The Call and the Cost to Follow

Transcript

Welcome to this week’s sermon from Trinity Church in Portland, Oregon. Today’s message is by Pastor Thomas Terry and is called, The Call and the Cost to Follow. It’s part of our series, Follow the Son, which goes through the book of Mark. The sermon text is Mark chapter 1, verses 16 through 20. Thanks for joining us. Here’s Thomas. Well, good morning. This morning, I want to start first by asking us a question. What is, or what does it mean to be a disciple? It seems like a very basic question, one that we should be able to get a very straight forward and simple answer to. But the truth is, it’s oftentimes a very confusing question. Yes, discipleship is a big deal in the Christian world, but it’s such a popular concept and topic that it seems oftentimes everyone has an opinion about what it means. There are literally thousands of books published each year on the topic of discipleship.

There are hundreds of conferences each year on the topic of discipleship. There’s masterclasses, podcasts, websites, magazines, and YouTube channels, all with a primary focus on discipleship. Not just the necessity for it or the benefits from it, but mostly on methodology, the philosophy of effective discipleship. But in the thick of all of this talk concerning discipleship, the conversations oftentimes are more confusing than helpful. Which is why I think that before we get to the discussion about methodology or our strategy for effective discipleship, we should probably step back and ask ourselves this very simple question. What does it actually mean to be a disciple? Before we can unpack discipleship, we need to first clearly define what it means to be a disciple. The simple answer is to be a follower. And so if you want to be a disciple of Jesus, essentially that means you just need to be

a follower of Jesus. But this also begs another question. What does following Jesus exactly entail? What’s my hope for us this morning that as we look at this passage, we would get a clear and comprehensive view of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. And not just a 30,000 foot definition, but the animated definition. The definition that impacts us personally and experientially. See, it’s one thing to jump on your smartphone, look up the definition of disciple, or type in the keyword follower of Jesus in Google. It’s another thing altogether to come to understand what it means personally for you. And this is why we get to this beautiful story. To help us understand. See the drama of story oftentimes pulls you into the story so that you begin to imagine what it looks like for you to be a disciple. It makes things more accessible and relevant to your own personal and unique worlds.

The Call to Follow

Which is why Mark the Storyteller gives us this story here. To show us what it means practically and personally to be a follower of Jesus. To animate it for us. So this morning, I’ve divided this story up into two very simple parts. The call to follow and the cost to follow. Now if you remember, at the close of our passage last week, Jesus had just announced the kingdom of God. And it’s here where he moves to the next phase of his mission, which is to expand the kingdom of God. So he announces the kingdom of God, but here he expands the kingdom of God. But the way Jesus begins to expand his kingdom is completely different than most kings. He doesn’t start by gathering the most powerful and influential people. He doesn’t quickly recruit a bunch of trained military soldiers who through the means of

violence would forcefully take over an existing kingdom to establish a new one. Instead he begins building a community of ordinary and faithful people. Who would expand his kingdom through multiplying more ordinary and faithful people. Why does Jesus go this route? Because Jesus is more interested in building a kingdom not through force, but through faith. His kingdom would expand through the preaching of ordinary and faithful disciples. Now I tend to normally break down sermons verse by verse. But this morning I’m going to do it a bit differently. I’m going to spend a little bit of time going through this entire passage to help us frame the story and then spend the rest of our time pushing in on the details. And hopefully pushing in on some application along the way. So let’s read this together one more time in its entirety. Mark 1 verse 16. Passing along the sea of Galilee he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a

net into the sea for they were fishermen and he said to them follow me and I will make you become fishers of men. And immediately they left their nets and followed him and going on a little farther he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother who were in their boat mending their nets. And immediately he called them and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him. This brothers and sisters is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let’s pray. Father we approach your word this morning this amazing story of how you call people and the cost associated with this call. But we pray oh Lord and God that you would help us. Holy Spirit come and reveal this truth to our hearts and to our minds. Let our gaze be upon you so that we can understand what it means to be called by you.

So that we can consider the cost. We pray these things in Christ’s name. Amen. So let’s begin this morning with the first part of the story. The call to follow. Jesus here has officially begun his mission of expanding the kingdom. And his method that he employs is through the meticulous selection of unimpressive people. This selection process for his mission doesn’t begin in a synagogue where you might think it would. It begins along the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee. Now again Mark’s gospel is more direct than descriptive because Mark’s aim here with this short story is to emphasize one thing. Jesus’ authority when calling disciples. Which is helpful for us to know that when Jesus calls disciples he doesn’t make a request. His call is a summons. And what we see in Mark’s gospel is that these fishermen do respond to Jesus’ authority both

positively and immediately. So while it’s good to see that Mark’s gospel emphasizes his authority I want us to look at this account from the vantage point of the other gospel accounts. Because when we do that we see the broader implications for us concerning what it means to follow Jesus. So I want to piece together some of the details that we get from the other gospels to help shape a bit more of the story concerning these fishermen. Now these two pairs of brothers in Mark’s account seem somewhat random and disconnected from each other. But the other gospels actually reveal that these guys were connected. These pairs of brothers—John and James, and Simon and Andrew—they knew each other. These pairs of brothers were involved in their own family businesses that went back multiple generations so they knew each other. It’s highly likely that these family businessmen did business together with other families.

From all accounts it looks like John and James had a bit more financial success. We see that by the fact that they had a boat and hired help. While Andrew and Simon were probably less financially successful. The reason I bring this to your attention is not to compare their bank accounts but to show you that these men, although in different places financially, were in no way poor fishermen. These were hard working fishermen. They were experienced workers who grew up with this family trade. Which in this culture the fishing business was a very lucrative business. It was always in demand. In fact historians tell us that tax collectors used to always hang out with fishermen because there was always an exchange of money going on. So despite what most people thought about these fishermen these guys were not ignorant and they were not broke.

They were successful middle class family owned businessmen who were well acquainted with risk, cost recovery, investment and return. Which we’ll tease out a bit later. Another thing to know is that these fishermen’s encounter with Jesus was also not random. When we get into Mark’s account, because it’s so short and punchy, we sometimes get this picture that Jesus is just walking along the shore. And he sees these guys in a boat that he has no idea who they are. And he says, ‘Hey, just come follow me.’ And these fishermen don’t know who Jesus is but somehow they’re just compelled to give up everything and blindly follow after Jesus. But that’s not what happens here. The other gospel accounts and church historians allude to the fact that John and James were actually disciples of John the Baptist. Or at least they were following the ministry of John the Baptist.

But even if these guys were not disciples of John the Baptist, if tens of thousands of people were responding to John the Baptist’s call to be baptized for the forgiveness of sins, And all the countryside of Judea and all of Jerusalem were going out to him to be baptized. As we heard about a couple weeks ago. Then there’s no way these brothers would not have known about John the Baptist’s message of the coming Messiah. Which means because John the Baptist pointed to Jesus, these brothers, these fishermen knew who Jesus was. They knew that Jesus was the Messiah. But what’s more important than the fact that these fishermen knew who Jesus was, was that Jesus knew who they were. He knew that they were ordinary, simple, hardworking, committed, family-owned businessmen. No formal theological training. No seminary degrees. No impressive resumes.

Nothing significant, nothing extra special about these men. And yet, Jesus meticulously calls these specific fishermen to follow after him and begin expanding his kingdom through work. Now this is huge if you understand what discipleship looked like in the first century. See, the concept of discipleship wasn’t unique or exclusive to Jesus. The concept had been around for a long time. In fact, most rabbis in the first century had disciples. Now the way this worked, or the way it looked, was that if you wanted to be a disciple of a rabbi, you would first have to seek one out. You would have to go after and find the right one. And if you found the right one, you would have to prove yourself worthy enough, smart enough, disciplined enough to be his disciple. And if you were qualified, and if the rabbi believed that you had what it takes, you had

the potential to be his successor, then he would allow you to be his disciple. See, rabbis didn’t have time to waste on just anybody. They needed to make sure that their disciples were gonna be the best of the best. And if a rabbi called you, if you just happened to make the cut, then you would give up everything for a small season of life to follow, to study, to learn their every move, to think and act exactly like your rabbi. And then eventually, over time, after learning everything you could possibly know about your rabbi, after learning all of his theology, all of his philosophy of ministry, his unique interpretation of the Torah, if you proved yourself, if you worked hard enough and demonstrated a high level of skill, then eventually, maybe, you could become a disciple of a rabbi. And see, the end goal for the disciple of a rabbi was ultimately to become greater than

the rabbi. That’s what it meant to be a disciple of the rabbi in the first century. But in Jesus’s upside-down kingdom, to become a disciple of Jesus looks totally different. Yes, there are similarities within the realm of learning and studying and following and patterning after, but the pathway of becoming a disciple was vastly different than a disciple of a rabbi. First, it’s Jesus who does the calling. Jesus is the one who initiates the discipleship relationship, not the other way around. Not only is he the one that calls, he pursues, he goes after, he draws you. Jesus is the one who captures the hearts of people and persuades them to follow him. And Jesus, by design, calls those with the least amount of experience, those who are the most unlikely candidates for discipleship, which means that when he calls you to follow him, it’s not because you’re so gifted, because you’re so smart or dedicated, or because of

your natural potential, because of your massive influence or your platform. In fact, Jesus tends to call the kinds of people who would make horrible disciples. Also when Jesus calls you, notice he is the one who makes you effective. When Jesus said to Simon and Andrew, I will make you fishers of men, he was revealing something, that Jesus was going to make them effective disciples. It had nothing to do with their past achievements, or how hard they worked, or whether they would win the approval of Jesus. Because ultimately, Jesus does the hard work of making you, molding you, and shaping you into an effective disciple. So a disciple of Jesus is more than just for a season. When he calls you, you become a lifelong disciple, always learning, always growing, always reforming. And finally, as a disciple of Jesus, your end goal is not to be greater than Jesus,

but to become more like Jesus. And the more you grow as a disciple, the better you understand this, the better you see yourself as you actually are, not God, not greater than God, but by the grace of God, more conformed into the image of God. See Jesus in almost every way reverses the paradigm of a first century discipleship program, and institutes a new and better way of being a disciple. And this new paradigm, this new and better way of being a disciple results in two things, a new and better master, and a new and better mission. So let’s look at the first, a new and better master. Jesus says to these fishermen, follow me. And it seems like such a simple call, follow me. But this call is so much more loaded than what it seems on the surface. The call to follow is not just, hey, I’m gonna lead you somewhere, come after me, follow

A New and Better Master

where I’m going. While it does capture some of that, it’s so much more than that. It means to forsake all the other things that you’ve been following after, all the things that you’ve been chasing after to find fulfillment. It means to begin to pattern your life after Jesus. It means to orient your life that prioritizes Jesus above all the other things that you’ve been following. Jesus says, follow me because he knows everybody is following something. And more specifically, he knows we tend to follow what we worship. One of the biggest problems in this life that is marred by sin is that we make things that we follow into idols of worship. But none of those things were made to hold the weight of our worship, so they ultimately collapse and fail us. We entrust ourselves to those things, believing that they will provide meaning and significance

and happiness and acceptance, but they never produce the results that we want. They never do. In fact, it does the opposite. Those things quickly turn on us. We end up getting mastered by the very things that we freely pursued in the first place. We become enslaved by all those other things we follow. Things like money, stability, knowledge, sexual pleasure, identity, happiness, comfort, community, influence, and power. We live in a culture that says, follow your heart, follow your dreams, follow the money, follow the trends, follow whatever makes you feel good about yourself. But Jesus says, no, follow me, because I’m better than all those things. See, we were made to follow the son, but instead of following the son, we end up following everything under the son. That’s what sin has done to us. It has broken us and our thinking. Jesus calls us to follow him because he is a new and better master, one that liberates

not enslaves, one that brings us true meaning and lasting satisfaction, not just momentary pleasure, one that offers forgiveness and a future hope, not circumstantial happiness or your best life now. It’s a new and better master that he calls us to. We need to follow him because he’s better in every possible way. Every scenario, every circumstance, he is far better because he is the one we were made to follow. And the truth is, our hearts will not be content until we follow him completely. So Trinity Church, you need to think about the things that you are following after. You need to understand if those things are mastering you and keeping you from following Jesus completely. If they are, you need to identify them, mark them out. You need to turn away from them. Those things will not help you in the end. They won’t. They’re not going to help you find freedom or feel satisfied or complete.

And most importantly, those things, they can’t save you. No matter how appealing they appear, they can’t save you or bring you peace with God. See, this is what separates Christianity from all other religions and philosophies of life. All other religions and philosophies make you follow rules. They make you follow laws. They make you follow karma. They prescribe a lifestyle that you must follow to gain acceptance with God. If you do this religious thing or if you go to this religious place, if you act a certain way, if you treat people the way you want to be treated, if you give enough money to a particular cause, then God will see that you’re a really good person and then he will accept you. Jesus says, follow me. I’m better. And I accept you not because you’re better than most people, but because I’m better. See this is the beauty of the gospel.

It’s not rules you follow. It’s Jesus you follow. And when we recognize this, there is so much freedom. There is rest from all the hard work of trying to make yourself right with God. Jesus calls you to follow him, to find rest from your empty pursuits. Jesus calls you to follow him, to find the peace that you’ve been looking for. Jesus calls you to follow him, to find the forgiveness of sins and life everlasting. He is a new and better master than the ones that we’ve been chasing after. And the second result of this call is that we receive a new and better mission. Jesus says, I will make you fishers of men. And this is so characteristic of Jesus. He meets us where we’re at. He meets these fishermen where they’re at. He knows they’re fishermen. He knows their framework of life is inextricably connected to what they do.

They’ve always been fishermen. They were trained as little kids in the family business to be fishermen. Their father was a fisherman. Their grandfather was a fisherman. Their great grandfather was likely a fisherman. Their identity in so many ways was woven into their work as fishermen. And Jesus says with these words, with this wordplay, I will make you fishermen become fishers of men. You’ve spent your whole life catching fish. Everything you know about your life has been caught up with catching fish to provide for your family, to give you a sense of security. But all of that is about to change because I’m calling you to something better. I’m going to call you to catch men and women. He meets them where they’re at and he begins to move them into ministry, into mission. He takes what’s familiar to these men to reshape their framework. He calls them to give up everything they know to pursue following Jesus.

Work as Mission Field

And Jesus will give them a new mission through their work to expand God’s kingdom. Now side note, and I’m going to camp here for a bit. Jesus by virtue of calling them to something better doesn’t undermine their previous work or tear down the value of their previous work. He’s not mocking the fact that these men are fishermen, that they just need to get a better job than being fishermen. He reorients their work experience. He says your life was your work, but now I’m going to make your work bring life to not only yourself, but other people. And my mission of expanding my kingdom will work through your work. See your work is first and foremost for the glory of God. Your work is good and we should find satisfaction in your work, but your work serves a greater purpose than just stability and provision for your family.

Your work ultimately serves the purposes of God. Yes, your work is a means of financial stability, but your work is also a mission field. Your work is in many ways a light in one of the darkest places in this world, the place where most people find their identity, self-worth and value. Your work is a tangible expression of God’s character building, his stewardship producing and his dependence development. God has meticulously and providentially placed you in your specific workplaces, not to work as a means to an end, but primarily to work on you, to work on your heart and to work on the hearts of those in your workplace. So Jesus values your work. You are an instrument of his grace in your workplace. Even in conflict, even in struggle, God is at work in your work. See, it’s not the fact that Jesus calls them to a new job or a different job that makes

them better, that makes their mission better. It’s their perspective that makes it better. When you follow Jesus, everything about you is reoriented, including your understanding of work. This is where the satisfaction of your work comes into focus, because there’s mission behind it. There’s greater purpose behind this than just a paycheck. See, here’s the point. Your work in so many ways is about you, but it’s not ultimately about you. It’s about Jesus and how he uses your work as a new and better mission. Listen, there are people in your workplace whose sole mission is to make the most money they possibly can, because they believe that’s where true freedom is. There are people in your workplace whose only focus is at the top of the corporate ladder, because that’s where they believe true happiness is. What a sad and meaningless life. What a shallow pursuit of freedom and happiness.

They could lose their job, and all the freedom and happiness that was stacked on top of that job in one downsizing decision, in one moment, it can be gone. It would all collapse on them. All their ambition, gone. This is why God places us on mission in our workplaces, so that we could speak to these unique challenges and point them to the true and lasting hope that comes only from Jesus, the true and living God who is more permanent than their retirement plans, more stable than their 401ks, and more secure than social security. God is in the business of making us better and making others better in our places of business, no matter what that business is. So wherever you work, Squarespace, Nike, Intel, Airbnb, whether you work in a coffee shop, whether you’re a contractor, or whether you’re a stay-at-home mom working, God is in the

business of making you better through your work, and in some cases, not all cases, but in some cases, God will call us from our places to work and move us where he finds us most useful. See, if our work is first and foremost about the glory of God, then God can and does move us from one job to another at his will to maximize his glory, even if it doesn’t make sense to us, even if we don’t understand it. Because work is mission, there’s always purpose behind it, so we can trust God, and that’s exactly what Jesus does with these fishermen. He calls these fishermen to give up everything they know about their work to literally follow Jesus, and it’s here where we begin to see the cost to follow. Jesus, with this call, interrupts their comfort and expertise. He interrupts their stability and family obligations.

The Cost to Follow

He challenges their identity and pride of work. He interrupts the convenience and predictability of their work. He interrupts their whole world and pushes them into a world of the unknown and unpredictable. Jesus says to these fishermen, I’m gonna take your world of fishing and make you effective ministry makers. Everything about your current work, I’m gonna rework and use it to remake my world and my people. Listen, there’s a cost associated with these men following Jesus. They were giving up their life to follow Jesus, their work, their family, their social status, their financial security, their retirement plan, everything. They were giving it all up. They’ll later come to find out that Jesus was worth it. It was better. Now when Jesus calls you to follow him, it doesn’t always mean that you gotta leave your job and become a pastor. It happened for me, but it doesn’t happen to everybody.

But here’s what it does mean. It means that you gotta leave your previous understanding of what your work is, why you work, who you ultimately work for, and what God intends for you to do in your workplaces. I love how Jesus teaches us about discipleship through a story of fishermen and catching fish. It seems so random, seems so weird, but it’s actually not. It’s actually perfect because catching fish has with it both a negative and positive connotation, especially in the scriptures. Catching fish has both a judgment and deliverance motif. And you see this judgment motif all throughout the Old Testament where God is portrayed as a fisherman who is catching men in the net of his wrath and judgment. Jeremiah 16, 16, it says, Behold, I am sending for many fishers, declares the Lord, and they shall catch them. And afterward, I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain

and every hill and out of the cliffs of the rock. Jesus here is illustrating catching men as a sense of judgment. And Amos 4, 2 says,

The Lord God has sworn by his holiness that, Behold, the days are coming upon you when they shall take you away with hooks, even the last of you with fish hooks

— Amos 4

(ESV)

. There’s this judgment motif with fishermen and catching men. But Jesus here flips this Old Testament motif using the same imagery, but instead of catching men in the net of judgment, he catches men in the net of grace and mercy. You see how perfectly that fits? Jesus reverses this Old Testament metaphor of judgment and uses it for deliverance. Jesus calls these fishermen to follow him, and as a result, he will make them catch and rescue men and women from sin, judgment, and death by placing them in the safety of God’s

coming kingdom. The imagery of being caught is both hope and terror, depending on whether or where you sit with God. When the Lord returns, it will be either glorious or terrible, depending on where you stand with Jesus. If you are in Jesus, you will be saved in his net of grace and mercy. If you are not in Jesus, you will be caught in his net of unbearable wrath and judgment. If you are here this morning and you’re not a Christian, then you are not safe from his coming judgment yet. You need to be caught in the net of God’s grace. You need to trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins. Trusting in Jesus is exactly what it means to follow Jesus. You can follow him right where you are. Ask Jesus to save you. Ask Jesus to forgive you, and he will do it.

Brothers and sisters, this is what God is calling us to do, to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, to go and make men and women to become fishers of men and women. He’s calling us all to do ministry so that we can help men and women be saved from the wrath to come. You are God’s instrument to bring the good news of God’s saving work to a world of people floating around whose inevitable fate is death and judgment. When we follow Jesus in a way that is unencumbered, God by his spirit and through his word will train us in the art and skill of catching people in the net of his grace and mercy. This is how God’s beautiful plan works. He catches us with the gospel. He changes us. He makes us followers of Jesus so that we would be compelled to catch others with the

gospel so that the Lord might make them followers of Jesus. This is God’s beautiful plan for his people. This is how he expands his kingdom one by one, new heart by new heart. This is what the call to follow looks like, responding to Jesus, following Jesus, letting him master over you, letting him reshape your framework for life and work and mission. God authoritatively calls you to follow after him. It’s a summons, not an option, which means you must do it. This is what it means to be a disciple, to respond in obedience to the call to follow no matter what the cost to follow. See these fishermen responded to Jesus without hesitation. That’s what I love about Mark’s gospel. It’s, they just do it. The Lord summons them and their cost is inconsequential. They just do it. They cannot not respond. Now these, these were businessmen.

Counting the Ultimate Cost

They knew risk assessment. They knew cost recovery. They knew those things, but they were willing to follow Jesus. These men were going to give up a lot for Jesus. They were going to give up a lot, but they couldn’t possibly know how much they would actually give up for following Jesus. See history tells us a bit about the fate of these four fishermen. These four fishermen would become apostles. Three of the four would be in Jesus’s inner circle. One would be Jesus’s closest friend, Simon, who Jesus called Peter, his closest friend would later become crucified upside down in Rome by Nero for refusing to renounce the faith. Andrew would be martyred for his faith by crucifixion in the city of Patras. James was the first of the 12 to be martyred. He was beheaded by Herod for his faith. John, who is the writer of the fourth gospel, is the only one who lived a long life.

The only one reported to have a nonviolent death. Three out of four of these fishermen martyred for following Jesus. Why? Why were these men martyred? They preached the gospel of peace to people. Why were they martyred? Because the gospel of peace that demands you to follow Jesus is so offensive to this dark world full of people who don’t want to be told who to follow and how to follow. Angry and aggressive people who want to follow their heart’s desire even if their heart’s desires lead them to death. They want to follow whatever they want to follow, and if you get in the way of what they want to follow, they’ll kill you for it. Mark 8, verses 34 and 35, Jesus is talking to his disciples and as well to the crowd. He says, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow

me. For whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake and for the gospel’s sake will save it. See, the call to follow Jesus is met with an expensive cost. For some, it will be very hard to follow Jesus. For some, it will be hell to follow Jesus. But our hope and our prayer for you is that God would give you and us the boldness we need to follow in the footsteps and, if necessary, in the fate of our Savior and these four fishermen by making the gospel known at whatever the cost. For some of us, we will experience the full weight of this cost to follow Jesus. The full weight of it. But rest assured that all of us who trust in Jesus, all of us will feel the full weight of God’s glory in this life when it’s done.

Brothers and sisters, we can give our lives to following Jesus because this life is only for a moment. This life is only for the here and now. We have a future hope. We have everlasting life that we look forward to. It is such a beautiful gift to us. We should follow after Jesus with our lives because when we lose it for him, we will gain it. Let’s pray. Father, we pray that you would help us to end our shallow view of what it means to be Christians. We pray, God, that this text this morning would help us to understand what it actually means to respond to the call and to actually consider the cost. I pray, God, that you by your spirit would empower us to endure, would empower us to follow and empower us to suffer if we have to suffer for the cost of following you.

I pray, oh Lord and God, for those who are suffering right now as a result of following Jesus, those who are suffering in their places of work, those who are suffering in their homes, in their relationships, in their family relationships. God, I pray that you would help them to see that it’s not all for nothing. Help them to see the value in the suffering. Help them to see what you are producing in the suffering. Help them to see that this life is not all there is. Help us to examine the call and to move forward with whatever the cost. We pray these things in Jesus’ name. Amen. Thanks for joining us for this week’s sermon from Trinity Church in Portland, Oregon. If you’d like to learn more about us, you can visit our website at www.trinityportland.com.

Amen.