Seeking And Saving The Lost

INTRO.- Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. Let’s memorize this verse. Let’s get it deep in our hearts, minds and souls. Why? BECAUSE THIS IS WHY JESUS CAME AND IT’S ALSO WHY WE’RE HERE, whether we realize this or not. We’ve been bought and paid for by the blood of Christ. Now we’re supposed to do His bidding in this world. We are supposed to live for Him and not for self. And He is greatly interested in seeing lost people come to Him and be saved!

Let’s say it again: For the son of man came to seek and to save the lost. Easy verse to remember, but hard to do in life.

Jesus came to do His Father’s will and God’s dominant will is for all men is to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. (I Timothy 2:4) Jesus came to save the lost, that is, lost people, lost souls. This assumes that He believed they were lost. How were they lost? LOST IN SIN.

Sin is the big problem in this world. Sin is our big problem whether we want to own up to it or not. Sin is what got Adam and Eve booted out of the garden. And sin is what keeps people out of God’s heaven! How did they sin? They disobeyed God. They let Satan, the old deceiver, dupe them into believing a lie. He lied to them because he was a liar from the beginning. And people are easily duped into sinning today by the evil one and by evil people of this world.

Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Sin is falling short of God’s glory and His holiness. We’re sinners and in need of divine mercy.

How can we overcome sin? How can we be saved from our sins? How can we have them taken away? How can we experience victory in life? Only in Jesus.

John 1:29 When John the Baptist saw Jesus, he said, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” And Jesus is the only who can take away our sins!

ILL.- Sam Shoemaker summed up the situation this way: "In the Great Commission the Lord has called us to be--like Peter--fishers of men. We’ve turned the commission around so that we have become merely keepers of the aquarium. Occasionally I take some fish out of your fishbowl and put them into mine, and you do the same with my bowl. But we’re all tending the same fish."

There is nothing wrong with tending fish once you have them, but we shouldn’t stop there! We don’t exist for ourselves! We need to catch more fresh fish instead of swapping fish that have already been caught! We need to win more people to Christ!

ILL.- My Maxima car has three different modes for the automatic transmission. There is drive, which is smooth as silk and just keeps going and going like the Energizer bunny. There is the Ds mode or Sport mode, which is what I call my, “Zoom, zoom” mode. It shifts through six different gears, going zoom, zoom, zoom! Then there is the manual shift mode which can be manually shifted through six different gears, but without a clutch like we had on cars in the past and a few still do.

Please realize this: There are six gears for forward motion but only one neutral gear and one reverse gear. So which do you suppose the manufacturer thinks a person should do the most? IT’S OBVIOUS THAT THE CAR MUST GO FORWARD TO MAKE PROGRESS.

That’s what it was designed for and that’s also what OUR MAKER designed us for, FORWARD MOTION. And so with the church. He designed us for forward motion, not reversal and not neutral gear, doing nothing. Jesus said to go and make disciples!

PROP.- Let’s get to the nitty gritty of the matter. How are we are going to seek and save the lost? Let me share some simple but powerful tools for bringing people to Christ.

1- Pray fervently

2- Behave spiritually

3- Look compassionately

4- Speak sincerely

I. PRAY FERVENTLY

Romans 10:1-4 1 Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. 2 For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. 3 Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. 4 Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.

Paul said, “My prayer to God is for the Israelites to be saved.” WHAT IS YOUR PRAYER TO GOD? Is it for people? For your own family members? For your friends and neighbors?