Yesterday my family and I watched the movie, “Sound of Freedom” which is based on the true story of an American Homeland Security agent who captures offenders involved in crimes against children and who rescues children from sex traffickers. The film balances raising awareness of this crisis without showing the atrocities. Yet it’s still heart wrenching to be faced with the reality that people are exploiting children. As a father, and just a fellow human being, I empathized with the plight not only of the children depicted in the film, but the millions enslaved worldwide. It brought me to tears several times. I was already aware of the horrific practice of human trafficking, but I didn’t realize that young children are also being captured, sold, and abused.
This slavery has gone on for decades, yet it is the worst it has ever been. According to the International Labor Organization 49 million people are victims of human trafficking, forced labor, and forced marriages worldwide. Six million are trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. One and a half million of those are children. Even if it is one person, that is too many.
In addition to human trafficking youth face other severe difficulties also like social and emotional stress, obesity, gender confusion, bullying, peer pressure, poverty, sexual promiscuity and pregnancy, poor academic and employment opportunities, substance abuse, domestic and media violence, parental divorce, homelessness, depression, anxiety, suicide, and abortion. I teach at risk high school students and even my own kids have struggled with some of these issues as teens. I’m convinced that only God can solve these issues and rescue today’s youth. Only God can truly save people—children, youth and adults, and heal them from the inside out by his love and power. Furthermore, anyone who trusts in God can be involved in his rescue mission by allowing him to broaden their vision, increase their capacity to care and love, and fuel their engagement.
Jesus Saves
Because God loves me I want to respond in love to him and others for their benefit and his glory. This is what Jesus, God the Son, did when he stepped down from heaven to become a man and save the world. Jesus declared that he came not to be served, but to serve and to seek and save the lost even though it meant giving his life as a ransom (Luke 19:10; Matthew 20:28). Jesus ate with and associated with sinners, prostitutes, and tax collectors. When self-righteous religious leaders complained about this, Jesus replied, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:27-31). Jesus taught in the parables of the lost coin, the lost sheep, the lost son, the discovered treasure, and the priceless pearl that God has done everything, including forsaking Jesus, in order to make a way for anyone who trusts him to be saved from their wayward rebellion and receive new, abundant life as a child in his family now and forever (Luke 151-32; Matthew 13:44-46; John 3:16-21).
Jesus Serves
Interestingly, as the benevolent, omnipotent King of kings, Jesus chose to channel his power through a servant lifestyle. He helped the last, the least, the lost, the unlovable, and the outcast. He proclaimed the truth to the poor and pointed people to God. He performed miracles so the blind received sight, the lame walked, the lepers were cleansed, the deaf heard, and the dead were raised up. He loved his enemies and prayed for them. He forgave those who were hostile to him. Even now after rising from the dead, he is in heaven interceding for all believers (Hebrews 7:25; Romans 8:34; 1 John 2:1). He is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). Soon he will return to earth to consummate the victory over sin, death, and Satan which he won at his crucifixion and resurrection (Colossians 2:6-15; Revelation 19:11-21:8).
If you have come to trust and follow Jesus then he is calling you to the same victorious servant lifestyle (John 20:21; 1 John 2:6). He wants you lay down your life for others so that his loving power is free to work in full force through you. His power is made perfect in your weakness and your reliance on him (2 Corinthians 12:9). He commands you to be salt and light in a decaying and dark world in order to help people find and follow him (Matthew 5:13-16, 6:33, 28:18-20). In the process not only does he save others, but he draws you closer to himself and helps you become all that you were designed to be in him.
In Jesus You Can Make a Difference
If you are a part of God’s family by faith and therefore a citizen in his kingdom, then by his grace and power, you will want use the time, talent, and treasure he has given you to share his love and salvation with others (Ephesians 2:8-10; Matthew 25:14-30). The apostle John wrote to believers, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth” (1 John 3:16-17).
Here are seven practical things you can do to help save people. I describe them in the context of reaching unreached people with the good news of God’s love and salvation, but the same action items can be applied to engaging in any social justice or compassionate need. As God enables, you want to meet people at their point of need whether it be physical, social, emotional, or mental. But whenever possible, you also want to help them address the core need each of us has as broken, sinful people which is to be spiritually saved by putting their faith in Jesus.
- Pray for wisdom, vision, and courage to see where God is at work on any one of these important issues and to join him there. Pray for laborers to reap the harvest of the world. Intercede for unreached people groups and the persecuted church. Approach God with a listening heart. Be faithful, available, and teachable toward however he may use you.
- Learn about these issues and what is being done to address them. For instance, sharedhope.org has helpful information about child sex trafficking. Learn about Jesus’ commission to go to people and teach them how to know and obey God. God desires to save all peoples. Currently about 40% of the world’s population are unreached people groups and nearly all of them live in the 10/40 window from Africa to Japan and Mongolia to Indonesia.
- Develop a passion for lost people by reading about situations of suffering people and biographies of those who intercede for them.
- Connect with like-minded people, especially other believers, who want to make a difference on these issues. Connect with people of different cultures who could return and influence their homeland. Welcome and befriend foreign nationals, international students, and visiting professionals.
- Support advocates. Fund them, send them, correspond with them, encourage them, and pray for them. Volunteer time and talent to organizations tackling these issues and supporting missions efforts. Become a conscientious consumer by boycotting companies or organizations who actively promote or purposely perpetuate ungodly activity or human rights abuses.
- Go on a short term mission trip. Explore longer term opportunities to an unreached area. Start a bible study at work, school or in your neighborhood. Mentor a student.
- Mobilize others with the knowledge you have and the passion you’ve developed. Multiply the missions effort by sharing what you are doing and the overall task that is left. Raise awareness of these issues or of God’s salvation movement in person, through media, and online.
Conclusion
In America and throughout the world people are in a spiritual battle for the salvation of their souls (Ephesians 6:10-20). We see it all around us in the difficulties people face whether it be human trafficking or some other enslavement. Only God can free people, restore them, and give them new life. Jesus has already won the spiritual war. He makes it possible for anyone who trusts him to be set free from sin, death, and shame and to truly live. As the way, the truth, and the life he is your message and your method to helping save others. Trust and obey Jesus and he will expand your capacity to care and your love for others. He’ll enable your ability to seek them out and to engage them in a saving relationship with God.
Note: You may want to read or listen to another note of mine related to reaching people. It’s Note #188 See and Engage.