Sermon Tone Analysis

*Lesson 1*

*Discipleship from the Inside Out*

By Brother Michel Lankford

 

 

 

 

 

Effective discipleship starts from the spirit outward.

When we talk about the spirit of a person, we are referring to the person's deepest part.

The spirit of a person is that part of us that is eternal.

Our spirit will live somewhere forever.

We will either live eternally in God's love and His Presence, or we will live eternally separated from God in hell.

In either case our spirit will live eternally somewhere forever.

Overall, God looks at people in two broad categories; covenant people, and non-covenant people.

Covenant people are those who have entered into an eternal relationship with Almighty God.

Non-covenant people are those who have not entered into such a relationship.

I will not go into the in-depth theology of these truths in this particular lesson.

Suffice it to say for now that both the old and New Testament taught that in order to be considered right with God, an internal everlasting transformation must take place in the spirit (the deepest part) of the human being.

Suffice it to say, that if you have truly accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, you have entered into that covenant relationship with God.

For this lesson though, we want to talk about the internal and eternal change that must take place in order for us to be right with God.

The Old Testament referred to it, and the Messiah labeled it being "born again."

Jesus the Christ said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

In the same conversation he later said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

“That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

“Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.

Nicodemus said to Him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things?

(See John chapter 3:1-10).

Jesus was having this conversation with Nicodemus, a religious leader of the Jews.

One of the amazing things is that He expected Nicodemus to understand what he clearly didn't.

In order for a person to be made right with God, a deep internal and eternal transformation had to take place.

That is, a person had to be transformed from being a sinner into being a righteous person; and that transformation had to take place from the inside out.

While it was not an entirely new concept in the first century it was an almost entirely forgotten one.

You see, thousands of years of Jewish tradition taught that the way to be right with God was to obey the Jewish law (there were more than 600 commands), and make proper sacrifices.

This approach has several problems.

First, no one born of a sinful nature could perfectly obey all the commands and sacrifices for an entire lifetime which naturally led to a second problem.

Over the centuries, people watered-down or even changed the requirements of God's law, because they could not live up to them and the constant guilt would consume them.

This is why Jesus said, “You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition... /thus /invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down; and you do many things such as that.”

(See Mark 7:1-13).

Throughout his Ministry Jesus was continuously trying to re-elevate the standard that God originally intended when he gave the law.

Christ would repeatedly say, “You have heard that it was said... but I say to you....."

He was trying to put the law back where God had it originally.

This concept is particularly true in Christ's first sermon (see Matthew chapters 5-7).

You see, what most Jewish people failed to recognize was the reality of the sinful nature.

They failed to recognize that no matter how much I might want to obey, in my deepest inward part I am a sinner.

The minute God tells us to do or not do something, human nature will be to desire or do the opposite of what God desires.

God wants more than outward physical acts of obedience.

What God desires to do is to change the inner man.

He wants to save us from that inward part of our nature that drives us to disobey God in the first place.

He wants to transform our nature from the inside out so that we please God out of a new nature that is reborn in His love.

Now, let's go back to the conversation that Christ had with Nicodemus.

Remember Nicodemus was missing the whole point.

Jesus clearly expected him to understand the concept I've just discussed.

To be fair however, Nicodemus had some bad teaching and hundreds of years of watered-down tradition which left him largely unable to grasp the concept.

So, why did Jesus expect him to understand?

Well, first he was a teacher, and second while the concept was not largely understood, a few Old Testament writers (the only Bible Nicodemus would've had), did express the idea quite well.

·                     /The first prophet Moses taught about the wickedness of man's true nature:/

 

Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

The Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart (Genesis 6:5-6).

·                     /God's prophet Jeremiah understood it:/

“The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?

“I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give to each man according to his ways, According to the results of his deeds (Jeremiah 17:9-10).

·                     /King David who would become a man after God's own heart understood it after becoming fully aware of his sins:/

 

"Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me" (Psalm 51:5).

The bottom line is this.

From the time we are very little our sinful nature rears its ugly head.

Think about it.

You don't have to teach a child to disobey.

You don't have to train them to want what they want, when they want it, and to demand it exactly how they want it, or to throw a fit when they don't get things their own way.

We don't have to be trained to rationalize, or look for loopholes around what we are told to do or not do.

The moment there is a rule in place, the temptation is to push the limits, try to get around it, or make excuses for violating it.

Each of these Hebrew Testament writers understood that the problem is something deep within us that God must transform, or we're sunk.

The good news is that God promised such a transforming work in our human nature, throughout the Old Testament (see Deuteronomy 30:6; Ezekiel 36:25-27; Jeremiah 31:33).

Whenever there is a rule or a law in place, our sinful nature is automatically activated and works inside of us, tempting us to violate or circumvent the rule.

So we know that God is good.

God's rules are good, but we have a sinful nature that drives us to sin.

Paul further points out that the rules can make us aware of our sinful nature, but the rules cannot save us from our inward nature.

Ergo, Someone has to save us from our inward sinful nature.

We NEED a Savior.

All of these Old Testament Passages explain why Jesus expected Nicodemus to understand.

It's no accident that in Jesus the Messiah's first public sermon, the very first words he uttered were the key to the whole thing.

He said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

Beloved, that is not a coincidence.

The kingdom of God belongs to those who are spiritually impoverished.

The kingdom of God is reserved for those who know that they are sinful and utterly helpless to save themselves by their own effort.

The words "poor in spirit" (Strong’s Greek #'s 4434, 4151) quite literally means to be so helpless and powerless to help oneself, that one is reduced to begging for survival.

It is only when one is aware of their spiritual neediness to that level, that we are ready to inherit the kingdom of heaven.

Decades later, the Apostle Paul gave a detailed description of our inward struggle in Romans 7:1-25.

He described it in part saying, "For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do...  O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

I thank God-through Jesus Christ our Lord!

By the way, it's important to note that Paul declared this reality even as he was an apostle of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Notice he did not say, O wretched man that I was.

He understood his propensity to go his own direction.

He understood that he was in constant need of God's grace, and wasn't about to deny the fact.

Furthermore, please notice that this internal struggle did not end even though he was anointed by the Holy Spirit and an Apostle of Jesus Christ.

That's why no matter how anointed we may be, we should not dare to think that every thought that enters our head or every word that flows through our mouth, or that every notion that enters our desires is automatically God appointed.

We dare not forget our own propensity toward evil and our need for God and His grace to keep us safe.

If Paul felt that way, and followed Christ that way, how much more should we?

At this point, one may wish to ask the reasonable question, if God recognized that we couldn't obey the law because of our sinful nature, then why have the law at all, if it's only going to serve to condemn us?

The answer to that is simple.

God put the law in place so that we could recognize our own propensity toward sin, and our need for a Savior.

You see, as human beings we need to recognize the futility of trying to obey the rules on our own effort.

Without such understanding, a person cannot be saved.

We would simply continue to rationalize our behaviors and misbehaviors and we'd fail to understand that the problem is entrenched within us.

Paul wrote that the law of God was in place so that we would come to "recognize sin as utterly sinful."