Sermon Tone Analysis

Plumb Line - “The Point in Everything Is to Make Disciples.”

Greear, J.D.. Gaining By Losing (Exponential Series) (p.

133).

Zondervan.

Kindle Edition.

On paper, President Abraham Lincoln couldn’t have hoped for a better general than George B. McClellan.

Referred to flatteringly as the “Young Napoleon,” McClellan was a phenomenon.

At the age of fifteen, he had been the youngest member ever to be accepted at West Point.

He graduated second in his class, only because he couldn’t draw maps well.

He served in the Mexican-American War and then in the Crimean War, both with distinction.

Perhaps McClellan’s greatest gifts, however, were his ability to recruit and organize.

When Lincoln appointed him to head up the new Army of the Potomac formed in July 1861, McClellan immediately expanded its ranks from 50,000 to 168,000, all the while bringing a level of organization and precision to the troops that stunned McClellan’s superiors.

Furthermore, his troops loved him.

Even amidst the grueling conditions of the Civil War, he kept their morale high, inspiring them to give more and do more because the cause was worth it.

And that’s all the more amazing, considering they had been decimated at Bull Run just prior to his commission.

Under McClellan, they started to believe again.

No one was surprised when, in October 1861, President Lincoln made McClellan his General-In-Chief.

McClellan had the resume.

He had the experience.

Now, he had a powerhouse army behind him, outnumbering his enemy more than two to one.

There was just one problem.

The man wouldn’t fight.

Ulysses S. Grant.

The greatest asset of a military man is his ability to fight.

Without that, all other assets are useless.

Greear, J.D.. Gaining By Losing (Exponential Series) (p.

134).

Zondervan.

Kindle Edition.

Many skills make for an effective believer, but there is one without which everything else we do is useless:

Make Disciples.

Apart from that, all the money we raise, buildings we build, ministries we organize, sermons we preach and songs we write won’t move the mission forward.

Without that one thing, we fail.

Everything else we do is ultimately in support of that one thing.

Greear, J.D.. Gaining By Losing (Exponential Series) (p.

134).

Zondervan.

Kindle Edition.

Robert Coleman said In the book The Master Plan of Evangelism,

The great commission is not merely to go to the ends of the earth preaching the gospel, nor to baptize a lot of converts into the Name of the Triune God, nor to teach them the precepts of Christ, but to “make disciples” — to build men like themselves who were so constrained by the commission of Christ that they not only followed Jesus themselves, but led others to follow him, too.

The criteria upon which any church should measure its success is not how many new names are added to the roll nor how much the budget is increased, but rather how many Christians are actively winning souls and training them to win the multitudes.

Kevin Ezell, president of the North American Mission Board (the domestic church planting arm of the Southern Baptist Convention), said that the greatest obstacle to planting churches today is not a lack of funds, but a lack of qualified planters.

Southern Baptists claim 16 million adherents in 42,000 churches,

and we have a problem finding 500 qualified planters?

Only 1 of every 320,000 Southern Baptists — 1 planter out of every 840 churches — needs to become a church planter in order to have more planters than we can support.

How are we not producing that many?

Greear, J.D.. Gaining By Losing (Exponential Series) (pp.

134-135).

Zondervan.

Kindle Edition.

If faith, study, programs and events are the strategy of how we do ministry, then evangelism is the actual fight.

Do you fight?

Or, will you fight?

Remember the Holy Huddle

We have to run the play.

To reach more people, we don’t need better gathering techniques; we need better discipleship.

Larger audiences and more “decisions for Christ” are just not cutting it.

If we are going to move the mission needle in America, we have to turn unbelievers into church leaders, atheists into missionaries.

We have to get good at making disciples.

Greear, J.D.. Gaining By Losing (Exponential Series) (p.

136).

Zondervan.

Kindle Edition.

Ironically, numerical growth can deceive us into thinking we are advancing the kingdom, when we really are not.

Greear, J.D.. Gaining By Losing (Exponential Series) (p.

136).

Zondervan.

Kindle Edition.

Shifting sheep

Destroying churches

Offering desireable services.

What are some other ways you could see numbers without disciples?

Plumb Line - Every Pastor is a Missions Pastor, Every Believer is a Missionary.

Disinfecting Versus Discipling

Greear, J.D.. Gaining By Losing (Exponential Series) (p.

150).

Zondervan.

Kindle Edition.

The goal is not to disinfect Christians and separate them from the world but to disciple them and send them back into the world:

Whereas disinfecting Christians involves isolating them and teaching them to be good, discipling Christians involves propelling Christians into the world to risk their lives for the sake of others.

Now the world is our focus, and we gauge success in the church not on the hundreds or thousands whom we can get into our buildings but on the hundreds or thousands who are leaving our buildings to take on the world with the disciples they are making.1

Discipleship is going from “mission field” to “missionary.”

It is going from someone needs to go, to, I’ll go and take others with me.

Greear, J.D.. Gaining By Losing (Exponential Series) (p.

150).

Zondervan.

Kindle Edition.

God is like a spiritual cyclone: he never pulls you into himself without hurling you back out into mission.

Greear, J.D.. Gaining By Losing (Exponential Series) (p.

150).

Zondervan.

Kindle Edition.

Inherent in the call to follow Jesus is a call to the nations.

The Great Commission, given to every disciple says:

Greear, J.D.. Gaining By Losing (Exponential Series) (p.

151).

Zondervan.

Kindle Edition.

And if a church has not embraced the global dimensions of the Great Commission, it has not understood the mission of Jesus.

The desires of our heart should be to see the Glory of God be known and the praise of God to be sung in every tongue, tribe and nation.

That begins with good discipleship.

Good discipleship is introduced, reproduced and multiplied.

So, how do we do that?

Plumb Line - The Church Makes Visible the Invisible Christ.

Greear, J.D.. Gaining By Losing (Exponential Series) (p.

119).

Zondervan.

Kindle Edition.

This verse, early in my walk, made me ask this question.

If you have been crucified in Christ, do people see more of you or more of Him in you?

The invisible man