Were you ever the left-over kid? You know what I mean…were you ever the last one picked when the two “captains” got to choose their teams for an activity?
You could see the quick calculations being made and know which team you were going to end up on because of the sudden crestfallen look on one of the captain’s faces when they realized that the leftover kid was going to be theirs. Was there something about your size or your look or your clothes or your ability or your intelligence or some unknown ingredient that you lacked that made you undesirable to the others? “Okay…I guess we’ll take Glen.”
The disappointment and surrender to the gods of chance you heard in their voice! Well, no one who has been called of God is a leftover kid. God has no second-string.
Millions of believers are unknown to us. In fact, in relation to how many people in history have been true believers and followers of Jesus Christ, we know hardly any of them. There are things we can know about them simply because we know that Jesus Christ called them to follow Him and they responded to that call. But we don’t know their names, their personalities, their strengths or weaknesses, their contributions, or whose lives they impacted for the kingdom.
That’s what we find when we look at James, the son of Alphaeus. All we know is his name and a tiny bit about his family. Their in no specific personal detail about his life that is recorded for us, yet he was one of the inner circle of the Twelve. That tells us a lot, but nowhere near what we know about any of the rest of the disciples. Why do you think that is? We’ll talk about that in a minute. For now, let’s look at what we do know.
This man is identified as the son of Alphaeus. We don’t know who Alphaeus was. We know that their was another disciple called “the son of Alphaeus”, and that is recorded for us in Mark 2:14. This is Mark’s account of the calling of Levi, also known to us as Matthew the tax-collector. Mark identifies him as “Levi the son of Alphaeus”. So, it very well could be that this James and Matthew were brothers, even though none of the gospels record that fact for us.
Mark also tells us who his mother is in Mark 15:40. Here we have the scene at the cross when Jesus has died. “And there were also some women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary, the mother of James the Less, and Joses and Salome.” When we look at John 19:25 where John speaks of the group of women, he mentions “His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.” The word translated sister would actually mean sister-in-law (who would name two of their daughters Mary anyway), and the name Clopas is the Aramaic form of Alphaeus. So, “Little” James could well be Matthew’s brother, and both of them could be cousins of Jesus’.
I want to talk about James names and nicknames for a moment. The word translated “little” is the word micros and it literally means “small in stature”. It is the same term used to describe Zaccheus the chief tax-gatherer in Luke 19:3, the little man who climbed the sycamore tree so that he could see Jesus over the heads of the crowds, all of whom were much taller than he.
So, other than these little details, what can we know about James the Less? Quite a lot, actually. This is where treasure-hunting comes in. Turn with me to Luke 10:17-10. Jesus first sent out the Twelve by twos, then He sent out those twelve and an additional fifty-eight by twos. Both times, Jesus gave those He was sending out power over sickness, disease and demons. When He sent out the seventy, he told them not even to take a money belt, a bag, or even shoes, and that they would even be protected from the deadly poisons of snakes and scorpions. When they return, they are every one of them excited about “even the demons are subject to us in Your name.”
Jesus makes a remarkable statement at that point. He says, “Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven."
Their names are written in heaven! “Don’t focus on the miraculous,” Jesus is saying. “The most important thing of all is that your names are written in heaven. That is where you will be one day with me. That is what really maters.” This is an important message, for them and for us. In John’s gospel, the morning after the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus looks out and sees that the crowd is there, waiting again to be fed. And He tells them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal (John 6:25-26).”
Here, Jesus is telling the crowds to focus on Him and not on their physical comfort. He goes on to tell them that they are to be so focused on Him and His life and His teaching that it is to be all-consuming. That is why He uses the word-picture about Him being the “bread of life”. He even goes so far as to tell them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not as the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever (John 6:53-58)."
This was a hard, unyielding position for Jesus to take and it was too much for the multitudes. Most all of them left Him at this point. The Twelve remained. Jesus asked them if they were going to go, too, and Peter responded, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God."
Little James was one of those Twelve. He stood side-by-side with the great names of the faith, didn’t leave, didn’t waver, but stayed steadfast and true.
We know about him the same things that we know about any great man of the faith. That is the encouraging thing about this man, the unknown disciple. Small, quiet, unassuming, yet hand-picked by Jesus Christ to be in the starting line-up. Hand-picked to be in the first-string. Hand-picked to be His personal representative to the world. Hand-picked to one day sit on a throne in heaven with the rest of the Twelve.
This James was a stepping stone for many who would come after him. He sought no fame, no rewards, no accolades. He simply and faithfully served. That’s all Jesus asks of any of us. Consume Him – that’s enough. He’ll do the rest.
The second disciple we want to look at in this final group of disciples is another man who we know little about; Thaddeaus, also known as Lebbaeus, also known as Judas, brother of James and Judas not Iscariot. This man had several nicknames, which would indicate that he was many things to many people. The name Judas means “Jehovah leads”, and was quite a common name in those days. The names Thaddaeus and Lebbaeus show us two sides to the man. This first nickname, Thaddaeus, means “breast child”. Today we would say, “He’s the baby of the family.” I imagine the other disciples found this humorous because of his other nickname which means “heart child” or “man of courage”. We’ve all experienced the little-bitty mom introducing her son, “This is my baby,” as she points to the 6’-5”, 235-pound behemoth towering over her. To everyone else, he was a man of great courage. To mom, he was her baby. This to me shows the very real humanity of the disciples. Every day men, real men, with the teasing, ironic kind of humor that men of strength share.
So, again the question: What do we know of Judas Thaddeaus? Since he is called “the brother of James”, he could well have been a brother to James and Matthew. That would have meant that he may also have been a cousin to Jesus. We also know that we have Judas Thaddaeus to thank for one of the great truths of the faith being revealed to us by Jesus.
Turn with me to John 14:22. Jesus and His disciples are sharing their last evening together at what we know as The Last Supper. Throughout the evening, Jesus has been teaching the disciples important and previously unknown things about the nature of the kingdom of God, about His relationship to the Father, about the Holy Spirit, and how all of this relates to them and the people who will become believers and followers after them. In this section, Jesus has just told the disciples that after He is gone, the Holy Spirit will come and that Jesus will once again reveal Himself to His disciples, but not to the rest of the world. Judas Thaddaeus has a hard time understanding what Jesus means. How is Jesus going to manage showing Himself only to those who know and love Him and not to anyone else?
Jesus doesn’t answer the question specifically. What He does say is one if the greatest revelations about how faith in Jesus Christ and how the kingdom of God works that is recorded for us. Jesus answers by saying, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and my Father will love him, and We will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love Me does not keep My words. And the word that you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me (John 14:23-24).”
What Jesus is saying is that only those who are willing to hear and obey what Jesus has to say will be able to receive Him and become part of the family of God. Only those people will be able to receive Him into their lives. In some ways it’s like having a television set in your living room. The television shows are sent out all through the area you live in twenty-four hours every day. But, only when you turn your set on can you receive the sound and the picture. And, if you don’t have the receiving part of the television adjusted right, the sound and the picture can be pretty distorted. Carrying on the metaphor, the Holy Spirit is like having cable television. It is direct-wired into your home and into your set. If the connection is loose or if there is a broken wire in the line, again the reception becomes distorted. That’s what sin and disobedience do to our ability to be in communication and fellowship with God.
On June 18th, 1815, at a place called Waterloo, the forces of Europe were engaged in their final battle with the armies of Napoleon Bonaparte. Bonaparte was trying to conquer and become ruler over all of Europe and then the known world. The fighting was fierce. Napoleon has at his disposal the most feared weapon of war yet devised – the French field cannon. The Duke of Wellington, commanding the troops of the United Kingdom who have much smaller cannon at their disposal, makes this comment to his men as the fighting intensifies, “Hard pounding this, Gentlemen. Let’s see who can pound the longest.”
That is what the Christian faith is about according to Jesus’ reply to Judas Thaddaeus. The life of the true believer is one of steadfastness in the face of everything the enemy can throw at us. God will be faithful and Jesus Christ will be ever with us. He will strengthen and enable us. Our part is to remain steadfast. That in itself is an interesting word. To be steadfast is “to stand firm at one point.” That really is what the Christian faith is all about; every-day-all-day obedience to the voice and commands of Jesus Christ, and doing so with joy and contentment.
The Westminster Confession has perhaps the clearest and most telling definition of what steadfastness means for followers of Jesus Christ: “This perseverance of the saints depends not upon their own free will, but upon the immutability of the decree of election, flowing from the free and unchangeable love of God the Father; upon the efficacy of the merit and intercession of Jesus Christ, the abiding of the Spirit, and of the seed of God within them, and the nature of the covenant of grace: from all which arises also the certainty and infallibility thereof.”
Our desire to be steadfast is only part of it. We need the abiding grace of God to help keep us from loosing our footing and slipping and sliding into sin and separation from God.
“Nevertheless, they may, through the temptations of Satan and of the world, the prevalency of corruption remaining in them, and the neglect of the means of their preservation, fall into grievous sins; and, for a time, continue therein: whereby they incur God’s displeasure, and grieve His Holy Spirit, come to be deprived of some measure of their graces and comforts, have their hearts hardened, and their consciences wounded; hurt and scandalize others, and bring temporal judgments upon themselves.”
Our reliance is on God while our determination is our own. That is what Judas Thaddeaus learned from his time with Jesus Christ, and it is a truth that his steadfastness has ensured has been passed on to us. He learned that we cannot do everything, but we can do enough. With God in us and at our side, we can always take just one more step in the right direction. As Paul tells us in his second letter to the church at Thessalonica: “But the Lord is faithful. He will strengthen you and protect you against the evil one. And we have confidence in the Lord about you, that you are doing and will do the things that we command. May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ…As for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good (2 Thessalonians 3:3-4, 13).”
Church tradition tells us that Judas Thaddeaus learned this lesson well. The story tells us that Thaddaeus, was tremendously gifted with the power of God to heal the sick. There was a certain king in Syria by the name of Abgar who heard about it, and who was deathly ill, and no one had any solutions for him. He lay dyting and he called for Thaddaeus to come and heal him. On the way to heal the king, Thaddeaus healed hundreds of people throughout Syria. When he finally reached the king and healed him, he presented the Gospel to the him and the legend says that the king became a Christian. This threw the country into such chaos that an apostate nephew of the king seized Thaddaeus, made him a prisoner and beat him to death with a club. If you ever pick up an old church history book, you will see that each of the disciples has a symbol that represents them. The symbol for Thaddaeus is a big club. Steadfast and faithful to his Lord to the very end.
The final disciple I want to look at today is Simon the Zealot. We will leave the final disciple, Judas Iscariot, until next time. He is so infamous and we know so much about him that he warrants a lesson to himself.
All we know about Simon is his name and his political affiliation: Simon, the Zealot. The Zealots were a fanatically patriotic group in Palestine at the time of Christ and they were constantly looking for ways to overthrow the rule of Rome. They were so intense about it that when they grew to the size and strength to be a serious threat, the uprising they led in AD 70 resulted in the complete and utter destruction of the Temple and much of Jerusalem itself. The Jews were so scattered among the nations that they never became a nation again until 1878 years later when Israel became a recognized nation-state in 1948.
Simon was a zealous freedom fighter, one of those who believe that all man are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, and that no one has the right to dominate and rule another without his consent. You know the kind…in fact, the Zealots and our own Founding Fathers have much in common. The main difference, however, comes down to believing or not believing in Jesus Christ. Simon, as we see in our list, is one that did. Collectively, the rest did not. It was not love of God and service to Jesus Christ that drove the Zealots to strive so diligently and so fiercely for independence. It was the national pride that drove them; it was their pride in being the Chosen of God that drove them. In the case of America, the Gospel and character and commission of Jesus Christ drove our Freedom Fighters. It was never war for war’s sake and it isn’t still today, despite what some would have us believe.
Simon made a choice one day. He had to choose between continuing to work for the independence from Roman rule of his people and following after an itinerant preacher from Galilee who might well be the Messiah promised throughout the history of his people.
There was a disconnect in the thinking of the Zealots as well as with almost all of the rest of the Jews about who and what the Messiah would be. Jesus Christ, the Suffering Servant, did not fit the picture they had in their minds. Their pictured the Conquering King blazing in with armies and weapons and anger and vengeance. They did not imagine someone mild as a lamb who would docilely allow Himself to be led to the slaughter. Where was His Jewish pride?
So like many when they consider faith in Jesus Christ, and we in the Church have done much to feed the lie. All too often, people here about how giving their heart and life to Jesus Christ will relieve their burdens and pains, how following Jesus will make their life so much better and easier. They hear how their loads will be lightened and their worries comforted if they will only turn their lives over to Jesus Christ. Too often we fail to tell them that there is a very high cost to be paid for following Jesus. Sure, entrance into the family of God and the Kingdom of Heaven are free. However, the annual dues can sometimes be quite stiff. Jesus said, “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world (John 16:33)."
We are supposed to know and count the cost, and we need to tell people there is a cost. Salvation is free, but righteous living is not. Adoption into God’s family and forgiveness of our sins is free, but steadfastness in the face of trials and temptations is not.
On Palm Sunday when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the foal of a donkey in the fulfillment of the prophecy given to Daniel in Daniel 9, the masses cheered Him as the conquering hero they expected. The question was put to Him after His Resurrection (Acts 1:6), “Lord, will You now restore the Kingdom of Israel?”
Simon hated everything and everyone associated with Rome, especially the taxes. So, Jesus puts him in a group of men that has a former tax-collector for Rome in their midst. Imagine the shock he experienced when Jesus, asked about paying taxes, answers, “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” Or, how about this man who believed that it was only the edge of the sword that the Romans would heed and understand, one day he hears Jesus say, All who take up the sword will perish by the sword (Matthew 26:52).” Simon and all those who believed as he did were anxious for the Kingdom of God to reign down and for the descendant of David to viciously expel the invaders. Jesus taught that the Kingdom of Heaven would not spread rapidly, but that it would work slowly, invisibly like yeast when He said, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three pecks (24 quarts) of meal, until it was all leavened.”
What Simon came to know and understand was that there was a great and vital war to be fought, but that war was not a war of the flesh, but a war between the light and the darkness, between the truth and the lie, between God and evil, between the Savior and sin. Simon came to understand that our battle is not against flesh and blood and that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but spiritual. When Jesus one day said, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword (Matthew 10:34).” Simon surely believed that this indeed was the time when Israel would rise up and once again be a force to be reckoned with in the world. Only later did he come to realize that the sword Jesus referred to was the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, and that whenever and whenever that Word was preached, there would be a battle engaged.
The zeal and passion that Simon felt for his nation Jesus sanctified and transformed into a zeal and a passion for the Gospel and for the true Kingdom of God.
As we look over these three disciples, we need to come away with a deep self-examination and ask the Holy Spirit to help us see where we sit and where we fit as followers of Jesus Christ. Are we like Little James? Are we like Judas Thaddaeus? Are we like Simon the Zealot? What did they learn that we need to learn? Which of their characteristics do we share and need to have sanctified and transformed as Jesus did for them? What is it that we have not accepted and surrendered? What misconceptions about being a follower of Jesus Christ do we have and what is the reality we need to accept and live?
My prayer today is that you will come away form this study today with a deep sense of the unique relationship you have with Jesus Christ and the uniqueness of the claim He has made on your life and your future. Take a few moments to celebrate the demise of the lies and the fears and surrender completely once more – or, for the first time – to the leading and lordship of the true Redeemer and Lord. Ask Him to make you steadfast and passionate, consumed by His life and His Word.
