This series is based on the recent sermon Jesus Calls the Twelve, on Luke 6:12-16. In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles: Simon, whom he named Peter, and Andrew his brother, and James and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot, and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor (Luke 6:12–16).

From "Come and See" to "Go and Die"

Thus far in Luke's Gospel, Jesus' ministry has mainly been about come and see. Crowds have come to see him preach, teach, perform miracles, cast out demons, heal, and help those who are suffering and needy. In Luke 6:12–16, Jesus calls his twelve disciples to transition from "come and see" to "go and die." And this is incredibly important. These men's lives will change, and history will change with it. We praise God for the come-and-see opportunities. We like to give things away online. We like to invite people to church services. We like to invite people to community groups. We like to invite people to events, relationships, formal and informal ministry, and we're all about come and see, come and check it out. Come and hear some Bible, meet some people, see some changed lives, get to know us, and what Jesus is doing. But at some point, to be a Christian, you've got to transition from "come and see" to "go and die" and that is, you just can't watch other people walk with Jesus; you have to go walk with him. You can't just allow other people to serve you; you need to serve as well. You can't just allow other people to fund ministry, you need to give generously. At some point, the come-and-see season needs to end and the go-and-die season has to begin, and that's exactly what we find at this strategic juncture of Luke's Gospel.

11 Leadership Lessons from 12 Disciples

So we're going to look at Jesus calling the twelve from a come-and-see experience to a go-and-die life. And so from this, we're going to pull out what I'll call "Eleven Leadership Lessons from Twelve Disciples." We want to have a church that follows the leadership example of Jesus. How did he pick his men? How did he lead his men? How did he train his men? How did he deploy his men? How did Jesus organize his ministry? Because we want to follow in Jesus' example by Jesus' empowerment through the Holy Spirit, and we want to have a church that is patterned after Jesus' ministry. That's what we're all about. We want to see people meet Jesus. We want to see the church grow. We want to start other campuses. We want to start other churches. We want to continue to mature and grow in every way, but most importantly, we want to do that in a way that honors Jesus, obeys Jesus, imitates Jesus. So we'll pull eleven lessons from him selecting his twelve disciples. In the next series of posts we will see 11 leadership lessons from how Jesus selected his 12 disciples.