Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction/Scripture

Hook:

What is a Jesus person to you?

We call them Christians, disciples, followers.

Christians is a phrase we are most familiar with and one we probably use the most, but it is hardly used in the NT....3 times and usually in a derogatory way.

There is a pattern that emerges as we look at the calling of the disciples to follow Jesus and the ways in which the NT refers to those that are with Jesus.

Pray.

Do you see the patter that emerges.

Jesus calls his disciples to follow me.

Story after to story the invitation was not to believe in me.

Come and make a decision that you think I am what I claim to be.

Follow me.

Be my disciple.

The word for follow and disciple really go hand in hand.

Follow could mean any one of three things in english:

To follow someone going in same general direction.

Following someone you dont know on the road

To follow someone generally connected to.

Like a tour guide

To follow someone and you are shaped because of the following.

Disciple: Mathetes

This word could mean student.

But it is more than how I was as a college student.

Many think a better word here would be apprentice...

In other words, what makes you a disciple is not turning up from time to time.

Discipleship may literally mean ‘being a student’, in the strict Greek sense of the word, but it doesn’t mean turning up once a week for a course (or even a sermon).

It’s not an intermittent state; it’s a relationship that continues.

The truth is that, in the ancient world, being a ‘student’ was rather more like that than it is these days.

If you said to a modern prospective student that the essence of being a student was to hang on your teacher’s every word, to follow in his or her steps, to sleep outside their door in order not to miss any pearls of wisdom falling from their lips, to watch how they conduct themselves at the table, how they conduct themselves in the street, you might not get a very warm response.

But in the ancient world, it was rather more like that.

To be the student of a teacher was to commit yourself to living in the same atmosphere and breathing the same air; there was nothing intermittent about it.

-Rowan Williams

Williams, Rowan.

Being Disciples (p. 2).

Wm.

B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.

To be the student of a teacher was to commit yourself to living in the same atmosphere and breathing the same air; there was nothing intermittent about it.

-Rowan Williams

Apprenticeship.

So let’s bring this all together:

Now to be an apprentice in Jesus’ day was more than some intellectual belief.

It was about leaving behind this other life and following the rabbi teacher.

It was about staying with them non-stop, every moment.

To listen and learn, to orient and reorient.

And in the being with the rabbi, you would become like the rabbi.

Taking on characteristics.

Eventually you would be released to go and do what the rabbi did in the world.

Which side note you can see this very thing in the gospels....look at it next time you sit down to read Mark.

Translate that to today....

To be an apprentice of Jesus:

Be with Jesus

Become like Jesus

Do what Jesus did

Be with Jesus

The disciples upon being called, they left everything and went to be with him.

There are some things missed if you see the disciples leaving their homes and families and jobs as a virtuous endeavor of bravery and courage and faith.

This is not exactly what is happening.

These fisherman, common zealots, tax collectors, they have had no opportunity like this at all.

Very few would be able to experience education, that is reserved for scribes and teachers of the law.

None would have ever been in the running to follow a rabbi around.

So of course they leave everything.

And this is the invitation to all of us:

This is the most important piece of all of this because it begins right here.

Everything else flows from this place of being with Jesus.

And I know it is easy for us to think, well I dont live with Jesus.

I couldnt leave the nets of my life and follow him, how do I do this?

"The first and most basic thing we can and must do is to keep God before our minds.

This is the fundamental secret of caring for our souls.

Our part in thus practicing the presence of God is to direct and redirect our minds constantly to Him.

In the early time of our "practicing" we may well be challenged by our burdensome habits of dwelling on things less than God.

But these are habits — not the law of gravity — and can be broken.

A new, grace-filled habit will replace the former ones as we take intentional steps toward keeping God before us.

Soon our minds will return to God as the needle of a compass constantly returns to the north.

If God is the great longing of our souls, He will become the pole star of our inward beings."

-Dallas Willard

Spiritual practices:

Scripture

prayer

worship

fasting

transformative community

We share a problem at Marvin with the rest of the church in the America.

There is a serious deficiency of transformative discipleship community.

We largely do not have mechanisms that help us to practice being with Jesus.

We have a lot of programs that talk about it, but few that have the main focus and goal of being with Him and orienting our lives in this way.

In the coming weeks I will be introducing you to a community called the Class Meeting from our Methodist Heritage.

So you need to be here for it.

But for now, the challenge is consider the number of people that are in your life that know you, really know you, and encourage and ensure that your life is staying with Jesus.

How many people are you that person for?

Become like Jesus

Now as you follow the teacher around, hopefully you become like them.

You develop the skills and vision that they do.

Except as Christians, we believe this is not just a metaphorical expression, but that we can actually become like Christ.

That as we are joined to him:

This is possible, this is sanctification.

Spiritual Formation.

Being formed into the image of the son.

This is not behavior modification, this is transformation.

I dont think we fully grasp this all the time.

We think we are just supposed to try harder and be better.