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Luke 5:1-11 One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, with the people crowding around him and listening to the word of God, ² he saw at the water's edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. ³ 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. ⁴ When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch." ⁵ 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." ⁶ When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. ⁷ 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. ⁸ When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus' knees and said, "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!" ⁹ For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, ¹⁰ 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." ¹¹ So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.

This morning is the second week of a series that will go all summer that I’m calling Meeting Jesus. Each week we will look at another interaction with Jesus as recorded in the gospels, and my goal is that through this summer you would also meet Jesus, and that by doing so you would be forever changed for the better. At the heart of the Christian faith, it is a relationship with Jesus. It is not religion, or philosophy, or a set of laws, or a way of life, or something to do on a Sunday morning, but a relationship that you either have or you don’t. I don’t want you to come to the end of your life and not know that God was real.

Today’s story is a story of Jesus calling his first disciples. There were twelve men who were his primary apostles, and one of them was Simon, who Jesus nicknamed Peter, “the rock”. Let’s look at the four parts of this story in order to understand what goes into the call to follow Jesus.