Sermon Tone Analysis

“24”

Make Life Count

Jeff Jones, Senior Pastor

January 12~/14, 2007

 

Video

Intro to Series: Welcome to Fellowship and to 24, our new series that starts today, and extends over these next few weeks.

You really won’t want to miss any of the episodes, and what God will do in your life each week.

In the show, Jack Bauer and the others have an urgent mission, very limited time, and a unique role to fulfill.

They choose not to opt out, but rush into their mission with both feet, risking whatever is necessary to do their job.

As with 24, you and I as believers have been given an urgent mission, limited time, and a unique role.

Today and in this series that is what we will be exploring.

God gives you one life here on earth, 24 hours so to speak: what are your going to do with it?

Because the clock is always ticking…time is an earnest laborer, never quits, never takes a break…just keeps on ticking.

Before we jump into the message, I want that thought to haunt us a little while.

To accomplish that, we’ll hear from two poets, two philosophers, in both song and prose, Pink Floyd and Shakespeare.

Sounds like a fun dinner party to me…but listen to what is said here…don’t just let this pass by.

 

“Time” and “St.

Crispin’s Day Speech”

 

*Slide:_____________*

* *

/Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day.

You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.

Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town, waiting for someone or something to show you the way.

Tired of lying in the sunshine, staying home to watch the rain.

And you are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.

And then one day you find ten years have got behind you no one told you when to run.

You missed the starting gun.

And you run, and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking.

Racing around to come up behind you again.

The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older: shorter of breath and one day closer to death/

 

Today and this series is a starting gun moment.

For people who don’t just want to fritter and waste the hours of life in an offhand way, God gives the opportunity to invest time in a way that matters for eternity….to

make life count.

That’s the life God invites you to live.

2000 years ago, Jesus gave a simple but profound invitation to his first group of followers, the disciples.

They were a group of fishermen, living life, doing their thing.

Nothing wrong with their life.

They weren’t doing anything wrong making Alabama jokes or inappropriate body noises.

They were pretty good guys making a living and raising a family.

But Jesus comes along and offers them something higher…something more than just living life and letting time click by.

He came along and said, “You are fishermen, which is fine.

But if you choose to follow me, I’ll make you fishers of men.”

Those fishermen had a choice to make.

They could stay in that life and let the time click away—or they could seize the day, choose the opportunity Jesus was giving them to make their life count for eternity…to live a missional life.

When I watch 24, I sometimes think how cool it would be to be Jack Bauer…not so much when he is getting tortured…but when he is running around so urgent, so much excitement.

What a cool guy.

What a life.

Yet, what I want us to realize in this series is that God points us to something bigger than that, and there is a role for you to play As with the disciples 2000 years ago, he offers the same invitation to you.

And I believe God also has you at a unique place at a unique time, a unique opportunity.

We heard from Shakespeare’s /Henry V/, as Henry motivates his troops for battle pointing out what a huge opportunity they have, how if they fought in this battle, they would always be able to look back and be glad that they stepped forward, that they were part of it.

For those today who make the choice to follow Christ fully, I believe that they will look back with similar gratitude for that choice.

*Slide:_____________ Matthew 6:31-33*

 

Jesus said in Matthew 6: /31//So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.

33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.. /And that is our choice.

Be consumed with life here on this planet, just letting the time click by doing our thing…or we can choose to live for something bigger…we can choose to live a kingdom life, a missional life.

Today we are going to explore that choice and give an opportunity to make it, or in some cases re-make it.

If you are a tire-kicker, checking Christianity out, today might be the day you choose to get in the car and drive.

If you are in the car and have made the commitment to follow Christ, today is an opportunity to honestly look at the direction you are driving your life…are you really living the mission?

Today is an opportunity for others of us to put our foot on the accelerator.

Let’s explore the life that God is calling us to, inviting us to live…not just letting time fly by but investing our lives, making them count.

* *

*Slide:_____________*

 

* An Urgent Mission: /Be Focused/

 

No doubt, in 24 the mission drives everything.

They do, after all, have a big mission, an urgent mission.

If they are not successful, a lot of people die.

A lot is at stake.

There is also no doubt that you and I have been given a far more urgent mission, with stakes that are a lot higher.

With god’s mission that he has given us, people’s eternity is in the balance.

If we really believed that, and I think we do, we’d be extremely urgent with the mission.

Our mission is to bridge people to a growing life in Christ, to help those who do not yet know Jesus Christ, who if they died today would not be in heaven, to begin a relationship with him and grow in their faith.

Jesus came and died on the cross so that people’s sins could be forgiven, that people could escape the forever punishment of sin, but it is you and I, his church, that are called with the mission of bridging people to new life in Christ.

*Slide:_____________ Matthew 16:18*

 

In Matthew 16, Jesus said, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”

God has chosen to use the church, expressed in local churches like this one, to be the bridge, to be the connectors.

*Slide:_____________ Acts 1:8*

 

In Acts 1:8, he says, “You shall by my witnesses, ”  building relationships with those who do not know Christ and letting them know through what Christ has done in our lives how they too can begin a relationship with God.

In Matthew 5, he tells us as his church to be salt and light, pointing people to relationship with Christ.

The amazing thing is that God has chosen to hand his mission over to people like you and me.

Jesus came here to this planet, but he left.

He ascended to heaven.

Between now and when he returns, he has handed over his mission to you and to me.

Yet, he does not force it on us.

We have a choice to make.

We can live a mission-less life.

We can ignore our mission.

We could choose to blow it off.

It would be easier to live without an urgent mission…just blend in and live as if it just doesn’t matter that much.

We have a choice to make.

We can also choose to live the mission faithfully, and do all we can to bridge others to life in Christ as we help build Christ’s church.

When Jesus approached the disciples, they had a choice to make.

Jesus invited them to a missional life, to be fishers of men.

But they had a choice.

They could have stayed right with their nets and continued to let time fly by.

I believe for every believer there is a decision point that we have to come to and then we have to revisit that decision often.

For me, I was 12 years old when first confronted the decision with what my life was going to be about.

And with all my heart, I decided that my life was going to be about the mission.

I certainly haven’t lived it as consistently as I would like, have been as bold as I could have over the years, and I have had to revisit that decision many times…but I knew what I was doing and I meant it and I have never regretted that decision.

We heard from Shakespeare earlier, the St. Crispin’s day speech, where on St. Crispin’s day, there is this big battle in front of them.

In the middle ages, they would have been more familiar with St. Crispin, the one whose name was honored that day.

Crispin and his twin brother Crispinian, were raised in a wealthy, noble family in Rome in the 3rd century, the 200’s, in the early days of the church.

It was a time where Christians were being persecuted in very horrible ways.

But Christ reached into the lives of these two brothers, and they gave their lives to him.