Curious, Convinced, Or Committed

Curious, Convinced, or Committed

Matthew 4: 18-22 January 27, 2002

As I was preparing the message, I was thinking about our fish fry that was scheduled for today… Unfortunately, Ricky had some complications with his shoulder and we’ve had to postpone the fish fry… But I thought the fish fry would have tied right in with the message this morning since we’re talking about fishermen who became fishers of men…

The Bible says, “Blessed are those who hunger…” I figured if I talked about food all morning, we would all get really hungry and would all realize how blessed we are…

Did you know the Bible said that? Well, it does if you take it out of content… What the Bible really says in Matthew 5: 6 is, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” This is a part of the Beatitudes, the words Jesus spoke from His sermon on the mount…

But you know, I’m not so sure that many Americans hunger… I’m afraid that we’re so blessed that we’re spoiled…

· Did you know that each American produces an average of 3-1/2 pounds of garbage per day…

· We produce 5 million extra tons of trash between Thanksgiving & New Years Day…

· The waste generated each year in the U.S. would fill a convoy of 10-ton garbage trucks 145,000 miles long – that’s halfway to the moon…

· According to the United Nations stats, the average American consumes:

· 5 times more than a person living in Mexico

· 10 times more than a person living in China, and

· 30 times more than a person living in India

Let’s face it: Americans are spoiled! We have the best of everything… I’m not sure about Tri-County Grocery, but the average supermarket has over 100 brands of cereal to choose from! Only a small percentage of Americans know what it means to go hungry…

Unfortunately, we are not only physically spoiled in America, I think we are spiritually spoiled…

Every Sunday, thousands of Americans make their weekly journey to their favorite church… There is certainly no shortage of churches… It seems there is a church on almost every corner… I know there are 4 within a two-mile radius from here!

We have the best facilities money can buy, great choirs, well-trained pastors, authors & teachers… We’ve got people like Max Lucado, Chuck Swindoll, Charles Stanley, Dr. James Dobson and Tony Evans…

We have the best teaching materials available in the best Christian bookstores in the world… We have Christian radio stations, Christian Television and Christian Music Concerts… We have Christian books at our nearest Wal-Mart…

Most of us have computers with e-mail and the WWW that allows us to connect to more Christian resources than we could ever digest…

We got the Bible in more versions than Baskin Robbins has flavors… And how could I forget, we’ve got Bob the Tomato & Larry the Cucumber – The Veggie Tales…

We’ve got it all – everything imaginable to fill our hunger & thirst for righteousness… Yet, none of us have much of an appetite…

We’re so spoiled that none of us are hungry & thirsty any more… Look around you this morning… There may be a church on every corner, but they’re half empty… Have we lost our appetite for God? Psalm 34: 8 says, “O taste and see that the Lord is good!

The Psalmist knew what he was talking about when he wrote, “O taste and see that the Lord is good.” God is so good! Always has been & always will be! The problem is, so many Christians today fill their lives with “junk food” that we’re not hungry for God!

We’ll talk for hours on the phone, but we don’t have the time to pray… We’ll read the latest novel or the newspaper, but we won’t read the Bible… We’ll sit for hours in front of the television, but it’s too much effort to sit in church for an hour…

Friends, we’ve lost our appetite for God… and we need to get it back… but it takes commitment…

This morning, our scripture tells us about Jesus calling His first disciples… I want us to look at our scripture again and point out a few things to you…

Notice in verse 18 & following, it says “As Jesus walked by… He saw two brothers, Simon Peter and Andrew… casting a net into the sea – for they were fishermen… And He said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people…” Immediately they left their nets and followed Him…”

Illustrate the calling: Here we have Jesus walking down the beach and He comes upon a couple of fishermen, casting their nets… So He stops & talks…