Reaching the Lost
If the mission of Christ was to teach and demonstrate the path to
redemption (Matt. 18:11), and if the representative of Christ in the world today
is the church (I Cor. 12:27), then it is also our mission as members of the
church to teach and demonstrate the path to redemption. It is our mission as disciples of Christ to
reach out to those lost in the darkness of sin and error, and guide them by the
powerful means of eternal Truth (Rom. 1:16, I Pet. 1:25) into paths of light
and righteousness.
This is no small task and we should not take it lightly. We have the awesome responsibility of sharing
the Truth with our fellow men, especially those living in sin and darkness, and
many times this task is easier said than done.
There are many reasons (some might call them excuses) why we don’t share
the Gospel as much as we can and should, but the last reason we should have is
that we are not confident in the power of Truth. As disciples of Christ, our efforts to reach
the lost - passing out flyers, door knocking, talking to a loved one over the
telephone, standing in line with a stranger at the supermarket, through emails
we send, etc. - should all be brimming with confidence. When people hear the Gospel from us, they
should know that we feel like that which we teach and preach is truly powerful
and eternal! For at least two years of his ministry, Paul lived in a hired
house, receiving everyone that came to him, “Preaching the kingdom of
When we are preparing to share the Gospel with others, far from
our minds should be the question, “Is this going to work?” The power of the Truth is spoken of by
scripture and demonstrated by the fact that even in this “modern” world, people
are still being converted by that Truth.
When we are preparing to share the Gospel, the single thought in our
minds should be Romans 1:16, that our message is “the power of God unto
salvation”, and that it will perform its work.
We also need to remember that our confidence is, in fact, in the
Gospel and not in men’s hearts. We know
that there are different types of hearts in the world that will receive the
word in different ways. The parable of
the sower reveals the majority of the seed planted will fail to be fruitful in
most hearts (Matt. 13:3-8), and we know that ultimately those who find the
straight path to righteousness will be few in number (Matt. 7:14), and so we
know that we should not put our confidence in the idea that everyone we teach
will respond. We desire, as does the
Lord, that all men repent and turn to righteousness, and labor with the thought
that everyone is a candidate for salvation; but our confident is not in man to
respond, but in the Word to transform hearts and minds.
As we labor to reach the lost, let us put all of our confidence in
the Lord and His Word. If we are
diligent in delivering that Word to the lost, we can also have confidence in
the fact that we are fulfilling our purpose as the church.
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