Pastor Nam Park.
What is unique in the calling of these 12 men is the ordinary nature of each of these individuals. What kind of men and women does God use? Super Spiritual or Good Humored... In His excellent wisdom, wouldn't God chose the extraordinary? In truth, the Lord chooses those that are made of clay; very flawed but AVAILABLE and ORDINARY human beings.
There will always be someone better than you. Yet the encouragement is that the church is made up of flawed human beings. God has chosen you, not because you are good at any one thing, but He CHOSE you. God uses ordinary individuals to EXTRAORDINARY ends.
It's not about special at one thing, but us being SPECIAL TO HIM.
Your Grace is more than sufficient, to take away our sins... to sanctify us... to help us to know that we are much esteemed in the eyes of the Lord, not because we are extra-ordinary, but because though we are ordinary, we are willing to submit to the God who can accomplish all things and can glorify Himself in clay vessels.
Teach us how to appreciate the ordinary ones among us and to be available to do great things, not because we are great, but because our Savior is. Amen.
Luke 6:12 It was at this time that He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God. 13 And when day came, He called His disciples to Him and chose twelve of them, whom He also named as apostles: 14 Simon, whom He also named Peter, and Andrew his brother; and James and John; and Philip and Bartholomew; 15 and Matthew and Thomas; James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot; 16 Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.
Luke 4:18
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor.
He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives,
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set free those who are oppressed,
He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives,
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set free those who are oppressed,
19 To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.”
20 And He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. 21 And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”Jesus had described His ministry; He was calling the lowly, the uncouth.
Yet think, what's the best way to start a cult? A: Start with rich people.
Does Jesus choose rich people? He chooses a tax collector at most who then decides to leave tax collecting. Most of them are country folk; fishermen; simpletons. Not the kind that you would think would change the world. He chose people that were faithful, that would display His glory.
Before big decisions, Jesus spends time in prayer. Possibly 10 hours, in prayer for the choosing of the 12 disciples.
Luke 6:12 It was at this time that He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God.
In God's humanity, we see His intense commitment to prayer, in order to be clear to God's will.
John 8:28 So Jesus said, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me. 29 And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.”
And the right 12 were selected. Even Judas Iscariot was not a mistake.
John 15:5 I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.
- The idea that we don't live prayerfully upon the Father; it should bother our conscious that we are not whole heartedly devoted to prayer.
We try to depend upon our "vast" intellect, yet we are ordinary people. We are not better than anybody, but God has chosen us and EXPECTS of us to DEPEND solely on Him. There is no greater human being that has ever walked the planet than Jesus Christ; and how did He approach one of the big decisions of His ministry? A: An all-night prayer vigil. He went off on His own to pray, all night. To know what His Father's will would be.
Term Disciple: A Student. Not just followers would would show up at a class. Invested not just for a time period but they were investing their lives. At least 70 but the number is probably in the hundreds.
The "calling" here is a literal, verbal calling.
And he "chose" in the sense of election. Jesus CHOSE them according to the Father's good will.
Why 12? They were deliberately chosen to be stewards of God's new covenant promises, parallel to the 12 tribes in the old covenant. Ordinary, sufficient to change an entire world; the extraordinary, accomplished by ordinary men.
"Jesus never set up an organization. These 12 men represent the total of his ministrative machinery. Some of them were clearly outstanding men but on the whole they seemed to have been no more than average. Most have left very little mark on church history. Jesus preferred to work THEN as NOW, through perfectly ordinary people." - Leon Morris, NT commentator.
God is the one that choose to use them.
Term Apostle: Sent out ones. General title for a commissioned messenger.
Simon Peter (leader): The rock. Greatly flawed but greatly used. It's the security of God that allows a sinner like Peter to fall and then to get back up again.
Andrew: Known for seeking out Christ and bringing those he loved to Christ; he soon shares the news with his brother Simon.
James: Sons of Zebedee (Thunder). Half brother of Jesus. Writer of the New Testament Epistle.
John: Sons of Zebedee (Thunder). Beloved disciple.
Philip (leader): The "bean" counter. Practical but always Christ-centered.
Bartholomew/Nathaniel: Prejudiced to say, "Can anything good come from Nazareth?"
Matthew/Levi: Tax Collector. An unlikely follower but not ashamed of Jesus. He invites other tax collectors to come meet Christ in his home. He recognized value in Christ.
Thomas: Curiously faithful. John 11:16 Therefore Thomas, who is called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, so that we may die with Him.”
James (leader): Not much known. Took gospel to Egypt and crucified.
Simon the Zealot: Not much known. Zealot was a political group that rebelled against Roman authority. Extremist group.
Judas/Thaddeus: He thought less of himself. Shouldn't others also know that Jesus is the Christ... this should not only be revealed to them, but to the world. He's usually seen with a club in his hand at the last supper because he was clubbed to death.
John 14:22 Judas (not Iscariot) *said to Him, “Lord, what then has happened that You are going to disclose Yourself to us and not to the world?”
Judas Iscariot: Betrayed Jesus.
In the last supper, the other disciples couldn't tell Judas Iscariot apart from themselves. This should be a warning to us.
If you think that you possess more than the church already has, you are mistaken.
2 Corinthians 4:7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves;
1 Corinthians 1:26 For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; 27 but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong,
- Be encouraged, don't fear that you are special to the world, but rather be encouraged that you are SPECIAL to the Lord. That should be more than sufficient. Give him your absolute allegiance and availability because that's all He asks of you.
"God can achieve His purpose either through the absence of human power and resources or the abandonment of reliance upon them. All through history God has chosen to use Nobodies because their unusual dependence on Him made possible the unique display of His power and grace. He chose to use Somebodies only when they renounced dependence upon their natural abilities and resources."
Oswald Chambers
We are nobodies, which makes us perfect as emissaries of the gospel.
