Matthew 4:17-25
Immediately
Manuscript
Following. What does it mean to follow someone or something? My son Krystof likes to follow me. Recently he’s started coming to church early with me, because he wants to be with Daddy. Last Sunday night he even came to the Sunday night prayer meeting. Why? He wanted to follow his daddy. Following. What does it mean to follow a person or follow a cause? In the realm of sport we might say, “I follow the Broncos.” Or if you haven’t yet seen the light you might follow the Lions. Which of course then leads us to: some people follow the League – that is, Rugby League. Some follow aerial ping – I mean, the AFL. Some follow Soccer, and others follow the ultimate code - rugby union. In politics we might say, “I follow the Liberal Party” or “the National Party” or “the Labour Party.” And even within parties, different ones follow different leaders or potential leaders. In the Labour party, some follow Julia Gillard and others follow Kevin Rudd. In the Liberals, some follow Tony Abbott and some followed Malcolm Turnbull. At least in our country following different political leaders isn’t that voilent. If you live in Libya, well some follow Gaddafi, and others don’t, and the result is quite voilent. Some people follow causes. For example, some follow the anti-whaling cause. Some follow the anti-smoking cause. There are followers of the Dalai Lama. There are followers of Oprah Winfrey, or of various pop stars or TV actors.
What does it mean to be a follower of someone or something? For some, it just means keeping up with what is going on with that person or cause. Knowing all the facts, watching all the games. For others it is much more than an casual interest. Look at the Ivory Coast in civil war at the moment. Some follow Laurent Gbagbo, others follow Alassane Ouattara, and the followers of each man are willing to die for their cause. Closer to home, look at the anti-whalers in the Southern Ocean and the way they risk their lives for their cause. They are willing to die for their cause. They are really serious about following their cause. There are many causes and many people to follow in this world.
But as Christians, we are called to follow Christ, and Christ alone. What does that mean - follow Christ? Today we are going to look at Jesus Christ’s call to some fisherman to follow Him and see what it meant to them. We are also going to look at Jesus’ early ministry of preaching and teaching and healing and how it attracted followers. Great crowds of people who followed Him.
Now the context of our passage, which is in Matthew 4:17-25 (pg 809), is the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. We know that from last week when we read verse 17
Matthew 417 From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
That is, Jesus began to preach, and we also looked at what Jesus’ message was, remember? “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”. Next week when we look at the Introduction to the Sermon on the Mount, we will look more at what the Kingdom of Heaven is. But for now, remember that Jesus’ call was “to repent”. That is - turn from your sins, turn from your own way of doing things, and turn to God, turn to Christ, and we shall see in our passage, it means turning to following Christ.
Now what sort of following is it to follow Christ? Is like following the Broncos? Or following your favourite TV show? Like following Oprah? Or Top Gear? Or is it something more than that? Let’s have a look. In verse 18 we meet the first of Jesus’ future followers
Matthew 418 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.
The Sea of Galilee is a small inland sea or a big lake in the north of Israel. It was about 21km from north to south and 13km east to west. The Jordan River flowed into it from the north and flowed out again at the south. And the Sea of Galilee has a lot of fish, and had a lot of fish in Jesus’ time, and so many people earned their living by fishing from it. And here we see two of these fishermen, they were brothers, and they are working, catching fish. They would catch fish back then by casting a net into the sea, which the fish would swim into, and then they’d pull the net in. Jesus was walking by the Lake and sees Peter and Andrew working away, fishing, and He calls to them in verse 19:
Matthew 419 And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
“Follow Me” He says. Let’s look at their response in verse 20:
Matthew 420 Immediately they left their nets and followed him.
Now when I read that verse, one word in it just jumps out at me. Is there any particular word that jumps out at you? The word that jumps out at me is, “immediately”. Immediately. That is, straight away. No pondering, no procrastinating. No humming and ha-ing. Now imagine you were Peter or Andrew, working on your boat catching fish, and this bloke comes walking along the shore, and calls you from the shore saying, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”? What woud you do? What would you think? Would you follow? Immediately?
Now we know from the Gospel of John, that they already knew who Jesus was before this. That is – Jesus was no stranger, and they already knew that Jesus was the Messiah. So when they see Jesus calling them from the shore, He is no stranger. They know that He is Jesus, and they know that He is the Messiah - that is, the anointed, chosen One from God. And so when Jesus calls them to follow Him, they know Who it is who is asking them to follow Him. It is Jesus the Messiah. And so they know who they are being called to follow. And what is their decision:
Matthew 420 Immediately they left their nets and followed him.
Immediately. And so Jesus continues along the shoreline and comes across another boat:
Matthew 421 And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them.
This time these two brothers aren’t fishing, but mending their nets along with their father. And Jesus calls them also. Let’s see their reaction:
Matthew 4 22 Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.
Immediately. Again we see, immediately. But we also see something else here. When they followed Jesus, it meant leaving something behind. Actually, it meant leaving two things behind. The first was their boat. The second was their father. The boat was their work, their occupation. The second was their father – their family. They left them behind in order to follow Jesus. Now before we think the brothers were irresponsible in leaving their father alone with the nets, we know from the parallel passage of the same account that is recorded in Mark 1:20, that there were hired men working in the family fishing business, and these employees stayed behind with their father. So they did not leave their father in the lurch. But the brothers James and John left these to follow Jesus. So we can see part of what it means to follow Jesus. It means to leave something else.
Now of course, this didn’t mean the disciples completely abandoned work or their family. In the case of work: We see after the resurrection of Jesus in John 21, an account of when Peter, James and John went fishing. And indeed the Bible commands us that we have a responsibility to provide for ourselves by working:
2 Thess 36 Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. 7 For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, 8 nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. 9 It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. 10 For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. 11 For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. 12 Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.
We ought to work for our own living, work is a God given responsibility. But when Jesus calls, when Jesus says, “Follow me,” they put Jesus before their work -immediately. Jesus was their priority. Work can wait. Jesus can’t.
It is similar with family. We are commanded in the Bible to look after our family, for example:
1 Timothy 58 But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
But – what comes first? Family, or Jesus? Jesus must come first. And so Zebedee’s sons left him in the boat with the hired employees, while they obeyed Jesus’ call to follow Him. So we see something about following Jesus, it means leaving something, and sometimes leaving people. Not necessarily to abandon them - although in extreme cases it can come to that. But to put Jesus first, as the first priority. And when we have to chose between letting Jesus wait or let other people or things wait, it is the other things that must wait. We must follow Jesus. Immediately.
But there’s something else about following Jesus. Let’s have a look at it. We find it in Jesus’ call to the first lot of brothers.
Matthew 419 And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
Sometimes we think that following Jesus means listening and learning from Him, which is true. But it is more than that. Jesus didn’t say to Peter and Andrew, “Follow me, and you will learn a lot,” or, “Follow me, and I you will have a good time.” No. What did He say? He said, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” This is a great play on words, because Peter and Andrew were fishermen, that is - fishers of fish. And as they leave being fishers of fish, Jesus tells them He will make them Fishers of men. Now in the Greek, it includes women too, because the Greek word ανθρωπων in this context means “people” . That is, they will be people who will gather other people to Christ, people who gather others to follow Christ. In other words, followers of Jesus don’t just listen to Jesus, don’t just learn from Jesus, but are to take an active part in the work of Jesus.
And what is the work of Jesus? Well it says here, to be fishers of men, or better translated into modern English, fishers of people. That is, gathering people into God’s kingdom, preaching, telling them about Jesus, calling them to repent. The task of evangelism. So if you want to be a follow of Jesus, it’s not just about listening to Jesus and learning from Jesus, although that is part of it. But it’s also about being part of His work, at proclaiming the good news and fishing for people. Friends, if you are a Christian, a follower of Jesus, then Jesus has also recruited you to tell others about Him.
Now I don’t know about you, but I find that quite challenging. And throughout my Christian life I’ve struggled with this, because I don’t find evangelism - witnessing about Jesus - that easy. There are some among us that do have a special gift for evangelism. The John Donaldsons, the Drummond Agnews, the Jean Fitzpatricks of this world - it just seems to come naturally to them. And there may be others among you like that too. These people seem to be able to bring up the Gospel in conversation easily, fearlessly. I remember in January while in Central Asia. On Saturday one local bloke took us up for a drive into the mountains. Whenever he passed people walking with a load he would stop and offer them a lift, and within a minute he had turned the conversation to spiritual things, and was preaching the Good News. Some people do that well, but most of us struggle with it – and I’m one of them. Evangelism doesn’t come easy to me, and I’ve spent my Christian life struggling with it.
We can have two reactions when we struggle with evangelism. The first is to give up on it. We say, “that’s not my gift, God can use me some other way.” And it’s true that God can use us with other gifts. For example with the “Introducing God” lots of people are involved in the behind the scenes work - setting up, serving, cooking, planning, child minding, making brochures and so on. Not directly evangelising, but without them, the Introducing God wouldn’t be happening. And so that’s important. But it doesn’t get us out of our responsibilty to evangelise. Every Christian is to do the work of an evangelist, although some will be better at it than others.
The other reaction we can have, is to feel guilty, inadequate, because we aren’t good at evangelism. And I’ve personally struggled a lot with that one. And eventually that can lead to the same result as the first reaction - to give up. But that’s not the correct reaction either. Me, personally, I’ve never found one-on-one evangelism easy. Sure, I’m okay from up here in the pulpit - but one-on-one, that’s hard for me. And I’m still not that great at it. But I can tell you what, I’m a lot better than I used to be. I’m a lot less fearful than I used to be. Why? Because I keep at it. And as I keep at it, I learn, and become better than I was. So keep at it!
Just a few hints about how to evangelism. I find one of the most difficult things is getting the conversation onto spiritual things. When you are talking about work, or the footy or whatever, how do you change the topic in order to talk about God? Well, this is simple way that I found useful when I was still in the secular workplace. On Fridays, I would ask people what they were doing for the weekend. Then after they told me, about half the time they would then return the question, and ask me what my plans for the weekend were. So I would say, “I’m going to church on Sunday.” And on Monday I would do something similar. I would ask, “What did you get up to on the weekend” And often they would ask me back what I did for the weekend, and I would say, “I went to church on Sunday!” Now most of the time this woud be followed by uncomfortable silence and then a quick topic change. But at least I had flown the flag, they now knew I was a Christian. And sometimes, it would lead to a longer discussion. Sometimes that conversation would be afterwards when the person had more time to think about it.
The other thing is we can learn from those who are good at it. On Tuesday I was with Drummond at his factory, and listened as he talked with the workers there. I could see his concern for them, and the way he spoke with them, and I learned from that. Ask people like Drummond and John and Jean how they do it. Hang around them and others who have the knack for it, and listen to them and learn from them. We all need to be fishers of people. Some of us will be better than others, but we all need to give it a go.
So that’s the calling of these initial disciples, and now in the next few verses we learn about Jesus’ initial ministry.
Matthew 423 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.
Now, with His new disciples in tow, Jesus travels throughout the region of Galilee doing three things: He teaches. He proclaims, or preaches the Gospel of the Kingdom. And He heals. And these actions form the basis of Jesus’ subsequent ministry. And Matthew spends much of the rest of His book talking about these aspects of Jesus’ mnistry in more details. From next week onwards as we look at chapters 5-7, we’ll be looking at Jesus’ teaching ministry as we look at the Sermon on the Mount. Then chapters 8-9 give details about Jesus’ healing ministry. And we see that Jesus’ ministry was a mixture of teaching and preaching, as well as healing, and we’ll be looking at that ministry in more detail as we travel through Matthew. And we see the effect of Jesus’ ministry in the next verse.
Matthew 4 24 So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and lparalytics, and he healed them.
Jesus’ ministry was obviously quite unusual, as you can imagine if was able to heal all these different sorts of diseases and maladies. And so His fame spread, and many came to be healed and to see what was going on. And we read in verse 25
Matthew 425 And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.
Again, we see people following Jesus. In fact, great crowds followed Jesus. They came from a long way away too. From all over Galilee, where Jesus was ministerng, but also from other regions too. Decapolis- to the south-east, Jerusalema and Judea – so the south, from beyond the Jordan – to the south east and east. But why did they come? Why were they following Jesus? Were they following with the same devotion that the brothers in their boats followed Jesus? Were they prepared to immediately follow Jesus ahead of all else? Were they willing to leave everything else to follow Jesus? Were they willing to follow Jesus? Not just to listen and learn, but also to become part of His team in fishing for lost people? Well this question is not answered right here. but elsewhere in the Gospels we see that those in the crowds that followed Jesus fell into one of two camps:
Some just followed Jesus for the miracles, for the spectacle, of keeping up with the news, much as we might follow the footy or our favourite TV show. But when it got tough following Jesus, when there was the call to commitment, they didn’t stay the course.
But others were like the fisherman in the boat, who followed Jesus with commitment, and who were willing to count the cost of following Jesus, no matter what. And as we draw this sermon to a close today, it is worthwhile for us to ask ourselves where we stand with Jesus. Let’s remember the reaction of those fishermen in the boat. Jesus called them, not just to follow Him like you’d follow a TV show, but to come with Him, to leave other things behind, to put Jesus first, and to join Him in His work of fishing for people, that is, proclaiming the Good News to others. And these fishermen’s response? Did they procrastinate? Did they come up with excuses? Did they say, “First let me do such and such”? Did they leave Jesus waiting? No, they followed Him immediately. This has something here for all us.
Firstly to those of you here who don’t regard yourselves as followers of Jesus. What is your response to Jesus? Maybe this is the first you have heard of Him. Maybe you aren’t sure if He is who He says He is. But then again, maybe you do know who He is. You’ve heard about Jesus, and you know that what He says is true. You realise you’ve sinned against God, but that Jesus came from God to die on the cross and pay the penalty for your sins. And if you will repent of your sins, and turn to Jesus, He will forgive you and you can enjoy eternal life with Him. If you know that, then - What is your response to Jesus? Will you follow Him? And if you will, when will you follow Him? Tomorrow? Next week? When it’s convenient? Or will you follow Him now, immediately? Don’t leave Jesus waiting. If you know who Jesus is and what He says is true, then decide today to follow Him, and come and talk to me straight away after the service, or to the person you came with - and do it TODAY! Tomorrow may be too late.
And now for those of us here today, who already regard ourselves as followers of Jesus, this passage also has something for us. It is helpful for us to ask ourselves, how well are we following Jesus? Are we like the fishermen, willing to put Jesus first, and be willing to leave other things behind if necessary in order to do so? Are we willing to follow Him now and not just when it suits? Are we willing to not just listen and learn from Him, but to take an active part in His ministry of fishing for people? You know,
there are kids in the state schools who aren’t being taught RE, because there’s not enough teachers. Can you teach or be a helper in a class? There’s also the chaplaincy ministry, to support John and Jean in their ministry, opportunities to help with brekky programmes and reading programmes. And just about all us have friends, neighbours, family, who need to hear the good news. Are you able to get involved? It might be hard and come at personal cost, but Jesus calls us to commitment. There are lots of people in Australia who don’t know Jesus, but there are also 2 billion people on other parts of this planet who haven’t even heard the truth about Jesus, and there is no-one living among them to tell them. If they are to hear the Good News about Jesus, followers of Jesus have to go as fishers of people to them. They have to leave their nets – their work - they have to leave behind their families, and move to another country, and go through hardships. Be committed to Christ and His cause. Is that something you could do?
What is our response to Jesus’ call on our lives? Jesus didn’t just call those four fisherman, but as we go through Matthew, we shall see, He called us all. And He doesn’t want to be left waiting, until we’ve finished having fun, or paying off the mortgage, or for a certain stage in life. He calls us to follow Him, now. Immediately.
