⁴ Now when He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” ⁵ Simon responded and said, “Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing, but ^[a]I will do as You say and let down the nets.” ⁶ And when they had done this, they caught a great quantity of fish, and their nets began to tear; ⁷ so they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both of the boats, to the point that they were sinking. Luke 5:4-7

Today is the second Sunday of the new year. On December 31, we gathered at the church and promised to repent all our sins and live sin-free in the new year. How is this pledge going? Are you living sin-free? Are you looking forward to receiving God’s blessing and miracles in the new year? Today, let’s turn our attention to the mechanisms involved in receiving God’s blessings and miracles by looking at Jesus and the miraculous catch of fish. Let’s do five things. 

1. We can work hard day and night trying to “catch fish,” but obeying just one of His commands brought in a “great quantity of fish.” Sometimes, finding the right thing to do is the hardest. We can spend our time and efforts doing the wrong things, going in the wrong direction, and aimlessly working hard . Stop wasting time and energy. “They enclosed a great quantity of fish, and their nets began to break.” Instead of toiling away in vain, find what God asks you to do and do it! Too often, we get the order wrong: we work hard day and night before we actually consider what God is asking us to do. 
2. Now, once we find what God is asking us to do and obey, the results are His miracles and blessings. God asks Simon Peter to throw his nets into the deep, and that’s what God is asking him to do. And he does it, and the results are God’s miracle. This is a living faith! When we do what God asks, we must recognize a blessing. The greatest blessing is getting closer to God. The second biggest blessing is our spiritual character becoming more like God. The next blessing is our faith getting better. And finally, good health and material wealth are the least important blessings. Remember, if we do what God commands, that is, if we throw the net into the deep, He will bless us! 
3. In the beginning, we might not notice God’s miracles and blessings, or we might not be looking for them. Keep a diary and note any miracles and blessings in your life, regardless of how trivial they might seem. Keep His commands over and over again in every situation you meet, and let the miracles and blessings be known to the world. That is how you show others God lives! You should never focus on the outcome of miracles and blessings: do whatever God commands, and the natural outcome will be His blessings being evident to everyone around you! 
4. Stay humble when God showers us with His miracles and blessings and we experience success. When we experience success, God must not shrink as our egos get bigger. It should be the opposite. The more success we experience, the more humble we should become. We must become more aware of our sins and be objective about our status and relationship with God. We are nothing more than sinners, and we must never become bigger than God. So when we throw the net in the deep and God fills our net with fish, stay humble and look for what God commands next instead of wallowing in the success of an overflowing net! 
5.  “From now on you will be catching men…” If we believe in His miracles and blessing, execute a living faith, and receive His bountiful blessings, we become fishers of men. It’s a natural progression. Peter threw away his boat, net, and fish to follow Jesus. We invest everything we have into making people in the image of God. We transcend the need for worldly blessings and miracles and follow Jesus. We succeed with people!

In the new year, instead of wasting time and barking up the wrong tree, let’s devote everything we have to finding what God wants us to do. What does He want me to do here? Look for that and obey! If we possess this kind of living faith, His miracles and blessing will follow. Others will see how God works inside of us, and our lives will be a “city on a hill that cannot be hidden.” And once God blesses us, stay humble, and in the end, become fishers of me. With these things in mind, let us fill the new year with God’s miracles and blessings!

Click for Korean sermon https://soundcloud.com/yhpaik/1986-1-12-full-mixdown