At Your Words: Finding Satisfaction

Solomon couldn't find any joy in life in the things of this world. Peter, achieving the height of accomplishment as a fisherman, joyfully leaves everything behind to follow what truly matters.

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At Your Word: Finding Satisfaction

Good morning. It’s always enjoyable to read a familiar Gospel lesson and suddenly see something in it you hadn’t noticed before. For the past several years, whenever we come to the story of Jesus calling Peter, Andrew, James, and John, I’ve focused on one theme, casting your net.

That’s our job. Jesus is responsible for filling the nets, but we have to cast them if they are ever going to be filled. This year, however, something different stood out to me as I read our other lessons alongside the Gospel. They all point to the same question. Where do we look for satisfaction? 

Peter experiences the greatest catch of fish in his entire career, yet he gladly walks away from it because he has found something, or rather Someone, infinitely greater. To see Peter’s joy more clearly, it helps to begin with Solomon.

Solomon wrote one of the most heartbreaking books in the Bible, Ecclesiastes. God had given him remarkable wisdom, yet he spent much of his life searching for fulfillment everywhere except in the Lord. Solomon had everything people spend their lives chasing. Wealth. Success. Pleasure. Achievement.

If satisfaction could be found there, Solomon should have been the happiest man who ever lived. He built houses, planted vineyards, dug pools, (really had others dig them for him, he was the king) collected everything a man could want.

Yet he discovered it doesn’t work. It was all Vanity! The word means vapor, breath, something that slips through your fingers. Trying to build your happiness on the things of this world is like trying to catch the wind. No matter how tightly you grasp, you come away empty.

Then we come to Peter. Luke tells us Jesus is standing beside the Lake of Gennesaret, the Sea of Galilee, while the crowds press in around Him.

Jesus steps into Simon Peter’s boat and teaches from the water, and when He’s finished, He turns directly to Peter.

Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.

Peter isn’t guessing about fishing. This lake is his office. He’s spent countless nights on these waters. He knows something he assumes Jesus doesn’t know. This isn’t the time to fish. They’ve already worked all night. They’ve caught nothing. The nets are washed. The boat is ready to be tied up. Everyone is exhausted. Everything Peter knows tells him, “There is no point.”

So he answers honestly.

Master, we toiled all night and took nothing.

Those words are familiar to many of us. I’ve prayed... and nothing changed. “I’ve tried my best and done everything I know to do. I’ve caught nothing.”

But then comes the turning point.

But at Your word I will let down the nets.

That little sentence becomes the hinge on which the whole story turns. At Your word. Not because it makes sense. Not because I understand. Not because I expect success. Simply because You said so.

That is often where faith lives, not when everything makes perfect sense, but when the Lord asks us to trust Him beyond our own understanding. So Peter lets down the nets. Suddenly the nets are overflowing. Fish pour in until the nets begin to tear. The boats begin to sink beneath the weight of the catch.

And then there’s Peter’s response. He doesn’t celebrate. He doesn’t calculate how much money this haul is worth. He doesn’t ask Jesus if they can repeat this tomorrow morning. Instead he falls at Jesus’ knees.

Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.

Whenever people truly encounter the holiness and power of God, they become painfully aware of themselves. Isaiah cried, “Woe is me.” Job confessed, “I repent in dust and ashes.” Peter says, “Depart from me.”

Different people. Different generations. The same realization.

And Jesus speaks words He so often speaks to frightened sinners. Do not be afraid. Jesus doesn’t deny Peter’s sin. He doesn’t say, “You’re fine just the way you are.” Instead, He meets Peter with grace. Then comes the call.

From now on you will be fishers of men.

And this is where Peter discovers something Solomon never did. Peter receives the greatest catch of fish he has ever seen. The very thing a fisherman dreams about. And then he leaves it behind. Why? Because once you’ve found Christ, the fish aren’t the treasure anymore. Jesus is.

Think about what Luke is telling us. Peter doesn’t leave an empty boat. He leaves the biggest success of his career. That’s what makes the story remarkable. Jesus had become more valuable than everything piled in those boats.

That brings us to David in our Psalm. This song is said to have been composed while David was on the run for his life, chased either by his Father-in-Law Saul, or his son Absalom. But he writes a song of praise.

And in his prayer, David doesn’t say “My problems have disappeared,” or “My enemies are gone.” He says My soul thirsts for You, and Your Steadfast Love is better than life. 

His satisfaction isn’t found in comfort, success, or possessions. His satisfaction is found in God Himself.

David has reached the place where he knew that if he had God, he had enough. Solomon had a hard time finding that place, and often reached outward and found emptiness. David looked upward and found satisfaction. Peter followed Christ’s word, even when he didn’t understand, and discovered that the Giver is greater than His gifts.

That leaves us with one simple question. Where are we looking for satisfaction? We all have our own version of Peter’s nets. A career. Financial security. Recognition. Health. Relationships.

A retirement account, a college acceptance letter, a clean bill of health from the doctor, Each one of those gifts from God. But gifts make terrible gods. They can never satisfy the deepest hunger of the soul. Only Christ can do that. So, the Christian life always comes back to those simple words. “At Your word.”

There will be days when obedience makes perfect sense. There will be days when it feels like lowering empty nets into empty water after you’ve already tried everything. But Christ has never stopped being faithful.

Solomon spent his life chasing satisfaction and couldn’t find it. Peter found it that morning, not because his nets were full, but because his heart finally was. And when we learn that God Himself is our greatest treasure, then whether our nets are full or empty, we have already found the satisfaction our souls have been searching for. Amen.