SOULS UNDER CONSTRUCTION SERMON SERIES:

Building a Life that Matters:

An Invitation

Matthew 4:19-22

Pastor Robyn Hogue April 7, 2013 Skyline Presbyterian Church

Day by day they arrive in the mail. We call them invitations. A new store is opening for business and you are invited to see. A friend is getting married and you are invited to share in the celebration. Your class is having a reunion and you are invited to attend. A friend is having a birthday party and hopes you will come. Hardly a day passes, but someone requests the honor of your presence.

There is an invitation of a divine origin that cuts through history and transcends time. It comes from Jesus Christ. It has your name on it. It is an invitation to Christian Discipleship. Jesus of Nazareth requests the honor of your presence. The risen Christ invites you to a personal, daily relationship with Him. A faithful friend, Jesus, asks you today, “Will you follow Me? Will you allow Me to help you build a life that really matters?”

By the waters of baptism we are cleansed and claimed as children of God. By the rivers of life we are called and challenged to follow Jesus. Jesus is calling for you today to:

COME AND SEE. Check out the scene.

About once a year I go shopping in an electronics parts store with my guys. I’m not talking about going to Best Buy or Office Max. I’m talking about going to Frey’s Electronics in Renton where tiny electronic components hang on the racks and glisten behind display cases. Evan and Larry get excited about building better, faster computers and I glaze over. As I walk down the aisle, I check out the scene hoping no other people will notice me. Inevitably there is a kind and thoughtful clerk who will see my sense of desperation. He will come over and in a pleasant voice ask, “What are you looking for? How may I help you?”

When Jesus was the new prophet on the block, He started hanging out with John the Baptist down by the Jordan River. One day some of John’s disciples were following Jesus from afar. They were curious about this new guy who had come on the scene. As they followed Him from a distance, Jesus turned to them and said, “What are you looking for? How may I help you?” That day, two people went home with Jesus to discover a new way of life. You can read about in John, Chapter 1.

Some of you feel just about as uncomfortable in church as I do in a electronics parts store. You are a little shaky in this room. You do not know the songs, you are not familiar with the prayers, and you wonder why the people up front wear strange clothes every Sunday called robes. Yet, something inside you is longing for someone outside of you to show you the real meaning of life. Jesus is saying to you, “Come and see.” Check out the scene. Survey the territory. Take your time. Ponder the possibilities. Live with the reality. Give it a try. Follow your heart. It might mean more than you can imagine. Join us for the next six weeks. Jesus is saying, “Come, today. Come and see.”

To others of you who are here to day, it is time to RISE AND FOLLOW. Take a step into the Waters of Life.

Someday I will get to travel the Holy Land personally, but until that day I rely on reports of others. Listen to a blog post from one of my pastor friends, Julie Johnson in Georgia. “I will never forget it as long as I live. The sun was breaking the eastern sky as I stood on a boat sailing from Tiberius on a ride across to the northern shore of Galilee in modern Israel. Not far from the shore, there were fishermen casting their nets in the water, making a living from the catch of the day. As the morning mist moistened my face, it came to me, ‘Oh, my! This is how it first happened!’ Just ordinary fishermen one day were tending their nets in this very spot. And Jesus said, ‘Come follow Me, and they left their nets and followed Him.’”

Come. Follow. Was there ever an invitation more profoundly simple and simply profound? Come. Follow. To follow is to go, to move, to come after, to comprehend, to conform, to comply, to pattern, to penetrate, to pursue a calling that is bigger than I. Immediately they follow. I would have asked, “How far? How long? How much? Will I be reimbursed? What are the benefits?” They just start walking.

If someone came and asked you today, “Are you a Christian?” you would most likely say, “Yes.” By choice or by chance you are Christian as opposed to being Baha’I, New Age, Wiccan, Muslim, Hindu, or Jew. You were born that way or you made a decision one day to be a part of a Christian faith. But, if I asked you a different question, it becomes a bit more personal, “Are you a disciple of Jesus Christ?” Where He leads will you follow? Will you allow Him to build a life that really matters? It is that personal relationship that Jesus sought with those fishermen that day. Salvation is a free gift, but discipleship is a dynamite decision. The turning point in any life is when we stop inventing the ‘God we want’ and start following the ‘God who is.’ To someone today, the Savior is saying, “Come. Come, follow Me.”

To someone else this morning He is saying, PUSH OUT INTO THE DEEP. Go deeper.

Peter and his buddies had fished all night and had caught nothing. You can read about it in Luke, Chapter 5. Whether or not you have ever wet a line in the water, you know that feeling of failure. You try, but you miss the mark. Elisha Otis invented the elevator, but first he failed three times as a mechanic. Ernest Hemingway wrote The Old Man and the Sea. First he got forty-six rejection slips from his publisher. Fred Astarie’s first screen test was evaluated this way: “Can’t sing, can’t act, can dance a little.” You know what it is, the taste of failure.

Then joggers come along the Sea of Galilee at sunrise. There was Peter and his buddies washing their nets. They asked what all people ask fishermen, “Catch anything?” and Peter hadn’t caught a single one. As he mumbles in response while tending to his nets and adjusting his oar, there comes another by that day who doesn’t condemn him for failure, but rather says to him, “Push out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” You can read about it in John chapter 21.That day they learned to fish in a new place, in a new way, in a new kind of power.

If you are feeling frustrated with your faith, if you have tried and failed at it, if you have become bored with church and wonder when it is going to be over, if you find yourself pushing to the edge toward the exit, there is one who is coming to you today who is greater than I and He says, “Push out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. There is better fishing out here yet.”

Dig into The Book. Learn to pray. Discover your spiritual gifts. Take on some ministry that is bigger than you, that you can’t possibly do unless God does it. That is the kind of faith we need. Push out into the deep and let down your nets. Go deeper.

To some Jesus says,“Come, I will make you fishers of men,” says the Text. GO AND TELL OTHERS

Awhile ago several of us stood here wondering about how to change the light bulbs in these chancel spotlights which are beginning to fail, I could not help but ask the question, “How many Presbyterians does it take to change a light bulb?” The answer, “Change!?” Of course there is a more crucial question. “How many Presbyterians does it take to make a new Christian?” I do not know the national figures, but at Skyline last year it took over a hundred and fifty of us. Jesus calls us into the people fishing business.

My dad, who loved to fish, taught me a few things about fishing. If you are going to go fishing, it is best to go where the fish are. One of the problems you and I have with people outside the church is we don’t associate with them very much. Who in your circle of friends, relatives, acquaintances, neighbors, and classmates does not know God and has no church? If you want to fish, go where the fish are. Get out beyond the secure eddy of the church circle and go to the larger world. Let us never be in a circle where there are only Christians.

To be fishers of people, we must use the right bait. The right word, at the right time, in the right way, to the right person, for the right reason, has powerful results. “How’s it going for you?” “Financially ok, the family is doing pretty good, and spiritually, it’s the best time in my life.” That is a faithful witness. “So you’re new in town. I’m glad you are here. Have you found a place to shop? Have you found a place to get your hair cut? By the way, I go to church at this place. I’d love to pick you up on Sunday morning if you’d like to come along with me.” To a troubled friend we might say, “I know things are tough right now. When I have been in those tough times, the strength of God has sustained me and helped me.” The right word, at the right time, for the right reason, in the right way, to the right person creates a wonderful follower of Jesus Christ.

To build a life that matters we need to accept the invitation of the Lord. “Come, and check Me out,” He says. “Learn from Me. Learn about Me. Keep coming back.” To others He says, “Come, go deeper with Me. Dig into The Book. Learn to pray. Discover your spiritual gifts. Take on some ministry that is bigger than you.” And to still others Jesus says, “Come, and I will make you fishers of men and women. Go to where the fish are. Do these things and I will build in you a life that really matters.”