The title of my sermon tonight is, A Prophet in His Own Country.
Jesus makes a statement in verse 24, and he said, verily I say unto you, no prophet is
accepted in his own country.
No prophet is accepted in his own country.
Now if we start out Luke chapter 4 here, the first 13 verses deal with the temptation of
Jesus Christ.
Jesus got baptized in chapter 3, and then he's tempted of Satan.
He's fasting in the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights, and what we see here is that
before Jesus Christ can begin his ministry and be greatly used by God, he has to be tested
and proven.
He has to pay his dues, as it were, because Jesus Christ is our example.
Just like Jesus was baptized as an example to us that we should be baptized, and the
Bible says that he left an example that we should follow in his steps.
So you should expect that before you're greatly used by God, you're going to have to endure
testing, trials, tribulations, suffering.
Jesus kind of crammed this all into 40 days and 40 nights.
Obviously, most of us, this is going to be a longer period, but it's not going to be
as intense because none of us is probably going to fast for 40 days and 40 nights, and
if I did, I certainly wouldn't tell you about it because I wouldn't want to lose the reward
on that one, but just so you know, I'm never going to do it.
But anyway, Jesus Christ is fasting for 40 days and 40 nights, and he's not just being
tempted by the devil's minions.
I mean, Satan himself is obviously personally the ultimate tempter, tempting Jesus, and
of course, Jesus makes it through the testing.
He gets through the trials, and now he's ready to be greatly used by God and to begin his
ministry.
Verse 14, and Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee, and there went
out a fame of him throughout all the region roundabout, and he taught in their synagogues,
being glorified of all.
So Jesus Christ, he gets baptized, he goes through the testing and the temptations, and
now he's ready to start his ministry, and right away, he has a lot of success.
I mean, when he's in Galilee, he's teaching, he's preaching.
The fame of him goes into the entire region, and he's glorified of all.
So just great success.
He's reaching a lot of people.
But look at verse 16, and he came to Nazareth, where he'd been brought up.
And when he goes back to his hometown, to Nazareth, where he's from, he's going to have
a completely different result.
He's not going to be glorified at all.
They don't accept him.
Look what it says in verse number 16.
He came to Nazareth, where he'd been brought up.
And as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up for to read,
and there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet, Esaias, that's Isaiah.
And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit
of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.
He hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and
recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the
acceptable year of the Lord.
And Jesus Christ is not just preaching this in theory.
That's what he just finished doing.
I mean, he's gone throughout Galilee, and he's done all these things, right?
This is retrospective.
The Spirit of the Lord's on him.
He's been preaching the gospel to the poor.
He's been giving sight to the blind.
He's been doing all those things.
And then it says in verse 20, he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister,
and sat down.
The minister means like the servant or the attendant, the bailiff, you know, whatever
you want to call it.
He answered the minister and sat down.
And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.
You know, they're wondering, like, where is he going with this?
Is he actually applying this to himself?
And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.
And all bear him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of
his mouth.
So there certainly wasn't anything lacking about Christ's preaching.
I mean, they marveled at his preaching.
They wondered at it.
They were amazed at the gracious words that came out of his mouth.
Jesus Christ preached a powerful message that they could perceive the power of his message.
They were amazed by it.
It wasn't like, well, you know, we heard about all the great works that you did in Galilee,
and now that we see you in person, you're not really living up to the hype.
That's not what's going on in this story, because clearly he did preach a powerful message.
Hey, nobody was zoned out and not paying attention.
The Bible says all eyes are fastened on him.
And then the Bible says that they wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out
of his mouth.
So what was the issue?
Was the sermon delinquent?
Was Jesus not what he was cracked up to be?
No, he certainly was.
The objection is found at the end of verse 22.
They said, well, is not this Joseph's son?
So it's about who he is, where they're thinking, hey, we know this guy.
This is Joseph's son.
Now, of course, we know, no, this isn't Joseph's son.
But they don't know that.
They're assuming that this is the son of Joseph and Mary, which isn't true, because, of course,
Jesus was born of a virgin.
He said unto them, verse 23, ye will surely send me this proverb, physician, heal thyself.
Whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country.
And he said, verily I say unto you, no prophet is except in his own country.
But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven
was shut up three years, and six months when great famine was throughout all the land.
But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Zidon, unto a woman
that was a widow.
And, of course, if you study the Old Testament, you'll read about Elijah going to Zarephath.
Here it's called Sarepta, but it's pronounced Zarephath in the Old Testament, a city of
Zidon.
That's a foreign country unto a woman that was a widow.
And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Alyssius the prophet, and none of them
was saving Naaman the Syrian.
So what's he saying here?
He's saying, look, even the Old Testament prophets did some of their greatest works
in another country or amongst foreigners, even in the Old Testament.
And you know what?
There's a scripture in the Old Testament where the Lord says, well, you know what?
If I were sending you to a foreign country, they'd listen.
But I'm sending you to the house of Israel, the house of Judah.
They're a stiff-necked people.
They're not going to listen, all right?
And so say unto them, you know, hear and don't understand, like we talked about this morning.
But we see that Old Testament examples are given of great men of God doing their greatest
works in a foreign country or amongst foreigners.
And he's saying that God specifically had him go to Zidon and to Assyria for that reason.
Now when they hear this, they don't like this.
Because if there's one thing we see about the Jews of the New Testament, they're really
into being Jews, and they really think that they're better than everyone else in the Bible.
That's why Jesus has to tell them in Revelation chapter 3 that he's going to make them of
the synagogue of Satan know that I've loved you, he says in Revelation 3.9.
Why would there be any question that, you know, God loves people that aren't Jews?
Well, for them, they needed to hear that because they have that Jonah attitude of just wanting
Nineveh to go to hell, you know, wanting Nineveh to be destroyed and just thinking that it's
all about just them because they're Jews.
So this message does not go over well at all when Jesus is pointing out.
And you know why I think they're so mad is because they know what he's saying is true.
They're like, oh, you know, because they're here.
They know because all of a sudden these Bible stories are coming to their mind.
Yeah, that is true.
Elijah did do that in Zidon.
Oh, yeah, the only leper that was healed was the guy from Syria.
And all day in the synagogue, verse 28, when they heard these things were filled with wrath
and rose up and thrust him out of the city.
So you can imagine he's up behind the pulpit preaching, as it were.
You can imagine just him being thronged with the men of the synagogue and them just dragging
him out of the building, just basically just shoving him out the door.
He's on his way out and they're just shoved, just a throng of people shoving him out the
door because it says they thrust him out of the city.
They thrust him.
That means they physically shoved him and dragged him out.
So you can just imagine an angry crowd of people grabbing Jesus and dragging him out
of the building and then dragging him all the way out of the city.
But that's not all they're doing.
It says they led him under the brow of the hill where on their city was built that they
might cast him down headlong.
So not only did they drag him out of the building, not only did they drag him and shove him out
of the city, they're shoving him toward a cliff and the plan is throw Jesus off a cliff.
That's their plan.
Their plan is to literally murder him.
So no prophet is accepted in his own country or a prophet is not without honor, save in
his own country and in his own house, in this case an understatement to say that they didn't
accept Jesus.
Not only did they not accept him, they literally want to kill him.
I mean the goal is to push him off, to cast him off headlong.
But he passing through the midst of them went his way.
So somehow Jesus escapes in the confusion, in the melee of this riot.
He basically is able to just kind of slip through the midst.
Maybe God just somehow blinded their eyes or something to where they didn't notice.
But it wasn't Jesus' time to be killed yet and he wasn't meant to be thrown off a cliff.
He's meant to be nailed to a cross and he still had a lot more work to do.
We're only in chapter 4 of Luke, so there's a lot more work to do going forward.
So basically he's allowed to escape.
Then verse 31 says he came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and isn't that the one
that was mentioned up in 23?
Look at verse 23.
Whatsoever we've heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country.
So Jesus is bringing up the fact that he had done some of his greatest works in Capernaum.
So when his own city is rejecting him, hating him, casting him out, where does he go?
Back to Capernaum.
Right?
Hey, let's go back to that receptive area since this area is unreceptive, right?
So he goes back to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and taught them on the Sabbath days and they
were astonished at his doctrine for his word was with power.
So the people in Capernaum, it's not just that they saw miracles and were astonished
by the miracles.
It was the doctrine.
It was the preaching that astonished them.
So Jesus says to them in his hometown, well, you know, you would probably say to me, hey,
do the miracles that we heard about you doing in Capernaum.
Jesus refuses to do miracles for them.
He just says no.
The prophet's not accepted in his home country.
He preached the sermon.
And when he goes to Capernaum, they actually respond to the sermon and then they get to
see the miracles as a bonus.
But it wasn't the miracles that actually caused them to receive.
It was the word of God.
It was the preaching itself.
There is another scripture where it says of Jesus that in a certain area, he did not many
mighty works there because of their unbelief.
You know, Jesus typically shows the greatest miracles to the people with the most faith
And the others, when they demand a sign of him and say, you know, show us a sign, he
says, an evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign and there shall no sign be given
unto it but the sign of the prophet Jonah.
For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the son of
man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
So basically he's saying the sign that you get is the death, burial, and resurrection.
And that's all you get.
Now, other people got to see a lot of cool miracles, but not for the scoffers.
All they get is the resurrection.
They're astonished at his doctrine.
Now what can we learn from this story about Jesus?
No prophet is accepted in his own country.
What you need to realize is that sometimes the hardest people for you to witness to and
the hardest people for you to be a good influence on are the people that are close to you, your
family, your relatives, maybe your brothers and sisters, maybe your parents, cousins,
aunts, uncles, maybe people that you were really close to growing up in school.
And a lot of times these are the people that we want to reach the most.
Now I'm not saying not to try to reach those people because did Jesus go to Nazareth or
not?
I mean Jesus went there.
Did Jesus try?
Absolutely.
And so we don't want to get an attitude that says, well, no prophet's accepted in his own
country so I'm not going to try.
Well, if Jesus is the example, he tried anyway.
He gave the gospel anyway.
And so, yes, give the gospel to your brother, give the gospel to your sister, give the gospel
to mom and dad and grandma and aunt and uncle and everybody in your life.
Witness to all those people.
But what we need to understand is that sometimes they have to hear it from someone else.
A lot of times someone will witness to their family member, witness to their family member
over and over again and they don't get saved.
Then an outsider comes in, a third party comes in and can actually win them to Christ.
Because they just don't listen to the one that's their little brother or their little
sister or, you know, I changed your diaper, you know, how can you tell me what the Bible
says?
I've been going to church since before, you know.
Or what about this?
Let's say before you were saved you had a pretty sinful past.
You know, some of the people that you grew up with and your family and friends, they
might look at you and say, hey, how can you preach to me?
I remember some of the stuff that you've done and try to throw that in your face and
just use that as an excuse.
Some of the people that are going to be the hardest to reach are your close friends and
relatives from the past.
Try to reach them anyway but just realize that a lot of times they have to hear it from
someone else.
Don't get offended by that.
Don't get mad or get hurt by that.
Just understand that this is a principle that's been going on for thousands of years where
a prophet has a lot of honor but not in his own house and not in his own country, okay?
He's not without honor everywhere else but at home, in his hometown, he doesn't get as
much honor.
And it's not because there's anything wrong with the prophet because here we have Jesus
Christ who is perfect.
Jesus Christ is divine.
Jesus Christ is God in the flesh so he has no fault in him.
It's just simply that no prophet is accepted in his own country as a general rule.
So we need to understand that we might not be the one that God uses to win our friends
and family and loved ones to the Lord but we still love them and want to get them saved.
Now go to Romans chapter 11.
We're going to come back to Luke 4 but go to Romans chapter number 11 because we remember
that the apostle Paul, he really wanted to get the people of his own country saved.
Now God's plan for Paul was always for him to go somewhere else.
He said I'm going to send you far from hence to the Gentiles.
Now he was not without honor among the Gentiles.
I mean when he went to the Gentiles, he had a lot of converts, a lot of people saved.
He did great works.
He kept trying to reach the Jews and he kept failing at it but he wanted to just like we
want to reach our loved ones and old friends even though we might not be successful at
doing that.
In fact, Paul said in chapter 9 verse 3 of Romans, for I could wish that myself were
accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.
He said, man, I would almost be willing to be unsaved so that they could be saved.
I mean he's just trying to express how much he wants them to be saved.
And then look at chapter 10 verse 1, brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel
is that they might be saved.
He really wants them to be saved.
And in chapter 11, it says in verse 13, for I speak to you Gentiles inasmuch as I am the
apostle of the Gentiles.
I magnify my office.
So when he says that I magnify my office, he's basically saying, you know what?
God has sent me to the Gentiles and I think that that is a good job.
You know, the office that I've been given to be an apostle to the Gentiles, to be a
teacher of the Gentiles, hey, that's a great mission that God has given me.
He's not down on that.
But where's his heart in the end?
Verse 14, if by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are of my flesh and might
save some of them.
So even though he's preaching to the Gentiles, even though he's doing the missions, in his
heart he's really thinking like, well, maybe if I get all these Gentiles saved, that'll
get the Jews saved.
Because he just can't get off that because that's his heart's desire.
God had a different plan than what his plan is.
And our plan's not always the same as God's plan.
The more we get on God's program, the more success we're going to have.
But here we see this verse, I may provoke to emulation.
What does emulation mean?
Emulation means imitation, okay?
So when he says I want to provoke them to emulation, he's saying he's hoping that when
the Gentiles see a bunch of Jews getting saved, that they'll think, excuse me, when
the Jews see a bunch of Gentiles getting saved, they're going to say, well, look, if all these
Gentiles are getting saved, maybe there's something to the Gospel.
You know, maybe there's something to Jesus Christ, and maybe they'll give it a second
look and get saved.
That's what Paul's hoping, that he'll be able to save some of them.
Now think about Jesus' own family.
Jesus Christ's own family, talking about his half-brothers, the children of Joseph
and Mary, James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon, right?
They did not believe on him, the Bible says.
In John chapter 7, we see them mocking him, taunting him, and it said his brothers didn't
believe on him.
So a prophet was not without honor, except in his own country and in his own house, right?
So not only do we see Jesus rejected in Luke chapter 4, but in John chapter 7, we see him
rejected by his half-brothers.
But we know that his half-brothers eventually got saved, because we've got the Epistle of
James and the Epistle of Jude, those are written by two of his brethren.
So those guys definitely got saved, and not only that, they became great men of God.
But did that happen as a result of Jesus teaching them?
No.
They obviously got saved from someone else.
When Jesus died on the cross and was buried and rose again, they still hadn't gotten saved
yet.
So they got saved later.
And so that goes to show you that even Jesus, someone else, had to reach those people.
And he basically did what Paul wanted to do, where a bunch of other people got saved, and
then that provoked his brethren to emulation, as he says in Romans 11.14.
So here's the point, folks.
We need to go out and win strangers to the Lord.
Get out of just your own house, and this is totally against what churches are teaching
now with the so-called lifestyle evangelism.
They're basically teaching you that your method of evangelism is just when a natural occurrence
comes up in your personal life, give the Gospel.
And I'm telling you, I've heard this, just even the last few months, I've heard several
people say this.
And if you go to a liberal church, they're always telling you, hey, witness to your family,
witness to your work.
That's the only witnessing that they do.
Pretty much the only witnessing they do is like to their own friends, their own family,
their own co-workers.
Well, here's the thing.
The Bible's teaching that's the most ineffective.
But isn't that what they're telling us to do?
Oh, you get your neighbors.
And let me explain something to you.
These people who teach that lifestyle evangelism, and you win your brother, you win your sister,
and your co-worker, and that's it, just your circle of friends and loved ones, they're
probably giving the Gospel about once in a blue moon.
About every 18 months, they give someone the Gospel.
I know because I've been there.
When I was a teenager, I'd never been out door-to-door soul winning.
I'd been saved ever since I was six years old.
And you know what?
Every once in a while, I witness to someone.
Maybe once a year, once every two years.
And let me tell you something.
When I witnessed to somebody, I thought I was pretty cool for doing it.
I felt like, hey, I gave someone the Gospel.
They didn't even get saved.
And I already was just like, I was like all excited.
And man, I felt like I was really something.
Because when you're a liberal in a liberal church, you just think you're something.
If you actually witness to somebody once a year, you're like super Christian to them.
Because they're doing nothing.
Because I was doing like, I mean, I remember witnessing someone.
I probably hadn't witnessed anyone in years.
So I was like, yes, I witnessed to someone.
But you know what?
I never got anyone saved until I actually went out and just started knocking doors and
just talking to strangers.
And then I started getting people saved.
Because it's easier to get a stranger saved than to get people that you know saved.
Now a lot of people don't understand this.
They think like, oh, man, how can you go door-to-door, that's so hard and everything.
And they'd rather just witness their friends and loved ones.
That's way, you got it backwards.
These people that you knock their door, you're never going to see them again.
The pressure is not as intense.
You know, you're way more nervous, at least I was starting out.
You're way more nervous when you're talking to people that you're close to.
Makes it harder to witness to them in many cases.
So the moral of the story is, if you want your brother and sister and mom and dad and
aunt and uncle to get saved, and you ought to want them saved.
Number one, witness to them.
Number two, don't be surprised if they don't get saved.
Number three, go out and get a bunch of strangers saved.
That's what Jesus did, right?
But actually, I got that order a little off, didn't I?
Because here's what he actually did.
First, I mean, he gets baptized.
Everybody got the chronology?
He gets baptized, tempted in the wilderness for 40 days, and then all right, let's head
to Nazareth and preach in the hometown.
Is that what he did?
Straight to the hometown.
I mean, hey, let's start in my hometown.
Is that what he did?
No.
He's baptized, tested and tried, ready to start his ministry.
He goes to strangers.
Step one, he goes to strangers.
Step two, he goes to his family and they don't listen.
His hometown and they don't listen.
His old friends and his old stomping ground, they don't listen.
Step three, go back and get more strangers saved.
Step four, his family gets saved because someone else witnesses to them.
This is how it's probably going to work in your life.
You go out and you win people to Christ.
You preach the gospel to strangers.
Why would you do that first?
Here's why you can do that first because then you can get better at it.
I remember trying to witness to people that I loved once in a blue moon growing up and
as a teenager and looking back at the way I did it, I'm not surprised that these people
didn't get saved because I didn't really know what I was doing.
So I wasn't using a very good method because instead of preaching them the gospel, I would
just kind of enter into dialogue or conversation with them and then that conversation would
just go all over the place and would get so complicated and go on so many rabbit trails
that you couldn't stay focused on the gospel.
It's hard sometimes to stay focused with people that you know because then everything starts
coming up and you're just kind of chit-chatting and whatever.
Then I went out soul winning and I learned how to just present the gospel in a coherent
way, A, B, C, D, using scripture, having the Bible open, showing them verses.
Then I took those same methods to relatives.
Now did they all get saved?
No, but I was able to get a few of them saved, which is better than zero.
I was able to get a few of them saved using the good methods that I picked up out witnessing
to strangers.
Then I went out and witnessed to more strangers and more strangers and more strangers.
Here's the thing.
If God sees you out winning someone else's dad and someone else's brother and someone
else's sister, you're being an answer to someone else's prayer.
Then when you pray for your loved one, God could send someone to answer your prayer.
Some of my favorite doors out soul winning is when I knock on somebody's door and I give
them the gospel and then after they get saved, they tell me something like, oh man, my brother
in law is going to be so happy to hear that I got saved.
He's been working on me or when they say that, oh man, they've been trying to get me to be
a Baptist and I didn't understand what the big deal is because I'm Catholic, but now
I see it.
When you find out that you have answered someone's prayer, now sometimes people come right out
and tell you that, oh, my grandparents are Baptist.
My parents are Baptist.
I got away or whatever, but what about all the ones who don't tell you that?
I guarantee you when you go out soul winning, you're answering people's prayers even without
knowing about it.
I mean, think about it.
When we go soul winning, we always pray and say, God, lead us to the people that are going
to be receptive.
Lead us to the people that you want us to talk to.
Look, I believe God answers that prayer when we pray that and pray for God at least and
we just pick a neighborhood, maybe what feels like at random or it just happened to be that's
the neighborhood for the week.
We're working down the map, but you know what?
God is directing our decisions behind the scenes and he's leading us and directing us
to places where basically that person is who somebody has been praying for them and praying
for them and maybe they've planted the seed and maybe they've watered the seed, praying,
praying and then basically we can be an answer to prayer and just show up and win someone
to Christ and we've answered that prayer.
Well guess what?
When we pray for our brother, sister, uncle, cousin, then God can hopefully send some other
soul winner to go talk to them and get them saved.
Now the sad thing is though, if people aren't showing up, sometimes God sought for a man.
He said, I sought for a man among them that would stand in the gap, that would make up
the hedge, but I found none.
God's looking for laborers, pray he therefore the Lord of the harvest that he'll send forth
laborers into his harvest.
Why?
Because the harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few.
So we want to be an answer to prayer and if we are an answer to prayer and then we pray,
God's going to answer our prayer.
Now it's important to understand that God doesn't make people get saved.
That's a personal decision that they have to make, but I want my loved ones to at least
have someone come witness to them and we can pray that God could remove some of the
obstacles to them being saved.
If there's something hindering them from being saved, maybe they have a lot of wealth and
maybe God has to take that wealth away from them or maybe they have some preconceived
idea that needs to be shattered.
Maybe they're really into science or into the big bang and evolution.
Maybe that needs to be shattered, whatever it is that's standing between them and believing
the gospel or maybe they're very prideful and they, you know, they could never accept
salvation by grace through faith because, you know, they do things for, they pay for
it themselves.
If I go to heaven, it's going to be on my own merit.
You know, maybe God might have to send something into their life to take them down a notch
so that they're not so puffed up and prideful.
So these are the type of things we can pray for people.
We can pray for God if they're prideful to take them down a notch or if they're in a
false religion that maybe God would show them that that religion is false.
If they're just a dyed in the wool Catholic or whatever, maybe they need the Catholic
church to be revealed to them for what it really is, a pagan cult.
Whatever it is that they need to see, you could pray that God would reveal that to them,
that he would show that to them, that he would remove the obstacles to them getting saved
and you can also pray that someone comes and witnesses to them.
But it's pretty hypocritical for you to pray for people to go witness when you're not doing
any witnessing, right?
God's more likely to hear you if you're obedient and you're doing your part and then he'll
send someone.
So it's a cross pollination that needs to happen, not this lifestyle evangelism.
You witness to your little circle and that's it.
Folks, according to scripture, that's the most ineffective witnessing that you're going
to do.
The most effective is when you get outside of your house, outside of your country, outside
of your circle of friends and go to strangers.
That's where you're going to be the most effective.
That's where Jesus was most effective.
That's where Elijah was most effective.
That's where Elisha was most effective.
Why do you think you're going to be any different or that I'm going to be any different?
And that's part of the reason why we go to foreign countries to go soul winning.
The reality of the situation is that when we show up in South America or the Caribbean
or Mexico, sometimes people are just more likely to listen to us just because we're
Americans because it's like, whoa, this American guy is here talking to me.
It's like, what's he doing here?
And it kind of gets their attention a little bit, especially if you're in a place where
they're not used to seeing Americans.
And you're going deep into these countries and you show up.
Folks, I don't care why they're willing to listen.
If they want to listen to me because it's like, you're American, it's great.
So what?
Who cares?
Hey, as long as they're listening, it sounds great to me.
You know, at the end of the day, it's going to be the power of the gospel that converts
them.
But what's the hardest thing about getting people saved?
Getting them to listen, right?
I mean, if you can get somebody to listen, that's half the battle.
If you can get somebody to really listen.
And so sometimes that's going to happen outside of our circle of friends.
So this just goes to show, this is just the nail in the coffin for this lifestyle evangelism
doctrine where the only people you witness to are your neighbors, friends, family, co-workers.
I saw a pastor, he recently said, you know, when it naturally, you know, don't force it
by going, you know, going out knocking doors.
Don't force it.
Let it happen naturally.
You know, like God's just going to naturally lead you into these situations where you can
witness.
And look, sometimes, yeah, you do get led into those situations where, you know, you're
put in a work vehicle with somebody and you guys have a three hour drive and it's just
really natural.
The subject of religion comes up and boom, it's a perfect time to witness.
And you know, a good rule of thumb is that whenever you're alone with someone, that's
usually going to be a good time to give them the gospel.
Obviously, you have to discern what is appropriate and what is not when you're on the clock working
for someone else.
You know, when is the time?
There's a time and a place for everything.
You don't want to be that guy, well, I got fired from my job because I'm so spiritual
and I just preach all day.
It's like, well, you're supposed to be working, you know.
But I'll tell you what, if you use wisdom and discernment, there are a lot of opportunities
to witness to your co-workers.
You know, I've had many opportunities of just sitting in a work truck together.
They're just kind of shooting the breeze and a lot of times it's really easy to get
on the subject and preach the gospel to them.
That's great to do that, okay.
And yeah, God is going to lead us.
I mean, I literally one time had my neighbor walk to me from across the street and he virtually
asked me what must I do to be saved, literally.
I mean, he just walked up to me and said, aren't you a Baptist pastor?
I said, yes.
And he said, I want to get baptized.
What do I have to do?
And I said, well, you know, before you get baptized, you got to get saved.
And then I explained to him the gospel.
I went through the whole gospel with him.
He ended up getting saved and he said, you know what?
He said, my family is totally messed up.
Everybody's into drugs.
Everybody's drunk.
And he said, I don't want to end up going down the road that my family is going down.
He basically said, I want what you have.
You know, the cliche.
He basically said, hey, you know, I see you.
You've got your wife.
You've got your kids.
You're living a Christian life.
I want to be a Christian.
I want to have a family.
I want to live a clean life.
I don't want to go down this route that they're going down.
So what do I need to do?
And you know what?
That was pretty easy to win that guy to the Lord.
That was just the fish jumping into the boat.
But you know what?
If you go out fishing, you can't just be like, well, you know what?
Here's how I go fishing.
365 days a year, I go out in the lake, I go out in the oceans and rivers, and I just wait
for fish to jump in the boat.
I don't want to force anything.
Let's just let it happen naturally.
If a fish comes right up to the boat, is just looking right at me, then I'll reach down
and scoop it up with my net.
That's basically what they're saying.
That's what they're saying.
Right?
No.
If we're going to be a fisher of men, we need to get out there and we need to make a point
every single time we go out on that lake, you know, if we want to catch anything, we've
got to throw the net.
We've got to be dragging the net.
We've got to be doing something actively to go out and preach the gospel and not just
have this attitude of let it happen naturally.
Now look, like I said, I've had a few experiences like that, and I could ask for a raise of
hand.
Who's ever had a situation like that where someone just walked up to you and just asked
you how to be saved?
I mean, they just brought it up and brought.
Okay.
Who's had that happen more than 10 times in your life?
I don't think anyone.
You know?
Pretty much probably most of those hands that went up is a one time.
It happened like once, maybe twice.
Folks, if that's your soul winning program, it's a joke.
You know, whatever happened to some 60, some 30, some 100, not just, well, two times in
my life someone asked me, so I won them to the Lord, or three, look, I remember a pastor
of a church I went to when I was a teenager, this is what the pastor said.
He went golfing with his neighbor every week for like six months.
I'm not kidding, and he said, I'm still waiting for the right opportunity to give him the
Gospel.
And he's going golfing with his next door neighbor every week for months and months
and months, and he said, I'm still waiting for an opportunity to give him the Gospel.
My parents and I were so flabbergasted when we heard that, like what are you talking about?
You're a pastor.
Isn't that kind of easy to bring up?
Say, what do you do for a living?
Well, I'm a pastor.
Let me ask you something, you know, speaking of me being a pastor, are you a Christian?
Oh, okay, well, hey, do you know for sure you're going to heaven when you die?
I mean, well, that's so hard, right?
You'd think a pastor with all of his training and degrees would be able to figure out, I
guess they didn't have a class like that in seminary, all right?
So this is just a dumb attitude that says, oh, lifestyle evangelism, show them, you know,
they're going to see your life and they're going to be so impressed, they're going to
want what you have.
But here's the funny thing, that one guy who walked up to me and gave me the I want what
you have speech, let me ask you this, was he a friend of mine?
Was he a coworker of mine?
Was he from my own house?
No.
Was he a guy who's walking up and saying what must I do to be saved or I want what you have?
It's not that I had lived around him and had such a good testimony, all he saw was just
me across the street with a wife and a bunch of kids going to church and he just saw the
van go to church and come back, it's not like he was in my house observing my life and I
wowed him with my Christian testimony.
I wowed him with my godliness.
All he saw was just a bunch of little kids running around and laughing and having a good
time and he just said, hey, I want to have a normal family.
I could have been a Mormon or a Jehovah's Witness or a Seventh-day Adventist or a Catholic
and he probably would have walked over and said the same thing.
He was just reaching out to whoever, right?
But thank God, God ordained it and arranged it to where when he came to that point in
his life, he actually came to the right person who didn't just say, you know, who didn't
do like an NIV answer of, hey, see, here's water, what doth enter me to be baptized?
And I'm just like, nothing, let's go to my backyard, I'll dunk you right now.
No gospel needed.
That's how Acts Chapter 8 reads in the NIV when you take out verse 37, you know.
But anyway, the point is that that guy was not one of my buddies, he was a stranger.
How often are strangers going to walk up to you and say that?
Rarely.
If you want to be a real soul winner, you've got to go out and do it, okay?
And then God can answer your prayer for your loved ones.
Again, God can't force your loved ones to get saved so if your loved one doesn't get
saved, you can't say, well, God didn't answer my prayer.
Well, how do you know God didn't do everything to remove the obstacles, do everything to
get the gospel in their path?
How do you know that God hasn't been sending soul winner after soul winner to that person
and they just blew them off and didn't even tell you about it?
You don't know.
Because God can't make them get saved because whosoever will may come, but you have to will.
You have to want to.
You know, we're not Calvinists.
We don't believe that God saves people against their will.
It's just this irresistible grace that they just get pulled into the tractor beam, okay?
You know, the word preach has to be mixed with faith in them that hear it.
And if they resist the Holy Ghost, you know, God's not going to force people to get saved.
It's our free will that makes that determination of either being saved or not being saved,
responding to the light that we're given as I preached this morning or not responding,
okay?
So back to Luke chapter 4, let's wrap up here.
He goes back to Capernaum and the people are astonished at his doctrine.
They listen to the preaching.
Verse 37, the fame of him went out into every place of the country roundabout.
Verse number 42, and when it was day, he departed and went into a desert place, and the people
sought him and came unto him and stayed him that he should not depart from them.
And he said unto them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also, for therefore
am I sent.
He preached in the synagogues of Galilee.
So isn't the contrast interesting in this chapter?
We have him preaching in the synagogue of Nazareth.
They thrust him out of the city.
They're shoving him out of the city.
In fact, not only do they want him to leave the building, not only do they want him to
leave the city, they want him to leave the planet earth.
They want him just gone, dead.
The opposite is true when he goes to the synagogues in Capernaum and in other parts of Galilee.
They're begging him, don't leave.
So in the same chapter, Jesus goes out in the desert just to get away from everybody
because it's just crowds, crowds, crowds.
I mean, even Jesus needed a break.
Even he has to rest.
Even he's human, right?
Because he was hungry, tired, thirsty.
He went through all that.
So he pulls out into the desert and they go follow him there.
It's like you stay-at-home moms, you know, you just want to go use the bathroom and the
kids are just like beating down the door of the bathroom, like you just can't get away.
You know, like you're in the bathroom and our cat like sticks its paw under the door
of the bathroom and there will be little kids' hands like coming under the door, you know.
You can't escape.
So that's how Jesus is.
Like Jesus is, he's trying to escape the multitudes and they follow him out into the desert.
They follow him into the wilderness and basically they're just like you can't leave.
You've got to stay.
Please stay.
And he said to them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also.
But they're begging him.
It's literally the opposite of shoving him out of the city.
It's like no, you can't leave.
One of them won't let him stay and the other one won't let him leave.
Nobody lets him do what he wants, right?
So the moral of the story is lifestyle evangelism is a joke because that is the group of people
you're going to be the least effective to reaching.
I'm glad you love them.
I'm glad you want them to be saved.
I want you to witness to them.
But just don't be surprised when most of them don't get saved and when you have most of
your success with strangers because that's what happened with the Lord Jesus Christ.
So be sure to witness to strangers if you want to actually get more people saved.
Let's bow your heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for this great story, Lord, and for this example of Jesus
and the things that he went through.
And we know that the disciples not above his master, the servants not above his Lord.
So if Jesus went through these things, we're going to go through a lot of the same things.
And so, Lord, help us not to get discouraged or depressed when our family doesn't accept
us or when our friends don't accept us.
Help us to realize that, God, that you have a plan for us with other strangers.
And we may not be able to reach our own loved ones, but we can reach someone else's loved
ones.
And Lord God, if there's anybody here tonight that has loved ones, that they're having trouble
reaching Lord, I pray with them that someone else would be sent, that a third party would
be sent that they would be more likely to listen to.
And Lord, just help us to be faithful.