Sooner or later you will drop out of the faith if you do not share it. It is one of the most important principles of the Christian life. In order to keep the faith, you must give it away. Here is a song we learned in grade school:

There were twelve disciples Jesus called to help Him, Simon Peter, Andrew, James, his brother John, Philip, Thomas, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon, Judas and Bartholomew. He has called us too. He has called us too. We are His disciples We His work must do.

But how do we do His work? I’d like to direct your attention to Luke 5, where we have a story of three, or possibly four, of the twelve disciples:

It came to pass, that, as the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennesaret, and saw two ships standing by the lake: but the fishermen were gone out of them, and were washing their nets. And he entered into one of the ships, which was Simon’s, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land. And he sat down, and taught the people out of the ship. Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.

And Simon answering said unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net. And when they had this done, they enclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net brake. And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both ships, so that they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord. For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken. 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. And when they had brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed him (Luke 5:1-11).

This story in Luke 5 took place about a year and a half into Jesus’ ministry. The disciples had been following Him in an on-again, off-again way. Evidently they went back to their fishing once in a while to put food on the table and get clothes for the family. But after this event in Luke 5, they followed Him, forsaking all, and trusting Him to make provision for their needs.

There’s an interesting counterpart to this story, which happened approximately two years later. You can read it in John 21. The crucifixion was past, and Jesus was about ready to leave and go back to heaven. Jesus had agreed to meet the disciples in Galilee, and they were waiting there for Him to show up. Verse 3 says:

Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing. They say unto him, We also go with thee. They went forth, and entered into a ship immediately; and that night they caught nothing. But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore: but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus. Then Jesus saith unto them, Children, have ye any meat? They answered him, No. And he said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find. They cast therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes.

So there were at least two great miracles that would make any fisherman stand up and listen.

There was a notice in a sports store one day, written in old English: “Behold the fisherman. He ariseth a great while before day, and disturbeth the whole household. Mighty are his preparations. He goeth forth with great expectations, and when the day is far spent, he returneth, filled with strong drink, and the truth is not in him.“ Well, that’s one description of a fisherman. Probably the more common one is where you see in your mind’s eye a fisherman in the deep South. He’s leaning against a tree, sound asleep, his straw hat across his face; his mule is eating, and he’s waiting for the fish to come and be caught.

Perhaps the Christian church has been guilty of that kind of fishing for men. I saw a report of a great evangelistic endeavor in the state of Ohio a few years ago. The evangelical churches got together and figured that there were 135,000 people in the town. They figured there were probably 50,000 who were old enough to be saved, but who were without Christ. They held a six-week evangelistic campaign, led by one of the most capable and widely sought evangelists in the land. More than fifty churches cooperated most heartily in the campaign, resulting in reaching about 1,200 souls. This was cause for great rejoicing. But what did the churches do for the other 49,000 souls who were still outside of Christ?

Nothing.

They had spared neither labor nor expense to give the lost of their city the chance of their lifetime to come after the gospel and be saved. What more could they do? They had done their utmost to get the sheaves to come out of the fields to be harvested, to get the fish to come to the shore to be caught, to get the dead to come after life. Yet 49,000 of them insisted on staying away, and the church was helpless to do more.

Does this fit in with the story of how Jesus instructed His disciples? He said to “launch out.“ None of this sleeping by the shore, waiting for a few fish to jump out and be caught. Jesus said, “Launch out into the deep.“ The gospel commission says, “Go ye into all the world.“

What does it mean to “launch out into the deep“? Look at Ephesians 3:17-19:

That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.

Could we take our first lesson on launching out into the deep to mean launching into a deeper relationship with the Lord Jesus Himself? Let’s not take it for granted that all church members already know Christ. Let’s make our number-one priority the vital relationship with Him, from which all witness must spring. Only then will we be ready to launch out into the deep in God’s work.

Perhaps the reason we cannot launch out into the deep in terms of gospel service and outreach is because our experience with Christ is too shallow. Perhaps we know only truth that is on us, instead of truth that is in us. We can fill our pockets with gospel tracts, we can be armed to the teeth with resources and points of doctrine, we can be loaded with gospel bombs, but if the truth is not in us, then we are only in the shallows and can know nothing of what it means to launch out into the deep.

Jesus told His disciples to let down their nets. “Let down your nets“ is a very personal thing. It suggests one of the premises of the gospel witness. The one who has something to tell, the one who has seen and heard and experienced and handled, is the one who knows what it means to lift up Jesus, because Jesus is number one in his life. It’s his net, not someone else’s. It is your net. What have you been doing with your net? If we have our own net, if we know what it means to lift up Jesus, verbally and nonverbally, so that the fish are drawn, then we are ready to go and do and tell and be.

On two major occasions the disciples experienced what it was like to toil all night and take nothing. I talked to someone one time who had been fishing in Alaska, who told me what it was like to sit for forty-eight hours and catch absolutely nothing. I sort of rejoiced, because I’ve always felt sorry for the poor fish anyway! The one fish I ever caught I had to turn loose again (albeit with a sore throat) so he could go back where he belonged. But the disciples toiled all night and took nothing. It doesn’t sound like they had anything better going than the legendary man on the shore with his hat over his face, and the line tied around his big toe. Maybe you’d receive more benefit from getting a little rest, sitting on the shore. Why go out and toil all night if you’re going to take nothing?

I’d like to suggest that it can be better to toil all night and take nothing than to sit on the shore, because it might lead you to realize a great need, which is a good place to be. A student who flunks an exam, and because of that goes to work like he has never worked before, and passes with honors next time, has discovered that it wasn’t all loss the first time. The person who loses a race and then trains like he’s never trained before as a result, discovers that it was not all loss. The one who flunks the treadmill down at the hospital and gets into a jogging and exercise program as a result has discovered that he can gain from loss. Isn’t that true?

The disciples who toiled all night and took nothing were ready to forget their independence and self-sufficiency. They were in a good position to admit that they couldn’t do it themselves, which is one of the main ingredients for doing God’s work. As a result, they were ready to listen to Jesus’ words, “Cast your net on the right side of the ship.“

You’ll discover in this story that Jesus was on the shore— and the right side of their boat was toward the shore. It was foolish to look for fish on that side—and besides that, day had dawned, and it was really too late to be fishing at all. So what we have here is Jesus’ invitation to do something foolish. It often happens that the true disciples of Jesus are led to do something which appears at first glance to be foolish. It was foolish to take pitchers and lanterns and trumpets and invade the camp of the Midianites with only 300 men. Remember how foolish it was for Jonathan and his armorbearer to take on the enemy by themselves? But when Jesus gives the word, it’s no longer foolish. “Nevertheless, at thy word, I will let down the net.“

The right side of the ship is often the wrong side, and the wrong side is often the right side. But we’d better make sure to cast the gospel net on the right side of the ship.

The Christian church today has come to a real impasse. We’re still here—that’s the impasse. In spite of our good news, in spite of our remarkable growth, people are still being born faster than the gospel is going. It is possible, when you compare the work we’ve accomplished to the work that still needs to be done, to realize that the church has toiled all night and taken nothing. Maybe that’s not a bad place to be, if it will lead us to our faces at the feet of Jesus, where we can learn to cast the net at His word, to be sensitive to His orders.

It is possible to approach the Lord’s work just like we would approach working for IBM or General Motors. We appear to do the Lord’s work without His power, but it really isn’t accomplishing anything. How can we tell which is the right side of the ship? I’d like to suggest a few points that might help to indicate which is the right side of the ship. First of all, we cast the net under the direction of the blessed Master and not simply by our own planning. The right side of the boat is where Jesus is, and that demands that Jesus be number one in our lives. It is only then that we can be real witnesses.

Another important point is that your witness is personal, not something handed to you. Suppose that your next-door neighbor sees an accident downtown. He is called into court, but he gets sick the day of the trial. So he sends you in his place with twenty-seven points of what happened.

You go to court, armed with the twenty-seven points. The judge asks if you’re a witness, and you say that you are. You give him your twenty-seven points, and they’re impressive. But there’s one thing you hadn’t planned on. The judge begins to ask you some questions, but you weren’t there at the accident. So you don’t know how to answer the questions. You begin to hem and haw around.

Finally the judge says, “Wait a minute—are you a witness or aren’t you?“

“Well,“ you say, “I have to confess that the real witness couldn’t make it, but he gave me these twenty-seven points.“ It wouldn’t be long before you’d be sent out of the courtroom door with your twenty-seven points.

Sometimes we forget what a witness is. You have to have been there to be a witness. You must have seen and experienced.

Another factor of fishing on the right side of the boat is that everyone becomes involved. You don’t leave the fishing to the professionals. We are all disciples, and in the body of Christ, each of us has a part to play. Sometimes we forget that fact and expect the preacher to do it all, while we contribute toward paying his salary. No, we are all disciples. The preacher has an important work to do, but so does the layman. And the preacher can never do the work of the layman. We are all to work together. We are all disciples. Jesus has called us, too, to work for Him.

As long as the church has to continue to “promote“ soul winning, we continue to advertise the fact that we are dead. But when witness and outreach become spontaneous, because we have our own nets, and we have launched out into the deep, and witnessing has become a way of life, then we will discover ourselves on the right side of the ship.

What about success? Success has always been God’s department, never ours. We share with others, not because we are sure of success, but for the joy of sharing the news. Anyone who is in the hospital and is being silently and quietly made well by a marvelous doctor is not going to be content with going about the halls helping people to be more comfortable while they die from the same sickness he had! He’s going to shout it through every corridor that he has good news. His doctor can make them well! Isn’t that true?

Finally, as a result of casting on the right side of the ship, where Jesus was, the disciples found that they had enclosed a great multitude of fish. The nets began to break, and the ships began to sink. Perhaps here we have a hidden suggestion that may not be so hidden after all—that when we have a degree of what we call success, how easy it is for the nets to break and the ship to sink. You know, we want to get our pictures printed in the church paper and all the rest of it, to let everyone know what we have done.

When this happened to the disciples, one man did the right thing. His name was Peter. When he saw the net breaking and the ship sinking, he fell down at Jesus’ feet, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.“ Peter felt small in the presence of a giant. We see someone who feels like only a swamp at the base of the snowcapped mountain. We see one like Daniel, whose face turned deathly pale (see Daniel 10:8); and like Isaiah, who, when he got a glimpse of the Lord, was able to say, “Woe is me! for I am undone“ (Isaiah 6:5).

We can realize that we didn’t do it ourselves, that the Lord did it, and what is more, that we are sinners. Aren’t you glad that Jesus keeps standing in the presence of sinful people, even when they say “Depart from me“? He still stays around. I’m glad for the fact that when Peter said, “Depart from me,“ he was hanging on to Jesus’ feet for dear life. It’s an interesting picture, and I would like to join him there, for it is only there that the nets are saved, along with the fishes and the boats, and all make it through.

Then Jesus said, “Fear not. Henceforth thou shalt catch men.“ Jesus is the One who made the analogy, “I will make you fishers of men“ (Matthew 4:19). What do you plan to do, fellow disciples? Do you plan to reach out into the deep and let down your nets? Are you going to look at your neighbor next door and seek to minister to his needs? What about the people in your family, your neighborhood, your town? And what about those who are afar off? “Follow me,“ says Jesus, “and henceforth you will catch men.“

And so it says that the disciples “forsook all, and followed him.“ This means, if I read it aright, that now their first priority was Jesus Christ. When they got up in the morning, they had Him first on their priority list. They walked with Him, talked with Him, and fellowshiped with Him. Everything else in their lives was secondary to that.

Now let’s conclude with what the net really is. It’s the gospel net, and it is that which draws all into the ship. The ship represents the church. Can you include John 3:16 in your net: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.“ Can you include John 6:37 in your net? “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.“ Jesus never turns away anyone who comes to Him. They are always accepted. Is that in your net? What about John 11:26: “Whosoever liveth and believeth in me will never die.“ Is that in your net? Can you share meaningfully 2 Peter 3:9: “The Lord is … not willing that any should perish, but that all should come.“ Is that in your net?

What about 1 John 5:12: “He that hath the Son hath life.“ Do you believe that for yourself? Do you have a relationship with Him? Are you anxious for that friend or neighbor or loved one to have the same?

Do you have 2 Corinthians 10:4, 5 in your net? “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; casting down imaginations, … and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.“ Is that in your net? Do you believe that God has power to give us victory and obedience? What about Hebrews 13:20, 21? “The God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is wellpleasing in his sight.“ Is that in your net? Do you have both aspects of the good news that we sing about in “Rock of Ages“?

Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee. Let the Water and the blood, From Thy riven side which flowed, Be of sin the double cure, Cleanse me from its guilt and power.

Is that in your gospel net? And is it your net, or is it a net that has been handed to you, for which you have no answers when you’re asked?

I’d like to invite you today to join the disciples by the sea once more, because “He has called us too, / He has called us too. / We are His disciples, / We His work must do.“