Sermon Tone Analysis

\\ /" From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

“Never, Lord!” he said.

“This shall never happen to you!” Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan!

You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.

What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?

Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?

For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done.

I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”"

(Matthew 16:21-28, NIV) /

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1.   Jesus was the master discipler.

All that it really means is to be a “learner”.

We never earn the title until we have served long enough as a learner.

2.

The farther away from the original we get the less like it we are.

The closer we are to Christ the more like him we become – the reason is that we realize fully how unlike him that we are.

Also the closer we get to Christ, the closer we get to one another.

THE DISCIPLE

 

He that hath a gospel,

To loose upon mankind,

Though he serve it utterly---

Body, soul and mind---

Though he go to Calvary

Daily for it's gain---

It is his disciple

Shall make his labor vain.

He that hath a Gospel,

For all earth to own---

Though he etch it on the steel,

Or carve it on the stone---

Not to be misdoubted

Through the after-days---

It is His Disciple

Shall read it many ways.

It is His Disciple

(Ere those bones are dust)

Who shall change the Charter

Who split the trust---

Amplify distinctions,

Rationalise the Claim,

Preaching that the Master

Would have done the same.

It is His Disciple

Who shall tell us how

Much the Master would have scrapped

Had he lived till now---

What he would have modified

Of what he said before---

It is His Disciple

Shall do this and more ......

He that hath a Gospel

Whereby heaven is won

(Carpenter or Cameleer,

Or Maya's dreaming son),

Many swords shall pierce Him,

Mingling blood with gall;

But His Own Disciple

Shall wound Him worst of all!

 

               Thoreau

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3.

Over the years we have lost a high degree of likeness both to Christ and those that he personally discipled.

All of the apostles were insulted by the enemies of their Master.

They were called to seal their doctrines with their blood and nobly did they bear the trial.

Ø      Matthew suffered martyrdom by being slain with a sword at a distant city of Ethiopia.

Ø      Mark expired at Alexandria, after being cruelly dragged through the streets of that city.

Ø      Luke was hanged upon an olive tree in the classic land of Greece.

Ø      John was put in a caldron of boiling oil, but escaped death in a miraculous manner, and was afterward banished to Patmos.

Ø      Peter was crucified at Rome with his head downward.

Ø      James, the Greater, was beheaded at Jerusalem,

Ø      James, the Less, was thrown from a lofty pinnacle of the temple, and then beaten to death with a fuller’s club.

Ø      Bartholomew was flayed alive.

Ø      ndrew was bound to a cross, whence he preached to his persecutors until he died.

Ø      Thomas was run through the body with a lance at Coromandel in the East Indies.

Ø      Jude was shot to death with arrows.

Ø      Matthias was first stoned and then beheaded.

Ø      Barnabas of the Gentiles was stoned to death at Salonica.

Ø      Paul, after various tortures and persecutions, was at length beheaded at Rome by the Emperor Nero.

Such was the fate of the apostles, according to traditional statements.

[2]

4.   What have we become?

We are so far away from the original model that we bear often little resemblance to the prototype that Jesus gave us.

C.T. Studd wrote about ”The Chocolate Soldier”   It is in the spirit of this tract that I preach today and I am asking you to take an honest look at your life today to ask yourself how much resemblance you bear to the master discipler.

Would he recognize you as one of his own – his handiwork or just another costumed Christian?

William Barclay writes:

 

It's possible to be a follower of Jesus without being a disciple; to be a camp-follower without being a soldier of the king; to be a hanger-on in some great work without pulling one's weight.

Once someone was talking to a great scholar about a younger man.

He said, "So and so tells me that he was one of your students."

The teacher answered devastatingly, "He may have attended my lectures, but he was not one of my students."

There is a world of difference between attending lectures and being a student.

It is one of the supreme handicaps of the Church that in the Church there are so many distant followers of Jesus and so few real disciples.

q    Grumpy – the grace Grinch

 

"/It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs./"

(1 Corinthians 13:5, NIV)

[3]

"/Do not make friends with a hot-tempered man, do not associate with one easily angered, or you may learn his ways and get yourself ensnared./"

(Proverbs 22:24-25, NIV)

 

How come Christians are so cranky lately?

You know Christians prone to grumble, gripe, and complain about just about everything from church music or the length of the sermon to the carpet in the nursery.

Not everybody, of course, but many evangelical pastors believe cranky Christians are on the increase and Christian civility is in decline.

I wonder why?

Do any of these prevailing theories explain it?

*1.

Our spit-in-your-face culture.