Well, good morning guys. If I haven't met you before, my name is Michael. I'm one of the pastors here. Um, and, uh, we're starting a new series today called Answering the Call. This is going to be a four week series before we jump into, um, the book of Ephesians in the book of Ephesians, we're going to walk in that book through next June. Alright? So it's going to be a long time looking deeply into Ephesians. Um, we'll take some breaks for advent and some other things throughout that process. But before we get there, we're going to take these next four weeks and look at the calls of Jesus. Typically during the month of August, we kind of do kind of state of the church kind of, um, biblical sermons where we look at, okay, this is what the Bible says the church should be. This is the type of church that we want to be. Um, but before we talk about who we want to be as a, as a church as a whole, we want to talk about the people, the individuals that we want all of us to be so that we can be the church as a whole that we want to be. And in Veritas, we want to see genuine, mature, devoted followers of Jesus. And in this series, there's going to be four calls that are made to you guys. And they're not calls for you to believe in Jesus. They're not calls for you to be a Christian. But there are four calls that Jesus made to people in his day to make disciples, to seek him, to take his yoke and to follow him. That's what we're going to talk about today, following him. Now, I'm concerned that there are many churches, especially in America, who are made up of a lot of people who profess faith in Jesus, who agree with some statements about Jesus, but they don't actually follow Jesus. According to a Barna research study from last year, I'm not going to throw a crazy amount of stats that nobody likes that except all you people that work at Collins. Okay. Um, but you're like, give me more. Um, seventy one percent of American adults identify as Christians. That seems a little high to me, but that's what the survey said. Seventy one percent of adults identify as Christians. Less than sixty percent of those attend church monthly. We love Jesus, but we'll only show up around his people once a month. Only one in three of those Christians feel a responsibility to share their faith. We love Jesus. We just won't tell anybody about it. And then forty five percent agree strongly that their religious faith is very important in their their lives today. So less than half of those people who claim Christ would say that their lives should reflect it. I think it's pretty safe to say that the American church is full of non following Jesus acceptors. Oh yeah, we accept Jesus. We just don't actually want to follow him. But what about at Veritas? Because that's the American church. Yeah, they have problems. What about us? We have around two thousand adults that show up and profess faith in Jesus every Sunday morning. Only over eight hundred of them are members who have said they want to be shepherded by these leaders. And more than ten percent of those members have given less than one hundred dollars to the church over the last two years. We love Jesus, but we love our Netflix subscription more than we love Jesus and the church. We will. We will give over one hundred dollars to Netflix in one year, but we won't give to the church. God's plan A to reach the world. Now some of you are like, here we go, talking about money already within the first five minutes. Listen, we did a whole sermon on that last week, so you can go back and listen to that. Okay. This this sermon is not about giving. It's not about evangelism. It's not about membership. I'm just trying to give you some examples of where we say, we accept Jesus and we love Jesus, but our lives don't actually match. Because I don't think it's just America that professes faith in Jesus but doesn't follow. Unfortunately, many people at Veritas do too. And this is where my hope would be that we would all lean in to answer this question. Do your lips profess that you are a follower of Jesus only for your life to proclaim otherwise? Do your lips profess that you are a follower of Jesus only for your life to proclaim otherwise? So for everybody in this room, my hope is that you would lean in. You would lean in. As we look at this call that Jesus made to follow me, what does that mean? Who is that for? What is it going to cost you if you do that? How should you respond? And most importantly, why? Why follow Jesus? You could follow a lot of people, a lot of things in this life. Why follow Jesus? So you got a Bible? Turn with me to Matthew chapter four, Matthew chapter four. Now we're not preaching through the whole book of Matthew. We'll probably reference a lot in Matthew over the next four weeks. But let me give you a little insight into Matthew, who he was in the what he's trying to do in this gospel that he's written. So Matthew was one of Jesus closest followers. He was one of the apostles. We'll talk about how he got to that point later on in the service. But, um, he's kind of written to the nation of Israel, to the Jews. Those religious people who knew about God, they knew the Old Testament prophecies that there was a king and a Messiah coming. And what Matthew is trying to do is say, he's arrived. King Jesus has arrived, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, he's arrived. And so his whole gospel is, I'm pointing, you religious people. I'm pointing you to the beauty of Jesus as the Messiah and as the King. So, um, all throughout this book, he's going to kind of address the kingdom and then give a discourse on the kingdom, and then he'll address the kingdom again and give a discourse on the kingdom. Now, this is not a sermon diving deeply into the kingdom of God. Okay. Some of you theologians you like really want to do that. We're not doing that this morning. What we're trying to do this morning is to show how the kingdom of God began to spread through people who answered the call to live for this new king. That's what we're going after this morning. So what what Matthew is trying to do is he's given like over sixty references to Old Testament prophecies. He often shows a disdain for Jewish leaders, the Pharisees, because again, these were religious people who knew the promises. They knew about God. They would say, yeah, we're for God, but they were expecting a Messiah, a Savior, who would come and save them from the Roman government. And it kind of seems like, oh, religious people who would like Jesus to fit into their box, which might be true for many of us today. Oh, I know Jesus is calling me to follow him, but I really want Jesus to follow me. I like Jesus, I'm all for Jesus, but Jesus, would you follow me and let me live my life how I want to live it? So here's the breakdown of how we've got to where we're going to get in Matthew chapter four, we get the genealogy of Jesus and the birth of Jesus and his infancy and his baptism, and he's tempted in the wilderness. And then he starts his earthly ministry. And in Matthew four seventeen, this is what it says. From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. So here's Jesus inaugurating the kingdom. It's at hand. This is how it starts. And for all these religious people, okay, this is what we've waited on. Here we go. Here's the journey. Here comes the adventure. Now how in the world is he going to get people onto this adventurous mission? Look at verses eighteen through twenty two. While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea. For they were fishermen. And he 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 the boat and their father and followed him. So what was the call that Jesus made to these four fishermen? Really simple. Follow me. Right. Sounds simple. Right? What does that mean? It means to come after him, to come follow him. Literally. Like come behind him. Jesus is making an invitation to these four fishermen. Hey, guys, come, come after me. Come follow me now. For us, that seems like a foreign concept. This seems really random. These guys are just fishing on the shore and some random dude shows up and says, follow me. And they leave everything that seems random right now. I don't think it was actually that random because in fact, in John chapter one, we're not going to look at it. But later on in John chapter one, we find that a lot of these guys were disciples of John the Baptist. And if you know anything about John the Baptist, he was the one preparing the way for Jesus. Right? So he's been talking about there's this Messiah comes, he's going to baptize Jesus like he's talking about Jesus often. So I think these guys actually were familiar with who Jesus was. He wasn't just a random dude showing up on the beach, right? But that's what it kind of sounds like initially. It kind of sounds like if you're like at Hy-Vee and you're shopping, you're on the bread aisle and all of a sudden some random dude comes up and says, follow me. That's creepy and weird, right? You don't want don't follow that guy, right? Because it's strange. You shouldn't do that. Okay? But it wasn't that kind of concept. It wasn't random. They probably knew who Jesus was. Now this call to follow me also wasn't a foreign concept to them, because the Jewish rabbis and the philosophers of that day would often have people that wanted to learn from them. So what they would do is the people that wanted to learn from these rabbis and philosophers and scholars, they would attach themselves, not literally, but they would come behind them and follow these teachers because they wanted to learn what they taught. They wanted to be able to teach like these teachers. Okay. Imagine sort of like a, you're in grad school and you're wanting to go to a certain school because you want to attach yourself to a certain professor at that school, because they're really passionate about the subject that you want to learn. So you're going to be in their classes, you're going to sit in their office, you're going to attach yourself and follow that professor because you want to learn and be trained by that professor. Okay, that's similar to this. But what I want you to see is that this call to follow Jesus is more than just a call to believe. And it's more than just a call to be a Christian. In fact, if we kind of look at those words throughout the New Testament Testament, the word believer only gets used, I think, two times. And we're also told in James that even the demons believe and shudder. So like belief doesn't seem like it fully encompasses what following is. The term Christian shows up three times, but more emphasis is given in the New Testament, in the Gospels on the word follow. It shows up eighty nine times. And even more than that, the word disciple shows up two hundred and sixty times. So there's something that Jesus is trying to get at. I want you to be my disciple. Now, what's the ultimate goal of a disciple? This is what Jesus would say in Luke chapter six. A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone, when he is fully trained, will be like his teacher. So he's saying, it's not just like you attach and you learn from Jesus and you accept some statements about Jesus. The point of this is that you would become like Jesus. Jesus is saying, I don't want you to just be around me and learn from me. Don't just subscribe to me, but surrender your life to me and for me. Because following Jesus isn't just like click a button, check a box, pay for a service that you enjoy at your leisure. But that's how a lot of people treat following Jesus. I'll subscribe to Jesus when it's convenient. But if I have more important things in my life, I'll surrender to them first. Now, obviously, we don't follow in the literal steps of Jesus. He's seated at the right hand of the father, right? But the call for us to answer is still the same. To receive this invitation of Jesus, to be with him, to do what he commanded and become like Jesus. And if you answer this call just like the disciples, your life is going to change forever because there's a promise attached to this invitation. Look back at verse nineteen. And he said to them, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. So again, there's this invitation, and there's this promise attached to the invitation, hey, follow me, and I'm going to make you fishers of men. Now remember who he's talking to. For fishermen who are fishing. For what? Fish, right? Not a hard thing. They're fishing for fish. He goes, hey, you! Come follow me. I'm going to promise you that you're going to get to do something even greater than fishing for fish. You're going to fish for people like I'm going to give your life greater purpose, greater meaning. Now we're going to talk about making disciples in a few weeks. So we're not going to dive deeply into that. But what I want you to see first is sometimes when it comes to following Jesus and Him making us fishers of men, we like the fishers of men part we like, oh God, please like, please give my life greater meaning and purpose. And if I follow you, I know I'm going to have greater meaning and purpose. And what you've missed is he's calling you to actually follow him and be with him and become like him before your life has greater meaning and purpose. Will your life have greater meaning and purpose when you follow Jesus? Absolutely. Is that the reason you follow Jesus? No. He's saying, come, come, be with me. Come become like me. Now who gets to receive this kind of invitation? Who's on the guest list? Right. Go back to verse eighteen and verse twenty one. While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon and Simon, who is called Peter and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea. For they were fishermen. And going on from there. Verse twenty one 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 for fishermen. Two sets of brothers, one set of brothers hanging out with their dad because it was most likely the family business. Anything special about these guys? No. They're normal, everyday fishermen. Nothing extraordinary. No scholars. In fact, Peter and John, later in acts chapter four, when the religious leaders had called them in and were mad at them, they're like, who are these unschooled, common men? These aren't special people. They're unschooled, uneducated, common, ordinary men. But this call from Jesus isn't just a call for good, ordinary men, and nobody knows that more than the one writing this gospel. Matthew. In fact, Matthew chapter nine, he talks about how he first became a disciple. And he says, As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth. Now let's take a time out Sitting at the tax booth meant Matthew was a tax collector. Now, how many of you like the people in your life today that collect your taxes? Only the IRS workers. All right. Sorry, but nobody likes anybody to collect your taxes. How would you like if somebody collected your taxes and then they cheated and took another cut off of it for themselves? You're really not going to like them. That's what tax collectors during this day did. And Jesus comes to Matthew, the tax collector, the guy who is literally writing this gospel. Later on, he comes to him and he says to him two words that might be familiar to us follow me. And Matthew rose and followed him. And as Jesus reclined at a table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and His disciples. And when the. And when the Pharisees saw this. They said to his disciples, why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? But when he heard it, he said, those who are well have no need of a physician. For those but those who are sick, go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice. For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. So who gets this invitation to follow Jesus? Righteous people? No sinful people. Like me and you. Ordinary broken fishermen. Wicked. Deceitful tax collectors. Broken every day. Stay at home moms. Broken every day. Engineers broken every day. Nurses broken every day. Quaker Oats workers and teachers and teenagers and retirees. That's who gets the call to follow him. Ordinary people. None that have it all together are all being invited into an extraordinary adventure. Come, be a part of the kingdom. Come, follow the King. But how in the world do you get to be a part? This is where Jesus kind of flips the norm in this story. Because remember, you would have disciples or learners who would go to philosophers and scholars and say, hey, I want to follow you, but what does Jesus do? He doesn't wait for anybody to come to him. He goes to them and says, hey, you, come follow me. And you know what that's called? Grace. Amazing grace that God would choose us broken, ordinary sinners to accomplish his mission. He's choosing you. He's taking the initiative. He's making the first move, not you. Jesus is graciously inviting you, common and broken person, to come follow him. And guys, this is amazing. And it's going to cost you and it's going to cost you. Look back at verses twenty and twenty two. Immediately they left their nets and followed him. Verse twenty two immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him. What did these four fishermen leave their nets and their boats and their father? They left their jobs. They left their family. They left their future security. But that's not all they left. Look back at verse eighteen. It's not going to be on the screen. But it says, while walking by the Sea of Galilee, he sees Simon Peter and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. This is who they were. This was their identity. I'm a fisherman. This is how I see myself. This is what I do. This is what I've always done. This is what the family business is. This is what I'm going to do forever. This is my identity. And they left it to follow Jesus. Not just their nets and their boats and their father, but they surrendered their identity and their comforts and what was natural and what was familiar. Because the call to follow Jesus guys isn't a call to pay lip service to Jesus. It's a call to attach your life to Jesus in a way that's going to cost you. It's going to cost a lot. And some of you go, is that really what Jesus was demanding here in Matthew four? Is this is this what Jesus demands when he calls us to follow him? Let me give you some of Jesus words later on in the book of Matthew, because you're going to actually like leaving your nets, boats, and father compared to what he's about to say. Matthew chapter eight, verses eighteen through twenty two. Now when Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. And a scribe came up to him and said to him, teacher, I will follow you wherever you go. Jesus, I love you. I will follow you. You just tell me where to go. I'm going to follow you because I accept you, right? And Jesus said to him, foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. What's it going to cost you potentially to follow Jesus? Maybe painful circumstances. It may cost you your home. Jesus didn't have a place to lay his head. But what's the exchange? Oh, I might have some painful circumstances and temporary homelessness, but I get an eternal home with the king. Then another of the disciples said to him, Lord, let me first go and bury my father. And Jesus said to him, follow me and leave the dead to bury their own dead. You're like, whoa, didn't read. I've never read that one before. Like that doesn't seem kind. Doesn't seem kind. Why can't you go bury your father? Because Jesus is saying there are priority decisions that you need to make in your life. And if it means that you're going to turn away from God, turn away from me to go bury your father, then you're missing the call to follow him. Because not only can you expect painful circumstances when you follow Jesus, you can expect heart wrenching priority decisions. Where you're going to have to exchange what the world deems as important for what God deems is really serious. Yeah. Can we stop there? But Jesus makes it more clear in Matthew chapter ten. Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. Wait, I thought that's he was like the Prince of Peace. What? I've not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I've come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter in law, against her mother in law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Jesus is saying, when you come, follow him. You can expect some family division. Some of you in this room, you've experienced it. When you decided you were going to follow Jesus, people in your family didn't like it. And when you stood up for truth, people in your family didn't like it. And Jesus said, yeah, you can expect that it shouldn't catch you off guard, and you can expect daily death of your own selfish desires and pursuits. But it gets even more costly. Matthew chapter sixteen. Then Jesus told his disciples, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? What is Jesus saying? Hey you, come follow me. Don't be shocked when death comes your way. So let's get practical for a second. When you come and follow Jesus, there's the potential that you might lose your home because you lost your job for standing up for Christ. You might lose good family relationships because they baptized you as an infant. But. But you chose to be obedient to Christ's call to be baptized as a believer, and they don't like it. You're going to lose the temporary satisfaction of looking at pornography or having a nightcap to numb the stress of the day. Because there's something better. You could lose the loss of upgrading your wardrobe or your home because you gave money to the church or someone in need. But some of you, you just want to hang around and accept Jesus. But you fail to surrender to him as King. And maybe you're fearful because it's going to cost you your identity and your comforts and what's familiar and your relationships and your priorities and your purpose and your security. It may cost you even your own life. So this is where it gets weird, right? Like the call to follow Jesus. This is amazing. The cost to follow Jesus. This is alarming. How, what, what kind of response do these fishermen have? Go back to verse twenty and twenty two. Immediately they left their nets and followed him. Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him. When did they leave? When Jesus called them to follow them. What does it say immediately? You know what immediately means in Greek? Immediately. Okay. Sudden. Abrupt. They left their nets suddenly and followed Jesus. They left their boat and their father and the family business abruptly and followed Jesus. Now I know we can hear this story and you're like, man, this seems like a weird, jarring story, like Jesus just calls them. But I think the most jarring part of this story is how responsive and how quick they responded to Jesus call to follow. I think Matthew is trying to emphasize, man, this is a decisive, immediate response to the call because he doesn't give any reference or inferences that they ask question or they delayed or there was disobedience. And guys, I want you to also remember Jesus is not calling board people. People with nothing to do, nothing to live for and nothing to lose. This call to follow Jesus is an inconvenient invitation to people already living their lives. You go, well, I'll just follow Jesus. When I graduate from high school, I'll just follow Jesus. When I graduate from college, I'll just follow Jesus. When I have my kids, I'll just follow Jesus when the grandkids come along. That's not the response of the disciples here. But maybe it's a call to suddenly stop living with and sleeping with your boyfriend or girlfriend who's not your husband or wife, to suddenly and abruptly flush the substances to immediately confess your sin. Because this call to follow me is a clear commitment to your life, not just your words, but some of you are like, man, I want to live my life how I want to live it. But I believe in Jesus. I want to do what I want to do. I mean, I accept Jesus. One author said this accepting sounds like Jesus is put on our scales and we decide his fate like he is campaigning for our vote as he runs for Messiah to accept. Jesus does not call one to live as a disciple. It merely calls one to make a decision. Following calls for a series of decisions being made by the minute, keeping Jesus as the focal point, refusing to look to the right or the left, increasing in likeness to his character and in closeness to his person, God's following Jesus. Is a lifetime of daily choices that prioritize Christ, not just an emotional decision in the moment. Answering the call to follow Jesus guys, though, isn't a cheap choice of just accept Jesus, make a decision for Christ, pray a prayer, say you're a Christian, or attend a church because following Jesus will cost you everything. But accepting Jesus in America rarely cost anything. Rightly answering the call to follow Jesus is different from recalling the right answers about Jesus. Following Jesus is about your life being surrendered to the King, not just lip service to the King. But again, why? Why would these guys have this kind of response that costs so much? Let's go back to the two words that Jesus said, follow what? Me, follow me. And so much in my reading and studying, there's so much emphasis is put on the the following and the responding, and it's good. but I want to draw your attention as we close to who's calling, who is to be followed, who would they immediately leave everything for? Because again, Matthew in this gospel, he's trying to help people who accepted the right answers about God, recognized that the answer had actually come to live with them and die for them, and be raised from the dead for them. Jesus is the answer and the why behind the sudden response to follow him, even when it cost everything. Jesus was the one giving the call. Jesus was extending the invitation. Jesus was the one to be followed. Jesus was who they were leaving everything for. They weren't responding to a call to be like radical world changers and expert scholars. They didn't leave their families for like immediately a better life. They responded suddenly because Jesus was calling. Ordinary Chosen fishermen immediately left everything because the man, the Messiah, the king, was calling and his name was Jesus. He was an extraordinary king, graciously calling ordinary men. And think about these four fishermen. They don't even know all the stuff that we know. They didn't know he was going to die and be resurrected. Like they hadn't had some prophecies, but they didn't know what was going on fully with Jesus. They knew like this much, and they still left everything we know like this much. So what I want you to do is you can leave your journals open, but I want you to put your pens down for a second. And what I want you to do is realize the one who is extending this invitation to you this morning. And the way I want you to see this is what I've done, is I've. Instead of us going through every verse in Matthew this morning because nobody wants to do that. Okay. I've kind of summarized all that the book of Matthew alone says about Jesus, and I want I'm going to read it fast because I want it to be a little jarring of like, whoa, this is Jesus. This is who's inviting me to follow him. So just listen to who is extending a gracious invitation to you, the Son of David and Abraham, the son of Mary and Joseph, the Christ is calling you, the one born of the Holy Spirit. Emmanuel, God with us is calling you the King of the Jews, the one worthy of worship. The ruler to shepherd the people is calling you the fulfillment of prophecy, the one mightier than John the Baptist, the one more worthy than John the Baptist. The one that baptizes with the Holy Spirit and fire. The powerful and damning judge is calling you the one whom the Spirit of God rests on the beloved and Well-pleasing father, son of the father, the one that was hungry and tempted like a man, the one with full knowledge of God's Word, the one able to fight temptation. The new Moses, the deliverer, is calling you. The light in the darkness, the inaugurator of the Kingdom of heaven, the authoritative teacher, the healer, the Lord of compassion, the son of the living God, the suffering Servant, the Son of Man, the righteous judge, the humble and confronting King, the true Passover Lamb, the vindicated and risen Lord is calling you the sovereign ruler of creation. The ever present companion is calling you, and his name is Jesus. This is Jesus. He's the one saying, come, follow me, come follow me. You're invited to follow the most glorious person in the history of the world. Why in the world would ordinary fishermen give up everything to follow him? Because he's King Jesus. To learn from and become like the King. To live in his kingdom that is so vastly different and infinitely more satisfying than any kingdom that you could ever live for. Because if somebody sent you an invitation like this, my hope is there would be a no brainer decision like quick RSVP. Yes, I'll take that because it's King Jesus. It's a no brainer decision. Why? Because it was an invitation to a worthwhile exchange. Jesus told a really short parable about this in Matthew thirteen, verse forty four. The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which a man found and covered up. Then in his. What joy! He goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Was this a miserable surrender? No, this was a joyful exchange. Oh, I willingly, joyfully give up all this over here because I get the King. Gladly will I take that? When pastor said this. This is the picture of Jesus in the gospel. He is something, someone worth losing everything for. And if we walk away from the Jesus of the gospel, we walk away from eternal riches. The cost of non discipleship is profoundly greater for us than the cost of discipleship. For when we abandon the trinkets of this world and respond to the radical invitation of Jesus, we discover the infinite treasure of knowing and experiencing him. There's a gracious call for ordinary broken people. But there's a cost, and you can't ignore that cost. You must consider it. You must count the cost. But the benefit absolutely engulfs the cost. Because following Jesus, no doubt is a call for you to die to yourself, but it's a call to die so that you gain something so much better and greater. So, Veritas, here's the invitation to those that simply claim Christ but are uncommitted. Those that profess Jesus with their lips, but not with their lives. To the self-centered, to the unsatisfied. And ultimately, it's a call for all of us ordinary, broken people. And it's the invitation to actually follow Jesus, actually follow Jesus, to joyfully exchange your unsatisfying kingdom for an all satisfying king. This is what it is. You joyfully exchange your identity and your comforts and your security and your relationships and your lifestyle and your possessions, even your own life you are willing to joyfully exchange because you get the king. So this morning, we're not going to have a chance for you to raise your hand and walk the aisle to make a decision for Christ. But what I want you to do is count the cost of following Jesus. And then my hope is that you would joyfully surrender to King Jesus. Now think about these guys. Matthew, Peter, Andrew, James, John. They literally followed Jesus around the Sea of Galilee and this whole region. And we're still talking about Jesus two thousand years later, because these guys accepted the call and the invitation to follow Jesus. It wasn't like Jesus got five billion people together immediately. He called twelve guys. One of them didn't answer the call. The other eleven did. And we're talking about it in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in twenty twenty six because eleven men took seriously the call to follow King Jesus. Can you imagine if everybody that is here today at the eight o'clock service in the nine thirty service and the eleven o'clock service in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, what might occur in the rest of the world in the next two thousand years if Jesus doesn't come back? How many nations might hear and know about the name of Jesus because we accepted the call to follow Jesus? Can you imagine that? Amazing. Because. The mikes and the Knicks and the Susies and the Jodi's took seriously the call to say, I gladly, joyfully give up what the world offers because I get King Jesus. Let's be that kind of church. Amen. Let's pray. God, you are so awesome. And you are so worthy. Father. I pray today that every single person who has heard these words would recognize who you are, Jesus. And that, yes, there's a cost God. But would you help them see. That the cost. Is so small. Because we get you King. God. Help our church to be passionate, faithful followers of Jesus for your glory to the ends of the earth. In Jesus name. Amen.