Sermon: From Common to Uncommon

I you take a copy of God's word this morning. If you wanna grab a pew Bible right in front of you, you can do that and turn right to page 836. We're looking at mark one this morning

and Mark chapter one verses 16 through

20 this morning,

mark one verses 16 through 20. And let me pray for us before we open the word together.

Father, we pray that you would quiet our souls even now to quiet our minds. Not that they may be absent of thought or absent of affection, but rather so that we hear your thundering voice this morning.

We pray that you would stir us as only your spirit can do as you promise that your word would not return void if it would accomplish its purposes and our lives this morning. The lives gathered here. Would you speak very directly to each of us as we have need? Preach a better sermon than this preacher has attend to us. Each of us we pray, help us to be receivers of the word, in tune with the spirit, to be in step with the Spirit this morning,

your praise and glory in Christ's name, amen. Work chapter one verses 16 through 20. This is the holy er, sufficient word of God passing alongside the sea of Galilee. He saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting a net into the sea where they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, follow me and I will make you become fishers of men. And immediately they left their nets and followed him. Going on a little farther, he saw James, the son of Zebedee

and John, his brother, were in their boat mending the nets and immediately he called to them and they left their father's Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him. Though the grass withers and the flower fades, the word of God is forever. Thanks be God. Amen.

The scene takes place along the shoreline of the sea of Galilee. Sea of Galilee goes by different names in scripture, the sea of Tiberius, the sea of Seth, the lake of Seth. They are all the same thing. And at this time in the history of the world, this was a sea that was teaming with all kinds of fish. And there was quite a fishing industry around the sea of Galilee, especially on the northern and the northwestern portions of the Sea of Galilee.

There were about 20 or so at this time, little kind of hamlet villages around the north coast of the Sea of Galilee that were all little fishing villages put in Michigan language, a whole bunch of Lelands all over, uh, the north and west side of the Sea of Galilee. And it's there in Galilee that Jesus did most of his earthly ministry. And it's there that he calls his first disciples. And it's there that our passage, uh,

is centered upon this morning. Now, not long, long ago, I preached the, a parallel passage to this in Matthew when we had an evening service just at a short little homily on, um, that Matthew passage and did so because we were ordaining men that night to the office of elder and Deacon. But what I wanna do this morning is take this passage and I want to look at it through the lens of missions and that's gonna be our focus this morning.

So our first point this morning is Jesus calls common men and by inference women, Jesus calls common men and women. He said, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. When Christ spoke these words, he wasn't speaking these words to the prominent, he wasn't speaking them to the prestigious or the powerful. And this tends to be his way. As Paul said in one Corinthians one, God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.

God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong God chose what is low and despised in the world. Why was I chosen Jesus? Was it because of something he saw in me? Some gifts, some abilities, some something I would become? No. Why is it that he chose you? He chose the weak and small things of the world that despised

these Andrew, Simon, Peter, and John and James. They were mere fishermen, not prestigious, not powerful, not in any way prominent. And Paul tells us that the reason that God chooses to use these things that are lowly is so that he might receive even more glory, common men just as every disciple of Christ, common men, common women. And notice that he calls them. And when he calls them, he calls them to himself. He says, follow me.

It's not to an idea, it's not to a morality. It's not even to an institution. It's not to a cause, it's not to a thing, it's not to a dream, it's not to a program. His call is to his person. Christ says, follow me.

Now that doesn't sound so strange to you and I because we're used to that language, but it's strange. It should even be offensive.

No Jewish rabbi would've said what Jesus said, follow me. That's not what they would've said. In fact, they would've seen it as blasphemous. They were to follow God in him alone. For example, Deuteronomy 13, four, you shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice and you shall serve him and hold fast him. And yet Jesus says, follow me.

His search authority not only in issuing this command, but in demanding that they yield themselves to him. Follow me. Let's call of discipleship. We, we yield to him.

What does that look like? Well might say it like this. We don't lose our person, but we do lose ourselves. Don't lose our person, but we do literally lose ourselves. If you think about the refrains throughout the New Testament for me to live is Christ. I'm no longer my own.

Remember when Paul says it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. Let's try and work this out a little bit. You don't lose your personhood when you respond to the call of Christ that there's a reason that he gives the names here. Mark does. He names them. He here is Andrew and here is Simon Peter. And here is John and here is James because he each as a person, exists as a person and matters as a person to Christ.

And when that person comes to Christ yielding themselves to Christ, they are still the person they've always been as a person. They have the same hair, they have the same eyes, they have the same brain, and they're not the same person they were. When they come to Christ, as Paul will say, they are a new creation, a new creature. The old is gone. The the new has come. When we yield in response to the call of Christ, we do not lose our person, our personal identity,

but we do lose ourselves. Before My life was lived For me, holy for me.

And now as I yield to him, my life Is lived holy for him.

Him.

That's the life of discipleship.

Andrew and Peter and James and John, they all yielded to this call. In the text, they became disciples and they followed Jesus. They say, well, is it the scene particular to them? Uh, I don't think this is just about the calling of the apostles because we have the same language. When he will speak of discipleship in general, he will say that you are to pick up your cross and you are too. Follow me. This is What it looks like.

Now, following Jesus doesn't always make the most sense in the world's eyes. And we see that in this text is seen as Jesus coming and he's coming upon Simon and Andrew as they're casting their nets into the sea. And the language there regarding the nuts there, casting would've been these little circular nets that had all kinds of weights around the edges of them. And there would've been a rope in the middle of that net.

And so you cast out that net into the sea and then you would pull that rope and as you pull the rope, all the weights would fall down to the bottom. And so it would cause the net to collapse in on itself and all the fish would be trapped in that net. And, and here's the picture is that Marx says they have cast their nets into the sea. And then Jesus says, follow me. And Marx says, immediately they left their nets.

You're meant to think they left their nets in the sea. Wait, that's your, That's your occupation. That's your job. You, you lose those nets. They could be swept away. Someone could come and steal them. They immediately left their nets and followed him.

They received the call of Christ. And that matters more than anything else. And that doesn't always make sense in the eyes of the world.

Now, no doubt, some of you are sitting here even this morning and you've heard the call of Christ at some point. You're hearing it this morning, he says to each of us in this room, follow me. You think, well, I

not quite ready it, it would cost me that friendship or cost me this with my family, or I'd have to let go of this sin that I've nurtured over the years.

He says, follow me.

It doesn't always make sense in the eyes of the world.

I don't know if you've been following some of the stories these past couple weeks, but it's quite interesting to me following the news that a couple of weeks ago, one of the great adversaries of the Christian faith, Richard Dawkins over about a month or so ago, uh, that he said, you know what, I, I consider myself a cultural Christian.

And then, I don't know if you saw this week, Elon Musk, the owner of X and SpaceX and Tesla in an interview said, I, I consider myself a cultural Christian. And what is it that they are talking about? They are recognizing that they, they want the influence of Christianity in this world. They, they like its trappings. They recognize that the world is sinking in abyss, an abyss of of silly gross nonsense. You only have to look at the opening ceremony

of the Olympics to see that.

And even men like Dawkins, a must say, we want the effects of Christianity in our society. But you see, they don't, they don't go far enough.

We want the trappings of Christianity in our world. You don't go far enough what the world needs is Christ. What Dawkins and Musk need is Christ. He doesn't call us to an agenda. He doesn't call us to an idea. He doesn't call us to an ethic. He calls us to himself follow be.

And it doesn't always make sense. The sons of Zebedee are described in verse 19 as mending their nets out on the boat. Maybe they were fixing them, but it just has the idea of caring for them. They were most likely just getting their nets ready for fishing later that night or the next day. And and the word that is used there is not of the same nets that Andrew and Peter had, but this is now a large net. This is the kind of net that you need a big boat

to go out into the middle of the lake with so that you can pull it in with those boats. And so it's speaking of the fact that they had an even greater enterprise. In fact, we're told in verse 20 that they had hired servants to help with the operation and yet the sons of Zebedee, they left their father and they followed Jesus, You Have a thriving business. Follow me. Immediately left their nuts and followed him when he calls,

We yield. Now there's nothing wrong with nets. Surely there's nothing wrong with families. But anything that would keep us from responding to the call of Christ is to be abandoned. It costs to follow Jesus. And maybe we have to leave our nets. Maybe we do not have to leave our nets, but we do have to be willing to leave our nets. We have to be willing as a disciple because we're wholly yielded to him. We follow him. But

We are willing to part with often is the best determiner of how greatly we value a thing.

When we come to Christ, there are certain things that we must give up. We must give up our sins and our self-righteousness and our pride and our self idolatry or we willing to let go of that, that pet sin that we've nurtured over the years. Are we willing to pluck out our eye? Are we willing to cut off our right hand?

Well, We look to him alone for our salvation, not turn to the right or to the left, but instead so that Jesus is my all in all for me to live is Christ.

Are we willing to give up the world? It's prestige and it's offered positions, it's promises. Are we willing to trust Jesus over and over when he said, everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or fathers or mothers or children or land from my name's sake, will receive a hundred fold and will inherit eternal life. Do we believe that?

We believe that because that Matters for our second point.

That he not only calls common men and women, but he calls common men and women to an uncommon task.

He Calls us to an uncommon task To Be fishers of Men.

Were were they immediately ready for this task when Christ called them? No, he says that he's, he would make them fishers of men. They, they will grow into the task that is before them. But what's fascinating is in John's account, in his gospel, Andrew has seen Jesus. He is come into contact with Jesus and he has to go run and tell Peter, we found the Messiah. That is if you know Christ, you know enough to share Christ

and yet they will continue to grow becoming fishers of men.

If we are called by Christ, we've been called to the mission of Christ. He said, I came to seek and to save the laws. He says, come follow me and I will make you fishers of men.

Here's what I want you to understand this morning is the weight behind the this, this wonderful mission And that that phrase,

it's often missed I think because we see fishers of men as a kind of cute metaphor. Isn't Jesus so creative and and how he calls them but the importance of those words fishers of men, it it's more than a preacher's kind of cute turn of phrase. There's a whole history here. So if you look at the context, you go back up to verse the verses that immediately proceed this verses 14 and 15. Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God

saying The time is fulfilled in the kingdom of God as at hand, repent and believe in the gospel. The kingdom has come. Why has the kingdom come into the world? Because the king has come into the world in the person of Christ. And because the king has come into the world and the kingdom has been inaugurated in the world, there is a proclamation that goes out that you must believe in this king. You must seize upon the good news that he came

to save sinners. And so you must repent and you must believe that's the message

and that message is given because once the king comes and once the kingdom has been inaugurated and is coming into the world, that means that just over the horizon

is his king coming in a second advent where the entire kingdom is consummated and eternal fates are sealed for

the language that Jesus uses fissures of men. It's used over and over and over in the Old Testament scriptures to speak of God and not of his deliverance, but of his judgment of men.

Ezekiel 29 verses one through six, God is speaking against Egypt and he says he will put hooks in their jaws and he will cast them into the wilderness with all the fish of their streams that he will give them as food to the beast of the earth and to the birds of the sky. And then he says this, in closing then all the inhabitants shall know that I am the Lord in Ezekiel 38, a prophecy against Gog, that great enemy, Ezekiel 38, verse four.

He says, and I will turn you about and put hit hooks into your jaws and I will bring you out. And then in verses 18 through 23, it depicts the judgment of God and then it closes with the same phrase. Then they will know that I am the Lord or Habakkuk one verses 14 through 17 where all mankind is referred to as fish. And it's followed by that famous Habakkuk two 14 For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord

as the waters cover the sea that his judgment is coming. And as the judgment comes into the world, every single person will recognize that he is Lord.

Your testament echoes this right? That with the coming of Christ in the second advent, every knee will bow when every tongue will confess and earth and honor in the heavens on earth and under the earth that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Judgment is coming. And what Marcus pointing out and what Jesus is doing here is saying, look, the these common men, they are given this very uncommon task where we as disciples of Christ are able to tell people of the knowledge of the Lord in grace before judgment comes and all have to acknowledge that he is Lord, get to be used, pluck people out of the fire.

That's an uncommon task.

This is why the call by Jesus has responded to with such immediacy by the disciples because the task every disciple of Christ has is of such importance. When Christ calls common people to himself, he calls them to the uncommon task. A proclaiming is truth to others.

If you are a disciple of Christ, you're called to be a fisher for Christ of men.

And we often buckle under the pressure of this thinking about this. You ask a Christian about the life of evangelism or their prayer life and that's when they'll blush and it just feels like, oh, what a wait. So, so I wanna start here. As we think about this in application, first of all, I want you to understand the great privilege that he has given to us. What a privilege. You're living your life for something. Everyone is living their life for something.

You're expending yourself for something.

We get to expend ourselves for that which is lasting the disciple of Christ

and eternally lasting.

Most people occupy themselves their their time, their energy, their finances, their resources, their ability on things that won't outlast them or at least won't outlast their children or their grandchildren. You and I get to expend ourselves for that which lasts for all of eternity.

I can not think about that during the Olympics this week. Some of the best athletes in the world gathered together in Paris and some of them are household names. The rest of them want to be household names by setting some record. And yet all those names disappear. They just fade.

You do realize that there have been great athletes all through history. And so, I mean, you think none of us know the great marathon runners in Greece. None of us know the great wrestlers of Rome. None of us know the great names of the Samurai Swordsmen and Japanese High times, you don't know 'em. They fade. Oh, we're in a political season. I was reading a book this week about Ulysses s Grant and his presidency and talking about these three

political bosses in the country in the late 18 hundreds. They were men that were as powerful as Grant was as the president of the United States. He could do nothing without them saying he could do it.

And yet none of you know their names.

I say to you, boss Cox, Richard Croker, Hugh McLaughlin, you don't know them. It's hard to believe, but it's true that in 200 years, besides maybe the rogue historian, no one is going to know the names of Biden Harris and Trump. They fade. There's only one name that remains one name that is worth exalting and expending yourself for Jesus the Christ.

And he gives us this great privilege of laboring for his name. Too often labor for that which is too small and too fleeting. When we have been given the honor and the glory of laboring for that, which is the infinite and eternal,

You want your life to matter eternally.

I often think about this when I walk in a graveyard and walking around a graveyard and I like to find the biggest monuments. And then I like to walk over there and see are there weeds growing All over that thing? 'cause That person was so important in their day. I got the big monument. And More often than not, if it's over 50 years old, there's weeds all over it.

You only have so many days. Life is so fleeting.

You want your life to count.

Told you this before, but I'm gonna share it again. I have a, a picture above my desk at home and my study at home. It's just a picture. It's a big blown up picture is picture I uh, had Leah take about 25 years ago. We were in Dallas. She got a new camera and so we went out. I was her roadie and she was taking pictures of everything and there was this big large Baptist church steeple that went into the sky and it had a clock face on it.

And I said, I want that picture. And so she took that picture and that picture hangs in my study at home. And the big hand is just past the 12. The little hand is just past the four, but it, it's what's behind those hands. And it's in black letters. It just says night cometh.

It just sits there over my desk to remind me day in and day out when I'm in my study. You only got so much time, Jason, use your time labor for what matters. Night cometh Privilege. And

Second, I want to challenge each of us, whether we are willing to follow where Jesus leads us. Are you willing to follow where Jesus leads you?

Would you consider whether you are being called by Christ to not simply be here but to go there

and the great commission, he says, go therefore and make disciples that the church has always gone out. This is the mission of the church. It has a mission to reach the lost and the kingdom to go forward. The church must go out and for the church to go out, Christians must go out. If no one goes out, then no one is reached.

It was helpful for me years ago when I first heard John Piper, he came to the church I was at and before he had written the book, but he was obviously working on it. The book Let the Nation Speak. Glad I can remember the sermon where, where he said it. And he said that there are only three options that you and I have as Christians as disciples of Christ in response to missions. We can either go or we can sin or we can be disobedient.

It's one of those three. Those are the only options.

Go sin disobedient, we sinned, we go, we sinned. Many of you do that here with your finances. You have done that as you supported missionaries that have gone out, as you've supported church plants that go out. You, you do this with your time and with your energy and supporting, I think especially like our fellowship program and all those fellows and residents and interns that are going through our program and being sent out.

You do this as you invest in the lives of college students that you know are just gonna be here for a couple of years. And it's gonna cost when they leave it, it costs to send people. I've always loved this about this church. We is this church's kind of DNA, bring them in, build them up, send them out, love it.

But even if we're senders, we offer you this, we're still to be on mission.

We're still seeking to save the lost in our midst. How do you do that? What? Maybe you go to the same restaurant over and over so that you get to know that that waitress or waiter and you can ask, wait, how can I pray for you? 'cause I'm gonna pray for my meal before I eat. How can I pray for you? That begins to open the door over time. Then you get to share the gospel. Maybe it's instead of being holed up and the fortresses of our homes, we actually go out

and get to know our neighbors. That the doors are open for sharing the gospel. You pray, not haphazardly, but consistently to have open doors to share the gospel.

At the very least, we should be salt and light in this world. When we truly function as salt and light in this world, our world can't help but take notice. I love that there are three families that I know of have come to saving faith here at your sea over the last year and a half to two years. By this way. They notice somebody's marriage in this congregation or somebody's family in this congregation. And they said, that's unique.

I want what they have. And so they started coming world notices.

I truly think that as our culture becomes more starkly opposed, any kind of Judeo-Christian ethic, it gives us more opportunities, not less. Your marriage looks so different. You've been married for how long? Decades never met anybody married that long. How how do you do that? Let me tell you, Christ,

you seem to really love your wife.

You seem to really shower her with affection. You seem to really honor and respect your husband and it's clear he is leading you and yet you're not a doormat. How how do you do that? Let me tell you, Christ,

you're unlike any boss I've ever had. You. You get to know your employees. You actually know about my family life. You, you treat us with respect. Like we're, we're on your level. Why?

Well, let me tell you, Christ,

no one's ever talked to me in a college classroom before, except people already knew. Why is it you were so friendly on that first day and you keep talking to me? Well, lemme tell you, Christ,

you live on mission in this world if you're a disciple of Christ.

But here's, here's the question I really want us to wrestle with. Are you willing to follow?

Are you willing to follow wherever it is that he would lead you?

If it's through the Dark Valley and it's going to be painful circumstances, it's not what you wish for, you're to follow. Are you willing to follow when it's across that mountain or when it's through that desert or it's over that sea? Are you willing to follow or are there things that you say that that's off limits that I, I can't consider? Listen, it is always better to go with Jesus

always when he says, come follow me. You follow

in regards to missions. Some have to go and our passage, the call to follow Jesus in this case, it doesn't call for them to go to the ends of the earth. Much of Jesus's ministry was in Galilee and it was for the foreseeable future. And so he's not sending them to the ends of the earth at this point. But the point that Mark is making is incredibly relevant for us. We must be willing to leave everything to follow Jesus.

If none are willing, the none will hear. There are 8 billion people on this planet, 8 billion. How can you not think about that? Especially during Olympics week, few weeks.

I was rebuking myself the other night, uh, my son was watching the first part of the games and I was doing work and passing through the room and he said, oh dad, come watch this. So I sat down for five minutes and I watched for five minutes and then said, I gotta get back to work and go back to work. And I was thinking, you know, it should be, as a Christian watching the Olympics, my first thought should not have been about athletes,

but it should have been about those countries they represent. If we're doing it just about athletes, we're doing it wrong.

Maybe you pray every time the country comes across your stream, the Parade of Nations this week in the different events, every one of them created in the image of God delivered his glory. Every single one of them in every country, they represent desperately in need of the proclamation of the gospel.

Am I willing to go? It's a question you have to wrestle with personally.

Say, well, I'm pretty settled in life. So was John. So was James. So was Andrew. So was Peter, but I have a family. So did John. So did James. We find out later that Peter was married, he had a wife. But I have a business and a home. So did John. So did James. Are you willing to go?

Willing to go?

I don't think that's a question you settle once. I really don't. I don't think it's a, upon your conversion. You come to Christ and you place your faith in Christ and you say, okay, show me in the next four, eight hours. Lord, whether you want me to go to the mission field, I don't think so. I think it's something that there's always to be a willingness in our lives that we say, you know what? Wherever you desire me to go, Lord, I will go.

Maybe it's to the ends of the earth. Maybe it's going out with a church plant that you RC does. Maybe it's moving to a n neighborhood. Maybe it's getting just a new job in the city. So you're with new coworkers, but I don't know. But wherever you would have me go, Jesus, I'm, I'm willing to follow. Are you willing or are there things off limits?

It's a lifelong pursuit to following Jesus. You lead, ill follow specifically missions. How? How do you know? How do you know if you're called mission field? I don't know, but at least this. You see the need. There are 8 billion, billion people in the world. There's need and you're willing, you're willing, I'll follow Jesus if you lead me there, three, you are prayerful. You're praying, we should all be praying along these lines.

Fourth, you seek counsel. What do you think? And fifth, there's some kind of stirring in you that, ah, it just feels like this is what it looks like for me to follow Jesus.

You have to be willing.

I've been greatly encouraged and challenged by the beers retirement hit retirement and they're going to the mission field.

You see the need that they're willing.

Why? 'cause he chooses to use common men and common women for an uncommon task. The uncommon task of saving souls for eternity.

Night cometh to spend your lives well

for the glory of our God. Let's pray together.

Our Father, we are thankful that you have given us the great privilege and delight of laboring for an eternal kingdom.

We pray that all of us would not clinging to this world, but find that we are free and willing to follow wherever your son leads us by the power of the Spirit. May that be true. Whether we remain or whether we go, may we be as clay in your hands, that you're continually shaping that we give, we give you more and more glory expend our lives for that which is truly lasting and be true of each of us in this room as disciples of yours.

We pray all of this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.