Luke 5:10 And so was also James, and John, the sons of Zebedee, which were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, Fear not… This miracle illustrates — I. THE LOW LEVEL OF A LIFE WITHOUT CHRIST FOR ITS MASTER. Fishing had become to these men the chief end and whole aim of living. Up to this time their life was exceedingly narrow. It had no horizon wider than the sea which held their food and supplied their trade. Thus they would have lived and died, but for the call and commission of Christ. The secular ideal of life always binds men to earth. Only Christ can raise it. II. THE TRUE RELATION BETWEEN BUSINESS AND RELIGION, Our Lord lived a carpenter before He died a Saviour. Through all His early manhood He consecrated manual toil by His own example, and so He wedded the daily and spiritual life for ever in one. Here He sanctions Simon's business, even while crowning it with a higher calling. Our Lord is master both of business and religion; no drudgery is too low or mean to become, when done for Christ's sake, the very service of God. How this transfigures the net of the fisher, the miner's pick, the grocer's scales, the clerk's tape: in each of them can be discerned a humble tool for the accomplishment of the Divine will. The servant's broom, thus held, becomes a sceptre in the hand that holds it. III. THE SECULAR LIFE, SUBMITTED TO CHRIST, BECOMES A SCHOOL FOR THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. It was in doing His daily work for Christ's sake that Peter took his first and most needed lesson in apostleship — the lesson of humility. And thus it is, through the arts and implements which are the most familiar, that the Lord is always seeking to lift men up from secular to spiritual lives. As the Eastern astrologers were pointed to the Redeemer's cradle by a star; as the woman of Samaria, in the very act of drawing water out of Jacob's well, was led to dip and drink of the sweeter waters of life; as Peter, the fisherman, by a surprising draught of fishes was made lowly enough to catch men — so through the humblest art or calling of the daily life, the Lord is reaching down hands to train and mould us for a purer spiritual life and service. The counting-room is no longer narrow, when thus its higher use as schoolroom of the soul is recognized. Dollars and cents no longer degrade men when they learn to read on their face, not the name of Caesar only, but the holier seal and superscription of God. The irritating cares of home cease to fret the housekeeper's spirit when she begins to treat them as part of that ministry by which the Lord seeks to make her a more profitable servant. IV. THE NOBLE SERVICES OF A LIFE CONSECRATED IN ALL ITS ACTIVITIES TO THE LORD. Not all at once; we cannot enter school and graduate the same day. It needs many lessons; line upon line of experience; but success does come at last. V. PRACTICAL LESSONS. 1. The service of the Lord is always the truest service we can render to ourselves. We have all something to give up to become followers of Jesus. Yet give it up! Yours will be a strange experience if the things you give up for Christ's sake do not soon look small beside the things you have gained. They will be, in comparison, as the Sea of Galilee to the world, as the worth of a fish to the value of an immortal man. 2. No business on earth is worth following for its own sake. It may be an honest and innocent business; but if it be not also a Christian calling, and that by our own most deliberate choice, it will certainly dwarf the higher nature of him who follows it. It may keep us alive. It may bring us gains. But what are life and wealth worth, in any sober man's estimate, when thus secured? The "successes" of millionaires have been commonly the worst mistakes of life. There is a higher law reigning over all trades, professions, occupation (1 Corinthians 10:31). 3. The climax of all callings is to be a fisher of men. (J. B. Clark.) Parallel Verses KJV: And so was also James, and John, the sons of Zebedee, which were partners with Simon. And Jesus said unto Simon, Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men. |
    |