 Let's open our Bibles together to John's Gospel chapter 4. We're going to continue a view of what was taking place last time we were together in chapter 4 where there's a conversation taking place between Jesus and a woman at a well in a place called Sikhar in Samaria. I'll read verse 27 and and give you a bit of a review and then move into our study. We'll be looking today at the power of a testimony found here in this passage. So in John chapter 4 verse 27 John writes, and at this point his disciples came and they marveled that he talked with a woman yet no one said what do you seek or why are you talking to her? So we have been looking at a conversation that Jesus is having with a woman at a well in Samaria. And as we were looking at the first few verses of this chapter, we saw that Jesus has been traveling from from the south, Judea, to the north, a region called Galilee, and he's on his way arrived at a village called Sikhar. It was noon as disciples had left him so they could buy some food for lunch and as he was seated there by this well a woman came to draw water and as she did he spoke to her. Now that's unusual because she was a Samaritan and he was Jewish and John had made it very clear in verse 9 that Jews and Samaritans didn't get along. So she had expected him more than likely to walk away from her but instead he he looked at her and as he looks at her he begins to speak to her. Now it's interesting to note that it's possible that she might at first have been while she was a she was surprised that a man was speaking to her but it's possible that she might have thought that he was trying to pick her up at first. You know that does happen. People can mistake your friendliness in in conversation. They can do that. It happens. I was just saved. I was 20 years old at the time. We a friend of mine and I were in a place called San Luis Obispo and while we were there we actually had gone to a to a pier in that region and there was a guy who was catching some crabs. He had set some traps and was catching crabs and as we had walked up I remember he looked at us. It was just him on the on this pier and then my friend Jim and I walking up and and he looks at us and he says what are you guys doing? And we said oh I had just gotten saved. I said to him oh man we're just here looking at the beauty of God's creation. Now at that time hippies said that all the time. It didn't you know that wasn't something that that was unusual to hear but he looked at me and he says are you a Christian? And I said yeah, I am. He goes out of sight. That was a word we used to say at that time. He goes so am I. And I said really and he said and when did you get saved because that's how we would that was our code because there are a lot of people would say oh I'm a Christian. So the first thing we would say is when were you saved because a lot of times people were simply social Christians and so we were of the Jesus movement. We wanted to know specifics. When were you saved and so I told him December 27th 1970. I said I got saved at the Hollywood Palladium. He said the Hollywood Palladium. I go yeah he goes I'm a musician. His name was Tom. He goes I'm a musician. He said I was playing at the Hollywood Palladium December 27th. I said really and he goes yeah so he was one of the guys up there who was doing the music in the Marenatha concert and so we had a conversation before you know it. We're getting along like brothers because that's what we are and he says listen I caught a lot of a lot of crabs and all would you like to come? We're going to open them up and eat them at my mother-in-law's place and so we went with them spent the afternoon and he said I've got a church that I'm playing at tonight. Would you guys like to come? So my friend Jim and I go with them to this small church in San Luis Obispo and as we're there he's doing his concert for the young adults the college age or so and I'm in the back and there's two girls who come walking up to my friend Jim and me and they tried to pick us up and I still remember the conversation I won't thrill you with it but I do remember it and they tried to pick us up and and I looked at one of the girls and I said something like do you know the Lord? Have you given your heart to Christ? Because I mean here you are trying to pick me up I mean let's talk woman at the well let's have a conversation so and when I said do you know the Lord? I said did you know that Jesus loves you? She started to cry and she ran into into the bathroom so my and went over friends because there were two of them and my friend and I walked to the bathroom and kind of stood there till she came out and walked outside with her and began we wanted to share with her and all and somebody came out one of the young people in the young adult study because this young woman who came out from the study was trying to see whether we were trying to pick up this girl and so from the very beginning of my walk with the Lord I've discovered that sometimes people misunderstand you when you're sharing with them. Some of you ladies know that when you open up and share with a guy on the job or in the neighborhood he might take it wrong. Some of you men know that if you share with a woman about the things of the Lord they may take it wrong. It is possible for that to take place and it is possible that this woman who had had six men in her life could very well have wondered whether this Jewish man was just being bold and just trying to pick up on her as Jesus was speaking. But as this is taking place I want you to know something. At first she begins to respond and she responds abruptly and she even speaks in a very direct fashion. Verse 9 says how is it that you being a Jew ask a drink for me as a marriage woman. So she at first begins to speak in an abrupt fashion and that was fairly rude of her but I want you to notice Jesus didn't take it personally. And again sometimes you may be sharing with somebody about the things of the Lord and they may be abrupt with you and they may be rude don't take it personally because sometimes we can get hurt feelings when people don't react nicely to us and the message. But instead of being insulted notice that Jesus continued the conversation and he appealed to a natural need something that was obvious because she was thirsty and so in verse 10 he had said if you knew the gift of God and who it is who says to you give me a drink you would have asked him and he would have given you living water and so he appealed to her a natural need she's obviously thirsty you see without drinkable water the longest we can live is around seven or eight days maximum she needs water so he speaks to her concerning her need but he's actually saying you have a spiritual thirst that you're trying to meet with a physical substance and physical food and water can never satisfy a spiritual hunger or spiritual thirst remember Ecclesiastes 6 verse 7 all the labor of man is for his mouth and yet the soul is not satisfied now this woman has been searching for the perfect man I wasn't born yet no this woman this woman was searching for the perfect man and had never found him she'd already gone through six men and it would seem for her men were like a drug they dulled the pain but they didn't heal the hurt now I want to point something out that I didn't point out before I want you to notice that when Jesus was speaking to her and he said to her as we know in the conversation um you know call your husband she said I have no husband remember he had said in verse 18 you have had five husbands and the one whom you now have is not your husband so that's six men I want you to think about this for just a moment in scripture there are times that numbers are used to communicate spiritual meaning in other words when you read your bible one is the number in scripture of unity it's called biblical numerics by the way one is the number of unity three is the number of divine perfection twelve is the number of government forty is the number used for testing six six six is the number of the beast and so it's interesting in biblical numerics that the number six represents man but the number seven represents completion or perfection this woman had gone through six men and now she's arrived at the seventh which was looking for was perfection in man went through six imperfect men until god who had an appointment with her met her so that she could find the man that she actually was looking for the perfect man jesus christ now when jesus offered her living water she immediately responded she said give me this water but jesus confronted her about her living arrangement and when he did that she changed the subject and what did she do she says well let's talk about religion and she goes my religion is just as good as yours well the answer to that one is really your religion is as good as jesus is well if that's the case why are you still thirsty there are people that will tell you my religion's good enough for me you know it if you share your faith if you speak to anybody about faith in christ you will eventually if you haven't already you will hear somebody say well my religion satisfies me but very often it's being spoken by a person who's who's obviously not satisfied in life who's obviously not filled with joy obviously not filled with peace obviously isn't walking in the spirit of god and doesn't have the love of god in them and yet they'll say well my religion satisfies me no it no it doesn't because if your religion did you wouldn't be thirsty and when jesus was speaking to this woman and he said i can give you water and you'll never thirst again she said well give me this water i wanted but she wants to argue religion but if the religion that she was practicing was really satisfying to her then why is she still thirsty and so jesus doesn't even go into an argument he simply says salvation is of the jews and and and by the way god can save you too and now that begins to change the subject and or move the subject on because notice verse 25 that while the woman says to him i know that messiah is coming who is called christ when he comes he will tell us all things so she says there's one thing i know one day messiah will come in one day messiah will teach us now this may be an attempt to evade him she may be saying something like you know i have some time i can wait i don't need to do anything i'll just wait on him coming and that's when jesus in verse 26 said i who speak to you am he this is the most plain statement that he's made up until this time nowhere did he speak of himself more directly even to his disciples here he is saying i am messiah and he made himself completely known in a clear and unmistakable way now this is what you call a call to decision he's saying i who speak to you am he but by saying that he's also inferring what are you going to do this is the clearest he could possibly be he's simply saying i am he now as he's doing that verse 27 at this point his disciples came they marveled that he talked with a woman yet no one said what do you seek or why are you talking with her as jesus issued the challenge the disciples came they're taken by surprise you see a rabbi speaking alone with a woman was considered improper and um unbecoming somebody said he is talking in public with a woman which was directly contrary to the rabbinic precepts the words of the law were to be burnt rather than taught to a woman a man should not speak in public to his own wife that's why marinae but that's how it was at that time she didn't even speak in public to his own wife she doesn't get a chance to anyway she's busy talking to him but anyway but notice in verse 27 no one said what do you seek or why are you talking with her in other words this is this is someone you you you aren't to have a prolonged conversation with it's improper it's unheard of and you need to remember she's a samaritan now they were used to Jesus ignoring the conventions of the rabbis and and because of that they say really nothing other than that well in verse 28 the woman then left her water pot went her way into the city and said to the men come see a man who told me all things that i ever did could this be the christ i want we'll look at that for a moment in leaving her water pot she's actually leaving a promise a promise that she's going to return and she left she ran to her village and she spoke to those who would speak to her the men now when witnessing our faith we always speak first to those who will hear us when you have somebody who's willing to listen to you that just opens the door of opportunity sometimes we think oh i want to reach this person so you wait and you don't share with others because that person becomes very important to you you need to speak to the person who's available to the person who's willing to listen and that's basically what is taking place this is the first thing a believer is to do when you come to christ make him known to other people and notice what she says he told me all things that i ever did now when saying that you can add to that if you will he told me all things that i ever did yet he was still kind to me could this be messiah now this is what prompts us to share our faith about jesus it's a natural response of encountering the grace of god why do you share your faith do you share your faith and if you do why do you do it why did i and why do i share my faith when given opportunity because god has been good to me because i encountered god's grace because i became enraptured by his love captured by his goodness i don't share my faith because i'm forced to nobody forces me to stand up here in a in a platform behind a pulpit in a in a way where i'm constantly fighting coughing because i need to cough and i can't why why then do you do you do it because i've encountered jesus christ and when you encounter jesus christ you tell people about him you tell your friends you tell your family you tell those who will listen that again is the heart of the jesus movement always was always will be to take this faith that has been handed to us and to give it to somebody else in the book of luke in chapter eight verse 39 there was a man of the gatorians who jesus had delivered and jesus speaks to this man and he says to him return to your own house and tell what great things god has done for you and he went his way and proclaimed throughout the whole city what great things jesus had done for him listen guys a lot of times people think it's difficult to witness and really isn't if you actually are simply walking in the spirit and walking with the lord it really isn't that difficult because out of the abundance of the heart the mouse speaks if the lord is moving in your life you're going to find ways to speak about that other people as a matter of fact you don't even have to invent opportunities they're presented to you and people will speak to you and they will listen and and i realize that today in the society that we're living in people think that uh oh nobody's going to listen to us that's not true at all there are many people right now waiting to hear somebody tell them the truth there there are a lot of people who who have never really met an honest and a real christian what they've seen is on tv the caricatures of christians maybe they've turned on television and they've seen some loud preacher and some crazy outlandish garbage going on on the stage and and they say to themselves that that's christianity i don't want that but you know what they may not know that you're a believer and you're a pretty normal person and as a normal person you speak to them and i've had them say this to me perhaps you've had it said to you too they'll say you're not like those other ones you're not weird like those other ones i'm not exactly sure what they mean by that but i certainly don't think that when god put his holy spirit in me he said i want to make this one weirder than he already was but sometimes people act weird and scare people my mom and my dad were driving uh many years ago now they were in uh upland they were driving north on on euclid excuse me and as they were driving they stopped at a stop light and this young woman came running from one of the streets from the side street came running running and started banging on my mother's window and let me add she's screaming let me in let me in and so my mother thinks that she's being attacked by somebody so she opens up the door and this young woman jumps into the back seat and says get me out of here so my mom and dad drive away and mama turns around and says to the woman young woman what's wrong baby now my mom's going to think that some man is beating me or they're trying to rob me she's waiting to hear something like that and the girl says to my mom she says i was just in this church and they're the craziest people i've ever been around in my life true story true story and my mom tells me she says i wonder what she'd have done if i didn't told her well you know i'm one of them she'd have probably she'd have probably jumped out of the car but see that's real i mean those things actually happen where people are around things that are so outlandish and so weird that they say i wouldn't want anything to do with christianity if it makes you be like this and so you know god saved you and god transformed you and god filled you with his spirit and god gave you his grace and god forgave you and in all of that god humbled you and so you're not proud and you're not arrogant and you're not obnoxious and you're not totally opinionated you you listen with an open ear and an open heart but you have the truth you want to share with people i'm telling you if you remember that there are a number of people who would appreciate your ear and your heart as you present the gospel a friend of mine when he goes out with his friends and all his family when he goes out to eat he says very often the waitress or waiter will approach and and he's he he will say to him we're about to pray and give thanks for for our food is there anything that we can pray for you about he said you'll be surprised at the amount of people who will say you know what i'm going through some real real problems right now going through a divorce just lost my kid he said you'll be surprised at the opportunities he says if you just ask the question and so just love the lord and when god does something in you be willing to share and jesus is doing that and jesus is ministering and this woman's immediate response is to not only hear but she also goes out she leaves her water pot she goes to the man and she says come see a man who told me all things that i ever did could this be the christ no excuse me verse 30 then they went out to the city and came to him in the meantime his disciples urged him saying wrap i eat but he said to them i have food which you you do not know and therefore the disciples said to one another has anyone brought him anything to eat these these guys are real sharp and jesus said to them my food is to do the will of him who sent me in to finish his work do you not say there are still four months and then comes a harvest field i say to you lift up your eyes and look at the fields for they are already white for harvest jesus is saying i have a greater passion than simply satisfying my natural hunger my greatest passion my deepest hunger is proclaiming the message of the gospel and seeing people saved so as he's speaking this way the men are spiritually dull and they take his words literally they completely misunderstood what he was saying now when we've gone through john you'll note that this is the normal response to things that jesus says earlier in chapter two verses 19 through 21 remember jesus had said destroyed this temple and in three days i'll raise it up and his hearers thought he spoke of the literal temple in chapter three verse four when he was speaking to nicodemus he said a man must be born again and nicodemus asked the question how can a man be born when he's old he took it literally in chapter four verse 11 jesus had already spoken concerning the the water and all but the woman at the well said well hey how can you get water the well is deep they took it literally so this makes it clear that we do not always look beneath the surface to discover deeper truth when it comes to the words of christ it's important to seek the deeper things jesus says something and you'll see something on the surface that's where meditation and pursuit come come to play you see it on the surface when i'm reading the word though i'll say what is that that you're actually saying it goes deeper than this i want to take it literally where it's literal i'll interpret it in that way but is there something deeper you want to show me through what you're saying here very often that's true that's why paul in Ephesians 118 prayed that the eyes of our understanding would be enlightened so that we know that there are deeper things that god has for us and so as this is taking place and they're saying as any anyone brought him anything to eat verse 34 jesus says my food is to do the will of him who sent me and finish his work my food is to do the will of him who sent me and finish his work remember in luke chapter four verse four jesus said man doesn't live by bread alone but by every word of god he's saying i've been sent on a mission my satisfaction is derived from completing it nothing will get in the way i am single-minded and i will finish it it's like what it says in Hebrews 10 7 behold i have come in the volume of the book it is written of me to do your will oh god my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work but then he says in verse 35 do you not say there are still four months and then comes harvest behold i say to you lift up your eyes look at the fields they're already white for harvest i'll give you an application in a moment there are those commentators who say that what jesus is saying here is a proverb amongst the jews during that time they say it because in verse 35 jesus says do you not say there are still four months and then comes harvest so they'll say that was a proverb during the day that people understood in terms of the uh the need of the moment other commentators point out something interesting they say this is actually giving to to us the time or the month that this event is taking place because the harvest usually is in april so there are commentators who say what jesus is saying is this and he's saying it in january they're saying he's giving the time here john is saying this took place in january and jesus is simply saying are you not saying that you have four months until harvest comes the point that's being made is what i want to develop right now the thought is you may think there's no hurry to harvest the crops but i'm saying that it is urgent do not delay in seeking to see people saved you need to have a sense of need if you go into the church's main sanctuary and you go into the uh the hallways that we have and say you walk in and you look to the left which is the north and you go down that hall many of you have never done this but if you were to go down that hall you will see a timeline that we have that is there for you to track the history of this church some of you have seen probably most of you but some haven't and you'll see all the way from the jesus movement all the way up to the construction that we've had of property here and if you look you're going to see our first bulletins one of the first bulletins that we had we have always had as a symbol of this church wheat we always have and that symbol came out of this scripture john 435 and the reason that we have that scripture as a foundation stone of our church is because i believe that we have a very short time and that we should be busy being about our master's business that we have friends and we have family and we have coworkers and we have people we go to school with and we have neighbors that perhaps we've met who don't know the lord and what jesus is saying here is he's saying the time is short don't think that you've got a lot of time get busy doing god's work i've spoken to our staff on many occasions especially in the earlier days of this ministry and i've said that there are times that god will use visible things to stir us spiritually so abraham is told by the lord look at the stars and when you're out there in a desert in the middle east and there are no clouds and you look into the sky there's especially all those hundreds over thousands of years ago you got abraham looking up into the sky and it was a sea of stars and god used that in his mind to give him an understanding of the amount of descendants that would come from him he said look at the grains of sand as another illustration to awaken him to the reality of many descendants and i believe that the lord very often will use physical things to give us spiritual lessons and so he's speaking to his men and i've told this to ours and i've said look the fields are white to harvest and we need to get into the labor of that field to reach those people we have to be careful i i i've said this to to staff members before and pastors and i've said it like this i've said one of the easiest places to backslide is in full-time ministry it's a safe place it's a place where you you you know you've got an office you you know you've got a job you know you've got a paycheck you know you have all of those things and you forget that fire that was burning in your heart that put you in the place in the first place to be used by god to reach people and i i'm growing older i know that but i haven't lost the fire because i want people saved i want people to know jesus christ that's how it works and that's what it's supposed to be like that's what it's supposed to be like that you see people in need and and you reach out in whatever way you can help them sometimes physically of course you can help them sometimes financially of course but but but they can eat and be hungry the next day they can drink and be thirsty the next day that's why jesus said he says he says he who drinks of this water will thirst again but the one who drinks of the water i give you will never thirst again because he gives to us something that quenches that spiritual thirst in our lives and somebody who says i have christ but is still thirsty for something else i have every reason to wonder whether they really have tasted of the lord and seeing that he's good because when you taste of jesus christ you never thirst for anything else again when i got saved you know i encountered people it's amazing how now all of a sudden people were worried about me my soul so now i have johova's witnesses knocking on the door now i have guys into reincarnation talking to me about god morman's talking to me it's interesting because they're trying to steal the seed that had been planted in my heart but when i got saved man the first thing i did is i went across the street and i i told the mother of of a friend of mine we were supposed to get loaded that her son and i that day he was gone and i had gone and gotten saved and i i went across the street and i told his mom and i told his sisters about jesus i went across the street i spoke to my mom i spoke to my dad i i spoke to my sisters and i started speaking to people about jesus why because it the time is short and because the the fields are are white for harvest and and there are people out there who are perishing without christ and we need to have that in our heart i think that the church today has gotten very very lukewarm and very very content we have to watch out because i believe that there's a a dazed condition in the church today we we need to be reignited in the things of the lord we need to understand that without god people are perishing and jesus was speaking in john 3 verse 3 remember how he said to nicodemus most assuredly i say to you unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of god there are friends their family the co-workers neighbors and strangers in need of the lord not everybody sees the need not everybody has a burden to share the message in matthew 9 37 and 38 jesus said to his disciples the harvest truly is ponderful but the laborers are few therefore pray the lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest there's a great need and not many people wanted to meet that need but god help us to be men and women who will meet that need god help us to see the need and be willing to get our hands dirty as we serve him in verse 36 he who reaps receives wages and gathers fruit for eternal life that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together for in this the saying is true one sows and another reaps ministry is a team effort no one individual does the entire ministry by himself or herself every time i minister and every time i give an invitation i am simply joining in the laborers of others whenever i teach there are people even now who are praying for me as i'm teaching tonight they go there's a room that we have in the sanctuary and there are men in there praying for you and for me right now on sunday morning every sunday morning when i'm teaching you may or may not know this there are men who are in a room praying for you and praying for our church i realize that we need a team to reach the world we need people who join together and work together to reach this world ministry is a team effort no one individual does the entire ministry by themselves paul made it very clear paul had to deal with comparisons there were people in in paul's time who were saying i'm of apollos and i'm of syphus i'm of jesus i'm of paul and they were breaking the body of christ into little subgroups and paul was upset about that because that's carnality when you start placing a man above other men that that's a dangerous place to be so in first Corinthians three six and seven he said i planted apollos watered but god gave the increase so then neither he who plants is anything nor he who waters but god who gives the increase we have to keep our eyes on the lord sometimes we think well if if if the great evangelist would come and share with my family they could be saved we think that if i take people to hear a great evangelist name whatever evangelist you want to name maybe they'll get saved you know when billy graham was still alive of billy graham if only billy graham could speak to a grandma she could get saved you know we can say today uh greg lory if greg lory would just stop by maybe my mom and dad could get saved i learned a long time ago that every one of us is intended by god to do what god called us to do individually i didn't rely on billy graham to speak to my dad and my mom he never would i was supposed to god had saved me and i've said this before you already have a billy graham in your house it's you if god has saved you and given you his word and has filled you with his spirit why can't you be used why can't you communicate to people the goodness of god all you need to do is live what you give your family knows you they see the changes my dad told me that he said david he said when you told me i was going to go to hell he said i thought well he says i'm better than my son and he was he says but i'm not better than my daughter madeline see my daughter my sister madeline gave her heart to christ the day i got saved my sister madeline i've said this before my sister madeline was that 16 year old who would sit with popcorn in between mom and dad and watch movies and never went out on dates she was a teenager and she was the best girl you'll ever meet in your life she married her first boyfriend i mean she was she was so perfect i hated her i mean she was a she was a good good girl i mean the good girl and he said i knew i was better than you but i i knew i wasn't better than her it was her life that he saw as this is a good person in need of christ that stimulated him when the bad person who had been changed challenged him with the gospel god can use you why isn't he when's the last time you shared your faith with somebody when's the last time you encourage someone to know jesus christ well you know what when god gives you opportunity step out in faith and share you might just blow your mind and how god uses you you might become addicted to it you'll be a doper for jesus you know preaching the christ you'll be a dope for jesus if you will a fool for christ somebody once said you know everybody's a fool for something i'll be a fool for christ and so what we do is we share and that's that's what happens you know and god works with people and and he uses groups and all of that verse 39 many of the samaritans of that city believed in him because of the word of the woman who testified he told me all that i ever did so when the samaritans had come to him they urged him to stay with them he stayed there two days and many more believed because of his own word now then they said to the woman now we believe not because of what you said for we are we ourselves have heard him and we know that this is indeed the christ the savior of the world now after two days he departed from there went to galilee jesus himself testified that the prophet has no honor in his own country so when he came to galilee the galelians received him having seen all the things he did in jesus at the feast for they also had gone to the feast and so as they see us as they behold the sea of white garments approaching that has been reminding him of this great harvest and on the strength of her testimony many of the men came to believe in christ they believed he was the one she was saying he was because they also were looking for messiah well in verses 40 and 41 when the samaritans had come to him they urged him to stay because they wanted to know more so they prevailed on him to keep teaching them you see when you get saved receiving teaching is a top priority and as this is taking place notice others joined others listened and others were getting saved so in verse 42 they said to the woman we believe not because of what you said but because we've listened to ourselves you see we became interested in jesus because of your testimony but it's his word that has saved us her testimony produced curiosity but his word produced salvation and that's why we preached the word and not simply our testimony and so after two days he departed verse 43 and went to galilee so he resumes his trip to the north he already was on his way to galilee but it's interesting and i want to look at this for a moment before we close notice verse 44 jesus himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country let me share with you about that for a couple moments here jesus testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country i'll give to you bible and application to it jesus was in a synagogue in nazareth where this took place and while he was in this synagogue in the north in nazareth he had been challenged to perform works to prove himself to the people they had heard him read scripture and say that the scripture was fulfilled in him and they began to speak amongst themselves and they said this is joseph's son he's only a carpenter and so jesus had challenged them by speaking out loud what they were thinking he had said to them surely you're saying within yourself physician heal yourself what you've done and could pernium do here so luke tells this in chapter 4 verse 24 that jesus in response to what was taking place said no prophet is accepted in his own country so in the context of john judia was a place where the temple was located and that represents the center of rejection so jesus has left the south to go north and that's the whole point he's making here he's alluding to what had taken place in nazareth now let me give you an application i used to say this when billy graham was alive i've mentioned him more than once so i'll mention him again one more time when billy graham was a young man and he was ministering and he had a young family from the early fifties until his last message billy became one of the most famous evangelists who ever lived whoever lived he was well known all anybody had to say to this day is billy billy graham and everybody knows who that is whether they loved him or hated him they all knew what he stood for i can still remember a true story of a of a reporter who was on vacation in africa he was on a safari and he was on one of these trails and there was a vehicle in front of him and the vehicle in front of him stopped and started to try and make a turn to turn around and you know come back at the direction of this guy's car and and he shouldn't have done that it's a one-way and so the reporter starts honking his horn at the driver in front of him and suck his head out and yelled at the driver and he said this i'm quoting the the reporter where are you going for christ's sake to his surprise the driver was billy graham and billy graham stuck his head out of his window and he says i go everywhere for christ's sake so he was he was very well known he is a very well known man people knew billy graham handsome man tall man distinguished man if he walked into a room people would show him respect presidents listened to his counsel this man was the most respected christian he was one of the top and most important people who ever lived according to various surveys including time magazine and others one of the most important men the united states ever produced but do you think that his kids knew him as billy graham i would say no they knew him as daddy i'm sure that when his children were small that they smarted off to him that they would disrespect him that they found opportunity to disobey him i know that because i read franklin graham's biography autobiography in which he states that he was a real bad kid did he know that billy graham was his father i doubt that he understood the magnitude of this man and his ministry as a young person he certainly didn't as an older man yes he did now he has nothing but understanding but as a younger man no he didn't profit is without honor in his own home that's a fact you can be well regarded in various places people know you and respect you but that doesn't mean that the people of your own house respect you sometimes they don't sometimes they don't you may be somebody big in the church and you do a lot of ministry and people regard you highly but your own parents think that you're wasting your life doing the things that you do your own kids think that you're keeping them from having a good life because you don't allow them to do the things that their friends are doing and they don't like you and they don't like what you stand for a prophet isn't always honored in their own home very often they're not and even in churches there are there are men i know who are men of character who love god who love his word who are filled with his spirit and their own churches don't regard their pastor that's a natural thing that's how people are is they have a tendency of not respecting and not seeing the gift that they have and jesus himself jesus himself said a prophet is not without honor except in his own home and there he is in nazareth and there he is doing works and they're saying well the works that you've done other places do here and in luke's uh gospel when he speaks about that in chapter 4 they took jesus to the brow of a hill to cast him down that's how they respected him and that's how they responded to him and so don't be surprised when people don't think that you're a very important person don't be surprised and don't run around trying to be one by the way but don't be surprised when they don't regard you because in many cases they don't they didn't even regard jesus himself you see jesus never performed miracles to satisfy curiosity jesus performed miracles because they had a purpose and i'll close with this in john 20 verses 30 and 31 john will say truly jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples which are not written in this book but these are written that you may believe that jesus is the christ the son of god and that believing you may have life in his name the miracles were intended to bring people to faith in christ as messiah so when they said do a work like you've done in capernaum no jesus wasn't there doing miracles on demand they had a purpose and that was to draw people to know him as the savior so we'll stop here and we'll pick up next time in verse 46 again thank you for your patience with my coughing hopefully one day it'll stop i'm sure it will when they throw me in a casket but anyway then you'll be sad