Matthew 4:18-22 As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him. Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.
We find an interesting scene today with Jesus walking beside the Sea of Galilee, searching for followers, calling out to men to follow him. Rather than going to the elite, the well-educated, He goes to the locale of the lower caste, the unlearned. Jesus picks fishermen rather than the leaders in the society. He does not go to the temple to call priests; He goes to the shore of Galilee with his message to come follow him. This call has never ended throughout the ages: a message of follow me has been heard primarily by average people everywhere, heard by those who are ready for this message. The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. (Luke 4:18-19) His message would be heard by those who need a Savior, by those who know their mundane, difficult lives are leading nowhere. For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. (1 Corinthian 1:26) Peter, Andrew, James, and John were the perfect audience for this message of deliverance. They were going to be fisherman all of their lives. Their activity would be rather predictable with the weather and fishing conditions their main consideration. If one would write about their lives, the author would reach the last period of their existence quickly for their lives would be similar to all other fishermen with few variations. There would be ups and downs, births and deaths, times of frustration and problems, but their activities essentially would revolve around the milieu of catching fish. Their history would be much like any other fisherman, any other boat owner, shaded a little differently, but basically nondescript, a life of routine, duty, love and hate, peace and stress. But Jesus came along, eliminated their predictable futures and put a semicolon in place of the period. Their lives would be changed dramatically with new horizons that would include much more than daily functioning within a fishing community. These young men were going to be stepping out into territory they never thought they would experience. They would be meeting powerful people, people of notoriety, leaders within the Jewish community. Their paths would now take a different direction, a journey they could not have imagined as young boys playing on the shore of Galilee. Now God’s call was stamped on their lives. They would change into men of the scriptures, men led by the Holy Spirit, men whose names would be known in future millenniums in every land and in every continent. They stepped out of their finite fishermen roles into lives of eternal existence. The periods at the end of their temporal lives (Simon and Andrew were fishermen. James and John were fishermen.) would be changed forever into semicolons, one semicolon after another.
Peter and Andrew’s response to Jesus was quick, at once they left their nets and followed him. James and John the same, immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him. We see no hesitancy in these young men’s response to Jesus’ call: they left their nets, their boats, their fathers and mothers, and in Peter’s case probably his young wife. The decisions of these four undoubtedly met criticism from their friends and relatives. People in staid communities cannot just drop responsible lives and positions and follow Jesus. This story reminds us of a group of young boys and girls Dad taught in junior high. He was given a class of Vietnamese children, some looked definitely older than the age group typically found in a junior high. Later, he learned that some of the older boys were there for protection, to keep the American kids from hassling the younger Vietnamese children. They basically came from a fishing environment in Vietnam—most of them could not speak English. Their lives as children revolved around the task of fishing. Their grandfathers, fathers, uncles, and other relatives were fishing people. Probably for generations, their ancestors were fishermen. In Vietnam these peoples’ lives were already scripted for them. They would be fishing people all their lives. They would be fishermen themselves or marry into fishing families. Because of the war and because they had to flee Vietnam for many reasons, they ended up in the United States of America. These young people, not well-educated in Vietnam, now had a semicolon in their lives, which were longer predictable, no longer with limited horizons. They quickly learned that in the United States, with an education you can be anything you want to be. No community, no society, no heritage will determine where you end up in life. So very soon, after a decade or two, they were in jobs as lawyers, doctors, engineers, business owners, and the like. As very young children, these vocations were not even imagined by them. These job opportunities were closed to them in Vietnam, but in our country, diverse as it is, possibilities galore were open to them. In Jesus’ time, vocations and lifestyles were passed down from generation to generation. Even in the wilderness with the Israelites, different assignments were given to different clans and tribes. Everything was proscribed for them. If you were given the duty of providing music for worshipping God, you performed that task, as did your children and your children’s children. But now as Jesus walked along Galilee, He was asking young men to move away from the formulated lifestyle of a fisherman into something unknown: I will send you out to fish for people. Yes, they were fishermen, but what is fishing for people about? These men learned what fishing for people was all about. Their lives were given for that purpose, no longer staid on the Sea of Galilee; now they would be wandering the countryside, calling out people to serve God by accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior. Three of them would be killed for that message of redemption. One, John, would live out his life. He would be known as the apostle of Love. His letters are still being read today with the emphasis on God’s love. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:8)
God is still walking along the road, on the paths where we live. Jesus is still calling out to people: follow me, I will make you fishers of men. We hear that call from others, from ministers, on the radio, on television, on the internet—the call is blasted far and wide. The message of Jesus as Savior is in every nation, in every tongue, in every people. Will the call be heeded? Will people leave their nets, boats, fathers and mothers to walk with Jesus? Millions have in the past and millions more will answer the call until Jesus comes back to collect his own. Eternal life is the call: come and follow me and I will give you everlasting life. I will make you right with God and able to exist with him in eternity. I will put royal clothes on you, those are made especially for you, distinctive. They are elaborate and white as snow, reflecting the holiness that God has placed within you. As the prophet wrote, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness. (Isaiah 61:10) Jesus’ call to the four men was to make them different from all other men. Their lives would be moved from the mundaneness of temporal existence to an eternal one. These men walked with Jesus, performed miracles with him, lived and slept under the canopy of love that Jesus spread over them. They were his dear children, but He knew their lives would not be easy after He left them. As their Shepherd, He could protect them while He was physically with them, but when He had to go away, they would be sheep amongst the wolves. They would be hunted down, thrown into prison, and even murdered. Most of the world would not accept their message of deliverance from the judgment of God. The world would not accept that they were out of favor with the Creator of all things because they did not want the truth. The world stopped its ears, with an intention to wipe out the Good News. Saul, at the beginning of the church age, was a leader in this attempt to destroy the Good News. He was the virus of that day, he and his cohorts. The Christians had to flee the virus or be killed. These four men were part of the nascent church, at times hiding out from that virus, fleeing Jerusalem, fleeing to other countries. But what the devil thought was a victory was a defeat for him. For people in every country were now walking down paths through cities, by the houses within those communities calling out the message of God. Many people came out of those houses, those communities, those cities, those nations with the same message of Good News: follow Jesus and He will make you fishers of men; He will change your lives dramatically. The period will be lifted from the last sentence of their lives, and it will be changed to a semicolon, for their lives will go on forever in the presence of the All-Mighty, known as his children, sons and daughters. Dear friends around the breakfast table, you answered the call, you are presently in the robes of the redeemed. Rejoice in that position of great love passed down to you by the four young men who answered the call of Jesus on the shore of Galilee. Today, will you answer the call and follow the Lord where He leads?
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