Luke 6:12-19

Discussion Questions

1. What is your personal plan to engage with God in prayer? Have you considered that you are the most like Jesus when you spend time with Him in prayer?
2. What made the apostles “unlikely misfits?” How does God’s use of unlikely misfits make His grace even more evident?
3. “In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity.” How does this statement inform your faith, theology, church, and Christian worldview?
4. “On mission for Jesus, all the time, in all areas of your life.” How is this idea challenging you right now?

Transcript

Now our study today will be in Luke, Chapter 6. You see that up on the screen, don’t you? And I believe you can see the QR code if you would like the notes and quotes and the song titles. And I believe the classic prayer is on there as well. So, if you know how to use QR codes on your phone, feel free to take advantage of that. I want to say hello and thank you for joining us last week online to folks from Bangkok, Thailand; Silang, Cavite, Philippines; Denpasar City, Bali, Indonesia. These next ones are pretty easy. Springfield, Virginia; Orlando, Florida; Plano, Texas and Mount Juliet, Tennessee. Last hour right here, I met somebody from Abilene, Texas – she was so excited to be able to visit here and be with us in person for worship. But she’s with us every single week from Abilene, so shout out to Abilene as well. So happy to have all of these folks joining us and so grateful to all of those that work in our online ministry here at the Village Chapel.

So, I hope you’re turning in your Bibles to Luke, Chapter 6. I was impressed this week once again, and it’s happened to me many times, how brutally honest the Bible can be. There’s no spin machine trying to hide anyone’s moral or spiritual flaws as we read through the Bible; God does not omit or conceal King David’s indiscretions, doesn’t try to gloss over Elijah or Jeremiah’s depression. And when it comes to the New Testament and the disciples, which is the passage we’re going to study today, it’s all about Jesus choosing the 12 disciples who would become his apostles. Man, if Jesus’ goal was to assemble a team of super holy influencers, this list… if you just know a tiny little bit about each of the names on it, I’ll give you a little bit of that today.

So, for all of you that are geeks and nerds about those kinds of details in your Bible, get ready and have your pencil ready because I’ll give you some of that. For those of you that are not, I’m going to give you the outline in advance because I know that some of you will nod off if I get too deep into some of the details that you’re not quite interested in. But all of this I think will reiterate what we just sang, that God in His goodness has been running after us with His mercy, with His faithfulness, with His steadfast love. And the only thing, when you look at this list and you see the people, and you know the truth about some of them as you’ve read through your Bible, the only thing more remarkable than those people there is the fact that Jesus chose them. And the fact that Jesus chose us and continues to choose those that nobody else would choose. And He used those that nobody else would use. And I’m so grateful to be able to be one of the recipients of His kindness and His grace.

So, before I read the text, allow me to pray our prayer for illumination: Lord we open our hearts and our minds to Your Word today. I pray that Your promises would become our inexhaustible hope and our proper confidence. We pray that Your purposes may become our meaning and mission and that Your presence among us would become our delight and joy today. Grant to us a clearer vision of Your truth, a greater faith in Your power, and a more confident assurance of Your love for us. We pray this in the name of Jesus and for His sake, for His glory and amen. This is the Word of the Lord. It is unique in its source, timeless in its truth, broad in its reach and transforming in its power.

So, Luke, Chapter 6, verses 12 to 19. But look at verse 11 with me as the context for what we read in verses 12 through 19. The context is, and Pastor Tommy walked us through this last week, it was really well done, and it ends with Luke’s summary statement. He’s talking about the religious leaders and how they respond to Jesus. And what Luke says in one of his summary statements, verse 11, these religious leaders “were filled with rage and they discussed together what they might do to Jesus.” And that’s not what they might do to celebrate Jesus. They’re not fans. As a matter of fact, if you read Matthew and Mark’s accounts, it gets a little more pointed, a little more clear actually. They tell us that they’ve actually got murder on their minds now.

So, these are the religious folks. It’s supposed to be the good religious people of the day. And here’s Jesus, the Son of God, God’s Messiah, and He’s healing people and He’s preaching and He’s bringing words of hope and life and the good news of the Gospel. And these religious leaders are upset and angry. They’re actually filled, it says, with rage here. And this is Luke writing, as far as we know, the only Gentile writer of a New Testament book. And he writes Luke’s Gospel and the Book of Acts. He actually is responsible for the greatest volume of any single author. If both of those books are indeed written by his hand. Those two books together are, more than the Apostle Paul, more than the Apostle John, God chose this unlikely Gentile to record this message of God’s salvation coming through very unlikely means.

And it begins in this context here where the religious folks are filled with rage, and they discuss together what they might do to Jesus. And so, we’re going to call this message “Four Unlikelies.” And unlikelies as a noun, a plural noun. You’re not going to find it in your dictionary. Sorry, we sometimes make up words here, but we do it because all four of these unlikely things, I think they’re a thing. And they say something about God. They also say something about us along the way. And so, you’re going to see that as we go. Here’s this context of rising tension and conspiratorial violence that’s starting to creep in. And Jesus knows about it. They’ve kind of confronted Him when they dropped a guy through the roof. He healed the man and said his sins could be forgiven. And these religious leaders got all upset about that. And all along the way, we’re just going to see this tension mounting and building and it ultimately leads to the cross. And that leads to the resurrection. Hallelujah. I’m so glad for that as well.

But that’s what’s happening right now as verse 12 comes into play because Luke writes it this way, “And it was at this time.” That is not 2:00 PM, but “At this time of conflict, rising tension, mounting difficulty for Jesus,” these people were coming at Him looking to discredit Him and to destroy Him. “At this time… He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God.” “Spent the whole night” is in English, multiple words. It’s one word in the Greek. And what it means, it’s more than just the passing of time. That is, He prayed from 11 PM until 6:00 AM. No, he struggled in prayer. He wrestled in prayer. He put an effort into His prayer. And I’ve got to tell you, I don’t know about you, but I’m a short attention span prayer. I don’t say that proudly at all. I’ve got one of those kinds of minds that’s just always going in 10 different directions. And I’m pretty sure there are angels in heaven that high five, if I can pay attention in prayer for like 20 minutes or 30 minutes. And if you need to look for another church next week because I said that, I apologize.

But if I say I’m praying for you, I’ll pray for you, I will do that. It’s true. But this is Jesus the Son of God, and He’s actually taking the time to labor in prayer all through the night one night, okay? And it’s a beautiful display to me of two really important doctrines. The incarnation, which is that we have the Son of God approaching God the Father in prayer to align His choices He’s about to make with the will of His father. I think that’s really a beautiful display of both the incarnation and the Trinity. Two doctrines that are mind-blowing in the Christian faith. Here’s God the Son, praying to God the Father, and here’s the one who’s fully divine and fully human praying to God and seeking to align His choices that are going to happen on the next day. Verse 13 says, “And when they came, He [meaning Jesus] called…” Circle the word called. “…His disciples to Him and chose…” You can circle that word too. “…twelve of them whom He also named as apostles.”

Now he called His disciples to Him. They’ve already been following Him and some of them for different reasons, this is true. We’re going to see it all through the gospels. Some people were following Him because of the supernatural show of it all. He’s this guy, “Have you seen this guy? He can open eyes of blind people; He can make lame people stand up. And we’ve got to go see some of that.” But for other people, it’s become way more personal because they themselves need a healing touch of some kind. The leper that we’ve already studied who threw himself down at Jesus’ feet and said, “If you’re willing, you can make me clean.” And Jesus was indeed willing, and Jesus bear hugged him and cleansed that man. And so, people are following for a lot of different reasons. But there are disciples who are learners; they are students. And out of a bunch of students who have come, He called His disciples, His learners, His students to Him or His apprentices to Him. He chose 12 of them.

In other words, there are more than 12 there. But out of the, it could be hundreds who knows, it could be thousands at this particular moment, Luke isn’t telling us about the numbers. He’s going to say something about it in a minute, but not a specific number. He’s just going to use general terms, but it’s a lot of people. And out of those, he chooses 12 of them to be apostles. Now where have we heard the number 12 before in our Bibles? Yeah, 12 tribes of Israel. And it’s as if Jesus on purpose is basically saying, “Hey, Israel,” and the 12 tribes of Israel that have sadly fallen into an apostate condition spiritually speaking, “we’re going to actually start with the new Israel.” And we’re going to start, the church is basically going to be built on the testimony of these 12 apostles.

So, disciples have come to follow Jesus. Apostles are, and the Greek word is “apostolus,” it means to be sent out. It’s a missionary. So, someone’s on a mission. And the mission is great, in Matthew and Mark, you get a little more information about the mission itself, but I’ll tie that together in just a moment. So, he called His disciples to him, He chose 12 of them symbolically saying, “This is going to be the new Israel. God will have his people.” And even though those that were offered the covenant before failed miserably to live up to it, God has not abandoned them or anyone. God is offering a new covenant. And you could become a part of the new kingdom of the heavens through the personal work of Jesus. And so, he calls 12, and here are their names. Look at the names with me. Set your eyes on the page.

“Simon whom He also named Peter, and Andrew, his brother; James and John; Philip and Bartholomew; Matthew and Thomas; James, the son of Alpheus, and Simon who was called the Zealot [or the Canaanite]”. Some of your translations will say, and that doesn’t mean the Gentile Canaanite, that’s just another way in Aramaic, that’s another way of saying the person who is a zealot, who is a politically charged human being, somebody who’s just anxious. Especially in first century Judaism, this would be a person who might be a Sakari, it might be a person that would go into the marketplace with the dagger and literally seek to assassinate some of the Romans who are part of the oppressive Roman government at that time. And so, “Simon, who’s called the Zealot; Judas, the son of James, and Judas Iscariot.”

So, you’ve got two Judas’s, you got two Simon’s, and you got two James’s as well, which is interesting. You have got a couple sets of brothers here as well. So, this list is just fascinating. And then verse 17, I want to read through 19 today and then I want to make a few comments. “He [Jesus] descended with them and stood on a level place.” So, they’ve been up a mountain in some way and now they’re down on a little plateau on the side of that hill or side of that mountain. And we’re not exactly sure of all of this. And some people are going to tie what’s going to follow here to what we call the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s gospel, Chapters 5, 6 and 7. I love the Sermon on the Mount. Did a whole season of Timeless Truth, the podcast, going through the Sermon on the Mount verse by verse. I encourage you to, if you’d love to study the Sermon on the Mount to download those if you would like to.

But here this is some people call this the Sermon on the Plain, and is it the same or not? I don’t know the answer to that question, and I’m okay not knowing. I hope you are too. “He descended with them, and stood on a level place; and there was a great multitude of His disciples, and a great throng of people.” So, a great multitude. That’s not a normal multitude. That’s a great multitude. And then he says, “And a great throng.” That’s not a normal throng. That’s a great throng. Do you get the idea that there’s a lot of people there? I do. I don’t know how many Luke isn’t giving us a number. He’s just saying there’s a whole lot of people there. And they’re from all over Judea and Jerusalem. Verse 17 says, “And the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon.”

So, from the furthest point south all the way to outside of Israel, north on the coastline of the Mediterranean to Tyre and Sidon, which guess what? Those aren’t even Jewish cities. Those are Gentile cities. And here’s Luke, the Gentile. I bet he was really excited to be able to say. “And my people were there as well from up in Tyre and Sidon.” And guess what? Jesus’ goodness was running after them as well. The Gospel was being preached and they were flocking to hear Him. Bringing their sick to be healed. And that’s the kind of crowd that is gathered together in verse 17. And it’s a massive crowd. Verse 18, They “had come to hear Him.” One, you can put a one there, they came to hear Him. They wanted to hear His teaching. They were astonished and in awe at His teaching. And then put a two beside, “And to be healed of their diseases.”

So Jesus, His ministry was all about words and deeds both. Luke is summarizing that way. And that’s what drew people to Jesus to hear Him, to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were being cured. Luke, the doctor who would know the difference between a physical disease and a spiritual sort of possession, he distinguishes between them. He says, “There are some who are sick, some who were possessed of demons and needed to be cured of these unclean spirits.” And Luke again would know that; he would be a guy that would understand that difference. And all the multitude were trying to touch Jesus for power was coming from Him and healing them all.

And you got to get into verse 19 a little bit. Don’t let that pass by. I mean, it is as if throngs of people are literally being thrown before Him, and He’s literally touching them, or some of them are just touching Him. And there’s something miraculous going on here that has never happened before and probably hasn’t happened since because he’s the Son of God and His miracles aren’t just a sideshow. No, they display His power and authority. That’s true. But they also affirm His identity as a Son of God. Anybody who claims to be the Son of God could do those kinds of things. They reveal His compassion as well. He loved these people that He healed. He wasn’t just using them. He loved them. He invaded all kinds of dark areas where dark people were trapped in their darkness, and He brought light to them and healing to them. And so, His miracles have all kinds of impact like that. They also, as I say, affirm His identity and inspire worship.

Right. Well, let me give you the four unlikelies, since we made that word. Up here are the Unlikely Misfits, the Unlikely Group, the Unlikely Mission, and the Unlikely Savior. All of that will be what we’ll focus on here today. As I said, verse 11 summarizes that context, the rising tension, the conflict, the hostility toward the plans and purposes of God through Jesus, all that on display in these “religious people.” Verse 12 shows us the necessity and the priority of prayer in the life of Jesus. And if it was a priority and a necessity in His life, I’ve got to tell you it needs to be a priority in our lives as well. And I don’t know about you, I’m just going to be again honest about this. For me, this is the spiritual discipline that I need to constantly be mindful of because it’s the one that’s so easy to let it slide. And pretty soon you find yourself just flippantly say, “Oh, I’ll pray about that.” And then you don’t ever pray about it.

And it’s not just that you should be guilted and shamed for that, but here’s what you’re missing: You’re missing communion with God. You see that’s way more than just doing a religious thing or religious ritual. Because of our union with Christ, we can have communion with the Lord Himself. We’ve been united with Christ and when we trust in Jesus, we’re baptized into the body of Christ. We’re in union with Him, and now we can actually commune with Him. And part of that, yes, it’s coming forward for communion, but it’s also communing with Him in prayer, having an ongoing conversational relationship with the Lord. And I think that’s very important for us. It was important for Jesus in verse 12. It’s important for us as well.

Let’s start with the Unlikely Misfits. Look at them right here in this text. You see, don’t you, that they’re sovereignly called, they’re sovereignly chosen, they’re sovereignly commissioned. I don’t know if you remember this ever happening to you when you were a kid, but when I was in school and I was a little kid, there were a lot of times I did not want to be chosen or called upon in a class. I hadn’t done the homework; I hadn’t done the reading. Or maybe I was too embarrassed to read in public or something like that and I just didn’t want to be called on. I don’t know what it’s like with these hundreds or these thousands of people standing on that level place with Jesus that day. But the ones that He called, and maybe all of them and maybe by extension all of us, can find ourselves understanding why we’re unlikely choices, aren’t we? And so, Jesus sovereignly calls His disciples to gather around Him, and from among His disciples, verse 12 tells us, He chose some to be His apostles.

They’re following. They’ve come to Him. Now He’s going to also have them sent out as missionaries, as messengers, if you will. They’re going to be commissioned, given a commission by the Lord Jesus. Now when I say they’re unlikely, I want you to look at the list. I put it up here. I know I talked with our tech team, and I said, “Look, I know no one’s going to be able to see this, but maybe they might be able to with a QR code. They could download these lists.” And just compare them because it’s in Matthew, Chapter 10; Mark, Chapter 3; Luke, Chapter 6; and also again in Acts, Chapter 1. In Acts, Chapter 1, of course, somebody’s missing. Who’s that? Judas Iscariot. Why? He’s gone. He’s already committed suicide. They haven’t replaced him just yet in Acts, Chapter 1, but this list is a list of highly Unlikelies. Why would Jesus pick any of them?

And if you’re standing there that day and you’re one of them, would you be hoping He doesn’t pick you or would you be hoping He does pick you? I suspect there were both there. What an honor to be chosen by this guy whose ministry is very quickly gaining steam and presence. And not only that, but by this one who seems to be something very special and different. Not just that He’s popular, not just that there’s thousands of people, some of the people are there just as tourists, some are there for the pilgrimage of it, but some are just tourists looking for the sideshow. But yeah, some of them are there because they have great need or they’re hearing something that’s really ringing true. So, are some of them wanting to be chosen? Maybe. Some of them not wanting to be chosen? Maybe.

But what’s interesting is the ones that He chooses, they’re just outside of likely, the list of the likely. I would love to give you just a couple of sentences about each and every one of them. The order does vary when you see it the way you see it on the screen. So, I know some of you might have, if you’re a total nerd like me, you might have a question about that. The first four names in each list are two sets of brothers, even though the order varies. Peter and Andrew, his brother. James and John, who are brothers also. In Matthew, the list is grouped in twos if you read the text, which might be his accountant, Levi, the tax collector, his accountant’s method of listing them, or more likely it may correspond to the fact that in Mark, and we think Matthew may have borrowed from Mark, it’s possible. In Mark we’re told that Jesus sent them out two by two in and around that same list in chapter three of Mark’s gospel.

Well, in all four lists, Peter, AKA Simon, is listed first. And in all three of the synoptic gospels who’s listed last? Judas Iscariot. And what’s said about Judas Iscariot? He’s the one who betrayed Jesus. It’s almost as if on bookends, you’ve got the one guy who we all know because we’ve read the gospels. He’s the one. He’s going to be bold and brash. That’s true, but he’s also going to deny Christ three times. He’s got foot and mouth disease and it’s really bad. He’s not a perfect guy. He’s as human as you want to look at. You also have at the end of the list though, the guy that totally bailed, the guy that betrayed Jesus. And he had all of the privileges of being a disciple, all of the privileges of having heard Jesus Himself teach, watching Jesus perform miracles. And yet this guy Judas Iscariot, he’s skimming off the top of the money bag. He wants Jesus to be a political figure, and Jesus disappoints people that want Him to be a political figure. And He’s still doing it today. If you want Him to be a political figure, He’s not going to fit very neatly into your political scheme.

I mean, I think that’s really important for us to keep in mind. But when you look at these individuals, you just see Peter, he’s this guy that’s bold and brash. Yes, but Jesus will change his name from Simon, which is probably an original name, Simeon, one of the sons of Jacob, the namesake of one of the 12 tribes. Jesus gave Simon the surname Cephas, in Aramaic signifies a rock or a stone. And then as we all know, it later becomes Peter in Greek. Latin is Petrus, English form Pater. So that’s that guy. We know the most about him. Six of these guys though, we never hear another word about them, and that’s fascinating to me because of the way that they’re all given a stained-glass window in some churches and it’s like, “We’ve got to think of something to say about that guy because we really don’t know much about them.” And what’s really important is that it’s Jesus that has called these guys.

And I would bet that when we all get home, we’re going to find out that all of them came to the place where they went, you know what is really important, it’s not that my name gets remembered or that I get a stained glass at all. It’s that Jesus was pointed to through our message that He gave to us to hand out. Andrew appears four times outside of Luke. He’s important to us, not only as one of the inspired apostles, but he’s an example of a quiet evangelist. I like that about him. It was Andrew who brought Peter to Jesus first. It was Andrew that brought the young boy with the five loaves and the two fish to Jesus. Andrew is the one that brought some Greeks to Jesus at one point. Andrew did what he did selflessly, optimistically, never caring about titles, never caring about whether or not the spotlight fell on him. He just was a quiet evangelist.

James and John are listed in each of these and usually in the top four of the names in each of the list of the sons of Zebedee. We learn a little bit about them, but of the two of them, James is probably the elder since he’s mentioned first. John is the brother, the author of the fourth gospel, the three epistles toward the end of the New Testament and the Book of Revelation, which so many of you studied with us back in 2020, I think it was. James and John along with Peter make up sort of a closer trio of the disciples. They’re together with Jesus at the raising of Jairus’ daughter from the dead.

James and John are well remembered for the time that their stage mother came to Jesus and said, “Allow one of my boys to sit on your right and one of my boys to sit on your left.” And really, really wanted that. It was quite an audacious move on her part to do that. But James and John probably inherited some of her chutzpah. It’s evidenced by the fact that when they were traveling around with Jesus and they were in Samaria, and Jesus wasn’t quite as well-received by the Samaritans, James and John said to Jesus, “Lord, do You want us to call down fire and brimstone on this place?” I mean they were like the bouncers in the disciples, and they were ready to go to town – fisticuffs for Jesus, that kind of thing.

Then we have Philip up there as well. I think his hometown was Bethsaida. Perhaps Peter and Andrew and Philip were childhood buddies. I don’t know that. And Philip was also a disciple of John the Baptist. We know that about him as well. He was involved in the feeding of the 5,000 as well because it was to Philip that Jesus asked the question, “Where are we to find bread that these may eat?” And He was testing Philip the gospels tell us. Bartholomew is on that list. Some associate him with Nathaniel in John, Chapters 1 and 2. And remember that’s quite possible. Not all of the named disciples have only one name. Some of them have two names. Simon Peter would be a good example of that. Bartholomew may indeed be Nathaniel, who we read about in John, Chapter 1 and 2. Matthew is also known as Levi, the tax collector, and we talked about him when we studied Luke chapter five. So, there is not much more to say there about him other than what you’ve already heard.

Thomas is listed there, also called Didymus, which means “the twin.” You read that in John’s gospel. He’s a man I can identify with because he had questions. He’s called Doubting Thomas all the time, and I’m a guy that’s always asking questions. Perhaps you are as well. And Jesus is not intimidated by our questions. Just like he wasn’t with Thomas. He said to Thomas, “Look, put your hands here.” Because Thomas said, “I’m not going to believe Jesus has risen from the dead unless I can see His hands and touch His side.” And when Jesus appeared to Thomas following that, Jesus actually said, “Here’s the proof you’re looking for. It’s right here. Put your hand right here.” He didn’t call down lightning on him. He gave Thomas that personal experience of touching Him and seeing that He indeed was alive.

James, the son of Alpheus, is listed there. Some of you know that Matthew sometimes will be called Matthew, the son of Alpheus as well. Is it the same Alpheus? Probably not. It’s one of those names like John that you might find multiple people named that same name back in that time. Simon, who’s called the Zealot or the Canaanite, as I said, and then the two Judases are on the list as well.  Judas, the son of James, I don’t really know anything about him, but you can see why some people think that his other name might be Thaddeus. And you could see why he might want to go by Thaddeus if his first name was Judas. Not very many people name their children. This is what you name your Rottweiler, Judas. So, then Judas Iscariot, and it’s in all three of the synoptic gospels where it lists Judas Iscariot, like I said. It does say he’s the one who betrayed Jesus. And that’s because that’s part of the list. That is this Jesus who set aside the comforts of Heaven, He came for sinners, He came for the worst of us. He came to offer Himself to the worst of us, including me, including us. And Judas is a good example of that as well, given the privileges that he was given.

So, with all of that in mind, you look at these individuals, why would He choose them? There’s a lot of people that say, “Why is there only one way to heaven? There’s a whole lot of other whys I think are way more important than that. Why would He choose these guys? Why would He choose me? Why would He choose you?” I mean you dress up nice, but why? That’s a great why, I think. They would not have been on the list of people that you want to start a new movement with or anything like that. Bono said it this way. “Coolness might help you in your negotiation with people through the world maybe, but it is impossible to meet God with sunglasses on.” In other words, and this is from the guy that, I mean, he is cool. He defines cool, he’s the sunglass guy, right? But he’s saying this, there’s no level of human coolness that is impressive to God. And that’s what this list reminds me of. It’s the same.

And it’s the same today as well. Before Bono, Lewis said it this way, “We’re not merely imperfect creatures who must be improved; we are rebels who must lay down our arms.” Do you understand that? That day on the side of the hill, Jesus was looking for those that He could call, that He could choose to be His apostles to send them out. And He knew what it would take, not them being qualified, but people that He could qualify Himself, that He could enable them, that He could empower them, that they would somehow or another find their way to surrendering to Him, to believing in Him, to hoping in Him and trusting in Him and realizing that it isn’t about them, it is about Him.

Tim Keller says, “The Bible does not show a story after story of ‘heroes of the faith’ who go from strength to strength. Instead, we get a series of narratives containing figures who are usually not the people the world would expect to be spiritual paragons and leaders.” And that list is that way. None of those guys had seminary degrees. None of those guys were cool. None of them had lots of followers on Instagram. I mean there’s just nothing about them that was that impressive. Keller goes on to say, “The Bible is not primarily a series of stories with a moral, though there are plenty of practical lessons.” That’s right. “Rather, it’s a record of God’s intervening grace in the lives of people who don’t seek it, who don’t deserve it, who continually resist it and who don’t appreciate it after they’ve been saved by it.” And that’s those 12 guys, and that’s me too.

I’m constantly forgetting that it’s about Him, not about me. And we’re constantly being programmed all day long. It’s about you. Your screens are telling you that all the time. The algorithms are designed to make sure you keep being reminded either you’re not enough, and you need more of what they’ve got, or you really are enough and you’re the center of the universe. As far as I can tell from science anyway, we discovered there is no center of the universe, so you can’t be it. The four Unlikelies also include the Unlikely Group. You’ve got all those individuals. That’s true. Couldn’t Jesus have made some better choices? Do you question Jesus’ leadership skills for picking Simon the Zealot and sitting him down with Levi, the tax collector? They would’ve wanted to kill each other. It’s an unlikely group to be sure. I wonder about that day. I mean, when you were a kid and you played a pick-up game of soccer or football or basketball or something like that, and two neighbors, “You choose and I’ll choose. You choose and I’ll choose.” And as the teams line up, you’re looking at it and you’re just going, you know exactly how the game’s going to go, based on who gets picked on each of the teams.

And these are all unlikelies, but I’d say this even as a group, they’re really, really unlikely. That’s one of the reasons I believe Christianity to be true though. Because in Christ really unlikely groups of individuals can get together and become an unlikely group. That God can do something through. That God can use for His glory. And see, that’s what’s so great about all this unlikely stuff. When it’s not because we’ve been smart, not because we figured something out, but it’s because of what God has done and God’s the only one that can do it. The story’s been told that Billy Graham once wrote to the mayor of a large city where he was planning to do a crusade, and he asked the mayor if he knew of any people in that city that had acute spiritual problems and needs to whom he, Billy Graham, should plan to minister to when he gets there and to be with him personally. And the mayor of that town simply sent him the phone book, “Take your pick.” And the mayor was in the phone book too, his office number was there.

The Bible is kind of history’s phone book. It’s like that, isn’t it? The stories here are really not about King David. They’re not about Samson, they’re not about Adam and Eve, they’re not about Abraham, they’re not about Adam. And they’re not about anybody in the New Testament other than one person. Jesus. He’s the only one that’s the hero of Scripture. The church is an unusual, very unlikely group. And because of that, we keep pointing to the one who chose us, who called us sovereignly and who’s commissioned us to be his emissaries, his ambassadors, if you will. DA Carson, great New Testament Scholar. “The church itself is not made up of natural ‘friends.’ What binds us together is not common education, common race, common income levels, common politics, common nationality, common accents, common jobs or anything else of that sort. Christians come together not because they form a natural collocation, but because they have all been saved by Jesus Christ and owe Him a common allegiance. In this light, we are a band of natural enemies who love one another for Jesus’ sake.”

You’re sitting in arms distance, you’re right close to somebody that’s going to vote the other way. I’m not going to tell you who it is. Some of you think I might vote with you. I’m not going to tell you that either. When we come here, it’s about Jesus. We want to focus on the Gospel. It doesn’t mean those things aren’t important. We always tell you in election season, “Pray and vote.” And some of you may choose not to vote. Now, I’m not saying that’s an unbiblical perspective either, but we are told to pray for our leaders and let’s keep doing that. Let’s pray for ourselves as well that we might be His witnesses in this culture in which we live that’s so afraid. That’s so angry. And look at that little collection of people that meet in that 100-year-old building that used to be a convent building. Look how they love one another. Look how God has moved among them. And little portraits of grace are told about the kind of stuff only God could do in somebody’s life who is caught in the grip of addiction. It’s really important, when we keep Jesus first, we keep the essentials first. He is our unity.

As Rupertus Maldinius said, “In the essentials, unity, in the non-essentials, liberty, and all things, charity.” What are the non-essentials? Oh, how much water do you use to baptize people with? There’s so many non-essentials. What color is the carpet in the church? Well, in our case, we don’t have to worry about that, do we? There’s so many things that people get upset about and get all tied up in knots about, and I actually love this old maxim, this old saying. And in all things, charity. That means let the love of God flow.

Thirdly, unlikely mission. Stott said it this way. “If Jesus’ first command was ‘Come,’ His second was ‘Go,’ that is, we are to go back into the world out of which we’ve come and go back as Christ’s ambassadors.” That’s exactly right. In Matthew and Mark, you read a little bit more about how He sends them out. He sends them out two-by-two. He sends them out to preach the Gospel. He sends them out to heal the sick. He sends them out to drive demons out of people who are demon possessed at that time. And so, they’re literally doing exactly what their master does. They’re following Jesus and doing what Jesus did to bring the Gospel forward, to show the Gospel and to have a ministry that is in both word and in deed.

The Evangelical Manifesto goes back to 2008, I think it is, and a friend of some of us here, a guy named Oz Guinness, wrote a bunch of it. I don’t know if he wrote this part or not because it doesn’t distinguish in the writing, but this section of it was brilliant I thought. “Being disciples of Jesus means serving Him as Lord in every sphere of our lives, secular as well as spiritual, public as well as private, in deeds as well as words and in every moment of our days on earth, always reaching out as He did to those who are lost as well as to the poor, the sick, the hungry, the oppressed, the socially despised, and being faithful stewards of creation and our fellow-creatures.”

I think that’s so very important for us to be reminded of, for if we are ready to be about His business, Jesus tells us, that we will meet with some resistance just like He did in verse 11. We read about that. It won’t be easy, and if it is, we might ask the tough questions about if we’re really about being about His business. If it becomes easy for us, maybe we’re not doing what Jesus wants us to do. It might be at least worth asking that question, but Jesus does not leave us powerless or hopeless. He’s given us the Holy Spirit. He doesn’t leave us without inviting us to come back to him over and over again for refreshment, renewal, restoration ourselves. He calls us to repentance, to live a life of repentance so that that, indeed, can happen. He is an unlikely savior, calling us to join Him in an unlikely mission. We are His unlikely group of unlikely misfits.

Turn in your Bibles if you have time and because we’re the second service, I can do this with you. Look at 1 Corinthians, Chapter 1. This is such a great and powerful statement that the apostle Paul makes here. First Corinthians, Chapter 1, verses 26 through 31. It goes like this. “For consider your calling brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh. Not many mighty, not many noble, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things that are strong. He’s chosen the base things of the world and the despised. God has chosen the things that are not that He might nullify the things that are.” And here it is, “That no man should boast before God, but by His doing, you are in Christ Jesus.”

Do you understand? Is it by your doing? No. No. By His doing, you are in Christ. Sovereignly called sovereignly chosen, sovereignly commissioned to go out and be His messengers. By His doing, verse 30, “You are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, that, just as it is written, ‘Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.” We’ve got nothing to boast about here except Jesus. We know we’re the unlikely individuals, part of an unlikely group, on an unlikely mission to lay down our lives and to join Jesus in His mission.

Here’s John Stott’s last sermon, a quote from it before he went home to be with the Lord. It’s from, I think the writing is called The Model. Yeah, Becoming More Like Christ. “All authentic mission is incarnational mission.” That means it’s embodied and fleshed, if you will. “We are to be like Christ in His mission.” These are the five main ways. Take this to your home group and talk about it. “In which we are to be Christlike: in His incarnation…” That is embody the Gospel in flesh, the gospel. Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, however you’re creative, whatever work you do, don’t ever stop enfleshing the Gospel. Do that. We’re to be like Christ “in His service.” When you look at the way Jesus served, what do you see? You see somebody willing to lay down his life for others. He gave His life for me and for you. We’re to do that as well.

“In His love,” that means actually He wasn’t forced to do it. It was His love that drove Him to the cross. If you’ve been to the cross and only gotten saved, go back to the cross and get loved because it’s the love of God that put Jesus on the cross, the love of God for sinners like you and sinners like me and sinners like the 12 as well. Go back and get His love. To be Christlike “in His endurance, His perseverance, and in His mission.” I think Stott nailed it right there. Are you an unlikely choice for Jesus? Yes. So am I, we all are. It’s awesome, isn’t it? It’s really good to know that I don’t bring anything to the table. I’ve got nothing to boast about, and now I’m set free. See, because I’m not trying to prop up my image. I’m not trying to make sure people think I’m the guy with the sunglasses on. I’m simply trying to point to Jesus and show you how beautiful He is, not how cool I might be. Or we might be.

Four unlikelies. And that’s what we pull from this particular text. Let’s pray: Lord, may the good seed of Your Word find fertile soil in our hearts and our minds. May the Holy Spirit use our study of the Word today in such a way that it will take root and that it will bear fruit in our lives for the glory of King Jesus, for the good of our family, our friends, our co-workers, our neighbors. And Lord, can it be that the amazing love that You’ve shown to us, as we sing about it here in a second, that that might not only be our experience, but that it might be the experience that is a good infection that spreads from this place through this unlikely group and these unlikely individuals. Lord, use us in any way You see fit, to bring glory to the name of Jesus and to share His love with the watching world. We pray in His precious name. Amen. And amen.

Songs, Readings & Prayer

Songs:

“Psalm 150 (Praise the Lord)“ by Matt Boswell & Matt Papa
“The Lord is My Salvation” by by Keith Getty, Kristyn Getty, Nathan Nockels & Jonas Myrin
“Goodness Of God“ by Ed Cash and Jenn Johnson
“And Can It Be“ by Charles Wesley  
“Doxology” by Thomas Ken and Louis Bourgeois

All songs are used by Permission. CCLI License #200369

Call To Worship: Who is Like You, O Lord

Leader: The word of the Lord is upright, And all his work is done in faithfulness.
People: He loves righteousness and justice; The earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.

Leader: Who is like you, O Lord, Majestic in holiness, Awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?
People: You will return in power and glory, To set all things right, And to make all things new!

Leader: Who is like you, O Lord, Majestic in holiness, Awesome in glorious deeds?
All: Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns!

Classic Prayer: Henry Thornton, 1760-1815

We have great reason, O Lord, to be humbled before you, on account of the coldness and insensibility of our hearts, the disorder and irregularity of our lives, and the prevalence of worldly affections within us. Too often have we indulged the tempers which we ought to have subdued, and have left our duty unperformed. O Lord, be merciful to us for your Son Jesus Christ’s sake. Produce in us deep repentance, and a lively faith in that Savior who has died for our sins, and risen again for our justification.

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