Matthew chapter 4, we'll look at verses 18 through 25 this morning.
And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and Andrew
his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.
Then he said to them, follow me and I will make you fishers of men.
They immediately left their nets and followed him.
Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother.
In the boat was Zebedee, their father, mending their nets.
He called them and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.
And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel,
the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sicknesses, or sickness and all kinds of disease among
the people.
Then his fame went throughout all Syria and they brought to him all sick people who were
afflicted with various diseases and torments and those who were demon possessed and epileptics
and paralytics and he healed them.
Great multitudes followed him from Galilee and from Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and
beyond the Jordan.
Let's pray.
Oh heavenly father, Lord, this morning, God, would you let us see the glory and majesty,
the esteem and the preeminence of your son.
He's the Lord of the church.
He's the only one begotten of the father.
He's the one full of grace and truth.
Lord, God, as we start to see the Lord picking the disciples and the in breaking of the kingdom,
Lord, this is an exciting passage.
But father, Lord, would you open us, open our minds to the truth.
Lord, God, help us to see the reality of this sacred text.
Lord, I beg of you, father, Lord, I beg of you for your spirit to be upon me that you
allow me to preach with the aid and power and might of your spirit.
Oh father, it's not by man.
It's nothing we can do because you must work.
Lord, we look to you now, we lift our eyes and we ask, Lord, for the help of your spirit,
Lord, as we look to see Christ.
And it's in the name of the risen one we pray.
Amen.
You may be seated.
In our text this morning, we see our Lord begin to call his first disciples.
Now, you and I, usually we are accustomed to thinking primarily in terms of the 12 who
were called to be the first disciples of Christ, later became the apostles of Christ.
But what is a disciple?
I mean, what does that even mean?
Well, let me ask this question to you as you think about our text this morning.
Are all Christians called to be disciples?
In Matthew 28 and 19, which we know is the Great Commission, Jesus there giving instructions
to his apostles, he says, go therefore and make disciples of all the nations.
I want you to notice what that passage does not say.
It does not say, go therefore and make converts of all the nations.
The church is commissioned, she is called to make disciples, not merely converts.
Now since that is our calling, that's the commission given to us by Christ, is to go
out and make disciples among all the nations, then it really does behoove us to know what
constitutes a disciple.
I mean, what does discipleship entail?
Well, first of all, just look at the etymology, the root word.
In English, we get our word disciple from the Latin word discupulus.
Discupulus means a student or a learner or a follower.
It was used in ancient literature as well.
You could be a disciple of Socrates or Plato or Aristotle, but if you were a disciple,
this meant that you were students of these men and you learned from them.
But here's the kick, to be a disciple is more than simply learning about the teachings of
a man, it actually means to follow that man.
R.C.
Sproul gave this, he said, disciples are people who have committed in their hearts and minds
to follow the thinking and conduct of the master forever.
So as we look at the Great Commission, so when we're called to make disciples, what
our Lord is calling us to do is to make followers of him.
So that means our job is not merely that people know Christ or that people are converted to
Christ, but rather our job is to see that they begin to follow Christ in obedience.
Now many today simply focus on conversions.
Let's just evangelize the nations.
But that wasn't the commission.
Yes, we do bring them to faith in Christ.
That's a worthy effort, but it's not the end of our calling.
It's not what the text says.
He gave a commission to his church, go make disciples.
Who are they?
They are those who follow the Lord Jesus Christ in obedience.
In fact, that's the rest of the commission teaching them to observe whatsoever things
I have commanded you.
That's what we do.
In John 10, Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice and they follow me.
His sheep hear him.
So those who belong to Christ, they hear the voice of their shepherd and they follow him
in obedience.
Now there has been some debate within some Christian circles whether one could be a Christian
and yet not be a disciple.
I think it's a foolish debate.
Some erroneously teach and say it is possible to be a Christian and not to be a disciple
as though discipleship were merely an option.
Here's how they do it.
Some churches today would say a disciple is a more devoted follower of Christ than just
the average run of the mill Christian.
They see it as sort of like some second level devotion.
So it's basically you enter, you're a Christian, and then you graduate to disciple.
The problem is I don't see anywhere in the New Testament or the entire canon for that
matter where that is given as a viable alternative.
It's just not.
To be a Christian is to be a disciple of Christ.
That means you learn of Christ, you study Christ, and you follow Christ.
If you are not a disciple of Christ, you are not a Christian.
You are not.
Christians follow the Lord.
Why?
Because the Holy Spirit of God has been given to them.
He is within us, causing us, changing our desires that we follow him in truth and we
follow him in obedience.
Now look at our text this morning, verses 18 through 22.
I'm not going to reread it.
We know the background.
John the Baptist had been imprisoned.
So the Lord who had been in Judea, South Israel, he leaves that area and he heads north into
more remote areas of Galilee.
Now Christ deliberately shunned the seed of power and he set his sights on Galilee, Galilee
of the Gentiles we are told.
And this would be the place from which he would operate his, or use as his base of ministry,
there in northern Israel, Galilee.
Now Matthew tells us that one day as our Lord was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw
two fishermen, Peter, Simon, who we know as Peter, and Andrew, his brother.
And the text says he called them to follow him.
Now if you're just reading Matthew's gospel, that seems a little strange.
It would appear as though this is the first meeting or encounter that Jesus ever had with
these men.
But we know from John's gospel that both Peter and Andrew had been disciples of John the
Baptist.
They had been with him in Judea, where our Lord was.
Do you remember John the Baptist?
He was the forerunner.
He was the one who announced that Jesus is the Lamb of God and the Messiah of Israel,
and he directed all people away from himself to follow Christ.
So both Peter and Andrew would have heard that message from their master, their rabbi
at that time, John the Baptist.
So we understand that both Peter and Andrew are very familiar with Jesus before this encounter
in Matthew 4.
In fact, the most likely reason that Peter and Andrew are back in Galilee is because
John the Baptist had been arrested, he had been imprisoned, so they just returned home.
They had no more reason to stay in Judea.
Now Matthew omits this prehistory.
Instead he wants to focus on the final encounter where the Lord called them to himself as his
own disciples.
So here's what we find in Matthew 4, since they're casting a net, if you have another
translation it'll say a circle net, because that's what it is.
They're casting the circle net into the shallow waters hoping for some fish.
Well why?
Well we really need to look at Luke chapter 5, which is the parallel passage.
Luke chapter 5 tells us that Peter and Andrew had spent the entire night fishing and had
caught nothing.
So in the morning they're hoping to catch a few fish in the shallow waters and really
make the best of a bad situation.
It was at that moment when they were fishing in the shallow waters that our Lord came near
to them and he asked them, can I borrow your boat?
Why?
Well he's going to use their boat as a place to teach from because all the crowds were
pressing in upon him.
So now let's look at the text in Luke 5.
This is the parallel passage, the same situation of Matthew 4.
So it was as the multitude pressed about him, that is Christ, to hear the word of God that
he stood by the lake of Genesret, that's the Sea of Galilee.
And he saw two boats standing by the lake, but the fishermen had gone from them and were
washing their nets.
Then he got into one of the boats, which was Simon's, and asked him to put out a little
from the land.
And he sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat.
When he had stopped speaking he said to Simon, launch out into the deep and let down your
nets for a catch.
But Simon answered and said to him, master, basically this is Simon being a little kind
of like we're the fishermen.
We have toiled all night and we've caught nothing.
Just want to make you aware of that.
Nevertheless, hear your word, I will let down the net.
And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish.
So much so the text says their net was breaking.
So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them.
And they came and filled both the boats so that they began to sink.
And Simon Peter saw he fell down at Jesus' knees saying, depart from me for I am a sinful
man, O Lord.
For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken.
And so were James and John the sons of Zebedee who were partners with Simon.
And Jesus said to Simon, do not be afraid.
From now on you will catch men.
And so when they had brought their boats to the land, they forsook everything and they
followed him.
Now just as a side note, you see there the Sea of Galilee in the gospels is known as
Lake Tiberius or Lake Genesaret or Sea of Galilee.
Technically it's a lake, but we don't need to worry about that.
Now Jesus had asked to borrow Peter's boat.
He wants to create some distance because great crowds are following him because they're hanging
on every word.
They want to hear him.
They want to hear what he has to say.
So the text says he instructed them from the boat, but after he was finished, he looks
at Peter and Andrew, trained professional fishermen who had spent their life on this
sea.
They had spent the whole night fishing.
They caught nothing.
So they're just ready to head home.
They're washing their nets.
They're mending their nets.
They're casting a circle net into the water.
And he says, let's head back out.
Let's head back out to the deep waters and you're going to catch some fish.
Now keep in mind Jesus was trained as a carpenter.
That was his trade.
A business that he had to tell these men, trained fishermen, how to fish.
And so that Peter kind of looks at him a little incredulously and says, you realize this is
not a good time.
You don't want to go out there right now.
But nevertheless, at your word, because John said that you're the Messiah, we'll go.
So they do.
They head for deep waters.
They let down their nets, which ended up bringing in a huge haul of fish.
This amount was so overwhelming, it was overwhelming their nets, their nets were beginning to break
and they had to call for backup.
So they called for another boat, their business partners, James and John, come on over and
help us.
And so James and John, the sons of Zebedee, they came to help as well.
But it was at that moment when Simon Peter saw this huge number of fish in the nets,
he realized this is the finger of God.
This is the work of God.
And instinctively he knew he was in the presence of the Holy One.
He was justly afraid.
Depart from me for I am a sinful man, O Lord.
It scared him.
Now Peter was correct in saying he was sinful, but he did draw the wrong conclusion.
He thought it would be safer to move away from the Holy One.
And what we find here is Jesus drawing him near.
Verse 10, Jesus said, don't be afraid.
Fear not.
From now on, Peter, you're going to catch men.
They had been fishermen by trade and now they would be fishers of men.
They're not going to spend their lives anymore drawing fish into a net, but rather they would
spend their lives leading people into a kingdom.
Now Matthew omits this entire story.
That it was after this huge catch of fish that Jesus then said to Simon, Peter, and
Andrew, follow me and I will make you fishers of men.
Their response is so very instructive.
They immediately left their nets and they followed him.
They left everything.
They left everything behind to follow the Lord.
Why would they do that?
Why?
Here's why, because they were convinced of the value and benefit of doing so.
How could that be?
Because they saw the glory and power of God in this man who was in the boat.
They saw the glory of God in Jesus.
They saw the work of God in Jesus.
Peter knew this is no ordinary man.
John the Baptist has already told us he's the lamb of God.
But Peter now understands by experience this one in the boat, this one's the holy one of
Israel.
And friends, this is what I want to focus on for a moment.
When God opens the sinner's eyes to see the glory of God in the Lord Jesus Christ, it
changes you.
It does.
The work of God's spirit at work within you transforms you.
You begin to see his worth, his holiness, his power, his glory.
And what do you do?
Well, because you see that and you're convinced of it, you turn from sin and you follow him.
Because you're convinced this is he.
This is the holy one.
This is the Messiah.
This indeed is the lamb of God.
Where else do we go?
And if you, if you are convinced that Jesus is the Christ, the one sent from heaven, then
what I do believe is that you will surrender to his lordship and follow him in obedience.
If you're convinced of it, you will.
Now I want you to see something.
We should note that they were called to leave everything behind, including their livelihood.
Now that was specific to these men.
When the Lord calls us, he does not automatically call you to leave behind career or family.
He may do that, but that's not automatic.
That's not ordinary, if you will.
But we are called to leave behind our old lives.
When you come to Christ, our attitudes and desires and our worldview begins to change.
Our definition of what constitutes the good life begins to change.
If you think about unbelievers, think about unbelievers in America today.
What do they desire?
An easy life.
Give me enough money with enough leisure time and enough health to enjoy it.
That's their goal.
It's the American dream.
And sadly, far too many Christians are adopting the same mindset.
They do not have a kingdom mentality.
It's not about your children being happy.
It's not about primarily our own happiness.
The disciples of Christ have new priorities.
We no longer live for the kingdom of self, but rather we seek first the kingdom of God.
Why?
Because we know who that king is.
We're convinced of it.
The call that God has placed on your life and mine is for allegiance, fidelity, loyalty
to Christ, and obedience to him.
That trumps everything.
So when Jesus said, unless you take up your cross and deny yourself, you can't be my disciple,
he wasn't kidding.
So what does that mean?
It's a life of denying ourselves.
But we live in a culture where it's enrichment of self, self-actualization, self-fulfillment,
self and you add any other adjective you want.
But not the Christian.
He takes up his cross and he follows the crucified one.
Why?
Because you are convinced that in him is life.
Where else are you going to go?
See our eyes have been opened.
If you know Christ, they've been opened.
And you see in that one the glory of God.
And it causes us to believe and we confess, we confess that Jesus is the Christ, the son
of the living God.
We agree with Peter.
We're like Abraham.
Do you remember Abraham?
He leaves his hometown and he goes looking for the city whose builder and maker is God.
He was convinced there is a kingdom, a city, a place where God dwells and Abraham was looking
for that place.
What about our spiritual forefathers in Hebrews 11?
It says they desired a better, that is a heavenly country.
But I'm so convinced that so many who name the name of Christ don't look forward to
heavenly country because they believe they have heaven right here.
Peter and Andrew left everything behind.
Why?
They were convinced of the necessity and the wisdom and the worth of doing it.
It would pay off in the end.
Now look at verses 21 and 22.
Going on from there, there's two other brothers, Jesus all, James and John, the sons of Zebedee.
They're there with Zebedee in the boat mending their nets after a night of fishing.
And he called them.
Verse 22, immediately they left their boat, their father, and followed him.
Again, we really need to look at Luke 5 again if you're going to understand this passage.
Do you remember James and John, their two brothers, their sons of Zebedee, their business
partners with whom?
Andrew and Peter.
John, this one of the brothers, like Andrew, was a follower of John the Baptist.
You can go back and read the Gospel, John, and see that.
So again, this was not the first encounter that these two brothers, James and John, would
have had with Christ either.
But moreover, these two brothers were present on the day when that great hall fish was taken
in.
The nets began to break.
And so what happened?
They too had seen the miracle firsthand.
And after all that is over, Jesus had just called Peter and Andrew, and now he looks
at James and John on that same day when they're in the boat with Zebedee, and he says, come,
follow me.
Their response, verse 22, immediately they left the boat and their father and followed
him.
They had seen the Lord and the miraculous, and they were convinced of the worth to follow
him, of the value of following him.
And notice they left their boat.
That's their livelihood.
And they left their father, and his family, to follow Christ.
Why?
Because Christ far surpasses everything that can be compared to him.
Everything.
Jesus in Matthew 10 says, he who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.
And he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
Friends, those are strong statements.
That would sound ridiculous from anyone else except the son of God.
He's the one that's worth all love, all adoration.
That Peter and Andrew and James and John for them was a no-brainer.
Of course they would leave everything and follow him.
And if you truly, through the eyes of faith, see Christ in his kingdom, nothing will seem
too demanding.
I want you to think about some of the parables that our Lord gave concerning his kingdom.
In Matthew 13, verses 44, we read this, Jesus speaking, again, the kingdom of heaven, it's
like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and he hid and for joy over it,
he goes and sells all that he has and he buys that field.
Verse 45.
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who when he found
one pearl of great price went and sold all that he had and bought it.
Now, these are parables, they're instructing us, they're object lessons, if you will.
What's Jesus trying to say?
What's the takeaway here?
Here it is.
The kingdom of God has infinite worth.
Nothing's to be compared to it.
It is so valuable that if you really understand it, you would be willing to sell all your
earthly goods just to attain it.
Now, that's not how you enter it, by the way.
That's not the point.
But why is this kingdom so valuable?
Because of who the king is.
The king is God himself.
See, what those men, those two sets of brothers, saw on that day, Christ is the true treasure.
Peter got it, Andrew, James, and John got it.
They all understood that this man, this is the treasure, this is a sent one from heaven
and they're willing to leave everything else behind.
Now, friends, it's noteworthy that of these two sets of brothers, four men, three of them
would give their lives for their faith in Christ Jesus.
Peter and Andrew and James.
James was the first.
Only John, the apostle, would live to die a natural death only after he had suffered
much as well.
He had been dipped in a vat of burning oil, by the way, and survived.
He was exiled to the island of Patmos from which he wrote the book of the Revelation.
Discipleship has always been costly.
These men understood that.
Jesus was not promising them an easy road.
After all, he would be crucified as well.
But it was worth it because the Lord Jesus is worth it.
Far too many today want an easy road.
I will follow Jesus as long as he makes my life better or easier.
I love what Dietrich Bonhoeffer said.
He said, when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.
As I look through just the pages of church history and the martyrs and the saints, friends,
you don't find too many that had easy lives.
And yet, for some reason, we've been sold this bill of goods that if we follow Jesus,
everything's going to get better.
And I just don't find that.
But there's a kingdom where everything will be better.
No sickness will enter that one.
No more goodbyes.
No more death.
That kingdom's coming, but it's not right now.
See, before you will ever wear the crown, you must bear the cross.
The weight of glory serves the avenue of suffering.
And our forefathers understood it.
Now, these men were called by our Lord to himself.
And then our Lord begins to travel and to show what his kingdom really looked like,
verses 23 and 24.
It says he went about all that region of Galilee.
He was teaching, preaching, and healing, basically.
So he calls his disciples.
We've read of four of them.
And it goes on this itinerant ministry.
He begins to travel through Galilee.
And you find him teaching and preaching and healing.
That's the things he was doing.
Where would he teach?
First, in the synagogues.
At that time, if a traveling Jewish man would enter into a synagogue, he would often be
asked to teach.
The synagogue is a part of their worship liturgy.
As if Jesus would do that.
Since he was traveling from place to place and town to town, his message was more than
likely the same each time.
What was he preaching?
We're told.
The gospel, the good news of this kingdom of God.
There's good news coming.
And he would also preach that the kingdom was at hand.
It was near.
How?
Because the king was in their midst.
The king was present.
And he had come to bind the strongman.
Now, the strongman Satan, now you're saying, what are you talking about here?
Do you remember in Mark chapter three, Jesus is casting out demons.
And some Jewish leaders accused him and said, well, the reason you're able to cast out demons
is you're doing so by the power of Beelzebub, Satan himself.
So basically, they said this.
This was their charge.
These demons are listening to you, Jesus, because you're in league with them.
And our Lord just looks at them and no doubt he's shaking his head and is like, come on
guys, you can do better than that.
And he shows them the foolishness of their argument in Mark three.
If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.
If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand.
And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but rather
has an end.
And then he told them, verse 27, no one can enter a strongman's house and plunder his
goods unless he first binds the strongman and then he will plunder the house.
Jesus is referring to Satan as a strongman and to himself as a one who's going to enter
the house and plunder the place.
Before Satan though will allow his domain to be plundered, he's going to fight.
He must be overcome by a stronger one.
In Matthew four, in doing these miracles, what's he doing?
He's healing sick, casting out demons.
He is here proving that he himself was the one who actually had the power to bind the
strongman, which is Satan.
He had come to defeat and plunder the domain of darkness.
Do you remember after Adam sinned, after man's fall into sin, the world lay in the power
of the evil one.
We're told that.
Sin entered the world.
As a result, you have sickness, you have death, you have disease.
All of that became a horrendous reality.
And now in Matthew four, notice what Lord Jesus is doing.
He is proving the in breaking and advance of the kingdom of God.
He's healing the sick.
He's casting out demons.
Later on, he will raise the dead.
See what you see here, he's beginning to make all things new.
He had come to reverse the curse and to save his people.
So Jesus had preached that the kingdom was near and now he's proving it.
This is what the kingdom of God, there won't be disease in here.
There won't be any demon possession in here.
And he's showing what his kingdom looks like.
The king had come and the king was there.
And as a result of that, verse 24 and 25, we're told that his fame skyrocketed, notoriety.
So he's teaching powerfully like no one else had ever taught.
But there's also a demonstration of his teaching through these miracles.
As a result, he gets famous.
His notoriety grows, but not just in Galilee, not just in Israel.
His fame is extending far beyond the borders of Israel, even to the area of the Gentiles.
We're told about Syria and the Decapolis.
Those are Gentile areas.
What's the point?
Why is Matthew mentioning this?
Here we get another hint that the one sent from heaven had come to reconcile the world
and not just Israel.
This good news of the kingdom would not just be for the Jew, it would also be for the Gentile.
What is it?
The infirm, the demon possessed, we're told that epileptics, paralytics, they came to
Jesus and they found healing.
There was nothing too hard for our Lord.
Isn't that beautiful?
People seriously sick and seriously distraught find shalom in Jesus.
Heaven had broken in right there in Galilee and it couldn't be stopped.
Satan was powerless to stop it.
See, Satan had the power to hold the keys of death and sin and sickness, but a stronger
one had arrived and Satan was being bound.
We see here the beginning of the inauguration of the kingdom of God.
It's inaugurated.
It's not yet consummated.
It's not yet come in its full, glorious beauty.
But that day is going to come.
That day when the kingdom is consummated and all this is just a dim memory, we cannot wait.
And so we cry out, church, you and I cry out with the saints of old, even so, come Lord
Jesus.
And we remember the petition of Lord's Prayer, thy kingdom come.
Bring it Lord.
Hasten the day.
Come back even today.
There are not going to be sickness.
No one there will be possessed or distraught by a demon.
No serious injuries, no death, no tears.
So now what?
What's a disciple?
It's a follower of Christ.
When our Lord calls us to Himself, yes, we bring nothing.
We don't offer Him anything to be saved.
It's all of grace.
It's all work of grace.
Because He does call us to a life of surrender and obedience.
He does.
He does call us to follow Him.
He said, you love me?
You'll keep my commandments.
And He calls us to seek His kingdom first.
Friends, this is where I think we're missing it.
We are missing it.
I see parents taking children out on the Lord's Day.
You cannot do that and say you're seeking the kingdom first.
People, all kinds of people out today.
I'm sorry.
I think you ought to seek the kingdom of God first.
No, I'm not sorry.
I didn't say it.
Jesus did.
Friends, we are missing what it means to be followers of Christ and we make all the
excuses in the world for sorry living.
It's wrong.
We like the church and sororities, ought to repent.
Forgive us for our lack of devotion, for our lack of zeal.
None of that saves us.
Of course it doesn't.
But do you see the worth of Jesus?
What compares to Him?
What could possibly compare to Him?
Today it's not for you.
We bring worth to Jesus.
That's what worship is.
It's not for us, it's for Him.
Where else would I want to be?
Gathered with the assembly, praising our God and communing with the risen one.
That's what it means.
Dean and Sarah wrote a book called, and the reason I bought the book is for the title,
The Unsaved Christian, Reaching Cultural Christianity with the Gospel.
In it he said, self-proclaimed Christians who worship a God that requires no self-sacrifice,
no obedience, no submission, and no surrender are not worshiping the God of the Bible no
matter how much they claim they love Jesus.
Many people want the good luck charm Jesus, not the sacrificial name of God whose death
requires action.
See friends, I just think if your eyes had been opened, you're like, I have to.
I'm compelled to go where this, where Christ is.
Why would anyone though come to a life of sacrifice and self-denial?
That's a terrible sales pitch.
Terrible.
Hey, come deny yourself and sacrifice.
Why would you do it?
Have you ever seen Jesus?
I mean, I've seen Him through the eyes of faith.
It makes all the sense in the world.
Because you've seen in Him the glory of God, I'm going.
It's worth it.
Because I am absolutely convinced that in this itinerant Galilean preacher is eternal
life.
So I'm willing to go.
This is what it means to be a disciple.
And this is our calling, church.
We go, we share the gospel, we command people to repent, and those who have been brought
in, they must learn to be followers of Him in obedience.
Because our Lord is Lord, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D.
He's the boss.
He's master.
And we're the servants in His kingdom.
Let us pray.
Father, thank you.
Lord, it's been so convicting in my own life.
Father, you call us to repent, or for shallow devotion.
Father, wake us up.
Wake your church up.
God, you are all glorious, altogether lovely.
Lord, you are worthy.
Jesus is worthy.
He is Christ.
Father, we confess that this morning.
Would you forgive us, Lord?
Forgive us for our low view of worship.
Lord, would you forgive us for, again, our lack of obedience, our rebellion, our lack
of devotion, our lack of zeal for you and your kingdom?
Have mercy upon us, for we have sinned.
And God, I know that you delight in showing mercy, and I see that primarily in that you
sent your Son not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
Oh, Father, save.
Lord, there may be some here, their eyes are still blinded to the glory and reality of
Christ.
They may admire Him, but they're not following Him.
Lord, would you open their blinded eyes and warm their cold heart and grant them faith
and repentance that can only come from heaven?
Let them see in Jesus' salvation, Lord.
Father, we thank you, Lord, for the church.
Lord, we thank you for the precious word of God.
Lord, instruct us and teach us in the way we ought to go and give us grace to follow
in Jesus' name.
Amen.