When Christmas descends on us, as it seems to do so suddenly every year, it presents us with a picture of life. And Christmas now doesn’t look much different than it did at the first Christmas 2000 years ago:
Bethlehem was a bustling town, buzzing with commerce. The announcement of a census brought an influx of people to the town. Traffic was probably an issue. Hotels were packed. Businesses did very well, thank you. And almost unnoticed by all, God appeared in their midst in the person of Jesus, born in a humble stable.
These days our city bustles. Businesses do very well at Christmas time. People scurry around making lists and checking them twice. For some, Christmas is all about ‘stuff’, about buying and getting. For others, they delight in the expression of love that a gift means, and Christmas is about loved ones, family and friends. It’s about relationships. Some people are busy fulfilling obligations, attending parties and functions and making sure you spend time with your family and the in-laws. Most people at Christmas get tired. Some enjoy the season; some are drained by it.
And somewhere in all of it, for those who take time to notice, God is there. You have to leave the crowded inn and step over to the quiet of the stable, but for those who do, we see Christ, and Christmas finds its true meaning.
That is a picture of life.
For many people, in our culture at least, life, like Christmas, is spent just trying to keep up, getting things done and fulfilling obligations. For many, life, like Christmas, is about ‘stuff’; accumulating money or toys and always in pursuit of the next thing you ‘need’. For others, it’s about relationships, family and friends. Some people enjoy life. For far too many people life, like Christmas, it saps energy, and the goal is just to get through.
And yet for all, if we take the time to notice, God is there. We encounter him in Jesus Christ and it is there that life has its true meaning.
Jesus said, Eternal life is to know God and Jesus Christ, whom he has sent. He said, I’ve come that they might have life. The Apostle John wrote in the New Testament, In him was life, and, He who has the Son of God has life. He who does not have the son does not have life.
True life is experienced through an encounter with Jesus Christ. Even for Christians, it is as we continue to encounter Christ that we continue to experience life. Maybe you feel deflated. What we need is a fresh encounter.
In this Christmas season and beyond, we are encountering Christ in the Gospel of Mark. We know that the whole Old Testament anticipates Jesus and the rest of the New Testament proclaims and explains him. But it is the gospels, the accounts of Jesus, around which the whole Bible revolves, and God has given us His Word, the Bible, for no other reason than to point us to Christ and, thus, to draw us to himself.
God cannot be known, except through Jesus. So we are focusing on Jesus, specifically in the gospel of Mark.
Last week we looked at the first 13 verses of chapter one, which is Mark’s prologue to the whole gospel. There Jesus is introduced as the Christ of Old Testament prophecy and as the Son of God, testified to by God himself.
Today we see Jesus as he begins his public ministry and lays a foundation not only for his own life and work but also for his mission as it will be carried out by his followers even to our day.
We call ourselves ‘Christians’, followers of Jesus Christ. So we identify ourselves with him. But what does that really mean? When I say ’I am a Christian’, what have I said about myself?
That is what this passage addresses. It doesn’t address it in terms of doctrinal theology, but practice. That is, it lays out in no uncertain terms what the nature of the commitment is. If you are not a Christian, but are thinking about it, here’s what you’re thinking about. If you are a Christian, it’s time to brush up on what you said ‘yes’, you said ‘yes’ to a call, to a message, and to a task or mission.
So, let us look at those things again, and encounter Christ with some fishermen on the shores of Galilee.
The first part of what it means to be a Christian has to do with our response to the call of Christ.
The encounter with Christ calls for a response and that response is to follow Christ.
As Jesus walks along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, he sees Simon and Andrew, two brothers. They are fishermen by trade, and as Jesus sees them, they are casting their net into the water. Jesus calls out to them: ‘Come, follow me.’ A little farther along, he sees two more brothers, James and John, preparing their nets for they too are fishermen. He calls them, too, and the immediate response both times is that they immediately drop what they are doing and go with Jesus.
Jesus calls us, too. To each one of us, the call has already come or comes to you this morning: ‘Come! Follow me!’
For Peter and Andrew, for James and John, the following was quite literal: they fell in behind Jesus and wherever he went, they went. Obviously we don’t ‘follow’ in that same way. So what does it mean for us to ‘follow’ Christ?
It means that we surrender our life and submit our agenda to him. There are two parts to this: obedience and imitation.
If I am a follower of Christ, then I have said Christ is my leader (which is what we mean when we say Jesus is ‘Lord’). I have recognized that Jesus has authority over me, and ‘following’, in this sense, means ‘obedience’.
So, if you are not a Christian but are considering it, you need to know that to be a Christian is to place your life under the authority of someone other than yourself. It’s not only about words, or a belief system, or about the ‘religious’3 facet of your life. It’s about letting someone else be in charge.
If you are a Christian, you may need to be reminded of that, too. We have surrendered, committed ourselves to obedience. It is a journey, a process, certainly – and none of us are perfect. But we need to be clear in our minds that in whatever area of our life we are not submitted to Christ, be it relational, spiritual, financial, physical, then we are not following Christ in that area.
And as Christians, when we ‘witness’ to people, that is, tell them about Christ and invite them to become Christians, we need to help them understand ‘follow’, too. It’s not enough to say, ‘Do you want Jesus to forgive your sins so you can go to heaven?’ Rather, it’s more like saying, ‘Jesus will pay your debts, but he’ll also assume absolute control of all your finances.’ People need to understand that. Following Jesus means obedience to Jesus.
It also means imitating Him, being like Him. Just like in the kids’ game ‘Follow-the-leader’. Where the leader goes, you go. What the leader does, you do.
Following Jesus means living out His values. It means his priorities are our priorities. So lost people matter to us. The poor and the sick matter. Financial decisions are guided by Christ’s values.
There are several occasions in the Bible where we are told specifically to imitate Christ in certain ways.
In John 13, Jesus washed His disciples feet, a job reserved for slaves, the most humble of tasks. Jesus said, ‘As I, your Lord, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.’ So, following Christ is to be a servant.
Husbands, Ephesians 5 calls us to love our wives, just as Christ loved the church, giving himself up for her. Following Christ as a husband means laying ourselves down, sacrificing our rights, our agendas for the good of our wives.
1 Peter 2 says that Christ endured wrongdoing without retaliation, and that in this we should ‘follow in his steps’. Following Christ means responding with love and grace when you are wronged, insulted or hurt.
Following Christ is obedience to Christ, and it means imitating him, letting our character, our attitudes, and our actions be conformed to his.
Christians, by definition, are people who have said to Jesus, ‘Yes! I will live in submission to your Lordship, and I will allow you to make me be like you.’
One final observation about our response is that it is a response to a command, not to an invitation. When Jesus says, ‘Come, follow me’, he is not saying, ‘If you want to follow me, the door’s open’. He is saying, ‘I, the Lord of Heaven and Earth, who rules all things eternally, who created you for myself, call you to follow me.’
It’s a vital distinction. We talk about the ‘gift’ of salvation and say, ‘But like any gift, you just need to accept it’. God never says, ‘If you want this, you can have it, but if not, that’s okay.’
We’d never dream of punishing someone for saying ‘No thanks’ to a gift. Only for disobeying a command or law. Refusing to follow Christ isn’t saying ‘No thanks’. 1 Peter 2 speaks of ‘disobeying’ the message, not just turning down an offer.
Christ has called us, and may be calling you again today, to ‘Come, follow me’. He is calling for allegiance, for surrender, for obedience, and for you to be like him.
Let there be no misunderstanding that this is the claim that he lays on your life. And the Christian is the one who says, ‘Yes. I will follow’. That’s the Christian’s response.
Christ came to the world proclaiming a message, and to follow him means also to proclaim his message to the world. We have a message. That is, we are the means by which God wants to communicate to people. And the Christian’s message is two-fold: ‘repent’ and ‘believe’.
When Jesus first appears and begins his ministry, he comes proclaiming the good news of God, in Mark 1:14. ‘The time has come’, he said. ‘The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news.’
The ‘kingdom of God’ was the central theme in Jesus’ teaching. Many of the parables he told begin with the words, ‘the kingdom of heaven is like…’
When he sent his disciples out in Luke 9, he sent them to cast out demons and to preach the kingdom of God. Between his resurrection and his ascension, he spent those forty days speaking with his disciples about the kingdom of God.
The kingdom of God is that sphere in which God’s will is done, God’s values lived out, and God’s character demonstrated. Jesus came to establish God’s kingdom. With Christ, the rule of evil began to be pushed inexorably back, and the reign of God has been moving forward. The good news is: the kingdom of God has become available for ordinary people to live in. That is, rather than self-seeking-ness, rather than emptiness, rather than unforgiveness, loneliness, instead of those things: love, joy, peace, the experience of forgiving and being forgiven, fullness of life, and most of all, the real presence of and friendship with God. These things are available in Christ in a way they never were before. That is the good news! That’s our message, and God uses us to call people into that kingdom of God.
And we do that by calling people to repent and believe.
Repentance is a word that has gone quite out of fashion for us. Because the concept of sin is out of fashion. Sin and repentance aren’t considered helpful categories. We’d rather think of sin as dysfunction, mistakes, or character weaknesses, or a natural response given the circumstances: (‘I know I shouldn’t have, but…’)
But the simple truth is that every thought, word or action that runs counter to the character of God is sin. And we are called to repent.
Repentance admits the reality of sin. And as grace is meaningless unless we admit our sinfulness and therefore our need for grace, there is no real faith without repentance.
John the Baptist preached repentance.
Jesus called people to repent.
And the Christian’s message is still ‘Repent!’
So, repent simplified means to ‘re-think’, to have a transformation of the mind. It is to see things as God sees them, which means, as regarding sin, to see and understand the wrongness of our sin. And when we repent, when we understand sin for what it is, we begin to hate sin and love goodness.
That’s essential because without repentance, we’d have no desire to ever be a part of God’s kingdom.
The other half of the equation is to ‘believe’. Not just agreeing with the mind, but ordering your life around something, staking everything on. In this case, it is a belief that the kingdom of God really is available to you in Jesus Christ.
‘Believing’ is the theme of the gospel of John. For example John 3:16 – for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Whoever puts their faith in the Son of God, whoever trusts Christ alone will have eternal life, will inherit the kingdom of God.
Two parts: repentance is to turn from sin, to reject the kingdom of sin. So believe is to embrace the kingdom of God, to affirm, ‘Yes! I want to live that life.’
The Christian’s message to the world has not changed: the kingdom of God is near. Repent from your sin and believe in Christ. Leave your old life and accept fullness of life in Jesus.
The Christian’s response: follow Christ.
The Christian’s message: repent and believe.
Finally the Christian’s mission: is to fish for people.
When Jesus called Simon and Andrew, James and John, he said, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.’
They were fishermen. Day in and day out they made their living casting their nets for a catch of fish, which they would sell and so support themselves. It was a living, a job. Then Jesus comes and says, ‘Come with me and be a part of something great. Come and do something of eternal value. Come and see what God is doing, and do it with Him. And they dropped their nets and followed Him.
Who doesn’t want to be a part of something great? Who doesn’t want to do something significant? Who doesn’t want to know that your life has made a difference in something that matters?
Christ calls you to help move people from darkness to light, from death to life, from emptiness to fullness, from sin to fellowship with God.
Our mission is no different from that of Simon, Andrew, James, and John. We, too, are fishermen, drawing people into the kingdom.
We, though, don’t leave our jobs to do it (though for some, God may call you to do just that). We fish in the places where we are – in your office, your classroom, your community, your neighborhood, or job site. There are people whom God is fishing for, and he’s put you there to do that.
Does that mean that you button-hole people and preach to them all the time? No. (But there may be a time for that.) But it means you love them in the name of Christ. It means you follow Christ in those places, and reflect him there. And, as God gives opportunity, you do speak of him.
‘Fishing for people’ is, of course, a metaphor and Jesus uses it because of who Simon, Andrew, James and John were.
When He calls you, He might say something different:
Are you a mom? Jesus says, ‘Come, follow me, and you will help people be reborn as children of God.’
Are you a teacher? Jesus says, ‘Come, follow me, and you will bring people to a knowledge of God and his love.’
Are you a builder or a craftsman? Jesus says, ‘Come, follow me, and God will use you to build something eternal, to see people re-made into something new.’
Are you in the health profession? Jesus says, ‘Come, follow me, and you will see people made whole, lives healed.’
Jesus calls you to follow him. Are you ready to live your life in obedience and repentance, and to share in his mission. Yes, we fail. Yes, we are inadequate. Yes, we are weak. And yes, God is forgiving, merciful and good. But when Jesus says, ‘Follow me’ let there be no doubt: Jesus is commanding – commanding! – us to take part in his mission.
Will you?
Amen.