Mark 3:17-19

Amen.

Well, open with me, if you will, to Mark 3.

Mark 3.

You probably know that we have been working through Mark from Mark 1:1 for the past couple months or so, and before we get in, I want to kind of reset our focus.

Mark 1:1

If you remember, we've been looking at the Gospel of Mark, really, with the goal of seeing how amazed these people who witnessed the things that Jesus said and did were.

And that's our heart as we read these words, that we become amazed by Jesus, to have that amazement awakened from within us.

And so that's the heart.

And so as we get into our time for this morning, I want you to keep that in mind.

I want you to look for ways to be amazed by the things that Jesus says and does in this passage.

Mark 3, we're going to start in verse 7.

It says,"Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed from Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem and Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from around Tyre and Sidon.

When the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him, and he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they crush him.

For he had healed many so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him.

And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out,'You are the Son of God.' And he strictly ordered them not to make him known.

And he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him.

And he appointed 12, whom he also named apostles, so that they might be with him, and he might send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons.

He appointed the 12: Simon, to whom he gave the name Peter, James the son of Zebedee, and John, the brother of James, to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that his"sons of thunder", Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him." Before we get into our passage for this morning, let's do a little bit of a recap from last week.

And so if you remember in Mark 3:1-6, as Dan taught, he taught about this man who was sitting in the synagogue with a withered hand, and as Jesus enters into the synagogue, these Pharisees are eyeing him, waiting for him to make one mistake, which was to heal him, to do some sort of work on the Sabbath.

Mark 3:1–6

And so Jesus uses this moment as a teaching example for these Pharisees, but also for a time to be able to display his power and authority to this man with the withered hand.

As they're looking at him, trying to determine whether or not he's going to heal this guy, Jesus asks these Pharisees, you know,"Is it good to do harm or good on the Sabbath?

Is it lawful to kill or to save a life?" And as they sit there without responding, Jesus tells this man with the withered hand to stretch out his hand, and as he does, his hand is instantly healed on the spot.

And if you remember, as Dan remarked, interestingly, Jesus had not broken any of their rules.

He had not done a thing.

He had simply spoken, and at speaking, this man was healed.

But because of this, because of this scene, it says that the Pharisees and the Herodians, they went out and began to plot how to destroy him, how to destroy Jesus.

And so it's on the heels of this scene that we enter into our passage this morning.

And so for this morning, what I want to do is walk through verse by verse through this passage, just to get a clear picture of what it is that's going on here.

But we've got to keep in mind the context that this is as Jesus is escaping.

Because these guys are trying to kill him for healing a man.

Even though he technically did nothing; he just spoke.

They were so offended.

And so we'll start.

Mark 3, verse 7 says,"Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed from Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem and Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from around Tyre and Sidon.

Mark 3:7

When the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him.

So you see Jesus withdraw from this scene where these guys are trying to kill him.

He withdraws, pulls his disciples aside, leaving Capernaum, heading to the Sea of Galilee.

But what happens?

As he has pulled his disciples aside, this great crowd follows him, and you see out listed in this passage, all of these areas from which these people follow.

It says Galilee, Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, from the Transjordan, and from Tyre and Sidon, and so you get the picture that it's people from everywhere that are following Jesus.

His fame had spread.

It had spilled over from Israel and had begun to spread in the surrounding regions to where people were crowding around him.

That's the scene that we have here.

And so up on the screen, there should be a map.

If you could see, the student team's down there groaning because-- I didn't actually hear them groan, I'm just kidding-- because we look at maps all the time.

But if you can see this map, what I want you to do is get a picture for the gravity of this moment.

So all the way up north-- you see the little round, blue dot.

That's the Sea of Galilee all the way up top.

So up north you have Galilee, okay?

Down south, to the left of the other, longer, more stretched-out blue, that's the Dead Sea.

To the left of the Dead Sea, You have Judea.

So you see people coming from Galilee, Judea, then it says Jerusalem, which is right in the middle of Judea, but then it says they're also coming from Idumea, which is down south, just below Judea.

Then they're coming from the Transjordan, so to the right of the Jordan River, which connects the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea, and then they're coming from Tyre and Sidon, up to the northwest on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.

And so if you're to look at this map of ancient Israel, from where are all these people coming?

From everywhere.

They are coming from all over the place as Jesus seeks to withdraw with his disciples.

And interestingly, before we move on, I want to make a note about this: as we see these people flooding Jesus from all of these different regions, one of the interesting things that Mark does throughout the rest of his gospel account is known all of the times that Jesus goes and visits these regions from which these guys are coming, and it says that Jesus goes and ministers to people there.

In Mark 1:14, we've already seen this.

Mark 1:14

That's where Jesus enters into Galilee and begins his preaching.

In Mark 10:1, you see him enter into Judea.

Mark 10:1

Mark 11:11, he enters into Jerusalem, Transjordan.

Mark 11:11

Mark 5:1 and 10:1, and Tyre and Sidon, you see him enter in Mark 7:24.

Mark 5:1 Mark 7:24

And that's when he's healing the Syrophoenician woman's daughter.

The only one that's left out is Idumea, but for the rest, you see Jesus traveling to all of these areas from which these people came, clamoring for him.

He went just to continue spreading his message, verifying everything that the people-- the residents from those areas surely went back and told all their family and friends.

As William L.

Lane says,"Jesus's own outreach, within and beyond Palestine proper, anticipates and authenticates the Church's mission to the world." I want you to think about that.

In this scene where you have Israel gathered together, you have this one man who is all of a sudden flooded with these people when he starts healing people and preaching this good news of the Kingdom of God.

And these aren't likeminded people.

You've got Jews coming from Galilee and Judea.

You've got, probably, some religious leaders coming from Jerusalem.

You've got pagans coming from Tyre and Sidon and from the Transjordan regions.

These are people who differ in a whole lot of very fundamental ways, some very fundamental differences in terms of how they view life, how they view their time on this earth.

Yet all of them, regardless of their background, they flood, flocking after Jesus.

It's interesting to note that what drove this crowd toward Jesus was what?

Did you catch it?

So they'd heard about all that he was doing, not necessarily who he was claiming to be, but all he was doing, but regardless, they were coming, and Jesus was taking advantage of this momentum, seeking to heal all that he could, but more than that, to turn their eyes to his Father, preaching this good news of this Gospel of the kingdom coming near.

We'll move on.

Verse 9 says,"And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they crush them." To my knowledge, this is the only time that Jesus makes such preparations like this.

There are times where he seeks to escape the Pharisees and the Herodians, and so he'll make preparations like this, but never in a ministerial sort of setting, where he is so flooded with people who are seeking healing from him that he fears that he may be crushed by them, so he tells these disciples,"Have a boat ready for me, lest this crowd crushes me." I want you to imagine the size of this crowd, then, if that is a concern of Jesus, that these people are going to crush him.

This is an enormous crowd that has gathered around him.

Verse 10 explains why.

It says,"For he had healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him." So as he has been healing all of these people throughout his entire ministry so far in Galilee, you see that people are continuing to be more and more amazed at the things that he said and the things that he did.

Their amazement was growing and growing and growing, but we've got to ask ourselves this morning: is ours?

Our point for studying Mark was to be amazed at the things that Jesus said and did, but do you really see yourself becoming more amazed with Jesus, or are we just passing time?

Mark today as a day that you are going to intentionally take a look at the things that Jesus has done in your life and the things that he has done in scripture.

Remember these things and be changed by them, recognizing how good he is and recognizing the authority that he has.

Without this, without this amazement being awoken from within us, our lives are useless.

I don't want to live just passively walking through life, reading about the things that Jesus did, without being transformed, and I don't want that for you either, so be amazed at these things.

Verse 11 says,"Whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out,'You are the son of God.'" Verse 12:"And he strictly ordered them not to make him known." So far, if you've been following along, this is the third occasion that Jesus has given this sort of command so far in Mark, the third time that he has told a person or a group of people,"Don't say anything about me.

Don't tell them what I've just done to you.

Just keep it quiet." If you remember back in Mark 1, Mark 1:29-34, he does this to a demon-possessed man.

Mark 1:29–34

Mark 1:40-45, he tells the leper that he healed,"Don't tell anyone.

Mark 1:40–45

Don't tell them what I've done." And then this instance where he commands all of these unclean spirits who are crying out, commands them to not make him known.

And we've walked through a little bit of the reasons for this in weeks past.

We're not going to get into that today, but really what we want to take a look at is what happens after Jesus gives this command.

What did the demons do when Jesus said,"Do not make me known?" You remember?

They obeyed.

You remember what the leper did?

The leper went out immediately and began to tell everyone.

Mark even records that Jesus could no longer openly enter any towns because the people there were ready for him, waiting to surround him, and so it really had impeded his ministry to be so flooded and overwhelmed by all these people.

But the real question for us this morning is, as we take a look at this and come to terms with the reality that two thirds of the times that Jesus gives us commandments to demons, and two thirds of the times that he gives the command, it is obeyed, and it is always by the demons and not by us.

Is that not convicting?

I want you to take like a little bit of an internal survey this morning to ask ourselves, is this what we want?

When Jesus calls us, when he calls you, do we want our obedience to be diminished by that of the demons?

Do you want them to obey more than we do, or do we want to hear his words, hear the things that he's saying to us, and do we want to obey, following after him and trusting in him?

I think these demons obeyed because they recognized a true authority in Jesus.

They knew who he was, and they knew that they have no other option than to submit to him and obey.

That's the challenge for us this morning: recognize Christ's authority and obey.

Recognizing that he is in control and desires the very best for each and every one of you.

Verse 13: As Jesus has pulled his disciples aside, trying to withdraw from Capernaum to the Sea of Galilee to get some time alone with these disciples, this great crowd follows him, so he's kind of hindered from doing that, so he pulls his disciples aside again.

Verse 13, it says,"And he--" Jesus--"went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him." So it's interesting that Jesus went up on this mountain.

If you remember anything about the scene where Jesus delivers the Great Commission, it says that he directed them to a mountain in Galilee upon which he delivered to them those final words, commanding them to make disciples of all nations.

This is pure speculation, but how cool would it be if this is the very same mountain?

We don't know.

It doesn't say, This is just my thoughts up here, but I want you to think about what that would've looked like.

He pulls these disciples up onto this mountain, calling to him those whom he desired right before he calls them apostles, getting ready to send them out.

Our first learning point for the morning occurs here, where we see that Jesus called to him those whom he desired.

I think for us, it is essential to recognize that Jesus chose these men.

He chose them.

One of the scenes that John records in his gospel: it happens right after Jesus and his disciples leave the upper room where they have had communion, and if you remember, Jesus had told them,"I'm not going to drink of the fruit of the vine again until I drink it anew with you in the Kingdom." So they knew his death was coming.

He's on his way from the upper room to the garden of Gethsemane where he'll be led to his arrest and then carried off to his death.

But en route from that room to that garden, you see Jesus stop with the sole desire of trying to encourage his disciples to cause some perseverance to kind of well up within them to endure what was going to come.

In John 15, John records this.

John 15:16.

John 15:16

Jesus tells them,"You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you." I think Jesus knew that there was a great sense of comfort and encouragement that came by understanding that Jesus chose those disciples.

Likewise, Jesus has chosen you.

Jesus has chosen me.

And I think for the very same reasons, to draw us to himself, that we may exalt his name and preach his Gospel, but I think we would do well to remember that we were chosen, and the amount of encouragement that ought to fill us from that is enormous.

These disciples would have known that there was nothing anyone could do to set aside anything that Jesus had put in place, even as it seems like it is their darkest hour, when their master has been pulled away from them and crucified, they still know this man chose us and he promised us that he would raise again on the third day.

That had to give them great encouragement and likewise, it ought to give us great encouragement, knowing that he has chosen us and that there's nothing anyone, Satan included, can do to stop what it is that God has planned for our lives.

Ephesians 1:34, Paul remarks on this, saying,"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him." He chose us.

I want you to say that with me.

We didn't do this first service.

It just occurred to me, but I want you to say this with me.

I want you to say,"He chose me," when I count to three.

He chose me.

Would you remember that and be encouraged by that, knowing that whatever comes your way, there is no need to fear?

We've just got to trust in him and trust in his goodness.

Because of this fact that Jesus chose these men and has chosen us, we have peace with God.

Paul talks about this in Romans 8, verse 33.

Romans 8:33

He says,"Who shall bring any charge against God's elect?

It is God who justifies." And as he continues in verse 34, he says,"Who is to condemn?

Christ Jesus is the one who died, more than that who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for you." For us.

There is nothing anyone can do to set aside what it is that Christ has begun in us.

He is faithful to complete this work that he began in us.

You see that this morning?

I hope you do, and I hope you're filled with encouragement because of that.

The last point to make about this time where Jesus pulls these disciples aside and calls them to himself, it says as Jesus called these men, their reaction is recorded as simply,"They came." Nothing else.

We don't know what it looked like for them, but I imagine that they had weighed everything that they'd seen up until this point, and they knew if this guy is calling, we have seen the things that he's done.

We've listened to the things that he said.

How can we do anything but follow after him?

The question then, for us is: as Jesus is calling us, as he's calling me, as he's calling you, what is your reaction?

Is it a simple,"How can I do anything but just come?" Or do you find stuff getting in your way impeding your coming to Christ?

I think we've got a video that they're going to show for us.

Check this out real quick.

[Audio from Finnish dog show video]

I think if we're honest with ourselves, our obedience probably looks like the second dog, doesn't it?

Maybe not for you, but it typically does for me.

And not to trivialize what it looks like for us to come to Christ as he called, but I think what this video does is it probably helps us to back from ourselves and take a look at how we respond to Jesus when he calls.

Two options, right?

You see this first dog?

What does he do?

Immediately, he runs straight to his owner, straight to his master, as that master calls.

The second dog got distracted by the sausages and the birthday cake, and I don't know what else was in his way, but he was distracted, right?

But what sets these two dogs apart?

What set these disciples apart as Jesus called them, and they came?

I think what sets them apart is they know that there is nothing better than this master who is calling them.

It doesn't matter what lies in your path to the master.

Those disciples knew nothing can compete.

Nothing can compare.

I'm forgetting all of this, and I'm going to run straight to my master.

I imagine that's what it looked like for these disciples as Jesus called them, and we see their reaction was they came.

The challenge for us this morning is to think about the way that the Lord is calling us.

He is calling each and every one of us, but what is your obedience going to look like?

It's going to look like the first dog or the second dog, after that second dog was really sick after eating all that stuff.

But I want you to think about that, again, remembering this is not some sort of rote obedience that that master is seeking.

He seeking for you to know that I'm better than anything else.

Jesus is seeking for me to know,"Hey, I'm better than anything else.

Just come straight to me.

Nothing you find in your way between me and you is going to satisfy you or fulfill you, even though you think it does.

It's not going to." We move on.

Learning point number two for us, we see that in verse 14, it says,"He--" Jesus--"appointed the 12 so that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons." First, we see he names them apostles.

Up until this point, they have been known as disciples, and up on the screen, you'll see some of the transliterated forms of these words.

"Disciple," which is mathētḗs, it really just means"learner" or"pupil".

The nature of a disciple was to sit underneath their master, sit underneath their rabbi, to learn from them.

Whereas, for"apostle","apostolos", the nature of an apostle was to be sent out on behalf of a master.

"Apostolos" means"messenger" or"one sent out on a mission".

And so in Jesus's words, you see this mark in transformation of their responsibility, where he is moving them from mere learners to, now, ones who are being sent out on a mission.

And for our learning point number two, we see that there were three reasons, three purposes for which Jesus calls these men to himself.

It says that first, he desired that they might be with him, that they might be with Jesus.

That is the first thing that he says:"Because even though I am calling you to now be apostles and to be sent out, I'm not calling you to stop being disciples.

I'm not calling you to stop being learners.

I'm not calling you to stop being with me." I think for us a lot of times, because of the duties of ministry, we just cease to be learners.

Whereas this is the very first thing that Jesus marked as a reason for which he was calling these guys to himself, that they might be with him.

And not just that.

He says, second, that he might send them out to preach.

As Jesus's fame was growing, and there are so many people pressing around him that he was afraid that they were going to crush him, he saw a need to equip others to do this work of the ministry, too, and so it was through these men that Jesus was going to extend his ministry and his mission to the rest of the world.

What were they preaching as they were being sent out to preach?

The same thing that Jesus was preaching as he begins his ministry in Galilee by preaching the good news of the Kingdom of God coming near.

Only to this, now, these disciples are able to add, and we have seen these things that he has been doing.

He had been healing people, casting out demons, setting people free.

This is the Lord that we serve.

Turn and follow him.

Third, it says that they might have authority to cast out demons.

As Mark explains toward the end of his gospel account, he lists the ability to cast out demons as one of the signs that was going to accompany these apostles, and really, it was through this sort of sign that Jesus desired to confirm his message within them and confirm his power and authority with the apostles' message.

And so he desires that they not just be sent out to preach, but they would be sent out to preach prepared to convince people that this power they talked about was in fact real, and this Jesus that they claimed had authority truly did have authority over everything.

But really, in essence, what Jesus was trying to do with these men was send them out to be disciples of his who were making disciples.

They'd been disciples up until this point, and really, it's like he's tacking on this extra responsibility of"you're going to continue to be disciples, but now I want you to go out, and I want you to make disciples as well, and I will be with you," just as he ends telling them in the Great Commission,"I will be with you always, until the very end of the age." For us, when we think of our call as we have been called to Christ, as he called to him those whom he desired, and we hopefully came like that first dog, not like the second dog.

This calling is the exact same for us.

We are called to be disciples of Christ who make disciples of Christ.

What does that mean for you?

That means invest in the people that are around you, equip them in this ministry as well, to help people walk through this life and confront anything that life throws their way with the ability to trust that God really is sovereign, and that he really is in control, and that he really does desire the very best for each of us.

Help those who are around you as they seek to grow in their faith.

That is what you are tasked with.

That's what you're commanded.

That's what I'm commanded: to be disciples of Christ who make disciples.

And we move on.

We see in verse 16, it says,"Then he appointed 12.

"Simon, to whom he gave the name Peter," is the first one who's mentioned.

What I really want to do throughout these next few minutes is to kind of highlight these 12 guys, take a look at the things that they-- the things that they lived through, a look at where they were when Jesus called them and where they ended up after Jesus sent them out.

First, for Peter, where did we first meet him?

We met him when his brother met Jesus and went running for Peter.

Andrew met Jesus with John the Baptist, and as Jesus invites them,"Hey, you want to know who I am and what I'm about?

Come and see," Andrew immediately goes running for his brother.

He says,"Peter, brother, we have found the Messiah.

We have found the Christ." And so Peter comes, and his life is transformed.

He's a fisherman.

We know that, but we know that eventually after Jesus resurrected, he spent his time on earth in his resurrected body and then ascended back to his father.

We know that Peter took the Gospel to Rome.

Eusebius cites the testimony of Clement of Alexandria.

These were two church historians who really saw a whole lot of this early beginning stuff, of the formation of the early church that we are not fortunate enough to have in here.

But one of the things he records is that Peter was crucified upside-down in Rome around AD 64.

Upside-down.

Why?

Because he deemed himself unworthy of being crucified in the same manner as his Lord.

One of the other things that Eusebius cites is that Peter was first forced to watch his wife be crucified as well, remarking that his last words to her were,"Remember our Lord." As we get into some of the heavy things that took place in the lives of these disciples, I want you to visualize these things taking place.

Visualize these men as they are sent out on behalf of Jesus with such a love for their master and such a love for the people that they were going to reach, asking ourselves, are we willing to go there, too?

Next, verse 17.

We see James, the son of Zebedee, and John, the brother of James, to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is"sons of thunder".

These two brothers, fishermen also,"sons of thunder", most likely because they had a quick and fiery temper.

We see that in Luke 9, when a Samaritan village rejects Jesus's testimony, these two brothers call out to Jesus,"Hey, what do you want us to do?

Do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume these people?" Jesus says,"No, please don't do that.

Don't do that." But Jesus began working with them, with this quick and fiery temper, it's probably why he called them sons of thunder, but we see such a transformation in their lives in the aftermath of the resurrection, where we see James, Acts 12:1-2, he died by the sword at the edict of King Herod Agrippa the First.

Acts 12:1–2

In fact, James, his is the only martyrdom that's actually recorded in the scriptures.

He was the first one to be martyred for his faith.

It's even said that the person who was charged with carrying James to the judgment seat was so overwhelmed by James's testimony that he gave his life to Christ on the spot and was beheaded beside him.

That is the impact of this testimony.

We see John: he was the only apostle not to be martyred for his faith, though he did suffer intensely.

We also see that he was the only one of these disciples present during Jesus's crucifixion.

And it was to John that Jesus gave the charge,"I want you to take care of my mother when I'm gone." That's the type of relationship that they had, the type of trust that Jesus had for John.

John, he was-- he pastored the church in Ephesus that Paul founded, and so he was exiled to the island of Patmos, where he penned the Book of Revelation, and where he eventually died.

Verse 18, we see Andrew.

Andrew took the Gospel north into modern-day Russia and was eventually crucified on an x-shaped cross near Athens, Greece.

It's claimed that he hung on that cross for two days, exhorting the passersby to turn and follow Christ, even in the middle of such intense suffering.

Philip, Philip took the Gospel to Asia Minor, where he was stoned to death.

Bartholomew most likely Nathaniel, he was also called, took the Gospel to Persia, India, and Armenia, where he was martyred.

Matthew took the gospel to the Jewish people of Israel and abroad until he was burned at the stake.

Thomas took the gospel to India, where people to this day can trace their Christian lineage back to the ministry of Thomas.

Is that not incredible?

He was eventually speared to death, which if you remember the manner in which his faith was really birthed, where he thrust his hand into the spear wound in Jesus's side, what a death befitting of this man.

He no doubt saw the poetic nature of this event and I'm sure welcomed it gladly and happily, remembering back to that day where the Lord gave him that intimate memory that he would be able to carry with him for the rest of his life.

We see James, the son of Alphaeus.

He took the Gospel to Syria and Persia until he was martyred.

Thadeus, also known as Judas, he took the Gospel to Edessa and Mesopotamia, and it's even said that he healed the king of Edessa.

And because of that, such a large influence was built up because of that, but he was eventually martyred in what is today Beirut.

Then we have Simon the Zealot, who took the gospel north to the British Isles until he was martyred, and then finally, verse 19, everyone read that one with me if you will:"and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him." I want you to think about the legacies of these men.

I want you to think about these words that follow Judas's name, and then compare that with the legacies that follow from those other 11, and I want you to ask yourself, which of these do you desire your legacy to most closely resemble?

Known as someone who was so convinced and captivated by Christ's love and a love for others that you saw no other option than to spend your life, no matter the cost, preaching that Gospel?

Or do you want to be remembered as Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him?

I think those are heavy words for us this morning, but I think, should we answer, that will determine everything about the way that we live our lives.

These men were willing to die for their faith and die for the ability to take this gospel to these people who had such a need for it.

The question is, do we-- are we willing?

This is perhaps one of the greatest proofs for the resurrection of Christ, where you see these fickle, fickle men, as Jesus is having to essentially lead them by the ear through the entirety of his ministry, all of a sudden, at seeing the image of the resurrection Christ, they are utterly convinced and refuse to turn back.

Men are not willing to die and suffer for something that they know is a lie, but these men saw Jesus resurrected.

They saw him ascend to the Father in Acts 1, and they knew: what other option is there for us than to preach this gospel, to be sent out as he sends us out to the nations?

Are you willing to listen to Jesus when he calls?

One of the things I want to end with is by really just taking a look at the unity that these 12 men had.

These were guys who had come from vastly different cultures, political ideologies, incredible relational differences.

Yet for three, three-and-a-half years of Jesus's ministry, and then beyond, they worked together and lived together in a perfect unity.

Do you see that?

By"unity", I don't mean that they never had disagreements or that they never had hurts come up between them, but what I mean is that when disagreements came or when hurts came, they were able and willing to lovingly and humbly work through any disagreement, work through any hurt.

That is the mark of one who has been transformed by Christ.

That is the mark of a church that has been transformed by Christ.

One that exists and dwells in perfect unity.

Again, that's not to say that no disagreements are going to come up, but it's to say that we look at each other, and we love one another, and we're willing to lovingly and humbly work through whatever issues we have.

That is the goal.

Let's take a look at Matthew.

Example one.

Look at Matthew, the tax collector.

What do you know about tax collectors in this day, especially the opinions that Jewish people have of tax collectors?

They were hated.

They were traitors.

They had sided with Rome.

As Rome came and imposed their rule on these Jewish people, these Jewish people wanted nothing but Rome out.

Here, you have Matthew, a guy who, you know, acquiesced to their rules and said,"Okay, well they're ruling.

I might as well pocket something from it in the meantime." Jewish people hated these tax collectors.

What do you think it was like for this group of 11 to incorporate Matthew into their group?

You recall any moments in scripture where they're having this giant argument because Matthew is a tax collector?

No, you don't.

I've never read it.

We don't.

We don't see those sorts of things taking place.

Why?

Because rather than clinging to those sorts of things, these guys are cleaning to their common ground.

They are clinging to Christ and Christ alone.

Example two.

Matthew is a tax collector, right?

Simon the Zealot.

He was a member of the Zealot party, which is a political party.

Their entire goal was to overthrow Roman rule.

So these guys are diametrically opposed to each other in terms of their political ideologies.

Yet again, you hear nothing about this bickering between them.

They clung to Christ.

Finally, we see there the apostles' acceptance of Judas.

These apostles knew that Judas had been robbing them.

We see that in John 12.

He'd been taking money out of the money bag, putting it in his pocket; yet, despite being aware of Judas's misdeeds, they did not reject his partnership.

Surely they kept a closer eye on the money bag, for sure, but they looked at him with an attitude of love and forgiveness, knowing that each and every one of them had made mistakes, too.

So how did they overcome their differences if they were such different people?

We see a glimpse of that in the very beginning, as Jesus calls these guys to follow him.

These first four fishermen, that he finally issues the major call of,"Follow me." He tells Peter, Andrew, James, and John,"Follow me," and it records that they dropped their nets and followed him.

Simply put, how were they able to overcome their differences?

They left their nets.

They left what was properly theirs.

They left any opinion that they might have had, they left any preference that they might have had, and they clung to Christ, and in that, they lived in perfect unity and ended up reaching the nations because of their commitment.

I hope you see that this morning.

My prayer for all of us is that we are just so willing, because we are so captivated by who Christ is and how much he loves us.

Let me pray for us.

Father, we thank you for this morning, and we pray, God, that you would convict our hearts, and, Father, that you would remind us of how deeply you love us and how good you are.

And Father, when you call, would we come running, seeing you as immensely greater than anything that lay in our way, in our path.

You're in control of everything that's in our path, what seems to be good and what seems to be bad.

Your sovereign hand is over it all and guiding it all.

Father, we thank you for this morning, and we thank you for your word.

Now, Father, would you continue to be faithful to us as you transform us into people who look more like your Son, and, Father, less like ourselves.

Father, people who love you and trust you and are united in spirit, just as you called us to be.

In your name we pray, amen.