Drop the Nets: Saint Andrew The Apostle (Matthew 4:18-22)

December 1, 2025, Saint Andrew the Apostle, Red-Letter Holy Day, Season of Advent

Matthew 4:18–22, Psalm 19, Romans 10:8b–18, Deuteronomy 30:11–14

Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

Today the Church remembers Saint Andrew the Apostle, one of the first disciples called by Jesus and one of the Twelve whom our Lord would send into the world to proclaim the Gospel. Andrew’s day always stands near the beginning of Advent. Sometimes it falls just before the season begins, and sometimes just after. That is fitting, because Advent tells us that the Lord comes, and Andrew shows us what happens when Christ comes near and calls a man to follow him.

The pattern of Andrew’s life is remarkably simple. Christ calls him. Andrew follows. Andrew brings others to Jesus. That pattern appears again and again in the few places where Scripture brings Andrew into view, and the Collect appointed for this day gathers the whole thing into a prayer. Almighty God, the Church says, gave Andrew such grace that he readily obeyed the call of Jesus Christ and brought his brother with him. Then we ask God to give us that same grace, that we may follow Christ without delay and bring those near to us into his gracious presence.

Notice where the prayer begins. It does not begin with Andrew’s courage, Andrew’s personality, or Andrew’s natural gift for evangelism. It begins with God: you gave such grace to your apostle Andrew. Everything else follows from there. Grace comes first. Christ calls. Andrew responds. And the man who has been brought to Jesus begins bringing others.

Our Gospel begins with that call. Matthew tells us that Jesus is walking beside the Sea of Galilee when he sees two brothers, Simon who is called Peter and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, “for they were fishermen.”(Matthew 4:18, ESV) There is nothing extraordinary about what they are doing. They are at work. They are earning a living. They are doing what they have presumably done for years.

And then Jesus speaks.

Matthew records his words in verse 19: “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” (Matthew 4:19, ESV) Jesus does not begin by asking whether Andrew feels spiritually prepared. He does not offer a program of self-improvement and ask Andrew to return when he has completed it. He does not wait until Andrew has arranged his life so that discipleship will be convenient. Christ comes into the middle of Andrew’s ordinary life and calls him.

That is where discipleship always begins. It begins not with our search for God but with God’s gracious approach to us. Christ speaks before Andrew follows. Christ chooses before Andrew leaves his nets. The command is real, and Andrew’s obedience is real, but underneath the obedience stands the grace of the Lord who has come near and called him.

Then Matthew tells us how Andrew and Peter respond. Verse 20 says, “Immediately they left their nets and followed him.” (Matthew 4:20, ESV) The word Matthew uses is eutheōs (yoo-THEH-ohs): immediately, at once, without delay. That is why the Collect for Saint Andrew is so beautifully matched to this Gospel. God gave Andrew grace to obey Christ readily, and the Church asks for grace to follow Christ without delay.

Jesus continues down the shore and sees James and John with their father Zebedee, mending their nets. He calls them also, and again Matthew tells us that “immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.” (Matthew 4:22, ESV) Twice in these few verses we hear that word: immediately.

Matthew wants us to feel the force of the call. Jesus speaks with authority, and these men act. Nets are left. A boat is left. A familiar life is left behind. They do not yet understand everything discipleship will mean. They do not yet know about Caesarea Philippi, Gethsemane, the Cross, the empty tomb, Pentecost, or the mission to the nations. They simply know who is calling them, and they follow.

That does not mean every Christian must leave a profession, abandon a business, or walk away from ordinary responsibilities. Most of us are called to follow Christ precisely within the places where he has put us. But it does mean that no part of our life can be placed beyond the reach of his call. When Jesus says, “Follow me,” we do not get to answer, “Yes, Lord, after I have finished everything else I wanted to do.”

That is where Andrew begins to speak very directly to us. What obedience have we delayed because the nets still feel secure in our hands? What sin have we decided to deal with later? What forgiveness have we postponed? What act of faithfulness have we been discussing with ourselves for months? What part of our life have we quietly told Christ he may have eventually, but not yet?

The Collect gives us the right prayer: Lord, give us grace to follow without delay.

But Andrew’s story does not stop with his own response to Jesus. John’s Gospel takes us to an earlier moment in Andrew’s discipleship and gives us another part of his character. Andrew had been a disciple of John the Baptist. One day John sees Jesus and says, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” (John 1:36, ESV) Andrew and another disciple follow Jesus. They spend time with him. And then John tells us what Andrew does next.

“He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (which means Christ). He brought him to Jesus.” (John 1:41–42, ESV)

That may be the most characteristic sentence Scripture gives us about Andrew: He brought him to Jesus.

Andrew does not give Simon an elaborate theological lecture. He does not pressure him into a decision. He does not promise that he can answer every question Simon might ask. He simply tells his brother what he has discovered: “We have found the Messiah.” And then he brings him to Jesus.

Andrew has no idea what Jesus will eventually do with Simon. He cannot see Pentecost. He cannot imagine Peter standing before thousands proclaiming the Resurrection. He cannot foresee Peter’s confession, his failures, his restoration, or his place among the apostles. Andrew simply knows that he has found Christ, and someone near to him needs to meet him too.

That phrase in the Collect is worth hearing again: “those near to us.” The mission of the Church ultimately extends to every tribe and tongue and people and nation, but Andrew’s first missionary field is his own family. Before Andrew carries the Gospel anywhere else, there is Simon.

That is wonderfully ordinary, and perhaps uncomfortably practical. For most of us, “those near to us” are not abstractions. They have names. They may sit across the table from us. They may live next door. They may work in the next office. They may be a son or daughter, a brother or sister, a friend who has never believed, or someone who once walked with Christ and has slowly drifted away.

And we often find those people harder to speak to than strangers because their response matters so much to us. We know their objections. We know their wounds. We know the awkwardness that may follow if the conversation does not go well. So it can be easier to speak in general about evangelism than to pray seriously about the person whose phone number is already in our contacts.

Andrew frees us from one burden while giving us another. We are not responsible for converting anyone. We do not possess the power to create faith in another human heart. Andrew did not make Simon into Peter. He brought Simon to Jesus, and Jesus did what only Jesus could do.

That distinction matters because evangelism becomes either prideful or crushing when we forget it. If we imagine that another person’s conversion finally depends upon our persuasiveness, then success can make us proud and failure can make us despair. But if salvation belongs to the Lord, then our calling is simpler and more faithful. We pray. We speak truth. We love. We invite. We bear witness. We bring people, as best we can, into the gracious presence of Christ. And then we entrust them to him.

Andrew appears in that same role again later in John’s Gospel. In John 6, thousands of people need food. Andrew notices a boy with five barley loaves and two fish. He knows perfectly well that the little meal is not enough. “What are they for so many?” he asks. (John 6:9, ESV) Yet Andrew brings what is available to Jesus.

Once again, Andrew cannot solve the problem. He simply brings what he has found into Christ’s presence. And Jesus takes what is hopelessly inadequate in the disciples’ hands and makes it sufficient by his own power.

Then in John 12 some Greeks come to Philip with a request: “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” (John 12:21, ESV) Philip goes to Andrew, and together Andrew and Philip take their request to Jesus. Once again Andrew stands at the point of introduction. A brother, a boy with loaves, Greeks who want to see the Lord. Andrew keeps bringing people and needs to Christ.

There is a lesson there for the whole Church. We often spend enormous energy worrying about what we do not have. We do not have enough people. We do not have enough money. We do not have enough influence. We do not have enough answers. We look at five loaves and two fish and say with Andrew, “What are they for so many?”

The answer is that in our hands they may be very little. But the Church’s hope has never rested in the sufficiency of what we bring. Our hope is in the sufficiency of Christ.

That takes us to Romans 10. Paul begins with the nearness of the saving Word: “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart,” and he identifies it as “the word of faith that we proclaim.” (Romans 10:8, ESV) He continues, “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9, ESV)

The Gospel is not a ladder by which we climb up to God. Paul has just borrowed the language of Deuteronomy 30, where Moses says that the Word of God is not impossibly far away. In Romans, Paul directs that language toward Christ. We do not ascend into heaven to bring Christ down. We do not descend into the abyss to bring Christ up from the dead. God has acted. Christ has come. Christ has died. Christ has risen. The saving Word has been brought near.

That is why Paul can say, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:13, ESV) Salvation is not reserved for the impressive, the morally accomplished, the religious expert, or the person who manages to become worthy before coming to Jesus. The Gospel announces what God has done in Christ, and faith receives the Savior who is proclaimed.

And then Paul asks the questions that turn salvation received into mission: “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?” (Romans 10:14, ESV) Then he asks, “And how are they to preach unless they are sent?” and quotes Isaiah: “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” (Romans 10:15, ESV)

Do you hear Andrew in that? He hears. He believes. He confesses. And he goes looking for Simon.

The Gospel comes to us so that it may not stop with us.

Psalm 19 gives us another image of proclamation. “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” (Psalm 19:1, ESV) Day pours out speech to day. Night reveals knowledge to night. Creation itself bears witness to its Creator.

Then the Psalm turns from creation to God’s revealed Word. “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.” (Psalm 19:7, ESV) Creation tells us that God is there and that his glory fills the world. His Word speaks more specifically, revealing his will, exposing our sin, and directing us toward righteousness.

For Andrew, that movement becomes almost tangible. He spent his working life beneath those heavens, on that water, surrounded by the witness of creation. Then the living Word came walking along the shore and said, “Follow me.”

And Andrew followed.

The Psalm ends by turning proclamation inward: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” (Psalm 19:14, ESV) That too belongs to Andrew’s witness. The Gospel that goes outward begins by taking hold of the heart and mouth of the person who has received it.

That gives us two questions on Saint Andrew’s Day.

The first is: What obedience are we delaying?

Christ may not be telling us to leave a fishing boat on the Sea of Galilee, but there are still nets we cling to. Perhaps it is a sin we have learned to excuse. Perhaps a resentment we would rather rehearse than forgive. Perhaps our identity has become so tied to career, money, comfort, political allegiance, reputation, or control that following Jesus has become something we attempt to fit around a life already organized without him.

The prayer of the Church is not, “Lord, make us naturally decisive people.” It is, “Give us grace to follow without delay.”

The second question is: Who is near to us?

Who have we stopped praying for because nothing seems to change? Who needs an invitation? Who needs to hear that Christ is not merely an idea or a religious tradition but the risen Lord who receives sinners? Who needs a Christian friend willing to say, in words appropriate to the relationship, “Come and see”?

We cannot make anyone believe. We cannot manufacture repentance. We cannot raise the spiritually dead. But neither should we use God’s sovereignty as an excuse for silence. The God who saves is also the God who sends. Paul’s chain still stands: sending, preaching, hearing, believing, calling upon the Lord.

And perhaps someone here needs to hear the Gospel at the beginning rather than the end of that chain. Before we can bring anyone to Jesus, we ourselves must be brought to him.

Maybe you have thought Christianity begins with becoming better. Maybe you imagine that before you can come to Christ you must clean up the worst parts of your life, overcome the sin that embarrasses you, become more disciplined, learn more theology, or somehow prove that your repentance is sincere enough.

But look at Andrew’s story. Jesus comes to men holding fishing nets and says, “Follow me.” Look at Romans 10. The Word is near. Christ has already come down to us. He has already borne sin upon the Cross. God has raised him from the dead. And the promise is not that everyone who makes himself worthy will be saved. The promise is, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

So come to him.

Come with the sins you cannot fix. Come with the guilt you cannot erase. Come with the life you cannot straighten out by yourself. Come because Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God who takes away sin, the risen Lord whom Andrew found, and the Savior who receives all who call upon him in faith.

And if you belong to Christ already, then remember Andrew. Do not make discipleship more complicated than Jesus makes it.

Hear his call.

Follow without delay.

Bring those near to you into his gracious presence.

And trust Christ to do what only Christ can do.

As we come to the Lord’s Table, we come first as people who need to receive. We do not approach because our obedience has been swift enough or because our witness has been faithful enough. We come because Christ gave himself for us, and here he feeds his Church sacramentally with the benefits of his once-for-all sacrifice. The Lord who called Andrew beside the sea still nourishes his people by grace, and the people who receive from him are then sent back into the world to bear witness to him.

That is the order of the Christian life. Christ gives before we give. Christ calls before we follow. Christ saves before we bear witness. Grace comes first, and grace does not leave us where it found us.

Almighty God gave such grace to his apostle Andrew that he readily obeyed the call of Jesus Christ and brought his brother with him. May God give us that same grace: grace to hear the voice of Christ, grace to follow him without delay, grace to bring those near to us into his gracious presence, and grace to trust him with what follows.

For Andrew does not make Simon into Peter. He does not multiply the loaves. He does not save the nations. Andrew brings what he has, and whom he can, to Jesus.

And Christ does the rest.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.