Sermon Tone Analysis

Text: John 20:20-21

Theme: The heart and soul of the Body of Christ is about making disciples.

Jesus gives us five priorities for doing that.

Date: 07/03/2022 Title: Great_Commission_04 ID: NT04-20

A hen and a hog were strolling down the main street of their barnyard community one morning and as they passed the animal church they noticed the sermon title on the marque.

It read: “What can we do to help the poor?” Immediately the hen felt compassion and told her friend, “We ought to do something to help.”

To which her companion replied “What can we do?

You’re just a chicken and I’m just a hog.

”

Without thinking the hen suggested they organize a breakfast and feed them bacon and eggs.

The pig thought for a moment and then said, “Well, that may be all right for you.

From you it requires only a contribution, but for me it requires total commitment!”

When it comes to your Christian faith, are you a chicken or a pig?

This morning, I want to preach again on becoming a Great Commission Church.

Our text for this morning takes place on Sunday evening on the day of our Lord’s resurrection.

The disciples are huddled behind locked doors when suddenly Jesus appears to them.

He extends to them his peace and then he give them their ‘marching orders’: as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.

It’s brief and succinct and it is John’s abbreviated version of the Great Commission.

God the Father sent Jesus into the world to provide salvation Jesus send us into the world to proclaim His salvation.

"And when He had said this, He showed them both His hands and His side.

The disciples then rejoiced when they saw the Lord.21

So Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you; as the Father has sent me, I am sending you."

(John 20:20-21, ESV)

The Fourth Great Commission — John 20:20-21 — Reveals Our Fourth Priority Going at a Price

I. TO BE ON MISSION FOR GOD WILL ALWAYS COST US SOMETHING

ILLUS.

World Evangelism is not cheap.

It costs our International Mission Board approximately $124,000 a year to keep a career missionary couple on a foreign field — $10,335 a month.

This is a global average of the annual cost for supporting a mission couple, and includes all forms of ministry support and personnel support (salary, medical expenses, language study, children's education, housing, visas, travel, and retirement benefits.

As of right now, our International Mission Board supports 3,563 career missionaries who have engaged 847 people groups around the world.

Praise God for the Cooperative Program — Southern Baptist’s unique way of funding missionaries in America and around the world.

It is our unified giving plan that allows all Southern Baptists and all Southern Baptist churches to cooperate in missions, evangelism, benevolent and educational ministries.

Since 1888, Southern Baptists have given approximately $5 billion to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International missions.

Since the introduction of the Cooperative Program in 1925, Southern Baptists have contributed $3.6 billion to international missions for a total of just shy of $10 billion.

1. but when I speak of the cost of the Great Commission, I’m not referring to merely money

2. while missions support is important, and while our church ought to generously support the Cooperative Program as well as special missions offerings, I’m referring to a more personal cost of proclaiming the good news a. what are some of those costs?

A. THE PRICE OF MISSIONS IS GOSPEL EXCLUSIVENESS

1. this is, I think, the great cost so many believers are not willing to pay, because too many believers have rejected the premise

ILLUS.

Our culture is growing increasingly intolerant of Christians who believe in the exclusivity of the Gospel.

This is the belief that in Christ alone there is salvation and eternal life.

Accept this premise and you will be called intolerant and arrogant and a spiritual Neanderthal.

Liberal Protestantism long ago grew embarrassed by the exclusive claims of biblical Christianity and the historic Christian faith.

Several years ago, The Presbyterian Panel, a research group that serves the Presbyterian Church U.S.A, presented to their denomination a religious and demographic profile of Presbyterians, and what they believe.

Almost 40% of Presbyterian laymen and 60% of Presbyterian clergy do not believe in the exclusivity of the Gospel.

This is a denomination that is increasingly losing its confidence in the Gospel in terms of the clear biblical claim that salvation comes only through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, before you think I’m picking on the Presbyterian Church U.S.A, let me hasten to pick on young adults ... A 2021 survey revealed that 60% of all Christians aged 18 - 39 do not believe that Jesus is the only way to Salvation.

And before we tsk-tsk young adults know this; according to another 2021 study 70% of all self-professed born-again Christians believe there are many ways to go to heaven.

2. gospel exclusivity is not just politically incorrect among the lost, it’s evidently politically incorrect among the saved!

ILLUS.

Some of you may remember in 2015 when Franklin Graham received a disinvitation from Pentagon officials to lead in prayer at their observance of the National Day of Prayer.

Why was he uninvited?

Because in an interview a few weeks before, Franklin Graham repeated his message that salvation is found in Jesus Christ alone, that the gospel of Christ is the only message that offers salvation, and that any belief system that leads persons away from the gospel is false and empty.

In a Newsweek interview after receiving his disinvitation Graham said: “I am who I am.

I don’t believe that you can get to heaven through being a Buddhist or Hindu.

I think Muhammad only leads to the grave.

Now, that’s what I believe, and I don’t apologize for my faith.

”

ILLUS.

Twenty-five years ago in 1996 Thomas C. Reeves wrote in his book The Empty Church: The Suicide of Liberal Protestantism he shared these prophetic words, "Liberal Protestantism, in its determined policy of accommodation with the secular world, has succeeded in making itself dispensable."

3. when a church or a denomination abandons the exclusivity of the Gospel it immediately declares itself dispensable to its society

a. what Franklin Graham said is offensive to the world

1) to proclaim the exclusivity of the Gospel in a religiously pluralistic society has become the epitome of political incorrectness

b. many, if not most, of your neighbors, co-workers, class mates, and even your family believe that such a conviction is nothing less than religious intolerance

1) first, let me tell you what intolerance is

2) intolerance is the irrational suspicion or irrational hatred of a particular group, race, or religion

c.

Evangelical Christians who preach Jesus as the only way to God to every people group, every race and every religion, are not being intolerant

1) I do not have an irrational suspicion of Muslims ... I do not hate Democrats, or Hispanics or Catholics

2) Gospel exclusiveness is ...

a) 1st, obedience to the theology of our Lord Jesus, who himself, on any number of occasions, declared that entrance to the Kingdom is through faith in him alone

b) 2nd, compassionate to the lost, giving them directions through the narrow gate that leads to the straight path

ILLUS.

Suppose some morning after church, you’re standing in the parking lot chitchatting with another member when a car pulls up.

The driver lowers the window, and says, “I’m trying to get to Chamois.

It’s really important that I get to Chamois.

Can you please tell me how to get there?”

You then proceed to say, “Well, go about a mile east on Hwy.

50 here until you get to U Hwy. Go south ...

You can’t miss it."

Well, if you give them those instructions, they’re going to miss it.

They’ll remain lost.

Or you can tell them, “Ya know, there are lots of ways to Chamois.

You can take Hwy.

50 three miles east to Hwy. 89 north, or you can make a left out of the parking lot and go to the bottom of the hill, and take Hwy. 100 north, or, if you desire the scenic route you can take Loose Creek Hwy. to Country Road 403 to Hwy.

W, go north one mile then make a right on Country Road 424 until it turns into Country Road 427 which will take you to C Hwy. You’ll then want to take “C” to Country Road 432 that’ll take you to County Road 435.

Make a left and follow 43Cuntil it turns into Country Road 436.

Don’t go left, ‘cause that dead-ends at St. Aubert’s Island.

Instead turn right on 436, that finally takes you to Hwy 100.

Make a left and it’ll take you to Chamois.

(That’s ‘works’ isn’t it)?

c) or you could say, “I’m going that way, just follow me”

2. it’s when Evangelical Christians refuse to preach Jesus as the only way to every nation, every people group, every race and every religion, that we are being irrationally hateful

a. to refuse to be honest about the exclusivity of the gospel is telling folks, "/ know the true way, but I’m not telling you because I don’t want to be accused of intolerance”

3. folks, the exclusivity of the Gospel is nothing new

a. it is not the 20th- century invention of fundamentalist Christians

b. it is the heart of our Saviors Great Commission

- "Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me." (John 14:6, ESV)

4. what price are you willing to pay to reach the lost?

a. one price may be the price of criticism — or “gasp” even being “canceled” by friends on Facebook because you believe in the exclusivity of the Gospel

B. THE PRICE OF EVANGELISM IS RESOLUTE OBEDIENCE

1. this is the price we are asked to pay