Love Those Who Are Lost

Alba 3-6-2022

LOVE THOSE WHO ARE LOST

Romans 9:1-5

Ray Stedman, who was a minister in California, once asked a congregation why they had dismissed their preacher. “Well”, they said, “he kept telling us we were all going to hell.”

Steadman asked, “What does the new preacher say?” The congregation replied, “He tells us we’re going to hell, too.”

“So what’s the difference?” Stedman asked. “The difference is that when the previous preacher said it, it sounded like he was glad. When the new preacher says it, it sounds like it breaks his heart.”

Romans chapter eight ends with the amazing claim that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. But before the apostle Paul moves on with what is considered the “practical application” portion of his letter, he first needs to address his concern for those outside of Christ.

So we read in Romans 9:1-5 of his love for those who are lost.

1 I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, 2 that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh, 4 who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; 5 of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen.

Paul’s words in Romans chapter nine clues us in on his prayer life. He prays for the salvation of his fellow Jews. In this passage Paul expresses deep concern about the Jewish nation's rejection of Christ.

The first believers in Jesus were Jews who had surrendered to Christ on the Day of Pentecost. But Paul could see an overall rejection of Jesus Christ as Messiah from the Jewish community as a whole.

Paul knows that these people have no problem believing in God. Their problem is accepting Jesus to be who He says He is. They do not see how a carpenter’s son could be the Messiah.

Most religions today have no problem believing in the existence of God in some form. The do however have a great problem in dealing with Jesus as the Messiah. They fail to recognize the diety of Christ, and sadly many still do.

Paul could identify with these people, for they were his people. He knew where they were, for he too at one time had been stiff-necked and obstinate concerning Christ and His Church.

But now Paul longed that they too would fall down before the light of Christ and have the scales of their eyes removed.

In verses 4 and 5 Paul lists eight advantages that the people of Israel have when it comes to having a relationship with God, including the fact that the Messiah, Jesus, is from their lineage.

But he also makes it clear here that those advantages alone don’t make them right with God or earn them eternal life.

Paul rejoiced that the Jews were given the covenants, the commands and the Law of God, but he wanted more for them.

He gloried in the fact that the Jewish nation had enjoyed special standing and revelation from God in the past.

And he shows how Jesus had come from them. For Jesus was born to a Jewish mother, grew up in a Jewish home, went to a Jewish school, sat in a Jewish synagogue, ministered to the Jewish people.

It was Jesus who said, "I have come to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matthew 15:24). Yet with all those past advantages of God's special blessings throughout their history, the Jews did not, would not, acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah.

The reason many Jews rejected Jesus as their Savior is because they didn’t think they needed a savior. After all, weren’t they already God’s chosen people? But think about this:

A high school student who receives a university scholarship shouldn’t think that he has already become a doctor or a lawyer. The scholarship only entitles him to study to become one of those things.

In the same way, when God chose the Jews as His special people it didn’t mean that they were automatically bound for heaven. It simply meant that they would be given all the information they needed for salvation. The law was a schoolmaster to bring them to Christ.

And Paul knew that it was not enough to rely on things from the past to gain eternal life. So even though Paul had been persecuted by the Jews, he served them by preaching Christ as the only way for their salvation.

Paul clearly saw their eternal destiny as his chief concern. He had a great love for those he calls his brethren, his countrymen. His “great sorrow and continual grief “ was because they were lost outside of Christ.