“As Jesus was walking along the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon, who was called Peter, and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the sea, since they were fishermen. “Follow me,” He told them, “and I will make you fish for people!” Immediately they left their nets and followed Him. Going on from there, He saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and his brother John. They were in a boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and He called them. Immediately they left their boat and their father and followed Him.” (Matthew 4:18-22)
When I read those verses, the invitation to “Follow Me” always leaps off the page. When Jesus called his first disciples, he was inviting them to physically follow him. They literally laid down their nets, said their goodbyes, and began following in Jesus’ footsteps. Mark’s gospel tells us that Jesus called men he wanted, or desired (Mark 3:13). The Twelve were hand chosen to be disciples, and eventual Apostles.
But Jesus didn’t invite everyone to physically be with him. On countless occasions, he sends people away. It wasn’t quite, “Bye Felicia.” Jesus loved people. He cared. He ministered. He fed, taught, healed people. But as one of my childhood friends would ask, after I wore them out, “Jon, don’t you have a home?” Or as Lara sometimes asks, “Jon, don’t you have stuff to do at church?” Message received!
Although we haven’t been called to follow Jesus around the Judean countryside physically, he does call us to follow him personally. Over in Matthew 16:24 Jesus says, “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” There is that phrase again, “Follow me.” Within this call to follow Jesus is an element of self-denial. That we ought to deny ourselves and take up our cross. Again, the Twelve were in circumstances where, if they were to keep physically following Jesus, he was going to Jerusalem, where he would be arrested, suffer, and be crucified. For us, however, the likelihood of having to literally take up a cross and die for Jesus is near zero. The challenge for us is how do we take this high and holy and good concept of “following Jesus” and break it down into everyday life?
The gospel of Matthew should be read like a Discipleship Handbook. You can start in Matthew 4… here is what it looks like to resist temptation. You can continue with Matthew 5-6-7. Here are the attitudes of a Christ-follower. Here the salt-light-praise-evoking lifestyle of a disciple. Here is what it looks like for a disciple to eradicate anger, rage, hatred, lust, adultery, hypocrisy, lying. Here is how a disciple responds to injustice, an evil person, a hostile relationship? Here is how a disciple trusts God instead of being so anxious, greedy, idolatrous, or self-serving. Here is how a disciple prays, fasts, give with integrity. Here is fruit a disciple exude. Matthew spells out call of discipleship as clearly as any writer in the Bible. This call to follow Jesus has real teeth. It’s a clear and compelling call, unlike anything else. Every one of us must personally, individually, decide whether to follow after Jesus, deny self, take up our cross.
Jesus’ call is essentially three-fold.
First, he calls us to Himself for SALVATION.
Jesus came to save us from the power of sin, and the looming reality of death. We cannot justify our sin before a Holy God. We cannot absolve ourselves of guilt. We cannot rectify or fix our sin problem. We cannot silence our self-condemnation, must less that of others, or even that of Satan our Chief Accuser. Our sin sticks to us tighter than super-glue. It’s worse than our social media history. And the sting of sin is worse. The sting of sin is death. For whatever we imagine we can do about our sin, death renders us infinitely more powerless.
We’re coming to Jesus for forgiveness. We’re coming to Jesus for victory over death. The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. He who has the son has life, he who does not have the son does not have life. For God so loved the world he sent his One and Only Son that whoever believes in him would not perish but have eternal life. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.
Second, Jesus calls us to Himself for SANCTIFICATION.
I never contemplated the significance of those four small words Jesus speaks in Matthew 4:19. “Come, follow me and… I will make you…” Aren’t those the greatest words you’ve ever heard? “I will make you.” By his Holy Spirit, if we’re willing, Jesus is going to remake and refashion us and shape us into the men and women He wants us to be.
Jesus took shaky, impulsive, belligerent Peter and made him into a ROCK. He took James and John, whom he nicknamed the “Sons of Thunder” for their fiery, violent temperaments. Remember how eager James and John were, in Luke 9, to call down fire from heaven, to destroy some poor village that refused to show Jesus hospitality? Yeah, John was the same guy who wrote the Epistles of Love—1, 2, 3 John. We might come to Jesus “as we are” but Jesus doesn’t leave us “as we are.” He makes us into new creatures. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see [check it out!], the new has come!”
I feel led to say something about sanctification. For the Christian, there is no excuse for resignation. For example. It’s become apparent that Lakeside is facing an unexpected crisis. We have husbands, and we have wives, who have thrown in the towel. And when you inquire, “What’s going on?” it’s always the same answer, “I just don’t love Him anymore…” or, “I don’t love her anymore…” Resignation. “I give up.” This morning God is saying, “Not by power, not by might, but by my Spirit.”
In Matthew 19, Jesus gives a pretty clear and hard-hitting teaching on marriage. He says, “what God has joined together let man not separate.” And the disciples were like, “maybe it’s better not to marry at all.” They had the same reaction when Jesus talks about wealth, about possessions. “It’s hard for rich to enter Kingdom of heaven.” But Jesus point is, “Guys, with man it’s impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
If you aren’t coming to Jesus for salvation and sanctification, then what are you doing here? Don’t misunderstand, I’m glad you are here. God loves you. We like you. But why are you here if not to be saved and sanctified? Why are you here if you don’t need Jesus to do for you what you cannot do for yourself? It doesn’t make any sense. Are you going to give your struggle to Jesus or not? Are you going to let him do for you what you cannot do for yourself or not? Lord, help me love. Lord, help me forgive. Lord, help me trust. Lord, help me be pure. Lord, heal this depression. Lord, lead me out of this dark hole. Lord, deliver me from the Evil One. But resignation? Really?
Third, Jesus calls us to Himself for SERVICE.
God doesn’t just make us into his image/likeness, he makes us “Fishers of Men.” The whole idea of being fishers of men is that we’re offering our lives to God to be his instrument… that God might do for others what he is doing for us. Is there any more pure and noble desire, than to help others experience SALVATION and SANCTIFICATION?
Jesus final words to his Disciples on earth are found in Matthew 28:18-20. These verses are often referred to as “The Great Commission.” What does it mean to be fishers of men? Jesus says, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. 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.”
In the beginning the Twelve come to Jesus. But in the end, their sent out. Jesus says, “Go… go into all the nations… go into all the cultures of the world… don’t be a bunch of homebodies… brave my mission in the world!” This isn’t just about your salvation and your sanctification, it’s also about the salvation/sanctification of world!
Remember that verse in 2 Corinthians 5:17? “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!” Pretty awesome right? But do you know the next part? “18 Everything is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. 19 That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and he has committed the message of reconciliation to us. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us.”
We are not just called to SALVATION and SANCTIFICATION, we’re called to SERVICE! What does it look like to reconcile people to God? What does it look like to serve God’s purpose of salvation and sanctification, to “make disciples”?
There are two powerful statements in the Great Commission that flesh out what it looks like to make disciples. In Matthew 28:19 Jesus speaks of “baptizing people in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” In Matthew 28:20 he speaks of “teaching people to obey everything I have commanded.”
The first and absolutely critical part of discipleship is that we help a person radically, and relationally, become reoriented to the Living God. Instead of running from God, in baptism were inviting a person to repent, to turn to God, that times of refreshing may come. We’re inviting people to confess their need to not only be forgiven, and receive God’s gift of eternal life, but to also be washed, and sanctified, and made new by God’s Spirit. There are some who treat Baptism as if it’s the sum total of everything in the believer’s life. It certainly isn’t the sum total of everything, but neither is it nothing.
What does it mean to follow Jesus? It means one thing, and one thing only. It means to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus even through death, even through burial, even through resurrection, even unto eternal life. What is the meaning of baptism? It means to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus even through death, even through burial, even through resurrection, even unto eternal life! Baptism is a picture of a cross-shaped, cross-formed, cruciformed, Christ-following pattern of life. In baptism we’re asking people to surrender self to a self-surrendering God.
The most important part of baptism is whether we’re radically, relationally, becoming reoriented to the Living God. Are we helping people look to the Father-Son-Holy Spirit for salvation? But really, baptism is just an initiatory step, because after a person is baptized there is a whole lot more work to do. . .
The second and equally critical part of discipleship is that we help a person sincerely, and totally, daily, surrender to the sanctifying power of God. Matthew 28:20 speaks of “teaching people to obey everything Jesus commanded.” We live in a day when so many people are walking away from Jesus. Why is that happening? In Luke 11:28 Jesus says were blessed “if we hear God’s word and obey it.” We deceive ourselves if we think we can be blessed by osmosis, mere thinking and contemplation and meditation and reflection and hearing and studying and packing our brains with knowledge. The blessing is in obeying. Christ’ kingdom is a Kingdom of obedience. His Kingdom come, his will be done, or earth as it is in heaven.
Matthew 7:24-27, “Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded that house. Yet it didn’t collapse, because its foundation was on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and doesn’t act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 The rain fell, the rivers rose, the winds blew and pounded that house, and it collapsed. It collapsed with a great crash.” If we’re not leading people to obedience… what of value are we really giving them?
The call to be Fishers of Men/Service is come alongside people with God’s Kingdom agenda. (1) Help a person radically, and relationally, become reoriented to the Living God for SALVATION; (2) Help a person sincerely, and totally, daily, surrender to the power of God for SANCTIFICATION.