- Let me note as we begin that the sermon title speaks of the “non-evangelist.” While there are people who are spiritually gifted at evangelism, sharing our faith is a job that is assigned to all of us. I’m referring there to the person who doesn’t feel they’re any good at that or for the person who simply isn’t doing any evangelistic work right now.
PRAYING FOR THE WHOLE WORLD: We can fail to recognize the unsaved that God has put in our path.
- Matthew 10:5-6.
- Let’s begin with a couple hard truths:
a. Most of us don’t pray for the unsaved.
- If you could listen in on most Christians’ prayers, you would be struck by:
a. how infrequently they pray,
b. that most of their prayers are focused on their own needs,
c. and finally that when they do pray for others it’s almost entirely for physical issues (someone is sick).
- This last one is witnessed in almost every Baptist church’s Wednesday evening Bible study. When prayer requests are taken, almost all of them are physical unless the congregation is prompted by the pastor. Why is that? Aren’t spiritual requests more important than the physical? Absolutely. But it’s an accurate reflection of where our hearts are.
- It can be easier to pray for the whole world than to pray for the five or ten individuals that God has put in your life.
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO GRASP THIS? There are unsaved people that you are uniquely positioned to reach.
- Matthew 10:5-6.
- Each of us occupies a unique social footprint. There are people that you have in your family that are not in my family. There are people you work with that I do not. There are people in your neighborhood that I’ve never even met. There is a circle of friends and acquaintances you have that is likely unique to you.
- This puts you in a unique position. And we need to recognize that we are not in that position by accident. God has placed us there for a reason.
- With this truth comes a heavier weight of responsibility. When we only think of the whole world, we presume that there are evangelistic people out there somewhere who will somehow find their way to those that need to hear. When we break it down into its smaller parts the way we are this morning, we begin to see that there are those around us that need us to step up and share the gospel.
- There was a game that I played years ago when I was in Boy Scouts. The leaders had placed a ton of random items in a large box. There might be a yo-yo, a lighter, a golf tee, and twenty other things. The teams of four were given thirty seconds to look in the box and then they had to go write down what they saw. Most of the teams went up to the box and all four looked all over it and tried to remember as much as they could. One team, though, had been coached by the adult leaders. They were told to divide the box into four quadrants and each member of the team take a section. Now, suddenly, each member of that team didn’t have to remember twenty things – they just needed to remember the five or six things in their section. Not surprisingly, that team ended up winning. The adult leaders then used that activity to teach us the lesson that work goes better when each person is assigned a specific area to cover.
- We want to be careful because this phrase has been misused, but there is something to be said for the idea of a “target audience.”
- We won’t get into the specifics of the misuse, except to say that it has to do with us picking who we want to reach rather than who God has assigned us to reach.
- Where the phrase is useful looks like this. God has placed people in my life that He wants me to pray for and witness to. These people that God has put in my path are my “target audience.” They are the people that I am personally to invest myself in winning.
- This passage clearly points to a “target audience.”
- Jesus tells His disciples not to go to the Gentiles or Samaria, but to focus on the “lost sheep of Israel” (v. 6). Why does He do this? It’s important to understand the mission that Jesus had. This is a sermon unto itself, but I’ll just summarize here. Jesus came as the Messiah of Israel. His focus and His mission was toward them. This was because as the Messiah His mission was to fulfill the Old Testament prophecies. The goal was for Him to be embraced by Israel. Of course, that didn’t happen. Instead, the Jewish religious leaders opposed Him and plotted His death. The books of Acts and Romans detail how this Messianic rejection by the Jewish people opened the door to salvation for the Gentiles.
- So, to take the idea that we’re talking about this morning and apply it to this passage, here we see that during Jesus’ life His immediate “target audience” was not the whole world, but rather the “lost sheep of Israel.” That was who He focused His ministry on.
- It’s certainly ok to pray for unsaved people that you barely know (maybe a friend asks you to do that), but that’s unlikely to be your target audience.
- None of us have to win everyone; all of us have to win someone.
- There is the mission field and there is my mission field.
HOW DO YOU GET STARTED ON THIS?
1. This begins with an awareness of your responsibility and opportunity.
- You need to be aware of the fact that you have a spiritual responsibility. Every Christian has been called to share the good news. Now, certainly there are some with a spiritual gift in this who are especially effective, but that doesn’t change the fact that all of us have a responsibility.
- The Penn and Teller video where Penn talks about not respecting Christians who don’t witness.
- There is also an opportunity as well. In all of the Kingdom of God, with billions of Christ around the world, there are certain people around you where you have the best shot to win them to Christ! There is nothing as exciting as being a part of someone coming to know Christ! There is enormous soul satisfaction in that.
2. Sit down, think through your relationships, and make a written list of five to ten people.
- Now let’s get practical.
- I want you to literally sit down with a pen and a piece of paper and think through your relationships: your family, your co-workers, your neighbors, your friends, your acquaintances. Start writing down the names of those around you who are unsaved. Make yourself a list.
- Now, I’ve said five to ten, but there’s nothing sacred in that. I just want you to have a decent number of names to start with.
- Let’s talk about something awkward that’s probably going to happen to most people who actually do this.
- Some of the people on the list you will be confident in saying are not saved. “He’s made several negative comments about God.” “She drops the f-bomb all day long.” Or simply that it’s someone that you’ve known for a long time and you know has not made a commitment to Christ.
- There are likely also going to be people you think of and you’re going to realize, “I don’t know if they’re saved or not.” You’ve never talked about church before with them. You’ve never talked about God with them.
- Now, certainly it tells us a little something that they’ve never brought it up, but it also tells us something that you’ve never brought it up. This exercise might be a wake-up call for you that there are people in your life that you may have known for years and you have no idea what their spiritual condition is.
- If you’ve been working with someone for ten years and you have little idea whether she’s saved or not, you need to repent of that. You’ve not been doing your job as a Christian.
- I’m not saying that you talk all Jesus all the time but that situation makes it pretty clear that you’re not bringing Jesus with you much in your everyday life.
- If that’s true for you, repent of your failings there and use the truths in this sermon to get on track.
- I want to confess to you that God has been working some on me regarding this lately. I came to realize that there were people on the edge of my social circle that I knew were unsaved and were not on my prayer list. These are mostly people that I know through my children’s activities. I’ve known them for a few years now. God really hit me hard with the fact that I wasn’t actively praying for their salvation.
3. Pray regularly for salvation for them and a burden for you.
- Call them by name and pray specifically for that person’s salvation. Do not pray for the whole list in one sentence: “God, save all these people.” And don’t use a generic euphemism: “God, I pray their life will get better” or “God, I pray they will get straightened out” or “God, I pray that they’ve move in the right direction.”
- Pray that they get saved.
- It’s not that the other things have no value, but we need to keep our focus clear in our minds. We want them to be saved. That is a non-negotiable.
- We also need to pray for a burden for us.
- We need to have a burden for the lost.
- “Burden” is an old-fashioned word. We don’t use it enough anymore. It requires to me to have a deep concern for someone. It requires for me to feel a weight for them.
- Many of us are so focused on ourselves that we have little space for thought of others.
- It needs to bother us that someone isn’t saved. It needs to be something we think about and pray about on a regular basis. Yes, we need to witness as well, but this is a crucial first step.
4. Realize that these are likely people who know you well, so your life’s example is crucial.
- Because the people we are talking about are almost certainly people we see on a regular basis, how we live our lives matters deeply.
- We are not likely to be successful in our witnessing if we are living an indifferent Christian life.
- We can undermine our prayers for their salvation by living a life that repels them from Christ.
