Have a Heart for the Lost
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Was anyone here saved listening to a radio broadcast?
Raise your hand. How many were saved listening to a TV preacher?
How many prayed to receive the Lord Jesus as a direct result of a message?
How many were saved when you saw "Jesus Saves" on a big rock, a sign, or a bumper sticker?
How many of you were saved, when some preacher or some other person led you to Christ, and their face comes to your mind? Raise you hand.
Now I don’t want you to raise your hands or audibly answer to the next series of questions, but....
How many souls have you brought to Christ?
How many have led a person to Christ in the past 6 months... the past year... the last five years... ever?
It is a sad statistic that less than ten percent of all Southern Baptists will share their faith with someone this year.
If we are going to be a caring church, one of the very first things we must do is to care about those who are without Jesus Christ, those who are lost.
We need to develop a heart for the lost like Paul’s heart.
I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh,
A Broken Heart for the Lost
I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart.
The depth of Paul’s concern is expressed in his words " great heaviness and continual sorrow" or "bitter grief and continual anguish" for Israel.
The source of this agony was
An awareness of the lostness of his kinsman.
For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
He realized that though they were religious they were lost! They have chosen a religion over a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
The Jew believed because he was a Jew that he automatically had an in with God but Paul concluded in
What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin.
As it is written:
“There is none righteous, no, not one;
even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
There is no man, woman or child that does not fit this description.
An awareness of the exclusivity of Jesus Christ
Do you know what that means - it means that Jesus is the only way in which one can be saved or redeemed from sin.
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
There are only three kinds of persons. There are those who know Christ, having established a relationship Him as Savior. There are others who are blindly seeking but have not found Him; and lastly, the rest who go through life without seeking Him oblivious to their ultimate destiny
An awareness of the destiny of the lost
He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.
The Scripture makes it clear that man apart from Christ is condemned eternally.
A. A. Hodge in his theology says there is no word more emphatic for eternal than the one used of hell in the New Testament.
Are we aware of the lostness of those around us?
It is easy for us to think of the spiritual lost in the remote corners of the world or in undeveloped third world nations.
But how often are we aware of the lost condition of neighbors, fellow workers, relatives - aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers, sisters, parents, children, spouses? Are we aware of what they really believe? Are we aware of where they will spend eternity? Do we care?
No only did Paul express a broken heart for the lost but he also expressed...
A Burdened Heart to win the Lost
For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh,
Paul echoes Moses’ prayer in Ex. 32:32
Yet now, if You will forgive their sin—but if not, I pray, blot me out of Your book which You have written.”
Faithlife Study Bible Chapter 9
showing solidarity with his people by wishing to share in their punishment or take the punishment for them. He longs for the salvation of his fellow Jews.
Our calling and purpose as followers of Christ is to love God completely, to love self correctly, and to love others compassionately and have a burden to see them come to Christ.
I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to wise and to unwise. So, as much as is in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome also.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.
An aged farmer visited his son, a popular senator in Washington, DC. The father was a zealous Christian. When introduced to the ambassador from Belgium, the father earnestly asked, "Sir, are you a Christian?" The son was greatly embarrassed by the question. Before the ambassador could reply, the son changed the conversation. Shortly thereafter, the father became ill. He died. Hearing of his death, the ambassador sent flowers. A note attached to them brought tears to the eyes of the senator. The note read, "He was the only man in America who asked me if I was a Christian."
Why are we so many professing Christians so ashamed and scared to share about the Gospel?
Conclusion:
Now is the time for those who know the Savior to proclaim Christ!
Now is the time to go to a lost world with the love of Christ!
Now is the time for those without Christ to come to Christ!
Will you have a heart like Paul? Do you have a heart for the lost. Are you broken and burdened for the lost? Do you care? Will you go? Will you share?