The Chosen

Luke 6:12-13

God chooses common people to do uncommon things for Him. They are “the chosen.” And I’m not talking about a TV show. Prepare to meet a ragtag group of redneck apostles, and prepare to accept the fact that you have also been called, been chosen, and are being prepared to be a disciple of Christ.

It’s now been about a year in Jesus’ public ministry and a huge storm is brewing which will eventually rain down upon Him on the cross of Calvary. It’s a storm of hatred from the religious leaders who want to end Him by putting Him to death. And it’s no surprise to our God. His very plan is to allow them to kill Him eventually so He can be our substitute, paying for our sins so we don’t have to pay for them ourselves.

And so, Jesus, feeling the hostility, and sensing the inevitability of His coming execution realizes that He must find some key followers who can carry on the proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of Israel and the establishment of the church.  Now is the time to choose them.  Now is the time to begin their intense training.  And so it's in the sense of His own coming death that Jesus realizes that He has to choose some who are going to carry on the work after He's gone.

He doesn't choose any rabbis.  He doesn't choose a scribe.  He doesn't choose a Pharisee.  He doesn't choose a Sadducee.  He doesn't choose a priest.  And so, it is true to say that the choosing of the twelve apostles was not only preparation for the future, but it was also a judgment on false religion.  Instead, He chose men who were not theologically trained.  He chose commoners.

John 1:11, "He came unto His own and His own received Him not."  And that was especially true of the religious leaders of Judaism.  In fact, in the first official act of Jesus' ministry, He went to Jerusalem at the Passover time when the temple was filled with all of the people coming to offer sacrifice. He went right into the temple, made a whip and struck a devastating blow at man’s religion.  And now, many months later, their resentment of Him has reached a fever pitch and they are bloodthirsty to the point where they're doing everything they can to come up with a scheme to execute Him.  In spite of the miracles which have proven His Messiahship, in spite of the casting out of demons and innumerable healings, they will not accept the fact that He is the Messiah, God in human flesh.  They reject Him.  They reject His message.  And feeling the heat of that, Jesus knows now is the time to start training the ones who are going to take over after He's gone. 

Who are the apostles? If you visit the grand cathedrals of the world built by lost people in false religion you might assume that the apostles were stained-glass saints who somehow should be exalted to some high degree of spirituality.  The fact of the matter is, they were very common men.

They make too much of them and worship them. We, on the other hand, don’t know enough about them and now is our chance. When you get to heaven some day and you walk through those 12 gates of the city, the New Jerusalem, at the top of each gate there's going to be a name of one of the twelve tribes of Israel.  And there's going to be a name at the bottom of every gate which is going to be the name of an apostle.  They are going to have an eternal tribute in heaven and you ought to know about them.  God was able to do so much with so little, and that gives us all hope, doesn't it?

Let’s get them out of the stained-glass windows and down to earth.  Let’s convert their ill-conceived statues into living, breathing people with skin, walking dusty streets in their leather sandals. I want to get them out of obscurity and into your mind.  I want you always to know exactly who you're talking about when somebody asks, who was Bartholomew?  Or when somebody asks, who was James the son of Alphaeus?  Or when somebody asks, who was Simon the Zealot? 

1 Corinthians 1:20-21

²⁰ Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? ²¹ For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

It was beneath the elite, and that’s still true today.  You look at the church and you ask: Where are the great minds of the world and where are the gifted writers and the blessed orators of our world?  They're not there.  And that's because of how it continues in verse 26,

1 Corinthians 1:26-28

²⁶ For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: ²⁷ But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; ²⁸ And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:

God’s chosen are so far down the list it's as if they don't even exist. They are nobodies, that they might nullify the somebodies in order that no man should be able to boast before God. Who are these nobodies? Anybody can be! But they won’t think they are somebody.

In other words, in the end God chooses who He chooses in order that He might receive the glory and it’s clearly not man, so it must be God. 

Next time we'll meet the first of the apostles, Simon Peter.  But for this morning I want to give you a general look that you're going to find very encouraging.

v. 12        This is a pattern in the life of Jesus.  He would often slip away to the wilderness and pray. And if you’re gonna have a real prayer life you are going to need a place to which you can slip away. A real prayer life isn’t just blessing the food at meals or saying a good night prayer. You need a quiet place for your quiet time.

Jesus laid aside the privileges of His deity. And so He goes as a man would go, to ask God the Father what He should do in this crisis.  And the Lord obviously directs Him to choose the apostles. He spent the whole night in prayer, which could have been between 8 and 14 hours! 

Jesus had thousands of followers. Many of them were fair weather followers being fed on a hillside or coming to be healed. But being a followers is different from being a disciple. Now, don’t confuse being a disciple with being an apostle. While He is about to choose 12 apostles, He had many disciples…perhaps hundreds of men and women. There were some disciples who came and stayed, and some who came and went. 

But there were some special disciples who didn't just come on their own.  And we've already met them in the gospel record.  You can go back to John chapter 1 and find Peter and Andrew and Nathanael.  You can go back to Luke chapter 5 and you're going to find Jesus meeting James and John and Peter in the synagogue and in the fishing environment.  And then you're going to find Him finding the tax collecting station of Levi or Matthew. And many others named and unnamed, men and women, became close followers we might call disciples.

It’s still the same today. We have in the church the ‘crowd.’ They come and go. But then you have another group that is the committed. They don’t leave. They don’t run when they hear hard things and get their toes stepped on…matter of fact, that’s why they come faithfully. But even beyond the committed, every church has the ‘core.’ They are not satisfied with just checking boxes. They can’t get enough Jesus, and they can’t do enough for Him. Their faithfulness goes far deeper than just coming to church regularly, though they do, of course. He is their life, their everything.

So now out of this large group of true disciples the Lord is going to pick twelve to be the apostles.  By the will of God revealed in that night of prayer, He knows exactly who they are. 

v. 13        This was a very special moment for those twelve.  Up to this point, Peter, James, John, Andrew, Nathanael, Matthew, they were just in the crowd.  They were just learners.  They were just sort of following and listening and observing and watching and absorbing.  But they didn't yet have any specific purpose. 

John 15:16

¹⁶ Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit…

Why twelve? Why not eight? Why not twenty-four?  It’s because there were twelve tribes in Israel.  This was symbolic. Israel was apostate.  The religion of the day was not reflective at all of the truth of the Old Testament.  It was not the true worship of the true God.  It was a system of self-righteous works and ceremonies. It was heretical.  And it was time for a new leadership in Israel and the apostles were the new leaders of the new, true Israel of God who would believe the gospel.  And the fact that there were twelve symbolizes that Jesus is calling for a new leadership for the whole nation.

Luke 22:29-30

²⁹ And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me; ³⁰ That ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

There will be converted people out of every tribe in Israel.  They will go into the kingdom.  Each of those tribes will therefore be identified and one of the apostles will literally sit on a throne ruling over that new spiritual true believing Israel.

Revelation 21:12-14

¹² And had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel: ¹⁴ And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

Not only are they going to reign in the Millennial Kingdom, but they're going to be immortalized eternally in the foundation. Their name is going to be emblazoned in the gold foundations of the holy city, the New Jerusalem, forever and ever.  Every time you go into the city you're going to go over the name of an apostle and under the name of the tribes of Israel.  This is to show that God once brought the truth of His saving message through the tribes of Israel, and then again later on through the twelve apostles. This, friends, is why we support Israel, God’s chosen people.

Mark 3:14

¹⁴ And he ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach,

There's a two-step process here.  Before they could be sent out to preach, they had to be pulled in.  It was absolutely critical that they be with Jesus before they be sent out.  In fact, it isn't until chapter 9 of Luke that Jesus calls the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all the demons and to heal diseases.  He literally delegated to them His miracle power.  Right now in our text He is just identifying them and pulling them close to Him. 

Notice the flowchart:  First there was their following Jesus, they were first called to be disciples and that was their conversion when they believed.  Then there was a secondary time when they were called to leave everything.  At first they could follow or not follow, come and go and they were holding on to their former life, like Peter and his fishing. 

So first they were called to believe in Him.  Then they were called to drop everything and follow Him.  And now out of that group He identifies the core, the apostles. 

Luke mentions them six times in his gospel and about thirty times in the book of Acts because their role is so central not only to the ministry of the gospel to Israel, but the founding of the church as he records it in the book of Acts.

Ephesians 2:20

²⁰ And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;

The very church will be built upon them.

Ephesians 3:5

⁵ Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit;

They didn't preach a human message, they had divine revelation.  So they helped pen the NT.

They were the source of doctrine. 

Acts 2:42

⁴² And they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine…

They were given to edify the church. 

Ephesians 4:11

¹¹ And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;

They were the early teachers.  They were the first preachers and first teachers in the church. They were examples of virtue. 

2 Corinthians 12:12

¹² Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds.

They were greatly blessed. 

Luke 18:28-30

²⁸ Then Peter said, Lo, we have left all, and followed thee. ²⁹ And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God's sake, ³⁰ Who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting.

“You didn't leave anything that I'm not going to more than make up.”  And so God blessed them in this life, even though most of them were martyred, as we'll see when we look at each life, but God blessed them in this life in spite of that and will bless them in the life to come. 

And they had a short seminary career, less than two years.  In less than two years, all the teaching, all the example of Christ before them, all of the short-term opportunities, all the internship was done.  And during that time they had no occupation, they left their nets, they left their tax tables, they left their fields, they left everything.  They carried on no business. 

Matthew 11:29

²⁹ Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me…

They just spent time at His feet, and it changed them. And then they changed the world!

Jesus never covers over their weaknesses.  If Jesus wanted to make a case for their sainthood and to get them worshiped in statue form, He shouldn’t have dragged out their defects like He did.  But that's not the way it is with God.  He can only use people with defects because that's the only kind there are.  Anybody who tries to cover over the defects is being ridiculous.  Their shortcomings are thrown in our face all through the gospels.  I mean, if you spend just a little while reading the gospels, you wonder of all people how the Lord could ever use Peter and all the rest are the same.

They not only lacked spiritual understanding, they lacked humility.  You say, "Well couldn't He have found some humble men?"  Well, there aren't any.  There’s only pride, in degrees. They spend most of their time arguing about who would be the greatest among them.  James and John have the gall to send their mother to Jesus because she was related to Jesus' mother. They thought they could play that card. “Please can my boys sit on your right hand in the kingdom?”  And the rest of the disciples heard about it and were furious, not because they were so holy and righteous, but because James and John might have gained something that they then would have lost.  How did Jesus overcome their lack of humility?  By setting an example of humility to them.

They also lacked faith.  At least four times in the gospel of Matthew He calls them "Oh ye of little faith." 

Fourthly, they lacked commitment.  They followed for a little while and then they kind of drifted away.  As long as there were miracles all over the place, and as long as everything was going great and the crowds were there, it was fine.  But as soon as the soldiers came into the garden to arrest Jesus, they were gone.  Peter winds up by a fire repeatedly denying Jesus. 

They also lacked power.  There were times when they couldn't cast out demons even when they tried.  They were faithless and so they couldn't harness the power that was available to them.  They were weak and helpless.

Now you look at this group and you say, I wouldn't have picked them, I would have found some better dudes.  Who needs people with no understanding, no humility, no faith, no commitment, and no power? 

Actually, they were the perfect candidates for God to use because then there is no human explanation for what happened, right?  And that's the church.  And it's still that way today. He sees our defects like He saw their weakness but He saw behind it the potential to change the world.  Sure the chaff was visible and lots of people couldn't see the kernel of wheat behind it, but He did.  Some people would have seen nothing but a stone, a dirty brown stone, but He saw the diamond inside and He knew He could transform them.  And in the end, all the glory would come to Him.  So He took them as they were and He taught them and He gave them the Holy Spirit, and you and I today are sitting here as a testimony to that fact.

In Acts 4 the people said about them, they are ignoramuses and they are unskilled.  And that's true from a worldly viewpoint.  But the people also said in the same passage, it was obvious they had been with Jesus. That's good, isn't it? 

When we get through looking at these guys, you're not only going to know them, but you're going to know for sure that the Lord can use you.