“Get Ready to Follow Christ”

The Third Sunday after Epiphany
January 26, 2014

Matthew 4:17-25
From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
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. Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.
And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.

I used to have a different picture in my mind of today’s Gospel reading. I imagined that Jesus walked down the shore of the Sea of Galilee and called out to complete strangers to follow him and they dropped everything to follow him, even though they did not know who he was. And as a sermon, I would have preached that we too should drop everything and follow Jesus without asking questions or counting the cost.

But recently I have a different picture in my mind, especially after reading last week’s Gospel reading. According to John Chapter One, after Jesus was baptized, John the Baptist spoke to his followers and told them about the revelation he had from God. He told them that Jesus was the Son of God. He said, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” One of John’s followers was Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter. The next day when Andrew saw Jesus, he followed after him and for the rest of the day was with Jesus. Surely he listened to Jesus talk about the Gospel, because after that he found his brother Simon Peter and said to him, “We have found the Messiah, the Christ” And Andrew brought Peter to Jesus to meet him.

So today’s Gospel reading from Matthew Chapter Four comes sometime later, after John the Baptist had been arrested by Herod. Jesus had started to preach saying “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

My point is that the fishermen already knew Jesus. They probably had heard his preaching. They already believed that he was the Messiah, the Savior. Since Andrew had been a disciple of John the Baptist, perhaps he had been thinking that he would like to become a disciple of Jesus. I do not think it was a big, on the moment decision for them to follow Jesus. I think that they had been ready and waiting for the day when Jesus would call them. Maybe they had already talked with their families and fellow fishermen about it. I think they were ready to go!

And so my sermon today is to encourage you to get ready to follow Jesus.

So, how do we get ready? First: Believe that Jesus is your personal savior. Actually that is the only thing that is necessary. Belief is to know that the Holy Spirit has revealed to you that blood of Christ has forgiven your sin and has given you the promise of eternal life. For a child, faith is to know that Jesus is the Good Shepherd and that you are his little lamb. And so we follow our Shepherd.

But for further preparation: We study the Bible. This is necessary because a disciple-follower of Jesus does the same sort of things that Jesus does. We read in the Bible about Jesus’ works of love and words of love. And so we learn how to be a Christian. If we are going to follow Jesus, we must walk and talk and think like a Christian. That does not come natural to sinners. It comes when the Holy Spirit comes into our hearts and lives with his gifts. Galatians 5:22 lists those gifts of the Holy Spirit that mark the life of a follower of Christ. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” That is not the Law of Moses. We do not become a Christian when or because we keep the Ten Commandments; rather we keep the Ten Commandments because we are Christians. Actually I do not think that Christians are guided too much by the Ten Commandments. Rather than guiding us they push us back onto the path of Jesus. We are guided by the love of Jesus. We see his actions and hear his words and so we follow in his footsteps.

And as we practice and prepare to be a follower of Christ, we discover that we are already following Christ! And we will discover where that road leads. For the four fishermen, Andrew, Peter, James and John, it meant working with Jesus to proclaim the gospel and healing the sick. They followed Jesus to Jerusalem where he was crucified. When they saw Jesus arrested and on the cross, they probably thought that the road of discipleship had ended. For three days some of them gave up hope.

When we follow Jesus, there can be times of frustration. The devil puts up roadblocks of temptation. Blizzards and sandstorms and fog of life can blind the way. We can get lost. Our physical and emotional stress and pain can make it difficult to continue in the church. If we do not see an answer to our prayers, we might wonder if the Christian road is the correct way of life or not.

On the third day the disciples were given new hope when Jesus rose from the grave. Jesus had taken the detour through Hell so that we do not need go there. This is what gives hope and courage and strength to modern day followers of Jesus. We know he rose from the dead. We know that he is leading us in the right paths. As Psalm 23 says, “He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake….through valley of the shadow of death…to the green pastures.”

Peter and the other fishermen were ready when Jesus called them to follow him. Are you ready? Or, are you already following him in your present place and your present occupation or life? I think that most of us already are disciples of Christ. We might still be fishing and mending our nets, but for some of us, that is where we do the work of Christ. Working or studying or taking care of children or teaching or cooking or watching TV might be harder sometimes than taking off and leaving everything behind and following Jesus. Jesus has not called us to a convent or a monastery or a cult. We can follow Jesus because he has called us by the Holy Spirit. He has come to us wherever we are. Maybe HE is following US? Maybe he is walking NEXT TO us? In this way our whole life becomes Christian. We are with Christ.

Amen.

Michael Nearhood, Pastor
Okinawa Lutheran Church

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