When Jesus walked the roads of Israel He was on a mission with a consuming sense of urgency for the lost sheep, first for the house of Israel, but also for anyone who was spiritual lost and apart from God. Jesus came to seek out and save the lost…
If this was and is the heartbeat of Jesus Christ – to be on the rescue mission of the Father – are we honestly being His followers? Somehow I find myself acting in apathy when it comes to the rescue mission of God. We are really good at rationalizing our way out of a sense of urgency when it comes to pursuing the lost. We forget that we were once that “lost cause,” that we were once that “outcast.”
We so easily forget how messed up we really were before Christ changed our lives. We forget that the reality of eternity is hanging in the balance with every individual we pass every single day. Yet all the while we call ourselves Christians, followers of Christ. Yet do our lives really look like His? Are we really on God’s mission? There seems to be something that holds us back – something that sidelines us from the mission…
So seriously, what do you think sidelines us from passionately and consistently living out God’s search and rescue mission? What does it really mean to look like Jesus? Well, in concrete terms, it means our lives actually begin to look like Jesus – the One who received sinners, ate with them, and actively sought out the lost sheep to bring them home.
The Twelve disciples who followed Jesus everywhere struggled with this same question – they kept getting sidelined, I believe, by the same issue that we deal with. It was also the same issue the Pharisees and other religious leaders of the day were trapped in. And in a subtle yet striking way, Jesus clears the table for both of these groups (and for us) and points out our central problem and the heartbeat of God’s mission that is required for all who follow Him. Let’s pick up the story in Matthew 18:10-14…
Listen to the full audio message entitled “Search and Rescue” by simply clicking on the play button below or by subscribing to our iTunes podcast. This message was originally delivered at Evangel Baptist Church on Sunday, August 12, 2012.
