Who’s Your One? | A Heart That Breaks for the Lost

When is the last time you cried for somebody who doesn't know Jesus?

You know, Jesus told a story once about two men.

One was rich, you know, had fine clothing, big house, a gate out front.

Then there was also a poor man named Lazarus.

He he laid outside the gate.

He was covered in sores.

He was hoping for scraps off of the rich man's table.

Both men died.

And Jesus says that the rich man ends up in torment.

And I want you to notice what this man asks for.

He looks up and he begs.

He says, Then I beg you, Father.

Now he's talking about Abraham.

He says, Then I beg you, Father.

Send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers.

Let him warn them so that they will not also come to this place of torment.

Church, the only person in that story who is desperate for his family to be warned is a man who's already in hell.

Now, the man who wrote the passage we're going to be looking at this morning had that same sort of desperation, except he was still alive.

His name was Paul.

Now to give you some context, Paul had received lashings from the Jews for preaching the gospel.

In 2 Corinthians 11, he says that five times I received from the Jews the 40 lashes minus one.

In other words, 39 lashes five times.

That's a hundred and ninety-five lashes on one man's back.

Just imagine how torn apart this man's back was.

That was the synagogue's punishment to one of their own when they believed they crossed the line.

And understand, Paul, he didn't have to keep taking it.

He could have walked away from the synagogues.

He could have kept his back clean and healed.

He could have just preached to the Gentiles, the non-Jewish people.

But he kept going back.

Town after town, he walked into the synagogues and he told his own people about Jesus.

And in return, he took the whip.

He chose the whip over walking away.

That is the heart for the one.

Church, we are in a series titled, Who's Your One?

We are leaning into the mission of seeing God transform the lives of lost ones, the lost ones who are all around us, to see God change eternal destinies, one life, one soul, one name at a time.

And this morning, my prayer is that the Spirit of God would give each of us a bigger heart for our lost ones.

And to get there, we're going to look honestly, honestly and deeply at the lostness of the lost.

So if you've got your Bibles, you can open up to Romans chapter 9.

Romans 9 · chapter mention

You got Bibles in front of you at the pews.

You can open up your Bible apps, or you can follow along on the screen.

I'm going to start in verse 1.

Now remember again, this is the man who received 195 lashes onto his back.

Okay?

Listen to what he says about the people who did that to him.

Romans 9, verse 1.

Romans 9:1

I speak the truth in Christ.

I'm not lying.

My conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit.

I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.

For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, the people of Israel.

Theirs is the adoption to sonship, theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship, and the promises.

Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised.

Amen.

He's got three witnesses.

Verse 1, he says, I speak the truth in Christ.

I am not lying.

My conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit.

You've got Jesus Christ, you've got Paul himself through the conscience, you know, being bearing witness by the Holy Spirit, and you've got the Holy Spirit.

You got three people working in that.

Now, why does he do that?

Why does a grown man, an apostle, need three witnesses before he can tell you that he's sad?

Because he wants you to understand that what he says is true.

And it's the work of God in him.

It's not something he produced on his own.

I mean, you gotta understand, his own people lashed him.

They threw rocks at him and left him for dead.

I mean, he could have written these people off.

I mean, they the everybody would have expected him to write these people off.

So he swears, I'm not lying.

And then he goes on to verse 2 and says, I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.

Great sorrow, unceasing anguish.

This isn't the language of outrage.

It isn't somebody looking down on people.

It's the language of a broken heart.

That word unceasing, it's the same word Paul uses when he tells us to pray without ceasing.

It doesn't switch off.

This isn't a mood that shows up at a funeral and then leaves by the time you reach the parking lot.

Paul is carrying this everywhere.

He carries it to bed.

He wakes up with it.

And understand this is the same man who just finished Romans chapter 8 that nothing, nothing can separate us from the love of God.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

You've got the most secure man in the Bible, and he's walking around with a hole in his heart.

He's got the joy in Christ on one side, and he's got anguish for his people on the other.

You know, a few years ago, I was in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.

We were walking through the mall, and I heard this woman scream in one of the stores.

And this wasn't some normal scream.

This is a high-pitched screeching scream, the kind of scream that turns your whole body around before your brain catches up.

So I ran toward the scream.

There was this changing room with a frosted glass door, and a little boy's fingers were caught between the glass door and the wall.

Stuck.

And if you tried to open the door, if anybody tried to pull that door open, those fingers were coming off.

So the mother is screaming.

The security guard in the store panicking.

He doesn't know what to do.

The employees, they're just standing there frozen, stiff, and just scared.

And I'm looking at this little boy's fingers.

I'm seeing them start to change color.

They're losing blood.

And something in me said, if we don't do something now, this boy, he's gonna lose all his fingers.

So I yelled.

I said, go give me a hammer, get anything solid.

Security guard ran around and he finally came back with a hammer.

Now, I couldn't see through that frosted glass.

So I told the mom, step back, cover the boy's face, cover his eyes, cover his mouth.

And I tried to hit the glass in a spot hoping that the glass wouldn't just splatter all over them.

So I hit the glass, pop, broke open, finger cut fingers come free.

The boy's safe.

Eventually, the medics come home come over and take care of him.

Now, I'm not telling you this story because I'm brave.

I'm telling you this story because that was a stranger's kid.

And it was a finger.

It was a stranger's finger that made me run toward a scream in a store on the other side of the world.

And yet, there are people in my life whom I love, who I care about, who may be cut off from Jesus Christ.

And days, weeks, months, even years go by, and I sleep just fine.

I sleep just fine.

Why?

Why don't we cry for our lost ones?

Why aren't we filled with anguish over the lost people in our lives?

You know, everybody in that store was looking at the same door, but they only saw what was right in front of them.

A stuck kid and a screaming mom.

Nobody was thinking about the next five minutes.

The possibility of that little boy with his fingers being cut off, and forever for the rest of his life, he'd have no fingers on that hand.

They saw the moment.

They didn't see what was coming.

In church?

I think that's us with our lost ones.

We only see the here and now.

Your brother seems fine.

I mean, he's got a truck, he's got a job, he's got a truck, he's got a girlfriend, everything's good.

Maybe your coworker, you know, they they they seem fine.

You know, she's got a condo on the water, and her weekends, she's on her boat.

Right now, everything looks okay.

We've lost sight of what's coming.

Paul hadn't.

Paul saw where his people were headed, and he couldn't sit still over it.

And look, I know we've got all we've all got you know different reasons, maybe some good ones.

You know, Lord, I'd say something to my brother, but but you know how he gets.

Lord, I talked to my coworker about you, but it's Q4, it's times are busy right now, I just don't have time to talk to him right now.

Lord, I'd invite my neighbor, but she's into crystals and horoscopes and sages.

I mean, she's got this whole thing going on.

Or Lord, I'd pray for my child.

But you're sovereign.

You've got this.

Now look, a lot of those reasons may come from good places.

You don't want to be pushy.

Well, that's good.

Your ones, the lost ones in your life, they are people, not projects.

You trust God is in control.

Good.

He is in control.

But somewhere along the way, church, our excuses made us comfortable.

And our comfort got more precious to us than their soul.

And we've taken these all these excuses.

We've taken all these excuses and use it as a reason to stop praying for the lost ones in our life.

But I want you to hear this, church.

I want you to hear this carefully.

A calm heart isn't always a peaceful heart.

Sometimes it's a numb heart.

And a numb heart doesn't pray, it goes quiet.

So if that's you this morning, if you're sitting here thinking, I honestly can't remember the last time I cried for anybody who didn't know Jesus.

Okay, listen to this, okay?

I want you to hear this carefully as well.

If this is you, you can't remember the last time you cried over somebody who didn't know Jesus.

I don't want you to think that this is some manufactured religious emotion.

Paul is speaking in Christ with his conscience bearing witness in the Holy Spirit.

So if you don't have his heart for the loss, don't pretend you do.

Don't do that.

Ask God to give you one.

Lord, break my numbness.

Break my heart over my lost friend, lost brother, sister, mom, dad, neighbor, co-worker.

Break my heart for their lostness.

And that is a prayer God loves to answer.

Paul goes on.

Verse three, he says, For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people.

That word cursed in the original language that Paul wrote in is the word anathema.

It means handed over to God's judgment, set apart for destruction under God's curse.

That's what lost means.

Not unchurched, not a little off track, not a bad person, cursed and cut off from Christ.

You know, there's this TV show.

Never seen it.

It's called The Walking Dead.

To my surprise, it ran for about 11 seasons, or maybe exactly 11 seasons.

I don't know.

11 seasons.

It just communicated something to me.

It said it told me that people love zombies.

In fact, for a while, sorry, babe, for a while, my wife played Plants and Zombies, this little video game on the phone.

So people love zombies in movies and TV shows and video games, you know, bodies walking around with nothing alive on the inside.

Funny thing is, the Bible actually describes zombies first.

I know you're like, what?

What are you talking about?

Paul in Ephesians 2.

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sin in which you used to live.

Dead and living.

Walking around, going to work, paying your rent, coaching little league, yet spiritually dead.

And Paul isn't, he's not talking about someday, he's not talking about the future.

Look, his people are cut off now.

And Jesus says it clearly in John 3.36 whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on them.

Church, do you understand what that means?

The people around you who are lost, who have not placed their faith in Jesus, God's wrath remains upon them, not someday, right now, today.

Look, hell isn't some surprise twist at the end of a game.

It's the road, it's where the road they're on already ends.

Look, church, history is going somewhere.

All of history, all of history is going somewhere.

It's headed in a direction.

Jesus is coming back, and he's gonna set everything right.

Revelation 21 says that the new heavens and the new earth, no more tears.

Wow, I must be preaching hard that that thing opened up.

I'm like, what's he doing back here?

I thought he was gonna pull my cord and not let me speak anymore.

Look, history is headed somewhere.

Jesus is coming back.

He is going to make all things right.

He's gonna make a new heavens and a new earth.

No more tears, no more death, no more sin.

That's Revelation 21.

But right before Revelation chapter 21, there's chapter 20.

Revelation 21 · chapter mention

And in chapter 20, it says that one day the dead, great and small, will stand before God's throne and the books will be opened.

And verse 15 says this anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.

Jesus called it outer darkness, where there'll be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

C.S.

Lewis wrote about this.

He said that going to heaven would be us becoming more human than you ever were on earth.

You become more you than you can even possibly imagine.

But going to hell, you're being banished from humanity.

He says what ends up in hell isn't really a man anymore.

Church, you and I were made in the image of God.

We were made to reflect him, we were made to know him.

A person cut off from him forever doesn't just suffer.

They become less human.

Gutted.

Like a house after a hurricane.

Walls still standing, but everything inside gone.

Ruined.

Now listen, I didn't I wouldn't be much of a pastor if I didn't say this.

I don't know the final destination on any single person, on any one person.

Not your dad, not the friend you maybe buried last year.

That belongs to God alone.

But one thing we can be sure of, Genesis says, will not the judge of all the earth do right?

He will.

He will do what's right in his eyes.

And look, if you belong to Jesus this morning and you're sitting here, maybe a little scared, maybe a little frightened by what's been shared so far, and you're thinking, Am I cut off?

Go back one chapter into Romans 8 and remind yourself that nothing, nothing can separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.

Nothing.

But for the ones who don't know him, Paul knew exactly what cut off means.

That's why he couldn't stop crying over them.

About a week and a half ago, I was speaking at a conference in Dallas.

Somebody in the crowd asked me, what's it been like?

What's it been like coming to faith with Hindu parents?

And unexpectedly, I fell apart in front of everybody.

And not not the pretty kind of crying.

I'm talking about the the ugly, snot down your face kind of crying.

And we've had some hard days.

Hard years rather.

My parents and me.

But that's not why I cried.

I cried because my mom and dad, they don't know Jesus.

And it hit me.

It hit me in that moment that that I hadn't really prayed for them in years.

I hadn't I hadn't cried over their losses in a long time until that moment.

But I know.

Oh I know that the same mercy that reached me can reach them.

The same God who opened my eyes can open theirs.

And church, that's why we don't grieve like people without hope.

Jesus is still saving people.

He is still opening blind eyes.

He is still bringing sinners from death to life.

The person whose name is gonna go on this tag is not beyond God's reach.

So we don't look at lost people and say, Well, you know what?

They're too far gone.

No, we pray.

We pray, we pray, we pray, and we pray.

With godly confidence.

You know, maybe for you it's your parents too.

Or your brother who you haven't really spoken to in years.

Or the friend who who walked away.

Maybe walked away from the faith.

Maybe it's a child who won't call back.

Or a neighbor or coworker who you know is walking around as a spiritual zombie, spiritually dead.

Paul's people were the people who whipped him.

And he still couldn't stop crying over them.

And he still didn't stop sharing Jesus to them.

Look at this tag in your hand.

Can you guys lift it up for a moment?

The one with the green, I don't know, leaves, whatever it is.

You might already know whose name goes there.

Maybe you have two or three or five names.

Reflect on that name.

Pray for that name.

Why don't you look at verse four again?

Paul starts listing everything his people had.

The Israelites were given a lot.

Theirs is the adoption to sonship.

God called Israel his son.

There's the divine glory.

God's own presence lived with them in their temple.

They had the covenants, God's binding promises, the law, the worship, the promises, the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

They had the great great grandfathers.

I mean, nobody in history was ever given more.

And still they were cut off.

What does that show us?

See, some of our ones are close.

Maybe real close.

Your sister maybe grew up in church.

She knows every song.

She went to VBS every summer.

Grandma prayed for her by name every single night.

She can quote John 3.16 faster than you can.

And yet she still doesn't know Jesus.

And some of you are here this morning.

And that's you.

You grew up all around all of this.

You know the words, you know the churchy language.

You know when to stand up and when to sit down.

You know the right words to speak.

You're close.

But close isn't saved.

You can grow up right next to the gifts, the good gifts that God gives us, and still not have the gift giver.

So that might be you.

And then Paul gets to the last thing on the list.

The biggest thing.

He says, from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah.

The Messiah, the king that God promised.

He came from their family.

He had their blood in his veins.

They had him in the family tree.

And yet.

Because this is what I don't want you to miss.

If we jump back to verse three, Paul says, I could wish.

Hear this carefully, guys.

I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people.

Paul is saying, if I could take their curse, I would.

If I could take their place, I would.

If I could go where they're going so that they could go home to be with God, I would do it.

But he can't.

He knows he can't.

I mean, he because the guy again, he just wrote Romans 8.

And understand something.

No sinner can.

No sinner can carry another sinner's curse.

Paul could only wish he could, but he knew he couldn't do it.

But one man from that same family, from that same people, he didn't wish it.

He did it.

Galatians 3, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.

For it is written, curse is everyone who is hung on a pole.

On a Friday?

Jesus the Messiah, the one Israel had been waiting on for two thousand years.

He's taken outside the city wall.

And understand, that's where you took the unclean things, the cursed things.

And they drive the nails through his hands.

And they lift him up on a wooden pole.

And every person walking past, they know what that means.

They know what the law says about a man hung on a tree.

Cursed.

Jesus took the real curse, the one God's law puts on every one of us who has broken it.

And he took it on a cross.

At noon, the sky goes black.

Three hours of darkness in the middle of the day.

And at three o'clock, the Son of God, loved by the Father before the world began, cries out in a loud voice, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Church, that's what cut off sounds like.

Jesus was cut off.

He took the anathema, he took the curse.

He went to the place Paul could only wish he could go.

The judgment that was coming for you, he walked straight into it and he carried all of it.

Everything.

Everything that should have left you and me ruined and gutted, that would have left us less human.

He took it into his own body.

So that you and I could be made fully human again.

To be made fully alive in Christ, fully his.

And understand the curse, couldn't hold him.

Sunday morning, the tomb is empty.

The debt paid.

Death lost.

Paul couldn't take their place.

Jesus, he took your place.

Paul couldn't.

Jesus did.

I mean, that's the whole difference between a good man and a savior.

Remember verse four?

He said, theirs is the adoption.

This is what anchors us, people.

This is what gives us our new identity.

Jesus doesn't just pull cursed people out from under the curse and leave them standing in the street.

He brings them into the house.

He brings them into the family.

And he gives them his name.

He calls you sons and daughters.

So why don't we cry for our lost friends?

Last week we said that you were somebody's one.

You were.

Somebody prayed for you.

Somebody cried over you.

And long before any of them did, Jesus did.

We stop grieving for our one when we forget that we were the ones Jesus came for.

He wept over Jerusalem.

He had compassion on the lost.

And then he went to the cross and was cut off so that sinners like us could be brought close.

Could be made right with God.

And look, if you're here this morning and you don't know Jesus, if you have not committed your life to Jesus, I am I'm talking to you right now.

In fact, I am pleading with you.

You are not here by accident.

Maybe somebody wrote your name down a long time ago, and maybe that person's been praying for you for years.

Maybe it's your grandmother, your mom, maybe it's the friend sitting right next to you.

Maybe you're here because the person next to you made you come.

I want you to understand something.

They brought you here because they care about you.

They care about they have genuine concern and compassion over you, over your life, over your soul, over your destiny.

Don't stay cut off.

Don't stay a spiritual zombie.

Don't stay on the road to becoming ruined and less human.

Jesus was cut off in your place.

The curse you deserve, he already carried.

So turn from your sin.

Stop trying to fix yourself and put your whole weight on Jesus.

The way you put your whole weight on a chair, trust him.

Trust him today.

After the service, don't don't just run off.

Tell somebody.

Come find me after the service.

I would love nothing more than to talk with you about this.

I want you to see one more thing.

I want you to see what Paul, where Paul goes one chapter later.

Chapter 10.

In Romans chapter 10, he says this.

Romans 10 · chapter mention

Brothers and sisters, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved.

Desire and prayer.

Paul wants it with everything in him.

And then he takes it to the only one who can do it.

Why does Paul pray?

Because Paul believes God saves.

He knows God saves.

Look, anguish without sovereignty of God will become despair.

Sovereignty without anguish becomes apathy.

You become indifferent.

Paul has both.

He has a broken heart and he has confidence in a saving God.

About sixteen hundred years ago, there was a mother in North Africa named Monica.

Her son was brilliant, gifted in so many ways.

But he was also chasing every lustful pleasure he could possibly find.

He later wrote that his mother, understand this, his mother wept over him more than mothers weep when their children die.

That's how much she wept.

One night, he decided to sail to Rome.

Monica followed him down to the shore and begged him not to go.

He lied to her.

He told her he was just staying with a friend until the wind was right.

She spent the night praying in a little chapel by the water.

And while she prayed, he got on the ship, sailed away.

In the morning, the ship was gone.

He wrote that she was wild with grief.

And then she did what she always did.

She took her son in prayer back to God.

Years later, in Milan, that son gave his life to Jesus.

His name, Saint Augustine.

Augustine's influence to the church has expanded over sixteen hundred years.

Famous for his ideas on divine grace and sin, and the famous quote that our hearts are restless until they rest in God.

Church, God still saves sons.

God still saves daughters.

God still saves husbands and wives and parents and friends.

God still saves.

Look, Monica's story isn't a formula.

I'm not going to stand here and promise you your one comes home the way Augustine did.

But I can promise you this.

Your prayers and your tears aren't wasted.

Not when you carry them to God.

You can't save your one.

But you know the one who can save.

So keep praying for your one.

Keep bringing that name to God.

The tag with the green leaves.

I want you to take that tag.

I want you to write one name on it.

Could be a first name or initials, whatever.

Somebody you know and love who, as far as you know, doesn't know Jesus.

Maybe it's a grandkid or a child who's gone astray.

Maybe it's the guy you work next to, or a partner in your firm, or the man you play golf with every Saturday.

Whoever it is, write their name.

And as you leave the service, there's gonna be a bowl next to this beautiful tree that hand my sister-in-law created for us.

Put the name in the bowl.

We're gonna take those names, we're gonna clip them, and we're gonna hang it on that tree.

And as a church, we're gonna pray for those names.

We're going to pray for every one of those names as often as we can.

In fact, starting next week, come earlier to the service, even if it's just by 15 minutes, come at 1045, and we as a church are gonna pray for those lost ones.

We're gonna pray for those names together.

In fact, I want to see that tree grow over the next few months.

I want to see that tree filled with 400 names of lost people in our lives that we are praying for on a regular basis.

And see God work miraculously in transforming their lives.

You've got another tag that says who's your one?

This tag is for you to take home.

I don't want you to write a name on the tag, have it hung on the tree, and then walk out of here and forget about the lost people in your life.

Write their names on these tags, bring them home, put it on your refrigerator, put it on your mirror, put it wherever you see it every day, and pray.

Pray Paul's prayer for that person.

Lord, save them and use their name specifically.

Save so and so.

Because I'll be the first to tell you when you pray for the lost by name, God softens your heart.

He softens your heart for them, He increases your compassion and concern for that person.

And look, you may not know.

You may not know that your prayer for them might be the beginning of their rescue.

Remember the rich man?

He begged for somebody to go warn his brothers.

It was too late.

It was too late for him to go himself.

But it isn't too late for you.

So pray.

Paul doesn't end this paragraph in despair, he ends it in worship.

The Messiah who is God over all, forever praise.

Amen.

Your one, your lost one is not too far gone.

Not for God.

He is God overall.

The Jesus who saved Paul, the Jesus who saved Augustine, the Jesus who saved sinners like us for two thousand years is still saving sinners today.

So write their name and pray the prayer and worship our King.

God overall, forever praise.

Amen.

Our God saves.

He's still saving today.

So pray.