Sermon Tone Analysis

Text: Luke 24:45-49

Theme: The third great commission reveals that missions and evangelism is all about people who need Jesus.

This morning we sang the chorus to a contemporary hymn entitled, “People Need the Lord.”

Written in 1983, the inspiration for the song came when two friends were sitting in a coffee shop in Nashville, TN.

According to the composers, as Phill McHugh became aware of the pain in the eyes of their waitress, he said to Greg Nelson, “People need the Lord, don’t they?” Nelson responded, “Yes, people do need the Lord.”

From that brief exchange came the idea for the song, which was sketched in outline during the remainder of the meal.

The hymn is based on Mark 6:34: “When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd”

While most hymnals only contain the chorus, the second stanza (sung in the first-person plural) reminds us that we have the “words of life” that lost sinners need to hear:

We are called to take His light

To a world where wrong seems right

What could be too great a cost for

Sharing life with one who's lost?

Through His love our hearts can feel

All the grief they bear

They must hear the words of life

Only we can share

This morning, I want to preach the third of five messages on becoming a Great Commission Church.

Each sermon is based on one of the five passages where the Commission is found.

So far we’ve looked at the Great Commission from Matthew and Mark’s Gospels.

This morning we will examine the commission found in Luke’s Gospel.

“Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

48 You are witnesses of these things.

49 And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you.

But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.””

(Luke 24:45–49, ESV)

The Third Great Commission — Luke 24:45-49 — Reveals Our Third Priority : Going to People Everywhere

I. WE MUST GO TO ALL PEOPLE BECAUSE PEOPLE NEED THE LORD

ILLUS.

Most of you have probably heard of a religious group known as the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing.

But that’s a mouth-full.

You probably know them better as the Shakers.

They were originally known as “shaking Quakers” because of their ecstatic behavior during worship services — particularly frenzied dancing.

We know them today primarily for their beautiful furniture of simple design, featuring straight lines, and sturdiness.

At their zenith in the mid-1800's they numbered about six thousand adherents.

Their’s was a simple and uncluttered communal life-style.

They were an evangelistic faith and ardently sought to win converts.

Today, however, their numbers have declined dramatically to a mere two adherents — both of whom are very elderly women — who live in one small community at Sabbathday Lake, Maine.

Barring a miracle or some unexpected resurgence of interest, (unlikely since their primary spiritual discipline is celibacy) we are witnessing the last generation of Shakers.

When the last two believers are dead, no more Shakers will remain unless someone chooses to resurrect their beliefs.

The death of this religious group has a reason.

The reason is reflected in a statement made by one of the remaining Shakers a few years ago.

In a documentary by Ken Burns Sister Francis said, “ ... no one asks to become a member.

No one seems interested.”

Her words are prophetic for churches today.

A. WE MUST GO TO ALL PEOPLE BECAUSE PEOPLE WILL NOT COME ON THEIR OWN

1. we cannot wait until people come to church to ask us about Jesus

a. we cannot wait for the unconverted to ask us about Jesus because the vast, vast majority of lost sinners do not seek after God and will not ask us about Him

“The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”

(1 Corinthians 2:14, ESV)

“as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”

13 “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.”

“The venom of asps is under their lips.”

14 “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”

15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 in their paths are ruin and misery, 17 and the way of peace they have not known.”

18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.””

(Romans 3:10–18, ESV)

1) these are not flattering descriptions of the lost sinner, but they are accurate descriptions

b. according to the Scriptures, the typical lost sinner is not actively seeking after a relationship with God

1) whether it’s a Muslim raised under Islamic fundamentalism or a Baptist raised under the Christian gospel — without Jesus in their life, both love darkness rather than light, both are spiritually discerned, neither seeketh after God, both have become unprofitable, neither doeth good, neither are righteous, and neither seeks for God

2) both need a saving relationship with Jesus who is the Christ

3) both need to be told about a Savior who died for sinners

4) both need to repent and confess that “Jesus is Lord”

ILLUS.

And here is the incredible good news ... 82% of Americans say they would attend a worship service if they were asked!

BUT, only two percent of church members invite an unchurched person to church.

— Dr Thom Rainer in The Unchurched Next Door, (former Lifeway president).

2. someone may ask, “Pastor, if the Bible is true, and no one seeks after God, then why are there so many religions in the world?”

a. men were created as spiritual beings who need a relationship with their Creator, but sin has distorted man’s understanding of God

1) ever since Adam, men have sought to satisfy their spiritual hunger with religious rites and personal righteousness rather than serving the true and living God

b. religion actually becomes a means of keeping people away from a knowledge of and relationship with God — and friends, that’s even true of Christianity

ILLUS.

One of the great calamities of American culture is that vast majority of our nation’s citizens have been inoculated against the power of the Gospel.

We have given them a little dose of Jesus — just enough to make them think that they have the real thing, but not enough to bring them to repentance and faith.

c. there is also another problem — preachers who refuse to preach the scandal of the cross

1) there are thousands of churches across America where congregants may occasionally hear the story of Jesus, but they never hear the Gospel of salvation

2) the very essence of biblical Christianity is the knowledge that the real human problem is sin — not sickness or psychosis — and that the only rescue is that which comes through faith in Christ’s atoning death on the cross

a) the “scandal” of the cross is that God dares to call people what they are ... sinners condemned unclean whose only method for cleansing is to be dipped in the blood of Christ

3) in 2 Corinthians 5:21 Paul writes, "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."

ILLUS.

The scandal of the cross is that while on the cross Jesus becomes the worst of the worst and we put on the righteousness of God.

On the cross, Jesus becomes the worst sinner of all time.

The sins of all believers in all times and in all places get imputed onto Jesus.

Jesus becomes the adulterer.

The liar.

The thief.

He becomes the gossip and the town drunk.

He becomes the racist and the oppressor.

The self-righteous Pharisee.

The cheater.

The fraud.

Jesus gets all that, and in return we get his righteousness.

This is scandalous.

Jesus, who knew no sin, gets beaten and bruised in order to make an unfair exchange — giving up his own righteousness to receive our unrighteousness.

a) the scandal of the cross has become too scandalous even for some churches, and certainly way to scandalous for the broader society

... We must Go to All People Because People Will Not Come on Their Own

II.

WE MUST GO TO ALL PEOPLE BECAUSE GOD IS DRAWING MANY PEOPLE TO HIMSELF

“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.

And I will raise him up on the last day.

45 It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me—” (John 6:44–45, ESV)