Sermon Tone Analysis

ATTN

Slide - C. H. Spurgeon

It was the famous 19th century preacher, C. H. Spurgeon who said that a Christian is either a missionary or an imposter.

J. D. Greear updated that phrase like this: You’re either a missionary or a mission field.

A church planter named Ethan Welch says of that phrase, “Let that sink in for a minute.

Is that true?

Why would Spurgeon say that every Christian is either a missionary or an impostor?

Seems odd to me.

Is he saying that every true follower of Christ should pack up their bags and move to Africa and become a missionary?

That’s what a missionary is, right?

I grew up going to church all the time.

I remember every few months, a missionary would show up at church.

They were always kind of weird and looked odd.

There names were usually something like Herb and Martha.

They always had slides with them.

Not PowerPoint slides, but clear, translucent slides that were shown on an overhead projector.

An overhead projector was basically this huge box that weighed about fifty pounds and sat on a table and had a bright light in the bottom of the box that pointed up at a mirror that displayed the slides on the wall.

Missionaries were varsity Christians.

They traveled overseas, usually to Africa.

We paid them money to keep up their missionary work.

The rest of us were basically losers because we worked normal jobs here in the States, but we always made ourselves feel better by contributing a few dollars in the love offering.

No, I’m not sure why it was called a love offering.

Unfortunately, this is the only thing that comes to mind when we talk about missionaries.

However, in Spurgeon’s mind, the essence of what it means to be a Christian is that you live your life as a missionary, regardless of where you live, or even what career you may choose.

No matter what, you are either a missionary or a mission field.

NEED

And right about now some of you are probably thinking, “O brother, here we go.

It has to be mission’s month.

Why else would I be hearing a message which brings a lot of pressure for me to do something I never have been and don’t think I will ever be able to do.”

You know, as I was preparing this message, I thought about that.

I also remembered all the messages I have heard during missions month and in the various classes on missions I took in college and seminary.

Quite honestly, they can leave you feeling guilty and gun-shy when someone brings up the topic.

So let me encourage you not to run for the exits this morning—either with your feet or in your mind!

Please listen!

I tell you that there is hope.

God would never command you to do something you just are not able to do with His help.

I think that we have felt like failures when it comes to being missionaries because we have had the wrong idea and the wrong approach.

Listen because you NEED HOPE . . .

And please listen because you NEED JOY.

The kind of Christian life that really produces evangelism has to flow out of a heart of joy, not some emotion that is worked up like the wild-eyed frenzy of a sales rep who just finished his morning sales meeting.

No! It is a calm confident expectation that everything the Bible says about life now and in eternity is absolutely true.

BACKGROUND

And just in case this “missionary or mission field concept” sounds a little over the top to you, let me show you clearly where the Bible teaches what Spurgeon preached.

He was just repeating what the Apostle Paul said in his second letter to the Corinthians, chapter 5. Read with me beginning in v14:

14 For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; 15 and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.

16 Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh.

Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer.

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

18 Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, 19 that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

20 Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.

21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Now if you read the first five chapters of this book, you discover that the Apostle Paul is talking about his own calling to ministry and why it is that the Corinthians should listen to Him.

When he gets to chapter five, he talks about what motivates him to preach the gospel and he really gives us some clear reasons for saying that every disciple of Christ is also a missionary for Christ.

Why is that true?

Well, first, its because if you are a real disciple:

D1 –

WHAT YOU KNOW ABOUT GOD WILL CAPTIVATE YOU

EXP

I really believe that the fundamental problem in evangelism is not a lack of courage, but a lack of understanding.

When a person grasps at a heart level who God is and what God has done, his heart is so captivated, he must speak.

You see that in these verses.

Paul implies here that we are in a battle with the God of the universe.

This battle rages because of who we are and because of who God is.

God is absolutely holy, righteous, and perfect.

He is the only God of the universe.

He hates sin and made man perfect so that a perfect God could have a genuine relationship with a perfect man.

But God also knew that to have a real relationship of love required that man have freedom.

Man had to freely choose to love God or reject God and we all know what man did.

The saga of Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit tells the story of the creature who denied the creator and attempted to rob His glory.

As a result, he plunged himself into ruin.

Imagine the audacity of a created thing telling it’s own creator to get lost.

What arrogance!

What foolishness!

What danger!

He brought us into the existence and He can surely take us out.

We went to war with God and we had no idea what jeopardy we were in.

We became the enemy of God because of who we are and because of Who He is!

Now, usually in a relationship, if you are the offended party, it is the one who has committed the offense who must move first if the relationship is to be restored.

If you are a husband and you cheat on your wife, you would not expect her to seek restoration first.

But that’s what God did.

You see, He knew we’d never seek Him.

Sin had so messed up our hearts and our minds that we would never reach out to Him, so He reached out to us.

There is a word that occurs five times in these short eight verses.

It’s the word, reconciliation.

It means to restore a good relationship between two people who have become enemies.

That describes you and me.

We had become the enemy of God because our rejection of Him had created sin in us and since God is a completely Holy God of justice, that sin was something that God had to punish.

And God could not get rid our sin by just magically snapping His fingers like some cosmic magician.

No! That sin had to be paid for.

That’s why the last verse of this chapter is so amazing.

Will you just look at this verse phrase by phrase with me?

You see in this verse the Incarnation.

In the first phrase, you see INCARNATION.

It says For He made Him to be sin for us.

That’s the first reality of how God reconciled us.

It began with Jesus emptying Himself and becoming a human being like you and me.

You see in this verse Christ’s Perfection.

Yet there was something very different about Jesus’s humanity.

Look at the second phrase: For He made Him to be sin for us WHO KNEW NO SIN.

That speaks of Christ’s PERFECTION.