The Twelve, Part 2

Turn to your neighbor and say, "Jesus is here, and anything can happen." It’s a great day to be in church. We are going to be looking at some scriptures in the gospels, which give a recording of Jesus, the life of our Savior. It gives four different looks at the same scenario. We are going to be looking at some individuals that invade this gospel story called The Twelve. Pastor Mike did a great job last weekend kicking off our challenge. The Twelve is our spring teaching series that will lead us all the way up to Easter. One of the things that he said that frames the theme of our series is this thought that Jesus picked twelve common men, but gave them an uncommon calling. Over the next several weeks, we will ask, who were they? What were they like? When you study their life and do a little personal profile of each one of these twelve disciples, what were they really like? The Bible gives us some descriptions about each individual. It tells us a few things about each of their lives. We are going to consider, how does their lives relate to our lives? How does what they went through with a man by the name of Jesus in another culture and time; how would their dealings have anything to do with our dealings? Does it have any relevance to where I am living? These are the questions that we will look at as we look at the scripture and talk about these twelve common men with an uncommon calling.

I want you to imagine for a second that you are Jesus. Some of you are like that isn’t going to happen here, you don’t know me. Just imagine you are Jesus and you have been commissioned and called for this purpose. First John says, For the Son of God manifested that He might destroy the works of the evil one. He has been given this mantle from above. He’s been given the mantle of God to come and to represent God to be the exact expression of God to mankind. Mankind had run into a problem; they had gotten the picture of God a little blurred. God had spoken to them about many things, but due to time and man’s tradition. Jesus was the full expression of the Godhead. When you saw Jesus, you saw the fullness of the Godhead dwelling bodily. Even Jesus said; if you have seen me, you have seen the Father. He even said that the Father and I are one. There is no variance; we are one. Imagine you are Jesus and you are coming on the scene to let people know the true picture of God. They had forgotten it. He is going to have encounters with villages and encounters with people.

There is going to be these close moments that Jesus comes in with people who are valuable to God. He is going to clear some things up. Now if there is anybody that could go solo, Jesus could. Jesus could do all of it by Himself. It’s not as if He needed anyone else to help Him with this. He is God Almighty. Jesus decides not to be a solo act. When we look at the life of Jesus, He decides to share the stage with some other people. He decides that He wants to do life with a group, a team of twelve. He decides to be like a living classroom that moves from city to city. What’s interesting is whom He decides to put on His team and whom He selects for His staff. One of the things that impress me is not just whom He puts on it, but whom He does not put on it. If I were putting together a team like that with that type of destiny attached to it, I would probably select some really smart people, some religious scholars. And somebody who is an international financier; I would deal with some of those issues. He doesn’t do that.

Jesus goes for regular guys. He picks common people with not a real impressive resume’. They have common dreams, common hopes, and common jobs. They do have one incredible quality. It’s the one that Jesus looks for. They were willing to follow Jesus when He called. Jesus can always use somebody willing to follow. That’s what they had. They didn’t have a lot going for them, but one thing they had going for them when Jesus called their name, or they looked at them and said come with me, they followed Him. Jesus could always use a person who would follow Him. He used them then and He is still looking for people today, modern day disciples that will follow Him also now. He can still use people that are passionate about His calling.