B.Y.S.S.I.W. Because You Say So, I Will

Eastford Baptist Church
March 29, 2007

“One day Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, with the people crowding around him and listening to the word of God, he saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fisherman, who were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.” When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink. When Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will catch men.” So they pulled their boats up to shore, left everything and followed him.” (Luke 5:1-11)

Fishermen have a reputation for being notorious liars. (Second perhaps only to golfers!) It’s been said that the only time a fisherman really tells the truth is when he calls another fisherman a liar. That may not be too much of an exaggeration. I once had a fisherman friend tell me he caught a fish so big that when he took a picture of it, the picture itself weighed 11 pounds! Now that’s a pretty big fish! If fishermen are prone to exaggerate the size of the fish they actually do catch, they are even more prone to hide the reality of what they don’t catch. The ultimate embarrassment for any fisherman is being forced to confess they got skunked while fishing. And that’s the situation we find the apostle Peter in the passage above.

Luke tells us Jesus was standing on the shore of the Sea of Galilee preaching to a crowd. The crowd grew to such a degree that it pushed Jesus back to the point of standing in the water as he was speaking to them. Jesus looked around and saw Peter standing nearby drying his nets. He asks Peter to put his boat out a little so that he could use his vessel as a kind of floating pulpit. Peter, coming off a long night on the water, amazingly accommodates him, even though at this point he really didn’t know Jesus very well. (I guess the lesson here is any time you have the opportunity to get Jesus into your boat – you should take advantage of it!)

After Jesus finishes his message, he turns to Peter and asks him to put out into the deep water and drop his nets again. Now there are a couple of things that could cause Peter to hesitate at this point:

1. Fishing was normally done at night and Peter had been fishing all night
without any success.
2. Peter was most likely using a drift net, which is used near the shore not in deep water.
3. These fishermen were ready to call it a day. They were already cleaning and packing up the nets when Jesus arrived.
4. It’s likely Peter was a little discouraged knowing he still has to go home and tell his wife there would be no fish fry for dinner that night.

So at first, Peter mildly attempts to get Jesus to understand the futility of such an action. After all, he was the professional fisherman, and Jesus (as nice as he was) was only an itinerant preacher. Peter had a choice: either obey the Master or argue and say, “That’s just not the way we do things around here!”

Peter doesn’t really understand how listening to Jesus could improve his fishing results, but in an amazing expression of faith he says, “Because you say so I will.” Because he was willing to act in obedience to Christ’s instruction – even though it he didn’t completely understand it at the time – he reeled in a catch that it almost swamped two boats.

Peter’s profession of faith is a great example to each of us. Peter had to ignore three voices in order to make his profession of faith.

1. He ignored the voice of human reason. Peter was the fishing expert and everything he had ever been taught about fishing told him he wouldn’t catch fish at that time at that location. Jesus’ request seemed unreasonable. But Peter ignored the temptation to trust his own understanding. Proverbs 3:5 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” You may have read what God commands you to do, and your response is, “It doesn’t seem reasonable to me.” You need to say, like Peter, “I don’t understand how this is going to happen - but because you say so, I will do it.” Obedience to the Lord is not dependant upon our complete understanding of how God is going to cause His Word to come about. He asks us to respond in faith and trust that he will do whatever he promises.

2. He had to resist the voice of personal experience. Experience is a powerful force
in our lives. We tend to behave according to what our experience has taught us. It’s often called “hind sight” because experience always looks backward. Someone once said, “Experience is the best teacher but she is not the prettiest.” Sometimes we
make the error of trusting our experiences more than we trust the Word of God. Peter could have said, “Lord, I have just fished these waters, my experience says we aren’t going to catch any fish.” Or he could have said, “Lord, in my experience of fishing many years, I’ve never caught fish in deep water in the hot morning hours.” Instead he resisted the voice of experience and said, “Because you say so I will.” I’m certain there might be some reading this who have had a negative experience happen in their life – it might be with a Christian, or a Church, or a friend – and you are saying “based on my experience, it is safer not to be involved or fully committed because it places me in a position of vulnerability that I am not willing to risk.” Jesus teaches us the best experiences with him are found in the deep water. In fact, if Peter would have stayed in the shallow waters, he would have gone home empty-handed. Don’t be swayed in your obedience to the Word of God because
you’ve had a bad experience. Everybody gets skunked once in awhile. Getting skunked occasionally is what keeps the fisherman humble.

3. He had to resist was the voice of fatigue. Peter admits he is tired. He said, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night long.” He was ready to clock out, go home and crash. But, again, he refused his weariness and said, “Because you say so I will.” It was a weary Simon Peter who moved his boat out into the deep water and
manhandled the heavy nets back into the water. Some of you can relate to that. Either through physical or emotional weariness you say to yourself, “It would just be easier to bypass my commitments or avoid making commitments all together. Somebody else will probably pick up the slack.” But chances are “somebody else” is probably off fishing somewhere, and the body of Christ, and our communities have ongoing, unmet needs. There’s an old farmer’s cliché that says, “You’ve got to make hay when the sun shines.” In other words, “Sometimes you have to do the work that needs to be done, simply because it’s work that needs to be done.” Be determined enough in your walk of faith to push past the weariness and cast your net in the deep water.

There will come a time when we will be able to rest these weary bones of ours. But that’s not today. And it may not be tomorrow. Today, and hopefully tomorrow, we have the opportunity to answer the Master’s call to the deep waters. Let’s cast our nets and trust him for the provision of a greater harvest.

Simply Because He Says So, We Will.
PT