Sermon Tone Analysis

Workshop Sermon

Intro:

It was July of 1961, and the 38 members of the Green Bay Packers football team were gathered for the first day of training camp.

The previous season had ended with a heartbreaking defeat when the Packers squandered a lead late in the 4th quarter and lost the NFL Championship to the Philadelphia Eagles.

The Green Bay players had been thinking about this brutal loss for the entire off-season and now, finally, training camp had arrived, and it was time to get to work.

The players were eager to advance their game to the next level and start working on the details that would help them win a championship.

Their coach, Vince Lombardi, had a different idea.

Author David Maraniss wrote, “When Lombardi walked into training camp in the summer of 1961.

He took nothing for granted.

He began a tradition of starting from scratch, assuming that the players were blank slates who carried over no knowledge from the year before… He began with the most elemental statement of all.

A statement that many of you have probably heard multiple times, as he held a football in his right hand he said, “Gentlemen,” (those of you who know this quote, finish it with me, “Gentlemen… “This is a football.”

Even though he was coaching a group of three dozen professional athletes who, just months prior, had come within minutes of winning the biggest prize their sport could offer, he started from the very beginning.

Lombardi's methodical coverage of the fundamentals continued throughout training camp.

Each player reviewed how to block and tackle.

They opened the playbook and started from page one.

That is what we will be doing today.

We want to celebrate all your past participation and victories in the area of missions.

But we must get back to the basics, starting with questions like, “What is missions?”

So, let’s begin with some answers and then let’s open our Playbook, to see what our head coach, Jesus Christ, commands us to do and how he intends for us to do it.

Enduring Understanding: Christ’s repeated issuing of the Great Commission indicates that every Christian from the resurrection to the rapture has been entrusted with the sacred task of intentionally making reproducing disciples.

A task that begins at home and ripples out to every place on the planet.

As we look at the Great Commission today, I know what some of you are thinking, because I would be tempted to think it too.

“Here we go again, another missionary delivering another sermon on the Great Commission?

What can we possibly hear about the Great Commission that we haven’t already heard?”

I think there might be quite a lot, because often we only look at the Great Commission from one passage of scripture at a time rather than examining all five passages side-by-side.

So, please don’t tune out because today, I hope to help those among us who are new to the faith as well as those who have been involved in missions for a long time to see the marvelous plan of God for reaching the world through His Church.

To accomplish this goal, we will go through all five passages where the Lord utters the Great Commission to His disciples, and we will go through them in Chronological order.

Then we will compare and contrast all five passages so that we can get a 360-degree view of what this commission is and how we should go about carrying it out.

Without each of these passages, there may be something lacking in our understanding of what Jesus wants to do through His Church.

1.

The Chronological Development of The Great Commission

Let’s begin by laying out the chronology of the Great Commission Passages.

See Chart

Jesus issued the Great Commission on 5 specific occasions and all of them happened within the 40-day period between his resurrection and his ascension into heaven.

(Matthew and Mark’s account happen to the same event)

A.

John 20:19-21

a. Time: Day 1: Resurrection Sunday

b.

Location: Jerusalem

c. Recipients: 10 Assembled Disciples hiding in fear of the Jews (Thomas is Not with the others – vs. 24)

B. Matthew 28:16-20 (Most Prominent among the Great Commission Passages)

a. Time: Not exactly sure, but somewhere between Day 20-32

b.

Location: Mountain in Galilee (AKA Galilee of the Gentiles)

c. Recipients: 11 Disciples (possibly 500 witnesses referred to in 1 Cor.

15:6, although it is possible that it could have been in Bethany as recorded in Acts 1:8 instead of here).

d.

Why do some believe this is the occasion when Christ appeared to the 500?

i.

Because the Great Commission applies to all of His Church, Jesus would surely have wanted to deliver it to the largest possible group of his faithful followers.

ii.

Where would he find so many followers?

In the area where he spent the most time.

Not only were most of Jesus’ followers from Galilee, but this region was so secluded that it was a safe distance from Jerusalem, where most of Jesus’ enemies were.

iii.

Because Galilee was commonly referred to as Galilee of the Gentiles.

Since the commission extends to ALL the WORLD, this would be a fitting location to share it with the largest and most diverse crowd.

C. Mark 16:15-16

a. Time: Same event as Matthew

b.

Location: Galilee

c. Recipients: 11 Disciples

D. Luke 24:44-49

a. Time: Day 40: Ascension Day

b.

Location: Jerusalem

c. Recipients: 11 disciples

E. Acts 1:8

a. Time: Day 40: Ascension Day

b.

Location: Bethany (small village 2 miles E of Jerusalem, near Mt of Olives

c. Recipients: 11 disciples (possibly 500 witnesses referred to in 1 Cor.

15:6)

Now, with the timeline of these passages laid out, let’s read all 5 passages that we will be examining:

But before we begin, I need to address a potential danger that we want to avoid.

Our temptation in studying the Great Commission is to take these passages out of their context and treat them as excerpts from an Academic Textbook, but we must avoid that temptation.

We must remember that all five of these passages are contained within a narrative style of writing.

The Gospels offer us the historical account of Christ’s life and the book of Acts provides us with the historical account of how the Church was born and how it spread throughout the first century.

Therefore, it is important that we remember the relational context of how this message was delivered.

Let’s make sure we realize that these events really took place in real relationships between Jesus Christ, who is God made flesh, and his flawed and finite followers known to us as his disciples and apostles.

2. The Practical Development of the Great Commission

a. John 20:19-21 (Model of Missions)

This is the most basic version of the Great Commission.

Remember the emotional roller coaster they have been on in the last week.

First, they accompanied Jesus in the Triumphal Entry where he was given a hero’s welcome.

Then they were with Jesus as the tension heightened.

This led them to witnessing the traumatic, violent death of their Master.

Three days later they are in a state of panic at the news that Jesus’ body was missing.

Now they stand stunned by shock as Jesus appears inside the room where they are hiding behind locked doors.

In this dizzying flurry of activity, they are not ready for too many details.

They are already experiencing sensory overload.

So, Jesus keeps it simple.

Be at Peace despite the political and cultural uproar in the City.

He says this twice (v.

19 & 21)

Then he gives them a command that must have been overwhelming to their already frightened hearts and minds.

I am sending you back out there….amongst that crowd….to

carry on my mission.

Just as the Father has sent me, even so, I am sending you!

Jesus was sent by the Father and is now passing the baton of the Great Commission to his disciples to follow in his footsteps.

And they do emerge from their hiding place.

The next recorded appearance of Jesus was 8 days after the resurrection when Thomas sees the resurrected Lord for the first time in John 20: 26.