Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Vision

House Keeping

Grant Sterley joining the Grace Empire staff as our new Kid Min Director.

Andre Osario is leaving us because he has taken a full time worship leader position at _____________.

Memory - Korean funeral - incense, picture in a frame, food and money presented.

I remember asking my mother, why Christians did this?

And she just explained that its just a part of the korean culture.

Thats when I got to thinking:

What are some things that we do in western culture that is counter to what the bible says?

In other words,

Kingdom Culture vs My Culture

I think its important to note, that this sermon is probably one of the most important sermons I have ever preached.

You know we tend to idolize and look up to the Lone Rangers in our world.

The one guy that turned everything around.

The Abraham Lincolns, the Martin Luther King Jrs, the Steve Jobs, the Batmans, the James Bonds.

These are individuals that stood alone to face all odds...

I think its safe to say in our iPhone, iPod, selfie stick world that we love our individualism.

We love to be set apart, self sufficient, and self reliant.

And for the most part I don’t think this is bad.

I think theres a healthy measure to this and definitely something to be proud of.

But there is time when this ideal gets in the way of what God is trying to do in our lives.

So I recently I sat down with a friend and he filled me in on what was going on in his life…then he said something that I heard probably a hundred times from different people and different individuals, but it never occured to me how much of a problem this was until that moment.

He said, “No one knows this but...”

And he explained his current difficulty…

And I thought…how come no one knows this?

Especially cause he attends church regularly and is part of a life giving church…but then I realized that Im in the same boat.

Im part of this amazing church, but often I find myself bearing the weight of, what feels like the world, on my shoulders?

But we all know the answer to this question, right?

Cause its embarrassing to share, or its unmanly, or we don’t want to burden anyone with our problems, people have so many other things to worry about, its not that big of a deal, how can they help me anyway, I can handle it, I got this.

We have a long list of reasons that sound legitimate, rational, and even considerate of others for not sharing the burden that we all carry.

What does this have to do with discipleship?

Everything...

The New Testament is full of commands to do this or that for “one another.”

Love one another.

Pray for one another.

Encourage one another.

So how can we teach people to “observe all that I have commanded,” if we dont have anyone to love, pray, or encourage.

It is impossible to “one another” yourself.

And we cannot follow jesus alone.

While every individual needs to obey Jesus’s call to follow, we cannot follow Jesus as individuals.

So whats the main idea of today?

We are going to be looking at discipleship from the context of the church.

We are going to look at what it really means to live together as a church - a body of Christ.

Next week we are going to be talking about how to reach our local settings and the rest of the world, but we have to start right here.

We are called to multiply and make disciples of all nations.

Its time to take up our place within the body of Christ.

Its time to Go Fish.

VIDEO

I want to start with a quote,

“First, let’s make sure that we are not guilty of belittling God’s church in any way.

It’s not a social club; it’s not a building, and it’s not an option.

The church is life and death.

The church is God’s strategy for reaching our world.

What we do inside the church matters.”

Excerpt From: Francis Chan & Mark Beuving.

“Multiply.”

iBooks.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/multiply/id567310376?mt=11

Programs and events are not what make a church.

These things are there to help facilitate the life and community of the church, but to we dont measure the health of the church at how many people show up to an event.

Ever take a bit of an apple or peach you thought was going to be good, only to bite it and find out it was rotten on the inside.

Measuring the health of the church by well attended events is just like this…it COULD show you that the church is healthy, but its only when you pull back the layers and see the core of the people will you know if the church is truly healthy or not.

Out of 114 times that the church is mentioned in the New Testament, at least ninety of them refer to a specific LOCAL, not global, gathering of believers who got together for connection and to focus their mission to build the church.

God intends for every person on this planet, to be a part of his global church, but also to be plugged in to a community of believers that we are serving and being served.

To challenge and to be challenged.

But despite the clear priority that Jesus and the Bible puts on people being connected and intertwined with other believers there are a lot of Christians that try and live the Christian life apart from series, personal commitment to the local church.

I want you to say this word with me: interdependence

Heres another scary word: accountability.

and the last word: submission

Look, I want to say this next part very carefully because I know what it feels like on the other side of this.

I’ve been hurt by church a time or two and there have been many occasions that I wanted to do spirituality, my relationship with Jesus, apart from the church.

But solitude in a spiritual battle is death.

You have to know that.

We do this because we are self reliant, self sufficient, and the kind of mutual interdependence, accountability, and even submission, sounds exhausting, a hassle, and even scary.

We hop from one church to the next looking for the “perfect place,” or the “perfect people,” or the “perfect fit” because we are afraid to commit to the people in the church.

We want our church experience to have as little awkwardness as possible…but intertwining our lives with people is always going to be messy and a little bit awkward…in some cases, a LOT awkward.

Bearing One Another’s Burdens

Last week, we explained that the job of a pastor is to equip believers to do the ministry of the church.

That the job of ministry is the job of the whole church, for every believer.

So this begs the question, whom should you be ministering too?

Dont be overwhelmed by the task of ministering to others.

Like I said last week, God has placed people in your life for you to serve.

Initally, just look around and you will have a good place to start.

Discipleship and ministering can sound foreign and intimidating if you don’t understand the practical nature of it.

Heres the skinny.

Do you know anyone thats carrying a heavy load?

The first step is simple, help them.

You don’t have to be a bible scholar, lead a marriage retreat, or be a psychologist to begin helping.

You could be on the other end of the couch when someone is moving.

You could bring a meal to a family that just had a baby.

You could take a buddy to a movie.

Or in my case, you could sit down and help me figure out how to find insurance for myself and for my family.

You have to understand something, YOU have a special function in this church that only you can fill.

You may not be obvious to you, but that may because we have a narrow view of what helping and serving is.

As we share our struggles, HOW we can help will become clear.

So this week Jay sat down with me and helped me figure out my insurance…to him he was just doing his job, but he had NO IDEA how much Amy and I have been worried about it all, but thats a part of the problem, he had NO IDEA because I kept things to myself.

A lot of times we dont know how we can help the church cause the church is either too proud, too self conscious, too self reliant, uncommunicative, or we dont want to bother anyone.

But unless people know, we cant help.

It’s a circle of interdependence.