We will be in Matthew chapter 4 this morning. Matthew chapter 4, verses 18 through 22. Matthew chapter 4, verses 18 through 22.

We’ll read that together. It says, 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.

And he said to them, And immediately they left the boat and their father, and they followed him. A century before you had the very famous Martin Luther, you had a man called John Huss. And Martin Luther referred to himself as a Hussite. And John Huss got into the ministry, became a priest because it was profitable for him. It was a comfortable life. He wanted to get out of poverty. And so for years he went along with Catholic doctrine, Catholic dogma. He bought into the whole thing. But there came a point when Huss started to read the scriptures for himself. And he came under the influence of John Wycliffe. And Huss started to realize, hold on, this stuff I’ve been following, I’ve been putting my whole life into, so much of it is erroneous, so much of it is false. And he became very public about this stuff. And the king of Italy said, Hey, you can have safe passage. Come to this council and explain your views. And he was arrested and eventually burned at the stake. And they poured his ashes into the river so that nothing would be left of John Huss. In the end, though, he followed Jesus. What do we mean, what do you mean when you call yourself a Christian? Because that means you would have to agree a variety of different things to a variety of different people, certainly in the time that we live.

Christianity, is it a world religious system you identify with? Is it cultural? And so that’s why you identify with it. Is Christianity what you make it? So a lot of different ideas. But I think if we’re honest with the scriptures, as Huss was, we would have to come to this biblical conclusion. Calling yourself a Christian, it can only mean following Jesus, the person, which is to know Christ, which is to trust Christ. That’s what it means to truly follow Jesus. So I want to really challenge. I want to challenge your Christianity. I want to challenge my Christianity. I want to say, does our Christianity look like trusting, knowing, following the person Jesus? Because the fact of the matter is, the thing you trust most in life, the things you really care about, that’s what’s going to shape you. So whether you would say or not you follow it, it is what you are following and the consequence of your life will be what it shapes and makes you to be.

So when we say we’re Christians, we’re Christians. Christian are we saying that we’re following Jesus? That’s what I want us to consider this morning. Look back at verse 18 with me. It says, While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who was called Peter, and Andrew’s brother, casting a net into the sea for their fishermen. And he said to them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And immediately they left their nets and followed him. So recall last week, Jesus has moved out of Nazareth. He started his ministry in Capernaum. He’s moved his life to Capernaum. That’s his home base now. And remember that was shocking because we said it wasn’t Judea. It wasn’t Jerusalem, the high city that had the Pharisees, the religious leaders, people who took Judaism very serious. Capernaum was kind of backwoods a little bit. It was intermixed with Jew and Gentile, heavily influenced by Gentiles. So it wasn’t really devoted to Judaism the way they were. They were down in Jerusalem. But here Jesus is in Capernaum, both to preach the message of the kingdom and to have his life on full display. And it says while Jesus is walking along the Sea of Galilee in his new hometown,

it says that he saw Andrew and Peter. It does not say that they saw him. It says that he saw them. And it says that they were casting a net into the sea for their fishermen. That’s what fishermen do. It’s pretty straightforward. You cast a net, you catch fish. But Jesus breaks into their normal day. Jesus breaks into their routine way of life. And Jesus does the second most extraordinary thing he could do right now. He’s already done the first most extraordinary thing he could do up to this point. And that’s what we’ve meticulously considered the last two months. Jesus showed up from heaven. Right? The Messiah has come close to us. But now this thing he does, is astonishing. He calls these two fishermen

not to watch him, not to be his secretaries, to be his assistants, be his errand boys. I need y’all to do stuff that I’m too important to do. Not at all.

Jesus, he calls these fishermen to follow him. And it doesn’t mean just the literal walking behind. It does, but it means so much more. Jesus is inviting them to come after his whole way of life. Jesus is inviting them into an intimate relationship of master and apprentice, of teacher and student. Jesus is saying, let me be your guide. Let me be your leader for all of life. And that is unbelievable, literally unbelievable, for several different reasons. One being they’re fishermen. And I don’t mean that in a condescending derogatory fashion. It’s just plain facts. They were work with your hands kind of guys. They were tradesmen. They didn’t have the kind of education, the kind of smarts you would have needed in this time to merit a teacher, to merit a rabbi, a rabbi to teach you the whole law, his body of teachings and doctrine. And you would have had to really be an academic elite. That’s just not who they are. They’re average common men. So they’re ill-equipped. They’re not prepared to really live out a rabbinical lifestyle.

See, in Acts, what the Pharisees think, the religious leaders think of them when they stand for the gospel in Acts, Acts 4.13, it says, Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were uneducated common men, they were astonished. They couldn’t believe that these common, ordinary men were confronting them and really outdoing them in terms of truth, in terms of the Scripture. So these are fishermen. They’re not exceptional people.

And this is not just some Jewish rabbi. What if this was… This is the most famous Jewish rabbi. But it’s not. This is Heaven’s Christ. And so his body of doctrine, his yoke of teaching, it’s going to be exponentially higher than the greatest rabbi that ever lived. So now you see how the gap just got wider between this rabbi from Heaven and these fishermen way down here. Let’s be honest about that. And then we bring back into all this what we talked about last week. These fishermen struggle with that inner darkness, that inner sin problem, just like the rest of us.

But Jesus does not say,

just come and follow me. Jesus says, I will make.

So this never had anything to do with giftedness, with talent, with fulfilling one’s self-potential, with actualizing the greatest version of yourself. Because the greatest version of yourself would never be enough for this rabbi.

But Jesus says, I will make. Mark’s Gospel says, I will make you become. That make word in the Greek, it’s the same word Jesus uses when he makes the deaf man to hear. Or when Paul talks about making us and shaping us out of the clay as God does. Jesus uses the language that we’re familiar with. Hey, you’re fishermen. I will make you fishermen. So this isn’t about giftedness. This isn’t about who they are. It’s about Christ and what he has said in addition to the impossible call, he is accompanied with it, a precious promise that he will bring about within them what they need to be for this kingdom. That Jesus will bring about within them what they need and need to do to follow him. And surely they don’t understand everything. How could they? You see in the Gospel so many times they’re ignorant. They don’t understand. It doesn’t matter that they don’t understand everything. Here’s what matters. They perceived by God’s grace that this word was powerful and this word would make them what they needed to be to truly follow. Follow Jesus. That’s what matters.

So if we’re going to really follow Jesus, we must solely depend on his power. Following Jesus means solely depending on his power. Jesus is our unique Savior. Jesus alone, we’ve talked about this, he alone defeated death. He defeated God’s great enemy. He defeated the power of sin. Yet as quick as we are to rejoice because Jesus has secured our eternity, eternal salvation, we’re just as quick to fret and doubt because we don’t have what it takes to follow Jesus in the daily pursuit. If we know full well, hey, I don’t have what it takes to eternally save myself, why do we fret? Because we don’t have the spiritual vigor, strength, and wisdom to endure in following Jesus because we don’t. We’ve forgotten that the call to follow Jesus was accompanied with the surety that Christ would both grow us up in our salvation and equip us for every good work he would call us to in his name and for his kingdom. So you don’t need to be shy about it. You just need to say it. We are grossly inadequate of ourselves to follow Jesus.

The Hebrew writer says in Hebrews 13, verse 20, he says, Now may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, so God saved us by the blood of his covenant. Verse 21, equip you with everything good that you may what? Do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. So the word is both strong to save and it is strong to keep. So there’s no subcategory of a Christian. I’m pulling from my power a little bit here. I’m pulling from Jesus’ power a little bit here. That’s a non-category, friends. We don’t have anything to draw up or pull up out of ourselves to contribute to kingdom life. So it’s healthy. It’s a healthy thing to, think about often your inability. Because when you think about your inability, it drives you to remember that one source from which you get power to live the Christian life. And that one source is Jesus Christ himself through the working of the Spirit. If the Christian life is in the manner and way of Jesus, why would we want to contribute to that out of our power? What’s the interest? What’s the desire in living the Christian life without Jesus’ soul leadership, without Jesus’ soul power? It would stop. It would stop being the Christian life. It would be a false imitation. And it may impress me and make me feel awfully pious. It may impress people around me. But it wouldn’t be the power of the kingdom affecting change in me and through me for the glory of God and the kingdom of God. And if we are truly Christ’s followers, God’s glory, God’s kingdom, those should be our exclusive interests.

Why we attempt to follow the way of Christ and the power of man, that’s not hard to say. It’s because, it’s difficult to follow Jesus. The pride of man wants the answers. I want the resources. I don’t want to give up control. I want to know now. I want to know quickly. I want to do it. We don’t like facing the reality about our shortcomings. Yet, following Jesus so often means God will put us in that place of facing the reality we don’t have what it takes to follow Jesus. And when we’re brought to that place, then we have the power that we need to truly and really follow Jesus as we recognize the power only comes from Christ. Paul says it well in 1 Corinthians 1, verse 26. For consider your calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth. But God chose what’s foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what’s weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what’s low and despised in the world, even the things that are not to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being, might boast in the presence of God. And because of Him, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that as it is written, let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. So grace has saved us, but grace is saving us from the misery of depending on oneself. God knows our greatest joy in this life and in the next is leaning on Jesus for everything that Jesus will call us to, for His name’s sake. For in Christ alone is true wisdom and true power. We’re wise to remember our weakness and rejoice in it. Talking about effective ministry, Pastor Andy Davis says this in his book, Revitalization,

If you feel overwhelming despair,

you are indulging in self-reliance. However, if you feel a surging confidence in what you will be able to achieve by your gifts and persuasiveness, and are looking forward to the challenges and opportunity to show what you can do, you are also indulging in self-reliance. Despair and arrogance are two sides of the same coin, and that coin is called self-reliance. Self-reliance, the ancient enemy of God’s glory. So let’s not despair because we’re not enough, and let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that we are. Let’s just rejoice. Friends, we certainly don’t have what it takes to follow Jesus, and when we arrive at that happy conclusion, we can say with the Apostle Paul, Paul, in my weakness, God is strong. We’re able to do what God’s called us to do because God has equipped us. And what God has equipped us with is enough because what has God equipped us with? The fullness of His Son, Jesus Christ. So that’s the question then, do you really believe that Jesus is enough for you? Paul says in Colossians, For this I toil, struggling with all His energy that He powerfully works within. In me.

Jim Cimbala, pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle in New York, he has a book entitled Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire. And it’s just an incredible account of what God did in the life of His church just to bring it to life mightily. And he writes in his book, God is attracted to weakness. He can’t resist those who humbly and honestly admit how desperately they need Him. Our weakness is in fact, it makes room for His power.

One day I told the Lord that I would rather die than merely tread water throughout my career in the ministry, always preaching about the power of the Word and the Spirit, but never seeing it. I abhorred the thought of just having more church services. I hungered for God to break through in our lives and ministry and they resulted to just asking God, depending on God, begging God, not techniques, not fads. They trusted in the power of God. And I’m not trying to oversimplify the Christian life. We just pray, everything will be fine. But I’m not trying to complicate it either, which I think we do too much. Jesus has said, didn’t He, if you ask, you will receive. He does not say ask and if you’re spiritually elite or ask and if I like you enough or ask and you’ve caught me in the wrong mood. Jesus says if you ask, you will receive. You have not because you ask not. So really prayer individually for you and prayer for us corporately, it is the most accurate gauge to discover how dependent we actually are upon the Lord. Charles Spurgeon says, lean prayer leads to a lean Christian and not lean like healthy, lean like sick. Have not because we ask not. I like to imagine God in heaven like up against a barn, like those cartoons, the sides are about to bust out the side and God’s just waiting for us to ask and to ask because He wants to bless us and give us what we need so that we can fulfill His will for His people. Glory.

So friend, have you lost your identity as one who has the resources of heaven, the fullness of Christ within you? Friend, do you need to repent because you’ve despaired God hasn’t given you enough?

Do you need to repent because you thought on your own you had enough? Let’s just totally and solely depend on Jesus for all we need, for all that He calls us to as followers of Jesus and as His, His church.

Look at verse 21.

It says, 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 they followed him. So Jesus saw two brothers but Jesus sees two other brothers. And it says these two brothers, James and John, they were in a fishing boat and they were mending their nets. They had either just come from fishing and more likely they’re getting ready to go back out. They’re preparing their nets to go fish. And these aren’t just nets, these are commercial use nets to catch large sums of fish. And they weren’t alone in that boat. It says their father, Zebedee was with them and Mark’s gospel tells us they were hired servants in the boat as well. So this is not fun at the lake on Saturday with dad fishing and throwing a line in. This is Zebedee’s commercial fishing business. This is his way of life. This is how he’s provided for his boys. Given the strong familial ties in this culture, this would be James and John’s way of life. It’s how they will provide for their families. It’s how they’ll take care of Zebedee when he’s too old to take care of himself. So honor your father and your mother. That’s strong value in Jewish culture.

But they do what Peter and Andrew do and it’s amazing that they do it because we know for a fact that Andrew and Peter did have an encounter with Jesus before this. We don’t know of it really for James and John that they had the kind of encounter that Andrew and Peter had. But yet, it says immediately,

without delay,

they at once, it says, they let go of, they break off from their family ties, their strong familial bond with Zebedee. They get out of the boat. They walk away from the comfort of a life they’ve always known, a life that offers very great security. And they leave their father Zebedee to fish out his days with the hired servants.

His sons accept Jesus’ way.

Jesus is the guide. Jesus is the commander now over their life. And to be sure, the Scriptures do not teach us to throw off our responsibility to family, those we love. God designed family and we have responsibility to husband, to wife, to parents, to children, to do right by them, physically provide for those we should, spiritually guide those that we should. We’ll be accountable for that. Paul says in 1 Timothy, the one who doesn’t provide for his family is worse than an unbeliever and has denied the faith. Jesus often, often quoted the Ten Commandments and said honor your father and mother. Nor do the Scriptures teach us that we can just stop working. It’s okay to just quit working. Labor is good. Labor is a gift from God. Paul says the one that doesn’t work shouldn’t eat. So work’s a good thing. But here’s what this interaction between Jesus and the brothers really shows us. And I hate to use the word because it’s overused and so it loses its power.

But here it is. Here’s what the interaction shows us. Following Jesus is radical.

It’s exhaustive. Not like tired, but it asks everything of you. It costs everything you have. And Jesus says, if you’re going to follow me, you cannot let anything, anything stand in the way of what he may, he may ask of you for his name’s sake.

So following Jesus, then it requires complete devotion. Complete devotion.

And I wish, at least I’m tempted to, which is probably, wrong to put some kind of like sugar and butter on that. Make it taste a little better. Make it go down a little easier. But I cannot because it wouldn’t be honest with Jesus plainly says about following him. Look in Luke’s gospel in the 14th chapter, verse 25. It says, now great crowds accompanied him and he turned and said to them, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and 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. So there’s no finesse. Can’t finesse that. There’s no loophole. Jesus demands that we be so devoted and committed to him. It looks like our devotion and commitment to everyone else is like hate. So there’s no comparison in Jesus’ mind between the good things we have in life and those competing with what God calls us to do in devotion and obedience. And God does give us good things in life. Call them common graces. But there’s no room for the disciple to let common graces compete with the special grace of serving the Lord when he calls you to do something for his name. Even if it comes at the cost of those common graces, you would just praise God for a moment earlier. So the fight for us as Christians is so often this. I’ve got to maintain a high level of desire. Desire for and commitment to Jesus. Can I say with Paul, I’m happy to lose everything if I gain Christ. When Elijah calls Elisha to be a prophet, he burns up his farm equipment and he kills his oxen and serves it for food. He had nothing to go back to. He did it so that his face would be set towards serving the Lord. So this isn’t like some big lofty doctrine. Let’s tease through this. It’s confusing. There’s not any of that to do. It says, immediately they left their father, they got out of the boat, and they followed Jesus. That’s all it says. So it’s an obedience issue. It’s a sacrifice issue. It’s a question of treasure and what you find most that matters in life. And I’m careful not to romanticize or idealize devotion to Christ. I think in the way that, you know, young boys can do with war, not having been soldiers and experienced the horrors, of what war is really like. It’s not romantic. It’s not idyllic for Billy Graham to say he missed out on 60% of his children’s youth in growing up. That’s not idyllic. It’s not romantic that William Carey’s wife went mad and died in the mission field along with his son.

It’s not romantic. It’s not idyllic that just last week Chinese government rounded up tons of Chinese Christians. Some of them were tortured, pulled out of their houses with their kids still home. It’s not romantic. It’s not idyllic. I read a couple weeks ago that an elderly Christian Nigerian woman, a radical Muslim, slaughtered her son and daughter-in-law and little granddaughter. That’s not romantic. And scriptures don’t tell us to idolize suffering.

But to be counted worthy to suffer for Christ.

That’s, I think, what’s idyllic. To be counted worthy to suffer for Him, to serve Him. The apostles, the apostles didn’t rejoice because they had been beaten. They rejoiced because they had been beaten for Christ.

Why the Lord calls some of us to seemingly harder things, seemingly easier things, things that require more sacrifice. I don’t know, but here’s what I do know. If you’re going to make the decision as to whether or not you’re going to obey the Lord in the moment, count on not obeying. It’s a decision to make before you follow Christ that whatever comes, Lord, I’m going to be committed and devoted to You completely. That has to be the sacrifice. That has to be the sacrifice. George Mueller, famous for his orphan care in London.

He, similar to John Huss, he got into the ministry because it was lucrative. His father wanted to do him. It was a comfortable life. His father thought he’d be able to kind of ride on Mueller’s success when he was old, old in age. And when Mueller became a Christian and started studying the Scriptures for himself, he became truly saved and he felt called to missions. And he writes this in his autobiography. I went at last to my father. I went at last to my father to obtain his permission without which I could not be received into any of the German missionary institutions. My father was greatly displeased and particularly reproached me, saying that he had expended so much money on my education and hoped that he might comfortably spend his last days with me in a parsonage. And that he saw now all these prospects come to nothing. He was angry and told me he would no longer consider me as his son.

But the Lord gave me grace to remain steadfast. He then entreated me and wept before me. Yet even this, by far harder trial, the Lord enabled me to bear.

It cannot be sure what the Lord will call you to do in this life. It’s not sure what He will ask of you or take from you. But friend, following Jesus isn’t a matter of choosing and deciding as it comes. It’s the issue of wholeheartedly committing to Christ right now. What is the thing you’re least willing to part with in life? That’s the thing you are most devoted to. I would like for us to say as Christians and as a church, we’re devoted to Christ. Who knows what tomorrow brings? Who knows what next year brings? But this will be the case. Our devotion will be to Jesus. Just Jesus.

How can we follow Jesus then?

How can we follow Jesus when as we’ve studied so often in these Scriptures and these passages, friends, we’re weak. We’re the sinning ones. We’re the ailing ones. Christ is so good. Christ is the light from heaven. We can follow Jesus exclusively because Jesus is the one who issued the call. Jesus is exclusively the one who said, come follow me. He said, I will make you able to do this. We did not have the ears to hear. We did not have the eyes to see. We did not have the power to follow or even the desire. But by God’s grace, we were prompted to follow. By God’s grace, we were shown the light from heaven. Following Jesus, which is trusting Jesus, which was knowing Jesus, it didn’t start because of me. It didn’t start because I thought Christ was better. Because I knew the kingdom was better. And it’s not going to endure because of me. And it’s not going to end because of me. Jesus says that He is the author and He’s the perfecter of my faith. Jesus says He’s the abiding one that will never leave and never forsake. Jesus said, I will have great trouble in this world. But He says, take hard. I have overrunned and overcome the world. So friends, yes, you have an impossible call, but never forget with the impossible call, you have a very dear and precious promise from the person. Consider the call in relation to the person. Remember we talked about this in Proverbs. You must consider what’s said by who said it. And who said that He’ll never leave and He’ll never forsake? Who said that He will make us become? Who said that He will change us and make us fit for the kingdom?

Jesus.

Jesus, Jesus who is first and last. Jesus who is the very image and radiance of the glory of God. Jesus who is trustworthy, whose character is impeccable.

Jesus who is devoted to and loves us. And that’s the only reason why we can be fully devoted and love Him. God says, you love me because I have first loved you. And friends, when we gaze at the cross and we see Jesus hanging there, we get a vision of, we get a picture of God’s love and God’s devotion to that. And if we really see that, if we really hear that, we really taste that, the only response to that is not, I’m so glad Jesus did everything for me, now I can take a nap. The response is, I mean, I want to get up and run and follow Jesus because He has told me every step of the way He is going to be with me and He has promised me I will arrive in glory safe with Him. So grace, grace has saved us, but grace is saving us and it’s moving us if we’ve truly seen and embraced the power of the cross, how much God loves us and He’s bearing with us until we are with Him in the end in glory. So there’s no fear in love. Jesus says, John says, that perfect love casts out fear because we have been perfectly loved. Friends, there’s no fear in following Jesus. Don’t look at yourself, look at Christ. It’s His power, it’s His love, it’s His devotion that makes it possible for us to follow Him and follow Him all the way home. So let’s be a church then that follows Jesus together.

Let’s pray. Father, this morning,

just pray that we would have a great humility

in our hearts, Lord.

Lord, by Your grace, just to see and by Your grace, just to know

that we don’t stand before You because of anything that we’ve done, anything we ever could do or will do, Lord, we stand before You solely because of Jesus and what Jesus is making us to be.

So Lord, I pray that we would

gaze at Jesus and see His perfect work on the cross

and we’ll just be moved to obedience

to know that in all things and when You call us to difficult trials and You call us to hard places, Lord, You’re doing that to grow us up in holiness. You’re doing that because You love us and You’re increasing our devotion for You, Lord.

So Lord, I just pray that our love for Jesus, our desire for Jesus, our committedness to Jesus by Your Spirit, Lord, it would just swell.

Father, we want to follow Jesus.

How gracious to receive that call to follow Your Son and become like Him.

Lord, we pray that we would be a church that follows Jesus, that knows Him, that makes Him known, Lord, so that in the end, we can hear You say, well done, good and faithful servant.

So we love You and we thank You for Your grace.

In Jesus’ name, amen.