"Call to Adventure"
Matthew 4:17-22
I was speaking with an elderly man not too long ago.
He had lived a good life.
He had raised a family, had a good job, and was a good person.
But now that he was at the end of his life, he was empty, questioning and a bit terrified.
"What does it all mean?," he cried in dismay.
"We're born; we live our lives and then we die. And that's it."
And then he really teared-up, and said, between sobs: "I'm going to die soon, and then what is going to happen?"
"I don't know what is going to happen to me."
I tried to assure him that God loves him and that when he leaves this world--He will simply move onto eternity with God.
"But I don't believe that," he said.
"When we die everything just stops. And that's the end."
"Oh, what is the point of it all?"
In Hebrews Chapter 11:1 we are told that "faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."
Then we are told: "This is what the ancients were commended for.
By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible...
...by faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going..." and it goes on and on and on.
That chapter of Hebrews is called "The Hall of Faith."
We are not alone in this life.
We are all in the same boat.
Chapter 12 of Hebrews begins with, "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us through off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of God.
Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you do not grow weary and lose heart."
"Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."
Faith, hope and love.
That's what this life is all about.
Moving forward even though we can't see into the future...
...following the God of love on this great adventure of life...
...trusting, loving, persevering.
Shortly after moving to Capernaum, Jesus is walking beside the lake one afternoon when He sees two men in a rowboat waiting for unsuspecting fish.
What happens next is amazing!!!
Jesus offers them a job with no pay and they accept!!!
They leave their nets and follow Jesus into the unknown.
Had the sales pitch been, "Come and make more money selling iPads than you could ever make selling fish," it might make more sense to our modern ears, but Jesus' invitation and their response is nothing short of a miracle.
Four fishermen drop what they are doing and head off with Jesus.
They don't know what is coming next, but they do know what happened to John the Baptist.
It's been said that their "following" Jesus is the "beginning" of the confession of faith: they are putting aside their old lives in the confidence that, in the way of Jesus, they will find God's grace...
...God's meaning for their lives.
And so we see that, really, the initial decision to follow Jesus has more to do with hope than it does with knowing certain "facts" about Jesus.
These guys didn't know anything about the virgin birth.
They weren't asked to recite a creed or answer any theological questions.
They were just asked to follow in faith and hope.
The learning "about" God would come with the Adventure of following Jesus.
In making new disciples of Jesus Christ, the Church has often followed a certain model...
...of "know, grow, go."
That means, learn the doctrines of the church and the faith first, grow in your knowledge and faith and then go out and follow Jesus.
This model in Matthew Chapter 4 seems to be quite a bit different.
It's reversed.
It's "go (or follow), grow and know."
Again, "faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for."
And, as Paul puts it in Romans Chapter 5, "hope does not disappoint us..."
Life will disappoint us.
Materialism will disappoint us.
Pleasure will disappoint us.
The hope that comes through faith in Jesus Christ does not disappoint.
Because if we live by it, we will end up in places we never imagined being, doing things we never imagined ourselves doing, and sharing life, fellowship, service, and worship with other people we would have never imagined ourselves knowing.
There's a song that speaks about walking hand in hand with Jesus.
And the image is that when Jesus says we should leave everything else behind, we put our hand in His and go where He goes.
Simon Peter, Andrew, James, and John all "put their hand in Jesus' hand" and followed--they had no idea where Jesus was going to lead them.
Nevertheless, they obeyed the call of Jesus and followed.
And it is only through following Jesus that we come to know the fullness of God's mission and purpose for our lives.
Now, it's not easy and it's not convenient to follow Jesus.
But it is more than worth it!!!
I've never met a soul, who, at the end of their life, was sorry they had made the decision to do it.
That's the one thing I have never heard anyone say that they regretted.
I believe that Jesus has been calling me to follow Him my entire life...
...and I believe this is the same for you and everyone else in this world.
Jesus takes the initiative.
In any case, there was a moment in time when I decided to definitively take Jesus up on His offer.
And most assuredly, the disciples' instant acceptance of Jesus' invitation is about as dramatic as any moment anyone will ever come across.
But most of us, occasionally stand at a fork in the road, facing big decisions about jobs, retirement, or where to live.
And all of us have a decision to make when it comes to the call of Christ.
Will we follow or will we stick with the status quo...
...keep doing what everyone else is doing...
...pretend we don't hear God's call?
Or put it off for another day?
The fact that the first four disciples left behind their nets, boats, and fathers gives us a pretty good indication that discipleship is not cheap.
God's call on our lives is not convenient.
And it is also often unexpected.
In verse 17 of our Gospel Lesson for this morning it says: "From that time Jesus began to announce: 'Change your hearts and lives! Here comes the kingdom of heaven!'"
And the kingdom of heaven "walked along the Galilee sea."
The kingdom of heaven "saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew," and called to them: "Come, follow me."
The same happened to James and John.
All four immediately left what they had been doing and followed Jesus.
And the very same call goes out to you, to me, to all of us.
"Change your hearts and lives!"
It's been said that "Discipleship is just that: hearing God's call and obeying it--even if it means radical changes of direction in life."
If anything gets in the way of our call to follow Jesus, we are to leave it behind.
Jesus' claim on our lives is much more important than anything else under the sun.
It's been said that "A danger in the church today is the tendency for us to define our mission and then invite Jesus to tag along with us."
But that's not the way it works.
Our mission has to do with Jesus' call on our life and our response--our willingness to follow Him.
And as we follow Jesus, we learn to become more and more like Jesus.
We find our lives changing, our priorities changing, we come to know a love we never knew existed.
I believe in Jesus after all these years of study, and pastoring, and life...
...not because of any dogma...
...I believe in Jesus because seeking to follow His call has changed my life.
I believe in Jesus because of what I have experienced in having made the decision to follow.
You know, the first disciples of Jesus lived astonishingly heroic lives.
They even died for their faith.
And today, there are men and women whose lives mirror their lives in many ways.
But for many of us, our daily journey with Jesus is not quiet that dramatic.
Some people may search for peak experiences and assume that the disciples were born with spiritual gifts that we don't have.
But in searching for the dramatic, we might forget that God calls us every hour of every day.
God calls us in the details: inviting us to be friends with one another, calling us to serve others, teaching us to practice kindness and to pray for our daily bread.
We live out our faithfulness to God in worship, in how we interact with others, and in arranging our schedules in such a way that we make ourselves available to serve.
There are routine, everyday ways in which we follow Jesus--the way we read Scripture, welcome strangers, and love the lonely.
These things are crucially important to God.
God's love is present in our lives whenever we live with hope and forgiveness.
As we follow Jesus, we can hear Jesus' call even in the cluttered busyness of our days.
There is no decision which is unimportant, because God is present in the ordinary.
Every moment matters, because life is holy.
If we pay attention, we will see that even as unsurprising a life as many of us might think we live: waking up after a good night's sleep; frying an egg; hugging someone we love; taking a child to school, trying to do a decent day's work; reading a good book; reading the Bible; feeding the hungry; praying; thinking about the wonderful and normal possibilities in life--makes our live extraordinary--miraculous; godly, heavenly!!!
There is no event in this magical life where God is not present with us.
Every moment and every word we speak has possibilities.
We grow in our faith not just in memorable, never-to-be-forgotten moments, but also in forgettable moments: when we decide to pray rather than turn on the computer, to say something kind rather than something sarcastic, to offer help when we don't have to.
Our calling is often to faithfully live out God's grace on routine days and in ordinary ways.
Love spreads through one kind action or word at a time.
And grace can come in unspectacular deeds.
I read that John Updike said, "I will try to work steadily in the spirit of those medieval carvers who so fondly sculpted the undersides of choir seats."
We learn what it means to follow Jesus and get to know God in simple acts.
And slowly but surely our priorities change...
...and even when the going gets tough, our faith, our hope is there.
On the day Jesus first called the disciples they didn't know much about Jesus, but they decided to follow Him anyway.
They smelled like fish.
They hadn't had much experience with the holy.
They were uneducated.
They were not important people.
Along the way, they sometimes argued with one another, and vied for the top spots in God's Kingdom.
They usually did not understand what in the world Jesus was talking about.
And they certainly didn't expect His death and Resurrection even though He told them it was going to happen over and over again.
Day by day they had to learn to be the Church.
And that is our job as well.
I was speaking with an elderly man not too long ago.
He had lived a good life.
He had raised a family, had a good job, and was a good person.
But now that he was at the end of his life, he was empty, questioning and a bit terrified.
"What does it all mean?," he cried in dismay.
"We're born; we live our lives and then we die. And that's it."
And then he really teared-up, and said, between sobs: "I'm going to die soon, and then what is going to happen?"
"I don't know what is going to happen to me."
"When we die everything just stops. And that's the end."
"Oh, what is the point of it all?"
Following Jesus means entering into a way of knowing God that requires "embodiment" or "becoming" or "changing."
"Transformation" is perhaps the best way to put it.
Following Jesus and being in relationship with God is never just some "verbal consent" to a concept about God.
It is what it says it is...
It is following--discipleship--it is about faith, hope and ultimately love...
...love that lasts into eternity, love that never lets go, never leaves us and never disappoints.
Praise God.
Amen.
