Wednesday Night, July 22, 2020 PM

The Twelve Apostles and the Crowd Around Jesus

And chose twelve of them, whom he also named as apostles. Simon, whom he also 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, Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.

Jesus came down with them and stood on a level place, and there was a large crowd of his disciples and a great throng of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon, who had come to hear him and be healed of their diseases.

And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were being cured, and all the people were trying to touch him, for power was coming from him and healing them all. So in verse 12, we're told that he goes up the mountain and he spends the entire evening there in communion with his heavenly father.

And after this evening of prayer, he calls his disciples to him. From them, he selects twelve to be his apostles. We talked about the nature of that term being more than a learner, more than a follower, but someone who functioned as an ambassador extraordinary, somebody who had all of the authority of the one they represented, no matter where they were going.

They were endowed with the authority of Christ himself. And Jesus gave the apostles to the church to help establish the church upon Jesus Christ, who is the cornerstone, and they are a gift to the beginning of his community, the church.

Jesus' Priority to Preach the Kingdom of God

Now we come to his communication as we consider how it is that Jesus is ministering in verses 17 through 19. He descends from the mountain and he finds a convenient place to stop. The level space, the level place that it speaks of there has the idea of a footpath at a level part of the descent.

So coming down the mountain at some point, there's a level area where a footpath is running.

Along.

And obviously this is where the crowd of disciples who had not been picked as apostles had gathered in waiting for their rabbi to come down. Anyone traveling in from the coast, the northwest coast where Tyre and Sidon were located, or anybody traveling up from the capital of Jerusalem from the south coming into Capernaum looking for Jesus of Nazareth, all they had to do is ask, where's the crowd?

Where's the crowd? And everybody would kind of know, the last time I saw the crowd it was over here, the last time I saw the crowd it was over there, and people would just mill about until they saw the crowd.

And they'd go, ah, well that's where Jesus is, and people would just gather around. So we have this ensemble coming down the mountain, joining up with the choir of disciples while a larger congregation is coming up and gathering around them.

So it's quite a gathering. And it's important to remember that these verses happen just before a major section of Christ's teaching. The balance of Luke 6 is going to be a compilation of some of the very same materials that we have in Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7.

It could very well be the same occasion, but it's definitely the same thing. As we look at the differences and the similarities between Matthew's account and Luke's account, it's possible it's the same occasion, but it's definitely the same thing.

And Jesus was known, like any good preacher, to use teaching material and stories more than once. So it's okay. If I tell the same story twice, I'm just being like Jesus. So I won't push my luck with preaching the same sermon twice in a decade, but I have been tempted.

So what is his message? These people are coming from Tyre and Sidon. They're coming from Jerusalem to Capernaum just to hear Jesus teach. What are they expecting to hear? What are they hoping to hear?

Luke 4, verses 36 through 37 tells us that Jesus' authoritative, power-filled message was spreading out to all the district, and apparently beyond, if Tyre and Sidon and Jerusalem have heard of his message, and they want to come hear what Christ has to say, Jesus had made his priority clear.

In Luke 4, he says, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also, for I was sent.

For this purpose.

So Jesus refused to stay too long in a given place, even though there were many needs. There were people there who were crippled, people there who were in great need. Some of them were demon-possessed and so on.

And Jesus could have stayed in one area for a very long time, fixing everybody. But he said, I've got to move on. I've got to go to the next city and preach the gospel there also, and he said that was his priority.

The Same Gospel of the Kingdom in Synagogue and on the Mountain

So let's think about the message that he's preaching, since he has made this his priority. I think there's an important connection between what Jesus preaches in the synagogues and what he's about to preach on the mountain.

It's going to be the same kind of message. He's not going to have one message full of truths for the synagogue and then have a different set of truths and a different set of ideas out on the mountain.

He may apply things differently, but it's going to be the same message, the same truth that he's preaching. It's the same gospel of the kingdom. And so I think we need to remember that, first of all. So before we get into Luke 6, verse 20 and following, before we get into Luke's version of the Sermon on the Mount, I think it would be helpful to remember what Jesus has been preaching in the synagogues thus far.

And when we go back to Luke chapter 4 and verse 16, we have Jesus going to his hometown, Nazareth, and on the Sabbath, as was his custom, he went into the synagogue to worship, and he was asked to read the scripture and to comment on it, and so he did.

And so in Luke chapter 4 and verse 16, And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and as was his custom, he entered the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read. And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him, and he opened the book and found the place where it was written, 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, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. And he closed the book and gave it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.

And he began to say to them, Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. And they began to say all sorts of wonderful things about him until he began to make application of the text in which he called them to repentance.

And then they tried to throw him off a cliff. The things that he read out of Isaiah and applied concerning himself, he was trying to say this, that he as the Messiah came as the fulfillment of this text.

Today, this has been fulfilled in your hearing. How is that possible? Because he was there in their midst. He was there proclaiming the truths of God as the Messiah. He was actually declaring the arrival of jubilee, a jubilee in him, a freedom of debts, a coming into the inheritance that God had always promised.

How?

Through Christ. He promised deliverance, assured deliverance, all because of his person and his work. And then he gave blessings to some and rebukes to others, and the same thing will happen in Luke 6.

There will be blessings for some and rebukes for others. And the people who heard him teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath in Luke 4 .32, at a different synagogue, they said they were amazed at his teaching for his message was with authority.

Well, that's still the same motivation they have for coming to hear him teach and preach. They had all the best rabbis in Jerusalem. They had the priests. They had the scribes in Jerusalem. They had the temple in Jerusalem.

Why would they leave Jerusalem and go out and hear Jesus of Nazareth preach? For the same reason they went out to hear John the Baptist. All of Jerusalem came out to hear John the Baptist preach, because there was a difference.

There was something unique, there was something important and vital and edifying and fruitful in the teaching and the preaching of John the Baptist, and all the more so in the preaching and teaching of Jesus Christ.

So as we see this, we should rejoice in the Son of Man for his faithful exposition of God's truth. Every time we are reading about how Jesus Christ takes up the Word of God and declares its truth, we should just rejoice.

He is the master teacher. He is the perfect preacher. When he takes up the Word of God and says, this is what it means, we should just rejoice that we're given such clear, concise, beautiful, impactful, life-giving exposition of God's.

Word.

Christ as the New and Final Lawgiver

He comes as the Son of Man. People know that he teaches with authority, not like the scribes. He had real power behind his words. He revealed himself as the Son of Man. He has authority on earth to forgive sins.

He's the Lord of the Sabbath. When he preaches, he does so as the official interpreter of the scriptures. He's come to make all things new, as we read at the end of Luke 5. He's the consolation of Israel, as the true Israel, and so we are to rejoice in the Son of Man.

But also, as we think about Jesus Christ coming down from the mountain, ready to give the definitive meaning of God's law, as he's ready to establish what life in the kingdom is all about, as he's ready to describe life in the new covenant, in what role is he functioning.

Here?

The one that fulfills the shadow that Moses cast, or the shadow that Moses played. When Moses came down out of the mountain, how did he come? He came with the law of God, and he came with the stipulations of the covenant.

He came down the mountain to say, thus saith the Lord, this is what the law means, here's now how you shall live. When Jesus came down out of the mountain, he came forward and he said, this is the law of God, here's now how you shall live.

The similarities are very striking. Exodus 34, verse 29, it came about when Moses was coming down from Mount Sinai, and the two tablets of the testimony were in Moses' hands, as he was coming down from the mountain, that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because of his speaking with him, capital H.

Moses spent time with God, was talking with God, and as he came down with the tablets to talk about the covenant with the people, he's glowing because he was in the presence of God. And so, we see that in comparison, yet in contrast, Jesus Christ himself is God.

He didn't just spend time with God that night, he himself is God. He is the Son of God in human flesh, and he displayed the power of God and the authority of God in ways that Moses never attained. So we are to rejoice in the Son of Man, who is the new and the final lawgiver, and why?

Because he was the original lawgiver. It says in Exodus that when Moses met with God, that God inscribed himself personally, inscribed the law on the stone tablets. I thought the Bible says that no man can see God and live.

I thought the Bible said that God dwells in inapproachable light, and no man has seen God at any time. Well, that's true. So how did God reveal himself over and over again throughout the Bible, throughout the Old Testament?

He revealed himself through the one mediator between God and man, who is Christ. He's always been the mediator. He's always been the mediator, and when God appears in bodily form in ways that people can understand and see and even be impacted by his touch, like Jacob wrestling with God all night long.

Who was he wrestling with? This is Christ before the Incarnation. So in this we see the superiority of Christ, but we see the similarities as well. We also see another reason to rejoice in the Son of Man.

The Son of David, the New Temple, and the New Covenant People

Who is coming to hear Christ, to receive from Christ healing and deliverance? Who is coming? Well, all of Israel, but Gentiles, people are coming from Tyre and Sidon. Why are they coming from Tyre and Sidon?

I think it's worth meditating on what the ancient king of Tyre and Sidon had to say about the Son of David. When Hiram heard, Hiram was the king of Tyre and Sidon. When Hiram heard the words of Solomon, he rejoiced greatly, 1 Kings 5, 7, he rejoiced greatly and said, blessed be the Lord today who has given to David a wise son over this great people.

You see, Hiram had heard that the Son of David had purposed to build a new temple, replacing the old tabernacle, and he rejoiced greatly. So would not then those coming from Hiram's old haunts have much more reason to rejoice in the Son of David who had come to make all things new, who had come to build a new temple replacing the old?

And wouldn't Jesus follow his own building code? He would follow his own building code, wouldn't he? Notice his building code at the end of Luke 6. How are you supposed to build something? Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say?

Verse 46, end of Luke 6, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say? Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and acts on them, I will show you what he is like. He is like a man building a house who dug deep and laid a foundation on the rock.

And when a flood occurred, the torrent burst against the house and could not shake it because it had been well built. But the one who has heard and not acted accordingly is like a man who built a house on the ground without any foundation, and the torrent burst against it and immediately it collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great.

Now, Jesus, the temple he came to build was built upon a rock, a strong foundation. And what rock does the scripture say that Jesus Christ builds the temple upon? Himself. He is the chief cornerstone.

And the prophets and the apostles constitute the rest of the foundation. Jesus Christ is the cornerstone, and then what are we called? Living stones, and we are being built up as a temple of God, right?

And this is the temple that Jesus Christ said that he came to build, and he is, as the son of David, doing so, and so we can rejoice that someone greater than Moses and someone greater than Solomon has come, and his message is, in fact, very good news.

Isaiah's Vision, the Nations, and the Healing of the World

So many, many people are coming to hear his message, and we have reason to rejoice in that, but also we can consider his ministry. It is interesting how much Isaiah features thus far in the gospel of Luke, and we kind of see that here as well.

People from all over the region, Jew and Gentile, are coming. People are coming up from Judea and Jerusalem, even though they have the best so-called teachers there, the best of the best of the Jewish religion there in Jerusalem, why would they ever need to go anywhere else?

But they are coming up to see Jesus. And men from the island of Tyre and the coast of Sidon, they are coming. They are coming to hear and to be healed and to be delivered by God's promised one. And it's interesting that as we watch Christ move about and we see this great crowd moving with him, who is in the crowd?

Well, there's certainly Jews, but there's also Gentiles. There are those who are acceptable Jews and those who are Hellenized Jews and not so acceptable, and there are people who used to be lepers but aren't anymore, and there are people that are former tax collectors and former prostitutes and so on and so forth, and there's just big crowds always around Jesus, wherever he goes.

There he goes, there goes the crowd. He tries to move ahead of them, and they just follow him. They anticipate him going across the Sea of Galilee sometimes. He gets in a boat to go across the Sea of Galilee, and they run around and catch him on the other side.

Isn't that interesting? It's interesting that Jesus Christ defines that the new covenant is in his body, in his blood, as his body is broken and his blood is shed for us. And what does that mean? Where was the old covenant?

It was in the Ark. Remember the Ark of the Covenant? It carried the covenant. What was the covenant? What was inside the Ark? Anybody remember what was inside the Ark? Ten Commandments. Ten Commandments and the, what else?

Aaron's rod that blossomed and then it bloomed and then you had the bowl of manna. The Ark of the Covenant. Why was it the Ark of the Covenant? Well, it was the Ark of the Covenant because it was the box in which the covenant was carried around.

And it symbolized the covenant as it has the mercy seat on top of it. And wherever that Ark of the Covenant went, who went with it? The people of the old covenant. When that Ark set out, they put a shroud over it, they blew the trumpets, and off it went and there went the pillar of cloud and then all the people of the old covenant followed after the Ark of the Covenant wherever it went.

And then where it sat down, they sat down and gathered around it, didn't they? Everywhere they went, all the way through the wilderness. And look here, here's the Ark of the Covenant, the new covenant, his name is Jesus Christ.

And everywhere he goes, bearing the covenant in his own body and blood, everywhere he goes, the crowd goes with him wherever they go, wherever they go. And look, a new people of God is being shaped and formed here.

People from all over. Well, this is prophetic fulfillment. Isaiah 42, verses 9 through 12, behold, the former things have come to pass. Now I declare new things. This is the same as the end of Luke 5.

Before they spring forth, I proclaim them to you. Sing to the Lord a new song. Sing his praise from the end of the earth. You who go down to the sea and all that is in it, you islands and those who dwell on.

Them.

Let the wilderness and its cities lift up their voices. The settlements where Kadar inhabits. Let the inhabitants of Selah sing aloud. Let them shout for joy from the tops of the mountains. Let them give glory to the Lord and declare his praise in the coastlands.

The Lord will go forth like a warrior. He will arouse his zeal like a man of war. He will utter a shout. He will raise a war cry. He will prevail against his enemies. As you know, the islands and the coastlands are even following after the Lord, you know, like Tyre and Sidon.

But what are these enemies over which the Messiah triumphs? Well, deception, disease, devils, and death. And so he teaches the truth and proves that he has the right understanding of the word of God. But he also has power over the diseases that are afflicting these people and bringing them to the brink of death.

And he casts out the unclean spirits. Every single enemy that Christ encounters, he has victory over time and time again. And so we see that the son of man anointed by the Holy Spirit has power flowing out from him so much so that the people, all they have to do, they know all they have to do is crowd around him and touch him and they're going to be healed.

Isn't that amazing? That's amazing. I remember the story out of Mark where Christ had gone over and he had a healed legion. He had a legion of demons in him and he told him he had to stay there and proclaim the gospel to his neighbors and friends.

You stay here. And then Jesus left. But then later on he came back and everybody knew who he was.

Why?

Well, you know, the man who put his mind right told everybody about Jesus. You know, you know if your mind's right if you tell everybody about Jesus. And so all these people start pouring in from the countryside and Jesus just walks into the midst of them and everyone's just trying to touch the hem of his garment and they're all just getting healed.

This is another one of those stories. All people are just trying to touch him for power was flowing from him, coming from him and healing them all. Just who is this son of man? Have we ever, have we considered well enough the vision that we have in Revelation 22, 1 through 2?

Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb. Now, what is the river of the water of life? What did Jesus call the river of the water of life?

What did he say that was? The Holy Spirit. John 7. He called the Holy Spirit the water, the river of the water of life. And he even offered the Holy Spirit to the Samaritan woman. I will give you everlasting life.

The water of eternal life. So if you're wondering where the Trinity is in Scripture, then just look here. Here is Revelation 22, verse 1. There's the river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb.

Now what happens here? In the middle of its street, in the middle of the street of the New Jerusalem, on either side of the river was the tree of life bearing 12 kinds of fruit. You know, the tree by the river of water.

You know, what happens in Psalm 1? It bears fruit in its season. It's great for a tree to be planted by a river of water because it gets all of its water, it gets all of its nutrients and everything, and so this is a very prosperous tree, isn't.

It?

Well, this tree of life gets all of its nutrients and all of its bounty from where? From the river of the water of life. And look, it bears 12 kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. Now watch this, and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

So what a preview of all things put right when you look at Jesus Christ here in Luke and all the nations, all these different people are crowding around, coming to the Son of Man who is the Lamb, and they're coming to Him.

He has been baptized by John the Baptist and the Holy Spirit has come down upon Him and anointed Him and empowered Him, and the power of God is flowing through Christ for the healing of the nations. So this is why we should rejoice in the Son of Man.

We see here in His ministry just a glimpse, just a glimpse of all that lies ahead so we can rejoice in the Son of Man for these and, of course, many other reasons. Any questions or comments before we turn our attention to some prayer?

All right, well, who can we pray for tonight?