I want you to imagine for a few minutes that you have been invited to the White House and the President is having lunch with you. You are sitting in on his cabinet meeting and they are talking about some foreign issues and they are dealing with some internal issues. They have brought lunch in and it is from Texas. It is some chili dogs and maybe some french fries. He is feeling really good that afternoon and things are going well. While you are eating the chili dog and gathering around with the Minister of Defense and the Secretary of State, you are eating and you don’t realize that you have a little bit of chili on the side of your face. You notice that the President gets up and comes around the table and takes your napkin and he begins to wipe off the corner of your mouth and clean up that area of your face. Then the President of the United States goes around the room and he is cleaning people up from the chili dog stains. You realize how shocked you are from that action. You think I cannot believe this is happening. The President does not do that, this is odd, this is weird, and this is not supposed to be happening. Where is the secret service and body guards?
That is exactly what the disciples felt like that evening before Jesus was suppose to be betrayed, led away, given a mock trial, go to a cross and die for the sins of the world and then be resurrected for our new life. That is exactly what they felt like that evening as their teacher became a servant to them. They tried to stop Jesus because it just didn’t seem right and Jesus looks at them and says a few words that are going to be key this morning. He says if your teacher and your master will do this for you what should you do for others being the student or the disciple? That is what we have been learning about over the last six weeks. We have been looking at the twelve. They were common men with an uncommon calling. They were twelve ordinary men that were given an extraordinary opportunity to join a journey with Jesus the Messiah, the Christ, the Teacher, the master teacher. We have looked at some of the different disciples so far. We have looked at the first big four. They were James and John, the brothers and Andrew and Peter who were also brothers. They had more access to Jesus. Then there were four others who were Matthew, Thomas, Phillip and Judas Iscariot.
Next there were the four out of the twelve that are somewhat the unknown disciples. They were chosen by Jesus but they did not write any books of the Bible, there is not a sermon recorded by them in scripture, they didn’t give out some major truth, and they didn’t really inspire a lot of parables. You don’t know much about them beyond the list that Jesus gives us in the gospels of the ones that He selected, but Jesus invited them on the journey with Him and as Jesus spoke to their hearts, there was a magnetic thing that happened on the inside and they wanted to follow this teacher. He was unlike the other teachers that they were brought up around and unlike those who claimed to know the truth. This teacher actually knew the truth and He was the truth.
I want to look in depth as Jesus selected all twelve and he focused on these four that we saw on the video. These were the unknown ones. Let’s look in Mark, chapter three and Luke, chapter six and Matthew, chapter ten. This is where Jesus selects twelve ordinary men to be a part of His journey. Here is a little bit of history. When Jesus began to walk on the earth -- there were people that began to follow Him. There were about five to seven hundred people that would show up when Jesus showed up. They were like the home team crowd and then there were about one hundred and fifty that were travel fans. When Jesus would go somewhere they would follow him. Out of that group Jesus spent some time thinking that He wanted to narrow it down to twelve ordinary men who would follow Him. Mark 3:13 says, "Afterward Jesus went upon a mountain and He called the ones He wanted to go with Him and they came to Him. Then He selected twelve of them to be His regular companions, calling them apostles." He sent them out to preach, and He gave them authority to cast out demons. Out of this big group He started selecting ones. He said I want to be with you and I want you to be with me. You are going to have different access. You are going to be my disciples and you are going to be my apostles. Disciple means student learner and apostle means messenger of what you have learned. He says, "Simon, James and John, Andrew and Philip and then Bartholomew and Matthew the tax collector and Thomas, the doubter. Then he says James, son of Alphaeus. He looks in the back of the crowd and He says, "Thaddeus I would like you to be with me and Simon the zealot I want you to be a part." He chooses Judas at the last to be a disciple. If you look in the book of Luke at the selection process of Jesus you will find a different look at this process. Luke 6:12 says, "One day soon afterward Jesus went to the mountain to pray..." This tells us that before He selected them that He went up to pray. I don’t think He was praying to ask God who to pick because He was God and He knew everything. I believe He was praying for God to give power to those twelve common men who He would pick the next day. He prayed to God all night long and at daybreak He called together all of His students and He chose twelve of them to be apostles.
We are looking at the group that was unknown. First there was Bartholomew or Nathaniel. He was a dreamer. One little window in scripture says that when he came to Jesus that Jesus said to him that He saw him sitting under a tree thinking about something. He was a big time thinker. Then there was James, the son of Alphaeus. Another word for him is James the less. This James is not mentioned on any other list in scripture other than on the list of disciples. His name means the little and small in statue. He was one of the youngest ones. Peter was one of the oldest one in the bunch and he was in his late thirties and the rest of the disciples were somewhat in their late teens and early twenties. They were young men. If you are a teacher and you are going to select students, then many times you are going to go for the age that believes all things are possible. Sometimes as you become an adult, passion, faith and vision gets put in the deep freeze. Jesus chooses those that may think that the world could be changed. Then there was Simon, the zealot. He was zealot and he was so passionate about Israel. He was a patriot and a freedom fighter and a nationalist. He was ready to fight and defend Israel at all costs. It is interesting that Jesus put him in the group with Matthew because Matthew worked for Rome and if they had lunch together they would probably beat each other up, but Jesus put them together.
Then there was a young man by the name of Thaddeus or Judas. This was the son of James not Judas Iscariot who would later betray Him. His name means breast child or momma’s boy. He was little and he was known as the quiet disciple and he never said much at all. It tells us that Jesus called them by their name and He wanted them to be with him even though they were a diverse group. Why does He want to put this company of the unknown with these other disciples? Jesus always sees the potential of everybody. No man needs to think that He has nothing to offer Jesus. Even those that have low profiles and are not big talkers and even those that do not share the limelight or center stage have something to contribute to Jesus. When a tiny snowflake falls from the sky it looks so fragile by itself but when it is combined with the billions of snowflakes -- it can halt a city, shut down air ports and stop traffic. These disciples, grouped together, were able to change the world and here we are thousands of years later doing a profile on them.
Jesus called them into relationship with him. He does not draft them, he does not beg them, he does not bribe them to come and follow but He selected them. He did not force them or ask them to volunteer because that is not the world Jesus lived in. He chose them and He is still choosing people today to do the same thing. In Matthew 28:11, Jesus says he wants us to go now and make disciples and that process of making disciples is still gong on. A Christian is someone who has accepted Christ as their savior and then has a life long journey of learning who Christ is and learning to follow Jesus and be a disciple. We follow Him until the day that we see Him face to face. That is what it means to be a disciple. It means to follow Christ until we see Him face to face.
We need to look a little at the backdrop of the place where Jesus chose these disciples to understand how He chose them. Jesus came to a place called Galilee and He was a first century Rabbi. People referred to Jesus as Rabbi about fifteen times in the scripture and they mention Him as being a master teacher another dozen times. We see Him as Savior and Lord, but we don’t really understand Rabbi because that is not our history or background and we are not really impressed with someone being a Rabbi. In this context of scripture it meant everything. It means great. To be a Rabbi, you had to be one of the greatest theologians of the Word of God. The Word of God was in the Torah back then and it was the first five books of the Bible. Only the greatest students would become a Rabbi because they would be incredible in knowing the Word of God. They were the chief instructors of the law. Being a Rabbi was like the one who wins the green jacket in the Masters Golf Tournament.
Jesus came into a place called Galilee and the Torah was the spoken Word of God. They taught it in the synagogue and they had school in the synagogue. Their whole life revolved around it. So Jesus came to a group of people who understood that God’s Word was the spoken Word of God and their goal in life at Galilee was to learn to live in harmony with God’s word that they had learned from a young child. They would take five and six year old children and bring them into the synagogue and as part of their schooling they would memorize the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. That is how they learned to read and write and understand relationships. Then at about age eleven or thirteen only the best would go to secondary education. After about ten years they would be chosen to be a disciple or a learner. You can see Jesus teaching in the synagogue at a young age and they are blown away by it. He memorizes the old interpretations. The Word at Galilee had gotten a little distorted and they stated adding to it and by doing this they started controlling the people.
This had become the profit and business of most of the Rabbis. A disciple means to be a student or learner and Jesus shows us in scripture that a disciple is not just I want to know what you know. A disciple is someone who wants to become what the teacher is. It almost means I want to mimic the teacher. A Rabbi would choose disciples who would act right and mimic them because they had an interpretation of the law and they wanted to perpetuate their bend on the Torah.
Jesus began to teach His interpretation of the Torah When He became a Rabbi at age thirty. Jesus said His interpretation of the Word was like a yoke that was easy and light because all the other people who were teaching the Torah were heavy. Jesus did not bring that interpretation to the town. He is different. He is serving people, loving people healing people and caring about people that the other Rabbis and teachers don’t’ want to have anything to do with. The word on the street is that we have never heard anyone teach like this Rabbi.
After Jesus is baptized by John the Baptist, He begins to walk by people who are not disciples and He begins to choose James, John, Bartholomew, Thaddeus, James the less, Phillip and Andrew. Understand the impact and what it meant to be chosen by a Rabbi and this was just not any old Rabbi. He was the son of God. He was the spoken word, He was the Living Word. The greatest blessing of a disciple was that a disciple followed their Rabbi so close that where He went, that the dust of the Rabbi covered them because where He walked, they would walk right behind Him. They stood in his tracks. Jesus looks at such a common, ordinary, low profile, didn’t make the cut when they were ten or eleven, and nobody else really wanted them and He chooses them to be His disciples and to follow him and not just learn about Him but to actually experience His life. The same invitation is given to you and I today for this Rabbi never died. This great teacher of the law lives again and His name is Jesus. He still chooses disciples today. His disciples were an odd bunch. They were ordinary but He saw something in them. Was it leadership, faith, finances or were they charismatic? They had one trait. A willingness to follow Jesus. They made the decision to follow Him. Their mom and dad didn’t get bummed out about it but they would say with pride that this new Rabbi has come by and He has chosen my boy to be a disciple. They knew no one was chosen as a disciple that could not perpetuate the message. He saw something in them that they could not even see in their selves.
I tell you that He also sees something in you that you do not even see in yourself. Jesus chose them to follow Him. That is the one thing that matters the most then and the one thing that matters the most now. What are you following today? You are following something. Everybody is following something. How well do you follow Christ? Whose disciple are you? Who are you mimicking in life? How well do you follow Christ this year compared to some other years? What or who are your children following. Who are they becoming a disciple of? As a parent they are probably following who you are following. They will become a disciple of whoever you are a disciple of. He invites you and me to follow him close. There are no excuses. He still invites you to come and follow me. The invitation is the same today as it was back then on those dusty roads. He speaks it today into our culture. Come and be a follower of me and be a lifelong learner of Jesus Christ. Follow Jesus is the invitation. The disciples followed, learned and stayed close to their Rabbi to the very end. Every single one died for the teaching. They laid their life down for what they learned from Jesus.
They followed Him and there was a cost to discipleship and this morning there is still a cost of discipleship. Bartholomew the dreamer shared Jesus in Iran and there he died for it. They nailed him to the cross and whipped him to the point that his skin came off and then beheaded him and threw his body into the sea because he followed Jesus. They took James the less, the one no one knew about, and he was stoned to death as he preached in Syria. Simon, the zealot was passionate about Israel and he brought his message to Armenia and they crucified him just like they did Jesus. Young Thaddeus, the disciple with three names empowers the local church and helps the local church all over Galilee when Jesus is gone and becomes one of the first missionaries of the church. He was taken out to a field somewhere in Turkey and pagan priests beat him with clubs until he died and then they took his body and sent it back to Jerusalem because the priest said they did not want one trace of Jesus Christ in their land.
Church, the dust of the Rabbi covered them. Does the dust of our Rabbi cover us? I pray that the dust of Jesus will cover you and you will follow Him all the days of your life.
