Our Heart for the Nations

Give me Your eyes for just one second, give me Your eyes so I can see everything that I keep missing; give me Your love for humanity, give me Your arms for the brokenhearted, the ones that are far beyond my reach; give me Your heart for the ones forgotten, give me Your eyes so I can see.

Why do followers of Jesus care about people they have never met—and even about their enemies? Because God gives a new heart that He never gives by nature.

A Different Message Than Planned

I had a message prepared from the book of Hebrews this morning, since that is where we have been studying. But after previewing a missionary video that Pastor Nick sent me, I realized the Lord wanted me to share something different.

My wife and I were just in Europe. For the last three years I have gone to speak at a Christian leadership conference in Northwest Germany, with a church I have been connected to for about thirteen years. About 400 people gather there from across Western Europe—France, the Netherlands, Austria, and beyond.

People have long said Christianity is dead in Europe. I am here to tell you that is not true. There was a Reformation there five hundred years ago, whose 500th anniversary we celebrate this year, and God is still doing an amazing work. He has the ability to revive things that are dead. As a church, we get to be a part of it, and it is awesome to see.

A Prayer Answered at 5:30 in the Morning

Before flying over, we stayed overnight at a hotel by LAX. We arrived to find the lobby filled with interesting characters—people who looked like Rahab, with whips and leather. When Andrea asked at the counter, the woman said, "Yes, this is the dominatrix convention at the Hilton." So we went up to our room and didn't come out until morning.

For my first main session they had given me only a title: "Our Heart for the Nations." That was all I knew. At midnight, setting my alarm for 5:30, I prayed, "God, You have to give me a message—I don't know what You want me to share."

Five hours later the alarm went off. It is a song in my playlist, and the chorus says: give me Your eyes for just one second, give me Your eyes so I can see... give me Your heart for the ones forgotten. When I heard those words, I instantly knew what my message would be.

We Do Not Naturally Have a Heart for the Nations

Point number one: I don't naturally have a heart for the nations—and frankly, neither do you. By nature we lack love, compassion, mercy, and concern for the peoples of this world.

It would be ignorant to say that people who are not Christians have no mercy or compassion. They do, especially when confronted with the brokenness we see in events like what happened in London last night, or Manchester a couple of weeks ago. We are largely sheltered from that brokenness here, but we see it, and our hearts are moved.

Yet that compassion is not natural. Atheists wrestle with two major questions: why does life exist at all, given the more than 200 parameters that must be perfectly adjusted for it; and why do we even feel compassion for distant, hurting people, when that doesn't arise by random chance over billions of years? The Christian has an answer: it comes from God. We are created in His image and likeness. That is why even those who reject God still feel some push toward mercy.

But that push is severely lacking, and Jesus prophesied that love would grow colder and colder. One reason is what the American Psychiatric Association recognizes as compassion fatigue—seen in nurses, doctors, police, emergency workers, and ministers. As we are overwhelmed by the world's brokenness, we hear leaders saying we must forget about everyone else and take care of ourselves. That is love growing cold, exactly as Jesus said.

A Concern Beyond the Earthly

Governments and non-governmental organizations are sometimes compelled to give humanitarian aid—for hunger, clean water, education, medicine, social justice. Notably, almost all the nations and organizations driven to address these problems come from Christian-influenced nations. It is the influence of Christianity that compels people to look out for humanity, and that is a genuinely good thing.

But the Christian's concern goes beyond earthly needs. Point number two: the Christian has a heart for the earthly and eternal needs of humanity. Our increasingly secular society calls that absurd—when you die, you die, so why be concerned? But the Christian, reading the Bible, understands that the earthly problems are symptoms of a much deeper problem rooted in an eternal issue.

Through one man sin entered the world... and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men. (Romans 5:12)

This world is broken because of sin. So the Christian wants to deal not only with the symptoms but with the root. That raises four questions: What is this heart for the nations? Where does it come from? Why do Christians have it? And how do we display it?

What Is a Heart for the Nations?

A heart for the nations is a deep care, concern, and love for the peoples of this world and their eternal salvation. It must primarily be a heart for the salvation of the lost. That does not mean we ignore clean water, food, medicine, or education—Jesus healed the sick, fed the hungry, and gave to the needy, and He set that example for us.

There is a segment of believers who call themselves "Matthew 25 Christians," from Jesus' teaching that giving water, food, and clothing to the least of these is done unto Him. Some go so far as to say it doesn't even matter whether Jesus rose from the dead. But you cannot be an orthodox Christian and deny the resurrection. Social ministry is good and biblical, but the primary driving force of the church for 2,000 years has been the salvation of the lost.

Where Does It Come From?

Jesus prayed on the night He was betrayed, "Father, as You have sent Me, so I send them." He came for a purpose, and He stated it repeatedly:

I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. (John 10:10)

A Matthew 25 Christian might read that as bringing education, government, food, and medicine. But we must weigh His other purpose statements: "I have come to give light to those in darkness" (John 12:46); "I came to give My life a ransom for all" (Mark 10:45); and "I have come to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10)—the very passage of Zacchaeus, the wee little man in the sycamore tree.

So He sends us to bring abundant life, to bring light to those in darkness, to seek and save the lost, and to lay down our lives for others. Where does this concern come from? From the Lord. As Paul says, "the love of Christ compels us" (2 Corinthians 5:14). It is supernatural—beyond our natural tendency—and it comes from an outside source.

Even non-Christians know the three-word statement, "God is love." It comes from 1 John 4:

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. (1 John 4:7–8)

Why Do Christians Have It? A New Creation and a New Commandment

Point number three: Christians have a heart for the nations because of a new creation and a new commandment. In the same passage where Paul says the love of Christ compels us, he writes:

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

What becomes new? The prophet Ezekiel, 500 years before Christ, answers:

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes. (Ezekiel 36:26–27)

This happens at the new birth. Jesus told a religious man, "You must be born again." When you put your faith in Jesus, God gives you a new heart, and His Spirit resides in it, compelling you to share your faith so others move from darkness to light, from lost to found.

We also have this because of a new commandment. On the night He was betrayed, Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper and then washed His disciples' feet—which unsettled them. Afterward He said:

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. (John 13:34)

Loving one another wasn't new—every Jewish child learned to love God with all their heart from Deuteronomy 6, and to love their neighbor from Leviticus. What was new is the rest: "as I have loved you." A little later that night He said, "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends." But Romans 5 says God demonstrated His love in that while we were still sinners, while we were His enemies, Christ died for us.

A Heart That Extends to Our Enemies

Point number four: our heart for the nations must extend even to those counted as enemies. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said:

Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. (Matthew 5:44)

That is not natural. By nature we want retribution. I see it in myself; becoming a Christian did not remove it. I am thankful for God's restraining influence in many of us—a restraint I don't always see in my four-year-old son, where sometimes the restraint has to be me or my wife. Even when I pray for an enemy, my natural inclination is to pray David's prayer, "God, break their teeth in their mouths."

But Jesus prayed for His enemies from the cross: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Stephen, the first martyr, did the same in Acts 7. And consider the transformation of Saul of Tarsus, who breathed threats and murder—until God made him Paul, who could say he wished he could be cursed and cut off if it meant his enemies could be saved. Only God can bring about that transformation.

During the Civil War, when a critic rebuked Abraham Lincoln for speaking kindly of those in the South—"Don't you realize they are our enemies and need to be destroyed?"—Lincoln replied, "I destroy my enemies by making them my friends." That is exactly what Jesus did: He destroyed the enmity between us and God by dying to make us His friends.

It is striking that almost all of the world's unreached people groups today are in majority-Muslim nations—and the church is told to love its enemies. A brother asked me between services, "Are you saying we're supposed to love ISIS?" God did institute human government to deal justly with evil, and where governments fail in that, we are given the opportunity to vote in new ones. But as a Christian, the Bible still calls me to love my enemies, to seek their blessing, and to pray for them.

I don't want to embarrass our friends Bubba and Cassie, but what God has wrought in their hearts—that after enemies destroyed their ministry in South Sudan, they want to go back and serve those people—illustrates the heart and love of God planted in us. Remember, Saul of Tarsus was a terrorist to the church in his day, and God dealt with that terrorist by making him one of the greatest apostles who ever lived. We don't write stories like that; that is a God-inspired story.

How Do We Display It? Practicing and Preaching the Gospel

With our remaining time, the last question: how do we display this heart? Point number five: Christians display a heart for the nations by practicing and preaching the gospel.

I am not saying the church should ignore social needs. We should care about clean water, health, food for the hungry, and non-oppressive governments. That is how we practice the gospel—Jesus taught that giving a cup of cold water, food, and clothing to the least is done unto Him. We should be wholly committed to these things.

But in doing so, we cannot miss the bigger issue of preaching the gospel. Jesus fed the hungry and healed the sick, and His popularity grew because of it. When His disciples wanted to capitalize on the multitudes and found Him in the wilderness, He said:

Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also, because for this purpose I have come forth. (Mark 1:38)

Add that to His list of purposes: I came to preach the gospel. This is why Paul said, "Woe is me if I do not preach the gospel" (1 Corinthians 9:16). I am sure Paul gave to the poor and sought to feed the hungry, but he did not set up a soup kitchen—he preached the gospel. He told the Colossians, "Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus."

Church, we must be committed to both practicing and preaching the gospel. We can't outsource it to a missionary couple in another country and think we're done. Yes, we should support and pray for missionaries like Bubba and Kathy and the work they are doing—but right here, God has called us to practice and preach the gospel, to love our enemies, and to be concerned for both the earthly and the eternal needs of people.

Closing Prayer

Jesus, would You give us Your grace to have this heart, this concern, this love for the earthly and eternal needs of those here locally and around the world. Because of the work You have done in making us new creatures in Christ, and because You have commanded us to love our enemies, God help us to have this heart extending even to those who might look at us as their enemies. Help us to practice, and help us to preach the good news of who You are—to bring light to those in darkness, to seek and save the lost, that they would have abundant life in Christ that extends beyond the seventy or eighty years we live here. Do a work in us, Your church. Give us a heart for those who are forgotten; give us eyes, Lord, so that we can see. Work in us, we pray. We ask this in Jesus' name, and all those who agree said, Amen.