What’s Your Calling?

Matthew 4:18–22

I have a confession to make. For years I was happy to be a disciple in the comfortable sense of the word. Looking back, I see three stages in the journey. Sometimes these stages overlap.

Stage one: belonging. We bask in the love of mature Christians, read the Word and learn His precepts. For me, that was the warmth of fellowship at Fairfield and the lectures at the ASEAN Pastoral Institute. The focus here is receiving.

Stage two: becoming. We begin to apply His precepts and grow in the likeness of Christ. It is slow, often painful work, letting Him reshape our habits, our reactions and our hearts. The focus here is being transformed.

Stage three: going. We gain the vision of Christ and become fishers of men. We reach out to the lost sheep in the place God has put us: to call them, to show them His grace, to care for them. Here the focus is no longer on us at all. I confess I have sometimes walked around this stage the way you walk around a puddle.

Matthew 4 will not let me walk around it. In Jesus' day, a would-be disciple chose his rabbi. He approached, asked, and hoped to be accepted. Here it is reversed. Jesus walks the shore of Galilee and calls Simon and Andrew, then James and John. He does the choosing. And He calls them not merely to sit at His feet, but to be made into something: “fishers of men.” They left their nets straightway — their livelihood, their boat, even their father in it. Immediately afterwards, Matthew shows Jesus healing every kind of sickness. The kingdom was breaking into broken lives, and these fishermen had been drafted into the work.

Isaiah tells us why it matters: “All we like sheep have gone astray.” All of us. I know this first-hand. From the age of 23, I was building businesses by day and destroying myself with drugs at the same time. I was a lost sheep wearing a confident smile. I did not go looking for a rabbi. Someone came looking for me. Through Crossroads and Teen Challenge, Pastor Paul Tan walked down to the shoreline of my life and pointed me to Jesus. I was fished out. That is the strange economy of grace: Jesus turns His rescued sheep into fishers of other sheep.

That is why TCE exists. Our café counter is a kind of boat. Every Restarter who ties on an apron at URA or The Gateway is someone God has brought within reach. Every time I walk into a fellowship or Bible study, I sit across from people standing where I once stood.

So here is the question I keep putting to myself, and now to you: are you willing, or are you avoiding? It is entirely possible to be a faithful churchgoer for decades and never once leave the nets.

Stop for a moment. Who in your vicinity is like a drowning sheep — a colleague going under, a neighbour who has gone quiet, a relative everyone has quietly given up on? Name them before God. What part can you play in their rescue: a meal, a call, a job, a prayer?

You do not need to be qualified. Peter still smelt of fish. Jesus simply said, “I will make you.” He still does.