Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

1. Are we thankful for being fashioned or made in God’s Image?

We learned that God made every man and woman, every boy and girl in His own Image, after His own likeness.

Even after the Fall, the image still exists and is present on every member of humanity.

We learned that God mounted a rescue mission to save humanity and restore His image.

That mission not only saves you and me, it also enlists us to serve alongside of our Father in completing that mission for others.

2. Are we thankful for our prayerful dependence?

We learned that God’s desire is that all people will be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.

As we seek to fulfill the mission God has given us, we learned that the starting point for us is not in developing strategies, but in depending upon God in prayerful dependence as we labor with him in this great privilege of rescue our fellow image bearers.

3. Are we thankful for Gospel Community?

Sunday night we learned that a part of God’s rescue mission was to establish a new group of people, the church, who had everything in common in the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

We were created for community?

We have a common belief, a common life, a common meal, and a common pursuit!

Today, we are going to look at our last question in our series: Are We Thankful?

4. Are we thankful for being a part of God’s mission?

God is a missionary God by nature.

The Mission of God, also called the missio Dei in Latin, refers to a part of the very nature of who we know God to be.

We know that this Mission existed in the heart of God even before the God inspired even one jot or tittle to be written in the Bible.

Did you catch that?

Paul says, “Before the foundation of the world.”

What we see here is the Bible revealing to us that the missionary nature or mandate is really a revelation into the character of God’s inner being.

God is a missionary God!

The fact that He has revealed Himself to us is evidence that our God desires to be known.

The fact that He made us in His image (Gen 1:26-28) reveals how important we are to His heart.

When we dove headfirst into sin, our Creator could have left us to die in our sin.

But He didn’t!

He planned His rescue mission before the foundations of the world, before our descent into sin.

Before Jesus came in the form of a helpless baby born of a virgin, the Mission of God was already in play!

Our God is a missionary God!

As His Church, those adopted into His family, we have been graciously allowed a part to play in His redemptive mission.

As a part of God’s called-out, set apart, redemptive community, we are to be on mission.

The very same mission that God has been accomplishing since the foundation of the world!

Are we thankful for being a part of God’s mission?

If you have your Bibles and I hope you do, please find your way to Luke, chapter 10.

That is where we will find a passage that discusses what it means to be on mission with God!

Please stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word

Prayer

The main emphasis in our passage today centers around Jesus’ concern for missions during His incarnation as He sought to train up His future bride to carry on after His ascension.

Jesus is on His way to Jerusalem.

His time is growing short before His mission is complete, but much work remains.

The Twelve couldn’t do it all, especially when they are busy arguing over silly things like greatness and prominence.

Jesus has slowly been training a band of seventy two disciples.

In our passage, He sends those disciples out to prepare the way for His coming approach to Jerusalem.

Trent Butler has said,

“That is what Christian mission is, preparation for Christ to come into lives, into towns, and finally to come again into this world.”

Butler, Trent C. Luke.

Vol. 3. Holman New Testament Commentary.

Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2000.

This mission is enormous!

As is our passage.

There is so much going on in our passage.

We could spend several weeks trying to unpack it all.

Today, I want to briefly show you some of the major principles related to our being a part of God’s mission for which we should be thankful.

1.We are the sent ones, Jesus is our sender.

Sent ones!

The word Jesus uses here for sent is the Greek verb apostello, which literally means sent or to send.

It is the same word that we get the term Apostles from.

One lesson we should hear from this passage is this.

Disciples are sent ones who are tasked with the mission of God!

The missio Dei!

Seventy two disciples, hand selected and appointed by Jesus have been sent ahead of Him, two by two.

The seventy-two… “appears to be symbolic of the nations of the world, a view the Jews based on Genesis 10, where there are...seventy-two (nations) in Septuagint.” - Leon Morris

Morris, Leon.

Luke: An Introduction and Commentary.

Vol. 3. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries.

Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988.

The underlying message from Luke is that the gospel is for the whole world.

This mission is similar to the mission of the church today.

To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom of God to all nations.

To proclaim the redemptive mission of God to a world that is far from Him.

Church if we believe we have been sent by our redemptive, missionary God, then the responsibility to proclaim the message of salvation lies at the heart of all we do in ministry.

Church, we are the sent ones, Jesus is our sender.

Are you going?

Will you Go?

2.Our mission is enormous and urgent, therefore pray.

Even seventy two workers are not enough to accomplish this mission.

Jesus uses the metaphor of the harvest to teach us about the scope and urgency of our mission.

Harvest does not wait.

Eventually, it will whither and be ruined if it is not brought in.

Either we reap it now or it will be lost forever.

Saying the harvest is plentiful means we have a lot of work to do.

The harvest is the mission, and the field of harvest is the whole world!

Saying the laborers are few means we don’t have time to spare.

We need to be about our labors with great urgency.

This is a task that is too large for us to accomplish alone, so Jesus tells us to pray to the Lord of the Harvest for help, for more laborers.

This emphasizes the need for prayer for more mission workers, not so we don’t have to, but so we have help in our urgent labors.

Our mission is enormous and urgent, therefore pray church!

3.Our mission is requires great faith.

We are sent on an enormous, urgent mission to point sinners to their savior.

Surely this requires great faith.

Especially when you hear the directions these seventy two received from our Lord.

Jesus never promised that our task would be easy or comfortable.

Jesus uses the simile here of lambs among wolves to point to the risk and danger of our mission.

It also reveals our helplessness pointing us to our need to look to Jesus for our strength in less than ideal situations.

True Shepherds or pastors especially need to own this truth and love the other sheep, both the lost and found sheep.

Jesus said in John 10:12

A false shepherd, one who is in ministry for what they can get out of it, will inevitably bail on the sheep when the wolves come.

Not a true shepherd, He will rise up as shrewd and wise as a serpent and fend of the wolves.

Remember wolves always run in packs.

That shepherd will need divine assistance at all times.