The Master's Men, Part 1

Isn't it fascinating that Jesus did not choose one rabbi? Not one scribe.

Wouldn't it be great to get one guy that can write? Not one member of the religious establishment. He bypasses the high priest. Those are connections, man. That's how you get ahead.

He's not figuring out a way to pad his resume. He's going to personally train representatives with a radically new message. And it's as if they're not tainted by religion. As Jesus began his public ministry, there were hundreds of people following him and wanting to be near him. But as you know, he chose 12 men to become his close followers. We call these men the 12 disciples.

This was not a flippant selection. In fact, before selecting these special followers, Jesus spent extended time in prayer. These disciples followed Jesus and they model for us what it means to walk in the footsteps of our Savior.

Welcome to Wisdom for the Heart. Today, Stephen Davey begins a three-part series called The Master's Men. Join Stephen as we learn from the lives and examples of these 12 followers of Jesus. There's an old saying in the commentary of Jewish tradition and culture called the Mishnah. It's an ancient expression that referred to disciples following so closely, along with their mentor, that they were said to wear the dust of their teacher. In other words, they walked so closely to their master teacher that they were literally covered by the dust kicked up by his sandals. The Greek word for disciple, mathetes, means learner, someone being taught, a student, someone registered, as it were, in the required curriculum of their teacher.

We're about to meet 12 dust-covered men. We know them as the 12 disciples of Jesus. When they graduate, they will become apostles, commissioned ones, sent out, as it were. In fact, their mission is to do nothing more than make more disciples. The gospel by Luke has reached that point, if you've been with us, where the gloves are coming off and the hostility of the religious world is becoming obvious and intentional. By the time you finish verse 11 of chapter 6, the religious leaders are intentionally, unashamedly planning the murder of Jesus. At this point, Jesus happens to have hundreds of disciples. In fact, at one point a little later, I'll send 70 of them out to preach. Some of them are sincere followers. Some of them are not.

They just want a free meal. But Jesus has less than two years before he will be crucified. It's at this point now that the Lord believes it's time to gather a very close, intimate group of men around him. They're going to assist him in his miracles. They're going to travel everywhere with him. They're going to listen to his sermons repeated.

They're going to be involved in listening to every question and answer discussion. They're going to camp out with him as he travels. They're going to learn to replicate his attitude and his perspective and his ministry. These are the twelve men who will literally walk in his footsteps. They will begin to wear his dust, and more importantly, share his heart for the world. If you have a copy of the New Testament, turn to the Gospel by Luke. We're in chapter 6. Jesus, here in verse 12, is going to precede the selection of his core team, these twelve men, by spending the night in prayer.

We often skip over this. It's probably because we're a little too convicted that he spent the night in prayer, but that's what he's going to do. Notice verse 12. In these days, he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. Now, this phrase, spending the night in prayer, comes from a word that only appears here in the entire New Testament.

Now, wouldn't you know it? It's a medical term. It would be familiar to Dr. Luke, the physician.

Perhaps he was aware of this and experienced it. It's a word used for a physician spending an all-night vigil at the bedside of a critically ill patient. Sitting up all night with a desperately ill individual, you don't want to go to sleep because of the intensity of the moment, and Dr. Luke uses that here. What makes it even more interesting is the fact that Luke writes here that Jesus continued. You could literally translate it in the prayer of God, or prayer with God. In other words, what you have here is a prayer meeting of the Trinity. This is an amazing holy gathering. This is a sacred event of communion as the members of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit, are literally spending the evening communing with one another.

Can you imagine? This is so sacred, so otherworldly that Luke really doesn't provide any descriptive commentary. He just tells us this is what happened. Now, you need to keep in mind, Jesus is not out here praying, Father, I need to choose 12 men. I'm just not sure about Peter. He seems a little imbalanced. I'm not sure about choosing Judas. He seems a little shifty to me. Matthew's got the worst reputation in the community. I don't know what I ought to do.

What should I do? No. The omniscient God the Son is fully aware of these 12 men and his choice of them from eternity past. He already knows everything about them. Jesus isn't out here cramming for the final exam, so to speak. He's not confused. He's not communicating with God the Father or God the Spirit about what do I do now. He's communing, the Triune God is, over the significance of this moment in human history planned before time began.

If anything, one author commented Jesus isn't praying about whether or not he should choose one or the other. Jesus is beginning to pray for them. His ministry of intercession is intensifying for these men. He already knows their flaws. He already knows who they are. He already knows what they're going to face. He knows their future. He's praying for them. In fact, Jesus will later on tell Peter in Luke's Gospel, later in chapter 22, Peter Satan is trying to sift you.

That's biblical language for you. He's trying to mess your life up. But I want you to know I've already prayed for you.

Wow. This is reassuring because if it's true for them, it's true for you. He knows every flaw. He knows your past. He knows your future. Jesus knew everything about you before you took that first step in following in his footsteps.

Now at the very outset of our study, I want you to keep a couple of truths in mind. First of all, Jesus chose his disciples not because he needed them, but because they needed him. Isn't it fascinating that Jesus did not choose one rabbi? I mean they could have turned to the scroll of Isaiah and started reading. These guys don't know the book of Genesis from the book of maps as we say, right? Not one scribe.

Wouldn't it be great to get one guy that can write? Not one member of the religious establishment. He bypasses the high priest and his family. Those are connections, man.

That's how you get ahead. Jesus. He's not figuring out a way to pad his resume as the Messiah.

He's going to personally train representatives with a radically new message. And it's as if they're not tainted by religion 70 miles away in Jerusalem. He chooses disciples who realize they need him, who walk closely with him to learn of him.

The second truth I want you to keep in mind is this. Jesus chose his disciples not because of who they were, but because of who they would become. Think about who they were for a minute or two.

If you're older in the faith, you'll probably know more than those younger in the faith, but we know some things about them. What an interesting selection of men. Not only an interesting selection because of what we may know, but humanly speaking, but think about how different they were from each other. I mean, you read this list and you can almost feel they're not going to get along with each other very well.

They're all over the political spectrum. You've got Simon the Zealot, not Simon Peter, another Simon known as the Zealot. The Zealots were red-hot patriots. Simon is going to get into a fistfight with anybody who says anything bad about Israel. If they don't want to overthrow the Roman government, Simon the Zealot has nothing to do with them. And now he puts Simon the Zealot to join up with Matthew, the tax collector, a man who has sold out his nation Israel, purchased from Rome the ability to turn around and tax his own people.

If Jesus puts these two guys in the same tent overnight, in the morning, Matthew is going to be missing or dead. Added to that, he's twelve-member all over the emotional personality spectrum. Matthew's fast. He's impetuous. He's a talker. He's a risk-taker. Philip is careful, methodical. He would have had eight pens in his pocket, a calculator nearby. He's always figuring out how much money they're going to need to do whatever Jesus wants them to do.

Nathaniel, he's known by his Hebrew surname, Bartholomew. He has a tendency to believe everything he hears, paired up with Thomas who has the ability to disbelieve just about everything he hears. Some are from the upper class, it seems a few. Most are middle or lower class. Some slightly educated, most of them uneducated. They're all over the map.

How are they ever going to get along? Now, there are four lists in the New Testament that give us the names of these twelve disciples, Matthew chapter 10, Mark chapter 3, Acts chapter 1, and here in Luke chapter 6. In every list, the names show up in relatively the same exact order. In fact, in every list, Peter's name is first. Judas Iscariot is listed last.

These are significant even in their placement when you read them in the text. If you track their ministry, you'll discover that the disciples are divided into ministry groups, three groups of four each. The first group is the most prominent among the others.

They talk the most. They interact with Jesus the most. They are invited by Jesus into closer communion. At times, the most information provided in the New Testament is about this first group. And the first grouping of disciples is always the same in the New Testament.

Peter, Andrew, James, and John, two sets of biological brothers. The leader in the first group of closest disciples, of course, is the most well-known, Simon Peter. His name is mentioned in the Gospels more than any other name besides the name Jesus. No one speaks as often as Peter, often much to his chagrin. No one is spoken to by the Lord more than Peter. No one is rebuked more by the Lord than Peter. In fact, no one rebukes the Lord except Peter. Now, everybody knows about Peter's failures. Everybody knows about the rooster.

Everybody knows about that event. You're probably young if you're in church and you learned about the time when Peter clambered over the side of that boat and decided to walk on the water to come out to where Jesus was walking, Matthew 14. Peter just couldn't wait. He's now, of course, as he gets a little distracted by the waves in the wind, he's starting to sink and, yeah, look at Peter.

He's all soaking wet now. Jesus has to drag him back to the boat, throw him back in. Well, just don't forget, Peter's the only disciple even willing to try to walk on the water.

All the other disciples are back in the boat hanging on to their seat cushions for dear life, right? I think it's interesting that Peter will ask more questions than all the other disciples combined. Now, the name Peter is actually a nickname. His given name is Simon. This nickname is given to Peter or Simon by Jesus when they first meet.

John records it in chapter 1 and verse 42. Jesus looked at him and said, You are Simon, the son of John. You shall be called Cephas, which means or equal to Peter.

Peter is Greek, Cephas is Aramaic, and they both mean the same thing, pebble, rock, stone. The Lord essentially gives Simon a nickname not because he was rock-like, not because he was strong or steadfast, but because the Lord was going to make him strong and steadfast, and it would take his entire lifetime. At this moment here in Luke chapter 6 and moving forward, Peter is unpredictable. He's full of self-confidence. He's brash.

He's hot and he's cold. He's great at making promises that he cannot keep. Oh, but every time you hear him called Peter, do you not think that meant something to him? As a little reminder of who the master is wanting him to become, and he will later on become steadfast.

He will not be moved by pressure. He will be unwilling to back down under persecution. He will preach the inaugural sermon of the church age in Acts chapter 2. From church history, we learn that after decades of faithful ministry, according to Eusebius and Clement, an aged apostle Peter will be forced to watch his own wife crucified. History records that Peter encouraged her to remain steadfast as she was led away.

When it came his turn to die, he asked to be crucified upside down, testifying that he was not worthy to die in the same manner as the Lord died, and they agreed and nailed him to a cross upside down. We'll see him appearing as we travel through the gospel by Luke. The next disciple mentioned by Luke here in chapter 6 is Simon Peter's brother, Andrew. Peter and Andrew lived together with their families.

They were actually fishing partners in the family fishing business there off the coast of the Sea of Galilee. Now, we don't know for sure, but history considers Andrew to be the older brother of Peter, which frankly to me makes it all the more interesting that Andrew is willing to live in Peter's shadow. In fact, throughout the New Testament, many of the verses that name Andrew just sort of add that little commentary, Simon Peter's brother, as if to indicate that the only significance he had was that he was related to Peter. Maybe you've got a sibling. Oh yeah, you're so-and-so's sister or brother.

Maybe you've grown up in the shadow of another. This is Andrew. He's going to be mentioned nine times in the New Testament, most of it in passing. But what's even more interesting to me is that Andrew was the first brother in this family to show any kind of spiritual interest.

We put the clues together. We find out that he's been traveling out to hear John the prophet, John the baptizer preaching his message of repentance. He believes the message. He is personally baptized by John the prophet and invited by John to become one of his disciples and he agrees. So Andrew now is juggling two things. He's going out during the daytime to be with John the baptizer, the prophet, and he's coming back more than likely to spend the evening trying to stay awake, fishing with his younger brother, Peter, who probably is not all that happy about the fact that Andrew's fallen asleep.

Peter evidently shares no interest apparently in spiritual things. But then we're given this incredible encounter in John's gospel in chapter one. The next day again, John, that's the prophet, the baptizer, was standing with two of his disciples and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, Behold, look, the lamb of God. The two disciples heard him say this and they followed Jesus.

They left John and followed Jesus. One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, which means Andrew followed Jesus before Peter did. In fact, Andrew, if we put all of it together, it seems very likely that he was the first of the 12 disciples called to follow Jesus, believing him to be the Messiah. Now, if you're wondering if Andrew is thinking, I'm going to keep this to myself, I'm going to keep the truth here I've discovered to myself. I mean, after all, if Peter finds out he's going to come in here, he's going to blow everybody over, he's going to take charge and I'm tired of being under his shadow and I'm ready to launch out, you know, be my own man.

I was here first. Well, verse 41 sets the record straight of what actually happened. Andrew then first found his own brother Simon and said to him, We have found the Messiah Christos, the anointed one, and he brought him and Andrew brought Simon to Jesus. The first thing Andrew does is tell his family, specifically his brother, you won't believe it, but I've met the Messiah.

You've got to meet him too. Have you ever thought about the fact that without Andrew, there may never have been a Simon Peter? In the mystery of the way God rolled out this choosing, there is, however, the willingness on the part of Andrew to be remarkably humble.

You never hear him complain about Peter's leadership. There's no indication in any of the New Testament accounts of Andrew going, Yeah, that's Peter. Oh, brother, what's he going to do now? Why is he in charge?

I'm the older brother anyway. And did I mention I was here first? Even if it meant taking a backseat to his brother, if you track Andrew through the New Testament, you discover he is simply and constantly involved in bringing people to Jesus. In the history of Eusebius, this third century historian, he wrote that Andrew would blaze a trail with the gospel to what is now modern day Russia. He would also be martyred by crucifixion as if to insult him for following the crucified one.

Evidently, here's how it happened. As an older man, he's delivering the gospel and he led the wife of a powerful politician to faith in Christ. And this political leader in the Roman Empire was so absolutely infuriated that he demanded that his wife recant her conversion to Christianity and she refused.

And so this political leader retaliated by arresting Andrew and then putting him to death. And it struck me that he ended his ministry like he began it, bringing people to Jesus. You know what the church needs more of?

More programs, more money, more endorsements by famous people, more appreciation, more respect. Not hardly, what the church needs are more androids. People who are simply bringing people to Jesus. Here's Simon, Peter and Andrew, they're brothers first, they're fishermen and then they become spiritual brothers, fishers of men. Disciples who model for us what it means to wear with perseverance and joy the dust of our master as we walk along in the footsteps of Jesus. This was part one of a three-part series called The Master's Men. When we come back next time, we'll continue looking at the biographical sketches of the 12 men that we call the disciples.

This is Wisdom for the Heart with Steven Davey. Between now and our next broadcast, would you take a few moments and contact us? Steven recently got a note from Bob and Carmen who live here in North Carolina. They said, we can't even remember how long we've been uplifted and occasionally chastised through your broadcast. Thank you for your faithfulness. Well, thank you for writing, Bob and Carmen. And friend, what's your wisdom story?

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