Lost - Part 1

"For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost." (Jesus in Luke 19:10)

Do you have a burden for the lost, or have you lost the burden?

I am amazed at a how the post-modern church has left this highly biblical term behind in favor of more culturally sensitive terminology. We talk about the "pre-Christians," "not yet believers" and "seekers." We have come to fear the use of the word lost when describing those who do not have a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Obviously, this shift in semantics was meant to express a biblical idea in a positive or optimistic manner. The word lost conveys negative images. However, call me old school; if the word lost was good enough for Jesus, shouldn't it be good enough for us?

Now I know that my dogmatic argument is probably not going to convince you of the need to recover this allegedly archaic word, so I better make my case before I lose you.

I would like to suggest that lost is actually a positive word.

In Luke 15, Jesus gives three parables about lost things: the parable of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost (or Prodigal) son.

When the shepherd lost 1 of the 99 sheep, he dropped everything he was doing and went to find that one lost sheep. He did not give up until he located the sheep. When the woman lost 1 of her coins, she stopped what she was doing, lit her lamp and swept the house. She did not give up until she had found the coin. The father never lost hope that his son would return and kept watch for his return day and night.

Each lost thing in these parables was valued highly in the eyes of the one searching for it. In fact, the lost thing was so valued, the "owner" went to great pains to recover it.

If an object - a trinket, a watch, my mobile phone, money or _______ - is valuable to me, I will exhaust every effort to find the missing item. I will even rejoice when I recover the item and share the happy news with someone else. I don't get stressed out about losing something that has no intrinsic value.

So when I say that someone is lost, I am not just talking about their spiritual depravity and I am not trying to be offensive; I am saying that that person is valuable to God and to me. So valuable in fact, that God sent his precious son to die upon a cruel cross for that person's soul.

The terms pre-Christian, not yet believer and seeker just don't say much about the person's value in the eyes of God. In fact, these terms take the focus off of God and place the focus on man. The term lost implies the need for external help in order to be located. (A tip of the hat to any reformed theologians out there.)

In the next post, I will talk about the why is it is so important to help believers in today's church understand what it means to be lost. The future of evangelism depends on us recovering the idea of lostness.

3 Commandments of Friendfluence - Pt. 3

“I've become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life.” 1 Corinthians 9:22 The Message*

In my previous post, I talked about what it means to “see” people. That is, to acknowledge their existence, to enter into their world and understand them. In this post, I want to talk about sharing the good news with them.

Ultimately, Paul was concerned with sharing the message of Jesus Christ with everyone. By serving them and seeing them as people, he had earned the right to be heard. We are living in a day when people will listen to you if you earn the right from them to be heard. That means treating them with respect; not treating them as another notch in your evangelism belt.

In an article written by Dr. Thom Rainer entitled Ten Surprises About the Unchurched, Dr. Rainer talks about the importance of relationships in sharing the gospel. A team was commissioned by Dr. Rainer to research the attitudes of unchurched people – i.e. those that did not maintain an ongoing relationship with any local church. One of his researchers wrote the following in a memo to Dr. Rainer:

“Most of the unchurched that the team is interviewing would respond positively to a 'genuine' Christian who would spend time with them in a gentle, non-judgmental relationship…”

I realize that I have just made a whole bunch of people practice confrontational evangelism madder than a wet hornet. First of all, I am not against confrontational evangelism. In fact, I often practice it. I preach evangelistic crusades, I share with people one-on-one, I give out bible tracts and everything else you can imagine to reach people with the gospel. So hold the angry e-mails.

I just know that most people come to faith in Christ as a result of the influence of their family members or friends. (Hence the term FriendFluence.) In fact, a survey quoted by Elmer Towns in Church Growth, State of the Art stated that 86% of the people who came to faith in Christ did so due to the influence of friends or relatives…

HOW PEOPLE ARE BROUGHT INTO THE CHURCH

By Advertisement 2%
By the Pastor 6%
By Organized Evangelistic Outreach 6%
By Friends and Relatives 86%
From: Church Growth, State of the Art

However, there is a very real danger that we will focus on building the relationship with the person, and never getting around to sharing the good news. We must never forget that our task is to bring others into a personal relationship with Jesus. We cannot automatically assume that they are going to see how we live and be attracted to Jesus. Beside all that, I don’t ever recall seeing a believer who lived such a holy life that people fell at their feet begging to come to Jesus.

Paul made sure that the people he encountered heard a clear presentation of the gospel. In fact he said, “woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” (1 Cor. 9:16 HCSB) I believe that everyone deserves to hear a clear presentation of God’s message of salvation alone through Jesus Christ. As we build our relationships with people, we must ask God to give us opportunities to share the good news with our friends. It is not our job to save them – we cannot; it is our job to share with them.

Who in your circle of influence have you shared the good news with?

*I used the Message paraphrase due to the clarity of the passage.

Building Friendships for Eternity

FriendFluence: actively pursuing relationships with people in order to win them to Christ, build them in faith and send them back into the world to influence others.

One of the most distressing things I have seen in modern Christianity - at least in the western world - is our apathy toward sharing the greatest message of all - the good news of Jesus Christ. Jesus said in the gospel of John that He "came so that people might have life and have it in abundance."

According to the teaching of the Bible, Jesus died on the cross, was buried, rose from the dead on the third day and ascended to the father in heaven so that the sins of the world could be forgiven. By faith, anyone who turns from their sins (repents) and believes in Him can find that abundant life which is for now and forever more. In my book, that qualifies as good - no...GREAT news!

Yet, I am baffled when I meet Christians who say that they have met Jesus, yet have no desire to see other people experience the joy of knowing Jesus personally. Could it be as Billy Graham once said: "the greatest hindrance to evangelism today is the poverty of our own experience." In other words, Christians don't tell others about Jesus because they never met Him in the first place. God forbid...

FriendFluence is about teaching believers to look for ways to build relationships with people who have never met Jesus Christ in order to introduce them to Him, build them in their faith, and teach them to influence others in the same way.

This Blog is dedicated to the development and teaching of a Bible based curriculum called FriendFluence which was created by Evangelist Darrel Davis of Foundation Ministries. The goal of this curriculum is to change the mindset of believers when it comes to spreading the message of Jesus Christ and equip them to take an active role in reaching people.

I welcome your constructive input through comments and suggestions. Keep checking back for more posts and updates on the development of this curriculum. My desire is to equip Christians to build Friendships for eternity.