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[ Silence ] [ Music ] ♪ And as the seed of gold ♪ ♪ We are the glory of the Lord ♪

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♪ He is trampling down the vintage land ♪ ♪ The grapes of wrath are sown ♪ ♪ He has used the faithful lightning ♪ ♪ Of his servants his sword ♪

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♪ Is to his marching on ♪ ♪ Glory, glory, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Glory, glory, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Glory, glory, hallelujah ♪

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♪ Is to this our day of ♪ ♪ Is marching on ♪ ♪ I can still hear it in the watch-fires ♪ ♪ Of a hundred circuits ♪

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♪ They are filled with air ♪ ♪ And all to hear it ♪ ♪ Ringing blues and dance ♪ ♪ Now it can be his life to save ♪

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♪ I won't fear ever worry less ♪ ♪ His name is marching on ♪ ♪ Sing glory, glory, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Glory, glory, hallelujah ♪

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♪ Glory, glory, hallelujah ♪ ♪ His truth is marching on ♪ ♪ In the beauty of the living Christ ♪ ♪ The Lord will come to see ♪

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♪ With the glory in His wounds ♪ ♪ The man who has given to man me ♪ ♪ Christ, the guide to make the holy ♪ ♪ Shadows fly to make them free ♪

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♪ While God is marching on ♪ ♪ Glory, glory, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Glory, glory, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Glory, glory, hallelujah ♪

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♪ His truth is marching on ♪ ♪ Glory, glory, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Glory, glory, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Glory, glory, hallelujah ♪

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♪ His truth is marching on ♪ ♪ Marching on ♪ - Amen. As Jesus was walking along the shore of Lake Galilee,

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He saw Simon and his brother Andrew. They were fishermen and were casting their nets into the lake. Jesus said to them, come with me.

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I will teach you how to bring in people instead of fish. Right then, the two brothers dropped their nets and went with him. Jesus walked on

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and soon saw James and John, the sons of Zebedee. They were in a boat, mending their nets. At once, Jesus asked them to come with him. They left their father in the boat with the hired workers

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and went with him. These words are recorded in the gospel according to St. Mark, the first chapter, verses 16 through 18. Jesus begins his public ministry by issuing a call to Christian discipleship.

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Every successful movement must have practitioners and professionals, teachers and disciples. There must be pioneers, those who are not afraid to cast the old aside and begin the new. Jesus was regarded by those who knew him as rabbi, which means teacher, as prophet, as

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healer, as Lord and Savior. He begins his ministry in Galilee, which is home. He begins his ministry at the place where we should all begin at home. There is a familiar saying, "Charity begins at home." So Jesus grew up in Nazareth in Galilee.

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Joseph, his father, was a carpenter and is remembered as the carpenter from Galilee. On this day when we celebrate Memorial Day, we can thank God for the gift of memory.

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I think all of us have possibly had the experience of waking up in the morning in the first few moments not being able to remember, and how frightening that is, not to be able to remember.

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I remember the last days of my mother. She could not remember me and how painful that was. She could talk about me and all that, but when I came, she did not remember who I was.

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So we can thank God for these words of scripture because they point up the fact that the church remembered. Jesus came and they remembered. How tragic it would have been if the church had not remembered,

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if they had not gathered up these sayings and put them in writing, pass them on to us in this generation. So it's good to be remembered. It's rather painful when someone says, "Look, do you remember me?"

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You say, "No, I don't remember you." Don't you remember? No, no, I don't remember. And that is disappointing.

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It is often very painful. We like to be remembered. I know how good I feel when someone says, "Well, you know, Reverend, I heard a sermon you preached such and such a time.

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Do you remember? You said such and such a thing. We are dealing today with remembrances of the church, how Jesus touched lives from beginning to end and they remembered.

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So Memorial Day focuses on remembering, remembering those we've encountered along life's way who have made meaningful contributions to our lives. So we should be grateful to God for the marvelous gift of memory. We owe the particular event on which this message is based on the memory of the church.

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They weren't going around as we do today with tape recorders and notepads writing down everything Jesus said. They remembered. They remembered.

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So the fact that they remembered contributes to the blessing that we share today and the special measures that are taken to preserve the memory of individuals and institutions. So we learn numerous helpful lessons by observing the beginnings of outstanding leaders. Jesus begins where he grew up, in Galilee.

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His followers are those that he enlisted, those he enrolled in the school of Christian discipleship, those with whom he was familiar, he begins at home. So here in Mark, the first chapter in the 16th verse

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is a description of the call of the first disciples. Passing along by the Sea of Galilee, Jesus saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting their nets into the sea,

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for they were fishers. Jesus did not find these men on his doorstep. He left the village of Nazareth and made the journey to the Sea of Galilee. There he finds those who are already busy as fishers

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and encourages them to become fishers of men. If we would call fishers to become fishers of men, we must leave our carpenter shops in Nazareth and make the journey to the Sea of Galilee.

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We may overlook opportunities to call future disciples because we're busy doing something else that ought not to deter us. The Lord wants persons who are busy,

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who are not only capable, but who are already involved, people who are busy, Those are the people he wants. People who don't bother so and so,

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they already have enough to do. It's busy people that God calls and enlists in his service. So the Lord wants persons who are busy, many times in secular callings.

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He wants them to also engage in what we consider as sacred callings. Here they are, fishers on the one hand, engaged in fishing in the Sea of Galilee to catch fish and Jesus calls them to become fishers of men. This is from a secular to a sacred.

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So we may do both. Most of us do both. We have a secular job and you also have some sacred challenges that you have taken. Your son is a school teacher and maybe a teacher in public schools.

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He calls them for additional responsibilities, to assume additional responsibilities. He called them. And there is such a thing as Martin Luther points out as the sacredness of secular callings, of all callings, a certain sacredness about callings that we regard as sacred, as secular,

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that they are sacred. sacred about cleaning up a building. You have to have someone to clean it up. And the person who does it can do it with the kind of dedication and the kind of care and the kind of devotion that is honored by God. So what would have happened in the early Christian beginnings

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if Peter, Andrew, James, and John had not heard the call. Suppose they had turned deaf ears to the call of the master. Then we would not have had the gospel of Mark because the gospel of Mark is said to have been written

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with the help of Peter working with Mark. We wouldn't have had the Gospel of Mark. Well, we would not have had the kind of attention given in the other Gospels, the James and John.

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We wouldn't have had those if it had not been for the fact that they were dedicated to the fact of being open to the call of the master. Open, willing to listen.

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So here they hear this voice. What would have happened if Samuel had not heard the voice, if he had continued to turn a deaf ear? But when he went back, Eli told him,

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said, "Speak, Lord, your servant hears." He was open. He was open to what God had to say. So Jesus issues the call.

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And maybe he's just calling you to something that you have not responded to. Sometimes he has to call two or three times. He called Abraham, Abraham, Abraham,

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Abraham left Ur of Chaldeas and goes to Haran. And he has to call him again, Haran. Abraham, Abraham. And he has to call us, and he calls us by our name.

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He knows our address. He knows exactly where we live. And he calls us, and he allows to respond, "Come ye after me." Listen.

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"Come ye after me, I will make you fishes of men." I'll make you to become fishes of men. So we are called to engage in a wonderful romance of beginning again.

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It's a wonderful romance, a new start, fresh opportunity. Call sometimes comes when you're old in years. But the call comes. "Come ye after me."

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"Come after me." Following Jesus. The call to Christian discipleship isn't to follow the preacher.

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Some people follow the preacher wherever he goes. And of course, preachers like that. But that's not the call. The call is to Christian discipleship,

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to come after me. Much of the difficulty that we're experiencing in our convention, the Southern Baptist Convention in particular, have to do with whether you are conservative,

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or whether you are liberal, or whether you are moderate. One of these, they want to classify you in one or the other. And finally, someone has come up with the idea

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which is basic is what would Jesus say? Not what the preacher says, not what this position is on the part of the conservatives or the liberals or the moderates, but what would Jesus say?

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He's none of this. What would Jesus say? He said, "Come ye after me, "and I will make you fishers of men."

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me, follow me, decide to become my disciple. In other words, to become a disciple in those days was to follow that person wherever that person was. It was to go live with him,

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not just to take a few notes and go home, but to live with him, to be with him constantly. You notice the father over there, when he called some more disciples who would,

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persons who were disciples of John the Baptist, they asked him, "Master, where do you live? "Where dwellest thou? "Where do you stay?

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"Cause we wanna be with you." So, they're called, and thanks be to God,

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they were open, their ears were open. They had listening ears. They were open to the call. We used to play a game when I was a boy.

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Grandma Gray, may I go to play? No, my child, it's too late up in the day. And goes on to say, I'll be a good girl or boy and all of that. And she consents for them to go.

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And then comes later, my children, I'm calling you. And they say, "I don't hear you. "I don't hear you." And there are many people God is calling today

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who give the response, "I don't hear you." They see opportunities of service within the church. They see opportunities of service in the community. They see opportunities after opportunities of service,

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but they turn deaf ears to the call of the master. I don't hear you. So the master calls, and there are those who do not hear.

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So we are called. He calls over and over again for us to engage in the beautiful romance of becoming. Jesus calls,

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Jesus said, Notice when you read that passage, Jesus said, that's the word of God. Jesus is the word of God.

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Jesus said, "Come ye after me." The word speaks to them. They are addressed by the word of God, coming in to their midst,

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breaking in upon them as they are going about their daily chores. The word breaks in, and that's what happens. The word comes to us where we are.

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And so Jesus calls. Once he gets our attention, he can direct us in the way he wants us to go. Once he gets our attention. So he calls, he calls today as he did yesterday.

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And then it is ours to respond. The King James says, "And straightway," immediately, they stopped doing what they were doing, they heard and they acted upon the call of Jesus. straightway, seems to be a favorite word of Mark, straightway, straightway, immediately,

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right away, instantly, they responded to the word. The response is something that they could always look back to, the fact that they responded to the Word of God. And what did they do?

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They left their nets and followed Him. Now some of us have been called. God knows our name. He's called us.

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Sometimes we turn dead ends to His call. But the faithful disciples, these who serve as a model, as a guide for us, left their nets and followed him. Some of us do not respond because we don't want to leave our nets.

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We are too closely connected to the nets. And we think we can't make it, following this Galilean peasant. No pension, no Social Security, just follow me.

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Think of that. If you were to walk out of this church here today, and you were called to follow one without a home, houses, land, job with security,

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none of that, just follow me. That's what Jesus calls us to. They left their nets. He goes on farther and he finds some cleaning their nets,

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they're washing their nets. And they left their nets. If we would follow Jesus, we've got to leave our nets. They dropped their nets, stopped doing what they were doing

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and responded to the call immediately. So we ought to make catching fish with a net such an enticing thing that people cannot help but be caught. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we acted in such a way that those with whom we come in contact

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with, cause us to drop our nets and follow Jesus. Wouldn't that be wonderful? You know, every so often I run up on someone and say, you know, so and so, are you a member of Chino?

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Say, well, I know so and so who's a member of your church. I have never spoken to you about it. No, they have never mentioned it. They never mentioned it.

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The call, the call, that is so direct and so meaningful and so significant in the life of every disciple. Someone has to tell us. Someone has to tell us.

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For many of us, it was our parents who told us that story. And we remember it. We cherish it. But somebody has to tell us. And Jesus works in the lives of others to call people today just as he called them yesterday

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and to make it so enticing, so enticing. Yet so often we make it so difficult, so difficult. I remember when I became a pastor for the first time, there was an older lady in the church

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who felt that I was too young, the boy is too young. And she had a daughter and the daughter felt that I was too young, too young. This boy is too young to know to pastor this church.

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She didn't think about God putting the person there, She just thought about what she done. And whenever I'd preach a sermon that most people seemed to like, real, sometimes you have a sermon that people just read, "Oh, Reverend,"

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as if you haven't preached a good one before that. "Oh, Reverend," and she would say, "Well, he better preach." And just before that, she had said, "He can't preach." But I wonder how different my ministry would have been, how more effective it would have

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been if she had been a source of encouragement. You know, sometimes people come into the church and instead of putting our arms around them and embracing them and encouraging them, we criticize them. They don't do this, they don't do that.

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But how much more wonderful would have been the result? You know, Jesus goes where they are and encourages. In fact, some people just absolutely get jealous when some people come in and become very, very active.

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But how much different it would be If we had enticing nets, encouraging nets that strengthen and cause people to become deeper in the faith and cause them to drop nets and follow Jesus, how much different it would be.

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Well, they left their nets and followed him. Not Mary, not James, but they followed him. That's the call that comes to us today. drop our nets and we have some nets you know what they are drop your nets and

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follow him follow him. There was a man who was a mountain climber he always wanted to climb one of the highest mountains in Switzerland. There were those who had attempted to climb that mountain but had failed. And he knew that.

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And finally, there came one who climbed that mountain. And he left signs all along the way from that mountain peak. "Follow me. I have been there."

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From one level to the next, there was a sign. "Follow me. I have been there." Well, there is one who has come among us,

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who has lived a perfect life, who strengthens us on our journey, and who has left some signs along the way. Follow me. I have been there.

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Follow me if you have difficulties, Mountains that seem too high for you to climb, follow me. I have been there. If there are deep valleys of sorrow through which you pass

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and you wonder how you're gonna make it, follow me. I've been there. If the burden seems too heavy and you fall and fall before

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the burden, too heavy. Well, follow me. I have been there. That's what Jesus says to us.

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Follow me. I've been where there is shining success. And I've shared the loaves and the fishes with the people of God. Follow me.

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I have been there. I have been to the garden of Gethsemane where sorrows are heavy and I've passed through that darkness. Follow me.

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I have been there. Well, what remains of the years that we may have, it's a good thing to follow that admonition that comes from the Master.

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Follow me. I have been there. He's been where we're going. He's been to the grave, and he's risen again,

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and he speaks over and over again. Every day he says to us, follow me. I have been there. Well, what's the response?

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They followed him. And so we extend the invitation as we sing, I have decided to follow Jesus. Aren't you glad that somewhere along life's way,

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you decided among all of the decisions that came before you, you decided to follow Jesus. And as we sing that hymn, the door of the church is open to accept him

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as Lord of your life or to identify with this congregation. (gentle music) I have decided to follow Jesus. ♪ I have decided to follow Jesus ♪

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♪ I have decided to follow Jesus ♪ ♪ I have decided to follow Jesus ♪ ♪ O turn me on to the right ♪ ♪ No turning back ♪

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♪ No one join me ♪ ♪ Still I will follow ♪ ♪ No one join me ♪ ♪ Still I will follow ♪

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♪ No one join me ♪ I will follow, no turning back. No turning back. No turning back.

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The world behind me, the cross before me. The world behind me, the cross before me. ♪ The world behind me ♪ ♪ The cross before me ♪

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♪ No turning back ♪ ♪ No turning back ♪ ♪ I have decided ♪ ♪ To follow Jesus ♪

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♪ I have decided ♪ ♪ To follow Jesus ♪ ♪ I have decided ♪ ♪ To follow Jesus ♪

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♪ No turning back ♪ ♪ No turning back ♪ ♪ No turning back ♪ - Those persons who stood earlier celebrating

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birthdays and anniversaries, will you join me here, please? [ Silence ]