One thing we all will agree on is that a church should be a place where sincere Christians have gathered for worship and to see from God’s Word how they can reach the lost.
Illus: The story is told of a two thousand member Baptist church that was filled to overflowing capacity one Sunday morning.
The preacher was ready to start the sermon when two men, dressed in long black coats and black hats entered through the rear of the church.
One of the two men walked to the middle of the church while the other stayed at the back of the church. They both then reached under their coats and withdrew automatic weapons.
The one in the middle announced, "Everyone willing to take a bullet for Jesus stay in your seats!"
Naturally, the pews emptied, followed by the choir. The deacons ran out the door, followed by the choir director and the assistant pastor.
After a few moments, there were about twenty people left sitting in the church. The preacher was holding steady in the pulpit.
The men put their weapons away and said, gently, to the preacher, "All right, pastor, the hypocrites are gone now. You may begin the service."
I am glad you are here tonight and I hope that even the hypocrites are here, because they need to hear this message from the Word of God.
God’s church has the awesome responsibility of reaching the lost for Christ, and we must not get side-tracked from that mission.
Illus: The beloved Vance Havner said that he asked a preacher how he was getting along.
The preacher said, "We are living in idolatry - just sitting around admiring our new church. We have arrived; we have it made - no more worlds to conquer." What ought to be a milestone has become a millstone. We have run out of goals. (Vance Havner, from The Vance Havner Quote Book/On This Rock I Stand. Christianity Today, Vol. 30, no. 16.)
How true this is, one of the most dangerous times for a church is when they move into a new church building.
For months and maybe years, their goal has been to build this place of worship. But once they build it, they have achieved their goal.
We sit in our comfortable churches, thinking we have reached our goal, but with millions of LOST people around us who do not know the Lord, how can the church ever feel we have reached our goal?
From the servant of Naaman we can learn a lot about how the church should DEAL WITH THE LOST!
Satan has thrown up all kinds of BARRIERS to keep the church from doing that.
In the last message, we looked at THE BARRIER OF RACE.
We discovered that PRIDE is the source of all RACIAL and SOCIAL prejudices.
We are told there are 160 million lost people, but we will never be able to reach them until we deal with this matter of RACIAL and SOCIAL prejudice that permeates God’s church. It is prevalent in WHITE CHURCHES and BLACK CHURCHES!
We have looked at THE BARRIER OF RACE (which comes from pride), but let’s look at some more barriers we need to remove if the CHURCH IS GOING TO REACH THE LOST.
II. THE BARRIER OF INDIFFERENCE
HOW CAN YOU TELL IF YOU HAVE BECOME INDIFFERENT?
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE INDIFFERENT?
Being indifferent simply means we SHOW NO INTEREST OR CONCERN!
Let me begin by asking you a series of questions,
(1) Are you as concerned about spiritual things now as when you were first saved?
(2) Do you love the Lord as much now as when you were first saved?
Illus: There is a song that states, “He gets sweeter and sweeter as the days go by, Oh what a love between my Lord and I. I keep falling in love with Him, over and over and over and over again.”
But many, in their relationship with the Lord through the years, have moved further and further away from the Lord, NOT CLOSER AND CLOSER!
• No SONG seems to be able to touch them anymore!
• No SERMON seems to be able to touch them anymore!
Our churches are filled with people who feel it is not their place or their business to talk to people about the Lord.
This is not what the scriptures teaches!
• Mark 16:15 "And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature."
• Matthew 5:13-16 "Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."
The scripture teaches that we are to GO and TELL OTHERS about the Lord.
Some professing Christians will go weeks and weeks and will talk to people about ANYTHING and EVERYTHING, but never talk to them about the Lord Jesus.
The little maid was a servant that God used to get Naaman cured from Leprosy.
Naaman was a big shot in the army. She was a servant! They certainly were not on the same social level. Who did she think she was to stick her nose into Naaman’s business?
Illus: D. L. Moody walked down a Chicago street one day, and he saw a man leaning against a lamppost. The evangelist gently put his hand on the man’s shoulder and asked him if he was a Christian. The fellow raised his fists and angrily exclaimed, "Mind your own business!" "I’m sorry if I’ve offended you," said Moody, "But to be very frank, that IS my business!" Even if people reject the gospel, we still must love them.
She could have easily been INDIFFERENT, but look at 2 Kings 5:2-3, we read, “And the Syrians had gone out by companies, and had brought away captive out of the land of Israel a little maid; and she waited on Naaman's wife. And she said unto her mistress, Would God my lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria! for he would recover him of his leprosy.”
THE CHURCH IS TO BE REACHING THE LOST.
But listen, if the scriptures did not tell us that, common sense tells us that we who know the Lord Jesus as our personal Savior can not sit back and let the lost world die and go to a Christ-less eternity
She was not INDIFFERENT. She made it her business to be concerned about her employer, Naaman, and as a result he was healed of leprosy.
The scriptures teaches us WE CAN NOT BE INDIFFERENT when it comes to trying to reach the lost.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH US? HOW CAN WE BE SO INDIFFERENT?
Illus: If you saw someone drowning and you had a life jacket near you, would you not throw it to them? Of course you would! And how much more important it is that we see people who are lost and dying and going to a Christ-less eternity. If the scripture does not compel us to help them, COMMON DECENCY REQUIRES THAT WE MAKE EVERY EFFORT WE CAN TO REACH THEM.
Illus: When Rosina Hernandez was in college, she once attended a rock concert at which one young man was brutally beaten by another. No one attempted to stop the beating. The next day she was struck dumb to learn that the youth had died because of the pounding. Yet, neither she nor anyone else had raised a hand to help him. She could never forget the incident or her responsibility as an inactive bystander. Some years later, Rosina saw another catastrophe. A car driving in the rain ahead of her suddenly skidded and plunged into Biscayne Bay. The car landed head down in the water with only the tail end showing. In a moment a woman appeared on the surface, shouting for help and saying her husband was stuck inside. This time Rosina waited for no one. She plunged into the water, tried unsuccessfully to open the car door, then pounded on the back window as other bystanders stood on the causeway and watched. First, she screamed at them, begging for help; then cursed them, telling them there was a man dying in the car. First one man, then another, finally came to help. Together they broke the safety glass and dragged the man out. They were just in time -- a few minutes later it would have been all over. The woman thanked Rosina for saving her husband, and Rosina was elated, riding an emotional high that lasted for weeks. She had promised herself that she would never again fail to do anything she could to save a human life. She had made good on her promise. (Bits & Pieces, June 24, 1993, pp. 20-21.)
Illus: In the People’s Republic of China, the largest nation in the world and a billion people strong, is what is called the Three-Self Church. That is the state-approved church. In 1950, some Chinese Christians initiated the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, which promoted the strategy of 'self-governing, self-supportive, and self-propagating' in order to remove foreign influences from the Chinese churches. This was to assure the communist government that the churches would be patriotic to the newly-established People's Republic of China.
At their churches, they sing hymns, some to western tunes. They are allowed to read the Bible. They can pray. They can preach sermons and give Bible teaching.
But listen to this, they’re not allowed to evangelize.
That’s part of the deal with the state. They can do their thing as long as their thing doesn’t include persuading somebody else.
50 million Christians in the People’s Republic of China have chosen NOT to be part of the Three-Self Church, and meet in house churches, because they’re convinced you can’t be a Christian unless you evangelize. They say that the two go together; and if you don’t evangelize, you’re not a Christian. They would say that those who are in the Three-Self church are not Christians, as far as the New Testament definition is concerned.
You see Satan knows that the saved are eternally saved and he can not do anything about that.
HE JUST DOES NOT WANT THE CHURCH TO REACH THE LOST and snatch them away from him.
The New Testament church was not INDIFFERENT, but Satan did everything he could do to stop them from spreading this gospel.
• They were beaten
• They were despised
• They were outcast
• They were jailed
Satan tried to stop them but he couldn’t.
Illus: Edward Everett Hale, the distinguished poet and former Chaplain of the U.S. Senate, while speaking of Americans eloquently captured the essence of every believer’s duty: "I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. What I can do, that I ought to do.”
THE BARRIER OF INDIFFERENCE is a barrier Satan is using mightily to keep THE CHURCH FROM REACHING THE LOST.
We see THE BARRIER OF INDIFFERENCE and -
III. THE BARRIER OF INADEQUACY
Illus: The Reverend Billy Graham tells of a time early in his ministry when he arrived in a small town to preach a sermon. Wanting to mail a letter, he asked a young boy where the post office was.
When the boy had told him, Dr. Graham thanked him and said, "If you'll come to the Church this evening, you can hear me telling everyone how to get to Heaven."
"I don't think I'll be there, " the boy said. "You don't even know your way to the post office."
The Apostle Paul wrote to young Timothy, and he said to him, “PREACH THE WORD!”
Timothy was a young man and evidently he was timid.
The barrier of timidity - “I’m too afraid,” is a big barrier keeping THE CHURCH FROM REACHING THE LOST!
• Jer. 1:8 “Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the LORD.”
• Prov. 29:25 "The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the LORD shall be safe."
Illus: In preparing for his book, Good News is for Sharing, Leighton Ford tells what makes people hesitate to share their faith.
Here are some of the fears that have been mentioned to him:
• "I am afraid I might do more harm than good."
• "I don’t know what to say."
• "I may not be able to give snappy answers to tricky questions."
• "I may seem bigoted."
• "I may invade someone’s privacy."
• "I am afraid I might fail."
• "I am afraid I might be a hypocrite."
Perhaps the most common fear, however, is that of being rejected.
Illus: Howard Hendricks said, “In the midst of a generation screaming for answers, Christians are stuttering.”
Isaiah 41:10 says, "Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness."
God would not call us to do something without being willing to HELP US!
Conclusion:
God has called THE CHURCH TO REACH THE LOST!
We have looked at barriers that keep THE CHURCH FROM REACHING THE LOST! We see -
(2a) (previous message)
I. THE BARRIER OF RACE
(2b)
II. THE BARRIER OF INDIFFERENCE
III. THE BARRIER OF INADEQUACY
