“Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” – Matthew 4;19.
If ever there was a time when people needed Jesus, this is that time. We are a nation at war with ourselves. Deceit, hypocrisy, treachery, injustice, self-indulgence, religious militancy and challenges, redefinition of reality, confusion, cowardice, are just a few of the “character” traits seen in our land. Two thousand years ago the Apostle Paul was inspired by the Holy Spirit to speak of a time in the future described as:
2 Timothy 3:1–5 – But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, 4 traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!
Are we not living in such times today, now? I believe we are.
Paul is led by the Holy Spirit to instruct us, “And from such people turn away!” That is not a call to have nothing to do with such people. That is a warning to not follow or indulge in their sinful practices. If this phrase was meant to be interpreted to support our isolation from the world, it would contradict the most fundamental truth of God and His word. That truth is, rather than scrap and trash, and give up on the sinful people of this world, God’s Holy Loving Gracious response to the sinfulness of humanity is to make a way to redeem them. That same redemptive plan is to be at the heart of all those who claim to be followers of the Triune God the Father, the Son Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. If you are a follower of your Creator and Father in heaven, you don’t easily ignore or relegate to damnation those who He created in His image. If you call yourself a Christian, or little christ, you shouldn’t find it easy to remain distant and uninvolved with those Jesus Christ left His throne and went to the cross to make their redemption possible. If you claim to have been born again by the Holy Spirit, there is nothing holy about turning your back on the lost. God demonstrates “His own love” toward us in that while we were still sinners, He sent Jesus to save us (Romans 5:8). We should demonstrate His love the same way in our lives.
But what a mess. What a dark time we live in. What a temptation to despair. While writing this teaching I was tempted and almost succumbed to getting really political. There is so much battling of ideas and worldviews in our world today. People, including myself, are passionate about what they believe. It’s a volatile time in human history. But no matter what we are going through in this world and our nation, no matter what horizontal “solutions” people are looking to, the only real solution is vertical. The only One who can fix and clean up this mess and redeem this world from its sinful filthiness, is Jesus. Jesus is our only hope. We have to get back to Jesus. We need to be His disciples.
By saying this I am not at all advocating for Christians to disengage and be uninvolved. To do that would be to run contrary to Jesus who calls us to be disciples who glorify God in this world by being salt and light (Matthew 5:13-16). You have to ignore a whole lot of Scripture and especially the life and words of Jesus to justify being uninvolved in society. I believe Jesus would have His disciples involved and actively engaged and being an influence for Him in every facet of society. I just believe that in doing that we have to have a priority that is more than political. Our priority should be to follow Jesus and share Him with the lost.
Jesus was born of the Holy Spirit. We must be born again of the Holy Spirit (John 3). Jesus was attacked from His birth by those who wanted to destroy Him (Matthew 2). We must be willing to suffer attacks and persecution. Jesus was baptized with the Holy Spirit (Matthew 3). We must be baptized and empowered by the Holy Spirit (Acts 1-2). The Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil (Matthew 4). We must be willing to be tested in a wilderness too. Only when we have experienced these steps of preparation are we ready to march and go out to fulfill the mission God calls us to. There’s a word for someone who has experienced this and who is following Jesus and obeying Him, that is called discipleship.
Discipleship
Before we go any further we need to understand that Jesus calls us to be a disciple. A disciple is a learner. A disciple is a follower. A disciple follows their master or teacher learning from everything they see their master do and teach. We are called to be disciples of Jesus.
Every disciple is a Christian, but not every Christian is a disciple. We are not saved by discipleship. Discipleship is demanding. It is a life lived out in appreciation for Jesus. A disciple has the perspective that, “Jesus gave His all for me, how can I give Him anything less?” Their lives are characterized by the words of Christian disciples like the missionary C.T. Studd who said, “This one life will soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last. And when I am dying how happy I’ll be, if the lamp of my life has been burned out for Thee.” Can you relate to such sentiments? Does that describe you?
Some Christians are satisfied to live on the edges of salvation in Christ. They are what Studd described as “Chocolate Soldiers,” ‘chocolate Christians.” Studd wrote in a classic description of lukewarm Christians who are “dissolving in water and melting at the smell of fire. ‘Sweeties’ they are! Bonbons, lollipops! Living their lives on a glass dish or in a cardboard box, each clad in his soft clothing, a little frilled white paper to preserve his dear little delicate constitution.” [1] Chocolate Christians are not what will reach or change this world, they will melt when the heat is turned up.
We need to be disciples of Jesus Christ. What does that look like? What does a disciple of Jesus do?
First Things First – The Gospel of Jesus
Matthew 4:17 – “From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
The first word of Jesus’ mission message was “repent.” The prophets called people to repent. John the Baptist preached repentance. The Apostles preached repentance. Jesus preached repentance. If the lost are to be saved and this world redeemed, repentance must be a part of the message proclaimed to them.
Salvation does not come without repentance. “Repent,” is translated from the Greek term metanoeo and means, “to change one’s mind; to change one’s mind for better, heartily to amend with abhorrence of one’s past sins.” [2] Before a person can be forgiven their sins they must first turn from their sins and sinful lifestyle and turn to God through faith in Christ. Repentance is essential and necessary for salvation. True repentance is evidenced by visible change in the life of the repentant person. That is not popular in the world today. The world of our day does not repent of sin, it justifies, approves, and promotes sin. It does all this in the name of “love.” But such love encourages people to live in sin, and only serves to compound the pain that sin produces. True love speaks truth in love, even if it challenges sinners to repent and turn from their sins.
Repentance is not a work that we do to be saved from our sins. Salvation is a gift of God’s grace. Jesus did the work of salvation on the cross. The resurrection of Jesus is God’s validation on His redemptive work. We receive forgiveness for our sins by trusting in Jesus and His redemptive work and resurrection. Repentance is one side of the coin of saving faith. Saving faith is heeding the conviction of the Holy Spirit that we are sinners separated from God by our sins and therefore, in need of saving (Isaiah 59:1-2). Repentance is turning from our sins (John 16:8-11). Saving faith is asking God’s forgiveness for our sins. This involves trusting that the atoning substitutionary atonement of Jesus on the cross is the only sufficient basis for such forgiveness to be justly given by God as a gift of His grace.
“The kingdom of heaven” points to an immediate arrival of the call and opportunity to know God personally through faith in Jesus and live for Him (e.g., John 17:3). In Matthew 5-7 we have Jesus’ greatest message, The Sermon on the Mount. In this message Jesus provides us with a call to live by principles that are higher and holier than a mere religion. Jesus calls us to have transformed hearts that live above mere keeping of laws.
“The kingdom of heaven” also points to the future establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth. This Kingdom will be established at the Second Coming of Jesus that follows the Seventieth Week of Daniel on earth or a seven-year period of Tribulation on earth (cf., Daniel 9:24-27; Revelation 6-20).
The phrase, “is at hand,” in Jesus’ message carries with it a sense of urgency for the lost. Greg Laurie, in his most recent book entitled The Upside-Down Church states the following:
“I believe the biggest reason we in the church are not carrying out the great commission is that we don’t care enough. We’re simply not that concerned about the souls of others.
General William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, once said that if he could have his wish, part of the final training for preachers and evangelists would be to have them hung over the open fires of hell for twenty-four hours ‘so those that were sharing this gospel message would recognize the urgency of it,’ he explained.” [3]
The disciple who has a heart for souls, an urgency for the lostness of humanity will be open to what God wants to do in and through them, whether that means to stay where they are or move on to another area. The point is that wherever the disciple is placed by God, they will urgently seek to be used by God to save souls and make disciples.
This urgency is what we see in the lives of the early disciples. When confronted by the powers that be who demanded they stop preaching the gospel, their response was, “For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20). When the early disciples were beaten for proclaiming the gospel, REJOICED THAT THEY WERE COUNTED WORTHY TO SUFFER FOR JESUS (Acts 5:40-42).
Nothing and no one could stop the first century disciples from sharing their faith in Christ and being used by God to save the lost. The early disciples couldn’t stop witnessing. Our problem is often that we can’t get started! The apostle Paul put it this way, “For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for necessity is laid upon me; yes, woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!” (1 Corinthians 9:16). Paul described his call of Jesus on his life as a call to “to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me” (Acts 26:18).
Most importantly, Paul said his calling from Christ was a loving compulsion to reach the lost. The love of Christ should compel and motivate us in all we do. One of the greatest portions of scripture is the inspired passage of Paul to the church in Corinth. This passage lays out not only motive to drive us onward, but what indeed the message is we are to share:
2 Corinthians 5:14-21 – “For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died;15 and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.16 Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer.17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.18 Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation,19 that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.20 Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
Do you see yourself as a disciple who is an ambassador of God, God’s representative sent by Him to plead and implore with the lost to come to Christ to be saved. I pray you are. I pray all who claim the name of Christian are compelled by the love of Jesus and this message of the Gospel. Disciple, Jesus had a sense of urgency for the lost, we need to have a sense of urgency toward the lost too. Plead and implore if need be, but by all means be used by God to reach the lost.
Disciple, Commit Yourself Entirely To Christ
Matthew 4:18-22 – “And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen.19 Then He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.”20 They immediately left their nets and followed Him.21 Going on from there, He saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets. He called them,22 and immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed Him.”
Fishermen were not people of nobility or high class. On the contrary fishermen were usually characterized by having salty language and vulgar habits. But these are the ones who Jesus chose and called to be His disciples. Why did Jesus choose these fishermen? Perhaps He saw in them potential and qualities that you or I might glance over. Fishermen must be patient and persevering. Fishermen must be strong and courageous and willing to take risks on the sea. Fishermen must pay attention to the detail of their nets or risk losing fish that pass through its holes. Fishermen learn to work together to get the job done. All of these qualities are needed by disciples. Jesus, the Supreme Disciple-Maker took these men and brought out their full potential for the glory of God.
The greatest attribute of these fishermen was the willingness to “immediately” leave everything behind to follow Jesus. These men answered the call of Christ to be disciples without hesitation. From the very start they showed an interest and trust in Christ. If you look at the instances in the gospels in which Jesus calls a person to follow Him what you see is that He does not allow for dilly dallying around by the one given the opportunity to answer the call (Matthew 8:18-23; Luke 18:18-30). When Jesus calls a person, they need to be ready, willing to follow Him.
We also need to see here that the calling of Jesus brings the disciple into a cycle of reproduction of disciples. Christ’s desire for the disciple is to reproduce other disciples. It’s important to note here that Jesus didn’t say, “Follow Me, and I will help you make more fishermen.” The disciples were not called by Christ to reproduce themselves, but to reproduce those who would be disciples of Jesus. The disciple does not reproduce him or herself but is called to reproduce disciples of Jesus who seek to be transformed into the likeness of Jesus by the Spirit. This is the fruit of discipleship.
Fishing for Men – The Evangelism of a Disciple
If we want to truly impact this world for the glory of God, we need to recognize we are commissioned by Jesus to make disciples (Matthew 28:18-20). Jesus described this a fishing for men. What does that look like in life? Two passages come to mind:
Matthew 4:19-20 – Then He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.”20 They immediately left their nets and followed Him.
John 21:6–10 – 6 And He said to them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast, and now they were not able to draw it in because of the multitude of fish. 7 Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment (for he had removed it), and plunged into the sea. 8 But the other disciples came in the little boat (for they were not far from land, but about two hundred cubits), dragging the net with fish. 9 Then, as soon as they had come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid on it, and bread. 10 Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish which you have just caught.”
I’m no fisher-of-fish, but I have devoted my life to fishing for people. When we look at these two passages we can glean the following parts of fishing for the unsaved evangelistically.
Look to Jesus. We have to learn how to fish from the Fisher of Men. We learn how to fish for men by following Jesus and watching how He did it (Matthew 4:20). Jesus didn’t tell us to go and do logistical studies or to learn from the way the world catches people to sell them goods. Jesus said, “Follow Me.” He is our Source for catching sinners.
Respond immediately. Go “immediately” (waste no time) fishing with the Fisher of Men (Matthew 4:20). There needs to be a sense of urgency given the importance of the precarious position the unsaved are in. Every person that lives outside the saving relationship with Jesus is at risk to die and spend eternity separate from Him in a place of eternal torment. Every person will be judged upon their death (Hebrews 9:27). There are no second chances after death. Indecision is decision. When Jesus calls, we need to go immediately. When Jesus calls us there are no other priorities more important than His calling.
Go where Jesus directs you to go. Find a good spot where the fish are biting; where the Fisher of Men tells you to fish (John 21:6a). Jesus knows where tender hearts and hurting souls are. In prayer seek leading from Jesus as to where you are to cast your net.
Be bait. Throw in some bait before you throw in the net; load your hook with bait. By “bait” I do not mean carnal means (e.g., 2 Corinthians 10:3-4). The Christian disciple is a living epistle, the embodiment of scripture (2 Corinthians 3:2-3). Our lives lived in the name of Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit is the “bait” that attracts the unsaved fish of this world. In this sense a lot of times the way we live will bring unsaved fish to us. Let the fish see the bait.
Get involved. Cast in your net or line with hook and bait amongst the fish. If you want to catch unsaved fish with the gospel of Jesus Christ, you have to live among them. Isolation from the world is a sure-fire way to evangelistically starve. You can’t find unsaved fish unless you are living in the world of the unsaved.
Be patient. Be patient, trust Jesus to bring the catch (John 21:6b). Fishing for people with the gospel is not something we do in our own strength. The Holy Spirit works with unsaved people, in their minds and hearts to draw them to us. The Spirit uses the bait of our holy lives to attract the fish. Often the unsaved are standoffish from us because they want to see if we are real and authentic, not just putting on a show of what we believe. That takes time. Be patient. Pray. Be ready. Jesus will bring the unsaved into the net.
Be alert. When you get a bite, pull it in. If it’s too heavy and bit of a catch, ask your friends to help. Expect Jesus to bring a catch of unsaved fish. Fishermen don’t throw in a net or hook not expecting to catch fish. Have holy expectations and confidence that the fish will eventually bite and be caught.
Bring the fish to Jesus. Bring the fish to Jesus (John 21:10). Remember, when the Holy Spirit is working, He is pointing people to Jesus (John 15:26; 16:14). Evangelist fishing is not about us winning followers to ourselves. Evangelistic fishing is about reaching the lost and introducing them to Jesus, to become a follower, a disciple of Him.
Help with the cleaning. Clean the fish. Eat the fish with Jesus. When we catch a fish in evangelism, we don’t just leave them. We should bring the fish to Jesus and His word so they can be cleaned and prepared to be used by Him. Fishing for men is not just catching, its facilitating the cleaning and teaching and discipling new convert to know what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
Keep fishing. Fish some more. Don’t stop fishing for lost people. Keep casting your net, filling it up, and casting it in again. There are tons of fish to catch in the sea of lost in this world. There is a lot of work to do. Seek the guidance of Jesus and empowerment of the Holy Spirit.
Practice fishing. The more you fish with Jesus, the better you will get at it. A good fisherman is one who is well practiced. The more you fish the more you will learn about the various kinds of fish there are. The more you share the gospel the better and more appropriate you will become at doing so.
Give Jesus the glory. When the disciples saw their nets filled to overflowing, immediately the realized it was Jesus who had helped them. Any and every blessing you or others experience should be credited to Jesus. “It is the Lord!” Give all glory to Jesus.
This is what following Jesus is all about. Without discipleship, you’re missing out on a huge part of what it means to be a Christian. Every disciple is a Christian, but not every Christian is a disciple. What are you?
Please join me in a concluding prayer: Father in heaven, we come to you in Jesus’ name. We admit we aren’t all we should be, but we rejoice we are so much more with You than we ever would have been without You. Father, in Jesus’ name, in the power of the Holy Spirit, please help us to be Your disciples. Jesus please show us where and how to fish for lost souls. Help us to be good bait. Help us to bring many people to You. Help us to obey You and imitate you in our lives. Please make us what we need to be, so we can do what You call us to do, for Your glory, until Jesus returns for us. In Jesus’ name. Amen!
[1] https://www.wholesomewords.org/missions/msctserm.html
[2]Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon, (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.) 1995.
[3] Greg Laurie, The Upside-Down Church, (Wheaton IL.: Tyndale House Pub.) 1999. pgs. 60-61