Living Stones – Friday, January 26, 2018
Depart from me
Luke 5:8
When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!”
So now, everything is going well. Peter, the experienced fisherman, having listened to Jesus, launched out into the deep, against his better judgement and let down his nets. And, as unbelievable as this is to him, he hauls up the catch of his life.
This catch is so big that it requires the efforts of the entire enterprise, he had to call the business partners, the sons of Zebedee to come and rescue both him and the fish. Boats were about to sink here.
We get that Jesus showed up on the scene where these tired and disappointed fishermen were going through the mandatory activities of their trade. He upended their position by pushing them to go back out into the deep confounding their knowledge and experience. We get that when they did they witnessed a miracle. What is hard to get is Peter’s reaction.
We are impressed that the four fishermen decided to leave everything and become fishers of men. We teach that in our Sunday School classes, we sing it in Children’s songs, and we preach it in sermons. However, we skip this moment that is found in our key verse today. Between the miraculous catch of fish and Peter abandoning fishing to become a disciple of Jesus is a moment when they tell Jesus to get out.
Then, as now, people followed Jesus because of the miracles. This is typical behaviour. Look at all the stories, nursery rhymes, and fables we were told and taught as children. Everyone wants a genie in a bottle or a fairy godmother to grant our wishes. Everyone goes to their god to worship and ask for stuff. Peter, however, has God show up and grant him a miracle and rather than say, please Jesus come back again tomorrow he says the opposite to him, “Depart from me.”
Peter’s action would be confusing and bizarre if he didn’t continue speaking and if Luke had cut it off there and did not give us the full picture. According to Luke, Peter was on his knees at Jesus’ feet when he asked Him to depart. He also gave a reason, he said: “I am a sinful man, O Lord!”
We have noted before in these devotionals that as we go through the Scripture we see two kinds of revelations. There is the revelation of who God is, that revelation is right at the beginning in Genesis 1:1 and we see that to the end. Then there is the revelation of who we are. These revelations demonstrate that God is holy and that we are sinful.
In this moment on a busy Gennesaret beach, Peter, out in the deep with his boat sinking under the weight of the largest catch of fish he had ever seen got a revelation of who Jesus is and who he was. He was overwhelmed by these revelations and for a while, he couldn’t handle it.
You, Jesus, are Lord he declared after acknowledging his own sin and sinfulness. We have to note here that this is not the first time that Peter, his brother Andrew, and the sons of Zebedee are meeting Jesus. This is not even the first time that Peter had seen a miracle, before this, Jesus had been to Peter’s house and healed his mother-in-law of a high fever!! Luke 4:38-40.
This explains why Peter was so willing, after contemplating, to launch out in the deep against his better judgement. While this was neither the first time he was with Jesus and not the first miracle he was seeing Him perform, it was the first time that he was challenged this way. This is when Jesus was challenging Peter to forsake all to follow him. To not just be with him when he wasn’t fishing but to quit the sea and become a fisher of men.
Many of us are in church, in worship and fellowship but have not had a glimpse of who Jesus is. When we come face to face with who He is then we see ourselves in a completely different light. Peter here got a revelation of the Glory of the Lord and everything was different.
The nearer we come to God the more we see our wretchedness, sinfulness, unworthiness. The nearer we come to Him we recognise that we cannot stand in the presence of the holy and we want to say, “depart from me.”
When we see His glory and our own wretchedness we are changed by it. When we count ourselves unworthy before Him are counted worthy by Him. Compare the experiences of Abraham and Isaiah. Abraham when he had the revelation of who God is said, “Then Abraham answered and said, “I who am but dust and ashes have taken it upon myself to speak to the Lord:” Genesis 18:27. And when Isaiah got the revelation he said, “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The Lord of hosts.”
When we see Him, really see Him, we will be willing, like Peter to give up all and follow Him, we will receive our instruments of commission like Peter did. Peter was commissioned to go and be a fisher of men. For many of us, our commission is still waiting.
Think on these things:
- Have you had a revelation of God or do you just go through the motions doing church things?
- Have you had a revelation of yourself and seen your own unworthiness?
- How have you been changed by these revelations?
Prayer focus:
Let us pray today that we, like Peter and Isaiah, would have a revelation of who God is.
In His Grace
Pastor Alex