When Fishermen Became Fishers of Men | Matthew 4:18-22 | Jonathan Huang | February 22, 2026

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 the 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.

This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Morning, everyone.

So good to see all of y'all this morning.

Um, we're gonna get into the word just before we do.

Let me pray for us.

Father, we thank you, Lord, for the privilege once again to be here at this school, gathering in worship of God our Father, Lord Jesus our Savior, the Holy Spirit, our comforter.

And we ask, Lord, that though this story may be familiar to many of us, that you would bring a fresh sense of just understanding of an old story, but you would make it, we pray, relevant to each of us this morning, some way or another.

I ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Well, this morning we are kicking off a new sermon series that's gonna take us through from this Sunday until Easter Sunday, first weekend of April.

Uh and we're joining alongside countless churches all throughout the city in what's called Awake in Houston, which is a prayer, fasting, and prayer walking movement all throughout the city.

It's been, this is the tenth year that the Houston Church Planning Network has put this on now, and we are excited to be part of it.

And so part of that, part of taking place Awake in Houston is a preaching series where churches all around this town were going to be in lockstep with them, preaching through the same passages along the same theme.

And this year's theme is walking with Jesus, light up the city.

And that theme is meant to highlight the importance of having a daily walk with Christ.

And out of the overflow of this walk with Christ, we are trusting the Lord to transform the lives of those around us, to renew his church, and to bring spiritual awakening to this city.

And my prayer is that as we dive into this season as a church, that we would experience more deeply what it's like to abide in Christ.

Abide in Christ, especially through the practices of fasting and prayer walking, and that we bear fruit of gospel witness, godly living, as we live out this closeness of our daily walks with Christ.

Jesus says in Matt uh in John 15, I'm the vine, you are the branches, whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit.

And then he says this, for apart from me, what?

You can do nothing.

Amen.

Alright, so how many of you here today know who Dietrich Bonhoeffer is?

Got a bunch of hands.

Some hesitating.

Well, Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a name you should know.

This man was born in 1906.

And as a young man, he felt called to study theology.

And in 1931, he became a lecturer in systematic theology at the University of Berlin in Germany.

And one historian notes that it was during this period of time that he had a personal conversion to Christ, meaning the things that he was teaching other people no longer was an intellectual exercise for him.

The things he was teaching became something that he embraced himself, which is kind of crazy to think that a lecture in systematic theology comes to Christ as a lecture in systematic theology.

But that's what happened.

And so he was ordained as a pastor at the age of 25.

And then in 1933, his life turned upside down.

Very important thing happened.

Nazis came to power.

The infamous Adolf Hitler took the helm of his country.

And so he decided with other pastors to start a new network of German Protestant churches that stood opposed to what the Nazis were trying to do.

You see, the Nazis were trying to reshape Christianity along their own lines of what they thought Christianity should be.

And it was radically being untethered from biblical truth.

The summer of 1939, just three months before the start of World War II, Bonhoeffer visited the United States.

And he wrestled really deeply with that decision to just be away from his homeland at such a critical point in history.

So I want you to listen to these words.

He writes this letter to a friend and he says, This I have come to the conclusion that I made a mistake in coming to America at this time.

I must live through this difficult period in our national history along with the people of Germany.

I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people.

Christians in Germany will have to face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that the future Christian civilization may survive, or else willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying our civilization and any true Christianity.

I know which of these alternatives I must choose, but I cannot make that choice from a place of security.

So he finds his way and makes his way back to Germany in just two weeks' time.

And then he's imprisoned in 1943.

The Nazis put him in a concentration camp in 1945, where he's then hung at the age of 39.

Just months before the end of World War II.

Now, I bring this up because if you think about that moment where he wrote that letter, that was 1939.

Bonhoeffer could have stayed in the U.S.

and enjoyed peace and security.

He didn't have to go back to Germany.

But what he did was he chose to return and suffer alongside his countrymen for the sake of biblical Christianity.

Now we may not all agree with his theology and everything he stood for, but I do think that with Bonhoffer, we see a man who came to really embody his words that he penned once in one of his most well-known books called The Cost of Discipleship.

And in it he writes this.

When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.

Now I want you to think about the difference between a Christian living here in the U.S.

and a Christian living in a country like North Korea.

A country where it's ranked number one now in the world for Christian persecution.

North Korea is said to be the most dangerous place on earth to follow Jesus.

If the government finds out that you become a Christian, you're immediately at risk for being imprisoned or straight up executed.

Same thing goes for any of your family members.

And yet, and yet, listen to what one North Korean Christian says about conditions there.

Quote, despite these dangers, the underground church in North Korea is alive.

It worships not with sound, but with whispered prayers and memorized scripture.

Believers continue to follow Christ with quiet courage, deep faith, and a willingness to give everything for the sake of the gospel.

Now think about what it's like to be a Christian in this country.

A country that's known to have the largest Christian population in the world.

We've got freedom of religion.

There's no need to hide in secret and have underground churches.

If you become a Christian, none of us are facing the threat of losing our jobs.

And yet, the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die, still remain true for us here in the U.S.

today.

Why?

Because those are the very words Christ said himself when he says, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.

Now taking up our cross and following Jesus might look very different from what Dietrich Bonhoeffer had to do back in the 1930s.

And it may look very different from what the average Christian has to do in North Korea.

But here's the question I want us to wrestle with today.

In a country where you can call yourself a Christian at very little cost to your own life or to your own reputation, what does it really mean to be a follower of Jesus?

What does it really mean to be a follower of Jesus?

And so with that, I want to invite you to turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Matthew, chapter 4.

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

Matthew chapter 4, we're going to just go through five verses, starting in verse 18.

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

Matthew chapter 4, verse 18.

Matthew 4:18

And again, the question is this: in a country where you can call yourself a Christian at very little cost to your own life, at very little cost to your own reputation, what does it actually mean to be a follower of Christ?

And in Matthew 4, the first answer I see is this.

It means surrendering your life to a new master.

Surrendering your life to a new master.

Look down at verse 18.

Well, 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.

Now, just for some context, I'm going to show you a map of the Sea of Galilee and its surrounding areas.

You'll see one map at first, and you'll notice two towns.

One Bethlehem, just to the lower, kind of south of the Sea of Galilee, and then there's Nazareth right there.

Bethlehem, of course, was where Jesus was born.

But he actually spends most of his childhood growing up in a town called Nazareth.

Then in Matthew 4, verse 13, we read that Jesus decides to leave Nazareth and move to Capernaum.

Matthew 4:13

And you'll see that on the next map, which really is a beach town, really, along the Sea of Galilee.

Now the question is, why did he make this move?

Well, some have pointed out that it was a strategic move for Jesus.

Because Capernaum was a much more influential center of commerce than his hometown of Nazareth.

You see, the Sea of Galilee, it's really a lake, has a lot of fish, which made it a very natural place for the fishing industry to develop.

It became a big hub for the fishing industry.

And one commentator points out that Jesus' relocation from the remote hill village of Nazareth to the busy lakeside town of Capernaum allowed Jesus to gain a more public platform for the message he was preaching.

And he spends a lot of his ministry around the Sea of Galilee.

Verse 19.

And he said to them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.

And 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, and the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them.

And immediately they left their boat and their father and they followed him.

Now, at first glance, just reading this, I think it's natural to wonder like, what in the world were these men thinking?

Did they really know what they're getting themselves into?

I mean, just imagine hearing about a man you barely knew and all of a sudden being called to follow him.

And I wonder who among us would have done the same things if we were in those men's shoes.

But the Bible tells us plainly and simply that upon hearing this call from Jesus, they immediately dropped their nets and followed him.

And what I don't want you to miss here is just how incredible it is that Simon, Andrew, James, and John would all be willing to leave what they were doing along the Sea of Galilee and follow Jesus.

Commentators mention that back in the day to hear these words, follow me, you would understand this call to literally be to follow in the footsteps of the master who is doing the calling.

That's what students did back then.

Jewish etiquette required disciples to literally walk behind their teachers, their rabbis.

And what's interesting here is that students usually initiate this with their rabbis.

But Jesus is different.

Jesus does the one who does the calling in this case.

And another book of the Bible, Luke tells us about the story as well, but he adds one single word that really clarifies what was happening here.

So Matthew, as we read in verse 20 regarding Simon and Andrew, Matthew simply writes, immediately they left their nets and followed him.

But if you look at the way Luke describes it in Luke 5, verse 11, Luke adds that these men left everything and followed him.

Luke 5:11

He adds the word everything.

And this brings to mind what Jesus would later teach, saying, quote, Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.

Whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

The challenge here, really, is who is going to be the Lord and master of your life?

Because you see, by default, every single one of us sits on the throne of our own lives as Lord and Master.

You don't have to wait long before a baby has to grow up, before you realize this.

Like every scream of a crying baby is really a demand that his or her will be done on earth as it is in his or her mind.

Right?

The English poet William Ernest Henley was only 27 years old when he wrote one of his most famous poems.

He titled it Invictus.

And I want you to listen to these words as he writes because he suffered from a kind of tuberculosis that affected his joints.

And at one point he had to get this procedure that required the amputation of one of his legs below the knee.

And while he was recovering from that surgery, he wrote these words.

So I want you to listen to this.

Quote: Out of the night that covers me, black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance, my head is bloody but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears looms but the horror of the shade, and yet the menace of the years finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how straight the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll.

I am the master of my fate.

I am the captain of my soul.

These are the words of an avowed atheist who chose in the face of a crippling disease to face it with unashamed dependence on himself.

And you hear it in this poem I am the master of my fate.

I am the captain of my soul.

And I would argue that every human being born on the face of this planet is born with this exact same mentality, whether they can voice it as eloquently as William Ernest Henley or not.

Which is why the call to follow Jesus is such a threat to our own sense of self autonomy.

Because it's a call to die to every remaining sense of control over our own lives and to surrender our lives and our futures and everything else to a new master.