Roger Simms, hitchhiking his way home, would never forget the date—May 7. His heavy suitcase made Roger tired. He was anxious to take off his army uniform once and for all. Flashing the hitchhiking sign to the oncoming car, he lost hope when he saw it was a black, sleek, new Cadillac.
To his surprise the car stopped. The passenger door opened. He ran toward the car, tossed his suitcase in the back, and thanked the handsome, well-dressed man as he slid into the front seat. “Going home for keeps?” the man in the car asked “Sure am,” Roger responded. “Well, you’re in luck if you’re going to Chicago.” the man said “Not quite that far. Do you live in Chicago?” Roger asked. “I have a business there. My name is Hanover.” the man replied. After talking about many things, Roger, a Christian, felt a compulsion to witness to this fiftyish, apparently successful businessman about Christ. But he kept putting it off, till he realized he was just thirty minutes from his home. It was now or never.
So, Roger cleared his throat, “Mr. Hanover, I would like to talk to you about something very important.” He then proceeded to explain the way of salvation, ultimately asking Mr. Hanover if he would like to receive Christ as his Saviour. To Roger’s astonishment the Cadillac pulled over to the side of the road. Roger thought he was going to be ejected from the car. But the businessman bowed his head and received Christ, then thanked Roger. “This is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me.”
Five years went by, Roger married, had a two-year-old boy, and a business of his own. Packing his suitcase for a business trip to Chicago, he found the small, white business card Hanover had given him five years before. In Chicago he looked up Hanover Enterprises. A receptionist told him it was impossible to see Mr. Hanover, but he could see Mrs. Hanover. A little confused as to what was going on, he was ushered into a lovely office and found himself facing a keen-eyed woman in her fifties. She extended her hand.
“You knew my husband?” she inquired. Roger told how her husband had given him a ride when hitchhiking home after the war. “Can you tell me when that was?” she asked. “It was May 7, five years ago, the day I was discharged from the army.” Roger responded. “Anything special about that day?” she replied. Roger hesitated. Should he mention giving his witness? Since he had come so far, he might as well take the plunge.
He said, “Mrs. Hanover, I explained the gospel. He pulled over to the side of the road and wept against the steering wheel. He gave his life to Christ that day.” Explosive sobs shook her body. Getting a grip on herself, she sobbed, “I had prayed for my husband’s salvation for years. I believed God would save him.” “And,” said Roger, “Where is your husband, Mrs. Hanover?” “He’s dead,” she wept, struggling with words. “He was in a car crash after he let you out of the car. He never got home.”
We must never forget the power of prayer when it comes to praying for our spiritually lost peers. This morning as we continue on in our series called “The Great Adventure: Helping our lost peers find Christ” we come to the challenge.
Two weeks ago we looked at “The call”. We learned that we have been called to reach the lost for Christ and specifically the people who naturally cross our path: our friends, our neighbours, our co-workers, our families and so on. We learned that we are Christ’s representatives and ambassadors here on this. We learned that God has put us in this exact place, at this exact time for a reason – to tell others about Him.
The challenge that is going to be put before us this morning is the challenge of praying for our spiritually lost peers. We are first going to look at how we can develop a prayerful heart for our spiritually lost peers and then we are going to look at ten things that we can be praying for our spiritually lost peers.
Let’s begin by looking at how we can develop a prayerful heart for our spiritually lost peers. In order to develop a prayerful heart for the lost there are three values that we must remember. The first value we must remember is that people matter to God. Stay with me here! I know that when you hear the words “People Matter to God” you’re tempted to say, “I’ve got this one down – let’s skip to the more advanced principles.” But hear me: This belief is the hardest one to fully absorb in our value system. It’s also the most difficult value to build into those around us.
Those of us who have been in the church for a long time, myself included, get very adept at affirming a statement like this and then completely ignoring it in our daily lives. When we hear it, we run an instantaneous internal litmus-test program that concludes, “Of course, John 3:16 – ‘God so loved the world’ – this is a value that passes my theological filter. I agree with it.” We agree with it, but we don’t own it. We slot it into our minds right next to the other biblical truths like “David was king,” “Moses parted the Red Sea,” and ‘Ruth was a Moabite.” We nod our heads in intellectual approval and move on to other topics. So please listen closely to what I say next: What we do with every other concept in this sermon and series will directly depend on the degree to which we own and apply this first value. People matter to God.
Do you believe this to the very core of your being? I heard someone once say that when this value really takes root, it dramatically affects our check books and calendars, because those are the places where it expresses itself in daily life.
- We ought to be able to look back and say, “Here’s where I’ve spent time and energy trying to reach people outside the family of God.”
We should be able to open up our check book ledgers and say, “Here’s where I’ve invested my resources to help make evangelism happen through supporting the church’s outreach efforts; buying Bibles, books, and tapes to give to spiritual seekers; spending money to take a non-believing friend out to breakfast or lunch; or inviting non-Christians into my home.” These are investments that flow out of a heart that says genuinely, “People matter to God and they matter to me too.”
When you start trying to rearrange the priorities in your life this value will be tested immediately. The question naturally arises, whether aloud or below the surface: How much do people matter to God? Without announcing themselves or asking for anyone’s permission, other values start competing with and crowding out this first one.
I came across a poem that challenges us in this matter in our lives. It goes like this:
For God so loved the world, not just a few,
The wise and great, the noble and the true,
Or those of favoured class or hue,
God loved the world, Do you?
We need to remember that people matter to God.
The second value that we need to remember is that people are spiritually lost. After going into the home of Zacchaeus and helping him receive salvation, Jesus declared in Luke 19:10 that his mission was “to seek and to save what was lost.” Jesus doesn’t use the word “lost” here in a derogatory way but as a simple statement of truth about those who have not yet found him and his grace. The truth that people are spiritually lost is the core of this second value.
Contrary to the belief that “I’m OK, you’re OK,” the Bible gives us a very different picture. Romans 3:9-12 spells out the real situation when it tells us
“What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. 10 As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; 11 there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”
That is not a pretty picture. But it is one we had better understand and deal with.
Applying this passage on a personal level, it means that our peers are not okay simply because they do loving things and perhaps engage in sincere religious activities. We have to be crystal clear on this: No matter how “good” people are, if they don’t know Christ as Forgiver and Leader, they are headed for a Christless eternity. The Bible is unwaveringly consistent on this.
Romans 3:23 says, “We all sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Therefore, everyone we know needs to know and follow Christ. We need to remember that people are spiritually lost.
The final value that we need to remember is that people need Christ. Here again, modern thinking goes against clear biblical teaching. People will sometimes challenge us with statements like:
“Who are you to say that you’re right and everybody else is wrong? Everybody has their own truth and their own views of God. What does it matter if they approach it a little differently from you and use other names for God? What matters is that they’re sincere in what they believe, and that it works for them in their lives. We should all practice our religions in ways that respect the views of others, and we should never impose our personal beliefs on anybody else.”
Add to that challenge the fact that in some corners of Christendom belief that Christ is the only way to God is being systematically undermined. An insidious form of religious pluralism is seeping into the church, which says that there really might be multiple paths to God. Attacks are being launched from both inside and outside the church against the biblical conviction that all people need to know Christ.
Against these kinds of backdrops, Jesus said plainly in John 14:6, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Peter added in Acts 4:12, “salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” He also explained in 1 Peter 3:18 that “Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.” Paul capped it with his simple declaration in 1 Timothy 1:15, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”
Like it or not, we have an unpopular message, and we have been commissioned to present it boldly. But while it may be unpopular, it certainly is good news to people who are lost and headed for a Christless eternity. We have to keep our thinking clear and our hearts strong. People need to hear the message of the cross of Christ because as Romans 1:16 says, “It is the power of salvation of everyone who believes.” We must remember that people need Christ!
Now that we have looked at three values that should compel us to pray for our spiritually lost peers, let’s spend some time looking at what we should be praying for. I would like to present ten things that we should be praying for our spiritually lost peers. These are taken from the Navigators.
Things to pray for:
- That God draws them to Himself (John 6:44).
- That they seek to know God (Deuteronomy 4:29).
- That they will believe the Scriptures (Romans 10:17).
- That Satan is bound from blinding them to the truth (2 Corinthians 4:4).
- That the Holy Spirit works in them (John 16:8-13).
- That God sends someone to lead them to Christ (Matthew 9:37-38).
- That they believe in Christ as Saviour (John 1:12).
- That they turn from sin (Acts 3:19).
- That they yield all to follow Christ (2 Corinthians 5:15).
- 10. That they take root and grow in Christ (Colossians 2:6-7).
I want to conclude with a story:
Some years ago a young girl was very sick and not expected to recover. Because of her love for Jesus, she was troubled that she had not been able to do more for Him in her short life. Her pastor suggested that she make a list of people in their little town who needed Christ and pray that they might put their faith in Him. She took his advice, made a list, and prayed often for each person.
Some time later God began to stir a revival in the village. The girl heard of the people who were coming to Christ and prayed even more. As she heard reports, she checked off the names of those who had been led to the Lord. After the girl died, a prayer list with the names of 56 people was found under her pillow. All had put their faith in Christ—the last one on the night before her death.
Such is the power of definite, specific, fervent prayer. One of the most exciting events that can happen to us as Christian’s is to see someone we know come to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. The situation that would make a person’s conversion more thrilling would be if we had been praying for that person.
The apostle Paul expressed his concern for his fellow Israelites in his letter to the Romans in chapter 10 verse 1 when he said “Dear brothers and sisters,[a] the longing of my heart and my prayer to God is for the people of Israel to be saved.” A key to seeing people come to Christ is to be specifically praying for them and “having them on your heart.” An evangelism prayer list helps you do this.
To help you develop an evangelism prayer list I have made up a bookmark that you can place in your bible. I have called this the 3-4-1 prayer ministry. On the bookmark you are asked to write down three names of people that you have regular contact with that you will commit yourself to pray for each day for 1 minute each. Thus, the 3-4-1, three people for one minute each day.
As we conclude this morning remember the three values we discussed: People matter to God, people are lost spiritually and people need Christ. As you bring these values to memory pray for those individuals on your 3-4-1 prayer list. Pray for the ten things that we discussed – they are on the back of the bookmark as a reminder. As we leave from here this morning I challenge you to be praying for your lost peers!
