Good morning. There is something strangely appropriate about this text being preached by me this morning. I discovered that at my last church, of the first three sermons I preached there, this text was two of them. And this being my third sermon here, I've got some catching up to do.

It's good to spend a few minutes with this text, the calling of the disciples. It's really one of my favorite texts in scripture—the story where several very ordinary people are our doing what they do, they're fishing, and they encounter Jesus. And being a bit of a fisherman myself, I’ve always been intrigued with the idea that Jesus shows up while they were fishing. But I just got one thing to say. I love you Lord, but I’m not giving up fishing.

In the spring of my senior year, a group of friends and I were preparing to be part of a ministry that we were shaping - working with some young people in the west central neighborhood of Spokane. And I was excited about it.

A month or so before graduation, I was approached by a professor who had recently been widowed. He was raising 3 children on his own and he asked if I might consider moving into his home and assist with childcare from time to time. And that was an offer that, as much as I was excited about the prospect of living with my friends and doing ministry together, this was an offer that I couldn't refuse.

In fact, it was something that I didn't really need to think about. I jumped at the opportunity. I'd come to love this person. He'd been a mentor to me in college. He'd taught me so much about life and faith. He'd come to my swim meets and led bible studies for my friends and I. And I'd come to learn so much from him. And yet, in retrospect, what I was to learn from him had only begun.

After moving into the home, I saw the way he interacted with his children and the way he used his money. I saw the kinds of food he ate and what he did for fun. We talked about books and life and relationships. We talked about the woman I was falling in love with. And we talked about what it meant to follow Christ.

I had learned a great deal from him in the classroom. But I am a different person because of that time living together and watching what he did. And many of you have had those kinds of experiences too. There's been a person like that who has made an impact on your life; that you caught faith from watching them.

Our text today tells the story of one of the most revolutionary things that Jesus ever did. It is so simple that we often miss its significance.

Read: Mark 1:14-19

The text tells us in verse 14 that Jesus had already begun a kind of ministry of preaching and teaching. And yet all of the gospels treat this story as if this really were the beginning of Jesus' ministry. That is definitely the case in this text, that though some things had begun, this is where Jesus' ministry really took shape. It seems as if Mark is trying to tell us, "If you want to know Jesus. If you want to understand what he's about, then you need to know this text. This text is crucial for understanding the quintessential Jesus."

I want to spend just a couple of moments talking about the way Jesus conducted this ministry because I think the way he did it is just as important as the actual words, or message, that he called them to.

Jesus says to them, "Follow me." He called to the disciples. Now this might seem an obvious point, but this wasn't the way it was typically done in that day. Usually a would-be follower of a rabbi would go to the rabbi and say something like we'd find in Luke 10: "Master, I want to follow you wherever you go." And the rabbi would begin a grilling session, asking lots of questions to find out if this person had what it would take to be their disciple. So it was kind of a test.

Jesus didn't do it that way. Jesus began by calling to them. He took the initiative. And there was no test. It seemed the sole criterion for their discipleship was their willingness to stand up and go when Jesus called them. It seems as if Jesus is saying, "Your initiative, your credentials, your goals, your desires are not the critical issue. My choice is the critical issue."

So Jesus called to them and said, "Follow me, and I will make you become fishermen of people." Let's spend a few moments with this call.

He called them to himself.

Now this, too, was not an ordinary thing. Rabbis would have assumed that their students were committed to Torah, to the Hebrew Scriptures, or perhaps to the end goal of becoming a rabbi themselves. But they would not assume that the students were obligated to the master. That was unique to Jesus.

Jesus called them to himself. Not to the scriptures, although the scriptures would take on a huge role. Not to becoming a rabbi, although they would learn a lot from him and take on a role because of their time with Jesus. They were called to a person - to Jesus himself.

We know that the call was to the person of Jesus. And we know that that call was also to be their highest priority. It resulted in some significant sacrifices. They needed to leave behind anything that would keep them from following Jesus.

They left their jobs. This was unusual. A rabbi and their disciples typically kept up a trade together. That was an unusual thing, that they would leave their jobs.

They left their families, which had to be a very odd thing at best. Incredibly irresponsible might have been the way it was viewed. In a first century patriarchal Jewish family, they would have had significant responsibilities to their family and to their father in particular.

Jesus was going to begin a kind of itinerant ministry, traveling from place to place, preaching and teaching along the way. And the call to follow Jesus was their highest priority. They needed to be ready to give up anything that would stand in their way.

The goal was not the sacrifices in itself, but following Jesus. You and I might be called to leave jobs. Probably not. We might be called to leave our families. I sure hope not. But anything that might be in the way of following Jesus needs to be set aside.

I had a friend in seminary who was kind of a rock star. He used to play many of the biggest clubs in Hollywood, and he would fill the place. And he was making quite a name for himself. VH1 was set to do a week-long time of following the guy around wherever he went and spotlight him and his band. And he was set to make it big.

And a week before VH1 was to come out and begin taping, he decided he couldn't go through with it. The call to be a rock star was all about the ego. The call to Christ was something very different. And so he gave up an awful lot.

Now, incidentally, he's doing ministry in a church now. He's leading music in their church and doing very well. But in his case, he felt that the call to follow Jesus meant some changes in his life.

That call will result in ministry. "Follow me and I will make you fish for people," Jesus says. They will have an impact on the world because of their call. But notice that the primary call is not to the ministry. They're called to Jesus.

If you look at the grammar of this sentence, "Follow me" is the command. That's what the disciples were responsible for. Follow Jesus. Be with Jesus. Becoming a fisherman of people was something Jesus took responsibility for. Follow me. I will make you become a fisherman of people.

As a college student, I had the impression that the most sacrificial and the most spiritual of all possible careers would be that of a missionary. And so I approached a professor who I respected and who had spent much time in Africa. I listened to my Keith Green records and heard all those speakers who said, "If you really want to follow Jesus you've got to be willing to give it all up and go to Africa."

And so I approached this professor and said, "I wonder if I'm being called to be a missionary. I wonder if I'm supposed to go to Africa." And he looked at me and he said, "Todd, you're an American Christian. You've got the heart of a pastor. Don't be a missionary."

I was taken aback quite a bit. It was a bit deflating, but you understand his point. And I've come to appreciate those words. The call to follow Jesus is simply that - the call to follow Jesus. Not the call to a role. It's not a call to a particular career. It's a call to Jesus.

We've all been the beneficiaries of people who sought to follow Jesus in the places where they were. When I got started doing youth ministry I was full-time and making a whopping salary of $11,000 a year - married, too, at the time. And we had trouble with one of our cars. It wasn't starting. And, as you can imagine, this was quite a concern to me.

I spoke with one of my co-workers and he said, "You know, so-and-so in the congregation is a mechanic. You ought to give him a call and see if he knows what you should do with the car." So I called him, and he came over to our house and he took a look at it (spent about an hour fixing it) and he wouldn't take a dime. And he said, "You know, I don't know that much about the Bible, but I know how to fix cars. So this is what I do."

I talked to a businessman in one of the places where Monica and I were serving. This guy allowed us to use his home. He had a beautiful home. We had many parties in his home. And one night he took me aside and he said, "You know, I'm a businessman. You're not going to catch me teaching a Sunday School class. But God has given me the ability to make money. If there's ever a need, I want you to give me a call."

Now, I'll bet you can imagine in both of those cases, I was praising Jesus afterwards. These were people who were willing to do what it took to follow Jesus where they were. If God calls us to be a missionary, then God will prepare us and lead us to be a missionary. If God calls us to be a lawyer, then may we serve Christ well as a lawyer. If God has made you a contractor, then build well and serve Christ as you build. The call is to Christ.

So the question becomes, "How do we draw closer to Christ?" And "How can we be more attentive to Christ?"

When I think about the lives that we lead and the kind of pace that we run, it seems that one of the first steps may simply be making room. Last spring, our Session here at the church began to think about next steps for Bethany and what God might be asking us as a church. It became pretty clear that one of the next steps was Sabbath - to make room. That as a church, we were going to try and make the space needed to be able to see what God would have us do.

You know, here we have a strong emphasis on mission. And it's a great thing. We have a strong emphasis on worship. We do great children's ministry and youth ministry. We're committed to serving our local community. We want people meeting together in home groups. We want to offer great educational opportunities and fellowship opportunities. We want people to know each other. And the list goes on.

But in order to see what might be ahead, we need to figure out what God is doing. And that might mean, in some cases, paring back - making room for Christ to speak.

I heard a couple of weeks ago about one of the home groups in our church that meets regularly simply for this purpose - to make space, and to listen, and to help each other try to understand what God is about in their lives. On any given night, two people may speak, and the others are simply there to listen, to ask questions to clarify, not to offer judgments or opinions, but simply to help discern what God is doing in these people's lives.

And many of you may be doing similar things. It strikes me that that's what we're called to do - to be in the presence of Jesus. To be committed to Jesus, looking to Jesus for what he would have in our lives. He calls us to make room for him, to leave anything that would prohibit us from being with him. And when we do this, we will have an impact on the world around us. Not because we're trying to have an impact, but because we've been in the presence of Jesus.

The call today is simply that - to follow Jesus.

Let us pray.