The Qualifying Round - Mark 3:16-19 (Luke 6:12-16) Series

Mark 3:13 Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him. 14 He appointed twelve-- designating them apostles-- that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach 15 and to have authority to drive out demons. 16 These are the twelve he appointed: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); 17 James son of Zebedee and his brother John (to them he gave the name Boanerges, which means Sons of Thunder); 18 Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot 19 and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

Introduction

Qualification

If you have looked for a job recently, you’re acutely aware of the fact that employers are looking for highly qualified people. And the more important the position, the higher the qualifications. If you want to pastor a church, you pretty much have to walk on water. In fact, Jesus wouldn’t be qualified to pastor a lot of churches, since he didn’t have a degree.

Churches don’t find many people to be qualified, but they find a lot of people to be unqualified. The congregation at North Hampton Church found Jonathan Edwards unfit for ministry and fired him after 10 years. The vote was 10 to 1 against Edwards. They were absolutely certain that one of the greatest theologians and preachers of that century was unfit to be their pastor. John Calvin was found unfit to even live in Geneva. They ran him out of town. I know people who don’t know of a single pastor who is qualified. Whoever you mention – MacArthur, Piper, Sproul – all of them are unqualified. The Corinthian church found the Apostle Paul unfit.

How many of you have been found unfit by an employer or potential employer? Some of us have been found to be unfit not only by employers, but by friends and even family. Unfit to be included in someone’s clique. Unfit to be someone’s friend, or to have a place in their life. Unfit to even be on someone’s Facebook friends list! What is there in life that’s less significant than being a Facebook friend, and yet some of us aren’t even qualified to be one of the 500 names on someone’s FB list.

One thing that comes very naturally to us is spotting disqualifying flaws in people. Some people are professionals at that. They find disqualifying flaws in everyone. That’s a horrible way to live because you end up alienated from everyone.

Although, if you’re an employer, you really have to be alert to disqualifying flaws in people, because you need good help if you’re going to stay in business. My boss was telling me just the other day how hard it is to find people who can do my job, which is such a simple job you can be fully trained in one week. Imagine you were the hiring manager tasked with finding qualified applicants for the position of Apostle. Someone who could be trusted, after Jesus leaves the earth, with the task of taking a teaching that has been utterly rejected, and propagate it around the whole world, and to develop and oversee an organization that would persist for thousands of years and continue to grow in strength until the Second Coming. Oh, and in their spare time, to write the Bible too. That’s the job description, and the work environment involves persecution, imprisonment, and torture, and the retirement plan is to be martyred. You have to fill 12 openings. What kind of qualifications would you look for?

That was Jesus’ task that day up on that mountain. He climbed up there, gets down on his knees, starts crying out to the Father in prayer, the whole night goes by, sun comes up, Jesus gets up off the ground, summons his disciples, and out of the crowd he starts calling some names. “Simon – come forward. Where’s your brother? Andrew, come up here. James and John. Philip…” etc.

How did it work out? These 12 men are the greatest success story ever. At the beginning of Acts there are a few Christians huddled together in a room. Now 2000 years later there are millions of Christians all around the world devoting our lives to following every word these men wrote. Skip ahead to Revelation and you see a vast multitude that no one could count from every tribe and tongue standing before the throne of God worshipping him... - all through the ministry of these 12 men. How did that happen?

We left off last time with Mark telling us in vv.14,15 what Jesus’ purposes were in appointing the Twelve. Then, starting in v.16, he gives us the list of their names. Twenty years ago I did a five part sermon series summarizing everything Scripture says about each of these men. I’m not going to do that now, because I want to keep the focus on Mark’s message, and the things he wants us to know about the Twelve.