Day 9

Chase: Hello and welcome to the Point Church Podcast. We're really glad you're here. Before we jump in, if you'd like to stay connected, you can download the Point Church app. It's a simple way to find messages, resource, and what's happening. And if this podcast is helpful, take a moment to like, subscribe, and share. You can find us on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music. Let's get into today's episode. Hello everyone, and welcome back to our series during Lent of forty days, forty podcasts, as we're working through the book of Matthew with Pastor Sam here. ⁓ we left off in ⁓ Matthew chapter four right when Jesus was beginning his ministry in Galilee. And so now we're moving into verse ⁓ eighteen. ⁓ and so it starts with as he was walking along the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and his brother Andrew. I want to pause there because some people get that mixed up as they read later on with Simon and Peter and this and that. Maybe Yeah, pretty straightforward. So ⁓ Andrew and Simon were brothers. Yep. ⁓ so the man's given name by his parents was Simon, which means read. And then later on Jesus renames him Peter, which means rock, stone. As in like Gonna give you a new identity, calling you from being one who is pushed around easily like a reed to one who's strong and firm like a rock, like Peter. And so there's times where Jesus calls him Simon and it's like a rebuke. And then other times he's like, You are Peter, like you're living into who I made you to be. So same person. Sometimes even say Simon Peter, just to add to confusion, I guess. But yeah, same guy. So while people are reading, they can understand that. ⁓ and picking up it says They were casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. Yep. Follow me, he told them. That's Jesus speaking, and I will make you fish for people. Mm-hmm. So and then immediately they left their nets and followed him. Yeah. So what Jesus is doing is a practice that rabbis would have done to call students to follow them. Like I want you to. Follow me. And it's not like just a follow me for the day. It means do everything with me, do life with me. ⁓ like we're gonna eat at the same place, like we're gonna sleep at the same place, we're gonna work in the same place, like you will just be like glued to my side. And ⁓ there's a saying, a rabbinical saying that was may you be covered in the dust of your rabbi. Because the goal was that when a rabbi calls a student, calls a disciple, you are following them that closely that you resemble them in everything you do. The way that you talk is the way your rabbi talked, the way you ate is the way your rabbi ate. So Jesus like lay down everything to follow me. And so ⁓ this was typically reserved only for the top students who went through school. And completed like all the highest education, that their hope and dream was just to be chosen by a rabbi in order to become a rabbi themselves. So the he's just doing this to fishermen, which again shows that these are ordinary people. Jesus is looking at different criteria and he's like, if you're willing to follow me, I'm willing to take you on as a student, which is different than how a lot of the rabbis would do it. Mm-hmm. And then going on from there, verse twenty one, it says Going on from there he saw two other brothers, James, the son of Zebedee, and the brother John. They were in a boat with Zebedee, their father, preparing their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him. Yes. So again, this is ⁓ James and John, so he's up to four. John is the same John who wrote the Gospel of John. So this is ⁓ one of the guys who would write a biography about Jesus. And ⁓ James is ⁓ not the same one who wrote the book of James. ⁓ Book of James was written by his by Jesus' half-brother. James, ⁓ the disciple who's called here, not to really give you spoil, but he's like the first of the disciples after Judas, of course. But after like the church starts to break out, he's like killed and martyred for his faith, like almost immediately. ⁓ so but these men were part of the inner circles. We'll get to later. Jesus has the twelve, and then among the twelve, he has three. And the three that were like the most intimately connected to him all the way up to the garden before his betrayal are James, John, and Peter. Mm-hmm. So these are the first one he calls, and the other significance of it is ⁓ Andrew and Peter leave their jobs, essentially. They leave their jobs. Yeah. Then you have James and John who not only leave their jobs, but they leave their father. Yeah. Like, so they are setting everything aside to follow Jesus. And there's a teaching later in the Gospels that Jesus gives where he says Come follow me, come be my disciples. And then he's giving all these hypothetical excuses. Like this person said, first let me or people did give excuses like let me bury my father. And he's like, Nope. And he's like, let me get married. Nope. Like now. Now is the time. The kingdom of heaven is here. Nothing is of a higher priority. Yeah. And so what these men are demonstrating again is what Jesus is looking for. Men who will be faithful to following. Everything that Jesus tells them to do. Now they don't do it all the time, they fail all the time. But what he's looking for again goes back to what John told the Pharisees, to what the ⁓ family tree of Jesus is is he's looking not for you based on your lineage or your talent. He's looking for you to be his follower, part of his family based on your faithfulness, on your willingness to follow Jesus. Yeah. So that's the criteria that we hold ourselves to that we look for. Where am I unwilling to follow Jesus above anything else? Yeah. Like what aspects of life can you look at? Yep. Like if I What have I not set down? Yeah. Like a phone. ⁓ Yeah. Like it could be really anything where it kind of goes back to like the idol worship, right? Of like Exactly. I'd rather worship this idol. Or, you know, if you're going through something, okay, yes, it says Jesus is going to help me and he'll be there with me and all of this. But I'm not ready yet and I don't want to put ⁓ there. I'm not willing to let go of the nets. Yes, c my security. My security. What am I gonna eat? Where am I gonna make money? Yeah. Like I can't trust Jesus to make my money for me. I can't. And it's so it speaks to that in our lives today, to me at least. ⁓ Exactly. And that and that's the what Jesus is doing. He's meeting them in a very ordinary day. Yeah. This is the Monday for all we know at work. Yeah. And he's like, ⁓ it's time. Yeah. It's not when they expected. It's not like when they're in the middle of church and they he's like, I'm here. Yeah. Are you ready? It's breaking their rhythm. Yes. And usually that's you know what Jesus does when we get into a rhythm of life, when Jesus enters, it can Are we ready to respond? Yeah, 'cause it's gonna disrupt it. Yep. Exactly. And it should. It it should. Absolutely. So ⁓ so great passage. Yeah, shows the faithfulness at first at least of these four men. Yeah. ⁓ even their father to let them go to say, Nope, nope, this is higher priority than keeping with the family business. So it's yeah, ⁓ it's a call to us to say, Are we expectant? Are we ready to hear Jesus call us to lay something down today? Are we ready to follow him when he calls? Amen. And with that, we're gonna close out today's episode and We'll be back tomorrow, so thank you for listening and we'll see you tomorrow.