A Call to Follow

This morning, we are beginning our Who’s Your One Emphasis.

As a church, we are going to take the next 30 days to pray for an individual who we don’t believe knows Jesus yet.

We are not doing this so we can have “notches in our belt” of people we are praying for or sharing Jesus with.

We are not doing this because we want some “high attendance Sunday” or something we can brag about.

We are doing this because, as we will see this morning, God calls us to follow him, which means living and working in a way that people who don’t yet know Jesus will come to him through our words and actions.

The next 30 days is a starting point, not an end in itself. It is a way for you to get started praying for those around you and inviting them with you to church so they can come to love Jesus and others.

Hopefully, God will also open the door for you to be able to talk to them about Jesus, to share the gospel with them.

As we get started this morning, we have a few different tools for you to use for this.

One is a bookmark that has two sections: a card you can put on your dash or somewhere you will see it with that individual’s name, and a bookmark with the Bible passage we are praying each day for that person.

The second is a journal that has those verses, a sample prayer to help you get started, and then space for you to write out more you believe God is leading you to pray or how he has answered the prayer you are praying or spoken through his Word.

In the Foyer, we also have some of these booklets - “Life Conversation Guide”. These booklets are an easy way to talk with someone about Jesus. There is also a smartphone app by the same name that would allow you to have these guides with you all the time. If you don’t have a way you are comfortable sharing your faith, then grab one of these booklets and get familiar with it. There are lots of great ways to do this, and this is only one, but we want you to have at least one.

Why are we doing this?

We are not doing this so we can have “notches in our belt” of people we are praying for or sharing Jesus with.

We are not doing this because we want some “high attendance Sunday” or something we can brag about.

We are doing this because, as we will see this morning, God calls us to follow him, which means living and working in a way that people who don’t yet know Jesus will come to him through our words and actions.

The next 30 days is a starting point, not an end in itself. It is a way for you to get started praying for those around you and inviting them with you to church and sharing the good news of Jesus with them so they too can come to know him.

Hopefully, God will also open the door for you to be able to talk to them about Jesus, to share the gospel with them.

Let’s look together at this call that Jesus gives us.

Turn over to .

We are picking up this short section this morning to see what Jesus’ call looks like.

As you are turning over there, let’s talk about what is going on. Jesus has started his public ministry in earnest. John the Baptist, who had been telling people that the Messiah was coming, has baptized Jesus and was later arrested for what he had been preaching.

Jesus’ ministry is based out of the town of Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee, and he has been preaching publicly for a while.

There were people who had followed John, and there are others that are starting to follow Jesus around as he is teaching, but this account tells us how Jesus started calling people to follow him in a significant way.

In the passage we see this morning, he calls two sets of brothers to follow him.

Let’s read it together...

The call he gave them is the same call he gives us. This isn’t some special call for a special group of people; it is the call to be a disciple of Jesus.

Here is how one Bible dictionary explains the term “disciple”:

Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary Disciple

In the Greek world the word “disciple” normally referred to an adherent of a particular teacher or religious/philosophical school. It was the task of the disciple to learn, study, and pass along the sayings and teachings of the master

That is the call that Jesus is giving to all of us. As we think about our ‘ones’ this morning, we see that our heart is that we would be disciples of Jesus who would help others follow him as well.

We can sum it all up in this sentence this morning:

Jesus calls us to follow him into the greatest cause, but it comes at a great cost.

We are going to take time to unpack that sentence a piece at a time today, looking at the call, the cause, and the cost.

Start with me as we look at...

1) The Call.

Read verse 19 with me.

Jesus’ call to Simon and Andrew was simple and straightforward: “Follow me.”

Let’s unpack that for a minute because it would be easy to overlook how powerful that statement is.

Who is the one issuing the call? Jesus!

Who is Jesus? He is the Son of God, God in the flesh.

If anyone has a right to tell us what to do and when to do it, it is Jesus!

He could easily command us to go somewhere and do something hard, but what does he do when he calls his disciples? He calls us to follow him.

Following someone means they go first, right?

The call to discipleship isn’t the call to go off on your own and try really hard to be a good person.

It isn’t a call to use your strength and your smarts to try to convince people to follow Jesus, making it up as you go.

No, the call to follow Jesus is to copy what he has done and to follow him where he is leading!

As an aside, that is one reason why the Bible is so important: It shows us how Jesus acts and what he expects of us.

We should be pouring over it, asking God to show himself to us so we know what it looks like to follow him.

In fact, Lord-willing, we are going to spend in 2020 looking at The Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus outlines for us what it looks like to follow him. If you aren’t familiar with it, read through and start learning what it looks like to follow him.

Not only that, but following someone also implies that they are with you.

That’s one of the truths Jesus taught early on in his ministry:

Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary Disciple

In the Greek world the word “disciple” normally referred to an adherent of a particular teacher or religious/philosophical school. It was the task of the disciple to learn, study, and pass along the sayings and teachings of the master

Luke 4:18–19 CSB

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Jesus is inviting us

Following someone means they are with you.

When you played “Follow the Leader” as a kid, you were trying to stay right with the person who was the leader in the game.

In that game, the leader would try to lose you, but our leader isn’t that way!

Instead, he promises that he will always be with us.

Matthew 28:19–20 CSB

Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Let’s think about that, though: isn’t Jesus in heaven right now? How can he be present with us?

How is that he is present with us?

Because within a few days of his return to heaven, the Holy Spirit was given to the church, and now every believer is filled with the Spirit of God from the moment they are saved.

Jesus told the disciples to expect the Holy Spirit to come:

John 14:16 CSB

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever.

So, although Jesus is in heaven right now, we have the Holy Spirit living in those of us who follow Jesus. He can take God’s Word and help us see how to follow Jesus in the world in which we live.

As you read through the rest of the gospels, the four books in the New Testament that tell us about what Jesus did while he was on earth, you see that following Jesus means we are going to find ourselves in broken places with hurting people.

That’s one of the truths Jesus taught early on in his ministry:

Luke 4:18–19 CSB

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

That’s where he is headed, and the call he is offering you and me is to join him in that!

Jesus is inviting us to join him with the captives, the blind, and the oppressed.

His call to follow him invites us into the greatest cause in history, so let’s look at it...

2) The Cause.

Going back to verse 19, let’s look at the cause Jesus is inviting us to join him in.

I am honestly not happy with how the translators of the CSB put this particular phrase. The way they worded it, it almost sounds like Jesus is forcing us to go out and catch people, like we were recruiting people to some kind of scam.

If you notice, there is a footnote on the verse that says it could be translated, “I will make you fishers of people”.

Again, that word “make” can sound bad in English. The word in Greek doesn’t imply “force you to” as much as it does, “make you into”

As we follow Jesus, he shapes us into fishermen and women who fish for people.

Here’s one difference, though, between regular fishing and becoming fishers of people: Fishermen catch fish to sell and eat them, but fishers of people seek to see people drawn into Christ and set free.

That’s what we are doing over the next 30 days…we are praying that our friends would find the freedom we have found. Freedom from sin, freedom from living a life without purpose, freedom of fear of what happens to me after I die, freedom from trying to fill that ache in my heart that nothing can ever satisfy.

I hesitated to use the word “cause” here, because in the day of Facebook, we are overwhelmed with causes, so many of which are good.

It seems like every month or every week is some other kind of awareness or emphasis. You are barraged with GoFundMe pages and charitable giving requests for this association or that organization.

There are so many great causes out there, but it can get overwhelming.

It is great to get involved where you can with charities and organizations that are trying to fight against poverty, death, and disease.

So, what makes this cause different?

How is Jesus’ call to follow him to be a fisher of people different than the call to fight against human trafficking?

Because what Jesus is calling you to do is to join him in his work of setting people free eternally from their slavery to sin.

If that isn’t a big deal to you, then you need to go back and think hard about what it means that Jesus saved you.

Remember what we read a few minutes ago from about preaching good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and setting free the oppressed?

When Jesus is calling you to follow him, he is inviting you into that incredible work of helping people around you find hope, freedom, spiritual vitality and life, which are only available through Christ.

You aren’t doing it, you are simply following his lead while he draws people to himself.

We cannot save anyone, but God uses us to be his messengers, and he works through our words to help people see how great God is, how bad we are, and how he has made a way available to them through Jesus.

“Great, if I’m following his lead, then it will be easy, right? After all, I love a nice morning of fishing on the river.”

Again, though, let’s look at the context to figure out more of what Jesus is saying.

Where do we find Peter and Andrew? They are casting their nets, trying to catch fish.

Have any of you ever tried to fish with a net?

How many fishermen do we have here this morning?

This isn’t the kind of fishing we do today with a rod and reel.

For most of us who fish, it is honestly more about being out for a relaxing morning on the water than it is hard work.

The NET Bible

The kind of fishing envisioned was net—not line—fishing (cf. v. 18; cf. also BDAG 55 s.v. ἀμφιβάλλω, ἀμφίβληστρον) which involved a circular net that had heavy weights around its perimeter. The occupation of fisherman was labor-intensive. The imagery of using a lure and a line (and waiting for the fish to strike) is thus foreign to this text. Rather, the imagery of a fisherman involved much strain, long hours, and often little results. Jesus’ point may have been one or more of the following: the strenuousness of evangelism, the work ethic that it required, persistence and dedication to the task (often in spite of minimal results), the infinite value of the new “catch” (viz., people), and perhaps an eschatological theme of snatching people from judgment (cf. W. L. Lane, Mark [NICNT], 67). If this last motif is in view, then catching people is the opposite of catching fish: The fish would be caught, killed, cooked, and eaten; people would be caught so as to remove them from eternal destruction and to give them new life.

One Bible I referenced, the NET Bible, pointed out that they would have been working long, hard hours throwing this heavy net and dragging it back out of the water, often without any real result.

What does that tell us about the call to follow Jesus in his cause to rescue people from their slavery to sin?

It’s going to be hard, and it won’t always work out like we would hope!

There may be seasons where we throw the net out, and it just doesn’t catch anything.

There are going to be times when you pray for someone for 30 weeks or 30 months or 30 years and they don’t respond to Christ.

I am hoping that God will honor the prayers we are praying for the next 30 days for our friends and use them to open conversations for us to be able to share the gospel and see people saved, but I don’t know what he will do.

His call is to follow him and cast the net anywhere and everywhere he gives us that opportunity!

It is an incredible opportunity, but like anything else worth doing in life, it comes at a cost...

3) The Cost.

When we look back at verse 20-22, we see the cost.

How did Simon Peter and Andrew react? The way the text is written, it looks like they didn’t even bother to put away the nets; they just left them in the water.

When Jesus invited them to join him, they left everything behind to follow him.

Let that sink in for a minute: To follow Jesus, his disciples had to leave everything else behind.

In case you think this was just a quick little trip, here’s what Peter would say later:

Mark 10:28 CSB

Peter began to tell him, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.”

The cost of following the call of Jesus to join him in the greatest cause in history is to leave everything else behind.

Remember, their world wasn’t like ours. In our world, we don’t usually stay in the family business like they did in those days. You can grow up and get a job in a totally different field than your parents worked in.

For Peter and Andrew, fishing was their livelihood. They were born into a fishing family and would have been expected to continue fishing.

They dropped it all and followed after Jesus. We don’t know if Peter and Andrew’s parents were still alive, but we do know that Peter was married. Can you imagine what his wife would have thought?

Jesus had already been ministering in the area, so they knew about him. In fact, John’s Gospel tells us that Andrew had been a disciple of John the Baptist. He was standing with John when he declared that Jesus was the lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world.

The other Gospels even indicate that Andrew had spent some time with Jesus before, but apparently, he went back to fishing.

This was the deciding moment where they left everything behind to follow Jesus.

They turned their back on everything they had known, their livelihood—everything.

To follow Jesus and become a fisher for people means we must be willing to walk away from anything, even our livelihood and what others expect of us.

We haven’t said much about James and John yet, but look back at verses 20-22 again.

Their reaction was the same as Peter and Andrew: they left everything to follow Jesus.

However, here you see practically what we were just talking about. Not only did they leave their nets and boats, they left their dad.

They literally left their dad on the side of the sea, with all the boats and equipment, and decided to follow Jesus.

Through their example, we see that following Jesus into becoming a fisher of men means a willingness to leave everything behind.

Here’s how Jesus would later explain it:

Luke 14:25–30 CSB

Now great crowds were traveling with him. So he turned and said to them: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, and even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. “For which of you, wanting to build a tower, doesn’t first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, after he has laid the foundation and cannot finish it, all the onlookers will begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This man started to build and wasn’t able to finish.’

Listen to what Jesus is saying: If you are going to follow him, your love for him must be so great that your love for your parents or your wife and kids should look like hatred.

He says you are even to hate your own life in comparison to your devotion to him.

That’s why he said that we are called to take up our cross.

You’ve heard people say of a health situation or a bad marriage or some other hard time that, “This is just my cross to bear, I guess.”

That’s not what this means. The cross was a symbol of humiliation and death.

It was a tool of torture and execution, designed to cause intense pain and suffering for the worst of criminals.

Jesus said that following him requires you to take up that cross and die daily to your old way of life.

The cause sounds great, doesn’t it? Join Jesus in rescuing people from hell, from meaningless lives on earth!

But are you willing to count the cost to follow him?

Are you willing to tell people about Jesus, even if your own wife and kids don’t get it?

Are you willing to change jobs if God leads so you can free up more time to obey Jesus in different ways, or follow him to strategic places?

Here’s how others have said it: Are you willing to put your “yes” on the table and let God put it on the map?

"Sean, the cost is just too high.”

What did we say the call was? “Follow me.”

Jesus isn’t asking you to pay a price he wasn’t willing to pay.

You and I can’t follow God on our own. Our hearts are enslaved to sin, our eyes are spiritually darkened, and we are dead without him.

However, Jesus loved us so much that he would take our death on himself and die on a cross to pay the penalty for our sin, and be raised to new life so we could live.

The God who is calling you to give up everything so you can follow him already gave up everything to give you the ability to do it.

Jesus is extending a call to you and me today--”Follow me.”

If you have never placed your life in Jesus’ control, turning from living life your way to turning to trust him, that call is for you to start following him today.

If you have, then are you going to follow Jesus? That isn’t just a call to be a good person or come to church; it is a call to be shaped into a disciple who he uses to shape other disciples.

If, however, you know you are saved today, the call for you is to follow him as he is making you into a fisher of people.

Is there a place where you are hesitant to surrender and follow him? Is there someone’s opinion that matters more to you than Jesus? Is there an adjustment you’re not willing to make to follow him because of the cost?

What needs to change in your life for you to become a fisher of men?

Take some time now to pray that, over the next 30 days, he will make you into a fisher of people, specifically the one for whom you are praying.

Sin

Priorities

Learning to share

Priorities

Burden