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Goals in Discipleship (Discipleship Series 4 of 6)
The Mark of Love
What does a mature disciple of Jesus Christ look like?
First and foremost a mature disciple is someone who is marked by love.
We saw earlier that Jesus’ commission to make disciples culminates in his command to teach his followers how to obey all his commandments. When someone asked Jesus which of the commandments is the most important, he responded by teaching it is love for God and others. (Matt 22:34-40)
Then Jesus said, “On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matt 22:40). In other words, Jesus is teaching that loving God and loving others is the essential application of all of God’s commands in Scripture.
The first tablet of the Ten Commandments contains the first four commandments that teach us how to love God. The second tablet contains the last six commandments that teach us how to love others.
In 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, the Apostle Paul says that someone can have remarkable virtues, but if they are missing love, they are nothing.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
This means someone can be an outstanding preacher, a knowledgeable Bible scholar, a faith-filled leader, and even a missionary martyr, but still not be a mature disciple if they don’t have love.
Paul continues in the next verses giving several practical examples of what a loving person looks like. If we substitute the words “a mature disciple” for love in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, we have an insightful description of what the final product of biblical discipleship should look like:
(A mature disciple) is patient and kind; does not envy or boast; is not arrogant or rude; does not insist on their own way; is not irritable or resentful; does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.
The Signs of Health
A mature disciple is also spiritually healthy. What are some essential marks of spiritual health?
We learned earlier that the Bible gives us several vital signs of a spiritually health church body, including:
Worship: They were praising God (2:47)
Learning: They were devoted to the Apostles’ teaching (2:42)
Fellowship: They were devoted to the fellowship (2:42)
Prayer: They were devoted to the prayers (2:42)
Evangelism: Those who were being saved were added (2:47)
Mercy: They distributed proceeds to any who had need (2:45)
Missions: They laid their hands on them and sent them off (13:3)
The only way a church body can be healthy is if the church members are spiritually healthy. So a healthy, mature disciple is a microcosm of a healthy mature church.
This means that a mature disciple is devoted to worship, learning, fellowship, prayer, evangelism, mercy, and missions.
The Restoration of Relationships
It’s helpful to see these vital signs of spiritual health in light of the good news of God’s redeeming and restoring work of all things lost in the Fall through Jesus Christ.
As a result of the Fall of humanity into sin, three primary relationships were broken: 1) our relationship with God, 2) our relationship with others, and 3) our relationship with the world.
The good news is that the Father’s creation, ruined by the Fall of humanity, is being redeemed by Jesus Christ and restored by the Holy Spirit into the kingdom of God. A disciple of Jesus Christ is someone who is being swept up into God’s cosmic restoration project and experiencing Christ’s redemption and restoration in all these relationships of life.
We focus on developing the vital signs of spiritual health as a means of helping disciples flourish in the redemption and restoration of all these relationships. Therefore, growing in worship, prayer, learning, fellowship, evangelism, mercy, and missions is essential to growing in our relationship with God, others, and the world.
Although all the signs of health can help restore all the vital relationships in life, it’s helpful to focus on ways that specific signs of health can uniquely help strengthen certain relationships.
Restoring Relationships to God through Worship
Mature disciples grow in their relationship with God when they regularly gather with other disciples to worship God in spirit and truth.
By making the first two of the Ten Commandments about worship, God reveals that he sees worship as the highest display of love for him.
Biblical worship is the most significant vital sign of spiritual health because it contains the essential means of grace God has ordained for spiritual growth, including preaching, sacraments, praying, etc.
Restoring Relationships to Others through Fellowship
Although gathering regularly with other disciples for public worship is essential for the spiritual growth of a disciple, it’s not adequate.
God designs us in his interpersonal, Triune image so that we cannot grow to maturity in our relationship with him apart from having meaningful relationships with other disciples in his church.
Although the Bible doesn’t command us to structure a local church in groups, it presents us with a call to community that requires believers to be in groups in order to have meaningful community. Discipleship should be taking place as a normal way of life when followers of Christ meet together regularly to encourage one another to love and good works. (Heb 10:24-25)
Under the oversight of godly pastors and shepherds, the leaders of these groups, over time, should help members with the balanced development they need to be healthy, growing disciples.
Restoring Relationships to the World through Service
The gospel restores more than our broken relationship with God and others. It also restores our broken relationship with the world. Therefore, a mature disciple’s love for God and others will be reflected in their love for the broken world.
The Apostle Paul teaches that God is now, through Christ, “reconciling to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross” (Col 1:19).
This means the world is not rigidly divided between the sacred and the secular. Instead, the good news is that Jesus is now Lord over all areas of life and reconciling to Himself all things.
First and foremost, God is now reconciling lost people to himself through Christ by the Holy Spirit. Jesus said he came “to seek and save the lost.” And when Jesus called his disciples, he called them to be “fishers of men.” From the New Testament perspective, this means if you are a follower of Jesus, it is assumed that you are a fisher of men, devoted to evangelism.
Mature disciples are also devoted to seeing the invisible kingdom of Christ made visible throughout every sphere of life by not only words of truth but also relentless acts of mercy and justice. Living justly means living in recognition of all the kinds of spiritual darkness in the world that desperately needs the light of the gospel in word and deed.
Disciples of Jesus are called not only to walk humbly with God, but also to do justice and love mercy. (Micah 6:8)
Principles of Discipleship (Discipleship Series 3 of 6)
Introduction
One of the dangers in discipleship ministry is an inordinate focus on methods.
The focus of most discipleship curriculum is on methods, strategies, and techniques for making disciples. The problem is that methods are not universal and methods that work well in one situation, often do not work in others.
We need to understand essential principles regarding discipleship that are rooted in the Bible and universal in application. Principles represent an objective reality that transcends cultural contexts.
Drawing on these principles, we can work with people in our unique situation to help determine the most effective discipleship methods. Let’s examine a few of the principles.
The Sovereignty of God
One of the most foundational principles regarding discipleship is recognizing God’s sovereignty. There is no simple template for discipling people.
Everyone does not become a mature, devoted follower of Jesus Christ in exactly the same way. Our sovereign God moves in mysterious ways to raise up devoted followers of Jesus for his church.
Nevertheless, there are some valuable generalizations which can and should be made regarding the best means for discipling Christians.
The Grace of God
Another foundational principle regarding discipleship is rooted in the grace of God in the gospel.
Jesus commanded us to take up our cross and follow him in radical obedience. But there are wrong motivations for obeying Jesus’ commands, such as out of sinful fear and pride. While this kind of obedience may look good on the surface, it’s superficial and doesn’t ultimately result in transformed lives.
Biblical discipleship presents the person and work of Jesus as both the motive and means of obeying his commandments.
Tim Keller describes this as the difference between religion and the gospel. Religion says, “I obey, therefore I’m accepted.” But the gospel says, “I’m accepted, therefore I obey.” Religion is based on fear and insecurity. But the gospel is based on grateful joy. Religion says “I obey God in order to get things from God.” The gospel says “I obey God to get God, to delight in him and cherish him.”
Christianity is not an external, self-help religion. It is a community of people who are in relational union with God through Christ and who are being renewed from the inside out by his Spirit as they keep drawing near to him in repentance, faith, and obedience.
The Church of God
God normally develops his disciples in community, more particularly in community of his visible body, the church.
At its core, Christianity is a communal religion. This doesn’t mean we should downplay the importance of individuals coming to saving faith in Jesus Christ and having a personal relationship with God.
But we must be concerned about an unbiblical view of the Christian life that is mostly personal and individualistic.
Therefore our plan for the discipling believers should be church-centered. It should include the ongoing experience of Christian community with a high priority on the believer’s relationship with a local church body.
The primary means God provides for discipling followers of Jesus is not discipleship curriculum. It’s the biblical means of grace. This includes the preaching of sound doctrine, the proper observation of the Lord’s supper and baptism, and prayer, all under the nurture and shepherding care of local church leaders.
Personal Discipleship
But devoted disciples do not normally develop on their own in a church body. Instead they are most often developed in the ongoing give and take of face-to-face relationships with more mature leaders.
Frequently, as is seen in Scripture and the subsequent history of the Church, God uses mature leaders to nurture the growth of emerging disciples. This is not to denigrate the value of disciples learning from their peers. In fact, peer mentoring is also an effective way to make disciples.
However, people usually grow in wisdom through the guidance of those who are more experienced. In previous periods of history very natural relational and vocational networks typically allowed younger, less experienced people to be apprenticed or mentored.
This allows for more personalized discipleship. The personal background and life experiences of disciples vary broadly. Some may have a high degree of personal and spiritual maturity early in their Christian life, while others are very immature personally, spiritually and theologically.
Each individual Christ-follower is unique and is, therefore, best discipled by processes that can be as individualized and personalized as reasonably possible.
Holistic Discipleship
Emerging disciples must be renewed not only in their understanding (knowledge) but also in their heart affections (motivations) and behaviors (actions).
These three emphases of head, heart, and hands are not unrelated. Instead, they are inseparably interwoven ways of learning. For effective discipleship to happen, there is a need to integrate all three.
Intentional Discipleship
Developing believers in knowledge, skill, and character is accomplished most effectively when the goal of that development is clearly expressed.
The more precise the “final product” of a mature Christian can be described, the better emerging disciples can be nurtured toward that goal. Later we’ll take a look at the marks of a mature disciple.
One of the primary reasons many churches are not making mature disciples is because they don’t have an intentional plan to make disciples. Or they may have a plan, but it’s outdated and not working.
Next, we’ll begin to examine practical ways that you can develop an intentional discipleship plan that is effective in your unique situation.
Master’s Method of Discipleship (Discipleship Series 2 of 6)
Introduction
The primary focus of Jesus' brief life and ministry was not on preaching, teaching or healing people, but on making disciples. So we shouldn’t be surprised to learn that at the end of his ministry, after his resurrection and before his ascension, he commissioned his own disciples to make new disciples (Matt 28:16-20).
But in his final commission, Jesus did more than just command his disciples to make disciples. He also taught them how to make disciples by doing three things: 1) going to the lost in evangelism, 2) baptizing the converts into his church, and 3) teaching them how to obey his commandments.
This three-fold method for making disciples was not new to Jesus' disciples. It was the same basic method he used to make them his disciples.
And Jesus modeled this method of disciple making with them for almost three years. His disciples experienced firsthand how Jesus: 1) reached out to them and called them to himself, 2) folded them into his gathering of other disciples, and 3) taught them how to obey his commandments.
Jesus' final commission to them is to follow his example with them and make disciples of all nations.
To help us be more effective in making disciples, let's take a closer look at the Master's method.
Jesus' Method was Relational
Christianity began in the first century as a small Jewish sect. But it quickly spread throughout the Greco-Roman world to become the state religion of the Roman empire. In the Middle Ages it spread into Northern Europe, Asia, and Russia, then to North and South America, Africa, and throughout the world.
Today Christianity is the largest religion of the world.
Jesus could have chosen any method to ensure that all nations would be discipled. All the resources of the world are at his disposal. Yet he chose to invest his life in a small group of people who were not particularly impressive by the world's standards. None of them were religious leaders. He didn't choose a priest, rabbi, scribe, or Pharisee. None of them had religious education.
They were common people, including a fisherman and a tax collector. In his book, The Master Plan of Evangelism, Robert Coleman writes,
When his [Jesus’] plan is reflected upon, the basic philosophy is so different from that of the modern church that its implications are nothing less than revolutionary. It all started by Jesus calling a few men to follow Him. His concern was not with programs to reach the multitudes, but with men, who the multitudes would follow. Remarkable as it may seem, Jesus started to gather these men before He ever organized an evangelistic campaign or even preached a sermon in public. Men were to be His method of winning the world to God. The initial objective of Jesus’ plan was to enlist men who could bear witness to his life and carry on his work after he returned to the Father.
Jesus discipleship method was primarily relational. He taught his disciples how to obey his commandments while he lived his life alongside them. His classroom consisted mostly of helping his disciples solve real problems and answer real questions that would never be on an exam.
The New Testament gives us many glimpses of the Master's discipleship method. Here are a few:
He prayed for them and with them. (John 17:6-26)
He helped them deal with worry and fear. (Matt 6:25-27)
He gave himself to them as a servant. (John 13:1-17)
He demonstrated how to suffer and doubt. (Matt 26:45)
He trained them by allowing them to follow him. (Matt 13:36)
He focused on application more than information. (Mk 12:43)
He gave them responsibilities and challenges. (Matt 10:1)
He supported them in their ministries to others. (Matt 17:19)
He modeled for them and taught them love for the lost. (Luke 15)
Jesus' Method was Missional
Jesus' discipleship method was not only relational, it was missional.
Jesus was consumed with a passion for doing the Father's will during the brief time he was on earth. Toward the end of his life, just before his crucifixion, he lifted his eyes to heaven and said,
Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. (John 17:1-4)
Throughout the Gospel of John, Jesus speaks about being sent by the Father to do the Father's will and work. He also speaks of the essential role of his Holy Spirit in bringing this mission to completion. (John 14:15-26, Acts 1:8)
Throughout the Gospels Jesus ties his mission to do the Father's will to the glory of God and for the coming of the kingdom of God. His mission is to see the Father glorified by his kingdom coming to earth and his will being done on earth as it is in heaven.
As a way of communicating this vision and mission to his disciples, he taught them to pray: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" (Matt 6:9-10).
Now that the work of Jesus on earth is accomplished and he is ruling as King at the right hand of God the Father, how will this mission be accomplished?
By the disciples of Jesus making disciples of all nations until he returns.
In another post-resurrection appearance of Jesus to his disciples, he gave them more insight into this mission, saying, "As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you" (John 20:21).
The Father sent the Son to seek and save the lost, to serve and not be served, to proclaim good news to the poor, to set the captives free, to gather his sheep into his fold, and to love and nurture them by teaching them to obey all his commandments.
Now, as the Father sent Jesus, Jesus sends his disciples to complete his mission to make disciples of all nations until he returns to make all things new.
Foundations of Discipleship (Discipleship Series 1 of 6)
What is a disciple?
When the resurrected Jesus met with his eleven disciples on a mountain in Galilee, he commanded them to “make disciples of all nations” (Matt 28:19). Jesus’ commission to make disciples is clear. But what it really means to make disciples is often unclear.
To make disciples, we must first know what a disciple is.
The eleven followers of Jesus who heard this command to make disciples are referred to as “his eleven disciples.” And they were called disciples before they were called Christians (Acts 11:25).
So, what is a disciple?
In short, a disciple is a learner and a follower of another. Therefore, a disciple of Jesus is a follower of Jesus. When Jesus first called his disciples, he spoke the simple, profound words, “Follow me” (Mk 1:17 2:14).
And a disciple of Jesus is not merely believing and following Jesus’ teachings, but also believing and following him as a resurrected and ascended person who lives in them by his Holy Spirit. Therefore, to be a disciple of Jesus is to be in a personal relationship with him–one in which we are always learning.
The Greek word translated Christians (Χριστιανός) in Acts 11:26 means “of Christ” or “belonging to Christ” and conveys the concept of being owned as a slave by a master. So when followers of Jesus were first called Christians it was most likely a derogatory term. But the disciples soon cherished the word and saw it as an honor to be a slave only to Christ.
There is no distinction in Scripture between being a disciple and being a Christian. Being a disciple is being a Christian. And being a Christian is being a disciple. Disciples of Jesus follow and honor him by listening to him, praying to him, trusting him, serving him, obeying him, and most of all cherishing and enjoying him.
How do you make disciples?
On that mountain in Galilee, Jesus commissioned his disciples to make more disciples, not only among their people, the Jews, but also among all other ethnic groups of people on earth, which he referred to as “all nations.”
How are Jesus’ disciples to make disciples of all nations? Did Jesus tell them how they were to make disciples?
It’s helpful to know that this was not the only time the resurrected Jesus appeared to his disciples. Acts 1:3 tells us that Jesus appeared to them during forty days, speaking about the kingdom of God. During this time, Jesus tells them to wait for his promised Holy Spirit to empower them to be his witnesses after his ascension. (Acts 1:4-11) And in his final words in this commission, Jesus promises to “be with them” (Matt 28:20).
But in these final words in Matthew 28:16-20, Jesus also gave his disciples very clear instructions regarding how they were to make disciples. In verses 19-20 Jesus uses several action words, “go,” “make disciples,” “baptize,” and “teach.”
But these four words shouldn’t be given the same level of importance because the New Testament Greek reveals that Jesus is only giving us one primary command to “make disciples.” The other three action words, “go,” “baptize,” and “teach,” tell us how to make disciples.
So Jesus answers the question, “How are we to make disciples?” by telling us three ways: by going, baptizing, and teaching.
Going in Evangelism
The first way Jesus teaches we are to make disciples is by going to people who are not yet his disciples to evangelize them.
The concept of going to the nations was a radical shift of thinking for most of these Jewish disciples. For generations, the Old Testament images were mostly of all the nations coming to God’s temple, and not normally God’s people going to the nations.
In the New Testament, evangelism and discipleship are not two separate kinds of ministry. Instead, evangelism is presented as the first necessary step in making disciples.
Baptizing into the Church
Jesus continues explaining how to make disciples by commanding them to baptize the converts who follow him as a result of those going in evangelism.
He tells them to baptize them “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt 28:19b).
The symbolic mark of someone who is a disciple is baptism in the name of the Triune God into the visible body of Christ. Since baptism is an initiatory rite, Jesus’ assumption is that there will be a community of disciples into which the new disciple is being baptized. This is his visible body, the church, he promised he would build (Matt 16:18).
In the New Testament, the goal of evangelism was not a private profession of faith made in seclusion from others. Instead, it was a public profession of faith confirmed by the church leaders and made before the church through baptism.
Baptism is the outward symbol of the inner reality of the inclusion of the new disciple into the body of Christ to receive the spiritual nurture and shepherding necessary to be a follower of Jesus.
Teaching Them to Obey
The final way Jesus teaches how to make disciples is to teach those who were converted through going and united with his visible body through baptism.
In Matthew 28:20, Jesus says, “teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you.”
It's important to understand that Jesus is not instructing us just to teach his followers all that he commanded. Instead, he is instructing us to teach them to obey all that he commanded. There is a big difference between teaching Jesus’ commandments and teaching people to obey Jesus’ commandments.
The heart of biblical discipleship is not gaining information about Jesus’ commandments but experiencing his transformation by learning how to obey them.
So the focus is not on completing bible studies to gain more knowledge about God. It’s more about knowing and following Christ through learning how to apply his commandments to your real questions and problems.
When Jesus was asked which is the great commandment in the Law, he answered:
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. (Matt 22:37-40)
The heart of biblical discipleship is learning how to obey these commandments to love God and love others deeply and well.
Preaching the Gospel to the Heart (Preaching Series 6 of 6)
I believe in pushing application to the forefront because I think in our culture, explaining it as you go and then really having it more fully developed at the end, I think it's a mistake in our culture. I don't think we have the context anymore. I hope our people are doing is bringing unsaved friends to church. Then I know that I've got families where the wife is a Christian, the husband isn't, the husband's a Christian, the wife I'm really wondering about.
And I think it's a lot to ask the average person in our culture to trust me. There is going to be something that relates to your life, and I'm going to bring it up in about 30 minutes, but just listen to me talk about the Babylonians and the apostles and what Paul wrote to the Ephesians. For me, I try to get very quickly in the introduction to what Chapell calls the Fall Condition Focus, which I think is really helpful. I find when I skip that, that I end up somewhere in my checklist having to go back because I left that out. When I go back and said exegete the text in its context, I'm talking about that's part of what I'm looking for is, I want to understand what is the message of this passage and what is the Fallen Condition Focus that it's speaking to. What's the human need? I want to surface that in the introduction.
Also, I prefer to even state my main points in the form of direct application. So like I said in that sermon, my first point is not Peter tells these people to be subject to every, No, what God is telling us here is we need to be subject. The way I even state the main point because I believe the main point is the application. In other words, all Scripture's given for the purpose of being applied to our life. So if I have a main point that doesn't apply to your life, that may be my main point in my division of how I was looking at the passage, but I have not gotten the main point yet.
If I'm in Galatians and I say my first point is Paul rebuked Peter to his face. That's not a point. In my exegesis I have to surface what is Holy Scripture telling. Am I being told this so that 2000 years later I can know that once upon a time in Galatia, Paul rebuked Peter? My main point will be you know what we see in this story? The Gospel is worth fighting for. The proof of that is Paul rebuked Peter. So Paul rebuked Peter. A lot of times I think what we write as our main point is actually the biblical proof of the point, but the point of that story is not just that fact on the surface.
When I make that first point “be subject”, I would at the end of that point, flesh some ideas out for application. Depending on how the sermon has developed, it may just be a few quick ideas. This means every one of us ... We need to obey the law. As Christians we need to be model citizens. We should pay our taxes. We should, I said to our church, they came in to this building, did you know the government came in here, the city of Daytona Beach came in here and told us what we can and cannot do in this building. It says you can only seat 500 people by order of the fire marshal. What should we do? We should gladly submit to government.
Now, if they put a sign up that says you can no longer preach in Jesus' name, then like Peter and then in your life and all of your lives are tension points where what you want to do, you think the laws of the state, the government, maybe you don't like the present president and you just think people are making rules. It's just like working a job and the boss makes a decision and you think, "What was he thinking?" What do you do? What does a Christian do when there is someone in authority, and it doesn't matter if you think you're smarter than them. What scripture says is we're subject.
So, I would apply it as I go and in the end wrap it all up. I do believe that we should invite people to apply scripture in all different ways. In my church, we don't have an altar call, so there may be a lot of different ways we may do that. Sometimes, I like to invite people to pray, not only to come to Christ, but as Christians, it might be as simple as giving the Gospel, relating the application of the text to the Gospel and saying, you know, if you're here and you've never come to Christ, the first step for you in this is you need to turn to Christ right now and trust Him. You need to repent and believe the Gospel. That's what the Bible says.
And you need to understand that the Christian life is more than just being forgiven and going to Heaven when you die. You actually have the King inviting you to step into his kingdom which is run by all different rules but the way you enter in ... I just talk the Gospel and invite people. Sometimes I'll do that in my closing prayer. Sometimes we actually, not exactly this way but almost do a let’s bow for prayer. While your heads are bowed, before I pray over you, let's just take some time to respond.
Third thing that we've done recently is my worship leader, who's going to be teaching tomorrow afternoon here, I will come up and just pray a prayer at the end of the sermon and then I'll say now let's take a few minutes together to just have some time for response. He'll come up and just play his guitar. He's a classically-trained guitar player, and we'll project on the screen a prayer of response that's often crafted in a way that it can speak to coming to Christ and the Gospel and then living this application to the sermon out of it. So I do all three different ways.
I also sometimes do directed prayer where I may say, as our heads are bowed, take a moment and just pray a prayer of acknowledgment of where this text… Ask Christ to speak to you or reflect on how this passage is… and pray your response to God. Then give them a few seconds, 30 seconds, and then say, "Now pray a prayer of commitment," and just guide them in that.
The third thing I was going to talk about was just planning. So I'm just going to say real quick that the third thing would be to chart a course. Turn up the music, call the dance, walk the “Preach Peace” path. The other thing was to chart a course for Gospel-Centered preaching. I think it's really helpful every year to take some time to plan your sermons for the year and to get input, to pray about it, and to think about not only how you're going to preach Christ consistently through the year, but maybe some special series where Christ-centered preaching is going to be very much in the forefront of it.
Preaching Peace, Part 2 (Preaching Series 5 of 6)
You highlight and hone these things, your proposition, your explanations, your applications, your connection to Christ and the Gospel and how you will engage the heart. I'm using Bryan Chapell's terms, Chapell calls it the proposition. Some people call it the big idea, the burden of the passage, the theme, whatever you want to call it. Then if you base your outline off the proposition, if you relate everything in your outline to the proposition you've unified your sermon so that everything is pulling together towards that.
Years and years ago when I was younger I did jujitsu and judo. When you do a joint lock and I'm not a really big guy, right? If I was wrestling Jeff and I wanted to make him tap out what you want to do is I want to try to get him in one of those holds where I've got my legs over his head and I've got his arm reefed up across here and I'm holding it and then I'm not using my little puny arms against his guns but I'm using my hips, my butt, my back and my lats. I'm locking everything in and lifting my pelvis towards the sky so that I'm putting everything I've got to bear on that one joint. That's how a smaller guy can tap out a bigger guy.
In a sermon the idea of honing your proposition is that you have one key burden of the text and you want your introduction to introduce it, every point to develop it, every application so that you're tapping them out through the power of the Holy Spirit, through the message of the Gospel, by bringing everything to bear on that main burden of the passage. For instance in my 1 Peter passage when I studied it, there were 2 sentences and the first one said be subject to every human institution, the second one said, live as servants of God. Simple outline, be subject, be servants. What's the unifying idea? As followers of Jesus in a hostile culture we must be model citizens. How do we do that? By being subject, but by being servants, by living not just our primary category for confronting government and culture should not be red faced confrontation but Christ like service. How do we serve? How do we silence the ignorance of foolish men? By doing good works.
On the one hand we're subject to the government but we're also living as servants, as those who are free in Christ we live as servants of God. You try to bring everything to bear on that. Explanation is just how are you going to explain? So you don't just ramble on and spend 20 minutes on some Greek. How are you going to hone and highlight the things you need to explain? A word like propitiation or justification or sanctification or a concept. Then how are you going to highlight and hone your applications so that you think through what happens when you know it's easy to just say you should do this better, you should give more. What are the repercussions that people struggle with? Why aren't they giving more? How can I hone my application so that I help get at the motivation and help people do it better?
Chapell says there are 4 questions that you answer in the application. What? Where? Why? How? What is the text asking me to do? Where in our lives today does this actually confront us? Why should we do this? How do we find the strength and the power and the steps to do it?
Then C is connections to Christ and the Gospel. Where will I find maybe multiple places to make sure I'm playing the music as I go but also maybe there will be a significant place where I really want to turn up the music and orient people to the music so that, as I call them to apply this scripture to life I'm helping them see the relationship to Christ and the Gospel.
Then engaging the heart. How do I help get that tri-perspectival dynamic? How do I get beyond just data and application to the people? Taste the goodness ... Where the psalmist says taste and see that the Lord is good. It's not enough that people just know that the Lord is good. We're supposed to taste. How can I, not in a manipulative way, but in a legitimate way seek to reach the heart? It may be that in the introduction and in the conclusion or in illustrations that there are stories that I can legitimately tell that will help impact, help it get underneath the surface to where people connect with it in a bigger deeper way.
It may be just language. There may be places where I can use metaphors, simile or analogy or word pictures. It may just be in my own passion and or vulnerability that I tend to do with you guys step forward, get closer, lean in and go for the heart. We want to go for the heart. Think about where am I going to go for the heart in this?