From a Follower to a Disciple
In the early years of the first century the people of Israel were waiting for the Messiah to come. They were waiting for the person who the prophets had spoken of, to come and set the people free. A man then appeared in the wilderness. He started baptising people and calling them to repentance. There was a great excitement and people gathered to hear what he had to say. He made it clear however that he wasn’t the person that they were looking for, instead he was the one called to prepare the way. This man, of course, was John the Baptist.
John soon gathered around him a group of disciples, eager to listen to what he had to say. Amongst those would have been both the learned and the lay man, wanting to know what this new teaching was all about. The gospel of John goes on to tell us about two of those people who had gathered around John the Baptist. They were simple fishermen, but had an obvious hunger for Gods truth. They were waiting to see who John would identify as being the Christ. After being with John for a short time, John did exactly that and pointed out a man who came like all the others to be baptised. I want to look at how these men responded to Johns claim.
John 1:35
The next day John was there again with two of his disciples.
36:When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, "Look, the Lamb of God!"
37:When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus.
38:Turning round, Jesus saw them following and asked, "What do you want?" They said, "Rabbi" (which means Teacher), "where are you staying?"
39:"Come," he replied, "and you will see." So they went and saw where he was staying, and spent that day with him. It was about the tenth hour.
40:Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus.
41:The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, "We have found the Messiah" (that is, the Christ).
42:And he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, "You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas" (which, when translated, is Peter).
43:The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, "Follow me."
44:Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida.
45:Philip found Nathanael and told him, "We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote - Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."
46:"Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?" Nathanael asked. "Come and see," said Philip.
47:When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, "Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false."
48:"How do you know me?" Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, "I saw you while you were still under the fig-tree before Philip called you."
49:Then Nathanael declared, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel."
50:Jesus said, "You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig-tree. You shall see greater things than that."
51:He then added, "I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man."
Called to Follow:
Here we see the calling of the first disciples to Jesus before He begins His ministry. The disciples one by one, by different testimonies, put their faith in Christ. Jesus calls them to follow Him. Over the next three chapters we find that their belief in Jesus becomes stronger and stronger. Before I talk about that, I just want to expand upon a few things that happened during this encounter of Jesus and the disciples.
Firstly we see that after John the Baptist had identified who Jesus was, the two disciples had begun to follow Him. Jesus turned around and asked them ’what do you want?’ After all that John the Baptist had just said about Jesus this seemed quite a strange question. However Jesus knew that over the course of His ministry people were going to come to him for very different reasons, and He wanted to know what their motives were. He probably also wanted them just to stop and examine their own motives for a second.
There could have been many different reasons for the two disciples wanting to join Jesus. They knew from what John the Baptist had said that Jesus was important. They could have just wanted to be seen with Him so that they could look important also. They could have been like the Pharisees who were suspicious of Jesus, and only wanted to get close to Him, to discover what he was up to, and to spoil His plans. There could have been many other reasons and so Jesus asks them this very important question.
In the reply of the two disciples we see their heart. They firstly call Jesus, ’Rabbi’, meaning teacher, declaring that they want to listen and learn from Him. In giving Jesus this title they display a small but important understanding of who Jesus is. They continue to ask the question, ’where are you staying?’ The disciples were making it clear that they wanted to get to know Jesus more and to spend time with Him. It is this declaration of faith, that they believe Jesus is somebody worth spending time with, that cause Jesus to tell them to come along find out.
The author John records that they spent that day with Him, and that the time was the tenth hour. There may be other reasons for John to have recorded the time, but I believe that one of these reasons was because it was a life changing experience. There aren’t many of us who couldn’t say what we were doing on September 11th 2001, because it was a life changing experience. In the same way this first encounter with Christ was something that he would remember for the rest of His life.
In the next few verses we find these disciples eager to spread the word of who they had found. Andrew brings his brother Peter to Jesus, and after Philip encounters Jesus, he brings Nathanael. Here we see that one of the first signs that somebody has had an encounter with Jesus is a desire to share that experience with other people. All the disciples are called to follow Jesus.
We can see from Jesus’ encounter with Nathanael, that He knows us before we know Him. Nathanael believes in Jesus when he has this revelation. Jesus however tells Him that he will see much greater things than this. Reading on through the next three chapters of John we find that that is exactly what happens. The disciples follow Jesus and He reveals more and more about himself. They witness the miracle of the water into wine, the cleansing of the temple, the healing of the officials son and how Jesus deals with both the highly esteemed and despised people of this world. They have been called to follow Jesus and the put more and more faith in Him.
The second calling:
One thing that puzzled me in the earlier years of being a Christian, was that the books of Matthew, Mark and Luke don’t record these earlier encounters that Jesus had with His disciples. In the synoptic Gospels the first we read of Jesus, and His relationship with the disciples, is when he calls them to leave their boats. We know that this occurs sometime later, as Mark records that it happens after John the Baptist has been put in prison. I want to look at these accounts and why they only start to record the relationship between Jesus and his disciples from this point onwards. I am going to read from Luke, as Matthew and Mark are summarised versions of the same account.
Luke 5:1
One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, with the people crowding round him and listening to the word of God,
2:he saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets.
3:He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.
4:When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch."
5:Simon answered, "Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets."
6:When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break.
7:So they signalled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.
8:When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!"
9:For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken,
10:and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners. Then Jesus said to Simon, "Don’t be afraid; from now on you will catch men."
11:So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.
Called to Sacrifice:
Remember when you read this passage and its equivalent in Matthew and Mark, that Jesus has already known the disciples for a while and that they have seen Him perform miracles. If you read it carefully you will find that it says nothing to the contrary. In fact, it is suggested, in the way that Jesus just gets into Simon’s boat and asks Him to push away from the side without Simon muttering any words of discontent. When Jesus tells Simon to throw his nets back in we see in Simon’s reply a suggestion that Simon not only knows who Jesus is, ’Master’ but also that he has seen enough of Jesus to know that He is able to do the impossible, and is worth obeying.
What is it about this account that cause three out of the four gospel writers to consider it such an important moment in the relationship between Jesus and his disciples, that they don’t feel the need to include anything before it? To answer that it is worth remembering that up until this point the disciples have been following Jesus but haven’t directly been directly affected by any of His miracles, nor taken part in any of them. They also haven’t had to give anything up. Here we see the stepping stone between simply following Jesus, and becoming one of His disciples. Jesus is about to take this group of men onto the next level.
The disciples haven’t been directly effected by any of Jesus’ miracles up to this point. They have witnessed Jesus perform the impossible. They have seen Him turn water into wine, heal the officials son and probably many more. They would have been amazed and touched by what they had seen. In this miracle however, without even asking for it, Jesus performs the impossible in order to benefit them. We see Peter here has a realisation that Jesus not only can perform miracles for others, but that He loves Peter enough that He want to perform a miracle that will bless him. Peter is so overwhelmed at this realisation that he shouts, "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!"
The disciples, up to this point, had never been taken part in a miracle before. Here Jesus had used them to perform the miracle. This would be the start of many time when Jesus would use His disciples to perform a miracle. The feeding of the five thousand is a great example of this. They were been taken from simply following Christ, to actually partaking with him. Jesus of course tells them that from now on they will be fishers of men. In this miracle He is showing them there purpose.
The disciples had also never had had to give up anything. They had been following Jesus and spending time with Him, however now they were called to leave everything else behind. They had gone from simply following Christ to being willing to sacrifice everything they had for Him. They had taken that step from being followers to true disciples.
Jesus tells them that He has called them to be fishers of men. This is the point where the disciples accept that call and embark on a three year training period. After Jesus’ death and resurrection He repeats this miracle in the book of John, chapter 21. However this time the boats don’t begin to sink, and the nets don’t tear. In doing this Jesus is reminding the disciples of their calling and showing them that they have completed their training.
Conclusion:
In these accounts of the disciples first meeting with Jesus and then their acceptance of their calling, we see the steps to becoming a Christian. Just as Jesus asked the two disciples who were following Him, "What do you want?" He asks the same question of us today. I want to ask you to check your motives. You may have come here wanting healing, or forgiveness, and have heard that Jesus is able to provide that. If you have then you are right. However if you want to be a follower of Jesus then your primary motive must be to simply want to know more of Him and to spend time with Him. If you are willing to ask God for that today then He will answer you. He is able to reveal Himself in an ever increasing way to you just as he did to the disciples. He is able to give you a life changing experience.
Jesus however wants to take you further than that. He wants you to become a true disciple. Jesus wanted to bless His disciples with a miracle that directly affected them. Jesus wants to effect your life with the greatest miracle of all, His death and resurrection. With this miracle He has provided a way for your sins to be forgiven and for you to experience eternal life. When you have the realisation that Jesus has done this miracle for you, individually, then it can cause you to react like Peter did. Jesus wants you to know that He loves you so much that He performed this miracle for you.
Just as after this miracle Jesus was going to use his disciples to fulfil His purposes, He also in the same way wants to use you. He doesn’t want you to be sitting on the outside looking in, He wants you to partake in the things He is doing. He wants you to be actively involved in performing His will upon this earth. If you are feeling unimportant, then remember that the Lord of Lords and King of Kings wants to use you. He wants to make you fishers of men that you might bring other people into a knowledge of who He is.
The last qualification of discipleship is being willing to give up everything for the sake of following Christ. This is where it becomes a little bit difficult. Peter and the others left there boats, their family and their livelihood in order to follow Christ. For most of Jesus’ disciples, it also cost them their lives. To be a true disciple of Christ you have to be willing to leave everything and follow Him. Jesus did that very same thing for you.
So what are they steps to being a Christian?
1.What do you want? The first step is to decide whether you wan to know Christ personally. He is interested in having a personal relationship with you. If you want to know Him, then his reply to you will be just the same as it was to the disciples, ’Come and you will see.’
2.The next step is to realise that Jesus performed a miracle for you. It was His death on a cross, so that he could atone for your sin. When we realise this, we should have the same sense of unworthiness that Peter had and it should cause us to turn from that sin.
3.The next step is to be willing to partake in the purpose of God. God does not want you to be an outsider looking in, or an armchair spectator. You will have to be willing to accept his will and purpose for your life.
4.Just as the disciples decided that they were willing to leave everything for this new life in Christ, you have to be willing to do the same. You will have to be willing to remove anything from your life that would prevent you from having that true relationship with God.
Just as Jesus showed the disciples that they had finished their training by repeating the miracle after His resurrection, He also has the ability to ensure that you complete the calling that He has for you. The journey is a hard one, and nobody can promise that the Christian life will be without its troubles. The fact is, that most of the disciples paid for their faith in Christ with their lives. However they lived their lives with purpose,and in deciding to be a disciple of Christ they ensured that they would also follow Him into having victory over death. We will all die, but to have victory over death means to spend eternity in heaven rather than hell. Will you become a disciple of Christ today?
