and Girls Club. He told me how much he appreciated a member of our congregation who does a lot to help out. “Tim T.,” he told me, “is a fantastic person!” I agreed!

Against their better judgment, at Jesus’ command, Peter and the other disciples launched out into the deep, saw God do wonderful things through them, and in Jesus, found themselves in the presence of God Himself. God wants us to have the same experience every day!

We’ve talked about the hunger and the sign. That brings us to the final section of today’s lesson: the call. Read again with me, please:

For [Peter] and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.”

In first century Judea, the sea was a dark, foreboding place, even for fishermen who earned their livelihoods from it. The sea conjured up images of the chaos that the Old Testament book of Genesis says existed before God created the heavens and the earth. There, a churning deadly sea--Genesis calls it “the deep”--was the stuff to which God gave order and peace and life. To God’s people, the sea was a deadly place full of evil and monsters they called leviathan. When Jesus told Peter--and us, “From now on you will be catching people,” He was really giving us our mission as Christians.

We’re to go into the deep places of life...

• the places where people work and play,
• where they laugh and mourn,
• where they know success and failure,
• where they struggle with problems and challenges...

and we're to fish them out of chaos, into the waiting arms of the Savior Who died and rose to give all who believe in Him new life that lasts forever. We’re to be the open arms of God, letting all know about Jesus Christ.

And Jesus wants our nets to be teeming! He wants this sanctuary to be filled each weekend with people who, just like us, are...

• hungry for the Word of God;
• anxious to see and experience Jesus’ presence; and
• because of His goodness and grace, willing to push themselves into the deep to tell the whole world about Christ.

You “will be catching people,” Jesus tells His Church, including our church. In other words, "You will be my witnesses."

On April 6, 2000, Ricky and Tony Sexton were taken hostage in their own Wytheville, Virginia home. A fugitve couple on a crime spree roared into the Sexton’s driveway as Tony stood outside with her dog. Brandishing pistols at Tony, Dennis Lewis and Angela Tanner ordered her back into the house.

Once inside, the Sextons did something utterly unexpected: They demonstrated Christ's love to their captors. They listened to Dennis and Angela's problems, served them dinner, read to them from God's Word, and even prayed for them and cried with them.

During negotiations with the police, Ricky Sexton refused his own release when Lewis and Tanner suggested that they might end their standoff by committing suicide. But the whole thing came to an unusual end: Before surrendering to police, Angela Tanner left $135 and a note for the Sextons that read: “Thank you for your hospitality. We really appreciate it. I hope [Dennis] gets better. Wish all luck and love. Please accept this. It really is all we have to offer. Love, Angela and Dennis.”

Sometimes we wade into the deep chaos of our fallen world.

Sometimes it comes through our front doors, unbidden.

But no matter what our circumstances, our call to fish for people for Jesus Christ remains the same. Ricky and Tony Sexton knew that. So do we.

God wants our nets to be full. He wants our church to be full. That will happen...

• when we feed others’ hunger with God’s Word;
• when we allow ourselves to be signs of Jesus’ presence through our service and our love; and when we go fishing, asking others to join us as we follow Jesus.

Friendship is already well known in this community for being a serving church. I pray that we will be known too, as a fishing church, a witnessing church, that never tires of calling others to believe in Jesus, the one true hope for all people.

[The true story of Rick and Tony Sexton came from The Roanoke Times, April 8, 2000 edition, and is presented in Perfect Illustrations for Every Topic and Occasion.]