The Call of Jesus: Follow Me

[00:00:04] Let us pray together. [00:00:07] O Lord, our God, we thank you that you speak to us by your word, Lord, that you are able to speak to our ears, to our hearts, to our lives through your word. Would you fill us with your spirit again this morning as we look at the gospel of Mark and hear your calling for us to be followers of you, your disciples, fishers of men? [00:00:32] Would you show us what we need to turn from, who we need to turn to and help us to become the people that you've called us to be and that you're empowering us to be? Encourage us, convict us. [00:00:45] Enlighten our eyes by your word. We pray in the name of Jesus, our Lord and savior. Amen. [00:00:51] So, would you hear now the gospel coming from Mark, chapter one, beginning in verse 14, ending in verse 20. Hear now the word of the Lord. Now. After John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God and saying, the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. Passing alongside the sea of Galilee, he that is Jesus, saw Simon and Peter, the brothers of Simon, the brother of Simon, casting a net 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 further, 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 servants and followed him. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. And you may be seated now. [00:01:51] So we're looking at Mark, chapter one here, this call of Jesus to make disciples. And just before I dig in much further to this, I just wanted to share with you guys that my role as a campus minister on the University of Arizona is a beautiful and a wonderful thing. I see Luca walked in, and I couldn't help but note he was carrying his yeti mug that we gave out to our graduating seniors a year ago. And just this past, a week ago Saturday, we celebrate our next ten graduating seniors, which I think is one of the greatest joys and sorrows of campus ministry. You spend time with folks, great folks like Luca and others. For me, I've only been at the u. Of a. For two years as a campus minister. But the time you spend with students is so enriching and wonderful. You train, you equip, you delight in them. I just can't help Luca. You're just on my mind of thinking of you coming to our house last year and you greeting our golden retriever, Poppy, who I'll share about again. We have a two and a half year old golden retriever, and Luca would receive her jumping on him with her paws up on his shoulders, dancing around, and to show love and care for this dog, for our family. I have three little girls, Nora, juniper, and Evie, that I'll mention some as we go forward, too. But it is such a delight to be doing campus ministry at the same time. This week on the u of A, you know, had some protests that were going on, and you never know what you're going to encounter when you walk on campus any given day. There was a day in the fall where there was a setup of chairs set up by Hillel, the jewish group. There was a march for Palestine going on that same day. Protesters these evenings. And it's a spot where all sorts of ideas, all sorts of things to follow are there right in front of you each and every day. [00:03:40] And yet the calling that I seek to give, that I seek to offer from the Lord, is to come and follow me. And so just by, for a moment, if you want to hear more about what's going on with Ruf at the U of A, I've got prayer cards. I've got cards I can give you. Please talk to me afterwards. I'd love to bring you in more, but through this message, I'll share just some of the stories of what is going on, how God is at work there, and what we have seen going on through that process. [00:04:09] So this passage here begins with the words that John was arrested. So this is John the Baptist who had come preparing the way for Jesus, the lamb of God. And so it's kind of a natural sense of he had come, he had prepared. And there's a handoff from the story about John the Baptist to Jesus of what will he do now that he has. He has come, that he is here. [00:04:34] And the words that he begins to say is, the time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe. So this is kind of the big picture of what Jesus is about saying, repent and believe. And the first words that he gives to call to the disciples are, follow me, follow me. And that's kind of going to be the theme of what we're looking at, the call of Jesus to follow. Follow me. And within my house, I mentioned I have three little girls, so they're ages eight, six and three and a half. Nora, Juniper, and Evie. And if you have little kids. You might be familiar with the tv show Bluey, right? Bluey. There's these three little blue, or, sorry, two little blue healer dogs and all the fun things that they do with their parents. And having three little girls. So much of this storyline sticks with me. The exhaustion of the parents, as the kids are saying, can we do something new? Can we do another craft? Come on. Come on, dad, can you play with me? Can you play with me? Can you play with me? [00:05:37] And I'm amazed by the patience of Bandit, the blue Healer. Dad. The amount of times that he plays with them. But there's one particular story that goes on. There's a story. I'm not sure what the title is for blue. He think it's called something like follow the leader. And you've probably, you know, the story of, you get kids to line up and they start walking around and it's follow the leader. And you're supposed to walk in the same way. It's like, you know, high, high march, you know, walk 1ft behind the other. And everyone's supposed to line up and follow the same way the leader goes walking through. And what inevitably happens within this show is they all line up behind dad. And then when he's not expecting it, they run away and hide. And they run away and hide. And with our girls over Christmas break, and whenever we're around family, we will play the same thing. We'll play follow the leader. And with their cousins, they'll start walking. All of a sudden, one of them will run away and hide. We'll run away and hide. And they go. And then the leader has to go and find them as a part of this game of what is going on here. And this is all meant to be funny within that. But I think this is a really helpful picture of what it looks like for us as disciples to follow Jesus, right? He says, follow me, walk in my way. And maybe for a moment we're like, okay, I think I can do this. And then we're like, gosh, I'd rather go see what's over there. There's something shiny that's over there. Man, I really want to try this thing. And before we know it, Jesus is walking and we are nowhere to be found, right? [00:06:57] And the good news is that every time he comes after us and follows us. But this picture of follow me is what we are called to do, of what the disciples were called to do to follow after Jesus. And again, I think for each one of us, there are all sorts of things in our lives that are calling out to us. Follow me. [00:07:17] There are all sorts of things within our world. [00:07:21] Gosh, if you pay attention to any advertisements, there are billboards all over saying, gosh, if you drink this, drive this, go to this school, look like this, your life will be good. Follow me. Believe this gospel. This good news for our kids. The amount of shows that try and say, hey, here's what's fun, here's what's exciting. Do this, buy this, get this. And they'll say, ask your parents for it. I'm like, no, no, no, please, no. [00:07:51] The call of social media, of YouTube, of whatever it is, follow me. It follows almost every video you watch, right? Hey, you can follow me on Instagram, on YouTube, on X, wherever it is. This calling to follow these things. [00:08:06] And I think part of what Jesus is calling us to, and we'll look at within this, is we so easily follow things without even recognizing what we're following. We don't know what we are going towards if we don't take time to evaluate, to look at ourselves, to see where we are. And so as we walk through this passage this morning, we're going to look at what is the call of Jesus and what does it look like for us to follow him, especially as we head into this summer? And I think, I can't help but note, with all the political protests going on for Gaza, Palestine and Israel, with an election coming up, all sorts of things being put forward on a trial that's going on, how can we maintain our grounding in the kingdom of God in the midst of a world around us that seems like it is shaking at every step? [00:08:55] And that's where we'll look at. And so the first thing of how do we follow Jesus? What is the call of Jesus? The first word that I see there is the word turn. So turn. And that comes in that opening line of. Of Jesus. The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. So you guys are part of a covenant orthodox Presbyterian church. You likely have heard the term repent before, right? But just as a way of refresher, what does it mean to repent from something? So to repent means to you're going towards something and you turn from that in a different direction, right? You turn from following one thing to following something else. We're helped by ourselves. The Westminster, short of catechism, it defines repentance unto life in this way. So repentance unto life is a saving grace whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, an apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ does with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God with full purpose of an endeavor after new obedience. [00:09:55] Okay, that is a lot that is going on there, but what is happening is basically we're seeing the way in which my life is going is not where I want it to go. I am seeing that it is a struggle. It is leading me towards a path of direction or a path of destruction. Therefore, I am turning and changing my direction to go a different way. And this is what kind of the core of what Jesus ministry is. As he is speaking to both the Jews and the gentiles in the Gospel of Mark, he is saying, you guys want to look to these other things to follow after them. They will not lead you to the good life that you want. They will not lead you towards salvation. So the jewish folks, they thought, gosh, Jesus, if you really are the messiah, you're going to come overthrow Rome and you're going to be our political leader, and we're going to live like we did under the days of David. That's what we're after. [00:10:47] To the gentiles, their picture was more of, gosh, our life is pretty good. We are empowered. We can live however we want. [00:10:56] Okay, Jesus, we're willing to hear your teaching, but don't make us change our lives in any way. And what Jesus saying is both of them is neither of these paths are leading you where you want to go. [00:11:07] Ultimately, neither of these will lead you towards salvation, towards the kingdom of God. And so you need to turn from those things and turn towards me, towards the good news, the gospel that is here within this. And what's helpful again, to look at is he says, repent and believe in the gospel. In the gospel. And again, some of these terms are very familiar within the church. Right gospel, it means good news. In the day of Jesus, of Peter and James and John, Gospel was often tied to and used when there was a victory in a war in a far off land. They would say, hey, we have defeated our enemies. We are parading our new captives, prisoners, through the town and saying, hear the gospel. Hear the good news. We have defeated the enemy. We are set free from their oppression, from their rule, from their pressure over us. And that had implications for the people as well. Their lives were changed. No longer did they have to send their young men off to war if they had won the battle. No longer did they have to send finances and resources in that other way. The good news had implications for how they lived their life. [00:12:21] Much like our lives today. If the gospel, the good news of Jesus victory over sin and death, the kingdom of God is here with us, if that is true, it changes our lives. It impacts us in dramatic ways. If his kingdom truly is coming, if his will truly is being done, it changes the way that we go into work in the morning, the way that we walk onto campus as a campus minister, we realize, gosh, it seems like this campus is enslaved by temptation to sin. It seems like things will never turn out right. And yet I believe the gospel, the good news, that Jesus has victory over this, that people will be transformed when they see who he is, that people can be set free from their blindness, that demons can be cast out, that there can be healing, things can be changing in this world. And so these words, again, that we can read over so easily, saying, the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe dramatically influences our lives here and now. And so we're called to first to repent, to turn from the direction we're going to a new direction, but also to believe in the gospel, to believe. And again, these are, again, very foundational terms for us. But what is faith? Faith is putting trust in something. [00:13:40] I see each one of you sitting down. When you sat down after standing up, you put your faith in your chair, right? That it would not fall out from under you, right? If I put my faith in the invisible chair behind me, my faith would obviously be mistaken, right? [00:13:53] Unless, how long could I do a little sit here like this? But my legs are burning. They're telling me, Matt, there's no chair there. You to believe that is foolish is foolish for you. So faith is like a childlike trust, a belief that is there. And what Jesus is calling here in this opening words of what this whole gospel is going to be about is you must believe. Have faith in the good news of the gospel. Have faith. Belief that I have come. [00:14:20] One of my professors, Hans Beyer, from seminary, he says this about faith, that the essence of faith is to put personal, childlike trust in God's existence, presence, and purpose. And the opposite of such trust is fear rather than unbelief. Catch that? The opposite of such trust is fear rather than unbelief. Faith in the living God is the antidote to temptation, to be intimidated and overwhelmed by darkness and opposition. Instead, it is based upon credible and apostolic witness to God's deeds. [00:14:53] And we'll just pause there for a moment. [00:14:58] This begins to convict me because I realize how often I am afraid in the world around me, right? I have three little girls, eight six and three and a half. I think for any parents or grandparents who wonder, what kind of world are my girls going to step into when they turn 18 and head off to college, as I am ministering on a college campus, seeing all sorts of drugs, alcohol, parties, sex, everything else going on is I'm afraid of what is going on. [00:15:28] And again, is there a healthy trepidation? Yeah, there is. Like, you know, as a father, as parents, grandparents, we care for our kids or we care for those that we love around us. And yet, do I not trust in the good news that Jesus has defeated sin and death, that he has victory over that, that his kingdom is the one that is coming rather than the kingdom of Satan and his desires? Gosh, that is a true act of trust. And my fears begin to show. Am I really believing this? Am I really trusting in God in the midst of this? And one more thing about this step of faith, the professor, my professor, Hans Bayer, goes on to say, in contrast, he's talking about the messianic expectation at the time of Jesus. It focused on political change and economic change. The messianic kingdom Jesus inaugurated began at the very heart of the human race, its enmity against God as creator. Okay, so let me just for a moment explain that the people hoped that Jesus would come to be the political ruler. He would come and they would no longer be poor, and they would no longer be out of power. Jesus, come like David, restore us to our prosperity. [00:16:41] What Jesus was after was a whole lot more, though. He's like, your greatest struggle is not because you are under oppression of the roman rule. It's not because you have less money than you think you need, is not because of all these other things. It's because you are at enmity with God, because you rebel against him each and every day. You live in sin, and that is your greatest problem. And I need to solve that problem first. [00:17:06] And again, it's easy to, you know, I see you guys nodding with me. This is true. [00:17:13] But in my own life, wouldn't I think, gosh, if the political person that I like was in power, my life would be better? Don't I often believe that way? If this person went to power, then everything would be okay. If I had 10,000 more dollars, then my life would be a lot easier. This is the primary felt need that I have. And yet what is being stated here is, gosh, our greatest need is for us to be redeemed, to restore in our relationship with our God. [00:17:50] And the question that is asked, we talk about this turning from turning to Jesus, our putting our faith, our trust in him, the question that begins to come to us is, what sort of kingdom am I seeking to live in? Am I seeking to live in the kingdom of God? Where I want to see forgiveness, I want to see the restoration of hope for folks? Where I want to see his kingdom come, his will be done? Or is my kingdom more of one of my own, where I want my will to be done, my kingdom to come, my things to happen my way? [00:18:27] And just a bit of an illustration of this. I mentioned our two and a half year old golden retriever, Poppy. So this golden retriever, I think in a lot of instances, I feel like I am not at all like this dog. But then this dog reflects a lot of my heart. Okay? So we often take this dog, our golden retriever, Poppy, out on walks, and she's supposed to walk. We've got this gentle lead collar on her. She's supposed to walk right at our left. And she does really well as long as there are no other dogs around. [00:18:57] But as soon as she sees another dog, she looks over there and starts to little growl, little bark that's there. And the word they have to say to her is, Poppy, look. Poppy, look. And what she's supposed to do is to turn her eyes and look at my face, poppy, look. And, you know, the bigger the dog, the more that is going on, the more distracted she is. I have to keep saying, poppy, look, poppy, look, poppy, look. Turn from those distractions thing over there. Look at my face. Look and see me and walk with me. [00:19:30] And I think the call of Jesus to repent, to believe, is much like that call to look. Jesus is saying, look at me. Look away from all of these terrible things going on in the world around you. Look away from all these distractions of what everyone else is doing. Look away from all these temptations, these signs that are pointing you to. So look to them for satisfaction, for joy. [00:19:51] Look at me. Repent. Turn to me and believe, gosh, my kingdom is coming. If you seek me first, you will have these things. And he's saying, look at me. Look at me. So the first coin that is there from the gospel of Mark is to look to the face of Jesus, to look, to repent, to turn from the other ways, to look towards him, believe that he is bringing about his kingdom here and now. I think as we head into the summer, one of the things I've been encouraging our students is, what's a helpful way for us to look and see who God is, to look and see how he desires for us to live. Again, it's nothing that's earth shattering, but rather it's an encouragement for us to look into his word and to see who he has described himself to be, to look into his word and see how has he called us to live. And one of the pastors, I've been reading some of this stuff and listening to one of the things he encourages us too, is, gosh, we can read a lot, we can understand a lot, but will we not just sit and meditate on God? You delight in me. Help me to delight in you, to pray, to see his word, to soak ourselves in his goodness and his love for us, to look at him, to see who he is. [00:21:11] So our first step is therefore to turn to God. The second one is to follow. [00:21:16] Follow me. So it says, repent and believe in the gospel. And then it goes on, verses 18 or sorry, 16 and 17, jesus sees Simon and Andrew, and he said to them, follow me and I will make you become fishers of men. Follow me. [00:21:32] And if you wonder how much a simple command to follow me could change someone's lives, look no farther than these two here. Simon and Andrew. They were living their lives, their normal business lives as fishermen. And all of a sudden, Jesus, a rabbi, called to them and said, follow me. And he did this in very, you know, basic human words, just come and follow me. [00:21:57] And yet these words dramatically changed their lives. They left this relatively simple life of being fishermen out on the sea of Galilee to follow after Jesus, to be with him, to watch him, to listen to him, to pay attention to what is going on. [00:22:16] And very likely, these two young men had been passed over from rabbis prior around this time period. Young men would seek to memorize the Torah, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, number, pseudonym. By the time they were twelve ish. And if they had done well and they could say it verbatim, maybe, just maybe, a rabbi would call to them, or actually they would go to the rabbi and say, please take me with you, and they might be able to follow him. [00:22:41] Those days had long passed. Simon and Andrew, they had not been chosen, selected by a rabbi. And here Jesus says, come and follow me, and they drop everything and they follow him. [00:22:55] And a similar thing happens for the James and John, the other two brothers that are there as well. They left everything behind. And so for them to follow after the rabbi. [00:23:07] Some of the terminology that was used for them is that they are to walk in the dust of the rabbi. And what does this mean? Is that they were supposed to walk so closely behind Jesus, that the dust that he kicked off as he walked on the dusty roads off his sandals would come and be brushed up on them. And so, gosh, when I think of walking and hiking behind somebody on the dusty trails of Tucson, I often don't want their dust to be on me, right, on my sweaty legs, right, getting into my mouth and my nose, because I just don't want to experience that. But the desire for the disciples of this time was to walk so closely, they would be covered in the dust. They would begin to look and be seen as those who had walked closely with Jesus. That was the calling to follow after him. And this discipleship, as Mark is meant to be a life giving relationship with Jesus that results in your personal conduct being changed, your social conduct being changed, your whole life looking different as a result of your following after Jesus. And this is what the disciples were there to do, to walk closely, to follow closely behind Jesus, can be changed by him. [00:24:17] And I mentioned earlier that following something, there are all sorts of things that we are tempted to follow all around us. And one of the things that I think as a parent, there are some positives to this. Right. What do I begin to follow from my kids? I started watching this tv show, Bluey. Would I choose to watch a tv show geared towards 5678 year olds otherwise? No. Have I learned a whole lot about parenting through this show? Yes, I have. [00:24:47] Patient, childlike heart that's there. [00:24:51] Also, our oldest daughter, Nora. She really loves horses. She just loves seeing horses. I think I see some nods of horse lovers here. So yesterday morning, we have a friend of a friend who has a horse. So we drove about 20 minutes out east, and we went to see this horse named Shine. And our three girls all came, and they were really excited to see this horse. [00:25:15] And that showed by them being really nervous and scared, right? But they were given these carrots and apples to feed to the horse, and they just delighted to do so. To give them apprehensively, the lips of the horse would touch their fingers. They'd kind of pull back their hand, scared of that moment there. But they loved to be near these horses, to see how big, how wonderful, how majestic they are. And because I delight and I love in my girls, it's like I want to see these horses. I want to learn about them. I want to go and do these things with my girls to experience these horses and this beauty. I couldn't help them. But also in the evening yesterday, turn on the Kentucky Derby to watch the horse races. And this has a, you know, I don't bet on it. [00:26:05] I watched it delayed, so I had actually seen which horse won, but I did not know how close of a finish it would be for anybody who watched. [00:26:13] But from the time I think our daughter Nora was one and a half, we would watch the Kentucky Derby and she would cheer on, go, nae, nae, go, go, nay, nay, go. And that's become our chant that yesterday while we were watching the horses races, they were cheering on all three of our girls. Go, na, na, go, go, go, na na, go. And it was a delight to see them enjoying this race and to see this going on, to see their excitement as there was a photo finish. [00:26:36] And again, did they really care which horse won? They wanted the pink and purple one to win, not the one with green stripes. So it didn't really matter a lot. But they were delighted to watch and to see this. [00:26:47] And I think the thing that, again, I learned from my girls is that if I delight and love them, I will follow and learn about what they love. [00:26:57] If my delight and my love is for the Lord, I will turn to delight and love what he loves. And my hope is that my time, my energy, my resources, my excitement will begin to shift of, gosh, God, I love you. And not just that, I see how much you love me. Therefore, how could I not follow after you? How could I not look to the things that you love? Delight to see them move to a spot of trust. God, that man, I am going through a hard time right now. I trust that you are good, and I'm not going to be afraid. I'm going to delight myself in you and trust that you will give me the desires of my heart. [00:27:37] So this call to follow after the Lord is strong there and to really trust that Jesus will provide for us. He will be near to us. Gosh, I can't help. [00:27:47] Again, I do not know Lynn Mason that is here, but just walking with people in their last days. Just a few weeks ago, my grandmother, my dad's mom, I got a call on a Monday that she was likely nearing the end of her life on earth. And again, she's just a beautiful, wonderful woman. She had lived to 97 years old. I went and visited her and was able to say psalm 23 with her, sing Jesus loves me with her just moving her mouth. [00:28:17] But it was a moment where I was able to say, grandma, I love you. I'm so excited for you to go home to be with the Lord in the midst of my own sadness of her being gone from this earth. But delight in seeing grandma you're going home. You're going to the place that you have prayed to be for many, many years. And I am delighted to be with you as you are nearing this moment. And she ended up passing away a couple days later. And I have her. I actually use her bookmark of pictures of her from. With the words of Jesus loves me that I have kept in my Bible, just reminding me of. [00:28:53] She taught first grade Sunday school for 27 years and then taught VBS Sunday school. Well, vbs first grade for another ten to 15 years to get all of her grandkids through this. And she wanted to teach each of us, Jesus loves you. [00:29:15] And she wanted us to sing that and to know that. [00:29:18] And gosh, what a both beautiful and sorrowful moment it was. We were standing out there graveside, and I was helping to lead a service and saying, jesus loves me. This I know, for the Bible tells me so. [00:29:34] And the love that my grandma had shown me in teaching me, the love of Jesus for me, transformed me. And I wanted to delight, to seeing, to walk with her in this moment and for my cousins and aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews, all of us, to be able to experience that love there. So when we again, we hear the calling of Jesus, it begins with to turn and then to follow. [00:30:02] And the final thing that it ends with is to become fishers of men, to become something different than what we are. So Simon and Andrew, as I mentioned, they left their nets. James and John also left everything behind them. You'll hear this in verses 17 and 18. So he says, follow me. [00:30:21] And immediately in verse 18, they left their nets and followed him. Going a little farther, he saw James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, who were in their boats mending their nets. And immediately he called them. And they left their father, Zebri, in the boat with the hired servants and followed him. So they became something different. What did it take for them to become something different? The disciples willingly left everything behind. [00:30:44] They left it all. They left behind their nets again. If I left behind my fishing net, it would not be a big deal because I'm a bad fisherman, right? It would not be my economic source, perhaps my sense of identity, perhaps what I had built my life to prepare for, perhaps the family line that I was to follow in. [00:31:04] But that's what they left behind. [00:31:06] Not only that, they literally left their father behind. Can you imagine what it was like for Zebedee to see his two sons walking away again? I don't know what he thought it could have been. Praise the lord, a rabbi has called them, and they are going, it could have been there. Go my two sons. Will I ever see them again? And I don't know what was going on in his mind, but these two boys immediately left everything to follow after Jesus, to become fishers of men. And in saying this, they also left behind likely whatever financial security they had, right? They had bought boats, they had nets. There were other people, coworkers, perhaps, other hired people that were on their team, and they left that all to follow Jesus, which, again, is a crazy thing that's there, that they left this in order to become fishes of men, to become disciples of Jesus. And they followed, followed after him. [00:32:07] So to become a disciple, to become a fisher of men, for them, it meant leaving everything behind. I think the best picture I have for leaving everything behind is I've been able to participate in a number of weddings and go to weddings for students from Ruf and then from previous ministries as well. But there's a line in the vows that is traditional vows that sticks with me. And so just this past December, end of the year, I was there for a wedding for Carson and Stephanie, two of our students. And it just struck me again. The line that shows up is this. It says, forsaking all others. [00:32:46] Forsaking all others, and don't hear what I'm not saying. That does not mean, you know, you say that like, the kids are going to be like, I'm never going to talk to my parents again. That's not what it's meant to be. What's meant to be expressed. And forsaking all others is my new primary allegiance. [00:33:02] You know, behind my allegiance to God is to this person. I will not let a friend, a parent, a sibling, anyone else step into this place. And this call to forsake all others of what the disciples gave up is Jesus. We're gonna leave everything. We're gonna forsake all else, that we might follow you wholeheartedly wherever you lead us. They're willing to leave it all behind. [00:33:27] And if you wonder if the disciples were able to do this perfectly, all you have to do is read on through the gospel of Mark to see all the times they got it wrong, right. [00:33:35] This has been helpful for me. This spring, we walked through the gospel of Mark, and especially when did they get it wrong? Most significantly, whenever Jesus said, I'm going to die and rise again, what did they say? Peter's like, no way. You will not the first time, the second time. So this all happens like Mark 8910, and that range there the second time he says, hey, I'm going to die and rise again. Dot, dot, dot. And they're like, okay, gis, we've got this question. We've been wondering, who can I sit on your right? And then can my brother sit on your left? And he just said, guys, I'm going to die. That's not for me to give. No, no, no, not that. And then the third time that it comes up, they're arguing over, wait, which of us is going to be greatest in your kingdom? God, they have no idea. They had left everything. They were following him. They did not have it figured out immediately. And I find great hope in that. Right? The story of the Gospels does not show disciples who left everything and immediately had their lives figured out and knew exactly where to go and how to do everything. They were those who constantly bumped into walls, banged their heads, trying to fix things, made things worse before they got better. [00:34:49] And yet they were called to become fishes of men, to be the disciples of Jesus. And they are the very people who, not when Jesus died, not when he rose, not even when he ascended to heaven, but when his holy spirit came. They are the ones who spread the gospel throughout the world. They are the ones who faithfully went, who we are descendants of disciples of here because of their faithful ministry. [00:35:17] So the calling to become fishers of men does not mean that we've got to have it all figured out. It does not mean that we need to know everything. Rather, what it means is that we are willing to put our trust in the Lord, to turn from our own ways, to follow after him, to delight ourselves in his love, to trust in him. [00:35:42] And so, as we come to the close here, these words of Jesus, come, follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men. It's really meant for us to be invited to be with Jesus, an invitation for us to delight ourselves in him, to know his word, to go with him wherever he leads. And how can this be expressed in our lives? I think one of the ways that it can happen is through us praying, Lord God, would your will be done in my life? Lord God, would your kingdom come through my life? [00:36:23] And just for a way of expressing this, I think a little bit more clearly, the calling to become fishers of men to the disciples meant that they were to use similar ideas, tactics, and practices as they used as fissures that of men. Right? And so let me just illustrate this through the work that we do on campus. And again, I don't do this perfectly. If you are fishing, again, I've said I'm a bad fisherman. [00:36:54] What do you look for? You look for the places where the fish are going to be. [00:36:58] Not only that, you look for the bait that is appealing to those fish, the different lures that are there. Not only that, you go at a time when they are out and they are active and they are looking to eat for us to be called fish as men. As a campus minister, again, I don't do this perfectly, but what do I try and do? I go to the place where the students are. It's pretty easy to know where that is, right? The University of Arizona. They're out there all the time. What is the bait? Gosh, this could go wrong in a lot of ways. Right. The bait that I try and set the hook with is I often give out free food. It's pretty common to give out donuts, often sweet, sugary things. The thing that I did not know that my intern Paige, helped me learn this year is if you give out watermelon, it is both cool and refreshing and sweet, but it's also healthier. And you will get different students with giving out watermelon than you will giving out donuts. Right. You know, I should not be surprised by this, but I learned that this fall, if you make a homemade meal for students, it is all the more beneficial. And so what are we to do with this is, gosh, if we're called to be fishes of men, we're to look for where people are around us to see what the gospel, what the good news is that they need to hear. We're to invite them to come follow us as we follow Jesus to experience his delight, his joy, his love, to help them to turn from those things they follow that will never satisfy, to turn to the only one that will provide rest to their restless souls. [00:38:26] And that is the invitation of Jesus to us to come turn from the way that we are going to follow after him, to become fishers of men. And it is all empowered, enabled and made possible through the work of Jesus that he did for us again. His perfect life, his death on the cross, his resurrection. And as we read his scripture, as we pray to him, as we seek to follow him, he is able to transform us into who he wants us to be. [00:38:54] Let me pray for us as we close. [00:38:57] Lord, our God, we thank you that you are good, that you have called us to be your disciples, as we seek to follow after you. God, would you show us how we can walk in your way? What it looks like for us to let you lead us? [00:39:20] And, Lord, would you also just show us that becoming like you is what we really long for, that your kingdom coming is far greater than our kingdom or our people being put in power. God, would you show us that we are tempted to follow so many things, but only following you will bring us true joy and satisfaction and delight. [00:39:45] And Lord, would you help us to look into your eyes, to look and see your love for us? [00:39:55] You saying, gosh, Matt, I love you so much that I gave my son for you. I will never leave you nor forsake you. Would you trust that I love you? [00:40:06] And as we look and we see that, would you help to mold, to melt our hearts, to delight, to follow after you becoming the people you've called us to be, you've empowered us to be? [00:40:18] We love you, Jesus. [00:40:20] We're grateful for your love for us. We pray this in your name. Amen.