Sermon Tone Analysis

God calls Israel to Himself so that they can know Him.

God call’s us to himself so that we can grow in knowledge of who He is.

This isn’t new insight for us, but looking at it from someone else’s perspective reminds that God working in our lives moves us from one place to anther.

This could be in a Spiritual, physical, emotional, understanding, or a combination of all of those.

As we are discipling people in our lives we need to be watching for that movement and growth.

If we aren’t seeing movement of growth in their lives we need to see that so that we can know how to pray.

We need to be asking God to both move them and what role we are to play in that process.

If someone isn’t growing, they are stagnating.

Think about this for a minute and consider someone being in school and not learning anything while they are their.

Are they really being a student?

Does simply being a warm body in a class make them a learner?

Of course it doesn’t.

All it makes them is annoying.

The same logic follows for those of us in the church.

We aren’t disciples if we aren’t both being discipled and making disciples.

We all know that the point of our faith is to know God through Christ crucified so that our relationship, our reason for being, can be restored and as we know God we become more like God.

That process in itself is us changing from being sinful to less sinful.

Therefore, if you aren’t becoming like God, if you aren’t daily being moved closer to Him, you aren’t really being a follower of Jesus.

Followers follow, disciples disciple,

The very act of God bringing Isreal to the mountain, is God moving them closer to knowing Him.

We are going to see later in our passage that Israel knowing and believing in God is the very point of them going to the mountain.

God moves us, he calls us to action, so that we can know Him.

If you aren’t moving you aren’t learning and as a result you cannot have knowledge (genosko).

God is moving us as a body, so that, we can know him, and this process will never stop.

This isn’t a growth spurt.

This is what it means to be a follower.

I think the church in america suffers unnecessarily because of our pride.

We look around and compare ourselves to others and because of our pride, judge ourselves better than them and then just stop growing.

Our culture is so obsessed with competition and we put it in every area of our lives whether we mean too or not.

The result is we judge ourselves better than others, lie number one, then convince ourselves that we deserve a break because of how good we are doing, lie number two.

The enemy has convinced us that growth isn’t necessary and that at some point in our lives unnatural.

Do you place a high value on growth and learning in your spiritual life?

What about in other areas of your life?

This couldn’t be further from the truth.

God is going to continue to grow and change us so that we become more and more like him.

All Israel needed to be rescued from Egypt was acceptance of God's deliverance.

That’s it and that in itself was hard for them.

Do you remember how they grumbled as God was in the process of getting them out of Egypt?

This is a process.

Just like God built Moses’ faith with the staff before he sent him to Pharaoh.

God used that initial experience to jump start their understanding of the fact that He was their God.

As we just talked about, God wasn’t done there.

We see him again moving Israel into a new understanding.

Now the thought is introduced that obedience is needed as well as faith.

This is not a contradiction: It is a fuller explanation of the nature of faith as response.

The expectation and natural response of walking in faith is obedience to God.

This is not a new thought for us.

What is step number two in the abiding cycle?

We know well and understand that obedience is the way in which we are able to see God reveal himself.

We have talked so many times about the fact that God is going to give you a directive and He is going to wait for you to obey before he gives the next one.

If Israel chooses not to follow God and move from this place of comfort and peace to this new place that is unknown and uncomfortable, they won’t experience who God is.

They will stagnate in their disobedience.

What is God asking you to do that you find challenging to obey?

The giving of God’s covenant is unconditional, but enjoyment of God’s covenant is conditional.

ex.

parental relationship works this way w/ child.

A parent loves their child regardless of their behavior.

Do what you are told, life is good.

Don’t do what you are told and life is NOT good.

As we are making disciples it is important that we share the whole gospel.

Salvation is a free gift, but the result of authentic salvation is devotion.

ex Marriage, in the spiritual realm, is free, but there is an expectation of activity that results from the union.

Jesus calling us to himself always includes a call to action.

The plan for the furthering of the gospel is, the people that have understood the gospel, sharing it with others.

A big part of the reason that the church is full of "professional" ministers and lots of unhappy people is because we cheapened the gospel by selling it as a free gift and never moving those people beyond that point.

The church, in it’s most recent history, has had a focus on conversion and baptism, but very little activity in the area of discipling.

This focus on just “accepting Jesus” creates "blind" date Christians.

Imagine going on one blind date and then marrying that person after just one blind date because you learn that they are really rich.

You don't know that person.

You've only seen what they wanted you to see.

“Cultural Christians are those who genuinely believe that they are on good terms with God because of church familiarity, a generic moral code, political affiliation, a religious family heritage, etc. Cultural Christianity is largely based on confusion..."

- Dean Inserra, The Unsaved Christian

He goes on to explain a "typical" conversion of going down during an invention to be saved from your sins.

Sharing that Jesus died to save us from our sins is a very important part of the Gospel, but it’s not the whole Gospel.

There is more and for a lot of us we didn’t hear the rest of the gospel until much later in life.

No one ever explained that being a follower of Christ meant that we had to actually follow him.

When you became a believer, did someone share the whole gospel with you or just part?

How has that affected you relationship with Jesus?

Are you surprised to hear that there is an expectation of following where God leads?

Did you hear that?

“but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”

We have seen in both the Mark and Matthew passages a clear message from Jesus.

The expectation for a believer is that they do what God commands!

The offer was there, it was available to him.

However, he wasn’t willing to obey Jesus’ call to obedience

The disciples are astonished!

This was such a good man!

If he can’t get into heaven, who can?

If you are struggling with this idea, let me say this...

I am in no way taking away from God’s gift grace.

His grace covers all of our sin.

But that same grace that covers our sin also motivates us to action.

If you aren’t motivated by His grace then you don’t know or understand His Grace.

Jesus is saying in the Matthew 7 passage that many will claim him and do works in his name, but that doesn't make them followers.

This idea is perpetuated by the church through it's action as well as it's message.

New believers look around and see everyone just sitting and showing up and assume that’s what being a "believer" is.

The pastor is the weird one.

If that kind of life was really required of all believers the rest of the church would be doing it too..

This idea of setting people free, means setting them free by telling them the whole gospel and not just trapping them in a building with a bunch of moralistic therapeutic diest.

Let’s see what God’s plan is for this communication of the whole gospel.