I Will Make You Fishers of Men

In Matthew 4:19 we have the somewhat famous words of Jesus to Simon and Andrew, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”  This call seems to set the tone for the call of Jesus on the lives of all the disciples.

My thinking here is that our mission as followers of Jesus is to participate with Him as He calls people into the kingdom of heaven.  I say this because just prior to the calling of Simon and Andrew we read, “From that time Jesus began to preach and say, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand;” (Matt 4:17). 

As His witnesses it seems to me that a great part of the process of witnessing is to be with people in such away as to reveal to them how pertinent, applicable, germane, significant, and important Jesus is their lives. 

John Wesley caught this in his words, “The Church has nothing to do but save souls.”  Furthermore, Wesley understood the nature of the mission when he expressed, “The church changes the world not by making converts but by making disciples” (see Matt. 28:19-20).

What we proclaim is, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16).  We proclaim this because Jesus said, “He who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life” (John 5:24).

So it is that the Church in the opening years of the third millennium prays and loves and serves and worships and witnesses and evangelizes and teaches and baptizes and, in the process of it all makes first, converts, and then of those converts, disciples. 

The church is on a mission because the kingdom of God is at hand, and Jesus is calling people into that kingdom. 

It might be good to remember here that in Matthew 6:10 Jesus taught His disciples to pray, “Your kingdom come.”  Then, 23 verses later He gives the Word, “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness” (Matt. 6:33).  Why are people called on to repent?  Because “the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt 4:17). 

We are called to turn away from our old world view and to turn to Christ, to “repent” if you would.   Once we have turned to Christ the call then becomes to follow Him.  Following Him takes us to that place of inviting others to do the same.  It also takes us to the place of seeking the kingdom of God first and foremost in all things.

As His followers we take seriously the implications of God’s kingdom being at hand.  We pray, “Your kingdom come.”  We seek His kingdom as we live in the world. As we follow Jesus it becomes clearer and clearer that Mr. Wesley was correct, “The church changes the world not by making converts but by making disciples.”  The saving of souls is a huge matter but it doesn’t stop there.  It starts a journey and brings people to the point of choosing to follow Jesus now that they are “saved,” to go forward into a relationship of true discipleship. 

Let us go deeper and deeper into the things of Jesus.  May our relationship with Him become so vital that it becomes the most important relationship in our lives.  May our love for Him and our zeal to follow Him take us deeper and deeper into our relationship with God.  Also,  may our passion, as the Church of Jesus, be to take people beyond conversion into a deep, personal, and Christ-centered life of being fully committed to Jesus. 

This is what Paul seems to mean in 2 Timothy 2:2 when he told that young pastor, “The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” Here we see a line of progression that leads to discipleship and it has been unfolding for twenty centuries now.  In time Paul would die, but because he took people into the deeper level of discipleship, when he died others would step up and fill his shoes and keep the Gospel alive.  The unfolding of the Gospel and the influence of the kingdom would not skip a beat because the “converts” had been discipled into maturity

“Follow Me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.”  From conversion to disciples to fishers of men to equippers of the next generation.  On and on it goes.  It all starts with Jesus saying to people, “Follow Me.”  If they do it, they will have signed up for the ride of their lives, and the seeds of the process of taking the Gospel into the next generation will be planted.  On and on it goes.  Jesus will build his church and the gates of Hades will not be able to overpower it.

During Advent, 2008 I was meditating over the Gospel reading for the Fourth Sunday of Advent from the Book of Common prayer.  The text was Luke 1:26-38.  I was struck by the fact that when Gabriel told Mary that she was going to have a baby even though she had not been with a man, her inquiring response was, “How can this be?” (Luke 1:34). 

How, indeed?  That’s an honest and truthful question.  How can this be?  For that matter another woman whom throughout her entire life had been labeled, “barren,” (Luke 1:36) found herself just three months away for delivering her son, John, who would be called, the Baptist.  How, indeed?

Have you ever said to God, in light of His outrageous promises, “How can this be?”  I hope you have asked this of God, and I hope you never stop asking it.  I hope God can be in each of us in such a way that our faith just keeps being stretched and stretched until the only answer that makes sense to us is, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you” (Luke 1:35)

Mary had never been with a man so she couldn’t get pregnant, but the Holy Spirit came upon her.

           

Elizabeth, the barren, couldn’t get pregnant, but the Holy Spirit came upon her.

           

Because of an evil Herod, Jesus had no chance of getting out of Bethlehem alive, but the Holy Spirit was upon Him.

The cross killed Jesus and the dream for the future died on a despicable hill called, “The skull,” but the Holy Spirit was upon that event and upon Jesus.

           

Death spoke loudly in the life of Jesus but on a Sunday morning He came out of the tomb alive because the Holy Spirit was upon Him.

The Church had no chance of making it out of the first century, but the Holy Spirit was upon the Church, and twenty centuries later the Church is present, keeping the story of Jesus Christ alive.

How can these things be?  That’s a great question, and the only answer is, because NOTHING WILL BE IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD” (Luke 1:37).  When the Holy Spirit is upon a people nothing will be impossible with God.   

Case closed, or maybe marvelously reopened.

The Lord of Hosts is With Us

Our help does not come from the hills; our help comes from the Lord (i.e. Psalm 121).  The "our" refers to anybody who is seeking to live in this world by the ways and means of God. 

The hills remind me that we live in one world comprised of two realities:  the physical and the spiritual.  Most of us never truly get past the physical.  Fewer still ever get into the spiritual far enough to know that in the story of the physical world God has spoken redemptively in Jesus Christ.  We have a world inundated with religious thinking of some kind or another, but thinking that does not set us free from our sins and set love loose into the human situation.

The presence of Jesus' Church in the world ought to reflect the fact that life is more than physical and that the spiritual is more than religion and ideologies.  Until physical and spiritual meet together in Jesus we are lost in our efforts (sincere and noble though they may be) and imprisoned in life mazes (as accidental as they may be) which, proclaiming to do just the opposite, actually disenfranchise people and keeps them looking to “hills” for help instead of  “the glory of God in the face of Christ” (II Cor. 4:6).

Being the Church is serious business, and we dare not undertake it without a sense of full dependence upon God.  We must be here so fully dependent upon God that our influence will enable people to stop looking to the hills for help and, instead, turn to the One Who created the hills.  Until persons stop looking to the hills for help and turn to the One True and Living God, the sins of the fathers will continue to be passed on to the sons and daughters, and the vicious cycle will continue. 

Until the One who "breaks the power of canceled sin and sets the prisoner free"^[1] is discovered, the world will believe itself into destruction.                           

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[1] . Charles Wesley. “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing”, in Sing To The Lord, (Lillenas: Kansas City, Mo., 1993). 147

Jesus said He would build His Church (Mat. 16:18). His declaration is the driving force behind the Christian story.  The Church belongs to Jesus.  He calls the shots, sets the direction, instills the focus, and exercises authority.  He is the head of the outfit, and those who would compete for the position need not bother.  

           

Once upon a time in Jesus of Nazareth, God revealed to the world that He had a dream. He gave to the world a church, His Church, and told that Church to live in the world faithful to Him. He commissioned Her to be present in the world to do some things – to love, to teach the truth about God, and to raise the banner of God’s ways and means in cultures distracted from God-things.  The Father's dream was that in Jesus Christ the Church would be a people in whom forgiveness found expression, in whom hope lived, and in whom and through whom, grace and mercy would be lavished on a needy world.  She was to be a worshipping community of Christ-centered people who lived and moved and had their being in God (See Acts 17:28).

           

Through Isaiah God said, "I am God.  Even from eternity I am He, and there is none who can deliver out of My hand; I act and who can reverse it" (Isaiah 43: 12-13).  The Church is secure in the hands of our Sovereign God today.  Therefore, let Christians everywhere double their efforts in prayer and service, extend the right hand of fellowship to everyone they meet, and trust the integrity of Jesus to keep His Word.  Let them continue to be faithful to God, leaving the results of their faithfulness to Him. 

Jesus said, "I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing" (John 15:5).  There you have it.  Don't worry about the fruit.  Instead, focus on abiding in Jesus.  He will take care of the results as we live our lives in Him.