Sermon Tone Analysis

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”:

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:

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

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.

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:

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:

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.