Introduction
[This week, we are looking at a new phase in Jesus’ Ministry.] This phase in Jesus’ life is focused on leadership development. As the movement continues to grow, Jesus begins to hand-select from His disciples a few to be servant leaders of the movement. After a full night of prayer, consulting with His Father, Jesus appoints twelve men who will begin their apprenticeship as leaders and will eventually become the leaders of the movement.
This is a very important stage in the movement, and I trust you are ready to learn about leadership development from the Master. Jesus has been working now for two and a half years, building a tight bond between Himself and His disciples, calling them first to “Come and see” (John 1:39). During this time, He explains to them that He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world and that He is the Christ. He explains who He is from Scripture and they chose to believe in Him as the Messiah. He then challenges them to “Follow Me” (John 1:43). During this next stage as a Christ-followers, they learn that Jesus is not only the way to God but that He is the truth. Jesus is daily revealing to them more of who He is. He is teaching them that He is fully God and fully man, the God/Man who came to earth as the Saviour of the world. Jesus spends a time growing these new believers in Him. He then issues His third call to “Come, follow me and I will make you fishers of men” (Matt.4:19.) During this phase of the movement Jesus challenges them to join Him as disciples, leaving everything to follow Him. He then begins to share in ministry with them — teaching them how to fish for men. He does this with on-the-job training through a series of fishing expeditions in various places and with a variety of people groups.
After a couple of years of investing in them, not just the Good News — that He was the Messiah — but sharing with them His very life, He was ready for the next step. In this next phase of leadership development, Jesus’ style is radical and it flies in the face of many of the popular beliefs of leadership at the time. Get ready to see leadership Jesus-style. During this phase Jesus reveals to His committed core of disciples the Father’s master plan for reaching the world. Remember, it is the Father’s plan. It is God who is the Architect and Master Builder (Heb. 11:10). The plan is simple to understand, revolutionary and humanly impossible. But what is impossible with man is possible with God; but when God is the one training us, we can accomplish anything (Phil. 4:13). Come explore leadership Jesus-style.
As Jesus moves into this new phase, He knows it is crucial that He listen carefully to His Father in order for the movement to expand according to the Father’s master plan. Jesus called an isolated (perhaps secretive) meeting with His disciples from every area He has been in over the past two years. Probably some 120 disciples move quietly to the mountains of Naphtali just northwest of Capernaum. As they are arriving from all over, Jesus climbs to a high spot. What will He do? What will He say? What will be the next step His Father will ask Him to take? Let’s take a look.
Reading [You can read as much as you can, depending on your availability]
Luke 6:12-19
(or)
Mark 3:13-19
Meditating [Use these questions to start your thinking]
- Luke 6:12 says that Jesus spent the night in prayer before choosing His leaders. What is this telling us? What do you imagine He prayed about?
- What do you know about these twelve apostles?
- What does the text tell us about why and how Jesus chose leaders (Mark 3:14-15)?
- What do you imagine Jesus is feeling during this time?
- What other questions do you still have?
Sharing: Text ONE of your answers to the questions above to your team. Each team should post a sharing from a team member in the comments below.
Jesus must have been excited — the ministry was growing like crazy and people from all over were believing in Him as Messiah. The movement was gaining momentum. It is at this crucial time that Jesus issues a call for His disciples to gather so that He can instruct them in the next step. The air is filled with anticipation as they gather. All must have come anticipating a strategy of liberation from the Roman oppression. After all, that was what the Messiah was all about — liberty. Why was Jesus calling them together? Would Jesus organize them in small assault teams to attack the Romans on the roads? Or would they go to Jerusalem and start the siege from there?
As they are arriving from all over Israel, Jesus climbs to the mountaintop and spends the whole night in prayer, modelling for us the first principle of leadership development — dependency on God. Jesus spends the whole night talking with His Dad, seeking His face and asking Him for the next steps. Remember this or otherwise you are headed for disaster as you develop leaders. Luke says that Jesus then came down the mountain to a level place where there was the large crowd of His disciples. How many were there? I don’t know, but I am guessing some 120-150 disciples. What we do know is that Jesus descends to this level place and He publicly appoints the first twelve leaders of the movement and gives them the new name of “apostle.” This gives us the second principle in choosing leaders — public appointment. Always appoint leaders in front of other disciples. Jesus shows us another key principle here: that leaders are selected from the group of disciples, not from the Christ-followers or the new believer group. Leaders are chosen from among the workers or disciples in the movement.
Notice also the twofold purpose that Jesus gives for choosing His leaders (Mark 3:14). Go ahead — look back and pick them out. Jesus chooses leaders so that, first of all, they might be with Him. He wants to draw them into a closer and more intimate relationship with Him, so that they might receive the training in servant leadership that He is ready to offer them. Secondly, He appoints them so that He might send them out to preach. Wow! The reason we call people into leadership is to draw them into a more intimate relationship with Jesus with the end goal of sending them out to preach and make more disciples. You can see that Jesus had a specific goal in mind when He called these twelve men. He wants them to go deeper into who He is and then send them out, depending on the Father, to spread the movement around the world. How will this new movement respond to these appointments? Will these men be accepted as leaders and be respected?
[Bumble’s note: Jesus equipped His disciples to fish for men before this night. It means that fishing for men would be what every follower of Jesus would learn to do and not just the job of the leaders. We are often mistaken that Jesus had only 12 disciples. But He developed many more disciples before selecting 12 of them as apostles, a signal of a greater intention for the movement since 12 represent the tribes of Israel.]
For the next several weeks we will be exploring leadership, Jesus-style. I want to challenge you that this is not just a leadership style for the church but for all of life — leadership in the home, the workplace and the church. Jesus’ principles of leadership may seem upside down at times, but they produce incredible results that always glorify the Father. Spend some time talking with one of your own disciples about what you have learned today on choosing leaders. Share the keys to Jesus’ style of choosing leaders and discuss what character qualities Jesus was looking for in His leaders.
What do you know about these twelve apostles?
What we know is that with some of the apostles, we see Jesus had several interactions which were previously recorded in the Gospels. I would assume that Jesus probably had a lot of these types of interactions with all of his apostles and the other disciples who were gathered which were not recorded in the Gospels. Further we know that Judas Iscariot whom Jesus chooses as one of his apostles will eventually betray him and give him up.
What does the text tell us about why and how Jesus chose leaders (Mark 3:14-15)?
He chose people to be with Him, to send them out, and have authority to drive out demons. Jesus intentionally chooses His leaders as those who will be spending the most time with Him to learn from Him, but then to go out and act on His behalf, being an extension of His hands and feet. This made me reflect on the positions I’m in and how I could more effectively act as His hands and feet, which stems from spending time being with Him
Tonight’s passage teaches us about how to bring up the big decisions to God. Jesus spent the night in prayer before choosing His leaders, which tells us two things of the process: that this was not a lonesome decision and that this was not a thoughtless decision. It was not lonesome in that God was a part of the decision-making process as prayer is how we keep God in a deliberate loop in our lives. By using prayer in the process, Jesus shows that leaders aren’t self-lead, but appointed through the holy spirit as we rely on God to lead rather we leading ourselves. However, it was also not thoughtless in that it took all night before Jesus made a decision, implying that Jesus thought long and hard about who He would pick. So, while we rely on God to lead, we ourselves must also put in the effort to think for ourselves and make our own judgements, with God’s guidance though, of course. It should be, as Thanos would put it, perfectly balanced as all things should be.
Similar to Hoa, this passage reminded me of yesterday’s sermon and how Jesus is a necessity to our spiritual life and growth. He, quite literally, is the bread of life, and we need him to feed into every part of our life. Without Him, we would be lost, struggling to find our purpose in this world. With Jesus, there is peace, joy, purpose and fulfillment. From Jesus, we gather our wisdom and discernment and grow our faith, which is important if we want to build disciples, especially as church leaders. I pray that I can cultivate a deeper need and hunger for God each day, and carry that with into my relationships with others.