Twelve Ordinary Men (8/27/2023)

Jesus Commissions the Twelve in Matthew 10

Go ahead and turn to the gospel of Matthew chapter 10. Matthew chapter 10 begins with Jesus commissioning his disciples. And you know how in the morning service, I have been doing sort of like a three minute overview of each of the 12 disciples of Christ, who they were and what they were like.

And I'll say it again, the best book I've read on the subject is 12 Ordinary Men written by Pastor John MacArthur. So I'm just gonna borrow that title for this sermon. So the sermon is titled 12 Ordinary Men.

Because if you look at it, most of the biblical characters, including the 12 disciples, I mean, these guys are average people, ordinary people. Most of the biblical characters are ordinary, but at least with these guys, they were called to a extra ordinary task.

So let's begin reading in Matthew 10, starting in verse one. It says, and when he had called his 12 disciples to him, he gave them power over unclean spirits to cast them out and to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease.

Now the names of the 12 apostles are these, first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew, the tax collector, James, the son of Alphaeus, and Labaius, whose surname was Thaddeus, Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him.

These 12, Jesus sent out and commanded them, saying, do not go into the way of the Gentiles and do not enter a city of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as you go, preach, saying, the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

And now skip ahead to verse 16. Jesus says to them, behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves, but beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in their synagogues.

And you will be brought before governors and kings for my sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, do not worry about how or what you should speak, for it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak.

For it is not you who speak, but the spirit of your father who speaks in you. And may God add a blessing to the reading of his word. So you see that the apostles, in many ways, they were speaking for Christ.

They spoke the very words that God gave them. So who are these men? Well, like the title says, 12 ordinary men. And let's face it, most Christians today, we're pretty ordinary, aren't we? We're average, ordinary people, but the mission and the message that we have been given, it is anything but ordinary.

So we, like them, we have been called to be witnesses in this world. We who bear the name of Christ, when somebody says, what do you believe? Or what is your religion? What do you say? Or what is your faith?

You say, I am a Christian. So you bear the name of Christ. We are, in many ways, just like they are, or were, we are the Lord's representatives. And the message that we've been given is both life-changing and world-changing.

Disciples and Apostles: Students and Official Messengers

So I want to spend some time in this message looking at these men, the 12 disciples. Or are they called the 12 apostles? Which is it? Let's settle this right from the start. Is it the 12 disciples or the 12 apostles?

Apostles. No, I say, the answer I was expecting was yes, right? That's what Larry always says to the answer, yes, right? Well, it's both, because we see this in verse one, Jesus called his 12 disciples to him.

But then in verse two, they're called apostles. So disciples and apostles. So basically, you could say that all the apostles were disciples, but not all the disciples were apostles. Let me explain that.

The Greek word translated disciple is mathetes, and it refers to someone who is a student, right? A disciple is someone who learns from the teacher. So Jesus was their rabbi. He was their teacher. They are his pupils.

They are his students. They are his disciples. Here's the thing that a lot of people miss. Jesus had more than 12 disciples. Jesus had a lot of disciples. But out of that larger group, which there's at least 70 different men, because Jesus sent out 70 at one point.

So out of that larger group of disciples, Jesus chose 12 men to be apostles. He ordained them into the ministry as apostles. Now, the word apostle in Greek, the word is apostolos, and it refers to an official messenger, something like an ambassador, right?

When the United States or a country sends an ambassador to a foreign nation, they represent the president, or they are official representatives of the prime minister or the king. So that's who the apostles were.

They are official representatives of Jesus Christ. Therefore, when Jesus died, he rose again. He ascended into heaven. Who's in charge of the church? Well, the apostles were left in charge of the church.

Now you would think, and what you know about the apostles so far, what we've talked about, you would think in establishing his church, Jesus would choose the most skilled and highly educated people available.

Isn't that what a lot of people would think? If you're trying to build something great that's gonna have an impact in the world, or certainly in business, this is what you do. You find the most skilled people and the most highly educated people.

But with Jesus, it's like he did the opposite in some ways. Instead of choosing the highly educated, who did he choose? Bunch of fishermen. Now it's not to say that fishermen couldn't be educated. I mean, today, you know, I guess they could be, but back then that's just not the way it was.

God Uses the Foolish Things of the World

Let's turn to 1 Corinthians chapter one. 1 Corinthians chapter one gives us some insight, but the first four apostles mentioned and the most significant of the group are the four fishermen, Peter, Andrew, James, and John.

And there's this story in the book of Acts when Peter and John stand in front of the Jewish council, where these men were all, you know, PhDs or the equivalent back then. They were educated men and rulers of the nation.

When Peter and John stand before them, they realized like these are a bunch of, you know, fools. That's what they thought. These are average, ordinary, uneducated men. But at the same time, it says they realized they were with Jesus.

You know, that's what matters the most. You know, when a person breathes their last breath, all of those degrees, and we're not against education, but all of those degrees aren't going to do you any good in the afterlife.

What matters is, do you know Jesus? Are you walking with Jesus? But that's how the Jews generally, at least the leadership, that's how they viewed the apostles as not just ordinary. These men are foolish.

They are uneducated. So these are the men that Jesus chose. And not only did he choose men the world viewed as foolish, Jesus also chose a message that the world would view as foolish and hard to believe.

Look at 1 Corinthians 1, verse 18. What does it say? For the message of the cross is what? Foolishness. Foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. For it is written, and then he quotes Isaiah 29, where the Lord says, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.

So are we starting to see the reason why Jesus chose these 12 working class men? I think we just saw it, right? I will destroy, God says, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise. So basically the world works one way, but God is showing that he works a very different way.

So the people of the world, and you know this today, the average person just living their life, they have no time for God. They don't think they need God. They don't care about what scripture says. They think, many of them think they know better than God.

Matter of fact, there's a lot of preachers who think they know better than God. But by choosing these men, fishermen, average, ordinary men, the Lord is saying, no, you're the fool, and I'm gonna prove it by using them.

God was going to conquer the world with the gospel by ordaining 12 average, ordinary men. Look at verse 20. He's overturning the world system. He says, where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age?

Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? Now, they look at us this way, don't they? And I'm just gonna use this as like the classic example. When you go to the public school or you go to college, university, they all believe in this thing called the Big Bang and evolution.

Now, I don't deny that there was a Big Bang when God created the universe. I mean, that may be true. I question how long ago it was maybe, but when it comes to evolution and they find out that we as Christians believe what?

That God created man in his own image? Like Adam's ancestors were not chimpanzees, okay? God created man, a special creation made in the image of God. We reject evolution. I say we, because I'm speaking on behalf of Morris Corner Church.

This is the position of not only this church, but of all evangelical Christianity. I realize there's probably some people, at least one or two sitting here this morning where maybe you do believe in some sort of theistic evolution.

Well, it's just not in the Bible. You didn't get that idea from the Bible, certainly. But the point is they look at us as though we're a bunch of fools, why? Because we believe in a God who created man in his own image.

What do they believe? Well, there was some time that existed where there was no life, and then somehow life came into existence in a single cell organism, and that developed, long story short, developed into a fish.

The fish walked out on water, became a monkey. I know it's more sophisticated than that, but essentially that's what they say, that man evolved from a common primate. We look at that as foolish, don't we?

That's crazy. Life just came into existence out of nowhere for no reason, and man was once a single, no, see, we view that as crazy and foolish, but they view us as foolish. So it's just two systems, God's system and the world's system.

The two, it's like oil and water. But God is using the preaching of this book, okay, which has never been proven false. It's never been shown to have contradictions, despite what some people say. God has used this book to shape the entire Western world, if not all the earth.

So who has the power? God has the power and he is overturning the world system and he is using ordinary people to do it. And that's kind of a statement, right? Because if God was using, you know, princes and kings and world rulers and the highly educated and the most skilled people, they could kind of claim some of the glory for themselves because they're so impressive.

But, you know, how impressive was Matthew? Think about it. We're in the gospel of Matthew. How impressive was Matthew? He really wasn't that impressive. His sins were impressive in the sense that, wow, he probably did a lot of things wrong, but these are average, ordinary people.

Also, when Jesus was born, Jesus was born in, essentially he was born in poverty. Jesus was born to a humble family. And during his ministry, he said he had no place to lay his head. Look at verse 21, 1 Corinthians 1, 21.

For since in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. It says, for the Jews request a sign, that is they request miracles.

The Greeks seek after wisdom, but we, we preach Christ crucified, which is to the Jews, a stumbling block. Like this is really hard to believe that God would allow the Messiah, the King to die this way.

So to the Jews, it's a stumbling block and to the Greeks, it's what? Foolishness. Foolishness. But to those who are called, who is called? Peter, James, John, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Matthew. And you know, you could go on.

Are you called? Have you been called by God? Are you saved? Are you serving the Lord? Then you have been called as well. But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Can you give a witness to that? That Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Amen. Amen. Because the foolishness of God, verse 25, is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

And you know, that's more, it's always been true, but it seems more true now than ever. I mean, you look at the world and the things the world is saying and doing, and wow, that's foolishness. It's crazy, the things the world is doing.

So the Bible, once again, is right. So in choosing 12 ordinary men, God was making a statement. To the rulers of this age, to those who opposed the Lord, yeah, this is sort of a slap in the face that he would choose these fishermen.

It's sort of like, oh, you think you're so wise? Well, I'm going to change the world and I'm gonna choose the most unlikely people to do it. And 1 ,900 years later, the Christian church, what? Established on every single continent, it's in every single nation, and the writing of this book, the Holy Scriptures, do you realize this book is the bedrock of Western civilization?

This is why they're trying so hard to do away with the teachings of scripture, because they want those foundations to crumble so they can build up something new. But the Bible, guess what? The Bible ain't going away.

The word of the Lord endures forever. They cannot do anything about it. And just, I don't want to get sidetracked on this, but there's talk now about how mask orders and lockdowns and all the stuff that happened in 2020 might start back up again this fall.

And whatever the motivations are behind all that, you know, that's another sermon for another day. But we know there are people plotting, even if it was all by accident, you know there are people who would use that to further a godless agenda, right?

Well, you know what? It's gonna fail. It's gonna backfire. It might not backfire this year, I don't know, but I do know that their plans will fail. Psalm chapter two, why did the nations rage, right? Why did the heathen rage?

Why did the people plot a vain thing? It says they conspire together. The rulers of this world conspire together against the Lord and against his anointed. And they want to break off the bands and they want to live however they want to live.

And they don't want God telling them what to do. It's all gonna fail. It's gonna backfire. So if you're worried about what's gonna happen this fall or next year, hey, God is in control. That's not just something we say, it's actually true.

So we need to trust in the Lord. But God chooses the simple people of the world to accomplish his will. So another reason why God chose men like Peter, Peter was a simple man, right? Fisherman, John was a simple man.

He chose simple men, I think, because in some ways they're preaching a simple message. Do you realize that the Christian gospel is a pretty simple message? Now the Bible is so deep, it's so complex that you could spend the rest of your life studying scripture and never really dig down to the depths of it all.

But it's at the same time, so simple to understand, a child can get the message. So I think he chose common men because in some ways we're preaching a simple message. What is the message of the gospel?

And this is something I try to have in every sermon, at least mention it in passing, if not expound upon it. Why are we here? What is this message that God has given to us? It's the message of Jesus Christ.

It's the gospel. Well, what is that? Well, it's been summarized this way. The Romans Road, you've probably heard of the Romans Road. It goes something like this. This is the simple message that the apostles were given.

This is the simple message that I have been tasked to preach. Romans 3 .23 says, "'For all have sinned and have come short "'of the glory of God.'". And that's you and that's me. We have all fallen short of God's glory.

So the word of God teaches us that because of our sin, we are separated from God. And the penalty for sin is what? Death. Romans 6 .23 says, "'For the wages of sin is death, "'but the gift of God is eternal life "'in Christ Jesus, our Lord.'".

But praise God that penalty for sin was paid by who? Jesus Christ himself. You can't do enough good works to earn a place in heaven. Romans 5 .8 says that, "'God demonstrates his own love toward us "'in that while we were still sinners, "'Christ died for us.'".

You know, you hear this and you say that we tell people, God loves you, right? And this is the message of scripture. God so loved the world. But how do you really know that? Because we look around at a world where there's sin and there's suffering and there's pain and there's agony and people die.

Everybody dies. How do we know that God loves us? Well, this is how we know. He sent his only son into the world while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. So scripture teaches that if we would repent and trust in Jesus Christ as our Lord and savior, we will be saved from sin and its penalty.

Romans 10 .9 and 13 says, "'If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus "'and believe in your heart "'that God has raised him from the dead, "'you will be saved.'". And the word saved means deliverance.

You will be delivered from the penalty of sin. We will be delivered from the judgment. "'For whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord "'shall be saved.'". You know how easy it is to be saved? Say, Lord, I know I'm a sinner.

Please forgive me. I believe Jesus died and rose again. Please save me. I want to spend eternity with you in heaven. Just believing that and calling upon God to save you, it's that simple. But this is the message the apostles were given.

In the ministry of both John the Baptist and Jesus, it was sort of summarized with this statement, "'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'". And of course, Peter, James, and John, they preached that as well.

So when the Jews heard that, they would have thought, oh, the kingdom is at hand, they would have thought, well, how do I gain entrance into this kingdom? Because the problem is how they were living, right?

The problem of gaining entrance into the kingdom, the problem of getting to heaven is what people believe in rejecting the Lord and how they live, which, again, is more evidence of their rejection of God.

So when we say repentance, when Jesus said repentance, it means a change of mind. You know, you wanted to live one way? Now you want to turn and live a different way. You are following your own plan, doing your own thing.

It's my life, I'll do what I want. And then you change your mind. You say, I wanna follow Jesus Christ. That's repentance. It's a change of mind. And then eventually, a sincere change of mind will lead to a change of behavior.

And then you get into sanctification, where the Lord will give us the desire and the power to get victory over sin. For some people, that takes a long time. Some people, it's a little quicker. You see that more.

But it's a lifelong process of overcoming temptation and sin. Overall, though, this is a pretty simple message. Did you understand everything that I just said? I mean, if you don't, feel free to come and talk to me afterwards.

But I think most people, even unbelievers really understand that basic message. So the point being, the Lord chose 12 simple men so that they could communicate a simple message, because the people they were preaching to were what?

Simple. And we're all, for the most part, average, ordinary people. Look at 1 Corinthians 11 .26. The apostle Paul says, "'For you see your calling.'". One more point to bring out in this. "'For you see your calling, brethren, "'that not many wise according to the flesh, "'not many mighty, not many noble are called, "'but God has chosen the foolish things of this world "'to put to shame the wise, "'and God has chosen the weak things of the world "'to put to shame the things which are mighty, "'and the base things of the world.'".

That is, those things that seem to be nothing or totally insignificant. God has chosen those things, the things that are despised. Why did God do that? So that no flesh should glory in his presence. By doing it this way, by choosing these men, it ensures that who gets all the glory?

Peter, James, John? No, again, the world viewed them as uneducated, foolish, whatever. Who gets all the glory? When it's all said and done, God gets the glory. So the Lord uses simple people preaching a simple message.

Thanks be to God. Okay, now let's turn back to Matthew chapter 10. And you know, by choosing average people, it sort of gives us some hope too, doesn't it? You say, well, you know, what can I really do for God?

Well, look at what these guys did. Now, me and you, or you and I, we're not gonna do the same things, presumably that we're not gonna accomplish as much as Peter or John, but if God can use them, he can use us.

So why choose a guy like Peter? And Peter was the leader, or at least the spokesman of the 12. The only talent that Peter had was what? You know, speaking up when he should remain quiet, really. That was his main talent.

Peter was very impulsive. Peter is often described as the apostle with the foot-shaped mouth. So that was his talent. James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother. They had hot tempers, which is likely why Jesus chose the nickname Boanerges, which means sons of thunder.

So these guys are a bunch of hotheads. That's what they were known for. And then you look at the other men. Matthew chapter 10, verse three mentions Philip. Well, how much do we know about Philip? Not a lot.

And also Bartholomew. You know, sometimes you wonder if the Bible doesn't say anything about these men because there's just not that much to say. If you ever had one of those days, maybe it's a average, ordinary day at work, and you get home and your spouse asks you, hey, how was your day?

What did you do? And you're like, I don't know what to say. It was pretty common. I just don't have anything to report. Sorry, it wasn't that interesting. Sometimes I wonder if that's why not much is said about these guys because yeah, what are you going to say?

Verse three, it mentions Thomas. And what do we know about Thomas? What's the thing that stands out about him? He denied the Lord, right? He didn't believe in the resurrection or he doubted the resurrection.

How would you like being known for that, for all of history? And then Matthew and the detail we see about Matthew is that he's a great sinner. He's a tax collector. So he's some corrupt guy who basically betrayed his own nation.

Great, that's a great choice for apostle, don't you think? So these are sort of the last people you would expect Jesus to choose, which really is a wonderful display of the grace of God. I'm not going to say it's God having a sense of humor.

I don't know that that's it, but it's a display of God's grace. Again, if he can use them, he can use us. Men that are so ordinary and clearly flawed, it gives us hope. The next apostle on the list is James, the son of Alpheus.

And how would you like being known that, here's what people know about you. He's that guy's kid. That's what you know, he's his son, okay? Then there's Thaddeus or Lebeus. He's again, sometimes known as the apostle with three names because his actual name was Judas.

So he's called Judas, not Iscariot, which is an odd way to refer to someone. So like, well, he's, yeah, this is Judas. Well, not that Judas, you know, it's just. But he goes by this other name, Lebeus, which some commentators say it's a nickname, which means something along the lines of mama's boy or heart child, you know, because he's real sensitive, you know.

And you can just imagine a group of 12 men. When a group of guys get together, what happens? You know, they're busting each other's chops. They're coming up with nicknames. They're picking on each other.

And I'm sure that's what happened amongst the 12. They have all their names, they call each other. And it was pretty normal bunch of men. And then verse four, Simon the Canaanite, also known as Simon the Zealot.

So the zealots were basically political extremists. So Matthew being a tax collector who worked with Rome, Simon being a zealot who wanted to overthrow Rome. You can imagine Simon probably wanted to knife Matthew at some point.

In his former life, he would have, at least. They probably would have a hard time getting along at first. But these are the men that Jesus chose. And then finally, last and certainly least, Judas Iscariot.

In all the places where the apostles are listed, Peter is always first. Judas is always last for good reason. He is the traitor. These were the men that Christ ordained who would forever change the world.

Jesus gave them a message. He gave them the power to perform signs and wonders, to heal the sick and to authenticate that message. They had this miraculous ability. So take all of that. What's the takeaway?

What's the application for us? Well, we stand in that same tradition of God using average, ordinary people. Every once in a while, it's reported that some rich, famous celebrity converts to Jesus. Who's heard of this, right?

Remember Kanye West converted to Christ and Bob Dylan converted to Christ, I think back in the 70s. I'm not sure whatever happened with that. A lot of times though, when the famous people and the celebrities convert, and I'm not saying this is always the case, but a few years later, you look back and you're like, okay, well, that wasn't really real.

And I know Catholicism is different, but I remember Britney Spears said that she had converted to Catholicism. I think it was like within two weeks, she came out and said, no, nevermind, I'm an atheist.

So these are typically not the people that God calls to make a difference in the world. It's average, ordinary people. It's you and I. See, nobody's ever said, oh, what's so special about Pastor Mike?

Well, they don't ask that because there's nothing special about me. The only thing special that I have is the message. It's a special message. This is a special book. God has given us special revelation.

So really the only worthy thing I have to say is what the word of God says. There's always exceptions like the Apostle Paul. He really was a genius and a scholar, a leader in the nation of Israel. But you remember what he said?

I count that all garbage. It's all dung compared to the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus. So this is your calling. Average, ordinary people, but you have been called to spread an extraordinary message.

So are we doing that? You know, we have opportunity with our friends, our family members throughout the week to be a witness. Some people are better using their word. Some people are better using their works.

But when they see us, who should they see? They should be able to look past us and see who? Christ Jesus. Let's pray. And Heavenly Father, I just ask that you would give us more opportunities to be a witness to Christ.

And Lord, I thank you for his mercy, which was poured out in abundance. Lord, if there's one thing that's come out in this message, in this passage, it's that we're all unworthy, but you have chosen us.

And Lord, you chose us because you love us. So I just ask that you would give your word power, be with this church, be with each and every message, as we messenger, as we try to be faithful and live faithfully in this current age.

And Lord, if there's someone here who has never believed on Jesus Christ as their Lord and savior, I ask that you would change their heart, that they would today place their full trust in him. And we ask this in Christ's name, amen.