Okay, so if you turn in your
Bibles to Mark chapter 1, as I said earlier, we've moved our
church to Nowra, very close to the centre of this city because
we believe that God has his people in this city. We desire to be
as public as the Lord allows in the proclamation of the true
gospel, believing that it is the power of God unto salvation
to all who believe. We have been privileged to see
the Lord work through his word to grow and sustain the faith
of those in our midst and those we love. This joy in the greatness
of our Lord Jesus and the deep committed love by which he sustains
his dearly loved bride who in Psalm 16 he calls all his delight. That's something that we should
cherish passionately. but also it's something that
believers long to share with our burdened brethren. And may
the Lord grant us the grace to speak his words concerning his
dear son, the gospel that comes from God. And may they ring out
in this town with sincerity, with simpleness and with steadfastness. It's essential to the faith of
God's children that they hear unmistakenly of a God who is
absolutely sovereign, who has chosen before the foundation
of the world some of Adam's sons and daughters to live with him
in the new creation. They fell beyond all reason and
hope in their father Adam. And they came into this world
speaking lies, sinning naturally, sinning willingly, sinning disgustingly,
and all of this in spite of God's revelation of himself in creation. As Ephesians 4.19 says, And they,
having been calloused, have given themselves over to sensuality
for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.
But God has chosen some, and this is a multitude beyond number.
not beyond our numbering but not beyond God's numbering because
God's knowledge is infinite. And this number was to be saved
only through the life, death and resurrection of our Lord
Jesus. God the Father elected them because of his never-ending
love for them. Their redemption is the work
of God the Son in his infinite love for his bride who as a good
shepherd took full responsibility to bring all of his father's
sheep home. And their regeneration, their
preservation, their sanctification is the work of God the Holy Spirit.
God chooses whom he will save, how he will save them, when he
will save them, what work he will have them to do for his
glory. Salvation is the Lord's work
alone and we dare not put our filthy hands to precious, pure
and holy things. And so while this offends the
very fibre of all flesh. It is for God's glory and our
good. Anything which comes into our
lives which humbles us is good. The natural man rises up in anger
when God in his sovereignty is lifted up. as it robs him of
his dignity and leaves him at the mercy of God alone. And in
religion it strips away any power from the evangelist and robs
him of the means to build his little empire and control his
people for his covetous ends. But God's children, humbled in
the dust as God the Holy Spirit shows them who the Lord Jesus
is, how holy God is and who they really are, and how utterly helpless
they are to lift one finger to aid their salvation. And they
are caused by God to cry out to the one person who can save
them. And when he comes at the time of his love, their burden
is taken away and they see Jesus and see him crucified for them
and see him risen. So the lives and times of God's
people are in His hands. He has the right to do with them
as He sees fit for their good and for His glory. Modern evangelism
is devoid of many of these essential truths and it does great harm
giving peace and assurance where God has not given peace and putting
God's children under burden of works and laws to outwardly maintain
by vigorous human effort a work which God alone can perform,
and He performs from the inside out. Jesus is offered as a choice,
a human decision. You can take Him or leave Him.
He loves everyone, but His love is so weak that it can be resisted
by the mighty will of men. They say that He died for you,
but His death will only be effective if you choose. He is trying to
save you, but you just won't let Him. and it's just not the
God of the scriptures. And people might ask then, in
light of all that, if God is absolutely sovereign, why should
we be concerned if he can fix it at any time he chooses? And
I think there are three or four really important reasons from
scripture. One is that our first call to
God in grace is a call of love. And when the Lord Jesus visits
us subsequently in our life, he reminds us of his love for
us. And the warning to the Ephesians
in Revelation should always be before us. They were diligent
in doctrine, perseverance and patience. And they laboured for
the Lord, for his namesake, and they hadn't become weary. But
the Lord Jesus says this of the Ephesians, and may it never be
said of us. He said, nevertheless, I have
this against you, that you have left your first love. And as
I said earlier, secondly, our Saviour is blasphemed because
he is presented as a pathetic wimp, pleading with lost, God-hating
sinners, to pretty please make his life's sacrifice not seem
so worthless and useless. And we have brothers and sisters
in this town with whom we will spend eternity and in love. They are hurting and they are
being hurt continually by not being told how amazing their
God is and how wonderful their husband is. But also I pray that
the words of Jeremiah, the words that God used so powerfully in
my life some years ago, would be true for us. And it says that
because of the word of the Lord has resulted in reproach and
derision all day. And this is Jeremiah's complaint
to God about the pain that he's gone through. But in verse 9
he says, but if I say, of chapter 20 of Jeremiah, But if I say
I will not remember him or speak any more in his name, then in
my heart it becomes like a burning fire shut up in my bones and
I am weary of holding it in and I cannot endure it. For I have
heard the whispering of many, terror on every side. Denounce
him, let us denounce him. All my trusted friends watching
for my fall say, perhaps he will be deceived so that we may prevail
against him and take our revenge on him. And then there's one
of those glorious buts in verse 11 of chapter 20. But the Lord
is with me like a dread champion. Therefore my persecutors will
stumble, and not prevail. They will be utterly ashamed
because they have failed with an everlasting disgrace. They
will not be forgotten. And so as we turn to Mark, one
question these verses raise, as we look to verses 17, 16,
17 down to 21, And this is a story of the call
of the disciples. And the question that needs to
be before us, and we need to keep in mind as we read these
words, is have you heard the Master's voice? Can you remember
that sweet, unmistakable voice of the Lord Jesus? If the Lord
Jesus has spoken to your heart through His Word, then you will
be left in no doubt that He has spoken. His is the voice that
has no equal. His voice carries His power to
work in His Beloved exactly as He alone knows best. Last week
we looked at those verses from John 6.63. It is the Spirit who
gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The
words I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. In John 5, 24 he says, Truly,
truly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes him who
sent me has, they have it as their possession, has eternal
life and does not come into judgement but is passed out of death into
life. Truly, truly, I say to you, an
hour is coming and now is when the dead will hear the voice
of the Son of God and those who hear will live. So have you,
like Lazarus, found that you are lying bound in the sins of
your flesh, shut up in darkness, terrified by God's holy justice,
without hope and without God in this world? then if that has
been your case or is to some extent a description of you,
then may God the Holy Spirit use these wonderful words that
we're looking at today to bring home to you who he really is
and how he saves his people. And may he cause us to proclaim
what he proclaims. So Mark 1 verse 16. And as he
was going along by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew,
the brother of Simon, casting a net into the sea, for they
were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, Follow me, and I will
make you become fishers of men. Immediately they left their nets
and followed him. Going a little further he saw
James the son of Zebedee and John his brother who were also
in the boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them and
they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants
and went away to follow him. And they went into Capernaum
and immediately on the Sabbath he entered the synagogue and
began to teach. So, the calling of the disciples
is so full of wonderful instruction for us. Just think of the men
and women that the Lord chose as his disciples. 1 Corinthians
gives a wonderful description of them. It says, for consider
your calling, in verse 26, for consider your calling, brethren,
that not many were wise according to the flesh, not many mighty,
not many noble, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world
to shame the wise. God has chosen the weak things
of the world to shame the things that are strong, and the base
things of the world and the despised God has chosen the things that
are not, so that he may nullify the things that are, so that,
the end result of all this, no man may boast before God. The verse we have on our bulletin,
in some sense a theme verse for our fellowship, is verse 30.
But by his doing you are in Christ Jesus, who has become to us wisdom
from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption. The Lord Jesus
goes out of his way in choosing his people to upend every notion
that any religious person might have of the sort of person that
a holy God would want to live with. This is a significant passage
of scripture as we begin our new life as a fellowship in town
and advertising our invitations to come and join us and worship
God with us. God will always surprise us by
those He brings along and we must expect that He will bring
many to us who we would think would be the least likely and
the most hopeless in so many ways. Our prayer should be that
God would prepare our hearts to look with eyes of faith, for
God will take his children into situations where they are exposed
and vulnerable and extremely uncomfortable, that he might
be seen to be their only refuge. May God use this as a growing
time for us all. Christian growth is always accompanied
by humbling times. The more humbled we are, the
more secure we are in God's hands. But in verse 16 we have the good
news, the great news of the way the Lord Jesus does his rescuing,
as he was going along by the Sea of Galilee. It's Jesus who
does the coming. It is Jesus who does the drawing. Everything which happens in spiritual
life must come from him. He says, without me you can do
nothing. Isn't it wonderful? The Lord
Jesus came from heaven. He came and defeated Satan in
that temptation in the desert on behalf of all his people.
He came and joined with them in baptism signifying his union
with his people and what he was going to do for them on the cross.
And he's still the same Jesus. Yesterday, today, and forever. He does not change, he has no
need of change because his ways are always perfect. Man left
to himself will never seek God. Man who is told that he has the
ability to seek God and come by his efforts is in great danger
of living with a false hope and a false assurance and sadly deep-seated
pride which is covered with a cloak of righteousness which when it's
exposed is really self-righteousness. You do remember the story well
of the publican and the Pharisee praying at the temple. the Pharisee
praying about his attainments and the things he had done, and
a publican who was a despised outcast saying to God, have mercy
on me, be propitious to me, look at the Lord Jesus and then look
at me. And the publican, the one who
was despised of all people, went home justified before God. So Jesus comes to his people
and wonderfully Jesus calls to them and he says to them, follow
me and I will make you become fishers of men. Jesus says to
them to follow him. He does not explain to them where
he wants them to follow him to or what they are going to do. This is absolutely essential
to Christian life. because we are called to follow
a person, not a set of doctrines, a person, not a set of religious
practices, a person. And into an unknown future we
follow a person. Christian life is an intimate
love relationship with a person. This is eternal life, John 17
says, that they might know Jesus, might know the Father and know
Jesus. And so the Lord comes as his
Messiah. He has every right as prophet,
priest and king of Israel to call these people back to him
and to follow him. But one of the things that's
remarkable is that after his resurrection, in the rest of
the New Testament, something profound changes at the cross
and the resurrection. In the rest of the New Testament,
God's children are not called upon to follow him, they are
called upon to walk in him. Such now is the intimacy of Christian
life that we do follow Jesus, but it's a deeper and more meaningful
thing than just following him around. We actually walk in him. His life and our life are bound
together inseparably. And the third thing is that Jesus
comes, Jesus calls, and Jesus' call is a personal call. When he calls Peter, he calls
Peter, he calls Andrew, he calls James, he calls John, he calls
Mary. He called his people personally.
Spurgeon said, when the Holy Spirit comes home to a man, God's
arrow goes right into his heart. It does not graze his helm or
make some little mark on his armour. but it penetrates between
the joints of the harness, entering the marrow of the soul. So every
time the Lord Jesus called one of his disciples, it was a personal
call. And you who are believers here
have been brought to Christ by a personal call from him, were
you not? The call of Lazarus out of the
tomb is just a wonderful picture of the call of God's people to
himself. a picture of God's people bound
in darkness, bound in their flesh, which is disgusting even to people
who love so much. And when he had spoken, he cried
with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came
forth, bound hand and foot with grave clothes. And his face was
bound about him with a napkin. And Jesus said to him, lose him
and let him go. And many commentators have made
the point that if the Lord Jesus had not said, Lazarus come forth,
he just said come forth, multitudes all around the world would have
come out of the grave. Such is the power of the call
of the Lord Jesus. But he also calls, there's an
interesting word here, he calls them personally, but he says
to them that he will make them, he will make them become. So God's word is a powerful word
and they respond immediately, but it's a creative word. God
not only calls but he makes each and every believer perfectly
fitted for the work he will have them to do. All believers form
one body and that body is supplied by the Lord for everything they
need together. He is the head, we are the body.
He is the husband, we are the bride. He is the vine, we are
the branches. He is the shepherd, we are the
sheep. He is the lover. We are the loved. He is the redeemer. We are the
redeemed. So we as a fellowship of God's
children gathered together are perfectly fitted together for
all that will come before us. We should never need to look
beyond our fellowship for any spiritual need. We all benefit
immensely from the work of the Lord in other believers scattered
throughout the world and scattered throughout time. but God has
promised to supply each of his fellowships with all they need
for life and godliness. Ephesians 4 verse 4 says, There
is one body and one spirit, just as you are also called, in one
hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God
and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. but to each of us grace was given
according to the measure of Christ's gifts. And he gave, in verse
11, he gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists,
some as pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints
for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ
until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge
of the Son of God. to a mature man, to the measure
of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. And
as a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and
there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by
the trickery of men, by the craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking
the truth in love, we are to grow up in all respects into
Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body being
fitted together by what every joint supplies according to the
proper working of each individual part causes the growth of the
body for the building up of itself in love. And that's what we have
experienced and may God continue to give us the eyes of faith
to see that at work in the lives of the people that we love and
care for. And they're called to be fishers of men. We fish. We cast the net. We don't bait
a hook. We cast a net and leave God to
do the sorting. We leave God to do the bringing
and he says in that parable that he will do the sorting as well.
So we don't have to concoct schemes and plans and other things to
deceive God's people. We openly, plainly proclaim the
Lord Jesus, who he is, in the scriptures. and we wait for God
to do his work. In verse 18 we see that the Lord's
word again is powerful. And they immediately left their
nets and followed him. So, this is the voice that raises
the dead. It can still the raging seas,
it opens blinds eyes, it casts out demons. It's a voice that
by speaking created everything we see around us out of nothing. And how demeaning it is to His
glory it is when men who claim to love Him portray His voice
as weak. There is that wicked painting,
that pathetic painting of the Lord Jesus standing outside the
door of a house pleading with sinners to let Him in. This story
says that nothing could be further from the truth. The key's not
on the inside. The Lord Jesus has the key, has
the power. He breaks down the door. He comes
and takes up residence, and by the time we know He's there,
He's brought His welcome with Him, and we're delighted to have
Him there. So, nothing in this universe
impedes the sovereign work of God. He came to these people
that He had loved from eternity. He knew exactly what their life
had been like and He knew exactly what their life was going to
be like in the future. But they immediately left their
nets and they followed Him. As I said before, Christian life
is about an intimate relationship with Him. If they had thought
for a moment what was lying before them, just think of what was
before Peter. He was going to be publicly held
up before all the world as someone who was impetuous and silly at
times and at times extraordinarily unfaithful before a little girl,
probably like Sarah, Peter denied openly that Jesus was his Lord. And he didn't do it just once,
but he did it three times. And then in Galatians he fell
on his face again and led people that he loved and cared for into
hypocrisy. And all of this was to be provided
before all the world and we can talk about it now. And then at
the end of his life he was going to be crucified. In these next
verses we have the call of James and John. James was going to
be killed in Jerusalem, not too many years after the Lord Jesus
had died, but they were called to follow him. They were called
into relationship with him. So this effectual calling, as
we call it, is a tender influence of everlasting love. It's compelling
grace with the irresistible power of God the Holy Spirit and it
causes a man to gladly and willingly receive Christ as Lord and Saviour
and follow Him. So those who left by themselves
would not come to Christ are made willing, willingly coming
to follow Him. So the disciples didn't wait
to discuss where they were going or what they were doing or even,
in a sense it seems, say goodbye to those they were with. They
weren't coming to a program, a set of doctrines, an institution,
a tradition. They were called by a person
to be with him. And what must John have thought
as he wrote and looked back to the days of Jesus' incarnation? And John says, What was from
the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes,
what we have looked at, touched with our hands concerning the
word of life. And this life was manifested.
We have seen and testified and proclaimed to you the eternal
life which was with the Father and was manifested to us. What
we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you may
have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with
the Father and with his Son." And for the apostles then, all
false teaching is actually measured by one thing. What does it say
about the Lord Jesus? That is the biggest issue of
all. What does it say about the Lord Jesus? So we see in those previous verses
that we did last week that Jesus came preaching the Gospel, a
proclamation of his person and work, and a declaration which
even though it seems foolish to the wise, contains in its
very message the power of God. And then in the rest of Mark's
Gospel, in the Gospels, we have example after example of this
power at work. Every miracle and word is a declaration
of the Messiah having come and fulfilling all that was promised.
So Christ comes as a friend of sinners. He came to save sinners. Grace has no distinctions. Grace
is no respecter of persons. God calls whom he will. He has
mercy on whom he will have mercy. Gospel ministry, says John Gill,
does not involve an offer of Christ which is not in the power
of ministers to give nor of carnal men to receive. The gospel is
not an offer. but a preaching of Christ crucified,
a proclamation of the unsearchable riches of His grace, of peace,
pardon, righteousness and life and salvation by Him. And so in 19, going a little
further, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother
who were also in the boat mending the nets. Immediately he called
them. and they left their father Zebedee
in the boat with the hired servants and went away to follow him."
So Jesus comes with power and calls with love. So he comes,
he calls, he calls personally, he calls powerfully, And in verse
21 he calls his people to follow him into what is the most significant
thing he came to do. He came to teach publicly in
the synagogues and he was teaching about his life and his death
and his resurrection. They went into Capernaum and
immediately on the Sabbath he entered the synagogue and began
to teach. So, the Lord Jesus immediately
leads his disciples into a teaching ministry. He always exemplifies
what they are to do. Faith comes through hearing the
Word of the Lord. And this is how they will do
their fishing. They will do their fishing by
proclaiming the Word of God. Until they're taken up into glory,
that is what they focus the rest of their lives on. And so we
as a church may be accused of wanting to teach doctrine and
with it an accusation of teaching salvation through knowledge.
Nothing could be further from the truth and here our Lord Jesus
leads and goes before his people and sets the pattern for his
disciples through all ages. Salvation is knowing Jesus Christ. Salvation is knowing a person
who is God. He comes to His chosen and He
calls them personally. True saving knowledge, like all
love relationships, involves knowing about that person, their
history, their desires, their hates. Saving faith is a heart
knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ in His true character as revealed
in the scriptures. You don't have to have an intimate
knowledge of the scriptures to be saved, but salvation brings
with it knowledge based on the truth of the scriptures. As Colossians
1 says, it's the word of the truth of the gospel. And so here
our Lord Jesus begins his ministry by teaching, proclaiming the
Gospel that's from God. This is his priority and that
which he led his apostles into and should be if the Lord permits
ours as well. If you have any doubt about this,
just look down briefly to verse 35 of this chapter. And here
we have, after the miracles that the Lord Jesus has performed,
there's a crowd of people needing healing. And then he turns his
back on them to go to other villages because that is why he came. He came to proclaim the Gospel. And one of the things that has
plagued the Church throughout millennia is that it's much easier
for us to be involved in all sorts of humanitarian work and
by all means do it whenever and wherever you have the opportunity.
but it is so much harder, but so much more important, to contend
for the truth of the faith, to proclaim the wonders of the finished
work of the Lord Jesus. Good deeds seem to be the easiest
way to get people interested and open doors, but God says
it is the gospel which is the power of God unto all who believe. So we won't budge from what we've
been doing. We want to teach the truth of
who the Lord Jesus is from the scriptures. And one of the great
truths is that he names his people as the called. In Romans 1.16
he says that they are the called of Jesus Christ. They are thee
called that belong to him, and they've always belonged to him.
Colossians 1 10-24 talks about them being thee called, both
Jews and Gentiles. In Jude 1, which we'll sing in
a minute, Jude is a bondservant of Jesus Christ, a brother of
James, to those who are thee called. beloved in God the Father
and kept for Jesus Christ. They are kept and preserved for
Jesus Christ. And in Revelation 17, 14, they
are called the called again. It's one of our names as Christians. We are the called and they are
chosen and faithful. And so God's children, belong
to Jesus Christ. They are the called of Him. They
are beloved of God the Father. They are kept for Jesus Christ. They are kept and preserved from
all that this world and Satan and even the sin of our flesh
will bring against us. We are kept by God. And our job
in this town and in this world, if the Lord would be gracious
and permit it, is that we have a job of proclaiming the dominion
of this King. This King has come to reign and
He's always reigned and He reigns even at this very moment and
our job is to proclaim Him and to worship Him and to rejoice
in Him and call others to do likewise. So let's pray. Our
Father in Heaven, we thank You and praise You for the extraordinary
gift of Your dear Son. We thank You, Heavenly Father,
that He is our righteousness, He is our sanctification, He
is our redemption. We praise you, Heavenly Father,
that He comes with a voice that is unmistakable and He calls
His people to Himself. And those He has called, He has
promised to keep and protect. We thank you, Heavenly Father,
that our lives are wrapped up in who you are as the wonderful
God of eternity and that you love us in the Lord Jesus beyond
our imagining. And we pray, Heavenly Father,
as we move forward in our fellowship that you would continue to remind
us of the depths of your love for us and the promises that
you bring to us, Heavenly Father, and remind us again and again
that we are kept by your faithfulness. And we praise you for that in
our Saviour's name, our Father. Amen.