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Sermon
The Gospel of Matthew

Follow Jesus

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November 17, 2024
Matthew 4:18-25
Steven Lee
Pastor for Preaching & Vision

Transcript

0:16Well this morning we conclude Matthew chapter four, and then next week we will introduce the Sermon on the Mount. So that's Matthew five, six and seven. And then we'll be in the beatitudes throughout Advent as well. It was good to be together as we saw those baptisms. And how many of you here were for, we're here for the craft boutique this weekend. Just quick show of hands, thank you for making that a success. And thankfully we're not preaching Matthew 21, Jesus driving out those who sold and bought in the temple 'cause that would make this morning really awkward. Would you join me now as we pray, let's ask the Lord for help.

0:57Father, we do thank you for your word and we wanna see it more clearly and we don't want to just see your word more clearly, but we wanna see Jesus more clearly this morning. So give us eyes to see, spiritual eyes, to behold the wonder of who Jesus is in your word this morning. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Throughout life we will get all sorts of different invitations and many of those will be happy and exciting. Everyone loves getting a wedding invitation in the mail, or maybe you get an invitation to someone's birthday party or a baby shower. It's a invitation to come and celebrate. And even if you don't want to go to the party, it's just feels nice to be invited, right?

1:48Like we made the cut like we're, we're part of that inner circle of friends that people would invite. But there's other invitations that you'll get throughout life that come with strings attached. If you get invited to someone's destination wedding in Bora Bora, you're gonna have to think about all the time, the time off work, the money that's involved to go, and you're gonna weigh how much do we really like these people that we wanna spend that type of money or an invitation to a fundraising dinner. It doesn't feel quite as special because you know that invitation is expecting your generous donation at the end of the night.

2:29Still, there are other invitations that are compulsory. If you get a subpoena to testify, you better go. If you get a summon for jury duty, it's not so much an invitation, as much as it's really something that's being forced upon you, it will come with legal consequences if you refuse that invitation. These invitations are costly to reject. In our passage this morning, we see Jesus issued an invitation that captured all three of those things. It's an exciting and special invitation from Jesus himself to come and follow me. And yet following Jesus comes with a cost and there are consequences as well.

3:27Jesus invites these potential disciples to leave everything behind and to follow him. And so the question we want to ask this morning is why were these disciples willing to follow Jesus? Why did they leave behind their livelihood and their family and their hometowns? What was it about this man in his early thirties that you would say, let me drop everything and go with him? Or to put it another way, what is it about Jesus that we should follow him this morning? What's Matthew want us to see in this text about Jesus? What's so special? What's so compelling about Jesus that people would would get say, I wanna be baptized, I wanna die with him and I wanna rise with him.

4:22I wanna identify the rest of my life with that man. What is it about Jesus that we should follow him this morning? So we're gonna look at our passage in two main parts. First, we have the call in verses 18 to 22, and then we have the caller in 23 to 25 where we see Jesus' ministry and his fame is described. And in both parts we're gonna try to answer the question, why should we follow Jesus? Why should we follow Jesus? So the call verses 18 to 22, look with me at verse 18. Keep your Bibles open. We're gonna be looking at it this morning. Verse 18 says, 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.

5:14And he said to them, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. Now, the Sea of Galilee is a lake that's roughly 64 square miles situated in northeast Israel. It's also called the lake of Guerette and the sea of Tiberius. And the first thing we wanna notice is that this call is initiated by Jesus. This would've been unusual in those days. What would've been typical as an individual would go out and if they were wanting a a master or or a teacher to follow, they would find a, a teacher, a rabbi, a philosopher, and they would literally follow that individual around imitating him, memorizing his teachings.

5:57But Jesus here breaks the mold and instead he chooses or he initiates the call of his disciples. And the question for us is, why does Jesus break the mold? Why does Jesus do that? The first thing we're to see is that Jesus is enacting his sovereign plan. This is by design and not by the disciples own choosing. John 15 verses 16 and 19 say this, Jesus is saying to his disciples, you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear much fruit in in that exchange where Jesus says, abide in me and my words abide in you. He's trying to re encourage them, I want you to go bear much fruit.

6:48And what does he point to? You didn't choose me, I chose you because this is a picture of what God does throughout all of history. He chooses his disciples, Jesus sovereignly dictates who follows him just like he chooses us before the foundation of the world. No one comes to the Father except through the sovereign call of the Son. And so what we're supposed to see here in this text is that discipleship is not by chance, but by Jesus. Design discipleship is not by chance but by Jesus design. Second, Jesus wanted the disciples to be with him from the very beginning. That's why he went and chose the 12.

7:38Later on in Acts, acts chapter one where Judas is no longer, and they said, we gotta find a 12th to replace Judas. And what did they say? What kind of man do we need? We need someone who was there from the beginning, from the baptism of John until Jesus ascension. So Jesus initiates calling his disciples at the onset of his ministry so that these people would see the full range of his ministry and so that they would be witnesses of this ministry and so that they could tell others about it. So our passage in Matthew makes it seem like that Jesus walks up to complete strangers and tells them, follow me.

8:26It seems very odd, but that's not what is happening. If we look at the gospel of John, we'll notice that Peter and Andrew, as well as James and John had already begun following Jesus in John chapter one, verse 35 to 51. I'm not gonna read it, but I'll kind of recap it for us. John the Baptist sees Jesus walking by and what does he say? Behold the lamb of God. And one of those disciples was Andrew. And Andrew turns and goes to follow Jesus, leaving John the Baptist behind. And then he goes and he finds his brother Simon Peter. And what does he say to him? He says, we have found the Messiah and he brought him to Jesus.

9:13So the disciple's decision to follow Jesus was decisive in this moment, but not irrational. Jesus was not just some random dude off the street. They had met several times. John the Baptist has said, this is the lamb of God, this is the Messiah. This is the one who is coming after me that I said, I'm not worthy to untie his sandals. This is that guy. And so these disciples had already begun to follow Jesus. Luke's gospel describes one instance in particular. Luke chapter five, Jesus had been teaching the crowds from Peter's boat and they had just set off from the shore because there were so many people who were crowding around.

9:57And after Jesus finishes teaching, he says to Peter, let down your nets. You guys remember this? And and he says, we've been fishing all day, we didn't catch anything, but since you told us to, we'll do it. And then they bring in this massive catch of fish. And what does Peter say in that moment? What does he recognize? He recognizes? This is not any other guy. He says, depart from me for I am a sinful man. Oh Lord, this is from God. No one else could do this but God. And he says, I, I'm not worthy to be in your presence, depart from me. You, you, you're just I I shouldn't be a follower of you.

10:43You're just in a totally nother level. And what does Jesus say? No, no, no, I'm gonna make you a fisher of men. And that is a picture of the gospel for us this morning. Jesus comes to seek and save the loss. He seeks out sinful people so that he might save them and invite them to participate in his mission of making disciples. And Jesus doesn't come and he goes to palaces. He doesn't go to the highly educated or the spiritual or even the social elites. He calls these blue collar nobodies fishermen and tax collectors to join his mission in order to point to this reality that Timothy talks about Christ.

11:31Jesus came into the world to save sinners. So in this section we see Jesus initiative in calling his people to be his disciples. And secondly, we see the disciples response of total devotion and complete surrender allegiance to Jesus. You see the word immediately in verse 20, and then again in verse 22. This is to convey their immediate obedience. They leave their boats, they leave their livelihood. And for James and John, they even leave their father to follow Jesus. So Matthew's idea throughout Matthew's gospel is discipleship is giving up everything in order to follow Jesus. In chapter eight of Matthew, one of his disciples says, can, can I go bury my father first before following you?

12:26And what does Jesus say, follow me and leave the dead to bury their own dead. This sounds rather harsh, but leave those family obligations behind because I'm more important. Or in Matthew chapter nine, Jesus calls Matthew to follow me and to leave behind his tax booth, leave behind your lucrative career and follow me because I'm more important. Or in Matthew 10, Jesus says, whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. In fact, following me means you need to get ready for some suffering because I am more important and more worth it. So following Jesus is not just some side hustle, not some simple add-on just another deity to add to your mantle, but rather following Jesus meant leaving everything else behind.

13:21To be a disciple of Christ requires total devotion this morning. Is that how we view faith in Christ? To follow Jesus as countercultural in every generation in a former generation, cultural Christianity would just make Jesus an additive, an add-on. So it would go a little bit like this. I do what I want when I want with who I want, but then on the weekends I go to church on Sunday in order to clear my conscience. Today, cultural Christianity looks different, but as much the same, there's various popular voices out there that would even say we like cultural Christianity because we realize that a society built upon cultural Christianity is better than one that isn't.

14:14So there's voices like Richard Dawkins and Elon Musk and Jordan Peterson and Vivek Ramas Swami who would affirm conventional families the need for sanity and common sense. A society built upon a Judeo-Christian worldview. And yet they ultimately would reject this requirement of total devotion and allegiance to God, to Jesus and to his word. And so it's a reminder for us that following Jesus is deeply counter-cultural and that preaching about Christ and all the demands of Christ are desperately needed in our day. Now, gladly take cultural Christianity over radical liberalism, but it would be rise to remember that cultural Christianity is no Christianity at all.

15:05True faith requires total devotion, complete allegiance to king Jesus and obedience to his word. And so if we're gonna look at our own lives and say, am I following Jesus? We don't just say, do I come to church on Sunday, the veneers of cultural Christianity, but we say, is there total devotion? Is there allegiance to king Jesus? Is there obedience to his word? Or do I do what I want when I want with who I want? And then I come to church on Sunday to clear my conscience. James and John leave behind their father to follow Jesus. And we know that following Jesus creates fractures within families, within parents and children and culture and extended family.

16:00For many, there is a social cost to following Jesus. And yet Jesus is not just inviting his disciples into a life of drudgery. What does he say? Follow me so that I can make your life miserable and that you can have no more fun for the rest of your life. No. So that I might make you fishers of men. It's an invitation to meaning and significance and life and joy. Follow me to become something great, to participate in the greatest cause that the world has ever known. And Jesus turns this fishing metaphor on its head. In those days, there was no such thing as catch and release. Most people around the world would be like, what?

16:50You catch the fish and then you let it go? That's just feeding fish. That's not fishing. If you caught a fish, it was your dinner or sold at the market. But in this new paradigm, Jesus is saying, you're gonna rescue people from destruction and judgment into my kingdom. So the mission is to catch Fitch, not to slaughter them, but to make them disciples of Christ. So verses 18 to 22 consists of Jesus inviting these fishermen to join the greatest cause in history. And what we're to see is his authoritative call and their response of total devotion. And in the same way this morning, Jesus is still issuing that call right now.

17:39He issues the call to sinful men and women and he says, follow me. He doesn't wait for his disciples to come to him, but he goes out and he seeks them out and he brings them in. And in fact, he actually commissions his people to go and be fishers of men. He invites every single believer to participate in this global mission in bringing in his lost sheep from the four corners of the earth and so do we this morning. Brothers and sisters, do we consciously see ourselves that one of the aspects of our identity, not just a beloved child of God, but we're fishermen and fisher women, and we're called to bring others in to Christ's kingdom, we're to invite the loss to find forgiveness and salvation and everlasting joy in Christ.

18:39As we move through this series in Matthew, there is this standing invitation, come and follow Jesus. And it's an invitation into a life of meaning and significance and beauty and order. Jesus says it like this in Matthew 1624, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life, for my sake will find it. It's gonna cost you everything and you're gonna gain the world in return. And if you try to preserve your life to save your life, you're gonna lose it in the process because there is only one way truth and life.

19:26And that is following Jesus. The consequences of rejecting this call is great. And so for those who are not following Jesus this morning, the call is being extended to you. Follow Christ, follow Jesus. What holds you back could be money, could be autonomy, self-sufficiency or fear. And yet Jesus tells his disciples to leave everything behind, to gain everything, abandon your small ambitions and be part of the greatest mission, the greatest cause that the world has ever known. No one will get to heaven and look back on their life and said, I paid too great a cost. It was too much. I regret it. So why should we follow Jesus?

20:25Because Jesus initiates his sovereign call to people to come and leave behind small ambitions to follow him. It's an invitation to a life of meaning with the mission of the greatest magnitude, with the most radi of ramifications and the promise of great reward. So it's a invitation from the God of the universe, not only to a mission, but to a relationship with Jesus, to experience his transforming power at work in our life. He says, I will make you fishers of men. I am doing that work of conforming you into my image as you follow me so that you might participate in the greatest cause the world has known.

21:13Now, why don't we transition to look at the call in verses 23 to 25. Jesus' ministry begins in verse 23, look there with me. 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. You see the three things that his ministry is characterized by teaching, preaching, or proclaiming and healing. And this was in the area of Galilee. Galilee was relatively small, 70 miles by 40 miles, but it had many cities and villages and probably hundreds of thousands if not millions of people. And the teaching there suggests that Jesus went to the local synagogue much like the disciples did during their missionary journeys.

22:03And yet Jesus' teaching was very different. If you look at the very end of chapter seven, which is after the Sermon on the Mount, what does it say in verse 28 of chapter seven? It says, when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching. Why were they astonished at his teaching? For he was teaching them as one who had authority and not as their scribes. The scribes would say, well, so and so said this, and so and so said this. And Jesus says, you've heard other people say, but this is what I say. There was unusual authority to Jesus words. The second thing we see is that Jesus preaches or proclaims the gospel of the kingdom or the good news of the kingdom.

22:53And this is a key phrase throughout Matthew, and we'll see more of it. But Jesus sermon on the Mount in verse chapters five through seven is a bit of an example of what Jesus would've taught. He he's kind of turning things on their head. This is what the kingdom is going to look like. This is the good news of the kingdom, and it's different than what you thought. In fact, the king has arrived and the light has dawned, and this kingdom is breaking into this dark age. And Jesus says, these are the signs of that kingdom, and we'll see that in the next several weeks and months. The third thing we should see is his healing ministry would've been evidence of the inbreaking or the dawning of this kingdom as it breaks into the darkness.

23:43'cause people would be like, well, he says a lot, but where's the power? Well, here it is in the healing. These kingdom blessings in a sense, show that the kingdom of God is breaking into this present moment. It's a little bit like the Lord's prayer. Matthew six, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That's what's taking place. These healings are signs that God's power and his presence has broken in with the first fruits of this heavenly kingdom. So the main things we wanna see in this section is his power and authority to heal, and then his popularity, his power and authority to heal.

24:27And then his popularity, verse 24, his fame spread throughout all Syria. They brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, oppressed by demons, those having seizures, paralytics, and he healed them. The picture here is of comprehensive healing. He healed all the sick, various diseases, pains, demon oppression, seizures, paralysis. There was not an illness that Jesus did not have the authority and the power to heal. This is amazing. It's to show this is not just one power among many powers. This is the Lord of heaven and earth, the king of kings. And he's breaking into this darkness and he says to disease and death be gone, and it begins to take place.

25:22The healings signal, the dawning of this light upon the darkness. The king heralds the kingdom in his preaching and teaching, and then he proves it with his authority to heal. And it confirms what Jesus came to do. He took our illnesses and bore our diseases. Matthew eight 17. So what's so compelling about Jesus, we see not only his authority and power over disease, but we're supposed to see his compassion as well. It's not explicit in the text, but I think it's there, which sees compassion as and love. Now, Galilee wasn't large. It had about 200 cities though, and it would've taken several months to vi visit all of its villages and towns.

26:11And Jesus probably walked several miles every day teaching in the synagogues every day, preaching the message of the kingdom every day, healing all the diseases of those who were brought to him. If you think about it for a moment, this would've been exhausting. Exhausting. Like I preached twice and I'm like, I'm pretty tired. Jesus is doing much more day after day, week after week, month after month. And it's not explicit in our text, but this is a labor of love. This is the God of the universe who's come into the world breaking into the darkness. And he goes from town to town, house to house and says, be healed, be healed, be healed.

27:00He could have did it in one fell swoop this city be healed. But he wants to be in their homes. He wants to touch them. He wants to look them in the eye, and he wants them to see the compassion and the love of their savior come to Jesus. His love and compassion is unchanged. So to them, some this morning who are grieving, who are experiencing despair or heartache or illness or the ravages of disease, you can come and bring your burdens to Jesus who lacks no compassion and who lacks no love, bring your brokenness to the Lord who heals the broken hearted. And while Jesus healed every sickness in our text, we know from experience that God doesn't answer every prayer for healing.

28:02God can and he does heal. And we get glimpses again and again of the inbreaking of this kingdom. And yet we know that complete healing is reserved for the age to come when we're freed from sin, death, and Satan. And so some healing comes in this life, but perfect healing comes in the life to come. And if God does not heal your physical ailment, your disease, his heart of love, his heart of tenderness, and his heart of compassion is still for you. It has not changed. He has not turned his face away from you, but rather he's working in it for our good so that he might conform us to his image and so that we might long for the kingdom that is to come.

28:53This is not our lasting home, but there will be a day where we will be with the Lord and every tear he will wipe away and every pain he will take. The second thing we see about Jesus is his fame and his popularity. Verse 25 says, great crowds followed him from Galilee and the de capitalis, these 10 cities in that region and from Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan, verse 24, his fame spread throughout all Syria. So the people are beginning to see there is something different about this man. There were true disciples and then there were Fairweather fans as well. And so that's why Jesus needs to sit down and he teaches in order to sift through those people.

29:44And so that those with eyes to see might truly see. And those with ears to hear might truly hear that this is the Lord and the Messiah. So what's so compelling about the one who calls, he comes with authority in his preaching, in his teaching, and he speaks as God confirms his authority by healing all manner of disease and sickness. And so what we're supposed to see in the caller is his authority and his compassion and his love for his people. And this theme of authority, we're gonna keep coming back to it. It's key throughout Matthew's gospel in Matthew 10, one, Jesus will send out his disciples and he gives them authority over the diseases.

30:32And then later on all the way at the end of the book, Matthew 28 18, he says, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. The inbreaking of Jesus is not just the birth of some random guy, but it's the breaking in of the creator and the sustainer of everyone and everything. The king of kings, the Lord of Lords, the one with all authority in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And he's come. And what we're supposed to see is that this Jesus is worthy of following. We should see him as he is. There is no one like him. No one teaches like him. No one can heal like him. We're to see this authority and we're to fall down before him like Peter and say, depart from me.

31:21I'm a sinful man. And Jesus picks him up and says, come, I got a mission for you. And that's what we're called to this morning. We're to see that he is God's authoritative messenger and Messiah and he is God himself. So the main port of our passage is very simple. It's follow Jesus. Follow Jesus. Why? Because he's calling you. Because he's God almighty, because he has authority to demand our total devotion. He's worthy of it and he's compassionate and he's kind, and he is loving. And he invites us to participate in the greatest mission that the world has ever known. Are, are you lacking for excitement in your life?

32:13Are, are you needing some sort of renewed ambition as you become an empty nester? Are you thinking, is this all there is to life? If you're a believer in Jesus, you have been called to the greatest mission in all the world. Go and be fishers of men and women. That's what we're called to this morning. You weren't just saved so that you could sit here and give, but that we might go because we've been sent and commissioned by King Jesus. We have one life to live. How many of us will truly live? So this aim wants us to see and respond to this call of Christ.

32:58So for those of us who are followers of Jesus, which I presume is most of us here this morning, what does this text call us to? The measure of a disciple is to what degree he resembles the master. So if I say, I learned how to preach from John Piper, you would expect me not to suck because it would be giving him a bad name. Or if you studied under a certain football coach, you know Bill Belichick is one of the greatest. You're part of that coaching tree. Well, people would expect you, you know, a little bit of what you're doing in the same way, do we increasingly resemble the master who has called us?

33:36And I wanna pull, draw it out in one particular way. Do we increasingly see the lost like Jesus? Do we increasingly see the lost? Like Jesus sees the lost, Jesus saw the crowds and he had compassion on them. Why? Because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. If you look around in our world today, you don't have to look far across the street at work on social media. What do you see? Harassed and helpless sheep without a shepherd. And then what rises up in our hearts in that moment? Disdain judgment. I can't believe these people. Or is it the compassion of Christ? All these people are gonna perish without Jesus.

34:36They don't know the greatest truth. They don't know that there's life. There's significance, there's meaning. There's forgiveness of sins that's found that they can be washed and cleansed from their guilt and from their shame that follows them all of their days. And they can lay it down at the foot of the cross. And so this morning here, here's some diagnostic questions. Do we pray for the lost? Do we pray earnestly for unbelieving family and friends and neighbors and coworkers? Do we even have any unbelieving friends and acquaintances? Do we see the lost and feel the compassion of Christ, the genuine pity for those without Jesus?

35:23Do we see that fishing for men making disciples is not the calling of a select few. It's for those pastors and missionaries, but it's all of our calling. It's the mission of every disciple. And so are you continually growing in your fishing abilities? I know some of our staff love fishing and you know, they geek out over fishing. They have their favorite spots, they have their favorite bait, they have their favorite fish, you know, and I just don't get it. Like catch and release is just feeding fish. You're better off with an aquarium in my mind. But those who fish have their tools, their favorite lakes, their favorite times of day, favorite times of year to go fishing and fishermen study the weather, they study the water temperature, they buy new little lures.

36:19And in the same way as followers of Jesus, are we seeing more and more of him so that we might invite others to participate in the greatest work and mission the world has ever known? Or are we studying our savior, seeing more and more of him so that we can become more like him and share his heart for the lost? What our world needs is Christians who will stand up tall, rooted in, grounded in Christ, who will open their mouths with courage and boldness and say, I would love to introduce you to Jesus. I'd love to study the Bible with you and introduce you to the one who can change your life. We don't need to live in the shadows.

37:06We don't need to be afraid. We need Christians who will be bold and courageous because we have been called and commissioned to make disciples to be fishers of men. So see the authority of Jesus, and then go in the authority of Jesus, go in the power of Jesus. Go in the compassion of Jesus and participate in this great cause. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that this call is the greatest call that one could ever receive. And so help us to follow you with our whole hearts, to love you with our heart, mind, soul, and strength. And for those who are not following you this morning, Lord, oh, we pray that they would turn, they would repent, they would trust in you, find forgiveness of sins and follow you.

38:04And then help us to bear much good fruit in this world. And would you be pleased to draw in many other stray fish into your everlasting kingdom rescued out of destruction, out of darkness, into your marvelous light? We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

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Sermon Text

Matthew 4:18-25

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