Sermon Tone Analysis

For the last two weeks, we’ve examined the “back” part of our back to the future vision casting message series.

We’ve looked at God’s intention and purpose for the church, and the intentionality it takes from us to be selfless as God directs us to serve our city and each other as carry out the Great Commission.

Today, we will begin the first of two weeks looking at the “future” part of our Back to the Future series.

We are going to discover what it means to be a disciple-making church as we look to Scripture to see the hallmarks of a disciple (so we can know what we are making), and we are going to look very practically at how that will be worked out here at Valley Bristol.

So, I don’t want to waste any time in getting to God’s Word, so let’s pray together as we open God’s Scriptures.

The first thing we need to understand is just what is a disciple.

There are

Right away, the first thing that we need to do is determine from Scripture, just what is a disciple.

The American church has reduced discipleship in large part to a mere academic pursuit.

Which is why, in most churches, discipleship is a class, or series of classes.

Yet, when we look at the examples of Christ-followers in the Bible, we are not met with such a small definition.

Instead, we see a people who are asked to give all of themselves to God for His purpose.

And in the two Scriptures we just read, we find what I suggest to you is God’s definition of a disciple, and it is the definition that we will adopt here at Valley Bristol.

A disciple of Jesus is someone who loves God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength.

The work of discipleship is helping one another to grow in those 4 areas.

When we read the words, “heart, soul, mind and strength,” we need to understand that those words relate to what a person is, and/or how a person relates to others.

These words indicate the totality of a person’s commitment of self to God.

This is called the Greatest Commandment by Jesus Himself, and it is a kind of covenant-treaty of sorts between God and his people, tying love tightly together with the sense of obedience and loyalty.

So, our discipleship responsibilities as a church are to help each other grow in our love for God in all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

It sounds so simple, doesn’t it?

But if discipleship is so plainly simple, why do so many churches struggle or even fail to adequately make disciples?

Because, if we are honest, we misunderstand what discipleship and being a disciple of Jesus really is.

1) Discipleship has been reduced in its effective scope

Much like how worship has been reduced to music, discipleship has been reduced to an academic class, or series of classes.

It has often been pitted against evangelism, with churches arguing with each other about what kind of church is more biblical.

It has had an over-focus on “mind,” and a neglect of “heart, soul, and strength.”

The reducing of discipleship to a strictly academic pursuit has, in part, made for a Christianity that is satisfied with mere intellectual assent instead of surrender to the eternal life giving, spiritually transforming, and mind-renewing work of Jesus.

To be clear, intellectual assent is agreeing with certain facts, but what Jesus calls us to is not simply agreeing with Him, but also trusting those facts.

When we trust facts, we act on them, we depend on them, and we live our lives by them.

Whereas when we just agree with facts, we take them or leave them at whatever we assume to be their face value.

For example: Niagara Falls Tightrope Bicyclist with Basket

You see, discipleship is more than just learning facts about Jesus, and being a disciple is more than just agreeing with those facts.

Being a disciple is trusting the truth of Christ so fully that His truth determines your actions and decisions every day.

And discipleship is the vessel that takes us from evangelism, to worship, to service, to growth, and so on and so on.

Discipleship, then, is like the DeLorean.

Its what takes us in and through our journey with Jesus.

Discipleship encompasses our entire life, not just a part of it.

And a disciple is expected to faithfully drive the DeLorean wherever God asks them to go.

And the DeLorean is powered by the Flux Capacitor, just as the disciple is empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Actually trusting in the facts and truth of Jesus is what turns mere agreement into living faith.

2) Too many Christians think that being a disciple is just for full-time church leaders/employees.

When I read these passages, I don’t see God making a distinction between believers based on how they earn their living.

Furthermore, I don’t see God making a distinction between believers based on their level or type of education.

I don’t see God making distinctions between believers of any kind that would give certain believers exemptions from one aspect of discipleship or another.

Yet somehow, we have come to accept the fallacy of full-time ministry.

There is no such thing as full-time ministry.

When you are saved, you are then entrusted by God with the ministry of reconciliation.

As a believer, this is true for you no matter what professional job you hold.

There is no such thing as full-time ministry because Jesus doesn’t want 40-50 hours a week from us, He wants our whole lives; heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Its not full-time ministry, its lifetime ministry.

3) Too many church leaders have not been honest about the cost of discipleship before Christians.

I know that’s a bold statement, and I only say it because I’ve been guilty of it myself, and there are many examples across our country of this.

Whenever a teaching is particularly hard, few are the pastors who let the hard teaching be hard.

Why?

Because it might upset people.

People will complain.

Accuse.

They’ll be offended.

They’ll leave the church.

And so, when the Bible has a hard teaching, we do one of two things when we are uncomfortable in teaching said truth:

Ignore it - never preach that section, or preach around it.

Sugar coat it.

Couch the hardness in comfort and personal satisfaction.

And the way we sugar coat hard truths as church leaders, is we minimize the cost, while trying to maximize the personal benefits.

Its theological and doctrinal spin, and its wrong, and I think its sin.

And that sin, has stunted the growth of many believers in our society.

We try to mask the cost of tithing faithfully in flowery language of how great you’ll feel when you trust God with your money.

Some Bible teachers attach the giving of money to doctrine and tell you that God is an ATM just waiting for you to make a deposit, and that the ATM Jesus will give you a withdrawal many times over if you’ll just make a faithful deposit with Him.

And of course, when we give our money and God doesn’t write us a check, or when we give our money to the church and we don’t feel good about it because we didn’t pay one bill so we could tithe and now our checking account is overdrawn and we are going to collections, we get frustrated and many times give up.

And when it comes to discipleship, we almost NEVER start with the fine print.

But Jesus did.

And here it is:

Jesus is brutally honest about what it means to be a disciple of His.

Hard Truth:

If you have something better to do than follow Jesus, you will not last very long if you try to follow Him.

Now, to be clear, we’re not talking about salvation here, salvation is not earned, nor is it conditional upon behavior, salvation is given by God to us and guaranteed by the Holy Spirit’s indwelling of all those who believe on Christ.

But being saved and being a maturing disciple of Jesus are two different things.

Being saved is when we are transformed from dead to alive.

Being a disciple is learning to walk, talk, and live the new life we’ve been given obediently before Jesus.

In , the Apostle Paul says that there will be those who are saved, but who did not do anything of eternal praise-worthiness with their lives.

And that before God, their works will be burned up, though they themselves will be saved.

So what Jesus is saying in , is that you cannot turn left if you are actually turning right.

Just like how we cannot be in this room, and in the parking lot at the same time.

If there is something that we want to do other than follow Jesus with our lives, we may start off following Jesus, but eventually we will fade out and quit.

If following Jesus is your plan A, there can be no plan B. Otherwise, you will eventually switch to plan B.

Here is Jesus again, continuing His “brutally honest” tour.

Hard Truth:

If you love anyone more than Jesus, you will not last long if you try to follow Him.

V. 26.

“Hate” is the English translation of the Greek word, miseo, which means to regard with less love.

Family duties were a big deal in the social customs of the day, and so Jesus was making a very big and intrusive demand.

V.27.

To carry one’s cross meant that you were carrying the instrument of your death on your back, and that instrument also proclaimed to an unbelieving world that you were a Christ-follower, which necessarily put hostility between you and the world.

Again, not a small ask of people.

VV. 28-32, Jesus illustrates the importance of not quitting or giving up, and the need for believers to make a conscious commitment in advance to follow Him, or again, they will quit.

V.33, Ultimately, Jesus says that we are to give up our rights of ownership to all that we hold dear, from our plans and possessions, to our most cherished relationships, and we are to trust Him with those things, as we follow Him obediently.

If you can think of anything else other than church planting story...

A disciple of Jesus is someone who loves God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength.

And if you want to be a maturing disciple of Christ, that’s fantastic!

It is my charge to make sure that you know the cost ahead of time.