Stuart Briscoe
February 4, 1999
9:30 am
Message Summary
Stuart Briscoe says it is only Christ's love that can bring about a passion for souls in us. Brsicoe referenced 2 Corinthians 5:14 to show how Christ's love compels us into a solid conviction, a striking conclusion, and a serious commitment.
If we are to have a passion for souls, that passion must be based on a solid conviction, not on sentiment. Sentiment allows us to be "possibly concerned." Conviction demands that we become "actively involved." That's why, said Briscoe, it is easier for the western world to be concerned about the survival of rare species than to become actively involved in aiding the thousands of people starving in Africa. The solid conviction into which we are compelled by the love of Christ "ensures me that if Christ died for me, then I am so caught up in His death and resurrection that I am no longer free to live in what Christ died for," said Briscoe.
The striking conclusion that Christ's love should bring us to can be found in the often glanced-over verse 16 of Corinthians 5: "From now on we no longer regard no one from a worldly point of view..." Briscoe contended that "if this is true, that Christ died for all, then it should change the way I view 'all.'" Perhaps this realization should impart in us a passion for souls.
The wonderful message of reconciliation has to be propagated. God decided that we should be the ministers of reconciliation. "Who else will communicate the gospel with a passion?" asked Briscoe. "Who else but us who have tasted of this compelling love of Christ?"
Student Response
If not for the compelling of love of Christ, I would have be drowning in the existential philosophies, as they make most sense to me—if I were to overlook the love of Christ. But the love of Christ compels me into a strange passion. Carefully designed evangelistic strategies, loud evangelists and the statistics of the rising numbers of church attendees never excited me into evangelism. But the love of Christ, so persuasively depicted by Briscoe, yes, the love of Christ alone, one that I taste of every day, that love compels me into a passion for souls.
—Agnieszka Zielinska, Senior, Communications major