A Portrait of Biblical Manhood in the Lives of the Disciples

Well, if you would go ahead and if you have a copy of the scriptures, turn to Mark chapter three. That's where we'll be in God's Word tonight, Mark chapter three. Let me just begin by saying thank you for having me back. It's good to be back. I love being with you guys. I love your church. I hope that you can say the same about your love for us at Grace Life Church of the Shoals. We are your sister church, your partner church in every way that that could be described. We partner together with missions. We partner together in the gospel and ministry. And so I just bring you greetings from Grace Life Church of the Shoals.

And it's so good to be with you. I love your pastor. We get to fellowship and talk from time to time. Some of you I get to see every February as well when you come to True Church Conference. And so if you make that trip over to the Shoals this year, find me. You probably need to remind me of your name. I'll go ahead and tell you that. But find me. We'll hang out. We'll fellowship and we'll worship the Lord together at the True Church Conference as well. Mark chapter three. This is your Acts Like Men weekend. We do something similar at Grace Life Church of the Shoals. It's always one of our favorite weekends.

I hope that you men can say the same about this weekend for all of you. And so as I have prayed about what portions of scripture to bring to you, we're going to be in different spots in God's Word. Mark three tonight. Lord willing tomorrow will be in First Chronicles. On Sunday, Lord willing, we will turn to Genesis. We'll be back in the Old Testament. And then I am going to be in Proverbs 31, primarily preaching to the ladies on Sunday night. But men don't miss that because I do have a final conclusion for application for you from Proverbs 31 as well.

But one of the things that in praying about what to preach that I wanted to do is I want to draw our attention to some of the men of the scriptures. And you'll see who those men are going to be as we look at each of these texts. But my goal is not necessarily to leave you with just these men from the text of scripture that we're going to look at, but to ultimately get you to the man, the Lord Jesus Christ in each of the texts that we examine together. And so we'll begin that tonight, Mark chapter three. This will not be a real strict exposition of these verses, but we will cover the context of what is going on here in Mark chapter three.

And then we're going to take about half of our sermon and just think about historically who are the twelve disciples. And then we'll take the back half of our sermon tonight and think about application. What did we learn from these men as the Lord worked in their lives and the Lord worked through them? So Mark chapter three, let's begin reading in verse 13. The word of the Lord says, "And he went up on the mountain," that's Jesus, "and summoned those who he himself wanted, and they came to him.

And he appointed twelve, so that they would be with him, and that he could send them out to preach and have authority to cast out the demons." Verse 16, "And he appointed the twelve," here they are, "Simon, whom he gave the name Peter, and James, the son of Zebedee, and John, the brother of James. To them he gave the name Boinierges, which means sons of thunder, and 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." Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this time tonight. I thank you for your word. Lord, it's always good.

It always edifies. It always instructs. Indeed, you have told us in your word that it is your word that sanctifies us as well. And so we pray and we ask that tonight you would send the person of your Holy Spirit and that your Holy Spirit would take your word, would cause it to run to our hearts, and ultimately to conform us to the image of your son, the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank you for these men, the older men, the younger men, those who are in between and age.

I thank you for their time here this Friday night to think real specifically about what is biblical manhood and what does your word have to teach us about men who are pursuing you and seeking to be faithful in our walks with you. Lord, I pray that you would indeed teach us that we would leave here and we would be more godly men that make a greater impact for you here in the Brookhaven area. And we pray these things in your son's name. Amen. Now, I want to quickly cover Jesus' calling and commissioning of the twelve. We're going to do that in just a few minutes, right? We're not going to spend much time there.

That's what's actually in our verses here. And then once we've quickly looked at his calling and commissioning of the twelve, I want us to look specifically at these twelve men. And they are men. Okay, don't do what we mistakenly do from time to time with biblical characters. We almost look at them as semi superheroes, right? We think of the Apostle Paul and we think, "Oh, Paul." And yes, we should be wild and amazed at how God used him, but he was just a man just like us. And these twelve disciples are men just like we are men as well. So we want to look at them, learn from them how God used them to serve him and bring glory to his name.

Half of it will be kind of a historical sketch of the twelve men. And then we'll look at some application that we learn from the Lord's use of them. So let's quickly think about the calling and commissioning of the twelve. First off, Jesus spends a night of prayer before he selects these twelve men. Now, that's not given to us in Mark 3, but in Luke chapter 6, the same text in Luke's Gospel, it says, "It was at this time that he, Jesus, went off to the mountain to pray, and he spent the whole night in prayer to God." Before Jesus called and commissioned these twelve men, the twelve men that would spend the most intimate time with him during his earthly ministry, he spent an entire night in prayer to his heavenly Father.

Now, we can stop right there and think about as men of God. There are a lot of lessons. If the Son of God, if the Son of Man was willing to spend an entire night in prayer with his heavenly Father before deciding who the twelve men were going to be that he gave all of his time to, surely we should be men of prayer as well, but that's outside the scope of what we're going to do tonight. That's a wonderful lesson that we see here. So Jesus spends a night of prayer asking the heavenly Father to give him wisdom about the men that he was going to call and commission. And of course, the Lord does indeed give him that wisdom.

And Jesus then chooses whom he desires for service. We can stop right there and we can talk a lot about the sovereignty of God and how he elects his people and how he then uses them for his glory. But Jesus says that he chooses these men. He calls or summons these men to himself for a life of service, a life of ministry for the sake of the gospel. And you know, brothers, the Lord is still setting aside men for service in the local church today by sovereignly calling and equipping them by work of his Holy Spirit and affirmation of his church.

Now, that includes men who are vocationally called, men who are going to do nothing but gospel ministry full time. But that also includes men who are just faithful laymen in the local church. He's calling and equipping you for service as well. That's a big part of what it means to be a man of God. How are you serving? How is the Lord commissioning you in his local church to be faithful in the role that he is giving you? So Jesus spends a night of prayer. After that night of prayer, he chooses those whom he desires for service. And then he issues a calling to them.

And the first thing we see about this calling is that he issues a call to simply be intimate with Christ. What does it say there in verse 14? Before he commissions them, it says he appointed 12 so that they would be with him. So that they would be with him. Before any service can be done for the glory of God by men of God, Jesus calls these 12 men and simply says this, "I just want you to be with me." Now Jesus is not physically walking the earth. Of course we know that in the way that he was in Mark chapter 3.

But men before you can be of any use of service to the Lord, before you can be of any use of service in God's church, you must first off simply be intimate with the one who has called you and that's Jesus himself. Now how are we intimate with Jesus? Of course we are intimate with him in his word, through prayer, even through the fellowship of the church, through hearing and receiving the preaching of the word of God. All of those spiritual disciplines that we can think of are ways that we draw near to God and as a man of God, your first calling is simply to be with Jesus.

Before you can serve him as a husband, as a dad, as a granddad in the workplace, in the church, you've got to be with him. You've got to know him more. You've got to love him more. You've got to cultivate a more intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. So he spends a night in prayer, he chooses those whom he desires for service, he first calls him to be intimate with him and then he commissions them. And that's in verses 14 and 15, he appointed them to the twelve so that they would be with him and here's the commissioning, that he could send them out to preach and have authority to cast out the demons.

So these men, these twelve men, were given authority to be Christ emissaries on earth, his representatives in his earthly ministry. The primary task here is to preach, to proclaim the gospel of Christ. Now he also gave these men a commission that's not given to the church of today and that was to cast out demons. These men had a unique office as the twelve disciples that will never be repeated again. But the preaching of the gospel is still going on. That was not a unique calling to the apostles. That's something that the church is still doing today.

Where Jesus spends a night in prayer, he calls these men to himself, he first of all says I want you to be with me, I want you to be intimate with me and then I want you to go out, I want you to preach the gospel, I'm giving you authority to be my emissaries in earthly ministry. So that's a quick survey, if you will, of the calling and commissioning of the twelve. Now let's begin to look at these men to get a historical sketch of each of the twelve men. That will be our historical part of our sermon and then like I said we'll work towards some application that we get as we learn more about these men.

So if you're taking notes, this would be point number one tonight. A brief history of these twelve men. A brief history of these twelve men. Jesus chose these twelve as the men that he would spend the most intimate time with during his earthly ministry. However, even within the twelve, we know that he spent more time with some than he did with others. Now most scholars have seen this list of twelve men broken down further into three groups of four. Now this doesn't mean that they always traveled in single file line in these exact groups and they never talked to one another. That's not what I'm saying.

But it does appear from both the biblical record and from historical record that there were three groups of four that Jesus dealt with in different ways at different times among these disciples. So for this brief historical sketch, we're going to look at these men in their three groups of four. Alright, that's how we're going to break them down. Group number one, Jesus inner circle. Jesus inner circle. Now here's who is included in what I'm calling the inner circle. You had Simon and Andrew. Those are brothers. Right? And then you had James and John also brothers. So you have the two sets of brothers that were a part of Jesus inner circle.

Now we might refer to this group as the heavy hitters of the twelve disciples. Among the twelve, Jesus often pulled these men aside and spent more direct energy, more direct time, more direct conversation with this first group. At times Jesus would even narrow this group down to three. Many times we see just Peter, James and John with Jesus. For instance, on the Mount of Transfiguration, who does Jesus have with him there? Peter, James and John. Andrew is not even with them at that point in time. So this is your first group of four. These are the heavy hitters. These are the ones that we probably know more about.

Jesus spent more intimate time with these men than he did maybe even the other twelve. So let's think about these men as individuals. First off we have Simon. We probably refer to him more as Peter. He was a fisherman. Right? We're among the men tonight. One fish in brook haven? We got a few. Alright, good. I fly fish, right? I fly fish. I don't know if you can count that as fishing. A lot of people think that's an effeminate form of fishing, but I count it, right? I'm securing my manhood to tell you that I'm a fly fisher. Peter was a fisherman. He was Andrew's brother.

This is the Peter that authored first and second Peter in the New Testament. We know that Peter at times, his big mouth betrayed him. He just had a penchant for saying things that make you cringe, that make you have some secondhand embarrassment for Peter like, "Oh, oh, why did you say that, Peter? Why did you open your mouth at that point in time?" He had a tendency to swing from one extreme to the opposite as he followed Jesus. Just for example, you know, at one point in the Gospels we see Peter doing something really well when Jesus asked the disciples, "Who am I?" He says, "You are the Christ. You are the Messiah. You are the Son of God.

A plus! A plus for Peter at that point." Right? That was a truth that God had revealed to him and he's unashamed. And yet in the very next part of the narrative, he's rebuking Jesus when Jesus begins to talk about his death and resurrection. And it's so bad that Jesus looks at Peter and says, "What? Get behind me, Satan." So we see Peter like this throughout the Gospel narratives. Something really good will come out of his mouth and then something that you just think, "Oh my goodness. You're just missing it, Peter. What's going on with you here?" Church history tells us that Peter most likely died as a martyr.

We see a common refrain from that in these men. His brother Andrew, Andrew was also a fisherman as well. Brother to Simon Peter, he is probably the least known among this first group of four. Ordinarily he's left in the background, I guess you could say. He did have a habit. This is a wonderful thing about Andrew. He had a habit of introducing people to Jesus. This included his own brother, Simon Peter. We read this in John 1, 39 through 42. "Jesus said to them, 'Come and you will see,' talking about who he is. So they came and saw where Jesus was staying. And they stayed with him that day for it was about the tenth hour.

One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew." That's who we're looking at. "Simon Peter's brother. And what did Andrew do when he heard Jesus? He found first his own brother Simon," that's Peter, "and said to him, 'We have found the Messiah,' which translated means Christ." Verse 42, "And he brought him to Jesus." Isn't it interesting that it's Andrew who brings Peter to Jesus, but Peter ends up being the one that's probably used in a more out front way in ministry than his own brother that introduced him to Jesus in the first place. Andrew was what I like to call an everyday evangelist.

The church needs every day evangelists. Not everyone's going to be a Chris Shepherd, but he's going to stand and proclaim God's word from the pulpit. But everyone could be an Andrew, an everyday evangelist that just in your work, in your school, in your family, I'm just going to introduce people to Jesus. Church history says that Andrew was crucified most likely in Achaia after leading a Roman governor's wife to Christ. Day evangelists, he did it all the way until the point he died. So there's Simon, we know him as Peter, and Andrew the first two brothers. Then you have James.

James also was a fisherman, runs in the disciples' blood, it seems like to be a fisherman. He's the brother of John. One of the sons of thunder is named by Jesus. This was due to their fiery nature. If you read the gospels, you'll see James and John, they're strong at times. At one point there are people who are doing some ministry, and James and John are like, "Lord, they're not with us. You want us to go over there and tell them what to do? You want us to stop that?" And Jesus is like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, no. They're still serving me." But these guys were always ready. That's why they are the sons of thunder here.

Not a lot of information on James from the scripture. We do know this from Acts 12, verse 2. It says, "And he had James," that's Herod, "had James the brother of John put to death with his sword." And James also dies as a martyr. And then we have John, the last of the first crew. John was a fisherman as well, brother to James, the other half of the sons of thunder. John would seem to balance out in an old age, because by the time he's writing Revelation, by the time he writes his gospel and he writes first, second, and third John, we know him as what? The disciple of love. Maybe he teaches us something about maturing as we age in the Lord.

He was a son of thunder, and yet in his old age he's known as the disciple of love. Probably the last apostle to die in very old age. He was not directly executed, at least we're not told that he was, but most likely died while on exile in the island of Patmos. He was exiled there because he was serving the Lord and being faithful. Church history tells us that by the end of his life he was so weak that he had to be carried to church and he did want to be carried to church, even in old age. There's the first four. Brief historical sketch. The next four include Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, and Thomas.

Now as we journey further into the list, it does not mean that these men were less important. Don't think of it that way. It doesn't mean that they were sub-par disciples, because maybe they weren't in that first grouping of four. It just means that we simply do not know as much about these men. And for whatever reason, in God's providence, they were not in that inner circle of Jesus. We don't know why. That's the Lord's choice, right? He chose those four to spend more time with them. He gave them some teaching, maybe did all the other ones didn't get, but it doesn't mean they're less important that they were sub-par.

So let's think about these four. We have Philip. It appears that Philip was from Bethsaida and thus lived in the same town as Peter and Andrew. We would think that probably they knew each other. Here many think of Philip as the leader of the second group of four. He is not Philip the Deacon that we see in Acts chapter 6, two different men, right? Philip in Scripture was often seen being slow to catch on to the power of Jesus and the teachings of Jesus, but church history also records that Philip was most likely stoned to death in Phrygia after being used as a mighty preacher of the gospel in the early church. Bartholomew.

Now we also know Bartholomew as Nathaniel. So if you see Bartholomew and Nathaniel, that's the same man, not two different men, same man, just different names. He was from Cana and Galilee, very close with Philip, as they always seem to be together. In John chapter 1, verses 45 through 51, Philip and Nathaniel are talking and they say, "We have found him, that Jesus of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." Jesus saw Nathaniel coming to him and said to him, "Behold, in Israel I did indeed whom there is no deceit." What does that tell us here about Bartholomew or Nathaniel?

That he was a man of integrity. Jesus saw him and said, "There's a man, there's no deceit in that man." So he was a man of high moral character. Again, history records that Nathaniel probably died as a martyr. Then we have Matthew. John MacArthur said this about Matthew, "In all likelihood, none of the twelve was more notorious as a sinner than Matthew." In Mark 2, 14 through 17, we see that Matthew was a tax collector. And to the Jews of the day, there was no one more despicable in their eyes than a tax collector. Why?

Because Matthew was a Jewish man, but he had turned his back on his people and was collecting taxes for the Romans, oftentimes extorting his Jewish brethren, his Jewish kinsmen, for the sake of his own gain and for the sake of the Roman government, which the Jews hated. Now the other thing about tax collectors is that they didn't keep real good company. When you see the Lord save Matthew and call him and commission him, he has this huge meal. And at the meal are prostitutes and other tax collectors and other notorious sinners. Why were they at that meal? Because that's who Matthew knew. That was the life that he was saved out of.

So he's just like, "Hey, look, Jesus has saved me. Jesus has given me a new life. I want all of you to meet Jesus." And who does he invite? The people he knows and they were all notorious sinners. This Matthew, of course, is the author of the Gospel Matthew and most believe that he was burned at the stake as a martyr for Christ. Then we have Thomas. Again, not a whole lot about Thomas' background from the Bible. He's not mentioned much at all. He does appear to be a man who often is filled with doubt.

He's gotten this nickname now down through the ages of "Doubting Thomas" that comes from when Jesus is resurrected and the other disciples are telling him, "What does Thomas say?" He's like, "You know what? Until I can feel those nail scars in his body, I don't know that I can believe this." So we've turned him as "Doubting Thomas." He was steadfast in following the Lord though. John 11, 16, at one point as Jesus is journeying toward Jerusalem, it is Thomas who's called "Dentimus" who said to his fellow disciples, "Let us go also so that we may die with him." So here's Thomas saying, "You know what?

As Jesus goes to Jerusalem, he's probably going to die and you know what? We're going to go die with him." So while he may be doubting Thomas, we might could also refer to him as steadfast Thomas as well. Now the last four, our historical part of this sermon is coming to a close. The last four, we have James, Thaddeus, Simon, and Judas. Now aside from Judas Iscariot, we really know very little concerning this last group of men. James, the son of Alphaeus, is also called James the Less. Again, it doesn't mean that he was less of a man or less of a person. It's just underscoring the fact that he is not prominently displayed in the scripture.

All we know from church history is that he probably too died as a martyr. All we know. Thaddeus, he's also called Lebius and also at times called Judas, not Iscariot. Very important description there, right? Judas, not Iscariot. His nickname of Thaddeus and Lebius seemed to point to the fact that he had a gentle, tender-hearted disposition. Again, he was probably murdered, church history tells us, by being clubbed or beaten to death. Then we have Simon. This is Simon the Zealot, not Simon Peter. And it appears that he was a very politically oriented man in the ranks of the political party known as the Zealots.

Now the Zealots were a fiery group. If all of the Jewish people had a disdain for the Roman government, the Zealots took that to another level. Historical scholars tell us that the Zealots used violence and terrorism to try to overthrow the Roman government. That's what Simon's coming out of. Now think of this just real quick and we'll make an application on this in just a moment. You got Simon the Zealot, fiery terrorism, he's saved out of this political group that's using terrorism and violence to overthrow the Roman government.

And then right before him you got Thaddeus, who's known as just a soft, tender-hearted individual thrown right together in this group of four. Probably again, Simon probably martyred after taking the gospel north to the British of Wales and then of course last, certainly not least, we have Judas. We'll talk more about him at the end of our sermon together. So here are the twelve. Twelve men, a brief historical sketch on each of them in their grouping of four, which is how biblical scholars normally group those men together. Now that's your historical part of the sermon.

You may look at all of that and say that was great information but how does it help me? That's what we want to do now. And number two, lesson learned from these twelve men. Lessons learned from these twelve men. This is your application part of this sermon. Lesson number one, as we think about this group of men, these individuals, we learn that God's grace saves and changes all sorts of people and makes them fit for service. God's grace saves and changes all sorts of people and makes them fit for service. Now think of what we have just observed from these men, from their lives and from their backgrounds. You have fishermen.

You have tax collectors. You have political zealots. You have sons of thunder and you have Thaddeus the gentle hearted. You have out front men, men who had more prominent roles on the team of disciples. And then you have those who are more in the background among this group of twelve. Some had in what appear a somewhat religious background and some were, like Matthew, notorious sinners and yet all were saved by God's grace and made disciples of the Lord Jesus Himself during His earthly ministry. Men here's what we see. There is no type of person that is outside the reach of God's gospel.

There's no type of person that is outside the reach of God's gospel. You know we see this throughout the gospel accounts. We won't turn and read to these but you can write these references down. In Mark 5, 18 through 20 we see a demon-possessed man that is saved, given a new heart, given a new life by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. In Mark 7, beginning in verse 24 through verse 30, a Gentile woman is saved when she believes on the Lord Jesus Christ and is granted faith in her life. In Luke 23, a criminal that's being crucified next to Jesus is born again as he sees Jesus and comes to an understanding of his sin and who Christ is.

In Acts 9, verse 18, this guy who was persecuting the church, persecuting Christians, putting them to death, his name was Saul. He is saved. He is given new life by the Lord Jesus Christ and ultimately we call him Paul and he was used in some of the greatest missionary endeavors ever seen in this world. Think of the people who are members of Grace Life Church Brookhaven. Think of probably the people that are at your table, the men who you are sitting around tonight, probably very different. God's grace has been extended to people from all walks of life. I just met Nolan here tonight and he works for the FBI.

That's totally different from what I do in life, right? Keith teaches at a junior college, totally different from me. And yet God's grace extends saving grace into our lives and calls us from all sorts of different walks and backgrounds and puts his church together. God's grace has been extended to people from different ethnicities, different socioeconomic classes, different backgrounds, different family types, different interests. But it's the gospel that ties us together. Now this should bring about thanksgiving in our lives and it should also, men, arm you with confidence in your evangelism.

There should never be a person that you go to work or you go to the neighborhood or you go to the ball field and you say, "You know what? I just don't know that Jesus can save that type of person." He saved you. He saved Simon the Zealot. He saved Matthew the tax collector, Thaddeus the gentle hearted, Simon and Andrew, these fishing brothers, the sons of thunder. He saved them. There's no person that's outside the reach of God's grace. Should arm you with confidence in your evangelism.

And if you are lost, if you're here tonight and you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ, you should know tonight that Jesus specializes in saving sinners of all types. And your type is included. That's lesson number one. Lesson number two, God primarily calls and uses ordinary men. God primarily calls and uses ordinary men. Now consider what the Scripture says in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 24 through 31, about the type of people that God is using.

"But to those who are the called, both using Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." Verse 26, "For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world, and the despises God has chosen the things that are not, so that he may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God." And in Acts chapter 4, verse 13, Peter and John are preaching.

It says this about them, "Now as they observed," this is the religious leaders of the days, the Pharisees, all of that group, "as they observed the confidence of Peter and John, who were preaching the gospel, and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus." One scholar said it this way, "On a human level, the gospel was thought a foolish message, and the apostles were deemed unsophisticated preachers. They were fishermen and working class nobodies." Here's a good word from Mississippi and Alabama, peons.

That's not my word, that's a scholar using that word, so I figure we can use it, right? They were peons, rabble. That was the assessment of their contemporaries. You know what, brothers? That's what God's been doing for a couple thousand years now, calling and using ordinary men. I told you at the outset, our tendency when we read the Scriptures is to read some hero-like tendencies into these types of characters.

We think of a man like John, and we think, "Man, he wrote the gospel of John, he wrote first and third John, he wrote Revelation." We look at that and we say, "What a spiritual giant!" John's contemporaries looked at him and said, "That's rabble. That guy can do nothing." That's what the religious establishment of the day, that's what they thought of these men. Who are these guys? They're redeemed, they're unsophisticated. They could tell they'd been with Jesus, right? Jim Elliot, missionary at Ecuador, said it this way, "We're all just a bunch of nobodies trying to serve somebody capital S." That's the word of Jesus.

Hey, men of Grace Life Brook, hey, you know what you all, a bunch of nobodies. You know what the Men of Grace Life Church will show us, a bunch of nobodies. We're just all trying to serve somebody. That's somebody's Jesus. D.L. Moody said this, "Moses spent 40 years thinking he was somebody, 40 years learning he was nobody, and 40 years discovering what God can do with a nobody." God primarily calls and uses ordinary men, men like you, men like me, they're unsophisticated. Your pastor and I talk sometimes, "Oh, we're just ordinary, just ordinary." I don't know.

Sometimes people will visit Grace Life Church at the Shoals when they come to the Church Conference and I think sometimes they're disappointed because I don't know what they expect to see, but they don't see that. You see a lot of ordinary people, a lot of ordinary men, and you know what? That's exactly God's plan. That's what he's been doing throughout Church history, is calling and using ordinary men. Why? So that there's no boasting and he gets all the glory. When people look in at the Men of Grace Life Church of Brookhaven, they should say, "You know what?

We don't know how and why God is working and we don't know how God is sustaining that Church. We know those guys. There's nothing special." Because then you men can say, "It's because our God is special. It's because our God is at work and we give him all the glory for it." Lesson number three, there is no shame in serving less prominent roles. There is no shame in serving less prominent roles. I've been preaching through Mark's Gospel. We're all the way towards Mark chapter 10 at this point. We just looked at a text on Wednesday night, the text where James and John go to Jesus and ask for these seats of prominence.

They go to Jesus and actually they have their mom go to Jesus and say, "Jesus, would you give James and John my boys a seat of prominence?" I told the congregation Wednesday, I said, "Don't y'all know that in a group of men, a group of guys, y'all know that's just that those two men, those two brothers never lived down the fact that they were the mama's boys of the 12 disciples from that point forward. I don't care how good they preached. I don't care how many miracles they had. Them boys had their mama ask Jesus for a seat of prominence and I guarantee they got a hard time about it the rest of their lives." What did they want there, Mark?

They wanted prominence. They wanted position. That's what the world values. The world values your name and lights. You're so and so and you've got a Broadway banner for you and everything that you do. But men, there's no shame in serving the Lord Jesus in a less prominent role. Many of the men who are a part of the 12, and you notice as we went through their historical sketches, they have very little said about them. Very little. Sure, we know that they were used of God, absolutely. But most were not cast into any sort of limelight position. They were not famous in their day. They weren't preaching some sort of conference circuit.

She's not who they were. Most of them served the Lord faithfully until they were martyred for the sake of the gospel with very little fanfare from the world. How different this is from much of evangelicalism today with our need for large ministries and ex-followers and a need to be on the conference speaking circuit. It was foreign to these men. You know, if these men were willing to take less prominent roles just because they loved Jesus, then surely we can do that as well. As a matter of fact, we need to reprogram our minds to realize that there are no unimportant roles.

All the roles, all the ways that service is needed in God's local church, they are important. They are vital. Not too long ago in Mark 10, 13 through 16, I preached a message to our congregation entitled Jesus Works in the Nursery. Why? Because at some point people start bringing children to Jesus. And in that day and time, that just wasn't something you did. Children were just not that important. And so the disciples begin to shew them away. Get away, get away. Jesus doesn't have time for this. What does Jesus do? He rebukes the socks off the disciples. He says, "No, let them come to me.

I'm going to minister to them." I don't know what y'all think of Grace Life Church that shows, but you know what? We have people that just look us in the face and say, "I ain't working at nursery. I don't want to. That's beneath me." No roles beneath us. We don't deserve any mercy, much less the mercy of getting to serve our Lord Jesus Christ in the context of our local church. Jesus served in the nursery. In Mark 10, 43 through 45, it says, "The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many." If you turn to Romans 16, we don't have time to go there tonight.

But Paul lists a long list of people that we don't know anything about. But apparently, they were serving in the church at Rome, and for the Apostle Paul, that was enough. They didn't need a whole book written on them. They just were faithful servants in the local church. They weren't prominent. They weren't famous. You know, not Bible characters that we know of, but yet they were faithful in what the Lord had called them to be and do. And, man, I don't know what the needs are currently at Grace Life Church or Brookhaven, what they will be in the future. But let me encourage you as men to take a lead and say, "You know what?

There is nothing here that I am above. I can serve in whatever way is needed in my local church." You know what is needed more than spiritual giftedness? It's spiritual availability. There's no shame in serving something that someone might think is a less prominent role in God's church. I believe we have two more. Almost three more. Don't want to be a liar in front of you. Number four, we learned that God uses not only ordinary men, but sinners to accomplish His work. In many of the accounts detailed about the Twelve in Scripture, we see that they struggled with their own sins and their own flaws.

As I've preached through Mark's Gospel, it's come out time and time again. It's almost like a broken record. Jesus is teaching something and it just goes right over their head. Jesus will teach them all something else and they just totally miss it. Peter at one point rebukes Christ. Later on, he denies Christ. The Sons of Thunder, like I said, they immediately want to judge people at times in Jesus' ministry. He has to tell them, "No, no, we're not doing that." Thomas struggled to believe in the risen Christ. As I just said, the Sons of Thunder at one point proudly, they and their mom, ask for positions of prominence from the Lord Jesus.

Each of these men needed time with Christ and time with one another to mature. They were still flawed. They're just men. One said it this way, "We are all different and we are all fallen and flawed, but the love of Christ constrains us to love each other and be patient with each other and to work together for the glory of God." This is not an excuse for you to be lazy in your sin. I'm not saying that. But I hope it is an encouragement for you to keep serving the Lord in spite of your flaws and sins.

Sometimes when I talk with folks at Grace Life Church of the Shoals about a service opportunity, they'll say something like this, and I appreciate the humility. I believe they're genuine in it. But they'll say something like, "You know what, Brother Matt, I just don't know if I deserve that." And you know what I usually say to that? "Welcome to the club." No, you don't. And I don't deserve to get to serve the Lord either. But our sin and our struggles and our flaws shouldn't be a reason that we kind of shrink back and say, "Well, I just don't know. No, all the Lord has ever used are people with flaws. That's it.

That's all He has to work with." Yes, fight your sin. Yes, there may be some things in the local church that you don't need to do if there's some real clear sin, some reproachable sin in your life. But look, if you're just struggling and you're in the fight against sin, you need to move forward, not shrink back. God uses sinners to accomplish His Word. Number five, association with Jesus is not equal to salvation. Association with Jesus is not equal to salvation. Now, if you'll remember, we made a note about 11 of the 12 men that Jesus summoned to Himself there in Mark 3.

And of course, Judas Iscariot is the 12th man and is the only one that we really didn't make any sort of comment about. So I want to make one point from Judas' life at this point in our sermon. Here's the point. One can be closely associated with Jesus and yet still remain in his or her sins to the point of dying an eternal death to be spent in hell. Let me say it again. One can be closely associated with Jesus and yet still remain in his or her sins to the point of dying an eternal death to be spent in hell. You get a quote from John MacArthur. Here was a man, Judas, who drew as close to the Savior as it is humanly possible to be.

He enjoyed every privilege Christ affords. He was intimately familiar with everything Jesus taught. Yet he remained in unbelief and went into a hopeless eternity. Man, I don't know most of you. But it may be that there's one or two or maybe even a handful of you here tonight who are only merely associated with Jesus. Like Judas, you have refused to repent of your wicked ways and your wicked heart and you are still dead in your transgressions and sins. You might say, "Well, how am I closely associated with Jesus?" Well, you've heard his gospel. If you're here at this church, I know you hear his gospel regularly.

Probably hear it in small groups. You hear it from the pulpit. Young men, you probably hear it at home. You've heard his gospel. You've heard the call to repent and believe. You're associated with Jesus' church, his body here on earth. And yet you persist in your sins. Association with Jesus is not equal to salvation. Isaac and I were talking about a friend of his on our way to Mississippi today who is associated with Jesus, was even baptized at a young age, but bears no fruit in keeping with repentance. His association will get him nowhere in terms of salvation. So association with Jesus is not equal to salvation. Last point and I'm done.

Serving Christ is costly but worth it. Serving Christ is costly but worth it. These men all ultimately died a martyr's death. Some shaped former fashion. They chose to die for Christ and while serving Christ rather than compromise and live. And brothers in a day of flimsy Christianity that is willing to bend and compromise at the least sign of resistance and persecution, their example should serve to stir us up toward persevering with joy in the midst of hardship as Christ's disciples. The Apostle Paul was willing to say it this way, "To live is Christ and to die is gain." Remember Andrew, that everyday evangelist?

It said of Andrew, at least history records, that as he was hung on a cross he ultimately lasted for two days while hanging from that cross before he died. And history tells us that during those two days he pled with everyone who came by to trust Christ. Christ was worth it for Andrew. I mean at that point he knows I'm dying at some point. I might as well use the rest of my time to direct more to Christ. In Hebrews 11 it says this concerning some of the past brethren, that others experienced mockings and scourgings, yes also chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two.

They were tempted, they were put to death with the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins being destitute, afflicted, ill treated, men of whom the world was not worthy, wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground. Why? Because Christ was worth it. He was worth it. Hebrews 12.3 gives us this reminder. Consider Jesus who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself so that you, when you face that hostility, will not grow weary and lose heart. Men, you must lead out in this for your family and for your church.

You know being a church that is not perfect but that is seeking to honor God and glorify God is not going to be easy and by the way it's probably going to get harder as you go. Don't be flimsy. Don't let when the community comes and well murmur this, murmur that. Do y'all hear what this, do y'all hear what their pastor said, do y'all hear what they're teaching? Don't be sheepish and shrink back. Say no, Christ is worth it. When you're faithful to the Lord you probably won't be the popular church. When you're faithful to the Lord you probably won't be the popular Christian. That's okay.

The eleven men who are most intimate with Jesus during his earthly ministry died because of their fidelity to Christ and his gospel. But for them it was worth it. For us it better be worth it as well. Amen. Let's pray. Father we thank you for your word.