Priscilla Shirer - God Will Use Your Abandoned Boat

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Summary

Priscilla Shirer shares how Jesus sees us even in our deepest discouragement, just like He spotted Simon Peter after a fruitless night of fishing in Luke 5:1-7, and steps right into our empty, frustrating situations to turn them into platforms for His glory. Through her funny stories about fishing with her boys—one spot easy and instant, another exhausting with no catch—she reminds us that when we’re pouring everything into marriage, parenting, work, or ministry and coming up empty, it’s often God creating «God margin» for a miracle. The encouragement is clear: He sees you, He’ll join you in the mess you want to quit, and if you’ll obey and go deeper with Him, He’ll overwhelm you with abundance that leaves you speechless in gratitude.

Opening Greeting and Introduction
I am so glad to be here and thrilled to be a part of what God is doing in this incredible church. In this news, I’ve known Pastor Lee for probably a decade or so now, and our worlds have continued to cross. To be here in this place, watching the vision that the Lord has given her and this incredible team at this church for all that has happened here, watching it unfold has been breathtaking for me. So, I have enjoyed every single moment of it. I brought my man with me, and I’m just going to introduce him to you. This is Jerry Shire. Stand up, Jerry, and say hello. Oh, he’s so mad at me; I’m going to pay for this anyway.

Come on, babe, that’s Jerry. He’s been hanging out with Pastor Mark. I’m so grateful. It is a treat for us to be able to look at the two of you in the years of ministry, parenting, and marriage, and in the health of all of those things, and we’re grateful for your influence in our life. Thank you so much for that.

Sharing About Family and Sons
I want to share something with you from the Scriptures tonight that I pray will be a blessing to your life. I was thinking about this as I was considering that Jerry and I, our full-time job really is that we parent three boys. Actually, we have three sons. I brought a couple of pictures of those boys; I think they have them, and they’re going to put them on the screen so that you can see our sons. They used to be little; they are not little anymore. My husband’s standing there in the middle; he is, you know, six feet three inches tall. The one on his left-hand side is 15 years old and he’s about six feet two inches tall; the one on his right side, at the time we took this photograph, is 13 years old. That’s Jerry Jr.; he’s about six feet one inch tall.

Then Jude is our youngest one; our nine-year-old Jude is our surprise boy. We still don’t actually know how Jude got here, but there he is. I named him Jude on purpose because that’s as close as I could get to Revelation—because it’s finished; that’s the end of the line; it’s over right there. So I have Jackson, Jerry Jr., and Jude. I think they have another photo too; those are the boys. They are big boys, big old boys, and so we spend the majority of our time feeding these boys. That’s my real full-time job—trying to figure out new ways to cook chicken for dinner—just like you. That’s what I’m doing: I’m doing that and laundry. That is my entire life right there. I have the privilege, in between those things, to be able to share in ministry, but those boys are really our full-time job and joy and privilege.

Fishing Stories with the Boys
One of the things that I’ve done with the boys through much of their upbringing is that I’ve taken them fishing. It’s sort of one of the fun things that we’ve done for most of their upbringing. We lived in a fairly rural part of the Dallas-Fort Worth area. I loved it that way—in Texas, sort of away from the city is where we lived—in a little suburban area that felt a little country and a little quiet, a little bit like the way Lisa described where she lives as well. I wanted it like that. It was ten minutes away from the city so that I could get there as quickly as I needed to, but it felt like it was worlds away, and that was really great.

I loved this little house—a small little house—but I loved it so much because there was a yard, there were trees in the backyard, and I’ve got three boys. They need to go outside and play. Are there any moms in the house that still believe in outside? Anybody? Go outside and play. There are trees and bugs and mud and things boys need in their life in the backyard. So anytime my sons have the nerve to come to me and say, «Mom, I’m bored, » I say, «No, you’re not! You see that tree right there? Go play with it! You can eat it; you can play tag with it; I don’t care what you do with it; just go play.»

One of the things we love about where we live is that one of my closest friends, her name is Rachel, lives directly across the street. That’s how we found out about that place, actually, because I would take my oldest two when they were really little to visit Aunt Rachel. I just loved seeing them out there running around on her property and chasing butterflies and that sort of stuff. So often we will go to Aunt Rachel’s house. We go there for many reasons, but one of our favorites is because there is a big pond right at the front of her property.

So we will go fishing at the pond. I will grab a couple of fishing poles that I got on sale at the local Super Walmart in our area. I got those on sale, and we will take those across the street to fish. I also grabbed, on sale at the local Super Walmart store, a tackle box, and inside that tackle box I have extra hooks, you know, just in case we need another one. I’ve got extra little bobber thingies; you know those little bobbles? Those always seem to float away somehow.

I’ve got scissors in the tackle box, and I also have gloves because y’all know I don’t mind going fishing, but I ain’t gonna actually touch no fish. We grab whatever hot dog meat is left from the week because, you know, we’re very, very professional about our business of fishing. We grab whatever’s leftover, we walk across the street, and we stand in this little cove that we found underneath the shade of some trees. There’s a little pocket there of shaded water, and right there there’s a big pool of small sun perch—just real small fish that’ll be right there. We’ll drop the line in, and most of the time, within five or ten minutes, there’s been a tug on that line, and we’ve got a fish. Every five to ten minutes, every time we drop a line in, we get a fish. It’s instant gratification. This is the kind of fishing a six-year-old needs in his life.

So we will do that quite frequently. I thought that because the boys liked doing it so much at home, they must just like fishing in general. So every summer, we go to a Christian camp. We’ve done this; actually, it’s a camp that I’ve gone to since I was five years old. I still take my boys there. It’s about two hours from our house, and they’ve got a big old lake there. I’ve got pictures of myself standing on the dock at the lake at this camp fishing. So when I would take my boys when they were a little bit younger, we would take those fishing poles with us when we went to camp for the week, and I thought they just loved fishing in general. So I’d wake them up early in the morning, stand there on the dock, thinking that they would love it just as much as they did back at home. We were fishing one particular morning, and I’ll never forget it because we fished and fished and fished, and it was painful because not only did we not catch anything in the hour that we were out there, but there wasn’t even a tug on the line. I mean, nothing was happening underneath the water.

I don’t know if it’s ever happened to you before where you’ve been doing something for your kid, and then you realize that your kid isn’t even there anymore. Has that ever happened to you? Because I looked up from my intense fishing, trying to see why the fish weren’t responding, using different kinds of bait or different fishing poles, trying to figure out what in the world was happening, and I looked up and realized the boys were not even there any longer. I looked over into a nearby field, and they were throwing the football back and forth. They weren’t even on the dock with me any longer. At that point, you know, I was intent; I was going to make these fish respond in Jesus' name; I was going to catch a fish today! So I was fully exacerbated and intent about this experience. I wanted to catch a fish, and I yelled over to the boys and said, «Boys, what are y’all doing over there? Get back over here! I didn’t come out here for my health this morning; I came out here for y’all! We’re supposed to be fishing together!»

My second son, the now 14-year-old, he was probably about six at the time. He looked over at me from the field at a distance away and said, «Mom, we don’t like fishing like that.» The other one responded and said, «Yeah, Mom, fishing is not supposed to be that hard.» I giggled and went back to fishing, and as I was standing there with my line in the water, I thought about what those boys had said, particularly that second one: «Fishing is not supposed to be that hard.»

Connecting Fishing to Life’s Struggles
I’ve been sitting here with you throughout the entirety of this conference, being mindful of all of you and the different walks of life that we all come from—the different struggles, frustrations, disappointments, irritations, joys, difficulties, and sorrows—all of those things that make up the diversity of this group that the Lord has gathered together. It occurs to me that in a group this size, there are probably very many of us that feel similarly to what my boy described on that particular day—that you have been, in some area of your life, investing yourself into that marriage or into that child you’re parenting or into that job or that endeavor or that ministry. You’ve been fishing and fishing and fishing, and you feel like you keep coming up empty-handed—that you feel like the investment you’ve been making in whatever area of life you have been giving the fullness of your time or your energy or your effort or your creativity or your ideas, and you’ve been giving everything you’ve got, and you feel like you keep coming up empty-handed. My son knows how it feels to invest and invest and give and give and feel like you’re not yielding the benefits of the investment that you’ve been giving.

In a group this size, I bet there are very many of you that have had a fishing trip or two gone bad—that you’ve been giving it all you’ve got. You feel like you’re not getting out of it what you were putting into it. That can be disappointing. There is a disciple in Scripture who knows how it feels to fish and fish and fish and come up empty-handed. If you have your brick-and-mortar Bible with you (I love that Lisa calls it that), or your iPhone or iPad, any manner of i-ness, just flip on over to Luke chapter five. Luke chapter five is where we’re going to land tonight because it’s going to help us to have some encouragement. That’s what I want to give you tonight, just some encouragement for anybody who may be in the house and you’ve got a fishing trip that’s not turning out the way that you expected it would. Because all of us have an assignment, have a fishing trip that has been assigned to us. We’re all investing ourselves in something. We’re all giving of our time, our energy, or our effort to something.

There can be disappointing seasons in each and every one of those journeys where we’re giving and we’re not yielding; we’re not getting out of it what we feel like we’re putting in. There’s some encouragement in the Scriptures from a man named Simon who knows exactly how that feels.

Reading Luke 5:1-7
Luke chapter five, I’m going to read to you verses one through seven and see what encouragement we can find in the Scriptures tonight. Verse one says, «Now it came about that while the multitude were pressing in around him"—that’s Jesus—"and listening to the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, » that’s another phrasing for the Sea of Galilee. And he saw, verse two says, he saw—somebody say he saw—"two boats lying by the edge of the lake, but the fishermen had gotten out of them and they were washing their nets.» He got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s. He asked him to push out a little way from the land, and he sat down and began teaching the multitudes from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, «Come on out to deep water and let down your nets for a catch.» Simon answered and said to him, «Master, we’ve worked hard all night long; we’ve caught absolutely nothing, but at your bidding I will let down my net anyway.» And when they had done this, verse six says, «They enclosed a great quantity of fish; their nets began to break, and they signaled to their partners in the other boat for them to come and help them. They came and filled both boats so that they both began to sink.» That’s a lot of fish!

Jesus Sees You in the Crowd
It starts out by making sure that we have a description of what’s happening when we meet Simon after he has fished all night long. We get to see Simon exactly the same way that Jesus did on this particular occasion. I’m like Lisa, just a bit, in that I love the Gospel of Luke. I love the details that Luke gives us to help describe for us the details of a story so that we’re able to put a little flesh on the bones of the story, and Luke wants to make sure that you know that on this particular occasion, Jesus is surrounded by people. He wants you to know that he’s not just surrounded by a crowd of people, but that they are pressing in on Jesus. He wants you to get the picture of this crowd gathered on this particular day. This is not a calm, sedate, casual crowd that is sitting nicely like you are tonight listening to the word of God. No, these people were clamoring to get close to Jesus. They were pressing in on him. They wanted to be, maybe like the woman with the issue of blood—you remember the one who forced her way through the crowd so that she could get close enough to reach out and touch the hem of Jesus’s garment? These people wanted to capture the attention of Jesus. These folks were waving; they were calling out; they were crying out to him. This was a clamoring, chaotic, loud group of people.

He wants you to know, the author does, that they were pressing in on him, meaning the reason why Jesus is now backed up to the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee is not because he casually walked there on that particular day; it’s because there are throngs of people who have backed him up so that he is now against the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee. They want to get close to Jesus because even if these people weren’t sure that he was the Messiah—they didn’t know whether or not he was the one that they’d been waiting on—they didn’t know whether this whole «repent, the kingdom of heaven is at hand» stuff—they didn’t know about all of that. But what they did know was that when this guy showed up, blind people could see; that’s what they knew. They knew when Jesus showed up, deaf people started hearing, and the lame could walk; the dead were raised. They knew that there was something unique about this man—that every single time he opened up his mouth and taught, his words were dripping with an authority they had never ever heard before. They wanted to get close to Jesus.

I mean, just think about how you would feel if Jesus were your Bible study teacher. They were not sitting casually; they were pressing in on Jesus. With all of this chaos and all of this confusion and all of this clamoring—this crowd that was gathered around him—with all of that whirlwind, that hurricane of noise happening around Jesus, verse two says that he saw one man who’d had a bad night fishing. I flew from halfway across the world to tell somebody tonight that he sees you. I want you to know that in this huge crowded auditorium tonight, this sanctuary, this church where thousands of us have gathered, so much so that they’ve had to open up another auditorium, and that there are throngs of young women seated on the floor up here tonight. I need you to know that even in a crowd this size, he sees you. You may be lost to someone else who is seated on the other side of this room—that may not know that you’re planted on this side or in the back or even in the front—but you need to know that no matter how big the crowd gets, you serve a God who’s got his eyes on you. Yes, we serve a God who sees us. He knows every single tear that you’ve cried; every single one that has fallen from your eye has not gotten lost in the carpet fibers of your bedroom floor. Every single one of them he has captured in the palm of his hand. You need to know that every moment you’ve spent awake at night trying to go over that problem and figure out a solution and exert your frustration—every single moment you’ve spent up at night—your spouse may not be aware that you were up that second and third and fourth hour. Your spouse might not know, but you serve a God who sees you.

You need to know that your best friend may not be aware; your mom or dad may not be aware; the person sitting next to you may not have a clue what you’ve been going through. Nobody may know, but you serve a God who’s got his eyes on you. He sees you! He saw you today if you sat down because you needed prayer—even if you were missed in the shuffle and no one reached over and touched you and prayed over you earlier when we prayed together. Maybe you felt like you were all alone because maybe you even came here by yourself. You need to know you are not lost in this crowd. You serve a God who’s got his eyes on you. He knows the details of your fishing trip gone bad. He knows what you’ve been giving; he knows how disappointed you are that you have not been yielding what you feel like is a worthy benefit for the investment that you’ve been making. It may be lost on everybody else, but you serve a God who’s got his eyes on you. Never in a million years should we let the fact that our God sees us roll off of our shoulders casually, as if it’s no big deal. He sees me, y’all! I can barely stand it without tears rolling down my cheeks when I realized that he doesn’t have to have a relationship with me; he chooses to! I mean this is God we’re talking about here. He is the one who is right now making sure that the universe stays in position. He is the one making sure that neighborhoods in the galaxies that scientists have not even yet discovered—they haven’t even put their fingerprints on the fact that there’s a galaxy in, or there’s a neighborhood in the galaxy of that particular portion of the universe; they ain’t even gotten there yet—he’s the one, our God, who is making sure that the neighborhoods of the galaxy stay exactly where they’re supposed to be.

He is the one this morning that made sure that the earth spun on its axis so much so that when we got up, the bright, brilliant, beautiful sun was hanging over us, welcoming us into a brand new day. He is the one that made sure that that sun stayed exactly where it was supposed to be until it swaps places for the moon tonight, that we get to just enjoy. He is the one that makes sure that every single star that is hanging in the sky is known not only by a number but by a name. He is the one that is making sure that the globe that you and I sit on—the one that I’m on this end right now tonight and my boys are on the other end—he’s the one making sure that this earth spins on its axis at just the right speed to make sure that life can actually be sustained here. That God who’s controlling the throes of the universe also has made time to see about you!

He sees you, and I feel like tonight somebody needs to just know and rest in the fact that you are not unseen. You were not unknown in the crowd with so many people, so many issues, so many bigger, it seems like to us sometimes, so many bigger needs that need to be solved and seen and taken care of by a mighty God. We can feel like our little small things are sort of lost in the shuffle. God wants you to know tonight his eyes are on you. He sees you.

Washing the Nets: Taking a Break
Luke wants to make sure you know exactly what it was that Simon was doing when Jesus saw him backed up against the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee—people spanning everywhere to his left and his right and in front of him—probably hundreds, scholars say, hundreds, if not thousands of people pressing in upon him. He sees Simon who is already at this point fished all night long. He is already disappointed; he is already irritated and frustrated because he has been giving it everything he’s got.

Luke wants you to know what he saw when he saw Simon, and it says in verse two, he saw two boats lying by the edge of the lake, but the fishermen had gotten out of them, and they were washing their nets. If we were not sure that Simon had completed his fishing trip for the day, now we know because Simon has gotten out of the boat. He has completely abandoned that which represents his frustration, his disappointment, his continued investment and lack of benefits for that investment. He has completely abandoned the boat. He is frustrated and irritated; he’s gotten out of the boat, and now he is washing his net. Jesus sees him washing his net. I mean, he is done!

Now, I’ve often heard some teach and give a little bit of a hard time to Simon here, maybe considering that he should have hung in there a little bit longer, he should have just stayed on the platform of that boat, he should have just thrown out that net maybe one more time. But in all of the times that I have heard Simon given a hard time really for deciding to get off the deck of that boat on that day and start washing and tending his net, there are many people who I’ve heard give Simon a hard time; but do you know when I read this story, there’s one person who sees that Simon has abandoned the boat, he sees that Simon is washing his net, but he doesn’t say one negative word to him, and it’s Jesus.

Which means that there’s nothing inherently wrong with the fact that Simon needed to get off the boat and take a break. There’s nothing wrong with the fact that Simon is washing his net, and here’s the reason why I think that is because I’m going to tell y’all right now: if I had been fishing all night long and had not caught one single solitary fish, I promise you, I wouldn’t be washing my net. I may be trying to sell my net on eBay, but I wouldn’t be washing it because washing it implies that I intend on using it again. Washing it may mean I’m done for now, but I’m not done for good.

The reason why gatherings like this one are so important is because maybe just for a few days, we get to step off of that which might be a struggle for us, a disappointment for us, or discouraging for us. We step off of it; we drag our nets into this room broken and torn and dirty, and we get with a group of people who are willing to help us tend our nets and then encourage us to get back onto those boats and be who God has called us to be. That’s the reason why the circle of friends—we heard that today—the circle of friends that you have around you are so important because we read in verse two that fishermen were washing their nets, not one, plural; there were many that were gathered around one net. Those nets, y’all, were so big; there were so many little details that had to be tended to after an all-night fishing trip. They were heavy nets; they could not be managed well by one fisherman.

That’s why throughout the Scriptures you would always see many fishermen together—that’s because when you were born into the family of God, you were not born into an only-child situation. You were not an only child; you were part of the family of God—a sisterhood where you’re supposed to be vulnerable enough and authentic enough to bring your net, tattered and torn, into the house of God and know there are some sisters who love you enough that they’re willing to get down on bended knee, pull out their mending needles, pull out their wash rags and soap, and help you get that net back in order and encourage you to get back to the fishing trip that you’ve been assigned to. That’s why weekends like this are so important because we get to tend our nets together, so tend your net, my friend; just don’t sell your net. There’s a fishing trip that’s been assigned to you, and if you need to get off of the deck of that boat for just a little while to wash your net, well, good for you! You have encouragement from your God to do that, but then when this time together of refreshing is over, there is a fishing trip that you’ve been assigned to that requires you to get back on the deck of that boat and get busy doing what it is that God has called you to do.

Jesus sees Simon tending his net, and he sees you. He sees you getting refueled, getting refreshed. He sees me getting refueled, getting refreshed, getting encouraged again from the struggles that we’ve had this week, this month, that you’ve had this year, the last two, three, five years maybe, have been difficult in the fishing trip, the assignment that you have in your life. He sees you! He sees you washing and tending your net, and then there’s going to be encouragement for you to get back on that boat and do what it is that God has called you to do. He sees you!

Jesus Steps Into the Boat
Then it says in verse three, «Jesus got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and he asked him to push out a little way from the land.» Look at that again, verse three. It says Jesus got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s. Jesus got into the boat. Whenever I’m reading through a portion of Scripture, there are many things that sort of help to direct what I’m looking at, what I’m concentrating on. One of those things is that if there is something contrasting in a very short space of time—in a very short span of real estate in the Scriptures—and I’m looking at it and I can see that something is different than it was a few moments ago, it always catches my attention. Same thing if something’s repeated, like when Jesus says, «Verily, verily, I say unto you, » or, «Truly, truly, I say unto you, » that means I lean in and I pay attention because I know that God doesn’t just talk because he likes to hear himself talk; it’s because he wants me to pay close attention.

So if he’s saying it twice, I’m leaning in. If something is contrasting, I’m leaning in to see why, which is why reading that Jesus stepped into the boat in verse three gives me pause. It’s just one verse earlier in verse two that Simon got out of the boat. Verse two, Simon’s out; verse three, Jesus is in. The thing that was so disappointing and discouraging and irritating and frustrating to Simon in verse two that he could not wait to get out of it is the very thing, just one verse later, that is the perfect platform for Jesus to stand on. I want to encourage somebody tonight to know not only that he sees you, but he will step onto the very thing you want to step off of. He will get into the very thing you want to get out of.

The season of life you want to get out of—that’s probably the season he’s going to get into. The place where you’re standing, the struggle that you’re having, the thing that you want to abandon because you’re so frustrated by it—that is most likely the place where God himself is going to plant his feet in your circumstances and demonstrate his power. He steps onto this empty platform; there are no fish. There is nothing that Simon’s own experience or his own talent or his own gifting or his own money or his own time or, more importantly, his own energy or effort—he could not gather anything on his own. Jesus steps into that emptiness, and he stands on that platform, and because he is standing there, it becomes a natural amphitheater where everybody who has gathered that day can hear every single word that is about to come out of his mouth. In fact, Luke wants to describe the message Jesus had on that day. He says that Jesus spoke the word of God.

It seems like a random phrase, but actually, that phrase in specific—the word of God—was only used in particular when Jesus was giving a clear message about his messiahship, when he was pointing attention to who he was and what he had come to do—when he wanted to make sure that people recognized that the Messiah they had been waiting on, that he was the one who was an answer to the prophetic announcements of the prophets of old. It was him making sure that folks saw that he was the promised one. Throughout the Gospels, this is the first time that the word of God is mentioned. When Jesus wanted to give that message, when Jesus knew that almost for the first time people were going to maybe begin to grasp the gravity of who he was, when he looked around to try to figure out where is the best place for me to stand to make sure that there is not one person in this crowd who will not hear every single word that I have to say, when he looked around to find the perfect place, he used the abandoned boat circumstance of Simon’s experience.

Do you realize that sometimes the best message that anybody will ever hear about the power and the greatness and the grandeur of God through your life will not come from what you say? It’s gonna come because there was some emptiness, there was a fishing trip gone bad, there was something you could not do in your own power and your own strength. The place where you did not have the resources, you did not have the time, you didn’t have the passion, you didn’t have the energy, you didn’t have what it would take to make this fishing trip good on your own—that will be the place where Jesus himself will plant his feet and declare his power to those that are in your sphere of influence. They’ll know Jesus not because of what you say, but because of how he shows up in your emptiness.

God’s Sovereignty and God Margin
Okay, here’s the great thing about our God. Are y’all still with me? Y’all still with me? Listen, here’s the great thing about God: he is sovereign! Somebody say sovereign! Sovereignty means that he stood before time—that is pre-Genesis 1:1. He was in eternity past, okay? In fact, the only reason why there is a Genesis 1:1 is because he was already there so that he could say, «Let there be, » and there was! Right? So he was in eternity past; he has not only been in eternity past, but he was there at the beginning of time—the beginning of the spectrum of time, Genesis 1:1. He has seen the spectrum all the way through to the end of time, which you and I have not yet seen. He’s already been there, already done that! But it didn’t stop there for him; at the end of time, he has already been in eternity future—the entire spectrum of time and eternity! He has already been there and done that, okay?

But sovereignty does not just mean that he’s been there; sovereignty means he’s got the whole thing in the palm of his hands! This is good news for us because your life and mine is just a blip on the radar screen of time and eternity. The 70, 80, 90, 100 years that we may get on this planet, it’s just a small dot on the radar screen of time and eternity, which means if he’s got the whole thing in the palm of his hand, your life is covered! Sovereignty is what allows you and me to do what Psalm 46:10 says: be still, cease striving, chill out, girl; relax and know that I am God!

If we apply God’s sovereignty to Luke chapter five, the sovereignty of Jesus—the God-man—to Luke chapter five, what this tells us is that when Simon was out there in the water fishing all night long—when he casted the net for the first time, an experienced fisherman and pulled up the net and couldn’t believe there were no fish—and then he threw it out again, and man, it’s getting close to midnight by now, but he throws it out there, and still no fish. Now he’s getting real frustrated because he’s throwing it in again. It’s almost 1 AM; there are no fish again and again, and he’s disappointed and frustrated and shocked and surprised because this has never looked this way before. He cannot believe this has happened!

What the sovereignty of our great God, Jesus Christ, tells us is that even though Simon was shocked, Jesus was not! What Jesus, in his sovereignty, knew before the fishing trip even began is that he was going to allow Simon to fish and not catch anything! When Simon went on the fishing trip, Jesus already knew he was gonna fish and fish and not catch anything! And here’s why: because Jesus in his sovereignty knew that a morning was coming, and in the morning he was gonna need a place to stand, and if he’d let Simon catch all his own fish, if the deck of that boat had been filled with a bunch of flipping, flopping fish, there would have been no room for his feet! So he let Simon fish and catch nothing.

He purposefully put him in a position—he put you in a position; he puts me in a position—where he already knows you’re gonna fish and catch nothing. He sets you up to have what I call God margin. Somebody say God margin! God margin is the distance between what you can do with your own resources and where it is that God wants you to be. It’s the gap that always exists! He puts you in that place so that you can see what it’s like to have Jesus step into your emptiness and perform a miracle that will blow your mind! If your talent is always enough, if your reasoning is always enough, if your connections are always enough, if your diplomas are always enough, if your successes are always enough, if your smarts are always enough, if your money is always enough, if your rationale is always enough, you will never have enough empty space for the feet of Jesus! If you can catch all your own fish, you’ll never know what it’s like to have God show up in your emptiness!

This means if you’re on a fishing trip right now in your life and it keeps going bad because you’re giving—you’re investing emotionally into that person or financially into that endeavor or with your own ideas and creativity into that ministry or that business—you’re giving it everything you’ve got, and you keep coming up empty. It means that you shouldn’t be frustrated. You should actually be sitting on the edge of your seat with your chin in your hands in anticipation, knowing that if there’s emptiness, he intends to fill it!

Going Deeper for the Miracle
So Jesus steps into that boat, and he begins to declare the word of God to the people who were gathered. When he finished speaking to them, he looks at Simon and says, «Now let’s go deep!» The shallow water was for them; the deep water is for you! You’ve got to decide! In fact, listen: the only reason why you and I would be privileged to be in this space for two and a half whole days is if, on the tail end of this thing, he fully intends to call you deep! That’s the only reason why you’re here! You’re getting equipped right now because the Holy Spirit is gonna whisper to you in some area of your life, «Come and go with me!» You’re gonna have to decide right now: do I want to stand in just the shallow places where I can stand on my own two feet, I can keep my head above water? This makes sense to me; I’m comfortable here in this place of faith because it’s shallow, or when he says, «Come to the deep place, » where you already know you’re gonna be in over your head, where it’s gonna be a little bit scary? You’ve got to decide: I’ve got to decide; are we willing to go deep?

The shallow stuff is for them; the deep stuff—that’s when he shows up for you! Simon goes deep, and in the deep water he casts out his net on the same vain, fruitless waters he had the night before, and all of a sudden everything changed because Jesus was in that boat! Those same waters that had been completely fruitless the night before, now they are teeming with fish! The fish almost can’t wait to get in the boat! They almost seem to be jumping into the boat almost on their own, but no, Jesus doesn’t let that happen. Even though he could have, he just said, «Fish, get in the boat, » and the fish would have just started just jumping in the boat! Instead, he said, «Simon, cast out your net!» Simon, you participate in this miracle!

Do you know that in the Scriptures there are about 8,000 promises that are available to daughters and sons of God? 8,000 opportunities to see God move in your life! Most of those promises he did not place in our hand; he placed them in our reach—that you’ve got to do your part to grab hold of the promise! Simon cast out the net, and all of a sudden there were so many fish he did not have the capacity to hold! Verse 7 says, «He signaled to his partners in the other boat.» I love that Luke has so many details. He wants you to know that he did not call out to his other partners; he did not say, «Y’all get over here! You are not going to believe this!» He just signaled!

Scripture does not tell us why he didn’t call out to them, but I just wonder if it’s because he was speechless! I just wonder if it’s because when his brain tried to come up with the right words to describe the astounding miracle that God was doing, he could not even find the words! So the best he could come up with was just a signal for them to come over because he could not even verbalize how great God had been! This is Eucharistia! It’s when our gratitude, when our celebration of God is so overwhelming that sometimes we can celebrate in applause and with our hands raised and with words that spill out of our mouth and adoration, but sometimes he stuns you so incredibly, so impossibly, so overwhelmingly, that you cannot even speak.

I want to suggest to many of you in this room that the reason why he’s let you be here this weekend is because he’s going to call you deep with the intention, if you’ll follow him, of blessing you so big of performing such an astounding miracle that your outburst of gratitude will look more like just a silent implosion of gratefulness to God because you will not be able to verbalize the miracle that God does in your midst! I believe that for many of you if you’ll say yes and go to the deep place of faith with him in this area where you’ve already been fishing and you’ve already been discouraged! I believe that if you’ll go, he’s telling you he’s setting you up right now to let you know that he is already planning on Ephesians 3:20 and 21 kind of miracle, «Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above and beyond anything that you can ask or think, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus, both now and forever. Amen!»

Invitation and Closing Prayer
I want you to bow your heads, and listen: if you are in this room and honestly you are discouraged because you’ve been on this fishing trip of yours for a while, you’ve been giving everything you’ve got, and honestly, you’re just about to throw in the towel, but you want to heed the voice of God calling you today to hang on in there in full expectation that he’s got something planned for this fishing trip of yours. If you’ve been feeling discouraged, and maybe you’ve come to wash your nets, and maybe you didn’t intend to get back on that fishing trip and to continue on, but now you know he would have you do that in your marriage, in your parenting, on your job, in your school, in that ministry, in that endeavor, if that’s what you need prayer regarding, would you please just stand right where you are? We cannot wait to join with you in prayer and encourage you tonight. Come on, stand up wherever you are; that’s what you need prayer for tonight.

Prayer

Lord Jesus, I pray for every single sister who is standing in this room and beyond. Lord, I pray right now in the matchless name of Jesus Christ that you would lift discouragement off of their life and that you would replace it with courage in Jesus' name. Lord, I am praying that any way that the enemy may have assigned to their life something that would distract or discourage them from the fishing trip you have assigned for them, I pray that that assignment would be canceled in Jesus' name and by his blood that has been shed on Calvary. Lord, I pray that you would give them a steely confidence, Lord, that you would give them a diligence, a tenacity, Father, to do what it is that you have called them to do.

And God, I pray that when, in faith, they respond to go with you even to the deep places of faith, I pray, Lord, that you would blow their mind! Father, I call on Ephesians 3:20 and 21. I ask that you would be the God of abundance. I pray that the waters that have had no fish for them up until this point, Lord, I pray that they would be so filled with your abundance and your faithfulness that never again will they ever discount the goodness of God in their lives. Lord, we’re sitting on the edge of our seat waiting to see how you will respond, and it is in Jesus' name-in Jesus' name that everybody agreed with me and said, «Amen!»