FBC Daily Devotional – January 8, 2021

day of your work week, I trust, and coming to the close of the first full week of 2021.

How are you doing this year? How are you doing in your Bible reading? Have you set a goal for 2021 to read a portion of the

Scriptures each day? I hope you have, and that's, by the way, one of the motives behind the

Bible reading plan that we're offering and encouraging you to follow through and using for these daily devotionals.

Have you found that yet? Again, you can get it on the church website under the articles and devotion tab.

You can get it there. You can also get it just to the right, if you're watching the daily devotional on the church homepage, just to the right of the video box is a place where you can download the

Bible reading plan, or you can send me an email or a Facebook message, and I'll email you a copy of the

Bible reading plan as quickly as possible. As soon as I get your message, I'll just turn around and send it to you.

But in the reading for today, which is in Matthew's Gospel, the fourth chapter, we're reading about the call,

Jesus' call, of Peter and Andrew and James and John to follow him as disciples.

And there were a few things that struck me about these men. I want to read again that section in Matthew 4 where Jesus calls these men.

Listen, here's what it says. Walking by the Sea of Galilee, Jesus saw two brothers,

Simon, who's called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.

And Jesus 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. Immediately they left their boat and their father and followed him.

One of the things that strikes me about these men is simply their ordinariness.

They're just ordinary men. They're fishermen. Nothing complicated about their lives.

They have a very simple life and livelihood. They are common people living on the

Sea of Galilee. They were a lot of fishermen. These four men were just four who had that occupation, very unpretentious individuals, certainly not sophisticated, and likely not very well educated as well.

These are common men. Now, they're probably men of faith.

They are Jewish men, some degree of faith in the

Jewish religion and the following of Yahweh, the God of Israel, monotheists, and all the rest of that.

But they're certainly not among the religious elites, the scribes, the Pharisees, the

Sadducees, by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, later on, when these men run into the religious elites, there's friction.

There's clashes that follow because they're just commoners.

They're just common, ordinary men, and yet Jesus calls them. Another thing that strikes me about these men is their obedience.

The text says that when Jesus called Peter and Andrew and said, follow me, they immediately responded.

They immediately followed. And same thing with James and John.

He called them and immediately they followed. There's an immediacy to their obedience.

And then the third thing that strikes me about these men, and there are probably many other things if we thought about it and meditated on it for long enough, is their abandonment.

Peter and Andrew, they left their nets, and James and John, they left their boat and their dad.

It's probably a family operation there, a fishing operation, and these two strappling young guys, they leave the work to dad to handle.

Now, what this abandonment reflects, I think, is a whole scale career change.

Jesus says to Peter and Andrew, follow me and I'll make you fishermen of men. Instead of fishermen of fish,

I'll make you fishermen of men. Now, later on, in their lives, they did fish.

It's not like they never went fishing again. They did, but this isn't their career anymore, if you will.

This is like a guy in his mid -40s who's been doing one thing all his career, his work life, and he has some kind of an epiphany and he walks into his boss and he turns in his badge and he turns in his keys and says,

I'm done. I'm out of here. I'm going to go do whatever it is he goes and does.

Well, this is Peter, Andrew, James, and John. Whole scale career change. It also,

I think, reflects a total shift in priorities. Fish were a priority.

Nets were a priority. Boat was a priority. Dad was a priority.

And they left it all behind to follow Jesus. But this abandonment on their part,

I think, reflects something even more, and that is a deep trust in Jesus, a deep trust in him.

I mean, why else would they give up all these other things? Why else would they abandon everything that they were familiar with and all that was near to them and dear to them, and even their own homes and livelihood and all the rest?

Why would they just walk away from all of this, just because this man called?

How many of you would do this? How many of you would do this? You're at your job and some guy walks by and says, hey, let's leave this place and follow me.

You say, what? You wouldn't do that. But they obviously have come to such a deep trust in Jesus that his simple follow me was enough, and they did.

Now, I wonder as I read this and I think about the immediacy of these men's obedience and the total nature of their abandonment,

I wonder if my response to Jesus echoes theirs. Do I obey him promptly?

Does he establish the priorities in my life, or do I, or to somebody else, or something else?

What are those priorities? What is the most important facet of my life? And then really, what would have to be deeper than that, underneath all of that, is do

I really trust him? Do I trust him totally? Do I trust him? Well, John Owen, that old

Puritan, he said this. He said, faith in the person of Jesus Christ is the spring of all evangelical obedience.

And certainly, that's the case of these four individuals. A deep faith in the person of Jesus that moved them to this total, immediate, evangelical obedience, following of Jesus for the good news.

I trust and pray that God and his grace will so work in your life that your obedience will be like these men, and your trust will be like that of these men as well.

Well, this Friday, before we close in prayer this Friday, and so this

Sunday, this Lord's Day, we'll be meeting at 10 .30. We'll have in -person service for those who are willing and feel confident in attending.

And we'll also be doing a live stream, and if you can't attend in person, understand that, but I also encourage you to watch online at 10 .30

Sunday morning. Well, if we see you on the Lord's Day, looking forward to it. Otherwise, I hope we'll be able to connect by way of the live video media.

So, let's pray. Father, thank you for this challenge from the example of Peter and Andrew, James and John, and for the trust they had in Jesus.

May that be ours. May our trust and our obedience echo theirs, we pray.

Now Lord, give us a good weekend and help us to walk with you in it, and as we look forward to the

Lord's Day, may it be a great day of worship and service and ministry unto you.

This we pray in Jesus' name. All right, have a wonderful weekend, and God bless you in it.