What Does It Mean to Follow Jesus

Tom Shrader works through Matthew 4:17-22, tracing Jesus' move to Capernaum as the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy and the launch of His public ministry with a call to repentance. He examines the calling of Peter, Andrew, James, and John, drawing out the qualities of a good fisherman — patience, perseverance, instinct, and courage — as qualities God uses in those He calls to reach people. Shrader then unpacks what it means to follow Jesus, arguing that genuine discipleship requires salvation, obedience, submission, commitment, perseverance, love for the church, and a love for the lost that expresses itself in active, everyday evangelism.

“Your faith is a very personal matter, but it is not a private matter — it is not something that is between you and God and should never touch the other areas of your life.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: A Study Of The Life Of Jesus Christ (2003/2004)

Recorded: 2004 at East Valley Bible Church

Duration: 1 hr

Themes: following jesus, repentance, discipleship, evangelism, commitment, obedience, perseverance, love for the lost, new believer, struggling with commitment, feeling called to ministry, young adult, seeking purpose, questioning faith, new to evangelism, searching for meaning

Scripture: Matthew 4:12-22, Matthew 4:14, Matthew 4:17, Matthew 3:2, Matthew 7:29, Matthew 14, John 1:35-42, Galatians 4:4, 2 Timothy 2:25, 2 Corinthians 7, Mark 5:19, Isaiah 9:1-2

Theological Themes: discipleship, soteriology, salvation, sanctification, biblical obedience, messianic fulfillment, prophetic fulfillment, ecclesiology

Full Transcript

What Does It Mean to Follow Jesus

Good afternoon. Glad that you are here. Please grab the bulletin — the response tab easily detaches, and it is the vehicle you use to communicate with us. If you are here for the very first time, we would invite you to take a moment and complete the registration portion of the card in its entirety. If you have any questions, comments, prayer requests, or any change of address, this is the vehicle you use.

A couple of things are listed in the bulletin worth noting. If you are thinking about joining a small group — not as a leader, just thinking about attending — we would invite you to one of four orientations scheduled on August 8, 15, 22, and 29. Also, ladies, make a note that August 21st will kick off Women's Ministries. That seems early to me, but the calendars are just not what they used to be. Teachers at Hamilton are back this week, school starts so quickly, and it has been a strange summer all around.

We are also looking at entirely revamping the way we do ushers, greeters, and frontline ministry — all of those ancillary issues — adding some information booths and a number of other things under what we are calling Campus Connection. We need your help, and we think we need about 100 people for that. We are about halfway there, so if you would like to join us in that effort, please indicate your interest on the response tab and we will get in touch with you. It is an inexpensive ministry in the sense that you would be here perhaps 15 or 20 minutes earlier than you normally would be, and the return on that investment is very high.

Good to Be Back

It is good to be back with you. I was gone last week — we were in Houston, Texas, at a church there. It is always good to go away and take communion with other believers and see how things are done differently. It was a very different culture from what we have here; I taught in a suit and tie, which was a unique experience for me. It is not me at my best, and I think this setting is honestly a little too formal for my taste as it is.

Their website is second.org — not third, not first, second.org. If you go there and find the traditional service, it will give you a real sense of something different. It was good to go and good to see that, and it reminded me of how much I love this place and love you. I also saw things they did that I think are important and that we can incorporate here.

In my absence, Dr. Harper felt compelled to try to be funny — and you may have noticed that it just does not quite work for him when he tries. His message was something like "Extreme Makeover," so he was trying to be culturally relevant. He showed some before-and-after pictures: Jerry before and after, Peggy before and after — a pretty radical change, actually — and then John, who looked like he needed a little work. Harper was making the point that not all makeovers turn out the way you would like. And then he showed one more slide: Tom before, and Tom after.

That is clearly a man who, undeservedly, feels very comfortable and secure in his position. So I wanted to send a small, subliminal message in response. I went ahead and had Amazon send him four books: *The Diary of a Job Search*, *Unemployment Survival*, *201 Questions to Ask in an Interview*, and one whose subtitle is *Quick Steps for Planning, Organizing, and Preparing for the Interview that Gets the Job*. I think those will be helpful for him to work through. The reality is I hold a certain trump card in that I could simply say, "Jim, I really appreciate your effort — and we will miss you." So I trust the other folks who fill in from time to time will learn from this experience.

We will be here this week and for two more weeks, and then we will take our summer vacation.

established His ministry in Galilee rather than Jerusalem was scandalous to the Jews. And Matthew makes the point, yes, and it was also prophesied. This is the fulfillment of what Isaiah wrote. Matthew is making his case to the Jewish reader. Jesus is the Messiah. Even the geography of His ministry was foretold.

Jesus Begins His Ministry in Galilee

From that time, verse 17, Jesus began to preach and say, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." When Jesus launches His public ministry, His opening message is not a pep talk, not a motivational speech. It is a call to repentance. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Notice that this is the exact same message John the Baptist had been preaching. John's ministry was a ministry of preparation, preparing the way for the Lord, and when John is taken off the scene, Jesus picks up that same message and continues it. The kingdom is here. Turn from your sin. That is the entry point.

Now we come to the section that is our focus for today's study. Verse 18 tells us, "And walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon who was called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen." This is the call of the disciples. Jesus is walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and He begins to call men to Himself. He calls them to follow Him. And so the question before us today is the same question that was before those men: what does it mean to follow Jesus?

The Disciples Had Already Met Jesus

The first thing we need to establish is something that surprises many people when they see it. These men had already met Jesus before this moment. This is not a cold call. Jesus does not walk up to a group of strangers and say, come follow Me, and they drop everything for someone they have never encountered. John chapter 1 gives us the earlier account. John the Baptist sees Jesus coming and says, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." Andrew is standing there, and he hears John say that, and he begins to follow Jesus. Andrew then goes and finds his brother Simon and says, we have found the Messiah, and he brings Simon to Jesus. So Simon Peter and Andrew had already met Jesus. They had already heard John's testimony about Him. They had already begun to follow Him in some initial sense. What happens here at the Sea of Galilee is not the beginning of a relationship. It is a deepening of one. Jesus is now calling them away from their nets permanently, into full-time discipleship.

This matters for how we understand the call to follow Jesus. These men did not make a blind leap. They had heard the testimony. They had encountered Jesus personally. They had processed it. And now Jesus calls them to a decisive, life-altering commitment. They had enough information to act, and Jesus called them to act on it.

The Nature of the Call

Look at what Jesus says to them in verse 19: "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men." Three words: follow Me. That is the call. Not follow My teachings as an abstract philosophy. Not admire Me from a distance. Not incorporate My ideas into your existing life. Follow Me. It is personal, it is direct, and it is demanding. Jesus is calling these men into a relationship with Himself, and that relationship requires movement. You cannot follow someone while standing still.

The second half of that verse is a promise: "I will make you fishers of men." Jesus meets them where they are. He does not ask them to become something entirely foreign to themselves. They are fishermen. He says, I will take what you are and I will redirect it entirely for My purposes. The skill set changes, the occupation changes, the catch changes, but the calling now comes from Him. Notice also the construction: I will make you. Jesus is not saying, go develop this on your own. He is saying, stay close to Me, and I will form you into what I need you to be.

They Left Everything

Verse 20: "And they immediately left the nets and followed Him." Immediately. There is no recorded deliberation, no request for a few days to think it over, no negotiation. They left their nets and followed Him. Now we have to be careful here not to read past the weight of that word left. These were not men with nothing to lose. Fishing on the Sea of Galilee was a real livelihood. These were not failed fishermen looking for an exit. They were working men with a trade, and they walked away from it.

Jesus continues along the shore, and in verse 21 He sees two more brothers, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, in the boat with their father Zebedee mending their nets. And He called them. And they immediately left the boat and their father and followed Him. They left the boat. They left the nets. And they left their father. Matthew wants you to feel the weight of each of those things. The boat is the equipment, the livelihood. The nets are the tools of the trade. And the father is the family. Following Jesus cost them something real and something immediate.

What Following Jesus Actually Means

So what does it mean to follow Jesus? The text is pressing us toward an answer. Following Jesus means leaving something behind. It is not additive in the way we sometimes want it to be. We want to add Jesus to the life we already have, fit Him into the schedule, bring Him in as a supplement. But the call these men received was not additive. It was a reorientation of everything. They left and they followed. Those two verbs go together. You cannot genuinely do the second without doing the first.

Following Jesus also means trusting His direction over your own. These fishermen knew the Sea of Galilee. They knew their trade, their rhythms, their routes. Jesus was asking them to trade a known world for an unknown one, on the basis of His word alone. He said follow Me, and they had to decide whether His word was sufficient reason to move. That is still the question. Is the word of Jesus sufficient reason to order your life around Him?

And following Jesus means being formed by Him over time. Remember, He said, I will make you. That is a process. Discipleship is not a single decision that ends the journey. It is the beginning of a journey in which Jesus progressively shapes who you are. The disciples did not become fishers of men on the day they left their nets. They became fishers of men through years of walking with Jesus, watching Him, listening to Him, failing, being corrected, and getting back up. The call at the shore was the starting point. The making happened along the road.

The Urgency of the Kingdom

Step back for a moment and hold verse 17 alongside verses 18 through 22. Jesus opens His ministry with the proclamation that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and then He immediately begins calling people into it. The proclamation and the invitation are inseparable. The kingdom has arrived in the person of Jesus, and Jesus is now gathering the people of the kingdom. These first disciples are not just recruits for a mission. They are the beginning of a new community, a new people, the people who live under the rule of the King.

That is why Matthew's framing here is so important. Remember, Matthew is writing to convince Jewish readers that Jesus is the Messiah and King. The King has arrived. The King is in Galilee, the region Isaiah identified. The King is preaching that the kingdom is here. And the King is calling subjects. Everything is moving in one direction, and Matthew wants his readers to see it clearly. The question Isaiah's prophecy raises, and that Matthew's narrative presses home, is not merely an intellectual one. It becomes a personal one: will you follow this King?

Following Jesus Today

Everything in this passage speaks across the centuries directly to us. The call has not changed. Jesus still says follow Me. The cost has not changed. Following Him still requires leaving something behind. The promise has not changed. He still says I will make you. And the urgency has not changed. The kingdom is still at hand. The question is the same one Simon and Andrew and James and John faced on the shore of the Sea of Galilee: when Jesus calls, will you immediately leave and follow, or will you stay with what is familiar and safe?

These men had heard the testimony. They had met Jesus. They had enough information. And when He called, they moved. That is the model of discipleship Matthew sets before us. Not a lengthy negotiation, not a careful calculation of costs and benefits that ends in a comfortable compromise, but a decisive, whole-life response to the call of Jesus. May God give us the grace to respond the same way.

The Message Jesus Proclaimed

He began His ministry in Samaria and Galilee rather than Jerusalem and Judea, which emphasizes the fact that His gospel of salvation was for the whole world. For God so loved the world — Jew, Gentile. For God so loved people of all races, all genders, all economic backgrounds, young and old. God loved the religious and the irreligious enough to send His Son to die for people like you and me.

Verse 17 says this: "From that time Jesus began to preach and say, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'" You are in Matthew chapter 4. Turn back one chapter to the third chapter of Matthew's gospel, and in the first couple of verses Matthew writes this: "In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea saying, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. This is the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make ready the way of the Lord, make His path straight.'"

This is a significant moment. In chapter 3 verse 2, there is the message of John: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." In Matthew chapter 4 verse 17, there is the message of Jesus: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." The same message — but an important change has taken place. The message is no longer proclaimed by the forerunner who says, "It's not me, it's Him." In his paraphrase of Matthew chapter 4 verse 17, Eugene Peterson writes it this way: "Jesus picked up where John left off."

Jesus picks up the mantle. Jesus no longer says, "Behold Him over there" — He says, "It's me." We see Jesus go into the synagogue and teach, and He says, "Right now, this scripture is fulfilled in me. These messianic scriptures are fulfilled in me. I'm the Messiah." He could not make it any more plain to these people. Again, Eugene Peterson paraphrasing this message says: "Change your life. God's kingdom is here."

What It Means to Preach

So Jesus bursts onto the scene. This is the beginning of that preaching and teaching ministry. He comes — look at the word — to preach. That word "preach" means to proclaim, to publish, to make public a message. R.C.H. Lenski says this: "The point to be noted is that to preach is not to argue or reason or dispute or convince by intellectual proof, against all of which a keen intellect may bring counter-argument. We simply state in public or testify to all men the truth which God bids us state. No argument can assail the truth presented in this announcement or testimony. Men either believe the truth or they refuse to believe the truth."

That is what this idea of preaching or testifying is. Speaking only from my own background — early on, shortly after I became a Christian, I seemed prone to argue, to debate, to take my point and your point and counterpoint. And to the best of my knowledge, I never argued a single person into the kingdom. Now, I am not against the area of apologetics, and there are some in our body who are really energized by that. They are gifted in that area. They love to sit with unbelievers and go toe-to-toe, word for word. That is just not my thing. My tendency is to say, "Here is what it says, and it is God's Word and it is true. If you do not believe it, let me try to answer some questions, but I am not interested in debating it."

We are never going to convince somebody into the kingdom. Our job is to testify, to preach, to do what Jesus did — to proclaim with certainty, not to argue, not to fight. Matthew says in chapter 7 verse 29 that Jesus preached as one having authority, not as the scribes. Jesus proclaimed teachings that are certain and authoritative, and they were firsthand and they flow from Him.

The Call to Repentance

So Jesus breaks onto the scene. He picks up where John left off. He preaches. His message is to repent. The word literally means a change of perception, a change in the way we see something. To repent is to change the way a person looks at sin and the way we look at righteousness. Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 2:25 that repentance leads to knowledge of the truth.

So here is the message: we are to repent, we are to change, we are to turn. It is not just important to turn away from sin, although that is important. It is not just important to turn away from the life we used to live or the beliefs we used to hold. It is not just important that we turn away from self-promotion, self-pride, self-gratification, and selfishness. It is important that we turn from all of that — but the very act of turning means that if I turn from this side, I inevitably turn to something. In this case, to the other side of the road. I turn from my selfishness, my pride, my arrogance, my sin — and when I turn, I turn to Christ's righteousness. That is the call Jesus gives us, that we should hunger and thirst for righteousness.

He said, "This is serious business. I came to make public, to proclaim, to publish the truth — that you and I need a Savior, that we are lost." Some of you understand that. Some of you took communion, and at least in doing so you are acknowledging that. To those of you who are not Christians, I want to plead with you to see this truth that Jesus is declaring: that we are lost.

A Question Worth Considering

I was watching television, and I found myself on TV Land. It was an interview with Jackie Gleason — one of the old 60 Minutes interviews they run from time to time — with Morley Safer and Jackie Gleason. I was not really paying full attention, doing something else and reading, when a question came up. I was sorry I did not have a tape running, but the question put to Jackie Gleason was: "Are you going to heaven?" It is an interesting question, is it not? And Gleason had an answer that —

was something like this. He said, if what I read is true, I'm not worthy to go to heaven. I don't deserve to go to heaven. So Morley says, are you going to heaven? He said, yeah, I think so. There was a little breakdown right at this point in the thought process. But he said, yeah, I think so. I just don't think that God's going to just take you for some sin and condemn you forever. But indeed, that's what we deserve. We say it all the time. We acknowledge it. I don't think it's a difficult thing to get our arms around. Nobody's perfect. Everyone's sin. And what we need is a new vision of sin, a new view of sin, God's view. A.W. Tozer says it this way. Our theology tends not to ascend high enough or descend low enough, and by that he means that we see an accurate view of sin as God sees it and of ourselves. And so Jesus says, repent from that. That's the message. If you're here tonight and you're not a Christian, you need to repent. You need to turn from your own efforts to try to please a holy God. You need to turn from your own theology. If your theology is different than what we find in this book, then it's wrong, and you need to repent. You need to turn from that. Now as Jesus is walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, verse 18, Simon, called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net to the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. Now if you've been tracking real closely with us, you know that this is not the first time that Jesus has run into these boys, is it? Back in John's gospel, verse 35, Jesus says, behold the Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world. And it says that there were these two that heard this and followed Jesus. And then in John chapter 1, verse 40, John writes this, one of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. And he found first his own brother, Simon, and said to him, we have found the Messiah, which is translated Christ. And he brought him to Jesus, and Jesus looked at him and said, you are Simon the son of John, you shall be called Cephas, which is translated Peter. So if you go back to verse 18 of chapter 4, Jesus is walking by the Sea of Galilee, see these two boys, they've had some sort of interaction before that, and this time Jesus drops on them this call, follow me, I'll make you fishers of men. This is my fourth time teaching this today, and I will tell you in my own estimate, I haven't done a very good job at this point in the lesson three times. So maybe the fourth time is the charm. And there's so many things in here, and there's so many ways to go, and so what I'd like to do is just have permission to ramble a bit, because I've tried to do this with structure and it hasn't worked, so maybe if I just ramble, it'll work, okay? There's a couple of lessons. One, it fascinates me that Jesus says, you know what, you boys are fishermen. Now the way they were fishing, they were casting their nets. There were different ways to fish. Remember you've read stories where they're out in the boat and they're dragging the nets, that's one way. This is a different way. They're dragging the nets, probably about nine feet in diameter. They're standing on the shore or in the shallow water. They're casting these nets out, pulling them in, and that's how they're fishing. And Jesus says something fascinating too. He says, you know what, I don't want to change at all your profession. You are a fisherman, you've been a fisherman, and you're going to be a fisherman in the future. But we're going to do something different. We're not going to catch fish anymore. We're going to catch men. Now I've seen that in my own life. What he does is he kind of uses your past, he uses what's there, he uses maybe gifts or talents that you have, and then he brings them together, he solicits you into his army, and then he puts you to work. Doesn't typically change even personality. That's what I see in Paul. I see in Paul this zealot of a pagan, and then he's converted, and it's as though all really happened was he changed jerseys, and now he's a zealot on the other side. Now I don't mean that disrespectfully, but I mean you see those same focus and drive that were there. These guys were fishermen. They were out catching fish. Now they're going to catch men. And apparently, perhaps, some of the things that were helpful in catching fish might be helpful in catching men, dealing with people. I'm going to run down a list of four. Here's the first thing. To be a fisherman, let me do a little disclaimer here, I've never fished. To be a fisherman, you need to be, it looks to me anyway as I watch people fish, it looks like you need to be patient. You kind of throw it out there, and then you're like, wait, I have a lot of people who tell me that my life is boring, you know, and it is, and I understand that, but let me help you out here. Watching C-SPAN is way better than watching a bobber, okay? So I'm sitting, I'm just sitting, I'm just fishing, just sitting. This is fishing right here, just sitting. Wait, did it move? Was that the water or is there a fish nibbling at it? What do you think, Gus? If you're going to fish, you need to be, I think, patient. It's good not to have a personality, apparently, too, but it's good to be patient, all right? Oh, hang on, what's this? Here's the second thing. You need to persevere, I think, because it looks like there's kind of long hours with not a lot going on. You need to be determined, focused, single-minded. You need, I think, to understand the fish a little bit. I'm going to laugh at this, but a few years ago, I was watching on ESPN, too, a bass fishing tournament. I know. And I'm watching the guy, and he says, bring the boat over here. He said, go over there. There'll be fish over there. So he said, see how those trees, see how those leaves are dangling in the water and the rocks? The fish will be there. So you've got to have good

instinct. And then, in that day and age, you needed to have courage. We don't see that much now. You go out in the back, you go in the lake. But in that day and age, if you're out on the boat, remember the scenes we've seen where Jesus is with them on the boat, and they're fishing, and the sea is, and they're scared to death for their life. So there's patience and perseverance, and there's some good instincts, and there's some courage that's going on. He says, that's really been helpful to you as you're going to catch fish. And let me tell you what you're going to do now. You're going to need all that when you go fishing for men. You need it in your life as you begin to deal with unbelievers, don't you? You go fishing for the lost. You need to be patient with them. It takes time, doesn't it? Some of you have been praying for years, and years, and years, and years for people. And you need to persevere. You need to hang in there. You need to be able to, in many cases, not take no for an answer. And yet, you need to have pretty good instincts, because there is that point in time where you say, you know what? Enough is enough. I've done all I can. There's nothing more I can do. I need to move on. And you need to be courageous, don't you? It's just interesting to me when I think, I look at my own life. I was, and this is kind of weird, and I didn't talk about any of this. This is, this part, it's all different than this morning, so. Last Sunday when I was teaching, and then I came home and looked at the video, and I'm looking at this, and literally as I'm standing there teaching, I'm thinking, what in the world am I doing here? I'm in my mind, and every once in a while this'll happen. You're teaching along, and I'm thinking to myself, this is silly, I have got no business here. Can you imagine me, Tom, what are you doing in this situation? Because I look at my past and I'm saying, I don't belong here at all, and yet I can see how God kind of uniquely prepared me for that. He took kind of some gifts that were there, and some talents that were there, and some desires that were there, and a personality that was there, and he just put it all together, and he kind of used it. Even though I got out of the real estate business, he took all of that experience, and just, it allows me to do what I do, I think, with a level that connects, when perhaps some others wouldn't. It's the same thing is true of you, that's my point. My point here is not to draw focus to me, or to draw focus to them, but to draw focus to you, and to help you understand that God has given you a background and personality and talents, and it's highly unlikely that he's gonna take you from here way over to here, and see this radical, weird change in your life. He's walking by to these guys, and he says, listen, you were fishing fish, and now you're gonna fish men. Ray Steadman says this, this is the story of their official call to continual discipleship. Now, hang in there with me, and see if we can make this. Gets a little bit gumbled, but you're way smarter than those people that were here this morning, so you'll figure it out, okay? Oz Guinness talks about a primary calling, and a secondary calling. I said this, the primary calling, is our calling as followers of Christ, is by him, to him, and for him. And our secondary calling, considering who God is, as sovereign, is that everyone, everywhere, in everything, should think, speak, live, and act entirely for him. So he calls us to salvation, that's the call that we have. We have this primary call to live for him, to be his men, his women, his students, to have a life that's transformed and changed, to come in repentance and faith. And now there's this call vocationally, and the question is, what are you gonna do with the rest of your life? Now what difference does this make? How are you gonna live? Let's deal with those of you who are adults here, and you have jobs, in all likelihood, God's not gonna call you to leave that job. This is just me, okay? This is not the opinion of the elders, not the opinion of the staff, this is just me. I hate, and that's a really strong word, I don't like, I dislike, hate's too strong, I despise, I dislike, dislike, I'm trying to get the right word, I dislike this distinction between clergy and laity. You'll hear that all the time, the clergy and the laity. And you will never hear me use that phrase without a thousand disclaimers before it, if I use it at all. Because I don't like this distinction. I understand that what, and let's deal with East Valley here, I understand that especially the teaching staff here have a very awesome responsibility to handle the word of God correctly, but it's no more awesome than the responsibility that a Sunday school teacher has to handle the word of God correctly. I'm not enthralled with this idea that somehow because there's a full-time ministry that you're paid for, or because you are an elder or a past, I don't like that distinction. I think it diminishes the idea of the priesthood. And I know there's all sorts of guys, generally, who are in the clergy, who think there is that distinction and that calling, and I guess there may be. But I don't like that distinction. I think it's important for you and me to understand we are all in the full-time ministry. Some get paid for it, others don't. And there's something that happens by that acknowledgment. It elevates the dignity of work. It takes humble people and ordinary tasks and gives meaning to the mundane. It allows Christ to invade every area of our life. I want to capture, again, the idea that the word Christian is a noun, not an adjective. We talk about it periodically. He's a Christian doctor. Let me help you out here. If I go home tonight, I'm not feeling very well. I've been eating really poorly. I got a little sick there, and consequently, I quit going to the gym. When I quit going to the gym, I quit eating correctly. Tomorrow's a big day. If I don't go to

the gym tomorrow, then I'm a piece of garbage. So I've got to go. Tomorrow's a crucial day. So I go home tonight. I have been eating incorrectly, and all of a sudden, something's wrong, and they take me to the hospital, and they say, Tom, you got a problem with your heart. We need to operate. And you're just fortunate enough to have a choice. Rarely are there two heart surgeons here, but there are right now. There's Bob. Bob's a pagan. He never reads the scripture. He doesn't go to church. He's a pagan. Now, he's the best heart surgeon in the world. Or there's Nehemiah, the Christian surgeon, who does a pretty good job, graduated last in his class at heart school. Which one do you want? Let me help you out. I want the pagan. Because there's no Christian, when they say Christian heart surgeon, no, there's no Christian way to do this. You cut, sew, do whatever it is you do. He's a Christian who happens to be a heart surgeon. Do you see that difference? And it's really an important difference. You are a Christian who is a student, or a Christian who's an engineer, or a Christian who's a salesperson. Or a Christian who's in real estate. Or a Christian, I'm going way out now, who's an attorney. I'm way out there on the limb. I'm playing. Look it, look it. I'm walking it with no net tonight. See, I'm a Christian who doesn't, there's no Christian way. There's no Christian plumber. There's no Christian way to unstuff my toilet. It's stuck. And I'm not demeaning that. I mean, it's just, there's only way to get it. That's how you do it. I'm a Christian who does this. You see that? And you're called to do that. Now we're gonna make a huge point here, and this is really serious. That's why we say your faith is a very personal matter, but it's not a private matter. Very personal. Your relationship with Christ is very personal, but it's not private. It's not something that's between you and God, and should never touch the other areas of your life. Now you gotta use your head here. Some of you have more freedom than others. I stopped down at a Java spot the other day to get something to drink. Susan and I were out, and there, right by the checkout, Jimmy's got a little card, and they're like the cards that we have by the boxes that we say take them and take them with you, and it talks about, in his case, he had what's the passion, and would direct you to that website. Some of you have that freedom. Others of you don't. What you don't have the right to do is to say that somehow what you believe doesn't affect how you behave. When we were flying to Houston, I picked up the Wall Street Journal, and I was reading an article. In it, one of the politicians makes this comment, and I quote, I oppose abortion personally. I don't like abortion. I believe life begins at conception, but I can't take my Catholic belief, my article of faith, and legislate it on a Protestant or a Jew or an atheist who doesn't share it. That's the classic view there. Here's what I believe, but it's not gonna affect how I legislate. The whole argument kind of goes like, especially when we get in the area of abortion, this is a very private matter. Government has no business in this. This is a private matter. We don't want the government invading privacy. It's ironic to me they can tell me, governmentally, what size tank I can have on my toilet. That seems like an invasion of my privacy to me. I'd be able to flush all I want to flush, it seems to me. Or it goes, we don't want to tell a woman what to do with her body. Well, stop. We do all the time. You girls can't go down to Arizona Avenue in Elliott and be a hooker. You can't go down there and sell your body. You can't shoot it up with heroin. We tell you all the time what you can do with your body. We tell each other all the time what these regulations are, what the rules are. This is not forcing religion down somebody's throat. There's a particularly indicting sentence in the midst of this. Did you catch it? Here's what he says. I believe life begins at conception. So here you go. Here's a person who believes life begins at conception, but I'm not gonna do anything about protecting that life. I think, to me, that's an unconscionable position. It's a terrible position to be in. And that's serious stuff. Now, forget him, okay? I didn't mean forget him, although that's not a bad suggestion either, but I'm saying get him out of the way for this discussion. What are the areas where you do that? You say, you know what? Here's what I really believe, but the deal's on the table. And now that the deal's on the table, you know, I'm just going to have to slide a little bit. I'm on with a lot of business people all the time, and I hear that over and over again, that in my business, I continually have to kind of suppress the Christian side of what I feel. It's really easy to take a shot at that. That's an easy target. But we need to make sure that we expose that and we see that. But we need to look at our own life too. I got to believe if you're a student and you're heading back to school here in a couple of weeks, I got to believe that there are a bunch of you who are tempted to say, you know what? When I'm at Rock, or I'm at Oxygen, or I'm at summer camp, or I'm with my Christian friends, I act one way, but when I'm away from them, I act entirely different. I can't imagine that. I'd have the courage to stand up for what I believe. And you know what? Just let the chips fall where they may. That's okay. God's going to take care of you. You do what's right because it's right. God will take care of the results, and so that's the call. There you go. Look at what happens. Verse 20, immediately they left their nets and they followed Him. And I don't mean to make a lot out of this, but it's immediate. They didn't say, let me pray about it. They didn't say, how are we going to live? Let's raise support. They just went. And going down, verse 21, he sees two other brothers, James and John, the son of Zebedee,

and they're mending their nets. And he called them, I assume with the same call. Immediately they left their boat and their father, and they followed Him. And these rough, rugged, probably unlearned, untutored fishermen, who had learned patience and perseverance and great instinct and courage, now became fishers of men. At verse 20, it says they immediately left the nets and followed Him. Notice from a Greek word, akaloutho, which conveys the idea of following as a disciple, one who's committed to imitating the one who he follows. The idea of walking in the steps. I remember there was a morning, my dad and I, dad wanted to get to church, and he was determined that we'd go. And we turned on the radio, there'd been snow that night, and the snow was knee-deep for me. And I said, there's no way, I can't walk through this. And here's what my dad said, get right behind me and just put your feet right in the snow where my feet had been. That's how I got to church. I couldn't have done it on my own. That's the idea here. To follow is literally to put our feet exactly where His have been, to follow Him. Ten minutes here. What does it mean to follow Jesus, to be an imitator of Jesus? For one, it means that I am genuinely saved. If I'm going to follow Jesus, I am saved. I've come to Christ in repentance and faith. Here's what A.W. Tozer says, Christianity is so entangled in the world that millions never guess how radically they've missed the New Testament pattern. Compromise is everywhere. So we don't even know what Christianity is. I no longer, when I'm talking to people, I'll no longer say, are you a Christian? Here's the question I ask people now, where do you go to church? That seems to be more effective than, are you a Christian? If you say you're a Christian, their mind goes, well, I'm not a Hindu, I'm not a Buddhist, I'm not a Jew. What did you ask again? Are you a Christian? Yeah. But when you ask, where do you go to church? Even though that doesn't guarantee anything, I think it gives you a little better insight into them. So if they say, I don't go to church at all, you have a pretty good feeling that you're dealing with somebody that's not a believer, or they say, I go to this particular church, that helps you understand and certainly gives you a basis for conversation. Christianity's become so entangled into the world that literally millions miss how radical this is. Christianity, I've got to think this through because I'm making this up as I go. Let's go with it. Christianity, in a sense, is a young person's religion. By that, I mean there's something instinctive about young people that's idealistic and radical. When we were in high school and then in college, when I was in college, man, those were the radical days. You know what our college, I was the freshman class president. This is presidential timber you're looking at right here. I wasn't much of a student, though, because I ran for re-election, so that ought to tell you something right there. Now, some of you are just figuring that out, aren't you? But we were radical. My sophomore year, we struck and closed down the school. We were radical. There's something about young people that want something radical, different. Here you go, extreme. We love extreme. There's nothing more radical and nothing more genuinely extreme than Jesus Christ. Everything else is just what the world does with a different twist on it. If you want to live radically, then you become a follower of Christ. That's radical. That changes you to the core. That changes your heart. That changes who you are fundamentally, and you become a new creature. Christianity, and we need to capture this idea again, is not just an ethic, not just a behavior. It's a doctrine and a behavior. They go together. You can't separate them. So we hear all the time, he's a great Christian. He's a good father, good husband, good business guy. That doesn't mean he's a Christian, right? As you come in, do you ever look at the scrolling announcements when you come in? They're there for a reason, and I hope and wish you'd look at them. It's to convey information to you. And sometimes it's stuff that's going on in campus, and sometimes it's an idea that we want you to get your arms around. One of them that you've seen recently is a picture, it's a white background, and it's just a girl smiling to me, and it's kind of infectious. It draws you in. And today you saw one of a family who were just standing there. And the caption is this, when you know the truth, it shows. What we're trying to communicate to you there is that if you say Jesus is Lord and Savior, then I ought to be able to see it. Faith without works is dead. By the way, the other is true too. Works without faith is dead. So that's what we're saying. This is radical in its nature. Most Westerners, Jim Boy says, live in a tragically mindless environment. Life is too fast in our contact with others, too impersonal for any real thought or reflection. Even in churches, we're far more often encouraged to join this committee or back that project or serve on this board than we are counseled to examine our relationship to God and His Son Jesus Christ. So long as we're performing for the church, few question whether our profession is genuine or spurious. But sermons should suggest that members of the church may not actually be saved, although their members, teachers, should stress that a personal, self-denying, costly, and persistent following of Christ is necessary for a person to be acknowledged by Jesus at the final day. I'll tell you what, I think we do a good job of that here. You'd be very hard-pressed to sit here for any length of time and think just because you were in church, you were a Christian. We'll hear it over and over again. I missed baptisms last week, and that's – I hate that, because I loved that time, and I loved to listen to the testimonies. And often in those testimonies, you will hear something like this, I thought I was

a Christian until I came to East Valley Bible Church, then I realized I wasn't a Christian at all. That's what we're saying. So, we're talking about what does it mean to follow Jesus? Well, it means first that you're saved, genuinely His, totally converted, that you acknowledge your sin and you embrace Jesus as the sole source of satisfaction for that sin. Secondly, there's obedience in your life. If you love me, you'll keep my commandments. I mean, He says, follow me, and that's really just another way of… saying, obey me. And there's repentance, genuine repentance, repentance that leads to salvation. Not false repentance. Paul talks about false repentance in 2 Corinthians chapter 7. He writes to this church, and he said, you know, I was sorry at first that I wrote to you. I didn't want you to feel sad. There's sin that's going on in that church. But he said, I'm now glad that I wrote to you, because there's now repentance, repentance that leads to life. So apparently there's real repentance and false repentance, and he said there's this repentance, this turning. There's a submissiveness or a submission. It's actually kind of a passive active thing. I put myself under Christ's reign, and I'm placed under His reign. I acknowledge that He is Lord. There's a debate that's been raging since I've been a Christian, and it's just, I don't get it. And the debate goes something like this. Can Jesus be your Savior and not your Lord? No. That wasn't that hard. No. All you've got to do is read the book. Now I'm sure that there are some who come to Christ in repentance and faith, and they're genuinely converted, and there may be very little fruit, but if what we're saying is, can I just say Jesus is my Savior? Can I say I believe in Him and I'm saved? My suspicion is that hell will be filled with people who have walked an aisle or prayed a prayer or stood up at summer camp and said, I'm changed. It'd be my guess, because some of that's false. How do we know it's false? Well, there's no fruit. I mean, if you're dealing with something, you're a parent, you've got a child or a student, and now they repent and repent and repent and repent and repent and repent and repent, and yet we go back to the same old thing. Why would you think that kid's converted? They're not, any more than you would adult who come to church, and yet you sin and sin and sin and sin and sin. There's no biblical assurance of my salvation if I'm not obediently, repentantly submitting to Him. See that? And there's commitment. I'm going to live this Christian life. I'm going to be determined. Paul says, this one thing I do. There's a single-mindedness to it. And there's perseverance. Pick up your cross daily. I push on through to the very end. Not that I persevere, but He preserves me. He who began a good work in you will continue it till the day of Christ Jesus, right? So it's not you gutting it out. It's Him, in His mercy and grace, infusing you with the desire to follow Him, even in the toughest of times. That's not to say, by the way, let me just stop here. It's not to say you won't sin. It's not to say that there won't be times of hurt and anguish. There won't be times, necessarily, where you're walking with Him in this deep relationship. You're still a human being. The things you don't want to do, you will periodically do. But when you sin, there's a brokenness. Also, there's a love for the body. There's a love for one another. There should be something important about being with other Christians. I know a lot of Christian adults who say, you know what? I like the pagans better than the Christians. This church stuff, have you noticed that? This church stuff and this body of Christ stuff, it's kind of messy. It's kind of sloppy. You've got a lot of spiritually sick people here, right? By definition, that's what we are. Coming together and we kind of step on each other and mess up and things get sloppy and yucky, but yet there should be a love for one another. And then one more thing, there should be a love for the lost. I was reading through something the other day and John MacArthur was talking about Jesus really as a model for evangelism, and I'll just give it to you very quickly. He talks about Jesus and he said He was available, and He didn't show favoritism. He didn't just go and spend time with the quarterback. He sought out those that were the weakest. He didn't just hang with the wealthy and the powerful. He was sensitive to those around him. He looked for a response. Mark chapter 5, verse 19, after there's a man who's delivered from demons, he said, now go tell other people what happened to you. And he demonstrates his love to the lost, and he took time. Make this point and then we're done. There should be in you this desire to share the truth. I was standing right by that door two weeks ago after, I think it was the 9 o'clock service, and there was a lady who came out and she said, I want you to meet my friend. This is her second time, and there's a girl from my apartment building. This is her second or third time, and this is another girl from our office. This is her first time, and I'm thinking, who lit her on fire? What happened to you? And she said, you know, all this conversation that we've had about evangelism lately, and then all of a sudden I realized, number one, there's a lot of unbelievers around me, and number two, I'm not doing anything to share the gospel with them. I'm not doing anything to try to bring them to a place where they might hear the truth. Is that your heart? I mean this now. It's down and dirty. When's the last time you shared your faith with somebody? That should be a regular occurrence, because there's lost people all around you. But you need to be sensitive to that. You need to listen to them. Look at those first thing, available. Last thing, to take time. Sometimes we're so busy and we're moving from thing to thing that we don't even see the opportunities that God drops in around us. You

know, when somebody says to you, I just lost my job, or somebody says to you, a good friend of mine died, or somebody says to you, my spouse just left, or my kid's in rebellion, that's a great opportunity to minister to them. Here's what I've discovered over the years. My most significant times of ministry in another person's life are almost never scheduled. They're almost never on my outlook. They're when you're going along and all of a sudden, it happened the other day, I'm walking around this campus and I saw somebody, and you could just tell there was a burden. And all I said is, how are you doing? And they just began to cry. And I said, well, you know, what is it? Is it something I can help? I don't want to intrude. And I had about five minutes of dialogue and was able to say, well, I'd take a look at this, and how about this, and does that sound helpful, and can we pray for you? Now, I'm asking you, is that how you're living right there? Because that should be. That should be happening all around you. Are you a follower of Christ? Well, if you are, it means you're genuinely saved, and there'll be repentance and obedience and submission and commitment and perseverance. There'll be a love for the body of Christ, and there'll be a love for the lost. Jesus said to them, I want to make you a fisher of men. Jesus called them. Let me tell you, tonight He's calling you, too. To those of you who are Christians, He's calling you and saying, you need to follow Me right where you're placed. To those of you – this is really important – to those of you who aren't Christians, you didn't take communion and you'd say, I'm not a follower of Christ, there's a call to you, too, and the call is to repent. It's to hear the very simple message that you're a sinner. I was listening the other day to that old song, Come Just As You Are. That's a pretty interesting message. Maybe it applies to you tonight. You've never come in repentance and faith. You're either somebody who's on one of two extremes, typically. You're saying, I'm so sinful, He could never forgive me, or the other extreme that says, I'm so good, I don't need to be forgiven. In both cases, you're a mess, and you're deceived. And He says, come just as you are. What He means is, talk to the person who brought you here tonight, or talk to somebody who'll be in the front of the worship center after the service and ask, what does it truly mean to be a Christian, and to see your life transformed, to see what God does in your life? Let's pray together. Father, thank You for this truth. Thank You that You love us enough to send Your Son, Jesus, to die so that we could have eternal life. Father, thank You for Peter, and Andrew, and James, and John. God, put in our heart a willingness, just like they had, to drop what we're doing to follow You, to hang on to You wherever You take us. And God, help us understand that's the safest place we can be. Father, thank You for that truth. We praise You in Jesus' name. Amen.