#43 Lu. 6:12-16, PEOPLE WHOM THE LORD CAN USE

Introduction:

    In recent texts Luke focused our attention on the efforts of the scribes
and Pharisees to accuse Jesus of breaking the law of the sabbath.  There
were two such separate occasions.  The first was the incident in the grain
fields when the disciples plucked a few grain and rubbed the husks off in
their hands so that they could eat the grain.  The second was in the
synagogue when Jesus healed a man with a withered hand. This resulted in an
accusation against the disciples rather than against Jesus.
    In today's text Luke turns our attention to the selection of the twelve
apostles.  Thus he shows us an example of the kind of people the Lord can
use.

I.  The Lord, spending the night in prayer

    Before Luke says anything about the ordination of the twelve, he tells
us about the Lord, Himself, spending the night in prayer.
    V. 12, "And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a
mountain to pray..."  First we see the Lord leave the city to go out into a
mountain to pray.  It is to be presumed that He spent this time alone in
prayer to God the Father.  Yet He must have carried some of His disciples
with Him at least part of the way, because after the prayer He sent for the
other disciples to come and join Him there.  There was somebody nearby that
He could send after the others.  If He followed the same pattern as on
certain other occasions, it was Peter, James, and John that He carried with
Him.  These are the ones He carried with Him to the Mount of Transfiguration
and to Gethsemene.
    (V. 12), "...and continued all night in prayer to God."  Now that is
quite an impressive statement.  I confess to you that I really cannot fathom
praying all night.  I believe it, but I cannot picture in my mind what He
could have said in prayer that would take all night.  I can very easily
understand Him going off to spend time alone with God the Father in prayer.
I can understand that He would spend more time in prayer than we would.  I
think I can understand some of the things that He would pray about.
    He must have prayed concerning the selection of the men who would be
ordained as apostles the next day.  Remember that even though He was Deity
God, yet He was a man and as a man, He prayed and asked God's guidance.  He
asked God to guide Him as He made the selection.
    But what in the world would He pray about that would keep Him praying
all night?  If He prayed about the same length prayer that we usually pray,
He would be through in a very few minutes.  What would you say?  Ten minutes
at the most?  We may meet in a group at church and pray for twenty or thirty
minutes, but I dare say that no one of us has ever spent thirty minutes
alone in prayer.  Luke said that Jesus continued in prayer all night long.
    Now Jesus did not pray with vain repetition.  He strongly criticized the
Pharisees for the vain repetition in their prayers.  He most certainly would
not be guilty of such a thing Himself.  Jesus just had so much to pray about
that it took all night.
    I think, that for another thing, that after praying about the selection
of the right men to be ordained, that He then prayed for each man who would
be ordained.  He prayed for Simon Peter.  He prayed for Andrew, Peter's
brother.  He prayed James.  He prayed for John his brother.  He prayed for
Matthew.  He prayed extensively for each one of the twelve.  I cannot help
but feel that He prayed a very sincere prayer on behalf of the very man whom
He knew would betray Him.
    I think that He prayed also for the whole church.  I think that He asked
God to use these twelve men whom He would ordain to be a spiritual blessing
to the whole church.  Surely He prayed that God would help them to set the
right kind of example before the other church members.  Surely He prayed for
God to strengthen them so that they would be able to overcome temptation and
sin in their lives.  Surely He prayed that God would forgive them when they
would fall short of what they ought to be.  Surely He prayed that as the
days go by that these men would draw closer to the Lord and closer to God's
will for their lives. Surely also Jesus prayed that God would use these
twelve men to win many souls to salvation.
    I think also that Jesus prayed even for the scribes and Pharisees who
had become His bitter enemies and who had already tried to find a way to put
Him to death.  Jesus taught us to pray for our enemies;  I think He prayed
for His and that a considerable time during this night He spent in pray for
the scribes and Pharisees.
    I would not be surprised if He did not look down through the space of
time and pray even for us.  Oh, I do not mean that He called every one of us
personally by name, but I do think that in some way He had us in mind and in
His prayers.
    We know that He prayed for us in John chapter 17 and I think He did
here.  his ought to encourage us.  But it ought to do more than just
encourage us.  It ought to challenge us to spend more time in prayer in our
own lives.  Let us not seek to get by with a quick "Lord I lay me down to
sleep" type of prayer.  One of the prayers that I have prayed since I have
studied this passage of Scripture is, "Dear God, my Heavenly Father, help me
to be more like Jesus in my prayer life.  Help me not to form the habit of
praying a ten second prayer and then turn over and go so sleep.  But help me
on a regular basis to pray well into the night before I find sleep for my
eyes.  Help me to find your will for my life and help me to have the
strength to do your will."

II.  The selection of the twelve apostles

    V. 13, "And when it was day, he called unto him his disciples..."  That
is, He sent someone with a message to all of His disciples in the area of
Capernaum to come up to Him in the mountain.  The mountain was apparently
very near to the city.
    (V. 13), "...and of them he chose twelve, whom also he named apostles;"
Jesus did not ordain these twelve men merely to the ministry.  He ordained
them as apostles.  There is a difference in being just a preacher and in
being an apostle.  All of the apostles were preachers but not all preachers
are apostles.  Jesus had called these men to the ministry at a much earlier
time when He called them to be His followers.  For example, He called Peter
and Andrew, James and John when they were washing their fishing nets after a
fishing trip in the Sea of Galilee.  He had called Matthew, the tax
collector when he was sitting in his tax office just outside of the city of
Capernaum.  All twelve were already preachers.  Now they were being ordained
as apostles.
    The basic meaning of the word, apostle, "One sent."  It was always used
in Scripture in the sense of "One sent with special authority."  These men
had special authority in doing the Lord's work that other preachers did not
have.  There were 70 other preachers whom the Lord would send out to preach,
but nothing is said in Scripture about them being apostles.  They did not
have the authority that the apostles had.
    Only two other preachers would have the kind of special authority as
these.  Later after Judas has committed suicide, Matthias would be elected
as an apostle in his place and he would have apostolic authority.  Likewise,
later Paul would be chosen as a special apostle to the Gentiles and he would
have apostolic authority.  After them, none would have this special
authority.  Others would be sent, but not with the same kind of special
authority as they.
    In verses 14-16 the twelve men who are chosen to be apostles are named.
"Simon, (whom he also named Peter,) and Andrew his brother, James
and John, Philip and Bartholomew, Matthew and Thomas, James the son of
Alphaeus, and Simon called Zelotes, And Judas the brother of James, and
Judas Iscariot, which also was the traitor."

III.  The qualification these men possessed

    The question that I would like to raise is this:  What was it that
qualified these men for this office other than being included in the group
of disciples?  I might say that it was not the things that one might would
normally look for.
    For one thing, it was not their formal training that qualified these men
for apostleship.  These men did have at least a minimal secular education.
They could read and write.  But they had not been trained in the schools of
the rabbis.  There may have been men in the membership of the church with a
better education.  There were certainly a great number of men in the
citizenship around them who were far better educated that they.
    They were not chosen because of their money.  Men are often chosen for
positions in the secular world because they are men of great wealth.  Peter,
Andrew, James and John were fishermen and were not paupers by any means.
Matthew, who had been a tax collector for the Roman government was also
pretty well padded in the pocket book.  But other than these there is no
evidence that any of the others were above the average in their financial
possessions.  But not one of them was chosen to be an apostle on the basis
of how much money he might be able to contribute to the treasury of the
church.
    Neither were they chosen because they were without fault.  Judas most
certainly was not.  The Apostle Peter is another one who was certainly not
without fault.  Numerous incidents are recorded in Scripture showing some of
his faults.  For one thing, the Scriptures tell about Simon Peter denying
the Lord three times on the night Jesus was arrested.  But neither were any
of the others without fault.
    They were not chosen because they were especially great orators.  None
of them had any experience up to this point which would indicate that he
possessed great speaking ability.  Whatever speaking ability they might have
had to be developed later.
    What were their qualifications?  Why were they chosen?  We may not ever
know fully, but here are some of the reasons.  These are some of their
qualifications.
    They were men who believed that Jesus is the Christ.  This is the
message that John the Baptist delivered and this is the message they
believed from the depths of their heart and soul.  When Jesus asked, "But
whom do you say that I am?" Simon Peter answered, "Thou art the Christ, the
Son of the living God."  And so said they all.  All of them truly believed
in Jesus as the Christ with one exception.  Judas Iscariot was a pretender.
He merely pretended to believe in Jesus as the Christ.
    They were qualified because they had made a public profession of faith
in Jesus by being baptized.  They were all baptized at the hand of John the
Baptist and their baptism marked them publicly as believers in the Christ
that John the Baptist preached.  In the Acts chapter one the Apostle Peter
said that one must have companied in the group with Christ beginning with
the baptism of John in order to be an apostle.
    Another thing that qualified them to be chosen as apostles is that they
were willing to believe what Jesus said and taught.  They were willing to be
taught by Him and they were willing to believe whatever He taught.
    Still another thing that qualified them to be chosen as apostles is that
they were willing to obey Jesus.  Whatever Jesus instructed them to do they
unhesitatingly sought to carry out His commands.  They were obedient to the
Lord.  They all willingly obeyed.
    Still yet another thing that qualified them to be chosen as apostles is
that they were men of high moral standards.  I realize that this alone would
not qualify them for the job.  But if they had not been of high moral
standard, if they had not lived clean, decent, honest lives they would not
have qualified and they would not have been chosen.  They would not have
been chosen.  Again I say that there was one exception.  Judas was chosen
because he was not a man of integrity.  Jesus needed this one man of greed
to betray Him into the hands of the Jewish leadership.  But all of the other
men were chosen because they were men of integrity.
    Yet another thing I would mention by way of qualifications for these men
is that they truly loved the Lord Jesus Christ.  There was, of course, that
one exception.  Judas did not love Him.  If he had, he could not
have betrayed Him.  But they others did love Jesus.  All of them did and
they proved it over and over again.  In the end they gave their lives for
Him.  They truly loved the Lord Jesus.
    Now I would hasten on to say that many others also possessed these same
qualifications that I have mentioned and yet they were not chosen.  The
truth of the matter is that only God knows all of the reasons that He chose
these particular men.

IV.  The qualifications of one who would be used of God today

    But let me ask another question:  What qualifications must one today
have in order to be truly used of God?  The answer to that question is that
one must have the very same qualifications which the twelve apostles had.
In order to be best used of God one must truly believe in Jesus as the
Christ of God.  One must put his faith in Jesus as the Christ and trust in
Him as his own personal Savior.  In other words, he must be saved.  God can
use even an unbeliever in some way, but the person who can best be used of
God is a believer.
    Furthermore, in order to be best used of God even a believer must make a
public profession of faith in Jesus and follow Jesus in public baptism.
Unless he is willing to be baptized there is serious room for doubt that he
has ever trusted in Jesus.  He may have done so, but there is reason for
doubt.
    Likewise in order for one to be best used of God he must be willing to
believe what Jesus teaches.  He must be willing to believe what Jesus has
said, whether it was spoken personally by Jesus during His personal ministry
or whether it was inspired by the Holy Spirit to be written in the Bible.
Since all of the Bible is inspired of God then all of the Bible is the word
of the Lord.  One who has trusted Jesus and is saved by His grace should be
willing to believe everything that the Lord teaches in all His word.
    Furthermore, in order for one to be best used of God, one must not only
be willing to believe that the Lord has to say, but he must be willing to
obey what the Lord says for us to do.  Nobody lives without sin, not even
the very best of Christian.  But the Christian ought to be willing to obey
the Lord without argument and without hesitancy.  We ought to want to do His
will and if we would be used of God we must seek to do His will.
    Still yet, in order for one to be best used of God, he must be of high
moral standard.  In spite of the fact that he does not and cannot live
without sin, yet one must put forth a great effort to do that which is right
in the sight of God if he would be used of God.  One cannot persistently
ignore what is right and bull-headedly do that which he knows to be wrong
and think that God will bless him in it and use him in His service.  God
will have no part of that kind of living.  God wants His people to live by
the very highest standard and He will use those Christians who seek to live
that kind of life.
    Finally, in order for one to be best used of the Lord, he must truly
love the Lord.  He must love Jesus more than he loves the things of this
world.  He must love Jesus more than he loves the pleasures of this world.
He must love Jesus more than he loves the people of this world.  He must
love Jesus even more than he does his own parents and his own close kin.
    The beauty part of it is that no matter what one's shortcomings are, if
he truly believes in Jesus as his Savior, if he has followed the Lord Jesus
Christ in public scriptural baptism, if he has opened up his mind to the
Lord to be taught the truths of God from the Scripture, if he is willing to
obey the word of God and to live his life by the teaching of the Lord, if he
seeks to live right in the eyes of the Lord and if he truly loves the Lord
then he can be used of the Lord.
    Now let me get personal with you for a few minutes.  Have you had that
experience in your life when you called on the Lord Jesus Christ and asked
Him to save your soul and to take care of your eternal destiny?  If you have
not done so, then now is an opportunity for you to turn to the Lord and get
your soul right with Him.  Will you turn to Him and call on Him and trust
Him to save you?
    If you are saved and you have a desire in your heart to be used of God
to the honor and glory of the Lord who saved you, then will you take that
step that you know that you need to take.  Whether you need to be baptized
or to move your membership here or to re-dedicate yourself to live a clean
and moral life, to believe His word and to obey His word, won't you
surrender to Him right now and let Him have His way with you?  If you truly
love the Lord then surrender your life to Him and let Him have His way.  I
am going to ask you to come and take a public stand for Jesus right now?