Corona Chronicles 2: (Ep.3) Come Follow Me
91 sermons
Here we are again in coronavirus and we're going to see Jesus calling. His disciples. It's really good following Jesus. That's what it's really about. And we're gonna start at chapter 1 verse 16.
As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galile, He saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake for they were fishermen. Come. Follow me, Jesus said, and I will send you out to fish for people. At once, they left their nets and followed him. When it got a little further, he saw James, son of Zebedee and his brother, Joel, in a boat, preparing their nets.
Without delay, he called them, and they left their father, separately, in the boat with the hired men and followed him. Yes. So here we are, and we're we're continuing with Jesus, and he's been in galilee proclaiming the good news about the kingdom of God. And now we're starting to learn that this isn't just gonna be a solo mission. You know, he's not just gonna be doing this all by himself.
He wants to get a band of followers together. Who will be about the same thing. And so he approaches these fishermen, Simon, and his brother Andrew, saying come follow me and I will send you out to fish for people, which is a wonderful illustration to say, you know. Well, it's so simple, isn't it? Yeah.
Because it isn't, you know, I mean, we were seeing at the end of revelation. It's not go and do all of this. It's come follow me. And that really is the Christian message. But yesterday, we we we were talking about the kingdom of God has come near repent and believe the gospel.
This is really a definition of it. It's not it's there's nothing sort of weird about it or strangely religious or you've got to do go to various sort of buildings or something. It for the kingdom of God to come into your life is for you to just say, that's what my life is about. Now, you may not leave your job like these do. No.
But their life your life is about the kingdom of God. Your life is about following Jesus. Yeah. That's right. And it it it's, you know, the whole this whole gospel message just reminds us is is designed for the world.
We want as many people as possible to come and see what a good news Jesus is. And, it it's it's all in this chapter. So, you know, you've got John. You know, John comes. He's going public with the message.
The fact that Jesus even comes to earth is God going public with with the gospel, isn't it? He calls people to go public with the gospel. It's all about revealing God's glory telling as many people as possible that sins can be forgiven and new life can be found in Jesus. And he used his ordinary people. This is the thing.
So, you know, who's he going to recruit? Well, the most religious, the ones who've got their lives together, the best academics, you know, top of their class. No. He's using humble ordinary fishermen from ordinary families and say, I'm inviting you to be part of the most significant story ever. You know, you you you can be my followers and go out and tell others.
Yeah. And that's great, because we, you know, we're all pretty ordinary, aren't we? But we can be part of this as well. Yeah. And he and he's not against training because he will train.
But But as we'll see, as we go through Mark's gospel, that actually the training is being with him. Isn't it? So he's gonna turn them around from fishing for fish to be fishing for people. Yeah. And and that again is what the church is meant to be about to be quite honest.
We are here to fish for people and to bring people to the lord Jesus Christ, and that's just great privilege. Because he's such good news. Yeah. It's not like, oh, you know, you better come to God or you you know -- Yeah. Yeah.
-- this is this is the king -- Yeah. -- of life. Yeah. Isn't it? And it's interesting here, isn't it?
How this there's an immediacy about their follow-up So verse 18 at once, they left their next verse 20 without delay, he called them. And, you know, there are times in life when we get called to do stuff and, you know, you think of and the the more important it is and the better it is, the quicker you go. So if somebody says, you know, oh, there's a, you know, there's a phone call for you. So he said, I'll do it in a minute or, you know, would you mind just going up into the loft? Oh, I'll do it later.
You know, it's a call upon your life, but, you know, you're not gonna do it instantly. But when this call comes to follow the king -- Yeah. -- net dropped without delay, up out. Because the most I mean, it is quite funny because it sort of says, I left their father's everybody in the boat. Yeah.
It's like, yeah. You know, Yeah. What poor bloke? You know? Yeah.
They're sort of jumping out the boat walking along and going. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. But there's a serious point here.
Isn't there? And I think, you know, when Jesus when we hear the invitation of Jesus, to follow him and to know this forgiveness, 1 of the craziest things you can do is to say, I'll come back to it. Yeah. You know, or do you know what? I've experienced a bit of that.
I might take it up a bit later on in life. You know, or I'll delay it. You know, that that No. This is the kind of thing that if it's true, then we need to drop our next metaphorically and and get up to go. You know And it is worth saying that is metaphorically.
You you may not be physically called to leave your family. Yeah. But I think, as I was saying at the beginning, I think the point is that that you leave your you've the biggest influence now of your life is is to follow the lord Jesus because he's the Lord and the king. And and so, yeah. And so, you can immediately see that there could possibly be opposition.
Yes. To your following Jesus. Yes. So we don't have it here, but that we'll see it later on. We will.
Yeah. Okay. Well, see you next time.