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The Good News of Jesus

11/30/2008 - Draft Day, Mark 3:13-19

This is a time of enormous change in our country. It's a time of great transition moving from one political party to another. In less than two months we'll have a new president and vice-president. On January 20, 2009, Barack Obama and Joe Biden will take the baton from George W. Bush and Richard Cheney.

And along with the presidential change will come a change in the members of the cabinet as well. Barack Obama can't run this country alone. He needs advisors and aides to help him make the best possible decisions for our nation and that group of advisors is called the cabinet, which for years I thought was a piece of furniture that the president had hanging in his kitchen. But this week I discovered it's not, it's people!

The cabinet is made up of the vice-president and the heads of fifteen executive departments called secretaries. The Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, and the Attorney General.

And right now, Barack Obama is in the midst of choosing his cabinet. These are strategic choices that will affect the direction of our country for years to come. And any change that he hopes to bring has to begin with his cabinet. And experts are saying that he needs to choose a cabinet that has diversity as well as consensus. He needs to bring in not just Democrats and Republicans, but Libertarians, Green Party members and independents as well. At least that's what the political pundits are saying.

One article I read said, "Most importantly, he needs to choose individuals who are both qualified to hold their positions as well as are able to accept opposing views while maintaining their composure in difficult times."

This is a very critical time for Barack Obama as he builds his leadership team. And of course, each of his choices is going to be put under the microscope and sliced and diced and dissected because that's politics these days. And the press is going to dig up as much dirt as possible on anyone whose name is even mentioned for a position. That goes with the territory.

This morning we come to the passage in the Gospel of Mark where Jesus chooses his cabinet. He chooses those he wants, not to advise him or to tell him what to do, but to expand his ministry and extend his influence and help him bring about enormous, unimaginable change. This is a very strategic episode in the life of Jesus. And the twelve men he chooses will literally turn the world upside down. Each one will have his critics. In fact, all but one will end up dead for their loyalty to Jesus and for the change they're willing to die for.

Today we continue our series called The Good News of Jesus … As Told By Mark and if you have a Bible meet me at Mark 3:13-15 , Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him. ¹⁴He appointed twelve—designating them apostles—that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach ¹⁵and to have authority to drive out demons.

Luke in his gospel adds a very important detail when he writes in Luke 6:12-13, One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the whole night praying to God. ¹³When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles.

The choice of his cabinet was such an important decision for Jesus that he spent the whole night in prayer.

Two weeks ago, Matt pointed out that things were getting ridiculous for Jesus (show big map). Enormous crowds were coming to him from all over Israel, from Judea and Idumea, over 100 miles south of Capernaum, and as far up the Mediterranean coast as Tyre and Sidon, about 60 miles north. And it was all by word of mouth. There was no mass communication in that day.

And it got so bad down by the lake that Jesus had his friends prepare a "get away boat" just in case he had to run for his life. At one point he actually climbed into the boat and pushed off shore to teach, otherwise the crowd would have driven him right into the water. It was bedlam on the beach with people wanting to grab Jesus and touch him and the sick getting healed and demons screaming out and Jesus telling them to shut up. It was wild! People weren't quietly standing in line taking a number like you do at the deli. Instead, they were rushing the stage! And it went on all day, day after day, and deep into the night until Jesus finally escaped up into a nearby mountain.

By this time scholars believe that Jesus was about a year or a year and a half into his public ministry and it was exploding. And so he knew that it was time to expand the team. Up until now it had been Jesus, Peter, Andrew, James, John and more recently Matthew. But that wasn't enough. Jesus needed others who would help get the word out and spread the good news of the kingdom. He needed others who would represent him well.

And so draft day was circled on his calendar. And draft day was tomorrow. So Jesus spends all night in prayer asking his heavenly Father for wisdom because he's going to select twelve men out of the thousands who have been coming to his revivals over the past few months.

And some of his draft picks will be as controversial as Donovan McNabb was on his draft day, but none will be a mistake. And so when the sun comes up over the Sea of Galilee he calls his disciples to him and designates twelve of them as apostles.

Now often we use the word "disciple" and "apostle" interchangeably and that's fine. But technically, all the apostles were disciples, but not all the disciples were apostles. And to make it even more confusing some of the apostles wrote epistles, but the epistles are not the wives of the apostles! They were letters.

The Greek word disciple means "learner" and the Greek word "apostle" means "sent one." Jesus had hundreds, if not thousands of disciples, people who were learning from him all the time. But out of that pool he drafted twelve who would have the special privilege of being with him and then being sent out by him to preach and drive out demons.

Now, let me make a simple observation before we look at the starting lineup. And that is that Jesus had a team. Jesus being God could have done it all by himself. He didn't need anybody's help to establish his kingdom. But he didn't want to do it by himself. He came to start a new community of people who are connected to him by faith. And he starts that community with the Twelve.

As we've already seen his greatest critics were the Pharisees. And the word Pharisee means "separated one." The Pharisees weren't into community. They weren't into connecting with people. Instead, they worked hard at separating themselves from everybody else, keeping their distance from all those who weren't as good as they were.

But that's not the way of Christ. The way of Christ begins with a group. From the very beginning following Jesus was meant to be done with others which is why we talk so often about community around here. We need each other. We were never meant to walk alone with Jesus. Following Christ has always been a team sport.

A few weeks ago I visited a group that meets on Wednesday nights and when I walked in I saw three or four people that are fairly new to Valley View. I didn't even know they knew about this group. But they were there. Someone had invited them in. But in my mind I was like, "Wait a minute. You're not allowed to be here. You didn't come to our Valley View Welcome first!" But that didn't matter to them. They went right into a group because they were looking for community.

And groups are a wonderful way to experience community. And I told the group that night that it's really all about three things. It's about encouraging one another to love God, to love each other, and to reach out to a broken world. That's the same agenda that Jesus will have for the Twelve.

And while I was there I tried to cast some vision for how that group could eventually become two groups or four groups that reach out to others. We're always looks for more ways for connection around here. If we can help you please let us know or check out our website under "Expressions of Community."

The Alpha Course that's coming up soon is a wonderful way to experience community. Every gathering begins with a shared meal and nothing brings people together as much as food. If you've never gone through it I'd strongly encourage you to consider Alpha the next time it's offered.

But groups aren't the only to way to find community. And we understand that. There are certain reasons and certain seasons in life that make it difficult to commit to a group on a regular basis. But that doesn't mean that we have to walk alone in our journey with Jesus. We can still have wonderful community with others and we need to.

And so Jesus calls a community together and they are a diverse bunch. Look at verse 16,These are the twelve he appointed: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); ¹⁷James son of Zebedee and his brother John (to them he gave the name Boanerges, which means "sons of thunder"); ¹⁸Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot ¹⁹and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

I think there were some boos on draft day like Matt mentioned a couple of weeks ago. This is a rag tag bunch. No celebrities. No heavy hitters. No super stars. No Bible scholars. No professors. No synagogue leaders. And certainly no Pharisees. Just everyday, ordinary working class people like fisherman and farmers and tax collectors. The apostles are real, live people. They're not stained glass windows or statues to be venerated. They are twelve ordinary men who loved Jesus and weren't afraid to be called Christ followers. The crowds would come and go, but not these guys. They would be with Jesus.

This list of twelve is also found in Matthew, Luke, and Acts. And in every place it always starts with Peter and it always ends with Judas Iscariot. And it's always in three groups of the same four guys. The first group of four always begins with Peter, the second group of four always begins with Philip, and the third group of four always begins with James the son of Alphaeus. There are two sets of brothers on the team, Peter and Andrew, James and John.

There are no women on the team, not because women can't be leaders or because Jesus didn't value women. He did. There were women who followed Jesus and supported him financially out of their very own pockets. Jesus taught women in a culture that denied women any opportunity for education. The first person Jesus appeared to after his resurrection was a woman in a day and age when women couldn't even testify in a court of law. Jesus made Mary Magdalene his star witness.

And women like Priscilla and Junia and others named in Romans 16 worked closely with the apostle Paul starting churches throughout Europe and Asia. Jesus was the best thing that ever happened to women. He valued women in a culture that suppressed and dominated them. He stood up for their rights to be treated like human beings in a society that treated them like property, but for whatever reason he didn't choose them to be among the twelve.

Some of these twelve apostles like Peter, James and John, we know a great deal about. But others are just names on a list like Thaddaeus and Bartholomew. Some have distinct characteristics that emerge whenever they appear in Scripture.

Andrew, for instance, is always bringing people to Jesus. He brings his brother, Peter, to Jesus. He brings the little boy with five loaves and two fish to Jesus so he can feed the five thousand. He brings a group of Greeks to Jesus in John 12.

Thomas called Didymus which means "the twin" is often given a bad rap. He's the one who wanted to see proof of the resurrection and so he's often called "doubting Thomas." But thank God he did. Our whole faith hinges on the reality of the resurrection and he got undeniable proof when he put his finger in the nail prints of Jesus' hands and stuck his fist in the hole in Jesus' side. Thomas may have doubted at first, but he was also the only one who said, "Let's go to Jerusalem so that we can die with Jesus."

Jesus had nicknames for some. He gave James and John the nickname Boanerges which means "sons of thunder." They were a couple of hot heads when he first met them. There's a story in Luke 9 where Jesus is going through Samaria and the disciples can't find a place to stay for the night. They go to the Holiday Inn, but they won't let them stay there. They go across the street to the Hilton, but they're kicked out of there because they're on their way to Judea and the Samaritans hate the Judeans.

And so James and John run up to Jesus and say, "Hey, let's nuke this place! Let's blow it up! Call down fire from heaven, Jesus, and send 'em a message that you're not going to put up with this stuff!" That's James and John, the same two guys that ticked off the other apostles because they wanted reserved seats in the kingdom right next to Jesus on his throne.

But God wasn't done with them yet, just like he's not done with us yet. He saw their potential, just like he sees our potential. And he's patient with us just as he was patient with them. We're a rag tag bunch too.

Later on it will be James who becomes the first apostle to die for Jesus and his brother, John, will be known as the apostle of love because he writes about love more than anyone else in the Scriptures. And tradition tells us that when John got too old and too weak to walk after his exile on the island of Patmos he had to be carried before the church and all he could say was, "Children, love one another." And they'd carry him out.

This was a diverse bunch. And no where is that diversity seen more clearly than in the distinction between Matthew who was a tax collector and Simon who was a Zealot. These guys were polar opposites. Democrat, Republican, Liberal, Conservative, Eagles fan, Cowboys fan doesn't even come close to illustrating how different these guys were. In fact, if it wasn't for Jesus they might have killed each other.

Matthew was a tax collector. He was a Jew who sold out to the Romans. He worked for the Empire and made his living ripping off his fellow countrymen. He was a traitor who had lost any sense of patriotism in his reckless pursuit of wealth.

Simon the Zealot on the other hand was a Jew who would die for his country. He could care less about money, but he would die for Israel. He was a fanatical patriot who packed heat. Josephus, the famous Jewish historian, refers to the Zealots as the dagger men because they all carried daggers and liked to move through the crowds and slip their knives through the slits in the armor of Roman soldiers. They had no trouble killing for their country. Today we'd call them extremists or terrorists even. So when Jesus chose these two guys to be on his starting team he was taking some risks!

The most educated, most cultured, most respected apostle was Judas Iscariot. He came from a little town south of Jerusalem called Kerioth and was the only Judean on the team. The rest were from Galilee. They were from the country and he was from the city. He was sophisticated. And the others looked up to him and trusted him to take care of the money, even though Matthew was a finance guy. They didn't trust him. He worked for the Empire!

But what I want us to see this morning is that from the start the community around Jesus was incredibly diverse. It was diverse by design. And diversity is something that we all need to celebrate. We want to be a diverse community here at Valley View. We don't all want to think the same and act the same and vote the same and be the same. There needs to be a healthy diversity in our midst around a mutual love for Jesus. He is the one who binds us together. Not our race. Not our nationalities. Not our economic status. Not our marital status. Not our political or even theological views, but our mutual love for Jesus.

Jesus called these twelve to be with him and then sends them out to be his representatives. And that hasn't changed either. We may not be apostles but we are to be with Jesus and then to go out and represent him as salt and light in this world.

And so we gather together on Sundays, like we are today, to be with Jesus. He is the one we come here to see. Some of us gather in smaller groups during the week to be with Jesus. Many of us try to get alone and find solitude to pray or to read the Scriptures during the week to be with Jesus. We have to be with Jesus.

And then we go out to be his representatives to a lost and broken world. We take the message, the good news of Christ and his kingdom, and we push back the darkness any way we can. We may not preach sermons and cast out demons. But God will give us plenty of ways to spread the love of Christ and the message of his kingdom through word and deed. We pray for opportunities like that all the time. That's the mission of Christ.

Twelve apostles. Twelve tribes of Israel. No mistake in the number twelve. Jesus was beginning a new kingdom, a kingdom that would go beyond the borders of Israel. A kingdom that would include men and women, Jew and Gentile, slave and free. A kingdom that would one day cover the whole earth. It began with Jesus and then the twelve and now the baton has been passed to us. Let's keep it going.

FOR MORE INFORMATION about Valley View Community Church, feel free to contact us at info@valleyviewseek.org or call 610.631.2707.