“Follow Me” – Matthew 4:18-20

Have you ever been to one of those Brazilian steak houses where they bring the different kinds of meat to your table? Some friends took me to Texas de Brazil in Ft. Worth one time. It was amazing! They bring to the table every kind of meat imaginable. I think it comes with some kind of vegetable but I don’t remember. The star of the show is the meat. They bring out chicken and ribs and – this is dangerous to bring up since now you’re all thinking about food – they have t-bones and prime rib, lamb, filet mignon, and sausage and everything is off the charts wonderful. And they will just keep bringing it out until you are as full as you want to be.

Now, imagine if somebody brought a little baby to Texas de Brazil. Let’s say he is six months old, maybe a year. They sit the kid in a high chair and plop a big ol’ t-bone down in front of him. What’s going to happen? Probably not much, right? If the kid did manage to get hold of it, he couldn’t eat that. He is not old enough. He is in a wonderful steak house surrounded by tons of meat and he’s going to go hungry.

Now, let’s say that kid goes back, I don’t know, 16 years later. If you have ever had a teenage boy, you know that kid could do some damage at Texas de Brazil. He’s at the age where he can put away some meat. But let’s say he sees the salad bar. Now, the salad bar at Texas de Brazil is as big as this room practically and it has way more than just salad. The kid puts some salad on his plate with all the fixings. He adds a baked potato and there’s some sea food and some bread and some pudding and pretty soon his plate is as big as his head.

Now, if you have ever been there, you know he just made a big mistake. Because as good as the salad bar is, it can’t compare to the meat that will be brought to the table. This is world-class beef and if you fill up on the salad, you can’t eat the meat. Yes, the young man can eat a lot but he has a limit. It’s a rookie mistake to fill up on the salad bar.

Okay, I have to stop with this illustration. I’m starting to drool. You get the picture though. It’s also a picture of someone who is young in the Christian faith. Someone that has only been a Christian a short while needs somebody to cut their meat up for them so it is easier to chew. They may even need milk instead of meat if they are very young in the faith. They just aren’t old enough to understand things so it has to be made easier. Nothing wrong with that at all. We have all been there.

As they get a little older, they may be able to feed themselves but they might do it wrong by taking something out of context or not understanding exactly what is meant. Those are rookie mistakes that could be avoided if somebody had just come along beside them and explained it to them. In 1 Corinthians chapter 3, Paul tells the church at Corinth, “Brothers, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. 2 I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it.”

Now, in the church, whose job is it to feed the church? Whose job is it to make sure that all the people are getting fed scripture and understanding it and digesting it, if you will? You might say that it is the job of the pastor and you wouldn’t be wrong at all. But let’s go back to the Great Commission of Jesus in Matthew 28:19-20. What does it say? Jesus tells His disciples to go and make more disciples.

What are disciples? A disciple is simply one who learns something from Jesus and then tells somebody else what they have learned. It involves furthering the mission of Jesus and becoming more like Jesus and we are all called to make disciples. All of us have the responsibility to make sure the other church members are partaking of scripture rightly and correctly. 2 Timothy 2:15 says, “Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”

That phrase “rightly dividing” is the picture of cutting up a steak for somebody else. We are to understand and explain what we have learned and share it with somebody else. That is what us churchy people call “discipleship.” 😊 When Jesus told His disciples to go and make more disciples, He said it after modeling to them what it looked like and He was the perfect model.

We saw last week that Jesus had a four-part plan for making disciples and it is found right here in Matthew 28. Last week we saw how Jesus started out by just engaging the people that were curious. He said, “Come and see for yourselves.” As Jesus was going, people were curious about what He had to say and He invited them to come and see. He knew that not all of them would follow through. Not everybody today that shows some interest in Jesus continues to follow Him but if you want to make more disciples – if you want to do what God has called you to do and equipped you to do, then the first step is just to engage them.

The next step is to connect them. Matthew 4:18-20 says, “As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 19"Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will send you out to fish for people." 20At once they left their nets and followed him.” First you engage the people that are curious and if they choose to continue on in the process, then you connect them. Let me show you what I mean. In the Great Commission, Jesus said, “As you go, make disciples, and then baptize them…” Let’s leave it there for a minute.

Why baptize them? What does that do for them? Does baptism save you? Do you have to be baptized to get to Heaven? When asked how to be saved, Jesus, and His disciples, Peter and Paul, all said, “Repent and be baptized” or “Believe and be baptized.” So, what is the big deal about baptism?

Let me tell you a story to illustrate. I had the great honor of getting to baptize several men at Wise County Jail one time. Let me just say that I love going to the jail. Some of you may not feel that way because we go for different reasons but I love going to the jail, if for nothing else but it gives me great illustrations! I think there were 7-8 guys that said they wanted to be baptized so they brought out a galvanized stock tank and filled it with water in the gym area. But before I dunked any of them, I asked each one privately why he wanted to be baptized. I wanted to make sure they understood and they all had good reasons but I came to this one guy and I asked him and he said, “Well…I’m not sure but I read in the Bible that Jesus got baptized…and it says that we should be baptized…and I guess I just want all my friends to know that I love Jesus and follow him.”

I just had to hug that guy! That’s the best response I have ever heard. He didn’t do it because the church told him to or his parents told him to or as part of something he had to do to get to Heaven. He did it to be obedient to what scripture said and to be connected to Jesus. He wanted to be like Jesus. He wanted to identify with Jesus. He wanted the world to know that he was with Jesus from now on.

Jesus died on the cross and was dead in the ground for three days but He rose again and lives today. So, as a symbolic act of that we are submerged in water – because that is what the word “baptism” means, to be submerged or dunked – and then brought up again. And when you are baptized, it connects you with Jesus. That is the first connection that needs to be made. Connect with Jesus. Baptism identifies you with Jesus and that’s important.

The next connection that needs to be made is to connect with a local church.  Because we all know that you have to go to church to be saved, right? Of course not. Just like baptism doesn’t save you, church membership doesn’t save you either. Yet Martin Luther once said, “Apart from the church, salvation is impossible." Not that the church provides salvation; God does. But because the "saved" one can't fulfill what it means to be a Christian apart from the church, membership becomes the indispensable mark of salvation. (Charles W. Colson, The Body, 1992, Word Publishing, p. 70.)

I have said before that I don’t want to hear you say you love Jesus if you hate the bride of Jesus and the bride of Jesus is the church. Revelation 19 says, “Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; 8  it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.” That’s the church.

Romans 12:5 says, “So in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.” As a Christian, you know belong to the rest of the body. You are not your own. It is for our own good and for the good of others that God wants us in fellowship with other believers. We need each other to grow up in the faith, to learn to serve, to love one another, to exercise our spiritual gifts, and to practice forgiveness. Although we are individuals, we still belong to one another.

I could go on and on but let me give you one more. Need one more reason to go to church? Jesus Christ, our living example, went to church as a regular practice. Luke 4:16 says, "He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom."

It was Jesus' custom—his regular practice—to go to church. The Message Bible puts it like this, "As he always did on the Sabbath, he went to the meeting place." If Jesus made it a priority to meet together with other believers, shouldn't we, as His followers and His disciples, do so also? (learnreligions.com/the-bible-on-church-attendance)

You know, I say all the time that this church reminds me of the first church in New Testament times but did you know that the first church met every day? I’m not suggesting we go back to that necessarily but a connection with the church; an identification with the church happens when you do more than just show up on most Sunday mornings. There is so much learning to be done on Sunday nights and Thursday nights and so much opportunity for discipleship as well. You can’t do much discipling on just Sunday mornings.

We need to connect and be identified with Jesus and the church. The next connection a disciple of Jesus will make is with the community. I remember when I first started as pastor of this church and we were over in Runaway Bay. For a Wednesday night meal, somebody had ordered a pie of some kind from the One Stop there next to the church and asked me to go pick it up. Sure, no problem. So, I bebop over there and tell the owner I’m there to pick up a pie for First Baptist Church.

You would have thought I told him I was there to murder his family. Just the name of that church sent this guy into a rage. He had been done wrong in the past by some of the people that were there and he was ready to take it out on me. I finally got him to settle down and understand that those folks were gone and we became friends but I’ll never forget the look on his face when I just mentioned our church. That’s not the kind of connection we can afford to make.

Again, I go back to the jail for an illustration and I’ve told you this before but I told a group of guys in there one time that I was from Christ Fellowship and a man said, “Oh, I know of that church. That’s the church that helps people. My wife lives in the RV Park down the road and she told me.” That’s the kind of connection we need to make with the community. But it takes time and it takes consistency. And we can’t do it with just three or four people. We need your help and we need your connection.

The last connection a disciple will make is with a cause. There are lots of good causes out there. You can connect with the Red Cross or Save the Whales or Save the Tacos or whatever but our church is called to minister to the poor, the addicted and the incarcerated. We didn’t choose that demographic. God chose it for us and placed us here and gave us the abilities we have and the gifts we have to minister specifically to them.

We do that one way through a food pantry that feeds people for free almost every week. We don’t advertise it but if somebody in the church or in the community needs some help, we may not be able to pay their bills but they won’t go hungry. It is so much fun to be able to help people with a little bit of food. The vast majority of people are very grateful and they don’t take advantage of it. They may never become believers or even come to our church for anything else but that’s not why we do it. We are called to minister to them and we are called to make disciples and a disciple will connect with Jesus through baptism and through the church.

If you don’t feel called to minister to the poor, addicted and incarcerated, I understand. This church is not for everybody. There are lots of other churches that minister specifically to other people. Some minister to schools or to the military and that’s wonderful. Maybe you feel called to connect and minister through one of those churches but everything we do ministerially is filtered through our calling as a church. And as a member of this church, you need to connect with it.

Maybe you want to be part of the jail ministry or give to the food pantry. Maybe you have a heart for the addicted and want to start a class to help them. Whatever it is, it’s time to connect. I don’t just mean walking the aisle and praying a prayer and calling that good as you make it church when it’s convenient. That’s not being a disciple and it is certainly not making disciples.

But I’m going to stop. I’m not going to beg or try to make you feel guilty. I really don’t want to do that. Because none of that is going to do any good…until you get desperate. Until you are desperate for God to work in the lives of your family and your friends and even those in the community and around the world that you have never met, you will never really connect with any of these and you will never really start to make disciples because making disciples is hard work. It takes time and effort and money today and tomorrow and next month and next year. And it’s too hard for people who aren’t desperate.

Do you know why ministering in jails and prisons is so fulfilling? Because most of those people are desperate. They are desperate for help for themselves but they are also desperate for their friends and their families to not make the same mistakes they have made. So, they do whatever it takes to not let that happen and it comes out in their quiet times and it comes out in their corporate times of worship too. When you become desperate for the eternities of your friends and family, you will start to make disciples. All you have to do is learn from Jesus and tell somebody else what you have learned. Engage the curious people around you and then connect them to Jesus, to the church and to the community and to a cause. It’s what Jesus did and has commanded us to do.

If you have never started your walk with God through His Son Jesus, then today is the day. Just ask God to forgive you of your sins, turn away from those sins and believe that Jesus is God and died on the cross to pay your price into Heaven. Jesus said to believe and be baptized.

**Robert’s baptism**