Sermon: Mercy for the Lost

Popular Christian movies, such as the "God's Not Dead" series, love to characterize Christians as good-hearted, innocent victims of an oppressively sinful world seeking to destroy every mention of the man named "Jesus".  This portrayal of the "lost world" is not only inaccurate; it also risks indoctrinating Christians with the idea that they are playing on a team opposite of the world.  What happens when we start viewing the broken and the lost as opponents rather than individual creations stuck in sin's trap?  The lost are not the enemy, they are the object of our compassion.  As Christians, we can acknowledge the sinful state of the world without framing the world as an existential enemy.  What enemy do we have to fear?  What can the world do that Christ hasn't already overcome?  The world isn't a battlefield; it's a mission field.