Sermon Tone Analysis

Good Morning Harmony!

Today’s message is the third in our series talking through our updated mission statement, another familiar word, engage, so today’s message shouldn’t really be that much of a surprise.

But before we really get into it, let’s pray.

Ok, so just to have a bit of a recap, we’ve updated our mission statement to be this:

Our mission is to develop authentic believers who strive to connect people to Jesus, teaching them to engage in discipleship, and who desire to multiply the Kingdom in the process.

and we still have the same guiding verses from Matthew 28: 19-20:

And we’ve talked about being authentic, and how we have to be authentic in our relationship with God and each other, and we’ve talked about how we have to be connecting with others to bring others to Jesus in an authentic relationship with Christ, and today we’re going to talk a bit more about that as well as engaging people.

And our vision statement for this is this:

We desire to engage every person through discipleship.

Jesus is for all ages and all peoples, so we teach the unchangeable Word of God to all ages and all peoples.

And last week we talked a little about cars and how if a part is not bolted in or connected properly, or the wrong part is bolted in, then failure of that part can occur.

Now today we’re going to use that car analogy a bit farther, but don’t worry, we’re going to keep it pretty general.

So the three main parts we are going to discuss are the engine, the transmission, and the wheels.

Every car has these three components, even the new electric ones, and so that is what we are going to look at today and how we can relate this to engage.

And within this concept, we are the transmission.

Now the transmission is a vital piece of hardware for a car.

And the first thing we’ll see is that in order for the transmission to work, it has to be connected to the engine.

The engine in this sense is God’s power - we have to be

1.

CONNECTED TO GOD’S POWER.

God is the driver, He’s sending fuel to the engine, which provides the power to the transmission, and that’s you and me.

Paul talks about this power in Ephesians 3:

How do we receive this power?

We’re authentically connected to God and each other relationally, and we’re praying for one another, and we’re receiving that power that God has given to each of us.

In Acts 2:

They prioritized their relationship with Christ, and they saw God’s power at work.

God’s sending power on each one of us who have called out to Him and are walking in a relationship with Him.

He’s sent the fuel to the engine, and that engine has more power than any we could ever imagine.

As much as I like Dodge cars, they have nothing on the amount of power God’s engine has.

The fastest car in the world has nothing on the amount of power God’s engine has.

Because God’s power can do all things, right?

God’s power can part the seas, bring down walls, stop the rotation of the earth, bring sight to the blind, heal lepers, and save sinners like me.

God’s power has no equal, and even if all of the other powers on earth came together they still wouldn’t rival the power that God has and the power that God has given to us.

And that’s exciting!

That’s the power we have living in us.

And we get to be transmissions of that power.

And as transmissions we are

2. FOLLOWING GOD’S PLAN.

How do we follow God’s plan -

Let’s pich back up in Ephesians 3:

God’s the one shifting the gears.

We’ve got to comprehend God’s love, we have to have Christ dwelling in us, and how do we do that church?

Believe it or not this isn’t a unday morning only transaction.

If you think you’re getting everything you need here in an hour to provide you the capability of understanding and using that power that God gives, you’re slipping.

Your a slipping transmission.

It’s said that you can only remember about 7 minutes of a message that you hear.

7 minutes of an hour.

You’re leaking 53 minutes of teaching.

Now maybe some of you can remember the majority of the message for a few days, but by Sunday you’ve leaked everything and you’ve got to be refilled again every Sunday.

And when we go a couple of weeks like we had to earlier this month, you’re empty.

And some of us may have forgotten to put the drain plug in the transmission, and so it’s gone before you even leave the parking lot.

This is why discipleship is so important.

If you aren’t in a small group, you absolutely need to be.

If you can’t make it to a small group that’s ok, start having coffee with someone to pour into each other’s lives.

That’s where true discipleship is.

That’s refilling the transmission fluid.

That’s putting the drain plug in.

God calls us to this.

And we are all children of God, so Ephesians 6:1-4 tells our children to listen, but it’s also telling us to listen to our Father:

We’re to teach and train each other and our next generations to follow Jesus and to have a solid relationship with Him.

We’ve got to get it out of our head that accountability is some sort of bad word.

Accountability is a one another thing, not a one-sided thing.

You hold me accountable, I hold you accountable, it’s a shared responsibility.

I’m the first to admit, I don’t like to work out.

I don’t like physical exercise, and I really didn’t like command PT.

But there was a time where it was one-on one, or just two or three of us, and I actually enjoyed that time.

And I was being held accountable, and I was holding them accountable, for going to the gym.

An engaged transmission can’t slip.

If it does, it’s irritating at a minimum, and it leads to failure of the transmission.

We have to be working together to be engaged and learning and holding one another accountable to that learning.

Connected to the engine of God’s power, engaged through discipleship, and that is what it takes to

3. GET GOING.

Connected to Jesus and being engaged in discipleship leads us to get the wheels going in serving Him.

God’s power in you does nothing for you and does nothing to further the Gospel if it isn’t connected to the wheels to get going.

Do you understand that?

If you are connected to Jesus, you should be actively seeking to do what He says and the very first thing He tells us to do is make disciples, and that means that we have to be disciples.

Now how did Jesus make disciples?

He taught them, and He sent them, right?

Think about last week where we saw Jesus sent out the 72 in groups of two.

And they went!

And the power of God was seen in these town, right?

But let’s look at the end of chapter 9:

Now understand something here - Jesus was hearing excuses.

The first man said he’d follow Jesus, and Jesus told him basically that it’s not a comfortable life.

The next man wanted gave the excuse that he had a funeral to attend, and the third man said he had to go and say good-bye to his family, and at the surface level these seem like valid reasons to give.

But Jesus sees through things.

These men wouldn’t come back.

These men were looking at the cost to follow Jesus and couldn’t make that connection, so they weren’t engaged in the discipleship ministry that we are all called to do.

We’re having a church clean up day Saturday - I’ve got a meeting that day.

We’re going to go have an event in the park - I’ve got to go see my sister that day.

We’re going to go hand out water bottles at the park - I’ve got a headache, I’ve got to wash my hair, I’ve got to...

And some of these may be fully valid excuses.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t go see your sister, or that you shouldn’t be on that business meeting, or even that a headache is a bad excuse.

But what I am saying is that if you continue to come upe with excuse after excuse to not be participating in discipleship events meant to grow you, then perhaps you need to evaluate where you and Jesus stand.

Because Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23

There’s a difference between an excuse and an “I’m not comfortable doing this”.

If your excuse is made simply because you aren’t comfortable with being in a particular situation, then what Paul is really saying here is that he stepped out of his comfort zone and he obeyed Christ.

Paul understood the words of Christ when he was talking to those men that made excuses in Luke 9.

And Paul said you know what, the price is worth the cost.

So how do we get there from here?

First, we who are in Christ have received power - and a part of that power is our own spiritual gifts.