Reaching Those Who Seem Unreachable

In Matthew 28:19-20 Jesus commanded his disciples to go out into the world and preach the gospel to everyone that they came across. We as Christians should go and do the same, but sometimes we come across people that seem like they would never even pretend to listen. I would like to give three examples of these types of people, people who seemed like they might have gone out of their way to avoid the gospel, but became devoted Christians in the end.

For the first example, turn to Luke 19:1-10. In verse one Jesus came into Jericho to a large crowd trying to see him, and inside the crowd was a man named Zaccheus. Zaccheus was a short man who worked as a tax collector, and because of his position many people saw him as evil. In verse four Zaccheus tried to climb up a tree to get a better look at Jesus from above the crowd. In verse five, Jesus saw him and said, “ Zaccheus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” As soon as Zaccheus heard Jesus talk to him, he was as excited as he could be. This tax collector, who had seemed to care only about money or gold, was eagerly coming up to Jesus. Everyone in the surrounding area had hated this man, but here he was standing in front of Jesus and repenting.

Another example is John 4, starting in verse 7, when Jesus’ disciples left to get food in Samaria. When a woman came to the well, Jesus asked her for a drink of water but instead she asked why a Jew was talking to a Samaritan. Samaritans were seen as lower people by the Jews because they were a mix of Gentiles and Jews which caused them to be looked down upon by full Jews. Instead of answering her question, Jesus answered in verse 10, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says it to you, ‘give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” This confused the woman even more, and she wondered what kind of water Jesus was talking about, or where she could even start to look for it.

In verse 13, Jesus told her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water i shall give him will never thirst.” The woman was probably starting to think Jesus was crazy at this point. He was talking about how the water from the well will only last a little bit, but then he talks about this water that he has that will satisfy someone’s thirst forever. Regardless, in verse 15 the woman asked Jesus for the special water, but instead he told her to go get her husband. The woman had five different husbands at one point or another, but she told Jesus that she had no husband at all. When Jesus told her about this in verse 18, she was shocked, and couldn’t imagine how he could have known. The Samaritan woman called Jesus a prophet.

Jesus then told her in verse 21 up to 24 what his goal was, and when he finished, the woman said, “I know that the Messiah is coming. When he comes he will tell us all things.” In verse 26, Jesus finally told her that he was the Messiah, and afterwards the woman left everything she brought to the well, and ran into the city telling everyone she could about the person she had just met. This Samaritan woman, who was seen as less by others and had sinned by having multiple husbands, turned her life around after meeting Jesus, and decided to follow him by spreading word of him throughout the town.

The third example is in Acts 8, starting in verse 9. There was a sorcerer named Simon who was amazing people by doing magic and people thought that he had the power of God. Everyone in Samaria who had met him and seen what he had done thought he was some kind of prophet. Then, when Phillip came into town and began to preach, a lot of the people who believed in Simon turned toward God, including Simon himself.

After he was baptized, Simon decided to follow Phillip and see the miracles that he was doing. Simon saw all the miracles that the apostles were performing and in verse 18 he even tried to bribe the apostles to give him their power. Instead, Peter told him that he could not buy the power of God, and his heart was not in the right place. Simon had allowed his greed to take over and he needed to repent. In response to what Peter told him, Simon said in verse 24, “Pray to the Lord for me, that none of the things which you have spoken may come upon me.” Just as quickly as he had sinned, Simon instead decided to repent of what he had done.

The idea of all of this and how it ties together is that People can be different on the inside then the outside. People can be willing to listen to the word of God if they are given a chance. Not everyone will listen, but taking a chance on someone could make a big difference. This could even apply to the opposite, which includes people in the church who may not think that they could go out and spread the word, but they might be more capable than they realize.