Jesus called the twelve

Luke 6:12-16

Key Verse 6:13

When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them.

In the passage we would like to learn God’s wisdom in reaching out to all peoples on earth despite difficulties and hardships.  

First, one of those days…

Today’s passage begins with the phrase, “One of those days…” Let us pause for a moment and think about what Luke is referring to by this phrase, especially the words “those days.” What does he mean by “those days”? Obviously he is referring to the confrontations that Jesus encountered as recorded in the previous passages. In Luke 5:17-21, Jesus said to a paralytic, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.” Then the Pharisees and the teachers of law began thinking to themselves, “Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy?” As Jesus sensed the little thread of thought arising in their minds, he already heard a thunderstorm building up. Blasphemy is a serious sin. It is to defame God. It is to desecrate the holy name of God. Jesus came to serve the holy God. But they thought Jesus was defiling God’s name. They thought Jesus was committing a terrible sin: according to Moses’ law, anyone who commits the sin of blasphemy must be put to death. So they tried to kill Jesus. In Luke 5:27-39, Jesus was having a joyful time with tax collectors and sinners. He was having a joyful party at Matthew’s mansion! But these power-figures came around and confronted Jesus saying, “Hey, you party animals! Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” It was not a small confrontation. They controlled the political powers including the local police. Their confrontation was as disturbing as the Downey Police Department raiding a party scene with police units armed with guns, clubs, and handcuffs. In Luke 6:1-5, these religious leaders even planted secret cops among the people following Jesus. These undercover agents popped out of nowhere, and then while the disciples were enjoying a nice lunch made of 100% fat-free natural food, they accused Jesus’ disciples of violating the Sabbath law. Of course, Jesus quickly defended his disciples. But I can tell you that a chill went down the disciples’ spines. It must have been a very unpleasant experience, particularly for Jesus, the head of the disciples. And the real confrontation took place another Sabbath when Jesus tried to help out a man with a shriveled hand. Luke 5:11 reads, “[T]hey were furious and began to discuss with one another what they might do to Jesus.” Jesus is IN TROUBLE! 

When you do anything wrong, such as violating the speed limit posted on the freeway or ditch school and hang out with the wrong guys looking for trouble, you will be in trouble. But in Jesus’ case, he did not do anything wrong. All he did was what is good. Yet, he was in trouble. This is the problem: you try to do what is good, but you still run into trouble. 

Now here is the first batch of wisdom for us to consider: if anyone is in the Lord, trouble is not merely trouble, but a disguise for a greater blessing or blessings to come. God sends you trouble as a cue that He has lined up a higher good that is ready to be revealed in your life. If God sent you an enemy (be it visible or invisible), this already means that God has found you “worthy” of that trouble, that through sending that enemy he is going to promote you to a higher level than the level you are currently operating on. So in times of trouble, you may be thinking about the trouble itself, but God is thinking about your promotion. He is going to promote you. And the size of the enemy (or trouble, if you will) determines the size of the bonus that is waiting for you. 

We see the Lord God doing the same thing again and again for his children in the history of the Israelites, and of course in the lives of all those who love the Lord and obey Him. Do you remember what happened to Joseph when he rejected the offer from Mrs. Potiphar in Genesis 39. Because Joseph rejected the offer to go to bed with her, Joseph was imprisoned. But it was the stepping stone for Joseph to come to a position of power and glory. The same thing happened to David. God sent Goliath to David only to promote David. Of course, the promotion did not come right away. Rather it came with a series of troubles, but these troubles were nothing but disguises for higher goods the Lord God wanted to achieve in the life of David. 

The same is true with you who are in the Lord. And as a man or woman who loves the Lord and desires to serve the Lord, do not expect that all the things you are going to go through are going to be beautiful; in fact, a lot of them will look ugly. But remember: troubles are disguises for the blessings God has stored up for you. 

Second, Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray.

To know that troubles are harbingers of the good to come is one thing, to know what to do or what not to do, where to go or where not to go in times of trouble is quite another. For example, in Jesus’ case, he could have easily gotten involved in arguments with the Pharisees and the teachers of law. But Jesus did not do that. What did Jesus do? Look at verse 12. “One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.” This is truly amazing. In a time of trouble, Jesus prayed. And he did it the whole night. The crisis drove Jesus to his knees! I know a man who is very close to me. In times of trouble, I know where he goes: 9 out of 10 times he goes to a restaurant and orders more food than his stomach can handle. He comes back home with a full stomach and sleeps on the couch the whole night. But Jesus was different. He went to the Father’s side. He knelt down and prayed. And he “spent the night praying to God!” What a great Savior do we have! 

On many occasions, Jesus directly said that he did what he did not for his own sake but for the sake of others. I think the same is true with his life of prayer here in this passage. In this time of trouble Jesus went to His Father’s side and spent the night praying to God. And in my opinion, Jesus did this for us as well, to teach us the wisdom to turn a troublesome moment into a reason to praise God’s name – through prayer. The message is: bring all of your troubles to God and present your requests to Him! 

The Bible is silent about the exact prayer topics Jesus presented to God. We do not know exactly in what words of prayer Jesus prayed. The expression “spent the night praying to God,” indicates that Jesus prayed not just for a few minutes or hours. He prayed virtually the whole night. Jesus was in the flesh. He wore a body that is made of dust just like the body we wear. Therefore Jesus must have felt as overwhelmed as anyone else in the flesh would have been! The bottom line is that Jesus is not a “machine.” His blood was as red as ours. His skin was as thin as ours. 

Yet through prayer Jesus demonstrated that he is a man of faith in God. He set the perfect example of how, despite all of our weaknesses and character flaws, we should come to the seat of prayer and offer prayers to God who is bigger than the bigness of the problems we run into. 

As I studied this passage, I discovered one thing newly about myself: one of the reasons I do not come to prayer with all of my troubles (or prayer requests if you will) is because I am afraid that the answers would not immediately come out. What if God remains silent, even after I spill my guts before Him? What if nothing happens to me even after I present all of my prayer requests to Him? In other words, I had a “fear of failure.” Being a perfectionist of sorts, I hate to fail, even in my prayer life. So, in order not to fail (in the sense of failing to receive a tangible result), I did not pray. Then I thought about my problem and the Lord God revealed to me a lot more about prayer. For example, I learned with increasing clarity that the Lord God delivers results not at random but according to his own order, and the order is just like the rungs of Jacob’s ladder. Do you remember the ladder the Lord God revealed to Jacob in his dream in Genesis 28? This ladder (or stairway) has rungs reaching to the throne of God! And the rungs (or steps) are not only for God to work on my prayer topics but also for me to work on them as well, and they are for me in that unless one thing is done on my part, God cannot deliver the next thing to me, for the next thing God is going to deliver is uniquely fit for the thing that needs to occur in my life first. 

Look at verse 12 again. “One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.” It is at the seat of prayer that we can gain God’s wisdom. Each time you face one challenge or another, I would encourage every one of you to consider prayer for it is at the seat of prayer that we cut a deal with God the Father, the master of the universe. 

Third, he chose twelve of them

It has been said that life is a series of decisions. Good decisions produce good results. Bad decisions produce bad results. But it is not easy for one to make a good decision that produces a good result. And one of the great dilemmas is not knowing how to make a right decision. But in the passage for today Jesus solved this dilemma through prayer. What business decision did Jesus make after a night of prayer? Look at verse 13. “When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them…” 

The expression “When morning came,” indicates that the decision was solid. Before coming to the day’s venture, Jesus was already determined. He had all of the answers to all of the questions as to who to choose. The evidences are that by the time Jesus called the Twelve, many followed Jesus. That morning as well, it seems that the number of disciples was more than twelve. Yet, Jesus knew exactly who to choose. Actually, the comparison between verses 12 and 13 indicates that during the time of prayer, the Lord God virtually handed over to Jesus the list. It was like a man handing another man a piece of paper with the names of the disciples to be chosen are typed and ready. So all Jesus had to do was to call their names. 

“When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them.” There was no qualm, no hint of doubt, no scintilla of hesitation. This indicates that prayer relieves us of the anxiety that hits us in the course of making decisions. Why? It is because in prayer we choose to carry out God’s will, not our own will. So the selection Jesus was making was not for Jesus but for God. And the choosing of the Twelve was God’s work: choosing the twelve was God’s idea, not Jesus’. Of course it was Jesus who announced the decision, but it was God who revealed the decision to Jesus, and Jesus implemented it. This sounds quite obvious, but it is very IMPORTANT. Jesus did not have his own agenda. He was mindful of God’s agenda. And this is the key to getting a clear answer to your prayer: come to the seat of prayer with an empty mind. Set aside your own self-seeking ideas. Simply ask God for His opinion. Then he will reveal his wisdom to you. 

Having said this, let us think about the significance of the number 12. In the Bible number 12 is a governmental number – governmental not in the worldly sense of government, but in a spiritual sense of the word government. God is the ultimate governor. He governs the universe and everything in it through many different agents such as angels working in an invisible realm, and here in a physically visible realm through his servants like the disciples of Jesus. God chose the Twelve to help them serve all peoples on earth, that through their services, all would know Jesus in person and be saved into His kingdom. 

The Lord God makes this will clear throughout the Bible. In the case of the Israelites, for example, the Lord God developed twelve tribes out of them, that through their services, all peoples on earth would come to know Jesus Christ and be saved by faith in the Lord. In less than two weeks we are going to have a joyful Spring Bible Conference on the mountainside in Big Bear. One of the Bible passages we are going to study is Revelation 20-22, the last three chapters of the Bible. There as well we see the number 12 repeating again and again – 12 gates of heaven with 12 angels with 12 foundations! And the City of God has four walls – east, west, north, south. These four corners refer to all peoples on earth. 

From this we learn that we too must pray to establish 12 disciples of Jesus on each of the college campuses. In order to fulfill this prayer topic, I would encourage that we would promote a Wednesday worship service to be served by leaders of each college campus, taking turns.  

Fourth, whom he also designated apostles

In verse 13, after choosing the Twelve, Jesus designated them “apostles.” The English word “apostle” is a transliteration of the Greek word apostolos which means “one who is sent.”  For example, Jesus is called an apostle: “Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess” (Heb 3:1). Jesus is the one sent by God to you and me. Likewise, by the time Jesus was about to finish his life here on earth, he prayed for his disciples saying, “[Father!] I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.”

Here we see a distinction between a disciple and an apostle. A disciple is the one who learns from Jesus. An apostle is the one who goes out to the world and shares what he or she has learned from Jesus. For this reason, from the early part of Christian history, the Christian community began to develop and go by a confession called “the Apostles’ Creed,” which more or less reads something like: “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord: Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. The third day He arose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy church universal, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting, Amen.” 

This distinction, particularly Jesus’ designation, reveals God’s great wisdom, that is, he desires to save souls not by Himself, but “together” with His children. He wants to build our future together with us. 

Fifth, he named Simon Peter

When we think about our position as a disciple or even a man called to be sent out by God to this world, we are kind of overwhelmed and might say, “Oh, my. How can a man like me be used by God for God’s salvation purpose?” But look at what Jesus did in verse 14, for it starts reading, “Simon (whom he named Peter)…” 

Why did Jesus give Simon a new name? We can find a clue to this in the meaning of Simon’s old name and a new name. His old name is Simon which is an abbreviated form of Simeon, a common name among the Jews. The word Simeon originated from Genesis 29:33, where Leah after giving birth to her second son named him Simeon which means “the one who hears.” So Simon means the one who hears. Some people are so filled with their own ideas and thoughts that they do not listen to what others say. These people are called “stubborn” or “hard-necked” people. Their minds are hard. They are so inflexible. They always think that they are right, and so those who are different are wrong. So they rarely learn. The bottom line is that they hardly make themselves good disciples. In other words they are bad learners. Educators of our generation coined a term for them: “a man with learning disability.” 

But Simon is different. Why then did Jesus name him Peter? One theory is that Jesus saw a great possibility in Simon (even as his name suggests) that as Simon learns from Jesus this man could grow to be the rock foundation of Jesus’ church, for the name Peter means rock. This change of name gives us both a repentance topic and a vision topic – repentance in that we must be willing to repent of our own fixed ideas, and ready to learn from Jesus, and vision in that as we keep learning from Jesus, he would transform us into a man of faith like the Apostle Peter, one of the pillars of God’s truths.  

Sixth, the selection

Who then are the disciples Jesus chose? Simon Peter is already in the basket. What about the rest? Look at verses 14-16. “…his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew…Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, Judas son of James…” When we study the characters and personalities of these individuals in the New Testament scriptures, we find some interesting points. For example, this selection represents a community of commoners, of ordinary people. They are like you and me. The selection also indicates that there is a fair representation of people from different backgrounds, character traits, etc. For example, Peter is talkative, John is quiet, Andrew is practical, Philip is theoretical, Bartholomew is pure hearted, Matthew is street-smart and so on. There is also a system built inside, (as many Bible scholars maintain) seven of them are of the same occupation i.e., fishermen, Peter and Andrew, James and John are blood-related. Peter, James, and John are partners in a fishing industry. So this community is meant to survive despite external forces that may attack them to tear them apart. This selection then inspires to love one another despite differences. Not all people are the same. The Lord God put in the fellowship many different types people: different in tastes, likes or dislikes, and differences in all other aspects of our existence. 

Seventh, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor

Lastly, the Lord God included Judas Iscariot, the traitor. Why? In The life and times of Jesus the Messiah, by Eldersheim, I discovered an interesting fact: of all the Twelve, only Judas is from Judea; all of the others are from Galilee. Does this mean anything to you? Galileans were known as a bunch of hill-billies. But people from Judea were considered more religious, or at least more sophisticated. The message I get is found in 1 Corinthians 1:18-31, especially verse 19. “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” 

One word: Jesus called the Twelve

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