Miracles of Jesus, September 6th, 2026

- Well, good morning, Fellowship. Man, on this holiday weekend, thanks for being here today. We're so glad to have everybody that's with us in the chapel, those of you online. If you're new to us, my name is Mark. I'm one of the pastors here. If this is your first time with us, we are so glad that you're with us today. I wanna encourage you, would you, after the service, just drop by our connection center, just write out these doors to your right. We'd love to get to know you, help you take your next step here at Fellowship. Well, you may know that a couple of weeks ago on Vision Sunday, one of the things that we talked about that we wanna grow in as a church, that we wanna grow in as the people of God, is in learning to meditate and memorize together, God's Word. So important, it's such a unique practice that we wanna grow in that. So we made a commitment this year, and what would it look like if we were to memorize one verse a month, just one verse a month. So for the month of September, our verse is Psalm 8611. Let me put it up here on the screen for you. Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth,

unite my heart to fear your name. And so our hope in the days and weeks left of this month takes some time with your kids, with your family, to begin to work through that verse. We do have a useful tool that we're gonna do and offer here for you. There's a number that you can text that I'm gonna put up here on the screen for you. We'll leave that up there just for a moment. If you'll text scripture to the number that you see up there, periodically, you'll receive a text from the church with the verse, with some helpful ways that you can memorize that. And we would just encourage you and invite you. We're doing this in our kids ministry, our student ministry across all ages at fellowship over this next year. The hope being, of course, that as we get to the end of the year, that those of us that are part of this, we will have some of his word hidden in our heart. And how helpful it is to have that truth inside of our hearts and our minds, where we know that and we can recall that and we can live by that. And that can encourage us and comfort us. And so that's our goal and what we look forward to as we move throughout this year together. So you'll hear us talk about that from time to time,

but this month, it is Psalm 8611. And I'm gonna look forward to this together. Well, last week, if you were here, you know we started a new series that we're calling The Miracles of Jesus. And we are looking at six of Jesus' miracles. Now, Jesus did a lot more miracles than just six, but I think these six miracles do a wonderful job of reminding us of what our church theme is this year. And I don't know if you remember this, but a couple of weeks ago, we talked about this year, one of the things that we want to remind each other about that God is able, God is able. And specifically in this series, what we're gonna see is that God is able by his power and by his authority to do the miraculous. Really at any time for our good and ultimately for his glory. And we've seen that. And Jesus in his miraculous power meets people in different places and at different moments. And that should be a great comfort to us. He meets us in moments of great weakness. And we saw that last week in John 5, when we encountered the man at the pool of Bethesda who had been physically infirmed for some 38 years. He was in a moment of great need and great weakness. And Jesus in that beautiful moment showed mercy to the man at the pool of Bethesda and healed him. and greatest weakness.

And Jesus meets us in those kinds of places. But Jesus also meets us in our moments of perceived strength. Jesus meets us in those places where we think that we are strong. In the places in our life where we may be a little bit confident, Jesus even meets us in those places. And we're gonna see that today in our miracle story here in Luke chapter five. If you would go ahead and take out your Bible or your Bible app, however you like to follow along and go ahead and join me in Luke chapter five, that's where we're gonna be today. Jesus is going to use a miraculous catch of fish to show us what it looks like to follow him and to help others do the same. Luke chapter five, we're gonna go through this together verse by verse, but before we do that, let me just pause and pray for us. Would you join me? Father, as we come into this room, we're all people from different backgrounds, different stories, different needs, but we all need one thing and ultimately we need you. So we're asking you in this moment, would you speak to us? Would you encourage us? Would you comfort us? Would you challenge us? And yes, would you change us through your work? Through the work of your spirit,

would you change our hearts and lives over these next few minutes as we look at your word here in Luke chapter five, in Jesus name, amen. Well, let's talk about this together. We'll pick it up in verse one of Luke chapter five. If you don't have a Bible or Bible app, we'll put it up here for you to follow along. And Luke tells us this on one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on hymn, that's Jesus, to hear the word of God. He was standing by the lake of Jenesserit, excuse me, and he saw two boats by the lake and the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. Now let's stop here for a moment because Luke is really setting the scene for us. So let me explain a few things to help you get a picture in your mind. Lake Jenesserit, I can't pronounce that, goodness. Jenesserit is also known as the Sea of Galilee, which you probably have heard before if you've ever spent any time in the New Testament. It's an incredibly popular place in the gospels in that Jesus did a large part of his ministry in the area of the Sea of Galilee. And one of the things that I love about the Bible is that the Bible is backed up by evidence. The Bible is full of real people and real places. If you were to travel to Israel, you would be able to go and to visit

and actually see a real place called the Sea of Galilee. What you hold in your hands today is not a myth, it's not a fable. This is the word of God, it is true, it is reliable, it is authentic, and hear me, friend, it has been proven. It has real people, it has a real story. And you can back that up with archeological evidence, you can back it up by real places. And I just love that about the Bible, that there's a certainty about it when we read it, that these are real people, real places. I think it has something that the Bible wants to say to us today. Now, the Sea of Galilee was the hub of Galilee and commercial fishing industry. I don't know if you have seen the TV show "Deadliest Catch." Have you seen that? It's a pretty good show, mine is some of the language on the show, but one of the things you learn from that is that commercial fishing is tough work. I mean, it is hard work. When you read this story, don't think about two small boats with a couple of guys bass fishing. These are big boats. Archaeologists have uncovered some of these boats and they are somewhere between eight and 10 feet wide. They range and link from 25 to 30 feet long. These are large boats.

This work of fishing is hard work. These nets are heavy and you would have to, multiple people would have to throw those nets out and pull them in over and over again. The point I'm trying to make is that these are skilled, professional fishermen, and they're finishing up their shift. They're washing their nets. And something I want you to see is that Jesus didn't just do his ministry in religious places. Yes, he spoke and taught in synagogues, but now he's taking the gospel to the places where people are, into the marketplace. And I think that's really important for us to hear today. Gospel ministry doesn't just happen in here on Sundays. The message of Jesus is meant to go out to our workplaces, into your lawful, into your school, into your bank, into wherever you work, live, or play. Jesus wants to go everywhere, into your life, every situation, every circumstance of your life, to work and to move and to shape the people you're around and the place that you're around. And this message that Jesus is sharing is so striking, noticed that Luke tells us that a crowd of people were pressing around to hear the word of God. The people were listening to Jesus speak the word of God. The word was coming straight from God himself in Jesus as the word John 1 tells us is speaking the actual words of God. And as people are hearing this, it's life giving to them. And so what they do, it's what all of us do,

we're going to get closer and closer to Jesus. And so what I imagine is Jesus is standing there and speaking the word of God and people are getting excited. They're pressing in on Jesus and Jesus is backing up. And finally, he hits the edge of the water, of the sea of Galilee and he has nowhere else to go. And there are hundreds, if not thousands of people at this point gathered around Jesus to hear him speak. Now let's continue in verse three. Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon, he asked him to put out a little bit from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat. Now, Simon and Jesus have a little bit of history together. I think it's in Luke chapter four, just the one right before this, where Jesus and Peter, Simon Peter, have an interaction. And in fact, Jesus heals his mother-in-law. So as Jesus climbs in this boat here in Luke five, there's somewhat of an experience that he has with Jesus already. But what Simon didn't know was that God was working to draw Simon's heart to himself. And so Jesus jumps in the boat here in Luke chapter five. And I believe that Simon has a lot of respect for Jesus. And let me stop here for a moment. 'Cause I think some of you in here today, I think a lot of people in our culture have a respect for Jesus.

And respect for Jesus is very different than following Jesus. I can respect Jesus. I can know who Jesus is. I can like some of the things that Jesus talks about. I can love the fact that Jesus encourages his followers to love one another. I can respect Jesus from a distance, but that's very different than following Jesus. Because when you come to follow Jesus, you lay every part of your life. It's total surrender, total faith to him, and that's very different than just respecting who Jesus is. And what we're gonna see in this story is there's gonna be a change in Simon Peter. I believe he's gonna go from a respecter to a follower of who Jesus is. Jesus is about to do something in him that feels, doesn't feel logical. It's gonna challenge him professionally. It makes no sense at all. He's gonna ask him to surrender everything to him. And the rest of this miracle story really unfolds in three phases. You'll see him there on your outline, the response, excuse me, the call, the response, and the mission. And my hope would be that every one of our stories with Jesus would unfold with these phases, the call, the response, and the mission. Well, here's the call in verse four. And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon,

put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. Now, I've gotta believe this didn't make any sense at all to Simon, this request, or to the other fishermen. It was by this time the middle of the day, and the best time to fish was at night. They would fish at night when it was cooler and the fish would come into the shallow waters or up more towards the surface of the sea of Galilee. And then they would catch the fish at night and they would bring 'em in and they would sell their fish in the morning time. And so these guys have just gotten done with a whole night of fishing, which is why I think Simon responds the way he does to Jesus in verse five. And Simon answered and said, Master, we toiled all night long and took nothing. But at your word, I will let down the nets. Now come on, put yourself in Simon's shoes for a moment. He's tired, he's frustrated. He's been at this fishing thing all night long. It's been unfruitful. He's gotta be a little annoyed because he's a professional fisherman. He's an expert, if you will, in fishing. And here he has a carpenter from Nazareth telling him how to fish. And you know exactly how it feels when somebody else tries to tell you to do your job. Right?

And I have to believe there's a little bit of that going on here. This guy that does this fishing thing day in and day out and here comes this well-known carpenter from Nazareth who he has respectful telling him to put his nets down. I imagine that Peter was thinking to himself, Jesus, you can tell me about all the religious stuff you want to, but I've got this day to day stuff in my life. I'll listen to you about spiritual things, but I've got this fishing thing. This is what I do every day. What we need to see is that Jesus doesn't wanna be just Lord over the spiritual parts of our life. He wants to be Lord over everything. He is the Lord of Lords. He is the king of kings, all authority and heaven and earth has been given to him and some of us have given Jesus control over the spiritual parts of our life, but we haven't given him control over our work life, over our time or over our financial decisions or over our future. And Jesus is saying to Peter and to us, whatever I say, whatever I ask you to do, I need you to obey me and to trust me. And really, this is the turning point in this miracle story. This is where Peter has a choice to make. How will he respond to Jesus' call? Will he trust Jesus enough to do what he says or will he settle for what he has always known? This is where we need to understand something very important.

When Jesus said let down your nets, he wasn't talking about fishing. He was talking about faith. Would Peter in faith do what Jesus was asking him to do? Whenever Jesus calls us to do something, ultimately it's not about the thing he's calling us to do as much as it is about Jesus, entrusting him, and whatever it is that he's asking us to do. It's about putting our faith in Jesus and obeying him. This is why Peter's response is so incredible. Look what he says again at the end of verse five. He says, "At your word, I will let down the nets." I want you to circle that phrase at your word. What an incredible statement. At your word, man, that we would be a group of people that would say, at your word, Jesus, whatever it is you're asking me to do, whatever it is you're calling me to do, at your word, I will follow through. I may not understand at all, but I will trust the one who does understand it all. You say the word and I will obey and trust you. See the call that Jesus makes to Simon and he makes to us is simply this. Jesus calls us to trust him and his word. To trust him and his word. There's an old hymn that says trust and obey for there's no other way. I may not understand it. I may not think it's good.

It may not be popular in the culture, but I will trust and obey Jesus and his word and follow through with whatever it is that he's asking me to do. Here's what I believe. I believe for some of us, there's a place in our life where we need to say at your word. See some of us came in here today in a place of bitterness. A place of hurt, a place of pain because of a broken relationship. And could it be that Jesus is saying to you, put your nets down and we would say at your word, I'm going to extend forgiveness. I'm going to extend forgiveness in this broken relationship. Some of us in here are struggling with sexual immorality. Maybe it's things you're looking at on the internet. Maybe it's an inappropriate relationship. If you're in a relationship you're in, would you say today at your word, I'm going to walk in purity with you, Lord. I'm going to trust you. I know that there's freedom in life when I walk in truth with you. Listen, there's some of us listening in today. We have an explosive anger. We get irritated easily. Could it be that what we need to say today is at your word, I'm going to trust you.

I'm going to obey you. I want you to work in my life in such a way that I have a spirit of gentleness and kindness and I begin to change over time. At your word. That we would be a people. No matter what it is that Jesus is calling us to do, we would live our eyes with open hands and open hearts and say at your word. I don't understand it. I don't know what this is going to mean for my life, but I'm trusting you. It was just a simple moment of faith and surrender here on the Sea of Galilee for Simon Peter. And it's going to change the trajectory of his life forever. It could be a simple moment for you right now where you just say at your word. Whatever you say, Jesus, I'm yours. You're my Savior. You're my Lord. Look what happens next in the story. Verse 6, "And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking, and they signaled to their partners in the other boat, "Come, help me!" And they came and filled both the boats so much that they what began to sink. Peter responds in faith, does what Jesus asked him to do, and guess what?

There's blessing. With his surrender, Peter steps into a miracle because they catch so many fish that their nets begin to break, their boats begin to sink. Jesus is showing something in this miracle. He's teaching us something, to follow him and to be on mission with him. And we'll talk more about that here in just a moment. But the point I want you to see here is this, when we respond in obedience to Jesus, there is blessing. There is blessing. When we obey God, when we take a step of faith and do what he tells us to do, there's blessing that comes into our lives. We flourish, we experience the abundant life that Jesus promises us. We find freedom. So many times when Jesus does a miracle, there is a great blessing that follows the obedience. When Jesus fed the 5,000, I want you to remember there were 12 baskets left over. When Jesus does this miracle here, in reaction to their obedience to him, there's so many fish that they can't even handle it. And by the way, what a beautiful picture of God's grace that is. That when we walk with Jesus and obey him, his grace overflows into our lives. There's so much blessing that we enjoy. Now I want you to hear me say, when we obey Jesus

and you decide to follow him, it doesn't mean that everything in your life is gonna be easy. It doesn't mean that you're not going to have challenges in your life, but what it does mean is that the more you follow Jesus, and the closer you get to him, one of the blessings that comes out of that is you are gonna begin to see more and more your true self and your need to change. The more you walk with Jesus, the more you will see your own sin and struggles. And it will humble you and overwhelm you, which is why Peter responds the way he does to this miracle. Listen to what he says, verse eight. But when Simon Peter saw it, talking about this miraculous catch of fish, what do you do? He fell down at Jesus' knees saying, depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord, for he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken. Peter is stunned by this miracle. He knows he's in the presence of divinity and what does he do? He falls down in reverence and worship to the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Friends, when Peter finally saw how good, how glorious, how wonderful that Jesus truly was, he realized how inadequate and unworthy he was. And he says, I'm a sinful man.

I'm a sinful man, O Lord. By the way, Isaiah had a similar experience. When he encountered the Lord, Isaiah chapter six, Isaiah says it this way, woe is me, for I am lost. For I am a man of unclean lips, I dwell in the midst of the people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of host. Later on in the book of Revelation, John has a vision and has an encounter with Jesus in this vision. In chapter one, he says this about himself. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Listen, when you ever, when you get a glimpse, a real glimpse of how good, how glorious, how beautiful Jesus is, you are immediately overwhelmed by your own sense of unworthiness in his presence. And if you're not, then you haven't truly seen him. The encounter in the boat with Jesus humbles Peter. And it's this humility that will bring him to forsake everything, to follow Jesus in his kingdom. And in response to Peter's humble confession, Jesus lays out for Peter, James, and John, and us. An unbelievable mission. Look at verse 10. And he says, so also were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, they were there and who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, do not be afraid.

From now on, you'll be careful. they left everything and followed Him. This miracle is meant to show us there's a greater mission that Jesus has for us. Our mission is quite simply to spread the message of Jesus and to make disciples in His name. That's it. When Jesus said, let down your nets, it was a precursor to the great commission. That would come in Matthew 28 where Jesus would say, "Go into the world and share my gospel and make disciples of all people in all nations." But when Peter heard Jesus say, let down your nets, he didn't know all of that at the time. He didn't understand the story that would unfold later. This was just a moment of simple faith and simple surrender on the Sea of Galilee. He could have never imagined what was on the other side of Him saying, "Yes," to no worrying His nets in trusting Jesus. He could have never imagined that He would become the first leader of the early Christian church. He could have never imagined that He would be the one to deliver the very first sermon after the resurrection of Jesus and that over 2,000 people would be saved. He could have never imagined that He would be a part of a gospel movement that would start in the Middle East and spread to Europe and come all the way to the United States and many of us are fruits of that movement. He could have never imagined that.

He was just a simple moment of faith and surrender to Jesus where He put His yes out to Jesus and lowered His nets and it changed the trajectory of His life forever. And listen, Peter was not perfect in his faith and obedience, was he? We know that when Jesus got arrested, who denied Him three times? Peter, but God used Peter's failure, even His failure to accomplish His purposes. Friend, God is worthy of your yes. Whatever He's asking you to do. So my question to you this morning is what could God do through you if you were just to say yes? I believe that God's calling you. He's calling me to something bigger than myself. Friend, I believe that God could do something bigger through you than you could ever imagine. But you know what that takes? It takes you saying yes. Yes to Jesus. It's a simple act of faith and surrender just like it was for Peter. Here's a question I'll leave you with this morning. What's the area or the place in your life where Jesus is saying to you, let down your nets? See, I believe every one of us, in this moment, Jesus is asking us in some area of our lives to let down the nets. For some of you, I'll be honest with you, you've never responded to Jesus.

What I mean to that is you've never come to the place for the very first time where you've actually lowered your nets down into the water in faith to Jesus. You've never come to the place in your life where you've said, you know what? I'm tired of being a respecter of Jesus. I want to be a follower of Jesus. Today can be that day for you. Jesus is saying let down your nets. Put your faith and trust in me. But here's what I want to warn you, friend. Jesus is asking for all of you, not some of you. He wants everything, but listen to me. You get everything in Christ, too. You get everything in Him. There's some of you in here today that I think Jesus is saying let down your nets by leaving your comfortable life and moving overseas and becoming a missionary where you can help share the message of Jesus and make disciples in His name around the world. I think some of you, He may be saying let down your nets to a greater level of generosity in your life. Man, the Lord's blessed you financially. And maybe you've been holding on to Him. let me use your resources to further my kingdom here in greater Little Rock and all around the world maybe the Lord is asking you to let down your nets around all your leisure time maybe he wants you to serve around this place called fellowship maybe he's asking you to serve in our kids ministry or student ministry women's ministry men's ministry i could go on take sacrifice takes trust he's asking you today to let down your nets to trusting

maybe he's asking you to let your nets down and make a difference here in our city for his kingdom to share his message to make disciples in his name here in the city maybe that is mentoring young people through our partnership with step ministry at North Little Rock where you're helping young people who are struggling in school and you're not just helping them with their school work you're sharing life on life and pointing them to Jesus but maybe it's not that maybe you're partnering with some of us that are involved out at the rightsville prison unit and you're helping to mentor people out there through our partner pathway to freedom but whatever it is Jesus i believe is asking you today he's asking me to let down our nets the question is will you say yes will you say yes will you surrender even if you don't understand it all let's pray together as the band comes out in the worship team as we pray together in this moment i want to ask you a question this moment's really between you and Jesus where is that place right now in your life where the lord is saying let down your nets a place he's asking you to trust him a place of faith i believe every one of us has that place would you be willing to say you maybe you don't understand it all you don't even know what it all means but you would be willing in this moment to say at your word take a moment where you are i believe the lord has something he wants to say to you today lord would you help us today give us the courage the strength we need in the small steps of faith and surrendering in the big ones as well lord we would be the kinds of people we may not understand it all but we will trust in the one who does understand it all and we come today and we put our yes on the table we're saying yes to you we want to follow you we want to lay down our nets if whatever it is you're asking us to do you have all of us you are the lord of lords and the king of kings and we give it everything all of ourselves to you for the glory of your name we pray it in the powerful and the beautiful name of Jesus amen thanks again for listening to the word of god we are blessed to reach you throughout the week through whatever platform you're listening on if you're needing prayer or you want to talk to someone about your walk with Jesus reach out to us at fellowship ar.com/contact have a great week