Luke 6:12-16
Please turn in your copy of the
scriptures to Luke’s gospel. Our reading and preaching today
is from Luke chapter six, verses 12 through 16. And you may find
that in the pew Bible on the bench next to you or on the pew
rack in front of you on page 862. Since August, we’ve been
making our way through Luke. We’ve seen in the past many weeks
that Jesus authority has been not well received, you might
say, by the Pharisees. And so in today’s passage, after
he has thoroughly. angered the Pharisees, he’s going
to do something else big with his authority. He’s going to
appoint apostles. He’s going to appoint men who
will speak, preach, teach, write, and act on his behalf, even after
his death. And these men will see that the
church in the world is established. And so as we sit here this day
under the preaching of the word and the worship of God’s people,
we ought to connect ourselves as we read this passage with
these men and say, we continue today to do what these men were
commissioned to do, which was to carry on the mission, to carry
on the work of the Lord Jesus Christ in the world. So let us
hear from God’s word today. This is Luke’s gospel. Chapter
six, beginning at verse 12. In these days, Jesus went out
to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in the
prayer to God. When day came, he called his
disciples and chose from among them 12 whom he named apostles. Simon, whom he named Peter, and
Andrew, his brother, and James, and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew,
and Matthew, and Thomas, James, the son of Alphaeus, and Simon,
who was called the zealot, and Judas, the son of James, and
Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. Let us pray together. Our Lord
and God, we thank you for your precious word. We thank you that
Holy men of old wrote it down. We thank you for Luke, the physician
who wrote these words, not only to Theophilus, but to we who
sit here today to instruct us in the things that took place
in the life and in the ministry of Jesus, in order to assure
us that these things are so. Lord, help us to see your word,
to put our confidence in it, because it is not the word of
men, but the word of the living God. And we pray that by your
Holy Spirit, you would convince us of its truth. You would convert us to its teaching
and that you would change our lives this day to a new endeavor,
to obedience and service to you, our Lord, our master and our
king. We pray all of this in the name
of Jesus. And together, God’s people said, Amen. There’s a
local magazine that I have been reading for about the last six
or seven years. I think it comes out of Greensboro. And there’s a fancy ad in this
magazine that has been in the last couple of monthly issues.
And it’s an ad for private security. Now, I look at that ad and I
see in it the men in suits, the men in the sunglasses, the men
with the earpieces. You see their big black SUVs
with the tinted windows. These men can drive you around.
They can protect you. They can do background checks
on your employees and those. with whom you have contact. I
wonder who uses their service. Part of me wonders who feels
so important that they need to hire private security. Who’s wealthy enough to afford
it? Who’s got a target on their back? Or maybe the real question,
who’s that paranoid? Well, we come to a place in Luke’s
gospel, where Jesus could use the services of these men in
the dark suits and the dark SUVs and the earpieces and the Ray-Ban
sunglasses, the fierce look. Jesus has, well, he’s about angered
everybody. He has managed to bless many
with healing. He has managed to bless many
with forgiveness of their sins. He has managed to do many gospel things, but he has
angered. He has angered. He has in fact,
enraged the Pharisees, the scribes and the teachers of the law. And he could sure at this point
in time, use a security detail. Now, It’s about a year and a
half into Jesus’ ministry. We believe Jesus’ earthly ministry
from his public entrance into ministry to his death on the
cross was about three years. And so a year and a half in,
halfway in, we come to this passage where Jesus spends a night of
prayer. And he comes down the next day
to choose from among his disciples, 12 apostles. Jesus is wildly popular with
the crowds. You’ll see in next week’s passage
when in verse 17, it says he went down the mountain with his
disciples and his apostles, and he stood up to teach them. And
people came from north and south and east and west. All the nations
of the earth, if you will, were coming to Israel to meet Jesus. They were coming to see this
prophet, this priest and this king. He had wild popularity
among them, but great enemies, too. Remember, Satan in the wilderness
could not get Jesus. The congregation at Nazareth
could not throw him off the cliff. The Pharisees were still livid
that Jesus not only healed a paralytic, But he forgave him of his sins.
They were still upset that he called Levi to be a disciple,
and he ate with the man in his house with other tax collectors
and sinners. They were upset his disciples
did not fast. They were not in approval of
Jesus’ use of the Sabbath. They were angry with him. They, in fact,
wanted him dead. And so Jesus, in need of a security
detail, instead picks apostles. He picks when the anger, the
wrath, the murderous thoughts and threats of the Pharisees
are hitting a fever pitch. Instead of picking a security
detail, he picks a succession plan. For Jesus, the sovereign
Lord, he knows his days are numbered. He knows that someday he will
be handed over to the authorities, the Roman authorities, the Jewish
authorities, and they will put him to death on a cross. He knows that someday he will
die, but he also knows that his church must carry on. And so
he calls 12 apostles. He commits to a succession plan.
And most of all, he establishes new Israel. He establishes new
Israel in the new covenant. I want us to look at this passage
from two perspectives. Then I want us to see how we
fit in this continuing story. The first thing we see in this
passage is a man on a mission. And that man on a mission is
none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the question before
us is this, how do you plan for success in ministry? Is it because of a well-run committee
meeting? Is it because of what so-and-so
is doing in Atlanta or what the other fellow’s doing in Chicago
or the other guy’s doing out on the West Coast? I mean, that’s
how many churches do it. They find the guy who’s doing
it well, who’s doing it big, and they go to his conferences,
they buy his books. No, it’s prayer. We’ve got the
guru, don’t we? It’s Jesus. And we go to him,
we get on our knees and as Jesus did, a man on a mission, we go
to prayer. Jesus was known for escaping,
for pulling himself aside, for spending some time away from
the crowds to clear his head, to seek the Father’s will. And this man on a mission is
on a mission to choose 12 apostles from among his disciples. We
don’t know how large his group of disciples were, but there
are many, there are crowds, they’re great. They follow him from place
to place. And all night long, we’re told,
Jesus up on the mountain prays. He went there in the evening
as the sun went down. He spent the early evening in its remaining
warmth from the sun. He got into the middle of the
night hours, the stars and the moon and the greater or the lesser
lights, we call them, appeared. And from sundown to sunrise,
he sought the Lord’s will. He went to the father. You can
imagine that from his group of disciples, the people that who
followed him, He put their names before the Lord one by one. Is
it Peter? Is it James? Is it John? Is it
Joe? Is it Billy? Johnny? Fill in
the blank. All these names. God, should
these be the apostles who will carry on the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ, who will speak for us, who will be emissaries
of the king of the universe, who will speak before rulers
and authorities, who will be there at Pentecost, who will
heal in the streets, who will appoint deacons, who will who
will carry on the cause of the Lord Jesus, who one day will
be added to their list, the Apostle Paul, who one day will be added
to their list, Matthias, who was elected after the death of
Judas. These are the men Jesus is praying over. And all night
long, he puts their names before the throne of Almighty God. Doesn’t
this say a little something to us about how we might pick those
who will serve in the church? You know, prayer is important. Going before the Lord is important.
But can’t you imagine Jesus as he put these names before the
Lord? He put before God men he had already been watching. Men
who are already serving. Men who were always showing up,
men who were always showing initiative, taking responsibility, who were
faithful, who were available, who were willing to learn and
to to say, this kingdom is something I love and I will give it my
all. And so they show up, they make
themselves available to the Lord Jesus. And maybe in a sense,
Jesus had it pretty easy. There were 12 who were always
there, 12 who were always available, 12 who learned the ways of the
kingdom, 12 who could speak the gospel, the content of the gospel
had. And it sunk into their own hearts,
their own minds, because they had once been lost and were now
found, there was a living desire in them to seek first the kingdom
and to Seek first to serve in the kingdom. And so we ought
to take great thought in this as we look to continue their
work in the life of the church. I remember coming out of seminary
15, 16 years ago. Now I was educated beyond my intelligence
as my dad always reminds me. And I remember my first business
meeting in the church, 26 years old. And the first business meeting
in the church was the nominations of elders and deacons. And I
swear, you can’t make this stuff up. This is what I heard. Let’s
get so-and-so nominated to be an elder. We haven’t seen him
in a while, and maybe if we nominate him elder and he gets elected,
he’ll start coming to church again. I swear to you, that’s
what was said. And I, 26 years of age, had a
healthy heart, but I think I was, about to have it pop out of my
chest cavity. I couldn’t believe what I was
hearing. And friends, so often, so often we don’t look for what
is spiritual in the church. It’s so-and-so’s turn. We gotta
have the numbers. We got to have people. But as Jesus so well knew on
this night up on the mountain in prayer, he knew in his mind,
oh Lord God, maker of heaven and earth. This is your church
you are building. This is the church of the living
God. This is the household of faith, the pillar and buttress
of truth. This is going to be the outpost
of heaven, the new Israel. And as a man on a mission, Jesus
on his knees up on that mountain all night begged the heavenly
father, give me men who love Jesus. Give me men who love his
appearing. Give me men who love his gospel,
love his law, love his grace, love his mercy, love his ways. For as a man on a mission, no
other prayer could be more important than what he gave to the father
that night on his knees. He carefully. He prayerfully
selected men who would preach, who would teach, who would write,
who would speak, who would act on behalf of the ascended Christ,
who would soon be back in glory. But we, as he says in his great
commission, would be his witnesses from Jerusalem, from Judea and
to Samaria and even to the ends of the earth. And so he goes
on a mountain to pray all night. Jesus is a man on a mission.
We see next in this passage, men on a mission, you read their
names. Some of you can probably recall
in the backs of your minds, the little rhyme that you learn in
Sunday school about Simon, Peter, Andrew, James’s brother, John,
uh, you, you, you know, the song, but, but Jesus, Jesus had to
pick 12. He did it through prayer. Who would you pick? Would you
pick a zealot? Would you pick a tax collector?
Would you pick four, five, six fishermen? Would you pick a trader? Would you choose men from Galilee? Oh no, we, well, you just look
at how we pick elders in the history of the church. We pick
the doctors and the lawyers. We pick the educated. We pick
the influencers. We pick the wealthy. We pick
those with a pedigree. Oh, not Jesus. He just picks
those who are faithful. He chooses those who are willing
and ready and already serving. He picks those who are teachable,
those who are humble. He picks those who have had a
real heartfelt experience. They have tasted and seen that
the Lord Jesus is good. And so after a night of prayer
on his knees, he chooses 12 Well, ordinary men. Jesus 12
oddballs, 12 people we wouldn’t pick. Their pedigree doesn’t
work. Their hometown isn’t right. They’ve got the wrong color blue
on their sports college shirt. It just doesn’t fit. It doesn’t match. This makes
not a lick of sense. But Jesus selects from among
his disciples. He picked A doubter. He picked a skeptic. He picked
a hot tempered man. He picked a group of men with
all of their weaknesses, physical and spiritual. He picked men
whom the Holy Spirit over time would work in and would change
and would use as the writer of Acts. Well, Luke. These men. turned the world upside down.
They would take the gospel from Galilee. They would take it from
Jerusalem. They would take it from Judea.
They would take it from Samaria and they would begin to take
it to the ends of the earth. We read through that in the Acts
of the Apostles. We are personally feeling the wonderful effects
of their labor this day. I mentioned earlier, I believe
in the pastoral prayer, the image that the Apostle Paul gives in
His letters to the Corinthians. We have these treasures in jars
of clay, these earthen pots. That’s what he says we are. We’re
clay pots. We’re not the fancy ones, you
know, that got the spode stamp on them from England. Not the
not the fancy ones you might buy at the pottery shop. Now,
these are the wacky ones. You know, you go down south of
here to they still call it Jugtown and you get the you get the earthen
pottery. It’s a little rougher, maybe
not fit for table use. And what the apostle Paul says
in his letter to the Corinthians, we are like these common pots,
these common vessels. But in them, God has put his
treasure and that treasure is the gospel. And so as these apostles,
these sent ones who would speak and write and Teach and preach
and heal and minister in the name of God. We, in a sense,
we’re not we’re not apostles, we understand, but we have been
sent by God into the world with the Great Commission. We are
weak. We are not impressive on the
world stage. Yet in these jars of clay, God
has seen fit. to put his treasure, the gospel,
the glory of Jesus. And so as we minister in his
name, we remember that the world may look down upon us. We may
be weak and frail, but God chooses in each of us to put his glorious
gospel. You know, the ministry of the
church that we enjoy now, it’s 2000 years past chapter six of
Luke. but we stand on the shoulders
of the shoulders of the shoulders of the shoulders who stood on
the shoulders of the apostles. We, we, we look back to their
apostolic ministry. We look back to their labor and
we stand on their shoulders centuries down human history. And we ought
to recognize that because of Jesus prayer, The gospel entrusted
to faithful men, the gospel put in these treasures of jars of
clay of Peter and Andrew and James and so on into our pots,
our clay jars. Jesus has entrusted this gospel.
And we sit here today because faithful men, faithful women,
faithful people throughout the centuries have seen this treasure
and put it in their jars and had the dignity and the honor
and the blessing to serve and to carry forth this gospel to
the ends of the earth. So we see in this passage, Jesus
on a mission prayer, selecting some apostles. We see men on
a mission to carry the gospel into the world. But how about
you? How about First ARP, our mission? First of all, is it
bathed in prayer? Are we praying to the Lord of
heaven and earth? Give us men, give us leaders, give us folks
who love the Lord Jesus, who are taught and continuing to
be taught by the Lord Jesus, who desire the kingdom above
all else to carry this thing forward. And in our ordinariness, in our
averageness, that’s a new word, right? Are we faithful? Are we available? Are we are we here? Are we learning
and are we growing? Are we doing the work of the
church so that it’s obvious these these are the ones to carry it
on? This church will make it, we might say, because so and
so’s here and so and so’s here and so and so’s here. And as
they learn the gospel and they put their shoulder to the plow,
we can have pretty good confidence if the Lord blesses that this
church will continue because ordinary people blessed by Jesus
have come into this place and want to see the kingdom of Christ
come. That ought to be our prayer. That ought to be our heartbeat.
That ought to be our to-do list. May it be so, let us pray together.
Our Lord and God, we recognize that Out of every one of us who
sits here today, you have a place, a purpose, a use for us in your
kingdom, in your church. Lord, some of us do big things.
Some of us do more things. Some of us do quiet things. Some
of us do less things. Some of us can’t do what we used
to do, but we still want to do something. Every one of us wants
a part in your kingdom. Every one of us wants to participate
in your church. And sometimes it’s just, showing
up in our weakness and setting an example for keeping the Lord’s
Day. Sometimes it’s making sure Sunday
school happens. Sometimes it’s the music or the
the lights and the doors or the the lawn or. A family has what they need when
they are less fortunate. Lord, every single one of us,
as we come together, make up your body, the church. We want
to be an outpost of heaven, a witness to the glory of Christ. And so
we pray, Lord, for each of us who sits here today, that you
would, you would prick our hearts to be thankful, to be called,
to be your children, to be able to do something, but you would,
move in our hearts that we might do more, that we might, as we
pray, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in
heaven, we might be moved to say, what more could I do to
make this possible through the work of this church? Lord, may
it be said of us here at First ARP and little old Burlington
and insignificant North Carolina and this little part of the world,
may it be said of us, those people turned the world upside down. because they live and they preach
and they proclaim the gospel. For may it be so for your glory
and for the good of our neighbors. We pray all of this in the name
of the Lord Jesus who died for us. Amen.