"discipleship--Our Greatest Joy"

“Discipleship—Our Greatest Joy”

Matthew 4:12-22

Recently, I read something about the elephant seal of Argentina.

Soon after giving birth to her seal pup, the mother seal will leave the pup on the shore in order to go feed in the waters off the coast.

After feeding, the mother seal will often become disoriented and return to a different part of the beach.

When that happens, she will start calling for her baby and then listen for a response.

Eventually, by following each other’s voices and scents, the mother and pup find one another.

You see, from the moment of birth, the sound and scent of the pup are imprinted on the mother’s memory, and the sound and scent of the mother are imprinted on the pup’s memory.

And, I think that is how it is with God.

We are imprinted with a memory of God, and God is imprinted with a memory of us, and even if it takes a lifetime, we will find each other.

I think we have an unfulfilled longing in this life—a longing to be with God—to be fully restored to the right relationship for which we were created—and we might not even be aware of it.

Before our Scripture passage for this morning Jesus, having been baptized in the Jordan by John, was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

And what the temptations have in common is they were aimed at having Jesus use His own status, as God’s Son, to launch some kind of movement that would bring Him worldly power, privilege and glory.

They were meant stop Him from carrying out God’s calling which was to give His life for the salvation of the world.

And the temptations we all face, day by day and at critical times of decision in our lives, may be very different from the temptations Jesus faced, but they have the same point.

They aren’t just simply trying to entice us into committing this or that sin.

They are meant to distract us, to turn us aside from the relationship with God and the path of discipleship for which we were born.

There are many voices in this world, telling us to go different ways and choose different things—but God’s Voice is calling us to come to Him—to do His will and fulfill His calling as those who are meant bring God’s love and light into this dark world.

And so, after having been tested, Jesus begins His ministry.

And He starts by preaching, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

The word “repent” means to “change direction; go the other way; or stop what you are doing and do the opposite instead.”

Or in the case of the disoriented Momma Seal, “turn around—you are headed the wrong way.”

This past week, my sister Lisa asked me what angle I was going to take in my sermon for Sunday.

I told her I was going to talk about God’s calling on our lives.

Her response was, “Maybe you can try and put it in terms for a lay person to relate.”

“For instance, I know that ministers are called but how do other people know what a calling is?”

“How do you know that you are really being called to something or if it’s just in your head?”

I replied, “Well, it has to be God’s will for your life, and there are a lot of different voices calling us to do other things.”

“But those aren’t callings,” she said.

“For instance, God didn’t call me to go into Finance.

It’s a choice I made.”

Then I asked, “So, you are saying that a calling means only to do the good things God wants you to do with your life?”

“That’s right,” she said.

Well, I think she got it, how about you?

I understand that if you go to Galilee today they will show you a boat that might have belonged to Andrew and Peter, or perhaps the Zebedee family.

Back in 1986 it was found sticking out of mud when the level of the Sea of Galilee dropped in a period of dry weather.

Archaeologists lifted it clear of the sea bottom, cleaned and preserved it.

Now, in a special exhibit, millions of visitors can see the sort of boat Jesus’ first followers used for fishing.

It has been carbon-dated to exactly the period of Jesus’ life.

The boat is a vivid reminder of the day-to-day existence of Jesus’ followers—and what it cost them to give it all up and follow Him.

They were, in today’s language, small business owners, working as families not for huge profits but to make enough to live on and have a little left over.

And they were probably reasonably happy doing this.