It kind of feels weird being up here again, you know, it's been a few weeks. I'm super thankful that David and john sat in for me and let me have a vacation where when I was on vacation, I got to relax and be on vacation. So that was pretty awesome. You know what I mean? Dang it. David said that we'll get as Bill. So that's alright. I'll put it on the church card. I don't have the churches card. So I won't
like to. Thank you, David,
for your time in the word.
Father, we
praise you. We give you the glory. And we thank you at this time for john, we just ask for your blessing to be upon him. And never yours will be open not just to our brain, but to our hearts receive what you have given him. Thank you.
Amen. All right. Let's go to Matthew chapter four, verse 18. While you're turning their eye, it's kind of nice to have a few weeks to prepare a message instead of one week or less than a week. So this will should be the best message I've ever delivered in my life. That was stupid to say I wouldn't. I will never say that. That was a joke. Dang it. I did say it. So I kind of blew it could be the biggest flop of my life. Actually. I'm just kidding. Let's read Matthew four, verse 18. Quick. So this is after Jesus has been tempted by the devil. And he's began this ministry in this area called Galilee, if you don't know, Galilee was his northern Israel. So it's not super close to Jerusalem and where all the tempo and all that stuff's going on. Alright, so this is a sea of Galilee area. Verse 18, as he was walking along the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who was called Peter and his brother, Andrew, they were casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. Follow me, he told him, and I will make you fish for people. Immediately. That's really powerful. They left their nets and followed him going on. From there, he saw two other brothers James his son of 70. And his brother john, they were in a boat with Zeb at their father, don't forget that they're sitting efficient with their daddy preparing the Nets their nets, and he called them immediately they left their boat and their father and follow Him. This morning, I just want to talk a little bit about what it means to be a disciple. I know that some of you may be like, Good lord john, would you stop talking about disciple making and disciples. But over the last three weeks, I felt in my heart that God has told me I've done an inadequate job raising the question, am I a disciple? Like, you know what I mean? Like, I'm sitting there telling everyone how to make disciples, and we may not even be disciples ourselves. So how can we reproduce something that we're not? You know what I mean? And so I've been doing a lot of study, and I've been doing a lot of thinking on what does it mean to be a disciple? I thought, like, I bet if I went around and asked everybody here, what's the disciple? Jerry, what's the disciple? Beverly? I've got to get 20 different answers. probably think, maybe more than that, like a ton of different answers, what it means to be, you know, a disciple. Some people may say, Well, I, I pray that my centers prayer, and now I'm a disciple of Jesus, like, okay, that's interesting. I don't know where that's at in the Bible. But that's interesting. You know, there's no centers prayer in the Bible, right? Oh, I'm gonna get we're gonna get in trouble. Now, Jesus, the restaurant ruler came to him and said, Jesus, I want to follow you. And she just said, pray this prayer with me, father. I'm so sorry for what I've done. I'm just kidding. See, I want to get people in trouble now. He said, Go Sal. And follow me. Whoo. Starting off on fire today, baby. I'm not messing around. I'm just kidding. So Sunday, but I may say what's been disciple I go to church on Sundays? Is that what it means to be a disciple? Right? I have a group of people we meet once a week and get together is that what it really means to be a disciple of Jesus? I get to that here in a second. I have a mentoring relationship with someone who is a spiritual father or mother to me, and we meet, you know, once a week and we study is that what being a disciple of Jesus is? Right? be interesting, right to hear what people think. I've gone all the way back. And I've been really looking at what is what did it mean, in the first century, when Jesus walked the earth? What does it mean to be a rabbi? Because isn't that really interesting that Jesus that God, and his infinite wisdom, chooses to come to earth to send His Son to Earth? And what is his vocation during ministry? He was a Jewish rabbi. And you know that Jesus was called to the, to the to the people of Israel. Now of course, the sacrifice went to the Gentiles and beyond. But he said, I've come to the lost sheep of Israel. That's my mission. Now. You His disciples mission was going to be to them and then to the ends of the earth. Right? Of course, Jesus hints at different types of people stuff as he's here and how much he really cares and how much he really loves them. But what is what, what, what is a disciple? I like what Brett said last week about being a Christian? Did y'all remember what he said there? I've adopted that same thing when I was talking to someone like two weeks before Brett said that. But Brett, if you weren't here, Brett said, When Brett Harrison he said, when someone says, Are you a Christian? His first question is, what is that? What does that mean to you? Like, what do you mean? What is a Christian? Because for some people being a Christian is aligning with a particular political party. Right? So some of it means, you know, going to church on Sunday, or believing this certain set of religious beliefs, like getting an idea of what someone means by what is a Christian helps us to respond better. Yes, I am a Christian, or if that's what you think a Christian is? No, I'm not. No, I'm not a Christian. If that's your definition.
Being a disciple is the same thing, I think, right? Like, if we think about that, we think about Yes, I'm a disciple or no, I'm disciple? I'm not sure. Well, again, I go back to what what is it? What's your, what's our definition of being disciple? And to what Jared said, there is a true definition of what being a disciple is it's not all willy nilly, and I just kind of decide what I might be or what I kind of feel like. And the reason I think that one of the reasons I think this is hugely important, as we examine this is, being whether we're disciples of Jesus or not, is not like a compartmentalize thing in our walk in our faith, meaning like, I don't like, here's my Bible reading. Here's my way I, you know, teach and train my family. And oh, yeah, I do a disciple thing. Whether we're disciples of Jesus or not affects everything that we do. It affects the way that we run our businesses, right, Jay, it really does. Like if I'm a true disciple of Jesus, the way I run my business will be different, wildly different than people who are not true disciples of Jesus, the way we treat this earth that God has given us to steward matters, the way whether we're a disciple of Jesus or not, it affects that the way we treat our bodies, we're talking about that the other day, Jay, like the way we treat our bodies, what we put in what we do, how we like, like, if we are true disciples of Jesus, it affects literally everything that we do, the way we treat our kids the way we operate as employees, like are we serious, true disciples of Jesus, and that affects everything. So I just want to kind of share a little bit about what it meant to be a disciple. And as we do that, we're going to look back at that verse I read, because that's a very powerful like, it seems really simple Jesus walk in and you know, these guys are fishing, he says, follow me. This is a hugely powerful moment. Incredibly, and I think that as we begin to understand what it looked like in the first century, Jesus's statement to follow to these unlearned fishermen was insane, almost, it was crazy. For them to be invited into a disciple Rabbi relationship was crazy. It was wild. It was really wild. So how did Jewish education take place? They did it in a synagogue number one, you know, when we were back in Babylon, and we were with Daniel and all that, that's when they adopted like this idea of what a synagogue was okay. Before that they had temple you know, back then whenever the the Babylonians and put them in captivity, they didn't have access to temple like they used to. So they started these things. They actually copied it from the Babylonians somewhat synagogues. And if we had a synagogue here, it'd be a little different. Sometimes we hear synagogue, we think it looks like this. And there's one speaker and we're in pews. Now, it actually would be I've seen showed you pictures, there'd be like a row, like a row all around the sides of it made out of cement, or stone or whatever. So we'd all be sitting in like a squared off horseshoe. Why, so that the rabbi can give us text and we can argue back and forth about what they mean. in that in that cool. How would you like that? Maybe we've actually learned to disagree. Well, you know, I mean, seriously, now the I think that'd be awesome. So next week, we're all gonna be sitting around here, and I'm just gonna throw out bombs, and let you guys just go at it. But then I have to be a part because I'm not the rabbi Jesus is the rabbi. Oh, but anyways, so in those places, rabbis, this is where they did school, it was more like a community center. And they did a lot of different things there where they did judgment, and kind of like the elders at the gates. Anyways, when you were about five years old, you entered into, like, what they call Elementary School. Here's a cool thing. I'm totally convinced Jesus went through this entire process, by the way, totally convinced by a different thing the way the Scriptures say so probably on five years old, Jesus Himself went to this elementary type school where they do they learn torah, just as excellence videos, Numbers, Deuteronomy. By the time they were finished with their Elementary School, which was around 12 ish. Most of them had a ton of Torah memorized. Even some of them had the whole Torah memorized. So their whole education system was founded on God's law, writing, learning, and understanding and living out God's law. That's, that's absolutely what it was. Their memorization would put us all to shame. would make me look terrible. Like, can you imagine like, Where's Jonah's? 11? How was Owen? 10 He probably know more scripture memorization than any of us in here probably do if he would if it was back in, in Jesus's day, it just went through that process. But what happened whenever they hit the age, you know, 12 ish. We know that that's been interesting that have been mentioned during our was scheper meeting last week that the Industrial Revolution caused adolescence, right? Like there was no such thing as adolescence, this weird period of time when you're like 12 years old to 18 or 20, or however, what probably is 27 nowadays, just getting to where you're a man or woman. economic independence. Yeah, that's what he said. So that could be 32. Nowadays. I don't know if I'm an adult, I'm just kidding.
But we have created this weird thing, because in their culture, like you would learn at the age of 12, you would start to learn the family trade or started being an apprentice for somebody or something like this, so that you can learn skills on how to to make money. And that's another thing that we have to get out of our I guess Western minds is the way that we hear school, it was done differently. It was much more like an apprenticeship. Right? It was much more get your hands dirty than it is where we've learned that I speak and you guys just you listen and you write down notes. And whether you do it or not. Who knows it wasn't like that at all right? Hey, let me show you how to do this. Okay, now you go ahead and you do it. So that's probably I'm convinced that that's where Peter and john and James education probably stopped, was about I bet they probably went to elementary school. And that's why when in Acts chapter four, they Peter and john get arrested. They say Who are these unlearned men, because they just got into Elementary, they haven't really done much, you know. But again, at that age, that's whenever they start to learn the craft. So they probably learned how to be fishermen at 12. This is what makes Jesus's statement so powerful. Jesus goes up to some fishermen. And that's all I've known since they were probably 12 years old, like, right there out there fishing with their daddy. Which ones were fishing with their dad, not Peter and Andrew, James and john sons is evety. Sorry, how to brain whatever allows for a second there? I'm not gonna say, sorry. I almost did. But then I'm gonna say anyways. So they're out there, and they're with their daddy, because her daddy's taught them how to fish. That's all they know. Right? And when you actually when you look at it, we I think whenever we imagine Peter and James and john, we think they're all like 4050 years old. They're probably like in their 20s. They're young. Like, they're probably like, Jared, you know what I mean? Or something like that, like Jared Sage like that. Peter was probably that age doing crazy, amazing things. You're like, Whoa, Isn't that incredible? But they're out there fishing in there. And Jesus says, follow me. What rabbis just didn't do that. And we'll get we'll get a little bit further. Because they because there also was a secondary school or education. And they you didn't stop learning your trade. So if you're a woodworker, or a carpenter, like Jesus, or john, we teach him Kenneth, how to how to woodwork. You know? She's like, Nope, I don't think so. That's not happening. As you're teaching how to do that, they're still going you go to school. Now, much smaller percentage of people went to the secondary education, right. And so when they do that, they start learning the writings and the prophets, the Oral Torah, and all those kinds of things. So that's so you have a big group of people that are in school, and then it shrinks down to a smaller group people, when they're finished with secondary education only, like pretty much an elite few. And elite few seek to go underneath a rabbi, and learn what it what it means to be a rabbi, and really get into very serious teaching. So this is so just just an elite just the best of the best, right? So these are like, we might create it to, to grad school or to a PhD or something like that. It's not just anybody. So can you imagine how scandalous it was even for Jesus to walk to some fishermen who have gone through elementary school? who aren't aren't among the elite of the elite, the creme de la creme and says, If you follow me, like, maybe that's why they immediately left their nets, maybe like, blowing their mind. Like, are you serious? I can train under a rabbi. I wonder what what James and John's dad thought of, I don't know. One day hope I can see him like what did you think whenever you're fishing out in your boat in your son's immediately, I mean, is he super like blown away and excited? Like Yes. Is is heartbroken. Like, well, there goes the family business. I'm gonna have to figure other stuff. Is there a mixture of the two like, Man, this seems like a great opportunity. Now I've got to figure this out. It says immediately, they left their nets, and they followed him. And they followed him. This is this is beginning. I think one of one of the keys here is that to begin to understand the Talmud Diem Rabbi relationship. The first thing is, you have to follow and that's what Jesus said. That's Peter. is Peter talking to Jesus says, where's it Matthew 18? I can't remember says Lord, we gave up everything to follow you. And Jesus didn't say no you didn't know he understood that they did. Whenever you became a student, you submitted everything to your Rabbi completely. And as I'm as I'm saying these things ask ourselves are we are we disciples like, Am I disciple? Am I like, that's what I asked myself this as I've been preparing this whole time. Do I look like this to Jesus? Have I given up my like, everything like, let go, they left they left their livelihood, they left everything on the table. Why? Because they so supremely valued learning under Rabbi Jesus, it mattered more to them than literally anything in their life, and therefore, of course, it affected every single thing in their lives. Will you will you will you follow me? Man, I Ah, that's huge, isn't it?
We have left everything, everything. There's this rabbinical saying that that's that was pretty cool. That says, Let your house be a meeting place for the rabbi's. Cover yourself in the dust of their feet and drink their words in thirstily. So this is just to give just to kind of give us an idea of how important it was. So when rabbi's traveled around Jesus, you know why Jesus says things like fungus have holes where his ears have nest, but something that has no relay. So that's what rabbis did. They would go from place to place and they relied on the hospitality of people. Now the people it was their honor, if they're following God to allow rabbis into their homes. That's why that saying says Absolutely. You allow rabbis in their homes. But I love that the phrase and cover yourself in the dust of their feet. It's so real. Right? If you're when you're following rabbis, wherever they would follow Jesus would follow around, it's saying get so close, that they're dust the dust of their feet or like or like kicking up on you, you got to listen, imagine even being in the 12 it's like, Hey, be the one the closest to Jesus so that you can hear what he says. I mean, and make sure that you understand, you know, what's what's going on so that you can learn from Rabbi Jesus like, oh, let's just drink their words in thirstily like what they say. So the goal. Jesus even says it's the goal of a Tama Diem is to be like the rabbi Jesus says it right. He even says that himself. That's the goal. It was so extreme, that I heard the story of this person that went to Jerusalem, watched a rabbi walking like this, and four or five guys walked behind the rabbi just like this, though they had nothing wrong with their back. It was like invitation. That's the that is a key and one of the big parts to that y'all. And we think about Jesus and are we truly following and being discipled by Jesus? Is that our goal? My life's goal is to be just like Jesus. That's it. Like I literally in every part of my life. See, it wasn't a thing where Jesus see Jesus taught to the crowds, right, we see that right, you know, the gods, but who did he dialogue with and wrestle with and explain his parables to His disciples. So it'd be like, Hey, what's going on, y'all would have the sermon, but then there would be a few people and he would wrestle and talk and it would be those are his talmidim. Those are the disciples and they would wrestle with these things. But the thing about the disciple and Rabbi is that the rabbi modeled life for them life, they would go, if you were disciple, we go wherever our Rabbi goes. So if rabbis doing a funeral, if the rabbi is helping the poor, if a rabbi is eating lunch, eating breakfast on the Sea of Galilee, you're eating with your rabbi, you're hanging with your ad while you're talking with your rabbi. And so you get to see how they interact with every single part and facet of life. And so if we're true disciples of Jesus, we're allowing Jesus to model every single facet of life for us. But isn't that so cool that God would say, follow me. Let me show you. Isn't that isn't I mean, seriously, he didn't say, here's a book. Now there is a book and it's super powerful. They are his words. But he also said, watch me. It's why Paul says, imitate me as I imitate Christ. He's thinking of this relationship. Right? They understood the relationship with the rabbi To this day, imitate me do what I do as I imitate Christ. Like that's, that's the thing. But as I've been wrecked by this reality lately, because I've really been very practically what what does that look like? You know, in my life, I've recognized that as I'm trying to adopt this mindset, Christianity, or whatever you want to call it has gone from boring to super exciting. Because I've recognized that I'm going to follow my Rabbi and rabbi, by the way, I should have mentioned earlier means master teacher, my master Our Lord, as Megan, the worship team. We're singing about our Lord, like, Where are you going, Lord, I will go wherever you want me to go. And what wrecks me is that in a good way, he wants to impact every single area of my life. Right? He wants to impact everything like he wants to impact my character. Man, there's been some challenges like you ever have that happen where like, you made you think you're doing good and then something shifts in your life and maybe you weren't? Isn't the shift in your life and you're given a different situation? You're like, why did I handle it like that? Maybe you're given more power or authority and you're like, wow, I thought I had that down. But now that I got this, maybe a little greedy with that authority, maybe I was trying to Lord over maybe you lose power and authority. You're like, oh, crud, like, I didn't realize man I was my identity in my life was in being X, Y, or Z, like I've had that. All these kind of things. And like the Lord is, I feel like every day is a journey with Jesus in His Holy Spirit, to change everything of who I am. So getting up in the morning and saying, Lord, where
are you going today? That's what it looks like. Right? Like I think very practical God, what are you doing? And Jesus sent us His Holy Spirit as our teacher and our guy that's Jesus spirit is in us. That's why john says his anointing will teach you don't need to have a teacher use anointing teaches you, right? So His Spirit living and dwelling in us, when we're on the way to work? How are we interacting with the Lord and listening to God's voice? And that's what the rabbi's, that's what they did, like, what are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? I'm trying to listen to your voice. Let me let me imitate let me let me let me let me be changed into your image. And that's the beautiful thing. We're not trying to be changed into a man's image, a woman's image, we're trying to be changed into Jesus's image, God's image, we look at him, and we're like, I look at him. And all of a sudden, I'm like, I'm blown away. He's like, well, I just want you to do that. Like, you can be like this. Like we can. It's just incredible that he invites us in, when we're employees, like, how are we interacting with him during the course? Like, how do we find how do we treat someone, when we find out that they're, they're broken, or someone's sick? Or you know what I mean? or something's going on? Do we just kind of blow past them with Jesus? That's what wrecks me because I'm sitting back thinking like Christ is in me, it's even better than what the disciples you guys know that it's kind of hard for us to understand sometimes like, well, if Jesus was here with me, he is like, it's even better. His Spirit is in us. He never leaves us, right? It's just absolutely amazing. But I've asked myself that like in an interaction with the person I said, you know what Jesus would not have interacted that way with that person. I just know he wouldn't have. Lord, I want to grow. And that's the cool thing about it is the disciples make mistakes, but they should constantly show growth. And that's another piece to it, I think is so huge as we think I'm gonna pray a prayer and zap my whole life is totally different. That's not at all what it means to be a disciple. The first step is saying, Yes, Lord, I will follow you. And that may look like a prayer. God, I submit everything to you in my life. But that's the beginning. It's not the it's not we've made it a that's all everything. And then you go to church on Sunday, and then we're like, kind of bored. Like, what is this? Is this this is not that exciting. You know, I mean, Sunday's pretty fun. But Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, I don't know. It doesn't affect my life. But whenever we become true disciples of Jesus, it again affects absolutely, absolutely everything that we do is it's it's incredible. I'm going to end with Yeah, and it doesn't happen overnight. I just want to reiterate that we are growing in the Lord, I want to end with just a short story that maybe can help reiterate Not only this, like apprentice type ship relationship that we have with our Master Jesus. But also it has a cool kind of thing on the end for us. I read the story where there was a maybe john you can probably relate to this there is a young woman who is very good at pottery. And she you know, would turn or no throw they call it throw in pottery, no, they throw vases and bowls and different things like that. And she had determined that she was going to go study under a master Potter. Usually you would study with this Potter for four years, she only had six months to give them. So she flies and actually goes to Japan. When she gets to Japan. She lives with him. See, this is kind of like the this the style, right? Like you come in you and you live with these people you live your day in, day out sweating, getting in the dust of who they are, and lives with them. And so when she got there, she would watch the way that he would form the pots and the vases and all those different things, but was totally dismayed broke and all this kind of stuff because he wasn't asking her to throw pottery. Instead, he was asking her to do household chores. It kind of reminds me of karate kid just a little bit. I'm just just gonna be real. This is a true story though. But we'll also have her go in digging up the clay like you go find the clay you dig it up you find the best clay and stuff like things that she hadn't done. And she's she's like, Man, what are you doing? And he had said to her Listen, how you handle these things is how the with the care that you handle these menial tasks is the care in which you're going to handle these vases of these bowls. I think that's a really cool thought and like a really very wise saying like if you take this with care and you're treating it well. waiting to see what happens to your pottery when you begin to take that much care with your pottery. But it's almost six months in and she's never thrown one piece. And she's broken. Like I just wasted six months in my life, like all I've been able to do is watch him and do these tasks. Watch him do this task. And his wife was sitting with her, and they were having breakfast. And as they're having breakfast, she was just like, kind of admitting like, Man, what am I doing? Like I haven't, he's not letting me do anything or whatever. And his wife said, Listen, when you came here, you were a fully grown tree. We had to prune you back so that you can actually see real growth. She never wants through a piece of pottery goes back home. her very first piece is her best piece she has ever done.
Because she got to watch and learn those lessons and got to watch you ever watch a master do something and it makes you better. You ever thought you ever got to see a concert, I play guitar, you know, and like the car, they are amazing. You go home, you're like wow, this wrote a better song now like a pretty good song because you just watch a master at their craft. And it actually encourages you to be even better. But what I love about that story is not only does it show that, that apprenticeship that down in the dirt, I mean, imagine walking with Jesus up hills, and you're sweating. And you're just doing you know, this kind of dirty, nitty gritty kind of thing, not this polished like style that we have often, this nitty gritty kind of thing. But I think that that's really powerful. But I think what's even more powerful is I think most of us as Christians need to be pruned back. And a God told me that about myself. Like we have all these ideas of what being a Christian is, we have all these ideas of what being a disciple is, we have all these ideas of I read my Bible for 10 minutes or five minutes a day. And I spend a few minutes in prayer. And I go to church on Sunday. And maybe if I'm really holy, I go to Bible study on Tuesday night or whatever. But what does it really mean to just simply be a disciple of Jesus, to sit at Rabbi Jesus's feet, to like, Listen, to read and to listen to his words. And just to begin to do what if I was just thinking about this one? What if we just one of the church in America just did that? Like, what if we just said, we're going to become like Jesus, in everything that we do? in growing community, like Jesus would grow community and in running our businesses, like I said, like Jesus ran his business, treating our children, like, um, we're going to focus not on the show, but on just the nitty gritty doing what he says to do. And living that out. And that's, that's where God has has me. And that's why I think there's things that need to be pruned. I think there are traditions that are beautiful. I think there are traditions that get in the way, right. I mean, that's just how it's the reality, but just pruning back which are the which is the good, which is the bad in our lives, and we can, you know, we can ask ourselves that question for ourselves. What is it? What does that look like? And then we get the same invitation that Peter and James and john did follow me, will you? That's what Jesus asking all of us back at the beginning. Will you just follow me? Follow me. Okay, Jesus. So that looks tomorrow, after we leave, like, I'm just gonna walk, I'm going to talk to Jesus, I'm gonna listen to Jesus. I'm gonna do I'm gonna open my heart to let him change my character, the way I treat everything and do everything. And man, it hurts a lot. Can I tell you that? When I've opened my heart, and there's times in my life, I've been good at it and bad at it. Good. I'm just being real with you. And I know the times that I'm being I think that I'm doing well at it are the hardest times in my life. Because it's not that God's being mean to said, He's just growing me. You know what I mean? there's times where I would be like, man, I really screwed up. That conversation I had with somebody and the Lord's picking me up and just let me grow. I love it. It's good. And I look back and like, Wow, I've grown a whole lot this year. Instead of some years. I'm like, What did I do last year? Goodness gracious. So let's, let's pray. Father, thank You that we get to call you father. Thank you that you would imitate and show us not how to have a great golf swing or how to how to knit the most amazing stuff.
