The Holy Wound Of Longing For The Lost
In this series on Holy wounds we have been talking about wounds that hurt, but that hurt moves us into the purposes of God
We shy from wounds, we shy from pain, and yet we know God hardwired pain into the DNA of humanity.
To keep us from things that hurt:
PPT 1 text
Psalms 119:67 Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word.
Psalms 119:71 It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.
David speaks of how wounds moved him into change of behavior and obedience. A recap of some of the other wounds we taught on in this series:
The wound of contrition, where we feel sorry for sin, moves us to repentance and restoration.
The wound of compassion, where we hurt for the sufferings of others moves us to help them.
Sympathy is your pain in my heart.
The wound of longing after God, moves us to seek Him more.
Then we preached a message on the wound God has for us, that moved Him to leave heaven and die for our sins.
Today’s message is similar to that one, today we are going to talk about the Holy Wound Of Longing For The Lost. A wound that will move us to evangelism and reaching for the lost.
PPT 2 Message Title "The Holy Wound of Longing For the Lost"
Key thought of this message:
Until you get wounded for the lost you will never reach for the lost.
A little later we are going to hear from one of our own who has been cut by God with the holy wound of longing for the lost, and it has changed the whole trajectory of her life. She is going to be a full time missionary with YWAM.
It is my prayer today that as I preach this message, and Rachel shares what God has wounded her for, that God will also give and stir up in each of us a holy wound of longing for the lost to be touched by God.
In fact right now...
Hold out your hands. Lord let me see people like you see people. Wound me with a passion to see others follow Jesus.
Whatever you are wounded about you will reach after.
God wants us to have a holy wound of longing for the lost, so that we will reach for them just like He does.
The bible is full of passages of scripture, that speak of this holy wound. I challenge you as you read the bible in coming days to mark verses and take note of passages where this holy wound is found and pray each time you come across one, God help me take that wound into my spirit so I will reach for the lost.
Here are just a couple
PPT 3 Text
Exodus 3:7 And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows;
Exodus 3:8 And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites...
Can you see and hear the wound God has in this passage? Can you also see how it moved Him to action… I am come down to deliver them…
Here is another wounded passage:
PPT 4 Text
Jeremiah 8:20 "Harvest is past, summer is ended, And we are not saved."
Jeremiah 8:21 For the brokenness of the daughter of my people I am broken; I mourn, dismay has taken hold of me.
Jeremiah 8:22 Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has not the health of the daughter of my people been restored?
This passage is a prophetic portrayal of the situation then in Israel, and also the world at the end of the age.
Harvest is past. v.21 There is a limited time of gathering in.
v. 22 Is God sharing that He has a wounded heart for people
v.23 Is God lamenting that His people are not doing anything about it. One of the reasons they weren't is they are not carrying that holy wound that moves us to action.
One more:
PPT 5 A holy wound verse
Isaiah 49:14 But Zion said, The LORD hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me.
Isaiah 49:15 Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.
We get wounded for the lost when we see them as Jesus saw them.
We get wounded for the lost when we realize what is ahead for them, that is in part how Jesus saw them.
No one preached more on hell than Jesus, He made that place. He understood the urgency of the need: work while it is day, the night cometh... For some the harvest of their soul will be today, that is why we should always have an urgency to share the gospel.
I have a few more thoughts and then I want to pray.
A wound for the lost will empty you. 40% of gen z identify as nonbinary. 2.8 percent of baby boomers did. Homosexuality is running rampant! 40% of this generation here s America is gender confused.
Source: https://www.newsweek.com/nearly-40-percent-us-gen-zs-30-percent-christians-identify-lgbtq-poll-shows-1641085
We live in a day and age where hell is binding people with the strongest ropes they have ever been bound with. When we see how lost people are we are emptied of self sufficiency and it causes us to cry out, “God fill us with your power so that we can effectively reach them!”
People today are more bound than any generation before them. I believe that, but look at this verse:
PPT 9 text
Judges 16:12 Delilah therefore took new ropes, and bound him therewith, and said unto him, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And there were liers in wait abiding in the chamber. And he brake them from off his arms like a thread.
Like a thread!!! The power of God can break hell’s thickest ropes as if they were mere threads!
A wound for the lost will empty you, but that is not all…
A wound for the lost will fill you.
The empty will seek to be filled. Until you are wounded with the wound of emptiness you won't seek to be filled, and when you seek you will be filled.
You shall receive power and you shall be my witnesses. Where God gives the wound, He always gives the power.
Close:
Stir a holy wound in me for the lost.
Help me lift up my eyes everyone is a potential harvest field.
Fill me with a wound and the power to do something about that wound.
