Sermon for The Fifth Sunday after Trinity, July 5, 2026.
“[A]t your word I will let down the nets.” (Luke 5:5) Simon was a professional fisherman. It’s what he did for a living. James and John were his partners. They had fished all night and got skunked. Enter Jesus. He says, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. And after explaining that they had been fishing all night and caught nothing, Simon said, “But at your word I will let down the nets.”
This is called faith. Everything aimed toward no reason to put down the nets. It was the wrong time to be fishing; the professionals had just come in from fishing with nothing to show for it, and the guy telling them where to fish wasn’t a fisherman, but a carpenter by trade. What did He know about commercial fishing? Human reason said, don’t waste your time.
Thanks be to God that He isn’t constrained by the foolishness of our fallen reason, but in fact, our Lord has come to destroy it: “For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’” 1 Corinthians 1:19, from our Epistle reading, which cites Isaiah 29:14.
Christian, “The word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God,” (1 Cor. 1:18). The cross of Christ is foolishness to those who are perishing because it seems impossible to them. It doesn’t make any sense to the fallen human mind. How is Jesus’ cross, His crucifixion, how is that the power of God? It looks like defeat. What kind of God can be killed? There is no power in death; everyone can see that. In fact, what is death but the loss of power? Literally, the power of life is gone from the dead man.
Everything about the cross of Christ seems to speak to the fact that there is nothing to be gained by Jesus’ death. And this is why, when Jesus told His disciples that He must suffer and die, Peter rebuked Him, saying it should never happen.
But that’s where we learn to respond to Christ’s cross the same way Simon responded to Jesus in the boat. We respond in faith. We say, “At your word I will believe that the death of Christ is the power of God.” That is to say, at your Word, Jesus, I will believe. I will have faith in Your promise. Through Your Apostle Paul, You say that it pleases You to save those who believe in the folly of what the apostles preached: Your crucifixion. At Your Word I believe. Not because I can make sense of it, but because You have said so.
1 Corinthians 1:22-25 is gold! “For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”
And so, Simon says, “At your word I will let down the nets.” He believed that Jesus knew better than he did. He put his faith in Christ. Jesus spoke, and at His Word, Simon was blessed. The catch of fish was sinking his boat. An abundant haul.
Do you ever wonder about Bible stories like this? Why do these sorts of things not happen to you? Their haul was so large that they filled both boats to the point where they began to sink. If you’ve wondered about this, let me ask you: have you been honest with yourself?
In our sinfulness, we end up thinking less of God when we don’t see Him acting in our lives the way He acted in Simon’s. How often do we blame God for our sin? See, maybe we don’t see these sorts of amazing blessings because we’re too busy hanging onto our excuses, saying like Simon did, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing,” but then leaving it at that, an excuse not to listen to God’s Word. God has given us His Word, and we don’t, for the most part, because of our Old Adam, believe He knows what He’s talking about. To say it another way, are you replying to what God says in Scripture like Simon? “But at your word, I will…” fill in the blank.
This is where false teachers would tell you to put extra money in the offering plate and watch God bless you. That’s not what Scripture says. That’s a manipulation of this text. That’s what we call the prosperity Gospel. Trust enough, and God will cure your cancer. Have enough faith and show God just how much you believe in him, and when you drop a Benjamin in the plate, you’ll get home and find that your rich uncle died and left you millions of dollars. Let those false teachers be anathema. We want to boil everything down to wealth and health. Jesus didn’t give us a formula for getting what we want. Simon, James, and John didn’t go on to become the most successful fishermen on Gennesaret. This text isn’t about the large haul of fish. It’s about Jesus being trustworthy. It’s about why the first disciples forsook all earthly wealth, walked away from their fishing company and followed Jesus to their deaths. What does Simon-Peter say after experiencing this great miracle? “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” Jesus replies, “‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.’ And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.
Jesus had revealed Himself. His disciples followed Him. That’s what we’re getting today. We can trust Jesus. We have the record of what He did and like the people who were there, we’re astonished at Christ’s blessings. Gifted spiritual eyes to see, we can see these sorts of blessings in our lives.
Take Holy Communion for example. Jesus says “Take, eat, take drink. This bread is my body; this cup of wine is my blood.” Human reason wants to say, no, it’s not. But what is the Christian response? What is your response? “I only see and taste bread and wine, ‘but at your word I will’ trust that I’m also truly eating and drinking Your body and blood.” And I would argue that in doing so, we are blessed far more richly than a few guys with boats full of fish. The result of believing the Body and Blood of Christ are truly present with the bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper is nothing less than to receive the forgiveness of sins and life immortal.
The same can and should be said about trusting Christ’s Word about Baptism. “Lord, when I look at the baptismal font, I see a bowl of water that wets the forehead of sinners. I don’t see all that you say is happening in this sacrament, ‘but at your word, I will’ trust that you have given me new life, that in these waters you clean my conscience as I am reborn, holy. I don’t feel any holier. I don’t even act holier, ‘but at your word I will’ trust that I am indeed holy, that I am truly a new creature, born from above, that my heart has been made anew. ‘At your word, I will’ believe that so much more happened to me when I was baptized than what I can see with my physical eyes.”
Dear saints, it’s easy to doubt God’s Word. The devil, our Old Adam, and the World conspire to convince us that Jesus is not trustworthy. This is why the Holy Spirit has given and preserved His Holy Word for us. So that we may hear Christ’s Word and believe it, so that we may hear of Christ’s trustworthiness as our God, the Son of the Father, who came to die for you and rise for you. Who has said that the “cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Cor. 1:19) This is why we preach Christ crucified, so that having heard this: that Jesus died to forgive your sins, rescue you form the enemy, and give you eternal life with Him in the new heavens and the new earth, you would be able to say precisely what you do every time we gather: “I’m a sinful man, and my sin causes me to doubt You Lord, ‘but at your word I will’ believe Your most precious word.”
Amen.
Rev. Tyrel Bramwell 
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