FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, ATLANTA, GEORGIA

Sermon by Dr. George Bryant Wirth

 

June 10, 2001

 

FOLLOW ME!

 

Scripture:  Matthew 4:17-22, 10:1-14

 

INTRODUCTION

 

As we prepare to commission our young people for their mission trips this summer, I want to say to them, on behalf of the entire congregation, what a great inspiration they are to all of us here today.  Over the past nine years, our teenagers and their adult leaders have gone out to serve the Lord and minister to people in need in Mexico, Honduras, South Dakota, Kentucky, Colorado, New Mexico, Florida, Arizona, North Carolina, in the poorest sections of Jamaica and on the streets of the city of Glasgow in Scotland.  More than 500 youth have been involved in these mission trips, and God only knows how many lives have been touched as the result of their reaching out to and receiving from others across our country and throughout the world.  As our junior and senior highs leave for West Virginia and Florida this month, we rejoice that God has called them into mission and they will be in our prayers every day until their return.

 

So it is now, and so it was long ago by the shores of the Sea of Galilee, as Jesus called His first disciples, saying to them, Follow Me!  And if we listen ever so carefully, I believe that we can still hear Him say those same words to each of us and to all of us today.

 

I.

 

Our gospel lesson from the fourth chapter of Matthew gives us their names – Simon Peter and his brother Andrew, and two other brothers, James and John, the sons of Zebedee.  We also know, because the Bible tells us so, that they were fishermen who made their living on the Galilean Sea.  But nothing in this text explains to us exactly what happened that day when those men heard Jesus say Follow Me, except that they dropped their nets immediately, left old Zebedee behind in the boat and went off with this Man from Nazareth.

 

Had they met Him before that transforming moment?  Possibly.  If so, were they expecting Him to come?  That could have been the case.  If not, was it something in His voice, or the look in His eyes or the magnetic power of His personality that compelled them to go with Him?  Probably so, but we just don’t know for sure how or why it happened.  And yet of this we can be absolutely certain:  when those disciples decided to follow Jesus by faith, their lives would never be the same again!

 

And that is true for anyone and everyone who is called into a relationship with Him.

 

It happened to Mother Teresa as a little girl growing up in Yugoslavia.  Listen to her story:

 

           “I think it began at home with my own family.  I was a child then, and my mother was very devoted to Jesus.  I remember one day when she said to me, ‘Put your hand in His hand, and walk all the way along with Him.’  She knew what was expected of one who gives her life to Jesus.  And by the time I was twelve, I wanted to be a missionary, to go out and give others the love of Christ.”  And that is exactly what Mother Teresa did with the next 75 years of her life.  (From “The Love of Christ,” a Biography of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, by James McGovern, Emmaus Books, 1978, page 12)

 

It happened to C. S. Lewis, who was a self-proclaimed agnostic teaching at Oxford University until the fall term of 1929.  In his autobiography, “Surprised by Joy,” this is how he remembered his own conversion: 

 

           “You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet.  That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me.  In the Trinity term of 1929, I gave in and admitted that God was God, knelt and prayed – perhaps the most reluctant convert in all of England.  I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms.”  (From “Surprised by Joy,” by C. S. Lewis, Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1955, page 228). 

 

C. S. Lewis was 31 when it happened to him, and he went on to become one of the most profound and prolific Christian authors of the 20th century.

 

And more recently, it happened to Kathleen Norris, a Presbyterian woman who gives us a glimpse of her faith journey in a book she wrote entitled “Amazing Grace.”  Listen:

 

           “I was fortunate enough to be raised by parents who took their religion seriously – it would have been unthinkable of them to let me grow up not knowing Bible stories and hymns, not having experienced Sunday School and worship…but…as a baby boomer from the 1950’s…I drifted away as a young adult.  (Then) I began attending church again…and now I am back…As someone who for twenty years would never willingly go to church, I have become someone who now can’t get enough of it…During one of my first visits to a Benedictine Monastery, one of the monks joked on the way out of vespers, ‘You had better get some rest.  You’ve had a lot of church today.’  ‘Shh’ another said, ‘she’s making up for lost time.’”  (From “Amazing Grace” by Kathleen Norris, Riverhead Books, 1998, pages 101-104).

 

You see, like those first disciples – Peter, Andrew, James and John – we who are Christians, together with Mother Teresa, C. S. Lewis, Kathleen Norris and a long line of believers stretching out over the centuries – we have all heard the call of Jesus to follow Him by faith.

 

For some of us, it happened suddenly, “immediately,” through a conversion experience, while for others it was a more gradual process of growing up in a Christian family and being nurtured in the church.  There are those of us who wandered away for a while, like prodigal sons and daughters, but who finally came home to the outstretched arms and open heart of God.

 

However it happened, whenever it happened, wherever it happened, the most important thing is that it did happen for you and for me as we said “Yes” to the call of Christ and decided to follow Him.  And if anyone in this sanctuary today or in our broadcast congregation is still waiting or wanting to make that decision, then at the end of this worship service, I will extend the same invitation that I have given for the past 11 years before the Benediction:  “If you are considering joining this church or thinking about committing your life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, then please come forward so that we can talk together about those important matters of faith.”  It is not my invitation – it is the invitation of Jesus, just as He called those fishermen by the Sea of Galilee, saying to them and to us today, Follow Me.

 

II.

 

Jesus has called all of us to follow Him by faith.  Moreover, He is still calling each and every one of us into the ministry of the church.  For once we have committed our lives to Him, we will soon discover that Christianity is not a solo religion, meant for just Jesus and me.  Instead, He wants to bring us into a community of believers wherein we can find fellowship with others and opportunities to become involved in the life and work of the congregation.

 

As Jesus called and commissioned all twelve of His first disciples, He told them what their job description would be: To cast out unclean spirits, to heal the sick, to preach the gospel and serve the poor (Matthew 10:1-8).  Notice please that a seminary degree was not required, but rather a willing spirit and a desire deep down in their hearts to minister to people who were in need.

 

Nearly 2000 years later, I believe that our job description is still the same.  As it says in the bulletin every Sunday, the real ministers here are “all the members of the church,” which means that our role as staff leaders is to come alongside the 2800 members of this congregation to help you find ways to use the gifts for ministry which God has given to you.  That’s the way it worked in the first century church, and that has become one of the key components of our Presbyterian way of life – it’s called “The priesthood of all believers.”

 

During the month of June, the elders, staff and other church leaders will be making contact with as many members as possible, asking you to become involved next year in the ministries of Christian Education, Pastoral Care, Music, Church Growth, Communications, Stewardship, Administration, Community Ministry and Mission Outreach.  As the contact is made and you consider what you will say, I hope you will remember the story about four people named everybody, somebody, anybody and nobody.

 

There was an important task to be done in the church and everybody was asked to do it.  Somebody got upset about that because everybody was reluctant to say yes.  You see, everybody thought anybody could do it, but nobody realized that everybody wouldn’t do it.  So it ended up that everybody blamed somebody when nobody did what anybody could have done.  (Would you like me to repeat that again?)

 

Speaking personally, I am more inclined toward what Edward Everett Hale once said:  “I am only one person, but still I am one.  I cannot do everything, but I can do something.  What I can do, I ought to do.  And what I ought to do, by the grace of God I will do.”

 

In other words, when Jesus calls us to follow Him by faith, He also calls us into the ministry of the church.

 

III.

 

And if we believe that is true, then our Lord will lead us one step further as He calls us into mission out there in the world.

 

Many of you are already engaged in our partnerships with Christian brothers and sisters in Kenya, Haiti, Brazil and Honduras.  Others have become involved in hunger relief for folks in Nicaragua or medical care for boys and girls who are coming here from many countries through Children’s Cross Connection.  Some of you have committed your time and energy to work with refugees from Vietnam, Kosovo and a group of young men who will soon arrive from the Sudan.  And every one of us has the opportunity through our prayer support and financial giving to sustain and increase the community ministry and mission of this church as we reach out to people across this city and nation and around the world.

 

CONCLUSION

 

My friends, those good things are happening here because we have heard the call of Jesus Christ to follow Him by faith and to dedicate our lives in ministry and mission to all of God’s children.  That is what we believe in this church, and that is why we are about to commission our young people to go out and serve others as ambassadors of the Body of Christ.

 

Mother Teresa believed it too, and her closing words remind us that we have all been called to follow Jesus in everything that we say and do, wherever He may lead us:

 

“Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no eyes, no feet, no hands but yours.  Yours are the eyes through which He sees the world.  Yours are the feet with which He goes about doing good.  Yours are the hands with which He blesses others.  Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”  (Paraphrased)

 

This morning I pray that all of us will hear Him say, “Come, and Follow Me!”