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Jesus says, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. You may be seated. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Dear Saints, we want to reflect this morning on that part of the text, what it means when Jesus says that following Him makes us fishers of men. But it’s a small reflection, so I think to warm us up I just want to walk through the Gospel text and pick up a few notes as we go. You can follow along in your bulletin.
This… this text, this reading of Scripture, Matthew chapter 4 verses 12 and following, comes immediately after the temptation of Jesus in the text. So if you go back in your Bible and look at Matthew chapter 4 verse 11, you’ll see that Jesus was in the wilderness being tempted by the devil, but look at what it says in verse 12. Now when He, Jesus, heard that John, that’s John the Baptist, had been arrested, He withdrew into Galilee.
Now this is a curious thing because this event, the arrest of John the Baptist, happened about a year and a half after the baptism and temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. In other words, and we can pin this down pretty precisely, we think that the baptism of Jesus happened in the spring of the year 29 A.D. and the arrest of John the Baptist was in probably November, at least late fall or early winter of 30 A.D. So, 16, 17, 18 months were passed between these two events. In other words, there’s a 16-year-and-a-half gap between verse 11 and verse 12.
We want to know what happened in that gap, we go to the gospel of John. In fact, that’s one of the major reasons that John wrote his gospel is to fill us in on that early ministry of Jesus, how He traveled around Galilee and Jerusalem and was down by Judea, etc. etc. But notice where Matthew begins this discussion of the ministry of Jesus. He skips a year and a half into it, and he starts his reflection on the ministry of Jesus by noting that John the Baptist has been put into prison.
Now there’s a connection that we just want to notice, and one of the reasons why we want to do this is we want to be careful readers of the Scriptures, and we want to see this connection. In fact, a lot of scholars have noted that there’s a parallel between the things that happen with John the Baptist and the things that happen with Jesus. So John is born of Elizabeth in her old age and then Jesus is born of Mary. John preaches and then Jesus preaches and heals. John is arrested and Jesus is arrested. John dies and Jesus is crucified. So there’s a parallel between these two people.
Now we see it looking back, but it seems like Jesus sees it looking forward. I mean right there in the moment, Jesus can see it. So that there’s two moments in the gospel lessons where we hear about how Jesus learns that John had been arrested, and then again we hear that Jesus learned that John had been killed. Both of these times, the news when it gets to Jesus affects Him, both emotionally and practically. It changes what He does.
And so here in the text, Jesus sees that John had been arrested, and so what does He do? He leaves where He was, probably down in Judea or Bethany beyond the Jordan, and he goes up to Galilee. And not only that, he moved his headquarters from Nazareth, where he grew up, just in the hill country of Galilee, down to the coast, the shore of the Sea of Galilee in Capernaum. That’s verse 13. Leaving Nazareth, it says, Jesus went and lived in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled.”
Now, Matthew is going to go on to quote Isaiah chapter 9, which is quite a beautiful text. But again, if we’re reading the Scripture carefully, we want to notice what Matthew is doing. Matthew, along with Romans and the book of Hebrews, those three books are the books in the New Testament that most often quote the Old Testament. And for that reason, Matthew has often been called the gospel to the Jews. In fact, church history tells us, and this is pretty reliable, we think this might be true, that Matthew was first written in Hebrew and then it was translated into Greek, perhaps by Matthew himself.
Now, we don’t have any of those early Hebrew manuscripts, so we can’t confirm that fact, but it looks like that’s a pretty reliable tradition. And we don’t even, I mean, just not only from history, but we also see it in what Matthew is doing. He’s quoting the Old Testament to show that Jesus is the fulfillment of all these things. In fact, if you were to start at Matthew chapter one, verse one, and read all the way through our text in Matthew chapter four, you would see that Matthew is picking major events in the life of Jesus and connecting them with particular scripture verses. He was born of the Virgin Mary, out of Egypt I have called my Son, and he has seven of these things, and this is the last one, the seventh one here, where Matthew quotes Isaiah chapter 9 to highlight Jesus moving up to Galilee.
And what’s the promise? I mean, there’s a lot of history here, but remember in the Old Testament after Solomon died the people split, there was a civil war north and south, and the south around Jerusalem remained sort of faithful to the Lord, but the northern kingdoms gave up the worship of Jerusalem, had their own temples, so that that northern region in Galilee was given over to darkness until they were destroyed in the year 722. But Isaiah is preaching back in that same time that even the people who sit in darkness will see a great light, that the Messiah will bring his light even to Galilee of the Gentiles.
Here’s how it goes, verse 15, quoting Isaiah 9, “…the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and those dwelling in the region and shadows of death, on them a light has dawned.” Beautiful, absolutely beautiful promise. And it kind of puts a nail on the head of the… it hits the nail on the head of Matthew’s case that this Jesus is the one promised by the prophets.
Then we get into the ministry of Jesus. Verse 17, from that time Jesus began to preach saying, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. We note here that these are the same words that John the Baptist preached in his ministry, repent, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And these words are the summary of every single Christian sermon, repent, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Jesus, it’s kind of amazing that even though John is in prison, Jesus is going to pick up where he leaves off so that this preaching of repentance will not be silenced and it continues to go on.
Now Jesus, like John, preached the kingdom, and we want to just simply say, what is this preaching? What is the kingdom of God? And the answer is simple: it is where the name and the Word of God are preached and where people believe by the gift of the Holy Spirit, believe His Word and trust His promises. We want to also notice that Jesus preaches repentance. The coming of God’s kingdom demands and requires repentance. That is, that we acknowledge our sins and we acknowledge that Jesus is our Savior.
Here, repentance is how we come into the kingdom of God. We could say it like this, repentance is the immigration policy of God’s kingdom. If you want to become a citizen of God’s kingdom, it is only through repentance, the knowledge of your sin, and faith in Christ Jesus.
Now Jesus will call His disciples. Verse 18, while walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon, who’s 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 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, and immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.”
Now, if we remember the gospel text from last Sunday, we’re going to say, now wait a minute, Pastor. Those guys were already called as the disciples of Jesus, and you’re right, remember? After Jesus was baptized, He went into the wilderness for 40 days, and then He came down to the Jordan River, and John the Baptist pointed to Him and said, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and some of John’s disciples left and followed Jesus. Jesus, Andrew was one of them, John was the other one, and the next day Andrew went and found his brother Peter, and Peter came and followed Jesus, and the next day they found Philip and Nathanael, and they came and followed Him.
That means that of these four disciples that Jesus is calling here from their boats, He had called three of them already. Now what’s going on there? In fact, it’s quite stunning that at the very beginning of His ministry, Jesus calls a handful of disciples, but it seems like it’s just on more of a casual basis, kind of they can come and go as they would. So they go with Jesus to the wedding at Cana, some of them go down to Jerusalem for the cleansing of the temple, some of them are with Jesus when He’s back at Cana to perform His signs, but these disciples are kind of coming and going, and it seems like maybe for a few months before this moment that Jesus had sent all of the disciples away, back home, John, back to their work.
And so James and John are back with Zebedee, their father, fishing. Peter and Andrew, their friends, are also there working in the same place as fishermen. And Jesus comes and He says, okay guys, it’s time. You’re with Me to the end now. Your discipleship and your apostleship begins in earnest. This is their call to full-time ministry, and they will be with Jesus from this moment until the end, until He’s on the cross, and even afterwards when He’s raised.
Now, here’s the surprise of the text. Jesus comes and He finds these guys, fishermen, and He calls them to be fishers of men. Now, this to me is one of the most comforting texts in the Scripture, because if you were making up the story of Jesus, you just wouldn’t make this up. Now, if you were inventing the gospel, you know, if you’re sitting around saying, hey, let’s write stories about some guy that we can tempt people to believe in and let’s have him call disciples, you would never, ever have him call fishermen.
You would have him call, you know, you would have him call shepherds. I mean, that’s what he always does; always the Lord calls shepherds. Abel was a shepherd, Noah was a shepherd, Abraham was a shepherd, Isaac, Jacob were shepherds. Moses was a shepherd. David was a shepherd. Amos was a shepherd. They were all shepherds. The Lord always called shepherds. In fact, in the Old Testament, like Ezekiel 34, the Lord looks at the priests and the prophets and He says, they are the shepherds of My people.
The Lord calls Himself a shepherd. The Lord is My shepherd. I shall not want. He’s the one who leaves the 99 in the wilderness and goes to find the one lost sheep. Jesus is the good shepherd. The sheep hear His voice and they follow Him, and He calls them by name. He’s the one who lays down his life for the sheep. In fact, the word pastor is the same exact word in Greek as the word for shepherd, poimain, same. So if you were making this up, Jesus would go call His disciples, and He’d go out and find some shepherds tending to the sheep, and He’d call them to be the disciples. But this is not a made-up story; this is what happened.
And Jesus wants, for whatever reason, He wants fishermen to be His apostles. This is fantastic, and we want to reflect on it a little bit more, but let’s finish the text. Verse 23, And Jesus went throughout all Galilee, teaching in the synagogues, and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. And so His fame spread throughout all of Syria, and they brought Him all the sick and the afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures and paralytics, and He healed them.
And great crowds followed Him from Galilee and the Decapolis, from Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan.” Now Matthew is telling us right here at the beginning that Jesus at the beginning, the first couple of years of His ministry, these were marked with great success and growth. There was people who heard of Jesus from all over. In fact, his fame spread more broadly than even the fame of John the Baptist, so that even though Jesus was up there by the Sea of Galilee, the people over in Damascus and Syria had heard about Him, the people in the ten cities that were on the other side of the Galilee had heard about Him, the people down south in Jerusalem and Judea, and even down in Bethany beyond the Jordan by the Dead Sea, they had all heard about Him and they were all gathering to Jesus so that He would bless them.
And Jesus was doing three things. He was preaching and healing and casting out demons, and the last two a consequence of the first. Life was coming to all the people through the Word that Jesus was teaching. Now I think, just last note on the text before we dig into the Fisher’s part, I think that Matthew wants us to see here at the beginning of the gospel how many people are following Jesus so that we notice at the end of the gospel how few they are.
By the time Jesus is being tried, there’s a couple of disciples that are there with Him. By the time Jesus is being crucified, there’s a few believers that are watching, and that’s it. So far the text. Now I want to focus on these words Jesus says, follow Me and I will make you fishers of men.
Now there’s some controversy about this text. Normally, you’ve got to tell me if this is true, but I think normally when you hear a sermon about this, becoming fishers of men, normally it goes like this: Jesus called His apostles to be fishers of men, and He’s also calling us to be fishers of men. We all then are going to be going out and making disciples of Jesus, and doing the work of evangelism in the church. We’re all evangelists, so get after it. That’s the normal sermon.
And then the grumpy Lutherans come along, and they say, now wait a minute. And this text is specifically talking to pastors. Pastors are the ones that are called into the office of preaching and teaching and called to be evangelists, so it’s not that everybody is an evangelist, but that the pastors are supposed to do the work of evangelism and preaching, going out fishing and bringing people in the church.
But I would just like to point to something maybe obvious in the text. Next, before we worry about if we are supposed to be fishers of men or not, I want you to consider this: you are a fish, first a fish. I am first a fish. In other words, before we think about going out and catching, we need to simply remember that we are the caught, that we have been gotten hold of by Jesus, that we were lost and we have been found, that we are dying and now Christ has made us alive. That we were in bondage to sin and death, sitting in darkness, and Jesus has set us free and given us life.
But this is the most important thing, and I think sometimes we forget it. In fact, I’ve been thinking about this the last couple of weeks. I think this is a…well, it might not be just a Lutheran thing, but I think the temptation comes to us, especially as Lutherans, that we forget about the you once were of being a Christian. Titus says it like… or Paul says it to Titus like this, so this is Titus chapter 3 verse 3, “‘For we ourselves once were foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others, and hating one another. We once were. You were born in sin. You were, this is how Paul says it in Ephesians chapter 2, you were by nature children of wrath.
In other words, we find ourselves lost in the ocean, in the darkness, in the dying, in rebellion against God, in unbelief, following after the pleasures of the flesh and whatever else. I think this might be why Jesus wants fishermen rather than shepherds as His apostles. You know, the shepherd has a certain number of the flock, and the sheep are being born into the flock already, but the fisherman has to go out and find the fish. Every day he has to go looking for them. And every day in the church, the Lord is going to find more fish.
Now there’s another reason, too. I have never in my whole life, I have never met a fish that wanted to be caught. They’re on the end of the line. They’re not jumping for joy out of the water. They’re trying to get away. And that was you, and that was me. We confess in the catechism. I believe that I cannot, by my own reason or strength, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ or come to Him, but the Holy Spirit calls me by the gospel, enlightens me with His gifts, sanctifies and keeps me in the true faith.
By grace you are saved, Paul says to the Ephesians, by grace you are saved through faith and not of yourselves so that no one may boast.” You did not jump into the boat; you were dragged in by the Holy Spirit and the gospel. You have been caught. Some of you have just been caught. Some of you are maybe busy trying to flop out of the boat. But all of us have been grabbed ahold of by Jesus.
Now this tells us a lot. It tells us a lot about who we are. It tells us a lot about who our neighbor is, it tells us a lot about the church, and what’s going on here. There’s this ancient tradition that the Christian was known with the symbol of the fish, you know that? And that’s because the Greek word for fish is ikthos, and they took those five letters of the word and they made an acronym out of it. Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior. Tertullian, the early church father, preaching about that little thing, says that we are little fish, ichthoi, who follow our big fish, ichthus, Christ.
So we’re in His school, we’re in His net, we’re in His boat, we’re in His love. When Jesus says to the disciples, follow me and I will make you fishers of men, He’s telling us that He is the great fisher of men. And dear saints, that is our confidence. That is our hope and our joy and our peace that Jesus has caught us and He’s reeling us in. Amen.
Amen. The peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.