The Lostness Of The Lost Series

The Lostness of the Lost

Opening Prayer:

Father God, we pray today that you will open our eyes and help us to see more completely the evidence of your grace to us. Help us to recognize that every day is a gift from you. Help us to accept this time of worship as a divine appointment. Give us the faith we need to experience the living presence of Christ in this service. In Jesus' precious name, we pray. Amen.

Listen to Luke 15:1-7

Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. 2 This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people—even eating with them!

3 So Jesus told them this story: 4 “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. 6 When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbours, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ 7 In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!

Introduction

The New Testament clearly teaches that God so loved a lost and needy world that he gave his Son to die on a cross that the world might be saved.

John 3:16 tells us “For this is how God loved the world: He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.”

On every page of the Gospels, we see that Jesus Christ was concerned about the lostness of people; he wanted to rescue and restore them to God the Father.

In Luke 19:10, Jesus said of Himself, “For the Son of man came to seek and save those who are lost”

In Romans 10:1 the apostle Paul wrote, “The longing of my heart and my prayer to God is for the people of Israel to be saved.”

The lostness of people was a pressing burden on Paul’s heart, a burden that caused him to evangelize wherever and whenever possible.

The sad truth is that many modern-day Christians do not share the same sense of urgency that the Apostle Paul had to tell others about Jesus. To tell people the Good News about Salvation in Jesus.

Somewhere over the years, we have lost the sense of urgency to warn the unsaved about the fate that follows a life of no faith in Jesus Christ.

2 Corinthians 4:4 tells us, that Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.

Have we let the devil blind our minds as he has blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they cannot see the way to become children of God?

If we have allowed Satan to blind our minds to the lostness of unsaved people, we will not urgently tell them about how they can be saved by personally trusting in Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.

Today, I want us to consider the lostness of unsaved people and our responsibility to shine Christ's light upon their path, so that they may move from living in the darkness of unbelief apart from God into His marvellous light. As Jesus speaking to the Apostle Paul in Acts 26:18 said ‘to open their eyes, so they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God. Then they will receive forgiveness for their sins and be given a place among God’s people, who are set apart by faith in me.’

There are 6 brief points I want to address today:

Lost Persons Lose the Very Life of God

Lost Persons Lose the Nature of God

Lost Persons Lose the Presence of God

Lost Persons Lose the Guidance of God

Lost Persons Lose the Comfort of God

Lost Souls Lose the Privilege of Going to Heaven.

Lost Persons Lose the Very Life of God

When a person becomes a believer in Jesus, they receive the miracle of new birth, they are born again into the very life of God.

In John 10:28, Jesus said, "I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand."

Those who repent of their sins and trust in Jesus as Lord and Saviour receive eternal life.