In Philippians 2:5-11 we read what most scholars today say was a hymn or confession in the early church. It describes the humility of Jesus Christ, God's only Son, who set aside all His power and authority in heaven to come to us as a human being, born of Mary, and to pay for our sins on the cross (and then His exaltation). It's a wonderful picture of God's grace.

And that humility and grace is seen throughout Jesus' life in the Gospels. It's on display in the passage we will read this Sunday - Luke 5:1-11.

Here we see that Jesus didn't just come to earth to pay for our sins and then go back to heaven and finish the job himself from up there. He calls people to come alongside him and to bring his message out from Galilee throughout all Israel and to the world. He calls Peter, James, and John to follow him. He calls others later, sending them out to bring His message around the world.

Again, it's such a wonderful picture of God's grace and humility that He would trust the message of salvation to these people. Peter right away admits that he is a sinner and he has no business being around Jesus, but it is precisely through that humility that God chooses to work.

In a post about this passage, Scott Hoezee writes:

“Most everybody has a soft spot in their hearts for fairy tales. There is just something about a fairy tale’s reversal of expectations that intrigues us. There is something delicious about finding out that the frog is really a handsome prince, that the ugly duckling is the one that grows into the most resplendent of all swans. We enjoy it when the moment of truth comes for the characters in a story as they discover that the scruffy-looking character they never quite trusted is actually the true king of the realm. In the classic The Wizard of Oz we get a double treat at the end of the story: first, the great and powerful Oz turns out to be nothing but the man behind the curtain, a puller of levers and switches who looks like a humbug of a charlatan. But then, almost before the dust of that reversal of expectation settles, we get jolted yet again: as it turns out, the humble man behind the curtain is a pretty good wizard after all.

“Fairy tales are stories of transformation, and that’s what happened to these simple people we call the disciples. If you took the disciples and brought them all together into one room, you would never in your wildest imagination guess by looking at them that this weak-looking pack of ordinary folks could change the world. But they did. The disciples changed the world because it was to them that the secret of the universe was first revealed.” (Scott Hoezee, CEP)

Jesus entrusted the disciples with that message, and sent them out in the power of the Holy Spirit to tell others. And, by the grace of God, that is how He still works today, sending us out into our workplaces and communities and around the world to bring the message of salvation.

Maybe that’s a scary thought, but it helps to know that the first disciples weren’t any more qualified than we are, yet Jesus trusted and empowered them to share the Good News. He does the same for us. And through us, through our living and proclaiming of the Gospel, God still changes the world.

What a wonderful picture of God’s grace.