Drop Your Nets

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Transcript:

We’re going to be in Matthew chapter 4 this morning. This is sort of the last installment of the messages where we’ve been talking about the cost of following Jesus. And I’ve tried to make it abundantly clear, and just one more time, just in case I’ve not been clear up to this point, I want to be as clear as I can be.

There is no cost to us for salvation. Now, salvation costs God an awful lot. It costs God the death of His only begotten Son.

And yet to us, there is no cost because Jesus has already paid everything that’s necessary for us to have forgiveness of sins, for us to have a relationship with God, for us to have eternal life. Jesus has paid all of that. But you know, God’s intent was never for us to be saved and then sit and soak, so to speak.

God’s intent was never for us just to be saved and then that’s as far as it goes. There are a lot of people for whom I’m convinced that’s the case with them, that they’ve never realized there’s something more. they get saved and that’s as far as they grow spiritually.

And hey, I’m glad they’re saved, but there’s more to it than that. God intended for us then to follow Jesus Christ. God intended for us then to grow spiritually and become more like Jesus Christ. And I submit to you, the only way we’re going to become more like him is if we’re actively engaged in trying to follow him. And when it comes to following him, there is a definite cost because there are things that we’re going to have to give up.

There are things that we’re going to have to take on. There are things that we’re going to have to change. We may have to change our entire direction, as is the case in the passage we’re going to talk about today.

And there’s obviously going to be some overlap in the points that we’ve talked about over the last four weeks. But that’s okay, because I think it’s a message that needs to be driven home. It’s a message that I need to have pounded into my head that there is a cost to following Jesus, and we have to do things a little differently.

And, you know, there have been times before I’ve preached on a particular subject for a long time. I think I preached on discipleship similar to this in Arkansas for like two months. You know, we’re talking about the cost of following him and being a disciple.

I preached for about two months on how to be a disciple. And somebody said, when are you going to stop preaching on being a disciple? I said, when we do it.

When we do it, I can stop talking about it. So you’ll have to forgive me if there’s some overlap in the points until I get it through my head and until we get it through our heads. We never need to stop being reminded of it.

But we’re going to look at this passage today in Matthew chapter 4. And I’m intrigued. I like going through all of the gospel accounts and looking at the times when Jesus first called the 12 disciples, the 12 apostles, because I try to think of them going through their lives and me going through my life.

And how would I react if I was in their place in life, if I was in their position, and Jesus came along and said, I want you to drop everything you’re doing and follow me. That’s essentially what he asked these men to do, drop everything. And, you know, I don’t watch a whole lot of television, and I prefer funny things, I don’t like violent things, but even not liking violent things, some of my favorite programs are the detective shows or the spy shows, and always it seems like somebody’s pulling a gun on somebody else.

And somebody, whether it’s the police telling the criminal, drop the gun, or whether it’s one spy telling another spy, drop the gun. You know what? If somebody’s got a gun on me, I’m going to drop whatever it is they tell me to drop.

That’s just the way it works. As a kid, if I got into something I wasn’t supposed to and my mom said drop it, I was going to drop it because I was afraid of my mom. I still am a little bit.

I’m almost 30 years old and still afraid of my mom. That’s a good thing. and more people should be afraid of their parents, I think.

Jesus essentially told these men to drop what they were doing. And I’m so thankful on their behalf that they dropped what they were doing and followed Jesus. He said, drop what you’re doing, and they did.

Starting in verse 17, it says, From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And just before we go any further there, we get right after this passage, really, into chapter 5 in the Sermon on the Mount. And the world’s idea of Jesus, they like to focus on the Sermon on the Mount.

We’ve talked about that a little bit, where they like to focus on the nice thing. Well, it’s all nice. You understand what I’m saying.

But, you know, let’s just all wear flowers and be nice to each other kind of thing, as though that was the whole of Jesus’ message. And they neglect the fact that throughout the Sermon on the Mount, even he’s talking about righteousness and unrighteousness. He’s talking about sin and judgment, and he’s talking about the will of God and things that the world looks at and says, well, Jesus surely wouldn’t want to impose on us.

Well, sure he does. I mean, look at chapter 4 when he begins his ministry. I mean, it’s not the first thing that’s recorded in red here, but as he’s beginning his ministry toward the very beginning, it says he began to preach and to say, repent, the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

That word repent, there’s some connotations in there that mean we need to get our lives in order, but the word itself really means to change our minds. There needs to be a definite change of mind. And the reason I make that distinction is because repentance is a part of salvation.

And a lot of people have taken that to mean where you’ve got to get your whole life in order. You’ve got to get your whole self cleaned up and come to Christ. Otherwise, he won’t accept you. The whole point of Jesus coming was that we couldn’t get our lives cleaned up.

But when we repent, it’s a changing of mind where I have been in rebellion against God. And now I’ve been brought to a place where I understand that that rebellion is going to destroy me and that my sin needs to be dealt with, and I turn to God and throw myself on his mercy. It’s the change of mind from someone who, say, is arrested and says, you got nothing on me, you can’t hold me, you can’t do this to me, and changes his mind and goes before the judge and throws himself on his mercy.

We would say that is a change in his attitude. Repentance here is a changing of mind toward God. And Jesus, some of the first words that he preached, some of the first words that are recorded from him was to say, repent, change your mind and your direction because the kingdom of God is imminent.

Repent, change. Even before he called his 12 apostles, his 12 disciples, he’s already talking to people about you need to change direction and follow me. In verse 18, it says, and Jesus, as he’s out preaching, and as Jesus walking by the sea of Galilee saw two brethren, Simon called Peter and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishers.

And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And I think that’s pretty clever. You know, Jesus had a way of talking to people.

Jesus had a way of teaching people and approaching them right where they were and helping them to understand deep spiritual truth with just simple, what we would look at mundane, everyday things. Now, I watch some of these preachers on TV, and they’ll have these elaborate stories to make their point. And that can be a good thing sometimes.

But Jesus talked about the everyday things that people would understand. If they were farmers, he talked to them about planting seeds. If they were fishermen, he uses this.

He spoke to them. If they were people in the city, he’s talking to them about building a great tower. He dealt with them where they were and what they would understand.

And he looks at these fishermen and says, follow me and I’ll make you fishers of men. And what he’s saying here in conjunction to what he’d been preaching about, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand, is that if you will come follow me, you have been all this time, you’ve been fishing and you have, they basically were masters of their craft. These guys knew what they were doing.

I have fished for years and have only ever caught one fish. And that was by accident. I am a terrible, terrible fisherman, but I enjoy the solitude of it.

Ah, the quiet of it. These men were not bad fishermen like me or they would have starved. They knew what they were doing.

They were good at what they did. Otherwise, they probably would have found a new job. You’ve gotten to be so good at fishing, at catching fish.

I’m telling you, you put down your nets and come follow me, and I will teach you how to draw in men. Now, draw them in so they could sell them things, so they could convince them, so they could grow their religious movement. No, he’s talking about the kingdom of God.

I will teach you how to go out and find them where they are. I will teach you how to bring them in. Follow me and I’ll make you fishers of men.

And I maintain as bad a job as we do it sometimes, and I’m right there at the top of that list, I don’t do nearly everything I should be doing for the Great Commission. But I maintain that is still our calling today, to go out and find them where they are, in the murky depths, in the shallow waters, wherever they are, to find them and draw them to Christ. And I say, I use the word drawing not to negate the influence of the Holy Spirit, because I’ve learned the Holy Spirit can do much more in convincing and changing a man than I ever could. He can do more in an instant than I can do in my whole life.

But he tells them, follow me, and I’ll make you fishers of men. He doesn’t say, here, notice, he doesn’t say, come hang around me a couple days a week. Come give me an hour of your time, and I’ll make you fishers of men.

He says, follow me. the Lord were here fishing. Why don’t you just stay here and teach us?

No, follow me. And straightway, and they straightway left their nets and followed him. That word straightway is great.

We don’t use that word much anymore. If we were saying this today, it would be immediately. Yesterday, they dropped their nets and followed him.

And I’m amazed by that. See, we don’t understand this like they would. I mean, I think we get it in our minds, but it’s hard to put ourselves in position because I don’t know that anybody here fishes for a living.

They fish for fun. You know, somebody who lived on the coast, the people that I see all the time on Discovery Channel and things like that, where they’re going out and fishing and trapping lobsters and things for a living, that’s how they earn their living. They would understand this.

You want me to put my traps and my nets away? How will I live? How will I eat?

Some of you in this area, no doubt, have worked in the oil industry. Come out of the oil field and follow me. God, that’s my living.

That’s what I do. How am I going to eat? How am I going to.

. . I mean, there are all sorts of questions.

I’ve been in ministry for several years. It doesn’t make sense to me to say, you know, God telling you to leave ministry and go do ministry, unless we’re talking about one thing to another. But say, quit pastoring and come follow me.

Before that, I was in insurance. Quit about uprooting my whole life. Whatever it is your occupation is or was, for God to say, I want you to put all of that aside.

These nets were not just a hobby. This was their entire life. He said, put it down and follow me.

And the faith that they had. Now, I look at some of the other gospel accounts, and I conclude this may not be the first time they were around Jesus or saw him or heard him. They might have known who he was.

But even at that, to be told, put down everything in your life and come follow me. And for them to not even question. Now, they might have asked a question.

It wasn’t recorded here. But what I know is they didn’t question enough to delay, to wait. It says straightway they dropped their nets immediately.

And how many times does God ask me to put down a little thing and come do what he’s told me to do? And I hem-haw about it. And I worry about it and think, well, what am I going to do in this case?

Well, God, what about this? God, have you thought this through? Don’t ever assume you’ve thought things through better than God has.

If you take nothing else from the message today, that one’s pretty clear. God’s already thought it through much better than we ever could. But these men, they were asked to put down everything.

And they did it immediately and followed him. And going on from thence in verse 21, He saw other two brethren, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, and a ship with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them. So they’re out on a boat with their dad.

If you know me at all, you know that family is a big deal to me. And what I see in this passage is that they are out, not only involved in their livelihood and their fishing, but they’re out on a boat with their dad. They’re out on their dad’s boat, and they’re working with him.

No doubt he has taught them their whole lives how to fish. He’s passed the trade on to them, and now they’re working with him to help him. And I see that they’re mending the nets.

The nets are broken. What’s going to happen if you try to fish and the nets are broken? Fish are going to swim right through, aren’t they?

They’re going to get away. You know, it may be a small tear and you’re going to lose some fish, or it could be a big tear, and you’re not going to catch anything. So they were in a crisis.

Now, it might have been a crisis they knew how to deal with, not a big one, but still something that needed to be dealt with, and they’re out there helping their dad. They’re out in the middle of it. And it says, and he called them.

Verse 22 says, and they immediately left the ship and their father and followed him. Now at first glance, that sounds cold hearted. You mean they left their dad with the broken net?

They left their dad going, what am I going to do here? How am I supposed to fix this by myself? He probably could, but how am I going to get back to fishing today?

How am I going to get back to. . .

He was asking them to make a tremendous sacrifice here from their standpoint. They needed to be helping their father fix the nets, and yet Jesus said, come follow me. And they didn’t.

That would be hard for me. And I suspect it’d be hard for you as well. If my parents really needed me for something, it would be hard for me if God was saying, no, you need to go do this over here.

It would be hard for me to say, sorry, mom and dad, you’re on your own. If my kids needed me, it would be hard for me to say, no, you’re going to have to deal with that yourself because God’s called me over here. Now, I’m not saying God always calls us to walk away from those in our family.

I won’t say that at all. We shouldn’t use that as an excuse. Sorry, I can’t help you move.

I can’t help you with whatever the catastrophe is because God needs me over here. I don’t know that he calls us to do that all the time. But in this case, he did, and it was clear, it was evident, it was unmistakable.

And it amazes me how quickly they were willing to walk away. Not because they didn’t love their dad, not because they weren’t worried, but because they had faith in this one who had called them. And so they went with him in verse 23, and Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.

And his fame went throughout all Syria, and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with diverse diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy, and he healed them. And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee and from Decapolis and from Jerusalem and from Judea and from beyond Jordan. And those final three verses of the chapter just give us sort of a synopsis of what happens during the next three years of his ministry.

He calls them and says, you need to put away your life and come follow me. And they make this frightening leap, what would be for me a frightening leap, an almost impossible leap to say, you know what, I am going to put aside everything in my life, and I’m going to come follow you. And we see what they get to be a part of.

I’m not saying it’s not hard when we drop everything to follow God. I’m not saying that it’s not scary. I’m not saying that there aren’t challenges, that there isn’t suffering.

There’s going to be all of those things. But you know what? There’s also incredible joy and fulfillment in seeing the things that God does that we get to be a part of.

I don’t even like using the phrase what we do for God or what we get to do for God. You know what? I don’t do things for God.

I kind of stand back and let Him work through me. Does that make sense? As much as the human side of myself wants to, that’s all I have is the human side, as much as the flesh wants to take credit for incredible things that I see going on, when those things happen, I realize none of the credit belongs to me.

None of the credit belongs to you. We’re simply tools that God uses. to accomplish his work.

But at the same time, there’s a joy, there’s a fulfillment, there’s a sense of wonder at getting to be the tool that he uses, at getting to be the vessel through which he works, at getting to be there and see and witness and experience the things that God does. This is off topic a little bit, but we lose our sense of awe about the things that God does. I was talking to a friend yesterday and I had come up with the idea about a week ago for some chocolate-covered pineapples.

I know you’re thinking, what does this have to do with anything? I’d been eating some trail mix and realized I really like the dried pineapple and chocolate chips together. So I made chocolate-covered pineapples yesterday and was telling my friend about it and said it was great.

If they gave out Nobel Prizes for desserts, I just won it. And my friend said, well, did the rest of your family like it? Well, you know, they’re kind of understated.

They don’t get as excited about this stuff as I do. They said it was good. And my friend said, well, you do tend to get excited about little things.

Okay, I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. But then I thought, the more I thought, I really thought about that a lot yesterday. And you know what, I’ve got a lot of flaws and a lot of faults.

But the more I thought about it, you know, I really wish more people would see the wonder in little things. I saw where a man was talking. It reminded me, I saw where a man was talking on Friday about, you know, we look outside and we see the birds and we see the sunset and we see the moon and we see the trees and we just take for granted that it’s all there.

It’s just always there. And we lose our sense of wonder at the incredible things that God has done. I still don’t understand how birds stay in the air.

I mean, I know there’s a scientific explanation, but that’s incredible, isn’t it? They’re heavier than air. They shouldn’t stay up there.

I realize this is a little bit of chasing a rabbit, and I don’t normally do that. But I’m trying to bring it back into the point that they got to see incredible things that God had done. And I know we like to think, well, it would be incredible for me to see the things that God did in Bible times.

Why don’t we see that kind of stuff? God’s handiwork is all around us. God’s handiwork is all around us in creation.

God’s handiwork is all around us as he changes the lives of people through the preaching of his word, through the witness of his people, through our ministry and sharing the love of Christ on a daily basis. God’s work is all around us. God’s handiwork is all around us for us to see.

And we shouldn’t say, well, they gave up everything and got to witness this. We get to witness incredible things that God does in and through and around us on a daily basis. if we’ll just pay attention, if we’ll just watch for it.

I know I chased a rabbit a little bit there, but there was a point to it. God’s at work. God is at work.

And we need to be willing to be used in that work. Now, to do that requires a few things of us that I see in this passage. Sometimes we need to drop our nets.

Sometimes we need to drop everything. The big things and the little things, when Jesus calls. And you know what?

We need to have faith like these men did. We look at the disciples and say, oh, they’re super spiritual. I mean, that’s John and that’s Peter. Oh, my goodness, they’re incredible.

They were just regular people like us who surrendered to what God called them to do. And we need to be willing to drop our nets as well. So following Christ the way that they did requires, first of all, immediate obedience.

Requires immediate obedience. I think it was last week I mentioned to you that delayed obedience is disobedience. If God says, I want you to do this, and we say, in a minute, then we’ve not really obeyed God.

Because unless God says, I want you to go do this in a minute, then we’ve just said, well, God, I’m going to put what you want on hold for what I want. You know what? I really want to be to a place in life where God says, you go do that.

And I say, okay, you got it. I’m not quite there. Sometimes I have to think about it.

Sometimes I have to reason it through in my mind. And you know what? It’s not immediate obedience.

But then when he said, when he said, follow me and I’ll make you fishers of men, it says they straightway left their nets and followed him. James and John, they immediately left the ship and their father and followed him. You know what?

If we’re going to follow Christ the way we’re supposed to, then the dropping of the nets needs to be immediate. When he calls us and says, this is what I want you to do. This is what I want you to give up in the meantime.

This is what I want you to take on. We need to say at that moment, Yes, yes, that’s what I’ll do. So following Christ requires immediate obedience.

Second of all, following Christ requires a change in plans. Do you realize that our plans are often not the same as God’s? Have you figured that out by now?

It took me a little while, but I figured that out as well. I make my plans, and you probably do as well, and I have things planned out nicely. This is how it’s going to work.

This is where I’m going. And God just seems to laugh and laugh, and I don’t mean that as a cruel thing, But God, I feel some days like God looks at me and just chuckles and thinks, you have no idea what I have planned for you, and that’s not it. Anybody else ever feel that way?

And we can fight it, and we can say, no, God, I said I want to do this. My kids do that to me. I don’t want to go home.

Well, where do you want to go? I don’t know, but I don’t want to go home. We do that to God.

God, I don’t want to go where you sent me. Well, where do you want to go? I have no idea where I’m going in life, but not there.

Oh, my goodness, let’s not do that. Let’s be willing to change our plans. Now, I’m a big believer in planning because I think we ought to be responsible adults.

We ought to be stewards of what God’s given us and the time God’s given us and all these things. But I heard a phrase years ago that has stuck with me ever since. Make your plans, but write them in pencil.

Make your plans, but write them in pencil. Because it’s good for us to be responsible and have an idea where we’re going. But we still need to be willing to let God change those plans.

Sometimes God’s going to change them whether we’re willing to or not. But they knew that morning when they got up, they were going fishing. That was their plan.

That was their plan for that day. That was probably their plan from now on. And then Jesus came along and said, I’ll make you fishers of men.

That wasn’t in the plan. I’m sorry, God, that doesn’t fit into my five-year plans. You know what?

They said, okay. They dropped their nets and they followed. Sometimes following Christ is going to require a change of plans on our part.

We’re Baptists. We don’t like change. but that’s just the reality of it.

And third of all, this morning, following Christ requires our acceptance of Him as Master. Following Christ requires our acceptance of Him as Master. Because He said to them, follow me.

Now that wasn’t, again, like I said, that wasn’t give me an hour of your time here and there. That wasn’t why don’t you come around to see me Friday afternoon when it’s convenient. He said, follow me.

And what He had said throughout that was what we see at the end, that it was going to involve them dropping their nets. It was going to involve them coming after him. Because as I’ve explained several times before, in that time when you were to take on a teacher, and not everybody did, but if you were to follow a teacher, if you were to follow a rabbi, you were to go live with them.

You were to eat what they ate. You were to sleep where they slept. If they went on a journey, you went with them.

If they went to do a job, you did it with them. You followed them and you learned under them, you spent your lives together. It wasn’t like today where if you’re going to, I mean, you can flip on the TV and listen to what the guy says and then turn it off.

Now, if you’re going to learn from it, you’re going to walk with him and spend your lives together. So when he says, follow me, he’s not talking to the next town. Hey, why don’t you come with me?

We’re having a big shindig down in Galilee. No, that’s not what he’s talking about. I want you to come and spend your life with me.

And they were to follow him and they were to obey him. He was in charge of them. And so many times I think we want to follow Christ when it’s convenient.

I think we, you know what, I would be willing to guess that most people here this morning, if not all, would say, yes, I want him to be my master. I want him to be my Lord. But then we get to the, you know, we like it in theory.

But then there are those parts of our lives, oh, God, I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean you could be in charge of that. I didn’t mean you could change me here.

I didn’t mean you could tell me what to do there. We have those parts that we like to hold back. But if he is master, if he is Lord, then he is Lord.

I mean, you just can’t make him your part-time master. Does that make sense? He can’t be the master of part of our lives.

He can’t be the Lord of part of our lives. If we’re going to follow him, it means we have to accept him as master. And I’ve heard preachers get on this and say, it doesn’t matter if you accept him as Lord or not, he is Lord.

Well, yes, he is Jesus. You know what? You’ll get no argument from me there.

Jesus Christ is Lord of everything, whether we confess him as Lord or not. You know, he just is. And one day the Bible says that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

He is Lord. He has been Lord. He will always be Lord.

You know what? Not everybody admits that. And he’s Lord whether we admit it or not.

But we need to recognize him as our Lord. We need to acknowledge him as our master. There’s a big difference between begrudgingly saying, God, I know you’re in charge, but I’m still going to try my best to do what I want.

And saying, God, I know that you’re Lord whether I say it or not, but I’m just telling you I’m willing. We need to come to that point of acceptance, of saying, you know what, I am willing. Not that my willingness makes all that big a difference, but God, for what it’s worth, I’m willing to be led.

I’m willing to follow you. I’m willing for you to be my Lord. That is what they were giving up, was at control when they decided to follow him.

And then we see what they got to witness and be a part of in return. My prayer for each of us, not just in this church, but my prayer for Christians all over the world, is that we would put aside our nets. You notice these were not bad things they were involved in.

These were good pursuits they were involved in. But that we would put aside our own stuff, our own ideas, our own plans, when God calls and be willing to be used of him. And I pray that for me most of all because, well, I live in here in my mind.

Y’all don’t. I realize how far short I fall of this. That’s my prayer for us is that we would learn to follow him, to drop our nets when he says to come and to follow him.

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