Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction:

Good morning Venture, I hope everyone had a joy filled Christmas with family and friends, as we continue to walk in the holiday spirit, looking forward to the new year, I wanted to introduce a discipling challenge for 2020.....before we get into it, lets pray.

PRAYER: “Father, thank you for today, and the opportunity to proclaim your instructively, and ask, Holy Spirit, that you would open our minds to the truth of your Word, and that our hearts would be incited to act on what your Word calls us to this morning.

I pray that you’d help us be disciple-making disciples, that we would apply your Word personally, relationally, and missionally with those whom you’ve put before us in our areas of influence.

I ask all this in Jesus name, amen.

This morning, we’re going to launch a disciple-making challenge for 2020, and before we do that, we’re going to ask some questions, and define some terms, so here are the two questions that launch our challenge and the terms we’ll be defining.

SLIDES: As a church we’re asking, do we have a plan for discipleship, and secondly, is it working?

SLIDES: As disciples we should be asking, who am I discipling, and who’s discipling me?

So, in order to answer these questions, we need to define some terms in order to rightly execute discipleship.

And so this morning, we’re going define these things in order to understand and apply disciple-making.

TRANSITION: So, here is the Challenge, which comes from : And if you want to turn to , thats where we’ll be landing and launching our challenge,

SLIDE: ”Who’s Your 4:34” - 2020 Challenge

In order to understand and apply the challenge we need to establish a few things first;

SLIDE: UNDERSTANDING & APPLYING THE CHALLENGE

(1) what is the nature of a disciple,

(2) process of disciple-making

(2) what is the process of discipleship,

(3) And the pathway of discipleship in our church.

(3) how do we implement this process of discipleshipdisciple-making, and then our 4:34 challenge for 2020.

TRANSITION - SO WHAT IS A DISCIPLE

What is a Disciple

SLIDE: A disciple (μαθητής/manthetes)Is one who engages in learning through instruction from another, or an apprentice.

READ: And this is always happening whether actively or passively.

INTRODUCE ILLUSTRATION: In other words - let me use a parable to demonstrate this meaning or using a more modern term for parable, an illustration

Exhorting & Admonishing Examples of passive discipleship:

INTRODUCE ILLUSTRATION: In other words - let me use a parable to demonstrate this meaning or using a more modern term for parable, an illustration

READ: This is always happening either actively or passively.

Being a disciple goes beyond just learning instructively, it begins to develop into something more robust.

As we’ll here in the - click to slide -

You verbally teach them how to drive, they learns everything about driving; knowing the car, the rules on the road, having awareness for others on the road, etc.

You actively taught them, and they passively received your instruction.

Now they’re applying your instruction by driving, and now you’re watching them do what you taught them to do.

TRANSITION: lets take a commercial break to consider what else is developing in this discipling; our discipling has moved beyond simply instructing them to now attitudinal change: lets consider the nature of a disciple -

SLIDE: The nature of a disciple involves all of one’s being, its a whole person engagement.

It’s growing in knowledge through instructional training that leads to attitudinal changes and actions.

ILLUSTRATION: With that in mind, lets talk about your teens driving again.

Riff on Intellect>Action>Attitude

they have their license now, and they’ve been driving for some time now.

You travel with them while they’re driving, and you begin to see their mannerisms and attitude towards other drivers, they’re aggressive, impatient, and angry when they drive.

While observing them, you quickly realize that, they drive exactly like you.

They learned to drive before they ever got behind the wheel.

You discipled them passively long before they sat underneath your instruction actively.

Unfortunately, this affirms the adage of, “more is caught than taught.”

Now -

This is a familial example of passive and active discipling, but even at the church level this is happening.

Transition into illustration:

Illustration:

Sunday morning service, you come eager to hear God’s Word being preached to hopefully get something from it, and if we’re honest, sometimes we do and sometimes we don’t.

But if Sunday morning service is the extent of being a disciple of Jesus Christ, it’s incomplete.

It’s incomplete because we’re not applying what we learn through relationships.

We have to have accountable relationships to apply what we’ve learned instructively in order to rightly apply it, do it, etc.

In other words, being a disciple is

first personal, then relational and always missional.

then relational and always missional.

It’s others-centered, not self-centered.

Jesus, in summing up the law, said the heart of God’s law is based on two realities; Love God & Your Neighbor.

You can’t accomplish both if you’re not in relationship with others, and when we’re applying both, that’s disciple-making.

Transition:

So back to passive and active discipleship -

SLIDE: Passive discipleship is stalling out in learning mode, and the fruit of this discipling is consumerism.

SLIDE: Active discipleship is applying what we’re learning by doing it, and teaching it.

So back to being a disciple, being a disciple isn’t exclusive to Christianity, remember our definition, it’s anyone one who follows a leader, teacher, etc. Right!

So -

Definitionally, if a disciple is simply a learner or follower of a teacher or leader, then consequently, we know that the world is making disciples too.

I would argue that the world is making more disciples than modern evangelicalism right now.

Social media for example, its literally built around people following others with influence.

The World is discipling, it just doesn’t use the same term.

It uses “followers”, which is what a disciple is, remember.

The top ten Youtube’ers combined have over 300 million followers, that’s over 90% of the U.S. population.

And most of them are under 30 years old.

You combine that with Twitter and Instagram, you have hundreds of millions of people following others of influence, actors, athletes, musicians, politicians, and you know what there starting to take on?

The attitude of the leader they’re following…their diets, fashion, ideologies, and ultimately, their worldview.

But Jesus Christ said in the context of disciple-making, to Peter, in , that the gates of hell will not prevail against it....what’s the “it”, it’s the church.

What’s the church, disciples of Jesus Christ who proclaim that He is the Son of the Most High, the King of Kings, LORD of Lord’s with who’s kingdom there will be no end, and that His kingdom is now, and Salvation has come, therefore repent and believe in the gospel that’s what we’re heralding as disciples!

So, biblically, in the New Testament, disciples were written about in a number of different contexts.

Historically, in the jewish culture, children were educated through the scriptures; they studied the torah(written law), and some other rabbinical studies and interpretation(oral law) until around fifteen.

However, those who were clearly gifted pursued their studies full time for another fifteen years or so, and then sought out a rabbi who’d disciple them.

For most, however, after their education, would return full time to whatever family enterprise they had.

Jesus called James and John to be his disciples, and they left their father, Zebedee and his hired hands to follow him().

SLIDE: Jesus sought out his disciples.

Jesus called James and John to be his disciples, and they left their father, Zebedee and his hired hands to follow him().

He didn’t wait for disciples to come to him, after they were schooled.

Also, John the baptist had disciples until Jesus came on the scene ().

SLIDE: The pharisees question Jesus about his disciples; why don’t they fast, but the disciples of the pharisees and John the baptist do ().

READ: This demonstrates that disciples eventually take on the attitudes and actions of who they’re following.

Jesus appointed seventy two men to proclaim the the Kingdom of God ().

It wasn’t just the 12 disciples that Jesus had following him, there were multitudes.

Transition: So after Jesus walked with his disciples for a good three years, He dies, He raises from the dead, he visits them post resurrection, and then commissions them to go make disciples, indwells them with the Holy Spirit, empowers by the Holy Spirit to build his church by making disciples.

And as the church began to grown in the known world, Paul steps on the scene

And they too took on his ways.

SLIDE: Paul, before becoming a Christ follower, was a disciple of Gamaliel ().

RIFF SLIDE: