Sermon Tone Analysis

“24”

People Connecting to Need

Jeff Jones, Senior Pastor

February 2~/4, 2007

 

Another thrilling episode of FBCN 24! Doesn’t get better than that.

Today on 24 we are talking about something that is at the core of God’s heart.

If we care even one ounce about him then we will be urgent about what he cares so deeply about.

When you watch the show, 24, you feel the urgency…the clock is always ticking, time is always running out, and the stakes are so high.

If they don’t find the terrorist or the bomb, then lots of people are going to die.

They know that, so they don’t mess around.

They are on mission.

Today is designed to be a shot of urgency into our church and into our lives.

That’s why I have this shot up here with me, it is an urgency shot.

There are a number of times I would like to have an urgency shot to give people, when I’m waiting behind a slow person at a checkout line, or someone who is asking for directions at the tollbooth in front of me, or someone who is taking way too much time in front of me at the Chinese buffet, picking out just the right green bean.

But I think there are lots of times that God would love to use the urgency shot in my life to care more about what he cares about supremely.

I’m talking about the mission to which we are called.

I know it is important, but how urgent do I really feel about it every day?

The 24 mission is a big deal, but with our mission, people’s whole eternity really is at stake.

God felt enough urgency to send his own son to die for the sins of the world, and he has now passed on the mission to you and to me to let people know how they can connect to him…how people who are lost to him and cut off from him can connect forever to him…how people can escape the judgment, the deserved punishment for their sin, and know God’s forgiving grace.

The way God has arranged it is simple: If you and I don’t go, people will perish eternally.

On Monday night, our family watched the movie, /The Guardian/, about the coast guard.

What a great picture of what we are talking about today.

I heard of one church leader that I actually respect a lot say that we need to make sure that our churches understand that the church is like a battleship.

I don’t know what he means by that, but I don’t think we are here to blow up things.

We are more like a coast guard cutter, more like the rescue swimmers that go out to rescue people from the brokenness of this life, to bring them home to a relationship with God.

There is a great line in the movie, where they are running low on fuel and the pilot asks the rescue swimmer, “Should we go back?”

And the swimmer says, “If we go back, then people die.”

In Romans 10, Paul says the same thing:

 

*Slide:) ___________ * Romans 10:13-15

 

“/Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in?

And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?

And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15 And how can they preach unless they are sent?/

You and are I the ones that God wants to use to reach people for him.

We are the rescue swimmers.

We are the ones with the opportunity to jump into people’s lives, to jump into human need, with the reality of God’s love and message of how people can come to know God through Christ.

If we don’t go, people die without knowing God.

A couple of weeks ago, a small group of pastors in our area met downtown at a friend of mine’s place that overlooks the city.

Pete Briscoe at Bent Tree, Bruce Miller at McFBC, Andy McQuiddy at Irving Bible, Gary Brandenburg at Fellowship Dallas—we all met and prayed for our city.

Once Jesus looked down over Jerusalem and the Bible says that he wept, for they were like sheep without a shepherd.

We prayed that God would in a similar way break our heart…because the vast majority of the 650,000 people that we talk about who live in a 10 mile radius of our church do not yet know Christ…they are like sheep without a shepherd.

And God will not rest until that changes, and he has given you and me the mission…he has asked you and me to be the ones to make the connections.

He wants to use and me, and asks that you and I jump into mission…that we choose a lifestyle as bridge builders, helping people connect to God.

Today we are going to talk about that lifestyle, what it looks like to share God’s urgency and to live the mission.

Today we are talking about three types of bridges that God asks all of us to build to others.

Be open to God’s heart today.

As we look at these bridges, at this way of life as rescue swimmers, are you living the mission?

* *Slide:) ___________ * Relational Bridges: /Reaching people one at a time/

/ /

 

To gain a glimpse of God’s heart and perhaps inject a little urgency about people who are lost to him, I want you to turn in your Bibles to Luke 15.

Today we are going to be looking at Luke 15 and Luke 10…but first Luke 15, where Jesus tells three stories to illustrate why God cares about lost people, people who have yet to come back home to him.

*Slide:) ___________ * Luke 15:1-2

 

/Now the tax collectors and “sinners” were all gathering around to hear him.

2 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

/The Pharisees, some of the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, were muttering.

They were upset, because Jesus was spending time with all the wrong people.

The Pharisees were proud of their isolation from people like the ones Jesus was spending time with, and they couldn’t imagine why Jesus would be violating that same commitment.

They didn’t understand God’s heart.

They completely missed the point of what their job was as spiritual leaders.

So, Jesus tells a story to help translate God’s heart to them in a way that perhaps they might understand:

 

*Slide:) ___________ * Luke 15:3-7

 

/3 Then Jesus told them this parable: 4 “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them.

Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?

5 And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6 and goes home.

Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’

7 I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

/

 

So, the shepherd makes a big choice.

He has 100 sheep, but one of them wanders off into danger.

One of the sheep is lost to him.

Because sheep were so valuable, he decides to leave the 99 in the safety of the pen in order to go out and find the one who is lost.

He doesn’t just blow off the one who is lost.

He leaves the 99 to go after the one.

In the same way, Jesus said, that is God’s heart.

Notice, heaven doesn’t throw a party when 99 gather together in the pen…when the 99 are all hanging out together.

Heaven throws a party when the lost sheep is found.

Heaven pays far more attention to the one than to the 99…because God cares so deeply about each one.

The 99 are safe, but the one is not yet.

A good shepherd will not rest until all the lost sheep are home, and a good shepherd rejoices every time one is found.

That is God’s heart for people who are lost to him.

Maybe we can understand his urgency when we think about losing something valuable.

Have you ever lost something really valuable?

Your engagement ring?

Your passport on a trip back from some 3rd world country?

The other day I lost my daytimer, which has all these notes that are really valuable to me, and I had this panic attack.

It was awful.

Far more intense than that, though, were times when one of our two boys was lost.

Our youngest, Caleb, has always been a wanderer and would run off in a split second when he was little.

I remember a couple of times when he was lost at places like Disney World and Sea World.

He was around 3 years old, and we couldn’t find him anywhere.

He was just right there, and then he was gone.

Thousands of people walking around, and no Caleb.

For those minutes of not knowing where he was were the longest minutes of my life.

My heart was racing, I was frantic, looking everywhere and getting other people to do the same.

All kinds of scary thoughts bounced around my brain, and there was no way I could even think about anything else until he was found.

I can’t imagine losing a child for weeks or months…I can’t imagine how I could possibly handle that.

But that is God’s life every day.

As a loving Father, there are millions of people who are lost to him, and he cares about every one.

That’s the thing we can forget when we talk about the 650,000 people in a ten mile radius of our church that God has placed us here to reach…it sounds like a number, 650,000…but those are not numbers.

They are people, with names and stories and lives.

Most of them have yet to come home to God, and God has placed you and me here to help them do so…to help them come into a forever relationship with God through faith in Christ.

That’s the way God has decided to reach people, one at a time, through people like you and me whose lives are being transformed.

As I’ve said before, God could have done it differently.