Loving the Lost

 Romans 10:9-15

 

If you are a Born-Again believer in Christ Romans 10:9-13 isn’t for YOU anymore. 

“ that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11 For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. 13 For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”’

It is for those who have not yet believed.

Born-Again believer in Christ Romans 10:14-15,17 IS FOR YOU!

14 How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? 15 And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good things!” 17 So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Church, the body of Christ here on earth there is a lost and dying world out there. 

Hebrews 9:27 And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment. Every day in this world we inhabit 166,859 people die every day and have their fate sealed for all eternity. That is 6,952 people an hour, 116 per minute and 1.93 per second. 

Matthew 28:19-20, Mark 16:15-20, Luke 24:46-49, John 20:21, Acts 1:8 plainly tells us we have been sent, in fact commissioned to go into all the world and be witnesses for Jesus, make disciples, preach the gospel so we, every believer in Jesus as savior and Lord, have the message to plant into people that will produce the faith to save their souls. 

It is God who does the saving but He only saves those through faith repent, confess and receive that gift of salvation by faith.  That faith only comes to the unbeliever through the mouths of those who have already received that wonder grace through faith themselves.  EVERY SINGLE believer in Christ has this responsibility. It is a responsibility of LOVE.  

Would you let someone blindly walk into a burning building? If a child who could not swim fell into a pool and was drowning would you just turn away and ignore them?  If you saw someone do this would you not think that they were cruel and totally void of any love or compassion?  

What can we think, then of ourselves, if we do nothing to reach those around us?  

John 15:12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 

Think about it.  How did Jesus love you?  How are you to love others around you?  

 

 

 

 

Humbling Ourselves

 2 Chronicles 7:14 if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

 

 

This verse came up during a prayer meeting today and we were discussing what it is to humble ourselves.  Fasting and prayer where mentioned as ways we can humble ourselves but then Isaiah 58 came to mind. “Cry aloud, spare not; Lift up your voice like a trumpet; Tell My people their transgression, And the house of Jacob their sins. 2 Yet they seek Me daily, And delight to know My ways, As a nation that did righteousness, And did not forsake the ordinance of their God. They ask of Me the ordinances of justice; They take delight in approaching God. 3 ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and You have not seen? Why have we afflicted our souls, and You take no notice?’ “In fact, in the day of your fast you find pleasure, And exploit all your laborers. 4 Indeed you fast for strife and debate, And to strike with the fist of wickedness. You will not fast as you do this day, To make your voice heard on high. 5 Is it a fast that I have chosen, A day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head like a bulrush, And to spread out sackcloth and ashes? Would you call this a fast, And an acceptable day to the Lord?

6 “Is this not the fast that I have chosen: To loose the bonds of wickedness, To undo the heavy burdens, To let the oppressed go free, And that you break every yoke? 7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, And that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out; When you see the naked, that you cover him, And not hide yourself from your own flesh? 8 Then your light shall break forth like the morning, Your healing shall spring forth speedily, And your righteousness shall go before you; The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. 9 Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; You shall cry, and He will say, ‘Here I am.’ “If you take away the yoke from your midst, The pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, 10 If you extend your soul to the hungry And satisfy the afflicted soul, Then your light shall dawn in the darkness,
And your darkness shall be as the noonday. 11 The Lord will guide you continually, And satisfy your soul in drought, And strengthen your bones; You shall be like a watered garden, And like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. 12 Those from among you Shall build the old waste places; You shall raise up the foundations of many generations; And you shall be called the Repairer of the Breach, The Restorer of Streets to Dwell In. 13 “If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, From doing your pleasure on My holy day, And call the Sabbath a delight, The holy day of the Lord honorable, And shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, Nor finding your own pleasure, Nor speaking your own words, 14 Then you shall delight yourself in the Lord;
And I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth, And feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. The mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

 

Fasting, in and of itself, can be a prideful thing as much as a humbling thing.  What makes the difference?  The fast that is humble, the one that the Lord chooses is that which leads to action towards others.  Start in verse 6 of Isaiah 58 and we see that the Lord is looking for fasting and prayer that leads to action. 

 “To loose the bonds of wickedness, To undo the heavy burdens, To let the oppressed go free, And that you break every yoke?”  We live in a world that is so bond in wickedness and oppression from the evil one.  Yet are we doing anything to loose those bonds, to undo the heavy burdens to let the oppressed free? 

You make ask how can any of us do this.  I believe that the answer is by taking the gospel to them.  If our prayer and fasting for the those bound and oppressed by sin doesn’t lead us to action of telling them the gospel what good is it?  Biblical humility is to lead us to action just as Biblical faith, grace and love should.  As I think over all the verses that speak of grace, faith, love they are always connected with fruit of action.  

I honestly cannot think of one verse that instructs believers to pray for the lost to come to Christ but I do remember a verse where Christ said to pray for believers to go to the lost. 

Luke 10:2  Then He said to them, “The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.

The great commission, which is found in each of the 4 gospels, doesn’t speak to us to sit and pray for the lost but to go to the lost with the message of salvation.  As a people called by His name could it be said that the wicked ways we need to turn from is our lack of love for the lost?  How can we say that we actually have love for the lost if we are not speaking to them the gospel?  If we desire to see our land healed would not leading people to salvation accomplish this?  Are not the issues that plague our land right now traceable back to the root of sin and to people bound and oppressed by sin?  

2 Chronicles 7:14 is a verse often used in the church for how to bring about revival but do we have a true understanding of what real revival looks like? Real revival isn’t 24-hour prayer, praise and worship meetings.  Real revival isn’t just about seeing a glory cloud, healings or miracle manifestations.  Real revival is seeing the dead brought to life and the those a sleep being awaken.  Every person who repents and is converted is a revival.  Real revival has a lasting effect. An effect the transforms the environment.  We get enough real revival going on and our land changes.  Why because people who are truly saved stop doing the evil that they once did.  So crime goes down, poverty goes down, addictions go down, basically as the number of people who get set free from sin goes up the sinful actions that lead to the plagues of our society go down.  The way to make America great again is not found in a political party or a political figure.  It is found in the message of salvation through Jesus Christ.  

Will we humble ourselves, which is to think less about ourselves and to think more about others, and go to a lost, bound, oppressed world with the gospel that will set them free OR will we continue in our pride and speak to God about people instead of speaking to people about God?  Fear of speaking to strangers, lack of knowledge of how to witness to the lost are 2 of the main reasons people give for not participating in personal evangelism.  Will we humble ourselves enough to overcome those things that hinder us from evangelizing? 

 

Faith

 

Romans is a book that teaches us about righteousness and how we actually obtain the righteousness of God.  Romans also teaches us a great deal about faith.  It is by grace that we are saved but we don’t receive that salvation without faith. God’s grace provided forgiveness of sin but that gift is only received through faith.  God’s grace is there for everyone, hence the term “but by the grace of God go I” is not a good term to use because it implies that God’s grace wasn’t there for someone else who did something bad or had something bad happen to them.  God’s grace is available to everyone the problem is that everyone doesn’t have faith in God to receive that grace. 

Faith is so important for living the Christian life.  Faith is so important that there is actually a law of Faith. Romans 3:27-30 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. {Andrew Wommack has a great teaching on this subject. https://www.awmi.net/audio/audio-teachings/?teaching=the-faith-of-god&lesson=the-laws-of-faith} ²⁸ Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law. ²⁹ Or is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, ³⁰ since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. 

Faith establishes (To make firm; to confirm; to ratify what has been previously set or made.)  the law. Romans 3:31 Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law. 

Why does is it we establish the law? To answer this, we look at what the Bible defines sin as. 1 John 3:4 Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. 

It is easy to forget that God is a God of laws. There were laws at work from the beginning of creation. The law of gravity, the laws of motion, the laws of thermodynamics, these are not laws made by man, these are laws that God created and that man later discovered. Actually, all of God’s laws have always existed and will always exist.  For example, the law of faith didn’t come into existence when Paul first wrote about it in Romans 3.  We can see it all the way back in the garden and it was the violation of this law that led to humanities current condition. 

Let us take a quick trip back to the creation of man and let us see what is the first thing that God says to the man. 

Genesis 2:16-17 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

The first thing that God does after creating man and placing him in the garden is to give him a command.  If we look at this command, we see that it isn’t just a don’t eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil it starts with you may eat freely of every tree of the garden.  There weren’t just 2 trees in the garden but many trees. This wasn’t just a choice between eating from the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  It was the choice of eating from a multitude of different trees and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God always gives us an abundance of the best to chose.

Contrary to some beliefs the tree of life doesn’t have spiritual healing properties, else God would not have put a cherubim and a flaming sword to guard the tree of life from mankind getting to. 

Genesis 3:22-24 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— 23 therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. 24 So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.

As at the start so it is now. We are meant to live by faith.  Faith has always been the key for salvation.  People ask how were people in the Old Testament saved before Christ died on the cross? The same way that everyone is saved after Christ died on the cross, by faith.  Faith is the only way we are justified and the only way we can please God.   Romans 1:17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”

Galatians 3:11 But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for “the just shall live by faith.”

Hebrews 10:38 Now the just shall live by faith; But if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him.”

Hebrews 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.