The Dawn of the Kingdom

[0:00] I'm just excited to be able to be up here today and be able to share with you the Word of God. I'm not excited to be up here because I get to be on stage and up front center because that's still really kind of scary. But I'm just thankful to have this opportunity and I appreciate you guys allowing me to come up and share the Word of God with me this morning.

[0:24] And some of you guys I know and some of you I don't know. Some of you I know your situation and some I don't. I feel like there's a chunk of people who have come into the church faster than I've been able to connect to. But I've prayed for you.

[0:43] And I've been praying for you. And I've been praying for this message this morning because I think it's good. I think it's helpful. And so I pray that we will see God more glorious today through this passage and our lives will be changed by it. And not just this week because I'm preaching, but I pray that's how we come to church. Seeking and hoping to see God in a new, in a real, in a bigger way than we saw Him before through His Word and for our lives to be changed by it.

[1:14] So our passage this morning is Luke 6, 1 through 16. And we have the kingdom of God that is beginning.

[1:26] Through this book of Luke that we have in this Word of God, we have divinely inspired stories that Luke has given to us to allow us to be front row and center to this building of the kingdom of God.

[1:43] And we get to see some things that Jesus is doing in that kingdom. How do we know that this kingdom has taken place? Earlier in Luke, Jesus said to the crowd, I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to other towns as well, for I was sent for this purpose. Towards the end of Luke, it says, being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He, Jesus, answered them, the kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed. Nor will they say, look, here it is, or there. For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst. The arrival of the kingdom of God through the person of Jesus Christ, which is happening, Jesus is here on earth, and to the reign of God that's manifested through His people who are believing in God and wanting to follow after Him.

[2:36] So although not fully consummated, the kingdom of God is at work and is at hand. So we see it starting here in Luke, and we're still part of that building of the kingdom of God here and now in our lives, waiting for God to come back for His final time to take us home and to set up His kingdom here on earth. So in our passage this morning, we're going to be looking at two areas of the kingdom of God that Jesus is establishing here on earth. And within those two areas, we're going to look even closer at a few aspects that Jesus is laying out for us.

[3:18] I'm going to look at the finalists of the workforce this morning. So I'm just going to give you the outline from the beginning so you can see where we're going.

[3:36] So we have, in this passage, there's three short stories. The first two are about the Sabbath, so we're going to take a look at those. We're going to see how Jesus is redefining for us what the Sabbath was meant to do. And then the third and last story is Jesus choosing His apostles, and in that we're going to take a look at prayer and perseverance, what that means to us by being able to read and observe this story. So what we're going to do is start out with the first one, and let's open up to Luke chapter 6. We're going to read the first story here, Luke 6, the first five verses.

[4:17] On the Sabbath, while He was going through the grain fields, His disciples plucked and ate some heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands. Some of the Pharisees said, Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath? And Jesus answered them, Have you not read what David did when he was hungry?

[4:45] He and those who were with him, how he entered the house of God, and took and ate the bread of the presence, which was not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those with him.

[4:57] And he said to them, Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath. So one thing that we noticed right from the beginning, which seems to be typical for Pharisees, is they're trying to find fault in Jesus. They're trying to accuse him of something, try to find sin in his life. The flaw in their plan is that they spend so much of their time looking for faults in Jesus that they really fail to observe who he really is.

[5:26] they don't actually get he is the divine son of God. So they spend time looking for that sin from someone who is never going to sin. If you remember back in chapter 4, when Jesus comes into the synagogue and there's a man who's possessed with a demon, the demon cries out and calls him the Holy One of God. So here, the Pharisees are looking for sin from the Holy One of God. Sin is never going to come from. And in the process, they miss the healings. They miss the miraculous power over nature, the supernatural, the knowing of people's thoughts and intents of their heart. They miss all of that because they're too busy trying to find the fault instead of seeing the perfect God that he is.

[6:15] So in this section, we're going to observe how the Pharisees are trying to catch Jesus doing something unlawful. Verse 1 says, On a Sabbath, as he was going through the grain fields, his disciples plucked and ate some heads of grain, rubbing them together. So they're plucking off heads of grain and they're rubbing them with their hands. That is to get the outside shaft area off. And then they're eating it.

[6:40] Personally, my difficulty with that would have been, why is somebody walking through my grain fields, my wheat fields, and they're plucking my wheat and they're eating it, especially if they didn't ask?

[6:54] This was something that was acceptable at the time. This wasn't something that would have offended anybody. We take a look at Deuteronomy chapter 23, verses 24 and 25. It says, If you go into your neighbor's vineyard, you may eat your fillet grapes as many as you wish, but you shall not put any in your bag. If you go into your neighbor's standing grain, you may pluck the ears with your hand, but you shall not put a sickle to your neighbor's standing grain. So they lived in a time where doing this sort of thing was acceptable. It's sharing what you have with other people. And that person who was accepting of that, then not taking advantage. So not taking grapes and more than you can eat and not cutting down more in their wheat fields.

[7:46] But that wasn't the struggle. Verse two says, Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath? So they weren't concerned about what they were doing. Their concern was about when they were doing it.

[8:02] They were doing it on the Sabbath day. Exodus 20, verses 8 through 10 says, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

[8:13] Six days you shall honor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath to the Lord your God, and on it you shall do no work. So a little bit of history about the Pharisees and their law.

[8:27] They had two sources really of law that they're pulling from. One was the written Torah, which is known as the Pentateuch. We knew that, the five verses of the Old Testament.

[8:38] They were given by God to Moses. They also had a second source of Jewish law that was an extended version of that written Torah.

[8:49] It was extended through tradition, interpretation, and that oral version was written down and called the Mishnah. So the Mishnah contains a whole unit that's dedicated to all the things that are not allowed to happen on the Sabbath.

[9:05] And so according to this list, the disciples were reaping and threshing and winnowing and preparing food all by their walking through the field and plucking grain and rubbing it together and eating it.

[9:17] That's what the Pharisees saw. They saw them basically doing four different sins all on the Sabbath. So what does Jesus do with that? Luke says that the disciples were doing that, but he doesn't tell us that Jesus was doing that.

[9:32] But the Pharisees see that Jesus is their leader, and so he goes to them to make this accusation. And Jesus answers them with a question, which is often done.

[9:43] Verse 3, Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him? How he entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of presents, which is not lawful for any, but the priest to eat, and also gave it to those with him.

[9:56] He's referring to 1 Samuel chapter 21, verses 3 through 6.

[10:08] Now then, this is King David. Actually, before he's king, King Saul is on the throne, and King Saul is trying to kill David. So David is on the run.

[10:19] He's with a group of men, and he comes up to a priest. They're in need of food. David asked the priest for food, and that's what we're looking at here. Now then, what do you have at hand?

[10:30] Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is here. And the priest answered David, I have no common bread at hand, but there is holy bread, if the young men have kept themselves from women.

[10:42] And David answered the priest, Truly women have been kept from us as always when I go on an expedition. The vessels of the young men are holy, even if it is an ordinary journey.

[10:53] How much more today will their vessels be holy? So the priest gave him the holy bread, but there was no bread there, but the bread of the presence. So Jesus is saying to the Pharisees, don't forget about David.

[11:08] You know, I have a problem with David, and what he did. He was providing for his men. So if you condemn my disciples, you're going to need to condemn David and his men as well. And the point Jesus is trying to make is really bigger than what the law is talking about.

[11:25] The point is that Jesus is trying to make is that the ceremonial restrictions of the law need to give way to human need. If there's a human, if there's a person in need, then that needs to come higher than the ceremonial law set on the Sabbath.

[11:42] And Jesus adds this in verse 5. He said, The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. If there was anybody here that wasn't here last week, Sean, in his message, talked about this phrase, Son of Man.

[11:59] In Aramaic, it could mean some human being. However, Jesus doesn't use it that way. He uses it in a different sense.

[12:12] Later in Luke, he says, You will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Obviously, he's not talking about a human man. But he's making references back to Daniel chapter 7, where the prophet Daniel sees a vision of one like the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven.

[12:30] And he says this, And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom. So all peoples, nations, and languages shall serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.

[12:45] So Jesus is claiming by this phrase, the Son of Man, to be the one who possesses that eternal authority and power of God. So when he makes this statement about the Sabbath, and that it should give way to human need, he's doing it with the authority and power of God.

[13:06] The other thing to notice also in both of these stories is that we are presented with a representative standing in for the people. King David was standing in for his men and Jesus is standing in for his disciples.

[13:20] So in this case, Jesus has that authority as the Son of Man to interpret that law and to change it where it's needed and to give it a blessing for us to do that same thing by what is taking place here.

[13:33] It should not be a burden. The Sabbath should be something that's a help and a service to us. just as a practical aspect of that as we're thinking about the Sabbath.

[13:49] For us, it's traditionally Sunday. That's the day of rest that we've traditionally observed. We also aren't told to hide behind this Sunday as a day of rest.

[14:03] It isn't a reason that we want to get behind to get out of serving God in ways where he's called us to serve. It could be serving in the church.

[14:16] It could mean taking food to the poor. It could mean helping someone in need. It could be visiting at a nursing home. It could be helping somebody move. The list could go one and one but the point is that we don't not help someone in need or not do something that we're called to do because it's on a Sunday and we're you know this is my day.

[14:36] I rest. I also don't go to the other side where we don't take time to rest and rejuvenate and refuel ourselves because we need to take care of ourselves and that's what this is also here for as well.

[14:49] But the other side of that is we can swing all the way to the other side and forget about the need of others and always take care of ourselves. And if we're honest our schedules are quite busy so we spend six days a week doing stuff we have to do work in school whatever it is and then on Sunday we lock that away and say that's just for for me to rest for God so you go through seven days and you never have an opportunity to reach out you never have an opportunity to connect with your neighbor to show love or concern for someone else and that's not the picture that a Christian life should look like so spend time for yourself relax spend time with the Lord dig into his word spend some time sleeping if it's needed but don't forsake the need of others the second story in our passage this morning is also about the Sabbath most likely these did not happen

[15:49] Sabbath six days later and then another Sabbath it was most likely a little bit spread out Luke doesn't say that but just the wording it probably was a little bit more spread out so why is Luke adding two stories together that are about the Sabbath other than the obvious that they are about the Sabbath because we see later in Luke that he's also talking about things that happened on the Sabbath day one thing is Luke wants us to understand how steep the Pharisees are in their tradition again tradition isn't bad but if we care more about the tradition and we miss the picture and we miss out on our love and concern for others then we've missed the point of the Sabbath we've missed the point of loving the other reason for this is we get to see Jesus refining and clarifying the Sabbath so that's why another reason why he's put these two stories together so let's read the second story and this starts in verse 6 of Luke so Luke 6 6 we'll read down through verse 11 on another

[17:03] Sabbath he entered the synagogue and was teaching and the man was there whose right hand was withered and the scribes and the Pharisees watched him to see whether he would heal on the Sabbath so that they might find a reason to accuse him but he knew their thoughts and he said to the man with the withered hand come and stand here and he rose and he stood there and Jesus said to them I ask you is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm to save life or to destroy it and after looking around at them all he said to him stretch out your hand and he did so and his hand was restored and they were filled with fury and disgust with one another that they might do to Jesus so we see the helpfulness of having two stories together really getting a glimpse of how deep the Pharisees were with their tradition this was another

[18:05] Sabbath and Jesus is in the synagogue and he's teaching and there's a man there whose hand is withered paralyzed atrophied Luke doesn't say the condition could be from paralysis it could be a disease like polio could be something he was born with it doesn't say that but Luke does point out that it's his right hand so no offense to anyone who is left handed out there but 90% of the world is right handed so chances are this right hand that was withered was his dominant hand and if it happened after he was born then it was his main working hand it was his hand of skill and strength so when it became unusable his life was severely altered we can see how that would be the case we also know from this story that the healing wasn't requested the man didn't come to Jesus and say can you heal me he was in the synagogue and at some point

[19:09] Jesus calls him over to stand next to him not requested but a miracle that Jesus chooses to show his power and his authority it was also to help teach a lesson and we're going to see that in just a second so Jesus is in the synagogue teaching there's a man with a deformed right hand who else is there we see the scribes and the Pharisees would like to say that they're harmlessly listening to Jesus' teaching and they're learning but they're not verse 7 says and the scribes and the Pharisees watched him that is Jesus to see if he would heal on the Sabbath so they might find a reason to accuse him you ever tried to spy on someone while you were doing something else maybe you're in a business meeting and you're trying to hear what someone else is saying maybe you are talking to someone maybe you're at a family function you're talking to one family member but you really are more concerned about what somebody else is doing or saying what happens is you're really unable to listen to the person in front of you because you're too distracted with that side story that you need to know what's going on and that's exactly what we have here happening with the

[20:24] Pharisees they're unable to listen to Jesus and his teaching because they're so focused on finding something to accuse him of there's another practical life point for us here to grab a hold of and that is I hope that none of you are coming in with distractions that are keeping you from God's blessing what do you mean I pray that you're not distracted by something else and you're missing an opportunity to be in the presence of God of being with his people saved by Jesus Christ moved by the spirit and being able to worship and lift up the name of God this morning now don't get me wrong we come in and we're tired we come in and we're distracted we come in depressed life's complicated life's hard we come in that way but we ought not stay that way we don't want to allow the distractions of life to block out our view of the savior and what he's done for us to give us that freedom from the struggles that we work with and we fight with and we deal with on a day to day basis so I don't want you to come in sick and distracted by life and miss the chance to be healed by the healer the one who cares about you and your struggles that's our point there come in with the struggles don't leave with the struggles leave knowing that God loves you and he knows where your struggles are and he's there to help you you have to depend on him stop depending so much on yourself so let's look back at verse seven it says that they watched him and the words used here kind of have a sinister plot to them they are they're spying they're secretly watching to see if

[22:25] Jesus is going to heal on the Sabbath what are they going to accuse him of what would be the problem in healing a man on the Sabbath well to the Pharisees the tradition that they held to was that healing or medical work that was not an emergency wasn't to be done on the Sabbath so examples of what would be acceptable would be a life in danger a baby being born or if a circumcision was needed so after a baby is born there's a certain number of days before the baby needs to be circumcised and so these were three things that were accepted and we see a couple of these in Luke chapter 4 we saw the demon being in the synagogue and he was crying out Jesus needed to deal with him then and not let it keep going so there was a miracle there in verse 38 we saw Simon's mother-in-law which had a very high fever and this was a serious situation that needed healing to fix but in our story here the situation is not urgent and so since the

[23:36] Pharisees knew that then they saw his healing if he did it to be something that was in violation of the Sabbath but it says in verse 8 that he knew their thoughts this is also another little cool miracle a little supernatural God power you could say where he's not picking up from Twitter that the Pharisees are trying to trick him he didn't intercept some communication that told him that but he connects to their minds right he reads their thoughts and all of them and he knows them it was like bam I know what each one of you right now are thinking that's just supernatural so he knows what they're thinking he knows that they're trying to catch him so why doesn't he back away why doesn't he just heal him another day at another time but for Jesus this wasn't a trap this was an opportunity to again show his power but also teach a lesson so going back to verse 8 he said to the man that had the withered hand come and stand here so the man rose and stood there and Jesus said to him

[24:53] I ask you is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm to save life or destroy it now by saying to save a life Jesus is referring to a general deliverance that is to restore someone's health it isn't a word of salvation but it is to give physical restoration salvation since it was permitted to save life on the Sabbath then doing good for someone else or doing good for someone would be acceptable also and wouldn't this be a natural expression of showing our love for someone else or concern for them if we were able to heal them if we were able to help them loving one another is one of the two commandments that Jesus gives in the New Testament the first one being love love the Lord your God with all your heart soul and mind the second one is like it is love your neighbor as yourself so how can we love our neighbor if we can ignore their pain and their suffering and a need that they have and this is the point of what Jesus is trying to get at here so here in this verse

[26:03] Jesus is describing their actions of secretly waiting to catch him right they're trying to catch him and do harm to him to destroy his ministry right so there's the destroying that's that's taking place they aren't looking for good instead they're looking for harm so he calls them out on that and asks them which one is better I'm trying to help him you're trying to destroy me which one is better which one is allowed on the Sabbath you're wanting to see me destroyed or me helping a man that's in need in verse 10 after looking around at them all he said to him stretch out your hand and he did so and his hand was restored but they were filled with fury and disgust with one another what they should do to Jesus the Pharisees are furious why they're upset because God doesn't hear sinners or Sabbath violators like Jesus and yet right here in front of them they're witnessing a healing that takes power from God so they're mad this destroys their thinking how can this take place on top of that they wanted to say that Jesus did some level of work what did

[27:22] Jesus do all Jesus did was speak stretch out your hand there's not a lot of work involved with that surely they've done more work in that and walking to the synagogue and the man is healed his right hand is physically restored right in front of them whatever has happened in the past that caused this deformity it's cleared away and all the man had to do is believe and act he didn't have to do anything Jesus called him to stretch out his hand and his obedience was his trusting just to stretch his arm out all you have to do is believe and move your hand which he couldn't do before and it changes his life forever now this morning if there's anyone here who is not a believer you don't trust in who Jesus is if you're curious

[28:25] Jesus seems like a pretty pretty good guy I think there's a guy I'm not sure where you are in your belief but you're not there where you don't believe in who Jesus is you don't believe that you have sin you don't believe he died on the cross for it this healing that we're witnessing reading Luke in this section is a picture of healing for us that withered hand is our sin not just the sin of an unbeliever but the sin of all of us because we're all sinners all aspects of our life are affected by our withered hand our sin in our life and we had no power just like this man had no power we had no power to fix our sin but Jesus does that's the hope that's the gospel the good news is that Jesus has the power to heal us physically and he has the power to take away our sin so don't be okay with your sickness come to the one who can heal you don't be okay with your sickness and hope that one day you can fix it you can't there's only one person that can heal your sin and that's

[29:51] Jesus Christ he's done it he's just waiting for you to have the faith to stretch your hand out and be healed so those are our two stories this morning about the Sabbath but we don't miss the point Jesus is trying to make the intent of the Sabbath was to keep people from working without rest it's meant to be a time of rejuvenation for the people of God stop working take time to refuel yourself take time to meditate take time to allow God to speak to you because if you stay too busy then we have a tendency of not hearing God anymore and taking time for him slow down it's meant to serve God's people it's not meant for us to serve it we aren't meant to serve Sunday although some of us come to serve on Sunday but it wasn't meant to keep us from doing good not that hound on it too much we're not going to get specific with things you can and can't do that's something that you have to work out yourself but take time to rest but also do the work that

[31:12] God calls you to do loving and caring for people that are around you and taking time for yourself so the third and last story in our passage this morning starts in verse 12 let's read that together chapter 6 starting in verse 12 and these days he went out to the mountain to pray and all night he continued in prayer to God and when day came he called his disciples and chose from them twelve whom he named apostles Simon whom he named Peter and Andrew his brother and James and John and Philip and Bartholomew and Matthew and Thomas and James the son of Alpheus and Simon who was called the Zealot and Judas the son of James and Judas the spirit who became a traitor so two aspects that we want to look at this morning from Jesus choosing his apostles the first one is prayer and the second one is perseverance what can we learn from this passage about prayer when we see that

[32:19] Jesus separated himself he went out to a remote place and he spent the night all night in prayer there are over two dozen verses in the New Testament where it talks about Jesus praying Jesus was an example to us of praying Jesus was the son of God so by default you would think he may not need to pray that much but that was opposite of what we see taking place Jesus prayed all the time and when Jesus prayed it was serious prayer here we had one of the longest times in prayer he prayed all night Jesus made a point to pray to the father because he needed it he was doing the work he was called to do he was busy he was tired but it was vital for him to pray so he made time he broke away and took time to pray to God here it says that he broke away and went to a mountain and prayed mountains are pretty but we don't need a mountain to pray we just need to get away we just need to separate ourselves from life and take time to listen to God to tell

[33:27] God our struggles and to commune with him that's what is needed so why is it important for Jesus to take time to pray to God in this situation it was because he was choosing 12 apostles he's got a group of disciples that follow him for part of his ministry they love him Jesus teaching them but the plan was Jesus wanted 12 people that would be part of his inner circle kind of a core team that he wanted to work with he was going to work alongside them closer than all his other disciples he was going to spend more intimate time with them teach them prepare them for the work that he needed them to do after his going to the cross and being crucified and resurrected and going back into heaven he needed someone that he could dedicate that special time of teaching and focus and prayer on getting ready for that but what was he praying for all night

[34:36] Luke doesn't say but we can get an idea about what he was praying about all the things that go into someone who loves a group of people and out of that group of people wants to pick a smaller group of people for a huge purpose these are the people that he is going to be sending out in churches and spreading the word of God you want the larger group to do that but you have to focus on a smaller group to really to get some of that core teaching that he was looking to do so what would you be praying about praying for them to be strong and remain faithful even if they weren't chosen to be one of those twelve that may have been a difficult transition for some of them why don't you choose me I'm strong and still be followers of Jesus Christ after the apostles are picked he's also praying for the twelve that he did pick because he knows what's coming up in their life and how difficult that's going to be there's also areas if you any area of service that is in public view comes with different struggles right so humility is one getting alongside and loving other people is different when you were in leadership and the apostles could have struggled with this so

[36:14] Jesus is praying against that we see in Luke 22 that before Jesus is betrayal that Jesus prayed for Simon he says to Simon Peter behold Satan demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat but I prayed for you that your faith may not fail so this is Jesus praying for just Peter on one occasion why would he not be praying for a group of 12 that he's looking to commission and send out after he works with them for three years Jesus also prayed because he wanted to do the will of the father in all of his time on earth that was his goal was to please the father to do the father's will his aim was to bring glory to that to God and that meant even in the choosing of the 12 apostles bringing glory to God so an all-night prayer event with God just one thought as I say that if

[37:20] Jesus spent all night in prayer before he chose 12 apostles how much time in prayer should we be spending before we make big decisions how much time do we pray now I'm not saying that you need to spend hours that's a long time of prayer but maybe you do probably we need to spend more time than we are spending in prayer right now we make big decisions and we take about a couple minutes to pray and take a lot that rely more on God and less on us be wise with your decisions do your research but don't neglect prayer because above all the things that you research and all the knowledge that you know God is above all that God is sovereign and is in control so don't try to circumvent his work by thinking you can just be smart enough to make that decision so we have an all night prayer event with

[38:21] God that is taking place here notice that Jesus didn't have to schedule it this is the other thing that's huge that I think we miss out on he didn't have to schedule time with God and even the size of his prayer time being all night he didn't have to see if God was free he just got away and just started praying to God because God is always there he's always there for you you don't have to clean yourself up and wait for the right time you just need to humble yourself and pray to God if you're a child of God you had that same opportunity that Jesus had here in this all night prayer so after a night of prayer called his disciples and chose from them twelve that were going to be apostles why twelve it's an even number I like even numbers Luke doesn't say here but we see that the twelve was to reflect or to parallel the twelve tribes of

[39:29] Israel Jesus said in Matthew 19 23 speaking to his apostles he says truly I say to you in the new world when the son of man will sit on his glorious throne you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel so what we see from this picking of twelve is we see a connection from the old testament to the new testament we see God's people in the old testament being the nation of Israel twelve tribes of Israel and then in the new testament we see twelve apostles that are now beginning the church and we know they're connected Jesus had the apostles that are building his church the new Israel in the new testament so who was chosen Luke tells us Simon who Jesus called Peter his brother Andrew both fishermen James and John who were brothers also fishermen they were also

[40:34] Jesus cousins Jesus mother Mary had a sister named Salome and her two boys were James and John so there's some relatives there next to that there's Philip and Bartholomew Bartholomew isn't listed in one of the other in John's listing of the disciples and most likely the reason for that is Bartholomew was a family name so in the book of John he uses the name Nathaniel so most likely they're the same person we have Matthew the Thomas the twin who's also known for the famous Doubting Thomas incident James the son of Alpheus not to be confused with John's brother or Jesus' brother kind of like our church we've got a lot of John's and a lot of Daniel's so Daniel's son of Mr.

[41:30] Buckley anyway so we add names to help differentiate those we also have Simon who was called the Zealot interestingly enough is the Zealots were a group of political activists who opposed Roman government so it's interesting that we have Simon the Zealot and we also have Matthew the tax collector because the tax collector is doing the work for Roman government so on Jesus' core team he has someone who's very forward very against the Roman government and God pulls them together for his kingdom work next we have Judas the son of James who was called Thaddeus and finally we have Judas Iscariot who became a traitor so as we look at this list of apostles that Jesus chose I think there's one name in particular that stands out it almost seemed comical at first when you think about it

[42:31] I mean really Jesus spent all night in prayer and he picked him Peter and Andrew good James and John good Philip and Bartholomew good Matthew and Thomas good James the son of Altheist good Simon the zealot good Judas son of James good really Judas Iscariot the traitor you spent all night in prayer for Judas Iscariot this Lord me really Jesus you prayed for him and you chosen knowing he would never truly love you he's going to betray you God you spent three years of your life and it's not going to count for anything he's not going to follow you he's not going to be a true apostle he's never going to step up to be part of the church that you're building he knew that and he chose

[43:52] Judas anyway he chose Judas because he glorified God he chose Judas because part of his bigger picture of love included showing it to Judas the traitor Jesus' life had a mission and it led to the cross to die for our sins and that plan included Judas the traitor so we talked about prayer the second one then we were going to talk about his perseverance and what does perseverance have to do with Jesus choosing twelve apostles what does that have to do with Judas the traitor how is that helpful for us Jesus knew ahead of time what Judas was going to do and he still chose him to be part of his inner circle his special team he knew the future struggles he was going to have with

[45:01] Judas he knew Judas his unloveliness but Jesus deliberately included Judas on his team and we know why he had a mission he had a purpose but what does that mean for us and this is where it gets hard you're going to have the Judas in your life someone you're going to show kindness to someone you're going to love one someone you're going to care for you're going to share the gospel with you're going to come alongside and help them do their struggles and you know what in the end it might feel wasted maybe they betray you maybe they just walk away maybe even worse they don't even believe in Jesus they never become a Christian could be someone in the church could be someone in your family could be your neighbor could be a friend of yours could be a best friend for years could be one of your children what do we do with that we persevere because

[46:25] Jesus persevered we loved because Jesus loved we let God do the heart work and we do the love because that's what we're called to do like I said could be your best friend could be your kids if you don't have kids one day that you do that's going to be deep because God calls you to be a Christian parent to your kid whether you think that they're a good kid or a bad kid regardless of what they do you're still called to love them like Jesus loved Judas so we see and we learn what love truly is that's what Jesus showed us what he showed us by choosing

[47:27] Judas is what Jesus showed us by going to the cross that's what love is love is not always easy it's how we suffer for Christ it's how we become more Christ like and it's how we glorify Jesus who died for us ultimately how we glorify God with our lives so to sum all that up let's use the Sabbath how God intended it to be to strengthen ourselves but also show love and concern for people around us let's take time to pray because we need it Jesus needed it how much more do we need it and let us persevere in our Christian life at the hardest times when we're dealing with the Judas because it's all for the glory of God let's take a couple minutes of silence and just think about those points before we have proper prayer together again

[48:36] Moses and repent of the children and it's to to and only he's the close to and he's the he's the constituted h