Even when we don’t feel effective at talking with lost people about God, let’s at least talk with God about lost people.
The nineteenth-century English Baptist pastor, Charles Spurgeon, said:
Like Jeremiah, we can make it our resolve, “If ye will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride, and mine eye shall weep sore and run down with tears.” To such pathetic appeals the Lord’s heart can never be indifferent; in due time the weeping intercessor will become the rejoicing winner of souls. There is a distinct connection between importunate agonizing and true success, even as between the travail and the birth, the sowing in tears and the reaping in joy.
He was referencing Psalm 126 there.
The poem is divided into two stanzas. In verses 1-3, we see the people laughing, but in verses 4-6 we see the people weeping. After seventy years of Babylonian captivity, they laughed in astonishment when they were suddenly allowed to return home. But they also wept because only a portion of the Israelites returned with them. To those who stayed, Babylon felt like home.
This is where our emotions need to be, too. You and I need to rejoice over God’s saving grace and at the same time grieve over those who are still lost and in captivity.
Why has God arranged things so that prayer precedes effective evangelism and church growth? I like how Bryan Chapell put it in his book on prayer:
Much as an old-fashioned steam engine uses coal shoveled into a boiler to power a train, God uses our prayers to empower the engine of divine transformation. Of course he could transform our world without our prayers, just as he could make trains go without natural resources, but he has chosen otherwise. Knowledge of his choices keeps us mining coal and offering prayer.
Are we passionate over the fact that we have God’s salvation? Are we equally passionate about the need others still have for it? Are we as fired up about this as we are over our politics or our team or our stuff?
Read Psalm 126 and ask God to get to you the same level of passion you see in those verses!
Tom
Tom Goodman serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter. If someone forwarded this email newsletter to you, sign up here to receive Tom’s weekly devotional in your email inbox.