Called to Discipleship? Don’t
Worry, He’s Got it!
Psalm
62:6-7; Mark 1:14-20
Quacco Baptist Church
215 Quacco Rd. Savannah GA
January 21, 2024
Scripture Reading
For God alone my soul in silence waits; truly,
my hope is in him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold so that
I shall not be shaken. (Psalm 62:6-7)
And passing along by the Sea of Galilee, he
saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net in the sea; for they
were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, "Follow me and I will make you become
fishers of men." And immediately they left their nets and followed him.
And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his
brother, who were in their boat mending the nets. And immediately he called
them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants,
and followed him. (Mark 1:16-20 RSV).
Let’s pray - Give us grace, O Lord, to answer the
call of our Savior Jesus Christ readily and proclaim to all people the Good
News of his salvation, that we and the whole world may perceive the glory of
his marvelous works; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one
God, forever and ever. Amen.
Introduction
Discipleship is not an offer that man makes to Christ.
Any honors that come our way are only stolen from Him to whom alone
they belong, the Lord who sent us. … If Christ has been given us, if we are called to his discipleship we
are given all things, literally _all_ things. He will see to it that they are
added unto us. If we follow Jesus and look only to His righteousness, we are in
his hands and under the protection of Him and His Father. And if we are in
communion with the Father, naught can harm us. God will help us in the hour of
need, and He knows our needs.
Yet, when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. Salvation is free, but discipleship will cost you your life.
(Dietrich Bonhoeffer)
When there was a military draft,
at least in the Marines there was the usual rough joking between the draftees
and those who volunteered. I’m sure in the Army it was the same. At the height
of Vietnam up til it finished, the Marines took draftees and of course the big
prideful deal was that Marines volunteered for duty. But there is no difference
between a draftee and a volunteer, they both served honorably and even those
drafted would end up proud to have served.
But, When it comes to being Jesus’ disciple, there is no volunteering.
Nobody, not even the first disciples, ever said to Jesus, “Hey!
Can I be Your disciple?” Where do I sign
up? If you wanted to study under a philosopher, a rabbi, that’s how it worked,
the disciple would look for the one he wanted to study under.
But
that’s not how it worked with Jesus. He called out and invited, not with a
signed-up recruitment pep talk, but with a simple command; “Follow Me”!
When
Jesus came along Peter, Andrew, James, and John were just minding their own
fishing business. Most commentators believe they had previous
interactions with Jesus, so it wasn’t as if a total stranger said, “Follow
Me”. However, to follow Jesus and to leave everything behind was
a serious commitment. Did you notice that none of them said, “Just
hold on Jesus; I have to finish mending this net”? They
didn’t wait for a more convenient time. Mark says they immediately left
their nets. The Holy Spirit stirred up faith in their
hearts and gave them the willingness to follow Jesus without hesitation.
When
we came to faith, that’s when we were called to be a disciple of Jesus.
Jesus isn’t looking for part-time disciples. He is calling, conscripting
full-time disciples. It doesn’t say pastors, ministers, or evangelists but
disciples, students of the Word who in turn will spread the Good News of the kingdom
and make more disciples.
In Matthew 22:14, (for context, read verses
1-14) Jesus states that many are called but few are chosen. This verse was the
initial cause of the eventual Paul-Barnabas incident with Sean Marksbury……
Anyway, the Holy Spirit stirs up faith in the hearts of those who
hear but not all will answer the call for whatever reason they give.
Some commentators say that to think that this is
the first time Jesus ever saw these men would be a mistake. Andrew, James, and
Simon were disciples of John the Baptist, and Jesus would have had to have met
them down south in Judea and they probably were disciples of Him. So it’s not
their first encounter with Him.
What is remarkable is Jesus' claim to competence
in their lives. He said to them, "Follow me and I will make you become
fishers of men." He assumes full responsibility for this.
These guys were simple fishermen, rough,
somewhat ignorant, untutored, unlearned, elementary men, governed by Jewish
ways and prejudices, narrow in their outlook. Before they could become fishers
of men, they would have to become universal in their view. They would have to
learn to rely upon the power of the Spirit of God. And Jesus assumes the
responsibility to do this. That should be encouraging to us! Whenever He calls
us to any task, the Lord Himself assumes the responsibility to fit us for it --
if we follow Him if we yield to him.
Watchman Nee commented, “A Christian life is an
unending engagement on the battlefield.”
He also commented that not only does Jesus undertake to equip these men fully
for the task to which he calls them, but also that he plans to do it in a way
that retains the personality of each.
To
quote Dietrich Bonhoeffer again, When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. Salvation is free, but discipleship will cost you your life.
I would say, in reading the
history of Christianity, that may include actual death or persecution of many
types. It is costly one way or another.
In
Paul’s letter 1 Corinthians 7:29-31 he writes “The
appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have
wives live as though they had none.” those who mourn as though they were not
mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those
who buy as though they had no possessions, and those who deal with the world as
though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is
passing away.
We
don’t know when the end is going to come so while we love and serve our
families, we do so always with our focus on Jesus, our Lord and Savior.
Don’t let your obligations as a parent, child, employee, or whatever keeps you
from the discipleship that leads to eternal life.
Ever
since the first monks headed out into the desert in the first centuries after
Jesus, some Christians have thought that it’s better for the Christian to be
separated from this world. That if we just mind our own business, if we
ignore what’s going on around us, then everything will be okay. We do
what we want, we let the world do what it wants, and everyone will be happy.
It’s doesn’t work this way, and you know it. Jesus says that we’re not of
this world because our citizenship is in Heaven, however, we still do live in
this world. There’s really no escaping it.
Remember,
we’re in this world; we’re not of it, so this means we live in radically different
ways than this world. As disciples we don’t just urgently follow Jesus,
our lives reflect this urgency. We also urgently proclaim the truth of
His Word. The voice of the disciple is altogether different. We too
must call sin, sin. We’re the mouthpieces of Jesus as we call out the
sinful policies of our nation and our world. We’re the mouthpieces of
Jesus when we comfort hurting sinners with the forgiveness of their sins.
What we say as disciples is so vastly different than what anyone else says, and
it so vastly more important too. We’re disciples most of all when we
proclaim the Son of God who became man to die under the curse of all mankind’s
sin. Disciples say a lot, and mostly about the Savior who gave His life
for the world.
Don’t
ever worry about having just the right words. Jesus has called you to
follow Him and He’ll give you the words you need when you speak as His
disciple. As Jesus promised, “When they bring you before the synagogues
and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should
defend yourself or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in
that very hour what you ought to say.” The Lord who calls us will not
leave us to fend for ourselves. He has called us; He will not now leave
us.
In
closing, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a
German Lutheran pastor, theologian, and anti-Nazi
dissident who was a key founding member of the Confessing Church. His writings on Christianity's role in the secular world have become
widely influential; his 1937 book The Cost of Discipleship is described as a modern classic.
He
was arrested in April 1943 by the Gestapo and
imprisoned at Tegel Prison for one-and-a-half years. Later, he was transferred
to Flossenbürg
concentration camp where he was
hanged on 9 April 1945 just two, three weeks before the collapse of the Nazi
regime, and the end of WW2.
Today worldwide, 1 in 7 Christians are persecuted; 1
in 5 are persecuted in Africa; 2 in 5 are persecuted in Asia. Over 317 million
face levels of persecution. Last year alone, 2023, 4,998 Christians were
murdered; 14,766 churches and Christian properties were attacked; 295,120
Christians were displaced (World Watch List).
As Bonhoeffer said, “Salvation is free, but
discipleship will cost you your life.”
Let’s pray from our Psalm this morning - For God
alone my soul in silence waits; *truly, my hope is in him. He alone is my rock
and my salvation, *my stronghold so that I shall not be shaken. Now the
peace which surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ
Jesus. Amen
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