WWUTT 2146 Jesus Calls the Apostles (Mark 3:13-19)

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Jesus called 12 disciples to himself. He had many more disciples beyond that, but there was an inner group of 12 specifically that he also called apostles who would go out performing miracles and preaching his word when we understand the text.

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Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know we don't. When we understand the text is committed to teaching sound doctrine and rebuking those who contradict it.

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Visit our website at www .utt .com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

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Thank you, Becky. In our study of the Gospel of Mark, we've been in Chapter 3 and I'm going to pick up where we left off last week.

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So let me begin reading here in verse 13 and we'll go through verse 35 out of the Legacy Standard Bible.

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Hear the word of the Lord. And he went up on the mountain and summoned those whom he himself wanted, and they came to him.

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And he appointed 12, whom he also named apostles, to be with him and to send them out to preach and to have authority to cast out the demons.

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And he appointed the 12, Simon, to whom he gave the name Peter, and James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James, to them he gave the name

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Boanerges, which means sons of thunder, and Andrew and Philip and Bartholomew and Matthew and Thomas and James the son of Alphaeus and Thaddeus and Simon the

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Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him. And he came home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat a meal.

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And when his own people heard this, they went out to take custody of him, for they were saying, He has lost his senses.

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And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, He is possessed by Beelzebul, and he casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.

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And he called them to himself and began speaking to them in parables, How can Satan cast out

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Satan? And if a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.

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And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but he is finished.

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But no one can enter the strongman's house and plunder his property unless he first binds the strongman, and then he will plunder his house.

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Truly I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men in whatever blasphemies they utter.

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But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin, because they were saying,

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He has an unclean spirit. Then his mother and his brothers arrived, and standing outside they sent word to him, calling him.

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And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, Behold, your mother and your brothers are outside looking for you.

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And answering them he said, Who are my mother and my brothers? And looking about at those who were sitting around him, he said,

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Behold, my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.

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So we have this divided up into several parts. We first of all have the introduction to all of the apostles.

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We've seen previously Jesus calling a few, specifically Peter and Andrew, James and John.

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That was in chapter one. But here we have all 12 apostles named. And then there is some reaction from the crowds right after that.

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You have the crowds gathering around him again. They can't even sit down and eat a meal together.

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His own people, the way that they respond to him. Then you have the scribes and the Pharisees and how they react.

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And then Jesus responds and begins to teach them. And it's probably the largest block of teaching that we have thus far in the

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Gospel of Mark. And then after that you have members of his own family that are coming to see him.

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And Jesus indicates who is truly his brother and sister and mother. Those who do the will of his father who is in heaven.

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So we're seeing more about how people are reacting to Jesus and hearing a little bit more about what he teaches.

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So for today we're going to look at this calling of the apostles and then the reaction of the crowds immediately after that.

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And then tomorrow we'll pick up from there. So starting in verse 13, he went up on the mountain and he summoned those whom he himself wanted and they came to him.

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Now this is demonstrating that those whom Christ calls to him, comes to him.

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Even Judas Iscariot. Judas's name is mentioned here too. And we know that Judas was a false convert.

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He didn't really believe that Jesus was the Christ, though he saw the miracles Jesus performed.

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He did not put his faith in him. But Judas is still called because he still serves a purpose.

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He is going to fulfill those things that were prophesied about him in the scriptures.

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About the one who was going to come and would betray the Son of Man even for a little bit of silver.

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So all whom Christ calls to him, that's who comes to him. Remember the words of Jesus in John 15 -16, you did not choose me but I chose you and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit and that your fruit would abide so that whatever you ask of the

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Father in my name he may give to you. Now that's not the first place in John where Jesus says to his disciples

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I chose you. It was back in chapter 6 after the multitudes had walked away from him when

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Jesus had said if you want to enter the kingdom of God you have to eat of my flesh and drink of my blood. And the people are going, well, we can't understand this.

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This is crazy. And so they turn around and they walk away. Jesus looks at the twelve and says how about you?

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Are you going to leave me too? And Peter says, Lord where else shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.

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So Peter is congratulating himself for this great loyal answer and yet Jesus responds to him didn't

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I choose you, the twelve? And yet one of you has a demon.

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So they are followers of Jesus because he chose them. We saw back in chapter 1 him telling

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Peter and Andrew, drop your nets follow me and I will make you fishers of men. And they did it.

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They did it because this was the effectual calling of God upon their lives that they would follow

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Jesus and they did. They could not have rejected. It was God's intention that this would be.

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In John 17, in the high priestly prayer, when Jesus is praying for his disciples that are with him, he says that he had lost none of those whom the father had given to him except for the son of destruction.

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Of course, referring to Judas, because it was intended that he was going to betray the

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Christ so that Jesus would be sent to his death and therefore fulfill the father's will being the atoning sacrifice that we need for our sins.

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And everyone who believes on him, our sins are forgiven and we have everlasting life.

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But coming back to the point I'm making here with regards to the calling of the disciples, they follow him because it was an effectual calling.

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Their hearts were transformed to see Christ and believe in him and follow him wherever he told them to go.

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And so here he summons these twelve and he appointed twelve whom he also named apostles to be with him and to send them out to preach and to have authority to cast out the demons.

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Now that word apostle, apostolos, means sent one. And an apostle is not unique to Christ.

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As we hear that word today, it's like the only way you associate that word is those twelve guys that follow

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Jesus. They were apostles. Also the Apostle Paul and maybe you could argue James and Barnabas.

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There's differing opinions on that. Not going to get into that now though. But all that to say, we associate the word apostle with the twelve who follow

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Jesus. But at this time, that word apostle was not unique to Christ. It's not like he gave them a title that no one else had ever given to a follower before.

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Caesar had named his messengers apostles. And when they went out to deliver a message of Caesar, the message that they carried was every bit as much

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Caesar's, as if Caesar was the one standing there delivering it himself. So if you were to reject the word of an apostle, it would be the same as if you were rejecting the word of Caesar.

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So Jesus has his own apostles. And when they go out and preach, the message that they preach is every bit as authoritative as if Christ were standing there himself saying the words from his own mouth.

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And this is something we need to understand when it comes to reading the rest of the New Testament after the book of Acts.

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The rest of those books, Romans through Revelation, these are words, epistles that were written by the apostles.

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And those words that they wrote are every bit as much the word of Christ as the things that we would read in red letters in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

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And in fact, you know, there's a greater emphasis that gets put on the Gospels because you have actual quotes that come from Jesus.

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But these books were also written by the apostles. Matthew, an apostle, he's mentioned here.

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Mark is a disciple of Peter. But the Gospel that we're reading here is the

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Gospel the way that Peter would have preached it. Luke is a disciple to the apostle

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Paul. And what Luke wrote down is the Gospel the way that Paul preached it.

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And Paul had this delivered to him, even though he wasn't among the 12. He still knew the

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Gospel every bit as well as the rest of the 12 did. He refers to himself in 1 Corinthians 15 as one untimely born.

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But he says there in that chapter, that I delivered to you what I also received.

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So Christ taught Paul the Gospel. He did not learn it from the other disciples.

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Jesus himself gave Paul the Gospel just as he gave to his other apostles, the other disciples.

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Paul was was someone that came along later, of course, after Jesus' death and resurrection.

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But he still knew Christ. He still met Christ. He saw Christ. Jesus encountered him on the road to Damascus, of course, knocking him down and and blinding him and telling him to go into Damascus to the road called straight.

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And anyway, as the story unfolds, you know, eventually, Paul has his sight restored, and he becomes an apostle to the

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Gentiles. But it's even in Galatians that Paul says that he went away into Arabia and spent three years there with Christ in the desert, probably at Mount Sinai.

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We don't know for sure. Maybe he went up there just the same as Moses had spent time with Jesus. But Paul did personally know

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Christ. And so Luke is the gospel the way that Paul preached it. John, then you have the

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Gospel of John, which, of course, is the apostle that is mentioned here. So even when we're reading the

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Gospels, oh, and then there's Acts, of course, which is a historical book about the beginning of the church. And that was written by Luke.

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But what we read about here, these are words that come from the apostles. So as much as a greater emphasis will tend to get put on the red letters, it's not like those letters come from a different source than the rest of the

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New Testament did. The apostles are writing down what they knew Jesus said. But all the rest of the

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New Testament comes from the same men who give us the Gospels. So it's not like these books are somehow more authoritative than the rest of the

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New Testament. It's all the word of Christ. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the word of Christ. Acts to Revelation, also the word of Christ.

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Oh, and the whole Old Testament, too, is the word of Christ. It's all

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God's word. And so Jesus appoints these apostles who are going to be the ones to take the word to the world.

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The church will be planted. The gospel will spread throughout the Roman Empire.

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And this is their ministry training that they're getting right now during Jesus earthly ministry.

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So he appointed the 12, verse 16, Simon, to whom he gave the name

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Peter. So let me stop there for a moment. Peter, of course, is kind of the foremost of the apostles.

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He's the one that was the leader of the rest of the apostles. And in a sense, I mean, I can't find a better word for it.

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That's probably a crude description. But that's the way that we generally regard Peter in Luke 22, when

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Jesus was telling Peter that Peter was going to deny him.

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Peter's insistent. No, I'll never do this. Jesus says, oh, it'll happen. And before the rooster crows, you'll deny me three times.

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But it's in verse 32, where he says, I have prayed earnestly for you that your faith may not fail.

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And you, once you have returned, strengthen your brothers. So Jesus is telling to Peter here, you are going to deny me, but you will come back.

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And when that happens, you give strength and encouragement to your brothers. So Peter, again, we kind of regard as being the leader of the rest of the of the disciples of the apostles.

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And of course, it's in Acts chapter two, the sermon that is preached at Pentecost in Jerusalem.

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Peter's voice is the one that we have written down there in Acts two. It's Peter, who is the one who stands up among the brothers and tells them that Jesus is the

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Christ. Now, before I move on from this, noticing back up in verse 14 and 15, that Jesus appointed twelve whom he also named apostles to be with him and to send them out to preach.

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And then verse 15, I kind of skip past verse 15, but to have authority to cast out the demons.

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Now, this is kind of Mark's way of very briefly saying that the apostles had authority to do great miracles.

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We know from the other gospels it was not just the authority to cast out demons. There were other miraculous things that they could do as well, including heal others, including prophesy, as we have from John, the book of Revelation, as he was given prophecy.

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And that's what he wrote down. So we see other miraculous things that the disciples, that the apostles did as well.

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Mark just leaves it at a brief statement here. But this is a sign of apostleship. And Hebrews chapter two says that plainly.

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And the apostle Paul, in fact, second Corinthians. What is it? Chapter twelve, verse twelve.

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The signs of apostle of apostleship were clearly performed among you. So, you know who the genuine apostles were since they were able to do these miraculous signs.

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Now, there were others that did miracles as well. You know, Philip, who was miraculously transported into the presence of the

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Ethiopian eunuch. Or you had Barnabas or Silas that were also able to do miracles. But these things were always done in proximity of the apostles.

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I don't mean that they're physically present with the apostles, but it was it was all associated with the ministry of apostleship.

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And once the last apostle died, who was John at the end of the first century, then the regularity of those things began to wane.

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And eventually it was not with as great irregularity as you saw these miraculous happenings, which were authenticating the message that was going forth as being from God.

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So they have this authority to cast out demons and do all these other miraculous things. This is a sign of apostleship as described in Scripture.

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So we have the first one mentioned, Simon, who also has the name Peter and then James, the son of Zebedee and John, the brother of James.

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To them, Jesus gave the name Boanerges, which means Sons of Thunder.

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Now, this is actually the only place in the gospels where that is mentioned. This is where we come to understand

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James and John were called Sons of Thunder. And we don't really know why. Mark says this, but he doesn't give any explanation behind it.

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And so we assume because of something that we read in Luke 9, that the reason why they're called the

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Sons of Thunder is because when they went into Samaria, the Samaritans would not receive him.

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And so the disciples, James and John, said, this is Luke 9 .54, Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?

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But he turned to them and rebuked them, and they went on to another village. Now, as we understand also from John 2,

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Jesus knows what's in the hearts of men. So it could be that Jesus knows what's in the heart of James and John, and he gives them this name accordingly because he knows that they are these kinds of men.

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And maybe we get kind of a hint of that in Luke 9, when they're saying, Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume these people who have rejected you?

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That might be the reason why they're called Sons of Thunder, but we would only be able to speculate because the scripture doesn't tell us for sure.

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Verse 18, and Andrew, who, of course, was the brother of Peter and Philip and Bartholomew and Matthew and Thomas and James, the son of Alphaeus.

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So you have James, the brother of John and James, the son of Alphaeus and Thaddeus and Simon the

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Zealot. And we really don't know much about these men. There are some of these men we know hardly anything beyond the name that is given to us in the

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New Testament. Simon the Zealot, though, what would that be? Well, the Zealots were a party of Jews who were zealous for overthrowing the

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Roman rule, and they hoped to accomplish this by inciting the people into a rebellion.

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And so it could be that Simon was among them. He was of the Zealots, and he was hoping to overthrow the

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Roman rule. And he's following Jesus, believing that he's going to become the king that will overthrow the

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Romans. But Jesus calls Simon to follow him anyway.

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And again, because he knows the hearts of man and knows that Simon being a Zealot was nonetheless going to be faithful to Christ in the cause that that he was doing.

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Simon was Simon was not the guy that would draw swords and want to harm anybody that came against Christ, though, even though he's a

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Zealot, even though he's generally regarded as the one that would that would try to stir up a mob.

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But who was the guy that was drawing swords to defend Jesus? Well, that was Simon Peter, not

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Simon the Zealot. But nonetheless, we do have that mention here. His occupation is given, even though we don't know much about the man beyond that.

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But then, verse 19, we have Judas Iscariot, of course, who would betray him.

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Now, I said that I was going to read through the apostles' names here, and then we would get to the next part where we read about the crowd reaction.

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But I didn't quite get that far today. So let's stop there for now. We'll pick this back up again tomorrow with the crowds responding to Jesus.

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You have people from his own tribe. You've got the scribes and the Pharisees who come up against him.

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You even have his brothers and sisters that try to come and visit him. And we'll pick up on some of those things tomorrow in our study of the

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Gospel of Mark. You know, just as Jesus had called these disciples to follow him and he appointed them and he chose them, so he has chosen you.

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And it's not because of anything great that you've done. It's not even because of your skill set or anything like that.

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God doesn't need you. He's going to accomplish his purposes no matter what. But it's out of his mercy and his grace that he has called you.

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And if you are a follower of Jesus, then demonstrate that by walking in the righteousness of Christ that you have been given.

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Heavenly father, we're thankful for what we have read today. And I pray that we would indeed be good disciples, a word that means learner, that we sit at the feet of the master and learn from your word, how we are to be worshipers of God.

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And even in our lives, living in holiness before you growing in the image of Christ, as we continue in sanctification until that day that we are joined with the

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Lord in glory. So continue to work these things out in us, help us to seize those thoughts that come into our minds, taking them captive to make them obedient to Christ and not be mastered by even our own thoughts, though they sometimes betray us.

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We're not chasing after the passions of our flesh or temptations of the world, but set Christ before our eyes.

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And all that we do would be for his kingdom and his righteousness. And it's in Jesus name we pray.