Christ in the Boat

Yesterday's sermon (timely enough) was on failure.

The text for the sermon was from Luke 5: 2-11, where Christ is teaching by the Lake of Gennesaret and has Simon Peter take his boat out so he can teach. After the teaching, he tells Simon to take his boat back out into the deep water. Simon's response:

"Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net."

The result? Their nets are so full that they reach the point of breaking. Simon Peter realizes the man in his boat is something more, and Peter, James and John become disciples of Christ.

The point of failure (since this is not a typical text of Peter's failure, as he managed to have many)? The simple fact that they had failed to catch anything the night before.

The interesting point in the sermon was not the fact that Peter had failed nor that Christ got into the boat - it was that the decision to get into Peter's boat was Christ's. Peter had nothing to do with it. Yes, he had to make the decision to follow what Christ suggested (and think of it from Peter's perspective: what would an itinerant preacher, a carpenter, know about fishing?), but the initial thing that made everything possible - Christ's presence - Peter had no part it in. It was Christ's decision.

The point, said our pastor, is not that we fail - we all fail, sometimes in ways that are painful and embarrassing and scarring - but to realize that, if we are believing members of the body, that Christ is in the boat with us. We need to accept that fact, listen, and get ready to do what He says, be it go back to fishing where we were or simply put our boat out a bit so others can hear Him teaching.

So having failed - as we all do - is Christ in your boat? And what is He asking you to do?