"Hope is Found in Jesus"
Luke 5:1-11
First Sunday of Advent, Sunday of Hope, 11/27/11

Introduction: I have said this many times, but Advent season is my favorite season of the year. This is because it is a time when people seem to be more open to who Jesus is. People seem to want to experience God in a deeper way. The Advent season consists of the Sundays of hope, joy, love and peace, and concludes with Christmas Eve when we remember the birth of Jesus Christ.

The text we are looking at today is not your typical Advent text. It is not a text about Jesus’ birth, or the angels, or the wise men, or even Mary and Joseph. But it is about hope: how hope is found in Jesus. On this first Sunday of Advent, I want us to have a clear understanding that hope for this life, and in the life to come is only found in Jesus Christ. This is the reason that Jesus came into this world, to bring us hope. This is the reason why Jesus has called us to Himself, to give us hope.

I. The Word of God Spoken- (Luke 5:1-11; John 6:64-69)

a. The hearing of the word of God- Our scripture passage opens up

with Jesus by the Lake of Gennesaret. Jesus is teaching the word of God, and they were so enthralled by what He was teaching that they began to crowd around Him. Jesus realized that He didn’t have much space and wanted to find a way to separate Himself from the people, so He goes over to the boats on the shore. He gets in one of the boats and asks Simon to put the boat out a little ways. Now with newfound freedom He teaches the people.

It is interesting to see how the word of God was so stimulating to the people. I’m sure some of it was the charisma of Jesus and how He taught it, but God’s word is indeed captivating. This is because it is the Word that changes lives. It is the Word that challenges people’s thinking. It is the Word that brings hope to the hopeless. It is the truth of God!!

After Jesus is done teaching the people He decides He is going to teach the disciples. Jesus is going to use an object lesson to teach them. He has them put out for the deep water so they can let out the nets and do some fishing. Now you need to know that at this point the disciples have been fishing all day and haven’t caught anything, so they aren’t too excited about doing more fishing. They are tired and frustrated, and they probably just want to go home.

b. The Gospels reveal three types of disciples- Using this passage and

one from John chapter 6, we can see that there are three kinds of disciples, or followers of Jesus. This is important for us, because the truth is: hope is only found in those who truly seek Jesus. Those who walk away from Jesus walk away from hope. Those who can’t stay on the path Jesus sets cannot stay on the path of hope.

The first kind of disciple is the CURIOUS. We can see an example of this in the gospel of John, chapter 6, verses 64-66 “‘Yet there are some of you who do not believe.’ For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. ⁶⁵ He went on to say, ‘This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.’ ⁶⁶ From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.’” We see in this passage that there were people who came to hear Jesus speak. They were curious about who He was and what He was teaching. They even followed for a while. But Jesus knew that they didn’t really believe in what He was teaching. These people who were curious, were not true followers. They were not willing to commit to Jesus, and when the call for commitment got too great, they stopped following.

The second kind of disciple is the CONVINCED. We can learn about the convinced in John 6:67-69, “‘You do not want to leave too, do you?’ Jesus asked the Twelve. ⁶⁸ Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. ⁶⁹ We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.’” Jesus knew that when some walked away from Him, it would cause others to question their commitment. People tend to be followers of others, and so some were thinking about leaving too. But when hit with the question, ‘You do not want to leave too, do you? The twelve reflected on what they should do. In the end they realized that Jesus did have words of eternal life; words of hope!

The third kind of disciple is the COMMITTED. It takes more than being convinced in your mind that Jesus has words of eternal life, to be a true disciple, because ultimately Jesus will ask for commitment. Jesus will ask us to follow Him, and He will expect that we will be willing to do whatever it takes to follow Him. At this point, some who think they are convinced will not take that last step of commitment.

It is this last group that make up the true disciples of Jesus. Some estimate that in the beginning there were only 100-120 who were part of this last group. Of course we know about the 12 disciples, but there were others who followed Jesus faithfully. The 12 were the ones Jesus spent the most time with and spent the most time teaching.

So which group do you fall into? The curious? The convinced? OR are you willing to make the full commitment and receive the hope of God by being a true disciple? Are you willing to be like the people we read about in Luke 5:11, “So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him”?

II. The Power of God Demonstrated-

a. God uses the ordinary things of life- Of course we know that Jesus

continued on in His ministry; continued on in His teaching. One of the keys to Jesus’ ministry was showing the power of God. One way that Jesus showed the power of God was using ordinary things and ordinary people. Jesus placed mud on a blind mans eyes and healed him. Jesus fed over 5,000 people with two fish and five loaves of bread. Jesus changed the life of a woman who had lived a sinful and then used her to share the truth of God with others. Jesus uses the ordinary things of life to show how powerful God is. God can work in and through you and me. God can use whatever resources we have to exhibit His power!

The problem is the more intelligent and/or capable we are, the more we try and solve our own problems. We try to do things on our own, forsaking God. Sometimes we might succeed, somewhat. Ultimately, we will not succeed. When things don’t work out, and we have nowhere else to go, we lose hope.

We see this in our passage, where Jesus turns failure into success. The disciples had failed to catch fish. They had fished all day, they had come up empty, but Jesus takes them back out and they catch so much fish that they can’t contain it all in their nets!

I have seen this all the time, people who come to me without hope. They have forgotten that God is there, or think that God no longer cares. They have stopped giving themselves over to God. They have walked away from the commitment it takes for God to work His power in their lives. And now they tell me they have no hope. All it takes is to turn back to God, and hope will be found; God’s power will be seen!

b. God’s miraculous results are only realized as we obey- This is

because it takes obedience to be a part of God’s power. It takes obedience to be on the path of hope. We have to seek out what God is doing, and then join in. God wants us to join in and be part of the ministry of the Kingdom.

In verses 4 and 5 we see how Simon didn’t want to fish more, didn’t think there were fish to be caught, be he was obedient just the same. Because he was obedient and put the nets into the water, he saw the power of Jesus at work. Simon realized that the catching of fish was a great miracle, and this was seen because of Simon’s obedience.

My children all the time think they know what is good and what is bad; what is true and what is false; what is right and what is wrong. They have limited perspective, since their perspective is often a perspective of what they think is best for them. They fail to take into account information they might not know. They fail to take into account the repercussions of their choices.

We are often the same with God. We think we know how things will turn out, not taking into account the power of God at work; the wisdom of God at work; the will of God at work. When we give ourselves over to God through obedience, then God’s results WILL ALWAYS exceed our expectations. There is great hope in this!

III. The Presence of God Experienced- (Luke 5:8-10)

a. His presence bring awareness of sin- When I talk about sin, many

people are not excited about this. This is because most people don’t want to think about their sin much. Last week I talked about how our generation tries to downplay sin, even going so far as saying that the wrong they do, isn’t wrong; it’s relative. But if we want to talk about hope we have to talk about sin, because as long as we live in sin we will not experience the presence of God. Without God’s presence in our lives, we have no hope.

God’s presence brings awareness of sin because we see in God what it means to be holy. As we compare ourselves to Jesus we see that we do fall short. This is what happened with Simon Peter in Luke 5:8. We read again, “When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, ‘Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!’” Simon Peter recognized his sin, as he doubted Jesus. Once he saw all the fish, he was convicted of his sin as he saw the glory of God in the event.

People react to God’s presence in one of two ways: either they are embarrassed by their guilt and turn away from God, or they are convicted of their sin, confess their sin, and are forgiven of their sin. Don’t you see how hope is at work in the awareness and confession of sin?

b. His voice calms all fear- Jesus doesn’t leave us in our sin, nor does

He leave us in our fear. When we have lost hope we tend to get fearful. We are fearful of our future. We are fearful of the outcome of some event. We are fearful that we are lost.

The disciples were fearful of what Jesus had done. In Verses 9-10 it says: “…For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, ¹⁰ and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners.” They couldn’t believe what Jesus had done. They couldn’t believe all the fish they were seeing. It caused them to feel fear. Who is this man? What is He capable of doing? He possesses such great power…… They were fearful.

When we trust and obey, Jesus will not leave us fearful. When we turn to God, we will not experience fear, but the calming of Jesus’ voice. “Then Jesus said to Simon, ‘Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.’” Jesus was in essence telling them that this was all just a lesson. As Jesus had taught the people on the shore, now Jesus was teaching the disciples. He was just doing it through an object lesson; the lesson of catching fish. Then He shows the disciples how they will do greater things than catching fish, they will catch people for the Kingdom of God!

c. His claim requires complete commitment- We see in the Bible,

time and time again, Jesus wants complete commitment. It doesn’t work any other way. If you are kind of committed to Jesus, there will be times when you choose to do what you want to do, and not what God wants you to do. How can you be a follower of someone you only follow sometimes?

I have told you about how I love to mentor people one-on-one. I love this because it allows me to help people walk forward in their being a disciple of Christ. It allows me to help people discern God’s will for their lives. But there have been times when I thought someone was on the verge of a breakthrough, only to see them fall back into their old patterns of living. They stopped being committed to Christ and started making their own choices.

This doesn’t work. God loves you too much to force you to do anything. If you don’t choose Him, then He will allow you to forge your own path. But don’t be surprised when you feel a lack of hope in your life!

Conclusion: We see in this passage in Luke 5 the message of hope. The disciples didn’t think there was any hope of catching any fish. They had fished all day and not caught anything, so they were sure they wouldn’t catch any fish when Jesus told them to drop the nets. Yet, when they obeyed, they caught more fish than they had ever caught before.

Hope is found in believing beyond what we think we know! Hope is found in being obedient to God, trusting that God will lead us where we need to go. Hope is found in knowing that God’s power can and will work in and through our lives. So I hope this day you would be more than curious of Jesus, even more than convinced, but you would be committed. You will see your hope turn into promise, which will be seen in God doing miracles all around you. Amen.