When God Calls

For those of you that don’t know me my name is Ben Fitzgerald and I am the youth pastor here at Oso Creek and I am excited to have been given the opportunity to share with you from the word of God this morning.

Greg and Meghan are on a much needed, well deserved, and long awaited anniversary trip and Greg has asked me to share with you this morning in his absence and I hope that I honor him but more importantly honor God with this responsibility this morning.

Those of you that have your bible please open up to the book of Matthew. We will be going through a few different passages of scripture but we will be focusing a lot on Matthew chapter 4 and John chapter 21.

Over the past year I have been spending a lot of time in prayer, in thought, and in study over what kind of vision I see and desire for our youth group here at Oso and how I really want to see these students live out their new life in Christ and I just keep getting stuck on this one word.

‘Discipleship’

Now this is not a new word or a new idea in the church. The word disciple even predates the New Testament in the greek language even though it may not have been used in the same context as the New Testament writers used it. Anyway, as I was thinking about this word discipleship and trying to ask myself what discipleship meant I found myself going back and looking at the best example there is, that is the person of Jesus Christ, and I was looking at how He talked to, interacted with, and taught, and even how He called His disciples.

I want to talk about today what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. So read with me Matthew 4:18-22

Matthew 4:18–22 ESV

While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.

As we are understanding and diving into this term ‘discipleship’ we need to understand what that word means and more importantly what it meant to writers of the New Testament when they used that word.

The highest holy calling in the Jewish tradition was to be a rabbi. Now every boy would go to Hebrew School around kindergarten age. There was two levels of this type of school.

The Bet Sefer was where they boys started at the age of 5 and would learn to read and write.

On the first day of school they would receive a tablet and some chalk and the tablet would be covered in honey. The rabbi would tell them to “eat their fill” then the young students would begin to lick the honey off their tablets and as these kids were licking this honey, some of which who had only heard of it before and never tasted it, the rabbi would say “Just as your tongue may crave the sweetness of honey so may your soul crave the very word of God”.

Then they would begin to read and memorize the Torah or the first five books of the Hebrew bible.

After age 12 the students would get split up. The best of the best of the best or “the gifted” students would go to Bet Talmud/ Midrash to learn the rest of the Old testament and one day select their rabbi.

If you didn’t have what it takes the rabbi would come and say to you “good job memorizing the scripture now may you go and learn the trade of your father”

This is what Peter did. So when Jesus comes to Peter on the Sea of Galilee Peter is working for His father. Which means that he failed out of Hebrew school. He did not have what it takes.

Peter has been told he does not have what it takes. He is B-team, he is JV, and yet Jesus chooses Peter.

Jesus often does his best work with the least qualified.

Jesus calls Peter in the middle of his daily life. He calls a fisherman. Someone who didn’t make it to next level, someone who in the eyes of the world wasn’t deemed qualified or having potential.

Jesus’s call was decisive and those who He called faced the choice to follow or to turn away. When Jesus invited Peter and those with him to follow Him, Luke records in his gospel in Luke 5:11 they pulled their boats to shore, left everything and followed Him. EVERYTHING

They were on standing by the Sea of Galilee, and as they were on the shore they were washing their nets. The fishermen would only wash their nets after they were done fishing for the day. This meant that the fishermen were done for the day. They had no intention of putting their nets back in the water and no intention of continuing fishing. So here they were working as Jesus came to them and interrupted what they were doing.

Jesus met them in the middle of their daily life and He begun His work there. Everyone that Jesus chose was busy. Your calling is not going to arrive when you’re ready for it, it’s going to interrupt something. Matthew was collecting taxes, Luke was practicing medicine, and Peter was fishing. God doesn’t wait until you’re available, he interrupts and redirects.

We see the disciples response to Jesus’s call and I love the way that Luke records it in his gospel in Luke 5:11

Luke 5:11 ESV

And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.

This was already a unique situation because normally it is the student who chooses the rabbi but here we have the rabbi who is choosing His students. Jesus was calling them to himself personally, expecting them to hold nothing back as they followed him.And they didn’t.

They left everything.

They left behind their nets, they left behind their boats.

Some of you may have heard read the little heading for this passage of scripture and saw that it is titled “Jesus Calls His First Disciples”. Now to be a disciple was a high honor in the first century and it had a lot to do with the fact that the highest holy calling in the jewish tradition was to be a rabbi.

Now every jewish boy would go to Hebrew School around kindergarten age. There was two levels of this type of school.

The Bet Sefer was where they boys started at the age of 5 and would learn to read and write.

On the first day of school they would receive a tablet and some chalk and the tablet would be covered in honey. The rabbi would tell them to “eat their fill” then the young students would begin to lick the honey off their tablets and as these kids were licking this honey, some of which who had only heard of it before and never tasted it, the rabbi would say “Just as your tongue may crave the sweetness of honey so may your soul crave the very word of God”.

Then they would begin to read and memorize the Torah or the first five books of the Hebrew bible.

After age 12 the students would get split up. The best of the best of the best or “the gifted” students would go to Bet Talmud/ Bet Midrash to learn the rest of the Old testament and one day select their rabbi.

If you didn’t have what it takes the rabbi would come and say to you “good job memorizing the scripture now may you go and learn the trade of your father”

This is what Peter did. So when Jesus comes to Peter on the Sea of Galilee Peter is working for His father. Which means that he failed out of Hebrew school. He did not have what it takes.

Peter has been told he does not have what it takes. He is B-team, he is JV, and yet Jesus chooses Peter.

Jesus often does his best work with the least qualified.

Jesus calls Peter in the middle of his daily life. He calls a fisherman. Someone who didn’t make it to next level, someone who in the eyes of the world wasn’t deemed qualified or having potential.