Message for June 9, 2002
by Pastor Glenn Layne
 Matthew 4:18-22


The Big Idea:
Jesus invites us to be part of the gathering of peoples for all nations for the glory of God—and in the process He changes us forever!


The Call of Jesus

Last week I shared with you some thoughts about awakening and renewal. There is now a huge world-wide movement of prayer, and I’m delighted to tell you that on July 17, for our Mid-Summer Prayer Summit, we have obtained John Robb, Director of Prayer Mobilization for World Vision International and the chair of the International Prayer Council to come that night and lead us in a time of intercessory prayer.

That passage we saw in Zechariah promises a time of new attitudes, new actions and new results. The new attitude: joy! The new action: humble concerted prayer. The new result: harvest evangelism.

When Jesus called men and women to follow Him, He called them in their totality. This is Jesus’ way, and every believer has to grapple with this issue, and every church this issue: are we ought to be (or make) good church members, or is our objective to make and be genuine disciples of Jesus Christ. This little passage gets right to the heart: to follow Him as His disciple, and to follow Him as fishers of men—which is the very heart of the task of the kingdom of God.

Most Bible scholars agree that this was not at all the first time Jesus had met these men. They had first met Him as much as a year before when John was baptizing down on the Jordan River. That may have been as long as a year before this day. Jesus, we are told, began preaching in the villages of Galilee before this time. But Jesus was no different than any other great leader of his time in this regard: He knew that to maximize His impact, and to have a lasting impact, He must raise up a cadre of disciples. So He went back to these men, who had been so impressed with Him before, who had seen for example His miracle of turning water to wine at Cana, and said—how appropriate for fishermen—it’s time to fish or cut bait.

God was doing a new thing through Jesus—and He wanted them to be involved!

Let’s make that present tense:

God is doing a new thing through Jesus—and He wants to involve you and me in it!

God is indeed doing a new thing. Worldwide, it may well be fair to say that a new Great Awakening is in progress now—especially in the so-called Third World. He wants you and me to be involved in the catching of "fish" worldwide; He wants us to be involved in the great harvest that may well signify the end of the age.

When He calls them, He calls them to be "fishers of men" (that still sounds better than the politically correct "catchers of people"!) On one level, it’s a simple pun on their current obsession: catching fish. And they were good at it. There is every indication that they were good, even prosperous, fishermen.

It also harkens back to a passage in Jeremiah 16:16. There, the prophet tells the people of Israel that they are to go into exile. And that it wouldn’t do them any good to try to hide—that would He to it the enemy would come after them like fishermen and catch them.

By calling His disciples "fishers of men", Jesus takes that word of Jeremiah and turns it on its head. He’s announcing that the exile is over, and that now God’s "fishermen" would be for the blessing, not the curse of the world.

This business of "fishing for men" (call it being a witness or evangelism, whatever), is like a leg on a stool—a three-legged stool. This "stool" of the blessed and healthy Christian life has three legs:

1. Devotion to God’s written word: we must be people of the book, hearing what God has to say about life.
2. Devotion to prayer, as we said last week.
3. Sharing Christ with our lost friends.

A three-legged stool is stable, but take away one leg, you don’t have a stool. You have kindling. You can’t sit on it, and it’s not much to look at.

Our identity is wrapped up in being fishers of men. If your walk with God is lacking, maybe your stool is lying on its side!

Jesus invites us to be part of the wonderful things God is doing (Matthew 4:18-19)

18 As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 19 "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men."

Remember Monty Python’s Flying Circus? The offbeat stream of consciousness British comedy always began the show with the words, "And now for something completely different." And—it was different: singing lumberjacks and the famous Dead Parrot sketch, which some people claim to be the single funniest comedy routine ever. Well, it was different. But completely different?

Jesus delivered on something "completely different." You see, Jesus was intent on taking these men to a higher place than they’d ever been before—just as He wants to do in your life today. He’s inviting you today to enter into a special attachment to you that will result in a special assignment that’s the greatest task that any follower of Christ can have.

In the verses just before this, we’re told that Jesus was going around Galilee preaching the message, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near." But where does He do this? In Jerusalem? No—in Galilee—"Galilee of the Gentiles" as the area had been known for centuries. The Jews of Galilee in Jesus’ day were almost entirely surrounded by non-Jewish peoples.

Jesus' teaching would go on to make it crystal-clear that His movement would be worldwide in its scope. Take for example Matthew 13:31-32, the parable of the mustard seed:

31 He told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. 32 Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches."

Jesus was not content that the kingdom of God be small—for a select few, for the Jews only, for a handful. He’s saying that the itty-bitty mustard seed start is going to lead to a tree-sized outcome. So much so that the birds of the air—in the Old Testament, a symbol for the Gentile nations—would come and perch in its branches.

What to do then? To follow Him. "Come follow Me." Those were the very words a rabbi at that time would use to invite his listeners to enter into a discipleship relationship with him…as Jesus does here.

But He goes farther than any rabbi: "I will make you fishers of men." There are two things there.

First, there’s a promise of transformation—of real supernatural transformation. Jesus says, "I will make you fishers of men." He will transform these men—not just teach them like a rabbi.

Second, he will not simply teach them abstract or contemplative theology. "I will make you fishers of men." It is interesting that this is what He identifies as the heart of the call.

By defining His disciples as fishers of men, it’s significant to consider what He did not define us as, that is, as our primary identity as Jesus-followers. He did not identify us as converts, church members, adherents or attendants. He gave us an identity that presses outward.

The classic formulation is that Jesus called us to be fishers of men, not keepers of the aquarium. We are fishers of men, not pew warmers. We are fishers of men, not ecclesiastical bureaucrats. We are fishers of men, not committee members. If Jesus indeed has called you, I guarantee that He called you the same way He called these men: as fishers of men.

Jesus’ invitation separates us from some things, and unites us to His things! (Matthew 4:20-22)

A step further: Jesus’ invitation separates us from some things, and unites us to His things! Look at verses 20-22:

20 At once they left their nets and followed him.

21 Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, 22 and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.

For Simon and Andrew, it meant separation from nets. (No, not the New Jersey Nets!) For these guys, nets were what life was all about. It’s how they fed their families, and their skill as fishermen was their source of pride. Joe Stowell from Moody Bible Institute says that Jesus calls us all to be "netless Christ-followers." That is, we have to drop what’s in our hands, whatever that may be, if we want to follow Him.

For James and John, that meant leaving their father Zebedee. (By the way, other passages say that there were other hired hands; it’s not as if they left him high and dry, and there is ever indication that their father approved of their heeding Christ’s call.)

To change the image from fishing for a second to harvesting, it meant that they were going to follow Jesus into the field to be engaged in the harvest. It meant that Jesus’ priority to make the kingdom of God known would be their priority. Ultimately it would mean that telling the story of Jesus—His life, redemptive death and resurrection in power, and to call men and women from every walk of life to believe—would be their prime task.

But now, for a moment, change the image back to fishing. On Galilee, from Jesus day down to the present, when fishing by net is done, there are two kinds of nets used. One is the casting net. It is circular, maybe 12 feet fully open, and weighted on the edges. In shallow water, the fisherman casts the net and traps the fish that have come into the shallows to feed. The casting net is generally used in the daylight hours.

But then there is the dragnet. It is two to three times as large as the casting net. It is also weighted, but lowered from a boat well out into the lake to make a bigger catch of the larger fish that like to feed in water from three to ten feet deep, especially at night.

Both catch fish. One a few at a time; another in large catches. One you can feed a family with; another, you can run a business with.

Can I be so bold as to suggest that the Lord would have us move up from a half-hearted commitment to the casting net to a full-hearted commitment to the dragnet?

No matter the cost. No matter the loss. "I myself am going up"—remember last week? When Jesus says, "Come follow me" that YOU He’s speaking to. "I will make you fishers of men" that’s YOU He’s speaking to.

© Copyright 2002, Pastor Glenn Layne, www.templecitybaptist.org