Disciples at Work | Week Three

How do you follow Jesus with the same passion as a missionary…when your life looks painfully ordinary?

Meetings. Deadlines. Kids. Bills. Emails. Pressure. Responsibilities. For many Christians, discipleship feels disconnected from normal life. But what if the problem isn’t your job… What if the problem is how we’ve learned to think about discipleship itself?

This week in Disciples at Work, through the lens of Matthew 4, we look at one of the most misunderstood ideas in modern Christianity:

What does it actually mean to be a disciple?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. Immediately they left their nets and followed him. And 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, minting their nuts, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him. You may be seated in Kids Yard dismissed to the kids' hallway.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Awesome. Thank you, Miss Libby. That was fantastic. We get up for the band for Libby doing all that reading and everything. Man, that was awesome. Just leading all of us. Kids, we love you guys. Have a wonderful time in kids' church. So my name is Ben, and I have the honor of serving at um as the lead pastor here at Downtown Community Church. As we get started this morning, let's uh let's just spend a little bit of time together and pray that God would just speak to each and every one of us. Um so Jesus, uh, we are here to hear from you. Um God help us to see you clearly, no matter where we are in our relationship with you. For those of us who have been walking and following you and following after you for a long time, would you help today to be um challenging, refreshing? For those of us who have just started to walk with you, would you help us see what a life of faith looks like, what it looks like to be a disciple of you, King Jesus? And for those of us who are just starting, trying to figure this whole thing out, maybe as an adult coming back to an adult starting point and figuring out, man, what does all this Jesus God Bible stuff look like and matter to my life? And how do I know that it's even real, God? We know that no matter what, no matter who it was, whether it was the most religious person, the least religious person, whether it was the disciple, whether it was the leper, whether it was the tax collector or the tax collector come disciple Jesus, when they encountered you, you changed everything. So we just play that that would happen this morning. We would authentically encounter you, King Jesus. Not my words, yours. And it's in your name we pray. Amen. Amen. So we started this series called Disciples at Work. And I want to catch you up because this is one of those series that is you don't have to have heard the previous to understand what we're gonna talk about today, but it is helpful because what we have a tendency to do in our modern context, and this is kind of the framework for the entire series, is we have a tendency to create a significant divide between what's sacred and what's secular, between what's spiritual and what's normal, between what happens on Sunday and what happens on Monday through Saturday in the other areas of life. And different versions and variations of segmentation exist, right? For some of us, we know Jesus is a continual category, and so we try to implement and engraft and you know work some principles in at work. For some of us, it's you know kind of just like a day and a time. It's a I go to church, I go to group, and then I go fishing, right? Or I go play golf, or I go, you know, I don't know, if you're my grandma used to go play bridge, right? I don't think people play bridge that much anymore, but if you're a bridge player, that's amazing. Now you're just mahjongers, right? So like whatever it is that you do, whatever places and spaces, right, um, we can create segmented versions of spirituality. And the problem with that is, is it leaves us with this kind of gap. And this is a little bit what I've been wrestling with this entire series, which is which is what does it actually look like to have the same level of spiritual desire, the same level of spiritual passion, right? The same level of fervor, of zeal as someone that you would think or see as a missionary in a foreign country, and have that same level of desire for God and to make him known, yet, and this has kind of been my continual framing. But you work for the Department of Revenue and you make a comfortable living, you have a spouse, kids, maybe they're in youth sports, and your life is busy, your life is consumed with things. I mean, just the normal day-to-day responsibility of life almost fill up the complete sense of what your life is. And oftentimes for many of us, again, it's we're left feeling: am I wasting it? Am I wasting my life? Is even just, is even just the context of, let me just be honest with it, is even just the context of Christianity in the United States of America intrinsically lend itself to where you can't live here and not be lukewarm, not feel like you've sold out to the mission of God for the corporate dream. In week one, this was huge, we talked about this idea that God in Genesis 1 creates six days he works, and then he makes man in his image with a job description to both procreate and cultivate, to take the things, the natural, the resources, to align them, to recreate them. He was a gardener. What did he do? He rearranged things to create things for optimal outcomes for human flourishing. And in essence, that's what work is. And so we were made in the image of God, but Genesis 3 happens, the curse happens, the sin enters the world, and all of a sudden it's thistles and thorns at work, which is why we both see work as incredibly meaningful, incredibly impactful, and at the same time we can't wait till it ends. You stand over a project and it's amazing. And yet Derek showed up again, right? In the 500th time, and it is so difficult. And you're like, man, I would love to just, you know, lay hands on this new believer, right? That's how you maybe think about it. Like I just, man, this this person is difficult. You know, and it's difficult. And here's why, and we said this because work is what we are made for, created for, vocation by God, yet it is filled with the sinfulness and the broken of this world, which is why it sometimes feels like thorns and thistles. But here's the point. We got to see work is spiritual, because we can't separate those two. And in fact, what's interesting is if week one actually the breath of God breathes life into humanity for the purpose of vocation, what happens in the New Testament is God then, after this vocational direction has been, you know, broken by sin, this relational connection with God has been broken by sin, He He gives the disciples his spirit. And the same God who breathed life into vocation in Genesis in the book of John breathes life into mission through the Spirit of God. So it was started through a vocational calling, is continued through a missional calling. In other words, for many of us, our mission field is our vocational calling. You might think, well, not my place, there's nobody who even knows Jesus, even looks like Jesus at my place, in my work, at my organization, at my business. Maybe you're thinking, well, it's just in my family. You work at the hat, you know, in the home, and you're thinking, man, nobody in my family it feels like knows and loves Jesus. Maybe you're at school and you're thinking, man, my work right now is my school, and it feels like no one in my classes, my major, my you know, particular track that I'm taking, where I am, maybe in middle school, you know, I'm taking, I don't know, algebra for the first time, whatever it is, right? And there ain't no Jesus followers in here. And I would just simply say, did you know that for many of you who have ever said that, if your demographic of your place of work, whatever that work is, was a country, we would probably send missionaries there. In other words, you are the presence of God. That place is not without God because you're there. And in fact, perhaps, perhaps when Jesus, and this we talked about last week, when he said go therefore, it was a mix. It wasn't just go somewhere else, it was both go and as you go, that there are going to be some disciples who go therefore to different places and spaces intentionally, vocationally. And as they do that, they preach the gospel, the gospel is proclaimed, people receive it into their hearts in such a way where it bears fruit in their life, and as they go throughout the normal sense of what humanity has in their life, they naturally make disciples. We got to see it both as spiritual and as missional. And here's where I want us to go today, because the first two are kind of building kind of a framework for what it means to be a disciple at work. And so today I want to start to get very specific about what does this actually look like? Okay, so we see it as spiritual, we see it as missional, what does this actually look like? And this is where we almost have to have to slow down a little bit because this, as it gets practical, is going to get a little bit more specific. Because one of the things as I was thinking and praying through this, I was thinking, you know, the problem with doing a series in disciple at work is if all we do is work is spiritual, work is missional, it's not actually how to be a disciple at work, it's just how to have a spiritual impact at work. Now, those are similar, but they're different. Because fruit is the outer working of discipleship, not discipleship itself. Here's what I'm kind of mean by that. And here's when we tell you the whole premise for today's talk. The first step, okay, so how do I actually, how do I actually be a disciple at work? How do I make disciples? How do I go therefore and help to create discipleship at my workplace? And the theory of this talk is simply this is that the best way to make disciples at work is to be a disciple at work. The best way to make disciples at work is to be disciples at work. And that might sound obvious and that might sound clear. But for many of us, I think that we don't have a clear view of what discipleship is. And if we did, it would help to influence that. So what I want to take us to is that it's in Matthew. We're going to study Jesus for the next two weeks, the patterns and the kind of the trajectory of Jesus in his ministry. Matthew chapter 4. Jesus calls his first disciples. Now we know that he's going to call his first disciples, not because he uses the word disciple, it's actually a little bit more helpful, but because over time what we see is that he was calling them into a discipleship relationship as he continually called them. It's it's kind of you know big, bold heading titled Jesus Calls His First Disciples. So Matthew 4, verse 18. While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew. And they were casting their nets in the sea, for they were fishermen. Now, before we go any farther, let me give you a little bit of backstory. To this point, John the Baptist has been around. Jesus has had this kind of actual baptism, then Jesus has been let out, he's been tempted. As he finishes this kind of time period for 40 days on the on the tail end of that, he begins to talk, he begins to preach, he begins to tell everybody about what's going on. And as he's walking, this is this is brand, this is early days for Jesus. This isn't like he's already fed 5,000 and raised somebody from the dead, and nobody's like this guy. This is this is this guy who we're trying to figure out. And he's this rabbi. And he walks up and he sees a couple of folks. Simon and Andrew and his brothers. And it's almost like it's it's it's just leaning in a little bit and saying, and they were doing this interesting thing, they were casting their nets in the sea, for they were fishermen. Now, why would why would they record that? The reason is this is because you need to know this. When Jesus calls his disciples, he doesn't call the people who were the upper and the uttermost religious. You see, what this meant in their kind of rabbinical tradition is that there is a series of competencies, kind of tests that if you were a good Jewish boy, that if you were going to become a rabbi, that you would have to go, that you would have to pass. There's amounts of the Old Testament, in fact, at one point, all of the Old Testament, the law, the prophets, that you had to have memorized. To be a rabbi meant that you were passing not just the teachings, but the way of life. And this was an incredibly exclusive position. In fact, this was a position that you never offered to fishermen. I don't know how many of you have been down to like Apalachicola in East Point, you know. And you see the dudes, yeah, some of you love it. And it's it's beautiful, it's fun, it's amazing, but you see some folks, and they got some, you know, some waiters on, and they, you know, kind of look, you just you just if you spend enough time on the salt water, you start to look like you got a little salt water in you, you know? It's the best way I can describe it. And I'm just gonna say this here's what's fascinating Rabbinical school, to be a rabbi, to have a rabbi invite you to follow him, which was oftentimes how this rabbi thing would work. To have a rabbi who invited you to follow him, that was you were the cream of the crop. You were the you were you were the Ivy League of Ivy Leagues, like you were elite. And Jesus walks into East Point and says, I see y'all looking for some oysters. I see the way you're opening and closing this thing, and let me tell you, you're my people. To which all the religious leaders would have said, What? What? This guy? Jesus said, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And what's about to happen next is so important. Because here's the thing the reason, the reason that we think that that's crazy is because we think it has to be something about the disciple that makes them a good disciple. We think it has to be something intrinsic, something that they already have, something that's going on, right? And Jesus just looks at them and he says, the most the most simple thing to the most simple people. And it changes everything. And what he's about to say is not just come be my disciple. He actually gives, if you were like, here's Jesus, what is a one-sentence job description for what it means to be a disciple? He says, To the fishermen, to the folks who no one would have asked. The common folk. And he said to them, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. He says, Follow me. And I'll make you fishers of men. So we see what happened. Immediately they left their nets and followed him. Now, we're gonna break this into three different sections specifically in verse 19. The first part he says is follow me. The second part he says is I will make you. And the third part, fishers of men. Each of those are incredibly important components. And I want to talk a little bit about the follow me part first. You see, what you see Jesus invite people into is not simply this idea of salvation. It's not simply this idea of come and have this fire insurance where your sins are just forgiven. His point is, man, if you get the God who can do that, like if you actually believe that, if you actually believe that I in and of myself, right, have continually sinned, even my most righteous acts, they're still they're still littered with mixed motives. The best things I do still have components of self. And yet at the same time, God knew that. God saw me on my worst days, not my best days, God saw me on my best and worst days, and what he did is he came, he loved, he died. And he, here's the crazy part. He had the cosmic ability to take every single debt, sin, iniquity, and the racial the relational reconciliation that needed to take place as well.

unknown 15:58

Right?

SPEAKER_01 15:58

Because when we sin, there is, in a sense, kind of a debt against God. Because the wages of sin is death. But it also vandalizes the relationship. And I said this a bunch of times before. If you came to my house, right, and you killed my dog, then we would have a big problem. Even if you said, okay, I'm so sorry, I'll pay for it, I'd say, great, but you're still not getting invited over for dinner on Sunday night, you know? There would need to be a restoration of the relationship. And so if you believe Jesus has the power and the ability and the capacity to cosmically cover all debt, sin, cancel, shame, and that's by placing our faith, our hope, our trust in his ability, capacity to do that, and it's that type of a God, that's not a type of a God that when he says to do something, you say, I think I know better. Like if he's that God, then the invitation for him, the invitation of discipleship, is a decision to follow. It's a decision to follow. It's a decision to say, yes, Jesus, I am orienting my life around you. You see, one of the things that I think that we do in modern Christianity, that I think is incredibly uh problematic, and I understand the reason, we are very careful and conscious to not intertwine the ideas of faith and works. By grace through faith. It's the work of Christ alone. But that work of Christ is almost always or is always accompanied by this level of surrender and following. They become one and the same. You see, it's like this. It's like if I asked you, what do you do for a living? And you said, I'm a race car driver. I'd say that's wild. I'd have a bunch of questions about how you got into it, but probably my first question would be, what kind? You know? Are you Formula One? That'd be wild. You know, downtowncommunitychurch.com backslash give. I would give you that one, you know. Are you a NASCAR driver? Are you drag race? Are you just taking your little, you know, Toyota, you know, scion with a little Tokyo drift around Monroe? I mean, like, like what type of race car driver are you, right? That's that's what I'd ask you, and I want you to imagine that you said back to me. Oh no, I don't race cars. It's like, what? I thought you were a race car driver. Well, I don't actually drive cars. I just agree with the concept and the idea, and from time to time, I study race cars. I know what a Formula One car is, I know what a stock car for NASCAR is, I know what a drag race is. You would say, that's awesome. Me too. You see, following in their rabbinical tradition was the assumption around a disciple, not a step in discipleship. To be a disciple assumed following. There was this tradition. In fact, it's it's a really fascinating story and kind of study on how disciples even came to be. Did you know that this was not an original Jesus thing? How this happened and how this really kind of began is when Old Testament, you guys remember there's the nation of Israel, and they came in and the Syrians took over the top, you know, ten kind of uh places, and then the Babylonians came and took over the second, and all of a sudden the the Jewish community, which was normal and used to how do we actually come and celebrate and know about and hear about God, we go to the temple, we go to the temple, we go to the temple. Well, what happens when you have been kicked out, you have been taken somewhere else, exported, and you can no longer go to the temple? They had to figure that out, and so they started to put up these things called synagogues. And synagogues oftentimes had a rabbi who helped to teach the people when they couldn't be at the temple. And there was this rabbinical tradition that if you were going to become like your rabbi, in fact, Jesus says this in Luke, that everyone, everyone, every disciple, once fully formed, is just like their teacher, not knowing what their teacher is, but they're just like him in everything that they do. In fact, they had this idea of the dust of the rabbi, right? You might have heard this expression before, that people would follow their rabbis so closely. They would walk on dusty roads, and as they would, the dust of the rabbi would kick on them, and that even when they were sitting at the rabbi's feet as they would get together, the rabbi would teach them, they would just they would be there in the dust and the normalcy of it. In other words, this assumed a level of following. But here's the problem where we get to in modern Christianity is we think that the decision to follow then requires a ton of effort on our part. It's a decision to follow, but notice what he says next. Follow me and I will make you. Follow me and I will make you. You see, following Jesus in this context, specifically as I'm talking about, is learning to be like Jesus, the ways of Jesus, just to spend time with him, to spend time in his word, to spend time going through the gospels, reading through Matthew, reading through Mark, reading through Luke, to John, the four accounts of Jesus' life, and learning what was this person, not just what were his teachings, how did he deal with it? How did he deal with pressure? How did he deal with stress? How did he deal when he was overwhelmed? Did you know for most of us, man, we're incredibly overwhelmed all the time. Jesus got overwhelmed at times with the crowd, with the people, with the need. If you're a parent, man, you felt that before. The crowd, the people, the need, I go to work and people need me, I go home, people need me, I just feel like everywhere people need me, I can't get away. Jesus said, exactly. And he would go in silence and solitude. And spend time with his father, right? Like just the patterns of Jesus. And then he says, the best part again, which is as you follow me, as you spend time with me, as you decide that I'm gonna follow you, and this is a decision that I'm going after no matter what it costs. And he says, I'm gonna make you fishers of men. We're gonna do a quick cross reference. If you've got your Bible, you can flip over to Philippians 2. Philippians 2 is probably my favorite. Here's the thing. A lot of times say, like, oh, this is my favorite part of the Bible. It's like, yeah, there's a lot of times I say that, so maybe it's true. One of the crazy things is it's, he just got done with, I'm just going to say, like, one of the more challenging parts. It's also beautiful and poetic. But he basically looks across to everybody and he says, hey, here's, you want to know the essence of this? Do nothing out of selfish ambition and vain conceit. And humility in humility, consider others better than yourself. Look not only to your own interest, but to the interest of others. You should have the same mindset of Jesus. And then he talks about how he didn't, you know, consider equality with God, something to be grasped, something to be leveraged. He didn't come down and pull the God card. Instead, he did the opposite. He he took the form of us and he became a servant. He became obedient to death and death on a cross. So much so that at the end of all this, every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And then he continues and he says, Okay, so here's what I want you to do. Therefore, my beloved, verse 12 of chapter 4, Philippians, sorry, Philippians 2, verse 12. As you have always obeyed, so now not only in my presence, but now more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. So what did that mean? All of a sudden it's like, hey, so I want you to continue to take this salvation inside of you and manifest it outside of you. And he's like, here's what that means, verse 13. And this is beautiful. If you've never heard this before, for it is God, for it is God, not us, okay? For it is God who works in you. Okay, so God is doing the work inside of you. You should know this. Both, both to will and to work. And this is huge. Because for some of us, the problem with being a disciple, the problem with actually following Jesus where we are at our work, especially, is that is that sometimes we see the work that God's called us to, we just don't have any will to do it. It's like, man, I want to want this, I want to want to do this more than I actually want to do this. Did you know, man, that's a part of the work of the Spirit in your life. My question to you would be how has your time with Jesus been? And I don't know that you have or have not been, but that's my first question. Because the things of God almost always run in contrast to the things of this world. The things of this world are almost always benefited by the things of God. But they oftentimes run in contrast to. And so if we don't spend time with Jesus, following Jesus, spending time with him, spending time to praying to our Father in heaven praying the same prayer, our Father, this thing of adoption, that God is not this foreign entity, God like He is personal, He is close. Let me just say this too. If you've never had a dad who was a good dad, I actually think that you're at a at a place where you might have a better idea of what a good father looks like, because you had a bad father. And you know exactly what you wish you had. And it says, that that father, he wants you to say yes. He wants you to spend time with him, he wants you to begin to follow him, to see this as a fully integrated, immersive life that you're completely saying yes to. That this is this is the reordering of my life. I'm gonna follow you. And as I do that, it's him who actually gives you the desire to do the things of God. You see, we take responsibility too much for having our own desire to follow God when or to do the things that God tells us to do. It's his job through the Spirit to put inside of us oftentimes those desires. And sometimes when our emotion doesn't feel that desire, it's the trust to know that God, you know what's best. And so my desire is to honor you. Let me just ask this specifically to people who have been following Jesus for a while. The longer you've been following Jesus, you develop the habit of the works of God. But oftentimes lose the internal passion to the will, to desire, their habit, to just what you do. It's not because you love God, it's not because it reorders your life, it's not because he's everything to you. See, it's God. In other words, it's the only reason that we desire the things of God. Let me put it this way. Our greatest act, our greatest act to me of spiritual formation. The greatest act of spiritual formation is submission. It's to say, God, I'll follow you. And God, I'm gonna spend time with you. I'm gonna reorder my life. If your calling to me is bigger than the nets that I'm currently serving, and so I'm gonna follow you with my life. And every single moment, Jesus, that I can, and I can be aware of this, God, I'm gonna surrender to you because I'm not gonna trust in myself to have the internal gumption, the internal intestinal fortitude to white and knuckle myself and my will. Jesus, I'm going to spend time with you, and as I spend time with you, I'm going to allow you to develop inside of me the desire, to develop inside of me the will. Can I just tell you, in modern Christianity, we are so consumed with getting people cleaned up so quickly, we forget that the whole main commandment is to love God. It's stop doing bad. We would rather you stop doing bad than spend time with Jesus. And that's ludicrous. That's self-righteousness and it's hypocrisy. Now, a surrendered life is also the fruit of discipleship. But it's sustainable because it's not by your strength. Was it a disciple? A disciple is someone who decides that because of what Jesus has done for me, I'm gonna follow him with my entire life. Someone who decides, I'm gonna follow him. And I'm gonna trust as I follow him, he's making me into this. It's his job. And then he says this last part, and I will make you fishers of men. He looks at him follow me. And I will make you. We surrender to his making in us fishers of men. Here's why I say the greatest, the greatest first step, and the best way to make a disciple at work is to be a disciple at work. Because what a disciple does is a disciple ultimately, inevitably, becomes a fisher of men. But there's lots of Christians who decided not to be disciples and jumped inside, how do we fish for men? How do I talk to them? How do I tell them? How do I convince them? You see, this is why I love what happens next, right? The very next thing, 20, immediately they left their nets and they followed him. There was something they saw in Jesus that was bigger than the nets that they were serving at the time. There's something that they saw in him that they said, This is the life we were living. I need to leave this and follow them. And here's the thing: when you're a disciple, here's what I mean by this. And let me just be very clear that I'm talking about the internal, the ideas, the motivations. That somebody then sees you. They see the life of Jesus, and you naturally become a fisher of men. It's just different. It's different, the person who goes to work, right? And you've just, maybe you've just been spending time with Jesus and you have been reading about how you know don't be anxious or don't be worried about anything because you're look at look at the flowers, look at the birds, look at how we got look at how God provides them so richly and beautifully for all of them. And you walk into a meeting because you know and you've maybe prayed through your schedule. Somebody gave me that idea one time, prayed through your schedule. And you walk into that meeting not because you're like, you know what, I've decided that this world doesn't matter and I'm good enough and I'm strong enough. I'm gonna prove that to everybody spiritually. You're the person who has decided to follow Jesus. And as you've spent time with them, you've spent, you've seen time and time again where you didn't know how it was gonna happen and he made it happen. Or times where he didn't make it happen and you were crushed, and then ultimately you saw six months later, six years later, sixteen years later, how God was working in and through that process as you trusted him. And here you go into work again. And everybody at work is in a panic. But you have been following, you've been trusting. At times where it was difficult, you submitted your will to his will, and he gave you the will to trust him in those moments where it was incredibly difficult. And you felt this crossroads in your soul, you didn't know what to do, but you trusted him. And now here you are, you walk into the meeting, and you know exactly what's gonna happen today at work. You know that there's gonna be layoffs, you know that there's gonna be cuts, you know, whatever there's gonna be, you just know that there's gonna be panic, there's gonna be frustration. And you walk into that meeting and you've been in prayer, both for yourself and for the people around you. And it's not that when the news comes out or something breaks, you stand up and say, On behalf of God, I have a word. You know what you are? You're that person who is the unique non-anxious presence in an organization filled with anxiety. You're the person who in the middle of all that, you see how it's gonna impact this person, or you see how it's gonna impact that person. And you know how it impacted you before. And you don't see this as a, you don't see this as a, oh gosh, should I say something or not? No, what you know and what you see is that you have been learning from, following. You're a disciple of Jesus, and what you see in Jesus is you see that, and this is actually we're gonna talk about next week. The main way that he created access to talk about the kingdom of God was not to just walk in and say, Let me tell you my testimony. It was to serve needs, to meet needs. And so you walk in there in an organization full of needs, people who have full or are full of needs, and you care. And you check on, and you ask how they're doing. And when something happens with their family, you're there and you care. And when Christ is it, you're there and you care. And when they're they're figuring out something and they need to go into somebody's office, you're interruptible. Because Jesus was interruptible, and you've been seeing that in his life. In fact, everything that you do, you don't separate. You see that, man, when I send this email to this person, that what I know is that they're going to see this as something from me, but they're gonna know that I know Jesus and I love Jesus, and I've spent time with Jesus, and this is a tense email, and I'm trying to figure out how to communicate it, and I'm sitting there praying through before I send it. God, what does grace and truth look like? Because I feel like if I'm not true, then I'm giving too much grace, and I feel like I'm not having enough grace and I'm too true, and I'm just being coming down and I'm just being condemned. God, what does that you see what I'm saying? It invades every aspect and every area of life to the nuance, to the detail, to the to the parent who's raising their kid, working in the home, and you're at your wit's end, and you want to model Jesus deeply, but it's difficult. And so what you do is in those incredibly complex, difficult, intense moments, where you're somewhere between, I love this child with all my heart, and good gracious, I want to pull every single follicle of hair out of my head. And when you feel that, all of a sudden you're reminded. God, this is how you see me. Someone who has continually known the right thing and not done it, someone continually pushes, someone continually, I mean, you just start to see those divine moments in the everyday life. You're a follower of Jesus. We live in a world where many people are fans of Jesus. And a lot of us wear the label as Christians. But what disciples do as they follow Jesus, as they yield to him, as they surrender to him, as they say, Jesus, I'm gonna follow you and wearing my entire life around you. And Jesus, I'm gonna allow you, as I spend time with you, to give me the desire to follow as well as the ability to follow. He says, Man, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna make you fishers of men. So here's the question Are you a disciple? Actually a disciple. And if not, do you want to be? That's the ultimate invitation. But I do want to be honest and clear about something with that invitation. The invitation of Jesus to be a disciple is an invitation that's open to everyone. But I want you to know that he's also not needy. He's also not like, please, if Kiah would just be a disciple, then my kingdom would be complete. You know, if Kylie would just come down to the front and pray this prayer. No, no, no. Here's the reality: if Matthew didn't say yes, somebody was going to say yes, and he was going to change the world through somebody, somebody was going to experience life, somebody was going to experience the kingdom of God that broke through. This was an invitation to the greatest following ever. And on the last night before he died, he actually gathered his disciples together, right? And he said, This is my body, which is broken for you. This is my blood, which is shed for you. I want you to do this. I want you to remember me because that which I am doing to you, what it means to be fishers of men, is not to go to the world and say, I'm going to be served, but to serve and to give your life as a ransom for many. You see, you don't get to the cross unless you're continually yielding your will and your spirit to Jesus. And he said, When you get together, I know this is going to be tough. But I want you to take this. I want you to do this in remembrance of me. Because this is what I've done for you. So what I want you to do is to experience this love. Experience this grace. Know that it's not the decision to serve the world that serves the world, but it's the realization that God so loved the world that he served and gave his only son. And that night, he said, I want to give you something that you can do that helps you to remember all this. The way that I'm calling you to follow is like this. The way that I'm calling you to serve is like this. It's to surrender your life. It's to surrender your will, to say yes to God, to cling to Him every day, to learn what it likes to have the patterns, the behaviors, the values, the thoughts, the ideas in the ministry of Jesus. To become fully like him in every way, not segmented, but you are your pastor at work. You are the pastor of your organization. You are the shepherd of whatever place and space that God has you as you're leading, as you're following, because you are becoming exactly like your master. Not simply integrating the ideas that the master taught about. That's not learn about me, that's follow me. And so what I want to say is this the greatest gift that you can give to your work or any place. The first step in making disciples is being a disciple. And so we're gonna sing one more song, we're gonna have our crew come up and they're gonna serve communion. And as they do, here's what I want your honest internal contemplant contemplative kind of idea to be. God, if you would do all this for me, I'll give everything back to you. I want to follow you with my entire life. If that's not where you are, that's okay. I want you to sit there and pray until it's not. And if it's not today, and if it's a different time, that's okay too. But if you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, the invitation is to come and to be reminded of this good God who gave everything for us and calls us to follow Him with everything. Let's pray. God, thank you for the fact that you give us the job description. Follow me. And so we decided to leave everything and follow you, Jesus. I will make you. And so, Jesus, we allow you to make us into that. Allow us to make us like you. And what you were, what you did was to fish for men, to find people who need to see and need to experience life. And so, Jesus, we look to you, the author of life. We thank you for the fact that when you died on the cross, you didn't die for a label, you didn't die to integrate ideas, you sacrificed your life for us, and in response, we give our lives to you. But Jesus, we pray that that happens as we deeply realize your love for us displayed on the cross. It's your love, it's your grace, it's your mercy, it's your compassion, it's you and your spirit inside of us who works with our will and our works to do what you've called us to do. So, Jesus, would you take these next few moments? Help us to realize the sacrifice that you made for us, the love poured out for us. And in response, Jesus, we want to follow you as you make us fishers of men. In your name we pray. Amen.