Sermon Tone Analysis

If you were in the state of Mississippi today, chances are you might see a billboard with Scripture on it.

Chances are you might see a billboard along a major highway with this written in large print: "Love your neighbor as yourself.

There is no greater commandment than these.

Mark 12:31."

"Love your neighbor as yourself.

There is no greater commandment than these.

Mark 12:31."

Now, if you were to see that sign in the state of Mississippi, you might think that it’s a charity organization now asking for donations.

It’s not.

It’s an advertisement for the state of California as a sanctuary state for abortion.

Now listen, church: Our Savior has given us a message of good news!

Anyone can be freed from guilt and shame, have their sins forgiven, and be given a brand new start, and spend eternity in heaven, if they will only turn from trying to be good enough for God and instead trust in Christ for salvation.

That’s a better message, right?

A message of life in the midst of a culture increasingly bowing to the altar of death?

Do we believe in that message?

If we do, then why is it so hard for our church and many other churches to look outside our walls and take the gospel to the lost people in our community?

The title of the sermon today is From Closed Doors To Open Hearts: How God Blesses A Church On Mission.

May God bless the preaching of His word.

Are we ready?

Let’s go.

Here’s today’s takeaway.

[SLIDE: TAKEAWAY]

Today’s takeaway:

If we will open our hearts toward the lost in our community who are different from us, God will bless our church with the kind of growth that we need.

Notice with me, first, the church resistant.

The church resistant — resistant to missions.

#1: The Church Resistant

Where do we see the church resistant?

Well, we open up in Jerusalem.

Cornelius and his family have been saved, born again.

It was the first Gentile conversion - the first time that someone outside the circle of Jewish Christians had turned to the Lord.

It was incredible.

And most importantly, it’s what Jesus promised would happen and it’s what Jesus commanded us to do: Remember this?

Acts 1:8 “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.””

But you and I both know that when something good happens, when God seems to be working powerfully, someone is going to step up and become an obstacle.

And that’s what we see in verses 1-2 of chapters 11. “Now the apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God.

So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision party — you remember them, these are the Jewish Christians who are not happy with Gentiles being saved — “the circumcision party criticized him, saying, ‘You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them” (Acts 11:1-3 ESV).

Why is this a problem?

It’s a problem because Gentiles were seen as unclean.

Eating with them was saying, “I accept you as you are.”

They’re saying, “Look, you can’t accept Gentiles as they are.

Gentiles can become Christians and that’s great, but they still need to be circumcised and all of that jazz, and they are not acceptable until they do that.”

In other words, they believed that a non-Jew could become a Christian only if they became Jewish first.

How is it possible that these guys are reacting like this?

People are coming to faith in Christ by the hundreds and thousands.

It’s the dawn of the new covenant.

Old barriers to fellowship with God and each other are being broken down just like the Berlin Wall.

The Jews have been the geographic people of God, but now all nations are being invited to come into relationship with God.

And this is not a fluke.

It wasn’t unexpected.

God said all along this would happen.

It was always part of his plan, even going back to the beginning.

When God called Abraham, do you remember what he said?

He promised Abraham, “I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing…in you all the families of the earth” — not just the Israelites — “all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

This is the blessing.

Gentiles are coming to faith.

This is what was always foretold and anticipated, and now it’s the men of faith, the religious leaders, church leaders in Jerusalem are standing in the way.

Sadly, this is often the case.

[SLIDE: WILLIAM CAREY IMAGE]

When the great era of international missions began around 1800, they began with a young Baptist preacher in England named William Carey.

Carey studied the Bible and became convinced that missions is not just optional for the church, it’s not just one option among many ministries that a church could be involved in; Carey came to believe it was the primary responsibility of the church to engage in missions.

He got this from the words of Jesus, what we have called the Great Commission: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt.

28:18-19 ESV).

But not everyone was convinced.

One night at a Baptist association meeting Carey stood up and made this case for missions being the primary job of the church.

And what did he receive from his fellow?

Encouragement?

Inspiration?

Promises of support?

No.

He was rebuked.

“Young man, sit down.

When God pleases to convert the heathen, He will do it without your aid or mine.”

Carey eventually went to India and began the missions movement.

But he did it in spite of those men, not because of them.

[Tucker, From Jerusalem To Iryan Jaya, p123]

Maybe it would be helpful at this point to put the focus on us rather than on them.

Why do we resist missions involvement?

[SLIDE: 5 REASONS WE RESIST]

5 reasons we resist missions:

Unresolved negative feelings about the lost

Fear of how we will have to change personally

Fear that we will be used and spent

Fear that we will give “hand-outs”

We don’t know how to do it

Did Jesus have anything to say about self-preservation?

He did.

“If anyone would come after me,” Jesus warned, “let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

The Christian life is a life of self-denial, self-forgetfulness — not self-preservation.

What is the end goal of self-preservation?

“For whoever would save his life will lose it,” Jesus promised., “but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?” (Luke 9:23-25 ESV).

How did Peter address this resistance to missions at the Jerusalem church?

He simply recounted what God had done.

He told of how Cornelius — a Gentile -- and everyone present trusted in Christ and received forgiveness of sins.

This was his reasoning: “If then God had given the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?” (Acts 11:17 ESV).

The men could not argue with the logic, so it says they fell silent.

And the glorified God.

They worshiped God, gave praise to God: “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life” (Acts 11:18 ESV).

And so the process begins: closed hearts opening; hardened hearts softening.