Sermon Tone Analysis

Confession of Faith series

 

! I.     Introduction

A wedding is a great day of celebration and it always amazes me that so much effort is put into a wedding.

The reason I wonder is because a wedding is just a beginning.

Now it is great to celebrate the beginning, but it is just the day when a marriage starts and the important thing is the marriage.

Can you imagine a person spending months preparing for a wedding, making the wedding a huge deal and then realizing after the ceremony, with complete surprise, that their life must now change and that they are now in a committed lifetime relationship?

Last week we talked about salvation.

The day we accept Christ as Saviour and are born again is a day that the angels in heaven rejoice, but like a wedding, it is just the beginning of a relationship with God that continues daily from that point on.

Our confession of faith speaks about that ongoing relationship.

Let us read together the article entitled “Discipleship and Nonconformity.”

You can follow on the screen or in the Confession of Faith in the pews.

“We believe that our relationship to the Saviour is to be an unconditional commitment to discipleship.

Discipleship is the total life of the believer patterned after the life and death of our Lord.”

What does that mean?

The Bible has many pictures which describe what an “unconditional commitment to discipleship” means and how it must be evident in “the total life of the believer” as it is patterned after Jesus.

!

II.

Disciples Of Jesus

!! A.  Followers

One of the games which children like to play is follow the leader.

One of them is chosen as the leader and the others follow exactly where the first one goes.

Sometimes they do some pretty silly things and go through some pretty hard places, but wherever the leader goes, everyone else must follow.

One day Jesus was walking along the shore of the sea of Galilee when he came upon two brothers, Simon Peter and Andrew.

They were fishermen and Jesus said to them in Matthew 4:19, “Come follow me.”

The next verse tells us that “they left their nets and followed him.”

Being a disciple means being a follower of Jesus.

The invitation comes from Jesus to every one of us.

Just as he called Peter and Andrew to follow Him, so He has also called us to follow Him.

Sometimes following Jesus will mean leaving other things behind.

Certainly it means leaving sin and wickedness behind, but just like Peter and Andrew left their nets, which were good things, so also it may mean that we will need to leave some good things behind so that we can concentrate on following Jesus.

Whatever prevents us from focusing on following Jesus must be left behind.

Following Jesus means going wherever he goes.

We know something about where Jesus has gone.

He has gone through suffering and sometimes being a follower of Jesus will mean going through suffering.

When we look at His life we see that He was compassionate to those who needed His compassion.

We see that He lived a holy life in obedience to the Father.

Following Jesus means that we will follow Him to all of these places.

Can you say that you are a follower of Jesus?

!! B.  Learners

Every day those of you who are between 5 & 17 and quite a number who have already graduated from grade 12 go to the school.

In school, there are teachers who know the material they are teaching and work hard to communicate that material effectively.

Of course students need to make an effort to learn as well.

The older you are and the higher your level of education the more you must take responsibility to learn, but the teacher is always there to answer questions and help.

Even a person working on a PhD. has advisors who help him learn.

Another picture the Bible uses to describe what it means to follow Jesus is the word disciple.

New Bible Dictionary says that “The word disciple comes from the Latin /discipulus /which means ‘pupil, learner.’

It corresponds to the Greek /mathētēs/ which means ‘to learn.”

So basically a disciple is the pupil of a teacher.”

In Luke 11:1 we read, “One day Jesus was praying in a certain place.

When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”

His followers were called disciples and they saw Him as the teacher who would teach them, in this case to pray.

Matthew 28:19 tells us that we are called to “make disciples of all nations…” so we see that it is our task to be students of Jesus and to call others to be students of Jesus.

Once again, we need to look at the life of Jesus and see what He was like, how he did not sin, how he was compassionate with the repentant and hard on hypocrites.

Are we learning from Jesus?

!! C.  Temple Of God

When I was young, I was told more than once not to run in church.

My parents were trying to instil in me a sense that the church was a holy space.

We make our churches such friendly places that we do not get a great sense of that.

While attending a conference in Montreal we visited Notre Dame Cathedral.

The magnificent beauty of that place gives one a sense of awe.

It would seem very inappropriate to run around that church.

A church is like a temple.

It represents the presence of God and we behave differently when we are in God’s presence.

In the Old Testament, the temple was clearly designated as the place of God’s presence and it was a holy place.

In order to come near to God, sacrifices had to be offered.

The holy of holies which represented the presence of God, could only be entered by the high priest and only after extensive sacrifices had been made.

It conveyed a sense of something separated from the common life.

Please turn to II Corinthians 6 and notice that in verse 16 it says, “For we are the temple of the living God.”

That same passage goes on to help us understand what being a temple means.

It means that we are different than the rest of the world.

We live in a different way.

It asks, “what fellowship can light have with darkness?”

It challenges us to “come out from them and be separate.”

It encourages us to “purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.”

So being a disciple means being different than the world because we are the temple of God.

What are the implications of that for your life?

There is something important to note as we think about being a temple.

Jesus was holy and in fact the Bible tells us that he never sinned, he was absolutely perfect.

Yet, he was attractive to sinners.

When we act righteously, it seems that we are often seen as “holier than thou.”

Why is that?

It isn’t holiness that turns people off, but hypocrisy.

Jesus was holy to his core and when he acted in holiness, he did so out of his inner being.

There was no difference between who he was and how he acted.

That was what attracted unholy people to a holy person.

When we act righteously, we are not holy to the core and if we throw a veil of holiness over a body of sinfulness, people know that and see the hypocrisy.

Therefore, as disciples, as the temple of God, we need to recognize this.

It means that we need to accept forgiveness, live in as holy a way as we can and allow God to make us into His holy temple.

At the same time, we need to be patient, gracious, forgiving and compassionate because we are all sinners.

Then perhaps we can be like Jesus, a temple to which people are willing to come.

!! D.  Clothed With Christ

Another picture which the Bible uses to speak of what it means to follow Christ is found in Romans 13:14 which says, “clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ.”

I once helped a friend clean his pig barn.

I didn’t know how to do it well and when I was finished, the coveralls I was wearing were so dirty that we just put them on the burning pile.

You probably would not have wanted to stand beside me when I was covered with pig manure, but today you might not mind so much because I look quite a bit different.

When a person becomes a Christian, part of it is taking off the old clothes of sin and putting on the newness of Jesus Christ.

As disciples we are called to continue to put on the Lord Jesus Christ.

If I would come to church with a new suit, someone would probably notice.

When a bride walks into a room, people notice the special clothing she has put on.

If we are clothed with Christ, people will notice.

If we are clothed with Christ, they will notice not us, not that we are good, but they will notice Jesus Christ.