The Apostles of Jesus Christ (Part 1)

Thank you for listening to this message from the ministry of Morse Corner Church in Leverett, Massachusetts. Morse Corner is a non -denominational church that is committed to the preaching and teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our church was founded in 1896 by two students of the famous evangelist

D .L. Moody. We seek to encourage and edify the body of Christ through the proclamation of God's word through the ministries of the local church.

If you'd like more information, visit our website morsecornerchurch .com. We hope you enjoy the message.

2 Corinthians chapter 12. In this chapter, Paul is continuing to defend his ministry.

If you remember, starting in chapter 10 of 2 Corinthians, Paul, we believe, is shifting the focus.

Instead of addressing the church as a whole, which had made many improvements, now he seems to be more directing these things at the rebellious holdouts.

The false teachers, those who had been led astray by them. And what were they doing?

They were questioning Paul, questioning his motives, questioning his ministry. And part of that was questioning whether or not

Paul was actually a legitimate apostle. So they were questioning or undermining

Paul's apostolic ministry. And there were not only false teachers affecting the church at Corinth.

There were false apostles in or affecting the church at Corinth.

So that's what Paul calls them. You remember back in chapter 11, he calls them false apostles.

Well, take a wild guess what they were calling Paul. I mean, we don't have it recorded, but almost certainly they were saying the same thing about him.

So Paul calls them false apostles, and then they turn to Paul and say, No, he is the fraud.

He is the false apostle. So this is all Paul defending his ministry.

Now, we're going to break down this message into six points. You're probably used to a three -point outline, right?

That's normally what I would do, but this is going to be a six -point outline. Some of them will go fast, really fast, so don't worry about that.

So here are the points. Point number one. And this is not just Paul we're going to focus on. We're going to focus on the whole subject of the apostles.

What does it mean? Who were they? So point number one, what is an apostle? Point number two, who were the apostles?

Point number three, what were the qualifications for an apostle? Point number four, what were the signs of an apostle?

Point number five, what was the purpose of the signs? And then finally, number six, what does this mean for the church today?

What's the application for us? Well, let's pick up in verse 11. Again, Paul continues to defend his ministry.

And he's using, once again, a little bit of sarcasm to do it. We don't mind that, do we?

They deserved it, I think. That's my opinion. 2 Corinthians 12, verse 11,

Paul says, I have become a fool in boasting. You have compelled me to have been commended by you, for in nothing was

I behind the most eminent apostles, though I am nothing. That's sarcastic, in case you didn't know.

Depending on your translation, Paul is calling the false apostles super apostles.

I mean, these guys are way better than I am, right? No. Verse 12, truly the signs of an apostle, referring to his own deeds, were accomplished among you with all perseverance in signs and wonders and mighty deeds.

For what is it in which you were inferior to other churches, except that I myself was not burdensome to you?

Forgive me this wrong. And that's sarcastic, too.

In other words, the only difference between you, the only way I'm treating you guys differently, is that I didn't take your money.

Please forgive me for that. You gotta love the apostle Paul. So apparently, the reason

Paul didn't accept their money, because his critics were accusing Paul that he's just in it for the money.

And enough people believed it that Paul decided, well, it's just better not to take it then. You keep it.

So in verses, and by the way, speaking of apostles and false apostles, if you ever encounter someone today who claims to be an apostle,

I have two pieces of advice. Number one, run. Number two, hold on to your wallet.

They were right about one thing. False apostles do want your money. Just Paul wasn't that.

All right, verses 11 through 13, we're gonna focus on this subject of the apostles and the signs of an apostle.

But the first point, let's just cover the basic question. What is an apostle?

Well, the Greek word apostolos refers to one who is sent, a delegate, an ambassador, an official representative.

And you can ask, okay, a representative of who? Well, what are we talking about?

We're talking about the apostles of Jesus Christ. So these are the men that Jesus himself directly appointed to be his ambassadors, his representatives, his apostles.

Now, turn to Mark chapter three, and we will move on to point number two. Who were the apostles?

Mark chapter three, and as you're turning there, the original apostles of Jesus Christ, the simple answer, the original apostles were the 12 men that Jesus chose to walk with him during his earthly ministry.

Mark chapter three is going to give us a list of these men, their names.

And sometimes people have read the scripture because four different times, I think, the list of the apostles is given.

People read it and say, wait, the lists don't line up with each other. There's different names. Well, what's the explanation?

Well, it's very simple. Don't people today sometimes go by different names? You have your first name.

You have your last name. You have your middle name. Some people go by their middle name. Some people have nicknames.

I mean, let's face it. There's people that you probably never called them by their actual name in their life because they go by their nickname.

Same thing with the apostles. So let's look at this.

Before we read, just remember, not every disciple of Christ was an apostle, but the apostles were all disciples.

So Jesus had a large following. Remember once he sent out 70 men, then he had the women following him.

They were all disciples, but out of the bigger group, he chooses 12 to be apostles.

All right. Mark 3 verse 13. And he, that is Jesus, went up on the mountain and called to him those he himself wanted.

And they came to him. Then he appointed 12, that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have power to heal sicknesses and to cast out demons.

And I want you to remember that for later on. Okay. He gave them the power to heal and to cast out demons.

So the apostles were given this power by the Lord to do the miraculous.

Look at verse 16. So here are the 12 men. Simon, to whom he gave the name

Peter, James, the son of Zebedee, and John, the brother of James, to whom he gave the name

Boanerges, that is sons of thunder. So these two men were given this nickname because of their hot temper, sons of thunder.

Then Andrew, verse 18, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, James, the son of Alphaeus, Thaddeus, Simon, the

Canaanite, and finally Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him.

Now, an interesting thing about this list and really all of the lists of the apostles, Peter is always mentioned first.

Guess who's mentioned last? Judas Iscariot, always mentioned last. That's pretty obvious.

Judas betrayed Jesus, so he's always last. That makes sense. But why is

Peter always mentioned first? Peter is recognized by most, I think it's very clear, that he is the leader, or at the very least, the spokesman of the original 12.

Also within this group, there's a great book called 12 Ordinary Men by John MacArthur.

That's one of the best books I've ever read, not only on this subject, but it's a great book, so I would highly encourage you to read it.

A lot of interesting dynamics between this group of 12 ordinary men.

Jesus chose fishermen and just regular people. Of course, he had a reason for doing that.

But one dynamic is there's two sets of brothers. We saw this, James and John, we read that, but also

Peter and Andrew were brothers. Another dynamic within the group, if it wasn't for their common faith, two of these men would have been, in their previous life, bitter enemies.

That was Matthew, the tax collector, and Simon the Canaanite, who's also called

Simon the Zealot. The Zealots were basically a political revolutionary organization where they advocated for the violent overthrow of Rome.

Any Jew who worked along with the Romans, they despised them, they wanted to do away with them too.

So you can imagine if Simon the Zealot met Matthew the tax collector years earlier in a dark alley, yeah, it wouldn't have gone well.

So these are the 12 apostles of Jesus Christ.

Now turn to Acts chapter 1. Acts chapter 1.

So, so far, how many apostles are there? Twelve. And that's the simple answer.

Who were they? How many were there? Twelve. But it can get a little more complicated because in Acts 14 .14,

Barnabas, who is a companion of the apostle Paul, Barnabas was referred to as an apostle.

In Galatians 1 .19, James, the half -brother of Jesus, seems to be referred to as an apostle.

And in the book of 1 Thessalonians, an argument could be made that Timothy and Silas were also referred to as apostles.

Now here's what makes it a little tricky. There's no evidence those men were ever handpicked by Jesus. Certainly Timothy was not an eyewitness of the resurrection.

I'm jumping ahead to the qualifications, but most of you already know those. So were these men really apostles of Jesus Christ?

Well, some would recognize them as apostles with a lowercase a.

Peter, James, and John are Apostles, capital A, these men, Apostles, lowercase a.

Or maybe the distinction, the better distinction would be they're apostles of the church. But the others were apostles of Jesus Christ, handpicked by Christ.

But whatever the case, to avoid complicating matters, let's look at Acts 1, starting in verse 20, because there was at least one of the 12 that was replaced.

And the scripture prophesied that Judas had to be replaced.

And by the way, there's no other indication that any of the others were ever replaced. Okay.

Acts 1, verse 20, look at it. This is Peter speaking. He's saying, for it is written in the book of Psalms, let his dwelling place, speaking of Judas, be desolate and let no one live in it and let another take his office.

Therefore, of these men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John to that day when he was taken up from us, one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection.

And they proposed two. Joseph, called Barsabbas, whose surname was

Justice, and Matthias. And they prayed and said, You, O Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which of these two you have chosen.

They're not exactly giving the Lord a whole lot of options, are they? Verse 25, to take part in this ministry and apostleship from which

Judas by transgression fell that he might go to his own place. Basically, there's a special place reserved in hell for Judas Iscariot.

Verse 26, and they cast their lots and the lot fell on Matthias and he was numbered with the 11 apostles.

So, some people believe that the apostles were wrong to act so quickly.

And what are they doing casting lots? Well, the lot casting of the lots was a legitimate practice up until that point.

There's one passage that says the law is cast into the lap, but it's every decision is from the

Lord. So, it's not necessarily wrong to do this, but it is a common belief to think that Peter sort of jumped the gun a little bit and that they shouldn't have chosen

Matthias and that Paul was actually the legitimate successor to Judas, at least in the eyes of God.

Thanks for listening. I'm Pastor Michael Grant from Loris Cornett Church. If you'd like to listen to the complete message or if you'd like more information about the ministry, visit our website, loriscornettchurch .com.

And we'd love to have you join us some Sunday morning here in Leverett. Until next time, may the grace of God be with you.