July 2022...THE FACES OF LOSTNESS

I attended the Southern Baptist Convention last week in Anaheim, California.  It was great to see many of you in attendance.  My world was full of meetings.  I had breakfast, lunch, and dinner meetings.  The highlight of the meeting for me was the International Mission Board Dinner.  The food was "OK" but the message was a tremendous challenge

Dr. Paul Chitwood, President of IMB challenged us to see the lostness of the world.  The greatest problem facing our world is not the war in Ukraine.  It is that 63 million babies were aborted in our country since Roe v. Wade; it is not sexual abuse.  These are all problems but the greatest problem is lostness.  There are 4.6 billion lost people in the world.  More than 157,000 people die without Christ.

What does lostness look like?  To missionaries in South Asia it looks like a plethora of religious festivals, and the smell of funeral pyras.  To missionaries in Scotland it looks like the terms of post Christian, urban deprived, and ethnically and spiritually diverse.  To missionaries in Paris it is a mosque, prayer mats on street corners; and the brokenness of the lives of the dispersed people.

What does lostness look like in Southern Nevada?  Abortion clinics, homeless people, drug addiction, sex trafficking, prostitution, beggars on the street corners, and broken people everywhere.

We live in a society plagued by sin and lostness.  Whether they live in a mansion or on the streets; people need the Lord.  We see the symptoms all around us but the real problem is lostness.  What can we do?  Start more churches, yes; train more witnesses, yes; but the real solution begins when we see the lostness through our eyes and cry out to God.

We need our eyes opened.  When we see the drug addict stumbling along the street, or the homeless seeking a handout, or the children with no family; when we see the needy and hurting we need to cry out to God for their souls.  The real problem is lostness.

If you have a solution to lostness in Southern Nevada, share it with me!  In our state 9 out 10 people are lost.  We need to stop looking the other way and address the real problem.  People without Jesus are going to hell!. Find a way to share our hope!