great father of mercy we thank you for the gift of jesus thank you that god in the flesh is not a terror and a dread but god in the flesh is a cause for great rejoicing at your love and your grace so who is this that we call jesus that he would be life and forgiveness in our way to you we thank you for a season that keeps us sharp and keen on exactly who you called us to be what great heights you brought us to how far we’ve fallen and how far you’ve come to get us so we love you

lord we trust your word will do its work in each of our hearts and minds as it ought

we pray blessing upon our church we pray we bless our tithe and offering we let us give as you have led us to give and we trust you to multiply lord and to meet every need. We pray it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Well, good evening and Merry Christmas to you. If you would, turn with me in your Bibles to Mark chapter 1. Mark chapter 1, verse 16 to 20. Mark chapter 1, verses 16 to 20.

Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon, into the sea, for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men. And immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on a little farther, he saw James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets. And immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servant. And he said to them, I will make you become fishers of men. And immediately they left their nets and followed him. Last week, Dawson cleaned, and Darcy cleaned the house to make some money so they could buy Christmas presents. And Dawson bought his for me and wrapped it. And oh, it was killing him. I just had to open it. I just had to open it. He didn’t want to wait till Christmas. And Jessica said, Well, it is a gift you’re supposed to enjoy, up to Christmas. So I was like, All right, that’s a loophole. That’s a loophole. So I’ll do it then. And I opened it, and it was, it was this big, beautiful snow globe. And inside the globe was the nativity scene. And it was beautiful. And you shake it. And obviously, you know, it all flickers everywhere. And we wound up the song. I think it’s the first Noel. And it’s beautiful. And it’s a new, it’s a new thing.

But that reminds me, I think of how we tend to treat Christmas. It’s this beautiful thing. We really appreciate it. We wonder at it. We marvel at it for a season. Then we put it back in the box. We put it back up in the attic. And we move on.

Christmas. Quite the opposite is not something we appreciate from afar. It’s something that we’re made a part of. It’s something in which we’ve been invited into. It’s something, in fact, in which God has given each of us a divine calling. So we’ve seen that Christmas brings the gift of salvation in Jesus. It brings the gift of truth. But I want to consider with you this evening that Christmas brings the gift of calling. The gift of a calling. And to consider who’s called, see with me first the kind of places Jesus calls people, where he goes. Now, Mark’s unique in that it’s the only gospel that has no reference to the birth of Jesus. At all, he just jumps right in there with the life and ministry of Jesus. But we learn from the other accounts, from Matthew and Luke. And then, of course, John talks about theologically the word becoming flesh. But we see in Matthew and Luke that humble place where Christ was born. And we looked at that in depth many Christmases ago. That it probably. Was like a cave type setting, given the Middle East where he was. And then it was probably some kind of animal trough that was used as a makeshift crib for Jesus.

That’s not humble. That’s unthinkable for just any baby born in.

And we pick up in Mark’s account. And what’s the first thing that Mark tells us about? About him. In verse nine of chapter one. And he’s Jesus who comes from Nazareth of Galilee. So it’s not getting better.

I’m going to read you what the Baker’s Encyclopedia has to say about. Nazareth, it says, as Galileans were frequently despised by people from Judea. So it appears even fellow Galileans despise Nazareth. This reflects the self abasement of the man of heaven. He was known of he was known as Jesus. Of Nazareth. Nazareth was always a small, isolated town, not mentioned in the Old Testament. The Apocrypha, intertestamental Jewish writings or the histories of Josephus. Trade routes and roads passed near Nazareth, but the village itself was not on any main road. In the time of Christ, Nazareth, along with the entire region of South Galilee, lay outside the mainstream of Jewish life. And of course, Nathaniel’s remark to Philip is, can anything good come out of Nazareth? And then consider Galilee, that district at large. It was an intermix of Jews and Gentiles because of previous conquests of the Assyrians and obviously the Romans who were there. They had imported on purpose Gentile people from all over the known world to kind of break up that kingdom. Not just Jews, it’s an intermix of people. So Galilee is just this intermix of people working in wheat, working in olive oil, wine, and then the main industry was fishing. Popularly exported salted and pickled fish. The salted would be good, I would think. But I don’t know about pickled fish. So this is not Jerusalem. This is not where the temple is. This is the blue-collar side of town. This is commercial. This is the industrial part of town. If anybody was to dream up just how low God’s Son would get to come into the world, who would say among cattle in a backwoods rural town, in an industrial commercial province mixed among Jew and Gentile, even we’re told in chapter 2, Jesus had a home in Capernaum in Galilee. What was in his home? What did that look like? He had a home there. And I think those details are so important for each of us as Christians. And I think these are one of those things where, yeah, it’s Jesus of Nazareth. Yeah, he’s from Galilee. Yeah, he’s born in a manger. I’ve heard the story. I’ve been in the play when I was a kid. And it loses its wonder, if you will, like the impact that, no, that happened, man. That happened for you. And Jesus really did that. And those settings are so unexceptional. They’re so unexceptional. They’re so common in their place and their relation to other places in the world he could have gone. What we see from that, and rather, I think what God wants to clearly communicate to us through these lowly places is his heart. God’s shown us his heart. And Jesus plainly says in Matthew 11, I am gentle and lowly. It means humble. Think about what this means if the creator of the universe, did this. The creator of the cosmos who set every star in place and every galaxy and every planet and invented every animal and bird and fish in the majesty of the Swiss Alps. And he’s eternal and he’s all powerful and he’s all knowing and he’s holy and he’s righteous. Yet he says to each one of us, I am supremely approachable.

What if you wanted an audience with the president right now? You would not get it. How about the governor? Wouldn’t get it. How about the mayor? Maybe if you had some really good calls and you went through a string of emails and he was willing to do it in the future, he’ll get back to you after the holidays. What about a CEO of a Fortune 500 company? But friends, one greater than, says to each one of us, through the mundane places he went and the words he said, we each can have an uninterrupted audience with him at any time. The incarnation and the subsequent life of Jesus show so plainly, God would have us, whoever we are, wherever we are, whatever we’ve done, flee to him and find him accessible. That’s what the incarnation means. That God came near. And it’s not at the expense of people who are wealthy or educated. I think that Jesus coming to the lowly places just shows that any and all come. So you have to ask yourself, if God communicated through such explicit means like this, where do you and I always get this idea that, God’s kind of far off. He’s half listening when I pray. He’s bored with the low quality vocabulary and syntax I have. My prayers aren’t like poetic and beautiful. And, you know, I don’t get things right the first time. I’m sure there’s some sharper, better Christian out there who he just adores. And he’s like, you again.

Friends, that’s the voice of self. And that’s the voice of Satan. It’s not what God has revealed. He’s not revealed about himself. He’s explicitly shown he is Jesus of Nazareth. From Galilee. Born of a manger. How much more explicit is the cross? He didn’t just start out low. He ended up low. So, he was shamed, naked. In all suffering. Brought to the lowest place. Became the lowest of things. So that by his blood, friends, we could inhabit the same space as God. I want you to think about that. That you and I could inhabit the same space as God. Jesus lowered himself in every way from birth to death for all of us.

Martin Luther has said, Jesus succinctly said, the mystery of the humanity of Christ, that he sunk himself into our flesh, is beyond all human understanding. Church, I want you to cast away every thought you have of a God unwilling. A God that’s hard. A God that’s unloving. A God that keeps record of wrong. A God that doesn’t like the kind of person you are. The kind of neighborhood. The kind of neighborhood you grew up in. Jesus came right where you are. Jesus came to you. And he loves you where you are. And by his blood, he’s drawn you into himself. And into relationship with his father. So, on that, here is a year-round habit that you and I have to keep up. And it’s this. You and I constantly, because we’re sinful, we’re constantly deforming. We’re constantly deforming our idea of God. We’re constantly whispering, even, I don’t think, when we realize, things to ourselves about God that aren’t true. Oh, he’s going to get me for that one again. Oh, I’m sure he just rolled his eyes at me for that one again. Oh, how mad could he be that I didn’t do that again? And we kind of create this subversion of God in our minds, where we end up feeling very isolated. But we have to constantly then be reforming our minds according to the Word. Because the written Word is where we find what God has to explicitly say about himself. It’s amazing how I can go through seasons, and I just want to work so hard for God, and I feel like a failure. And yet I return to the Word, and I see Christ who’s already done everything well. And I go, oh, that’s who God is. And it frees me, not just from my sin and my failure, it frees me to go live for God in joy again. You’re always deforming. You must constantly choose daily to be reforming. Your heart and your mind.

The second thing I want you to see here is the kind of people he employs in his calling. And it’s common people. It’s common people.

Jesus said to them, follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men. I think it’s difficult. It’s difficult enough to think about God drawing near in time and space via the incarnation to give us eternal life by faith in him. It seems, I think, downright impossible that Jesus could sincerely say, follow me.

Jesus is speaking to average common folks. What do you think about that? Jesus is speaking to average common folks, fishermen. Jesus has overshot Jerusalem by 80 miles. Jesus could have gone down to Jerusalem and he could have found the tip top of those studying to be rabbis, those studying to be Pharisees, the priests, those who know the whole history of Israel, who know all the extra biblical writings as well. He could have gone there and found those who are taking such great pride, pains to obey everything they think they’re supposed to be doing just right. But he comes to the common man. And he doesn’t say, spend your whole life being just amazed at what I do. Spend your whole life thinking about what I do. No, Jesus gives the common man an invitation. Follow me and do what I do.

But they don’t have any ability to do what Jesus does. They don’t have any prior religious study like someone down in Jerusalem. They’re not in priest training school. And let’s be honest, they really don’t even entirely know what Jesus is talking about.

John and James once asked Jesus because the Samaritan town rejected what he had to say. Hey, you want us to call fire down from heaven? And Jesus, it says rebuked him. That’s all it says. And Jesus rebuked them. Peter tried to cut off the high priest servant’s ear. Even after the ascension and after Pentecost, Peter still doesn’t get it until the four corner blanket comes down and God explicitly says it’s for Jews and Gentiles, spiritual kingdom.

So he doesn’t call the quick-witted, the able-bodied. And you want to know why he doesn’t call those kind of people? Because they don’t exist. Those who truly follow are the ones that have confidence in Christ alone. That Jesus has the power. And in fact, the power is in the call. What Christ can and will do through his followers. They don’t get it all, but they just believe Jesus. Jesus has it figured out and Jesus has the answers and they follow him. Jesus says in John chapter 15, you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. So friends, I think we have to boast in our weakness because Christmas is not about celebrating that God’s given me this chance. This chance to live for him or that God’s given me this awesome task to do. Because if God gave me an awesome task to do all on my own, I would surely fail at it. But Paul says, boast in your weakness because then the wisdom and power of Christ is known. And all you have to do is think about Pentecost. Think about the last thing Jesus said. One of the last things he said. He did not say, alright boys, it’s been three years. I’ve given you the best, I have to give you. I don’t have anything else to teach. I’m going back to heaven. Y’all go get them. Jesus says, don’t do anything. He says, go and wait. Go and wait for the Holy Spirit. Think about that. God has not called any of us to do anything in our own power. He has called us to be supremely dependent on him. So it’s not enough to latch on to Christmas because I get all these warm and fuzzies about what God’s doing. God’s done for me. He saved me.

No, much more. Christmas should stir me up to the work God has employed me to do for him. Wonder that you’ve been saved, but then wonder that God would use a weak, frail sinner like you to do his work, to call you into that and supply you with everything you need. So I want to say further, Christmas is harmful. If all it does is focus you solely on what you get from Christ and it doesn’t stir you up to desire obedience to Christ.

Christmas has to be a year-round holiday to enjoy God and depend on him for the work he wants to do through each of us and the power of the Spirit. Charles Spurgeon says, when Christ calls us by his grace, we ought not only to remember what we are, but we ought also to think of what he can make us. It did not seem a likely thing that lowly fishermen would develop into apostles, that men so handy with the net would be quite as much as home and preaching sermons and instructing converts. One would have said, how can these things be? You cannot make founders of churches out of peasants of Galilee. That is exactly what Christ did. And when we are brought low in the sight of God by a sense of our own unworthiness, we may feel encouraged to follow Jesus because of what he can make us. Oh, you who see in yourselves at present nothing that is desirable, come you and follow Christ for the sake of what he can make out of you. Do you not hear a sweet voice calling to you and saying, follow me and I will make you fishers of men?

Friends, we are called to this great work of fishing for men, of casting a wide net. And as hard and as scary and as difficult to work what may be, Christ assures us he will accomplish it through us. He will accomplish it through us.

And I think fishing for men, I think that’s worth being explored. I think we probably diminish that when it’s strictly cold call evangelism. You know, I think that’s important and we should share the gospel when we’re given the opportunity. Absolutely. And we talk about that. But I think I have to think about how they fished then. You know, there’s no fish and pole, you know, per se. It was net casting, you know. And I think we’ve got to cast our nets and we’ve got to be willing to go for Christ. And sometimes you pull up that net, you don’t get nothing. I don’t know if you’ve seen the show where they get the king crabs, you know, that go out in the ocean. And it looks, you know, it’s death defying. It’s freezing water. You fall and you die. Kind of a show. And sometimes you get a lot of what you hope for. And sometimes you cast your nets and you don’t. But Christ is calling us not to worry about the product or the end result. He’s calling us just to be faithful. And so I think we have to widen it out and remember this evangelism is not distinct from discipleship. Evangelism is not distinct from discipleship. Because guess what? What? I, as a 34-year-old who’s been a believer the majority of my life, I still need to be evangelized. I still need the gospel preached to me. And yes, sinners need the gospel preached to them. But sometimes it’s not always a walk up and say it and walk away. Sometimes, and I’m sure a lot of us can testify to it, it’s building a relationship. It’s walking with someone over time. It’s doing the hard work of laboring and praying and sharing when we get the opportunity. So I’m saying that to you, to say, you know, thinking about my home first for us to have children, that is fishing. Don’t forget you’re fishing in your own home. You want to be a fisherman of your children. You want to evangelize and disciple them and see that God raises them up to follow him. I want you to be thinking about prayerfully in the new year. Lord, is there a relationship old or new in my life? One. I already have that I need to invest in. Or Lord, are you going to bring somebody along and I need to constantly be pouring into them and praying for them and looking for opportunities to disciple and to share Christ with them. There’s definitely going to be an opportunity to walk up to a stranger in 2024. There may be new waters you didn’t even think about that God’s going to show you in 2024. But in all of it, it does not depend on you. In the same way, I want you to be thinking about prayer. In the same way, you cannot be near God unless he moves closer to you. You can do no work for God unless he moves through you. Have joy. Have great wonder this Christmas. You’ve been saved by the blood of the Lamb. But then have joy. You’ve been called to work for that kingdom. And as unfit as you are, he will accomplish the task.

I read a quote by a guy named Paul Harvey. I think he was an American broadcaster from years and years ago. But he says, you know, we in the church have become aquarium keepers instead of fishermen. And I think that’s a great illustration. It’s a great illustration. There’s aquarium. There’s no risk. It’s not scary. It’s not uncomfortable. You don’t have to worry about if something’s going to work out or not. It’s just there. You know, you throw some flakes in. Keep the glass clean periodically. And that’s not what we’ve been called to. We’re called to go out on those rocky, icy waters and cast our nets. And you know the interesting thing, too, about that? No fishing poles. Fishermen needed help. You can’t go throw a massive, heavy thing. It’s a team sport, this fishing for men. It’s a team sport. So, friends, more than ever in the time we live, in the culture we live, there is no better time for us as a church to be so prayerful and so dependent. Oh, God, use us. Use our community. Help us, God, to reach out to those who are there and preach the gospel and make disciples for Jesus. It’s a team sport. And I’ll tell you this story because it’s the providence of God, I guess. I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to preach. All week long, I kept coming up with themes. And, you know, you just don’t like things. And so you just flush them and try to come up with something different. But I finally felt like the Lord wanted me to preach this text on calling and being fishers of men. And so I was, I was, I drove like an hour and a half deep into Tennessee last night, late at night, because I got a good deal on this thing and for a Christmas present for someone. And I won’t say who. But here I am in rural Tennessee and I’m just praying, Lord, I know you want me to share, but I just don’t have the strength for it. I just don’t have the strength for it. And so I get this thing and I, in the most awkward, weird fashion, whip a track out of my pocket as I’m leaving, like, hey, this is for you. It’s got information on who Jesus is and who God is and all these things. And he just starts questioning me, like, like, okay, like what religion is this? I’m like, Christianity. He’s like, okay, but like, which kind? I’m like, just the Bible kind, just the Bible and Jesus is what I said. It was so weird and awkward. And he told me, he said, man, never in my whole life would I have cared about this stuff. But just recently, I’ve wanted to know more about Christianity and Jesus. And he’s like, I’ve been like wanting to know more. And I stood there and told him the whole thing. Like we stood out there and talked for a long time and he was just mesmerized by it. And I just was able to say so many things. That happened Saturday. Would you believe I told you the same thing happened Thursday? I was like, here, here we go again. I don’t have the strength. They don’t want to hear it. I play this game in my mind. And this person said, I just, yeah, I want to know more. I just, I’ve never had someone to tell me. Like I didn’t grow up like that. I would just, I just want to know more about it. And I’m like, are there cameras somewhere? Somebody gonna jump out and say, gotcha. You look like an idiot now. Like I was waiting for it. But, but I say that to say, friends, God wants to use us if we would just be obedient. And no, not every time is it that. But I say that to say there are people out there that the Lord is calling, you know, he’s drawn them in. And it’s just, it’s just us being faithful to say, let me tell you about how awesome Christmas, is on January the 1st. Let me tell you about how awesome Christmas is in July. It’s always awesome. So here’s the last point on that. Dependence in prayer reveals whether or not we really take this task serious. Because we cannot go and work for the Lord if we’re not first laboring in prayer unto the Lord. I guarantee you, your evangelism, so often reflects your prayer life. So often. Because if you really feel the weight of what it means to preach the eternal words of the gospel to a sinner who is dead and spiritually in love with their sin, you realize this cannot be done in my own strength and power. God, I need you. So this is just as much a call, friends, before we go and work for the Lord. Let’s be a praying people together. Let’s be a praying church. God says, you will find me when you seek me with your whole heart. I want to seek God with you. I want to find God with you. I want to be empowered by God with you so that we can be fishers of men.

To the gift of the calling, friends, it’s a gift in that Christ came near and he loved me. He loved you right where you’re from. Jesus came to the ghetto of sinful humanity and all of its muck and mire and mess. He came and he loved us.

But he gives us the gift of working for him. I want Christmas to be a rallying cry for you, not to start out a new year dragging your feet, but a new year, first on your knees, but then running for the Lord and us locking arms and running together that we would know Christ and make Christ known. That’s the gift Christmas brings us. It’s a gift of a great and wonderful and eternal calling with eternal consequences. Eternal consequences. So let’s meet that great work together knowing we will be empowered for it all along the way. Let’s pray together.

Father, we just reflect upon Christ now. We reflect upon his incarnation.

The eternally begotten Son of God in time and space, in a manger, as a baby, crying, hungry, hungry, cold, needing to be held, needing to be put to sleep, needing to learn how to walk and talk. God, we truly can’t understand that. But Lord, we thank you for it. That in it we find life.

Let our hearts and our minds just be amazed at such a thing. And then let our hands, our hands be active in the work. If we’ve been slothful or careless in making disciples, Lord, wake us up. Invigorate us anew in your spirit that we would be alive and active for Christ Jesus, laboring for the kingdom. And we know it’s only by grace and grace alone that you’ve saved us and called us to this. We pray it on Christ’s name. Amen.