We
are in the fourth week of Epiphany, the time in the church calendar
when we emphasize that Jesus is the light of the world, the great hope
of the nations, the one who brings God's light and love to those who
sit in darkness.
Our Scripture begins by telling us that when
Jesus went to live in Capernaum by the Sea of Galilee, the Old
Testament prophecy of Isaiah was fulfilled. Centuries before Isaiah had
written, 15...Galilee of the Gentiles-- 16 the people living in
darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the
shadow of death a light has dawned."
According to this passage
of Scripture, there are many who do not have God's light. They are
downcast and live without hope. And our text tells us that Jesus is the
great light who brings hope and a whole new future to those who feel
lost and foresaken.
I think of communism in the last century.
The Communist party, from 1912 to 1991 (79 years), spread atheistic
ideology in Russia. Millions of Russians adults and young people were
brought up in that darkness. In the 1990s, the Russian government
invited Christian educators to come to their country to share the
teachings of the Christian faith. I was privileged to go with a team of
around 60 Christians educators.
For two weeks we met
with several hundred Russian teachers and school administrators. We
provided daily lectures and also met with them daily in small groups,
teaching them Christian values and basic Christian doctrine. During the
past fifteen years, thousands of Russian teachers have
received
this instruction and have used the Christian curricula we provided; and
hundreds of thousands of Russian high school students have benefited
spiritually and morally.
What were the most important topics that we taught?
(1)Jesus is the Son of God, the resurrected Lord of life. I had the
privilege of lecturing on the resurrection.
(2)God loves us and has given us access to his Kingdom blessings.
(3)We need to turn away from everything that would hinder our
relationship with him.
That’s
what our text tells us that Jesus taught: 17 From
that time
on Jesus began to preach, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is
near." This is a summary of his message -- and it begins with
the
word "repent." The word means to turn away from,-- to change
your
mind about things. There is nothing tricky about this. It does not tell
us what to turn from specifically. The emphasis is on turning from
anything that keeps you from God and turning in the direction which
takes you toward God and his Kingdom.
If you practice self-examination, you can ask yourself questions such
as these:
Is
there anyone who is keeping me from a closer walk with God? If the
answer is YES, I must repent. I may have to adjust or discontinue that
relationship.
Are my business or career practices at odds with the
commandments of God? If the answer is YES, I must repent. I will need
to make necessary changes.
Is there a habit, or a dependency that
comes between me and God? If the answer is YES, I need to do something
avout that, perhaps join a 12-step group to overcome that
dependency.
To repent is sometimes easy, sometimes
difficult. Why should we do this? Because the Kingdom of
Heaven
is at hand. All of God’s blessings-- His love, his peace, his
forgiveness, his presence in you and with you, his healing power as
demonstrated in the life and ministry of Jesus is at hand. It is
breaking in; it is already occurring. The fullness of the Kingdom is
yet to come, but in a very real sense it is already here.
The
Kingdom of Heaven-- This is such a major part of the preaching of Jesus
that I would like to take a moment to clarify its meaning.
1st,
-- When we speak of the Kingdom of God, we need to realize that it will
come in all of its fullness at the end of the age. It is God’s future
world when there will be no more tears, pain, sickness, or death. When
we pray, “Thy Kingdom come,” the ultimate answer to that prayer awaits
the second coming of Christ. The Kingdom is yet to come.
2nd
-- The Kingdom is made present to us personally through God’s
Word. That which awakens us to God’s Kingdom is the teaching
and
the preaching of the wonderful news of the Gospel. That was a major
view of the Reformation. When we pray, “Thy Kingdom come,” the agent
God uses to bring the Kingdom to us is His Word.
3rd --
Jesus said that “the Kingdom of God is within you.” What did
he
mean? The Kingdom is inside of us when we allow it to rule over our
hearts. When we pray, “Thy Kingdom come,” we are saying, “Lord rule in
my life; reign over my life.”
4th -- The Kingdom works in and
through individuals to establish justice and peace in the world. When
we pray, for example, for peace in Kenya, or in Pakistan, or in the
Middle East, we desire God’s Kingdom blessings of peace and
reconciliation, justice and good-will to be established in those
places. The Kingdom of the Heavens is thus present in
history.
The
point is this: if the Kingdom is in our hearts, it should pass into our
feet and hands and thus into society in good works. When we pray, “Thy
Kingdom come,” we are asking God to help us establish peace and justice
in this world.
We have seen how Jesus began his ministry by
preaching that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. We go now to the
second half of the story where Jesus recruits followers. Jesus
obviously wanted men and women who would share his ministry. And he
begins this process by enlisting Peter and Andrew.
What is
stressed in this account is the powerful effect of the words of Jesus.
Jesus says, «Follow me, and immediately, [at once] they left
their nets, and followed him. Nothing of the qualities or
potential of Peter or Andrew is mentioned. The words of Jesus dominate
this scene.
We see the same thing at the baptism and the
temptation of Jesus. When John objected and did not want to
baptize Jesus, Jesus answered Let it be so now! And John
hearing
Jesus' words, obeyed and baptized Jesus. Also when Jesus is tempted by
Satan in the first part of this chapter, he says to the devil, Away
from me, Satan! and the text records that Then, the Devil left him.
Matthew
repeatedly underlines the spiritual power of Jesus' Word. His Word has
great potency. It grips us, it enlightens us, it energizes us, it
empowers us.
I find it interesting that Jesus' first word to
Peter and Andrew is very positive. He does not tell them that they have
sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Instead he makes
the
most alluring promise. Jesus says to them, and he says the
same
thing to you and to me, Come, be my students, be my apprentices. Come,
join my school, and I will turn you into fishermen who catch
people. It's an attractive offer-- Jesus is saying that if you come and
learn from me, you will have an effectiveness with people, you will
have a much greater influence on others.
This is good news for
all of us, since every Christian is called to some form of service,
some form of ministry, some kind of fishing. Who of us does not want to
be more influential, more persuasive, more winsome? We want our lives
to make a mark.
We sometimes worry, and rightly, that our
ambitions may burn more brighty than they should. I was talking to one
of our members the other day -- a person with a very gracious and
attractive soul -- and she expressed concern that she sometimes feels
that she is drawing too much attention to herself rather than to
Christ. And I replied that all of us struggle with mixed
motives.
What you have to examine is your primary motive? You have to ask
yourself: Am I primarily seeking to promote the glory of God or my own
glory?”
Jesus knows we have this problem with ego, and yet he
does not hesitate to encourage our ambitions. He says: “Do you want to
make something of your life, to have a life that is useful?
Influential? Follow me! And I will make you catching.”
Verse 20
says At once they left their nets and followed him. Peter and Andrew
heard Jesus, and changed the whole direction of their lives.
In
the same way, you and I could hear those same words 2,100 years later--
Follow me, Be my disciple Let me shape your life, Let me enable you to
have a massive influence on others. And those words could grip your
life just as they gripped the lives of Peter and Andrew; just as they
have gripped the lives of millions upon millions of other persons since
then.
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Christianity
is the largest religious gathering in the world with 2.1 billion
adherents. Islam is second with 1.5 billion. The secular/ nonreligious/
Agnostic/ Atheists are third at 1.1 billion. And Hinduism is fourth at
900 million.
The point is that Jesus’ Word is so powerful that
it could cause you to make a decision now-- this moment-- immediately--
to change the whole direction of your life and to become his follower,
his student, his apprentice. The Word of Jesus has that kind of power.
It can have that kind of an effect on you this morning.
Matt.
4:21 says that Going on from there, [Jesus] 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 (eutheos afentes) the boat
and
their father and followed him.
This is a Hebrew parallelism,
which means that the same thing is being said twice. This
second
story of James and John is almost identical with the first story of
Peter and Andrew. This is the biblical way of underlining. Repetition
in Matthew’s Gospel or anywhere in Scripture, means that the author is
wanting to underline something, he is emphasizing a point and he
doesn't want you to miss it.
Jesus calls the two
brothers, James and John, and immediately (eutheos) (notice
the
repetition of that word) they responded; they left the boat and their
father and they followed him. The story is almost the same, but this
second story emphasizes the cost of following Jesus. The first two,
Peter and Andrew, left their nets. James and John, not only
leave
their nets, but also their boats and their father. Discipleship can be
very difficult, very costly, very diusruptive.
One of
our ACP church members decided to follow Jesus, at a tremendous price.
Her family disinherited her and disowned her. She has been
persecuted, and even received death threats. She had to leave her home
suddenly, with no time to sell her home, or her cars, or even take the
photographs of her family and her early years.
When she
arrived in France, she went through some very hard times, with no place
to stay, even sleeping in train stations. As she looks back on it now,
she says it was very hard, but she would never turn away from her Lord.
She is an impressive follower of Jesus. The power of Jesus word was
greater than the comfort, reassurance, and secruity of being with her
family. Unfortunately she was forced to make the choice beteen her
family and Jesus.
So what is Jesus asking you to do?
Convert the World? No, that's not your primary concern. How
about
the church? Shouldn't you be trying to correct the
weaknesses,
the faults, the errors of the church? Shouldn’t you reform
this
religious organization. No, that should not be your first concern.
If
you wish to improve the church and improve the world, your priority
should be to convert yourselves. The master said to the apostles, “Go
and make disciples,” But we must begin with ourselves. We have no other
God-appointed business but this. First we make disciples of ourselves
and then disciples-- followers of Christ-- of others.
Here's
what Dallas Willard says, professory of philosopy at the School of
Philosophy at the University of Southern California. “The greatest
issue facing the world today with all of its heart-breaking needs, is
whether those who are identified as “Christians” will become disciples
– students, apprenticers, practitioners—of Jesus Christ, steadily
learning from him how to live the life of the Kingdom of the Heavens
into every corner of human existence.”
That's what this church
and every church should be about. The making of disciples, followers of
Jesus. We can be involved in all kinds of other things; and
yet,
if we fail to make disciples we are missing out on the main thing that
Jesus wants us to do.
The most basic and important question is
this: Are we seeking to live our lives in accordance with his
commandments? Is it our desire to be like Him? Are we seeking
to
live the Sermon on the Mount? -- to turn the other cheek, to love our
enemies?
What is going to enable us to be his disciples? It is
the Lord's Word spoken to us. -- sometimes through circumstances,
sometimes through a sermon, sometimes through the reading of the Bible,
sometimes through a small group meeting, a Bible study, a prayer
group. The Lord's word comes to us from outside of ourselves
and
challenges us to follow Christ.
And here's the really
good news: When we set our hearts on following him, we become more
influential, more appealing to others. Have you seen it among
yourselves? Find someone who is truly committed to Jesus, who is a
student of His, who truly desires to be like him, and that person will
have a welcoming smile, an encouraging word, a warmth and
outgoing interest in you that is simply catching.
I
choose the title, “It's true and It Works.” What's true?
Here's
what's true-- Christ is the light that enlightens every person! We sit
in darkness until he comes and shines on us. It's
true!
And
what works? Here's what works-- the more closely we follow Jesus, the
more influential, the more helpful, charitable, sympathetic we become.
Whether we know it or not we become
“catching.” It's
true and it works! Amen.
