Simon and Andrew toiled all night and caught nothing. As they cleaned their dirty, empty nets on the shore with the rising sun, embarrassment hit them. Not one fish was there to bring home for breakfast! “What was all that work for anyway?” they must have thought.

It must have been even more embarrassing when Jesus came along and asked them to go back out to the deep waters and let down their nets for a catch. “Are you kidding me?” they might have thought. “What does this Rabbi know about fishing? Should we tell him that he’s crazy?”

“Master, we toiled all night and caught nothing,” Simon admitted. After a brief moment of hesitancy, even resistance, came the infamous words… “But…”

“But at your word, I will let down the nets.”

I’ve always loved this scene in Luke 5. I used to think that this was Simon’s first encounter with Jesus. However, in John 1:40-42, we find out that Andrew brings his brother Simon to Jesus shortly after his baptism, exclaiming, “WE HAVE FOUND THE MESSIAH!” In their first encounter, Jesus changes Simon’s name to Cephas, or Peter. Shortly after, in Luke 4:38-39, before the fishing incident, we read that Jesus went to Simon Peter’s house and healed his mother-in-law!

By the time we get to this miracle on the lake of Gennesaret, Peter was calling Jesus “Master,” and rightly so.

When Peter obeyed the word of his Master and set out to let his nets down a second time, they became so full they began to rip! Peter and Andrew had to call for their buddies James and John to help because their little boat was sinking!

This was the second miracle that Peter had witnessed, and it brought him to his knees. “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord,” he said. Look at how Jesus responds: “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.”

This word is fulfilled when, in one day, in one sermon on Pentecost, Peter preaches the Gospel and over 3000 are saved and baptized in the name of Jesus. This was a work of the Holy Spirit. 

We catch men by grace, so that those we catch for Christ might also live by grace. We don’t want to travel over land and sea to make disciples of striving, religion, and rules. We cannot argue or reason people into believing. That feels much like Peter and Andrew working all night to catch nothing. Rather, we are recipients and participants in the grace of God in Christ Jesus, and it’s by the Holy Spirit we want to bring others into this miraculous catch!

When the disciples brought their fish-filled boats to shore… shockingly, “they left everything and followed Jesus.” Wow! The biggest catch of their lives—so much money! They walked away from it all.

Because when you find something amazing, when you find a hidden treasure in a field, or a pearl of great price in the market, you sell everything to get it.

Conceit or pride in oneself, one’s ways, one’s accomplishments, or even one’s traditions or knowledge, can be an enemy of grace and hinder us from wholly following Jesus. Peter, as a lifelong fisherman, could have mocked Jesus’s command to cast the nets again. But “at Jesus’s word,” Peter was willing to give up his own way, his own experience and knowledge, humble himself, and witness a miracle. But an even bigger miracle than the boatload of fish was Peter’s transformation from fisherman to fisher of men, from Simon to Cephas.

Have you been striving lately? Are your nets empty? Are you tired and burdened? 

Jesus is calling you from a life of striving into a life of grace and eternal purpose. In one moment, he can change your whole life, even your name, but are you willing to give up your way to do it his way? Are you willing to do whatever he asks you? 

Sell everything to get Jesus, give up anything, whatever the cost, He is so worth it. 

“Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart… Haughty eyes and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, are sin.” Proverbs 21:2, 4

“And he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” 2 Corinthians 5:15

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” John 10:10

“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.” Revelation 2:17

Painting: The Miracle of the Big Catch by Abraham Hunter