If you have your Bibles, I want you to turn to Mark chapter 3.
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Elegant speakers.
You get the best.
Well, not necessarily.
Because the greatest movement, and calling it a movement, is almost sacrilegious because it's so much more.
But the communicating and the managing of the greatest opportunities that have been offered to humankind, or ever will be,
was actually led by a pile of misfits.
That seems so ragtag and obscure that the plan should have been ruined from the start.
From a human perspective.
But it did not fail at all.
It still continues today and will until the world ends with success.
And I'm talking about the opportunity of salvation through Christ.
The sharing of that message.
The leading of those who have committed to it.
The ministry that comes forth from it.
Today, when we look at Mark, we look at the choosing of the apostles.
It is amazing to see who Christ chose.
And I believe it gives us all hope for our own lives, how we see this happen.
It's in Mark chapter 3, beginning in verse 13.
And it speaks of Christ when it says,
And he went up on the mountain and called to them those whom he desired and they came to him.
And he appointed twelve whom he also named apostles.
That means the sent out ones.
So that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons.
He appointed the twelve.
And he appointed the twelve.
Simon to whom he gave the name Peter.
James the son of Zebedee.
And John the brother of James.
To whom he gave the name Bonaerges.
That is sons of thunder.
Andrew and Philip.
And Bartholomew.
And Matthew.
And Thomas.
And James the son of Alphaeus.
And Thaddeus.
And Simon the zealot.
And Judas.
Isaaceret.
Who betrayed him.
When you look at this list, you won't find a load of scholars.
They were not great speakers, especially when he met them.
They were not theologians.
There are no rabbis among this group.
There are no scribes among this group.
There are no Pharisees among this group.
There are no Sadducees among this group.
There's not a priest among them.
Or any from a religious establishment.
Or at least in leadership at a religious establishment.
They were too prone to mistakes.
They were too prone to misstatements.
They were too prone to wrong attitudes.
And they were too prone to faith failures.
And he picked 12 of them.
That's an interesting number.
Because that is the same number as the Jewish tribes.
Which are God's people in the Old Testament.
Collected those people and put them into 12 tribes.
And those 12 tribes were to carry out the whole law system.
The sacrificial system.
As a prophecy of when the Messiah would come.
It was all a lead up to the Messiah.
But when the Messiah came, they didn't recognize him.
Now he picks 12 apostles.
The same number.
None of which is of the Judaistic institution as far as in leadership.
It is a judgment.
By picking these 12 versus the 12 tribes of Israel.
It is a judgment upon the leaders of that day.
But it is a repositioning and a realigning of sorts.
But it is much more than that as well.
It is an intense training system.
Of raising up future leaders that will carry out the cause of Christ throughout the world.
And establish the church to thrive until the return of the Lord.
And the reality is, it is estimated that he only had 18 months to do it.
The reality is, as we have looked at Mark chapter 1 and Mark chapter 2 and part of Mark chapter 3.
Although I warned you when we began that Mark moves quickly.
He is very brief.
But those three chapters and all that great movement of people following Christ.
People's lives changing.
People being healed.
All of that makes up about half of the ministry of Christ already.
Now he has about 18 months before he will go to the cross.
These men were too often self-centered.
They were too often self-promoting.
And yet lacking a faith and lacking spiritual understanding.
And yet they would be immersed into the most intense hands-on seminary experience that has ever been known.
And for the most part, they would come out sold on their cause and effective in carrying out its faith.
Our lives are changed because of the faithfulness of these men.
God loves to choose the weak.
God loves to choose the foolish.
He loves to pick the incomplete to do strong, wise, and wonderful work.
And these guys, I believe, give us all hope of being used by God.
But they also challenge us as we see their commitment to him.
Understand that from a human perspective, the future of the church and the long-term success of the gospel
depended solely on the faithfulness of these men.
There is no plan B.
When Christ is crucified, raises again, is on the earth for a short time before he ascends,
it all lives and falls with them.
It is a huge responsibility to men that, quite honestly, do not seem capable of carrying it out.
And that's what makes the whole story somewhat amazing.
Now, again, Mark writes in a hurry with little detail, but Luke is much more thorough in what he says about everything.
I want you to notice how he describes the process of choosing these men.
He says, in Luke chapter 6, verse 12 through 13,
In these days Christ went up to the mountain to pray,
and all night he continued in prayer to God.
And when day came, he called his disciples and chose for them twelve, whom he named apostles.
The Lord toiled all night.
That word there for continued in prayer is a laboring, an intense laboring.
And when the sun came up, he called those men to himself and he chose them.
What were they to do?
Well, notice in the text it tells us what they were to do.
They had three tasks.
One was they were to shadow him.
It says in the text, so that they might be with him.
That's what that's talking about.
Over 150 years ago, A.B. Bruce wrote a book called Training of the Twelve.
I read it about 25 years ago, did a study through it,
and it opened my eyes to see much more and why Christ did what he did when he did it.
And how he many times implemented teaching behind the scenes and even on the spot to his disciples,
almost in everything that he does from this point on until the cross.
Jesus came primarily to be the redemptive hope of all of humanity,
to die on the cross for our salvation.
However, he also came to train these 12 to spread the gospel,
to plant the church of Jesus Christ, to influence the world with the cause until the return of the Lord.
And the best way for them to learn was not to experience it with other spiritual leaders.
It was not in the synagogue.
The best way for them to learn,
the spiritual leaders actually were hunting Jesus down,
trying to kill him.
While he's choosing the apostles,
they're coming up with a way to snuff him out.
It was also not for them to sit under the greatest professors.
Instead, it was to walk with the Lord.
As verse 14 says it, that they might be with him.
By the way, the best way to learn about him is to be with him.
As I thought about that, I couldn't help but think about the song that says,
and he walks with me and he talks with me.
And he tells me I am his own.
And the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known.
Friend, that relationship is how Christ personalizes,
through the power of the Holy Spirit, what he writes in his word.
They were to shadow him.
The second thing, where they were to share the story.
He would teach them how to share.
And then he would send them out to share what they knew,
as many as God would enable them to share with.
As I said, the apostles mean the set out ones.
They are unique.
These, and later Paul, are the only apostles.
I'll be clear about this.
If you go to a church and the preacher wants to be called apostle,
you went to the wrong church, okay?
Leave.
As well, if he wants to be called father.
Matthew 23, 9 says that's not right either.
So that's another sermon.
But anyway, the apostles were set apart by Christ himself.
Ephesians chapter 2, verse 20 says,
The church is, quote, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets.
Heaven is described.
Revelation 2, 21, verse 14 says,
And the wall of the city had 12 foundations,
and on them were the 12 names of the 12 apostles of the Lamb.
Another scene in heaven shows 24 elders.
12 of those elders represent the apostles.
12 of those elders represent the 12 tribes of Israel.
In other words, in heaven, redemption is complete.
All God's people are together.
Those before Christ that came because of Christ,
and those after Christ are all in Christ.
And my point is that these apostles are unique men.
They're set apart by God,
and they were called primarily to share his story.
The third reason, it says, is they were to silence the demons.
It says that he would give them authority to cast out demons.
Now, I dealt with silencing the demons last week,
and so I'll only touch on it this morning.
Christ came to defeat evil once and for all,
and he did that on Calvary.
It's done, folks.
There are still battles being fought here and there in all of our lives,
but I want you to make no mistake.
The war is won.
Now, the spiritual struggle,
the demonic struggle,
is much more graphic in other parts of the world
than it is in the United States today,
although I would confer that it is intensifying here as well,
and I believe that's got a lot to do with the melting pot of the world coming to us
with all their false religions and all those things.
It opens us up.
Scripture shows that.
However, the same evil is still prevalent,
just not victorious.
The greatest way to silence the evil of the world
is to proclaim through word, deed, and love
the much greater need,
the story of Jesus.
That's the key.
One day, every knee shall bow,
every tongue proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord.
In the meantime, it's our job to do that,
and the apostles started that process,
and so I want us to look at each of the apostles.
Now, don't panic.
There's 12 of them.
We're only going to look at four today.
All of the synoptic gospels,
that is Matthew, Mark, and Luke,
they write in the same way.
John's a little different,
but all of the synoptics have the apostles listed.
John does not list them.
Luke, who wrote the gospel of Luke,
also wrote the book of Acts,
and it's called the Acts of the Apostles.
He also wrote that book,
and he makes the list again as well,
but I believe that's the list that leaves off Judas,
and we'll get to that later and explain why.
But in all of these lists,
you'll see the men grouped in groups of four.
The first four are always the first four.
They're sometimes in different order,
but they're always the first four.
The second four are always the second four.
The third four are always the last four,
except that one that leaves out one.
And always in the first group
is Peter, Andrew, James, and John.
They were the inner circle around Christ,
and one of them particularly is always listed first.
I call him the outspoken.
The first man that's always mentioned is Simon Peter.
He's called Peter some places.
He's called Simon other places.
His given name was Simon.
Jesus called him Peter because Peter means rock.
Some called him Simon Peter.
Normally when Jesus referred to him as Simon,
he was talking either about his background
or the carnality in his life.
And when he called him Peter,
he was talking about his spiritual side.
It's kind of interesting to see that.
But Jesus would make him a rock,
but he was not a rock when they met by any means.
Peter was the fastest,
most interruptive, loud mouth among them.
He could not help himself.
He said too much too often.
Peter gives us loud mouths a lot of hope
because he speaks more than any of them.
He is rebuked more than any of them.
He is the only one that rebukes Christ among them.
When Jesus spoke of the cross,
Peter corrected him.
When they came to arrest Jesus,
Peter's the one that grabbed the sword
from his own side
and I believe tried to take the head off
of a soldier.
But Peter was a fisherman,
not a swordsman.
So he took an ear off instead.
When Jesus was being accused that night,
it was Peter
who denied him three times.
However,
the spirit is a wonderful thing for the believer
because when Jesus resurrected from the dead,
it was Peter that he reaffirmed.
And when the spirit came in Acts chapter two,
it was Peter that became the voice of the Christian church.
It was Peter that proclaimed that powerful message.
It was Peter that saw thousands of people
come to know the Lord under his ministry in one day.
He was martyred for his faith by crucifixion.
It's not in scripture.
History tells us this.
And it was Peter who said
that he was not worthy to die like Christ.
And instead,
they hung him upside down
on what's believed to be an X-shaped cross.
If you read the book of Acts,
especially in the first third of the book of Acts,
you'll understand
the significance
of why Jesus picked Peter.
Then,
after Peter,
they have what I call the inviter.
Andrew.
Andrew is Peter's brother
and not anything like Peter.
He is the first apostle to be called
and is seen as the least of the top four.
There are places where the other top three
go with Jesus that Andrew don't go.
But,
John the Baptist is the one
that introduced Andrew to Jesus.
And the moment that Andrew was introduced to Jesus,
he brought his brother Peter to Jesus.
Andrew was,
I call him the inviter
because Andrew,
every time we see him,
is about bringing people to Jesus.
It was Andrew who found the boy
with his lunch
and brought him to Jesus
when the 5,000 were fed.
It was Andrew that when Greeks,
which speaks of Gentiles
that were not believers,
when Greeks were asking about Jesus,
it was Andrew
who brought those seekers
to the Lord.
He never sought attention.
He was quiet.
He was unsung.
But he was so very thoughtful of others.
And he was steady.
He was steady in his ministry
just in the background.
We have no knowledge
of him ever preaching.
I'm not saying he didn't.
We have no knowledge of it.
But he's the one
that invited the preacher,
Peter,
to come to Jesus initially.
And quite honestly,
that's made all the difference.
History tells us
that Andrew died on the cross as well
for his faith.
He spent his life
bringing people to Jesus
unapologetically.
He's the inviter.
The third one among them
is the thunderous.
The last two in this list of four
are brothers,
James and John,
the sons of Zebedee.
It is apparent
that Zebedee
was a successful fisherman,
had quite an enterprise,
had hired servants
working under him
in that business.
His wife,
the men's mother,
traveled with the apostles
and traveled with Jesus
and underwrote a lot
of the ministry
because of the prominence
of that family.
They may have even,
James and John,
may have even been cousins
with Jesus.
But there are a lot of Marys
in Scripture
and sometimes
we parallel them together
when they may not need
to be paralleled.
So we're not positive
about that.
But Jesus nicknamed
these brothers
the sons of thunder.
That sounds like
a tag team rassler to me,
a rassler to me,
and that's what they did
on the weekend I guess.
But they came from money,
they came from a household
with hired servants
and they wanted prominence.
Their mother asked
on their behalf
if they could be
in a place of prominence.
It appears that they set
their mother up
to ask on their behalf.
But I call James
the thunderous one
because he was zealous,
he was passionate,
he was thunderous.
I want you to see
what I mean by this.
In Luke chapter 9,
verse 51,
there's an incident
that I want you to see.
It says,
when the days drew near
for him to be taken up.
Now that's talking about
when Jesus
is going to go to heaven.
In other words,
he's going to go to the cross,
he's going to rise again,
and then he's going to live
on the earth for 40 days
and then he's going to ascend.
He's going to be taken up.
He set his face
to go to Jerusalem.
It's the last stage
of his ministry.
There was a preparation stage
of sorts that was in the desert
where he was tempted
and he set his mind
on what his ministry was to be.
There was the beginning
of that ministry along with that.
Then there was the calling
of the apostles.
And then,
at this point,
he sets his face
toward Jerusalem.
And he sent messengers
ahead of him
who went and entered
a village of the Samaritans
to make preparations for him.
But the people
did not receive him
because his face
was set toward Jerusalem.
Now I talked about last week,
I talked about the Samaritans,
talked about the history of it,
the difficulty of that region.
People didn't like Samaritans.
And apparently,
they didn't like Jesus either.
And it says,
and when his disciples,
James and John,
saw it,
they said,
Lord,
do you want us to tell fire
to come down from heaven
and consume them?
They weren't going to put up with it.
But he turned and rebuked them.
Man, what a statement
that they made.
What a statement.
Think about what they said.
Because in reality,
who were they
to be able to call down fire?
Now I'll tell you
what that comes from.
It comes from
they knew the word.
They had been in the synagogue,
apparently.
And they knew about Elijah.
And Elijah was a hero to many.
And Elijah could call down fire.
And so man,
they're followers of God.
Why don't we just call down fire
and burn up these Samaritans,
is what they were saying.
He turned and rebuked them
and they went on
to another village.
When you see that,
can't you see the Sons of Thunder
in wrestling attire?
I mean,
I can see that in my head,
but anyway.
But I grew up on Saturdays
watching NAA wrestling.
But these men
didn't want to play games.
They were a little off.
Do you want us
to call down fire?
Listen.
Actually,
Philip
would later go
to Samaria
and would win
possibly some of
these same people
to the Lord.
That's why God
didn't call a fire
upon them.
A different kind of fire
came upon them.
The fire of the Holy Spirit
of God.
But these men
were zealous.
They were with Jesus
on the Mount
of Transfiguration.
They were the ones
that went a little further
in the garden
with Jesus
as they prayed.
They, like Peter,
had a fire
in their belly.
The passion of James
was also for the gospel
as well.
James is the first
to be martyred
among them
for the faith.
Acts chapter 12,
verse 2
talks about
his death.
And Herod
had him killed
with the sword.
That almost always
means that he was
beheaded
for his thunderous
stand
for the gospel.
He was the thunderous.
His brother,
the last one
we're going to look at
this morning
is the passionate.
John was a lot
like his brother.
He was passionate.
He was cut and dry
about everything.
He had no gray areas.
And later
he wrote about it.
This is the John
that wrote
the gospel of John.
This is the John
that wrote
the three letters
from John.
I call it
the big John
and three little Johns.
This is the John
that wrote
the book of Revelation
on the Isle of Patmos.
This is the John
that wrote
more of the New Testament
than anybody
but the Apostle Paul.
And he is a man
of no compromise.
Read what he wrote.
It's light
against darkness.
It's life
against death.
It's kingdom
of God
against the evil empire.
It's receive Christ
or reject Christ.
It's bear fruit
or be fruitless.
It's be obedient
to God
or be disobedient
to God.
It's love God
or hate God.
When you read
John,
especially his three letters,
John's works
will unsettle you
or at least it should.
You got to go read Paul too
and he'll comfort you.
But God
took that
call down fire
among them
and he mellowed
that in John.
And he made John
the Apostle of love.
John became
a tender hearted
loving Apostle
that lived,
he's the only Apostle
that lived
into his old age.
in his writing
he mentions truth
45 times.
He was passionate
about the truth.
But listen to this.
He mentioned witness
70 times.
He wrote
so that people
would know Christ.
He says
in the Gospel of John
at the end of it
as well as
in 1 John
I write
these things
to you
that you may
believe
that Jesus
is life
and you may
have life
in his name.
It's the reason
he wrote them.
But he mentions
love
more than
either one of those.
He mentions
love
80 times.
He calls
those that he
writes to
little children.
He never
mentions his
own name
in the Gospel.
He always
put the
disciple
whom Jesus
loved.
You know why
he put that?
Because he never
got over
Christ's love
for him.
And we
better not
either.
It is believed
that after Paul
started the church
in Ephesus
that John
went and
pastored
that church
until the
Roman emperor
Domitian
put him on
the island
of Patmos
in exile
where he
lived in a
cave
slept
on a
pillow of
rock
and saw
a great
vision from
the Lord
that led
to him
writing about
it in
Revelation.
In his
latter days
historians
tell us
that he
had to be
carried into
church
in his
old age
and that
he was
constantly
saying
my little
children
love one
another.
when it
came time
to carry
out the
greatest
task
that
humankind
will ever
see
Jesus chose
the common
Jesus chose
the ordinary
and he
empowered
them with
the spirit
of God
and he
made them
extraordinary.
when I
think about
that I
think about
what in
the world
is holding
us back
from being
all that
God would
have us
to be.
What's
holding me
back?
What's
holding you
back?
What's
being everything
God would
have you to
be?
God wants
people who
will speak
boldly for
him.
God wants
people who
are quiet
who don't
say much
but who are
willing to
walk up to
others and
quietly invite
them to
come to
Jesus.
He even
wants the
thunderous
those that
you see
coming
those that
will step
up when
needed.
He wants
the
passionate.
The folks
that love
folks like
the Lord
Jesus.
He wants
you and
he wants
me.
It's not
our job to
do the job
of the
apostles.
It's our
job to do
the job that
he set before
us.
And he has
a way of
taking our
temperament and
our strengths
and our
weaknesses and
molding them
and making
them like
clay on a
potter's
wheel and
by the
spirit of
God and
the power
of the
spirit of
God to
be effective
to reach
people and
encourage
people for
the Lord
Jesus Christ.
What is it
God would
have you to
do?
maybe you're
here this
morning and
you've never
given your
heart and
life to the
Lord Jesus.
There's not
a relationship
there.
You don't have
a problem with
him necessarily.
You just never
have surrendered
your life to
him.
Never have
committed your
life to
him.
I want you to
know if you've
never done that
today's the day
to do that.
There's no need
to put that
off.
If you'll ask
him to forgive
you of your
sins and
you'll acknowledge
that you've done
wrong in your
life and ask
him to come
into your life
and to change
you,
he will empower you with the spirit of God
and he'll take those natural things within you
and he'll tune them up by the spirit of God
and use them in his might and power.
Maybe you're here this morning
and you have done that privately
but you've never acknowledged that through baptism.
We plan to do that in a couple, three weeks
and I encourage you if you've never been baptized
to obey God in that.
By his commission and by his example,
Christ told us,
that was the first step that we're to take
when we give our life to Christ.
Or maybe God's drawing you to Pickens First Baptist Church.
That's your step of obedience.
That's what you're to do to obey God
and if that be the case,
we'd love to welcome you.
We'd be happy to guide you in that
or maybe it's something else.
I have no idea what it is.
I don't ever pretend to know
what God's speaking to you about
but I'll tell you this,
by the power of God,
he'll make each one of us effective
to do the ministry that he's called us to do.
And if you're a child of God,
he's called you to do ministry
in some form or fashion.
whether it be quiet,
whether it be loud,
whether it be speaking,
whether it be nudging,
whatever it is,
the apostles show us
God can use any of us
and will use any of us
and he plans to use all of us.
So let's just be obedient
and follow him today.
Just say yes
to whatever God would have for you.
Let's pray together.
Lord Jesus, I love you.
Thank you Lord for your love for us
and I ask dear God
that you'll help us to learn
from the apostles,
the great teachers that they are
by their example, dear God.
Help us to be obedient
to follow you as you lead us.
In Jesus' precious name.
Amen.