The Big Boss From Galilee

He tells them He’s gonna make them become fishers of men. There is a warning here. We sing the song, “I will make you fishers of men,” but when the King James and NAS Bibles correctly tell us that Jesus is going to make them become fishers of men we should see that this will be a slow and painful process. Later in His ministry Jesus would explain that “anyone who comes to me but refuses to let go of father, mother, spouse, children, brothers, sisters—yes, even

one’s own self—can’t be my disciple. Anyone who won’t shoulder his own cross and follow behind me can’t be my disciple. Is there anyone here who, planning to build a new house, doesn’t first sit down and figure the cost so you’ll know if you can complete it? ...If you’re not willing to take what is dearest to you, whether plans or people, and kiss it goodbye, you can’t be my disciple” (Luke 14:26-33).

With a recruiting program like that it’s really amazing that anybody followed Jesus at all.

But verse 18 tells us, “immediately Simon and Andrew left their nets and followed Him.” A few verses down we read that James and John jumped right out of dad’s boat and came straight away after Jesus. The Greek speaks of a once for all action. No questions asked, no answers offered. He called, they came.

William Lane points out that “the stress in Mark’s brief report falls upon the sovereign

authority in Jesus’ call, and the radical obedience of Simon, Peter, James, and John. So compelling is the claim of Jesus upon them that all prior claims lose their validity. Their father, the hired servants, [the family business with] the boat and the nets are left behind as they commit themselves in an exclusive sense to follow Jesus.”

Philip Yancey feels like he’s been lied to by Hollywood films about Jesus films where Jesus recites his lines evenly and without emotion. He strides through life as the one calm character among a cast of flustered extras. Nothing rattles him. He dispenses wisdom in flat measured tones. He is, in short, the Prozac Jesus.” Then Yancey gives us the real picture by reminding us that “the Gospels present a man who has such charisma that people will sit three days straight, without food, just to hear His riveting words.” Paul wrote, “I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil. 3:8). Jesus is just that compelling.

And yet the American Christian’s experience is that it takes every last ounce of our will-power to pull ourselves away from what we want to do and follow after Him. When we finally leave the nets behind we follow Him around the block and then we swim right back out to the boat. One of the reasons we fail again and again and again and again is because we have in our minds Philip Yancey’s concept of the Prozac Jesus—the mild-mannered Jesus who doesn’t really

care what I do and will forgive me anyway if He does.

American Christians have this way of thinking that we’re all registered voters in the democratic kingdom of God and if we don’t like where Jesus is leading us we can veto His plan. In His grace God sometimes lets us get away with that for the time being. But today we have seen the reality of the situation: that the same fiery and determined Jesus that beat the devil down with the cross and freed you from his dictatorship has every right to bring the kingdom of God into your life. He has the right to zap your brain and force you to serve as His own personal robot. This is the goal of the Dark Lord in Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, even though he