Sermon Tone Analysis

I thought I’d share with you a mission I just recently accomplished, actually this week.

I can’t tell you how consumed I was by this, to the exclusion of my husband, my children, my friends, the maintenance of my home.

It’s been weeks on this mission!

And this may sound terrible but it was worth it.

I spent hours on research and development, I spent time in the field so I could become intimately familiar with the local environment, and it all culminated to Wednesday evening.

When I finished the mission, when I put that last coat of blue paint on my basement wall, I knew I’d accomplished what I’d set out to do.

I found the perfect blue.

It was agonizing to wait for the paint to dry so I could give the wall a hug, but when I did, it was like the fulfillment of a dream, the culmination of a life’s work.

This week I want to talk more about the most important mission of all.

Yes, even more important than paint colors.

Two weeks ago we talked about God’s mission to bless a people so they would bless all the peoples.

Last week we spent time on the purpose of this mission.

The Story of His Glory.

Today, we turn to the New Testament and look at this same mission, given to us by Jesus, in five Great Commissions.

I’m sure most of you are familiar with this first Great Commission found in Matthew 28:18-20

Now this verse alone seems pretty darn clear.

Jesus told his disciples to go and make disciples of all the nations.

Are we disciples of Jesus?

Then GO!

But the command is not just to go about your life, do your thing, and if the opportunity presents itself drop in Jesus’ name and see what happens.

This isn’t something that will happen organically for most of us.

Rather it is something that needs to be practiced with discipline until it becomes the very essence of who we are.

We need to have a complete change in thinking.

Instead of talking to our co-workers about Jesus when we go to work, how about we go to work so we can talk to our co-workers about Jesus.

One is incidental.

The other is intentional and drives what we do.

Do you see the difference?

It seems kind of extreme doesn’t it?

What if my reason for everything I do is so I can tell people about Jesus?

I do the dishes so the next time I eat I have a clean plate because if I eat from a dirty plate I might get sick with food poisoning and if I’m busy vomiting then I’m not busy going and making disciples!

It sounds ridiculous!

And there’s more, we can’t leave it at “Go and make disciples.”

There’s a second half to that sentence… “of all the nations.”

Now this is where we, and I mean we because I have done this and I’m assuming/hoping you have done this too or I’m just going to look like a terrible person; this is where we start making excuses.

I’m going to worry about my nation, others can worry about their nation.

I don’t need to literally go to all the nations.

When Jesus says all the nations it’s more like an over exaggeration to get the point across that He wants us to be intentional about going and making disciples of the people around us.

Hmmm, maybe that could have been true, except this scripture in Matthew isn’t the only place in Scripture Jesus uses this language.

Remember this is a sermon about the Great Commissionssss.

So let’s take a look at Mark 16 verses 15 and 16.

This is even more expansive.

We’re not just talking about the nations, we’re talking about all creation!

Jesus says again in Luke:

And now turn to Acts.

It’s more of a promise than a command.

These Great Commissions in Matthew, Mark, Luke and Acts could very well be four accounts of the same event, or could be four different occasions where Jesus used these words.

Whether it was the same event and the hearers interpreted it differently or totally different events the language and interpretation is pretty clear and when taken all together I don’t think we can make the argument that Jesus meant something other than what he said.

So in Matthew, Mark, Luke and Acts we have some pretty compelling language:

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,” -Matthew 28:19a

“… Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to all creation.”

- Mark 16:15

“…proclaimed in His name to all nations...” - Luke 24:47

“…witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

- Acts 1:8

In these 4 great commissions there is no denying that Jesus has in mind more than just the Israelites.

He’s thinking global.

He is in fact continuing the mission of the Father as we saw in the Old Testament.

Remember what we talked about in week 1? God chose a people whom He would bless, so that they would be a blessing to all the families of the earth.

Now Jesus is commissioning His disciples to do the same thing.

To bless all the nations by proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all the nations.

That sounds pretty daunting doesn’t it?

It would be much easier to sit on the sidelines and just wait for Jesus to come again.

But here’s the problem.

Jesus will not come again until this mission has been accomplished.

I’m not claiming to know the day and hour, no one does except the father, But here’s what I do know.

Jesus tells his disciples in Matthew 24:14

You see it’s not going to happen until the gospel is proclaimed to all the nations.

And guess who’s supposed to do the proclaiming?

You and I! Now we could ignore this and leave the work to others.

It’s not like we aren’t doing anything worthwhile, we’re just busy doing other things.

But folks, I’m standing here before you for this very reason.

I truly believe based on these Scriptures that we are called to be a people that have the end in sight, to be on mission until it is accomplished.

Peter tells us in his second letter what our mindset as Christians should be.

Its not a defeated attitude, “what can little ole me do?” It’s not fatalistic.

“The world is too far gone I’m just trying to ride it out to the end.”

Listen to Peter’s words in 2 Peter 3:11-12

Okay so all this dissolving, setting on fire, melting and burning business is the way Peter describes the end of days, which is creepy and also not what I want to focus on.

We’re looking at what sort of people we ought to be.

We ought to be people who wait for Jesus to come again, and people who hasten His coming.

This word hasten is the Greek verb, speudo, which I prefer to pronoun speedo, and it literally means to do quickly, to hurry.

Rarely it can mean to eagerly anticipate, but in most occurences it is translated as hasten.

And this word hasten, it almost sounds like our actions, or lack thereof, actually effect the timing of when our Lord comes again.

Now I know I just made some of you feel uncomfortable or maybe even angry, just bear with me.

Like I said only God knows the day and hour because only He is sovereign.

And I don’t believe there is anything you or I can do to somehow manipulate Him or the timing of all this.

So this idea of us hastening alongside God’s all-knowingness is just too complicated for my puny mind to understand.

However, I did read several commentaries on this and their not as puny minds put it into words better than I could so I’m going to use this quote by Michael Green from the Tyndale New Testament Commentaries:

the timing of the advent is to some extent dependent upon the state of the church and of society.

What a wonderfully positive conception of the significance of our time on earth.

It is no barren waiting for Finis to be written.

It is intended to be a time of active co-operation with God in the redemption of society.

Our era between the advents is the age of grace, the age of the Spirit, the age of evangelism.

Wow! Listen church, what we do or don’t do matters.

And I’m not talking about how it matters to me and my own life and my own little world and can I say I’m a “good” person.

It matters on a much larger scale!

We, somehow, can actually hasten the day Jesus comes again!

Can I get a show of hands, who here is looking forward to the day Jesus comes.

The day Satan is utterly destroyed, not just defeated but completely destroyed.

The day when all things are made new.

All brokenness is gone.