I feel like Garth Brooks up here wearing this thing here. I'm not used to that. Good evening. If you've got your Bibles, turn to Matthew chapter 4. In verse 19 will be our key verse for tonight. We'll look at several different passages of Scripture. Very familiar story here. I'll pick up on verse 18. It says, All right, let's go ahead and set the scene here. We'll take a look at all four Gospels and we'll kind of put this story together to get a complete story and see what's happening here. So to begin with John the Baptist had been preaching repentance of sin and baptism by water for the kingdom of God is at hand is what he's saying and despite John's outward appearance his lifestyle even his strange dietary habits his living arrangements he had developed quite a following of disciples And imagine, if you would, that you were there with John during that day. You're standing on the banks of the Jordan River at Beth Abar, when he looks up and he says something outlandish. He says, Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. Wow, just imagine that you were standing there with John at that particular time. So, you're one of two of John's disciples that are standing there when he makes such a statement. Now, you've been following John for some time. You know the predictions of the scripture, the prophecy of the scripture. You've been trained. And you've heard John say things like the Messiah or the coming kingdom or the one whose shoe latchet I am more unworthy to untie. You are taken by surprise when you hear John's announcement that this person is approaching the place where you are currently standing. And this is the day you have been waiting for your entire life, the fulfillment of prophecy as Old Testament dictate. So this is the day scripture has been directing your attention toward ever since it was penned. And this is the day that you would make the choice to believe that the Christ had come. This is the day you would leave your previous allegiances and that you would follow a man called Christ. literally to walk physically after him and devote your life to spiritually. And this scenario, I believe, has played out a billion times in the last 2,000 years. People have come and saw Jesus. They have sought, they were curious about the Christ. And they have discovered in one way or another who Christ actually is. And each of us have our own personal testimony. proof positive of us finding who the Christ really is. And we proclaim Jesus to be that Christ. All right, so continue to imagine the disciples have been approached by Jesus and they asked Jesus, where are you staying? Or literally, where are you abiding? and says you are curious shows you are curious and by asking questions and Jesus gives you an open invitation he says come and see come and see he's given us an invitation to discover who he is And we have now embarked on the greatest journey that has ever been recorded since the beginning of the beginning. And the beginning, as the pastor talked about this morning, 10 billion years ago. We remember Jim Stevens sitting on the front row of New Hope Baptist Church, September 2015. 10 billion years ago, God had a conversation with himself about the day, and this day. Kind of neat to think about. So the fact that you are standing with John while Jesus is approaching is phenomenal itself that God would show you such undeserved favor. says Do you realize how quote unlucky or lucky in quote you are to have such a privilege for Christ to turn to you and say come and see. And today we all fall under that Christ is given a universal invitation that says come and see. And just such an event took place as recorded in in John's gospel chapter one verse thirty seven. Andrew and John were standing there with John the Baptist As he foretold the coming of the Christ. Andrew and John in turn accepted that invitation to come and see and he stayed the day and they stayed the day with Christ. And when they left Christ, they found their own respective brothers. And they proclaim that we have found the Christ. So you see the process in the order of this. We have the prophecy and the predictions of the coming Messiah. We have the exclamation by John the Baptist that the Messiah is here. We have the Messiah saying, come and see. We have the two apostles saying, yes, we have found the Messiah, the Christ. And what do they do? they immediately turn they leave and they go tell their brothers it's very important life lesson for us when they left for when they left Christ they found their brothers and proclaim we have found the Christ their curiosity in Christ led them to the exclamation of the Christ and the events that we read about today are are in these Gospels We read about the events of the next day, recorded in Matthew 4, 18 and 19, what we started off with. And Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee when he saw Andrew and Peter fishing in their boat. And Jesus said, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. And those words are important. Follow me and I will make. Jesus gives us a promise there. I will make. And this statement would profoundly change the world in a way that condemned men would be pulled from a sea of sin and death and despair and into a life-saving vessel in Jesus Christ through the working of the Holy Spirit in mankind. And that includes you and me. Amen. Since Jesus is the Christ, He had the right to call men from their normal pursuits in life to follow Him. Jesus now called these fishermen to leave their profession behind and begin to follow Him permanently. And He would take them for fishing for fish and make them fishers of men. He would strip them of their worn-out, outdated equipment of days gone by, and He would equip them with a specialized equipment of the Holy Spirit designed by God's foreknowledge capable of fulfilling the task of catching men and pulling them from the sea of death. But this calling carried with it a cost. These were commercial fishermen. Fred, how much do you think that your boat and your gear and your tackle and your boat was completely full of cohoes would be worth? Oh yeah, everything. Quite a bit. Pushing a million? Okay. A lot of money, large sum of money. And this is what we're talking about here. They had boats, not like Fred's. They had nets, they had gear. Okay, this was their livelihood. This is what they did for a living. And to top things off, they were asked to walk away from it all. Luke records in chapter five that their boats were so full of fish at that point that they were sinking. All right? Not only did they have boats and gear and net, but possibly the largest catch that they had ever made. It was a huge payday. Huge payday. And yet they walked away. The Bible records Luke five eleven says when they had brought their ships ashore they forsook all and followed him. They forsook all and followed him. Not to mention that the monetary value of the fish and the boats and the gear was quite a sum. But we're talking about men's lives here, changed lives. Leaving something that was familiar and routine to comfortable and to pull up and to follow after a man who had been prophesied about many hundreds and hundreds of years before. The cost of discipleship is oftentimes great. The cost of salvation oftentimes is great throughout the world today. So we wind up with a question we have to ask ourselves, is Jesus worth the cost? Is Jesus worth the cost to leave it all? to give up all of our past allegiances, possibly walk away from our livelihood, to give it all. And tonight we'll focus on two statements that Jesus made. The first one is, come and see. And the second one will be, follow me. But the first one, come and see, For the examination, we need to ask ourselves, who is this one who calls? Who is it that calls us? Who is he? And for all people living today, is Jesus all that the Old Testament or scripture said that he is? Is there proof to his existence? Is there proof to his death? Is there proof to his resurrection? and all things hinge on that last statement. Is there proof to his resurrection? Can we validate through the Bible that the prophecies concerning Christ have been fulfilled? Can we validate claims through external sources, through archaeology, through people's testimonies of changed lives? If we have intentionally been curious enough to find out about the person of Jesus Christ and we've sought those answers for ourselves and we have fulfilled the statement come and see I like what Fred said five or six weeks ago he says take a gamble he says roll the dice he says bet on Jesus take a chance I love that Fred it stuck with me that's great Jesus wants us to look at Him and see what we find out. He's called each of us to do that. Look at me and see what you find out. The next phrase, follow me. Man, what does it mean to follow Him? Sure, there are not enough pages in the world to fill up the books with that statement. What does it mean to follow after Jesus? Some of the questions that we might ask ourselves is what will it cost me? For these early apostles these early disciples it cost them a lot. Ultimately it cost them their lives. They gave it all. Will it benefit me? Will a relationship with Jesus, will following Jesus earnestly benefit us in any way? Pros and cons. Will it hurt? Yes, it will. If we've examined Christ, if we have came and saw, if we have found out who Jesus is and we've proven to ourselves that he is indeed the Christ, We have another decision to make. It's not of one of salvation, but it's one of discipleship. We've taken that initial step after we are justified, after we have accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. The next decision we have to make is will we follow Him? Will we follow after Him? Will we go behind him as a disciple? Will we forsake all our earthly allegiances that we know of today? And again, the question comes up, is Jesus worth the cost? Is Jesus worth the cost? Follow me literally means to come behind me or come after me to do what I have been doing. Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost. He came to tell the good news of the coming kingdom of God. He came to serve. He came to love. He came to forgive. And He came so that His joy might be complete. And we talked about that in Sunday school several weeks ago. Some of the reasons that Jesus came. So that His joy might be complete. And our joy is not going to be complete. Our lives are not going to be complete. Until we have Jesus Christ as our Lord and our Savior. So if Jesus came to do these things, and we are to follow after Jesus, if we are to do these things that Jesus had been doing on earth, He's now in heaven, the right hand of the Father, and we're here on earth. His kingdom is still ongoing here. The Holy Spirit is at work within us. If we are disciples and if we are called to follow after him, we should be doing the things that Jesus did. The things that he gave us as an example to follow and which were penned by human men, one author, many different writers. We have an instruction guide for how to do that. These first apostles were fishermen by trade. They weren't the smartest or the brightest or the wealthiest. They possibly didn't have a whole lot to offer. But God doesn't call the qualified. He qualifies the called. He qualifies the called. So these so the fishing for men metaphor suggested their occupation. But it had its beginnings in the Old Testament and Old Testament the sea or the ocean was an image for sin and death. And if you caught a man from the sea you were in a sense pulling a condemned life out of sin and despair and death into an abundant everlasting life with Christ. When Jesus said, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. He was saying then and he's saying today that he will equip us. By all his power. To be able to lead men and women. From a sea of sin and death and despair. Into a pardon life with Christ and his abundance. His abundance, something that we cannot offer. All we have to do is decide if our life is worth the life of another. Is our time worth the life of another? Is our expense worth the life of another? These are all questions we have to answer individually. It's something we all need to think about. And if we follow after Jesus, those questions have to be answered with a definite yes, if we are considered followers of Jesus. By definition. And if our answer is yes, then it is the goal of this message to encourage you. To fish for men. And go tell. Go tell them about the power of your conversion. Go tell them about what Jesus has done for you. About the forgiveness that you have. And it's only found in Jesus. If you saw somebody that you didn't know, drowning and you had a rope to throw to them, would you do it? Of course we would, wouldn't we? We see an obvious need. A person is drowning. They're going to die. And we have an object to give to them. Now, we can't make that person grab hold of it. We can't do that. All we can do is offer them what we have. And we can't save anybody. Only God can do that. But God uses us and uses mankind as a vessel to reach mankind through the power of His Holy Spirit that resides in us. So go tell somebody about Jesus and pull them by the power of God that resides in you from the depths of this great darkness of sin. I love those words, come and see. Because we've all done that. We've all had to take that step to come and to see. And to make that decision to follow after Him. Now, the pastor talked about justification and sanctification this morning. We're justified at our salvation, but our sanctification is a process that takes our whole life. And we all work We all progress in that process at different levels and at different speeds. But God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, is at work in us at all times, bringing forth that sanctification process. And I agree, it's scary sometimes to tell people what you believe, to share with people our faith, our faith in Jesus, But you know what if we really value human life. We really see. A desperate need for people to know Jesus. And to. Not have to face God's wrath in the day of judgment. I prayed is my prayer tonight that we would be. more prayerfully minded to look at those opportunities that God gives us because he does give us opportunities he gives us opportunities and if we can just take those opportunities that he gives us that he ordained and just open our mouth and give people a ray of hope who knows what might happen My life is proof of that. Your life is proof of that. Somebody told you about Jesus. You heard the gospel proclaim whether it was in a church or in a gutter somewhere. Somebody told you about that. And kids. You're at a ripe age. Carter Lincoln. Y'all listen to this, because that's important. My kids, girls, Schuyler, Treasure, what's your name? Alyssa, Hannah, Zorian, Anna, Gianna, I'm missing, Peyton, Tate, Seth, Now we won't say run. Come and see. Come and see. Find out who Jesus is. Find out who Jesus is. The Bible is here for you. The church doors are here. They're open. And look around. Look at all these adults in here. They all have a testimony to give about who Jesus is to them. and who Jesus in the Bible is. So come and see. I challenge each of us to come and see. Even if we're old, even if we're 95 and we've been a Christian for 65 years, we are never past that point to come and see. Never past that point.