Participants: Bill Santos
Series Code: IIWC
Program Code: IIWC201231
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00:03 >>Bill: When Julius Caesar landed on the shores of Britain with his Roman
00:06 legions, he took a bold and decisive step to ensure the success of his 00:10 military venture. 00:13 Ordering his men to march to the edge of the Cliffs of Dover, he commanded 00:17 them to look down at the water below. 00:20 To their amazement, they saw every ship in which they had crossed the 00:24 channel engulfed in flames. 00:28 Caesar had deliberately cut off any possibility of retreat. 00:33 Now that his soldiers were unable to return to the continent, there was 00:37 nothing left for them to do but to advance and conquer! 00:42 And that is exactly what they did. 01:03 ANNOUNCER: It has stood the test of time. 01:05 God's book: the Bible, 01:09 still relevant in today's complex world. 01:12 It Is Written, 01:16 sharing the messages of hope around the world. 01:30 We've been looking at these individuals whom our Lord chose and sent to 01:33 preach the kingdom, to heal, to cast out demons. 01:37 We've found, I think that it's fascinating to note that in spite of what is 01:44 traditionally believed about them they were very common men, very much like 01:47 we are. 01:49 Now in this series we're examining men who were willing to pay everything. 01:54 They were willing to go to the ultimate sacrifice, they were willing to turn 01:58 their back on their profession, their lifestyle, their homes, 02:02 their own choices in life to follow Jesus Christ. 02:07 These twelve gave everything. 02:10 They walked away from their nets, their tax tables, their political 02:14 involvements, their enterprises totally committed to following 02:18 Jesus Christ wherever He led them. 02:20 And may I suggest to you that they were a few among many who were not so 02:28 willing. 02:30 Look with me for a moment at John chapter 6, and I want to give you a 02:36 contrast out of which the message today will flow with deeper meaning. 02:43 Now Jesus had many who followed Him, in fact unnumbered multitudes 02:47 followed Him. 02:50 They attracted by His personal magnetism, they were attracted by the 02:53 power of what He said. 02:55 They were attracted by His ability to do miracles and signs and wonders. 03:01 They were fascinated by Him, and by the things He said and did. 03:04 And so wherever you see Jesus you see this mass of people following. 03:10 Now all of these people in one sense or another could be classified as 03:14 disciples, for the word in the Greek simply means a learner. 03:20 They were there taking it in, learning about Him. 03:24 The word doesn't really say anything about their commitment. 03:29 That's why chapter 10 of Matthew starts out with twelve disciples and then 03:32 a verse later it says apostles. 03:36 First they were learners then they were sent. 03:40 For illustration sake look at John 6:26. 03:46 It is the morning after. 03:49 The morning after Jesus had fed the five thousand men plus women plus 03:52 children. 03:54 As morning breaks He sees the same crowd back again, I mean why not? 03:58 They got a free dinner, why not go for a free breakfast? 04:00 And so they're all back, and Jesus says to them in verse 26, 04:20 In other words He says to them, your interest in Me is because you ate and got 04:22 filled up. 04:24 In other words you are living on a totally physical level, and your 04:28 attraction to Me has to do with free food and physical healing. 04:31 Verse 27, 04:45 You need to be more concerned with eternity than you are with time, 04:49 with heaven than you are with earth. 04:52 They were attracted to Him because of what they could see that applied to their 04:56 physical living, not really thinking about the spiritual at all. 05:01 We drop down to verses 53 and 54 05:21 He is simply saying you have to take Me all in as if you were consuming Me. 05:28 Everything I am, everything I say, everything I do. 05:34 They wanted free food and miracles but they weren't interested in really 05:39 taking Jesus Christ for all that He was. 05:41 Look at verse 60, 05:51 Jesus is saying, I alone am able to give you life, and you have to take all 05:55 of Me to have that life. 05:58 And they're saying, we can't handle that, we cannot accept that. 06:02 They didn't like what He said, and they did understand it. 06:07 And as a result of that, Jesus said in verse 61 "Does this offend you? 06:13 What is He saying? 06:16 He's saying, when I fed you it was okay, and when I healed you it was okay, 06:20 we had something going. 06:22 But when I said you take all of Me or none, did that kill off our 06:27 relationship? 06:28 And indeed it did, go down to verse 66, 06:39 Why? 06:42 Too much, too much was expected, too much was required. 06:44 They weren't interested in total commitment. 06:47 They bailed out. 06:49 Free food, that's great, healing, super, commitment, not 06:52 interested. 06:54 Verse 67 07:03 After everybody leaves, guess who's still there? 07:06 Twelve guys. 07:09 What I'm trying to show you is these are not just sort of tagalongs, these 07:16 twelve are the ones who counted the cost, stuck it out, paid the price when 07:20 the rest bailed out. 07:24 These have made the commitment and paid the price. 07:26 Why do I say that? 07:28 Because I'm about to introduce to you three men that we don't know 07:30 anything about. 07:33 And at least if we don't know anything else we ought to know that they 07:36 made the commitment, right? 07:39 Because when you take obscure names, and we're going to be looking today 07:43 at James, the son of Alphaeus, Lebbaeus, surnamed Thaddeaus, and 07:46 Simon, the Zealot. 07:49 At least if we don't know anything about them the tendency is to sort of 07:53 figure them as second class sort of out of the way stragglers, when the 07:57 fact is they had made the same commitment that Peter and everybody else made, 08:05 they crossed the line in utter, total obedience to Christ. 08:10 Now we've been asking a question, and the question we've been asking is what 08:17 kind of people does God use in His special service? 08:19 When the Lord went out to pick people what kind did He pick? 08:23 And we've found some interesting answers, haven't we? 08:25 He picked all kinds, all kinds of people. 08:28 I mean we have seen that the Lord can basically take any kind of raw 08:33 material at all, and use it for the advance of His glorious eternal kingdom. 08:38 Jesus Christ can take a worthless, sinful life, wash it in the blood, put 08:45 His Spirit in it and make it a blessing, and that's called sanctification, and 08:51 that's what the Lord is in the business of doing, taking rough, raw material 08:54 and using it. 08:57 As we have been looking at the apostles we have been amazed I think, at their 09:01 lack of qualification. 09:03 In fact there is not of executive search organization in the 09:07 country who would have picked up any one of these guys. 09:11 They just didn't cut it, by the world's standards. 09:14 I mean, at least with James and Peter, Andrew and John, you have some 09:17 strong leaders there. 09:19 Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew, some good men here, but James, 09:24 the son of Alphaeus, Lebbaeus, and Simon the Zealot, whoever heard of 09:28 them? 09:31 Do you want to know the Bible doesn't say anything about them? 09:34 Some of you are saying, does that mean this is the end of today's broadcast? 09:36 No. 09:38 Because even though the Bible doesn't say anything about them I would like to 09:41 say something about them. 09:43 First, James, the son of Alphaeus. 09:49 He would never make Who's Who. 09:51 He would never be a guest on a TV talk show. 09:54 He would never be asked to write a preface for a book or to pray at a 09:57 convention. 09:58 James, the son of Alphaeus, who is that? 10:02 Do you know what the Bible says about him? 10:05 Absolutely nothing. 10:07 That's right, nothing. 10:09 Just his name. 10:12 And he had a famous name, I guess he probably suffered because there was 10:16 James, the son of Zebedee who was a ramrod of a guy. 10:22 A son of thunder, the Bible calls him. 10:26 And then there was James, the brother of our Lord, and then there was James, 10:30 the son of Alphaeus. 10:33 Never wrote anything, never said anything, never asked anything, never did 10:38 anything recorded in the Bible. 10:41 In fact in Mark 15:40 he is called; James the "mickros" little James, 10:50 who was big James? 10:54 James the "son of thunder", and he was "little James". 10:58 The word mikros basically means small in stature, it could indicate that he was 11:03 little. 11:05 It also can mean young in age, it could mean that he was little and young. 11:09 9 11:11 So he was little and young and not very influential. 11:15 I kind of think he probably was all three of those things, and that's 11:22 why they sort of gave him that nickname, little James. 11:27 So it may well be that he was just a small, little, young fella who wasn't a 11:33 particularly powerful personality. 11:37 Because God does not depend on that. 11:42 James, the son of Alphaeus will sit on a throne reigning over one of the 11:45 tribes of Israel, and what do you know about him? 11:48 You don't know anything about him. 11:50 Well, what's the point? 11:52 God is the power, right? 11:54 Not James. 11:55 The Bible doesn't say a thing about him. 11:58 His work, his personality, nothing, his mark is obscurity and I think it's 12:03 kind of neat that the Lord put one guy in here, who is utterly obscure. 12:06 He's the most obscure of all of them. 12:10 He didn't ask any questions, he didn't say anything, we don't know 12:13 anything about him. 12:15 Oh, there is one faint tradition about him. 12:19 The early church fathers say he preached in Persia. 12:24 Persia is ancient Iran, and that he took the Gospel of Jesus Christ to 12:29 that land, and they refused to hear him preach and they crucified him. 12:38 The Lord uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things. 12:41 Silent unknown soldiers. 12:45 In Hebrews 11:32 - 38 we read, 13:55 May I speak to you from my heart for just a minute? 13:58 The apostles demonstrate to us that it is never really the worker who is 14:03 the issue in the kingdom work, that is what Paul meant when he said, So 14:07 what is Apollos and what is Paul? 14:10 "It is God that gives the increase. 14:11 " 14:14 The human instrument is immaterial to God. 14:16 He can use Balaam's ass if He has to. 14:19 He can make the rocks cry out if He has to. 14:21 The, the human instrument is not the issue. 14:26 You don't have to be way up here intellectually or - in the gifted category, 14:29 that is not the issue. 14:31 The Bible never deals with that. 14:34 The focus is always on Jesus. 14:41 What about the second one? 14:44 Verse 3, "Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus. 14:47 " And if you look in Luke 6:16 and Acts 1:13, you don't have to look it up, 14:55 you'll find he had a third name, Judas, son of James. 15:00 And he's one place called Judas, not Iscariot. 15:05 Judas also was a common name, it means Jehovah leads, and many people in 15:11 that time named their son, Jehovah leads, God leads. 15:15 This is Judas, that's probably his given name, and then he probably 15:20 received the names Lebbaeus and Thaddaeus as people add names, almost 15:26 like nicknames. 15:29 He did ask one very important question, and it's the only time we meet 15:32 him in the Scripture. 15:34 John 14, look with me quickly and we'll just look at this rather 15:40 briefly. 15:42 Jesus speaking, the night before His trial, and He says in verse 21 (John 15:46 14:21) 16:02 "Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. 16:08 These words of Jesus trigger something in his head and he asks the 16:10 following questions, verse 22 16:18 '" It's a good question. 16:20 Why won't everybody see You? 16:23 I mean if it's the time for the kingdom let's get it on, and you might see a 16:25 little of that courage that he perhaps was known for. 16:28 Let's go for it Lord! 16:30 The whole world needs to know. 16:32 Why would You just want to show us? 16:36 That was an insightful question, this guy really thought through. 16:41 He reects a typical Jewish view of the kingdom, that it was an 16:46 earthly, literal real kingdom, that's exactly what the Jews believed, 16:51 and he couldn't figure out how you could bring it without everybody knowing 16:56 it. 16:58 He also reflects I think humility. 17:02 Why would You tell it to us and not the whole world, why would You limit 17:05 Yourself to just us? 17:08 So you see some things in him that are admirable. 17:13 Only those whose heart are purified by love and walk in obedience will know the 17:18 manifestation of God. 17:21 I think that's the kind of person Thaddaeus was. 17:25 So we see the Lord uses obscure people like James, the son of Alphaeus and 17:32 Thaddaeus, Lebbaeus, Judas. 17:36 By the way, early church tradition tells us he was killed in Syria. 17:42 If you ever pick up an old church history book on Thaddaeus you will see 17:50 that each of the disciples have a symbol and the symbol for Thaddaeus is a 17:55 big club, because the legend says they beat him to death with a club. 18:02 Faithful to his Lord. 18:07 Finally, the last name for this morning, "Simon, the Zealot. 18:12 " There were four dominant groups within Judaism, Pharisees, the Sadducees 18:17 there were the Essenes and then there were the Zealots. 18:20 The Zealsots were the political oriented group, they were the terrorists, 18:23 they were the guerrillas. 18:26 Now a man like Simon to attach himself to them must have been a man with 18:32 a tremendous passion, a tremendous capacity for zeal. 18:36 And you can imagine that he must have been a fireball when it got to 18:41 the work of the Lord. 18:44 He found a better leader and a greater cause. 18:46 He is listed, right before what name? 18:48 Judas Iscariot. 18:53 It's interesting to me but they probably went together two by two, 18:59 because Judas had the same kind of political orientation, didn't he? 19:07 Simon could have been the betrayer, and you would have named your children 19:12 Judas, not Simon. 19:17 But Simon believed and was transformed, Judas did not, and so no one names 19:23 anything Judas. 19:27 Simon became Christ's man. 19:29 Think of how wonderful it must have been for him to get along with Matthew who 19:34 collected taxes for the Roman government. 19:39 I wonder if he ever had just little anxieties about Matthew. 19:45 Well, the Lord uses all kinds of unqualified people, doesn't He? 19:51 He can use you and me. 19:56 There was a concert violinist who wanted to demonstrate, a very 20:01 important point he felt, so he hired a great hall in a city and announced 20:07 that he would play a concert on a twenty thousand dollar violin. 20:12 He had the place packed with violin lovers, came out and he played 20:17 exquisitely and they applauded just gloriously. 20:23 He bowed and took their applause, threw the violin to the ground and stomped 20:25 it into bits. 20:27 The people were horrified. 20:29 And then he walked off the stage. 20:32 The stage manager came out and said, Ladies and Gentlemen, to put you at 20:35 ease that was a twenty dollar violin, he will now return to play the twenty 20:41 thousand, or whatever it was, violin. 20:44 And you know what? 20:47 They couldn't tell the difference, and he made his point. 20:51 It isn't the instrument, it's the artist, right? 20:57 Now folks let's face it, most of us are twenty dollar violins, at best, 21:04 right? 21:06 At best. 21:08 But oh what music can the Master make with us. 21:11 There are days when I feel 21:25 There are days when I feel 21:30 the best of me is ready to begin 21:36 Then they're days when I feel 21:40 i'm letting go and soaring on the wind 21:47 Cause i've learned in laughter or in pain how to survive 21:56 I get on my knees, 22:02 I get on my knees 22:07 There I am before the love that changes me 22:17 See I don't know how but there's power when i'm on my knees 22:33 I can be in a crowd 22:38 or by myself or almost anywhere 22:44 When I feel there's a need 22:48 to talk with God, he is Emmanuel 22:54 When I close my eyes, no darkness there 23:00 There's only light 23:04 I get on my knees, 23:10 I get on my knees 23:15 There I am before the love that changes me 23:25 See I don't know how but there's power in the blue skies, 23:33 in the midnight 23:38 When i'm on my knees 23:49 I get on my knees, 23:53 I get on my knees 23:59 There I am before the love that changes me 24:09 See I don't know how but there's power when i'm on my.... 24:17 Oh, When i'm on my.... 24:22 When i'm on my knees 24:47 >>Bill: Let us pray. 24:49 Thank you Father for your word to us through the lives of these obscure 24:51 people. 24:54 Thank you that we will see them reigning in your kingdom, that we'll spend 24:59 eternity with them and learn all of the unspoken truths about their 25:03 powerful and marvelous ministries. 25:09 Lord help us to know that the focus in never on the human tool but only on 25:12 you. 25:14 Put these truths deep in our hearts, may we see what you can do with a 25:19 simple life for your glory. 25:21 Thank you for this time together, in Jesus name, amen. 25:40 >>Dave: God can take a very common person and transform them into a very 25:42 uncommon apostle. 25:45 The only qualification God needs is availability - and that means he can use 25:49 anyone of us if we make ourselves available. 25:52 Pastor Bill has written a book "All the King's men", it includes all of the 25:57 messages in this series, we would love to send it to you, here is the 26:00 information you need to get your free copy. 27:03 >>Bill: Let me thank you for joining us again this week. 27:05 I hope you are enjoying this series on the disciples. 27:08 You can visit our web site and for a $50 donation you can pre-order a DVD and a 27:13 study guide and the book of this series that is excellent for your own 27:19 study or small group study or church Bible study. 27:24 The series is available in Portuguese and Spanish is English in not your first 27:29 language. 27:30 You can get that at our web site I t IsWrittenCanada.ca. 27:34 You can also visit our youtube channel -- youtube.com/IIWCanada, all 27:43 of our programs are there you watch them, you can refer a friend you can 27:46 send them to people you know, you can also follow us on twitter. 27:52 Well I hope we have the privilege of being back together again next week. 27:56 Until then remember, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone but by 28:03 every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. 28:09 $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ |
Revised 2015-02-06