Welcome to this edition of the Weekend Sermon. I am glad to be with you today to post the sermon, and I hope that all of you are having a very good day.
This has been a difficult week for me. I haven't been feeling very well again in many different ways. I would ask that you would please pray that I will get to feeling better again. On a positive note, I was able to come up with a lot of new ideas to write about. I have a new book planned, and I have been working on poetry.
In prayer this week, please continue to pray for those affected by the hurricanes. Bermuda, Haiti and parts of the United States have experienced significant damage. Also, please pray for an end to the Zika virus.
We've been praying for peace in several countries over the past weeks. Let us continue to pray for peace in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. For our prayer focus countries, let us pray for Benin and Uzbekistan that many in these two nations will hear the message of the love of Jesus.
For the last couple of weeks, we have been in a series of messages on less well-known characters from the Bible. So far, we have looked at two characters from the book of Jeremiah. Today, we will look at two characters from the New Testament.
As most of you I am sure already know, Jesus originally chose twelve of his followers to be his core group of disciples. Judas Iscariot would go on and betray Jesus. Following this betrayal, Judas went and committed suicide. This reduced the number of disciples to eleven.
After Jesus ascended into heaven, the Bible tells us that there were 120 people who were Jesus' committed followers. This group included the eleven disciples, Jesus' mother Mary, Jesus' brothers and some others. I am sure that this group also included Mary Magdalene, the women who went to the tomb of the Lord and Mary, Martha and Lazarus.
When the disciples returned to the room where the 120 were gathered. Peter told the assembly that it was necessary to bring the number of apostles back up to twelve as originally set out by Jesus. Peter would go on to set down the criteria for who could be chosen.
Peter said that those qualified had to have been a follower of Jesus since Jesus started His ministry when baptized by John. This person would have had to have followed Jesus throughout His ministry and been there right up until the Ascension.
When they made an investigation based on these criteria, two men met these qualifications. There names where Matthias and Joseph Barsabbas also called Justus.
Peter prayed to the Lord that the right person would be chosen, and then lots were cast. The lot fell on Matthias, and he was chosen to be the twelfth apostle.
The Bible doesn't record anything else about either one of these men. In fact, the Bible has little to say about most of the Apostles except for Peter, John and James. What do we know about Matthias and Justus?
Church history tells us that Matthias went on to preach the Gospel in Ethiopia. After that, he returned to Judea where he suffered a martyrs death. Church history tells us that Justus went on to become the bishop of a town called Eleutheropolis. Justus also suffered death for his faith in Jesus Christ.
So, what can we learn from these two men. First of all, I learn from these two that there were others who followed Jesus whose names aren't recorded in the Gospels. Luke 10 does tell us that Jesus sent out seventy disciples two by two to spread His message. I am pretty sure that Matthias and Justus were part of this group.
These two men were very faithful to Jesus. They were probably originally disciples of John the Baptist just as Peter and John were. When they saw Jesus after His baptism, they decided to follow Him. They remained with Jesus even after so many abandoned Jesus after His teaching that is recorded in John 6.
These two men were never in the spotlight. They weren't part of the inner circle. However, they were faithful followers of Jesus. Most of us will never be famous pastors or missionaries. We are just ordinary Christians who are doing our best to serve the Lord. Just like these two men, we keep trying to serve Jesus the best we can where we are placed. Just because they weren't famous, so to speak, they still were able to serve the Lord and spread the message of His love.
Justus in this account teaches me some important truths. He was passed over for the top leadership post twice. When Jesus chose the original twelve, Justus wasn't among that number, and the lot fell on Matthias and not on him. Some people would have been very discouraged about all of this, and they may have had the attitude that if Jesus didn't think they were good enough that they would just stop following Him.
This was not Justus' attitude at all. He never gave up trying to serve Jesus. Justus never went on to great fame. He was a bishop of a church in a small area. But he did his best to serve Jesus to the point that He was willing to lay down His life for his Savior and King.
Not all of us can be the leaders. Not all of us are prophets or teachers. In I Corinthians 12, Paul makes it clear that not every one is equipped with every spiritual gift. The Lord has given to each one of us a gift and a mission. We are all members of the body. Each member has to perform his or her function so that the body of Christ can move in unity to accomplish the task Jesus has given to us.
I know that when I started out in the ministry, I had these big dreams of having a big church. However, that is not the way the Lord had directed the path of my life. He has allowed me to be a minister through the written word and through this blog.
Each of us needs to find out what it is that the Lord wants us to do for Him, and we need to do it with gladness. No matter what it is you are doing for Jesus, it is important. If you are doing all you can for Jesus out of love for Him, Jesus is pleased. No one else can do what you are doing because the Lord Jesus chose you to do it knowing that you would be the best person to carry out that task.
Matthias and Justus inspire me because they mainly served behind the scenes, but they were always faithful. They served Jesus right from the beginning and they never wavered in their faithfulness right up until when they gave their lives for Jesus.
I hope that I can be faithful like these two men. I may not be a famous Christian, but I am trying to do what Jesus would have me do until the day that I see Him. I hope that when I see Him He says
"Well done." That is my prayer. I hope that that is your desire as well.
One other lesson that I learn from these two men is that we have to trust our lives to the Lord having faith that He knows what is best for us. We may have a dream or a desire and we wonder why it hasn't been realized. Our lives may have gone a different way than we thought they would. We have to have faith in Jesus believing that He has placed us where we need to be for His honor and glory. By faith we need to believe that Jesus has us where we need to be at the right time.
Next week, we will be back in the Old Testament to look at some more less well-known Bible characters. On Monday I will post the verses. I am not sure at this point if there will be a review on Wednesday. I am catching up on my reading, so we will just have to see. May God bless you all. Thank you for reading the blog. Amen.
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