The Invitation

Intro

If you have your Bibles, go ahead and turn those to Mark chapter 1.

Today we are beginning a new Sermon Series called the Disciple's Journey. For the next several weeks, we are going to be talking about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.

What is a disciple? What does a disciple do?

Those are simple questions. But if we're honest, a lot of us are working off an answer we picked up from the culture around us instead of from the Bible.

Church culture tells us that becoming a Christian is a decision you make once — you walk an aisle, you pray a prayer, you check a box — and then it's done. Filed away.

But is that what the Bible actually calls a disciple?

Church culture tells us that Christianity is something you add onto your life — an hour on Sunday morning — while everything else about how you actually live stays exactly the same.

But is that what the Bible actually calls a disciple?

And culture tells us that following Jesus is mostly about self-improvement — becoming a nicer, more respectable version of the person you already are, while you're still the one running the show.

But is that what the Bible actually calls a disciple?

Because a disciple is so much more than that. Being a disciple is more than making a decision one time in your life and that's it.

And it's not you cleaning yourself up or turning over a new leaf under your own strength either.

The call of Christ is a call to come and follow him — and when he calls you, he doesn't just forgive you and leave you exactly as he found you.

He begins to remake you, from the inside out, in every part of your life.

I'm calling this series the Disciple's Journey, because being a disciple is just that… a journey.

Following Jesus was never meant to be a single moment — it's a road that we travel our entire life.

Picture someone with a gym membership they never miss paying for. They've got the app on their phone, the right shoes, a water bottle with all the motivational quotes on it.

They follow the fitness people online.

They just... don't actually train. Maybe they show up sometimes and sit in the sauna for twenty minutes and then leave.

Nobody would call that person an athlete. They're a member, yes. They've got access. They've paid for something — but membership was never the point.

Training was.

Many people in the American church all across traditions have been members of a church for years without ever becoming disciples of Jesus.

They show up. They know the songs. They’ve got the schedule memorized.

But they’ve never let following him actually cost them anything, or change anything.

What I want you to see is that Jesus isn't looking for members. He's looking for people willing to follow.

So I want you to ask yourself honestly this morning — not the person sitting next to you, you. If following Jesus actually cost you something real this week, would you find out you'd been a member all along, and not a disciple?

This is what I want to talk about this morning… the call of Jesus. The invitation to discipleship that he extends to each of us to come and follow him.

This is where the Disciple’s Journey begins. With the call to come and follow. And what we will also see this morning is that there is a real cost to following Jesus as his disciple, but that cost is so worth it.

We will have four points this morning. We will see who Jesus calls and to what, we will see the cost of that call, we will talk about the worth of that cost, and then we will put it all together with applications.

So, first let’s talk about the kinds of people that Jesus calls.

This will be the first point in your notes,

I. Jesus calls ordinary, unfinished people right where they are (Mark 1:16-18)

If you have your Bibles opened to Mark chapter 1, let’s actually begin reading in verse 14,

Mark 1:14 “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God,”

Mark 1:15 “and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.””

What we are seeing here is that Jesus is beginning his ministry. John’s job to prepare the way for the coming messiah is now finished and Jesus is now on the scene.

And what is he doing?

He’s preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God and the necessity of repenting and believing in that gospel.

Notice that Jesus does not say that the kingdom might be coming or it may be near.

No, he says the time is fulfilled. The kingdom is now at hand. This is the decisive moment that history has always been pointing to. Jesus is now here.

And he says repent and believe. This is the same message that we preach today. Repenting and believing are both necessary to become a citizen of this kingdom.

But what does that actually look like? What does repenting and believing look like for an actual person, on an actual day? Jesus doesn't leave that question hanging for long. He walks a little further down the shore, and he shows you exactly what it means.

Verse 16,

Mark 1:16 “Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.”

First, look at where Jesus is.

He is not in a synagogue or the Temple.

He’s on the shore of the sea of Galilee on just an ordinary day.

There are no crowds, there is no service.

And who does Jesus take notice of on the shore? Two ordinary working men… Simon and Andrew… working ordinary jobs.

Mark even tells us why they're out there: "for they were fishermen." This wasn't a hobby. It wasn't something they'd fallen into because nothing else worked out. It was their trade — likely their father's trade before them. It was who they were, as much as what they did.

Now I need to correct something a lot of us assume about this scene.

We picture Simon and Andrew as poor, desperate men with nothing to lose — barely scraping by on that lake. But that's not accurate. Fishing on the Sea of Galilee was a real, substantial industry in the first century.

Historians tell us that decades later, when the Romans invaded the region, they seized over two hundred fishing boats off that same lake. These men had an actual business. A trade worth having. They were doing well.

So here's what verse 16 is quietly showing you before Jesus ever opens his mouth: he doesn't meet Simon and Andrew after they've walked away from their nets to go looking for something more meaningful.

He doesn't wait until they're dissatisfied, or searching, or between jobs. He meets them in the middle of their identity, nets still in their hands, on an ordinary day with no service and no crowd watching.

That's where he finds you too. In the middle of your ordinary.

Look at the invitation Jesus extends to Simon and Andrew,

Verse 17,

Mark 1:17 “And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.””

Notice what Jesus doesn't do. He doesn't ask questions. He doesn't check their resumes. He doesn't wait to see if they're the "right kind" of men first. He simply speaks — "Follow me" — right there on the shore, nets still in their hands.

Two ordinary men, doing an ordinary job, and Jesus calls them by name into something they never applied for and never saw coming.

Look at how Simon and Andrew respond to the call of Jesus…

Verse 18,

Mark 1:18 “And immediately they left their nets and followed him.”

Mark loves that word—Immediately—he uses it all throughout this letter to emphasize action in his gospel account.

Take note of that word when you see it—Immediately. Simon and Andrew heard the call of Jesus and immediately responded in obedience. It doesn’t say eventually they responded. It says they responded immediately.

[Slow]

And that’s the response Jesus is still looking for. Not someday. Not once you feel ready.

But now. This week. Today.

Maybe that’s something someone needs to hear this morning.

When you hear Jesus call your name with an invitation to come and follow him, respond immediately. Simon and Andrew immediately left everything they had to follow Jesus.

How are you following Jesus with your everyday life? How are you following him outside of this hour on Sunday morning?

Because Simon and Andrew didn’t give Jesus an hour a week. No, they left their nets. Immediately. And they followed Jesus with their lives.

If your walk with Jesus starts when you sit down in this building and ends when you stand up to leave, that’s not what Simon and Andrew did. That is not really following Jesus because that is not what he called you to.

He called you to follow him with your whole life. Every day.

And I’m not even just talking about being more involved in church but walking with Jesus in our personal lives. I certainly think that will make us want to be more involved in our church but that is not what you need to be focusing on.

Following Jesus means that you are focusing on hearing from God in his Word every day in personal devotion. Not because you feel like you have to but because you know you need it.

Following Jesus means looking for and sharing the gospel when you see those opportunities arise.

Following Jesus means pouring into younger disciples so that they know how to grow in their relationship with God too.

Following Jesus like this—with your whole life, every day—is good.

It’s meaningful.

There is nothing more purposeful you could do with your life than actually follow Jesus and be used by him to make more disciples.

When we live our lives to please him and to become more like him, that is the best possible way to live.

But I don’t want to give you the wrong idea either. Following Jesus doesn’t guarantee that you will have an easy life.

Following Jesus is costly.

Simon and Andrew didn’t just gain something when they followed Jesus. They gave something up too.

And if we’re honest about what Jesus is asking, we have to be honest about that cost too right?

This will be the second point in your notes this morning,

II. The call will cost you something — but it will make you into something more (Mark 1:17-19)

Look back at verse 17,

Mark 1:17 “And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.””

Jesus' call has two parts here — follow, and fish.

“Follow me" is the call to become like him — that's what discipleship has always meant, going all the way back to how their system rabbis and their students worked.

You didn't just learn facts from a rabbi, you became like him. That’s exactly what discipleship is. It’s an apprenticeship with Jesus. Following Jesus is to be his apprentice.

But Jesus doesn't stop at "follow."

He adds "and I will make you become fishers of men.” He gives his disciples a specific mission, not just a general shape of life. Following Jesus makes you like him. And it sends you out to do what he does — gather people in.

We are called to being disciples that make more disciples.

Robby Gallaty, the pastor and author behind the discipleship model we're going to be trying here at JRBC, says that before a person can make disciples, they must first be a disciple. They have to have gone through the apprenticeship before they can have apprentices.

It’s like Robby says, Being comes before doing. Being a disciple of Jesus is about who you are not what you do.

Look at what Jesus actually says in this verse again — "I will make you become fishers of men."

Not "I will make you do fishing."

Jesus is making us into something.

He says, become.

Jesus isn't just handing Simon and Andrew a new task. He's remaking who they are. And it's only because of who they're becoming that what they do changes at all.

That's true for you and me too. Discipleship was never first about your calendar or your checklist. It's about who Jesus is making you into. The doing — sharing the gospel, discipling someone younger, showing up for people — that's not the root.

But it’s the fruit of what he's already remaking underneath.

This is what Christ does—he changes those who follow him.

Just look at what happens next,

Verse 19,

Mark 1:19 “And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets.”

Jesus keeps walking, and he sees two more brothers… James and John.

In the boat.

With their father, mending their nets.

And Jesus calls them.

Here’s what’s easy to miss: this wasn’t a family scraping by. Zebedee had hired servants working for him. He had men on payroll, it wasn’t just his family working with him.

This was a real prosperous business.

James and John weren’t fishing out of desperation. They had a future already in front of them.

A trade that was already working.

And once again, Jesus doesn’t wait to be asked. A rabbi simply didn’t operate this way. In that day in time and in that culture, students sought out rabbis. Not the other way around.

But Jesus walks right up to a working boat and calls two more men who never applied.

Isn’t that exactly what Jesus does?

He interrupts our whole course of life. He gives us new goals and a new purpose. We have all experienced this.

Maybe for you, you see that interruption in your career.

Maybe you're in a job right now where you aren't allowed to share the gospel — where you're not even able to talk about your faith. Or just aren’t around any people.

If that's you, maybe Jesus is calling you to a new job where you can make disciples.

For most of you, though, this isn't about leaving your job.

It's about what you're climbing for once you're there.

Instead of your goal being to climb the corporate ladder, your goal becomes working hard to please Jesus — and seeing your workplace as a mission field.

Maybe for you, that interruption isn't your career at all. Maybe it's what you've already planned for retirement — years you've mapped out for rest and comfort, and Jesus interrupts that too, calling you to spend those years making disciples instead of just resting.

Or maybe it's your relationships. Jesus interrupts a life built around easy, comfortable relationships and calls you into something harder — actually investing in people, pouring into someone else's walk with him, not just staying comfortable with the people who ask nothing of you.

Whatever that interruption looks like for you — a career redirected, a retirement reimagined, relationships that get harder instead of easier — the real question isn't whether Jesus will interrupt your life. It's what you'll do when he does.

James and John already answered that question for us. Look at what they actually did.

Verse 20,

Mark 1:20 “And immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him.”

There’s that word again… immediately.

Same as verse 18.

Mark really wants you to see thatJames and John didn’t need time to think about it.

Picture what is actually happening in that boat. Zebedee, standing there with his hired servants, watching his own sons walk away. Not to a better job. Not to more money. To follow a rabbi who owned nothing.

That’s the cost, laid out plainly. For James and John, it was a father. A business. A future that was already working for them.

Following Jesus will cost you.

It won’t always cost you your job. Sometimes it is a relationship that gets strained because you won’t go along with something anymore.

Or things get awkward because the most loving thing you can do for somebody is to call them to repentance and belief in the gospel when you are seeing them go down a path that leads to destruction.

Count the cost. And follow him anyway. Believe me when I say that following Jesus closely through discipleship is worth it. It truly doesn't matter what it costs you. Jesus is better than whatever it is that it cost you.

That's not just something I'm telling you either. That's what Jesus himself says.

This will be our third and final point this morning: The call is worth everything, every day.

III. The call is worth everything, every day.

Real briefly, let’s turn our Bibles to Luke chapter 9.

One thing that is a guarantee to interrupted is your daily, everyday.

Once you are there, look with me starting in verse 23,

Luke 9:23 “And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

Notice something before we even get to what Jesus says here — look at who he's talking to here. Luke tells us he said this "to all," not just to the twelve.

Think about who made up that crowd. Jesus had just called them over to hear this — and this wasn't this crowd’s first encounter with him. Just a few verses earlier in this same chapter, they'd watched him feed five thousand people with a few loaves and fish. They'd seen him heal the sick throughout Galilee. This was a crowd that had already seen plenty.

They were "following" him in the loosest sense of that word —

Yes, they were physically walking behind him, curious, amazed, showing up wherever he went.

But that's exactly the distinction Jesus is about to draw. He’s going fishing.

There were people in that crowd that day who were following him without following him at all. They thought they were but Jesus shares with them some of the requirements of being his disciple.

Jesus had just told his disciples, for the first time, that he was going to suffer, be rejected, and be killed. And in the very next breath, he turns to that same crowd and says: if you want to follow me, here's what it looks like for you too.

The cross he's asking you to carry is modeled after the one he was already carrying toward Jerusalem.

And he says you take up your cross daily. Not once a week. Not when it's convenient. Daily.

Jesus could have simply said "take up his cross and follow me."

But daily changes everything about what following him actually looks like.

This isn't a cross you pick up once and set down.

It's something you take up again every single morning.

Here's what that means for us: we cannot compartmentalize being a Christian. We can't treat following Jesus like a box we check on Sunday and set aside the rest of the week.

If the cross is daily, then following Jesus has to be a daily effort — not a weekly one.

And if that's true, it raises a real question: how are you actually pursuing that, day by day?

Not just on your own, in your own head, trying to remember to be a Christian today.

And following Jesus daily was never meant to be a solo project. It was meant to happen alongside other people — people who know what are also carrying their crosses daily.

We saw this when we were in Galatians — Paul said to bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. We saw it again in our Psalms series. That's what the church is for — to help carry burdens we can't carry alone.

But even with people around you, that cross is still yours to carry. It still costs something real, every day. So why would anyone actually do this? Why would anyone choose a daily cross?

Jesus answers that question himself, in the very next verse.

Luke 9:24 “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”

Luke 9:25 “For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?”

This is the paradoxical nature of the Kingdom. The very thing you're trying to protect — your comfort, your reputation, your safe plans for your future that you've mapped out for your life — that's exactly what you will lose if you hold onto it too tightly.

But give it away for Jesus's sake, and you'll find you never really lost anything at all. But you gained everything instead.

That's backwards from everything the world tells you. The world tells you to protect yourself first. Look out for your own interests. Don't take the risk Jesus is calling you to. Jesus says the opposite: hold onto your life, and you'll lose it. Let it go for his sake, and you'll actually find it.

What does that look like this for you this week — not as an idea, but practically?

Maybe it's a hard conversation you've been avoiding because it might cost you a friendship. Maybe it's giving up time you'd rather spend on yourself — sitting with someone, discipling someone, showing up for a person who actually needs you. Maybe it's saying no to something that would move you ahead at work, because saying yes would mean compromising what you believe.

Every one of those feels like loss in the moment. But that's exactly what Jesus is describing. Lose it for his sake — and you'll find you have more of your real life than you ever had before.

And this call… this invitation is extended to each and everyone of us.

But what does that mean exactly? What does it look like for a church to be filled with disciples and not just church members?

This will be the final point in your notes.

IV. Living Out the Call

So what does all this mean for you, practically, starting this week?

These are some takeaways from what we heard from Jesus’ teaching today. These are Five characteristics of a disciple of Jesus.

1. A disciple responds to Jesus immediately

When you hear Jesus call you, obey immediately. Be willing to drop your nets and follow him with your whole life.

Don't wait. Respond as soon as you hear him —

don't be like Jonah, running the other way instead of going where he was called.

What are your nets that you need to drop?

Maybe it's not a job or a boat.

Maybe it's a habit you keep putting off dealing with.

A conversation you've been avoiding.

A relationship you know isn't good for you but you keep holding onto anyway.

Whatever it is — Jesus isn't asking you to think it over for another year. He's asking you to drop it now, today, and follow him with everything in you.

2. A disciple lets Jesus remake who they are, not just their calendar

We are called to make disciples who make more disciples. To become fishers of men. That needs to be your biggest motivation behind everything you do.

Your job, your school, the hobbies you choose, your retirement. Remember, being comes before doing. You won't become a fisher of men until you have dropped your nets and followed him.

This is what we are called to. To follow him…and be changed by him.

3. A disciple expects the call to cost something real, and follows anyway

Be ready for real discipleship to cost you something.

Remember James and John — they left their father and the family business behind to follow Jesus.

So before you commit to living as a disciple of Christ, count the cost of what it will mean for you to follow him wholeheartedly. And when you do, you'll see: it will be worth it.

4. A disciple denies self and takes up their cross daily

Following Jesus is more than just coming to church on Sundays.

It means denying yourself daily — saying no to what you want so you can say yes to him — and it's a daily commitment to learning from him and learning to become like him.

5. A disciple does this in community, not alone

We need each other.

We need accountability.

We need brothers and sisters around us, encouraging us, carrying their crosses daily alongside us.

This is exactly why we're launching Discipleship Training this Wednesday. Come to that.

We can’t live as disciples alone. We will fail before we even get started.

Let’s go ahead and stand and pray about it.

Response

Earlier this morning, I asked you a question:

If following Jesus actually cost you something real this week, would you find out you'd been a member all along, or a disciple?

We've spent this whole morning in the text finding out what Jesus actually asks for.

Not attendance. Not a decision made once and set aside.

It’s a call — a personal, costly, daily call — and it is extended to you, right where you are, however unfinished you feel today.

And if you've never truly trusted Jesus — if you've been sitting in these chairs without ever actually following him — that's the first step, and it starts right now, right where you are.

Turn from your sin, and trust him. Not later. Today.

And if you do know Christ, but if you're honest with yourself this morning, you've been more of a member than a disciple —

Just do what Simon and Andrew did.

Leave the nets.

Whatever they are for you.

And this Wednesday come find out what it actually looks like to follow him together, with brothers and sisters carrying that same cross alongside you.

The invitation Jesus gave on the shore of Galilee is the same invitation he's giving you this morning.

He's not asking you to clean yourself up first.

He's asking you to follow him — starting today.

I’m going to ask a couple of our elders to stand up here with me. If you need prayer or have questions about what it means to be a follower of Jesus. We would love to pray with you.

Or if you want to just come and kneel at the altar. You can do that too.

Let’s pray and then we’ll have a time of response.