In 10 Words or Less

“Follow me and I will make you fish for people.”

10 words.

That is all it took for Simon, Andrew, James, and John to immediately leave their boats. 10 words were all it took for them to start a journey with Christ that would lead each of them to the cross.

10 words.

10 words made a promise a promise to make them greater than fishermen. Instead of spending their time on the boat they would spend their time in the slums of Israel as they watched Christ reach out to the hurting, the lost, the broken, the sick, the hungry. Instead of casting a net, they would learn to cast a life that drew people in. Instead of leaning on their strengths they would learn to lean on the power of God. 10 words opened their lives to a possibility they had not imagined possible until the stranger called for them.

10 words.

Words carry a lot of weight with them. They have the power to create and the power to destroy. Words can renew a weary soul. Words can ruin a life. Words can empower a people to change the world. Words can cause people to demolish a civilization. Words have the power to set us free or bind us. Learning to speak is more than a right, it is a responsibility; a responsibility to edify one another, a responsibility to draw others in; a responsibility to lift up and give life to the lifeless.

10 words.

I am not sure I have the power to convict a soul with just 10 words. I am not sure I am charismatic enough to sway an audience with 10 words. I am not sure I could make a strong point in 10 words. Not sure if I could preach in 10 words, something I'm sure you wish I could.

10 words.

The scripture is full of moments in which God speaks or does amazing things with small words. In Exodus God refuses to go into a long theological argument when Moses asked, “And who should I say sent me?” God simply responds, “I am who I am.” 5 words. In Jonah, after 3 days in a fish's belly, Jonah finally decides to obey God, he speaks no more than 8 words in his sermon to Nineveh, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” 8 words and everyone and thing from the king to the cattle are putting on sackcloth and sitting in ashes and fasting.

This Sermon? 419.

Words are powerful. Words have built empires. Words have destroyed empires. Words have saved a people. Words have attempted to erase a people. Words have kept a race in slavery. Words have set a race free. Words hold more power than any weapon. Words can destroy faster than nuclear bomb. Words can change a person’s life for better or worse.

10 words from a stranger led four men away from their families, from their income. 10 words changed their lives. If we took the gospel seriously we would see the power of our words. Words that we use can degrade a human being, a human being who is created by the same God who created you have no place in our vocabulary. Words that put down instead of lift up have no place in the church. The Christian should only speak words that call others to a greater life. It only took 10 words for Jesus to call Simon, Andrew, James, and John. It only takes one word from us to ruin a life.

10 Words led to action. 10 words drew 4 men from their world and took them into God’s world. Words have the power to inspire. Words have the power to cause action for the good or for the worse. Words can inspire a people to change for the better.

Several years ago they buried a woman named Grace Thomas at the First Baptist Church cemetery in Decatur, Georgia. You probably never heard of Grace Thomas. No reason that you should. She was the child of a streetcar conductor from Birmingham, Alabama. She fell in love with a boy from Georgia Tech in Atlanta and she moved to Atlanta and married him, full-time wife. To support the family she took a job as a secretary at the state capitol in Atlanta. She was now full-time wife and full-time secretary.

Through her job she became very interested in politics and the law, so she enrolled at night law school. Now she was a full-time wife, a full-time secretary and a full-time law student. When she finally graduated from law school, she astonished her family by saying, “I’m not going to practice law. I’ve decided to run for political office.”

They said, “Mother, what office?”

Expecting her to say school board or library board, she said, “I’m going to run for the governor of Georgia. The highest office in the state.” Now this was 1954 and Grace Thomas ran for governor of Georgia. There were nine candidates that year: eight men and Grace Thomas.

There were nine candidates but there was only one issue. It was 1954 and Brown versus the Board of Education had come forth from the Supreme Court to integrate the public schools. And eight of those candidates for governor said that they thought Georgians ought to resist this every fiber in their being. Only one candidate, Grace Thomas, said that she thought it was the coming of justice. Her campaign slogan was “Say Grace at the polls.” Not many people did. She ran dead last and her family was relieved that she had gotten this out of her system. But she hadn’t.

In 1962 she ran for the governor of Georgia again. This time the civil rights movement was in full flower and the stakes were high. She went around the state with her message of progress and prosperity and racial harmony. She received death threats on her life and her family feared for her and traveled with her to protect her.

One day, she went to give a campaign speech in the little town of Louisville, Georgia. The centerpiece in Louisville is not a Civil War monument or a county courthouse, it’s an old slave market where human beings were bought and sold. She decided to give her speech under the canopy of that slave market. She addressed a gaggle of farmers and merchants and she pointed at the slave market and said, “This, thank God, has passed and the new has come. It’s time for Georgians to join hands, all races together.”

Somebody in the crowd shouted at her, “Are you a communist?”

“No!” she said.

“Well, where did you get those goldarned ideas?”

She thought about it for a minute. And then she pointed at the steeple of the First Baptist Church and she said, “I got ‘em over there in Sunday school!”

Words changed Grace Thomas’ life. Words showed up that all God’s children were created equal. Words inspired her, challenged her to change the policies of her state by running for Governor. Our words have the ability to do the same for our friends, our families, our churches, our sick, our lost, our needy, our hungry, ourselves.

Standing before some 250,000 people, Clarence Jones watched as Martin Luther King Jr. turned the page of his written speech over. Mr. Jones turned to someone next to him and said, “These people assembled don’t know it but they are about to go to church.” Mr. Jones understood that the words were about to be said where special words. With 4 words Dr. King became a fixed part of America’s history. With 4 words Dr. King rallied a nation for a cause. With 4 words Dr. King answered the 10 words of Jesus, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.”

Jesus is standing on the shore calling to us; calling our names with 10 words. He is calling us to become a part of something greater than the reality we live in. He is giving us a promise to hold on to. Jesus is giving us the power to transform worlds with our words. He is giving us an opportunity to transform our county with words; words that inspire; words that give way to a promise; words that change lives; words that bring life.

Jesus is standing on the shore and his words, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people” are words that call us to a life of righteousness, to a life of justice, to a life of unconditional love. Jesus is calling to us. Do we have the courage to answer? Do we have the courage to stand and follow? Do we have the courage to trust in those words? Do we have the courage to believe that one day all God’s children will sing, “Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty I’m free at last”? Do we have the courage to bring forth that day?

If we do, then let us brave the icy currents once more and answer the voice of Christ, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord.