A Passion For The Lost

Should we have a passion for the lost?

What is passion? Passion is defined as an intense, driving, or overmastering feeling or conviction.

Why should we care about the lost?

Why should we be concerned about the unsaved?

Why should we worry about the other person?

Who cares what happens to a person when they die without knowing Jesus as their Savior?

Who cares if a sinner is going to hell?

Who cares if our neighbor or the person we work with or the person who is checking out our groceries doesn’t know Jesus?

We should care!

The truth is that as Children of God we are responsible for the lost souls in our lives.

Paul admonishes Timothy in 2 Timothy 1:8 to “not be ashamed to testify about our Lord.”

I think that this is something we can all take to heart. The Apostle Paul had a passion for the lost. It was his greatest desire to preach the Gospel of Jesus to the world.

One way Paul could get the message of Christ to the world was to have others help him get the job done. This was Paul’s legacy and it continues today through you and me.

Paul was not ashamed of the Gospel message and he did not want us to be ashamed of it either.

Paul writes in Romans 1:16, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.”

For Paul to say that was huge because of all the persecution that the Christians faced during that time.

But Paul was not ashamed because he knew and understood the power of the Gospel.

He knew that the Gospel message was the dynamite which blasts away self-complacency, self-delusion, and sinful self-reliance.

Today, I want to give you three reasons as to why we should have a passion for the lost.

PRAYER

Father, open my eyes to see Your Word.

Open my ears to hear.

Open my mind to understand.

And open my heart so I may receive Your Word today.

AMEN

1. We should have a passion for lost souls because we have a knowledge that the unsaved do not have.

Jesus was speaking to His disciples in Matthew 13:10-12 when he said the following…

11He replied, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. 12Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. Matthew 13:11-12

This knowledge has been passed on by the first 12 disciples to the first century church and on throughout time to us today.

It is the same knowledge that Paul spoke about and wrote about often.

It is the knowledge of truth that Paul discussed with Timothy when he said, “3This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” 1 Timothy 2:3-4

The knowledge that we have been given leads to life and it comes from the salvation we have in Christ.

If we have been saved, the knowledge of the Gospel message becomes real in our life because we have actually experienced its power; it’s saving power.

We have the knowledge that God loved us so much that he sent His only Son into this world so that the world could have everlasting life.

It is the knowledge that Jesus left the splendor of heaven to come to this planet to give His life as a ransom for our sins.

It is the knowledge that through Jesus our sins are forgiven.

And it is because we posses this knowledge that we should have a passion for the lost.

Because when you have good news that is as important as this, you have to share it with others. You don’t want to keep this sort of thing a secret.

We should have a passion for the lost because we have a knowledge.

2. We should have a passion for lost souls because we have blessings that come through Jesus.

One could say that membership has its privileges.

18 Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him. Isaiah 30:18

This verse should take your breath away. It should fill you with excitement.

Great is God’s faithfulness to His children when they follow Him. This is played out time and time again in the Old Testament when the Israelites turned their hearts to God and followed Him with all their heart, soul, and mind.

God was with them and God blessed them when they were obeying His Laws.