Sermon Series: Christ’s Lessons to His Disciples

The ‘syllabus’ for the disciples’ training began in the Sermon on the Mount. Overwhelmed and probably inflated by miracles and vast crowds, they must first learn of a disciple’s humble, compassionate deportment, and secondly of the moral standards and character to be strictly maintained.

When Christ taught the twelve to pray He did not, as we might, give a list of necessary attitudes, but an agenda or pattern that itself creates the right attitudes. Here are the headings with suggested sub-contents of the Lord’s Prayer. This is real help.

First, the genius of parables, their purpose and the Lord’s reason for using them. Then, His interpretation of the sower, teaching the four kinds of response to the Gospel, only one amounting to true conversion, an event attributed to light being ‘given’.

In their training the apostles are sent on a probationary mission. Here are the great faith strengthening factors in the passage (beside prayer) namely, commitment to a cause, dependence on the Lord, awareness of two kingdoms and the clear example of Christ.

We track the apostles’ ‘seminary course’ through Matthew 16-17: the avoidance of the churchmanship of the Pharisees and Saducees that produced nominal worshippers, the primacy of human instrumentality, the scope of self-denial, and the need for strong desires for blessing by prayer and fasting.

In the course of the Lord’s ‘seminary course’ for His future apostles (passages addressed exclusively to them) we consider the necessity of humility, the avoidance of offences large and small, radical measures in personal sanctification, discipline, the prevailing power of corporate prayer, and forbearance.

Continuing ‘seminary’ passages exclusive to the apostles, the Lord teaches fundamental principles about the kingdom, and lays down the chief rule of church government, in the light of which Acts and the Pastoral Epistles must be interpreted.

In three Gospels this double prophecy, given exclusively to the disciples, discloses the harbingers of the end of the Temple, to be repeated (more intensively) at the end of the world. The first would be seen by that very generation.

Shortly before Calvary the Lord charges His disciples with (1) defence of faith and church (2) the preaching of the Gospel (3) avoidance of any use of His church for personal benefit  (4) separation from the world, and (5) total focus on the Last Day.

The future apostles are taught the steps to be taken when the soul is wounded or jaded, vital for all who love and serve the Lord. Here are the Lord’s five themes for reflection, enabling obedience to, ‘Let not your heart be troubled’.

Spoken exclusively to the apostles, here is the Lord’s teaching on the Spirit of Truth, of communion, of holiness, of illumination and of witness. Also, Christ’s words on the unique advantages of blessing by the Spirit, and His discrete, unostentatious, inconspicuous stance.

Spoken exclusively to the disciples, here are texts commanding love between believers. In imitation of Christ’s own, love must be sacrificial, generous and helpful, and not self-concerned. Also, how spiritual joy relates to love, and what it means to be ‘one’ in John 17.

The great commission directs believers in every age, but when seen also as doctrine, its full richness springs into view, including the Trinity in salvation, the authority of the Word over reason and experience, the true nature of Christian liberty, and the Lord’s presence.