Let's be turning to Luke chapter
5. Luke here begins to show us the
sovereign grace and power of our God and that seen, the whole
Godhead seen bodily in Christ. We see this in Christ. Now, this
is the beginning of our Lord's ministry still, this is still
early on, and we're finding that there's no conventional wisdom
of man that's seen in how he goes about building his church,
or how he saves his people from their sins. There's nothing of
the wisdom of man, of the power or the strength of man. Now Luke
captures for us the popularity of Christ at this time which
was growing among the people. We see him speaking and they
follow him. They're drawn by the authority
and the power of his words. They're drawn to him as he heals
the people of their diseases. And they're drawn to him as he
casts out the unclean spirit of this world from his people. And this is our Lord doing this
work. And this is the time now where
Luke records the calling of the disciples. We have here the calling
of Peter, and likely of Andrew also, though he's not mentioned
by Luke, and of John and of James. Now the way our Lord calls his
people and how he assembles his church is that very outline. The Lord speaks and when he gives
his word he comes with authority and power and he heals us of
our diseases. which are the product of our
sin. It speaks to the fact that we
are sinners fallen in Adam. And he casts out the unclean
spirit of this world from us, delivering us and severing us
from the love of this world, the lust of the eyes, the lust
of the flesh, and the pride of life. He does this by his grace
and power, by his spirit, by his authority, by his blessed
word. And my hope in bringing this
message is that we, brethren, would be comforted and encouraged
and inspired by the grace and power of our Lord. Though we
ourselves are weak, though we ourselves have nothing to boast
in or glory in of ourselves, we don't have what it takes to
save a soul. We can't even save ourselves. We can't build a church. We can
do nothing of ourselves, but we see the grace and power of
our Lord effectually working in the midst of His people, establishing
His word, establishing His church, bringing His people, gathering
them together to feed His sheep, to comfort us with the words
of His grace in Christ. Now, this is a historical event
here. It really happened, but there's
an allegory in it. It's giving us a picture of the
work that our Lord does in his church. It gives us a picture
of the ministry of the word, the ministry of the church here
in the earth. First, we see in Luke chapter
5, we see there's a need. There's a need for the ministration
of the Word of God. The people need the Word of our
God. We need the power and grace of
our God to bless us, because we're darkness. We're lost. We don't know how to save ourselves. We don't know how to please God.
We see how man comes to God. He comes to God in the form of
religion, in the form of ceremony, in the form of works, in the
form of sacrificing this thing and putting away that thing and
doing this for the Lord. That's not salvation. Christ
Jesus is the salvation of His people. He is the very salvation
of God for His people. And He's got to make us to know
that because we don't know that by nature. We don't know that
by this flesh. We don't know that by wisdom
or by works. It's by the grace and power of
God that comes mightily and knocks over this flesh, knocks over
the wisdom of man and tears down the righteous things that man
thinks he's doing. and delivers us from sanctifying
ourselves and delivers us into the arms of Christ. That's where
we need to be in the redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
so we see here right off the bat, there's a need for the ministry
of the word. And therefore there's a need
for the church because that's how the Lord ministers his word
to his people. He sends his word out and seeks
out the lost, seeks out the sinner. This word is for sinners. This
word is not for the righteous. They won't hear it. They reject
it. This word is for you that are sinners who have offended
holy God. This word is good news for the
sinner who cannot save themselves. Now we're told in Luke 5 verse
1, it came to pass that as the people pressed upon him, upon
Jesus of Nazareth, to hear the word of God, he stood by the
lake of Gennesaret. When Christ came and spoke There
was a need. It uncovered the need that the
people had. They had never heard anything
like this. When he spoke, there was power.
There was authority, unlike what they were hearing in the synagogue.
When they went in their form of religion, in their repetition
of religion, they didn't hear this word. They didn't know they
had this need until he spoke. And then they had a hunger and
a thirst for righteousness, which was formed in them by His grace
and power. When you hear the gospel, you
come in dead and in darkness. We don't bring anything but sin.
We don't bring anything that God says, well, they've done
pretty good this week. I think I'll bless them. I think
I'll give them a little something. No, we don't bring anything.
If we deserve anything, it's the judgment of God. But God
graciously blesses his people with the word of grace and brings
it powerfully into their hearts. To show them their need of Christ. To show us that's what I need
is the Lord Jesus Christ. I need His salvation. I need
grace. I need forgiveness. I need deliverance. And I don't know how to save
myself. I don't know how to do this. Because we would go about
it just doing religious ceremonies. And trying to save ourselves.
So there's a hunger and a thirst created. And that's what our
Lord teaches the people. He shows blessed Are they that
hunger and thirst for righteousness? For they shall be filled. And that's what our Lord does
when he speaks to the heart of a sinner. He creates that hunger
in us and he creates that thirst that says, Lord, I need your
grace. I didn't think I did, but now
I see that I need your grace, and I need your forgiveness.
I need your salvation. He does this. The need is born,
and it's not born by us, or worked by us, or strengthened by us. It's all by the grace of our
God in Christ. Paul tells us that faith cometh
by hearing, and that by the hearing of the word of God. We need to
hear what God has done through His Son. That's the hearing of
faith. It's declaring what Jesus Christ by Himself has done to
save His people from their sins. We're told also in Galatians
that the Spirit of God is ministered to the people of God by that
same hearing of faith. He said it this way in Galatians
3.5, he therefore that ministereth to you the spirit and worketh
miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law? Is
it by me telling you what you need to do for God? How that
you need to keep the law and how you need to do this and stop
doing that to save yourselves? Or is the spirit ministered to
you by the hearing of faith? What does that mean? The hearing
of faith. It's the declaration of what
Christ Himself has done graciously to save whom He will by His grace
and power. Apart from our works, apart from
us deserving it, it's what our Savior has done when His people
were in utter darkness, utter foolishness, just completely
cut off from the true and living God and what He did to save His
people from their sins. And by that word, we hear what
He's done, what our God has done to save me, a sinner. And He
forms faith in the heart that hears Christ and believes the
Lord Jesus Christ, and has no confidence in the flesh, but
trusts Christ, believes Him. And His people are made jealous
for this word. Once you've heard grace, that's
what you want to hear. Once He has healed you of your
sin and your disease, that is what you want to hear, is that
ointment, that healing, cooling, refreshing ointment of what Christ
has done. You want to hear the blood of
Christ and how that He saved me from my sins. The prophet
Isaiah, taught of the Spirit of God, said, comfort ye, comfort
ye my people, saith your God. The true and living God, who
is holy and righteous and perfect, says to us who are sinful and
wicked and dead in trespasses and sins, he says, I have a comforting
word for you that are sinners, for you that have no righteousness. For you that know that you have
offended holy God, I have a comforting word for you. He said, speak
ye comfortably to Jerusalem and cry unto her that her warfare
is accomplished. Not can be accomplished if only
you do this or that. No, it's accomplished. The warfare
is done. Cry to her that her iniquity
is pardoned. Not can be pardoned. Not will
be if only. but is pardoned. Cry to her that
she hath received, past tense, of the Lord's hand double for
all her sins. The Gospel declares not what
you and I need to do for God to save ourselves. The Gospel,
the reason why it's good news, is it declares it's already been
obtained. It's already yours by the Lord
Jesus Christ and what He has done. And through that message,
the foolishness of preaching Christ crucified, what he did
to redeem his people is how God forms that faith in the heart.
He bears that fruit that says, wait a minute, the works are
finished? Yes, finished from before the foundation of the
world, before you or I did any good or evil, Christ. had a people given to him by
the Father and he agreed and promised to come and to save
them from their sins, to put away our sins forever. It's an
accomplished work. It's an accomplished redemption.
It's good news because it's finished. There's nothing left hanging
over my head to do. Because if it's left to me, I
can tell you right now, as your pastor, I would plunge to hell
because there's nothing I can do to save myself. If there's
anything left for me to do, I'm a dead man. I'm a ruined man. I am forever separated from the
true and living God because one thing I am by nature is a rebel,
a sinner, a vile creature. And so are you. That's what the
Lord says. We all have been struck with
this same plague, this same plague of sin upon every one of us.
We're all ruined in Adam, destroyed and defiled. But our God has
good news for the sinner. He sent His Son, Jesus Christ,
and Him crucified so that the sins have been put away once
and for all. once and for all by one offering
he hath perfected past tense forever them that are sanctified
past tense Christ did it Christ did the whole work the works
were finished from the foundation of the world Hebrews 4 3 and
so this is the good news not what you better start doing and
you better stop doing this you and I can't do it we can't do
it perfectly We'll run from a time and we'll puff ourselves up and
think we've done something. And in reality, all we've done
is nothing. Nothing but increase the anger
and wrath of God against ourselves for thinking that we can do something
and despising the grace of God revealed in his son, Jesus Christ. And so sinners who have heard
this word, this is what we need. This is what we hunger and thirst
for. This is the cool refreshing waters for our soul is what Christ
has done. Now the place where the Lord's
people are going to hear this message is today. He's given
this word this ministry to the church. This is the ministry
to preach Christ to the people. It says there the Lake Gennesaret
there in verse 1 that's a type of the whole world. This lake
is a picture of this world right here. Verse 2 says Christ saw
two ships standing by the lake but the fishermen were gone out
of them and were washing their nets. What are these ships? These
ships are a type of the church in the world. And there's not
just one. There's a lot of local churches
in the world. There's a lot of local churches
there. And our Lord sees right where each one of his ships are
going to be. He determines beforehand where
they're going to be, when they're going to be there. And there's
not a ready-made pastor there. No one's in the ship. There's
nothing there. But the Lord knows. He knows where He's going to
bring His man from and He'll put him there. And He'll gather
the people together there where they'll be ministered the Spirit
through the hearing of faith. Through the hearing of faith.
Can any of you imagine when you were little that this is where
you would be? No. But the Lord has done it. He's
gathered you together this day here to hear this Word. To hear
what Christ has done for his people, and he plants that word
with his gospel. And he raises up a pastor, and
he gathers together the people for this food, for this ministry,
for this healing and help that we need. God has done this in
grace. And what we see in all this is
that the work is the Lord's. It's not our doing. We see a
lot of works around that are of men's doing. but this is of
the Lord's doing and He gathers together the weak and the feeble
and those that don't have a lot and those that aren't too bright
and those that make mistakes left and right and have all kinds
of problems but it pleases the Lord to take the weak and the
feeble in the flesh that He would receive all the glory for what
He's done because we don't have anything to boast of we don't
have anything to say look at me and what I've done The Lord
graciously has gathered together this people and feeds you this
word of His grace, because He will be gracious to whom He will
be gracious." And so it's a work of grace. It's a work of His
power. The psalmist said it this way,
to put it in perspective. He said, except the Lord build
the house, they that labor in vain that build it. And except
the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh in vain. Because the one
moment when we take our eye off of it, that's when the enemy
will come charging through. But it's all of the grace of
God, and he makes us to know that, and he makes us to rejoice
in that very truth. And so the Lord does this. He
builds it. And when will this ship do that
which its purpose to do? When Christ enters it. When Christ
enters it, that's when this ship becomes a ship. Verse 3, Luke
5, 3. And he entered into one of the
ships, which was Simon's, and prayed him that he would thrust
out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the
people out of the ship. Obviously, the ship was not a
little dingy, but it was a little higher. It was a good-sized boat,
and he was a little bit up there so the people could all see him.
And I don't know how they heard him any better, but his voice
is able. His voice is able, and they heard him speak. And they
heard declared to them the grace of God. And he entered that ship,
and they pushed off from the land because his kingdom is not
of this world. And he taught the people there.
He taught the people, making them to know the true and living
God. Everywhere he went, we see him declaring and revealing the
Father to us. And everywhere we hear him speak
throughout all the Gospels here, it's always contrary to what
man was thinking. Man's heart was set on religious
form, religious works, doing this, doing that, not eating
this, eating that, and yet we see the Lord contrary to everything
that we think. And so it's a blessing. We need
his word. And so he makes us to know that
our God is not approached with the things that we do. In fact,
let's look at an example. Go to John 6. John 6. You'll notice this message in
John 6 is very similar to what he preached in Nazareth when
he declared the grace of God to the people and they turned
against him. In John chapter 6 in verse 35,
this is just one example of many. But Jesus said unto them, I am
the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. In other words, once you've heard
that Christ is salvation and that He has satisfied the Father
already by Himself, you're not hungering or looking for another
Savior. You're not looking for what you need to be doing. You're
resting in Christ. But I said unto you, that ye
also have seen me, and believed not. All that the Father giveth
me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no
wise cast out." And what he's saying there is, Those whom the
Father has given to me will be manifested through the preaching
of His grace. Declaring that Christ is salvation,
the Spirit will manifest faith in the heart of the sinner who
was given by the Father to Christ before the foundation of the
world. they'll hear, they'll rejoice. Will there be people
that are upset? Will there be people that leave? Yes. Yes, it happens. It happens
in everybody. But those whom the Lord is gathering,
they'll stay, and fruit will be born in them, believing Christ. He manifests it through grace.
That's how he manifests it, and it's all of his work. For I came,
verse 38, I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but
the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father's will
which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me, I should
lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And he's declaring there that
God has a people. When someone doesn't believe,
it's not because Christ failed. When someone dies in their sins,
it's not because Christ couldn't save them or that he failed.
Christ is not a failure. Christ is the successful Savior.
And all whom he shed his blood for, they are delivered from
darkness. They will have faith manifest
in them. They will come under the grace
of God and be gathered together with his people and fed this
blessed word. because he's able, he's sovereign,
almighty God and salvation is of the Lord. It's his work and
he does not fail. All whom the Father gave him
shall come to him and all who come to him he will never cast
out. We're always looking for some fleshly work and we're looking
for evidences and the evidence is the Lord's. It's faith in
Christ. And he brings forth that fruit
of confession, saying, Lord, I'm the sinner. Lord, I don't
know how to save myself. But I keep hearing of Christ.
And I keep hearing of his grace. And I keep hearing how you receive
sinners. Lord, save me. Save me. That's
all the fruit of his spirit, not the fruit of this flesh.
The flesh is enmity against God. The flesh hates God. The flesh
is happy to do, do, do. But the flesh never rests, because
there's no rest for the wicked. They're just mire cast up in
a choppy sea. But you that are the lords are
brought to be settled in Christ and to rest in him. Yeah, when
you look at this flesh, all you see is sin, and mire, and dirt,
and filth, but you hear Christ, and you believe Him, and you
rest in Him, and you keep coming to the Lord in Christ, because
that's His grace and power working mightily in you, and what separates
you from the world is just continuing in Christ and resting in Him.
And so, He teaches us people. We see this over and over where
the Lord speaks of grace and how by that message of grace
he separates out his people. And he brings that division between
them of the Father given him and those of the world that are
not his. All by that gracious word because the flesh hates
grace. The flesh wants the glory in its works. What he knows or
what he's done. But the Lord will not receive
any who come boasting in their own works. He receives us only
in Christ. He is our salvation. In verse
41 we see it, The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am
the bread which came down from heaven. And they said, Is not
this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?
How is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven? In other
words, so long as man's hearing of the flesh and what he's done,
he's happy and content. But as soon as he hears of Christ
and how he saves his people and saves whom he will by his grace
and power, that's where man gets offended and driven away. Driven
away. But God will be glorified. In
the children, in his children, he'll be glorified. All who trust
their free will to save them are trusting a lie and shall
die in their sins. We're not saved by the free will
of man. We're saved by the free grace
of God to deliver us from that darkness. We're in bondage to
sin. We love darkness, but God is
gracious to call all his people out of that lie and out of that
darkness and bring us into the light of Christ. And so Christ
sits in the ship and he teaches the people these words and they
press to hear him and are saved by his sovereign grace and power.
Now what follows here is an example of that very word. The Lord teaches
us that word and we preach this word. We see verse four, when
he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, launch out into the
deep and let down your nets for a draft. The net is the gospel.
This is the very gospel that we are to preach. what Christ
has done, what He's accomplished to save sinners from their sins,
to preach Christ crucified, and to preach that God has raised
Him from the dead to declare the justification of all who
hope in Him and believe Him. to comfort you, to give you peace,
and to settle you, so that we're not just going to and fro and
running around in religion, fearful and afraid to die, wondering
if we've done enough, because we've never done enough. Christ
is enough. Christ is the Savior. He is sufficient. And so he did this work of grace.
And that's where the draft of sinners is brought in, through
the preaching of the gospel, that same gospel of grace. And
He's gonna make us to know this is the Lord's work. Because this
message is despised by the flesh. It's hated by the flesh. To know
what Christ has done. To know that my works count for
nothing. That it's all of His grace and power. That He receives
all the glory, the honor, and the praise. This is the Lord's
work. Simon verse 5 answering said
unto him master we've toiled all night and have taken nothing
nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net right the Lord
teaches us he makes us to know it's a patient work because he's
making us to know it's his grace it's his work And we're going
to know our weakness. We're going to know our infirmity.
We're going to know that the power is not of us. Lest our
head swell with pride. And we have confidence in the
flesh. No, we're going to see failure. We're going to know
disappointment. We're going to know trouble. Because we're going
to find that the thorn of the flesh is for my good. Because
when I'm weak, then I'm strong in Christ. Trust in him. Verse
six and seven, when they had done this, they enclosed a great
multitude of fishes in their net break. And they beckoned
unto their partners which were in the other ship, that they
should come and help them. And they came and filled both
ships so that they began to sink. And so we see that the physical
things we can see are stressed, they're weak, they're breaking,
they're sinking, that's us. We're the incompetent part. We're
the weak part of the whole thing. God doesn't need means, but he
chooses to use them, and you're gonna see the weakness of those
means. You're gonna see our weakness.
We're gonna know our infirmity. We're gonna have times where
we suffer and are brought low in ourselves to see and to know
that all the grace and power is of the Lord, and it'll be
for our good. We'll give him thanks for it,
and we do give him thanks for it. And it says there, after
that, well, 1 Corinthians 1, 21 through 24, Paul writes, for
after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew
not God. It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. You want to see a weak
thing? It's preaching. It's me standing
up here. declaring to you what great things
God has done. Because the flesh despises it,
and man doesn't want to hear it, but by the grace of God.
By the grace of God. And it's to set us down, it's
to close our mouths so that we're not both talking and each one
thinking about what they're going to say when the other one finishes
what they're saying. No, it's just to let us hear
what the Lord himself has done for his people. And to keep us
silent before him. For the Jews require a sign,
and the Greeks seek after wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified
unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness.
But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ
the power of God and the wisdom of God. And so the instruments
that the Lord uses, this guy here, is just a useless, worthless
tool. an empty vessel that has nothing
to give to you. But by the grace of God, he feeds
you, not with anything from me, but of his grace and power. Minister
to his sheep whom he loves and whom he's gathered together to
feed you and to comfort you this day in Christ, in Christ Jesus. And so we see these experienced
fishermen and these men with their talents could do nothing,
not They labored all night and brought forth nothing until Christ
entered the ship and said, drop your net. And then the draft
of fishes came in. Then they hauled in that great
haul of fishes. And when Peter saw it, verse
8 and 9, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, depart from me,
for I am a sinful man, O Lord. For he was astonished. And all
that were with him at the draft of the fishes which they had
take him. Peter was convicted by his unbelief. We're going to see our unbelief,
we're going to see our weakness, we're going to see how we come
up short and yet in spite of us, to the glory and praise of
his name, he works his grace in the hearts of his people and
he brings them out of darkness together to feed them with his
people. Peter knew this man, this Jesus,
is in control of all things. The seas are under his control.
Whether he knew where the fish would be or he brought the fish
there, I don't know. But if he knows that, then surely,
Peter said, he knew what I was thinking. And I thought he was
wrong. I didn't believe him at all.
And so he knows my heart and my unbelief and my doubts and
my fears. And yet here he is in the presence
of his sinful people who have nothing to give to him. who have
nothing to give back to him and can give him nothing but trouble,
that's all we bring, and yet here he is being gracious to
us. And so the Lord graciously, powerfully,
in wisdom teaches us that without me, he can do nothing. And I can do all things through
Christ which strengtheneth me. And it's good for me to be weak.
It's good for me to die in this outward man to perish and to
weaken and to become less and less and less because it's for
our good. Because more and more we glorify
and exalt the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's the food of your heart. That's the food and the drink
that we need is Christ himself. Verse 10 and 11, And so was also
James and John, the sons of Zebedee, which were partners with Simon.
And Jesus said unto Simon, Fear not, I know what you are, I know
that you are a sinner, and that you are weak and doubting, I
know who you are. Fear not, from henceforth thou
shalt catch men. And when they had brought their
ships to land, they forsook all and followed him. And so we see
here, this is all of the Lord's grace. It's for your good. And He's chosen to bless you
this day in the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom are all the spiritual
blessings of God in heavenly places in Him, in Christ. We never outgrow Christ. We don't
ever want to outgrow Christ. We need Christ ever and the Lord
by His grace will keep us ever before Him lest we should be
as many who departed and went away. It's grace that keeps you. It's grace that brought you and
it's grace that keeps you and so I pray that We continue to
be encouraged to seek our God, knowing that he's in the work.
It's his ship, keep trusting him, keep believing him, and
that we seek him for this. And rejoice in the souls that
he's gathered here together, and trust that he'll continue
to gather together his people. I pray you bless that word to
our hearts, amen.