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Yesterday I was sitting out in front of my house as I do on nice evenings. I was eating some Thai food from Charm. It was amazing. And my I got two cats. I know there's dog people and there's cats people. I'm I like both, but I'm more cats people because when you go on vacation, you can just leave extra food out and they're good. You don't gotta like take them to the dog center, right? So my cat baby just goes like strolling up my driveway and wandering up through my neighbor's houses. And I've always wondered like if I could follow a cat for a day, like what would that be like? Like what what does my cat do all day long? And I was I was literally wondering that question. And no more than two or three minutes later, my cat baby just came strolling back down the driveway like this. She got a big old pigeon. And after I think it was an early Father's Day gift, because like I'm kind of her father. So she dropped it off on the back porch in my son's shoe. She's like, This is where, this is where dad's gonna see it. So I literally went up the deck and I saw that. And she was just like smiling, like, I sent it to one of my buddies, and he's like, that's a creepy face to die to. You know what I'm saying? But apparently, that if you follow a cat all day, like that's what they do. They they try to catch birds and they bring you Father's Day gifts. So I was really, I was really proud of baby in that moment. I was like, a proud cat dad. I was like, yeah, she brought me home the bird. I didn't cook it or eat it. Um, but I'm sure there's gonna be good food later today. And so the reason I bring up that funny illustration is because today we're gonna look at what the scriptures talk about as to what it means to follow Jesus. And what does that look like for you? And what does that look like for me? Practically to follow Jesus. And that's really uh what it means to be a disciple is to be a follower of Jesus. And so we're gonna look at uh what Jesus teaches of this in Matthew chapter four. But the reality is this apart from Jesus' sacrificial work on the cross, the most significant thing that Jesus did in all of his earthly life was one thing, and that is make disciples. Did you know that Jesus never wrote any books? Jesus never built any organizations or built any buildings, but instead, Jesus placed the entire future of his earthly ministry in the hands of 12 disciples. And when you look at the New Testament, this is the primary term that is used for what we are called disciples. The word disciple is used 261 times in the New Testament. In comparison, the word Christian is only used three times, and the word believer is only used two times. So, as a follower of Jesus, disciple is our primary identity, and making disciples is our primary mission. And so we're gonna unpack what that means and what that looks like in Matthew chapter four as we look at the story of Jesus calling his first disciples. You can look down with me, starting in verse 18. Here's what it says. 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, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him. So if you are a note taker this morning, we're gonna look at this text and we're gonna talk about the call of discipleship, the command of discipleship, the commission of discipleship, and the cost of discipleship. But the first thing that I want you to see that a lot of people probably just read over real quickly, which I think is actually a very important detail. Notice verse 18 again, it says, While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers and he called out to them. Now, if you're just reading your Bible in the morning and you read that, you go, Yeah, cool, no big deal. He saw two brothers and he called out to them. But this is actually really important because when the scriptures say that he saw them, it is speaking more to just the fact that he saw them with the physical eye. When it says that he saw them, Jesus saw who they could become. And when Jesus sees a person, not just his disciples, but when he sees you and when he sees me and when he calls a person to follow him, he doesn't only see a person in their current state. Again, he sees who he intends them to be. From the very first moment that God saw you and that God called you. The reality is this, he sees more in you than you ever even see in yourself. When God saw me and called me, he saw things in me that I never even saw in myself. See, when when we see ourselves, most of us, we see the brokenness, we see our insecurities, we see our failures, we see our incapabilities. But when God sees us, he is able to see beyond that. And some of you guys are here today and you're actually so scared for Jesus to see you because you think that when Jesus sees you, he sees you the way that you see you, but he doesn't. God does not see us the way that we see us. We see in this that when God sees a fisherman, he actually sees something far greater. When God sees a fisherman and calls a fisherman, he actually sees a future apostle. When when God sees an alcoholic, he is able to see beyond that, and God is able to see a future AA facilitator. When God sees a pornatic, he actually sees a future faithful husband. When God sees a woman caught in adultery, he is able to see a faithful mother. When God sees an atheist professor, God is able to see beyond that and he sees a future pastor. When God sees someone struggling with gender identity, he sees a person who has found their identity in him. When God sees a person bound by the chains of addiction, he sees a person walking in freedom. How many of you guys are thankful and grateful that when God sees you, he doesn't see just who you are, he sees who he's called you to be. How many of y'all are grateful that when when you were on the brink of suicide, even like Dimitri shared, God saw you? When you were locked up behind bars, God saw you. When you were addicted to the bottle, God saw you. When you were enslaved to sexual sin, God saw you. When you were entrenched in the new age ideology, God saw you. When you thought you were your own God, God saw you. When you hated yourself and when you thought you had no worth, God saw you. When you had no hope and thought there was no hope and no future for your life, God saw you. God saw you and He called you. You know that that's every one of our stories here. That wherever we were, whatever we were struggling with, whatever we were going through, whatever we were wrestling with, God saw you and He called you. And again, maybe you're here today, and maybe you've been scared to actually come to Jesus. And maybe you've been scared to follow Jesus because if you're honest with yourself, you've never never let anybody see you your entire life. You you've you've hidden from people your whole life, and nobody knows the real you, and you'll never let anybody in because you're scared of how they might get they might see you. But I'm here to tell you this that when Jesus sees you, he isn't ashamed of who you are. When Jesus sees you, he's not ashamed to see you. When Jesus calls you, he's not ashamed to call you because he's already dealt with everything you've ever dealt with when he died on the cross. That's why Jesus is able to see something greater in your life than you can see in your life. That's why Jesus is able to see past the sin and past the brokenness because he's already dealt with it. When he went to the cross, as we were reminded this morning, he said, as far as the east is from the west, that's how far I've removed your transgression. So while you're still allowing that sin to define you and that brokenness to define you, that no longer defines you when you begin to follow Jesus. And so this morning, I don't know what you're walking through, I don't know what you came and you're carrying, but I just want you to know he sees you. He sees you and he is calling you. Amen. So he saw them, he saw these fishermen who he knew would be apostles, and these are the first people he calls out to. This is the call of discipleship. He calls out to these fishermen who are just in their boats, mending their nets, out on the sea. And I love this that these are the first people that Jesus calls to be his disciples. The first disciples had no ministry experience, they had no social status, they had no degrees, but what they did have was a calling from God on their life. Isn't that amazing? That that is the primary and most important thing in your life. Not what you've accomplished, not what you've done. Jesus doesn't choose based off of that. He chooses because again, he sees who you can become in him. And I love that God is in the business of just using normal people. I know a lot of people struggle to believe that God has a plan for their life or struggle to believe that God could use them because I'm just me. I'm just the guy who works at the coffee shop. I'm just the lady who works in the classroom, I'm just the fill in the blank. But God is in the business of calling and using normal people. And you see that pattern all throughout the scriptures. When David was called to be the king of Israel, he was just the lowly shepherd keeping sheep out in the field. His dad Jesse brought all the other brothers and was like, Nathaniel, Nathan, which one is it? And he's like, It's none of them. Do you have any more? He's like, Well, yeah, I got this little dude out in the field. He's like, Bring him in. And he's like, That's the king right there. God, God could use a faithful shepherd. When Gideon was called to be a leader over the nation of Israel and a judge over the nation of Israel, he was threshing wheat. When Elisha was called on to prophesy, he was plowing in the field. When Nehemiah was called to go and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, he was just a king's cupbearer. When Paul was called upon to be to be uh an apostle and a one who would go and proclaim the gospel to the Jews and the Gentiles, he was a Pharisee, he was persecuting the church, he was killing Christians. When Lydia was called upon to follow Jesus, she was a merchant selling purple cloth. When Esther was called upon to be raised up as the queen, she was in exile in Babylon and she was an orphan. When Daniel was called upon to be a prophet, he was a government official. When the disciples were called upon, they were just everyday fishermen. I'm here to encourage you this morning that God uses just normal people. And not normal, but even worse than that, even weak and foolish people. And in fact, this is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1, verse 26 and 27. I love this verse. It says, For consider your calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth, but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. Isn't that amazing? That the people God is looking for is not the people who have it all together. It's not the people who are so wise, it's not the people who are so powerful, it's not the people who have such a great pedigree, it's not the people who have all the money. No, he's looking for somebody who's weak and brings their weakness to him. He's looking for people who don't have it all together but realize, Jesus, that's why I need you. And so again, the pattern here is Jesus did not call the trained, but he trained the called. Which means if there's a calling on your life, if God is calling you to come and follow him, he will work in your life as you continue to follow him. God doesn't call you based off of your degrees, based off of your success, your achievements, your resume, your intellect, your social status, your wealth. He doesn't care about any of that. What he cares is that he sees something in you that you don't even see. And he is calling you to be his disciple. So here's my question Have you heard the call? Have you heard the call? Just as Jesus called out to these disciples, they heard and they responded. Have you heard and responded to Jesus' call on your life? Today he is calling you. Today he is inviting you to come and be his disciple. And if you've never responded to the call of Jesus, I pray today by the power of the Holy Spirit that today would be that day that you would say, Man, it's it's time. It's time to respond to the call. God is calling. Will you respond? So that's the call. The call goes out to just normal people, and God's calling us here today as well. And what's the command now? We move from the call to the command. Well, notice again in verse 19, he said to them, here it is, follow me. The call is just to everyday fishermen, normal people. The command is follow me. Now, this is really important, especially in our cultural moment, to understand that when Jesus says follow me, he means something entirely different than what most of us think of when somebody says follow me. Because typically when you meet somebody at a restaurant or at a party or somewhere and they say, hey, follow me, usually that means, hey, go on your Instagram or go on your TikTok and follow me. Here's my at, you know, at Xavier Brasser or at whoever. Follow me. And following someone in our culture, if you do that, if you follow someone, it means an occasional interaction. It means an occasional like or an occasional comment on a small snippet of their life. So, you know, I'm following this person, they post a reel, and maybe every now and then I'll comment, oh hey, that was funny, or hey, that's cool. Or maybe I'll like it, thumbs up it. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on your Facebook wall. And I thumbs up that because I'm following you, right? And and the reality is some people they follow Jesus this way. They follow Jesus the way that people follow people in our culture today. It's just an occasional drop-in on a Sunday morning. Yeah, I'm following Jesus. Well, well, how what does that mean? Well, yeah, I go to church sometimes. It's just an occasional drop-in, or just an occasional comment or prayer when we're in need. God, life's hard now. So because I'm following, I guess right now I can just throw up a comment, throw up a prayer, and hopefully you answer. I'm not sure if you actually will or not, but I'm just gonna throw it up anyways. In an occasional agreement or like with something he said. Oh, yeah, yeah, I like that Jesus said that. I I can thumbs up that. Love your enemies and you know, love your neighbor. Yeah, thumbs up. I can thumbs up love your neighbor as yourself. And I agree with that. Or maybe for some it's just an occasional reading of something Jesus said in the scripture. Again, a lot of people follow Jesus the way that we follow in our culture. However, the call to follow Jesus is entirely different. When Jesus says to his disciples, and when Jesus says to me, and when Jesus invites you, come and follow me, it is a call to submit our entire lives to him. It is not an occasional interaction, it is not an occasional agreement, it is not an occasional thumbs up. It is if I am following Jesus, my entire life comes under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Now, what I want you to notice as Jesus calls them to come and follow him as well. I want you to notice that Jesus does not provide any context for what this is gonna look like. Like all literally, all he says is follow me. He doesn't say where they're gonna go next, he doesn't say how they're gonna get there, he doesn't say what the game plan is, he doesn't say how long it's gonna take, he doesn't give them any details whatsoever. Now, most of us, if a stranger like Jesus was to them comes up to you and says, Hey, follow me. Most of us, myself included, are gonna have a lot of questions. Like if some dude just walks up to me and goes, follow me, I'd be like, Why? And they're like, hey, follow me, I'm like, where are we going? I'm like, what's in it for me? Like, I got a lot of questions. Someone's like, follow, follow me. I'm like, I got a lot of questions. I'm not, I'm not just jumping in. I'm like, yeah, let's just go, let's kind of see what's going on here. Most of us would have a lot of questions, but when you make the decision to follow Jesus, the reason Jesus doesn't tell the roadmap, the reason the disciples don't even ask any questions is because they understood that when you make the decision to follow Jesus, you are making a decision to walk by faith and not by sight. That's what following Jesus is. It is an act of faith. I don't know where we're going, but I trust that Jesus knows where I'm going. I don't know how long it's gonna take, but I trust that Jesus has his timing. I don't know what it's gonna do in my life or how it's gonna change me, but I trust Jesus in the process. When you make the decision to follow Jesus, it is an act of faith. Following Jesus begins with faith and it ends with faith. And every single step along the way, as you follow Jesus, it is by faith. Now, again, we we got to remember that these fishermen who Jesus calls to follow me, they have no idea who this dude is. They have zero information whatsoever. It's just a casual Tuesday, they're out on the lake, and Jesus comes and says, follow me. For them, this act of faith would have been, I believe, even greater than our call of faith when we begin to follow Jesus. Because for us, we have way more knowledge about Jesus today than the first disciples ever did. We live in the post-resurrection era, and we have the entire story of Jesus' life recorded for us on the pages of the scripture. So normally when somebody today makes a decision to follow Jesus, they already have quite a bit of information. Like if you want to know who Jesus is, you can just open up the Bible. You can read his story, you can hear what he did. We know the miracles of Jesus, we know the claims that Jesus made, we know about Jesus' death and resurrection, we know his promises, we know he said he's coming again, but despite all of this knowledge that we have, following Jesus is still ultimately an act of faith. It is an act of faith. And so my question for you is simply this Are you content just to know about Jesus? Are you content just to know about him, what other people have said, or what you've heard in church, or what you might have read yourself? Are you content just to know about Jesus or by faith, have you responded to the call of Jesus to come and follow him? Your knowledge about him is not primarily what it's he's interested in. What he's interested in is a relationship with you. What he's interested in is you actually walking with him and knowing him and pursuing him as he pursues you so that we can grow into the people that he sees that he's called us to become. Now, an interesting side note, not sure if you knew this or not, but Jesus was not the first rabbi to have disciples. This is actually very common in the first century that Jewish rabbis would have disciples who would come and follow them. However, the way that it traditionally worked up until the point of Jesus is that if you wanted to be the disciple of a rabbi, to learn under them, to hear from them, to study with them, you would approach the rabbi and say, Can I follow you? Can I be one of your disciples? Can I walk with you? Can you teach me what you know about the scriptures? So it in the pattern of history, this is the way that it worked. A disciple would come and tell the master, I'm gonna follow you. However, notice Jesus flips the script here. Jesus does not wait for people to come and say, Can I follow you? Jesus commands them to come and follow him because biblical discipleship is not an offer that man makes to God. It is an invitation that God extends to man. I want to say that again. Biblical discipleship is not an offer that we make to God, it is an invitation that God extends to us. We don't come with our own terms, hey, I'm gonna follow you if fill in the blank. No, it's hey, by faith, I'm I I've heard the call and I'm responding to the call and I will follow. Likewise, first century rabbis, they traditionally commanded their disciples to follow the Torah or to follow the traditions from their certain sect of Judaism. But notice Jesus doesn't say, I'm here to tell you follow tradition. The command is not follow religion, it's not follow ideas, it's not follow bloggers, it's not follow influencers, it's not follow culture, it's not follow podcasts, it's not follow your heart, it's not follow your dreams. The command is this follow me. Follow me. That is what Jesus invites his disciples into, and this shows us again that being a disciple is relational at the core. That is the core and the heart of biblical discipleship. It is a relationship, it's about following and trusting and knowing a person, the person of Jesus. And so if you boil it all down, that is the simplest definition of what it means to be a disciple. To be a disciple means I am following Jesus. A disciple of Jesus is a follower of Jesus. And again, that is the that was not only the command for them, follow me, that is the command for us today as well. I I don't care what Christian podcast you subscribe to, do you subscribe to the teachings of Jesus? I don't care what pastors you listen to on a regular basis, do you listen to the words of Jesus? I don't care what Christian accounts you follow on Instagram or TikTok, do you follow the person of Jesus? Jesus didn't say follow these bloggers, follow these pastors, follow these people. No, he said follow me. It's you and me. It's a personal relationship with Jesus. And this is so important to get because there's a lot of people in our culture who identify as Christians. If you ask them, are you a Christian? Are you a follower of Jesus? They say, Yeah, I am. Yeah, I'm a follower of Jesus. But when you look at who and what they follow, Jesus is nowhere even close to the top of the list. So to be a disciple is are you following Jesus? And that's the question that I want to ask you this morning. Who Or what are you following? Every single person is following something. Every person is following someone. Every person is following certain ideologies. Who or what are you following? Are you just following your heart? Well, this is what I feel I should do, or are you following Jesus? Are you just following the culture? Well, this is what culture says I should do, or are you following Jesus? Are you just following your dreams? Well, this is what I want to accomplish in my life, or are you following Jesus? Are you just following your pastor or are you following Jesus? The call of a discipleship is this we are following Jesus. And you don't have to wait till you have a deeper understanding before you make that decision. Because again, the first disciples, they had no idea what they were in for, but they said, We're gonna follow this guy. In spite of logic or reason or understanding, we're gonna follow him until the very end. So today my prayer for you is that again, that you would you'd first hear the call. Jesus is calling you to be his disciple, and that you would respond and begin to follow Jesus. Amen. So we move now into the third piece, which is the commission. The the commission. So he says, here's the command, it's follow me. And notice verse 19 again, what he says right after that. Follow me and I will make you fishers of men. So the commission of what God saw and then that they would become is you are now gonna go out and you are gonna be fishers of men. But don't skip over that first part. Notice this phrase, and I will make you. Jesus says, Notice, as you begin to follow me, I will make you, which means what? It means discipleship is a process. Growing as a disciple, it's not just a one decision, one moment, and everything changes. Yes, you get a new heart when you place your faith in Jesus, but Jesus says, I will make you, which means when you follow Jesus, you will become something you were not. When you begin to follow Jesus, you will become someone that you were not. That's what we were singing about. I don't walk the way I used to, I don't talk the way I used to. I've been changed from the inside. It is a process. So when he says, I will make you, it means he is the one who works in us and forms us and makes us into who he has called us to be. And so I want you to understand this as specifically for newer believers. If you're newer to the faith, if you're a new disciple of Jesus, I want you to know you don't get saved on Sunday and then become everything God intended you to be on Monday. Like just because you have a new heart doesn't mean you've arrived the next day. No, as you follow Jesus, he makes you into something. There's still things in your life that need to be weeded out. There's still things in truth and revelation that he hasn't yet poured in that you haven't yet understood. So again, it's a process. And the reason I share that with you is because I meet with a lot of people and I find that a lot of Christians just get really discouraged and are still walking and living in shame because of their failures and shortcomings as a disciple. And if if that's something you wrestle with, can I just say this? Welcome to the club. Like if you're not perfect yet, if you don't have it all together yet, welcome to the club. It's a process. I will make you. And the people who knew that better than anybody else was the first 12 disciples. We look at them and because we know the full story, we know who they become, but when you look at the process they went through, they weren't the best of dudes. Like when Jesus is literally at the end of his life going to be crucified, all of them bail. They're like, We're out. Jesus, like, well, I've been with you three years. You're like, nope, can't go that far. Like they they bailed on him. So again, you gotta understand it's a process. And you can't let shame and the things that you're wrestling with now determine your future steps that you continue to take with Jesus. So he says, I will make you, and what does he say he's gonna make them? He says, I will make you fishers of men. So this is the commission. Here, as you follow me, I'm gonna I'm gonna transform you from the inside out. You're gonna walk with me, and I'm gonna make you fishers of men. This is the first title that Jesus gave to the people he commissioned to ministry. And I love this too, because he didn't call them pastors, he didn't call them apostles, he didn't call them elders, he didn't call them deacons. No, he said, I will make you fishers of men, which means what? Jesus here is giving them the commission of what the whole purpose of their discipleship is. That as you follow me, that's primarily the first step, it's relational, you're now gonna do what I'm doing. Just as I, Jesus, am investing in you and discipling in you, and you're walking with me and you're seeing me, he said, you're now gonna do that as well. You're gonna become fishers of men, you're gonna find people who are not yet disciples, and you're gonna share the gospel with them, and you are gonna disciple them and help them grow in their discipleship. This is the first thing Jesus told his disciples, and not only that, it's also the last thing he told them. Before Jesus ascended back to the throne in Matthew chapter 28, verse 19 and 20, we call it the Great Commission. Jesus reinforces this. He says, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. We're gonna unpack that passage in the coming weeks. But what I want you to see, the big idea here is Jesus starts by saying, You're gonna be fishers of men. You're gonna go and make disciples, and that's how he ends his ministry. Hey, don't forget, go and make disciples. So the commission is this every disciple is called to make disciples. That as we follow Jesus and we're being changed and conformed in his image, that we are called to make other disciples as well. And it's amazing that the church of Jesus Christ started with a few fishermen who he called to be his disciples. And as they begin to walk with Jesus and follow Jesus and actually live into their calling to go and make disciples, in the first century, the gospel of Jesus Christ began to radically spread and take over the Roman Empire. The world itself was being changed by a couple disciples who were following Jesus, so much so that in Matt in Acts chapter 17, verse 6, it was said of the disciples, these men have turned the world upside down. Like that was the report. The fisherman and the tax collector and the Pharisee and these random guys that Jesus called, they turned the world upside down. Why? Because they were walking in the commission. They realized this is who we've been called to be, to be fishers of men, to go and make disciples. And if we want to see our world turned upside down, we have to walk and respond in obedience to the commission Jesus has given us. That our primary calling is first and foremost to follow him. And then out of that, the overflow is that we'd be fishers of men, that we would go and make disciples of all nations. And so, my simple question for you, which I'm gonna bring up throughout this whole summer series, is this to just challenge you in. Who's one person in your life that maybe Jesus is calling or inviting you to disciple? Who's one person in your life who you're like, man, I just I want them to know Jesus? And and maybe God has put that on your heart or put them in your life because you are the person who is gonna be investing in their life. And it starts with praying for them, it starts, it starts with just spending time with them, it starts with loving on them, it starts with showing them where God's grace is at in your life and just discipling the people that God has put in your life. So I want to just challenge you this week to even just pray about that. God, who's one person who you're calling me to disciple? And maybe you're here and you're like, I'm not ready to do that yet. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you are. If if Jesus has done a work in your life, you don't have to know the whole Bible, you don't have to have all the answers. You can start by just sharing what you do know. And so may we be a church who lives into this commission, that we'd be fishers of men and that we would be disciples who are making disciples. Amen. And fourth and finally, we see not only the call of discipleship and the commission, we see we see now the cost of discipleship. I want I want to show you the cost here. Look at verse 20 through 22 where the passage ends. After Jesus calls them and commissions them, he says, 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, mending their nets, and he called to them. Again, immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him. The cost for these first disciples to follow Jesus, to actually respond to the call, is that it actually costs them everything. We see here that they left their nets, we see that they left their boats, we see that they left their profession, we see that they left their father. And in Mark's account, in Mark chapter one, it actually says they left their hired servants in the boat as well, which is an interesting side note because it shows us that by all accounts, the mention of boats and nets and hired servants would lead us to conclude that these first disciples were running a fairly successful family business. Their father was involved, they had enough money to be able to hire other servants to help out. They had a pretty successful business. But when Jesus called them to come and follow him, notice they understood that knowing Jesus and following Jesus and being with Jesus was incomparable to everything that they had worked for their entire lives. For them, it literally meant leaving their profession. For them, it meant leaving their source of security. For them, it meant leaving their wealth. For them, it meant leaving their father. It was leaving everything, but for them, they understood the cost was worth it. It was worth it to come and follow Jesus. And just as a side note, by the way, which the Holy Spirit put on my heart, I don't think it's for most people, but I think it's for one or two people. I want you to notice that small note that they they left their father in the boat. This was a patriarchal society, and this would have been seen as very disrespectful, the fact that they didn't consult their father. They didn't say, hey dad, what do you think? That's kind of foreign to us, but in the first century, to do something like this without the approval of the father would not have been taken very well. But notice they didn't even consult their father because they understood the call of the master, Jesus, was greater than their family tradition. And I want to speak that over just a few of your lives today. The call of Jesus, if Jesus is calling you, the call of Jesus is greater than whatever your family of origin or your family tradition is. You do not need your family's consent or your father's consent or your mother's consent or your siblings' consent or your spouse's consent to follow Jesus. If Jesus is calling you to follow Jesus, the call to follow Jesus is that He now is our priority. He is first, he he is supreme in our lives. And for some of you, maybe this has been a barrier. Maybe the reason you haven't been following Jesus is you're scared, what's my family gonna think? They don't believe in Jesus, they don't think very highly of Christians. What are they gonna think of me? And I just want to encourage you today to know this. And I've seen this happen in many circumstances. Maybe Jesus calling you to follow him, even though it would not go over well with your family, is because Jesus is actually pursuing your family. And you're gonna be the person who they begin to witness the transformation in your life. And God will often save one person out of a family to change the entire narrative and legacy of the entire family. So let me just encourage you in that. When you say yes to Jesus, in spite of what your family may think, God can use that in a powerful way to radically change the entire culture of your family. So they they left their father, they left the family tradition. Jesus is called. That's that's the cost for some of you here today. That it will mean a breaking away of certain people of your family who may not agree with that decision. But the big idea is this the big idea is that to be a disciple of Jesus, it requires sacrifice. There are there are certain things that we once loved and certain things that we once valued that when we begin to follow Jesus, you realize I don't I don't live that way anymore. I can't do that anymore. By following Jesus, I'm I'm literally the cost is I'm giving up everything. There's nothing I'm holding back from Jesus. Bonhoeffer put it this way: when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. That's what it means to follow Jesus. It's literally following in the way of Jesus, who died to himself, who laid down his life. And that's what the call is. That every day we say, Jesus, is there anything hindering me from following you? Is there anything I'm holding on to that you're calling me to lay down so that I might continue to follow Jesus? When Jesus calls you to follow him, you leave comfort behind. When Jesus calls you to follow him, you leave possessions and wealth behind. When Jesus calls you to follow him, at times you leave family behind. You leave toxic relationships behind. You leave your dreams behind. You leave the the ability for you to do what you want behind. You're saying, I'm following you, and God, you are now directing my steps. And this is what happens. If you if you make that decision, if you make the decision to follow Jesus, I can guarantee you this, it will change your life. But I also want to let you know that that means your life has to change. When you follow Jesus, it changes your life. But it changed life means your life actually changes. And this is something that the church at large in the West has done a really poor job of, I believe, for a long time. We've done a really great job of teaching salvation by faith alone, through grace alone, which is of chief importance, but we've done a really poor job at teaching people the cost of discipleship. Again, there is a clear distinction. Salvation, it costs you nothing. But discipleship actually costs you everything. Salvation happens in a moment and in an instant. But discipleship is a lifelong process. Salvation is something God does in you, but discipleship is something that you do in partnership with God. And one of the greatest problems in the church today is we've cheapened the cost of discipleship. We've mixed salvation with discipleship. And so we said, great, that person said the prayer, raised their hand up, now they're good to go. There's nothing else to do. And pastors and churches and people are scared to talk about core discipleship issues because they run the risk of offending people or that people might feel uncomfortable. And as a result, we have this entire generation of Christians who have very little fruit in their lives and very little willingness to give up anything that makes their life comfortable. We're like, oh, I didn't I didn't know that's what it meant. I thought I just kind of say the prayer and then just do whatever I want. And if you if you've genuinely accepted Christ, you you are saved. You have the Holy Spirit. But God wants more for your life than that. He wants you to grow into a disciple. And Christ saw that that was worth it, by the way. The greatest cost and the greatest price any person ever paid was when Jesus paid his own life. When Jesus gave his life on the cross, that cost him everything. But Jesus did that because he knew that the greatest cost would also produce the greatest reward. The fact that he literally gave his life, the reward of Christ is us. It's the church, it's the bride. We are his reward. So he saw who we would become because of his cost of laying down everything and he said, It's worth it. And I'm here to tell you the cost of your discipleship, the cost of your spiritual growth, the cost of your spiritual transformation, it is a great cost. It will cost you everything, but I'm here to tell you this it's worth it. And if you don't think it is, just look back at what Jesus did. It is absolutely worth it. Somebody once said, a religion that cost you nothing is worth nothing. But a religion that cost you everything is worth everything. My question for you is this what has it cost you to follow Jesus? What have you actually had to give up because of obedience and responding by faith to the call to come and follow Jesus? And I'm here to just tell you today, if if it hasn't cost you anything, I would really look at your heart and life and say, Am I actually following Jesus then? Am I actually a disciple of Jesus? Because if it hasn't cost you anything, that's not discipleship. Jesus understood the cost, Jesus paid the cost so that we would follow in his footsteps. And so I just want to ask, is there anything today that you know, man, Jesus has been calling me to give this up, but man, I've just been holding on to it. I've just been clinging to it. God has something beautiful for your life. God sees beyond what you're struggling with, He sees beyond what you're holding on to, He sees who He's called you to be. Will you respond by faith and say, you know what? I'm gonna follow you today. I'm gonna be willing like the first disciples. If it means leaving comfort behind, if it means leaving these relationships behind, if it means leaving these places behind, if it means leaving these habits and patterns behind, it is worth it to follow Jesus. It is worth it if I get Jesus. And so today, would we as disciples in the 21st century, when we count the cost and when we lay it all down at the foot of the cross, just like Jesus did for us, amen? Amen. Let's pray. Jesus, thank you first and foremost that you see every single person in this room just as you saw the first disciples. God, thank you that you see me. Thank you that you see us. And God, thank you that when you see us, you are able to see beyond what we see. Thank you that you see the plans you have for our life. Thank you that you see the calling on our life. Thank you that you see the transformation. Thank you that you see who you know we can become in you. And God, I pray today for any person who's never seen themselves the way that you do, even right now, by the power of the Holy Spirit, just give them a glimpse, God. Give them your glimpse and your heart to see themselves the way that you do, to see themselves robed in your righteousness because of your finished work. God, I pray that each person here today would come to know who they are in you. And God, I pray we would respond to the call, whether for the first time or whether for the hundredth time, that today, as you're saying, come and follow me, as we look at our lives and say, man, who am I following? What am I following? What are the areas of my life that I'm not actually following Jesus? That God, if there's areas in our life that we've not been following you, we don't have to live and submit to shame. God, we can just come and say, I'm ready today to surrender it again. I'm ready to count the cost, I'm ready to lay it down again, God. And anything in our life that is hindering us from pursuing you, from knowing you, and from following you, God, we just want to come and lay that down again. And we thank you that we know that's only possible because of you, Christ, that you laid down your life, that you paid the greatest cost, that you paid the greatest price to make a way for us to actually be able to follow you, to be able to walk with you, to be able to have fellowship with you. And so I pray for every person in this room today, God, that as we walk out today, we would hear the call. We would respond to the call. We would hear the commission. Go and make disciples, be fishers of men. We would walk in obedience. We'd look at the people you've placed in our life who need Jesus, and we begin to just share Jesus with them. God, fill us with your spirit. Again, I pray it's a special blessing on the fathers here today, God. Would they have your heart? Would they pass your heart down to their kids and to the next generation as well? And we praise you, God, for who you are and what you've done for us in Jesus' name. Everyone said, Amen.