The priority of saving the lost: getting back to the raw edge of our faith

Pastor Hans Voortman

Rummaging through a stack of old L.P.'s recently, I experienced a whole range of nostalgic feelings as I remembered forgotten artists and songs and all the memories associated with them. Amongst them was one by Andrea Crouch and the Disciples. Boy, did this group impact my early Christian life! The song that gripped me afresh was the title track "Take Me Back". It urges us to remember our gospel roots and the time we first believed in the Lord. I found myself weeping and overcome by the 'raw edge' feelings of my faith back then.

They were revolutionary days, the early seventies. It was the time of the Vietnam War, moratorium marches, radical university campuses. There was a score of Eastern religions that exploded on the Aussie landscape and also there was the Jesus revolution, a real revival of biblical Christianity. They were the days when the Lord found me and a radical discipleship transformed my life.

THE PRIORITY OF SHARING JESUS

For me, the prime urgency of those early Christian days was the priority of sharing Jesus. But it wasn't just me: the whole youth group and Uni scene I was into shared that same burden. It was a passion, a driving force that overwhelmed all other priorities. We were Jesus revolutionaries who went out onto the streets doing drama and street-work, running rallies, publishing 'Jesus Papers', baptising people in the sea and university fountains and confronting the many false cults and religions that appeared. I can recall many an interaction with Hare Krishna's and confrontations with the followers of the Guru Maharaji, a young boy of 12 years of age who was the supposed messiah for the 1970's. They were heady days, with a sense of whole-hearted abandonment to seeing people won over to the Lord.

As I listened to the Andrea Crouch song, all these memories and feelings started flowing back. It was one of these God-ordained times when I sensed the Holy Spirit had been setting something up without me realising. I found the Lord taking me back to my roots - to the 'raw edge' I described earlier.

Things of faith were uncomplicated then. There was not the clutter of the many voices we now hear in the Christian community. Counselling, inner healing, healing of the memories, etc. were of minor importance. Little was understood about spiritual warfare, spiritual mapping, strategic level intercession, breaking territorial spirits and the like. No one was into the dimensions of spirituality as we now know them. Little was appreciated of spiritual gifts, ministry gifts, moving in signs and wonders, or the dynamics of praying for people. In so many ways we were raw, naive recruits who just knew Jesus and wanted to make Him known.

SHEER SIMPLICITY OF FAITH

But it was the sheer simplicity of our faith that at that moment captured me again. It wasn't that I'd ever lost my sense of commitment to the lost - I still believed I had it. But in that instant, with a whoosh of emotion and Holy Spirit-prompted memories, I was back there in touch with the feelings of my youth - not just a commitment mentally, but also an emotional and spiritual passion.

I felt again God's Father-heart for people. Deep down, something, that unbeknown to me had grown distant, was rekindled. The gripping desperation of people in their sin and the urgency to tell them of Jesus whilst there was yet time stirred me afresh. The Holy Spirit was wooing me back, or should I say compelling me back, to that most rudimentary and foundational aspect of our Christian lives: to fulfil the great commission - to ache with God's heart for those who don't know Him.

A HEART FOR THE LOST

It's easy as a 'professional' Christian to get out of touch with these critical feelings. The pastoral role is such that you can easily find yourself far removed from the very people the Church exists to reach. Caught in a Christian sub-culture, with its introspective bias, one's time, energy and focus can so easily be hijacked to meet only the needs of the Christian community. However valid these needs are, they should still remain subservient to our highest goal, that of reaching the lost.

Jesus came "to seek and save the lost" (Luke 19:10). He said, "I didn't come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance" (Matt. 9"13). To the chagrin of the Pharisees he preferred to minister to the prostitutes, tax collectors and misfits of his world. His heart was for the common folk and He had little time to be absorbed in the religious sub-culture of His day. The Pharisees and Sadducees couldn't handle this, but Jesus knew His father's priority - those who were lost sheep.

In the great apologetic for evangelism in Luke 15, three times in a row Jesus reiterates stories to drive this point home. The parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son were aimed at breaking Jesus' followers free from their complacency and keeping them on their toes toward God's redemptive plan.

These parables emphasise the desperation of God's heart for the lost. He leaves the ninety-nine sheep to go after the one. The whole house is turned upside down to find the one lost coin. With patience and a desperate longing, the Father keeps a look out for the prodigal's return. Jesus not only thereby stresses the priority of our mission as Christians, but then further illuminates the sheer elation Heaven experiences when even one soul returns to the Lord. A party is thrown, the other shepherds are called, the neighbours are invited over, the fatted calf is killed. All because one has come home to the fold! In fact the Bible states "there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety nine righteous persons who do not need to repent" (Luke 15:7). That's the Father-heart of God. That's the priority that drove Jesus in all that He did, even to the cross.

A GOSPEL OF SELF

I wonder if there has been a subtle seduction of Christianity in recent years away from an outward-looking gospel to a gospel of self-centredness. This has bred a certain callousness to the plight of the unsaved. I sense that the plethora of emphases on counselling, spiritual warfare, even worship and growing in our life in the Spirit, whilst wonderful and enriching, have caused us to develop an ego-centric bias to our gospel. Me-and-my-needs and what's-in-it-for-me represent a consumer mentality that the Charismatic movement, perhaps unwittingly, has fostered. We became hooked on a gospel of blessings, introspective intimacy with God, and pursuit of the anointing, unfortunately to the neglect of our prime raison d'etre - to mount a rescue mission into hell!

In fact how little we've come to think of hell! It's not fashionable, as it's perceived to give such a negative feel to the gospel! Yet Jesus told the gripping story of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) as the 'dessert' to follow his three-course 'lost' parables in the previous chapter. From hell, in desperation, the rich man cries out to Lazarus the leper to go and warn his relatives of hell's horror and their impending doom. For all our change of focus to a 'blessing' and 'power' gospel and its unforgettable emphasis on 'me', the reality of hell remains unchanged for 'them'.

A BURDEN FOR SOULS

I sense that what I've been feeling is a wind that God is causing to blow across His church. He's calling us to get back to basics. To get back to where the rubber hits the road. Recently I read a report on the Argentine revival. Interestingly, Carlos Annacondia commented:

"I suffer when I see the church so bound up, just receiving blessings for themselves and getting fuller and fuller with the Holy Spirit, going about their daily lives, then returning to a service a couple of days later to get filled again - while the world is going to hell.

God told me clearly: The anointing that He is giving to the church is for evangelism. If we don't give that anointing to the lost, it dries up within us. The anointing grows as we give it away."

In the current "move of the Spirit", we too could easily fall into the trap of the same consumerism that so much contemporary charismatic experience has been seduced into. The outstanding displays of God's anointing and great out-pourings are not to over-feed already obese Christians, but rather to spur Christians on to the greatest era of world evangelisation the church has ever witnessed. I sense nothing short of God's promised great end-time harvest as His objective. Far beyond Toronto, Sunderland or Pensacola, more impacting than what is being witnessed in South America, God is awakening this spiritual giant, the Church, for its finest hour.

Andrea Crouch's words on that LP simply went:

"Take me back, Take me back dear Lord

To the place where I first received you;

Take me back, Take me back dear Lord

Where I first believed."

God rekindled something that I'd allowed to grow cool. As Paul said to Timothy, "Fan into a flame" (2 Tim. 1:6) your experience in God. The words of Hebrews 2:3 continue to ring in my ears: "How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?" I urge you to remind each other of your conversion stories; of the time you first believed. Don't get out of touch, don't ignore the simplicity of the gospel. Most fundamentally it's a salvation plan. It's about an escape plan as the verse above reminds us.

FEEDING THE PASSION

There have been a number of things that I have found helpful in rekindling this passion for souls in my own life. Let me briefly list them for you.

1. Remember your Roots!

Tell your own story and that of others and how the Lord met you. Nothing ignites this passion like appreciating afresh the awesomeness of God changing lives.

2. Read mission biographies and stories of changed lives.

To capture the heart of pioneering missionaries and their single-minded commitment to sharing Jesus rejuvenates my own passion. I remember well the impact of movies like The Mission and The Hiding Place which spoke of a passion for Jesus and making him known, often at the peril of death. Or the books I read early in my Christian experience like The Cross and the Switchblade and Run Baby Run which were both about lives transformed by Jesus.

3. Keep in touch with your culture.

Go out and watch people. Wonder about their lives and what goes on behind the masks of self-sufficiency. Get the demographics on your community. What is the level of pain from divorce, crime, youth suicide, racial tensions. In other words, get in touch with your world and its need for Jesus. Stir yourself to get involved in human need - cross the road like the good Samaritan - at cost to yourself, change your priorities - come out of your comfort zone - empathise with those in need.

4. Read the Scriptures and books on soul-winning.

Get Jesus's heart and that of the apostles for their world. Inculcate yourself with their spirit. I've made it my objective to read everything I can on soul-winning again: books I've read before, and new material such as Bill Hybels excellent book and training series, Contagious Christianity .

5. Equip and prepare yourself!

Writing in the back of your bible a list of Scriptures pertinent to leading someone to Jesus (such as Rom. 10:9; 1 Jn. 1:9; Rom. 3:23; Rom. 6:23; Jn. 3:16; 1 Jn. 5:12; Rev. 3:20; etc.) can help you immeasurably. Do a training course through your local church on how to lead someone to Jesus. The Contagious Christianity course mentioned earlier is a good example. Keep a number of tracts handy or invitations to meetings that you might spontaneously give to people. It keeps you thinking evangelically and on your toes looking for the opportunities the Holy Spirit might be setting up.

6. Pray, pray, pray!

Who's on your prayer list? The chances are, if you're not interceding for folk, you're probably also not reaching out to the lost. As you pray, you gain a burden, sharpness of focus and an anticipatory faith-heart that God is going to open a door for your witness. In our church over recent months we've set up a 'Soul Bowl'. In it are lists of friends, relatives, neighbours and workmates. We're praying and trusting for doors of opportunity to open so as to share our faith with these people and their need for Jesus.

7. Take steps of faith!

Remember God does the saving, we do the bringing of the good news. As the Scripture says "How can they hear without someone preaching to them? . How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" (Rom. 10:14-15) Step over the threshold of fear and embarrassment, ask God for His enabling, and begin to verbalise your faith to those He brings across your path. Look for and anticipate the opportunities God might be setting up. We all know the let-down of missed opportunities. In contrast there's probably no greater joy than to know you've helped lead someone to Jesus! The great commission to "go into all the world . and you shall be my witnesses" (Mark 16:15; Acts 1:8) was an all embracing challenge. It's par for the course for all Christians. None of us is let off the hook! We're all challenged to share our faith. So take the steps of faith and determine, with God's help, to do it!

The harvest is plentiful, but .

Now this may all seem rather obvious and basic to you, but I believe the cry of the Lord is still the same: "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few" (Matt. 9:37). It's been sobering to reflect on my own soul winning resolve of late. How available and how widely am I interacting with non-believers? Is it a priority in my life? God is stirring His church. I sense that all the Charismatic/Pentecostal blessing over recent decades has been to prepare His church for a season of reaping like never before. I read recently the statement: "The church exists for the benefit of its non-members!" Let's keep that perspective, feel the Father's heart, remember our own wondrous salvation and prioritise afresh our availability to be used by God in what is still life's highest calling for anyone - to be a soul-winner!

"Remember those earlier days after you had received the light ." (Heb. 10:32).

 

References:

• Randy Clark: Argentina's Revival, in Ministries Today, March/April 1997, p24

• Andrea Crouch, on the album Take me Back , Title song, 1973 Lexicon Music