Disciple // The Call of a Disciple // Pastor Josh Evans

Listen, that's the posture of our heart. It's this idea of available and being available to him and to be able to be used however he wants to use us. Well listen, it is good to see you at church here today and I am so glad that you are here and I'm excited to be back. Last week I was on vacation, so I was traveling back out of the mountains for a little bit and we were able to listen. You know the spotty service coming out of the mountains just last Sunday as we traveled, but it was good to be able to hear Pastor David share from God's Word and I do appreciate Pastor Bailey spoke last Wednesday for me while I was on vacation and Pastor David last Sunday. I'm grateful that we have people that God has assembled here who can share God's Word. It's not just about me, it's about us as a team and it's about him and his glory and I am so grateful for them and I just really wanted to recognize them.

I will say this on a personal note, Pastor David really set the bar high with the time frame that he used last Sunday and you laugh because you know, you're looking at your clock and you're like, man, Pastor Josh can stay in the mountains for all I care if I get out a little earlier and so he did phenomenal. I told him, you know, afterwards I was like, man, now I gotta really be a little time conscious and listen, I missed last week so there's no telling how long I'm going to go today, all right? And so you're in for it and lock the door is security and so just kidding and but no, it was good. It was good to get away. We were in the mountains and we were up there and we stayed. We were kind of roughing it. We were at this campground and you know, sometimes it's good for you to get out and rough it. I'm just kidding.

We were in a glamping tent for the week with an air condition and everything else, okay? And but it was good to unplug, get away for a little bit and I appreciate you allowing me to do that and but I was so excited to be able to get back here and share God's word with you. If you have your Bible, go to Matthew chapter number four this morning, Matthew chapter number four. I appreciate Pastor Bailey kind of mentioning a bunch of things and I did want to make mention just of starting point and I kind of want to reiterate that again for you. I would love for you to connect with us. I believe God is doing some great things in our church and and and the last several months, I mean he has just been working and I'll tell you this, he's been working in my heart but we have just seen people coming to our church, guests, new families joining and and it's a joy to me to see some of them serving, some of them kind of joining Bible fellowships, kind of getting plugged into community here at Union Grove and we are so excited about that and so if you have been coming or possibly there's some of you in here that maybe have been coming for years and years and have never joined this church, listen, come be a part of the family, go deeper into it and we would be glad that you did and you can, like he said, sign up online for starting point.

If you have any questions about that or if you're like, man, I hardly know what the internet is, come see me. I can get you signed up and plugged in but we would love to invite you next Sunday to that and be a part of that if you would but today, Matthew chapter number four, two weeks ago, we actually only done this one time but because I was out of town on week two of this series, we started this two weeks ago and the title of the series is disciple, be one, make one and we learned from week one from Matthew chapter 28 which is where we were and I want to reiterate this because not every series that we do kind of has a theme verse if you would but if I was to really say that this is the reason why we're talking about it, the theme verse for the few weeks that we're in this series, it would be Matthew chapter 28 when it says, verses 19 and 20, go ye therefore and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost and then in verse 20, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I've commanded you and lo, I am with you always even unto the end of the world and so here's the thing, the great commission, we talk about this all the time in churches and we put it on signs and we preach about it and things like that. I want you to know that the great commission of the church, this is the reason why we exist.

If you're a new person today, this is a great day to kind of pop into our church today because I'm going to show you exactly why we exist, the purpose of why we're here and things like that. The great commission, we believe that Jesus left us is to make disciples, is to make disciples. That's the reason why we are here and that's what it says in Matthew chapter 28. That phrase, teach all nations, when it says go ye therefore and teach all nations, that phrase literally means to make disciples of all nations and we learned here and this is super important is that the words go, baptize and teach are all participles which modify the main verb. In other words, there is one main verb there in Matthew chapter 28 and that is to teach all nations, to make disciples and that's what we are called to do above anything else and we defined a disciple this way. Being a disciple is to live as Jesus lived. It's to live as Jesus lived and I'm giving you a little bit of a recap because this is super important to what we get into here today but being a disciple is to live as Jesus lived.

It's much more than just knowing a bunch of stuff. You see, there's a lot of people who know a whole lot about the Bible, who know a whole lot about Jesus even but they don't apply any of what they know and that is not what a disciple is. A disciple is somebody who knows about Jesus and lives like him and today we're going to look at Jesus and his call to a few of his disciples here from Matthew chapter number four.

I had a thought before we jumped in that I just thought was interesting when I was studying this and this is what's interesting. It's like for us today here in 2023 when we think about the church and those who are Christians and saved in here, we use the term to describe ourselves Christians. If I was to say, hey how many of you are a Christian? You understand what that means and things and that's the word that we use to describe us. In fact, you can see that word first used in Acts chapter 11 when they were in Antioch and that's where they were first called Christians to begin with but here's the interesting thing of what we're going to look at here today is that before they were called Christians, in fact they're in Antioch Acts chapter 11, the people from around them called them Christians.

It's not the term that they used to define themselves. In other words, the people around them they saw hey those people over there and those people over there, they choose to follow Jesus so they are Christians. But here's the interesting thing, you know what the actual Christians use the word that they use to describe themselves? Disciple.

Isn't that interesting? Disciple. They use that word to describe themselves. They weren't Christians in their term, they actually said we are disciples. We are disciples of Jesus.

In other words, we are, we know what he says, we know his teaching and we are so impacted by his teaching that we are going to live as Jesus lived. I want you to understand the word Christian is mentioned three times in scripture. Three times in scripture, disciple, that word is mentioned over 200 times in the New Testament alone.

One pastor when I was studying this, he suggests that we lost sense of the meaning as we started to describe what we call ourselves Christians and therefore we have churches all throughout our world who have a lot of people who know a whole lot of stuff but they haven't really applied anything that they have known. You see we've lost meaning of what it means to actually follow Jesus and be a disciple. Here in Matthew chapter 4 we see Jesus calling some of them. He says this in verse 18. This is coming right off the tail of Jesus had been tempted and all of this stuff has happened and so in verse number 18, Jesus walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea for they were fishermen and he saith unto them, follow me. Everybody say follow me, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. They straightway left their nets and followed him.

The word straightway means immediately. It means that they literally just dropped what they were doing and they left. Luke chapter 5 gives the same account and it's a little bit more of an extensive account of the call of these fishermen and it says when they saw Jesus and they followed him it says that they forsook everything. In other words, they laid everything that they were doing down and they left and they went and followed him. Verse number 21, and going on from thence he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother in a ship with Zebedee their father mending their nets and he also called them. Verse 22, and they immediately left the ship and their father and followed him. Isn't that interesting that Matthew records they left the ship that they were in and they left pretty much their career but also on top of that they're like, hey dad, see you later.

Good luck with the family business. You know, we're going out to follow this rabbi, this teacher. We're going out to follow Jesus. Verse 23, and Jesus went about all Galilee teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people and his fame went throughout all Syria. They brought unto him all sick people that were taken with diverse diseases and torments and those which were possessed with devils and those which were lunatic and those that had the palsy and he healed them.

Jesus began to, his fame was growing and so everybody with any type of problem was actually coming to find Jesus so that they can get healing and release from the demonic possession that was in their life. All of these different things and the sicknesses and stuff like that and so for the few moments that we have here from Matthew 4, I want to show you just a couple of things about the call of a disciple. We are calling every single one of you, in fact not me, not anybody in here, Jesus is calling every single one of you to be a disciple. To be one but also to make one and so every single one of us are called to be a disciple.

This is not something that we're calling that is only for full-time vocational people and stuff like that. This is for all of us. We are called to follow Jesus with our life and so first I want you to see this when we look at the call of a disciple. First, the recipients of his call.

If you take notes, it'll be up on the screen. The recipients of his call. Now, I want you to understand something here in this culture. This is super important for you to understand the meaning here. In this culture, status meant everything. Status meant everything. These Jewish people, they were big on the org chart if you would. They believed in status so much to the point that it was common for them as children, these Jewish boys as they were growing up, the thing that they dreamed about being more than anything else was a religious ruler one day. That's what they dreamed of being so much to the point that it was ingrained in their culture during this day.

I say that, status meant everything and so what you become was super important during that day. In fact, when they were children, five years old, they would actually be sent to a Jewish school and they would have to learn the Torah which is the first five books of the Old Testament. We know it as the Pentateuch and all of these young kids are going and they're memorizing this and they're learning everything there is to know about Jewish tradition and about what God told the Jews and all the laws and everything that is. It's interesting that that's what they learned because I think for you and I, we've been looking at some of this on Wednesday nights in our Bible study here.

For some of you, you'll understand this but others of you, I wanted you to hear this. A lot of times, we skim over those books, don't we? The Pentateuch, man, there's some boring parts to that, right? I say this all the time but the truth is I was told as a young boy, hey, you need to read your Bible every single day and so when you hear that, you're like, okay, where do I begin? Well, you begin where you begin all the other books from the beginning. You start with Genesis and Genesis, it just shows how messed up you humanity is and there's all sorts of things happening in Genesis and floods and creation and all this wild stuff. God tells a dad to go and sacrifice his son and as a teenager, you're like, man, this is like a movie.

This is good. You get into Exodus and I mean, there's plagues and the sea is parting and all this good stuff and then we get to the real hard part of Exodus and then you go into Leviticus and you're like, what in the world? This is so confusing and all that. Well, I want you to understand that Jewish tradition as children, they are taught to memorize the Torah. To memorize, all that stuff you skip over and that I skip over, they actually teach their children to memorize it and all those little boys want to one day become a religious leader. So what they do when they're about 12 years old is they would take the best of the best from those schools, they take the best of the best and they would assign them a rabbi.

Okay, we learned about this a couple of weeks ago, so I'm giving you a little bit of a background on it. They would assign them a rabbi, that means teacher. So they would get this teacher there in Jewish culture, someone that they wanted to emulate, someone they wanted to learn at, someone that they wanted to sit at their feet and really learn all about what that rabbi could teach them.

And so they would get this rabbi the best of the best and the ones who didn't make the cut, they would actually go out and do a bunch of different other things. One of those would be, I guess we're going to have to become a fisherman because we're not good enough to become a religious leader. So here in our text, Jesus, he reached out and he called fishermen, fishermen. Isn't it interesting when you think about the recipients of the call of being a disciple that Jesus didn't come onto this earth and he immediately looked into the synagogue and immediately look there at the brightest of the brightest and the best of the best and looked into the religious community and started there.

He didn't look there. You know what he started with? He started with some, with some fishermen, some fishermen. You see, I want you to understand God when he's talking about asking people to be a disciple of him, he's actually choosing what I call the B team, right? He's choosing the ones who maybe didn't get picked there on the top, you know, the smartest and the smartest, the ones who weren't picked to go and to study under a rabbi. The rest of them, hey, that's the ones that God is looking for. When I was growing up, I heard it always said this way is that God is not looking for my ability.

He's actually looking for my availability. And let me tell you this, if you're in here today and you say, pastor, hey, God can never use me and you don't know what I've done and I hardly know anything and I just, I really don't get it and I don't think God could ever use me. Let me tell you this, that that is the best resume for God to actually use you.

And so that's the best resume that you can have is say, hey, I don't know a whole lot and God, I don't have a whole lot to offer. And guess what? God's like, I can use you be my disciple. You see the recipients of his call are always people who really need him and on the surface wouldn't be the first ones picked in this world.

Think about it this way. Noah, you know what? He was a drunk. Abraham was old. Jacob was a liar. Joseph had a pretty messed up upbringing, right?

Moses, he stuttered. He also killed an Egyptian and buried his body. I mean, and God used him, right? Gideon was a scaredy cat. Rahab was a prostitute. David was young.

He was forgotten. He was also became an adulterer and a murderer. Jonah, when the call of God came to him, he ran from God. John the Baptist ate bugs.

So if you have kids that do that or whatever, like, listen, there's hope. Zacchaeus was short. Disciples were fishermen. Peter denied Jesus three times. And then even in the book of Acts, we'll find that the apostle Paul, the greatest church planter that we have ever, ever seen.

Guess what? He himself hated the name of Jesus and hated his followers so much to the point where he gets joy by reaping havoc there in the religious community. You see, I say all that to say that God wants to use you. And God wants to have a relationship with you.

And let me tell you, don't think that you have to have all the talent in the world and all the ability in the world. No, listen, people with a lot of talent and a lot of ability and ability will just get in the way of God, because they won't know how to lean on his ability and not their own. God is looking for disciples who are willing to say, hey, I don't have a whole lot to offer, but God, everything that I do have is yours.

And he wants to use ordinary people to do extraordinary things. You see, that's the recipients of the call to be a disciple. The second thing I want you to see here is this, the authority of his call. What the disciples realized was who was calling them.

They realized that this was Jesus, the Messiah. Let me say that before you can understand what he is calling you to, you have to recognize who the one that is calling you is. You have to see him as Lord. And I want you to think about this thought.

This thought has really wrecked my brain and my heart over the last week. Have you ever thought about how God pursues you? Have you ever thought about the fact that God pursues us? You know, we've been looking at the tabernacle in our Wednesday night study, we're one week in, and this thought of God pursuing us, God chasing after us, God coming to us is such an amazing, amazing thought. And if you think about the story of scripture, all 66 books, I want you to know you could summarize the scripture by this, that the story of scripture is a story of God coming to us and trying to dwell among us. What a fault.

What a fault. So much to the point, if you go back to the Garden of Eden, way back in Genesis chapter one, he created this Garden of Eden. So Adam and Eve could actually walk with God.

You remember that? Everything was perfect. They were able to walk with God. Life was basically exactly like God designed it.

It was good. That's the way he wanted life to be for us to have a relationship with him. So he came and he pursued us and he created a world for that to happen. But we know the story that because sin entered into the world, all of that relationship that Adam and Eve had with God, all the relationship that God desired to have with you and to have with me, all of that was completely destroyed because of sin. So then after that, you see, God walked with people like Enoch.

He had a relationship with Abraham and all this stuff. But then in the book of Exodus, God asked Moses to build this tabernacle so that his presence could come down from heaven and dwell among them. And then after the tabernacle, that's how God dwelt with them right in the middle of their camp. And then you see Solomon many years later would build a temple for the presence of God to dwell them. You see, the story of scripture is all about God trying to pursue you.

And it's all about God trying to pursue me. And then we come to the New Testament and Jesus came and he dwelt among us. He dwelt among us.

You see, the reason why we celebrate that, we celebrate it at Christmas time, you know, we sing songs, Emmanuel, right? God with us. That's the story of scripture. It's God coming from heaven to have a relationship with you and me.

Think about that. The God of heaven wants a relationship with you. You see, the gospel is not a pursuit of you trying to find him. It's actually the gospel is about a story of him trying to pursue you.

He wants a relationship with you. You see the apostles, these disciples, they realized who it was that was calling them. And some of you, God is calling you to be a disciple every single day. And some of you have forgotten who it is that is calling you.

Listen, the person calling you, it's a calling that none of us should say no to. It's a person calling you who has all authority on heaven and earth so much that here in our text, we see that he is healing the sick, casting out demons and people. He's healing lunatics.

He's healing those who have never walked before those who are paralyzed, all of this stuff. That's the one who is inviting you into a relationship with him and inviting you to be his follower. You see, that's the recipients of his call. That's the authority of his call.

Number three, I want you to see the nature of his call. Verse number 19 of our text, he says, Jesus tells him, follow me. The word follow can be translated mimic. It is to really pattern your life after somebody. It is to become like him. Let me say this, that the nature of Jesus call in your life is not for you to go out and do something. Haven't you heard people say, hey, the reason I don't follow Jesus is because everything in my life is going to have to change.

Let me remind you this. There will be some things that change in your life, but the nature of Jesus call in your life, it's not up for you to go out and do something. It's for you to actually become like him. It's for us to become like him and the best way for you to become like him is to be with him. It's to be with him, to spend time with him. That's what it means to be a disciple. It's to spend time with Jesus.

It's to spend time with him every single day. Some of you are like, hey, I want to be a disciple, but you don't spend time with him every day. Listen, if you want to be serious about following Jesus and being his disciple, here's some things I would consider doing.

First, no brainer, spend time with him every single day. That needs to be the first action step that you take with you. The next step in your life should be, hey, I'm going to spend time with him every single day because I am serious about being his disciple. Another thing, and these are some things that we do here at our church that you should do, be in a church every single week, every single time the doors are open, be there.

Make it a point to be there. Why? Just because the pastor? No, this is an opportunity for you to meet with God. It's an opportunity for you to learn more about God and for you to be with God.

So be in that. Here at our church, I want to encourage you for those of you who you attend every week, but you don't want to attend a Bible fellowship class. Listen, I harp on this a whole lot, but listen, if you want to be serious about becoming a student and a disciple of Jesus so that you can know Jesus, get into community with other people and grow together with them. It's the best place for you to be cared for in our church. Some of you, and I'm so excited about this, some of you need to request to be personally discipled today.

Listen, I'm so ecstatic to say this, and I've told you this in email and stuff. We have eight people in our church who sent our service two weeks ago who have reached out to me and said, hey, listen, I need to be personally discipled. And here's what I want you to know about that. That does not mean that the eight people that signed up for that, their life's falling apart or that they are deep in sin and everything is terrible in their life. No, here's what it means.

It means, hey, I need to grow. I have areas where I need to become more like Jesus and I need somebody to help me get there. How many of you could use some help? Raise your hand, be honest. Okay, my hand's up.

If your hand's not up, you really need help because you don't recognize it. Listen, every single one of us in this place are called to be a disciple. And some of you, you need to come and you need to talk to me, talk to Pastor Bailey and say, hey, somebody needs to disciple me.

And guess what? We'll hook you up with somebody who can help you become more like, like him. You see, that's the nature of his call. We see the authority of his call. We see the recipients of his call. Last, and we'll close with this, I want you to see this, the vision of his call. You know what he says? Verse 19, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. I will make you fishers of men. Notice, he says, I will make. Let me tell you this. He's the one working, not us. You just are called to be obedient. Listen, he's just looking for those who are available, those who are willing to be obedient. But if you're like, man, I don't know what to say.

I don't know how to do this. I don't know. Hey, listen, that's fine. God's the one who will work through, through you. But he says this to his disciples. Follow me. That's be a disciple. That's follow him. That's mimic him. That's to be like him.

That's to be with him. I want you to follow me. And if you do that, I'll make you a fisher of men. Now, how many of you love to love to fish? Raise your hand.

How many of you love to fish? Be honest. You don't have to. You don't have to be ashamed of it. Some of you are nervous.

Like, is he going to use me for an illustration and that kind of thing? Listen. All right. So I'm not I'm not going to put anybody in this neck if you're wondering, okay.

But listen, I had to borrow this. And here's why. Because I know many of you think I'm this big outdoorsman. I know I come across that way and stuff. I get it. All right.

And that's a joke. I'm not a huge fisherman. My dad was a big time fisherman growing up. Okay, so all my life, we've had a boat. And my dad would always he would go out and and it would it would amaze me he would go out sometimes and he would leave really early in the morning.

I don't know what it is. But those fish like to eat early in the morning. And and he would go super early. He'd be out all day, come back around four o'clock.

And we'd all be like, Hey, what'd you catch? Tell us about it. You're out all day. You had to catch things like man, they weren't biting. I was like, it took you all day to realize that. Why are you?

Why were you back four hours ago? But that's kind of the name of the game when it comes to fishermen. I feel like all fishermen have that experience. And and all good fishermen when they're not biting, they have reasons for why they're not biting, right? Not the time of day. And like, then why'd you go? I don't get it, you know.

And they always have these excuses for it and stuff like that. But my dad, he was a big fisherman. He loves to fish still does to this day. But I was not I don't have the patience to be out there. The kind of fishermen or the kind of fishing that I enjoy in life is the kind where there's a bobber on the top where I can just like chill, I can talk as much as I want. And when my bobber goes under, that's when I realize that's all I care about.

That's my type of fishing. Okay. And so I'm not patient enough like my dad, I would make deals with him growing up, I would say, Dad, he'd be like, you know, hey, son, you want to get up really early and go fishing?

And I'm just thinking not really. And he I would always make a deal with him. If I like to do like skiing and stuff like that, I would say, Hey, if you pull me skiing for at least an hour, I'll go with you. And I'll kind of persevere and that kind of thing.

So I did. So I've been around fishing a lot and growing up even though I don't really have a lot of time for for that. But here's what's amazing to me every time we put the boat in at the boat landing, and we go out and fish, we would always when we would come back at the end, there'd always be these other boats, right, these other boats coming and they're, they're loading up and stuff like that.

And I don't know what it is. But when you're a fisherman, and there's other boats, you just feel this sense of connection, right? You just feel like you can talk to them.

You never met him before. But because they have a boat and you have a boat and they have a fishing rod and you have a fishing rod, you feel like hey, this is a connection that we have. So we would always go and and we'd be putting our boat in.

You know, we finished for the day. And my dad would just talk to every fisherman on the dock. He'd be like, catch anything? Like, Dad, do you know that guy?

No. Catch anything? And then they would all talk about why they didn't, they're not hitting this worm. So we had to try another worm.

They didn't like that worm. And I'm just like, man, you fishermen, y'all have a lot of weird fish you're going after and they can't make up their mind what they want half the time. And so but my daddy would ask all these people to be like, hey, catch anything?

Catch anything? And sometimes we would say, oh, man, yeah. And they would reach into the well there, you know, and they would, you know, pull out his big old fish and they'd show us and we would rejoice. I don't know these guys, I could care less.

I'm just like, hey, good job for you, you know. And they would they would catch something and that was why they were there. And that's the reason for them being there. And Jesus here in Matthew chapter four, he says to these people that were professional fishermen, go to Luke chapter five anytime and you can read this. These people knew what they were doing. Peter is what he did for a living.

He couldn't be a religious ruler. He was on the B team. So he became this fisherman. That was what he did to make his money and his income. And he knew what he was doing. And so Jesus comes along and Jesus says, hey, hey, listen, if you follow me, I'm not going to just make you a good fisherman.

I'm going to actually make you a fisher of men. Say, say, what exactly does that mean? Here's what Jesus was saying. And we learned about this Matthew twenty eight when Jesus was there on the mountainside and he brought his apostles there, these disciples and his closest ones that he had personally discipled while he was here. And he brought them there and he begins to give them the greatest commission ever uttered. The greatest commission that he was leaving to them was the church, the movement, the movement that that you should be grateful for and that I'm grateful for that those apostles did something. And Jesus says he's about to ascend into heaven. He left this commission. He said, hey, listen, if I come back and when I do, I want your nets to be full.

I want your nets to be full. So much to the point that if you read Luke chapter five, when he was calling Peter, he took him out to the net and you remember the story or took him out to the sea and you remember the story. And Peter went out there and he hadn't called anything and he toiled all night and and all this kind of stuff. And Jesus like, hey, go try the other side. And Peter's thinking I'm a professional Jesus. Hey, like, this isn't going to work. And he goes out there and he caught so many by the other side by following Jesus so much to the point where his net was breaking.

His net was breaking. And here's what Jesus was meaning when he said, hey, I want you to follow me. Be a disciple.

And I want you to be a fisher of men. You know what's going to be shameful is that there's a lot of people who have sat in church for 30, 40, some even 50 years of their life. They're a Christian and they've just sat and they've absorbed tons of sermons. They've absorbed a lot of stuff. And when they die, their net is going to be completely empty.

It's going to be empty. All they've done is they've absorbed all this content from so many pastors and so many preachers and all this kind of stuff. And here's what Jesus is calling you and he's calling me to he wants you to be a disciple, absorb as much as you can. But beyond that, he's wanting to call every single one of us into filling our net up. I don't know about you, church. I don't want to die with an empty net.

I don't. I don't want to die with a net with nothing in it. I don't want to die with a lot of knowledge about Jesus that I never shared with anybody else. I don't want to die with being able to quote so many good pastors and preachers because I've listened to a thousand sermons in my day and there'd be absolutely no men in my net. You see, here's what Jesus is calling you. He's calling every single one of you to go out and if you'll follow him, he will, the Holy Spirit working in your life will make you a fisher of men.

So all of us can go with people in our net. I want so many people in my net that my net is breaking, that my net is breaking. I want so many people to jump in this net, not literally, but I want so many people to get in my net called discipleship and I want to disciple and walk with people and help people learn to find and follow Jesus so much to the point that when I die, there's tons of people in heaven because of my being willing and available to be used by him and disciple people. That's what the calling of God, that's the great commission. It's to make disciples.

It's for you to make your net and some of you that signed up to be discipled, the eight of you, the goal is that one day you would take what you've learned and that you'd get your net out and that you'd go out and you teach somebody else and fill your net with people. Listen, we did this two weeks ago and I didn't tell them I was going to use them again. I want Lomax. I just want you to see it. If you weren't here two weeks ago, Lomax, come here. Andy, come here. I want to use you real quick.

Trey, Jaden, I want to see you for just a second if you guys can come here. I want to show you because I don't want, we might show them this every single week because this is the biblical example for this. This is it. This is what he's calling every single one of you to do. He's called all of you to follow Jesus, to follow him.

To follow him means you mimic him. You'd be a disciple of him. Lomax, you were saved, how old were you? Ten. Ten years old and he got discipled and people poured into him and he answered the call and he went out and spent a bunch of years, how many years in Germany? Forty-one. Forty-one years in Germany as a missionary.

Isn't that amazing? That's amazing and he did that but when he comes back, he's now retired and he's back and he's like, hey, what am I going to do? You know, I'm not in full-time vocational service and you know the mission of making disciples, it's not just for those who are full-time in the ministry, it's for every one of us.

Every one of you that call yourself a Christian. This is for you. So he said a while back, he's like, what am I going to do with my time here? I'm going to disciple. Pulled aside, he pulled aside, he pulled aside Andy.

Oh, okay, that's cute. He's taking my illustration and he's just going a different direction, alright. He took Andy and listen, I say this respectfully because I want you to get it because some of you are afraid if I sign up and say I need to be discipled, someone's going to think I'm messed up. Listen, Andy is a great guy, he's a faithful church member, good job, great family, loves the Lord but he said, you know what, I have areas where I can grow in and before you judge, you have areas you can grow in.

Every single one of us does. So he took Andy and started working with him. They've been working together for about a year. Working together, meeting together every week, discipling Andy and so at the end of life, Andy is going to be in Lomax's net. And then here's what's good about this is Andy said, you know what, this mission of making disciples, I am being discipled by Lomax, I need to take what I'm learning and I need to instill it in somebody else. He grabbed Jayden and he grabbed Trey and these guys and now there's a Bible study that meets at Andy's house every single week with like 10 different people where they're pouring into Andy's taking everything he's learning from Lomax who learned from a bunch of other people before him and it's just this constant cycle and Jayden and Trey are now using this and they've invited people, old friends of theirs to this house, to this Bible study who don't know the Lord and they've invited them. And here's the shameful part, they probably will go to Andy's house for a Bible study much easier than they'd go to some of our churches. That's a problem by the way. That'll preach in and of itself. Okay?

Because that's not how it should be. Our churches should be wide open for this. But they've invited friends who are going to Andy's house and now the goal is Trey and Jayden, we want them to take what they're learning and instill it in somebody else. And they're doing every Wednesday, you'll find these two guys, you wonder where they are on Wednesday, they're serving in Grove Kids every single week. Trey's answered the call to go into ministry.

And you see, here's the point. Follow me and I'm going to make you a fisher of men. And the goal is at the end of your life, every single one of you, the goal is that your net be full. Some of you have been in this church for 40 years and you have absolutely no one in your net. You've been in this church for so long and you have no one in your net.

My challenge is to you today is to answer these two questions. Number one, are you a disciple? Are you a disciple? Some of you, your next step is this. You need to see me or pastor Bailey today and say, I need to be discipled. I need to get on a path like this with people.

I need to know what this looks like. I need to know what Jesus wants from me. I need to make myself available.

And guess what? We'll find somebody that they'll take you through a certain curriculum that we're using and they'll disciple you. Some of you, that's your next step. Are you a disciple?

Answer that. I'm not asking how long you've been in church because there's way too many people in church who haven't discipled themselves. No, I'm asking, are you a disciple? Are you faithfully following Jesus? And then the second thing, and this is for many of you in here today, are you a disciple maker? Are you a disciple maker? Like if you've been discipled, some of you, man, this is the next step. You've sat in this same seat for 30, 40 years and your net is empty.

That shouldn't be. Listen, some of you, what I want you to do today after the service or during the invitation here in a minute, I want you to come down and say, I've been discipled, but I've never done anything with it. I'm ready to fill my net up, find me someone, put in my net so that I can be a fisher of men. Don't die with an empty net. Don't do it.

Realize your purpose is to fill your net up so much to the point where it's breaking. It's breaking with people and the kingdom of heaven. It's going to be big because of your willingness to yield yourself and follow him and through following him, he's going to make you a fisher of me. Can you bow your heads with me? Every head bowed, heart lifted in prayer. Nobody's looking around. I want to ask these same two questions that we've been asking. In fact, let's do this. Let's all stand.

Nobody's looking around. This is between you and God. I want to ask you that first question. Are you a disciple? Are you a disciple? You say, pastor Josh today, I really, I want to be one of those that need to be discipled. That's where I'm at today.

I need somebody to help me. I need somebody to help grow me to somebody to come alongside me, hold my hand and help me grow in my faith. You say, pastor, that's where I'm at today.

I need that. Would you please slip up your hand honest before God? And if you, I see that hand, thank you so much. I see that hand.

Thank you so much. Anybody else? I see those hands. Listen, here's what I really want you to do at the end of this service. Hey, come see me. We have, we have eight people and we'd love to grow that who, who want to be personally discipled and want to somebody to come along.

Come see me. I would love to sign you up and put your name down and we can find a disciple maker that can help you. And then the second thing that I want to ask, are you a disciple maker? You say, pastor, that's where God spoke to me tonight.

My net right now is empty, but I don't want to die with an empty net. And you say, I want you to include me in this closing prayer here today that I can find some people to put in my net. If that's you here tonight or this morning, would you please slip up your hand? And say, I need to become a disciple maker.

I need to become a disciple maker. Anybody in there? Yes. I see that hand. I see that hand. Thank you. Anybody else?

I see that hand. Awesome. Yes. Hey, listen, this is for all of us. This isn't for full-time ministry.

This is for every single one of us. Are you a disciple? Are you a disciple maker? We need to be making disciples. If you're in here today and your hand went up saying, Hey, I'm ready to make disciples.

I'm ready to be a Fisher of men. Listen, I'm going to pray. And this altar is going to be open, but at the end of this service, I want you to come see me. And I want to put your name down as a person who can help other people be discipled.

We're getting to where we have a long list. We have a long list of disciples. We need some of you to step out of your seat and to be a disciple maker, somebody who's willing to take some time out of your schedule to fill your net.

Uh, listen, let me pray for you. And then the altar is open. Father, we love you. God, I think about those who need to be discipled. I pray God that you give them the courage to make a decision today for those who need to be disciple makers, Fishers of men. I pray God that you would give them the courage to come and to, to pray and, and to really ask you today to fill their net up for it's in your name. And the altar is open. If God spoke to you in any way, if you raised your hand for either one of those things, listen, the altar is wide open for you to come and to pray here this morning. I pray God that you would give them the courage to come and to pray. I pray God that you would Pastor Bailey. Amen.

You can go ahead and have a seat. I appreciate your faithfulness here. The Lord has challenged all of our hearts here today with this message. I do want to remind you, if you have not filled out your card, if you filled it out and haven't taken it back, please take it back at the end of the service, back in the Welcome Center, and they have a gift for you.

So thank you for being with us. I just want to mention a few prayer requests. We will have a word of prayer.

Be in prayer for Joe Mankiewicz. They had open heart surgery. They had a repair valve. They had an aneurysm. I believe they were a part of that.

They got that fixed. He is working through it. It will be about four weeks before he can do any driving. You continue to pray for him. I appreciate his Bible Fellowship class being behind him during this time.

Thank you for doing that. Also, continue to pray for Roger Foulk as he is continuing to deal with knee replacement. It has been very difficult. Also, Linda Gregory also recovering from knee replacement as well. I have one surgery this week. Monty Lineback will be having hand surgery on Tuesday. So do be in prayer for him.

They have a trigger finger they are going to fix. So be in prayer for that. And then do remember Beverly Hall, her sister-in-law, went to be the Lord this week.

So it is her brother's wife. So do be in prayer for that. She asks us to be in prayer there for the family. But she is with the Lord. So we are grateful for that. Missionaries we are praying for this week. Rob and Penny Witte there in Ghana.

And then John Wilburn there in St. Vincent. God will just continue to use these families, these men as disciple makers as well. So let's bow for a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, God thank you. Thank you for the word of God.

Lord, thank you for the truth. If they have been in Bible fellowship, Lord, and then sitting through the service, Lord, we have heard the word of God. And Lord, we are not just supposed to be hearers only. We are supposed to be doers of the work.

And so Lord, we have been challenged to be disciple makers and be a disciple. And Lord, we all, not a single one of us have everything figured out. And Lord, the devil tries to make us think, well you don't have everything figured out, how can you help anybody? And I know that is a lie.

He has told so many people, myself included. Why would you use us, Lord, as we follow you as instruments in your hands to be able to help others as we walk through this life together. You ask us to love each other and to love our neighbors as ourself. And Father, we have the privilege to help others. And Lord, thank you for that great salvation. But Lord, may we be that light in this world today in which we live. And whatever you do in and through us, Lord, be careful to praise you, to thank you for what you continue to do. And we'll give you the glory for it, for it's in Christ's name we ask it. Amen. God bless you, appreciate you being in the service here today.